Zyra in season 5

TheLastBaron88·Apr 20, 2015·12 votes·2,614 views

So my understanding is that Zyra was intended to be a mid laner. Her high utility and base damage also made her appealing as a support, yet after just a few nerfs to her base damages, she is no longer seen played in either role.

So my question is, if she's supposed to be a mid laner, what matchups and team comps is she to be played in, and why would you choose her over another mid? In theory, her kit should allow her to zone enemies just as Orianna, Syndra, and Heimerdinger are able to do. Trouble is, her plants don't last long at all, are very, very easily killed, and will only attack champions when you are autoattacking them (putting you in range of their abilities and defeating the purpose of using them to zone) or there are absolutely no minions around, in which case they will be farming from a safe distance with ease. For a mage with no mobility or tankiness, Zyra's damage is easily avoided and her base damages are highly underwhelming for how difficult it can be to land.

It just seems like a champion with as cool a theme and kit as Zyra's deserves a better pick rate than Urgot. I mean, we're talking about a champion popular as recently as Season 3 and is nowhere to be seen. Even just some small QoL changes would probably do the trick. For instance, allowing her plants to prioritize champions, so they can't simply drop aggro by walking back and then killing them. Maybe some changes to her plants to make the use case for the different types more distinct. Or, in the interests of making visual cues meet expectations, make Rampant Growth provide more durability to affected plants so they can actually survive in team fights, or increase their damage output? Honestly the 50% attack speed boost seems so weak, I didn't even know her ult buffed her plants at all until a few months ago.

Lastly, and this is more in keeping with my own personal interest in diversifying jungle picks (as well as strategic diversification), but Zyra technically CAN clear the jungle, although her early clear is painful and dangerous, and even a minor mistake can result in an execution. As the only possible Mage jungler in league right now ( I don't think Morg can do it anymore, and Nidalee and Diana are more like assassins), is there any chance she could get some buffs versus jungle camps? That way even if she can't be well balanced as a competitive mid laner or support, she could at least have a viable, if niche role in the game. Something as simple as allowing her Q to knockup or stun jungle creeps could be enough, or maybe an increase to her damage vs monsters. Something jungle-specific, like what was done for Nidalee.

Oh, and the massive delay on her passive makes it clunky and horrible feeling. If it's worth saying once, it's worth saying a hundred times I guess. Seriously, it's already a skillshot with a small hitbox.

32 Comments

Baron of BreadApr 20, 20156 votes

As the only possible Mage jungler in league right now

item 3070 Fiddlesticks

Drunk RummateApr 20, 20153 votes

I've always liked Zyra as a support. Her base damage is really high and her synergy with Liandry's makes it so she really doesn't fall off in damage at any point in the game.

The reason I don't think Zyra is fit to function as a primary AP carry (namely, mid lane) is because the damage from her plants is really inconsistent. They'll shoot a champion and then change their minds, auto attacking minions instead. You can get your plants to target someone, but you have to auto attack them to mark them and that's generally a very bad idea if you're Zyra. And honestly, what kind of APC wants to auto trade with a Graves at ANY point in the game?

So yeah, if they improved her plant AI I could see her becoming a ruthlessly good mid laner, but until then I'm happy with her as a lane bully and poke support.

GodhriApr 20, 20153 votes

While I agree that she definitely needs some work, I still think she is viable and strong. Due to her squishiness, she would likely often die in an all in by a ganker and her opposing laner; however, due to her kit, she can also achieve a double kill as well if she has everything up including her ultimate and hitting her passive. I don't get double kills like that often, but I do get them often enough to know that it is significant when considering her strengths as a mage.

Also, if you consider how other summoned pets work such as Heimer's Turrets, Yorick's Ghouls, Shaco's box and Malzahar's Voidlings, her plants really do seem very inferior.

For example, Malzahar's damage is hardly dependent on his voidlings. They are just extras that make farming easier and yet they are much harder to kill and last much longer than Zyra's plants.

Yorick's Ghouls last just about as long if not a bit shorter than Zyra's plants but they stick on their targets much easier resulting in more hits per casts and less avoidable hits.

Shaco's Boxes dish out more damage per successful cast than Zyra's plants can at lower levels. They also attack at a much higher speed and last a little longer in terms of durability. In addition to all that, they have fear which allows for many more hits even though they are not as crucial to Shaco's kit as Zyra's plants are to hers.

Heimer's turrets deal a bit less damage than her plants per hit but they have higher dps even without Heimer's ultimate than her plants do. They last longer or indefinitely if not destroyed and on top of that, they have a beam attack that contributes to their overall dps. According to League Wiki, Heimer's turrets have a 525 attack range which is shorter than Zyra's plants which are 750 I think and yet, her Q plants seem to only ever get 1 hit in before the enemy goes out of range even if you land her Q on point. Both Heimer and Zyra depend on their summons (Heimer probably more so than Zyra).

When you consider all this and consider that Zyra is highly dependent on her plants, it makes you wonder why other champions who depend less on their summons get more durable summons that output more dps (Damage per second; do not mistake this for burst damage) per cast than her summons. This means that the overall damage dealt by her plants is less than that of the summons of other champions who do not rely on their summons as much unless of course she ults but that is assuming her plants aren't destroyed immediately after their first attacks which is often the case.

So my suggestion is to increase plant durability and add some sort of re-engage mechanism for her plants as Zyra's auto attacking re-engage mechanism is very risky despite her range.

U Just Got SlainApr 21, 20153 votes

I personally love Zyra, but after reading through all the previous discussion, I would like to agree with points made about her weaknesses outweighing any of her advantages.

In high level play Zyra is camped 24/7. Why? She has one of the lowest base movement speeds, no reliable cc outside her ult, and her super low base health. These, combined with just a smidge of cc will result in Zyra's death in most ganks. She is way too squishy and vulnerable in her laning phase to deal with one opponent, let alone two. It has also been mentioned in this post that Zyra, while having many counters, does not truly counter/play exceedingly well against another champion. This is because her kit allows her so much counter play. From dodging her Snare, to moving out of plant range, to even avoiding her AoE knock up, Zyra is easily played against.

I do concede that her CC is amazing and her AoE damage is amazing, but so are many other mages. Zyra's trade offs are way too high! Not to mention buggy plants and a buggy passive! Never mind her constant nerfs, albeit one buff, Zyra has been beat down repeatedly by the nerf bat.

I feel as though exploring Zyra's QoL changes and even some minor buffs will greatly increase her play and allow some room to breathe. While I do admit Zyra can be an oppressive champion at times, so can a lot of others, which is why we need to explore changes. To leave a champion in the dark in a playable but weak state is not the way we should handle situations! I think a little time and dedication will really push Zyra far and help her become more enjoyable =].

TheLastBaron88Apr 24, 20152 votes

^This. Basically I feel like there is a problem when you cannot find a singular instance in why you would pick this specific champion over every other option. I feel like that would be the optimized state of champion balance in league, when you can find such an instance for every champion.

DanofDemaciaApr 20, 20152 votes

The only problem I've really had with zyra jungle is mana issues and the first camp since you don't have a plant. I would personally like for them to get rid fo zyras passive and move her w to her new passive and that would give her room for another move since her kit just feels like itS lacking a little something

manbearswineApr 20, 20152 votes

{quoted}

The only problem I've really had with zyra jungle is mana issues and the first camp since you don't have a plant. I would personally like for them to get rid fo zyras passive and move her w to her new passive and that would give her room for another move since her kit just feels like itS lacking a little something

Well there is also the fact her ganks are weak and it's well risky for her to even attempt to gank,as meeting the enemy jungler can very easily result in your death.

I do however agree that as far as clear goes your only problem is level 1.

AbyssphereApr 20, 20152 votes

{quoted}

The only problem I've really had with zyra jungle is mana issues and the first camp since you don't have a plant. I would personally like for them to get rid fo zyras passive and move her w to her new passive and that would give her room for another move since her kit just feels like itS lacking a little something

How would her W be a passive? She needs to press a button to plant a seed, what button do you press for a passive?

5000000000000000Apr 20, 20152 votes

Make a plant when it hits a target, I guess. That means less utility for the seed, though. No free wards.

DanofDemaciaApr 21, 20152 votes

{quoted}

How would her W be a passive? She needs to press a button to plant a seed, what button do you press for a passive?

Her q is where ever you set it and her e would be on first enemy champion hit or when it reaches the end. I was thinking even a new plant for her ult.

manbearswineApr 20, 20152 votes

{quoted}

So my understanding is that Zyra was intended to be a mid laner. Her high utility and base damage also made her appealing as a support, yet after just a few nerfs to her base damages, she is no longer seen played in either role.

So my question is, if she's supposed to be a mid laner,

Was intended to,but I get the feeling it changed to support as time progressed,and she's pretty bad at that too.

But well,riot insists that she's strong and that everyone is too stupid to see it,so don't expect any buffs.

AerothalApr 21, 20151 votes

She is one of those champions that are actually not to easy to master. if you have over 1k games on her you understand that. Zyra WAS designed as an AP mid. She did so well in fact, that she has only been nerfed. then the LCS took her botlane and it was downhill from there the one little buff she got was actually offset by a bigger nerf in the same patch. she also got item nerfed a couple of times (banner of command, spirit of the elder Lizard) Her w used to give her 20% cdr. that was nerfed to 10 just revcently. she is still strong if you know how to play her. but its not easy and there are better choices.

manbearswineApr 22, 20152 votes

{quoted}

She is one of those champions that are actually not to easy to master. if you have over 1k games on her you understand that.

Most champions are this way,I get that everyone loves to think his main champion is rocket science,but zyra is somewhere in the middle as far as learning curve is concerned.

Zyra WAS designed as an AP mid.

I really don't think that is as important as you think it to be,a champions identity is defined by his playerbase,a large portion of which is as a support,and also a solid amount being mid.

She did so well in fact, that she has only been nerfed. then the LCS took her botlane and it was downhill from there

I think you are exaggerating the impact of lcs here a bit,I've been playing support zyra since late s2.

the one little buff she got was actually offset by a bigger nerf in the same patch. she also got item nerfed a couple of times (banner of command, spirit of the elder Lizard) Her w used to give her 20% cdr. that was nerfed to 10 just revcently.

Eh...okay?(even though I don't think any of those items was particularly core on her)

she is still strong if you know how to play her.

I completely disagree with that

but its not easy and there are better choices.

The issue here is that these choices aren't slightly better,they are WAY better(especially for mid lane),if you are significantly better than your opponent(or you get lucky(/better teammates and whatnot)) you can get a good result on her,but she is really underwhelming at the moment.

To elaborate on why I think she's so bad I'm just gonna quote myself:

",but anyway her main issue is:

Her weaknesses are glaring,persistent and plentiful(she rotates slowly,is very vulnerable to being picked off and is weak against anything which isn't a teamfight/dive comp(as in poke/splitpush/pickoff comps)),her strengths on the other hand are filled with holes: she's supposed to be an attrition based mage,but a lot of champions melt her plants with aoe without even trying to. she's supposed to be focused on disengage/counterintiation,but her kit isn't good at dealing with hyper mobile champions,which is often what she needs to disengage from.

Her laning phase(both as a support and a mid laner) is very unsafe,she has some very hard matchups in both of these roles(leona/karma(support) or zed/leblanc(mid)) but she herself doesn't really counter anything(and in fact is generally in a disadvantage during laning,unless the matchup is something very specific),granted she can work rather well vs some things,but not anywhere as good as her counters work against her.

To make things worse her level 1 is absolute shit,and good players can often force a big advantage from this(I'm not sure how apparent this is in the lower elos).

In conclusion(and tl;dr) her weaknesses just completely overwhelm her strengths.

It might be worth noting that as far as meta compatibility goes zyra is now the strongest she's been since her nerfs,with tanks seeing much more play both her disengage and her being an attrition based mage(after all fights are prolonged) fit much better into the meta,yet pros would still rather pick support nautilus over her(naut is mentioned as reminder that pros aren't locked on an old meta,if zyra is strong she would be picked,but she isn't.),and with the cinderhulk/sion/hecarim nerfs it's all downhill for her,and she already is completely ignored,she needs buffs,not excuses or swagtalk about how she's strong and everyone is blind."

CindikleApr 20, 20152 votes

{quoted}

So my understanding is that Zyra was intended to be a mid laner. Her high utility and base damage also made her appealing as a support, yet after just a few nerfs to her base damages, she is no longer seen played in either role.

Zyra's nerfs were not that hard and were not the reason she is rarely seen as a support. This is a misunderstanding by a lot of people.

Her damage was barely touched and mostly shifted. While it in fact was nerfed, it was not nerfed that much for Mid Zyra. The biggest nerf she got was her R no longer stunning after the knockup(Alistar does this if you want a comparison).

So what changed? The whole meta did. S4 brought a lot of things with it. Biggest one was support changes. It's not that Zyra got weaker, it's that what countered got a lot stronger. Zyra was always weak to engage supports. But those supports often needed to build tanky and that required items. S4 made this a possibility as well as giving some of them(mainly Leona) scaling with their new found income. While a lot of other supports got nerfed to match the items they'd get. Not only did her counters get stronger, the champions she was good vs got weaker. This overall is still the same. A few changes were made, but engage tanky supports is still on top. And by quite a bit. Nami and Janna are about the only exceptions. Janna is Janna. And Nami has always been in a "good" place. Don't think she's every been OP or UP. Her kit is strong, flexible and plenty of counterplay to allow it.

So my question is, if she's supposed to be a mid laner, what matchups and team comps is she to be played in, and why would you choose her over another mid? In theory, her kit should allow her to zone enemies just as Orianna, Syndra, and Heimerdinger are able to do. Trouble is, her plants don't last long at all, are very, very easily killed, and will only attack champions when you are autoattacking them (putting you in range of their abilities and defeating the purpose of using them to zone) or there are absolutely no minions around, in which case they will be farming from a safe distance with ease. For a mage with no mobility or tankiness, Zyra's damage is easily avoided and her base damages are highly underwhelming for how difficult it can be to land.

You pick her when you want a strong teamfigher with CC. She is also a good pick if you want to be safe and ganks are not as much of a worry(avoid Vi for example).

Far as her plants, if you land the ability that procs the plant, they will automatically target the champion. Zyra also has a great AA range and animation for a mage, making it easy to change your plant's attack target.

When you want to avoid Zyra is when the enemy can easily clear your pets. Karthus is probably the worst IMO. He can easily destroy your plants, he can sustain his mana better, his CC is more reliable(although not as effective). Zyra's main weakness is in her laning phase. She's amazing in teamfights and does OK mid game(her roaming isn't impressive but her objective control is great).

Overall just play safe early game, be sure to keep warding and just farm. Never harass with E. If you fear the enemy will dive you save your R for that. QW for poke when you're about to have a seed generate. If you're not needing to use it for harassing, use it for vision in random enemy bushes.

It just seems like a champion with as cool a theme and kit as Zyra's deserves a better pick rate than Urgot. I mean, we're talking about a champion popular as recently as Season 3 and is nowhere to be seen. Even just some small QoL changes would probably do the trick. For instance, allowing her plants to prioritize champions, so they can't simply drop aggro by walking back and then killing them. Maybe some changes to her plants to make the use case for the different types more distinct. Or, in the interests of making visual cues meet expectations, make Rampant Growth provide more durability to affected plants so they can actually survive in team fights, or increase their damage output? Honestly the 50% attack speed boost seems so weak, I didn't even know her ult buffed her plants at all until a few months ago.

That AS buff is actually massive. Her plans overall are worth a cast every 2 attacks(50% for every extra plant), give or take level/ap(since it doesn't scale on rank). Having two plants out, A WWQ is worth 1.75 spells, if both plants attack twice that's 2.5 spells. This is all for the mana cost of one spell. (Second plant's damage is 50% if you're wondering where the fractions are coming from). These plants can continue to attack. With the range on Q's plants this is easy to achieve. Each plant's AS is 0.8. This means about every 1.25 seconds you are casting a Q on your enemy that is getting hit by both plants. With R this becomes every 0.8 seconds. This is why magic pen is so strong on her. And why she can preform so well in damage as a support. Her plants damage adds up very fast.

E and R are worth roughly 3 seconds worth of CC. That's about 4 attacks from two plants. It's like landing 2-3 more Q's on the enemy they attack. All while CC'd and unable to run away. You'll probably get at least 2 more attacks from each plant before they are out of range or kill them. By that time your Q is back up, maybe another seed.

This is why they wont auto-target champions just because they are in range. You have to manage this. Easiest way is to just AA the champion, the plants will follow up. Other way is to land the ability that spawns the plan on said champion. I believe they will assist you if you get attacked as well.

Lastly, and this is more in keeping with my own personal interest in diversifying jungle picks (as well as strategic diversification), but Zyra technically CAN clear the jungle, although her early clear is painful and dangerous, and even a minor mistake can result in an execution. As the only possible Mage jungler in league right now ( I don't think Morg can do it anymore, and Nidalee and Diana are more like assassins), is there any chance she could get some buffs versus jungle camps? That way even if she can't be well balanced as a competitive mid laner or support, she could at least have a viable, if niche role in the game. Something as simple as allowing her Q to knockup or stun jungle creeps could be enough, or maybe an increase to her damage vs monsters. Something jungle-specific, like what was done for Nidalee.

I think the easiest way to do this is to make Seeds spawn with the jungle camps, ones that don't grant vision if stepped on. Or at the start of the game and they have a long respawn timer. Making an enemy jungler taking that seed a possible big deal. I don't think she'll ever become meta because she doesn't have reliable ganks. But with her vision control she'd make a strong counter jungler, or a counter-counter jungler.

Oh, and the massive delay on her passive makes it clunky and horrible feeling. If it's worth saying once, it's worth saying a hundred times I guess. Seriously, it's already a skillshot with a small hitbox.

Completely agree on this and I don't think many people would say otherwise.

Make work like Varus/Xerath's Q. Where the range is further the longer she waits to use it. But reduce the delay greatly. I don't mind those long range shots being hard to land. I mind that they can walk our of range of the shot before i can fire it.

manbearswineApr 20, 20154 votes

{quoted}

Zyra's nerfs were not that hard and were not the reason she is rarely seen as a support. This is a misunderstanding by a lot of people.

Yeah no,as someone who used to play zyra a lot before(and finds her unplayable now,even if I do pick her occasionaly,which feels absolutely horrible) the zyra nerfs were MASSIVE,and very much the reason she disappeared,q damage nerf,q range nerf,w cdr cut in half,ult cc duration decreased,plant damage in lane lowered,she has no laning phase anymore,any competent support player who knows how she works can walk all over her easily(to some extent her being so bad causing low popularity makes people forget how she works,so that's something)

Her damage was barely touched and mostly shifted. While it in fact was nerfed, it was not nerfed that much for Mid Zyra. The biggest nerf she got was her R no longer stunning after the knockup(Alistar does this if you want a comparison).

it was shifted in the lategame(to her plants,somewhat),her early got butchered.

So what changed? The whole meta did. S4 brought a lot of things with it. Biggest one was support changes. It's not that Zyra got weaker, it's that what countered got a lot stronger. Zyra was always weak to engage supports. But those supports often needed to build tanky and that required items. S4 made this a possibility as well as giving some of them(mainly Leona) scaling with their new found income. While a lot of other supports got nerfed to match the items they'd get. Not only did her counters get stronger, the champions she was good vs got weaker. This overall is still the same. A few changes were made, but engage tanky supports is still on top. And by quite a bit. Nami and Janna are about the only exceptions. Janna is Janna. And Nami has always been in a "good" place. Don't think she's every been OP or UP. Her kit is strong, flexible and plenty of counterplay to allow it.

You're completely wrong here,zyra(with her core liandry's,and her disengage) kit-wise was always great against tanks,in fact when she got nerfed it was basically a trinity of zyra-sona-thresh(who is a tank),you are right that leona destroys her in lane and that a stronger leona means a weaker zyra,but that's where things end,kit-wise(currently she lacks the numbers,and these guys can just run her through early on) zyra works okay vs braum,morgana,thresh,annie(this one somewhat debateable),nami,janna,blitz yes leona destroys her in lane,but that's it.

You pick her when you want a strong teamfigher with CC. She is also a good pick if you want to be safe and ganks are not as much of a worry(avoid Vi for example).

I'm not sure if this is about mid support or both.

To elaborate(if that's needed),I'm gonna quote some other post of mine:

",but anyway her main issue is:

To make things worse her level 1 is absolute shit,and good players can often force a big advantage from this(I'm not sure how apparent this is in the lower elos).

In conclusion(and tl;dr) her weaknesses just completely overwhelm her strengths.

CindikleApr 21, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Yeah no,as someone who used to play zyra a lot before(and finds her unplayable now,even if I do pick her occasionaly,which feels absolutely horrible) the zyra nerfs were MASSIVE,and very much the reason she disappeared,q damage nerf,q range nerf,w cdr cut in half,ult cc duration decreased,plant damage in lane lowered,she has no laning phase anymore,any competent support player who knows how she works can walk all over her easily(to some extent her being so bad causing low popularity makes people forget how she works,so that's something)

it was shifted in the lategame(to her plants,somewhat),her early got butchered.

Please don't use that line. I played her quite a bit in S3 as a mid lane mage. I actually did worse as a support(probably from mid lane habits).

Just because you played her doesn't make you an expert. And you are exaggerating the nerfs.

Yes her early game damage was hit and given more scaling. Overall it was a nerf as she rarely builds the amount of AP needed to get that damage back. But it wasn't that large of a nerf. She lost 5/10/15/20/25 damage from her Q. Every bit counts, but that's hardly massive. Not nearly enough to turn her from top 3 supports to trash. This damage is returned on her plants later in the game. As well as a scaling buff. Again, I agree, overall a nerf on Q. But overall damage was buffed late game, and nerfed early game. Which is fine, her plants damage adds up.

W's CDR was overkill. Between Athene/Morello, masteries and her W she was always over the cap. Top it off she always ranks this last. After she has her items. This nerf really didn't matter.

Q's range loss was shifted to E. It buffs her lock down a little but lowers her poke. A trade off overall.

Ult losing it's ending stun is saddening, but I'm OK with it overall. It's dumb for it to have so much CC(3 with Rylias).

Her l lanning phase as a mage was ALWAYS weak. You have to play safe, and play around your spells. Being overagressive vs someone who knows what to do will get you killed or ganked. She farms safe and zones with her plans. Then becomes a powerhouse later in the game.

Again, only significant nerf she got was the stun on her R.

This mostly effected her teamfighting, which is still VERY strong.

You're completely wrong here,zyra(with her core liandry's,and her disengage) kit-wise was always great against tanks,in fact when she got nerfed it was basically a trinity of zyra-sona-thresh(who is a tank),you are right that leona destroys her in lane and that a stronger leona means a weaker zyra,but that's where things end,kit-wise(currently she lacks the numbers,and these guys can just run her through early on) zyra works okay vs braum,morgana,thresh,annie(this one somewhat debateable),nami,janna,blitz yes leona destroys her in lane,but that's it.

Yes, after items she will do well vs tanks.

As a support she got pushed out of bottem lane because she doesn't have what she needs. And Thresh was banned 60%+ of the games at the end of S3. Although I would agree was the 3rd of the trinity, he was a rare factor.

S4 brought the trinity of Leona, Thresh and Annie. The only one of those 3 Zyra could do well vs was Thresh. Other two would easily lock her down and burst her. Thresh was in his own league for a while at that time as well. While Zyra wouldn't lose as hard, she didn't match his utility and she did not counter him in the slightest.

The main forces of the bot lane really haven't changed much in what is good. CC+tanky. Not even S3 Zyra would fit the meta now or S4.

I'm not sure if this is about mid support or both.

To elaborate(if that's needed),I'm gonna quote some other post of mine:

",but anyway her main issue is:

Her weaknesses are glaring,persistent and plentiful(she rotates slowly,is very vulnerable to being picked off and is weak against anything which isn't a teamfight/dive comp(as in poke/splitpush/pickoff comps)),her strengths on the other hand are filled with holes: she's supposed to be an attrition based mage,but a lot of champions melt her plants with aoe without even trying to. she's supposed to be focused on disengage/counterintiation,but her kit isn't good at dealing with hyper mobile champions,which is often what she needs to disengage from.

Her laning phase(both as a support and a mid laner) is very unsafe,she has some very hard matchups in both of these roles(leona/karma(support) or zed/leblanc(mid)) but she herself doesn't really counter anything(and in fact is generally in a disadvantage during laning,unless the matchup is something very specific),granted she can work rather well vs some things,but not anywhere as good as her counters work against her.

To make things worse her level 1 is absolute shit,and good players can often force a big advantage from this(I'm not sure how apparent this is in the lower elos).

In conclusion(and tl;dr) her weaknesses just completely overwhelm her strengths.

It might be worth noting that as far as meta compatibility goes zyra is now the strongest she's been since her nerfs,with tanks seeing much more play both her disengage and her being an attrition based mage(after all fights are prolonged) fit much better into the meta,yet pros would still rather pick support nautilus over her(naut is mentioned as reminder that pros aren't locked on an old meta,if zyra is strong she would be picked,but she isn't.),and with the cinderhulk/sion/hecarim nerfs it's all downhill for her,and she already is completely ignored,she needs buffs,not excuses or swagtalk about how she's strong and everyone is blind."

All of this is fine, again, she is a powerhouse late game. She is meant to play safe early game. Not aggressive. If you manage to poke enough for a kill that's a different story. But don't go off expecting to get fed early game.

She got away with this as support because she had a second person there.

manbearswineApr 21, 20155 votes

{quoted}

Please don't use that line. I played her quite a bit in S3 as a mid lane mage. I actually did worse as a support(probably from mid lane habits).

Just because you played her doesn't make you an expert.

Well I'm diamond and have more than 1k game one zyra...that's gotta count for something right?

And you are exaggerating the nerfs.

Not really,she wasn't that strong even back then,in solo q her highest banrate was like 1%,in competitive at the peak of her power she got I think 3 bans at worlds(in contrast to thresh who had 22 I think),she wasn't that strong to begin with(though she was strong),and then they dropped a massive blanket nerfs,of course it went too far.

Yes her early game damage was hit and given more scaling. Overall it was a nerf as she rarely builds the amount of AP needed to get that damage back. But it wasn't that large of a nerf. She lost 5/10/15/20/25 damage from her Q. Every bit counts, but that's hardly massive.

You'd be surprised how much that is actually,syndra lost 20/15/10/5/0 damage on her q and we almost never see her anymore.

Not nearly enough to turn her from top 3 supports to trash.

add to that plant early game damage loss,range loss on q,cc loss on her ult,and her w cdr getting cut in half,and it does.

I'm not even sure why there is sense in arguing over this,we've seen so many supports in the competitive scene lately,there was even a kennen somewhere,but zyra? no,they know better than that.

This damage is returned on her plants later in the game.

That's not really a tradeoff for a support,their early game is far more important.

As well as a scaling buff. Again, I agree, overall a nerf on Q. But overall damage was buffed late game, and nerfed early game. Which is fine, her plants damage adds up.

No it isn't,a competant support player will just run you through early,ignite thresh just runs at you through creeps at level 1(the good ones at least),you have no hp,no damage,no ms,nothing.

W's CDR was overkill. Between Athene/Morello, masteries and her W she was always over the cap. Top it off she always ranks this last. After she has her items. This nerf really didn't matter.

Her old strength came from what she used to have,people always forget that,should I remind you how bad her base stats are? champions kits are looked at as a whole,she already lost a lot of power from all the other nerfs,this just made things worse.

Q's range loss was shifted to E. It buffs her lock down a little but lowers her poke. A trade off overall.

No it wasn't,it was shifted to w,totally not worth it.

Ult losing it's ending stun is saddening, but I'm OK with it overall. It's dumb for it to have so much CC(3 with Rylias).

Yes,her cc is dumb Braum Leona Thresh Janna Nami .

Her l lanning phase as a mage was ALWAYS weak. You have to play safe, and play around your spells. Being overagressive vs someone who knows what to do will get you killed or ganked. She farms safe and zones with her plans.

Her laning as a support is garbage as well.

Then becomes a powerhouse later in the game.

Someone complains against amumu->you tell him not to group and git gud and people agree with you,but do the same for zyra and suddenly nothing is clear. Zyra's lategame is far from a powerhourse,if your opponents are morons and play to your strengths then sure,tell me however,what can zyra do against a poke comp? a splitpush comp? a pickoff comp? hell even a very hard engage (malph/rengo+ori) she doesn't do well against,just because sometimes your opponents are morons and play right into your strengths doesn't make the champion strong,it's their fault for not playing on your weaknesses,which you have metric fuckton of.

Again, only significant nerf she got was the stun on her R.

her q nerfs were huge,so were her w nerfs,the plant early damage reduction also is pretty bad.

This mostly effected her teamfighting, which is still VERY strong.

Fine,you tell zed how strong you are when he ignores you completly and deletes your adc,that's if he doesn't crush his lane and snowball other lanes first that is. And no,they completely crippled her laning.

Yes, after items she will do well vs tanks.

Not true,her plants have high bases,and her big aoe and slow cc(which is good against things which aren't very fast and have a large hitbox),her kit is pretty much targeted at tanks(attrition mage,remember?),even without items.

As a support she got pushed out of bottem lane because she doesn't have what she needs. And Thresh was banned 60%+ of the games at the end of S3. Although I would agree was the 3rd of the trinity, he was a rare factor.

She was still often picked against him,her kit works well against him actually,numbers...not so much.

S4 brought the trinity of Leona, Thresh and Annie. The only one of those 3 Zyra could do well vs was Thresh. Other two would easily lock her down and burst her.

Zyra's kit mostly works fine vs annie,as she outranges her...but early s4 annie had such high numbers you basically needed leona/a tank to survive her burst,but that was again an issue with numbers(though mostly with annie's).

Thresh was in his own league for a while at that time as well. While Zyra wouldn't lose as hard, she didn't match his utility and she did not counter him in the slightest.

Due to the way thresh's hook works(notable delay,then a fast moving skillshot) zyra can often block it with e+w,so she does counter him slightly...he is also a tank,and again...attrition mage...

The main forces of the bot lane really haven't changed much in what is good. CC+tanky. Not even S3 Zyra would fit the meta now or S4.

I can assure you s3 zyra would,you know why? because she was a stronger version of nami,and nami works,you are completely wrong about blaming the meta here,zyra fits perfectly into it(in fact it's nearly optimal),but she has been overnerfed SO HARD nobody is willing to touch her.

All of this is fine, again, she is a powerhouse late game.

Except that she isn't,she is only as strong as your opponent is stupid,if they insist on 5v5 in mid lane it's their own damn fault,splitpush,poke,look for picks,zyra is bad against all of these things,don't play into her strengths.

She is meant to play safe early game. Not aggressive. If you manage to poke enough for a kill that's a different story. But don't go off expecting to get fed early game.

yes and the enemy adc/support will just stare at you,it's a long lane,either fight for it or get completely zoned.

She got away with this as support because she had a second person there.

No,wtf? she was a lane bully as a support.

CindikleApr 21, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Well I'm diamond and have more than 1k game one zyra...that's gotta count for something right?

It does when put that way. I just hate seeing people claim they know everything about the champions and the only thing they say to back it up is "I play that champion a bunch".

Not really,she wasn't that strong even back then,in solo q her highest banrate was like 1%,in competitive at the peak of her power she got I think 3 bans at worlds(in contrast to thresh who had 22 I think),she wasn't that strong to begin with(though she was strong),and then they dropped a massive blanket nerfs,of course it went too far.

I'd agree she was slightly overrated. But that doesn't mean she got massively nerfed. She got a few taps for the most part.

You'd be surprised how much that is actually,syndra lost 20/15/10/5/0 damage on her q and we almost never see her anymore.

There's a few more factors in play than that. But ya, that was a bad change. She's always been balanced around having a strong early game. They nerfed that, her E and removed DFG. She got zero compensation for these nerfs yet she was honestly barely viable to begin with. She just was able to survive the meta, didn't really counter it.

Her Q should of lost 20% of it's radius, returning at rank 5. Keeps it's power, but gives it more counterplay. Riot likes that kind of thing.

E would probably be OK if they'd do some bug fixes.

DFG IMO wasn't that big of deal on her. It made it easier to play her poorly.

add to that plant early game damage loss,range loss on q,cc loss on her ult,and her w cdr getting cut in half,and it does.

CDR on W was ignorable. Generally overkill.

Ult CC did hurt her, but it still fills the same roll. A big zone of "don't touch here".

Early damage was lowered, but this is fine. This thread is mainly about Mid Zyra. Damage wise she came out fine in mid. She still has amazing damage with plant managing at all points of the game. She's still poor as support because she's easily countered.

I'm not even sure why there is sense in arguing over this,we've seen so many supports in the competitive scene lately,there was even a kennen somewhere,but zyra? no,they know better than that.

I'm more surprised Kennen hasn't been used before. Mana free. Good poke. Good AoE. Good CC. Diving him helps him CC. Gains some tankyness in his kit. Or maybe he has, but I wasn't aware. I know he was a common ban in Korea before NA started using him. Annie was the same way at the end of S3.

That's not really a tradeoff for a support,their early game is far more important.

True, but again. This thread is about mid Zyra. Even with that damage I don't think she'd be viable in the current game. To me this means that she could see buffs for the mid lane.

Her old strength came from what she used to have,people always forget that,should I remind you how bad her base stats are? champions kits are looked at as a whole,she already lost a lot of power from all the other nerfs,this just made things worse.

Still an insignificant nerf.

No it wasn't,it was shifted to w,totally not worth it.

Only for support Zyra(gone over this already).

Yes,her cc is dumb .

Never said she had too much CC. Just that the stun wasn't needed. I'd rather see a buff to E's missile speed to make it easier to use R rather than R get a CC buff.

Her laning as a support is garbage as well.

It was OK. But she was able to get away with more as a support than a mid laner. As long as she had proper vision setup to avoid ganks.

Someone complains against amumu->you tell him not to group and git gud and people agree with you,but do the same for zyra and suddenly nothing is clear. Zyra's lategame is far from a powerhourse,if your opponents are morons and play to your strengths then sure,tell me however,what can zyra do against a poke comp? a splitpush comp? a pickoff comp? hell even a very hard engage (malph/rengo+ori) she doesn't do well against,just because sometimes your opponents are morons and play right into your strengths doesn't make the champion strong,it's their fault for not playing on your weaknesses,which you have metric fuckton of.

Zyra mid can easily out damage the ADC. Yes she has counters, No she wont fit into every comp. No champion does unless it's Lee Sin or J4. In those cases you'll have to hope your team as a whole can deal with it. Not just you.

her q nerfs were huge,so were her w nerfs,the plant early damage reduction also is pretty bad.

Fine,you tell zed how strong you are when he ignores you completly and deletes your adc,that's if he doesn't crush his lane and snowball other lanes first that is. And no,they completely crippled her laning.

Zed's on his own level, has been for a while. A little weaker since tank junglers came into power. But that doesn't change his stupid early game.

Skipping the rest as this thread is again about mid Zyra.

I agree, support Zyra got hit harder than mid Zyra. No I don't think those nerfs were THAT bad either. Not enough to keep her out of the meta for a year and a half from being top 3. The support meta does not favor her. Even if her kit is strong at stopping tanks, it doesn't stop enough. Her E and R have a delay that can be avoided. As well as predicted since it's often used to protect the ADC. Mid Zyra does it a little differently. She's much more likely to be offensive on her CC and AoE. Similar to Orianna.

manbearswineApr 21, 20154 votes

{quoted}

I'd agree she was slightly overrated. But that doesn't mean she got massively nerfed. She got a few taps for the most part.

I'm not sure what a massive nerf is supposed to look like if what zyra got wasn't one.

There's a few more factors in play than that. But ya, that was a bad change. She's always been balanced around having a strong early game. They nerfed that, her E and removed DFG. She got zero compensation for these nerfs yet she was honestly barely viable to begin with. She just was able to survive the meta, didn't really counter it.

after some reversals to her buffs and the fact she wasn't particularly dfg reliant it's rather obvious that what screwed her was the 20 damage loss on early level q,zyra lost a lot more.

Her Q should of lost 20% of it's radius, returning at rank 5. Keeps it's power, but gives it more counterplay. Riot likes that kind of thing.

her q has enough counterplay as is,doing that would've given the same results as what they did.

E would probably be OK if they'd do some bug fixes.

I actually think it bugs now less than it did before the nerfs(still does so a considerable amount). fun fact:sion e is incredibly bugged in the same manner.

CDR on W was ignorable. Generally overkill.

Depends on what you were building,and order of said build,but mostly it wasn't the case,it opened a bunch of build path at best,made her cdr go from 35% to 40% at worst.

Ult CC did hurt her, but it still fills the same roll. A big zone of "don't touch here".

So does syndra current Q,it still fills the same role,but it's weaker,that's generally what nerfs do.

Early damage was lowered, but this is fine. This thread is mainly about Mid Zyra.

Mid zyra is so bad I don't even like talking about her(orianna/etc was better than her even before her nerfs),but the thread is about "zyra in season 5",it starts with the misconception that zyra is intended only as a mid laner but those things happen.

I mean even when zyra was a really strong support and you could have the element of surprise by going mid with her she was almost never used that way competitively.(only copenhagen wolves did it,I think)

Damage wise she came out fine in mid. She still has amazing damage with plant managing at all points of the game.

People tend to obsess over damage,damage doesn't win games,objectives do,and it's a bit too easy to zone her from them.

She's still poor as support because she's easily countered.

Um...she's even more easy to counter mid than as a support? having fun playing against all of those le blancs? ahri? fizz? zed? yasuo? hell even syndra and xerath should easily destroy you(though syndra will need to be good).

I'm more surprised Kennen hasn't been used before. Mana free. Good poke. Good AoE. Good CC. Diving him helps him CC. Gains some tankyness in his kit. Or maybe he has, but I wasn't aware. I know he was a common ban in Korea before NA started using him. Annie was the same way at the end of S3.

I'm not sure,he's squishy,don't have much interest in him but I wouldn't expect him to become a serious support pick.

True, but again. This thread is about mid Zyra. Even with that damage I don't think she'd be viable in the current game. To me this means that she could see buffs for the mid lane.

I don't think she will ever see buffs,riot seems pretty insistent that she's good and we are all blind,that goes for both lanes.(It's rather apparent from an old certaintlyT post+the patch note when they made her plants show their range)

Never said she had too much CC. Just that the stun wasn't needed.

Nothing is ever a must,but if you take power away(in any form) from a champion who isn't strong(which she wasn't after all of the other nerfs she got),that's always going to be a stupid move.

I'd rather see a buff to E's missile speed to make it easier to use R rather than R get a CC buff.

I doubt that would happen,considering when it was nerfed morrelo said it was the way she should've been released anyway,but you never know.

It was OK. But she was able to get away with more as a support than a mid laner. As long as she had proper vision setup to avoid ganks.

She still does,just is a really risky pick in both lanes without much to show for it,basically a bunch of weaknesses and strengths you can easily go around.

Zyra mid can easily out damage the ADC.

I get that people love hating on adcs,but most mages(xerath orianna,even ahri) often do that.

Yes she has counters, No she wont fit into every comp. No champion does unless it's Lee Sin or J4. In those cases you'll have to hope your team as a whole can deal with it. Not just you.

Right now,both as a mid laner and a support,she fits into no comp,a bunch of crippling weaknesses and nothing to show for them,her competitive and solo q presence comes from a reason,that reason is her being bad.

Zed's on his own level, has been for a while. A little weaker since tank junglers came into power. But that doesn't change his stupid early game.

Even without his early he would still destroy her with his roam and splitpush,ahri and leblanc with pick offs and roam,xerath with his superior range,orianna with her versatility.

I agree, support Zyra got hit harder than mid Zyra.

but then again support zyra also had more than mid zyra.

No I don't think those nerfs were THAT bad either. Not enough to keep her out of the meta for a year and a half from being top 3. The support meta does not favor her. Even if her kit is strong at stopping tanks, it doesn't stop enough. Her E and R have a delay that can be avoided.

Whereas nami does? Her kit fits very well into the meta,but she has A LOT of weaknesses coming in all form and she just doesn't have anything to offset them.

As well as predicted since it's often used to protect the ADC. Mid Zyra does it a little differently. She's much more likely to be offensive on her CC and AoE. Similar to Orianna.

mid zyra is so easily outrotated it's just painful,at least support zyra can go for mobos,mid zyra can't afford even that.

CasriApr 26, 20152 votes

Thanks for opening up the discussion, it's worth talking about.

In my experience, Zyra support is fine. She has fairly good match-ups, even with the more difficult match-ups, there is a ton of outplay potential just due to the 2v2 nature of botlane (2 people, 2 times the mistakes). Provided that you itemize well, you should deal a ton of damage going into the mid-late game and provide good utility/peel. She functions similarly to Nami/Sona/Lulu but sacrificing friendly utility for more damage, so no major issues here.

Zyra mid however is in a pretty bad state. This is due to a combination of factors: lowest move speed in the game; no mobility tools; very slow casts/projectiles and long delays on all abilities; a terrible passive; she's the second squishiest champion in the game; her plants are unreliable, they can only be directed through auto-attacks; her plants are killed/die way too quickly, especially in the late-game due to random AoE in teamfights... the list goes on. These weaknesses are accentuated by the increased mobility champions have been released with for the past 2 years or so - Zyra's sluggishness becomes very noticeable.

Very few champions have this many weaknesses to counteract their strengths, Zyra has so very many. She has only been made to have so many because Riot have been balancing her as a support , not a mid laner as she was designed, since 2013. The reality is, Zyra support and Zyra mid currently share the same strengths, but as a support, Zyra is punished much less for her mistakes than Zyra mid is.

In the mid-lane, Zyra is fairly easy to get on top of and she has no means of defending herself outside Zhonya's and her easily avoidable CC. Even long range mages who are supposed to be easy to kill once you're in range of them are safer than Zyra (Xerath/Vel'Koz - 340 M/S, fast CCs, Ziggs- satchel charge, Lux- 5 more M/S, shield). This means she's always camped by the jungler and unlike Zyra support, she's a primary target and she doesn't have an ADC there to help her out.

I could talk about this for ages, but I think I've mostly highlighted the major issues. In terms of fixes/buffs, I would mostly be looking for quality of life changes rather than fundamental overhauls. Zyra has a great kit but it's hugely inhibited by the glaring weaknesses. I wouldn't want ALL of these to be implemented as it would make her too strong most likely, but just one or two could help a lot.

Increase movespeed to 335 (as it was on release in 2012) or 340
Increase E projectile speed slightly
Remove the DAMAGE DELAY on R and slightly decrease the knockup delay OR increase the cast range
Rework passive into something useful OR increase the projectile speed, reduce the delay, increase the width, increase the damage
Buff base hp/armour
At levels 6/11/16, increase seed storage limit by 1/2/3 or reduce the storage time
At levels 6/11/16, increase plant hp by 2/3/4
Increase plant attack speed/make more reliable (attacking immediately upon summon, no delay/plant confusion)
Introduce some interaction between Zyra's ult and seeds for more options/tactical decision making.
Reduce the 50% damage reduction when plants attack the same target

TheLastBaron88Apr 27, 20152 votes

Hey np, thanks for participating in it!

Yes, your post basically covers my thoughts on the subject, save for one. That is to say, I actually prefer champions who don't fit into the mobility meta, such as Galio, Varus, Zyra, Darius, etc. I really love playing the champions with the raw strength and utility to outplay or straight up dumpster mobility champs in fights.

Basically I think it's fine for her to have low movespeed and no mobility, as long as her damage and utility are able to make up for this. The way Riot has been balancing her is aggravating because they have to take strength off of her burst pattern to keep her balanced in the bot lane, but her plant ai and low plant hp wrecks the theoretical strength of her sustained damage, meaning she is really only as strong as her burst pattern currently, which is all skillshots and therefore inherently unreliable against players who are paying attention to her, as in the mid lane. Because of the way her damage is distributed, she has always felt to me like a skillshot burst mage, with her plants being kind of tacked into her kit so that she can have a theme. Specifically, there doesn't seem to be any particular reason to choose one type of plant over the other. They both do the same amount of damage and have the same attack speed. One has slightly less range in exchange for a miniscule slow, whoopdedoo. Giving vine lashers some kind of stack on attacks that leads to a root could be nice I guess, give them some more utility. And honestly just giving Thornspitters more range is crap; it really only makes it the right decision to use them if you are poor at positioning your plants properly. It's more of a crutch than anything else. How about some kind of stacking tank-shred? That way she at least has a place in the meta for chipping away at tanks with her sustained damage.

I do think you have a point about her ultimate. The range really is a bit shorter than it feels like it should be, and thus is very easy to avoid if you aren't already committed into a fight. Plus it doesn't feel very good having to get up in the enemy's face as one of (if not THE) most squishy and easily punished mages in the game in order to make the big plays. Plus they have to stay inside the radius for quite a while just for you to land the knockup, which doesn't even stun anymore. Really, that leaves her only practical CC as a slow-traveling root, which doesn't stop enemies from casting their own abilities or killing her with autoattacks, compounding the frustration of playing an immobile squishy mage.

Actually the more I think about shifting her kit into the jungle, the more sense it makes. She has:

-an awful solo lane phase -very high scalings for mid/late game -high utility and sustained damage for team fights, with plenty of cc -a placeable vision granting ability (seeds) -minions that can tank jungle camps -a reasonably good clear once she picks up small ap items

If they could do something to smooth out her early clear she would be a more difficult but much more useful jungle karthus.

CasriApr 29, 20152 votes

I actually prefer champions who don't fit into the mobility meta, such as Galio, Varus, Zyra, Darius, etc. I really love playing the champions with the raw strength and utility to outplay or straight up dumpster mobility champs in fights.

This is interesting and I hadn't really considered it initially, but I agree with you a lot here; outplaying the mobile, meta champions with smart decisions and such is very gratifying. My concern is that with Zyra, it's not just the fact that she herself is slow and without mobility, her entire kit (except for Deadly Bloom and her great auto attacks) is slow. I think that if Riot want to emphasize immobility as a champion's weakness, it's important that the tools that the champion does possess in their arsenal are quick, responsive and reliable. Almost none of Zyra's are, including her 'core mechanic' of plants.

Basically I think it's fine for her to have low movespeed and no mobility, as long as her damage and utility are able to make up for this. The way Riot has been balancing her is aggravating because they have to take strength off of her burst pattern to keep her balanced in the bot lane, but her plant ai and low plant hp wrecks the theoretical strength of her sustained damage, meaning she is really only as strong as her burst pattern currently, which is all skillshots and therefore inherently unreliable against players who are paying attention to her, as in the mid lane. Because of the way her damage is distributed, she has always felt to me like a skillshot burst mage, with her plants being kind of tacked into her kit so that she can have a theme.

Her plants definitely do come across sometimes as being a gimmicky afterthought rather than a core aspect of her kit. They're awkward in that they change her identity and role in a team, at least in theory. Zyra is a utility/CC mage with strong AoE burst while the plants should serve to add an aspect of sustained damage during the downtime of her burst; however as we've discussed, due to issues of plant unreliability - this aspect of her kit can't always be utilized effectively. I sense that if Riot were to take a serious look at Zyra's kit, they would want to take her in one of those directions and highlight it, while downplaying other aspects, shifting her power budget. For example with Cassiopeia, her identity as an AoE poisoner with some decent single target damage was changed to high, reliable single target with some AoE. Seeing as Riot have expressed interest in emphasizing Zyra's plant-mage role, I suspect that her burst combo would suffer to shift power into her plants. If they did this, they would likely have to make plants not only more reliable, but more complex. So a tank shredding %health damage feature could be added.

The thing which most irritates me about plants currently is their inconsistency. Sometimes, after spawning a plant, it will just sit there for 2-3 seconds even when surrounded by enemies and this is something which has been happening for a looong time. Plants can't move, they attack slowly, they deal pretty low damage... at the very least they should be responsive and aware as soon as they are spawned.

Specifically, there doesn't seem to be any particular reason to choose one type of plant over the other. They both do the same amount of damage and have the same attack speed. One has slightly less range in exchange for a miniscule slow, whoopdedoo. Giving vine lashers some kind of stack on attacks that leads to a root could be nice I guess, give them some more utility. And honestly just giving Thornspitters more range is crap; it really only makes it the right decision to use them if you are poor at positioning your plants properly. It's more of a crutch than anything else. How about some kind of stacking tank-shred? That way she at least has a place in the meta for chipping away at tanks with her sustained damage.

Her plants definitely are too similar. I would advocate ramping up the vine lasher slow as well as giving vine lashers more health; they're basically melee, they have to be able to take some hits. Vine lashers in theory are good at tank-shredding if you purchase item 3151 but the reality is that they're taken down way too fast and due to the slow being kind of sucky, you can just run past them without much trouble. Also, personally when I'm doing a full combo it's hard to spawn the desired plants and I always just end up with two of the same depending on whether my Q or E hits first. The thing is, it largely doesn't matter because the plants don't have a hugely unique identity, especially if you have item 3116 ; besides, if the enemy survives the combo, they can just walk outside of plant range. It could be interesting if her ultimate gives each plant a secondary aspect, on top of the attack speed increase, or even if it just accelerated their current features (higher range on thorn-spitters, stronger slow on vine-lashers).

I do think you have a point about her ultimate. The range really is a bit shorter than it feels like it should be, and thus is very easy to avoid if you aren't already committed into a fight. Plus it doesn't feel very good having to get up in the enemy's face as one of (if not THE) most squishy and easily punished mages in the game in order to make the big plays. Plus they have to stay inside the radius for quite a while just for you to land the knockup, which doesn't even stun anymore. Really, that leaves her only practical CC as a slow-traveling root, which doesn't stop enemies from casting their own abilities or killing her with autoattacks, compounding the frustration of playing an immobile squishy mage.

Her ultimate used to have a greater cast range but it got nerfed stupidly, which is why it feels awkward. My issue is that if you land a root, you have to full combo immediately or they escape your ult before they're knocked up. This can be an issue in lane as the root duration is stuck at 0.75s until level 10. Unless you flash to get in range/get a better ult which is harder to escape, your combo is pretty shaky overall. It makes me sad because Zyra's ult used to be so fun - it could be cast alone without any prior CC and still function. Since release it's had the radius, cast range, damage and CC nerfed to the point where if your targets aren't locked down, it's not going to do anything at all.

Actually the more I think about shifting her kit into the jungle, the more sense it makes. She has:

-an awful solo lane phase -very high scalings for mid/late game -high utility and sustained damage for team fights, with plenty of cc -a placeable vision granting ability (seeds) -minions that can tank jungle camps -a reasonably good clear once she picks up small ap items

If they could do something to smooth out her early clear she would be a more difficult but much more useful jungle karthus.

I have experimented with Zyra jungle (in normals) quite a few times. As long as you get a really good leash on your first camp, you can do a very safe clear if you set it up so that your plants tank the large monster of a camp and you tank (and kill first) the small ones. I've tried a few builds and the one I liked the most was Ranger's trailblazer:Magus, Sorc shoes, RoA, Zhonya followed by two items of your choice/depending on the situation. The main issue is that basically all of Zyra's items are expensive, so if you fall behind/get heavily invaded, you can have a lot of trouble becoming useful or staying relevant. Luckily her ganks are excellent and her teamfighting is pretty great, engaging the enemy can be an issue though unless you have righteous glory/your top or support can engage for you.

TheLastBaron88Apr 29, 20152 votes

I think if they were to shift her damage into a sustained damage / control mage kit, she would almost certainly need some kind of spellvamp mechanic from her plants to stay in those long fights. As-is, I think she is way too squishy and vulnerable for her to fill that role. Idk.

Very good point about her Ult having unique effects on different plants. I really like that idea, especially as a way to further accentuate strategic decisions for her.

Heckin SupportApr 20, 20151 votes

She was meant as a support, and when people found out she was a decent mid laner riot was like "No, she's a support" and hit her.

Edit: Guess I was wrong. I was always told by my friends she was meant as a support.

SpongebobIsLifeApr 20, 201512 votes

mmm no she was designed and intended to be a mid laner.

GodhriApr 20, 20154 votes

Pretty sure it was the other way around lol. Riot saw her being used as a support a lot and because her damage was so oppressive in lane, they hit her damage values in order to reduce her lane presence as a support. This inevitably affected her mid laning (obviously) despite their claims that it shouldn't affect it.

LankPantsApr 21, 20152 votes

I'll allow Phreak to prove you wrong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9DLY0Qrcm4

MrBuffingtonApr 20, 20151 votes

Pretty sure Morg can clear jungle still, as can Brand, Karma, Malzahar, etc. People will often complain about mana, but it isn't like Nidalee, Gragas, Amumu, Nautilus, etc. don't have mana issues either; it's absolutely possible to jungle as a mage. I'm with you though, if we want to see more mages in jungle, they're going to need jungle-specific buffs instead of just mana. Generally, though, I think mage junglers are going to have a difficult time in this meta just because tanks are so powerful late game, mages generally need resources to scale into late game, and tanks naturally counter the burst damage of mages. This is kind of why you see Gragas being played as a tank instead of a mage/fighter in the jungle, tankiness is just more favorable right now.

Regarding Zyra, though, I feel like her defensive and harass abilities are better than her flat out offensive abilities; she's more about controlling a fight instead of just getting in and going ham on everything, at least imo. I honestly think she'd be pretty good in the current meta (maybe not god tier but powerful still), just because of her powerful disengage ability and strong sustained damage, she just hasn't been touched by the FOTM magic wand yet. I think it's deceptive to gauge her health just based off play rates or something; she's still a powerful pick in the right hands (54% win rate among professional players, as listed on Probuilds, and 52% in the general playerbase as listed on LoLKing).

That being said, I'd love it if she got a different/more useful passive, maybe some other small tweaks

Earl EulrichApr 20, 20151 votes

She´s still damn broken and can fullfill any role you wish, if anything she needs a straight nerf (and yea, she´s my go to Champ to abuse in the 10 placement matches each season).

VelasanApr 21, 20151 votes

Well for her ult you could either...

Make the plant release toxic spores that burn champions near it for a percent of your hp thus setting up the inevitable death shot.

They could add healing spores that heal the rest of your team in a team fight.

Riot really needs to get on that Zyra sakura skin already. She could use a new one.

StoningtonApr 21, 20151 votes

They screwed up her plants' AI when they gave her range indicators. They're just not as reliable for farming or attacking the enemy like they used to be. They just derp now.