Being a support doesn't prevent your champion from being played mid

KONO RUBICK DA·May 25, 2017·50 votes·3,009 views

what's with those people blaming riot for tagging zyra as a support?

ivern is a support that can be played in the jungle

IF you want to pick zyra mid go on, no one will blame you https://i.gyazo.com/27787add5654b7e85f032c222cf4c62e.png

midlane zyra has a higher win rate than Support nothing is wrong with playing her mid, and just because your champion is a support doesn't mean he has to be played bot lane

are great examples

they can all be played in an other lane than bot

tldr: stop crying on a fcking tag

100 Comments

Sahn UzalMay 25, 201725 votes

Sion mid intensifies.

WheatloafMay 25, 20179 votes

Anyone that says tanks can't be played mid has been lying to you.

IcyPepperMay 25, 20172 votes

Tired of playing mages against assassins in mid lane and getting countered?

Wish you had an assassin-specific counter?

Did your toplaner lock in Ryze/Liss/some-other-AP-carry/bruiser?

Well look no more!

Transform and tank out! :D

Malicious MetalMay 25, 201710 votes

Galio "As a Symbol of this great Nation I say; Let's go mess up some Mages!"

UnboundHadesMay 25, 201718 votes

Rakan item 3089

KàyleMay 25, 20173 votes

I laughed much harder than i should have.

VenomarMay 25, 20173 votes

Why?

crippler38May 25, 201713 votes

Rakan with a fedora.

KàyleMay 26, 20171 votes

I love a good amount of hyperbole.

Rakan's kit naturally plays around with others kits and makes them stronger, but alone he doesn't have anywhere close to meaningful power. He would problably be the last support that i would put up there. His knockup is easy to just walk out of when it's not in a team setting, and i believe that he has a useless ability in the form of his jump.

MooooooooreDakkaMay 26, 20171 votes

I've had a lot of success playing ap rakan solo laning with protobelt on twisted treeline.

KàyleMay 27, 20171 votes

Yeah, but you would be better off playing just about anything else.

Chembaron YamadaMay 25, 201717 votes

I don't get where all this "Riot officially labelled her a support" even comes from. They just released a subclass list, that subclass list has absolutely nothing to do with the role a champion is played in. It is just a description of the playstyle of the champion.

Kindred are a marksman, does that mean that Kindred are played bot lane? No, Kindred are a marksman played in the jungle role.

Same here. They just created a new subclass called "catcher". These have a playstyle that specialises in catching enemies to make them vulnerable for their own damage and the damage of their team. So you can say they are specialists in creating picks. Even Jhin is considered to be hybrid catcher! Because his W and R are giving him tools to create picks for his team.

Nowhere it is stated that Zyra is a support. I think people are interpreting too much into that stuff.

Overlord ForteMay 25, 20174 votes

When they were updating her in the MYMU, her updates were considered initially only for the support role because 'she is a support'. The end result of her being consecutively nerfed to suit a role she was disproportionately powerful in, rather than the one she was intended to be in. There was a degree of backlash to this statement but it didn't change much in the end.

AbiwonKenabiMay 25, 20173 votes

Yeah, good point, these subclasses show playstyles, not necessarily lane or position.

Battlecast SonaMay 25, 201714 votes

I just want to point out because I hate people that just trot out winrates like it means anything:

Look at the play rate difference between support and mid. 95.6% of her games are support, with less than 4% being mid... Which leads me to believe only mains/skilled Zyra players play her mid, which accounts for the higher w/r.

I'm not saying she should or should not be played mid, I'm just saying that the winrate being slightly higher in mid can be explained by only people with Zyra skillz playing her mid. It doesn't necessarily mean she's "better" mid than she is support. Winrates don't work like that.

KONO RUBICK DAMay 25, 201712 votes

[{quoted}](name=Battlecast Janna,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IeTeLEyf,comment-id=000c,timestamp=2017-05-25T16:58:44.524+0000)

Look at the play rate difference between support and mid.

while i said "it's higher" my point wasn't that mid is better, i'm pointing out that some people still have success with mid lane zyra and it's still possible to play her

Fondling GemsMay 25, 20172 votes

Also gonna point out that like when J4 was the highest winrate top laner for a patch it was probably mostly picked into specific highly favorable matchups though I do agree with OP's reply to your comment.

Mig89May 25, 20174 votes

Having the skills to play a champ in a specific lane is kinda a bad argument for not doing it...

AbiwonKenabiMay 25, 20177 votes

Thank you for saying this!

These subclasses aren't even official tags! Riot doesn't want to put them in the client like some are asking for because they are more guidelines to help with balance and design and are subject to change every few months or so. They aren't technically official, and the only official tags are "Fighters" "Tanks" "Mages" etc, tags that are unlikely to change. These subclasses serve to put similar champions next to one another to see if they are truly unique or if Riot needs to work on giving them their own gameplay identity. They are NOT little boxes Riot is trying to shove every single Champion into. Rengar being a diver is not going to prevent them from giving the jump from stealth gameplay that Rengar players love. Karma or LB don't suddenly have different playstyles. Zyra is not going to instantly become unviable anywhere but support just because she's in a so-called "support" subclass. These subclasses are not the end all, be all like everyone supposes they are. That's why they were changed after revisiting them. And they will probably be changed again!

PoskeMay 26, 20171 votes

Actually Riot said that le bl ll receive another mini rework so yeah

GREAT! I hope she ll stay an assassin

AbiwonKenabiMay 26, 20171 votes

Yeah I saw that. I doubt they'll completely rid her of her bursty style or her W as those are her most integral parts. That said, whether they consider her an assassin or a burst mage by that time remains to be seen. Hopefully it won't matter, hopefully her gameplay will be healthy AND satisfying to long-time LeBlanc players regardless of Riot's perceived subclass. They did say a lot of the burst mages are borderline assassin.

PoskeMay 26, 20171 votes

Being a le bl main I know how fragile le bl is as a champion design

And how easly she can be ruined as a champion

She is a combo champion. I dont want her to become another brand (AFAIK combo champion) which has 1-2 viable full combos

I dont even understand why are they targetting her again she seems to be in reasonable spot

There are people who argue she is unplayable There are people who argue she is OP..

AbiwonKenabiMay 26, 20171 votes

Hard to say where she is. LeBlanc is a frustrating champion to play against. Delaying the W back was a good step. Giving her safer wave clear was not.

PennsMay 25, 20174 votes

Zyra isnt actually a support tho, shes a mage. But I agree that you can still play her mid just fine.

KONO RUBICK DAMay 25, 20174 votes

Her playstyle fits with the playstyle of a catcher since most of the time she tries to catch people insto a snare into ult into a burst that makes sense to me tbh

hhaavviikkMay 25, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Metal Malicious,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IeTeLEyf,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2017-05-25T11:39:42.860+0000)

Her playstyle fits with the playstyle of a catcher since most of the time she tries to catch people insto a snare into a burst that makes sense to me tbh

but that can be applied to every burst mage with CC. veigar catches you with E to burst you, syndra catches you with E to burst you, ahri catches you with E to burst you, fizz catches you with ult to burst you, lux catches you with Q to burst you etc etc

KONO RUBICK DAMay 25, 20173 votes

Except that all those spells are not as reliable as zyra's E which has a long range+long travel speed

good luck catching people with a brain as veigar ahri might be possible due to her dash but i'm not even sure

It Hertz When IPMay 25, 20175 votes

Zyra's E is IMO even worse than Veigar's E.... at least he gets a generous area to land the stun. Zyra's root moves about as fast as the average continent.

KONO RUBICK DAMay 25, 20171 votes

veigar E in teamfight is overpowered

but his E is terrible to catch someone

JaxMoonStealerMay 25, 20171 votes

What about Syndra? In that case, she could be considered an even better catcher than Zyra.

KONO RUBICK DAMay 26, 20171 votes

i believe syndra doesn't have as much lockdown as zyra who can E+R and cc someone for a long time to secure a kill

PoskeMay 26, 20171 votes

False she can instagib you while you are stunned

KONO RUBICK DAMay 26, 20171 votes

you're just confirming my thesis, zyra doesn't instagib you, she kills you with plant damage while cc'ing you for a longer time which is why she isn't a burst mage

parrot6632May 25, 20174 votes

midlane zyra has a higher win rate than mid

you wot m8

Crede777May 25, 20174 votes

Because Riot's classification of Zyra is indicative of how she will be balanced.

People that complain want her to be balanced around the mid role and not the support role.

KONO RUBICK DAMay 25, 20173 votes

sorry but that doesn't make sense

bot lane and mid lane zyra do the same thing

Crede777May 25, 20172 votes

Yes but they do so to different opponents and on different gold incomes.

Contrast Zyra with Malzahar. Malz mid and bot did the same thing, but one was arguably balanced after a series of tweaks while the other was considered extremely unhealthy.

KONO RUBICK DAMay 25, 20172 votes

eeven if their gold income is different, high base damage matters both in mid and support if mid has trash base damage, zyra will be trash until she gets at least 2 items which is no bueno compared to other mid laners

MrBuffingtonMay 25, 20173 votes

People get confused with between the support role and support champions (ie. Zyra has a supportive kit, and is also predominantly played in the support role. Miss Fortune has a marksman's kit, and is sometimes played in the support role, sometimes in the ~~marksman~~ ADC role). It's part of the reason Riot has been working on the class and subclass list, changing labels to something less confusing. Also why Riot has made official communications regarding "off-meta"playstyles recently.

As an aside, people often confuse official Riot communications with the random, off-hand comments from a Rioter on forums/social media. Riot is no more a hivemind than Boards/Reddit, probably even less so since they don't have internal upvote circlejerks.

LordOfTheLeagueMay 26, 20172 votes

Marksmen is not a role. The role you are referring is carry. The role is pretty much the lane you go on.

MrBuffingtonMay 26, 20172 votes

lol see, even I get confused. Thanks :P

PartholonianMay 26, 20171 votes

Zyra actually doesn't have a supportive kit. She has damage and CC and that's it.

She can be played in the support role anyway, using harass and zoning and trying to catch out enemies, but it doesn't make her a support champion any more than Annie.

Lulu, Lux and Karma are mage kits with actual support elements. Nami, Sona and Soraka are enchanters.

MrBuffingtonMay 27, 20171 votes

Zyra has one of the strongest disengage and zone control kits in the game. It's incredibly potent for setting up your teammates. That's a supportive kit. That's exactly the point I was making about a kit that's supportive and a champion that's played in the support role. It's not about making an overly simplified list of what a champion does and does not have in their kit; it's about how that kit functions as a whole. Ashe has a supportive kit (if you go back, she was actually classified as a secondary support). It doesn't matter that she's seldom if ever played in the support role, her kit supports her team (another term for her is "utility carry"). Contrast that with someone like Xerath/Zed, who mostly set themselves up even though they also have CC.

ChønklordMay 25, 20173 votes

#Ummm.... what?

Ivern's whole kit revolves around clearing jungle camps, his primary role is Jungle not support.
Zyra has traditionally since her release been an AP mage designed for solo laning (hence her reliance on spawning plants for crowd control/farming)
Same with morg as above
Nunu's whole kit revolves around consuming jungle camps / monsters and his primary role has always been Jungle

They were not created as support role champions, but can be played as one.

The problem some players are having, are champions whose original design and kit revolved around solo lane power, are now recently being repeatedly nerfed/reworked/crippled and forced to be viable only as a support.

Instead of working on way to properly balance some of these champion's oppressive nature with their original kit in the support role while still maintaining the integrity of their original design, Riot has taken a sub-par approach by crippling/changing their original abilities and solo lane power, in favor of keeping them "less oppressive" when used as a support.

It's like if suddenly you found a way to make support Morde extremely OP in the bot 2v2 lane, and it caught on across the meta; then because of complaints about "Support Morde too oppressive", Riot decides to completely rework his abilities (again) and/or cripple his damage output, in favor of more "support friendly damage" and converting his skills to "teamwork utility" skills instead.

I don't know about you, but if that happened to a champion I loved to play, I'd be understandably pissed.

The LexerMay 26, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Bôôsted Bonobo,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IeTeLEyf,comment-id=001a,timestamp=2017-05-25T23:32:27.508+0000)

#Ummm.... what?

Ivern's whole kit revolves around clearing jungle camps, his primary role is Jungle not support.

Zyra has traditionally since her release been an AP mage designed for solo laning (hence her reliance on spawning plants for crowd control/farming)

Same with morg as above

Nunu's whole kit revolves around consuming jungle camps / monsters and his primary role has always been Jungle

Yet in the client, Nunu and Ivern are both currently under the "support" category, while Zyra and Morg are under the "mage" category.

Edge of DaybreakMay 25, 20172 votes

Now try telling people that being labeled an assassin doesn't prevent you from going for a fighter build. Enter the darkness.

Voluug13May 25, 20174 votes

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

PoskeMay 26, 20171 votes

Actually if you pick morgana mid I ll be an asshole and wont let you mid IDC

I dont allow subpar tier 10 midlane champs

KONO RUBICK DAMay 26, 20173 votes

you have no power to allow anything

PoskeMay 26, 20171 votes

People at my elo hate morgana as a champion because she is incredibly subpar COMPARED TO LITERALY ANY GODAMN SUPPORT

In midlane she is even more subpar this is not season1 morgana

I ll agree with solo lane morgana on Twisted treeling where she can go double doran Soil a wave and gank toplane from behind while clearing bot wave. She works there

But on summoner rift Mid Morgana is a troll pick. And as A mid Main while I have no power to forbidd anything. I am not gonna try in a game where morgana is mid even 1% or i ll just steal the role all together and sadly say some bad words to a team mate...

Picking Morg mid is "INTING"

Of course if its normal game i wont care