Zed's current state

CatFox·Sep 3, 2015·2 votes·1,261 views

I just want to know if Riot understands how they are completely taking away Zed's identity and competiveness in the current meta. They seem to be both direclty and indirectly nerfing him patch after patch, and I think its time some light was shed on hos current status.

First of all, he has been directly nerfed VERY hard recently with the .5 second delay prior to swapping back to ult (I know it was a buff compared to the 1 second delay but an overall nerf nonetheless). This was done supposedly because he could get off his burst too quickly before enemies had a chance to react. While there is SOME truth to this, for the most part it was unwarranted and let me explain why. Realistically, Zed cannot do a full burst combo that can likely kill his target instantaneously before porting back. If he was somehow able to 100-0 someone purely with R>E>Q>bork only, which still gives a decent window of opportunity to react, it just means he has a big enough advantage in farm or levels that it is not the champion but rather a product of being ahead. On top of this, being able to get in and out quickly was part of his identity and playstyle. He was able to outplay and make quick retreats should he have realized it was a mistake to ult in. Can he still outplay his opponents? Sure, but he now recquires and even higher burden of skill/outplay advantage to pull off plays/kills conpared to most other champions. Leblanc can far more quickly burst someone and instantly retreat. Ekko can dive a team and cc multiple enemies and maybe get a kill and escape. These are some examples of champions that have similar escapes yet I am okay with it because it is part of their identity and it is what allows them to be viable. While zed is still playable, he now recquires too much of a skill advantage to do as well with. With this new nerf he is extremely weak in teamfights since he can never engage without the risk of being cced the moment he ults. And waiting for all ccs to be used is not really a playstyle to force upon a player, much less a champion such as Zed. Add this to his already hard counters such as zhonyas and qss and he is just being put into a sad state where it is so easy to shut him down or make him irrelevant unless his team is just very ahead that it is sad.

And then there is all his recent indirect nerfs, so many in fact that I am almost beginning to think that Riot maybe aimed these AT Zed. First, the buff to Zhonyas, which is of course one of Zed's biggest counters. Then the buff of kayle. And the release of tahm kench and bard, both champions that completely neutralize Zed. The new items also are a soft nerf in that it is now easier to itemize tankier both in health and armor, which sucks for Zed. Not to mention that buffing bruisers and tanks like this by nature nerf meelee assassins such as Zed.

There are lots of other things i probably can't think of right now, and I am also not the best at articulating in words what I can see from both playing Zed and watching him in both casual and competitive play, but I hope you can see the point I am trying to make. I know lot of players hate Zed because he is an assassin and can often successfully assassinate you as an adc or mage when you are by yourself or not positioning, itemizing, or teamfighting correctly, but hopefully we can keep this discussion as actual balance oriented as it can be. Overall, Zed is in a pretty vulnerable spot, and I'm hoping he can either get some sort of compensation, or have his nerf reverted. He is just too easy to counter right now. Yes, he can stll kill squishies and punish players who do not itemize properly or play accordingly against a Zed (which if done can pretty much negate his existence). But so can every other assassin, and hey dont have the burden of being near useless with the purchase of qss, zhonyas, etc.

And one last thing I want to add unrelated to Zed, but worth mentioning is that I know lot of people here think the opinions of anyone who isn't diamond or above are of little worth in terms of balance and gameplay. And I will save you the trouble of looking me up for my rank/stats and tell you right now I am a Silver player. And my Zed stats are not very good too (albeit i take him in all lanes which somehwat skew the stats but nonetheless, very average stats). But I was a fairly competitive player in HoN, a very similar moba to dota, playing amongst the top .05% of players on a daily basis (1900 mmr if anyone wants to know, although it's different than elo so numbers should not be compared. Roughly about the same as high diamond 1 in terms of rank in LoL). Even competed in tournaments and won bronze in one of the hon tours. And this was despite having the mechanical abilities of anything above the equivalent to maybe a Gold player in LoL. I had HORRIBLE mechanics relative to my peers and rank. But the way i won or beat my lane opponents was with pure strategy and a complete understanding of the intricacies of every hero. I understood the strengths and weaknesses of each hero, knew the proper itemization to win lane matchups and games, and revolved my playstyle around my opponents mistakes and punished them. It is extremely difficult to continue to play like this since a lot more effort is recquires to be exerted on my part to make up for my lacking mechanical skill, so I eventually started playing more casually and for fun, but still maintained a decntly high rank. When I moved to LoL for the more casual experience, it was what I expected and wanted, but i found it harder to exploit my advantage i had in HoN in LoL, opposite to traditional scenarios where most pro players in HoN/dota find LoL easier strictly solo queue wise. There are many reasons for this but I will save this for another time if anyone wants to hear about it. The main point is i still have a very strong sense of understanding of balance and champion strengths, weaknesses, and strategy involved in LoL. And Zed, being one of my fave champs, I have spent more time playing him as well as watching others play him from all divisions from bronze to challenger. And i just wish my favoritee champion can have his identity and freedom restored.

13 Comments

BeatzBoyFTWSep 3, 20153 votes

Like we give a fuck. Best to kick him out of the meta. He has too much spotlight at LCS/Worlds last year, let the other mid laners have some spotlight.

CatFoxSep 3, 20151 votes

He actually didn't fit in the current meta at all. He was, and even more so now, outclassed by almost every other mage with cc and/or aoe damage in terms of teamfight and siege ability. With a more tankier meta blooming as well, on top of the addition of supports like braum, bard, and tahm kench which were all direct counters to him. I mean sure was still picked often in solo queue, but that was more a product of him being a fun champion than him being meta.

As to him having all the spotlight in competitive last year, his year was more 2013 at lcs and worlds, more so than 2014. That's not to say that he wasnt popular in 2014, but not even close to an amount that warranted saying he needed to give room for other mid laners. Orianna was BY FAR the most dominant prescense in the mid lane in 2014 worlds in terms of use. Zed didnt even have a 48% winrate the times he even got picked at worlds. Nor does he have a 50% winrate in any division from bronze to challenger. He has NEVER been truly a champion that stole the spotlight in the mid lane barring when he truly was broken at release prior to his needed nerfs to his damage. Sure he was a popular pick at times competitively, but if you really analyze the info and not look at raw stats, you will see that often teams that picked him and won would have done so with any other mid laner, it was either a dominant team or a dominant mid laner showcasing expected dominance against inferior players/teams. It just happened to be that he was a popular pick due to his exciting playstyle that garnered a lot of fanbase from both pro and casual players. And his current state in competitive is just garbage with the nerfs. Just look at how incarnation had to go an entire game without even ulting ONCE due to the nerfs. Granted this was when it was 1 second and not .5 but the effect is still the same. Zed's flaws were put on full display in that match. He played fine, but even against a team with graves and exreal, two squishy targets, he was deemed useless by qss, zhonyas, wnd to top it all off he couldnt even ult for the dash because it would be nothing more but a death mark. To himself. Even before any decent teams and players still had counterplay to zeds ult in that it was 100% predictable. You knew EXACLTY where he would appear and exactly when. Almost everyone in competitive play and most even casual players could land cc where he would appear to either sentence him to death or force an instantaneous retreat if he somehow lived, wasting his ult. Now, he cant even do that, he is relegated to just having to never ult unless he or his team was in such an advantageous position or situation that any champion would have been able to do well in the same situation just as well as zed if not better.

Indominus BladeSep 3, 20152 votes

I am Diamond and I agree with you. Also, all the recent champions released are Zed counters: Ekko Bard TahmKench .

Zed's glory days are gone, Season 3 was his prime, now he is a former shadow of a former shadow of himself :(

CatFoxSep 3, 20151 votes

Yea those were the days :(. Forgot to mention Braum in my list of recent champs that counter him. Good luck trying to assassinate anyone when he will dash to them giving massive free resistances, wall to block your q, and stun you immediately if you do not swap back immediately to save your life before getting his passive proc off on you, which you now CANT DO. So you just end up being a suicide bomber that will highly likely not even be able to pull off the assassination against anyone with 80% of supports used currently.

PhrelixSep 3, 20152 votes

Zed can get countered too easily it is dumb now, a good zed is a zed that deserves an Honor now

CatFoxSep 3, 20151 votes

Its a sad fate that Zed players now have to be far more skilled than his opponents just to go even with them. That you keep adding skill burdens to a champion like zed while champions like Akali, Diana, and Leblanc exist with such low skill to reward ratio continue to exist is quite depressing indeed. I must now find ways to think 2 steps ahead and mechanically outplay players who should theoretically be of the same skill level as I in a balanced ranked game.

PhrelixSep 4, 20151 votes

Considering all ap champs build Hourglass it is extremely hard to pull of some Zed mechanics but when you do it feels good I know this myself he's one of my favorite mid lanes besides Kog'Maw but I understand everything you said.

SEKAISep 3, 20152 votes

I just want to know if Riot understands how they are completely taking away Zed's identity and competiveness in the current meta.

If his identity is simply being broken like what he really was meant to be, then I wouldn't mind he sitting there in the dark corner forever.

He could be buffed to be viable (but that's after everyone else has gotten their share of deserved buffs), however never would I want him to be strong ever again.

CatFoxSep 3, 20151 votes

Except he wasnt broken prior to the nerfs. He has been broken in the past during release and slightly so during stretches in season 3, but that was more so due to popular chsmpions during that time being easier targets for zed. Its like saying urgot is broken just because hes a good pick against hecarim and mobility or dive based champions during times when such champions are common. It didnt mean he was op, since it was easily able to be picked/worked around. Obviously if you still pick bad matchups against him mid and dont build accordingly youd lose as you would with many matchups. The biggest problem I see with players who cry about him being broken is that they have never PLAYED him enough to see his clear weaknesses. This is not just for Zed but for any champion. But for a champion with such CLEAR CUT weaknesses and not just playstyle counters, its much more easy to spot by just playing him for maybe 10+ games in a row. I see many people facing a sed mid still rush their usual ap items instead of seekers or zhonyas, not use armor runes, misposition horribly that would have resulted in deaths facing any other assassin, and then proceed to cry about Zed being op. Play him. The moment the enemy laner gets a seekers you start losing trades, and if they opt to upgrade to zhonyas you lose all kill potential. If you want to ensure winning lane even more you can even start cloth 5 or cloth 4-1 etc and be even more unkillable in lane. And once midgame hits and teamfights occur, hes useless if you or your team is not behind or quite outdrafted. he just cant reach your backline without dying and trading kills on a low priority target (also a lower than likely chance), or just die without getting a kill because the adc has qss if he doesnt have the necessary peel from support to protect him/her.

exiledFromBadmenSep 3, 20151 votes

Zed is cancer and deserves even more nerfs.

QQ moar

IcyPepperSep 3, 20151 votes

While I'm ambivalent to Zed, there's one thing I don't quite understand.

Outplay potential.

Is that the potential for the champion in question to outplay other champions, or is that the potential for the champion to be outplayed as well as outplay other champions? And why is outplay potential stressed so much with Zed?

CatFoxSep 4, 20151 votes

It is the potential of he player using the champion to outplay other champions/players. The balance in this is that it recquires you to often, as noted, outplay and outsmart your opponents to successfuly get kills/favorable trades, etc. If you fail to outplay your opponent, you fail the kill, which on an assassin means you just failed your primary role. This doesnt mean your opponent has to outplay you to prevent you from outplaying them. It generally takes less effort as the out playee to prevent an outplay than it takes the out player to successfully outplay an opponent.

An example would be Zed ulting a brand. Assuming brand is fairly healthy but within kill potential, zed would have to successfully outplay the brand and dodge his skillshots to avoid being stunned and potentially even dying from being outdpsed by missing your own spells. Lets say theyre both pretty decent players so zed expects brand to be able to time his stun upon his ult landing, so he walks close, sends out a shadow but doesnt port to it and ults to brand. Instinctively brand uses pillar of flame where hes standing but zed dodges by porting to his W shadow and starts to Q E or auto. Brand uses R then Q and Zed sees this so he ports to his R to dodge the stun and proceeds to kill him. While simple in theory it is not as simple to pull off in real time when things happen very quickly and you cannot really tell when certain spells will be used and in which order. You have to think and react extremely quickly. If he messes up, for example by accidentally porting to R to soon when he sees brand channel his ult, thinking it is his stun, then he has fauled and can no longer chase since he would have to walk towards brand with no gapcloser and risk getting stunned and killed. Also brand can easily prevent getting outplayed in many ways, often some of them happening by chance even without any extra effort on his part. He can just walk back once he sees zed throw out his W which would make it harder or impossible for zed to chase if he has to uze his W to dodge the stun since he can no longer ult away instantly. He can also just strafe sideways or zig zag instead of moving straight back after zed ports back to dodge your stun. This will often make him miss his Q which is a major part of his damage. Not the best example but just the quickest i could think of. You're not really outplaying zed, you're just making it hard for him to outplay you.

The reason why outplay is such a big deal with Zed is because it is what his identity was. If you look at his kit he has a lot of mobility that allows him to place shadows and use them strategically to dodge skillshots and reposition for either better position to land your skillshots or just to kite/confuse your opponents. His whole kit revolves around using your mobility to outplay. If you use them efficiently and intelligently, you will secure a kill. If you use your shadow swaps inefficiently, you will either waste your ult or end up dying.