Mages should have to make a decision on whether to use their mana to poke or waveclear

Durfain·Apr 21, 2016·277 votes·8,851 views

185 Comments

Kitten of EvilApr 21, 2016110 votes

I think item 3508 gets an honorable mention in the "lol what tradeoffs?" category.

Voluug13Apr 21, 201633 votes

BUT IT DOESNT HAVE LIFESTEAL! OR ARMOR PEN! OR ATTACK SPED!

RITO HATES ADCS!!!!!!!

elon wątrobaApr 21, 201617 votes

It has 1 tradeoff in early game. You can build either it or item 3031

hgjkdlsaf jeldvbApr 22, 20163 votes

30% cdr on an item. Some tradeoff.

Zane ZephyrApr 21, 201628 votes

I'm pretty sure every champ that uses energy has some kind of refund on it.

GaleWinUnleashedApr 21, 20168 votes

They do. Zed's kit is the only energy-based one that doesn't heavily incentivize following up a ranged poke by going in and putting yourself at risk for damage in order to get an energy refund AND the additional damage often tied to said refund.

LordOfTheLeagueApr 21, 201610 votes

I don't even understand why Riot want mage to worry about mana when they are The Magic users. They should build for infinite power aka never worry about mana and not even care about blue buff late game.

And in front of them they have manaless champs, energy users and ADC with item 3508 .

FACE THE WlNDApr 21, 20167 votes

Zed's not a mage.

Malix FarwinApr 21, 201698 votes

[{quoted}](name=FACE THE WlND,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=f1uAYKWE,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2016-04-21T13:09:48.952+0000)

Zed's not a mage.

you missed the point. Riot gave Mages those restrictions but not AD champions, especially Zed and Yasuo.

FACE THE WlNDApr 21, 201613 votes

Maybe it's just me but I don't think the two can be compared. Zed's wave clear is gated by cooldowns and energy, and to clear a whole wave early he needs to use his escape. Mages have more utility, generally lower cooldowns, and late game mana is way better than energy. Yasuo's wave clear is short range other than his third Q, and is based off of his auto attacks, and he doesn't have the security mages do.

VekknaApr 21, 201675 votes

The 6 second CD on his Q is lower than almost every mage while having equal or longer range and higher base damage. Syndra's Q is 4 seconds for 50 damage. Zed's Q starts at 75 and triple-scales off his AD, W, and R.

FACE THE WlNDApr 21, 20164 votes

Different types of champs idk why syndra is being compared to zed.

VekknaApr 21, 201678 votes

Zed's wave clear is gated by cooldowns and energy

Because of fuckery like this.

"Gated by cooldowns?" He cannot literally spam Q, he can just use it more often that most mages because the cooldown is shorter than most mages' skills. While doing more damage. That's hardly "gating."

He's not gated by energy. He gets energy refunded, it naturally regens fast, and he can regen faster in other ways. His energy will always be high enough to use Q on cooldown if that's the only skill he's using. If he uses more, he gets refunds. That is not gating.

Syndra is basically one of the only champs with a shorter CD poke than Zed, so I used her as an example. It's basically just Syndra and Ori, and both of their Qs are just infinitely weaker than Zed. It's worth mentioning that the mages with longer CD Qs are also weaker with the lone exception of Ahri.

and to clear a whole wave early he needs to use his escape

And to clear a whole wave early, mages just have to oom themselves and forfeit lane to the Zed. And he really doesn't even need to use W. Just spam that Q honey, it'll do the work for you.

FACE THE WlNDApr 21, 20167 votes

For one mana is better than energy late game. Zed Q is physical damage, and the damage falls off after hitting one enemy. Syndra's Q is aoe, deals full dame to all enemies hit, lower cooldown, and scales better late game due to the fact that it deals magic damage.

VekknaApr 21, 201672 votes

Are you playing on a private server that cloned Season 4?

Late game? LOL
Mana is better? Good thing Riot just deleted mana regen.
Zed's Q dealing 60% damage to multiple enemies still does 45 damage after the first hit, compared to Syndra's 50. Oh, and that's before the free AD multiplier on his W and/or R. Try again.

Or better yet, don't try. Zed apologists do nothing but regurgitate terrible excuses in a lame attempt to justify an obviously broken champ.

FACE THE WlNDApr 21, 20166 votes

I'm not defending zed you're just too ignorant and hot headed to realize it. You obviously don't understand anything about the game. Mana outscale a energy late game, magic damage is better late game, and last but not least THEYRE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CHAMPIONS! They fill two completely different purposes and both have their own strengths and weaknesses. Also, i don't give a fuck whether riot nerfs zed or what not, I just hate people who make threads based off of flawed knowledge, but your complete ignorance doesn't allow you too see past your biased opinion, so there is no point in me trying to reason with you.

Gnart Even CloseApr 21, 20166 votes

thank you for being rational.

mana and energy champions are fundamentally different, with mages having a much larger pool to spam more in a short period of time, but much less regen so they can't do it for as long.

i'm guessing you're a yasuo/zed player from your name, and many people hate those champions (sometimes justified), so they become irrational.

so many people are complaining about the qss nerf too, but i'm honestly happy for it because it means zed can actually be balanced around always having his ult. that entire thing was part of the reason zed was allowed to be so dominant.

i personally kind of wish that everyone used energy instead of just a few, but with slightly larger pools and slower regen, so that way everybody could spam abilities. more abilities = more fun, as shown by urf mode

Voluug13Apr 21, 201627 votes

mana and energy champions are fundamentally different, with mages having a much larger pool to spam more in a short period of time, but much less regen so they can't do it for as long.

Two fundamentialy different kind of champions, yes.

Two fundamentialy different kind of champions, that exist in the same game and usually face eachother? That part you forgot to mention.

SlythionApr 21, 20163 votes

We should just get out of here man, too many people here have 0 tolerance for Zed sympathizers (even if they agree Zed should be nerfed but under a different line of thought)

FACE THE WlNDApr 21, 20163 votes

I don't understand this... I'm not even defending zed and this guy is flaming me...

DroogzyApr 21, 201612 votes

[{quoted}](name=FACE THE WlND,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=f1uAYKWE,comment-id=00030000000000000000000000000000000000020000,timestamp=2016-04-21T18:37:18.649+0000)

I don't understand this... I'm not even defending zed and this guy is flaming me...

I think at the end of the day, the fundamental problem, even if you take away all the numbers, is that assassin are suppose to have two key flaws: one, to be weak and susceptible especially in the early game, and two, that in order to shut them down in midlane, either shove them into the turret or punish their turret heavily if they roam. Its their trademark for how you deal with them.

You really can not look at anyone and say with a straight face that Zed is weak in the early game, nor say that shoving him into the turret actually works.

When you look at how he is not weak early game, coupled with the fact he isn't gated by nearly anything outside of shadow cool-downs, coupled with his ridiculous wave clear, its a recipe for a champion who is going to be infuriating.

The argument he falls off late game really doesn't work, I get that people say he falls off late game because his teamfight is terrible.

Which FYI, I do agree with, keep a Braum on backline carry, when Zed ults in a teamfight, he's gone, his team-fighting is objectively terrible. But team fighting isn't the only part of the game in late game. Split-pushing and making picks are also important at which he excels greatly at.

SlythionApr 21, 20163 votes

It's no use. I could point out that by rushing an item to completely void a member of their team makes that item 100000% more cost efficient, or that his poke is skillshots and are fairly easy to dodge (imo), or that unless you take a lot of harrass or just don't have hp pots then you can't be all-inned by him (just like any mid assassin) but they will just downvote and downvote because you aren't allowed to point out reasonable things if it's from the wrong side of the argument.

The boards will never recognize exceptions, it's always black and white for them. Zed op? everything about him needs to be nerfed (q dmg, w cd, e slow, r avoiding) I've seen them all. Point out that there are ways to counter him until he gets a reasonable nerf? Nah, downvote!

For example: Look at Spaceman5PFF's comment right below mine. He disagrees from personal experience from the PBE showing that mana isn't much of an issue with catalyst, but the boards only look at the on-paper stats and assume they know how it'll interact with the game. Ignore the fact that he has personal experience, he's just downvoted because he disagrees with a point made in the op and presented actual experience and every argument against him so far has been "you're wrong because the stats couldn't do that" despite just making assumptions on the stat's interactions with the game.

Now don't get me wrong boards, I agree Zed should be nerfed. His build paths are too fluid, his safety is too strong for an assassin, etc etc. But you can't post a thread and just downvote anyone that has a different opinion simply because you don't like it. Don't be so close-minded to not listen to reason, not everything has to be 100 or 0. Zed is op, that's for sure, but there are weaknesses to him and tips to beat him.

And with that, I shall leave this thread to allow all the Zed haters to line up in agreement that Zed is broken af and needs to be deleted from the game. I've accumulated enough downvotes for not picking a side

VekknaApr 21, 201613 votes

It's a mathematical fact that 200 mana per level from the old catalyst is more mana return than is even possible with the new catalyst.

You could literally die every level and not get 200 mana back from your catalyst. There's nothing subjective to it.

There are no base regen changes. Regen was deleted from every mid mage item other than Doran's ring.

Having a PBE account does not change numbers. Opinion does not change numbers. Math is a thing.

Spaceman5pffApr 21, 20167 votes

Deleted mana regen? Try again when you have pbe access kid, with catalyst, mana sustain is better than it is on live.

VekknaApr 21, 201638 votes

Yeah, let me take 1333 damage every level to match the 200 mana current catalyst gives.

Maybe you meant Lost Chapter? That's fine for early, though I was responding to a comment about how mana is so much better late game than energy. You're not really leveling up much in late game for Lost Chapter to do much.

I'm sure taking a health bar's worth of damage to cast 3 spells is really great for late game, though.

AMYS GRAVEApr 21, 20169 votes

Yeah, let me take 1337 damage every level to match the 200 mana current catalyst gives.

Fixed your rounding error ;)

oneshot j4 midApr 21, 20163 votes

here we observe our silver 4 theorycrafter who understands complex topics such as metagame

VekknaApr 21, 201612 votes

This gold 5 is mad that I criticized a silver 1 who says Zed is "gated by cooldowns."

Hitting me where it hurts, y'all.

AkeydelApr 21, 20163 votes

i mean, he's technically right. cd's are the limiting factor, its just that they're not very much of a limit

bill84Apr 22, 20162 votes

AurelionSol What are these cooldowns you speak of? I have no limit!

Heckin SupportApr 21, 201611 votes

There's no point arguing against him. Judging by his name he plays champions like Yasuo and Zed, there's no reasoning with these people.

PoskeApr 21, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Are you playing on a private server that cloned Season 4?

Late game? LOL

Mana is better? Good thing Riot just deleted mana regen.

Zed's Q dealing 60% damage to multiple enemies still does 45 damage after the first hit, compared to Syndra's 50. Oh, and that's before the free AD multiplier on his W and/or R. Try again.

Or better yet, don't try. Zed apologists do nothing but regurgitate terrible excuses in a lame attempt to justify an obviously broken champ.

Syndra should start with w first since q was gutted Her w does like 90 dmg

VekknaApr 21, 20167 votes

Yep. With a 12 second CD, or 2 Zed Qs.

That 90 damage vs. Zed's 150.

PoskeApr 21, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Yep. With a 12 second CD, or 2 Zed Qs.

That 90 damage vs. Zed's 150.

It also kinda slows ...

I do agree zed is Absolute cancerous blshit and should be gutted for atleast 4 months so that community can have a break

But you are comparing him to a champion which is not similar Syndra has range Insane stun potentional She is aoe mage with single targeted burst

She has lots of stuff in her favor

But you compared Zed q to literaly the weakest poke ability in the game at lvl 1

VekknaApr 21, 20162 votes

I'm not going to fish for a comparison that you like, but please feel free to post your own with the numbers. I will enjoy reading it. =)

But I've already done the comparisons and posted on them before. Zed's Q is generally better than most mage poke abilities by most metrics. It's the reason he's so oppressive to lane against, so that's not much of a surprise.

My Waifu VanillaApr 22, 20162 votes

Last I checked Zed only gets refunded 20 energy in lane per ability cast. That means Zed's farming MIGHT get him refunded 40 energy out of the 140 he spent to blow his entire kit at level 7 (if Zed literally puts his shadow under him to hit double E's). Otherwise Zed's poke refunds 20 out of the 90 he spends to poke you and that is only if he hits SOMETHING with double shurikens which BETTER not be you or you need some help dodging skill shots (and if it isn't you then congratulations you took 60% damage because both shurikens wouldve had to go through something else first to give him the "refund").

People always act like Zed is invincible or impossible to punish in lane but if he uses W and misses everything that man has to wait 14 seconds to get back to full energy, 6 seconds to even Q you again, and 24 seconds to use another shadow. If you cannot punish that man in the 6 seconds he is basically useless then that is ALL on you.

Hayaishi2Apr 21, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malix Farwin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=f1uAYKWE,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2016-04-21T13:12:33.525+0000)

you missed the point. Riot gave Mages those restrictions but not AD champions, especially Zed and Yasuo.

Because Zed's damage is reduced when he hits minions and Yasuo kinda needs good waveclear to survive in lane.

Meowstic FApr 21, 201617 votes

It does 45 after passing through an ennemy. Except he can use his W to double hit. Except he has his R to triple hit.

See the pattern :) ?

TeklmApr 22, 20162 votes

To be honest, if you actually get hit by all 3 shadow shurikens, you deserve to get fucked up. Even then, multiple shurikens hitting the same target deals reduced damage, so a double hit doesn't mean double damage.

Spaceman5pffApr 21, 20164 votes

I fucking HATE playing against yasuo, and firmly believe he is overpowered.

However his lane phase is NOT where he is overpowered. In order to poke (other than his 3rd q) he has to pick up minion aggro. That is a significant disadvantage next to the likes of zed, velkoz, and most other mids.

DareqApr 21, 20168 votes

{quoted}

I fucking HATE playing against yasuo, and firmly believe he is overpowered.

However his lane phase is NOT where he is overpowered. In order to poke (other than his 3rd q) he has to pick up minion aggro. That is a significant disadvantage next to the likes of zed, velkoz, and most other mids.

if only he gets refreshing barriers every 10 seconds and a wall to negate any retaliation after he disengages... oh wait.

Kuroi86Apr 22, 20163 votes

Thankfully it only lasts for one second and is easily procced by a single auto attack, so there is some counter play there. It's still annoying as heck, but it does have a downside.

tru3nox2Apr 22, 20162 votes

If Zed had mana he would be worse than Urgot.

Zed has to farm with shurikens and give up some cs early game, Also his W has 22s cd at lvl 1.

But I don't expect you to understand this, you're just a bronze that hates Zed.

Edit: Also Katarina doesn't use mana and she's garbage right now.

MrNuclearPumpkinApr 22, 20166 votes

I love how all the Zed mains are super defensive over this, trying to scrape for any and every excuse that helps them attempt to hide that Zed is going to be a freaking broken unbeatable god in the new patch.

FlippyGoneTrippyApr 21, 20165 votes

Lol if Zed uses his spells to clear a wave go fucking kill his ass.

For anyone who doesn't know..

How to beat Zed when he's not already stomping

Push your wave so he is pressured into using his spells and wait for his energy bar to be below 33%.

Engage.

Kitten of EvilApr 21, 201631 votes

Push your wave so he is pressured into using his spells and wait for his energy bar to be below 33%.

He's never really pressured. He can easily CS under tower because his passive helps him execute minions. If he is about to miss a CS, then and only then does he need to waste a Q on the minion wave. And how is a mage supposed to push the wave early on without going OOM? That's only going to get worse with the itemization changes, which seem intentionally designed to prevent mages from using mana to push and waveclear. Also, if you as a mage are pushing the lane, you are inviting a jungle gank and a Zed W+R on top of you.

Lol if Zed uses his spells to clear a wave go fucking kill his ass.

Zed CAN use his spells to waveclear (he can also easily last-hit minions to freeze the lane, throwing out Qs to harass or poke), but how can you go "kill his ass" when he has a W to disengage? He's very difficult to all-in unless your jungler is there with some CC.

Vellich0rApr 21, 20165 votes

With the new update mid year, mages no longer have to worry about this decision.

DurfainApr 21, 20167 votes

Wat? It's 10x worse.

Vellich0rApr 21, 20165 votes

I mean, I might have a unique experience but from my testing of the changes, I've never needed to worry about mana as long as I built the right items. Lost chapter makes it really easy to sustain in lane, and tear makes poking a breeze. If you get an early water drake? You will never need to make decisions about mana again.

DurfainApr 21, 20163 votes

I'm sure you can build to never worry about mana. I mean, tear will solve pretty much all your mana problems on most champions... but this update is hugely removing diversity. RoA is more of a tank item now (it only gives 400 mana anyways) and I can't see myself building it on most mid laners. Morellos is probably the "de facto" mana item now and it mixes elements of the old AuG and current morellos.. it's not terrible but by itself won't solve most champions mana issues. So you can opt for a big power spike or a much more permanent solution. Compare that to live where we have four viable options for resource generation.. RoA, Archangels, AuG and Morellos, you can go whichever of these suits your champion best or even more than one! I fail to see how limiting build diversity is good for the game.