Ok, salt aside, Zed took a pretty big hit. just hear me out.

So, pbe got the preseason patch. I was worried about what they'd do to zed and, sadly, i was right to worry.

So, what has happened. Q base damage is the same but the scaling dropped W passive AD is removed, but now it gives you slightly more energy if you hit a double ability. E base damage appears to be increased by 10 but the scaling appears to have also gone down, no exact numbers are out yet And, finally, his ult. People think it's a buff, but it is a huge nerf. Why? Well, to begin with, the % is less. But the real trouble is that the % is applied to your target's AD, not what you build. As zed, you build heavy AD but as anyone else, if you are not another AD assassin, you will build a mix between AD, AS, Crit and on-hit effects, some champions only focus on On-hit effects, not AD, like Kog'Maw.

The fact that your power as an assassin depends on what offence your enemy is building, and not their defence, makes the game very toxic for zed. There are some people, myself included, that really enjoy Zed and how he works, and we play him a lot, not because he fits or doesn't fit a comp, but because we enjoy playing him. So, now, unlike the rest of assassin champions, Zed is even more unreliable, and his power now depends on the enemy team comp more than ever before.

Also, the AD given, will be outscaled by your current W as soon as you hit lvl14, because, as Zed, you build AD, while your enemies might not even build AD at all. What then? why does Zed have to rely on what his enemies build to attack and not to defend? Why aren't my enemy's defensive stats enough for me to plan my build and attack, why should i worry about them being also strong in AD in order to have my champion get useful stats?

Zed as a champion has seen a lot of hate by the community and also has seen a lot of misshandling by riot. Why? Let me explain

In the preseason6 Zed's W was buffed. A buff noone asked for and honestly, we didn't need it. Later on, on the next patch, his ult got buffed to an absurd amount of 30/40/50% from 20/35/50%, making him broken as hell. Also a buff we didn't ask. Combine this with the absurd amount of AD and flat armor pen that Riot brought into the game and you have a zed dominating everything. Then, Duskblade came out and Zed was nerfed for it. Ult went down to 25/35/45%, still stronger than his old lvl6. Later on, his W was nerfed, CD went up and AD went down and the Q changed into doing less damage if you only hit one but more if you hit all of them. The Q change was more than welcome, it would separate the good zeds from the bad. The W cd increase was not so bad, personaly i didn't even feel it. But the AD nerf... That hurt. Not only did they lower the % but also changed the way it worked.

Zed's problem was his early game but they instead nerfed his late. The root of the problem? Unneeded buffs at the start of the season and the abundance of AD and flat armor pen that Riot gave us. And now, instead of reversing it, Riot makes it even worse. They removed flat armor pen, give a new stat, and at the same time keep the AD on items as is. At the same time they nerf Zed.

People, the changes they made to Zed are bad. Don't be hateful. They gutted him. All they needed to do for zed was to revert his kit to what it was back in season 5, with the old W and ult damage, but keep the Q changes. The only good thing that happened to zed this season was this Q changes.

That's all i had to say. Zed suffered enough from Riot's balance team, don't hate anymore. Have a good day.