Boards›Concepts & Creations

Zilean rework

Deamented·9/5/2014, 7:32:09 PM·2 votes·2,240 views

Zilean is in an odd place. With only 1 damaging spell he still needs to build AP for his ult to be effective, with only 3 real spells and 1 of them seems to be tacked on so he has damage.

Here is my rework for Zilean, the Chonokeeper

Passive - Time lock - Whenever Zilean takes damage from a champion if he isn't hit again for a time, the last hit is erased. - The idea behind this passive is Zilean is naturally squishy, and should be building AP not tanky stats to be effective. This allows Zilean to get hit, and if a few seconds pass without him being hit again, the damage will be undone. Great against that Graves ult that hit you, or the Ziggs bomb, useless against any DOT effects that might hit.

Q - Paradox Shift - Target enemy experiences future pain and past injuries all at once. For the next few seconds increases all damage done to the target, then explodes for bonus damage based on damage done. - Now this is a time bomb. Click a target, have your team unload, and BOOM, they get hammered for a bonus. The base damage would scale with level, as would a bonus cap.

W - Flux capacitor - Zilean drops behind a small device that charges over the next few seconds, once charged Zilean may recast it to teleport back to the device and leave a small explosion at his prior location. Damage done to the device can destroy it. Flux Capacitor grants vision. - We see Zilean in the lore as an inventor, but we don't see this in game play. This gives him both a tool to use, and a reminder than he is more than a mage. It requires forethought on placement because the device is fragile but it can also work as a distraction to delay his foes who chose to destroy the device rather than chain Zilean more.

E - Time Warp - Now a ground area skill shot, Time Warp leaves behind a vortex that attaches to the first champion to walk over it. It speeds up allies and slows down foes in the area. If cast on the Flux Capacitor, greatly lowers the charge time. - Honestly, you could keep the prior E, but I feel this one allows for more counter play than a single target slow/ haste. Haste an ally and others near him, slow a foe and other around him.

R - Chronoshift - Too iconic to change, too unique to remove. Rebalaced for his current kit. I love Chronoshift and couldn't imagine a better ult.

Lane - Zilean should be support but in unique cases may go mid or even top! Against low harass top lanes or mid lanes Zilean can poke, trade, and back out to restore some of the damage, against mages with longer cool downs Zilean would be a strong counter pick. Yet as a support he can really shine. His passive allows him to take a little damage in trades and restore it while giving allies boosted damage, his flux capacitor lets him back out after a trade or prepare it before diving for an escape, his time warp lets him help during jungle ganks or assist his Marksman in getting that last hit. Finally his ult lets him back things up should the tables turn.

Teamfights - Everything Zilean does in lane, he does better in team fights. More damage to amp up with Paradox Shift, and more allies and foes to speed up and slow down. Flux capacitor still lets him back out of things turn south, or drop it over a jungle entrance to watch for foes that might walk by it, and then move to intercept or keep the jungler from joining the fight.

The key to playing and winning with Zilean is forethought. Dropping time warps to create choke points, using Flux Capacitor to jump out or in rare cases into a fight, and being able to ult his carry and keep them from being bursted down.

9 Comments

Rodee9/6/2014, 1:41:50 AM2 votes

In summary,

With what I detailed, I think it keeps the soul of Zilean the same, but incorporates your ideas as well as keeping him from being ridiculously OP and banned every game. By changing his passive to some version of what I listed, it would make him more desirable throughout all stages of the game, as well as keeping him being lopsided on usefulness in early/mid/late game, but also potentially keep him from spiraling out of control.

The changes I suggested for his Q would help preserve who Zilean is as well as give him a bit of extra damage and usefulness in a team fight since that will be needed due to your removal of Rewind.

The overhaul(s) I suggested for his W embodies your great idea, but brings it down to Earth and hopefully would get rid of it's exploitability.

Your E is perfect, the slow/speed percent and CD would have to be hashed out like I listed.

And his R should remain his R. The only issue is the cooldown, which is an easy fix with what I listed.

Sorry for the book, but I've always been a fervid Zilean fan.

Cheers Mate

Deamented9/5/2014, 8:54:43 PM1 votes

It would be like Vlads ult, but a single target. The W attaches, and would be smaller than Ori's. I didn't include numbers because I can't actually playtest and fiddle with the numbers. I'd think 3 seconds to charge, and 10 seconds to recast or something might work.

Rodee9/6/2014, 12:59:18 AM1 votes

I could see this working, but things would have to be balanced a bit more than they are. And I'm a bit afraid that the abilities are so wildly different RITO wouldn't do it. Here are the changes I would make to preserve Zilean as he is known, but keeping your overall ability design in mind.

The passive is neat, but it really only has value in the laning phase. And even then, I'd imagine only in the very early levels (1-8 maybe). Around level 9 people have some okay items and are able to spam more skills ultimately negating any benefit from this. Plus this passive coupled with the other abilities you have listed make it all pretty OP, which I will detail in their respective paragraphs. If I were making the decisions, I would either leave his passive the same as it currently is today OR go with something that is just as useful, but less exploitable. For instance, give him his own personal Chronoshift on a 180s CD. Something like Aatrox. A built in GA. Then have the HP/Mana returned upon resurrection to a flat 30% or so to avoid any builds that may be built to exploit that mechanic. Or possibly making it a temporary ressurection, think Karthas but the ability to move. It would allow you to get off your clutch Chronoshift on the carry or whomever if for some reason you got stun locked and killed before you got it off. Which also would synergize well with your 'Paradox Shift' ability allowing you to get a bit of DPS from behind the enemy lines, because more than likely you got Scrubcranked or Thresh hooked and are now actually behind the enemy team who has since engaged your other party members. I think moving the name 'Borrowed Time' to the passive idea I have would be more than fitting. Or to keep it even more simple, just remove his current EXP bonus passive and give him and/or nearby team mates passive CDR, and name it whatever you want. That would make him desirable in bot lane and more useful in late game by allowing your team to build more damage and less CDR and it would even benefit those who don't build CDR. You can never go wrong with free CDR no matter when champion you're playing.

I like the Q idea alot, but Time Bombs are Zilean and Zilean is Time Bombs. They're more iconic than Chronoshift IMO. The name would have to stay 'Time Bomb'. I'd keep your design as it is, but it could just be tacked on to the current Time Bomb. This would end up being okay and not really overpower him because you removed his Rewind ability. Without Rewind you won't be able to double Time Bomb which would mean he has to get extra damage from somewhere.

..Will continue on next post. Apparently the character limit isn't very large on this forum.

Rodee9/6/2014, 1:03:28 AM1 votes

The W is interesting, but it would need to be limited by a range of say 1000 at rank 1 up to 2000 at rank 5. With a duration that is on par with Caitlyn or Nidalee traps. The CD would have to be around 18-24 seconds flat or so and not scale lower with higher ranks also, the CD for it shouldn't start until the teleport is actually used. The 3 second charge time is probably fair. The mini explosion when using it at the previous location is good, but maybe add a mini explosion (that only scales by rank, not by AP) when you land at the Capacitor which also damages enemies standing around it or on people sneaking through bushes. Having two smaller explosions will split up some of the burst potential, for instance, if there was only one higher damage explosion when the ability is used, it would give him an insane poke potential, especially with the passive you have designed. You could run in, explode on them and be back at your capacitor before they could even retaliate, especially coupling that with your Paradox Shift design. It sort of would make Zilean a 'sneaking in the bushes waiting to unload and explode and instantly be out of harms way assassin' which isn't his M.O. and would be insanely OP. Adding a secondary explosion to split the damage would either solve or help combat that playstyle. For the sake of argument, say with your current W design at rank 5 the explosion did 300 dmg with 20% AP scaling. To avoid the scenario I listed previously, the first explosion could do 150 dmg with 20% AP scaling and the secondary explosion could deal 150 dmg with no AP scaling. To even add more balance, there would have to be a downside of the secondary explosion, such as it also deals damage to the device itself ultimately killing it. Keeping that in mind, you can have the HP of the device scale with AP so with enough AP it wouldn't end up dying from the secondary explosion. So, basically, if you build tanky with low AP your Flux Capacitor will die after one use, if you build mage-like, it can live through more than one use. Although, there would have to be something else done to the ability to allow you to reset it in a new location, if the button is only a 'toggle on/toggle off' style of placing it and pressing again for the teleport, then I can see a playable issue arising with that if, for example, you dropped it at tri-bush but a skirmish broke out in top lane on your way back from base and you're in need of placing a new one to potentially escape a failed team fight but can't because your button is set to teleport, not to placing a new Capacitor. You could also balance it by making its duration short and a one time use. Sort of like Kassadin's ultimate that you can't target. The capacitor lasts maybe 45 seconds, no charge time, placable the same range as wards, 18s CD starts when the teleport is used and the cast distance the same as I listed earlier. It does a bit of dmg upon use and destroys the Capacitator once used. It could be placed over small walls, and used for an impromptu escape, but because of its short placing range and long cd it won't be able to be used as a huge kiting option and a way to escape any gank on the fly with no forward planning or thought. Basically makes it an escape mechanism you plan ahead with instead of an insane Baron stealing, OP poking and split pushing tool. Also would cut down his crazy map presence potential from what he would have with your original design.

I like what you did with his E. I think an AoE slow or AoE sprint would be great. Probably would need to lower the duration to 3 or 4 seconds. On par with Talisman of Ascension (I think). Except the speed/slow would scale up by rank from say 30% to 60%.

His R, Chronoshift, is simply Chronoshift. Something would have to be done because of the removal of Rewind. Maybe the CD could get reduced for every kill/assist you get. Similar to Master Yi, except it applies only to Chronoshift.

Dicerson9/6/2014, 3:24:06 AM1 votes

So, the Original Post at the time of my posting this has a few issues.

One, some of the mechanics are not fully described, for example, it was never shown whether or not the W device was temporary, or permanent, if Permanent than it would be a horrendously OP as an instantaneous backing mechanism, that also gives a last kiss to any nearby enemies, but if it was temporary it would be an interesting tool that has the potential to be both Overpowered and Not so at the same time, a tool that scales well with player skill (Just like Lee Sin COUGH RIOT COUGH) Neither was there any indication of the explosions effect, is it a simple, damage one? (Which in this case, makes little sense) Or is it a time explosion, that warps the area around it? It also doesn't make much sense for a time warp mechanism (his E) to magically attach to targets.

Other than those problems, however, i think his kit is perfect!

Deamented9/7/2014, 3:48:47 AM1 votes

Thanks for the feed back, It is nice to hear other PoV, and I really wish there was a way to create/play with abilities and see what worked because mental ideas only work so well without actual play testing to try it. I like your thoughts on his W Carlotta, and you could change the name of Q back to time bomb, but I feel it is only iconic because how often you see them and how much your dread the explosion. I know when I am against a Zil, I watch that counter closely when I am almost dead.

Rodee9/7/2014, 10:30:56 AM1 votes

Yea a Workshop where you could play test custom Champions would be awesome. I think everything would be alright, really the hardest part would be balancing him without Rewind. Because currently he is balanced around being able to lower his CDs by 10s every like 6s or something. That honestly is kind of clunky imo, could definitely use a rework.

Hero of Hope9/5/2014, 8:33:35 PM1 votes

your Q seems a lot like Vald's ult with the increased damage and a boom at the end. His E seems too much like Ori's W it does the same thing except in your version it doesn't do damage. Also the W you added i do agree with the mechanics behind it and how it could work but time wise it needs a "battery" it seems like it last forever the way your putting it also with the charge time it would make team fights a mess say i don't have the w placed down when a team fight erupts what would be a good time for its charge time 2? 3? maybe 4 secs? team fights are all about split second timing yes it could be useful if you placed it out of the team fight before it was started but it still needs a "battery" timer if it could last forever it would make it way to op i would place it in a bush next to a pink and pick fights all the time I'm not saying they are bad ideas they are pretty creative its just they are very similar to the other champs

B1naryB0t9/8/2014, 1:11:37 AM1 votes

I like Zilean, I main him, and I get quite a lot of praise from teammates for my skill with him. He has a nice balance between AP damage and support IMO. Remember, he is listed as a support champion, and his Ult also scales excellently with AP, allowing those you revive (cause after all, as support you revive others before thinking about you) to come back kicking. I think the Q idea you have is an interesting one, but time bombs, if used right, are already devastating, and that's a major buff to them. Don't forget, with time bombs, you can double bomb a target with rewind and get a lot of damage off. As for the other two ideas, I'm not a fan. Rewind is Zil's bread and butter, it's what brings power to all his abilities. Think about time bomb without rewind, it would suck. Timewarp without rewind would only be useful for teamfights, no longer zooming around the map. And chronoshift without rewind? You've got one hell of a CD in front of you, as rewind spam and CDR can make the effective CD of the ult go from 180 seconds to 28 seconds. And Zil's current passive allows for support, while your idea plays into the idea Zil should be taking hits, which if you think so, no wonder you're having issues. Zil is all about darting around and harassing the enemy, if they're hitting you with abilities, even with your new passive, you deserve to be (and will be) dead. Your flux capacitator idea is either OP-AF or useless, depending on what it's really like (needs clarification). Time warp is fine as is, because part of the allure with it is that you don't have to stay in one area, you can dart around.

TL;DR Zil is fine as is.