I want to see why people think he is not a broken champion. Tell me why he is in anyway balanced.
He has an easy escape, great harrass, an insanely burstey ultimate he can back right out of if it goes sour. He does not fit the "high risk high reward" Playstyle of assassins, and he dosent fit the current mid mage meta. The only reason why riot wont nerf him is because he can make "flashy complicated plays" so that lol looks like a more fast paced game than it is.
DarthSpectrum39 votesI haven't been playing Zed that much lately, but I will give this a shot.
Zed suffers the same problem as Yasuo, they will lose to another melee fighter or hybrid almost 100% of the time in a 1 v 1 match up. Against champions such as Renekton, Riven, or Gnar, Zed simply don't have enough stuns or defensive steroids to compete.
On the other hand, Zed is extremely effective against ranged targets who do not naturally come with defensive abilities and do not build tank items because they are ranged. Zed can easily ult in, burst them down, and ult out. In that scenario, given how prevalent ranged AP casters and ADC are, Zed does appear to be very good. However, on a closer inspection of his ratios, Zed's damage is actually quite subpar without his ult. Late game, he becomes entire dependent on his 1 minute cool down to score a kill unless he is ridiculously fed. While in lane, because of his poor ratios, if his opponent goes for a early seeker armguards and avoid his shadows, Zed will have great difficulty scoring a kill.
As a Zed player, often how well I do in lane is heavily influenced by whether my enemy decides to buy defensive stats or not. Zed is certainly capable of being overpowered, but he can also be shut down easily. Compared to all the other broken champions in League, Zed is not that bad.
Kowe The Ewok7 votesYour Zed play must be bad. Zed wrecks Gnar in lane. He can 100-0 Gnar's mini form post 6, pre (and post 6) Zed's abilities outdamage Gnar's abilities by a lot. His mobility allows him to easily avoid Gnar's mega form and kite him into oblivion.
Junkο7 votesMelee champs can kite? LOL
Kowe The Ewok4 votesRun away, place W next to him, press E. Q him while he is slowed and laugh.
It's that easy. But apparently Zed fanboys don't even know their own champ...
Junkο4 votesThat isn't kiting, you just used all your spells to harass that's it.
Look at Vayne or Kalista, that's kiting.
Kowe The Ewok9 votesRunning away from somebody who is chasing you while regularly damaging him. Sounds pretty much like kiting to me.
Chaotic Reks9 votes
Best Kiter in League
DarthSpectrum5 votesYou can't kite Gnar. He can proc a 75% speed buff off of minions and jump twice the distance of your shadow.l
Frankly, if a late game Gnar loses to a late game Zed 1 v 1, the Gnar must be AFK.
Kowe The Ewok2 votesRead my first post again. Gnar's MEGA from. Which (in case you don't know Gnar) does NOT have a speedbuff, in fact it has 325 movementspeed compared to Zed's insane 345 movementspeed.
Lunarch Mikaeus8 votesThen Gnar hits his boulder and you suddenly are slowed, by a lot, while missing great amounts of hp. Then he jumps onto you and slaps you with his insane base stats. Or he just picks up his boulder and contuinues to throw them.
And in little form Gnar outpokes zed hard. It's to a point where zed can only cs with Q.
I rather think the Gnar you played against was rather bad if you won as zed... Just my thoughts though...
Remlap122315 votesI think Zed has just fallen victim to power shift. When Zed had to compete against release Yasuo, season 4 Ziggs, season 4 LeBlanc, and the other "OP" mid laners, he was just kinda there. After Riot proceeded to whack a mole all those stated champions, Zed, being hugely mobile and possessing a lot of power, naturally Rose to the top, and now has no one to challenge him. I think that he needs a light nerf, but in the end, Riot ultimately needs to do to mid lane to what they did to top lane after Renekton was cheesing it up there: buff other champions into viability to foster champion diversity whilst preventing Zed from becoming another Ziggs, or Yasuo, or LeBlanc.
DarthSpectrum1 votesI completely agree with you. Even now, I can easily kill an enemy Zed in lane with an assassin such as Talon, LB or Yasuo. His burst was never that impressive to begin with; the thing that sets him apart is that he can assassinate a target and get out alive.
For pre nerf- Yasuo, LB, Kassadin, and Talon, they did not have to escape because there is no chance for their target to fight back. If Riot's intention is to not have assassins reliably assassinate a squishy without a bit of a gold advantage, then yes, Zed needs a small nerf.
But ultimately, Zed has never gotten buffed recently, it just that every other option got nerfed.
PokladnicaZla1 votesI completely agree with you. Even now, I can easily kill an enemy Zed in lane with an assassin such as Talon, LB or Yasuo. His burst was never that impressive to begin with; the thing that sets him apart is that he can assassinate a target and get out alive.
For pre nerf- Yasuo, LB, Kassadin, and Talon, they did not have to escape because there is no chance for their target to fight back. If Riot's intention is to not have assassins reliably assassinate a squishy without a bit of a gold advantage, then yes, Zed needs a small nerf.
But ultimately, Zed has never gotten buffed recently, it just that every other option got nerfed.
Actually,Zed got a mjaor buff with the preseason changes,while the 1.drake gives free AP/AD it allowing him to go full AR-pen so he can easily fights tanks now.
LB still has an escape,2 of them...
Kuroi862 votesIt helps, but it's still not a big change. Zed' big steroid is on his W, which only grants a % of his bonus AD. A long sword grants 10 AD, his lvl 1 W will only grant .5 AD off of that, and first drag will only grant .6 AD. Now mid/late game, his numbers can get to be really nice.
PokladnicaZla1 votesDon´t forget runes,masteries and the items he can buy till midgame.Aside from being OP or not,he has one of the highest banrates on all servers,people really dislike playing against him for a reason...
meatjunjun1 votesBut you have to realize that he only has a high banrate by normal players. The way I see it, he's almost never banned by pros in the LCS, LPN, or OGN. If he's as toxic as everyone complains about, the pros would ban him too.
The truth of the matter is, most players are either just:
Regardless of how broken everyone cries about assassins, mages are still picked in mid-lane more often than not by pros. And this should mean something.
PokladnicaZla1 votesBut you have to realize that he only has a high banrate by normal players. The way I see it, he's almost never banned by pros in the LCS, LPN, or OGN. If he's as toxic as everyone complains about, the pros would ban him too.
The truth of the matter is, most players are either just:
- not good
- too lazy to learn the matchup
Regardless of how broken everyone cries about assassins, mages are still picked in mid-lane more often than not by pros. And this should mean something.
Well that´s because there are 28 Mages and 14 Assassins... Also,many of them dont ban OP champs(that were OP at the time); Lulu was picked for top even thought she countered all melee top laners. When Kha´Zix was OP in season 3,he wasnt banned. Lucian wans´t banned. The list goes on.Pro players also dont ban OP champs,because they want to play them and have a real advatage over the matchup.
meatjunjun1 votesI respectfully disagree with that. If champions are indeed OP, that means you have a distinct advantage over your opponent.
Pros do ban OP champs. During Season 4, they constantly banned champs like Lee Sin, Alistar, Nidalee, Ryze, Maokai, and Zilean. This was because they wanted to make sure the other team would not get them.
The point is, of course the pros do want to get as many OP champs on their side as possible, but the fact that they would rather ban Alistar or Zilean over Zed shows that they would much rather face a Zed over the other two.
And that's why I don't think Zed is broken. I trust the opinions of pros more than the general community. Because they're better at the game and know more about the game than any of us.
PokladnicaZla1 votesZed wasnt that big of a problem during season 4 ,but now he is getting out of control.Be as it may,according to the lolking ban rates Zed has one of the highest banrates,people dislike playing against hi.So why is that?
meatjunjun1 votesThis is probably because he has a very "annoying" kit. In a slow paced game like League, champions with mobility are always annoying. This is why majority of people's complaints are towards champs like Fizz, Yasuo, Zed, Leblanc, Riven, etc. Annoyance doesn't equal OP tho.
I understand it's very frustrating to face him. If he gets even remotely fed, sometimes I see what he does and go, "man f this guy".
PokladnicaZla1 votesWell Fizz is seriously OP,Yasuo gets hatred from such good late and passive early game(highmobility,safe 2sec farm,dem windwall.),LB is easier to deal with now(no more silence),Riven is just snowbally(srsly snowbally),but Zed is just really annoying to the point where laning against him isnt fun at all.
Stephenizgod2 votesSee this is what i always think when someone says Zed is OP. He is very strong ill give you that, but OP? not unless you are really really good with him (the whole mobility+skill>no mobility+skill thing that league is currently suffering from). Right now there are not many mid-laners that can show off as well as he can, burst mages (who kill just as fast) dont look as flashy and is overlooked "yeah thats just Syndra, she does that" or "Duh its Veigar..." yet Zed bursts someone and its like "OMG! No counterplay thanks Riot!".
Im not a Zed main, i suck so bad with him and most assassins tbh, but i did notice that he was sorta just there last season until the all the best mids were nerfed. Also i play Malz mid whenever i mid so i dont struggle often against a Zed. Malz and Zed suffer from a similar problem actually lately. I think its funny when people say Malz requires no skill or he is overpowered when he is a DoT mage not a burst mage. The only reason he seems OP is because the power-hitters who kept him out of the spotlight are gone now and he is a very well balanced strong mage. He isnt point click kill though and it irks me a lil when people invalidate me getting a kill by saying "Wow no skill required" if you honestly think that then that means you do not know how to fight against him. The same with Zed i think.
Kuroi8619 votesHe has an easy escape
His shadow range is 550, most mages have abilities that far out reach him. His escape only becomes easy when he has a wall to jump and you've already blown your flash.
great harrass
Hmm... I'll give ya, his harass is really good. W,Q makes for pretty good harass, that is if you can hit your abilities. If you can't, well then you're going to run out of energy in two combos and have to wait for about twenty seconds for it to restore.
an insanely burstey ultimate
If you get ahead and get your items, yes. Of course when you first get it, you need to drop your opponent to a third or their health or less before you ult, and don't forget your ignite or they will walk away.
he can back right out of if it goes sour.
The range is 625, it's good, but unless you've blown your own jump which would put his over 1000 range.
He does not fit the "high risk high reward" Playstyle of assassins
He has no defensive steroids, no innate sustain and decent length cooldowns on his only escapes. In order to succeed as an assassin, he needs to build glass cannon to do his job as an assassin, leaving him easily bursted if he's caught. Zed has INSANE outplay potential, but at the same time you've got to plan out your attack and be ready to run as fast as you can at the first sign of a misstep.
I'm not even a Zed main, I picked him up the other week and have been twiddling around on him and realized this much already. Zed is strong, close to being op, but I really don't think he's that bad. Minor tweaks to his shadows would reduce his safety which is really the biggest reason to pick Zed, he's a safe and reliable pick.
Ashes Arise11 votesHe is a true assassin. He assassinates 1 person. He isn't like other "assassins" like fizz and kat that "assassinate" an entire team. He is primarily single target and should have advantage in 1v1 situations over aoe assassins.
DWT123455 votesassassins shouldent have a reliable escape though, and if he gets caught in a wrong move after his ultimate, he shouldent be able to quickly just w out of there.
Only Play Nid17 votesI disagree, assassins should be the ONLY ones with reliable escapes. That´s what an assassin does, slips in to kill and pops back out. Kamikazi charging in to murder one target sounds more like a bruiser / tank to me.
Ashes Arise2 votesassassins shouldent have a reliable escape though, and if he gets caught in a wrong move after his ultimate, he shouldent be able to quickly just w out of there.
Well without it he would need a massive change to make him even remotely viable. He would need stealth or untargetability of some sort. Do you really really want that?
PL552 votesAssassins are mainly supposed to burst a high priority target down then escape quickly. So yes, they should actually have a reliable escape.
Llanite2 votesFact is, Zed can teleport to the clone after the attempt, Fizz have to either save his E (= no troll dodge) or zhonya and hope his team could pick him up.
Rustling Bush9 votescan you tell us why he isn't balanced?
TheVoidBringer5 votesHe can snowball, he can't be snowballed. At least in lane. I don't really play him so i can't tell, but i don't think he falls that hard late game.
Rustling Bush7 votesHe can snowball, he can't be snowballed. At least in lane. I don't really play him so i can't tell, but i don't think he falls that hard late game.
i don't play zed either but he can be snowballed just like any other champion in or out of lane and like all assassins he can snowball pretty hard, i think hes pretty well-rounded throughout the game and he looks pretty fun to play
xLegendary Troll9 votesHe has a skill shot. That alone creates a difference between good and bad players.
Did you know that you can beat Zed early game by shoving the lane against him? If you shove he's forced to spend his energy on the wave allowing you to easily harass him with no retaliation. He can only all in you with his W, which will put him at a disadvantage if the minions favor you.
Did you know that the majority of his damage for his ult comes from landing his Q? Most Zeds buy brutalizer first, which means they auto attack REALLY a slow. Just juke his Q when he hits and you can kill him easily. Or just jump over a wall as soon as he appears. Stand right next to wraiths, then flash.
Did you know that experienced Zed players will ONLY all in when you're below 50% hp? Dodge the Q's and keep harassing until he respects you.
Kowe The Ewok9 votesUhm. Other champions actually have mana cost. Zed has energy and 2 strong AoE's which allow him to shove
than most other champions ingame...
xLegendary Troll2 votesIf you freeze the lane you're giving him time to replenish his energy. It's tough to explain. In theory manaless AoE champs have more potential to push, but he exhausts his energy reserves more quickly.
A mana champion can usually dish out 3 vollies of all of their abilities before running out. Someone like Azir for instance can easily push the wave without spending mana and completely counter him. velkoz can push a wave at almost no cost as well.
Kowe The Ewok7 votesIf you push for 30 seconds (or even less, dependign on the mage) straight it will be pretty even. After that the enemy mage will be OOM.
Being OOM means being useless for 2 1/2 minutes or until he does a full back to base. Being out of Energy means you have slightly higher cooldowns.
Even among energy and ressourceless champion Zed takes a special spot as the best pusher of all. (Not to mention that the passive of his W makes his towerpushing equal, or superior to any other assassin and even a vast majority bruisers and junglers)
Junkο3 votesI'm a Zed main and shoving the lane against him is a terrible idea. Not only do you give him free easy lasts hits thanks to your passive, you also open yourself to ganks and will have trouble attacking Zed without getting attacked back by his entire WEQ combo.
And no, majority of his ult damage does NOT come from Q. It comes from his 100% AD scaling on ult+passive damage, along with Botrk and possibly E that he will use twice along with his W for 4Es. Missing an Q won't change much unless they get REALLY lucky.
Gunpoint1 votes[{quoted}](name=xLegendary Troll,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=kt9kawRl,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-01-01T21:09:41.781+0000)
He has a skill shot. That alone creates a difference between good and bad players.
Did you know that you can beat Zed early game by shoving the lane against him? If you shove he's forced to spend his energy on the wave allowing you to easily harass him with no retaliation. He can only all in you with his W, which will put him at a disadvantage if the minions favor you.
Did you know that the majority of his damage for his ult comes from landing his Q? Most Zeds buy brutalizer first, which means they auto attack REALLY a slow. Just juke his Q when he hits and you can kill him easily. Or just jump over a wall as soon as he appears. Stand right next to wraiths, then flash.
Did you know that experienced Zed players will ONLY all in when you're below 50% hp? Dodge the Q's and keep harassing until he respects you.
Him having a skillshot is irrelivent when he can just cast it point blank after his ult or after he plants a shadow right on top of your head.
Rawrful7 votesZed is strong. That is true. Now, how to go about saying he isn't OP?
-If you are a statistics guy, he has a 48% win rate. So he loses more than he wins. This is true at all levels of play, from Bronze to Diamond. I would argue you can't be over powered and yet lose more than you win in a large sample size. Especially if it remains true at all skill levels independently as well.
-If you are an 'in game' guy, it gets more complicated. Zed is pretty good in lane, though if his opponent picks Exhaust he has almost zero kill pressure. He counters some champions, and is countered by others. He has weird power spikes, where he often will hit them before his opponent, but his opponents spikes hard counter is own (Classic example is Zhonyas hard countering Zed all-in). This means if you aren't careful, he can snowball. And ANY fed assassin is scary. Yet, if he can't end the game early, he runs into two different walls, depending on skill level.
-Against higher skilled opponents that are good with counter building and active items the enemy AP champions will all have a Zhonyas to ignore his ultimate and the enemy AD champions will all have a QSS/Mercurial to remove his ultimate. They will also work as a team to lock the Zed down so he can't actually 1v1 the carries, and without his ult proc he can't one shot kill a late game carry.
-Against low skilled opponents, one shot killing a single target doesn't mean nearly as much, because your team doesn't instinctively push advantages and take objectives. The longer the game goes, the less important a fed assassin is. And since Zed can only instakill a single target (Like, say, Katarina with her 53% win rate) he can't single handedly kill an entire enemy team and take objectives himself.
So, it is clear he isn't OP. Is he 'broken' in another sense? The argument seem to be that he is low risk/high reward. Maybe in lane, but out of lane? I think his risk is way higher than people think. You see, 'Risk' isn't just personal risk, your chance of dying. It is also the chance of your action working. Zed's damage is so easily countered by a well timed stun after he ults (Easy, because he always appears behind the target, so you know where he will appear after he ults), or an Exhaust, or a Zhonyas or a QSS that I feel his 'risk' is actually rather high. If he goes for the ult-all-in in a team fight, especially late game, there is a very good chance he won't kill his target.
So for the risk of jumping into melee range in a team fight, he has a chance of killing an opponent if they don't have the items that hard counter him, don't have a support watching to exhaust, and don't have someone saving their CC specifically to blow up Zed. That sounds risky to me. The reward is obviously high, as if he succeeds he blows up a squishy and gets out.
In effect, no he isn't "broken" no risk high reward. Is his kit clunky? No, it is super thematic and fits perfectly together: Jumping all over, throwing shuriken, mocking laughs... It even has the wait 3 seconds then your enemy explodes Ninja chiche.
I'm trying to figure out where all the Zed hate comes from. Lane phase, I guess? He is hard to gank and harasses well. And he is so easy to counter in team fights that he often is relegated to split pushing, which lots of people find annoying. Also, 'He doesn't fit the mid game meta'? Seriously? No shit, he is a purposeful counter to the meta. The same way Poppy counters the meat-wall tops and Corki counters the hard carry ADCs. That is his job. Picking a metagame sheep pick and hoping you don't get countered is just stupid.
TheKingDodo4 votesI never play zed but I do play against him and when I do...
(or kale... but I hate my veggies)Edit: although zed does have a killer laugh... better nerf it
Knight Devout2 votesPlease, you didn't even mention how good he is at splitpushing and his farming tools.
Junkο1 votesSo just like every other viable assassin?
Zoof6 votesBecause we all remember: Akali who is clearly designed to decimate waves Fizz who's E clears a wave, provided he has a 4k gold lead LeBlanc, who every hates for her absurd pushing power Katarina, who much like Fizz, requires to be absurdly fed to clear a wave
The only other assassins I feel that are good split pushers and farmers are Kass, Rengar andi f you wish to classify Yi as an assasin, then Yi.
harrothggar2 votesZed would be op if he was not so easily countered. A mage can build hourglass (which gives their team plenty of time to catch zed and even if zed ults back ult then he gets nothing). Adc's can build qss which cancells his ult completely. He is pretty much all phisical damage that is ratio based (not %hp) making almost all tanks or bruisers out duel him.
LankPants4 votesAdc's can build qss which cancells his ult completely.
The problem is that this doesn't always help. Zed can deal huge damage even without the ult proc. Using Lv 18 Zed with standerd rune/masteries, a LW, Yomuu's, BotRK and The Black Cleaver
Zed has total base damage at LV 18 of 532 with no AA's assuming both shurikens hit with full damage. Zed has ratio's for a total of 230% assuming both shurikens hit with full damage for a total of 501 extra damage This means his abilities alone deal 1033 damage
Against a QSS Ashe (who presumably has no Armour items as they built QSS, I use Ashe as a baseline for this stuff as she's fairly average in terms of stats for an ADC) He will reduce her 88 armour (this includes armour runes) to 18 (pen is retarded as fuck) this gives Ashe a mitigation of 15.25%, or 84.75% of Zed's damage is dealt. This means with Zeds abilities alone he deals 875 damage.
Ashe has 1871 HP at level 18 (this can be increased by defensive masteries but I'm not) this means Zed has already dealt 46.76% of her HP with only his Q/W/E leaving her at 996 HP
If Zed then pops his BotRK on her he deals 10% of her max HP to her, this equates to 187 damage, which is mitigated by her armour to 158 damage, she now has 809 HP remaining, and Zed has dealt 1043 (828 HP remaining) or 55.75% of Ashe's HP which allows him to proc his passive
Zed's first Auto will deal 8% of Ashe's current HP+327+10% of Ashe's max HP (magical). 8% current HP is equal to 66 damage, 10% max hp is equal to 187 damage. Ashe has 72 MR with MR runes and QSS, reduced to 68 by Zed's 6% magic pen for 59.52% effect of magic damage (40.48 resistance). Zed's passive will deal 111 damage to Ashe, the physical damage from the auto will be 333 damage, assuming no crit, with a crit this increases to 610 damage.
This means Ashe has 384 HP left (88 if crit) and at best has to retreat from the fight, these numbers completely ignore extraneous shields, all summoner spells, certain masteries like 3% damage increase, extraneous sources of damage, any buffs to Zed Ie. dragon, any cleaver stacks and any extra AA's that Zed is able to land beyond the first.
All this damage is near unavoidable without burning a flash. QSS will not stop this in any way.
TLDR: Zed can blow up carries to bellow 500 HP even if his ult gets QSS'd just with his basic abilities and one auto.
FoggyPaws2 votes
I WILL BE FREE