@Meddler, Could we get some Context on the Zyra Changes on the PBE?

LankPants·5/17/2017, 3:12:18 PM·14 votes·11,647 views

I'm just trying to wrap my head around what these changes are hopping to achieve and I can't work it out at all.

These changes increase her reliance on her RNG passive which is a low-point of her design, make her plants even squishier so ambient AOE damage blows them up in mid but makes them more frequent so support Zyra can spam them out 24/7 to harass even more making playing against a Zyra support even more miserable.

I just can't see anything positive in these changes, to me it seems like they're actively pushing Zyra in the wrong direction.

58 Comments

YokoNomi5/17/2017, 3:44:21 PM13 votes

What, you don't want a second Malzahar?

Vysanctumii5/18/2017, 12:07:55 AM11 votes

RIP Zyra

More plants that die almost immediately effectively makes Zyra trash tier mid lane. Especially against anyone with AOE in their kit.

You describe more power, but this is a straight nerf. Plants already do 50% less damage when hitting the same target.

Furthermore, the random generation is messy, and if anything, needs to be addressed before tuning Zyra

Just my thoughts, but this truly seems one-sided; not in favor of the champion herself.

Riot20thCenturyFaux5/17/2017, 8:32:34 PM9 votes

Happy to give context. Our goal here is to improve the early level laning experience against Zyra without harming her experience or changing her play later in the game. It's easy to have the changes sunset as Zyra gains levels, the challenge is making 1 hit plants work for Zyra in lane from levels 1 to 5.

The main controls on Zyra's plants are fun, power, and frustration -- getting a good exchange rate. If we can make plants less frustrating for the enemy, we can get more power and fun. The same HP that lets plants survive at all lategame makes fighting them in lane crazy. Fixing this bit of derp buys us a fair bit.

So what do we buy? Plant damage! Plants are core to Zyra's identity and we've just made them cheaper. We spend that power back into the plant system, giving Zyra a bigger garden and so conditionally more damage-- about 50% more plants overall in lane. The linked article is missing that bit of the changes -- Garden of Thorns is much more likely to spawn two seeds at once when Zyra is low level.

For Zyra, it's functionally equivalent to making the plants squisher and more dangerous. For enemies, it lets them play too -- the plant damage starts higher and it's more often smart to fight them some. Balance wise, our intent is to keep her at current power levels, so further changes are likely to be along those lines.

Zyranium5/18/2017, 6:30:55 AM7 votes

Now Zyra will be an eternal support, how sad, please don't do that to her, Zyra mid main here, it's just a pain to already fight against assassins on midlane, and escaping ganks, why are you doing that ?

You were talking about "Roles diversity" in one of your videos, but it's just a big lie, you are stucking champions in specific roles, and now Zyra mid is definetely dead, you are frustating a lot of players now, how can you do that to us, Zyra mid was fun, and now I have to play her support, GOOD JOB, it just totally non-sense... God !

Penta Ace5/17/2017, 7:08:03 PM5 votes

Is there any way Zyra mid can get some help? I understand her support may be strong but further nerfs to mid lane is unneeded.I see this creating more issues than what it solves. The plants already die too fast, if they decrease the health any lower they are going to have to put the duration back to what it was before the rework. Literally no one is asking for her rng seeds to pop out faster, im not sure why this is even a change.

I whole-heartedly agree with the ult changes though, because her ulted plants are supposed to be super versions of her regular ones but they die just as fast. IMO they should keep the ult change and scrap everything else.

Scary Door5/17/2017, 6:00:17 PM5 votes

"Well, Phreak issued a challenge to the balance team following the latest round of Malzahar nerfs where he said that there was no way we could make another champion as worthless as Malz. We were pretty pleased with ourselves, having pissed off so many Malz players, but this challenge seemed intriguing.

So we came back with the idea, 'what if we did the same thing to Zyra's plants that we did to Malzahar's voidlings?' and there you go! Of course we threw in a couple of bonus nerfs for extra credit and just to piss off the Zyra players even more"

Perma CC5/19/2017, 5:49:38 PM5 votes

As someone that has mained Zyra for quite some time and only really play her mid, I feel like i should put my two sense in and say how i feel before its too late. I feel like with where this is headed Zyra is being set up for failure in mid lane. See the overarching problem with whats happening is she is having power pulled from certain areas and further put into her RNG passive. This is the core problem i think that is happening. The randomness of her passive is what makes her so mindless and while I think that having more plants is awesome, I would much rather have more control of where those plants are going then just have them randomly dropped. I think a better change would be to instead give her more seed charges. So she can have like 5 seeds or something with her w could even have W charges scale with ranks in w. I dont think shifting power into her RNG mechanic is healthy for her in terms of playing her and playing against her. Please don't ruin Zyra... If you wanna lower her plant health and let her spawn more.... Let her have control of where she spawns those plants... through W. This adds a skill implement and gives her much needed power in mid lane and still achieves the goals you guys are looking for.

Zyranium5/21/2017, 10:04:22 AM5 votes

They just try to nerf her, for no actual reason, we wanted her to be more viable as a midlaner, and they are pushing us to play her support with the worst possible way, there is no damn reason why Zyra is getting this gigantic nerf, this "update" is a lie, it's a nerf, having 10% random seeds will change nothing, now she is just a creep, nothing can save her from hard engage, good luck to save urself from a Garen, an Amumu or an Hecarim.

Im a Zyra mid main since season 5, and a lot of players plays her support because Riot is focusing her in this role with multiple nerfs, and THIS nerf will change all, because you will stuck Zyra as a support for no damn reason, we want her as a real midlaner, you were even talking about "role diversity" but it is such a big lie, you intend to stuck champions in specific roles and say us "you can play them in different roles", haha how am I supposed to play her mid or jungle now ?

5050BS5/21/2017, 10:45:40 PM5 votes

They need to completely rework her AGAIN.

This is Crap. I HATE that hey have killed her Mid lane (HER MAIN ROLE) play....

Its like Malz support killed Mid lane and Jungle Malz so that there is ZERO reason to play him.

Zyra and Malz support is said to be too OP and yet Annie is not TOUCHED or Sona who build full AP and dominate Bot lane.

We are Lucky few play Panth Support (OP BTW) because they would nerf him too.

Tseison5/21/2017, 1:10:25 AM3 votes

Hi there! Platinum Zyra here. So i've been testing these new changes Zyra is getting and this is definitely NOT what she needs. At this point there is nothing unique about her as she's just a "plant" champion that spits out random seeds and summons 2 boring default plants. The health reduction to her plants is a terrible idea as they are dropping the moment they are spawned and only get a maximum of 1-2 attacks out. Yeah sure maybe more frequently if the enemy doesn't have any aoe or lots of attack speed but that's none of my business...

There is no benefit to having seeds spawn faster if you have her Q & E' mana cost, costing an arm and a leg and once a plant(s) are even summoned, they're gone almost instantly, so i just wasted 70 mana for nothing and no damage. As I said again, clearly basing this champion around her minion plants and seeds is becoming too much of a struggle - so why not just have zyra have abilities based off of lashing vines, vine whips, a column of thorns, just something poison ivy'esc and call it a day.

BUT since a whole new champion update would most likely not happen since theres other projects in the works... I would either have her passives radius be reduced so seeds spawn closer or just give her W more seed charges. Revert the plants health. Give grasping roots a VISUAL UPDATE and heck, why not make her interact with the plants in summoners rift and make her summon new ones?

PBE http://imgur.com/NpLAp57 (Passive info should be moved to the top in my opinion)

http://imgur.com/pCbyvhz (Receieve? You mean Receive? Fix typo and the whole "Zyras plants always receive XXX% extra health" and yet you can sneeze on the plants? I don't see a point in adding this context because the extra health is barely noticeable)

Heres some ideas, or just start over and make a new and different plant champion. Zyra seems to be withered.