Is Syndra still good mid laner?

FakeSympathy·Jan 14, 2017·5 votes·6,413 views

I had my eyes on her for quite sometimes now. I have no idea of the new update has nerfed or buffed her.

Also, the shop says she's difficult champion to play. Is she really that hard?

22 Comments

A Humble SinnerJan 14, 20172 votes

All of her abilities except her ultimate are skill shots and her ultimate takes a bit of setup to maximize its damage. That being said, she isn't impossible to master or anything, just needs a bit of practice to work on timing abilities to work together etc. IMHO watch some videos from streamers and see how she plays to get an idea what to work on.

SGT Dingle BerryJan 14, 20172 votes

You need to make sure your ping is under 80 or you'll whiff her stun constantly.

She's still a strong mid laner, her biggest nerf was a longer CD on her ult early game which was necessary imo.

BíomancerSep 13, 20171 votes

I agree her ult was on too low of a cooldown early game. You could pretty much just use it anytime you thought you could burst someone down, and not worry about the consequences of the cooldown very much.

MinaZer0Jan 14, 20172 votes

yea shes pretty braindead honestly, but still viable her W change was needed, 7 sphere ult was wayyyyy to accessible post - lvl 11 and so was her ult cooldown nerf, to put her in line.

Bishasaurus FlexJan 14, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=ILittle IMonster,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=g3vt3ZIc,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-01-14T19:28:23.917+0000)

yea shes pretty braindead honestly, but still viable her W change was needed, 7 sphere ult was wayyyyy to accessible post - lvl 11 and so was her ult cooldown nerf, to put her in line.

The W change didn't change the fact she can still throw maximum dmg ults. Riot kept the extra 2 seconds on her Q at max rank.

MinaZer0Jan 14, 20171 votes

yes it does she cant grab multiple spheres anymore which holding the spheres increases the amount of time they are out which allows ample time to get 7 spheres while 3 of them are in stasis being carried by W, also I never said that, It makes it less accessible.(is what is said) less braindead.

Bishasaurus FlexJan 14, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=ILittle IMonster,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=g3vt3ZIc,comment-id=000300000000,timestamp=2017-01-14T21:01:06.629+0000)

yes it does she cant grab multiple spheres anymore which holding the spheres increases the amount of time they are out which allows ample time to get 7 spheres while 3 of them are in stasis being carried by W, also I never said that, It makes it less accessible.(is what is said) less braindead.

Yeah, she can't grab multiple spheres anymore but she can still easily get a max sphere ulti by just having CDR after lvl 9.

IncarcerationJan 15, 20172 votes

"had my eyes on her for quite sometimes now". So did I....

no KappaPride tho.

Zen InethJan 14, 20171 votes

She's actually easy to play. Just watch Bjergsen play her for a game and you'll know all there is to know about playing Syndra.

She'll still be strong after the changes. Just won't be able to 100-0 someone with ult alone anymore.

ReshiKillimJan 14, 20172 votes

FYI: Syndra's ult damage wasn't changed. Just the cooldown.

Bishasaurus FlexJan 14, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Zen Ineth,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=g3vt3ZIc,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-01-14T19:22:44.895+0000)

She's actually easy to play. Just watch Bjergsen play her for a game and you'll know all there is to know about playing Syndra.

She'll still be strong after the changes. Just won't be able to 100-0 someone with ult alone anymore.

Wrong.

She can still do that, maximum sphere ults are still easily achievable with minimal CDR and her Q at max rank.

Zen InethJan 15, 20171 votes

With her W changes, she can keep fewer spheres active at a time. It takes more micro-managing to get the maximum available spheres for an ult, and a casual player won't achieve that, usually.

AbyssphereJan 14, 20171 votes

Syndra's still fine, if you want a strong champion she's totally worth looking at.

The shop's difficulty rating for her is probably accurate. If you don't know an awful lot about her, it won't be very intuitive at first, and she is very skillshot-reliant (no matter what any salty people tell you). She shouldn't be anywhere near as difficult to approach as people like Ryze and Azir though, so don't feel like learning her is an impossible task.

IncarcerationJan 15, 20171 votes

I don't believe that. I just played her after watching a couple of videos of her kit, and she seemed pretty easy. Yes, she's much harder than Kayle or Annie, but they get held back by range so they have to make decisions on how to approach the situation by surprising their targets. Syndra gets held back by skillshots, or basically mechanics.

Mechanics aren't too hard if they aren't telegraphed. All you have is the animation for Syndra's Q. Syndra's only "extremely" hard skillshot that she is actually dependent on to land is her E, but it is made up for range.

But aside from that, the only point I want to actually make here is if you actually want to learn Syndra, you might as well play the other mages because they are a lot like her in terms of difficulty stated above.

AbyssphereJan 16, 20171 votes

I don't really believe that range factors into champion difficulty. Annie's decision-making is "always flash in" and Kayle's decision-making regarding doing damage to people is no more intensive than any other ADC deciding whether or not they want to be in auto attack range. I do not believe that Syndra's ult has a huge amount of decision-making surrounding its range profile even though its effective range is shorter than that of say, Tibbers.

Syndra's reputation as a difficult champion has typically came from the amount of things you need to keep track of at the same time. There is everything involved in standard skillshot aiming (position of your champion and target enemy), position of non-champion units (always a difficulty raiser) and timing of multiple non-champion units with varying durations (primarily for ult, also E, impacts decision-making for W heavily). If you want to be generous then mastering the various ranges at which she can fight (800/950/1100/675) is a thing too.

Since her mid-year rework her difficulty has gone down majorly primarily because the added duration on her spheres has made both managing their timing less important (they last long enough that you often don't need to worry about it) and managing their location less important (you don't need to pay attention to where your extant spheres are for stuns if you're just gonna throw three spheres into a stun at once anyway). However, the change to her W has made this significantly less extreme, as you are back to only being able to refresh one of several spheres at a time, which does appreciably drop how many spheres you can have on the ground at once, and means you are unwise to completely ignore the ability for them to time out once more. She's still not what she once was in terms of difficulty, and she's clearly no Azir or Ryze, but she still has more things to keep track of than most mages, whose mechanics will often both begin and end at "land skillshots". If you didn't have much trouble with her at first then I'd say you're probably pretty good at micro-management, or you didn't really get pushed into situations where Syndra's skillcap really becomes necessary (if winning somewhat comfortably you rarely need to actually push her kit to its limits).

Bishasaurus FlexJan 14, 20171 votes

She is completely fine. She can still get out max sphere ults with the extra 2 seconds on her Q and CDR. She is very viable.

l Helios lJan 14, 20171 votes

She will almost certainly still be LCS viable, probably even first pick worthy imo.

She takes a lot of practice to master, and a lot of it is about how you position yourself relative to the balls and to your opponents. Don't expect to take off flying with her, but as you play her, more you should notice a positive shift in your KDA and win rate.

JustJaysonJan 14, 20171 votes

Strong pick, I still ban her often. Requires some practice as her cc abilities are combinations of your skill shots(except ult). If you are not confident in your mechanical ability to utilize her kit then I would look for a different champion.

TekkenPlayerJan 15, 20171 votes

Medium level difficulty

Her mana costs arent that bad She still has the invisible STUN e+q bug(which needs to be removed)

In lane it's basically about landing Qs and Ws until they are about 65% then doing the usual QEWR combo to secure a kill

In team fights you are positioning like any other traditional mage unless you are going to go the jihad route and tunnel the ADC with ult

BellowsJan 15, 20171 votes

She actually got BUFFED on her e. The extra spheres tossed with e didnt stack damage, Not just a portion of the original damage you were taking is now TRUE damage. Totes a buff. Then a very minute cd nerf on her ult. Not much, definitely an overall buff.

BíomancerSep 13, 20171 votes

I've been playing Syndra since season 3, and the w change that made her capable of picking up more than one sphere was really op compared to true damage (which is still better than the 33% increased slow duration before her update), because it made her e much easier to land and combo'd very easily into a max sphere ult. Honestly, wish they didn't change it to true damage.

BíomancerSep 13, 20171 votes

I've been a Syndra main since season 3. I have mastery level seven on her. I would recommend Syndra for players that have experience in playing mages already. Her abilities are relatively simple to use on their own, except for maybe her e, which can be difficult to land without a lot of practice. In a normal game environment, you will probably have moderate success with her after a few games, because she's not that complicated. She does have a very high skill cap which makes her difficult to play effectively, because you have to keep track of multiple orbs at once, and you don't have any movement abilities, so its difficult to get out of tight spots.