Zilean support advice

excelsheet1·8/17/2018, 5:10:08 PM·3 votes·2,929 views

Hey so, I have been playing Zilean support for a few months now (got to silver3, my highest rank). He seems pretty solid. I am having a lot of fun with him and he seems to be impactful throughout most of the game. I want to keep climbing with him. I have a few questions. I'm sure there are other supports that are better, I just happen to be having fun with this specific champ.

what are your thoughts on champion bans. I typically resort to if someone requests something specific or blitz.
Items when/if to buy tear or ardent censor ect..
Any other tips in general.

9 Comments

OurLestrade8/17/2018, 5:21:33 PM2 votes

I enjoy Zilean but I'm utter trash at him, he suffers against hard engage I feel since his main combo has a high cooldown and massive mana cost. I'd probably ban stuff like Leona who can just fly at you over minion waves.

Clockwork Mouse8/17/2018, 5:23:30 PM2 votes

You want to ban champs that have no kill potential. His ult cna be used to bait out aggressive play and it has turned many would be assassins into kills for you or your team. But someone like soraka, who is just going to sit back and heal all game is harder to deal with since if you both go even she will just patch up any poke damage you inflict.

Go full AP. Your base damage is 300 at rank 5 with a 90% ap ratio. Zilean does an insane amount of damage. My go to right now is getting item 3303 item 3285 item 3165 item 3089 item 3020 and whatever 6th item i feel like. Unless the game goes on long, you might not have to worry about getting full build

Manaflow ban is really handy for a good amount of poke in laning, makes it very easy to keep up pressure and have to worry less about mana use. Don't always try to ult someone at the last second, sometimes it is good to have the ult on there so they stop trying to attack the person all together. it is a 5 second window of not being able to be killed. And try to place bombs on people that are engaging in melee, like a master Yi or Jax, or your tank.

Clockwork Mouse8/17/2018, 5:26:49 PM1 votes

Another note, only rank your W up once. Your E is much more impact then one might think at first. His Slow is 99% and it last for 2.5 seconds. You can hard stop any melee champ in their tracks and your ADC can poke at them without any risk.

Agent Corgi8/17/2018, 9:03:35 PM1 votes

One of my favorite things that I do with Zilean has to do with his Skill Levels. Most Zileans tend to Max Q immediately for damage. What I prefer To do is put 3 points into my Q then Max E or simply Max E immediately.

Zilean gains a 99% Slow when he makes out his E, which also lasts for about 2.5 seconds. If your Jungler ganks, someone is going to get locked down unless they brought QSS or Mikaels.

Dorans Pants8/17/2018, 9:43:10 PM1 votes

first items:

item 3070 if you have to play more passively and want to focus on the mid-lategame

item 3285 if you think that you can play more aggressively and want to focus on denying cs poking them and forcing them under their tower

second items:

item 3285 if you built tear first

item 3089 if you built ludens first and want to snowball harder ( your stuck with 20% - 35% cdr for a long time though )

item 3905 if you need more vision, pick-potential or a safe way to facecheck bushes and you can take the hit in the damage department

item 2065 if the enemy has really good engage tools and you need additional help to escort your teammates out of danger

(but imo item 3905 > item 2065 in 90% of all cases. You are already pretty fast)

item 3027 if you built tear first and want to scale even harder and slower. It´s a great Item on paper but I never get to build it. Extra HP and Mana is nice, but it´s too slow and offers no cdr.

Bans:

good matchups (adc):

immobile scaling adcs you can hit reliably with your E - double bomb - combo you can force flashes pretty early and with no escape they have to give up cs or risk getting ganked Ashe Jinx KogMaw Varus Twitch Jhin

good matchups (support):

immobile burst mages and engage tanks with huge hitboxes. Many people will tell you that zil is weak to hard engages and that is true in lane, where they can force a fight at any time and can ask for jgl assistance, but especially in later stages of the game they will often tunnel vision into an engage and bait their entire team into piling on top of each other, which is so easy to punish if you can hit those double bombs. Alistar Braum Zyra Leona with enough experience even hook supports Thresh Blitzcrank First you have to make sure that the only one who gets engaged on is your adc and not you. then it depends on your reaction time. If you can manage to focus the enemy adc quick enough, so that he doesn´t get a lot of free dmg on to your adc, you can often salvage it and turn it into a kill for you. After all blitz doesn´t deal much dmg on his own.

bad matchups (adc)

mobile lane bullies or mobile champs in general Draven Lucian Kalista Kaisa Xayah even Vayne times. when her tumble is on cd it becomes easy, but it can become tricky when she uses her ult and there are some really good vayne players out there.

bad matchups (support)

nearly every enchanter. They outpoke you early and can negate your poke with their sustain and shields. Luckily most of them are immobile as well, so you have to farm it out and wait for your jgl. Janna Lulu Karma Soraka

honorable mentions to spellshield users like

Morgana and Sivir

they are not all that threatening, but not being able to stun or having to bait those shields out can be pretty annoying.

also jglers you want to see on the enemy´s team: Warwick Udyr Rammus Amumu

some random things to round it all up:

most people max Q-->E--->W but found more success with Q-->W--->E I played both playstyles over a long period of time and the difference was like day and night when I went back to maxing W over E again. I am not saying that you should do the same, but maybe you should at least try it out and see if it suits your playstyle more.

Q-->E--->W: more reliable as it makes picking up targets easier and increases your gank potential. your jgler will thank you. (team oriented)

Q-->W--->E: more bombs and weak slows. better for long and drawn out fights as you can use your stun more often. (more selfish)

And if you choose to play aggressive don´t forget to ward the shit out of the enemy jgl.

hope it helps [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]