Zip — Patch 1.62 Verdict
[Liquipedia RPL: C] Pro play (RPL 2026): 4 picks, 50.0% WR, 1.7% pick/ban rate. Note: pro meta may differ from ranked.
Zip — Support Guide
Zip forces the enemy team to rethink every dive and every flank. He is not a passive peel-bot. He is an active, aggressive tank support who punishes any hero that dares cluster up, who can literally eat your ADC out of a teamfight, and who turns his own incoming damage into a resource for his allies through Zip Angry!'s shield conversion. You are an enormous, unkillable fish who rolls through five people, launches them airborne, then swallows your carry whole until the danger passes.
Right now in the Thai-server meta, Zip sits comfortably in S tier despite a modest 1.4% pick rate, which tells you he rewards the players who invest time into him rather than just floating around the roam pool. His 50% win rate understates his impact because he is almost always played against competent opponents who have had time to draft around him. The 0.3% ban rate is frankly a gift; enemies are not respecting him enough. His kit has extraordinary layered utility: a 0.5-second stun into a damage-linking chain on Q, a four-second ally-swallow that doubles as a damage shield on W, and a six-second unstoppable roll ultimate that sends entire teams skyward. If you are a Diamond-to-Immortal player who wants a roamer that snowballs through aggressive plays rather than passive warding, he is your answer.
Strengths
- +Zip's W gives an ally near-complete immunity from burst by sheltering them inside his body for up to four seconds, making him one of the only roamers in the game who can hard-negate an assassin's entire rotation.
- +The combination of Q's 0.5-second stun, the damage-sharing link, and R's one-second airborne means Zip brings three distinct forms of crowd control, giving his team's damage dealers multiple windows per fight.
- +His passive 30% damage reduction during the bloated state, layered on top of a tank build including Aegis and Medallion of Troy, makes him extraordinarily difficult to burst down despite building zero dedicated HP items.
- +Zip's R provides status immunity for its full duration, which lets him walk through enemy CC ultimates, abilities like Maloch's cleave or Grakk's chain, and still complete a team-disrupting roll.
Weaknesses
- −Zip's W is a hold-to-channel ability that requires him to remain stationary, making him vulnerable to any enemy who can simply walk around him and target the ally he just swallowed after the four seconds expire.
- −Q's 0.5-second stun is far too short to function as reliable hard lockdown on its own, meaning Zip is almost entirely dependent on his carry or mid-laner to follow up immediately or the window is simply wasted.
- −Early levels before core items like Aegis come online, Zip has very little natural bulk and the passive's damage reduction only activates while bloated, making him susceptible to fast level-two poke-heavy roamers such as Baldum.
- −His R requires a directional commitment and has a meaningful startup, so a disciplined enemy who spreads out laterally and avoids clumping will frequently cause Zip to roll through open space and achieve very little displacement.
Abilities
PZip Bloat!
When Zip bloats up, he takes 30% reduced damage and deals magic damage per second to nearby enemies. This damage increases by {1} per level (deals 2x damage to minions and jungle monsters).
1Zip Hex!
Zip spits a curse, dealing magic damage and stunning for 0.5s. Then links the target to nearby enemies (if none exist, Zip slows by 90% for 1.5s). Then deals magic damage every 0.5s to the first enemy for 4s, with {4}% of damage taken by one transferred to the other. The link breaks if enemies are too far apart. Zip deals increased magic damage to cursed enemies.
2Zip Angry!
Zip sucks allies and jungle minions into his mouth for 4s (hold to channel). Sucked allies gain a shield and take 30% reduced damage. Zip heals based on the number sucked. While bloated, 40% of damage taken converts to a shield for allied heroes. During the suck, Zip is immune to crowd control and attacks non-hero enemies at range (canceling early puts this ability on cooldown immediately).
RZip Roll!
Zip rolls in a designated direction for 6s. During this time, Zip is immune to crowd control and deals magic damage to enemies he rolls through, launching them airborne for 1s. Enemies at the end of the roll are slowed by {2}% for 3s (if rolling into an obstacle, Zip bounces away and gains increased speed). Can be reactivated to cancel, and cooldown counts based on duration used.
How to Use Zip's Kit
The puffed-up state is not just a visual cue, it is a second combat identity. When Zip is inflated (triggered by W or during R), the 30% damage reduction stacks multiplicatively with Aegis and Medallion of Troy, making him deceptively tanky even with a support-oriented build. The passive AoE magic damage per second scales with level, so staying in melee range of multiple enemies during teamfights actually contributes meaningful poke, especially against low-MR junglers. Never retreat just because you are bloated; that is precisely when you should be pressing forward.
The 0.5-second stun is short but it is enough to interrupt channeled abilities and lock someone in place for a follow-up from your carry, learn the cast range by heart because whiffing it in lane is the single most common mistake Zip players make at Diamond. The real value is the link: when two enemies are chained together, 40% of any damage one takes is shared to the other, making Zip's Q a force multiplier for burst mages and assassins on your team. If only one target is hit, the 90% slow for 1.5 seconds is still one of the most punishing movement penalties in the game, so it is never a wasted button press.
This is the ability that separates good Zip players from great ones. The hold-to-channel requirement means you must pre-position so that your ally is inside the swallow radius before the engage, not after, practice the timing in custom games until it is muscle memory. While an ally is inside, Zip gains status immunity, meaning abilities like Grakk's pull or Arduin's knock-up cannot interrupt the shelter; this is a hard counter to certain ultimates that players at high rank will learn to exploit. The 40% damage-to-shield conversion during the bloated state turns every poke ability an enemy wastes on you into armor for your carry, intentionally tank skill shots while W is active.
Six seconds of rollable status immunity and airborne displacement is as dominant as it sounds, but the bounce mechanic off terrain is the detail that separates S-tier Zip from average play. Rolling into a wall in a tight jungle corridor bounces you at an unpredictable angle, immediately accelerates your speed, and lets you hit a second cluster of enemies, always check the minimap for chokepoints before casting. The cooldown is dynamic: if you cancel R early, the CD is refunded proportionally, so in situations where you only needed the initial airborne on one target, cancel immediately rather than rolling the full six seconds and sitting on a long cooldown. The enemy heroes sitting at the far end of the roll receive a 3-second slow, so finish R through the back-line to hamstring their escape.
Skill Order
Priority: R > Q > W| Skill | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Zip Hex! | 1 | · | 3 | · | 5 | · | 7 | · | 9 | · | · | · | 13 | · | · |
2Zip Angry! | · | 2 | · | 4 | · | · | · | 8 | · | 10 | · | 12 | · | 14 | · |
RZip Roll! | · | · | · | · | · | 6 | · | · | · | · | 11 | · | · | · | 15 |
Loadout
Golden Body
Spirit
ProwessStandard Build
1
2
3
4
5
6Core Combos
Standard Lock-and-Link
11Use this in the laning phase to establish the damage-sharing link between two enemies near the lane bush, then let your carry free-hit while both targets share the incoming damage.
Engage-and-Shelter
R12Roll through the enemy front-line to displace them and slow their back-line, immediately Q the priority target for the stun, then swallow your carry to protect them during the chaos of the reset, deploy this when your carry is below 50% HP but the fight is still winnable.
Flicker Ambush
R12Flicker over a thin wall to appear in the enemy's blind spot, immediately roll through their back-line to airborne their ADC, then chain Q the nearest stunnable target; reserve W to save whichever ally dives in behind you.
Anti-Assassin Shelter
2P1When an assassin like Murad or Nakroth hard-dives your carry, pre-swallow before their ultimate lands, convert their burst into passive bloat shields, then Q them on exit to punish the dive and flip the trade entirely.
Gameplan
Zip's earliest spike is level 4, when all three active skills are unlocked and he can run a full Q-into-W shelter sequence with his laner. He doesn't need items to be useful, but completing Ring of Terror makes his Q poke in the river genuinely threatening. The second and more decisive spike is finishing Aegis, after which his bloated-state effective HP becomes absurd and he can confidently front-line. At level 12 with Aegis and Medallion of Troy completed, he is at peak power and should be forcing Baron or Dragon contests. Late game he stays relevant but relies more heavily on landing R in chokepoints, as enemy builds eventually reduce his CC windows.
Early Game
Levels 1–6- →Start in the dark bush between mid and dragon at level 1 to contest the enemy roamer's level-up path — Zip's passive AoE poke in the cramped space chips enemy supports before the lane phase even begins.
- →Reach level 4 before grouping with your carry's first major trade; without Q's link and W available simultaneously you are trading one-dimensional CC for a full support toolkit, and that exchange rarely favors you.
- →Prioritize rotating to secure Dragon over camping the lane — Ring of Terror's ability haste means your Q cooldown is short enough to contest Dragon spawn with a stun-into-link on whichever jungler overextends.
Mid Game
Post Broken Spear- →Stack your presence around Baron and mid-lane choke points where R's bounce mechanic off the narrow terrain walls becomes a guaranteed two-direction hit rather than a straight-line roll.
- →When your team initiates a 5v5, you should be the second body in — not the first — so that R can roll through an already-disrupted cluster rather than a spread-out defensive formation.
- →Use W to body-block skill shots aimed at your carry during objective sieges; the 30% damage reduction during bloat combined with the active shield conversion makes every poke the enemy wastes on you an effective heal for your team.
Late Game
Teamfight phase- →Late-game teamfights are won or lost on a single R placement — scout the terrain ahead of every Baron contest and mentally pre-draw your roll path through the narrowest jungle corridor available.
- →If your carry is being focused by a fed assassin, prioritize the W shelter over initiating with R; a dead carry cannot follow up your best displacement, and a protected carry who survives into the backline is worth more than an airborne tank.
- →Cancel R early after hitting the priority target to bank cooldown refund, then immediately chain Q on the slowest retreating enemy to maintain the link and allow your damage-dealers to clean up the back-line before the fight resets.
Matchups
Zip is not a hero you should blindly first-pick, because Grakk and Baldum are both drafted frequently on the Thai server and both make his life miserable in different phases. If the enemy locks Grakk, accept that you'll need to position W exits away from his chain range and build Medallion of Troy earlier than usual to shore up the magic damage you'll eat post-shelter. Against Baldum, your only answer is burning Flicker to avoid his level-two all-in and catching up in XP before he establishes vision dominance. Conversely, if you see Violet, Ilumia, or Natalya locked on your side, he becomes an aggressive first-pick tool, since those damage profiles synergize so completely with his displacement that the draft advantage alone wins close games.
Zip gets countered by
GrakkGrakk's chain pull can yank Zip's swallowed ally out of W's protective cavity the instant the four-second shelter expires, completely negating the survivability Zip just provided and punishing the cooldown immediately.
ArduinArduin's ability to stack persistent slows and his R's extended knock-up duration outlasts Zip's bloated status immunity window, catching Zip on the exit frame and stopping the roll before it can reach the back-line.
BaldumAt level 2 Baldum can out-poke and out-sustain Zip in the river before Zip reaches the level-4 toolkit spike, establishing vision and priority that denies Zip's early dragon-side roaming entirely.
MalochMaloch's zone-clearing ultimate combined with natural tank bulk lets him absorb Zip's R airborne and immediately re-engage before Zip's cooldowns reset, turning Zip's primary initiation tool into a temporary inconvenience.
Zip synergizes with
VioletViolet's highest-DPS windows require targets to be stationary, Zip's Q stun plus the 90% slow gives her exactly the freeze frame she needs to land her full auto-attack burst rotation without the target side-stepping.
IlumiaIlumia's ultimate locks an area and begs for a clustered enemy; Zip's R rolling through the back-line into Ilumia's zone forces enemies into the AoE rather than letting them walk out of its radius.
MuradWhen Zip swallows Murad into W before an engage, Murad can exit the shelter with full HP directly onto the back-line while the enemy team is still mid-roll airborne from Zip's R, creating a simultaneous two-point attack that teams at Diamond struggle to defend.
NatalyaNatalya's persistent magic damage fields punish the exact clustered and slowed positioning that Zip's R and Q create, and her long-range poke fills the gap in Zip's limited pre-level-4 laning phase.
Pro Tips
- →The R cancel cooldown refund is calculated from the moment you press cancel, not from when the roll started, cancel as soon as you have hit the priority target rather than riding the full six seconds, and you will have R back up mid-fight in some skirmishes.
- →During W, Zip still auto-attacks non-hero units, meaning you can swallow your carry during a wave clear and simultaneously push the minion line without losing any creep, Diamond players almost never use this to deny a push while protecting an ally simultaneously.
- →The Q damage-sharing link percentage is based on total damage received by either linked target, not just your Q's ticks, tell your mage or ADC to dump their rotation onto whichever linked target has less HP, because the chain will divide that burst and chunk both enemies simultaneously.
- →When Zip bounces off terrain during R, the speed boost is significant enough to functionally reposition you before the enemy can react, learn two or three specific wall angles in the Baron pit and the mid-lane corridor so you can predict the bounce direction and aim the exit roll deliberately rather than bouncing randomly.
Zip is the S-tier roamer for players who want to dictate teamfight geometry rather than just follow up on someone else's engage. His ceiling is genuinely high: the wall-bounce prediction on R, the pre-emptive W shelter timing, and the Q link damage management are all skills that separate good play from great, and every game you find new applications. The habit to build is pre-positioning for W before the assassin jumps, not after; masters of that one read carry teammates out of fights that look like guaranteed deaths. If you are Diamond and above and willing to invest the practice, his 0.3% ban rate is one of the best-kept secrets on the Thai server right now.
Zip — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Zip good in the current ROV patch?+
Yes. Zip is rated S tier on the Thai server this patch on a 50% win rate and a negligible 0.3% ban rate, which means you are picking up one of the strongest roamers in the game almost entirely unpunished. His multi-layered CC, ally-shelter mechanic, and status-immune rolling ultimate are all well-positioned against the current dominant team comps.
What is the best build for Zip?+
Thai-server consensus build is Ring of Terror into Hermes' Select into The Aegis, with Medallion of Troy, Mail of Pain, and Blade of Eternity to finish. Ring of Terror gives you ability haste to cycle Q faster in laning, Aegis is your first major tank power spike, and Blade of Eternity is the late-game insurance that lets you front-line without fear.
How do you counter Zip?+
Spread your team laterally before his R lands; a dispersed formation makes the roll hit one or two targets instead of five. Heroes with extended engage tools like Grakk can nullify W's protective window by pulling the sheltered ally out the moment his four-second channel expires. Drafting Baldum as your roamer counters his early-game XP path and denies the level-4 spike that makes him dangerous.
Is Zip hard to play / good for beginners?+
Medium. His button presses are straightforward but his positioning and timing are not. The W hold-to-channel shelter demands you anticipate when an assassin is about to engage, not react to it, and that predictive read of enemy intent takes practice. Not the right pick for players still learning roaming fundamentals, but a Diamond-level player who puts in twenty games finds him remarkably rewarding.