Hello,

After getting to level 7 myself I think I have some tips that I can share with people here, as from what I can see so far people are tending to agree that Zac is hard to get S's on. It's nothing super in-depth, since I stopped gathering data after I hit 7, but it should be helpful.

1 - Build AP. As far as I know, your grade at the end of a game is based on gold earned correlated with game time relative to other Zac players. As such, playing as a tank, even if it's more helpful to your team, is detrimental since saving lives doesn't pay the bills.

I'm no good at making builds but so far my main build has been Runic Echo -> Liandry's Torment, then usually randiuns/spirit visage or protobelt if I'm super fed, then ending the game with Warmog's. Sometimes I throw in a rylai's or an abyssal. Really, the echo -> liandry's is the most important part.

2 - Farm a lot. I don't know how true this is for other people, but my playstyle for zac is typically to build tank and camp the shit out of lanes, setting up kills and getting my team fed. This strategy doesn't work for getting to level 7. By building AP, with echo/liandry's you can farm a lot faster and get a good chunk of money. E -> W -> Q -> Smite -> W usually one-shots raptors for me.

Even if you have an amazing KDA you can still be held back from the S- or S if you don't have enough farm, since it's based on overall gold. I had been playing a lot of games where I was constantly ganking, flying all over the map and getting a ton of kills, but because I never stopped to farm I didn't get an S.

A strategy which may work but I haven't experimented with enough to be sure is to continue to powerfarm after you reach full build. The theory behind this is that most people would theoretically stop farming once they reached full build, so by continuing to farm you can have more gold in the super lategame relative to other players. I only have one game as data, so it's completely uncertain, but even though I was behind for most of the game, I continued to farm past full build and got an S- when we lost.

3 - Since we're all playing Zac, and I'm pretty sure skill level doesn't factor into grades (not 100% sure though), our grades should be based off of the same formula. Here are a few data points for gold / gametime / grade:

8k gold at 20 minutes: S- 12k gold at 27 minutes: S

18k gold at 42 min and beyond: S- 19k gold at 42 min and beyond: S

The guideline to see if I'm on track for an S in-game is: Runic Echos by 8 minutes Runic Echos Liandry's 2k or more gold by 20 minutes 4 items by 30 minutes Full build by 35 minutes

Sorry if the data set is very small, I'll update it with more info as I continue playing after level 7 and I'll add in any data points people comment with.