A Cool Way to Make a Zed Rework (read entire thing before hating plz)
Updated thread located here: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/Xv9d9yBx-help-me-balance-a-zed-rework
------------------ Zed's Current Situation (will bore people who don't care)
Ok, so I have been a massive Zed one trick for a really long time, and I have really enjoyed him. In my opinion, he was the most fun champion in the entire game, nothing (apart from him having a pretty much 100% banrate in low elo) could stop me from playing him. But the thing is, I have completely stopped playing him for two MAJOR reasons. One, he doesn't fit into the meta at all, and two, he doesn't accomplish the job hes supposed to at all.
I get it, not everyone can be in the meta at every given time (with the exception of a few champions). But the fact that the hardest assassin in the game can't do his job as an assassin is the worst part. He's supposed to be a mobile assassin that dodges and weaves every attack to pull off difficult combos to kill you, but he can't effectively dodge everything, and even if you do dodge everything, his damage at the moment is just too underwhelming. This is especially apparent when you see LL Stylish. The best zed in the entire North American region has a 40% winrate on him, and has, himself, complained about zed being bad right now.
------------------ My Idea
Ok, hear me out. It WILL sound broken, and it very much is, but I threw ideas at the wall and made it into a kit. This was designed to be fun, not balanced. In my opinion, fun comes first, balance comes later, even though they are both equally important. If this is even considered, it will most likely be heavily nerfed or redone, but here is what I came up with for a new kit.
(P) Shadow Slash + Looming Shadow Cd: 6/4/2 - Shadow Slash: After using an ability, Zed’s next basic attack will strike in a circle, dealing bonus physical damage and reducing base armor by 15% (for zed) for every slash hit. Cd: read ability - Looming Shadow: When an enemy champion comes in contact with a shadow, they get feared and slowed temporarily, and any sort of damage Zed deals gets rid of the fear on them and deals bonus damage (all q’s considered 1 source of damage). The same target can not be feared for 8 seconds.
Cd: 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 - (Q) - Razor Shuriken - C: 55/50/45/40 Energy Zed and his shadows throw spinning blades forward (900 units), each dealing physical damage, reduced to 70% against units beyond his first.
Cd: 10/8/6/4/2 - (W) - Twin Shadow - C: 60/65/70/75/80 Energy Shadow dashes forward, remaining in place for 12 seconds. The closest shadow to zed is active, being able to mimic Razor Shuriken and Shadow Slash while within 1950 units of each other. Inactive shadows can not copy abilities, and can not proc his passive fear, but can be shifted to. Passive: Zed restores energy whenever a shadow lands a mimicked ability on the same target he does.
Cd: 14/13/12/11/10 - (E) - Shift - C: 60/55/50/45/40 Energy Zed switches place with a movable entity/shadow (1500 units), or blinks behind an enemy champion (600 units). This ability can be recast after 1.5 seconds to switch back with the entity (if its a shadow, the cooldown is halved), or can be cast on another shadow (makes cooldown 10 again). If the recast is to a shadow that has already been shifted to, it removes it (is not a blink or dash unless used on champion, considered a shift [bypasses roots]).
Cd: 120/90/60 - (R) - Death Mark - C:0 Energy Zed vanishes for 0.75 seconds during which he goes through the enemy champion, marking then, resetting his Shift cooldown and making all shadows active for 4 seconds, and spawning a shadow at the cast location which lasts for 8 seconds. For the next 4 seconds, the mark stores a percentage of all pre-mitigation physical and magic damage Zed deals to the target, detonating at the end of the duration, or when recast to deal physical damage, and reset the cooldown of Shift. Passive: If you kill a marked target, your energy resets to 200 and Shift resets to 0.
Essentially what I have done with this is gave him a slight bit of crowd control, and integrated his E into his passive as a second effect. This was done to create room for a new E, "Shift". Shift is the second chunk of his old W recreated into an ability that is infinitely more useful. His shadows now have a completely different mechanic due to his new W. This is to increase his damage output and give him a lot more outplay potential. As a finish I buffed his damage fall off for his Q.
------------------ Conclusion
These are JUST IDEAS. They are not meant to be balanced, they are meant to be fun (at least for the person playing them). Balance is discussed after the idea is made fun. I hope riot will consider my idea to either rework, or just simply buff Zed to slightly more viable. Thank you for reading all the way through, lots of respect for that, and I hope that even if this doesn't get considered/accepted that I at least shed some light on the situation and got some ideas going.
:)
