Zilean is a support-oriented AP carry. While he does not have the damage output or the hard CC of many other AP carries, he specializes in providing to his team mobility, utility, and possibly one of the most annoying ultimates in the game to play against. While previously thought overpowered--subsequent nerfs, both to himself and to some of the popular tanky DPS champions he is designed to back up have taken him off the radar a bit. However, he is still an extremely solid AP carry on the right team, and is a favorite of several of the best AP carry players in the game.
Fixed a bug where Time Bomb didn't show its damage type in death recap.
V1.0.0.113:
*Time Bomb: Mana cost increased to 70/85/100/115/130 from 60/75/90/105/120. Base damage reduced to 90/145/200/260/320 from 100/155/210/270/330. *Chrono Shift: Base health upon revival increased to 600/850/1100 from 500/750/1000. Ability power ratio reduced to 2 from 3. Buff duration reduced to 7 from 10. Will now always activate after Undying Rage but before Guardian Angel and Rebirth.
V1.0.0.112:
Fixed a bug where the particle on Time Warp would not persist through the full duration of the movement speed modifier at later ranks.
V1.0.0.111:
Base magic resistance reduced to 30 from 35.
V1.0.0.109:
*Chrono Shift duration reduced to 10 seconds from 13.
V1.0.0.103:
*Chrono Shift now removes most positive buffs from your champion when it activates.
V1.0.0.101:
*Chrono Shift: Duration reduced to 13 seconds from 15. Cooldown increased to 180 seconds at all levels from 180/160/140 seconds.
V1.0.0.97:
*Chrono Shift's buff icon will now display a timer for when the buff will fade.
V1.0.0.96:
Fixed a bug where replacing an enemy Time Bomb wouldn't cause the deactivation explosion. Fixed a bug where replacing your own Time Bomb caused more damage than intended from ability power. Fixed a bug where the Time Bomb explosion particle occasionally showed over fog of war. Fixed a bug where Time Bomb would occasionally remain on dead units.
V1.0.0.87:
Clarified the tooltip of Rewind to remove some redundant information.
V1.0.0.86:
*Time Bomb: Ability power ratio decreased to .9 from 1.1. It now ticks 3, 2, 1 additional damage before the bomb explodes. This will trigger calls for help.
V1.0.0.79:
Fixed a particle issue with Time Bomb.
V1.0.0.74:
*Rewind cooldown reduced to 18/15/12/9/6 from 30/28/26/24/22, but will no longer affect itself.
V1.0.0.72:
*Time Warp: Movement speed modifier reduced to 55%, from 65%. Haste effect is now a multiplicative movement speed modifier. Duration reduced to 2.5/3.25/4/4.75/5.5, from 3/4/5/6/7. Range increased to 650 from 600. *Time Bomb range increased to 650 from 600. *Chrono Shift range increased to 900 from 600.
V1.0.0.70:
*Rewind cooldown changed to 30/28/26/24/22 from 38/34/30/26/22. *Time Bomb: Damage increased to 100/155/210/270/330 from 90/145/200/260/320. Mana cost decreased to 60/75/90/105/120 from 70/85/100/115/130. *Time Warp: Mana cost decreased to 100 from 110 at all ranks. It now applies a multiplicative movement speed slow rather than additive.
V1.0.0.63:
Basic attack projectile speed increased to 1200 from 900.
V1.0.0.61:
*Time Bomb no longer detonates if the buff is cleansed.
V0.9.22.16:
*Chrono Shift: Increased Cooldown from 160/140/120 to 180/160/140. Fixed a bug which caused issues with Anivia's Rebirth.
V0.9.22.15:
*Rewind cooldown modified from 40/35/30/25/20 to 38/34/30/26/22. *Time Warp can no longer target Minions and Monsters. *Time Bomb Damage increased from 80/140/200/260/320 to 90/145/200/260/320.
V0.8.22.115:
*Time Warp Haste / Slow increased from 60 to 65% due to movement speed soft capping. *Recall no longer causes or is affected by global cooldown.
Heightened Learning (Innate): Increases the experience all allied champions gain by 8%. This is not in effect while Zilean is dead.
Time Bomb (Active): Zilean places a time-delayed bomb on a target. After 4 seconds the bomb will detonate, dealing magic damage to all surrounding enemies. The bomb will detonate immediately if the holder dies or another bomb is placed on them. Enemy holder will take 1, 2, 3 extra true damage gradually before the detonation.
Rewind (Active): Reduces all of Zilean's other cooldowns by 10 seconds. Rewind does not affect itself.
Cost: 50 mana
Cooldown: 18 / 15 / 12 / 9 / 6 seconds
Time Warp (Active): Zilean slows an enemy champion's movement speed or increases an allied champion's movement speed by 55% for a few seconds.
Cost: 100 mana Cooldown: 20 seconds Range: 700
Duration: 2.5 / 3.25 / 4 / 4.75 / 5.5 seconds
Chrono Shift (Active): Marks an ally champion or himself with a protective time rune for 7 seconds. If the target takes lethal damage during this time, instead of dying, they will be untargettable and remain in stasis for 2 seconds and then they return to life regaining health.
Cooldown: 180 seconds Cost: 200 mana Range: 900
Health Gained: 600 / 850 / 1100 (+2.0 per ability power)
Summoner Spells
Flash is pretty much mandatory. Of the escape summoners, it's pretty clearly the most sensible one to take on Zilean. As for the other summoner slot:
Ignite/Exhaust - Combat utility summoners. These are the two most common summoners I run in the 2nd slot, and which one I choose is generally dependent on which is more useful based on the enemy team. Ignite lets you threaten some pretty surprising amount of burst in lane (though it's obviously taken against targets you'll need the anti-heal to push a kill against), and Exhaust is actually really useful for keeping yourself from getting chased too far out of fights (more on that later).
Cleanse/Teleport - I usually don't take these, but they can have some situational use. Teleport can set up some pretty sick turnarounds in early-midgame teamfights and can be useful in lane to buy/heal/restore mana, but I feel like you don't really need it lategame, as being able to perma-E with blue buff gives you plenty of map mobility without using a summoner spell. Cleanse could be useful if you're dealing with a lot of troublesome CC, though I think Zilean should generally be positioned in such a way that he can avoid most of that. Zilean ulti is also not like Janna ulti where if a bad initiate happens, you'd want to cleanse-ulti right away or something--seeing as unlike Janna ulti, Zilean ult can't really save your whole team.
Masteries
9/0/21. Zilean is a strong laner, so generally defensive masteries are not necessary. I take Greed over the 3rd point in Haste because I don't feel Zilean needs the movespeed, but either way is fine. Obviously get the summoner spell masteries for Exhaust or Teleport if you're running either.
Runes
Runing on Zilean is fairly flexible. As mentioned, he is a strong laner, and he doesn't really have any huge holes that can be filled efficiently by runing for them. As such he can be runed for early game dominance, survivability, or mid- or late-game damage, depending on your playstyle. Some rune sets that I have used/played against:
MPen marks, choice seals, AP/lvl glyphs, Flat AP quints -- Standard caster runes. I use these most often. They work on most other casters, and they're a pretty solid set to default to on Zilean, especially given his great ratios.
MPen marks, choice yellows, MPen glyphs, MPen quints -- Mass MPen page to push early dominance against weaker laners. The 19 MPen obviously hits pretty hard early on, but really shines after your Sorcs-in particular if you're facing targets that have runed or masteried MR sources (13 MR from runes or 6 MR from masteries). I've also seen similar pages using flat AP blues/quints-the goal is the same, but it pushes its advantage in a different level range: the AP is stronger early levels, when you don't have other penetration sources to go with your runed MPen, and your base damage is low, while the MPen is stronger in tandem with Sorcs, and when you're working with the high base damage of ranks 3-5 of Time Bomb. Personally I prefer the MPen, since in that level range you can play more aggressively behind the second chance your ult gives you, and you have Catalyst/blue buff regen to back up your bomb spam, but it's up to playstyle and matchup.
MPen marks, HP/lvl yellows, MR blues, AP quints -- A much more defensive rune set. I'd consider this rune set against someone like, say, Annie. Generally, I think Zilean is a strong enough laner that smart E/ulti use can avert most deaths, but this more defensive rune set is reasonable if you're worried about the risk of dying inside a stun without getting a chance to ulti or something.
Skill Order
QWQEQR, R>Q>W>E. You can shift the first point of E earlier if you consider super-early jungle/roaming ganks to be a big enough threat to warrant reducing your laning power. Midgame you can also consider leveling E a bit with W if mana is tight (e.g. your jungler hogs their blue buff).
Items
There are generally two main sets of items to build into for laning, as on other AP carries--Catalyst, or Doran's Ring stack. Doran's Rings give you cost-efficient AP/mana regen, and allow you to pressure super hard--30-45 AP on a 0.9 AP ratio nuke really starts to sting once you get a few ranks in it. Catalyst eschews the ability to pressure, in exchange for HP/Mana sustain, which lets you play more attrition or farm-based lanes. What item I start generally is based on which of those two setups I expect to transition to. Boots+3pot is probably the most well-rounded opening. It gives you the most pots to work with, the movespeed advantage for bomb harass, and lets you transition smoothly into either early-game setup. Sapphire Crystal+2pot is weaker than boots, and somewhat commits you to building Catalyst, but it lets you squeeze it out that much faster, which can be important in certain matchups. Doran's Ring lets you hit like a truck early levels, but because you have no potions, you have to be mindful that a bad trade or a gank will probably force a bluepill out of you.
Get Sorc Boots sometime midgame (or Mercs if you feel you need them), but do not feel rushed to get them. Zilean is definitely a champ that can afford to stay on Boots 1 for a long time if he needs to. I generally do not consider CDR boots as an option, since you should be hogging blue buff on Zilean. I can see them being useful if you're playing with a 2nd AP champion that is even more of a blue hog (e.g. Anivia), but I probably would also be against picking Zilean at that point, since Zilean shines much more on a team with a tanky DPS champion than with a second AP. Even if you got Catalyst, don't be afraid to pad your inventory with a DRing or two if you bluepilled and don't have the cash for anything else--the HP, mp5, and AP stay useful all game. Likewise, even if you started with DRing stack, you may still want to opt for Cata->Rod if it seems to fit the game.
Midgame you want to consider whether you plan on getting Rod of Ages and Deathcap after, or going straight for Deathcap. Rod is extremely good on Zilean, as he can make use of the mana and HP very well, but it takes quite a while to charge, and delays your Deathcap. In general, Rod is a great buy if you got pretty good farm early on, but you should use good judgment on whether it will delay your damage too long, and whether you should just skip it for Deathcap (it's sort of hard to explain how to make that decision--I usually just play it by ear).
Post-Deathcap your item options are flexible and similar to other AP carries. BVeil is an MR option if you've got your Catalyst left over, as is Abyssal if you don't. Zhonya's gives you armor, and the active is good for buying you a few seconds' breathing room. Get Void Staff when it's needed. Just generally tailor what you get to how the game is playing out, and make sure you've got money for wards and Blue Elixirs.
Playstyle
Laning Take a solo lane, always. Some people advocate duo lane Zilean, but I really don't. In a nutshell, duo lane Zilean ends up with very little AP, because he spends the whole game building a blue buff (40% CDR and mana regen) for himself because he's a support. As such, it throws away one and a half skills (your bomb becomes useless because you don't get to itemize toward it's scaling, and as such, reducing it's cooldown isn't worth a lot). On top of which, he lacks healing/sustain, and his harass gives your opponents total control of where the creeps meet, so he's not really a great babysitter. Mid is ideal, but top is somewhat manageable. I dislike top lane because Zilean can't really match the sustain of most common top laners right now, whereas he's more in line with the common mid lane AP champs.
Zilean is a good laner. He is one of the 5 champions in the game with a natural 600+ attack range (Anivia and Ashe have 600 as well, Annie has 625, Caitlyn has 650)--allowing him to lasthit safely and harass with autoattacks without risk of retaliation, while also being one of the only champs in the game with a 700 range non-skillshot nuke. He is hard to gank effectively early because of his E, and extremely hard to gank effectively after 6 because of his ultimate.
You are strong at level 1, and stronger at levels 2 and 3. Your burst at level 3 outdoes a lot of other laners (2 2nd rank nukes, as opposed to a 2nd rank nuke and a 1st rank nuke from any other AP carry), so you can abuse this fact to bully people at those levels. At levels 4 and 6, your burst doesn't improve like most other AP carries, so at those levels, enemies tend to catch up. They do, however, make you considerably harder to gank, so trades at those levels can still be advantageous to you. Additionally, E makes it so an opponent has to commit quite hard if they want to retaliate against your Q harass. You can use this to widen the health disparity you created at earlier levels (or to bait a good gank from your jungler), but be careful managing your mana. Zilean's main weaknesses are his lack of natural means of sustain and his relatively high mana costs. As such, he can lose lane to champions that push lane super hard (he doesn't have a great means of lasthitting under tower, and using bombs to clear creeps is extremely taxing on your mana), and champions that have strong health sustain or mana-efficient counter-burst and can weather the storm of your level 1-3 burst. Champions with both of these qualities such as Morgana or Galio tend to be hard matchups for Zilean. Catalyst helps this, but nevertheless smart mana management is important, and don't be afraid to mass-pot for HP or some mana (particularly if you're skipping Cata). At worst, you might want to bring Teleport, or try to get an early blue buff from your jungler.
You (and your lane opponent) should be mindful of how much damage your bombs do, and of any creeps that are below that amount. Through the threat of a double bomb, you can use these minions as a means to extend your effective range. If your opponent strays too close to them, you can ping a double bomb on one of the low-HP minions, catching your opponent in the damage at effectively 800+ range. These also tend to have a big psychological effect on your opponent--losing 1/3-1/2 of his life in a single hit tends to be pretty intimidating, even though as Zilean, you have no real followup for another 10 seconds. This is especially effective against melee laners (as in order to lasthit YOUR low-HP melee creeps, they have to get close to theirs), and becomes quite a pain at the level where your bombs can 1-shot ranged minions (generally level 7 or 9, depending on your items/runes).
Get blue buff as early as your jungler will allow. The mana will let you harass the opposing laner extremely frequently, and push the creep wave back if they're pushing hard against you. When you've forced them back, you can push out the lane and abuse the mobility that E/W gives you to go help out other lanes. You can often shove the lane hard, get a good gank in, and then return to lane before you lose too many creeps to tower. As your baseline burst starts to drop off a bit compared to other AP champs, this tends to be a good way to assert your lane control, as a smart opponent is unlikely to die simply to your QWQ-Ignite burst.
They will attempt to chase you out of the fight, and disrupt your ability to support your team. While getting someone to actually be able to kill Zilean is difficult, Zilean's middling damage output means that if he doesn't get backup from his team, it can take quite a long time for him to handle the threat on his own (and could involve him getting chased halfway across the map from his team, as happened to Regi in the video), effectively marginalizing his contribution to the real teamfight. They will attempt to get you to use single-target bombs (drastically reducing their effectiveness) and repeated slows on the person chasing you (less effective than perma speed/slowing up to 2 people elsewhere in the fight) or, in the worst case, get you to blow your ultimate on yourself. This is where Exhaust tends to be useful, as it buys you a few seconds where you can position yourself and cast without eating too much damage from the guy trying to chase you down.
Your early positioning in the fight is critical. While generally, you will be in the backed-up position that the AP carry normally occupies, this can be exceedingly awkward when you have to move to support your tanks and tanky DPS. As such, flanking with your tanky DPS is sometimes reasonable, going in after them to back them up, allowing you to push continual damage onto the enemy carries while staying in a place that's hard to reach for the enemy tanks/anti-carries. Note that this will drastically reduce your ability to reach and support other targets in the fight, and can be exceedingly dangerous vs. high-mobility anti-carries like Akali.
Ultimately, you will have to do some kiting/weaving in and out of fights, especially since your best friends are the guys that want to dive in balls-deep. Make sure you get that speed/bomb on the tank/tanky DPS just as the fight starts, because you don't know when you'll get another good one. Generally speaking, placing bombs on the enemy probably won't be the most reliable place to bomb, and doesn't make good use of the delay, or the fact that they can get carried in on something else. Teammates are pretty good for getting bombs to good targets (in particular melee ones, as they will be either in the middle of multiple people, or trying to go for an enemy squishy--both good places for your damage to go). Minions also work as good bomb targets, particularly if you can squeeze off a double bomb on an enemy minion coming through the fight.
Your ideal ult target is a tanky DPS, but pretty much anyone can be a good target depending on the situation (especially since, if you're farmed, your ult is a full heal on everyone). You want to ult the person that will have the most effect in the fight from living. Will the carry be able to stay alive to do damage after your ult? Does the tank/support/AP carry have critical spells un-cast before they died (using your ult to get a use out of someone else's ult AND save their life is generally worth it)? Worst comes to worst, just use it to save whoever. It's better to save somebody than to not save somebody, especially since lategame, your ulti has effectively a 30 second cooldown.
Special mention for Zilean's best (duo queue) friends + Show Spoiler +
Zilean shines as an AP carry when paired with tanky DPS. His damage, while not subpar, is decidedly mediocre. He can kite well, but his E used purely as a CC is underwhelming compared to the hard CCs/AoEs available to other AP carries. Particularly if you did not get super-farmed early-midgame, your strength as an AP carry will inevitably diminish lategame. And his ultimate, while game-changing nonetheless, does not nearly have as huge an impact when used on a squishy AP/AD carry (who won't really gain that much time alive when they have no resistances) or a tank (who will probably have some/most of his strong skills on cooldown, and not create much of a splash being alive again). Tanky DPS champs get the most out of Zilean's ult. They have the mitigation stats to make the revive a pain to deal with, while also not being ignorable, given their damage output. They also generally maximize the use on Zilean's other spells as well--their placement in a fight is generally where Zilean wants his bombs to blow up (on top of squishy carries), and they can utilize Zilean's speed boost throughout the entire fight.
Two examples for what Zilean can do for tanky DPS:
Zilean takes the aspects of Irelia's kit that are already strong, and pushes them to absurd levels. Low cooldown ult that makes her hard to kill? Add a second one, and she's invincible (I've literally had fights where, with both of us on 40% CDR, we were able to rotate Irelia Ult->Zilean Ult->Guardian Angel->Irelia Ult->Zilean Ult). Some of the strongest midgame physical-damage burst in the game? Pop a bomb or two on her head to add even more (magic) damage to it, giving an extremely hard-to-counter mix of magic, physical, and true damage. Great movespeed and ridiculous diving range? Add a 55% movespeed boost going in, and diving past two towers-worth of distance becomes easy. There's a reason why Reginald and Chaox love running this pair, and it's not just because they're good at the respective champions.
While Zilean augments the strengths of Irelia's kit and pushes them to the extreme, with Olaf he shores up his weaknesses and makes him a well-rounded killing machine. The speed boost gives Olaf a legitimate gap-closer (whereas on his own, he relies on being able to land his axe on his target), the bombs, as with Irelia, augment his damage, giving him a mix of physical, magical, and true damage. One of the great benefits of having Zilean with Olaf, however, is that it really allows Olaf to put his passive to use. Normally, Olaf doesn't get to push his passive to the absolute limit, as the risk of dying comes with the attack speed boost. However, with Zilean ult behind him, Olaf can literally fight to 0 HP. With enough resistances, Olaf can be hacking away for several seconds with two Recurve Bows' worth of attack speed, which, with his natural AD steroid, will just wreck people in fights.
i love playing as zil !! especially early game.. so fun. You can rack in the kills pretty nicely. However I like to play as a support in the mid / late game... like babysitting my carry's and giving them some nice speed and revive
How to duo bot Zilean: First, make sure that you are with someone who has easy and moderately safe harass. Second, harass the enemy until they cry. Third, get Tear as your first item or after a few Doran's Rings. Fourth, take blue buff from your AP solos, or better - from theirs. (Blue spawns around 7:05 if the . enemy jungler started there, so drop a ward around the 6 minute mark) Fifth, make sure you and your lane partner keep wards up and down bot lane. Don't be afraid to drop vision wards to make them worry.
Few teams can outharass Zil+someone and thanks to support nerf no one can just take it. The downside to duo Zil is it sacrifices his crazy good midgame and gimps his lategame unless he gets really fed. However, since it gimps the enemy all game, it can be worth it. Itemizing duo Zil is dependent on how much farm you get. Try to go for the most cost efficient AP and health possible and don't worry about survivability much. Pick up Haunting Guise if you really want to power through MR, Tear for a late game mana pool if you can't hold blue, and don't be afraid to just buy a Giant's Belt.
On September 02 2011 08:56 Kenpachi wrote: If you want for the lulz, nidalee or gragas with zilean makes the perfect duo lane bottom for super harass.
Indeed, Gragas Zilean is my fav, doesn't matter who you are laning against, they won't even be able to see the creep wave they'll be so far back.
Better hope you got some nice melee dps on your team for the lategame tho because Zil will be pretty much limited to hasting and rewind lategame because of the low money. Still crazy good if you have a decent team and if you can gimp their carries early.
So just had a normal game where I went tristana with no support against Pantheon Zilean at bottom lane. Had no idea how to deal with Zilean's constant bombing (he started dring and I went boots + 3). Volibear came with me to take my cs and generally not do much except die a couple of times. But the real problem I had was getting zoned incredibly hard by Zilean cause I just couldn't take on his bombs and how much damage output they had. Pantheon with his stun+spear didn't help the case either. How does one play against Zilean in a ranked game?
On February 10 2012 18:32 Nos- wrote: So just had a normal game where I went tristana with no support against Pantheon Zilean at bottom lane. Had no idea how to deal with Zilean's constant bombing (he started dring and I went boots + 3). Volibear came with me to take my cs and generally not do much except die a couple of times. But the real problem I had was getting zoned incredibly hard by Zilean cause I just couldn't take on his bombs and how much damage output they had. Pantheon with his stun+spear didn't help the case either. How does one play against Zilean in a ranked game?
IMO, the fact that you were 1v2 as Tristana was the real problem since you had no sustain to counter zilean's harass. Another thing is that since Zil started Doran, their lane had no ward, so your jungler should have helped (wtf you were 1v2 and they had no ward !).
Basically, Bombing harass cost a lot of mana for Zilean so the idea is to heal back his dmg while he can do some. You could have asked your laning partner to pick soraka for instance cause she can heal you back and silence the bombing combo of zilean.
In your case, you could have probably picked Cait imo, you can escape from zil quite easily with your E and your range and you can farm quite safely from long range. Cait would have allowed you to poke them hard and since they had no heal on lane, you could have forced them to back and generate free farm for you.
But anyway, the situation were terrible, 1v2 ing is quite hard on bot lane.
On July 10 2012 08:27 nosliw wrote: Having trouble facing him as AP mid.... Any suggestions?
Zilean loses mid to APs that have more efficient clearing power (double bombs are very mana intensive early on) and who can force early ultimates. Galio and Morgana are the best examples of this, but there are other APs like Ahri that can also be similarly troublesome.
On July 10 2012 08:27 nosliw wrote: Having trouble facing him as AP mid.... Any suggestions?
Malzahar is good against him because he can just hang back and farm until 6. Anivia can be good against him if you can force trades before level 6. Make sure to keep your egg unless you are sure you can kill him. Morgana is a great choice because of spellvamp and black shield. Galio is good because of his MR. Annie can be used effectively against him if you take shield at level 2 or 3 and land your stuns.
If you can deny him his first blue at 7 minutes his effectiveness in lane falls off dramatically. He cannot speedboost himself, double bomb you and run away every 10 seconds since that'd take up his entire mana bar before it kills you. If you can't deny him his blue, push the lane as hard as you can. His autoattack is long range but its animation is crappy so he's forced to bomb to clear waves
If you can't do either, you're going to have a hard time since he can abuse most mids really hard.
I beat the snot out of a Zilean using a full MR page on Gragas. It's pretty easy to counter bombs with barrels when you aren't worried about taking the bomb hits. Gragas also has stupid burst, which can catch Zilean off guard.
On July 10 2012 08:27 nosliw wrote: Having trouble facing him as AP mid.... Any suggestions?
Malzahar is good against him because he can just hang back and farm until 6. Anivia can be good against him if you can force trades before level 6. Make sure to keep your egg unless you are sure you can kill him. Morgana is a great choice because of spellvamp and black shield. Galio is good because of his MR. Annie can be used effectively against him if you take shield at level 2 or 3 and land your stuns.
Not really true. Zilean's been an Annie counterpick since forever--his range advantage is too troublesome for her, she doesn't clear creep waves any more efficiently than he does, and if he runes properly, you can't really insta-burst him because you'll need Ignite to tick him over, giving him time to ult.
Also, getting Shield doesn't help vs. Zilean. It actually makes his life easier because it significantly reduces your ability to present an insta-burst threat against him at 6 (which is the only real way that Annie poses any sort of threat to Zilean).
On July 10 2012 10:15 Lmui wrote: If you can deny him his first blue at 7 minutes his effectiveness in lane falls off dramatically. He cannot speedboost himself, double bomb you and run away every 10 seconds since that'd take up his entire mana bar before it kills you. If you can't deny him his blue, push the lane as hard as you can. His autoattack is long range but its animation is crappy so he's forced to bomb to clear waves
If you can't do either, you're going to have a hard time since he can abuse most mids really hard.
What? Zilean's autoattack animation is very smooth. He's pretty much the first hero I learned to really lasthit properly on.
And the main problem with trying to deny Zilean 2nd blue is that in 2v2 and 3v3 skirmishes (which tend to be what happens in fights over Blue buff), Zilean's ultimate is hugely game-breaking. You need to have a jungle/mid/sidelane lineup that presents an even stronger 2v2/3v3 skirmish threat than Zilean.
Actually, wiki says Bulwark isn't efficient anymore:
Since V1.0.0.138, the true damages that indicate the ticking of the bomb has been removed, the red numbers, 4, 3, 2, 1, that pop up each second is purely indicative about the detonation time.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
#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).
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Zilean's damage simply isn't there and his utility is inferior to other picks. Kayle fits the same niche as Zil (make hypercarry unkillable/extend their life) except she has considerably more damage output. The problem with Zilean is that he has a skill that effectively doesn't do anything (his W). His slow/speed boost is also inferior to other options out there like Oriana's aoe speed boost/slow. Zil's bombs have been nerfed a few times so his damage is slightly lower and mana efficiency slightly worse than before; they still do big damage and gives him strong lane control, but his overall damage isn't all that great comparatively. While his ulti is pretty neat, the fact that the target you ult is effectively out of the fight for ~2 seconds after death before they revive is a pretty big drawback. You're usually better off just using Shen/Lulu/Kayle ult to keep your hypercarry alive if that's what you want.
A big reason why many champs aren't played isn't because their kit is bad or their numbers are low. It's more because of power creep and homogenous design. There's no reason to play champion X if champion Y does everything they do better.
It's obvious where Zilean's weakness is but that's only after level 9 where his only damage spells stops scaling. We're talking about a meta where support pantheon is a thing because of how important winning the game early is.
On April 19 2013 09:03 Juicyfruit wrote: It's obvious where Zilean's weakness is but that's only after level 9 where his only damage spells stops scaling. We're talking about a meta where support pantheon is a thing because of how important winning the game early is.
iirc, the game where iG played support Pantheon against WE only worked because they were running a Panth+Lee kill lane.
I've been playing a lot of Zilean lately, with fairly good success (I've won every lane, and although that doesn't translate into winning the game I don't think Zilean's late game is quite as bad as it's made out to be with how strong he is in the midgame). But anyway I have a couple questions:
1. What item progression would you go now? I'm typically fairly torn between wanting a big mana item, getting 40% cdr asap, and also getting AP and a bit of survivability. I usually go RoA -> morellos or grail -> deathcap, with 9/0/21 masteries so I can reach cap w/ blue buff, blue pot, or a codex/kindlegem/glacial shroud. I vastly prefer the mana of RoA over Athenes (nothing's worse than tower diving, double bombing, and then not having mana to ult because you wasted it zoom zooming from lane), but delaying cdr that long doesn't feel great. I haven't tried this yet but I've also considered going tear -> morellos which seems like a nice tradeoff. Don't get the survivability that catalyst or chalice gives (esp since I often play vs assassins) but should give mana and cdr quite quickly.
2. When is Zilean a good pick? My typical criteria are teams with good lategame damage, and either an AD carry like ez that can get away after reviving or (more likely) melee damage threats that benefit from Zilean's utility. I feel like Zilean does particularly well with farm-dependent junglers, since he can give them a lot of lane farm (since he hass less scaling and spends a lot of time roaming). I also think he's really strong against most asassins in lane. Shuts them down hard before they get their big burst at lvl 6, gets to lvl 6 before them, and won't die to the all-in as long as his ult is up (particularly vs Zed, Fizz, Talon. Probably not as ideal against khazix, diana, akali).
I know Zilean isn't a very popular pick right now but, given the right team, I still intend to play him a lot because I find him really fun and I'm relatively good at him compared to other mids (lack of skillshots certainly helps)
On June 03 2013 06:41 danana wrote: I've been playing a lot of Zilean lately, with fairly good success (I've won every lane, and although that doesn't translate into winning the game I don't think Zilean's late game is quite as bad as it's made out to be with how strong he is in the midgame). But anyway I have a couple questions:
1. What item progression would you go now? I'm typically fairly torn between wanting a big mana item, getting 40% cdr asap, and also getting AP and a bit of survivability. I usually go RoA -> morellos or grail -> deathcap, with 9/0/21 masteries so I can reach cap w/ blue buff, blue pot, or a codex/kindlegem/glacial shroud. I vastly prefer the mana of RoA over Athenes (nothing's worse than tower diving, double bombing, and then not having mana to ult because you wasted it zoom zooming from lane), but delaying cdr that long doesn't feel great. I haven't tried this yet but I've also considered going tear -> morellos which seems like a nice tradeoff. Don't get the survivability that catalyst or chalice gives (esp since I often play vs assassins) but should give mana and cdr quite quickly.
2. When is Zilean a good pick? My typical criteria are teams with good lategame damage, and either an AD carry like ez that can get away after reviving or (more likely) melee damage threats that benefit from Zilean's utility. I feel like Zilean does particularly well with farm-dependent junglers, since he can give them a lot of lane farm (since he hass less scaling and spends a lot of time roaming). I also think he's really strong against most asassins in lane. Shuts them down hard before they get their big burst at lvl 6, gets to lvl 6 before them, and won't die to the all-in as long as his ult is up (particularly vs Zed, Fizz, Talon. Probably not as ideal against khazix, diana, akali).
I know Zilean isn't a very popular pick right now but, given the right team, I still intend to play him a lot because I find him really fun and I'm relatively good at him compared to other mids (lack of skillshots certainly helps)
I doubt there are any good zil players on tl to say which item builds work well for them.
The way I see it zilean needs to rush a mana item.
If you have no mana regen runes RoA is probably as good as chalice or better. I haven't mathed out which gives more mana in lane, for sustained trades in lane. I rarely come into lane with any mana missing. The way I see it, if I came into lane with 200 mana missing that'd be the equivalent to throwing away a sapphire crystal in gold.
I don't think Zilean can get away with just archangels or morellos as a first item so its between Athenes and RoA with a preference to RoA against people who do physical damage. Athenes prefers flat mana for helping with short fights that cost a lot of mana and for the on assist passive. While also benefitting greatly from mana regen with its bonus mp5 passive. If you can get away with athenes you will also have more CDR which scales really well with zilean considering his e.
I would definitely play more zilean if I didn't like malz already.
Never rush Catalyst on Zilean. You simply will not have enough mana and/or regen to sustain his spell usage. Chalice -> Grail -> Whatever (DC/Morello/Zhonya's) is the way to go.
Basically, you need an item build that allows you to spam Rewind between/during teamfights in order to always have your ultimate up. RoA doesn't contribute to that at all.
heh, i go Tear, then cap cdr, then get deathcap Also Cata is a huge boost to mana pool and hopefully your team gives you blue buff so RoA is a fine choice; the passive is just laning butter
On June 03 2013 16:33 Tooplark wrote: heh, i go Tear, then cap cdr, then get deathcap Also Cata is a huge boost to mana pool and hopefully your team gives you blue buff so RoA is a fine choice; the passive is just laning butter
Emphasis mine. The word "so" is important because it makes is clear that RoA is a fine choice if and only if you have blue buff. Whenever you do not have blue buff, which is at least 50% of the time in any match you and your team aren't absolutely crushing, RoA is not a fine choice.
I'm obviously coming down very hard on Catalyst/RoA, but I do so with reason. I've seen far too many Zileans start with Catalyst/RoA and end up being extremely weak in the mid-game because they can't afford to spam their abilities whenever blue isn't available.
I don't like RoA much myself, but I think you undervalue mana pool on Zilean. Even without blue buff, Zilean can easily shove, back, and timewarp himself back to lane. I suspect the options (Tear, Catalyst, Chalice) are actually close enough that personal preference and team compositions are much more important.
On June 03 2013 13:05 Seuss wrote: Never rush Catalyst on Zilean. You simply will not have enough mana and/or regen to sustain his spell usage. Chalice -> Grail -> Whatever (DC/Morello/Zhonya's) is the way to go.
Basically, you need an item build that allows you to spam Rewind between/during teamfights in order to always have your ultimate up. RoA doesn't contribute to that at all.
This doesn't really match up with what my experience has been (I tend to oom more with a Grail than with an RoA), and I'm not entirely sure why (I definitely don't mean to imply that you're wrong; I'm pretty sure you're much better than me!). It might have to do with what was mentioned about backing -- I probably do tend to back a bit more frequently than normal, and I think I also tend to use my mana in big bursts: for example, ganking a lane (I spam E/W a lot on my way, then do a double bomb, usually cast E once or twice, and often ult), and extended chases.
Btw, thanks for all the comments! i'll definitely play around more with some of these item progressions (particularly grail -- I feel like my complaints with grail are relatively minor, I could get around them by just not feeling the need to E myself constantly, and the smoother buildup justifies any downsides)
Hey danana, what is your division if one might ask? Your playstyle with Zilean seems fun, so I was just curious about the level of competition you are at.
On June 04 2013 20:11 Blyf wrote: Hey danana, what is your division if one might ask? Your playstyle with Zilean seems fun, so I was just curious about the level of competition you are at.
I'm in silver, although most of my Zilean games have been in normals.
While I'm only in gold (yolocoasting between 5 and 3 at the moment), I play and have played alot of Zilean so I might be able to provide some insight; in other words subpar mechanics but alot of experience. I use him ranked and normals alike.
I've played him mid, support and even top (viable in special cases where their top is a very hard counter pick to yours, but your top is still capable of being in mid - for instance we've had a Darius go mid vs Fizz and I took top vs Teemo). While Zilean is execellent alongside a hypercarry, he is also great if your team posses two diving champions - they don't need a gapcloser since you can Time Warp both once you recieve the CDR threshold, by also placing a bomb on each of them this allows grants an easily "transfered" signifcant amount of AoE damage should you be non-support (base damage is fairly high, so even as support this is a noticeable amount of damage too).
The itemization I've found best on Zilean is the obvious aim for CDR cap (this can be reached multiple ways; locket/masteries + 20% CDR item, Morello+Athenes, 20% CDR item + blue and so on) it is paramount to reach as this is a tremendous power spike, don't be afraid to build a tanky CDR item - enemies will oftentime try to chase you down out of fear of a secondary ult in teamfights (it is very possible). He is extremely mana hungry and burns it fast as thus you want a large pool, a high mana regeneration is only really needed in prolonged teamfights so you do not need to rush an Athene - I prefer my first true mana item to be a Tear since Zilean stacks it so rediculously fast.
He does not have a weak midgame thanks to his utility Haste/Slow buff/debuff, a stupid strong ult and really high damage with few items - they are slightly hard to get off until you can duke in and out thanks to CDR and Time Warp.
It is obvious important to spam Rewind whenever your ult is on cooldown, and is something I oftentimes see Zilean's with little experience fail to realize - it is better to have lower mana but an ult ready. His laning is nothing short of wonderful as he can waveclear very fast and his roaming is so wonderful due to his speed across the map, he is incredible safe (especially past level 6, good luck diving him) as he can slow a gank and speed away.
But something I want to stress is the power of his ability to make strong diving champions without gapclosers incredible strong due to speed + bomb on them. Also, remember you can place bombs on any friendly unit; this is one of the most common feats of his kit I see people forget, as well as using Chrono Shift right -- you do not always want to use it on a carry. Another common mistake is not using his Time Warp as a slow. - His ult is incredible strong on allies with a high amount of armor and/or magic resist as it grants a tremendous amount of EHP heal; you can also occasional use it as a "heal" by letting someone get an execution at a tower for instance.
I've found it better to reach a fast CDR cap, high mana pool and somewhat tanky than rushing for high AP. Consider his kit as Swain/Anivias where you want a high pool for keeping up an ult in Zilean's case it is (ab)using his Rewind, he uses mana in bursts pretty much.
A Tear is all you need for mana until prolonged teamfights start happening where you will spam your abilities, alot -- as support Tear is also one of my priority items.
While he might only have "three" skills, they make up for it through by the sheer amount of multifunctionality they posses.
Lovely to see some more Zilean love, I consider him my strongest champion but this might be due to the lack of experience playing against him from most opponents. Nothing is more satisfying than having an opponent die in FOW from a bomb. ;-)
EDIT: Finally, if you are laning against a melee champion you want to (in most cases) put bombs on your own minions - this puts your opponent in a lose-lose situation where they will either give up on a CS or take free damage since bombs go off on deaths too.
EDIT2: I consider a solo lane Zilean as a hyper carry in and off himself due to his incredible scaling with items (which basically makes all teamfights a 6v5 and in prolonged fights 7v5), which is also why I don't feel like you need for instance a Vayne on your team.
Time bombing a low health creep is a cool trick, but imo only worthwhile at points where you need to keep a large gap to prevent them from jumping on you (the main example I've come across is Fizz at around lvl 2-3 when he has a strong all-in and you don't have ult and likely don't have E either). In less threatening scenarios (in my experience, early levels against Zed for example), you can just cast Q on your lane opponent when he walks up to cs, and that way you still punish them for taking the cs but don't waste mana on the Q if they don't take it. Also, against any melee champion that can cs with ranged abilities, you could only really use this trick if the csing ability is on cooldown. At least in the early levels before you get a mana item, I don't think it's a worthwhile exchange to use Q on a creep and force the lane opponent to use a ranged ability to cs because of how expensive Q is. Zilean has high mana costs but outtrades really hard, so I think it's better to put yourself at risk of taking some harass to ensure you get full effectiveness out of each time bomb (in an extreme case, if you cast Q every time a creep got low, the enemy laner could just zone himself off those creeps and eventually you'd oom and he'd be able to farm relatively freely).
Hmm. I haven't found the mana issue that bad early on, but I prefer to go Q->E->Q as I don't find the Rewind needed earlier, find it also too mana heavy, and prefer the safety provided by E. As mentioned I like to rush for a Tear, which in my opinion solves all mana issues in the early stages until you reliable can get blue buff. When I can buy a Tear I usually will waveclear and back -- Zilean gets back to lane very fast thanks to Time Warp so I've found it worthwhile taking the risk of maybe losing a CS or two. Tear is in my opinion the first power spike he can get, and it's dirt cheap for what it offers him.
While I very much prefer to play him really defensive early (as he scales so incredible well it usually pays off) with E second, I will try to go the more aggressive route of W second next time I get the chance to play him.
I always start Charm, 1 Ward and pots. Might be why we have different views on his early mana issues?
So nice to finally meet another Zilean afficionado, never had anyone else to share experience and ideas with. ♥
EDIT: An item I've forgotten to mention is Lich Bane, it felt somewhat like a troll item the few cases I've tried it but Zilean can trigger it's passive everytime it's off cool down.
Very nice discussion with a lot of insight being shared.
Jek, can you elaborate a bit on the power curve of Zilean and share your experience of when he is weak? I mean, by the looks of your post, he is a safe lany bully with strong roaming and he scales like a hypercarry. That sounds like a recipe for OP/permaban, so there must be some reason that he isn't seen much.
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.
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.
@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.
@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.
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
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..
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 ^^.
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.
On September 25 2013 18:15 M2 wrote: 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 :-)
If u are against a big aoe team comp take heal preferably If u are against some agressive bruiser/fighter (zed/trynd/jax, etc.. ) who will pressure your adc take exhaust
zilean does really well with ez but you have to counterpick it based on the enemy support.
so basically i pick zil support vs: zyra janna thresh blitz <non-heal, and you can still outdo janna shield> avoid vs: sona soraka <heal, and sona outpokes you too>
if taric and allistar pick a single point on their heal they wont ousustain you. If they pick more they can but they wont have mana/wont have damage to all in you
yes vs leona its also a skill matchup a bit if u poke from a safe place/deny vision its good. But a lane with a leona vs a zilean make for such good baits, she has to commit and you got revive, easy for a jungler to take advantage of that
argh this patch hurted zilean support a lot. Not so much in the laning phase, u can play passively with the targon. But what zilean excelled at was : having a low budget. Essentially u would aim at 40%CDR, that was your "end build", now with so much gold in the mid to late game your not as powerful as other aggressive support or supports with heals. I dont know really what to build after i hit max cdr. A bit of mana is always good but ap feels so useless.
They should give the treatment they did with some other supports, like more AP = more speed/more slow
Before his job in the mid/late game was all utility : revive, slow, speed but now we have supports who can do a lot more : annie, fiddlestick, taric, etc... they have a lot of damage + their utility
Thats what i thought, that Zilean as a former mid champ should utilize ap items quite good at this patch. And I like how he can revive tanks/assasins at full hp/mana now, this really hurts actually.
yes but u don't have the survivability (as a Zilean support) that ROA procure because you skip it. He feels so fragile if u go for the juicy targets. I always played him like a support more for controlling the fight and support my ad carry, like stopping the tanks assassin to reach or kill my ad carry and speed up my allies. Not double bombing their most fragile targets.
I need to figure out a build and playstyle with it. maybe mass aura controlling the fight, or glass canon and trying to be more aggressive in teamfight.
Zyra, fiddlestick, annie, tresh they can engage and dish out their stupid damage instantly sona, soraka, taric, nami they can control the fights with stun, heals that scales with AP I just feels he doesn't do enough. But i have to figure it out
zilean was pick in OGN by the kt bullets and he had the same problem that in my testing i saw. He can do ok in lane depending on the matchup but after that he has nothing, doa and montechristo said that he was just here to resurrect an hypercarry. the thing is that he is too squishy to do damage in teamfight, yes he can slow/speed but like karma can do that and 3x more like speed/stun/slow/damage from a safe distance/aoe speed.
It was a bad pick and even though they won at the end he did 1just one good action at a dragon fight thats all. Feels so badddd, i love him so much
I almost feel like if Zilean did nothing but sat faaaar back with his ADC and did nothing but slow the guy diving that ADC carry (or speed up your ADC) and using Rezz on ADC if needed he would be pretty boss mode. I didn't see the OGN game so I have no clue what that Zilean did. Theorycrafting yo!
well good performance from zilean he revived 2 targets, he had an impact, but it was not a very good game, the power from zilean come from mid game when he hits mana/cdr items and they end the game <30 min, so he was at his best here. But like i said no damage, i feel his utility is not enough
And what the hell he won his lane vs karma..... that shouldnt happen, karma has better range for her poke, and a shield for bomb
I'd guess it's because it's possible to dodge Karma Q, but not Zilean bomb. Also, Karma probably only has one or two points in shield, making it inefficient manawise for stopping bomb harass (and single bomb harass is pretty mana efficient). I didn't see the games though. Also, who was the enemy AD?
The camera didnt focus a lot on bot so i didnt reaally so how the matchup was handled but zilean started with no coin (just wards and health pots) but karma started with coin and bisucit.
So clearly zilean was not even utility. A shield on someone is clearly efficient, i have no problem of mana as karma. And zilean bomb didnt deal a lot.
You're right, at level 1. But the damage/mana ratio of Bomb goes up as Zilean levels it, so unless Karma is maxing shield, the cost-effectiveness of shielding bombs will drop rapidly.
he has a good attak range too (600), annie is 625, karma 525
and i agree that he his so squishy, soraka has a base armor of 13 and she can sit in the back all the time, zilean has a base armor of 7 ! 405 health for soraka and 383 for zilean. He really has shitty base stats
On December 15 2013 09:28 trollbone wrote: he has a good attak range too (600), annie is 625, karma 525
and i agree that he his so squishy, soraka has a base armor of 13 and she can sit in the back all the time, zilean has a base armor of 7 ! 405 health for soraka and 383 for zilean. He really has shitty base stats
yeah his base stats are the worst in the game. He needs a buff imo.
On December 15 2013 09:28 trollbone wrote: he has a good attak range too (600), annie is 625, karma 525
and i agree that he his so squishy, soraka has a base armor of 13 and she can sit in the back all the time, zilean has a base armor of 7 ! 405 health for soraka and 383 for zilean. He really has shitty base stats
yeah his base stats are the worst in the game. He needs a buff imo.
Yup I agree. A simple buff of his base stats would help him actually be a decent option to play. Riot needs to show some love to this champ
Totally. His kit is great. He has a good laning phase and brings alot to team fights. Its just those base stats/scaling ;(
Thanks for the tips, I've found the same rune setup on probuild by watching Bjergsen and some others top tier midlaners. I've been doing the same build order but I was buying Sorcerer's shoes. I barely lost lane to a Zed that was very agressive (and I suck at dodging skillshots), but it gave me a good idea on how to play the champ (at least in lane). Found a few tricks with him as well, like the double bombing someone but managing to have both bombs exploding at the same time (without spamming QWQ).
Against which kind of champion is it a bad idea to go for Zilean ? I figured he's having a hard time against hard engage/pick comp (Vi/Zed/Vlad). I need some playstyle tips as well, as apparently he's a good roamer but I didn't managed to do it well enough in the games I played him.
Do you think Zilean is viable in soloQ on lower levels, below diamond. My guess will be that at platinum he will be a fine mid pick, like nothing fancy and nothing that lose or win the game for the team. However, Bronze, Silver, Gold he won't be able to carry for sure and often will cost the game for the team by requiring coordination and adequate players on the other positions, something that you don't get in these levels very often. Usually, when pros play & consider a champ as OP, its more or less the same in soloQ, but there are some cases where this is not true such as Zilean mid, Janna, Lulu & Kayle Top etc
I'm Plat 5 (I stopped ranked after constantly losing games because my mates were doing retarded shit -see Swenskeren vs TSM going 1v5 all the time ? same here-, 80-90% of the time my lane was either won or even, I'm good at farming so dying few times isn't too important as I end up having as much gold as my opponent) but I play normal atm, so high gold/low plat. As I'm learning the champ I don't care too much about the level of the other players, I'm trying to get used to it, figure out when to pick him and when not.
On September 24 2014 20:48 Sakray wrote: I'm Plat 5 (I stopped ranked after constantly losing games because my mates were doing retarded shit -see Swenskeren vs TSM going 1v5 all the time ? same here-, 80-90% of the time my lane was either won or even, I'm good at farming so dying few times isn't too important as I end up having as much gold as my opponent) but I play normal atm, so high gold/low plat. As I'm learning the champ I don't care too much about the level of the other players, I'm trying to get used to it, figure out when to pick him and when not.
On September 24 2014 20:48 Sakray wrote: I'm Plat 5 (I stopped ranked after constantly losing games because my mates were doing retarded shit -see Swenskeren vs TSM going 1v5 all the time ? same here-, 80-90% of the time my lane was either won or even, I'm good at farming so dying few times isn't too important as I end up having as much gold as my opponent) but I play normal atm, so high gold/low plat. As I'm learning the champ I don't care too much about the level of the other players, I'm trying to get used to it, figure out when to pick him and when not.
On September 24 2014 19:58 M2 wrote: Do you think Zilean is viable in soloQ on lower levels, below diamond. My guess will be that at platinum he will be a fine mid pick, like nothing fancy and nothing that lose or win the game for the team. However, Bronze, Silver, Gold he won't be able to carry for sure and often will cost the game for the team by requiring coordination and adequate players on the other positions, something that you don't get in these levels very often. Usually, when pros play & consider a champ as OP, its more or less the same in soloQ, but there are some cases where this is not true such as Zilean mid, Janna, Lulu & Kayle Top etc
Yes, he is, provided you're in a favorable lane. Zilean is a monstrous lane bully in some matchups, so you can completely wreck the enemy laner, zoom zoom to other lanes and gank the crap out of them, and zoom zoom back. Plus, melee DPS champions tend to be extra fearsome at lower levels, and Zilean is their best friend.
On September 24 2014 18:12 Sakray wrote: Against which kind of champion is it a bad idea to go for Zilean ? I figured he's having a hard time against hard engage/pick comp (Vi/Zed/Vlad). I need some playstyle tips as well, as apparently he's a good roamer but I didn't managed to do it well enough in the games I played him.
In lane, Zilean is a bad pick against champs that outrange him and champs that have lots of sustain. Morgana, Ahri are two really awful matchups. In teamfights, Zilean actually excels against heavy pick comps. Buy yourself a Zhonya's. If you're focused, activate Zhonya. If someone else is focused, ult them. Zilean has problems with AoE wombo combo teams and against very tanky, slow-resistant champions like Irelia.
On September 24 2014 22:20 Sakray wrote: Yeah I checked it but there's no explanation of why they picked an item instead of another, and it doesn't say how to play the said matchups
There are 3 kinds of Zilean matchups. Very Good: you outrange them completely, and can bomb them with little or no risk to yourself. Use single bombs to harass. Don't get ganked Good: you're close to their range, so you trade with them. Obviously this depends on how well you trade. Flask start, QWQ, and bomb-rewind-bomb as much as you can at level 3. You're hitting them with two level 2 nukes, while they only have one. At level 5, bomb-rewind bomb spam some more. Bad: you're completely outranged by them, or their sustain is enough to completely ignore your bombs. Stack up your own sustain, farm as best you can, and start pushing and ganking other lanes. Ward everywhere.
His kit isn't based on doing damage or sniping people out. Sure, you might be able to get off 2 bombs (3 if lucky) in 5 seconds but his burst isn't really there, and he's simply not made for sniping enemy adc.
Since he's mostly utility (W, E don't benefit from extra AP), I think it's waste of a spot to take up mid where your team could have a solid mid that brings a ton of burst to the team.
That being said, I like to build him with max CDR and tanky. Slight emphasis on early laning phase for damage and Q, while later emphasis on utility (CDR) and tanking for team with aura items.
How successful have you guys been with support zil?
I've started playing some support Zilean, and he's pretty damn strong. I've copied Bunny's 9/7/14 mastery page and so far have been using my Karma page (hybrid pen marks, armour/health seals, flat AP glyphs and quints). Generally going spellthief > tear > sightstone > lucidity boots > morello > seraph's.
I haven't played mid zilean in a long time, but when I did I stayed away from getting tear in favor of an ionian boots fiendish codex (becomes athene's later) RoA core instead, going tear just makes him really really squishy, I wouldn't get it unless I was ahead. With blue that is 40% cdr and mana wasn't too much of an issue. It may be less mana regen, but Zil can shove lane and is super fast coming back anyway. I'd also get a GA as 4th or 5th item for extra resists and insurance against not having to ult myself. Other items would be dcap/void staff for damage or zhonya/rylai for more tankiness, and seraphs if I was ahead enough to get a tear.
I would also skill QWQEQR, Max Q, E to level 3 for longer duration and chain slow(by level 10), then max W (lvl 11-14) and delay lvl 2 ultimate until after W max (it's only 250 more hp and 25 more mana cost per level). With 40% cdr you can just barely chain slow with 1 rank in E, but it's only a 2.5 second slow then and won't chain on people with merc treads, and I liked having the 4 second timewarp by lvl 10 over maxing W>E; you still max W only 1 level later than those who take Ult at 11 anyway. Idk if anyone does that kind of skilling anymore, but I like it. Support Zil probably is better, but I don't really know much about playing him as support.
On October 16 2014 01:26 GrandInquisitor wrote: Why Tear + Morello instead of Athene's?
The bigger mana pool is way more important than the extra mana regen athene's gives. Morello is 400 gold cheaper than athene's, gives 20 more AP and the passive is generally more useful anyway.
My item path is pretty much always spellthief > tear > sightstone > CDR boots/morello > seraph's.
EPT
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