It's the fact that he's got better harass than many mages on top of that amazing kill potential, and none of it has any long-term cost. Assassins are supposed to be high risk high reward, but Zed can play in an extremely low risk manner without losing much.
EDIT: Wow that's a lot of comments.
Jack º18 voteshis q is annoyingly better poke then most mages... I agree, I feel like they should nerf q but buff e so its more appealing and we aren't just ruining zed
Miraweave50 votes[{quoted}](name=Entropy Aether,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2016-02-24T20:39:04.209+0000)
his q is annoyingly better poke then most mages... I agree, I feel like they should nerf q but buff e so its more appealing and we aren't just ruining zed
What about reducing his Q damage and increasing the reward he gets for hitting multiple Qs on the same target?
It'd keep his all-in about the same, make him a bit less ult reliant, and make his harass a lot worse.
Jack º5 votesthat actually sounds freaking awesome
Miraweave6 votes[{quoted}](name=Entropy Aether,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-24T22:08:46.523+0000)
that actually sounds freaking awesome
Yeah it's my personal favorite idea obviously.
I like that it also makes him play a bit more into his shadow copy theme since it makes multi-hits more important.
slôw8 votesHe needs harass early game to be relevant at all in terms of laning power.
Also, Q does fuck all for damage unless you hit it with first hit
Zed's harass is NOTHING compared to Lulu's, Leblanc's zoning, Ahri's 10x safer harass, and Vlad turning his enemy into a health potion every 5 seconds. Zed neeeeeeeeeds harass to not get zoned harder than a mid lane taric before hes level 6.
Without harass, for Zed to claim enough hold on the lane to break a zone at any point, he needs to WQEAuto, forcing him to ult if he has it or simply lose the trade completely against meta mid lanes as his DPS is bad before ghostblade with long cooldowns and below average attack speed and being melee.
All of Zed's strength in low tiers is harass then doing a badly executed all-in, they scream "SAFE, WHY SO SAFE", because they underestimated Zed and communicate poorly, and learn poorly (thats why they are in low tiers, other than just being really casual which is okay, but then they shouldn't be complaining at all)
In higher tiers, in plat-challenger, the strength comes from the ability to have some safe farming against most match-ups with the ability to all-in pretty much every champion in the game if performed well and catching them off guard. He has very snowbally mid game and is weak to certain items to the degree that he simply cannot even bother attacking someone with zhonyas or qss so he does a good job with comps that have strong snowbally mid games like pantheon, graves, jarvan etc. in trying to end the game quickly, or else he has to solely devote himself to split pushing or bronzie poaching in the jungle to have an impact.
GrReaper9625 votesZed main spotted
KING 5HARK5 votesWho cares? Mind contributing something useful?
Melledoneus6 votesYes. He contributed that the person he was replying to was, in fact, being irrational.
I'll be taking my leave now.
MasterPrankster16 votesI have this bias that all these Zed threads are filled with unintelligent/(ironically) biased ideas that are way out of the water, or just dont have any sort of debate at all and are just complaints.
This idea is actually solid, Nerf harass, Reward geometry more.
This will seperate the OK zeds who harass you and then do a 'meh' ult on you to kill you, from the Zeds who can kill you at full health at level 6 because they know their champions so well that they can do it.
He's a healthy champ for sure, but he's strong in areas that don't need to be strong, like harass. His range makes him enough of a bully, along with his safety, he doesn't need outrageous damage.
Great idea.
-Zed main ;^)
Spicy Rice10 votesAll eye saw was "geometry" 
Mort0r2 votesEye got it
EmollientNut06 votesIt must be nice having Zed's passive, wish I never had to miss a farm too [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]
charcharmunro3 votesEkko's W passive kinda has a similar effect, though not as effective.
Nunya Bezwacks1 votesexcept that its not...ekko's w is a damageless stun,slow and personal shield
charcharmunro3 votesYou know it has a passive effect on it, right?
Dominick Destine11 votesIt's the fact that he's got better harass than many mages on top of that amazing kill potential, and none of it has any long-term cost. Assassins are supposed to be high risk high reward, but Zed can play in an extremely low risk manner without losing much.
100% correct.
I would have phrased it differently but that is the jist of it.... his incredibly easy escape mechanisms, coupled with high base ms, high base stats and brainlessly easy waveclear on a manaless champion with some of the most reliable all-in(s) of the game..... WTF were they thinking?
Zed is my pick for the third worst designed champion after 
and
Miraweave13 votes[{quoted}](name=Dominick Destine,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-02-24T20:54:51.443+0000)
100% correct.
I would have phrased it differently but that is the jist of it.... his incredibly easy escape mechanisms, coupled with high base ms, high base stats and brainlessly easy waveclear on a manaless champion... WTF were they thinking?
Zed is my pick for the third worst designed champion after
Idk if I'd put him on my 'worst designed' list because that's reserved for 
since those champions all either rely on incredibly stupid mechanics or just have no real counterplay and incredibly linear kits.
His design is really cool IMO, it's just not executed well.
Dominick Destine7 votesIdk if I'd put him on my 'worst designed' list because that's reserved for
Kallista's design is fine.
Rengar's design was from another era where champions were far less dynamic and instead were nearly completely linear.
Yasuo is indeed horribly designed.
Warwick is one of the first 40ish champs, they were all horribly designed... he and Taric are the only ones that I think have gone through no real updates so they both stand out ... but for the time, they were fine.
Malz isn't poorly designed. Maybe a little update, but the general theme and mechanics are solid.
has none of those excuses, being newer than most of the champions you mentioned and having had a semi-rework done already. His base stats are some of the highest of any character and his defensive stats are very high for an assassin. He is manaless with brainlessly easy wave-clear and safe assassinations.
There is no metric by which Zed can be considered balanced...he is indefensible, horribly designed, horribly balanced.
Miraweave7 votes[{quoted}](name=Dominick Destine,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=000400000000,timestamp=2016-02-24T21:03:45.032+0000)
Kallista's design is fine.
Rengar's design was from another era where champions were far less dynamic and instead were nearly completely linear.
Yasuo is indeed horribly designed.
Warwick is one of the first 40ish champs, they were all horribly designed... he and Taric are the only ones that I think have gone through no real updates so they both stand out ... but for the time, they were fine.
Malz isn't poorly designed. Maybe a little update, but the general theme and mechanics are solid.
There is no metric by which Zed can be considered balanced...he is indefensible, horribly designed, horribly balanced.
I'm not saying he's balanced, but his core design has reasonable counterplay and an engaging gameplay style. His numbers are off and he needs to be less safe, but you could make him into a totally healthy champion with just number changes.
Kalista's passive is just something that should never have been created. The fact that she's hard to use doesn't change the fact that she's been incredibly good for basically the entire time she's existed purely because of her passive. That level of mobility just shouldn't exist, especially when it makes her virtually immune to melee champions who don't have multiple dashes or targeted cc.
Malzahar's entire gameplay can be summarized by "point mouse at them, press all buttons, they are now dead". He has no counterplay, and if he were any stronger than he is right now he'd be full FOTM and everyone would be complaining. Almost everything that's wrong with Warwick design-wise is also wrong with Malzahar.
Dominick Destine2 votesI'm not saying he's balanced, but his core design has reasonable counterplay
Reasonable counter-play?! he has brainlessly easy/safe, manaless waveclear.
Mage-like poke.
Unparalleled mobility... even doesn't have as much as Zed (with ult).
Kalista's passive is just something that should never have been created. The fact that she's hard to use doesn't change the fact that she's been incredibly good for basically the entire time she's existed purely because of her passive.
"Incredibly good" is somewhat of an overstatement.
Corki/Ezreal/Graves/Kog vastly outperform Kallista in the current era.
That level of mobility just shouldn't exist, especially when it makes her virtually immune to melee champions who don't have multiple dashes or targeted cc.
You mean she's immune to 
and possibly 
? what other melee champs have neither of those?
I can think of one other which is 
.... R-p-s Kallista pretty hard.
Malzahar's entire gameplay can be summarized by "point mouse at them, press all buttons, they are now dead".
Malzahar has multiple skillshots and a semi-charge mechanic.
At least Malzahar needs to consider timing and positioning... can faceroll out of terrible positioning/timing because his kit is so forgiving/massive margin of error on top of being manaless.
He has no counterplay
You serious?
Miraweave7 votes[{quoted}](name=Dominick Destine,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=00040000000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-24T21:46:07.271+0000)
Malzahar has multiple skillshots and a semi-charge mechanic.
The fact that they're skillshots doesn't matter when you're suppressed for 2.5 seconds while he hits you with them.
Dominick Destine12 votesThe fact that they're skillshots doesn't matter when you're suppressed for 2.5 seconds while he hits you with them.
Your Malzahar play must be superb if you can land your Q and W during the R channel.
Miraweave6 votes[{quoted}](name=Dominick Destine,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=0004000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-24T22:18:49.945+0000)
Your Malzahar play must be superb if you can land your Q and W during the R channel.
It's not remotely hard.
You can execute this entire thing in under half a second, and it's even easier with 
which he always builds.
Voluug1321 votesGet in R range
Ah, yes, with his 3 gapclosers and 1500 ult.
Right.
MrWasjig3 votesKallista's design is fine
Having a dash on every, single, autoattack? Something she will be doing all the time as well?
Yeah sounds totally fine :P At least other ADCs with dashes are gated in some way, but Kalista? Nah.
Dominick Destine1 votesHaving a dash on every, single, autoattack?
What's your point?
MrWasjig4 votesWhat's your point?
"other ADCs with dashes are gated in some way"
The point you missed that was sticking it's big fat ass in the air. And you say you don't like explaining the obvious, yet miss it yourself.
Regardless:
Kalista has nothing to gate her dashes, because they are on her auto attacks. As an ADC her primary job is to autoattack incessantly, so she'll never stop dashing.
Again, other ADC have some form of gating be it cooldowns or mana (usually both). Even Lucian's E has a CD at max rank despite being free.
Handin Out Naps8 votesAn eve main talking about worst design, and I thought I saw it all.
Dominick Destine6 votesAn eve main talking about worst design, and I thought I saw it all.
Your Diamond would be more meaningful if you weren't a Zed main, what a joke.
Zed is broken/overpowered.
Nyhver4 votes[{quoted}](name=Dominick Destine,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=000400010000,timestamp=2016-02-24T22:36:01.994+0000)
Your Diamond would be more meaningful if you weren't a Zed main, what a joke.
Zed is broken/overpowered.
It's too bad when I look at your ranked champions played on op.gg I see only one that's mechanically intensive
You shouldn't call people out like that when your champions played take less skill
Dominick Destine5 votesIt's too bad when I look at your ranked champions played on op.gg I see only one that's mechanically intensive
Every single champion I play requires more skill than Zed.
Zed is manaless, braindead easy wave clear, low cd , semi-instant escape mechanism.
Skill is determined by how finely one can cruise the margin of error, when the margin of error is so enormous so as to be almost impossible to eff up, that means the character requires low skill (Ex: etc.)
You shouldn't call people out like that when your champions played take less skill
I checked your stats... you're a BRONZE ZED PLAYER and yet you're talking trash. What else do I need to say?
Lol.
im tilt7 votesZed and Lee 'low skill' , now thats something I thought id never see, even if zed is pretty strong, neither zed nor lee are 'low skill'. Braindead easy wave clear, lol since when is wave clear supposed to require mechanical skill?
Handin Out Naps6 votesIts hard to take him seriously, there is a reason he is seen as the biggest joke on the boards. All we can do is hope he is a troll and move on.
Dessem2 votessince when is wave clear supposed to require mechanical skill?
Well, if you're Vayne...
Nyhver5 votes[{quoted}](name=Dominick Destine,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=00040001000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-24T22:53:22.037+0000)
Every single champion I play requires more skill than Zed.
Zed is manaless, braindead easy wave clear, low cd , semi-instant escape mechanism.
Skill is determined by how finely one can cruise the margin of error, when the margin of error is so enormous so as to be almost impossible to eff up, that means the character requires low skill (Ex:
I checked your stats... you're a BRONZE ZED PLAYER and yet you're talking trash. What else do I need to say?
Lol.
I just started playing ranked again
If you think zed lee sin yasuo are low skill you have no idea wtf you're talking about
Sad thing you are part of what represents our higher MMR as a region
Also one of the zed videos I released got ripped by a Korean youtube account that mainly took videos from korea, he watermarked my video as if he was the one responsible for the video
Can you say that? You probably play mediocre, but keep thinking having less means you're more skilled you straight numbers guy
Dominick Destine2 votesI just started playing ranked again If you think zed lee sin yasuo are low skill you have no idea wtf you're talking about
You're a bronze Zed player. You want to say that I don't know what I'm talking about? heh...
Nyhver5 votes[{quoted}](name=Dominick Destine,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=0004000100000000000000010000,timestamp=2016-02-24T23:51:16.802+0000)
You're a bronze Zed player. You want to say that I don't know what I'm talking about? heh...
I'm less of a bronze player than you are a gold 1 player
Think before you speak
I probably play better than you, too, even though I'm out of the meta and rusty, so me being bronze and playing better than you would actually be a bad thing
It's pretty obvious you don't know what you're talking about, though, when you make statements such as "zed yasuo lee sin take 0 skill" "having 0 abilities makes it more skillful"
I mean that's the reality, but your warped vision of reality is really distorted and should be corrected asap
Dominick Destine4 votesI probably play better than you, too
I'm sure most Bronze players think they are superior to Platinum players.
Heh.
Nyhver10 votes[{quoted}](name=Dominick Destine,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Gs0P6LYb,comment-id=000400010000000000000001000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-25T00:01:51.741+0000)
I'm sure most Bronze players think they are superior to Platinum players.
Heh.
Even if they do, it doesn't disprove any of what I said
You're a good testament to our ladder being worse than it is
ecks dee
Keep on being objectively right, though "zed is a terrible design with no balance and no counterplay"
no bias or hatred there
xD
Handin Out Naps9 votesEvery time I read something you comment I just feel like you are a silver level player, now I take a look at your account and lookie lookie you are stuck in plat 4. All that constant shit talk about you being diamond, and here you are unable to climb. Not sure who is the joke here. Complaining about Zed, maybe you are better off practicing a little longer in plat before you come back to diamond, after all that 46% win ratio out of 200 games in low plat talks for itself.
I also find it funny that you completely avoid what I am talking about and try to jump on my rank even though it isn't helping you prove a point. Talking about Zed having a terribly designed kit while maining the abomination that is Eve, k.
Dominick Destine3 votesEvery time I read something you comment I just feel like you are a silver level player
Your emotions mean nothing to me and are not an argument.
now I take a look at your account and lookie lookie you are stuck in plat 4. All that constant shit talk about you being diamond, and here you are unable to climb.
"Stuck"? I was Diamond last season and I will be Diamond this season again.
You can pretend like we are not in feb. but reality will once again deflate your already flaccid argument.
Talking about Zed having a terribly designed kit while maining the abomination that is Eve, k.
That coming from a Zed main is rich.
Playing the most overpowered champion in the game lends you no credence.
Handin Out Naps8 votesOh yeah i said stuck, my bad I meant falling, forgot about the negative winrate. Anyway I've seen you argue on the boards and I know you are a waste of time. Have a nice day : ^).
Dominick Destine2 votesWhen I hit Diamond, I'll be sure to remember the Zed main that whined about me calling his op champ out, np.
AkaliLouanlavong5 votesDude, you're embarrassing yourself.
Dominick Destine3 votesI have no fear or worry of what bronzies think.
Ackelope5 votesYou use that term to justify things you say more often than you should, demeaning someone as a 'bronzie' isn't really the best plan, we're all human beings here (as far as I know) and you being a higher rank than someone doesn't mean you can be an asshole and not be called out for it.
Dominick Destine2 voteswe're all human beings
Strawman argument/red herring.
I never stated otherwise, I was using a different metric called "brackets" or "rank". Nice try though.
MrWasjig4 votesStrawman argument/red herring.
No it wasn't. Because who's behind those ranks and brackets? Humans. Nice try though [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]
Dominick Destine1 votesBecause who's behind those ranks and brackets? Humans.
And what is inside those humans? Lungs. Therefore we are talking about lungs.
Your argument is garbage, but once again, good strawman/red herring.
