Don't get me wrong, it's a nice idea and all, but was the objective of changing the passive of 
not to make sure it wasn't useless at level 18? It still seems to have the old problem that once your team is level 18 it becomes non-functional; I know his old passive was fairly bad but changing it to this just feels like it was just for show to me.
Unlucky Number719 votesthat was not the objective. the objective was to make is passive FEEL meaningful.
A Miss Fortune6 votesHad a Zilean earlier today, passive influenced absolutely nothing. All Zilean players are literally the best people to ever have existed though so he was joking about it too.
Remlap12233 votesHow exactly does instantly upping someone's level influence nothing?
It obviously influences something because this exact patch Morde's XP bullshit got nerfed, so obviously Riot saw something in it.
It's a more abstract passive than most, but it can have devastating consequences. What would have happened if I was playing Gragas jungle, ganked at level 5, and had Zilean get me to six as they flashed so I can ult them back?
Yeah, not all scenarios are going to play out that perfectly, but it's much better than boring %xp bonus. Zilean's passive is fine for what it does, and it has the opportunity for LC$BIGPLAY$, and isn't that all that matters in the end? For you to contribute something meaningful to your team?
A Miss Fortune5 votesIt didn't help because it didn't even give me an entire level lol.
Wizardavar4 votesIt is suppose to.
A Miss Fortune1 votesIt gives a portion, it doesn't give you like 100% of the experience for a level from what I saw. It gives more like 20%.
Quort2 votesYou're correct. It just "finishes" the level if he has enough experience stored. Most of the time it's not too impressive and the channel time and out of combat use means it's not suitable for clutch situations people tend to fantasize over.
Earthlord Jazz8 votesHere's a possible solution: At level 18, Zilean gains the extra experience as "Mana in a Bottle". You can activate the passive the same way as the original passive, except it gives mana instead of experience depending on whether you/target is level 18 or not. Zilean gains as much mana as he gives. Same cooldown.
An extra solution to ZIlean's mana problems. Tear works great, but even then sometimes....
But I agree with the others too, the primary objective of the passive rework was to make it feel meaningful
Saianna3 votesThat will never happen.
Riot HATES mana. Here's some proof:
Sona Ping1 votesGood idea but I don't think it would be as good as we imagine in practice. Zilean and the champions who burn through mana will already have their mana items built which will be "good enough" almost all the time* and the champions who don't build mana items will by that time have grown enough of a mana pool that they can use their abilities almost as much as they want.
(*Footnote: If even with their mana items it's not good enough, that probably speaks more to a champion balance problem than an opportunity for Zilean.)
Good thinking though. I guess if we have to have a "time" passive for Zilean we might be better off having him abuse saving account interest.
Vermonster4 votesNot only did they actually make ZIlean's passive WORSE (you can share XP with one person once very two minutes and only if it levels them up, as opposed to early grouping giving XP to all of your teammates passively). But it is also extremely buggy. When your ally who you are giving the XP to is at the max range and walking out of your passive as you are trying to give them XP it just glitches and needs to be redone.
Additionally forcing Zilean to have to CHANNEL experience to his allies is dumb. It only works out of combat so its virtually useless, and if you start it and then the person you just used ur passive on (NOW AN ACTIVE RIOT) gets a kill you don't get an assist. Thanks Rito! We needed a fake buff to make it look like you were going to fix us
xFrostKnightx2 votesFirst of all, the old Passive. 10 minutes = 180exp (4-5 minions) Now the new one gives less pre-6 much more after. But how exactly does 180exp x5 equal more than the exp he gets now? Nobody is going to hug zilean for ages for 8% exp because they would get more exp by being in a solo lane.
Now that is over and your blatant lies about how it's worse is gone. I agree with how it was a pointless buff which drains kit resources denying him a proper rework now. He however isn't the worst offender compared to other champions and this is just a badaid until the other champions are fixed.
Vermonster2 votesMaybe you should play it before you comment on here, it is undoubtedly worse. If you had played it you would realize that even if you get the experience later on, due to the out of combat requirement, their exp requirement, and the channeling, you cannot just go about using all the experience as you please. It gets built up and you eventually end up with a ton of experience, which you cannot use sitting in your counter. When I have 900 exp in my counter but i'm in a team fight and then all my allies level up fighting, you don't get to use it. And the later levels are where the advantage from extra exp teeter off. End game the difference in exp from kill alone are greater than Zilean's passive old or new could ever hope to be worth.
Essentially the advantage of his passive is only useful early to early-mid game. Additionally having a bunch of exp accumulated you cannot use, does not help you. And when you finally use it and it only uses 200 up to get them from lvl 15-16, you only get 200 as well, leaving the other 700 sitting in your little counter and unable to attempt to use for 120 seconds, assuming when it ends you are out of combat, by an almost leveled up ally, and have the time to channel for 2 seconds (its and actual interrupt-able channel).
When you play Zilean, and actually learn how his new passive works, and see it in game. Then please come back and tell me how its not worse than it was before. This just in, I have over 100 Zilean games this season between my two accounts in ranked alone. Go talk about a champion you know
xFrostKnightx1 votesThis just in, I have over 100 Zilean games this season between my two accounts in ranked alone. Go talk about a champion you know
This just in, S1 -S3 Zilean Main. I am a Support Main, Jungler secondary. ** Go talk about a champion you know**
This is the problem with you so called "Mains". You seem to think you know just about everything, yet refuse to see other people opinions. No other Zilean player is complaining, few guys in plat like it enough to talk during game. Hell even when I have steamer games open, you can see the player or zilean on his team enjoy the passive change. Please, just drop your "I Main from only 100 games" Ego. A lot of Zileans enjoy the change better than his old, but Zilean can still do with a full rework when it's his time.
TurquoiseYoshi1 votesA lot of Zileans enjoy the change better than his old, but Zilean can still do with a full rework when it's his time.
Top kek.
Vermonster1 votesI've been playing since beta, have been playing Zilean since he was used most as a mid laner. So you can drop your own ego and stop being an ass. I voiced my opinion, as well as evidence of why the new passive was not effective, and the issues that it has (beyond the obvious bugs that should not have made it to live. Seriously, it bugs out several times EVERY GAME and the channel just doesn't work).
If you don't think any other Zilean players are complaining perhaps you need to go watch a few new streams, and go actually ask some. (there is another post on the PBE boards with a split 50/50 of people who like the new passive and people that hate it. Do none of the people who dislike it exist because you're a S1-S3 Main and know whats best?). Also if you talk to some of the higher level support players you would realized that Zilean as a whole has needed buffs since is rework, he is struggling to be viable in competitive play as it is, reducing the effectiveness of his passive so players "feel like their passive is doing something". Just because you are clicking and seeing the xp go to your ally doesn't mean you got a buff. Go play Zilean, play with his buggy new passive (the bug is actually the most frustrating part... why was this released THIS buggy. I swear every other time I go to use it Zil looks like hes having an epileptic attack), and let me know if you actually feel like its better.
Step back from us arguing over the new passive. If you go find my post on the other boards I think you'll see that I made a suggestion that they fix the bug so that once his passive is activated the distance your ally is at becomes irrelevant (therefore it will stop having a seizure when I'm trying to level up an ally). I also made the suggestion that they lower the cooldown on usage late game. I run into the issue of once you are finally outside of a teamfight and have all this exp bottled up, you can only use a little of it to level up one teammate and then it goes on cooldown for 120 seconds during which you probably end up back in a skirmish where channeling is not an option. If they lower the Cooldown to 80 seconds and then 40 seconds it will allow Zilean to actually make use of the bottle up experience rather than the game ending and me sitting there with the passive on cooldown and 1100 exp bottled up unused (because we were in extended fights and rushing to objectives for the majority of the endgame). And my last suggestion I made was that they put an indicator on how much experience your ally needs to level up once the passive is ready. This way when you have 3 ally you can use your passive on and you click on one you dont find out that one of them need 800 exp (which you had) but the one you clicked on only needed 30 (which just happened to me a few games ago). When that happens you feel a little ripped off that you now have to wait 2 minutes to use your passive again, and also that you only got 32 exp yourself because you are forced to blindly pick an ally. I'd rather have a conversation with you about these potential changes than about the passive itself. As I've now played a few more games on the new Zilean and run into the same issues over and over again every match. I think the above fixes would make his passive feel like its actually got a use mid game and on. As well as the issue of the bug screwing up his passive completely (had an instance where it failed to work 3 times and then the ally I was using it on leveled up from the minion experience in lane before it got used, 0 advantage getting to level 6 which is the biggest advantage Zilean's passive offers in my opinion. I thought I was really going to like Zilean's new passive when I read it, which is why I think a lot of the people who are commenting (tons of which don't even play Zilean) seem to think its this great new buff for him. But in reality the new passive is just completely unusable mid to late game. I was also hoping they could shorten the channel. I understand why they made it to force you out of combat and mostly so you looked and felt like you were doing something helpful. But it really should be like .3 seconds so it doesn't interfere with protecting your adc. I really liked how it looked and felt the first few times i used it but now I'm just starting at the screen thinking {wtf} and feeling like I'm Malzahar ulting my ally.
Smithney4 votes[{quoted}](name=Breaking Bard,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=0e5cdWuT,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-10-29T14:49:25.937+0000)
I know his old passive was fairly bad but changing it to this just feels like it was just for show to me.
Trust me it wasn't. If you remember the last years world championship, Zilean was one of the staple picks because the passive affected the amount of experience his teammates recieved, which proved to be very strong in the then popular jungle buddying. It also suffered from lack of clarity. His new passive is easier to balance and it's influence on game is clearly visible. It also feels thematically cool to me.
Keikaku2 votesI'm pretty sure that's because his passive was global at the time? Which got nerfed to about ~1000 range I think shortly after.
Smithney1 votesOf course, that was the original iteration which eventually lead to the current solution. The nerf made the passive weak, while it still remained practically invisible. The point I'm making is that his former passive was very hard to balance and didn't feel satisfying. Unlike the new one which can be managed by shuffling with a few numbers.
Keikaku1 votesNo matter how many numbers you shuffle with, this passive is still going to be useless once the team is 18 so in its current iteration it has still failed the objective of making it feel meaningful late game.
Smithney2 votesIndeed, it will be useless at level 18. But isn't it still nice to hit the final level sooner than your opponent? Isn't the experience boost already nice enough? I, for one, think that Riot did good enough job to update Zilean's passive, and that his passive is impactful enough for a game.
Voluug132 votesThe problem is that when you are support Zilean the passive is ludicrously weak, and in midlane you dont have anyone to use it on.
Smithney1 votesOf course, you never get to group up for a team push as midlane Zilean, am I right?...
Anyway, personally I would never underestimate exp gain in the botlane. Getting to level six before your enemy is huge for carries like Ashe or Corki.
ChaoticPinecone1 votesYou can say its useless at 18 and keep repeating that argument, but until level 18 EXP is extremely important. Like what Smithney pointed out earlier - it was damn near broken because teams got to level 18 earlier, even if it was useless once you got to 18. Think of it this way - 1 level gives around 1000 gold worth of stats, and you dont hit level 18 until ~30 minutes. There is so much focus pre-level 18 that it didnt matter, since 90% of games are decided before everyone hits level 18.
And snowball passives generally arent useful once youve hit full build lategame (Draven, TF). And passives like Cho, Eve, Veigar, and Nunu arent useful lategame either.
Voluug132 votesThe problem isnt that Zilean's passive isnt ''useful'' lategame, its that is 100% useless. Even gold passives have their use (selling an used up GA for example), while Exp... doesnt.
ChaoticPinecone2 votesComparing gold-generating passives to Zileans EXP-generating passives:
They are trading incremental benefits lategame (but weaker earlier) to stronger benefits earlier (and weaker late). For example, if you hit the amazing 200 cs by 20 on TF, thats averaged to 600 bonus gold. One level advantage gives you 1000 gold in bonus stats. So you spike harder with levels than above-average CSing with TF's gold generating passive. In either situation, its up to you to use that snowball advantage, since the passive is either useless or near useless lategame.
SouL1ess4 votesI dont know why Riot stuck to having Zilean's passive increase EXP gain.
BattleOxe3 votesYa know, it's just a quick fix so it FEELS more useful now
Vermonster1 votesIt feels 10x more useless... I play a lot of Zilean, and this new passive is shit
Rıots Bad Client7 votesI'm a Zilean main aswell.
It might be worse than his old passive. But it FEELS more useful, because you're actually investing time to level an ally.
I would stand close to the jung after leash to give him my passive to grant him more exp, but now its a tad pointless.
Vermonster1 votesThats my entire issue with it! They tried to make it feel so useful but it just isn't. Zilean need it to be useful and it just feel on its face. And the other issue I have is ALL THE TIME the channel just sorta glitches out and doesn't go off which pisses me off because once in lane it failed several times (I wasn't in combat and the cooldown wasn't going on or anything) and then my adc hit 6 before I got to use it... THATS THE BIGGEST ADVANTAGE ZILEAN GIVES! And it was just gone because of this bug that I have NO IDEA how Riot allowed to go live. It seriously is happening to me in every game multiple times and its frustrating as hell because his new passive already feels like this huge nerf.
Rıots Bad Client3 votesI dislike his new passive as a supp, but as a Mid laner, its much much MUCH better.
Because you can pretty much bribe lanes to visit you.
Vermonster1 votesI like the way you think.
I think if they reduced the late game cd on the passive it would be better. Maybe add it as a passive on his ult? or just have the cool down reduce by 5 seconds each level Zil gains. Or at rank 3 of your w your rewind now affects your passive? something to help it.
Also they need to reduce the channeling time.... I feel like malzahar ulting my allies.
FooDang3 votesOn an unrelated topic, Syndra doesnt have a passive till level 9...
Voluug131 votesNeither does Cass until a certain amount of stacks...
General Esdeath 2 votesI think his old passive is fine. It's like a Draven passive. Super helpful in the early game (Some would say unfair) and then useless in the late game where you should be fine.
Voluug131 votesThe difference is that you still gain gold, even if its for elixirs and replacing used up GAs. The use is minimal but it IS there. Time is a bottle is literally useless at level 18.
Squarefighter2 votesI mean, aren't gold passives all useless once you hit full build?
Voluug131 votesYou can still use them to make changes, like selling that used up GA for a Banshee/Mercurial.
Yves Klein2 votesWhile it was meant to make the passive more involved, it's just another mundane click every 2 minutes. Zilean has about 60-70 experience stored for getting to lvl 2 faster and that equals to 2 minions (very similar to before) , then you wait another 2 minutes to give maybe 100 or so experience.
FakeGravity1 votesAtleast now it don't feel useless until everyone in zilean team reach level 18 which in my games takes a lot of time
Loki1171 votes1st. A thread should automaticaly be in chronological view ;)
2nd. I believe the entire idea is to reinforce the identity of who is and his identity to the team and his opponents. He brings his teammates into the future via his "bottled time/xp". Basically making some or all of his team in a "further point" in the game via levels.
Now with that in mind he cant make them stronger than they would be at the end of the game obviously, lvl cap 18 and all, but it's the teams responsibility to actually END the game while they have the end game stats and your opponents don't. Once everyone is at level 18, the other team essentially "caught up in time/xp" meaning your team wasted the potential lead.
His ult actually fits this identity quite well too. Whether you send one teammate skyrocketing "into the future" or evenly distribute your chrono'love, you are about being a step ahead of the opponent. Leveling the players that need to be strong and saving the ones that are vital to overcoming a deficit or particularly strong enemy comp. Or just making sure your 
or PaPa 
keep on slashin/smashin.
TLDR; The new passive sets identity as THE early game victory support, you beat your enemys in xp, farm up to 6, smash face as a team while you're still ahead in XP and hopefully not behind in gold.
Keikaku2 votesI'm fairly sure the old passive did that too, possibly better depending on how much exp you manage to bottle, not to mention that some botlanes won't stop being in combat before 6, meaning the 'passive' can't be channelled.
Vermonster1 votesUm.... to what you said at the end "The new passive sets identity as THE early game victory support, you beat your enemys in xp, farm up to 6, smash faces".... Zilean is actually a weak early game support due to his need of his full combo, and his reliance on CD. This passive also actually gives less experience early game than his old passive did. So yea, go and feel like you're being helpful bc you're clicking now when really you are helping your lane mate less. Btw this new passive (if you magically time your passive perfectly to use all the exp in it to level up your lane mate and have none of it wasted. Which requires leaving combat, them not pushing any extra exp, and you channeling for 2 seconds) actually gives less experience. You reached level 6 quicker with his old passive.
My Waifu Vanilla1 votesBecause not everyone will hit level 18 in a game. It typically takes until like 35+ minutes for non solo lanes to hit 18 and quite a few games aren't going to go so far past that to make it obsolete (maybe a few minutes).
FooDang1 votes.
Red Mage1 votesWhat people fail to realize Zilean is a type of champion that attempts to get the game over with before everyone on your team & their team reached level 18. People complain so much about how it's useless at level 18, but here is a fun thing you should do; take objectives over kills. Instead of being a 20/0/0 adc killing everyone hoping for a surrender at 20 why not instead lane push a turret I'm sure you'd get 1 or 2 and while their team is sending people up there your team can push another objective. Why are you able to do this? Because the Zilean passive put you in the lead in levels. Take advantage of early game, shut them down before the game even starts. Zilean is a type of champ that does this.
Lucariolu1 voteswhy is everyone acting as if zilean is a support only champ... buff to mid zilean where you level faster in mid (meaning getting to the breakpoints where you store more exp per sec faster) while giving levels to the jungler or top lane to push them to level powerspikes or just because you want to use the passive to get exp yourself, just imagine going top and making that garen be a level above the enemy top, or gnar have 6 while the enemy top is 5 or get that ww/noct/<insert lvl 6 ganker here> to lvl 6 faster? i wouldnt say it's useless and if you say you never find 2 seconds to channel exp to someone while sieging turret or walking back and forth doing nothing waiting for enemy minions... well thats bad, sure it has bugs right now but they ought to get fixed... hopefully lol.
Yves Klein2 votesI made a bot game, took mid and at lvl 6 I had 150 experience to share. That's really tiny. It means giving experience for earlier levels has less of an impact (lvl 1-lvl2 is just a 2 minion difference). You just used a 2 minute cooldown for something that an ally was 30 seconds a way from getting in lane. The passive doesn't function as Zilean staying ahead of his enemies, it's actually too slow.
EDIT: This passive shipped way too fast, zilean should have told them about all the bugs.
Infiny Mage1 votesI'd rather have this than the old passive. That being said, it feels extremely clunky. Trying to use it is annoying as hell because half of the time when I can use it in the early game, my laner just kills a minion or 2 as I'm channeling or as I'm about to click them to begin the channel and they level up. The only time it honestly does feel like I'm doing something is mid to late game. But eveh then I want to facepalm because I'll see the exp I gave em was like 35 or lower, when I have like 400+ exp to give. And then it goes on that annoying cooldown. I wish once your teammates are level 18 that they'd just hide the increasing number passive all together. It reminds me of how frustrating it is to use it during the game and that there's really no point in seeing the "time in a bottle" exp continue to rise when there's absolutely nothing I can do with it.