Zac conversation on power.

When asked about a ability to pick up Blobs with Q, this was the reply.

This change shifts Q from being a ranged harass pattern that has a cost to a ranged harass pattern with a negative cost. As you can simply punch someone from range and scoop up more health than you paid in the process. You've effectively made AoE Dmg Vlad Transfusion ... with a Slow. Judging by the number of complaints I see about free ranged harass being OP/frustrating in top lane shifting Zac into that pattern seems really dangerous. If that isn't the use case and a player is simply using Q to grab a bloblet and not hitting an enemy with it at the same time, they're paying 4% current health for 4% max health (excluding other sources) which does have some optimization cases but feels like a really odd and almost trappy use case. You're incentivizing players at that point to use their nuke, slow, and cooldown for a minor heal. This is of course in addition to removing any type of play/counterplay about collecting the bloblets which is really critical to his laning experience not being oppressive and frustrating which we've definitely seen in the past.

Now, I'm going off a wall here but Vladimir and Zac are both Tanks. Yet, Vladimir is allowed to have more sustain than Zac.

It was asked later about more HP in blobs or indicators to show they are there.

Generally speaking yes, the more a mechanic has counterplay and is interactive (or in this case is bloblets being contestable) the more powerful it can be. This style of approach was used by the team at the time of the bloblet positioning nerf when his sustain in lane was being overbearing. They chose to make each bloblet more contestable instead of simply cutting the healing amount which would have also worked but would have made for a less interesting character overall imo.

It was then asked why most abilities, mainly the R, throw back enemies when his abilities would rather them be huddled together for better efficiency.

My 5 cents - I haven't played Zac since the 4.21 changes so it's difficult for me to give thoughts on the ult knockback distance change as that's very much a feel based change. I think on a base level the idea of his ult being used to cause chaos and scatter enemy teams that is really disruptive and really cool. It's far more fitting on him than a malphite style lock dudes in place in a single spot so our team can pile on AoEs so everyone dies instantly type of play. If the knockback distance is pushing dudes far enough from Zac that he isn't able to keep that feels pretty lame. I'll ask the dudes who did the change about it when I get back to the office.

My 5 cents tells me that Zac's knock back is not as nice and useful as Malphite's knock up. To have an ability to push back an opponent is nice when running, but that's only on Zac's ultimate which he could use later. Malphite, on the other hand, can make for good team initiation or solo ganks. Zac's ultimate should also knock back an enemy twice, not once. But, they cannot be knocked back again until after 0.6 seconds. This will make Zac's ultimate scarier and more of a ultimate you'd run away from rather than towards. The damage is not there when used on another Tank.

It was then pointed out that Zac is possibly the most squishy Tank, primarily in early game. Zac relies on his blobs for his health regeneration, but he has to reach them. Zac also has no armor or magic resist buffs. Zac is also very weak compared to ranged attacks. It was mentioned that Zac's passive needs help. He's susceptible to smites, abilities, and more. It's very weak. And it was said that his R resembles something an assassin would have or want in their kit (ahem, Assassin/Tank...).

Enemies trying to zone Zac away from his bloblets is as important if not a more important form of lane interactivity than stepping on the bloblets, so that in and of itself doesn't bother me. Zac's ranged harass is especially touchy from a balance perspective since his Q (and W to a lesser extent) are effectively undodgeable and aren't blocked by minions and can all provide sustain. I think you're absolutely right to point out that the needs and effectiveness of grabbing bloblets varies pretty drastically from the laning phase to the teamfight phase of the game and there are definitely some interesting options to adjust bloblets to accommodate for those differences (increasing bloblet pickup size as Zac increases his size from Max Health for example). As for the PS - The team is aware of the general level of sadness Zac feels in response to the AoE smite item, which was especially pronounced when it was the must have jungle item of choice during 4.20. With the nerf to the Trailblazer already in effect for 4.21 they wanted to see how Zac fared when every jungler wasn't running that item before making any additional changes. I would agree that Zac's passive feels lackluster and more often than not outside the laning phase. There are a lot of ways we could make tweaks here if the team decided to buff Zac on that front. This could be anything from a direct "Reduced Damage from AoE effects" or more health on his bloblets, to something more indirect such as making Zac revive when his bloblets are a little further apart from one another could help as they need to snuggle up pretty close to one another before Zac revives.

And there we have it, Zac is more than likely not getting much help. Apparently, Zac losing 4% of his health is not a bad thing. Like, I want to use my E (4%), come in and quickly use my W (8%) and finish with a Q (12%) and lets just say i was able to so I again use my W (16%) for more damage. Now I have to run back and regain all the blob-lets I'd left. :/

I want people to know, Zac's W is pointless and stupid. It's not worth 4% of his health. If any, its 1%.

Next, I'd raise that E to 5%.

And the Q is fine.

Now, the blobs; they will be all 2%, but for every blob, Zac gains a bonus +1% health regeneration.

And the passive; each blob has 40% of Zac's health. If Zac is revived with more that 100% (160% is possible) then he gains full health. Each also receive 50% of his armor and magic resist.

Example: if Zac has 2000 health, each Zac-blob with have 800 health. But, early gamers don't have to worry, his early game is only about 700 health. So by the time you kill him, you may be looking at most 1000 health so that's 400 health for each Zac-blob. This is way healthier than 25% which wouldn't do anything for Zac at all.

P.S. His sustain is horrible.