League of Legends: Zed Receives Exciting Buffs on Patch 10.14
Zed is set to receive some interesting Living Shadow buffs on Patch 10.14
On Patch 10.14, the League of Legends balance team have decided to give Zed a buff to push him back towards his quick in-and-out assassin style.
The speed of Zed’s W – Living Shadow is set to be increased from 1750 to 2500. Along with this, the cooldown on the ability could be reduced from 22/20/18/16/14 seconds to 20/18.5/17/15.5/14 seconds, if the provisional changes remain in the official patch notes.
The cooldown change is one that the balance team has reverted from Patch 9.8. In the current meta, Zed finds himself at exactly 50% win rate in solo queue games of Platinum and above. The Master of Shadows still remains a highly contested pick, with a 29.26% presence in solo queue.
The champion will always have his one tricks – as he is undoubtedly fun to play and master. However, in his current state, he finds himself falling off into the later stages of the game, unable to hold up against control mages in team fights.
These changes do not address those concerns exactly, but allow him to speed up the pace of the game. As Zed maxes his W last, the cooldown buff will be felt until level 18.
More importantly, the change to the speed of the ability helps Zed assassinate targets like he’s meant to do. Giving opponents less time to react, along with getting out of sticky situations more quickly, this simple revert helps him be more useful to his team.
This Patch 10.14 buff could see Zed make a return to the mid lane meta
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In competitive play around the world, Zed has only been picked twice in the Summer Split. It’s difficult to build compositions around him, as with a physical damage mid laner, lots of magic damage needs to come in to balance damage types.
In the LCS, for instance, the only AP-heavy jungler that’s seen play is Nidalee, who is 0-5 in the split so far. In other regions, Gragas and Fiddlesticks have higher priority, which would make sense to pair with the assassin.
Teams can also look for AP top laners such as Mordekaiser or Kennen, and AP bot laners such as Syndra or Cassiopeia. However, when picking Zed, limiting your team composition to these picks seems difficult, as the team has to draft around him.
Therefore, this change seems like a solo queue buff, helping one tricks dominate and climb up the ladder. With the presence of junglers Lee Sin and Elise in solo queue, Zed works perfectly with their aggressive styles of play.
Look for Zed to increase his already high play rate, but he’ll sit in the shadows for a little longer when it comes to competitive action.