Zyra has issues beyond her mobility and squishiness. Like the fact that almost every ADC has some kind of dash now or ways to avoid the very slow and telegraphed E (Zyra's primary CC), and some champions just simply move fast enough to avoid it most of the time. Her "role" as a mage support is probably better done by the likes of 
Vel'Koz (Better, more spammable poke and wombo) or even Lux (Again, better poke, and also has easier to land CC due to faster projectiles).
I agree that some champs might come back into the fray at bot lane, or come out for the first time, but I don't think Zyra will be one of them. As for your other examples, aside from Karma all of those champions excel in solo laning to the point of it being pointless to try them as a support. Nautilus on the other hand is ALREADY a good support and has been used as such quite a lot this year.
Vel'Koz (Better, more spammable poke and wombo) or even Lux (Again, better poke, and also has easier to land CC due to faster projectiles).I agree that some champs might come back into the fray at bot lane, or come out for the first time, but I don't think Zyra will be one of them. As for your other examples, aside from
Karma all of those champions excel in solo laning to the point of it being pointless to try them as a support. Nautilus on the other hand is ALREADY a good support and has been used as such quite a lot this year.
MungoGeri wrote:
I'm always entertained by your great confidence in things about which you have had no experience. For the most part, I agree that
Eye of the Watchers will likely dominate Frost Queen's Claim, but no, the ghosts, mana regen, and other stats on Frost Queen's Claim removes it from the list of "terrible" items. Being able to track down and reveal enemies and slow them by 40% for *4 seconds* is very useful in many cases.It doesn't remove it from the "bad item" list though. Like, nobody bought
Twin Shadows because there was almost nothing about it that people wanted. Not even the active was appealing. I mean, I guess knowing where the enemy wasn't is pretty good, and you also knew where the closest enemy was, but it's really an underwhelming active.MungoGeri wrote:
The extra gold could potentially turn champions that are item dependent into viable options in the support lane where previously they would not have been viable. Zyra's mobility issues are her weakness, yes, like lack of mobility is with many champions. But you can overcome a lot of that with your item build. Or, you can position her well to take advantage of her incredible hypercarry damage, both aoe and burst, that can come out of the support position. And in lane, her plants make her very efficient about proc'ing the Tribute passive for lots of extra damage and gold. But my point in my above comment had less to do with Zyra specifically and more to do with the fact that some item dependent champions may end up becoming viable as people realize how much gold they can experience in the support role. It may be borderline support characters like Lulu, Karma, or Orianna who suddenly jump tiers. Or maybe some more tank characters will become viable like Nautilus. Players shouldn't limit themselves to the list of supports that seemed viable in season 5, because the gold (and mastery and item) changes could very well cause some champions people never previously thought of to be viable support options.
I really don't think that extra gold really changes a champion though. Like, a
Bard with infinite gold and items is almost always going to be worse than a Thresh with just a sightstone and level 1 boots. Sure Zyra has lockdown, but so do a lot of other support champions, and with better everything else to back them up. Thresh is just straight up tankier, has an easier time threatening people without using skills. Blitz is the same way. There's very little reason to pick Zyra over other supports. I mean, I guess she does zone control better than most people? But Lux has decent zone control, and a shield to help protect the ADC.Long story short, champions are balanced around how much gold they're expected to receive. And, typically, they don't scale super well with a lot of gold. Having more AP just makes Zyra do more damage, which is cool. But then you have Lux who does more damage with more AP as well. But also increases her shields with more AP. Lulu too. Thresh becomes super tanky with more gold so he can output more CC.
To echo what OTG said, Zyra might not be the support we're getting for S6, but there's a lot of other good ones that'll pop back up.
I agree with the thing said above, but to expand a little bit more on Zyra:
The problem she has (aside from some core kit weaknesses) is that she doesn't offer something you'd want to see in a support. Yes, she has a specific niche in that she's a very high damage support, but that's not your core interest as support player. Her utility is sub-par, her roaming is virtually nonexistent and she has too many core weaknesses in order to be very dominant in lane/late game. So yeah, you'll get a relatively fed support with lots of damage, but you sacrifice A LOT of other, much more important and supportive things for it.
While I'm at it, some of my early findings on masteries, two go-to pages for 1) utility supports with heals/shields and 2) tanky supports
Also, MungoGeri, if you think you know better that's perfectly fine by me but just start another thread and make some of these off-topic remarks there. I'm more than willing to explain and expand on my opinions but the very least you can do is show some respect. I've played all supports at one point or time and I certainly have sufficient experience to give my opinion on such matters.
The problem she has (aside from some core kit weaknesses) is that she doesn't offer something you'd want to see in a support. Yes, she has a specific niche in that she's a very high damage support, but that's not your core interest as support player. Her utility is sub-par, her roaming is virtually nonexistent and she has too many core weaknesses in order to be very dominant in lane/late game. So yeah, you'll get a relatively fed support with lots of damage, but you sacrifice A LOT of other, much more important and supportive things for it.
While I'm at it, some of my early findings on masteries, two go-to pages for 1) utility supports with heals/shields and 2) tanky supports
Also, MungoGeri, if you think you know better that's perfectly fine by me but just start another thread and make some of these off-topic remarks there. I'm more than willing to explain and expand on my opinions but the very least you can do is show some respect. I've played all supports at one point or time and I certainly have sufficient experience to give my opinion on such matters.
For starting items, which one do you think is the best: three potions or refillable potion (in addition to a support item, ofc)?
Refillable seems better on the longrun but they aren't transformed into cookies and you can't have more than two at a time compared to health potions, that are more expensive on the longrun but become cookies and you can have more at a time.
Refillable seems better on the longrun but they aren't transformed into cookies and you can't have more than two at a time compared to health potions, that are more expensive on the longrun but become cookies and you can have more at a time.
I think having only 2 pots on startup is pretty meh (if you recall, I always make a big deal out of starting multiple health potions so you can trade potions with the enemy ADC and come out on top because you have more) so right now I'm still getting 3 pots.
However, potions now costing 50 gold may make me reconsider, but for now I'd say 3 pots as a safe bet.
However, potions now costing 50 gold may make me reconsider, but for now I'd say 3 pots as a safe bet.
MungoGeri wrote:
The reason you don't see
Orianna support is because she's item dependent and you NEVER want that in a support. I could see Karma benefiting from the changes; but since Riot has put her in an awkward jack-of-all-trades position where she has good things but doesn't offer as much as other mages or supports which leaves her outclassed on average.
Well, whether we few Karma players like it or not, Karma either needs a real ultimate or they need to revert the change that forces her to put ranks into her R. When she had 6 skill ranks/skill and no ultimate, there was potential for her to be good enough and still retain her uniqueness if they buffed the sixth ranks in each skill to make the lack of an ultimate worth it. As is she will continue to be lackluster because she still doesn't really have an ultimate, but has to put ranks in that skill anyways.
Karma players like it or not, Karma either needs a real ultimate or they need to revert the change that forces her to put ranks into her R. When she had 6 skill ranks/skill and no ultimate, there was potential for her to be good enough and still retain her uniqueness if they buffed the sixth ranks in each skill to make the lack of an ultimate worth it. As is she will continue to be lackluster because she still doesn't really have an ultimate, but has to put ranks in that skill anyways.
The_Nameless_Bard wrote:
Well, whether we few Karma players like it or not, Karma either needs a real ultimate or they need to revert the change that forces her to put ranks into her R. When she had 6 skill ranks/skill and no ultimate, there was potential for her to be good enough and still retain her uniqueness if they buffed the sixth ranks in each skill to make the lack of an ultimate worth it. As is she will continue to be lackluster because she still doesn't really have an ultimate, but has to put ranks in that skill anyways.
Karma players like it or not, Karma either needs a real ultimate or they need to revert the change that forces her to put ranks into her R. When she had 6 skill ranks/skill and no ultimate, there was potential for her to be good enough and still retain her uniqueness if they buffed the sixth ranks in each skill to make the lack of an ultimate worth it. As is she will continue to be lackluster because she still doesn't really have an ultimate, but has to put ranks in that skill anyways.I personally feel like 2 of her biggest problems are that her damage is too centered on
Inner Flame and she could stand to gain a damage source from her passive via a spellblade effect or something. The other is that Renewal is by far the weakest empowered ability and it really hurts her options during a team fight. There's no point in using it then since it puts her in a dangerous position, it's a single target root, and the tether can be easily broken to become a non-existent reward.EDIT: The last issue is that outside of
Inspire's scaling speed buff and Focused Resolve's root duration, her utility values are almost completely static.But that's enough derailing this thread. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about it more Nameless.
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I don't have much time to type out an in-depth response (because it's 7 am here and I have to leave for uni), but:
*
* More gold income will not suddenly turn weak champions into strong ones. Zyra will stay mediocre because of other factors (i.e. her terrible mobility and base stats).
I'm always entertained by your great confidence in things about which you have had no experience. For the most part, I agree that
The extra gold could potentially turn champions that are item dependent into viable options in the support lane where previously they would not have been viable.