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Why was it not ok for Malz being a support but noone bats an eye about Zyra?

An Undead brat··8 votes·821 views

I wonder, what did Malzahar do that he was not an unhealthy support and got reworked, but when it comes to Zyra Riot just nerfs her for her doing good down there completely ignoring midlane and forgetting about her?

What did Malz do? Poke hard with his minions and using his hard CC with huge damage? Sounds familiar? Was the problem his passive that gets canceled by a ranged autoattack that botlane doesn't always have? I don't think so.

But still, Zyra, who was promised to be treated as a midlaner (primarily) in MYMU got nerfed hard again just because of support with no compensation for mid. And somehow everyone is ok with that and noone is talking about it.

"But we enjoy playing her support!" Yeah I'm sure people did so with Malz, too. And that people hate facing her the same as they hated facing Malz. And guess what, now that shielding supports are basically the strongest class in the game, who of you will actually pick her? Her winrate and pickrate has been decreasing for many patches now: https://imgur.com/eCQTYSu You see, I also added her strongest winrates (in support role), how often do you meet Ornn, Tahm and Veig in botlane?

Now that she has 2% support pickrate (compared to Janna's 21%) and clearly noone will ever notice, I thing Zyra is suitable for some work. Not buffs necessarily (although I think they would be appropriate), but for number-shifts at least. As you treated Malzahar. As you said you will treat her. I only ask for equality, nothing more.

Edit: This post is pretty funny because everything I say is downvoted, I may agree with a comment, disagree, the comment might be upvoted or downvoted, doesn't matter - clearly there are many people completely biased against me. Well whatever, I'm used to people being %%%%s, but now it just proved to me that it is pointless to even try to talk to bunch of fucktards the League community is. Let me end my presence on this discussion by Nightblue's quote:

CY@, nerds.

33 Comments

Keepe3 votes

Back in MY Day, Zyra was one HELL of a jungler. WHY IS SHE A SUPPORT?!

An Undead brat1 votes

I played her in jungle alot too

Vekkna3 votes

20thCenturyFaux (NA) - about a year ago

She gets played both lanes successfully and will continue to--we're committed to keeping her strong in both lanes.

20thCenturyFaux (NA) - about a year ago

Our plan was to make her viable mid and balance around support, so we wouldn't be happy if she was a weak midlaner.

20thCenturyFaux (NA) - about a year ago

Yep! We want her to be viable in both roles.

20thCenturyFaux (NA) - about a year ago

Going forward, we’re putting her in more midlane tests and making sure we don’t leave a lane behind.

Vekkna2 votes

All lies. Nobody tests her in mid lane, even for the multiple patches in which she received direct or indirect nerfs. Meddler's recent comment about mid lane Zyra is the only dev comment on the topic.

{quoted}

Not sure on Zyra. Would like to given there's nothing too unhealthy about mid Zyra or anything and a number of players would like it to be a more viable choice. Her kit does skew quite a bit towards support play though as we saw almost immediately post launch. Possibility at some point, can't make any promises though.

This is explicit confirmation that Riot lied during the MYMU. I understand how game development works, and plans change, so I do not use the word "lied" lightly. They made explicit promises and then broke them. It's as simple as that.

Brand got attention to move him back to mid. Malz got an entire second rework to get him back to mid. Zyra got a ton of nerfs, and one tiny buff to Q. Some of those Zyra nerfs actually hit mid harder than support, but Riot would know that if they actually playtested her in mid lane.

xelaker2 votes

zyra, imo, was way worse about being utterly oppressive during the lane. In her better days she could chunk anything squishy for half their health, and had excellent cc for stopping a gank with her root or chucking down a lane wide ult to stop pursuers. mal has nice damage and has the silence and suppress, but one is a "skillshot" and the other is interruptible

also ardent censor supports are just in a better place right now with the plethora of items to help them. both zyra and mal are playable supports as long as you know your stuff.

An Undead brat1 votes

Just FYI, Zyra's E is also a skillshot and one that also roots Zyra for 0.75 seconds when casting it. And while you cannot exactly say that her ult is a skillshot, it is a short knochup that is telegraphed 2 seconds before.

And I did not say she's not playable nor she shouldn't be, I'm asking why Malzahar is intentionally pushed to midlane by Riot while Zyra gets shit on and just balanced for suport when they said otherwise.

BALDG1VEN BOOMER2 votes

He had two easy point and click spells to bully people out of lane and pretty much guarantee a kill, none bats an eye at Astra because she's not as efficient (anymore) at bullying people out of lane.

An Undead brat1 votes

So she needs buffs? Agreed.

BALDG1VEN BOOMER2 votes

Not really, ardent meta just isn't good as a lot of the current top tier supports can easily negate all her damage.

Mig891 votes

She doesnt need buffs. The Adrent meta will pass and shes not even really in a bad spot now. You can bully people to delay ardent and shes strong against most enchanters aside from maybe lulu

Escheton2 votes

Because Zyra has been a support for years. Her rework just made her viable again. Malzahar suddenly showed up as support for the same reason Zyra originally did (besides being part of the Morgana, Lux root trinity); His mid got nerfed but he still worked as support.

I wanna buy her dragon skin, that is going on (one time) discount this month. But I wonder if I will be able to really play her with success before the preseason.

Nut on my Butt2 votes

Many Zyra and adc players would love for her to get the Malz treatment and brought back to mid lane, but apparently doing so for Riot is really complicated.

Primaquarius2 votes

Zyra is pretty much only used for the Snares and plant pressure, no one thinks shes useful for anything else bu couldnt ask for anything better.

If a champ has CCs other than slows, they can support. Ive seen this pattern happen for a long time

Devilreaper XIII2 votes

i play zyra support and mid just fine O.O to me she feels balanced ^^ its better not to mess with zyra .-.

RookPusher2 votes

Because Zyra support isn't great.

An Undead brat2 votes

And where is she great?

RookPusher2 votes

I don't think anywhere, but that doesn't matter. The question was "How come people complain about Malz and not Zyra as support" and the answer is because no one fears Zyra in the bot lane.

Mig892 votes

You havent played a good zyra then. Shes hard to master a lot of the little things on but once you do she can easily 1v2 the botlane.

RookPusher2 votes

You can say this about almost anything. Yeah, the people who are the best at her can do amazing things. That's great. But the average player is not great with her, and I'd imagine 75% of the player base isn't going to 2v1 with her.

This is the Shen Conundrum. Because a quarter of the population can abuse Champ X, they nerf the hell out of them for the other 3/4th. It's bad design to be sure, but its not the basis for discussion when THIS question was asked.

Mig892 votes

Shes not very popular from what ive seen and her whole kit is about patience and timing. Theres nothing wrong with the average player not being great on her because she takes a lot of patience to really get down. Her E is somewhat slow, her ult delayed, her base damages arent high on her damaging abilities. Its all about timing when to spawn plants to get as many hits in on them as possible. When she was played at worlds last year was the only time i saw her often. Shes has a learning curve but its worth it. Shens conundrum is that when you can use voice chat and maximize his ulti, hes god tier. No comparison to zyra. Shen and Ryze got nerfed because of these reasons, not zyra. Ive never feared a malz because im almost a Zyra OTP. Malz is freelo to lane aginst when he is support.

Ahristocats2 votes

because support malzahar was beyond broken

he could solo kill an adc at lvl 2, keep bullying them for the entire laning phase tried to kill his voidlings? his adc was free to trade with you

without talking about his bullshit ult

zyra support is no way on that level

An Undead brat1 votes

So that's because he has better damage. They could also just nerf him, but that would trash his mid- OH WAIT.

Ahristocats2 votes

exactly

which is why he got re-reworked into midlane

midlane zyra is in no way unviable She just doesn't bring the tool other mages have her kit is a problem to go mid, she's just a support, and that's not because of riot's nerfs because a champion having broken damage isn't a way to make it work midlane

Meep Man2 votes

A difference in gameplay.

SanKakU1 votes

[deleted]

An Undead brat1 votes

I have no idea what are you trying to add to this discussion... Unless I seemed like asking if people like Zyra.

Tseison1 votes

Zyras kit needs an entire rework, period. Or just update the champion as a whole because clearly her plants are too much of a hassle for riot so, give her kit something else...

An Undead brat1 votes

I can't imagine what other than her plants should she have, that's the entire core of her playstyle, would you mind presenting some idea?

Tseison1 votes

Anything to do with vines, go read up on poison ivy, what Illaoi does with her tentacles they should've gave to Zyra. But whatever, i'll wait for the next better plant based champion or come back when they decide to fix her.

An Undead brat1 votes

But Zyra is not Poison Ivy nor Illaoi, the changes you propose would only make her another generic mage alongside likes of Brand, Veigar, Annie or Lux, only in a plant coat instead of fire, space, fire again and light one. I repeat for the chance you missed it when I said it first: Plants are core for her playstyle and theme. When MYMU hits it succeeded in the goal to make her use her plants more and distinguished her from these, it's not a good idea to go back there and further, that would be blatantly stupid and uncreative.

You actually speak like someone who doesn't even play Zyra and if I'm not wrong on this one, you have no right to have an opinion like this. Especially when you have no idea how to fix her problems (actual idea, not "make her do something viney").

And as the last thing: Look how Poison Ivy fights in Injustice, you might be surprised.

Tseison1 votes

Could say the same about you but anyways, not surprise to be lashed out on these forums.

An Undead brat1 votes

Actually you couldn't because I'm providing points and only thing you do is saying "hurr durr I right, you not" and downvoting, mature.

RookPusher2 votes

My main problem with her kit is the core focus of things (plants) with the random nature of it all.

  1. Her Q seems to exist only to create ranged plants. That's not a great ability.
  2. Her plants are weak, have a short life, are targeted by turrets first, and champions last.
  3. Her ult requires everything to be right to be effective.

She's just sloppy and all over the map. I want to like her, I love the dryad concept, and that latest skin was super badass. But she a combo mage that's dependent on the randomness of her passive. And that's stupid.

In short, her abilities are power budgeted in correctly, and the balance sheet doesn't balance. For almost all of Zyra's abilities the reward never merits the risk.

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