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I actually do consider him OP and at the level of a first pick or ban. :-P
However since he's not popular I don't spend my ban on him. If he became popular I wouldn't be surprised Riot nerfed his rewind into scaling it's CD reduction based on skill level, I truely consider him that strong. Rewinds scaling with CDR thanks to being flat reduction is simply redunkulous.
Regarding his weakness' vs champions I found two issues.
1) Against champions with a strong all-in before level 6 is reached: Elise or Fizz for instance.
2) Champions who outrange him alot and have hard CC: Lux and Xerath for instance are a pain.
-- Twisted Fate is really anoying to play against thanks to equally strong wave clears and better roams. You have to rely on outscaling him in teamfights, which you do but it can be hard if he gains kills on his ults.
Zilean's power grows in my opinion and experience in spikes. Split up in the cases:
1) Tear (or another heavy mana item).
2) First blue buff.
3) A CDR item .
4) Capping CDR somehow.
-- in some cases having a constant 40%CDR through items and/or mastery/runes is great, suddenly losing 20% hurts alot in fights.
He's somewhat weak early (by early I mean before Tear), and you usually have to rely on mild harass or just attempt to turn it into a farm lane -- your opponent should take advantage of this as much as possible. If you're against another champion with an equally strong spike early (Kha getting Tear for instance) Zilean doesn't have the early game spike, in the sense you can truely abuse it - and you have to rely on either your next spike being stronger or simply outscaling for the lategame.
His biggest flaw in my opinion is how he develops through items early on, it grows in spikes and not "smooth" like most other champions; this grants the potential of abuse, should you be forced to back without being able to buy a breakpoint item.
- Well, his absolute biggest flaw is your allies most likely haven't played with a Zilean on your team often, which don't allow his kit to have it's highest potential; think allies not grabbing Thresh lanterns.
But I do consider him, as you said, a safe AP hyper carry with strong roaming which oftentimes also can be a lanebully and honestly on the OP spectrum of power.
EDIT: By hyper carry I don't think of it like in the traditional sense of a Vayne rolling in doing pentas left and right. But rather that Zilean simply just makes you win so easily through his versatility and game-breaking (both in figurative and literal sense) ultimate all of which being powered by a skillkit that scales so insanely strong from items.
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A couple reasons I think Zilean isn't picked:
He loses a few lanes pretty hard.
He can't shove as easily as many mages.
He's very team-dependant: if you don't have someone on your team who's worth ulting, zil loses a lot of his power
He tends to be vulnerable to assassins.
He doesn't get kills as much as just bully people out of lane.
He doesn't gain piles of damage as the game goes on, just incredible utility.
His ult loses a lot of its power in uncoordinated teams. (STOP RUNNING AWAY, YOU'RE GOING TO REVIVE)
In my experience, Zil levels off in power somewhat after 9, but gets a big spike when he hits 40% cdr and another big one when he maxes Rewind.
Also, when do you guys put points in ult? Obviously at 6, but I usually hold off on leveling it more until I have rewind maxed and time warp at 2-3.
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@Jek: I use the same item start as you. I think I was just exaggerating his mana problems. I generally don't run out of mana that severely early on, but I think that's in part because of how I manage my mana. It also seems like I play a lot more aggressive early on than you do. It's matchup dependent, but I think in a lot of matchups you're missing out on a huge part of Zilean's strengths by not being a massive bully in the early levels (especially levels 1 and 3 if you get a point in rewind). I don't think he's weak at all early on -- you can force a lot of mids out of lane in the early levels even before you get a mana item.
On leveling E vs W at level 2 -- again i think this is matchup dependent, but in any lane where you can be aggressive the point in W is very strong. A level 3 Zilean with two points in Q and one in W is really strong because he essentially has two level 2 abilities, and he's also pretty much guaranteed to get level 3 first. Against anyone that you want to bully early on (Ryze, Karthus, assassins like Akali, Talon, and Zed that need level 6 to be aggressive), that point in rewind enables a lot more aggression. It does cost a lot of mana, but it gives you much more trading/kill potential, and for someone that tends to fall off I think it's important to secure as large of a lead as you can.
I can see the value of getting a point in E against champions like Fizz, Elise, and Cassiopeia that are really strong at around level 2, and also against threatening junglers like Lee Sin. But I think in most other matchups, by getting a point in E you're forcing yourself to play somewhat passive when you could be outtrading really hard with double bombs.
@Tooplark: I agree with most of those points, but I haven't had any real concerns with lane matchups or assassins. I guess there aren't very many lanes that Zilean loses, but Zilean relies quite a bit on winning lane to stay as a relevant damage threat so I can see that losing lanes could be pretty problematic. In my experience, Zilean is a rather good pick against many assassins because he can abuse them really hard early game and will not die as long as his ult is up (and, he will always get level 6 first and often have his ult on a lower cd -- obviously not true against Akali/Diana though). In a teamfight he can also nullify their burst, although other things like Kayle and cc are probably better at that. He's definitely very team-dependent though.
I never thought about not putting extra points in his ult. I guess additional points in his ult only add 250 hp (and increase the mana cost) so skipping extra points sounds like a pretty good idea. I think I'd want to keep it at 1 point for laning phase but have as many points as possible in teamfights. I don't see a need to prioritize points in E over ult though -- if you have rewind maxed and are at the cdr cap, you pretty much have constant uptime on E anyway and I think the 250 hp is more likely to make a difference unless you're winning really hard and fights aren't going to last long enough for the revive hp to matter.
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@Toolplark and Danana's reply to it:
1) I don't find Zilean to to lose any lane heavily, the worst situations I've had is the lane turning out to be a farmfest - or against someone with stronger roams; in which case you need to rely on your team to not make your lane opponent gain the upper hand through gold advantage.
2) I disagree, Zilean can wave clear really fast - you don't need to hang around after place bombs.
3) Again I must disagree. Granting a teammate an extra life is always tremendously strong - if there's no target "worth" spending your ultimate on, you are losing the game anyway.
4) Prior to level 6 yes, but past no. Your ultimate negates their kill potential.
- as hinted by Danana you usually gain level 6 first thanks to his passive (which really should not be under-estimated, especially for your laners).
EDIT: That sounded a bit arrogant, but personally I haven't had any issues what so ever after I gain Chrono Shift.
5) Bullying out your lane opponent is winning your lane in my opinion, it grants more chances to roam and a higher gold income/experience income.
6) I actually find his damage to have a high level of growth, he has a 0.9 ratio and incredible low cooldown the fact it's a fairly high AoE should not be underestimated too, neither should his multiple ways of delivering it. It's not uncommon for me to have the highest amount of damage dealt to champions.
- I don't know if this is a bigger issue in higher leagues, but maybe a Lich Bane could solve this? He can proc it everytime it's off cooldown giving him a high consist damage out put, his auto-attack range is fairly high only topped by some of the long range ADCs.
7) This is true, so very much true. ;-)
From a strictly speculative view point (I haven't seen them attempted much), the strongest counterplays to Zilean would be:
1) Contesting his first blue as hard as possible, first blue is a massive power-spike for Zilean. If you can prevent it, your lane opponent might be able to dictate the lane until you can gain another power-spike item.
2) Early on his power grows in spikes, which could be abused by timing ganks/all-ins.
@Danana:
I'll try your more aggressive play the next time I get the chance, but sadly at the moment I frequently face early aggressive midlaners. I will give it a shot anyhow! :-)
I find it fairly interesting to see that our different early styles seem very much viable!
@Regarding his ultimate:
I always level it on lane Zilean, having a higher heal is very strong - by the time you gain more points mana is usually not often an issue, the power of heals (and especially a heal on death) has an "exponential" growth power especially when used on an ally with high defensive stats. I consider his ultimate to be by far the most gamebreaking ability in the game, compared to Kayle where you can "ignore" the invulnerable target until it disappear you sort of need to blow up Zilean's target twice, since you time the ultimate not to prevent damage, but prevent death.
On support Zilean I prefer Rewind over it.
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Does bomb give vision of targets?
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hi guys Zilean is one of my favorite champions and just my favorite support overall.
Im diamond 5 with 65% winrate with him as support. He is pretty good.
There is no guide on him to play him as a support first so after one game i did really well, back in the time when taric was first pickable i tried him out against range of adc/support combinaison. Love him, u can really have an enormous impact on the game in the lane, in the mid game then in the end game with 40% CDR
Try him out !
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Can you provide more detail than that?
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ok ^^
Rune : Armor/GP10/CDR/GP10 quint
This is my rune set up, You are a bit squishy with that but zilean has a very long auto attak range so normally u dont trade auto attak or abilities. U just wait for the ADC to CS auto attak, drop a bomb and wait. This page provides you a lot of money in the mid game, more wards, more items.
Masteries : classic 0/9/21 Move speed is really good with the harass of zilean
Build : Your build should be sighstone and philosophers stone as your core but after that it can deviate, first off if u killed someone in lane you should maybe consider kage lucky pick + philosophers stone + ward or a fast sighstone. It depends. Then after that you take boots of lucidity and then for me i prefer to go tear (it stacks really fast with rewind) and morello. To have mana + cd reduction. In really late game i like will of ancient and zeke herald.
Matchups : Zilean work the best with an aggressive partner like cait/draven/twitch/graves and not vayne/kog maw/tristana He is the best against non sustainable support like Tresh/leona/taric/allistar/lulu/ and not soraka/sona/nami (so-so)/janna (it depends). Blitz is an exception.
Attitude in game : your playstyle should be very agressive, you have a Very high range as zilean so the best thing to do is first to ward then to be aggressive against the carry when he tries to CS or against the support. Drop your bomb then hit him one time. Do not use the double bomb in lane it will use too much mana. After the first buy the adc is going to have more sustain and the lane will change, u should play more passively if u are equal or press your advantage if you are already ahead.
Example Cait/zilean vs Taric/graves
in the 1-6 level you should bully taric u auto attack him drop a bomb and run if he replies by a stun u should be so far away that graves won't be able to reply. You should be owning the lane and push them to tower and grab maybe a kill.
At 6 You should play passive, a taric + graves combo can kill you in an instant. so you should more rely on cait to be agressive than you, If they go hard on her with the combo Ult her and you should be ok.
Midgame/Endgame :Your role would be to primarly revive the champ and assist your adc, you wont have maxed your speed and wont have a lot of cdr so u should exhaust the tryndamere who wants to kill ure cait, slow him, damage him and ult cait if needed, if not drop ure ult on this kazix who is diving their adc. In late game you are lvl 18 (close) and u have 40%CDR (close) (boots + morello) ure role should be to assist your adc but u have so much cd than u can do a lot of things. This is the part that i love about zilean, he is a very micro intensive champ in the late game because if u have enough CDR and mana you can spam your spells. slow singed who is ulting to try to flip ure adc, drop a bomb on your zac who is ulting, rewind, accelerate your cait, drop a bomb, rewind, etc..
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Why not athene's instead of morellonomicon? It's not that much more expensive at 400g considering the extra mana regen, two mana passives, and mr, and as support you don't miss the ap as much either. I've cut morello's out of almost every champ I play in favor of athene's. Also, what do you think of twin shadows, shurelyas, and/or shard of true ice? Mikael's seems fun too, with revive, cleanse+heal, and speedup in tandem on a scary initiator. How are you skilling him as support too? I've always thought Zilean's kit fit the support role more than an ap mid role, but there don't seem to be many support Zilean guides. I've always been curious about it but good info is so scarce.
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Athene's vs Morello:
400 gold cheaper is a big deal, esp. as support - that's another oracles (i.e. 5 mins of vision control). Athenes has the advantage of freeing you from blue buff dependence somewhat, but morellos does give slightly more utility. I honestly would decide between the two based on if the heal reduction would be useful. (I'm pretty sure the bomb ticks apply morello debuff). Either way, a lot of games will end before you can finish either.
Zilean needs mana, CDR and AP in about that order. Twin Shadows, Shurelyas, and Shard are all inefficient for those stats, while the actives are not terribly helpful. Mikael's active is nice but I'd rather just be able to revive people more often. Zilean has a support kit that needs solo level farm to be truly optimal. This is why he's traditionally thought of as a mid. He does work well as a 2v1 support with his high levels of harass, slow, and towerdiving power.
TROLLS has discussed support Zilean a fair amount and has decided that it is reasonably legit. It works best with Jayce, Twitch and Trist due to their aggression and ability to get next to someone (for bomb shenanigans), as well as all three appreciating a get-out-of-jail-free card. Don't pick support Zil against a Cait or Ashe (poke poke dead), or against Nami or Soraka (heal heal cry). Sona is ok because she dies to allins, but you have to be careful not to get outpoked first. As for team comp considerations, a mid like Zed or Kennen that can give up blue buff is the best thing ever. Blue buff means you can skip morello/athene and build straight AP or pad your survivability somewhat. Skill order is still basically the same: max bomb for harass and burst, time warp at level 2 or 4 depending on when you're scared of ganks, rewind at the other level. Consider only one point in ult and/or stopping bomb after 3 in order to max rewind and timewarp ASAP.
My personal overall evaluation of support Zil is: strong with/against specific teams, but too niche for general play.
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400 gold more and the path to the build is different too, if u pick a kage lucky pick as 2nd item it will lead to a morello in the mid game, the MR is meh because your not in the front line, normally i pick kage < 13 min and morello at 30 min or before if we are winning hard
like toolpark said it's a waste to take inneficient stats. Think about it you have already a shurelia in your skill set and a shard
Your slow/speed maxed is 55% for like 6 seconds approximatively
In EU there is rg kazmitch (challenger) who is playing Zilean a lot but he can't be a source of inspiration for you because his level of plays is for tournament ( philo + ruby sighstone then after u don't build another items for 30 minutes, just 1000000 wards and oracle) he is skilling his E second too and rewind 3rd.
But dont do like him just go Q>W>E
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Trist with zilean is not a good lane, trist must acquire some levels to upgrade his range and zilean has a very good 1-6 so not great.
U can pick Zilean vs soraka it will just be a farm lane, u can't win the lane basicly but soraka doesn't have a lot of harass
Sona is not ok she is very very hard to play against because she heal like a soraka but has also very good poke, your going to lose trade all day.
If there is a mid who does not need blue the jungler will get it, don't count on that.
And level up your ult, its better to revive a 1k hp cait than a 500 hp cait.
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Eh. Vayne and Tristana are reasonably aggressive ad carries in lane. Trist can be very aggressive 1~3 due to her high base damages on W and E. (E does 110 damage at level 1) Vayne is a bit trickier as she's weak until lvl 3+ but only in the right hands; most ad carries in solo q (in my experience) are bad at managing aggression as Vayne until post-6.
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Trist and vayne relatively to other adc are not very agressive/ cannot trade very well.
Tristana has low range and a poke spells which is the same range as her auto attak.
Vayne has practically no poke (yeah ok tumble and attak one time ...) and low range
All other ADC can outpoke them in the laning phase
Yeah you can have a tristana + taric lvl 2 combo sometimes but really that's it
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Bear in mind the TROLLS research was done at the very start of Season 3. The meta has changed a lot since then.
If I were to try it today, I'd probably work with Ez/Cait/Corki, and only maybe Twitch.
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On September 13 2013 07:44 trollbone wrote:
Trist and vayne relatively to other adc are not very agressive/ cannot trade very well.
Tristana has low range and a poke spells which is the same range as her auto attak.
Vayne has practically no poke (yeah ok tumble and attak one time ...) and low range
All other ADC can outpoke them in the laning phase
Yeah you can have a tristana + taric lvl 2 combo sometimes but really that's it
Vayne actually trades fairly well at level 3+ with W max. Needs a strong support to stop you from getting wrecked, but she does trade well.
Trist relies a lot on the other duo being unable to fight back due to creep advantage. I think her trading is somewhat weak, but her allin is very strong, especially with an aggressive support. But at the same time, getting behind on trist is horrible because you cannot freeze to catch up.
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On September 13 2013 05:06 trollbone wrote:
400 gold more and the path to the build is different too, if u pick a kage lucky pick as 2nd item it will lead to a morello in the mid game, the MR is meh because your not in the front line, normally i pick kage < 13 min and morello at 30 min or before if we are winning hard
like toolpark said it's a waste to take inneficient stats. Think about it you have already a shurelia in your skill set and a shard
Your slow/speed maxed is 55% for like 6 seconds approximatively
In EU there is rg kazmitch (challenger) who is playing Zilean a lot but he can't be a source of inspiration for you because his level of plays is for tournament ( philo + ruby sighstone then after u don't build another items for 30 minutes, just 1000000 wards and oracle) he is skilling his E second too and rewind 3rd.
But dont do like him just go Q>W>E
I can understand trying to minimize gold cost and just go for tear cdr boots and morellos, but I really don't see aoe speedup like shurelia's the same as a single target timewarp. I wasn't thinking of it as inefficient stats so much as playing to Zil's strengths. Zil can speedup two people on your team...... and then can't slow anyone else (and those two can easily overextend with that speed). My thoughts were more along the line of helping Zil's team be really good chasers, being able to speed up your entire team to chase with Shurelya and still having slows for enemies, or sending out twin shadows two long range slows and speeding up two of your team, thus both speeding up half your team and slowing half of theirs, which Zil could normally only do one of(and the passive movespeed helps not to have to use timewarp on yourself as much).
Also I wasn't thinking of those being early items, more like instead of building the more expensive Zeke's Herald/WotA, you could turn your philo into Shurelya in the later stages (you never did say what you were building it into eventually), and another kage into the cheaper twin shadows/shard of true ice(though shard is more for initiating a teamfight than chasing). That was my thought reasoning anyway.
For clarification, are you saying that having an extra speedup/slow is really so unnecessary to the point of uselessness because in practice, with full cdr, timewarp is sufficient enough for chasing and it's better to cover his weaknesses instead through WotA/Zekes? I apologize if I sound rude with my questioning, I'm just genuinely curious at the opportunity to pick your brain about playing support zilean at high elo and want to learn about how to do so properly.
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On September 13 2013 23:01 Fyrewolf wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2013 05:06 trollbone wrote:
400 gold more and the path to the build is different too, if u pick a kage lucky pick as 2nd item it will lead to a morello in the mid game, the MR is meh because your not in the front line, normally i pick kage < 13 min and morello at 30 min or before if we are winning hard
like toolpark said it's a waste to take inneficient stats. Think about it you have already a shurelia in your skill set and a shard
Your slow/speed maxed is 55% for like 6 seconds approximatively
In EU there is rg kazmitch (challenger) who is playing Zilean a lot but he can't be a source of inspiration for you because his level of plays is for tournament ( philo + ruby sighstone then after u don't build another items for 30 minutes, just 1000000 wards and oracle) he is skilling his E second too and rewind 3rd.
But dont do like him just go Q>W>E
I can understand trying to minimize gold cost and just go for tear cdr boots and morellos, but I really don't see aoe speedup like shurelia's the same as a single target timewarp. I wasn't thinking of it as inefficient stats so much as playing to Zil's strengths. Zil can speedup two people on your team...... and then can't slow anyone else (and those two can easily overextend with that speed). My thoughts were more along the line of helping Zil's team be really good chasers, being able to speed up your entire team to chase with Shurelya and still having slows for enemies, or sending out twin shadows two long range slows and speeding up two of your team, thus both speeding up half your team and slowing half of theirs, which Zil could normally only do one of(and the passive movespeed helps not to have to use timewarp on yourself as much). Also I wasn't thinking of those being early items, more like instead of building the more expensive Zeke's Herald/WotA, you could turn your philo into Shurelya in the later stages (you never did say what you were building it into eventually), and another kage into the cheaper twin shadows/shard of true ice(though shard is more for initiating a teamfight than chasing). That was my thought reasoning anyway. For clarification, are you saying that having an extra speedup/slow is really so unnecessary to the point of uselessness because in practice, with full cdr, timewarp is sufficient enough for chasing and it's better to cover his weaknesses instead through WotA/Zekes? I apologize if I sound rude with my questioning, I'm just genuinely curious at the opportunity to pick your brain about playing support zilean at high elo and want to learn about how to do so properly.
Na you don't sound rude. Ok you have good points just let bring this down.
We have a zilean build in 90% of games of philostone/sighstone/boots of lucidity and morello after that the other items are situational. I try normally to get a tear if im ahead, grabbed some kills but that's it.
Zeke herald is extremely situational ( U need at least 2 people that can benefit from the passive, i take when there is 3, you only get this item for his passive)
Wota is also extremely situational (2 people at least that can benefit)
If you get a shurelya it will only be for his active at this point of the game so you pay 1400 gold + your philo for just the active. For me 90% of the time its not worth it, but if i'm against a jayce + nidalle AP team and we need more engage maybe yeah.
But in the late game you have a rewind with a 3 second cooldown and a speed/slow of 55% for 5,5 sec . In all situations that was enough, i never though "oh fuck i should have got a shurelya to properly engage or retreat". Better on support with no speed boost like leona, taric, etc..
Don't buy shard it's extremely difficult to use the active correctly, i mean nobody buys it and for good reason. The best way to use that item is on a tank,fighter to stick on his target, normally your not going to be in the melee but with your mage/adc, a bit behind the battle.
Twin shadow i admit it may be a good idea, first off the ms is very good on zilean and secondly the active may have some very good applications outside the battles to check if you can safely drop wards or scout, not so much for the slow. But i haven't tried this item, i think people forget that it exist but i will give it a go ^^.
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Just wanted to add to the discussion that I think Heal is a better summoner for Zillean than Exhaust, most of the times at least. It gives you the sustain you miss so much, while your E with enough CDR compensates for the lack of Exhaust.
edit. Forgot to add a notable person to the list of champions that you should not pick Zillean support against, the big Bane with a capital B - Caitlin. Against Soraka, Sona, Nami and to some extend Janna, Zillean is just not as useful, but vs Cait OMG you gonna shred girly tears because of her higher than your harrass autoattack range :-)
edit 2. Zillean can be very good vs Blitz as well, but you gotta be 110% focused. You must not only avoid hooks, but kind of sense when he thinks about it, bomb him and run as fast as you can The problem is mostly the fact that your carry has to react in advance too, coz you have speed either for you or for him and if blitz pulls one of you pre 6, its a kill.
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EPT
