New Zilean passive, Q feel and responsiveness tuning, rec item pages for each role

It's time for time!

Zilean's passive has been a weak point for a while now, and his Q had numerous little things that felt "off" about it. Those are past-tense sentiments. When the PBE updates, the new stuff will be in! This update is all about visceral satisfaction. The Q should feel better to use and the passive gives allies XP in a much more hands-on way. If any of you fine folks have the chance to check it out on the PBE, I'd love to hear what you think!

For Time Bomb, we've updated the attach logic, tweaked the animation timing, given it a new attach particle, fixed a bug where it would appear to 'flicker' on landing, and generally made the way it interacts with the game world more consistent and satisfying. None of these changes by themselves are likely to stand out, but taken together they should improve the experience of using Time Bomb significantly.

For the passive, it's new! Behold!

Time in a Bottle

Zilean stores time as Experience at a rate of X per 5 seconds.

When he has enough Experience to finish an ally's level, he can right-click them to impart it. Zilean receives as much Experience as he gives. Cannot be used in combat.

Does what it says on the tin. While the passive is off cooldown, Zilean sees indicators letting him know how much more XP he needs to finish someone's level; when he has enough, there's a line indicator to show him he can activate it. Hi-five a level into your buddies! Zilean gains the same XP as he gives and banks XP faster the higher level he is, so he wants to use it as often as he can. By being higher level mid lane he has slightly more XP to hand out, by being with an ADC bot lane he has persistent access to an ally. At level 18 Zilean no longer needs any XP for himself so the amount he gifts his allies effectively doubles.

These changes help establish Zilean's identity, both thematically and in gameplay. Thematically, Zilean's typically had a lot of interesting and unique elements, but has fallen short of the epic power expressive of time magic. Some of his spells do reach that height--Chronoshift, the Time Bomb stun, and to a lesser extent the 99% value on Time Warp. By giving him direct, visceral control over one of the fundamental forces of the game, he solidifies the stature that befits him as a time mage.

In gameplay, Zilean's support side excels against assassins/divers and in a protect the carry role; in this, he is typically overshadowed by Lulu, who shares his solo/bot switch capability and who can defend her ADC without the dps interruption that Chronoshift's revive brings. His utility mage side often overlaps with Orianna, a perennial generalist who can provide utility from a carry role and who also capitalizes on melee teammates. Between these two, Zilean's unique elements are his superior synergy with juggernauts via Time Warp, his amazing lategame control scaling, his massive zone control (compared to Lulu), and his mid-game roaming (compared to Orianna).

Time in a Bottle gives him a capability that's totally unique in its own right and further accents the things that separate him from other champs. Juggernauts typically care about levels much more than ADCs and the passive rewards him for roaming. It won't solve all of Zilean's challenges, but it helps the time mage float in the right direction.

Lastly, we've added a rec item page for mid; players can toggle between the mid and support rec items by clicking the down arrow on the tab title. The mid page displays by default--generally, the newer players are the ones who use rec items and mid lane is a much more forgiving place to play the Zilsta.

Foxy grandpa indeed. All this stuff will be on the PBE soon, I'm especially eager to hear how the changes feel in live games!