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The best way to fix Zoe, in my opinion.

Barkley·Nov 29, 2017·2 votes·348 views

Pick one of the following:

-Make her bubble MUCH more visible as its traveling. -Make her bubble cast make a noise that is audible - even if she isn't - if you're within range of her. -Make the ring on the ground where the bubble landed MUCH more visible. (its pretty ok in her cyber skin) -Reduce the travel speed of the bubble entirely.

The # 1 thing that I think is broken about this champion is that 7 times out of 10, when I get put to sleep, I didn't even see it coming. And I've played 5-10 practice games with her, so I know what to be looking for. I'm not a mid main, and don't care for glass cannon burst mages anyway, so I didn't put much effort into learning her, but I learned her enough to know what I'm playing against.

Yeah sure, her damage is a little over-tuned. Yeah sure, her CC might be a tad lengthy. Those are things that can be easily tweaked, and from what I've heard from my PBE buddies, they're working on it.

But what makes her cancer, what makes her REALLY unfun to play against, is that you don't even see that sleep bubble coming 70-80% of the time. Its too hard to see, and its too fast, and if she casts it out of fog of war? Pfffffff...... good luck.

"Oh... I guess I'm asleep now?"

Usually followed pretty quickly by

"Oh.... aaaaaand I'm dead."

Literally never had a chance to do anything about it.

8 Comments

AzadetheNov 29, 20172 votes

You do have things to do about the sleep:

if you have a healing ability, use it before you fall to sleep (Nami, Sona, Karma). This will remove the initial damage the sleep bubble did.
Move backwards before you fall asleep (Zoe doesn't have time to close the gap and set up a new angle for her paddle star if you moved out of her range after she sleeps you. Her R only lasts 1 sec. Re-calibrating F's it up.
if you're an assassin, just kill her.

Something else to keep in mind: if Zoe is hitting you through walls, she has vision of you. Find and clear wards. Zoe sucks without wards.

BarkleyNov 29, 20171 votes

I can, and have done all of these things.

You're talking about optimal, perfect-world scenarios. I can come up with situations like this for any complaint anyone has about any champion, ever.

But what about if... 1.) I dont have a healing ability, or its on cooldown? 2.) I can't move backwards, because there are enemy champions there, or a wall, or a turret, etc etc etc. 3.) I'm not an assassin?

There are far, FAR more situations that DON'T fit into your perfect-world scenarios than ones that do.

AzadetheNov 29, 20172 votes

Zoe is the definition of "perfect world scenarios." She simply can't create kill conditions unless you give them to her. For example,

Why are their enemies behind you and not allies? Did you perhaps walk out, get baited into a scenario where you're trapped? Play smarter. One of the first things an Udyr pro taught me was, "Don't chase the kills." Let them come to you on your battlefield. If you bring the fight into bushes you know aren't warded, and only fight in places you know are safe, you will never get caught out like that.

Zoe really suffers at being able to hit E's unless her opponent creates the conditions. Most Wall bubbles are either too far away to matter, or fall too short, unless..... say.... champs leave a minion wave or take a predictable path and stay near walls? She's literally blind to targets who aren't warded and I only land maybe 2-3 blind bubbles a game. The rest take a fastidious team clearing and setting their own wards, and a team making dumb decisons in positioning. I can guarantee, a Plat + team is removing her wards, and not hugging walls, and using minions for cover. They also have plenty of reaction time to step to the side and avoid the bubble altogether, compared to your slower reactions.

I'm not trying to be mean. I'm trying to be honest. Low Elos don't know positioning in preference of going ham. And that is why Zoe is oppressive to you. her kit was dream built to combat yoloers.

BarkleyNov 29, 20171 votes

You're talking like you're a pro and you know everything, and you're talking about "Low Elo players" and talking about your criticisms of low elo players, and yet you're a low elo player.

Its quite easy to sit back and come up with hypothetical situations about why a champion can be/ is good, and hypothetical situations where a champion can't be/isn't good, and make assumptions on what players did and didn't do, or what players should and shouldn't do, but all of that stuff really kinda goes out the window when you actually get into a game and get into the moment.

The fact of the matter is that I know all the things you're saying, and while most of them are true, and you're a talented and eloquent writer, everything you're saying is circumstantial and unsubstantiated.

In the broader stroke of things, as a generalization, Zoe feels bad to play against because her bubble leaves little to no room for counterplay in about about 50-70% of situations. You don't see it coming, or it comes so fast you just plain don't have time to react.

There is no such thing as a perfect player. I'm not, you're not, Faker isn't, nobody is.

You're coming up with all these scenarios and "what ifs" and "you should, you shouldn't" claims, and that's all fine and I'm not disagreeing with you on any of it - but I'm saying when the situations come up that I'M TALKING ABOUT, you basically just feel helpless - and not because she played well, or you played poorly, but because there was literally nothing you could have done to stop it.

You can't NOT walk around the map. You can't NOT venture into unwarded areas (how do you think wards get there in the first place?). You can't just stand on your fountain all game long and expect to win a match.

So yes, while all the things you say CAN happen, and we can sit here all day and come up with imaginary scenarios on how to PREVENT them from happening, the fact remains that you can't cover every base all the time in every game.

In those unfortunate situations, its pretty unfun and unfair to die to something you never even had time to react to, and never even saw coming. Namely, Zoe's bubble.

If I walk into a bush and there's a Zed there, I have options. I can flash. I can barrier. I can try to fight him. I can use some kind of ability to do... I don't know... something. The point is that I have TIME to react. At the very worst, I die, but at least I know I died because I face checked a bush and zed was there. I saw zed. We had a 1-2 second little skirmish. I had options. None of them resulted in me living, but at least I got to DO something.

If I am arbitrarily walking around the map, and get hit by something I never even saw, from a champion I never even saw, and all of a sudden I'm stunned (sleep) and don't even know why because I never saw it coming, and then I get 100-0'd by her without ever even seeing her, or what killed me, or ever even having time to react, because I don't even know WTF I'm reacting to, and I have to refer to the "Death Report" screen to see WTF even happened....

That's pretty busted.

AzadetheNov 30, 20172 votes

I don't like chatting on my main. This account is 3 months old, and most of its games during the troll end of season play.
Shall we name the mages who feel bad to play against?

Ziggs (Hellion with short cooldown spam, insane zoning, and if you leave lane he will 100% -0% your turret). Xerath (Long range short cooldown spam, A stun, semi global chase KO's) Anivia (Walls, strong ways to trap laners into a fight which involves them being in her Ult, A second form which sometimes isn't easy to get rid of) Malhazar (Immunity periods, Spam critters, degen disease that can self ensure farm capture, and an Ult who has very little if any true 1v1 counter space (especially if a mage who doesn't find a QSS as part of their build path) Syndra (Lane tyrant whose linear guard from attack and range is huge, oppressive, and whose ult is a 1 hit (not that she needs it) Taliyah (Clears waves with efficient mana, does a TON of damage, and can set up a 1 hit combo pretty easy) Orianna (The doll whose unique high damage autos bridge the gap between her tiny cooldown slow, barriers who zones out all but the most long range mages, and generally 1 hits on an ult)

All of these are mages people don't generally 1v1. What they do is, they wait for a jungler, catch the person out, and 2v1 them. Zoe: Same Principal.

The reason they don't completely dominate at higher elos is because people actually follow that creed. In low elos, players actually think they can push these mages and win a lane/fight. They push out, which just NEVER is good placement, and wonder why they die so much and give the mid/jungler a huge lead, and then expect other people to pick up the slack. I mean in low elo, people literally 0/7 using the same mistake: They push out, then get ganked, and do it over and over again. And then cry, "why didn't my own jungler gank me?" Well Dear...... Not enough junglers have the range to really help gank a mid who pushes out and has fed a mid 4/0+..... By the time the gank almost kills the opponent, the gank is well under a turret and the jungler dies.

I mean, Zoe's innate weakness is keeping the minions available between you and her, and not giving her walls to use, and having a jungler gank. She can't sleep both and she can't Q both. The best way to do this is to let her push, and wait for a jungler (who isn't a face tanker like Sejuani who will 100% get hit by a sleep).

Your last portion sabotages your own argument. Nearly every player has experiences where "they've never seen something" even if it's a very old champ. How do you think a new player feels the first time Vayne 1 shots them, or Twitch appears out of nowhere and gets a quad kill? How about when they first see Morgana's Ult and don't know what it does? Or the player who doesn't know that a Kha Zix in game always equals potentially the most broken champ in the game getting more than 1 kill/minute of the game, with what seems like 1 hits (because Kha has a 60% win rate among players with over 200 games, and ranks #1 in overall kills due to Duskblade + Isolation)

The answer is they all have this reaction. I'm sure they have that reaction the first time they get popped by LeBlanc's Passive too (yeah. not her skills or ult; her passive, which applies on all skills, and rivals Zoe's Q)

And no. If you walk in a bush with a fed Zed, no. You don't have options. He will 1 hit you. If you even try to flash, he will just ult you. A fed Zed can literally kill you just by using a living shadow +Razor shuriken, and being right behind a visible wall (I've had the rank 69 Zed literally go 29/1 in a 19 minute game by doing this; once I literally rounded the wall to my own base, and he used 2 skills vs my 2900 hp Nami, and I was dead. No ult.)

I'm pretty sure even veterans of the game give a WTF when a Janna 2 hits you or a Nunu kills you in 2 seconds without his ult (Actually had a Janna seemingly 1 hit me on Zoe; I went through a bush to help a ally fighting her, and threw a sleep bubble on R. By the time I was back at R's starting point, Janna's W aparrently hit + a lich bane Auto. She killed me from about 1600 range away, by attacking me when I was closer for a split second; if you wanna try countering Zoe, play Janna..... or any other mage who can do a Lich bane + Auto during your R)

xXxHyalexXxDec 1, 20171 votes

I heart this comment you said in a very clear way! I agree with you I have not met a zoe yet that beats me i made it my mission to destroy them first in games and I will say diana I find can be a very hard counter to her once she hits level 6. with being able to set up diana's Q with the same time as zoe steps forward to poke with her Q ( after you have baited out her E sleep) than follow up with diana's ult zoe has no escape from diana's kit which is zoe great weakness is she is a long range artillery class

AzadetheDec 1, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I heart this comment you said in a very clear way! I agree with you I have not met a zoe yet that beats me i made it my mission to destroy them first in games and I will say diana I find can be a very hard counter to her once she hits level 6. with being able to set up diana's Q with the same time as zoe steps forward to poke with her Q ( after you have baited out her E sleep) than follow up with diana's ult zoe has no escape from diana's kit which is zoe great weakness is she is a long range artillery class

Yeah. you have no idea how many times an MF or Jhin has punished Zoe on the R. I think I mentioned a case where a Janna smurf did what seemed like a 1 hit to my Zoe too.... Had a Lich + Luden's and about 10 kills. I R'd in to help a Yorick teammate who was fighting her, and got a Janna W and Lich bane proc to my face and it seemingly 1 hit me as soon as my R landed back at its starting point. (like had to be like 860 Auto with Lich + 590 on W to just barely get the kill).

Cait can even Headshot + Q to the face before R reverts.

People don't seem to understand..... this is a team game, and Zoe's really only good at singling out 1 person. If you sleep someone, there's someone ELSE who can kill you.

BlaKroZ42Dec 1, 20171 votes

I've only played zoe in bots games so far, so i cant really speak to playing against her, but it is fairly difficult to land the bubble with vision. I end up clipping minions alot with how fat the spell is, or just whiffing entirely. Out of lane its much easier, but by that point there should be wards around to see her coming. The reason why you percieve it to be so strong is because its so integral to the rest of her kit. If it misses or hits a minion, shes WAY less reliable. Having a zoe in game is similar to having a stealth champ or even zac in game, in the fact that wards and their placement becomes much more valuable because of her long engages over walls. If anything I think the bubble could use a nerf to its base damage, but otherwise it feels fine.

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