Fiddlesticks

- by dignitas/Azingy (March 2015, Patch 5.5)

Next up in our Pro Player Guides is a Fiddlestick guide by

Azingy, our LCS NA Jungler! Learn all about using

Fiddlesticks and his crows in the Jungle. Special thanks to Brandon 'Garamor' Rendina for

his help writing this guide together with Azingy. Related links:

Twitch.tv/lolazingy - @lolAzingy - Profile Page

INTRODUCTION



Fiddlesticks is one of the oldest standing champions in League of Legends. He's also one of the few remaining "old" champions that hasn't received a rework. Fiddlesticks once tapered along the lines of being a competitive pick in the support role, though today, he has found the ability to fit well in the jungle, due to strong self-sustain and a relatively fast jungle clear being required out of junglers in the current meta. Fiddlesticks' biggest strength comes in the form of crowd controlling high priority targets for long periods of time, disrupting their escape, and allowing his teammates to quickly follow up, while still outputting large amounts of damage to any enemies under him. Although most players would consider him an unconventional pick he has still seen success in the upper echelons of the NA Solo Queue ladder.

Andrew "Azingy" Zamarripa, known for other unconventional jungle picks such as Karthus, will try to break down the fundamentals of Fiddlesticks in the jungle, and help other aspiring players make an impact with this surprisingly deadly champion.



The Strengths of Fiddlesticks

Fiddlesticks is one of the strongest team fighting junglers in the game. Landing a crowstorm and fear to start off a team fight can immediately spell disaster for the enemy team, forcing them to make the decision to protect the ally caught up in the mess, or retreat and just take the hit of losing a player. It takes co-ordination to take out a Fiddlesticks and to make sure you always have vision of him to avoid being caught out in a tricky situation. Along with his ability to send the other team running the other way just by using his ultimate, he also has a large arsenal of cc to provide, allowing teammates to have quick follow up on a well timed engage.

The Weaknesses of Fiddlesticks

Although Fiddlesticks is powerful in most solo queue games, players who understand that having vision of where he is will greatly diminish your success with him. Similarly to Evelynn, if you get early sight on the champion, it makes it harder to execute ganks due to the enemy knowing where you are, or your approximate location. Fiddlesticks is also fairly prone to being invaded early. Being forced to take W to sustain off of the jungle camps means that you don't have any good way to effectively push off invading enemies.

RUNES



For Runes, I like to run Magic Penetration Marks which is fairly standard. It's also worth noting that running these runes makes his early penetration along with his passive incredibly high.

For Seals, I prefer to use Flat Health runes, though Flat Armour runes works fairly well. The reason I prefer flat health seals though is because it can help against magic damage. Fiddlesticks isn't a melee champion so he doesn't passively gain Magic Resistance per level, thus running health allows you to still survive the jungle, as well as provide you with the best benefit for ganks and team fighting later on in the game. Besides, you'll be getting armour fairly quickly as Zhonya's is a high priority item for him.

For Glyphs I like to run Flat AP blues as well also running Flat AP Quintessences. Fiddlesticks has incredibly high AP Ratios, thus getting flat AP adds some potency to his early game ganks.

MASTERIES



For masteries, I'd personally recommend using a 21/9/0 setup. Although some junglers like to go 9 points in utility for the extra 30 seconds (Runic Affinity) on buffs, that mostly just ends up going to waste by using that time farming an additional camp. Running 9 defense provides you with around 50 more health at level 1, which greatly helps eliminate his early game dependence. Getting Block and Unyielding in Defense add some extra sturdiness to Fiddlesticks, while Veteran's Scars further amplifies Fiddlesticks defenses.

SUMMONER SPELLS - Flash and Smite



Although you could try something really weird like Smite + Teleport, I recommend Flash and Smite as the summoner spells you should carry with you in the majority of the fiddlesticks games you play. Flash is simply too crucial to set up an even better positioned ultimate, thus having anything else would just feel detrimental.

SPELL ORDER



Fiddlesticks most important ability early on is being able to quickly sustain back up to full health, due to being a relatively squishy champion. One thing to note is that you don't get fear until level 4 because Fiddlestick's damage in a gank is fairly negligible until he starts putting more points into his drain. Getting the second point in W at three also helps speed up the remainder of your jungle route. After maxing your drain (W) you'll want to then look to level up your fear (Q) as fast as possible to increase the duration of how long it lasts, while also shortening its overall cooldown.

Due to Dark Wind (E) being fairly random in terms of how much damage it deals, you tend to only keep one point into it for the bouncing silence that it provides, which does not scale up by putting more points into it. This makes his E a one point wonder until you're absolutely forced to put more skill points towards it.

Skill Mastery - Dread (Passive)

Dealing magic damage or casting Terrify applies Dread to enemies for 2.5 seconds, reducing their magic resistance by 10. The strength in this ability is the fact that it scales really well with other sources of magic penetration. This is why running magic penetration marks further pay off more so than other champions. Later in the game, items like Liandry's Torment and Abyssal Scepter further allow the passive to have an impact.

Skill Mastery - Terrify (Q)

Fiddlesticks terrifies the target enemy unit, causing it to turn and flee for a short duration. Terrify works in such a way where the enemy will run away from where your current position is. This means that setting up a gank from behind an enemy will force him to run into your allies, or the opposite direction that the player would want to take when fleeing. Proper positioning for this ability can allow you to snag a kill simply due to your approach to the situation.

Skilly Mastery - Drain (W)

Fiddlesticks creates a leash on a target enemy and channels for up to 5 seconds, dealing magic damage each second and healing himself for a percentage of the damage done. If they target moves further than 650 range of Fiddlesticks while leashed, he will stop channeling. There's a couple of reasons why maxing W first is ideal. As you level the ability up more, the healing you get from the damage it deals increases by up to 20%. The base damage and AP ratio on the ability allows you to be deceptively strong against opponents who don't respect its tether range.

Skill Mastery - Dark Wind (E)

Fiddlesticks sends a crow that bounces between enemy units within 450 range up to 4 times prioritizing targets not yet hit, dealing magic damage with each strike and silencing them for 1.25 seconds once. Minions and monsters take 50% additional damage. I tend to not max this ability until absolutely necessary, and use it mostly for its crowd control that it provides. Outside of the damage increasing the only other benefit to putting points in Dark Wind is that it lowers the cooldown of the ability. You typically want to use this ability when looking to disrupt champions that are either trying to escape or are trying to focus cc on you as you approach. The silence is incredibly powerful if timed right and can lock someone completely out of casting in a teamfight.

Skill Mastery - Crowstorm (R)

After channeling for 1.5 seconds, Fiddlesticks teleports to a nearby target location with a murder of crows flying wildly around him for 5 seconds, dealing magic damage to all enemy units within 600 range each second. Marked below is a good list of locations where using your ultimate as fiddlesticks can really surprise the enemies who aren't expecting you to appear. This ability is what makes Fiddlesticks so threatening and a priority when targeting champions in a team fight. If you have no good way to knock Fiddlesticks away from a team fight, and he catches the team by surprise, this is an almost sure fire way to swing the game in your direction.

ITEM BUILD



Although it's possible to start Doran's ring on Fiddlesticks, the passive on machete which grants you more gold per jungle minion killed is too important to give up. I'd also avoid getting a doran's on your first recall back, and choosing to upgrade your machete immediately as it provides you with +30 gold per monster kill. Typically you'll want to clear as much of your jungle as possible until you hit level 4. At that point, if you're strong enough and still have flash you can try to throw in a gank before your recall as well. Your path will consist of Gromp -> Blue Buff -> Wolves -> Raptors.

You'll want to use your smite on Raptors so that you can spot out any wards that are placed in order to spot where you are. After Raptors, you'll do Red buff and then Krugs which should get you to level 4 if all things worked out.

I prefer to get Ranger's Trailblazer (Purple One) the majority of the time, especially with the most recent nerfs to Stalker's Blade (Chilling Smite). Although the health gain provided by Trailblazer is fairly useless on Fiddlesticks, it's largely used for mana recovery that's also there. The AoE smite aspect of the item also makes it highly sought after on Fiddlesticks, who lacks an easy way to clear the more Area of Effect oriented jungle camps. Optimizing your recalls is essential to learning fiddlesticks. Ideally you'd like to be able to get mobility boots as your next purchase after Trailblazer as fiddlesticks. You want boots next because despite being a mage, fiddlesticks is a very close range champion.

Getting the ward here is only possible if you pull off a successful gank and getting either the kill or the assist. It's not necessary to buy the ward, but it definitely helps out a lot. Finishing your mobility boots is the priority here though, so try to save your gold to make this purchase!

Zhonya's is probably the most quintessential AP item for Fiddlesticks as it makes him survive more than just the first few seconds of a team fight, if he pulls off a well placed ultimate. With that being said, the Magus enchant is incredibly cost-efficient in the early game for fiddle, so getting it fairly early is also very important. Although in most cases you'll want Abyssal scepter next, haunting guise is a decent alternative depending on how much gold you're recalling with. 90% of the time I'd go for getting the components to abyssal over a haunting guise though.

At this point of the game, being efficient with your gold when you recall is important. Thus buying for what you can afford is incredibly important. I also recommend that if you're sitting around 1800 gold, save for the void staff. The three items are around the same in terms of strength when purchasing them. With that being said, it's also acceptable to build a Liandry's Torment after your Zhonya's Hourglass and Abyssal Scepter, as it strengthens his mid game power for an even longer duration.

Although it might seem wierd, the magus enchant at 6 items is simply too cheap of an item to compete with other items that are more suited for endgame. So when you're filling our your 6 items, you can sell your enchant to try and pick up a Deathcap, Void staff or Banshee's Veil depending on what's best for the situation. Liandry's is also a suitable choice, if you chose to build it after your Zhonya's and Abyssal Scepter.

MATCHUPS





A lot of people seem to think that Lee Sin counters Fiddlesticks really hard, but I tend to disagree with that. In order to kick you back, he has to be in the fray to begin with which leaves you and your teammates time to deal with him before he knocks you back. The kick is also fairly easy to predict, so you can zhonya's to avoid being knocked back.

Most of the poor matchups that fiddlesticks has isn't directly with him interacting with other junglers, but rather dealing with champions with long range interrupts or knock backs. Champions like Tristana and Janna are fairly hard to deal with but can still be managed if played against correctly. In order to avoid being disrupted, you want to look to try and get your silence off first before going in for your fear. In our game against Team 8, the gragas pick was incredibly powerful as he was able to knock me away without getting in range of me to begin with, making my ult useless. Keep your finger next to your Zhonya's trigger though, as you'll need to be fast in reacting to any interrupts that do get past your silence and fear. Alistar is another champion that can be a major pain in the back side to Fiddlesticks.

Fiddlesticks is surprisingly effective against assassins being played in mid, because he has so much lockdown. Landing a fear on LeBlanc, Ahri and Fizz aren't much of a problem if your team follows up shortly after landing this, as this the disruption to their blinks and dashes can cause them to take a lot more damage than they might've anticipated. Thus, he makes a strong counter to current flavour of the month assassins.

In terms of junglers that fiddlesticks can abuse there really aren't that many. I don't really pick Fiddlesticks to abuse the enemy jungler, but rather to abuse weak laners. Champions without dashes are the biggest outliers in this case. The main thing you want to worry about is whether or not the team has knockbacks or not.



In terms of good champions to pair fiddlesticks, Orianna is a good choice due to the ball delivery system that Fiddlesticks can help set up. Other AoE heavy champions tend to pair well with Fiddlesticks like Annie or Kennen who can help lockdown the team as Fiddle sets up for an ultimate.

CONCLUSION





Fiddlesticks is without a doubt one of the most threatening level 6 junglers out there. When a team lacks proper vision control, it allows you to reign complete havoc on your foes forcing them to second guess pushes and taking objectives because they don't know whether Fiddle is set up nearby waiting to cleanup with his ultimate. He's an incredibly delicate champion in team fights though, so it's essential to make sure you get your zhonya's fairly early if you want to impact any team fight for more than just a couple of seconds. His kit is fitted out with a ton of crowd control and disruption which makes him a great pick in a heavy AoE lockdown comp.

Overall, Fiddlesticks adds a factor to team fights that most other junglers can't compare to, making him for a good choice in solo queue and, given the right situations, even as well as competitive play.