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My Soraka Guide | My Review Service
Thanks a lot for the sig, jhoi! :)
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My Soraka Guide | My Review Service
Thanks a lot for the sig, jhoi! :)
I've been playing a lot of Zyra support since release and have been destroying everything in my path. I accept a lot of what people have been saying about her above, but I think there are some points in her favor that some people haven't taken into account:
1. Regarding range, there is both her own spell range and the addition of her plants range as well as her higher than average auto-attack range. The harass combo is to QW auto-attack (to ensure the plant targets who you want). Even if for some reason you miss your Q, the plant will usually hit 2-3 times before the enemy gets out of range or kills it. Unlike Vel'Koz's skills which are incredibly easy to dodge and Lux's skills that can be dodged but less easily, you can't dodge Zyra's plants if they see you and you are in range.
2. Regarding the plants themselves, what's beautiful about them is that they not only proc the damage from Tribute at full strength but they also proc the damage from the new Deathfire Touch mastery and the 2nd tier refillable potion at full strength. That adds a lot of extra harassment power to her plants. In the early game, you won't have a ton of AP, so Deathfire Touch will only add a small amount of damage per hit, but it adds up. Late game, when you have a lot of items, it hurts like heck and you can lay out plants to harass, engage in fighting retreats, or just damage people in team fights.
3. The Frost Queen's Claim line of items give so much gold, it's ridiculous. By the end of games, I typically have earned around 2000 gold -- from the support position. It's so much gold that I've started getting it when I play mid lane, because Frost Queen's Claim is great by itself and that extra gold is completely crazy.
4. Now, there is the active from Frost Queen's Claim. I know, I know, supports should get Eye of the Watchers for the ward coverage. But hear me out a moment. Right now, I've been getting a regular Sightstone, not upgrading it, and then selling it if the game goes so long that I can buy a sixth item. By then, the ward coverage on the map is so good from blue trinkets that so far I haven't missed it. I can already feel the slap from Vynertje, and yes, maybe in higher ELO games, this won't work, but let's talk about that Frost Queen's Claim active anyway.
The active from Frost Queen's Claim is an overpowered but currently underappreciated gem at the moment. It generates two mini-ghosts that hunt down the two closest enemies even if they are in the fog of war, reveals them, and slows them by 40% for 4 seconds. I wish I had been recording games over the last two days, because I could already have built a highlight real from the active's use. Here are some actual examples off the top of my head. I was playing mid, and one of our river wards spotted the enemy jungler go into our top jungle to do some counter jungling. Our jungler Rammus entered the jungle from the direction of our base, I moved up along the river and hit the Frost Queen's Claim active. One of the ghosts made a beeline for the enemy jungler, lit him up like a Christmas tree and slowed him for 4 seconds. He was at our Gromp, so our top laner, jungler, and I converged on him and blew him up without him having a chance. Other examples include me using the active as a support to slow down our lane opponents during ganks, me as a mid laner firing it off just before I showed up for a roaming gank, using it to prevent enemies from running from a fight that's going well for us, and using it to slow down enemies to help teammates escape. And then, specifically for Zyra, I also used it as a way to make it much harder for enemies to dodge my E vines so I could get off some great spell combos.
Edit: The comments from earlier saying how easy it was to dodge Zyra's harassment damage have been gnawing at my mind, because I just couldn't reconcile why one would think that her stuff was easy to dodge. I think the reason may be that people are trying to use her E vines to harass. If so, that's not good. When harassing, you want to use the QW plants which are far more likely to hit and do damage. The E vines should be saved for all-ins or holding enemies back on a gank.
Zyra support since release and have been destroying everything in my path. I accept a lot of what people have been saying about her above, but I think there are some points in her favor that some people haven't taken into account:1. Regarding range, there is both her own spell range and the addition of her plants range as well as her higher than average auto-attack range. The harass combo is to QW auto-attack (to ensure the plant targets who you want). Even if for some reason you miss your Q, the plant will usually hit 2-3 times before the enemy gets out of range or kills it. Unlike
Vel'Koz's skills which are incredibly easy to dodge and Lux's skills that can be dodged but less easily, you can't dodge Zyra's plants if they see you and you are in range.2. Regarding the plants themselves, what's beautiful about them is that they not only proc the damage from Tribute at full strength but they also proc the damage from the new Deathfire Touch mastery and the 2nd tier refillable potion at full strength. That adds a lot of extra harassment power to her plants. In the early game, you won't have a ton of AP, so Deathfire Touch will only add a small amount of damage per hit, but it adds up. Late game, when you have a lot of items, it hurts like heck and you can lay out plants to harass, engage in fighting retreats, or just damage people in team fights.
3. The
Frost Queen's Claim line of items give so much gold, it's ridiculous. By the end of games, I typically have earned around 2000 gold -- from the support position. It's so much gold that I've started getting it when I play mid lane, because Frost Queen's Claim is great by itself and that extra gold is completely crazy.4. Now, there is the active from
Frost Queen's Claim. I know, I know, supports should get Eye of the Watchers for the ward coverage. But hear me out a moment. Right now, I've been getting a regular Sightstone, not upgrading it, and then selling it if the game goes so long that I can buy a sixth item. By then, the ward coverage on the map is so good from blue trinkets that so far I haven't missed it. I can already feel the slap from Vynertje, and yes, maybe in higher ELO games, this won't work, but let's talk about that Frost Queen's Claim active anyway.The active from
Frost Queen's Claim is an overpowered but currently underappreciated gem at the moment. It generates two mini-ghosts that hunt down the two closest enemies even if they are in the fog of war, reveals them, and slows them by 40% for 4 seconds. I wish I had been recording games over the last two days, because I could already have built a highlight real from the active's use. Here are some actual examples off the top of my head. I was playing mid, and one of our river wards spotted the enemy jungler go into our top jungle to do some counter jungling. Our jungler Rammus entered the jungle from the direction of our base, I moved up along the river and hit the Frost Queen's Claim active. One of the ghosts made a beeline for the enemy jungler, lit him up like a Christmas tree and slowed him for 4 seconds. He was at our Gromp, so our top laner, jungler, and I converged on him and blew him up without him having a chance. Other examples include me using the active as a support to slow down our lane opponents during ganks, me as a mid laner firing it off just before I showed up for a roaming gank, using it to prevent enemies from running from a fight that's going well for us, and using it to slow down enemies to help teammates escape. And then, specifically for Zyra, I also used it as a way to make it much harder for enemies to dodge my E vines so I could get off some great spell combos.Edit: The comments from earlier saying how easy it was to dodge
Zyra's harassment damage have been gnawing at my mind, because I just couldn't reconcile why one would think that her stuff was easy to dodge. I think the reason may be that people are trying to use her E vines to harass. If so, that's not good. When harassing, you want to use the QW plants which are far more likely to hit and do damage. The E vines should be saved for all-ins or holding enemies back on a gank.
I appreciate you actually taking the effort to elaborate on your claims, I'll take my time to do the same.
1) You're right on the fact that Velkoz in general has a much harder time hitting skillshots compared to Zyra QW (although by no means "incredibly easy" if the Velkoz is experienced). Lux E on the contrary is super hard to dodge (much harder than Zyra QW). I personally don't really consider Zyra's plants as an extension of her range because you still quite much rely on hitting Q's.
2) I completely agree that the tribute/deathfire touch procs are great (and I can find myself agreeing that 18 points in ferocity - or whatever offense is called - is worth it) but you shouldn't base your argument on what 'could be' late game. Especially in high-Elo, but really at any Elo you cannot guarantee yourself getting that many items before very late into the game. A quick glance at your op.gg profile shows that in order to afford getting these, you a) bypass any support or utility itemisation, b) never buy more than 1 pink ward a game and c) have rather high CS scores for a support, likely hurting your team's income in the process. Unless you have a very weak team (composition) some form of utility is generally much more effective than rushing raw damage.
3) The gold income is ridiculous indeed, but the same goes for any other support item. I've actually played games where my Coin build out-earned a spellthiefs edge build by 10-15 minutes with a 30-50% margin.
4) Selling sightstone is ******ed at any Elo, nothing can make up for that. I may be greatly overestimating low-silver or it could be that people just aren't used to the vision changes yet, but in all my games (even very trolly normals) I found great use for extra vision and vision denial (red trinket line). Red trinket is mandatory for any kind of supportive playstyle and you cannot afford to swap it out for blue - you may not notice the consequences of vision denial because you're not the one experiencing it, but it's core to being a good support player. Especially versus stealth champions you cannot afford to forego oracles lens and get blue instead.
With regards to FQC, I'm more than willing to believe that it's under-appreciated but really it's by no means OP. I'm figuring the slow is pretty decent now the duration got buffed but its uses to me remain limited in more structured games with good ward coverage, although admittedly I'd need to test it more extensively to be able to judge accurately. So far I think it's a good upgrade for a small amount of champions that benefit greatly from extra AP and slows but the trade-off in slot efficiency is pretty major regardless (25 ap and the for much greater slot efficiency and some health) .
1) You're right on the fact that Velkoz in general has a much harder time hitting skillshots compared to Zyra QW (although by no means "incredibly easy" if the Velkoz is experienced). Lux E on the contrary is super hard to dodge (much harder than Zyra QW). I personally don't really consider Zyra's plants as an extension of her range because you still quite much rely on hitting Q's.
2) I completely agree that the tribute/deathfire touch procs are great (and I can find myself agreeing that 18 points in ferocity - or whatever offense is called - is worth it) but you shouldn't base your argument on what 'could be' late game. Especially in high-Elo, but really at any Elo you cannot guarantee yourself getting that many items before very late into the game. A quick glance at your op.gg profile shows that in order to afford getting these, you a) bypass any support or utility itemisation, b) never buy more than 1 pink ward a game and c) have rather high CS scores for a support, likely hurting your team's income in the process. Unless you have a very weak team (composition) some form of utility is generally much more effective than rushing raw damage.
3) The gold income is ridiculous indeed, but the same goes for any other support item. I've actually played games where my Coin build out-earned a spellthiefs edge build by 10-15 minutes with a 30-50% margin.
4) Selling sightstone is ******ed at any Elo, nothing can make up for that. I may be greatly overestimating low-silver or it could be that people just aren't used to the vision changes yet, but in all my games (even very trolly normals) I found great use for extra vision and vision denial (red trinket line). Red trinket is mandatory for any kind of supportive playstyle and you cannot afford to swap it out for blue - you may not notice the consequences of vision denial because you're not the one experiencing it, but it's core to being a good support player. Especially versus stealth champions you cannot afford to forego oracles lens and get blue instead.
With regards to FQC, I'm more than willing to believe that it's under-appreciated but really it's by no means OP. I'm figuring the slow is pretty decent now the duration got buffed but its uses to me remain limited in more structured games with good ward coverage, although admittedly I'd need to test it more extensively to be able to judge accurately. So far I think it's a good upgrade for a small amount of champions that benefit greatly from extra AP and slows but the trade-off in slot efficiency is pretty major regardless (25 ap and the for much greater slot efficiency and some health) .
I can't confirm this (the wiki hasn't been updated and the LoL site isn't very clear), but I was under the impression the red trinket no longer gave true sight and couldn't reveal stealth anymore. As far as I know, you just have to carry a vision ward around with you constantly instead.
Vynertje wrote:
2) I completely agree that the tribute/deathfire touch procs are great (and I can find myself agreeing that 18 points in ferocity - or whatever offense is called - is worth it) but you shouldn't base your argument on what 'could be' late game. Especially in high-Elo, but really at any Elo you cannot guarantee yourself getting that many items before very late into the game. A quick glance at your op.gg profile shows that in order to afford getting these, you a) bypass any support or utility itemisation, b) never buy more than 1 pink ward a game and c) have rather high CS scores for a support, likely hurting your team's income in the process.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments as well. I think you might have misunderstood my comments on early game Deathfire Touch, however. I was acknowledging the likely counter-argument that Deathfire Touch isn't strong until you have a lot of AP. However, I mentioned that it does do some damage early on and that damage does add up. Then, mid-to-late game, it really turns on and does some nasty damage. So, I was saying that it was useful throughout the game just in different ways. If one wants to really focus on early game harassment, then you can consider getting Thunderlord's Decree in the Cunning tree for some harassment burst. However, I found that Deathfire Touch was better all around. (Keep in mind that every time that a plant hits a person, Deathfire Touch is reapplied).
Regarding my warding profile, I'm still experiencing a lot of frustration with my low ELO teams not warding the map or understanding the strength of the blue trinkets. If 2-3 members of my team were getting blue trinkets and using them consistently, I agree that I would use the red trinket to counter enemy Stealth Wards. But right now, my teams haven't been warding as much as I would like, so I've been finding good ways to use the blue trinket to give us the vision we need. And, of course, if you have a blue trinket, there's not much reason to put down Vision Wards unless there's an
Evelynn in the game. I think I'm going to use Zyra to rush myself back up to Gold, where hopefully people will ward more consistently. At that point, I agree with you that a support should get a red trinket to counter Stealth Wards.Quoted:
Unless you have a very weak team (composition) some form of utility is generally much more effective than rushing raw damage.
The thesis that I've been trying to get across is that I'm not sure if this statement is true anymore. Just hear me out for a moment. In season 3 and before, supports were supposed to spend almost all their gold on wards and therefore the best supports were those who could maintain a level utility without building more than one or two items.
Nami's bubble was just as effective late game as early game even if her heals and damage were not, for example. As Sightstones, support items, and the 3 ward limitation came about -- all giving supports a bit more money to work with --, we started seeing some shifts in the support meta. People started playing around with damage focused mages with some crowd control like Morgana, Annie, Brand, and Zyra. At the same time, the utility supports started buying and experimenting with cheap but effective utility support items like Mikael's Blessing, Locket of the Iron Solari, Ardent Censer, and Zeke's Harbinger. The problem that damage mages experienced was that even though there was more gold coming to them, it wasn't enough to keep them at the level of laning damage dealing characters. It was likely that they couldn't get to the part of their builds where they could get their big damage multipliers like Rabadon's Deathcap and Void Staff. So, even though damage focused mages found a little success in the support role, the utility supports still dominated them, because they could be effective without a ton of gold.However, in season 6, I'm not sure if this meta will hold unless Riot massively nerfs the gold going to supports. To be clear, I'm not saying utility supports are useless and will no longer be played. Far from it - I love the new
Soraka, for example. However, I think damage focused supports are going to have a bit of a renaissance, because they will finally be able to get the gear to help them be successful. And understand that even if you're building damage focused items, you can still play a "support" role for your team. For example, in season 6, I've found myself building Morellonomicon on my Zyra supports in order to spread Grievous Wounds on opponents in team fights to counter all of the life steal and self-healing that's available now. I also like building Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Frost Queen's Claim for placing slows on the enemy team.And I think this may come true for the tanks, as well.
Leona, Braum, and Thresh can succeed without a lot of gear as "off-tanks" pealing for their carries. But with all the gold sloshing around, they may be able to be upgraded to full initiator tanks, or some other tanks may end up being successful in the support role. I mentioned earlier that Nautilus could end up becoming a dominant support tank, for example. I love playing Nautilus jungle and I love all the CC in his kit. But I've always found that he's more item dependent than many other tanks, since his natural tankiness comes from his shield rather than from a boost to armor or MR. However, he might be able to afford to get the items that can make him a monster tank now that there is more gold in the game. Understand that I am not saying that Nautilus specifically will definitely no doubt become a tier 1 support tank. I am merely using him as an example of a tank character who isn't normally played as a support now who might become more valuable there due to the season 6 changes.
The_Nameless_Bard wrote:
I can't confirm this (the wiki hasn't been updated and the LoL site isn't very clear), but I was under the impression the red trinket no longer gave true sight and couldn't reveal stealth anymore. As far as I know, you just have to carry a vision ward around with you constantly instead.
The upgraded red trinket shows stealth characters, but apparently you can't target them. However, that doesn't stop you from using skill shots to damage or cc them. It's kind of weird that way.
MungoGeri wrote:
snip
I highly recommend not building
Rabadon's Deathcap, Void Staff, or Morellonomion on Zyra. They can be fun items even if you're snowballing, but Liandry's Torment is more than enough damage on her and gives her everything she wants. The only other damage option I would consider is Rylai's Crystal Scepter. The spell pen and burn on Liandry's is more than enough damage
Thanks for the Signature MissMaw!
Mooninites wrote:
I highly recommend not building
Rabadon's Deathcap, Void Staff, or Morellonomion on Zyra. They can be fun items even if you're snowballing, but Liandry's Torment is more than enough damage on her and gives her everything she wants. The only other damage option I would consider is Rylai's Crystal Scepter. The spell pen and burn on Liandry's is more than enough damageMore than enough damage to do what exactly? Of course I build
Liandry's Torment on Zyra. It's a staple item on her. But if the goal is to deal damage, then you have to build Void Staff and Rabadon's Deathcap for the multiplicative power. Without them, you're not going to be killing very much late game, and if your goal isn't to kill people, then you might as well play a utility support rather than a damage dealing support.
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