Talk:Zac/@comment-8506165-20141213034041/@comment-8506165-20150115100011

"He doesn't have Amumu's lockdown power during initiates, and doesn't have Gragas's instant team-splitting strength, but he has more follow-up than both, along with many more tools to remain a threat (his potentially massive sustain, his slow, his reach)."

Maybe in an ideal world, but this is just false at the moment. Amumu deals more AoE damage, and his hard CC is on a lower cooldown than Zac's. Gragas meanwhile is practically the king of sustained fights, with Body Slam (mobility and hard CC) reaching a 4.2 second cooldown if he hits any enemy target with max CDR, his W (DR and damage) having a similarly ridiculously low cooldown and even his Q boasts a pretty short cooldown (and a higher slow than Zac's Q even when unbrewed). Okay, the old full AP Gragas sucked at following up on QR, but that's not the meta for him any more - he's at the very least a bruiser and in many people's eyes, a full-on tank. Zac's sustain could make him more relevant in comparison to the two of them, but why do you think 3.11 (the patch that radically changed his chunk mechanics) was the patch that saw Zac disappear from play, drop off the bottom of competitive winrate (27% at Worlds from 60-80% previously) and only receive buffs from Riot ever since? It's because his sustain is weak now. And he doesn't become any better as you look up the elos to where people are better at positioning, which you'd think would make his chunk mechanic better: last I looked, his peak Diamond winrate was 48% and his lowest was 33%. I know winrates aren't everything - high skill champions tend to have sucky winrates even if they're stomping competitive - but 1 in 3 games, with no competitive presence? That's Olaf/Urgot tier. Zac is weak. And has been for a long time.

"if his E and ult knocked enemies towards a fixed range, instead of pushing them away a fixed distance, Zac would have a much easier time hitting people with his other AoE abilities."

So... some kind of vacuum mechanic, à la Orianna or Diana? I'm intrigued, but not sure how this would work... A PBAoE that moves people to a fixed range not dependent on its origin seems... odd.

"if Zac's base damage is raised, we are talking about strengthening his harass in lane. Which means enimies that go to destroy the chunks will be more at risk for taking more damage. (Which, in my opinion, Zac still has very high presence in top lane.)"

The chunks are more "Zac baits" at the moment. When he could Q-harass you through minions and then just go pick up a chunk that you never stood a chance of stomping, yeah, that was bullshit. But if he's walking up to you to press W as you stomp a chunk, you trade back harder. 6% of max health early on is not that different to an autoattack in terms of damage, and the flat damage is hardly huge. With his Q on CD he'll not have much else to swing the trade in his favour.

"I just feel there may be something more beneficial to Zac than just raising his base damages. A good base HP buff maybe? Someting to compete with Gangplank?"

They could give him more base armor. He starts and ends with less than Morgana. Or buff his health regen seeing as the shift to a %base system on regen has left Spirit Visage nerfed on him even at level 18. His HP isn't actually that bad, he's top 10 there at level 1 and level 18. I don't think base stats are necessarily his problem though, it's that his core gameplay pattern at the moment is confused and counterproductive - he's meant to jump in and deal damage while sustaining, but the choice is often jump in and deal damage or go sustain off those blobs that flew a million miles away. I reiterate: he needs better sustain or more damage to make that work, and I'm not sure how to implement "better sustain" without resurrecting toplane Zac. Willbachbakal's idea of having all his abilities work as the E currently does is the best suggestion I've seen on that in a while, though. Depends on if chunk mechanics still screw him over. The other one I've seen is chunks healing him more based on his missing health, but I'm unsure as to whether that's a solid (heh) idea or not.