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On November 19 2012 21:28 ReachTheSky wrote:
It appears that Zilean is the flavor of the month nowadays. I'm thinking of picking up the 2% XP quints for him. Could anyone tell me how beneficial this is combined with his passive while running 9-0-21? Would you run the XP quints over say flat ap quints? How much faster do you out level your opponent? Are you able to hit lvl 4 while they are still lvl 2 if you soak up xp from wolves/blue from the jungler?
The XP needed from 1-4 is a total of 1170. The lowest XP you can have while still being level two is 669. Even if his passive, masteries and runes would stack additively (which IIRC they don't, but do not quote me on that), he would basically need a 100% XP boost to reach lvl 4 while the enemy laner is still 2.
I am not 100% sure what I said was correct, but I am pretty certain that if there were ways to level up twice as fast as your enemies, people would have figured these out. I distinctively remember TSM experimenting with XP quints in the jungle at the start of S2 erreach 4 after your first clear, but it didn't work.
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When trying to clear waves as Zilean, try to use only one bomb per wave. This isn't always possible, but you can autoattack the enemy laner to move the creeps around, or if you're in a matchup that lets you get away with it you can slap a bomb on yourself and run into the middle of the creeps. Autoattack the creeps to get them into one-bomb range if possible (obviously, not much help with level 1 bombs).
Here's some numbers on the experience: (116 + 16 + 16 + 5 + 5 + 64) experience from wolves and blue * 1.19 (all your extra XP stuff) * 1.15 (split experience bonus) from blue (do jungle monsters still give the XP boost?) = 303 experience, putting you at level 2. Each wave is ~270 experience (plus 92 every third wave) for the first few levels. You'll get about 325 xp/wave with an extra 110 every third wave, putting you at level 3 after one and a half waves and level 4 after the first siege minion wave. The extra xp generated by your 6% increase from quints at this point is going to be around 70; you'd hit 4 off the siege wave even without them
XP quints are good on champions that really love hitting 6 before their opponent. Zilean doesn't need it nearly as much because his ult is defensive, especially since he's already probably going to hit 6 first. Soner used to run XP quints on Nidalee and have me play Zil mid, so that he hit 6 around when the enemy laner hit 5. Then he just dunked all over them. He also took all the buffs and got mad if someone else took them :<
For what it's worth, if you end up having to itemize 40% CDR to make up for no blue buff, here's what you should do:
If you're worried about high physical burst (i.e. vs rengar) get a glacial shroud and a HoG, and build towards an eventual Frozen Heart and Randuin's. Fill in the remaining 10% with either blue pots or Kindlegem (which you can sell later to finish things). If you're feeling threatened by magic burst, get a Kindlegem into Shurelya's or Zeke's (whichever is more helpful to your team), and either spam blue pots or get another kindlegem.
Oh, I should mention that I run flat CDR blues in most matchups and blind pick. It's easier to buy a NMM than 5% cdr.
I usually take E at level 2 if the enemy jungle or lane hates being slowed (i.e. Udyr, Nasus) or I think an early gank is likely. I usually don't go for double bomb harass until level 3 bombs; some matchups you rarely get close enough to bomb anything and should QWQ whenever you have a chance.
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Viegar is a decent pick against Zilean. Levels 2-3 are tricky, but once you hit 4 Event Horizon can stop him from dropping his double bomb on you, winning you trades. Your combo only gets more dangerous for him past that point. After 6 you can whittle him down and one shot him while he's stuck in your stun. Forces him into Mercs and other MR items which severely gimps his already mediocre team fight damage.
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I disagree there. Veigar is one of the few champs with more mana problems than Zilean. If he trades a bomb for your QE, that's going to be roughly even on damage and unfavorable for Veigar's mana. At 6 it does become harder, but hardly to the hardcounter point. Unless you rush deathcap or something he's not going to be able to one-shot you (this is a matchup where I'd get sorcs - guise probably) and your damage grows significantly faster than his.
Oh, you also outrange him pretty severely. The first several levels are very painful for Veigar.
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I don't think Veigar can kill Zilean in lane.... which is problematic.
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On November 20 2012 10:45 Tooplark wrote:
I disagree there. Veigar is one of the few champs with more mana problems than Zilean. If he trades a bomb for your QE, that's going to be roughly even on damage and unfavorable for Veigar's mana. At 6 it does become harder, but hardly to the hardcounter point. Unless you rush deathcap or something he's not going to be able to one-shot you (this is a matchup where I'd get sorcs - guise probably) and your damage grows significantly faster than his.
Oh, you also outrange him pretty severely. The first several levels are very painful for Veigar.
Viegar can use his E to outrange Zilean though, giving him a free, albeit expensive trade. He needs to be careful not to eat bombs while E is on CD, but if it happens he can make sure it pushes the lane, leaving him safer from future bombs. Trades are rough on his mana, but his passive makes things like Dorans scale extremely well giving him a much higher effective mana pool to work with. In the end you're mostly looking to survive the first few levels before you get a couple of DRings and your ultimate before you become dangerous. Good Viegar's don't need to 100-0 you either. A couple of trades and you're in danger of being gibbed without using your ultimate.
He's a hard counter by any means, but not the worst option out there.
The real problem is all this harassing isn't what Viegar likes to do with his early game. More mana spent on harassment means less mana charging up your AP with Q. Realistically some you might need some jungle presence in the first couple of levels to keep Zilean on the backfoot.
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On November 20 2012 11:39 Amarok wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2012 10:45 Tooplark wrote:
I disagree there. Veigar is one of the few champs with more mana problems than Zilean. If he trades a bomb for your QE, that's going to be roughly even on damage and unfavorable for Veigar's mana. At 6 it does become harder, but hardly to the hardcounter point. Unless you rush deathcap or something he's not going to be able to one-shot you (this is a matchup where I'd get sorcs - guise probably) and your damage grows significantly faster than his.
Oh, you also outrange him pretty severely. The first several levels are very painful for Veigar. Viegar can use his E to outrange Zilean though, giving him a free, albeit expensive trade. He needs to be careful not to eat bombs while E is on CD, but if it happens he can make sure it pushes the lane, leaving him safer from future bombs. Trades are rough on his mana, but his passive makes things like Dorans scale extremely well giving him a much higher effective mana pool to work with. In the end you're mostly looking to survive the first few levels before you get a couple of DRings and your ultimate before you become dangerous. Good Viegar's don't need to 100-0 you either. A couple of trades and you're in danger of being gibbed without using your ultimate. He's a hard counter by any means, but not the worst option out there. The real problem is all this harassing isn't what Viegar likes to do with his early game. More mana spent on harassment means less mana charging up your AP with Q. Realistically some you might need some jungle presence in the first couple of levels to keep Zilean on the backfoot.
That sounds to me like "Veigar can outplay Zilean".
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On November 19 2012 23:54 Tooplark wrote:
When trying to clear waves as Zilean, try to use only one bomb per wave. This isn't always possible, but you can autoattack the enemy laner to move the creeps around, or if you're in a matchup that lets you get away with it you can slap a bomb on yourself and run into the middle of the creeps. Autoattack the creeps to get them into one-bomb range if possible (obviously, not much help with level 1 bombs).
That's good advice. Although I agree, dangerous depending on the enemy AP carry so you'll have to use your judgement.
Been toying around with the idea of playing more Zilean. Mid and support.
I feel like his mid game sustained damage is a bit low but I've been able to push people out of lane a lot with harass.
He needs tons of mana regen from runes.
Also he's so squishy...
Late game though, with max CDR, he gets damage all the time thanks to the nature of his W and how it works with cdr.
QEWQ
followed by
QQW after 6 seconds
wait 2 seconds
E
wait 4 seconds
QQW
repeat until enemy team dead or you run out of mana.
That averages out to 1.8 AP ratio in an AoE every 6 seconds.
Although the games I played my Xin went 18-3 off a lvl 2 snowball and the other one my top and mid did really well. Full AD Xin is scary.
Also I obviously don't care about damage if I'm going support and just build regularly. Both builds I prefer getting a chalice, but supports really don't have the luxury of not getting a gp10 quickly like sightsone. The lack of sustain sucks and I'm horrible at using mikaels so I've just been using it to heal myself.
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Support Zilean isn't bad, but I've found it consistently runs into a few problems:
1) Your harass gives the enemy so much control of their lane. They can essentially force you to push. This can sometimes be ok, as Zil isn't the easiest champ in the world to gank, but it's still not what you want all the time.
2) You're working off limited gold and you already have to pick up Sightstone (non-negotiable) and probably Locket. This gives you no room to get any sort of AP, and most of your remaining gold is going to CDR and defensive stats. It's hard to cap cdr in a reasonable time frame.
3) With no AP, you're not contributing nearly as much to teamfights as most other supports, unless you have some REALLY manmode Jax or Xin or something, both hard to kill and really damaging.
4) Too squishy.
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United States47024 Posts
His burst mana demand is also just really damn high if you're really pushing your spell usage to its limit. Same issue as trying to run support Anivia really.
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zilean is a legit support, his utility is insane with no items and his laning can be good.
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On January 29 2013 07:15 Tooplark wrote:
Support Zilean isn't bad, but I've found it consistently runs into a few problems:
1) Your harass gives the enemy so much control of their lane. They can essentially force you to push. This can sometimes be ok, as Zil isn't the easiest champ in the world to gank, but it's still not what you want all the time.
2) You're working off limited gold and you already have to pick up Sightstone (non-negotiable) and probably Locket. This gives you no room to get any sort of AP, and most of your remaining gold is going to CDR and defensive stats. It's hard to cap cdr in a reasonable time frame.
3) With no AP, you're not contributing nearly as much to teamfights as most other supports, unless you have some REALLY manmode Jax or Xin or something, both hard to kill and really damaging.
4) Too squishy.
Regarding #2, I don't think capping CDR is all that hard. With 9/0/21 masteries you're already at 10%, and if you're planning on Locket you're already looking at another 10%. If capping as soon as possible is your goal CDR boots + Glyphs will take you the rest of the way, and there are other options if you're going to take your time.
#1 and #3 don't sound like problems as much as team composition/strategy considerations.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
#1 and #3 ARE issues, because they limit what champions can you pick. If you want to play support Zilean, either you can't pick your support early, which is kinda bad (there are quite a few firstpickable supports, like Lulu, Zyra and Nunu) or you have to pick Zilean early and limit your teamcomp (which both support and middle lane Zilean does).
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On January 29 2013 07:44 Scip wrote:
#1 and #3 ARE issues, because they limit what champions can you pick. If you want to play support Zilean, either you can't pick your support early, which is kinda bad (there are quite a few firstpickable supports, like Lulu, Zyra and Nunu) or you have to pick Zilean early and limit your teamcomp (which both support and middle lane Zilean does).
Yeah I really don't like #1 for yolo queue. I've been convinced to only run Zilean mid.
Though the current push meta might make good use of it.
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its perfectly fine to push bot, you can't win it any other way.
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On January 29 2013 07:23 TheYango wrote:
His burst mana demand is also just really damn high if you're really pushing your spell usage to its limit. Same issue as trying to run support Anivia really.
You'd think that the addition of Crucible helps by giving a good team-utility upgrade to chalice, but it benefits Taric/Sona/Alistar/Janna much more as they use spells on a long period of time, while Zilean really needs a big mana pool, and I can't think of many support-friendly items that give mana rather than mp5. Sure tear costs less gold, but it takes up a precious slot and you can't build it into anything team-oriented.
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On January 29 2013 07:44 Scip wrote:
#1 and #3 ARE issues, because they limit what champions can you pick. If you want to play support Zilean, either you can't pick your support early, which is kinda bad (there are quite a few firstpickable supports, like Lulu, Zyra and Nunu) or you have to pick Zilean early and limit your teamcomp (which both support and middle lane Zilean does).
I didn't say they are ignorable, I just don't think they are big enough issues to be considered "problems". They are considerations which limit the situations in which you will want to pick Zilean, but they aren't so problematic that you would never ever pick Zilean (mid or support).
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If you have Zil support have someone else carry Locket. IMO he works best as a 3rd/4th position character, and you can put him there either in mid (defer to top or jungle + AD) or run him as a support that gets some farm from the team (Fnatic I think was running AD Top/Mid comps with Zyra support that would get a decent amount of farm and rush Zhonya's for a decent teamfight impact).
Crucible or Athene's would probably be great on him. I've never been a huge Archangel's fan for "Need MR" items. Chalice isn't a complete stretch to get early, it's also viable on Sona IMO.
Again, viable and solo queue viable are two different beasts though.
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In solo Q you can often get farm as Zilean just by abusing your incredible mobility. Mid -> top, double bomb, and back is like 10 seconds thanks to time warp, so you can usually sneak out and clear a lane without missing a fight.
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Why don't we see more of this guy in competitive play? He seems to suit the early-aggression meta extremely well and neutralizes assassins like Zed and makes them look completely silly. He beats a lot of popular mid laners like TF and honestly very few mids can actually beat him in lane. His passive is extremely strong for close lanes + helps the jungle out a ton too, and he enables risk-free tower diving. He just seems like a hero that should be thriving right now especially overseas.
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EPT
