Zilean: Rework Concepts (LONG POST + REASONING ALERT)
Alright, I love Zilean. The character concept is badass and hearing about Riot being concerned with his kit having low counterplay and his single damaging skill combined with quadratically scaling CDR is just like a soup of quirks that combine to form something very annoying. Now, his ult will not be included in the annoyance factor for the purposes of this rework concept since it will remain the same. It's a cool piece of unique utility. Let's just list some overall changes according to what sense they make to me. Keep in mind the numbers don't matter nearly as much as the ideas, but the numbers can still be important relative to each other. I'm doing this because it's a cool exercise, understanding how champions work. Not every ability is heavily modified. I have tried to keep Zilean's identity at the core of the changes, as well as keeping the things his kit does right.
Heightened Learning (Innate) This is entirely invisible power. It can lead to some really abusive early strategies when used in higher level play, but lower level doesn't know how to use it. It doesn't feel good. There's no tactical decisions to be made. If it were up to me, I would just remove this to add other more fun, and more thematic abilities to Zilean. Let me go ahead and propose a "new" passive.
Rewind (Innate) - When all of Zilean's basic abilities are on cooldown, his cooldowns are reduced by 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds I would move his W to his passive. The reason? There's no decision as to when to use his rewind currently. It will always be most effectively used when his other abilities have both been used. The number is lower than before because there are several other issues in his kit, which I have attempted to address in their ability descriptions
Q - Time Bomb - This would be virtually unchanged by live, except it would deal less damage. Significantly less. Currently it scales up harder the more ranks you have in it, which is unique, but also weird and snowbally. Not really necessary. This should deal about as much damage as Kayle's Q (another undodgeable harass ability). It is low counterplay. This is an advantage and should be treated as such. Double-bombs, due to the change to his passive, require 10% CDR to pull off, and instant double bombs require 40%. I'll describe why this is important later.
W - Paradox (NEW!) - This ability would shield an ally for a minor amount for 3 seconds, and damage enemies in an AoE when broken (less damage than the bombs). This is just to solve the problem of Zilean losing his utility on his passive (it makes him FEEL like he's gaining something, since no-one paid attention to Heightened Learning), and the loss of damage on his Q. It would be on a longer cooldown than the bomb as well, because it serves as a tool to add in more conditional damage. If you have problems with abilities where enemies alone make the decisions (like Sion's shield), I propose that the BOMBS DETONATE PARADOX IF THE PARADOX IS IN THEIR AREA WHEN THEY EXPLODE. This is important. It makes Zilean mindful of what targets he puts his things on, and makes it make a real difference. If an ally has a paradox on them and a bomb, it could be a very powerful deterrent, with the option of just waiting a little bit longer to attack the target. It's important for a utility champion to make those kinds of contributions. I also feel like the ability is very thematic. The enemy champion being hurt because he's causing a paradox by hurting on of Zilean's allies.
E - Time Warp - This would also be virtually unchanged. Maybe adjusted as the utility on his W and passive would be different, but I'm not a great enough judge of relative power to say how. It would likely have a shorter cooldown to make up for the less powerful passive, but might not be so oppressive to enemies. (it's a damn strong slow_
R - Chrono Shift - The effect would be the same as live. Maybe alter the cooldown to reflect the change to Rewind. It's the part of Zilean's kit that means the most.
OVERALL REASONING
Zilean is a high utility champion capable of high burst magic damage, gated by mana, and his usefulness increases exponentially as the game goes on. Also, he is a time mage. Due to how his bombs could detonate the paradox shield, and how the paradox shield would only be meaningful when used on an ally at the right time (like his ult), the skill expression in Zilean's kit, and in fighting him, becomes a lot less about skill shots and aim and about choosing WHEN to do things. It makes sense that a time mage would be about that. Do you exhaust everything at once to get a quick burst refresh with rewind passive? Slap a bomb and a paradox shield on your Malphite for engage from hell? Or would it be better to save one of your longer cooldown skills in case the assassin jumps your adc? As an enemy you would think - do I go in now and try and get his ult down at risk to myself? Or do I wait for AoE damage to become to strong and his shield and ult to go down so I can explode a different target with impunity? It has skill expression, even without skillshots. Enemies would also have to think about location - if an enemy is carrying a bomb, they might want to stay away from their allies, or enemies with paradox shield on them to mitigate Zilean's damage significantly.
Finally, as far as stats go, his scaling in damage would likely remain unchanged. Minor AP scaling on the damage of the paradox shield would probably be a good idea, but give it decent flat damage. His bombs would be the opposite, lower flat damage than live (to compensate for low counterplay) and maybe lower scaling since he has more access to damaging skills. Cooldown reduction and mana would remain the god stats on him, because instead of having quadratically scaling cooldown reduction that scales with cooldown reduction, he would have easier access to his ability rotations with lower cooldowns, being able to chain things together instead of simply BOOM BOOM SLOW SLOW ULT.
I love Zilean, and while paradox might not be the best idea for an ability on him, I definitely think his W should be moved to his passive and he should be given a new W. I don't expect you guys to agree with me, but maybe I've made some of you think a little about how to solve these problems.
