In depth Zed Guide [14.16] (2024)

Summoners Learn about when which summoners are good!

Runes Detailed descriptions on runes. Mix and match Primary and Secondary trees!

Builds When to buy what and why it's good

How to actually play Fundementals and typical game overview

Combos Bread and butter- aswell as fancy combos

First Strike

Conqueror

Secondaries

Situationals and Itemization

How to actually play

General Overview

Zed plays a lot less like traditional Assassins like Qiyana or Talon, in that he has less burst, while his playstyle is more like a control mage.
The best description I've seen yet was in a comment section, unfortunately I don't remember by who:

"Zed is a control mage, and his brand of control is murder."
- some random commenter

You want to play methodically, picking at the enemy and waiting for your opportunity to strike. That's true for laning aswell as teamfighting. When starting out, I encourage you to go for riskier plays. It helps you find your limits and let's you get a sense of what you can and can't do!
When you think you've got a good grasp on that, don't worry about your team pinging you and saying "just go in!", when you feel it won't be worth it. That's a misconception that many players have. Trust your instincts, as following calls like that usually gets you killed! I'm also guilty for falling for this rather often, haha.

Laning Phase

Level 1-2

The first 2 levels are very similar in most matchups.
When playing against ranged characters, you have to respect their early pressure, as they can wear you down with their autoattacks easily.
Let yourself get pushed, while trying to get as many cs for as little health lost as possible. You can do this by lasthitting with your Q Razor Shuriken and of course walking up and taking the cs with autoattacks.
"But GreenReapers, you just said to respect their autoattacks!?"
Yes, and that's why you walk up, when they need to choose between hitting you and last hitting a minion. So keep their aswell as your minions health in check.
If one of them walks up far enough out of their champions range you can of course take it.

When playing against melees you can look for short trades, but most melee champs will be stronger than you if you overextend. Respect their trading power but don't be afraid to trade and lasthit, unless they clearly outmatch you.

Playing around your Keystones for early trades is essential, as they can make or brake a trade, aswell as influence your trading behaiviour. You're much more likely to win a extended trade using Conqueror, but will reliably win more short trades with Electrocute and First Strike.

If you get pushed under tower at level 2 or you're actively fighting a melee champion taking E Shadow Slash second is recommended.
Otherwise, when you can take W Living Shadow at level 2 you should look for heavy trade opportunities, against targets with a weak early game.
Otherwise farm up!

Level 3-5

At level 3 you can actually start playing the game a bit! You've got your main combo WEQ unlocked. WEQ is great as it hits exactly 3 times, granting you the ability to proc Electrocute from range.
Generally you can start playing more aggressively around these levels, chunking the enemies with your combos but note, that your W Living Shadow has a rather long cooldown. You will have to play arond it, as your enemies will do so too, actively trading into you after it's down!

Level 6+

With your lvl 6 you have finally unlocked your strongest ability, R Death Mark. It not only creates another Living Shadow to swap to by recasting it, it also let's you blink to your target, becoming untargetable in the process, and put's the Death Mark on them, dealing a flat amount + a %of the damage dealt while was acive on expiring.
This gives you a huge powerspike. You should be looking to kill even more proactively now, as you're starting to reliably be able to punish overextends with a kill and a lvl 6 advantage, commiting right when you get your level up while your enemy is still lvl 5 can oftentimes lead to an easy kill, if you're in a position to do so.
The additional pressure also makes it easier for you to commit to all ins, jungle skirmishes or roams. In some scenarios it's also worth it to commit your R Death Mark to force an enemy out of lane, to free you to move around the map or make them loose a big wave and lane priority.

Trading Patterns and general tips

There's a classic mistake people make against Zed, which is stepping up after you've thrown your combo while far away from their own tower. Say, you throw a WEQ into a mage when they're in your half of the lane. You hit maybe one of the Q's and they think:
"hey, he's thrown his abilities, let's go for a return trade while they're down"
Wrong! As soon as they step forward and your W Living Shadow is behind them, you can swap to it and run them down with autoattacks and your abilities.
This works especially well level 2-5, even without your E and can even lead to easy kills after lvl 6, as your R Death Mark makes you even stronger.

Your standard trade is throwing WEQ at the enemy, chunking them and either backing off or using your shadow to pressure the enemy into staying farther away from the wave, while farming it, les't they get chunked by you as in the mistake explained before. After your W Living Shadow expires you'll usually want to back off regardless, as they'll have an edge over you, when you don't have a Living Shadow ready. Commiting with your R Death Mark is nonetheless encouraged even if your W Living Shadow is down, if you can find an opportunity to kill.

Mixing up the timing of your burst can also mess up the enemies movement. Take for example engaging an Ahri while she has her ultimate Spirit Rush. If you engage with R to dodge her charm, she'll want to dodge your Q's with a dash. Now, most Zeds will wait until the last moment before Death Mark explodes to burst with the ususal WEQ or triple Q, as it gives the least amount of time to react. If you notice your enemy learns from this and starts to play around it, differing the amount of time you wait for the burst can mess them up real good. Btw, thats called conditioning, if you want to do your own research on it.

Mid Game

Your midgame plays like any other Assassin.

If you're ahead you want to actively pressure sidelanes, as the enemy either has to send a relatively strong tank or more than one person to rival you on the sidelane.
Note that picking Conqueror makes your sidelaning stronger due to a longer lane, leading to longer trades.

If you're behind, you want to catch sidewaves when it's safe and try not to overextend, as you'll get picked off rather easily.

On your downtime, when you can't push a sidelane or you notice a teamfight is starting to brew on the map you want to do something called shadowing.
This simply means that you try to stay out of the enemies vision while being close enough to your team to look for assassinations or help out in teamfights.
Even if you don't get anything while shadowing your team, if you've done it in your downtime you have used your time effectively. Look to get back to a sidelane if there isn't a fight thats about to happen, when you can either farm again or if you have to catch a wave thats about to crash into your tower. The latter scenario is a more urgent case than the former, as you'll lose way more expierience and gold.

When objectives are up, you have to decide, wether you should put pressure on a sidelane to force someone to contest you or help your team at the objective fight. I generally recommend helping out your team, but if you don't think you can win the fight anyways, pushing a sidelane will probably get your team more value. Teleport makes cross map pressure easier, as you can pressure a sidelane and instantly travel to the teamfight when your help is needed!

Taking the Krug camp or Gromp while your jungler is busy on the map and you don't see an opportunity to shadow your team aswell as you not being able to push your sidelane is recommende to keep up your cs.

Late Game

Your late game plays very much alike to your mid game. You'll still be on sidelane duty while shadowing your team at given opportunities, however the shadowing plays a much larger part at this stage of the game, as with ever increasing deathtimers, one teamfight can decide the outcome of a whole game.
Before doing something, taking a look at the map and your team can help you make the decision, wether you should group up or push a sidelane.
Catching side waves is s till important, so if you get the opportunity, you should still look to farm them.

Teamfights

I've already touched on the subject of Zed playing more like a control mage, than a typical Assassin.
As such you generally don't want to be the one engaging a fight. If you're fed enough to do so, great, get 'em, but if you aren't you don't want to do that.

If your tank gets a good engage and you can find an opportunity to kill the carry, that's good.
If people that should peel for the carry are kept busy elsewhere that's also a big plus.
And if you can find a carry who's currently being crowd controlled you are sure to hit your combo.

Another scenario that happens quite often is you, throwing your combo into a group of enemies to get damage off, but not being ready to commit. Let your team fight for a few seconds, while you assess the situation from a few feet away and wait for the moment you can safely shut down a key player of their team.

When playing Conqueror you have a lot more freedom to actively go in when playing teamfights, as you aren't quite as vulnerable when staying in combat. Don't be afraid to commit to more but keep in mind, that you're still Zed and playing a bit more methodical helps you stay on top of the game!

Mid Lane fundementals

Mid lane fundementals are not the center point of this guide, but I will quickly go over them, and explain some of the most important things about them

Wave Control

Wave control is the process of manipulating the minion wave in such a way, that it gets you the most amount of expierience and gold, while giving as little to your opponent.
There are 3 basic concepts:
slow push, fast push and freeze/hold

When slow pushing you aim to push your minion wave slowly towards the enemy tower. You achieve this by stacking a waves, meaning you last hit and kill a minion once in a while, as you're pressuring your opponent away from the wave. This leads to your minions slowly gaining a numbers advantage over those of your opponent.
Slow pushing is generally used to generate lane priority. This means your opponent is now forced to stay under his tower and last hit the minions, otherwise he loses a ton of expierience and gold, while you are free to do something other than concentrate on your lane.
This might be roaming, warding, backing or being the first to move for jungle skirmishes. It can also be used to pressure a tower more easily or setting up a dive.
However, while in the process of slow pushing, you'll be longer farther away from your turret than when using other methods of pushing, resulting in you being vulnerable to ganks.
You can use this fact to your advantage by baiting the gank when you're confident you can escape or 2v1. However, turning this concept around you can force your opponents wave to slow push towards you, by pushing slightly slower than them.
This in turn forces them to step farther away from their tower, making them vulnerable to ganks aswell as extended engages by you!

When fast pushing you want your wave to get as fast as possible under the turret of your enemy, to deny them minions when they are not there or force them to make the choice between sacrificing minions to back and staying in lane.
This is mostly used as a alternative to a slow push, when you have had no time to set one up, but still have to move for a fight, as a fast push also creates lane priority, although not one as strong as a slow push.
Another use case is as already said, forcing an opponent to stay in lane. This can be useful for stopping them from spending their gold or when you want to constantly put pressure on them, preventing them from moving themselves.´

Holding and freezing a wave are 2 very similar, yet different concepts.
Holding a wave usually takes place right before a freeze.
When you hold a wave you sacrifice your own health by walking into a minion wave, preferably a small one of 3 or 4, to prevent them from crashing into your own turret. This leads to a slow push - like scenario on the opponents side, as they'll have to either step forward to pressure you under your turret, preventing the hold, or accept it and try to push the next wave under your tower, if they aren't in a position to pressure you enough. Alternatively they can also back, but will have to sacrifice a lot of minions for that.
Freezing starts if you manage to hold0 preferably 3 minions in front of your tower, while not letting your opponent push you, and as a result the 3 minions under your turret. When the next wave comes, by simply last hitting and in the best scenario pressuring your opponent away from the wave, you can hold it outside your tower.
This has multiple effects:

1. If your enemy wishes to push the wave, they will have to walk far away from their tower, putting them at risk of being all inned by you or ganked by your jungler.
2. By keeping them away from the wave, if yu have enough pressure to do so, you deny them exp and gold, putting them behind.
3. If you're good at this you can keep it up indefinetly, until your enemy finally manages to pressure you away, or the enemy jungler helps them push the wave.

To quickly explain why you want to optimally have 3 or more minions, 2 are usually not enough for your wave to keep getting killed over and over before the next enemy wave approaches. The numbers advantage does not matter at this point, since you'll be last hitting minions, essentially creating a very slight push.
At 3, if no other possibility 4, minions you should be able to hold the freeze, for as long as possible.
If there are more than that you should clear them down to around 3, when you're looking to freeze the wave.

Roaming

Roaming is at it's core the act of walking around the map to put pressure elsewhere on the enemy team. Sounds rather simple, right?
However, when roaming, be that to gank botlane, help your jungler invade or moving for a skirmish, you will always want to look at your wave state.
This is called roam timing. When you have lane priority you have to possibility to roam without losing too many minions, while getting gold and exp elsewhere and helping your team.
When doing this, you always want to try to get at least a bit more value than your lane opponent. If you don't, but your team gets good value, that's also fine, but be a bit more careful when fighting, considering the gold balance between you and your enemy laner.
Not getting any value from a roam is possibly the worst scenario, especially if you've sacrificed one or two waves to do so.
Yes, if you spot a very good roam, it can be worth it to miss out on waves for it! But it becomes very risky. If it doesn't work out you give your opponent a huge lead!

Warding

Warding is a very useful skill to have. It allows you and your team to gather information on the enemies positions to keep you safe.
The picture to the left shows some popular warding spots.
Generally speaking this is how these wards are used:

• Wards inside your own jungle or at the river border of your jungle are considered defensive wards. They protect your jungler from getting counterjungled and spot the enemy when they try to wrap around through your jungle to gank a lane. Additionally they provide some vision along the river, while being rather unlikely to be cleared themselves, however they ususally take at least some time to get set up.
  
• Wards at your lane brushes in comparison don't take much time to set up, but only protect you from being ganked. There is a exception to this, when going for a ward infront of the enemy turret. This prevents your opponent from leaving lane without you having info on which direction he went. Great when you're freezing the wave or the enemy likes to roam a lot.
  
• Wards inside the enemy jungle or at the river border to their jungle are considered agressive wards. These give you a lot of information on the enemies jungler and rotations, but due to the positioning in enemy territory they are more likely to be cleared when possible.

Ward timing is another rather important aspect to your lane. The enemy jungler will have full cleared around 2:30, so placing a ward around that time or having one ready is considered very good.
After that you should aim to place a stealth ward every 90 seconds on the side you think the enemy jungler is most likely to be at that time. Be that because of jungle tracking, having spotted them or simply intuition. Note, that when following this strategy you always try to keep a ward in reserve, so you can use it as needed, while using your other ward for active vision.
If you feel you need more wards control wards can be a good option, as you always look to place control wards around the map to deny vision.

Combos

The combos are my favourite part about this Champion. The absolute variety you can choose from is insane. And as such, choosing the optimal-, or at least a good combo, for every situation is key to mastering Zed.
This section will go over most of the combos you will use rather often, and some more situational ones. Of course there are more combos and variations than I'm listing here, but after a while of playing with some combos in mind, you will naturally get better at considering different ability usages. Click on the combos to see a video of them!

This video by Mythology zed covers WAY more combos, if you want to check that out!

If you have questions about any combos in particular or think I should add them, please message me!

On the topic of reset and kite combos

If there is demand or I've got more time on my hands for it I will add a chapter concerning these types of combos. Please let me know if you are interested!

I have not included reset combos originally, as they are fairly rare if you aren't building a high ability haste build, however with the recent buffs I think it might make sense to add them.

Kite combos on the other hand do find frequent usage. When I started breaking them down for a subchapter I noticed, they are mostly just Ult combos with delayed swap usage, hence I didn't add them either, but will try to explain shadow positioning in another update.

Basic Combos

WEQ
Your basic combo. Used for trades and to dish out some poke damage to enemies. The E slow makes it easier to hit your Qs.

WQE
Slight variation on WEQ. Trades the E slow for faster damage output. Harder to hit but great when the enemy is CC'd anyways.

WEQW-AA
Standard engage combo. Used to get onto your enemy or trade heavily.

W-AA-EWQ(behind)
Used against melee fighers who you don't want to fight outright or are very dangerous to you.

Ult Combos

WERQ-AA-RWE-AA
Used against immobile targets. Applies the slow first to prevent the enemy from getting away and sets up a instant triple Q. Good when you know flash is down or you can burst easily.
You can also swap to W instantly to dodge an ability aimed at you, cutting the last part from the combo, making it safer. The variation would look like this: WERW-AA-QRE
If you need the slow from Voltaic Cyclosword swapping the first AA with the Q can be nice, but as you are already using it against an immobile target with the E slow applied it's not that neccesary.

RWEQW-AA-R
Used to follow the enemy with W shadow. Oftentimes the combo burst is delayed to catch the enemy off guard.
Dummy that gets ulted is enemy position 1 and enemy position 2 is the other dummy.

WRE-AA-QW
If you know you have enough damage without your W to get a kill against high CC champions, placing your W in a safe spot before going in and swapping to it to avoid cc will allow you to get out without getting yourself killed. The W swap can also be performed before your burst, but landing at least an auto before doing so is preffered due to damage and a potential slow from Voltaic Cyclosword.

WEQ-AA-RE-AA-Q
You'll usually want to use this combo when you are playing against a squishy with a movement ability with high range, like Aurelion Sol's Astral Flight or Zeri's Spark Surge. You'll burst them first with a basic combo and use your R Death Mark to follow their movement ability. After that you keep attacking them to stack your Death Mark with enough damage to finish them. I reccomend using this combo when you have enough damage for your basic combo to be a threat. Otherwise you'll wind up dead most of the time, as you've just used a big part of your burst and the enemy will continue to attack you.
As always, first attacked dummy is position 1 and second is position 2, making it so the target travels from 1 to 2 during your ult animation.

Flash Combos

Important Information on Flash and Q Razor Shuriken

When using flash, keep in mind that your Q Razor Shuriken will always fly into the direction of your mouse at the time of the first button press. This means, flashing will not change the direction, but the angle at which your Q will come out.
Click here for a demonstration.
You can use this to your advantage, by using flash to dodge enemy skillshots, while your Q target will be unaffected, assuming you've hovered your mouse over the enemy character.

Q into flash will always be faster than flash into Q, as you're starting your cast animation earlier, giving your opponent less time to react.

QF
You most basic flash combo. Mostly used to finish off an enemy when you aren't quite in range.

WQWFE-AA
Perfect for catching the enemy offguard. Extends your normal range even further through the use of flash.

WEQWFE-AA
Can be used at various angles to surprise an opponent if they overextend. Especially useful against short range dash users, who think they are now safely outside your range, just to get followed by.
The upper dummy is where the enemy originally stood and the lower dummy is where they moved to with a dash for example, in this scenario.
Quite often you want to wait long enough to get E up again before you swap. Good if you need just that tiny bit of extra damage. Final combo will look like: WEQWFE-AA.

RWFEQW-AA-R
This is actually my favourite combo. It doesn't see a lot of use, but it's my favourite, so it's here.
It directly counters champions like Viktor, who can establish a 'no-no-zone' with an ability, like Viktor's W Gravity Field or, albeit to a lesser extent, Anivia's R Glacial Storm. You do this so you spend as little time as possible in this ability. Used if they can burst you down/you'll get locked down by something else when in there.

Thank you!

I just wanted to quickly say thank you for checking out my guide! :D
Wether you read it all or just parts of it, as long as you've learned something I'm happy. Till' next time!