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Can anyone explain how Zed is a "healthy assassin"?

PseudoCoup·2/7/2015, 8:12:30 PM·12 votes·3,172 views

I've been reading the patch notes lately and I'm a little confused. Is Riot MAKING Zed a healthy assassin or do they think he is one ALREADY?

50+% of the time I play a normal draft, Zed is banned. 70+% of the time I play a ranked draft, Zed is banned.

I know I'm in a low tier of play (only Silver 4 last season), but if a champ is banned this often, how can it possibly be considered "healthy"?

Whenever I play against a Zed, it ruins my game experience. Dodges everything, even when you snare him he still escapes, and then your whole team is dead.

Whenever I play with a Zed, it ruins my game experience. If we win, I feel dirty. If we lose (which rarely happens), I feel fine because at least a Zed lost (joking). He just feels like a cheap trick. He really puts the donkey in assassin.

His true claim to fame is he is the only champion in League that truly makes me angry. Livid. Enraged. I almost feel the need to break things whenever I see a Zed chosen because I know its going to ruin the game, and I'm not a person prone to feeling anger.

So please, explain to me how he is healthy. Start a discussion here or link me to one explaining everything about how he is healthy, because I truly believe he is toxic to the community (the champ, not the people playing him). The only way I've ever seen him properly dealt with is a highly coordinated team, where all 5 people are working together. That just isn't going to happen in solo-queue, and he ruins the experience.

46 Comments

Sozan52/7/2015, 8:48:29 PM13 votes

Well, let's be honest here - his assassination pattern is rather healthy:

  • It takes time (leaving your opponent chances to react)
  • Requires you to hit some skillshots (or the damage is crippled)
  • Is counterable by some items (Zhonya and QSS)

Of course, it does have its share of small problems (like being rather safe or Botrk active working on his ultimate), but yes - his assassination pattern is healthier than most of the other assassin in the game.

However, Zed as a champion is not healthy at all, mostly for those reasons:

  • Great waveclear and farming potential at all points of the game. This is usually assassins major weakness - they cannot and shouldn't be able to waveclear well unless they put themselves in risk and waste a major cooldown. It's obviously not the case with Zed. With his Q he can farm safely from pretty much any point of the lane - and he can also use his W,Q,E combo to waveclear from safety. And he have no problems last-hitting under turret either due to his passive.

  • Poking. Assassin's poke should always be rather weak. Again, Zed thinks otherwise, so he can poke you with his full basic ability combo from around 650 range, and for full damage too. This makes him extremely safe while dealing a lot of safe poke - more than any other assassin (and quite a bit of mages). I think he should have to actually commit to deal full damage (you know... to keep that high risk, high reward type of play that assassins should be known for).

  • Free AD on his W. Really, I never understood what Riot was thinking when they added it into his kit. It's not like his abilities are weak or scale poorly that he would need a huge boost to AD.

  • And last but not least, energy costs. Zed's energy costs are incredibly low, making him practically resourceless. Other energy-based champion usually can't even use their entire comboses if they don't proc their energy recovery (Zed does it with ease, and is left with enough energy to use more skills). That would be somewhat okay, if Zed didn't have an energy recovery mechanic to compensate - but he have one and it's one of the (if not the) best ones in the game. You really need to mess up few combos in a row to get out of energy on Zed.

Riot needs to tune down his ability to safely farm and poke, so that he isn't so safe and effective in lane. Oh, and the bonus AD on W should be replaced completely.

Leti the Yeti2/7/2015, 8:27:35 PM7 votes

assassins arent healthy which is why the standard used to judge zed deems he is healthy :D

Troy2426212/7/2015, 8:16:18 PM6 votes

He's not. I can make a laundry list of why he isn't, but I'm curious to see if he's still heralded by the majority as the epitome of healthy assassin design still. If that's still the case, I'll get crackin' on it.

Shahamut2/7/2015, 9:21:30 PM6 votes

Just wanted to thank people here for not flaming. One of the better discussions I have read/been a part of in a while :)

Kuroi862/7/2015, 8:47:41 PM5 votes

By healthy assassin, Riot means his assassinations leave openings for counter play while still leaving the door open for Zed to out play if he is good and his opponent makes a mistake. This also means he is much less snowbally like Akali, Kat, Talon or Fizz. Less snowbally, he still snowballs, it just takes more kills. He does have things that can be trimmed back, his split pushing and tower pushing for instance has taken the first of what I expect to be quite a few hits. I won't be surprised to see the damage on his Q and E take reductions towards minions or his passive bonus AD decreased, we'll see.

"it ruins my game experience" "Dodges everything, even when you snare him he still escapes, and then your whole team is dead. " "If we win, I feel dirty. If we lose (which rarely happens), I feel fine because at least a Zed lost (joking). He just feels like a cheap trick. He really puts the donkey in assassin." "His true claim to fame is he is the only champion in League that truly makes me angry. Livid. Enraged. I almost feel the need to break things whenever I see a Zed chosen because I know its going to ruin the game, and I'm not a person prone to feeling anger. So please, explain to me how he is healthy. Start a discussion here or link me to one explaining everything about how he is healthy, because I truly believe he is toxic to the community"

And we come to the root of the problem, the mind set that many people have over certain champs. I'm guilty of it too. I groan any time someone picks Teemo. There is nothing I or anyone can do about this. When someone is convinced a flower is blue, telling them it's red is pointless when they still see a blue flower. The only thing I can suggest is to pick the champion up and give him a try yourself. You may see something about him you did not see before.

Mooing Kev2/7/2015, 8:32:40 PM5 votes

He WAS healthy b4 all these season 5 changes. Right now he is pretty much the same except his laning is super oppressive. His other weaknesses/strengths has not changed. Atm there's only a few picks that can go head to head against zed in lane. Regardless his mid/late game hasn't changed much and you are still often split pushing as zed(which got nerfed a tad bit) since your team fighting isn't the best compared to other mids. He is a low elo stomper cuz a lot of people seem to be uneducated against zed. I see so many people who linger near the shadow, zhonya too early, exhaust too early barrier too early etc etc. Zeds main kill potential early on comes from his ult and there are ways to play around it. Lets say zed just chunked you with his qwe combo. You don't walk near the shadows so he can just swap in and all in you. If your jungler is smart he should know assassins like zed/kat akali etc are snowballers and need early advantage to make a difference cuz their late game impact isn't significant like a mage. Regardless of the top laner asking for ganks the top priority for ganks should be that assassin so he doesn't snow ball. Ganking zeds can be tricky but if you see the opportunity where he harasses with qwe thats when you go in. Another thing, pick lissandra she is the best mage imo to go against zed next to azir and can follow through ganks really well with her massive cc. Some other good picks are malzahar and i personally think katarina is a good pick too because you can outplay average zeds pretty easily with your shunpo. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. I will try to answer it as best as my knowledge of this game can.

Handin Out Naps2/7/2015, 9:19:00 PM4 votes

Check the ban rates he isn't even top 10 anymore. Zed honestly isn't a problem and people are begging to understand that.

SmokingPuffin2/7/2015, 9:21:55 PM4 votes

I know I'm in a low tier of play (only Silver 4 last season), but if a champ is banned this often, how can it possibly be considered "healthy"?

Healthy doesn't mean balanced. It means the play patterns work well in the game -- they offer clear strengths and weaknesses, play and counterplay.

GaleWinUnleashed2/7/2015, 9:52:18 PM3 votes

He's a healthy assassin in that his all-in burst pattern is mostly acceptable. Except that it's not really an "all-in" at all, as he can simply jump back to his ult shadow regardless of whether he won or lost the fight (hint: he won). That, combined with his excessively safe and easy waveclear and farming, is the problem.

One important thing to note, though, is that he's been this way ever since the change to his ult that made his shadow spawn from the start point rather than behind his target. He hasn't been seriously buffed since that point (in fact I think he was nerfed once or twice, but I can't recall exactly), but when mana regen took a huge hit recently, mages lost their ability to compete with him on even ground. Suddenly Zed and other non-mana champions jumped into the spotlight.

Zed has power in the appropriate places. The issue is that he doesn't stop there; he has power everywhere else too.

Shahamut2/7/2015, 8:37:59 PM3 votes

The only real way to deal with Zed is with some kind of suppression or stun.

I believe that RIOT considers Zed a "healthy" assassin because there is a VERY clear line between those who know how to play him and those who don't. I guess we will call it the skill cap? I dunno.

One problem that I have with Zed has already been addressed (somewhat) in that he was waaaaaay to good at split pushing as strong as he is. I think he is still too strong, but heck, anyone who gets that much AD should be able to split push well.

My other problem is that when laning against him, you can't really deny him farm. Yeah, he's melee, but he has a low cooldown Shuriken throw that deals more than enough damage to farm with, even early. He uses energy, so as long as he doesn't spam like crazy, he is fine. Once he gets his shadow (lvl2) he can now farm safely AND harass you.

This problem could be easily addressed in one of two ways:

1)making his Shuriken's deal less damage to minions/monsters, making it harder for him to last hit with it. The only problem I have with this is that it means he still can harass you hard, and safely. As safe as Zed is, I feel option 2 is better:

  1. Lower the base damage and ratios of his shurikens at lower ranks. Example:

Current: 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+ 100% bonus AD) is his current. with 60% dmg to secondary targets hit.

Suggested Change: 40/90/140/190/240(+80/85/90/95/100% bonus AD) with 60% damage to secondary targets.

This small change would make his early game farming rely more on getting into melee range, while not hurting his late game killing power at all.

I was silver 3 at my best last season, and I always worry when a zed gets picked. Either he will wreck everyone (cuz they really know how to play him) or he does next to nothing.

TLDR: I think Zed is overall in a good spot as far as his having a high skill cap to being able to faceroll enemy teams, but he needs some kind of clear weakness for people to play against. Hurting his early game and making farming a little less safe would be a good place to do so in my opinion.

PseudoCoup2/8/2015, 5:07:01 AM1 votes

Thank you all for the input!

Skias2/7/2015, 9:33:34 PM1 votes

A reduction in range would help a lot.

Zahz2/8/2015, 1:10:21 PM1 votes

Idk how he coudl be considered health when he literally can non stop harass u with his energy without fear of ganks or having trouble wave clearing. He is the only assassin without some form of weakness. All the others seem about twice as squishie, cant do things like split push, cant freely poke, and aretnt taht great at clearng waves till late game. He literally does it all

MrSc0tty2/7/2015, 8:47:48 PM1 votes

Because, I mean...

Imagine if Katarina was overtuned. Or Akali. Or Talon. Or Kassadin. Like, full on point and click boom your dead and I reset and get to kill your whole team, damage enough to clear waves, pre-six not shit.

I'd want to kill myself a whole lot more than zed..

Jungle Lux God2/7/2015, 9:38:30 PM1 votes

Zed is considered healthy because he lets you know when he's going to kill you, allowing you time to react to his burst, while his skillshots allow you at least some room to outplay him when he goes in.

Compare this to the other assassins in the game. Talon jumps in and kills you. Akali jumps in and kills you. Katarina jumps in and kills you. You have no time to react to any of these champions when they jump in, and you cannot outplay these champions when they jump in because they don't have significant counterplay to their skillshots.

Obviously, Zed is really strong right now, and that is why you see him banned in every game. You see him banned every game because Zed is bullshit, not because Zed is unhealthy. However, when any of the assassins I just mentioned are strong, you see them banned every game because they are both bullshit and unhealthy.

Knight SoIaire 2/7/2015, 10:37:41 PM1 votes

zed isnt healthy he is the healthies we have you should notice the diference and im preety sure that riot keeps tabs on their spelling just in this case

he still needs some work but he is certainly better than the rest of assasins who just need to point their mouse at you to delete you

Hawkefire2/7/2015, 11:58:23 PM1 votes

Honestly the only unhealthy part about Zed is the sheer amount of waveclear he has.

Once that is toned down, he will be fine.