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I can't win games with Zoe

Error0x43690000·May 14, 2018·2 votes·2,241 views

Zoe is pretty strong in lanning phase of the game. I played a couple of ranked games with Zoe a week ago and I can always get early kills and eventually win the lane. However, when Zoe gets into teamfights, she can't do a lot no matter how she is fed because it is so hard for Zoe to throw her E to the enemy's ADC and eventually land a Q. Every time my Q was blocked by tanks and their ADC just have too much time to reposition himself to a safer place and also, taking damage will cancel the cc of Zoe's E. The long CD of Zoe's E also make Zoe useless in a teamfight because simply landing Q will not kill an ADC. Zoe is so hard to survive in a teamfight too because her cc has a short delay so she is bad at short range fight.

Other champions like have strong AOE or stable cc so they could help their team to win a teamfight after getting fed.

I am a sliver so my opinions might be incorrect, please give me some suggestions about how to win games with .

4 Comments

Perma CCMay 14, 20181 votes

Abuse her early game and roam... dont focus so much on your own lane. All you need to do is clear the wave and roam to impact other lanes... especially if you get early kills on the enemy mid laner. But yea... just keep your wave cleared and posiiton yourself on the warded side of the jungle so that you are always ready to roam to the lane in question. It keeps pressure on that lane and either nets you and your team kills if that lane over extends or just keeps the enemy at bay in that lane preventing them from going aggressive. Keep yourself aware of the enemy junglers movement as well and WARD up... communicate with the lane you want to babysit, tell them to ward as well.

And you can also roam with your jungle for more impact. ALSO just make sure you ping your own laner if they go missing.

SwiftCraneMay 14, 20181 votes

Just to add on to the other response of impacting other lanes, you can actually do well in teamfights too.

Don't always go for only the adc. You have massive aoe damage that can 1 shot most suishies especially when fed - poke their team.

This is hard to do if your team engages before you had a chance to poke them down (common in low elo) or if your team gets engaged on.

Your job is to make sure that if a fight happens the enemy is poked down enough that it will go in your favor. Another good way to play zoe is to abuse her 1 combo kill potential. Position yourself in the jungle (during a siege) if possible to always be a threat to the adc should they choose to move forward.

Most adc's and squishies won't want to run near a wall when they know a large stun->1shot can come out of it.

Past that, your poke is great and your cleanup potential (chasing and bursting down remaining lower health targets as the fight is ending) is crazy good.

Poop JellyMay 14, 20181 votes

You're right about her not doing much in teamfights and frail survivability when confronted. However, she has other strengths that should be focused on instead of dwelling on the weaknesses.

Zoe's an incredible catcher. Vision is arguably the most important thing to play her, with her or against her. She thrives on catching/poking enemies who aren't aware of her presence. Here are my tips on playing her:

Practice understanding the damage capacity, especially with distance, with bubble, with distance + bubble, etc. It's VERY important even if you can understand just a glimpse of her damage to decide whether it's wise to go for the kill, or just let the target be disturbed.
Practice when to smartcast and when not to use smartcast. Zoe's entire spell kit mainly revolves around skillshots so learning how to land them precisely is important to maximize her efficiency. However, sometimes you just don't have the luxuries like time or clear target to aim, so know when to use smartcast and when not to can either save you from a death, or take a kill from the enemies.
Practice positions. Be creative, move around, be aware of enemies' visions. You will catch a lot of enemies when they don't expect you from one angle to another.
Following up on smartcast mentioned above, KNOW YOUR SPELLS' DISTANCE. I'm talking about all 4 of her spells. A few notable distances to look into: Q + R, E up close, W, R over the wall.
The trick is to do the damage BEFORE or AFTER the teamfight. Zoe has a big poking and catching potential, maybe needs to be focused on that. Sometimes you don't even need to be present in a teamfight in order to join the fight. Utilize positions to land bubble, Q + R for finishing blows. If you successfully do so over and over, the teamfight should be in your favor.
Practice doing multiple things in that 1-second timeframe of your ult. Using Q + Q again then R allows you to autoattack and E to maximize damage. If you start getting familiar with this, you can afford to wait for a little to predict enemies' movement, then fire your E right before you jump back.
R is a great scouting tool, grants over-the-wall vision for one second. If you go support or want to place a ward, use this to do so at a safer distance.
Safety > Kill. This is one suggestion that I still can't fully control. It just feels so satisfying to kill or slap on big damage to an enemy with Q + R, or Q + R on E. But in a lot of cases I paid the price for being overzealous. Keep in mind of your positions and map awareness.

FertsaMay 14, 20181 votes

Zoe isn't a teamfighter, she's a picker, like most assasins are

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