I've literally never seen a Zilean mid since his mini-rework where they made his Q a skillshot instead of a point-click. That was until yesterday, but I still won that game.
I would like to know why he has such a high winrate, when people say that his damage is more unreliable than before.
IcyPepper3 votesBecause numbers, without context, are nothing but numbers.
It's why champions with high skillcaps have low winrates in solo queue, but are often picked in LCS. No, they are not weak. You get a high winrate or a high skillcap, rarely if ever both.
As for Zilean, the best thing I can gather is that his sample size is pretty small which can inflate his winrates (only mains playing him mid, people picking him only as a niche pick in the right comps, etc).
Looking at other stats, he deals below average damage compared to other midlaners (again, context) and incredibly below average kills. From what I gather here, it seems he's effective for his utility (he gets lots of assist, deals below average damage, doesn't get a lot of kills) rather than his damage.
I would like to know why he has such a high winrate, when people say that his damage is more unreliable than before.
See, this is the problem with your statement. You look at one stat (winrate), and bring up one aspect (damage). Nothing else. If you read between the lines, it's obvious Zilean is played mid as a utility mage with some poke to aid his team rather than solo carry. The guy has his faults. People talking about his damage aren't wrong, again he doesn't deal as much damage and gets a low number of kills in comparison to other midlaners.
Zone of Endless3 votesWhen you use win rates to compare you have to include pick rate as well.
MrBuffington2 votesHis play rate is incredibly low, which skews his numbers since the sample size is low. Also it's more likely that Zilean mains are the only ones playing him, so they have a lot more experience on Zilean than your average player. If you look closer at the stats on Champion.gg, players will barely any experience on him have a pretty poor winrate (~43%), and it's only high because of players with a lot of experience on him. LS was pretty vocal about how new Zilean mid is even more broken than he was before the rework; your QWQ combo is basically an ultimate on an 8 second CD. Not to mention his passive means he can level up his jungler when they walk by. The only real drawback is that his ult now has a longer cooldown, but even then it's 60 seconds at max rank, which is still good, considering the reason why it was broken before was because he could more or less use it twice in one fight.
Yes his damage is less reliable, but it was a targeted spell before; you can't get much more reliable than that. With more practice you get better at landing the second Q, because you're better at aiming the skillshot, because you pull your combo off faster, and because you recognize the best times to go for the combo.
Basically, it's the fact that he has a small, dedicated playbase, coupled with the fact that Zilean is actually really strong if (and only if) you get good at him
MunchCrunchLunch1 voteswell i play a lot of zilena sup. never mid. am guessing because of his ult. and his Q. why? well his Q is the ultimate kiting weapon. does massive damage if you get a bunch of AP. 90% AP on an 8 second cooldown. thats as much damage as some ultimates. for scale at least. and its cooldown is 8 seconds on max rank. you'd probably get 40% cdr quick on him so its down to like 5 seconds. easy to land on target. not much of a skill shot. its hard to touch him with the range on his bomb.. not to mention he can slow you down when you get ganked. which means if no flash. you are dead. or. speed himself up to get away from ganks. he has a perfect kit for mid lane. his ult just makes him avoid cheap dives which happen a lot in mid lane.
Hard4Hamsters1 votesEverybody here has pretty much hit the mark below me regarding pick rate and how his kit is inherently stronger than it was before (just less reliable). Other things to keep in mind are the changes this season and how they relate to Zilean. Getting an extra 5% CDR is pretty big on him and I'm pretty sure Zilean players are going 18 in the Cunning tree. I'm not sure how mana regen/mana pot removal has effected him, but he usually builds a lot of mana or mana regen anyway so maybe he didn't really feel the change as much as other champs. They actually gave him a buff recently that made hitting the double Q a little easier. He was already at a high winrate before this as the only people who play Zilean are mains or pick him situationally and can play him very well. His passive getting changed also increases his Utility as he can top off teammates experience bars instead of passively granting experience to nearby allies (which was pretty useless in midlane). Given that Midlane is the highest EXP/second lane, this was another large buff to him that possibly makes him OP right now, but he is really boring to a lot of people so he will only have a high playrate when the majority of players KNOW that he's OP. This might happen pretty soon if pros start using him again, but there are a lot of unknowns about what pro teams are running right now. We'll see what happens.
Nekusen1 votesmainly because winrates mean nothing, the important things are pickrate and banrate. if a champions would be that good, then you would see him way more often and would be a common ban.
also, he only has 1 damaging ability, with it and rewind on cooldown, he can't do anything in 1v1 combat.
