Forum talk:Neekerivittu/@comment-99.237.78.15-20121227055843

So I was thinking about how to describe Zed, so here it is.

Zed is a physical melee assassin who excels in zoning enemies away and creating space for himself. His shadow clone allows him to act in unsafe areas without being there and can be used to scout and to assist with Zed's combos. Because of his zoning capabilities and energy system, Zed is able to maintain himself in lane and work safely in places most characters cannot operate, being especially notable in solo top lanes, where most melee bruisers dominate a small area around them.

In duels and teamfights, Zed's main goal is to rush in onto a single target and crush them hard with his ult. He doesn't always need it as his regular toolkit allows him almost the same chasing potential as with his ult, though using his ultimate will allow him to deal more damage.

The main issue back then that many people said about Zed was that he was unsafe compared to other assassins (huh, funny). This is because Zed has his living shadow kit as his only escape. While this is a decent escape, it is also an important part of his offense, and using one means not allowing the other. Not only that, Zed has no form of safety other than that. For example, Talon has his silence and invisibility, Fizz has his ult and trickster, Leblanc can attack relatively safely with the mechanic on her dash, and can use it twice, Katarina has shunpo, and so on and so on.

This is especially prevalent during teamfights, as all of these other assassin can jump in relatively safely while Zed's ult leaves him very vulnerable. This also means he is much more team dependent than the others as he needs other character's hard CCs to get in safely.

However, he is still a good character for a number of reasons. First of all, his early game is safe. As stated earlier, he has excellent zoning capabilities and lane presence due to his shadow. Razor Shuriken's mechanic allows it to farm while still harassing decently at the same time, while the living shadow allows Zed to attack from greater distances in wider angles. Living shadow also places pressure in last hitting where if you place it near your minions, the enemy champion is hard pressed to go near them due to getting hurt just for farming. This is especially strong as a shadow slash with living shadow means that being within the radius of shadow slash for the shadow means free damage.

Secondly, he has the potential to deal the most damage out of all other assassins in the game towards a single target. While he lacks a consistently high flat damage for his ultimate, he also has the largest damage amplification in the game. What this means is that he can potentially destroy even bulky targets from full to nothing within those three seconds of his ultimate. I say the word potentially because it depends on the skills and itemization of the player for his ult to be incredibly powerful and that a single screw up in the combo could mean a target escaping.

Finally, Zed has the potential to be either the most physically impressive champion in the game or have a mixture of high attack and durability. This is due to him having a unique passive with his living shadow, in which bonus attack is increased by 25%. Most people can instantly recognize this as a pseudo rabadon passive and will try to abuse this to as far as they can. However, because of the passive, it also means that he can build somewhat on the more durable side as his attack grows exponentially due ot his passive. Getting a frozen mallet can mean the difference of surviving a team fight or dying from the very beginning, and getting defensive items can mean a completely different Zed for the game.

In the end, Zed is a powerful characters with obvious flaws. It is up to the enemy to take advantage of this and for the player to cover these flaws with good plays, itemization and teamwork. However, a good Zed can become a terror that makes even the terror of the void cringe in fear. Especially when left alone....