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Zilean - Should Rewind stay or his abilities become more versatile?

Xenotime Gaze·3/30/2015, 9:57:39 PM·3 votes·1,159 views

I've recently become obsessed with Zilean, longer than I have ever been obsessed with any other champion in league (except maybe Karma, but it still wasnt this bad).

I like his skills, his spammability, his theme. I love saving allies, hampering enemies and throwing bombs to watch them explode. I also want him to have a better defined place in the game, one that makes him both useful and playing off of his unique strengths.

Initially my thought was that his W, Rewind, would have to change in order for him to find his place in the meta. However, I realized something, the more I play him. While his ult, Chronoshift, is what most people associate with Zilean, one of the most crucial elements to his actual playstyle has always been his rewind ability. It has a lot of benefits to the Zilean player that most people are unaware of, which, at the same time, come with drawbacks:

Rewind Pros:

  • Allows his Q and E (previously all his abilities) to be up as needed.
  • Breaks the limitations of cooldown reduction on his abilities, allowing them to be refreshed as needed sooner than the 40% maximum cdr at the cost of mana. (This second one is the crux of Zilean's playstyle and why he feels best at max rank, when his abilities seem to be always up)
  • Allows him to double up on the effects of any of his abilities.

Rewind Cons:

  • Takes up a normal ability slot that does nothing but refresh.
  • Now that it no longer affects chronoshift, is primarily used for double Qing for the stun effect, not as much for anything else.

This last point is important, as it is the primary reason why people want his Rewind replaced (as far as I've read and discussed).

However, upon further consideration, why does it feel like W is only used for Q and not E? There are several reasons, but the primary reason in my mind is that Q is extremely versatile in its usefulness, while E is not.

Q has always been a versatile ability. It could be placed on enemies, it could be placed on allies, it could be placed on enemy/ally minions/pets, at one point it could even be placed on wards and teemo shrooms. Riot added to this versatility by allowing it to be placed on the ground for vision and zoning purposes, and an additional reason to land the now more difficult to land bombs: A large AoE stun.

Now imagine if they did not add that extra motivation of an AoE stun. Would W still be useful? Not really as much. E W E slows people impressively, but that doesnt work very well for everyone your team faces. Even then W would probably be used for an attempt at extra damage if nothing else and Zilean would be both boring and fairly useless.

But now Q has a powerful use when its doubled. But at the end of the day, Zilean has essentially 3 uses outside of his ult: damage, stun (both not as reliable) and his slow/speedup.

What Zilean needs, in my opinion, is additional versatility to his time bombs and time warps

He has 2 skills which he can combine quickly and often, especially in the late game, yet his toolset is limited compared to most utility mages and supports due to his unreliability. What I suggest is a method to allow his skills to be used in a diverse number of ways, allowing him to be more useful to his team.

Ideas

First, allow E to have a ground effect like Q and a double effect. Currently one of the things that makes E and double E less useful is that it has no ground effect at all. Giving E another effect when not on an enemy allows it to be placed less reliably for another strong zoning effect. If double E is to be allowed, i definitely think it would have to affect zoning E only, as Riot clearly does not want Zilean's targeted power to be oppressive (a topic for a different thread).

Next would be the suggestion to allow for combinations of abilities. His abilities already combine well with each other as it stands (E into QWQ), but combining QWQ, EWE, and QE on the ground would add more versatility to what he can do without having him target an enemy.

With this suggestion, Zilean's combinations would go from

QWQ (Target), EWE (Target), EQWQE (Single target lockdown or initiator lockdown assist)

To the following:

QWQ (Target), QWQ (Ground), EWE (Target), EWE (Ground), EQ (Ground), EQWQE (Single target lockdown/initiator lockdown assist), EQWEQ (Ground double zone effect).

This combination would allow Zilean to excel at versatility and zoning control of the battlefield without making him additionally problematic with targeted abilities. It would also, at the same time, enhance his already existing playstyle as a combo utility mage revolving around the smart use of W.

In summary, I think Riot should push further with the idea that they seem to have touched upon with the new use of Q as a Zoning tool. Making new and possible combination effects on the ground I think would be best for a champion like Zilean to keep him useful while at the same time maintain a similar counter effect (Avoid the bomb zone).

Please by all means comment. While I would prefer this approach to improving Zilean, I want this to be a discussion on improving him by enhancing his strengths.

5 Comments

Maximum Zilean3/30/2015, 10:02:47 PM1 votes

What I would like to see with it, is giving his E a better interaction for double stacking it. Like they did for his bombs.

Maybe an immobilize if you E rewind, and E the same enemy again? This would add a more reliable form of peeling. Since mobile assassins can easily dodge your double bomb stun.

And for the speed boost, Stronger boost and ignore unit collision for the duration? Would need to be toned down the number on it though, since 198% speed boost would be stupidly broken. But this change would give it a great function for letting gap closer-less fighters march towards the backline without effort.

Zarxis3/30/2015, 10:29:27 PM1 votes

Personally, I'd like to give Zilean's Q a two-charge system, give him a new W (that does damage and has an AP ratio), and leave his E as-is (or perhaps make it a ground-targeted AOE). Another possibility is to make his W empower his E by giving it a damage-over-time effect (with an AP ratio)... But the E would probably have to be made into a skillshot/ground-targeted AOE/etc. because a targeted DoT + super slow would be too strong. The empowered E could also have a healing-over-time effect when allies are within it. In essence, it would be Scuttle Crab's speeding AOE, but with healing+speed for allies and slowing+damage for enemies.

I really want to preserve and encourage mid Zilean. The change to his Q (double-bomb stun, but very difficult to land at all, let alone twice) really hurt him in his 1v1 solo laning... Your enemy is always on his/her toes, ready to dodge your bombs with or without a mobility ability. I want Zilean to have another method of damaging foes because his bombs are so unreliable, and I understand that simply making his [targeted] E damage would basically make him a major lane bully again, which is why I suggested giving him an entirely new (avoidable, but easier to land than current Q) W that is capable of damaging foes (or the AOE DoT+slow/HealingoT+speed).

I'd also like to replace Zilean's passive. It doesn't do a good job of emphasizing his "time" theme, it's non-interactive, it's hardly noticeable, and it's a big middle finger to mid Zilean (you could double your passive's effects by going bot).

TL;DR: I hate Rewind because it's a waste of a slot. Zilean could use a new, more interesting/interactive passive that benefits him equally in mid lane and bot lane, plus a new W/enhanced E that allows him to damage foes because his new Q is so unreliable (and it is his only way to damage enemies).

Degritone4/7/2015, 9:35:24 PM1 votes

His E could make the target's bomb, if any, speed up/slow down depending on which would make more sense. In my mind, it would slow it down if a stun has not been applied, extending the duration of the bomb to 8 seconds for a stun without Rewind, and speed it up for faster damage if it has already been applied, so QEQ could apply the stun on its own, and allowing for smarter use of both abilities, rather than just Q.