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Zed General Guide by

Play from the Shadows - Moderate_Advanced Zed guide - User:

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5 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Born_on_2_Sides

Zed Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (5) More Zed Guides

Spells:

Ignite

Flash

Items

Option 1: Starting Items

Option 2: Starting Item

Option 3: Starting Items

Generic Build

Situational Items

Viable Boot

Ability Order

Zed Passive Ability

More Zed Counters

Introduction

Dear, All

Welcome to my Zed guide,
My user is "Born_on_2_Sides", and I am a Diamond 1 player in the Vietnamese, Garena server. was my main very early on, and he's fantastic because of his potential to outplay, he's difficult, and can cause chaos when you push all the right buttons quickly :p.
I am very new to guide making, and this will probably take me forever, but what i appreciate the most is helpful comments and nicely put criticism. So if you have the time, please go do that ((:

In This Guide
I aim to teach you, how to improve mechanically and in your understanding of playing Zed. I will be referring to many video's throughout to support my claims, I highly recommend watching those videos.

Pro's and Con's

Pros

+ Strong in Lane
+ High Burst
+ High Outplay Potential
+ Strong 1v1
+ High Mobility

is a very efficient champion, both in SoloQ and in fun games. His provides him with the high burst and his constant jumping of shadow with his and gives him high mobility. is an assassin champion, he goes in, get's a kill, than moves out. His abilities are perfectly designed for him to achieve this, making zed AWSOME .

Cons

+ Hard to Master
+ Fall's a Bit Without Kills
+ Landing Skill Shots are Essential
+ Hard Counter Items like

The difference between a good and great is landing those . By hitting three shurikens, instead of only one after you use will make the difference between wether someone dies or not. This makes Zed very hard to master. Furthermore, Items like or are super hard counters to because they can cleanse off his .

Skill explanation

contempt for the weak: Basically, this passive allows zed's auto attack to do a large amount of percentage, magic damage to an enemy opponent under 50% health, only every 10 seconds. It is really effective for assasinating opponents under 50% health, and also allows you to suprise the opponent with how much damage you can actually do. Finally, it helps you kill minions like crazy, because the effect also works on minions.

razor shuriken: launches out a shuriken basically, and is a skill shot. It is important to note that the first opponent the shuriken hits (including minions), is dealt extra damage to.

Tips and Tricks

// When aiming at a minion to last hit with Razor Shuriken, position yourself so that your shuriken has a chance to also hit the enemy champion after hitting the minion.
// smartcasting the shuriken is advised

living shadow: // You get to plant a shadow nearby your current location, this shadow will copy whatever ability you use. Thus, also being able to use and , without costing any additional energy. Furthermore, if your shadow hits the enemy with , they are slowed.
Pressing "W" again, will allow you to swap positions with the shadow.

Tips and Tricks

// If you hit an opponent with a shadow ability and your own champions ability, the cooldown on Living Shadow is reduced
// Often people, use Living Shadow to get into range to use Death Mark, however, if you manage to save Living Shadow, than this will allow you to slow the enemy and possible hit another Razor Shuriken
// it is fairly hard to use Living Shadow pass a wall, make sure you practice, for when the time comes and your going to assasinate!! or run.....

shadow slash: You slash around you quickly, doing damage in a short aoe around you.

Tips and Tricks

// Shadow slash does not interrupt your auto attacks or movement, therefore it does not slow you down...
// hitting shadow slash with your shadow will slow the opponent, hitting both your shadow slash and your shadows, shadow slash, will slow them further BUT not deal additional damage

death mark: is a gap closer, that brings you to the opponent, while letting you be "invincible" during the process, thus not being stunned or taking damage....additionally, a shadow is left where was originally standing.
After the gap close, a mark has been left on the opponent that will detonate within several seconds. The damage of he mark increases, depending on the damage zed does to the opponent before the mark detonates.
Finally, zed can move back to the original shadow left from within, around 10 seconds, from anywhere on the map.

Tips and Tricks

// Many zed players, use activated items, like blade of ruined king, after using Death Mark to simply help increase that damage on the detonating mark. Ignite, will also contribute.
// Think before fighting an opponent, about which ability you want to dodge with Death Mark, plan how the fight will go, before you simply enter.
// With zed you can dodge abilities with Death Mark, by moving back to the original shadow, left from Death Mark and by simply using your Living Shadow.

Video 1: The video below, is zed using his abilities effectively to dodge the opponents abilities.

Short Analysis of the Video:

What to Take from This Video

Ability Sequence

Why do I get Razor Shuriken up first?
The reason I get first, is because it's the only poke zed has out of his three abilities. The other two, won't allow for a lvl1 poke.

Why do I max out Razor Shuriken first?
There is math involved here, if damage is calculated, one shuriken does less damage than . However, two or even three! beats one shadow slash. The math is simple, if you are confident in hitting shurikens, max Q, if you aren't, Max E.
Furthermore, keep in mind, after you use , hitting 2-3 shurikens will probably get a kill, however simply hitting won't guarantee anything.

Why max Shadow Slash before Living Shadow?
Simply, you need the additional damage from maxing out shadow slash, rather than the extra utility from maxing out living shadow.

Masteries

21 OFFENSE 9 into Defense or Utility

G
E
N
E
R
I
C

M
A
S
T
E
R
Y

// Notice no points in or , this is because butcher is a complete waste on zed, since his passive already helps a lot with last hitting minions. Secondly, + + are all included in my mastery page. These masteries simply maximize zeds damage when he uses , since Zed relies a lot on both auto-attacks and his abilities. The rest is fairly self explanatory, any questions feel free to comment and ask.

Generic Runes

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: This gives Zed the early game damage necessary to help poke his opponents and win lane
greater mark of armor penetration: Zed really needs armor penetration, because he does so much damage with his Death Mark, his weakness is armor really, not health.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: Standard against, ap mid laners to sustain and survive
Greater Seal of Armor: Standard again, helps against enemy auto attacks and any incoming minion damage.

Consider these runes perhaps too

Alternative Runes

Item Description

Items

Item Sequence

Starting Item choice

This item gives health and auto-attack sustain, great against opponents like , where you can get lot's of auto-attacks in on the minions and also help survive his burst.

Even after the patch this item is still used, when against champions who use auto-attacks and who have high poke, so you can't last hit minions. For me, this mainly is when i'm against an , since her passive strenghtens her auto-attack

Simply get Long sword and pots when the above information does not apply :)), so for example a

Core items

I prefer getting this over, life steal on my first back most of the time. provides a huge early game spike, so good once you reach 6, because it gives cool down reduction, armor penetration and lot's of damage. Get sustain from cutlass, only if your doing bad in lane.

Get this for sustain and damage it provides, additionally the early slow can be very useful after you use . Furthermore, 100 additional dmg, can translate into more becuase of

Boots are no vital on zed, since he already has high mobility from his shadow. This is why we are getting it so late in the game

At this time in the game, attack speed starts becoming important. Furthermore, the additional damage from its active, and the speed it gives you, allows you to fully chase your enemy after using

As mentioned earlier, armor penetration is very important on zed, because he already has plenty of damage. So an early last whisper is recommended.

The main reason this is my chosen boot choice most games is because the passive " is so helpful. This is because to shut zed down, you disable him after he uses , tenacity is like damage control in this case.

This is a fairly recent item choice, developed in Korea. Again, it enables you more speed and damage for when you enter with your . Furthermore, it gives cooldown reduction, which is pretty awsome on

Simply, armor penetration is AWSOME on zed as mentioned earlier, and it gives cool down reduction too, there isn't much else wants tbh.

This item is seriously situational for me, I often change my defensive item on zed, depending on the game a lot. GA is good because it allows you to go all in with your and not waste time trying to get away, every second of damage counts! other possible, situational items will be discussed below.

Situational Items You May Consider

Situational Items

Boot Choices, If your Interested

Alternative Boot Options

Champion Mid Lane Match-ups

I consider Champion match-ups really important for the mid lane, it tells you pretty much how to play. Therefore, this section will be really detailed, so expect lots of details.

Average Match-up

nidalee

Somewhat Good Match-up

Fizz

Very Hard Match-up

LeBlanc

Pretty Good Match-up

Ziggs

Pretty Good Match-up

Gragas

Pretty Good Match-Up

Yasuo

Zed "Combo"

Zed's Combo

Basically, there are several combiniations of abilities you can use with and they vary in effectiveness, depending on the situation. Here is one brief way of using zed's combo efficiently, this can be very useful.

Combo 1: Outplay them hard :D
- Use this when in a bad situation, if they catch you offguard, dodge an ability quickly with your , as soon as your on the earth again, use and quickly dash away! follow this with , in which case that shadow from should hit them, and slow them. Now throw your , and try and hit all three, if you hit enough and the enemy is low, return to your original shadow, left from , and simply finish him off, with your passive auto-attack and . If you succeed, this is a fairly hard outplay!

I know this is hard to get from just reading, this video below, is simply a montage of Zed outplays, but many of them use that same technique. Especially, when bjerson kills the Lucian, thats just SICK!! (Note, I do not think all these Zed's are "great, some are)

FAQ

Frequently Asked

Answers

Q: I can get fed with zed! but I often cannot carry the game!

// This is the problem I get in soloQ before, people don't realize, but Zed needs a good team that corporate well. isn't one of those champions that can carry hard for your team, because after using , he is limited in what he can do. If your team is total balls, and you want to make the best with what you got, I recomend go split push, and tell your team to take objectives if more than one guy comes down/up to get you. This sort of forces your team to cooperate, and at the same time your taking advantage of how fed you are. Since, if only one enemy comes down, you can tower dive and kill him, since Zed is simply like that :))

Additional Last Minute Remarks

There are several large points that Zed players should know, however I do not have the time to fill this guide up with stuff, people might not be interested in. If you want to study Zed further and become better with him, I've listed below some bullet points on what else Zed players should know, and resources where they can learn to play . So maybe it'll make it easier for you to do additional research, if your still interested.

List:
- Learn how to split push, and how it works (i mention it briefly in FAQ section)
- Learn Mid Lane gank paths, and more importantly, how to take wraits and use that to help gank too (any questions, you can comment)
- Go watch the NA LCS, and watch Bjergson in action, here's the link if you don't know it already: na.lolesports.com

Conclusion

Thanks to all!

If you read my whole guide, your fantastic and I hope you reach challenger one day! This is my first proper guide, using codes and stuff, I never knew I needed to use coding before this.... And it took me forever! If you liked the guide, please give it a vote, so others can get the chance to see it to.
If you didn't like it, comment, please tell me why, i'll be fixing whatever the issue is as soon as possible. Thank you again, if you got all the way down to this section, may the shadows be with you!