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Zyra Mid in 7.24

Shaian·11/21/2017, 1:15:01 AM·8 votes·1,722 views

The Plant HP changes are really odd to me im honest and i dont think it fulfills whatever you were aiming:

You basically doubled her HP, but also doubled (even 4x vs T-Spells and Melee-Autos) the damage she takes from other resources except minions and DoTs, while the plant HP doesnt even scale anymore. If the enemy is bad of course it wont matter. But, her plants will never do more than one attack if the enemy has a clue of what he is doing. Cass already has an easy time clearing Zyras plants with Auto -> E. It even requirest less skill and brain than before, since a simple E kills the plant at no cost the entire game.

Zyra's waveclear is so much dependend on her E+Q, that it doesnt even matter for all midlaners to use a skill for her plants. If Zyra uses E to clear, she cant all in her enemies. She needs 2 points in E, to have a safe knock-up at level 6 (one point less in Q for trading/waveclearing). Her W is a seed, which needs either Q or E to spawn a plant. Zyra's Q shape doesnt allow her to effectively waveclear all minions and ofc not if she wants to use it as a trading tool.

She will have to use Q or E anyway to spawn the plant in the first place. She wont be able to push and punish the enemy laner for using a skill for her plant. And on PBE almost every mage will kill them even faster than before:

Cassiopeia (E), Taliyah (Q /grounded with auto for even less cost), Viktor (Q), Leblanc (Q), Ryze (Q-E), Vladimir (Q), Velkoz (W), TF (W), Annie (Q), ASol (P+Auto), Ahri (W), Galio (Auto) literally every single Assassin, too, will just oneshot her plants in lane. The DoT changes are the only good ones, but even those wont matter that much. Because Malz presses E on a plant, autos it and keeps waveclearing with it. Syndra will use her plants for her own waveclear with W anyway. Its really easy to play around Zyra's cooldowns in the midlane with her 2 basic abilities.

Your changes make sense in theory, but the way her potential matchups and Zyra herself are designed its not going to work out, i can tell you that already. You need to give Zyra additional waves to waveclear or all of this is just a straight nerf.

Overall these changes are only good for waveclearing a pushed in wave before it hits your own tower, since plants are 2x as tanky against minions now. But, if you didnt change anything about her plant HP and gave her plants 2x attackspeed vs minions, the result wouldve been the same in this case and better in any other situation.

All of Zyras damage is balanced around plants. So dont make the enemies just onehit them with single target spells.

6 Comments

Vekkna11/21/2017, 1:38:51 AM2 votes

I don't think you're wrong, and I share some of your initial concerns. That said, you have to look at how much the plant spawn cadence is increasing, not just with the W refresh but also with the shorter range on passive spawns. I mean...we're realistically talking about double the number of usable seeds during a laning phase.

It's also worth noting that the mpen nerfs have shifted Zyra's stat priority heavily towards CDR. She isn't a burst mage anymore, at least not without a level advantage. The added CDR in build on top of the PBE changes means a LOT more attrition damage throughout the game as well as threat zones late game.

I think it will be good overall, but we need to admit that the old burst mage Zyra is gone. Riot needs to admit it as well, but that's another problem for another thread. These changes seem more tailored to allowing her utility to scale with the carry role. It's an interesting idea, but I doubt it will make it to live without heavy nerfs (assuming it goes live at all).

Elewd11/21/2017, 2:26:34 AM1 votes

But is every single person going to throw their attacks and spells at the plants, or the minions. Clear the wave with plants thrown into the mix and you turn more into a very poke heavy lane with comet. Remember plants reduce Comets CD by a good bit.

Domovric11/21/2017, 5:25:42 PM1 votes

I really don't understand what their aim is with these proposed changes, even in theory. Increasing her ability to use pet units (changing the w) is either going to be pointless or pointlessly oppressive (and inevitably lead to nerfs or reverts like it did with malzahar). It's also counter intuitive to her role as either a support or as a midlaner.

As a support, current itemization doesn't really let her spec into CDR even with nurunes (Mpen remains the highest winrate), meaning the ease at which plants are killed is a massive nerf. And you're still a support, meaning you can't abuse the unit killing to reduce your W CD.

As a midlaner the OP is right, this does nothing to fix her issues in waveclear, you still need a full spell rotation+plants to compete with an opponents single spell, AND its more time consuming so you're still being pushed in as they kill plants. Back around the mage update, the damage changes to her q and e made sense (Despite their chunkiness), given how powerful her plants became, but they've been nerfed time and again with changes to their damage, defensive stats and AI. These new health changes piled on top of that are not helping.

I can't say I know what the solution to bringing Zyra back to mid lane (or elsewhere) is, but i can pretty much guarantee it's not this

CryoThorn12/15/2017, 2:52:07 AM1 votes

I was at first skeptical with these changes as well, but your forgetting the w recharge time being lowered with CS. That change allows for her to effectively use her combo more often, with item 3165 now being viable on her due to this, she has a lot of oppressive poke, but she's super squishy and immobile, so if she misses her spells she'll get punished by dying, but sure, her plants get one shot, so angle your Q so they are at a range, E plants are rendered useless except for providing a slow for 1 or 2 autos. Q plus 1 plant clears the backline in the early game and her E clears it by itself at rank 4. She scales pretty hard into mid and late game if she's peeled for, her ability to both peel and provide consistent DPS in teamfights not only makes her a viable mid pick now, but a meta one at that. Zyra is currently sitting as the #5 Mid laner on OP.GG in Platinum +. The date of this post is 12/14/2017

I'm a Zyra main, not someone who "thinks" they know what they are talking about. Her mid isn't fixed completely, I think that a slight meta shift will knock her down to JUST viable, not good. I think some small buffs to her Spell AP Ratios will fix her waveclear effectively, but I think it should be scaling based on rank of the spell (ex: 60/65/70/75/80% AP on Q, (50/55/60/65/70% AP on E), Overall, this was a buff to Mid lane Zyra, because now she doesn't have to sacrifice her main damage source in order to farm, she gets rewarded for farming, and Support Zyra is now in a much healthier spot and easier to balance due to these changes, she needed that plant durability change. Not to mention she's a viable jungler now. She's not nearly as bad as she used to be. I think she could use the AP ratio buffs to her spells, that would allow for Zyra to defend herself a bit more against Assassins and Mobile mages, which are very popular picks against her. However, she does not necessarily HAVE to be buffed. If she needs another one, then I would suggest that, or perhaps removing the self-root on her E ability, and the delay on Q. There's a lot of things they could do to Zyra that would slightly help her mid a bit more.

TLDR: Mid is viable, slightly too strong in the current meta, but I predict it's because no one knows how to play against it yet, since it's been like 3 seasons since she's been seen in mid lane. Could use some AP Ratio buffs to help waveclear and all in burst potential, my numbers may be way too overtuned, but we'll see what Riot decides on Zyra's balance state.

Have a nice day!