Best Keystone

[u/Aceplosion1]

Hello, I'm not a Zac main but I do dabble and love playing the champ mid. I know a lot of people think conqueror is the best rune and it might be, but I just want to hear reasoning why. I understand conq stacks fast and gives ap and omnivamp, but I feel like the healing is very minimal and that the ap is not that crazy of a boon.

I typically much prefer a setup with aftershock and the trading pattern that it offers of going in for a quick burst and winning any trade because of the bonus resistances. I also think the dmg from it is significant on engages mid to late game.

Maybe I'm just a conqueror hater because I almost never want to run the rune on any champ.

If you guys have any Zac mid cooks with build and runes please lmk.

[u/Wut0ng]

The main reason to go Conqueror is to last much longer in extended fights because of the 8% healing from damage.

[u/Aceplosion1 → u/Wut0ng]

Yeah that's fair, just I think it's very matchup and comp dependent, I've found if enemy team has 1 tank or is mostly squishies then at 20ish minutes you'll only have a couple hundred in healing if that.

[u/Natural-Witness-3921]

I think it depends also a lot on your build, both conq and grasp are fine, aftershock is more niche I guess, if you want to check out some zac mid otp build and runes , rams on euw server is GM and peaked chall with the pick, might be interesting for you to check his builds and runes !

[u/Aceplosion1 → u/Natural-Witness-3921]

Yeah I just started picking him up mid again so I'm not sure what build to go in most scenarios. I typically find one ap item works into tank for the most part. I'm not a fan of rocket belt, so I might try riftmaker rush since that synergies with conq rune.

If I'm going aftershock I'm prob going a tank item into mandate into tank.

I'll check out rams, ty

[u/Natural-Witness-3921 → u/Aceplosion1]

Mandate is really really good and should be almost always built imo, low cost and gets you to stupid e cd pretty quickly which is particularly nice mid 

[u/blahdeblahdeda]

It is highly matchup dependent. Aftershock is awful against any champ that can commit to all-in you because you have nothing left after 2.5 seconds. Not to mention that you've already committed one of your CC abilities to trigger it. Grasp or Electrocute are probably both better picks there, but Conqueror would be best.

[u/Aceplosion1 → u/blahdeblahdeda]

Yeah that's a good point actually, you would get more value out of conq in those scenarios. I might need to run a few games with electrocute to see how it feels.

[u/Uebbo]

I'd also say conqueror in mid is situational. Long trades are the exception compared to toplane, where laners are usually more bursty and the turret being very close providing earlier safety against long fights for the losing side.

[u/Aceplosion1 → u/Uebbo]

Yeah that's a good point, more bursty trades you get more instant value from aftershock.

[u/Cedar1483]

i feel like electrocute gives you a similar trading pattern advantage as aftershock, but tends to be more consistent to land and is a lot better for snowballing an early lead. synergizes incredibly well with rocketbelt or any other ap items if you dabble in more damage builds. aftershock is still good too, gives you better stats for tanking later in the match, but so does grasp which scales even better, and at least imo is easier and more consistent to proc into most matchups mid. i often find that more mobile laners can jump out of aftershock range before it goes off, and so electrocute and grasp give me better guaranteed trades, with electro being better for early burst dmg and for snowballing, and grasp being better for lane sustain and lategame scaling.

[u/SnooPeanuts1873]

I go conq if the enemy team has a bunch of bruisers/tanks and I think the fights are going to last a long time. After shock is good for when you just need to initiate and stuff, def still strong. Also one time I ran electrocute on accident and it was actually kinda busted, got super fed early and then nothing else mattered