Zaahen
Hey Friends,
Today I’ll cover all the important information about the newly released top laner Zaahen. In 10 minutes you will learn everything there is to know about the champion.
Zaahen on the surface seems like a straightforward simple skirmisher style of champion, but every single of his abilities has intricate nuances that can be min-max’d in skirmishes and teamfights to feel like a true MMO raid boss.
You will be running Flash and Teleport as your summoner spells most of the time. In solo queue, into some matchups such as Darius, Olaf that would not play teleport you can choose to match their combat power by running Ignite. Nevertheless, I would recommend always playing with Teleport as Zaahen’s early laning isn’t very strong and you will concede push in a lot of matchups regardless.
Zaahen only has three potential keystones to choose from – Conqueror, Grasp and PTA. Conqueror is the “nobrain” default choice that will scale his damage the most throughout the game and has great synergy with his passive. PTA is an extremely niche choice (that I dislike personally), due to synergy with Q1 double strike, that can be a solid choice into squishy / ranged matchups.
While conqueror has the best synergy with Zaahen’s kit and provides the most impact overall, Grasp of the undying covers his only weakness at the moment – his early laning phase.
The goal is to reach that first item power spike as cleanly as possible. Akin to Ambessa, Zaahen has insane synergy with conqueror, but Grasp provides the much needed bridge to his real first power spike.
I firmly believe that Grasp will become the go to keystone on Zaahen (at least in competitive play) as he will inevitably receive more nerfs in his current state. You can still choose Conqueror into matchups that are considered easy or you feel confident in. As long as you get to bypass the laning phase without sacrificing a lot of resources conqueror will be the best keystone. Likewise, it’s probably a good choice to take conqueror in matchups that are bound to end up in all-ins such as Olaf, Darius, Irelia etc. You could also consider Fleet as a niche choice into extreme lane bullies or champions that kite you easily like Teemo or Kennen.
You should always look to play a combination of Resolve and/or Inspiration as your rune choices. Resolve will provide the most durability in the early game, while inspiration can provide extra resources or utility. Likewise, consider if you can splash precision and pick up Last Stand as it is the best damage amplification rune in the entire game for Zaahen.
Your first item choice will depend on what you’re laning against and matching most of the game. All other items are situational and will depend on your value judgement. Builds choices are always prone to direct or indirect changes so keep an open mind as the champion is still quite new and underexplored.
Zaahen’s best current item overall seems to be Stridebreaker. You should look to include it in your build as your 1st or 2nd item (though it is a lot more situational as a 2nd item). Other tiamat items are also solid, but Stridebreaker is the best one. As your first core item you should choose between Trinity (best damage item), Stridebreaker (best utility, waveclear and into ranged matchups) and Black Cleaver (into tanks).
Your 2nd default item choice will be Sundered Sky. Other items in this slot include Death’s dance (enemy heavy ad) or Maw (matchup + enemy heavy ap). Your third item will almost always be one of the following: Death’s dance, Sterrak, Bloodmail or GA. The remaining item slots can be a mix of any previously mentioned items or ones that fit specific needs like Spirit Visage, Randuins or Serpents Fang.
I found the best Zaahen’s non core items to be Death’s dance and GA. DD is extremely OP against burst giving you more much needed time to stack the passive, while GA gives you another attempt at stacking while also creating space in fights for the rest of your team.
Let’s cover Zaahen’s kit before diving into his playstyle and specifics. Passive is the core gimmick that will make or break your success on this champion. Playing around it properly will differentiate the best Zaahen players from the average ones. So what does it do? There are two important parts to Zaahen’s passive which we need to be aware of in order to maximize it.
First, we have the Determination stacking mini game (closest comparable thing being Darius passive) and secondly, we have the revive which is an improved version of the old Aatrox revive. Determination stacks provide bonus ad based on level which double on maximum stacks. You are basically stronger the more stacks you have and turn into Thanos on maximum stacks which grants a crazy AD steroid and a fallback revive. The two most important things to remember about determination is that more=better and that stacks last 5 seconds and fall of quickly afterwards unless refreshed again.
Revive is a 5 minute CD that is lowered by 60 seconds every 5 levels (1/6/11/16) down to 2 minutes max. If you would die, on max stacks of determination, you will instead trigger ressurection (identical to GA that lasts 4 seconds), heal yourself 30-75% max hp based on level and finally refresh the determination duration.
There are two major conclusions (or applications) we should take away to use determination properly. One for the laning and one for teamfights and skirmishes. Q1 will grant a stack for each strike (2), Q2 (1), and aoe abilities W, E and R will grant a stack for each champion hit. It is insanely important to keep this in mind in fights and skirmishes as missing an extra stack might be the difference maker of you dying instantly or carrying the fight.
Second application is related mostly to laning phase or sidelaning – again, similarly to Ambessa, you might initially short trade and then re-engage with ultimate as your cooldowns are coming up again. On Zaahen as your stacks are about to expire and your cds are coming back up you can look to re-engage with ult to keep the stacks of determination going. Do keep in mind that if you’re uncertain that ult will hit it’s not worth the risk as it will leave you without any tools to disengage a trade anymore if your flash is down.
Q is the bread and butter ability. Both instances of Q reset the auto attack timer and can crit, so you can do a quick combo like Camille AA-Q1-AA-Q2. Both Q’s have an uncancellable windup and grant bonus 25 range. Q1 will strike twice and heal on ANY target ( yes even plants, but reduced 50% for non champions), while Q2 will knock up for 0.75 seconds and deal more damage. Both Q’s empower the next auto attack for 5 seconds so which allow us to create pressure on demand. Q2 combined with flash is a very strong tool that can be used to catch people off guard (like Renekton W).
W deals damage in two parts. More importantly, upon reaching max range it stuns for 0.25 seconds and pulls back the units towards Zaahen. W also has a cast time which makes it a great tool to use as buffer through CC – Jax E, Renekton W and so on. W-Flash also works to extend the range though it’s quite easy to react to. Best use case would be to use it as a follow up on allied cc outside of the other combo implications of the Zaahen’s kit.
E is also a two part ability. It has a dash component and a slice component that also deals bonus damage in the outer ring (this is especially important as it deals % max hp damage which makes the damage difference significant). Dash can be used as a short dash or cancelled entirely (also when used around walls like vayne Q). or as full range which is slower but covers longer distance or go over walls. E can also be combined with Flash but it is quite inconsistent if you do E-Flash as you need to time it well with the slash instance of the ability in order to deal damage. Thereforce, using flash E instead will be more consistent, but easier to react to. Don’t forget that you can also use E to dodge skillshots even though you might miss out on damage.
R passively grants armor pen. Active is a quite simple ability on the surface. It deals high aoe damage on impact and heals Zaahen for each champion hit. The only thing that might not be as intuitive initially is that Zaahen can cast this ability freely without restriction (meaning that you don’t require a target, you can go over walls with it and you can use it on minions to clear a wave quickly.) Another extremely important thing to know is that casting the R grants Zaahen CC immunity during the 0.5 cast time window as well as 50% damage reduction, so using it, whenever possible, to buffer through CC or high damage is extremely important.
You will take R points whenever possible on levels 6/11/16. the best skill order is Q>E>W. From level 1 you have two options depending on the matchup. You can start Q or E from level 1. Q start mostly into other melees who aren’t able to extend trades, while E into ranged and champions who are quite strong level 1.
Playstyle in teamfights is quite similar to Ambessa and Aatrox. You will want to posture on range (avoid free damage) or mark individual targets until an opportunity to fight presents itself. Zaahen can fight front to back or flank but will mostly enjoy isolating individual targets for stacks until there is an angle to R into the fight. Ideally, you’d want to weave in and out of the fight while stacking passive unless you’re certain that you will survive without the revive. Keep an eye out for every chance to get multiple stacks of passive with W, E and R. You can also look to be creative with W-flash or flash-Q2 to surprise targets without flash. Keep in mind that you can also look to bait major CC abilities by buffering them with R.
The common combos and trading patterns include: E-(AA)-Q1, E-Q2, Q2-W, W-E, AA-Q1-AA-Q2, W-R, Q2-R, Flash Q2, W Flash, E Flash / Flash E, E variations (short/long). Finally, while combos are flashy and they have their time and space, please do remember to weave in auto attacks whenever possible.
Currently, the hardest matchups seem to be ranged champions that can kite Zaahen or bully him hard in the early laning phase. I will update the matchup tier list as new information comes to light.
until next time o7.