The patch notes for 3.13 recently came out, and one of the champions changed was Zyra. Being a Zyra main, a bunch of people asked me about my opinions on her changes. I am personally fine with the changes, and feel like Zyra somewhat deserved them, but this is coming from a middle laner. Someone who mains Zyra as a support will probably say that she was significantly nerfed.

In the middle lane, the first and most significant change to Zyra is her ability to dominate melee champions in early levels. Zyra’s Deadly Bloom (Q) + plant combo was so powerful that after hitting it twice, most early-level melee champions wouldn’t have enough health to go anywhere near Zyra to harass her. If they did go in to harass her anyway and fail to kill her, they would continue to get poked to death by plants and auto attacks as they’re retreating.

To reduce her power, Riot reduced the range on Deadly Bloom and reduced the early-level base damage on her plants. According to the current numbers, her plant damage is the same as pre-patch at level 6, and has increased damage after level 6.

This allows melee champions to have more counterplay to Zyra – the amount of poke damage will be slightly reduced during levels 1-5, and Zyra needs to get a tiny bit closer to harass. The damage at level 6 is the same as before, but this is acceptable as, by that time, the melee champions will have their ultimate abilities and be able to fight back.

The next noticeable change is that Zyra can now safely initiate with Stranglethorns (R) and not have to worry about losing the attack speed bonus to plants. This is because Stranglethorns was changed such that plants spawned inside the area while it is active will still get enraged. This allows Zyra to better chain her crowd control upon a catch, as she doesn’t need to wait until her plants spawn to place her ultimate on top of them.

The biggest changes to Zyra come with playing her as a support. The base damage on her Deadly Bloom was reduced, but her ability power ratio was increased. In order for Deadly Bloom (at rank 5) to deal the same amount of damage as prior to the patch, a Zyra must have 500 AP. Zyra with more than 500 AP will deal more damage with her Deadly Bloom compared to before the patch.

One of the reasons support Zyra was so powerful was because of the very high base damages on her abilities. Normally when I play Zyra as a support, I usually deal significantly more damage than my AD carry due to the initial burst, then the constant pummeling of the plants. This change ensures that if Zyra players want to continue dealing heavy damage, they must itemize to do so.