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Zed nerfs in patch 9.8?

LimeLight··9 votes·5,264 views
Patch 9.8 Notes

So Zed got nerfed in Patch 9.8. Zed

I'm going to explain why this nerf makes no sense.

Note-I know just about everyone hates being killed by Zed, but try to keep an open mind about him.

So before Zed's buff in 9.4 Riot made an official statement saying he's weak via Riot Blaustoise's chat with LL Stylish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFHctj8awpQ

Following this the dev team adjusted Zed which overall buffed him. They changed his Q damage from 80/115/150/185/220(+0.9 bonus AD) to 90/125/160/195/230(+1 bonus AD).

They lowered his w coolodown from 22/20/18/16/14 to 20/18.5/16/15.5/14.

They increased the recast range from 1300 to 1950.

They increased his attack speed growth from 2.1% per level to 3.3% per level.

As compensation they gave him a hefty nerf by removing his AD reaping mechanic on his R. What this means is that Zed loses around 9 AD levels 6-10, 20 AD levels 11-15 and 40-100+ AD levels 16+ (100 AD and higher from champions like Rengar and Jhin).

After these changes Zed was considered fairly strong (49.8% win rate pre-buff to 50.5% win rate post-buff). After a couple of patches passed and Zed players figured out how to utilize these buffs optimally, the win rate increased to 51.3% at his peak.

Then 9.8 happened...

Zed's Q went from 90/125/160/195/230 damage to 80/115/150/185/220 (Early game buff revert).

His W cooldown was reverted as well, 20/18.5/16/15.5/14 to 22/20/18/16/14.

What does this mean for Zed? Zed is now as he was in Patch 9.3 and before (Admittedly weak by Riot Games) with anywhere from 40-100+ less AD per game but as compensation he got a whopping 1.2% attack speed, .1 bonus AD ratio on his Q and extra recast range on his W. This might seem like his Q still has more damage than it did in 9.3 but with the missing bonus AD from R, he still loses damage.

For example if Zed had 250 Bonus AD with a 0.9 bonus AD ratio (3 item Patch 9.3 Zed), his Q does 230+250 times 0.9 (455) damage. If he had 190 Bonus AD with a 1.0 bonus AD ratio (Patch 9.8 Zed), his Q does 230+190 (420) damage. That's 35 less damage per Q (max 105) which also means his R does anywhere from 19.25 (35 times 0.55) to 57.75 (105 times 0.55) less damage [Death Mark damage ratio].

So Zed does less damage than from when Riot admitted he was weak. This doesn't make any sense to me. On top of the problems with his damage, the nerfs came right when tank meta is coming back. A meta that is terrible for Zed. I suspect Zed's winrate will continue to plummet (currently 49.2%).

This also exacerbates Zed's other issues but those are for another time.

Hopefully this post convinced you that the Zed nerfs in 9.8 were unsolicited and unnecessary.

Cheers! -LimeLight

17 Comments

War of Change5 votes

Hi, thanks for your calculation post.

I´m also a Zed main in Dia and i tell you the most problem about Zed. After Zed got the buff he was fine but not overpowered (In high elo). If you don´t rush anything like Ludens vs Zed (Kinda stupid anyway) and rush Zhonyas Zed is also balanced vs nearly every mage. Also ADC´s arent easy to kill with Zed in High elo like in low elo. And here is the Problem (in my opinion). Riot is watching where the highest number of players are. Unfortunately the most people are in SIlver, Bronce and Gold elo. What happens if you play in this elo Zed?

Example 1: Zed is laning against any Mage. Mage does one mistake and gets killed by Zed. What does the Mage do in low elo? => It rushes Ludens to get more dmg and kill him next time. What does any Zed player thing: "Nice Shit. Free kill". What does any high elo Mage do? => Starts Building first item of Zhonyas and Health maybe. What happens. Zed have it way harder to kill him and its more skill needed to kill him.

Example 2: Zed is getting killed by Mage in laning phase. Low Elo Zeds = Rushes his Built which he/she has found in any internet side. Mage got two options now: Rush Zhonyas/Armor so Zed got no chance in killing him early or rushes some dmg item to one shot him. Main Problem by second option = They dont know how to deal with Zeds W and R. Thats the reason they will get killed. Not the fact he is "OP".

Its just what i can see. Im often playing with friends in silver and bronce. That caused many games where im challenging some Bronce or Silver player in Mid. And thats the main reasons why they lost the lane (If you keep in Mind their Skill isnt that high what explains my Example 2).

Anyway Riot is just watching numbers. They are seeing that the most People of LoL (Silver, Bronce and Gold) are frustating by Zed. Riot is a company like any other Company too. So they need to nerf him duo to not loose more player. Pity for our Zed mains (including me) but comprehensibly. Only problem left is that they wil loose many High Elo player because the game starts to beeing easier for the low elo players.

Additional to that: They main goal (like every company) is it to make profit. So they are meeting up with Stylish to "buff" zed. Afterwards they release their Zed Skin (Legendary) to sell them. Duo to the high complains about Zed, the nerf came earlier than expected. But regardless of the early nerf the nerf would have come anyway. Now Renekton and Fiora got buffed. Maybe some Legendary Skin coming for them. We will see.

Anyway thats my opinion.

You can like it or not :)

Peace

The Chillin2 votes

Excellent post.

Fízz v23 votes

Like u said he does keep the attack speed and W active range buffs tho.

Plus Zed didnt need buffs in 9.3 to begin with when he was already at like 50% ban rate and above 51% win rate.

LimeLight3 votes

https://u.gg/lol/champions/zed/build/?rank=overall&patch=9_4

If you look here, Zed reached a 50.5% winrate directly after his buffs.

https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/zed/iron

Here, if you look at the area right before the last increase in winrate, you'll see that zed had a 49.5% winrate before the buff.

It's just my opinion but I don't think ban rate should factor too much into balance. Otherwise you'd be nerfing champions like Yasuo and Zed forever since they have a high ban rate due to people hating regardless of their overall strength.

Fízz v21 votes

The problem is, if he already has 40-50% ban rate and above 50% win rate (51 was a mistake I guess) while also having 10-12% pick rate, he is just gonna become overpowered and permabanned below high elo. He did need buffs to be viable in challenger and in pro play, but the same goes for many other champs.

And unfortunately a Rioter told me that its fine when a champ is good in normal elo but garbage in high elo/pro play, right here https://i.gyazo.com/42a7337d89f5dcc250d2225a5aeae43d.png . Thats why I had to quit playing fizz because Riot is just gonna ignore him forever xd

Cocho3 votes

You're exaggerating on the numbers. This was the AD bonus: 5 (+5/10/15% target's AD)

To say 40-100+ less AD per game is a joke. even rank 3 ult, he'd had to kill someone with around 700 AD for 100 bonus AD.

A marksmen level 9 with item 3031 has like 160 AD.

for rank 2 ult, that's 16+5 bonus ad.

To get 60 like in your example, the guy he's killing would need like 600 AD lol

I opened a random zed game and looked at how much ad he had at level 11.

Zed had 212 ad level 11.

Here's the example you gave but with realistic numbers.

140 being bonus ad with ult passive bonus ad 119 being bonus ad with 1.0ad q buff

With a 0.9 bonus AD ratio , his Q does 230+140 times 0.9 (126) damage. With a 1.0 bonus AD ratio , his Q does 230+119 times 1.0 (119) damage.

7 less damage per Q 21 max

That means zed ult does 21-29 less damage rank 2

But, it's more damage before the first kill, possibly still more if you killed a mage. He has a larger W recast It's going to be WAY more damage if the attack speed nets him another auto attack.

If we took the numbers above, and applied them to zed level 10. (13 bonus from ult passive instead of 21)

With a 0.9 bonus AD ratio , his Q does 230+132 times 0.9 (118.8) damage. With a 1.0 bonus AD ratio , his Q does 230+119 times 1.0 (119) damage.

looks like it's higher? xdddddddddddddddddddd

what are we even complaining about here. zed's Q does more damage level 1-10 even after the nerfs. Along with longer recast + more attack speed.

LimeLight2 votes

The Example I used was with pretty arbitrary numbers, it just showed how a lvl 16 zed with 3 items lost damage from the change. The 40-100 in my opinion is pretty valid. Jhin and Rengar can get around the ad needed to reap 100. Max level with items it's pretty common to see AD champions with AD in the 400+ range which results in 60 or more AD being reaped.

Cocho2 votes

just look at your last games and ask yourself, when the last time you woudlve gotten anywhere near 100 ad bonus.

that 14/4 full build draven wouldve given you like 65. thats saying something

in your recent games, only like 8/19 games did you even get rank 3 ult

if you honestly beleive zed's ult passive giving 40-100 ad is common, you might be slightly handicapped.

400 ad isnt that common, because games dont last that long, and there isnt always a champion that builds full ad on a team. The adc often builds mostly attack speed.

iiRebs3 votes

I have an excel with the actual math, give me an hour. Shit was minus damage almost all around.

iiRebs2 votes

https://imgur.com/a/Np2LoVj

In other words Zed lost a shit ton of damage for little compensation. The funny thing is, everyone says oh but the attack speed buffs. Mathematically, if Zed does not hit something a shit ton of times, the attack speed will never make up for the auto attack damage. In fact, if Zed would have reaped more than 56 AD from a target, the attack speed would never make up for the damage lost. Additionally, for burst, the higher auto damage would be prefered. This means the only actual improvement was his W recast range, which is such a niche buff, it rarely matters. To say the W recast range makes up for the damage lost is asinine.

Also, when Zed combos there is rarely a time where he is going to tweak out an extra auto. He either wants to go in and back out of the fight as soon as possible to avoid damage or he is so fed that he is going to auto you to death regardless.

Netorare2 votes

I agree, zeds neets to be gutted to be trully balanced.

Kozmic3001 votes

I think the perfect nerf for a LOT of characters like assassins is GIVE THEM A MANA POOL, force them to learn to sustain and not be able to use abilities without consequences, and if you don't do this then they need to make the cooldown for all characters who don't use mana much higher. Simple fix guys...

rapknife4 votes

Zed with mana would actually be a buff honestly...god knows how many times I needed energy. Zed with mana is not a good play though, you are suppose to be rewarded with more energy if u hit 2 skills with shadow and zed.

ndukve1 votes

Also defeats the purpose of all ninja's using the energy stat.

Curibo981 votes

i think right now zed is really weak, if he dosen't get fed early game, and if he does he is still plenty counterable.I have been playing zed for quite a bit in the midlane,now (though im support main) and there is plenty way to react and counter his skills. For example he is easy to cc after he ults, or you could flash his shurikens, so he looses a ton of damage during his ult. also champions that can outsustain his damage are nightmare for him, his combo deals quite a good amount of damage, but then you have to wait 22 seconds to do it again, and in this period of time youre vulnerable to ganks, The buff they made to zed wasn't anything special, just a little help to make him a little bit better without removing the counterplay, and i thought they could have done even more for him, but instead they reverted almost evry buff they made to him, still keeping the ult nerf. thats dosen't souds fair for him. Like as support when i face zed in midlane i alwais pick lulu, if he ults my carry i just knok him up with my own r and when the cc is about to end i time it with polymorph, and there are plenty supports that can do the same thing, like as zed you have a 3 second window to unleash your combo, and enemy can dodge it or even make you unable to do anything for that period of time, i don't see anything more fair than this. I don't play a lot of ranked games (like 40 ish last year) and i got to silver 1 without any issue, being a league player by many years(not much intersted in ranks though), so im the living proof that not evry silver player thinks that zed is overpower.

happykiller01 votes

Pls stop nerf zed..pls i don't like this game with my Zed!!!

ndukve1 votes

I don't know what to think about the R Passive "Reaper of Shadows" removal. Some people would be obsessed about getting the kill with the "pop" for the bonus AD. But I feel like Zed always had the kit that didn't need him to be in your face to kill you. I have mixed feelings about that one. Otherwise everything is BS.

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