What makes Heimerdinger a "different playstyle" and Zyra a Catcher?

An Undead brat·May 24, 2017·30 votes·1,912 views

Just generally curious, because last time I played her (or any other time) I did not try to catch people with Grasping roots more than Lux (burst mage), Ahri (burst mage), Veigar (burst mage), Anivia (battle mage), Syndra (burst mage), Taliyah (battle mage), Vel'Koz (artillery), or the first mentioned Heimerdinger, which is the closest to Zyra gameplay-wise. She's way more about playing around her plants' DPS and if she actually catches someone, she bursts them down unlike any other champion listed under Catchers (maybe AP Morgana) and more like any other burst mage.

I feel like listing her there just means you betryed us again and consider Zyra primarily a support, which you were desperately making us sure you won't when the MYMU was here, so please explain, change, or dissapoint me, but I'm curious nevertheless.

39 Comments

LankPantsMay 25, 20174 votes

Riot wanted to classify Zyra as a support as a fuck you to anyone who still plays mid Zyra.

manbearswineMay 25, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Riot wanted to classify Zyra as a support as a fuck you to anyone who still plays mid Zyra.

Well the alternative would've been to classify her as a mid laner as a fuck you to those playing her as a support, which have always outnumbered those playing her mid by quite a large margin(aside from the period close to her release), so lesser evil and whatnot.

An Undead bratMay 25, 20172 votes

Wasn't the point of her update to push her back to midlane (without ruining support playstyle)? Everyone hates facing Zyra support btw, so it's also fuck you to those people.

manbearswineMay 25, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sexy Bisex Plant,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AQt2ZbgM,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2017-05-25T05:40:10.305+0000)

Wasn't the point of her update to push her back to midlane (without ruining support playstyle)?

No? It wasn't stated anywhere to be the case, in fact original intent was to focus on support(without ruining mid lane), then the boards cried so they said they would focus on both(likely they lied, but it's understandable why).

Everyone hates facing Zyra support btw, so it's also fuck you to those people.

Yeah, that's where her amazing banrate comes from. The boards simply hate mage supports, that's not something which is reflected by the majority of players, but it does tend to screw over any votes you have regarding zyra here, as these idiots tend to just vote for her to move elsewhere, instead of letting the vote reflect what her playerbase wants.

Not that I'm saying that if the majority of people hate something that's not an issue, it's just a specific problem the boards have with her, not something which is very common outside of them.

Wind234May 24, 20172 votes

I'm no expert, but I imagine they classify her as a Catcher because her kit is good at immobilizing enemies. She has her snare and her ult, which is a huge AoE knock-up that catches whoever is stuck in it. The fact that she's so good at trapping her foes and whittling them down is probably why she's played support to begin with. That's not to say you CAN'T play her mid or anything - Morgana is another Catcher and she can be played mid also. As for why Heimerdinger is not a Catcher and Zyra is, I think it's because Heimer doesn't have as many tools to catch people with as Zyra does. He has his grenade stun, but that's about it. The closest I'd consider Heimer is more a Burst Mage/Battle Mage hybrid because of how his kit currently works. Zyra has some Battle Mage in her, too, and I don't think she's a bad pick for mid lane or anything, but I do think she's a bit more helpful in bot lane. She provides a lot of pressure and it's hard to deal with her AND and ADC at the same time. If she were alone, you could pick off her plants from a safe distance and neuter her damage, but you can't really do that as effectively bot lane thanks to her partner. So I think people play her support because it's easier on her than a solo lane. That's not saying she can't solo lane, but it's harder for her to be effective there, especially when you consider some of the champions she'd have to deal with. Fizz, LeBlanc, Yasuo, Zed, Talon, maybe Lux, Ahri, Ekko....So many champions would give her a really hard time.

An Undead bratMay 24, 20173 votes

(Side note: Yasuo is my favourite midlane matchup)

Aside of being AoE, Zyra's CC actually has the worst numbers among characters that have CC, it's the slowest and shortest hard CC among mages. If that should define her as a catcher, then why aren't Nautilus , Leona or Zac chathers? Is it because they are too tanky for a cather? Well Zyra has too much damage for a catcher. Why then aren't Malzahar or Lissandra listed as catchers? They actually have WAY better CC than Zyra.

Wind234May 25, 20173 votes

(I included him cause I wasn't sure if he could use her plants to dash or not. At least on paper it seems like he would counter her)

Nautilus, Leona and Zac aren't Catchers because their job isn't to pick out a target - it's to get into the middle of a fight (or start a fight) and use their crowd control to help soak up or mitigate as much damage from the enemy as possible. Zyra doesn't do that. Malzahar and Lissandra do both have ultimates that can single out a target (both point and click now that I think about it), but nothing else in their kit really stops an enemy from escaping for a prolonged period. That's what makes a Catcher; the ability to continuously deny your opponent the chance to escape.

The tools in her kit, regardless of how long or how hard it is to land, work at immobilizing enemies. Having high or low damage doesn't disqualify you as a catcher - AP Morgana hurts like hell, and Blitz isn't exactly lacking in damage either. And it's not the amount of CC you have, but how it functions that defines what a Catcher is, and Catchers function by making it easier for their allies to catch up to an enemy. Wasn't it awhile ago when Zyra was considered one of the best supports to play because she could pin her targets down and pelt them to death with her plants before they could get away? True, Rylai's was nerfed because of how much it contributed to that, but as far as I know, Rylai's is still core on her, and that slow is applied by her plants. So with Rylai's alone, her entire kit can slow, snare/root and knock up multiple enemies at once in a team fight. Catchers excel in making sure opponents can't escape, and Zyra fits the bill.

An Undead bratMay 25, 20172 votes

(He is able to dash through plants, it's just that if you can predict it and arrange your plants conveniently, he's screwed, plus Vinelashers attack through the Windwall and only thing you need is to drop two under yourself, or just put a Thornspitter behind his wall.)

But Malz and Lissandra ults just "deny your opponent the chance to escape" WAY better than Zyra's ult, which has 2 seconds delay, Malz builds item 3116 and Liss just simply won't let you walk away, she's Lissandra, that's what Lissandra does. And yes, Nautilus and Leona are fishing for people, Leona with ult and E and Naut with ult and Q, way more than Zyra does with her entire kit combined. On the other hand, yes, but although she does not facetank the whole team, she also deals fuckton of damage - unlike Bard Blitzcrank Thresh , which fit the Catcher class.

As I said before, item 3116 serves Malzahar to stop people running from you, if Zyra's using Rylai's to that purpose, you already fucked up. What I mean is, that Zyra is a zone of control, you need to play around that, bait her to grow her pants prematurely so she wastes her stacked seeds. Rylai on Zyra works the way it forces you not to engage on her, the exact other way around, if it works as you described, you were already out of position and that would be the same as with every burst mage, again.

NymzoMay 25, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sexy Bisex Plant,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AQt2ZbgM,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2017-05-24T23:10:21.985+0000)

If that should define her as a catcher, then why aren't or chathers? Is it because they are too tanky for a cather?

Yup you got it, ''catcher'' is basically the new term for disrupters and most disrupters are squishy like Rakan .

Some of them like Blitzcrank Thresh can have a slighly tankier build but they will not be as tanky as those 3 that you mentionned.

It's kinda sad that Zyra is officially out of mid lane now.

Asayake 5150glowMay 25, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sexy Bisex Plant,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AQt2ZbgM,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2017-05-24T23:10:21.985+0000)

(Side note: Yasuo is my favourite midlane matchup)

Aside of being AoE, Zyra's CC actually has the worst numbers among characters that have CC, it's the slowest and shortest hard CC among mages. If that should define her as a catcher, then why aren't , or chathers? Is it because they are too tanky for a cather? Well Zyra has too much damage for a catcher. Why then aren't or listed as catchers? They actually have WAY better CC than Zyra.

Wait what Naut and Leo aren't catchers? Malz isn't either? And neither is Liss????

I haven't looked at the lists yet, but I honestly thought those champions were catchers...

Not Zac because he's THE vanguard champion :/

Zero Skill TankMay 24, 20171 votes

Zyra players "betryed" themselves by pressuring Riot to keep most of her kit intact. Expecting her to be balanced for midlane when no part of her kit that makes her borderline unfair as support was changed is crazy.

An Undead bratMay 24, 20177 votes

Well I did not preassure anyone, but I'm curious: what do you mean by the borderline unfair kit parts for support? Because those are her CORE parts, her plants, which everybody has problem with. Her utility is at best mediocre among supports...

Btw she's the exact same lane bully in the midlane, it's only that people don't meet her there so they don't know, but that's the reason she's played there, but she's actually not a good "support", she's a secondary AP carry, worse than Lux or Karma, because they can actually support the ADC (shields).

Zero Skill TankMay 24, 20173 votes

The unfair part is how every part of her kit is pass-through (i.e. minions grant you no protection). It's ok in midlane, but botlane champions with naturally shorter ranges usually have no real answer to that when you combine it with Zyra's damage.

Saying that her utility is "mediocre" is a misunderstanding as well. Granted, she has no shields, heals or buffs - but she has multiple sources of AoE hard crowd control, something far from common even among (ranged) supports.

An Undead bratMay 24, 201710 votes

She has the shortest root duration with the slowest projectile among skillshot roots in the game and the knockup is also not that long (for example Janna's full charged tornado easily surpasses it). So yes, her utility is at best mediocre.

Speaking of shorter ranges, maybe only tank supports might have problem with that, otherwise botlane champions have enought mobility to dodge her skillshots if they need to go close ( Kalista Lucian Vayne ). And only thing tank supports need is to jump on her, as all of them can do that, and she's dead).

cocacolalipsMay 25, 20171 votes

Zyra still has one if not the best snare in the game followed by the best AOE sh!t show in the game. Her plants are obviously obnoxious but her other spells are really good too. I mean, SKT support player Wolf insta rooted-gibbed an entire team with one combo one week ago at MSI finals, and it's certainly not because of her plants.

But yeah, the whole Lux, Morgana, Zyra division is a bit iffy. Lux happens to have more reliable, immediate and on demand and just more burst than the other 2, that's probably why she makes the cut and the others don't.

An Undead bratMay 25, 20171 votes

I'll give people that it's fairly easy to overlook Zyra's snare since it's green on a base skin and SKT and somewhat shimmery, but you just need to count with that when facing her. You have to have the area of teamfight warded and watch for her root animation, which is 0.75 seconds long (that's almost 1 second, which is a period of time human should need to notice a danger, push the brake and a car should start slowing, so it must be enough).

manbearswineMay 25, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sexy Bisex Plant,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AQt2ZbgM,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2017-05-24T21:31:14.008+0000)

Well I did not preassure anyone, but I'm curious: what do you mean by the borderline unfair kit parts for support?

Don't bother, people here have some bizzare hatred of mage supports, you're not gonna make any sense out of this.

He does have a bit of a point in a sense, for zyra to work mid lane would require much bigger changes, and I'm not talking number wise, quite a lot of functionality would have to change too, even if that direction was chosen(which would be a really stupid idea), you might not have liked the result anyway due to the extensive nature of the changes required to make her work mid(even if they succeeded at that, in contrast to say malz).

NymzoMay 25, 20171 votes

Unfair? No. Annoying and to some extent, a pain in the ass to play against? Yes.

manbearswineMay 25, 20171 votes

You realize that most zyra players wanted her to stay a support right?(The fact a bunch of people who never play her on the boards voted otherwise means jack shit) We got what we wanted, more or less.(admittedly one of riot's better reworks, by quite a large margin too)

An Undead bratMay 25, 20178 votes

to stay a support

First off, fuck you.

Second off, she has always been primarily midlaner and damage dealer, by Riot's intentions, definitions and even by the common sense, you just build her AP in the botlane, that is not a support, that is a secondary botlane carry.

manbearswineMay 25, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sexy Bisex Plant,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AQt2ZbgM,comment-id=000000020000,timestamp=2017-05-25T05:22:35.699+0000)

First off, fuck you.

And fuck you too.

Second off, she has always been primarily midlaner

Nope, there wasn't a single point in time where that's what she was.

and damage dealer, by Riot's intentions,

She's still a damage dealer, as far as riot's intention goes, they release a champion with generally a notion where they expect said champ to be played, but preserving that intial approach by itself is of no value, and there were simply no other factors in the case of zyra to pull her back elsewhere(no big fanbase elsewhere, no problematic functionality elsewhere).

definitions and even by the common sense,

clearly not the case, as she has pretty much always been a better support than a mid laner.

you just build her AP in the botlane, that is not a support, that is a secondary botlane carry.

In contrast to what your average clueless bronzie who goes by tags would believe, the true defining aspect of support is ceding cs to other roles, as far as the rest goes it's simply a question of "does he bring enough to the table", role wise zyra is a support, the fact she's not much of a buffer doesn't change that.

It's like saying blitz should be a jungler because he doesn't support either.

LankPantsMay 25, 20176 votes

The fact a bunch of people who never play her on the boards voted otherwise means jack shit

The fact that more people play Zyra support rather than mid actually means very little. Regardless of where you want Zyra to be played right now if you actually want to win the only choice is Zyra support. Zyra mid is utter trash, she's not actually viable mid. Of course more people play her bot than mid, most people won't take a pick that so actively destroys your chance of winning as Zyra mid.

The other thing is that the poll was 2x as in favour of Zyra mid over Zyra support. The population is 95% Zyra support players. If the population was playing Zyra where they wanted to as a whole that poll would have been close to a 95/5 split, not a 32/68 split like you actually saw. In fact a swing of that proportion only has less than a 0.1% chance of occurring by chance alone, IE it's statistically improbable enough that saying it's statistically impossible is justified.

Whether you like it or not a lot of Zyra players want to see Zyra primarily mid.

manbearswineMay 25, 20171 votes

{quoted}

The fact that more people play Zyra support rather than mid actually means very little.

yeah let's fuck over the playerbase over a tag, that's a sensible approach.

Regardless of where you want Zyra to be played right now if you actually want to win the only choice is Zyra support. Zyra mid is utter trash, she's not actually viable mid.

People are awfully generous with the term viable, mid zyra is perfectly capable of winning games, and I even doubt that her performance there is poor statistically.

But even if this was the case, I actually followed post rework zyra for the case this lie would surface up again, post rework: People were not aware yet of how strong she is where. Winrate wise mid and support zyra were about the same. She naturally did not see competitive play yet(so you can't blame it on sheep). Riot said they wanted mid zyra to work too, so people had no reason to just assume she's a support. And yet support zyra was played more x4 times as much as mid zyra did.

Of course more people play her bot than mid, most people won't take a pick that so actively destroys your chance of winning as Zyra mid.

When the stats for mid zyra were available winrate wise they always fluctuated, but ultimately were +-1% of each other, I doubt that's different now.

The other thing is that the poll was 2x as in favour of Zyra mid over Zyra support. The population is 95% Zyra support players. If the population was playing Zyra where they wanted to as a whole that poll would have been close to a 95/5 split, not a 32/68 split like you actually saw. In fact a swing of that proportion only has less than a 0.1% chance of occurring by chance alone, IE it's statistically improbable enough that saying it's statistically impossible is justified.

That's because guess what? In these polls people who don't play zyra get to vote as well.

Whether you like it or not a lot of Zyra players want to see Zyra primarily mid.

Significantly outnumbered, especially now. But even before the choice was obvious.

LankPantsMay 26, 20172 votes

Every time you said "I don't think mid Zyra's that bad" just look up this.

http://lolalytics.com/champion/Zyra/Middle/

Mid Zyra since the rework fails to reach a 50% winrate when played only by dedicated mains. It's complete guttertrash, because Riot listened to stupid people like you instead of what the majority of people were saying when they did the rework.

manbearswineMay 26, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Every time you said "I don't think mid Zyra's that bad" just look up this.

http://lolalytics.com/champion/Zyra/Middle/

Mid Zyra since the rework fails to reach a 50% winrate when played only by dedicated mains. It's complete guttertrash,

Plenty of champions do that, Syndra(You know, who is getting nerfed soon), is sitting on 49.69, can't even reach 50%, complete gutter trash right?

The "very best" mid zyra players(according to the site, Idk what it means) have a higher winrate than "the very best" support players, suggesting that when played by dedicated mains she outpeforms in mid lane.

48% winrate is fine, that's what fizz sits on for example, it's not great, but it's far from "unviable".

because Riot listened to stupid people like you instead of what the majority of people were saying when they did the rework.

No, it's because they didn't listen to bronzies like yourself and actually realized the majority wanted her as a support, and that a bunch of noobs that can't get over a tag isn't a metric you should go by.

LankPantsMay 26, 20171 votes

The "very best" mid zyra players(according to the site, Idk what it means) have a higher winrate than "the very best" support players, suggesting that when played by dedicated mains she outpeforms in mid lane.

http://lolalytics.com/champions/ Sort by best win

The very best is taking the top winrate players and just looking at them. It's not a partuarly useful statistic and 54% is actually on the low end of this list. The average is probably up around 55.5%.

Plenty of champions do that, Syndra(You know, who is getting nerfed soon), is sitting on 49.69, can't even reach 50%, complete gutter trash right?

Syndra has over 40x mid Zyra's playrate. Everyone playing mid Zyra is a dedicated main, that isn't true for Syndra. These are very different cases, some more similar cases to mid Zyra would be

Karthus: 52.52% WR, 1.27% PR Donger: 51.05% WR, 1.11% PR Vel'koz: 52.31% WR, 3.13% PR A-Sol: 52.32% WR, 1.34% PR

A champion who is balanced and has a low playrate tends to have quite a high winrate, mid Zyra's winrate isn't 2 bellow average for her cluster of champions, it's 3.5-4% bellow average.

Syndra and Fizz are more popular champions, their winrates (mid) are both about average. Fizz is only 48% because he has a terrible top winrate due to tank Fizz.

manbearswineMay 26, 20171 votes

{quoted}

http://lolalytics.com/champions/ Sort by best win

The very best is taking the top winrate players and just looking at them. It's not a partuarly useful statistic and 54% is actually on the low end of this list. The average is probably up around 55.5%.

And mid zyra still has a higher one than support zyra.

Syndra has over 40x mid Zyra's playrate. Everyone playing mid Zyra is a dedicated main, that isn't true for Syndra. These are very different cases, some more similar cases to mid Zyra would be

Karthus: 52.52% WR, 1.27% PR Donger: 51.05% WR, 1.11% PR Vel'koz: 52.31% WR, 3.13% PR A-Sol: 52.32% WR, 1.34% PR

If you could prove this speculation it'll be nice, as far as a counter arguments go, I'd suspect plenty of mid zyra games come from people who mostly play support placed in a role they're not used to, going for a comfort pick and deflating her winrate.

A champion who is balanced and has a low playrate tends to have quite a high winrate, mid Zyra's winrate isn't 2 bellow average for her cluster of champions, it's 3.5-4% bellow average.

Except she doesn't belong in that cluster, in fact it's very hard to think of a mage who has been mostly played as support for so long.

Pater GascoigneMay 25, 20172 votes

Unfair kit. LOL. Slow skillshot root, low range aoe knockup, low range smallaoe damage. The only thing that could be considered unfair are her plants, but I wouldnt say they are more unfair than Heimer's turrets. She might be an annyoing support now, but thats on Riot to blame

rtbf76109271May 25, 20171 votes

Zyra catches people better than any of those. She has more cc in her kit and both cc spells can hit more than 1 player.

Look at this "catching" people play and think about how much less CC the other mages you listed could inflict

https://youtu.be/zXjzjQfQlCw?t=139

manbearswineMay 25, 20171 votes

You really shouldn't mind tags so much.

ModAcademy KaynMay 25, 20171 votes

The same as Morgana, she looks for a time to pick a target, and lock them down with plants and ult. That's fairly similar to Morg's playstyle, hit a snare, and walk into the fight for continued lockdown, Zyra just get's to do hers from range. Unlike Burst mages, who AOE is more hardpressed to apply, Zyra's Ult is a huge AOE that's gonna force people inside of it, regardless of the main target, into fleeing.

An Undead bratMay 25, 20171 votes

You want to tell me that the fact her ult makes people flee is the fact why she is a catcher? You must see yourself why that sounds dumb lol

SpongebobIsLifeMay 25, 20171 votes

She's a girl .(° ͜ʖ°)

Fondling GemsMay 26, 20171 votes

The difference between say, Lux and Zyra, is that lux can catch people out, but she catches them out to 100-0 them herself. Catchers on the other hand often (not always) catch people out so their team can collapse.

That is the difference between catchers and people with long range CC.

An Undead bratMay 26, 20171 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWoL9va9O0Q

Fondling GemsMay 26, 20172 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5WTnoJfFyY

Oh hey look I posted a video in which a character kills someone. Clearly Soraka is a marksman right?

Yes Zyra does a lot of damage, however notice how the full combo + ignite only killed 2/3 of the people, and they were very squishy champions who didn't avoid a single one of the abilities. I can't comment on how fed the you were as the score was cut out of the video, but you clearly has your items and they didn't have any MR.

Zyra does not usually 100-0 people when catching them out, and as a support she generally roams with her team and makes far more picks on champions that most other classes that she would be labeled under. Her picks also tend to be with the support of her team, she rarely goes all in on someone that she found as she is warding without teammates around to help her burst them down.

I mean if you are going to just ignore the (not always) part and post a single video as though it validates your point then go ahead I guess. I am just gonna go and talk to people willing to use reason.

An Undead bratMay 26, 20171 votes

Lol what? I'm a mid Zyra main since season 4. Yes, Zyra 100-0 squishy EXACTLY the same as Lux, get cought by her at level 6 and you're instadead, this is absolutely NORMAL for Zyra. Comparing her to AD Soraka is absolute bullshit, because Zyra WAS MADE WITH AN INTENTION TO BE A DAMAGE THREAD IN THE MIDLANE, why the hell does everyone forget that? Comparing her to AD Soraka is like saying Lee Sin is the worst champion in the game because you build him full magic pen.

First off, Lux would only kill two people, too, because the third one flashed out, if she didn't, she'd be also dead. Yes, Lux's burst is stronger, but only because Zyra also possesses ridiculous amount of DPS, of course she must trade something for that.

I mean if you are going to just ignore the (not always) part and post a single video as though it validates your point then go ahead I guess. I am just gonna go and talk to people willing to use reason.

YOU JUST FUCKING COMPARED NORMAL ZYRA BUILD TO AD SORAKA

I am just gonna go and talk to people willing to use reason.

YOU JUST FUCKING COMPARED NORMAL ZYRA BUILD TO AD SORAKA

I am just gonna go and talk to people willing to use reason.

#YOU JUST FUCKING COMPARED NORMAL ZYRA BUILD TO AD SORAKA

Fondling GemsMay 26, 20171 votes

Correction, I was not comparing zyra to AD soraka, I was comparing you posting a single video of a single instance of a 100-0 to someone posting a montage of success on a champion build that I think we can both agree isn't very realistic.

The point was that you provided absolutely minuscule amounts of evidence.

ErockandrollMay 26, 20171 votes

Am I the only one here who concerns themself with with "What a Champion offers to the team?" without worrying so much about "Where that champion get's played?" Zyra should feel like Zyra, regardless of where she's being played.

As for any attempts to balance her around any position, Riot is pretty much required to balance around their most OP role. So trying to keep both options viable is going to be particularly Problematic. Though there is one thorn sticking out in Zyra's case, (all puns intended) and that would be her CC. Even if you made her exclusively mid lane, Her CC is taking up a fair amount of her power budget, So Riot really can't make her a Nuke in terms of AP. However, that also acts as a safety net, if a mid lane Zyra fell behind in gold and items, she still had tons of disruption.

But once we consider the support role as a factor, that same level of disruption also works in a role without much gold. And this is where I feel a lot of people get confused when the cry "Nerf their base and buff their ratios." Cause that doesn't fix all the problems. Looking a Malz as an example, after Riot Nerfed his damage potential, the pro scene just shifted gears for him, switching from an Off carry to an dedicated disruptor with a more traditional support build. So a simple damage nerf isn't going to just remove mage supports from the support function, because they still offer tons of utility in their kit.