General Introduction to Lyra Top
Lyra is one of the most fun to play and dominating heroes in Vainglory(if played correctly). She has an extremely powerful early game and is one of the captains in Vainglory with the most impact on their team.She is more complicated than most captains and requires careful execution of her skills as well as good engages and disengages.
Lyra's Kit Top
Heroic Perk
PRINCIPLE ARCANUM
Lyra’s attacks are arcane missiles, dealing crystal damage. If she holds her ground after releasing an attack, she automatically channels and releases a much stronger arcane missile that deals additional crystal damage and briefly slows its target. Each channeled missile consumes energy, but Lyra can continue using these even if she runs out of energy.
IMPERIAL SIGIL
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 moderate move speed boost to nearby allies.
BRIGHT BULWARK
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.
ARCANE PASSAGE
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.
EXPLANATION OF KIT
PERK- Lyra's perk is what makes her such a menace in lane. These channelled missiles coupled with her super long basic attack range are incredibly powerful during the first four or so minutes of the game(until the jungle intensifies). Attack an enemy hero with this every single chance you get in the first 4 minutes.
Imperial Sigil(A)- This ability is Lyra's bread and butter and it has a ton of utility. You can use it to out- sustain the enemy laner, provide your entire team with healing or give your allies a move speed boost for chasing down a kill or to disengage. Avoid spamming this ability in the early game unless you have an energy battery(as I suggested in my starting items) and avoid using it if you're the only one on your team who is low on health(rather save it for your allies to get maximum value of a fairly long cooldown at early levels) unless you'll die without the heal. Do NOT use this to get killing blows on enemies unless you're absolutely sure you can get the kill.
Bright Bulwark(B)- Lyra's B is one of her most powerful tools for engaging and disengaging as well as shutting down movement- based abilities from your enemies. It is best-used sparingly as it has a very long cooldown at all levels. If you land it at exactly the right time, however, it can block many dangerous abilities.
Arcane Passage(ULTMATE)- Lyra's ultimate allows her to quickly gap-close and allows for engage/disengage for her whole team. A co-ordinated team can make good use of this ability to surprise and disrupt an entire enemy team.
In-game Mechanics and Skill Combos Top
ENGAGING A TEAMFIGHT
The best possible engage you can have with Lyra is using her ult,B and Atlas Pauldron all at the same time. You ideally want to use this when an enemy team is grouped up so that you can land a 3-hero atlas pauldron and get the whole team stuck inside the bright bulwark, thus having the whole enemy team snared, attack slowed and slowed at the same time. This can take some practise and you should first work on using your ult and B at the same time before adding the atlas pauldron. Timing is also incredibly important for this type of engage. You have to make sure your team is ready to fight and follow your lead otherwise you'll end up using your 2 longest cooldowns and one of your items all for nothing.
DISENGAGING FROM A TEAMFIGHT
Again, your ult is very important for disengage if the fight is not going your way on the enemy has surprised you with a good rotation or gank. Just use your portals in the direction you're running and use your B directly afterwards because you're enemies will probably follow you through the portals, meaning they'll get snared. You can also use your War Treads directly after your ult to put even more distance between you and your enemies. Try to use your portals to go behind a turret because that means the turret will start shooting at your enemies which might help you turn around the fight.
DELAYING/HOLDING FOUNTAIN
Because Lyra has inherent healing in her kit, some players like to build other items first before buying fountain(e.g. stormcrown for stronger early game objective focus). You should probably avoid this in Solo Queue but if you're in a party you could definitely try it if you have strong early game heroes or Adagio/ heroes with lifesteal or self-healing.
Holding fountain in teamfights is extremely effective with Lyra(you want to do this because Fountain heals you more if you're lower on health). Avoid using it until you absolutely need it! Use your A for healing first and only use fountain later for maximum effectivity. Below is a link to a really good video on how to use fountain by Woodworking Vainglory(he is a Tier 10 captain)
Your text to link here...
BLOCKING ABILITIES WITH BRIGHT BULWARK
Lyra's B snares heroes which means it stops any movement/dash based abilities. If timed correctly(this takes a LOT of practice) it can block seriously powerful abilities(e.g X-Retsu, Afterburn and Stuffed) and change entire teamfights. It can also be used to negate engages from heroes like Fortress,Rona,Krul and Blackfeather.
Threats,Synergy and What Lyra Counters Top
THREATS TO LYRA
Lyra doesn't actually have too many bad match-ups if played properly(which is one of the reasons she has been very popular in professional play). My threat chart is based entirely on my own experience playing Lyra(I've been playing her ever since she was released and she is easily my best hero with a win rate of 86% this patch). The main heroes she has problems with are long-range poke heroes like Celeste, Samuel and Kestrel(because they can last-hit from a distance in lane or even go into jungle) and heroes with short cooldown gap-closers because they can bait out her B.
SOME INTERESTING MATCH-UPS FOR LYRA(i.e exceptions to what I said above):
1. IDRIS- you might feel like Idris is a high mobility, assassin with a dash which means Lyra can shut him down with her B. However, Idris can still poke from range with Chakram and engage fully after Bright Bulwark has ended if the player is skilled and patient enough.
2. CATHERINE- Catherine can be a bit of an early game nightmare for Lyra if you over-extend. While Catherine's stun is still on a fairly long cooldown early on, she can still lock down Lyra if she has a strong early-game hero like Petal or Ringo with her. This is because Lyra is one of the squishiest captains in Vainglory and her starting health pool is very small compared to other captains.
3. KOSHKA AND PETAL- I've grouped these two together because they counter Lyra for the same reasons. They both have very strong early games and while Petal is able to attack from range(thus ignoring bright bulwark completely), Koshka can move very quickly in and out of bright bulwark and isolate carries. Her ultimate can be blocked by bright bulwark though so if you're playing Koshka into Lyra be aware of that. Another bonus is that they are both junglers which means Lyra will not be able to pester them as easily during the early stage while she's mainly in lane. These two heroes also can kill most lane carries very easily which will make it easier for their own carry to survive Lyra's early game advantage.
HERO SYNERGY
Lyra works well with heroes who need engage and sustain like Krul, Rona, Blackfeather etc. She can also work well with Adagio ( a double healer team composition) or even poke heroes like CP Kestrel and Samuel where she can use her perk and healing to help in a sustained poke battle. Ozo and Lyra is also a good pairing if you have synergy because of Ozo's perk which gives him extra healing. However, for this to work you need to place your sigils very well in order to provide healing for Ozo because of his rapid movement in teamfights.
WHAT LYRA COUNTERS
Lyra counters heroes with dashes and other movement speed based abilities especially Blackfeather and Krul(heroes whose job it I to get to a single carry and absolutely destroy them as quickly as possible). This is made possible because of her B. Note that certain heroes e.g Cooldown Glaive can bait out/ work around her B because it has such a long cooldown. Lyra will also work very well into late game carries like Skaarf in the lane because she can deal a lot of damage early on and outlast(sustain) pretty much every carry in the game.
Feedback is welcome! Top
This is my first ever guide so I would love to get feedback on it. Tell me if I left anything out or if there's some secret build or strategy that I forgot. I'll be looking to put out more guides in the near future
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