Guide Details x Introduction x Socials Essentials x Runes x Summoner Spells x Itemization x Gameplay

End x Conclusion x Update Log

Introduction

Heyy, I am Erknaite! I peaked Master 501 LP in Season 12 playing exclusively Zac with 59% winrate reaching Rank 4 Zac EUW back in August! I have been playing League since Season 8, I have 3.7 million points on Zac and I strive to be the best Zac OTP in the world.

I made this guide due to a lack of updated guides on Season 13 and a big amount of requests from people wanting to learn Zac.

In this guide I will explain runes and item builds. However I won't go in depth with how to play Zac mechanically because he is not that mechanically demanding to begin with.
Season 12 Peak
Season 13 Split 1 Peak :)

Socials
Twitch - I am striving to be a successful Twitch Streamer. Be sure to follow, my purpose is to make it educational and entretaining.

Twitter - Where I discuss about league, post memes and other stuff.

Youtube - This is going to be my channel where I will upload selected gameplay, work in progress currently.

Discord - My server where you can ask me any Zac related questions and talk with other members.

Aftershock

Aftershock provides you safety when you engage in providing you bonus Armor and Magic Resist when immobilizing enemies with Stretching Strikes, Elastic Slingshot or Let's Bounce!. Cosmic Insight is important to reduce Flash and Smite cooldown. Flash is very important for playmaking with your Stretching Strikes. When running this rune Smite is available at 2:40-2:50 minutes enabling you to contest early invades on your 2nd Buff. Magical Footwear is really useful so you don't have to buy boots, save 300G and rush Sunfire Aegis as soon as possible. Conqueror Conqueror is the best rune for Zac when the enemy team is quite tanky and has very little burst damage and excels in sustained damage as it provides you Ability Power when hitting abilities, and 8% healing based on your damage dealt. Enemy Team Example: Top: Ornn | Jungle: Hecarim | Mid: Sylas | ADC: Jinx | Support: Leona The only downside of this rune is that you lack the tankiness when engaging but shouldn't be an issue when picked in the right scenario.

FLASH Flash is Zac’s most important tool to guarantee game winning engages with your Stretching Strikes after landing Elastic Slingshot. Can also be used for Let's Bounce! + Flash combo to surprise enemies.

SMITEI think it's kinda self explanatory why you go Smite on jungle.

The Erknaite Build Template

I came up with this build template that anyone can use for Zac in their games with the objective of being simple, straightforward and successful.
This will already include your Mythic and Sunfire Aegis in mind unless the enemy team is AP heavy.

Note:
Keep in the mind that there's no specific order in which you should build your items. As a tank you should adapt your builds to the current game state.
I won't be counting supports for this.

Don't blindly copy it, I will give a brief explanation of each item below.

Legend:

- Health Item

- Armor Item

- Magic Resist item

- Gargoyle Stoneplate

- Anathema's Chains




2 AD and 2 AP

+ +

Standard

Vs Heavy Healing

3 AD and 1 AP

+ [AP Threat] +

Standard

Vs Heavy Crit

Vs Heavy Healing

3 AP and 1 AD

+ + [AD Threat] +

Standard

3+ AP vs 3+ AP team (RARE)

Full AP

2x + 2x

Standard

Full AD

+ 2x

Standard

Vs Heavy Crit

Vs High Attack Speed

Early Core Items

Mosstomper Seedling Mosstomper Seedling provides shield and tenacity. It's a good pet vs teams with burst and/or CC. You don't need to buy Health Potion because Zac's clear is healthy enough and it's better to save that tiny bit of gold for your early spikes.

Gustwalker Hatchling Gustwalker Hatchling provides lots of movement speed. It's a good pet vs teams that can kite you and/or with no CC.

Scorchclaw Pup Scorchclaw Pup provides max health% true damage and slow. It's a good pet vs teams that are tanky.

Dark Seal Dark Seal is the best item in the early game for Zac as it provides you free 55 AP when you reach 10 stacks which is fairly easy to do on a Tank like Zac that has very low deaths. You may ask, why is 55 AP that good on him? Zac has one of the highest AP ratios in the game specially on his Unstable Matter which has a 3% max HP per 100 AP ratio. You only sell the item when you buy your 6th item.

Sunfire Aegis Sunfire Aegis is a good all around Armor item. It's a very cheap 1st item powerspike and it provides great stats, damage and clear speed. Avoid building it 1st item if the enemy comp is AP heavy, if so, build Bami's Cinder + your mythic instead and then build situationally.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity Ionian Boots of Lucidity are a must to rush early game because Zac scales exponentially with Scaling CDR increasing your clear speed. More CDR = more Abilities = more Blobs = more Abilities = more Blobs ... which increases your damage and sustain significantly.

Mythics

Radiant Virtue Radiant Virtue is generally good. It provides you high HP when using your Ultimate and heals yourself including your allies around you. It's great in short fights.

Jak'sho, The Protean Jak'Sho, The Protean is situational but it's incredibly strong in the right situations. It should be bought against enemy compositions that force you to have extended fights as its Armor and Magic Resist increase + sustain is amazing for those games compared to Radiant Virtue.

Armor Items

Randuin’s Omen Randuin's Omen is very effective vs Crit champions like ADCs and some Melee champions such as Yasuo, Yone and Tryndamere.

Thornmail Thornmail is very good vs Heavy Healing auto attack based champions and draintank items such as Divine Sunderer and Blade of the Ruined King.

Frozen Heart Frozen Heart is very effective vs High Attack speed champions that don't build Crit such as Kog'Maw and Varus.

Knight's Vow Amazing item to put on your carry, when they're the only win condition, providing them damage reduction and their damage dealt is converted into healing for you.

Zhonya's Hourglass You're only ever buying this item vs Vayne because there's no way to survive her %Max HP true damage, but why didn't you dodge the game?

Magic Resist Items

Spirit Visage Spirit Visage is arguably one of the best items in the game for Zac as it provides you healing amplification which makes you almost invincible at Lvl 16 when your passive Cell Division spikes and your blobs start healing for 7% of your Max Health.

Abyssal Mask Abyssal Mask is extremely cheap and gives you up to 105 Magic Resist and up to 25 Magic Resist shred. It's overpowered right now. Although consider replacing it with Spirit Visage if you don't have any AP ally or if one of your allies already has Abyssal Mask because it doesn't stack with eachother.

Banshee's Veil Only buy Banshee's Veil on Zac when you absolutely need it in games against an enemy that has a key CC ability that can always cancel your Elastic Slingshot.

Health and AP Items

Demonic Embrace Demonic Embrace is Zac's best AP item in the game, its burn passive is amazing to deal with tankier targets and its bonus HP to AP conversion passive is capable of giving you up to 100-120 AP full build.

Morellonomicon Consider buying Morellonomicon over Demonic Embrace if the enemy team has non-auto attack based heavy healing such as Soraka, Vladimir and Aatrox.

Mejai's Soulstealer Mejai's Soulstealer is the cheapest AP option you can get, although risky, it has a very big reward giving you up to 145 AP at 25 stacks for only 1250 gold (considering you already have Dark Seal).

Cosmic Drive Cosmic Drive is the best replacement for Ionian Boots of Lucidity if you want to sell them when you're full build as it provides you some of the movement speed lost, ability haste and even more AP.

Anathema's chains Anathema's Chains is the best item in the game to deal with a single threat as its 30% damage reduction vendetta passive + 650 HP is absolutely insane for just 2500 Gold.

Void Staff Consider Void Staff as replacement for Demonic Embrace / Mejai's Soulstealer if the enemy team is going to stack a lot of Magic Resist against you.

The Rabadon's Deathcap of the Tanks

Gargoyle Stoneplate Gargoyle Stoneplate is insane on Zac as it provides a lot of Armor and Magic Resist and an additional +5% of those per enemy champion targeting you up to 25%! You can also activate its shield that scales with 90% of your bonus HP. It's the equivalent of Rabadon's Deathcap for Tanks.

Zac Gameplay Guides

This is the best condensed guide with Tips and Tricks showing gameplay from the best Zac OTP in Korea

The items are outdated in the video but the gameplay is the most important part!

Play Video

I also recommend to watch this video that goes through how to play Zac macro wise.

Play Video

Thanks for Reading!
I hope this guide could help you learn Zac's builds, runes and gameplay (watch the video very important!!!!).

If you have any more questions, contact me on Discord or Twitter, all socials are linked in the beginning of the guide.
Make sure to follow me on Twitch as I will be streaming my journey to Challenger in the beginning of the Season and limit testing during Preseason!!

Update Log

Patch 13.17 Re-added Conqueror in Runes chapter. Removed Evenshroud in Itemization chapter. Added Gustwalker Hatchling and Scorchclaw Pup in Itemization chapter.

Patch 13.16 Added Knight's Vow in Itemization chapter