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Why IS ZED ALWAYS GETTING COMPENSATED FOR A NERF?

LegendmakerGX··271 votes·11,041 views

Zed always get compensated for a nerf but when a ap gets nerf they never get any compensation at all?

Zed is one of the hardest assassins to counter for any ap mage the only way really to actually countering him is Hourglass which is a horrible item while Zed always has many build path.

Like dear fk Riot isn't the QSS removal already compensated enough? so why give him more breaks from his nerf?

Razor Shuriken (Q) Base damage lowered to 70/105/140/175/210 from 75/115/155/195/235 AD ratio reduced to .9 from 1.0 Damage on Multi hit on same target changed to 75% from 50%

Death Mark (R) Proc damage increased to 30/40/50% from 25/35/45% AD ratio lowered to .5 from 1.0

The ult I don't mind but seriously you let zed shuriken now damage us to 75% if the shadow hit us too like wtf I'd rather have his old damage then fken have to deal with a 75% damage from his shadow. the damage reduction is not even enough to compensate for his huge harassment damage. No Mana,FAST SHURIKEN ANIMATION ,Low Cool Down, Safe Farming. WHILE I HAVE TO USE MANA TO GET CS and then B just to refill my crap SINCE YOU TOOK OUT MANA POTS.

People say just farm from a far or waste mana to get the cs, BUDDY his damage is even more then a ap even if you finish your build since if you do get the first item build which will 100% have to be zonya to survive this guy Zed will probably already have maw.

321 Comments

Serpents Embrace86 votes

Well, it's their opinion that he's "balanced".

My guess is because he's not overwhelming at the highest level of play. So they're just shifting his power in an attempt to make him stomp less at lower ranks.

Non-mana AD based assassins just seem fundamentally unfair, though, so I'm on your side on this one.

Hard Penetrator3 votes

Problem is that they often put champions into the gutter for half a year or longer with straight up nerfs or garbage buffs like Jarvan's for example. Yet zed gets it easy and light every time.

DeathBurst14 votes

Implying Katarina and Akali are "fundamentally fine"? I mean, I can't see the difference between AD and AP on this topic.

Also, what exactly is fundamentally unfair about non-mana AD Assassins? The only other that comes to mind is Rengar, and he has a lot of issues too, but it's completely different issues compared to Zed.

It Hertz When IP8 votes

Akali and Kat are problem children, but not nearly as bad.

GayFluffyUnicorn2 votes

Yeah right, entirely point+click nuke champs with instant dmging gapcloser who can delete anyone in under 1 sec are far more healthy than zed. U guys are so pathetic

It Hertz When IP16 votes

I think you're thinking of how Akali USED to be. And the reason both are somewhat easier to contend with is that neither has the ability to become untargetable. In addition, Akali's only mobility spell is limited to engaging, and Kat's ultimate leaves her highly vulnerable to hard CC.

Also, FYI, if you ever want anyone to start taking you seriously, I'd suggest not devolving into insults, at least not immediately.

WalkingInACircle14 votes

AD champions maintain DPSing abilities, they can splitpush more effectively and if their burst doesn't kill you they have much better follow through. Despite this AD assassins seem to have as much or more burst than their AP counterparts and they don't really pay for it.

HadesBlades37 votes

Katarina is at all stages of the game more"Fundamentally Fair" then zed. Katarina actually has to throw herself upon people and stay there to do damage making her vulnerable to CC and high burst abilities, 2 of which can cancel her ult. Katarina is at least balanced around her low health, poor lane phase, and ability to be CC'd not to mention meta's like this were health is very high, banshee is very cheap, and GA is cheap as well. Sure katarina has reset options, but she needs to be with her team late game for it, or looking for out of position players, zed just splits and diminishes most champs through wave clear and then rotates back to safety.

Katarina is not "fundamentally unfair" because she doesn't have the options to go in and out like other assassins do. Zed can blink back to two differing shadows at great distances.

MEMEME6702 votes

Katarina is not "fundamentally unfair" because she doesn't have the options to go in and out like other assassins do.

Eh, getting a reset gets her a way out. However, she's actually not unfair because she doesn't deal enough damage.

Fundamentally Kat isn't unfair, but Morgana is, and Kat is the biggest abuser of that by far. She just doesn't have enough damage for it to matter.

DeathBurst19 votes

What you said is right, but Zed isn't exactly stomping at lower ranks either. Global Winrate is currently below 50%, according to League of Graphs. I think a better way to phrase it is that Zed isn't actually OP, he just appears OP, so Riot isn't trying to nerf'n'compensate him, they are just trying to make him less frustrating to play against.

Marshbouy6 votes

this is so accurate it hurts

Kuroi867 votes

Number wise, he's pretty balanced.

Mechanics wise, he's FAR too safe.

The change is in the right direction, though I wouldn't be surprised if he could use more of a push in that direction.

Blue Moon Wolf2 votes

They said MonkeyKing was balanced. Zed on the other hand, I think has just gotten to the point they just stick there fingers in their ears and try to drown it out when someone says he's not balanced. I wouldn't be surprised if riot decides to do an assassin update, to see him getting some kind of major work done to give him more points of vulnerability.

Electric Buyers39 votes

Favoritism at it's finest. Until Riot stops favoring certain champs because it was the idea of a particular staff member, this game will never be balanced properly.

p.s. Riot, we see through your bombastic paragraphs trying to justify something that is just downright stupid.

Leblancs Boob37 votes

What's a Zed? Is it that red-and-black mask thing that gets banned the second ban phase starts?

On a real note I haven't seen a single Zed in-game since last patch. He never ever makes it passed ban phase.

Troll for Trump48 votes

What is a Zed? A miserable pile of imbalance

Skelenth19 votes

Balance is weakness

Arakadia5 votes

"Balance is weakness"

-Riot Games 2016

POOPEATER80001 votes

[deleted]

LegendmakerGX11 votes

....Definitely sure that's because we don't have enough bans to even ban unbalance champion at the moment.6 bans with over 60 champion.....

Sp33d Zer023 votes

I'll take any op piece of crap over even the chance of having to deal with a zed. Sincerely, that guy who likes to play immobile carries.

Melledoneus2 votes

RIP diverse mid lane picks in normals.

POOPEATER800020 votes

[deleted]

Sahn Uzal33 votes

Correction:

Zed is a hard champion, BUT he is so stupidly broken you don't need to do anything right to kill you. Currently, Zed players just R > E > AA you to death, Riot wants Zed to use his outplay potential to kill you. But the fact that he doesn't NEED to outplay you to do his job makes him easy.

specter42411 votes

They do give mages "compensation", look at vlad. Removed his item but gave him 16 movespeed so its all balanced now.

Captain Aishi10 votes

honestly the Q change is a step in the right direction, now they only need to make it a single target ability instead of pass through and we're on our way to having a champion with some counterplay and an actual weakness in his assassination pattern

Serpents Embrace5 votes

It has always bugged me that he just gets a free hit through minion waves. Never understood quite why he got that privilege.

Captain Aishi5 votes

i always thought that if you made his shurikens have lower damage, be single target, but deal massively increased damage for additional hits on the same target with the shadows' casts, that would make him a really nice assassin design, where he's basically guaranteed to oneshot someone with deathmark if he hits 3 shurikens on them, giving him emphasis on catching targets alone, and giving his target's teammates the desire to stand by them and 'bodyguard' against the assassination (which would make zed himself harder to execute properly in teamfights, but any ability that makes enemy teams want to bunch up open up for teammates with strong aoe spells to shine)

anyways...

Dengeden9 votes

People say stay behind minions and laugh off his Q damage you. A nerfs a nerf, this will hurt him. If you insist on getting hit by multiple shurikens and the rest of Zed's combo, then guess what? How about he gets rewarded for his good play.

Sp33d Zer031 votes

It's fine if he's compensated. But the shurkien nerf is pretty light if you REALLY look at it. How often did you really see you're death recap and think.... "man, if only Zed's Q did 40 less damage to me", vs how often you thought "How the fuck did he overkill me by 300? All he has is a dirk."

Dengeden6 votes

You're forgetting the nerfs to his AD ratios on bot Q and R.

Also, base value nerfs have a huge impact on laning phase. His poke will get accumulatively worse the longer he stays in lane and there are undoubtedly some picks that will straight up tank his Q because their ability outdamages it.

Bolwinkel10 votes

Why don't we just destroy his base damages and make him have to hit you with his shadows to do damage to you? His shadows are almost his entire kit so why not make him actually have to be skilled with them?

I was Lupxel9 votes

Because Sejuani was in the spotlight for a long time; time to nerf her and only "compensate" it sighly past 1 season

Guy Fox Teemo9 votes

It was a semi nerf, and a very very very slight buff to players who can pull off his good combos.

Essentially Riot is saying:

1: He isn't OP 2: He is oppressive. 3: That needs to be changed.

So what they did is they took away some of his free harass (Spamming Q's in lane) and shifted it to his more combo oriented part of his kit. So what these changes do are.

1: Make him feel less Oppressive when simply spamming Q's. 2: Lower his power in lane (Since spamming Q's is better then W Q since thats a longer CD and wastes your escape) 3: Make his all in ever so slightly stronger (By like 30 damage if you hit two Q's during ult) 4: Make his Combo Q W E do slightly more damage if you land boths Q's.

IT was a shift in power with a little bit of nerf, Zed isn't overbearing and all you're doing is speaking from BIas.

Weathered8 votes

Azir Where the fuck is my compensation.

Mecha MaIphite12 votes

honestly fuck azir

i'd face zed over him any day

Supreme Senpai695 votes

I've played Aurelion Sol a few games before the nerf to enjoy him one last time, and after the nerf. The W nerf isn't that big of a deal IMO, but that ult damage nerf is just... crippling. It might as well do no damage, you can only use it to get people off of you. If you try to kill anyone with it you'll just knock them back to safety. But in this league of mobility, if you use it defensively, they can just hop right back on you :l

The space dragon should get a compensation buff if anything, not Zed.

Dataless4 votes

Because he's the poster child for "healthy assassin" and god forbid Riot make him irrelevant.

Meanwhile Talon is crying in a corner.

Shadòw4 votes

so you want to tell me that talon is healthy?

A fed talon won't only oneshot the enemy carry, but the whole enemy team

Serpents Embrace2 votes

I've yet to see that happen.

And a "fed" Talon just means one that played laning phase well, or played against an opponent that didn't play it well. When they're "fed" isn't a good indicator of anything. It's how well the champion does when it's on-level or behind their opponents that's really telling.

Zed can lose lane and still coast through mid game with his base damages, once he buys even one item that will proc off his R he can usually score easy kills.

If Talon loses his lane, his damages are so ratio dependent and that he's a non-factor. If he doesn't have items quickly and when he needs them, he's boned.

Shadòw4 votes

because no mage gets nerfs like a 50% scaling reduction.

You guys always complain about that it is too hard to play against zed.

Now he actually has to hit a minimum of 2 shurikens to deal damage, and you still complain.

Like, what do you expect riot to do with zed? 1 shuriken hit won't be enough anymore. When you are not able to dodge, you are just bad

Stars Shaper10 votes

AurelionSol yeah they get 200% CD increase on CC taken and 100 less base damage on ultimates.

TurquoiseYoshi4 votes

200% CD increase sounds bad until you realize it's an addition of 2 seconds, and is only that large of a difference at max rank (no change at rank 1), and that it only increases the time that you cannot make your stars go fully out rather than just exist. Also it was a 50 damage nerf on the ult. It did get other utility nerfs, but it was 50 base damage at each rank.

Romans VI XXIII8 votes

Now he actually has to hit a minimum of 2 shurikens to deal damage, and you still complain.

Deals

5/10/15/20/25

and .1 ratio reduction

Less

OOOh no Zed Q does NO DAMAGE ANY MORE QQQQQQQQQQ

Thats almost as laughable as the 3 base AD nerf awhile back LOLZ

Lets not forget that his Q has a descent range, and you can LITERALLY spam it every 6-8 seconds and NEVER go OOE. (think it cost 60 energy at lvl 1?)

If you do some simple math you will actually find that this is a MASSIVE buff for when he lands 2 Qs, a minor nerf for landing just 1 Q, and over all an unchanged affect on his ult.

So in all another buff for zed....gj riot!

Kuroi863 votes

I would honestly lower the damage on a solo Shuriken, but changing the big damage from it's base and scaling to be more multiplicative on hitting two Shuriken is a good idea. It means he can't hit you for nearly as hard nearly as often and is forced to use his main method of escape just to try and whittle you down.

Also noticing that for some people, Riot just can't seem to please them. Mages get some needed love, people complain because they aren't buffed into broken status. Zed gets nerfed, people complain because they don't knee cap him.

Voluug132 votes

Zed gets nerfed, people complain because they don't knee cap him.

To be fair with other champions the kneecap is switf and merciless.

Zed's nerfing is being done so.... carefully while before, between and probably after Riot will neuter other champions like its the gift that keeps on giving.

PB4UAME2 votes

They finally touch Vlad, and even after receiving buffs afterwards (in the completely wrong places) and he's still worse off than before, on top of far more clunky, and less reliable. Oh, and for shits and giggles they removed his favorite item.

People aren't mad that the mages "got some needed love" but weren't "buffed into broken status." They're mad that their mains got changed, and instead of being helped like RIOT said they were, they instead got nerfed, and are now worse off than before.

AwesomeChad3 votes

Design flaw with zed: He must do alot of damage with his kit or else hes useless. Nerfing QSS and not leaving many viable options for couterplay was a poor decision on riot's part. The fact that Zed is never in a state of good "balance" shows how poor designed he is.

Ulquiorra9952 votes

Having a lot of damage is fine, all assassins do so. QSS not being good agaist him is OK, you can't cleanse Talon's or Rengar's burst.

What isn't fine, however, is him having high damage AND mage-level, manaless poke and easy mode farming. Good Zed can never, ever lose lane. He either wins or, in worst case scenario, goes even. Other assassins don't have that luxury - as it should be, considering how assassins are flawed by design.

Mouse5342 votes

These changes were to his gameplay pattern, not nerfs. It was mentioned during the mage update and taliya q&a for 6.10. Just go there and click the red post collection to read the reasoning. This was more in line with a gameplay shift then anything of a nerf, meaning it shouldn't change nor effect mains wins or gameplay patterns. What this change was intended to do is add some counterplay (dodge 1 or more shuriken, and force them to stay longer for the ult dmg procs), and increase his skill ceiling (same as counterplay). Again, it is a gameplay shift, not a nerf.

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