Hey there. I understand how the math behind Piercing Thoughts work, what I was saying was - I find easy to win games where Thunderlord's Decree would be better without it, than to win fringe scenarios where the Ferocity tree is better without those points there.

I understand your reasoning, but the build I posted wasn't based purely on speculation, it's the build I've been using. When I say I don't have mana problems, it's not because of some fantasy math - it's because I don't have mana problems. I moved through to this build from a Double Doran's + Morello from S4, and I transitioned the more I saw that I actually didn't need extra mana regen.

The same goes for winning trades in lane. While I imagine the Challenger level in Brazil is probably not the same as the level in NA, I've played against Pain and Kabum players for years, so I have a decent idea on what constitutes laning against a decent player. I was able to win lane decisively twice against the best TT team in our server, once against a Kassadin and once against a 89% win rate 15.57 KDA Anivia, who is an incredibly exceptional player (and to be fair, much better mechanically than I am). As far as I'm aware, that's the best I can do given our current meta.

This build may seem strange or dysfunctional to you at first glance since it deviates a lot from the cookie-cutter, but it enabled me to deal with literally the toughest challenges that the game can present me and win. It evolved from a cookie-cutter over hundreds of games to allow me to deal with the hardest challenges one could find in our server and defeat them - not in the world of theory, but in the real, practical world.

It's not a standard build by any means, but it works great in the real world because people simply don't know or understand how to deal with a tanky Zyra. They mess up, make mistakes, and are punished severely.

I imagine you're a very seasoned and experienced player yourself, so I'm not trying to tell you what's right or wrong, just my reasoning. I am always experimenting and I imagine at some point people will figure how to deal with the gimmick. I don't believe in rigid builds either way, I do think that there should be a great degree of flexibility depending on what and who you're fighting, specially at high levels where you'll be facing the same teams multiple times. And thinking outside of the box does not necessarily yields good results, but like I said - everything I wrote is based on experience over hundreds of games playing this build, and thousands of games playing cookie-cutter builds, so my posts are not conjecture. They'll obviously differ from your own experience yourself as I imagine you have an equal amount of experience with your own builds, but I will keep your suggestions in mind when I'm experimenting with builds again, I try to keep it very flexible. If I find out they work better I'll change accordingly. I imagine that with the current meta shift, Cunning will probably turn out to be better in almost every real scenario, so I'll play with it a bit now that the season is over and there is no more worry over the ranks. Still, I want to play with it a bit before posting (even though I know it's a consensus) because it's more honest to me to post the build that worked in the real world to me, if that makes sense.

Thank you for your replies and your insight.

Piercing Thoughts only breaks even above 120 magic resist. So Precision is actually going to be much more effective unless the opponent is stacking a lot of MR.




No doubt, but mana management could be used for everything. I could argue you don't need RoA on Anivia if you properly manage your mana, it's just not practical though. But it's not like you'd only be building something like Morellonomicon or Frost Queen's Claim just for the mana regen either.



I've played a **** ton of Zyra, she's by far my most played champion I know her like the back of my hand. I personally run dual pen reds because I love utilizing he auto attack, but that still doesn't change the fact that your build has a very high amount of health and low damage. Considering top tier AP bot champions like Anivia, Brand, Lulu, Malzahar, etc. all these champions have a much better early game than you already. I'm sorry, but you're just not going to straight up win a trade against a level 2 anivia as zyra, and especially not with that build. Against top tier champions you're probably not going to win trades.



I've been playing with my teammates since season 2, multiple times a week. They're both diamond level players and I have absolute trust in them, but even still my teammates aren't going to stop a renekton or garen from diving me, no matter how hard they may try or how much faith i put in them

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed. I haven't played SR all that much since S3, but I intend to get back to it this year.



Hey, thank you for your comment and for your remarks. Your insights are very good.

I played with Thunderlord's and while I found it superior for SR overall, the main reason of my losses are being stuck against turtling teams who are taking to the late game with tank compositions. Thunderlord helps immensely early on but even if we had a good start (and even if we took down towers first) at some point we were lacking in damage. I found the 7% Magic Pen in most cases was better in these late game situations. Though I do feel Deathfire is a bit on the weak side, yes, I still prefer the Ferocity tree overall.

When I talk about 45% CDR I do mean if you go to 12/18/0 for a CDR-heavy build, sorry if that wasn't clear.

A lot of my build depends on you having good mana management and use of very specific timings in Twisted Treeline, and I considered this when writing the guide, but I thought it'd be dishonest if I wrote about a build that I don't use.

About mana: You need to play around the healing buff timers. Because you have such aggressive map control you can zone out enemies and take the buff to yourself, which restores a huge chunk of your mana. Even if you can't, I personally feel that the base Mana Regen buff from TT is more than enough. I've played a great many matches with this build and I haven't had mana issues in TT, but if you play a style that is not mana conservative then I can see the switch being troublesome.

About health: Your point is very valid, but I do ask you to play some games with this build first and try to be very aggressive with AAs in lane, and see how it feels. You don't lose jungle control if your enemy bot laner can't fight while your mana is still full, and they'll very likely lose an all-in. I'm saying from my own experience - the build may seem overly defensive, but you'll be baiting unwarranted all-ins even from very experienced players. The crazy amount of effective health allows you to be crazy aggressive early on and win most trades.

As for E before W, that's how I played for some hundreds of games, in the end I really prefer W over E. I understand this is very controversial and I think it's situational - depending on whom I'm fighting I'll max E first, specially if I have to play the carry role - but I genuinely value vision in TT far, far more. If I control vision enough I can for example deny wolf camps to the enemy Jungler from my lane while keeping a defensive perimeter up, which are brutally devastating at around levels 10-13 if the enemy is playing from behind.

I will concede that W before E is only possible if you have complete trust in your team, both in their damage output and that they have high map awareness to notice any openings that your vision may be granting. I do ask you to try the build for some 10-20 games and see how it feels.

Either way, thank you for your feedback, it is most appreciated.

This is a good guide with a lot of information, but I think there are a number of flaws with it.

First, Thunderlord's Decree is far better in this build. You have a spell pen oriented build that gets a very late wooglet's, so you're going to have very low AP throughout most of the game, you'll make better use of Thunderlord's, especially considering your plants can proc it.

Second, your build leaves you very susceptible to running out of mana, you only build one Doran's Ring and no sustain items, one of Zyra's strengths is her ability to poke and keep enemies at bay, you probably won't be able to do that with this current build. Frost Queen's Claim is broken on TT and Zyra utilizes it really well, you should probably look into it.

In your "Items" section of your guide under the "Why No CDR Items?" headline, you say "you're very, very weak. You will die, and dead Zyras can't make use of 45% CDR." You already can't make use of 45% CDR when you go 18/12/0. You would have to put 18 points into the Cunning Tree

Health Quints have been nerfed too heavily, they're still pretty good, but inferior to AP quints. By starting Ruby Crystal with Health quints, you really punish your early game with low AP. So much of TT is predicated on the early game, so I would consider running more AP in your early build otherwise you probably give up too much of the map to a good team.

Your skill order is incorrect. Grasping Roots is essential to max second. Rampant Growth gives you more CDR and seeds more quickly, but the root duration and the damage is very important for Zyra. There's a substantial difference between a .75 second root and a 1.75 second root and to be completely honest, any bruiser is going to completely run over you if you can't contain them more than .75 seconds.

Anyway,this guide deserves an upvote. I'd love to talk to you about TT, I also play AP bot for my team, but I am on NA.

A very detailed guide. Thanks so much for this! =) You should make a normal one for her. !