Tank Reworks

>>intro Hello, unknown reader. I'm Goocidal. I haven't spent much time on these boards, but when I heard whisperings that initiator tanks were on the board for major reworks, I knew that this was my moment. So, a little bit about me. As my name suggests, I main . I've been playing him since the day he was released, and I've certainly played over a thousand games with him (although if I were to actually take the time to check my records, I'm willing to bet I've played between 2000 and 3000 games) My mmr usually settles somewhere around mid plat by the end of the season, and while I don't exclusively play ZAC , I'm sure that I've played him more than almost anyone else on earth. For all intents and purposes, I think I qualify as the average ZAC main.

>>skip here for the meat As such, I wanted to chip in my two cents as to what feels different about ZAC when compared to other inititator tanks, and what I'd like to see from a potential rework.

First: ZAC is the most versatile among the tanks. He clears the jungle faster than malphite, has a longer engage range than sejuani, sustains better than... well actually anyone, (we don't really see sustain tanks in the jungle, just bruisers) and has better uptime than amumu. The big thing he loses on all of these is the fact that he's telegraphed. In the time it takes for ZAC to fly in from the fog of war, you don't even need to flash. Unless you're being held down by something else, you can ALWAYS dodge a ZAC e, even a snap-e, if you just notice it and take the time to dodge. As such, with his high damage, healing and mobility, ZAC can technically win any fight, but he can lose any fight too. The ability to land ZAC's E should always be the most important skill of a ZAC player

Second: He always has options. While playing ZAC, I notice myself making a lot of micro-decisions, rather than a few large decisions. For example, when initiating, obviously the big decision I make is whether or not to go in, via checking whether or not I can hit enough people to make it feel worth it, but once I'm in, every second I need to decide if I can up my dps by going for blobs, flash onto someone to knock them back with a section of my ult, charge an e and go slow or flash into snap e to guarantee a kill. The fact that ZAC has so many more objective points to work around than most other champions, namely every champion plus every blob means that a good ZAC will sometimes make different mid-combat decisions than any other tank would. The fact that even something like allowing my own death is sometimes an important strategic decision just feels so cool to me. Most tanks just pick a target (or group of targets) and hit them with your abilities until for one reason or another they cant anymore. Not that that's not sometimes the right thing to do anyway ;). >>Point I think that any zac rework would be well served to play up this unique aspect of his kit, offering ZAC more ways to vault his way across the map and do things opponents won't expect, looking for new ways to be optimal that don't initially look like it.

Third : the greed game. Often times, junglers think "I'm pretty low, but I could get a finished item if I stay for one more camp" ZAC exemplifies this mentality more than any other champion in the game by far, in the early game at least. Most games, I find myself with no passive with less than 100 health, but because of the nature of low-hp healing I'm able to greed out as many camps as I really want, as long as I'm not interrupted. Even if I think I'm likely to be interrupted, I find myself doing this anyway and leaving myself an exit path. As the game goes on, this becomes more and more pronounced; a lot of the time, I decide to not go back at all and keep clearing as efficiently as possible. Items like spirit visage and randuins can make ZAC's healing so efficient that you can get to full in a few camps. That out of combat sustain adds to the feeling like ZAC could be anywhere, and when combined with his enormous mobility, makes for cool games where enemies really have no idea where ZAC could be coming from.

I know that this is one opinion in a cacophony, and I know that riot has a lot of data to work with. I just wanted to chip in my two cents, and I can't wait to see what you do with him!

Extra note: ZAC has the somewhat unique problem that his initiations are never safe. Any line knockup (draven E and janna Q especially) basically render him useless as long as they're not caught off guard (and usually if they are caught off guard as well). If you could offer ZAC someway to be untargetable while moving through the air, you could free up a lot of space to make the visuals of his E more readable, and move power away in other ways. The moment when ZAC's flying through the air towards a juicy team of unsuspecting champions should be a real high moment where everyone feels like they have to move out of the way or get squished, knowing that someone on your team makes that pointless takes a lot of the fun out of it, from both sides.

Second extra note: ZAC's q has always felt pretty bad, but I don't necessarily think that's such a bad thing. It's a nice little slow that lets you get on top of a nearby enemy after a near-miss from your e. There's no real need to increase the range or up the damage, if ZAC ever had reliable range that didn't require him to go in, he'd feel really overbearing.