Forces you into building a Zhonya. Must be locked down 100-0 to be killed reliably. Banned in like every game. Insanely low counterplay.
Healthy assassin? Nah man. Needs a smaller window to teleport to his shadows to invite some kind of counterplay.
Nobody pretends he isn't toxic asides from Riot or his mains though (and a little minority who either plays Malzahar or other assassins that don't have immobility or mana problems). I've seen Zed being called the epitome of unfun hundreds of times here on boards.
The part of him that Riot calls healthy isn't the endless poke and huge safety in his kit, its the fact that his kills happen once every 80 seconds (late game) because he needs a full combo to kill someone.
Plus Unhealthy doesn't mean the same as Overpowered (even though these two sometimes contribute to each other). Example: I prefer to fight a Sejuani than a Fizz any day of the week, even though the first is insanely strong, and Fizz is... well, nothing as horrible as what he once was.
I'm not defending Zed (I'd never do it as a former Veigar main), just saying a few facts as to why I think Riot calls him healthy.
Can we stop pretending that the community has any idea what toxic actually means in regards to a champion's design?
Forces you into building a Zhonya.
Because that's the only counter-play mages have to him. (no, it's not, but you're too fucking lazy to think of anything else)
Must be locked down 100-0 to be killed reliably.
Just like every-fucking-thing else
Banned in like every game.
FotM gets banned a lot because some whiny players don't know how to vs him.
Insanely low counterplay.
You use that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means.
Zed's problems don't stem from his ability to kill a single target safely. Zed's problems stem from the fact that he's quite possibly the safest assassin in the game, with strong harass, strong escapes, and incredible farming/pushing potential.
I'd much rather they focus on those areas (though I will say, reducing both Shadow durations to 3 seconds isn't something I would necessarily object to.)
I don't think toxic is the word you're looking for. Try obnoxious. It's not like Zed as a champion rages at you and tells you to uninstall.
For the love of christ, if you people hate zed so much, just pick 
. She crap's all over Zed.
I don't understand. He's not so OP that he can't be beat by say... Lux or Orianna or any number of other AP mids. Just because people haven't learned to dodge, not walk so close to the shadow, etc. SMH. Yea you kinda have to build Zhonyas to be on the safe side, but how is it unfun to actually have a challenging lane?
Inb4 ''git good'' coming from Zed mains because hard truth has been spoken.
You forgot his manaless, easily spammed on cd, ranged waveclear no other assasin has.
Or ungankeability without you baiting him closer to your tower, potentiall dying while he can get away with his ult.
Basically you need to have a perfect gank to have a chance to gank him.
Balanced.
Hating on Zed is too easy. Somebody needs to come up with new reasons to hate Zed besides having to rush Zhonya's or whatever. We're beating a dead horse at this point.
Forces you into building a Zhonya.
woe me, I'm being "forced" to buy one of (if not the) best items in the game
Is a cancer item that EVERY AP mid laner buys regardless. But yeah Zeds skill ceiling needs to be toned down.
Zed's fine. Tons of counterplay since the huge nerf to shadows that happened around S3 worlds. He's a good champ, but the only reason for the rise in his popularity is the huge nerfs to mage assassins.
No. Git gud.
