Hi, and thank you for reading my Zac guide. I have played League of Legends for a few years now, and after playing almost all of the champions in the game, I can safely say that Zac is my favorite. Zac's exceptional sustain from Cell Division paired with his safe poke from his Stretching Strikes and sustained damage from Unstable Matter make him a force to be reckoned with in the top lane. Moreover, his ultimate ability, Let's Bounce make him a true terror. I have used Zac top lane to help me climb to Platinum Elo, and I believe that if played correctly, he can get you there, too.

WHY ZAC TOP INSTEAD OF ZAC JUNGLE
Personally, I believe that Zac cannot reach his full potential in the jungle. I say this because I have felt that Zac is somewhat kill/farm reliant. He needs good items to best fulfil his role as a beefy tank. This is best accomplished by going top lane. His kit has built in poke in Stretching Strikes that is useful for zoning his lane opponent, and what makes his ganks so good, his Elastic Slingshot can be used to set up clean ganks by your jungler as well as initiating on your own. Overall, he scales much better into the late game by going top lane rather then jungling.

MARKS

For marks I recommend taking 9 Greater Mark of Magic Penetration because they allow you to cut into some amount of your lane opponent's Magic Resist early on for better poke and overall damage. They also scale very well into the late game.

SEALS

For seals I recommend taking 9 Greater Seal of Armor as they provide you with ample amounts of armor that is very useful if you are laning against an AD champion, as well as reducing the damage of other AD champions as you will most likely be your team's main tank and need to be able to handle large amounts of damage being thrown at you.

GLYPHS

For glyphs, you really have two options. You can either take Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, or Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist. It comes down to personal preference on weather you want more MR late game for maximum tankiness, or if you want it for better survivablity early on.

QUINTESSENCE

As far as quintessences go, I feel that you have two viable options as well. I usually take Greater Quintessence of Ability Power, but I have found success with Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed as well. This is also personal preference.

http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/mastery-tree-planner#&tree1=0-0-3-1-0-0-3-1-0-0-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&tree2=2-2-2-0-1-3-0-0-1-1-1-3-0-0-0-0-4-0-1&tree3=0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&v=2

For your masteries, it is best to go 9/21/0 to reach your goal of being a tanking monster with decent damage capabilities. Put the 9 points in the Offense tree into Sorcery, Butcher , Mental Force , Feast, and Arcane Mastery to maximize your capability to sustain as well as deal damage. The other 21 points should go into the Defense tree, taking points in Block , Recovery , Enchanted Armor , Unyielding , Veteran Scars , Juggernaut , Hardiness , Resistance , Perseverance, Legendary Guardian , and Tenacious . This mastery set up will allow you to be prepared for anyone you may lane against top as well as transition you into a teamfighting beast once you get your items.

STARTING ITEMS
Option 1: This is the regular start that I take. It gives you extra movement speed useful for escaping ganks and dodging skill shots. It has somewhat fallen out of favor in Season 3, but I think that it is generally the best start for Zac because he has no secondary resource.

Option 2: This is a very strong start when you are against a strong AD champion in lane. You get extra armor to counter that as well as TONS of sustain to stay in lane for as long as you need.
FIRST BACK
Option 1: Similar to my starting items, if I go up against a strong AD laner, I will finish my Ninja Tabi and get a Chain Vest on my first back. If you can only afford one go for the Ninja Tabi because of its passive.

Option 2: If you are up against a top laner such as Elise or Vladimir or Rumble or just anyone who is AP, you should aim to get this with your first back. This will allow you to be tanky enough to handle any burst they aim at you.
CORE ITEMS These items are probably enough to make you annoyingly tanky. You get enough MR, Armor, and Health to faceroll their AP and AD carries as well as adding some extra bonuses. The Spirit Visage gives you health and MR, but also adds some extreme extra sustain because of its passive. Also, the Sunfire Aegis synergizes really well with the AoE damage from your Unstable Matter and as such gives you extra encouragement to be in the middle of their team, trolling away.
FULL BUILD
Option 1: If you are against a primarily AD team, this is the build to go with. You will be packing enough armor to troll the enemy team for days. You also have the Spirit Visage for the extra sustain due to its passive.

Option 2: This is a very good final build if you are going up against a heavily AP team. This gives you heavy MR to counter all of their damage and just lets you troll forever.

CELL DIVISION
Each time Zac hits an enemy with an ability, he sheds a chunk of himself that can be reabsorbed to restore 4% of his maximum health.
Upon taking fatal damage, Zac splits into 4 chunks that attempt to recombine. If any of these chunks remain after 8 seconds, he will revive with 10-50% health depending on the health of the surviving chunks. Each chunk has 12% of Zac's maximum health, and 50% of his armor and magic resistance. This ability has a static cooldown and is unaffected by cooldown reduction.
As Zac, your passive is Cell Division. Think of it like an Anivia passive, with added goodness. Upon death, you break into 4 chunks and they all slowly recombine to make a new you. While they are slightly easy to kill, as they only receive 50% of your resistances, they make for a great passive. I've only played him for a day, and it has saved me countless times. Also, you get your ridiculous sustain from this passive. Each time you use any spell that hits an enemy, you drop a little chunk of yourself that heal yourself upon being picked up. You can get some serious sustain from this, especially with a Spirit Visage.



STRETCHING STRIKE
Zac lashes out with an elastic punch, dealing 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 220 (+ 50% AP) magic damage to all enemies hit and slowing them for 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% 2 seconds.
This is your primary poke ability that you should use in top lane. It has a relatively short range, but in top lane, you go against many melee champions that are susceptible to this kind of poke. It also has a very good slow that is useful for chasing people, as well as to escape from people chasing you. I max this ability second, but it still provided good poke early on.



UNSTABLE MATTER
Zac's body erupts, dealing 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 magic damage equal to a base amount plus a percentage of 4 / 4.5 / 5 / 5.5 / 6% (+ 2% per 100 AP) of their maximum health to all nearby enemies (max 200 damage against minions and monsters).
This is the ability that I max first as Zac because of it's large damage increase by doing so. By maxing your Unstable Matter you get a variety of things. For one, you get a lot more sustained damage. Also, you get a strong poke while laning. Since most of the champions you face off against top will be melee, you can think of this AoE ability as a poke. If each time you and your lane opponent go to last hit a minion, you use Unstable Matter, you will gradually poke away a large amount of their health. While fighting this should be used whenever available in order to gradually melt their team.



ELASTIC SLINGSHOT
Zac faces the cursor and begins charging for up to 1 second. After 1 second or after reactivating the ability he launches himself towards the target location, dealing 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+ 70% AP) magic damage to all enemies hit and knocking them back for 0.5 seconds.

Can be cancelled by moving; refunding 50% of the health cost.
As Zac, your Elastic Slingshot is your most reliable form of Crowd Control. It has a fairly long cooldown, but it is well warranted. You can jump over almost any wall and the icing on the cake is that there is a nice knock back. Also, I need to look further into this, but from my short playing experience with Zac, there is either a bug or an intended awesome feature to his Elastic Slingshot. I have found that if you Flash while your Elastic Slingshot the distance will be expanded to include the flash. Meaning that if someone is just out of range of your jump, but you jump anyways and Flash before the animation "lands", the knock back and the damage will be applied to where you land.


Let's Bounce
LET'S BOUNCE
Zac leaps into the air and begins to bounce on the ground, up to a maximum of 4 bounces. Each bounce deals 160 / 240 / 320 (+ 25% AP) magic damage to nearby enemies, knocks them up for 1 second, and slows them by 20% for 1 second. Enemies hit more than once take half damage and are not knocked up or slowed. Zac gains an accelerating movement speed buff (20-50%) while active.

Zac can right-click and can activate Unstable Matter to move while in the air. While active, Zac is unable to activate Stretching Strike or Elastic Slingshot.
[[Let's Bounce is your ultimate ability. Despite Zac being very tanky, while having relatively low ability power, you can still burst someone fairly well with your ultimate due to the high base damage on it. It can also be used as a very good crowd control ability by knocking back targets that are focusing your carries. One of the most useful uses for this ability is escaping. It is on a fairly short cooldown, and as such can be used to escape from ganks during laning phase if you feel that there is no other way to get away.

I find that it is best to max your Unstable Matter first because of the insane AoE percentage health damage that ensues when you do it. It is incredibly ridiculous. After that, you should max your Stretching Strikes as soon as possible. This allows for better poke before initiating and lowers the cooldown for better sustain as well. Next, make sure to put your remaining points into your Elastic Slingshot. Needless to say, you should be taking points into your ultimate, Let's Bounce whenever possible: at level 6, 11, and 16.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my guide. I hope that you enjoyed it and I intend to expand it and add more to it in the future. Zac is an incredibly fun champion that excels in various areas in the game, and as such I recommend him to anyone because playing him has probably been the most fun I have had in my year of experience (except for maybe playing AP Rengar). Overall, he is very a very strong champion so pick him up before he gets perma-banned or nerfed!