Overview
You’ve heard of plants vs. zombies, but what about plants vs. League of Legends? Zyra is a support mage that often ends up as one of her team’s top damage dealers. She brings some good CC to the table and is a menace to deal with in the early game especially. She’s a great pick for teams that need a bit more magic damage in their composition. Click here for the latest data on her best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more.
Keys to Remember About Zyra
Zyra has a lot of damage early in her base abilities, which means you shouldn't hesitate to commit to all-ins whenever you land a Grasping Roots [E]. Use bushes to your advantage!
While she lacks in mobility, her plants can be very helpful when it comes to taking neutral objectives, so she should still look for opportunities to roam and support her jungler throughout the early phases of the game.
Strengths
She’s a very strong early game champion with all of the damage and poke she brings to the table. Rampant Growth [W] lets her dish out a lot of harass damage on enemies with Deadly Spines [Q], and if they happen to overstep, she can catch them with Grasping Roots [E] to then go for the kill. This combination of ranged damage and CC potential makes it very difficult to lane against her, and once she hits level 6, the burst damage added from Stranglethorns [R] can often be enough to one-shot carries -- she excels particular at sitting in bushes and then unleash her combo as enemies approach.
Weaknesses
She’s extremely immobile as she has nothing to help her escape from enemies -- especially if they manage to flank her, and doubly so if her Grasping Roots [E] is on cooldown or if she misses it. Mobile champions can also evade her Stranglethorns [R] entirely, which means she is a very risky pick to take into enemy teams that have high mobility. This makes her a bit of a glass cannon coming out of bot lane -- tanky teams will also be able to absorb much of what she does, and if she and her team fall behind early, she can be outscaled by many other supports.
Game Plan
Early Game: Play aggressively with your plants -- you can easily harass enemies down with a good Q and W. If they take a couple of rotations of poke damage, you can then look for a kill with Grasping Roots [E].
Mid Game: Her plants help with taking neutral objectives, and while she is very immobile, if she is able to get to her spot first, she can sit in bushes and threaten approaching enemies.
Late Game: She’ll still have a lot of damage at this phase in the game, but she’ll keel over with even a glance from an enemy champion -- play far back and use your abilities more to disengage and peel.
