Despite three patches and two hotfixes of nonstop changes for League of Legends’ Zac, he’s on deck for another round of nerfs, according to the most recent PBE update.
Poor Zac. He’s been through a lot throughout the last month or so, and he really needs a break from the constant onslaught of changes that have been thrown at him patch after patch. Unfortunately for him, he’s still super broken, so Riot isn’t cooling it with changes yet. He’s going to be hit again in Patch 7.12, marking the third straight patch full of changes for the blob.
The nerfs headed his way are fairly large, and they should do well to bring him back down to earth, and we don’t just mean when he lands from his Elastic Slingshot. Speaking of his Elastic Slingshot, though, it’s getting nerfed pretty hard. Damage on the ability is being lowered at all ranks by 20. It’s not a huge number, but 20 damage can seem a lot larger in the early stages of the game for both ganks and clearing jungle camps.
That’s not all, though. Damage on Unstable Matter, his W, is also being lowered at all ranks. These damage nerfs aren’t just going to hurt his damage in ganks, they’re going to slow his clear speed, and that’s arguably the only part that Zac currently struggles with. He can stay healthy with his passive when he kills monsters, but high-damage junglers (and Ivern) still heavily outmatch him when busting through their jungle camps. Will this be enough to make Zac balanced? Maybe, but probably not.
Zac’s strength comes from his immense CC and insane tankiness, and when ganking, he could honestly take or leave the damage. Nerfing his clear speed, something he’s already not terribly strong with, might not hit Zac where he needs to be hit, and that may result in more changes later down the road. To balance him, reducing the duration of his CC might actually be what he needs, with slight increases to his damage to compensate.
With how many times he’s been changed already, something should hit the mark eventually. Hopefully, these changes do the trick, but we wouldn’t be totally surprised if he needs further work afterward.
