NIDALEE BUILD GUIDE

 

Introduction

Pros:

• Very strong laning phase vs most melee champions

• Highly mobile, can apply insane pressure top lane and still get away

• Very hard to flat out counterpick

• Very strong mid game if you're not behind. Wins pretty much every matchup by level 11.

• Even if you're behind, you can still always splitpush

Cons:

• Can be vulnerable pre 6 to strong ganks and/or tough lane matchups

• She gets outscaled by a lot of top laners making her vulnerable to the classic "win lane, lose game"

• Her sustain is very mana hungry

• One of the only champions that completely lacks cc, other tops have better teamfight presence (somewhat fixed by Iceborn Gauntlet)

 

Summoner Spells

Flash is great for being able to stay safe in early lane because of the relatively short distance to tower and instant reaction time to avoid skillshots/cc's. It will always be standard because of the ability to go through impassable terrain that's even longer than the actual range of the spell.

Unless you severely outplay your opponent, you need ignite for kill potential in lane. Not much else to be said. Take it if you want to kill your lane. Leave it if you don't.

Exhaust & Flash

Flash is great for being able to stay safe in early lane because of the relatively short distance to tower and instant reaction time to avoid skillshots/cc's. It will always be standard because of the ability to go through impassable terrain that's even longer than the actual range of the spell.


In lane, exhaust can help you survive all-ins but flash is far better for offensive potential. exhaust mostly shines in teamfights where you can exhaust a high damage target diving your backline like Rengar, Tryndamere.

Flash & Barrier

Flash  is great for being able to stay safe in early lane because of the relatively short distance to tower and instant reaction time to avoid skillshots/cc's. It will always be standard because of the ability to go through impassable terrain that's even longer than the actual range of the spell.

Barrier can be great in any build to survive hard lanes. This is especially effective vs executes like Darius. Pantheon.

By taking barier you give up pretty much all kill potential and are expecting to not lose lane the best you can and make it to midgame. This is basically the definition of top lane AP nid.

However when playing AD nid it's more of taking the secure win without the snowball potential. This means more passively pushing people out of lane over time and taking towers, not snowballing off of kills.

 

LEONA BUILD GUIDE

 

 

Introduction

I picked up Leona at around September 2012 when I got really bored of playing Blitzcrank. After playing around 300+ games with her, I fell in love with her aggressive playstyle, and really like how she could remain incredibly effective throughout all stages of the game. Not only is she a fantastic support champion, but she also transitions pretty well into a tank/bodyguard with her toolkit. Overall, if you are looking for a very aggressive, reliable support champion, then Leona is perfect for you!

In this guide, I am going to discuss how to play Leona as a support champion on Summoner's Rift. If there is enough interest, I can write about how to play her in Dominion.

I apologize in advance for the crappy video demonstrations. I use a Mac and don't have LoLrecorder, so I had to scrape what I could find from streamed games.


Pros:

• High CC with Shield of Daybreak + Solar Flare.

• Free tankiness with Eclipse.

• High damage output with Sunlight.

• Great initiation with Zenith Blade + Solar Flare

• Highest base mana regen in the entire game

•  Very good pairing with almost every ADC in the game

Cons:

• Melee, so you're going to get poked

• If you miss your Zenith Blade, you're a sitting duck in lane and you're going to get poked

• Once you go in, you have to commit since you have 0 disengage. And if you got poked, you're not going to have too much hp.

• Because you can't proc your own Sunlight, Leona can't be played in others roles effectively except for support (and barely scraping by jungle)

•  Loses 1 damage to people with sunglasses :(

 

Summoner Spells

Exhaust
This is definitely the best offensive summoner spell for you. Exhaust is 100% necessary to lock down a high priority enemy, and you're one of the best users for exhaust because you can get close to this target with Zenith Blade. Definitely have this around if they have hyper carries (Vayne, Kog'Maw) or if they have assassins (Zed, Kha'Zix)



Flash
Flash is still one of the best summoners in the game. It can be your get-out-of-jail-free card if the enemy jungler comes to gank, or it could be your holla-holla-first blood-dolla card. If you are laning against an annoying map-finder girl like Ezreal, then use this offensively with Shield of Daybreak. This will make it a lot easier to land a follow-up Zenith Blade after the enemy tries to flash/dash away.



Ignite
Ignite is a lot worse than exhaust in teamfights since it's more effective to slow/reduce AS on the enemy ADC as opposed to doing a bit more damage. But if you 100% want to crush your lane because you want to snowball or play aggressive (like with Draven), then this is definitely a good option.

 

SONA BUILD GUIDE

 

Guide Introduction

In this guide I will discuss a Support Item / Aura babysitter supportive role for bottom lane. Your job is to buy the majority of the wards and get map control with Vision Ward and Oracle's elixir, feed all/most of the minions to your lane partner, try to zone out the enemy from getting last hits and exp, and try to support your team in any way possible.

This type of build won't net you many kills since you don't have great damage. Support Sonna is not a DPS carry. You rely on your teammates to protect you and do the killing while you buff them. However, even though you don't do much damage in the late game, your early game damage is pretty good. If you can afford to be aggressive in lane, you've pretty much won that lane.

Your ideal score would be 0 kills, 0 deaths, and a lot of assists. Taking kills from your carries is not preferred. But sometimes, you have no choice - kill them immediately or risk your carry of dying. You shouldn't be killed as much because you'll be behind the back row in most team fights, and wards should be safe to place if you use Clairvoyance . However, do not hesitate for a moment to sacrifice yourself to save an ally. Your death means less to the enemy team than your carry's death.


During team fights, your biggest contribution will be your ult, Crescendo. Knowing when and where to use it is crucial. Typically, you will want to trap as many people as possible, but there are exceptions. You may want to save it for an assassin that jumps onto your carries. You may want to save it to stun the enemy jungler to prevent him from using Smite on Baron Nashor so your team can steal it. You may want to save it for Fiddlesticks that's charging his ult or Katarina, etc. You may want to save it for the enemy Jax behind your team even though the rest of the enemy team is in front of you. It all really depends on what your team needs. Do not be afraid to use Flash to get into position quicker.

 

Summoner Spells

Flash

Flash is the ultimate "get away from me" / positioning ability. A great defense spell. If they dive onto you, you just Flash out of the way while your team focuses on that person.

Flash can also be used offensively to chase people down after a winning team fight, or a surprise Flash into ult for an easy kill. Or you can tower dive and Flash out of tower range before the tower kills you.

Don't be afraid to do Flash, Crescendo in team fights if you have to. That 0.5 second delay could cost the team fight. It is better to stun your opponents before they get a chance to use their skills. This way their spells aren't already ticking off of cooldowns while they're stunned. Flash can give you the positional advantage to do this.

You can also do Song of Celerity, Flash, Power Chord to chase and slow.

Exhaust

A lot of supports are starting to carry these summoners spells now to assist their carry to win bottom lane, and help in team fights later on in the game. Don't be afraid to use this at level 1 when invading to secure a kill. Slow them so it takes longer for them to walk to a wall and Flash over.

Clairvoyance

Less and less support get this due lane aggression, and the fact that most of the time Clairvoyance doesn't have that much of an impact in major team fights. And people are learning to buy and use wards. But it can still be used. Use it to scout for level 1 ganks. Use it to follow the enemy jungler around. Use it in team fights or ganks so they can't bush juke. Use it to safely place wards. Use it to protect someone pushing a tower. Use it to scout Baron when they killed your Baron ward. Use it for Nocturne's ult. You should always use Clairvoyance at 0:09 into the game between the enemy summoner platform stairs and the enemy nexus to scout their direction and starting items.

TRISTANA BUILD GUIDE

 

Introduction

Tristana is one of the scariest champions to deal with late game. She is also incredibly strong in the early game; specifically at level 2 and 6. However she hits a mid game weak point, where she doesn't have enough items to scale with her 90% steroids, and not enough AP to scale with her nukes.

Tristana should be played very aggressively early game, passively mid game, and cautiously end game.

 

Masteries

21/9/0

Skip meditation since she needs that extra HP/Armor for all-ins at level 2.

 

Runes

Runepage is designed for early game dominance, very much like masteries.

Flat ARP Marks - Best in Slot
Flat Armor Seals - BiS
Flat MR Glyphs - BiS
Flat AD Quints - Can be changed with Flat HP or Flat ARP. I've personally had the best success with Flat AD.


Tip: Armor Seals and MR Glyphs are very cheap, and incredibly versatile. If you're starting to build up runpages, I recommend picking those up ASAP.

 

Skill Order

Buster Shot whenever you can.

Early on rotate between Explosive shot and Rocket jump for burst dmg.

Then max Explosive shot and leave Rocket Jump at level 2. Once you get your BOTRK, Rapid Fire offers a lot of damage from your autos, so max second.

 

Early Game

Try and convince your team into an aggressive support like Taric or Alistar. Then be very agressive with your early level 2 from Explosive shot. Farm to the best of your ability, it's tricky with Explosive shot, but a strong Tristana player can last hit near perfectly.

Tip: Red pot is also very strong for Tristana, it's essentially a cheap Doran's Blade!

 

Mid Game

FARM FARM FARM FARM FARM!

Trist's mid-game is horrid. Rocket Jump and Buster Shot's damage become sub-par, Rapid Fire still hasn't scaled up yet.

Even if you've had a successful early game, you cannot get too cocky during Tristana's mid game. Realize how strong you are, and farm to the best of your ability. Try and avoid fights especially if you've had a stagnant early game.

 

Late Game

This is when Tristana becomes a beast, you should be able to solo just about anyone at this point. Your range and damage combined can shred even the tankiest of champions. Don't forget to farm just because you have 4-5 items. Having a QSS before an end game fight may win you the game.

 

Team Fights

Positioning - being able to maximize your damage without dieing.

That is ALL you need to do in fights. It's very hard to teach how to position, but it all comes with your general knowledge of the game; where all champions on the map are, what items do they have, how much hp/mana do they have, what level are they... etc

Tip: Checking up on TAB often will drastically increase your team fight positioning.

 

Final Comments

Tristana's early game is fantastic, make sure to take advantage of this early game, because you will need it when you enter Tristana's mid game. Realize when you're becoming weak and try and avoid fights while farming into your end game build. Once you get to end game, all you need to do is focus on positioning and you should take the game easily.

ASHE BUILD GUIDE

 

Introduction

Ashe is a high utility/defensive AD carry. Volley punishes aggression in lane, it is also an incredibly strong kiting tool with Frost Shot. Hawkshot can prolong games by gaining crucial vision on Dragon and Baron, it also gives vision to set up for Enchanted Crystal Arrow, which is simply one of the best initiation in the game.

 

Counters

I think Ashe is just a fantastic late-game champion that pretty much counters nearly all melee Champions. The problem is making it into late-game (being able to farm safely).

Kog'Maw: Harasses you insanely hard in the laning phase, really difficult to deal with even by farming at tower.

Olaf: Charges at you.

Irelia: Charges at you.

Urgot: Has insane amounts of killing potential against you in the laning phase, very difficult to farm against.

 

Skill Order

Enchanted Crystal Arrow whenever.

Volley first to have it on a 4sec CD at lv9 (insanely strong for dragon poke)

Frost Shots next so you can kite easier.

Hawkshot last for vision and map control.

Even though it might be intuitive for most Ashe players to max Hawkshot second so you can farm into late game easier... Frost Shots is a crucial kiting tool that is too good to pass up, since Ashe is so weak during the mid-game, if you don't level it up, you'll likely lose too much before hitting late-game.

 

Early Game

Try and force something with your level 1 burst, either invade or camp a brush, or simply secure double golemn advantage.

Play aggressively if you can during the early levels, but realize when Volley's damage falls off and go into farm mode.

Once you hit 6, it's very easy to set up ganks for your jungler, be patient and communicate.

 

Mid Game

Most AD's are stronger than you at this point, so be careful when fighting for Dragon's.

Splitpush sidelanes with Shiv, and then force pressure mid with arrow. Repeat this until you can get a safe kill, or continue farming into late-game.

 

Late Game

This is when Ashe becomes a monster, because a good Arrow will simply end the game. Gain ground with Hawkshot and completely focus on landing good Arrows. If you still need your last couple of items such as Mercurial Scimitar or LW... Hawkshot's extra gold will make it that much easier to get them. Don't be afraid of late-game, since Ashe is one of the strongest late-game AD's, 35% AoE perma slow is simply too much for most melees to handle.

 

Team Fights

KITE! You wan't to be able to move in between auto attacks and Volleys. Make sure you land Volleys on the crucial melee champions you want to be able to kite.

In most scenarios you want to already be at an advantage before engaging into a full blown teamfight, since you have the option of initiating whenever with Arrow.

Hawkshot is also very good for team fighting, having vision will allow you to kill enemies that are trying to avoid being hit in by sitting in brushs.

 

Final Comments

Ashe is a defensive AD thats very strong late-game AD, but is also incredibly strong at level 1. Her early-mid game is extremely weak due to Volley scaling, but her ability to initate is unrivaled. Being able to land solid Arrows is simply very rewarding, which makes Ashe incredibly fun to play.