(Champ Rework) Zilean, the Chronokeeper

"I wish I could go back and change who I am... Oh wait, I CAN!"—Zilean.

I think it is already generally accepted that Zilean just does not live up to the feeling of being a "Time mage". Those who actually enjoy playing him currently are very, very few, and he is usually only played when he is absolutely broken in a certain meta. I personally hate how passive he is and the way that NOTHING he does actually has anything to do with time. Right now, he has a time bomb, a CD refresh, a MS buff/slow, and a revive. Of those, the only thing that even feels remotely "time mage" is his revive. Everything else is just normal blah stuff that most people could do on their own without magic. On top of the fact that he completely FAILS to fulfill his identity as an immortal time mage, his kit is incredibly toxic to play against when strong, but beyond worthless when weak. He is super passive and incredibly dull, since his only play pattern is to put a nuke on someone's head, refresh it, and do it again. His ultimate is incredibly strong, except for the fact that you feel so worthless as a champ that you almost never even save yourself, even over someone like an underfed jungler.

If you can't tell, I don't like where Zilean is at right now.

Now for my proposed changes. I want to emphasize his role as a utility mage/support, so I am not going to be making him some sort of time assassin or anything. I want to emphasize the cool intertwining effects certain abilities can have, with themselves and the rest of his kit as well. He will have an increased emphasis on time related magic, as opposed to gimmicks like "time bombs".

New and Improved Kit: Passive, Heightened Learning: Nearby allies gain 8% increased exp. (1200 range). Additionally, Zilean can cast wards at 10/15/20% increased range, and any wards he places have 10/15/20% increased vision range. Whenever one of these empowered wards times out naturally (as in, not replaced because of the ward limit), or is destroyed by an enemy, they release a ping and grant true vision of the area for 3/4/5 seconds.

Q, Temporal Rift: Active: Zilean reminds himself to cast a damaging spell on the target unit within the near future (750 range). After 4 seconds, if the target unit is still within 1300 range, he blasts the area with time energy, damaging them if they are an enemy, as well as all enemy units within 300 range. If Zilean interacts with his target through his other abilities, a paradox occurs, causing the damage to apply immediately along with an additional effect based on which spell triggered the paradox. Damage: 60/110/160/210/260 (+60% AP). 60/70/80/90/100 mana. Charges: 2. Charge cool down: 15/14/13/12/11 seconds. Delay between charge use: 1 second static cool down.

• Paradox effect (Temporal Rift), Don't Let Them Cross!: Zilean crosses his own time stream, causing the spell to deal 150% damage and deal another 100% damage over the next 2 seconds (150/275/400/525/650 (150% AP) total damage) to all enemies remaining in the area.

W, Rewind: Active: Zilean marks himself or target ally champion with a defensive time rune. If the marked ally is killed within the next 4/4.5/5/5.5/6 seconds, they are revived with a small amount of health after a 3 second delay. Health restored: 100/150/200/250/300 (+30/40/50/60/70% AP). 80/85/90/95/100 mana. 40 second cool down.

• Paradox effect (Rewind), Hello Grandpa!: The time vortex effects the strength of the revive, lengthening its timer duration by 30/35/40/45/50% while increasing the health restored by the same % based off of the level of Temporal Rift.

E, Time Warp: Active: Zilean warps time around target champion, effecting their relative movement speed. If they are an enemy, they are slowed by 50%. If they are an ally, they are hasted by 30% (+(4% AP)%). Duration: 2/2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds. 70 mana. 10 second cool down.

• Paradox effect (Time Warp), Sloooow Moootion/Hyper Accelerant: If the target unit is an enemy, the blast radius is increased by 50% (450 range) and slows all enemies in range by 30% for the current duration of Time Warp. If the target unit is an ally, the move speed buff applies to all allies within range with double effect for the main target.

R, Chronoshift: Active: Zilean channels for 1.5 seconds, after which time he reverts the whole match to a set time before the channel. This affects all champions, ally or enemy, as well as all minions, objectives, monsters, cool downs, deaths, etc. This effect pauses the screen for 1 second, with a loud Global ticking sound and golden screen effects, after which time everything rewinds into the position they were in 3/5/7 seconds before the channel started over the next 3 seconds. There is then a 1 second delay before play resumes as normal. Zilean's cool downs automatically refresh by 50% of their base amount during this time. Zilean's ult goes on cool down only after the shift completes, so as to avoid any REAL paradoxes (If the channel is interrupted, it is put on a 10 second cool down and half the mana cost is refunded. 180/165/150 second cool down. 100 mana.

The Reason For These Changes:

• Passive: This change was to give Zilean some unique utility with heightened learning outside of a boring stat boost. It isn't HUGELY powerful, but if playing as a support, this ability allows him to be safer when warding while also providing more to his allies than a short range exp boost.

• Q: Aside from his new ult, this is where the meat of the changes are for Zilean. I wanted to remove the toxicity from his time bombs, while also allowing him to have more ability combos than simply Q-W-Q. The way that this spell requires the target to remain within a certain range for the damage to activate allows for more potent Zoning, while simultaneously allowing for more counter play through being able to dodge out of his range. The Charge system is to allow some classic double bomb style action without the annoying factor of having double bomb every single time he uses Q and W together. The Paradox effects allow for neat combos with his other abilities to make more strategy in his kit than just Q-ing for damage. They allow him to adapt to play situations such as needing to slow the whole enemy team with a Q+E combo, speed up his allies with Q+E, provide a powerful revive with Q+W, or provide potent zone control and burst with Q+Q.

• W: This spell replaced his old cool down refresh spell, which basically destroyed any potential for greatness in his old kit because of how absurdly powerful it was at making a strong Zilean impossible to play against. I felt like he needed to keep his revive in his kit in some way, so instead of taking his ultimate and simply tweaking it, I drastically down scaled it so that it is more like to a potent yet conditional heal and not be totally broken.

• E: This spell functions most similarly to its live counterpart, and is primarily useful for its new interactions with his reworked Q. It is still an ally speed buff, but it now also scales off of his AP, which is a nice way to reward a mid lane Zilean while still allowing support Zilean to have strong utility as well

• R: This is basically Zilean's brand new, no holds barred "DO OVER!" card. It is both extremely potent at saving an entire team fight gone wrong (you see your carries die in front of you, so you bring them back and avoid the fight), but also requires new strategy. For instance, if your team just lost your ADC, but the enemy lost their jungler and support, you would have to decide, "Are we better off than they are? Or would we do better with our carry back even with their two champions back as well?". This ability could be completely game changing if used correctly, but would take a lot of practice as well as quick judgement and reaction timing to utilize correctly.