Zyra's plant AI has to be considered for her mage update

Lalaboxx·Feb 14, 2016·45 votes·2,518 views

First of all I'd like to appreciate that you guys at riot looked at her plant Ai some time ago, it really helped her having an overall better and reliant damage output. However, sometimes I find myself wondering why my plants won't attack anything, even though I marked enemy champions with my autoattacks(watch the vid: leona is the only enemy unit within my TS's range yet my plant didn't even try to attack). It's just frustrating seein my plants just standing there, doing exactly nothing, so I'd very appreciate it if you'd looked into that topic closely.

25 Comments

ÐelofashtFeb 14, 20165 votes

I think an update to her Plant AI should also hit anyone who has AI units that auto attack, I have seen Heimers turrets just ignore people for 2 seconds before determining that they should be shooting them, same for Yorick's ghouls and rare Malz Voidling will get confused. It is extremely unrewarding to setup a good play and then watch the AI simply fail. In fact I would almost rather have all of them be set to spam an AoE in a given direction on summoning (or move a specific direction while spamming that attack) rather than giving them targetting at all. That would make the decision about where to have it attack in the hands of the player and also make the counterplay to recognize while direction it is attacking and not atand in front of it. Good for positioning zoning and things, more consistent and predictable, they should truly consider that.

Your third momFeb 14, 20163 votes

hell no haimers turrets are fucking stupid he needs 1 skill to place those 3 champions that last untill you kill them and has insane dmg + that power shot. heim is already a bitch to deal with you can just put them in mid and sit under tower plus heim only needs to basic target and they imeadiatly start ripping it to shreads with their bullets their ap scale is stupid when you add their attack speed it is nowhere near as slow as zyras and her plants take 2 skills to create + they last for how long 5 sec? heims turrets give no shit if hes dead of not they're still going to attack their target aslong as its in their range.

5050BSFeb 15, 20161 votes

Ya I second. I play Dingger and have not seen them bug out. They EAT people

CasriFeb 14, 20164 votes

Lol, that video is unbelievable. I have had similar experiences too. Plants are still very unreliable other than to proc thunderlord's and apply Rylai/Liandry a couple of times. I'm also convinced Haunted Zyra is still bugged out (and I wish the visual of the root matched the hitbox).

Additionally, something needs to be done about plant durability too if Riot want plants to be the mainstay of Zyra's kit. Ambient AoE (Sunfire Cape/Mundo/Shyvana/Amumu/Tibbers auras etc) and DoTs take them down way too fast.

The recent AI changes were nice: plants change targets a lot more smoothly and they remember their previous target if it leaves and re-enters plant-auto range, but they are undoubtedly still not the greatest.

KaizokumoFeb 14, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Lol, that video is unbelievable. I have had similar experiences too. Plants are still very unreliable other than to proc thunderlord's and apply Rylai/Liandry a couple of times. I'm also convinced Haunted Zyra is still bugged out (and I wish the visual of the root matched the hitbox).

Additionally, something needs to be done about plant durability too if Riot want plants to be the mainstay of Zyra's kit. Ambient AoE (Sunfire Cape/Mundo/Shyvana/Amumu/Tibbers auras etc) and DoTs take them down way too fast.

The recent AI changes were nice: plants change targets a lot more smoothly and they remember their previous target if it leaves and re-enters plant-auto range, but they are undoubtedly still not the greatest.

Yet illaois tentacle will r@pe you without a doubt, always, forever.

5050BSFeb 15, 20162 votes

That is one thing Zyra plans need in the Update is Ulted they are IMMUNE to damage and will last their full duration

SociopathFriendFeb 14, 20162 votes

That's probably one reason Zyra and Malz are on the Mage update- they likely have new toys to play with in regards to the AI.

FantasySniperFeb 14, 20162 votes

They've been even worse lately. Sometimes they just sit there and eke out a single attack before they die.

KoKobotoFeb 14, 20161 votes

Sometimes I have experiences where I place a plant behind a wall and I have vision over the wall and a enemy is CLEARLY in the plant's range. The plant doesn't attack though :/ pretty annoying when playing mid lane

5050BSFeb 15, 20161 votes

Or they will attack the Minions on MY side of the wall and not the Enemy champ standing RIGHT NEXT TO THEM

A Miss FortuneFeb 14, 20161 votes

Aside from bugfixes I think simply allowing Zyra's plants to prioritize champions over everything else would give Zyra a tremendous buff for her Mid lane and Support roles. It's pretty stupid that Zyra's plants often will just hit nearby minions rather than the enemy team unless you use her significantly shorter ranged auto attacks. It seems kind of like her own plants counter Zyra herself.

5050BSFeb 15, 20161 votes

You mean like Heimerdinger turrets that have more HP and attack 3x faster?

Bondage BunnyboyFeb 15, 20161 votes

{quoted}

You mean like turrets that have more HP and attack 3x faster?

More health, 3x the speed, maybe. Heimer can't toss them a mile away though. He has to set them down right next to himself, and when they're dead, he doesn't have the zone control of Zyra's R (but still has his massive rocket burst on a CC'd target, or his long range grenade initiation).

Bondage BunnyboyFeb 15, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Miss Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yh47dtsg,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-02-14T23:26:00.371+0000)

Aside from bugfixes I think simply allowing Zyra's plants to prioritize champions over everything else would give Zyra a tremendous buff for her Mid lane and Support roles. It's pretty stupid that Zyra's plants often will just hit nearby minions rather than the enemy team unless you use her significantly shorter ranged auto attacks. It seems kind of like her own plants counter Zyra herself.

I don't think Zyra needs a buff THAT huge... it's already fairly easy to force the plants to focus a champion, and if it's too dangerous to do that (vs Leona/Annie/etc) you should be playing for the counterengage anyway.

A Miss FortuneFeb 15, 20161 votes

Zyra doesn't have that many strengths. She has an okay amount of crowd control but her main focus is damage/zoning. If Zyra can't do either of that because her plants prefer to push your lane to overextend early game, then why even buy her?

Bondage BunnyboyFeb 15, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Miss Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yh47dtsg,comment-id=000400010000,timestamp=2016-02-15T12:13:20.337+0000)

Zyra doesn't have that many strengths. She has an okay amount of crowd control but her main focus is damage/zoning. If Zyra can't do either of that because her plants prefer to push your lane to overextend early game, then why even buy her?

Well, she probably has an easier time than Annie when it comes to being relevant after losing the lane. Annie would be good for stuns and do decent instant damage, sure, but Zyra's damage is consistently going to be a huge factor in teamfights alongside her W/R zoning as long as she has at least 40~ ish pen.

In my personal experience, it's just easier to perform consistently on Zyra than Annie and even Sona... even when you know you're going to die, as long as you didn't feed out of your ass (which i do sometimes due to poor decision making) and built correctly you'll be huge. I pretty much play Zyra because she just feels extremely rewarding when you know when to be patient and when to go aggressive.

A Miss FortuneFeb 15, 20161 votes

Annie would be good for stuns and do decent instant damage, sure, but Zyra's damage is consistently going to be a huge factor in teamfights alongside her W/R zoning as long as she has at least 40~ ish pen.

Annie has higher base damage and ratios while all of her abilities are pretty much point-and-click. Zyra's abilities are all skillshots and all of them have delays besides her E. Her R has a 2 second delay and only a 1 second knockup. Zyra has a lot of damage but you have to take in consideration that they're very easy to dodge/miss, cost a large chunk of mana without mana items, and Zyra isn't going to easily build 40 magic penetration in her Support role. (Her mid role is a lot easier to do so.)

I just think Zyra's strengths aren't enough to make her "strong". She still is EXTREMELY squishy, she goes out of mana very fast, her abilities are all delayed, and her plants are absolutely stupid.

Bondage BunnyboyFeb 15, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Miss Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yh47dtsg,comment-id=00040001000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-15T14:24:45.760+0000)

Annie has higher base damage and ratios while all of her abilities are pretty much point-and-click. Zyra's abilities are all skillshots and all of them have delays besides her E. Her R has a 2 second delay and only a 1 second knockup. Zyra has a lot of damage but you have to take in consideration that they're very easy to dodge/miss, cost a large chunk of mana without mana items, and Zyra isn't going to easily build 40 magic penetration in her Support role. (Her mid role is a lot easier to do so.)

I just think Zyra's strengths aren't enough to make her "strong". She still is EXTREMELY squishy, she goes out of mana very fast, her abilities are all delayed, and her plants are absolutely stupid.

Annie might have higher base damage/ratios but Zyra has the benefit of high range Liandry poke, and Zyra can maintain threat in two locations, kind of like Orianna can. Yes, Tibbers can do that too, but he doesn't have ranged autoattacks, so...

Okay, maybe early 40+ penetration is out of the question in a lot of support games, but getting one 15 penetration item on top of the mastery for flat penetration+the 7ish from runes will make a squishy cry, and will keep you (as a support) relevant against pretty much everyone that isn't a tank or an AD assassin with hexdrinker like Zed. ... I hate fighting Zed as Zyra.

Zyra's squishiness and ability delays are absolutely necessary to keep her in check. I won't deny that her plants do need some fixing, but when they do work properly, they can (potentially) be enough to 1v2 in the support lane and force a back in the mid lane. And personally, I don't think I'd enjoy Zyra if she wasn't as fragile as a flower. Her low defense and high potential really gives me a thrill.

Professor WardFeb 15, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Miss Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yh47dtsg,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-02-14T23:26:00.371+0000)

Aside from bugfixes I think simply allowing Zyra's plants to prioritize champions over everything else would give Zyra a tremendous buff for her Mid lane and Support roles. It's pretty stupid that Zyra's plants often will just hit nearby minions rather than the enemy team unless you use her significantly shorter ranged auto attacks. It seems kind of like her own plants counter Zyra herself.

i almost always end up doing over 10k more damage when i dont auto attack as often with zyra on aram. I know its aram but it proves your point perfectly

KoKobotoFeb 15, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Miss Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yh47dtsg,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-02-14T23:26:00.371+0000)

Aside from bugfixes I think simply allowing Zyra's plants to prioritize champions over everything else would give Zyra a tremendous buff for her Mid lane and Support roles. It's pretty stupid that Zyra's plants often will just hit nearby minions rather than the enemy team unless you use her significantly shorter ranged auto attacks. It seems kind of like her own plants counter Zyra herself.

This change would only help Zyra in lane, and I doubt it would make too dominate unless you're in a strong matchup. Out of lane the plants currently don't get as confused because theres no other targets

A Miss FortuneFeb 15, 20161 votes

Zyra was made as a zone control Mage in lane and a teamfighting Mage outside of lanes.

5050BSFeb 15, 20161 votes

They fix them on the PBE once and she became what I would call competitive for mid lane.

They then reverted the BUG FIX

ElewdFeb 15, 20161 votes

i wish they just pushed that ai fix on zyra's plants to live instead of going "oh she can actually lane really well now lets revert this, can't have that happen again" =\ i was really looking forward to that ai fix too. i love midlane zyra, shes so fun to play but god damn her plants are useless

BlainezyFeb 15, 20161 votes

Yes! I've made tons of posts about her plant AI being derped and recently made a post about her plants being useless and one hit by everything. Everyone just wanted to flame saying she's on the Mage update list, which I know, but she needs a little love to be semi playable until she's fixed