ZED BUILD GUIDE: Embrace the Shadow ~ Mid Lane

zed-league-of-legends-hd-wallpaper-ninja-armor-1920x1080.jpg

Zed is an extremely mobile, high skillcap assassin. He has a lot of potential to outplay his opponents and has very high damage, but he requires practice and misplaying on him will likely produce very bad results. I've played Zed since his released and mained him for quite some time. He's always been a strong pick in my opinion. Even after consistent nerfs, he's managed to find his way into competitive play. I hope to teach you guys about how to play Zed mid on Summoner's Rift and how to avoid making crucial mistakes on him. Here's an example of a incredible outplay by none other than SKT1 K's Faker featuring KTB's Ryu. This is a perfect example of Zed's potential to outplay.

Pros and Cons of Playing Zed

Pros:

Very fun to play
Easy to farm with
Uses energy instead of mana
Amazing laugh
Lots of potential to outplay
High mobility
Decent AOE damage to go along with ridiculous single target damage
Strong split pusher

Cons:

Melee mid laner
His ult can be removed with and is completely countered by
Have no CC aside from a slow
High skillcap.
Item dependent
High energy costs

RUNES

I run this rune page pretty much every game. To the left are 3 other rune pages. In each page I'll explain the changes in that page in comparison to this page and why or why you shouldn't use that page. NOTE: Runes are personal preference! Although there are some things that would be dumb not to take, there can be a lot of variation between runes. Try different pages out and see what fits you. Flat AD Quints Flat AD works well with Zed since it works with his W passive and his scaling is relatively high. The only other truly viable options are Armor Pen and Lifesteal quints. I haven't been able to test armor pen quints but I personally think Zed needs some AD to go along with armor pen which is why I run this page. As for lifesteal quints, I don't think that Zed autoattacks enough early on to benefit from the lifesteal quints. You get lifesteal pretty early on Zed anyways, so I prefer the additional AD to help you poke and last hit. Flat Armor Pen Marks: Armor pen works well in combination with the AD quints since now he has some pen to go with the additional damage on his spells. I believe that armor pen on Zed is very powerful. A full set of armor pen marks gives you 12 armor pen which tears through almost all of the 13 armor that armor seals give you. If your opponent isn't running armor seals then you'll be dealing nearly true damage to them early on. In fact, in some cases you will be doing true damage for the first few levels if they're not running armor runes. Flat Magic Resist Glyphs There are only 3 real options for Glyphs. Flat MR, scaling MR, and cooldown reduction. I prefer flat MR over scaling MR because you always run the chance of getting hit by some magic damage very early on and scaling MR doesn't help very much against this. Flat MR is very useful and I will run this in place of scaling MR every game as long as I'm up against a AP champion. Cooldown reduction is used only when you're up against a team with almost all AD, however, I do not recommend running cooldown reduction. Zed's energy costs are very high and CDR won't help very much since you'll just be out of energy when your spells come off cooldown. It's not worth taking CDR on Zed in my opinion.

MASTERIES

This is basically the most effective page for a Zed player to run. I would always recommend this page.

SUMMONER SETS

Flash and Ignite are the standard summoners for a Zed player. Please note that I can only explain so much through text and that summoner usage will always rely on your own judgement. I can tell you why you should bring said summoners, but when to use them will come with experience. Flash is necessary on almost every champion on the game and is an incredibly powerful summoner spell. Zed's W cooldown is not short enough and it's energy cost is not low enough to justify not running flash. It can be used to run away, chase, and outplay the enemy. Most of your enemies will bring this summoner as well so you'll probably get used to dealing with it. The use of flash depends heavily on your decision making as well as reaction time. This cooldown of this spell is 5 minutes, so if you pointlessly use it, the enemy jungler may simply decide to camp your lane with the knowledge that your flash is down. This being said, using flash to secure a kill is usually worth it since you should be able to snowball off of that kill. When getting ganked, try not to waste flash unless necessary. Lots of jungle ganks turn into wasted time for the enemy jungler if you simply dodge a skillshot or two. If they blow your flash, they likely will try and come back before your flash is up. Flash can also be used to outplay the enemy opponent(e.g dodging a skillshot with flash, faking disengages with flash before teleporting back to a shadow near them) but you have to be confident when doing so, otherwise you may just end up wasting it. Flash is a extremely important cooldown because of the fact that if the enemy laner has flash and you don't, you will have a much harder time escaping them or catching them. Be cautious when using this summoner and remember that it's very important to think before you use this spell. Ignite is the preferred secondary summoner on Zed because of the kill potential it brings with it. It deals true damage and also applies on healing debuff. The healing debuff is extremely useful when dealing with mages who heal a lot (e.g Swain,Vlad, etc). In lower elo's, this is a summoner that people often don't pay enough attention to. If the enemy laner doesn't take ignite, their kill potential is very low when compared to yourself. Ignite has three primary uses. The first way is pretty simple. It's used as extra damage in an all-in. The true damage that ignite deals can be very significant in a fight. When planning to all-in, try and make sure that your ignite is up when you decide to go, just to secure the kill. The second way this summoner can be used is no longer very common, but it can drastically affect laning phase if used properly. If your opponent takes heavy damage in a trade(70% or more of the HP), you can "randomly" ignite them afterwards to make sure they're forced out of lane due to the bonus damage they take from ignite. This gives you an XP advantage and a CS advantage but it uses a 3 and 1/2 minute cooldown. This form of ignite usage is usually used very early on(levels 1 through 3) so that you can hit 6 early and attempt to kill them at 6. The final way is used in a situation that you should hope to not be forced into and that is being forced to use ignite defensively. The defensive use of ignite means that you're usually bluffing because if you don't, you'll either sustain very heavy damage or be killed. Ignite is very dangerous and usually when an opponent sees they've been ignite, they will usually back off if there is a chance that they'll die in the exchange. Defensively using ignite can be used to save your life or grant you a kill in return(e.g they tower dive you and you ignite them so it's a 1 for 1). Unfortunately, if they see through your bluff and kill you without dying in return, you're now down a summoner. Be warned that if your ignite is down and theirs is up, you may have serious trouble in a straight up 1v1 due to the power ignite brings, unless you have a big advantage on them(e.g you're level 6 and they're 5).

ITEM BUILD

SKILL ORDER

NOTE: Do not level anything at level 1 until you HAVE to. If you level Q immediately, then what happens if they invade? It's must better to level W first than to have to blow flash so early on. This is the most common skill order for Zed players. This is also my typical skill order. Level 1-3 Leveling Q at rank 1 is the most ideal start because you'll be harrassed too heavily if you try to just last hit with autoattacks. Level 1 Q will allow you to farm from a range and perhaps get poke off. Level 2 W opens up many more opportunities. Landing double shuriken does massive amounts of damage at level 2. This means you now have a escape along with much more powerful poke. E at level 3 is because the utility E gives you is nice. It gives you a slow or a lowered cooldown on your W depending on how you use it. This also means you have all 3 skills at this point, which means you can shove the wave and avoid getting pushed into tower now. Q First Mid lane Zed will always max Q first. There's no reason to max your E first. The damage from double shuriken is much too valuable to give up. Some may argue that against melees your E gives your more consistent damage, however, although this may be true, you very rarely get into prolonged fights mid lane. Maxing Q allows you to do quick trades, poke, and have a better shot at 100 to 0ing the enemy mid laner, which is what you usually do mid lane. Q's cooldown is only 2 seconds longer than your E at all ranks. All of this makes Q more valuable in mid lane than E. E Second This is the most common skill to rank second. If you want to know about maxing W second, please view the second skill order page that's on the left. Maxing E second is powerful because it not only increases your damage, but it also increases your slow. You have the possibility of landing a 60% slow on the enemy, and that's without your . Your W harrass combo becomes much more powerful because the increased slow allows you to hit your Q without much trouble.

EARLY GAME AND WARDING

This chapter will cover levels 1-5 in lane and then what to do once you hit 6. This chapter is very generalized and will just give very basic information that applies to just about every matchup. Early game in my opinion is before people start leaving their lane which usually occurs once first tower falls. This is called the "laning phase" typically. Levels 1 through 5 At level 1 you usually just play it safe. Farm it out with Q and avoid taking too much harass. Taking a little bit of damage isn't a big deal since you've likely started doran's shield and have enough sustain to last. At level 2 is when you can play a bit more aggressive. You should have your W and Q at this point. You can harass effectively and you might start pushing. This is when you should be wary of jungler ganks. From levels 2-3 is when they're likely to come in for a early gank. Use your trinket ward during this time and hug the side that you warded. Try and harass when you can while farming up. At level 3 is when you have some kill potential if the enemy misplays. Continue to harass with your W+E+Q. If they get low you can attempt for a kill, but be careful because the jungler could be in the area right about now. Level 4 and 5 are are basically the same as 3. Your harass continues to get stronger and you can chunk people pretty hard during these levels. Level 6+ At level 6 you won't be able to 100 to 0 someone, but if they're low, you should be able to pick up the kill. Continue to harass until they're about 40% to 50% health. Then you can all in them with ignite and probably pick up a kill. If they get zhonya's early, try to roam or just farm wraiths constantly to pull ahead in farm. Throughout the entire game you should keep wards up consistently, but I'll only be covering wards for the laning phase. The image below shows optional warding spots during this time.

Gameplay Video(s) This clip mainly talks about decision making and harassing your opponent. It also explains how to avoid making certain mistakes with your W. I apologize for my bad plays and I hope you guys learn from my mistakes in this video.

MID GAME

Midgame is the stage of the game where people are leaving lane and fighting for objectives. They group up to siege towers or force dragon fights. Depending on the pace of the game, this part of the game can go from 15 minutes to 35 in standard levels of play. People don't have complete builds at this point but they have 1 to 3 core items. Your job in the mid game is very simple. Catch someone out and kill them, splitpush, or help your team siege. There are different scenarios where you should do each of these. If you're super fed and can 1v2 or 1v3 you can usually get by with doing any of the above as long as your team isn't super far behind. Catching someone out This is a effective strategy in almost all situations since if you kill someone then it's suddenly a 4v5 and your team can force whatever objective you want. Unfortunately due to Season 4 vision changes you need to be a lot more careful when doing this since your team no longer can simply buy an oracles and clear their wards before having you try and assassinate someone. Don't get baited into fighting someone only to have their entire team collapse on you since they had a ward that saw you coming. Make sure to have proper ward coverage so that you know where their team is. Split Pushing Split pushing is a very powerful strategy if executed properly. This requires quite a bit of team coordination because they have to avoid getting engaged on 4v5 while you split push but at the same time they need to have pressure on the map to prevent the enemy team from just 5 man ganking you. Zed is very strong in a split push situation because very few people can straight up 1v1 him. To make this work, your team needs to either be able to waveclear at tower while the enemy team pushes so that you can push, or they can fight 4v4 while the enemy team sends someone down to deal with you. Seiging with Your Team This is a pretty basic strategy. You group up as 5 and push a lane with your team. This happens if you know that you're stronger than them. You usually will not be the one attacking tower since you're melee, but you have pretty good poke. If you want to know what to do during a team fight, please look at the team fight chapter.

LATE GAME

Lategame is usually the 40 minute mark+. This is when things begin to get a bit harder for Zed. People will likely have begun to itemize against you which means Zhonya's and QSS. Zhonya's counters you entirely and QSS removes your ult. Fortunately for you, you still deal a lot of damage to ADC/Marksmen who have built QSS because it grants no armor. This means you can likely still can kill the ADC as long as you land all your spells. Lategame is essentially a much more tense version of mid game. If someone dies, they have a massive death timer. During this time you have to be extremely cautious and be sure not to get caught out. Trying to make picks by yourself is no longer a good idea unless you know where their entire team is. Don't get spotted farming bot otherwise it's likely that they'll just rush a baron. There's very little that differs between mid and late game. It's just that you're more likely to have to group as 5 and a single mistake my cost you the fight. TEAMFIGHT

Team fighting as Zed can be tricky. First off, you need to check the enemy team's items and look at who is dealing the most damage on their team. You check their items to see if you can kill them or not at this stage of the game. For example, if they have Zhonya's then it would be a waste to ult them. You can still ult someone who has QSS as long as you're expecting it. Don't try to dive the undivable though. Zed can kill a lot of ADCs who already have QSS but he needs to hit all of his skills. After you check their items, look and see who does the most damage. You want to be taking out a high priority target in the fight. Don't ult the support Janna when they have a 10/0 Jinx. If you can take out their highest damage source, the fight turns in your favor very quickly, however, you have to make sure you don't dive too hard. You don't want to walk past their entire team tanking damage just to get to Jinx at 1/5 HP who will then likely just kill you. Sometimes if you know that you can't dive anyone on their team, stay back and kill whoever is attacking your highest damage source. If there is a Jax diving your Vayne, kill the Jax so Vayne can have free reign over the team fight. A Zed player has to be very careful when teamfighting. He needs to be aware of what the enemy has and he needs to know his own limits. Zed's job is to kill a high priority target quickly and stay alive while doing it. If you can accomplish this, it's likely that you will win the fight. Teamfight Video