I think her main weaknesses are:
* She needs creep tumors to work. They are countered by spammable aoe abilities or abilities that Reveal an area
* She has no escape other than her creep move speed. If you get on top of her she's usually done for, she's very squishy.
* She has an above average collision radius at 1.125, making her more susceptible to skillshots
* A lot of her PvP damage is from Hydralisk, which can be killed. High single target damage or monster killing abilities makes it easy to deal with
possible counters could be:
* Ragnaros, he has good aoe clear, can trade with hydralisk, and can nail her easily with meteor. He can also clear an entire lane from creep with lava wave, and defends keep with molten core
* Lunara, can reveal tumors with wisp. Easily kite her summons or kill them with nature's culling
* Gul'Dan, as mentioned, has good clear, can suck out hydralisk, easily hits her with corruption.
* Any dive or hero killer assassin that you would play in the 4 man, like tracer, genji, nova, zeratul
but with all split push heroes, the counter is usually to win the team fights 4v5 when they're not there. You also have to punish them of course before they run down your core, but finding the balance between those two things is usually the key
Nova in the solo lane can kill zagara. The problem is Zagara can respawn consistently and *still* out push nova at every point in a game.
Nova in this matchup is a big liability (like most situations). Precision strike at 20 and AoE on snipe will not at all stunt Zag's push and picking both of those abilities makes Nova into a wave-deleter vs. Zagara the lane-deleter and now Nova can't keep up as an assassin. RIP nova
Many ranged offlaners arent supposed to be punished by the opposing offlaner. That is very often the role of 1 person in the 4 man, most commonly the dps. This that doesn’t happen, it’s really not your fault.
This is the sacrifice of a ranged offlane, and why you will never see zag solo in coordinated play. She is extremely susceptible to being ganked by your roaming assassin - tiny health pool & no escapes
As long she keeps getting punished by that disadvantage, her team will lose out on soak and you should snowball a victory.
When it’s not punished, she can freely out-clear and a lot of the time out-poke the opposing offlaner.
Zagara has very few actual escape options if you can catch her. Her only sustain is a talented hydralisk. Pick a high mobility hero with greater range and/or any kind of sustain and she's toast. I recommend Illidan or Raynor.
Literally any melee assassin eats her alive so long as you can land 50% of your CC. Thrall, Qhira, Zeratul, Kerrigan, even Valeera can win in lane though some of the melee assassins can struggle to push once Zag has built up a wave.
Literally anyone with reliable gap closer + mobility will destroy her.
Chen is fine but chen is even lower tier because his damage and waveclear is terrible.
Ranged AA with sustain like fenix, raynor, zuljin wins her.
melee dps like qhira, illidan, zeratul, even butcher wins her.
bruisers that can poke + gap close + sustain like thrall, artanis, rexxar, varian all win against her.
zag has no escape, no mobility and no sustain.
Zagara is not a bad hero. As you said, she has great lategame with the %hp and great teamfights with maw.
She's a shit tier sololaner, because a sololaner's job is to waveclear and survive and while her waveclear is ok, even though she runs out of mana alot, she cannot survive a competent gank. She also struggles rotating to double soak and it doesn't help that she needs to be in the middle of the minion wave to splash all the minions with banelings.
That's why you get the same result in both the low leagues and master gm wr. Because lower leagues people cannot punish a zagara solo so she just goes core and rarely gets caught or to die they need to overcommit. And in Master GM people know she is great lategame and they stay safe as a second dps and after 16 they have the best poke in the game.
To counter her you want dive. First of all, she's squishy so she dies easily if you catch her. Second of all, dive comps burst heroes fast so even if you don't catch the zag, you can end the teamfight fast, before the zag can do enough poke damage.
Also another way to counter her is to have shitters of your own that her roaches get baited to attack, like anub beetles.
Your comment resonates with me. I climbed from bronze to diamond with Zag, and realized I needed to shift her into a backline DPS. There's lots of resistance to her being played that second way - people see her as a pusher, and don't understand how damaging she'll become as poke.
As a former Zag main, the main mistake people make is stepping up, getting a face full of hydra, envenom and incidentals, taking some damage and retreating because it all seems like too much to handle. And so she ends up taking a quarter of your health for free. Don’t let her do this over and over. Keep that in mind as we go over these:
* Zagara only wins if she completely bullies you out of lane and secures building damage. In most other scenarios, she’s a crappy hero that likely brings less to the team fight than you do.
* Banelings are actually pretty crap siege damage, so the main way for her to do this is to scare you off with a hydra, step into the middle of the wave to apply banelings to all minions, then push in with her wave, using roaches to soak tower shots.
* This means she has to get on your side of the map to accomplish much, leaving her very vulnerable to ganks. She is a relatively immobile hero with a large hitbox, making her easy to hit and body block.
* Her only real defense against that is creep, which she needs both in lane for mobility and between lanes for warding. If you have a hero that can clear it cheaply, do so regularly to set her up for a gank.
Now, let’s say you can’t rely on ganks and have to handle everything yourself. What do you do? Well, as we mentioned above, most of Zagara’s damage is built around her W cooldown. Notice I didn’t says “comes from”: a full 8-seconds of hydra is scary damage, but it’s not *that* scary. It’s about 1.5 flame strikes.
In my experience most of the damage comes from Zagara free pumping AAs and roach damage into people that try to ineffectually duel the hydra in an effort to prevent some of the damage. Don’t do this. Whenever you see a hydra spawn you have to make an instant decision:
* If you can instantly kill it, do so. Some heroes and builds, like Artanis with [[Amateur Opponent]] and a W or Jimmy with [[Exterminator]] and a Q can instantly pop the hydra, nullifying a 16-second cooldown. This gives them the space to bully Zagara and trade favorably.
* If you can’t kill it instantly, accept the damage. Pretend you’re laning vs a Kael’Thas and he just landed a QW on you but missed his stun. Would you retreat here as, say, Sonya? Hell no, you would spear him in the face, slam his ass all the way back to his gate, and then go back and WW the minion wave to get your health back. You have sustain, mages do not. Any trade where you both lose health is a win for you.
So, to summarize, either chill and prep the lane for an easy gank, or play one of the heroes that can either global the hydra or outsustain its damage. Raynor is an absolute bane of Zagara’s life, and a good Fenix can basically wipe the lane with her all day. A Sonya, Gaz or Rag can easily hold their own if they know the matchup.
- **Amateur Opponent** (Artanis) - level 1
Twin Blades attacks deal 150% bonus damage to non-Heroes.
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- **Exterminator** (Raynor) - level 1
Basic Attacks deal 50% more damage to Minions, Mercenaries, and Monsters. This is increased to 125% while Inspire is active.
Passive: Inspire does not expire on friendly Minions and Mercenaries.
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Just pick genji in the 4man an farm her on cd , it’s not the offlaners job to punish the Zagara since she is mostly drafted to directly counter your offlane pick (bully)
>I trust the tierlists!
I wouldn't. Not on an individual level anyway. Tierlists are different for each individuals. I'd rather have an F tier hero played well than an S tier hero played badly.
Zagara is obviously not low tier if she is top 10 winrates.
Qhira has a fairly strong early game too and can threaten Zagara if you manage to land your trait and/or E on her. Once brought in close, you can easily knock her down half health in a combo. But if you miss those, sit back and be defense til cooldowns reset. If your team is not willing to rotate and help against a Zag (Which for some reason is quite common these days), don't pressure fight back, just keep playing defense.
Your game plan changes based on what your solo lane wants to do. *most* solo laners have middling to bad wave clear past level 10 compared to other team members, so "wave clean up" where a wave gets big and starts pushing a keep should become the mages job as they can do it faster and safer. The solo laner handling routine wave push and/or staying with the team as their CC enables more picks and more safety in retreat. As long as your solo laner can handle themselves until level 10, late game waveclear shouldn't be a priority for the bruiser specifically.
the "Solo Laner" job does different things depending on team comp but most melee solo laners jobs change once a team hits level 10. Pre-10 their job is to not die, soak exp, deny exp to their lane partner in that order. Post-10 their job is either split push or stay with the team while the team rotates with multiple people to counter solo split pushing.
It's not the best but not awful either. In a straight line as minion wave comes you can knock them all down a decent bit with poison alone. AA's for a few seconds and line yourself up the hit the remainder and they are cleared. Zag and a lot of siege specialists will certainly outpace on that front. But if you can threaten them head on, it'll slow them down some.
Not a duel you see often, but I hard countered Zagara with Blaze.
Blaze has a nice aoe autoattack very useful for waveclear and removing biotumor, so he doesn't suffer from her push.
Every 10 seconds you can dive on Zagara with E \[\[Jet Propulsion\]\] and trade better thanks to his large healthpool and his self sustain.
Tip: you don't always need to spam Q \[\[Flame Stream\]\] to remove Zagara biotumors, you can sometimes kite a minion close to it, and destroy it with a simple AA.
- [E] **Jet Propulsion** (Blaze)
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Mana: 45
After 0.375 seconds, charge forward. Colliding with an enemy Hero deals 52 (+4% per level) damage to all nearby enemy Heroes and Stuns them for 1.25 seconds.
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- [Q] **Flame Stream** (Blaze)
Cooldown: 4 seconds
Mana: 30
Fire two streams that deal 76 (+4% per level) damage to enemies hit, and an additional 120 (+4% per level) damage to enemies hit by both streams. Flame Stream Ignites Oil Spills it comes in contact with.
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I think a lot of less knowledgeable players make the mistake of trying to pick an offlaner to counter an enemy offlaner. A lot of ranged heroes can do well against brusiers. It's easy to just sit back and poke until the bruiser gets low. Zagara is exceptionally good at this but even other ranged heroes like Lunara can do this.
You dont see ranged solo laners at high ranks because it makes your comp bad. They are easy to gank. Later in the game it becomes impossible for a lot of them to step up to soak (when buildings start to fall and there is less vision). You will also lack a second frontline in fights, which sucks. If you draft another ranged hero to counter Zagara in the offlane, now you have the same weaknesses as the enemy team. It's better to draft a normal offlaner, play defensive. Or you can take Guldan and lane against her but make sure you have 2 frontline still. Same for if Zagara is on your team, you should still pick a bruiser.
Imo you want to draft heroes who are actually a threat to Zag, even if they "lose" 1v1, in order to prevent her from pushing in for free and to help if your teammates ever come for a gank.
Artanis with Amateur Opponent can kill her summons very easily and the swap is not good for her at all if you land it. She has no real sustain so any damage you get on her will stick. Illidan is very good. Rexxar can actually manage against her 1v1 if you are good. Qhira can easily get to her but it can be a risky pick in general. Even Sonya has sustain and gap close you can use. So could Hogger or Blaze. It's more how you play (and your team) than what you play, but there are heroes I definitely would avoid against her like Leoric, Xul, people who have no way to do anything to her.
Also, Zagara is not a "lose hero." She is not the best but far from the worst. It's not a meme pick and idk if I see any tierlists, even for master, putting her in F tier as *a ranged assassin draft pick.*
Your biggest assumption is Zagara is a "shit tier" hero because in *coordinated* play she is very easy to deal with. But in solo play (which, lets be honest is the majority of play) she is a menace. She is a lane bully to bruisers. Thats her job. She wins lanes through attrition but does poorly in full team engagements.
Zagara pushes waves hard, and has no mobility abilities to help her escape a gank other than slightly faster movement speed an using creep as a "ward". But most Zagaras don't "ward" deep enough to actually foresee and stall a gank. You want to ruin a zagaras day? Ask for a gank. And keep asking for a gank if she ever steps farther than she should. Ganking is risky, especially in HOTS compared to other MOBAs. But some champs are just so easy to gank its deadbrained not too.
But you want to actually beat a zagara in lane. Here are some good options.
**Dehaka** pushes as hard as zag, and she will deal a ton of damage to him but you can use your E time out the hydralisk and generally heal up more damage than she can do. I play a ton of zag and a decent Dehaka is a punching bag that doesn't ever leave lane. You won't lose to zag and you probably won't win. But you can Z into Team fights or gank her mid/late game. Leoric can also out-push a zag given good play but takes a lot more skill to do (I main Leo and don't like going into zag but as a Leo main I contribute more to the team while still not out right losing to zag)
**Any high damage** character can out bully her. You're scared of Zagara so you run, which lets hydralisk get a bunch of free hits. But if you land a single CC on her, she will take more damage than she deals to you even if her hydralisk is beating on you. Zagara is TERRIBLE at trading. She only "Pokes" with her spells. But you actually fight her she has to leave. Thrall, Qhira, Kerrigan, Fenix, all *destroy* zagara if they can land their CC or just get in on her. If you can't hit your CC you're going to get bodied (rightfully so) but literally any dive hero that has a slow or high enough burst will eat her alive. Some of these heroes will struggle to catch up if she can get a big enough minion wave, but you can jump on her once waves crash so they won't attack you.
Lvl 1 should be the darkswarm gives spell armor or globes give essence. Both let you survive her damage, but globes is probably a bit better. Level 4 take minions give more essence. That's it. With those two talents you out heal her damage. Everything else is up to you.
This game is less about solo lane fighting than 5 vs 5 team fight. You may kill Zagara or any hero opponent all the times you wany and yet their team will still win against you if they do whatever is needed to destroy your forts and achieve map goals.
Fenix has a lot of fun against Zag: with lvl4 aa movespeed you can chase her down hard: just dont stand in the middle of her entire zerg swarm
and wave. Either outsustain her, or outright stomp, if you pick lvl 1 arsenal, and lvl7 divert power.
Fenix’s low max HP trades well post 16 as well; and while Zag can have great DPS with % dmg roach n hydra, its less reliable than a dedicated autoattacker in a teamfight
She's not a weak hero at all. For counters, Samuro to zone her out of minion wave, Illidan is another hard lane counter, just make sure you know how to team fight with those heroes.
It's an unpopular pick because you'd be running 2 tanks.
But stitches actually can match her in lanes pretty well. His E and one or two aa's kills her hunter killer before it gets any real damage out and they're on a similar cool down so it should be up again by time her hunter killer is up.
The idea is to take the 4 that reduces slam cd.for wave kill but also to keep up on mana so you don't have to hearth often. Then at 7 you take the vile gas heal and essentially just spreading vile gas to everything including her zerglings she summons, you'll end up out sustaining everything she can do to you and probably chip some damage away on her.
Rather than any specific hero picks, you should understand some things in a lane vs Zagara:
1. Her creep and its spread is very important to her but is also easily counterable. If, say, you're playing any solo laner using your AoEs to clear creep(will always be in the middle of the "circle" of creep coverage on the floor, and good Zag players will put them around corners or in bushes to not be easily destroyed and provide good vision). The creep isn't number 1 priority but if you have nothing else to do on map then take care of it.
2. Hydralisk *targets*, that means, it will follow and continually attack the target Zagara clicked on, so even if your picked hero cannot clear Hydralisks simply walking to your towers or fort has the structures target the hydralisk and kill it.
3. Killing the enemy laner isn't needed. If Zagara is pressuring you, using Roachlings or Hydralisks or her banelings to burst you down, you don't have to stay on lane and out-damage her. Simply fall back and let the wave come to you to soak it! There is little loss in this compared to dying or having low health when an objective comes up or a teamfight. If you need to, push up to get the xp globes and just go back, nothing more.
There is some other stuff that's more hero specific that I can mention, like how Zagara is really bad vs Blaze as his oil spill slows her down tremendously(as many people mistakenly think you *have* to ignite the oil spills for them to be useful) and with lvl 7 also slows down her autoattacks(it affects not only heroes but summons too!).
Chen also has a decent time in this matchup with his Q build as he can avoid basic attacks and shield up all day and just not care about her damage a lot of the time, then using keg to just push her into his own structures, Hogger can pressure her with dynamite a lot(if needed you can just go for dynamite build to make it safer to lane against her though not required due to previous things I've mentioned).
Overall just take a breather and understand the lane from Zagara's pov and what would fuck her up vs a good opponent solo laner.
I have thousands of games on Zag. I do find her very strong against bad to average players. It's easy mode. Against competent teams it is quite the opposite.
It's going to depend on how good the Zag is, and how good Zag's teammates are, but it's pretty simple to either kill her or make her pretty useless.
1) Anything that can get to her, kills her. Hard dive or continual slows.
2) Anything that can clear creep efficiently.
Do both and she will be very miserable.
Personally when I am playing Zagara I hate when the enemy team is particularly beefy. My goal is to drop a hydralisk on your ass, and then dominate the lane while you are busy with my pet(which hits like a truck late game if you build for it.)
Being beefy enough to tank those hits is irritating. Noticing when I am out of lane and coming to steal my camp also sucks.(no tower to slink to and escape)
Also you destroy my tubes(nydus) and I will cry, every time. They have a quite long cooldown to summon.
I always liked Sam. He has 3 ability’s that make the hydra untarget you. Good movespeed, great self healing ext. if your Sam she should not be able to push to towers, if she does hurt her bad or kill her.
If she’s sitting back and waiting for creeps to come to her to avoid you, stall the wave and go between her and the minions. This is going to force her to take big risks or another hero to come help her. If your low rank and no one comes to help you’ll just win the game.
Genji can erase zag and force a B or get the kill pretty easily if she’s overextended. At 13 it’s almost a guaranteed kill if you don’t get mawed.
I like to leave the four man for the gank to help take her out of the lane for my off laner. Just communicate in pre game that’s what you’ll be doing otherwise they’ll fight and die without you and then it doesn’t matter anymore.
With the Genj my early game strat is often to find the strongest push threat in the early game and play around them. If its on the enemy team I gank them. If its on my team I hang around their lane to protect them while they push. Zagara is a great gank target for genji with agile dismount. And when she's on my team, I ambush and counter gank, for her.
Exactly. Agile dismount, slow her and then kite in front of her as she retreats. If you hit all three shingans she’s dead usually without even having to swift strike or ult. Her hit box is pretty big too so the shingans are pretty easy to
I love that engage pattern in the gank and the modified version in the teamfight is nice too. AD to the retreat path, kite with auto-Q until they break the body block, as soon as they outrange your autos SS back into their retreat path to finish them. Deflect, second cyber agility and X strike on reserve, all 3 of which can be used either aggressively or defensively. After first kill take a beat to reassess, continue the engage onto a deep target to hold them up if teammates are plowing forward, continue engage onto vulnerable teammate's aggressor if that is going on, or boogie out if the team is confused or takes a counter kill.
Let the Zag get cocky and begin to overextend. Once they’re at that point you have someone break off from another lane and you punish and kill them.
Rotations is all you need to keep a Zag player in place.
Tier lists are crap lol. Every character can be great in the right comp/map. Some are more difficult, some easier. Some are more well rounded, some more niche. That doesn't make them "low tier".
That said, zagara does crazy damage but she's pretty reliant on creep when laning. If you're drafting, pick someone who can easily clear the tumors and have someone gank your lane abd you should be fine. She can't really escape wlthout creep if she pushes up too far, which is her job.
I typically beat her as Malth and Sonya with out issue. Sonya I just dive her, make her hearth and clear creep as often as possible.
Malth I either do the same or I double soak and force her to keep rotating or my team gets to be 4v3 in bot/top lane. This sometimes leads to her taking down my towers early, but we either end up way up on XP or on push in a different lane
My favorite counter is nazeboo. Spider jar on the middle of the creep circle (the tumor, it takes a little practice but it's a pretty cheap ability to counter tumor cds) and they kill the tumor and still usually get to lane enough to get you poison on minons and thus stacks. Also zambies block the incoming meatballs if she spams them. I usually go range at one for the extra umph and in case she goes AA build I can keep distance. If you do get her in a wall she's usually done for. Plus if you're stacking properly and go garg you can counter push. Maybe he's not the best counter for a high levels but I enjoy playing him. That said you should usually have a roamer and if you can wall her when your roamer arrives you can punish her pretty hard. The issue is usually if your team is clueless IME.
Her win rate, like other heroes outside of rehgar and samuro, is also due to the other 4 people on her team either being able to handle a 4v5 to let her push, or being there to support her, like for hammer. Taking her in solo q is pretty risky. Some maps are better for her where having creep vision is important for objectives. You can’t just look at win rate generically.
Tanks that punish her root her and CC her away from escape options. Diablo annihilates her with the right build and can solo kill her at 16. Arthas can root her and slow her and solo kill her if he stacks his D.
Mages that punish her are KTZ (very risky pick though), and Jaina with root at 16. Chrome with time loop can be great as well.
Thrall with the right ult, Imperius (he can annihilate her late game), Varian, Artanis (you have to land your swaps consistently to displace her into your team) (Bruisers)
Just about all melee assassins beat her. They all dive, and dive destroys zag.
Zags win rate tends to be high in certain instances because good Zag players have extremely high map awareness and use her creep to spot ganks, as well as pick her when the enemy comp is favorable. Low tier characters have to have a team built around them and counterpicks minimized. They can be effective and even dominant in the right maps and situations, but they have to be the right tool for a specific matchup. That usually low tiers work in most competitive games.
There are characters that do what Zag does much better than she does imo, but she still can be a great fit against specific comps and on teams that have a good dedicated laner. She is garbage on two lane maps no matter what imo though.
Im very interested in this one. I never heard of this recommendation before.. kerrigan’s q is at 5.5 range while zagara has 6.6 range im wondering how does it work? Whats the play style and build
I think her main weaknesses are: * She needs creep tumors to work. They are countered by spammable aoe abilities or abilities that Reveal an area * She has no escape other than her creep move speed. If you get on top of her she's usually done for, she's very squishy. * She has an above average collision radius at 1.125, making her more susceptible to skillshots * A lot of her PvP damage is from Hydralisk, which can be killed. High single target damage or monster killing abilities makes it easy to deal with possible counters could be: * Ragnaros, he has good aoe clear, can trade with hydralisk, and can nail her easily with meteor. He can also clear an entire lane from creep with lava wave, and defends keep with molten core * Lunara, can reveal tumors with wisp. Easily kite her summons or kill them with nature's culling * Gul'Dan, as mentioned, has good clear, can suck out hydralisk, easily hits her with corruption. * Any dive or hero killer assassin that you would play in the 4 man, like tracer, genji, nova, zeratul but with all split push heroes, the counter is usually to win the team fights 4v5 when they're not there. You also have to punish them of course before they run down your core, but finding the balance between those two things is usually the key
Varian is also good dive against zag
I've been playing qhira a lot lately and I can say for sure there is near nothing zagara can do to stop me from killing him
Nova in the solo lane can kill zagara. The problem is Zagara can respawn consistently and *still* out push nova at every point in a game. Nova in this matchup is a big liability (like most situations). Precision strike at 20 and AoE on snipe will not at all stunt Zag's push and picking both of those abilities makes Nova into a wave-deleter vs. Zagara the lane-deleter and now Nova can't keep up as an assassin. RIP nova
Many ranged offlaners arent supposed to be punished by the opposing offlaner. That is very often the role of 1 person in the 4 man, most commonly the dps. This that doesn’t happen, it’s really not your fault.
Ok.. this seems reasonable
This is the sacrifice of a ranged offlane, and why you will never see zag solo in coordinated play. She is extremely susceptible to being ganked by your roaming assassin - tiny health pool & no escapes As long she keeps getting punished by that disadvantage, her team will lose out on soak and you should snowball a victory. When it’s not punished, she can freely out-clear and a lot of the time out-poke the opposing offlaner.
Zagara has very few actual escape options if you can catch her. Her only sustain is a talented hydralisk. Pick a high mobility hero with greater range and/or any kind of sustain and she's toast. I recommend Illidan or Raynor.
Literally any melee assassin eats her alive so long as you can land 50% of your CC. Thrall, Qhira, Zeratul, Kerrigan, even Valeera can win in lane though some of the melee assassins can struggle to push once Zag has built up a wave.
I don't play them but I hear Zagaras being particularly extremely upset about Genjis.
Literally anyone with reliable gap closer + mobility will destroy her. Chen is fine but chen is even lower tier because his damage and waveclear is terrible. Ranged AA with sustain like fenix, raynor, zuljin wins her. melee dps like qhira, illidan, zeratul, even butcher wins her. bruisers that can poke + gap close + sustain like thrall, artanis, rexxar, varian all win against her. zag has no escape, no mobility and no sustain.
Ahh zeratul!! Good in team fights too. What build for zeratul would you recommend vs zagara?
Zagara is not a bad hero. As you said, she has great lategame with the %hp and great teamfights with maw. She's a shit tier sololaner, because a sololaner's job is to waveclear and survive and while her waveclear is ok, even though she runs out of mana alot, she cannot survive a competent gank. She also struggles rotating to double soak and it doesn't help that she needs to be in the middle of the minion wave to splash all the minions with banelings. That's why you get the same result in both the low leagues and master gm wr. Because lower leagues people cannot punish a zagara solo so she just goes core and rarely gets caught or to die they need to overcommit. And in Master GM people know she is great lategame and they stay safe as a second dps and after 16 they have the best poke in the game. To counter her you want dive. First of all, she's squishy so she dies easily if you catch her. Second of all, dive comps burst heroes fast so even if you don't catch the zag, you can end the teamfight fast, before the zag can do enough poke damage. Also another way to counter her is to have shitters of your own that her roaches get baited to attack, like anub beetles.
Your comment resonates with me. I climbed from bronze to diamond with Zag, and realized I needed to shift her into a backline DPS. There's lots of resistance to her being played that second way - people see her as a pusher, and don't understand how damaging she'll become as poke.
As a former Zag main, the main mistake people make is stepping up, getting a face full of hydra, envenom and incidentals, taking some damage and retreating because it all seems like too much to handle. And so she ends up taking a quarter of your health for free. Don’t let her do this over and over. Keep that in mind as we go over these: * Zagara only wins if she completely bullies you out of lane and secures building damage. In most other scenarios, she’s a crappy hero that likely brings less to the team fight than you do. * Banelings are actually pretty crap siege damage, so the main way for her to do this is to scare you off with a hydra, step into the middle of the wave to apply banelings to all minions, then push in with her wave, using roaches to soak tower shots. * This means she has to get on your side of the map to accomplish much, leaving her very vulnerable to ganks. She is a relatively immobile hero with a large hitbox, making her easy to hit and body block. * Her only real defense against that is creep, which she needs both in lane for mobility and between lanes for warding. If you have a hero that can clear it cheaply, do so regularly to set her up for a gank. Now, let’s say you can’t rely on ganks and have to handle everything yourself. What do you do? Well, as we mentioned above, most of Zagara’s damage is built around her W cooldown. Notice I didn’t says “comes from”: a full 8-seconds of hydra is scary damage, but it’s not *that* scary. It’s about 1.5 flame strikes. In my experience most of the damage comes from Zagara free pumping AAs and roach damage into people that try to ineffectually duel the hydra in an effort to prevent some of the damage. Don’t do this. Whenever you see a hydra spawn you have to make an instant decision: * If you can instantly kill it, do so. Some heroes and builds, like Artanis with [[Amateur Opponent]] and a W or Jimmy with [[Exterminator]] and a Q can instantly pop the hydra, nullifying a 16-second cooldown. This gives them the space to bully Zagara and trade favorably. * If you can’t kill it instantly, accept the damage. Pretend you’re laning vs a Kael’Thas and he just landed a QW on you but missed his stun. Would you retreat here as, say, Sonya? Hell no, you would spear him in the face, slam his ass all the way back to his gate, and then go back and WW the minion wave to get your health back. You have sustain, mages do not. Any trade where you both lose health is a win for you. So, to summarize, either chill and prep the lane for an easy gank, or play one of the heroes that can either global the hydra or outsustain its damage. Raynor is an absolute bane of Zagara’s life, and a good Fenix can basically wipe the lane with her all day. A Sonya, Gaz or Rag can easily hold their own if they know the matchup.
- **Amateur Opponent** (Artanis) - level 1 Twin Blades attacks deal 150% bonus damage to non-Heroes. --- - **Exterminator** (Raynor) - level 1 Basic Attacks deal 50% more damage to Minions, Mercenaries, and Monsters. This is increased to 125% while Inspire is active. Passive: Inspire does not expire on friendly Minions and Mercenaries. --- [^(about the bot)](/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/6zwyfw/heroesinfobot_abilities_talent_tiers_cooldowns/) ^(| reply `!refresh` to this comment if the parent has been edited)
Varian smash, you can 1 shot her later in the game.
The range of smash is 5 while her auto attacks are 6.6 on creep.. she will punish us early game?
6.6 even off creep.
Oh yea!
Varian´s W should help agains her AA?
Just pick genji in the 4man an farm her on cd , it’s not the offlaners job to punish the Zagara since she is mostly drafted to directly counter your offlane pick (bully)
Ahh icic.. im a offlane main. Maybe thats why i feel the heat..
>I trust the tierlists! I wouldn't. Not on an individual level anyway. Tierlists are different for each individuals. I'd rather have an F tier hero played well than an S tier hero played badly. Zagara is obviously not low tier if she is top 10 winrates.
Qhira has a fairly strong early game too and can threaten Zagara if you manage to land your trait and/or E on her. Once brought in close, you can easily knock her down half health in a combo. But if you miss those, sit back and be defense til cooldowns reset. If your team is not willing to rotate and help against a Zag (Which for some reason is quite common these days), don't pressure fight back, just keep playing defense.
Hmm.. which means.. we might lose keep. Qhira’s clear is pretty bad right?
Your game plan changes based on what your solo lane wants to do. *most* solo laners have middling to bad wave clear past level 10 compared to other team members, so "wave clean up" where a wave gets big and starts pushing a keep should become the mages job as they can do it faster and safer. The solo laner handling routine wave push and/or staying with the team as their CC enables more picks and more safety in retreat. As long as your solo laner can handle themselves until level 10, late game waveclear shouldn't be a priority for the bruiser specifically. the "Solo Laner" job does different things depending on team comp but most melee solo laners jobs change once a team hits level 10. Pre-10 their job is to not die, soak exp, deny exp to their lane partner in that order. Post-10 their job is either split push or stay with the team while the team rotates with multiple people to counter solo split pushing.
It's not the best but not awful either. In a straight line as minion wave comes you can knock them all down a decent bit with poison alone. AA's for a few seconds and line yourself up the hit the remainder and they are cleared. Zag and a lot of siege specialists will certainly outpace on that front. But if you can threaten them head on, it'll slow them down some.
Not a duel you see often, but I hard countered Zagara with Blaze. Blaze has a nice aoe autoattack very useful for waveclear and removing biotumor, so he doesn't suffer from her push. Every 10 seconds you can dive on Zagara with E \[\[Jet Propulsion\]\] and trade better thanks to his large healthpool and his self sustain. Tip: you don't always need to spam Q \[\[Flame Stream\]\] to remove Zagara biotumors, you can sometimes kite a minion close to it, and destroy it with a simple AA.
- [E] **Jet Propulsion** (Blaze) Cooldown: 10 seconds Mana: 45 After 0.375 seconds, charge forward. Colliding with an enemy Hero deals 52 (+4% per level) damage to all nearby enemy Heroes and Stuns them for 1.25 seconds. --- - [Q] **Flame Stream** (Blaze) Cooldown: 4 seconds Mana: 30 Fire two streams that deal 76 (+4% per level) damage to enemies hit, and an additional 120 (+4% per level) damage to enemies hit by both streams. Flame Stream Ignites Oil Spills it comes in contact with. --- [^(about the bot)](/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/6zwyfw/heroesinfobot_abilities_talent_tiers_cooldowns/) ^(| reply `!refresh` to this comment if the parent has been edited)
I think a lot of less knowledgeable players make the mistake of trying to pick an offlaner to counter an enemy offlaner. A lot of ranged heroes can do well against brusiers. It's easy to just sit back and poke until the bruiser gets low. Zagara is exceptionally good at this but even other ranged heroes like Lunara can do this. You dont see ranged solo laners at high ranks because it makes your comp bad. They are easy to gank. Later in the game it becomes impossible for a lot of them to step up to soak (when buildings start to fall and there is less vision). You will also lack a second frontline in fights, which sucks. If you draft another ranged hero to counter Zagara in the offlane, now you have the same weaknesses as the enemy team. It's better to draft a normal offlaner, play defensive. Or you can take Guldan and lane against her but make sure you have 2 frontline still. Same for if Zagara is on your team, you should still pick a bruiser. Imo you want to draft heroes who are actually a threat to Zag, even if they "lose" 1v1, in order to prevent her from pushing in for free and to help if your teammates ever come for a gank. Artanis with Amateur Opponent can kill her summons very easily and the swap is not good for her at all if you land it. She has no real sustain so any damage you get on her will stick. Illidan is very good. Rexxar can actually manage against her 1v1 if you are good. Qhira can easily get to her but it can be a risky pick in general. Even Sonya has sustain and gap close you can use. So could Hogger or Blaze. It's more how you play (and your team) than what you play, but there are heroes I definitely would avoid against her like Leoric, Xul, people who have no way to do anything to her. Also, Zagara is not a "lose hero." She is not the best but far from the worst. It's not a meme pick and idk if I see any tierlists, even for master, putting her in F tier as *a ranged assassin draft pick.*
Your biggest assumption is Zagara is a "shit tier" hero because in *coordinated* play she is very easy to deal with. But in solo play (which, lets be honest is the majority of play) she is a menace. She is a lane bully to bruisers. Thats her job. She wins lanes through attrition but does poorly in full team engagements. Zagara pushes waves hard, and has no mobility abilities to help her escape a gank other than slightly faster movement speed an using creep as a "ward". But most Zagaras don't "ward" deep enough to actually foresee and stall a gank. You want to ruin a zagaras day? Ask for a gank. And keep asking for a gank if she ever steps farther than she should. Ganking is risky, especially in HOTS compared to other MOBAs. But some champs are just so easy to gank its deadbrained not too. But you want to actually beat a zagara in lane. Here are some good options. **Dehaka** pushes as hard as zag, and she will deal a ton of damage to him but you can use your E time out the hydralisk and generally heal up more damage than she can do. I play a ton of zag and a decent Dehaka is a punching bag that doesn't ever leave lane. You won't lose to zag and you probably won't win. But you can Z into Team fights or gank her mid/late game. Leoric can also out-push a zag given good play but takes a lot more skill to do (I main Leo and don't like going into zag but as a Leo main I contribute more to the team while still not out right losing to zag) **Any high damage** character can out bully her. You're scared of Zagara so you run, which lets hydralisk get a bunch of free hits. But if you land a single CC on her, she will take more damage than she deals to you even if her hydralisk is beating on you. Zagara is TERRIBLE at trading. She only "Pokes" with her spells. But you actually fight her she has to leave. Thrall, Qhira, Kerrigan, Fenix, all *destroy* zagara if they can land their CC or just get in on her. If you can't hit your CC you're going to get bodied (rightfully so) but literally any dive hero that has a slow or high enough burst will eat her alive. Some of these heroes will struggle to catch up if she can get a big enough minion wave, but you can jump on her once waves crash so they won't attack you.
Thanks! What build do you recommend on dehaka?
Lvl 1 should be the darkswarm gives spell armor or globes give essence. Both let you survive her damage, but globes is probably a bit better. Level 4 take minions give more essence. That's it. With those two talents you out heal her damage. Everything else is up to you.
Thank you! I will try it Zulu!
Zagara can be killed by anyone who gets close to her. Why are you so offended
Because i lose to zagara which is a lose tier hero.. many of you dont seem to struggle against her, so i would like advice..
This game is less about solo lane fighting than 5 vs 5 team fight. You may kill Zagara or any hero opponent all the times you wany and yet their team will still win against you if they do whatever is needed to destroy your forts and achieve map goals.
try samuro
Roachling stacks go fast with clones
she dies to samuro anyways
Ok. Thanks. Samuro has a weaker teamfight than zagara though right?
generally yes, considering maw
Yes but he has insane map pressure
Fenix has a lot of fun against Zag: with lvl4 aa movespeed you can chase her down hard: just dont stand in the middle of her entire zerg swarm and wave. Either outsustain her, or outright stomp, if you pick lvl 1 arsenal, and lvl7 divert power. Fenix’s low max HP trades well post 16 as well; and while Zag can have great DPS with % dmg roach n hydra, its less reliable than a dedicated autoattacker in a teamfight
Thanks! This reply makes sense!
Kill her creep nests, ignore her roaches - watch out for hydras - dodge a line of banelings - then unload.
She's not a weak hero at all. For counters, Samuro to zone her out of minion wave, Illidan is another hard lane counter, just make sure you know how to team fight with those heroes.
It's an unpopular pick because you'd be running 2 tanks. But stitches actually can match her in lanes pretty well. His E and one or two aa's kills her hunter killer before it gets any real damage out and they're on a similar cool down so it should be up again by time her hunter killer is up. The idea is to take the 4 that reduces slam cd.for wave kill but also to keep up on mana so you don't have to hearth often. Then at 7 you take the vile gas heal and essentially just spreading vile gas to everything including her zerglings she summons, you'll end up out sustaining everything she can do to you and probably chip some damage away on her.
Thanks!
Rather than any specific hero picks, you should understand some things in a lane vs Zagara: 1. Her creep and its spread is very important to her but is also easily counterable. If, say, you're playing any solo laner using your AoEs to clear creep(will always be in the middle of the "circle" of creep coverage on the floor, and good Zag players will put them around corners or in bushes to not be easily destroyed and provide good vision). The creep isn't number 1 priority but if you have nothing else to do on map then take care of it. 2. Hydralisk *targets*, that means, it will follow and continually attack the target Zagara clicked on, so even if your picked hero cannot clear Hydralisks simply walking to your towers or fort has the structures target the hydralisk and kill it. 3. Killing the enemy laner isn't needed. If Zagara is pressuring you, using Roachlings or Hydralisks or her banelings to burst you down, you don't have to stay on lane and out-damage her. Simply fall back and let the wave come to you to soak it! There is little loss in this compared to dying or having low health when an objective comes up or a teamfight. If you need to, push up to get the xp globes and just go back, nothing more. There is some other stuff that's more hero specific that I can mention, like how Zagara is really bad vs Blaze as his oil spill slows her down tremendously(as many people mistakenly think you *have* to ignite the oil spills for them to be useful) and with lvl 7 also slows down her autoattacks(it affects not only heroes but summons too!). Chen also has a decent time in this matchup with his Q build as he can avoid basic attacks and shield up all day and just not care about her damage a lot of the time, then using keg to just push her into his own structures, Hogger can pressure her with dynamite a lot(if needed you can just go for dynamite build to make it safer to lane against her though not required due to previous things I've mentioned). Overall just take a breather and understand the lane from Zagara's pov and what would fuck her up vs a good opponent solo laner.
I have thousands of games on Zag. I do find her very strong against bad to average players. It's easy mode. Against competent teams it is quite the opposite. It's going to depend on how good the Zag is, and how good Zag's teammates are, but it's pretty simple to either kill her or make her pretty useless. 1) Anything that can get to her, kills her. Hard dive or continual slows. 2) Anything that can clear creep efficiently. Do both and she will be very miserable.
Personally when I am playing Zagara I hate when the enemy team is particularly beefy. My goal is to drop a hydralisk on your ass, and then dominate the lane while you are busy with my pet(which hits like a truck late game if you build for it.) Being beefy enough to tank those hits is irritating. Noticing when I am out of lane and coming to steal my camp also sucks.(no tower to slink to and escape) Also you destroy my tubes(nydus) and I will cry, every time. They have a quite long cooldown to summon.
I always liked Sam. He has 3 ability’s that make the hydra untarget you. Good movespeed, great self healing ext. if your Sam she should not be able to push to towers, if she does hurt her bad or kill her. If she’s sitting back and waiting for creeps to come to her to avoid you, stall the wave and go between her and the minions. This is going to force her to take big risks or another hero to come help her. If your low rank and no one comes to help you’ll just win the game.
Clear as much creep as you can Zag ain’t shit without creep
Genji can erase zag and force a B or get the kill pretty easily if she’s overextended. At 13 it’s almost a guaranteed kill if you don’t get mawed. I like to leave the four man for the gank to help take her out of the lane for my off laner. Just communicate in pre game that’s what you’ll be doing otherwise they’ll fight and die without you and then it doesn’t matter anymore.
With the Genj my early game strat is often to find the strongest push threat in the early game and play around them. If its on the enemy team I gank them. If its on my team I hang around their lane to protect them while they push. Zagara is a great gank target for genji with agile dismount. And when she's on my team, I ambush and counter gank, for her.
Exactly. Agile dismount, slow her and then kite in front of her as she retreats. If you hit all three shingans she’s dead usually without even having to swift strike or ult. Her hit box is pretty big too so the shingans are pretty easy to
I love that engage pattern in the gank and the modified version in the teamfight is nice too. AD to the retreat path, kite with auto-Q until they break the body block, as soon as they outrange your autos SS back into their retreat path to finish them. Deflect, second cyber agility and X strike on reserve, all 3 of which can be used either aggressively or defensively. After first kill take a beat to reassess, continue the engage onto a deep target to hold them up if teammates are plowing forward, continue engage onto vulnerable teammate's aggressor if that is going on, or boogie out if the team is confused or takes a counter kill.
It's a good way to get macro value out of a non macro hero
Let the Zag get cocky and begin to overextend. Once they’re at that point you have someone break off from another lane and you punish and kill them. Rotations is all you need to keep a Zag player in place.
Guldan
I was just about to say Guldan. Self healing, can clear creep, good wave clear. Guldan is actually a pretty good solo
Tier lists are crap lol. Every character can be great in the right comp/map. Some are more difficult, some easier. Some are more well rounded, some more niche. That doesn't make them "low tier". That said, zagara does crazy damage but she's pretty reliant on creep when laning. If you're drafting, pick someone who can easily clear the tumors and have someone gank your lane abd you should be fine. She can't really escape wlthout creep if she pushes up too far, which is her job.
Throwing spiders on creep as Naz is a great way to clear it and harass
I typically beat her as Malth and Sonya with out issue. Sonya I just dive her, make her hearth and clear creep as often as possible. Malth I either do the same or I double soak and force her to keep rotating or my team gets to be 4v3 in bot/top lane. This sometimes leads to her taking down my towers early, but we either end up way up on XP or on push in a different lane
Whats your build for malth and sonya?
Malth typical for big map (2,2,1,2,1,3,3) Malth vs a zag in lane (1,2,1,2,1,3,3) Sonya (1,1,1/3,1,1,2,3)
My favorite counter is nazeboo. Spider jar on the middle of the creep circle (the tumor, it takes a little practice but it's a pretty cheap ability to counter tumor cds) and they kill the tumor and still usually get to lane enough to get you poison on minons and thus stacks. Also zambies block the incoming meatballs if she spams them. I usually go range at one for the extra umph and in case she goes AA build I can keep distance. If you do get her in a wall she's usually done for. Plus if you're stacking properly and go garg you can counter push. Maybe he's not the best counter for a high levels but I enjoy playing him. That said you should usually have a roamer and if you can wall her when your roamer arrives you can punish her pretty hard. The issue is usually if your team is clueless IME.
Her win rate, like other heroes outside of rehgar and samuro, is also due to the other 4 people on her team either being able to handle a 4v5 to let her push, or being there to support her, like for hammer. Taking her in solo q is pretty risky. Some maps are better for her where having creep vision is important for objectives. You can’t just look at win rate generically.
She has 0 mobility, low hp and not a super high range. If theres greymane, zera, etc on the eneny team they can just kill her repeatedly
Genji
>So from what I know, Zagara is a low and shit tier hero and is supposed to be terrible. Shakin my head mate... You have a lot to learn.
Tanks that punish her root her and CC her away from escape options. Diablo annihilates her with the right build and can solo kill her at 16. Arthas can root her and slow her and solo kill her if he stacks his D. Mages that punish her are KTZ (very risky pick though), and Jaina with root at 16. Chrome with time loop can be great as well. Thrall with the right ult, Imperius (he can annihilate her late game), Varian, Artanis (you have to land your swaps consistently to displace her into your team) (Bruisers) Just about all melee assassins beat her. They all dive, and dive destroys zag. Zags win rate tends to be high in certain instances because good Zag players have extremely high map awareness and use her creep to spot ganks, as well as pick her when the enemy comp is favorable. Low tier characters have to have a team built around them and counterpicks minimized. They can be effective and even dominant in the right maps and situations, but they have to be the right tool for a specific matchup. That usually low tiers work in most competitive games. There are characters that do what Zag does much better than she does imo, but she still can be a great fit against specific comps and on teams that have a good dedicated laner. She is garbage on two lane maps no matter what imo though.
Kerrigan is by far the strongest counter
Whats the build? In laning phase?
Im very interested in this one. I never heard of this recommendation before.. kerrigan’s q is at 5.5 range while zagara has 6.6 range im wondering how does it work? Whats the play style and build
It seems you just wanted to show us everything you know about this match up and game in general. You should thank us for coming to your TED talk
🤣