In an attempt to adequately tune more support champions than simply enchanters, Riot Games has its eyes set on a League of Legends champion who has been in desperate need of attention.
After several patches at the bottom of the support pick rate list, Zyra is finally going to be getting a bit of love from Riot Games in the form of a handful of buffs, all of which are scheduled to release with Patch 13.13 on June 28. These changes will not only be impacting her primary role as a support but will also be slightly tapping her numbers as a jungler—though they aren’t likely to increase her presence too heavily there.
The central mechanic of Zyra’s unique kit is her seeds that, upon interacting with one of her damaging abilities, turn into plants that actively target and deal additional damage to any enemy that comes near them. But despite these plants being oppressive, they are rather fragile and have not been enough to bring Zyra’s status as a supportive mage up to par with others like Lux or Xerath since the start of the year.
The crux of these buffs target these plants specifically. As part of her passive, plants will no longer take four bars of damage from area-of-effect abilities, instead only taking three. Instead of dealing a flat 150-percent damage to jungle monsters, all of Zyra’s plants will deal an additional 40-100 magic damage, scaling with her level.
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Zyra’s early-game is also receiving a bit of help with the addition of two seeds immediately upon ranking up her W for the first time, rather than just one. Additionally, much like with Morgana’s Q and Lux’s Q, Zyra will now be able to Flash upon casting her E to give her a bit more survivability if she’s in a sticky situation.
Another major issue within Zyra’s kit is how her ultimate, Stranglethrons, works. In its current state, the ability’s range indicator often requires Zyra to walk forward for it to be cast. Now, it will immediately cast when she has reached max range for the ability, which could be enough to give her time to successfully escape if necessary.
Riot Phlox, a designer on the Summoner’s Rift team for League, noted that he doesn’t believe these buffs are enough to truly bring Zyra to optimal levels, but the team “would rather get something smaller that feels good out now rather than sit on something that might never ship.” It’s likely that, at some point in the future, the team will revisit Zyra, but these changes may suffice for now.
These changes, alongside others that are expected to be revealed throughout the next week and pushed to the PBE for testing, will be released on League’s live servers with Patch 13.13. Players will also be able to enjoy new skins joining a popular pre-existing skin line, as well as the PC debut of some heroes from the stars.
