Welcome to TeemoTalk! This subreddit is dedicated to our lord and savior Teemo. Ideally, this is a place where we can all help one another master our beloved yordle, and to bring fear to silly non-teemo players.
I'm looking to have fun in some norms with my friends and hit them with the surprise non-AP kassadin. I'm looking for some tips on the best choices for the worst kassadin build lol. Please tell me the most optimal build path and which rune to take. Thanks! Edit: some good items I can think of are: wits end, manamune, nashor's tooth, guinsoo's rageblade, and iceborn gauntlet. What do you guys think?
Convinced I wanna become a kassadin main, what are the best builds
I feel like kass isnt recognized as "op" and isnt banned too much, but high skill players will literally 1v5 with him so id love to learn him and add him to my roster of safe picks. Played a couple games with him and instantly feel alright with room to improve. Are there any links to what to build in what vague matchups? Any other tips or such are welcome too :)
Recently picked up Kassadin but i’m not too sure which to build. I see some people go ROA, Sorc boots and arch angel. I also see people rushing arch angel, sorc boots then lich bane. I’m not too sure which build is better and when you decide to go for it. Thanks !
My friend who just quit league mained Kassadin and I would like to play his main for him in his place since I play mid as well. I can't talk to him anymore since he quit league, but I do have some experience on the RiftWalker. My main question is this; I play him well but seem to have to much trouble building him. I've seen some pros like Voyboy build Hextech GLP instead of ROA on him so my question is what would be the best build? Also in what order? Thanks in Advanced! Arcaneful
I've been playing him a bit now, and he is really fun. What are the best build, runes, and masteries? Main questions: What is the best first item? RoA, Morello, GLP, or even Seraph's Embrace Better Keystone? DFT vs Thunderlords Best runes?
Which ability is the most popular to level up first across all champs? Here are the numbers.
EDIT: Yes the title is poorly worded. This post is about what ability is "maxed" first, not what ability is taken at level 1. EDIT 2: Fixed some mistakes caught by various comments. I was bored yesterday so I looked up on u.gg the most commonly maxed basic ability on each champ, then used Sheets to compile the results. This obviously doesn't factor in ultimate abilities or form changes. Here are the results: TL;DR
Q
W
E
R
104
23
26
1
Unsurprisingly most champs max Q first as expected, but I never realized just how high of a percentage does, over two thirds of all champs! The only interesting outlier is our good pal Udyr most commonly maxing his R first. I think he's the only champ with a basic ability on R that isn't a form change, but I'm probably wrong. Here are the links used for reference if you're curious, they were all made from using the replace function in N++ but there's probably at least one that doesn't work correctly.
Before you comment "Ackshuawllllly Xin Zhao mains all max Q now" or something, just know that despite being challenjour I don't actually main every champ, nor do I know the "best" maxing strategy for each champ. I simply took the most popular skill order from u.gg. What can you or I do with this newfound information? Probably nothing but I thought it was neat.
When i play with kassadin i always RoA>ludens>athenes>deathcap> zhonya but i want to get void staff but i cant repalace it with any item of those so any suggestions?
I've been trying a few builds and I'm not really sure which one is generally the most effective.
RoA into Athenes
RoA into Ludens
RoA into Lichbane
From my own experience, the second option has given me the best results since the power spike hits way earlier, but I've seen people build into athenes much more often.
Complete Vladimir guide, made by EUW multiseasonal multiaccount challenger Elite500, every matchup, every build, every playstyle. + AMA
Quintessential Vladimir guide for season 11
Well hello there wonderful people. My name is Calvin and I stream under the name Elite500, as the title suggests, I’ve been challenger for 4 seasons now and ended it since the last 2.
I’ve played vlad throughout every meta, no matter how rough or how much the playstyle has changed, and I’m finally here, bringing to YOU the absolute ULTIMATE, QUINTESSENTIAL, HOLY guide, everything you will ever need for season 11. At the time of writing this guide I’ve played around 500 preseason games and half of them in high challenger.
Why play Vladimir? Doesn’t he actually suck? Isn’t he noobchamp?
Do you want to dehumanise yourself to and not even recognise your fellow teammates as sentient meat lumps? Can you handle the responsibility to take every game post 20 minutes as your responsibility? Of course you do.
Table of contents:
Setups: we’ll go over the main 2 setups including items, runes, summoners, and build
How to choose between the two setups and which play-style suits you best
Early laningphase and how to play matchups
Every matchup in the game including recommended setups for matchups
Unleashing unholy wrath upon your foes in mid to lategame
Combos
Skin choice
Setup one, the way of the gigalord:
Back in season 7 the chad vladimir players received an upgrade from thunderlords decree, electrocute, termed GIGALORDS back then, it’s power has been dormant and ever waiting since the nerfs of 2018.
This path is more optimally suited for those who wish to have devastating all in damage, those who wish to win lane as early as level 3, those who want to annihilate and leave them with .no counterplay 100-0s
This setup is best suited and optimally played against melee champions such as Sylas, Pantheon, Yone, Yasuo, Ekko, Akali, Kata, etc.
Summoner spells:
Ignite and flash are a must take with this setup, allowing you to deliver sudden oneshots with flash and having beyond unholy all in damage with ignite. Ignite also helps us with nimbus cloak and with procing electro.
Runes
Keystone:
Of course you’ll be taking electrocute as your keystone, it allows you to win a lot of trades early into the game, it’s easily proccable early with auto Q auto or auto E Q or even auto ignite Q. The trading is nice although the main reason you take this keystone is for the HEINOUS all in damage it can do, most champions can literally be 100-0 oneshot at level 6 if they’re not innately invulnerable (looking at you galio).
Minor runes, domination:
Taste of blood is absolutely amazing and helps out in every melee matchup, feel free to swap this to sudden impact if you’re deranged and play this setup into ranged opponents. (sudden impact proccable with rocketbelt.
Poro ward is extremely consistent and can be stacked easily to grant you free 4 ap level 3 and 30 ap at around ~ 16 – 18 minutes depending on how actively you ward and where.
Ravenous hunter synergises so well with vlads huge point and click Q damage, easily accumulating 10’000 HP healed in a game. While it doesn’t sound like much, since the rune was changed from spellvamp to omnivamp it now will even heal you slightly on autohits even without stacks helping you outsustain early. Some crazy gamer chinese vlads will take ultimate hunter since their server is perma fighting, it’s also a viable choice but feels worse to me.
Secondary runes, sorcery:
For sure my favourite secondary tree to spec into, although this one is a lot more preference, I think all trees are balanced it’s just more playstyle, you flash like a maniac? Go inspiration cosmic insight with cdr shoes rush and enjoy less than 4 minute flash cooldown etc. Transcendence holy MOLY this rune got such a nice change in season 11, 5 ability haste at level 5? Sign me the hell up. The ability cd refund is also amazing on vladimirs W since it’s basecooldown is like 30 seconds, allowing you sometimes to pool twice in fights.
Nimbus Cloak to make up for the lack of mobility before rocketbelt nimbus cloak helps out so much allowing you to kite and rundown pesky season 10 dashy champs with ease. Optionally gathering storm is also nice but with this rune setup you mostly play for early mid domination and nimbus is also great lategame. My games have been decided 1000x more by having more mobility in clutch scenarios than having 40 extra ap at 30 minutes. For the mini runes always Ability haste, AP, and scaling hp
Build:
You best be prepared to build mejais.
Starting item:
Your starting item should be dark seal refillable every game, the dark seal buff now giving hp and 5 extra ap is absurdly good for vlad, random lucky early kills giving 10 ap is also beyond bonkers. Shaving off 350g on your mejais purchase is also essential.
First mythic:
Hextech Rocketbelt is by far the best mythic you can go in every game currently, amazing active, amazing components, amazing mythic passive, it’s just THAT good. The dash and ms is a great engage tool, hextech alternator synergises perfectly with your ridiculous ignite electro damage, the passive giving you 5 flat pen is amazing since you can get 18 from sorc shoes and another 5 from mejais since it counts as a legendary, the more flat pen you stack the more efficient it gets.
Second item:
Mejais Soulstealer allows you to single-handedly decide whether you wish to win the game or lose it, it’s a must buy and goes hand in hand with this playstyle, one two kills with a mejais, over 10 stacks? Literally the game is a done deal at this stage. Rocket belt mythic passive giving you 5 pen for a 1250g purchase makes it even good to buy at 0 stacks. I have completely 1v9’d too many games to count in the highest of elos because enemies make literally one mistake and die once.
Third item:
Void staff third? WTF what if enemies have no mr elite? Well let me tell you about this stupidly broken item that straight up out damages a god damn DEATHCAP even at 30 mr !? ? ? the item is 131% gold efficient, let alone when you pile up your 28 flat pen that you get from completing it. Remember flat pen reduces enemy MR AFTER the percentage, so let’s say someone has 50 magic resistance when you buy your void, magic resistance WH OMEGALUL? 28|40% stats on 50 mr leaves enemies with a whole 2 mr, 2 mr!!!!!
Unless you’re rocking cosmic insight and want türbo low summoner cd, sorc shoes are the must go 100% of the time. Why would you need damagereduction from tabis if you oneshot enemies, why would you need merctreads tenacity if you can just dodge with your W 4Head. Sorc shoes penetration just perfectly synergises with the rocketbelt mythic passive since the more flat magic pen you stack the more potent it becomes.
What the hell is the last item?
At this stage your power is so strong the final item won’t make a big difference, need dps? Cosmic drive, need a second pool? Zhonyas, need spellshield vs evelyn and zoe? Banshees. The itemshop is your oyster, get whatever you want last, I usually like to top it off with zhonyas. This concludes the way of the gigalords setup and we’ll now proceed to the other setup.
Setup two, consistency king & lategamegod:
This play style was the meta for the longest of time and still remains viable, farm for 30 mins and then fight once and win the game 4Head. This playstyle relies less on your opponents being bad and more so on the inevitable victory that is 300 cs vladimir at the same time it’s also praying that your team doesn’t just perma fight for no reason which kinda happens a lot as well in soloq because people like fighting for no reason.
Summoner spells:
Ever thought how if everyone does just one thing the same way people would become insecure to try anything else but that specific way? That’s my opinion on using ghost > flash.
With this setup I prefer taking ghost over flash and ignite secondary. Why? Now that ghost’s duration gets refreshed on kills or assists and gives tremendous move-speed while only being on a 182 second cd with cosmic insight (163 with lucidity boots) allows you to have it up at literally every possible random teamfight, the mobility is insane for laningphase as well. If you can kill your opponent with flash in a certain scenario ghost will do the job and more, what do you do vs a vladimir that has kill pressure on your and pressed his nitroboost button? Flash away? Jokes on you this shit lasts 10000 years and he’ll just inevitably catch up.
Ignite secondary lets you have some decent kill pressure even with this setup You can of course go whatever you please, struggling with bully mages? Go flash tp, feel like you can’t catchup to that Ezreal in the backline? Flash ghost is the answer, etc, it’s all viable and just needs playing around.
Runes
Keystone:
Phaserush has been Vlad’s most consistent rune since seasons now. It offers a lot of versatility in the sense that it can be used to slide in an extra auto in trades, chase people down, escape ganks easier and of course mainly to slide into the backline like Michael Jackson moonwalking on the rift. Just like electrocute it’s really easily proccable, just three swift strikes and you’re running like yourprincess runs from apologizing to Tuesday Even your initial ult cast counts as one of the strikes, so you could ignite ult q and boom you’re already zooming.
Minor runes, sorcery:
Nimbus cloak is an insanely good rune for vlad since the main thing you lack is mobility, and the more you have the easier it gets to get even more. If you have a reliable way of proccing phaserush such as nimbus cloak ignite all your mobility issues are fixed.
Transcendence just like with the electro page it helps you lane giving you cdr as early as level 5, and if you stack enough ability haste with zhonyas or even legendary double stopwatch you can always do some funky last fight game winning shit like –> pool –> zhonyas –> get asisst so trans ticks in –> stopwatch –> pool again. It’s like 10 seconds of immunity winning you uber clutch games.
Gathering Storm what better rune suited for the lategame king himself. All other options like waterwalking and scorch are completely outclassed by this free stats rune. I’d say Vlad is the most efficient champion in the game when it comes to flat ap considering you have ap to hp conversion, absolutely massive ap scalings with damage and healing (wtF), and an amplification on all abilites with your ult.
Secondary runes, Inspiration:
Free boots are really good at helping you scale up consistently and the 10ms it gives you on top of regular boots means you just zoom that little bit extra.
Cosmic Insight is also amazing at lowering your summonerspells, combined with haste shoes you can get almost 70 seconds off your flash, how insane is that.
Build
If you’ve been shocked by going ghost ignite you’re going to be quite surprised by this.
Starting item:
Just like with electrocute, dark seal refillable is a beyond bonkers good item to start with, however since we get free boots with this setup going dorans ring is a more affordable purchase as well into a more difficult matchup like Orianna or Syndra. My logic is if you back with ~ 350g you’ll be having to choose either between dark seal or boots, but since boots are out of the equation you don’t even need to think about them so dorans ring is a lot more affordable. At the same time this setup focuses mostly on reaching unholy power as fast as possible.
First mythic:
Mythic? Only insecure players build mythic items first. We build DOUBLE FIENDISH CODEX that’s right. Become unstoppable. Vlad turns AP into a hyper efficient stat already with his insane scalings, so what about a 114% gold efficient PURE ap and ability haste stat? Fiendish codex’ passive is no longer unique so you can stack them. From experience I’ve felt that anything more than 2 feels awful and going only 1 is also a viable option, although we want to accelerate ourselves and by this I mean let’s say we just pushed out midlane wave and we have some tempo. Raptor camp is up and your jgler doesn’t need them, you take them in 15 seconds total, because of this, the next time you take them you could afford another item meaning you took them 10 seconds in total, the next time 5 seconds and so on and so fort. Getting pure ap and cdr allows you to do this faster and ultimately accelerating yourself to a point of having 300 cs at 25 minutes and being able to completely devour anyone in sight.
Second item:
Since I’m addicted to Mejais I like to buy it second, however with this setup you can skip it, if you fall behind even slightly mejais won’t get the free 5 penetration that you would’ve gotten with a regular rocketbelt build and it becomes really hard to get back into the game. Just remember if you need the power of GOD to win this game, don’t hesitate to buy the holy bible.
The real Second item:
Now that you have around ~ 100 ap Rabadons deathcap becomes efficient, even in its pathetic nerfed state it’ll still transform you into an onmipotent being. Deathcap is 92% item efficient with just it’s own AP and gets increased by 20% for every 100 ap so making it at MINIMUM 112% gold efficient of RAW pure AP power which Vladimir makes such enthusiastic work with. Now imagine if you had a mejais with some lucky 10 stacks on it, 136% gold efficient pure ap item combined with this? Oh Lord. Full mejais and dc = 357 ap = 500 hp more for FREE due to crimson pact.
Third item:
Most sane enemies when pressing TAB and seeing there is a 200 cs vlad at 16 minutes with a deathcap completed and double codex eagerly wanting to devour their feeble adc souls will attempt to purchase some magic resistance. Falter their plans by buying an early Void Staff, just like the logic we applied earlier with electrocute, void staffs 131% gold efficiency combined with sorcerer shoes allows you to deal near true damage to low mr targets and to those with more than room temperature IQ who’ve built MR? Well you have a voidstaff, what good does it do them.
Fourth item:
Woo! It’s mythic time yayyy!
This is the most satisfying thing ever, building a mythic item when you have 3 legendaries all giving you instant mythic passive. At this stage you can choose pretty much all mythics, need more haste? Go Nightharvester for unrivaled dps, playing against a lot of squishies? Unleash unholy burst with the Rocketbelt, enemies stacked giga nitro mega amounts of mr and you’re having a tough time penetrating through it? Literally buy a Liandry’s, it shreds enemy MR making your voidstaff and sorc shoes deal hyper amounts of damage. Since you have 2 codex Liandry’s is giga cheap at only 2500g and doesn’t eat up another inventory slot.
You can even decide to buy something else if you’re in desperate need for it like a Zhonyas or Morrelo, it’s not essential to have a mythic but I highly recommend it leaving it no later than this.
Last item (if you were a chad mejais buyer)
Just like the other electro setup, you may go whatever your heart desires as final ap item. Enemies have a lot of ad? Zhonyas, need dps? Cosmic Drive, need magic res? Spirit or Banshees. That’s pretty much it to the phaserush build, we’ll be covering when to go these setups next.
How to choose between the two setups
I am of the opinion that you can go either setup 100% of the time every game and not need to switch things up to find success, however there are scenarios where one is better than the other. For beginners I recommend learning just one setup first or your opinion might get clouded by low sample size. I also have a complete matchup spreadsheet with every matchup midlane in the game
If you’re more of the assassin player, wanting to oneshot specific targets and having ridiculously high kill pressure in lane I recommend going electrocute setup.
If you more feel like playing an actual controlmage and maintaining 10cs/min and unleashing unholy wrath lategame with zero counterplay then go phaserush setup.
In a realistic scenario if you’re laning vs melee champions electrocute is much better for lane and the minor runes will have a lot of effect vs them. You can go both setups in both types of matchups and it’s perfectly viable you just have to be aware of your weaknesses and play around them.
Currently I think the meta favours the electrocute setup a tiny bit more since there is a lot of early fighting and lane prio is important to help your jungler. That being said having ghost ignite phaserush means you can join any fight you want since your sums are super low so try both and see which one you like more.
Early laningphase and how to play matchups
Level 1 – 5
With both play-styles you want to play as safe as humanly possible with Vladimir pre 6, try manage the wave so it’s always near your tower so you can’t get ganked and are easily able to lasthit. It is ESSENTIAL to have on point last hitting skills, if you do not, go practice tool right now and get 100cs in 10 mins with only autohits. These early autohits really dictate the pace of the rest of the game, same theory with raptors, how much money you have dictates how much money you’ll be able to generate.
If your lane opponent doesn’t have teleport (mostly melees) you can play a little aggro and sneak in a quicky succ every now and then onto your lane opponent and eventually either deplete their hp so they have to recall or their mana so they become obsolete.
Don’t use your E early much as it mostly hurts yourself more than it hurts anything else, the self damage is always the same percentage so it really feels bad using it early to sprinkle tiny 60 damage blood bolts at the cost of like 100 hp.
You may spam Q on the minions as long as you don’t end up pushing the wave to the enemy, what makes vlad really hard to play in high elo is players will freeze the wave as soon as it starts to push vs them and it’s impossible to unfreeze unless you call your jungler to help.
If you’re playing vs someone with teleport it’s extremely ballsy to trade with them as if you do they’ll empty their mana on you and hp and just recall and come back leaving you with low hp and unable to buy items and locked in lane, going teleport yourself with phaserush of course halfway counters this awful spot to be in.
Level 1 – 5 early electrocute cheese
This strategy is really really easy to pull off, This video shows exactly how to pull this off, it’s incredibly easy to do with electrocute since you also have taste of blood and ignite if your lane opponent dares to contest this you can just punish them.
Basically you want to create a slowpush early, how do we do this? Try to fish for auto attacks or a Q on your opponent, aggroing the minions onto you, since they will chase you let them be pulled into your wave, while you drag them they will not be attacking your minions meaning the wave will push in opponent direction.
If you pull this off and just gently last hit the next 2 waves and then push in really hard when canon wave comes you’ll have stacked a MASSIVE ally wave under enemy turret while you have tempo to do whatever you like, recall get amp tome / ward for jungler / invade with jungler / anything you desire.
And what about my enemy mid, won’t he follow me and stop me? But how? He’s got 3 waves stacked under his turret trying to last hit them, he can’t just leave that or he’ll instantly lose the game.
This concept is very very important to vladimir players as your all ins are often able to 100-0 opponents, so if we do this strategy of stacking big waves at level 6- 9 and dive the lane opponent and they die they lose like 3 waves worth of cs, this is literally unbearably game losing for them and it’s SO easy to pull off especially in low elo. What on earth do you do vs a vladimir who stacked a wave, has an alternator, electro ult and ignite up and is furiously waiting to oneshot you? Literally no counterplay other than going barrier or buying hp / mr.
How do I get the wave to push into my direction so I can lasthit?
It’s very simple, most people will hit the wave level 1 like the utter troglodytes they are, just match their auto attacks and leave one out every few, once it slowpushes into your direction all you have to do is not kill the minions and let them be near your turret. The wave will ALWAYS freeze if 3 full hp caster minions are left alive and the next wave’s melee minions don’t go under tower.
Like this we can freely scale up to the lategame terror that Vladimir is.
My lane opponent has also read this guide and isn’t hitting the first wave? Wtf? If you can, push push push like your pregnant and try get your minions under enemy tower, if this happens the wave will simply bounce and start pushing towards you. These 2 concepts are the simplest and most essential thing to know when playing Vladimir.
First recall
You’ve got around 1000g? You should start to look to setup a recall so you can either buy a fiendish codex (phaserush setup) or a hextech alternator (electrocute setup)
How do we do this?
We already know how to stack waves and crash them under enemy tower, so we simply preform just that, we push the wave out and once it’s under tower run away quickly and recall, the bigger the wave the better since it traps your lane opponent in lane while you get to recall and only lose 1-2 melees.
If you don’t want to lock your lane opponent in lane or they have tp or just don’t care didn’t ask, just push the wave out before or during cannon wave since cannon minions can tank like 8 or more turret shots meaning you have tonnes of time to walk back to lane without missing anything.
Not missing any cs during your recalls is really essential as Vladimir especially because you can’t afford to fall behind.
Vs mages who like to buy lost chapter it’s extremely important you figure out a way to force a recall before they get that 1300g because if they do somehow get that you’re in for a fun cock and ball torture session, especially with Orianna. That’s why if you can recall with 1000g you can get a fiendish and they’ll just feel awful buying a god damn mana crystal.
Post recall
You’ve just walked back to lane, you’re level 6 and have your 1000g item and haven’t lost more than 1 minions worth of exp. What do you do now?
Since you have some AP you finally get to have more than cannon minion levels of wave-clear
If you’ve got an easy matchup and are not afraid to push out the wave start pushing and looking for things to do on the map. It’s important to ask yourself these questions WHILE pushing so you don’t waste time making a decision when you already have tempo.
Can you kill your lane opponent? Dive him.
Can you help your jungler invade? Go for it, just remember you’re on a tight time limit if things don’t go well and you’ll lose farm mid with no gain.
Can you gank / dive bot/ top? If there is a guaranteed pay off, (know all summs, ults etc) then go for it! Just don’t risk anything, remember if both teams are equal you are likely to win because of vladimirs inevitable lategame scaling.
If you don’t have any options, simply ward or clear wards, going out of enemy vision forces your lane opponent to shit their pants and ping ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? where he go? Which takes focus from other players and makes them play accordingly.
Midgame
It’s VERY important to go to sidelanes IF
Your botlane’s tower died and now enemy adc and sup go mid and try to take yours, since you have fuckall waveclear you can’t hold them away from the tower and end up losing more and more. It’s very important to also not share exp since the support will probably try defend midlane with you, you want to soak up that juicy sololane exp and start exerting pressure in a sidelane.
If you see lots of champs in one spot be ready to move asap because a teamfight might break out, although as Vlad maintaining 10cs/min is above everything, you can’t have any less if you want to carry games so some teamfights are just lost causes and don’t hurt yourself more by trying to get there in time.
You can generally tell when a fight will happen when either:
Herald is up and no dragon
Dragon is up
If ally mid tower is still up and dragon is down and herald is up what do we do?
Of course sidelane top and tell your teleport toplaner to go bot and your adc supp to go mid, it’s very likely that a herald fight will start and you wanna be there.
If dragon spawns and your team wants to contest that? Sidelane botlane and rotate mid at least ~20 seconds before dragon spawn so your adc can walk up reliably.
The only fights you REALLY need to be a part of are for objectives especially dragon, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if you don’t have any dragons at all and enemies are stacking them.
Even the most terrible scaling champions like pantheon will be REALLY obnoxious lategame if they get something like an infernal dragon soul.
Just one or two dragons means enemy team won’t receive the dragon wincondition at like 20 mins which means the game will go on for longer, what happens if the game goes on for super long? Uh oh stinky poo poo lategame vlad arrived and you just take what you please at that stage of the game anyways.
Lategame & Teamfighting
This part of the game is much easier with phaserush and ghost especially with ghost since it also has built in scaling with level, duration and speed.
If you have the potential to reach the backline and kill them then that should be your priority above everything, in 99% of the scenarios this is easily achieved with ghost phaserush, since you literally can’t run away from a ghosted vlad. Not even Ezreal with double flash can run, not even kassadin with 4k mana can blink away in a straight line, and god have mercy if Vlad gets his ghost extended with an asisst or kill.
If you’re playing with electro and your rocketbelt isn’t enough to get you into the backline then try your best to hit as big of an ult as possible and peel for your next strongest member which is usually the adc. A fullbuild vlad demolishes anything that dares approach.
Most fights are extremely obvious when they happen late into the game, they’re either around sieging or around objectives like dragon and baron, you should always be around those when they spawn and farming nearby camps and minions.
Even late into the game you want to be farming farming farming, vlad is a super high resource champion, I’d honestly say the highest resource hog in the entire game, not even kassadin needs this much money, but not even kassadin can just engage 1v5 and demolish everyone.
Ability maxing
You want to max your Q first on both setups, however if you are ahead and are going for the double fiendish codex setup I recommend putting 4 points into Q and then start maxing E out, if you do this your E will oneshot the enemy casterminions extremely early, normally only after lvl 11, with this setup as early as level 9. So Q → E → W and R of course at 6, 11 and 16..
If you’re playing vs a melee champ in lane going W level 2 is definetly viable and can catch people off guard like a talon jumping on you without expecting you to pool. It does decent damage and slows like crazy unexpected, good for making enemies eat towershots when they think they can just weave in and out.
Combos
There aren’t really many “combos” and it’s mostly just generic efficiency and logical thinking, you make up a lot of things on the fly. Here is a link if you are adamant on learning combos. Say we want to proc electrocute or phaserush level 1 Auto Q Auto
There is also a multitude of ways you can combo with quick cast, smart cast, input buffer etc. For the full combo with all sums, what works best for me:
Smartcast all abilities, Q for an empowered Q ready, Charge E –> Flash –> Release E –> Ult –> Q – Ignite
Some people like to ult first as it releases E automatically upon pressing R however I feel like it’s a tiny bit clunky and if you release E manaully it’s literally impossible to react to unless predicted. Super late into the game if you have phaserush you could also if you see enemies clumped up and you know they won’t be for long: Flash –> R –> E W
Since you flash you’ll instantly be able to ult and have nimbus cloak movespeed to make sure your E and W connect with someone, if they do you get phaserush and are able to chase everyone down once you come out of pool, pooling instantly doesn’t matter as much as well since if you hit a fat R it’ll heal you like crazy, this catches enemies off guard a LOT even in high challenger.
Skin Choice
Of course the most important part of the guide. The tierlist goes like this:
Marquis: 9/10, Extremely small model, feels amazing to play with, cheap asf, regular ult is sometimes invis vs bigger targets like cho’gath.
Bloodlord 8.5/10, A timeless classic with absolutely insane taunting game, instantaneous laugh. Absolute badass voiceline, sounds and animations that make you feel allpowerful but at 1850rp? Idk..
Nightbringer: 8/10 Probably my most played, shortish cape, nice sounds and animations, literally invisible ultimate, beyond pay2win, if you’re looking for the most pay2win its probably this one.
Darkwaters: 7.5/10 basically budget nightbringer with a giga big nasty looking cape. Also has an invisible ult, arguably more invis than nightbringer.
Cosmic Devourer: 7/10 I like the stars aesthetic but imagine making a new skin without pay2win ult, what are you doing right??
Academy: 6/10 Kinda slick, not having a cape and being in a weird suit looks good but his hands look literally cancerbig.
Soulstealer: 5/10 wtf are these sounds, legit sound like it’s windy outside and has the most ugliest cape in the game.
Default: 4/10 bloodlord should be default and this should be removed, legit so beyond ugly.
Count: 1/10 Scuffed ass default vlad chroma so bad it should be against the geneva convention.
Vandal: dugu/10 You have to say no homo before using this skin, never touch another man’s skin.
Nosferatu ?/?? Absolute power.. At a price.
General tips
The minute you forget to farm is the minute you’re out of the game, always farm.
Taking jungle camps is really fast after double codex
Don’t be scared to use ignite generously, if it means your opponent runs out of pots they’re FUCKED since you can just trade 50 hp for 300 of yours and you’ll eventually outsustain.
If you want fast results NEVER blame your team, even if they fucked up, what good does it do you to just move on? Try figure out what YOU could’ve done to prevent x from happening
If you’re extremely strong and baron is already up, just tell your team to start it with you, you don’t have to finish it but it’s a for sure way of starting a teamfight and making enemies fight you when you want it. Worst case scenario you keep hitting baron, they steal it, you end their lives, gg.
The period of where you have crimson rush gets extended by E, Zhonyas, and Pool.
For some reason if you have enough cdr and pool as soon as your E ends and start a new channel in pool that E will have no animation and be invisible, not very usable though.
If you have any questions, ask me anything I’m always happy to spread light on things I didn’t elaborate on. I also stream of course on twitch.tv/elite500, if I didn’t cover something feel free to ask :D, preferably on the post instead of on stream so others can see it too, I'm streaming as i post this guide so i'll reply to comments in queue streaming right now again so i'll reply to comments in queue
Dopa reveals his secrets after his last season- part 1
Before the translation This season was Dopa’s last season before mandatory military service. He decided to talk about how he stayed at the top for so long, and how he views the game. He talks about what he considers to be his trade secrets. It's a long read, but I personally think that it gives insight into the mind of one of the best players to play the game, and arguably the best player never to go pro. You'll get to see how he views the game. The video is quite long, and I already have a wall of text, so I mainly translated what I thought Reddit would like. The video is labeled part 1, so I assume there's more. I may have translated a few things incorrectly, and remarks are welcome. Edit: This is roughly half of the video, i might translate the rest if I have more time. video link Edit: part 2 , part 3 WARNING: WALL OF TEXT League concepts Every player has their own way of playing League. No one ‘just’ plays the game. Each player views the game in a different way. Their understanding of the game then builds into their world view, which dictates how they play the game, or what they do as they play. The way I look at the game of League of Legends is very unique. I have built a world of my own. Viewers frequently ask me how to get better at League, and I always answer in the same way. I tell them to play whatever champions they want to play, and just have fun. I do that because in order actually help them play better, I would have to make them understand my viewpoint. I would have to show them the world that I have built. I thought that would take too long, as there is too much to explain, and I’m not even sure that others would understand the way I view the game. But as it's my last season of League before military service, I thought now would be a good time to at least try to make you guys understand my world of League. To understand the way I view the game, you need to understand what a ‘concept’ is. So what are concepts? They are the fundamentals of the game. There are things in the game that give you huge advantages as long as you know about them. Those are concepts. If you know about them, you know them, and if you don’t, you don’t. Most people who play league of legends have little to no knowledge regarding concepts. If you want to a skilled League player, you have to know lots of concepts. That’s all there is to it. Let me give you a few examples. Twisted Fate concepts As you all know, I play a lot of Twisted Fate. Lets think about the concepts that have to do with TF. When you play TF, there are 3 basic concepts that you have to know about. I personally don’t think I’m a very good TF player. The reason that I appear to be better than others is because I am aware of concepts that others don’t know about. You could call that skill, but anyone could do what I do as long as they knew the concepts. The reason no one can climb like me is because they don’t know. Runes and spells Before we get into the details of gameplay, let’s talk about runes and spells. I personally don’t think that the choice of runes matter that much. Runes are balanced, so using one rune over another is a matter of taste. The important thing is that you have to play according to the runes and spells that you have chosen. The two major rune builds that I used on TF are unsealed spellbook with teleport, and Electrocute with ignite. Think about how you would lane when using those runes and spells. More importantly, think about how your play style should change according to the runes and spells you have chosen. Should you lane aggressively? Are you playing passively? When you have electrocute, you should passively until level 5 and avoid trading whenever you can. Try to keep the wave frozen, and save as many potions as possible. When you have unsealed spellbook, you want to play super aggressively. Even if the opponent gets better trades, just use all 3 of your potions and keep trading. Play according to your runes. (reads chat) My chat seems to think that it's the other way around. They think that you’re supposed to lane aggresively with electrocute. Wrong. The greatest strength of ignite and electrocute is the burst damage you gain when you use your first ult. You don’t have teleport as backup if you die during the laning phase, so one death means you’re out of the game. On the other hand, unsealed sealbook lets you play more aggressively because you have teleport as backup in the event that you mess up the laning phase. Anyways, runes aren’t actually that important compared to the concepts of the champion. Lets talk about basic TF concepts. Concept #1: base timing The first basic concept you have to know when playing TF is that TF recall timings are decided in advance. Most people that play the champion aren’t aware of these recall timings. This concept is the probably the most important one regarding TF play. You hit level 5, use Q twice, and recall. Of course, you have to play according to the game situation. If you have to recall at 4, then you recall at level 4. But the important thing is that your gameplan revolves around recalling at level 5. Starting from level 1, your goal is to recall after using Q twice at level 5. You play around that goal, though that might not work out as intended. So how does this concept work? What does using Q twice at level 5 even mean? Let me talk a little bit about TF first. When TF has minion dematerializer and uses it on the ranged minions, using Q twice at level 5 kills the ranged minions. Most people that play TF know this fact. At level 4, a cannon wave comes mid. When you cs the cannon, you become level 5. That’s around when the next wave comes mid. You use Q twice to kill the ranged minions, and then base right away. It’s okay to lose a few melee minions as long as you can base sucssesfully. The opposing mid can’t contest your base because they need to last hit the wave. They also know that you based, So they usually push in another wave to get the item advantage, then recall. When you get back to mid lane, you use Q twice to last hit the ranged minions, and then you become level 6. What happens? You just learned ult, you have full potions and full health, your just used all your gold to buy items, and the enemy midlaner is still walking back to lane. Why? because you recalled at level 5 before they did. Now you have an uncontested use of your first ult, and have high damage potential because you just bought items. No one else in the game is level 6 right now, just you. The top laners are still level 5, and the bot laners are still level 4. The wave is also a cannon wave, so the opposing mid laner can’t even push the wave into your turret. You don’t even lose exp. That level 5 recall just created the perfect window of oppurtunity to use your ult. This is the first basic concept of playing TF. The difference between knowing this concept and not knowing it is huge. I’m not a great TF player, I just happen to know this important concept. I know this concept, so I always seem to have perfect situations for using my ultimate. It’s not something you can learn just from watching replays. You have to understand the underlying concept. Did you guys know about this? Of course you didn’t. (Reads chat) Stop lying guys. Concept #2 &3 Next is the second Basic concept. I’ll show you guys first. (Clears wave twice) Did you spot the difference? The next concept is about vision when splitpushing. In League, minion vision is lost in the instant that they die. You calculate the time it takes for your Q to hit the wave, and then pretend to walk a different way while the minions are still alive. When the minions die, you go the way you intended to. This isn’t just a TF tip, but a tip for all split pushers who have skills that move. The opponent thinks you are moving in a certain direction, but you’re going somewhere else. You want to make sure that the enemy doesn’t know where you are. The third basic concept is also related to splitpushing. As you all know, splitpushers apply more pressure the closer they are to the enemy base. In other words, there are times when you have to splitpush in dangerous situations with zero vision. You have to do this without dying. Knowing how far up you can push according to the enemy comp is important. Knowing how to run away with ult while splitpushing dangerously is the third basic concept. Against champions like olaf, you can just ignore them and ult away when you have to. Against champions like Elise, however, your ult can be interrupted by her E. So you use ult and walk into a bush. Then Elise has no choice but to use E at you, because it looks like you’re running away in the bush. So the important thing is to wait out the skills, and then ult away. This simple tip lets you split push so much further, which is often the deciding factor in games past 20 minutes. Ulting and walking into a bush might seem like nothing, but it is gamechanging. When you ult back to your team, it suddenly becomes a 4 vs 5 because one of the enemy team members went top or bot to try and kill you. You can use that to clear away all of the enemy vision, which then allows you to splitpush without ult. Concepts and laning Are these concepts hard? No, they aren’t. Most of you could use them if you knew about them. However, you can’t utilize these concepts in-game because you don’t know about them. Most TF players don’t know about these thing, so it looks like my TF is better than other TFs. I always seem to be put in favorable situations, and my enemies always look bad. The thing is, I actually suck at TF. I always lose trades in lane, and most of my bad games are because I get shit on in lane. Theres no point in knowing these concepts if you can’t utilize them, and to utilize them you have to, at the very least, be able to go even in lane. There are concepts regarding laning too. Lets see... let’s talk about the Orianna vs Lucian matchup. Off of the top of my head, here are some laning concepts. Use Q on the three melee minions at level 1. If Lucian tries to trade, always trade back even if Lucian procs PTA Use 3 potions even if Lucian only uses 1. If Lucian uses both q and w at level 3 to trade, just recall and teleport back to lane. You’re letting Lucian trade favorably against you so he uses both q and w and you can recall. This is against d-blade ignite Lucian. Trade fast, then recall. Of course, these are just examples of concepts. There are far too many to talk about all of them. How to find 'Concepts' Now that I’ve explained what concepts are, it’s time to tell you how to learn these concepts. Theres no point in explaining concepts. The important thing is teaching you guys how to learn these concepts. If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, but teaching him how to fish will keep him fed for life, you know? I’ve showed you some fish, and now I’ll show you how to fish. When you play the games, there are games when you get shit on. If you aren’t winning indefinitely, you’ll lose at some point. When you lose, that's when you look at the replay. What put the enemy mid laner in a superior position? What did they do differently, and what kind of situation did they create? Of course, it’s impossible to completely control every aspect of the game. You’re looking for what they did better than you. Not just what happened, but why it happened. You have to look for the cause, not the result. They might not even be aware of why they won, but you have to analyze the game and find out what made things happen. I personally prefer looking at stomps, because they help you find out what breaks game open. Back in the day, I was famous for my Kassadin. Did I develop the build? No, I didn’t. I was crushed by a famous Kassadin player, and I stole his build. And then I perfected it. There was a period when I didn’t play much TF because I didn’t think it was a very good champion. Then I found this TF one-trick on the chinese super server, and learned how to play unsealed spellbook TF by watching his replays. I never created the concepts myself, but stole them from other players. I was always better than the original players because I kept on thinking about the reasons, the causes instead of just playing. There are people who were similar in skill to me in previous seasons who are now washed up and struggle to get out of diamond. The difference between me and them isn’t in mechanics. If I don’t update my concepts, I’m just another diamond player. If those players were to learn all of the concepts that I know, then they would be around the same level as me. I myself would just be another diamond player if I didn’t absorb new concepts all the time. I kept updating my database of concepts, and that's what kept me at the top.
Complete vlad guide, all playstyles made by Elite500
Quintessential Vladimir guide for season 11
Well hello there wonderful people. My name is Calvin and I stream under the name Elite500, as the title suggests, I’ve been challenger for 4 seasons now and ended it since the last 2.
I’ve played vlad throughout every meta, no matter how rough or how much the playstyle has changed, and I’m finally here, bringing to YOU the absolute ULTIMATE, QUINTESSENTIAL, HOLY guide, everything you will ever need for season 11. At the time of writing this guide I’ve played around 500 preseason games and half of them in high challenger.
Why play Vladimir? Doesn’t he actually suck? Isn’t he noobchamp?
Do you want to dehumanise yourself to and not even recognise your fellow teammates as sentient meat lumps? Can you handle the responsibility to take every game post 20 minutes as your responsibility? Of course you do.
Table of contents:
Setups: we’ll go over the main 2 setups including items, runes, summoners, and build
How to choose between the two setups and which play-style suits you best
Early laningphase and how to play matchups
Every matchup in the game including recommended setups for matchups
Unleashing unholy wrath upon your foes in mid to lategame
Combos
Skin choice
Setup one, the way of the gigalord:
Back in season 7 the chad vladimir players received an upgrade from thunderlords decree, electrocute, termed GIGALORDS back then, it’s power has been dormant and ever waiting since the nerfs of 2018.
This path is more optimally suited for those who wish to have devastating all in damage, those who wish to win lane as early as level 3, those who want to annihilate and leave them with .no counterplay 100-0s
This setup is best suited and optimally played against melee champions such as Sylas, Pantheon, Yone, Yasuo, Ekko, Akali, Kata, etc.
Summoner spells:
Ignite and flash are a must take with this setup, allowing you to deliver sudden oneshots with flash and having beyond unholy all in damage with ignite. Ignite also helps us with nimbus cloak and with procing electro.
Runes
Keystone:
Of course you’ll be taking electrocute as your keystone, it allows you to win a lot of trades early into the game, it’s easily proccable early with auto Q auto or auto E Q or even auto ignite Q. The trading is nice although the main reason you take this keystone is for the HEINOUS all in damage it can do, most champions can literally be 100-0 oneshot at level 6 if they’re not innately invulnerable (looking at you galio).
Minor runes, domination:
Taste of blood is absolutely amazing and helps out in every melee matchup, feel free to swap this to sudden impact if you’re deranged and play this setup into ranged opponents. (sudden impact proccable with rocketbelt.
Poro ward is extremely consistent and can be stacked easily to grant you free 4 ap level 3 and 30 ap at around ~ 16 – 18 minutes depending on how actively you ward and where.
Ravenous hunter synergises so well with vlads huge point and click Q damage, easily accumulating 10’000 HP healed in a game. While it doesn’t sound like much, since the rune was changed from spellvamp to omnivamp it now will even heal you slightly on autohits even without stacks helping you outsustain early. Some crazy gamer chinese vlads will take ultimate hunter since their server is perma fighting, it’s also a viable choice but feels worse to me.
Secondary runes, sorcery:
For sure my favourite secondary tree to spec into, although this one is a lot more preference, I think all trees are balanced it’s just more playstyle, you flash like a maniac? Go inspiration cosmic insight with cdr shoes rush and enjoy less than 4 minute flash cooldown etc. Transcendence holy MOLY this rune got such a nice change in season 11, 5 ability haste at level 5? Sign me the hell up. The ability cd refund is also amazing on vladimirs W since it’s basecooldown is like 30 seconds, allowing you sometimes to pool twice in fights.
Nimbus Cloak to make up for the lack of mobility before rocketbelt nimbus cloak helps out so much allowing you to kite and rundown pesky season 10 dashy champs with ease. Optionally gathering storm is also nice but with this rune setup you mostly play for early mid domination and nimbus is also great lategame. My games have been decided 1000x more by having more mobility in clutch scenarios than having 40 extra ap at 30 minutes. For the mini runes always Ability haste, AP, and scaling hp
Build:
You best be prepared to build mejais.
Starting item:
Your starting item should be dark seal refillable every game, the dark seal buff now giving hp and 5 extra ap is absurdly good for vlad, random lucky early kills giving 10 ap is also beyond bonkers. Shaving off 350g on your mejais purchase is also essential.
First mythic:
Hextech Rocketbelt is by far the best mythic you can go in every game currently, amazing active, amazing components, amazing mythic passive, it’s just THAT good. The dash and ms is a great engage tool, hextech alternator synergises perfectly with your ridiculous ignite electro damage, the passive giving you 5 flat pen is amazing since you can get 18 from sorc shoes and another 5 from mejais since it counts as a legendary, the more flat pen you stack the more efficient it gets.
Second item:
Mejais Soulstealer allows you to single-handedly decide whether you wish to win the game or lose it, it’s a must buy and goes hand in hand with this playstyle, one two kills with a mejais, over 10 stacks? Literally the game is a done deal at this stage. Rocket belt mythic passive giving you 5 pen for a 1250g purchase makes it even good to buy at 0 stacks. I have completely 1v9’d too many games to count in the highest of elos because enemies make literally one mistake and die once.
Third item:
Void staff third? WTF what if enemies have no mr elite? Well let me tell you about this stupidly broken item that straight up out damages a god damn DEATHCAP even at 30 mr !? ? ? the item is 131% gold efficient, let alone when you pile up your 28 flat pen that you get from completing it. Remember flat pen reduces enemy MR AFTER the percentage, so let’s say someone has 50 magic resistance when you buy your void, magic resistance WH OMEGALUL? 28|40% stats on 50 mr leaves enemies with a whole 2 mr, 2 mr!!!!!
Unless you’re rocking cosmic insight and want türbo low summoner cd, sorc shoes are the must go 100% of the time. Why would you need damagereduction from tabis if you oneshot enemies, why would you need merctreads tenacity if you can just dodge with your W 4Head. Sorc shoes penetration just perfectly synergises with the rocketbelt mythic passive since the more flat magic pen you stack the more potent it becomes.
What the hell is the last item?
At this stage your power is so strong the final item won’t make a big difference, need dps? Cosmic drive, need a second pool? Zhonyas, need spellshield vs evelyn and zoe? Banshees. The itemshop is your oyster, get whatever you want last, I usually like to top it off with zhonyas. This concludes the way of the gigalords setup and we’ll now proceed to the other setup.
Setup two, consistency king & lategamegod:
This play style was the meta for the longest of time and still remains viable, farm for 30 mins and then fight once and win the game 4Head. This playstyle relies less on your opponents being bad and more so on the inevitable victory that is 300 cs vladimir at the same time it’s also praying that your team doesn’t just perma fight for no reason which kinda happens a lot as well in soloq because people like fighting for no reason.
Summoner spells:
Ever thought how if everyone does just one thing the same way people would become insecure to try anything else but that specific way? That’s my opinion on using ghost > flash.
With this setup I prefer taking ghost over flash and ignite secondary. Why? Now that ghost’s duration gets refreshed on kills or assists and gives tremendous move-speed while only being on a 182 second cd with cosmic insight (163 with lucidity boots) allows you to have it up at literally every possible random teamfight, the mobility is insane for laningphase as well. If you can kill your opponent with flash in a certain scenario ghost will do the job and more, what do you do vs a vladimir that has kill pressure on your and pressed his nitroboost button? Flash away? Jokes on you this shit lasts 10000 years and he’ll just inevitably catch up.
Ignite secondary lets you have some decent kill pressure even with this setup You can of course go whatever you please, struggling with bully mages? Go flash tp, feel like you can’t catchup to that Ezreal in the backline? Flash ghost is the answer, etc, it’s all viable and just needs playing around.
Runes
Keystone:
Phaserush has been Vlad’s most consistent rune since seasons now. It offers a lot of versatility in the sense that it can be used to slide in an extra auto in trades, chase people down, escape ganks easier and of course mainly to slide into the backline like Michael Jackson moonwalking on the rift. Just like electrocute it’s really easily proccable, just three swift strikes and you’re running like yourprincess runs from apologizing to Tuesday Even your initial ult cast counts as one of the strikes, so you could ignite ult q and boom you’re already zooming.
Minor runes, sorcery:
Nimbus cloak is an insanely good rune for vlad since the main thing you lack is mobility, and the more you have the easier it gets to get even more. If you have a reliable way of proccing phaserush such as nimbus cloak ignite all your mobility issues are fixed.
Transcendence just like with the electro page it helps you lane giving you cdr as early as level 5, and if you stack enough ability haste with zhonyas or even legendary double stopwatch you can always do some funky last fight game winning shit like –> pool –> zhonyas –> get asisst so trans ticks in –> stopwatch –> pool again. It’s like 10 seconds of immunity winning you uber clutch games.
Gathering Storm what better rune suited for the lategame king himself. All other options like waterwalking and scorch are completely outclassed by this free stats rune. I’d say Vlad is the most efficient champion in the game when it comes to flat ap considering you have ap to hp conversion, absolutely massive ap scalings with damage and healing (wtF), and an amplification on all abilites with your ult.
Secondary runes, Inspiration:
Free boots are really good at helping you scale up consistently and the 10ms it gives you on top of regular boots means you just zoom that little bit extra.
Cosmic Insight is also amazing at lowering your summonerspells, combined with haste shoes you can get almost 70 seconds off your flash, how insane is that.
Build
If you’ve been shocked by going ghost ignite you’re going to be quite surprised by this.
Starting item:
Just like with electrocute, dark seal refillable is a beyond bonkers good item to start with, however since we get free boots with this setup going dorans ring is a more affordable purchase as well into a more difficult matchup like Orianna or Syndra. My logic is if you back with ~ 350g you’ll be having to choose either between dark seal or boots, but since boots are out of the equation you don’t even need to think about them so dorans ring is a lot more affordable. At the same time this setup focuses mostly on reaching unholy power as fast as possible.
First mythic:
Mythic? Only insecure players build mythic items first. We build DOUBLE FIENDISH CODEX that’s right. Become unstoppable. Vlad turns AP into a hyper efficient stat already with his insane scalings, so what about a 114% gold efficient PURE ap and ability haste stat? Fiendish codex’ passive is no longer unique so you can stack them. From experience I’ve felt that anything more than 2 feels awful and going only 1 is also a viable option, although we want to accelerate ourselves and by this I mean let’s say we just pushed out midlane wave and we have some tempo. Raptor camp is up and your jgler doesn’t need them, you take them in 15 seconds total, because of this, the next time you take them you could afford another item meaning you took them 10 seconds in total, the next time 5 seconds and so on and so fort. Getting pure ap and cdr allows you to do this faster and ultimately accelerating yourself to a point of having 300 cs at 25 minutes and being able to completely devour anyone in sight.
Second item:
Since I’m addicted to Mejais I like to buy it second, however with this setup you can skip it, if you fall behind even slightly mejais won’t get the free 5 penetration that you would’ve gotten with a regular rocketbelt build and it becomes really hard to get back into the game. Just remember if you need the power of GOD to win this game, don’t hesitate to buy the holy bible.
The real Second item:
Now that you have around ~ 100 ap Rabadons deathcap becomes efficient, even in its pathetic nerfed state it’ll still transform you into an onmipotent being. Deathcap is 92% item efficient with just it’s own AP and gets increased by 20% for every 100 ap so making it at MINIMUM 112% gold efficient of RAW pure AP power which Vladimir makes such enthusiastic work with. Now imagine if you had a mejais with some lucky 10 stacks on it, 136% gold efficient pure ap item combined with this? Oh Lord. Full mejais and dc = 357 ap = 500 hp more for FREE due to crimson pact.
Third item:
Most sane enemies when pressing TAB and seeing there is a 200 cs vlad at 16 minutes with a deathcap completed and double codex eagerly wanting to devour their feeble adc souls will attempt to purchase some magic resistance. Falter their plans by buying an early Void Staff, just like the logic we applied earlier with electrocute, void staffs 131% gold efficiency combined with sorcerer shoes allows you to deal near true damage to low mr targets and to those with more than room temperature IQ who’ve built MR? Well you have a voidstaff, what good does it do them.
Fourth item:
Woo! It’s mythic time yayyy!
This is the most satisfying thing ever, building a mythic item when you have 3 legendaries all giving you instant mythic passive. At this stage you can choose pretty much all mythics, need more haste? Go Nightharvester for unrivaled dps, playing against a lot of squishies? Unleash unholy burst with the Rocketbelt, enemies stacked giga nitro mega amounts of mr and you’re having a tough time penetrating through it? Literally buy a Liandry’s, it shreds enemy MR making your voidstaff and sorc shoes deal hyper amounts of damage. Since you have 2 codex Liandry’s is giga cheap at only 2500g and doesn’t eat up another inventory slot.
You can even decide to buy something else if you’re in desperate need for it like a Zhonyas or Morrelo, it’s not essential to have a mythic but I highly recommend it leaving it no later than this.
Last item (if you were a chad mejais buyer)
Just like the other electro setup, you may go whatever your heart desires as final ap item. Enemies have a lot of ad? Zhonyas, need dps? Cosmic Drive, need magic res? Spirit or Banshees. That’s pretty much it to the phaserush build, we’ll be covering when to go these setups next.
How to choose between the two setups
I am of the opinion that you can go either setup 100% of the time every game and not need to switch things up to find success, however there are scenarios where one is better than the other. For beginners I recommend learning just one setup first or your opinion might get clouded by low sample size. I also have a complete matchup spreadsheet with every matchup midlane in the game
If you’re more of the assassin player, wanting to oneshot specific targets and having ridiculously high kill pressure in lane I recommend going electrocute setup.
If you more feel like playing an actual controlmage and maintaining 10cs/min and unleashing unholy wrath lategame with zero counterplay then go phaserush setup.
In a realistic scenario if you’re laning vs melee champions electrocute is much better for lane and the minor runes will have a lot of effect vs them. You can go both setups in both types of matchups and it’s perfectly viable you just have to be aware of your weaknesses and play around them.
Currently I think the meta favours the electrocute setup a tiny bit more since there is a lot of early fighting and lane prio is important to help your jungler. That being said having ghost ignite phaserush means you can join any fight you want since your sums are super low so try both and see which one you like more.
Early laningphase and how to play matchups
Level 1 – 5
With both play-styles you want to play as safe as humanly possible with Vladimir pre 6, try manage the wave so it’s always near your tower so you can’t get ganked and are easily able to lasthit. It is ESSENTIAL to have on point last hitting skills, if you do not, go practice tool right now and get 100cs in 10 mins with only autohits. These early autohits really dictate the pace of the rest of the game, same theory with raptors, how much money you have dictates how much money you’ll be able to generate.
If your lane opponent doesn’t have teleport (mostly melees) you can play a little aggro and sneak in a quicky succ every now and then onto your lane opponent and eventually either deplete their hp so they have to recall or their mana so they become obsolete.
Don’t use your E early much as it mostly hurts yourself more than it hurts anything else, the self damage is always the same percentage so it really feels bad using it early to sprinkle tiny 60 damage blood bolts at the cost of like 100 hp.
You may spam Q on the minions as long as you don’t end up pushing the wave to the enemy, what makes vlad really hard to play in high elo is players will freeze the wave as soon as it starts to push vs them and it’s impossible to unfreeze unless you call your jungler to help.
If you’re playing vs someone with teleport it’s extremely ballsy to trade with them as if you do they’ll empty their mana on you and hp and just recall and come back leaving you with low hp and unable to buy items and locked in lane, going teleport yourself with phaserush of course halfway counters this awful spot to be in.
Level 1 – 5 early electrocute cheese
This strategy is really really easy to pull off, This video shows exactly how to pull this off, it’s incredibly easy to do with electrocute since you also have taste of blood and ignite if your lane opponent dares to contest this you can just punish them.
Basically you want to create a slowpush early, how do we do this? Try to fish for auto attacks or a Q on your opponent, aggroing the minions onto you, since they will chase you let them be pulled into your wave, while you drag them they will not be attacking your minions meaning the wave will push in opponent direction.
If you pull this off and just gently last hit the next 2 waves and then push in really hard when canon wave comes you’ll have stacked a MASSIVE ally wave under enemy turret while you have tempo to do whatever you like, recall get amp tome / ward for jungler / invade with jungler / anything you desire.
And what about my enemy mid, won’t he follow me and stop me? But how? He’s got 3 waves stacked under his turret trying to last hit them, he can’t just leave that or he’ll instantly lose the game.
This concept is very very important to vladimir players as your all ins are often able to 100-0 opponents, so if we do this strategy of stacking big waves at level 6- 9 and dive the lane opponent and they die they lose like 3 waves worth of cs, this is literally unbearably game losing for them and it’s SO easy to pull off especially in low elo. What on earth do you do vs a vladimir who stacked a wave, has an alternator, electro ult and ignite up and is furiously waiting to oneshot you? Literally no counterplay other than going barrier or buying hp / mr.
How do I get the wave to push into my direction so I can lasthit?
It’s very simple, most people will hit the wave level 1 like the utter troglodytes they are, just match their auto attacks and leave one out every few, once it slowpushes into your direction all you have to do is not kill the minions and let them be near your turret. The wave will ALWAYS freeze if 3 full hp caster minions are left alive and the next wave’s melee minions don’t go under tower.
Like this we can freely scale up to the lategame terror that Vladimir is.
My lane opponent has also read this guide and isn’t hitting the first wave? Wtf? If you can, push push push like your pregnant and try get your minions under enemy tower, if this happens the wave will simply bounce and start pushing towards you. These 2 concepts are the simplest and most essential thing to know when playing Vladimir.
First recall
You’ve got around 1000g? You should start to look to setup a recall so you can either buy a fiendish codex (phaserush setup) or a hextech alternator (electrocute setup)
How do we do this?
We already know how to stack waves and crash them under enemy tower, so we simply preform just that, we push the wave out and once it’s under tower run away quickly and recall, the bigger the wave the better since it traps your lane opponent in lane while you get to recall and only lose 1-2 melees.
If you don’t want to lock your lane opponent in lane or they have tp or just don’t care didn’t ask, just push the wave out before or during cannon wave since cannon minions can tank like 8 or more turret shots meaning you have tonnes of time to walk back to lane without missing anything.
Not missing any cs during your recalls is really essential as Vladimir especially because you can’t afford to fall behind.
Vs mages who like to buy lost chapter it’s extremely important you figure out a way to force a recall before they get that 1300g because if they do somehow get that you’re in for a fun cock and ball torture session, especially with Orianna. That’s why if you can recall with 1000g you can get a fiendish and they’ll just feel awful buying a god damn mana crystal.
Post recall
You’ve just walked back to lane, you’re level 6 and have your 1000g item and haven’t lost more than 1 minions worth of exp. What do you do now?
Since you have some AP you finally get to have more than cannon minion levels of wave-clear
If you’ve got an easy matchup and are not afraid to push out the wave start pushing and looking for things to do on the map. It’s important to ask yourself these questions WHILE pushing so you don’t waste time making a decision when you already have tempo.
Can you kill your lane opponent? Dive him.
Can you help your jungler invade? Go for it, just remember you’re on a tight time limit if things don’t go well and you’ll lose farm mid with no gain.
Can you gank / dive bot/ top? If there is a guaranteed pay off, (know all summs, ults etc) then go for it! Just don’t risk anything, remember if both teams are equal you are likely to win because of vladimirs inevitable lategame scaling.
If you don’t have any options, simply ward or clear wards, going out of enemy vision forces your lane opponent to shit their pants and ping ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? where he go? Which takes focus from other players and makes them play accordingly.
Midgame
It’s VERY important to go to sidelanes IF
Your botlane’s tower died and now enemy adc and sup go mid and try to take yours, since you have fuckall waveclear you can’t hold them away from the tower and end up losing more and more. It’s very important to also not share exp since the support will probably try defend midlane with you, you want to soak up that juicy sololane exp and start exerting pressure in a sidelane.
If you see lots of champs in one spot be ready to move asap because a teamfight might break out, although as Vlad maintaining 10cs/min is above everything, you can’t have any less if you want to carry games so some teamfights are just lost causes and don’t hurt yourself more by trying to get there in time.
You can generally tell when a fight will happen when either:
Herald is up and no dragon
Dragon is up
If ally mid tower is still up and dragon is down and herald is up what do we do?
Of course sidelane top and tell your teleport toplaner to go bot and your adc supp to go mid, it’s very likely that a herald fight will start and you wanna be there.
If dragon spawns and your team wants to contest that? Sidelane botlane and rotate mid at least ~20 seconds before dragon spawn so your adc can walk up reliably.
The only fights you REALLY need to be a part of are for objectives especially dragon, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if you don’t have any dragons at all and enemies are stacking them.
Even the most terrible scaling champions like pantheon will be REALLY obnoxious lategame if they get something like an infernal dragon soul.
Just one or two dragons means enemy team won’t receive the dragon wincondition at like 20 mins which means the game will go on for longer, what happens if the game goes on for super long? Uh oh stinky poo poo lategame vlad arrived and you just take what you please at that stage of the game anyways.
Lategame & Teamfighting
This part of the game is much easier with phaserush and ghost especially with ghost since it also has built in scaling with level, duration and speed.
If you have the potential to reach the backline and kill them then that should be your priority above everything, in 99% of the scenarios this is easily achieved with ghost phaserush, since you literally can’t run away from a ghosted vlad. Not even Ezreal with double flash can run, not even kassadin with 4k mana can blink away in a straight line, and god have mercy if Vlad gets his ghost extended with an asisst or kill.
If you’re playing with electro and your rocketbelt isn’t enough to get you into the backline then try your best to hit as big of an ult as possible and peel for your next strongest member which is usually the adc. A fullbuild vlad demolishes anything that dares approach.
Most fights are extremely obvious when they happen late into the game, they’re either around sieging or around objectives like dragon and baron, you should always be around those when they spawn and farming nearby camps and minions.
Even late into the game you want to be farming farming farming, vlad is a super high resource champion, I’d honestly say the highest resource hog in the entire game, not even kassadin needs this much money, but not even kassadin can just engage 1v5 and demolish everyone.
Ability maxing
You want to max your Q first on both setups, however if you are ahead and are going for the double fiendish codex setup I recommend putting 4 points into Q and then start maxing E out, if you do this your E will oneshot the enemy casterminions extremely early, normally only after lvl 11, with this setup as early as level 9. So Q → E → W and R of course at 6, 11 and 16..
If you’re playing vs a melee champ in lane going W level 2 is definetly viable and can catch people off guard like a talon jumping on you without expecting you to pool. It does decent damage and slows like crazy unexpected, good for making enemies eat towershots when they think they can just weave in and out.
Combos
There aren’t really many “combos” and it’s mostly just generic efficiency and logical thinking, you make up a lot of things on the fly. Here is a link if you are adamant on learning combos. Say we want to proc electrocute or phaserush level 1 Auto Q Auto
There is also a multitude of ways you can combo with quick cast, smart cast, input buffer etc. For the full combo with all sums, what works best for me:
Smartcast all abilities, Q for an empowered Q ready, Charge E –> Flash –> Release E –> Ult –> Q – Ignite
Some people like to ult first as it releases E automatically upon pressing R however I feel like it’s a tiny bit clunky and if you release E manaully it’s literally impossible to react to unless predicted. Super late into the game if you have phaserush you could also if you see enemies clumped up and you know they won’t be for long: Flash –> R –> E W
Since you flash you’ll instantly be able to ult and have nimbus cloak movespeed to make sure your E and W connect with someone, if they do you get phaserush and are able to chase everyone down once you come out of pool, pooling instantly doesn’t matter as much as well since if you hit a fat R it’ll heal you like crazy, this catches enemies off guard a LOT even in high challenger.
Skin Choice
Of course the most important part of the guide. The tierlist goes like this:
Marquis: 9/10, Extremely small model, feels amazing to play with, cheap asf, regular ult is sometimes invis vs bigger targets like cho’gath.
Bloodlord 8.5/10, A timeless classic with absolutely insane taunting game, instantaneous laugh. Absolute badass voiceline, sounds and animations that make you feel allpowerful but at 1850rp? Idk..
Nightbringer: 8/10 Probably my most played, shortish cape, nice sounds and animations, literally invisible ultimate, beyond pay2win, if you’re looking for the most pay2win its probably this one.
Darkwaters: 7.5/10 basically budget nightbringer with a giga big nasty looking cape. Also has an invisible ult, arguably more invis than nightbringer.
Cosmic Devourer: 7/10 I like the stars aesthetic but imagine making a new skin without pay2win ult, what are you doing right??
Academy: 6/10 Kinda slick, not having a cape and being in a weird suit looks good but his hands look literally cancerbig.
Soulstealer: 5/10 wtf are these sounds, legit sound like it’s windy outside and has the most ugliest cape in the game.
Default: 4/10 bloodlord should be default and this should be removed, legit so beyond ugly.
Count: 1/10 Scuffed ass default vlad chroma so bad it should be against the geneva convention.
Vandal: dugu/10 You have to say no homo before using this skin, never touch another man’s skin.
Nosferatu ?/?? Absolute power.. At a price.
General tips
The minute you forget to farm is the minute you’re out of the game, always farm.
Taking jungle camps is really fast after double codex
Don’t be scared to use ignite generously, if it means your opponent runs out of pots they’re FUCKED since you can just trade 50 hp for 300 of yours and you’ll eventually outsustain.
If you want fast results NEVER blame your team, even if they fucked up, what good does it do you to just move on? Try figure out what YOU could’ve done to prevent x from happening
If you’re extremely strong and baron is already up, just tell your team to start it with you, you don’t have to finish it but it’s a for sure way of starting a teamfight and making enemies fight you when you want it. Worst case scenario you keep hitting baron, they steal it, you end their lives, gg.
The period of where you have crimson rush gets extended by E, Zhonyas, and Pool.
For some reason if you have enough cdr and pool as soon as your E ends and start a new channel in pool that E will have no animation and be invisible, not very usable though.
If you have any questions, ask me anything I’m always happy to spread light on things I didn’t elaborate on. I also stream of course on twitch.tv/elite500, if I didn’t cover something feel free to ask :D, preferably on the post instead of on stream so others can see it too, I'm streaming as i post this guide so i'll reply to comments in queue
Leaguecraft 101 - The Text Version for you new season
I was watching my old posts, and I noticed that I had done a text version on the league craft 101 videos, so I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to post it here again since it has been 4 years since I have done it. It covers most of the basics in the game, and really important mechanics for beginners and intermediatte players so hope you guys enjoy.
League craft 101
1 - Trading Stance
Stand on your dying minion
Prioritise CS over damage on enemy
Time the approach with your trade
Zone in front of the dying minion
2 - The Retaliation Trade
If your support gets all-ined don’t run away and instead focus the ADC
Take care of cooldowns (engage when they don’t have abilities)
All-in or trade to save the support
3 - Lane Control
Use the techniques in 1 and 2
Trade and push-up phase: Trade while farming and pushing; get higher level faster; focus minions
Lane control phase: Stop pushing (Zone, Slow Push, Reset and Freeze)
Zone: Care vs. strong junglers; stand behind enemy minions; prepare a countergank
Slow Push: Use trading stance; try to dive or free drake; have the jungler near your lane
Freeze: Make the wave stop near your tower to make enemy lose XP and CS
4 - Team fighting
Direct Initiation: Create a fight; the fight can start with 1v5; carries do not go in
Follow Up Initiation: Tanks pressure backline; force everyone to use cooldowns; carries stay OUT until tanks use cooldowns
Hit Tanks: Hit tanks after cooldowns are used; force backline cooldowns; carries don’t dive backline (stay out of range); try to be in range of only 1 enemy
Kill Backline: APC flashes the backline OR finishes off the tanks; ADC can dive if no enemy burst cooldowns are up; Tanks can make a flash play
Cleanup: Flash to kill enemies escaping; focus objectives after fight
5 - How to get fed in lane
Use trading stance
Pressure Canon Minions
Be careful of pushing the lane
Punish Dash Usage: If they dash to you, you can all in, make your decision quickly
Level 6 all in: Watch XP bar; push before getting level 6; engage immediately
Lane control: Freeze for ganks; push lane for roams; care breaking freezes
6 - How to Roam
Cheese Roam: It’s a random roam with no reason; don’t do it; not planning will always end up in loss of XP and CS
Bread and Butter Roam: Push wave into turret; roam when minions hit the turret; doesn’t matter if the enemy knows you are coming
Reaction Roam: Watch the mini map; move immediately; most of the times following enemy is more important than farm
7 - Assassin Team fighting
Direct Initiation: Only do it when enemy is out of position (Fizz R, Kassadin R, flash plays)
Hit tanks Phase: Don’t go deep; counter-engage will 1 shot you; watch for CC and cooldowns
Kill backline Phase: Burst front line and tanks OR flash bomb back line; DON’T use Zhonyas when you are about to die use it to reset cooldowns
8 - How to Carry
Win Lane: Level 6 all-in; manipulate the wave for ganks and communicate flashes; apply info in 1,2,3, and 5 to win lane
Reaction Roam: Following the roam of your enemy laner; If you don’t do it you will lose; check the mini map every 2-3 seconds; apply info in 6
Control Vision: DEWARD wins games; WARDS stop you from losing
Don’t die: You lose objective control and vision
9 - How to Jungle
Jungle Priority chart: Counter Gank > Minion Crash Dive > Gank Overextending lane > Take Objectives > Push when enemies leave lane > Hold Lanes > Invade and Ward > Power Clear
How to Gank: Wait for bloodlust; Gank lanes that are trading; chose ganking paths that go behind enemies
Minion Crash Dive: Check for low enemies getting pushed; come around the back side; dive from behind when minions crash
Save your KDA: Don’t throw deaths for kills; save your bounties and ultimate/flash; don’t give the enemy opportunities
10 - Carrying From Jungle
Levels and Gold: Level makes you unkillable; Gold gives you damage
Always remember the Jungle Priority Chart
Common Mistakes: Stop ganking so much; try to avoid ganking losing lanes; get a winning lane ahead to contest the fed enemy
Item builds: Build Hybrid damage tank after jungle item
11 - Minion Crash Dive
Accelerates the games
Creates Gold Swings
Equivalent to 4-6 CS + Kills if successful
Step One – Approach: Push your lane first then Roam; don’t arrive too early; don’t go through warded places (use pinks)
Step Two – Prep: Let all your members surround the enemies; approached them from the back; if the enemies TP ask for team to cancel
Step Three – Tank: Let your tank go first; Ping target then CC it and drop all damage; tank it until 1 shot from death
Step Four – Burst: All-in after the 1st person engages and use ignite first to prevent heal; calculate how greedy you can be
Step Five – Objectives: Evaluate your priorities (turret/farm/baron/drake/bush wait)
Take leadership and be careful with timing
12 - Manipulating Back Timings
Under rated way of generating advantages
After a Kill: Look for a reset on wave into a new wave and freeze or just recall; staying with gold is losing lane pressure
Optimal Scenarios: Return to lane with wave pushing against you; freeze and get a gank; build a big wave and go for a minion crash dive
If you kill the enemy and the wave is pushing against you; consider just recalling
Call ganks when you get back to lane
13 - Playing Losing Lanes
When do you lose lane? They outrange you, they out damage you or both
Trade and Push: Trade while farming and pushing, get higher level faster; focus minions (doesn’t work Plat above)
Don’t push the lane: Opens you to ganks; lets them freeze; if you push it call jungler to break the freeze
Avoid Trades: Play like a little bitch; probe for CS but care trading stance; stay high health and CS under turret
Don’t push with range abilities
14 - ADC Team fighting
Direct Initiate Option 1 (if they have 1-2 initiators): Enemy has to dash to initiate; QSS or flash allow you to frontline
Direct Initiate Option 2: Dash to an isolated target to force a fight; QSS only if they turn for you; only do it if you know you will win the fight
Direct Initiate Option 3: Walk around in circles; wait for direct and follow up initiates to go down; majority of team fights happens before you QSS
Wait for cooldowns to be burned
Hit tanks Phase: Be in range of 1 person at a time; maximise your DPS by kiting; learn to attack move under pressure
Kill Backline: Turns marginal leads into game winning leads; calculate what you can get away with
15 - Diamond Eyes (Why you can’t climb)
Every loss is your fault because you didn’t make the plays to win
Avoid dying
Putting enemies in tough spots forces mistakes
Use dedicated practice to improve small things at a time
16 - How to Outplay
Every time you would flash away think of an outplay
Plant the ability you need to flash
Know what abilities/summoners they have
17 - Advanced Bot Laning Phase Guide
Zones Recap: Take trades when even or ahead on zones; be aware of bush or zone extenders (Braum W, Blitz W), supports takes the lead and ADC follow
Lane Matchups: Bad ADC matchups can be made up by supports
Lane Control: Push and Trade Phase, use trading stance
Proxy Lanes: Janna/Soraka lanes; zone with trading stance instead of trading
All-in/Disruption Lanes: Support has one big cooldown; Support stands in front against All-in; carry lots of potions against poke; ignite vs. Sustain
All-in/Disruption Tactics: Timing attacks; vision denial; trading stance abilities; flash combo with gank; hook through dying minions; all-in of the end of the wave
Miscellaneous Tips: ADC and Supp buy pinks; back at the same time; support doesn’t need to stay to get CS; you get more CS being together
18 - Mid Game and Rotations
Octopus theory: ward and sweep areas you can walk to safely
Rotations: moving from one place to another, good rotation is arriving when a wave hits another lane’s turret
Mid Game: Most games become ARAM, people don’t know how to deal with lane swap and rotations
Mid Game Plan: Works in solo queue, centered around winning Bot lane: Take dragon; take Bot turret; lane swap to top; top and supp/jungle stops Bot; counterpart of supp/jungle helps take top turret
Mid Game Plan: playing mid game when behind is easier; react to what opponents do and try to rotate in time; get as much vision as possible
19 - Priority & “Win Lane, Win Game”
Laning techniques: Trading Stance; Retaliation Trade; Lane Control; get fed and punish
The missing piece: Defensive items builds allows you to win trades and survive all-ins; defensive build lessens your all-in threat; building damage often concedes lane priority
Lane Priority: Lets you crash waves into turret
Priority Strategies: steal enemy chickens; help jungler invade; push and bread and butter roam; minion crash dive your lane
How to win solo queue: stop teammates that are ahead from throwing; make your losing lanes self-sufficient; predict and nullify the enemy jungler
When to build defensive: if the defensive item builds into something that’s optimal; if the enemy has someone with 1 shot potential
Side Notes:I did this to gather all info I could from Leaguecraft 101, it might not be perfect but it was the best I could do. All credit goes to the creator of the videos (https://www.youtube.com/c/unswlolsoc/videos). Small edit: First, just wanted to thank everyone for the kind comments, hope the guide helps you grab those wins next season. Secondly, just wanted to recommend watching the videos cause they give more context then just my text version, and that way you help the original creator too. Thanks!!
[LONG POST] I climbed from bronze 4 to gold 4 as a midlaner being taught by my friend who is a Master midlaner. The game was a very different experience for me, I was actually PLAYING the game, and I learned a lot from him that I would like to share
First of all, I would like to thank my best friend for his very hard work and patience. 99% of my games were played with him watching me live on share screen. That means he watched me play around 450 hrs of my gameplay. He also watched my vods with me, where I tested his patience by getting angry that he corrected so many things at once. He also 1v1 me a few times. I realise how lucky I am to have an opportunity like this, and learning from someone like this taught me so many things about the game that made it feel very different to me. Right now, gold IV doesn't feel like a good elo, because there is a lot more to learn. I have been playing league since season 7 and I started out playing pretty much Sona. I couldn’t play any other champs and I would play only sona. This caused me to learn nothing about the game, but somehow I was silver 3. So it’s possible of course to climb spamming a champ, more on that later. Preface ( you can skip to the points if you want): When I met my friend, he told me to switch to jungle, because we couldn’t decide what role was best for me. So I played jungle for a season and I got to gold IV as a jungler with his help teaching me. That was last season. This season, he told me that even though I can play jungle, I’m still not playing league. So he said I need to make a fresh account, and play midlane control mages and try to get to gold. I thought this was going to be easy. I was very wrong. I started out bronze 1 I think, and I demoted to bronze 4. I could barely control my champ, and my ego took a hit too because I couldn’t believe a bronze 3 Zed main was shitting on me, a gold jungler. It made me realise how much I wasn’t playing the game. How much I missed out playing Sona, and playing jungle. But I kept going, and he kept teaching me. There is so much to say, I’ve been fed so much information. It’s very difficult for a high elo player to teach low elo, because the game they play is very different. I watch many of his games, and so many things he does and thinks about simply can’t be implemented into low elo. There was one time I was against orianna mid, and as soon as minions reached our laneand I saw her move I knew she was diamond. That’s how big the difference is. Anyway, here are some points I think are important, and some things I had to learn/do in order to improve. I could go on forever... Please note I might be biased. Maybe there are other ways to play and improve, but I was taught by one person, I trust my friend and I am his little fanboy
Understanding the difference between playing to climb/win and playing to IMPROVE.
This was a difficult concept for me to accept, even now, but my friend kept repeating it. You can go into ranked games, and play them out, and you can basically go 50/50 it. Dice roll whether you get the good teammates, matchup, whatever. You’ll still hit gold. You can even hit diamond if you play enough games. There are animals in diamond as much as there are in low elo. It doesn’t matter. A good example is a streamer called Gross Gore. He is a TF one trick who has been diamond 1 since season 3, but if you watched him play the game you would realise that he knows nothing about the game besides playing his own champ right. He can’t play other champs, he can’t control his lane, he can’t itemise. Many players are like this. You can decide whether you want to improve at the game as a whole, or you want to just reach a certain elo. The best mentality you can give yourself is to not care about the outcome of the game, only to focus on what you want to improve. Every game I would go in thinking about what I’m going to focus on. There are times, especially towards the end of the season, where I felt I didn’t have time to focus on improving and I would go in with the intention to win., and I would go on loss streaks and get tilted. When I was tilted it was 100% guaranteed that I was dice-rolling my game because that’s when I would make mistakes, and start to notice what my teammates were doing, and typing. When I played to improve, I wouldn’t even realise what’s going on with my teammates, and most of the time I would end up winning my lane and able to help out my teammates who were behind. Low elo is a great place to practice many new things. You are less likely to be punished for your mistakes. This point is number 1 because it’s the most important thing I had to learn. Stop complaining about your teammates, stop typing in chat, don’t focus on win or lose. Just play to improve every. Single. Game. Don’t type, don’t flame, don’t [?] Ping for no reason. Do not try to talk to your animal teammates, just play your best.
Champion pool (I only play control mages)
This was something that was very important and saved me a lot of time. I had to pick 3 SIMPLE champs only. For me, this was mainly Veigar, along with Annie and some Lisandra, but I would say 90% of my games were veigar. There’s no point in playing more than 3 champs when you’re trying to improve. There’s no point in trying to pick up a complicated mechanical champ. You will waste so much time trying to play a complicated champ, it will take away from you actually trying to learn the game. For example, I love champs like Zoe, but taking the time to learn a champ like that means that I waste time focusing on tiny details. A good champ to learn when you’re starting midlane is Annie. The important key here is that she is for learning, not climbing. I didn’t want to play Annie for a really long time, because her range sucked and herabilities felt slow to me. But when I realised my positioning and movement sucked, I played Annie and this helped me improve a lot. She is a very simple champ, with a simple kit, who challenges you but also teaches you a lot. She is also very easy to learn how to punish mistakes, and good to learn matchups and roaming times. I really recommend trying her at least for like a week. Just play her. Other than that, I played veigar mainly. This champ is very unique. He is the ONLY champ in the game that literally increases in AP as you cs. His abilities involve a cage that can zone out enemies, win you team fights and objectives. He is not an early champ, but his leaning phase is simple and forgiving, and the champ forces you to focus on cs. However, I’m biased towards my little yordle so you can pick any champ you like, as long as it’s a simple one. Every champ forces you to learn something new.
Learn how to CS and MAINTAIN cs
CSing is a popular concept, everyone will tell you to learn how to cs. What they forget to mention is learn to MAINTAIN high cs throughout the game. Maintaining high cs is something many, many players in low elo forget to do, and this causes many lanes to lose early leads. This is true not just for midlaners. For example, if you have a fizz or katarina vs a veigar in midlane. Fizz usually wins this matchup when he reaches level 6, or sometimes even level 4. The fizz is going to do what he does, he will roam, get more kills, get fed. Your team will spam ping you. You will succumb to the pressure from your teammates and follow the fizz, lose the teamfight, lose cs, lose objectives, and if enemies are smart enough they will end early. The problem with low elo players is they don’t know how to end games and play with leads. They will waste so much time doing pointless things so that games that would be over by minute 15 in master will go to minute 35 in silver. This is where late game champs like veigar, Kayle, and kassadin shine. By abusing this fact that these players will extend the game. The catch is that you have to cs. The fizz in this situation will be so blinded by his early lead, that he will keep chasing out kills throughout the game and forget to split and/or farm. By then, the best chance you have is cs. Maintaining your cs score throughout the game is very important, it basically keeps you in the game no matter if you’re behind or ahead. If fizz has 120 cs minute 20, and you have 200 cs minute 20, you are winning and the fizz is falling behind. If you want a good measuring tool for your cs maintenance, check your opgg. You should, as a midlaner, start by aiming for like 7 cs/min. If you go into games making this a focus (not neglecting your team) you will notice you will win a good percentage of your games. This is true for some junglers and adcs as well (don’t know shit about top honestly)
Learn how to cs under tower, and wave control
This is something I struggled with a lot when I was learning how to cs and maintain it. When I was taught how to cs under tower it made a huge huge difference for me, and I started to realise that most players in these elos do not know how to do it. I still don’t know how to do it 100% but every game I improve at it. CSing under tower is not easy for control mages. Very often, mages can get pushed under tower or pressured, especially by champs like yasuo, Syndraa, or Ekko. This causes you to miss cs that would otherwise be easy to get, and then this means that you can neither back nor get item. This gives your enemy advantage to roam and pressure you to fall behind. I suggest watching some videos on csing under tower, or watching a replay of a higher elo player doing it. If you have a patient friend like I do, ask them to go into a custom as Nunu vs you as control mage. They roll their w down midlane, and basically you will be constantly pushed under tower with uneven cs and you can practice all you want :D for csing in general I also suggest going into practice tool every day for 10 minutes. Do not buy items, do not level up abilities. Just practice CSing. When you feel more comfortable with these concepts, I suggest also looking up videos on wave control. Wave control provides you with a good advantage against your enemy. Knowing when to push, freeze, hold the wave is very important. There are some obvious things like.. don’t back without pushing your wave, don’t back until you have gold for an item you need, learn when to tp and when you have tp advantage, etc. I think freezing is also a good concept to learn, I didn’t learn how to freeze until I was silver 1 but it gave me a good advantage on having the upper hand in my lane when I felt I wanted more cs but could not risk walking up without dying. Freezing is nice to do when you are against champs like yasuo. Setting up a freeze against a yasuo is so easy, yasuo players will constantly push you under tower,and you should kinda let them. When a freeze is involved, you have even more cs. Just don’t forget to break the freeze before you base or roam... This is the video I used to learn An important note.. realise when cs under tower is lost, and realise when it’s better for you to take the L and back. If you have no mana, and your health is low, and your wave is shit, just back. It sucks but you get to come back with a better chance rather than risking yourself dying. This is really important if you realise you have tp, and sometimes coming back to lane with item advantage means that you win the 1v1 against your enemy with no tp who hasn’t based yet. It’s also good to realise when it’s a BAD time to roam. Do not give up cs to follow enemy mid roam. This means that he gets there faster, gets the kill, and you miss out on cs that would otherwise compensate. Just ping your team to back., Ping ping ping. If they miss it, then too bad. Not your fault. You need to focus on yourself and do not succumb to the pressure of your teammates. Your adc has been hard stuck silver for 7 seasons, why should he tell you, a midlaner, how to play when he can’t even play properly? The proof that he’s bad is that he’s going to get upset and come to take your cs mid. Bad player. Mute
Practice splitting, going sidelanes, and when to join your team.
Sometimes maintaining cs difficult to do because for some reason adcs have a built in timer where at one point they will completely abandon their lane and come to yours. It’s crazy to me because I will look bot and see both towers still up, but your jinx insists that mid is the family lane now. Soon enough, your jungler will come mid, your toplaner is mid, and it’s just ARAM. This is bad for BOTH teams, because this situation forces you to share XP and farm. This point is actually very important to junglers as well. This is actually the most infuriating thing these players do, I’m getting angry just writing about it. It’s also a very difficult concept to explain, because your actions at this point are very situational and it takes a while to learn how to decide where you should go. There are some times where you should stay with your team and fight, because if not you cause a big number disadvantage. But other times, if you realise they are literally just standing there doing nothing, ping them away and then ping that you are going sidelanes. I promise you 100% of time during these ARAM nonsense periods, if you look sidelanes and jungle you will see: Top is pushing Bot tower is going down Your jungle camps are all up There are no objectives to be taken. That’s it, there’s cs to be picked up, and no objectives to play for. The logical decision is going to take that sweet cs. I usually advise against chatting and stuff, but at this point just try to talk some sense into your team and explain that you need cs and you are going sidelane. Tell your jungler his camps are up. Tell your team enemy team is losing their time, farm for cs and depush. Whatever it takes. At this point, splitting or farming guarantees a big advantage for you and your team in terms of xp, gold, objectives. This is a common mistake with junglers as well,they will come to lane for no reason and push a lane. They will take bot cs while their jungle is up, so by the time adc walks bot the lane is already pushed and the adc will overextend and die etc. Of course this is all situational, my best advice is to think about these things constantly, try to maintain cs, and know when to and when not to join a teamfight. Sometimes the difference between this might be that you get death cap, a huge power spike for midlaners. Usually as a midlaner I will push only one or two waves, and then walk mid to join my team. It takes trial and error but soon enough you will see the big difference between these situations and why it’s so beneficial. This is basically why champs like tryndamere are so broken in low elo.
Realise what your champ wants to do, your matchups, watch replays
Every champ is situational. Every champ will teach you something new about the game. There is a huge difference in playing 100 games on a champ, and watching 5 replays of a high elo player play the same champ. The latter is better. I learned this the hard way, I have attention issues and it’s very difficult for me to watch videos. It took me a while, but I completely believe that this is one of the most important things to do when you’re trying to improve.. watch someone better play your champ. League is now at a point where we don’t have to figure things out ourselves, we can learn from others. Generally, I like to stay away from click bait videos and “tutorial” videos unless there is something really specific I want to look up, like a combo or a guide on wave control. I almost always type in “x champ replay” and usually watch a KR GM or Challenger play the champ. If you’re really into a certain champ, I also advise going to KR opgg and searching for one tricks of that champion in high elo, favouriting their page and following their builds. The more you look into it, you will start to find foreign one tricks who are amazing... mangofish for fizz, xiao Lao ban for ekko, veigar v2 (European), love veigar (kr), etc. Please trust me and watch as many replays as you can. It will make an almost immediate difference watching someone better than you play your champ. Similarly it’s also important to watch your own replays... however painful they might be... I highly encourage screen recording your gameplay instead of downloading league replays, so you can see where you are clicking and looking. That also leads to my next point...
Be conscious of your clicks, and practice camera control
Okay, this might not apply to everyone... but actually, I think it could. I have never seen how anyone from my elo plays, but according to my friend I click in the weirdest, worst way, and I don’t use my camera and minimap enough. I didn’t know what he meant until we watched my own replay and I saw where my mouse was clicking. At first, I used to click too much. Then, I fixed that and I realised that I click too far from my character, so I had to fix that too. I used toalso click my character AWAY from fights and that caused me to miss out on so many potential kills. My clicking is still bad, I can see that, but what I did to remedy the situation was to play games where I ACTIVELY made an effort to click shorter and better. It was extremely difficult at first, because I felt like I had less control, but after about 10 or so games it improved. Clicking is a very habit based thing, so you neeed to make sure you’re feeding the right habits. I think my crazy clicking started from watching faker play. While spam clicking isn’t the problem, the issue is when you start to click like a maniac in the wrong places..I can guarantee a lot of players do this without realising. Also, now that I’m not playing serious ranked games anymore, I’m playing more melee “fighting” champs that allow me to practice better clicking. Camera control is another thing that needs working on, but luckily I think this is something very easy to fix it just needs some getting used to. I used to be a lock screen Andy, believe it or not. That was easy to do playing Sona, because the champ basically did nothing and her abilities were high range. When I was learning unlock screen it was so difficult, I was basically playing ping pong with my camera. I still have the screen recording of me trying to control my camera as a Velkoz, it was crazy. After fixing my setting to something I’m more comfortable with, I went and watched replays where I could see what other players were looking at. League is about information control, your minimap, camera buttons, and your tab are the most important keys to that. This is still something I actively work on, and it’s honestly munch easier to practice when playing jungle, but every time you improve how quickly you cam grasp information, the better you will be at punishing enemies and figuring out your next steps. This is something that is pure practice. Also I don’t know if it applies to everyone, but I have small hands so pressing the F keys to see other lanes is difficult for me, so I have reassigned the, to zxcv. This is easier, maybe you will enjoy it too. Honestly, I have so many more things to say. But then I will end up writing so many things and I am worried about getting boring. These are my most important points, and I think some of these points are often overlooked by players. It’s very easy to forget improving, and wanting just to win. Especially when things like rank come into play. The most important thing to me was to forget about rank or winning. I hope you can do the same. Do not coin flip your games, do not rely on your teammates. Carry yourself out. Silver and Bronze are the worst elos to ever play in, a lot of players are basically burnt out, mental is boom, and will give you a hard time. You can't control them, you can't reason with them. Be the better player. I haven’t told my friend I’m writing this post, because he will say it’s very cringe and try to talk me out of it. When this post is live, I’ll tell him. If you have any questions for me or him, please ask! good luck to everyone <3 EDIT: fixed formatting
Kassadin build guides - op.gg provides builds, counters, guides, masteries, runes, skill orders, combos, pro builds and statistics by top, jungle, mid, adc, support in s11, s10 - including Win Rate, Pick Rate, Ban Rate, Play Rate Language. Language. English 한국어 日本語 język polski français Deutsch español Nederlands dansk Svenska Norsk русский язык magyar suomi Türkçe There is no best build on Kassadin, everyone here has a varying build and everyone here has an opinion on what they think the "best build" is. My only advice to you is for you to try out many different builds and see which ones you like. It's really just a matter of test, test, test, test, and some more testing. The most basic bitch Kassadin build is RoA -> Sorc/Ion -> Morello/Lich -> Zhonya Kassadin build with the highest winrate runes and items in every role. U.GG analyzes millions of LoL matches to give you the best LoL champion build. Patch 11.3 Kassadin draws energy from spells cast in his vicinity, gaining a charge whenever a spell is cast near him. Upon reaching 6 charges, Kassadin can use Force Pulse to deal 80 / 105 / 130 / 155 / 180 (+80% of ability power) magic damage and slow enemies by 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 % in a cone in front of him for 1 second. PROBUILDS.net is a quick guides tool for League of Legends players. Its primary function is to provide the League of Legends community easy access to Professional Player's builds across all regions. View builds, guides, stats, skill orders, runes and masteries from Pros playing Kassadin the Void Walker. Check Kassadin's stats: Games Played, Pick Rate, Win Rate, and more. Kassadin build guides - op.gg provides builds, counters, guides, masteries, runes, skill orders, combos, pro builds and statistics by top, jungle, mid, adc, support in s11, s10 - including Win Rate, Pick Rate, Ban Rate, Play Rate Language. Language. English 한국어 日本語 język polski français Deutsch español Nederlands dansk Svenska Norsk русский язык magyar suomi Türkçe LoL Statistics, Guides, Builds, Runes, Masteries, Skill Orders, Counters and Matchups for Kassadin when played Middle. Statistics include Kassadin's Win Rate, Play Rate and Ban Rate. Counters include who Kassadin Middle is Strong or Weak Against. Climb with the BEST Kassadin builds; items, runes, skill order, and summoner spells. Use the highest win rate core & situational items to rank up now! Best Rune Builds for Kassadin Mid. If you're looking for the best rune build for Kassadin we've got you covered. Below you can find the most recommended rune build for Kassadin Mid, as determined by LeagueSpy's calculations of thousands of Plat+ League of Legends games. If you are already familiar with how to play Kassadin this is a great resource to quickly get a good rune selection for Patch
