If he's too far away from his shadows, they disappear, or disappear more quickly under turret range? If you're not going to nerf his damages, at least nerf his frickin' zoning. This way he can't just dive 2000 units away and get back to his starting position, either.
He already has clear for an assassin.
Dominick Destine146 votesThat would be fair and reasonable.
Therefore it will never happen.
BlueBonquet15 votes[zombie-nunu-bummed] Riot.
3ofGot40ve24 votesRiot's new Balance policy:
No balancing.
Whut Thuh 6 votesRiot Balance policy:
Here at Riot Games, we show extreme favoritism to any and all champions that look difficult on paper and see heavy play in the lcs. because of this champions like zed lee sin and ahri well never fall out of play if they removed every ad item in the game they would change zed and lee sin to ap champions and leave every other ad champion unplayable. we feel that this will increase overall player experience and make everyone happy. oh ahri will also be recieving 2.0 ap scalings on her q and w
RiotZenonTheStoic85 votesAs the person who made the call to seriously shorten (divided by 4, if memory serves) Azir soldiers' lifetime under tower, I'm not sure Zed shadow should get a similar treatment.
Azir can easily get a 100% uptime on his soldiers, meaning he can make the tower not a safe zone for you at all. If we changed nothing about this behavior, Azir would push you in and then force you to back off behind your tower, outside of CS range. We tested this. It was not fun. Zed, by contrast, already has windows around his shadows. I feel it's okay to violate a core gameplay rule like "towers are safe zones" for short windows, but not permanently. If anything, my Azir mechanic brought him closer to Zed.
As for distance, the same thing applies. Azir can always have a soldier or two out, and he can move them around as well. It becomes very easy for him to be a screen or two away from his soldiers. At this point even if the soldiers aren't active, they still represent a gameplay element the enemy has to pay attention to (because they COULD become active again at any moment). At some point you have to cut off how much of an attention drain you can be on the enemy. Again, Zed's shadows are windowed plus they can't move and Zed's mobility is intimately tied to them (so he can't move away from them). As a result, Zed doesn't really get to go super far from his shadows. I would also say that the coolest Zed plays I've seen were made possible by the Zed player displaying an astonishing spatial awareness for where his shadows were and what was going on around them. I think that's the kind of play we should reward.
I think 4s of uptime every 18-14s can't really qualify as zoning, especially since putting his shadow out into an aggressive position means Zed gives up his escape. You're not wrong: playing against a good Zed is super frustrating, but that's the nature of assassins. As long as we communicate their windows of weakness clearly enough, your play should be to pounce on him when he's weak (i.e. when he's wasted his W looking for poke).
Angry Monster27 votesuntil you realize that every item zed builds gives CDR now.
I think 4s of uptime every 18-14s can't really qualify as zoning
which makes this statement not valid. Cause his cast times are quickly lower. It is harder to now build CDR on mages than AD assassins. With CDR zed W is on a 8.4 cool down., the shadows are up as much as they are down.
Akali is SO HOT41 votesToday I learned that Zed maxes W first and starts the game off with max CDR.
Nefas62 votesThat's the thing about Zed's poke though, if he is using his W for poke he is pretty far away. How is it a window of weakness when he can poke and stay safe? Playing against a good Zed isn't super frustrating because that's the nature of assassins. It's because he has resource less, safe, powerful poke. Assassins shouldn't be lane bullies early on.
I think Zed would be a lot healthier if he had to land both his and his shadow's abilities at the same time to do lots of poke damage. That forces him to get closer and not throw a max range shadow max range shuriken. It's also thematically a lot stronger.
shteeeb21 votesAssassins shouldn't be lane bullies early on.
lol
Steelflame14 votesAt least with LB, you can use hard waveclear to force shove her in, which means she has a horrid time trying to farm. Zed laughs as his passive makes CSing nearly impossible to fail while having great waveclear, nearly to the point of being able to, if not 1 shot waves, leave them all a single AA from death.
Captain Aishi11 votesI always say they should make zed's Q a nuke that stops at the first enemy unit hit, instead of being pass-through and then make multiple hits from his Q and shadows deal AMPLIFIED damage instead of reduced when they hit the same target, would fit in more with his assassin theme, reduce his lane safety while increasing his assassination potential when played well
SnugglePuggle946 votesWell you didn't make people any happier with that answer. Zed should get the Azir treatment and his damage nerfed.
Ferus and Ferrum5 votesI love when people want a champ absolutely dumpstered with absurd nerfs as it shows their lack of understanding of the champion. His answer wasn't to make people "happier". It was to let them why certain decision are being made and why two champions have different mechanics. Azir is a long range siege/dps mage who uses soldiers to extend his auto attack damage with any amount of utility that can change depending on his utility. Zeds shadow doesn't auto you, has no potential to move, doesn't work on a charge system, serves as his escape and engage, and has a much longer cooldown early where the most cdr you can have is 20% and I have to run very specialized runes and masteries to achieve that instead of armorpen attackspeed attack damage or magic resist, and since mismanaging spells can leave you with no energy to harass cdr isn't even that great early.
Azir is in a poor spot and needs SLIGHT buffs.
Zed is a melee champ
Qss is 1250 gold (cheaper than a bf sword and a large rod)
champ is item dependent af
champ cant dive teamfighting tanks/ countered by hard initiators like malphite,zac, Leona
Current Itemization sucks 
tl:dr If you're getting outplayed, get better instead of making ridiculous suggestion for nerfs that would literally make the champion useless.
SnugglePuggle943 votesWhy don't you learn not to be rude and assume we don't know how to handle Zed? I understand him pretty well, mind you. QSS is a magic resist item that does nothing against him besides the active as he is AD. For us to get Zhonya's we have to get 3500 gold when he can get a Hexdrinker before we can get a Seeker, providing that he pushed us out of farm efficiently.
I know how the Red responded. He still didn't make people happy. A lot want Zed nerfed, because he needs it. Maybe not these kind of nerfs, but at least something (and his pop damage on his ult right now is not anywhere close to what he needs).
Don't just assume things and be rude to others. A lot of us can handle Zed and outplay him, but it still doesn't change the fact that he is overpowered and a big nuisance to play against.
EROTIC RAID BOSS3 votesHow do you guys feel about azir right now anyway?
I ask because there was talk at one point of reworking him, before the changes that have made him easier to play (to his drifting and being able to attack move, ty for that). Tbh I wouldn't really want a rework I like his current playstyle.
I also ask because while he's a easier to play his win rate for most players is still very low (last or second to last mid) and he's not being picked by pros anymore either. Idk that he needs buffs but I was wondering what your thoughts were
blfUvZ8Ybu7 votesAs the person who made the call to seriously shorten (divided by 4, if memory serves) Azir soldiers' lifetime under tower, I'm not sure Zed shadow should get a similar treatment.
Azir can easily get a 100% uptime on his soldiers, meaning he can make the tower not a safe zone for you at all. If we changed nothing about this behavior, Azir would push you in and then force you to back off behind your tower, outside of CS range. We tested this. It was not fun. Zed, by contrast, already has windows around his shadows. I feel it's okay to violate a core gameplay rule like "towers are safe zones" for short windows, but not permanently. If anything, my Azir mechanic brought him closer to Zed.
As for distance, the same thing applies. Azir can always have a soldier or two out, and he can move them around as well. It becomes very easy for him to be a screen or two away from his soldiers. At this point even if the soldiers aren't active, they still represent a gameplay element the enemy has to pay attention to (because they COULD become active again at any moment). At some point you have to cut off how much of an attention drain you can be on the enemy. Again, Zed's shadows are windowed plus they can't move and Zed's mobility is intimately tied to them (so he can't move away from them). As a result, Zed doesn't really get to go super far from his shadows. I would also say that the coolest Zed plays I've seen were made possible by the Zed player displaying an astonishing spatial awareness for where his shadows were and what was going on around them. I think that's the kind of play we should reward.
I think 4s of uptime every 18-14s can't really qualify as zoning, especially since putting his shadow out into an aggressive position means Zed gives up his escape. You're not wrong: playing against a good Zed is super frustrating, but that's the nature of assassins. As long as we communicate their windows of weakness clearly enough, your play should be to pounce on him when he's weak (i.e. when he's wasted his W looking for poke).
Both high skill champions but Zed has 52% win rate Azir has 44%.Nice balance.Nice balance team.Nice Zed nerfs.
yoniame4 votesi played Zed and he needs 2/10 skill, his double gapcloser just makes it too easy for him to earn kills
Keevalroy22 votesAs the person who made the call to seriously shorten (divided by 4, if memory serves) Azir soldiers' lifetime under tower, I'm not sure Zed shadow should get a similar treatment.
It's because he's Zed and he's supposedly healthy because Rito knows best. We get it.
Azir can easily get a 100% uptime on his soldiers, meaning he can make the tower not a safe zone for you at all. If we changed nothing about this behavior, Azir would push you in and then force you to back off behind your tower, outside of CS range. We tested this. It was not fun. Zed, by contrast, already has windows around his shadows. I feel it's okay to violate a core gameplay rule like "towers are safe zones" for short windows, but not permanently. If anything, my Azir mechanic brought him closer to Zed.
Azir can have 100% uptime, however, unlike Zed, and I want to stress this: AZIR USES MANA! This means if he's spamming, he's burning through his means of damage and escape. Eventually it will stop, and he'll need to back off or at least slow down. This doesn't matter for Zed since he has energy. You tested this kind of zoning with Azir and thought it was unfun...but you look at Zed and say he's fine...what?
It's because he's Zed and he's supposedly healthy because Rito knows best.
Oh wait, that's right.
Again, Zed's shadows are windowed plus they can't move and Zed's mobility is intimately tied to them (so he can't move away from them). As a result, Zed doesn't really get to go super far from his shadows.
Is that why he can teleport from more than a screen away if something goes wrong thanks to his "oops" buttons? Additional thought there, I thought assassins were supposed to be risky..."oops" buttons aren't anything unsafe and exist for no reason other than to provide safety for a class meant to be unsafe.
You're not wrong: playing against a good Zed is super frustrating, but that's the nature of assassins.
Stop. Playing against an assassin - a TRUE assassin - is frustrating, but I can respect it for the playstyle. Zed is not a true assassin since he violates the qualifications that the class has. He has safe zoning farm, easy wave clear, easy escapes, oops buttons, and he even has a free execute passive just because he might have a hard time killing 90% of the minions in lane.
To top it all off, despite Riot admitting DFG was providing unhealthy gameplay, you're steamrolling ahead with Duskblade, reasoning being the exact reason DFG was removed, which will make Zed even stronger. Your favoritism is nothing short of repulsive.
EROTIC RAID BOSS5 votesTbh I respect zed more than like talon. But he is frustrating
Cosnirak4 votesThe threat of him losing safety when he puts his W under enemy turret only really works at higher elos, when the other team's jungler's position isn't known, in the first half of the game, if the enemy laner and jungler have enough hp to survive the 2v1... So almost never.
"You're not wrong: playing against a good Zed is super frustrating, but that's the nature of assassins."
Except that there are a bunch of assassins for whom that isn't the case pre lvl 6, unlike Zed... In my opinion it's also a general failure by Riot when it comes to how assassins work.
Blumpkin Nation6 votesI agree with all of your points. Just not about Zed. I think his gameplay is cool and unique and can be really 'pretty' to pull off. But the fact is he has an ult that makes his entire kit a frustrating experience.
Every assassin has a mechanism that allows them to get into combat or get out. But the difference between them and Zed is that Zed can get in and out flawlessly unless you focus 100% of your CC at the exact moment. The reason why Zed is so strong is because we don't have any targeted CC to help lock him down. instead people are forced to use all their resources fighting him and then you have to deal with the rest of his team.
I honestly think he needs a lot more risk in his play. Otherwise, please. Please. Just remove the passive bonus AD he gets. That is the stupidest, laziest design added to an assassin. That's what allows him to farm so well despite being basically resourceless.
Blumpkin Nation3 votesZenonTheStoic Also. Thank you for taking part in the conversation and offering your opinion. I love that you're involved. <3
Starlighte6 votesAs the person who made the call to seriously shorten (divided by 4, if memory serves) Azir soldiers' lifetime under tower, I'm not sure Zed shadow should get a similar treatment.
Azir can easily get a 100% uptime on his soldiers, meaning he can make the tower not a safe zone for you at all. If we changed nothing about this behavior, Azir would push you in and then force you to back off behind your tower, outside of CS range. We tested this. It was not fun. Zed, by contrast, already has windows around his shadows. I feel it's okay to violate a core gameplay rule like "towers are safe zones" for short windows, but not permanently. If anything, my Azir mechanic brought him closer to Zed.
As for distance, the same thing applies. Azir can always have a soldier or two out, and he can move them around as well. It becomes very easy for him to be a screen or two away from his soldiers. At this point even if the soldiers aren't active, they still represent a gameplay element the enemy has to pay attention to (because they COULD become active again at any moment). At some point you have to cut off how much of an attention drain you can be on the enemy. Again, Zed's shadows are windowed plus they can't move and Zed's mobility is intimately tied to them (so he can't move away from them). As a result, Zed doesn't really get to go super far from his shadows. I would also say that the coolest Zed plays I've seen were made possible by the Zed player displaying an astonishing spatial awareness for where his shadows were and what was going on around them. I think that's the kind of play we should reward.
I think 4s of uptime every 18-14s can't really qualify as zoning, especially since putting his shadow out into an aggressive position means Zed gives up his escape. You're not wrong: playing against a good Zed is super frustrating, but that's the nature of assassins. As long as we communicate their windows of weakness clearly enough, your play should be to pounce on him when he's weak (i.e. when he's wasted his W looking for poke).
But that is suggesting that Zed has "windows of weakness" when in reality, he is a split-pushing, ranged farming, all-in assassin, with potentially 3 instant blinks, and no need to actually stick on an enemy and "kill" them, because once they're marked by the ult and enough damage is done, you can walk away and forget in many circumstances. Oh, did i mention he makes use of lifesteal, and Energy, and has good ratios, and has been in a state of always on the strong side since nearly release?
All that being said, Zed has massive strengths and there is little opportunity to outplay him. He has a similar problem as Yasuo, even if you play perfectly, he has so few weaknesses that you very well may not be able to do anything about him anyways, even if you do buy items like Zhonya's or QSS (but hasn't Riot been in the mindset for many seasons at this point that counterplay should be on an individual skill level, not a stat/item check?)
This may not be the best way to curb some of Zed's strengths (which should be weaknesses) but I think it is highly inappropriate to consider Zed as a champion with "windows of weakness"
Hellioning5 votesShouldn't it be the nature of any class that playing against a good member of that class should be frustrating? Why are assassins different?
SuicideJ3 votesThis is why we need a tank meta, oh wait.. the assassins complained about it so you took it away.. I love the irony of the assassins finding the tanks to be frustrating..
AMYS GRAVE2 votesThe tank meta was the most diverse meta we had ever seen. More champions saw pro play in the three-four patches after cinderhulk than ever. When tanks are strong squishies can get the protection they need to be played. Not every champion has to be whole in themselves, teamwork is important in a team based game.
Xenos111118 votesIf you consider "towers are safe zones" a 'core gameplay rule' then could you please buff them a bit? :/
HigeR3 votessadly that's the nature of Zed but not of all assassins, because when given the fact that you have a lot of skill with Zed, you probably can play any assassin out there but you pick Zed because his dmg output exceeds that of other assassins, not because you like being a shadowy ninja.
Zed has the fastest, strongest and safest execute out of all the assassin rooster
? Zed can do everything Talon can but better
? same deal, Akali has nothing going on for her that tops Zed
? mobility? really? last time I checked Zed uses Energy, so no cost > cost
? similar in skill floor but gated by casting times (waiting for the hologram to get in place) he's way more predictable than Zed
? the only one that can compare in slipperiness, still, she falls late, hard.
? good luck getting out from an all-in alive.
? are you kidding?
? same weaknesses than Zed but punished harder by them, for some reason she's not played enough either.
manliestdino1 votesTalon can one shot squishies much, much faster than Zed could ever hope unless he's massively ahead. Akali can also do the same thing as Talon, with a harder laning phase but better snowball potential. Kassadin is much more mobile than Zed. A 2 second blink at level 16 proves that, and Zed can only get 8.4 seconds with 40% CDR. Ekko has much more upfront burst, with more utility, at the cost of delays and timing. Leblanc is much better than Zed in late game teamfights. Diana is more of an ap bruiser, and she can buy Zhonyas to survive and has shields. Evelynn has a much higher potential to snowball the early game, and left weak by Riot intentionally with her stealth. Katarina has way more AOE damage and can clean up extremely well.
Skias2 votesTalon can one shot squishies much, much faster than Zed could ever hope unless he's massively ahead. Akali can also do the same thing as Talon, with a harder laning phase but better snowball potential. Kassadin is much more mobile than Zed. A 2 second blink at level 16 proves that, and Zed can only get 8.4 seconds with 40% CDR. Ekko has much more upfront burst, with more utility, at the cost of delays and timing. Leblanc is much better than Zed in late game teamfights. Diana is more of an ap bruiser, and she can buy Zhonyas to survive and has shields. Evelynn has a much higher potential to snowball the early game, and left weak by Riot intentionally with her stealth. Katarina has way more AOE damage and can clean up extremely well.
Every single champion you mentioned is outclassed by zed with the closest being kat and lb. LB has mana, shitter clear. Kat cannoy instantly telelport 1000 units away and has shittier clear. Neither is as efficient or safe as Zed.
TotalJerk3 votesAt some point you have to cut off how much of an attention drain you can be on the enemy.
Therein lies the EXACT problem I have with a lot of the recent new champs and reworks. You have to deny Gangplank's barrels, kill and dodge Illaoi's tentacles, keep your vitals facing away from Fiora, Keep up with who kindred marked, avoid Ekko's ult ghost, and try not to get 3 stacks from tahm. And you do this all the while sieging and/or teamfighting.
weeaboomer10 votesnerf his frickin' zoning.
Blumpkin Nation38 votesAnnie has to hold onto the stun at least. If you aren't trading Zed, he'll just AA casually. When you try to farm, he'll use his E/Q combo and out trade you because all his damage is AD and scales with his stupid bonus AD passive.
You can't compare the two either since Annie is reliant on her flash, where Zed isn't. If Zed dives Annie under her tower, and she flashes more than x amount of units away from his Ult shadow, then it disappears and he can't go back to THAT shadow.
That way, it forces him to make WAY better decisions and not waste his gapcloser/escape.
Blumpkin Nation35 votesAnd if Zed dies because of this, no one cares. Annie blew her flash and now you made her your bitch for like 3 minutes. Zed's toxic.
MyDearestLeblanc8 votes[deleted]
RasCaelestis4 votesBy that logic, Zed is point and (right) click. They both have good wave clear and a way to refund their resource. The difference is that Annie has range and CC while Zed has mobility and safety. I'd also give a slight edge to Zed, since as an AD-based champion he can do high damage even if his abilities are on cooldown or he's out of energy.
In all honesty, I find Annie easier to outplay than Zed.
Audiomancy3 votesAnnie Range
Pick one.
RasCaelestis4 votesShe is short range for a mage, yes, but I meant more range than Zed. Zed's Q is stupidly long for an assassin considering how much damage it does, but the rest of his damage comes from being in melee range to him or his shadow. I should have been more clear about that though.
Spizzle90002 votesDon't forget that he's also basically shit late game if you don't feed him. He has loads of kill pressure early on, so you have to play pretty damn safely for a bit, but if you don't let him get fed he's pretty easy to beat.
RasCaelestis5 votesHe really isn't though. Like most assassins, even if behind, he can usually burst an enemy squishy before getting out with his ult. His burst is more delayed than other assassins', but it is still enough to 100-0 an ADC or APC.
Anu3isII17 votesIf by easy to outplay you mean Zhonya and QSS, Annie is destroyed by Hexdrinker/Maw, QSS or Banshee's Veil if you messed up. That is counterbuild, and magic damage dealers are easly the easiest class of champions to counter with any role you play.
Also, what is the difficult part of playing Zed, landing your Shurikens? Because that is the only thing it doesn't seem as a point and click from his kit, right?
Maiziea17 votesLanding the Shurikens is one of the easiest "skill-shots" there are in my opinion, I'd say the only skill in playing zed is using his shadows properly, everything else he has makes him more of a "no skill champ" than Annie.
Also I don't understand why people complain about Annie having point click abilities, it's just her Q, technically both her W and her ult are skill shots, wether they're easy to land or not doesn't matter, Zed Q is just as easy to land and has more range than Annie W...
YossarianSensei6 votesThese 2 champs really aren't comparable, but for what it's worth squishies can't even think about coming within ~600 units of Annie for all of mid game, whereas with Zed you can still dodge his spells and trade with him
KidKaiser5 votesgive a range limit to his ulti clone swap. he can literally ulti a target. tp across the map. and ulti back to his clone.
YossarianSensei4 votesThere's only going to be 1 Q and at most 2 E's coming out of the shadow so it's not like it's zoning you the entire time it's up
Blumpkin Nation10 votesNo, but the damage it hits you for is ridiculous considering the amount of damage he procs from his Ult. The fact is, you get hit by one set of shurikens he can dive you and kill you.
That isn't a healthy method at all. They should change his ult to something like Yasuo and give Zed a stun. So when Zed lands his stun, then he can ult. Instead of ulting willy nilly for no reason.
YossarianSensei6 votesSo how would your suggested changes fix anything about that? He's still going to do the same thing except be 10x more annoying to play as with needless conditionals tied to his kit that wouldn't even affect experienced Zed players.
If you're going to suggest changes at least make them logical without adding needless complexity.
Rivini19 votesNo, but the damage it hits you for is ridiculous considering the amount of damage he procs from his Ult. The fact is, you get hit by one set of shurikens he can dive you and kill you.
That isn't a healthy method at all. They should change his ult to something like Yasuo and give Zed a stun. So when Zed lands his stun, then he can ult. Instead of ulting willy nilly for no reason.
You really want to give Zed a stun?
Really?
Mhihnj4 voteshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z48NmdWbquw lol use this song while playing assassins. The kills never stop, do they?