Zac/Strategy

Champion Spotlight

By David 'Phreak' Turley

Learn to punish your opponents with an elastic beatdown in this episode of the Champion Spotlight, where we showcase Zac's high-speed jungle potential.

Zac quickly tears through monster camps using a combination of high-sustain mechanics and potent area damage. With a little setup, Zac also has some of the longest range initiation potential to date, enabling a variety of particularly devious ganks. Add in a powerful AoE ultimate and you've got one boisterous blob that's ready to lead the charge on the Fields of Justice.

Find out more about this amorphous combatant with tips, tricks, sample mastery builds, and more in the Zac Champion Spotlight.

Recommended Items

Tips

Playing As Zac

Playing Against Zac

Tricks

Ability Usage

• Although all of Zac's abilities cost a percentage of his current health, the cost is always compensated by picking up the blobs from Cell Division.
  • In fact, because bloblets recover a percentage of Zac's maximum health, picking up bloblets has a net healing effect which is increased at low health. Therefore, do not be afraid to spam your skills provided you can safely collect the bloblets.
  • However, do not overextend to collect a bloblet if doing so will expose you to crowd control, or more damage than you would heal.
• Cell Division allows Zac to survive many situations that other champions could not.
  • For example, getting hit by Ignite at low health is fatal to many champions, but so long as Zac can reach safety, he will be able to 'respawn' with half of his maximum health.
  • This also includes tower diving. At maximum range of the turret, at least two of Zac's blobs will land out of range, allowing him to survive and come back with over a quarter of his maximum health.
• Stretching Strike is a powerful slowing ability with a deceptively long range. Use this ability to lock down targets when pursuing or escaping.
  • This skill can be cast backwards (opposite to the direction Zac is facing) without turning Zac around. This makes it easy to use as an escape skill.
• Unstable Matter is a great AoE damage ability. Its percent damage makes it perfect for clearing jungle camps and gives Zac strong sustained damage against enemy champions.
• Spamming Unstable Matter is a massive source of AoE damage in teamfights since it has a low cooldown and the percent damage is effective against champions.
• The percent damage on Unstable Matter actually makes it a worse skill for farming minions in lane and killing small jungle creeps because of their low maximum health.
• Zac can jump over walls with Elastic Slingshot, allowing him to avoid warded areas. Therefore, this skill is invaluable both in setting up and performing ganks.
• When initiating using Elastic Slingshot, be sure to jump towards the back of the enemy team in an attempt to hit and focus the AD/AP carry.
• The combination of Elastic Slingshot and Let's Bounce! is an amazing initiation tool, which can easily stack a teamfight in your favor from the beginning.
  • When using Let's Bounce!, try to hit each member of the enemy team at least once to maximize the damage and number of knock-ups that the ability can achieve.
• Although you cannot use Stretching Strike or Elastic Slingshot during Let's Bounce!, you can use Unstable Matter. Take advantage of this to maximize Zac's damage output.
  • Even when building very tanky, Zac has surprising damage output in teamfights. The enemy team will either be forced to focus you (allowing your ADC and APC to wreak havoc) or else take lots of damage from Zac's abilities.
• Using Let's Bounce! will result in the dropping of four blobs from Cell Division, which you can pick up for a whopping amount of your maximum health (even more with Spirit Visage)
  • This makes Zac's a deceptively tanky initiator. You will likely lose a lot of health during Let's Bounce!, but you can gain most of it back so long as your resistances are high. As such, Zac effectively has two build paths: full tank and AP bruiser.
• Since Zac's bloblets count as minions, allies can Teleport to them to give Zac a brief period of invulnerability while reviving.

Mastery Usage

• Zac generally makes good use of the masteries in the Resolve tree.
  •  Unyielding works well as Zac will be building a lot of resistances.  Recovery is less needed due to his innate sustain.
  •  Tough Skin helps with Zac's clear slightly by mitigating some damage.  Explorer is decent too if you gank a lot.
  •  Runic Armor is amazing as it increases Zac's healing and stacks with Spirit Visage.
  •  Insight reduces Zac's summoner spell cooldowns, which is helpful for more Flashes and Smites(or other spells if not jungling).
  •  Swiftness and  Legendary Guardian are both equally effective choices for Zac.
  •  Strength of the Ages is the most suitable keystone for Zac as he can accrue stacks quickly in the jungle with his relatively fast clears. The extra 300 health and sustain he gets from the mastery benefit his already high tankiness and sustain.

Item Usage

• As a tanky initiator, Zac should purchase items that offer survivability. CDR is also extremely important since he is manaless and reliant on cooldowns for engage or peel. AP and Magic Penetration can also be considered if ahead or if his team needs more damage as Zac's AP ratios and base damage are quite high.

• Randuin's Omen is a strong item on Zac for a tank build, since it provides health, armor, and useful active and passive effects.
• Spirit Visage adds increased sustain, health, cooldown reduction, magic resistance, and no mana-related stats, making it perfect for Zac.
• For boots, your decision should be between Mercury's Treads, Ninja Tabi, or Boots of Mobility. However, Boots of Mobility should only be used if you need to be getting back to lane very quickly, or if you're jungling and need more mobility.
• Warmog's Armor should be taken to provide tons of health as well as very strong health regeneration effect. It is especially effective when combined with Spirit Visage. It also gives CDR which is a bit hard to come by as most tank items that give the stat also give mana which is useless on Zac.
• Cinderhulk can be useful because of percent health boost and area damage.
  • Sunfire Cape is amazing, since it gives AoE damage, health, and armor, which all tanks need in order to be effective.
    • Be careful when using Sunfire Cape and Cinderhulk together, as the Immolate passives do not stack.
• Locket of the Iron Solari is really effective on all tanks, since it gives health and magic resist, as well as an active that allows you to shield your entire team, making your strong initiation skills even stronger.
• A Guardian Angel is a good item to rush on Zac. Since the item synergizes well with Cell Division he is granted a 'second life', which makes Zac incredibly difficult to kill and adds extra turret diving capacity.
  • Guardian Angel's revive passive takes higher priority over Cell Division, which makes Guardian Angel a worthwhile item.
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter is a core item for a bruiser build. The slow, health, and AP all work perfectly with Zac's damaging style, plus this item functions well in combination with Sunfire Cape or Cinderhulk.
  • Rylai's Crystal Scepter works well even for a tank build because it provides a lot of health and gives utility and bonus damage. However, it should be noted that the passive only really works with his Unstable Matter as all his other abilities already have CC.
• Abyssal Scepter is a good offensive item, offering AP, MR, CDR and a passive that reduces enemy MR. The passive is especially effective as Zac's abilities have high base damage and have ranges that work with the aura.
• For boots, you should use Mercury's Treads, Ionian Boots of Lucidity, or Sorcerer's Shoes. The decision is based on whether you want survivability, cooldown reduction, or magic penetration.
• Rabadon's Deathcap is not recommended, but can be used if more damage is necessary.
  • Consider substituting it with a Warmog's Armor for more survivability.
• Zhonya's Hourglass is a viable purchase because of the survivability it provides as well as the AP and CDR, not to mention the stasis active.
• Runic Echoes offers ability power and movement speed, making it a very efficient source of damage and mobility for Zac despite wasting the mana restoration.
• Liandry's Torment is basically a must on him, since he is so heavily based on health and that penetration will make his percent damage on Unstable Matter even more potent. This is a particularly effective pick in combination with Rylai's Crystal Scepter.
  • Since penetration works so well in combination with Unstable Matter, Void Staff is also a viable pick.
• Try not to waste gold on items with mana or mana regeneration components, as these are wasted on Zac.
• Any slots not taken up by AP items should be slotted to increasing survivability, since Zac needs to be so close to enemies to effectively deal damage.
• Spirit Visage is highly effective on him, and it is recommended that you pick it up regardless of build path, unless there are no champions on the enemy team that do significant magic damage. It is extremely strong because Spirit Visage's passive gives Zac more effective healing due to the healing from Cell Division being partially negated by the health cost of his abilities. E.g. you're at 50% HP, you cast an ability which puts you to 48%, and then you pick up a blob which heals to up to 52.8% (rather than 52% without the Spirit Visage which is an effective healing increase of 40%).

Countering

• Zac heals from the blobs that separate from him. You can crush them by stepping on them.
• Kill all of Zac's bloblets when he splits apart to prevent him from reforming.
  • You can use Ignite and Smite on the bloblets.
• Silences, roots, stuns and knock ups will all interrupt the charging of Zac's Elastic Slingshot.
• All forms of crowd control are especially effective against Zac, since without mobility to allow him to collect his healing blobs from Cell Division he will, therefore, chop down his own health.
• Building a Morellonomicon or Executioner's Calling against Zac can be extremely effective, since it significantly reduces his healing.
• Zac needs to be very close to you in order to deal the majority of his damage, which makes kiting a very viable strategy.
• Cell Division has a very long cooldown. Popping this before a teamfight or other major engagement can cripple his effectiveness.
  • Be sure to keep an eye on when this is available, as it will allow you to more accurately determine whether you can win a 1v1 with him. Click Zac before a teamfight to see if his passive is active.
• Even though they take reduced AoE damage, you can still easily destroy all of Zac's bloblets by using a mage with a lot of AoE damage. Champions such as Malzahar, Brand and Swain can easily kill Zac while Cell Division is activated.
  • It may be helpful to wait to use AoE abilities against Zac's Cell Division until the blob chunks have come close enough together that all can be targeted at once.
• Champions like Gragas, Janna, Lee Sin, Tristana and Xin Zhao can throw Zac away when he uses Let's Bounce!, by using their own ultimate abilities.
  • Alternatively, champions with knock up CC available like Janna or Nami can keep Zac from moving around a teamfight if used after Zac activated Let's Bounce!. This can significantly reduce the effectiveness of the ability.
• Zac deals only magic damage with his abilities. As such, you can buy magic resistance to counter his damage.