Please, Riot, tell us what you're doing with Zilean

Please don't let this be another Rework that guts the champion and leaves them to die

Please don't make Zilean the next Olaf

So much of the rework sounded super flashy and awesome then turned out to be bullshit

Q -> less reliable, because it's a skillshot, but can have a powerful stun now

**The hidden cost: **Went from being the most reliable damage in the game to being one of the most impossible to land skillshots in the game (you don't actually land it, you just have to hope they fuck up and stand still/step towards it) Furthermore, you can't reliably have a teammate be a kamikaze bomber because you have to aim it even at your own allies now.

W -> No longer affects your ultimate

Compensation: Ultimate cooldown lowered...but it still doesn't get quite as low as it used to before (Overall, it was a nerf for no justifiable reason.)

E -> Speed/slow from 55% to 99% at max rank; duration down from 5.5s at max rank to 2.5s at all ranks RANGE REDUCED The hidden cost: You failed to mention how the diminishing returns calculation on movement speed means that 99% actually barely makes more of a difference than the 55% did before, because they both make you hit the speed cap.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, you took away his ability to stay perma-sped, which was the funnest part of his kit (at max rank in W and E, with 40% CDR, you used to be able to stay perma-sped...now you have to do it in staggered bursts of speed)

MOST IMPORTANTLY, YOU MADE THE E RANGE SO LOW THAT YOU CAN'T EVEN DOUBLE-E AN ALLY IF YOU SPEED THEM ONCE, BECAUSE THEY'LL BE TOO FAR FROM YOU. You said it was to prevent his Q from being too reliable. In reality, the effect was, "if you want to land your Q, you have to use your E; if you want to use your E, you now have to walk up into suicide range and stand still long enough to double-cast your new bomb skillshot."

And this is the part that really bothers me. The ability to stay permanently sped was so fun. It was so core to his playstyle. IT WAS HIS END-GAME FANTASY. After maxing out both E and W, and then building 40% CDR, you finally achieved it. And you removed that. Yes, it'd be a bit stronger with his new E speed. But not much, because - again - the movespeed cap makes that buff nearly negligible.

R -> Cooldown lowered, but actually ends up effectively longer than before (because W no longer effects it); duration reduced from 7s to 5s

Here's the most insulting thing about this, Riot. You know what the mark does now? It makes your ally stop running after about 2s, then say, "oh, shit, I have Zilean's ultimate...uh..." and then spend the next 3 seconds desperately trying to get close enough to the enemies to die. And they do. They get there just in time to be killed as his mark runs out, because you lowered the duration. YOU LITERALLY TOOK AN ABILITY THAT SERVES NO PURPOSE BUT TO SAVE YOUR OWN OR AN ALLIES LIFE, AND MADE IT SO IT OCCASIONALLY KILLS YOUR TEAMMATES.

His kit is so, so, so fun. You did a great job on that. But the numbers are shit. You gave him a stun and an increase on his E's effectiveness, but it turns out the E buff was incredibly insignificant because of the movement speed cap, and the range nerf nearly gutted the ability. The bomb was only strong because it was guaranteed damage, and you made it one of the most unreliable damage sources in the game. His ultimate was reliable because it saved allies, and so you had to make it less effective at that to - oh, and increase the cooldown by a bit just 'cause, why not?

Basically, you gave him two small buffs, and made him funner to play, and then gutted him.

My suggestions involve increasing the E range so it can ACTUALLY be used to land Q's reliably without going into instant-death range, but at the heavy mana cost of using E->Q->W->Q just to get your basic damage cycle off. Furthermore, it'd actually be able to reach allies you're trying desperately to reach again. You nerfed the range to prevent bombs from being too reliable to land, but you also made it harder to help your team.

And trust me, you could give Zilean a lot of help before people ever consider him a reliably strong pick like Blitzcrank or Morgana instead of just a trollpick.

It's really hard to justify picking Zilean when your entire botlane experience consists of, "Because I'm arbitrarily one of the squishiest champions in the game, if I ever get hit by a single CC skillshot, I die instantly, absolutely 100% guaranteed," with a little dash of, "I'm out of mana incredibly quickly if I try to contribute at all."

PLEASE DON'T LEAVE HIM LIKE THIS. Please just talk to us about what you're going to do and when. And please, please, please don't just give us the "he has hidden power" excuse and then leave him Tristana'd. Please. There are players who love to play this champion, but make their teams suffer because their chances of winning drop dramatically because they're not picking something you kept strong like Thresh.