Strategy Guide - Guide for League of Legends
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Would you recommend this FAQ? Yes No (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Relevant Information: --------------------- Author: The Dude Email: [email protected] Copyright 2010, Nick Wolf All rights reserved. -------------------- Platform: PC Version: 0.39 Started: February 1st, 2010 Last Updated: March 11th, 2010 (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` (_________________________) ````````````````````````` Table of Contents: ------------------------- 1. Disclaimer (C01) 2. Content Disclaimer (C02) 2. Version History (C03) 3. Overview (C04) 4. Terminology (C05) 5. Statistics (C06) 6. Consumeables (C07) 7. Equipment (C08) 8. Masteries (C09) 9. Characters (C10) (_________________________) ````````````````````````` (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 1. Disclaimer (C001): --------------------- This FAQ is OUTDATED. I suggest you use it as a resource only. This material may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Unauthorized use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. To request permission see email address listed above. (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 1. Content Disclaimer (C002): ----------------------------- Any build not specificly credited to someone else was created and tested multiple times by me. The majority of my testing has been done in PUGs. All testing was done well after I hit level thirty. None of my builds were tested in pratice games. Only builds I have personally had success with were included in this guide. If a build was not fullfilling its intended role well enough, I reworked the build until it did. Yes, I have played every champion (excluding any newly released ones not in this guide) many times each. I do not claim to be some kind of LoL god. You are allowed to disagree with anything and everything. The only indisputable fact that I put forth is that "I" have been successful with all of my builds. Success being, fullfilling the role the build was intended to fullfill and of course winning games. This guide as a whole is meant to be informational and nothing more. It is not the gospel. I will freely admit that I am horrible at punctuation. You can email me about any punctuation errors if you like. My opinions about balance and my personal rants will be confined to the "My Thoughts" sections. You can skip over these sections if you so choose. (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 1. Version History (C002): -------------------------- 2/1/2010 - Version 0.10: Created relevant information, disclaimer, content disclaimer, contents, worked on formatting and spacing. 2/2/2010 - Version 0.14: Worked on Overview, created Alistar and Amumu sections. 2/8/2010 - Version 0.15: Worked on format a bit. 2/13/2010 - Version 0.16: Created Statistics and Consumeables sections. 3/7/2010 - Version 0.22: Created Shaco, Cho'gath and Tristana sections. 3/8/2010 - Version 0.26: Created Gangplank and Warwick sections. 3/9/2010 - Version 0.30: Created Heimerdinger and Fiddlesticks. 3/10/2010 - Version 0.35: Created Equipment and Gragas sections. 3/11/2010 - Version 0.39: Reworded most of the abilities and created Malphite section. (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 1. Overview (C003): ------------------- League of Legends is one of three games released recently that are attempting to recreate the DOTA experience. The other two being Heroes of Newerth and Demigod. DOTA stands for Defense of the Ancients. It is a game type/map type created within Warcraft 3 using the map editor. DOTA has become incredibly popular and hence it has created its own mini genre of games. The premise is very simple. You play a single hero who is on a team with other people playing a single hero each. Each hero has their own stat distribution and special abilities. All heroes fall under certain archtypes that I will get into later in the guide. For now, just know that the majority of heroes all have a unique feel to them and are interesting in their own right. After choosing your hero you will begin play on a map designed around a varying number of pathways leading to the enemy base. Along these pathways you will have allied towers on your side of the map and enemy towers on the opposite side of the map. These towers are roadblocks that must be overcome in order to make progress toward the enemy base. Destroying the enemy base is your ultimate goal. Periodically creeps will spawn at both bases and head down each pathway until they reach enemy creeps, an enemy tower, or an enemy player. Players also head down these pathways killing enemy creeps, neutral creeps (I will get into this later), enemy towers and enemy players for experience and gold. Experience is used to level the player up giving them higher base stats as well as letting them choose which abilities/spells they want to purchase. Gold allows the player to buy items ranging from stat boosting equipment, sight wards to give vision of an area, consumable items to restore health or mana or give beneficial buffs, etc. The average game lasts a little over thirty minutes. During this time you as the player will focus on not giving kills to the enemy, while fulfilling a certain role for your team. I will get into different roles later in the guide. Eventually your team will have destroyed some or all of the enemy towers and will infiltrate the enemy base. At which point your goal will be to destroy the enemy inhibitors. If you can destroy the enemy inhibitors you will spawn stronger waves of creeps for your team. These stronger creeps are tougher and more importantly they will do increased damage to structures. The last step is to attack the enemy nexus. Once destroyed you will get a nice victory screen with everyones totaled stats/score. At this point you can also chat with the enemy team congratulating them on a great game, or letting them know how they're a bunch of noobs. It is usually one or the other. Loyal DOTA players will notice a few changes. League of Legends is mostly faithful to DOTA. However it differs in a few significant ways. If you have played DOTA and wish to know what these changes are, read on. The first significant change is the omission of the ability to deny. Denying well was a key component of DOTA. You could literally starve the enemy of exp and gold. The consequence of its removal is that you see people tower hugging much more often. Creep blocking is another significant change. Although it has not been completely removed it is much harder to make any significant difference using this tactic. The creeps in LoL can much more easily move around the player. Yet another significant change is the inability to buy back once you have died. The result is that it is sometimes possible to wipe out the enemy team and make significant progress while they are all waiting to revive. Another change that is less significant is the fact that inhibitors, AKA barracks, will eventually respawn and must be destroyed again. In over 500 games I have yet to personally see this save a team. Sure it helps sometimes, but your team isn't going to get the win just because your inhibitor respawned. The last and possibly the greatest change of all is the addition of brush. When standing in brush your character becomes invisible to the enemy. Brush is scattered throughout the maps and both teams can use it to set up ambushes. A less noticeable change for some is the amount of streamlining that went into LoL. The matchmaking system, interface, models, everything is built for this game. Where as in DOTA you are reusing everything from Warcraft 3. In the end this alone is the greatest improvement LoL can claim. However it does miss out on some of the charm of DOTA because of it. (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 1. Terminology (C004): ---------------------- 1) PB = Point Blank. A PB spell or ability will be centered on your character. 2) DoT = Damage Over Time. A DoT is a damaging effect that instead of being instantaneous is spread over a set amount of time. The total amount of damage is recieved slowly in small chunks over the duration. 2) Cone = Some spells/abilities hit a cone shaped area when cast. The tip of the cone starts at your champion and widens outward creating an inverted triangle shape. 2) KB = Knockback. A spell or ability that has a KB component will throw the enemy a given distance. 3) Snare = A snare reduces your targets movement speed slowing them down. 3) Dispell = A dispell removes effects from either you or an enemy. Which depends on the spell itself. 4) Silence = Once silenced you can no longer cast spells or abilities. 4) Buff = Any beneficial effect that you place on yourself or an ally. 5) Debuff = Any negative effect that you or your allies place on an enemy. 6) SS = Summoner Spell. Summoner spells can be added to whichever champion you wish. They add a level of cusomization to your builds. 7) CD = Cooldown. A cooldown is the amount of time that must pass before you can use the same ability/spell again. 8) Toggled = A toggled ability is one that you can turn on and off at will. Once turned on the ability stays on until you turn it off and/or in most cases, until you run out of mana. 9) CC = Crowd Control. Crowd control is any debuff that stops the target from doing whatever they were going to do. Stuns are the most obvious form of CC. 10) Skillshot = A skillshot is a spell/ability that has to be carefully aimed. If you aim it poorly you will miss and waste the spell/ability. 11) Gank = A gank is when you surprise attack an enemy. Usually when they are otherwise engaged with creeps, towers, teammates, etc. 12) Build = A Build refers to a certain order in which you purchase items and spells/abilities. 13) Standard Attack = A standard attack is what happens when you right click an enemy. Standard attacks are not spells/abilities although some spells/abilities will initiate your standard attack. 14) Splash Damage = An attack that does splash damage will damage the target and those close to the target. 15) PUG = A PUG consists of a group of solo players. They do not know each other unless by sheer luck of the draw and usually have worse team work than a premade. 16) Premade = A premade is a team of players that join together before starting a match. They will generally have better communication and team work than a PUG. (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 1. Statistics (C004): --------------------- 1) Damage = Damage factors into your attack stat. Increasing your damage stat increases how hard you hit enemies with your standard attacks. 2) Critical Strike = Critical Strikes are a stronger version of your standard attack. They have a percent chance of occuring which can be increased many different ways. 3) Critical Strike Damage = Your critical strike damage effects how much bonus damage you will do when you critical strike. 4) Attack Speed = Your attack speed stat controls how quickly you can complete standard attacks. 5) Life Steal = Life steal allows you to gain health after each standard attack. Life steal is based on percentages of your standard attack damage. 6) Ability Power = Ability Power increases the amount of damage your spells and abilities do. 7) Cooldown Reduction = Cooldown reduction reduces the amount of time that must pass before you can use the same ability again. 8) Mana = Most spells and abilities cost a set amount of mana to use. Increasing your mana stat will allow you to use more spells and abilities. 9) Mana Regen = The more mana regen you have the faster you will regain spent mana passively. 10) Health = When you take damage of any kind that damage is subtracted from your health total. When your health runs out you die, and eventually respawn at your base. 11) Health Regen = The more health regen you have the faster you will regain lost health passively. 12) Armor = Armor reduces the amount of physical damage you recieve by a percentage. Standard attacks and some abilities count as physical damage. 13) Magic Resist = Magic Resist reduce the amount of magic damage you recieve by a percentage. All spells and some abilities count as magic damage. 14) Movement Speed = The more movement speed you have the faster your character will move across the map. 15) Dodge = You gain the dodge stat based on a percentage. Dodging allows you to avoid standard attacks negating their damage a percentage of the time. (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 1. Consumeables (C004): ----------------------- 1) Health Potion = The health potion will regenerate a set amount of health over a short duration. 2) Mana Potion = The mana potion will regenerate a set amount of mana over a short duration. 3) Sight Ward = The sight ward can be placed on the map and will give vision of a large area for about five minutes. 4) Vision Ward = The vision ward can be placed on the map and will give vision of a large area for about three and a half minutes. It will also reveal hidden champions that pass through its area. 5) Elixir of Fortitude = This elixir will give you increased health and damage for four minutes. 6) Elixir of Agility = This elixir will give you increased attack speed and critical strike chance for four minutes. 7) Elixir of Brilliance = This elixir will give you increased ability power and cooldown reduction for four minutes. 8) Oracle's Elixir = This elixir grants you the ability to see invisible champions. This elixir lasts until you die. Strategy: The vast majority of player's use several health and/or mana potions in the early game. This is a good strategy as it allows you to stay in your lane longer gaining more experience and gold. Premades tend to use sight and vision wards quite a bit. They strategically place them around the map so they know where the other team is heading. The elixirs uses are debatable, but many high end players use them quite a bit. The problem lies in the fact that if you die you lose the buff they give. If you can go without dieing long enough to get a couple of kills you can pay off the cost of the elixirs. If not, you are better off saving for items as you cannot lose them once purchased. (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 1. Equipment (C008): -------------------- I will go over some of the equipment that I regularly list as optional in this section. Most of these pieces of equipment are specialized for a specific situation. Hopefully this section will help you decide when to choose these items and when not to. Banshee's Veil: Banshee's is first and forement an anti-caster item. Any enemy focusing on AP can be countered with a Banshee's. The very large chunk of magic resist will lower caster damage significantly. The shield it provides will outright block a single spell every thirty seconds. Thornmail: Thornmail is meant to counter physical champions. Any champion that relies on standard attacks for the majority of their damage can be countered with a Thornmail. It adds a large chunk of armor to lower the damage they deal to you. The thorn effect will relflect twenty five percent of their damage back at them. The reflected damage is turned into magic damage which is almost always harder for them to mitigate. Guardian Angel: Guardian angel adds magic resist and armor reducing all damage you recieve. More importantly it allows you to come back to life once ever five minutes. This effect allows you to play more aggressively than normally, knowing that if you die you get a second chance. In general taking a Guardian Angel should be reserved until late game unless you are playing a tank and struggling. In which case taking it earlier can allow you to continue to tank for your team, while having a safety net in case you go down. Guardian Angel is a great sixth item for just about anyone. Frozen Heart: The Frozen Heart has an odd mix of stats. It adds armor, mana, CD reduction and a support effect that lowers enemy attack speed. The key to choosing this item over other choices is two fold. Firstly your champion has to benefit from CD reduction. Most champions will benefit from some CD reduction, however most physical carries benefit more from something else. Such as damage, life steal, health, etc.. Secondly the enemy team must have one or more physical champions that pose a threat. The high armor and support effect will help counter these champions. If you need both CD reduction and to counter physical champions this is a great item choice. Also the mana doesn't hurt as some icing on the cake. Nashor's Tooth: Nashor's comes with CD reduction, AP, mana regen and attack speed. For the most part this is a caster item with some attack speed thrown in for the hell of it. Most straight physical champions won't need the AP and the mana regen. A good chunk of them won't need the CD reduction in place of many other stats. All this leaves for physical champs is a slight attack speed increase. However, on hybrid champions that do benefit from caster stats you could do worse than Nashor's. It's also great for pretty much any straight caster who wants an offensively focused CD reduction item. Warmog's Armor: Warmog's is in general a tank item. Taken early it can give tanks a dramatic increase in health and health regen. This allows them to take more punishment as well as recover more quickly. However, Warmog's can be taken on just about anyone late game if you find yourself in need of health. The key to choosing Warmog's late game is deciding whether or not you truely need health, as opposed to a more specialized counter. Aegis of the Legion: Aegis is a tank item that can be taken just about any time. Usually it is best taken when you are the sole tank and most of your team is filled with squishies. You will gain tank stats while also giving your squishies some mitigation. (_____________________________________________________________________________) ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 1. Characters (C005): --------------------- In this section I will give a run down of each character, their abilites, their stats, which archtypes they fit, good equipment options and some character specific advice. The characters will be broken down into sections based on the roles they fit. Because nearly all characters can fill multiple roles you will see most of them listed in multiple sections. However they will often have entirely different builds. Also how RIOT (the creators of LoL) categorize characters and their roles will not nessecarily match how I categorize them. Stats will be ranked from the lowest being one star *, to the highest being thirteen stars ***** ***** ***. A numerical representation will also be shown in parentheses. These stat rankings are an approximation based on RIOT's website. Health represents how much damage a character can take before they die. Attack represents how much damage a character will do with their standard attacks. Otherwise known as auto attacks because they happen automatically. S/A stands for spells and abilities. S/A represents how much damage a character will do with their spells and abilities. Spells/Abilities that the character has access to will be listed next. Along with their corresponding hotkey. The fourth ability for each character will always be their ultimate. The fifth ability for each character will always be their passive. The skill build will be listed last. The format of the skill build will be based on the hotkeys set to each ability (Q, W, E, R). Suitable runes will be listed next. M) stands for Marks, G) stands for Glyphs, S) stands for Seals, and Q) stands for Quintessence. Suitable Summoner spells will be listed next. There will also usually be good alternatives listed here as well. Suitable equipment will be listed next. This will be a basic guideline of what type of equipment to focus on. The item build order will come next. I will never specify consumeable items. Whether or not to buy consumeables is entirely up to you. Most people use their excess money at the start of the game to buy potions. This is a good idea. A general strategy will come next. The next section will cover fighting against said character. My own thoughts on the character will come last. Tanks 1. Alistar - The Minotaur Health: ***** ***** ** (12) Attack: **** (4) S/A: ***** ** (7) Pulverize (Q): On use, all enemies near Alistar will be thrown into the air and upon landing be stunned. Headbutt (W): On use, your target will be thrown away in the direction Alistar is facing. Triumphant Roar (E): On use, all allies near Alistar including allied creeps will be healed. Every time an enemy near Alistar dies the cooldown on Roar is diminished. Unbreakable Will (R): This ability raises Alistars damage, dispells all negative effects on him, and lowers all damage he recieves. Colosal Strength: Alistar does more damage to towers with standard attacks. Skill Build: Q W E E E | R Q E Q E | R Q W Q W | R W W Runes: M) Attack Speed = Alacrity G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Dodge = Evasion Q) CD Reduction = Focus. SS: Smite + Teleport. Alistar is sorely lacking in the farming deparment and smite can easily make up for this. Teleport will allow you to save towers on other lanes. Flash is another nice option. Coupled With Headbutt you can surprise enemies and throw them into towers or allies or both. Equipment: Tanky Alistar needs quite a bit to be viable. He needs mana concerns taken care of, he needs his farming needs taken care of, he needs a good CD reduction item, as well as needing decent damage/threat of some kind. Madred's Razor early will help you farm, Catalyst will remove your mana concerns, you have your choice of two very good CD reduction items and you can turn your Razor into a Bloodrazor late game to add a nice scaling punch to your damage. Like most of my builds there will be a few choices to make dependant on whether the enemy team is physical or magic attack focused. Check the enemy teams makeup and choose accordingly. Item Build: Madred's Razor > Catalyst > Mercury's Treads OR Ninja Tabi > Nashor's Tooth OR Frozen Heart > Madred's Bloodrazor. Optional: Banshee's Veil, Thornmail, Aegis of Legion, Guardian Angel. Strategy: Alistar is one of the few tanks that can struggle keeping the enemy team focused on him. This can be offset by CD reduction which will allow you to get in the middle of the fight and spam abilities. You should always be initiating fights and you should always be using Pulverize to soften up the enemy. Immediately after Pulverize use Headbutt to throw one of them into your teammates so they can massacre the poor fool. Always throw your weight around as Alistar to help keep the attention on you and not your teammates. You should also be going out of your way between team fights to find and demolish towers. Your passive will make short work of towers and in a pinch you can use your ultimate to solo towers without needing any of your allied creeps to take damage. Tower destroying is your specialty. That and being extremely hard to take down. Alistar should always be with his team unless he is taking a tower. He is a support/tank oriented character and should be treated as such. When his ultimate is up he recieves next to no damage, even with an entire team on him. It also works as a free Cleanse which is extremely nice. The ideal situation would be initiating the team fight, pulverizing several of the enemy team, headbutting a squishy towards your team, taking a few disables onto yourself, poping your ultimate, and tanking as much damage as you can while spamming your abilities as they come off CD. Versus: When fighting against Alistar your best bet against most builds is to bypass him and focus on other targets. If you can CC him early you can prevent his opening Pulverize and get your opening CC off instead. His ultimate is very easy to neutralize by simply not targeting him. Roar has little effect in most team battles as it needs constant creep deaths to be truely spammable. Your biggest cocern is going to be preventing his Pulverize > Headbutt combo. For the most part you can still effectively counter him by bypassing him. A good Alistar will make this a painful proposition, but it is always a viable strategy as he will always be less dangerous than most of his teammates. Always be careful of how you position yourself as Alistar can take advantage of bad positioning on your part very easily. My Thoughts: The Pulverize > Headbutt combo is beautiful. Throwing guys will net you early, easy kills. Alistar's ultimate synergizes extremely well with tanking assuming the enemy team is actually targeting you. Roar coupled with his massive tank stats allow him to push lanes singlehandedly with ease by giving friendly creeps an endless supply of health. His single biggest downfall is his near complete inability to farm. This can be offset by things like Razors and Smite, but it is a sizeable weakness. Luckily Alistar can do fairly well even with low cash flow. Most importantly you must get the enemies attention and keep it! This is never an easy task as Alistar, but it should always be your primary concern. CD reduction will help with this problem, but honestly positioning and timing will mean much more. Make sure you are using your spells to set up kills or to take tough champs out of the fight. 2. Amumu - The Sad Mummy Health: ***** ***** (10) Attack: **** (4) S/A: ***** *** (8) Bandage Toss (Q): On use, Amumu latches onto an enemy stunning them and pulling himself to their position. Bandage Toss is a skillshot and must be aimed manually. Despair (W): On use, all enemies near Amumu will lose a percentage of their health as long as they remain near Amumu. Despair is a toggled ability and will continue until you either run out of mana or turn it off. Tantrum (E): Passively reduces the amount of physical damage Amumu takes. On use, Amumu loses the passive effect and unleashes a damaging, PB attack to all enemies near him. Everytime Amumu is damaged the CD for Tantrum is reduced. Curse O.T.S.M. (R): On use, Amumu paralyzes all enemies in a large area around him and damages them over the duration of the spell. Cursed Touch: Amumu imparts a magic resistance debuff with his standard attacks. Skill Build: Q E E W E | R E W E W | R W Q W Q | R Q Q Runes: M) Magic Penetration = Insight G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Dodge = Evasion Q) Health = Fortitude OR CD Reduction = Focus SS: Cleanse + Teleport. Amumu can really benefit from Cleanse more than most champs. He is usually one of the primary targets for CC as most people want to prevent him from using his ultimate and Bandage Toss. If you have Cleanse you can pop out of the CC right after it hits and then throw an ultimate when they least expect it. Teleport as always is great for defending lanes you aren't currently on. Flash again is another good option. You can combine Flash with Despair, Tantrum and your ultimate for a mean surprise attack. Equipment: Tanky Amumu should focus on health, with an important secondary focus on magic resist and armor. Amumu can benefit from the standard assortment of tank gear. His abilities stand on their own well as no one wants to get hit by any of them the majority of the time. Like most of my builds there will be a few choices to make dependant on whether the enemy team is physical or magic attack focused. Check the enemy teams makeup and choose accordingly. Item Build: Regrowth Pendant > Mercury's Treads OR Ninja Tabi > Warmogs > Sunfire Cape. Optional: More Sunfire Capes, Banshee's Veil, Frozen Heart, Guardian Angel, Thornmail. Strategy: Amumu is in my opinion the easiest tank to play. Even though Bandage Toss is a skillshot you can more or less wade into enemies using your other three abilities and still grab all the attention. Which at the end of the day is the most important role as a tank. Playing like this, you can get the job done with little to no effort. This becomes even more true with sunfire stacking. Now if your team is playing poorly or you just aren't farming at all, it might not be possible to stack them. But that can be said for any character. Despair + Sunfires + Tantrum + Ultimate is some serious area destruction any way you look at it. Very hard to ignore. Even more so if you have cleanse and Banshee's Veil. Because it will be very hard to CC you. Leaving the only other option, which is to try and kill you. Versus: Going against a decently built Amumu can be a serious challenge. Magic Resist will help. Any way you can separate him from his team and the fight will do wonders. Even if it is just short term. Blitzcrank, Alistar, and Poppy can all accomplish this. Best of all if he isn't built for anti CC you can prevent his ultimate with CC or just lock him down all together. Stopping Amumu is quite a challenge and usually you will only slow a good one down. Probably the best counter is to have an area CC and cast yours before he casts his. You should also do your best to spread out when his ultimate is up. If he initiates with it in a team fight and catches your entire team.. Theres just no easy way to come back from that. My Thoughts: Amumu is considered to be the best overall tank by many for the simple fact that he is very tough to ignore. I tend to agree with this and would add that he is also one of the easiest tanks to gank with. Assuming you can aim his skillshot you are usually going to get a kill out of it. The enemy usually has to pop an SS or be saved by a teammate to survive. And to make things worse if Amumu's initial assault isn't enough to do the trick he can follow you around with Despair + Sunfires ticking to finish you off. About the only thing Amumu isn't great at is taking down towers. It's not much of a weakness, but it is something. 3. Blitzcrank - The Great Steam Golem Health: ***** ***** (10) Attack: ***** (5) S/A: ***** (5) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 4. Cho'gath - The Terror Of The Void Health: ***** * (6) Attack: **** (4) S/A: ***** ***** (10) Rupture (Q): On use, any enemies caught within the targeted area will be thrown into the air. Upon landing they will take damage and then be snared. Feral Scream (W): On use, all enemies in a cone shape will take damage and be silenced. Vorpal Spikes (E): Passively adds splash damage to your standard attacks. This splash damage is sent forward the direction Cho'gath is facing. Feast (R): On use, Cho'gath does a very large amount of damage in a single bite. The bite is very short range, but if it connects and kills your target, Cho'gath gains a substantial health increase. This health boost can stack up to six times. However, he loses these stacks if he dies and must start again. Each stack increases Cho'gaths size letting everyone know visually how many stacks he has. Carnivore: Every time Cho'gath kills something he gains health and mana. Skill Build: E Q W E E | R E Q E Q | R Q Q W W | R W W Runes: M) Attack Speed = Alacrity G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Dodge = Evasion Q) Health = Fortitude OR CD Reduction = Focus SS: Exhaust + Teleport. After a few successful Ruptures an exhaust will more often than not net you a kill early game. Late game you can use it as a way to get into Feast range. Or to shut down a physical champ during a team fight. Teleport as always is great for quickly switching to a lane that needs pushing. Or to save a tower. Equipment: Cho'gath should focus on the regular assortment of tank gear with a secondary focus on CD reduction. Item Build: Regrowth Pendant > Mercury's Treads OR Ninja Tabi > Warmog's Armor > Nashor's Tooth OR Frozen Heart. Optional: Banshee's Veil, Thornmail, Atma's Impaler, Aegis of Legion. Strategy: Carnivore coupled with Vorpal Spikes will allow you to farm unbelieveably easily. And at the same time keep your health and mana coming back at a steady pace. Cho'gath is one of the few champions that can take on a 2v1 lane regardless of the enemies skill level. IF he plays smart. He can also dominate the mid lane, pushing it with ease while forcing the opposing champ off the creeps. Timely use of Rupture can and will cause many, many enemy deaths. You can also use it to escape a gank by dropping it under yourself before you start running. Rupture should not be wasted on creeps alone. You have Vorpal Spikes for that. Scream is a great way to interrupt spells and to prevent them all together. Although the real prize is Feast. Not only is it instant death to most champs that are below roughly fifteen to twenty percent health, once stacked, it will add a massive padding to his health pool. Not to mention no one likes being eaten.. Once he has sufficient stacks he will be so large that your smaller allies can literally hide inside of you. This makes it hard on the enemy when trying to pick out specific targets. Cho'gath is at his best when he is throwing Ruptures under the enemy team, silencing them when they hit the ground, aiming his Spikes to hit roughly all of them at once and Feasting anyone stupid enough to be low health and in range. Played well a tanky Cho'gath can be a massive obstacle for the enemy team. Versus: Chozilla can be countered in several ways. A Banshee's Veil will lower an AP Cho'gaths damage and block a few Ruptures. Last Whisper and Madred's Bloodrazor will allow you to chew through his increased health pool. However the easiest way to shut him down is to scout well, preferably with sight wards, until you find him alone. At which point take time out to coordinate a gank from several directions. His death will remove all his Feast stacks and leave him a shriveled up, puny, shadow of his former self. Now if the Cho'gath is smart he will nearly always be with his team. In which case your going to have to rely on CC to get him temporarily off your back. You can also attempt to prevent him from stacking Feasts early by killing him. If you can manage it. My Thoughts: Tanky Cho'gath is pure joy and one of, if not my favorite tank to play. His Ruptures positioning, along with its timing, can take awhile to get used to. Also you need to know when to Feast a creep and when to save it for a champion. These things come with practice. But once you have the playstyle down you can seriously dominate. The best part comes when a champion is low life, you click that feast button, you hear the oh so sweet sounds of Cho'gath chowing down and then you grow ever so slightly bigger. Another step on your way to Chozilladom. Cho'gath is a bit different than most tanks as you can play him from a distance quite well while remaining safe from danger. You should always get in the thick of things when a real fight breaks out as you are a tank. However the extra advantage of range means you can harass better and safer than most tanks. 24. Gragas - The Rabble Rouser Health: ***** **** (9) Attack: ***** * (6) S/A: ***** ***** (10) Barrel Roll (Q): On use, Gragas rolls his barrel to a target location. At any time during its rolling phase you can detonate the barrel early or after reaching its destination it will eventually blow up on its own damaging any enemies in the area. Drunken Rage (W): On use, Gragas drinks from his barrel and afterwards a portion of his mana is restored. Gragas also gains increased damage as well as damage mitigation for a short time. Body Slam (E): On use, Gragas will charge to the target location and any enemies in the area will take damage and be snared. Explosive Cask (R): On use, Gragas throws his barrel to the target location and it explodes. Any enemies caught in the explosion take damage, are knocked back and have their attack speed slowed. Happy Hour: When an ability is used, Gragas is healed for two percent of his max health over four seconds. Skill Build: Q E W E E | R E W E W | R W W Q Q | R Q Q Runes: M) Attack Speed = Alacrity G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Dodge = Evasion Q) Health = Fortitude OR CD Reduction = Focus SS: Ghost + Teleport. Ghost will allow you to chase down anyone with Body Slam spam. It will also increase your chances of being where you need to be, when you need to be there. Teleport as always, will allow you to save a lane that you aren't already on. Equipment: Gragas' abilities are a mix of caster and physical and tank. As this is the tank section we will be focusing on his tanklyness. His primary focus should be on health with a secondary focus on Armor and Magic Resist. Item Build: Regrowth Pendant > Mercury's Treads OR Ninja Tabi > Warmog's Armor > Frozen Heart AND/OR Banshee's Veil. Optional: Force of Nature, Thornmail, Guardian Angel, Aegis of Legion. Strategy: Gragas is very much a hybrid champion. As a tank he should always be in the thick of things. Body Slam is a great ability to have for tanking. It allows you to charge into enemies snaring them off your allies. You can spam Body Slam to keep enemy physical carries snared and to chase down runners. Barrel roll is a great way to harass and farm in the early game, but it will be more or less fluff later on. You can should still spam it for the damage, but don't expect it to be threatening in any way. Drunken Rage for no cost to you will give you mana, damage mitigation and increased attack damage all in one great ability. Spam this ability constantly. Spam it out of combat for the mana and in combat for everything else. The damage mitigation is percent based and it is what allows Gragas to tank as well as he does. Explosive Cask much like Barrel Roll will not produce much damage. However, it will allow you to reposition enemies against their will. You can use it to push a swarm of enemies off an ally, or throw it ahead of a fleeing enemy to push them back into your allies. The Cask will also slow the attack speed of all enemies hit as a nice secondary effect versus physical champions. Gragas can live or die by his use of Cask. He has no area stun like most tanks so you must make the most of Cask and correctly decide when to use it. In team fights Gragas usually should not be the initiator. He has no stun effect and because of this he will eat a lot of focus fire on his way in. If you have no decent initiators you might have to. In this case your best bet is to activate Drunken Rage and Body Slam your way into the enemy. Always use Body Slam to separate enemies from your squishies. Always keep Drunken Rage running. The best times to use Cask is when it will save a carry from focus fire and when it will prevent an enemy carry from escaping. Sometimes you can even manage a combination of both with great placement. Versus: Playing against Gragas early game can be summed up easily. Dodge the barrels. The barrels early game do very nice area damage. If you continually eat barrel damage you will lose the laning battle. On top of this you need to conserve mana unless you are going for a kill. Gragas has the ability to out last most champs in a lane because of Drunken Rage. Also if you are going to attempt to kill Gragas wait until Druken Rage has just gone down. He can and will use Body Slam to chase and escape. Notice the range on Body Slam and position yourself correctly. Early on he is not particularly tanky, but he does have great sustainability. If you can take him out in a quick burst of damage he will go down just as easily as anyone else. Do not expect to wear him down slowly. Late game his Drunken Rage will turn him into a good damage sponge regardless of items. To counter Gragas you need to check his item build and change yours accordingly. Gragas is played every different way imaginable, but the one thing that never changes is his positioning control. Pay attention to the range of his abilities. Especially Cask as you can always position yourself in a way that gives him no clean shot. If you are trying to kill an ally of his position yourself inbetween Gragas and his ally. If you are trying to flee your best bet is to quickly get out of Cask range whether it be with an ability, or a flash. If you are going to focus Gragas do not blow your high damage abilities until Drunken Rage is down. My Thoughts: Gragas is a very unique champion. Not only is he a hybrid, but he is also highly specialized in positioning control. In an even fight, teams tend to live and die by timing and positioning. Gragas can alter positioning in his teams favor, and it can be a game changer if used well. Gragas is weakened due to his damage types being split and he could be so much stronger if he was focused one way or the other. This lack of focus tends to bite him when end game rolls around. At which point half of his abilities will not be itemized and will be lacking in damage and/or use. However as this is the tank section, damage is not a primary concern. So this weakness is lessened quite a bit. As long as you can use Gragas' abilities well and take the damage that will be incoming due to your Body Slaming your way through their team, you will do well. 5. Malphite - Shard Of The Monolith Health: ***** *** (8) Attack: ***** **** (9) S/A: ***** (5) Seismic Shard (Q): On use, Malphite sends a ranged, damaging attack toward his enemy. When it hits it lowers the enemies movement speed and increases Malphites. Brutal Strikes (W): Passively adds splash damage to Malphite's standard attacks. On use, Malphite gains substantial bonus damage to his standard attacks. Ground Slam (E): On use, all enemies around Malphite take damage and have their attack speed. Ground Slam gains bonus damage based on how much armor Malphite has. Unstoppable Force (R): On use, Malphite charges to the target area doing damage as well as popping up enemies caught within. Granite Shield: Granite Shield absorbs a set amount of damage that does not go to Malphites health. The shield replinishes if Malphite stays out of combat for about ten seconds. Skill Build: E W E Q E | R E Q E Q | R Q Q W W | R W W Runes: M) Armor Penetration = Desolation G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Dodge = Evasion Q) Health = Fortitude OR CD Reduction = Focus SS: Flash + Teleport. Flash is great on Malphite as he should only be using his ultimate offensively and when he does so flash is there in case he gets in over his head. Teleport as always is great on tanks as you can quickly get to a lane that is in danger to save it. Equipment: Tanky Malphite should focus on armor with a secondary focus on health and magic resist. Armor directly effects Ground Slams damage, which is your key ability. If you find yourself in the rare circumstance of having all physically based enemies you can go all armor items and be not only invicible, but also have a very hard hitting Slam. Usually this will not be the case and you'll need some magic resist. Banshee's is the best bet, but Guardian's is another good option for your magic resist needs. Every tank needs a good HP item and Warmog's builds up extremely nicely. Item Build: Cloth Armor > Mercury's Treads OR Ninja Tabi > Warmog's Armor > Frozen Heart > Thornmail AND/OR Banshee's Veil. Optional: Guardian Angel, Aegis of Legion, Frozen Mallet. Strategy: With Malphite you can start out by jungling if you have someone to take the 2v1 lane. This is usually the best option for your team. At least until the first time your 2v1 champ dies. If this happens switch to laning normally. If not you'll have loads more money than you normally would and you have two champs on solo lanes getting tons of exp. When jungling as Malphite start with the small camps first and work your way up to the golems. You will need health potions for this. You should be able to keep equally leveled with your 2v2 lane champs while jungling. Make damn sure you pay attention to where the enemies are. Getting jumped while jungling can be avoided. If you take a death while jungling switch to laning normally. Do not continue to jungle as they will try to gank you again and seeing as they already killed you once, they will probably succeed. Early game if you are laning just focus on harassing when your shield is up and last hitting when it's down. When you hit level six you can start ganking and setting up kills. You will not do enough damage on your own to win most 1v1's. Set up your ganks with teammates. They will do most of the damage while you stun, slow and tank the enemies. One of the keys to playing Malph well is to pay attention to when your shield is up and when it isn't. Make sure your teammates pay attention as well. When it is down they should not be expecting you to rush in on someone. They should be waiting until it is up to start fights. Also you need to learn to master your ultimate. You always want to hit multiple enemies with it and you always want to make sure it is either going to net you a kill or save a teammates life. Do not waste it for no reason. Ground Slam is your main source of damage and it is a nice little chunk of area damage once you've built up your armor. Seismic can be used to harass, chase, escape, pretty much everything. It's damage will always be horrible so don't use it just for damage unless it's early game. Brutal Strikes is a decent farming ability and you can activate it for some extra damage on your standard attacks. Late game your role will be to initiate and distract the enemies as much as possible. When your team is ready you want to jump in with your ultimate popping as many of them as you can. Save Seismic until one of them turns to run and slap it on them. Spam the hell out of Slam and Brutal Strikes for all the damage you can get. Malphite is pretty straight forward when it comes to team battles and you will most likely die in most of them. Initiators tend to die for the greater good, it's just the way it goes. The important thing is you are disrupting the enemy team right off the bat and allowing your team to get all their disables and damage in first. That wins fights. Assuming your team is focus firing ane disabling the right targets you should come out well on top in the end and be able to push. Versus: Malphite can be tough to counter early on. If he is using his shield to harass with, he is probably doing damage while recieving very little. You can get around this is some cases by being aggressive when his shield is down. Or by using a disable to give you long enough to eat through his shield and then some. If Malphite isn't in a lane he is jungling and you should be warding the golems so you can coordinate a gank. If you allow him to jungle he is going to be a massive pain once he hits level six. He will most likely cause deaths that could of been avoided by using a couple of cheap wards. During mid game you need to be aware that Malphite is a great ganker. Your team should be calling him mia and you should be wary that if he ultimates followed by a seismic you are probably going to die to his teammates. Again wards can prevent this if you place them in the bushes. Late game in team fights you must spread out. His ultimate hits a relatively small area and you can limit him to hitting only one or two people if your careful with positioning. If he is focusing on armor you can use things like Last Whisper and Black Cleaver to correct the problem. Or if you have casters they can just focus fire him down. If he is built for offense then you can treat him like any other physical carry that ganks well. The key is keeping tabs on him and not allowing him to roam the jungle freely, getting runes and doing as he pleases. My Thoughts: Malphite is probably one of my least favorite tanks. Having said that the tank category is probably the most stacked group of all. So he still does what he's supposed to quite well. His ultimate is his claim to fame and if the enemy bunches up it can be a fight winner. However it is very easy to counter by spreading out slightly. He has some of the weakest tanking stats of the bunch and his abilities are almost completely offense based. This coupled with his lower tank stats make him the glass cannon of the tankers. Still, he is one of the best initiator's of the lot which does count for something. 6. Rammus - The Armordillo Health: ***** ***** *** (13) Attack: ***** (5) S/A: ***** * (6) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: Physical: 7. Gangplank - The Saltwater Scourge Health: ***** *** (8) Attack: ***** **** (9) S/A: ***** (5) Parrrley (Q): On use, Gangplank does ranged damage to an enemy. Parrrley unlike most spells/abilities is able to critical! If Parrrley scores a kill shot Gangplank gains extra gold. Remove Scurvy (W): On use, Gangplank recieves some healing and all CC is on him is removed. Raise Morale (E): Passively increases Gangplanks movement and attack speed. On use, Gangplank kills an allied creep to increase his entire teams movement and attack speed. Cannon Barrage (R): On use, cannon balls fall randomly within the targeted area and any enemies hit are snared. Cannon Barrage is one of a few unique abilities that have unlimited range. Assuming you have vision of the area, you can cast Cannon Barrage anywhere on the map. Grog Soaked Blade: Adds a damage over time effect to your standard attacks as well as imparting a healing reduction debuff to anyone you hit. Skill Build: Q W Q E Q | R Q E Q E | R E E W W | R W W Runes: M) Critical Damage = Furor G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Mana Regen = Clarity Q) Critical Damage = Furor OR Health = Fortitude. SS: Exhaust + Flash. Exhaust gives Gangplank a way to slow people down so he can chase and a blind for other physical carries. Flash gives him a way to escape which he normally lacks. Ignite is another possibility if you are feeling particularly aggressive. You can combo Exhaust with Ignite and seriously ruin someones day. Equipment: Critical chance and critical damage are your primary focuses. These two stats will allow Parrrley to absolutely destroy people. Your secondary focus should be on damage which also effects Parrrley. Item Build: Catalyst > Mercury Tread's OR Boots of Swiftness > Phantom > Infinity Edge. Optional: More Phantoms, Brutalizers, Bloodthirster, Sword of the Occult, Banshee's Veil. Strategy: Gangplank is one of, if not the easiest champions to play well. Parrrley will tear faces off. It does good damage, is a ranged attack, has a low cooldown, and most importantly it can critical! Use Parrrley liberally to harass enemy champions and get last hits on creeps. By mid game you should have a substantial critical chance and Parrrley will be feared by damn near anyone for its huge burst potential. Remove scurvy is basically a free Cleanse spell with a small heal built in. Whats not to like about that? Use it primarily for the Cleanse effect and do not spam it for the weak heal. Otherwise you will murder your mana pool. Raise Morale is a great passive that gives you a large attack speed increase and movement speed increase. It is downright one of the best passives in the game. And that is before factoring in its active effect which boosts your entire team substantially! Cannon Barrage should be used in coordination with your team early game to cut off enemies who are retreating. Mid and late game it should be used in team fights to scatter your opponents. Do not use Cannon Barrage to KS as you are hurting yourself in the long run by wasting it on a kill your team was going to get anyway. You might need it soon after and not have it which is your fault. Gangplank should be played patiently, jousting in and out and popping guys with Parrrley. Most of the time when fighting other champions you do not want to immediately go in to melee them. Chip away at their health a bit with a few Parrrley shots and then go in to finish them off. If things go bad you can in a pinch use Cannon Barrage to save your life. This is especially true if you are being ganked by multiple enemies. Later in the game when team fighting be sure to use Raise Morale's active effect consistantly. It will turn your other physical carries into speed demons of death. Versus: Gangplank is pretty easy to counter assuming you don't mind buying towards that end. Dodge will screw him over as well as high armor. For chasing him down items that give snare effects are your best bet as he will just remove spell/ability effects and escape. Always be ready for Cannon Barrages when you are low health. Cannon Barrage is extremely random and sometimes you can walk through the entire area of effect and not be hit by a single cannonball. Of course the reverse is true as well, but when given the choice between backtracking into certain doom or running through the cannons, sometimes the latter is the only chance you've got. You never want to allow Gangplank to Parrrley you and then back away. If you allow him to do this repeatedly you have already lost. Either stay out of Parrrley range or make him pay when he comes in to shoot you. Also it should be repeated that you should always be aware a Cannon Barrage could be coming at any moment. Standing in a Barrage is almost always a bad idea. You should either step outside its range and keep fighting him or choose the best exit route and run for it. Flash helps a lot with escaping Barrage, but you need to be quick otherwise you may take a hit and still be snared after you flash. My Thoughts: I love playing Gangplank. Parrrley is just plain overpowered. It has been that way for an extremely long time and is probably not going to change any time soon. It may very well be the most powerful single ability in the entire game. It is quite normal to see Parrrley critical an enemy removing half of their health bar. It is that good. Parrrley aside, Gangplank is sort of a mixed bag. He lacks focus unlike most other physical carries. His built in Cleanse is great, but unnessecary. Raise Morale is a great passive and its active is nice for team battles. However again, it isn't really nessecary. Cannon Barrage is extremely random and that is not an exaggeration. Because of this it can never be fully relied upon. You have to pop it and hope for the best. So while Gangplank is powerful he is a very odd champion as a whole. You cannot play him like other carries and expect to get away with it. You need to play him more like a harasser until late game when your items start stacking up. At which point even your melee will become devastating. 8. Jax - Grandmaster At Arms Health: ***** * (6) Attack: ***** ***** *** (13) S/A: *** (3) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 9. Yi - The Wuju Bladesman Health: **** (4) Attack: ***** ***** *** (13) S/A: **** (4) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 10. Pantheon - The Artisan Of War Health: **** (4) Attack: ***** ***** *** (13) S/A: **** (4) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 11. Shaco - The Demon Jester Health: **** (4) Attack: ***** ***** (10) S/A: ***** *** (8) Decieve (Q): On use, Shaco will disappear from vision, flash ahead a short distance, and if he attacks within the time limit his first attack will always be a critical. Jack In The Box(W): On use, Shaco places a trap that becomes invisible after about one second. If an enemy moves near the trap an area fear is triggered and the trap shoots damaging projectiles at a single enemy for a short duration. Two-Shiv Poison (E): Passively gives Shacos standard attacks a snare component. On use, Shaco throws his dagger at an enemy doing damage and snaring them. Hallucinate (R): On use, a clone of Shaco is created that can be controlled independantly like a pet. The clone lasts for a moderate duration and to the enemy team it looks just like Shaco. On death the clone will explode doing area damage. Backstab: When Shaco connects with an attack to an enemies back he gains an additional twenty five percent damage. Skill Build: W Q E Q Q | R Q E Q E | R E E W W | R W W Runes: M) Critical Damage = Furor G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Mana Regen = Clarity Q) Critical Damage = Furor OR Health = Fortitude. SS: Exhaust + Cleanse. Exhaust will shutdown other physical carries with its blind component which is huge. The snare component will allow you the extra time you need to do damage. Cleanse is great to get out of CC so you can continue your assault or decieve away depending on the situation. Equipment: Shaco should primarily focus on damage items with a secondary focus on pretty much whatever the situation calls for. He requires next to no defensive items because he is so damn hard to pin down. This leaves you free to mix and match his build to meet any situation. There will be quite a few optional pieces of equipment listed. Look at the enemy team and choose based on their makeup and builds. I tend to get a single defensive item as my fifth or sixth item IF the match is particularly rough. That item is usually a Guardian Angel. This allows you to die, be brought back to life, and then decieve away to freedom. Guardian angel will also revive your clones without using up its cooldown. Item Build: Dagger > Zerker Greaves > Phantom > Bloodthirster. Optional: More Bloodthirsters, More Phantoms, Last Whisper, Black Cleaver, Guardian Angel. Strategy: Shaco is first and foremost a harasser. That is his entire purpose as a champion. Mid game he will become a good ganker and late game he will become a great physical carry. However he never stops being one hell of a massive annoyance to the enemy team. He is meant to harass, confuse, disorient and downright disgust the enemy team. Played well Shaco should always have the least deaths of anyone. Even if your team is being absolutely destroyed you should still have the least deaths of anyone in the match. All four of your abilities can allow you to escape. When combined there is no reason for you to die. Aside from having a very low death count, Shaco should always be harassing someone on the enemy team. You can start early game by setting up traps in the bushes where the enemies usually hide. This will give you and your team vision of the bushes and allow you to use the fear the traps provide to create kills. You can also use the traps at the very start of the game to get the golem buff with little to no effort on your part. All you have to do is stack the traps out in front of the golem spawn. When the golem spawns run up and hit it once and drag it into the traps. The four or five traps along with your standard attacks will make short work of him. You have to be careful trying this as you can get ganked by the enemy team if you aren't careful. Decieve is your best harassment tool and your best escape tool built into one. Early game you can Decieve, get your automatic crit in on someone and then run back to safety. This damage will add up quickly. In mid game you are going to want to save decieve for a quick and easy escape or to chase people when they start to run. Shiv should not be thrown unless you have no other way to catch someone and/or finish someone off. Hallucinate is great for so many, many situations. You can use it to distract an enemy/enemies, use it to escape, use it to take down towers, use it to push a 1v1 in your favor, use it to activate enemy traps, use it to scout bushes for enemies waiting to gank, the list goes on and on. Strategy continued: Shaco should never initiate a team fight unless it is with his clone. Shaco is extremely squishy and should never, ever, stay in a fight when he is being focused. Usually in team fights you should be waiting to attack until everyone else is already in position. At which point you want to use your clone first (if it is off CD) to distract the enemy and then decieve in on a squishy and blow them up. Drop a trap in the middle of the enemy team while your at it and you just area feared most of their team. Shaco is also the best backdoor champ in the entire game. You can backdoor as Shaco with absolutely no fear of being ganked. Setup traps to give you advance warning and use your other abilities to either escape or reset the fight if you think you can win. Ganks should always be setup with teammates if possible. From the point you finish your zeal/phantom and especially your first bloodthirster you can destroy people 1v1 if you get the jump on them. In a gank start by placing a trap behind the enemy do not use decieve to start the fight unless you are confident it is in fact a 1v1 fight. Start waling on the enemy champ and they will either turn to fight you or run. If they turn to fight and you aren't dominating them pop your ultimate. This will almost always trigger them to run. When they run they are going to be snared and are going to hit your trap if you placed it well. This gives you a hell of a lot of time to finish them off. If they somehow get out of range through CC or whatever, you have exhaust and your shiv to slow them down. You can usually chase into towers if your clone is in front of you. You also have decieve to jump away if the tower is to much for you. By mid game you should be focusing on harassing/ganking enemies in all lanes. If you find a lane devoid or enemy champs feel free to push it and use your clone to take down towers. Use traps to give you warning of incoming ganks. By late game you should be either ganking enemies, helping in team fights or going after towers. You can always demolish golems and the dragon by level six. Eventually even baron, depending on how much lifesteal you have. Versus: Fighting a good Shaco should never be treated as optional. Even if you attempt to escape you will usually fail unless it is still early game. You must punish Shaco early game and starve him of money and experience as much as possible. You must punish him every single time he comes to harass you. You will usually not know when he is coming so always be ready to switch to him and do some damage. Nine times out of ten you will not get a kill on a good Shaco. He has far to many methods of escape. If he doesn't have cleanse you can attempt to blow him up within a CC. If he does you are going to have to be satisfied with making him pay for each and every gank he attempts. This will force him to back out of fights and again starve him of gold and experience. Always, always, always, call Shaco mia within roughly five to ten seconds of you not seeing him. This will get irritating after awhile, but it will also save lives. If Shaco is back dooring you repeatedly designate someone who can compete with him 1v1 to watch for him when he starts to push a lane. That person should go to that lane and gank him. Afterwards regardless of if you killed him or not, you need to push the lane back as much as he pushed it forward. If you leave Shaco unchecked to push lanes you will lose. You have to be satisfied with running him off and usually not getting a kill out of it. The most frustrating thing about Shaco by far is the fact that he can escape from damn near anything. I routinely escape from an entire team attempting to gank me. This is why versus Shaco you NEVER send your entire team. All you are doing is givng the other team the advantage when you do this. Send one or maybe two people if nessecary and the rest of your team should be doing something productive like pushing lanes, destroying towers, killing champs, etc. Another large problem people have is with his clone. All skilled players will know which one to attack after the first hit. Most will know simply by positioning. If Shaco runs out at you or your team using no abilities what-so-ever it is almost always the clone. Do not burn CC on the clone. This is a huge mistake that many make. Always get a standard attack in first and if the attack does far more damage than it should, you know it is the clone. Never chase a Shaco unless you know it is not the clone. Never ever chase a Shaco into bushes unless you know where the majority of his team is. Even then if he has set up a stack of traps in said bushes he might just own you 1v1. Oracle elixir' and sight/vision wards can do wonders for helping you keep tabs on Shaco. Being invisible is not his main form of escape, nor attack, and it is far from his only way to escape. So while they do help they are not going to be the end all, be all solution. At the end of the day starvation is the best strategy you can use. My Thoughts: Shaco shortly after his introduction quickly became my favorite champion. Even in a PUG on a losing team, I still always do well. I am usually the one champion that the enemy team whines about during and after the match. Usually they are frustrated that I waste their time for no pay off on their end. Late game I can destroy most people 1v1 and can always escape if it starts to look ugly. I can singlehandedly push an entire lane with zero fear of death. I can solo the golems and the dragon better than any other champion due to my traps and clone. Shaco is truely fun to play for the sheer annoyance factor you can unleash on the enemy team. I love using my clone as a distraction to get the enemy to either burn CC's on it or lead them into ganks if they chase. Shaco is not without his weakness' however. By himself early game he is little threat in a direct fight. Exhaust and blind will shut him down like any physical carry. He is extremely squishy AND a melee range hero at the same time. Oracles can slightly counter him, but no where near as bad as the other stealth heroes. Worst of all he is horrible at farming. His only area attack is built into his ultimate. Shaco will usually be strapped for cash and should NEVER take the mid lane early game unless there is literally no one else who will. So he will usually be behind on items. Despite this he can do very well from mid game on by ganking and killing the enemy, combined with not dieing. Shaco will probably always be my favorite champion just because his abilities make him so unique and a blast to play. 12. Sivir - The Battle Mistress Health: ***** (5) Attack: ***** ***** (10) S/A: ***** (5) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 13. Tristana - The Megling Gunner Health: *** (3) Attack: ***** ***** *** (13) S/A: **** (4) Rapid Fire (Q): On use, Tristana's attack speed increases dramatically. Rocket Jump (W): On use, Tristana jumps to the target location doing damage and snaring any enemies around her when she lands. Explosive Shot (E): Passively causes your standard attacks to do splash damage when you kill something. On use, Tristana shoots a projectile that does damage over time as well as adding a healing reduction debuff. Buster Shot (R): On use, Tristana shoots a projectile that damages and knocks back her target. Draw A Bead: The range of Tristana' standard attacks is increased. This increase grows as she levels. Skill Build: E W Q Q Q | R Q W Q W | R W W E E | R E E Runes: M) Armor Penetration = Desolation G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Mana Regen = Clarity Q) Armor Penetration = Desolation OR Health = Fortitude SS: Exhaust + Cleanse. Exhaust allows you to save Rocket Jump for either a finisher or as a means of escape. Cleanse allows you to remove things like Exhaust and Ignite and CC to either continue fighting or escape. Teleport is another good option so you can get back to laning quickly and to save towers. Equipment: Tristana should focus on damage with a secondary focus on life steal. You will need some health and possible armor and/or magic resist of some kind depending on the game. With high damage and high life steal you can drain so much health back so quickly that it may seem like you have infinate health. However there are counters to this setup and you need to watch for things like blind and Executioner's Calling. Item Build: Vamp Scepter > Zerker Greaves > Phage > Bloodthirster. Optional: More Bloodthirsters, Stark's Fervor, Last Whisper, Black Cleaver, Banshee's Veil, Guardian Angel. Strategy: Tristanas one hell of a physical carry. She can pump out serious punishment at a massive distance thanks to her passive Draw A Bead. Explosive Shot is a decent farming tool, but more importantly it is great for harassing early on. Spamming the damage over time effect on enemy champs will slowly eat away all their health after a few applications. Rapid Fire is your bread and butter and should be used at the start of every fight. It gives Tristana a huge amount of attack speed for a decent amount of time. It will make or break fights on its own more often than not. Rocket Jump is your escape and/or chasing tool. It will save your life and it will allow you to catch up to, and snare your enemies. However you need to be careful how you use it. I tend to use it to chase only when I need it to get a kill. That way I have it off CD for a quick escape. Never use Rocket Jump to initiate! You are wasting the snare component and you are wasting your best chasing tool. Buster Shot can be used several ways. You can use it to throw an enemy into your allies, or to throw an enemy away from you to escape or to finish off a low health enemy who is about to get away. A nice trick similar to Alistars, is to jump around behind an enemy with Rocket Jump and then Buster Shot them toward your teammates. Do not attempt this if your target is surrounded by his own teammates. You can also use this tactic to throw an enemy into your tower. Late game Draw A Bead gives you so much range that you can literally joust people to death. Attacking them while staying out of range of their attacks at the same time. Also she is great at taking down towers with Rapid Fire. Versus: If you feed Tristana early she can become quite the menace. If you can, you need to limit her growth in the early and mid game. Keeping her from farming is quite the task, but you can atleast keep her from getting kills. She is not truely dangerous until somewhere around mid game. Tristana is a great chaser, but all to often will over extend using Rocket Jump in the process. This is usually when Tristana incurs deaths. Blind and exhaust can shut her down nicely. She is squishy so if you can lock her down with a CC she will go down fast. If she is life steal based anything that keeps her from attacking will win you the fight. You need to do your best to focus her down in team fights as a primary target. Her damage cannot be alloud to go unchecked. My Thoughts: Tristana is one of my favorite champions because she comes in this nice overall package. Explosive shot is for farming and harassing early. Rapid Fire is an all purpose damage multiplier. Rocket Jump can seal an enemies fate or save you from certain doom. Buster Shot is not the best ultimate around, but has nice strategic use. A lot of the time I use it as an ejection button for anyone I want out of a fight for a few crucial seconds. Best of all she gets one of the best passives in the game with Draw A Bead. Her standard attack range will get pretty disgusting by late game. If played well she is a great chaser, becomes a good ganker, has a great escape move and is one of the hardest hitting ranged carries in the game. She farms well, takes down towers well, there isn't much she can't do. She's just a great well rounded champion. 14. Tryndamere - The Barbarian King Health: ***** * (6) Attack: ***** ***** *** (13) S/A: **** (4) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 15. Udyr - The Animal Spirit Health: ***** *** (8) Attack: ***** ***** (10) S/A: ***** * (6) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 16. Warwick - The Blood Hunter Health: ***** * (6) Attack: ***** ***** ** (12) S/A: **** (4) Hungering Strike (Q): On use, Warwick damages a nearby enemy and steals health equivalent to the amount of damage he inflicts. Hunter's Call (W): On use, your entire team regardless of distance gains an attack speed increase. Blood Scent (E): Blood Scent gives Warwick an increase to movement speed when he is within a set distance of an enemy champion who is below half health. Blood Scent does not need to be activated. Infinite Duress (R): On use, Warwick leaps to a target stunning them. During the stuns duration Warwick will hit the enemy several times doing a portion of his normal attack damage each hit. Eternal Thirst: Adds a life steal effect to Warwicks standard attacks. Skill Build: W Q Q W E | R Q W Q W | R W W E E | R E E Runes:M) Armor Penetration = Desolation G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Mana Regen = Clarity Q) Health = Fortitude SS: Exhaust + Flash. Exhaust will allow you to chase better and allow you to shut down other physical carries. Flash is your escape method and should be saved for that purpose. Smite is another decent option to help with jungling. Equipment: Warwick should primarily focus on damage with a secondary focus on health and life steal. This will give him the ability to jungle while still wrecking faces when the need arises. Item Build: Cloth Armor > Madred's Razor > Zerker Greave's > Warmogs > Bloodthirster > Madred's Bloodrazor. Optional: More Bloodthirsters, Bashee's Veil, Thornmail. Strategy: Warwick is a finesse champion. To play him well you need a degree of patience. You need to know when to attempt a gank and especially late game when to jump in with your ultimate. Once you attack you are always commited as you have zero escapes as Warwick. Always be patient when you go for a gank and make sure to time it when the enemy is in a good position for you. Usually this is somewhat near the bushes you are hiding in and away from their allied tower. Somewhere around mid game you can tower dive with Warwick and be just fine. Spam Hungering Strike every time its up, it is your bread and butter skill. It will do good damage to every champion regardless of equipment due to its percent health decrease. Hunter's Call should also be spammed especially in team fights where it can make a significant difference. Blood scent will make you a monster when it comes to chasing down fleeing enemy champions. Infinite Duress should always be saved when possible. Usually Warwicks life steal is so great that it is completely unnessecary to use Duress during a slugfest. And if you do use it early you wont have it to finish people off or to turn a losing 2v1 into a win. Versus: Warwick can be countered in several ways. Blind and Exhaust will shut him down for their duration. Executioner's calling will counter his life steal decently. Banshee's Veil can block Duress, just do not let him use a Hungering Strike to drop it beforehand. High amounts of armor will lower his damage and his overall life steal amounts. Thornmail can counter any Warwick that is completely offense focused. However your best bet is to use sight wards or traps setup at the golem spawns and the dragon spawn to coordinate ganks when he shows up. Warwick has no way to escape built into his abilities. If you attack him when he isn't ready early game he tends to be a free kill. If you shut down his jungling consistantly he will either be gold and experience starved completely or switch to laning and try to catch up. Either way is a win for you. Never, ever, ever let Warwick freely jungle. My Thoughts: Warwick is one of the few champions I dislike. Most people will point to his jungling ability as a positive. In reality it is extremely easy to counter and leaves him a sitting duck. He is also a very one dimensional champion and must be played with precision. Otherwise he will feed badly. If the enemy team is coordinated and keeps him from jungling his sole advantage is now removed. Choosing Warwick in a PUG is almost always a bad idea. You have no way of knowing if your teammates are skilled enough to take the 2v1 lane. It is also hard to communicate while you are jungling as most of the visual ques a lanemate would see are not there. You are effectivly out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. The ideal situation for playing Warwick would be on an organized team with someone specifically designated to take the 2v1 lane. That person will gain experience at the same rate as the mid lane champs. At the same time Warwicks premade will hopefully be on some kind of voice chat so his team can warn him immediately when enemy champions go missing. This is very nessecary especially when Warwick is in the enemies half of the jungle. You can attempt to lane normally as Warwick but he will have serious mana problems without the golem buff and he is also preassured very easily because of his extremely short range. Magical 17. Anivia - The Cryophoenix Health: ***** * (6) Attack: *** (3) S/A: ***** ***** ** (12) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 18. Annie - The Dark Child Health: **** (4) Attack: *** (3) S/A: ***** ***** *** (13) Disintegrate (Q): Incenerate (W): Molten Shield (E): Summon Tibbers (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 19. Corki - The Daring Bombadier Health: ** (2) Attack: ***** * (6) S/A: ***** ***** ** (12) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 20. Evelynn - The Widowmaker Health: ** (2) Attack: **** (4) S/A: ***** ***** (10) (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 21. Fiddlesticks - The Harbringer Of Doom Health: **** (4) Attack: **** (4) S/A: ***** ***** (10) Terrify (Q): On use, the target is feared. Drain (W): On use, health is drained from the target and given to Fiddle. Drain is a channeled effect and will be terminated if Fiddle moves during its duration. Dark Wind (E): On use, Fiddle fires a projectile that bounces to several enemies doing damage and silencing. Crowstorm (R): On use, Fiddle must remain still for about two seconds after which he flashes to the target location gaining a damaging aura around him. The aura moves with him for its duration. Dread: Any enemies near Fiddle have their magic resist reduced. Skill Build: E W Q E E | R E Q E Q | R W W W W | R Q Q Runes: Magic Penetration = Insight G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Mana Regen = Clarity Q) Health = Fortitude SS: Exhaust + Flash. Exhaust will give you the snare you need to keep people in Crowstorm as well as a way to shut down physical carries. Flash gives you an escape for when things don't go your way. Equipment: Fiddle should focus on AP with a secondary focus on health. The Mejai's is a risky item and you should only take it if you can get kills without dieing in the process. Fiddle is really good for this as usually after you fly in with Crowstorm ticking you are going to blow someone up. And usually his buddies are running for their lives to get out of the crows. The Banshee's Veil is very important as it stops people from interrupting Crowstorm and Drain. Also the health doesn't hurt either. Boots of Swiftness is there because Fiddle is naturally slow and you need speed to keep people in range of Crowstorm. Deathfire gives you that extra oomph on the move with its activated nuke. Item Build: Sapphire > Catalyst > Mejai's Soulstealer > Boots of Swiftness > Deathfire Grasp > Banshee's Veil. (4 total) Optional: Abyssal Scepter, Void Staff, Rod of Ages, Zhonya's Ring, Warmog's. (2 possible) Strategy: Fiddlesticks requires balls of steel to play correctly. Most of the time when you think you should run, you should in fact stay and fight. You also have the potential to crowstorm into the middle of several enemies and come out on top. Fiddlesticks is meant to be played aggressively. The second you hit level six switch lanes and blow someone up. After that go grab the blue rune, maybe farm a little and then find another lane and blow someone up. Rinse, lather, repeat. The general idea is to find a nice spot off screen of the enemies to charge Crowstorm. Ideally you want to land directly behind the enemy so you are inbetween them and their tower. At this point pop Dark Wind to silence them and then stay ahead of them with Crowstorm ticking. Before they get in range of their tower and if they are still alive, pop Terrify and immediately after Drain. If done correctly they will be running about randomly with Crowstorm and Drain ticking them to death. This will almost always net you a kill. Always have the blue rune on as not only is it crazy easy to take the Golem with Drain, but also the rune will allow you to Crowstorm more often. Somewhere around mid to late game when the team fighting begins, you unlike most champions will be playing the same way. When the team fight starts you Crowstorm into the middle of the enemy, throw Dark Wind to silence them, and use Terrify + Drain when nessecary. Fiddle should never, ever, be played cautiously. None of his abilities lend themselves to being passive. You literally have to be in the thick of things to get any use out of Crowstorm and Drain. On top of that Terrify has a very short range so again, you have to be in mix to make use of it. Versus: Playing against a well played aggressive Fiddle can be a pain. You need to do your best to keep tabs on him especially when he hits level six. Sight wards will help with this quite a bit as all Fiddle players tend to hide in the bushes until an opportunity to Crowstorm in presents its self. Just stick the wards in the bushes between you and the direction Fiddle will be coming from. Any fight that Fiddle does not initiate he is going to be without his ultimate. That is a serious advantage for you. And if he for whatever reason does decide to use it while your waling on him, throw any form of CC on him and he just blew his CD for nothing. Fiddle is most dangerous to other casters because of his silence. When he combines silence with fear he can shut down a caster for a large chunk of time. Most physical carries will have life steal and will eat him alive 1v1 without Crowstorm. Banshee's Veil can block one of his spells, usually Dark Wind and its silence. Magic resist will help mitigate his damage and because of his passive it is a very good idea to get at least a single magic resist item. The tendancy when Fiddle jumps in with Crowstorm is to run away even when you have the advantage of numbers on your side. Fight the urge and just focus him down. A single CC will leave him a sitting duck. If he has Banshee's Veil like he should, make sure to throw a nuke first before your CC. My Thoughts: Fiddlesticks is a blast to play. Usually you either did it right and end the game with a massive amount of kills or you screwed up or they countered you, and you end up with a massive amount of deaths. Or sometimes both at the same time. Fiddle is not a high damage champion. In fact he is highly reliant on good timing and positioning. However there is nothing better than countering that Ryze or Veigar that is blasting your team to peices. Chain Dark Wind and Terrify and they probably wont even get a spell off before they go splat. Thats what I love about squishies. They go squish, squish, squish, dead. Just be weary of physical carries as you don't have the damage to outright blow them up like most casters. 21. Heimerdinger - The Revered Inventor Health: **** (4) Attack: **** (4) S/A: ***** ***** (10) Evolution Turret (Q): On use, a stationary turret is created that will shoot at any enemies that come in range. The turret lasts until it is destroyed, Heimer dies, or the turret cap is reached. Hextech Rockets (W): On use, a damaging rocket is fired at the closest enemy champion within range. Higher ranks causes additional targets to be rocketed as well. Concussion Grenade (E): On use, a projectile is sent to the target area. Upon reaching its destination it explodes damaging nearby enemies. Anyone caught in the center of the explosion will be stunned and everyone else will be blinded. UPGRADE (R): Passively increases cooldown reduction. On use, the turret of your choice will be fully healed and upgraded to a stronger version. Tech Repair Bots: Passively increases Heimers health regeneration. Skill Build: Q W E W W | R W Q W Q | R Q Q E E | R E E Runes: Magic Penetration = Insight G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Mana Regen = Clarity Q) Health = Fortitude SS: Heal + Teleport. Heal allows you to not only heal yourself and teammates, but also your turrets. Recall allows for quick trips to town, the ability to save lanes and you can also use it to jump straight to any of your turrets. Flash is another good option as Heimer normally has no escape move. Equipment: Heimer should primarily focus on AP with a secondary focus on health. Luckily you can get HP and AP early buy building up a Rod of Ages. Deathfire Grasp gives you a third nuke to throw when your on the move. It will net you kills you would otherwise lose out on. Zhonya's gives massive AP as well as a percentage increase to AP. After the core items I usually grab atleast one high health item such as Warmog's. Heimer is lacking in mobility and is extremely squishy. If you neglect defensive items you will pay for it. Item Build: Sapphire > Catalyst > Boots of Swiftness > Rod of Ages > Deathfire Grasp > Zhonya's Ring. (4 total) Optional: Abyssal Scepter, Void Staff, Mejai's Soulstealer, Banshee's Veil, Warmog's. (2 possible) Strategy: Heimer should never take mid lane unless he is absolutely the only champion who can manage it. Any ranged carry should always take it over Heimer. Heimer can take top or bottom and control that lane with ease all the way up until mid game. His turrets will feed him last hits as well as keeping the creeps pushed. Heimer can focus on harrasing with Rockets or even swapping lanes to gank. When mid game roles around and Heimer has substantial AP you should be strategically using your turrets to block off lanes while you go out and gank. Your turrets will counter creeps on their own with no help from you. You on the other hand will have a nice three hit combo to use on enemy champions. Pop them with a Grenade from off screen if possible, then hit them with a Rocket and Deathfire. They should be dead or close to it. Try not to stick around one place very long as Heimer. If you are turtling in a single lane you aren't contributing to your team. You can stack turrets in bushes for quick easy kills if you can get the enemy team to chase you. Only try this when your turrets aren't needed in lane defense. Also always throw a turret under yourself and pop an upgrade on it if you get in a slugfest. If the fight stays put for any amount of time the level 2 turret will do substantial damage. Late game you need to either be defending lanes, setting up turrets to defend lanes, or sticking with your team. Heimer late game is very susceptible to ganks. Even flash will not always save you from multiple opponents as Heimer is naturally slow. In team fights make sure you are in range of several enemies before popping Rockets and make sure to spread out your turrets. Grenade is actually a great initiator if you time it right. Versus: Countering Heimer is pretty simple. Whoever takes the lane versus Heimer should have an area attack of some kind. Preferably a ranged area attack. Area attacks will eat his turrets alive if they are stacked. If they are spread out standard ranged attacks will suffice. Always be prepared for an incoming Grenade. It is easy to see coming and easy to avoid. Always keep on top of destroying his turrets as they get stronger the longer they are left up. He will also have more chances to upgrade them the longer they're up. Mid and late game you can easily demolish aggressive Heimers by catching them in the jungle, or anywhere far from allied turrets. If someone has allowed Heimer to build upgraded turrets in a tight bunch ignore them and the lane if nessecary. Eventually you will catch Heimer away from the turrets and his death will remove them all from the field. Always be wary of chasing Heimer into bushes as a stack of upgraded turrets can destory anyone. The easiest way to see this coming is to check the lanes visually and keep an idea of where his turrets are. If you see no turrets anywhere on the map and Heimer hasn't died recently, it's a safe bet they are stacked in a bush somewhere. My Thoughts: Heimer when played overly defensively is a waste of a team slot. I see it all the time and it has gotten so bad that I refuse to play any PUG with a Heimer. Heimer should never setup turrets and sit in that lane the entire match. It is nearly as bad as a Warwick that refuses to leave the jungle the entire match. Every champion should be ready to switch lanes when nessecary. Just because you have stationary turrets does not mean you can't switch to another lane. Even a well played Heimer is of questionable use when turrets are so easily countered by so many champions. As it is Heimer fills a niche, but sadly that niche isn't overly useful. 22. Morgana - Fallen Angel Health: ***** *** (8) Attack: * (1) S/A: ***** ***** ** (12) Dark Binding (Q): On use, Morgana fires a projectile toward the target or target area. If the projectile connects it roots the enemy in place and damages them over time. Binding is is a skillshot and must be aimed carefully or else it will miss its target. Tormented Soil (W): On use, any enemies in the target area will take damage over time as long as they stay within the area of effect. Black Shield (E): On use, Morgana places a shield on herself or an ally that blocks a certain amount of magical damage and makes them immune to CC. Soul Shackles (R): On use, any enemies near Morgana are damaged and snared. If the enemies are still in range of Morgana in four seconds they are damaged a second time and stunned. Soul Siphon: When Morgana does magical damage she recieves a little healing. Skill Build: W Q W E W | R W Q W Q | R Q Q E E | R E E Runes: Magic Penetration = Insight G) CD Reduction = Focus S) Mana Regen = Clarity Q) Health = Fortitude SS: Flash + Cleanse. Flash is nessecary for escaping and also sometimes it allows you to jump into range to throw a Binding. Cleanse is great as it allows you to break CC and then immediately pop Shield on yourself. Equipment: Haunting Guise is a great early item as it covers both regens, gives you nice magic penetration and a good chunk of CD reduction. That CD reduction coupled with runes and Nashor's or Frozen Heart will put you right at the CD reduction cap. Pick Nashor's if there aren't any physical champions who pose a threat. Otherwise grab the Frozen Heart for the armor and slow effect. Zhonya's is great for the massive AP. If you need magic resist take Abyssal Scepter. If you find yourself dieing to quickly late game take a Warmog's. Item Build: Haunting Guise > Ninja Tabi OR Mercury Treads > Frozen Heart OR Nashor's Tooth > Zhonya's Ring. Optional: Road of Ages, Abyssal Scepter, Void Staff, Deathfire Grasp, Warmog's. Strategy: Morgana is not designed to have a high kill count like most casters. Her standard attack is one of the worst in the entire game and two of her three damaging abilities are damage over time spells. It is very difficult to get a kill shot unless you are solo. This isn't a bad thing, but it will turn a lot of people off right away. Instead of mass kills you should be shooting for the most assists by a large maragin. Morgana is sort of a magical carry/support hybrid. Her Black Shield can and will save people from certain death. It will remove any CC on them and make them immune to all CC for the shields duration. This is a huge benefit to anyone and you need to explain its use to your team. Binding is a skillshot and should be aimed carefully. When Binding connects make sure to drop a Corrupted Soil under them. They will take tons of damage over time and be rooted in place for the duration. Morgana's ultimate is best used to prevent enemies from escaping. Its hands down one of the best disables in the game and does crazy nice damage to boot. Try to hit multiple enemies with its initial damage whenever possible. When laning early you should be using Soil to kill mass creeps. Use Binding to harass and setup kills as needed. When mid game rolls around you should be coordinating ganks with teammates. Your Binding and Ultimate can lock people down for a huge amount of time. Late game in team fights just make sure you use Binding on a priority target, drop Soil under the enemy team every time it's up and Shield teammates when they get focused/disabled. Do not charge the enemy and attempt to pop your ultimate on all of them. You will die quickly. Use your ultimate when either their team or your team turns to run. Versus: Morgana lives and dies by how well the player uses her skillshot. Get used to juking it when she fires it from afar. If the player uses it poorly enough Morgana becomes basicly de-clawed. Never stand in the Soil if you aren't disabled. Its damage adds up pretty quickly. You can get around her shield by disabling her before she uses it and then blowing her up quickly. You can also target her after she throws her Shield on a teammate. Do not run away when she uses her ultimate unless you can flash or disable her in some way. You will be snared and she will keep up with you easily. In such a case your better off just standing your ground and doing as much damage as you can. You can counter Morgana with Banshee's which can block her Binding and gives magic resist. Some people do build her as a tank and in this case you want to kill her before any true tanks, but after anyone else. My Thoughts: Morgana is a great disabler, can do really good damage and supports well with her Black Shield. She farms well, pushes well, can escape with Binding and her Ultimate if needed. She is an extremely well rounded champion. Her only weakness is it's tough to get killshots without blind luck. Which you can't even consider a weakness assuming you have a better carry on your team. She is one of the best disablers in the game as long as you master her skillshot. Always fire it at the ground ahead of where the enemy is walking. You want to lead your target so that they walk into the projectile. I have a funny story and I guess i'll share it here. I was in our jungle between the blue rune golem and our outter turret. Singed, Veigar, Annie and Ryze all at once rounded the corner and laid into me. I popped cleanse and threw up my shield. All four of them ended up chasing me out of the jungle, through our base, past two turrets and up to our fountain. I used Black Shield twice, Binding twice and Soul Shackle once. By the time I hit the fountain only Singed was still with me because of all my disables. Black Shield had blocked Annie's stun, Ryze's prison, Veigar's stun and massive amounts of damage from all of them. The entire time Singed was running ahead of me trying to snare me and doing poison damage that was completely blocked by Black Shield. Not only was it completely hilarious that three of them were now stuck inside my base, but when they went to run my teammates finally showed up and got mass free kills. Afterwards all I heard the rest of the match was nerf Morgana this and she's overpowered that. In reality they shouldn't have chased past the first turret when I was still over fifty percent health. But, it made for a funny story. The moral here being that if you use her disables and shield well you should almost never die as Morgana. Add in flash and you should never die as Morgana period. Unless of course your past river and end up with their entire team in your face... And your teammates are all somewhere else. In that case alone you might die. Maybe. Support 22. Soraka - The Starchild Health: ***** * (6) Attack: ** (2) S/A: ***** ***** (10) Starcall (Q): Astral Blessing (W): Infuse (E): Wish (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 23. Zilean - Chronokeeper Health: ***** (5) Attack: ** (2) S/A: ***** ***** (10) Time Bomb (Q): Rewind (W): Passively increases Zilean's ability power. On use, it decreases all of his CDs. Time Warp (E): On use, if your target is an ally their movement speed is increased. If your target is an enemy their movement speed is decreased. Chrono Shift (R): On use, your target is given a buff that prevents a single death, and restores a set amount of health afterwards. Heightened Learning: Passively increases all experience gained by you and your team. Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 25. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 26. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 27. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 28. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 29. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 30. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 31. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 32. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 33. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 34. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 35. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 36. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 37. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 38. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 39. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 40. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 41. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 42. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 43. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 44. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: 45. Health: Attack: S/A: (Q): (W): (E): (R): : Skill Build: Runes: SS: Equipment: Item Build: Strategy: My Thoughts: