What did the Zyra rework accomplish anyway?

Valhalla Rising·Sep 23, 2019·23 votes·12,362 views

From my prospective, it made her gameplay more autonomous/less controllable, and she became a win lane or lose game champ.

Old Zyras early game was not as strong but that was balanced around her staying relevant as the match evolved.

Almost everything in her kit was slightly nerfed(especially Q shape/distance) to make room for ostensibly stronger plants.

Gameplay revolving around aiming spells at randomly spawned inanimate objects is super lame anyway, her kit was already uber fun spawning them manually as well as skillshot passive(SO FREAKING FUN)

Anyway, what am I missing(besides old Zyra ): ?

32 Comments

Illidan is HOTSep 23, 201917 votes

What did it accomplish? It's pretty easy.

Made her easier/more braindead to play, she doesn't even have to aim on the seeds anymore but can throw her spells near them
Made her actually more boring to play. You thought that having more plants would be more fun? Nope. You just randomly throw spells near seeds and hope for the RNG to finish the job
There are more plants which means they had to reduce their survi. Plants are getting 1 shot by about everything. Any aoe/dot destroys them.
Removed iconic part of her skillset (skillshot passive was very satysfying to land and made Zyra a threat even if you killed her)

IllabetheSep 23, 20195 votes

Actually aoe/Dot is the weakest plant killer. 1 HP per tick. Melee is 4 HP per tick, and ranged attacks are 2.

I wouldn't call her old passive "iconic"

ExplodingFist66Sep 24, 20194 votes

not all ticks have a long duration though

IllabetheSep 24, 20191 votes

There's only a few that are under 1 second a tick, and most of those are .5 second, and still take considerable time to kill plants (Morgana's W takes 3 seconds to kill plants).

The only standard abilities which are really fast is Corki's Gatling Gun, Rumble' Flamespitter. Other than that, most standards are 1 to .5 second ticks.

There are more ults, but if you're trying to use ults for plants..... well.....

And then once again.... there's the fact MF can just one shot them with Love Tap. (Make it Rain actually takes awhile to kill plants)

Pika FoxSep 24, 20193 votes

[{quoted}](name=GIMME CHOCOLATE,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rgpMTioo,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2019-09-23T20:24:10.322+0000)

What did it accomplish? It's pretty easy.

Made her easier/more braindead to play, she doesn't even have to aim on the seeds anymore but can throw her spells near them

Made her actually more boring to play. You thought that having more plants would be more fun? Nope. You just randomly throw spells near seeds and hope for the RNG to finish the job

There are more plants which means they had to reduce their survi. Plants are getting 1 shot by about everything. Any aoe/dot destroys them.

Removed iconic part of her skillset (skillshot passive was very satysfying to land and made Zyra a threat even if you killed her)

Her passive was useless 9/10 times due to its delay. Unless you died first in a massive teamfight, actually landing a passive shot that mattered was rare.

Kog is pretty much the same way. Sure, true damage on death is neat.... Until you realize the enemy can either outright dodge it, or the damage strictly does not matter. Its more useful as a "well, might as well pick up a few minions" tool.

IxtaliKingSep 24, 20191 votes

Removed iconic part of her skillset (skillshot passive was very satysfying to land and made Zyra a threat even if you killed her)

I agree with everything you said, but this passive was one of the most requested things to change. That much I remember.

I miss it though. That old passive was fun.

SukishooSep 23, 20199 votes

Honestly I feel it accomplished nothing.

They could have done much more for a rework with her. Giving her a passive that is the SAME as one of her abilities was just an absolute waste. If anything, why not change the W to something else if you were gonna give that to her in a passive? Give her more tools to do something with.

Personally I also never cared much for her ult and thought they could have done more there since it's something that is so easy to get away from, not all that useful in most cases but of course they never touched it.

ZultanTheAmazingSep 23, 20193 votes

{quoted}

Honestly I feel it accomplished nothing.

They could have done much more for a rework with her. Giving her a passive that is the SAME as one of her abilities was just an absolute waste. If anything, why not change the W to something else if you were gonna give that to her in a passive? Give her more tools to do something with.

Personally I also never cared much for her ult and thought they could have done more there since it's something that is so easy to get away from, not all that useful in most cases but of course they never touched it.

Her E used to be longer and had a faster missile speed, but that was nerfed for being too reliable to combo with. Her ult also used to damage, SLOW, then knockup, but again that was nerfed for being too oppressive and reliable as champs with no mobility suffered more.

SukishooSep 23, 20192 votes

True, I've just never really felt the ult was all that stratifying to use. It still does damage on cast and a knock up after 2 seconds but even then it's still just meh. I feel they could have looked a bit deeper into her to make her more interesting when they did the update.

Like the recent character released over in SMITE, Persephone, has the idea of Zyra going on. The abilities to place seeds, then after a short time she can summon minions from them and what not. I think they did a lot better with the whole concept (she even has a more Karthus style passive of dying and then using all abilities for a short time but can actually run around the map).

Sire HippingtonSep 24, 20193 votes

If you use the ult as followup for your root or allied cc, they can't get away from it, and it covers a massive aoe for strong CC. It also is a strong zoneing tool and buffs plants. If you have issues with it not hitting opponents when you randomly throw it out, then that's cause you don't use it correctly...

5050BSSep 24, 20191 votes

1.75s (1.13s with tenacity) is BARELY a CC. This is not counting all the abilities that just remove CC

Rıots Bad ClientSep 24, 20198 votes

Give her a real passive. No body liked her old passive, it just rewarded dying... which wasnt a good thing for a mage. If you said you liked it, fine thats cool. but it still sucked.

aside from that, nothing to much, they made her a pretty boring champ. I dont want to see a revert because old zyra was still pretty not great. I would rather them focus on zyras current kit or expand the kit. reverting solves nothing.

Her abilities are generic, her plants are unreliable. But her Theme is very lucrative.

MaleficušDec 7, 20191 votes

Literally.

more emphasis on that lucrative theme compared to what Zyra is... a walking salad with no dressing. Boring.

There are so many cool fan-made concepts for Zyra that look way more fun than this one. (Here)

Sire HippingtonSep 24, 20195 votes

Yep, all they did is takeing her skill expression and fun parts and replaceing it with boring rng plant spam.

Old zyra had fewer plants, but the once she had where more powerfull and she had controll over which plant spant where, makeing her plants a more meaninfull part of her gameplay and skillexpression. Quite ironic that the rework that was meant to focus her more on plants actually mad her plants less meaningfull ....

In addition to that, she lost her passive. Not that it was a great passive, but on an imobile squishy, haveing that last nuke upon dieing was actually quite valuable, especially as support in the 2v2. Also, getting revengekills that way is very statisfying, and it's not like they replaced it with anything interactive or fun...

IllabetheSep 24, 20192 votes

Plant spawn is not RNG, nor was it "replacement."

W is the same except it lost CDR.

You just have supplemental plants now. And, while they may seem like RNG, they aren't exactly RNG. Check the wiki; they do follow some rules on spawn, and I've played her enough to confirm a few of them...... hence why I jungle her. Walls and Bushes and Objectives and foe placement all are taken into consideration where they spawn. Once you begin to master her, you'll time your movements/bush checks around that.

I'm good enough at forcing the RNG on her plants, I literally take ZERO champion damage from jungle when I'm jungling Zyra.

P.S. Zyra is only immobile if you want her to be. Some of my best builds use item 3100 item 2065 item 3907 ...... And no. They don't detract from her impact. 540 Move speed Zyra is nothing to scoff at.

SpecterVonBarenSep 24, 20195 votes

Are we really at the point where people actually look back on Zyra's passive as something good?

MaleficušDec 7, 20191 votes

Maybe, or they just forgot how her ulti was on release, with immense scaling and a 600 base dmg- rank 3.

SaezioSep 24, 20195 votes

They supposedly made plants stronger, yet plants now die to 2 autos best case scenario.

5050BSSep 24, 20191 votes

For a very short while she was in a good place. Then forced support and nerfed to hell. Her Whole kit got gutted for what it is suppose to do.

The Rework was to get rid of the TERRIBLE Passive.

lolipopevelynnSep 23, 20194 votes

all of those class updates accomplished nothing. they were changes just for the sake of change. velkoz is probably the only champ that came out positive from any of them. everyone else was either broken and needed reverts or just too weak. graves was very fun at first, till everyone realized he couldnt go bot lane and was hard stuck to jg.

Sire HippingtonSep 24, 20193 votes

wouldn't say vel was positive, it was more that it atleast wasn't negative with few pros and cons that add up ratehr neutral... Thin out off all the class reworks, brand was the only positive for me, his new passive rewards proper combos, while he basically stayed the same all things considered.

InfernapeSep 24, 20191 votes

{quoted}

all of those class updates accomplished nothing. they were changes just for the sake of change. velkoz is probably the only champ that came out positive from any of them. everyone else was either broken and needed reverts or just too weak. graves was very fun at first, till everyone realized he couldnt go bot lane and was hard stuck to jg.

Talon and Katarina are objectively better champs since their updates. Everything else was trash imo.

IllabetheSep 23, 20194 votes

New Zyra made her hit boxes more versatile, gave more access to plants, cleaned up the botched attempt at CDR reduction (up to 10% in her kit), in exchange for more burst damage.

What actually happened sounds like the opposite of what you THINK happened.

Plants are FAR weaker now. Less base HP, and higher ticks taken off them per hit now than before by specific types of attacks (melee instant kill, range 2 shot, or in the case of MF, 1 shot)
Q is far more versatile now, and a good Zyra can exploit/hit it at extremely safe distances. To put it into perspective: I can erase an Caitlyn outside her Rapid Fire Cannon Range. That's what a GOOD Zyra can do. I don't know why some nostalgic players like the old circle; immediately after her rework, everyone was complaining about how the NEW version is broken.

P.S. Old Zyra had the same Manual seed spawn rate as now. The new plants are SUPPLEMENTAL. She also could only store 2 back then as well.

P.P.S. Cry more about losing True damage post death skill shot. Get rewarded more for playing bad.

Raven RedeemedSep 23, 20194 votes

Yeah, new Zyra has less agency over the game in exchange for her having less counter play, which seems unhealthy. She is far less rewarding when positioning plants correctly (bc they do less individually) and enemies have fewer chances to trade since her passive pumps out seeds which you can’t really plan for. Her old passive was awful (for a mage at least) and her thematic is stronger now, but at the cost healthy gameplay.

CaptainAntiHerozSep 24, 20194 votes

it made clearing her plants way to easy in the late game and put more of a focus on landing her other abilities which kinda defeats the purpose of having her plants...... but i mean they still do damage so im really torn between YAY my abilities hurt them and WHY ARENT MY PLANTS KILLING THEM ALREADY????

Gùrl GâmérSep 24, 20194 votes

I don't remember who first started saying it but i'll have to agree with them when they say "Any passive that requires you to be dead, is a bad passive" exception being Sion. Q covered larger AOE, and allows a safe zone when combined with her Q. The combo is still E, W,W, R. Zyra works best with a rylia's and torment, with sorc boots.

Stupid IdeaSep 24, 20194 votes

Unpopular opinion but old Zyra was all about burst. No one really cared about plants other than some poke. It was all about hitting E Q R and dropping WW sometime in between. I have more than 1M points on Zyra and I was not happy with the rework but I won't pretend I was missing old plants. It was that sweet sweet Q damage. [slayer-jinx-unamused]

JenivieSep 23, 20193 votes

Her passive is horrible and unreliable. I hate it. Give me back my zyra plant with the one use execute shot. That was sick.

FSRERSep 24, 20192 votes

They wanted to compete with EA by creating their own garden warfare and so Zyra rework became a thing

PumpedheroSep 24, 20191 votes

An absolutely disgusting champion that needs to be nerfed. Thats what it accomplished.

EATARISep 24, 20191 votes

I personally really enjoy using passive seeds to control space. I do think that having the (pseudo) randomly spawn is odd though. Once you learn that seeds only spawn 400-700 units ahead in the direction you’re moving, you gain a lot more control over their positioning. But it’s fun to deny space in lane by hovering 600 units away with Q up.

General Esdeath Sep 24, 20191 votes

What did ANY of the mage updates do?

Malzahar went from a spell slinging mage with DoT damage and multiple builds to a mana sink that can push waves later but not early and is gated by his strong defensive passive

was once one of the BEST champs for damage. Great single target damage, with a DoT passive based on max HP to give him a tank killing kit that also could chunk anyone not a tank. Now? He's a damage support that can SOMETIMES work mid but not as well as before because all his damage is in his 3 hit passive now. His whole kit (except W) was nerfed, and he's given a passive that you can avoid with just a stopwatch on a delayed explosion, meaning champs like Bard Braum (if he's good) Ekko Evelynn Fiora Fizz Garen Galio Gragas Ivern Janna Kindred LeeSin Leona Lissandra Lulu Lux Morgana Nautilus Neeko Nocturne Orianna Nasus Renekton Riven Rumble Shaco Shyvana Sion Sivir Sylas Swain TahmKench Taric Thresh Udyr Urgot Xayah XinZhao Zilean can ALL avoid his ult explosion by using a shield, health increase, or various other means.

Vladimir no longer drain tanks you with spells and does more damage as the fight goes on, now he just bursts you down while healing himself.

Cassiopeia was pushed to top lane and became a melee bully instead of a DPS mage who has a condition of hitting her poison. Remember when you had to poison someone to spam E? Now you just spam it anyway!

Velkoz used to be a personal favorite of mine, with his burst and range, now it's just like Brand, all about the passive. EXCEPT HIS PASSIVE FUCKING SUCKS, and the rest of his abilities have high damage, so they got nerfed a bit, and now he's just another support mage.