Wait a second..... You play League?!? As a long time follower (and zilean main) im really surprised. Zilean is different, but stronger than he looks and satisfying as hell. Good luck on the full time youtube gig btw!
Agree. I play other underrated MOBAs like HotS... And I can assure you that LoL foments this "1v5" behaviour or mentality. League players have to change their way of thinking, in all honesty.
sion crashing to the enemy team like a train , the enemy carry being slowed and stunned to death you are so fuckin fast you can literly taunt the enemy
i fervently hope zilean always stays unpopular, so that riot won't touch him and people won't ban him. if you build him in an unconventional way, he becomes insanely OP
Zilean definitely feels like a champion that needs an update,at least visually.Zilean just looks like a crazy old man who was crucified to a clock.Gameplay wise I still enjoy him despite his simplicity.
Zilean is that one guy I go to when the entire team inevitably picks 4 ad champions and you have to blow someone up with magic damage while still supporting.
I appreciate the video and I now really understand why I love Zilean so much. I am an older man myself and I really don't want to be the spotlight of my team. I let you kids do your thing. I am here to make the best out of time.
"Movement speed never matter with a champion with a dash" Nothing is more satisfying than seeing a 99% slowed Lucian/Graves/Ezreal trying to dash/blink into safety. Slowing an enemy ADC is a death sentence in team fights.
But that doesn't mean that Zilean is op or good or something. You still have to ask yourself "can someone do zileans job better?" And the answer is usually yes. Area damage? So many mages do that better. His Ult is very good, imo it's the only thing he does best because he's the only one who can do it. But resurrection is not that ground breaking anyway. Because if it is then he should have a higher play rate. If he is good then he would be played more, there is a reason why he's not played that much.
@@Samuel-dl2so a free GA on a fed lee sin or yas is ground breaking. not the tool, it how you use it, and no other support grants a second chance. everyone else is help me do this or that, zil ulti is 5v6 or 5v7 if you play right. im just going to assume that you are m7 1mill pts + and not question the logic.
I’d say its more like “anime rival character syndrome”. Most main characters usually accept the help of their friends while rival type characters are usually lone wolves. But yeah I’d love a video on this lol.
The only reason I hardly ever play Zilean is that his autoattack animation takes more time than the length of an average game of league to hit a minion. If he had faster and smoother animations I would certainly play him more often. I get the strategy and patience theme of the champion, but I would expect a minion to be dead after 2 seconds I autoattacked it. I mean, probably it's dead but not by your autoattack.. (Please Riot Morgana-rework him, please)
For me Zilean was indeed that pocket pick for the longest time. Eventually when statistics were showed after season ended, I realized that I had ~90% wr with him. That's how my go to pick was born. Lots of tank support enemies were caught off guard when I used Q on a cannon minion as they were going for the Relic Shield stack. I also noted that in my elo (High plat - Low dia) tank supports are kinda useless (This is arguable, but when I as Rell had 300+ armor and enemy Jhin still almost oneshotted me I rest my case) bringing another high burst of damage with AoE stun + 30 sec cd on Chronoshift really made a difference in teamfights. The instance you stated where Chronoshift may not make much of a difference, due to that 3 sec window that can turn the tides of a teamfight, I found that I use it early on my most fed glass cannon in the backlines if enemy has Assassins. The fact that one of the enemies' high damage dealers is occupied on the backline means he is getting easily targeted by the rest of the team and if the teamfight goes on for a longer period of time, you may use your ult a second time. As you said, Zilean needs a team to perform well and above all a good encager to absorb two bombs at the start. Great video :)
Well, yes and no, Zilean is extremely powerfull in the right hands. Zilean can burst a target to oblivion, with offtank ap items in a support, he is not an enchanter, he is more like a utility brand. You can really change and solo carry pretty easy at level 13 too 16, and have a really good lane after lvl 3, and dive at lvl 6. He is not flashy, that is true, but a 1.5 aoe 800 ap bomb at lvl 13 is pretty much game changing, but yes, is not popular, becaused is not a mommy who protect the carrie, or a murderer who can 1 v 3, he is a 2 v 2 champion, who needs a lot of experiencie, tactics and good sense of carrie. I feel people dont play him because he is too dificult as an enchanter, and can't melt like a traditional mage with dps, he is a tactician and a player maker support. Good video, nice editing and yeah, a lot of what you say is true in the eyes of the normal player.
he was so op because of this. i would literally win every single game by harassing people from bush at the start with Q and autos. i wish he was still the same. pinpoint Q + w reducing ult cd + athenes holy grail + 40% CD as early as 15 mins, he was so op, you'd literally zoom through the entire map, escape any situation and make plays in every situation. plus no one knew how to play against him because no one except me played him
I saw him as one of the least "popular" champion when sorted by popularity. I took one look at his abilities, thought it was pretty interesting and chose to unlock him. My first game i went against bots to kind of get the feel. And then my first game against real people, got 10 kills, 10 deaths and 28 assist. The rank was S. He's such a good support in terms of being a combat supporter. I mean that he greatly supports aggressive champions
I'd argue he is extremely power in a master mind's hands, his ap ratios are 90% which is a lot in this meta, and he is heavily anti assassin due to his entire kit (thank god, this meta needs a Zilean), the one thing I mostly can say that utterly ruins him, to the point he is at a disadvantage, is when the enemy has a Dash/Blink to the likes of Lucian/Ezreal, unless your Zilean is a god among men. To think of it, he can arguably out do even adcs in the adc role if he builds adc, his mediocre on hit damage can be made up, for the fact he has: A free ga, slow/speed (up to 99%, not affected by AP ratios), a free stun (dependent on the skill of the Zilean, pretty decent late game base damage). If you add all of this up, if he builds the exact items, as an adc, ideally, he'll be better if he utilizes his kits in a duel, to shutdown and bully the enemy into submission. Against kog'maw? Great! Stun, slow, run circles around him, stun again, pew pew pew, and ga yourself if need be. Of course, I do not advise people to do this, his ap is just god tier. I feel like there is a few ways to play Zilean, you can play him on a macro scale, or on the stereotypical league skill. You can kill an entire team, this is true, easily, 1v5, however, you can also support your team and better their advantages, by speeding up the hecarim, slowing down an enemy hecarim, stunning the mf using her ult, etc... And, with your r, you can guarantee the Jhin has 2-3 lives, depending on if they have ga. Essentially, my argument is, because of his kit, if played with a one trick who has the intent to carry, at a higher elo than average, he could very easily carry his games, if he utilizes it do so. I have done this many times in fact, and I'm not a high elo. I do agree though that Zilean doesn't have a high play rate, due to it not being designed for the player base that league has, it takes too much macro (even if trying to carry), positioning, etc... And, if you mess up, inevitably, you have a higher chance of dying than, say, a Ryze. This is because you have 1 ability that does damage, using that ability twice (via w), you can stun. Your speed, which is negated if they stun/slow you, is 99%. Your best bet is to slow them, or if they can't slow, speed yourself up. You do have a back up free r, but, at that point, you'd have to be near a tower or explosion plant, or team members. And, most players like to see things instantly that looks 'cool', like a yas r, an akali r, a yone r, unlike Zilean who's whole gameplay is to analyze the situation and conform your team to an advantageous position, that or he can be a mindless dummy that stuns other mindless dummies and win off that alone. However, I do believe him not being played too often, is a good thing. Because of Zilean's great kit, but low play rate, he has virtually been unnoticed by both the league player base and riot balance teams, which is great for the Zilean players. Whenever I play with a friend for the first time as Zilean, they freak out, because they've never heard of a champion who literally gives free exp (changing the pace of the game, favorable towards Vayne and Kayl), let alone his stun being an entire team wide, and his r healing back a Sion to full health, and his e making any Hecarim easily win fights, and slowing down their assassins if they get caught out. This is good news for Zilean, as that means many players, especially in low elo, cannot counter him accurately, and that league will not nerf him into oblivion. (This became very disorganized above, sorry for writing this so disorganized) I also realize I am saying exactly what every other Zilean is saying, but louder, so sorry for that too. If you do want to play, or anything, I'm always down to play with people. ( Otto von Austria is my main account ) I do also agree he is dependent on synergy, but I'd like to mention, he can make any duo bot work, so long as they have communication, communication is super crucial with Zileans.
@@ArcadianCatharsis I'd honestly say, you probably have an easier chance at comprehending what I said, if you read other comments, mine was really lazy and I wasn't at my best writing days when I wrote this. Most Zilean mains probably understand what I meant, especially on the carry part, because quite a lot of people underestimate his carry potential. I have seen myself quite often carry an entire team, because he can stun and kill an entire team, with two lives as well.
"ZIlean has no play making potencial" This is so wrong it's painful. He literally has the bestt CC potencial in the game if you hit double qs consistently. And with 2 items you can throw double qs every 4-5 seconds. It's insanely good. Plus his buff of speed or slow is literally made for playmaking, and his ult can win the game by itself.
I think you couldn't be more correct. I play a lot of Zilean and one thing I like is that I can consistently do my job well regardless of whether we win or lose but also if you think about that it means it is hard to male a noticeable impact on the match. I see it very much in who I pick I will casually play zilean but if I get annoyed I will go directly to playing thresh because he makes my actions feel very valuable., with thresh if I hit a good hook it makes all the difference. Also i think part of being someone who could consider Zilean one of my mains means I'm willing to relinquish my control on the match and just do a good job without being frustrated but some people - in ranked especially - struggle to understand that i could literally be using all of my shit to the best of my ability (without comms) and i just cant do anything of super significance. To address your point about his ultimate the problem with making the time that it takes for the ally to respawn shorter is that it wouldn't always be a good thing. examples: u a squishy zilean gets in a ganked but ur jungler counter ganks, u revive yourself , but if the time to respawn is short they just kill u again. A personal example is i will be getting attacked and go under tower, they dive me, i self revive, if the time was shorter i would simply die again, i need the tower to hit them. So as you'll realize after more examples is the shorter the revive time the less effective self reviving becomes but the more effective reviving a teammate becomes. Early game as zilean you really need to keep pace and stay alive, also towers are deadly and late game there are more teamfights and towers make less of an impact. Hence my proposed solution is that as you level up your ultimate the time the ally takes to revive is reduced, additionally making him a little less squishy might be nice.
It's a shame he is so unpopular, I mean especially when he combos really well with other unpopular champions like Kayle who can really benefit from his passive.
another reason zilean doesn't see much play is due to the toxicity of teammates, this is kinda 2 reasons but theyre related. Zil's ult is finnicky at times, and in a fight where your teammates are bunched up on each other there's going to be times where the wrong person gets ulted, or god forbid you click a pixel off and you ult yourself, on other champions missing a ult is a few question mark pings and maybe someone pinging that you're alive, but whenever an ADC or midlaner feels like theyve been jipped theyll immediately spend the next 20-40 minutes making sure to make the game hell for you, and since your Zilean you cant really just ignore them or youre probably going to lose the game since like you mentioned Zils an enabler of plays. Now that already a bad thing to happen during the teamfight phase but theyre a specific scenario that seems to happen way too often to us Zilean support mains and thats the adc thinking we are both an omniscient god and stupid scum, and by that i mean that they seem to think that our ult can be applied halfway across the map just by pressing r or something like that, theyll dive 2 enemies under tower whyll your warding drag, die, then flame you for for the rest of the game, or theyll decide to do other stupid crap like back in the open 2 seconds after seeing a shaco go invis, or face check a bush they know has a 80 percent chance of having 4 enemies inside and knowing you just saved thier ass like 3 seconds ago. And the worst part is that sometimes its not even just lol players being toxic, some of them legitimately have no clue what zilean does, for an example of this, my nephew was in a a league club at his school and had been playing adc for about 3-4 years, asked me what my favorite character was, and when i said Zil he legitimately had no idea who i was talking about even after showing him the picture, and ive had around 4 sperate situations where my adc would actually ask me what zilean does lol. its maddening tbh.
So many times my ADC is 4 kills up before 15min, all I need them to do is get aggressive of anyone to continue the snowball, and they won't because they have no idea the power of zil. I'll be speeding them up over and over wanting them to just ran at the Landers but they just stand around the minions Aaing. So frustrating.
Vars: what keepe Zilian's ult balanced - is that it is not an instant revive. Riot a year later: so we got an insta revive for the support, but for her w. not ult. seems balanced to me!
Zilean Main Here: Overall this seems like a pretty fair video, though there are two points which I'd contest. Firstly, Zilean, like most champs, can be extremely skill expressive. Secondly, I think you aren't accounting for the cc from Zileans double q combo. I've turned around team fights with a RQQ combo.
I recall that there was this bronze game where I met this duo marksman botlane. I harassed them and killed them (with my team's adc) so much that when I matched up with them the next game they outright banned zilean.
i play Zilean. For me it is one of the best support characters - i'm very comfortable with him - very balanced character as the video says - I have a 70% win rate with him.The trick is that you lane partner needs to know how to play along with Zilean as well. If your partner plays careless, then it's game over.
Actually Zilean actually had a pretty radical rework that completely changed the experience of laning against him. His Time Bomb used to be a point and click and was absolutely obnoxious because of it.
I like the idea of supporting my teammates in a unique way. And I much prefer playing games with my friends to playing with strangers. So Zilean does look interesting.
I'll always remember the groaning and the flaming I've received when I picked Zilean when we played "All for one". It was a slaughter, all the bombs stun if doubled up, even if you didn't cast the first or second one. The Garen team suffered, a lot. Everyone had a blast, nobody said sorry about the flaming and groaning. Funny fact, even some Zileans will try to run instead of dying when ulted.
Senna lux pyke and morgana are one of the most popular picks, becouse they can carry alone. Zilean cannot carry alone, he needs to have at least one person who will cary the game. And league is a "team game" where everyone expects you to hard carry every game while they are super underperforming. Thats why zilean and champs for team play are not popular
The only thing I want to see as an update is A: make is E give a small shield so he can benefit from more of the utility items or B: give his E the slow/speed up a grounding mechanic like his bombs the second E grounds the target.
@The Witherling you would think that but over 70% of champs have a dash or a jump or flash plus a flash Sumner spell which the E’s slow doesn’t stop or reduce the range of those spells.
Give his Q a single target heal when you put a bomb on an ally so you can either sacrifice damage to heal your adc this will make his early game more fun, by doing so his Q base damage need to be increased and his stun radius less .
That's exactly what I like about him, he isn't made to win a fight, he's made to win the game. That and the fact that he can lock down a target as well as leona but from a distance (Q, E, W, Q, E to CC for a really long time, assuming you don't have everfrost), can revive an ally, making your team win a teamfight or at least deny the enemy some gold and maybe even a shutdown, and also he can zoom zoom through the map at lightning speed.
As a Zilean main since season 1 still hate the change on the Ult not scaling any longer with the w. Also i was a big fan of the much saver "q and run" playstyle with the old q ( maybe because point and click was easyer to hit but more because you have to stand still for the new q) also the old e gave 55% ms or slow and the points in it longered the time up to 6 seconds. This of ALL champs needs to be reverted. Riot just did him bad by giving all champs dashes... kinda nerfing him indirectly with that and also killing his movement option e-> run ->q-> dodge-> run-> e .. etc he was playin like a teemo but with abilities insteadd of aa´s. Also i would glaadly give back the cc on the q if it would fly just a notch faster because you can jsut run out of it with 3+ boots with close to every champ
I love Zilean. My favourite champion, and one of my mains. I'll happily take Zilean mid, top, support, and even bot! Haven't tried jungle, probably wouldn't try it.
I think you can make amazing combos with Zilean like speeding up galio for taunt or speeding a malphite for an ult if you then place a double bomb on your teammate it will stun all those he just cc'd it's very influential in the fight
My favourite Zilean moments are when a team mate tower dives some poor sap, murders them and you see that tower shot is going to connect and take the last of their health on the way out, so you ult them and soak up the lovin' that flows afterwards.
i've mained zilean since 2013-14 my earliest 100 ranked games were zilean only with 75% winrate. let me tell you, you can definitely carry with zilean. if you guys remember pre-rework zilean, he was even more overpowered than he is now, i could literally solo carry myself to plat alone. what many players dont understand about zilean is his survivability. just with ult, flash and speed up, you have the ability to get out of ANY situation any time. you can also help out your team as well, but you can build the damage as well. he's an extremely versatile champion because he can simultaneously be a mage, tank and a support with an utility. the only reason people refused to play him in the past was because it has obnoxiously mana hungry spells so it sucks early, but you can solve this problem simply by getting mana regen items like grail for example, idk if it's still in the game but it was the bomb. plus get the max CDR and mid-late game you are always golden no matter what happens. if you're skilled you can win early as well, the reason pre-rework zilean was insanely op was because he had an auto lock ranged damage spell in lane so you could poke over and over risk free while managing mana, you could eventually kill anyone like that with ignite. now it's a skillshot but they added stun and lowered damage however this stun is very strong and not that hard to hit so he's still very strong, though not as OP in lane as he was it was also very fun to play and the most fun i've had playing league was maining zilean. unkillable annoying mage that giga supports the adc and gets kills himself while zooming around the entire map extremely fast has always been my kinda playstyle. the problem i had with other supports was that if you picked janna your team sucked, or if your adc sucked, you were screwed because you cant do anything yourself. well, with zilean you could do anything you wanted, revive yourself, get your own kills and in general be a pain in the ass for enemy team. with janna, enemy team gets fed, then some dumbfuck khazix or some other champ jumps on you and you are dead, you dont have damage you can't do anything
Self titled Zilean main here and just have one point. I think you hit on something really huge for me personally when it comes to the "Burden of Performance". When I was starting I league I gravitated towards support because that burden felt much lower, as it wasn't my job to carry 1v5 or create the game winning map pressure and seemed to high energy for what I enjoy, and Zilean pushes that even further for me in that he's a consistent decent champion with consistent decent effects I can rely on. I wish I could make crazier plays or cause some great swings for my team, and while zilean certainly can with 99% slowing the incoming assasin or reviving the carry, the potential is never so high as to be intimidating. He's a well designed champion who fits my niche, even if it might not fit everyone elses. Of all the 'Why No One Plays' videos, this is probably one that deserves the disclaimer the least since it isn't even a rag on the champion in terms of numbers or meta.
He’s my fav champ, but you make good points about he can be limiting. But as an older player with crap mechanics and not the best reflexes anymore, he’s perfect. If they did a rework would love to see his W changes so that it would allow you to cast any of you other spells, including your ultimate, twice in a row.
While I have been playing lately support has been growing on me at an increasing rate. Between S+ games on thresh and lulu and my understanding of support macro I have felt like I can truly carry some games through sheer tactics. So when you say zilean is the “master tactitian who wants to plot out his moves”, I am hooked on the sound of it.
As a 2.5 million mastery Zilean player I love Zilean’s team fight control play. 3 points in Q then max speed. Just feel like full 1 ap scaling on bombs would be perfect and change the interaction of the passive. A passive that CC’s yourself is no bueno
I like what you said being a Zilean main. A good Zilean seeks to match the tempo of the game, tweak it to their advantage. Help people get out with no momentum, fountain dive almost when there is heavy momentum. He also is burdened sometimes with only being as good as his teammates being the more tactician he is in playstyle. He also has to deal with people wasting their summoners trying to get out when he R's them. Waste of summ, waste of his ultimate, and the person probably went back in late to try and get Zil R off but is too late. He is the movement speed enforcer on both teams Minus a master yi ult(it's ok you can double bomb after he alphas) or something like Kled Ult (You're screwed lol). Be very weary of a good zilean that has time on his side. Look to kill him pre6 and he is screwed since his passive makes him extremely dependent on experience.
I main Zilean and I believe the approach is everything I found as Zilean when you counter build the enemy your team is struggling against you become the carry as you said in the video it is must to be extremely tactical with everything and be aware you can't just your brain off and jump into something and expect it to work you can definitely play solo as long as you've played him a lot before idk how to explain that last part but it just works
Currently maining him this season as a support with a bizarre build... Steelguard > Locket > Redemption > CDR Boots > New ward item.(Kindlegem item like knight vow, zekes etc if the games long).. Maxing E first... Incredibly underrated and tanky enough to always get ult off, as i find building full ap as support you're to squishy and die before ulting or worse having to ult yourself.
Loves Zilean. So unique with interesting moves. Time Bomb is awesome to harass early game and perfect to setup ambush or stop an enemy from running away. My only grippe is with his passive. I don't see how it fits the character and it's rarely usefull, unless you have perfect communication with your allies
Meh, I guess the main usage of it is to give XP to the fed members of your team to keep their snow ball going and keep them ahead of enemy, or you can give it to champions that scale of levels. I can definitely see someone like Kayle loving zilean passive.
Zilean main here! Thing is about Zilean, no one knows how to play against because of how rare he is. Very good exploit for when you need a surprise engage. His q hitbox is also WACK, so hitting unexpected stuns are possible, which is fun when you realize that you made the enemy botlane 1/12. No carry potential, but you're meant to disrupt the enemy and boost teammates (as the video said) but he also deals an unexpected amount of damage. Stunning the enemy adc always lands a kill because double bomb does 50% of their health.
zilean is my #1 sup pick. i love being able to do insane poke damage with my q and punish anyone that pushes up by slowing them, double time bombing them, and slowing them again. his revive has saved my and my teams ass more times than i can count and i absolutely LOVE champs that can just say "haha no" to dying every once in awhile. *kindred and zilean main intensifies*
Zillean haven't had _ANY_ balance changes to his abilities since season *_5_* when he had his abilities reworked. And his wr in plat+ is close to 52% (albeit pick rate sits comfortably at ~2-3% Grandpa is a sleeper pick, that's for sure. But i think there are a lot of people who would prefer him to stay that way. (me included, he's so fun to play)
Zilean is fun in aram, but I can't imagine playing him in the laning phase, the bomb is unlikely to land unless you time it when they are in an animation, but zilean e is just so fun to use. I think Zilean should be paired with a teamfighting support to help makes his job easier and help exert pressure while the revive is ongoing, probably Karma because the aoe shield can keep the team safe when Zilean uses all his single target abilities to peel
I appreciate your pro's and con's method and flow to your video, as you never spent too much time bashing or praising at once, but rather ebbed and flowed to give all us zilean mains something to think about without feeling like we're Low IQ players for picking him. I always wondered why I never saw other zilean players, but now I know. Thanks for the awesome video, I am going to save this so I can refer back to it.
As a zilean main. I think there are two points that weren't too good. 1) movement speed is crucial. The 99% slow he has is absolutely crippling. Even when someone has a dash. 2) his damage output is insanely high and the 1.5 second stun gives him such huge potential.
I am currently maining Zilean in solo queue as a support. I actually wouldnt like to see a rework on him, because his kit is really fun as it is right now. The video is very informative and has some great points, but i dont agree on his R only working as a defensive tool. Think of towerdives in which your teammates know that they cannot die. What i also really like about him is, that 1 fed teammate can be enough to win the game. He goes aggressive, dies and you just revive him. All in all a great video.
Personally, I'd really want to see a VGU similar to his Legends of Runeterra version, where they did a really nice job on giving him the look of a proper, matured, possibly a bit crazy time wizard. However, if that VGU was accompanied by a gameplay update, I'd miss his current iteration of abilities, except maybe his passive. From the lens of a support-focused Zilean main, he does lack healing and shielding capabilities, but I believe it's more than made up for in his toolbelt of gimmicks that he can use. An ADC, usually, can be caught out easily by assassins, but come late game when your speed-up cooldown is barely longer than how long it lasts, your ADC can make risky moves, dipping in and out of range with the comfort that a unconditional revive and stasis is available. Likewise, there's a very satisfying feeling in breaking the legs of your opponents, sticking to them like a red flag calling out to your team to come and secure the enemy who cannot run away. More so, other lanes benefit just as much from your engage/disengage potential, and seeing a 14/1 Aatrox fly towards their backline faster than they can flash is always a welcome sight. Movement speed does not directly make an ally stronger; it does not make them do more damage, nor does it make them tankier. But the ability to raise their uptime so much by providing them a safety net and the ability to reliably slip in and out of combat leads to a situation where it's possible that, indirectly, Zilean raises the damage output of that champ because he allows them to keep firing away and fighting at all times, rather than spending most of the fight just trying to get to a target. Especially on bruisers. What makes Mordekaiser's ultimate so scary is that a marksman or other high value target is now face-to-face with a juggernaut. Zilean allows *any* juggernaut to reach that point where they're so oppressively sticky that the enemy ADC or mage just can't get away no matter how hard they try.
I decided to main Zilean in the early seasons because he had double bomb stun. His reworked passive is useful to snowball harder when ahead. Also biggest troll champ imo. Zilean support for life. His ultimate, although not an instant revive is more impactful when used on people dying in ground ahhoe abilities since that's 3 less seconds of damage. Summon Aery is the rune that I use because the shield procs item effects.
Simply, the " Time " theme was wasted on him being a support mage whatever, could have been someone like Faceless Void from Dota 2, which has a really nice theme and identity and really popular too! Zilean is just so whatever that no one plays lol
Zilean for me is a pocket pick into some artillery mage supports like Lux for example. Plus, he's also honestly really fun for me to play with one of my friends and in randoms. His ressurect is what appeals to me now. It's literally so fun to rez your teammate and watch the enemy tilt over how many ressurects you hit. Hell, it actually happened to me one game. An enemy Kai'sa got mad at all the resurrects I hit and it was honestly really fun. Plus, slinging his bombs for stuns and poke damage is fun for me. Zilean feels like Ziggs to me but if Ziggs had more synergy and utility. And honestly, Zilean is overall really fun and I feel like I should play him more than I do. He's so fun and helps so much on the team.
Zilean main here, currently somewhere around 800 hours on the champ. I'm no expert, but I have a few thoughts. You make mostly good points here, but I think you're selling Zilean's range of effectiveness short. Just because his abilities are unconventional doesn't mean they're not versatile. His bombs may seem like a simple cc+damage combo, but they can be used for a lot more- zoning out enemies who are trying to chase, starting baron/dragon steals by stunning any enemies within melee range of it through the wall, even vision, which I find especially useful at lvl 1 while checking for invades. People assume Zilean turns teamfights into 6v5s, but that's not REALLY what he does. It's more like he turns even trades in his team's favor. You'll find more effective use of his ultimate in situations where only 2-3 people from each team are involved, especially because his kit is so good at locking down fleeing enemies while you wait for the revive to go through. Did you know that at rank 5, his E is a 99% slow? Yeah, seriously. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten into a skirmish with some random people in bot lane with my adc, killed one of them, had my adc killed, then, when the other one tried to flee, plopped a NINETY-NINE PERCENT SLOW on them, and while they painfully tried to dash or slog away, my ADC came back and slaughtered them. Last thing- It's very true what you say about the personality of League players. I picked up Zilean pretty early on in my career after trying out a lot of enchanter supports, and the thing that I think has drawn me to him over the years IS his ability to make plays on his own. I get picks on enemy junglers, top laners, you name it on this stupid old man usually once or twice a game, assuming it doesn't end at 20. But, I guess those are fringe cases. What I can tell you is that it happens a lot more than when I play something like Soraka, (even my patented murderfuck soraka build don't @me) which gives him the option to take care of things himself if he needs to, while still being a support through and through. We supports are a strange breed, but there's something magical about making the difference on a macro level that I just can't get playing an assassin.
I know this is a year old but I gotta say I love the video style it was really cool! Im a m7 zilean and I an honestly say that most of the weakness u pointed out can be fixed by playing zilean top (I know it sounds crazy at first) but if u play zilean top and run dark harvest when he scales he turns into a walking nuke and tank (do to his ult) Zilean q w q is a great zoning ability (like u mentioned) making his high damage (from dh) absolutely insane. In the top he has a only a few glaring counters (Quinn, Kled, Voli, etc) but for the most part he can easily destroy other top laners (Fiora, Jax, Kayle, Cho gath, Garen, Darius, etc) Zileans range and e and ult is too powerful to pass up. If anyone already knows how to play zilean I recommend trying him top I think u would really love it!
He's actually a pretty well rounded mage like orianna if you build ap runes and ap items since unlike other enchanters he can use everything on himself (speed, revive)
I agree, but not with your last point ''unlike other enchanters he can use everything on himself''. I mean all enchanters can use everything on himself, I really don't see your point.
Im not a zilean main but he is one of my most played i personally feel like a 1 vs 9 bomber jet. Pressing e on my self throwing double bombs and runnung again. On the other side he just feels crazy with juggernauts since their only weaknesses are being immobile and low range. I had so much fun speeding up Darius playing with a high spellhaste build this season. It was basically a permanent Speed up stun chain making my darius run all over them.
@@VarsVerum As someone who this season has been building around AH on him, you can get your W rewind to sub 3 seconds which is shorter than the Q bomb timer and nearly full up time for E speed ups should you be able to keep up with who you speed up haha. It's pretty wild and I love doing the same thing with Juggs, you don't know fear until the fed Nasus, Voli, or Darius just ran at you at Mach 5 haha.
I like ally Zilean supports. I won a 4v5 the last time I had a Zilean on my team while I played Darius. I did get fed off Aatrox and Viego in lane, but I was really great at engaging onto the enemy team mid-late game with Zilean's speed boost, letting my Kat and Kaisa do a ton of work while I soak up cc and damage with Gargoyles + Steraks. Zilean's ult came in handy during some team fights, I even revived to ult half the enemy team. Definitely one of my favorite matches this season. Can't say I like facing a good Zilean tho xD
I honestly don't get why so many League players don't like the strategist type of champions/gameplay. League being a moba already makes it very strategy based, as those types of games are basically RTS and RPG combined. So if you're all about mechanics and outplays and 1vs1s and whatnot, then wouldn't you have more fun in a fighting game that is ACTUALLY supposed to be played by these kinds of people? I guess these kinds of people play League, because Riot realized that the majority of the gamers are like this, so if they want to be successful, then they gotta appeal to those people. So they did everything in their power to reward reactive plays (while keeping champs with reactive kits meta), while not rewarding proactive plays as much (and also keeping those champs in an ok spot AT BEST).
I am with you on that one. I really really do like Zilean's strategic kit where strategy and matters a lot. It's just sad that Riot is appealing those a demographic who have aroused from the "flashy" champs. However, I am happy he's not in the radar for picks and bans because the way the meta is now? He's broken as fuck in the right hands. As a Zilean player who climbed from the bottom depths of Iron IV hell out to Gold I. I prefer him to be that way. He just shuts down soooo many champions it's absurd.
Hi i'm a zilean support main and i can confirm that in this new season, the strongest zilean build (imo) is to go ardent censor staff of flowing water with guardian and moonstone renewer. (which contradicts what u said at 9:50).
i really don’t understand your percentage like you’re basically saying there’s a huge difference between a bad yuumi and a good yuumi but not so much between a bad and a good zilean ? really ?
what if Q held charges? W could target ally so their abilities reset, E make abilities an AA that would hit target move into the future (say brand Q would hit you while effected by E it would instead disappear for 3 sec then reappear, so gives chance to dodge unless you decide to stay there/ get back in its way). R instant revival if targeted before hp=0, can revive dead teammates after 3 sec, holds 1/2/3 charges, can be activated if dead, can't target same champ for period of time.
You know what i love when you ult the Jax carry so he can go all in and get a Penta but then he runs away. Also i have turned games around all the way teem feeding and all but then we group up and i can save the best teammates and boom that's when we win the game
I think there's also the other factor not mentioned; in order to use his ult (arguably the most powerful part of his kit), the person you're casting it on HAS to die in order for it to not be wasted - thing is people's natural reaction to getting chunked is to GTFO of there through any means possible which often overrides the fact that letting themselves get killed can often be the correct play in order to come back with more HP and mana without having to base (especially as the little hourglasses can get lost in the flashy clusterduck of a teamfight). Even when I play with my friends over discord, telling my ADC to get themselves killed often doesn't load in fast enough for them to not flash away first. As such, it's often a Zilean's perrogative to use it in a reactionary manner to low HP rather than proactively to protect targets - in which case lag, fps issues, unexpected CC or just slow reactions can all render it a useless ability, meanwhile the enemy enchanter could use a shield, HP boost or AoE CC to proactively win the fight.
Zilean definitely needs visual update, along with voicelines. Old man with blue bears and hair, T-posing and flying around with a cucoo clock (who even thought it is fine?) and all of that made mostly of squares just screams 'I'm from the times long forgotten and for good reasons'. When it comes to abilities - they are mostly fine, although a bit more flashyness wouldn't hurt to make him look more appealing, but this comes with a visual update. But I would definitely entirely change what his Q does. The effect (dmg + dmg and stun if you hit the same target) is very fine, but it doesn't make any sense that a freakin chronomancer throws mechanical time bombs out of nowhere like a Kobe. If they would make him to look like in Legends of Runeterra - big yes, that's how he should be like
zilean is like twisted fate his kit is simple but yet has so much impact the only rework he needs is on his visuals i mean he looks like a old man i know zoe looks like a child but at least her hair has some spacey colors to it, it really shows that shes an aspect but everything else its good
I had a zil get really toxic and afk cuz I didn’t go in when he ulted me, I didn’t say anything mean I just said my b idk what ur champ does and then he afk
![แฉกลโกงงานวัด 2024 [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.106 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/taC5dpP3HXA/mqdefault.jpg)
Looks like another fun champion I can feed on
Wait a second..... You play League?!? As a long time follower (and zilean main) im really surprised. Zilean is different, but stronger than he looks and satisfying as hell. Good luck on the full time youtube gig btw!
coppersan coppersan coppersan ~ wait you play league !?
Everyone loves me on aram
But they hate me in soloQ
hey youtube, coppersan here!
League Of Legends in a nutshell.
"This legend is not popular because it's a team player"
Ouch
It's sad because it's true
"Why no one plays: Braum"
Agree.
I play other underrated MOBAs like HotS... And I can assure you that LoL foments this "1v5" behaviour or mentality.
League players have to change their way of thinking, in all honesty.
İts true... remove yasuo ad yone from the game btw
update: just like ryzeee, they dont play him to
“Movement speed never matter with a champion with a dash”
Udyr running at 200 km/h speed to clap your whole team:
Or any chemtank abuser
Singed: Hold my fumes.
@@pantyeater-kun5788 the funnest times in aram I love memeing the enemy team as my singed runs circles around lux xD
sion crashing to the enemy team like a train , the enemy carry being slowed and stunned to death
you are so fuckin fast you can literly taunt the enemy
I mean udyr is not a good example when there is a Zilean on the team. Zilean e's udyr and udyr is no longer a champion Minus a flash play.
[20:44] XxInterxX9 (Yasuo): Zilean R - *Ready*
[20:44] XxInterxX9 (Yasuo): Zilean R - *Ready*
[20:44] XxInterxX9 (Yasuo): Zilean R - *Ready*
[20:45] XxInterxX9 (Yasuo): Zilean R - *Ready*
[20:45] XxInterxX9 (Yasuo): Zilean R - *Ready*
I dunno. Is his R ready?
@@AshBlossomWorshipergive it another two years
i fervently hope zilean always stays unpopular, so that riot won't touch him and people won't ban him. if you build him in an unconventional way, he becomes insanely OP
@@anoneemous406 i dunno but i am a FERVENT HOPER
... suuuure. :P
Like... Zhonya, guardian angel and tank, just to annoy enemies? 4 lifes zil troll
rush max CDR and Just stun lock enamy with 3 points Q max W then Max q
My friend used AD Zilean build on bot with a Lulu support to get on Plat before the major update when we still had CDR.
It was op.
Zilean definitely feels like a champion that needs an update,at least visually.Zilean just looks like a crazy old man who was crucified to a clock.Gameplay wise I still enjoy him despite his simplicity.
I wanted him to have a lore tie in with ekko for YEARS not even like a proper relation just like a knod to THE ONLY OTHER TIME MAGE ALIVE
only visually imo.
the reason i dont play him is his old ass looks
HE'S THE T-POSING OL' DUDE YO WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR--
@@banyani4048 proper animations in 2021, more then one set of emotes for all his skins, to have more then 480 pixels in his champ.
"No one can literally revive a champion"
Oh how things have changed
"Dear friends, please stop dying."
- Love, Akshan
And now Renata haha
@@yoon5848 incorrect, renata doesnt revive
she doesnt let you die, which it's not the same
Zilean is that one guy I go to when the entire team inevitably picks 4 ad champions and you have to blow someone up with magic damage while still supporting.
Usually use velkoz in cases like that.
At that point, i take zyra... She has consistent sustaied damage and can burstw with her ult, as well as zoninig and cc
@@chinoborrego4828 I'm too small brained for plants.
@@guest_zzroman2076 I highly doubt that's true ...
@@chinoborrego4828 Rammus
I appreciate the video and I now really understand why I love Zilean so much. I am an older man myself and I really don't want to be the spotlight of my team. I let you kids do your thing. I am here to make the best out of time.
I see what you did there :-D
Heh, same...
I’ve mained Zil for about 6 months now and he is so criminally underrated. Can become a second mid ap mage and do as much damage as his ad carry.
he has good carry potential as support if you accidentally take a couple kills... hahahahaha
"Movement speed never matter with a champion with a dash"
Nothing is more satisfying than seeing a 99% slowed Lucian/Graves/Ezreal trying to dash/blink into safety. Slowing an enemy ADC is a death sentence in team fights.
His gameplay actually feels fun and engaging . It's his visuals or vfx that don't look as flashy compared to others .
I main this zilean, and he can carry games consistently with his 90% ap bombs
I mid top zilean full ap and my carry is weak i nsupport lane (adc diff) ap is key
He has a broken ult and can still put out 1000+ area damage. He is pretty good.
But that doesn't mean that Zilean is op or good or something. You still have to ask yourself "can someone do zileans job better?" And the answer is usually yes. Area damage? So many mages do that better. His Ult is very good, imo it's the only thing he does best because he's the only one who can do it. But resurrection is not that ground breaking anyway. Because if it is then he should have a higher play rate. If he is good then he would be played more, there is a reason why he's not played that much.
@@Samuel-dl2so a free GA on a fed lee sin or yas is ground breaking. not the tool, it how you use it, and no other support grants a second chance. everyone else is help me do this or that, zil ulti is 5v6 or 5v7 if you play right. im just going to assume that you are m7 1mill pts + and not question the logic.
@@Samuel-dl2so two word, AOE STUN
Please talk about " Anime main character syndrome" it got a good laugh out of me when you said that.
I’d say its more like “anime rival character syndrome”. Most main characters usually accept the help of their friends while rival type characters are usually lone wolves. But yeah I’d love a video on this lol.
Wait is it about maining Yasuo, Yone, Yi or Wukong?
@@jaishkhan7442 What about Sett?
I literally think that he's only unpopular because of how he looks LMFAO. It's crazy he looks like this in 2023
I'm main Zilean, he's a greatest mid/support.
The only reason I hardly ever play Zilean is that his autoattack animation takes more time than the length of an average game of league to hit a minion. If he had faster and smoother animations I would certainly play him more often. I get the strategy and patience theme of the champion, but I would expect a minion to be dead after 2 seconds I autoattacked it. I mean, probably it's dead but not by your autoattack.. (Please Riot Morgana-rework him, please)
For me Zilean was indeed that pocket pick for the longest time. Eventually when statistics were showed after season ended, I realized that I had ~90% wr with him. That's how my go to pick was born. Lots of tank support enemies were caught off guard when I used Q on a cannon minion as they were going for the Relic Shield stack.
I also noted that in my elo (High plat - Low dia) tank supports are kinda useless (This is arguable, but when I as Rell had 300+ armor and enemy Jhin still almost oneshotted me I rest my case) bringing another high burst of damage with AoE stun + 30 sec cd on Chronoshift really made a difference in teamfights.
The instance you stated where Chronoshift may not make much of a difference, due to that 3 sec window that can turn the tides of a teamfight, I found that I use it early on my most fed glass cannon in the backlines if enemy has Assassins. The fact that one of the enemies' high damage dealers is occupied on the backline means he is getting easily targeted by the rest of the team and if the teamfight goes on for a longer period of time, you may use your ult a second time.
As you said, Zilean needs a team to perform well and above all a good encager to absorb two bombs at the start. Great video :)
Well, yes and no, Zilean is extremely powerfull in the right hands.
Zilean can burst a target to oblivion, with offtank ap items in a support, he is not an enchanter, he is more like a utility brand. You can really change and solo carry pretty easy at level 13 too 16, and have a really good lane after lvl 3, and dive at lvl 6. He is not flashy, that is true, but a 1.5 aoe 800 ap bomb at lvl 13 is pretty much game changing, but yes, is not popular, becaused is not a mommy who protect the carrie, or a murderer who can 1 v 3, he is a 2 v 2 champion, who needs a lot of experiencie, tactics and good sense of carrie. I feel people dont play him because he is too dificult as an enchanter, and can't melt like a traditional mage with dps, he is a tactician and a player maker support.
Good video, nice editing and yeah, a lot of what you say is true in the eyes of the normal player.
takes a lot of time to know when to use skills in lane too, god forbid you miss a double bomb your ass is exposed for the next few seconds T_T
Zilean já what we would call, a specialist, his playstyle is different from everything in the game and he can't be classified in a specific class
I have 700k mastery on zilean... :)
i agree with that as 1.6 mill zilean main :D
zilean''s Q used to be a pintpoint skill instead of a skillshot, not only his pasive was changed, his Q was also
I wish it was still like it was before😭
he was so op because of this. i would literally win every single game by harassing people from bush at the start with Q and autos. i wish he was still the same. pinpoint Q + w reducing ult cd + athenes holy grail + 40% CD as early as 15 mins, he was so op, you'd literally zoom through the entire map, escape any situation and make plays in every situation. plus no one knew how to play against him because no one except me played him
I saw him as one of the least "popular" champion when sorted by popularity. I took one look at his abilities, thought it was pretty interesting and chose to unlock him. My first game i went against bots to kind of get the feel. And then my first game against real people, got 10 kills, 10 deaths and 28 assist. The rank was S. He's such a good support in terms of being a combat supporter. I mean that he greatly supports aggressive champions
I'd argue he is extremely power in a master mind's hands, his ap ratios are 90% which is a lot in this meta, and he is heavily anti assassin due to his entire kit (thank god, this meta needs a Zilean), the one thing I mostly can say that utterly ruins him, to the point he is at a disadvantage, is when the enemy has a Dash/Blink to the likes of Lucian/Ezreal, unless your Zilean is a god among men. To think of it, he can arguably out do even adcs in the adc role if he builds adc, his mediocre on hit damage can be made up, for the fact he has: A free ga, slow/speed (up to 99%, not affected by AP ratios), a free stun (dependent on the skill of the Zilean, pretty decent late game base damage). If you add all of this up, if he builds the exact items, as an adc, ideally, he'll be better if he utilizes his kits in a duel, to shutdown and bully the enemy into submission. Against kog'maw? Great! Stun, slow, run circles around him, stun again, pew pew pew, and ga yourself if need be. Of course, I do not advise people to do this, his ap is just god tier. I feel like there is a few ways to play Zilean, you can play him on a macro scale, or on the stereotypical league skill. You can kill an entire team, this is true, easily, 1v5, however, you can also support your team and better their advantages, by speeding up the hecarim, slowing down an enemy hecarim, stunning the mf using her ult, etc... And, with your r, you can guarantee the Jhin has 2-3 lives, depending on if they have ga. Essentially, my argument is, because of his kit, if played with a one trick who has the intent to carry, at a higher elo than average, he could very easily carry his games, if he utilizes it do so. I have done this many times in fact, and I'm not a high elo. I do agree though that Zilean doesn't have a high play rate, due to it not being designed for the player base that league has, it takes too much macro (even if trying to carry), positioning, etc... And, if you mess up, inevitably, you have a higher chance of dying than, say, a Ryze. This is because you have 1 ability that does damage, using that ability twice (via w), you can stun. Your speed, which is negated if they stun/slow you, is 99%. Your best bet is to slow them, or if they can't slow, speed yourself up. You do have a back up free r, but, at that point, you'd have to be near a tower or explosion plant, or team members. And, most players like to see things instantly that looks 'cool', like a yas r, an akali r, a yone r, unlike Zilean who's whole gameplay is to analyze the situation and conform your team to an advantageous position, that or he can be a mindless dummy that stuns other mindless dummies and win off that alone.
However, I do believe him not being played too often, is a good thing. Because of Zilean's great kit, but low play rate, he has virtually been unnoticed by both the league player base and riot balance teams, which is great for the Zilean players. Whenever I play with a friend for the first time as Zilean, they freak out, because they've never heard of a champion who literally gives free exp (changing the pace of the game, favorable towards Vayne and Kayl), let alone his stun being an entire team wide, and his r healing back a Sion to full health, and his e making any Hecarim easily win fights, and slowing down their assassins if they get caught out. This is good news for Zilean, as that means many players, especially in low elo, cannot counter him accurately, and that league will not nerf him into oblivion.
(This became very disorganized above, sorry for writing this so disorganized)
I also realize I am saying exactly what every other Zilean is saying, but louder, so sorry for that too.
If you do want to play, or anything, I'm always down to play with people. ( Otto von Austria is my main account )
I do also agree he is dependent on synergy, but I'd like to mention, he can make any duo bot work, so long as they have communication, communication is super crucial with Zileans.
Whoah long comment
@@ArcadianCatharsis I'd honestly say, you probably have an easier chance at comprehending what I said, if you read other comments, mine was really lazy and I wasn't at my best writing days when I wrote this. Most Zilean mains probably understand what I meant, especially on the carry part, because quite a lot of people underestimate his carry potential. I have seen myself quite often carry an entire team, because he can stun and kill an entire team, with two lives as well.
"ZIlean has no play making potencial"
This is so wrong it's painful. He literally has the bestt CC potencial in the game if you hit double qs consistently.
And with 2 items you can throw double qs every 4-5 seconds. It's insanely good.
Plus his buff of speed or slow is literally made for playmaking, and his ult can win the game by itself.
I played lol 2 years ago and Zilean caught my eye. Imm proud to say ppl are happy with me being on their team. Wether it’s support or mid.
I think you couldn't be more correct. I play a lot of Zilean and one thing I like is that I can consistently do my job well regardless of whether we win or lose but also if you think about that it means it is hard to male a noticeable impact on the match. I see it very much in who I pick I will casually play zilean but if I get annoyed I will go directly to playing thresh because he makes my actions feel very valuable., with thresh if I hit a good hook it makes all the difference. Also i think part of being someone who could consider Zilean one of my mains means I'm willing to relinquish my control on the match and just do a good job without being frustrated but some people - in ranked especially - struggle to understand that i could literally be using all of my shit to the best of my ability (without comms) and i just cant do anything of super significance. To address your point about his ultimate the problem with making the time that it takes for the ally to respawn shorter is that it wouldn't always be a good thing. examples: u a squishy zilean gets in a ganked but ur jungler counter ganks, u revive yourself , but if the time to respawn is short they just kill u again. A personal example is i will be getting attacked and go under tower, they dive me, i self revive, if the time was shorter i would simply die again, i need the tower to hit them. So as you'll realize after more examples is the shorter the revive time the less effective self reviving becomes but the more effective reviving a teammate becomes. Early game as zilean you really need to keep pace and stay alive, also towers are deadly and late game there are more teamfights and towers make less of an impact. Hence my proposed solution is that as you level up your ultimate the time the ally takes to revive is reduced, additionally making him a little less squishy might be nice.
Zilean doesnt need a vgu, he just needs a legendary skin
he fucking needs one yes
It's a shame he is so unpopular, I mean especially when he combos really well with other unpopular champions like Kayle who can really benefit from his passive.
another reason zilean doesn't see much play is due to the toxicity of teammates, this is kinda 2 reasons but theyre related. Zil's ult is finnicky at times, and in a fight where your teammates are bunched up on each other there's going to be times where the wrong person gets ulted, or god forbid you click a pixel off and you ult yourself, on other champions missing a ult is a few question mark pings and maybe someone pinging that you're alive, but whenever an ADC or midlaner feels like theyve been jipped theyll immediately spend the next 20-40 minutes making sure to make the game hell for you, and since your Zilean you cant really just ignore them or youre probably going to lose the game since like you mentioned Zils an enabler of plays. Now that already a bad thing to happen during the teamfight phase but theyre a specific scenario that seems to happen way too often to us Zilean support mains and thats the adc thinking we are both an omniscient god and stupid scum, and by that i mean that they seem to think that our ult can be applied halfway across the map just by pressing r or something like that, theyll dive 2 enemies under tower whyll your warding drag, die, then flame you for for the rest of the game, or theyll decide to do other stupid crap like back in the open 2 seconds after seeing a shaco go invis, or face check a bush they know has a 80 percent chance of having 4 enemies inside and knowing you just saved thier ass like 3 seconds ago. And the worst part is that sometimes its not even just lol players being toxic, some of them legitimately have no clue what zilean does, for an example of this, my nephew was in a a league club at his school and had been playing adc for about 3-4 years, asked me what my favorite character was, and when i said Zil he legitimately had no idea who i was talking about even after showing him the picture, and ive had around 4 sperate situations where my adc would actually ask me what zilean does lol. its maddening tbh.
So many times my ADC is 4 kills up before 15min, all I need them to do is get aggressive of anyone to continue the snowball, and they won't because they have no idea the power of zil.
I'll be speeding them up over and over wanting them to just ran at the Landers but they just stand around the minions Aaing. So frustrating.
pro tip u can ult the little picture in the corner to ult the right person in a teamfight
Vars: what keepe Zilian's ult balanced - is that it is not an instant revive.
Riot a year later: so we got an insta revive for the support, but for her w. not ult. seems balanced to me!
Zilean Main Here:
Overall this seems like a pretty fair video, though there are two points which I'd contest.
Firstly, Zilean, like most champs, can be extremely skill expressive.
Secondly, I think you aren't accounting for the cc from Zileans double q combo. I've turned around team fights with a RQQ combo.
I recall that there was this bronze game where I met this duo marksman botlane. I harassed them and killed them (with my team's adc) so much that when I matched up with them the next game they outright banned zilean.
i play Zilean. For me it is one of the best support characters - i'm very comfortable with him - very balanced character as the video says - I have a 70% win rate with him.The trick is that you lane partner needs to know how to play along with Zilean as well. If your partner plays careless, then it's game over.
an allchat conversation that is still my favorite zilean moment
Enemy Lucien: Zil what's ur ult cd?
Me: 20 seconds
Enemy lucien: .... fuck you
Actually Zilean actually had a pretty radical rework that completely changed the experience of laning against him. His Time Bomb used to be a point and click and was absolutely obnoxious because of it.
Vars said if the revive was immediate it would be the best ability in the game, now it's just renata's W 😂 crazy game this is
8:20
Riot
...
Lets take this
RENATA
It's awesome to find your channel. it's nice to find hidden gem TH-camrs in the league community who put as much effort as you did in your video.
"No one can literally auto-revive an ally champion"
That didn't age well.
"No one can autorevive an allied champion"
That didn't age so well
wait what happened?
@@ArkanMatlub03 can't Aksan revive multiple allies with his w?
hahaha, i call him "the invsible carry"
When I ca.e back to league Zillian was the only character that fit my playstyle instantly.
I like the idea of supporting my teammates in a unique way. And I much prefer playing games with my friends to playing with strangers. So Zilean does look interesting.
I'll always remember the groaning and the flaming I've received when I picked Zilean when we played "All for one". It was a slaughter, all the bombs stun if doubled up, even if you didn't cast the first or second one. The Garen team suffered, a lot. Everyone had a blast, nobody said sorry about the flaming and groaning. Funny fact, even some Zileans will try to run instead of dying when ulted.
Senna lux pyke and morgana are one of the most popular picks, becouse they can carry alone. Zilean cannot carry alone, he needs to have at least one person who will cary the game. And league is a "team game" where everyone expects you to hard carry every game while they are super underperforming. Thats why zilean and champs for team play are not popular
The only thing I want to see as an update is A: make is E give a small shield so he can benefit from more of the utility items or B: give his E the slow/speed up a grounding mechanic like his bombs the second E grounds the target.
@The Witherling you would think that but over 70% of champs have a dash or a jump or flash plus a flash Sumner spell which the E’s slow doesn’t stop or reduce the range of those spells.
Give his Q a single target heal when you put a bomb on an ally so you can either sacrifice damage to heal your adc this will make his early game more fun, by doing so his Q base damage need to be increased and his stun radius less .
That's exactly what I like about him, he isn't made to win a fight, he's made to win the game. That and the fact that he can lock down a target as well as leona but from a distance (Q, E, W, Q, E to CC for a really long time, assuming you don't have everfrost), can revive an ally, making your team win a teamfight or at least deny the enemy some gold and maybe even a shutdown, and also he can zoom zoom through the map at lightning speed.
Zilean is the only thing I miss from LoL. I haven't played a support in any other game that's given me as much joy as he did.
As a Zilean main since season 1 still hate the change on the Ult not scaling any longer with the w. Also i was a big fan of the much saver "q and run" playstyle with the old q ( maybe because point and click was easyer to hit but more because you have to stand still for the new q) also the old e gave 55% ms or slow and the points in it longered the time up to 6 seconds. This of ALL champs needs to be reverted. Riot just did him bad by giving all champs dashes... kinda nerfing him indirectly with that and also killing his movement option
e-> run ->q-> dodge-> run-> e .. etc he was playin like a teemo but with abilities insteadd of aa´s. Also i would glaadly give back the cc on the q if it would fly just a notch faster because you can jsut run out of it with 3+ boots with close to every champ
I love Zilean. My favourite champion, and one of my mains. I'll happily take Zilean mid, top, support, and even bot! Haven't tried jungle, probably wouldn't try it.
"Haven't tried jungle, probably wouldn't try it" If you do post the game.
I have not played LoL in ages, but the second I saw "Why No One Plays", I knew my main would be here. Yup.
Also, oh man, I am playing again :(
I think you can make amazing combos with Zilean like speeding up galio for taunt or speeding a malphite for an ult if you then place a double bomb on your teammate it will stun all those he just cc'd it's very influential in the fight
Love this champion. Spamming your speed up and slows and 40% CDR makes people wanna rip their hair out trying to catch you.
Or slowing a Nasus when he slows you down? Doesn't happen often but it's fun to watch :D
My favourite Zilean moments are when a team mate tower dives some poor sap, murders them and you see that tower shot is going to connect and take the last of their health on the way out, so you ult them and soak up the lovin' that flows afterwards.
1:51 are the ones with the faded text the ones with vgus and gameplay updates or the ones with yellowish text?
i've mained zilean since 2013-14 my earliest 100 ranked games were zilean only with 75% winrate. let me tell you, you can definitely carry with zilean. if you guys remember pre-rework zilean, he was even more overpowered than he is now, i could literally solo carry myself to plat alone.
what many players dont understand about zilean is his survivability. just with ult, flash and speed up, you have the ability to get out of ANY situation any time. you can also help out your team as well, but you can build the damage as well. he's an extremely versatile champion because he can simultaneously be a mage, tank and a support with an utility.
the only reason people refused to play him in the past was because it has obnoxiously mana hungry spells so it sucks early, but you can solve this problem simply by getting mana regen items like grail for example, idk if it's still in the game but it was the bomb. plus get the max CDR and mid-late game you are always golden no matter what happens. if you're skilled you can win early as well, the reason pre-rework zilean was insanely op was because he had an auto lock ranged damage spell in lane so you could poke over and over risk free while managing mana, you could eventually kill anyone like that with ignite. now it's a skillshot but they added stun and lowered damage however this stun is very strong and not that hard to hit so he's still very strong, though not as OP in lane as he was
it was also very fun to play and the most fun i've had playing league was maining zilean. unkillable annoying mage that giga supports the adc and gets kills himself while zooming around the entire map extremely fast has always been my kinda playstyle. the problem i had with other supports was that if you picked janna your team sucked, or if your adc sucked, you were screwed because you cant do anything yourself. well, with zilean you could do anything you wanted, revive yourself, get your own kills and in general be a pain in the ass for enemy team. with janna, enemy team gets fed, then some dumbfuck khazix or some other champ jumps on you and you are dead, you dont have damage you can't do anything
Self titled Zilean main here and just have one point.
I think you hit on something really huge for me personally when it comes to the "Burden of Performance". When I was starting I league I gravitated towards support because that burden felt much lower, as it wasn't my job to carry 1v5 or create the game winning map pressure and seemed to high energy for what I enjoy, and Zilean pushes that even further for me in that he's a consistent decent champion with consistent decent effects I can rely on. I wish I could make crazier plays or cause some great swings for my team, and while zilean certainly can with 99% slowing the incoming assasin or reviving the carry, the potential is never so high as to be intimidating. He's a well designed champion who fits my niche, even if it might not fit everyone elses. Of all the 'Why No One Plays' videos, this is probably one that deserves the disclaimer the least since it isn't even a rag on the champion in terms of numbers or meta.
He’s my fav champ, but you make good points about he can be limiting. But as an older player with crap mechanics and not the best reflexes anymore, he’s perfect. If they did a rework would love to see his W changes so that it would allow you to cast any of you other spells, including your ultimate, twice in a row.
Boomer player plays boomer champion :D
jkjk LOL
@@VarsVerum Not a Boomer (I'm am late Gen X) ... but your general point is not wrong :)
@@grimb8kn748 I'm teasssingggggg haha XD
While I have been playing lately support has been growing on me at an increasing rate. Between S+ games on thresh and lulu and my understanding of support macro I have felt like I can truly carry some games through sheer tactics.
So when you say zilean is the “master tactitian who wants to plot out his moves”, I am hooked on the sound of it.
As a 2.5 million mastery Zilean player I love Zilean’s team fight control play. 3 points in Q then max speed. Just feel like full 1 ap scaling on bombs would be perfect and change the interaction of the passive. A passive that CC’s yourself is no bueno
I like what you said being a Zilean main. A good Zilean seeks to match the tempo of the game, tweak it to their advantage. Help people get out with no momentum, fountain dive almost when there is heavy momentum. He also is burdened sometimes with only being as good as his teammates being the more tactician he is in playstyle. He also has to deal with people wasting their summoners trying to get out when he R's them. Waste of summ, waste of his ultimate, and the person probably went back in late to try and get Zil R off but is too late. He is the movement speed enforcer on both teams Minus a master yi ult(it's ok you can double bomb after he alphas) or something like Kled Ult (You're screwed lol). Be very weary of a good zilean that has time on his side. Look to kill him pre6 and he is screwed since his passive makes him extremely dependent on experience.
I main Zilean and I believe the approach is everything I found as Zilean when you counter build the enemy your team is struggling against you become the carry as you said in the video it is must to be extremely tactical with everything and be aware you can't just your brain off and jump into something and expect it to work you can definitely play solo as long as you've played him a lot before idk how to explain that last part but it just works
Currently maining him this season as a support with a bizarre build... Steelguard > Locket > Redemption > CDR Boots > New ward item.(Kindlegem item like knight vow, zekes etc if the games long).. Maxing E first... Incredibly underrated and tanky enough to always get ult off, as i find building full ap as support you're to squishy and die before ulting or worse having to ult yourself.
Loves Zilean. So unique with interesting moves. Time Bomb is awesome to harass early game and perfect to setup ambush or stop an enemy from running away.
My only grippe is with his passive. I don't see how it fits the character and it's rarely usefull, unless you have perfect communication with your allies
Meh, I guess the main usage of it is to give XP to the fed members of your team to keep their snow ball going and keep them ahead of enemy, or you can give it to champions that scale of levels. I can definitely see someone like Kayle loving zilean passive.
Zilean main here! Thing is about Zilean, no one knows how to play against because of how rare he is. Very good exploit for when you need a surprise engage. His q hitbox is also WACK, so hitting unexpected stuns are possible, which is fun when you realize that you made the enemy botlane 1/12.
No carry potential, but you're meant to disrupt the enemy and boost teammates (as the video said) but he also deals an unexpected amount of damage. Stunning the enemy adc always lands a kill because double bomb does 50% of their health.
This my dude!! Nothing like hitting the enemy with an e, double bomb, and they have the ally DMG mark on them
zilean is my #1 sup pick. i love being able to do insane poke damage with my q and punish anyone that pushes up by slowing them, double time bombing them, and slowing them again. his revive has saved my and my teams ass more times than i can count and i absolutely LOVE champs that can just say "haha no" to dying every once in awhile. *kindred and zilean main intensifies*
Zillean haven't had _ANY_ balance changes to his abilities since season *_5_* when he had his abilities reworked.
And his wr in plat+ is close to 52% (albeit pick rate sits comfortably at ~2-3%
Grandpa is a sleeper pick, that's for sure. But i think there are a lot of people who would prefer him to stay that way. (me included, he's so fun to play)
Zilean is fun in aram, but I can't imagine playing him in the laning phase, the bomb is unlikely to land unless you time it when they are in an animation, but zilean e is just so fun to use. I think Zilean should be paired with a teamfighting support to help makes his job easier and help exert pressure while the revive is ongoing, probably Karma because the aoe shield can keep the team safe when Zilean uses all his single target abilities to peel
I appreciate your pro's and con's method and flow to your video, as you never spent too much time bashing or praising at once, but rather ebbed and flowed to give all us zilean mains something to think about without feeling like we're Low IQ players for picking him. I always wondered why I never saw other zilean players, but now I know. Thanks for the awesome video, I am going to save this so I can refer back to it.
“If Chrono shift was an instant revive that would be the most broken thing in the game”
Renata Glasc: Allow me to introduce myself.
As a zilean main. I think there are two points that weren't too good.
1) movement speed is crucial. The 99% slow he has is absolutely crippling. Even when someone has a dash.
2) his damage output is insanely high and the 1.5 second stun gives him such huge potential.
I am currently maining Zilean in solo queue as a support. I actually wouldnt like to see a rework on him, because his kit is really fun as it is right now. The video is very informative and has some great points, but i dont agree on his R only working as a defensive tool. Think of towerdives in which your teammates know that they cannot die. What i also really like about him is, that 1 fed teammate can be enough to win the game. He goes aggressive, dies and you just revive him. All in all a great video.
Personally, I'd really want to see a VGU similar to his Legends of Runeterra version, where they did a really nice job on giving him the look of a proper, matured, possibly a bit crazy time wizard. However, if that VGU was accompanied by a gameplay update, I'd miss his current iteration of abilities, except maybe his passive. From the lens of a support-focused Zilean main, he does lack healing and shielding capabilities, but I believe it's more than made up for in his toolbelt of gimmicks that he can use. An ADC, usually, can be caught out easily by assassins, but come late game when your speed-up cooldown is barely longer than how long it lasts, your ADC can make risky moves, dipping in and out of range with the comfort that a unconditional revive and stasis is available. Likewise, there's a very satisfying feeling in breaking the legs of your opponents, sticking to them like a red flag calling out to your team to come and secure the enemy who cannot run away. More so, other lanes benefit just as much from your engage/disengage potential, and seeing a 14/1 Aatrox fly towards their backline faster than they can flash is always a welcome sight.
Movement speed does not directly make an ally stronger; it does not make them do more damage, nor does it make them tankier. But the ability to raise their uptime so much by providing them a safety net and the ability to reliably slip in and out of combat leads to a situation where it's possible that, indirectly, Zilean raises the damage output of that champ because he allows them to keep firing away and fighting at all times, rather than spending most of the fight just trying to get to a target. Especially on bruisers. What makes Mordekaiser's ultimate so scary is that a marksman or other high value target is now face-to-face with a juggernaut. Zilean allows *any* juggernaut to reach that point where they're so oppressively sticky that the enemy ADC or mage just can't get away no matter how hard they try.
I decided to main Zilean in the early seasons because he had double bomb stun. His reworked passive is useful to snowball harder when ahead. Also biggest troll champ imo. Zilean support for life. His ultimate, although not an instant revive is more impactful when used on people dying in ground ahhoe abilities since that's 3 less seconds of damage. Summon Aery is the rune that I use because the shield procs item effects.
I like your videos. Wish you all the best :)
I'll be sure to keep working on them :D
Oh oh stinky
Simply, the " Time " theme was wasted on him being a support mage whatever, could have been someone like Faceless Void from Dota 2, which has a really nice theme and identity and really popular too! Zilean is just so whatever that no one plays lol
Zilean for me is a pocket pick into some artillery mage supports like Lux for example. Plus, he's also honestly really fun for me to play with one of my friends and in randoms. His ressurect is what appeals to me now. It's literally so fun to rez your teammate and watch the enemy tilt over how many ressurects you hit. Hell, it actually happened to me one game. An enemy Kai'sa got mad at all the resurrects I hit and it was honestly really fun. Plus, slinging his bombs for stuns and poke damage is fun for me. Zilean feels like Ziggs to me but if Ziggs had more synergy and utility. And honestly, Zilean is overall really fun and I feel like I should play him more than I do. He's so fun and helps so much on the team.
11:26 just the fact that i heard intellect in league of legends gang attacks made me start laughing
Zilean main here, currently somewhere around 800 hours on the champ. I'm no expert, but I have a few thoughts. You make mostly good points here, but I think you're selling Zilean's range of effectiveness short. Just because his abilities are unconventional doesn't mean they're not versatile. His bombs may seem like a simple cc+damage combo, but they can be used for a lot more- zoning out enemies who are trying to chase, starting baron/dragon steals by stunning any enemies within melee range of it through the wall, even vision, which I find especially useful at lvl 1 while checking for invades.
People assume Zilean turns teamfights into 6v5s, but that's not REALLY what he does. It's more like he turns even trades in his team's favor. You'll find more effective use of his ultimate in situations where only 2-3 people from each team are involved, especially because his kit is so good at locking down fleeing enemies while you wait for the revive to go through. Did you know that at rank 5, his E is a 99% slow? Yeah, seriously. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten into a skirmish with some random people in bot lane with my adc, killed one of them, had my adc killed, then, when the other one tried to flee, plopped a NINETY-NINE PERCENT SLOW on them, and while they painfully tried to dash or slog away, my ADC came back and slaughtered them.
Last thing- It's very true what you say about the personality of League players. I picked up Zilean pretty early on in my career after trying out a lot of enchanter supports, and the thing that I think has drawn me to him over the years IS his ability to make plays on his own. I get picks on enemy junglers, top laners, you name it on this stupid old man usually once or twice a game, assuming it doesn't end at 20. But, I guess those are fringe cases. What I can tell you is that it happens a lot more than when I play something like Soraka, (even my patented murderfuck soraka build don't @me) which gives him the option to take care of things himself if he needs to, while still being a support through and through. We supports are a strange breed, but there's something magical about making the difference on a macro level that I just can't get playing an assassin.
Very very Well done Video!
I know this is a year old but I gotta say I love the video style it was really cool! Im a m7 zilean and I an honestly say that most of the weakness u pointed out can be fixed by playing zilean top (I know it sounds crazy at first) but if u play zilean top and run dark harvest when he scales he turns into a walking nuke and tank (do to his ult) Zilean q w q is a great zoning ability (like u mentioned) making his high damage (from dh) absolutely insane. In the top he has a only a few glaring counters (Quinn, Kled, Voli, etc) but for the most part he can easily destroy other top laners (Fiora, Jax, Kayle, Cho gath, Garen, Darius, etc) Zileans range and e and ult is too powerful to pass up. If anyone already knows how to play zilean I recommend trying him top I think u would really love it!
He's actually a pretty well rounded mage like orianna if you build ap runes and ap items since unlike other enchanters he can use everything on himself (speed, revive)
I agree, but not with your last point ''unlike other enchanters he can use everything on himself''. I mean all enchanters can use everything on himself, I really don't see your point.
@@johnhowardz9524 except Soraka that can't heal herself with W
Im not a zilean main but he is one of my most played i personally feel like a 1 vs 9 bomber jet. Pressing e on my self throwing double bombs and runnung again. On the other side he just feels crazy with juggernauts since their only weaknesses are being immobile and low range. I had so much fun speeding up Darius playing with a high spellhaste build this season. It was basically a permanent Speed up stun chain making my darius run all over them.
Can you do a triple time warp with enough haste? :o
@@VarsVerum As someone who this season has been building around AH on him, you can get your W rewind to sub 3 seconds which is shorter than the Q bomb timer and nearly full up time for E speed ups should you be able to keep up with who you speed up haha. It's pretty wild and I love doing the same thing with Juggs, you don't know fear until the fed Nasus, Voli, or Darius just ran at you at Mach 5 haha.
I like ally Zilean supports. I won a 4v5 the last time I had a Zilean on my team while I played Darius. I did get fed off Aatrox and Viego in lane, but I was really great at engaging onto the enemy team mid-late game with Zilean's speed boost, letting my Kat and Kaisa do a ton of work while I soak up cc and damage with Gargoyles + Steraks. Zilean's ult came in handy during some team fights, I even revived to ult half the enemy team. Definitely one of my favorite matches this season.
Can't say I like facing a good Zilean tho xD
Honestly my favorite Sup in the game, nothing better than getting a clutch res, just wish more people knew about him
I honestly don't get why so many League players don't like the strategist type of champions/gameplay. League being a moba already makes it very strategy based, as those types of games are basically RTS and RPG combined. So if you're all about mechanics and outplays and 1vs1s and whatnot, then wouldn't you have more fun in a fighting game that is ACTUALLY supposed to be played by these kinds of people?
I guess these kinds of people play League, because Riot realized that the majority of the gamers are like this, so if they want to be successful, then they gotta appeal to those people. So they did everything in their power to reward reactive plays (while keeping champs with reactive kits meta), while not rewarding proactive plays as much (and also keeping those champs in an ok spot AT BEST).
Thinking is too hard :3
I am with you on that one. I really really do like Zilean's strategic kit where strategy and matters a lot. It's just sad that Riot is appealing those a demographic who have aroused from the "flashy" champs.
However, I am happy he's not in the radar for picks and bans because the way the meta is now? He's broken as fuck in the right hands. As a Zilean player who climbed from the bottom depths of Iron IV hell out to Gold I. I prefer him to be that way. He just shuts down soooo many champions it's absurd.
Hi i'm a zilean support main and i can confirm that in this new season, the strongest zilean build (imo) is to go ardent censor staff of flowing water with guardian and moonstone renewer. (which contradicts what u said at 9:50).
what about when played mid?
@@RealmanUenjoyer when played mid you normally go full ap core being luden's/Liandry's into horizon
i really don’t understand your percentage like you’re basically saying there’s a huge difference between a bad yuumi and a good yuumi but not so much between a bad and a good zilean ? really ?
so basically: he has the right abilities for the wrong game
"Movement speed never matters against an opponent with a dash."
Lillia says hello.
6:31 Not anymore... Now we have Aksham
what if Q held charges? W could target ally so their abilities reset, E make abilities an AA that would hit target move into the future (say brand Q would hit you while effected by E it would instead disappear for 3 sec then reappear, so gives chance to dodge unless you decide to stay there/ get back in its way). R instant revival if targeted before hp=0, can revive dead teammates after 3 sec, holds 1/2/3 charges, can be activated if dead, can't target same champ for period of time.
You know what i love when you ult the Jax carry so he can go all in and get a Penta but then he runs away. Also i have turned games around all the way teem feeding and all but then we group up and i can save the best teammates and boom that's when we win the game
I think there's also the other factor not mentioned; in order to use his ult (arguably the most powerful part of his kit), the person you're casting it on HAS to die in order for it to not be wasted - thing is people's natural reaction to getting chunked is to GTFO of there through any means possible which often overrides the fact that letting themselves get killed can often be the correct play in order to come back with more HP and mana without having to base (especially as the little hourglasses can get lost in the flashy clusterduck of a teamfight). Even when I play with my friends over discord, telling my ADC to get themselves killed often doesn't load in fast enough for them to not flash away first. As such, it's often a Zilean's perrogative to use it in a reactionary manner to low HP rather than proactively to protect targets - in which case lag, fps issues, unexpected CC or just slow reactions can all render it a useless ability, meanwhile the enemy enchanter could use a shield, HP boost or AoE CC to proactively win the fight.
Zilean definitely needs visual update, along with voicelines. Old man with blue bears and hair, T-posing and flying around with a cucoo clock (who even thought it is fine?) and all of that made mostly of squares just screams 'I'm from the times long forgotten and for good reasons'.
When it comes to abilities - they are mostly fine, although a bit more flashyness wouldn't hurt to make him look more appealing, but this comes with a visual update. But I would definitely entirely change what his Q does. The effect (dmg + dmg and stun if you hit the same target) is very fine, but it doesn't make any sense that a freakin chronomancer throws mechanical time bombs out of nowhere like a Kobe.
If they would make him to look like in Legends of Runeterra - big yes, that's how he should be like
@Vars thanks so much because of you I found my new favorite champ 😁 Zilean is so much fun. ❤ thanks
Im still standing by it that Zilean is one of the most broken champions in the league.
I'm interested? why do you think this?
@@heimerblaster976 AOE 180% ap stun with low cooldown
zilean is like twisted fate his kit is simple but yet has so much impact the only rework he needs is on his visuals i mean he looks like a old man i know zoe looks like a child but at least her hair has some spacey colors to it, it really shows that shes an aspect but everything else its good
My KDA for Zillean is about 2/4/12 and, I thoroughly enjoy playing him
I had a zil get really toxic and afk cuz I didn’t go in when he ulted me, I didn’t say anything mean I just said my b idk what ur champ does and then he afk