Mini Zed Update
The purpose of this update is to increase the difficulty of Zed by raising his skill floor. Assassins are supposed to be high risk high reward. While it is acknowledged that Zed is indeed a difficult champion to master due to his high skill ceiling, currently the skill required to pick him up and dominate is much too low given his inherent advantages and large burst damage output. Zed should deal tons of damage, but currently its too easy for him to get away with doing so at a lower skill lv requirement than other assassins. Additionally Assassins are supposed to have a delay on their dmg and Zed doesn't have that in a meaningful way. Assassins are also supposed to be mostly melee in nature and Zed's W allows him to bypass this guideline a little too easily.
This update also seeks to increase his thematic cohesion as it could be believed that while Zed does a decent job filling his niche it could be taken to 11.
Passive - Shadowed Contempt for the Weak: COOLDOWN: 10 EFFECT RADIUS: 2000/200
Dark Shadows spawn behind enemy champs relative to Zed's location over 0.5 sec marked as an AoE. Every 20 sec the Dark Shadow will update its position.
Zed's 2nd basic attack against champions he's hit with an ability within 8 sec while within their Dark Shadow below 25 / 35 / 50%(scaling with lv) maximum health deal 6 / 8 / 10% of target's maximum health as bonus magic damage.
Shadowed Contempt for the Weak can only affect the same target once every few seconds.
Q - the dmg is nerfed a little
W - Living Shadow TARGET RANGE: 475 EFFECT RADIUS: 700 SPEED: 1600
COST: 40 / 35 / 30 / 25 / 20 ENERGY COOLDOWN: 22 / 20 / 18 / 16 / 14 ENERGY RESTORED: 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50
Living Shadow
FIRST CAST: Zed's Shadow dashes forward, remaining in place for 5 seconds and being able to mimic Razor Shuriken and Shadow Slash. Zed restores energy whenever a Shadow lands a mimicked ability on the same target he does. This may only happen once per cast ability. Casting at the same time as Razor Shuriken grants 175 bonus range.
SECOND CAST - SHADOW SWAP: Zed and his Shadow blink to their respective locations, swapping places after a 1 sec delay. The range is increased to 1300 If Zed's Shadow is within a Dark Shadow.
E - Shadow Slash: EFFECT RADIUS: 290 ANGLE: 40
PHYSICAL DAMAGE:
35 / 47 / 60 / 70 / 85 (+ 40% bonus AD)
CONE BONUS DAMAGE
(50% + 40% bonus AD)
ACTIVE: Zed and his Shadows slash, dealing physical damage to surrounding enemies dealing bonus damage in a cone in the direction Zed is facing. This does not interrupt Zed's previous orders.
Enemies hit a Shadow's Shadow Slash Cone are slowed for 1.5 seconds. Enemies hit by multiple slash cones take no additional damage but instead are slowed by a 50% stronger slow.
SLOW:»
20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%
Each enemy champion hit by Zed's slash cone reduces Living Shadow's Cooldown by 2 seconds. Only the enemies hit by the cone restore energy.
R - Death Mark TARGET RANGE: 625 EFFECT RADIUS: 300 COOLDOWN: 120 / 90 / 60
FIRST CAST: Zed targets an area on the ground and vanishes for 0.75 seconds during which he goes through the target area if an enemy champion is within. If he passes through them, he marks them, becomes ghosted for 3 seconds, and spawns a Shadow at the cast location which lasts for 6 seconds. After 1 second of his reappearance he can activate Death Mark Shadow.
For the next 3 seconds, the mark stores a percentage of all pre-mitigation physical and magic damage Zed deals to the target, reduced if Death Mark is recast, detonating at the end of the duration to deal physical damage.
PHYSICAL DAMAGE:
100% AD (+ 25 / 40 / 55% of damage dealt, reduced by 15% if Recast)
SECOND CAST - DEATH MARK SHADOW: Zed and the Death Mark Shadow blink to their respective locations, swapping places.
the purpose of these changes are to introduce a bit a of delay, positioning and targeting difficulty into Zed's kit.
Zhonyas in order to survive, and even then the assassin will usually wait until I am out of stasis and kill me anyway (Zhonyas only really works well under tower or in a team fight for me, though it works different for every champion/player).
To all Assassin mains out there, does it feel good, knowing the players on the other side are suffering? It is very unsatisfying to die instantly, and it is downright frustrating.
