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Starting to just ban Zed at masters

Elk Whisperer·1/5/2015, 1:16:46 AM·74 votes·6,413 views

He has no weaknesses, and its crazy how people thought he was balanced to begin with.

I always thought he was strong, because most mages have to stop whatever their normal build is and rush an armguard or die at level 6 instantly.

He's the only champion in the game that actually FORCES you to start with an item besides doran ring as an ap mage because you will die without cloth 5 pre-6 due to w-e-q harass all lane.

He can farm forever if the matchup is unfavorable for him (hint: there aren't many save for Lissandra off the top of my head) and if you are under half health the next time he harasses you he will w in and auto-ignite and first blood you.

That is PRE 6 btw, after 6 you better hope that armguard is finished or YOU'RE finished.

His roam is better as well, because he doesn't need cdr since he has an energy resource, so he just builds...guess what...YEP! BOOTS OF MOBILITY! YAHHH FUN.

I hate the way he's designed. Doesn't have to commit to anything, if his ult won't kill you he just shadows back out because the ult MAKES A RETREAT POINT FOR HIM.

Also, good luck itemizing against him, zhonyas only works once, if he's ahead he can kill you with w-e-q auto ignite bork proc alone.

Then he gets lw, and well, yeah have fun.

Riot please make his w cost more energy or something, he should be able to do the w-e-q combo once and then have to wait a couple seconds before using w again to annihilate you. That way if the person is low, they can be like "oh hey he just took me down to a quarter of my health! let me leave!" and actually have time to back off before he switches with the shadow...

Also, if you're going to make his ult cost nothing, at least increase the cooldown, he's able to use it after you come back into lane... On that topic, why the hell does his ult cost nothing at all? Yasuo has a resourceless ult but he has to hit you first before it's usable.

Maybe make his ult cost 30-35 energy so after he w-e-q point blank and somehow misses he has to wait like a couple seconds before shadowing out, because he fucked up and he deserves to die at that point...just a suggestion i don't know...

Tl;dr Zed is cancer, thanks, Riot do something please he's ruining my life.

135 Comments

Kowe The Ewok1/5/2015, 1:26:57 AM22 votes

First of all: I really think he has to be nerfed. But I think I can explain why ( as you said it ) "people believed he was balanced to begin with".

What Zed really broke were the introduction of BotrK, and the buff to Ghostblade. His ultimate amplifying the damage of BotrK is incredibly broken. It wrecks tanks and squishies alike. The buff to Ghostblade leveraged his chasing potential into infinity, considering that he already has several dashes and his E is a strong AoE slow which can be cast while moving.

EDIT: I just noticed the state of Ghostblade I was thinking of was as "pre buff" was only on PBE, so Ghostblade basically was always strong on him, not because of a buff. I just had an unreleased (weaker) PBE version of it in mind - sorry (Happens when you're playing for mroe than 3 years, lol.) These two **EDIT: ** (one) item changes made a balanced underdog the possibly most broken champion in the game.

A good way to start fixing him would be to let his ultimate only amplify abilities and attacks, not items. Also the energy costs of his Q should not scales down to 55. Zed gains 10 Energy per second. His Q costs 55 Energy and has 6 seconds cooldown. AT LEAST increase the minimum energy cost to 60. As the TO already mentioned - his ultimate is free. Why should his other Q also be spammable on cooldown like he was ressourceless? There are extremely strong energy regeneration runes. If he wants to spamm infinitely he's still free to sacrifice 9 lousy armor for increasing his regen to 60.35 Energy per 5s.

2pudge1cup1/5/2015, 5:29:42 AM21 votes

Frankly, his problem really boils down to having an easy wave clear on a manaless, burst assassin.

Waveclears in this game are out of control to begin with, but it's just awful design to put them on any assassin let alone one who doesn't even need to worry about mana.

TheI3igDaddy1/5/2015, 7:18:35 AM14 votes

Quite honestly, I think there needs to be a serious change to energy users in general:

Energy regen within their kits needs to be removed, period. I feel like this is a starting point to balancing all of them. Adjust energy costs slightly to fix this (Shen's taunt, for example, should be lowered slightly to make up for not regaining energy if he hits someone).

Think of it, why the hell are these champs *gaining *energy in combat? Is it like an adrenaline rush or something? Shouldn't they be losing it until they've backed off long enough to catch their breath?

If energy users want to combo, they need to do it right or lose out on possible mobility / damage. And it provides some counterplay to their enemies; if they avoid said combos, there's the moment to retaliate.

Just my opinion though.

Bloodpaly1/5/2015, 4:22:14 AM12 votes

My main beef is he free wins every lane or gets every farm for free cause dat Q and passive make ez mode farming.

And he is building BORK/LW as his primary damage items because they both allow him to wreck squishies AND tanks np.

And the never truly committing ever part is just icing. He doesn't need like 6? seconds to return, the shadow doesn't need to last that long.

Arch Mage Magnus1/5/2015, 5:55:19 AM11 votes

I do hate his farming ability. Early game farming with Swain or Xerath can be a real pain to last hit. Personally Swain vs Zed is actually a pretty easy matchup for Swain. You just can't get ganked and give him the lead. If you give him ANY lead, you are screwed for the whole game.

Somnitsu1/5/2015, 4:35:23 PM9 votes

I Main Ahri and I absolutely hate playing against zed, he's on my permaban list with fizz.

The main reason he's toxic though is because he uses energy. Honestly there's a huge gap an skill ceiling with mana, energy and costless champs. the better you get with your mechanics the more built in costs inhibit you. your skills might give you a better hit rate with skillshots or a better cs per minute, etc but there's no amount of skill that makes your ahri have more mana the another ahri, or makes your cooldowns lower then what the game says they are. these things are what limit the players, and having few limits makes a champion have a higher skill ceiling, which is why zed is such a pain at higher elo. At lv2 using charm->orb takes about half ahri's mana pool. I have a limited amount of Q orbs, and charms and fox-fires I can use before I have to go back to fountain. even farming from a distance is limited because of mana, but zed can spam q and his resource doesn't run out.

mana sucks so much. Natural mana regen is so slow that without blue buff you basically don't have any regen

If an energy bar is completely empty, waiting for it to fully charge takes a few seconds

If a mana bar is completely empty waiting for it to fully charge would take several minutes

this means mana champs are forced to recall for their stupid shitty resource, unless they have blue buff.

people say "manage" your mana but only certain champs can really do this, twisted fate with his blue card, lissandra and xerath with theirs passives. but for everyone else you just have to know I can use this many Q's this many W's this many E's before I have to back again.

it's even more sad when you're full health but have to back for mana when your dumb-dumb team goes into a fight 4v5 while you're at base and you could have helped but mana is so slow, it's even worse when a critical time in game like dragon spawn is comming up but you're low on mana.

and with the nerf to blue buff it's only made mana champs that much worse because a lot of mana champs relied on blue buff for their teamfight power

The only reason being costless or energy based is such a huge advantage is because mana sucks so bad. If natural mana regen got a buff like it needs, being energy based wouldn't be such a big deal.

I love when I get the chance to play akali or katarina because then I don't have to be limited by a stupid resource that forces you to go back to your base

I feel like mages in general have really gotten the shaft this preseason. with the removal of blue pot, the nerf to blue buff. item changes for some champs it's really sad for the people who main mage champs

TL;DR mana regen sucks, needs a huge buff

Kosm1K1/5/2015, 3:51:26 PM8 votes

I feel that Zed is really broken atm. During his free week recently, I tried him out for the first time, got 10/5/something with him. If a noob zed like me, who doesn't even understand how to use the shadows right can get that, then just imagine those who main zed. His skill floor is incredibly low, anyone can just pick him up and demolish a lane. I, like many others in this thread, blame the fact that he has a free ad rabadons built into his kit. He can easily have over 450+ad full build without even building heavy ad items, and instead get lw, botrk, and cleaver. As another melee ad assassin, talon, I found that I had to struggle to get to 400 ad and that was building full on ad items like bloodthirster and hydra. Zed is especially more powerful since he gets another 6% from dragon's buff. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that zed can reach 500ad. No melee assassin should be able to have that much ad and so little commitment to their targets. Zed easily outclasses talon when it comes to assassinations, and I feel that's a little unfair considering the fact that talon has a small pool of mana and has to get much closer to his targets in order to kill them. Plus I'm tired of all the zeds in midlane, there's never any variety, it's always zed because of his easy kill potential. Not to mention the fact that it doesn't matter if you do well in lane and not feed him, as long as your botlane ignores your mias and gives zed two doubles in 5 min, then he's going to proceed to carry the game.

Hasztalan21/5/2015, 10:07:48 AM7 votes

His bonus AD from W needs to go, taht's what im saying for ages. That would actually force him to commit BIG ad items, instead of getting fullbuild at 30 min with cheap ass items like GB and would actually put a strain on him needing a handsome amount of AD to deal the same dmg he has now. If rito doesn't want to get rid of his "Muh lcs" playmaking potential at least increase the requirement to do so.

RavenMagus1/5/2015, 4:50:42 AM6 votes

The biggest problem with Zed, in my opinion, is just how much free safety his ult gives him. He can ult anything he wants to, and he has a free getaway by simply using his ult again. He can dive in on problematic targets (like Karthus or someone with a support next to them) and not worry about anything at all because he can freely escape again with his ult at any time. Towers don't even mean anything to Zed at all because he ults in and back out again.

Keitron1/5/2015, 3:37:37 PM6 votes

People that play zed are just gonna downvote this riot will never see it freelo zed will continue.

Father Cthulhu1/5/2015, 5:14:36 PM5 votes

I play Zed a lot and I can confirm that he's kinda broken. He does need a nerf in several ways, but increasing the energy cost on his W doesn't do anything. The CD on his w is 17 at rank one(and its the last ability that you max, so it's like that almost all game). The only way he can shorten it is CDR(which you usually don't build any but yomuu's and maybe blue every once in a while) or hitting somebody with your E, reducing it by 2 seconds. The best and easiest way to counter that is to bait his w, run away, poke, repeat. His w has a long cd, use that to your advantage, the same way you would if a fizz wasted his E. But he does have some absurd strengths in several areas, such as his safety, roam, and farm. And compared to a lot of other mid laners, he outpokes them to hell and waits till they're low to ult them and pick up the kill.

The thing is, he actually does have a lot of counters. Orianna, Syndra, Fizz is a skill match up, Azir is a skill match up, Ahri is a skill match up, and probably a couple more that I can't think of atm.

Reasons they counter him:
Ori can ulti him when he gets out of his ult, wasting his ult, as well as being able to zone him and shield his poke. Syndra can E him, or even stun him during his ult and waste it, q, w, q, and pick up a kill on him, as well as being able to zone him with constant q's as well. Fizz can just E his ult, usual fizz bullshit. Azir can ulti zed's ulti, as they're on similiar cd's, while also being able to zone and reposition soldiers pretty quickly. Ahri can usually land her charm on zed as soon as he comes out of his ult if you actually know the positioning on his ult, and land a full combo as well as waste his ult time, and she has superior poke.

Greenheath1/5/2015, 8:37:40 AM4 votes

TL;DR I think Riot needs to examine energy based champs and their respective methods of restoring energy. They seem to have trouble balancing a lot of champs but it seems the energy ones are particularly difficult.

Zed, Akali and Lee Sin can all restore energy easily because multiple abilities/aa can proc it, short CDs, and the abilities they use never cost more than double their ideal energy refund, sometimes are just over the refund amount.

Shen and Kennen have have a harder time restoring energy because their abilities cost more (Taunt only works on champs and there's usually only 1 around) and have higher CDs, as well as needing to auto repeatedly to refund (loses lane control because they end up pushing).

These are some the most complained about (IMO) champs in the game for being overpowered or unusable. (Pls note: i have never played Kennen before or after the recent buffs, but he seems the most balanced right now, but still not great).

Black Star 12991/5/2015, 4:14:58 AM3 votes

Just wondering (not defending Zed or anything)

What made Zed so powerful now?

Haven't seen any major changes except for that they made Zed stand behind instead of in front of the target with his ult...

In fact, I remember reading a lot of people complaining about Zed 3 months ago on how he can't assassinate carries anymore, and how building a qss and zhonya's instantly shuts him down.

Anyone have an explanation, or is he just the OP champion of the month?