Nimbus Cloak does not work well with the current ultimate. It CC's her in place which defeats the entire purpose of being able to use your ultimate for a movement speed boost, it's anti synergy even if Nimbus Cloak only comes into affect after it ends. Not to say it can't work, there are situations in which it is useful(R to E over a long wall then use the MS to close the gap with Q), however from my own experience her ultimate has so many applications that Nimbus Cloak is going to constantly go on cooldown and won't be active when you could actually need it. Ult to pick up a drop just to be safe? Increasing Q damage for waveclear? Just overall making sure you can Q the cannon in time when coming back to lane? Safe warding in the fog of war? Nimbus Cloak will proc and go on cooldown.
Meanwhile using your W does not impair your movement, instead it amplifies it, and Nimbus Cloak would amplify it even further. Think of it like Singed ult + Nimbus Cloak, it doubles up on a strength he already has. Also most of the time you are only going to be using W versus champions so it won't be going off prematurely, and in combat MS is never bad if you know how to use it. And I'm sure if you play Zoe you have had plenty of times where you used your W proc purely for the MS part of it. Overall W would have a much bigger synergy than her R does.
When it comes to other runes. Nullifying Orb is situational and Manaflow Band is in my opinion really unecessary. I never take Manaflow Band and have no mana issues when I play Zoe. So if you are going Sorcery primary and don't think they have a big AP threat, then Nimbus would be a perfectly good choice.
Her W being great or not-so-great early is not what i was trying to show, it's the RNG that people hate. If Zoe gets lucky and gets protobelt+ignite
I didn't mean to come across as being against reducing situations like this. I'm all for toning this down, but this solution would really just bandaid delay the problem as opposed to actually fixing it.
or now she has two flashes because you had to use yours.
I disagree with this. Unless you are using your Flash prematurely, then you should either be recalling and going back to base because you were going to die, or Zoe herself is dead because you used it to help finish her off(or got ganked by a jungle but I'm keeping this to a 1v1 situation). In the first scenario, between your recall and walking back to lane, most of Zoe's Flash duration is going to be gone, if you just play more cautiously for about 10-20 seconds after coming back to lane(which you are most likely going to be spending farming a shoved in wave anyway) then there is no big free advantage on Zoe's part besides you being a Flash down. And that's not including that Zoe can shove in > recall as well and basically reducing Flash to a mobility tool to get back to lane slightly faster. In the second scenario where she died, Zoe cannot pick up Flash and she gains nothing.
First, only cannon minions should drop shards. This would stabilize her laning pattern, and give her opponents more consistent windows of power to deal with the ability. It would also reduce the RNG slightly.
I agree with this. It's a change I have tried suggesting multiple times.
In addition, this shard should drop regardless of whether or not she gets the last hit on the minion. This would help her out in the support role, which I personally enjoy, and it would make up for the fact she's getting less opportunities to get shards, AND it would help in the case of dick teammates who take your balloon minions (or non-dicks who don't know any better).
I disagree that it should drop if she doesn't get a last hit. Unless you mean only when an allied champion last hits it(so her laning phase is unaffected), then I agree with that as well, it would make mid-late game a lot less frustrating since most teammates apparently don't know that minions drop shards.
Second, her drops should be based around which summoners she initially took. While I don't know 100% how this would be mapped out, the basic premise is that she should be much more likely to get shards for the spell she already has, or similar ones.
I don't know how to feel about this, but mostly I don't like the idea. Most of the time you would want to pick Heal/Barrier to protect yourself from pre 6 all ins a decent amount of mids(mainly assassins) can do, being restricted and "punished" for that choice when you could be switching up to a more aggressive playstyle doesn't sound good. Ignite, Exhaust, Protobelt and somewhat GLP are also all stupidly powerful and getting them consistently because you picked Ignite would definitely make her kill pressure in lane skyrocket.
Also, item actives should not be made available as drops until at LEAST the 10 minute mark, perhaps even 12 or 15 depending on the item (protobelt vs. redemption vs. GLP).
I agree with this. They are already really rare drops (though GLP seems more common in my experience)but that just makes it feel even worse when Zoe gets them since they are all really powerful. I'm actually surprised she can use items at all through W (both minions and from enemy champions) since the main gimmick is meant to be summoner spell stealing. But whenever it's okay, balanced or simply can't be taken away because it would remove way too much power from her is something I can't really judge.
