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Healthy zed nerfs. (I still want zed to be an assassin and burst people like he does now)

Raptorspls·2/10/2015, 9:14:30 PM·6 votes·1,207 views

Zed as a champion has a fundamental flaw. He can lane extremely well and roam extremely well while still being able to 100-0 champions by himself. After playing a combination of Zed, Rumble, and Twisted Fate I believe I've come up with some healthy ways to nerf zed in the one department he shouldn't be strong at, laning. Specifically, Zed shouldn't be able to push the minion wave with such ease and last hit without even trying thanks to his passive. My suggestions to help balance this champion and make him more difficult to snowball with is lowering his pushing and last hitting potential due to his kit. Why nerf only his pushing power and last hitting? I believe Zed as a champion should stay an assassin with great carry potential. Any nerfs to his damage at this point would ruin him as an assassin since there are already items that can be built to counter his ult. Without further ado, let us go on to the changes I suggest.

Q "Razor Shuriken" : I believe Zed's Q should deal reduced damage to minions. This will reduce his push power and allow champions such as, Twisted Fate, Syndra, Azir, Morde, and all other mages with high push power to at least be able to lane against zed by punishing from leaving tower range or using a minion advantage to 1v1 Zed early on. This doesn't directly nerf Zed's damage capability, but reduces his total impact on the game as it can allow champions with amazing wave clear to simply avoid zed or 1v1 zed with a minion wave in the early game. Note reduce damage could come into play for Shuriken level 2 or higher since Zed should still be allowed to farm with Shuriken level 1 if needed. Further examination for this idea is needed.

W "Living Shadow" : No changes should be made to this ability, but if the Riot balancing team doesn't want to reduce the damage dealt to minions on his Q and E there is a change that can be made to Living Shadow. (Only if Q and E don't deal reduced damage to minions) All abilities deployed through Living Shadow shouldn't deal any damage to minions. Prevent bonus energy regen from activating on minions could be another way to slow down zed push or create an opening for mages to punish Zed for pushing.

E "Shadow Slash" : Essentially the same changes as Q. Reduce damage dealt to minions while keeping the damage dealt to champions the same.

Passive "Contempt for the Weak" : THIS SHOULDN'T AFFECT MINIONS! I understand affecting jungle creep and champions, but Zed is an AD carry caster and doesn't need anymore last hitting capabilities other than building AD. This passive is also key to Zed's ability to shove minion waves early on.

I believe these kinds of changes should be made to give him the "rumble treatment" which will prevent his kit from being amazing at CSing. This will open counter play to Zed while still allowing Zed players to feel godlike when they dive using their ult and obtain kills. The downsides to this change is that mages will need to learn to roam or farm jungle while facing a Zed. Being pushed against a zed who has an ult up is a death sentence and this change is designed to allow mages to leave the lane rather than stay and die.

Please give constructive discussion to this thread, and I apologize for any and all spelling/grammar mistakes. If there are any major spelling/grammar errors please alert me and I will fix them.

36 Comments

Kitten of Evil2/10/2015, 10:36:25 PM5 votes

He just needs higher energy costs so he can't spam literally all day. His energy costs are absurdly cheap (35 energy less than Akali for a QWE combo and 45 less than Kennen), and it's really not hard to double-hit minions.

360D3GR3SS2/10/2015, 9:43:30 PM4 votes

So basically you are nerfing his farm capabilities so that it is more difficult than last hitting with Karthus' auto attack. Honestly if you want a better solution just increase his Q cooldown at earlier levels. It already does very low damage in the first place. Same with his E. Make Q scale from something like 8/7.5/7/6.5/6 (and also slightly increasing its energy cost at earlier levels) and honestly his E does extremely low damage. Probably not even needed.

killd0zer2/10/2015, 11:47:05 PM3 votes

HAHAHA you just completely erased the entire champion.

News Flash: Zed isn't as OP as people think. This would put him beyond Olaf tier.

KidKaiser2/10/2015, 11:55:21 PM1 votes

his ult shadow needs to drop the duration from 6 secs down to 3 secs. R1: 3sec duration R2: 4sec duration R3: 5sec duration

ForgiveColour2/11/2015, 12:48:21 AM1 votes

name a single popular mid champion that doesnt have wave clear. oh wait you cant

Raptorspls2/11/2015, 1:38:50 AM1 votes

Taking into account that I haven't set any hard numbers when it comes to the damage reduction towards minions on his Q and E, can we get more constructive critique regarding this idea? Does anyone else believe that zed should have a nerf to minion push or it should be allocated somewhere else. Mind you I would prefer the nerfs to not directly affect his damage towards champions.

Raptorspls2/10/2015, 9:27:27 PM1 votes

Made a small note under Razor Shuriken upon further thought of level 1 Zed and allowing him to farm like a rumble. In other words, Zed Q should still be viable to farm with level 1 just like rumble E.

Vesarixx2/14/2015, 1:23:40 AM1 votes

Glad to see a thread that isn't just "Nerf x to the ground" and actually has suggestions on what to change, I'd reduce the missile speed of Q for one thing, make his poke less reliable but leave his assassinations unaffected and then go from there.

Bisaknosp2/10/2015, 9:28:20 PM1 votes

nop thats not the problem his w passive should be removed and the ulti nerfed in some way

Raptorspls2/10/2015, 10:30:43 PM1 votes

Please State your criticisms rather than just down votes. I want this to be constructive because I know a lot of people don't like where Zed is right now. The only way Zed will change is through constructive discussions where Zed will still remain viable after nerfs.