[Suggestion] Upcoming Assassin Update - Zed's W change (Living Shadow)
I'm not a Zed main but i feel like Zed is in a decent place right now. However, i believe that he still has a bit too much mobility put into his kit and sometimes, how fast he deals damage is hard to react to. I don't have to talk about his reaction time window since that is the point of the Assassin Class Update so i'll throw in my 2 cents how to combat his super fast, point and click, 1 screen away mobility.
Considering that Zed usually builds Yomuu's, it's a decent option for people who want some added mobility and damage on the side in their builds. But in Zed's case, Yomuu's bumps him over the top and Yomuu's itself is in a pretty decent place. Zed needs to be toned down a notch, not the item - in my opinion.
#Here's how:
- W - Living Shadow
Still spawns a shadow that copies Zed's spells like now and grants % bonus AD. But it no longer allows Zed to swap positions with it. Instead (by activating W again), Zed gains a self buff called "Living Shadow" that allows him to assume shadow form and is untargetable, invulnerable and un-CC-able for 2 seconds. He can still use spells BUT he loses the ability to autoattack for the duration. In short, Zed loses a part of his mobility but gains a powerful Zhonya-like effect that allows him to do his job uninterrupted in a brief window of time.
The animation for this would be like Kalista's Dark Spear tether to his W shadow and activating the buff would play the animation for the shadow akin to Azir's death animation to point out the duration of his buff to Zed and his enemies. I also think that this change would be thematically sound for him as he becomes a shadow himself, not just manipulating them.
There are some ponential abuse cases, like with CDR and constantly abusing his state to waste enemy CDs and be as annoying as possible so with that in mind:
- his W get's a static CD.
- Or he gets a temporary debuff (like Kog's R and Kassasin's R) that halves the duration of his state by half with each use (min 0.25 sec). The debuff needs time to taper off in order for his effect to be at full strength again.
#TL;DR:
His W, Living Shadow, needs to go but needs to be replaced with an equally powerful mechanic for losing mobility. Introducing "Living Shadow" buff. It gives Zed a nice Zhonya-like active perk.
#This is just a discussion, not a petition for Riot to implement the change. I brainstormed this when i woke up, for some reason thinking about Zed. It does not even mean that this might be a good idea however, i'd like to get the opinion of the masses to see if maybe we're on the right track with Zed.
