*BE SURE TO READ "+NOTES" ON ITEMS AND SKILLS*

Zyra support can be a very strong support and lane bully.

She excels at harassing and can win trades due to the help of her plants. This guide will focus on Zyra's ability to harass in the early game (with decent damage) whilst also not being completely frail in brawls.

Some things to note before contiuning.
Zyra can very easily KS with her plants and it's also very easy to spam plants (w) in a brawl so it importants to learn restraint with her abilities so that the ADC will pick up the kill and not your plants.

She's not very impactful when behind i.e. gets crushed in the laning phase and thus it's important that she (and her adc) recieve a roam from mid or a jungler's gank.

It's important that player know zyra's cons and select her wisely in match ups.

Pros:
Great Harass
Solid CC- Like Morgana but multiple target and shorter range (great for disengage).
Plants - Annoying and are under estimated in some situations.
Knock up Ult - Can synergies with other champions in "Wumbo Combo" or is a great disengage / separator (enemy front line from back).
Plants - can act as tanks for the team, soaking up some tower shots / dragon hits.


Cons:
Squishy - Easily dived and killed.
Roots (Snare)- slow and easy to dodge with mobile champions (Vayne tumble).
Skill shot based.
Delay in ult's knock up - players can run out of it before getting knocked up.
Item dependent - where as champion like morgana / lulu can offer utlity or annie with an instance multi-target stun, zyra needs item in order to be compensate for her lack of reliable instaneous CC / Utiltly. Otherwise she'll just be a quick easy 300g.

Season 4 support tend to follow 2 trends.
1) Alot of damage + some CC / Utility i.e. Annie
2) Tanky + Alot of CC / Utility i.e. Leona

Zyra fits into the first bracket which means you would want to build your item around dealing damage instead of being tanky like leona but it's always important to note that every support should at least have 3 items in common, Money item, Sight-stone, Mikaels Crucible and without saying boots.

the items I have choosen for zyra allow her to be tanky whilst also being able to dish out alot of damage and grant additional CC for your ADC.

Read the items +notes for further help.

Runes are about being "auto attack" tanky whilst dishing the damage out in return.

If facing an AP heavy team then i suggest going
Glyphs - Scaling MR
Seals - Armor(6) + mana regen(3).
Marks - Magic pen
Quints - AP

This skill sequence is based around 2 phases, 1) lane harassing and trying to gain control of the lane and 2) peel machine for back liners (ADC, APC if a mage)

Maxing e allows for longer snares follow by the CDR of w for more e and r's.
puting 3 early points in to q makes it great for the early game trade and the early game harass.

Flash always.

Exhaust vs assassins (kha'zix / Akali / Zed)
Ignite for early game kill potential (not my favorite)
Heal if your ADC wants to run barrier or cleanse

Champions I like to pick Zyra into: Champions I try avoid picking into:
ADC: ADC:
Jinx Vayne
Varus Lucian
Ashe Graves
Draven Ezreal

Supports: Supports:
Barum Leona
Thresh Barum (accompanied by a lucian)
Morgana Blitzcrank
Nami
Taric

Zyra excels against immobile / non dash champions due to being able to combo q +w / e+w easier

I dislike picking into high burst champions like graves due to being so squishy.

Barum isn't very effective against zyra due to being able to place plants behind his wall and her ult still being able to knock both up.
but
with a lane bully like lucian and his 2 shot passive combined with barum's passive you can find yourself stuned and dead before you can flash or dead next time your hit by his q.


Leona's all in will just destory your squishy frail body so i don't recommand it.

Zyra does not have low CD CC like a leona but she does have is the ability to devide fights up and prehaps cut the enemy front liners off from their back liners.

Zyra can also use her e + w to root and slow enemies try to get to your adc whilst also using her ult on the enemy adc forcing him to re-position thus halting their own damage output.

Your an early game harass machine, that by late game becomes a multi-target CC / Peel machine with great disengage.

you can also divide fights up with your ultimate or stop a follow up from an aggressive front liner i.e. shyv

Be careful what you pick into and always have vision, zyra slow and is screw if her e is dodged.