clearly none of you guys have ever played top lane
all you people know is rushing straight damage all game every game
yes, sometimes there are people who you want to rush resistances against in order to survive thats how the fucking game works
dont get me wrong zed is pretty dumb but dont act like there is no champion in the entire game that makes buying armor/mr over damage a smart thing to do other than him
DeusVult14 votesHere's the thing
for most mid laners, going to buy gives you three choices of what to do
A. Buy damage B. Buy mana Regen/CDR C. Buy Defenses
But then, for zed, buying basically comes down to 1 choice:
A. Buy Damage
So yes, since I never see a zed buy anything but damage and they still wreck face, I would have to say that he is OP
Kingsgrave5 votesHere's the thing
for most mid laners, going to buy gives you three choices of what to do
A. Buy damage B. Buy mana Regen/CDR C. Buy Defenses
But then, for zed, buying basically comes down to 1 choice:
A. Buy Damage
So yes, since I never see a zed buy anything but damage and they still wreck face, I would have to say that he is OP
To be fair, how in the world does any AD Assassin buy anything besides Damage optimally?
always buys Damage because its inefficient not to and there are no options
always buys Damage because its inefficient not to and there are no options
always buys Damage because its inefficient not to and there are no options
always buys Damage because its inefficient not to and there are no options
always buys Damage because its inefficient not to and there are no options
always buys Damage because its inefficient not to and there are no options
always buys Damage because its inefficient not to and there are no options
AD Caster Itemization in general is pretty horrid. You are complaining about the itemization moreso than anything else. Zed is only the best AD Caster currently.
Chessburger2 votesEnergy champions don't need CDR because their damage is balanced around the usage of energy. If you get cdr you gate yourself. Yasuo doesn't need cdr because of how his kit works. Not to be too long, talon, jayce and maybe khazix are the only one who truly profit from cdr which you actually get tied to a damage+penetration item on a relatively low cost and convenient build path. And mana regen is only needed depending on playstyle: jayce needs it because he constantly pokes, khazix and talon could use it but don't because they revolve around short patterns of all in burst and get enough mana back with something like a crystalline flask in between those. They also have ad scaling auto-attacks as a source of damage which ap champs lack so even if they are somewhat gated by CD they can still auto for great effect in between while a mage with cds is generally useless.
AP champs have to buy mana reg/cdr because their entire kits are so heavily gated without them, and of course they have to buy damage. Now that's 3 things they need and when facing an assassin they have to get 4th stat which is defense. That offsets their power spikes by a long time compared to AD champions. THAT is why people are complaining about it. But in reality only zed is currently broken enough to force such a thing so you just ban him every game and don't have to deal with it.
ChargeItDownMid9 votes[deleted]
Kingsgrave3 votesNo one is complaining that zed force people to build armor. The problem people have with zed is that he will still dominate and win with his stupidly good map pressure despite whatever items you choose to buy.
25% increased bonus AD allows him to efficiently rush things like 
no matter what he is against
Kitten of Evil7 votesI wouldn't even say Zed's OP, he just lacks any meaningful weakness. What is the weakness of an assassin? Usually it's a craptastic early game, with almost no ability to waveclear unless they use their escape/AOE slows to CS -- 
. Want to beat an assassin in lane? Punish them for trying to CS, and push your lane (do so safely, of course) so they can't roam as easily without losing tower. I think it's a fair balance. Bad early game in exchange for good late game.
Now, what is the weakness in Zed's kit? I'm honestly not sure. Can he be outplayed? Absolutely. Any champion can. But unless you're drastically outplaying him, you cannot stop Zed from farming and sustaining in lane, and even without any kills, he still has a solid end-game. His Q and his passive make it very difficult to deny CS, and his passive means he need not even waste his Q on minions unless you come within range. The only thing he really lacks is hard CC. What he has: high single-target damage, mobility, an execute passive, energy (spammability), decent AOE with a slow, great waveclear, and the ability to disengage from a dive if he miscalculates.
SlytherinUmbreon4 votesExcept people aren't complaining about being forced to build armor. They're complaining because A) after they finish building armor they're now forced to build a Mana regen item, because the current regen is just god aweful. Which means not building AP scaling until your third item. B) Shortly after they finish their mana item, Zed is on his way towards Ghostblade + Ruined King, rendering their armor irrelevant. Yet mages are still forced to build armor to get past Zeds early game. So, yes. That is unreasonable.
High51 votesSo, you should ban Zed ... or the meta may change? I ban him out of principle before he was nerfed a patch or two ago. I don't thinks he's unbeatable.
Looks like assassin. Akili and Kat still get banned non-stop in draft. They're very easy to counter. I wouldn't pick Malz tough, he has no escape ...
SlytherinUmbreon1 votesI think Hecarim deserves a mention if we're listing Zed counters. And if he does get banned all the time, that doesn't make him balanced. Kassadin was definitely not balanced back when he was the auto-ban champion. I'm not saying Zed's as busted as Kass was, but still... If banning him was your first go to answer to deal with Zed, you have to admit there's a problem. I'm not really sure what the second part is about.
MPendragon3 votes"I want to play the champion that I like, and not the champion that counters what has been picked, or a champion that suits my team composition, or the meta."
FistOfSharkiesha3 votesProblem is he has extremely low risk high reward kit and is able to 100-0 nearly every mid laner in the game at level 6. All of this coupled with extreme safety, no mana issues, etc, etc. It's not the fact that he has huge burst, it's the fact that he has huge burst with ZERO weaknesses. Other champions with stupid burst like Annie and Leblanc have meaningful weaknesses.
Señor Karthus3 votesActually is Zed players the ones who all they know is building straight damage because they don't need to adapt. If the mid laner builds armor all they need to do is to get a brutalizer or rush a LW. Downvoted.
SlytherinUmbreon1 votesI logged in to say that I'm upvoting without actually upvoting to see if I can make people rage needlessly 
Drunk Rummate3 votesactually as a midlaner its not about rushing damage, but rushing mana regen and CDR.
see, as a bruiser top main i'm sure you have no concept of mana conservation because the importance of that disappears after level 6 for you, but as a mage our primary source of damage comes outside of auto attacks. so if we're building a zhonyas instead of a morello/athenes, it gimps a lot more than you would think.
Knight Devout2 votesHow dare mages build differently than bruisers! The rascals!
shadecrapper2 votesThe difference is that Top lane is about sustain and out lasting your laner, while mid is usually about out playing or killing your laner. But when you throw in mana less champions in against mana dependant ones, Zed and Akali are up lifted while they leave other behind.
Abyssphere2 votesAs others have said, it's not building defensive items that is the problem. Zhonya's is always built on mages anyway, so it's not like they never build any defence. The problem is that when you as a mage are FORCED to go for a defensive item first, you are screwing yourself over anyway because you deny yourself the ability to stay in lane (no mana regen) and you deny yourself the ability to go toe to toe with Zed (no damage) while Zed is rushing damage and armor pen anyway.
It's "damned if you do, damned if you don't". You're forced to delay your ability to do anything of use by 20 minutes just for the sake of not dying instantly while Zed is doing his own thing all day.
ForgiveColour1 votesim force to build a qss regardless if zed is in the game or not and ap kids pretend they have mana cost rofl
Felixphaeton1 votesDo you see Zed mids rushing Spirit Visage?
