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 champions with invisibility  (Such as , , , , , , and ) can lead to a heavy unexpected nuke to the enemy team.
 * After triggering an enemy passive,, place one bomb on one bloblet and another bomb on a different bloblet. As the timer ticks down, the bombs will get crawl closer together and more likely finish him off. However if you quickly double bomb one bloblet before the rest get close, only one bloblet will be killed, and  will revive.
 * Placing a on an ally as they teleport (,,  etc.) may help you get an assist.
 * Placing a on an enemy as they teleport may also get you a kill as they will most likely be teleporting to a fight.
 * 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 combo. If the first bomb is enough to kill the target, both bombs will explode. This can be very effective for farming and pushing. This combo costs a lot of mana, so you may not want to use it for  harassing.
 * This strategy can be a good way to damage enemy champions standing near the target before they have a chance to shield themselves from damage.
 * This strategy has an effect on an enemy bombs because planting your own bombs on debuffed allies will detonate the enemy bombs.
 * s grant vision to allies. They can be used to scout unchecked bushes or over walls.
 * Lobbing bombs into bushes can surprise foes for an attack.
 * Using bombs on your own or enemy minions, is a good way of zoning your opponent. If the enemy champion is melee, they have to either wait 4 seconds for the bomb to explode, or be damaged by the bomb if they choose to farm that minion.
 * When sieging an enemy turret, have your allied champions clear the enemy minion wave. Place a bomb on the 2nd and 3rd melee minion in your ally minion column. They will carry the bombs forwards for you, possibly harassing a careless opponent under their tower.
 * When Zilean has enough AP to kill melee minions with a QWQ combo, he can Insta-clear all 6 by walking ahead of his minions to the enemy minion line, then lead the melee minions towards the faster minions. QWQ combo on a faster minion will clear the entire wave.
 * If the enemy has some sort of shield that can mitigate your bomb damage, use on a low health minion they are about to kill (smartcast helps). This transforms  from a nuke with a 4 second windup to an instantaneous AoE damage nuke (without the use of ).
 * If you have as an ally, you can place a  on a minion she grabbed with her . When she throws it the minion will explode, dealing heavy AOE damage due to the combined forces of  and . This is basically a long range AoE skillshot, which is very helpful at sieging and poking.
 * Placing a  on certain uncontrollable pets will cause them to follow their masters around. This is great placement for a no-escape harass or instant kill at low health. This works most effectively on  because she has little control over her spiderlings, and on  who cannot control his Voidlings without a cooldown in his favor and an enemy in range.
 * Consider enemy champions shield durations or damage reductions when casting time bomb. For example, after casts Shunpo, she takes 15% reduced damage for 1.5 seconds. Therefore placing a single bomb on her after Shunpo will detonate 3 seconds later, with no damage reduction from Shunpo. Or, placing a single bomb immediately, then waiting for the Shunpo damage reduction to wear off before the casting the second bomb will also avoid damage reduction from Shunpo.
 * Another example is, which shields Lee Sin and an ally champion for 2 seconds. If casts  on  directly, he can safeguard one second before the bomb goes off to mitigate the damage. The safest way to damage him with two bombs is to quickly double bomb a minion that is in a 330-radius assuming that one bomb is sufficient to kill the minion. This would result in the AoE damage to be that of two bombs, since placing one bomb over another detonates the first and since the target dies, the second immediately detonates. However, this is very difficult to pull off and requires you to have high AP.
 * Using and  can become a reliable farming strategy with higher ranks invested in them. Place one on a caster minion, then quickly place another. The bomb should have done enough damage to leave the caster minion at low health. Land an auto attack on it to set the bomb off sooner.
 * Against melee champs, you can place a time bomb on your own minion that is low on life just before they hit it to CS. This is a very safe way to harass them if they have a similar range such as (650) or (700).
 * This same technique can be used to harass them under their own tower without taking tower hits as well.
 * Use to get back to lane faster.
 * is an effective way to enable allies/yourself to finish off enemies, engage enemies, or escape from a losing battle. By using, can slow or boost an enemy or ally twice allowing an easy kill or escape.
 * Placing on an initiator such as, , , , , , and , while chasing an enemy champion running away, or out of position can allow the rest of your team to catch up and outnumber them once they are in range to apply their CC.
 * is Zilean's only ability that is insta-cast. Casting another ability then Rewind in a quick sequence may end up the Rewind being cast earlier, hence the ability input next unaffected by Rewind as expected.
 * Use strategically for maximum effect. It can prolong the life span of yourself or a team member.
 * 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.
 * Typically it is better to save your ult for an AD carry or tanky DPS, don't use it to save a support unless you can tell the team fight is almost over and no one else needs it. If the enemy team focuses you, use it to ult yourself of course. If you save it you might die and not be able to use it at all. The benefit is the damage and CC you have absorbed only to come back to life.
 * It can be difficult to cast on the ally teammate you want during a team fight due to champions being on top of each other, visual effects of spells, and losing your mouse cursor. Casting the spell on your allies portrait in the upper left corner of the screen will avoid this problem. If  is out of range, he will walk towards them until he is in range and then automatically cast the spell.
 * In team fights, Zilean can safely speed the ally ADC to help them kite back and forth, and chronoshift the allied ADC as a type of peel by remaining behind the allied ADC or to the side of them. Also, Zilean can slow anyone trying to get to the allied ADC as well, however it only works on one opposing champion, so with multiple opposing champions rushing your allied ADC it may be more effective to speed your allied ADC instead.
 * Placing on a minion and then having an ally use a knockback ability on the minion (such as Headbutt or Buster Shot) into an enemy champion can deal long-range damage or finish of fleeing enemies.
 * Zilean's greatest potential is unleashed around mid to late game, where will be most noticeable and the cooldown of his abilities will be ridiculously low (thanks to ).
 * is viable as a support, trading your early game damage spike for utility.
 * Keeping aura on your marksman can get you a level advantage or two against the enemy bot lane.
 * Placing on top of another provides an AOE stun, which can be helpful during skirmishes or teamfights.
 * helps your marksman kite better.

Build usage

 * Building ability power is recommended, due to the high AP ratios on the damage from and the revive from.
 * Since all of abilities are spammable but mana-heavy, you might find yourself quickly running out of mana in the early stages of the game. To aid this, purchase  for decent mana regeneration and for early harassment, which can be later upgraded into an . This is especially useful if one is also building other items providing mana like  or . For support builds, this leaves more room for other items, as this is essentially  the only offensive item a support  would need.
 * Another option is to grab an early . Its upgrade, provides a lot of ability power and cooldown reduction, among other stats which are very useful on.
 * The most conventional build is to buy, , and either or  to keep up with mana costs. At level 13 it puts  on a 3.6 second cooldown and  on a 6 second cooldown,thus allowing you to waveclear faster.
 * 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.
 * Though, keep in mind that passive will always proc after  active, and generally will resurrect you with a much lower amount of health than your ultimate.
 * Cooldown reduction is doubly 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.
 * provides ability power, mana regeneration, and cooldown reduction, all of which are very useful to Zilean.
 * A second choice for all the above stats is the aforementioned . Its passive component restores 12% of your maximum mana on kill or assist, and the item itself provides more mana regeneration than, as well as a decent amount of magic resistance, but less ability power and no Grievous Wounds debuff. Although it may give better stats the gold price is also higher (by 400g).
 * Void Staff vs Lich Bane
 * will increase your burst damage is a safer choice in team fights as you can stay away from the team fight more easily.
 * will give you a large increase in DPS, however, will be riskier in teamfights to get close enough to keep throwing AAs, as well as slowing your burst damage if you want to AA between each spell. Lich Bane will also allow Zilean to push down turrets and inhibitors much faster.
 * When playing as a support, is the best item as it makes your  hurt more and gives you a decent amount of ability power for  to revive with more health.

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. Champions with the ability to silence also have an upper hand on Zilean due to his low defense stats
 * When caught by, you can force him to push the lane by intentionally damaging your minions with the explosion.
 * Remember to stay away from your allies when he uses his on you so you won't unintentionally damage them.
 * 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, for he can easily bait and win a fight with . However, his low natural defenses make him 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 noticeable 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.
 * is less useful versus teams with high sustained damage combined with crowd control like  and .
 * is heavily susceptible to silence effects. If you have enough silence in team, you can try to silence  when he is about to cast  on one of his allies or kill him before he can use it on himself.
 * Various champions that have abilities that make them untargetable can prevent the damage from, such as , , , , , , , or.
 * Building a, , or could save you if you get bombed twice and are running away. The shield from  will activate before the 2nd bomb detonates. Activate  when the bomb counts down to 1.