Why does Zz'rot not work?

ArnoldSchwarzens··4 votes·1,035 views

Right now Zz'rot is one of the most cost efficient items in the game, gives double resistances and enables splitpushing for tanks. At least that is what it is supposed to do. By playing it myself lately because it got buffed I discovered a big problem with it which may just be the reason why it's not good.

Normally when you're splitpushing you create a hard decision for the enemy to make, either they send a lot of people to stop you or they pick fights and objectives elsewhere. That means that when you are splitpushing you have to retreat very often and when people come to catch you just to go back to tower pushing when they gave up. When they stay the have less members in the teamfight that is going on elsewhere, which is the whole point of this tactic.

So while ZZ'rot gives you decent extra damage to minion waves and extremely good damage against towers if you stack a lot of HP, it cannot retreat with you. Imagine the following scenario: You are at the Inhib tower and want to get it down by splitpushing, yet the enemy team send two of their own to stop you. In the meanwhile the rest of your team is sieging the second tier mid tower.

A Jax could easiliy ward hop and retreat since he has warded everything and then come back to finish the job because they have to send people back to deal with the mid sieging. A Singed with Zz'rot on the other hand will not really have this opportunity since when he retreated, the enemy found and destroyed his ZZ'rot. With it being gone he has little to no DMG to finish off Towers since he can now only bop it down. Tl:dr: The Zz'rot is way too easy to find and destroy and so your splitpushing capability is very easy to shut down this way.

My take on fixing this problem would be to make it so that you are able to pick it up after you put it down. If we come back to the scenario above, Singed could've just taken the thing and reset it's cooldown by a fair amount by picking it up when he was running away from the enemy team. By the time the two team members went back to deal with mid he could've just put it up again and finished off the tower and maybe even an Inhib.

I'd really love this change to go live since a lot of tanks do have everything they'd need to be a great splitpusher except for damage on towers. An updated Zz'rot like that may even be able to push a lot of tanks that are kinda unviable now back into the meta, Singed being the big one.

11 Comments

Very Hard Engage2 votes

its "meh" to me, because it has such a long CD, id rather it just have a shorter CD and be requiered to be placed more often., so i would have it when sieging. in addition the mininos are quite weak on their own and they dont go far enough down the lane before they just disappear.

id rather just have a banner of command minion do the job, at least then its immune to magic.

Xonra1 votes

{quoted}

its "meh" to me, because it has such a long CD, id rather it just have a shorter CD and be requiered to be placed more often., so i would have it when sieging. in addition the mininos are quite weak on their own and they dont go far enough down the lane before they just disappear.

id rather just have a banner of command minion do the job, at least then its immune to magic.

I think this to an extent hits key points. Mostly, Banner of Command just makes more sense for sieging, as it has better team stats, and fits the same niche of minion damage against turret, or sieging. Think item 3512 is much like item 3056 in that is sounds good, and it looks good on paper, but realistically it isn't worth replacing another item for it.

Meep Man1 votes

{quoted}

I think this to an extent hits key points. Mostly, Banner of Command just makes more sense for sieging, as it has better team stats, and fits the same niche of minion damage against turret, or sieging. Think item 3512 is much like item 3056 in that is sounds good, and it looks good on paper, but realistically it isn't worth replacing another item for it.

I think it would be cool if it has charges, like a max of 3. So if you waited 300 seconds you got 2 and 450 seconds 3, all in one string of uses.

Xonra1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Inept Maverick,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=I8wcdyYE,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2015-08-22T13:40:09.795+0000)

I think it would be cool if it has charges, like a max of 3. So if you waited 300 seconds you got 2 and 450 seconds 3, all in one string of uses.

That would help it for sure. Just 2 would make a difference, and would make it more attractive.

I've commented on it before, and some people thought I was saying it was bad, but it isn't. It has good stats and a decent cost, but it just isn't good enough to replace one of the more core defensive items what what is basically a "novel idea". A lot of it's power cost is put into the active, but seeing as it is a placable active, that can be destroyed pretty easy, it isn't actually useful for the cost most of the time, seeing as it isn't exactly a short cooldown to activate it again.

Wiggle Dat Butt1 votes

ZZ'rot is fine, it's not meant to be a perma-drop-whenever-you-want-cause-its-convenient-and-OP portal.. it's meant to be placed somewhere stealthily for that extra boost to draw enemies away for a little bit.

Meep Man1 votes

I use it to double split push AKA put it Top, I got Bottom, my team is Middle.

The Fast1 votes

I build it on Garen. Zz'rot puts new Garen at 170MR at level 18.

I place it in the jungle, pink the bush. Someone walks into the bush, I destroy them. Zz'rots keeps going while we go take baron or something. Pretty funny.

DeadlyQuestion1 votes

ZZ'Rot does enough extra damage to towers that if you get stopped early in your siege, the amount reduced is still usually worth it. If you read the situation incorrectly and place it when reinforcements are close or on their way, then suffering only by having your item on cooldown is a pretty fair cost. Otherwise, even if you get two or three rots to damage the tower, it's still better than having none. Best case scenario you don't get stopped and can pummel the tower to death with the quickness of a fed Jax while still maintaining your tankiness, worst case scenario you have to wait a little bit (albeit longer than if you were a high AD champion) before seiging effectively again. That's my opinion, anyway.

Krigjer1 votes

I feel like Zz'rot is a cheesy mechanic to employ when you're already ahead.

The only use I've found for it in an even game is placing it near turrets that are already almost dead. (I've gotten quite a few inhib turrets this way) Otherwise, it gets destroyed almost instantly and I feel like I built a useless item.

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

Thats not just like problem of zz'rot portal

its just that anything in our current game is much worse at pushing towers than an adc

while splitpushing can be done by meele champions who just cant handle teamfights (oh boy the op zed who cant assasinate shit since people can remove him with a single item)

When it comes to sieging and teamfighting ... adc does it all

what is the problem of zz'rot is not the fact that it gets destroyed ... its the fact that it is handicapped the voidlings can be easily killed .... inhib tower usualy is quite good at that and thye leave a trail leading to the portal

the only thing that this item can acomplish ... is a cheese push of an unguarded lane ... and you cant be there with your champion

Smitty Manjensen1 votes

I don't buy it cause it doesn't give health, although it would be too strong with it.

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