Zed's current state

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.