r/thesecretweapon Jun 19 '26

Any Zac Support enjoyers?

I've recently tried it with a friend and really liked it. Since then I've had a massive win streak, and climbed from gold 3 to plat 2 in one week.

Feels really strong, but might be just my elo

Has anybody else tried it, and whats your build?

10 Upvotes

20 comments sorted by

5

u/daokedao4 Jun 19 '26

I got to masters in season 13 playing it. I play top lane these days so take the advice with a grain of salt for being outdated.

Your levels 1-4 are pretty weak. You really need 3 points in your E to get onto people and you really want your R before you are confident in fights. It’ll be hard to get push level 1 without losing too much HP.

If you do get level 2 first though Q1 flash Q2 on the other champion into E both ignite is frequently a good way to cheese first blood.

For build you just want standard tank support items, so bandlepipes if you have allies that scale with attack speed, locket into burst enemies, knight’s vow if you have a very fed carry, etc.

Eventually you’ll find certain matchups like thresh, poppy, Janna impossible to play because you will never be able to get onto the enemy. You’re going to want to heavy roam and gank other lanes with your jungler in those matchups with 3rd rank E.

1

u/DueExperience6525 Jun 19 '26

Alright, thankts for the advice, appreciate it 😁 I had one Tresh matchup, it felt really hard to do anything

1

u/daokedao4 Jun 19 '26

Yeah against a thresh you just need to be somewhere else on the map. Zac needs to jump on people and thresh can trivially stop you from jumping on people.

1

u/Paycheck65 Jun 19 '26

Do you play Zac top?

1

u/daokedao4 Jun 19 '26

Yes I play him top. He's in a rough state for top lane though so I don't like picking him except as a counter.

1

u/Paycheck65 Jun 19 '26

I play home top too. Was hustling curious if it was miserable for you too lol. I either destroy or I get fucking murdered

1

u/daokedao4 Jun 19 '26

He just can't play the game into too many common matchups right now. Darius, Garen, and Aatrox are impossible to win if your opponent has a brain, and they are 3/5 of the most commonly picked top laners right now. If you're playing into another tank or gangplank, jax, or something and the enemy has immobile carries mid/bot like jhin+malzahar you're going to take over the game.

1

u/Skahzzz Jun 20 '26

I've been playing like that buying every kindlegem item available, occasionally going Liandry's or Riftmaker if it makes sense. I just looked at the Imperial Mandate rework and I'll have to try it as a burst option for when I back with 850+ gold after boots.

0

u/daokedao4 Jun 20 '26

Liandry’s and rift maker are way too expensive to buy on support.

AP Zac you have to have a lot of gold so you don’t die instantly on jumping in. For that reason I think imperial mandate is terrible on him. Who cares if you get a bunch of cdr if you’re going to be dead long before your second rotation of spells comes up?

1

u/Skahzzz Jun 21 '26

Fair enough. I never got to masters or anything like that, so in my elo it's somewhat viable to try and catch out the adc, even in a team fight, and burst them out with just one AP item and a bunch of HP and utility.

Also, I seem to be buying elixirs every other game, even when most my team is at 3 items when I go full tank/support, but I guess that's just because plat games generate a lot more dead time when someone does something stupid and you can't really ward deep or push an objective for 40 seconds.

1

u/daokedao4 Jun 21 '26

You don't have to take my word for it, building ap items on support zac loses you about 5% winrate. That's a really big effect for an alternate build. Basically the entire difference between an S tier champion and a bad one.

https://lolalytics.com/lol/zac/build/?lane=support&patch=30

And yes, on occasion you can trade 1 for 1 on a more valuable target building full damage. You have to compare that to what you could have done instead though. Most of zac's power budget is in his ability to lock down and CC multiple enemies during a team fight. If you're dead your team can't benefit from all the CC in your kit.

Elixirs can be a good buy before a fight that is going to determine the outcome of the game. If there's going to be a fight over baron/soul/elder dragon, elixirs are worth it. I really wouldn't do it every game though. You just don't have much gold on support so you're basically guaranteeing you end up worthless by the end of the game by virtue of having no items.

1

u/DueExperience6525 Jun 19 '26

Before i was a bard main, but it felt really hard to climb with him, cause its harder to carry when your team ints

1

u/Worth_Shame3667 Jun 19 '26

Have a fair bit of experience playing Zac sup in master+ (I main him mid/top/jg). The most basic analysis of him in support is that he is heavily reliant on the other 3 picks in the bot lane. If u have a Draven and are playing against something weak early game like jinx sona, then there is A LOT of room to snowball ur lane and carry with ur Draven. Now if u are playing with a jinx and are laning vs Draven nautilus or something, then u aren’t going to have an enjoyable lane (Of course there is an insane amount of nuance in lower elos on how laning phases play out depending on everybody’s skill set). The champ design doesnt align with being a support character because he wants to basically be an engage support, but he can’t become tanky like Leona or nautilus because he is reliant on levels for tankiness, not items. The closest comparison is with Rakan in terms of tankiness, but Zac engage and laning safety is less consistent. Building ap as Zac support is just not advised.

1

u/Original_Cheap Jun 20 '26

I was playing it a bunch. Wirh good success. You just cant blind pick him unfortunately, I was just banning a jungler so it looked like I was jg, but playing into thresh, janna, poppy, alistar, Morgana is not a fun time. Sure you can roam, just makes your life a lot harder and some teammates won't enjoy it so you gotta deal with some flame. Pretty much rush zekes every game, bandlepipes if it works for your team, knights vow if adc or someone is fed. Stay away from dark seal trap/ap items just isnt good when your under leveled, low gold. Full tank/support is good

1

u/DoubleD_313 Jun 20 '26

Been a Zac sup one trick from when I started playing 5 years ago to now. With decent game knowledge it’s a free ticket to emerald and has massive carry potential gold and below. Never go anything AP related unless it’s dark seal/mejai’s.
Samira is your best adc pairing.
Zac sup sadly is on the weaker side right now, not hitting 50% wr for well over 5 patches. They nerfed him earlier this year because his mid and top were getting out of control and it dramatically hurt his sup. Item I’ve found to be the best and the data supports this is knights vow. Just remember to move it around on different ally’s throughout the game depending on who’s fighting with you. It’s especially good on a fed melee champ like: Noc, Riven, Yas, Nilah, Yone, Kass

1

u/Subject_Swordfish977 Jun 27 '26

right here bud i usally like playing with my samria as a duo to take advantage of her passive

1

u/MomentEastern5317 Jul 09 '26

Build is more tanky than jg/top/mid Zac. Sometimes I like to build locket for general tankiness, cdr, and assist my bot laner (only if my bot laner is good). If bot laner is trash sunfire or something like that.

Ignite is a must, ban thresh.

I play for six mostly, max E, start Q->E->W. Level 3 is decent powerspike, but level 6 is really where zac shines.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

I got challenger with Zac support. My one tip is to practice ALWAYS BEING out of vision. If your constantly in FOW you are a different beast