Zed mid lane is a pain to play against and rengar has no counterplay.

Dasdi96·Dec 31, 2015·5 votes·724 views

Zed has resourceless waveclear+harass and good tower diving. Rengar instakills you from stealth.

13 Comments

EndlessSorcererDec 31, 20153 votes

I don't really have an issue laning against Zed, though I do have to alter my normal build somewhat.

My preferred mid lane champions are Orianna, Viktor, Lux, Veigar, Anivia, and Ahri and I will just:

Take Flat Armor Seals instead of Scaling Health Seals.
Take Exhaust (or Barrier) instead of Ignite or Teleport
Purchase 2 Doran's Rings before building into Seeker's Armguard for mana regeneration.
Purchase my mana regen/CDR item after Seeker's Armguard but before completing Zhonya's Hourglass.

This approach should work well with other champions such as Lissandra and Ziggs as well.

In addition, you know where and when he will land after his Death Mark animation finishes. It's pretty easy to CC him immediately when he lands and to drop your full combo on him in retaliation.

ModWulf HelhammerDec 31, 20152 votes

Wow! It's almost like you described exactly what those champions are made to do!

YeklerDec 31, 20152 votes

His shadow tossing out aoe Shurikens ? is way too safe for the range and total lane impact it has. There are no other champs that can play such a push oriented supper safe pre 6 phase that can push most champs into backing before he does.Maybe if the passive didnt work on anything but champs or maybe make it so his shadow cant toss out his aoe poke. THe way it currently is is (guessing) up to 1100 range aoe poke that is quite strong and the fact that one cant take a mana pot to match the pressure now makes it insanley unbalanced against far too many mid champs.

Almost the same as yasuo his lane phase is way too strong other than that both seem okay latter in game if they did not gain huge lead in lane phase.

shyieDec 31, 20151 votes

Zed: His energy runs out fairly quickly. Use this to your advantage after he tries to trade. QSS is a great way to counter his dives and ulti as it removes the mark. Rengar: I'll agree he has almost no counter play, but it depends on who you play. Any AP champion just build Zhonyas, but if you're AD your best bet is counter picking. Poppy, Janna (for support of course), Trundle, and Zilean are good counters as all have some sort of dash stopping ability. Anivia and Azir for that same point. Shaco, Twitch, Akali and Teemo offer invisibility so that can stop a Rengar from seeing you all together.

Very Hard EngageDec 31, 20151 votes

100% of the issue here is that its not DM thats killing someone, its the poke to 50% -> no ult damage needed anymore. even if its just 3 kills with ignite over the laning phase, its still a sizable lead. where the ult is just used to put yourself on the enemy laner in order to guarantee Q auto and E damage. + whatever other actives you want to use.

zhonyas prevents the tower dive kill, it doesnt even come into play before 15minutes at least when its needed the most, hence not a counter item. and after you rush this item, you have no wave clear, no mana regen, and terrible team fighting damage output, you bought this item solely to stop dieing under your own turret.

MID GAME -> 20+minutes = you have a team and you can reliably 2v1 him with or without zhonyas, hence why its not a true counter item, when will zed mains understand this simple fact?

oh right, they already do, they just dont want to see their champion nerfed into the ground like olaf, eve, urgot, veigar. so they keep spewing the farce that "just build zhonyas or QSS, it undermines the whole champion"

(when in reality the same logic can be said about veigar stun, which was still too toxic and absolutley demanded nerfing despite item 3102 item 3026 item 3156 item 3111 item 3139 item 3222 item 3140 item 3157 , offering more than enough coverage to destroy veigar both in lane, and late game. in addition to anyone building item 3027 to really screw with him. just think about this, veigar could be dived on first(or poked cuz low health and 0 sustain), and he would just die before contributing anything, zed on the other hand has "out play" mechanics at his disposal, yet veigar was more toxic because he landed a skill shot and you chose not to counterbuild at all, when merc treds or BV alone were enough to undermine all of veigar, cant stun you cant land his combo, you turn around free and deck his little face in for being as close as he had to be due to his range getting buffed after the rework)

when in reality it is in fact zeds Q, W + peerless laning phase which utterly breaks him. its not the ultimate at all.

can you tell me where the 5000 gold comes from to build QSS and zhonyas? oh right, after laning phase.... but if i survived it, why should i build those items?

do simple math here, zed gets to cast his Q over 80 times (closer to 95 if done every 6 seconds and having the necessary energy) before the first back at or around 9minutes. after rank 3? into Q zed can cast his Q for free every 6 seconds without ever going to 0 energy, he can actually stay at full energy and spam it. any other ap mid laner gets to do it as many as 18times before going totally OOM and defenseless. more or less depending on champion. someone like ori and ahri have significantly less.

shyieDec 31, 20151 votes

Veigar wasn't on here but ok. I can agree with you when you say Zed has a broken laning phase, but you forget that you do have a team. When Zed has his W down, he is extremely vulnerable to ganks. He has no other way of escaping unless he's good enough to burn his ult to escape, but then he's coming back to lane with his biggest kill potential spell on CD. If you were assuming, I do not play Zed. I haven't played against many good ones if I have even played against a Zed at all. When you say "Zhonyas and QSS" is a way to avoid Zed getting nerfed, its not. They have a very valid reason when they say it's a counter item. You don't have to build both unless you're scared, but QSS would suffice untill you can drop it off and pick up a Zhonyas. Besides, you forget that all mid laners have some way to directly counter his laning phase, AND ultimate. Laning phase==> Trade when his Q is down. Simple tactic. Keep track of his shadows. If you're playing Ahri and the Zed suddenly decides to trade, save your E for that moment and charm his ass. Also, Ori and Ahri have easy sustain if you play them correctly. A item 3140 and a item 3114 is roughly 1500 gold, the amount of gold you can get by your first back. You'll have sustain from mana regen, and survivability from QSS active. And oh boy, using Veigar as an example is wrong. Unless you are support, tank or ADC, an AP laner has to choose from Banshee's and GA at their disposal? Veigar can simply 100-0 you with an E+Q+W combo, and save the ult after you Zhonya, your GA is down, and your Banshee's is down. Veigar was nerfed because he already had tons of AP from his Q, and giving him no counterplay due to his insane damage would be detrimental to gameplay. Don't forget, you may have to use GA, Banshee's and Zhonya's active before a Veigar ambushes you. Also, I was answering to the player, not the player base. He was stating how to deal with Zed in laning phase and his dives. Zed has crazy kill potential before he gets his ult because of his passive, so he will try to kill an Ahri or Orianna before both of you hit 6. There is also a reason why Zed isn't a safe pick, as there are good laners out there, and a good mid lanner with knowledge should be able to beat Zed. He has one, small aoe slow, and no other CC in his kit. I think its safe to say he's in a decent spot, for now (not until that new item comes out...)

Very Hard EngageDec 31, 20151 votes

no, just no, i cant afford to sac a whole item just to avoid DM damage, what it all boils down to is i have to dodge over 90% of your Q's in order to lane properly, thats just not reasonable when he can throw so many.

"extremley vulnerable" when W is down, he keeps it there until hes ready to KO you or make a play, hes not using it every 23seconds for poke damage.

what it all comes down to is zed only needs to hit you once or twice with his Q on any occasion to be ready to all in you. thats pretty potent.

"when Q is on CD" 6 sec CD with cleaver being on his to build list, its reliably 4second CD, in addition to being a projectile it feels less than than giving it soooo much uptime and availability. you dodge, you move forward, hes already moving backwards, you go to cast an ability, its up again, turns out its a trade, and hes on the stronger side because he rushed damage and you rushed... seekers? or QSS?

when zed reaches his 30% CDR by build hes going to have a 14s CD with 4 seconds of uptime, thats only a 10 second window where hes presumably warded one side and hes hovering it, at which point he sees you, and hes already walking away. so you only have so much time to reach him. so you have to be playing someone like yi, hecarim, udyr, skarner to reach him before he has his W up again to escape.

you dont beat zeds laning, you simply outskill him and eventually destroy him. you dont put him 50cs down and take a tower and roam on him, its just not feasible without him throwing out his lane advantage by playing poorly. thats just not good champion design.

shyieDec 31, 20151 votes

Then how can you explain streamers who beat Zed's in lane? If you argue they're very very good, so are the Zed's they're laning with. You say his laning phase is extremely broken, but it's not. Most laner have zoning tools, and all AP laners have one. If you can zone the Zed effectively and forcing him to use his Q to farm, you're in a safe zone. Maybe it's just some people and their playstyles that makes it harder for them to lane against a Zed. I personally think a laner like Lux, Ahri, Annie or Brand can beat a Zed in lane if he/she is smart. Also, if you said his ult isn't a problem, don't talk about it. Note that his Q does less damage if it hits more than one target, stay behind your minions, take a cloth armor and his harass will become almost unnoticeable. And to be blunt, his Q really isn't his main source of damage unless you can chain it with his W. By the time he does have 30% CDR (assuming you have CDR boots, Youmuu's and a Death's Dance) you should be strong enough to outplay him. When he ults, use your CC like Ahri's charm or Vel'Koz's E directly behind you to stop him in his tracks. You'll be able to unleash a combo that does enough damage to kill him or at least severely injure him, enough so he backs off. And about his champion design, you're wrong when you say he's an example of poor champion design. He's extremely creative and if you want to argue with that, explain Annie. Is she well designed?? Or maybe you think Ashe is, very innovative and creative. No, they're not. You're here, on and on about how broken Zed is, well, time to sit down, play some games and when you're up against a Zed, learn. Don't come onto the boards and complain. I'm not trying to make anyone salty but read your comments again. You have to be able to see more than just your experiences. There's a comment below explaining a little more about why Zed matchups aren't hell like you say.

Very Hard EngageDec 31, 20151 votes

they get support roams, exhs, and competent junglers who will tower dive and get out.

i know what goes on, and its not a 1v1. every time they pick a zed they either play passive and farm and dodge Q's like its their job, if a zed is going over board aggressive they get a team to come gank him for being out of position, thats zed greatest weakness. is a team effort to kill him. zed isn't losing the 1v1.

its just that the pros are better at making sure the zed isn't snowballing out of control and they will capitalize on his 5v5 weakness.

Handin Out NapsDec 31, 20151 votes

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kIIBt5WxUiw One of the millions of times people have beaten Zed alone. There is a reason I never lose to Zed 1v1. Learn to deal with it instead of making up fantasies of Zed being unbeatable.

Handin Out NapsDec 31, 20151 votes

Tip: Don't bother with this guy, he was still qqing about Zed when he had a 42% winrate. I can't count the numerous times I've tried explaining to him. His laning is poor and he makes numerous mistakes. He will constantly say Zed is unbeatable in lane, but all around him people beat Zed. Some people are just too stubborn to learn how to deal with certain champs.

shyieJan 4, 20161 votes

I agree. Thanks for the follow-up.