Power vs. Frustration - Zed, Balance, Winrate, and Consistency
tl;dr Zed's power is high, but their winrate is low. Power and winrates are not necessarily related. Winrate is a metric of Consistency, not of power. This is why Zed is receiving a buff-nerf instead of just a nerf. Consistency provides a useful nuance when discussing champion balance.
Zed currently boasts a very impressive 77% banrate overall, with many calling for nerfs on the champion. Behold as nerfs hit the PBE, but interestingly, it's a buff-nerf. If Zed was truly too powerful, why not just a straight up nerf?
Zed has a sub 50% winrate in every single tier except Platinum, and even then only 50.1%.. Their overall winrate is at an all-time low compared the previous patches. Zed is still considered extremely frustrating.
Winrates are tricky; Champions with 58% winrates are clearly overtuned ('yello Swain) yet there is a persistent belief that champion winrates don't mean anything, with many seeing Zed as being a strong champion despite having a negative winrate.
How can all this be reconciled? Are there distinctions we can make to understand how champions should be balanced? Let's discuss.
#What Does Winrate Tell Us? What is Power?
The two questions posed in that header might seem pretty obvious. Winrate tells us how often a champion wins, duh. More specifically then, what does Winrate tells us a champion's power? Not a whole lot.
##Power is Arbitrary
Part of this difficulty is how arbitrary power is. Taliyah has a 40% winrate in every tier, but then we have champion specialists who boast a 55% winrate with Taliyah at extremely high ranks. Is power defined by how well the most dedicated player can play a champion? Despite this outlier, most would say no and agree that Taliyah is undertuned (or at best, just average, though that's a tough argument to show). The winrate of several people on an undertuned champion does not tell us how powerful a champion is.
Then we have champions like Blitzcrank. Considered a noobstomper, Blitz has a very respectable 53%+ winrate in every tier. Except for Bronze, ironically. Despite this, the most common advice given to fight Blitzcrank is "dodge the hook", and this counterplay makes Blitzcrank appear decidedly average in most people's minds except to punish novices. Then, having an above-average winrate overall does not tell us how powerful a champion is.
It really seems Power is only recognized by everyone equally when a champion has winrates regularly exceeding 57%. Darius, Skarner, Malzahar, Swain; all have previously been (are) permabanned from their power more than their frustration. Exceedingly high winrates can tell us a lot about champion power. But these are the vast minority of cases.
##All this discussion and we don't even know what Power means.
Discussing what Power is would take an entire post itself. For now, it's enough to know that winrate tells us very little about power except in extreme positive cases.
Since winrate doesn't tell us power, does that make it worthless?
Not at all, because there's a common theme among every single one of these cases:
Consistency.
#Winrate tells us Consistency.
Consistency is the ability to access power by a set of players.
Very powerful champions can be extremely inconsistent, which is why even some of the perceived-strongest champions in the game can have very low/average winrates (Zed, Ekko, Azir, Vayne).
On the flip, champions with "average power" can be amazingly consistent. Most people don't regard Volibear as being particularly powerful, yet Volibear boasts a monstrous 54% winrate and 18% pickrate in Bronze/Silver. Blitzcrank even better, at 54% winrate and 20% pickrate in practically every tier. These two are considered good, but not seen as powerful. Perhaps they're not, but both of them are extremely consistent champions despite their power.
##What Creates Consistency?
We may be tempted to think "a simpler champion is more consistent", but that's fairly disingenuous.
Many people consider Yasuo notorious for dem noobs picking up the champion just to end up missing every skillshot and losing constantly. Despite this, Yasuo is more consistent in Silver than any other tier, including Diamond.
And seemingly mechanically simple champions, like Ryze, do most poorly as rank decreases.
Consistency is more than power, and it's more than mechanics. It is the ability to access power, dictated by more than apparent simplicity. In fact, having more mechanical demand often can make power more accessible.
The difference between a good Yasuo and a great Yasuo is enormously dependent on mechanical skill. Bad Yasuo's will enter a fray and mess up several slashes, miss chances to land ultimates, and incorrectly handle their wind meter.
Contrast with Twisted Fate. how do you tell the difference between a good Twisted Fate and a great Twisted Fate at a glance? If you're just looking as a spectator, there's no obvious difference in the way they play during teamfights since TF's mechanical skill floor is so low. Most of Twisted Fate's accessible power is dependent on subtle macro-level skills to access, but mechanically intensive champions have their accessible power located in their skills instead
This is why Zed can still be powerful despite being inconsistent.
Their mechanical intensity means a significant share of their power is located in their skills.
Their consistency is low because more of their power budget is allocated in macro-level play than other assassins (Talon, Rengar).
A powerful champion with low consistency.
#Why Does Consistency Matter?
Consistency is a useful word in discussing buffs and nerfs, because as we've seen, power and consistency exist fairly independently of each other. This lets us understand the change on the PBE.
Zed's power is definitely high. The power to farm safely, poke reliably, and assassinate easily makes them a powerful champion. Their mechanical complexity allows more of their power to be accessible to more players.
Zed's consistency is definitely low. Despite the listed strengths, they have below-average winrates in every single division, and a lot of their power is gated behind macro-level play compared to other assassins.
Therefore, to become less frustrating, Zed must be changed to decrease their power while maintaining / increasing their Consistency
Zed really was just the poster child for this larger analysis; Consistency is a useful metric in evaluating any champion in relation to their power.
Azir also has a mediocre winrate but is receiving nerfs on the PBE. Their consistency is low but their power is high. Parts of their kit are being targeted to decrease their power and tapping down their consistency.
Meanwhile, a lot of auras in the game have been removed. The champions that had the auras, like Sona and Taric, were very consistent, but their perceived power was very low. Putting power into other places than the auras allowed their power to be increased without tanking their consistency.
It's too easy to think that champions are frustrating because of their power. It's too easy to think that when talking about champion balance, power only matters, or winrate only matters. Consistency provides a useful separation between Power and winrate when discussing champion balance.
