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How to realistically Nerf Zed.

BakugoBestBoy·2/2/2015, 5:34:01 PM·2 votes·768 views

All the QQ threads aside, I'd like to discuss what the best way is to nerf Zed. Some people that I have seen discuss this are just anti-assassin and don't actually make any constructive progress on the subject.

Let's just take a look at his kit and see what we're working with.

Passive: Since Zed has willingly taken a melee vs ranged match up he has a small aid in last hitting that also helps him in situations where he is maybe an auto and a half away from killing you. In all honesty it's a pretty shite passive and only nets him kills he would most likely have gotten anyway.

So do we need to nerf a passive that is essentially used to aid in last hitting? Seems kinda pointless it may just need to be reworked in general.

Q: 6 Second CD skillshot that does damage in a line. Seems like a pretty normal ability. Maybe its base damages or scaling are little high. It has decent range and every 18 seconds it can either have crazy range or come from a really wonky direction. As far as a midlaners Q's go (which is generally their bread and butter spell) there's nothing particularly outstanding about it other than it's free cost.

So do we need to nerf Zed's waveclear? Possibly? But consider the fact that a midlane champion with no waveclear can't play mid. Imagine a Zed that is out pushed by something like an Ahri. Ahri shoves the wave into the turret and retreats or roams. Zed stays at his tower and tries to counterpush but has recently been nerfed in that department. By the time he pushes through 2 waves and gets his minions to Ahri's tower she has returned from either placing aggressive wards or ganking another lane and Zed is immediately shoved back in to his own tower. This repeats for 20 minutes and Zed has 0 impact on the game. That to me seems just as unhealthy as instashoving and roaming all day himself.

W: High CD Mobility/Percent Damage bonus. The percent damage bonus is pretty much irrelevant until mid game and to be frank I'm a fan of any advantage you can give a melee champion over marksmen because range is OP. This is an overarching problem with the game in general but I don't think it can be solved without completely introducing new gameplay mechanics. It wouldn't even be the same game. As far as the mobility spell it is often used in lane to aid in waveclear and if used carelessly can leave Zed in a very easy posistion to be ganked. Make sure your jungler is aware of this. Shutting down an assassin early is a fairly easy way to win a game. That's an in general counterplay to all assassins. (Edit: Except Akali, unless she's dead more time than she's alive that bitch always comes back).

E: AOE Melee range Damage. I don't understand AOE damage on "assassins". Just seems like a junk ability tossed in to give him more damage. May need to be reworked or just nerfed and have more emphasis placed on the slow utility. Seems like one of the best candidates for a nerf so far.

R: Huge single target damage amp. Great concept for an assassin. You now have to aim 4 skillshots with 2 clicks (w then q for the folks at home), press e and AA your target. Then you either spam laugh or just walk away like a badass as they explode. I would have literally zero problem with this if it didn't work so well against tanks. But in reality *this is no fault of Zed's. *

Now If I just blew your mind with that last bit, sorry, because this is actually my idea of how to nerf Zed. At no point in the game is there a downside to buying armor pen on an AD champion. None. Ever. Armor Pen should be a stat that helps you kill tanks, which no assassin should ever be concerned with. But in fact it s actually the fastest way to kill very squishy targets (excluding RNG) for an AD assassin. This makes NO sense. I mean it mathematically makes sense but it's just bad. If I am against a team with no tank it should be a waste of stats, at the least poor gold efficiency, to build brutalizer and Last Whisper as core items of my build. But it's not. It's actually optimal. By a longshot. This has nothing to do with Zed or his kit. Case and point: Any rational person playing midlane as a caster vs an AP champion would build Athene's or Abyssal to mitigate burst from their enemy. This is something normal people do, they build situationally to benefit themselves. When laning against an AD assassin however even if you decide to rush hourglass (WHICH IS A SMART BUY IN THIS SITUATION AND IN NO WAY GIMPS YOU IF YOU BUY 2 D RINGS OR A TEAR) your opponent is already mindlessly buying the same items he builds every game. Not because He wants to blow up your super fed Renekton late game but because it's just the best possible build for killing anything.

TLDR: Don't hate the champion hate the game. Nerf Armor Pen.

17 Comments

Mayor Stubbs2/2/2015, 5:37:14 PM2 votes

Your opinion on his waveclear is wrong IMO. Yes he should have wave clear, but what other champion in the game has THAT long range wave clear, AND he has an escape on top of it. Let him keep wave clear, not long range wave clear. He is a melee so he should be outmatched by ranged champions during the laning phase like most other melee champs.

Drunk Rummate2/2/2015, 6:33:44 PM2 votes

I don't think his passive is just a last hitting tool. It makes his W swap auto trade extremely powerful and it's one of his best tools for getting first blood. It's also an extremely important amp for his ult assassinations due to how much it amplifies his ult damage. It allows him to get in and get out more quickly so as to avoid return damage or a collapse.

I think his passive is fine, but I think you're selling it short.

I believe more than anything, Zeds problem is in his Q and his W, related to his Energy costs.

Lets take an objective look at the abilities:

Energy: regenerates 10 per second

Q costs - 75/70/65/60/55 (CD - 6) W costs - 40/35/30/25/20 (CD - 18/17/16/15/14) E costs - 50 (CD - 4)

So the only spell here which does not achieve full energy regeneration before the cooldown ends is his E. By rank 4 zed no longer net loses energy for using his Q the second it is off cooldown. His W costs 4-2 seconds of regeneration, but remains on cooldown for an additional 14-12 seconds after its use. So this cost negligible and makes up for the 5:4 ratio on his e with extreme ease.

So one could easily come to the conclusion that past rank 4 on his Q, Zed could use all of his abilities on cooldown several times before energy even became an issue, and that would only be due to spamming E. Using the other abilities on cooldown would cause them to completely refresh their required resource before they came back up.

That leaves me with one major question here

Why are his energy costs so low?

Why is it that Zed is allowed to build 20%+ CDR with no loss in opportunity cost? Isn't energy supposed to be a resource intended to gate sustained damage, but allow burst damage? If Zed throws all of his abilities out at the same time, why should he be allowed to use both his Q and his E a second time the instant they are off cooldown? The choice should be made prior to that. The choice should be "I want to use Q twice, so I won't use my E this first time."

TehNACHO2/2/2015, 6:16:24 PM1 votes

Oh btw, Flat Penetration and Percentage Penetration work completely differently.

Flat Penetration amplifies damage no matter how squishy or tanky the target is, but and falls off just as hard as no penetration at all against tanky targets.

Percentage Pen is what you're thinking of when you wrote the part about Penetration, as it's better for targeting actually tanky targets (in terms of resistances) but isn't (or at least shouldn't be) as useful against squishies.

Darth Pixy Misa2/2/2015, 6:35:39 PM1 votes

While i agree with the op about how armor pen is, if Zed has 300 ad and manages to aim his skill shots correctly and aa a target with no armor Zed's ult alone will do over 1300 damage. Zeds ult should be nerfed a bit ie 80% ad + 10/20/30% damage done while the mark is active

With LW it should only negate bonus armor So if a glass cannon mage or assassin has all damage items and only 10 armor from masteries and runes, the LW negates 3 armor.

Gunpoint2/2/2015, 6:58:09 PM1 votes

All other assassins have real weak waveclear, why does Zed have waveclear better than Ziggs?

Kitten of Evil2/2/2015, 6:28:15 PM1 votes

But consider the fact that a midlane champion with no waveclear can't play mid. Imagine a Zed that is out pushed by something like an Ahri. Ahri shoves the wave into the turret and retreats or roams. Zed stays at his tower and tries to counterpush but has recently been nerfed in that department.

You do realize that literally every other assassin has piss-poor waveclear unless they use their mobility spell, right? Kassadin Leblanc Fizz Akali

The Whamboozler2/2/2015, 6:03:08 PM1 votes

The problem with Zed is the same problem with Lee Sin. He's absurdly safe and hard to punish for his mistakes. He's VERY good at punishing you for yours though. OP or not, he will always be frustrating as hell to play against because of it. He's safe, bursty, manaless and often... snowbally, and that's never going to feel fun to play against.