Hi, my name is Bizzleberry and I am a longtime League of Legends player, playing since before Season 1. Over the years I have achieved high ranking in solo queue, from Platinum in Season 1 (the highest at the time) to Challenger multiple times throughout the years. I used to stream in season 4-5 and stopped playing League for a year during season 6. I have now returned and am currently in Master as a support main. You can catch me on my stream or my Youtube channel. I try to explain what I am doing in most situations; feel free to ask any questions on stream or leave a comment on the guide!

Zyra is incredibly fun to play, with mechanics involving plants make it a unique experience every game. Her damage takes a little time to ramp up, but with my electrocute build you can expect to catch people out and punish them throughout the game often. Her ability to zone off an entire back line as the enemy tank charges in or to just simply take down a squishy target by yourself as a support is crazy strong, and she has the added bonus of actually being one of the safest AP Mage Supports on bot lane.

Zyra is capable of soloing Mountain Drake & Rift Herald, with clever use of plant mechanics and also able to have your jungler take less damage with plants being able to take 2 hits (or more with Stranglethorns from the kill-able objectives!

Zyra's Advantages

• Able to solo & help tank Dragons, Herald & Baron
• High dps
• Able to purchase a Morellonomicon if needed to prevent enemy healing
• Multi-CC Snare and Knockup
• Able to poke safely at a semi-long range
• Can solo squishy targets when ahead
• Can spawn plants to block skill shots (Such as Blitzcrank Rocket Grab )
• Can 'facecheck' bushes with Rampant Growth and a spell
  

Zyra's Weaknesses

• Squishy
• When you fall behind your DPS falls quite harshly
• RNG sometimes on Passive Seed placement
• No Escape
  

Currently Domination is the highest dps throughout the game, but I recommend you do a Arcane Comet build if you are newer to Zyra to help understand the basics and not have to worry about proc'ing Dark Harvest or Electrocute.

DOMINATION

As of 8.23 Preseason - Dark Harvest provides a lot of damage and also procs off your plants, so even if you die if you have done all of your AoE you can potentially still do a decent amount of damage when dead since those plants can still trigger Dark Harvest !


Electrocute - Zyra has a few ways of proc'ing this, and you will want to proc it as much as possible throughout the game. 3 Spells and/or auto attacks will trigger the ability. Each plant counts a singe attack. So 2 separate plant hits + a spell hit or Auto attack will trigger electrocute, making it extremely easy once hitting level 2 and on wards to constantly get that extra damage through.

Cheap Shot - When you land your root or if a slowing plant spawns and attacks, your next attack will deal bonus true damage. Another reason why it's important to be able to land Grasping Roots.

Eyeball Collection - I generally prefer this as it is a nice passive AP increase, however you can go Zombie Ward as it provides map control, perfect for your role as support!

Ultimate Hunter - I feel that your Ultimate is on a tad too high of a cooldown so this brings it down a notch. You are welcome to switch this rune with any other that you desire.


SORCERY


Transcendence gives you a nice 10% CDR boost in the mid game. This will allow you to cast more spells and have more plants in fights to ensure you can carry the fight!

Manaflow Band helps the mana intensive laning phase with the poke. After 10 stacks you will receive 1% of your missing mana every 5 seconds. When you are still needing to stack Manaflow Band and low on mana decide if its worth being greedy for the poke or conserving your mana for a combo a bit later on if needed.

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Bread and butter, use Ignite before they use Heal to prevent half of the healing on target. Generally Flash for an 'all in' spell commit or to disengage.

Garden of Thorns

Zyra's passive that is both very useful and frustrating at the same time! Seeds that spawn from Garden of Thorns last for 30 seconds and should be used to give your jungler a very big safe pull. Bare in mind, if you are standing in a brush, seeds will not spawn until you move out. Ensure you are around the red/blue buff brush and stand out of it at 1.01 so that your seeds that spawn will be around the buff. Once the buff spawns use an ability to spawn your plants and they are each able to take FOUR hits, enabling your jungler to take very little (if any) damage with the pull. There is a slight risk to you stealing the buff with plants if damage is too high, so I would only recommend spawning two plants, anymore will have the slight chance of stealing.

Seeds spawn in a very large radius around you, and during the laning phase the enemy may try and step on them to destroy the seed. Use this to your advantage to monitor your enemy footsteps to land a skillshot if they proceed to try this method.


Deadly Spines

Your main poke ability during the first few levels and enables you to spawn plants that shoot missles. Please look at Rampant Growth and Combo information in this chapter on how to use seeds.

Deadly Spines can be angled differently depending on which way Zyra is facing. As you get more comfortable with being able to land the ability normally, you can start practising running up and doing a 90 degree turn to then do Deadly Spines. This will help you catch out even the trickiest of foes! If you are going Electrocute build, take this level one and max it second. If you are going Arcane Comet max Deadly Spines first!


Rampant Growth

Rampant Growth has a long recharge timer level 1, starting at 20 seconds. You will only want to place seeds when either your ability lands to ensure plants hit a champion, rather than minions OR if you are in auto attack range as this will also tell your plants to attack your target. Here are the basic rules on plant targeting:

Zyra's basic attacks apply a refreshing, high-priority mark for 3 seconds against enemy champions, while Thorn Spitter's (range) and Vine Lasher's (melee) apply a non-refreshing, lesser-priority one for the same duration.

1. Taunt sources (even if out of range)
2. Most-recently-applied high-priority marks
3. Nearest lesser-priority marks to Plants
4. Nearest enemy champions within 350 units of Plants
5. Non-champions Zyra has most-recently attacked
6. Closest unit in range
   

Grasping Roots

Your main CC. When ability is used near seeds it will spawn melee plants that slow the target if they are hit. Please look at Rampant Growth and Combo information in this chapter on how to use seeds.

This slow moving projectile will root anything in its narrow pathway. Using this as your first spell to start up your ability chain combo is crucial. Also respect the cooldown on this ability and should be treated similarly like a Blitzcrank Rocket Grab. If you miss a crucial CC ability - in this case - Grasping Roots you will put yourself and your partner in a vulnerable state so it is ill advised to use as a harassing tool unless you know the enemy cannot counter engage.


Stranglethorns



COMBO

A normal routine combo would be to cast E Grasping Roots and one W Rampant Growth. If your E Grasping Roots missed, fall back. If it landed proceed to Stranglethorns then Q Deadly Spines with a W Rampant Growth if you have another charge. Hopefully both your slowing and shooting plants will be enraged and deal more damage.

Spellthief's Edge

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Spellthief's Edge has now changed to auto-upgrade to Frostfang (500 gold collected) and Shard of True Ice (1000g collected) from the Tribute gold quest. You are now allowed to receive gold from hits on enemies / turrets without an ally nearby. You can also 'accidentally' get cs from throwing out skillshots in lane without being punished (Until you meet the Support Rule CS Limit which won't kick in until around 30-40 Creeps Taken, depending on what time it is in the game). Plants will trigger the tribute gold on the first attack per unique plant.

Shard of True Ice

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The final Support Quest upgrade. You will no longer generate tribute gold, but the stats on this item for 'free' are very good for mid-game and also supply you with 4-ward charges that can be refreshed when you go back to the fountain.

If you accidentally kill a minion, you will still get the income by hitting towers/champions as long as you have completed the quest.[/indent][/columns]

Sorcerer's Shoes

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Finishing Sorcerer's Shoes before mid game not only gives Zyra some much needed mobility, but increases his magic penetration by 18. With Oblivion Orb this will put you at 33 magic penetration. NOTE: Magic Penetration cannot exceed the amount of magic resist on the enemy.

Morellonomicon

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Morellonomicon can be a powerful item if against superb healing team comps, such as Soraka Vladimir Nami Fiora Dr. Mundo Tryndamere Aatrox Warwick etc. There is a long list. If you feel that the enemy has a lot of healing on their side, take Oblivion Orb as your first item and then finish your Mythic at least before finishing Morello.

Liandry's Anguish

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Anguish is a Mythic item, especially fights that last over a longer period of time. But regardless is one of your core items that will increase your dps by a decent margin, even in shorter fights. Liandry's Anguish allows you to kill dragons and barons much faster also! Good General item to pick up against High Health Enemy Champions, otherwise Ludens is potentially a better option.

Demonic Embrace

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Demonic Embrace is an anti-tank DPS enhancer. It work's similar to Liandry's Anguish and that is why it is a decent pick-up. If you feel like you either do not need grievous wounds (anti-heal) or your team already has enough, choose this for more damage output in fights.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter

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You will want to buy this item if you want to increase your self-tankiness and/or to increase your utility in the game. . Once completed you will be dealing a constant 30% slow, hopefully to a fair few of the enemy champions, making it easier for you and your team to kite and catch them, this also includes plants.

Zhonya's Hourglass

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Zhonya's Hourglass An Important item if you care about staying alive. Ideally do a spell rotation before you get jumped, use Zhonya's Hourglass to buy some time and then repeat!

Void Staff

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Void Staff will likely be one of the last items you purchase as the enemy team should have some Magic Resist at this point. Don't forget that Flat Magic Penetration is calculated BEFORE Percent Magic Penetration! This means if you already reduce the enemies' Magic Resist to around 40, shaving off 14 magic resist isn't going to be worth it; instead wait for a Rabadon's Deathcap or the safer Zhonya's Hourglass to protect against assassins.

Vigilant Wardstone

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Vigilant Wardstone Generally a decent last slot choice for spots as it allows you to continue having control wards in your inventory & you also get stats for doing so. Vigilant Wardstone is very cheap and allows you to have TWO control wards on the map at all times rather than the normal one. Can be handy at controlling objectives this late into the game.

If your Jungler is starting the Blue / Red buff on bot lane then you should help out with ideally a few seeds from your passive and a Q Deadly Spines. Seed placement will be random, and ideally tell your jungler to let a plant tank hits for them as it will save about 200hp of damage.

During the laning phase harass with Deadly Spines as often as you can to get income with your Spellthief's Edge or Frostfang. You will also be building Manaflow Band stacks. If you are confident your Deadly Spines will land, put a Rampant Growth seed nearby to have a plant also hit the enemy to give you another gold hit and some extra damage.

Use Grasping Roots carefully, as either as a peel or a hard engage and ensure you use a Rampant Growth seed to help slow the target, even if miss rooting the target.

Against heavy engage supports (such as Leona / Rakan), poke them down as much as possible level 1 while ensuring you hit level 2 first. This will allow you to control the lane and will prevent these type of champions from engaging as they will be too low on hp. If this hasn't happened stay back, only do safe poke and try and whittle them down before fully engaging.

Encourage your team to do dragon (unless its cloud drake). This is because your plants can each individually tank a dragon and mitigate the amount of damage your team takes. They can each take two hits before dying. NOTE: Cloud drake has an exceptionally fast auto attack and will kill plants very quickly and Mountain and Infernal Drakes have a mini aoe on their attack, so make sure only 1 plant is tanking at a time!

Continue to encourage your team to do kill able objectives, plants are exceptionally good damage and tanks for herald, baron and dragons and only gets better once you purchase a Liandry's Anguish.

Ensure you are constantly asking yourself "What is the next easiest objective to take". Once you have identified what it is, get wards around the objective and ensure you are buying Control Wards to ensure vision is secure.

If any enemies have a Banshee's Veil do your best just to tag them with one range plant, as this will pop the shield!

If your game has been going badly, moving towards a peeling, cc build is better than going up for straight pure DPS. Taking a Rylai's Crystal Scepter earlier can help peel for your team and extending the duration of the game can give your team a chance to get back in it.

Against full ad teams, it feels bad however, you should always build a Zhonya's Hourglass early to ensure you can out scale the enemy team.

Thanks for reading my Zyra guide, I hope you give it a try in ranked and I wish you the best of luck! For more guides and fun videos please visit my stream

I also have daily support content on my Youtube Channel