Hey everyone it's iSparklez here again bringing you a new League of Legends guide this time featuring a very underplayed and underrated champion, this guide is all about Zilean an amazing Ability Power champion to be played in the Middle Lane thanks to his Time Bomb and also a very powerful Support, thanks to his Time Warp and Chronoshift abilities. I've worked very hard on this guide to make it your best resource when playing Zilean in either one of these two positions and I would appreciate all the feedback the mobafire community could give me about this guide and this champion if you feel like you have a better strategy to use on him.

Please try to play Zilean following this build at least once before you choose to downvote my guide, I'm almost 100% sure you'll fall in love with Zilean once you manage to do something like this :

Pros > Time Warp is the longest Crowd Control in the League. > Surprising amounts of Damage through Time Bomb. > Chronoshift is a stronger version of Guardian Angel. > Time Bomb has a fairly big explosion Radius. > Amazing at chasing or escaping with the use of Time Warp. > Built in cooldown reduction with Rewind.

Cons > Does not possess any form of Hard Crowd Control. > Hard Champion to Master due to the constant need of timings. > Very Squishy Champion that can be killed almost instantly. > His abilities all have high Mana Costs. > Somewhat difficult laning phase until Mana regeneration is purchased. > A Very Small number of Skins... :'(

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration is the best choice of Marks for Zilean because you're an Ability Power Caster so you do Magic Damage, this combined with the already amazing base damage that Time Bomb does will result on a lot of damage against our opponents early game. If you're playing Support Zilean these marks will allow you to poke your opponents with your Time Bomb for quite a large amount of damage, but be careful with your mana.

Greater Seal of Armor is my favorite choice of Seals to use on Zilean to compensate for his low base Armor, these will help a lot if you get matched against an Attack Damage Middle Lane like Talon or Kha'Zix something that has been happening lately. On Support Zilean these Seals are helpful in order to endure the pokes you may be taking from the enemy Carry (Especially if it's an Ezreal or a Caitlyn)

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist are by default the best in my opinion to take on Zilean for the Middle Lane or even for Support Zilean because you'll most likely be facing an Ability Power Middle Lane so it will aid you in resisting their attacks. On Support Zilean these Glyphs will allow you to take a bit of poke from the enemy support. (Amazing against supports like Lulu that have a good poking ability)

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power is the best Quintessence to take on Zilean because you'll be building full Ability Power, these Quintessences give 4.95 flat Ability Power, which will represent a good boost in the early game.

Greater Quintessence of Health are the Quintessences I take on Zilean when supporting in order to enable him to better handle being poked, Zilean has naturally low health so these Quintessences will aid you.

Flash is always your "Trump Card", it allows you to make many different plays, you can use it to escape from a bad situation, you can use it for an unexpected move against your opponent.

Ignite is a very nice and powerful Summoner Spell, sometimes your Bombs won't be enough to pick up a kill on a running opponent that is where Ignite comes in to secure the kill.

Exhaust is a must have Summoner Spell when you're playing Support Zilean, it's amazing for shutting down the AD Carry in both Early and Late Game.

Heightened Learning(Passive): This ability will often go unnoticed but it's bonus is amazing, it will grant 8% increased experience to every ally in Zilean's team allowing your team to out level the opponent quite fast.

Time Bomb(Q): Zilean will place a small Bomb over the target Enemy/Creep/Ally, upon being placed on the Target the bomb will begin a countdown during 4 seconds, when the timer reaches 0 the Bomb will detonate dealing damage in an area around the Target.

Rewind(W): This ability is the core of managing Zilean and his abilities properly, upon activation this ability will reduce the cooldown of your other abilities by 10 Seconds, at maximum rank (5) this ability will have a lower cooldown (6 Seconds) then the cooldown it provides on the skills making it easily spammable to execute combos with Time Bomb and Time Warp.

Time Warp(E): This ability is the Longest Crowd Control spell in the game (5.5 Seconds of Slow if cast on an enemy), Zilean can cast this ability on either an enemy slowing down their movement speed by 55% or he can choose to cast it on an ally increasing their Movement speed by 55%.

Chrono Shift(R): This is your Ultimate ability, quite a powerful one at that, this ability is what allows Zilean to be such a strong Support post level 6. When cast Zilean will place a rune on Target Ally or himself for 7 seconds if the target on which the rune as been placed dies before the Rune expires the Target will be brought back to life with Health corresponding to the Level of the Ultimate and a percentage of Zilean's ability Power.

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You'll want to start by maxing your Time Bomb due to the fact that it is Zilean's only damaging ability. After Time Bomb we'll start leveling up Rewind I choose to max this skill second because of it's ability to reduce cooldowns when used and the fact that when you rank up this ability it's cooldown becomes shorter and shorter eventually allowing you to combo it almost constantly with Time Bomb. Finally comes Time Warp this is the last ability I max due to the fact that the Slow/Speed Boost it provides is a flat 55% and the only thing that increases is it's duration, I prefer to take this ability last and keep the combo potential. You'll be wanting to take points in your Ultimate Chronoshift whenever it is possible, at levels 6, 11 and 16.

When playing Ability Power Zilean you'll most likely be going in the Middle Lane, your opponent won't really matter because the Laning Phase with Ability Power Zilean will be similar most of the time.
You'll want to be focusing on farming, Zilean is extremely Item dependent to increase his Time Bomb damage and the Health amount that you'll receive when revived from Chronoshift, to obtain an early lead you'll want to focus on farming about 95% of the time, the 5% of the time that you're in lane and not farming is when you should approach your opponent and place Time Bomb on him, the range on the Bomb is big enough that you'll most likely not take any damage back unless your opponent is someone like Ziggs who can hit you with the skill shot.
In order to win your lane just keep focusing on farming and dropping an occasional Time Bomb on your opponent or on a minion close to the enemy champion so that he will always take the damage, after repeating the Time Bomb harassment a few times your opponent will be forced to recall due to the damage he is taking and being unable to strike you back, this will buy you the advantage in lane because you're forcing your opponent to loose experience.



Laning with Support Zilean will be really different from Ability Power Zilean for starters you won't be in a Solo Lane like Middle (Or Top if Lane Swap), and for second you'll be protecting your AD Carry and letting Him/Her take all the farm while you protect said person from the Enemy Carry and Support with the use of your abilities.
Laning with Support Zilean won't be that interesting before you hit level 6, because that is when Zilean obtains his true Support power through his Ultimate Chronoshift granting your AD Carry a Guardian Angel at level 6. You should never place this ability on yourself over your carry he is way more important then you!
Before reaching level 6 you should focus on keeping your lane safe through the use of Sight Ward's and Vision Ward's to make sure the Enemy Jungler doesn't gank your lane, besides that you should attempt to hide in the Side Bushes and use Time Bomb once in a while against the enemy Carry and Support to weaken them a bit for when your Jungler comes to gank or your own AD Carry attempts to secure a kill.

Teamfights will be happening constantly in the Later part of the game when you and your team are attempting to acquire objectives (Towers, Dragon, Baron) and after you and your enemies have acquired most of your full build, in Teamfights the enemies will all be closer together and with you being the Team Caster finding yourself out of position during this fight will usually result in you being called since you'll be one of the Main Targets. I will be addressing in this chapter your role in Teamfights by being both Support Zilean and Ability Power Zilean.





Playing Ability Power Zilean will make you a damage Machine during these Teamfights, your Time Bomb + Rewind Combo will be devastating during Teamfights. Now there are a few things you need to know about the Teamfight strategies. You'll want to ignore Tanks as much as possible, they exist only to soak your damage to prevent their carries from dying, you also have a tank to do this job. Although with Zilean attacking the Tanks isn't as bad as it would be with another caster since your Time Bomb deals damage in Area you'll most likely be hitting the carries anyways. With Zilean you need to focus the AD Carry and the AP Carry the most you can with your bombs but you also need to shift your attention to your own AD Carries health bar in order to protect him with your ultimate Chronoshift giving your AD Carry a 2nd life giving your team a huge lead in the Teamfight!





When playing Support Zilean Teamfights will be happening in a somewhat different manner, you'll mostly be staying in the back protecting your carry the best way you can, but at the same time you'll want to be close enough to your other Team Mates that are in the front lines to buff them with the Auras from the items you've been purchasing throughout the game, your main goal is to protect your AD Carry with your Chronoshift so you'll want to stay as close as possible to him, but of course you should also drop some bombs on your enemies to aid your team with the damage you can produce, if you see an important target belonging to the enemy team trying to escape the Teamfight your job is to drop Time Warp on him making his escape useless and granting your team an extra kill.

Ganking with Zilean what sort of drugs are you on sir?! Haha, I'm not on any drugs my friend! It's true Zilean can be a deadly ganker due to his Time Warp being an amazing slowing ability and speeding one has well.
To successively gank with Zilean there are a few things you must do : The first is forcing your opponent out of lane which wont be hard for Zilean since your Time Bomb pretty much allows you to hit them without taking any hits back because of it's range, then if you have a decent amount of health (Like around 50% or more) you'll want to check which lanes are getting pushed and check if the lanes are warded, go into the river and use your Time Warp on yourself to reach the lane faster, by the time you reach the lane Time Warp will probably be ready in around 10 seconds or a bit more just use your Rewind to reduce it by 10 seconds and go into lane, start by putting a Time Bomb on your target, the target will most likely ignore you because your team is chasing them and try to run past you, but wait not so fast, place your refreshed Time Warp on the target and slow him for an amazing amount which will allow your allies to catch up and help you with the kill.

April 22nd - 2013 - The Chronokeeper is now the highest ranking Zilean guide on Mobafire, I'd like to thank the community for the support you gave to my Guide and I'll keep working hard on it to provide you with the best information for Zilean.

April 24th - 2013 - Added 2 new possible purchases if you're finding yourself having Mana Problems with Zilean, these 2 choices being Rod of Ages and Tear of the Goddess.

May 4th - 2013 - Reformatted the "Pros / Cons", "Mastery", "Summoner Spells", "Ability Explanation", "Skill Sequence", "Items", "Support Items" and "Your Role in Teamfights" due to feedback from a few users. Added a Chapter named "Laning with Zilean" explaining Zilean's Laning Phase and what he should do.

In Summary Zilean is currently a very underplayed and very underrated Champion who possesses an amazing and surprising damage output with his Time Bomb, a long with the incredible damage output that Zilean brings he can also bring great utility to a team through his Time Warp (The Longest Crowd Control in League of Legends) applying a 5.5 second slow on enemies or a 5.5 movement speed increase on allies, his ultimate Chronoshift is a huge force to be reckoned with and can strike you when you least expect it, it will revive an allied target with almost full Health if the Zilean player builds Ability Power.

I would love to hear whatever feedback the community could give me about my guide in order for me to keep it constantly updated and always giving you the best information about playing Zilean.