Zilean rework and why it is both awkward and awesome

I have always been a fan of Zilean, as he was the champ who got me interested in this game in the first place.

That being said, even with all of the practice I've done with his bombs, it still feels like Zilean's early game is horrible, whereas it used to be his strongest point. Even as support, many people complain about how terrible he feels, a fact to which I can attest (though i havent played him support after the most recent changes). Around mid to late game, Zilean actually feels much stronger, and the plays that he can make feel better at higher levels especially. I personally believe that is because by changing his single target ability into a skillshot, Riot made it possible for 100% of his damage to be missed without compensation (initial change especially)

Compare Zilean to every other mage/nearly every other support. All mages/supports either have guaranteed damage on some part of their kit (through single target abilities) or guaranteed Zones of Threat, which basically say 'if you stay in or move to this area you will take damage' (Heim's turrets, Azir's Sand soldiers, Ziggs bomb field all are in this situation).

Zilean's bombs went from being a guaranteed damage + minor Zone of threat to a skillshot with a major zone of threat that happens to be on a timed delay. This means that the Zone of Threat is all a bomb can provide the Zilean player if they miss the skillshot unless the enemy makes a mistake, because the delay is long enough that, unlike most Zones of threat, the player can get out of it without taking damage.

They made the zone of threat more threatening, but at the same time reduced his damage and made his E more risky by reducing the range (they also made it more powerful but i digress).

Personally, I think that Zilean is more fun to play now. However, he can only provide 3 things guaranteed as a champion: A powerful slow, a powerful haste, and a revive. Both his damage and his hardest CC are on his Q, and in the current state of league of legends that puts him in an awkward place of not being a reliable Support or Mid until later in the game where his Rewind ability and (ideally) max cooldown reduction results in the level of versatility in his moves that make it possible to overcome the problem of missing 50-100% of your damage.

In short, Zilean's reliance on one ability to provide his greatest contribution to the game in general makes him an unreliable pick both as a Support and as a Mage, as he is the only champion who can miss 100% of his damage in exchange for an easily avoided threat in most scenarios.

I may be totally wrong on this, but IF, as I fear, he is still considered too unreliable even after these recent buffs to him, then I think one of the following should happen:

• Zilean's bombs should be so strong of a threat that using his only damage ability as a zone of control would not be seen as too much of a waste, especially early game. Maybe increase the AP ratio back to its original 1 to 1 ratio? the base damage is fine, though it only feels threatening with 3 points in it.

• Give Zilean guaranteed damage somewhere. It doesn't have to be strong, maybe a passive on his rewind that makes chronomancy effects on enemy champions (double bomb stun or E) do a DoT or something.

• If you want to keep his major strength as single target lockdown (someone mentioned that at max level his single target lockdown can get to ludicrous levels), than make E do something that overcomes people with dash abilities, similar to what you did with Viegar. That would make his niche strong enough that he would be able to be picked for that purpose.

Again, I may be wrong with this. I've managed to do decently well mid with him by utilizing the old 'Bomb-a-minion-about-to-die' trick, but I still think that if all of his threat potential is in his bomb, he needs to be more threatening no matter where he goes.