I shouldn't deal that much damage that easily. (Zagara)

On this video I’m past lvl 20. But in another Dragon shire game, I did the same thing to Mallthael at 16 without even hitting with banelings.

This has always bothered me, because it was already like this before her recent buffs. As soon as you pick “Corrosive Saliva”, your damage becomes fire and forget. All I have to do is press W and E and walk around. But “Pack Instincts” lvl 20 managed to make it even worse. At least give the % damage only to the Hunter killer and not the roaches. I mean, look how much damage those roaches do! And I’m doing this at absolutely no risk to myself.

Also, did they go on Reddit and give an explanation as to why her AA range was raised?

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Probably because to a lay person who didn’t use zagara (she wasn’t good) her aa build sucked. I used it in aram maybe 2-3 times and her range wasn’t very good. They weren’t very impactful aa. And zagara is a mage anyway who just shoves and shoves with abilities

Roach damage is overtuned and will probably be nerfed, but otherwise I’m pretty happy that she can now actually take on heroes like Diablo, Sonya etc. without having to run away.

I mean, she is a mage. But her pre-buff kit still felt like a Specialists kit, a class that doesn’t even exist anymore. Even talents like Corrosive Saliva weren’t that useful against heroes like Diablo before. Powerful yes, but nothing that could drive them away in a 1v1.

She is a must ban though at the moment until Roaches and Pack Instincts get nerfed (but the latter is only a problem after 20).

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I’m not sure it’s a good thing that an assassin can send every bruiser packing. She was already stronger in lane than a lot of them. They gave her more PvP power, but her PvE power also went up at the same time. Even thought she’s the biggest lane bully in the game.

Only until 16, then she started killing people.

I mean she does have access to a global, and can grant vision to everyone on her team. On top of great clear and siege. I didn’t mind giving her more PvP, but I never thought they’d make her even stronger in lane at the same time. She has so many tools that I’m not sure she qualifies as a mage. She’s in her own class.

It was buffed on Nov 2019 and has been that strong since then. I always had a problem with it. (Though people were used to picking “Mutalisk” so it took some time before it was noticed)

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zagara with roaches % dmg and bane build shoudlnt deal that damage? ofc yes, ur against a tank try against another dmg dealer like a stacked butcher wiht furna or lamb, i can say zagara is pretty easy to kill even only at 200 meat, with a tank? never would kill her

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roach dmg is pretty meeh until corrosive saliva, unless u just stand there doing nothing aside from letting them hit u…

other ranged assas deal way more “burst” dmg, these summons are more like dmg over time effects with the downside that u can kill them

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It deals high damage to everything, not just tanks.

I usually went roach build pre-buff and once I hit 16 with % damage on three roaches, yeah I could drop them (the roaches) and tanks would melt while I could waddle around out of range.
This was doable pre-buff and, of course, if somebody kills the roaches or they die to aoe splash, then you lose most of your damage so it had some counterplay.

But,
I do think zag has way too much safe damage now since it can come from roach % and banelings. I liked the lvl 16 power spike, but I think they way over buffed baneling damage to where I agree with you that there’s too much safe damage.

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The problem is % based damage on roaches. Having up to four sources of % damage is insane. At 16 she can deal 4% max health per summon very fast. I like the overall changes Zagara got but they really highlight that corrosive saliva is too good. The problem now is if you take away the roaches % damage is there a reason to pick roach talents besides the level 20? Another thing that weirds me out is mutalisk. Why doesn’t the bouncing AA trigger pack leader on the addition targets? It would give some competition to corrosive saliva if it did.

You wanted to dodge diablo’s melee but went into wall range ^^
Think if he went closer you could have killed him

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Corpse Feeders” give you more roaches activations, and they are tougher to kill. So you can push harder without minions, or take camps easier. Of crouse since “Volatile Acid” is on the same tier…

Actually, I’m not sure it would, because Pack Instinct” makes the Hunter Killer combo with itself. After its first attack, every following hit is buffed. And then you add the additional damage from “Corrosive Saliva”. So if you pick Mutalisk, you’d be giving up a lot of damage on the primary target.

Doesn’t matter, if he moves in, my summons will kill him while he’s stunning me. Without my AA and banelings, he’s still taking over 600 dps. I could have just stayed out of range completely, but I knew it was at no risk either way. I have creep on both sides, so I sould walk away if I needed to.

Zagara was a force to be reckoned with prior to the patch and, she soaks so good they should rename her, “buckets”. I think she outdoes Murky actually.

Hate Zagara so much.

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Devs don’t seem to understand it is possible to win games by pressuring opponents through methods other than team fighting with better sustain.

Could also keep it like this and put a health bar onto banelings, they would still explode but earlier and probably hit one player instead of multiple targets.

Time spent attacking banelings to nullify incoming damage baits said auto attacks away from your melee teammates, so it wouldn’t make them completely useless.

That would only work for ranged heroes though. If you’re melee, they’d hit you anyway. Especially if they need more than one hit.

Literally anything would work better than the current implementation. She excels at vision and map control, is considered one of the worst lane bullies and becomes a strong teamfighter at mid to late game.

Notice the Nydus pick rates, dropped by almost 20% since the rework. Roach talents are dead, Mutalisk build is dropping as well because you are unlikely to go with it without Nydus CDR. Any previous build choice is removed in favor of Banelings which just shows how ridiculous the entire situation is.

Some kind of bandaid fix is needed until they come up with a solution. Turn a portion of instant baneling damage into short stacking poison or at least reduce the damage they deal to buildings. It’s what they did to Li-Ming whos spell attack is just as spammable and mana efficient, but from a shorter distance.

i still think nydus is her top ult especially in aram since she can use it to replenish hp and mana+ cdr
maw is too clunky and doesnt work well with her own abilities unless u have perfect timing every time and the enemy is giving u free kills by clumping every time (dumb very much?)
i cant believe u actually wrote roach talents r dead haha
mutalisk is competing with corrosive saliva…nothing more to say

With how powerful she is at the moment, even before reaching level 16, it is not surprising that players are finding just as much success regardless of the talent choice at mentioned tier. The only advantage Mutalisk has is general annoyance and ability to fly over terrain in pursuit of the target, which doesn’t prevent the target from escaping in any way. It still pales in comparison against meaningful, direct and percentage based damage.

I said it before the buffs that one of rag’s 3 main counters was zagara

Then they buffed her

Now with zagara being played so much more I feel like it’s been a haymaker against rag indirectly. Part of the reason I was not afraid against a zagara in my lane was that she was a tough hero to play and she was unpopular.

After the buffs I didnt play rag a single time D:

Envenomed spines are your friend in ARAM. Don’t fall for the Ding Thing in ARAM. DOT damage for the win !!!

So…what’s the solution to Zag aside from ban/pick? What are the heroes, tactics or strategies for dealing with her?