RE: Zed and LeBlanc (Revised)

Okay, okay, okay. In my previous post, I overstated myself, plain and simple. I got caught up in the moment, like many of us do. The first time my friend played Xin Zhao top, all I heard over Skype was "Xin Zhao is OP." Needless to say, it got obnoxious, and I kept having to say to him "no, no he's not." Similarly, I'm generally the person trying to be the voice of reason when someone starts going off in chat about how such and such is "easy" or "OP" or "broken." I think those words are bandied about far too much, including (and especially) on these forums.

Kalista, for instance, has never once struck me as in need of a fix. Neither has Nidalee. Though with those two I think it's a matter of them needing to be in the right hands, and bronze players, AKA my competition, not being those hands. I personally tried Nidalee jungle and made her my first refund because just about every champion with multiple forms is beyond me. It's why I don't bother with Jayce either. No matter how much I tried, he just was never going to be worth my while.

In addition, yes, I'm Bronze 5, meaning my opinion could not possibly hold less weight. On this forum, it seems that if you're Bronze, no matter what you say there's going to be a "you're Bronze, therefore you know nothing and aren't qualified to speak on anything regarding gameplay and balance." Not saying I'm better than your average Bronze 5, because I often view myself as such trash that I want to quit the game on account of honestly believing I'll never climb even as far as Bronze 1. In every game I've devoted a large amount of time to, I tend to plateau at a point where I'm good enough to sometimes tease myself into believing that I'm on the upswing, only to come crashing back down to earth soon thereafter.

As a result of this, I don't ever see myself making Faker-style outplays. I could probably spend the next 10 years of my life devoted to League of Legends and still never master a champion like Zed. That being said, with Zed, despite feeling like most of his potential is beyond me, and despite assassins tending to be beyond my capabilities, I don't feel like I'm missing out on all that much. Not for the level of competition I'm liable to face down here in lowly Bronze 5. Put another way, I won't deny that his skill **ceiling **is one of the highest in the game, but I think he's strong enough that a player can barely scratch the surface with him and still be effective.

Me being 5/3/5 with him in my first normal match, particularly in a loss, might not strike many as anything to get riled up about. However, given how the experience has gone with other high skill-ceiling champions, it is above and beyond my personal expectations. My first normal as Shaco after 2 team co-ops? 7/7/6. My first normal as Lee Sin (after playing almost nothing but him in co-op for days)? 6/7/7. My second? 2/7/2. My first time normal as Draven after 3 co-ops, as sloppy mechanically with him as I was with Zed? 1/3/8.

In my hands, Zed was a male Katarina, only really using shadows to escape and sometimes to close the gap, rather than to increase damage output, dodge, etc. Having only played a couple bot matches, I still didn't have a firm grasp on my damage output either, causing multiple failed ults. And I cared so little about the outcome of the match that I did stuff like purposefully dive into a 1v4 just to see if I could get back out (and nearly did). In essence, I treated it like another bot match, doing the sort of reckless crap you should only get away with in a bot match, and it netted me 5/3/5 (3.33 KDA).

Not only that, I started 3/0/4 as well before the combined force of a fed Riven and Jinx on the enemy team tore through all of us like we were tissue paper, acing us twice, including once at their base after we'd taken out two inhibitor turrets and an inhibitor. I honestly wasn't even thinking any sort of strategy, and mostly just kept to my lane the entire match, only roaming for kills about once or twice. It was my first proper match with Zed, I treated it like a throwaway match, and still I won lane and helped keep us very much in it until all of our stupid mistakes caught up to us.

So, in short, seeing what he can do in even my terribly unfit hands, and with a "give no ****s" attitude, I can't help but think there may very well be something to what people say about Zed, that he is too strong, that he doesn't require too much skill to terrorize a lesser opponent, and that his ceiling is high enough that he can be a threat from bronze all the way to the professional scene. He can be effective in any ELO, as I've seen plenty of bronze players let Zeds no better than myself own them, with no real "outplays" to be seen, and we've all seen Faker and others like him make people look foolish in the LCS.

To be clear, I'm not saying he's "broken," as I honestly don't think any champion in the game is deserving of that label. Zed can be countered, as can Jinx, or whoever else is on this board's most wanted list. There are ways to play against him. I just think, like many others, that he needs to be toned down some. It won't stop people like Faker from making people's heads spin, but it will make it so the entry level for him is a little higher, so to speak.

Doing well with him, whether it be in a bot match or a regular match, is fun, but it just doesn't feel quite earned. I feel like it's expected of me, and of all Zeds. Likewise, people seem to view LeBlancs, to give another example, the same way. The attitude seems to be that if you can't 100-0 someone with Zed or LeBlanc, you must not be able to do it with anyone, since they, more than anyone, are built for that sort of thing.

Yet, while I feel there's a trade-off for that capability with someone like Master Yi, who I'm afraid to jungle with because I feel I'd probably just end up being the feeder instead of the fed, with LeBlanc and Zed I don't really see that same trade-off. With both of them able to just dive all in, deal a ton of damage, then hop right back before their opponents have time to react, it just feels like they have the best of both worlds. The burst and damage of an assassin, and the safety of a ranged marksman. That's what bothers me about them, not just in playing them myself, but playing with and against them as well.

Hopefully this essay of mine does a better job of getting my point across in a reasonable manner.