14.12 Zyra Jungle Guide

This is a quick setup guide for people who want to pick up Zyra jungle and copy a build / playstyle. For my in-depth thought process on the choices made, check out the advanced guide (careful, this is quite literally a university lecture on Zyra jungle).
00:00 Intro
03:30 Champion Theme/Philosophy
04:40 Hard Matchups
05:56 Champion Mechanics
08:03 Runes
14:00 Items
21:51 Abilities
23:58 Clear
26:04 Grubs
26:55 Solo Baron
27:22 Gameplay
29:28 Outro + Credit
PRESENTATION: docs.google.com/presentation/...
NIFFLER: / nifflertv
JOKEY/XARIOO: / jokey37
RACCOON: / jeansa1999
Community Discord: / discord

[@Zerion22]

Really cool guide, i watched the lecture but giving your the algorithm boost here. I have been much more of a shadowflame enjoyer than you are and really not that focused on the poke aspect of zyra. I found just the ability to 100 to 0 zero someone vs not being able to do that so game changing and not often talked about. I guess you would need a spreadsheat with all different kind of break points(hp and mr) of when you kill your targets. Since you like theorycrafting so much, maybe look a little more into it. As a mostly feel oriented player being able to kill makes a big difference. The Riftmaker build sounds fun vs 2 tanks, but i never really see 2 tanks in solo queue.

[@NifflerTV]

E is just a very unreliable ability and Zyra likes to space targets, poke and create chaos in teamfights. E as an ability doesn't really do much for that profile. In that case, might aswell pick Brand, Taliyah, or Karthus. If you are looking to hard stomp pre 15 in a pro game for instance, I could see an argument for Q E with rylais 2nd, it's also why it's played so much in Korea, they ff 15, but if a game goes / still swings after 15 mins, Q W is the best. No other champion has oppressive poke at this amount of range except for AP Kai'Sa.

[@justcallmewhat]

thanks for the guide! you could definitely use some1 to help you edit the script and cut down the length of some parts and maybe add more in game footage, but it was very helpful. thank you. I think a lot of people are gonna struggle with the 3 minute intro for example. low attention spans. best of luck to you looking forward to more

[@NifflerTV]

For sure, I'm a known waffler/yapper. And I don't really have that much time at the moment. It's the same with the sound settings and stuff. Also had to switch to Streamlabs earlier because Twitch Studio stopped supporting and my CPU has been messed up since, can't stream hehe. I literally press record and start talking. Hence why the first recording was 2hrs.

[@NifflerTV]

I've been playing Joki/Xarioo's ability maxing abit more (3x Q - 3x E - Full W). It really suits the playstyle, the only downside I see is that you have more trouble oneshotting waves with Q for W resets while sieging/poking. This is a trade off for 0.5 sec extra root duration midgame.

[@XXLepic]

Thoughts on GenG Canyons Zyra build? He’s arguably best jg in the world

[@NifflerTV]

Reviewing the game later today!

[@joking4881]

AMA I'm Xarioo

[@zMacah]

Hello i loved this guide! I hope it will get noticed! would you like to make a supp one in the future? I've picked zyra up very recently and i fell in love with her! But since nobody plays her and she's a unique champion it's all a bit confusing ! ahaha keep it up!! ^^

[@NifflerTV]

Hey, thank you very much. There's a support guide on my channel! kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaKwlYqpfbR_obssi=ZbukwKdGD1LYAjXq Also I'm working on fixing the videos.

[@zMacah]

@@NifflerTV oh amazing I didn't see that, ty❤️

[@25hvghfgetr6]

I have played Zyra quite a bit and tested different skilling orders. From the beginning the e max into w felt like the only intuitive order for skills. I'm not convinced that Q max significantly moves the needle in terms of clearing. The shitter minions generally die to 1 rotation of E/Q (+ ashes/pet) no matter which way they are maxed and the big minion is dps'd by the plants. The only situation I feel Q max is generally better is a early game fight where I'm fighting (especially) without plants and I have agro on me - fundamentally a situation that Zyra should avoid in my opinion. I honestly think Q could literally do 0 dmg after 15 min and the champ would be playable, because the skill functions just as a w spawner. Completely agree with you on the champion philosphy, I am just genuinely perplexed on why people are defaulting to Q max, even connoisseurs like yourself who have invested into the champion.

[@NifflerTV]

Agreeing on the champion's philosophy but disagreeing with Q max is contradictory though. You said it yourself already, if you play the champion correctly you don't get yourself in a situation mid to late where you are raw landing Q's. Same counts for E's, in fact, E's are even more unreliable. You don't reduce the cd and by the time you stand behind your ADC to use E on divers you already have points in it anyway. So the strongest viable option to play the champion to it's theme is Q W, because it allows you both during sieges and in teamfights to spawn the most amount of plants possible, resulting in the most DPS. Maxing Q first also optimized the amount of burst damage you do during a gank, landing E is very unreliable, we end up placing a slow plant behind a target more often, maxing E doesn't benefit that. And eventhough the increase to the clear is minimum, it's still an increase. Zyra has the highest early tempo in the game out of any jungler, Q max does optimize that strength. So yes, maxing Q is largely about the CDR so you can net more plants, both from W and passive. Oppressive poke is the name of the game. If you view pro games where people max Q E (Blaber did Q W, thank god) you can see how little E's they actually land and how the champion's theme is forcing them to stick to mostly Q W spamming. They rarely use R to empower plants, usually just raw to split up or slow down teamfights. E is a really bad, slow, unreliable ability which requires you to get into melee range, which is the thing you're avoiding. If you want to play some E max build I'm sure it'll function if you have setup or you play into alot of dive champions, but should you really be picking zyra then?

[@25hvghfgetr6]

I don't see why it would be contradictory. Your poke doesn't come any more opressive by putting points into Q as it's bottlenecked by your W. It's really just an empirical question of how much faster you clear with Q compared to E and how many seconds of tempo you win in the jungle, because 95% of the time when enemies are on my screen I want as many points in my E and W as possible and Q is in zero-sum competion with that. When it comes to setup I don't think you should really play the champion without melee support and AD mid to begin with. Obviously unless your are literally in challenger lobbies you have to endure to some amount of Nami/Ahris and deal with suboptimal comps but then the takeaway is that you simply don't want to be Zyra in those games. But it's interesting to see in couple of months what the consensus ends up being as pros undizzy themselves on the champion.

[@NifflerTV]

​@@25hvghfgetr6 Your passive also spawns alot of seeds midgame in various locations. Also if your Q doesn't oneshot the wave your plants will attack creeps during sieges if you space correctly. You can't auto lock. Also Q does good objective dmg and again highest dps in a gank. A slow plant is enough to connect them. E is just a bad spell.

[@NifflerTV]

If you don't like this playstyle then I recommend 3x Q 3x E into W as an alternative. But you'll see your midgame clear will take quite a big hit. Being able to keep up with your clear while moving to your team to punish mistakes and fight objectives/sieges is what's so strong about a jungler like Zyra or Karthus.

[@zeus5755]

do u know when Zyra spawn 2 seeds Niffler ?

[@NifflerTV]

If you mean the passive, it's RNG.

[@zeus5755]

@@NifflerTV oh so it's random

[@ferrnmusic]

hey this is rlly cool. great video! btw the gameplay vidoes seem to need permission to watch? not sure if thats intentional or not

[@NifflerTV]

Should be fixed!

[@grunderwaltz4072]

Volume is too low

[@NifflerTV]

Oh it sounded okay to me on the soundcheck, would removing the music make it better? I can still do that. I just put it to cover up my self-soothing tech, aka scratching my beard hehe.

[@XXLepic]

Voice volume if by itself is fine. But music seems to be too loud, especially in the part of explaining items builds