Hello, Isolanporzellator here - welcome to my first guide here on mobafire, featuring Zac - the bouncing blobfish. Let me just step right in by presenting this blobfish picture:

If you have a look at it, you realize that you can, in fact, play this champion because of his ability kit and his amazing tankiness combined with huge CC output in teamfights. But you actually have to play this champion because he just looks insanely good no matter what he does and you will achieve full satisfaction only by crushing your enemies with a giant green ball of blob (whatever blob might be...).

NOTE: With all the Jungle changes in Season 5 and all the buffs trying to make jungling with Zac possible, I figured I would finally have to include a Jungle section. But I didn't, no one complained, so I guess there's no need :P.

OK, now, without any further explanations, I will introduce you into the wonderful world of blobbiness. Trust me - it's gonna be LEGEN... wait for it ... DARY!

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Just like every other champion, Zac has his strengths/benefits and his weaknesses. If your team is in need of a tanky initiator and some powerful CC, this champion is the right one to pick. However, I would not recommend picking him if either:

• Your entire team is AP.
• You are in need of a strong carry (even though Zac might be able to fulfill this role, too. There are simply much more powerful AP carries in the game).

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Pros - Why you play Zac

• Strong Tank with godlike initiations.
• Lots of hard CC.
• Short cooldowns in endgame.
• Great sustain if able too pick up his Blobs of Goo.
• Revive passive, so you never die to a dive.
• Can escape from almost any situation and pull off some crazy ganks and initiations with his Elastic Slingshot.
• His /joke turns him into a giant green bouncing Blobfish OF DOOM.
• Gets bigger and bigger during the game ;)
• Looks amazing, needs a skin with a suit and sunglasses, though.

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Cons - What you have to consider when playing Zac

• All his Attacks are AoE, which makes it hard to use them for farming or harrassing without pushing the lane.
• His abilities cost him a percentage of his health, which can wear you down quickly if you can't pick up your Goo.
• His Goo can be destroyed easily by enemy champions stepping on it.
• His Elastic Slingshot is quite hard to land and can easily be dodged if you're not used to it.
• His Elastic Slingshot can be interrupted by any hard CC unless he is already in air.
• Still in need of a Gentleman Skin.

Something about runes (If you are new to the game)

Runes are helpful little thingies in your pocket that can greatly improve your champion in the game. Runes exist in 3 different tiers, you unlock the next tier as soon as you reach lvl 10 or lvl 20. You don't need to buy runes early on, as you will end up using only tier 3 runes at lvl 30. However, the amount of IP low-tier runes cost is so marginal that it doesn't really matter if you buy some or not (The bonuses are marginal aswell, though^^). If you don't have and don't want to afford the recommended runes here, just use other ones - runes will never harm you, they only provide buffs.
There are also 4 different types of runes. They all have some main orientation where they will give high bonuses, if you use rune buffs that don't fit to the rune type (e.g. attack speed glyphs) the bonuses will be far smaller.
In General:

• Marks provide agressive buffs (resistance penetration, attack damage & speed)
• Seals provide defensive buffs (armor, health) and avarice buff (why??).
• Glyphs provide magical buffs (magic resistance, ability power, mana, energy, CDR).
• Quintessences provide strong buffs in any of the above sections, they also offer utility buffs (Speed, Lifesteal, Spellvamp, Avarice).

Now, let's get on to the runes for Zac:

Marks

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Zac is doing primarily magic damage, that's why you are going for magic penetration marks on him to get out that extra bit of damage to kill your opponent before he kills you. Marks are agressive runes, you shouldn't get armor or magic resist here, as seals & glyphs are much more effective for this.

Seals

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HP seals got a huge buff in 4.5 and synergize perfectly with your passive. Armor Seals have been nerfed quite a lot, so they are not as useful for your early game presence as these are, but they are still a viable alternative, especially if you encounter heavy AD or if you are jungling.

Glyphs

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Standard runes to protect you from magic damage in mid and late game. I recommend getting the scaling ones here, as most of the damage you take early game will come from minions and autoattacks. When your opponents magic damage starts to outscale the normal damage you get, the scaling glyphs will likely have outscaled flat ones (only take flat AP if you are against some cocky AP-Caster like Vladimir or Ryze).

Quintessences

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Speed is always nice to have. However, you will barely ever notice these, especially as you have your E for quick travel (Walking for a minute, these quints will give you the extra distance of a Mystic Shot). The best choice when it comes to power are HP quints (see below). Using AP quints on Zac is a fairly common mistake, his AP ratios are simply too bad for them to be effective, you should only use them if you can't afford HP or MS quints (they are quite expensive).

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Starting off with 78 bonus hp is a really great thing. It will help you win early trades, increases your passive sustain, helps you to stay in lane longer and be that douche you want to be. This is your choice 100% of time on the small maps like Twisted Treeline, because the mobility isn't that important there and there are a lot of early skirmishes. After some testing in Summoners Rift, I must admit these are the best choice for Zac, you will rarely even notice the missing 15 MS (especially in top lane), but the hp offers you so much more early sustain and trading power, it's outrageous.

outrageous. Defense masteries already got a bunch of nerfs, but they are still very good on Zac, as they synergise extremely well with his kit. You will miss out 9 of the 34 in this tree. As laner or in TT, you want to leave out Tough Skin and Bladed Armor , as jungler you leave out Block and Unyielding . Besides this you only miss out Enchanted Armor , Swiftness , Oppression . You can also go for 0/30/0 masteries if you feel like being even more tanky, it's totally viable.

These are some really nice masteries for Zac. While you get a lot of earlygame strength from bonus HP, Block and flat armor/MR, you still get lategame power with Juggernaut , Perseverance, Second Wind and Evasive . Zac greatly benefits of high hp and sustain and you mostly get hit by AoE in teamfights (you won't be focused), which makes Evasive quite strong aswell. Of course CC reduction is always welcome, although this is probably the mastery you need the least^^.

Choosing your Summoner Spells is one of the most important things to do before a game starts. If you know who you are encountering (in ranked games) you can decide which spells you take depending on your enemy. In general, i recommend taking at least one instant utility summoner spell ( Ghost or Flash) and one offensive or defensive summoner spell (or Teleport).

Recommended Summoner Spells

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Your free getaway card. Can also be used for chasing, initiating, surprise-hop over walls and a lot more. Definetely the one i would prefer over all others. On Zac this spell gets another use - you can now flash away while wearing a deadly Ignite to make your passive livesaving (e.g. by flashing over a wall or below a tower).

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Will help you to get out that little bit of extra damage to secure your kill. Also very helpful against strong-healing champs like Dr. Mundo or Vladimir. This also grants vision in case your opponents flee into brushes.

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More of a defensive choice, but a very strong choice against damaging opponents, for example to save your carries in teamfights. Very useful against AD champs as it cripples their attack speed AND cuts their damage in half.

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Must-Have for the jungler, No-Go for the laner.

Viable Summoner Spells

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Personally, i prefer Flash over this one, as it is more instant and not influenced by slows and other CC. This is your utility alternative if you don't have the summoner level for Flash.

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Increases your map presence, ganking capabilities and allows you to get back to lane quicker. The cooldown is much shorter if you teleport to an allied turret, which makes it a strong tool to prevent splitpushing. It's also a good spell when you plan to splitpush. However, it won't help you in a fight and Zac isn't the strongest splitpusher, too. Sometimes, you just have to pick it to keep up with a teleporting enemy toplaner, but usually you want the kill pressure from Ignite.

Not Recommended Summoner Spells

If your summoner spell is not among these, I have to tell you that you didn't make the best choice for Zac. If you want to know why, read it in the spoiler below.

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Cell Division is Zac's passive - and it's not one of those lame-o passives like amumus or sorakas, it is in fact the most defining part of Zac's game mechanics and by far the most interesting passive I've seen yet. It consists out of two major parts: One is activated if you die and will make you split up into 4 blobs of goo. The goo is spread in 4 different directions and will move towards the center for 8 seconds. If there are still goo balls left after 8 seconds, you are reborn with a percentage on your maximum health (between 10% and 50%). This will make you almost undiveable early on and will often give you a second life in a teamfight, as the enemies won't have the time to kill your pieces while your team is still alive. Free line Tips and Tricks: If you know you are going to die, try to get as close as possible to your tower or team members to prevent your enemy from destroying the pieces. Can also be used for a very nice bait (300 Seconds cooldown, though). Building tanky will make your blobs tanky aswell. (They get 12% of your hp and 50% of your resistances.) The second aspect of his passive is mostly important for sustain. Whenever you hit an enemy with your abilities, a blob of goo will be dropped from you in a random direction (Most likely the wrong one, as stated by murphy's law). If you collect it, you will get 4% max. health back, while your abilities only cost 4% of your current health while casting. However, enemy champs can simply stomp your blobs and they dissapper after a few seconds. Free line Tips and Tricks: The more health you have lost, the faster you will regenerate through your abilities. Be careful with spamming your abilities when there is an enemy champ nearby, you might end up harassing yourself. If you are wounded and alone, attack minions, small monsters, shaco's puppets, teemo's shrooms or whatever you see in range to refresh your health if you don't want to Recall. VERY IMPORTANT HINT (VIH): Don't just stupidly run towards your blobs, think twice if you would get more damage than the blob could heal.

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Stretching Strikes is Zac's Q skill. It is a small-medium range AoE Skillshot that damages and slows all enemies in a row in front of you. You should max this one first to lower it's cooldown and increase your harassment and ganking possibilities (slow gets stronger with each level, damage scales higher and faster than his Unstable Matter). Free line Tips and Tricks: Use this for ranged harrassment and ranged farming if your lane opponent is stronger than you. However, try not to push your lane while doing so. Later on, it can be used as a strong pushing ability, though. Try to hit as many people as possible with this in a teamfight - the slow can actually turn the tides of a teamfight. Nothing wrong with spamming this ability during your laning phase. The blobs don't come from the target you hit, but from your body so the chance that you can recollect them without getting in danger is quite high.

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Unstable Matter is Zac's W skill. It is a small-ranged AoE ability that damages all enemies near your for a small amount of damage and a specific percentage of their max. health. Max this one last as its cooldown is constant and its early game damage is very low. Free line Tips and Tricks: The damage is instant and the ability is on a very low cooldown, so it can be used for lasthits and for pushing. The ability deals % of health damage, so it is a very useful tool against tanks. The cooldown on this ability decreases for every goo chunk you pick up, so always make use of this for quicker jungle clear if you're jungling. You can use this ability while casting your ultimate, Let's Bounce. You should do this while there are many enemies nearby for maximum damage in a teamfight.

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Elastic Slingshot is Zac's E skill, and it is perhaps the reason why playing Zac is so funny. It is a long range AoE skillshot with increasing range while channeling. When used, you jump towards the chosen location, deal some heavy splash damage and knockup nearby enemies. You can use this to jump over walls at places where a flash isn't enough to surprise your enemy. You can even jump straight over creep camps and use smite WHILE JUMPING for a safe steal! Max this second to increase the damage, lower the cooldown and get epic range. Free line Tips and Tricks: Use this to gank, escape, get back to lane quicker, steal buffs or knockup entire teams! This ability generates extra chunks for your passive if you hit more enemy champions, so it will help keeping your health high if you hit it. Hard CC will interrupt you while channeling. However, if you clicked for your jump just before an enemy is hitting you with CC, you will jump the full length and be CC'd upon arrival. It has a very high cooldown early on, so try not to waste it as it will open the opportunity for enemy ganks. It does quite some good damage and grants a 1s knockup, there is nothing wrong with casting it at point blank range in a melee encounter, so the enemy can't evade it. When ganking, make your teammates tell you about the enemy's warding spots, you can often jump without being seen at all! See the video below for some good gank spots: The famous good old baron steal while jumping thing (Other summoners can be casted in midair aswell).

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Let's Bounce

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Let's Bounce is Zac's ultimate. It makes him jump into the air and bounce for three times. Every time you touch the ground nearby enemies are knocked up and backwards, damaged and slightly slowed. However, a single enemy can't be knocked up more than once and the damage is reduced to 50% after the first hit. Additionaly, he gains some bonus movement speed while bouncing. You should take a point in this whenever possible, as it greatly reduces cooldown and increases damage. Free line Tips and Tricks: In a teamfight, you shouldn't waste all your bounces on one target, but jump around between your enemies and knockup at least 3 or 4 champions of their team. This also increases damage output. You can cast Unstable Matter while bouncing for extra damage. You can not cast Elastic Slingshot or Stretching Strikes while bouncing, but you can use active Items like Randuin's Omen and summoners like Flash or Ignite. With patch 4.21 the knockback has been increased significantly, so it is now very useful to split the enemy team apart, but positioning for it is also more important. As you gain movement speed and knockup nearby champs, this ultimate can also be used for escaping in situations where Elastic Slingshot would be interrupted (e.g. against Vi or any other short-CD-hard-CC-champ) or is on cooldown. However, you should try not to rely on this too often.

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Choosing the right items depending on the current situation is an essential part of the game and will change the outcome of a game. It is not very hard to get the right endgame build, but what separates the good players from the bad is the order in which you buy your items depending on the current game situation and the enemy team composition. I can't mention every single possible way of building here, but I'll try my best and list the strengths and weaknesses of each item and the situation in which you should build it.

The Start

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Against a very skillshot-dependant lane you might want to start with Boots and 4∙ Health Potion, giving you more mobility and an effective 600 health for lane sustain. If you know the enemy jungler will likely gank early, you can buy Boots, 2∙ Health Potion and a Stealth Ward instead. Use against: Cho'Gath, Nidalee

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You should start like this if you are up against AD champions that rely mostly on abilities to do damage (AD Casters). This should get you the amount of survivability you need to reach lvl. 6 and builds into Randuin's Omen in mid-endgame. Use against: Garen, Jarvan IV, Kha'Zix, Pantheon, Renekton, Zed

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This start is very strong if you are up against champions that will heavily harass you with autoattacks in early game. Toghether with your Block and Unyielding , it will block 11 damage from every enemy autoattack. Therefore, it is a must against any ranged opponent and also good vs AA-heavy melees. It also gives decent HP and health regen, however, you may suffer a lack of potions and wards early on. Use against: Most champions (any champ that isn't in the other categories). If you don't know what to take, this is always a good choice, unless you really need early wards.

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Bead + Ward or Vision Ward. This is a good choice when you know that the enemy jungler will likely gank early or when you plan to get an early gank. Crystalline Bracer is a cost-efficient item to build out of this relatively early. Crystalline Bracer can be build into Warmog's Armor later, which is a core item anyways. Start like this against melee AP champions or champs with a bad early game. The 2 Stealth Wards will keep their jungler from camping and an early Vision Ward or Sweeping Lens can help your jungler dominate the lane. Use against: Akali, Malphite, Mordekaiser, Dr. Mundo, Nasus, Rumble, Shen, Singed, Volibear, Yorick

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You should choose to start with Hunter's Machete and 5∙ Health Potion only and always if you are jungling.

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Trinkets

Trinkets are a new kind of item added in the Preseason 4 Patch. They are all around vision and vision control and were added to encourage teams to play the vision game as a team, not with a standalone support that does all the warding for the team. There is an extra slot for Trinkets and every player can get them for free. Trinkets upgrade if the player hits level 9 and can be further upgraded with gold. There are 3 types of Trinkets and you have to adapt your Trinket choice wisely to both team compositions. You can sell Trinkets to get another one if you need, but it can't be used for 3 minutes then.
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This is the most common Trinket. It allows you to place a ward to prevent early ganks or invades, later on it can be upgraded so the ward lasts longer (at the start it only lasts 60 seconds) or to place a Vision Ward instead of a normal ward. In most cases you will get this one as it really makes a great difference for your team and it has two upgrade possibilities, which means you remain adaptable and can choose the right upgrade to counter your enemies' playstyle in the vision game. It was raining buffs for this item, so the upgraded version is now basically a healthless Sightstone for 250 gold. Unless you really need the vision denial, you should always go for the stealth ward upgrade. ALWAYS upgrade your trinket ASAP (first back after you hit lvl 9).

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This is your alternative for Stealth Ward. It will allow you to see through stealth for a short time. Use it to remove wards or to deactivate wards and traps for a gank (care as it only lasts for a very short time on low levels). As it gets upgraded, it becomes quite a useful tool, you should always have at least one of these on your team, however, taking more than 2 on your team will also set behind your teams warding. Take this against easy-to-gank lane opponents, as you want to benefit from their lack of escapes as much as possible. Also upgrade this against champs with annoying stealth effects like Akali or Teemo, as stealthed champs are only revealed by the highest upgrade, which offers true sight. If you are jungling, get it if you want to be aggressive early on. Elsewise, go for Stealth Ward, you may swap later if you need the red trinket on your team.

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This Trinket was blessed with many buffs so it is actually useful now. Still, it is mostly build by the ADC to keep them safe. The upgraded Yellow Trinket is much more useful on Zac.

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Early Game Items

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This item offers some nice health and AP, plus MPen with is amazing for Zac and synergises with Sunfire Aegis for awesome early game damage. It will later on build into Liandry's Torment, giving you a nice bit of extra damage against healthy targets. However, it doesn't give any resistances and should therefore not be taken if your enemy is ahead in lane. Choose this early if: You are doing well in your lane. Your opponent has low early game damage.

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Kindlegem offers some health paired with 10% Cooldown Reduction. This will build into Spirit Visage later on and should therefore be build if you recieve a bit of magic harass, but need health and CDR more than MR. First item vs AP bruisers and against some AP tanks.

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You get this one if you plan to rush a Sunfire Aegis. I would suggest picking it before Chain Vest only if there is decent magic damage on the enemy laner, as the stat value isn't that great and the passive is quite weak.

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Choose this Item against AD-heavy champs to rush a Sunfire Aegis. This will negate a lot of their damage and also gives you some damage from the Capes passive. Build this before Bami's Cinder when your enemy does a lot of physical damage.

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Only take this item first if your enemy is a really nasty AP champ with huge magic damage harass. If your enemy is more of an AP bruiser without much harass potential, take this after Kindlegem. Rushing a Spirit Visage has become much stronger with the 3.10 update, so i suggest doing this against every damaging AP lane (namely Teemo, Lissandra, Vladimir etc.).

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Mid Game

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This is one of Zac's core items and you will find yourself building it in almost every game. It gives health, CDR, a ton of MR plus an amazing passive, increasing all regeneration and healing effects by 20%. This will make your blobs give you even more health, allowing sustain on a higher level of max. health. Definitely take this when you have a hard time sustaining in your lane or when you are against heavy magic damage like Mordekaiser or Yorick. Against magic damage champions with low damage (e.g. Shen), still rush the Sunfire Aegis because its damage is so effective early on. Take Spirit Visage as your second item in that case.

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This item offers health, armor and AoE damage, which can go a long way if you are standing in the middle of the entire enemy team and can also be very strong at early stages of the game. This is your item of choice to rush against AD lanes (e.g. Renekton). The alternative armor item is Randuin's Omen. Of these two, Sunfire Aegis is the better item to be rushed because the damage is best early game while Randuin's Omens active is less useful in lane, but outrageous in teamfights. Cape is also cheaper than Randuins. You should also rush this item against tanky low damage champions, even if they do magic damage, because the constant dps from Sunfire Aegis allows you to outtrade them easily and win the lane.

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This is another great item for Zac. It gives a huge chunk of health and will make you get around 4500 health endgame together with your other items. It isn't that strong that you will build it in every single game, but synergises extremely well with Zacs kit and will literally make you so hard to kill that you shouldn't die once you bought this. You should get this after you got Spirit Visage and one of the two core armor items completed. Also, Warmog's Armor + Sunfire Aegis = Mini- Garen.

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I strongly recommend getting this item if the enemy team has 2 or more AD-reliant champs. However, it is still good otherwise. It boosts your armor and health by a significant amount and cripples any champion attacking you. Besides this, it provides an amazing active AoE slow of 35%, which will last 4 seconds. This allows you to initiate and peel like a boss - knocking up and slowing the entire enemy team. It is not so strong early game, which is why you commonly get it later because of the amazing teamfight impact of this item. Get this as your 3rd full item vs AD-heavy teams, as 4th item vs. balanced or AP teams (Boots aren't counted).

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Another important thing to buy in midgame is your boots-upgrade. These are your solid standard Boots, as Tenacity is always a great thing to have and MR is nice, too.

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You should consider these Boots if more than just 2 of the enemy team are AD. They are very cheap and their passive can do a lot, especially if you play against AA-reliant champs.

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If you want more damage, especially if you are ahead, you can take these boots. As Zac has relatively poor AP ratios, you can accomplish his damage better by getting MPen instead of AP. They improve your damage a lot, especially against squishies, and they also synergise well with Sunfire Aegis. However, with these you also lose a bit of tankiness, so only take them if you know you can still survive most situations.

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Late Game

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Picking your endgame items is in most cases defined by the items you bought in your early and midgame. Most times you want to finish these items instead of buying completely new ones, so there is in fact not much to choose here (Just 1 additional Item and your Boots Enchantment).
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This item will greatly improve your damage in endgame. It will make your Stretching Strikes, Elastic Slingshot and Let's Bounce deal an additional 6-12% of your opponents current health over 3 seconds. This item together with Unstable Matter turns Zac into a real tank-buster and also deals significant damage to enemy squishies.

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This item will give you a nice boost for your AP and MR - that's why you would usually want this item against AP-heavy teams. Besides this, it also provides an Aura reducing the MR of enemies nearby. As you will likely stand right in the middle of a fight, this Aura will influence most of your enemies. Because of this, you will also find this item to help a lot if your team is AP-heavy. Getting this together with Sunfire Aegis, Liandry's Torment and Sorcerer's Shoes can dish out great amounts of damage. You'll be less tanky, though.

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With the changes to Banshee's Veil, it no longer gives mana, but gives more hp plus amazing regeneration effects. This makes it a good pick on Zac if you are playing against a very poke heavy team, or a very AP-heavy team. Nevertheless, this isn't a substitute for Spirit Visage, which means you have to get both if you want this.

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This Item will greatly increase your ability to compete with AD-heavy champions. It practically enables Zac to solo any enemy AD. No matter how short their cooldowns are, in the end it always comes down to a couple autoattacks, which is where Zac gets the upper hand. With his huge health pool and strong regeneration, this item will make him extremely resistant to physical damage while doing damage on a higher level than Sunfire Aegis if you are attacked.

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A little bit more expensive than the other enchantments, but it can be really useful. If you are initiating your teammates can follow you quicker and if you are escaping you can help your team escape (though you will usually not be the one to run out of a teamfight first...).

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I find this enchantment is the best choice for Zac. As the game often goes back and forth, this can help you defend your base better. At the same time, it greatly reduces the time you need to get back to your lane.

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Situational Items

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Choose these boots to get around the map quicker - Less useful in the top lane, but can come in handy if you are jungling. They make you incredibly fast and improve your mid game. However, i would recommend replacing them with other boots later in the game.

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Reduces all your cooldowns. Quite useful for Zac, but you lose out on the amazing passives of other boots, which usually isn't worth it.

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This item will often be build by either support or the jungler. As 2 Auras don't stack, i would not recommend getting this if someone else in your team already has one. However, if this isn't the case, it is a great item to take. Not only will it give you health, CDR and quite a good amount of resistances - it will also provide some resistances and a shield active to your team, so it will help your teammates a lot as you will probably be the one to stand in the battle for the longest period of time.

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Some armor, some MR, double revive. However, it is quite expensive for its resistances and if you get killed after your first revive, it is unlikely that you will survive after a second one. You can get it if you are with a dive-heavy team (e.g. with an Aatrox for revive power over 9000) where other team members also buy it, as it is quite hard to deal with multiple revivers.

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You should now say: "Wuuuz, Mejai's on a tank?". Let me tell you two stories: There once was a tank who thought "I'm gonna build Mejai's". He played quite well as a tank, so he got a lot of supports without getting killed. This made him do awesome damage due to his stacks, whilst remaining tanky. There once was a troll tank who thought "I'm gonna build Mejai's". After he got some stacks, his enemies noticed that he was stacking and decided to kill him. A fight came up, and they killed the tank. Meanwhile, the tank's teammates had a happy time scoring an ace. What I want to tell with this is: Stack items often tend to get enemies focusing you, and what's more to like for a tank than an item that makes enemies focusing you for just 1235 gold? Nothing. Assuming your enemies learn from their mistakes, they will stop focusing you after some time, though. Your problem is: If the enemy doesn't focus you but you still die, you flushed your money down the drain. You see, it is right in the situational spot. Nevertheless, if you are in some boring normal game and feel like playing SivHD, feel free to give it a try.

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Oh, I forgot an Item. Better get a new section for this anyways (this makes you feel as if it was more important, which is just true.) I'm gonna give you a few hints, and you may guess which item I am referring to.

Think of an Item that...

• Is fairly cheap.
• Is viable and recommendable on every single champion in the game. EVERYONE.
• Is strong at every point in the game.
• Can save your life and get you kills at the same time.
• Can get you farm, and even deny enemy farm.
• Actually, I am referring to two items.

And? You got an Idea? I guess you did, and here comes the solution:


It's the ward. The one item that is overpowered, yet so heavily underrated, especially in lower tiers of play. I simply can't stress enough how important warding is. Appropriate warding is just as important as all other core game mechanics. And when you are watching a challenger/diamond/platinum ranked game, I am pretty sure that you won't find a second without any wards on the battlefield (except the first minute maybe).



Yes, warding has become a little easier with Trinkets and buying wards is not as obligatory as in S3, but it is still needed for smooth gameplay and warding IS JUST AWESOME.

If you don't believe me, let's all take a look at what warding can give you (and your team):

• If you're laning, you can farm without having to worry about ganks. You can concentrate on lasthitting, end up getting more cs and money than you had without the ward - without any risk!.
• If you're jungling, you can catch invading enemies (more gold!) or secure stealing enemy buffs (gold AND buffs!).
• By warding (and counterwarding) important objectives, you can secure them for your team. If you don't ward objectives, the enemy team can take them down without you even noticing (=bad). Do the math: One dragon gives money for more than 10 Stealth Wards!
• With the Preseason 4 Patch, wards can no longer be mass-cleared with oracles, which makes them even more OP! Vision Wards are visible now, though, which means you have to defend them if you want to maintain control.

You see, warding is crucial. It's not just a "can", it's a "must". For every player (Well, ADCs will likely only use their Trinket)! Ward your lane/jungle; and encourage your team members to ward aswell! If everybody did their share, the entire river could be yours without much effort! And you know: The river is the path to victory!

Now that you all love warding, you might want to ask when and where to place wards. No? Continue with next chapter. Elsewise, read below.

Tips and Tricks for Warding:

• Each player can only place a maximum of 3 Stealth Wards and 1 Vision Ward in the game at the same time. Don't let your support be the only one who wards! Coordinate with your team to light up the fog of war and prevent nasty surprises.
• Place wards strategically so they can reveal multiple paths on the map. In best case you can reveal a brush, nearby jungle paths and a monster camp with just one ward.
• Use wards to prevent facechecking areas if you think enemies might be camping there.
• Vision Wards might be visible, but they DO NO LONGER EXPIRE. If you place a pink ward in a brush it takes longer to get spotted. In some rarely-passed or well-defended brushes, the ward often lasts over 10 minutes until destroyed.
• Look your minimap. Your wards don't help you if you just stare at the area around you.
• Be careful when warding the enemy jungle. You wan't to ward the enemy blue and three people go MiA? Better GTFO before you get ********ed! Zac is relatively safe as he is very tanky and has great escapes if he gets caught out, but its still a risky thing to do.
• Utilise options. If you see the enemy jungler walking to your jungle - don't just let him go away! Catch him out with two or three people for free gold to refund your ward and profit!
• Place wards where teamfights are about to happen! Assassins will likely try to sneak around you and kill your carries from behind, wards can prevent that and give you a free kill on the enemy assassin.
• Ward important objectives! You don't want them to get taken away by the enemy without you even noticing.

Your early game is mostly about farming, because you need to get the gold for your items. That's why you don't really want to leave your lane often, except for recalling. Zac's early game damage isn't the best and his sustain could be better, too, so you better don't aim on killing that angry Garen or Renekton or whatever might be hiding in your brush. However, Zac's early game CC is outstanding, so he is an excellent champion for an early gank (level 2 with Elastic Slingshot), which will either net a kill or burn a Flash for sure (Unless your lane opponent started with a Stealth Ward). This should give you a huge early advantage and will help you dominate your lane, or at least even it out if you have a bad matchup. Easy-to-gank opponents will likely get Stealth Ward, so be aware when they use it (tell your jungler!) and strike in the 1 minute window where the ward expired but is not off cooldown.

If your jungler doesn't feel like giving you an early kill or your enemy escapes for any reason, you will likely just end up farming until you hit 6, poking and lasthitting with your Stretching Strikes. If your enemy is melee and lacks sustain, you can zone him with constant Q poke, as Stretching Strikes does quite a lot of damage. While lasthitting or harassing with abilities, try not to hit too many minions besides your target as it will push the lane and leave you vulnerable to enemy ganks. If you push by accident, make sure to buy a Stealth Ward or to have your Stealth Ward available for gank-prevention.

If you don't have your river warded for any reason (lets just assume it happens from time to time) and your lane is pushed to the enemy turret, you should leave the enemy alone to prevent getting ganked. You can either recall or farm Golems or Wolves/Wight, depending on whether you're purple or blue. If you get ganked before you can back, use Stretching Strikes to slow your enemies and walk away. They will most likely throw some CC at you. You have to wait until they have used ALL their Hard CC before you use Elastic Slingshot. Nothing hurts more than being grabbed by Apprehend right before your click to safety. If they all save their Hard CC, use Flash. This will most likely surprise them and get you out of range from their abilities. After flashing, you can Elastic Slingshot to your turret before they get close enough for CC (requires knowledge about the range of their abilities, though).

To conclude your game until you reach level 6:

• Focus on Farming (Lasthit mostly with AA, if necessary with Stretching Strikes or Unstable Matter, not with Elastic Slingshot as it has a long CD and leaves you vulnerable to ganks). You should aim to get at least 120 minion kills at the 20 minutes mark, 150 would be a great amount to aim at.
• Get an early gank if possible. Care when your lane opponent uses his Stealth Ward, then strike either in the 1 minute wardless window, or remove it if you got Sweeping Lens.
• Harass melee champs with Stretching Strikes.
• Don't try to kill your opponent unless you are sure to kill him without dying.
• Try not to push your lane, as you don't actually want to recall pre 6. If you push, be sure to have the river warded ( Stealth Ward or Stealth Ward).
• If you get ganked, time your Elastic Slingshot carefully to prevent it from being interrupted.
• Diving means that you will most likely die or lose your passive revive, so only do it if you are sure you kill your opponent with it without dying.
• Call MiA whenever your lane opponent leaves. It's better to spam than to have your midlaner dying. Especially care if your lane opponent has Teleport. Repeat your MiA ping (G-click-left) around every 10-15 seconds because other laners often tend to forget that you pinged.
• Don't stupidly buy your items in the order listed above. As you only have few gold to spend early on, adapted item choices are more important than ever.
• In case you get behind a lot, stay passive and farm up. Don't try to make plays without your jungler unless your lane opponent makes a huge mistake.

Mid Game is the time where Zac starts to shine, especially if you already bought Spirit Visage and Sunfire Aegis. You become a feared towerdiver hopping around the map at warp speed. Get a gank, get rid of that lane opponent annoying you. Your 2 knockups should make this easy if you didn't feed early game, coordinate with your jungler to chain your CC-abilities correctly, then Let's Bounce + Jungler CC, abilities and autoattacks. In the best case, your jungler comes up with a surprise attack and roots the enemy in place with snares or stuns, then you jump in with your E to knock him up and both use their normal abilities to shut him down. If that's not enough, use your ult and (if necessary) Ignite. It is going to take you some normal game practice until you learn how much damage you can do with your abilities and use them as necessary. Until then, better use one ability too much than letting your enemy escape.

After a gank, push your lane, then go roam mid lane and get your team some kills or take their turret for a gold advantage (This is dependant on the abilities you needed to kill your opponent, if your ult and ignite are down, you shouldn't bother that much with roaming and go for the turret instead). If you are taking a turret, be aware of missing enemies and of your minions, you need about 40 seconds to take it down because your autoattack damage is very low, preferably get the jungler to help you with the towerpush. If roaming, don't forget to drop some Stealth Wards in the river/jungle as they will really help your team. The easiest way to prevent ganks and counterjungles is to keep the entrances to your jungle warded, more wards will help invading or securing objectives:



When ganking, jump out of the blue with your Elastic Slingshot. If you did not hit your enemy, use Stretching Strikes to slow him down. If you did, wait until the knockback is over before you slow him to get maximum CC time. When you feel you can get the kill, use Let's Bounce and/or Ignite. During all time, spam Unstable Matter for more damage. Good ganks also require coordination, so tell your allies when you are going to gank and try not to waste all your CC-Spells at once, but use one after another to constantly impair your enemy's movement.
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If you can't kill your lane opponent or bully him out of lane, push your lane as strong as possible with Stretching Strikes and Unstable Matter, then go roam while your enemy is clearing your minion wave.
If your enemy is a stronger pusher than you and you can't kill him for any reason, you will have no choice and need to stay on your lane. Farm as much creeps as possible as fast as possible and you will be just fine when the teamfights start.

VIH: As you will likely be roaming alot, it might of course happen that your enemy tries the same. If he leaves your lane - tell it your teammates (G-click-left).

Late game, you will go with your team, ward important team objectives like Dragon or Baron (Baron control is of high importance, use Vision Wards here) or splitpush most of the time. As the team's tank, you should always stay in range to help your team when a teamfight starts, as your team needs your CC and your tankiness, especially your carries need your protection. If I didn't mention before, you should be almost immortal at this stage of the game (If you aren't, you did something wrong).

In a teamfight, you should Elastic Slingshot to knockup as many people as possible, then use Stretching Strikes to slow them and/or Let's Bounce to knock them up again (don't forget to jump around between them to knockup as many people as possible). During all time, spam Unstable Matter for more damage.

When you have to decide your CC target, there are 2 viable possibilities, depending on your position. If you were initiating on the enemy team because you caught someone out of position or whatever, focus their carries first to cripple their damage output (ADC or APC depends on who is most fed, I tend to focus the APC first because the ADC's damage is often reduced via Exhaust by your support).

However, if your team was caught in a bad position, do whatever you can do to protect your carries and get your team out of the sticky situation. CC their assasins, slow them, let your team escape, even if it costs your life. You should NEVER use your Elastic Slingshot to jump away and leave your team alone (No joke, I saw that already). To flee or not to flee is the question for your carries, not you. All you need to do is adapt to what your carries do. If they flee, ensure that they escape. If they go all in, ensure their safety while trying to put out damage and CC where necessary. If one of your carries dies, blame yourself, not him (Well, there are some obvious exceptions. Trolls, for example).

All in all: Fight for your carries, and die for your carries if it can't be prevented.

Some tips and tricks for teamfights:

• A good way to move through the enemy team is to use Elastic Slingshot on their carries (these will likely be at the back of their team), Stretching Strikes in their team to slow assasins and initiators, then Let's Bounce while moving back to your team. This often makes the enemy focusing you, and you do damage to their carries while protecting your team in an aggresive way. As your ultimate also applies a slight knockback, it can either knock carries out of the fight for a time or knock them towards your team, depending on where you land with Elastic Slingshot.
• If your team is trying to escape and you know you are about to die, use Elastic Slingshot to jump behind the enemy team if possible. This will make enemies turn around and loose time while they kill you and your blobs, which will save the rest of your team.
• Elastic Slingshot is wonderful for cutting your enemies escape path.
• If you won a teamfight, you need to decide for an objective to take. Most likely the decision will be "Baron or inhibitor?". Baron Buff should be taken when you just won closely, because it will ensure that you can win the next teamfight, too. Inhibitors can be taken to put more pressure on the enemy base and finally win the game. Oftentimes, you should simply take the closest objective to prevent losing time.

I'm going to expand this section more and more while playing. At the Moment the following champions are included:

Why Zac on TT?

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I decided to add this section because Zac is one of the most fabulous champions for 3v3 and it needed to be mentioned somewhere. So, what makes Zac so strong on Twisted Treeline?
Here are the reasons:

• The map is fairly small, which makes his Elastic Slingshot ridiculously strong. There is, in fact, no wall that Zac cannot jump over in Twisted Treeline.
• Because he offers amazing AoE utility for his team by means of hard CC. As enemies are often grouped up because of the small map and many objectives like the altars or Vilemaw, his AoE is going to hit hard.
• He is able to kite/poke well with Stretching Strikes to maintain lane control even without items.
• He is insanely tanky, yet dishes out quite a lot of damage because of AoE.
• When farming, Zac's skills as a jungler will definitely come in handy. Jump straight on a creep camp from your lane, farm the jungle for money and exp, then gank one of the lanes. This will get your team more gold and exp and will make the enemy fear your ganks whenever you go farming, as you can go from farming to ganking in 1 second with Elastic Slingshot.
• As there are no wards on Twisted Treeline (except some active items or Teemo), your ganks become unpredictable.

Items:

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For Runes, Masteries and Skills read the build notes in the cheat sheet above. For the Items, the build notes should help a lot, yet I will still list the new viable Items and their advantages/disadvantages:

Hextech Sweeper

This Item is quite cheap, offers a bit of health, CDR, AP and MS plus amazing utility as it will make ganks way more predictable and offers stealth detection against annoying Twitches or Shacos running away (Actively detects stealth, passively detects traps). Plus it builds out of Kindlegem, which is a wonderful item for the first recall. You should definitely get this item quick against stealth or brush-camping teams, e.g. when playing against Teemo/ Evelynn/ Shaco, or vs. Garen.

The Warmog's Armor for Twisted Treeline. It is a bit cheaper and gives a bit less health, yet the regeneration is different from Warmog's Armor. Instead of regenerating while out of combat it heals by 60 hp/sec for 5 sec after each kill or assist. This will make it stronger in teamfights, yet you don't regenerate while farming or roaming.

Zac Jumps on TT:

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The following map shows some examples of useful jumps with Zac when playing in Twisted Treeline:
Green arrows (gank): Jumps for ganking, or for getting around faster.
Yellow arrows (engage): Jumps for engaging on altars without being seen while channeling.
Red arrows (dive): Diving spots to kill your enemy under his turret.



All in all, Zac was made for domination in 3v3 games - try it out!

Secret Tip for smart people: Make a 3v3 team with your friends and use Zac, Wukong and Aatrox or Vi, then make knock-knock jokes all game long while you play pinball with your enemies.

All in all, Zac is a very tanky and CC heavy champ. He is able to do ganks and initiations you have never seen before and can knockup an entire team twice. His unique skillset and passive make him fun to play and definitely make games more interesting. For a strategic summary, look at this wonderful summary banner I just stole from jhoijhoi without asking her:


Free line Free line .
Ending Words

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After a terribly long time of reading (You shouldn't have trusted me - hah!) you have finally reached the point where you can say: "Yay, I have made it through that terrifyingly unsorted, unprofessional, overcoloured (I needed to say that this word has one letter for each standard colour mobafire enables), annoyingly long guide recommending Mejai's Soulstealer for a tank - phew." And I bet you learned nothing you didn't already know :P.

What I want to say is: Thank you for reading, you're gonna get a cookie for this.



If you have any further questions and/or corrections concerning build/guide/grammar/spelling or whatever, feel free to leave a comment, I will try to check my comments regularly, FAQ section will be added as soon as frequently asked questions exist.
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Credits

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Credits to:

• Jhoijhoi for her Guide to making a guide. And for not complaining that I steal templates from her without asking.
• -NA- Veng Lmfao for fast constructive feedback and tips to improve my guide.
• The people who made these amazing pictures and videos I put in my build.
• Barney for his Idea to create a suitwearing Zac-skin.
• Anyone who took the time to read this entire guide, test it out and give constructive criticism.

You're gonna get 2 cookies.

I remember having promised that I would offer unique fotoshooting material of Zac never seen before. Very well then - here we go: