introduction Top
Hi, I'm Magnus0.
Lyra got released recently, and she is one of the most influencial roamers so far. She was OP at release, and she has already been nerfed. Despite the hotfix, lyra is still one of the best support heroes in the game. When I scrolled through vgf though, I saw that almost every English Lyra guide covered cp Lyra, and not her intended roam position. So that's why I decided to make a guide on Lyra's roam path.
Balance Changes (1.20) Top
LYRA
While Lyra’s is still very powerful, we’re exaggerating her squishisness rather than hurting her power. —Zekent
BASE STATS
Armor/shield down from 30-63 to 30-48
IMPERIAL SIGIL
Build some health! It’ll be good for both you and your allies! – Zekent
Healing per second health ratio up from 7.5% bonus health to 10% bonus health
Burst healing health ratio down from 15% bonus health to 8% bonus health
BRIGHT BULWARK
The shortened duration and cooldown means that Lyra must properly time this ability to have maximum effect. —Zekent
Duration down from 4-4-4-4-6 to 2.5
Cooldown down from 35-32-29-26-20 to 24-22-20-18-14
Enemies inside the zone cannot use Lyra’s portals for the entire duration inside.
On paper, this seems like a massive nerf, but it´s really not that bad. The healing per second buff evens out the burst health nerf, and the cooldown decrease evens out the duration nerf on BB. Basically, Lyra´s skill cap got increased. Good Lyra players will still find success with her, but Lyra players that can´t time and position their abilities well will be punished.
What´s interesting about these changes is that Lyra can use
Bright Bulwark twice in the same teamfight. This means that she can stop abilities like
Afterburn twice in the same teamfight, something she couldn't do before, because the cooldown of BB was too long to use it twice most of the time.
Coupled with the massive buff to
Stormcrown's damage, Lyra stays a strong support hero in 1.20.
Basic Information Top
Lyra
Attack Type: Ranged
Difficulty: Medium
Position: Roam
Role: Protector
Hit Points: 695 - 1366
HP Regen: 4.01 (+0.31)
Energy Points: 270 - 765
EP Regen: 2.15 (+0.45)
Weapon Damage: 10 (+N/A)
Attack Speed: 100 - 136
Armor: 30 - 63
Shield: 30 - 63
Attack Range: 6.8
Move Speed: 3.3
As you can see, Lyra is fragile. Her defenses are relatively low, but her incredibly range makes up for that. Use that range to your advantage, stay at a distance and let your allies tank damage for you. Lyra can heal them later. Just be sure to not get too close to your enemies as Lyra is squishy, even with a full roam build.
Principle Arcanum
Slot: Heroic Perk
Lyra’s attacks are arcane missiles, dealing 55-90 (+60% CP) crystal damage. If she holds her ground after releasing an attack, she automatically channels and releases a much stronger arcane missile that deals 75-175 (+100% CP) additional crystal damage and briefly slows its target by 70%. Each channeled missile consumes 12-20 energy, but Lyra can continue using these even if she runs out of energy.
This is an incredibly strong passive. If you build some crystal power, basic attacks will deal lots of damage. However, the slow is more important for roam
Lyra. She can create a constant stream of long range slows to annoy enemies and to give your allies an easier time kiting or reaching a slippery enemy hero. It's basically a built in
Frostburn. Keep these things in mind when utilizing this perk:
- strong missiles have infinite range, so long as you hit the first missile. Even if the opponent attempts to flee, the missile will hit regardless of how far he ran.
- strong missiles take energy to produce. There's little room for energy items in Lyra's build, so you have to rely on potions. Don't use strong missiles to farm in the jungle to preserve as much energy as possible.
-
Lyra has to stand perfectly still when charging a missile. This makes her an easy target for skill shot reliant heroes like
Celeste or
Joule. Don't get predictable!
IMPERIAL SIGIL (A)
Lyra forms a sigil at the target location, revealing surrounding enemies. While this sigil remains active, it heals nearby allied heroes and damages nearby enemy heroes. Lyra can reactivate this ability at any time to detonate the sigil, dealing heavy damage to surrounding enemies while providing a burst of healing and a moderate move speed boost to nearby allies.
This is a very versatile ability. It heals multiple allies at once while damaging multiple enemy heroes too. It also grants vision and a speed boost when detonated. The heal is quite strong on roam
Lyra because it scales with health. That's why I included pretty much every health item in the game in the build. Keep these things in mind when using this ability:
- Sometimes it's better to immediately detonate your sigil to activate the speed boost than to wait for the sigil detonate on itself. While the total healing won't be as much as if you would wait for the entire sigil to burn up, the speed boost can allow your teammate, or yourself, to flee from enemies.
- While the sigil provides vision, it's not advised to use it as a flare since it has a rather long cooldown. Use a
Contraption instead, which has mines and flares along with some extra health to increase the heal's power.
- enemy heroes can reduce the healing by standing in the sigil. The sigil will start to damage the enemy, which makes it burn up faster. Be very wary of the position of your sigil so that you can get the most out of the heal. Healing allies is more important than damaging enemies with roam
Lyra.
- This ability has fantastic range. If you ever need to disengage from your team because you are at dangerously low health, you can still influence the fight by healing your teammates from afar, without even showing yourself. Even in a dire situation, stay around at a safe distance to see what you can do.
BRIGHT BULWARK (B)
After a brief delay, Lyra releases a pulse of magical energy, damaging and applying a decaying slow to surrounding enemies. The affected area then becomes a walled zone of protection that deals the same damage and slow to enemies attempting to cross its borders. Enemies inside the zone are snared, allowing them to move normally but preventing them from using movement abilities.
This is one of the most influential abilities in the entire game. With good timing and positioning, it can change the outcome of a fight by silencing enemy heroes for 2.5 seconds. Not all heroes are affected by this of course, since the snare only works on dash abilities (dash abilities are abilities that make you go from one place to another, like
Afterburn or
Trampoline!. These do not include abilities that change your speed, such as
Roadie Run or
Merciless Pursuit.) The slow alone is still quite powerful though, and it is especially helpful for squishy allies. Keep this in mind when setting up your bulwark:
- some heroes have two or even three dash abilities, such as
Ardan and
Alpha. A well timed bulwark can completely nullify these heroes, making Lyra an excellent draft pick.
- Try to get just close enough to get the initial slow off on enemies. If a teamfight is about to start and you use the bulwark beforehand, the enemy can just wait it out and suddenly rush in when it's on cooldown. Lyra heavily relies on this ability to keep enemies of of her, so don't waste it.
- While lots of heroes are almost useless within the bulwark, don't get overconfident and pretend like you're invincible inside it. Ranged heroes can stay out of the borders and still reach you with their attacks, so watch out for that.
ARCANE PASSAGE (C)
Lyra blinks to the target location, leaving portals at both the beginning and the end of the blink. Portals last for a few seconds, allowing allied and enemy heroes to move freely between them in both directions. Heroes must wait several seconds before they can re-enter a portal. This cooldown is also applied to enemies when Lyra hits them with the initial pulse of Bright Bulwark.
This ability is rather complicated to use. It has many uses, but it can sometimes be hard to figure out what benefit you will gain from using it in a certain way in the midst of battle. The most obvious way to use it is for engaging or disengaging from the enemy team. It has good range, so if an enemy hero like
Celeste or
Vox overextends a bit, you can pretty much blink your entire team right into the enemy's face to overwhelm and burst down the enemy laner. This does require communication, and even if you know what you're doing it's still risky since the enemy team can burst you down first if they see it coming. Backdooring is another interesting use of this ability. It will take some practice to find good situations to use this ability. You might make some mistakes with it at first, but you'll learn eventually. one thing to keep in mind:
This comic illustrates what could happen if you use your portals wrong. Please, practise
Lyra first in casual or in parties before bringing her to ranked matches.
another tings to note is that te overdrive is generally not worth it on this ability, unless you have a very specific comp that revolves around te portals.
Items! Top
building
Lyra is relatively simple. It's basically just: gotta get all da healt items. Some crystal power is good option to be more manacing in teamfights. Always prioritise support items though, and don't get more than two crystal items. Here is a list of all the items and why I think they work well with
Lyra:
-
Crucible -
This item is an obvious choice, since it provides lots of raw health and a team wide reflex block. Prioritise this item over FoR if the enemy team has powerful crowd control like
Afterburn or
Impale. The extra strong heal will make up for a lack of
Fountain of Renewal.
-
Fountain of Renewal -
This item is a staple on any roam build because it's active is just so damn powerful. A well timed FoR plus
Imperial Sigil together can heal allies for pretty much their entire health bar. It also has the lifesrping passive which helps you to stick around after you've taken a beating.
- War Threads -
These boots grant lots of health, which makes your heal stronger. The active speed boost also aplies to your entire team, which can make for aggressive approaches or sudden evacuations. The extra health makes these boots superior to
Halcyon Chargers most of the time.
-
Contraption -
Since you will most likely fill your empty space with a dragon heart, there isn't much space left for scout traps and flares. A contraption provides you with three mines or flares for vision, along with some nice bonus health and CDR stats. The energy regen bonus is nice, because it makes you less reliant on potions.
-
Stormcrown -
This item is a must have again. I deals considerable damage to minions and objectives, greatly increasing clear speeds. It´s stats really benefit Lyra too. When combined with Alternating current, this item provides a decent and reliable damage output against enemy heroes.
-
Protector Contract -
This is an optional starting item. It's good if you expect early game aggression from enemy heroes with a good early game like
Petal or
Skye, especially if your jungler doesn't have the best early game. Be wary that it doesn't build into anything, so buying it essentially wastes 150 gold since you have to sell it.
-
Shiversteel -
This is a decent, cheap option for some extra crowd control. Basically you build it mainly for the health, but it's not that important. Always buy this as a last item.
-
Alternating Current -
This item gives some extra attack speed, which synergizes well with
Lyra's natural slow on her basic attacks. Even though it´s most powerful if you build lots of crystal power,
Stormcrown and a
Crystal Infusion are enough to make this item worthwhile.
-
Broken Myth -
You can get this item over
Stormcrown if you want to deal more damage to enemy heroes. It's pretty powerful alongside
Alternating Current, but SC is usually preferred because it's stats benefit Lyra the most.
Good team compositions Top
Lyra being a healer, one would expect her to work well with tanky frontline heroes that tank damage for Lyra while she heals him from the backline. This is certainly true, but,
Lyra also works surprisingly well with other squishy heroes like herself, especially those with long range. The bulwark can keep enemies at a distance while
Lyra and the long range carry overwhelm the opponents whith their long range attacks. This makes
Lyra very versatile, because she can fit in almost every comp by adjusting her playstyle according to her teams needs. Here is a list of some characters that I find to work the best with her:
-
Petal -
Yes,
Petal! The munion AI seems to be broken or secretely changed, giving
Petal way more range on her pets than she used to. This great range, along with one of the best early games in the game make her hard to deal with early on. With
Lyra's slow on basic attacks and the bulwark, it's very, very hard to dive this duo, especially if
Petal picks up a
Frostburn. Not to mention the double heal and double escape for insane sustain and kiting. Pair this duo with something like
SAW or
Kestrel and close games early with insane early domination and pressure.
-
Ozo -
This underrated monkey has a perk that increases healing from all sources by 30%, which is quite a lot. This of course works well with
Imperial Sigil.
Ozo's
Acrobounce works especially well with
Lyra because she will often be at the back line. If
Ozo targets the enemy, then
Lyra and then the enemy again, he will zip trough the air super quickly, making him almost impossible to hit with skillshots like
Glimmershot and by about every melee hero in the game, because they simply can't reach
Ozo when he bounces back to
Lyra. With good positioning,
Bangarang can combo into
Bright Bulwark, which is a brutal combination that just spells doom for the enemy.
-
Kestrel/
Skye/
Celeste -
These three heroes function very similarly to
Petal. They have good range and damage, and the first two have a good early game. What makes them work so well with
Lyra is the fact that
Lyra's basic attacks apply powerful slows, which makes it infinitely more easy to land
Glimmershot,
Forward Barrage and heliogenisis. The bulwark will fend of divers, and because of the heal, these duo's can outtrade enemies with around the same damage. The portals and speed boost also allow
Kestrel and
Celeste to flee more effectively, since both have lacking escapes.
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