Zac has been terrorizing the rift since before his new update. But with the new upgrade to his kit, many are saying he's too strong. His kit gives him many strengths that separate him from most other jungle champions, but he also has several weaknesses. Hopefully, this article will provide some insight as to how to exploit those weaknesses to fight against Zac.

Early Game

For most jungle champions, there are only a few ways into a lane to gank. Even if you are playing champions like Jarvan or Amumu, catching an enemy laner off-guard is not exactly common. Zac, however does not have this problem. The number one thing that makes Zac's ganks successful is the element of surprise. When playing against a Zac, get creative with your warding. Often times in the mid lane, Zac will come in from your raptors to dive you. If you can see it coming, you can use that to your advantage. Once he's started his dive you can either CC him mid-flight or use a dash ability to dodge and rapidly turn the gank around on him, or just leave if you feel like it or aren't confident you can fight against their dive.

Okay, so Zac hops into your lane and you manage to dodge his initial engage. The only real option he has at that point is to try to hit you with his Stretching Strikes. If you're in the bottom lane, don't clump together with your laning buddy. You probably shouldn't be doing that anyways, but it only gets worse if Zac manages to throw you and your buddy at each other, so do your best to keep away from minions and your teammates when you get ganked. Once you've dealt with those two abilities, he's basically just a moving HP bar that likes to coat everyone and everything nearby with goo. Both of those abilities have relatively long cool downs early on, so feel free to press the advantage against him after that if you can.

A good Zac relies on the element of surprise to catch his enemies off-guard, but in a straight fight he's not too great. Early on, the best he can usually do is buy a couple of seconds for help to arrive. If you're confident that you can invade his jungle, do it. Zac is at his weakest at levels one through five. If you're playing an aggressive Jungler like Lee Sin or Shaco, you can bully him out of a lot of farm and maybe pick up a kill or two in the process. That also means that counter-ganking is also very effective against him during these levels.

Mid/Late Game

Positioning is Zac's domain in the mid to late game. His goal is to jump on to your carries and bring them to his team. In this part of the game, vision is key against Zac. If he hops onto your ADC, you can probably bet that they're going to be sitting in the middle of the enemy team in about half a second. The best thing that you can do is to try to keep tabs on Zac at all times. When he comes in on your ADC, the rest of your team needs to CC him before he starts up his ult. At that point, you've bought your team enough time to decide whether they can fight the enemy team or they need to pull out. If you're playing an initiating champion like Annie or a character that thrives on being in the middle of the enemy team like Illaoi and Zac jumps on you to pull back to his team, go for the ride! Odds are that if the Zac is ulting you back into his team where there's at least one enemy carry within ult range (Note: Only do this if your team is nearby. Trying to solo their entire team can be hazardous to your LP.)

Zac is especially dangerous when you are pushed up and attacking a tower. If you're a mid or top laner, don't push up to tower without a really good ward setup or some serious backup. Being CC locked underneath an enemy tower for four to five seconds due to a Zac ult is a good way to wind up dead. If you decide that you want to push up on your own, having a spell shield is probably your best out. Other than that, there's a decent chance you lose a Flash or you take a death. A good Zac will be able to predict most basic dash abilities so be careful with how you decide to push. Again, it's probably not the best to push up alone. If you do push up with a buddy, remember not to clump together. That's a pretty easy double kill for Zac if you do.

If you're alone or not with your whole team and Zac manages to start his ult with you standing on top of him, you need to get off of him even if it means moving closer to the rest of the enemy team to do so. If you get successfully ulted by him you probably won't escape, but if Zac times his ult improperly, you'll be off of him by the time he hops away and there's a much better chance that you escape than if you got caught in his ult. Dashes are the best way around this, but keep in mind at higher levels you can't even Flash all the way across his ult, so be careful with how you respond to an engage.

The last important piece of advice I have against any Zac is to watch his passive. If you've managed to drop a Zac into his passive, be mindful of him getting back up. If you try to finish him but you're out of mana or really low on HP, he could get back up and turn it back around on you. Remember that passive abilities like Immolate on Sunfire Cape and the Cinderhulk enchantment do stay on while Zac's bloblets try to converge on his resurrection spot. Just remember that you can never really be too careful when dealing with a Zac.

Getting greedy can lead to some serious throws against Zac. Don't forget about his passive! Try to counter-jungle and counter-gank early if you're the jungler and, most importantly, ward the jungle. Dealing with Zac is breeze if you can see him coming.

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