Zilean-Chrono keeper support

Zilean is a very unique champion that fits into a certain niche in competitive play. He offers many things to his team like bonus experience, high harass potential, and a bunch of soft CC in the forms of slows. His ultimate is the most useful as it acts as a Guardian Angel if triggered and can easily turn a fight. Running the correct rune page on him is essentially as it can allow your Q’s (Time bomb) to deal tons of damage early game making for an easy kill later on.

Runes:
With the release of hybrid runes, Zilean was passively buffed as he deals a mix of damage in the forms of auto attacks (physical damage) as well as Time bombs (magic damage). Running hybrid penetration reds on Zilean works very well as it gives him a little more kick in the early game harass stages making setting up kills later on much easier.

Armor yellows are mandatory for Zilean as his base armor is quite low. Being a support, you will take a lot of physical damage from their ADC or support in the form of physical damage, so not running armor yellows would be extremely dangerous.

Ability Power blues and Quintessences round out the rest of his rune page. Zilean's abilities scale extremely high off ability power so having the AP runes, makes him a real threat and annoyance to deal with during laning phase. His Q (Time bomb) scales at a 0.9 ratio while his ultimate (Chrono Shift) scales at a 2.0 ratio. At level three, there is no support that deals the same amount of damage compared to Zilean's double bomb combination.

Masteries:

Masteries for Zilean are 0/9/21, typical support masteries focusing on Mana regen, and movement speed.

Passive: Heightened Learning

Zilean's passive provides an increased experience gain for all allied champions for 8%. Although this bonus is not active when Zilean is dead, it can easily provide an advantage in the early game as one team will have a few of its members reaching levels earlier, allowing them the ability to make plays. For example, in the bottom lane, the lane with Zilean will hit 6 a full creep wave before the enemy allowing them to both use their ultimate abilities, while the enemy is stuck without them.

Abilities:

Q: Time Bomb

Zilean places a ticking time bomb on any unit, allied or enemy, which detonates after 4 seconds, dealing magic damage. This ability is Zilean's primary form of damage as it has a long range of 700 as well as a large AP ratio at 0.9. This ability can be used on all enemies and even allies. The bomb will detonate instantly if another bomb is placed on the same target or if the target dies before the countdown is finished. If used in conjunction with Zilean's rewind (W) you can “double bomb” opponents, resulting in double damage. Zilean should always be spamming this on the enemy laners, or even focusing the enemy support as it’s an affective way to zone out opponents and deal significant damage.

W: Rewind

Zilean reduces the cooldowns of all of his other abilities by 10 seconds. This ability is pretty interesting as it basically allows Zilean to reduce his cooldowns by a lot making him be able to use spells more often. The only drawback to this spell is the fact that mana may become scarce due to lack of blue buff, and spamming abilities. Picking up a chalice is a good way to combat mana management problems. A good Zilean player will always attempt to use this ability as it will also help reduce the cooldown of his ultimate (Chrono Shift). This makes it difficult for enemies to time his ultimate as well as the fact that you could surprise the enemy by having your ultimate up again.

E: Time Warp

Zilean bends time around a champion, slowing an enemy champion or increasing an ally champion's movement speed by 55% for a short time. This is an incredible CC buff/debuff depending on who the target is. Being able to decrease an enemies movement speed by over 50% makes them very easy to catch out. It is also a very effect buff for allies. If your jungler has a stun ability, you can often Time Warp them and they can catch up to the enemy to apply their CC to them, ensuring the kill.

Once you hit late game and reach 40% cooldown reduction, Time Warp will slow enemies for 5.5 seconds, and you can also use Rewind to reset the cooldown completely. By the time Time Warp is back up, the enemy will still be slowed. This essentially acts as a death trap as it will “perma-slow” an enemy, or you could “perma-speed” an ally.

R: Chrono Shift

Zilean places a protective time rune on an allied champion for 7 seconds. If the target takes lethal damage during that time, they will be placed in stasis, making them untargetable and invulnerable. After 2 seconds, the target is revived with a set amount of health. If used effectively it can easily save a team mates life, as well as prolong a fight which may work out to your team's favor. You can save this ability for someone on your team who dies first, or save it for one of your team's carries.

Along with its huge AP ratio of 2.0, you can nearly revive them to full health with this ability. This ability completely counters some CP assassins ultimate’s such as Syndra who may threaten to blow up your carries. If used on time, it will be as if nothing had happened except Syndra no long has her ultimate up. When Chrono Shift is on cooldown, be sure to spam Rewind to decrease the cooldown!

Itemization:

Due to Zilean's high AP scalings, a player can easily build many AP items, alhtough the draw back is Zilean's high mana cost for his spells and the fact that he need to constantly spam them. With most AP support casters, starting with a Spelltheif's edge works well due to its mana regeneration, as well as generating gold. Late game it builds into a Frost Queen's Claim which is quite useful due to the Cool Down Reduction (CDR) and its active slow which is great for catching people out of position. To deal with his mana issues, an Athene’s Unholy Grail is highly valuable as it not only provides a lot of mana regeneration, it also gives a fair amount of AP and 20% CDR, adding once again to the “Spammability” of Zilean’s spells.

Another power item to consider on Zilean is a Rabadon’s Deathcap, as it will increase your AP substantially and add a lot to your ultimate. Zhonya’s Hourglass is another AP item that can be built if you feel that the enemy has a lot of physical damage. It offers a method of survivability through “invulnerability” and can often give you time to use Chrono Shift on yourself or on a teammate before it is too late.

As a support, one should always build a Ruby Sightstone as vision can easily tilt the tide of a game. The ability to make picks late game, almost depends on vision granted from wards making it extremely important. Boots of mobility should round out your build as it can help you chase enemies and slow them down, or escape from enemies much easier.

Some tips for Zilean players is that getting in the middle of team fights is not usually worth it as the damage from his bombs don’t do significant damage late game and Zilean would be more useful slowing enemy melee champions so they can easily be kited. Using his ultimate is a tricky decision as it is usually best to use it on a hyper carry versus a tank. It is also very important to use his ultimate on a ally who is close to death as it will only be triggered if they take lethal damage.

Using your ultimate on yourself is not recommended as your own damage output is most likely significantly lower than the damage provided by your carries. Zilean is an incredibly powerful utility mage champion. He has one of the most diverse kits in the game making him a force to be reckoned with. Despite having low base defenses, he is extremely hard to kill and every one of his abilities is game changing.