I know she technically can be played mid even if most people aren't doing it. Considering this is an Ardent meta, I'm kind of surprised more of her mains aren't trying her out mid. So why isn't she seen there? What is she lacking?
Done256 votesShe needs lower bases and better scaling.
DeathBurst1 votesThat wouldn't just make Zyra a better Mid, it would also make her a worse Sup. Not cool.
Done252 votesThat wouldn't just make Zyra a better Mid, it would also make her a worse Sup. Not cool.
Good.
DeathBurst1 votesSays you. What about the 90% of her current playerbase playing her Sup?
Catastrop1 votesShe can't be both at the same time, it's one or the other.
DeathBurst1 votesWhy not? Other champs are viable in both lanes (or in Top and Sup), why Zyra couldn't be one of them?
Done251 votesWhy not? Other champs are viable in both lanes (or in Top and Sup), why Zyra couldn't be one of them?
Because they're mutually exclusive roles. Like being an ADC marksman and an APC mage at the same time.
Supports focus on utility scaling, damage dealers focus on...damage.
DeathBurst1 votesThat's some bullshit. Lux is healthily played in both lanes. Annie too. Velkoz too. Karma, Morgana, etc. Zyra could join that list.
Done251 votesThat's some bullshit. Lux is healthily played in both lanes. Annie too. Velkoz too. Karma, Morgana, etc. Zyra could join that list.
Lux, Karma, and Morgana are both battle supports with a heavy emphasis on utility. Snares, slows, and shielding are included in their kits.
Zyra has a snare and a heavily delayed knock up at best. Annie and Vel'Koz are just mages with good base damage values and heavy lv 6 burst.
Don't try and equate them.
DeathBurst1 votesYou're the one who presented "Supports" and "Damage dealers" as homogeneous and opposite, exclusive groups...
I'm not equating Zyra with any other champ, but if the champ I listed can work both as Supports and as Damage Dealers, so can Zyra. And if you finally refute your binary classification, well, we're back at square one.
Why not? Other champs are viable in both lanes (or in Top and Sup), why Zyra couldn't be one of them?
Linna Excel1 votesNo, there are multiple mid laners who work as supports. Champs designed as supports have problems leaving lane, but riot has no issues with non-supports like Zyra becoming supports.
Done251 votes[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VRnvArMW,comment-id=000200010001000000000001,timestamp=2017-10-11T19:13:43.169+0000)
No, there are multiple mid laners who work as supports. Champs designed as supports have problems leaving lane, but riot has no issues with non-supports like Zyra becoming supports.
Going bottom to aid the carry doesn't magically make you a support.
If you go by the origining Dota term, a support is someone with strong base values/utilities who needs little gold to function.
Back in the day Taric could literally 3 shot an ADC at lv 6 with his ult.
Over time riot has refined the support role away from this. Lower base values with a heavier emphasis on utlility.
There is a difference between support Soraka and "support" Malzahar. One brings utility with multiple forms of cc and team sustain, the other just brings lots of damage.
Chortle5 votesI used to be such a promoter for Zyra mid, but Riot is pigeonholing her into the support role so much that it's almost not even worth bothering.
She has so many more counters in mid than she does in bot lane. Most meta picks currently steamroll Zyra in mid.
Her plants got a mega nerf after her rework through their health and damage.
She still can do well mid, but it's a hell of a lot harder than just taking her support and going kill lane.
k wìx4 votesIn my opinion, I think Zyra is in a more respectable state than most would let on - In fact, I'd wager perception alone is playing a huge part of keeping her out of mid lane. She's got a lot of solid damage, and amazing lane control. Surprisingly solid poke. Whats keeping her from being a mainstream mid pick? 2 reasons.
1.) Her late game damage isn't up to snuff. She has fantastic control, but its delayed and requires some initial setup. **with ADCS being able to 2-shot most mids late-game, this means a mids ability to 'blow a target out' is paramount. ** So, until the meta shifts, or her burst goes up - its a big strike against her being taken mid. I DO think that with a really heavy tank/initiate setup team, she could be golden though. Sej Initiate + Zyra Ult + Support Ult = Super reliable Wombo.
2.) She's being outclassed by a lot of other mids. see: 
5050BS1 votesnote that all of those have hard CC or Shields or Untargetable or both.
Root and her one Knockup is not enough.
That and her main source of damage (plants) get killed in .2s
5050BS4 votesHer Plants AI and the Nerf to their targeting is why she is not played mid anymore.
Its so stupid. I miss her....
AccountaBilabudy2 votesHer Plants AI and the Nerf to their targeting is why she is not played mid anymore.
Its so stupid. I miss her....
This.
I actually have like ~110 games this season on Zyra, and about 80+ of those are Mid Lane Zyra.
Before the stupid AI nerf she was actually a GOOD midlaner imo. She had some nice match ups against popular picks like Yasuo, Ahri, Lux. You had (still do to some extent) very good kill pressure at level 3. If you could poke them a little prior to level 3, then hit a E+Q+WW+Ignite they are typically dead. And once she's ahead she always got kill pressure. Her level 6 burst with ult is basically an assassin.
Now though, her plants suck. Her damage on abilities is still okay with a Haunting Guise early but shes still squishy as fuck and super slow.
Mig891 votesI can agree. I played her mid on occasion last season and the plant AI nerf was huge for midlane zyra. She used to be able to harass by getting close with skill shots because the plants would land a hit or two. Now you have to land the spell to get the plants to attack. It made her more fair in the botlane because she cant just blatantly harass champs my throwing spells anywhere anymore but it also made her waveclear and trading significantly weaker for midlane. Im not against the change because im a support zyra main but this did basically kill her solo laning. I quit ranked once I hit gold but I was sitting on a 60%+ winrate this and last season on her. Another reason its rough going mid is the angle of her Q. Its hard to hit more than one set of minions and for how little damage it does early its just kinda useless. Her E is nice for wave clear but using it leaves her exposed for 8 or so seconds early.
JooshBox3 votesHonestly, I think reliability from her passive is keeping her out of mid lane. Let me explain since the seeds spawn randomly she can't control the wave as easily as she'd like. This isn't an issue on support Zyra because you are not trying to farm with plants you're trying to harass and catch out the enemy laners. Illaoi, for example, can control to an extent where her tentacles spawn. So she can play off her tentacles and set them up in a way allows her to make plays. Granted Zyra can spawn to seeds wherever she chooses, with her W. Anyways that's just my opinion, also she is really squishy and doesn't have an escape so she is really susceptible to getting camped.
Linna Excel1 votesWould a new passive and more seeds coming from her W fix her laning?
ZeichiVos3 votesSo there are a few things that make her, not necessarily a bad choice, but a mediocre one mid. Take these reasons with a grain of salt, as I am neither great at league nor have I played Zyra mid in quite a while.
Zyra tends to push the wave with her abilities. with more gank paths to ward and no mobility, shoving the wave in leaves her susceptible to ganks. When her plant targets off an enemy vhampion, it hits minions in range for the remainder of its life span. with the addition of random seed spawns, it's really hard to hit a champion without proccing a plant in range of the minion wave, and there's no way to stop them autoing minions. As such, her only way of escaping a gank is to save her e, which roots for a total of 0.75 seconds at rank 1. You either rank it up first, which means giving up on damage and still leaving yourself vulnerable when you clear a wave or trade with it, or you leave it at rank one and need to commit a melee plant to it to get it to properly dissuade the jungler. This not factoring in that it is slow enough to dodge at the edge of its cast range, so it's not quite a guaranteed cc ala Syndra stun.
Her wave clear is rather slow compared to most immobile mages, with a fair bit of her damage back-loaded onto her plants. as such, she needs to stay forward longer than her fellow mages to clear a wave. Meanwhile, mages with similar mobility issues tend to have higher ranges and/or clear the wave much faster. Viktor, Velkoz, Lux, Xerath, even some more mobile mages like Ziggs and Ahri, have the ability to clear casters with a single cast. This of course keeps her gankable for longer periods of times, as well as giving the enemy laner more time to punish her if she's behind, or force her off the wave and pray her plants get her the cs she needs.
Her base stats are some of the lowest in the game; mid laners with less health include Anivia, Lux, Veigar, and Heimer. Of those, all of them end up with significantly higher armour. Lux significantly out-ranges Zyra and has a shield for additional survivability. Anivia is given lower health to both weaken her early game and because of her passive. Veigar struggles early due to his scaling, but even he can clear casters fairly early with w, and is incentivized to use his fairly long range q on farming. Heimer... I don't know enough about this champ to explain why he's so squishy lol. Is he even a mid laner anymore? In addition, Zyra has pretty abysmal armour, and it scales poorly too, to an eventual 71. As far as mid laners go, the only mid laner with less armour than her are Orianna (minus passive resists from having the ball on her) And Azir (again with the range thing, but I guess theres a rework to change that, so I'll reserve judgement.) So she has a hell of a time against anyone with burst (ie: most of the mid lane roster) and has a particularly hard time against ad mids.
She has 2 damaging spells that provide her a ratio of 1.1AP, 1.8 with ult. These ratios are decidedly lackluster for the purposes of quick damage compared to similar mid laners. This is, of course, balanced around her plants, which add 0.15AP ratio per attack at an AS of 0.8, with plants after the first dealing reduced ratio equivalent to 0.075AP. The reason her ratios are kept comparatively low are twofold; she has pretty significant base damages to make her plants deal relevant damage in the early game, and her low burst is tempered by a significant potential for sustained damage with her plants, particularly with her ult's passive effect of increasing plant dmg. Without Ult, a plant at lvl 1 has a potential ratio of 0.6 over 5 seconds. The duratio goes up to 7.5 by lvl 16, giving a potential ratio of 0.9, with additional plants on the same target giving her an additional 0.3-0.45AP per additional plant. Her ult gives her plants an effective increase of 50%, bringing that up to a potential 1.35+0.675 per additional plant on a target over 7.5 seconds. So a significant portion of her AP ratio is backloaded into her plants, which tend to survive their full duration in the heat of a teamfight, unless they eat multiple aoe spells, due to their unique health mechanic. Not even covering her base damages, this is a hefty load of damage. Unfortunately for her, you'll never get anywhere near this much damage against a halfway competent opponent in a 1 on 1 (halfway competent including more of the population of silver than not.) So, her 1v1 laning suffers as a result. In the 2v2, things tend to get a little more hectic, allowing the plants to do more in the all in or extended trade. Her poke, by contrast, is met or beaten by similar mage supports (Brand, Sona in terms of her poke potential, Lux sort of, Annie once upon a time... there really aren't many mage supports these days, huh? If I'm missing any obvious ones, lemme know.)
Then of course is the factoid you hear all the time: Zyra has really high base damage. Lets look at how much AP you need to double your damage on her abilities, at max rank, shall we? Q- 333.33 AP E- 400 AP R- 500 AP Plant- 760 AP
I would argue that her base to scaling damage ratios are roughly in line with other mid laners on her q, e, and ult. The AP ratio on E is definitely on the low side, but that's not unusual for a hard cc ability. The really standout number there is her plants, which seem to be pretty significantly skewed towards base damage. The reason you hear about how Zyra's ratios favour base damage over scaling seems to be coming almost entirely from her plants. This is probably not entirely without merit, given how much of her damage is on said plants. In laning phase, when the abilities are doing more work than the plants, the ratios are a significant part of the damage. As the fights get bigger and plants take over, she oddly enough relies more and more on her base damage. This might explain why she looks at going on hit and utility items later in the game, with some pen to amplify her already existing ap damage.
Based on these reasons, I understand why she is seeing more play as a support, and struggle to see a solution that renders her effective in the midlane without draining that effectiveness from her support ability. If I were deadset on seeing her moved back to mid lane, I would suggest exploring some of the following avenues:
Anyways, that's my two cents, lol.
Linna Excel2 votesA lot of food for thought, but thank you for it.
Zyra tends to push the wave with her abilities. with more gank paths to ward and no mobility, shoving the wave in leaves her susceptible to ganks. When her plant targets off an enemy champion, it hits minions in range for the remainder of its life span. with the addition of random seed spawns, it's really hard to hit a champion without proccing a plant in range of the minion wave, and there's no way to stop them autoing minions. As such, her only way of escaping a gank is to save her e, which roots for a total of 0.75 seconds at rank 1
I'm not surprised you brought this up first. League is a game of minion control and Zyra is very weird in this manner. Unlike Azir and Heimer, Zyra has much less control over her turrets. I totally agree that her lack of high end burst and immobility in general is hurting her.
Her wave clear is rather slow compared to most immobile mages, with a fair bit of her damage back-loaded onto her plants. as such, she needs to stay forward longer than her fellow mages to clear a wave.
So she's literally put in a bad position for too long. I can see this being an issue.
From what I've played of her, backing off and letting the plants finish their job is rarely an option. They aren't long lasting enough or durable enough in the early game to do that, and for the people playing against her, I'm glad.
Her base stats are some of the lowest in the game
I haven't looked into this. I wonder why she's so weak. I mean with her old passive you got the true damage if you could hit it, but not anymore.
She has 2 damaging spells that provide her a ratio of 1.1AP, 1.8 with ult. These ratios are decidedly lackluster for the purposes of quick damage compared to similar mid laners.
Yeah, I kind of agree. But then again all of her damage skills are AoE and those tend to run weaker.
ZeichiVos2 votes[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VRnvArMW,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2017-10-09T23:15:23.585+0000) From what I've played of her, backing off and letting the plants finish their job is rarely an option. They aren't long lasting enough or durable enough in the early game to do that, and for the people playing against her, I'm glad.
Absolutely agree with you on this. Zyra's random plant poke is the least interactive part of her damage pattern, particularly in a 1v1. Her plants provide good zoning, which leads to interesting decisions in skirmishes and teamfights, but in lane they are almost exclusively used to just add a bit of damage to a trade while the enemy either clears them or walks out of range, whichever is faster. The most decision you can make is whether it's worth using resource to clear them, which is a pretty easily solved equation. That's why my first reccomended change was to increase reliance on the actual interactive skillshot portions of her kit.
I haven't looked into this. I wonder why she's so weak. I mean with her old passive you got the true damage if you could hit it, but not anymore.
I think it's in large part a relic from when she was a low counterplay mid pick. She was a strong pick in to assassins because her harrass against melees was and is incredibly frustrating to play against, with plants being much harder to deal with, ala Heimer turrets. In addition, her ult was pretty good for denying the engage, along with e. If an assassin got in, the idea was they deserved to hard chunk her. Nowadays her plant ai is tuned to only autotarget champs when they get hit by a skillshot or auto, which either entails her stepping in to assassin threat range, or burning her only cc on a speculative attempt at hitting them at range. Plants are still hard to deal with as a melee, and her engage is still strong, but the new plant AI makes her poke less adept at freely zoning a melee way off the wave.
Yeah, I kind of agree. But then again all of her damage skills are AoE and those tend to run weaker.
I mean, go look at Syndra's Ratios. Go look at Lux E, or Annie W, or Viktor E. Xerath Q/W, Cass Q, Ziggs Q... there are plenty of AoE damage abilities with moderately to significantly more ratio than Zyra Q, and often either higher base damage or some sort of slow. Most of these champs have higher ratios on their AoE abilities, and higher total ratios across their kits. Total AP ratios in the kit start to make perfect sense mind you, when you include full plant duration AP ratios. Her ratios certainly aren't nearly as low as seems to be made out, and I think the boards hivemind overstates the importance of this point (see the other comments below) which is why I made it last. That said, her abilities are certainly reliant on a few plant attacks to bring her damage numbers in line with her compatriots. Mid to late game, and even early game in a lot of bot lane scenarios, the plants tip her base damage and ratios into better than the average ability, thus Support Zyra does crazy good damage throughout the game and in the post game screen often tops the damage charts bar the winning adc. With just the abilities and one or two plant attacks, those numbers start to look a bit dicier.
inplane3 votesRiot should just ditch 
's shitty passive idea and give her more seed charges on W, make the plants a bit stronger in terms of HP, lower base damage on spells, higher scalings on spells, and a Q that doesn't have the most awkward shape in existence.
Titanium701 votesWell... in general the idea is a good one. But the implementation is bad. It should work similar to Taliyahs Passive. (In a positive way ofc)
Where ever she walks or casts spells she awakens the ground gaining bonus effects. (But that's a rework nothing that would help her solo laning)
inplane1 votesWell... in general the idea is a good one. But the implementation is bad. It should work similar to Taliyahs Passive. (In a positive way ofc)
Where ever she walks or casts spells she awakens the ground gaining bonus effects. (But that's a rework nothing that would help her solo laning)
It would make Support a lot healthier by not having random shit appearing out of nowhere. The idea of randomly spawning seeds is terrible. If seeds spawn on spell casts or something like that, then it would be a lot more tolerable for both the enemies and the player.
Jeanne fan club3 votesI was a zyra main last season, although I only played her support I feel like i can answer the question.
Her lvl 1 base damage on her abilities is extremely low, so she is incapable of shoving waves.
That's pretty much just it, her waveclear is pretty bad until later in the game.
The one other thing i can think of is that she is like if xerath had less range, she is immobile and she has to get pretty close to the enemy to do damage. Although I understand brand annie and cassio all function the exact same way, zyra is entirely skillshots, increasing the risk of killing yourself when you decide to go in.
Zyra mid isn't bad, its just that she is easier to abuse with full magic penn in support.
Linna Excel1 votesHer lvl 1 base damage on her abilities is extremely low, so she is incapable of shoving waves. That's pretty much just it, her waveclear is pretty bad until later in the game.
I'm thinking this is a result of her being a support now. Because you have to let the ADC farm, you can't have too much wave clear on a support anymore. Look at soraka pre-rework and post. Before she was very much able to shove in a lane. Afterwards, not so much. I'm thinking Zyra's gotten the same treatment without giving her a complete VGU and resetting her identity.
The one other thing i can think of is that she is like if xerath had less range, she is immobile and she has to get pretty close to the enemy to do damage. Although I understand brand annie and cassio all function the exact same way, zyra is entirely skillshots, increasing the risk of killing yourself when you decide to go in.
I don't mind her being all skill shots. Based on what everyone is saying though, hitting a skill shot isn't as potent on her.
Jeanne fan club1 votes[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VRnvArMW,comment-id=000b0000,timestamp=2017-10-10T02:51:07.870+0000)
I'm thinking this is a result of her being a support now. Because you have to let the ADC farm, you can't have too much wave clear on a support anymore. Look at soraka pre-rework and post. Before she was very much able to shove in a lane. Afterwards, not so much. I'm thinking Zyra's gotten the same treatment without giving her a complete VGU and resetting her identity.
I don't mind her being all skill shots. Based on what everyone is saying though, hitting a skill shot isn't as potent on her.
I don't think that her being a support makes her waveclear bad, I think that her having bad waveclear makes her a support.
Yeah her being skillshots isnt a bad thing, but it makes her unreliable in certain matchups. Also idk what people are talking about when they say skillshots aren't as potent on her, honestly at almost any point in the game you can one shot someone wtih E W Q ult combo. Might just be my full penn build but i always end up 1 shoting people with my full combo rather consistently.
Nefas3 votesI don’t think she is seen mid because Riot has nerfed her damage heavily -because her abuse cases are very similar to Heimer. Both Zyra and Heimer do most of their damage from sources other than themselves (ie plants and turrets).
Trades with most champs on a basic level are simple since the champion is entire focus. With Zyra and Heimer, a trade can be destroying a turret or plant so a trade may not actually involve trying to damaging Zyra or Heimer, but spending spells/attacks so you can have a chance to attack them directly. This is most pronounced for melee since there is often nothing they can do to avoid plant/turret damage, but that damage has to be low so that there is a reasonable chance at destroying the plant/turret and then getting to attack Zyra/Heimer.
Malzahar and Yorick are easier because their minions are melee and much more focused (only really strong when combined with either Malz/Yorick E) whereas Zyra/Heimer are stronger zones of control. Not sure that Zyra’s damage can be buffed without her becoming abusive.
Linna Excel1 votesI don’t think she is seen mid because Riot has nerfed her damage heavily -because her abuse cases are very similar to Heimer. Both Zyra and Heimer do most of their damage from sources other than themselves (ie plants and turrets).
Trades with most champs on a basic level are simple since the champion is entire focus. With Zyra and Heimer, a trade can be destroying a turret or plant so a trade may not actually involve trying to damaging Zyra or Heimer, but spending spells/attacks so you can have a chance to attack them directly. This is most pronounced for melee since there is often nothing they can do to avoid plant/turret damage, but that damage has to be low so that there is a reasonable chance at destroying the plant/turret and then getting to attack Zyra/Heimer.
I see where you are coming from here. I think Zyra is a little different than heimer in that her plants don't feel as rough to play against. Playing against her, they seem about right while playing as her they feel a little too weak. But at least zyra doesn't feel as bad as playing aginast heimer unless she hits you with her E. I feel like Heimer's zones are a little stronger as well as persistent.
She's also different from Azir whose solders need to be manually controlled, which brings me to her other turret problem: because of her passive, she's got less control over her plants.
Malzahar and Yorick are easier because their minions are melee and much more focused (only really strong when combined with either Malz/Yorick E) whereas Zyra/Heimer are stronger zones of control. Not sure that Zyra’s damage can be buffed without her becoming abusive.
I agree with you on the first part but I've got no idea on the second part.
Nefas1 votesI would say way back Zyra mid was much more common, plants did feel pretty rough - especially the easy liandries proc. But I would agree that now they aren’t nearly as much of a pain.
The randomness of her passive definitely seems like a problem. I think her entire seed placement system needs a reimagining though, as well as how she interacts with her plants. I’ve seen posts mentioning Taliyah worked ground - which could definitely be interesting in a reversed fertile-ground where multiple plants in a close area become stronger. Maybe also linking Zyra’s health to the plants in some way (which could maybe thematically work) if the plants are to be longer lasting as a means of clearing waves. If she just clears with q and e she might as well be just about any skill shot mage.
I’m not a Zyra player so my suggestions have little weight but I play other minion-mancer champs so I’ve always been interested in her theme. Probably would try and pick her up if she was able to go mid more successfully.
Darkdemon6532 votesLower base damage and higher scaling
Titanium702 votesWell the traditional way for this problem:
Lower Range, Lower CDs, Lower BaseDMG Increase BaseStats, Increase Scalings
-#Azir Treatment
But tbh.. I dont see that working in a good way... sadly. Current Mid is in a bad state. As long as Zyra does nothing entirely different from others... there no real reason to pick her over the likes of Syndra as long as shes not OP.
Zyra suffers SO MUCH from league of mobility.. it's not even funny. Her roams are only good post 6 and her reliability is quite low. Her waveclear also sucks compared to other mids.
Linna Excel1 votesZyra suffers SO MUCH from league of mobility.. it's not even funny. Her roams are only good post 6 and her reliability is quite low. Her waveclear also sucks compared to other mids.
I think a lot of battlemages have problems with mobility. Zyra has those problems with the damage and waveclear problems.
Catastrop2 votesShe needs better scalings and lower base damage on plants. One of the primary reasons Zyra Support is favoured is because a Support Zyra with just 
does 80% of the damage full ap Zyra does, so it's just better sense to send her bot on a supports income since she doesn't need much and let a more powerful mid laner have the income from mid.
Not only that, but her damage is kind of unreliable for a midlaner. As a mid mage you want someone who can immediately provide damage and utility in nice compression of roles, Zyra can achieve the latter part nicely but the former requires a but of set up. While that isn't a bad thing, target priority is a very important thing to have as a midlaner and while Zyra has amazing utility, she isn't going to be blowing up a priority target as easily and efficiently as a standard midlaner.
Quepha1 votesMove an enormous amount of power out of her plants so they no longer auto push the lane out to where she'll get destroyed by literally any gank, instead put that damage into the direct portions of her spells i.e. Destroy the most unique and iconic element of her kit and make her play patterns more generic and boring.
5050BS1 votesI like the idea of pulling the damage out of her Plnats.
But then make the plants play a role in her damage like Rooted targets take more damage from her or She is healed x% if she roots a target.
Change the Spitter Plants to do more control on targets it attack then damage that then let Zyra do damage with her attacks.
LankPants1 votes+0.1 AP on plants, -2 damage/level. Super easy.
Linna Excel1 votesWouldn't too much AP ratio on plants cause problems though?
LankPants2 votesA 0.25 ratio isn't too much, a 0.15 is way too low.
Just to put this into context it currently takes 760 AP for Zyra to double the damage her plants deal. With the change I'm suggesting this number would be reduced to 312, which is more in line with most AP abilities. It would break even at 20 AP/lv, so at level 18 you'd deal the same damage with 360 AP.
This is pretty much a straight nerf to Zyra TBH, what it's designed to do is balance out the power levels of Zyra support and mid, at which point you could give other buffs, likely base and ratio to Q in order to balance the change out.
Linna Excel1 votesAh, cool. Sounds reasonable to me.
PopcornBunni1 votesShe'd need things to encourage sololaning. Things like plants killing a unit granting extra gold, restoring mana, or lowering cooldowns. She'd also need things to incentivize building mid mage items, instead of the couple of pure AP and the rest utility that she synergizes with better.
A part of the latter could be addressed with AP itemization in general, as the utility options for mages often work better for their kits and thus result in them going support.
T2theMan1 votes0 mobility, almost no safety in teamfights due to her needing to be in midrange to do anything. Unreliable CC, Ult is meh, inconsistent damage.
DunkinNoobs1 votesGiven how immobile she is, her 1v2 isn't strong enough to be played much mid.
Athenes Lulu1 votesAnyone with decent waveclear early on can weed out her plants easily. Most botlaners don't have that, which made Zyra much more attractive to botlane.
Something to think about...
Linna Excel1 votesSo is it a question of how do you make the plants more durable against waveclear without making them oppressive? Or maybe it's another question. Seems like every other post in this thread is talking about the plants are the issue. I'm starting to wonder if the plants need to be reworked from the ground up.
Athenes Lulu3 votesIt can branch to many questions, but plant interaction and counterplay is the main issue, on top of having a cc-centric ult whose damage isn't as "bursty" as compared to say, Orianna.
I'm also thinking that it could be her ult that made her more support-centric because of how little "dueling capability" it offers. Orianna's ult IS cc-centric, but can hit pretty hard (and oneshot ADCs easily lategame). Karma's ult amplifies anything she does, and in a dueling environment, she can still make a good use of it with RW or RQ. Morgana is the closest to having a mostly telegraphed and utility based ult, but if you stick close enough (since it slows people with tethers) you can still pull off a 1v1, in which it has some damage as well.
Zyra, on the other hand, has a massive ult that's pretty easy to dodge, and doesn't really do much damage on its own. Most mages don't need tedious "setting up" to duel using their ult, while Zyra does. In the end, she might as well be a support with how unreliable her ult is damage-wise.
Her ult should be more reliable damage-wise, because even supports like me can easily run away and avoid her damage completely.
Friendly Ram1 votesMaybe her plants can have actual health?