The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 509: Ripazote the Zaahen!

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast. Hey, what's up? [00:00:08] Speaker B: It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven, Jerks and Velcas. [00:00:13] Speaker A: And you're listening to the Four Wards. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Podcast here to help you move forward in league. Hello and welcome to episode 509 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Silman and I've got with me two other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. It's the usual crew. We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:50] Speaker C: I'm physically exhausted and we've got Pillow Pet. [00:00:54] Speaker A: Hello. [00:00:55] Speaker B: You'll have to listen to the Patreon pre show to understand any bit of why he's physically exhausted. I think you mentioned it before you left. [00:01:02] Speaker C: I may have. [00:01:03] Speaker A: I don't think he did. [00:01:04] Speaker C: Oh well. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Well, we're just going to leave it as a mystery then. We got some shout outs. Shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Skippy as Esquire, Labana and Uncle Chris co for supporting us at the shout out tier on Patreon. Guys, we have a Patreon. If you head over to patreon.com theforwards podcast. $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. $10 a month gets you that same exclusive feed and we will shout your name out during the intro to every episode like I just did for those guys. In addition to that we have a general gaming podcast and all of those perks apply to it as well. Check out From 8 Bit to 4K on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We do have a Discord. The link is in the episode description. Come join the Discord, come chat, come play games with us. When we're playing norms, we're often just hanging out in the Discord. Feel free to join. If we're in a channel you can see, feel free to join. If we don't want to be bothered, we will be in a channel that is private. So seriously, join the Discord. Come chat with us. Come play games. That's why we're in there. That's why we have it. Some of us do also stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV Jacksonman, Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch tv. Pillowpet and Mike can be found at Twitch TV. Mikeofmanynames. Last but not least, listeners, we didn't get any emails this week. Discord is carrying you once again right into theforwardspodcastmail.com so we can answer your questions on the show or drop them in question. Submission on the discord. That is acceptable. All right, guys, we promised it last week. Zahen came out. Zahen. Zahen, however you pronounce this guy's name. He came out with the patch that we got last week and we're going to talk about him this week. We want to cover. Everything you need to know is a basic primer for this champion. I want to emphasize, guys, none of us are expert Zahen players yet. We're not the source for that. We're here to give you what you need to know so you can pick him up and start learning him yourself. Or so you know what the hell he does when you're fighting against one. Because he's in like two thirds of all games he's pick or banned right now. [00:03:14] Speaker C: He's very popular and he has been. I don't see him banned anywhere near as much as I've seen him picked up. He's. He is popular to play, less to ban. [00:03:24] Speaker B: I was right. [00:03:25] Speaker C: Now according. [00:03:26] Speaker B: He's 3/4 pick ban. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Say according to OP, GG ban rate is right at 60% and pick rate is at 17%. I have to be with Mike like most of the games. I don't even see a band coming out with him. And when I have played him like I've been able to like last pick him. Like, I've been pretty lucky. [00:03:46] Speaker B: So yeah, let's explain what Zahen does first. So I'm gonna start by going through his abilities. His passive gives him stacking AD every time he hits a champion. If he reaches full stacks, he also then gets a guardian angel like effect. If he does not reach full stacks, he does not revive. And the revive has a cooldown. I'm not sure what the cooldown is. [00:04:10] Speaker C: It starts it five minutes and it ends at two. I believe it's 300 seconds to 120. [00:04:15] Speaker B: And he gets it down to two minutes at level 16. [00:04:19] Speaker C: Okay, I think you missed the second half of that part, which is once he hits max stacks, his stack count doubles for the power. [00:04:29] Speaker B: So it stacks to 12. If you reach 12, you're effectively at 24 instead percent. Well, no, the percentage changes based on his level. [00:04:37] Speaker A: Is it. [00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought it was just all of these stacks are just. However much ad you have, you get a percent bonus ad. So it does scale with his ad. And if you reach 12 stacks, it's doubled. [00:04:49] Speaker C: I think to note it's overall bonus, not to bonus. So this, this counts towards his base ad as well. [00:04:57] Speaker B: Yes. He gets bonus ad based on a percentage of his total ad. Okay, let's talk his actual abilities. Because his passive is actually one of the most straightforward things in this kit. His Q is a basic attack empowerment ability. Think like Jax W those those types of abilities. It gives him an on hit double hit that heals him. The heal is weaker if he's not hitting a champion. So his ability to sustain off minions is a lot lower than his ability to like sustain off. Trading with you, Mike. [00:05:32] Speaker C: This ability functions exactly like Camille's Q does. [00:05:36] Speaker B: Yes. So it's a two part ability because the second part does not have a heal. If you use it again within five seconds, which is the cooldown at max rank by the way. Then the second cast of it instead has a three quarter second knock up both casts. Reset your auto attack timer. That is important. Matter of fact, it is integral to why we're going to recommend the builds we're going to recommend. When we get to the build portion, both casts of his Q are auto resets. So you can auto Q auto Q. It's pretty strong. This is generally his first max. [00:06:16] Speaker A: Do we want to go through all of his abilities and then backtrack and go over them or go over them? As we talk about the abilities, we're. [00:06:22] Speaker B: Kind of just talking about like what does the ability do? How does it work? What does someone need to know to play as or against him? [00:06:28] Speaker A: Okay. I will say with his Q, even though the healing on Minions is not supposedly as good, it's ridiculous to me how much healing he gets off minions and towers like anything he hits Boards. [00:06:43] Speaker B: Yep. Everything with it at max rank, it's still 4 1/2% max HP healing. If he's not hitting a champion. [00:06:49] Speaker C: Yeah, it is his maximum HP healing as opposed to a bunch of other champions who have percent of damage dealt, which can be much easier done with minions because they have capped on damage. This has no, no bearing whatsoever to how much damage he does with that Q. He's always healing a certain amount based on, you know, what the healing ratios are, etc. [00:07:07] Speaker B: Yes. So let's move on to Zahen's W. His W is really straightforward. It's a pull. It's basically the same general concept as like Mordekaiser pull or Darius pull or sets pull. It's a ranged ability. It pulls everyone. It hits towards him a little bit. It's not a blitzcrank hook. It does not pull them all the way. [00:07:30] Speaker C: The best analogy is definitely the Mordekaiser one, except you don't have control over where you place it. It always goes off in the same length and you're always pulled the same distance away, much like Mordekaiser's. [00:07:43] Speaker B: It just doesn't have as much of a delay as Mordekaiser's pull. This is hard to dodge if you are playing against a Zahen who has good aim. [00:07:50] Speaker C: Yes. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Okay. His E. And I think this is probably the second max. His E is a dash. He dashes to a target location and then does AoE damage around it if the enemy is at the tip of the aoe. So like the. The max range of it, it does bonus damage. [00:08:08] Speaker C: This is his biggest damage to Jungle Monsters. This is his biggest damage in like a percent health thing. But it's not yours pretty much. It's a very good spell that. That sort of edge thing. It functions a lot like Darius Q. It's not quite as big. You have a. You have a little bit lesser of a range on that. But if any part of that touches a champion's hitbox accounts, it reminds me. [00:08:34] Speaker A: A lot of Kane. Red Kane his. [00:08:37] Speaker B: His way up. [00:08:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:40] Speaker A: But the outer ring is a lot like the other champion, you know, in Bessa with her outer ring. And Darius does extended damage. But yeah, yep, the size wise reminds me of Kane. [00:08:53] Speaker B: It's a pretty straightforward ability. His. His W and E are really straightforward. His ultimate, first of all, passively, just by skilling his ultimate, he gets armor penetration. This is basically the exact same concept as like Ambessa Mordekaiser, Darius, where they just as the game goes on get percent pen of their damage type to make them able to fight tanks and other bruisers better. The actual active portion of his ultimate, he dashes into the air and then slams down after a short delay, dealing damage to everything in an area and healing himself for each champion he hits. He is unstoppable during it and has 50% damage reduction until the ability is complete. And the damage reduction persists for almost a second after the ability. This ability heals so much fucking health and does so much damage. This has a 200% bonus ad ratio. On the damage reminder, he literally multiplies ad with his passive and the healing is 2/3 of your bonus ad. Late game builds on this guy regularly are hitting 500 plus ad. At 500 ad, you're healing for like 500 health per champion you hit. And it does not scale down. If you hit groups, you just get the full healing per person. [00:10:19] Speaker C: Yeah, it's it's. It's a very powerful ability in isolation. Much like a lot of his power in isolation. [00:10:26] Speaker B: Yes. [00:10:26] Speaker C: Incredibly, if all you look at is just what you see. Oh my God. This thing is fucking busted. [00:10:32] Speaker B: Yep. So any other thoughts about his kit before we move on to actually talking about what he's good and bad at. [00:10:39] Speaker C: Another point of both his E and his R go over walls, not large walls. So you can have a good way of chasing, a good way of getting away. He is designed and he works well because of how this kit functions as a jungler. But he's primarily a top laner. [00:10:58] Speaker B: Yep. He's one of those top or jungle type champions. We'll see how long that remains the case. I'd be willing to bet as they try to work to balance him, one of those roles winds up falling by the wayside. That's usually the way these go. Ambesa was supposed to be a top and a jungler too and jungle fell by the wayside as they balanced her. [00:11:18] Speaker C: True. So they just gave her a little bit of a nudge up there and I think she's going to be legitimately good there now when people eventually start playing her again because oh my God, Zahina's taken over that spot. [00:11:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it's true. Okay, so let's talk about the hand strengths and weaknesses. What's this dude good at? [00:11:35] Speaker A: He is excels in extended trades. Yes, he is very good at extended trades. Past his. I would say his first back early with just like a Doran's item or your starting item. He's not the greatest at the fight at that point from the first back. His. His strength is his sustain to be able to maintain and stay in the lane. [00:12:06] Speaker C: I'd like to put a quite caveat on that versus other lane bullies. He's probably like the tier right below lane bully where if you're not one of those a tier lane bullies, Darius, Renekton, etc. He can fight them just fine at level one, level two, we'll get there. But that, that is where the skill expression comes in with his character because he has a lot of that once. [00:12:29] Speaker A: He goes back and gets his first component. I forget what is it like the hearth bound axe or heartbound axe or something like that for going into triforce if you're going into that build that. [00:12:38] Speaker B: Or phage if you're doing triforce. [00:12:40] Speaker A: Depending on the matchup, the heart bound axe to me is almost a must first buy item. If you're going that route just because of the attack Speed it lets you stack up your passive a lot faster. So I think once I. In all the games that I've played, I've only went to Triforce build because I'm trying to learn his kit and so I don't want to stray and kind of, you know, off meta pick my builds. I've always felt my power spike with that first back by. [00:13:13] Speaker C: Have you always started Triforce or have you gone second item Triforce? [00:13:17] Speaker A: I've only went just with how his kit is. I've only went first item TriForce. [00:13:22] Speaker C: Okay. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Like so far. First item TriForce to me. And we'll get to that. [00:13:26] Speaker B: We'll get to this. [00:13:27] Speaker A: Just the first is the like the strongest so far. But again, I haven't deviated off of it because I'd rather just learn him the recommended way. But yeah, that first buy just makes him ridiculous in lane. I've noticed he has a lot of lane control with his. He's got a lot of safety. Just with his E. It's got a pretty far dash. It took some time learning where the outer ring is and then like understanding I can control the dash distance. So that was. Once I figured that out, I'm like, oh, okay. I can kind of figure out where I want to put my damage. [00:14:01] Speaker C: Yeah, that. [00:14:02] Speaker B: That is. [00:14:02] Speaker C: That is something we forgot to cover with is you can control the distance. You go with that. That's incredibly important for how you hit people with that outer ring on the E. Yep. [00:14:11] Speaker A: It's a lot easier for me to control his E distance than it was for me to control like the cane distance. I don't know why. [00:14:19] Speaker B: That's because of control over distance. He goes a set distance. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. That's right. That's probably why. That is probably exactly why. So yeah, his E feels incredibly strong for a second Max. His W is really good for like, oh, you don't want to fight me. We're fighting anyway. If you hit it. [00:14:40] Speaker B: Yep. [00:14:41] Speaker A: And disrupted causing some disruption. Like you can pull if like a wave closer to you. It works on the minions. Like you pull the wave closer to you. Feels really good. Like, especially if like you're being bullied out of that back line. You can kind of pull them in to where you can safely E them. But he feels really strong. [00:14:59] Speaker B: So extended trades are his strength. Extended fights, team fighting. I think he's really good at in general because it turns out having a pull and a knockup makes you really strong in a team fight. [00:15:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:14] Speaker A: And two. Two lives. Yeah, we'll say Reset bar. [00:15:19] Speaker B: It is really easy to stack your passive when you're able to hit multiple people with your abilities. Yes, that's the key. It takes a while to stack to full 1v1 generally. But if you're able to hit like three people with the dash, you're gonna be almost halfway there already in no time flat. So I would say his weaknesses. His biggest weakness by far is that if he can't fight you, his sustain kind of sucks. He loses Lane to most ranged champions or ranged Playstyle Champions by that second one I mean like for example, his hardest counter is Malphite because Malphite gets a shield passively. And every time Zahen wants to fight him, Malphite just Q's and walks away. Which means Zahen doesn't get the extended trade he wants and doesn't actually sustain through Malphite's Q spam. [00:16:11] Speaker A: Yeah, Malphite's Q base damage is just incredibly strong once it's maxed much. [00:16:16] Speaker C: Much like Malphite versus many other AD carry type champions on the top line. Great counter. Another. Another set of really like heavy things that counter him are not early counters. These are the late game like scaling fighters. The your Jax is your Fioras, your Camille's because they're. They're obviously going to have their weak point in the earlier game because that's how they're designed. And then they scale way beyond what he can do because they're going to fight you so much harder than he can sustain back. Fiora can kill him in literally three seconds properly utilizing her Ult. That's just how Fiora is. [00:16:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:58] Speaker A: I wouldn't say I went against a good Fiora when I played her, but it was like it was an emerald two. I believe Fiora when I looked it up. I did great with her in lane. And then when I met her 1v1 in a side lane like it could have been that I was just so far ahead. Like you say he doesn't. He isn't a scaler in the terms of a normal scaler. He is a fighting scaler. [00:17:20] Speaker C: Oh yeah. He does fucking damage. If they play it poorly he will kill them. But by their champion design they should win. [00:17:32] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:34] Speaker A: The just fewer alone should just be able to just because of her ripazo. [00:17:39] Speaker C: But his. [00:17:39] Speaker B: I would say a lot of it Again. [00:17:40] Speaker A: Repost. Riposte. Reposote. Ripazote. I don't know. [00:17:46] Speaker B: All right. I think that's now the episode title. [00:17:49] Speaker A: Ripazote. Ripazote. Sorry, I'm not very good at English Apparently. [00:17:53] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. [00:17:55] Speaker A: I'd say another like one of his weaknesses is even if like you're going against another fighter is fighters that love short trade patterns that can go in, do their little trade and get out. And I'm just going to like Renekton is pretty good into him because he has sustained Garen. Someone that can just wants to go in, do their little damage and then they can just get right back out and not have to worry about it and then like have low enough cooldowns that they can do it consistently. Because I mean Zaheen Zahin is a mana based champion. He can only sustain for so long. [00:18:33] Speaker B: Yep. [00:18:33] Speaker A: And these champions that have no mana and can sustain infinitely I feel like are really strong into him. [00:18:39] Speaker C: His Q is on an incredibly small mana cost. So it's not really too much of a cost there. But his other abilities are question because. [00:18:50] Speaker B: It doesn't say on the wiki does his q cost the 25 mana both times or just for the first one. And the recast is free. Just. [00:18:58] Speaker A: I think it's just the first. [00:18:59] Speaker C: I believe it's the first. We can check right now. I will check. [00:19:02] Speaker B: Has plenty of mana. If he's just using Q then. So it's the. Using the dash and using the pole are what makes him go Oom. There's a lot of champions that fall in this boat where they're like basic bread and butter ability. They can be very spammy with. But the other abilities will run them. [00:19:21] Speaker A: If he is in lane trying to just use his Q he's not going to get very far because early it's not very strong. It's good for securing a last hit on a minion and getting your and I'm talking early stages, not later stages in the builds. It's not the greatest sustainability and it's not the greatest that you're not going to dominate a wave over it. You're going to have to use your other abilities just to be able to secure your minion kills if you're trying to get the gold. I feel like I've ran out. I've ran Oom on him a few times and it feels bad just trying to. Because he's trying to be a bully in lane. He's trying to fight and if you just don't play into that. Yeah okay. One cost kind of like Camille's then. So he's trying to fight. So he's using his abilities. Unless you got him pushed under his tower like where he can just safely. [00:20:14] Speaker C: Farm and that cost. If your doesn't go up ever. [00:20:18] Speaker A: Yeah, you don't ever. You'll never have a mana problem. Like late game at all costs go up. [00:20:25] Speaker B: Mana literally only exists on him in early to mid game. [00:20:28] Speaker A: His costs never go up. I don't think on any of his. [00:20:30] Speaker C: None of his costs go up. 25, 50, 40, 100. So yeah, maybe you're going to miss out on using your alt. [00:20:39] Speaker B: It's mostly that his cooldowns go down because you should be building a lot of ability haste on this guy. We'll get there. So you do wind up dumping mana through just repeated use of abilities. So let's get there. Let's talk about builds. You mentioned Trinity Force. I think as a good default, Trinity Force is the best first item. It's not always the best first item, but it's never wrong. [00:21:05] Speaker A: I would say with the way his base AD works. Trinity Forces really good. Because I think as his passive goes up, it scales his Trinity Force damage. [00:21:16] Speaker B: It grants bonus. It doesn't scale the Trinity. [00:21:18] Speaker C: It does switch to bonus ad. Okay. [00:21:20] Speaker A: Oh, because so it doesn't just scale base ad, it just converts it to bonus. [00:21:25] Speaker B: He gains bonus AD based on his total ad. [00:21:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:21:30] Speaker B: Otherwise straight up busted. Mandatory first item. [00:21:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So like Camille, why Trinity Force is so good is the same reason that his Trinity Force so good on him. His Q. Like, so it has the window that you can activate it. Right. And then when you activate it, you get another window to use it. Like you don't have to. You get two windows and Q, you. [00:21:56] Speaker C: Have a time to ability to switch off. So you can actually like properly utilizing Zaheen. This is the same way with. With Camille, you auto attack Q automatically. Immediately wait for your next auto attack. Auto attack Q again. So you're resetting your auto attack and getting a lot more damage in a shorter window. [00:22:14] Speaker B: Yep. So Trinity Force winds up being his default because his bread and butter combo is getting at least two Trinity Force procs in every fight. [00:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And like that leads into like his next item, usually second item. You're always going to go Sundered sky just because of how his kit works. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Yep. [00:22:33] Speaker C: I agree. [00:22:34] Speaker A: Like Sundered sky is just great on him because he's just getting that increased healing. Now. I will put an argument and I haven't tested it and it's not even on the recommended builds. I think he would be a good Eclipse user as well just for the way his Q works with the double proc. Gives you a shield and the heal. So it hasn't been put in there yet. [00:22:53] Speaker C: But I feel like it and Sundered sky together, it's a very strong combo. [00:22:58] Speaker B: I. I think using them both is fine. I want to explain for a moment why I think like Trinity for Sundered sky is the best default. He heals percent max HP off his Q. So you need to be building items that have HP on them for that heal to go up. Sundered sky heals percent missing hp. So again, if you're building items that have HP on them, that heal goes up and he has two auto resets on a five second base cooldown by the time he's level nine. So ability haste lets you basically just spam that on Cooldown and just get a lot of auto resets. For the love of God, I've seen so many of these. Don't build fucking Bork on Zahen. I don't understand why. I've seen this like five separate games. I've seen a Zahen build Bork. [00:23:48] Speaker C: The main thing I've seen people building Bork for, obviously he scales with attack speed because of how his passive works. He likes getting attack speed. People like thinking about that. And a lot of people have built multiple lifesteal items on him. They're playing him like you would damage Riven. Unlike Riven, he doesn't blow you up in 2 1/2 seconds. [00:24:10] Speaker B: If he does, he's so far ahead it doesn't matter what he built. [00:24:13] Speaker C: So like he. He usually like to really get power on Zaheen, you have to cap your passive. Once your passive is capped. Yeah, you can kill someone in 2 1/2 seconds because you have 750 AD. But if you're fighting from a blank state, usually you have to get that 12 stacks going, which obviously you can get extra stacks through hitting multiple times with multiple people with your W and your R, your E hitting multiple times with your Q so you can speedily gain stacks. But you. He's. He's so centered around his passive. [00:24:53] Speaker A: This is just a little caveat, like in a middle, like, weird thing talking about his passive. I had a weird interaction with Kindred. I don't know if it's intended or if it's just a bug. When Kindred dropped her R, I was no longer getting passive stacks. During the duration of her R, were. [00:25:07] Speaker B: You hitting someone who was already down to the minimum? [00:25:11] Speaker A: Probably just Kindred. Yeah. [00:25:13] Speaker B: The reason I ask is some abilities don't proc if the damage is fully absorbed by a shield. And that's, I believe, how Kindred's ult works on the back end. So I wouldn't be surprised if you don't get the proc. Because you're not actually dealing damage to them. [00:25:28] Speaker A: That would make sense. Like, I would have to, like, take it into a practice tool or something. Try to figure it out. [00:25:32] Speaker B: Because it does specifically say in the. The text of his passive, he gains a stack for each champion damaged by his basic attacks and abilities. So if it doesn't actually bring their health down to a lower number, it doesn't actually give you a stack. [00:25:48] Speaker A: I think that might have been it, then. Yeah, that might have been it. Because, like, if that was it, that would be kind of cool. Like a cool interaction. [00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I believe that's actually intended based. [00:25:58] Speaker A: On the wording, so that'd be. That's pretty neat. [00:26:00] Speaker B: Should work the same way for Taric, Ult, Kael Ult and just SHIELD champions in general. If the shield fully absorbs the hit. [00:26:10] Speaker A: So his next. [00:26:12] Speaker B: Which actually now recommended item. That's probably part of why Malphite counters him so hard. I didn't even think of that. He literally doesn't even start gaining stacks until he breaks Malphite's shield. Oh, my God. Literally in real time on the podcast. Realizing one of the reasons his counter is what it is. [00:26:29] Speaker A: Huh? Yeah, I guess. It doesn't code damage. Even shield damage is damage. [00:26:33] Speaker B: Shield damage is not damage to a champion. It's damage to a shield. There's a lot of abilities that work that way. [00:26:39] Speaker C: That's why shields prevent you from stopping backs. [00:26:43] Speaker B: Yep. You can't interrupt a recall. If the shield fully absorbs the damage, they still recall. Unless the damage also had a cc. [00:26:50] Speaker C: Yes, but then you're interrupting with cc, not with damage. [00:26:55] Speaker B: Correct. Yeah. [00:26:56] Speaker A: So his next item that, like, commonly built usually will be flex between like a Sterak's and a death dance. Typically Sterak's. By the way, Sterak's passive works. Ste goes really good with Ster. Passive. [00:27:07] Speaker B: Yep. [00:27:08] Speaker A: And his passive kind of just do the same thing. They scale based on bonus ad or total ad, I guess. Bonus ad, I think Ste is. Or is it based off. I don't know. I don't know. My brain ain't working. Brain ain't brain. [00:27:23] Speaker B: It. It's fine. [00:27:24] Speaker A: But Sterex is really good one. It gives you a shield, gives you tenacity. So that's a common item he builds. [00:27:32] Speaker B: It gives you health. It gives you 80. Like, it's literally just at that point in the build, you have enough ability, haste. So you just want the health and AD to kill people. With and not die. [00:27:43] Speaker A: And Death Dance speaks for itself. Lets you fight longer against physical damage. Lets you heal back. If you kill someone and let you split your damage over time, it's a good item. It's got ability haste. It's got ad. Got armor. [00:27:59] Speaker B: Yep. Deferring damage over time is really strong on champions with strong heals. Even though you still take the same amount of damage eventually it gives you more time to use your strong heels to prevent that damage from becoming fatal. [00:28:14] Speaker C: It is true damage when you're taking it. So his passive on the the ultimate where you take 50% reduced damage does not work for that. That's a lot of some. A lot of people don't pay attention to that portion. [00:28:27] Speaker B: True. [00:28:28] Speaker C: But it's. It's a good all around way of helping him out. But the. The. The that Ultimate. That ultimate has a lot going forward in its kit and that. That is like possibly his secret power that a lot of people are really undervaluing. That ultimate makes you unstoppable. Gives you 50 doctor and has a ridiculous amount of healing in it as a jump. [00:28:52] Speaker B: Yep. [00:28:53] Speaker C: This shit's strong. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Very strong. [00:28:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:56] Speaker A: You. You can use the R just to mitigate the all in burst damage and then go all in on them after. After they use their whole kit. [00:29:06] Speaker B: If you can correctly time your R to like cut the damage from like a Syndra alt or a Veigar alt or something in half, you can straight up win fights when if you don't time it right, you just die before you get to do anything. [00:29:19] Speaker A: So this is where it gets hard for me in his build path because I haven't really made it this far in a game with him to get to like the fifth and sixth items I haven't personally built like. So recommended wise it goes. If you've already got Death Dance hysterics, it recommends Overlords, GA and Spirit Visage. Visage. [00:29:41] Speaker B: Okay. [00:29:44] Speaker A: I. I think Spirit Visage is just good on him just because of how his healing works. Especially with Sundered Sky. Even if you don't have any AP opponents, it's still a good item. [00:29:56] Speaker B: If you have no AP opponents like they're literally a full AD team. It's not worth building. [00:30:00] Speaker C: GA is better. [00:30:01] Speaker B: All it takes is one AP opponent and it is absolutely worth building a. [00:30:06] Speaker C: Spirit visage or someone who has healing reduction in their kit. That's when spirit becomes very. [00:30:12] Speaker A: I would say like. [00:30:13] Speaker C: Because most of some form of AP damage. [00:30:17] Speaker A: I was gonna say like. Like Mundo for example. Like his most of his damage like from his cleaver is AP damage. Tom Kench is AP damage. A lot, A lot of base damages are AP that scale with their ad. [00:30:32] Speaker B: Yes. Overlord's bloodmail just turns all that health you've been building so your healing is good into even more ad. It's great. He needs actual ad. So do not build Titanic. Titanic turns it into on hit damage in a cone. Overlord's blood mail turns it into actual ad which means it scales your healing on your old and it scales all of your different sources of damage instead of just the auto attack portion and then gets multiplied up by your passive. [00:31:01] Speaker C: It also means you can reach something like 980. [00:31:06] Speaker A: It's. It's. Yeah, it gets ridiculous because of how he. He's strong. I mean we'll get there but. So his sixth item, best six item, if you've already got the items we've talked about is showing ga which I can see the synergy of ga. I don't know if it procs after his passive or before his passive. I haven't seen that interaction. I don't know which one procs first. [00:31:32] Speaker C: I believe the GA procs first because that's how it works for almost every revive thing I think which would be. [00:31:40] Speaker A: Fine if his passive didn't have the chance to fall off in the GA passive. [00:31:45] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:31:46] Speaker B: Hilarious. [00:31:47] Speaker C: I don't know if things that stasis you most of the time will keep your passive sustained. A lot of things don't know how it works. [00:31:56] Speaker A: I've just never seen it. I've never seen it in game. So it's not so I couldn't. [00:32:00] Speaker B: I can't. [00:32:01] Speaker A: I can't tell you. It also calls for a jack show which it's fine item. It's good. [00:32:07] Speaker B: I think if you have an overlord's bloodmail, Jack show is fine. I did see statistically Jack show actually has a pretty low win rate and I think that's mostly just if the game goes that long. Zahen kind of does taper off eventually just because he's so kitable and burstable. If he doesn't get his stacks up. [00:32:27] Speaker A: To put it in like numbers, perspective. Sixth item. The highest item built for the sixth item is GA. And that is in 61 games. Yep, that's it. [00:32:40] Speaker B: And that's because six items like. [00:32:43] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense. I didn't even think about boots. Didn't even think about it. [00:32:48] Speaker B: As for boots, pretty much always go a defensive boot. Whichever one makes sense for the game you're in if they're Auto Attack, heavy, go Steel caps. If they're CC Heavy, go Merc treads. [00:32:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:59] Speaker C: If they're all super squishy, there's a like an argument for Berserker Greaves, but. [00:33:06] Speaker A: Lucidity probably would rather be better off. [00:33:08] Speaker C: Doing, like, utility boots. [00:33:10] Speaker B: Swifties and Lucidity are both better than Zerkers. Don't build Zerkers. [00:33:15] Speaker C: Attack speed is a weird thing on him because he doesn't need a lot, but he needs just enough, which he. [00:33:23] Speaker B: Gets from Trinity Levels. [00:33:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Trinity Force. That's why, like, the Hearthbound axe just feels so good on him as a first buy. [00:33:30] Speaker B: Yep. [00:33:31] Speaker C: Which is why I think if you get Stridebreaker as well, between Trinity Force and Stridebreaker, those two. So way more than enough. [00:33:39] Speaker B: Don't build both. And Stridebreaker is the alternate build I wanted to propose. Stridebreaker is the alternative to Trinity Force. It lacks the ability haste, and that sucks. The reason you take Stridebreaker and the times you take Stridebreaker is someone who has the ability to disengage from you after you have pulled them and continue hitting you. So, like, you should be building Stridebreaker into a matchup. Like Quinn, for example. Because if Quinn goes to fight you, you can pull her out of her jump. But if you're trying to initiate the fight, you pull her cool. She vaults off of you and walks away and keeps hitting you from outside your combat range. Stridebreaker allows you to have a slow that you can apply to then be able to remain in the fight. Because again, Zahen wants long fights. That is the reason to build Stridebreaker. That is the only reason to build Stridebreaker. He does not need a Tiamat item for wave. Clear. [00:34:34] Speaker A: You're building a tmi. I have yet to build Stridebreaker. I've yet to either really speak for it. [00:34:40] Speaker B: It's just the matchups. There are some matchups where you need it to stick to people. [00:34:44] Speaker C: So here's. [00:34:44] Speaker A: I did think about something while we were talking that I don't want to forget about again. His R we've mentioned makes him unstoppable, which means it cancels Mordekaiser R. [00:34:57] Speaker B: The. [00:34:57] Speaker A: Way like, Allowies does. [00:34:59] Speaker B: Yep. [00:35:00] Speaker A: It cancels all movement. Like, they can't knock or move you or anything. They can't stun you, CC you. We need to discuss that interaction. [00:35:08] Speaker C: If he is casting it on you, it cancels it. [00:35:10] Speaker A: Yes. [00:35:11] Speaker C: If you are inside Mordekaiser Alt, you're still in it. Yep. [00:35:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Sorry. I guess. Yeah, I need to make that more clear. And it's Very forgiving. Like, it's. It's a very easy thing to do because his R is just instant cast. Like, I went against a mordekaiser, and it was very, very easy to not get sent into the shadow realm. [00:35:34] Speaker B: To be clear, his R is not instant cast, but the crowd control immunity is instant. The moment the cast begins. So is the damage reduction, by the way. So you can reflexively, like, react by pressing R to block CC and to block big burst damage, because those effects will kick in before you actually start moving. [00:35:56] Speaker C: The only one you can't stop reflexively is like, Mazahar Alt, because that happens in your. You're stopped. [00:36:04] Speaker B: Yep. It hits you instantly. [00:36:07] Speaker A: And his R is a really short cooldown. [00:36:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Fairly short cooldown. [00:36:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:11] Speaker C: Starts at, like, one. [00:36:11] Speaker B: At max rank, it's 80 seconds. [00:36:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It gets really low. [00:36:16] Speaker C: So as a. As a question mark on this, what is the biggest trap for him? [00:36:24] Speaker B: Blade of the ruined king. [00:36:26] Speaker C: I'll rephrase that. What. Outside of Bork, which is. Which is obviously we've been talking about. Everyone's been working on that. What is the other biggest trap? [00:36:35] Speaker A: Hydra items. [00:36:35] Speaker C: I think Hydras. [00:36:37] Speaker B: I'm gonna say again, Stridebreaker has a specific condition for it, and outside of that condition should not be built. I feel like Ravenous is just worse than Sundered Sky. I think lethality. [00:36:48] Speaker C: I think lethality. And this one is a question mark. Do you think Spear of Shojin? [00:36:53] Speaker B: I think Shojin. [00:36:54] Speaker A: I like Spear on a trap on him. [00:36:56] Speaker C: Because why would. You don't need that much haste. You're not trying to spam your Q. You're utilizing it. And by the time you've maxed it, you're pretty much constantly getting it off Cooldown as much as you need. [00:37:09] Speaker B: That's. I think the biggest key is when you have Trinity Force, Sundered sky, our recommended default items. And that's all the ability haste you have. Your Q has a short enough cooldown at level nine that you can use a Q auto attack. Use the second Q as soon as it becomes available, and then your first Q will be back up again in about the same amount of time as the delay between your first Q and second Q already is. So you can basically just trigger Trinity Force on cooldown with two items at level nine. Because Trinity Force has the same cooldown as the lockout before you can recast Q. Just like Camille. [00:37:45] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, he's. He is a great combination of Camille and old Aatrox. [00:37:53] Speaker B: Yep. So playing as Zahen in Lane recommendations, Tips Advice what not to do. What not to do is don't fucking turret dive. Oh my God. I have seen so many Zahens just straight up int because they're trusting their revive to save them. And even if they get the revive, you're congrats. You're now sitting under the enemy turret and it's heated up from the damage you took before the revive went off. [00:38:19] Speaker C: If you have there you can get out. But it you, you need to play that smarter. The the thing with him, the most important thing, play smart. Know what your passive stacks are at. He is strong. He's not invulnerable. [00:38:37] Speaker B: Yep. [00:38:37] Speaker A: It takes an incredible long amount of time early I would say till you get at least finish your trinity force to stack up your passive in a 1v1. Because you're not aoeing getting stacks like you're just counting on your Q, your E and hopefully if you hit your W and even then you're not going to have your stacks. You got to do two rotations while weaving in autos to get your full stacks. [00:39:05] Speaker C: Other long term fighters like Warwick, you're going to like fighting them. [00:39:09] Speaker B: Yeah he, he loves fighting Warwick because he just kind of stat checks Warwick. Warwick also sucks level one. But Zahen gets his passive level one. And Warwick doesn't really get anything until he has both W and Q. He needs both to be able to fight back. Level one is actually really one sided in that matchup. It's kind of hilarious. [00:39:31] Speaker C: Continue with the lane. [00:39:33] Speaker B: So that's my first thing is just don't, don't don't turret dive stupidly. I've. I've literally killed three different Zahen players because they went for a turret dive trusting in their revive failed to successfully kill me. And then I cc'd them when the revive came through and they just died To a heated up turret. Three separate people. Not like it's happened three times. It's happened three times with different players. [00:39:57] Speaker A: It's really takes long enough for that revive to go off that you have plenty of time to reposition yourself easy up. Like it takes like longer than what a GA takes to kill. [00:40:09] Speaker B: 4 seconds. [00:40:11] Speaker C: 4 seconds. [00:40:12] Speaker B: It is a 4 second resurrection state. Most champions you will be fighting in top lane will have their CC back up by the time you come back to life. And that's why I say be careful with the tower diving on him. [00:40:26] Speaker C: The other portion I have for you. If you are a jungler, you can jungle just fine with him. He's good at it. Your spacing on your E matters more than anything else. [00:40:35] Speaker B: Yep. [00:40:36] Speaker C: That's where all of your damage into your AOE camps counts. And. [00:40:39] Speaker B: And it's also how you single target down the big guys with the percent max health damage. [00:40:44] Speaker C: He has no passive in the jungle. Unless you're fighting someone else. Which means other junglers only want to fight you. But they don't want to fight you. [00:40:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Because you're fight stronger. [00:40:57] Speaker C: Yeah. They want to fight you level one when you're weakest. And if they can stop you level one, it puts you very far behind. If they don't. He's one of the strongest level four junglers. 1v1 I have played. [00:41:08] Speaker B: Yep. But I want to focus more on Lane because it looks like Lane is what riding is where his powers on making sure he's balanced around. And if he's a viable jungler after his lane is balanced, then so be it. [00:41:21] Speaker C: Lane is where his power is. [00:41:24] Speaker B: A combo. I have seen a lot of the hands do and I want you guys to chime in on whether this is good or bad. I have seen a lot of the hands prime their first Q on a minion wave and then go for a pull. And if the pole hits, then they get to follow it up with an immediate knockup and hit me repeatedly while I'm in the air. Is this actually a good combo or is it just them doing this cheesy thing but actually losing damage and trading power because of it? Because I'm not sure I would. [00:41:49] Speaker A: I would say it's the latter. I think you're losing. I. My, my trading I like to do is go in on E, hit with Q, knock up with Q because it's short enough. And then you can hit them with your W to keep them sustained or keep the CC sustained if you want. Or you can E Q wq. That's a lot of. I like to use the E as my engage and not a disengage. Kind of like with ezreal, you want to use the E really as an engage tool and not a disengage tool. [00:42:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:42:22] Speaker C: That's a. That's a double edged sword there. But yeah. [00:42:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:25] Speaker C: So here, here's where I've. I've noticed with him. That is his short trade pattern. If he can do that and then walk away from you or walk into a minion line and not get punished immediately, that is how he fights people with short trade patterns. This is his only way of fighting people with short trade patterns because a lot of them can just get away from him normally. [00:42:47] Speaker B: Incidentally, this is why I think for the Trinity Force Phage is better first than Heartbound Axe because it gives you movement speed when you hit things. [00:42:56] Speaker C: He is, he's a very interesting champion to try and do a lane with because he's simultaneously possibly the most oppressive champion and incredibly vulnerable. Simultaneously. [00:43:09] Speaker B: Yep. Because if you do that combo that Pillow was just talking about, you dash in and start comboing them and then use your pole as they try to disengage to re engage them. You opened with your dash. You have no way out if their jungler then shows up. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess that's the caveat of that is like, try to know where your enemy jungler is. Like, try to have a basic understanding of like jungle tracking before you decide to use your, your dash as an engagement. And I said that like with the Ezra thing, just assuming that, like, you know that you're using it in a safe way. Like if you know you're going to win, like if you're winning the trades, like, that's, that's your sure bet if the jungler does show up but you're in ahead in that trade, like, you can still win the 2v1 because you're going to be really strong like a Darius would be, just because of how his passive stacking works. Yeah, I mean, or you could do what, you know, a basic W, pull them in, cue them and then try to req them. Or like you said earlier, Jax, just prime the knock up. You know how like as in Zow presses Q auto twice, dash in, knock you up or however, like, what's the lead with the knockup? [00:44:24] Speaker B: I was thinking more in line of like, how a ribbon will use Q1 and Q2 and hold Q3 to wait out the timer of the cooldown on Q and then use Q3 right before it locks out to engage onto you CCU and then she has another Q ready to go almost immediately. Yeah, Zen's kind of the same way with his Q, where if you prime it and wait a couple seconds and use your knock up one right before it expires, you have another Q very shortly afterwards. [00:44:50] Speaker C: Yeah, he has that kind of power. The other thing, like, he is very easy to be cheesed. [00:44:58] Speaker B: Yep. [00:44:58] Speaker C: If you have he like off meta builds, he's possibly one of the most susceptible people to off meta builds because he requires straightforward thinking and straightforward fighting. If you're not doing those things, he's. He's incredibly susceptible to them. Now, having said that, do we want to talk about the late game there? Because that is where he Gets real interesting. [00:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah. So team fighting on Zahen, first and foremost, his ULT is not an engage tool. [00:45:31] Speaker C: No. [00:45:32] Speaker B: Do not initiate fights with his ult. I've seen Zahen's doing that too. It's. That's not how it works. [00:45:37] Speaker C: There's one reason to do that, and that's if you're going to just kill two or three people. If you arrived late and you need to get in the fight to kill two or three people, it's the only reason to do it. [00:45:46] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's not an engage tool. That's a like joining a team fight in progress. Dash. That's different. [00:45:52] Speaker C: Yes. However, as I said that he should be a secondary engage. [00:45:57] Speaker B: Yes. His team fighting pattern basically amounts to hit whoever's in front of him until he finds a good window to use his dash and his pole to get onto someone. That's an actual carry. Always while he's hitting whoever's. While he's hitting whoever's in front of him, he's building up his passive. That's the reason why barely a champion with zero stacks. So that's, I think, the biggest thing with his team fighting. Please do not just, like, wait for a fight to break out. Blow everything dash onto the carry when you have zero stacks and then wonder why they just use their one dash to get away and blow you the fuck up because you have no stacks. [00:46:37] Speaker A: His E can be pretty deceptive because it doesn't, like, self cc him for a long time. Like, to me, like, Kane's Q is a long self cc. [00:46:49] Speaker B: Yes. [00:46:49] Speaker A: Like when he uses it, he's stuck in it. Zaheen. I feel like it's very snappy when he's in and out of like, his E. Regardless of like the distance used to travel. Like, it's pretty much instantaneous. Like, he's moving right after it. [00:47:03] Speaker C: It's pretty quick. [00:47:04] Speaker A: So I think that's a really thing nice thing to use. Like when you're chasing someone down, like, like it's hard for a cane to chase you down and chase you using Q because he gets stopped for, you know, however long, what, a quarter second, tenth of a second, whatever. It's not like that for Zaheen. Zaheen's just, it's fluid, just right on through. So I, I, a lot of times you can use the E in a team fight situation to get to the back line because it's good distance closer. Yep. [00:47:32] Speaker C: His, his optimal fight is in that middle ground area. He wants to be bam, bam, bam. In and out, in and out. In and out. Getting into multiple people to stack that passive as fast as he possibly can on as many people as he can. [00:47:47] Speaker B: If you can get bouncing at the middle man. If you can get like a three man E and a three man pull, you're basically stacked. [00:47:55] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. [00:47:56] Speaker B: I'd say it's actually even worth flashing to get the multi man ease in many cases. [00:48:01] Speaker C: Very much so. It is. It is worth it to do that to. To alt to get your max stacks. If you know you will get that. [00:48:10] Speaker B: Yes. [00:48:11] Speaker C: Only if it's not going to kill you in a moment. Because that heal is also incredibly powerful. You don't want to be doing it. If you've got Max Health. [00:48:21] Speaker B: You should basically never be ulting at Max health. The reason to ult at max Health is to block CC that would otherwise result in you getting picked off. If you see a blitzcrank hook coming and you don't have flash up and you have to avoid it or die, yes, you should ult to break the blitzcrank hook from pulling you. That's about it. Stuff like that. Those are the only reasons to ult at max health. Any other thoughts about Zahen team fighting before we go to some questions that Rains wrote in about Zahen? [00:48:52] Speaker C: I think we can deal with them with the questions. [00:48:55] Speaker B: Okay, so Reigns did write in some Zahen specific questions and we're gonna answer those since we're talking about Zahen this week. First one is, is his kit overtuned or does he feel quite balanced? I think at this moment win rate. Yeah. [00:49:12] Speaker A: This Champions is overtuned right now and let me tell you why. I think why is mainly his Q healing and what it can be used on. [00:49:21] Speaker B: Yep. [00:49:22] Speaker A: And that is literally everything that has a health bar, including wards. I think what they need to do is reduce the healing even more or completely take it away on non champions. [00:49:35] Speaker C: Well, non minions is fine. [00:49:38] Speaker A: Or monsters and Champions should be the only healing he gets off of. [00:49:44] Speaker B: He should heal off monsters. He should heal off champions. Matter of fact, I would say it's fine to let him heal more off monsters than he does now. He doesn't need it in the jungle. But there can be times where using that can let you survive a play or recover after a play to be able to get back into a fight instead of having to recall. I think that's fine and thematically appropriate. [00:50:03] Speaker C: As far as like his passive in general because of how hard it is to immediately stack a passive. I think his passive is surprisingly balanced. He is balanced even though it gives. [00:50:13] Speaker B: 67% AD at max rank. [00:50:15] Speaker C: Yes. But it takes long enough for him to get that. That there are other champions who have way less AD that do way more damage than him. [00:50:22] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:23] Speaker C: Like it takes at least eight seconds for him to stack his passive up then burst you. I could be dead long before that from an ad carry. [00:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I think his overpowered part is Mostly his non pvp sustain is just really high. Even at level 1. He heals 2.5% of his max hp every time he uses Q on a minion. [00:50:46] Speaker C: I actually have another potential doing on this one. Switch that Q's name to the same thing. It is part of his ult. Make it. Make it missing health. [00:50:57] Speaker B: So his ULT just heals a flat amount based on his ad. It doesn't have missing health at all. Sundered sky is missing. [00:51:03] Speaker C: Sunder sky was the missing health. That was it. Just change it to missing Health. If he doesn't have the same sort of capable full sustain, I think he's fine. [00:51:11] Speaker B: And that's I think most of what makes him OP. I will point out he has a 51% win rate as a new champion when people are building stupid shit on him. [00:51:22] Speaker C: But also people are really dumb in fighting him. They're very dumb in fighting him. I've known so many people who could have just beaten the shit out of him and walked away or just gone in for a full fight and kill. Like I've seen so much against Sahend that was wrong that it feels like he is being inflated because of people's lack of knowledge of what the hen does as well. Yeah, like half of his wins are not real wins. [00:51:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. So let's, let's continue then. The next question from Reigns is, is Zahan another 200 years champion? No, I don't think so. 200 years refers to champions with a gazillion different things going on. And I don't think Zahan really fits that. [00:52:04] Speaker A: I would say like to me the hin feels like more of their old style of champion development. Like it feels basic. Like it's not a super overpowered novel size ability descriptions. [00:52:21] Speaker B: There is a reason he only costs 3150 blue essence. [00:52:26] Speaker C: Yeah, 200 years is part of the complexity with those champions. They have a lot of things going on with them. They took the development point of multiple different sections to try and figure out how to create this thing. Zen just has everything in the kitchen sink in his kit. But it's not like it was the culmination of 12 years plus to create this champion like Aphelios. That is why 200 years was a meme. Not for how complex the champion is. [00:52:51] Speaker B: And he's just really straightforward. [00:52:52] Speaker C: Very. [00:52:53] Speaker B: So last question from Reigns. Do you think he is blind pickable or do you think his kit has weaknesses that can be too easily exploited through counterpick? If you don't have enough champion mastery. [00:53:04] Speaker A: I would say both. [00:53:06] Speaker B: He has some pretty brutal counters. [00:53:09] Speaker C: I think you've. You said Malphite was one of your favorite counters to him. My favorite was AD U Deer. [00:53:15] Speaker B: I could see that if you have for the same reason. By the way, Malphite and Udyr and any other champion has a shield in their kit. Zehen can't stack until he breaks the shield. Anytime you put the shield back up on Odyr, Zehen stops stacking until he breaks it. Which makes trading with Zahen much, much easier. Malphite, by the way, has a 2/3 lane kill rate against Zahen. He kills Zahen in two thirds of laning phases versus Zahen only getting a kill in a third. Malphite is his hardest counter matchup because a combination of that shield thing, Malphite gets armor early, which amplifies Malphite's damage and means a hand doesn't do any damage yet. [00:53:57] Speaker C: I will. I will point out what happened with that game with versus. Dude, here I was having a vi live in my lane. Multiple games again and again. Pre six, post six. I was ganked four times by the time I was six. [00:54:14] Speaker B: Yep. [00:54:14] Speaker C: I ended that game 15, nine and three and he went six, 12 and seven. You dumpster. That fight. [00:54:21] Speaker B: Yep. In the same vein, Teemo actually really hard counters Zahen because Teemo's blind means that Zahen's auto attacks stop gaining stacks until the blind wears off. Blind lasts for three seconds on like a four second cooldown. By the way. [00:54:36] Speaker C: How's Quinn? [00:54:37] Speaker B: How the hell is Zahen ever going to stack against a Teemo? [00:54:41] Speaker C: I. I would expect Quinn to also be like another real hard counter into him. [00:54:46] Speaker B: Less so. Mostly because if Zahen is smart, he is able to pull her when she uses her vault and he dashes on her to close the gap initially. So she needs to vault and then he just pulls her right back. It's a roughly even matchup. [00:55:01] Speaker C: Okay. [00:55:01] Speaker B: He has a 51% win rate against Quinn, which is where he is normally. So it's average, the average cast. But yeah, the combinations of things that the champions that are good against him have in common is they can poke him down. They can disengage from him and they have some way to prevent him stacking if he tries to actually get an all in. Be that either like singed for example is really good against him because the head goes I want to fight you. And singed goes hahahaha. Flip. Walk away. [00:55:33] Speaker C: Dash. Stop. No. [00:55:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Like there's a few. There's a bunch of champions that have like 50 something percent win rates against him. [00:55:43] Speaker A: Reason I say yes, he's blind pickable is just the sustain in his kit. Like he can deal with these counter picks. [00:55:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:52] Speaker A: Because he doesn't. You don't have to fight like you don't have to go fight. And he is safe under tower. [00:55:58] Speaker C: That is the reason why every one of those ones was a loss for them was because they wanted to fight me. He doesn't have to which is why he's blind pickable. And his late game is strong and. [00:56:12] Speaker B: It'S really easy to just use your Q on them when they go to fight you to heal yourself and then use the second one to knock them up so you have time to walk away. His disengage is actually surprisingly good for a straightforward run at you. And Brawl Champion. [00:56:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:26] Speaker B: You just fight long enough to get the knock up. Knock him up, dash away. You're out in most cases. [00:56:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And in the same way that he has a. Like he's hard to tower and dive. [00:56:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Because he has healing and he has CC in his kit and those things combine to make him really difficult to tower dive effectively. To tower dive against him effectively. And then his ultimate just says fuck you to your abilities when you're trying to dive him and heals him as well. It's. I have mostly seen Zehends get absolutely fucking bodied and I think it's largely a consequence of this. Champion is so straightforward that he exposes the bad decision making behind the curtain in a way that a lot of other champions don't. It's like Garen. Garen is oppressive as fuck if he's actually able to just run at you and spin and no one's trying to stop him from doing what he wants to do. But that's the only thing Garon can do. So the moment you stop him from being able to run at you and spin, he literally does nothing. Zehen is like that. [00:57:29] Speaker C: Of course. Like if you don't want to have to bother learning Zahen or dealing with him actually probably a decent fight against him. Take Lucian into the top lane. He's got the movement speed, he's got the range. If Zahen wants to fight him, you're gonna halt him in the face. Lucian in the top lane. Let's go. [00:57:45] Speaker B: There you go. You heard it here first. Please test that norms before you take it into ranked. Guys, this has been episode 509 of the Forwards Podcast. I've been Jack Salman, for Mica, many names and for pillow pet. Have a great night. [00:58:00] Speaker A: Good night. [00:58:00] Speaker C: Good night, everybody. [00:58:02] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards Podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our [email protected] the Four Wards Podcast. And of course, send your questions to the Four Wards podcastmail.com so we can answer them live on the show. That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.