Please rewind Zilean Riot

EDIT: This is long ,but its a pretty quick read, and I just wanted to be very through so please bear with me!

I really hate to go on the boards just to complain, and I don't want it to be a rant or anything, but I feel like no one else will ever notice it at this rate, new Zilean isn't fun or useful in any of the ways he used to be.

"But the Zilean reworks were well received and people liked them yeah?" you say. And you'd be right, but theres kind of a paradox there. By and large, both from what I've seen and what people have told me from asking them, the only people who say "Yeah I like new zilean I guess" are those who never played him and still never play him. His changes look good on paper, but anyone who used to play a lot of before him can feel it, and I feel like the changes were made by someone who doesn't play him a ton. Hes not a popular champion. He had a little stint a while ago and only then people started to say "Reviving is annoying riot!" so he got a host of changes. So lets go over those.

Passive: The Passive actually got changed before, but I'll talk about it anyway. The change from global to local makes the passive very.. niche. You'll hit level 6 first if nothing else goes wrong but past that there there are too many factors to really calculate a ton of advantages of it. Yes, exp is useful, but the way exp in league works I feel like Zileans passive is probably one of the most uninfluential to the game. (again, not useless, just generally passives feel like they do more). But hey this is fine if his abilities make up for it, so that being said.

1. The Q: Bombs are one of Zileans most infamous dividers for why people play him or why they don't. And yeah, old Zilean mid was basically all about the point and click damage and calculating the next five seconds. It was cool and interesting but some people thought it came off as annoying that they coulden't do anything about it. And while this is kind of valid, I think its a bit of a lame cop out. The visual representation of "You are about to take damage in 5..4..3..." makes it seem a lot less fair when really this is how a ton of champs work. Vlad just clicks you with Q to do damage. Swain just E-Qs to half health you, so while the time delay was unique. I don't really feel like it had any properties that made it terrible to play against. If anything it gives it more counterplay because you still get a little lee way to turn the tables. So the change was to make it into a skill shot thing. Now thats fine. Give mid zilean a little more depth by adding more "Champion complexity" or whatever. But theres a point where complexity just leads into less usefulness. Its very rare to hit both bombs unless you're simply playing against an unskilled player or luck into it. You can maybe get a first one off by surprise, but by the second the chance they won't dodge the small radius of the bomb is pretty rare, even if they are slowed. (Not to mention, unless you max them and build AP, the bombs hit like paperclips). All this and the fact that Zilean can't actually follow up on his own stun puts him easily into the support only position, so lets look at that.

2. W-E: Im putting these together because I feel like they're easier to talk about. Rewind is mostly unchanged except for how it works with the ult but I'll talk about that there. The speed boost is I think why Zilean is extremely underrepresented and frankly not very useful right now. I think most good Zilean players, especially supports, understand how powerful the speed manipulation was. It wasn't about the bombs, its all about the speed. Currently, the speed alteration is very short, but scales to be powerful. And this would be nice, and it still works as a move, but it just doesn't have the gusto that other champs can't bring. Yeah, a 99% slow for 1.5 seconds is great (Even though the way thats calculated means its not actually leaving the champ with 1% at all iirc), but there are champs that can simply stun for that same duration. Shit, taric can stun for that duration. And do a tiny bit of damage too. Speeding a champ up is also useful, but its just so short that it doesn't have the same impact that a longer but slightly less potent speed boost has. Can you help people chase with it? Yeah I guess if they're in range and really close to the person you're chasing. But you can't throw it out to help someone defend top double time, you can't manage it along with your rewind and CDR to keep yourself and someone else constantly sped up, and you can't manage it to constantly suppress an enemy champion unless they can find a way to get out of range or get help. Most of all, 55% for 4.5 seconds is really helpful in teamfights, especially as a melee character. It just means so much. 99% for 1.5 well, it just isn't reliable or as good in the long run. And all of those things are fun, even if you're the enemy, even if you're kicking yourself because "That damn zilean slowed me for 15 seconds straight!", you had to use teamwork or quick thinking to get out of it (providing that you do), because you're still completely in control of your character, just solving a unique puzzle. Its fun to see yourself and zilean rushing across to map together to stop the enemy from taking your inhib. Its a very genuine support thing that relies on the team and assumes everyone is an intellectual individual.

3. The R: The revive is kind of odd. Some people absolutely think its the worst and I don't understand why. Even when im playing aginist zilean I don't mind it. The old revive let you rewind so at level 18 with 40% CDR you could fire one off every 45 seconds or so at max. I mean its a temp GA, all it is. You can focus zilean and burst him down or force him to use it on himself (because hes squishy as hell), or you can deal with the ult and burst the 500 HP revived AD carry down as soon as they get back up. But I mean I can't speak for everyone. Maybe thats annoying, im actually ok with the ult right now though I do wish it had a slightly lowered cooldown, or that rewind worked with 50% efficiency twords it. (I really like the latter, as rewind is fairly costly in mana to spam). But the ult is largely unchanged so I can't say anything too bad about it really.

Wow that was long! Thanks for reading it all. I just have a lot to say I suppose. Zilean was my main and took up probably 50% of my games before he was changed, and now he takes up probably 1%-2% and always leaves me a little sad.