Zac is a much underplayed champion who I think is extremely underrated. I used to main Leesin or Evelynn in Season 4, but I’ve loved Zac ever since his release. And after the nerfs to leesin, and the introduction of Cinderhulk, I have had a lot of success playing Zac, getting a 67% win rate over 70 games, and getting Diamond by maining him. Let me share with you all the tips and tricks of Zac, and I promise he will win you soloq games.

This is my first guide, so if there's anything that is not clear, please leave a comment and I'll try my best to get back to you.

I've included a less viable but extremely fun build, Runeglaive Zac. Click the second Zac icon at the top to view it.

As you read this guide, you will notice that I say PICK UP BLOBS a lot. Picking up blobs is very very very important when playing Zac. You should PICK UP BLOBS whenever you can, unless you are chasing someone and you are sure they cant kill you. In any skirmish, between auto attacks or abilities, PICK UP BLOBS.

The Areas that I'll mention are First Clear; Ganking; Midgame; Teamfight.

Also, you will be suprised by how much damage Zac can do with just Sorcerer's Shoes and Haunting Guise as damage items.

Zac’s passive is an incredible sustain tool, and allows you to clear the jungle without using health potions. The route that I always do is Gromp, Blue, Wolves, Raptors, Krugs, Red. It doesn't matter which side you are on, as Zac can clear without a leash.

Ward red buff bush as you walk past it to Elastic Slingshot onto krugs. Zac is weak 1v1 against most junglers and being invaded is not fun.

Spam your abilities and PICK UP BLOBS. They heal you and lowers your w cooldown. It’s very important.

Don’t use health pots until you are at your red. Your passives heals more when you are low hp. You will stay at around 200-300hp during your first clear, but as long as you ward the red bush, you are quite safe. Use your potions when you start red buff and smite it at the very last moment.

This route will give you level 4 at around 3:30 and full hp. So you can now gank and make a play.

Remember to AA! It’s easy to forget to AA when you are playing Zac, but in the early game AA does a considerable amount of damage, and you have to apply your red buff.

You must land your Elastic Slingshot! Your ganks will probably fail if you don’t land your E. It’s a great CC, and deals quite a lot of damage because we max it first.

Tips to land your E:

Charge your E from a lane bush or river bush, and splat on their face. Remember to sweep the bush with red trinket.
When you are in melee range, you can also bunny hop on them by tapping your E. The quick cast time will guarantee a hit.
Loop around and walk up from behind them. Slow them with q and red buff and E them when they used their escape. However, this does not work against irelia wukong fiora xin etc, because they can dash to you when you are behind them, and use you as an escape.

Counter Ganking:

2v2 skirmishes are what Zac excels at. You have good burst, hard CC, and they cant focus you because of your passive. Therefore, always look for counter gank opportunities.

Counter Ganking is about map awareness and predictions. What i suggest you do is always think about where the enemy jungler is. Get into the minds of the enemy, and think about which lane is likely to be ganked. And of course Warding helps a lot.

When you do predict a gank coming, you should hide in the fog of war and jump on both enemies when they collapse on your laner. Make sure you and your laner focus the same target and the fight will most likely end in your favour.

As you play more Zac, you will learn the best places to charge your Elastic Slingshot from. As long as they cant see you before you start flying, it's ok. However, I DO NOT recommend jumping in from far away just to get in range of a Q. Like i said, if you don't land your Elastic Slingshot, your gank will fail.

If they do focus you, PICK UP BLOBS and survive longer.

For a tank, Zac has great Jungle clear speeds. Therefore, it is okay for you to farm the jungle, as long as no objectives are being taken by the enemy. However, Zac's ultimate is very strong and you shouldn look to gank whenever it is up.

Tower diving as Zac is relatively easy. You have great CC and your passive will help you survive. If you coordinate with your mid laner to 4 man dive bot, then get dragon, you will come out VERY ahead. Just be sure that the enemies are not there to counter.

The easiest time to engage is when the enemy is pushing your tower. For example, if they are grouping and pushing your outer mid tower, just charge Elastic Slingshot from the raptor camp and lay your AOE down on everyone.

Once you get tankier, when fighting PICK UP BLOBS! You will understand how powerful it is once you start doing it. You will be much harder to kill, and spam your Unstable Matter more which gives you more DPS.

You always want to be the initiator. Tell your team to wait for your engage. If you are behind your team, and you need to waste e just to reposition, it's very bad.

How to initiate

Always use red trinket on areas you want to charge your Elastic Slingshot from,and land it on their carries. It's quite easy to avoid Zac if they see you charging Elastic Slingshot. In a way, Zac is similar to Fiddlesticks.

Press Unstable Matter as you land your Elastic Slingshot. Your target will be stunned for 1 sec. Use that time to walk behind them and use Let's Bounce to knock them back into your team.
If you are experienced, you may be able to sneak in a Stretching Strikes before using ult.

While you are bouncing in Let's Bounce, PICK UP BLOBS close to you that you just created with your combo. Normally your speed boost from your ult allows you to catch up to your target even after the detour. This LOWERS YOU Unstable Matter, and lets you get off 2 to 3 Unstable Matter damage while you are bouncing.
After you use your cooldowns, you are easily kited. So DON’T tunnel on their carries and walk back to peel for yours.

Fighting Tanks

Sometimes after a messy teamfight, all the carries might have died and you would be fighting enemy bruisers or tanks. You should spam your skills and PICK UP BLOBS. Usually when you are low, your passive can outheal tank’s DPS. When your skills are on cooldown, you should kite them and minimise the autoattacks they can do. And since you are just walking around, PICK UP BLOBS!

I always see other zac players just running from a fight instead of picking up bolbs and kiting. Remember, if you have spirit visage and the mastery you heal SO FREAKING MUCH! Let’s do the maths and pretend you have 3k health and you are at 25% hp. 4% x 1.2 x 1.1 = 5.28% of maximum health. That’s 160 health for each blob. If you use E W Q on them, you get 4 blobs back (E gives an extra blob for each champion hit.) You would get 720 health! ( The actual number is a bit less because once you healed the mastery might not proc anymore). PICK UP BLOBS!

To see the build, click the second Zac icon at the top.

One BIG tip on how to proc your runeglaive is to Charge your Elastic Slingshot, then as you are flying, right click your target once. You will automatically auto attack as soon as you land, and procs your runeglaive ASAP. Press w as you land, then PICK UP BLOBS, so that your Unstable Matter can come back up within 1.5sec, and you can proc your next runeglaive.

Pros

• Does a lot of damage
• w can constantly proc runeglaive
• clear speed in the mid game is amazing
• Can farm to a higher level than everyone else
• Can duel other bruisers because of challenging smite
• Much better tower damage
• Can get fed a lot more easily due to higher damage
• Has higher carry potential

Cons

• Delayed tank items means you can't teamfight until later
• With so little MR, midlaners can burst you instantly before you get visage
• You should farm more than usual, which gives your team less map pressure
• The mana from runeglaive is wasted statistics
• Probably will get raged at and be called a troll
• If you can't get kills early, you are not as useful as the traditional build because you are not tanky
• This build is even more dependent on landing your E, because you are vulnerable if your target is not CCed.

I hope you guys will try this build out and get extremely fed. But if you are new to Zac, you are better off with the tankier build, as it is a lot more forgiving.