@Meddler: Did you consider lowering Zed's health regeneration instead of nerfing his ult?

darkdill·May 13, 2015·5 votes·4,004 views

I'm all for Zed nerfs, though this one seems a little extreme and kills some of his core power: evasiveness. On the other hand, Zed has above-average sustain for an assassin that has manaless poke and good last-hit capability, so I'd have thought that nerfing his health regeneration to a level similar to Katarina would be a good type of nerf.

Unfortunately, it would seem you don't think that way. Why is that?

26 Comments

RiotMeddlerMay 15, 201510 votes

The nerf to Zed's ult's there because we believe other players need to be given at least a brief period in which to respond. That's a principle driven change, rather than a power driven one, so changing base stats doesn't address the same issue.

If, as a separate problem, Zed's shrugging off damage too quickly in lane we certainly could nerf his health regen. There is the risk with that approach on a character that builds lifesteal early of creating a more snowbally pattern of success/failure however, something assassins are already prone to. Would want to dig into what the laning problem was, when in the lane it occurred, against who etc before picking a specific solution.

JingerbeardmanMay 15, 20157 votes

but what about the unlimited return range on his ult... a 1 second window is great but that unrestricted return range is still ridiculously powerful.

YossarianSenseiMay 15, 20152 votes

I agree, Zed is too mobile. He needs to be a healthy, well designed mid laner like Annie.

JingerbeardmanMay 15, 20155 votes

im not saying cut his mobility just give it a reasonable range restriction.

YossarianSenseiMay 15, 20152 votes

Well don't worry about cutting his mobility because good ol' Riot's already on it!

Curse those mobile champions to hell! Everyone needs to play Jinx - the true definition of balance.

JingerbeardmanMay 15, 20153 votes

is that a bit of salt in your eye I see.

IcyPepperMay 15, 20153 votes

Implying mobility is the only balancing aspect that can be tilted... yeah, we get it. Point-and-click cc is annoying, and hypercarries (especially Jinx) is a pain in the ass.

But we're talking about Zed here. Just because other champions have issues doesn't mean he doesn't.

darkdillMay 15, 20151 votes

I often feel when I try to poke at Zed as Lux, he just shrugs it off once he's got a Bilgewater Cutlass unless you try to proc her passive on him (which is suicide). However, that could just be a Lux problem; her E's damage is pretty weaksauce for what it costs.

But think of it this way - Zed's got many of the same strengths as Katarina in lane: good manaless poke with his Q, mobility, and a good ability to last-hit minions thanks to his passive. But unlike Katarina, he also has good lifesteal synergy, whereas rushing Spell Vamp on Katarina isn't the greatest of ideas (you generally rush MPen as Kat). This makes him a little difficult to poke down if you don't go ham on him, which tends to be when he ults you.

MandaariMay 15, 20152 votes

Have you considered looking at AD caster itemization in general? It is way too lenient. Way too many things build out of longswords or other first cheap components. I always find that if I'm in lane against Zed and I bully him out he'll always be able to get something when he comes back. Meanwhile I have to farm to large breakpoints while being forced to rush a defensive item.

That's just one of many things that he has going for him. He might not be incredibly strong at one thing, but he's got so many smaller things going for him that he shouldn't be able to do. Personally I think the flavor of nerf like his attack speed was right, but not nearly extreme enough.

MephistophilisMay 15, 20152 votes

Reduce his waveclear!!!

Like9BossMay 15, 20151 votes

I think the changes to Zed were bad for is play style since now you are much vulnerable when you ult and you can be cc and locked down even before coming back to your shadow. Zed ult is already countered by so many things in this game like qss, zhonya's, among others, which means there's a ways in the game to counter is ult. Making zed survivability worse is not a good ideia since you are a squishy target made to assasinate and with a high skill cap already. What you could have done is making is w cd higher at early ranks instead of chaniging more things in is ult. This is my opinion on the change to zed ult and I believe it hurts zed realy badly. He is supposed to be high skill high reward champ so there are somethings I think that can't be messed up.

PS: The ideia on the delay time before you could back to your initial abaility location would be a great nerf to lb. That's the champ I feel if she couldn't return to is W before waiting one 1 sec would make her less banned and hurt a bit on is ludicrous mobility.

lB2kGRlc8yMay 18, 20151 votes

Yea, expensive items were a counter to Zed's ult, like banshees and mercs were counters for Veigar's stun, but they nerfed the hell out of that, so it makes sense that they would share the love.

DashzMay 15, 20151 votes

You are right Meddler, I think lowering stats just because yes, is not a good idea to deal with the character issues, nonetheless, I have analized and practiced with the new change and I just found myself with a dilema: You talk about reducing his offensive and non punishable killing pattern with Death Mark shadow teleport, but you are also hitting his defensive or "juke" power, have you tried to escape using Death Mark? Now is almost impossible.

You know that 1 second is a LOT of time talking about the gameplay of an assasin.

Another point, you made Zed's Death Mark to create the shadow in the original position as a safe point, a less abussive ultimate, but now you are taking away a part of that factor or "ability" you gave him.

I'm not here to convince you to change what you have done, mostly because sadly, I'm not a designer, but I've played Zed so so so many times that I 've lost the count. The moment I play against someone who knows how really Zed works is when I feel the nerf so hard thus is not a good experience for me to know that if I try to kill someone bursty like me I will also die, in a normal situation I won´t kill my target in 1 second even throwing my whole combo in 0.5 seconds, I'll have to wait for the mark to pop in order to assassinate, if that target is not a burster it will be a ccer and we have the same uncomfortable situation where I cannot even rely too much on the W because it has a lower range than the ultimate and it is slow and doesn´t make you untargetable...

In this case, shouldn´t the W has less cooldown, or make something like "While Living shadow from Death Mark is active the cd reduction of W from enemies struck by Shadow Slash is increase by 3 seconds instead of 2" or " After dashing through his target Zed gains 30/40/50% movement speed by the duration of the mark (3 seconds)"

Regards and peace.

AMYS GRAVEMay 15, 20151 votes

I think the OP has a point here, Zed is supposed to be a squishy assassin but has above average base health, base armor, base MR, base health regen, scaling armor, scaling MR, and scaling health regen. Why is zed so tanky out of the box with no items even though he builds a mix of damage and lifesteal to keep him safe while also dealing damage? His ult has never been his problem (imo) because so many things in the game counter it so nerfs to that don't really change my frustrations when playing against him. Zed is not his ult, Zed has so many things in his kit that make him much much more of a threat, even without killing you.

Mooing KevMay 15, 20152 votes

How bout scaling down the delay from 1>.67>.33. Currently zeds ult is even worst than it was before in team fights. The one second delay at lvl 6 to about 13 is fair but as the game progresses it's not about 1v1 situations where the opponent can react. Zeds ult is pretty much a gap closer, evasive spell in team fights and most of the time does zero dmge. Zed has the most delayed burst out of the assassins if not has zero burst if they know what they're doing. Idk how you guys can say zeds burst rotation is .25-.5 seconds when it clearly says the mark detonates in three seconds during which so many things can be done to stop it. If you're talking bout wqe combo, well if the enemy adc is within that range, that's their poor positioning.

Honestly a fed kat/leblanc or talon is way more scary than a fed zed. You know it's over when their Katharina gets fed and just face rolls a penta kill. Zed gets fed? Cool lets play it out and when he ults just exhaust/cc/qss/zhonya and force him to just r back instantly doing no dmge(which he can't even do anymore).

VoidacMay 18, 20151 votes

Interesting, you say there should be "a brief period in which to respond"... but we're letting LeBlanc just nuke people and jump away to a safe distance? This is literally the same problem as Zed's ult. Does this mean we'll see a delay before LeBlanc can blink back to her previous position?

DrNovaMay 18, 20154 votes

we believe other players need to be given at least a brief period in which to respond<

Leblanc

lB2kGRlc8yMay 18, 20151 votes

The LB mains are on the forums in mass now after hearing that Zed was nerfed, and that the thing that fixed a cancerous part of hit kit would logically do the same if applied to her, so every post suggesting the change be implemented on LB have been downvoted to oblivion.

Vistha KaiMay 18, 20151 votes

If you really believe this change anyhow impacted Zed then you are wrong.

It would however be suitable nerf for LB.

daemanicMay 13, 20153 votes

its one second more til you can jump back im so sick of seeing this its not even really a nerf QUIT CRYING

darkdillMay 13, 20153 votes

I'm not even a Zed player, but I think his 5.9 change is a little brutal when it comes to him ulting certain opponents. I was just saying that a health regeneration nerf would be a lot more benign than what he got now.

But I doubt you care and just want to find someone's throat to jump down, correct?

HôkagéMay 14, 20153 votes

how is it not even really a nerf? 1 second is a lot especially if you get cc'd right after

qetzelMay 15, 20151 votes

It is actually rather a big nerf...

Lord DusteonMay 13, 20152 votes

I'd guess because having one of your core strengths being "unable to be damaged" is really bad design. Additionally, he already buys vamp scepter and BotRK often and can easily farm and harass from range, making a lower hp per 5 rather ineffective (Riven also has a variation of this problem, but if you can zone her off minions she stays off, and if she gets behind she has a hard time CSing to get the gold for the scepter to begin with). Otherwise, making him less of an extremely slippery assassin that can instantly escape if he fucked up big time (like, say, ulting into 5 people) also means he can receive some buffs since he actually has some risk tied to his reward.

GigglingAngelMay 15, 20151 votes

So his core power was having an ult that (unless you're a mage who got Zhonya's) no one could counter, did a ton of damage, and could easily 100-0 the target without forcing Zed in making any real risks?

EllphiMay 15, 20151 votes

I just don't understand why they're nerfing Zed at all.

These ult changes just make him clunky to play, with all the time it takes for his shadows to slide around and 'activate' now I might as well be playing a Bruiser