Hello, again! Unless this is the first time you've read a guide of mine, in which case; hi anyway!

Before you ask, no this is not a joke. No I'm not trolling. Yes I think Zoe's a pretty good support

Personally, I'm a support main. I generally play Soraka and Nami, but I've switched over to playing more mage supports like Brand and Xerath with the new meta, and I figured I'd take Zoe for a spin with some pretty good results. Nobody ever really expects you to play Zoe support, but with this new meta, you're not really gonna get any flame from your team if you lock her in. Especially if you can play her effectively in this role.

So, I hope this guide can help those seeking to play Zoe down in bot lane as a support.

Zoe, as a champion, has her fair share of Pros and Cons. And there are some pretty unique ones for when she's played as a support specifically

Pros:
- Can be really frustrating to play against when you can land your abilities
- Really fun to play, even if you're not the main damage dealer
- Can easily change her positioning in order to get a Bubble or high-damage Q on an enemy
- Hard to get tilted if you like her in general
- Can bring more than just her Summoner Spells to the table, thanks to her W

Cons:
- Very difficult to pick up, and not a simple champ to master
- Can only hit one enemy at a time with her E, which can easily be avoided by your lane opponents if they're smart
- Somewhat predictable when in a support role
- Mana-hungry in the early game, making it somewhat difficult to stay in lane
- Has a crush on Ezreal

"Panda, you've got 3 very different rune sets for playing the same role. Why is that?"

Well, because Zoe's really weird when you play support, and I still haven't quite found a rune set that can really boost her support potential. However, all of these can be very effective, and it all depends on your match up and how confident you are playing Zoe.

Let's start with the utility build.

This build is designed to act as a blend between your AP potential and your support potential. You can more quickly purchase your necessary items, so you can switch to focusing on dealing damage as soon as possible, if need-be. And with those runes in place, you can switch to maxing your Q in case damage is turning out to be much more important than getting some Bubbles.

Then there's the Klepto/Spellbook build. This one is my favorite, in concept, but it's not the most effective unless you can consistently land your auto attacks or make good use of your summoner spells. This build is aimed at getting you gold very quickly so you can build whatever you need when you need it, or giving you the ability to grab even more summoner spells so you can run into a teamfight with a Heal on your W and an Exhaust. The handful of matches I used this build in, things weren't exactly going well with how aggressive the enemy laners were, so I haven't seen it utilized to it's full potential, unfortunately.

And then there's the full-on "Everybody gets support" build. This one works very well in it comes to engaging and disengaging and sustaining your team during teamfights. Your damage will suffer heavily if you go completely support-focused, but it could prove to be the difference between a victory or a loss. And Overgrowth is mostly there to keep yourself beefier as the game goes on, but you could also grab Revitalize

But, I recommend taking them all for a spin at least once. Maybe you can figure out which ones work for you the best.

Exhaust and Flash are basically my go-tos with Zoe support. I have had almost no chances to make use of Ignite, but Exhaust has saved more than enough lives for me to make it a perma-pick for Zoe support. And since you can always pick up a Heal or an Ignite thanks to your W's passive, you won't be completely without options

But feel free to take what's comfortable for you, of course

Okay, so that build path looks a little messy. Like there's just too many things there. And that's for one reason; I got really lazy. But also because you can generally use any and all of these items with any of the rune sets.

But the most important part is picking between Spellthief's Edge and Ancient Coin at the start of the game. Personally, I've been using Ancient Coin in nearly every game with Zoe. the coins not only give you extra gold while you're staying in lane so you can buy more of your expensive AP items, it also allows you to stay a bit longer since you can refill 6% of your mana with the mana coins. And it's generally much faster to complete this quest, allowing you to start warding much sooner. However, Spellthief's Edge can be a very useful pick against tankier teams, since you'll have that extra bit of AP.

And then there's the inclusion of Rod of Ages. Well, that's very simple. As I said earlier, Zoe is very mana-hungry. While she does have 425 starting Mana, you can very quickly lose it with very little reward if no one's following up on your Bubbles or poke. And her mana, without item giving her more, only goes up to ~800, compared to someone like Soraka whose mana naturally scales to about 1300 by max level. So having Rod of Ages to scale with you throughout the game can be very helpful, especially since it can give you some extra sustain

And then there's Ardent Censer, which is really more for the more support-focused build. And that's because it procs with Font of Life. So if you exhaust or bubble someone, everyone who hits that marked target not only gets healed, but they'll attack faster and do more damage. So while they're slowed for 2.2 seconds, then put to sleep, and then for a bit after, you can really dish out some damage, even if you didn't even land a hit outside of your E. It may not be always be the first item you want to get, but damn if it can't prove useful.

And Redemption and Locket are included exclusively to aid in being a support. I've personally not had a game so far where I was able to even build Redemption, but I could easily recommend that as your 3rd item if you think you can ignore upgrading your boots for a bit longer. Especially in matches where teamfights seem to happen quite a bit.

Pretty self-explanatory, but I recommend maxing your E first to maximize your support potential

Zoe works really well against immobile and tanky targets, but champions with a lot of mobility or ways to diminish your CC potential such as Morgana and ones that can quickly deal a lot of damage, like Brand or Zyra, can make your life a friggin' nightmare.

Avoid hooks and CC, and try to keep your lane partner safe with your bubbles, and you should be okay

Zoe works really well with champions that have CC of their own, can easily follow-up on her CC, or sustain themselves in lane with relative ease. So champions such as;

Caitlyn
Jhin
Vayne
Lucian
Kai'Sa
Jinx
Vladimir
Draven

Overall, Zoe can be a very fun and unique support to play. Getting used to her can be very difficult, and sometimes frustrating if your team is unreliable, but as long as your careful and can lane your bubbles when they really matter, you should do just fine. Don't be afraid to poke with your Q in laning phase, since the damage it can do if it hits minions isn't nearly as much as someone like Brand using their W, but you just want to be careful to not accidentally steal too much CS

So with that, have fun!