Zac Support Build & Guide — Patch 26.18

Overview

Zac is a vanguard support — a tank-class support whose job is to start fights, not heal allies. Elastic Slingshot (E) is a long-range charge-up engage that knocks up every enemy where he lands, Stretching Strikes (Q) is a 2-target arm grab that pulls the support into the carry (or peels for your ADC the other way), and Let's Bounce! (R) is a four-bounce AOE ult that knocks each enemy back once and then keeps damaging and slowing them, turning one engage into a team-wide lockdown chain. His passive Cell Division drops healing blobs on every ability hit and revives him from bloblets every 5 minutes if any survive.

Game plan: hide in tri-brush or river fog with E pre-charged, launch onto the enemy ADC the moment your minion wave pushes into your side (your wave covers the trade). Mid-game, roam (leave bot lane to help mid or jungle) with E to chain dives across the map. Late-game, you are the engage tool — your team must follow Let's Bounce! within 1-2 seconds or you die alone in the enemy backline.

Recommended Build

Starting items: World Atlas + Stealth Ward + Health Potion. World Atlas pays you 18 gold per Shared Riches charge, and killing a minion is one of the ways to spend a charge, which also hands the nearest ally the normal kill gold. Use those charges on minions your ADC cannot reach; don't stand in the wave stealing every last hit, because that costs your ADC tempo, not because the item punishes you. World Atlas auto-upgrades into Runic Compass once it has generated 400 gold, then into Bounty of Worlds after another 800.

Core items (in order):

1. World Atlas — starter. Evolves through Runic Compass and Bounty of Worlds, finishing as your chosen endgame support upgrade.
2. Mercury's Treads — magic resist plus tenacity (a stat that shortens stuns and slows on you). You charge E face-first into enemy crowd control; shorter stun on you means you still get to land R after the first counter-CC fires.
3. Locket of the Iron Solari — armor, magic resist, plus an active that shields all nearby allies. Pop it the moment E knockup lands so your ADC and mid soak the enemy's first burst (high damage in the first 1-2 seconds).
4. Hollow Radiance — magic damage aura that stacks with Unstable Matter. Every second a knocked-up target stands inside your W radius they take two AOE damage sources at once. Health and Magic Resist also harden you against enemy mid mages collapsing onto bot.
5. Solstice Sleigh — engage-focused endgame upgrade of your support item. Slowing or immobilising an enemy near allies (every E knockup, Q slow, and R bounce procs it) restores Health and grants 20% decaying Move Speed for 2.5 seconds to you and one nearby ally. Perfect for chain-engaging.

Situational items:

• Zeke's Convergence — casting Let's Bounce! (R) summons a storm around you for 5 seconds: 30 magic damage per second to enemy champions and a 30% slow. Buy it because your ult lands you in the middle of their team, not because of who you land next to.
• Kaenic Rookern — passive magic shield that regenerates while out of combat. Pick into AP-burst comps (double mage like Syndra mid + Brand support) — the shield eats one full ult before it cracks.
• Redemption — vs poke or wombo-combo comps (Xerath + Brand, Kennen + Sett — a 'wombo' is a team built around stacked AOE ults). Heal-on-zone closes the HP gap before engage and saves dying allies during R.
• Knight's Vow — bonds you to your ADC (Attack Damage Carry — the auto-attacking bot lane teammate): a portion of their incoming damage redirects to you, and you heal them back. Force-multiplies your peel after the engage.
• Jak'Sho, The Protean — late-game tank capstone in long 5v5 fights. After 5 seconds of champion combat your bonus Armor and bonus Magic Resist go up by 30% until the fight ends, and those 5 seconds are exactly the ones you spend surrounded after a deep R.

Boots: Mercury's Treads default. Plated Steelcaps vs auto-attack-heavy bot lanes (Caitlyn, Draven, Tristana) when their harass (poke and chip damage) hurts more than late crowd control.

Skill order: Max E first — Patch 26.15 cut Elastic Slingshot (E) by one second at every rank (21/18/15/12/9, from 22/19/16/13/10), so a maxed E is back up every 9 seconds instead of 10. Over a game that is a handful of extra engages; inside a single fight it changes nothing. W second (better percent-HP damage in extended fights), Q last. Take R at levels 6, 11, 16. Level 1 start with E so a quick Flash-E gank window opens at level 2 the moment you hit W.

Runes: Primary Resolve with Aftershock (procs — activates — the instant your E knockup lands, granting bonus Armor and Magic Resist for 2.5s; the engage rune of the game), Font of Life (every slow or displacement you land heals you and your lowest-health nearby ally), Bone Plating (less damage from the first 3 hits after taking damage — cushions the counter-burst on you post-engage), Unflinching (10 armor and magic resist while crowd controlled and for 2 seconds after). Secondary Inspiration with Hextech Flashtraption (Hexflash, a 2-second channel blink while Flash is down) and Cosmic Insight (lower Flash and item-active cooldowns).

Key matchups

• Soraka / Sona: Your ideal pick-into matchups. Neither has hard crowd control or an escape — your E knockup lands every time their ADC steps up to last-hit. Soraka pays her own Health for Astral Infusion (W) and Equinox (E) only silences a patch of ground; Sona has Aria of Perseverance (W) for one small shield and Crescendo (R), the single button that can answer your engage. Rush Locket of the Iron Solari to shield through their heal output.
• Morgana: Hard counter matchup. Black Shield (E) blocks your E knockup, your Q pull, and the bounce stuns of R entirely, and Dark Binding (Q) roots you flat while you are still charging. Wait for her to use E on her ADC during your minion wave dive, then engage when it expires (26s cooldown at rank 1).
• Blitzcrank / Pyke: Problem hook supports. Rocket Grab (Q) and Bone Skewer (Q) both punish your charge animation — Zac is rooted while charging E, so you are a fixed line target. Charge E from deep brush, not in lane, and never start a charge with your support visible to them.
• Rakan / Bard: Problem mobility supports. Battle Dance (E) shields the carry and carries Rakan back out of your R bounce radius; Magical Journey (E) opens a wall portal that pulls their entire bot lane out the back of the fight. Pick into them only if your mid roam compensates with extra CC, otherwise dodge in champ select.
• Caitlyn (ADC): Your ideal target for E flanks. She has no dash and 90 Caliber Net (E) only pushes her back 390 units — Q pull and R bounce keep her locked in your W AOE. Sweep the bush before you charge: Yordle Snap Trap (W) is the only thing that holds you still long enough for her support to answer. Engage every wave the moment your minion wave pushes into your tower side, the cover wave protects your follow-up.

Power spikes & win conditions

• Level 2: With E and W unlocked, the first flash-engage window opens. Hold Flash in tri-brush; the moment the enemy ADC walks up for a minion, Flash-E onto them. Even without R, a level 2 knockup plus your ADC's two basic attacks usually burns a defensive Flash from the bot lane.
• Level 6: First Let's Bounce!. Pre-charge E in tri-brush, launch onto the ADC, hit R the instant your knockup lands — the four bounces knock the pair back and keep them slowed for 2-3 seconds. Bot lane first blood window: any ADC without a dash dies here. E sits at rank 3 here, so since Patch 26.15 the launch is back every 15 seconds instead of 16. It is one second, not a new rhythm: the reason to care is that a missed charge no longer overlaps the enemy support's next ward trip.
• Hollow Radiance completion (~ minute 12-14): Your W aura starts ticking for real teamfight damage. Group with mid for a Dragon fight; Hollow plus W on the contested target wins the objective without needing extra team damage.
• 3-item spike (~ minute 22-26): Locket + Mercury's + Hollow online. Two damage auras plus a team-wide shield active means a single E lands you on the carry, the team shields up, and you have W ticking percent-HP on whoever is inside your bounce. Patch 26.15 also raised his armor growth to 5.2 per level (from 4.7): about 6.6 extra Armor at level 15, a small permanent cushion rather than a new power spike. Force every objective; this is your peak.

Common mistakes

• Charging E in lane within enemy vision. Elastic Slingshot has a charge animation where Zac visibly winds up and the enemy hears the audio cue. From open vision the enemy support either burns a defensive ability or Flashes out before you land. Always charge from tri-brush or river fog so the landing point commits before they see you.
• Engaging without your ADC ready. Zac has no kill threat alone — the kit is built to lock down a target while your ADC kills them. Engaging E onto the enemy ADC while your own ADC is still recalling means you stand on top of their team alone and die for free. Type fast in chat, ping the engage, wait for your carry to be in range.
• Using Q for poke. Stretching Strikes is your only peel tool: Q yanks an enemy diver off your ADC by hitting them then your ADC. Burning it for poke in lane means an Akali or Pyke walks straight onto your carry while your Q is on cooldown. Save Q for the moment your ADC is dove.
• Engaging into Black Shield or Spell Shield. Black Shield (Morgana E) and Spell Shield (Sivir E) both nullify the E knockup and the Q pull. Track these cooldowns (Black Shield is 26s at rank 1, Spell Shield 24s) and engage only when the shield is down.
• Walking past bloblets after death. When Zac dies, four small bloblets try to recombine over the next few seconds. Most players forget about them and walk back to base; the enemy AOEs them down for a free 5-minute revive denied. After death, watch the minimap — if even one bloblet survives, you revive with chunky HP and zero gold lost. Ping your ADC to peel them.

Advanced tip

Practice Flash + E reorientation. Elastic Slingshot launches in the direction the skillshot was aimed, but you can Flash mid-charge to instantly snap your launch position 400+ units sideways. A charge aimed at the obvious engage target (the enemy ADC) can be Flash-relocated 90 degrees inward to land on the enchanter who just stepped up to shield, then re-aimed onto a completely different angle. The enemy reacts to the visible charge direction; the Flash relocates the threat before launch. Chained into Let's Bounce! (R) the instant you land, this is the highest-impact engage in the kit: 1200+ units of E charge plus 400 units of Flash plus R chain knockback, all under 1.5 seconds. It separates Zac mains from one-tricks.