Zed needs to be strong early, but not impossible to lane against.

TL;DR at bottom.

Zed is a champion, designed to be a strong laner in the early game, and an incredible duelist in all stages of the game as well as having some nifty split pushing power.

What he lacks is obvious, he lacks CC, sustained damage, and sustained burst.

So what is the big problem? Its that one of his strengths is extremely overtuned. Zed with thunderlords, and with the new assassin item, effectively makes him impossible to lane against if that Zed has met a certain skill threshold.

I've played Zed actively in normals, and sometimes in ranked when I play in that toxic asf game mode, since Season Four. I don't claim to be the best at him or at the game, but I know the champion inside and out and know how he is currently unbalanced.

People complain about his safety, but that isn't his problem in fact that is like saying Lissandra has too much CC, well no shit. Its what they are meant for, what they were created for. He was designed to be a champion who can safely kill any one person he wants, if he wants more kills he's gotta risk his life heavily. He's a fucking ninja who has mastered the art of the shadow, and he matches his thematic perfectly.

His problem, is his high damage early game; Now now, I know he is supposed to have high early damage, he is the pre-rework renekton of mid lane, but his damage is high even for him. With thunderlords he recieved a direct buff to his entire combo, which is lethal after two rotations. His ult nerf did some good, but tbh it was the wrong place to hit. In my opinion some fair nerfs to zed would be the following:

Reduce his W cast length just a little, then he won't be able to consistently outrange poke mages, and you can safely outmaneuver his combo from behind your wave.

Reduce his slow percentage on his E early game, and have it slowly go back to normal slow-rate with every rank. He will max his E second, so around teamfights when he really needs that slow is when he will have it be useful.

Reduce E base damage, this is an easy fix because while he Q is his primary damage move, this seems like it could take a hit since it is very reliable to use against lane opponents, not to mention, its a manaless push mechanic that forces mages to use their spells to farm under turret which puts them in an animation which therefore makes them an easy target for Zeds unbearable range. If this is too harsh of a nerf, then they could add more scaling to it but the base damage should be low.

Make his passive only work on champions and non-epic neutral monsters until level 6, at level 6 he can use it on anything.

Why? Because this allows him to quickly grab farm before taking too much harass.

Any thoughts? Any riot input? Any Zed players wanna pitch in? Any mid laners want to give me tears to boil my noodles in?

TL;DR: He has too strong of an early game with thunderlords. Nerf W length. Nerf E damage and slow, add scaling if needed. Passive only works on champs till level 6 then has full effect.