@Meddler Why Zed's R nerfs can be reverted and you cant give Azir 3/4/5s Ult duration?

FostXTV·May 25, 2016·116 votes·39,840 views

Its not fair Riot, stop favoring some champions while gutting others. I am fine with Azirs movement speed R nerfs and that he cant cast soldiers on towers to lower his pushing speed. Its not fair to nerf wall from 5/6/7 seconds to 3 at all ranks. At least make it 3/4/5 instead of 3 at all levels. It really helps and teamfights last much longer then 3 seconds. I messaged Rioter and he said that his ultimate is only used for knockback which isnt true. His ult has many uses including knockback, one of primary uses is protecting yourself and your carry in teamfights from all these assassins and tanks who want to destroy back lane. It would be amazing if Riots balance team can look at my suggestion to make his ult last for 3/4/5 seconds instead of 3 seconds that is currently on PBE. Personally this would be a solid nerf while not gutting him, even if his whole kit got nerfed. Thanks in advance.

345 Comments

RiotMeddlerMay 26, 201662 votes

Zed: We've pulled the ult nerf from patch 6.11 after a lot of debate on the team as to how hard the Q changes will or won't hit Zed. Still sitting on it as an option for a later patch, we want to assess what impact those other changes have first though.

Azir: One of the issues we're looking to address with the reduced duration on Azir's ult is how hard it shuts down melee, fighters in particular who can't just disengage from the fight for a while. 5/6/7 seconds is a really long time to wait in a team fight for it to go down, meaning Azir's presence makes it really hard to play many melee champions usefully unless they've got really high slipperiness (leave fight then return), a way to cross his wall (blink or flanking ability) or really long fight times (tanky, or great with a tanky build). The other issue is just the raw power of the ability, as both a strong AOE knockback and a persistent wall. The knockback generates a lot of interesting plays/counterplays. We concluded as a result that, given we felt we needed to take power out of the ability, it was better to hit the persistent wall, which tied in well with the above concerns on effect on melee champs.

In terms of overall power both Zed and Azir are too strong. Azir's particularly out of line when played by a really experienced Azir player (experienced players should perform much better, there's still a limit though). I suspect we'll have to hit both of them again at some point in the next few patches, that's a personal guess though rather than currently planned work. Wwe'll see how these changes go first.

HellioningMay 26, 2016150 votes

Why are you so careful with Zed? I understand and appreciate that you don't want to Eve/Olaf/Sejuani/whatever a champion anymore, but it gets immensely annoying that you seem to be planning on love tapping him 3 times in a row. You made QSS not effect his ult and decided to wait and see, you decided to do the Q changes and decided to wait and see, and you yourself said that you're probably going to have to do something else in the near future to him, at which point, if my pattern recognition is working, you're going to wait and see.

I don't like to claim that Riot is playing favorites, and I'm biased as all hell against Zed, but it really seems bad from our perspective.

CataractorMay 26, 201620 votes

Yes, how dare Riot actually try to balance the champion instead of just gutting him because people like you are biased against him.

HellioningMay 26, 201654 votes

The thing I'm complaining about is that they're generally less careful with other champions. I understand that Zed's probably in a decent spot, power wise, and therefore they need to think of ways to remove frustrating power that doesn't remove overall power, it gets irritating when they're generally less careful with other champions.

Guy Fox TeemoMay 26, 20166 votes

They're not generally less careful with other champions though, name one champion they have just straight out hugely nerfed in the past few patchs. (Azirs nerf isn't as huge as it seems, due to the fact that fights in around like 3-4 seconds anyways and the ult just kind of sits there for the last 3)

Masala ChaiMay 26, 201635 votes

Kalista

Guy Fox TeemoMay 26, 20165 votes

Those were continous nerfs patch after patch, they didn't dumb them on her in one patch.

Masala ChaiMay 26, 201628 votes

6.6 begs to differ. Kalista was nerfed initially for how OP she was, and then for better balancing in competetive.

(6.5) 51.37% => 46.31% sounds superb.

Guy Fox TeemoMay 26, 20163 votes

Gj not including that fact that with that change they made her get more attack speed next to her oathsworn.

Masala ChaiMay 26, 201622 votes

Gj for not including the fact that her base attack speed and attack speed per level nerfs completely overshadowed the new W passive, and the fact that the support is basically glued to her.

Guy Fox TeemoMay 26, 20162 votes

2000 units isn't exactly glued.

Masala ChaiMay 26, 201610 votes

Well thanks for proving my point, because that's the range of 4 Sivir auto attacks, longer than the distance between Blue Side Red buff and Bot Side Outer Turret Blue Side

Guy Fox TeemoMay 26, 20163 votes

Even if you say its "Glued" kalista is balanced around the ally she is oathsworned too, thats her entire design, she shouldn't be super strong outside of it.

IGotScuttleCrabsMay 26, 201612 votes

There hasn't been any "trash canning" of a champion in a single patch lately but Riot does do it. And let's be honest, it's usually the not very flashy ones. They let Sej rot after her 5 minutes of fame. Even stated they left her in her condition"so other champs can have time to shine". WW was tossed in the toilet preseason 5. Sion was barely "strong" after rework but they decided to hit rapid fire on the nerf gun.

Sp33d Zer0May 26, 20163 votes

Ryze Arcane Mastery.png Passive - Arcane Mastery STACK DURATION: 10 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds OverloadS5.png Q - Overload DAMAGE: 60/95/130/165/200 ⇒ 60/85/110/135/160 SpellFlux.jpg E - Spell Flux DAMAGE: 50/66/82/98/116 ⇒ 36/52/68/84/100 RATIO: 0.3 ability power ⇒ 0.2 ability power

1 patch.

Guy Fox TeemoMay 26, 201610 votes

Going to assume these were changes after the release of his rework , which was massively OP and his since been decided to be reworked again.

Big changes such as the ones you post above almost always happen when a champion is newly reworked/released, a patch or 2 after.

INoble KnightIMay 26, 20166 votes

Viktor

Guy Fox TeemoMay 26, 20163 votes

those changes buffed him though.

LeetriMay 26, 20163 votes

Yeah I like how everyone said the Viktor changes destroyed him, but once it hit live his win rate increased quite a bit. Yet another thing to add to the "Reddit/Boards doesn't know balance" list.

AMYS GRAVEMay 26, 20166 votes

People weren't up in arms over his balance state, they were up in arms because they removed power from his signature move (laser) to put it into a vanilla auto attack modifier (his q).

PinesMay 26, 20167 votes

They nerf Udyr into the ground and love tap Zed for three patches in a row. What a joke.

FostXTVMay 26, 20169 votes

{quoted}

They nerf Udyr into the ground and love tap Zed for three patches in a row. What a joke.

I mained Udyr.. Now they overnerfed him but keep giving love to Zed.. Holy hell.. This favorism is insane..

SennachieMay 26, 2016

What? lemme guess you are a devourers uydr who like to think he's trick two g huh? uydrs still broken as all hell you just have to know how to play him as the role he belongs in a tank don't build attack speed and ls and all that and maybe you will do fine

LasslowMay 27, 20164 votes

Most Udyrs might be Trick2G's fans, but what does that have to do with anything, we're talking about balance favoritism from Riot, not Udyr's players.

bloodmothMay 26, 20164 votes

I think its because its not Zeds kit itself that is the problem, and his kit can make it to a balanced state while the other champs had design flaws that made them really difficult to balance without addressing bigger issues

In saying that, saying that zed is balanced because he has a 50% winrate is incredibly misleading IMO. Assassins should be riskier than other champs and more difficult, as playing them without considering their weaknessess should result in their deaths and losses, while tanks on the in contrast basically exist to reduce risks.

With this in mind, i consider assassins balanced when they sit below 49% winrate, even lower if the assassin is popular, while tanks on the other hand are balanced when they are above 51% winrate as they generally complete teams and a team with a tank should be more likely to win against a team without.

So when i see an assassin, especially a popular one, sitting at or above 50% winrate i just know that its overpowered. Their risks are too few and not reliably punished enough (zed popping your ADC in .5s before morgana can even land her Q on him when he is literally on top of her, then blinking back), and their skill floor is too low if they are easily accessible.

So while zed isnt the worst designed assassin (remember that rengar, akali and talon all exist) hes still overpowered.

MunchCrunchLunchMay 26, 20161 votes

what about kindred. hes getting nerfed and getting a pretty decent compensation buff. hes both a good team fighter and a good 1v1 champion in the jungle early on. the ultimate nerf didn't seem to do anything to him as most of the time kindred just ults in the middle of his whole team and everyone goes in. better safe than sorry. but again the ult nerf didn't do anything. bloodrazor is better on him than any other champion and it got buffed.

TitanusseMay 26, 20162 votes

*Shes Shes shes her her her Holy shit how can you talk about this champ without even knowing her gender god-dammit [zombie-brand-facepalm] AS her her ults strength its honestly massively detrimental as it lasts almost no time at all in a teamfight and when Vs champions that can stay out of her extremely shot auto range have a;l too easy of a time against her

OrigamiPaperMay 26, 201629 votes

To be more specific, Kindred should be referred to as "they", so you're not correct either...

ArakadiaMay 26, 20164 votes

I wonder if "it" would be correct or if it is "they". I'd go with "They".

Spacesuit SpiffMay 26, 201613 votes

Riot went out of their way to use "they" a lot when kindred was released, tho predictably it didnt catch on.

AtanchanMay 26, 20167 votes

"They" is always a safe bet, while "it" isn't. Though given that Kindred is the manifestation of death, it might be alright to use "it," though it really depends on how much they personify themselves.

Though the point's moot, since while Kindred was created from a single being they're still two separate beings, so you can't really even pretend to be highly knowledgeable despite not actually knowing how words work because Kindred is plural anyway.

Masala ChaiMay 26, 201611 votes

{quoted}

we want to assess what impact those other changes have first though.

Oh really? So let's see here, that's exactly why you nerfed all of Diana's abilities in v. 1.0.0.153 in one go which left her with a 40% winrate. She has recovered, and she is no longer overbearing.

Or when you nerfed Kalista's base stats, the passive and the active portion of her W, gave her a new passive that doesn't make up for the base stat nerf, and her ultimate in one go and somehow you expected her to survive with a 45% winrate. Great. She would be very well balanced with a 48% winrate; with how unpopular she is right now (lower playrate than Ashe, Twitch and Draven) and that her playerbase distribution is fairly high.

You have never ever taken the changes one step at a time. Yet you seem to be making all these exceptions for Zed and formerly Fiora who took from 5.15 to 6.6 to be balanced, should the players really be waiting for over half a season for ONE champion to be balanced?

Guy Fox TeemoMay 26, 20164 votes

Except that was years ago when Riot had different stances on balance?

Also do any of the people complaining about Zed have ANY data to support their claim? What facts represent him being OP, does any data out their actually represent it, or are all you guys just spouting BS?

Masala ChaiMay 26, 20164 votes

100% winrate in 6 games in the NA LCS Spring Split, NA LCS being fairly focused on high cc, high AoE damage and utility, and not assassinations. That should stand for something.

Guy Fox TeemoMay 26, 20167 votes

6 games......... Is probably the worst sample size you could ever have. You also need to take into account how that Zed actually performed, and it wasn't just his team carrying him.

VenedictosMay 26, 20164 votes

I think RefurbishedIce wanted to highlight that Zed won all 6 games in sort of unfavourable situations and how 6 games in competitive play are rather important.

Ulquiorra995May 26, 20167 votes

Or Sejuani/Warwick who became overbearing because of items yet received multiple kit nerfs both before and after said items got nerfed. Or Swain who actually started seeing play because of DFT and got his CC cut in half despite DFT being nerfed too. Or Syndra who got trashed with both kit nerfs and DFG removal into one of lowest winrates because she dared to counter assassins.

I don't want to call them biased. I really don't. But all of the evidence points to it.

Battlecast SonaMay 26, 20164 votes

or Soraka who got nerfed 3 patches in a row and then the change that required her nerfs got reverted with no compensation for her.

Or Evelynn who got reworked into a (finally) assassin who could actually oneshot people and was subsequently nerfed into the ground before DFG removal and never compensated for its removal (and was in fact nerfed MORE later as more items came out, because :logic:)

Or Skarner who was OP for like 1 patch and then nerfed so hard he basically went back to pre-rework gameplay. Basically any of the Juggernauts. There are so many examples of times that Riot has wily-nily nerfed champions that aren't Zed into the ground, but for some reason every Zed change requires VERY CAREFUL PLANNING AND MULTIPLE PATCHES. =/

LuciferMay 26, 20169 votes

{quoted}

Zed: We've pulled the ult nerf from patch 6.11 after a lot of debate on the team as to how hard the Q changes will or won't hit Zed. Still sitting on it as an option for a later patch, we want to assess what impact those other changes have first though.

Azir: One of the issues we're looking to address with the reduced duration on Azir's ult is how hard it shuts down melee, fighters in particular who can't just disengage from the fight for a while. 5/6/7 seconds is a really long time to wait in a team fight for it to go down, meaning Azir's presence makes it really hard to play many melee champions usefully unless they've got really high slipperiness (leave fight then return), a way to cross his wall (blink or flanking ability) or really long fight times (tanky, or great with a tanky build). The other issue is just the raw power of the ability, as both a strong AOE knockback and a persistent wall. The knockback generates a lot of interesting plays/counterplays. We concluded as a result that, given we felt we needed to take power out of the ability, it was better to hit the persistent wall, which tied in well with the above concerns on effect on melee champs.

In terms of overall power both Zed and Azir are too strong. Azir's particularly out of line when played by a really experienced Azir player (experienced players should perform much better, there's still a limit though). I suspect we'll have to hit both of them again at some point in the next few patches, that's a personal guess though rather than currently planned work. Wwe'll see how these changes go first.

Didn't Zed get compensation buffs that have not been pulled though? Won't this actually be a net buff?

VasilisGreenMay 26, 20163 votes

It was not a nerf to begin with and he didn't get compensation buffs.... They changed the functionality of his Q, they didn't nerf it. Now it's more rewarding to actualy HIT all of your skillshots and it's more forgiving for others when they are hit from a stray Q while also more PUNISHING when they don't dodge the Qs that are coming at them.

AMYS GRAVEMay 26, 20161 votes

Its a buff to zed's waveclear.

AbyssphereMay 26, 20163 votes

It's a buff to his "I need this particular wave cleared now" clear, particularly as the game goes on, but it's a nerf to his consistent "Q off cooldown to shove in the mage" clear early and it's a nerf to his split push waveclear too unless he's willing to blow his escape on pushing the wave.

It buffs his clear in some ways and nerfs it in others.

NilokMay 26, 201614 votes

How hard the changes will affect Zed?! Is Zed really that coddled of a champion that the balance team can't see a solid nerf to Zed through when he has a 85% ban rate? Zed already had a pick/ban rate of 91.73%, are they waiting for it to hit Kassadin's high of 99%?

Zed needs a solid nerf to put him back inline with other champion's pick/ban rate. Since it doesn't sound like you want to touch his overall damage, the next major focus should be Zed's mobility. Either reduce it, make it more conditional when he can jump (like needing to deal damage first), or add a cooldown between when he can activate his jump from when he first casts it.

Honestly, a major issue people have with Zed is that he can use flash to jump to someone outside their normal vision nearly instantly. While a flashy combo, it gives Zed too much mobility and too easy of an escape when he decides to disengage. If you can find a way to remove the 2000 unit dash combo, it should put Zed in a better spot.

TheGreatNinxMay 26, 20162 votes

Well here the problem with this reasoning. His W already has a 24 second cd at rank 1 so he can only do it ever 24 seconds in lane eventually going down to 20 seconds towards lvl 6 and on ward since Zed most likely got cd till he maxes W. This should of been plenty of time for you to do a full combo on him... "He plays safe all game if I try" I can assure you that zed is probably going to go last hit minions if he is an average Zed. Which is where you should be going for a full combo depending on the champion you are playing. If he isn't then just force him out lane while he has the cd up, more cs for you will help you in the long run. Note this average Zed player , the problem is with the people who can play him above average. That's where Zed becomes a massive problem. His kit is a lot more overloaded when you can utilize his kit fully which is a problem. Also understand that people's favorite champion will be handle alot more bias then other random champions, especially if the balance team likes Zed alot, while this is unfair but you will also find this life as well so we are going to have to deal with it . I miss old zed where it was actually considered skill to play him correctly. Now how would I balance him? I would put that nerf to his ult because that to me would define him as champion and make him actually land all q's and make sure he has to stay there long then 1-2 basic attacks with an e and then back to q cast from shadow to hit the champion if needed. I would also remove the slow from E since that give him that helps him a bit too much when landing his q. Then make a nerf to his passive for the hp required to proc it since its basically an mini-execute. I feel like these changes would bring Zed to a healthier position.

NilokMay 26, 20165 votes

I think those are fair points, but my concern is that Riot has decided internally that they want to keep Zed's damage about the same. I have been losing trust in Riot with how they are balancing Zed when he has had an extremely high pick/ban rate, to the point where he is either crowding out a ban, or a pick.

Since it seems apparent that Riot loves the high damage kit on Zed, I can only point them in the direction of Zed's other overbearing power, his mobility, which when coupled with his damage is an issue.

This is eerily like what happened to Kassadin when his pick/ban rate passed 90%, where Riot refused to reduce his damage for the longest time, so they just gutted his mobility until they decided to shift to his damage.

Zed has basically become the AD Kassadin of modern League, and I forsee Zed unfortunately follow the same fate as his AP counterpart in seasons past once Riot no longer views him as a golden child internally. My gut is telling me that someone(s) in Riot is the driving force behind Zed's unaddressed power, and once they lose their sway, Zed will just be another Champions left by the wayside until Riot decides to rework him. [zombie-nunu-bummed]

Vik4prezMay 26, 20165 votes

Don't worry, he'll remain banned in most matches so you wont get to really see how well the changes work that much anyways.

ErdamonMay 26, 201611 votes

Sejuani Well Warwick gosh Olaf good Evelynn thing Kassadin you Diana do Rengar care Elise not Akali nerf Aatrox champions Urgot too Rumble hard Azir

Jinx cough Kalista cough Fiora

ModAcademy KaynMay 26, 20163 votes

Ten bucks says that Azir is still gonna be played at high levels regardless of the nerf.

ErdamonMay 27, 20166 votes

Still, Zed deserves the same level (and amount) of changes

Whut Thuh May 26, 20164 votes

snapping the the power of azirs ultimate in half is perfectly fine and you are clearly not worried about what that would do to him but a zed nerf? oh we just dont know how an overall potential damage buff with weaker scaling if you hit just one shurican will affect expierenced zed players who would hit 2 anyway. lets see how these "nerfs" go over and then we may potententialy have another nerf in the coming patches (potentially)