Meddler mentioned some upcoming quality of life style improvements for Varus today. We have no ETA, but he had this to say about the Arrow of Retribution:
"I'm actually in the middle of some Varus quality of life tweaks at the moment so great timing on the discussion. Our current thoughts are that Varus' balance is pretty close to a good spot, so I'm looking at a bunch of fixes/changes that improve feel/accent his gameplay more than raw power e.g.
- Fixing an issue where Piercing Arrow appears to hit targets at max range but doesn't actually deal damage.
- Increasing the AP ratio on Blighted Quiver's % damage. Something I'd always wanted was for AP/Hybrid builds to be good fun as a change of pace, so looking to add a bit of love for them. Not necessarily expecting them to be completely 'viable' builds, but should be more fun/effective than at present. Also adds a small amount of power to more standard builds under certain circumstances (Baron buff, ally with WotA etc).
- Increasing the width on his ultimate a decent amount and increasing the spread distance slightly. During Varus' development one of the main concerns was about giving a potentially multi target CC ult to a ranged AD carry and the balance risks associated with that, given that's a role generally without that degree of CC. We'd seen some balance issues when Sona was introduced for example, since her ult allowed AOE comps to get another large AOE CC from a role they'd previously been unable to utilize to that extent and consequently in Varus' case we decided to err on the side of caution. That hasn't been a major issue however so we're adding a bit of strength back to the ultimate, both to make it a slightly more reliable tool for fast shots without other CC involved and to allow a bit more gameplay around the tendril's spreading.
- Adding a targeting indicator to show roughly how far the ult tendrils are likely to spread. This one's pretty simple - without that information a lot of potential gameplay r.e. tendril spread's hard to take advantage of as the Varus player."
On the other end of the balance spectrum, CertainlyT, an Associate Game Designer, revealed some upcoming nerfs to Zyra. Here is an excerpt from his post summarizing the changes ( which "will be deployed in a hotfix as soon as this evening on North America" ):
"We're going to be making some changes to Zyra designed to tone her down in some respects while leaving what we see as her core play pattern intact. I'll first list the nerfs and then discuss our reasoning for them:
This is just the summary of the changes and a full, more more in depth explanation behind them is available if you visit his entire post over on the general discussion forums. What do you guys think of these changes? Are they justified?
*Base movement speed reduced to 300 (from 310)
*When multiple plants attack the same target, additional plants deal 50% damage (from 75% damage)
*Grasping Roots (E) damage per level decreased to 60/95/130/165/200 (from 60/105/150/195/240)
*Stranglethorns damage reduced to 180/265/350 (from 200/300/400)
*Stranglethorns cast range reduced to 700 (from 800)
That's a lot of changes, and some big ones at that. We're confident that they leave her in a good spot though. Zyra's two major issues are that she is too bursty and too safe. This makes her hard to exploit. Enemies are having a hard time catching her, and when they do, they get blown up before they can output their damage. It gets worse: Zyra's burst comes from her base damages, so she can build defensive items to live through enemies that make it through her zone of control."
Finally we have a new champion and skin sale rolling out soon. Between August 7th and August 10th you can pick up Vayne ( 487 RP ), Kennen ( 487 RP ), Tryndamere ( 292 RP ), Headhunter Master Yi ( 487 RP ), Commando Lux ( 487 RP ), and Frosted Ezreal ( 260 RP ).
And Zyra is now the dead. She is so easy to counter by just moving...
ReplyDeleteThis is what i don't understand.. there are so many ways to counter her.. and they nerfed her.. she will be now like Evelyn. unusable champ. and on the next patch they will say.. oh.. we made a little to much nerf for her (like for urgot they did), we bring it back.
DeleteExcept Eve is pretty decent as tanky dps now, so I don't really see your point, nor reasoning for whining.
DeleteNow everything when nefed to be balanced is eve tier
DeleteIkr. People cry about champs getting 0.05 scaling taking off crying how bad tge champ now is. Hands down: Zyra was the most broken op champ we had since release Xin... If I ever have to play an op champ to feel good I'd rather quit. And fyi I played Vlad and Eve through the nerfs. Was awsome, no one wanted to pick them so I could choose and still do well with them.
DeleteLol, of course, nerfing my Zyra. Well, now it is not funny.
ReplyDeletePlaying only imbas, right noobie?
Deletelol Zyra is so fu*king easy against my Gragas, and don't buff Varus he is op <.<
ReplyDeletethis makes vrs zyra much better
ReplyDeletemuch easier to kill +1
Deletemuch harder as a zyra player to counter ANY melee mid champ. Dodge skillshot = win
I like the changes to varus' ult, I cannot count the times I've missed it
ReplyDeletei completely agree he has by far the worst ranged ad ulti in the game its near impossible to land and almost never chains. needs a huge buff
DeleteAnd Darius... is left WITHOUT a Ult nerf.
ReplyDeleteAgain.
Or you could actually read the forums and find out they want to make bigger changes to him instead of simply nerfing to the ground.
DeletePeople like you not using brains.
Again.
Darius ulti nerf, that's just lame.
DeleteAll nerfs on Zyra are justified, 'easy to counter' lol. On what elo are you guys playing? The main problem on Zyra is, that its waaaay too easy to land her Ulti, because its range it so huge. And after the Ult knock up its no problem anymore to hit all of her other spells, she even got time to place her seeds during her ult. Thats why they nerf the ult range. The other stuff is justified too and PLEASE fanboys, stop calling champs 'MY zyra' 'MY ezreal' etc. ur so gay
ReplyDeleteI agree on the ultimate range & damage nerf, even the plant nerf to 50%. But i can't get my head around why she had to drop in movement speed. Aniviaspeed crapspeed. Once you miss your root or the root is dodged, zyra's a dead plant
DeleteWTF they just destroyed Zyra, she wasnt realy op anyway, it was just that she has her strength and weakneses at the wrong places, a Gragas could always kill her, look at the MLG vids. not of the zyras played well, and every champ with a gap closer just shits on her, asson as someone stands right in front of her, shes dead, thats why she needed that damage frome the flowers, but nerfing the flowers AND her bassic spells + range, was just to much, at least they should rise her auto atack range now, to make her playable without making her the easiest focus ever.
ReplyDeleteThat was to much Zyra was never op, she was just new, if they would have waited 2 weeks more, people would see how to play against her, but that was a rushed nerf, becouse of a champ thats not to weak from the the reales.
WHY RIOT? WHY?
yes a squishie does die if they get jumped, no she isnt anywhere near easy to get to. even with a gap closer zyra has to miss her snare for them to even get close she is way to difficult to catch.
Deleteaint hard to miss a snare or to dodge one for that matter. Once the root's on CD, you just get jumped on & you can't do anything about it
Deleteexcept 9/10 times she has her ult to save her? root isn't the only out she has. when i get jumped i usually q,w,w,r,ignite,flash and most things die. all of that can be casted very quickly.
DeleteThey create a champion for months - test it on test servers for weeks and PBE 1-2 weeks also. How come after 2 weeks of release they suddenly NERF NEW CHAMPION so much?
ReplyDeletePlants are zone control thing - stand in the zone for a longer period of time and you'll feel it. Elsehow plants don't do too much damage. 15s CD on a plant (15s CD on a DPS spell) - think about it. (to combo you need 30s [50% of most ults])
There's a lot of gap closers, which make it easier to counter zyra mid. She hasn't got that much HP...
I agree with ulti cast range - it IS too high since so easy to use. However it should always be combined with plants to increase her damage.
That's creating double zone in a zone making her go all on CD and needing to stay in the zone she created.
She will still be great addition to team however she will be killed so easily now. (plants actually helped you somewhat handle melee brusiers) now Lifesteal > plants > spells [it was really hard to win vs champions like Xin/Renekton etc.
Sad really sad.
A lot of noobs die couse they have no idea about positioning - so they nerf - really sad.
the plants were a huge problem because of how long she can keep somone in one spot the damage on the plants would be so much they would do half thier hp alone. her plants slow she has a snare and she has a knockup she can hold u there for around 5 seconds and thats without ryals. melles without good gap closers like fizz could do nothing against her.
Deletedodge the snare, you win. Simple as that. Just move instead of standing still & lasthitting
DeleteThe sale mentions "red sodas". I had to buy HH yi. Damn you riot.
ReplyDeleteZyra is easy early game but late she is quite OP even whilst severely underfed. Though i play xerath so i keep her at bay with longer range.
ReplyDeleteEhhh... I'm honestly a bit wary of Zyra nerfs.
ReplyDeleteAs a Varus player on the side, I welcome the new QoL changes and minor buffs, he HAS always felt a tad weak, and this might complete his journey onto the AD Carry playing field.
However, where Zyra is concerned... balance her, yes, okay, she's balanced now. STOP before you begin a chain of Ahri-esque nerfs. Unique casters are often difficult to play properly (I mean, compare Ryze and Cass, or Ryze and Zyra, for example), and so they need the power to rival EASE-of-use casters, or where's the reward behind playing them well? To be able to do that, and then feel mediocre has got to take away from the "fun" factor Riot has been striving for.
I don't exactly believe that Ahri, for example, deserved all she got, and it takes away from her "fun" factor to arrive at mediocre in the hands of anybody but a high-skillcap player.
I personally hope that Zyra won't go down this treacherous road.
agree completetly they nurfed some champs wayyyyyyyyyyy to much, take nocturne ahri and irelia for example. noc is shit compared to his release, ahri has so little damage she has to use her kit more than once to get a kill, and irelias sustain is out the window. varus on the other hand has needed a buff for a long time, his ulti is just atrocious and his primary damage source was to poke with Q. riot needs to open their eyes.
DeleteAll 3 of those champions have been top pick for over a month now, nocturne is even banned from time to time. Saying they are weak makes you look like a retard
DeleteSeriously, you think nerfing Ahri was bad? Come on, I play ahri dozens of times & even I know it aint fair to 1 shot someone with only 1 rotation of your skills ... E Q W R bye bye? i thought not
DeleteI rly hope to see the Varus buff soon.
ReplyDelete