When you look at the champion info for zilean, hes listed as a support. however, I rarely ever see him being played as one.

I know he doesnt have a heal, shield or hard cc like many of the supports in the current meta do, but I find his kit would still work very well as a support.

He is one the the quishyest champs in the game but imo has one of the best ults. Playing passived pre-6 may be a good idea, however i enjoy being very aggressive early game to deny as much farm for thier adc as possible( ive only tried sup zil twice)

one of my favorite things about him is the ability to dive a tower when the jungler comes for a gank. usually if the gank is a failure, the jungler retreats and goes back to do his thing, but with zilean in lane, a tower dive is easy and is usually a definate kill(or two)

Still havnt gotten a solid build down and i am unsure as to which champs synergizes best with him.

any one have any experience with support zil?

Runes? ( i usually run magic pen, mana reg, ap)
masteries? usually run9/0/21)\
builds?/play style?

thanks a lot in advance!

Support Zil's not that common these days, but then neither is Zil himself. He was one my first favorite champions, and still is, but I haven't touched him in a good while. He's still good in the support, the only issue being that most people would see him on a team and think his potential is wasted without all the farm of being mid. For his bombs to remain relevant he needs a decent amount of AP, so its harder to funnel as much gold into wards on him as you should for a support.

You basically run a Zill support lane very similar to a Leona or Sona support lane (minus Sona's sustain). Aggressive and constant pokes. Your bomb range is stupid long, especially with bush control and a quick time warp. And as you observed, a free resurrection is support gold. You can tower dive, bait to your own tower, nullify a gank, etc. And time warp itself is an amazing support utility. By late-mid game you can permanently effect 1 target with time warp and just a little CDR. By end game you can keep it going on two targets. In lane you can basically double the gank potential of your lane through the combined efforts of your bomb harass and time warp's ability to either speed your teammates to a target or lock the target down, situationally! It's a very fun lane. The biggest issue Zil has is against a good heavy sustain like Soraka or Taric, who can heal through non-fed Zil's bombs and even counter harass/zone you very well.

Rune wise you build similar to AP Carry Zil, only it may be worth replacing quints/seals with GP5. You're not a tanky support, your a harass/utility support, so it's a tough call on the mp/5 or AP runes and the GP5. Magic Pen reds and AP/lvl blues seemed to work best for me, though.

Masteries are probably best at 9/0/21. You want the mpen, CDR, and gold mostly, and if you use heavy harass mregen as well. Zil support may be one of the few champions I'd recommend clarity on in certain situations because of how much you want to spam your bombs and time warp + bomb combo.

Itemwise you obviously can't afford the RoA which is standard on AP Mid Zil. He builds alot like standard support. Wards, wards, wards, philo into Shurelias (SUPER speed boost!), maybe even a chalice in there like Sona. Late game frozen heart isn't a bad goal against a good AA enemy team either.

I enjoy Zil occasionally but with only 1 real attack (it's definitely a good attack but still) I usually find that I don't get much of a kick out of playing him because I feel like everyone else is dealing damage and I'm 98% support.

Along that line of thinking, I gear my Zilean for AP and CDR despite his capability to cooldown his skills, and this way I'm able to provide a threat in addition to Zil's extremely effective support kit.

He's the flying Crazy Ivan of League. In fact, I wish Riot would make a "Crazy Ivan" skin and sound set for him ^ ^ I'd play him more, then.

Zil, like Karma doesn't fit into the current meta. This isn't to say they're bad, but the issue is that they don't function well as passive or kill-lane supports like other supports do. Instead, they're better as solo supports, which isn't played much right now.

You'd have to restructure your team. I think the way you'd restructure it is have AP jungler like Fiddles, send Karma mid, AD+Tank in bot (tank being Shen, Alistair, Leona...or someone with good CC and peeling). Bruiser still goes top.

Or something like that. I wouldn't quote me directly on this, but that's the gist of it. Zil needs farm, and so does Karma, so you need to arrange for them to have solo lanes.

Zilean is a fine support. His move speed buff/debuff is an awesome move and the fact that if you build any CDR your ult is basically spamable.

The reason you dont see him very often is he falls off hard late game, but if his lane starts getting fed both zil and the adc are going to snowball out of control and it'll be a quick 20m win for you.

The trick is double bombing the ad every time they go for last hits and I wouldn't recommend using zil against the high sustain supports like soraka or janna but to use him more against tanky supports that he out ranges like ali.

I just don't think Zilean is really a strong support at the moment. He used to be played slightly more, but now I rarely rarely see him at all. The problem, as stated by others, is really his late game. Yeah he can "revive" people in a sense, but it's honestly not as useful later on in big team fights where death matters much more because of the timers. Basically, someone like Sona who has more disruption with her ult, and provides a small buff for everyone with her abilities is just much more useful. Even early on, Sona has amazing poke, and people underestimate it as well. Zilean can be strong early on, there's no doubt about that, and his passive isn't too bad either, but I just feel that other champions can do what he can, but better. Well, maybe not constantly revive, but there's supports with better early games I feel, and that's where Zilean is suppose to shine.

As a poking bottom lane, zilean lacks the sustain like Sona to be able to get in close to harrass and heal back the damage traded. He also lacks the range like Zyra and Lue lu to poke without taking damage in return. Zilean also doesn't have the mana pool early on the use w in the double bomb trade constantly. Sustain supports will sustain your damage while keeping a higher mana pool. Poke supports will out range you. Your movement speed boost and ultimate isn't very effective against kill lanes because your Ad is easily killable after low health support ultimates and your cc won't prevent any damage.

Because he works better mid. It allows him easy roaming. That, and Zilean ult makes tower dives a breeze.

neg