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Thoughts on zed pbe changes as a master tier 1trick

Laceration··33 votes·3,239 views

pbe changes: Razor Shuriken (Q): AD ratio on first enemy hit increased from 90% to 100% AD ratio on targets beyond first increased from 54% to 60% item 3147 Damage lowered from [Melee (65 - 320) / Ranged (45 - 300)] to [30 - 200]

first of all, I wanna say I understand these changes, we're losing 120 damage to our burst (174 if you account for ultimate amplification) and gaining some ad ratio to compensate. That's great! the only problem I have with these changes are that they are still a nerf no matter what point you are in the game, as of right now zed's base damages are so low that you are forced into building a duskblade every game no matter what.

If the average full build on zed will grant 300 bonus ad, _If you land _ triple Q this change will give 1st 30 2nd 22.5
3rd 16.875.
this total adds up to 69.375 dmg. multiply that by level 3 deathmark and that's 31.22. Add them together you get 100.6.

I think that these changes are not fair that zed will need to land 3 Q's AND deathmark to get even close to the same damage of a duskblade auto attack. this will lead to an overall nerf to zed.

Going back to what I said at the start, If zed's Q had the base damage of 240 and this AD ratio increase, Zed will not be stuck rushing duskblade everygame, building item 3156 or item 3142 will become viable again as a first item, which leads to this season's theme of "choice" i'll have the choice to go defensive, aggressive, or roaming.

pls rito.

btw item 3047 giving more armour than the combined lethality of item 3147 item 3142 really sucks

101 Comments

DoktorKaiser23 votes

I on the other hand think that it is pure bullshit that an item provided Zed with the ability to ult me, E me, auto me once and kill me easily. Now he actually requires skill to play, thank god.

Laceration20 votes

It's just a power spike that you need to prepare for. buying the slightest amount of armour would make that combo impossible to kill with unless you've been losing lane already. I never get kills like that in my elo.

NineTailedMystic11 votes

15 Armor from a Cloth Armor will not save you from a Zed lol.

Laceration24 votes

getting just seekers or tabis is enough to make it where zed needs to land a triple q to kill you while you are near half hp

NineTailedMystic7 votes

Or you know. Auto attacking more than once in an all in, in addition to the 6-8% max HP magic damage on his passive.

Laceration15 votes

Lol show me a clip or that happening.

saltran19 votes

They can't because Zed is a hated champ and even when he's not strong.

As a adc main I think that they should buff more assasins lategame because at X point of the game I just feel that they become almost useless. I remember when I was more scared about a lategame assasin than about a tank.

Laceration13 votes

Yep, tanks are now scarier to an adc than an assassin.

DeadUnborn4 votes

so you are complaining that zed has to build an item first... but your solution to fight against him is for the opponent to always rush armor no matter what?

And yeah that saves you from the death combo but Zed then just pushes you into tower because you have no mana item and goes get kills botlane

3411235456525 votes

{quoted}

so you are complaining that zed has to build an item first... but your solution to fight against him is for the opponent to always rush armor no matter what?

And yeah that saves you from the death combo but Zed then just pushes you into tower because you have no mana item and goes get kills botlane

If you get pushed into tower by a zed who has 22 second cooldown on W while also somehow getting harassed too? You are just dogshit at the game tbh and deserve to lose. Ever try standing far away from your minion wave so he has to choose whether to harass you with his 22 second cooldown or hit the wave with it? Do you just not use your abilities on him and sit there <Removed By Moderation> the whole lane? <Removed By Moderation>

Many criticisms i can understand about people not likeing certain aspects of his kit but when I see some kids talking about "HE PUSHED ME INTO TOWER , HE HAS NO MANANAZ!!!" immediately look up their account, no surprise. Players like you, id beat you WITH zed and id beat you AGAINST zed (me playing any mage).

DeadUnborn2 votes

The classic "lol you suck, I'm godlike" counter rebuttal... what a waste of time

Nah I'm D5 and personally have no problem against Zed.

Instead of replying to your silly post, I'd invite you to read the whole chain and try to see the context of what I wrote

Magic Serwyn9 votes

First he "may" be able to cast Q more than once in the fight you know ? then if you only hit double Q and deals 20 less damages on a total of 2000+, it's not thaaaaat horible right ? Finally you maybe didn't see that it increases the power of the most toxic part of his kit, i.e. his WEQ harass which is most of his non-ult burst, but ranged. Also it slightly improve his waveclear. Overall it's clearly a buff, wihtout any doubt.

Laceration13 votes

In this current meta where adc have more DPS in during your burst window and supports have more peel than your entire kit itself, landing Q more than once an all in is very hard. Also saying that it's more damage overall if you land the spell twice not fair at all. if a burst champion has less burst it's a nerf. Of course I can q again in 5 seconds, but my kit has a 3 second window to burst someone.

You won't see a noticeable change in his poke combo this is only a ad ratio increase. you need items for your poke to mean anything. Lets say you have duskblade and you poke them with weq. it's slightly more there but a lot less damage if you are going to jump in. So it's not toxic. there are many more mages who have higher base dmg and lower cd's who can poke you nonstop. Xerath for example. Also, saying it's more

Ranged poke is fair when it's skillshots. Even if i believe Xerath is alittle too good right now, in lane he will destroy you from afar or you will destroy him, all depends on whether you dodge his skillshots. with zed if you dodge both Q's he dealt no damage and he's now super vulnerable to a gank with his long w cd.

this does slightly increase the waveclear which helps, but it still doesn't fix zed's problems

Magic Serwyn4 votes

Nothing of this is the point. The twenty or so damages you lose on a full combo if you don't hit 3 Q's and if you weren't seen in the pas 5 seconds is largely compensated by his improved trades and second wave damages, that's all. It's not a big buff but it's certainly not a nerf so your topic isn't honest, right or fair.

Laceration7 votes

I think you misunderstand just how little it's going to change his lanephase when his lanephase isn't really the problem it's his lack of base damage that removes the choice of what to buy first. Also zed is known to have a really bad late game so it would be killing 2 birds with 1stone.

Magic Serwyn3 votes

I think you misunderstand how 20 points less in a whole combo, and in the worst case, will change his endgame.

Laceration7 votes

20? without r you are losing 52.5 damage. With how hard zed is falling off right now, we shouldn't randomly remove 50 damage lmao

DeadUnborn8 votes

wait you mean you will actually have to use your character properly, rather than just dashing with w and instakilling a squishy with an E auto? madness!!!

Laceration10 votes

Zed doesn't do that unless you are snowballed but ok

DeadUnborn8 votes

if by snowballed you mean zed is 3/1/2 and has 2 and a half lethality/pen items and the siquishy only has either zhonias or GA then sure, lets call that snowball.

My favorite part is when zed gets an early kill with a jungle ganks and proceeds to buy hexdrinker and merctreds while you as a mage have to rush seekers and lost chapter just to be able to stay in lane

But sure making it so that you have to express skill to succeed with zed is unfair, why force him to land his shit to kill you when the fair thing to do is allow him to push you out of lane without even using his ult and Q

saltran6 votes

This coments reminds me when I used to play mid and how much I hated playing against Zed.

DeadUnborn4 votes

personally I have no problem against zed, since most champions I like playing have very easy/safe matchups aganst him (lux, ziggs, malzahar)

However I always think it is frustrating for the ADC that if zed has the smallest lead then they have to hug their supports in order to not instadie, which is kind of BS.

Rengar is more BS than Zed honestly, but hopefully the duskblade nerfs will fix that

Laceration4 votes

So when should the adc not fear the assassin then?

DeadUnborn4 votes

always, but not to the extend you always need 2 people to deal with one within the spawn of .75 seconds at ALL times come mid game.

Ergo, the ADC should fear assassins, but should be able to mitigate burst if he opts into defensive shit like GA and BT, at least long enough (2 seconds) so that he doesn't have to hug the support for shields in order to survive

Laceration2 votes

The problem with that is right now you can build super defensive and still deal more damage than an assassins. https://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2733178704/218540727?tab=overview look at this game, enemy jinx was pumped up by a karma and she was destroying with a build like that. why should that be possible?

Do you realize just how good armor is? https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/966425353706024961 damage comparison of 1100gold worth of AD vs ninja tabis

KoKoboto7 votes

Lmaoo never realized that Tabi basically counters yommus duskblade completely xD

IdveYsUfSK6 votes

Its actually a huge buff to zed. The problems with zed right now is low damage in the early game. Games are decided super early now. You dont hit lv18 for the full scaling of duskblade, games are ended around lv 14. I would prefer they would nerf more duskblade cheese, so i can actually buy ghostblade and roam more.

Laceration16 votes

If you look numbers it's not a buff. the damage will be less without R and almost the same with R. What zed needs is base damage so you aren't locked into rushing duskblade everygame.

If you could, show me where this buff will give you more damage than what we currently have.

Shåwn1 votes

{quoted}

If you look numbers it's not a buff. the damage will be less without R and almost the same with R. What zed needs is base damage so you aren't locked into rushing duskblade everygame.

He needs the penalty on Q going through minions to be buffed to 75% from 60%. This way he can be more effective in lane without overloading his base dmgs out of lane.

Laceration7 votes

Higher base damage on Q would be that, as well as open up build paths. Would also give him a real buff late game which the Ult Cdr buff didn't accomplish.

NineTailedMystic6 votes

Upping base damage would also probably make him oppressive as fuck in lane again.

Laceration8 votes

I don't believe so at all. currently zed is about a B tier champion and many people will agree with this. Giving him Higher base damage along with this Q ad ratio increase will help him keep up with the mages this season who all seem to have a lot of crutches and fall backs that zed just doesn't have.

When a Ryze messes up and didn't position right and died to a gank, he has spell book to swap to tp and not miss exp or farm. he also has high enough base damage to where 1 kill doesn't mean much. When you mess up on zed and give firstblood, it's almost like you wanna open and gg next. you will have less armour pen, less damage, and there's no way to viably build defensive and still have outplay potential since if you go maw rush you don't have any damage to someone with seekers tabis.

Zed's base damage is so low that you are forced into the same rune page everygame where as midlaners like twisted fate have all kinds of pages for all kinds of matchups. Zed is too heavily balanced around electrocute and duskblade that going anything else is downright troll

NineTailedMystic4 votes

I'd just rather not want to kill myself every time I have to lane against Zed because he's ridiculously oppressive when his poke is strong enough. In addition, when his bases are high enough to be able to reliably rush a Hexdrinker and still threaten a 100-0 at level 6 it makes laning against him as an AP virtually impossible.

Laceration10 votes

Not true at all. Zed will not 100-0 someone at 6 with hexdrinker on someone who spent 600 gold on armour. you don't even get enough to buy buy hexdrinker by 6 usually unless you were given firstblood. which means you're snowballing. and have level advantage.

I can see you main ahri (skill matchup for zed) and have been gold for awhile. Maybe evaluate what your doing wrong and try to improve instead of just saying a champ is op because you are dying to it. Zed punishes mistakes which is why low elo hate him.

NineTailedMystic7 votes

I absolutely knew you were going to bring my "rank" into this, even though I've only ever played enough ranked to get to Gold near the end of the season just because you're currently Masters. Not to mention, I never said a word about Ahri.

Also, I never stated that Zed is or was OP. I only said that he can be incredibly oppressive when his early game damage is high enough.

You wanna know what I personally do against Zed as Ahri? I despise laning against him so much I take Exhaust, build Zhonya's first, and often took defensive runes in the old Rune system and I'd probably make a Resolve secondary page nowadays. I would build the tankier AP items like Rylai's with Seraph's active shield and just sit on my ADC like a second Support making sure he never got to do anything. Why? Because laning against Zed is/was so stressful that I'd choke because giving one kill to him meant the lane was over.

I'd rather not relive those horrible days when Zed was incredibly strong early game.

Ahristocats13 votes

who the fuck cares that you hate to play against zed

no one and if you don't have anything to bring up in a discussion about balance don't post in this thread of OP who's talking about balance, you know that posting something unrelated to discussion is punishible right? then don't fcking do it

NineTailedMystic5 votes

I mean, your comment is pretty unrelated as well.

Anyways, I stated my opinion of buffing Zed's base damages being a bad idea and gave my reasons for it. Keyword: Opinion.

Ahristocats5 votes

my post was doomed to be unrelated because it was destined to an unrelated post OP is being bullied by people going "oh fck zed hehehe i hate playing against him" when he never asked shit about people liking to play against zed or not he wrote this thread to make riot realising that the buff he's getting is not good and that zed is going to be unequal to other midlaners

since the begining of this chain of comments you only brought your subjective feeling about zed which is totally not the point of this discussion

NineTailedMystic3 votes

Zed is in an OK spot right now. ~50% WR, 7% PR, (28% BR!) all regions, plat+ according to leagueofgraphs. He's losing damage on one of his core items and getting pre-emptive compensation buffs which is OK. However, he's losing the most damage late game, and the least early game since Duskblade's damage is level scaling. So why is OP asking for base damage buffs when that's an early-mid game buff? Especially when that is the major pain point for playing against him? Even more so when his problem isn't the early game, but dealing with the Tanks and Supports ADCs have with them and getting around them?

Laceration6 votes

Zed's late is shit because of lethality being shit. Base damage buffs opens the doors to other builds since he wont have to rely on duskblade proc to be able to kill a squishy. winrate doesn't actually reflect a balanced champion which is why you can't just say because a champ has a good winrate they are fine and if one has a bad winrate they need help.

MysticDreams125 votes

Seriously? How fucking mean of you.

The guy was posting relative discussion to the thread, he's not in any type of punishment. What is punishable is your comment, as it's unrelatable and offensive.

The Bad Touch5 votes

{quoted}

Not true at all. Zed will not 100-0 someone at 6 with hexdrinker on someone who spent 600 gold on armour. you don't even get enough to buy buy hexdrinker by 6 usually unless you were given firstblood. which means you're snowballing. and have level advantage.

I can see you main ahri (skill matchup for zed) and have been gold for awhile. Maybe evaluate what your doing wrong and try to improve instead of just saying a champ is op because you are dying to it. Zed punishes mistakes which is why low elo hate him.

No he just has enough damaging at 6 WITHOUT items to take you from 70% to dead under tower after his jungle shows up and lazy ganks with just one ability and a blue smite.

The fact that assassins in general are balanced around 100-0'ing ANYONE in that time span is one of leagues issues. Assassins should have the role of mop up, or dropping people that were chunked and escaping. The faceroll your combo to 100-0 anyone that isn't stacking defenses (many can't) has always been kinda shit with league.

Laceration6 votes

I think you're very wrong about assassins, league's issues and most of all zed.

Laceration10 votes

{quoted}

I'd just rather not want to kill myself every time I have to lane against Zed because he's ridiculously oppressive when his poke is strong enough. In addition, when his bases are high enough to be able to reliably rush a Hexdrinker and still threaten a 100-0 at level 6 it makes laning against him as an AP virtually impossible.

First of all, don't get offended. I gave you good advice since you've been gold for like 3 years.

You implied it when you said he's ridiculously oppressive which is completely and utterly false. Ridiculously oppressive is Azir and guess what he just got nerfed lol..

here's some more advice: don't go exhaust since you can't exhaust him from the start of his all in, take barrier and barrier his deathmark. rushing zhonyas is also less efficient than rushing ninja tabi+seekers.

it's funny that zed hasn't been op in over 3 years except for patch 7.2 when they buffed lethality, made it op and nerfed camps like zed, then nerfed lethality.

NineTailedMystic4 votes

Like I said, I play just enough ranked per season to get to gold and that's it. I haven't even played my placements yet this season.

I never implied anything. Ridiculously oppressive in lane doesn't translate to being OP. And Azir being oppressive doesn't justify another champion being oppressive.

I chose Exhaust because it allows me to use it on a teammate, as I don't need Barrier after I finish Zhonya's. I also personally refuse to buy Tabi's on a squishy burst Mage like Ahri as the Mpen is too scarce elsewhere.

Again, not OP. I just fear an oppressive early game, and you should too as that'd lead to astronomical ban rates again.

Sire Hippington3 votes

the damage won't be the same with R, cause R also amps the duskblade so he looses 174 damage on the duskblade proc with ult at 18.

Laceration2 votes

Yeah, you're right. Currently Zed R gives 144 damage from duskblade at lvl 18. (45% of 320 is 144) now it's going to give 90. (45% of 200 is 90) so that's 54 damage lost as well. Just curious, not the best at math. How did you get 174? it just hit me. Yep lol so it's actually 174. i'll change it.

Ifneth5 votes

Good. Now that Zed has more chances to ult during the mid and late game, his all-ins should rely less on inherent parts of his build and more on his having gotten ahead in lane and snowballed the mid-game.

Accordingly, giving him more early game damage should make that more possible. It creates a meaningful win condition for the AP mages he’s usually against.

ValyrianBlade1 votes

You still have the choice to go for either of those items.

For maw, you sacrifice some kill threat to get immunity from your Lane opponent ever threatening you. Why in the world would you think you should get a free Lane and still have kill threat yourself? You're being unreasonable there.

For ghostblade, you're gaining mobility which gives you either safety in Lane or better roaming potential. You're saying "I can't kill my Lane, but I can roam and get bot Lane rolling". Which again is a viable choice, you don't need to one shot their under leveled bot Lane by yourself, you have allies there to help.

Then duskblade obviously is the "I'm going to win my Lane" option.

If anything, choice is currently being crowded out because duskblade makes it too easy for Zed to win his Lane (ESPECIALLY with his recent ult cooldown buff PLUS stopwatch being nerfed to 10 min, which you conveniently forgot to mention). By nerfing duskblade and moving some power to Zed's kit, they're opening up options. They're simultaneously applying a very slight nerf, which is probably warranted (a tank + ADC + loads of shields meta should see Zed weak, and yet as you pointed out he's performing about average).

Not to mention you're comparing only the increased ad ratio to the duskblade nerf. You're conveniently ignoring all the Q poke extra damage, ignoring the better all-in at 6 before you finish duskblade, and even missing the fact that you'll have better waveclear and easier last hitting with better Q damage.

This COULD work out to a net BUFF to Zed, but you're Cherry picking the aspects that make it look like a nerf, and ignoring the recent blatant buffs he got.

Laceration6 votes

There's nobody who builds maw useless you are extremely behind and know that there's** no way**to get a kill against a smart player building against you. what usually happens if lets say you have hexdrinker and fizz has seekers, fizz wins trades because his base damages are better, and you can't really kill him unless he makes a really big mistake. That's just one example but most if not all the matchups are like that because zed's base damages are probably lowest in midlane.

Ghostblade does not grant any safety that's reliable compared to a stopwatch or ninja tabis. There's also no lane matchup that zed can push and roam while he's behind. all mages out push him for the most part if they know how to zone while ahead. So if they aren't ahead that means you're getting duskblade. So you wouldn't even be trying to roam yet anyway. Also, Zed should be able to 2v1 botlane. That's what he used to do for years but when a support janna can shield for 400 damage at lvl 7 it's alittle hard to assassinate.

Duskblade is only the obvious choice because Riot has balanced the ad assassins around that item. If that item didn't exist we would have base damages again. I'm for removing that item and just buffing the champion to have the damage its suppose to give like back in s6 and really early s7.

Yes the choice is always duskblade, why? They put so much of my burst on it that going anything else feels awful.

I didn't talk about his ult cdr buff because it literally does nothing and if you want a good argument about that I can link a video of LS talking about how useless it is. I though it was widely known at this point it was a early April fools joke.

Stopwatch change was merely something that undoing something that should never have been at 6 mins in the first place and zed's problems remain. ( lack of base dmg forces into getting dusk)

Yes, Riot known about these problems and is trying to help zed out, my whole post was that these buffs aren't actually going to do anything, and appear to be more of a NERF than a buff which is the whole point of this.

He only performs average when the support doesn't help the adc. I actually have many many many adc players in d5 on my friend's list who always complain their supports aren't sticking with them. that tells me in low elo it's even worse.

I honestly believe that the winrate is only the zed mains trying to make him work. I think his play rate is 1.1%? us zed mains have always figured out a way to make him work.

10% bonus ad off what item 3134 +item 1036 item 1036 ( probably average zed build by lvl 6 ) that's about 5 more damage on Q, wow big buff really going to shake him up to top tier. (4.5 more damage off of 45 ad if you ignore the rune bonus, with rune bonus it's probably around 8).

ALL i'm trying to point out is the numbers show this is a nerf when riot is trying to buff him and making him** SLIGHTLY**better in lane is not what we need.

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