Zilean Build Guide by Kuro to Shiro

Introduction

Hi, I'm playing League of Legend since Season 4 begins on SEA server , currently Diamond 5 . I didn't play Zilean much before Season 6 started .


Zileanis a solo lane hybrid support / AP Carry. His bombs do tremendous damage middle game and even when his damage tapers off late game, he still is a huge asset with his constant slows/speeds and his ultimate. Zilean is always a great pick as an AP carry. He is very difficult to beat in lane if you play him right and he can bring so much to a team – damage, crowd control, and he can do a multitude of things with his ultimate: diving, saving teammates from ganks, and protecting carries in teamfights.

Runes

• Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction: Helps you to solve the cooldown problem that will be faced by Zilean, because his core items don't have much cooddown reduction.
  
• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: Helps your bombs do more damage. There is no other viable options. Some people might take mana regeneration, but if you are on the right team – then you will be given blue by your jungler so there is no need for you to run anything but these marks.
  
• Greater Seal of Scaling Health: Sealing health is a good choice for ap mages due to low health of mages when late game.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: The flat AP runes early on help Zilean’s bombs to actually do damage, as a base damage of 90 is pretty sub par. They also help to deal damage to kill creeps, as Zilean will probably be pushed into his own tower early on when he can’t harass nor clear waves very quickly.

Masteries

Items

Magic penetration = Damage. Get it will give you insane damage early and mid game. Due to different playstyle, you can also buy Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

This item is a MUST. It gives you lots of gold from the start of the game . Active it and slow enemy down, it is very good for Zilean because it helps a lot on chasing enemy and avoid face check bushes.

Plenty of damage and mana and shield.

Damage, damage and damage.Main damage item for mages.

End game items. MUST buy when enemy started to stack magic resist. .

Movement speed and damage. Can be replaced by Zhonya's Hourglass

Skill Sequence

Abilities

Spells

Ranked Play

Well , I don't save my gameplay or stream , so I decided to take some pros gameplay , hope you all enjoy it.

Pros / Cons

Pros

+ Good ultimate + Strong laner + High mobility + AoE crowd control

Zilean has insane stun cc after last update. Enemy can't play aggressive in lane after 6 due to his ultimate. He also takes part as a support in late games\.

Cons

- Mana problem - Low damnage late game - Wise enemy can outsmart his ultimate

Zilean falls off when late game. He acts as a support during late game but not a mages. He will also face mana problem at early game . Enemy can wait for his ultimate animation disappear before kill him.

Farming

It is very hard to farm very well early on as Zilean because of his low attack damage and slow attack animation. Because of this, good last hitting skills are crucial; otherwise you will fall behind regardless of kills on your lane opponent. Remember that kills don’t matter much if you are very behind your opponent’s creep score. Later in the game when you have golem buff and Catalyst, you can afford to bomb the creeps to farm more easily.

Unique Skills

As stated above, Zilean is an AP carry hybrid. After you use your QWQ combo, you should play passively staying out of range of dangerous enemies until your bomb cooldowns are back up. His Time Warp is useful for speeding up ADC or bruisers to pick someone out of position off and fling them to your team, netting an easy kill.


As Zilean, you do not want to be close to heavy damage enemies at all in fights. If you are forced to ult yourself, it leaves the rest of your team vulnerable to focus fire, so you should stay in the back speeding up your bruisers, casting bombs on your bruisers / enemies that are in a safe radius around you, and using your ultimate on a carry before they die. Once the enemy team has used most of their cooldowns (i.e. if Amumu and Malphite have both used their ultimate), you can afford to go out and bomb the enemy carries so long as you have decent HP – even more so if your ultimate is still up.

You want to preform a ‘bomb combo’ then back out of the fight and wait for your cooldowns to respawn (it’s not worth standing in range and just auto attacking the enemy champions) – best to just re-position to a safe spot and then go back in, for another bomb combo.


You can cast your bombs on someone who engage like Malphite or Amumu and make some decent damage.

One risky trick on Zilean is to bait the enemy into a teamfight by having all four of them waiting in an unwarded brush. You can pretend to get caught, and use your ultimate on yourself right as you reach the brush full of your teammates. If they have spent everything on you, they will be sorely out of position and have nothing to fight your team with.

Mechanic in Team Fight

In team fights, you should be hiding in the back and laying bombs on either squishy carries in range of you (that can’t kill you easily – you shouldn't be Time Warping yourself ahead to go and bomb an Annie that can combo you for her teammates to clean you up easily) or someone on your team in the melee lines that can burst your bombs on their squishies, like Riven.


Zilean mechanic in team fight:

Counter

These champions is particularly counter Zilean. Gangplank can kill Zilean easily due to his Remove Scurvy and his insane damage and critical. This goes same with Yasuo as yasuo can dash here and there to dogde Time Bomb. Ryze and Fizz is burst champion , so timing your Chronoshift is important when facing them.

Combo 1

Combo 2

Conclusion