So Guys, Zac (And A Potential Way To Make Him Based More Off Of His Identity And Lore)

(Feel free to skip through this bit if you don’t want to know, or don’t care about, the thought process behind my suggestions.)

I’ve always liked Zac and what his kit had to offer, but the one thing that’s always bothered me about him was the fact that his abilities scaled with AP. I never really cared that he dealt magic damage, as he is a Zaun creation (which is one of the two cities focused on hextech inventions, in the lore at least), but what bothered me is that he literally slaps minions, monsters, and champs with his body, and yet he scales off of AP. Now, I understand that AP means Ability Power, as in the power a champion’s abilities have, but when you think (or at least when I do) of AP based champs, their abilities are more inclined to the idea of launching spells or healing, whereas hitting with a weapon or body part is typically more for AD based or even health-based champions (ex. Tahm Kench and Shen).

What I am proposing, is that if you like my ideas, or maybe think they are viable (with some tweaking maybe), then leave a comment on your opinions/ideas, and maybe, just maybe, we can get the attention of someone who can put these ideas into action, because I personally would love to see these, or similar, changes happen. Though you may just hate my ideas, and that’s fine too, just comment as to why though, so I can better understand your view point.

My ideas are simple, but require a fair bit of changes; however, the main focus my ideas are based on the fact that Zac grows bigger the more Health he has, as Zac is typically built a tank champ, Health is, more often than not, built on him. Additionally, his abilities also cost Health, and his passive’s bloblets restore Health. This is why I am proposing we either trash his AP ratios or keep them, and maybe replace them with smaller ones, for things like baron buff, or items like Rylai’s and Liandry’s, or maybe if people still want to go AP. I also propose we change his ratios to be, reasonable, Health based ones, which I will cover in more detail below. In order to keep things simple, I have listed the ideas in mind in bullet format for the viewer’s convenience.

• Cooldowns: With the changes I am suggesting here, it would be more beneficial to have the cooldown on his Q and E raised by 2 to 5 seconds, and his R’s cooldown raised by 10 to 15 seconds, and have all of his abilities share his W’s passive ability of picking up a bloblet reduces the cooldown by 1 second, though this may be better to have as a passive on his Ult, depending on how strong it is, but it shouldn’t be necessary to, and should be kept as a passive on his W that affects all his abilities. The reasoning behind this, is that Zac is somewhat heavily based on CDR, and with this in place, the player can build him as a tank, without having to worry about prioritizing items with CDR.

• Passive: Honestly speaking, I believe his passive doesn’t need any changes, and is fine as is. Although if I had to make suggestions, I would say maybe increase the max Health gain to 5%, to make the upcoming suggetion more viable, but that does seems a little strong in my opinion. The only change I would really vouch for is the removal of the “contestable” bloblet generation when near enemy champs, and just keep it random, and/or have his bloblets slow enemy champions by some miniscule amount when they destroy them, such as a .25 second slow by 25-50%.

• Stats: If these, or similar, changes are implemented, then his stats will most likely need changes, but the biggest changes I could see is his Health per level being reduced.

• Abilities: This is where I’ll discuss my ideas on features that I believe should apply to all, or most of his abilities. Firstly, cost, the cost of his abilities should stay the same, as he is a Health-based champion, as opposed to Mana-based. Secondly, the range/hitbox size, and not just his hitbox size, of his abilities should also scale with his current Health. To make the second idea more fair, his hitboxes/ranges shouldn’t affect his E’s or Q’s ranges, but should still affect hitbox size, and could start out smaller than they are now, but can be made bigger than they are now by building more Health. Now, onto specifics of individual Abilities:

• Q(Stretching Strike): Reduce base damage by 110 to 130 (at max rank, and accordingly per rank) and add a (4% of current Health) ratio to the damage. The slow should remain the same.

• W(Unstable Matter): Now, I have three main ideas for W changes, which will be listed as empty bulleted points underneath this one, though the base damage will be reduced by 40 to 60 and 4%-6% (at max rank, and accordingly per rank) for the first two, and the third will keep the base damage the same, but will lose the percent Health damage entirely.

  o	Add a (0.4% of current Health) ratio for the max Health damage, but change the ability to deal current Health damage. Though this one does seem somewhat strong at full Health, especially on a tank champion. If this idea is implemented, the Abilty's cooldown would almost definetly need to be increased.

  o	Add a (0.2% of current Health) ratio, change the damage to be current Health damage, and add in some kind of MR shred or something to that effect.

  o	Add a (2% of current Health) ratio, change the max Health damage percentage into flat true damage (though this last idea would probably need an increase to the Ability’s cooldown).

• E(Elastic Slingshot): Decrease base damage by 130 to150 (at max rank, and accordingly per rank) and add a (4% of current Health) ratio to the damage. The rest of the ability’s mechanics should be fine as are, other than area of impact being non-Health based.

• R(Let's Bounce!): Decrease base damage by 150 to 180 (at max rank, and accordingly per rank), add a (4% of MAX Health) ratio to the damage with consecutive hit having half base damage and a (2% of MAX Health) ratio, and maybe have a slow, or other form of CC, on hit instead of giving Zac movement speed, but I think the movement speed is fine, as it can be used to escape.

Like this, Zac becomes a, decently, heavy hitting champion at high Health, in the mid to late game, but deals less and less damage the more himself and his opponents whittle him down, but will still have his Ult as a good escape/engage tool when at low Health, and still retains his core identity while being more true to his lore and identity as a champion.

(Continue reading only if you want the mathematical specifics between current Zac's typical build and this Zac's build, if he were built as a Health tank.)

If you’re thinking he might have too much damage this way, then I will compare numbers for you now. Zac, with how he is commonly built now (by myself, at least), with mostly tank items and some AP, has around 200 AP with all items built. This means his Q, at max rank, deals 330 damage at max rank, his W, at max rank, deals 100 + (12% of target’s max Health), his E, at max rank, deals 420 damage, and his Ult, at max rank, deals 360 damage on the first strike, and 180 on consecutive strikes. And this is obviously not accounting for items such as Liandry’s Torment or Abyssal Scepter, which offer penetration and additional damage, though I am also not accounting for the opponent’s resistances. Though keep in mind that these items would be less likely built on my ideas for Zac.

Now, if you took my ideas for him, and built him as some kind of super Health tank with 6000 Health, which is doable, just highly unlikely. His Q, at full Health and max rank, would deal 340 to 360 damage, now this is more, at full Health, but keep in mind, this Zac will most likely not have forms off penetration or increasing damage. His W, at full Health and max rank, with the first idea would deal 40 to 60 damage +2%-4%(+24%) of his target’s current Health, like I mentioned before, this one is strong, and if it were to be applicable, it would, more likely than not, need increased cooldown. For the second idea, he would deal 40 to 60 damage +2%-4%(+12%) of his target’s current Health, and this would have something such as MR shred attached to it. And lastly, the third idea, which would also most likely have increased cooldown, would deal 220 true damage. His E, at full Health and max rank, would deal 370 to 390 damage, which is actually less damage at base than his current build. His R, at max rank, would deal 340 to 370 on the first hit, and 170 to 185 on each consecutive hit.

I appreciate your time and thoughts, and apologize for the lengthy essay, but I do believe that this would be a “healthier” Zac, so to speak, without having odd ratios and being more based on his identity as a tank that grows based on his Heath and his lore as a friendly protector of the weak. As I mentioned before, if you like these, or even if you don’t like these ideas, or just feel that they would be viable with some changes, please feel free to leave a comment on your opinions, and hopefully this Zac, or something like it, will be seen in-game.