She keeps receiving buffs. Which makes her stronger as a mid laner, but makes it extremely hard when she is a support doing damage to no end. You cry about mid lane lulu and gut her, because she was intended as a support. Now gut zyra support because she was made to be a mid laner
Slamurai Jack2 votesShe's not a support. She's a discount mid laner playing bot with the adc. And most people have judged her weaknesses too crippling to play her mid but her super high gold efficiency makes her worth playing bot. That's really all there is to it. Same concept as Brand and Vel'koz support.
LankPants1 votesThere's no real point to playing her mid, her ratios are pretty abysmal. You get most of your damage from a pair of Sorcs and a Void Staff, buying more AP doesn't really increase her damage significantly at all.
Zyra simply has bases which are way too high and far too little power in her ratios, which leads to her not needing any AP whatsoever and being better as a support because she does damage even with zero AP.
Slamurai Jack2 votesThat's not really true. Both her bases and ratios are high, but that doesn't mean she's worth the gold investment of taking her mid. For a DPS mage, Zyra's ratios are actually rather high: 15% AP on her plants is pretty significant considering how many of them she gets now. But, she still does her job as a support, so you can play her there and send a more gold reliant champion mid instead. Plus, taking her support mitigates her weakness of immobility, similar to how it does for Brand support. Realistically, there's no real difference between Brand support and Zyra support; they go bot because they have low gold reliance and weaknesses that are covered by being in a duo lane. Zyra is still functionally the same champion she was when she came out, and there's a reason they played her mid back then. That reason remains.
LankPants1 votesThat's not really true anymore. Both her bases and ratios are high, but that doesn't mean she's worth the gold investment of taking her mid. For a DPS mage, Zyra's ratios are actually rather high: 15% AP on her plants is pretty significant considering how many of them she gets now.
The 15% ratio on her plants sounds OK until you start considering it in relation to the base. Its base at 18 is 114, which means you need 760 AP at lv 18 to double the damage of her plants. That's actually a pathetically weak ratio for a mage.
To contrast that the most comparible similar ability in the game is Heimer's Turret and that has a base of 34 and a ratio of 15%, these numbers are lower but the Turret's attack speed is almost twice as fast as Zyra's plants. If you normalise for DPS Zyra's plants deal 91.2+0.12 AP/S while Heim's Turret deals 59.5+0.26 AP/S. When put into that context it's much easier to see that her ratios are low and her bases are high.
Past that the amount of plants you have doesn't change the ratio of your AP ratio to your base damages. You can have 50000 plants on the field, it still takes 760 AP to double the damage your plants deal.
Dynikus1 votesThere are different types of supports. You have champions like
that can be midlaners, or play as kill lane supports. As far as I'm aware though, zyra is played support a vast majority of the time.
Succubús GF4 votesShe was intended for the mid lane though. I haven't seen annie in a while, not to mention I don't think I have seen continuous buffs/nerfs to any of these champions.
Linna Excel1 votesYes, I think she, brand, and annie at least need to go back to mid.
Dynikus2 votes[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aFLPli8A,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2016-07-26T16:36:06.037+0000)
Yes, I think she, brand, and annie at least need to go back to mid.
If they do well as support, why not play them there?
Linna Excel3 votesWell if I can't have a viable mid soraka again....
The original problem with mids as supports is that they were pushing out traditional supports. I don't hate those champs as supports, but I'd be happier if they were a little more tuned for mid lane... less base damage and better scaling damage.
Shifune3 votes[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aFLPli8A,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2016-07-26T17:29:33.566+0000)
Well if I can't have a viable mid soraka again....
The original problem with mids as supports is that they were pushing out traditional supports. I don't hate those champs as supports, but I'd be happier if they were a little more tuned for mid lane... less base damage and better scaling damage.
Mid laners are not pushing out traditional supports. Mage supports are most popular in lower elo because you can easily get fed from bot lane and solo carry because people are bad. In higher elo, traditional supports are almost always better because they offer more on a team-play scale. Solo carrying in high elo is much harder because even if you get fed, they enemy knows how to play around you. That is why it is just better to go with supports that can amplify your entire teams power.
General Levi1 votesBrand is a terrible support after the nerf, he needs heavy amounts of ap to deal damage now. All but his w was gutted to make his passive balanced.
AnimusvsAnima1 votesShe was designed as a midlaner (Mage), but due to nerfs to her damage she started seeing play bot lane with E max.
In the MYMU, her support role is where they focused on making her more effective, even though the changes were directly helpful to mid lane.
The Yetii Rider1 votesHow do you gut a support? Even if you lower her base damage and increase her ratios, she's still going to be doing plenty of damage. That's what you get when you have an ability that ONLY does damage like Zyra's Q. Unless you tack some other effect onto it, it's going to have high base damage.
Spoofghoul1 voteszyra isnt gold dependant for her damage
with just a liandries and sorc boots she gets crazy damage
due to the nature of her kit,
throw in a rylais and the fun is complete you got a massive amount of damage and eternal slows diengage and a longrange root
tanking your plants isnt really feasible but killing isnt either because that takes too long and they don't stick around long enough to really make it worth either
if you kill her plants they slow and heavility damage you still along with taking damage from her team if you fight her team her plant destroy you the only thing you can realistically do is avoid them
its a kit problem
she doesn't need gold to deal damage and isnt item reliant for her utility A budget dps utility mage
either her lowbudget efficiency needs to go or her dps power needs to go (plant nerfs, their hp for example) or her utility needs a hit, perhaps scaling with ap
only way to make her go mid
now i dont propose flat nerfs in return possibly a very small base speed buff or slightly higer armor/health/regen to make her perfrom better as a sololaner idk
she offers so much power in so many area's with her main weakness (being immobile) covered up by playing support
Hyperiön1 votesI am pretty sure they are trying to get her out of the bottom lane and into the mid lane. No supports really can out damage her, unless you go a kill lane. So if they give her enough presence to go mid lane, thats what they will do most likely.
runedara1 votesI don't think the Q changes were a huge buff. I still think leveling E is the better route. So at level 8 with runes and masteries that's about 50 ap. So that's a total of 7.5 damage increase at 2nd rank of the spell. Her weakness in the mid lanes are still too big imo for her to be viable. And it's not like she doesn't have counter picks.
CerealBoxOfDoom1 votesShe keeps receiving buffs. Which makes her stronger as a mid laner, but makes it extremely hard when she is a support doing damage to no end. You cry about mid lane lulu and gut her, because she was intended as a support. Now gut zyra support because she was made to be a mid laner
zyra mid doesn't polymorph anyone who attacks her every 15 seconds lol