Zed requires no skill to play.

Chris Chiaki·Jan 26, 2015·14 votes·4,221 views

Love this circle jerk.

He isn't the hardest to pick up which is why he can be a good pubstomper but there is a reason not everyone goes around making Faker/xPeke/Dade level plays with him...because his skill ceiling is actually extremely high. Management of shadows, utilizing them to dodge CC, knowing opportunities to go in against a team with QSS/Zhonyas/Exhaust,etc.

It's also quite ironic how these circlejerkers main champs like who require tonnes of skill with muh skillshot.

He probably needs some slaps on the wrist but the biggest problem right now isn't him (he was not buffed really and pretty trash a few months ago) but how badly Riot gutted mana regen. Buff mana mages a little and suddenly he's not as strong anymore.

14 Comments

Kuroi86Jan 26, 20155 votes

Low skill floor, high skill cap. Riot has stated Zed fits what they believe to be a healthy example of an assassin. (As in his ability to kill.) Zeds only issues fall into one of two categories. Many players feel he's too safe. Riot has stated that his wave clear and split push are a bit too much. Riot doing what they believe is right, is slowly taking steps to whittle down on Zed's ability to wave clear and split push. There has been no indication that Riot is seeking to harm Zeds ability to assassinate.

JaeusJan 26, 20155 votes

The biggest problem is that Zed's kit (and ult) encourage you to literally point-and-click with R, mash everything on your keyboard, and then just teleport back off to your original location (thanks ult!) for a free kill, then just sit back and spam Q til you can do so again.

You COULD do neat high-skill things with shadows, but who cares and why bother? The kit doesn't encourage you to do anything creative, it encourages you to wait for ult then point-and-click button mash for kills. I love his kit concept, the problem is it's actual design. This is the same problem causing Fizz to get nerfed, the simple fact that someone points-and-clicks on you and can full combo off before you can even TRY to respond. All the damage front-loaded. Leblanc is the same way, and remains the same way.

It's a design problem with Assassins as a role. When your design goal is "make me as bursty and evasive as possible so i can blow everything before the other guy can respond", it's inherantly toxic and unhealthy. But the problem then gets compounded with so many Assassin or Assassin-tagged champs having insanely overloaded kits. High mobility, high damage, strong defensive/evasive tools. There isn't a weak point. Marksmen have the damage, but lack in the mobility/defense departments. Most Fighters tend to not excel at anything. Most Mages have no mobility and little to no defensive tools, typically relying only on crowd control to not-die.

Assassins though? They get it all. It is the same problem that Lee Sin has in terms of design, too much of everything, with NO trade-off.

shadecrapperJan 26, 20153 votes

Zed, if he had a mana bar he wouldnt be broken imo. The fact that he can litterally spam abilities then ult you and shadow 5 miles away is just too much. Imagine if Fizz had energy, what a nightmare that would be.

TalamareJan 26, 20152 votes

It has already been proven before

The higher the skill needed for a champion... the WEAKER it should be Seems a little counter intuitive, but its why Garen can 100 > 0 and be balanced / weak while Zed 100 > 0 doing it is OP

Garen requires little skill, Zed requires more

So Garen should be stronger than Zed

I know, I know that sounds stupid and counter intuitive, but again that is how these games need to be balanced...

Chris ChiakiJan 26, 20152 votes

{quoted}

It has already been proven before

The higher the skill needed for a champion... the WEAKER it should be Seems a little counter intuitive, but its why Garen can 100 > 0 and be balanced / weak while Zed 100 > 0 doing it is OP

Garen requires little skill, Zed requires more

So Garen should be stronger than Zed

I know, I know that sounds stupid and counter intuitive, but again that is how these games need to be balanced...

Isn't it rewarding for stronger champions to be better? For a MOBA that rewards improvement I don't see how a champ that requires 100+ games to master shouldn't be stronger then something that requires little in the face of mechanics. And stronger is in terms of their outplay potential too really.

Also these champs are simple and require less skill but still just as strong as Zed (if in different ways).

Akali Katarina Janna

shadecrapperJan 26, 20151 votes

Yeah, but zed is better then Akali.

Spacesuit SpiffJan 26, 20152 votes

{quoted}

It has already been proven before

The higher the skill needed for a champion... the WEAKER it should be Seems a little counter intuitive, but its why Garen can 100 > 0 and be balanced / weak while Zed 100 > 0 doing it is OP

Garen requires little skill, Zed requires more

So Garen should be stronger than Zed

I know, I know that sounds stupid and counter intuitive, but again that is how these games need to be balanced...

Exactly. Let's take a look at Annie. Easy to use, easy to blow people up with, also gets absolutely destroyed by people who know how to exploit her short range (try laning her vs Azir sometime... or rather don't try it).

Let's look at Nunu. His ult is a massive AoE nuke, and if your opponents are competent they'll never get hit by the full channel. Even if they don't have vision of you, they can notice the movespeed slow in their buff bar and immediately NOPE away.

Let's look at Katarina, the bronze carry. I don't even need to explain this one.

"Strong" champions have a lot of potential, and also a lot of weaknesses/counterplay. Versatile champions, which are harder to play, are able to exploit the weaknesses of the strong champs, but still have to do it properly. Play a versatile champ and the burden is on you to execute the correct counterplay, play a strong champ and you just have to hope your opponent doesn't execute your counterplay properly.

That's how you balance a game like this, not just a ratio of skill and power.

FlubbyDGJan 26, 20152 votes

That gives zero incentive to use harder characters.

Knight DevoutJan 26, 20152 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_G0gfYbDjw

Relevant video, skip to the Viola part.

Now, let me explain the fallacy in your logic. Most Zed mains tend to assume that, because a champion requires skill, he is also allowed to ignore things like having always definite weakness, or having lower stats. Basically, "because I can fail, I need to be stronger than everyone else when I don't fail" hence the cs-tools, waveclear, absurd Synergy with just ONE item (oh, HELLO WARWICK!), sustain, and safe laning. And here is where the Viola part comes in. Viola is assumed to be a bad character for fighting games for a single reason: his combos are too long and deal too damage. While being hard to play, the fact that she combos so well and for that much damage means once the Viola player gets his combo started the opponent can only wait for an error in his execution. That's no longer a skill matchup, that's a waiting game where you cross your finger and hope your opponent screw up. It's no longer PLAYER 1 vs PLAYER 2, it's PLAYER 1 vs PLAYER 1.

Now, if we had thing such as Stasis as a summoner spell, or a Armor Item that builds into QSS sash, we might have a more balanced game where Zed opponents also have a viable option while staying relevant, instead of picking subpar items just so that he doesn't get fed. But that's not the case.

JefftiffyJan 26, 20151 votes

I downvoted you at first then I realized you are one of the few people that understands the problem isn't necessarily his assassin aspect. I understand why there is a huge complaint about his split pushing, but I feel like pointing fingers at MasterYi if you want to complain about split pushing assassins.

I mean you are going to out sustain anyone balanced around the old mana regen system as an energy user. Until the new one is made on par with the old one its hard to point fingers at champs. I don't think Riot's intention was to gut mana regen.

Although, Akali is one of the few champs to have been toxic then and even now.

And comments about high skill cap champs needing to be weaker? What? No that doesn't work. They should be equal if not slightly more advantageous to use but have a higher risk. Zed has that, but the problem is his entire lane got nerfed, partially on accident, and he wasn't effected by it.

JefftiffyJan 26, 20151 votes

@Jaeus The thing is you shouldn't 100% spam with Zed immediately swapping after bursting someone is okay most low level situations, but once you get better. You learn to stick around and cause huge focus on you and then swapping to make their effort wasted. And QSS hurts his ult. The one thing that needs to be done with the remove of DFG is the removal of Ghostblade. It's another burst heavy item that doesn't need to be in the game and is low gold cost for high reward and a staple on a lot extremely powerful of assassin builds.

pWasHereJan 26, 20151 votes

once he hits level 6, he can freely solo dive me with little to no consequence.

Maybe less skilled players cant 1vX like more skilled players can, but it doesnt take much skill for the player to make laning a living hell, and then, once he starts roaming and split pushing, the entire game a living hell.

He is one of the only champs ever where I wouldn't really mind seeing him olaffed. I can't have fun in this game when he is involved.

Cloud273Jan 26, 20151 votes

It's his passive that needs a nerf. The rest of his kit is fine IMO.

TurtleBrianSwagMay 2, 20181 votes

As a deathmaster Zed, i would remark that Zed has a low skill-ceiling, meaning that playing Zed decently is pretty ez. However, Zed has a high skill-cap, meaning that to play Zed's full potential requires skill. I might be biased towards Zed, but if you watch all the Zed outplays, the outplays require some sort of skill. Zed's shadow speed also has been reduced from 250 to 150, so he is not that op as he has been previously.