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My thoughts on balancing Zed

DontPingMeBro·12/6/2018, 10:53:51 PM·4 votes·877 views

Hi LoL Board first time posting here go easy on me :).

The goal of my post is to do exactly what the title says, so go easy on me ADC/Mage mains. Because an overpowered Zed is a banned Zed and as a One Trick I would hate that.

Rank: Diamond IV Games played on Zed S8: 700

I am a so called One Trick of the champion Zed . The reason for this is that I love the aesthetic of the champion and the outplay potential that his kit offers. Unfortunately the champion I and many others love has been unplayable competitively for the past year. The adding of boneplate, aftershock and stopwatch play a huge part in this. Zed as mentioned in the video is underperforming huge statiscally in the early and mid game while being an ad melee assasin which should have his strength during this time to snowball as the design of assasins is intended for. I have listed the buffs and nerfs below which should achieve a healhier Zed for low and high elo. The goal of this is to create a Zed that is bursting when played well against armor and is not one shotting when played poorly against no armor. For reference I linked the video of a Rioter talking to the Best Zed NA about the state of the champion.

Buffs:

W: Lower cooldown early 22 sec is insane as for only trading tool in lane, late game cd is fine. Revert the bonus ad back to w instead of ult which is useless unless the enemy has a Jihn.

E: Buff base damage, an auto attack + E combo currently is barely enough to break yasuo shield.

Auto attack: Buff base damage and range. Currently you can only (non passive) auto attack from 1 mm away and it heals the enemy. The animation also could use some work because it seems to cancel a ton.

Passive: I have heard some other people mention interesting ideas about reworking the passive which currently assits farming for low elo a ton and also makes Zed feel capable of one shotting an adc without armor just with ult passive and e.

My idea for the passive would be that the shurikens of Zed can mark the enemy and these marks stack based on how many shurikens hit. If Zed basic attacks, all these marks are consumed and deal bonus damage.

Nerf:

With the above buffs revert the cd changes to our ult. That shit is up way too much late game. Its probably hella frustrating to play against.

General:

I would be hugely in favor for removing the lethality stat all together which does way too much dmg imo to players without armor which causes the cases of "I got one shot by Zed without him landing a single q". And once any armor is build the damage falls of a cliff untill a ldr is completed. Can we just get flat pen ad items back please like the mages have had all this time?

Also the lethality items such as duskblade and edge of night are so stupid from a game design perspective.

Duskblade: removes you from having any strategic play in the vision game as it shows you all game long if you are unseen. Also the added damage from being unseen is creates more no counterplay one shots.

Edge of night: removes the one counterplay squishies needed to have against assasins crowd control. Once completed you can throw the strategic thinking about when to go in out the window and lets Zed and other ad assasins just jump in whenever they feel like it.

Thanks for making it through the post it was quite a rant, but I hope this gives more recognition to the problems my favorite champion has had to face for an entire year.

4 Comments

fire26312/7/2018, 12:08:48 AM1 votes

Not sure why you're downvoted for just posting your idea's on zed. I'm in the lower end of the elo spectrum and it's slightly easier to play as zed down here, but I still feel like I have two cents to throw in.

I agree with the w cooldown changes, people complain about his mobility but if you take cooldowns into consideration he really doesn't have a whole lot. I really, really, like the passive idea, but unfortunately I don't think it would work too well. Zeds problem is that he has so much overkill right now, but not a whole lot other than that, and in higher elo it's very simple to counter that amount of overkill he has with something like a zhonyas or the multitude of different and new kits that contain some ability that can negate this damage. After that overkill he doesn't really have much to contribute until later when his w comes back up, and the passive changes will only add to that one initial burst, rendering him quite useless for the rest of the fight. I can't say I really have any ideas as of now other than reduce w cooldown, and probably rework his E and/or his passive to something new to help him combat that once you use your spells you're quite useless. I also think his energy is a bit of a problem, as most people at least in my elo don't give zed blue buffs because he uses energy, but it becomes a problem late when you don't have enough energy to q multiple times in a fight, which adds on to that overkill idea.

I think I'm a bit repetitive and ranted on a little, but those are just my two cents. I'm quite happy that this video is creating some discussion, because I enjoy hearing ideas about how to change zed even if I'm not part of the balance team.

Tahminatrix 12/7/2018, 12:38:10 AM1 votes

{quoted}

I am a so called One Trick of the champion Zed .

You shouldn't say that, knowing the community, most people will assume you are just biased and immediately downvote you, then move on.

Buffs:

W: Lower cooldown early 22 sec is insane as for only trading tool in lane, late game cd is fine. Revert the bonus ad back to w instead of ult which is useless unless the enemy has a Jihn.

Increase W cd at all levels (but not a lot) and reduce cd whenever he and his shadow land a hit on the same enemy? (Same way he gets energy back basically) Idk im a low elo noob who wants zed to be less mobile out of combat but be rewarded for landing his abilities.

E: Buff base damage, an auto attack + E combo currently is barely enough to break yasuo shield.

Maybe provide an example against a champion that isn't yasuo, everyone hates yasuo already and this argument will only appeal to that hate.