Zyra Appreciation Thread

Stonington·Oct 13, 2015·5 votes·2,800 views

http://i.imgur.com/KVzoXZl.png

I've been a long time fan of Zyra and with the plant AI change she feels so much better to play than prior. I play her in a completely different way now and it fulfills the control/zone mage end game fantasy. Thanks for making the changes Riot!

11 Comments

SpartenA7991Oct 13, 20152 votes

I hear you. ty rito.

ChortleOct 13, 20152 votes

I have a tattoo based off of this picture! getting it colored this weekend

<33 Zyra

A Miss FortuneOct 13, 20152 votes

The Plant AI change did absolutely nothing to her from what I've seen. There's still the issue that her plant AI is garbage since it very clearly doesn't prioritize champions and would much rather push lane in. Or force Zyra to get in a vulnerable auto attack (575) range position to have them attack champions.

I think Zyra after her plant AI was changed had her win rate decreased, but this is more likely due to her play rate increasing, but for how much her win rate decreased for the almost non existent play rate increase was sad.

StoningtonOct 13, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Miss Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=pRJjGeVb,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-10-13T23:01:20.229+0000)

There's still the issue that her plant AI is garbage since it very clearly doesn't prioritize champions and would much rather push lane in.

That would be OP if it auto attacked the enemy. You would perma zone them from waves.

Or force Zyra to get in a vulnerable auto attack (575) range position to have them attack champions.

Zyra has among the absolute lowest base stats in the game and lowest move speed. She isn't designed for winning lane like that. She's designed for disengage.

I think Zyra after her plant AI was changed had her win rate decreased, but this is more likely due to her play rate increasing, but for how much her win rate decreased for the almost non existent play rate increase was sad.

Looks like her win rate is roughly the same. Thank god though. She's so much better than before.

A Miss FortuneOct 14, 20151 votes

What's different between her current plant AI and the previous one?

-They still glitch out and sometimes don't even attack who you attack -They don't prioritize champions and push your lane in/give free gold while they're at it -They force Zyra to auto attack people to actually attack who they should

I don't see why they can't be as good as Heimerdinger's, at least Zyra's are easy to kill and die after a few seconds anyways. Heimerdinger's are permanent and can regen health.

They need to prioritize champions, I don't see why not. Like you said her base stats are trash and there's millions of other Mid laners who can disengage a million times better than what Zyra can, there's not much Zyra has going for her besides her high damage, almost all of which have high delays on them that rely more on the enemy sucking than the Zyra being good since they are of course a delay and not something like her E which is a linear skill shot.

StoningtonOct 14, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Miss Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=pRJjGeVb,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2015-10-14T00:24:55.409+0000)

What's different between her current plant AI and the previous one?

-They still glitch out and sometimes don't even attack who you attack -They don't prioritize champions and push your lane in/give free gold while they're at it -They force Zyra to auto attack people to actually attack who they should

I don't see why they can't be as good as Heimerdinger's, at least Zyra's are easy to kill and die after a few seconds anyways. Heimerdinger's are permanent and can regen health.

** They need to prioritize champions, I don't see why not. there's not much Zyra has going for her besides her high damage**

This is a joke right? 'This champ consistently deals the most damage in the game. Why shouldn't she be allowed to deal more damage?' Like I said before, if they prioritized champions over minions it would be ridiculously overpowered. She's already the third highest damage dealing champion in the game before Kog and Karthus.

I explained how her AI has changed in another post in this thread.

A Miss FortuneOct 14, 20151 votes

So what if she does the most damage in the game? She has a LOT against her.

-Extremely high mana costs -Abilities do no significant damage without her plants -Extremely weak base stats -Abilities all have delays except her E -She has no real passive -Her plants blow up instantly in teamfights with any AoE -Her melee plant is ridiculously useless with It's range

manbearswineOct 14, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Zyra has among the absolute lowest base stats in the game and lowest move speed. She isn't designed for winning lane like that. She's designed for disengage.

And yet her greatest weaknesses are assassins and intiators,some awesome design there.

And before you reply to it,janna is a disengage support,are her weaknesses assassins and initiators? Azir is a zone control mage,are his weaknesses assassins and initiators?

Zyra right now is good for nothing,and that's why she's almost never seen(and never in competitive).

I'm not against her having shit base stats,but she can't both have those shit base stats and have her kit work the way it does now.

XelviOct 13, 20151 votes

I think she feels worse after the change to the plant AI. It does something really strange to her AA when a minion dies while her plants are attacking it; it's almost like it resets the cooldown on it so it takes twice as long to AA as it normally would.

Something is definitely off and it feels horrible compared to before the "whatever they did to her" changes.

StoningtonOct 14, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I think she feels worse after the change to the plant AI. It does something really strange to her AA when a minion dies while her plants are attacking it; it's almost like it resets the cooldown on it so it takes twice as long to AA as it normally would.

Something is definitely off and it feels horrible compared to before the "whatever they did to her" changes.

I think I know what you mean. It's almost like an auto attack cancel for the plant. It hasn't been a big issue for me though. Here's what I've noticed:

The biggest and best change was the acquisition and range of the plants has increased. Before, if a minion or enemy was at the edge of a plant's radius the plant wouldn't fire. Now it does.
When you spawn a plant near an enemy, the plant will land one hit on the enemy before searching for a minion. The range that the plant will acquire and attack the enemy has increased.
Plants will not go inactive. Sometimes the enemy would clearly be in range of the plant and the plant wouldn't fire.
The plants have higher range of attack. Before, if you were in an empty lane, you could kite the plant to kill it. One auto, then back off. Now, unless you have very long autos, the plant will acquire the target faster and attack them for it.

Now that I can depend on plants to acquire targets faster and more reliably I switched from rushing Liandry's to rushing Rylai's. This obvious gives excellent disengage, kiting potential, and peel. Best of all it allows you to level W before E. When building Liandry's first, you were required to level E second in order to hold and enemy in place long enough to get an ult off. Now, because you have the Rylai's slow, you can level up W second which gives you better wave clear and harass. You get the flat CDR and the ability CDR lower. This allows you to create zones of control easier. At 40% cdr and W maxed, your plant charges are on an 8 second CD. This means you have less vulnerability time in between seed charges because you never know when you idiot team is going to engage while your seeds are down.

The AI overhaul completely changed the way I play Zyra. I used to rely on that one liandry's proc from a plant to poke and do all my damage from a full combo. Now I can actually set up zones of control all over the place.