Sorry, I´m not native English, there will be several grammatical mistakes.
Hey,
I would like to talk a bit about Zyra. I´m making this post as detailed as possible, so there are no misunderstandings.
So, Zyra has been ignored from competitive play for 1 ½ years now. People argued, that this is the case due to meta changes, but this is definitely not the case. Over these 1 ½ years we had the Bruisermeta → Assassins → Hypercarrys → Assassins → Tank / Controlmages → Juggernauts. She was irrelevant in all of those, although the idea behind her kit is to be good in the Tank / Controlmages and even in the Juggernaut-meta.
She was only picked in 1 game in a highly competitive level: In Game 3 SHR vs YG in the LPL by Yansir. She ended with a 0/8/5 KDA, vs a Kennen Support.
What is her problem? There aren´t many Champions, who offer as much counterplay as Zyra does.
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Zyra has the 2nd lowest Base HP in the game
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Zyra has one of the lowest defensive scalings in the game (20 armor + 3 armor per level/ 479 HP + 74 HP per level)
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Zyra lacks a passive. Even if you assume to get 1 kill per game, 95% of your Passive-kills have no great impact on the game.
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Zyra has the slowest snare-projectile in the game. Not necessarily a bad thing, because its an AoE snare-spell. But, this spell snares herself for 0.5 seconds. - The snare on enemys scales from 0.75 to 1.75 until level 13. Its basically her only escape when she gets ganked. Its easily dodged (1150 misslespeed), worst case its flashed and you just have snared yourself for 0.5 seconds and became a freekill. You are basically punished for casting this spell at all. It has a 1100 range, but it won´t hit anyone anyway above 800 range with its width and speed.
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Zyra lacks the waveclear of other Champions. With 75/80/85/90/95 manacosts on her Q she has to invest way more mana for less waveclear than other Mages. You could argue that her W costs no mana, but the plants don´t add that much to solve that problem. The manacosts are balanced for her supportrole, but not for mid.
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Zyra got balanced as a “longranged mage”. But, the delays on every ability force her to be at least in 700 range, which is infact not longranged. Neither 1v1 nor 2v2. In 2v2 the supports are most of the time slightly infront of their ADC to apply their pressure. So, if you are in 700 range to hit the Q the enemy support can just trade back/all in you, since he will be closer than 700 units towards you. You basically try to get positive trades on the enemy ADC for your own HP and outsustain with potions. To get the full potential of Zyra´s kit you need to be in 575 range for an Autoattack.
The delay on the knock-up of Zyra´s ult is 2 seconds. The radius of Zyra´s ult is 500-550 (?). Let´s assume someone gets into 700 range of Zyra and Zyra simply ults him. A Champ with 330 MS can cross a distance of 660 within these 2 seconds. He simply walks out of it. That´s why you have to use Zyra´s ult as counter/secondary engage. If you combo someone, you need the knockup to kill your enemy with a last Q. I already mentioned, that her E is a hard spell to use (especially offensively). When you cast E the enemy has 1.2 seconds time to dodge for a spell which needs 0.7 seconds to hit him (at 800 range). The animation shows how you aimed the snare. Even if you hit it, you need to walk up for 0.3 seconds to cast the ulti immediatly. You probably won´t get the knockup anyhow because of escape-mechanics/dashes/MS buffs like: Ahri Q/R, Azir E, Cassio Q, Ekko E, Fizz, Jayce E/R, Karma E, Katarina E, Kassadin R/ Kayle W/ LeBlanc W/R, Lissandra E, Lulu W, Orianna W, Syndra can Q -> E you out of ult range, Talon R, Viktor Q, Zed W. They are all enough to deny Zyra the knock up and no knock up means no kill for her. Since you have to move up straightaway after casting E for kill-pressure, you are out of position in the case that the E doesn´t hit and you will lose any trade. Zyra´s ability to make plays on her own is very small. Zyra is both immobile and not able to handle mobility. She is not a Champ, who should be mobile. I agree with this. But, the second point is too much. The “If Viktor did not flash (…) it would´ve been an easy kill”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9DLY0Qrcm4&t=3m5s of Zyra´s Champion Spotlight happens usually every game, because Zyra cant keep up.
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Former favorable matchups for Zyra like e.g. Ahri and Viktor completely got turned around after their updates. Zyra, whose kit counters the concept of Viktor´s can´t match him in anyway except early 1v1´s. When Viktor gets his augmented Q, Zyra finally can´t do anything at all. Zyra was considered as the only true counters of Mordekaiser and Ryze in a 1v1. She can´t handle Ryze anymore and gets overrun by Mordekaiser in the botlane. Viktor saw so much play in competitive level and a Mage, which should beat him pretty hard in lane never sees any play.
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“Early game - Zyra´s plants make her one of the games best duelists” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9DLY0Qrcm4&t=2m25s . You recently changed the plant AI. But, in the end it wasn´t that big of a deal as it seemed to be/was initially on the PBE. And she is clearly not the best duelist in the league. She is way to vulnerable.
Uhm gapcloser? No way to respond to it.
Zyra has more weaknesses than strengths. Every controlmage can do their job better. Siegecomp? Get Azir. You got a lot midgame power? Get an Anivia to scale and waveclear for lategame and kite the enemys. Teamfocussed AoE comp? Get Orianna for a safe lane and gamedeciding ultimate and a lot of utility. Strong Jungler and not a big frontline of the enemys? Get Syndra.
In what comp is Zyra the best? Zyra´s scales good into midgame and falls slightly off. The reason is that she has no damage scaling at level 14/15/17/18. You get 1 sec less cooldown on your seeds and additional 2% CDR and low defensive stats. Not a bad thing, whatsoever. A midlane Zyra offers a good amount of kiting later on to run a Hypercarry-comp. You dont need a Janna for your Jinx/Kog´maw when you have a Zyra and you can go for an Alistar, for some primary engage and e.g. Gragas as reliable disengage in the Jungle. Zyra´s kit as a Champion fits so well in these comps. The numbers in her kit do not interact well with each other on the other hand, making her 1. clunky 2. unsafe as a Champion. You can go other Controlmages for an easier lane, more utility, more reliable damage and to be safer as a Champion.
Most common counterargument? Zyra´s winrate. But, what do you expect a winrate to be, when she has the second highest playerbase average games played? People, who played her in rankeds have ~140 rankeds with her, mastered her, learned to play with those disadvantages. Of course its higher than 50%. And she is rarely seen, thats why people are a bit unfamiliar with her and might not expect the damage she is able to do, if the enemys misplay. Does this make her too OP to help her out? I don´t think so.
A champion does not need to be strong in competitive play? Well there is a reason why she isn´t, because she is not oppressive, high risk and a low reward Champion. Professional players play Champions, who bring something special to a team, who are good in certain situations. The reason nobody picks Zyra is, that she does not offer anything unique worth picking up. Why pick a slow AoE low duration snare, when you can pick up safe long duration single target snares? Why pick an 2 second delayed 1 second AoE knockup? Every Champ can run at Zyra. Zyra can´t run at other Champions. She is not abusive as she was in S3.
If you want her to be strong in melee range, give her at least the necessary defenses to stay alive. Or to use the full potential of her kit. The frustrating part is, that she is still considered in your point of view as an OP Champion with no rooms to buff. It sounds like this is the final version of Zyra people have to play with until she gets something like a Viktor-level rework. If you would be release Zyra today, would she be exactly the same as she is now?
Why does she see such a treatment in contrast to other Champions in the game? Is she seen as a Champion unfun to play against like Yorick or Poppy and you don´t want her to be strong? If this is really the case just say it. I feel sometimes that she is kinda a taboo. I would really love to discuss a bit with you about her.
, which is only really built by ADC's who are ranged, thus don't really need that passive anyways!
do you see him as a balanced champion or is he too strong?
