Welcome to my Zyra guide, my very first guide here on Mobafire!

I have recently become very active in this game and I snatch every new champion Riot is throwing at us. This time, we got this sexy Zyra that I grew thorn.. eeh.. fond of immediately.

Before I go any further, I would like remind you that a game always differs from one another. You should experiment yourself and build your champion accordingly to the situation. Also, I'm not used to BB codes yet so my guide may or do look quite boring. I will make it look better in time.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome. I will do my best to read through them.

If you find my guide useful, I would be very happy if you upvote for the greater good ;)

If response is good, I will certainly design the guide better and include more builds and setup, as well as being more specific on certain things. I'll learn some BB codes for this matter.

I will also correct typos if someone points them out :P English is not my mother language.

According to Riot, Zyra got the mage, ranged, pusher attributes. Her spells scales with Ability Power so most people would probably go for the AP items to increase the damage output from her spells. However, building her with Attack Damage amazingly seems to work like charm. It is that the guide is about. Building Zyra as AD Carry/Support.

What's good with AP:

Scales with her spells. Makes all her spells deal more damage.
Farming minions is much easier as Q and E would finish them off right away.
Good mana pool to work with.

What's good with AD:

Stings like hell with her thorns. Dealing lots of damage with auto-attacks.
Better self-heal with lifesteal than spellvamp.
Helping out taking down structures fast.

There are always pros and cons between AD and AP. These are my opinions tho.

Even if all her spells are scaling with AP, she can still deal heavy damage with her auto-attacks. Her Crowd Control is exceptional and helps a lot to get close to a target and burst out a lot of damage.

Her E can be used to engage, chase, or escape. Maxing out this spell will let you root targets longer.

Her W should be leveled up alongside E as the spells passively gives Cooldown Reduction.

Her Q in this matter is more for some extra damage or to "scare". You never know how people react to certain spells. Her Q can also grow plants out of seeds.

Her R deals damage to every enemy in the area of effect and knocks them up in the air after 2 seconds. The circle and range is good. Chasing someone is a piece of cake together with E.

So basically, Zyra use her crowd control to lock someone up, burst them with auto-attacks and then either chase or being chased. Either way, your crowd control is awesome. Make good use of it!

Where to lane?!
Most people choose Zyra to be in the middle as her spells may be like Brand's. However, with AD and perfect crowd control, she could actually be anywhere on the map. Bot lane with any type of teammate can give good results with your roots. You can be both AD Carry and supportive.

This guide only includes the masteries for Attack Damage with some extra health. There are plenty of ways to build Zyra as she can be quite hybrid. But for the best damage output as AD, I would suggest you to follow the included build.

Runes are always more of preferences for each individual. My preferences would be:

8x Greater Glyph of Focus = 5.24% Cooldown Reduction. This will help hitting the 40% cap.
1x Random Greater Glyph. I got Greather Glyph of Shield for some extra magic resist.
9x Greater Seal of Replenishment = 3.7 mana per 5 seconds.
9x Greater Mark of Desolation or Strength. Desolation gives 15 armor penetration which will deal more damage to champions. Strength gives 8.55 physical damage which deals more damage to structures and minions too. Together with 3x Greater Quintessence of Strength = 6.75 more physical damage, you will have a total 15.3 extra physical damage. Deals a lot damage early on to farm minions and also helps on lifesteal when using minions to gain back some extra health.

As of summoner spells, I prefer Ignite and Ghost.
I somehow like Ghost more than Flash as the point in the talent tree increases movement speed on Ghost. And it also give some benefits to Ignite. Thus the mix of those two would be my suggestion.

A bit about why I choose those items above:

Edit: Start off with either boots or Vampiric Scepter. These items will build into something bigger later on. I noticed that most of my games, my mana was no longer an issue.

If you're a spell-spammer, get Tear of the Goddess as it will give you bigger mana pool and mana regen early on. Over time, your mana pool will be big enough to be able to hold out for awhile. If your mana pool isn't enough for your playstyle, then go directly for Manamune so you can increase your mana pool with auto-attacks too.




Getting Ionian Boots of Lucidity gives you 15% Cooldown Reduction, heading for the 40% cap. Those boots with glyphs and maxed out W-spell, you will have those 40% Cooldown Reduction.

When it comes to attack damage and attack speed, I would head for attack speed first, then attack damage and lifesteal. Getting lifesteal first won't do any good if you don't do any damage at all. Same with attack damage if you don't have speed to spit those hits out.

Manamune is not necessary to upgrade to if you're okay with your mana. Save the gold to something else.

The last spot is open for anything. To be more supportive, you will have room for wards and oracles. If not, you can pick up The black Cleaver or get another Phantom Dancer.

As all new champions, Zyra will be called OP (overpowered). It's either because it's not really balanced or people are calling her that because they're not used to her and thus getting their butts kicked. And then nerdrage.

Zyra is indeed a nice champion and horrible to be against, especially as melee. With all her Crowd Control, she will be annoying as getting yourself stuck in a bush with thorns.

I've been trying AD Zyra in a few games and it has worked quite well. Tho, some games goes overhand because people screams "Omg, why AD?!? I go AFK. You suck." and thus I'm there with only 2 other players. Hard to get anything good out of that.

Don't be afraid of experimenting. I just hope this guide help you out to be more flexible. :)

As stated far above, all comments and suggestions are welcome. I will do my best to read them all. If response is good, I'll make sure this guide will look much better. ;)


Enjoy your new champion!
- Duccis