Talk:Zilean/@comment-26151788-20150227142248

I hate the fact that you can no longer lasthit something with an autoattack and place the bomb on the target while the autoattack is in the air, triggering the bomb with the lasthit. this used to be a really efficient farming and harassing method, but it just got sacked by a "buff" to his attack timer. Wish Riot had spent more time asking the community what specialities Zilean has to offer.

Also, the change to make bombs detonate after 3 seconds and not 4 is a huge change. Most of the time its positive, but imagine you could qwq and then qw to get two aoe stuns off. Unfortunately this doesnt work because you cant get rewind off cooldown before the bomb explodes. it would be possible with a 4 second timer. I also dont like how they changed e, its a huge nerf. Zileans e used to be the longest slow / speed in the game, not the strongest, but extremely long. I consider permaslowing a target or hastening a teammate one of his signature moves, now he has a powerful slow, but its too short to be significant, same goes for the speed. Really expected Riot to (finally) implement utility scaling and leave the duration where it was, but they decided not to, and give little explanation.

meanwhile, his ult still removes his own timebomb from the target, but cant get rid of an enemy ignite / morellos, which is clearly a bug, since revive effects are supposed to remove all debuffs. They managed that his ult counters his own kit, while a healing reduction effect is untouched and probably unnoticed too.

I expected them to continually give Zilean small changes, nerfs or quality of life improvements, but this feels more like a full rework, and honestly a pretty bad one at that. Not much reasoning, no explanation over his fantasy or where they're trying to put Zilean in the meta. For example if they want Zilean to be a full support, why not put his base mana regeneration to where other supports would be? he gets 50% less base mana regeneration (6 compared to 9) because he's still thought of as a mage, while having the kit and especially damage output of a support.

I must say however, the overall rework is a buff because of one single, huge reason. Zilean could not check bushes, the fact that his bombs give a (honestly large) area of vision is a tremendous deal, especially because he can do so from a save range. Anyone who has played Zilean seriously knows how much trouble he had with bushes. its probably the number one reason why you would die as Zilean. Even if you knew a bush was being camped, you just didnt have a tool to deal with it.

I hope they keep tinkering with him for a while, hes really not at a position where he'd be a threat to the meta as either a mage or support. I expect a buff to his passive soon, some quality of life improvement to his W and E, and all that without nerfing any of his other abilities. He's still underpowered imo, all his plays are extremely unrealiable and hard to read for teammates, while he in turn relies on his teammates to correctly execute his own plays. Not recommended for solo queue, and even in coordinated teams, he's extremely hard to get value out of. Compared to landing a thresh hook which can singlehandedly decide a teamfight, this guy just needs too much chance or just plain wrong decisions by his enemies to have any impact on the game. But if you do, its extremely fun to play, exciting and surprising for everyone involved, this is why I hope they want to move him into the spotlight, and i'm glad they're trying, it just doesnt seem to be working yet. I understand that he used to be frustrating and non-interactive to play against, but currently it feels like the enemy just has too much leverage on if your play works or not. Walk into a bomb? well uh, probably not. Focus the guy he ults? well, we dont have to. Even if they decice to take the risk and do what they shouldnt do, hes not powerful enough to punish that decision enough.