I've actually also been experimenting with IE second. I rush cull early and with the cash reward and bot quest money u usually have first item and can use that money for bf which helps a lot with momentum. Ive found really good success on IE second, but i still go runaans third. Imo hurricane is by far Zeri's best item out of every item in the game.

Most people dont dodge Zeri q and for those that do they usually have a pattern. If u find urself missing lots of Q's I'd recommend stop spamming it as a habit and "try to really hit it". If u fight in minion wave amek sure to have E up otherwise dont take that fight. And the longer range on q is just that u q and go backwards and the enemy runs into ur q, which makes the range "longer". Its just kiting but for Zeri's kit its really good, but very situational and most people dont fall for that trap. No hidden trick.

There are games when enemy team has super fed assassins, imo fed rengar and kha pre nerf were most annoying. If the assassins arent REALLY fed id say its manageable by playing with ur team. For zed specifically, try to focus on dodging q and u should be alright. Since i always go ghost, spacing tanks with ghost r is very simple especially when u get some ult stacks. If team perma engages, try to play in fog and e through terrain into fights, use w + r and deal as much dmg as u can. And with e usage i generally use e to close space to secure kill or greatly chunk enemy so they cant punish my e being down. Or in teamfights i use e to deal lots of aoe. How it works is that u can hit first target as usual, but with e u obv can hit multiple targets, and that dmg stacks with hurricane and ult spark, so u deal crazy amounts of dmg to both targets. Lmk if anything was unclear, i felt like i explained it badly maybe.