Ray tracing is performed to investigate the optical distortions in the end-pumped, zigzag slab. Optical path differences caused by temperature, slab deformation, and stress birefringence are calculated under uniform pumping; the results show a steep edge in the width dimension and a thermal lens with an effective focal length as short as several meters in the thickness dimension. Dependence of depolarization on total internal reflection phase retardance as well as the slab's cut angle is studied by the Jones matrix technique; results show that although at the pumping power of 10 kW, the mean depolarization of the 2.5 mm×30 mm×150.2 mm Nd:YAG slab is generally below 3%, and it increases rapidly with pumping power. Besides, for the 0°- or 60°-cut slab, an optimal phase retardance range of 5° to 13° exists, in which the depolarization loss can be lower than 0.5%. Finally, experiments on temperature and depolarization measurements verify the numerical results.