I'm Gankr, 1.5m mastery points Zac main, Master tier player and former best Zac NA. Here are my thoughts on the rework.

In this post I am going to discuss everything that has changed about the new Zac and how I feel about it and how members of the Zac community feel as well. I was originally gonna do this post a few days after the rework, but I realized it was smarter to wait so I can get a true feeling of the new Zac. About me: I started playing Zac a few months after playing League back in season 4. Everyone told me he was trash, so I ended up climbing to high masters in season 6 over the summer to prove them wrong. A little while after I accomplished this he started seeing more and more play. I peaked 430 lp that season. Proof of being best Zac NA: http://imgur.com/QZM4Jnd

Now I'll talk about Zac's kit pre-rework. The old Zac worked well as both a jungler, toplaner, and even a midlaner into specific match-ups. Here's why:

Stretching Strike (Q): This ability was maxed in lane for Zac giving him both waveclear and harass through minions. It did a surprising amount of damage when used and was also on a shorter cooldown for more blobs to sustain with. With jungle Zac, this ability was pretty much nothing. It was maxed last and would just be there for you to use whenever you already used the rest of your abilities. One more thing to note is you could q then flash to surprise people and kill them when they least expect it.

Unstable Matter (W): There isn't much to say about this ability other than thank you Riot Shrieve for keeping it the same. So many people reviewing the rework would say things like "If they want to make Zac less of a one dimensional champion they should change his w". Changing Zac's W would actually destroy him as a champion. It is his form of jungle clear, sustained damage, and source of many of the blobs from his passive. Changing this ability in any way would pretty much destroy Zac because it requires a short cooldown and sustained damage.

Slingshot (E): This ability is the one that everyone knows when it comes to Zac. He can shoot himself over multiple walls with enough points in it and land a huge knock up. This is what makes Zac a champion to be feared. He is hard to ward against and hard to live against as a sole immobile squishy. The pre-rework E had a 1 second knock-up no matter how long it was charged up. This was great for jungle Zac and even better for lane Zac. the point blank e tap gave you one second to run around picking up blobs or just giving you time to escape. so many times I would be getting chased by someone and then I just e onto them and run away. The e change is one of the reasons lane Zac sucks now, but the q and ult are the major reasons why.

Let's Bounce (R): This ability pre-rework was one of the greatest tools in Zac's kit. With smart positioning it allowed for an ultimate to split everyone up in the way you wanted it and also did a huge amount of damage. A lot of the damage in Zac's kit came from his ultimate. Each bounce gave him a blob, he could cast w while ulting, and each bounce did damage to the enemy. He also got a speed boost with his ultimate allowing for a quick escape or a way to pick up blobs with ease. This speed boost gave Zac a means of resetting after a bad engage. if things go sour you can just press R and run away with the speed. Using the new Zac ultimate for that purpose is useless. There was a lot of decision making when it came to this ultimate. Flashing during his ultimate also allowed for knocking people a certain way when they don't expect it. Riot referred to this ultimate as a "chaotic Wukong ultimate"... If rioters were using this ultimate as a Wukong ultimate then maybe that is why they though Zac needed a rework. Zac's ultimate isn't just jump in and press r as soon as you get in to hope it works. It required thoughtful positioning unlike Wukong's ultimate. Also, Wukong is complete garbage, he shouldn't be the one staying the same.

Now we move onto post rework Zac:

Stretching Strikes (Q): This ability is actually a lot of fun and insanely powerful. At first it sucked for jungle clear, but now that it gives two blobs when you slam jungle creeps together it works just fine. It gives Zac something to do when you miss E unlike the old Zac where you just had to slowly walk forward or ult flash to get something done. Zac's early ganks are also way better with this ability. Early ganks top or botlane are done by just walking into the lane a lot of the time because of the short starting range on E. With the Q you can walk in and set up a free E unless they flash. This ability is actually really enjoyable, but lane Zac had to die for it which is really sad for many Zac mains.

Slingshot (E): Now this ability has a knock-up that scales with charge up time. It is worse for when he is clearing his jungle or in skirmishes, but when engaging team fights it pretty is the same. In the most recent patch this ability got a change to show the circle indicator .25 seconds earlier than it already did. I never did like the indicator which they gave to the Slingshot. It hurts the skill behind Zac's jump so much. Predicting dashes in high elo is nearly impossible because they will just avoid the indicator.

Let's Bounce (R): This ability is the most controversial change in Zac's kit. Some Zac players have learned to love it while others still cry that it should be reverted. For me, I think it is a very strong ability, but I enjoyed the old one more. This new Zac R is much less fun to use and just feels really bad if you ever miss it. It is like missing a blitzcrank hook x1000. If you ever have a poor engage this ult isn't going to help out much. The enemy team can do a lot of damage while you charge up and can even stand on you if they don't want you to escape them. Using the quick tap to knock everyone back barely stops them. The range on that is insanely short and the lack of speedboost the old one had lets them just catch up again. I've learned to use it to it's potential, and if you land a fully charged E it is pretty much broken. That doesn't mean it is fun though.

Support Zac: This has become much better than it was previously thanks to his new q. It gives him great pressure in lane and slingshotting in is no longer a death sentence because you can nearly guarantee a hit with the new q.

My opinion on the Zac rework: Zac is not as fun as he used to be before. One of my favorite things with him was getting into a clutch fight with someone and taking them down through use of blobs and kiting with the ultimate/point blank e knock-up. This video has a lot of what I mean in it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0gwD6R4r4k . New Zac does so little damage that you can't even fight anyone unless you build ap. Fighting an adc who is over-extended in a lane will rarely go in your favor. Being a wet-noodle as Zac feels pathetic. Zac's ability to fight in the top lane is pretty much gone, the clutch feeling of barely hanging on with your blobs is practically dead.

The Zac community's feelings: Everyone is pretty split on how they feel about Zac. Many people love him now, but everyone is pretty upset that he is permabanned. When the changes come to make him more balanced I expect the number of people who enjoy him to decrease. There are also a huge number of people who have given up on Zac completely. Anyone who used to play lane Zac just feels lost because their champion has pretty much been deleted.

Final Notes: Huge thanks to Riot Shrieve for coming over to r/thesecretweapon to discuss changes that were going on with Zac and trying to get feedback from the mains. There was a lot of hate towards her from many frustrated Zac mains, but she still continued to try and fix things for us. If any Rioters are reading this, try to communicate with the reworked champion's community. There will always be the group that hates you no matter what, but a large portion of the champion mains will appreciate it.

TL;DR: I find Zac less fun. Top/mid lane zac are dead. His ability to fight champions is practically nothing. He is more powerful than he used to be, but that doesn't make him enjoyable. I still enjoy playing him from time to time, but a lot of the time I find myself bored with him which hasn't happened in years of maining Zac.