Hey guys, Im WeepO3 a Zed Main playing on the Euw servers. I've been maining Zed since I reached 30. I really think Zed is fun because of the many possibilities you have with him. Zed is a AD mid lane Assassin and great splitpusher because of his 1v1 potential. Playing Zed is a lot of fun if you want to outplay your enemys or just nuke them down within 2 seconds. If you enjoy playing Assassins Zed is definitely a champion you should pick up in your Champion Pool.

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Pros

+ Huge Burst Potential + Fun to play + Hard to gank + Easy to farm with + Good outplay potential + Great Splitpusher + No Mana

Zed is at the moment probably one of the best split pusher because of his 1v1 potential. Its easy to farm because of his passive and q even against strong poke. You are pretty mobile so its hard to gank you and at 6 you have a good chance getting a doublekill.

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Cons

- Countered by QSS and Zhonyas - Hard to learn - At the moment usually banned - Not much damage without

Like every champ Zed has also bad sides. His damage output can be massively reduced by QSS or Zhonyas. He´s hard to learn and even harder to master because of his dynamic abilities. Hard to burst someone without your if you´re not so fed

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Flash is always useful. You have the possibility to get over a wall 2 times with your W and with Flash. Its also great for outplaying.

As an Assassin you want to kill at least 1 person. Ignite makes that a lot easier and i guess there´s no summoner that Zed would need on midlane instead.

Teleport is also a viable choice but I only take if im toplane so I can keep splitpush the whole game and if there's a fight I teleport right into it to help out.

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My masteries are quite standard Zed masteries with the exception that i put 3 points in warlord
instead of another 3 points into the defense tree.
So they aren't 21/9/0 they are 24/6/0.
The reason why I did this is that i was thinking of the 5% bonus passive ad that your W gives you at rank 1.
So with the 3 points in warlord it would equal 10% and that's a good amount of free AD.
Lets take a build you get ~250 AD with (no 10% bonus) with the addition of the 10% it would equal 275 AD (+25 AD) doesn't seem like a big advantage eh?
If you´re W is maxed it´ll give you 25% bonus!
But lets take a look what we´ll be missing:
With 1 points less in Veteran´s Scars we miss 12 hp.
We would get 1-2 less damage by basic attacks.
With Juggernaut and a full build lvl 18 with around 2200 HP we would miss 66 HP.
That's 78 HP for 25 AD at rank 1 I guess that's a fair amount for an Assassin.

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As i already said you can switch the armor seals for flat HP seals. That's your choice
however i prefer armor.
I take armor pen marks but you can also change them to flat AD marks.
You should always take MR glyphs except you know that you play against full AD.
Flat AD Quints because it expands your damage output a little and makes it easier to burst your enemys.

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You want to max out Q as it is your main damage source.
Then you start maxing your E as it gives you another good amount of damage.
And you max your W last as it is your utility spell.
Obviously always get a point in R if possible.

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I´ll try to explain the items as good and quick as possible:

Blade of the ruined king is Zed's core item.
It´s passive makes your abilities stronger, especially your ult.
The attack speed is also nice for you so you can proc your passive faster.
AD is always great.
Any kind of CC is great for assassins, so the active slow will help you alot.



Youmuu's ghostblade gives you nice armor pen.
A bunch of AD and Cooldown reduction.
Crit chance is good too and a great active increasing your attack speed, crit chance and move speed to chance your enemys!



Last Whisper is always good for the armor pen no matter what matchup.
Lets take for example a Draven with 100 armor.
Just the Last Whisper would shred his armor to 65.

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If you play against full AD I would definitely pick this item instead of thornmail because it provides you 70 armor and 500 HP plus another slow.



Against AP this item is wonderful. You got a lot of AD and MR and a great automatically proccing magic shield.



Only buy this item against Heavy CC or something like Fizz/Zed to get rid of there ult's.





Raw damage,Lifesteal,HP reg,AA Reset. Awesome.



This item provides both, Armor and MR.
After you die you get revived and can probably W away or even kill another person.



MR And HP a passive that blocks the spell of an enemy with only a 40 sec CD?
Great item against AP poke (ex. Nidalee)

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You usually want to get those boots as they provide 15% CDR that might secure you another kill.



If you want to roam pick up those. The movespeed is great to get from midlane to top and bot lane.



Against strong CC (ex. Lissandra,Riven)

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Other Items you CAN get:

I don´t like Black Cleaver but that's my personal opinion.
I just think that Youmuu's provides more possibilities and is stronger because you´re not auto attack based champion.

Can also be a strong item on Zed but i would only recommend picking this up if you want to
go for a full AD build without any defensive items or a complete different build.

Just like Bloodthirster i only recommend this item if you want to go for a full AD build or completely different build.

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Contempt for the weak: Basically Contempt for the weak strongly increases your AA damage if the enemy is at 50% or less HP. As it counts as Magic damage it´ll get blocked by magic shields.
The damage is based on the enemys Maximum HP (6%/8%/10%) increasing at level 1,7 and 17.

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Razor Shuriken:
This is your main damage source. It´ll the full damage the first enemy it hits and less damage for each other enemy.
Your Shadow´s Q deals less damage too!

• With your W and R shadow you can try to hit 3 Q´s on 1 enemy. If you do this it should be a guaranteed kill if its not you´re either 0/5 or its a tank.
• You can try to farm with your Q and hit the enemy if he´s behind the minion. It won´t deal much damage but at least a little.

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Living Shadow: This Skill is what Zed makes Zed. It produces a shadow that mimics your abilities and you can switch places with.
If a target is hit twice by a mimicked ability, Zed restores some energy!
The Passive give´s you an amazing permanent 5-25% AD Bonus!

• You can use your E/Q/W while the W is still mid air and the skills will go off as soon as possible!
• If you´re getting followed by 1 enemy you can´t beat try to juke him if you place the shadow somewhere, move a complete other way and see where he goes. If he still follows you go to your shadow back.
• It doesn't have a cast time so you can try dodging skills with your shadow!

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Shadow Slash: // Shadow slash is a AoE spell slashing right around Zed.
Every enemy Champ you hit the CD of living shadow´s gets reduced by 2 seconds.

• If you hit an enemy with your shadow´s E the enemy is getting slowed don´t forget about that.
• You can use your E 2 times within 1 living shadow. People will usually forget about this
• Your E damage doesn't stack! So hitting a enemy with 3 E´s at the same time won´t expand your damage output! But it makes your slow better!

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Death Mark:
Death mark makes you untargetable for 0.75 seconds and produces a Shadow at the point where you used it that lasts for 6 seconds. After that you´ll spawn BEHIND the enemy giving the enemy an effect for 3 seconds. When this effect ends the enemy gets 100% of your AD and 20%/35%/50% of the physical and magic damage YOU dealt to him in this Time.

• With your R Shadow and W Shadow you have many choices what to do next. Try using them as good as possible for dodging skill shots.
• While the Death Mark is on the enemy you are immune to unit collision

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Casual poke combo

You usually want to directly followed by to slow the enemy and then be able to hit at least 1 of your


This is probably the most common Zed Poke combo and it costs a bunch of energy.
At level 3 it costs you 165 Energy for this full comb.
If you don´t have this much but still want to poke you can also try:


directly followed by


This would be without your Shadow Slash so its only 115 energy.
There´s a last one that i rarely use and that's:


directly followed by


I really don´t use this much only if I don´t have enough energy for a full combo and my jungler ganks the enemy.
You won´t poke him with that too much but the slow will help your securing the kill or getting the enemy's flash down.

Bursting squishy people at 6

I´ll take Kassadin as the enemy in this example.
When you want to burst squishy people down you can just get your casual poke combo down,
in the last second you back in, use directly use your ,then your try hit both pop your and he should be down.
That combo was obviously without any skill dodging so you will rarely be able to use it exactly like that, but if you use your skills something like that you should be able to get some squishy.
Here´s a video how it might look like:

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Farming with Zed is pretty easy because of this passive however here are a few explanations when you can last hit:


Caster Minions:
At about 1/3 of their HP you can hit them and get the gold.
When they are at full HP and getting hit by a turret, you should let the turret hit them only once and then auto attack them.


Melee Minions:
At about 1/3 of their HP you can hit them and get the gold.
When they are at full HP and getting hit by a turret, you should let the turret hit them twice and then auto attack them.


Cannon Minions:
At about 1/6 of their HP you can hit them and get the gold.
When they are at full Hp and getting hit by a turret, you should let the turret hit them six times and then auto attack them.

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Zed also got a decent waveclear that should look just a bit different from your poke combo.
Waveclear:
You want to directly followed by ,
into the minions and to pick the last few up.

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As Zed you want to pick enemys that are out of position.
The probably best team comp for Zed would be something like this:


Lets take a closer look at that comp:

Lissandra has got a good gapcloser with her and can then or either use .
Lissandra is also good for a bit of AP damage so your team isn´t full AD.
Vi can quickly pick off or initiate a fight with her
Lucian gives your team a decent waveclear and can use his if people are able to get away for some reason.
Leona is great as she has a huge amount of CC and gives the team some more tankyness.

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Alright you´re done reading my guide!
Of course I can´t really teach you how to play Zed perfectly you still need to practise and practise and practise...
I´d really appreciate positive and negative feedback!

Im sorry for every grammer or spelling error in this guide (Oh boy it´ll be many!) and would like you to send them to me with (when possible) the corrections of them.

Now,
Thank you for reading my guide and I hope you´ll keep playing Zed!

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