I was wondering, is zed, by fact, absurdly op or broken? My friends all say that zed is too broken but I feel that he is not. I also take a little bit offense whenever someone says Zed is op since I main zed. It makes me feel like I'm a lot worse at league than I actually am. I'm just looking for people's thoughts here.
He is the only Assassin that Riot feels is balanced actually, and I agree. The champ is countered by a single item (Zhonyas) and any form of displacement peel, cc. Somechamps can be hindered by such things, bud Zed gets totally wasted if people know how to protect their carries and dispose of him.
On the other hand, A good Zed will know how to go in at the right time and get the kill. So it comes down to who is better, which makes him balanced.
short answer: no.
Long answer: at some levels of play, possibly Yes. Overall likely not though. He is a unique champion in that he has an incredibly high skill cap while also being very strong when played at a lower skill level. Most High skill cap champions aren't very useful if you aren't extremely good with them, but zed is strong at all levels of play. That doesn't mean he's overpowered by any means though, it simply means he's a strong choice to play whether you're gold 5 or challenger (I'll ignore bronze and silver for reasons not relevant to this discussion).
I would guess people say he's OP because a good zed can take advantage of the high skill cap to carry a team (which would be harder on a lower skill cap champion). In general, assassins are harder to play but can make a larger impact on the game when played well.
If anything your friends comments are complements, you're so good at zed relative to them that they call him OP! :)
I know that most people seem to think that he isn't, but i think that he needs one small nerf. His shadow ability is WAY too lenient on him. I main mid a lot and that means i play against a lot of zed players and zed has a massive flaw in that he can use his shadow ability, flash in, ult someone, get himself into a lot of trouble for being reckless, and then just get right out with no trouble whatsoever. Some people like to defend this as his key feature but it's a blatantly broken feature. his shadow should just have a limit. yes, let it be a fairly big limit, but don't let him just get out of trouble whenever he's reckless. it defeats the calculative nature of the game when someone is able to play dangerously with no consequence. I hear a lot of people saying that it's about knowing when to go in on a fight, but it should also be about how he should approach the fight in the safest way. I really don't think he's balanced atm and only because of the freedom he's given with his shadow ability. I have seen a zed do what i just described + a lee-sin kick under a turret and get to his tower safe and sound. That isn't balanced, that's forgiving, even with the skillcap. No, especially with the skillcap. But it sounds like the majority of the Rito fans disagree with me, so w/e. Rito has no interest in changing zed at this point anyway.
no, zed is pretty much one of he only assassins thats completely balanced. he has clear visible counter play and strengths.
