I am long time LoL player, third time guide writer and I currently play top lane for my "competitive" 5v5 team. I used to play jungle a lot but my last 200-300 games have been focused on top lane.

My last 50-60 games are with Zed, and now Im going to share my build and current play style with this champ.

PROS

+ High burst damage
+ Easy to farm with
+ Good harras
+ High mobility
+ Amazing mobility
+ Uses energy
+ Amazing jukes
+ Passive deals magic damage
+ Hard to gank

CONS

- High cooldown on
- Needed to build to "glass cannon" to get enough burst
- Very expensive build
- Actually really hard champion to master

Zed is assassin champion that rips almost every champion to pieces in early game, that has high mobility and amazing possibilities to "juke" almost every player in game.. In mid and late game your goal is trying to burst down squishy champions like AD or AP champions.

Most important thing when playing Zed is know when to pick it. You should pick Zed when you see your team has couple of "fat" players and you know your team wont just get blown away. Another important thing when your picking your champion, is that enemy team should have at least 2-3 squishy players in their team, so you can just pick up "easy" kills. It doesn't really matter what you are going to get against on top, since your main goal is just to farm and wait for jungle to gank.

Second most important thing is that your farm has to be amazing. When playing 5v5 or in higher elo games, you aren't able to get so many kills in your lane without your teams help. So make that your priority when you are playing Zed in top lane.

I prefer these quintessence mainly because they make your last hitting so much easier in early game. Also you deal so much damage early game.



Many people have asked why i prefer these over . And the reason is these help you so much when your last hitting in your lane. It doesn't matter how much armor penetration you have unless you miss hundreds of worth of gold.



You should get some magic resist from runes, since your not building so many defensive items, and reason why i prefer these over glyph magic you are always going for end game build. Get if you know you are going to get AP based champion against you.



90% of your time you are getting AD based champion against top, you don't want to take so much damage from their harras, so pick these.

Zed is high damage assassin that needs a lot of damage to get the burst to work, that's why you see a lot of Zed players building nothing else but AD based items. But now Im going to explain why i build these items in this order.

sight ward

You want to get good sustain on lane and you want to be able to farm your lane safely, you don't want to die in your lane in early.
Lanes can be lost in early game if enemy jungler does successful gank, and its really hard to recover from here.




First time when you recall you should be able to pick this and couple of and Sight ward

This is such amazing item for Zed, since your opponent is usually going to get some armor against you, it doesn't really help so much when you have armor penetration. It also gives you cooldown reduction, and its so good to Zed when your main damage comes from abilities.

If you cant get on first time going to base pick up vampriric scepter




This should be your next item when you recall second time. You can usually afford to get at the same time.

Gives you so much sustain, since you are starting to get some damage. It's also part of one of your main items



You want to get a lot of armor penetration, just because it deals still more damage than just AD based items. Get this as fast as you can.



Now your going to get even more damage and even more sustain (and damage of course), since your future items are going to cost even more, you don't want to be recalling so often to base just to get more health.



Since boots got so nerfed in season 3 i don't see the reason to rush to boots so fast, but you need to build 'em eventually, and i find these boots best since they give you magic resist and tenacity.



This item is probably your best defensive item to Zed and reason for that is when you eventually die, you can still get those low health carrys out of the game, or escape since you have so much mobility.

Laning phase

Your early game is based pretty much farming with and autoattack. When you have to choose between harrasing opponent or getting last hits, always go for last hits. Don't let your lane push so much, even tough its really hard not to push your lane, since deals damage to everything it passes by. Try harras your opponent same time when your getting that last hit.

When you know you are stronger than your opponent and you start harrasing, your skill sequence for this is -> and when your enemy is slowed its rather easy to hit with i recomend you make sure your oponent is standing next to his minions, so you get more energy back from .

Repeat this couple of times, and when u decide you are going for the kill make sure you are at full energy Open with Ignite . Since your spawns "living shadow" behind the target make sure you press your "R" again before using only use this ability this time if you can't get the kill or you need to fall back.

When you are trying to flee from opponent/their jungle use -> Switch places and . Your "clone" throws nice slow which makes sure you can escape.

When laning ends

Your goal is to either take towers, go to gank or help your team secure Drakes and buff, but you can't forget that you need also to FARM FARM FARM.

If your team is winning at this point, take drakes and/or push together one lane. When you see someone out of position and you know you can take the kill, go for it. You can easily escape with your .

From this point on, there's really nothing else to say. Your team just has to be better than team that is opposing you.

I tried to keep this guide quick and simple (without wasting more than couple of hours of my time). Feel free to Thumbs up and if this guide helped you anyway I know there is still much to add to this guide but i wanted to give you guys a hints and tips how i keep winning games with this awesome champ! But really the only way to learn this champion is just to play, play and ummm... play?

By the way... Im still going to add Zed Counterpicks and what are the champions that Zed is really strong against.