@Some Rioter: An idea for some Zed changes that I think would benefit everyone.
As someone who almost exclusively plays Midlane, I've noticed three big issues with Zed, all of which could be significantly improved by one change.
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As it stands, the reason a lot of people dislike playing against Zed is the fact that his laning phase is very strong for a champion who's class is supposed to be dependent on going all-in to be a threat. This is exacerbated by the fact that not only is Zed's harass fairly strong, it's also not gated by mana which means there's no long-term disadvantage to spamming it. The result being that laning against a Zed often feels somewhat futile when you're not playing a champion who hard counters him because if you try to match his harass you'll run out of mana while he won't, and if you dodge his harass he isn't really punished for it where you are punished if he dodges yours.
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Additionally, one thing that's always bothered me about Zed from a thematic standpoint is how unimportant the unique parts of his kit are to his gameplay. The interesting and unique part of Zed's kit is his shadows mirroring his normal ability casts, but most Zed players don't actually use that mechanic much outside of the laning phase, normally reserving W purely as an escape or gapcloser after ulting.
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Finally, it's no secret that Zed's effectiveness falls off a lot as the game progresses because of the fact that a number of items, especially Zhonya's Hourglass, prevent his ultimate from doing damage, and Zed is pretty reliant on his ult. Now, that is a significant portion of his counterplay, and he has other things he does very well to compensate for that, but I see no reason that he shouldn't be a bit less reliant on his ult's damage given how easy it is to counter.
So, my suggestion: reduce the base damage and AD ratio of Zed's Q by quite a bit, but significantly reduce the damage penalty for hitting multiple Qs on the same target so that the damage dealt by hitting two actually goes up instead of down. This deals with the first issue by allowing him to keep his lane harass but making them less potent when he doesn't commit to actually getting in range to try for a double hit which leave him more open to retaliation, putting him more in line with other assassins lane harass patterns while still preserving his ability to clear waves and generally play safely; It deals with the second issue by making him more reliant on his shadows for damage; and it deals with the third issue by increasing his overall single-target damage in a way that doesn't actually rely on his ult, provided he's willing to fully commit to a fight and use his shadow for damage instead of reserving it for an escape, which improves his ability to go all-in on a target with his ult down as well as his ability to kill a target after they mitigate his ult's damage.
Overall, I think a change in the general direction of making Zed a bit more reliant on his shadows for damage throughout the whole game instead of just for their escape and chase potential would result in him being a much more tolerable champion to play against, make him feel better to play (getting a big reward for going to all the effort of landing a double hit feels good), and would help reduce some of the frustrations Zed players have with his ultimate being easy to counter.
I'd be really interested to hear someone's thoughts on the matter!
