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My thoughts on possible changes for Zyra

Cirrostratus·6/19/2015, 7:17:26 PM·2 votes·802 views

Hello everyone!

I am a Zyra enthusiast, and honestly, I don't think she's all that weak currently. However, I do think Zyra lacks a bit of a niche. Currently, she is like a worse hybrid of Azir and Heimerdinger plant-wise with spells that are kind of unique, but not necessarily making her worth picking over the competition. I do love her ult though, I think that really does fill a unique niche not seen on many other champions.

What would be my preferred niche for Zyra to fill? The niche she currently already kind of fills: zone control. Furthermore, I'd love to push her into a bit more of a DPS-mage style, by making her plants better as the game goes on.

My proposed changes:

Passive: Her current passive, but a bit different. When she dies, she returns to her old form and gains the ability to shoot a spike after a delay. When she manages to hit something, she will revive, having x% of her maximum health + y% of the damage dealt to enemies. Has a cooldown of a seconds (possibly: that goes down by b seconds on levels c/d/e/f/g/whatever).

  • What does this accomplish? This basically makes Zyra's passive a lot more interesting. Currently, one of the major complaints is that Zyra's passive is hardly rewarding. You die, you shoot it after a delay, you'll likely miss it because the delay is rather long so people can run like hell when they kill you, and then... You're still dead. Best you can hope for is a kill trade. I believe the semi-revive will make Zyra less of a tasty vegetable everyone wants to eat and will make people a bit more wary of jumping on her when she has it up. The ease with which you can jump on her is one of the reasons she's kind of weak currently.

W: Her plants take 50% less damage from AoE abilities (like how monster autos only deal half a chunk hp thingy per hit).

  • What does this accomplish? Currently it's a bit too easy to just AoE down her plants, making them virtually useless for no real investment from the enemy team.

R:

Added passive: Zyra's plants gain 1/2/3 extra health chunk thingies. Scales with ult rank.

  • What does this accomplish? Zyra's plants are pretty useless at times, as they are so easily killed. This addition gives her better lategame DPS thanks to more plant survivability and overall helps her out as the league's major plant mage.

Active: Plants hit by the ult will have their lifespan extended for 5 seconds.

  • What does this accomplish? Again, makes her plants more useful.

The accomplishments of these changes

  • She'll have 3 passives, worthy of a CertainlyT champion.
  • Her lategame will improve as a DPS mage.
  • She'll actually have a proper innate passive instead of ''lol i died and my post-mortem form is kinda useless''.

Changes that might be needed

  • Current Zyra might be a bit too bursty for a ''DPS mage'', perhaps her damage on skills should be tuned down and tuned up on plants. Not sure how this will affect her support role.

I'd love to hear your opinion on these changes. I've just brainstormed a bit and decided to post my ideas to see if they are interesting and whether or not people think they'll adress her key issues.

Zyra

7 Comments

Drunk Rummate6/19/2015, 7:25:47 PM2 votes

I think Zyra is fine with the exception of her passive, which needs a total rework. I play her a ton in support and I think with the new itemization changes she may even become a viable mid.

I also wish her W gave 15% CDR at rank 5 instead of 10% just because 35% with Morello feels sad to me, but that's more quality of life than anything.

manbearswine6/24/2015, 5:00:40 PM2 votes

{quoted}

Well first of all,let me give you a break down on zyra's current status,hopefully to save you some time: I have talked to a lot of people(mostly focusing on support mains,as that is what seems to be considered her strongest position at the moment),at diamond-challenger(I couldn't care less what arrogant silvers(most of them tend to be that way) think),and the general consensus is that she is bad-terrible(people who never play her think she's bad,people who occasionally play her think she's worse),even though the consensus is very strong(in fact I got the opinions of two competitive support mains on streams) riot doesn't care,so I'm sure riot is aware of her issues and just doesn't give a flying fuck,your best hope is that she will get some buffs close to receiving a new skin,I think this is the only scenario where riot might consider doing something about her current state,anyway:

As to her passive change: Not a very big fan of it,I think zyra's weakness should be dying and giving her a revive seems to counteract that,I am actually fine with her passive as is and if buffs were to finally happen(as if) I'd rather they'd be done elsewhere.

  • What does this accomplish? Currently it's a bit too easy to just AoE down her plants, making them virtually useless for no real investment from the enemy team.

Her plants already take reduced damage from aoe,though I do agree they should be more resistance to aoe,not sure if that's the way it should be done(I would prefer them to be immune to aoe for 2 seconds after spawning,refreshed if ulted,or something of the sort),but I definitely agree with your line of thought here,especially "making them virtually useless for no real investment from the enemy team."

  • What does this accomplish? Zyra's plants are pretty useless at times, as they are so easily killed. This addition gives her better lategame DPS thanks to more plant survivability and overall helps her out as the league's major plant mage.

Zyra's plants scale with the abilities(3 aoe spells/3 autos/1 single target spell+1 aa/etc) used on them instead of ratios/pens/etc,I don't think they need more hp,I do think they need to put some work into their current death patterns,but I don't think it should scale with levels in her ult,I also definitely think you should not be able to lifesteal or spellvamp off of them,that's just fucking retarded.

  • She'll have 3 passives, worthy of a CertainlyT champion.

Please no,zyra is one of his champions who's not a retarded mess,no reason to change that.

Changes that might be needed

  • Current Zyra might be a bit too bursty for a ''DPS mage'', perhaps her damage on skills should be tuned down and tuned up on plants. Not sure how this will affect her support role.

Don't let retards fool you,her burst and dps is "fine",that is,it might be high,but she definitely pays the price for it,in fact,she pays too much,that's why you never see her.

But mostly: give it up,zyra has been garbage for more than a year,riot doesn't care,go main ahri/thresh like everybody else.

IamCloud6/19/2015, 7:29:03 PM1 votes

I love to play Zyra. She's different. But i think that to change her you need to put in one or two of these, not all. Mostly her passive. Personally i think it needs to be changed completely because there should be no reason for you to die to have to use it. And while your idea is unique, i dont think riot would implement it.

Her passive could maybe be like every ultimate upgrade her plants get stronger. For example

Lvl6- Range increased by X amount

Lvl11- Health bar increased by X amount

Lvl16-puts down 2 seeds instead of 1 (maybe, but might be op)

She's all about them plants, so give her something to smile about

Moussetracks6/19/2015, 8:05:12 PM1 votes

I play Zyra a fair bit, and I think the one thing she needs....

IS A %!#%$^ BETTER AI FOR HER PLANTS!

You hit someone with a Q, place an seed right on top of it. Plant sprouts, hits the champ because you hit them with a spell. They walk away to about 1/2 of the plants total range and the plant CHANGES targets to a minion. WHY IS THIS? They never left the plants range, so it should keep attacking them. I fully support that if they do leave the plants range, Zyra would have to hit them with another spell, or an auto in order to get them to re-target, but don't lose the primary.

Also, why do they sometimes take so long to shoot after aquiring a target? I've had them sit there for about double the time of their AS waiting to attack a target for some reason.