Zilean Build Guide by CoRpusCoLLoSsuM

I'm hoping for some comments or ratings.. I put a lot of time in on this!! :)

"When ganking, place a bomb, slow, rewind, bomb, slow, rewind... throwing ignite in if needed. If done right, you should constantly be slowing them, especially once your manapool is large. The Ionian Boots of Lucidity really help to keep your abilities constantly refreshed for this purpose (among others)."

Imo, you should do slow first then bomb rewind bomb, slow bomb rewind bomb, repeat etc. I would strongly suggest doing slow first to ensure they don't get out of range of you in the split second you use to do your bomb casting animation.

I would strongly suggest at least 1 survivability item in your main lineup (ROA, Banshee's, Soul Shroud, Merc Treads) because if the other team is smart at all they will come for you at least first or 2nd in a team fight, or they will try to stunlock you / burst you down first so you can't get a revive off. That's why I feel like some health / MR is so important for Zil.

For masteries, I see you skip the buff talents, which makes sense since you're CDR capped. However, expanded mind gives you so little, I might actually suggest putting those points into the MR in the tank tree, and that will help more since you don't have very much survivability. You can see the numbers for how little expanded mind gives you in my guide.

Otherwise I think the build is pretty good. I like the idea of getting rabadon's and only that for your AP, and making you enough of a threat/ boosting your ult with it. I see you have more to come in the strategy sections, which I am looking forward too, because I feel like it's SO important for Zilean. He is all about finesse! :) I like your depth on the situational items as well.

So far as voting... I'm really worried about the survivability issue, that is my main problem. From my experience because of how much the other team hates you and doesn't want you to get your ult off they will focus you hard, and if you have no survivability you will go down pretty fast. Do you usually play ranked / normal? Play with randoms / premades? I guess that is pretty important for your view on some things. I know sometimes I could get by with no survivability when the other team is bad, but if it's evenly matched I find I need a fair amount.

So that is my critique... I will say though that I think this is one of the better builds out there at the moment! I will have to think about the vote, idk if I want to appear biased o_O (plus you might catch up with my build! haha) I hope this was helpful, and don't take this in a negative light because I do for the most part like your build. :)

If you want some more advertisement I would suggest linking your build in your signature with a stamp or something (like mine >_>) so when you critique other ppl's builds / post on the forums ppl can check it out! You seem to be having trouble with getting people to look at yours.

Thanks for the link to my build! And I appreciate you letting me know. :) I am glad to see more thought into Zilean because I think lots of people think he is a bad hero, but he was the one I fell in love with first when I started playing this game!

Edit: I'm going to vote it up anyways... cuz I think it deserves a higher spot than it has at the moment. o_O

Thanks to GrandMasterD for my sig!

Thanks A LOT for your comment and rating!! Zil is my favorite hero as well, and the one I fell in love with..

As for survivability, I do tend to get a negatron cloak for MR, or some armor / health at some point while building my "core". I guess I should put in a section on things like that. :P

As far as the ganking combinations go, the reason I said to place a bomb first is that your range on bombs is a little longer than your slow [EDIT: INCORRECT!! changed now] , and most of the time I feel like I can plant the bomb ahead of time warp. With that being said, I agree that throwing down a slow first is the best idea-- and what I often end up doing :) , although I didn't say it. I'll include a paragraph or two about this in the guide when I get some time.

As for masteries and expanded mind, there's a discussion in the forums about it-- it does say that it works off of Max mana, but currently only works off of base mana as you pointed out. An adjudicator commented that this is a bug and should be reported, so this might get changed soon, idk. It might be a good idea to put those points into defense, but that would sac some of my preferential points in the higher utility tree. I might try putting them into mana regen or something, I'll get back to you on this!!

But yeah, I'll work on explaining survivability on Zilean as soon as I get some time.
Thanks again!

Also, I'm kind of curious about how to insert smaller images of items into text.. it would clean up some of the rough edges of my guide. Is there anywhere I can go to read up on guide making techniques?

For the smaller images go like this:

((banshee's veil)) then replace the ('s with ['s...

Banshee's Veil

Thanks to GrandMasterD for my sig!

I would have to agree with Mowen on survivability, I would permanently include either a RoA or Rylais. Probably a RoA since you could slip it in before arch angels and get that nice bonus mana added to arch angel's boost. Other than though, the build is very very good looking and I love the item setup. Instead of the small 5% mana increase, I think you might want to try more mana regen per sec, and also the neutral buff increase, because golems and zil go together very nicely. +1

Also, to counter stupid trolls, make comments required for ratings. Greatly improves your build's chances of a high rating!

The M Master
Malphite
Malzahar
Master Yi
Mordekaiser

Okay finally read your build and I like most of it,but you need some survivability. What I suggest is a banshee... cuz 1.8khp is so little. I get why people who use zil as a supporter don't need Ghost, But what about if you and your partner.. have a little bit of hp. Your both about get owned if you dont run away... So how do you save yourselves?...that's usually my main reason for having Ghost. I ghost and use Timewarp + Rewind to get him and me out of there. Happens every 1 out of 5 games..But It's my "Just in case"

I really like this build/guide with two exceptions:

Survivability, as covered above by others.

Expanded Mind is brutally weak in its current implementation, working off of base mana. Even if it gets fixed/changed to use max mana, it is still going to be pretty mild. Compare to having free 5 MP5 right from the start of the game if you had taken Meditation - nearly a free Meki Pendant. That's a huge direct boost to your harassment capabilities. That mastery alone will give you an additional 8-12 time bombs during the laning phase. It also frees up two more mastery points. Slam dunk mastery pick if you ask me.

Thanks for your comment! I have actually been taking 2 points in expanded mind and 3 points in mana regen, but haven't updated the guide yet. It definitely works better. Also, after doing more research I realize that expanded mind really has nothing to offer even if it is fixed.

About survivability...
I did add a part about it this morning titled "All About Survivability".. do you find it to be lacking? Perhaps I should change the order of sections to make it more obvious.. or change something in the description.. Some feedback on this would be appreciated.

Thanks!

honestly, seeing that your account was created today, it seems that you might be a troll.. if you are, and you rated my build down to boost your own on another account, that would be disappointing. If not, check my build for item options for magic pen. And about cd redux... it is one of the best attributes for zilean to get--plus, your only cd item is Ionian Boots of Lucidity , unless you went the merc treads [or sorc shoes] route.

EDIT: I'm done accusing anyone of trolling!! It's fine to post whatever opinion you have of my build...