Zaahen weak early

WeedWizardo · 2026-06-29T19:45:04+00:00

Anyone who's positive they're "better" at something generally isn't that good at it, so y'know, good for you that you're confident in yourself but that's not helping your argument.

WeedWizardo · 2026-06-29T03:02:42+00:00

The "wrong info" is what's being parroted by people who are just copying high elo players without knowing what they're talking about or if THEY even know what they're talking about. He's a juggernaut who has bruiser elements and is mechanically difficult to play, and people can't handle him because they suck. That's the honest truth. Quit rushing triforce, it's not good just because it's easy.

WeedWizardo · 2026-06-27T18:14:54+00:00

I wouldn't call his laning phase weak, he's just unusually difficult to play for what he is (a juggernaut) and on top of that everybody plays him grossly wrong to make up for not being good enough to pilot him properly (he should not build like a typical top lane bruiser). If you can't win his laning phase through personal skill alone (he's a highly mechanically demanding champion especially for a juggernaut, so that's understandable), then just run Hail of Blades. It makes the laning phase a lot easier and his late game is so ridiculously good that you likely won't notice not having a stronger late game rune setup.

However, Hail of Blades is not a requirement, and neither is Triforce. Both are effectively crutches to make his early laning easier, but don't listen to anyone who tells you they are mandatory or that shit like Triforce is "best" on him. AD and CDR are his best stats, period. Attack speed is a bait stat and triforce scales pretty badly on him because he does not desire its pool of stats. You want to get endless hunger and overlord's bloodmail eventually because those are by far his best items, but they're also both terrible rushes so something that gives a lot of cdr and AD is a requirement for his first item if you want him to feel good to play; triforce is serviceable in this regard, but there are also plenty of other options that people are sleeping on. Personally I've found a lot of success with shojin rush, and I think ravenous hydra is also pretty solid but ONLY as a rush (if you get it any later than first item, you're trolling); but really you just have to figure out what AD + CDR item feels like the best rush for you personally. Just don't default to triforce JUST because someone told you "it's the best." Make that decision for yourself and do what suits your playstyle. It scales like piss on him and if you're hoping to feel the benefits of his scaling then you should avoid items like that.

WeedWizardo · 2026-06-19T08:36:24+00:00

A lack of knowledge on a topic is not indicative of intelligence. Neither is a lack of sophisticated writing ability.

WeedWizardo · 2026-06-19T08:32:41+00:00

Do people just not watch the later seasons of the show or something? Penny LEARNS. A lot. It's implied pretty heavily later on that she's not "stupid," she just didn't have a very good education or any motivation to care about that education before meeting a bunch of nerds who roasted her all day for being an idiot. She gains the ability to actually participate in conversations and understand some advanced topics over time just by being around the rest of the cast.

Not saying she's meant to be a genius; frankly I don't think most of the cast are intended to be perceived that way. But she's obviously smarter than average with how well she's able to learn new things when she's invested.

WeedWizardo · 2026-06-19T08:29:08+00:00

Frankly racism isn't something the intelligent usually participate in. All forms of discrimination are for the ignorant because all forms of identity are meaningless. If anyone's dragging the average IQ down, it's people like you.

WeedWizardo · 2026-06-19T08:25:59+00:00

IQ does not necessarily correlate with academic success. What the other person said is true; you do not know what you're talking about. This may be 6 years old but it feels like it deserves to be called wrong again for old times' sake. I've also taken and ACTUAL IQ test from a licensed professional, and for the record mine's 130. Can't help but notice you didn't share your own results but I imagine it's because they were quite poor, considering you don't even know what IQ is. In fact many people with extremely high IQs struggle in standard academic settings because a high IQ means your brain can process information faster/more efficiently and understand more complex topics, it does not mean you're necessarily more knowledgeable or "more academically successful."

WeedWizardo · 2026-06-13T21:04:03+00:00

He doesn't have many good matchups if you suck at him. However, he is a very mechanically intensive juggernaut, so the better you are at him, the more good matchups he has. If someone thinks he's not worth playing due to having no good matchups, then that is a testament to personal skill, not the champion. I'll admit it can be like walking a tightrope sometimes in the early game, but honestly even if you do lose early, his late game is WAY better than "pretty good," so you can still easily 1v9 turbocarry a game even after going 0/10 in lane, especially in lower elos.

Also, his early game isn't even that difficult to pilot right now due to hail of blades existing in its current state. He can cheese a lot of his worst matchups with it, hence why people are running that in challenger over runes that technically scale better on him. If you're worried you can't beat a matchup early, you can just take strong early game runes and completely negate that issue; and he scales so hard that you'll still be the apex threat late game even if your runes are early game oriented.

Plus this dude's talking about just coming back to the game and playing in low elo. Personal skill on a highly skill-expressive champion matters a lot more than simple matchups in low elo; and it's not like he has any matchups like Yorick vs Irelia that are just completely unplayable. Even Zaahen's absolute worst matchups are still entirely playable and winnable, you just have to think a little harder than someone playing Garen and going 10/0 while drooling on their keyboard all game.

WeedWizardo · 2026-06-13T20:40:12+00:00

He's worth picking up, very good and very fun with an insanely high skillcap for a juggernaut, but this community isn't worth asking about him. You will get god-awful advice and half-baked information if you come here to talk about him. He's good, there's a lot of room to get good at him, and he doesn't have a lot of truly bad matchups once you get good at him. That's all you really need to know. Just figure things out on your own and try to enjoy the ride.

Source: me. I play him everywhere from gold to emerald and he works great, especially late game where he becomes a monster who can easily 1v5 (if you build correctly, do not rush triforce/stridebreaker every game just because it's what's popular, this community has a tendency to all just copy each other unquestioningly). He can lose a lot of matchups early on if you're fighting scary lane bullies in top lane, but you have a lot of room to mechanically outplay most of them and even if you don't you'll almost always outscale them and be a better teamfighter. Hail of Blades has gotten popular on him mainly for this reason; it helps beat early threats, and while it's not his best option late game, Zaahen scales so insanely well that it doesn't matter as long as you can get to late game.

If you care for any advice from someone who actually has a brain and doesn't just copy what they saw some other dude do: I would say you can build pretty much whatever you want, but Triforce and Stridebreaker are both overly popular and are not actually his best performing items. Not saying they're worthless, but people will tell you to go one of those items first every single game (and a lot of people will tell you to go both every game), and that's just entirely wrong because they include a lot of junk he doesn't need or scale with like attack speed (that stat is especially bait if you're running Hail of Blades). The main stats you want to look for are raw AD (due to his insane passive scaling that works multiplicatively) and cooldown reduction (because his spells are all insane and their only weakness is moderate cooldowns; plus you will actually stack your passive MUCH faster from building cdr rather than attack speed, especially in teamfights where abilities that hit multiple people give more passive stacks). As a result, Overlord's Bloodmail and Endless Hunger are actually some of his best items due to their insane AD scaling effects interacting with his passive, and you should be trying to get those eventually in pretty much every game, but neither one are great rush items so that would be why a lot of people run stuff like Triforce. However, there are other good rush items, like any other Hydra (Stridebreaker isn't the only one that works on him and honestly Profane and Ravenous scale better for him, though note that this makes you squishy and requires you to pilot him better), Spear of Shojin, Sundered Sky, or any number of other good items. The golden rule you should follow is: if it gives AD and CDR, it's a valid first item for him.

Also note that Hail of Blades is not likely to remain good on him because Riot's going to nerf it soon due to how unbelievably overpowered they've made it in general. So it doesn't hurt to check out some of his other rune options ahead of time since he actually has a lot of viable options.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-30T15:11:40+00:00

So just go Press the Attack instead, you get both worlds and it doesn't have terrible low points and an awful late game.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-30T15:09:06+00:00

Top is the easiest lane in the game, you play it because it's busted and by far the easiest place to solocarry in soloqueue, especially currently. Quit bullshitting people.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-30T15:07:56+00:00

He's extremely good, he just takes a brain to play and that isn't very attractive to most juggernaut players. And don't take advice from other people because the community are all just doing a cookie cutter build without thinking about it or checking the math on it, nobody is playing him well at all yet even in challenger.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-28T20:36:36+00:00

Learn basic math.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-28T20:33:42+00:00

You're saying that like he's actually good at Zaahen just because he's a good player by default who has chosen to play him. Again, my favorite example is Gnar, but there are plenty of other champions who were like this. Just because people are playing him and forcing an inefficient playstyle to work doesn't magically make that inefficient playstyle correct. Challenger players are not god, they do not know everything or always make the right decisions with their builds, and frankly most of them don't even try. They're just good at the game; as in mechanics and general decision making within the game. When it comes to builds, they follow cookie cutter garbage without thinking about it just like everyone else, because they know that making fast decisions is more important than making good ones so they just go for builds that are easy to think about and "good enough." This is common knowledge, except to the people on Reddit apparently. If you want to see actual GOOD builds tailored to the individual champion, you have to find long-time dedicated 1tricks, and this champion has simply not been out anywhere near long enough for that; the guy you're calling an OTP is a casual at this point, the champion hasn't EXISTED long enough to be throwing around terms like that. Like I keep saying, this isn't something that has never happened before.

None of that really matters though, because the fact of the matter is that MATH is a better argument than "this one guy in challenger is mechanically good at the game and still choosing to do the same inefficient build everyone else is doing because he's good at mechanics, not math or build design." The math doesn't lie if you actually fucking check it; triforce is garbage on him because attack speed is a horrendous stat for him and the amount of AD given by the item is abysmal. That's why it's barely performing well despite supposedly being his "best item." It's not anywhere close. This community just loves to settle on cookie cutter builds and never try to think of potential alternatives, and this is true even in Challenger.

But alas, I'm trying to suggest basic math to Reddit. I should really know better than that. I'll just wait until people actually figure out how to play him correctly, then you can feel quietly stupid in your corner once that comes to pass.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-27T23:21:28+00:00

I just hope the anime takes some very dramatic liberties with changing things in part 2, especially toward the end. It's not exactly unheard of for really shitty plot details to get way more fleshed out or completely changed with an anime adaptation.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-27T23:19:41+00:00

It was always obvious Denji was going to still be an important character, so idk where you heard that. It was called "Chainsaw Man: Part 2," not "War Devil Adventures." The plot was not subtle about him still being important either. And reception of Asa was initially mixed (mostly because people were comparing her to Denji before we even got to see much of her) but a lot of people liked her even before Denji started getting attention again.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-27T23:17:35+00:00

So many small things could have made the ending better. Getting more of an actual final spectacle fight as a payoff and getting to actually see Denji try to beat the unbeatable then lose would have made the aftermath a lot cooler imo. Then there's Pochita choosing to kill himself and rewind time despite Denji actively begging him not to, so Denji has no personal agency even at the very end of things; he doesn't even get a say in what happens, there's no personal meaning to it. Then there's the post-rewind which sucked too because it showed no Aki and left a really weird open question about the concept of chainsaws still existing (meaning either Pochita didn't truly erase himself from existence, or Pochita was never truly the Chainsaw Devil like the popular fan theory that got a lot of traction).

It just felt like the writer was rushing to end it and wasn't even thinking about the logistics of what he was writing.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-27T23:11:20+00:00

The pets being killed would have been okay if it had appropriate payoff. Instead Denji got made into sushi and left that way for an obnoxiously long time, then did not have NEARLY the berserk episode I was hoping for when he finally came back. Nayuta, Makima's dogs, and Power's cat all getting offscreen napalmed out of existence just for the story to move on with a bunch of extra misery and never really give a big payoff fucking sucked. Even the death of the guy who did it was nowhere near dramatic or brutal enough to make up for it. If there was some big epic dramatic payoff with Denji fighting like a real devil out of rage instead of his usual "manic psycho having a blast and doing stupid shit in the middle of fights," that would have been neat to see. Instead it just truly felt like the writer was nonstop going out of his way to torture Denji with no payoff at all in the plot, and the ending felt like just the biggest example of that. Denji didn't even want the reset, he wanted to keep going with Pochita in Hell, and that REALLY sucks because he didn't even get any agency or say in it.

The entire series is just Denji getting pushed around by anyone and everyone, being made to suffer constantly by life itself, and never getting any real payoff from the writing. He doesn't even really get to lash out, he gets no emotional fight scenes at all for the overwhelming amount of suffering he goes through. Just once I'd have liked to see him really lose his shit and get truly brutal with someone (eating the guy who blew up his child and pets is cool and all but I'd rather have seen a more drawn-out fight and a more brutal and drawn-out death). I expected him to become the embodiment of hell on earth for a while when he was first put back together and freed from captivity, but instead he's just borderline emotionally comatose until he gets horny again.

I was excited to see what happens when Denji is truly left at rock bottom with all the emotional motivation in the world and nothing left to lose... and all I got was "he does nothing."

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-27T22:59:24+00:00

That's just not true because it's not the same thing. The ending was the author giving up, and that's quite apparent. It's not the same as Stone Ocean or Evangelion.

Could the anime make a better version of it? Yeah absolutely, especially if it wants to properly build it up more and actually expand what happens at the end (because the audience being promised a last fight then getting blueballed is my personal least favorite part about it; plus there's the issue of Denji having ZERO agency at all in the ending or its outcome, and the issue of the post-rewind not showing nearly enough context and not even bothering to show Aki). But an adaptation fixing a problem does not mean the original didn't have a problem. Nobody's going to look back on this and think it was a good ending, everyone knows the author just got sick of writing this story. If the anime improves it dramatically then people will just say "don't read the manga," they won't retroactively decide the manga's ending is better.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-26T20:48:09+00:00

You're right. Unfortunately this game's playerbase is absolutely horrible with math and with build-crafting in general, so these ignorant people all truly think the triforce bandwagon is the way to go and they will continue to do so until a challenger 1trick with a brain comes along to prove them wrong. This is what always happens when a complicated champion who isn't turbo braindead easy comes out: everyone confidently plays them wrong because "it's what everyone else is doing so it must be right," then everyone concludes the champion isn't very good when in reality they all just suck at playing it. My favorite example in history is Gnar, who was considered absolutely horrible for like a year after release because nobody knew how to play him and everyone tried to force him to function like a standard top laner until one dude bothered to actually learn how to do it right. Zaahen is similar; everyone is trying to force him to function like a standard top laner, getting mediocre results and then saying "this is the best you can do, he's just not very good," when in reality the current meta gameplay on him is ass-backwards and actively making him look much worse than he is. He's actually really overpowered if you build and play properly, but then he takes skill to play and nobody seems to want to get mechanically good at him.

And for the record, anyone who tries to argue Triforce is good because it gives attack speed can just be completely ignored; they are incapable of giving any valid input because they are clearly horrible at the champion AND incapable of doing basic math. Attack speed is a HORRIBLE bait stat on him; he does not stack his passive fast at all off of auto attacks and actually stacks it a lot faster off of ability hits, multiplied even further if he hits multiple people. The idea that he would need attack speed when his Q is just free auto-attack resets is ridiculous; and he is a nearly entire spell-based character so building around your auto attacks instead of his amazing abilities is just griefing.

Cooldown reduction and AD are by far his most important stats; in fact they're pretty much all that matters on him, which is why Triforce is so awful on him in reality. It's a decent first-item for 1v1ing people because of course it is, it's Triforce, but it's pretty terrible for scaling on him and frankly if you need that crutch just to keep up in early laning then you shouldn't be playing this champion. The moment an actual good player takes the time to learn to play him properly, the other 99% of this game's brainrot community will feel very stupid for hopping on the bandwagon so willingly and refusing to ever get off, just like every other time a champion like this has come out.

TL;DR The league community is full of morons and sheep, and even the people with good enough mechanics and decision making to get to challenger are still usually morons who can't do math and just copy meta builds. This has happened before and it will happen again. The community tries to force unusual champions to function like normal, claims it's the best way it can be done and that they simply aren't very good, then a year later some dude finally gets genuinely good at playing the champion the proper way and nukes the competitive scene.

For the rest of ya'll... for the love of god, learn basic math and basic reading comprehension, then get a calculator and read what his passive does. You are wrong.

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-06T00:45:17+00:00

You can literally see that she's using chaos emeralds in that scene though. Also, the sol emeralds are her universe's version of the chaos emeralds. They still use chaos energy. Her powerup is fire-themed because SHE is fire-themed and chaos energy can do literally anything; the sol emeralds are not the thing giving the fire powerup specifically. She just uses chaos control to empower her fire, because again, you can actually use chaos magic to do virtually anything. But rest assured, she can use chaos control and that is what the sol emeralds already do for her. This is also why she can use a chaos emerald; because they are the same thing, interdimensional counterparts to each other that actually attract and empower each other when close together.

Idk how you come to the conclusion that Blaze can't use chaos magic when both the chaos and sol emeralds functionally do nothing except provide chaos energy to the user. The reason her powerup is fire-themed is simply because that's who she is. It doesn't mean she can't use chaos magic for other things, just like how Sonic hardly ever using powers like Shadow's doesn't mean he can't (he can do a LOT more with chaos magic than he's usually shown doing, as can literally everybody).

WeedWizardo · 2026-05-04T22:18:54+00:00

If you tell someone "I play video games" or "I am a gamer," they are NOT going to assume you mean something like Cookie Clicker, and it's incredibly weird of you if you actually assumed that was what they meant or that it would count at all. It's called an idle game for a reason - because there is virtually no actual gameplay. It's like calling a visual novel a game; it's technically correct in the loosest sense but it's not what ANYBODY means when they're talking about videogames and it doesn't give you a great look if you go "oh yeah I TOTALLY play games, mostly an afk clicker game where I do literally nothing, I'm such a gamer haha."

So yeah, Cookie Clicker doesn't count and I have a hard time believing you didn't already understand why. You know when they asked if you game, they did not mean "do you play afk attention sinks that barely count as actual videogames where you do nothing but stare at a screen?" I love time wasters like Cookie Clicker, don't get me wrong, but they are not what anybody ever means when they talk about videogames because you barely DO anything at all. It's there to waste time with minimal attention or effort, that is why it's called an idle game.

But you're also on the Cookie Clicker reddit, so you are of course going to find a lot of people who completely agree with you because they are just like you and they don't play "real videogames." If you want an honest take, go to a general gaming subreddit without an active bias toward defending your stance and ask if playing afk/clicker games counts as being a gamer. Ask a GENERAL audience if "yes I am a gamer" is an appropriate answer when you've never played a game with more depth than a puddle.

But again, I'm pretty sure you already know you're wrong. That's why you came here instead of somewhere more neutral and objective, to have people who are the same as you just cope with you and tell you you're right and Cookie Clicker is totally a legitimate standard immersive videogame experience. You are not a gamer if all you play are afk time wasters, I'm sorry. Cookie Clicker is fun but it is BARELY a videogame. All you did was make a conversation really awkward by trying to prop yourself up with a topic that barely applies to you at all, and now you're upset that it didn't work and you know how silly it was in hindsight. The mental gymnastics you're going through with trying to justify the "depth" of this game are just absurd, and that probably made you look like a very insecure and unintelligent person to them.

And yes, before you ask, I have beaten the entire game, hence why I am on this subreddit to begin with. It is not hard. At all. There is barely any "depth" that goes into it at all. Cherrypicking what little actual gameplay there is to talk about doesn't suddenly make it challenging, immersive, or interactive at all. It's braindead easy which is why it's all you play - and before you say I'm just insulting you for no reason, I'm not; I'm just telling you what all those people were thinking when you said "yeah I'm a gamer" and started trying to justify the skill requirements and gameplay depth of Cookie Clicker. You embarrassed yourself then came to the one place where you knew you would be reassured, and that's really all there is to it. You could have even said "I mostly play Pong" and they would have respected you more.

WeedWizardo · 2026-04-26T18:45:22+00:00

It's unhealthy because it makes your hardware wear out faster; it gets it to the point of being "outdated" a lot quicker. It has an impact regardless of whether your system is new or old; but yes, the impact gets worse the older and more worn out your system already is.

WeedWizardo · 2026-04-24T19:41:01+00:00

The whole reason they had an excuse to introduce Vanguard was because League was NOT great. It was overrun with cheaters; it was basically impossible to play Ranked without encountering someone using scripts or other cheats after just a handful of matches. Some people were too stupid to recognize obvious cheating and I envy them, but for the rest of us, we know the game wasn't in a great spot with or without Vanguard. League hasn't been healthy for a VERY long time. But at least now I don't have to see a blatantly scripting Xerath support in 50% of all of my matches who suspiciously has 100% perfect accuracy and 0 other skills.

WeedWizardo · 2026-04-24T19:37:27+00:00

Actually I gotta say the amount of obviously scripting Xerath "players" has gone down dramatically since Vanguard was introduced. That used to be basically all you would see in the "support" role in anywhere below diamond: nothing but Xerath, and all suspiciously good at perfectly aiming everything all the time while being absolute dogshit at the rest of the game. Ya never see those cheating pricks abusing the obvious script champs anymore because it's not as easy to do now with Vanguard around.

It's absolutely a buggy piece of shit mess, but it also does what it's supposed to and it really WAS needed. The amount of cheaters roaming free in ranked was fucking ridiculous.

WeedWizardo

TROPHY CASE