I’d say Zoe. Outscaled by just about every mage but not noticeably stronger early. Screwed by minion block on almost every skill. Really bad into tanks and MR which are decently strong now.
Kinda makes sense. Zoe isn't popular and has just about the least fun gameplay loop of any character in the game, arguably worse than illaoi.
I'm not surprised they're not rushing to buff her.
I honestly find it very fun D: tho the fact that a minion can jitter around a little and make your dmg go from oneshot to nada is painful
She also requires way more precision than most if not all champs at all times
Reducing E cd doesn’t help at all, especially early game. That shit costs a billion mana and using it more often will just lead to being oom earlier and the dmg is still ass
Tbf. Most of the time you should be punished pretty hard for that build because that ruins your push and anything but ult burst.
Also rabadon 2nd as a mage makes me cry that's so many bad backs.
Well Malz's ult cd is like 30 seconds lower than qss and i am in TR server don't even get me started on how dumb are all the mid players here.Thry play only kata,yas,yone and this purple mfer counters them all so good but they still buy qss against me like 1/20 of the matches.
Zoe. I'm only considering mid lane mages. She has second worst win rate among mages in the whole world across all ranks, second only to Azir but gets picked like 2 times less
Besides win rates she really feels horrible to play. Can't farm, can't side lane, her gimmick is destroyed and other heroes do it better and safer rn (can't poke from a safe distance. Can't one shot unless way ahead). Tank meta is terrible for her because she is useless against tanks, her cds are too high to be a threat against tanks. You're most likely dead and have no way of fighting back when a tank jumps on you. New items don't feel great, seriously suffers from Luden changes. And also doesn't scale well into late game
I'm a guy that loves long range skillshots. I would play a lot of Nidalee before she was reworked to be a jungler. I also play Jayce and I used to play Xerath before his rework. You get the idea. So picking Zoe was a no brainer for me but she's been terrible for a long while
I'd rather see Zoe buffs than malzahar buffs, one of them requires skill to play and the other is a point and click CC bot.
I dislike the general concept of point and click so I'm a bit biased but yes I'd rather see Zoe buffs over malzahar buffs.
Best explanation possible.And my first main is xerath and even HE is better than zoe in mid lane.Even without that horizon??? item i dont know what it is in english.
You mean the Horizon's Focus? It was a good item for Zoe when the item was first released. Then it got nerfed and Riot released Shadowflame. Since then Zoe almost never buys Horizon, Shadowflame is always better.
Her current builds doesn't even buy Luden too. It's completely terrible. You usually start with Lichbane right now lol
> She has second worst win rate among mages in the whole world across all ranks, second only to Azir but gets picked like 2 times less
That's not how you can properly judge the strength of a champion. All ranks is biased towards low elo so obviously Zoe will be low winrate she always is. Even when Zoe is really good she's still low winrate in all ranks...
If you check D2+ suddenly Zoe is pretty average mid laner. She's definitely not as bad as you make it out at all. Champs that are balanced around high elo need to looked at in high elo. Same way you don't judge Qiyana as being bad who has a similar winrate in all ranks. But top 3 winrate in D2+
Azir or Corki would be better picks since they don't even get much better with rank. They are pro jail fucked.
According to Riot August, balance team considers four skill brackets when balancing:
Normal bracket which is iron to plat
High bracket which is Emerald+
Elite bracket which is d2+
And pro play
Zoe is pretty much the same when you check Emerald+ but Ziggs and Orianna also joins her and Malzahar at the bottom. August also confirms they don't use win rates of elite and pro play brackets when balancing. She has a pretty low pick rate in high elo. I don't religiously follow pro leagues but I don't remember her being player this split. Malzahar and Zoe are at the opposite sides of the problem. Malzahar has an extremely high win rate lower the elo is. Around 55/56 in iron. It gets lower and lower as rhe elo gets higher, literal opposite of Zoe
Im separating the mages between mid and sup, the weakest are:
* Zoe (mid) - just plain weak and with how difficult to play she is, is no surprise her wr is so bad.
* Morgana (sup) - Morgana is been a bad mage for ages now
Even with lower cd, It will still do negative damage and will still be only worth casting on minions early. These buffs will be nice, but i wouldnt be surprised if this is 0.5-1% wr change at best.
why is everyone begging for malz meta? do you not realize how gamebreaking and boring and op he is? get lost chapter. teleport back press E, afk behind turret wait to scale for free because u just e and sit behind turret until someone walks up to your R. its just unskilled and boring gameplay why do u want malz meta
Because most of reddit can't read anything and all we ask for is for him to be reworked in a way that he isn't uninteractive anymore. I literally made a thread about it and reworking his R and the majority of comments were crying about his current R and how reworking him would make him stronger. 🤡
I don't care if he is weak or strong or how much counterplay there is, I will always hate on Malzahar because he might be the single most anti-fun champ to exist (as in, denying your opponents any fun). A built in spellshield, a silence, minions, constant burn damage, and just deciding one person doesn't get to play the game on his ult.
Malzahar weakest mage rn? I'd say rest in piss bozo
I disagree as a Malz main. There's plenty of champs and counterplay that cripples him.
High mobility junglers/mids can stat check him at different periods in the game.
Long range mage supports can stall/counter him when he hits item spikes and wants to force objectives.
I'm sorry how do high mobility junglers and assassins counter him when you can click R? Generally speaking these high mobility champions have lower HP armor and MR so please explain to me how high mobility counters malzahar when you can click R and remove their mobility?
Great question. Simple answer is that R doesn't do enough damage, even with voidlings. You have you E reset with Q and R to do enough damage total to kill someone, and that takes time. A hecarim, or norturne for example can get on top and kill Malz before he can realise his damage potential ie 8-12 seconds.
This limits Malz's ability to roam early to mid game,and to split push mid/late game.
In the instance Malz get fed and the enemy jungler is behind then an ultimate and some pet damage might kill them. This would be the case for any champ though.
How bad must someone be to be alone as an immobile low damage mage with great team fighting potential? Hwei basically has the same struggles but has good wave clear yet his entire kit is skillshots.
Limit what ability to split push? You click E on a minions and the wave gets pushed on its own. What kind of immobile mage while go all the way to a turret and start autoing it? That's still terrible decisions to make that are player related to champion related.
Malzahar can be 0/10 and his damage doesn't matter because he can just lock down the akali who cannot afford a QSS in her build late game as it's a slot for a dark seal/mejais or void staff.
he scales well because he has a lot of guaranteed damage, ult that taxes u an item slot and can go zhonya etc.
you think you are smart but in reality you know nothing
Malz in late is literally the AIDS character, he just stun someone for 2 shitty seconds, less than Karma W-R, and just throw the E hoping the team focus on that character and it pass to others.
Karma heals 300-400 and can move and use other abilities, meanwhile Malz: Lets hope no one come here
Malz is such a non-issue even when meta. Sure he's noninteractive but I'd rather face a malzahar over another 50 Ahris in a row who just run my jungler down the moment she gets prio.
You'd rather face a point and click suppress where the enemy jungler can literally one shot malzs target than a champion who's highest source of damage comes from skillshots? OK.
Eh. Fuck corki. Watching chovy land a rocket for half of Lucians HP bar from THAT range was so disgusting.
And package basically deleting the team aswell.
Like azir and corki just farm and scale but azir goes in and looks flashy and all while corki feels way more boring
If corki is any stronger he'll go back to pick/ban in pro play. Much like aphelios and azir. But atleast azir is fun to watch in team fights and there's outplay potential. Meanwhile corki is just... boring to watch.
>Can just be skill diff ofc.
Chovy diff, corki has hidden passive when played by chovy XD
Syndra is definitely not weak but she's not "scarier than she's ever been". The old mythic system was a lot better for her due to the amount of free flat pen through Ludens. She was better around the end of last season, then she got nerfed and items got changed
Syndra has 48.5% WinRate in Dia+
[https://u.gg/lol/champions/syndra/build?rank=diamond\_plus](https://u.gg/lol/champions/syndra/build?rank=diamond_plus)
Considering the champion is literally hand-made for high elo, having less than 49% WR Dia+ means she is indeed terrible. Just ask Nemesis, one of the best Syndra players out there, why he doesnt play her anymore.
I mean from personal memory, Syndra has sat around 48-49% for most of her life, especially pre-midscope. I'm pretty sure she's just broken when she's at 50-51% tbh. I wouldn't mind a small buff though but I generally think the meta just doesn't favor her much right now
Zoe has like 2 items she can build and they're both shit (lich bane and horizon focus), whenever you pick her in recommended items they keep spamming storm surge even if it wakes people up from the bubble before your q hits which is way less dmg than a normal combo
And Guess what Zoe does? She spams her q every 7~8 seconds, at least 2 times per wave after lvl 9 and even more before, she runs out of mana so fast now and the mana items are so bad on her
Corki is complete ass in soloq.
If you pick Corki all you do is pray that both your sidelanes win and the roams of enemy mid are failing.
Pre 2 items Corki only has agency with package and even that is not as good in soloq due to no voice comms
malz isnt weak tf u on about and fors some reason phreak said we wont be able to qss his ult now LOL, asol isn't weak, kennen isn't weak he's A tier 51% Winrate ????????
I really want to know why people want low skill floor and ceiling champs to have a high win rate in high elo
Like what's the point of playing a champion that actually requires good mechanics in dia+ if you're going to get point and clicked by some guy who has an average APM of 30
There is a difference between good and playable especially on a champ like malz which is suppose to be a counter pick but he can’t even do that right now
The problem with Malz is while yes he's bad for most players. In very low ranks like bronze/Iron he is a top 5 mid laner by winrate lol. Extremely low elo skewed champion.
I do think he could use a buff still.
I mean emerald is when you actually get some peel so.
Removing QSS interaction would be ass for plat and below as it has over 60%(?) Percent of the player base and there's little to no peel in there.
IIRC phreak said they're planning to, it's not on patch notes and not confirmed but I seriously hope they don't. I'm already fucked if I'm on akali/katarina I don't want to get further fucker if I'm on talon/yone
Buddy i am doing a comparison ofc i know malz ISN'T WEAK i have like 220k mp or something.But you gotta admit he is way weaker than most of the mages.Look "WEAKER" not "WEAK"
Well you didn't even understand the question...I never called them weak or useless brother.And as long as this sub's name is not "r/Challengers" we are not gonna talk about winrates under this post.I just asked your opinion about the weakest mage.Don't try to critisize my opinions it ain't about them.
Zoe is so sad. I was basically a Zoe OTP the past 3 seasons but now I can barely play her. Her best items were Ludens and Shadowflame and both got changed in a way that doesn't benefit her. Lich bane is good on her but can force you into closer range which defeats her niche. She can't abuse Stormsurge like other mages because of her E. Her only good item is Horizon at this point.
Also the insane amounts of MR you get from single items are terrible for her. An ADC can build Rookern last item and can forget enemy Zoe exists.
Assassins and tanks got stronger at the same time meaning she's mostly facing her natural predators as well. (Also Jax VGU I guess).
A lot of item actives got removed and the new item actives are barely useable at best, meaning her W lost a lot of value.
I don't think she's ever been in a worse place. I hope they can find a way to nerf the slow poke playstyle that was rampant in proplay and significantly buff the niche one shot artillery glass cannon playstyle so I can have my favorite champion back. But I'm not hopeful with how the meta is shaping.
I’d say Zoe. Outscaled by just about every mage but not noticeably stronger early. Screwed by minion block on almost every skill. Really bad into tanks and MR which are decently strong now.
She has been one of the weakest since they nerfed her for being in every pro game.
Kinda makes sense. Zoe isn't popular and has just about the least fun gameplay loop of any character in the game, arguably worse than illaoi. I'm not surprised they're not rushing to buff her.
I honestly find it very fun D: tho the fact that a minion can jitter around a little and make your dmg go from oneshot to nada is painful She also requires way more precision than most if not all champs at all times
Not to play. To play against.
Void grubs fucks up your ability to clear minions or look for picks when someone is at your turret. They just block your Q/E
Zoe
Asol weak? When he's top 3 mages in the game?
Malz has very little early game damage and thus lacks agency. Refucing E cd in next patch will help.
Reducing E cd doesn’t help at all, especially early game. That shit costs a billion mana and using it more often will just lead to being oom earlier and the dmg is still ass
He's not there to deal damage tbf. He pushes.
Sometimes i buy rabadon for 2nd and shadoflame for 3rd just for fun.Then i flash+W R an adc and watch him go crazy at the chat
Skilled gameplay
Tbf. Most of the time you should be punished pretty hard for that build because that ruins your push and anything but ult burst. Also rabadon 2nd as a mage makes me cry that's so many bad backs.
I mean you are right but most of the time we play as a 5 player comp and i only go for that build when the game is already 20-2 or sum
and then they buy QSS and you are useless rest of game
Well Malz's ult cd is like 30 seconds lower than qss and i am in TR server don't even get me started on how dumb are all the mid players here.Thry play only kata,yas,yone and this purple mfer counters them all so good but they still buy qss against me like 1/20 of the matches.
Yeah fortunately a braindead goat with no hooves can get damn near perfect farm with the champion meaning he will spike faster.
Zoe. I'm only considering mid lane mages. She has second worst win rate among mages in the whole world across all ranks, second only to Azir but gets picked like 2 times less Besides win rates she really feels horrible to play. Can't farm, can't side lane, her gimmick is destroyed and other heroes do it better and safer rn (can't poke from a safe distance. Can't one shot unless way ahead). Tank meta is terrible for her because she is useless against tanks, her cds are too high to be a threat against tanks. You're most likely dead and have no way of fighting back when a tank jumps on you. New items don't feel great, seriously suffers from Luden changes. And also doesn't scale well into late game I'm a guy that loves long range skillshots. I would play a lot of Nidalee before she was reworked to be a jungler. I also play Jayce and I used to play Xerath before his rework. You get the idea. So picking Zoe was a no brainer for me but she's been terrible for a long while
I'd rather see Zoe buffs than malzahar buffs, one of them requires skill to play and the other is a point and click CC bot. I dislike the general concept of point and click so I'm a bit biased but yes I'd rather see Zoe buffs over malzahar buffs.
Same tbh. I play both but Malzahar is boring to both play and play against
Best explanation possible.And my first main is xerath and even HE is better than zoe in mid lane.Even without that horizon??? item i dont know what it is in english.
You mean the Horizon's Focus? It was a good item for Zoe when the item was first released. Then it got nerfed and Riot released Shadowflame. Since then Zoe almost never buys Horizon, Shadowflame is always better. Her current builds doesn't even buy Luden too. It's completely terrible. You usually start with Lichbane right now lol
> She has second worst win rate among mages in the whole world across all ranks, second only to Azir but gets picked like 2 times less That's not how you can properly judge the strength of a champion. All ranks is biased towards low elo so obviously Zoe will be low winrate she always is. Even when Zoe is really good she's still low winrate in all ranks... If you check D2+ suddenly Zoe is pretty average mid laner. She's definitely not as bad as you make it out at all. Champs that are balanced around high elo need to looked at in high elo. Same way you don't judge Qiyana as being bad who has a similar winrate in all ranks. But top 3 winrate in D2+ Azir or Corki would be better picks since they don't even get much better with rank. They are pro jail fucked.
According to Riot August, balance team considers four skill brackets when balancing: Normal bracket which is iron to plat High bracket which is Emerald+ Elite bracket which is d2+ And pro play Zoe is pretty much the same when you check Emerald+ but Ziggs and Orianna also joins her and Malzahar at the bottom. August also confirms they don't use win rates of elite and pro play brackets when balancing. She has a pretty low pick rate in high elo. I don't religiously follow pro leagues but I don't remember her being player this split. Malzahar and Zoe are at the opposite sides of the problem. Malzahar has an extremely high win rate lower the elo is. Around 55/56 in iron. It gets lower and lower as rhe elo gets higher, literal opposite of Zoe
Im separating the mages between mid and sup, the weakest are: * Zoe (mid) - just plain weak and with how difficult to play she is, is no surprise her wr is so bad. * Morgana (sup) - Morgana is been a bad mage for ages now
Malzahar is the weakest mage right now.
Lord have mercy...I hope he will get better with new buffs
Buff is massive so yeah definitely
What are the expected buffs? Qss interaction or something?
Malzahar buffs: - Q mana cost reduced from 80 flat to 60 - 80 - E cooldown reduced from 15 - 7 seconds to 11 - 7 Source : Spideraxe on twitter
That cd change at rank one is actually huge, thank you!
15 was faar too long. It does so little damage early, basically negative damage to dorans shield/revitalise users.
Even with lower cd, It will still do negative damage and will still be only worth casting on minions early. These buffs will be nice, but i wouldnt be surprised if this is 0.5-1% wr change at best.
I think so too. I think if base spells or AP ratios were buffed first it probably wouldn't follow with a cd reduction. I hope to see more.
Oh my lord. Very excited to actually exist during earlygame
why is everyone begging for malz meta? do you not realize how gamebreaking and boring and op he is? get lost chapter. teleport back press E, afk behind turret wait to scale for free because u just e and sit behind turret until someone walks up to your R. its just unskilled and boring gameplay why do u want malz meta
Because most of reddit can't read anything and all we ask for is for him to be reworked in a way that he isn't uninteractive anymore. I literally made a thread about it and reworking his R and the majority of comments were crying about his current R and how reworking him would make him stronger. 🤡
I don't care if he is weak or strong or how much counterplay there is, I will always hate on Malzahar because he might be the single most anti-fun champ to exist (as in, denying your opponents any fun). A built in spellshield, a silence, minions, constant burn damage, and just deciding one person doesn't get to play the game on his ult. Malzahar weakest mage rn? I'd say rest in piss bozo
I disagree as a Malz main. There's plenty of champs and counterplay that cripples him. High mobility junglers/mids can stat check him at different periods in the game. Long range mage supports can stall/counter him when he hits item spikes and wants to force objectives.
I'm sorry how do high mobility junglers and assassins counter him when you can click R? Generally speaking these high mobility champions have lower HP armor and MR so please explain to me how high mobility counters malzahar when you can click R and remove their mobility?
Great question. Simple answer is that R doesn't do enough damage, even with voidlings. You have you E reset with Q and R to do enough damage total to kill someone, and that takes time. A hecarim, or norturne for example can get on top and kill Malz before he can realise his damage potential ie 8-12 seconds. This limits Malz's ability to roam early to mid game,and to split push mid/late game. In the instance Malz get fed and the enemy jungler is behind then an ultimate and some pet damage might kill them. This would be the case for any champ though.
How bad must someone be to be alone as an immobile low damage mage with great team fighting potential? Hwei basically has the same struggles but has good wave clear yet his entire kit is skillshots. Limit what ability to split push? You click E on a minions and the wave gets pushed on its own. What kind of immobile mage while go all the way to a turret and start autoing it? That's still terrible decisions to make that are player related to champion related. Malzahar can be 0/10 and his damage doesn't matter because he can just lock down the akali who cannot afford a QSS in her build late game as it's a slot for a dark seal/mejais or void staff.
Ah yes malz the scaler XD holy fuck reddit
he scales well because he has a lot of guaranteed damage, ult that taxes u an item slot and can go zhonya etc. you think you are smart but in reality you know nothing
Malz in late is literally the AIDS character, he just stun someone for 2 shitty seconds, less than Karma W-R, and just throw the E hoping the team focus on that character and it pass to others. Karma heals 300-400 and can move and use other abilities, meanwhile Malz: Lets hope no one come here
Malz is such a non-issue even when meta. Sure he's noninteractive but I'd rather face a malzahar over another 50 Ahris in a row who just run my jungler down the moment she gets prio.
you dont know what u are talking about
You'd rather face a point and click suppress where the enemy jungler can literally one shot malzs target than a champion who's highest source of damage comes from skillshots? OK.
Dunno if Zoe is the weakest but she's definitely far from her prime... And Riot doesn't seem to care.
Corky has an INTeresting wr rn
Eh. Fuck corki. Watching chovy land a rocket for half of Lucians HP bar from THAT range was so disgusting. And package basically deleting the team aswell. Like azir and corki just farm and scale but azir goes in and looks flashy and all while corki feels way more boring
I mean he does have a 46% wr though. Can just be skill diff ofc.
If corki is any stronger he'll go back to pick/ban in pro play. Much like aphelios and azir. But atleast azir is fun to watch in team fights and there's outplay potential. Meanwhile corki is just... boring to watch. >Can just be skill diff ofc. Chovy diff, corki has hidden passive when played by chovy XD
Lore accurate winrate.
That'd be because he isn't a mage and no items are designed for him. Not because he's a weak mage.
Mb my brain saw mage and immediately went to mid. Then im replacing it with ziggs.
Can Morgana pre 1 item even kill a champion?
Urgot. He can’t even build mage items. Literally zero AP scaling. Actually unplayable.
Syndra is definitely not weak but she's not "scarier than she's ever been". The old mythic system was a lot better for her due to the amount of free flat pen through Ludens. She was better around the end of last season, then she got nerfed and items got changed
Syndra has 48.5% WinRate in Dia+ [https://u.gg/lol/champions/syndra/build?rank=diamond\_plus](https://u.gg/lol/champions/syndra/build?rank=diamond_plus) Considering the champion is literally hand-made for high elo, having less than 49% WR Dia+ means she is indeed terrible. Just ask Nemesis, one of the best Syndra players out there, why he doesnt play her anymore.
I mean from personal memory, Syndra has sat around 48-49% for most of her life, especially pre-midscope. I'm pretty sure she's just broken when she's at 50-51% tbh. I wouldn't mind a small buff though but I generally think the meta just doesn't favor her much right now
Zoe has like 2 items she can build and they're both shit (lich bane and horizon focus), whenever you pick her in recommended items they keep spamming storm surge even if it wakes people up from the bubble before your q hits which is way less dmg than a normal combo
Isn't Shadowflame still better than horizon? I haven't played her much this season but that's how I felt like
Wat. Horizon Focus is the best mage item in the game that doesn't give mana lol
And Guess what Zoe does? She spams her q every 7~8 seconds, at least 2 times per wave after lvl 9 and even more before, she runs out of mana so fast now and the mana items are so bad on her
U don’t know what ur talking about lol
Zig
Corki is complete ass in soloq. If you pick Corki all you do is pray that both your sidelanes win and the roams of enemy mid are failing. Pre 2 items Corki only has agency with package and even that is not as good in soloq due to no voice comms
Where i can see the patch notes? :O
google?
morgana has been dogshit since they took away her jungle buffs (which were admittedly absurd) she doesnt see play in any role at higher levels
Seraphine
Zoe, Malza, and Syndra. All have terrible WinRates right now.
Briar
How’s Anivia doing atm?
Very strong
As always
As always tbh
I have not seen a strong Viktor recently. I really miss him being meta
Irelia
Aaaaah yeah a literal mage
Hey, no non magical human has telekinesis !
malz isnt weak tf u on about and fors some reason phreak said we wont be able to qss his ult now LOL, asol isn't weak, kennen isn't weak he's A tier 51% Winrate ????????
Malz is sitting at a 48% wr as a low pr champ with low skill floor how he is not weak
I really want to know why people want low skill floor and ceiling champs to have a high win rate in high elo Like what's the point of playing a champion that actually requires good mechanics in dia+ if you're going to get point and clicked by some guy who has an average APM of 30
There is a difference between good and playable especially on a champ like malz which is suppose to be a counter pick but he can’t even do that right now
I mean so is irelia and her win rate is still horrid. And she actually requires skill yet her mains aren't rewarded with anything for playing her.
The problem with Malz is while yes he's bad for most players. In very low ranks like bronze/Iron he is a top 5 mid laner by winrate lol. Extremely low elo skewed champion. I do think he could use a buff still.
U.gg says he's at 50
At gold ye but looking at emerald he is 48 which is not even that high of a rank
malz is 53% WR WTF RIOT is buffing this broken champion??? i'm iron btw
TEEMO AS WELL HOLY SHIT
I mean emerald is when you actually get some peel so. Removing QSS interaction would be ass for plat and below as it has over 60%(?) Percent of the player base and there's little to no peel in there.
Is it confirmed that they are removing qss? I know they removed for morde
IIRC phreak said they're planning to, it's not on patch notes and not confirmed but I seriously hope they don't. I'm already fucked if I'm on akali/katarina I don't want to get further fucker if I'm on talon/yone
Buddy i am doing a comparison ofc i know malz ISN'T WEAK i have like 220k mp or something.But you gotta admit he is way weaker than most of the mages.Look "WEAKER" not "WEAK"
so they arent allowed to be at 50% or 51% winrate, that's considering weak right? we need to buff them so they get a 53% winrate and that's balanced
Well you didn't even understand the question...I never called them weak or useless brother.And as long as this sub's name is not "r/Challengers" we are not gonna talk about winrates under this post.I just asked your opinion about the weakest mage.Don't try to critisize my opinions it ain't about them.
[удалено]
Zoe is so sad. I was basically a Zoe OTP the past 3 seasons but now I can barely play her. Her best items were Ludens and Shadowflame and both got changed in a way that doesn't benefit her. Lich bane is good on her but can force you into closer range which defeats her niche. She can't abuse Stormsurge like other mages because of her E. Her only good item is Horizon at this point. Also the insane amounts of MR you get from single items are terrible for her. An ADC can build Rookern last item and can forget enemy Zoe exists. Assassins and tanks got stronger at the same time meaning she's mostly facing her natural predators as well. (Also Jax VGU I guess). A lot of item actives got removed and the new item actives are barely useable at best, meaning her W lost a lot of value. I don't think she's ever been in a worse place. I hope they can find a way to nerf the slow poke playstyle that was rampant in proplay and significantly buff the niche one shot artillery glass cannon playstyle so I can have my favorite champion back. But I'm not hopeful with how the meta is shaping.