Hello, I'm Main Got Nerfed and I used Zilean almost exclusively to climb to plat 3 so far. I want to teach you everything I know so YOU can escape your elo!
Op.gg: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=Main%20Got%20Nerfed
Fun fact about me: I play with a locked screen.
***FYI Zilean works even better with solid communication between you and your adc.
I am actively working on this guide so new chapters will be added in the upcoming weeks! This guide is long, so feel free to skip around to the parts you need to read!

Pros

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AoE stun on a basic ability!
Strong ultimate!
Great mid-late game!
Very fast!
AMAZING team-figher!
Easy gank set up!

Cons

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VERY Squishy
Weak without ultimate
You need to position well or else you will die.
You will get flamed if you forget to ult your ally.

Zilean's role is to save your allies and debuff you opponents. Zilean's strengths are NOT complimented significantly by building AP; Rather, he is better built with utility and AP on the side. Note that only 2 of Zilean's abilities scale with AP, and Zilean's main purpose isn't to deal damage. This guide will teach you to have the most impact on the game, and you'll win more games because of it.

That being said, should you find yourself with an incompetent ADC, it's time to build AP. What good does supportive items do if you adc is always dead? I would build items like twin shadows, death cap, and another ability power item of your choice. Your build can change from game to game and it is up to you whether to build supportive, or carry focused items.

Summon Aery is an indisputable keystone for Zilean. The reason being that Aery is the only way we can shield allies reliably. This is the best way to proc items like Ardent Censer and Athene's Unholy Grail.
Manaflow Band- Zilean will go oom if you spam your abilities which is why I take this rune to help remedy this problem. I tested Nimbus Cloak and it simply does not provide enough impact to replace Manaflow Band.
Transcendence- I use this rune after Celerity got nerfed. CDR is core to Zilean's identity so there is no reason why we shouldn't take this rune. You WILL have excess CDR when we play Zilean so Transcendence is exactly what we need to get some more AP out of items with cdr.
Scorch I recently discovered that most of the bombs we hit in a game are landed between 0 and 10 minutes, making scorch the ideal rune here.



I personally prefer this tree over the inspiration tree due to Presence of Mind
Presence of Mind Is a dream come true for us. The amount of mana this provides allows us to skip building Tear of the Goddess entirely, therefore accelerating our build. Not only does this item refund mana, it refunds ultimate cool-down too!! Our ultimate Chronoshift is core to our kit and having it up more directly increases our effectiveness as a support. I will go deeper into how to use our ultimate effectively in the play style section.

Legend: Tenacity You might be a little confused as to why I choose this rune. Let me explain: The bottom row of runes are purely focused on increasing our damage, however that is not why we are playing support. Besides, the runes on the bottom of the precision tree don't add that much damage anyways. The main weakness of Zilean is getting caught and dying before a fight. This tenacity makes us incredibly slippery, especially with all of the movement speed Zilean can get with his E. This rune will save your life!



The inspiration tree is seen more often in profession play than in soloq. If you want to try inspiration, take
Magical Footwear These grant more movement speed than regular boots and are free! Can't go wrong with this.
Cosmic Insight This is the main reason why you would want to take the inspiration tree. The CDR is very effective on Zilean and helps with all of your abilities, including your summoner spells.

As far as the three little stat boost runes, I usually go for the flat AP since most of the damage we do is in the early game, so it doesn't make much sense to backload our damage by taking CDR.

Let's start with the indisputable summoner spell -

Flash is the most versatile summoner spell and has virtually infinite uses. Most of the time, I use flash to dodge deadly abilities but if I need to catch up to an escaping enemy, I will flash Time Warp them into a double Time Bomb. If this spell is available, it allows you to play more aggressive because you have an escape.

I started taking ignite more often to secure kills in lane. ADC's almost always have heal with them and ignite counters healing, so pop this when you start fighting and burn through their health. I would always take this against Soraka, Sona, or any healing support like them. This is my preferred summoner spell.

This is the last real alternative to ignite. This item is great against assassins or burst mages. You will have less kill pressure in lane, but if you need to protect a hyper carry taking this might be worth it.

Zilean's items are very situational and unlike most champions, he does not have a set build path. Read below to learn which items you should be building!

When should I build Redemption ? Redemption is a cheap, yet impactful item. This item boosts shielding power, gives 10% CDR, and 150% base mana regen. The item active can turn a team fight around. It's hard to describe when you should buy this item, but I usually buy this item 3rd or 4th because early game, getting AP lets you carry hard.

When should I build Ardent Censer? Ardent Censer got some changes after worlds 2017, making it less viable to rush because it scales with levels. You should buy this item if you have at least 2 Auto-Attack based champions on your team (Ex: Yasuo, WarWick, Jax, Irelia, etc.). If your adc is Ezreal, I would not build this item, since his main source of damage is abilities. This item should come second or third, depending on how much you need this item.

When should I build Mikael's Blessing? This item is a great purchase to counter Morgana's Dark Binding in particular! This item is very cost efficient if you can use it right. Other good uses include Varus's ultimate Chain of Corruption, Sejuani's ultimate Glacial Prison, Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow, Leona's whole kit (lol)... You get the ideal. It's a great buy against heavy crowd control teams. * Also, it's really good against opponents who use Glacial Augment! Especially when they use items and make lasers of slowing ice, its easy to just remove the heavy slow! *Item does not work against suppression.

When should I build Athene's Unholy Grail? In reality, this item is really just made to give you AP for buying supportive items. In case you did not know, this item grands AP based on how much mana regeneration you have. You can easily get 50 or 70 AP from this item's passive alone! However, it disables the passive on Mikael's Blessing! So do not build both of those items. If you do want to buy this item, buy it as a 3rd or 4th item, so that you will have enough mana regen to make the item worth it.

When should I build Shurelya's Battlesong? This item is extremely gold efficient, due to its low cost and high impact active ability. Once you have this item, you can use your E Time Warp to slow down enemies rather than speed up your allies because you already speed with this item. I have been building this item second on a usual basis, buying Kindlegem first for the CDR.

When should I finish Remnant of the Watchers? Honestly, this item becomes more important the higher elo you are. The main reason to finish this item is to gain an extra ward slot because the stats you get for the gold spent are not very efficient. Most of the time I would finish this item LAST.

When should I build Twin Shadows? Twin shadows is great not only for slowing the enemy team down, but it's a great item to get free vision of the enemy. This item is great if you are snowballing, since the spooky ghosts make it even easier to catch enemies out of position!! This item has a fantastic build path. This means you will be very strong even as you are building the item! Honestly the main reason I build this item is because of the great stats in the build path and overall AP.

When should I build Zhonya's Hourglass? This is an expensive item, so I would not build this item if you are behind because it will take a long time to finish. This item is GREAT against teams with heavy AD and/or assassins. This item allows you to go into stasis instead of having to ult yourself, so you can ult an ally instead. If you are thinking of building this item, build it first and instead of twin shadows. Your damage is more impactful in the mid-early game and the AP from this item helps that. Also, if you are doing a tower dive you should tank aggro and then use this item to drop aggro instantly!

Spellthief's Edge vs Ancient Coin
After starting each item for plenty of games, here are the results of my research.

Spellthief's Edge
+More Q damage due to the 10 ap it gives.
+Mana regen helps a lot
-Getting gold can be unreliable at times, especially if you can't hit Q's

Ancient Coin
+You get more gold, more quickly than spellthief's edge
+Getting gold is reliable because you don't have to land a single ability.
-the movement speed bonus is not noticeable
-Difficult to manage mana.

I will continue to use Spellthief's Edge for more damage in lane and the mana regen compliments items like Athene's Unholy Grail. If you play more passive or you have difficulty landing your Q's, take Ancient Coin

In short, most of the time you should take Spellthief's Edge.

Reasoning - it's easy to proc Spellthief's against melee supports with both auto attacks and bombs. You will probably gain more gold than if you took coin! Also you get more AP which is always nice.
Since most ranged supports are squishy, the bonus AP helps you kill them much faster!
If you feel comfortable against melee hook champions like Blitzcrank or Pyke, take Spellthief's Edge. This allows you to punish them hard if they miss their hook. If you are new to Zilean or you don't feel confident in your dodging skills, just take Ancient Coin for additional safety.

Knowledge is truly power. This is especially true in league of legends. Learn about your opponents here to gain the competitive edge you need!

The difficulty of this lane is highly dependent on your skill. Blitzcrank has a knock up Power Fist, silence Static Field, and a pull Rocket Grab and you cannot ult while you are hit by any of these. The good news is that in order to be affected by 2/3 of these abilities, you need to basically be in melee range of Blitz. So it all comes down to exactly what you expected: can you dodge the hooks? If you can, this will be an easy lane. As soon as Blitz misses his hook, punish him hard! His Q has a 20 seconds CD at level 1 and only goes down by 1 second for every additional skill point in his Q. When he misses, apply pressure by running forward and using your bombs and auto-attacking. However, do not get in range of Blitz's flash range. Think to yourself, can Blitz flash Power Fist me? Same thinking applies to his hooks. Can Blitz flash hook me now? If so, do I have flash available to escape? Lastly, be careful if Blitz can hook you under his tower. That is usually a death sentence.
In the mid game, you should be standing in the backline with your team. It is imperative that you do not get hooked out of position. It is better for an ally to get hooked since you have many tools to help them escape.

You might be scared at first when you see that he is a high damage hook champion. However, if you play this right, you'll have a great time. First of all, know that if an ally dies to Death from Below while under Chronoshift's protection, Pyke will not get a reset on his ultimate. In the early levels, poke him down with auto attacks and bombs. Note that if Pyke goes under camouflage and he has a bomb on him, the bomb will go invisible as well. However, you will see particles when the bomb explodes even while he is camouflaged.

This is perhaps one of the most popular supports of all time. You will run into this match up a lot but here is good new- it's not that bad. Zilean almost always has a greater than 50% winrate against Thresh so technically this matchup is in your favor. Here's how to play in lane. Do NOT get into Thresh's auto attack range at level 1 since his auto attacks hurt for some reason. Try to land a bomb on him but that's it. Then you need to back off since Thresh's level 2 is VERY strong. Let him push you to tower. You need to be mindful of his hook and his flay. Thresh may also try to flash Flay or Death Sentence. And that's about as hard as it gets! It's only easier from here. From level 3 onward, you are better than Thresh as long as you don't get hooked. Use your speed up to dodge hooks. If Thresh misses his hook, you should do a double bomb combo on him and punish his mistake. You win level 6 skirmishes too, since Chronoshift is so impactful. From then on, just slow + stun Thresh repeatedly since he has no dashes or escapes. Dodge his Death Sentence, then its GG EZ!

The classic healing support. You may already have an understanding of how she works but here's a quick rundown of how she works. Soraka uses her W Astral Infusion to heal her allies at the cost of her own health and mana. If Soraka lands her Q, she gains health over time which in turn allows her to heal her allies more. The main strategy here is to poke soraka down while dodging her Q's. Slow and engage on Soraka when possible. Once you have a lead, you can snowball easily. Build AP and you can deal half her half in one combo.

I max Q Time Bomb first because upgrading it increases the stun duration and lowers the cool-down, allowing us to double bomb more often. In addition, maxing w Rewind is pointless. Also, the speeds/slows from your E Time Warp are sufficient at the ability's first rank. There will be few cases in which an enemy isn't slowed down enough by your E or that you need to go faster for some reason. Maxing Q > E > W is most efficient in my opinion.

Zilean has very straight forward combos
Standard attack combo
Q Time Bomb > W Rewind > Q Time Bomb. To execute this properly, you need to be very quick. Your W Rewind is cast instantly, so literally mash qwq as fast as you can. You may need to predict where the enemy will walk when you throw the second bomb.

Escape combo
E Time Warp yourself > W Rewind > E Time Warp your adc. This combo Lets you and your adc run away from ganks, or rotate to other lanes faster.

All-in combo
E Time Warp your opponent > Q Time Bomb > W Rewind > Q Time Bomb

Chronoshift tips
You cannot ult while stunned, knocked up, silenced, or suppressed.
You CAN ult while rooted (Ex: Morgana's Dark Binding)
Your ultimate has a short cooldown, especially with the Presence of Mind rune. With this in mind, do NOT wait until the last second to ult your ally. Ult a second or two ahead of time. Chronoshift lasts for 5 seconds, which is a long time!

General tips

-Your mana regen allows you to throw 2 bombs before minions spawn and you will have full mana by the time the waves crash.
-Speed up your adc when walking to lane so your adc won't miss any CS. If you are walking to lane without your adc, then you can speed yourself up.
-You can double bomb on an ally so that the AoE will stun your enemies. Generally speaking, you can double bomb your tank/initiator because they will close enough to the enemies.
-Similar to the trick above, you can double bomb enemy minions to try and stun the enemy carry if they are playing far back.
-Your E Time Warp procs Manaflow Band
- Time Bomb's prioritize champions over minions so if you throw a bomb on and it is touching both a champion and a minion, it will stick to the champion!
-Landing a Time Bomb on the enemy champion WILL draw turret aggro! The explosion of the bomb also draws turret aggro!
-Use Redemption on an ally who is reviving from Chronoshift so they will have more health when they revive and scare off enemies nearby. Chronoshift takes 3 seconds for an ally to revive, while redemption takes 2.5 seconds to hit the ground. Wait about 1 second after your ally dies with Chronoshift, then use Redemption.
-In lane, watch the health of your own minions, especially your cannon minions. Since you know the enemy adc will walk up to cs the cannon, double bomb where they are walking. This will force them to 1) get stunned and miss the cannon or 2) walk away from the bombs and miss the cannon anyway.
-If the opponent has Ancient Coin, it is easy to land bombs since their movement is predictable. Bomb them when you see the opposing support try to grab his or her coins.
-Use Time Warp on your adc if your adc is getting targeted by a few minions. Especially early game, minions do a lot of damage and using Summon Aery will help mitigate that damage!

In lane, Zilean is not that strong because he does not have crucial CDR yet. Also, you will go oom if you keep spamming double bombs. Don't double bomb for poke; only double bomb if it will lead into a kill or you need to disengage. In lane, you want to finish stacking your mana flow band and survive until level 6. Try your very best not to die at all before level 6. Recall if you get low health. Your passive Time in a Bottle will allow you to stay even in XP if you aren't in lane. Keep a control ward placed somewhere to prevent ganks. If you are trying to escape a gank or just run away, speed up yourself and your ADC to get to safety (E>W>E Combo). It can be diffiicult to double bomb the enemies when you are running away, so just speed up yourself and your ally.

Once you are level 6, you can play more aggressively with your ADC. To initiate a skirmish in lane, start by slowing down the nearest enemy with you E Time Warp. Now, try to double bomb the slowed enemy. If successful, the enemy will take large amount of damage, be forced to used a summoner spell, or die. Use this combo when your jungler is ganking you as well!

Depending on who your adc is, you might be able to roam and help elsewhere on the map, especially when you have Mobility Boots. You can probably roam if your adc has an escape, like Ezreal. Do not roam if you have an immobile adc, such as Kog'Maw or Vayne.

Warding is always important, and gets even more important as you climb elo. Generally speaking, you should always have at least 1 (preferably 2) Control Ward(s) in your inventory. These are so valuable that is it better to buy control wards than buying a cheap component to an item such as Ruby Crystal, Amplifying Tome, Faerie Charm, etc.
That's right. Let me be clear about it: it is better to buy 2 control wards and sit on 400 gold than to buy a Ruby Crystal or any small item like it. Those small items have minimal impact, while control wards are very meaningful. Once you get to the late stage of the game, do NOT buy your 6th item unless you can buy it in full. This is so that you will have a slot open for control wards.

Warding against invisible junglers
It's hard to ward against champs like Evelynn, Shaco, or even Zac and Kayn. Evelynn and Shaco will go invisible right past your wards and surprise gank you. Here is the trick- ward their jungle camps. These champions must be visible while clearing jungle camps. This is extra good because it is not common for jungle camps to be warded, and the enemy will have no idea you can see them! If I am blue side (the bottom side) I like to place a ward between the enemy's blue buff and gromp. If I am red side (the top side) I would try to ward the krugs or red buff. I mention Zac because he can engage from very far away- generally out of normal vision spots. Same goes for Kayn.

Warning: Be very careful while going deep into the enemy jungle to ward their camps. I would only do this when the enemy bot lane just recalled/died or the enemy jungler showed elsewhere on the map. Don't run into the jungler while warding!!

Where to ward, you might ask. Well it depends on what time in the game it is! If you are still in laning phase, you should be warding tri brush and the brush in the river no matter if you are red or blue side. If an infernal dragon is spawning next, it's worth warding the dragon pit.

In the mid game, check which objective will be spawning first - Dragon or Baron. There is more likely to be conflict around the objective spawning next, so ward around that side of the map accordingly. Late game, try to have a ward on the Baron at all times. You might be surprised by Baron sneaks if you aren't prepared!

Now you you have some CDR under your belt and you have access to your ultimate, you are ready to show your strength. Stick with your team all the times, because you cannot afford to be caught out. Only go for deep vision if you have backup nearby. Zilean probably cannot outright kill anyone by himself, which is why it is dangerous to be alone.

When you see enemies, throw double bombs at the all the time. Eventually you'll hit both bombs. and your team can engage on that.

**Warning- lots of math below!**
Updated 3/20/2019
TL, DR; Rune choice is matchup dependent! If your opponents can heal or otherwise mitigate poke, you should take Gathering Storm. If your opponents do not have significant healing or shielding(like Thresh), take Scorch

Part I - The Preface

In order to figure out which rune is better, I'm going to be looking at 6 games where I took scorch, and compare that damage to the damage I could have dealt had I taken Gathering Storm. This is very easy since Zilean only has one damaging ability, Time Bomb. *Keep in mind, all of this is merely comparing the damage of your Q throughout the game, and ignores the additional benefit gathering storm gives to your ultimate - additional health when revived. However, since the amount of health respawned with through Chronoshift doesn't really matter, I will be ignoring that when deciding which rune is better. Also, in case you are wondering, you can check how much damage scorch does in a game by going to your match history, and going under the runes tab.

The Data
Game 1: 30 minuets long- Win. Scorch: 475 damage.
Game 2: 22 minuets long- Loss. Scorch: 259 damage.
Game 3: 31 minuets long- Win. Scorch: 306 damage.
Game 4: 31 minuets long- Win. Scorch: 412 damage.
Game 5: 27 minuets long- Win. Scorch: 264 damage.
Game 6: 19 minuets long- Loss. Scorch: 217 damage.

Part II - The Analysis

Update I (12/18/2018): I reviewed 4 additional games (not the ones listed below) and counted every single bomb I landed in the game. It turns out I originally made the incorrect assumption that the number of bombs I land in every 10 minute interval is the same. In all the games I reviewed today, the interval in which I used the most bombs was 0-10 minutes. I am going to use new data and redo the calculations below, except for game one since that was the game I originally watched and I don't have to use average bombs since I know the exact bombs hit for that game in particular.

After using the data from 4 games, 2 wins and 2 losses, my current average for number of bombs hit for each interval will be updated as follows: an average of 15.25 bombs hit between 0-10 minutes, an average of 8.75 bombs between 10-20 minutes, an average of 10.67 bombs hit between 20-30 minutes, and an average of 5 bombs in the 30-40 minutes range. The reason the 30-40 min bracket has so little bombs hit is because most games do not reach 40 min, thereby taking the average number of bombs down.
First, let's calculate how much the AP impacts our Q damage. Since Time Bomb has a 90% AP ration, we can use a .9 multiplier to the amount of ap gathering storm gives us. Let's break this down.
0-10 minuets - (.9) x 0ap = 0 additional damage/bomb
10-20 minutes - (.9) x 8ap = 7.2 additional damage/bomb
20-30 minutes - (.9) x 24ap = 21.6 additional damage/bomb
30-40 minuetes - (.9) x 48ap = 43.2 additional damage/bomb

Game 1 - In order for gathering storm's damage to equal that of scorch, I would need to hit 49 (49.5 if you want to be exact) bombs. How did I reach this number? I divided 49 by 3 and created 3 sections of time: 0-10 minuets, 10-20 minuets, 20-30 minuets. These are the time increments gathering storm increases it's AP. That boils down to 16.5 bombs in every 10 minute bracket. Here is a sample line meaning

(Time bracket here): (additional AP from gathering storm scaled to 90%) x (number of bombs hit in time bracket) = total additional damage in this bracket.

Combine this with the answers from the data above to get:

0-10 minutes: (0) x 16.5 = 0 total additional damage in this bracket
10-20 minutes: (7.2) x 16.5 = 115.2 total additional damage in this bracket
20-30 minutes: (21.6) x 16.5 = 345.6 total additional damage in this bracket
Total potential damage from gathering storm across all brackets in game 1: 475 damage.
Damage done by scorch: 475.
Damage done by gathering storm: 475.
This is a special case where the amount of damage done by scorch and gathering storm are EXACTLY the same. This data is still useful though.
Better rune this game: N/A

Game 2 - Same idea as above, but since the game time is not a multiple of 10, I will scale down our original value of 10.67 bombs in the 20-30 min range to 1.067 bombs every minute from 20-30 min. These values are the same, I assure you. (10.67/10 = 1.067). Since the game has a 2 minute bracket, 20 minutes - 22 minutes (because the game ended) I will multiply our 1.067 value by 2 because there are 2 minutes between 20 minutes and the end of the game in this case.
0-10 minutes - (0) x 15.25 = 0 total additional damage in this bracket
10-20 minutes - (7.2) x 8.75 = 63 total additional damage in this bracket
20-22 minutes - (21.6) x 2.13 = 46 total additional damage in this bracket
Total potential damage from gathering storm across all brackets in game 1: 109 damage.
Damage done by scorch: 259.
Damage done by gathering storm: 109.
In this case, scorch is better. Notice the shorter game time.
Better rune this game: SCORCH.

Game 3 - You get the idea. here is the data.
0-10 minutes: (0) x 15.25 = 0 total additional damage in this bracket
10-20 minutes: (7.2) x 8.75 = 63 total additional damage in this bracket
20-30 minutes: (21.6) x 10.67 = 230.5 total additional damage in this bracket
30-31 minutes: (43.2) x 1.067 = 46.1 total additional damage in this bracket
Total potential damage from gathering storm across all brackets in game 1: 339.6 damage.
Damage done by scorch: 306.
Damage done by gathering storm: 339.6.
Better rune this game: GATHERING STORM.

Game 4
0-10 minutes: (0) x 15.25 = 0 total additional damage in this bracket
10-20 minutes: (7.2) x 8.75 = 63 total additional damage in this bracket
20-30 minutes: (21.6) x 10.67 = 230.5 total additional damage in this bracket
30-31 minutes: (43.2) x 1.067 = 46.1 total additional damage in this bracket
Total potential damage from gathering storm across all brackets in game 1: 339.6 damage.
Damage done by scorch: 412.
Damage done by gathering storm: 339.6.
Better rune this game: SCORCH.

Game 5
0-10 minutes: (0) x 15.25 = 0 total additional damage in this bracket
10-20 minutes: (7.2) x 8.75 = 63 total additional damage in this bracket
20-27 minutes: (21.6) x 7.5 = 162 total additional damage in this bracket
Total potential damage from gathering storm across all brackets in game 1: 225 damage.
Damage done by scorch: 264.
Damage done by gathering storm: 225.
Better rune this game: SCORCH.

Game 6
0-10 minutes: (0) x 15.25 = 0 total additional damage in this bracket
10-19 minutes: (7.2) x 7.875 = 56.7 total additional damage in this bracket
Total potential damage from gathering storm across all brackets in game 1: 56.7 damage.
Damage done by scorch: 217.
Damage done by gathering storm: 56.7.
Better rune this game: SCORCH

Part III - The Conclusion + notes
Let it be known that Scorch only hit 1 enemy even if your bomb hits 2+ people. This makes gathering storm slightly more effective if you hit numerous enemies. All of this data assumes you hit the bombs while scorch is off cool down. So what's the bottom line? I would take Scorch. Out of my 6 games, 1 game had equal damage (game 1), 1 game it was better for gathering storm (game 3), and 2 games it was better for scorch (games 2, 4,5 and 6). 4-1 in favor of scorch.
Thank you for reading this.

Maybe after this guide, your match history will look like this!
I would like to thank jhoijhoi for making this guide possible. Her coding template taught me everything I need to know for this guide!
If you have any questions or comments, please let me know in the discussion section below.

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