Hi! Just wanted to add my opinion to this. I share the sentiment as some of the other mains that Zed tends to be more balanced in low elo but suffers in high elo. I do think it is possible for Zed to be balanced in low elo and still see pro play as he has in the past. I think this will require a decent amount of work though.
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Lets start with the W changes: Zed is an assassin. He can be oppressive on lane and his combo/ play pattern is pretty easy to predict or understand. Giving the enemy less time to punish him just because he likes to throw out his W for god knows why won't gonna help him become "stronger" or better. It would make him frustrating as fuck to play against. 18 is also pretty long but it still makes Zed waaaay too safe in early stages which makes him unpunishable when he should be punished. I hope that makes sense.
The W changes will have the highest effect on high elo players, it will have very little effect on low elos. The players in higher elos seem to abuse cds consistently, him having a lower CD will help him survive against tactics like that in higher elo. Lower elos in a sense fail to abuse a number of CDs and fully abuse the full length of a CD. When he had an 18 s CD he actually saw decent pro play. This nerf was one that helped phase him out of play and really hurt higher elo play.
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Zeds ult: Honestly, nobody will like this change. Nobody wants a vladimir ult on Zed. The most thing people love about Zed is his ult. It feels satisfying and is rewarding if played well. Using his ult as a buff isn't a good thing to do because that would mean that he doesn't have to hit his Qs anymore. Right now , if Zed misses his Qs he can say bb to the kill. And that is good. It's clear how to counter him and how to play around him and it is more reasonable when you die to him.
Personally agree on the ult. However, I feel taking a decent amount of power away from his ult to put into kit elsewhere would be a huge step into the right direction. His ult in the current state acts like a crutch for killing certain targets and is easily negated by items; additionlly, it is a huge pain for squishy targets because it has such a huge proc. Taking damage out of the ult would make the experience less painful for both sides. Squishies wont be deleted unless the Zed is severly ahead. Furthermore, it would reduce his reliance on his ult and reduce the effectiveness of items such as Zhonyas, Stopwatch, and GA. I know that last part sounds awful, but I think it would help Zed in high elo with less benefit in low elo because low elo players are less likely to build defensive items.
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Taking out the snapback delay would make him once again too safe to play against. Especially late game when things go so fast and it's harder to react. He would be insanely hard to catch and that is clearly no "high risk= high reward" gameplay.
Somewhat agree; however, I do know that adding the delay was one of the factors that severly dropped his pro playrate. On the other hand, early season 6 seemed to indicate that he could be in a balanced state for pro play with the delay and his playrate before the change seemed to indicate he was severly busted.
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AD steal: The main point about changes like this isn't to "nerf" the champ but to increase the difficulty of champs. Giving out free AD is never a good idea and is an unnecessary damage boost. Right now he has to show that he CAN kill his target to get the AD. He has to do something to actually gain it rather than just put a skill point into a spell.
Disagree on this point. The AD steal in its current form is extremely unhealthy. He has to rely on an ADC being extremely fed... which he is designed to stop from happening? Plus he has to rely on the enemy team having specific ADCs like Jhin. I cannot think of another champion that has their power tied to a specific character on the enemy team in a similar fashion. This I feel leads to extremely inconsistent play patterns that are not only hard to balance but highly situational. This dynamic should either be reverted or removed in my honest opinion.
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I do think Zed needs changes. But the proposed ones aren't the right ones. They could buff his AS back to when they nerfed it because of his splitpush. They could shift some damage from his passive to his Q or E to make them deal a bit more damage. But what they actually have to do is fix the damn lethality.
Lethality definetly was a turning point for him, after it was no longer broken, he completely fell out of pro play. I think lethality is an issue in itself because it contradicts what it's users want to do. Where as many of the users want to have a strong early-mid game, lethality stalls out power spikes and almost forces them to rely on multiple items. I think this is a cause of Zed's win rate being poor mid game and better late game. If they do not make it flat pen, I think they need to make the champions have really rewarding late games...
