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C'mon guys. Zed isn't THAT strong.

Depóngo·2/12/2015, 10:13:17 AM·9 votes·1,313 views

(Be warned that english is not my first language)

Looking at Zed's win rate, it's around 46.5% in solo Q after the 5.2 nerf as a high skill high reward champion. Sounds pretty balanced to me. On the other hand, Ahri has an insane 57.5% win rate after the 5.2 buff (she just got nerfed tho), which made her the most winning champion in the game and I haven't seen many people complain about her. If Zed is as unbeatable as many people say, he should have a huge win rate. But he doesn't. Not even in Diamond or Challenger. It sometimes saddens me how people complain about Zed without knowing how many matches he actually wins. (Zed - http://www.lolking.net/champions/zed&region=all&map=sr&queue=1x1#statistics Ahri - http://www.lolking.net/champions/ahri&region=all&map=sr&queue=1x1#statistics)

There are pretty obvious counters to him. Zhonya's. QSS. These items completely delete his ultimate damage. And there are plenty of champions who counter him too - Lissandra, Vladimir, Kayle, Malzahar, etc.

Zed's ultimate has a minimum of 80 seconds cooldown (Without CDR, of course). QSS and Zhonya's both have a 90 second cooldown. That's just 10 seconds different.

Unpokable? While it is true that Zed's harass is good, his cooldowns are fairly high. His Q is evadable like any other normal skill shot. And if it passes through a minion or anything esle, the damage is 40% lower. His W has an 18 second cooldown (Most Zed mains level it up last. Leveled up the most it's 14 seconds). Besides, nothing's stopping you from poking him back.

Ungankable? Yeah, he can escape with his W. But its cooldown is pretty high. What you can do as the midlaner is force him to waste it on you, either by poking or getting close. Then you and the jungler can jump right on him. If you're the jungler, wait until he pops his W for harass or ask the midlaner to bait it. Zed has to use his W for poke in order to have a potental poke lead. So he will most likely use it as often as he can.

Lee Sin and Zed both couple mobility with high damage, but that's what makes them viable. High skill is required on these champions in order to play them at their full potential. Nerfed, they would be useless. Kassadin got slightly nerfed this 5.3 patch, but he was is barely outplayable, while Zed is pretty outplayable.

I think Riot did a good job at nerfing Zed's attack speed. That was a strenght he simply didn't need. It just made it easier for him to finish off people and without much effort. These days, hitting his skillshots is vital for him to kill someone, unless that someone has very low health. Zed does fall somewhat in late game too and his auto attack 1v1s are now considerably weaker. The reason Riot called him a "healthy assassin" is because he can quickly kill people like an assassin should, but requires some skill to do so and is counterable.

Seriously, why would a champion that can't hit 50% win rate after his last nerf deserve another one?

30 Comments

Dreadlocks2/12/2015, 10:19:57 AM3 votes

I didnt read much of what you said but i Agree Zed isn't OP.. and for the reasons people say "oh his damage is too high" "oh his ulti has no counter play its too strong" "he has no penalty for using abilities" ALL of these reasons are weak. Leblanc/Talon...More Burst Damage, Less counter play, No counter play to ult? item 3140 item 3157 item 3083 /item 3022 No penalty for using abilities? Last I checked energy needs management, Maybe not to the extent of mana but remember there are champs that don't even use resources Katarina Riven DrMundo etc.

Basically someone complained about Zed being strong, so a bunch of newbs decided to cry about it in hopes he'd get nerfed simply because they don't want to deal with him. I can't wait to see how that works out.LeeSin

Jamaree2/12/2015, 10:20:13 AM2 votes

Silly Depongo, don't you know win rate only matters when you are trying to get something nerfed. It means nothing at all when talking about champions that you think are balanced or trying to get buffs, silly Depongo.

Edit: I'm not saying you are wrong by the way, I don't think he needs nerfs, I'm just saying this is the logic this community uses.

Bisaknosp2/12/2015, 2:02:15 PM2 votes

,,C'mon guys. Zed isn't THAT strong.''

didnt read the text after that just downvoted

ForgiveColour2/12/2015, 10:55:01 PM2 votes

you got to remember most kids on board are bronze

SwiftKitten882/12/2015, 8:46:26 PM1 votes

the issue i have with zed is that he really has no weaknesses to counteract his strengths. another strong champ such as nidalee has just as many strengths as zed has. but can be SOO easily counters in a very large number of ways and is much weaker at full build. zed on the other hand get a free escape to easily disengage any fight he might start to lose he can spam abilties on cooldown wihout having to spend any gold on mana items. he has decent waveclear and poke and can do both from a good distance.

its not the fact that he is too "strong" its that he has little to no weaknesses that counteract his strengths forcing all his lane opponents who require mana to clear or attack or get within melee range to clear, or commit to going in with no easy escape if something turns bad. where as zed doesn't have to worry about any of those issues. if he had an easily exploitable wekaness like most other champs he strengths his damage wouldn't be an issue.

but roits current nerf to zed is tryign to adress his damage which isnt his problem. his problem is his lack of weakness to anything

AMYS GRAVE2/12/2015, 9:14:55 PM1 votes

It's not that zed is strong, it's that he is frustrating to play against due to his overloaded kit. Let's look at some of his "counters"

Zhonya's - Hope you're an AP champ... otherwise wasted stats. It also has to be saved for his ult, can't be used for any other purpose, is on a longer CD, and doesn't benifit from CDR while zed's ult can get to sub 50 second CD.

QSS - an MR item against an AD champ, not really a good buy.

Lissandra/Kayle - has to use their ult to cancel his, that's not winning that's just not losing. Zed can shut down either of these champs but they have little hope of shutting him down. that's not a counter.

Vladimir/Fizz - have abilities to cancel zed's ult but they have significant weaknesses, both being significant magic damage dealers means that QSS IS a counter to their ults with no drawbacks.

Zed's ultimate has a minimum of 80 seconds cooldown (Without CDR, of course)

But... he gets CD... if he ults you then his ult is almost back up by the time you get back on the map... so he will have a vulnerable period of ~10 seconds... maybe. Considering how easily he can just farm under tower that's not a problem for him.

Unpokable? While it is true that Zed's harass is good, his cooldowns are fairly high.

Zed can use his weq combo, then 6 seconds later use his eq combo. 6 seconds isn't a "fairly high" cd. Both his q and e refund energy in the first part of that and he can repeat this combo on cooldown for ~1:45 without going ooe. Saying "get good" to dodge skillshots isn't helpful to anyone and isn't a weakness of zed. Lots of champions have dodgeable skillshots.

What you can do as the midlaner is force him to waste it on you, either by poking or getting close.

If the zed has done that then he has made a mistake. Saying that zeds weakness is that he might make a mistake is not a valid argument. The jungler could be waiting there all game if that is the case.

Lee Sin and Zed both couple mobility with high damage, but that's what makes them viable.

No, that's what makes them unfun to play against and it is why they need to be reworked.

High skill is required on these champions in order to play them at their full potential. Nerfed, they would be useless.

Not really, there are plenty of nerfs that would leave him viable and would appease many of us. my suggestion is to make his shadow one time use. Either he shifts to it and uses it or he doesn't, that way he when he all ins you he has to be all in... no more free escapes. With that you can revert his AS nerf.

Again i'll reiterate that Zed isn't OP, he has a low winrate, but his kit is so overloaded that he is not fun to play against in his current form.

Takhuan2/12/2015, 9:16:29 PM1 votes

The range on his jumps needed to be nerfed.