On the current state of Zilean, post-rework.

Zilean is a pretty unique champion and has been since his creation. Obviously his ultimate, passive and W are what make him a cool champion, controlling his cooldowns, being generally useful with his passive, when it was global, and his game changing ultimate were what made him a really contested pick/ban throughout League's history, such as in IPL3, and much later around late Season 4, seeing play mainly as a support but as a midlaner too. And smatterings of play inbetween, just being a solid pick all around, but outshined by others as the meta changes and whatnot. That was fine, him being phased out because of meta changes favouring different midlaners is fine, it's part of the "flow" of the game and I have no problems with that. I do have some issues with how the rework has essentially removed the champion from proplay, when he was a very strong and stable pick at many points throughout League's competitive history.

Currently, Zilean is in an awkward spot; His Q being changed to a skillshot, which, when stacked on itself with the use of W, stuns an area for 1.1-1.5 seconds. It has a high AP ratio and a low mana cost, with an understandably high cooldown at lower ranks considering W is part of his kit. Time Bomb is a great skill in teamfights actually, you can get stuns off fairly reliably (in soloQ and non-competitive team ranked games) in teamfights, utterly nuke squishy targets with it and really alter the course of a teamfight. It's a really satisfying skill to use well but it comes at a big cost, it's your only damage skill whatsoever. Now this was fine when it was a targeted skill but now it's a admittedly large, AOE, skillshot with a delay to it. It's a great skill in teamfights but it's honestly incredible punishing for laning phase and I think the only reason I can do well with Zilean in midlane is because people aren't aware of how abusable he is if he misses Q. Zilean's base health is pretty poor at 11th worst overall, and his health per level gain is 3rd worst overall. Creating what should be a really awful laning phase for him if he cannot effectivley trade damage back. Level's 1-5 should be absolute hell for him, his auto attack is slow and fairly low damage at 51(+3 per level). His base armor at level 1 is 7th lowest at 19 with an admittedly decent growth stat of 3.8 per level. So with all this in mind, Zilean is going to have a tough laning phase, really tough. His Q is fairly easy to dodge in a 1v1, the percursor circle is created as soon as you click where a Q should go, the lob time isn't the worst but pretty long and the "latch on" circle is only very forgiving in a minion line, so smart players will just sit on the wings or behind minions. Again the reason why I am saying "should be" is because I think people don't really know how to play against him, but releying on lack of lane matchup knowledge is not good champion design obviously.

There isn't a ton to say about his W or his E, they are basically the same as before. His E is very potent yes, and I think that is a big fear of most people in balancing Zilean, that slow is absurd and you can do it twice in quick succession and I have no problem pointing that out, it's a strong skill. But a slow won't help you a ton in lane. And even if you do play it smart with E'ing an enemy before trying to bomb them, you are using a ton of mana to try and trade efficently with Zilean and it may work if you can land 1 or 2 Q's.

His ult is still the same basically, it's worse at rank 1, but with some cooldown reduction you won't find yourself without it much at ranks 2 and 3. However it's not great when you are playing support. Which is why I think he is better mid. Simply because you don't have the AP nessecary to ult someone and bring them back to life with a meaningfull amount of health. At rank 2 you are going to ult someone (as support) at around roughly 850(150) life, give or take. So if you ult a tank, they are coming back with maybe 1/3-1/2 their HP. A squishier target like an AD or AP carry to around 1/2 HP. In comparison to midlane, it simply isn't worth it to run him support. His ult is really useless on tanks, they come back and almost immediatley die because they have no HP. And the squishier champions are coming back with maybe 1/2 their hp, but it's only like 900-1100 HP. That isn't much at all and they aren't really a factor in a fight unless they are really long-ranged becuase it is so little HP. But the biggest issue is you cannot ult tanks, which I find actually pretty important in dragon fights and such, especially if they get caught out and have yet to use all their cooldowns and ults. Sometimes ulting your AP or AD carry isn't usefull because they are either really far behind, or not strong enough to make a huge impact on a teamfight yet (think hyper carries.)

His passive is okay as Support, okay as mid. But it lost a lot of it's attractivness when they made it not a global passive, I understand why they did it, but it's kind of a mediocre right now, you won't find yourself that far ahead in levels in a solo lane or a bot lane, unless your opponent is getting stomped or afk for a while.

So to sum up Zilean's problems, related to his kit and interactions.

1. Horribly weak laning phase that isn't being punished becuase his pick rate his really, really low (3rd last, after Galio and Yorick)

2. Unreliable damage with too much of a risk-reward design to it that makes it unattractive to pro players.

3. Very poor base stats to supplement his weaker laning phase

4. Ultimate as a support isn't very strong unless you build AP, in which case you lose a lot of utility items (Aegis, Mikaels, Frozen Heart etc.)

5. Not great at roaming/ganking, again because of unreliable damage and squishyness.

6. Ult can be worthless if you don't do it right before someone dies, as the enemy team will not focus that target for the 5 seconds the ult is on someone. Thus requiring a lot of practice and some painful mistakes that may cost you games.

Moving forward:

In a perfect world, I would like to see Zilean get some love. he was getting some after his rework and it definitely helped (reduced mana costs, cooldown reductions, damage/AP ration increase etc.) it was a step in the right direction but it wasn't enough in my opinion and I feel his playrate is reflective of that, and it doesn't have to do with maybe being a boring champion to play like old Zilean, which was understandable, Zilean is actually really fun to play. He zips around the map, stuns up people and has an ult that makes your soloQ teammates love you if you use it properly and if they don't flame you for picking him.

What needs to be done? I don't really think there is a single problem that when adressed would fix him, becuase it would probably sacrifice something Riot wants from Zilean. I have lots of ideas. (going from simplest, least impactful to craziest.)

1. Increase in base stats across the board (Health, Health per level, Mana per level, base AD/AD per level, armor per level.)

2. Make the Q radius for latching onto an enemy more forgiving

3. Increase the Q radius of damage

4. Lower the slow % (no big deal, 55% before was already good) and give E a damage over time effect (I like this becuase it fits with his theme) something like he ages his enemies or erodes their being and does X amount of damage over a 2.5 second duration (same as the slow/speedup) and maybe you could heal your teammates over time with it. Numbers would have to be tweaked to get this right but I think it's a cool idea.

5. Zilean's autos mark the target, allowing him to target cast his Q on his enemies, but he cannot stun them. This would honestly fix his laning in my opinion, since his AA range is pretty good, but work out to where he could still have the same Q effect he does now because a mage isn't really auto attacking in fights and again the Q in teamfights is too big a problem.

Conclusion:

Zilean is damn fun and I like playing him a lot in mid, sometimes support. His kit is defenitley more fun since the rework, but he is kind of like Draven or Veigar were only people who play a ton of him make him work, so he isn't going to see pro play. Which I want by the way, I don't see why you shouldn't make him more viable for competitive play. I want to see LemonNation, or Bjergsen, or Froggen or FAKER play him, I want to see amazing, last second ults while Phreak and Rivington lose their shit and a double bomb wrecks the enemy and just deletes people, it's fun to see a champion you really like played by someone better than you and see it played infront of thousands of people, showcasing the power of Zilean in a competitive game. I want to see that and in Zilean's current state I don't think we will ever see that. He has the potetntial to come back as a really strong champion like he once was, but now he is in state where only really dedicated people will ever play him, and I don't want to see that and I don't think that is how champions should be designed, especially after a rework and after being in the game and played so damn much.

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