Even thought Zed has only recieved nerfs since his incarnation. He has suddenly risen up as top tier and guaranteed pick ban for any higher elo games. Why is that?
I personally believe it's because of the mana nerfs making other champs unable to compete with his shuriken spam.
ComeOnAndSlamJam3 votesEveryone who could compete with Zed was nerfed into the ground. Mana nerfs are the most egregious example.
Zed was never bad per se, he just never shined this brightly before, because there were a bunch of mages who could compete with him in the laning phase. Mana gating not being as bad to deal with, meant you could trade abilities with Zed. Being able to hit him with more than 3 spells before being OOM made his MR worth less, and made him less hard to push around.
Post mana-nerfs, Zed gets a hexdrinker, and a little lifesteal, absorbs your spells like they're nothing, pokes you with a million shurikens and then all-ins you, under your tower, with his absurdly safe ult.
Jungle ganks are pointless, because unless the Zed player is completely retarded, he can just shadow off.
Fuaztin1 votesI like this because it feels like you've actually played him or played against enough times to understand. And I would agree. Zed was good because with no weakness but now that mana is a real drawback Zed has become impossible to lane against for more than a few minutes at a time. Asking your jungler for a gank is pointless because a good zed will not use shadow unless your jungler presents himself somewhere anyway.
Leti the Yeti1 voteswell zed also doesnt rely on the recently removed dfg so he has that going for him which is nice
Fuaztin1 votesThat has no effect on his laning advantage that he has over everyone else now. That does discourage less than a handful of champs but it's not as big a deal as you might make it out to be.