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Zilean mains, a moment of silence for our favorite, cheeky, old man.

CirclesBruh··11 votes·2,822 views

At first the the Zilean changes had me baffled. I was wondering :

"What am I supposed to do against Yasuo now?" It wasn't easy before but now he can walk all over me. The whole reason I played Zilean was to have an answer to mobility mid laners which are the meta, so whats up with this tiny, unreliable skillshot on his ONLY damage?

"Not being able to select the exact target for the bomb feels really sloppy..." Now double bombing a low health minion near the enemy (one of my favorite zilean tricks) is just impossible

"Thanks for the stun?" Now I can follow up with my... auto attacks?

"Auto and cast range set to 550 to match most ADCs?" What does that have to do with anything?

And then it hit. It hit me right in the gut. They think he's is a support. They made him a support. There is nothing else for him. Baller Zilean is dead. This cheeky old man has finally kicked the bucket. At first I was livid, but now I am just sad. RIP my favorite champion. I'm going miss you. item 3070

17 Comments

Kitten of Evil7 votes

The one thing I'm confused about now is his W. Now that it doesn't reduce his ult cooldown, why even bother, except for the double Qs? They might as well have just moved that capability to his Q and given him an actually useful spell in W.

Q: Can now hold 2 charges. W: Replace with something useful. There.

Awoof1 votes

More like "Can be cast again for X additional mana." That would be pretty much the same. (though I dunno about E then)

Kitten of Evil2 votes

Right, that's the other problem. Double-bombing at level 2 doesn't cost 60+60, it costs 60+50+60. Honestly, if they wanted to raise the cost of bombs by a little bit to make a charge system work, that'd be fine, though 60-100 mana for a spell isn't cheap already.

Hupsis1 votes

With rank 5 W and 40% cdr you can potentially triple bomb if you do it right.

  1. Throw a bomb at enemy
  2. Use W as soon as you throw the first bomb so the 3.6 sec cd starts
  3. Throw the second bomb when the first bomb is about to explode
  4. Use W again when its available
  5. Throw a third bomb

If you throw the second bomb right away you won't be able to do it.

Also you are able to slow/haste a champion constantly.

Tesrac5 votes

The bomb mechanic is pretty buggy, I know that they interact with Shaco's box and vanish when they do. I also noticed that it seems like people can walk through the stick range and have the bombs not stick, third targeting an area and throwing the bomb gives someone plenty of time to simply walk away from the targeted location making it very difficult to reliably stick or even threaten with them due to the low missile speed.

Personally I agree with KoE, ditch the W and give him something else that does damage or is otherwise useful, as he is now he's almost impossible to play.

BeatzBoyFTW3 votes

Uhh what does the video represents? It just shows Zilean being able to match Hec's & Rammus's speed, like the one with 99% now.

Rakvir2 votes

Essentially, Zilean in the right hands basically just DRIPPED with awesome-ness and the short cartoon emphasizes that he is one of those champions that can be put on a pedestal for being "cool" instead of blatantly overpowered in a straight-up, tactic-less scenario.

Not everything has to be a dirty, grim, super-serious-mode of play.

YaoiYordleYiff3 votes

This is a terrible, grossly uneducated change.

The specific target of your bombs with Zilean is extremely important, such as for stacking two on a minion to wave clear or bombing a specific low hp creep to damage someone in lane. I rarely even throw bombs directly on the enemy when I play Zilean, it's more reliable and less predictable to bounce the explosion off specific minions, much like you do for Malzahar's DoT. Using a "pickup" ground aoe for something that relies so heavily on specific targets like this makes absolutely no sense. It feels incredibly sloppy, unintuitive, and shows that Riot has absolutely no idea how to design their own game.

I wish Riot would realize that some abilities just make more sense as targeted skills. I don't understand the war they're waging on targeted abilities and replacing nearly everything with "skillshots." Pretty soon I'm going to have to give up on this game because Riot keeps "reworking" all of my favorite characters and rendering them completely unintuitive and useless.

CirclesBruh2 votes

I couldn't agree more. It's clear this change was made by people who play against Zilean not by people who actually play Zilean. This change was all about counter play with no regard for actual play.

64931067_DEL2 votes

I think he will be nerf soon. No one with a 99% slow range-cast and area dmg/stun can be survive long time in Runeterra, except sons of Rito.

daluvin2 votes

they turned a champion that was able to go into top mid and bot and do OK, 45% winrate (because of the last nerf), and made him bot lane only while also nerfing every single part of his kit except passive.

why is it wrong for champions to be able to fit multiple roles?

why is riot targeting champs with under 50% winrate for nerfs?

Phife1 votes

my match history says otherwise.

Altricad1 votes

To be fair, Zilean was a complete bully in top as well. You could take him top aganist almost any bruiser/tank Trundle Darius Chogath Garen Jax and cheese them like a Riven on steroids at level 2 ( since mr is difficult to itemize early)

He was srsly Ryze v2 the game I faced him in top, only he also had a ridiculous 5 second speed boost that made him un-catchable.

Besides, zilean now has a stun, which is infinitely more useful than pure damage. And i do think a stun( hard cc) is useful aganist certain champions even in mid Fiddlesticks Katarina

His ulti cd was severly reduced too ( well it might be a nerf since you can't re-wind it anymore)

Overall, it's kinda harsh to say Zilean got gutted when you're champion now has

  1. Stun
  2. Increased movement speed boost
  3. Reduced ulti cooldown

but in return gave up

  1. click-and-point near-instantaneous ability
  2. 5->3 second move speed boost
  3. Ability to reduce ulti's cd ( Which used to be REALLY long imo)

I'd say his playstyle just got changed a bit, kinda like how Assassin Ahri doesn't exist anymore, but mage ahri does. then again, only time can tell

CirclesBruh1 votes

Oh man you read the patch notes but have you actually tried this champ? The numbers on his abilities mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's rubbish. Everything got nerfed. This was a blanket zilean nerf with ZERO compensation EXCEPT for the stun which you will almost never see get landed in lane and if he does land it it does NOTHING for him besides letting him get maybe one free auto attack.

Ulquiorra9953 votes

Sure. Now, explain me in what way was going top against Zilean more frustrating than going against Kalista, Vayne or Quinn who can get free damage on you and have instant disengages.

Sad but true, Riot is slowly removing counters to mobility. Zilean's kit? Veigar's cage? Has to go, it stops Zed, LB or Lee from performing LC$BIGPLAYS.

Gank in Progress1 votes

what a trash post. zilean is still a good midlaner

Learnding1 votes

Riot makes sure to take one step forward and 5 years backwards with every patch. They just don't understand the definition of complications.

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