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Runes: Tank Man
+8 Ability Haste
+6 Armor
+6 Armor
Spells:
Flash
Smite
Items
Ability Order Always
Cell Division (PASSIVE)
Zac Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Vayne
Not Vayne jungle, just Vayne in general. She will kill you in 5-6 autos late game. BAN.
Yasuo
Zac has a lot of knock ups, great for Yasuo.
Yasuo
Zac has a lot of knock ups, great for Yasuo.
Champion Build Guide
A Challenger Jungler (NA), YouTuber, and Twitch Streamer
Hello! Welcome to my Zac guide. My name is KingStix and I'm a challenger jungler on NA. I play a variety of jungle champions and make educational League of Legends content to help players improve their skills and climb the ladder. I'm constantly updating my guides to bring you guys the most up-to-date information to help you carry your game. I really hope your enjoy this guide, and if you have any questions please leave them below in the comments so I can help you out.
Thank you for checking out this Zac guide. If you would like to check out more of my educational League of Legends content, you can find me on YouTube and Twitch.
Cell Division (Passive) |
Zac gains size (capped at 35%) with his bonus health and shrinks based on his missing health. When Zac damages an enemy, he sheds little particles of himself that he can then pick up to heal within 6 seconds. These heal depending on the rank of your ultimate- 4%/5%/6%/7% of your max health. Enemy champs can destroy them by walking on them. When Zac dies, he turns into bloblets that each have 12% of Zac's maximum health. The bloblets move towards each other to bring Zac back to life and returning him to 10-50% of his max health depending on the bloblets' remaining health. *they are temporarily untargetable while splitting |
Stretching Strikes (Q) RANGE: 951 COST: 8% current health COOLDOWN: 15-9 seconds |
Zac stretches out his arm and can hit 1 enemy dealing magic damage & slowing them by 40% for half a second. The target is tethered to Zac (it breaks if out of range) and revealed for 2 seconds. (This means you will still have vision of them even if they move into a bush or where they'd otherwise not be seen.) Zac's next basic attack gains range, deals the same magic damage/slow again and the targets are rooted for half a second & displaced towards each other or against each other if nearby. Both parts of the ability also act as an auto attack resetter. |
Unstable Matter (W) RANGE: 350 COST: 4% current health COOLDOWN: 5 seconds |
Zac explodes dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies and can move through monsters hit for 5 seconds. This is Zac's shortest cool down ability and the cool down is reduced even further (by 1 second) every time he picks up part of his passive. |
Elastic Slingshot (E) RANGE: 1200-1800 COST: 4% current health COOLDOWN: 24-12 seconds |
Zac charges up this ability (HOLD E) or can be recast at anytime (let go of E quickly for a small hop, not often used). He dashes to his target location and deals magic damage and knocks up all enemies in the circle for half a second (or a full second if the ability was charged for more than 1 second). Once you are flying in the air, the enemies can see the circle of where you will land so it's best to go on champs with no escape/dashes or wait until they're on CD. If you decide not to engage and cancel the ability by clicking away, the cool down and health cost are refunded by 50%. |
Let's Bounce! (R) RADIUS: 300-250 COST: -- COOLDOWN: 130-100 seconds |
. Zac bounces 4 times over 3 seconds gaining bonus movement speed but unable to use Q, E, or auto attacks. You can still use your W, item actives, and summoner spells. Each bounce deals magic damage to nearby enemies and knocks them back over 1 second and slows them by 20%. Enemies can take damage from multiple bounces (only 50% damage taken after the first) but not be displaced again. |
Pros
+ Tanky & lots of damage
+ CC that can't be cleansed + Doesn't use mana/energy + Strong peel & engage + Scales really well + Great at protecting towers |
Cons
-Bad ganks prior to level 4
- Cannot 1v1 enemy JG early - Long cool down on E - Forced to max E for ganks - Takes long to solo dragons - Terrible into Vayne (Ban) |
SUMMONER SPELLS
Smite is a must-have on every jungler to clear the camps and get full XP. |
Zac is just one of those junglers that should really only take Flash as his next summoner. He can set up a really strong ultimate with flashing behind the enemy then ulting, this will knock the enemy into your team. |
RUNES
PAGE 1 |
PAGE 1: Aftershock procs on CC so it's super easy for Zac to proc. It makes you tankier for 2.5 seconds then explodes and deals magic damage. Font of Life is also strong on Zac because it's another rune that procs on CC. When you CC an enemy, allies will heal when they attack them. Conditioning is a basic tank rune- gaining armor and magic resistt after 12 minutes. Revitalize is an amazing rune for Zac because it increases healing (and shielding) and Zac heals from his bloblets.
For the secondary page, I recommend Magical Footwear and Cosmic Insight.
PAGE 2: The primary rune page is the same here because it is by far the most viable option on Zac so I don't recommend anything else. However, there is another option for the secondary runes & that's going for Cheap Shot and Ravenous Hunter. This is a less safe/more aggressive option if you are against an AP heavy team and you know you will be rushing Spirit Visage. Therefore the healing from Ravenous Hunter will be even stronger!
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PAGE 2 |
CORE ITEMS
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Sunfire Aegis Sunfire Aegis is currently the best mythic item on Zac. |
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Warmog's Armor This is the only other core buy on Zac- meaning the only other item I'd recommend 100% of the time. I wouldn't buy this until 3rd item or later though since you need 3000+ health for the passive to regenerate health. It allows Zac to engage in the team fight, pull out when he's getting low & heal back up, then either re-engage or peel for teammates. Standard path is Spirit Visage or Thornmail into Warmog's Armor. |
SITUATIONAL ITEMS
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Spirit Visage*** I'm putting Spirit Visage under situational because if you are against a full AD comp, I would opt for other items. However, if there's at least 1 AP champion on the enemy team, you should definitely buy this. It is so strong with Zac because it increases his healing by 25%. |
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Thornmail If the team is full AD or if they have a lot of AD + healing, rushing this item is a good choice. You could also leave it as a Bramble Vest to get the healing reduction when attacked while you build your Spirit Visage. Of course, you still upgrade it after. |
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Gargoyle Stoneplate This is a good buy for staying alive longer in team fights. Because this item is quite expensive and the shield size (the item's active) is based on your BONUS health, I would really only recommend this as a 5th or 6th item to complete your build. |
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Abyssal Mask This item gives magic resist, health, and nearby enemies take more magic damage. Champions also take 10% more damage for 4 seconds when CC'd. This is a strong item on Zac and would be a good buy if the enemy team is heavy AP & you have AP on your team as well. |
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Demonic Embrace This is the last item I'm going to recommend for Zac. It does percent health damage, gives AP + health. I'd only buy this if your team is lacking damage and you/your team is already tanky enough. |
BOOT OPTIONS
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Plated Steelcaps The better boot option into a heavy AD comp with little CC. |
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Mercury's Treads The better boot option into a team comp with a lot of CC. |
Standard Full Clear
Start with bot lane which will change depending on which side of the map you're on either:
Red > Smite golems > raptors > wolves > blue + Smite gromp simultaneously OR
Blue > Smite gromp > wolves > raptors > red > Smite golems
Defensive Clear Options
If you are playing against a strong early game champion that likes to invade, you need to play accordingly. Try to get your Stealth Ward out by the 0:55 second mark to see where they are starting. You can recall immediately after to get pick up your Oracle Lens for ganking.
Invaded Level 1- If you see the enemy jungler trying to start your buff level 1, you can just solo start either wolves or raptors.
VS Invading Jungler- If you see the enemy jungler is starting on their own buff, but it's a champion like Lee Sin or Graves and you're worried they will invade you, you can start on the OPPOSITE side of the map solo so they don't know where you started.
Invading on Zac
You can invade to take the enemy's camp IF you know for sure they are on the opposite side of the map AND you know for sure that the camp is up. Do not waste time to go check if you're not sure. For the most part, invading the enemy jungle on Zac is only DEFENSIVELY. Meaning if you see the enemy jungle walking into your jungle, you can go to theirs instead to avoid them and still get a camp.
Wait until you're level 4 so you can have a 2nd point in your E Elastic Slingshot. This will increase its range and give you a lot more options for ganking. Make sure the area isn't warded by using your Oracle Lens. Jump in with your E Elastic Slingshot to knock up the enemy/enemies. Once you land, you'll want to use your W Unstable Matter immediately while you are on top of them for the damage since this has less range than your Q. You will want to quickly use your Q Stretching Strikes while the enemy is still in range. The closer the better since it is easier to land a skill shot in closer range. You can then auto anything to displace the enemy (don't forget--> this includes other enemy champs, minions, monster camps, turrets, inhibitors, blast cones, or anything you can auto!)
GANKING 6+
Once you are level 6, you will have your ultimate Let's Bounce!. This will knock back enemies and slow them. It's a great CC tool! You get 4 bounces so you can knock back multiple enemy champs. Note: Each bounce deals damage but each enemy can only be knocked back once from this ability. This mean level 6 is a great time to gank bot lane. It is also awesome for counter ganks and team fights. Also, Zac is great at defending towers with his ultimate. If an enemy or 2 are attacking your turret, you can go alone with your E Elastic Slingshot then ultimate Let's Bounce!. Especially with turret aggro, you should be able to kill squishy champions this way.
Zac is super slow at soloing objectives. I would recommend ganking & killing the enemy bot lane first with your ultimate before heading to dragons early so that you can get help from your bot lane & it doesn't take 10 years. You can also do the same thing top lane with killing the enemy top or mid laner then heading to Rift Herald with a pal. However, I'd rather sneak Rift Herald (just make sure it isn't warded and preferably know the enemy jungler is not near). Rift is super strong before 14 minutes so you can get all the extra gold from the turret plating. When you get an early turret, it also allows your laner to roam early & snowball the game.
You have 2 options on Zac. Engage or peel. This will just depend on what your team needs. You may have a carry that is instantly dying to a fed Riven diving your back line. In this case, you'd want to stay by the carry and just peel. This means using your CC abilities (which is 3 out of 4, dang Zac is OP) whenever enemies try to attack your carry. Other times, you may be the only engage that your team has and that is what is needed from you. Zac has great engage as well. However, if you miss your E Elastic Slingshot, you could actually be in trouble if you aren't very far ahead. Especially if you are behind, landing your E is essential. Of course, if enemies are CC'd, they can't attack you. And if they aren't CC'd, welp... now you're in the middle of the enemy team getting ripped apart by everyone. So, I hear often that people have trouble "inting" on Zac. If you're behind... well, you really might be as squishy as you look if you aren't sticking your landing. In this case, you might want to just peel or counter engage only when the enemies are already attacking, focused on the fight, and using their abilities.
WHEN DO I GO IN?
Some champions can knock you right out of your jump Elastic Slingshot like a Thresh flay or Janna tornado, for example. You will want to make sure that either these abilities have already been used or that you are not engaging near that champion. Many champions have dashes, especially trying to go in on the enemy ADC like Ezreal, Lucian, or... no, not Vayne- We BAN Vayne. In this case, if you can you'll want to go in as soon as their dash is on cool down if at all possible. Especially if the carry is fed, you don't want them to dash your E landing then destroy you! Just make sure that you are ready and in position to go in if you're not sitting back to peel. You should be waiting behind a wall or in a bush like a Fiddlesticks waiting to ult.
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