Zoe has to be the most busted concept I've ever seen...

[{quoted}](name=Annie x Zoe Yuri,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=GIRmdvyn,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-05-21T20:39:14.376+0000)

I main Zoe and even I agree her design is terribly flawed but not because she's OP. Zoe has been hit with a lot of nerfs and they have toned her down from when she was on launch. But her design (Like all CertailyToxic champs) is still really bad.

Zoe's Q doing a shit ton of damage does make sense because out of 4 abilities on her it only 2 of them actually have damage she has control over, her Q and her E. Zoe's W requires a spell shard to be picked up and without one its just a useless skill that cant be used so alot of that time that skill may not even be usable because of bad RNG. Her R does not do any damage at all.

So surprisingly the kit to me is fine and I don;t have a problem with it. what I do have a problem with is how up an down her flow in the game is.

Zoe is one of those champions where she gets ahead and does really good or falls behind and is useless all game, much like Yasuo in that sense. If Zoe falls behind her farming and waves clear are just so terrible that even if she has an entire lane dedicate to herself for just farming to catch up, she simply won't. Her laning phase I find is also very weak because how bad she is at farming, essentially i find any opponent who plays the range game or plays cautiously will get ahead if her. Bringing a tank mid lane vs her, like Cho or Gragas or even Swain also make laning for her a total nightmare because they can't be poked down with auto's as easily.

But when Zoe gets ahead, she gets so far ahead that she's pretty much one-shotting entire teams. She might have a poor laning phase but if she does come out of it ahead then its a total nightmare for the other members of your team, she doesn't need to one shot your teammates it's the overall damage she does when she's ahead that makes her scary. If she starts to roman and lands even one Q on your top or bot lane. Thats it, half of their HP is gone and that lane now has to make an emergency adjustment from playing aggressively to playing defensively. Her massive power spike allows her to change the flow of another lane so easily its frustrating not just for you but for everyone on your team, that power spike only gets larger and large the more assist and kills she gets from doing this (Can you imagine her ganking for pyke? full kill gold just for landing a Q). In team fights, all she has to do is catch a squishy with her bubble and land a Q and if that person doesn't die right away then they have to back. She knocks doer enemies like bowling ins one at a time.

What's frustrating to me, and most likely others is that with Zoe, again much like Yasuo, there is no in-between, she's either a stomp or be stomped champion and its frustrating for everyone. Its not her kit i find the problem, it's her flow in the game which is really out of balance and whack, this is typical for CertainlyToxic. I want Zoe to be one of those champions which can just be used for casual fun but she's not, she's a stomp or be stomped champion and it sucks.

That's just bad champ design.

I think its got something to do with how they decided to design her W and the interaction between Q and E and how THAT puts her in the game

Bascially Zoe is a Mage Assassin/Slayer

"Slayers are highly mobile champions specializing in single-target burst damage. What they generally lack in resilience, they more than make up for in their potential to cover large distances, quickly kill priority targets and retreat just as fast. Epitomizing a high-risk, high-reward playstyle, assassins are natural opportunists, and prefer to strike when their targets are alone and vulnerable, rather than engage them in a direct assault, favoring damage-oriented item builds to capitalize the most on their offensive capabilities. While particularly effective against softer (or squishy) targets, especially mages and marksmen, slayers often struggle against the heightened defenses of fighters and tanks."

sound like Zoe?

how about this?

"Assassins specialize in infiltrating enemy lines with their unrivaled mobility to quickly dispatch high-priority targets."

The problem is that Zoe has Assassin lvl burst, dmg and pick potential, but she also has decent range which most Assassins lack. She's even got more range than LeBlanc whose known as a burst mage assassin if not THE mage assassin. She also has hard CC that has no delay on cast except for travel time.

Most assassins don't have HARD CC, or any at all for that matter, because its a balance check. 5 of them do, 6 if you count LeBlanc. But all of them are either extremely telegraphed and give the enemy player plenty of information and time that CC is headed their way if they don't react or they take a lot of time and strategy for the Assassin to set it up correctly to catch their prey.

Zoe's E isn't slow, it doesn't have a lenghty cast time, its like any other Mage CC ability.

The issue is that Assassins don't get CC on command like Zoe does, and for all that she's got going for her in terms of Assassin strengths and the advantage of range, I'd say having any quick casting CC that lasts a total of 4.2 sec is just too much, and it really feeds into what makes her SO unfun to play against

it would be better if they either gave it a longer cast time or decreased the missle speed, cause its essentially a Morgana Q, that hurts more.

Additionally Zoe lacks counterplay in that there could be more things that enemies should be able to do against her. And keep in mind if you reduce strengths in one area to can improve them in another. Enemies should be able to deny Zoe the minion shards in some way, like standing on them for 2 sec, like for Bard's W's or Poppies shield or Zyra's plant seeds.

If they would get rid of the RNG minion balloons they could rationally increase the rate of occurrence since it would only give her the base spell and there wouldn't be a chance of some active coming down lane too often. Then they could also increase the strength of W since its more reliable, and enemies can deny it, and thus they can pull power out of Q.

[{quoted}](name=Annie x Zoe Yuri,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=GIRmdvyn,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-05-21T20:39:14.376+0000)

Lolicon much?

Zoe is one of those champions where she gets ahead and does really good or falls behind and is useless all game, much like Yasuo in that sense.

Yasuo dont falls behind. Thanks to his build and kit his capabilities just increase as the game progress. If he is not lock down with CC and dealt with, he can Stomp any team even with a bad matchup or\and poor laning phase; in late game. He is still efficient.

Zoe is more dependent on her ability to power spike faster than their enemies to be effective. She is not as busted as Yasuo. No other champion in this game is more busted than Yasuo. I can say for 100% certain that the frustration the this one champion brings to the game is the final straw for many players that quit the game everyday.

He is an Icon for Riot and he will be 1 of the causes for Riot bankruptcy... in the future ofc.

ps: I'm not hating on the champion. Just pointing that of all 140 champions available, he is the the most easy, fun (for the player), effective, and adaptable (to situations). There is no downfall on playing him. Low risk high rewards. Everyone with some intelligence should main him. There is no champion that it's worth more of your time than him.... ofc all my personal opinion.

Inability to dodge a point blank bubble when trying to trade damage against her? Wow yeah, it sure is peoples' fault that they let Zoe do that!

"we don't like it when a champ punishes inability, so we nerf them into the ground" - this is a terrible misrepresentation of the opinions of people who advocate against Zoe.