Hi i'm FlameTsubasa and I'm an experienced Zed player and frequently play him. Zed has a high skill cap and takes time to master, so don't be discouraged over your first game. It might seem very confusing at first, but once you get used to it, it feels natural.

Contempt for the Weak is Zed's passive, it deals bonus magic damage to your auto attacks to targets under 50% health. This CANNOT occur on the same target more than ONCE EVERY 10 SECONDS


Razor Shuriken is Zed's primary damage ability, keep it in mind that it deals the most damage to the first target it hits, it will deal LESS damage to targets hit if it has ALREADY passed through other targets capped at a 40% damage reduction.

Living Shadow: Will also hurl a shuriken, but only deals 50% of the damage.


Living Shadow is Zed's shadow clone, it mimics Zed's abilities and passively grants bonus AD. It's great use for further range harass, suprising your targets and positioning.

If mimiced abilities hit a target, they are damaged and returns energy.

Shadow slash is Zed's AoE spell, it deals damage and slows targets hit by the spell, it also reduces the cooldown by 1 for each enemy hit.

Living Shadow: The shadow slash does a tiny amount of damage and slows, however an overlapping shadow slash will deal NO additional damage.


Is Zed's ultimate, it's a gap closing ability and launches you and two other shadows towards the target after 0.75 seconds. It also makes you untargetale for that duration, so use it for hard hitting spells like a Fizz's
After that duration, it automatically places a shadow where you ulted from and places a deathmark on your target. After 3 seconds, the mark will pop and deals damage.

The damage that's dealt is : 100% of your current AD and 20/35/50% of the damage dealt to the target BEFORE the mark pop.

For harass in a safe position: >> >> [icon=Razor Shuriken size=60

NOTE: Don't spam your Q during the cast time of the shadow otherwise the opponent actually has time to dodge your Q.

You should only use these for faming: >>


The ALL IN: >> / >> >> >> >> >>

= Auto attacks

You can choose not to use your second shadow and remember that your ulti shadow has no switch range, so you can make big jukes with it.

During the early game, you have high farming potential because of your passive. So taking cs is a breeze. You can also try to use your Razor Shuriken or Shadow Slash to farm as well, try not to use your Living Shadow unless you're in a safe position otherwise you're very vunerable to ganks.

If your opponent out damages you, try to harass at a safe distance with your shadow or just dodge attacks with your shadow and ask for a gank.

However if you do manage to get the first kill on your opponent, clear waves as fast as you can and shred the tower. Zed has amazing split-pushing capability and fast tower shredding.

If their towers down,nothing is happening in lane or you're getting beaten badly, go ahead and start roaming, probably better to roam with ult as well.

Generally at this time you should either be winning/losing against your opponent and should have their first tower down. After their tower is down, you should try to start roaming, or if you're really falling behind, try to roam anyway. Be careful of ganks as well, so buy a ward or two for coverage.

When trying to roam, you want to make sure your minions are pushed up, so when you leave to roam, the wave won't be pushed quickly. Make sure you have your ult, because with only your 3 abilities, it's going to be harder to pull off even with your shadow slash.

If you're not looking for roaming, just constantly push your lane and shred towers. And kill your opponent some more.

Alright, by this point you should be incredibly strong or very far behind, there's not much you can do if you're behind besides getting objectives such as towers, dragon or tonnes of farm.

And if you are incredibly strong, this is your chance to shine as an amazing split pusher, get your team to apply pressure in another lane, rather mid while you shred towers in other lanes, you should be able to do that fairly quickly and learning how to orb weave is crucial.

It's mainly used on ranged champions, but some melee champions who can split push well like Zed can use orb weaving effectively. Orb weaving is basically moving around to attack as soon as the projectile or attack is seen fired from your initial attack.

Here's a tutorial: Play Video (It's the same with melee champions)


If you're not into doing that, and want to contribute to team fights, you should generally know how to position yourself as an assassin. You should generally stay in the middle or back, but never really in front leading the charge. Leave your tank to do that, and also keep in mind that you need to protect your ADC, as well as destroy their own ADC. For Zed that's a breeze
unless he/she is heavily guarded. You should time when you want to kill the ADC such as when she's low, out of position or not guarded. With Zed's new ult, you can easily go in and get out easily.

Here's a RedMercy clip explaining that: Play Video

Well that's the end of the guide, it's not well cosntructed because it was made for a friend, however if this might gain popularity or something I might take this guide seriously.

If you want me to continue this guide, or have any questions, feel free to PM me.