Zilean/Strategy

Skill usage

 * Placing on allied initiators such as  and  as they are about to initiate on multiple enemies is a good way to help rack up burst damage. Using  on, , can lead to a heavy unexpected nuke to the enemy team, thanks to these three characters' ability to stealth.
 * Placing a on an ally as they teleport (,,  etc.) may help you get an assist.
 * With minor cooldown reduction and, you can keep higher ranks of on yourself permanently barring mana costs. Use this to quickly get to teamfights to help, or lanes to defend/push.
 * Repeated usage of can help to drastically reduce the cooldown of  at the cost of mana.
 * is an effective way to enable allies/yourself to finish off enemies, or escape from a losing battle. By using  can slow or boost an enemy or ally twice allowing an easy kill or escape.
 * Use strategically for maximum effect. It can prolong the life span of yourself or a team member.
 * You can combine the use of and  to place two  on a target quickly. As this causes the first bomb to instantly explode, this is  main damage and harassment combo. This can be very effective for farming and pushing.
 * This strategy has an effect on an enemy bombs because planting your own bombs on debuffed allies will detonate the enemy bombs.
 * Combo use, and  in conjunction with  at your fountain when shopping or heading back out to battle to maximize mana gain and ensure all your abilities are ready for use immediately.
 * You can bait low enemies to your tower by saving your till the last second to bait enemies into committing to kill you or die.

Build usage

 * By purchasing and using his ultimate, he can be a great time consumer to the opposing team, which allows the ally team to know how to approach an ambush while you are reviving.
 * Cooldown Reduction is extremely effective on, since in addition to decreasing the cooldowns of his abilities it decreases the cooldown of allowing it to be used more often to decrease the cooldowns on your abilities even further. You can use  every 30 or so seconds with maximum cooldown reduction and continual activation of
 * Using both Runes and Items, a Cooldown reduction of 9% allows to be spammed.
 * By buying an early, can dominate a lane with its health and mana regeneration.

Countering

 * early harassment power can be mitigated by sending a tanky or healing champion to lane against him. You are more likely to win a battle of attrition due to his high early mana costs.
 * When caught by, you can force him to push the lane by intentionally damaging your minions with the explosion.
 * Ideally you should attempt to take down quickly with enough burst power to prevent him from making use of . If this proves impossible, consider that you may need to focus on which of  allies you can kill the fastest over which one is dealing the most damage.
 * mobility with makes it difficult to finish him off without a well orchestrated ambush, but he has low natural defenses. He makes a good target for assassins.
 * is one of the strongest and longest lasting movement speed reduction abilities in the game. The duration reduction from is notable at all levels.
 * cannot usually afford to increase his ability damage in the late game and his utility is less dependent on his item build. Attempting to kill during the laning phase should be a very low priority compared to farming minions.