Hello everybody , this guide will teach you how to play Zed , it will teach you how to play him and what to build on him and when , Zed is an Assassin-Fighter type champion , he is one of the best duelers in the game because of his ultimate Death Mark , he goes in , deals enough damage to kill the target , then walks away and let's the ultimate trigger and pop , because , cool guys don't look at explosions. Though he can be very strong , he is easily countered , because most of the time he relies on his ultimate to kill a target , he is easily countered by Zhonya's Hourglass , he can be countered by Quicksilver Sash and finally he is countered by Kayle's ultimate Intervention , but you can still get across these counters if you bait them out , for example , you can deal a lot of damage to a champion so he/she will have to use zhonya , then you ult them . I will cover the pros and cons of Zed , his abilities , his items and his role in a game.

Pros

+ Fun to play
+ Strong harass
+ Great burst
+ Strong laning phase
+ Energy instead of mana

Cons

- Easily countered
- Easy to play hard to master
- Bad teamfights
- Weak against tanks in early game

CONTEMPT FOR THE WEAK
Zed's basic attacks against target's below half HP deal 6%/8%/10% damage as magic damage , the Percentage of his passive increases on level 7 and level 17 , he cannot use this ability more then once on the same target for 10 seconds. Great ability while makes farming much easier.

RAZOR SHURIKEN
Take this ability on level 1 , this ability deals the most damage then your other abilities and it should be maxed first for extra damage and easier waveclear , this will help you farm from a distance if your enemy is a ranged champion , very powerful ability that deals tons of damage , try to hit the enemy champion before you hit the minions , if you do you deal 100% of the damage , if you don't you deal only 50% of the damage.

LIVING SHADOW
Take this ability at level 2 , this ability will be your best friend , you will gain great range , more damage and easy escapes from ganks , this ability should be maxed last , this ability will let you get over medium sized walls for escapes , the living shadow copies Zed's abilities and it stands in place , reactivate the ability to switch places with your shadow , can be great for chasing opponents or escaping them. Zed also gains a passive from this ability which increases his Attack Damage by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25% depending on the rank of the ability.

SHADOW SLASH
Take this ability at level 3 , Zed spins his blades dealing AoE damage , once you unlock this ability , you will have a lot of damage with Zed , you can send out your shadow , activate your E ability and then your Q ability for great damage , if the shadow hits the target champion with his E ability , Zed's target is slowed , if Zed hits a champion with his E , his W Living shadow gets 2 seconds off cooldown , if both Zed and his shadow hit their target with E , they don't take double damage , but they are slowed even more.

DEATH MARK
For me this ultimate is one of the best in the game , it can be very strong if done right , when you have the opportunity to upgrade his ultimate , always do it , what this ability does is marks a target champion for death , Zed has to deal damage to the target while the mark is active , in the end the Death mark deals damage equal to Zed's attack damage and 20%/35%/50% damage dealt while the mark was active , depending on rank. While using death mark activate your ignite so your target will not heal as much as they normally would , send out your W Living shadow , use your q and e and try not to miss your q , because if you do , the target mostly survives. You can see if the target will die by the mark , if there is a shuriken above their head , it means they will die , if there isn't , you have to deal more damage to kill them.

IGNITE
You will want to take this 90% of the time , it helps you deal more damage with your ult and makes healing less effective while on the target , making it a good opportunity to use your ultimate on them.
FLASH
You want to take this almost every time , unless you are confident enough you will never have to use it , which rarely happens , so i recommend taking flash every single game , for extra mobility , escaping and chasing ability
EXHAUST
I do not recommend this spell on Zed , it doesn't do anything to help you in any way , so i never use it on him.
CLEANSE
This can only be useful if the enemy team has CC on each of their champions , not recommended if they don't have huge CC.
TELEPORT
You can take this if you decide to play Zed on top lane , if you're planning to play him mid , Ignite is more useful then Teleport.
HEAL
Not recommended , you don't really need heal for Zed , it only helps you by giving you some health and movement speed , but it is useless 80% of the time.
GHOST
Can be useful if the enemy team has way too many escapes in their team , other than that , i wouldn't recommend it .
CLAIRVOYANCE
This is just useless , if anyone should take this spell it's the support , but even that is rare , wards exist , you don't really need this if you ward , highly not recommended.
SMITE
Pretty useless unless you go Zed jungle OR decide to play Zed on mid with smite , if you're interested in that , check out this video by Redmercy :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AOTOvOckGc . Smite is useless unless you try it like in this video.
BARRIER
This is if you are playing against the most broken champion that deals so much damage that you can't do anything to him , only take if your opponent is very strong , if he isn't it is useless.

x3 Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage
Gives you more flat Attack Damage , resulting in more damage overall
Greater Mark of Armor Penetration x6 Greater Mark of Armor Penetration
This will help you against tanks and help you make squishy targets even squishier which results in more damage.
x3 Greater Mark of Attack Damage
This will help you have a bit more damage , i simply didn't want to use all 9 armor penetration marks , because i would lose much more flat attack damage.
x9 Greater Seal of Armor
Helps you against champions that use Attack damage , giving you more protection from it.
x9 Greater Glyph of Magic Resist
Helps you against champions that use Magic damage , giving you more protection from it.

Blade of The Ruined King
This item is essential on Zed , when you basic attack a target you deal an additional 8% of the target's health , it is very useful with his ult , because it has an active effect which slows the target and deals damage to it.

Youumu's Ghostblade Youumu's Ghostblade
This item makes Zed a great dueler , with it's armor penetration and cooldown reduction,the active makes Zed shine , he activates it to get 20% increased Movement Speed and 40% Attack Speed for the next 6 seconds , use this while ulting a target for extra auto attacks

Ravenous Hydra
This item makes Zed great at wave clear , also while ulting a target , he will deal increased damage and if he activates the item , he will deal even more damage.

Mercury's Treads
There are more options for boots , but i would highly recommend this one , due to the fact of it's passive effect , which makes all Stuns , Slows , Snares etc. last less by 35% , Zed needs mobility , if he gets CC'd it will be bad for him , we want to make the CC last least as possible.

Last Whisper
This is an essential item on Zed , even if the enemy team doesn't have a tank , get this item , it gives you the ability to ignore 35% of the target's armor , so squishy targets , become squishier then before because of it.

The Bloodthrister Black Cleaver
Your last item you can choose between Bloodthirster and Black Cleaver , if the enemy team doesn't have more then 2 tanks , i would recommend Bloodthirster for more damage and life steal , if they do have over 2 tanks , get Black Cleaver.

With Zed , you want to split-push as much as possible , you are a great dueler which means you can win almost any 1v1 , while you are split-pushing the enemy team may send more than 1 player to stop you from destroying their turrets or inhibitors , which means , while they are trying to stop you , your team can focus on taking the Dragon or the Baron Nashor , which will be very helpful for winning the game.

You also have to understand that your ult isn't the only ability that get's you kills , you have to think when to use your ultimate and when to not use your ultimate , do not waste your ultimate if you cannot kill your target , be over 80% sure that you can kill a target before you go in and use your ultimate on them.

One final and very important tip , you have to be fast with Zed , do your combos quickly , and get out quickly , this way you will lose least HP , while killing someone or just harassing them. Zed's main combo is W+Q+E or W+E+Q , whichever you prefer you can use , but do it very fast so your opponent has little time to react to it

Zed's team fights are not good , he can die easily without killing anybody , before you go into a team fight wait for the enemy team to waste their CC and their ults , then you can do something , you can use your ultimate to kill a specific target , then use your shadow to kill or help kill other targets , you should NEVER go into a team fight before the enemy team uses their CC and ultimates , that can cost you a loss of a team fight.

Thank you all for reading my Zed guide , this was my first guide , thought it may not be very impressive , i tried to teach you how to play him and what to build on him , so don't be too harsh on me with the comments :D .

Again Thank you for reading this and have a nice day!

Zed Guide by Noeeex