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So....screw Zed

IP Masquerena··5 votes·1,774 views

Ok, so, there are changes for 9.4 for Zed:

https://twitter.com/riot_captain/status/1094134478090321920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1094134478090321920&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefault%26f%3Dsurrenderat20%26t_u%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.surrenderat20.net%252F2019%252F02%252F28-pbe-update-papercraft-splash-art.html%26t_d%3D%250A2%252F8%2520PBE%2520Update%253A%2520Papercraft%2520Splash%2520Art%250A%26t_t%3D%250A2%252F8%2520PBE%2520Update%253A%2520Papercraft%2520Splash%2520Art%250A%26s_o%3Ddefault%23version%3Dbc375ca08174aafcdafffefdfe6bc380

Basically, it makes his late-game a bit weaker while making his early game stronger and safer, not like it wasn't one of the safest anyway.

Before people cry "but Zed is weak", he currently sits at 10% play rate with 52% wr in D+, with, depending on tracking site, a 57% wr in M+ with a quite health play rate of 9%.

His early game was already strong and safe, so they buffed it.

Yes, yes, yes, I get it, with the nerfs to his R passive he loses a wooping 30 AD late-game, unless there's a Djin in the enemy team, but if they wanted to nerf his late-game, why did they had to buff his early game so much? Zed's late-game win rate was over 55%, even reaching 100% if the game goes 50+ mins (the fact that that is tracket means there are games that went so far, and Zed won them all), so them wanting to lower it is indeed something good, but....he didn't need such compensation buffs right away before even seeing how the nerf will impact him.

http://prntscr.com/mj8b57

What happened to the new mentality of "we will first nerf and see how it goes, and if it needs some power back, it will be added somewhere else in the kit" approach that they have done recently?

Oh wait, I forgot the mantra of the boards, "even Faker said Zed is weak".

17 Comments

Apocalypsic4 votes

How exactly did they make his early game safer? The only thing they changed is the second cast distance of W aside from some very minor damage buffs.

The way I see it, they want him to be able to splitpush again like he did in season 4 and 5.

IP Masquerena1 votes

2 seconds less on early W, and since he maxes that last, his laning is safer.

Apocalypsic4 votes

{quoted}

2 seconds less on early W, and since he maxes that last, his laning is safer.

Considering how long it already is, I think 2 seconds off is fair.

Kazekiba1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hi im a Cat,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=nzwqBHvR,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2019-02-10T22:05:52.683+0000)

Considering how long it already is, I think 2 seconds off is fair.

Right, and with the high energy cost of it its not like youre mashing W off CD. Great to have it up when you need it and for better harass without over buffing his late game once he has Cleaver + Duskblade + Transcendence

Zed genius3 votes

Ok so let's say that every Zed player of any rank is just a delusional biased dumb fuck for saying the champion is bad. Let's also say that every high elo player who knows Zed is garbage is clueless. Put all this aside, and let's just see how the changes play out. They might even end up being a nerf who knows yet

Fízz v21 votes

High elo players know he is bad in challenger, that doesnt change his 10+% pick rate and 50-51% win rate tho. But ay, if Riot is buffing for high elo now im ok with it. Then we can also buff Fizz [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

IP Masquerena4 votes

You sure love to miss the point, don't you?

57% win rate in Masters+ is tremendous, his over all win rate is 52%, so even in general play Zed isn't weak, after 40 mins, he wins pretty much every game he's in, plus, he has quite a decent play rate, or you gonna pull the old Shaco 1-2 punch "everyone who plays him is a main".

His current stats and all win rates over a lot of ranks show 1 thing: Zed isn't weak, far from it.

The only place Zed isn't picked is pro play, but that's an inherent weakness of all but 1 Assassin, LeBlanc. Akali was an exception because she worked in coordinated teams, but after how heavily nerfed she was, to the point where even Riot said she needs some buffs, it's gonna be quite a while before she sees pro play again.

Akali, Aatrox, Irelia, got gutted for being good and when the final nail hit, they got no compensation buffs. Irelia just now is starting to get some power shifted around and added back into her kit, after being a 40% wr champ even in pro play.

Zed on the other hand? Buff after buff after buff after buff. Excluding the QoL like the ability icon now showing how much time you have left to swap and bug fixes, here are all of Zed's changes till now from s8 (as s9 didn't had anything yet for him):

8.7: Q - Secondary bonus AD ratio increased to 54% bonus AD from 45%.

    • Secondary base damage increased to 48 / 69 / 90 / 111 / 132 from 40 / 57.5 / 75 / 92.5 / 110.

8.6: Q - REMOVED: Damage being reduced on shurikens that hit the same enemy. R - Percentage of damage stored increased to 25 / 40 / 55% from 20 / 35 / 45%

8.4: R - Cooldown reduced to 120 / 90 / 60 seconds from 120 / 100 / 80.

His last actual nerf was in 8.3, which was: Base health regeneration reduced to 7 from 7.092.

And even in patches prior to that, Zed had a bunch of "compensation buffs" to his base stats, and when he finally gets an actual meaningful nerf, compensation buffs are straight out of the game, while other champs are left in the gutter.

If Zed is indeed that "weak" as you people make him be, provide proof other than "Faker said so", as all of the stats show otherwise.

Rock MD3 votes

{quoted}

snip

Before Malzahar's rework, Malzahar had a 53-55% winrate depending on the day. That's HUGE. So why didn't Malzahar get play until his rework?

Because he had glaring weaknesses that were too hard to ignore. His ultimate required you to get in short range yet didn't you didn't have any tools besides walking up to them. His minions were awkward and provided not nearly the utility they do now.

In the same way, Zed might be statistically overtuned, but he doesn't provide enough to the team, plus his predictable and outplayable laning phase leaves him with a lot to be desired.

That's why people say Zed is bad. You'll never see him in a professional game until he has a more clearly defined role in the game.

IP Masquerena2 votes

There is a difference between "noone's playing him" and 10% pr with, depending on tracking site, 25% to 30% ban rate in D+.

Zed doesn't only have a high a win rate, but pick rate and ban rate as well.

Then again, typical "pro play" argument. When something is bad in pro play but strong in solo que, people say that "it's ok, he's not played in pro play", but when something can't be buffed because of pro play, they all flock to "pro play doesn't matter, solo que matters because that's where the vast majority of players are".

The hypocrisy is strong in these boards.

Rock MD1 votes

{quoted}

There is a difference between "noone's playing him" and 10% pr with, depending on tracking site, 25% to 30% ban rate in D+.

Zed doesn't only have a high a win rate, but pick rate and ban rate as well.

Then again, typical "pro play" argument. When something is bad in pro play but strong in solo que, people say that "it's ok, he's not played in pro play", but when something can't be buffed because of pro play, they all flock to "pro play doesn't matter, solo que matters because that's where the vast majority of players are".

The hypocrisy is strong in these boards.

I mean if you've read my posts I'm consistently in favor of high elo or pro play for balancing

and most of the players on this board are bad. They hate Zed and would agree with you Zed needs to get nerfed.

IP Masquerena1 votes

Look, I'm with you 100% that balance should be done in favor of high elo and pro play, I'm a dota player afterall, and that's the norm there.

But in his current iteration, Zed can't be good in pro play unless he gets to be pick ban level of strong, but that doesn't mean he's weak in solo que, and in solo que a 52% wr at a decently high play rate and a "high skill cap champ" shows he is not weak, even Masters+, which is decently high elo, a 57% with 9% pick rate is nothing to scoff at and call weak.

So if Riot is dead sent to keep Zed as he is without giving him a proper rework to make him actually viable in pro play without him being broken, then we also need to discuss him in that context, as a solo que exclusive champ, and right he is quite strong there.

So yes, in terms of pro play, Zed is weak, but in terms of solo que, he is anything but weak, and I'll point again, skill alone seems to not be able to overcome Zed, as if even Master players are having issues with him, and his win rate and pick rate there show it's the case, then there's a problem that can only be overcame by a 5 man communication that doesn't happen in solo que. If that's the only thing that can reliably shut him down, he needs nerfs for solo que.

Unlike in Dota, because Riot balances for both solo que (too bad their point of balance is around P/low D) and pro play, we can't look only at pro play and say "because he's weak there, he's weak everywhere".

boricCentaur11 votes

Why do people act like win rate means anything important when there is way too many variables for it too be taken at face value. All winrate is how much a champion wins not if there good or bad you can look at patterns in it that can help but just looking at a champion with a high winrate and thinking that means a champion is good and also thinking that it is enough to use to back up your argument probably means you shouldn't be using any statistics since you have no clue what a statistic is.

Zed has a high win rate since you can easily snowball with him not because he is good like he is not good and the buffs are not compensation for anything they arw moving his power around that will result in him being better if you read the reasoning you would know this.

IP Masquerena1 votes

Well, then I guess someone who's present quite often with 9% wr and manages to snowball and win 57% of his games in Masters+ is "weak", and also, considering his general win rate is 52%, at 10% pr, for a champ that's "high skill and weak" looks to be a bit too high, or should I say, too easy to snowball? Plus, I gave you the screen shot of his winrate based on game length, the longer the game, the better his win chance, to the point where it even reaches 100% at 50 mins, basically meaning that if there's a Zed in a game and the game does reach that length, he wins it no questions asked.

While it's true that 1 win rate alone isn't a sign of him being good, but all win rate's showing that except for between 15-20 mins in a game Zed has a high chance of winning it are quite a big indicator that he doesn't need compensation buffs.

If you wanted to balance Zed to be more rewarding to play and better for the Zed mains, you'd lower how easy he can snowball and make it so that he rewards good players, not the R-1Q-E-AA = dead.

0XFallen1 votes
  1. Its currently a straight nerf after lvl 6
  2. He has negativ win rate since several patches in plat+ according to champion.gg
  3. His playrate might be high, but has a lot of mains as he is a very unique champion
  4. he has a very low winrate up to late game where he is straight op bit garbage early, powershifting is needed
IP Masquerena1 votes
  1. You sure are living a delusion, aren't you?

According to the wiki, R gives Zed a 5 + 5/10/15% of the target's AD as bonus AD.

Using Xayah as an example, at level 6, her base AD is 71, but let's assume that at that point, she has 100 (easier to do the math on). So if Zed kills her, since his ult is rank 1, he gets a wooping 10 AD, but due to the increase of Zed's bAD on Q from 90% to 100%, at least at levels 6-10, it's a neutral change, unless there's an enemy Jhin or the enemy ADC/Yasuo is super fed, but if that's the case, unless Zed himself is also super fed, he won't really be able to kill them unless they missplay.

Now depending on how fed the enemy is, at levels 11-15, it can be a bit bigger of a nerf, or just insignifiant because of his Q buff.

So it's an actual nerf after level 16, and Zed's late game is already strong.

Levels 1-5 -- straight buff, 6-10 -- unnoticeable, 11-15 -- noticeable depending on how the game goes, 16+ actual nerf.

  1. Champion.gg is already knows to be very innacurate.

Leagueofgraphs has him at 51%, Lolalytics at almost 53%, OP.GG is under maintenance atm.

  1. Proof? According to the boards, anything past 4% is not just mains, and only Riot can say right or wrong. If that 10% play rate is indeed just mains, then he's fine, but if it isn't, then he's not fine. Unless you can bring solid proof for Zed being played only by mains, then this argument you made is invalid.

  2. I posted a screen shot with his win rate by game length.

In case you missed it, here it is: https://prnt.sc/mj8b57

At 10 mins, his WR is 60%, between 15 to 20 mins, it dips a little bellow 50%, after that until 40 mins where it drops at 50% it goes up to around 56%, while after 40 mins, it starts going up to 100% at 50 mins.

So basically, your highest chance to win against a Zed is between 10 to 20 mins, if you don't force the enemy to surrender or straight up murder them by that time, your changes to win against Zed are between "low-ish" to "Balance is a lie".

EDIT: coding broken, it won't number them as I set them, so ignore the number listing.

0XFallen1 votes

I dont know what you are getting at, I already said his late game is op and his early trash, which it is and why he needs power shifting. There is a huge Excel table in reddit if you want to see the damage changes, you cant just compare his Q when E, autos and R do less damage. Q also gets less base damage later on. Every bit of extra ad is huge on zed because he has no base stats and works off of bonus ad. I dont know why you pick a xayah, a crit adc who doesnt even build much ad as a target for zed?? Zed also has a good winrate atm because rengar and jhin are fairly popular which makes zeds late game even more broken. Zed should seek to R assassins or damage oriented bruisers who have more base ad and build ad instead of crit and as. Zed isnt blind picked atm as I said because he has many counters, but if there are low number of counters on enemy team he can scale really well. You dont pick into zilean, kindred, ezreal etc. Zed is kinda a niche champion because he only brings damage to the team while putting himself at risk with his R.

You also have to consider that games generally last 25 mins atm, it rarely goes up to 40+mins

Also: U.gg too says he has negativ winrate in diamond+ and we should all know that winrate isnt the end all be all, while a lot of champions sit for several patches on 55+%

Edit: adcs just got buffed a lot, but even more against assassins, why? Because now they deal a lot of burst and generally more against squishies, which zed is and he cant dodge AAs except once with his R. Phantomdancer gives a huge shield and promotes lazy gameplay, with the old pd you didnt survive longer if you got taken by suprise because you didnt pay attention to vision and positioning

Noor Sakata1 votes

I'd die to know how he's weak The problem is you can't argue with any Zed mains about it

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