Zyra is a lane dominant champion with her long range and zone control. She is able to engage and disengage very well compared to other champions. Whether it is slowly whittling down or full-on burst, she is able to take a lead and run with it. Today we are going to go over tips and tricks for Zyra support.

Strengths & Weaknesses:

Zyra’s strengths come from her zone control by the way she summons plants from seeds she places on the field. There are two types of plants, melee and ranged, which can be summoned based on the ability used on her plants (Q for ranged and E for melee). The ranged plants, of course, have their obvious advantage of range while the melee plants have the advantage of applying a slow to their targets. She also has a high damage potential once she acquires her two staple items of Liandry’s Torment and Rylai’s Crystal Scepter.

Zyra has very few weaknesses that can be exploited. She is easily picked off by assassins as she is very fragile, which is common among many caster supports. She also has very little control over her minion’s actions as they only react based on her attacks on enemy champions. Otherwise, they will function as minions and attack the closest target.

Runes and Summoners:

From multiple tests, one of the best rune set-up seems to be the Sorcery tree with an Inspiration secondary. I recommend using the rune Arcane Comet while the other three can be interchangeable on preference. I find the most success with this set-up.

This rune set-up allows for more damage output as a support in the sorcery tree as well as mobility and mana pool sustainability with Biscuit and Manaflow.

Summoner Spells go on preference as well, but the best win-rate comes from combining Ignite and Flash. If you choose to be more utility-focused than exhaust will be the next best bet in your Summoners.

Ability Progression:

R --> E --> Q --> W

The leveling between Q and W is more for preference in terms of how much zone control you want. While Zyra’s passive does produce seeds every 13-9 seconds (depending on level), it is unreliable as her passive will not proc in bushes out of vision, however, every few procs it does spawn two seeds near each other. This allows you to have seeds down quite often and plan moves accordingly as they are plentiful early on. The difference between her passive and W is the amount of time each seed lasts where her passive lasts 30 seconds and her W seeds last 60 seconds. To put in perspective, at level one, for every seed you place from your passive another 2 will recharge before expiring. For every seed from your W, three seeds will recharge before it fades. While you do have a limit of eight seeds regardless of how they're spawned, you will almost always have seeds at your disposal whenever you need them.

Final Item Build:

The boots can be interchangeable based on each game's needs as well as the final item used. The only thing is the other four items in this core build should be the same. Otherwise, these would be likely candidates for the final item in your builds.

For AD heavy team:   and if you choose not to take Sorcerer’s Shoes then 

For AP heavy team:   and if you choose not to take Sorcerer’s Shoes then 

Laning Tips:

First, start off with Spellthief’s Edge and two health potions. The reasoning behind this is because the passive on the gp5 item triggers off your plants. Your first objective in lane is to control or restrict enemy movements this usually includes bush control. While making sure you keep river warded you want to plant early seeds throughout the lane and punish enemies attempting to walk over them. This does change as once you level your W, you are able to combo it with your spells. As Zyra, you are able to cast your spells and plant seeds mid animation to ensure you can summon plants without risk of them being squished too early.

Leveling from one to six should be E, W, Q, E, E, R. This enables you to lengthen your snares on enemies and proc your gp5 item more. The most ideal time to back the first time should be after you acquire 450 gold, 750 gold, or 950 gold depending on how successful you were at getting gold procs. This allows you to either upgrade your gp5, upgrade and buy boots, or full upgrade your gp5 to warding item but not buy boots.

If you followed my rune set-up and went Waterwalking you can choose to influence other lanes as well. If your lane partner has recalled and you don’t need to, take a stroll to mid lane as you gain a small movement speed boost walking through the river. If you can manage to steal a Flash from the mid laner or weaken him, you make your team’s job easier. If you can also manage on the trip back to your lane, ward chokepoints in the enemy jungle. This keeps your side of the map from being too easy of a target for the enemy to take advantage of.

Building Tips:

After building your warding item, try to build Rylai’s next as it will not only make catching enemies much easier but also give you a health boost. You further expand on this boost when building Liandry’s and it will synergize with the slow from Rylai’s. The purpose of Zyra is to slow down opponents or lock them down entirely with her snare and ultimate. This is easier when you build Rylai’s as well as Twin Shadows to chase down the enemy team.

Teamfighting Tips:

Most of Zyra’s power shines in her ability to teamfight, whether she gets a five-man knock-up from her ultimate or catches multiple people in her snares. When getting into a fight, try to place multiple seeds in the chaos and activate them with your abilities. You don’t have to be directly over them as her spawning is very lenient and can still spawn plants that are not in the spells you cast. Even if you don’t catch anyone at first, the plants will attack and apply the slow, making it easier for you to catch them the next time around. If you manage to catch a high-priority target, be sure to place both seeds as you snare and use your ultimate right away. This will cause the plants to go berserk and attack faster and have a higher health pool.

The best place to fight will be in chokepoints in the jungle or where you can manage to catch at least two or more members in your snares. The damage from Zyra will be much stronger than many other people anticipate. This will, of course, make you a target but with Zyra’s zoning, you will be fine to move with ease as long as you don’t have an assassin flanking or picking you off.

Final Thoughts:

Zyra is a strong champion with not only her damage but her ability to control the flow of fights. One thing to keep in mind is even though you may die in a fight as long as you can catch targets or apply slows as often as you can, the fights will usually turn in your favor. Of course, she may seem single tracked with her build and runes but that doesn’t mean other builds or runes won’t work you just have to find ways to make them work. Again, if you guys come up with any sort of new set-ups and theories make sure you catch me via Twitter!

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