Coming from a Zyra main: she does not need a rework, just some small changes

I'm an avid main and have played her ever since I started ranked. I had an 80% winrate with her when I reached plat in season 4. I have approximately 700 games with her in both normals and ranked. The plant has very defined weaknesses and strengths as well as a good playstyle.

Zyra excels in zone control and punishes anyone who steps into her territory. She provides instantaneous soft CC and delayed hard CC. Given that her kit is all aoe, her strength comes from being able to catch multiple people out and keeping them there (or just the adc - that works too). She has long ranged harass, but would have to sacrifice some of her zone control for it. I like that she's a champion with choices. I'm not forced into a certain playstyle when I play her, and I can adapt with the situation.

I play Zyra both mid and support, but support is my favorite role. The main reason why I choose her is that she can block skillshots, an absolutely invaluable thing when protecting your adc. However, in order to do so, Zyra must trade her damage and leave herself vulnerable to save the adc. The timing must also be correct, and that is a challenge in and of itself. The plant must pop up while the enemy skillshot is in progress or Zyra has lost a valuable chunk of her damage and her adc is dead. Her seeds have a rather long cooldown time and the best time to catch her out is when she has no plants to call upon. She is also very squishy and quickly falls when you get right in her face.

There are a few things about Zyra that make her rather clunky. The first is her plant AI, which has been discussed on these forums multiple times. The plants will start off targeting an enemy champion and then immediately change targets even while the enemy remains in their range. Zyra is losing potential damage because of this and if such a mechanic is what she is balanced around, then the plant behavior must change to be more consistent. Secondly is Zyra's passive. I personally don't approve of any passive that requires you to die. However, it does work for some champions like but is absolutely useless for others like . Zyra's passive is so delayed and the skillshot so narrow that it is borderline useless. Not to mention it's incredibly buggy. Even I have fired it on occasion without meaning to due to mashing buttons previous to my death. I don't like that the grasping roots I attempted to cast right before dying translates to my dead plant firing a thorn into thin air 3 seconds after.

So to sum up :

Strengths: Zone control, soft CC, hard CC, skillshot block, free vision Weaknesses: Slower than molasses, squishy, vulnerable without seedlings, E is slow moving, ult is delayed Clunkiness: Delayed and buggy passive, buggy plant AI

So in my opinion, Zyra does not need a full rework but instead a few fixes to make her a bit smoother. I would be happy if the passive activated faster for example.