Reworking Revive Passives: Zac

Sciencebang·Jun 10, 2016·2 votes·667 views

This is the first post of a series regarding the revive passives

To be honest, I think revive passives are unhealthy. It is not good gameplay to be rewarded or forgiven for dying. It is even worse gameplay to be able to revive but possibly dying before you can do so. Zac, Anivia, and Aatrox all have this kind of gameplay, which either does not fit them thematically, nor contribute to their kits or roles.

Zac **Thematically: **Zac's current passive only fits him slightly when it comes to theme/motif. The regenerative part of his kit and lore might tie into this, but Zac has no reason to die, be split into an arbitrary four blobs (each with one eye for whatever reason, good job counting Riot) and then have a low chance of coming back to life unless he dies under his own tower.

**Gameplay: **It adds nothing to his gameplay when it can only be activated when he dies. The only benefit it has is when someone dives you under tower, and expects to get a "worth" trade, but you split up into blobs. Any player with half a brain knows not to dive a Zac with passive up. It becomes useless if you begin losing structures or die in the jungle.

Replacement Concept: Zac is widley known for his AoE magic damage, and CC, and I think his passive should help bring out these features even more, either increasing the damage or adding more CC. This concept passive would make him much more effecting at ganking or teamfighting, making his already strong initiation even stronger and allowing him to peel for his team much more easily. There are two options for this passive (or potentially a combination of both options)

Sticky Goo or Corrosive Goo: When Zac uses an ability, he creates a puddle of goo that lasts (1.5s - 5.5s) scaling with level, and

Sticky: enemy champions or monsters that enter the puddle are slowed by (5% - 15%) scaling with level

Corrosive: enemy champions or monsters that enter the puddle lose (6 - 28) MR and Armor scaling with level

_ (underneath Zac for his Q and W, at his landing point for his E, and 4 separate puddles for each bounce of his R)_ (the approx. size of a puddle would be between the size of a Nocturne Q Trail blob and Taliyah's Worked ground. Somewhere around the size of Ziggs' Hexplosive Minefield?)

4 Comments

SeanThomas2Jun 10, 20162 votes

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Elite4RunnerJun 10, 20161 votes

Revive passives are meant to encourage more risky plays and coordination with teammates in order to reset fights as well as claim zones and objectives. Making the risky play in order to turn the tables in a fight may ultimately result in the consumption of a revival passive in which case your team should place pressure on that zone so that you can return to life and retain an advantage. Unfortunately some people see revive passives as an excuse to be an idiot and run in and die twice.

I'm not opposed to your idea for changing his (or their) passives, but I think there is a place for them. Eliminating them completely shouldn't be the direction Riot will most likely take.

RegulasJun 10, 20161 votes

As a zac player, since they reduced his CD time it went from useless to absolutely fantastic. one it gets down to 6 seconds I can reliably get back up in team-fights or otherwise before they can kill me fairly often in a fight. And if your going full tank then even alone you now have a reasonable chance of getting back up. The main thing to remember is zac is in all ways a team-play champion designed to hard-engage. He is not a roaming assasin (even your ganking you are ganking for your allies not to assassinate).

Your job as zac is to dive in hard block abilities (revive powers are fantastic for allowing you to protect allies from skillshots) and stay ontop of the enemy. Much like with Sion passive it works well because it's the kind of ability that maximises this since you are guaranteed to be around for a considerable period of time no matter what transpires. It also means that you can still act as a threat even when super low on HP.

Thematically the point is you're not solid, so getting smashed a part is just spreading you around, which you can then re-collect or if your really torn to pieces you can reform because you're just goo not a body with organs.

SciencebangJun 10, 20161 votes

Zac really only has eyes as far as anyone has seen, no other organs. the actual process of him splitting up and somehow becoming four parts that move together make no sense. Why would his body split into four parts that each can move on their own when we have seen that zac's regen blobs don't move? The four blobs with "eyes" kind of come out of nowhere. Also, if he can reform into normal Zac after the blobs recombine, why is there a cooldown other than for the sake of balance? It doesn't have any clear reason behind it.