After the massive Ravenous Hydra nerfs in patch 12.23, Riot will be nerfing Zed in the upcoming patch 12.23b.
In every preseason, Riot introduces new items and significant gameplay changes to League of Legends. And this preseason is no exception. In preseason 2023, we received some jungle changes with the new jungle pets, communication changes, the return of Chemtech Drake, and new and adjusted items.
Some new items Riot introduced this preseason are, Jak’Sho, Radiant Virtue, etc. They also re-introduced some old removed items like the Rod of Ages, Spear of Shojin, etc. Moreover, Riot also adjusted some already existing items, one of them being Ravenous Hydra.
After the preseason patch, 12.22, almost all of the items mentioned earlier were overpowered at some point. And one of the more substantial items is the Ravenous Hydra. It’s a bruiser item that grants its user Omnivamp. And with this preseason change, Riot added a new unique passive, Carnivorous. This passive gave its user 0.6 AD and 0.1% omnivamp whenever they killed a minion, and the AD and omnivamp doubled the user slayed a large monster or a champion. This simple change turned Ravenous Hydra into a snowball item.
Many champions synergized well with Ravenous Hydra. One of them is Zed. Even with the nerf to Ravenous hydra, Zed was still very strong in meta. RiotPhroxzon even mentioned on Twitter that if the item nerf didn’t affect Zed, they would also nerf the champion.
Recently Riot announced all the champions who would receive nerfs in the upcoming patch, 12.23b. And one of the champions who would be receiving a sizable nerf is Zed.
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Zed Nerfs 12.23b
Q- Razor Shuriken
- Damage reduced from 80 – 220 to 70 – 210
E- Shadow Slash
- Damage reduced from 70 – 150 to 65 – 145
- Cooldown increased from 5 – 3 seconds to 5 – 4
In patch 12.22, before the Ravenous Hydra nerfs, Zed had over 53.07% win rate. In addition, his pick rate was 13.5%, and his ban rate was overwhelming, 47.6%. Moreover, during that patch, players always first bought Ravenous Hydra and never once purchased a single mythic item.
The Ravenous Hydra nerfs barely dent his win rate, as his current win rate is 52.39%. Moreover, his pick rate increased to 14.4%. Similarly, his ban rate also rose to 55.5%. Even now, players are still first buying Ravenous Hydra, but now players are at least opting for Duskblade as their second or third item. For that reason, Riot will nerf Zed in the upcoming patch 12.23b.
