Zyra Build Guide by YeaISupport

Introduction Table of Contents Introduction Pros & Cons Runes/Masteries/Summoners Abilities Items Gameplay Conclusion

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Support


Hello. I am YeaISupport, a casual support-main player, and today, I will be covering about Support Zyra. I have 70~80% of my ranked game as Zyra (although Sona is my favorite champion). This is only my second guide, so if you have any suggestion please say those out loud in comments!

Anyways, to the guide...

Support, although sometimes under-appreciated, is regardless an important role in League of Legends. While support usually deals significantly less damage than the carries, it makes up its usefulness by providing vision, aura, sustain, and utility. Because support usually don't get much farm to provide golds for other carries, support also builds gold-generating items to compensate the lack of golds. Some of the examples of suppport are Sona, Lulu, and Soraka.

Although Zyra was made to be an AP Carry, after her wave of nerfs, she began to find her niche as support. While she does not provide any sustain for the team (unless you build Will of the Ancients), she makes that up by providing immense amount of crowd control for the team, and unlike many supports, because she was originally meant to be an AP carry, she can actually provide extra damages if her team needs them.

Support Zyra has two different variants: Traditional Support and AP Support. Both of them have their own merits and usefulness, and each of them should be built in different situation.

There is another Zyra support guide that I want you guys to check out, by the way. Check out Astrolia's Zyra Support Guide. She finally unarchived it :)

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+Strength

+Strength

While she is not as powerful as Thresh in laning phase, she has huge harass with Grasping Roots, Deadly Bloom and her plants. Her autoattack range is 575 - higher than many champions such as Sona, Miss Fortune, and Draven. She also has kill potential from Grasping Roots and, post-6, Stranglethorns. With all of these tools, once lane snowballs into her favor, opponent AD Carry will be zoned hard. Her Rampant Growth, beside giving her cooldown reduction and ability to zone, gives her vision around the seeds. This gives Zyra's team a bit more vision control than other team, and she is one of those champion that can use vision control to the maximum with crowd controls. In teamfight phase, she can peel and initiate for her carries easily with Stranglethorns and Grasping Roots. With so much crowd controls from her, opponents cannot easily come to the backline and attempt to kill your carries. And with many fights occuring near Baron and other choke points at late game, her team grabs massive position advantage with her ultimate. She also has built-in cooldown reduction and vision control with her Rampant Growth. Because of this, she is not as reliant on cooldown reduction items. Thus, her builds are very flexible - part of the reason why she can go AP Support. If she chooses to go AP Support, she also has potential to deal large amount of damage with items like Liandry's Torment. With new AP Support variant called "Burning Bush Zyra", her DPS skyrockets - Liandry's Torment constantly afflicting damage along with Zyra's movement-affecting skillsets can easily wear the opponents down.

-Weakness

Although Zyra does have strong early kill potential and harass, at Level 1, she is really vulnerable. Having nothing other than Grasping Roots, she is out-traded by Sona, Lulu, and other champions at Level 1. Not being careful at Level 1 can make you lose the entire laning phase. Zyra offers no sustain to herself and her ADC, and she is somewhat mana-intensive, which makes extended trades hard for her against sustain lanes. Unless she can nab a kill opportunity, sustain lane is somewhat going to be hard to win against. However, nowadays, AD Carry usually takes Life Steal Quint instead of AD Quint- which is definitely good news for her. A lot of ADC, such as Ezreal or Vayne, have positioning skills to avoid Zyra's Grasping Roots. If she misses her roots in laning phase, opponents have approximately 10-12 seconds (depending on how much CDR at beginning) to free-harass her and her ADC without too much retaliations. Thus, Zyra user must calculate the opponent's cooldown before using her roots. Although Zyra has good peel, once the opponent comes to the backline, she has hard time stopping the opponents from killing the carries. Unlike Janna or Lulu, she lacks abilities that can save her teammates directly ( Monsoon and Wild Growth, for example). Thus, champions like Malphite and Olaf are hard to peel off with her.

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Runes


Rune Choices

For Quintessence Runes, I recommend Greater Quintessence of Gold for extra income. Against aggressive matchups (like Thresh and Leona), you can go Greater Quintessence of Health for extra tankiness for survival.

Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration

For Pure Support Zyra, I recommend Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration instead of Greater Mark of Magic Penetration (which is the rune some people recommend on her). You will be using both autoattacks and abilities to harass, and since many supports run Greater Seal of Armor and Greater Glyph of Magic Resist for Seals, going Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration is more useful for trades than Greater Mark of Magic Penetration. If you are going AP Support Zyra, however, you can go Greater Mark of Magic Penetration for later game. If you are against all-in matchup like Leona, and you don't want to lose your GP10 Quint Rune for Greater Quintessence of Health, you could opt for Greater Mark of Armor for Marks.

For Glyph, Greater Glyph of Magic Resist is my choice if I am against AP Support, giving me the extra tankiness for trading. However, if you are against AP-Heavy team, you could opt for Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist, which helps you in mid/late game. If you want to be really aggressive on bottom lane and want to have a little sustain to back the aggression up, you could also go for Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration. If you are going AP Support, think about Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power.

Greater Seal of Armor, in my opinion, is a must on Zyra support. There is no better runes than this as Seal unless opponent doesn't have any AD, which is really unlikely.

Masteries

I usually opt for 9-0-21 mastery in normal matchups. Although other mastery builds, such as 1-13-16 setup, can definitely give more tankiness, with 9-0-21 setup, when I master Rampant Growth, I have 29% passive cooldown reduction. Nimble and Pickpocket are nice mastery skills to have, too. Alternative to this is 1-8-21 or 0-9-21 to go a little bit tankier, but I usually go 9-0-21 for maximum damage for Arcane Knowledge and Cooldown Reduction with Sorcery .

I go this mastery page if I need tankiness to survive the laning phase. Some of the example that I would run this against are Leona and Thresh. However, you can also run this against poke lane ( Block is really good against poke lane. Although that 3 reduced damage doesn't seem much, it builds up after few trades.)

Summoner Spells

Flash is a must if you are at least Level 12. Zyra does not have inherent escape ability, so to compensate for that, I run Flash, and in mastery, I put points on Summoner's Insight and Mastermind for shorter cooldown timer (about 38 seconds reduced). For the second spot, I ended up choosing Ignite over Exhaust because for solo queue, snowballing effect from Ignite is better than Exhaust, especially for Zyra, who has a lot of kill potential even from early level. However, if you are against harder matchup, you are against assassins like Zed or Kha'Zix, or you are against hugely Attack Speed dependent champions like Tryndamere or Vayne, you would run Exhaust. Heal is not used that much, but it is also a viable option. I recommend Heal if you are gearing for late game or if you are afraid of opponent's AOE spells. Heal is basically summoner spell version of Locket of the Iron Solari.

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Abilities


Introducing Zyra's Abilities

Zyra's passive is Rise of the Thorns. When she dies, she returns back to her old, ancient Plant form. Two seconds after her death, you can press any ability (that she learned), and she fires a Vengeful Thorn as her last attempt of retaliation. When it hits the opponents, it deals 81 + 19*( Zyra's Level) True Damage. Zyra then dies for good.

• Where you die matters. Don't waste your Flash in a teamfight, only to be too far from the range of your passive and die.
• Be concentrated and patient when you use this passive. Too many Zyra players (myself included) miss the passive because they use it too early. Other times, they use it without thinking and then miss the passive. It's hard to hit sometimes - but it means the difference of a secured kill or opponent running away.
• Remember, Rise of the Thorns does True Damage. So no matter how much Magic Resist the opponent has, it ignores them.

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Deadly Bloom

When you use Deadly Bloom, Zyra grows a circular bud on her target location, which soon explodes and damages the opponent. When you activate this ability on top of your seed, it creates a Thorn Spitter that attacks the opponents within 700 Attack Range.

• Deadly Bloom creates the long-ranged plants, contrary to Grasping Roots, which creates short, but slow-effect plants. Know the difference!
• If you get Rylai's Crystal Scepter on support Zyra, you should almost always use Deadly Bloom to create plants. Using Grasping Roots to create plants after you get Rylai is creating shorter-ranged plant with redundant effect.
• Use this to harass the enemy. It has 800 range, which can easily harass supports like Taric and Alistar. But don't use too much of Deadly Bloom with her seeds unless you want to push the minion waves to opponent's tower.

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When you use Rampant Growth, Zyra plants a seed on the ground that grants small vision around it. However, it's not just a normal, ordinary seed. If you activate her abilities above the seed, it grows into either Thorn Spitter (Long-ranged plant) or Vine Lasher (Short-ranged Plant), depending on which ability you used with her. Opposing champion can step on it to destroy the seed, but it grants vision of that champion for 2 seconds. Also, Rampant Growth gives passive cooldown reduction, giving 20% cooldown reduction when maxed.

• Remember, the seeds from Rampant Growth grant vision of few hundred units around themselves. This means, you can use them as mini-wards. If you want more guaranteed vision, put a seed, and use Deadly Bloom, as this gives vision of about 700 range. Also, for the split second of you placing seed, it grants vision of about Sight Ward's range, so use that as your advantage.
• Seeds from Rampant Growth has larger range of placement than Sight Ward. If you are not sure of warding because opposing team is missing in action, use your seed as your way to scout the enemy.
• Your seed cooldown is affected by cooldown reduction, so CDR items like Kindlegem will reduce the cooldown of seed. This also means Rampant Growth's passive cooldown reduction reduces your seed cooldown.
• Position your seeds well for maximized damage and slow.

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When you use Grasping Roots, Zyra sends forth a line of vines through the ground. If any opposing unit ignorantly gets in the way of the vine, they are snared for a duration of time. If Grasping Roots passes through a seed, the seed grows into a Vine Lasher. Vine Lasher has only 400 attack range, but every attack from it slows the opponent for two seconds.

• Do not recklessly use your Grasping Roots. This is your only ability (not named Stranglethorns) that you can use to stop the opponents' tracks. If they know you don't have it, they will go all-in on you. Therefore, if Grasping Roots is on cooldown, play even more carefully for jungler ganks, opponent's combo, etc.
• If you have Rylai's Crystal Scepter, do not use Grasping Roots to form the plants. (That is, unless, Rylai's slow is not enough for your teammates to catch up.)

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When you use Stranglethorns, Zyra summons a circular, twisted thicket on her target location, damaging the opponents. Then, it expands and knocks up all the opposing units to the air. Plants that are within the thicket are enraged, gaining 50% Attack Speed.

• Try to hit everyone with Stranglethorns. Not only it is huge AOE skill, it also knocks people up. Remember also, this is only hard CC that you have, so use it smartly.
• [You can initiate with Stranglethorns, but be careful afterwards because it is your main source of peel.
• Make sure your Plants are within Stranglethorns's range.
• Zyra's ultimate is arguably most useful in choke points (narrow areas where people cannot easily escape, such as entrance of Baron Pit and narrow road right above Ancient Golem .)

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Combo with Zyra's Abilities



Important: Your seed turns into plants after the ability strikes the seed. Why is this important? This is because it lets you seed after you use the abilities. So you can go something like: E->W->W, and it would stills summon two Vine Lashers. Below are four main combos of Zyra:



1. Pre-6 Normal Combo:

This is your normal combo. This alone can chunk enemy's health down by a lot at early game, with Plants applying DPS.



2. Pre-6 Kill Combo:

I don't usually like to E->W->Q->W because that is at least 145 Mana, but if you can get the kill, it's worth it. Using both Thorn Spitter and Vine Lasher provides maximum damage possible; while Vine Lasher slows them down, Thorn Spitter has huge range to keep applying damage.



3. Post-6 Killing Combo:

This should most likely guarantee the kill. This puts both of your Plants to gain the Stranglethorns's attack speed boost if you use it fast enough.



4. Post-Rylai Combo

After you get Rylai, your Thorn Spitters apply the slows too. So, use your Deadly Bloom and 2 seeds to maximize the slow. You probably won't need Exhaust here because your team should be around you by this stage. Save your Exhaust for later.



Ability Sequence

#1 #2 #3 deadly bloom #4

At Level 1,2, and 3, get Grasping Roots, Rampant Growth, and Deadly Bloom respectively. From here, max Grasping Roots first. Although Deadly Bloom does more damage, the damage difference is not significant, and Grasping Roots's snaring duration increases as you raise levels of it (0.75 seconds for Level 1 Grasping Roots, 1.75 seconds for Level 5 Grasping Roots). Even if you are going AP, you are not directly going all-AP items at first - you get items such as Sightstone, Philosopher's Stone and Boots of Speed first, so max Grasping Roots regardless of your endgame build. After that, max Rampant Growth second. Cooldown reduction is important on support Zyra, AP or not. Although maxing Deadly Bloom results in more damage, maxing Rampant Growth gives cooldown reduction for more Grasping Roots and seeds during teamfight. Seeds are also useful for visions, which you are primarily in charge of regardless of you going AP. Max Deadly Bloom last. Deadly Bloom is going to be used more as your plant fodder (until you get AP items on Zyra) and less as damage source. It gets more useful as you get more AP. However, you won't usually have luxury to do that until the late part of mid game, as you need to still buy wards.

Alternative Ability Sequence




"As an extra note. Picking this up from streams and trying it out myself, I've found taking a couple of early points in Deadly Bloom before Rampant Growth in lanes that are snowballing can be a good choice. That extra bit of damage can really help get the ball rolling and the high assist gold (or kill gold in my case, woops) gets items with CDR early enough that I don't find myself lacking the extra 4/8/12% CDR I'd have from the rampant growth I've neglected. I don't know what your thoughts are on it, but it's worth considering, I think." - Kinen's comment

This is definitely more powerful option now that Zyra's Rampant Growth got nerfed. I am actually leaning toward this because 8% CDR difference is not that different if you compare it to previous 16% CDR difference. It is still up in the air - if you want more Seeds, definitely max W over Q. However, Deadly Bloom is definitely a viable option with Rampant Growth nerfed.

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Items


Starting Items

+ 3 sight ward + 4 + 1

This is my start against harass-heavy lane such as Sona + Caitlyn lane. This kind of lane will usually lead to frequent damage trades. To stay advantageous, you have to have sustain while opponent runs out of resources (Health and/or Mana). This start gives ample sustain (4 Health Potion, 1 Total Biscuit of Rejuvenation and 1 Mana Potion) to survive damage trades.

2 + 2 sight ward + 2 + 1

I start this when I want the full brush control or when I am going against stealth champions. I will usually start this when I see champions such as Leona and Blitzcrank because I want to deny them brush control. When I have the full control of the brush, and they have no control of the brush, it's harder for them to abuse their kill potential. Also, I start this against Evelynn, Twitch, and other stealth champions.

+ 2 + + sight ward

When I face Janna, Nunu (Although most of them go to jungle nowadays) or Soraka with a non-aggressive AD Carry such as Kog'Maw, the lane is bit more stable. They are usually late-game support, and they won't usually start an all-out trades. Instead, they will to bit of subtle trade, and they will use Consume, Eye Of The Storm, or Astral Blessing to win the trade. Against them, I start this just to rush Philosopher's Stone so I can counter the extended trades with extra sustain. I also start this against them because I want as much GP10 as possible to get ahead of the other support in later games.

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Early-Mid Game





We all have to decide between Philosopher's Stone, Sightstone, or Kage's Lucky Pick as our buy after first back, and it is sometimes confusing to know what is the right choice.







Your early game build core is Sightstone. You also should have Philosopher Stone and/or Kage's Lucky Pick to complement Sightstone.

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Core

Upgrading your Sightstone to Ruby Sightstone right away at start of the mid game is not compulsory, but it's a good item to build at start of the mid game. You must, however, buy this at some point of the game though to alleviate some costs of warding.

If you are going more of AP Build, I recommend Sorcerer's Shoes for extra Magic Penetration. Other than that, I usually get Boots of Mobility because it lets her position herself for Grasping Roots multiple times during the teamfight, and it also lets me go to target location quicker and ward, not to mention that Zyra is not that quick even after Nimble .

With the nerf of Rampant Growth, support Zyra needs more cooldown reduction than before. Ionian Boots of Lucidity could be run if you need cheap CDR option, but Boots of Mobility is too good with Zyra to ignore.

Note: From here are late-game items. You won't usually even have opportunities to buy these items in many of the games because with current metagame promoting fast push, objective control, and hypercarries (thus, don't really expect them to spend money other than their core items), you will be busy spending money on Sight Wards, Vision Wards, and Oracle's Elixirs (Especially with Oracle's Buff in few patches ago.)

On the side note, thank God... all the counterjungle crazes died down a bit with overall jungle patch, so a bit lenient warding :)

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Utility Item

Shurelya's Reverie Zeke's Herald

With Runic Bulwark gone now, Zyra has even less of an utility item to go to, which makes her build flexible enough to buy some AP items. But anyways, back to the topic. Locket of the Iron Solari is near-core item on pure support Zyra if your jungler doesn't go for it. Shurelya's Reverie is also built a lot because it helps engaging/disengaging. Although Mikael's Crucible has long cooldown, if your team is against heavy-CC team, this is the item to go to save your carries. Finally, Zeke's Herald is not most gold-efficient, but if your team is all-AD, it's a viable choice.

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Damage Items

Shard of True Ice [item=Morellonomicon size=50]

These are all valid items for Zyra. Top five items are valid on either build of Zyra; middle three are for primarily AP version of her. Bottom 2 are super luxurious items that you would not usually go in normal games.

Although it does not provide any utility by itself, if your team has huge crowd control, Liandry's Torment is usually a nice way to add up heavy amounts of DPS. I almost always get this item on AP Support version, and on utility Zyra, if you find yourself needing more damage to peel the tanks from your carries, this is the item that you would go. However, notice that its expense is 2900 gold, which is definitely huge for support. However, this item adds too much DPS to your kits to pass up.

shard of true ice

These 3 items all provide utility in some ways. Shard of True Ice is good if you have strong dive-in initiator ( Vi, Malphite) or your team has some champions that goes deep into the opponent's zone to damage them ( Singed, Tryndamere). Twin Shadows is an item that I would go if our team has no easy way to catch the opponent because they have movement buff champions such as Jayce and Nunu. Get Will of the Ancients if your team is AP-based team, but I usually do not get it because it's largely cost-inefficient, and WOTA does not fit Zyra's AOE kit (1/3 less sustain).

Morellonomicon is actually a really great item on Zyra because this item and Rampant Growth will give 40% CDR right there. With passive Grievous Wounds, you can also counter items like Warmog's Armor and Spirit Visage with this item. However, make sure: if you buy this item, be careful not to waste money on Cooldown Reduction because 40% CDR is the max CDR.

I will quickly explain why Spirit of the Elder Lizard is valid on Zyra before you yell how troll I am. Basically, her Plants proc Spirit of the Elder Lizard's passive that deals damage over time. But it's not because of the amount of damage from Elder Lizard that I recommend this item (40 damage is definitely not huge against 5k Health Dr. Mundo) Rather, it's because Spirit of the Elder Lizard's passive procs Liandry's Torment passive. So with Liandry and this item, you will be doing massive amounts of damage with your Plants. However, always buy Liandry's Torment if you are buying this item. Liandry + SOtEL combo is two of the core items from Burning Bush Zyra, a recent build that one Rioter in Reddit called "It may be FOTM."

This is usually one of those troll items, but two of them champions in LoL actually can use it effectively: Heimerdinger and Zyra. This is because Zyra's Plants and Heimerdinger's turrets are considered as "Allied Minion". So Banner of Command will boost their damage by 15%. Why not BoC on Pure Support Zyra? This can be built on pure support Zyra too, but it's not the best option on pure support Zyra. Although Plants have very small AP ratio of 0.2 (so it does not really matter how much AP you have to inflict the damage), it's just better to build Liandry's Torment on support Zyra than to build this item. Unless you have super minions, and you want to push hard with them, you won't usually build BoC on pure support variant.

Consider this your Rabadon's Deathcap on support Zyra. While I usually don't build Rabadon on Support Zyra (because it's expensive and opponents usually gets MR at late game), I do build Void Staff. Void Staff actually do considerable amount of boost to your damage, especially with the meta gearing toward MR items (with Runic Bulwark gone, there has been increase of high-MR item purchases like Guardian Angel).

Vision Items

sight ward

Mistake's Season 2 Warding Tip "1 - Do you keep buying wards and never have enough money for Aura items? Many people assume that being a good support means buying all the wards needed in the game, which results in their lack of Aura items. In the early stage (when you mostly stay on lane before the first team fight), at least buy 1 sight ward every time you recall, while 1 sight ward & 1 vision ward would be preferable, but no more than 2 sight wards & 1 vision ward even if you get some kills and become very rich. In the middle stage (when small team fights occur frequently and mostly you are pushing towers or invading enemy’s buffs), always have 2-3 wards at hand for more vision and 1 vision ward if you are going to rob the enemies of their buffs." - MiSTakE, former support for Taipei Assassins and current support for Azubu Taipei Sentinels Although his statement was from season 2 times, like MiSTakE said, it is important to balance the money for wards and other items, especially early game. Zyra actually can deal with less Sight Wards because she has her Rampant Growth if she needs wards on brush on bottom of the lane, but you still have to sort out your money that you will have enough money for both items and wards. In laning phase, you probably need Sightstone + 2 Sight Ward/ Vision Ward at most. Although more would be definitely preferred, there are other items to build, and the wards that you have will be sufficient enough for your overall map control for laning phase. In teamfight phase, you will need at least 2 Sight Ward/ Vision Ward in addition to your Ruby Sightstone and Oracle's Elixir. At least two wards will be spent on Dragon/Nashor, and the remaining three are going to be used depending on your situations. Oracle's Elixir is also a must-buy at this point. When the game drags, you may have the remaining 6th item slot. Save that spot for wards. If you really need the 6th item, sell Ruby Sightstone for it, but always save a spot for wards.

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Gameplay


When to Pick Zyra Support





Because of Zyra's general flexibility of going either AP Support or Pure Support, she works at least decently in any team composition (She is a safe first pick for this reason; team can decide to change their composition, and Zyra can adapt to any style to a degree.) However, she works the best with AOE-Oriented, Poke, or Hard-Dive team. She is decent on "Protecting-the-AD-Carry" Comp.

G O O D C O M P

Zyra is a fantastic pick in AOE-Oriented and Hard-Dive composition because of Stranglethorns, Grasping Roots, and her input of damage (if she decides to go AP). On both comp, she can initiate or follow up with Stranglethorns or Grasping Roots + Stranglethorns, putting massive crowd controls on the team. Then the other AOE damages or an assasin like Kha'Zix or Katarina can just slaughter the team. On poke team, she can poke with pretty decent damage if she decides to go AP and catch the mispositioned champions and melt them down with massive CC.

O K A Y C O M P

On "Protect-the-ADC" Comp, a pick like Lulu, or Janna would work better, but Zyra does have massive peel with Stranglethorns, protecting the ADC from champions like Shen or Nasus. However, if the opponent has gap closer (like Vi), it's way harder for Zyra to protect her ADC. She could ensnare them with Grasping Roots, but unlike Janna or Lulu, who could use Monsoon, Eye Of The Storm, Wild Growth, or Whimsy to protect the ADC, Zyra's option is greatly reduced.

Fantastic Synergy

Lane with Zyra support is primarily kill lane, and secondarily poke lane. I personally believe Ezreal, Varus, and Ashe to work the best with Zyra because all three have killing and poking potential. Ezreal has Arcane Shift to close into targets that Zyra snared, Trueshot Barrage for massive AOE damage (post-6), and long-ranged Mystic Shot for pokes. Ashe- Zyra duo bot lane, called the "Cloud 9's bot lane" composition, has high CC ( Frost Shot, Volley, Enchanted Crystal Arrow, Grasping Roots, and Stranglethorns) for kill potential, decent poke from Ashe with Focus and Volley, and overall utilities in their kits that make them hard to gank ( Hawkshot and Rampant Growth, not to mention the CC they got). Varus has one of the best pokes/bursts of the early game with Piercing Arrow and Hail of Arrows, along with his Blighted Quiver boosting his early game auto attack. Post-6, Chain of Corruption and Stranglethorns can burst down pretty much any lane. Quinn, although not used extensively, works well with Zyra. Quinn has good poke with Blinding Assault, and her Vault + Harrier deals tons of damage. Post-6, Quinn can easily catch up to Zyra's CC and burst them down with Tag Team. Also, I underestimated Vayne. Vayne's self-disengaging power, her Condemn, and Zyra's overall disengaging ability makes Vayne even more potent of an AD Carry. Previously, I thought it was bad synergy because they lacked killing ability before 6, but after Vayne finishes her Blade of the Ruined King, this duo can wreck almost anyone.

Good/Okay Synergy

However, Zyra is very flexible on AD Carry choices. She is great with lane partners that has huge damage potential like Draven, Graves or Miss Fortune for kills. She also does work with Caitlyn or Sivir; although the synergy for kill combo is not the best, Zyra and Caitlyn/ Sivir have too good of a poke, and these two combination of duos are one of the best towerpushing combos. Sivir and Zyra gain massive kill potential at Level 6, while Caitlyn and Zyra can abuse their massive range.

Bad Synergy

Kog'Maw could poke a bit with Bio-Arcane Barrage, but Kog'Maw + Zyra lane is not really of a good lane because Kog'Maw has almost nonexistent kill potential. However, Zyra does become a little more potent with Kog'Maw at Mid-Late game with her disengage. Only play these lanes when your team composition is designed as "Protect-the-ADC" and you already picked Zyra. Usually, picking Janna does wonder in this comp.

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Early Game





The entire subsection of "Early Game" is dedicated to Zyra's Level 1. A big reason for this is that Zyra is weaker than many other supports. You do have Grasping Roots, but compare it to:

• Sona's Hymn of Valor + Powerchord Combo
• Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab
• Nami's Aqua Prison
• Taric's Dazzle
• Thresh's Flay Passive, if he chooses to go Flay first

Thus, it's a must that Zyra plays really carefully at Level 1.

Avoid being harassed, but keep an eye on enemy who is out of position. If your AD Carry has huge damage at Level 1 ( Graves's Buckshot, for example), it may actually be smart to hard trade. However, remember, if you are not able to gain a significant advantage on the trade, and they have sustain, your team loses more in the long run.





Zyra, after getting Rampant Growth, can trade against most champions. Remember, when you are trading, make sure you keep your position where you could minimize the damage. With Zyra's 1100 Range of Grasping Roots and 800 Range of Deadly Bloom, you could harass/trade without getting so much damage back. Also, with her plants providing bulk of damage, Zyra should be able to win trades against most champions. Once you reach Level 6, your burst, already high, reaches totally new level. If opponents get caught, it would usually lead to a kill if they don't use Flash. Simply use E->W->R->Q->W to decimate them.

To know when to attempt a trade, consider these things:



If opponent uses any summoner spell/ultimate during a trade, make sure you tell the team! If opponent Ashe has used up Enchanted Crystal Arrow and Flash, she most likely won't survive if you or your jungler lands a CC on her. Knowing the availability of opponent's summoner spell lets your jungler know who to focus.



Teamfight




Your role in teamfight can be viewed in three ways: as an initiator/follow-up, a damage dealer (mainly if you are AP Support), or a peeler.







Your team may be winning, opponent team's health is low, or your team may be contesting Baron Nashor . Regardless of the situation, if your team calls for initiation, you have to be near enough to them. Using Shurelya's Reverie or Twin Shadows will greatly help your team to catch them.

Zyra, with her long-ranged ultimate, can initiate with her Grasping Roots (soft initiation) or Stranglethorns (hard initiation). You can, of course, combine that with Flash if you can't easily catch them up. After you initiate, you should come back to backrow and protect the AD Carry if you are pure support. If you are AP Support, keep an eye on your AD Carry, but try to maximize your damage against opponents.

If your teammate is initiating, you can use your Stranglethorns along with few plants to follow up. If opponents do not pay attention to your Plants, you will deal decent damage, AP or not. Remember, keep an eye on your AD Carry. Peeling for your AD Carry is crucial (although Zyra is not the best option to do that once her Stranglethorns is gone, you can still abuse your Grasping Roots.) Remember, you have Exhaust if the assassin is creeping into your Kog'Maw





If opponent initiates, you have three options.

• Counter the initiation with Stranglethorns.
• Save Stranglethorns later to peel for your AD Carry (If opponents have potential to through your frontrow.)
• Disengage using Stranglethorns and Shurelya's Reverie.

If your team has enough damage, you can go for first option. Try to hit everyone with the ultimate, and make sure you combo your Stranglethorns with plants for extra DPS. Make sure you ensnare those who are going for your ADC with Grasping Roots, and if it is possible, try to CC the enemy carries. Do not aggressively force yourself to put yourself near opponent's AD Carry, however, if that is going to put you and your carries in danger.

Go for second option if your ADC is someone like Kog'Maw and the opponents can go through your frontrow. Peeling for your ADC gets even more important if your team relies on that AD Carry's survival to do maximum damage. Your team is most likely having very tanky, crowd-control frontrow in this composition (Due to their reliance of the AD Carry), so they will most likely be fine. However, if your backrow gets bursted, it is over! So save your Stranglethorns for later, or maybe even for disengaging if the situation gets nasty. Your role in here is protecting your carries first, and then damage second.

Go for third option if your team does not have enough damage. Make sure you use everything if you have to! (By everything, I mean Shurelya's Reverie, Grasping Roots, Stranglethorns, etc.) Try to CC the enemies who have CC in their hands. And may the odds ever be in your favor :)



Conclusion


Thank you for reading my guide!

Again, this is my second time making a guide, and I am still shaky on BBCode although I tried my hardest to make this guide presentable.

Words cannot express how much jhoihoi's guide to make guides helped me. Also, referring to Astrolia's custom ToC guide helped me a lot too. Other guides, such as Xpecial's S3 General Support Guide, also deserve credits although I forgot some guides I referred to :(

Great thanks to fashionablellama for replacing my title page to better quality!

Thanks to emoriam for awesome ToC ideas!

I have the other Zyra guide that covers the AP Carry Variant. I will be archiving that for now to make it better in format, but I will bring that back up again when the format and explanation gets a little better!

Again, thank you for your time spent to read this guide! Feel free to vote and comment (hopefully constructive criticism if you have one?)