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The reason Zed is healthy and will always be kept viable by Riot (their favourite AD Assassin)

N00B PWN3R··59 votes·3,605 views

From all the AD assassins, Zed has the most AVOIDABLE damage and the most DELAYED damage. Sidestep his shurikens, he deals no burst. He ults you? Try to disengage and reduce his uptime on you, he deals no lethal Death Mark damage. In team fights, this becomes even more relevant, carry gets ulted by Zed? Shields, CC, Heals all can stop him from doing anything, because the damage is DELAYED. These are all counterplay based on you, your skills and your abilities. Now, there is also counterplay with items: Zhonya, QSS, Mercurial. These items reduce the Assassination potential of Zed drastically.

This is the reason Zed has his safety, because his damage is not reliable, if he didn’t have his safety, he would be garbage. Every other Assassin would be better than him, because they do have RELIABLE INSTANT DAMAGE.

Whenever other AD assassins became really good, (rengar recently, Kha’Zix and Talon season 3) they were instantly nerfed, because they truly had no counterplay, point and click RELIABLE instant damage.

The QQ about Zed has been going for years, yet riot always keeps Zed relatively viable, because his kit is inherently the most fair for the enemy out of all the AD assassins, it offers the most counterplay. This is where the risk from Zed comes in, picking Zed is a risk in its self for your team. You have to get fed and you have to be BETTER than your opponent ALL THE TIME. There are games when I am 8/1 Zed and I fail to kill a squishy because I miss my double shuriken or he does a nice sidestep. This would never be the case with a Talon, even with a score of 4/1, I jump, hit all my abilities because they are reliable and 1 shot the squishy. Same for other Assassins with reliable damage.

This is why Zed is riots favourite AD Assassin and why they call him healthy, pair that up with a very high skill celing kit and potential for flashy outplays and you should know that no matter how much people cry about Zed, he will always be relatively good and viable. I suspect Riot is trying to force a comeback for Zed in LCS with the nerfs to Urgot (the reason Zed stopped getting picked in LCS) and their experimentation with new AD assassin item item 3147 and the "future ad Assassin items" they have planned.

So if you hate Zed, the best thing you can do is play him yourself, understand his kit and then beat him with your better understanding of the champion. QQ'ing on boards will get you nowhere, Zed will never be gutted and removed from viability like some other 1 dimensional champions with very little counterplay in their kit have been gutted in the past.

Zed in the midlane is what Lee Sin is in the jungle, you will always see those champions.

115 Comments

Andrionar24 votes

The most honest and accurate post I have read in boards so far. ^^

Divewing16 votes

It was a nice idea, but it's inherently flawed in that he's part of a class specifically designed and chosen to 100-0 ASAP. Frankly, assassins shouldn't have much counterplay, and instead have far larger than normal amounts of counter measures, such as LB: will 100-0 you faster than you blink, but she's incredibly susceptible to being shoved under tower, and is boned pretty hard by banshees, on top of that, she gets a lot harder to play successfully as time progresses in a game, with nothing to fall back on if she can't make a pick.

Compared to Zed: yes you can dodge his shit, and Zhonyas/QSS screw his ult, but he can still split push, and due to the nature of his kit, he can poke you pretty hard from range. Say what you want about LB but if she's proccing Q with E you shouldn't be so close, if she's proccing it with W, then at least there's a risk when she moves in that close (as opposed to Zed shadow spam. Basically your point is invalidated and in fact, becomes the opposite, when a Zed gets fed, since his burst comes out too fast, and since he's given all this safety as compensation for his burst-pattern, there's little you can to him at all.

Saying Zed is the healthiest assassin is inaccurate, his BURST PATTERN is the most balanced, on par with Ekkos. He is NOT the healthiest assassin (I'd give it to Ekko, but he's not a true assassin as much a skirmisher)

Akali is SO HOT4 votes

By that logic, all burst mages are overpowered because they can 100-0 you while CCing you at the same time (something Zed cannot do which is huge) and should be gutted accordingly but in this boards eyes they are flawlessly designed. Very hypocritical.

Edgehy1 votes

{quoted}

It was a nice idea, but it's inherently flawed in that he's part of a class specifically designed and chosen to 100-0 ASAP.

But he doesn't 100-0 you ASAP. He has the potential to 100-0 almost anything with items but the same potential to avoid much of his damage is equally true.

Frankly, assassins shouldn't have much counterplay, and instead have far larger than normal amounts of counter measures, such as LB: will 100-0 you faster than you blink, but she's incredibly susceptible to being shoved under tower, and is boned pretty hard by banshees, on top of that, she gets a lot harder to play successfully as time progresses in a game, with nothing to fall back on if she can't make a pick.

Leblancs wave clear is still pretty decent though. And a well played Leblanc at all phases of the game offers significantly less counterplay than a well played Zed doesn

Compared to Zed: yes you can dodge his shit, and Zhonyas/QSS screw his ult, but he can still split push, and due to the nature of his kit, he can poke you pretty hard from range. Say what you want about LB but if she's proccing Q with E you shouldn't be so close, if she's proccing it with W, then at least there's a risk when she moves in that close (as opposed to Zed shadow spam.

Sticking to a zed or punishing a Zeds mistakes is still much easier than punishing the mistakes of a Leblanc, a Fizz, even Ekko to an extent. Zed has to always be in melee range for his full combo and it's why his teamfight becomes weaker and weaker as the game goes on. This is somewhat true for Leblanc and most assassins too but it's even harder for zed as he is the most counterable assassin in the game by itemization

Basically your point is invalidated and in fact, becomes the opposite, when a Zed gets fed, since his burst comes out too fast, and since he's given all this safety as compensation for his burst-pattern, there's little you can to him at all.

When anyone is fed out of their mind, all logic and balance discussion goes out of the window because they are fed. And there's plenty you can do to zed if you understand how he plans on playing and zoning him and having his kit on cooldown without him killing a target is effectively the same thing as killing him.

Let me put it to you like this. A fed zed will always have potential to have his burst negated heavily in teamfights because of QSS and zhonyas. Zed can go in, not kill his target but jump out to safety. Meanwhile, even a moderately fed or simply farmed Talon can jump in and 100-0 your carry with you being able to do very little if the Talon ults correctly. Sure Talon still probably dies but so does your carry. Which is more healthy? Zed by far.

Saying Zed is the healthiest assassin is inaccurate, his BURST PATTERN is the most balanced, on par with Ekkos. He is NOT the healthiest assassin (I'd give it to Ekko, but he's not a true assassin as much a skirmisher)

Ekko is considered an assassin but he's his own breed and I'm not sure you can compare Ekko to any assassin because of that

DropFill10 votes

Zed is also the only assassin who can kill tanks, split push effectively, engage without risk if it fails, poke hard every time his W is out of CD because he is a energy user, the ONLY one with safe laning phase, and the only one who can poke you down before engaging. All other assassins have to engage as soon as they get close to you, to kill you. So no, zed is not the most balanced assassin. A item that gives MR is the only counterplay to zed as a AD champion, and being forced to buy zhonyas will fuck you up because the lack of mana regen will make you be pushed to turret all day because zed can easily push the lane without punishing. He is not the most balanced assassin.

Sypher The Poro1 votes

{quoted}the only one who can poke you down before engaging.

Nidalee

She's also got a heal.

DropFill1 votes

{quoted}

Nidalee

She's also got a heal.

She is very different. She is all about going in and out.

junglerboy168 votes

Honestly, I think one saying sums up the league community's relationship with Zed perfectly: Familiarity breeds contempt. Most people complain about Zed because he is usually kept viable and they eventually become sick of seeing him, and they then try to find some roundabout way to explain how dreadfully toxic he is. Honestly, I would rather go against a Zed any day rather than a Lee sin, Rengar, or Talon, almost regardless of their current balance.

The one thing I will disagree with you on is that Zed is not the Lee sin of mid lane. Lee sin has been a chronic issue for balance for several years now, because he has the type of reliable damage that makes a champ with burst toxic to play against. Sure you need skill to pull off an insec play, but if your goal is to just kill someone then all you have to do is fish for Qs and then mash your keyboard for damage once you land one. Zed is a specialist, Lee is a generalist. Specialists are inherently more healthy than generalists because they can be tuned around their one objective, while generalists are usually either good enough at everything that they don't have real counterplay, or they aren't good enough at anything to be worth picking.

If Lee's kit ever gets cleaned up so he has a clear and obvious primary use case (e.g. being good at early kill ganks, or having complex but rewarding initiation combos) while cutting back on the extraneous parts (i.e. excessive clear speed, lack of resource dependence, excessive burst from tank builds, etc.) then I could agree that his persistence in the meta would be healthy. As it stands now though, the fact that he is always lingering on the top end of the viability spectrum is an indicator that Riot has no idea how to consolidate his identity effectively and refuses to give him the Poppy/Urgot/Yorick treatment and nerf him until they have a solution.

Stars Shaper8 votes

By this you guys should stop to ever complain about Yasuo since he is even easier to avoid and doesn't 100-0% as Zed does.

yoniame1 votes

also has lower range and no escape

Stars Shaper2 votes

And his ultimate is not free to use.

Paladin 0f Life6 votes

You forgot riot likes flashy. Leesin, zed, ahri all really fun to watch

weeaboomer5 votes

[{quoted}](name=N00B PWN3R,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vgAhpr2I,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-02-24T09:09:24.309+0000)

they truly had no counterplay, point and click RELIABLE instant damage.

And this has changed with talon how? He's still more cancer than zed.

N00B PWN3R6 votes

In the past 3 years, there have been two times Talon was extremely good. First time was with new AD caster itemization, during the Black Cleaver era, they nerfed the items, but Talon was still strong, so they nerfed his Q damage and increased his R cooldown. Second time was right after/around worlds? When Talon had his silence, they nerfed him by removing his silence.

Now he is a lot weaker, with damage, utility and laning compared to how good he was.

Talons weak early laning phase is what keeps him somewhat in check, though I have a higher winrate with Talon than Zed. Talon is strong, but it is harder to get him start snowballing, but when he does start snowballing, usually there is no stopping him.

Smitemuffin1 votes

Talon really IS the worst assassin in the game except maybe Shaco . Is his burst great? Yes. Reliable? Yeah, kinda. Front-loaded? Yes. But he has no real escape. Beyond lane, all he can do is blink, kill, die. And it leaves him with a 1-for-1 trade if he doesn't make any escapes. His passive is almost useless, and his E is just a dash and some dump buffs. Zed is everything Talon is, but better, with an oppressive lane and with late-game use as a splitpusher

Edgehy1 votes

{quoted}

Talon really IS the worst assassin in the game except maybe Shaco . Is his burst great? Yes. Reliable? Yeah, kinda. Front-loaded? Yes. But he has no real escape. Beyond lane, all he can do is blink, kill, die. And it leaves him with a 1-for-1 trade if he doesn't make any escapes. His passive is almost useless, and his E is just a dash and some dump buffs. Zed is everything Talon is, but better, with an oppressive lane and with late-game use as a splitpusher

If Talon blinks in and kills your carry and trades 1 for 1, that's almost always a win for Talon and his team. Zed can't do that unless ridic fed

N00B PWN3R1 votes

You don't need an escape if you know when to go in and when not to go in. Talon has superior team fight to Zed, Talon can take down 1 target instantly and chunk up to 3-4 people with R & W & hydra damage. A good Talon can win Team fights for his team on his own. I disagree with Zed being a superior Talon, they have different strengths and weaknesses. Talon currently has the highest winrate of all AD Assassins, so him being the weakest is not true.

Tyrone Lannister5 votes

Holy shit dude. Someone made a post and didn't bitch about zed. Thank you

Handin Out Naps4 votes

Good post, very logical. Sadly you will get down voted into hell soon for trying to explain to the boards why Zed is a healthy assassin, only qq is allowed here buddy. A for effort though.

Craft Zeppelin3 votes

A really legit post. Most assassins are Completely single target or has some sort of bs aoe burst surprise attack. Zed can be outplayed although it really depends. If you wanna make the population of this game halved in one day. change Zed's shurikens into a lucian Q or something. Trust me, it will be really fast.

Dengeden3 votes

I'm not sure how Zed will see competitive play when beefy/fighter top laners, Lee, Elise, Gragas, Kindred, Rek'Sai and Liss (who all pretty much counter him) are all frequent picks. Not to mention he'll have a hard time split pushing with all the early tower trades.

Serika Zero3 votes

To bad now he can just RE+2 auto attacks to kill you from 100 to 0 just by having item 3147 And don't tell me you are building QSS first, coz then he can just spam AAs and kill you with that since you lack the AP/AD damage to kill him back.

Zed is not an "Assassin". Assassins are like Rengar or Diana. They kill their main target in under 1 second. Zed is a poke fighter champion.

Astôlfo4 votes

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

SnugglePuggle945 votes

Diana is a fighter, not an assassin. Assassins are Rengar, Katarina, Kha, etc. Zed isn't a fighter AT ALL.

yoniame2 votes

diana is assasin, nothing in her kit suits long drawn out fights like fighters.

SnugglePuggle945 votes

Uh, she's classified as a fighter, dude. Don't know if you are just stupid or what. She has a shield, a slow, and a passive that helps her cleave more damage.

People play her like an assassin because she deals a lot of burst. But she really is a fighter.

Serika Zero1 votes

Diana is an assassin. Zed is a fighter, you engage with the enemy in a fight. That's not an assassination attempt because it takes to long.

Diana can 1shot squishy targets in under 1 second. Zed can't unless REALLY REALLY FEED

Handin Out Naps7 votes

Zed is an assassin with delayed burst stop trying to call him a fighter, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

SnugglePuggle941 votes

[deleted]

Serika Zero1 votes

So, Assassins are only people that Riot says are assassins?

Like, if riot told you this bullshit on the side of the road is very good, and you should eat it. Would you do that too?

SnugglePuggle944 votes

The truth isn't bullshit. Riot says she is a fighter. She has more of the tools of a fighter than an assassin. She just does more burst playing like one so people play her that way.

yoniame2 votes

her whole kit is centered around landing Q+R+W+E with a procced passive, which is intended to be a one-ratation enagage, with after-chase on repeated R, then when she used up everything her engage ends and she either dies, or runs away until cds go down. Fighter get close and personal,attack and sustain themselves in a longer period of time. Diana is assassin, she can''T proc passive often enough to count as fighter.

SnugglePuggle943 votes

Just no.

Diana can stick to her enemy with her E, get a passive procced, and if she built attack speed she probably could get another off if they didn't flash out, then she can R again to pick them off.

She has her shield to sustain her in fights. Again, if she was an assassin, Riot would classify her as one. Instead, her primary is "fighter," secondary is "mage." Nowhere is there "assassin". People just play her like one because going tanky she falls off in damage.

[(http://(http://i.imgur.com/lomI0dB.jpg))]

DropFill5 votes

{quoted}

diana is assasin, nothing in her kit suits long drawn out fights like fighters.

Her passive and her shield

ForgiveColour3 votes

LOL no zed is not the lee sin of mid. It's ahri. Zed has too much counterplay.

Serika Zero2 votes

Yes. item 3140 - while his damage is NOT magical item 3157 - while you need mana regen

Totally, good counter play. The "problem" with counter playing Zed is that the options are either

  • way to fucking expensive (Zhonias) and fucks your resources management and only viable for APC champions.
  • gives you almost 0 stats that are worth using against Zed. The only thing that MR will reduce is the extra dmg from his passive. And that's to little to worry about.
ForgiveColour4 votes

Learn to manage your mana? Hurdur ap so weak I cant one shot wave at level 1 hurhurhur. Qss is usally third buy for adc and before then you should never get killed by zed. Obviously buying an item to make it 5v4 is a bad thing. Just eune logic

Serika Zero2 votes

Mana vs Energy. In a "war of attrition" the one that runs quicker out of recources will lose.

Zed can fast push wave using energy and in 10-15 seconds he gets his energy all back. I can do that as a mage 2-3 times in early game before I go "oom", need to go back to base for mana or last hit with normal attacks. Hence Zed can push in in my turret and win the lane. Even if he doesn't kill me, he get roaming opportunities.

I would manage my mana if Zed would have mana too. But he doesn't. He gets to fast push waves without any cost. He gets to farm from 1100 range for no cost.

Astôlfo2 votes

Except it's not 1100 range with no cost, the cost is him losing his escape and then not being there, which makes it slower. Energy still has cost.

It's not costless/resourceless. It's manaless. Learn the difference. Energy is better in single burst, mana is better for an extended fight.

Ruin Lance2 votes

i like this post. i just find it frustrating to play against him because if you slip up you lose 25-50% to his w+e+q poke combo depending on what phase of the game it is. it's true that he does have quite a lot of counterplay though

N00B PWN3R9 votes

Play Zed for a while, learn the timing and range on his W and Q. Here are three very effective tips vs Zed:

  1. When Zed uses Q to farm or harass you, and misses, go on him right away, he doesn't have a Q, you have window to outrade him.
  2. When Zed has no W, he has no escape, if you can, go in on him and outtrade him.
  3. When Zed is low on energy, attack him, it doesn't matter what he has, you will outtrade him.
YumaS2Astral7 votes

[{quoted}](name=N00B PWN3R,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vgAhpr2I,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2016-02-24T09:48:39.707+0000)

Play Zed for a while, learn the timing and range on his W and Q. Here are three very effective tips vs Zed:

  1. When Zed uses Q to farm or harass you, and misses, go on him right away, he doesn't have a Q, you have window to outrade him.
  2. When Zed has no W, he has no escape, if you can, go in on him and outtrade him.
  3. When Zed is low on energy, attack him, it doesn't matter what he has, you will outtrade him.

I think that nobody really cares if Zed has tons of burst. They just don't want Zed to have a reliable and strong poke during laning phase.

TheWoollyMammoth4 votes

it just gets annoying how he can out push the farm and push mana champs. Zed should not be better at pushing lane then the likes of malzahar early. If they adjust that, I'm fine with him.

Keti2 votes

if they adjusted that you'd probably never see him again. again why pick unreliable zed when you could roll face as talon?

Edgehy1 votes

{quoted}

I think that nobody really cares if Zed has tons of burst. They just don't want Zed to have a reliable and strong poke during laning phase.

I'd rather play against a champion with semi reliable poke that looks to go in for a koll when he's successfully poked his enemy down over something like Diana, fizz or Talon who all will get to a point where you just can't be near them anymore because they will jump on you and straight up 100-0 you without being able to do much back.

Edgehy1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ruin Lance,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vgAhpr2I,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2016-02-24T09:44:13.027+0000)

i like this post. i just find it frustrating to play against him because if you slip up you lose 25-50% to his w+e+q poke combo depending on what phase of the game it is. it's true that he does have quite a lot of counterplay though

How is that any different from any mage or other assassin? Heck even an ADC with 2-3 items will do this to non tanks in a few autos. Zed frustrates you because he does damage? I'm not yelling at you or trying to mock you, think of what you are saying here.

Karma Deified2 votes

Pretty well said. I think the most recent Rengar was healthy, just indirectly buffed by ward changes. They nerfed him by making him feel bugged essentially.

Spoofghoul2 votes

the lvl 3 insta waveslear is my personal pet peeve with zed

i used to be able to do the same with lvl 3 sion

then the rito nerf hammered his q and now it deals reduced damage to minions

Tsohgder2 votes

Zed is a healthy assassin, but not a healthy laner.

The "assassin" part of his kit is okay.

C9 Scott Free 2 votes

Stand directly behind your ADC. Stun the zed as he comes out of ult. YOur ADC right clicks him and he dies after two autos. If you are playing a champion with hard CC that is. But not bringing hard CC in a world with assassins and is, as DJ Khaled would say, "you playing yourself. And don't ever play yourself stay alert."

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