Isn't Zed a little too overpowered as an assassin?

Compared to the other Assassins, Zed just has too much going on. Easy to learn burst combos, good itemization, reliable escapes, early lane harass and post-6 dominance, scaling AD due to his W and relatively decent defense stats.

Compared to other assassins, he just has a lot going for him. Yeah, you can cleanse deathmark but his burst will get you low enough for an ignite and a passive proc to take you down unless you're sorta tanky. Also most people won't buy mercurial or sash before their core items.

Yeah, like all assassins, bad players will be bad with him. He isn't like WW or Udyr, but mediocre players with mediocre mechanics while still knowing his burst combo can still do very well with him compared to other assassins such as Talon, LeBlanc and Rengar.

Talon has to go all-in otherwise he's dead, same with Rengar.

LeBlanc has bad clear which means you can shove lane into tower and cause her to miss CS or force her to use spells which means less mana while Zed is energy-based and has good clear and CS ability due to his passive.

Akali gets heavily countered by pinks or sweepers (even though that's sort of an unhealthy counterplay mechanic) and her pre-6 threat level is quite low.

Kha Zix gets mana starved easily and is very easy to poke down.

Yasuo is a skill matchup in Zed's favour since Zed has safer pokes and all-ins.

Lissandra is the only real counter but she counters all mobility champs.

Ahri has to land a skillshot charm that doesn't pass through minions unlike Zed's shurikens plus she gets blown up easily by Zed.

TF isn't very useful till mid and late game and even then needs CS for items and gets blown up easily even then.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a rant thread. I don't have a lot of problems playing against Zed since I know how he works and I only ever bother playing Yasuo and Lissandra mid but compared to other assassins, he just has too much going on. Yeah, maybe he falls off late game but all he really needs to do is run to the backline and kill the two damage dealers while your adc and fighters deal with the frontline which all Assassins should be doing but Zed can do it better, faster and with reliable escapes.

I love playing Zed though, the only ninja that really feels like a ninja.