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Malzahar, Zyra and Yorick.

Zerenza··3 votes·1,108 views

The three champions in the game who have kits that revolve around their minion, but they are not created equal.

For zyra her Minions do enormous damage, they can't move but high EXTREMELY high range and die on their own and also target champions. She has lots of CC and while her plants are still extremely strong her kit doesn't suffer for it as a cost.

For malzahar, his minions automatically target champions, they are extremely hard to kill and deal huge damage, they also don't die to one turret shot and aren't targeted by turret. Still has a very concrete kit without them, even though the majority of his power is supposed to come from them, his entire kit is powerful over all.

Both have minions that can be spawned on command.

Yorick, moderately damaging minions, die in one auto attack from almost any champion, are automatically targeted by turrets but they last indefinitely until they run out of health, little control over their movements and cannot be spawned on command at any time. Majority of his kit revolves around them, he's very weak without them or his ultimate and lacks any CC, his damage is very low and balanced so he can't one shot people (for good reason of course).

The point i'm trying to make is that Malzahar and Zyra's kits are extremely strong without their minions, but yoricks is not yet his for some reason are exponentially weaker than theirs. Yes they are mages but their minions are MUCH harder to kill and much more intelligent than his, i really wish they just had more health or something so they didn't die so quickly considering his entire kit is litterally balanced around them. They aren't strong enough to warrant making his whole kit weak as a whole and while yes his ultimate is pretty powerful, she dies quickly too whereas tibber's on annie is extremely difficult to kill on many occasions.

Can we just get some scaling increases on his minions and slightly higher base health on the maiden so he actually has a noticable window of "Don't fuck with me"?

28 Comments

Vekkna3 votes

Zyra's base damage and AP ratios are actually very bad. The cc duration on her root is extremely short and scales horribly. The knock-up on her ult has a 2 second delay and deals less damage than lots of basic abilities. Zyra is not a functional champ without those plants attacking repeatedly over time, and the rest of her kit basically exists to make that happen.

It's just such a bizarre point of view to think that she doesn't sacrifice anything in her kit for plant damage.

Zerenza1 votes

Yes, yes she is, the fundamental part of kit's DAMAGE is in her plant's but she doesn't sacrifice any CC or utility for it. Yorick does, even though HIS ENTIRE KIT IS BASED AROUND IT. Her's is not based ENTIRELY on her plant's, sure she used them for damage but do her basic abilities and ultimate require her to have plants? No, no they dont, his does but they are much MUCH easier to kill, do much less damage and are much harder to get out.

1374341 votes

Yorick actually gained utility with the rework...

Did you ever even play old Yorick? Again Yorick is designed to be a split pusher. Not a team fighter.

Zerenza1 votes

Okay, go play a game with Malzahar and Zyra, but never use their minions. You won't do damage but your utility will still carry you through because your abilities are still good on their own, if you do the same on yorick you'd loose half of your kit and all of your damage at the same time. The reason why is because his kit revolves around his minion, my complaint is that they are too weak to warrant making the rest of his kit so weak without them, but it is weak and he can't function without them, zyra and malzahar can function well without their minions but theirs are still stronger than his. Why is that?

1374342 votes

Because Malz and Zyra are intended to have entirely different roles and playstyles than Yorick?

Yorick's minions are not weak for splitpushing. They are not stationary and time limited like Zyras. They are not time limited with highly specific conditions on getting more like Malz (which is also behind a 16 s cd at lvl 5, and most people level up his W last- cd is 20s at lvl 1). If you make the rest of Yorick's kit powerful to compensate for his "weak" minions then you will make his split pushing power god-like and nobody would be able to handle it without sending over half their team.

Zerenza1 votes

That's the issue, yes he's meant for splitpushing but his minions could litterally not be there and it wouldn't change a thing because they croak so easily to one turret shot, they are weak for split pushing.

So much of his power lies in his minions, as in his abilities are fundamentally useless without them yet they die so quickly and are much harder to get out than Zyra and Malzahar who have concrete kits without their minions.

You really seem to be unable to comprehend what i'm getting at.

1374341 votes

Split pushing is more than just how many shots they tank, and how much damage they do to a tower.

They can quickly clear through waves and gives you potentially 4(!) free turret shots on useless (against turrets) targets before focusing on you and your minion wave (which in the mean time is pounding away at the tower).

Now add the maiden and her minions in there too. Potentially 8 ghouls to kill + the maiden before focusing on the cannon minions in the wave. Meanwhile right as it starts focusing on your current wave your next wave comes crashing in...

That is weak split pushing?

Zerenza1 votes

It still isn't enough to warrant how hard it is to keep them up compared to other champion and how weak they are considering his kit litterally needs them. As i keep saying, they need to get a health buff to be of any use and it should be easier to spawn them so that yoricks kit isn't cut in half without them.

I do agree that they clear waves well though, but they still die so quickly and are so hard to get out compared to other minion mancer's.

1374341 votes

Honestly mid-late game it is not that hard to keep 4 minions up as you split push before crashing into the tower.

You can clear the waves before minions die (Hint: E the caster minions while you focus on melee primarily by yourself), and resurrect minions to replace the ones that do die in subsequent waves.

Have a Nice Game1 votes

If they are getting "one shot" by the tower despite the fact that they scale off of Yorick's Max Health, then try building a bit more damage.

Whether you build damage or tank, those walkers are going to shield your minion wave from 3-4 hits. You may as well build the damage to take the tower down while your walkers die for it, especially since they also scale off of total AD.

And you know what? You also have your Ult, which means you can have up to 9 creeps taking shots for your Minions as they and yourself are busting down that tower.

I'm not going to pretend I play Yorick, but thats the way I see it.

Have a nice day.

Zerenza1 votes

I wish they'd increase the scaling a bit, currently it's 15% of yoricks health which is pretty tiny, if it were 20 or 25 i feel like that wouldn't be too much of a buff and they'd be able to survive just a bit longer, although they would probably still get one shot by turret's in the early game, they wouldn't in the late game, which currently they do get one shot regardless of how much health they have.

Also when you have your maiden you can make them last longer since any unit that dies near her while she's up will spawn a mist walker, so it's good in that sense but she's still really weak herself and the cooldown on her is fairly high considering how much he needs her.

hhaavviikk3 votes

malzahar has lsot quite allot of damage really Q lost 70 damage, cast time increased by 0.25 and AP ratio reduced by 0.1 E lost 100 damage and AP ratio reduced by 0.1 R used to deal 440 damage with a 1.3 AP ratio and is now only max health% damage

if malzahar doesn't have his voidlings his damage is bad, without his voidlings he can't even kill a squishy with Q>E>R

either way it seems riot switched the availability of minions with malzahar and yorick.

yorick could summons minions any time with his abilities, malzahar only every so often when he used spells

now after the rework malzahar can summon a minion any time and yorick only every so often, I much preferred it the other way around.

Zerenza1 votes

It's not about damage, it's about utility, Yorick's power was geared towards his minions and maiden so the rest of his kit suffered and they desided to give him no cc and really easy to kill minions to make sure he was balanced. Zyra and Malzahar have much stronger minions and two CC abilities each, the reason this is strange is because how come they didn't have to sacrifice something for their minion damage aside from damage on other abilities, their utility is much better than his and their kits function without them, even if they don't get damage, you could go a whole game without using minions on either of them and still be useful because the only thing your dropping is damage. If you did the same thing on yorick, you'd loose half your kit.

hhaavviikk1 votes

if malzahar doesn't have his W he's not even worth picking in a team fight, better of picking say leblanc or anivia who both have CC and hhigh damage

Have a Nice Game2 votes

Just wanted to correct some things

Note: Wasn't sure which one had 320 and the other 300

Q - 320 + 80% AP / 3s Silence -> 230 + 70% AP / 2s Silence (Also Lost Amount of Vision when cast and made it hard to combo spells with the cast delay) E - 300 + 80% AP -> 220 + 70% AP R - 550 + 130% AP -> 9% + 1.5% per 100 AP Max Health Damage Per Second. (Also went from dealing damage every half second to every second.)

Have a Nice Game3 votes

Not sure if joking or...

{quoted}

For malzahar, his minions automatically target champions, they are extremely hard to kill and deal huge damage, they also don't die to one turret shot and aren't targeted by turret. Still has a very concrete kit without them, even though the majority of his power is supposed to come from them, his entire kit is powerful over all.

His minions attack the nearest target whether it be monster, minion, or champion. They will only target a certain unit when either Malefic Visions or Nether Grasp are used on them with Nether Grasp being the higher priority. They only scale off of Malzahar's level and do not gain any bonus health from any other source (At least according to pre-rework). Therefore you only need to either smite the first Voidling or use a strong aoe on them to wipe them out or to stop them from spawning in the first place. Towers also currently kill them in one hit and the Voidlings are placed higher on the priority list than minions, just like before his rework.

Ðelofasht2 votes

The problem is less with the durability of Yorick's mistwalkers actually, because in team fights no one is looking to burn 4 autos to wipe all of them out, and if the enemy team is focusing down the Maiden they are not spending time on champs, the AoE damage hurting them so much is partly an issue though. The real issue is generations of graves and getting the mistwalkers engaged on enemies effectively, control being completely linked to E feels bad, while their speed and mobility is so limited that everyone can just walk them away from Yorick until they die then go back to farming with practically no loss of health or farm. Later in the game the E becomes increasingly difficult to land. It would strongly benefit from increasing it's missile speed with level or something becoming very hard to miss it later it in the game would go a very Iong way toward helping Yorick feel relevant late game. Also mistwalkers could benefit from some scaling movement speed with Yorick's movespeed or something.

Jinzo Torrance2 votes

HAHA. Malzahar does damage without his minions. LOL

they also don't die to one turret shot and aren't targeted by turret

What? They die from one turret shot and are below champion aggro and above minion aggro, I think you mean Heimer turret, that don't die in one turret shot.

Malzahar does 100 damage if he tries to all in and doesn't summon his minion early game, and his power is below your average mage if he can't have it out in late game.

Zerenza1 votes

Don't believe i'm complaining about damage, it's about utility, Malzahar has minions that are not only more powerful but also smarter than Yoricks despite his core fantasy not being a minion mancer, he is allowed to keep 2 pretty strong CC ability's and while yes his damage is centered around it. Yorick's was supposed to be centered around his minions as well but he sacrifice's so much for it, no CC, no gap closer(that understandable though on a juggernaught) he has to wait to spawn his, it's not instant and in addition they are easy to kill and do so much less damage than either of the champions listed.

1374342 votes

Yorick is still designed to be an excellent splitpusher and subpar team fighter. His ghoul's health/damage/targeting logic are fine for that.

Hint: his ult is not for plopping down in a teamfight like Annie's Tibbers is.

Zerenza1 votes

I will agree with his maiden not being ment to be plopped down in a team fight but his kit doesn't function without his Minions, yet his are so much weaker than Malzahar's and Zyra's who sacrifice nothing for their minions damage since the rest of their kit is powerful anyway. Sure they won't do near as much damage if they don't have them but they will still be able to do their job, yorick can't he needs them but their so weak that he can't keep them up and it take so much more time to get his minions out then with Zyra and Malzahar.

My complaint is that they balance his kit around his minions but took so much away from the rest of of his abilities that he needs his minions to much so the fact they are so weak is disheartening.

Big Lincoln1 votes

i think Yorick's ghouls are fine on their own; they're surprisingly durable vs AoE. my main issues are how tedious it is to get them out in a teamfight and how easy it is to avoid them. Since they're a pretty big portion of his damage with most of his builds, it'd be nice to have a little more reliability in getting them to function.

Zerenza1 votes

Well, my issue is how much of his kit's overall power was geared towards his minions and maiden, he has 0 CC and their pretty weak compared to Zyra and Malzahar who each have 2 CC abilities and have stronger minions overall, despite their fantasy not being minion mancer's.

Ralanr1 votes

Let's wait at least a month before asking for buffs. I'm still learning him.

Leblancs Boob1 votes

You lost me after the first sentence on Zyra. Her plant and basic ability ratios were both heavily nerfed during the update, and they also don't automatically target champions. Zyra and Malz both sacrifice a ton of power for their minions.

Zerenza1 votes

It isn't about the damage, it's about the crucial fact that Yoricks entire kit revolves around his minion, he literally needs to get them out, malzahar and zyra do not yet theirs do MUCH more damage and are much harder to kill. It makes no sense, why do malzahar and zyra, two champions whos core fantasy is not centered around being a minion mancer, have better minions than the minion mancer and sacrifice no utility for it.

Leblancs Boob1 votes

Likely because youre comparing two Mages to a fighter/juggernaut melee splitpusher. It would be insane if they didn't have more damage + cc than Yorick. To compensate they're also immobile and 20x easier to kill than Yorick (talking about the champions themselves rather than the minions).

Zerenza1 votes

The issue is that his kit revolves around his minions, as in his kit fundamentally doesn't function without them. So the fact that they are so weak is really disheartening, it isn't about the damage they do it's about how hard it is to keep them up despite the fact he needs them so much.

For zyra and malzahar they don't need their minions to do anything aside from damage, the rest of their kits are very concrete and work well without them. Yoricks does not but theirs are stronger, that doesn't make sense.

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