Hello, I'm TheRoastedPotato, the current roam player for Phoenix Reign and one of the only female competitive players in VG. This is a guide for how I play Lyra successfully in both ranked and competitve matches. Lyra is a squishy backline support that provides immense utility to her team with AOE heals and massive zones of protection.
I hope this helps!
-Potato
Lyra’s perk is one of the most important parts of her kit. When basic attacking, Lyra can remain in place for a short duration while she channels a much stronger second attack. This second missile slows and does greatly increased damage, but also costs a small amount of energy (Lyra can still use these attacks even with no energy). The amount of slow scales slightly with the amount of bonus health she has.
Her perk is especially useful in the early game for poking out the enemy laner, but remains useful throughout the game to provide endless slows. Be careful, however, about the energy costs in the early game and the amount of time you’re locked in place, as it could drain you of energy and leave you vulnerable.
Lyra’s Imperial Sigil is an extremely powerful healing ability. When activated, Lyra forms a circle of healing at a target location that also provides vision. The sigil remains on the ground, but can be “popped” for a burst heal by reactivating it. Note: The cooldown for this ability does not begin to count down until the Sigil is popped. Allies standing inside the sigil will heal per second and get a burst heal if they are still inside when the sigil expires. Be careful about using it around enemies, though as the sigil expires more quickly with each hero inside of it. The amount of total healing on the heal over time and the burst heal scales with bonus health.
As previously mentioned, when the sigil is detonated, it gives a burst heal, but it also gives a burst of move speed to all allies inside of it. This is extremely useful for both moving around the map and in teamfights/before ganks to help your allies stick onto the enemy. One of the hardest parts about playing Lyra is knowing where to place the heal and when to activate it for move speed or just let it sit for the full heal duration. This mostly comes with experience playing Lyra, but most of the time it is best not to pop the heal in order to allow your allies to get the full amount of heal UNLESS your allies are full health and need the movement speed boost.
Upgrade Priority:
Imperial Sigil is Lyra’s most important ability, so treat it accordingly with the upgrade priority. Upgrade it at every possibly chance, and max it at level 8. The overdrive greatly increases the heal and slightly increase the maximum range of the ability.
Lyra’s Bright Bulwark is a very useful protective zone. When activated, Lyra puts up a magical wall of protection that massively slows and snares enemies inside/trying to get inside. Snares are a form of crowd control that prevent enemies from using dash movement abilities like Skye’s Suri Strike or Vox’s Sonic Zoom. The slow is 80%, but is decaying so it is best used to stop enemies from advancing since Bright Bulwark has a relatively short duration.
Bright Bulwark is an extremely powerful tool against any melee hero with gap-closing abilities but also range heroes by providing a massive wall preventing them from doing much damage to your team or moving. Dash abilities are interrupted when they hit the wall, so you can use Bright Bulwark to completely stop engages from heroes like Taka and Glaive. Be careful, however, with its uses as Bright Bulwark has a very long cooldown and can often be used only once in a fight.
Upgrade Priority:
Taking the overdrive on Bright Bulwark depends mostly on the enemy team composition and how far ahead you are at the level 11 mark. If the enemy has a lot of gap closing abilities, I would recommend always maxing Bright Bulwark second for the shorter cooldown and increased slow duration. If you are massively ahead, I would recommend not maxing Bright Bulwark and instead maxing Arcane Passage since you will be less vulnerable by directly engaging.
Arcane Passage is a unique ability in that it is the only true blink currently available in the game. When activated, Lyra blinks to the target location, leaving portals at both her starting location and ending destination. Allies will be able to travel through portals instantly, while enemies must wait a short time before being able to enter the portal. After traveling through a portal, there is a 4.5 second cooldown window before being able to travel back through it. Upgrading Arcane Passage slightly increases the range of Arcane Passage and significantly lowers the cooldown.
Lyra’s portals have many different situational uses. You can use it to both engage, escape, reposition, or even backdoor. The portals are very disruptive, though, and accidental travel through them can be devastating for both your teammates and the enemy. Be careful not to use the portals in a position that would not be beneficial to your team, such as when fighting in a narrow corridor.
Lyra pairs well with pretty much any hero, but most comps do best if there is at least one melee bruiser like a Lance or Glaive to be a front line since Lyra simply doesn’t fit that role. Additionally, mobile heroes like Taka and Skye are harder to play with Lyra since it is difficult to predict where they will move.
Lane Heroes to Pair With Lyra:
Adagio- Adagio is an amazing combo with Lyra since the double heal provides immense sustain in team fights that is pretty much unmatched by any other comp.
Celeste- Lyra is great with Celeste, especially against her counters like Taka since she can protect Celeste from the devastating engages and help Celeste keep a safe distance.
Skaarf- Very similar to Celeste, Lyra can provide the peel and separation Skaarf needs to succeed
Skye- Skye is very mobile so it is hard to land heals onto Skye, but if played right Lyra + Skye can be a devastating combo with the extra slows to make landing Forward Barrage very easy.
Jungle Heroes to Pair With Lyra:
Lance- Lance is the front-line bruiser that Lyra needs to be successful since Lyra is very squishy. Lyra can easily heal Lance while he tanks up damage in the front line, and help him stick onto enemies.
Glaive- Similar to Lance, Glaive is a front-line menace that Lyra can easily heal and provide a lot of slows for to help Glaive stick.
Ozo- Ozo isn’t exactly a meta pick, but an Adagio-Lyra-Ozo comp can be devastating with Ozo’s perk giving him increased benefits from healing.
Lyra is very strong in the early game as a roam, and has a few different potential play styles depending on your team composition. If your jungle has a fast clear speed, like a Lance or Kestrel, you can actually not help the jungle rotation and go straight to lane to bully the enemy laner. If you do this, make sure to buy a scout trap and put it in your own tri-bush. Since you are not helping the jungle, the jungle’s clear speed will be significantly slower and the enemy might even reach your tri-bush before your jungler. The mine will make sure the jungler is safe while you bully the enemy laner. However, if your jungler does not have a very fast clear speed, then I would recommend clearing the jungle with the jungler and then going to lane if you don’t think you can fight level 1. You can still bully afterwards, but it won’t be as effective. ]
Lyra is not extremely powerful in the mid-game, but is still a major presence on the fold. The most important part of the mid-game is understanding the cooldowns of enemy heroes so that you will be able to predict when they will use the abilities to engage. If properly timed, you can stop engages and leave enemies vulnerable with Bright Bulwark. For example, when Taka gets level 6, you should be prepared to protect carries with Bright Bulwark. You should be putting pressure in the mid-game if you are ahead, if not focus on the lane and protecting the laner/harassing the enemy laner.
In late game team fights, how you play them should pretty much entirely depend on how far ahead you are and how tanky you are. If you are ahead by a decent amount, you can use an Arcane Passage + Bright Bulwark combo to instantly engage and prevent any escape from the enemies. If you are behind, you should kite around/back and focus on protecting your teammates. If the enemy has a major crowd control ability like Blast Tremor or Forced Accord, be prepared with Crucible to block it. Lyra can potentially be very squishy in the late game, so be wary of your positioning in order to stay alive for as long as possible. Also, don’t forget to use your auto attack slows. It is easy to forget to use them in the carnage of the team fight, but they are very powerful. However, again be careful of your positioning when auto-attacking since it does lock you in place for a short duration.
- If you realize enemy is separated and one of carries is out of position from team, you can portal in the middle of the enemy team and use Bright Bulwark since the bulwark separate them and prevents the team from protecting the mispositioned carry.
- If in mid game, and carry doesn’t have a block, can use portal to get out of gauntlet with the carry
- Backdoors with lyra
- If against an Ardan and you or your carry doesn’t have a reflex block, you can use Arcane Passage to get out of the gauntlet safely.
- If you are ahead by a decent amount, you can use an Arcane Passage + Bright Bulwark combo to instantly engage and prevent any escape from the enemies.
- If inside the Bright Bulwark, enemies cannot use the portal at all. If trying to escape, if possible, use Bright Bulwark before using Arcane Passage to pretty much guarantee an escape.
Thank you for reading! I hope you found it useful. Send any questions you may have to
@IAmAPotato_VG on Twitter,
Team Phoenix or comment below.
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