Hello, I am Geld007
I always liked zilean a lot, he used to be a lot easier to play point and click Q and mash W for R cooldown
However zilean changed, with skillshot bombs wich now can stun, lower duration on E but higher slow/speed, R isnt effected by W anymore but R Cdr has a much lower base cooldown (almost the same, little longer on 40% cdr)
Where zilean lost power in point and click bombs he gained in utility

These days i peronsally think AP zilean isnt that good anymore becuase his bombs are harder to hit, easier to block with spellshields (both applying and the dmg can be blocked, its used to be only the Applying of the bomb)
And since the Q is hard to land skillshot now its also much harder to get the dmg off, or use the old minion trick to get dmg off (placing a bomb on a minion thats about to die)
and even if you land your double bomb ensuring the stun you still have nothing what you can do during the stun besides slowing them and waiting for your Q cd again

Ap zilean in teamfights is also a quite easy focus forcing his ult on himself, deu how squisy zilean is and remains, Landing a double bomb with Ap zilean in a teamfight is basically a won teamfight though, but being able to land it before they can engadge on you is almost impossible

With this build of zilean you wont do as much dmg as Ap zilean, but you will provide a decend amount of dmg and a butload of cc, The enemy cant afford to engadge on you since you can speed away like a madman, stun them, or they must blow so much recources on you that you have to ult yourself. but at that point your team can easily counter engadge and when youre revived you can slow and stun the living **** out of the enemy
Even if your teammates are out of position you can speed them up to get them out almost any situation
Very often i manage to get someone out of the fight with 100 ish hp left by stunning the enemy and speeding him up

Now the runes may seem wierd
Attackspeed runes are here for the Autoattack harras in lane, wich does a LOT of damage if you add all the dmg i do during the laning with my autoattacks
Movespeed runes are here to futher increase your movespeed to make it flatout insane
Flat health to help in the laning phase, this combined with the Hp from the mastery makes you able to not get bursted instantly during the early levels of the laning phase
Scaling Mr for the mid-late game, scaling runes work very well on zilean thanks to his passive (bonus xp)

i go 18 into cunning not for thunderlords but for the 45% cdr this 5% makes a big diffrence later in the game, with 45% cdr you can almost perma CC 1 enemy target, You almost non stop bomb-BOmb(wait 1 sec) slow (wait for bomb (cd 4.4 sec on rank 5+45% cdr)) This combo keeps them cc'ed for 4 secs if done PERFECT 3.5 sec in general, leaving 0.9-0.4 sec downtime of your cc, with only 40% cdr this climbs to 1.3-0.8 sec Doubleing the minimum and increasing the normal time with rougly 45%
This makes it very worth to go into the cunning tree, and while we are so far into the cunning tree we might as wel go for the Thunderlords

Then to go over the rest of the masterys :
Wanderer over butcher becuase the movespeed really addes up when it gets so high as it does with this build, that makes it worth to miss a few more cs during the laning
Assasin over the other 2 The little extra hp and mana you get from cookies are nice but youre in a solo lane so the enemy is alone, and the high base dmg of zilean makes him profit from this mastery very well
Meditation over Merciless Zilean is a manahungery Mofo and without this mastery youll run oom very quickly during the laning phase, this mastery also allows us to be able to get a frozen heart before getting the grail
Bandit over Dangerous game i go with Bandit becuase the extra gold you get from Bandit whenever you do a single Autoattack, and the Dangerous game mastery can be very annoying when you ult yourself and you get 1-2 assist cuasing you to survive without procing your ultimate, forcing you to back while if your ult did proc you couldve gotten a lot more hp back
The masterys chosen into reslove should be obvious, zilean doesnt have any heals/shields, ****py regenaretion/no spellvamp or lifesteal

With the items i go for a frozenheart or atheane's first depending on my enemys dmg
If they have good hybrid dmg then i look if the target is based on AS or not, if he isnt then i go for athenes if he is then i go frozen heart, but after getting the Graical shroud i go for a grail

Also consider other things, Like can this champion cathup with me if i slow him down ?
If he can then you deff want to get boots tier 1 often will do
Or if you run out of mana very often then you should buy 1 or 2 Charms for more manaregen, try to avoid getting the grail if you still have mana isseus with 2 charms and are going for the frozen heart

After you finish your first item you should finish your boots -Enchantment
When you got your swiftness boots you finish the other item (atheane's/Frozen heart)
When you got these 3 items the best is to go for the enchantment and deadmans plate and from here on youll be fast as Fk and nearly impossible to catch

As last items you simply want to get iether, movespeed, dmg or more tank stats depending what you want you can finish your build.
I personally like warmogs and ludens as final items.
You can go with Frozenmallet, but i peronsally dont think the slow from it is very neccery if you land most of your cc
If youre doing super well you can also consider mejai, like ludens mejai (when stacked) gives movespeed and ap, Stacked Mejai his dmg is a little higher for less gold, however ludens stats are set
I am going to assume people are smart enough to pick thier own last items according to the sitaution and thier prefrence

Q is the most commen start and i always start with Q, this can be used early for some harras zoning and pushing (if neccery)
As second spell i get E, i dont take W unless it shows im extreemly dominant in lane and this would allow me to stun them and get some aa's off
in ANY other case i take E for the safety, keep in mind if you feel dominant that some champs (riven, gnar ect) get a small power spike at lvl 2 and can go aggrasive making you lose dominance

At level 3 you kinda can do check the same things, if you are extreemly dominant you can put a other level in Q else its best to put it in E, also keep in mind you might get ganked if youre very dominant in lane, and if you took E at lvl 2 then you basically must take W at this point giving you accses to double bomb double slow (slows dont stack !!)

From lvl 4 on its best to stick to the levling up order stated above on lvl 4 everyone should have 2 points in Q and 1 in W and E

A little explaination about zilean his spells and how you can use them

Q : You can use this spell to harras and stun, but also if you place 2 bombs at a choke point forcing them to walk around the bombs, backoff, or they walk into the bombs and get stunned, You can also use a bomb to finish someone off for extra stlye points

A good trick to keep in mind to make your Q hit easier is to aim the bomb a little behind them, so if they run backwards that they'll still get hit by the bomb.
keep track of how your enemy dodges and try to find if he does something over and over, if he does then aim the bomb towards where he will go instead of right ontop of him
with Zilean his Q its very important to predict his movement in order to hit it, if you dont do this then youll miss most of your bombs

W : this ability is very simply, it takes 10 secs of Cd off Q and E, This ability cannot be used if both abilitys are ready to use
Just be carefull when you try to double bomb someone that you dont have E on Cd and use the W too soon leaving you with only 1 bomb thrown

E : Zilean his E is a slow or movespeed buff (enemy = slow, ally = speed) This ability scales from 45% to 99%!. 99!! Thats insane, nasus is jelous i can feel it
his E is completely BS atm and oh so fun to use, Rammus with homegaurds,mobi boots, and deadmansplate would come to a dead standstill after you use your E on him making his most important ability useless
Or if a ulted yi chaces your carry you can speed your carry up and he will OUTRUN, or if you have a yi on your team it will get fun very fast

R :Now this abilitys is simply awesome, with a 33 sec cooldown on rank 3 with 45% cdr this could allow you to almost revive 2 people PER TEAMFIGHT
Besides revivng them and putting them in a state for 2 seconds where nothing happens
the moment you Ult someone people will iether kill them anyway or run from them, in both cases saving them
This ult doesnt only safe people, it also causes confusion with the enemy what to do with that target now, do we kill him ?, do we wait it out ?
If they do kill him then you should be able (in most cases) to go in and safe the ulted person, or stun the enemys around the target and speed him out of there allowing him to reposition
and if they dont kill him, he can simply run and reposition

Just note that it can be very tricky to use the ult properly often, and tell your team that if you do ult them that they should NEVER chase enemys and simply back
Using zileans ult properly does require you to know how much dmg a enemy will roughly do on your ally, this can be very hard to judge if you play vs a jax that behind doing 0 dmg on your tank and suddenly he oneshots your carry with a leap + empowerd aa while you thought he didnt do too much dmg

They arent the most impressive to see, but they sure are affective !

E...-Q-W-Q..-E, this combo allows you to slow them extreemly first and after 2ish seconds you land your stun, after the stun you land your E again, by the time that E is finished you almost have your Q-W-Q back up

QWQ if you try to land this combo out of the bleu then most of the time it wont hit, in a teamfight this does get easier but DO try to hit the same champ twice, the bombs DONT automaticlly go on a already bommed target but rather on the closed enemy champion

If you want a longer lockdown combo then you can try Q-E-W wait 2 seconds Q again wiat a seoncd WQ again, this allows you to stun your enemy twice in a row ! but its quite tricky to pull off since you have 2 seconds of deadtime (slow is applyied here though) where you need to wait wich gives them a opening to do something your slow is also ready after this combo (this combo is possible when you have 45% cdr and rank 3 W, Rank 3 W is very hard to pull off though, rank 4 W will probably be your best bet to be able to pull it off)
(QEW..-Q.-EQ)

during the laning phase
you want to see what your enemy does first of all, at the start try to harras them with autoattacks and bombs, but dont let the enemy get close to you
During this pahse of the game you dont have amazing dmg but you do have some dmg atleast, if they do go in on you simply walk toward your turret and when the enemy truns around to return to the minions start harrasing them with bombs and autoattack, slow them if possible
If you do this correctly you should win most trades, be carefull that you dont follow too long allowing them to go in on you again

Also make sure you dont go too far towards the enemy turret, during the early levels you have a very ****ty escape, if you do get ganked then if look whos closest if you can walk away form the laner then slow thier jungler unless this jungler has good dashes/blinks and cc (lee sin mostly) then speed yourself up to run away

When you get level 5\
your bombs will start to hurt and when youre lvl 6 you shouldnt die at all unless you get ganked and die in the middle of the lane
From this point on you can poke your enemy laner for some good dmg in lane and your slow/stuns should keep you safe

lvl 8+
If they try to go allin on you then just slow them and walk away, while you walk away you auto attack them and assuming they catched up with you would mean they have no mobility spells left making it easy to land your bombs on them eventhough you dont have much or any dmg build you do have amazing base dmg and that will hurt

When you have a big minion wave and the enemy laner is near it then wait till the last enemy minion is about to die and slow the enemy laner and stun him after that into a other slow (spaced out so the cc doesnt overlap too much) this will lead into them taking the minion aggro, and a decent wave of minions do A LOT of dmg and they wont expect that much dmg in most situations and if they go aggrsive on you trough the minion wave then simply walk back again and try to get them stuck in the minion wava gain
(your bombs give vision, making the enemy unable to break agression of the minions by walking in the bush)

if youre close to deing then try to ult yourself the moment fatal dmg is incoming, or when they try to allin you and you think you can kill thm with bombs and aa's forcing him to run (or fight) and if he does fight you can catch up with your E if he runs you slow him with your E
Just make sure you dont ult too soon, if you ult too soon then they might be able to wait it out and turn on you and kill you

During the teamfights you want to prevnt thier initation or initiate for your team, how do you do this?

Preventing
You can prevent teamfights by zonening thier initiator away from the frontline, this can be done by going close ish to him and slowing him and stunning him
If he initiates on you and the enemy teams follows up then you can speed yourself out of there in most cases, if thats not a option then you can still ult yourself
***muning your team isnt afraid of them then they can fight them while thier abilitys are on CD
Make sure you dodge heavy cc abilitys like morgana snare ect, a ability like this catches you out propbably killing you without being able to bait out important abilitys

Engage
You can also initite for your team by catching someone of thier team out of position, if your minion wave is pushing and manage to slow thier Apc/Adc or anyone or thier team you can then lockdown this guy for 6.5 seconds giving your team enough time to pick him off
Doing this will force iether a escape or a fight, if the enemy lets him die then you outnumber your enemy, dont worry if you die by catching him out, you can ult yourself, just make sure he died too. Else you have wasted your ulti

During the teamfight:
During a teamfight you want to keep thier tanks and or bruisers on lockdown as much as you can, and ult a important ally who's about to die
Or give a ally a speed boost to reposition and get away from a enemy.
The enemy you want to keep on lockddown is thier strongest frontliner, allowing the ADC to take him down without a problem
IF thier frontline isnt all that great then you can focus on bombing/stunning thier backline and help your frontline take down thier backline by speeding them up instead

Outside the teamfights:
You want to pick off people with 1 or more teammates and push waves
If you see someone by himself then you can get them with ease deu your movespeed, often you dont even need to your E to get to him, instead slow him with that E
From there keep him locked down untill your teammate kills him off
MAKE SURE YOU AND YOUR MATE ARE ON THE SAME PAGE !!
If you just go to someone and start ccing him expecting follow up from someone, but they are late/not there at all, then the enemy team can take you down instead
In most cases you can run out of there using your E

Pro's:
Very strong utility
Decent laning phase
Can win a game off a enemy raging
Can win a game off skill
can safe almost anyone
E can shutdown a entire champ
E can make any champ initiate
R can be extreemly powerfull
Stunning 3 or more people with Q can win a teamfight off that alone
Can slowdown a enemy snowballing team by safing team mates
if your team is snowballing then you only amplfy that power
Extreemly fast
Usefull even when you lose your lane
If played well people will call you a zilean god

Cons:
Very team reliant
Next to no snowball potential
Brings little dmg compared to other toplaners
still pretty squisy for a decently tanky build
Requires your team to not be complete idiots
Requires teamwork
Q stun is hard to land
cant 1 vs 1 enemys unless you kite the living **** out of them
Can be hard to get good ults off, and when stunned you cant ult
If you lose then youre trolling
The Bm potential might go to your head and cuases you to die

No this is not a troll build, this build focuses on zilean his utility and making it unneccery to ult yourself troughout the game
Eventhough your ult doesnt heal for 3-4k hp, it still does bring your allys back from the dead for a good amount of 1500 ish Hp, It may not be extreemly much but its enough to keep them fighting and repositioning them

This build causes you to make your team carry
Also in the toplane there are a lot of melee champions, most of these melee champions cant do anything vs you, you simply have too much CC to be ever cought

Perhaps you wont be doing big numbers in damage you make up for that with ease in CC
Its also very fun to see the enemy get frustarted as you keep saving ally's/catching them out

also i carried myself from plat 4 to plat 1 with zilean only (exluding 3-4 jungle/mid games, no i never adc :P)

My own experiance is very positive, i started using this build around plat 4 and carried myself with it to plat 1, in this elo my winrate on zil top started to drop a bit so from there i picked him up when i thought he would fit well
When i tested this build in normals i had close to a 90% winrate, and in normal games i still win almost all my games (when i play with lower elo friends it does get a lot more difficult to do well with his build)
In my ranked games i had a high of 80% winrate with zilean top only
This dropped (60-70%) as i got in platinum 1, eventhough it felt like it was mainly becuase i had a lot champs that where strong vs zilean vs me and played very well by the enemy
(vladimire, Jayce, gnar, ect)

Also people stuck a lot better to eachother making it much harder to pick off someone.
I also have to admit i started to get overconfident with zilean, doing stupid things for the giggels Bm for life right? (cc locking a enemy just to annoy them)

Please keep in mind that this my second guide i ever made, Spelling errors are mostlikely made by me. If you notice one then feel free to point it out and ill correct it

Before you bring this champion in ranked make sure you trained with it in normals, this is not a champion you can just pickup and play well, practise with him !

Last of all, if you plan to bring zilean into a low elo Que then try to duo with a friend who you know and can play with, if he gets jungle and you top then he can gank top so he gets fed from there you 2 can mostlikely steamrole the rest of the game

I DONT ADVICE GOING IN SOLO Q WITH THIS BUILD BELOW GOLD !
In bronze/silver most (not all, just a majority) dont play as a team but rather for themselves, or dont understand very well how to work as a team

I will add more champs to the counter list if the guide is recived well enough

Gl and have fun with this build !

p.s. worst thing you can do when you play this is flame and blame your team, it kills the teamspirit and will prevent your team from working with you, so be a nice guy :D