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Does anyone actually KNOW why Zed has bonus AD on W?

mi ramfan·1/22/2015, 7:31:49 AM·11 votes·1,679 views

Yasuo has bonus crit chance to get people to build Infinity Edge and Statikk Shiv instead of bruiser items.

Riven has her passive and lag canceling to raise her skillcap so that she's not totally faceroll. She still feels faceroll when you die to WAAQAAQAAQAAR in the space of 1 second, but at least you know she was technically skilled.

Ahri has (soon to be had) low base values and a damage amp on Charm to force her to actually land Charm to kill people, instead of killing them with W, R, and point blank Qs. Fizz is getting a similar damage amp on his ult next patch in the hopes of forcing him to actually ult people in order to kill them, but because they didn't actually hit his E, W, or Sheen synergy it'll probably just make his burst even more hilarious without actually making him hurt less with his current combo.

The pattern here is that with all of these champions with some kind of free stat boost or damage amp, I can explain why they have them and have it make at least a little bit of sense. Hell, some of these are actually Riot's explanations from old patch notes or comments.

Can anyone actually explain why Zed needs free AD from his W? I mean, if he wants to kill people ridiculously quickly as an AD champion, shouldn't he have to build items with lots of AD (Infinity Edge, Hydra, etc.) instead of BorK (30 AD) or Youmuus (a similarly pitiful amount)?

19 Comments

ProfDrDeath1/22/2015, 12:28:47 PM9 votes

It is supposed to help smooth out Zed's power curve.

Due to the way Living Shadow works, Zed's damage increase from leveling basic spells stops when he has maxed Q and E - so probably around level 13. Having only two instead of three damaging basic spells means that each one of them has higher base damages and/or scaling than the spells on a three damaging basic spells kit. However, a champion with such a 2-damaging kit would reach his damage ceiling faster than a 3-damaging one.

The most extreme example for this is Zilean, who only has one damaging basic ability. And look how hard that sucker hits - 320 + 0.9 AP on a point&click ability. Other examples - champions with two damaging or (actively damage increasing = active steroids) skills: Lux Morgana Riven Veigar Lucian LeeSin JarvanIV Akali Rumble Yasuo Teemo Champions who have their damage budget concentrated into two spells are usually more powerful early and mid game and tend to be a tad weaker in the lategame.

Examples for champions with two damaging skills, but smoothened-out power curves: Darius Zyra Quinn Nocturne Viktor

MrBuffington1/22/2015, 7:23:24 PM7 votes

[{quoted}](name=mi ramfan,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=2bLOMRPE,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-01-22T07:31:49.680+0000) Can anyone actually explain why Zed needs free AD from his W?

It's because he was designed by CertainlyT :P

LankPants1/22/2015, 9:24:10 AM5 votes

Basically because AD caster itemisation in S2 was complete trash. BT was the only thing close to a caster item, they also had brute but its build paths were really bad. Pen worked differently so LW wasn't good on casters.

The 25% bonus AD was a crutch that Riot used to allow Zed to function in S2, it should have been removed at the start of S3 with all the new caster items that were introduced.

TyrantCelestia1/22/2015, 8:23:52 AM3 votes

Free passive skills are cancer! champs with too many passive skills are op as fk etc zed yasuo

Fizz is not Fish1/22/2015, 9:20:08 AM3 votes

That W is so weak as a single basic ability. It need something as passive.

darkdill1/22/2015, 8:06:22 AM2 votes

Zed's already getting base AS and AS/level nerfs in 5.2. BoRK won't be nearly as good on him anymore.

Junkο1/22/2015, 6:54:20 PM2 votes

Zed main here

I have no fucking idea. Riot should just remove it because it's a pointless late game power spike similar to Cass, except that Zed is useful before it and doesn't even need it to be viable.

junglerboy161/22/2015, 10:24:35 PM2 votes

It is actually a gating mechanism that was supposed to limit his early burst because his scalings and base damages are low and he needs to upgrade his only non damaging ability to access it. However, because of how brokenly strong BotRK's passive on-hit effect is, he doesn't need it and it turns him into a monster late game with no real penalty early. If they removed BotRK, he would actually have to get AD for the W passive to multiply, but right now he gets by without any issue from it at all and his biggest power restraint gets flipped on its head to give him a ton of free damage late game.

Tik1151/23/2015, 12:07:50 AM2 votes

Simple! Because...... uhhh.... Because errrr... ..... Why DOES he have it?

Ok for real I think its to help his laning (Yeah because his passive doesn't TOTALLY do that already) and improve his assassination power

Rozzeta1/23/2015, 2:32:48 AM1 votes

I believe that by the time of his creation, the AD caster itemization was still lacking.

ExtremePhantom1/22/2015, 11:18:09 PM1 votes

Why? Because i canKatarina

Meep Man1/22/2015, 7:29:12 PM1 votes

I have no idea.

Keevalroy1/22/2015, 10:11:15 PM1 votes

It's the standard CertainlyT overloaded kit.