Counterplay my ass

Caytheles·Dec 31, 2015·3 votes·390 views

Zed has free long range poke that goes through minions... "oh but just dodge them," yeah and what about csing? any moment you stopto get cs he pulls out the wrath of his full free combo with thunderlords procing. No use in getting resistances because he will poke you... and then ult you under tower....

My Zhonyas didnt do shit and was alsohard to get due to me not being ableto farm. whats the counterplay to a decent zed? i can understand noob zeds... but when a zed is actually good... what s the counterplay? you put two good ppl vs eachother but zed will triumph/// he isan assassin with utility... same as yasuo. But they will never see nerfs because of stupid fanbases that dont want to learn new champs...

but seriously.. someone tell me the counterplay to a decent zed.

14 Comments

MorganFreemanBotDec 31, 20154 votes

"Zed is an assassin with utility".

Zed has some of the worst utility of any assassin in the entire game, he brings a single moderate strength AoE slow which is predictable in its location (always centered on his shadow) and costs him a gap closer / escape.

That said, someone who said "like you do a bad zed" but better is pretty much correct. Yes, Zed's shurikens hit you over the creeps.. And do 65% of their original damage as a result; I.E. not a huge problem, it's not like Zed is the only champion who has skillshots which go through minions. Zed has a nasty all-in which bursts hard and lets him escape quickly. Also true, but so do champions like Ahri and Leblance, where as someone like Swain has an all-in which laughs off your damage and Malzahar just locks you in place while he 70% - 0%'s you. Mid laners tend to have ways to kill enemy laners when things go their way, who'd have thunk it?

The biggest things that you need to work on with Zed are pretty simple.

1:** Be aware of where his fucking shadow is.** Plenty of players will see Zed back off after unloading his shadow.. And then step forwards. Giving him an easy shuriken target / letting him get a slice off, or even letting him port next to them and start unloading auto attacks.

2:** Be aware of his shadow cooldown.** This is pretty standard stuff, have an idea of your enemy laner's cooldowns and count them. When his shadow is down, that's the time to zone him and get aggressive; it removes a lot of his options and you'll find it surprisingly easy to punish Zed for blowing it. Zed's shadow has a 4 second duration and an 18 second cooldown, so until level 13 or so it will have roughly a 22.5% uptime in lane - as in it will exist for that much of the lane if he uses it on cooldown every time. Play around that and capitalize on weakness, but shy away from strength.

CaythelesDec 31, 20151 votes

Lol, why downvote... just comment what i can do to beat zed.... or is it that you dont have an explination....

ModWulf HelhammerDec 31, 20151 votes

"Zed's an assassin with utility"

Lol wut

And to answer your question of what to do against a good zed: get good as well at whatever champion you're playing, then handle him the same way as any other zed, but better

CaythelesDec 31, 20151 votes

in other words you just commented because you have nothing better to do.... alright... Thanks though the other guy gave a REAL explination.

ModWulf HelhammerDec 31, 20151 votes

So tell me, what do you do against a bad Zed?

junglerboy16Dec 31, 20151 votes

Counterplay to a good Zed is someone who can farm without caring about his poke, can negate his all-in naturally (without needing items), and scales well throughout the game.

My personal picks against Zed are Ahri (safe farming and waveclear, good sustain, can easily kite away from an all-in) Ekko (good wave clear, strong defensive tools, your ult counters his ult) Karthus (did somebody say "Free revenge kills"?) Kayle (easy farming, wave pushing, ult counters his ult, sustain) Lissandra (strong harass against a melee, good disengage and farming, ult completely shuts down Zed's ult because of the heal and stasis) Malzahar (excellent anti-assassin, safe easy farming, good harass, you counter his all in with a suppression and 100-0 burst combo that he can't escape until the point when you'll have a Zhonya's anyway) Ryze (you can rush raw defensive stats and still do a lot of damage, your chain root makes Zed cry, and your passive shield and ult spell vamp make surviving his all in easy if you know what you're doing) Urgot (Basically a hard counter to Zed, rush your defensive mana items after a tear and you become tanky af while obliterating Zed with poke and CC).

CaythelesDec 31, 20151 votes

An actual reponse... thank you. So i am guessing in Blind pick norms i just have to let him beat me... i was lux and could do nothing tohim.. but mthank you for the response... this helps alot!! :3

junglerboy16Jan 1, 20161 votes

As Lux in particular, you should do your best to farm at max range. If you are at close to your max range as lux, his poke combo should be very telegraphed since you'll be able to see his shadow come out and almost the full travel of the Shuriken, that gives you time to either dodge it outright or shield it at the very least. Basically, wait for him to throw out a poke combo and then do your best to land a light binding+Singularity combo. Outside that, I'm not sure what other tips I can offer, since I don't play Lux too much.

ParoeDec 31, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Counterplay to a good Zed is someone who can farm without caring about his poke, can negate his all-in naturally (without needing items), and scales well throughout the game.

My personal picks against Zed are (safe farming and waveclear, good sustain, can easily kite away from an all-in) (good wave clear, strong defensive tools, your ult counters his ult) (did somebody say "Free revenge kills"?) (easy farming, wave pushing, ult counters his ult, sustain) (strong harass against a melee, good disengage and farming, ult completely shuts down Zed's ult because of the heal and stasis) (excellent anti-assassin, safe easy farming, good harass, you counter his all in with a suppression and 100-0 burst combo that he can't escape until the point when you'll have a Zhonya's anyway) (you can rush raw defensive stats and still do a lot of damage, your chain root makes Zed cry, and your passive shield and ult spell vamp make surviving his all in easy if you know what you're doing) (Basically a hard counter to Zed, rush your defensive mana items after a tear and you become tanky af while obliterating Zed with poke and CC).

Counter pick =/= counter play.

junglerboy16Jan 1, 20162 votes

Counter pick = someone who has the ability to counterplay a specific champion well.

The same things that make certain champs counter picks are the things that any champion can use as counterplay, the only question is whether it comes easily to a champion or not. People who say this whole "counter pick =/= counterplay" are spreading misinformation and don't understand the terms in question.

What I listed was first how to counterplay Zed and then champions that are exceptional at counter playing Zed.

If every champion in the game could counterplay everyone else equally well, then their be zero diversity in gameplay. Counter picks and counterplay aren't the same, but they are inextricably intertwined in the essence of each other's gameplay.

EndlessSorcererDec 31, 20151 votes

I'm going to assume that this was prompted by your recent Lux game, so I will address my comments regarding that matchup. Hopefully, this will allow me to provide more specific tips rather than having to generalize them.

You have to itemize early armor which will generally mean that you can't get a mana regeneration item early. To compensate (and provide additional durability), I would suggest getting 2 Doran's Rings.

I would not recommend rushing Zhonya's Hourglass in it's current state due to the cost and stat inefficiency. Instead, I would recommend building Seeker's Armguard after your Doran's Rings and then building a CDR/mana-sustain item (i.e. Morellonomicon or Athene's Unholy Grail). This will allow you to waveclear safely using your abilities (in Lux's case E and if necessary ultimate) from a significant range without running yourself OOM while getting a significant amount of armor.

I would not recommend taking Teleport or Ignite when laning against Zed unless you have another method of dealing with his ultimate in your kit. Instead, I would recommend taking Exhaust as it will absolutely gut his damage when he all-ins you with his ultimate. Barrier works too, but Exhaust is generally more useful and scales better.

If necessary, it's not a bad idea to put a couple extra points into Lux's W after you have maxed E if you need the survivability. Her shield can prevent a significant amount of damage.

Zed's ultimate will always place him behind you after a set delay. When he comes down, immediately snare him (before he can cast abilities or Shadow out) and burst him.

Lux can bully him in the early laning phase pretty easily. Thunderlord's Decree can be proc'd by landing your Q or E and landing a basic attack (due to Lux's passive).

In addition, Hybrid Pen marks and the Precision mastery will provide a significant amount of armor penetration and Lux has a long autoattack range. Since Zed is melee, Lux wants to basic attack him frequently early-game when he tries to CS with basic attacks.

Hopefully that helps you out. This is how I typically handle Zed on my mid-lane mages.

CaythelesDec 31, 20151 votes

Thank you. some really good advice

AkeneroDec 31, 20151 votes

Barrier, dodging shurikens, thornmail, qss, mikaels, jungle ganks

MorganFreemanBotDec 31, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Tetris C,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wu9YaE1n,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2015-12-31T22:36:07.150+0000)

An actual reponse... thank you. So i am guessing in Blind pick norms i just have to let him beat me... i was lux and could do nothing tohim.. but mthank you for the response... this helps alot!! :3

Wait, seriously? You're complaining about getting bad MU's in blind pick, where you can't tailor your mastery and rune choices to the enemy laner? : |

Jesus christ people.