Not Updated For Current Season
This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page
x
x

Did this guide help you? If so please give them a vote or leave a comment.
You can even win prizes by doing so!
Vote
Comment
I liked this Guide

I didn't like this Guide




Your votes and comments encourage our guide authors to continue
creating helpful guides for the League of Legends community.
Recommended Items
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order
Contempt for the Weak (PASSIVE)
Zed Passive Ability
Introduction

Hello, my name is Alexwolf, here I will be sharing with you my ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() So without further ado, lets get right into this guide. Prepare to be versed, in the art of the shadows!. |


Pros
|
+ Uses Energy, can spam abilities in lane to harass. + Diversified kit which includes ranged harass, slow, and lots of mobility. + Passive allows for easy farming and executing targets. + One of the most strong Assassins and Split pushers in the game. + Huge skill-floor and play making potential. |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Cons
|
- Is melee, can take quite the harass from ranged champs if you try to last hit at a bad moment. - Not easy to use, two skill shots, needs good positioning, etc. - Is energy reliant; good in lane, but bad in extended fights. - ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |


21 OFFENSE 9 DEFENSE
T H E M A S T E R O F |
sp |
S H A D O W S |
![]() |
// These are in my opinion, the best masteries for
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Q: Are these the best masteries for ![]() // In short, yes. You want to be doing as much damage as possible. So you need 21 or more points into the offensive tree, although I would not recommend putting over 21 or 22 points, because we still need some defenses for our early game. If you want to play ![]() |


Runes
Runes






Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: These give us a tiny bit of bonus AD at the beginning of the game. Good for overall damage, last hitting, etc. Although last hitting is easy with
Contempt for the Weak, you can still accidentally mess it up. So these runes shall hopefully compensate for small things like that.
- Greater Mark of Armor Penetration: These are probably the only runes that are absolutely mandatory and will never change on
Zed. His base damages are fairly good in the beginning of the game. That means with armor pent, we shall be hitting like a truck in lane. Usually you can opt out your seals, glyphs, and quints for other things. Never opt out these Armor Pent marks. Ever.
Greater Seal of Scaling Health: I really enjoy these runes now that I have played around with them. As Zed, I often don't feel as if I am getting harassed to hard. He has an amazing early game. So trading those flat armors/healths out for this works out pretty well. These runes outscale flat health at around level 9 anyway.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: These are just standard against enemy AP mids. You cannot go wrong with them.
Other Rune Choices
- Quintessences: For Quints, you can instead also run Armor Penetration. The reasoning for this is you do not need flat ad to last hit in lane because of
Contempt for the Weak and your base damages are really good, so armor penetration works very well on Zed. You can either run full Armor Pent Quints or run Two Armor Pent Quints and one AD Quint.
- Marks: For Marks, you can run Flat AD marks if you do not have Armor Penetration, but you better Grind IP like there is no tomorrow so you can replace them with armor penetration marks ASAP. Get on the grind boi.
- Seals: Seals are the runes that give you the most variety. You can run either full flat armor, full flat health, or full health per level. You want to run armor when you are laning against an AD and or the enemy team has no AP. Then Health per level and Flat health is preference. Flat health if you think you need the early survivability or per level if you think you will do really good in the laning phase and just want to be less squishy when late game comes around. Also, a mix of hp and armor is good. Like 5 flat health, 4 armor.
- Glyphs: For Glyphs there are three main choices. Magic resist, Magic Resist per level, and Cooldown Reduction. Flat Mr for laning against AP where you think you will get harassed a lot, Scaling MR for a team where you are not laning against ap but they have an ap jungler or top laner. Or you just think you wont take too much damage in the laning phase and you would rather have the mr scale into late game, and then CDR can just be mixed into the page somewhere if you want lower cooldowns.





This is your ranged harass/damage tool. Use this to poke, dish out damage, etc. The missile length is pretty thin, so be wary of that.
You're going to want to max out



Tips and Tricks
- Use
Razor Shuriken to harass your opponent in lane. However, try to make sure that if you can, it does not hit minions and instead hits your target head on. That way, it deals the full amount of damage.
- If you are free farming, walk to the side of the minions and shoot it in a horizontal line so that you hit all the minions.
- This thing is a skillshot, you can shoot it over walls, as you are falling back, etc.




This is essentially what defines


You're going to want to max out

Tips and Tricks
Living Shadow is the thing that defines
Zed. You can throw your shadow out forward and quickly swap in order to cover gaps and distances. It can also be used to jump over walls and juke people out in general. For example, walking forward, throwing the shadow behind you, waiting till the enemy has chased you pretty far, then swap back.
Living Shadow mimics your abilities. Make sure that if your shadow is out, to try and land both your abilities and the shadow lands off its abilities too.
Zed has ridiculous wave clear with
Living Shadow. Just simply throw your Shadow out and start going ham on that minion wave. He can clear out a whole wave of minions with one shadow, one Q, and two E's.
- Make sure both your shadow and normal abilities hit enemies, that way you get your energy refunded.
Living Shadow can provide vision, use it to check over walls and bushes.
- If you use your shadow to harass in lane, then the enemy is dumb enough to walk and stand next to your shadow, you can swap places with your shadow to attack your enemy further and get right up in their face.



A simple AoE spin move that deals damage, reduces cooldown on

You're going to want to max out



Tips and Tricks
- Shadow Slash is good for wave clear as it deals lots of AoE damage.
Living Shadow followed by
Shadow Slash is a good way to slow enemies from escaping you. You can then continue to stick on the enemy by swapping places with your shadow. Same can be said for escaping.
- You can cast
Shadow Slash while falling back or being chased to continue dealing damage to an enemy if they are right on your tail. Or if juking somebody, use the tip I mentioned where you do a long distance juke with the shadow, but after swapping, slow the enemy with
Shadow Slash just for safe measures.



This is what makes


You're going to want to max out

Tips and Tricks
Death Mark places a
Living Shadow at your location when you started ult'ing. Because of this you can jump in, get the kill, and swap with your shadow by pressing R again once you are done.
- You can tower dive low health enemies with
Death Mark even if you are at low health too. First, you use
Death Mark. Then, you can
Ignite and instantly swap places with your shadow. Once you have swapped, you can
Shadow Slash and then
Razor Shuriken.
- The distance that you can swap with your
Death Mark is huge. You can cover insane distances by swapping with your ult
Living Shadow.
Zed Becomes untargetable as he is dashing to his target during
Death Mark. You can use these invincibility frames to dodge certain spells.
- When you have done enough damage that will guarantee a kill with your
Death Mark's proc, a Shuriken will appear above the enemies head. This lets you know that you can safely retreat and wait for the satisfying bloody "Pop."


Ability Sequence Order
Our first basic ability we want to max out is ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |


Items
Item Sequence

Boots of Mobility - Homeguard
1250

Blade of the Ruined King
3200

Youmuu's Ghostblade
2800

Last Whisper
1450

Maw of Malmortius
3100

Guardian Angel
3200
![]() |
This is considered a core item on ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
![]() |





















































Unlike other Assassins such as ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() At around level 3 you can start becoming a huge bully to the enemy. You want to throw out your ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() If you have poked down the enemy quite a bit, you can get a kill before you even get your ult. Simply wait till they are in range. Throw out a ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |


Now you should have a few of your core items. A ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() If you cannot roam for whatever reason, or you just can't get anything out of the enemy if you roam, then I advise you try to take your enemies tier 1 turret (tier 2 if possible) and just farm up a lot. Just cuz you have a lot of kills does not mean you do not need to farm. Always keep upon your CS. |


As I mentioned earlier, you want to roam and ward the enemy jungle. You don't have to waste too much money on wards, just buy 1 or 2. We will save our trinket ward for escapes and warding our lane from the enemy jungler. Here is a map giving examples of where to ward.

- Yellow: Vital to protect the jungler on your team
- Blue: For protection depending on which lane you're on
- Red: To guard Dragon and Baron
- Orange: In order to Counter-Jungle
The Blue Circles by each side of the river in mid lane is where you should be warding early on with your trinket and and stealth wards. Mid lane is the shortest lane, but can get ganked on either side. Most mid laners know to place a ward on one side and then stick to that side. If they get ganked, they can retreat to safety since the enemy jungler is ganking from afar. And if the jungler is coming from the side you warded, you can see him so you know to back off.
The Orange Circles are where you should be warding when you are roaming. The enemy jungler will most likely go through there. And the Yellow Circles are where you ward to protect your jungler and to have vision of your jungle if you are losing. The enemies will most likely be roaming your jungle if they have a lead and have taken a lot of towers.
Aditionally, I am starting to like placing wards by the bush behind the enemies red, and a ward by their wraiths. It gives me great coverage and vision of where there jungler is. You can also place a deep, risky ward all the way in that bush that is sort of adjacent to the bush by red buff. It is to the right of the enemy junglers golems if you are on Blue side. A pink there provides amazing coverage for the whole game and a lot of people never bother to check there.


If for whatever reason, your team simply cannot win in a full on 5v5 (wombo combo comps, team has better engage, etc.) You are going to want to split push. This is a strategy that forces the enemy team to split up, thus making them fight-able or allowing somebody on your team to take objectives easily.




So when split pushing as Zed, I often like to push out the bottom lane. For two reasons:
- It is easier in my opinion to ward for that half of the map if you are purple side.
- Regardless of what side you spawn on, bottom lane is further away from Baron. Meaning your team can pressure Baron while you are bottom. And if the enemy team does have to split up to go after you and the Baron, then they are going to have to be way further apart then if you were pushing top lane.
Push the wave and start going Ham on the towers. Then, when you have pushed it out very far (Preferably past tier 2 turret.) Then the enemy team is going to send somebody down to push the wave out. Most likely the enemy ADC (I will never call them Marksman rito. You better MARK my words. Hue.) Anyway. wait in that tiny little bush on the side of the lane and when the enemy ADC comes to close, kill them before they even realized what happened. After that, you have effectively made it a 4v5. Now you can either get a free turret, inhib, etc. Or if the enemy team comes to stop and try to kill you, then your teammates can take objectives at mid, baron, etc.
I am going to provide a map done in Microsoft Paint with places you should be warding up when you are split pushing. Split pushing can be dangerous especially if they send the whole team after you. You need good ward coverage in order to protect yourself. These pictures will be done from the prospective of blue side, but apply the same ideas to purple side.

If you are going to be splitting top inner and inhibitor turret, you want wards in around those areas. By all means add more wherever you want. But those are two of your best/safest bets. If they go through these spots, you will see them coming and can leave. If not, they have to go around your wards or through the river which will take a long time and you will already be gone.

These are for when you are splitting outer and inner turret, since you can be got from any angle, you need wards on all three sides basically.

This is if you are splitting bot lane. Always have a ward in the blue bush, it covers a good center point of that side of the jungle. If you are deep, put a ward at the top toward the walls protecting their base/around that general area. If not deep, ward around dragon. River control is always important.


When it comes to team fights as Zed you want to sit in the back and wait a few seconds before instantly jumping in. Maybe wait out some important ultimates like ![]() ![]() Once you see an opportunity to kill your target, either jump in with your ![]() ![]() ![]() And don't worry if you die in the fight. As long as you take one or two people down with you, especially the high priority squishies/carries, then it was worth. Now your team can mop up and take objectives or even just win the game. However, because of ![]() |


![]() |
![]() This is my second guide on Mobafire, please let me know if it helped. Upvote the guide if it has helped you or you learned something new. Remember to Embrace the Shadows and that Balance is a Fools Master. -Alexwolf |
![]() |


Q: Who will ask the first question about

A: I do not know. Let us wait till the guide gets some views and then we shall see if any cool questions arise.


3/20/15
- Just edited my masteries a bit to keep up with my personal preferences that I've been using lately.
- Looking to fix my lolrecorder or find a new recording software so I can get video demonstrations for you guys.
- Peace, sex-monkeys.
10/26/14
- Added new elixirs in the guide, get them once you are full build.
- Changed my Armor/flat hp seals to all Scaling HP Seals. Just a preference thing. Armor or Flat HP is still viable guys.
- Happy Holidays all, hope you have a good one~
10/26/14
- Guide has just been published, no changes have been made yet!
- Going to be making a chapter labeled "Lane Matchups" and I shall go over champions you will most likely see in lane. Explaining how to deal with each one in specific. But for now the raw parts of the guide are finished.

You must be logged in to comment. Please login or register.