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Look at this 2013 video of Scarra on Zed , 9-1-1 with 317 farm at 28 mins, lvl 18 vs lvl 14 vayne

Shåwn·9/20/2018, 1:09:07 AM·113 votes·22,238 views

Things to note in the clip: -Disgustingly fed in both kills and absurdly high CS especially for back in 2013 people did not have CS that high very often -Hits all abilities including double shuriken -Has 4 levels advantage -If you keep watching you see vayne teamfighting and doing the tiniest bits of dmg with each auto, compared to modern day ADCs that just frontload people down in 2-3 seconds or less.

And the best part of it all? Back in 2013, Zed was considered really really strong and picked in both LCS and worlds. Loved by all Zed mains back then and rarely banned in solo q. Today, Zed is considered not so good by the high elo community, Zed mains hate his current state, people who play against zed in low-mid elo also hate him, banrate is 30-40% as well.

I dont know how Riot managed to screw up this champ this badly. Its pretty clear he was both a better champ in high elo and better to play against when:

A) he was balanced around botrk , ldr , and sustained dmg/late game scaling rather than dumbass cheesy lethality powerspikes B) he was not balanced around electrocute/thunderlords C) he was not completely screwed up by the ultimate failure of the "assassin update" where he was turned into the rng AD reaping champion D) his base attack speed wasnt nerfed and he relied on mechanics such as the 5.22 bugfix and going in and out with no snapback delay rather then L3Th4LItY 1Sh0Ts that completely suck against anyone with tankyness/ lategame

EDIT: I almost forgot,

DO SOMETHING RIOT. LL stylish officially quit playing zed, Laceration thinks its torture playing it, everyone else in the 99% of the playerbase hates playing against zed. Clearly no 1 is happy. Clearly he was a way better design from 2013-2015. How about you do something? Riot has let this dichotomy go on for like 2 years?

EDIT#2: I also previously posted a super long and in depth post about how to fix AD assassin itemization with the goal of reverting alot of it back to how it was in 2013-2015 with it being more stable, scaling/lategame focused, and less of an avalanche difference between fighting a squishy vs fighting a tank/bruiser.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/IpY4Xc8s-feedbackanalysis-how-to-fix-serious-power-curve-issues-with-lethality-and-how-to-fix-zed-all-elos

EDIT#3: I just wanted to clear up some confusion regarding the clip I posted. Zed's E does infact hit the vayne if you watch in slow motion. She starts with 100% hp but after she comes out of stealth she is at 85-90% hp and no Qs have hit her yet.

Also, both Qs do infact hit her. If you pause at 28:06 you can see both numbers on the vayne.

Some people are also saying "but zed could have done X, Y, and Z to secure the kill, a gold 5 player would have killed her". That is not the point of the video at all and I dont know why its being brought up. The fact that he has to do X, Y, and Z on top of landing all his abilities while being 9-1-1 300+ CS at 28 mins is literally my point. In season 8, lethality is so poorly designed from a powercurve perspective that when Zed is fed and spiking from stacking lethality, he can miss alot of abilities and still kill a squishy but then is completely worthless vs tanks/bruisers/later in the game. Botrk season 3 zed killed slower but was a way better champion and way less banned.

99 Comments

3411235456529/20/2018, 1:23:22 AM47 votes

Whats actually fascinating is how straight up fed that zed was. Like if 9-1 isnt enough he had 300+ farm at 28 mins. Today, a 0-2 zed with lethality stacked up can probably 100-0 a squishy without even using ult AND then be completely useless vs someone like that irelia or hecarim in the video. Look how much more STABLE of a champion zed was back then.

SugeMinPikk9/20/2018, 1:11:11 AM46 votes

That was pre-lethality

Game was objectively better when there were only 1 or 2 armor pen items

Coming from someone who mained Rengar during that time

Infernape9/20/2018, 1:25:33 AM38 votes

If that was now, death recap would've shown Vayne dying in 0.01 seconds lol

theChibiTina9/20/2018, 1:20:13 AM30 votes

This was so pleasant to watch. It was nice not seeing a fight end in under a second. I wish games were like this. Alas, I came in to late to know what it's like to not be in a team fight for less than five seconds and whichever team can put out the most CC and burst the fastest wins. I want strategy! To hell with "flashy." I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want "more excitement" in LCS because I actually enjoy watching them wait for the perfect engage, warding, and trying to outplay each other instead of just constant overly aggressive fighting. It's such a pleasant change of pace compared to what I see while playing regular games.

Mizaya9/20/2018, 1:32:40 AM20 votes

This was the era of league I was addicted to, though I guess after having played so long it's just not the same.

ŹÉÐ9/20/2018, 3:14:48 AM17 votes

i stopped playing league more and more by season 6-7, now i dont even play league anymore. its solely due to riots direction they've put the game in, it just isnt fun anymore.

Eedat9/20/2018, 1:36:19 AM16 votes

-Disgustingly fed in both kills and absurdly high CS especially for back in 2013 people did not have CS that high very often -Hits all abilities including double shuriken -Has 4 levels advantage

Are you actually trolling? He misses everything EXCEPT the double shuriken. Zed already used W to get there. Zed presses R. Vayne instantly R>Qs away. Both Zed's E miss. Zed doesnt get an auto off. Zed doesnt ignite. Literally the only thing that hit were two shurikens and both of them were reduced damage because they hit minions first.

What the actual fuck is this? Did you expect us to not watch or something?

WorksAtAGayBar9/20/2018, 5:12:16 AM7 votes

Wow that was so pleasant to watch, like genuinely nice seeing a teamfight last that long and not seeing a grey screen with "2000 damage in .68 seconds" I never really got to experience that phase of league but I'd really like to.

XeroKimo9/20/2018, 3:57:02 PM6 votes

Just saying both Q's did not in fact hit, you can go through youtube nearly frame by frame when paused using , and . 333 on vayne from Zed himself, which also hit the minion behind vayne for 401, the clone Q did 501 dmg to the minions beside vayne, and finished off the other minion dealing 105 dmg.

Even so, if both Qs did hit vayne, due to old zed having an additional penalty from multiple Qs hitting the same target, I'd bet on him dealing ~400 damage on vayne. He did not use Botrk, and he didn't get even 1 auto on her.

The auto attack is key here, as if this was modern League, electrocute with his current stats here would make up for that 1 auto attack. If both Q's did hit her, and he managed an auto, that Vayne would've died.

He also ran black cleaver, it's hard to tell from reading the patch history when they fixed league of black cleavers, but I assume from patch 3.01 where they fixed a bug, if he ran youmuu's it'd deal even more damage, and it wasn't uncommon to run armor penn runes, which if iirc 12 from quints and 9 from marks. Though it's more likely he ran AD marks penn quints. So he could've potentially halved the vayne's armor and probably wouldn't need the auto then in order to kill her, as the 2 Qs and E + botrk would've been enough to kill her

ApollyonBainer9/20/2018, 5:14:18 PM5 votes

The game got worse when lethality came out

SpongebobIsLife9/20/2018, 5:44:27 AM3 votes

i was thinking about this the other day after watching LL's stream . Zed is a lot harder to be successful with than other assassins and honestly, he probably falls off the hardest; yet, he has the highest ban rate among assassins.

It is clear to me now that Zed is underwhelming to the person playing zed and a pain to deal with as the person playing against zed. And I can't really tell if the problem is zed's kit and numbers, or if it's the runes and items that make things so hard for him. Personally, I think it's both.