Zed Is Not Balanced

Riot has been railing on and on about things like "counterplay", "balance" and "meaningful trade-offs", but has famously left out some of the biggest offenders to this principle. Today we're looking at one - Zed. We'll start off with what he IS:

1. Able to last hit perfectly, under any circumstance, even at level 1 and under turret. His passive is a perfect execute that takes 90% of the skill out of farming that nearly all other mid laners face.

2. An AD mid laner that barely needs to build any. BOTRK+Ghostblade+LW has been the meta build on Zed for almost forever. 3 full items in, he only gets 100 AD but an 100%-0 literally anything. BOTRK (the worst of the bunch) is the highest On-Hit AD item in the game vs. anything with over 700 hp, plus 40% attack speed, plus lifesteal, plus a nuke/cc that adds onto his ultimate.

3. Has no meaningful resources. Energy champs basically behave like a mana champ who always has a blue buff, but Zed is one of the worst offenders. While Shen can't cast his full combo with E last (or if it misses), Zed can throw his full combo with energy to spare. Especially as he gains levels or if he lands either of his two spells that restore energy. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Zed

4. Has no point of weakness at any stage of the game. With perfect farming starting at level 1, full wave clear for every wave at 3, level 3 kill pressure, multiple early game spikes (Bilgewater Cutlass, Brutalizer, Ult), Zed dominates the early game. The combination of armor penetration, pure damage and ability to spam his high-damage spells are utterly overwhelming for nearly every mid laner in the early game. Between his multiple blinks, summoners, high movement speed and ability to vanish from play (thereby dodging any and every spell), he has no problem farming, pushing and harassing from absolute safety.

When mid game rolls around, he has flat armor pen and BOTRK. If you bought armor, tough luck, it's gone. If you bought HP, tough luck, you just gave him even more damage. Between his two high-damage AoEs and ability to insta-gib a carry on top of it, then instantly blink to safety, his mid-game value is eclipsed BARELY by dedicated mid-game teamfighters like Rumble.

By late game, Zed is the best splitpusher in the game. It's not even debatable. He's fast, slippery, has tons of armor pen, free AD from his W and attack speed. This means he shreds turrets almost instantly and never has to sacrifice safety. Any champ that tries to 1v1 him, he just kills. Even under turret. If you try to 2v1 him, he kills one instantly. Then probably wins the resulting 1v1 through BOTRK, armor pen and the massive sustain he gets from those two in combination.

5. By level 16, he's assassinating tanks. Zed surely has at least 3 items by now, which are certainly BOTRK, Youmuu's Ghostblade and Last Whisper. With the typical 21/9 masteries, this leaves Zed with 20 points + 41% armor penetration (this comes out to ~51% if you have 200 armor, slightly less if you have 300). BOTRK gives 345 on-hit damage vs a 4000-hp enemy and only drops by 80 for every 1000 hp they lose. BOTRK+ Youmuu's make his attack speed ~1.8, which means 5 auto attacks before his ult pops, plus spells, 10% of the target's max HP from his passive and BOTRK active going into the mark. Bear also in mind that his ultimate basically enhances all damage he deals by 50% when the mark pops.

Balanced? Oh hell no.