This is how you nerf Zed and balance him without making him unplayable

Zed is an assassin and should have clear strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths:

1. High all-in potential and top-tier burst damage.
2. High ability to destroy turrets with alled minions in a split push scenario.
3. Strong ability to duel 1v1 and 2v2 against enemy champions.
4. Ability to quickly regenerate his resources after using his abilities.

Weaknesses:

1. Weak ability to farm in lane when under pressure.
2. Weak teamfighting 5v5.
3. Can be easily punished if out of position.
4. Low ability to clear waves if being sieged down.

Zed has the strengths with none of the weaknesses. He can all-in and burst people down, split push and duel. He's an Energy champion so he never has to recall for mana or rely on blue buff. He can easily farm, either with Razor Shuriken or by using his passive under turret. He still deals high damage in a 5v5 teamfight scenario. He has multiple escapes and jukes, making him nearly impossible to lock down. He has strong waveclear and can keep minions off his own tower easily with his combos.

I created this rework/nerf in another thread as a way to balance Zed, but I think it deserves its own thread. I've outlined all the changes I'm making. Most of these give him clear weaknesses and open him up to more and more effective counterplay options.

Innate -- Contempt for the Weak: Zed's basic attacks against targets below 50% health deal 6%-10% of the target's maximum health as bonus physical damage. This effect can only occur once every 10 seconds against the same target.

Q -- Razor Shuriken: Zed throws his spinning blades forward, dealing 75/115/155/195/235 (+100% Bonus AD) physical damage to the first enemy and 60% damage to enemies thereafter.

Range: 900 800 Cooldown: 6 Energy Cost: 75/70/65/60/55 75 Energy

W -- Living Shadow:

Passive: Zed gains 4%/8%/12%/16%/20% Bonus Attack Damage.

First Cast: Zed's shadow dashes forward,** Zed projects his shadow forward**, remaining in place for 4 seconds. His shadows mimic his basic abilities at 50% effectiveness. If Zed strikes the same target with both portions of a basic ability, he restores 20/25/30/35/40 Energy.

Second Cast: Zed blinks to his shadow's location, swapping places with it. Zed must be within a certain range to use this ability.

Range: 700 Missile Speed: 1750 Cost: 40/35/30/25/20 Energy Cooldown: 22/20/18/16/14

E -- Shadow Slash: Zed spins his blades, dealing 60/90/120/150/180 (+80% 75% bonus AD) physical damage to enemies around him and reducing Living Shadow's cooldown by 2 seconds for every champion hit.

Range: 290 Cost: 50 Energy Cooldown: 4

R -- Death Mark: Zed becomes untargetable for 0.75 0.5 seconds and dashes behind the target enemy champion. Upon arrival, he ghosts for 3 seconds and applies a Death Mark to them, spawning a shadow at the cast location that lasts for 6 4 seconds. After 0.5 1 second, Death Mark can be reactivated.

The Death Mark debuff stores 25%/35%/45% of all physical and magic damage Zed deals to the target while marked. After 3 seconds, the Death Mark detonates, dealing the stored damage to the target +100% of Zed's Bonus Attack Damage.

Second Cast: Zed swaps places with his Death Mark shadow. This consumes all other shadows.

This is the kind of nerf we want. Entries in strikethrough are removed from the original. Entries in bold are new. An entry with a strikethrough next to a bold is where the strikethrough was changed to the bold.

This is the kind of nerf that hits him where he needs hit. A summary:

1. Contempt for the Weak now deals physical damage instead of magic damage. This makes the effect of itemizing Armor against Zed stronger.

2. Contempt for the Weak on-target cooldown is now a full cooldown. This will reduce Zed's ability to farm under tower, making pushing him into his tower an effective way of keeping his farm low.

3. Reduced the range on Razor Shuriken.

4. Razor Shuriken now keeps its full Energy cost at higher ranks.

These changes should reduce Zed's ability to poke and farm with Razor Shuriken, forcing him into melee with the minions more often so he can be poked down in lane.

5. Living Shadow is now a projectile. This allows projectile mitigation to destroy (in Yasuo's case) or block (in Braum's case) Zed's shadow, affecting his ability to get into fights and allowing Yasuo and Braum to be counter picks to Zed.

6. Reworked how abilities interact with Living Shadow (not really a nerf or a buff).

7. Shadow Slash no longer reduces the cooldown of Living Shadow. This should make Zed easier to lock down and less mobile.

8. The AD ratio of Shadow Slash was reduced by 5% of bonus AD. This will reduce his ability to deal high damage to more than one target at a time.

9)Death Mark's untargetable duration is reduced from 0.75 seconds to 1 second. 10) Zed has to wait longer after using Death Mark to swap back to the Death Mark shadow (1 second, up from 0.5). 11) Zed has 4 seconds to swap back to Death Mark shadow, down from 6.

These changes are to make Zed more able to be locked down, hitting his safety.

12. Death Mark only amplifies physical damage Zed deals and no longer affects any magic damage he deals. (This is only as a result of the change to Contempt for the Weak)

13. Swapping back to Death Mark's shadow consumes any active shadows on the battlefield. This will reduce Zed's impact on a teamfight after he has used Death Mark.