As it stands right now Zilean has a clear advantage during the laning phase by being able to constantly harass people using time bombs. Where this becomes a problem is when you attempt to stand at tower range to try and avoid harassment and Zilean can continue to harass anyways (due to the delayed reaction of his time bombs).

This creates for a situation where even well within turret range zilean can walk past his creeps and drop a bomb (capable of dealing over 25% of your health in damage) on your head and walking away unfettered. Mind you the range is such that he only has to be there for a second and so the regular CC/burst combo does not work on him.

The problem here of course is the tower does not register the placement of a timebomb as a "hit" and so will not target the Zilean. What I would like to see is the placement of a timebomb to register as a hit (perhaps by creating some initial damage?)

It's an idea, but a better idea that I saw earlier was to reduce the range of Zilean's time bomb. You do make a point, though, I was a Twitch laning against a Zilean earlier, and 3 bombs from Zilean killed me out right. Meaning, if I ever got close to him, he would time bomb me, rewind, and time bomb me again. Effectively, reducing my health to 1/3.

Twitch isn't the only squishy champion out there, and I do believe that nerf is needed for Zilean, but I say we should keep the damage and AP for it the same. Decrease the range by 50-100, that will be fine.

twitch player complaining that zilean needs a nerf...

his range on time bomb was increased like 2 patches ago....he was hardly seen in matches before the patch
and even after the patch its still rare to see zilean

he has a good early game like most of the mages do and thats it... instead of complaining about how op he is why dont u try to play him? pretty sure after u play him u wont gonna say he is op....

I don't think Zilean should be nerfed or anything, just that he shouldn't be able to attack people (with time bombs) without the turret attacking him. He is one of few champs that can be taking chunks out of your turret without the turret switching aggro.

His range is fine, at level one if you rush him he doesn't have that rewind to harass you, so you can still take a good chunk of his HP away. If you can keep pushing him back, actually harass him instead of going "Oh noes, his bombs hurt" you can get him, his physical damage is weak and he's squishier than you are.

People just don't get that, although his bombs have range, after he plants that first one to farm, he's vulnerable, he can rewind and pop one on you, but if you stay out of the range of the first bomb you get hit once and he's in your kill range unless he's smart and starts running. Allowing you to farm a bit before running back to your own turret.

Zilean is still extremely vulnerable near a tower. Rush out and focus him, he can't do anything more without risking the tower to attack him. His teammate has the same problem.

He's sticking his neck out to get that time bomb, you just gotta jump on the opportunity. There are some unavoidable annoying situation where you'll just have to keep running out of range or take a time bomb, but I think that this is one of more interesting points to Zilean. It adds flavor.

Some champions are better at harassing then others