Clarification on Zyra nerf in 7.3?
From the patch notes:
Once you've dodged (...or not) a spellcast, you've got a choice to make: stick around to take her plants out, or back off until they've despawned. That choice is heavily weighted toward running away, thanks to an aggressive AI pattern that told Zyra’s plants to always target nearby champions on-spawn, regardless of whether Zyra landed the ability that spawned ‘em.
I have played 664 ranked games on Zyra between season 5 and today, but I honestly do not understand what Riot is talking about. Current plant behavior is as follows:
- Enemy champ inside spawn area but not hit by spell: Plant targets champ for one attack, then targets nearest enemy.
- Enemy hit by spell: Plant attacks champ until out of range, then targets nearest enemy.
- Enemy champ outside spawn area: Plant targets nearest enemy.
The patch note specifically says that the enemy has to back off until the plant despawns. This is categorically false. The enemy only has to back out of range and then walk back in. The plant will never change target from minion to champion unless Zyra AAs an enemy champ while in range of the plant.
My best reading of this nerf is that we're going back to season 5 AI where plants will just shove the wave without an AA target. I'm fine with that, but the patch note is not clear at all. Will plants still attack champs hit by spells without AA direction? Was the single plant attack to champs in the spawn area really nerf-worthy when seeds are on a 24 second cooldown?
Lastly, plant hp and duration were cut in half with the update in large part because of the reliable AI. If the AI is going back to S5 status, I don't see why the W plant stats (not passive) aren't also reverted to S5 values.
