FORGEFIRE CAPE

Mine as well as a lot of other Ornn mains' personal favorite upgrade. This item gives A LOT of tank stats against physical damage dealers. Rocking in at 1666.45 gold, this is one of Ornn's best upgrades. You want it pretty much every game unless the enemy team has 0 physical damage dealers for some reason. GOLD VALUE: Health: 869.33 Armor: 800 Total: 1669.33







FROZEN FIST

Don't get me wrong, this is definitely a great item, but more often than not the armor it gives is just a little overkill. Ornn LOVES health and items that give him lots of it, even though frozen fist gives him a lot of armor and mana, the lack of health makes it a rather situational item on him. While it’s not so good on Ornn, popping this on an Ezreal will make him one of the tankiest champs on the map in certain games GOLD VALUE: Mana: 280 Armor: 1200 Total: 1480



INFERNAL MASK

Ornn's best magic resist item upgrade. Due to it's insane gold value, being Ornn’s most gold efficient item, combined with it's synergy with Forgefire Cape, Infernal mask built as often, if not more often than Forgefire Cape. GOLD VALUE: Health: 1067 MR: 810 Total: 1877

CIRCLET OF THE IRON SOLARI

By far his worst upgrade. The stats it gives are next to useless. Never upgrade this if you can help it. Unless the champ you’re upgrading for has no other viable items to build on them, it’s always better to upgrade a different item. Even Salvation, his second worst upgrade, gives significantly more gold in stats than this. GOLD VALUE: MR: 270 Armor: 300 Total: 570



MIGHT OF THE RUINED KING

While it isn’t as bad as the support upgrades, MotRK is definitely one of the worse improvements. There are definitely some champions that want it, but Molten Edge While it isn’t as bad as the support upgrades, MotRK is definitely one of the worse improvements. There are definitely some champions that want it, buttends to be the better upgrade for most champs. GOLD VALUE: AD: 525 AS: 375 Total: 900



MOLTEN EDGE

This is a crit chance ADC's wet dream. IT grants almost a BF sword in AD for absolutely free. If you take into account it's passive and assume the wielder has at least 50% crit chance by the time they get their upgrade, the gold efficiency of this item is much higher than it actually says it is. GOLD VALUE: AD: 1050 Total: 1050



THE OBSIDIAN CLEAVER

The Obsidian Cleaver is a very nice upgrade. Though Ornn will pretty much never build it(unless you’re going the AD bruiser build), it’s one of the best upgrades for champs like Darius and Garen. The extra health and AD makes this the ideal item for Juggernauts and bruisers alike. While some champs prefer the Trinity Force upgrade over this, both are a very solid choice. GOLD VALUE: AD: 700 Health: 400 Total: 1100



TRINITY FUSION

This is by far Ornn’s most diverse upgrade. It increases almost every single stat triforce provides by quite the margin. This item is perfect for champs like Jax who tend to build triforce every game. While it’s gold efficiency isn’t very high, the diversity of the stats it gives allows it to strengthen the item niche the original triforce covered. GOLD VALUE: AD: 350 Health: 266.66 AS: 250 MS: 38 Mana: 140 Total: 1044.66



YOUMUU'S WRAITHBLADE

Wraithblade is a weird upgrade since it gives lethality. However, compared to Obsidian Cleaver it's just flat out worse unless the champ you're upgrading for is an AD assassin like Zed or Talon that loves to stack lethality. On other champs such as Aatrox, more often than not the health obsidian cleaver gives is more useful. But don't get me wrong, 7 lethality is HUGE on an assassin, it means they deal well over true damage against squishies when combined with other items GOLD VALUE: AD: 700 Lethality: 158 Total: 857.5



LUDEN'S PULSE

Honestly, while this is a rather nice upgrade, more often than not, by the time Ornn reaches lvl 13+, the mages in the game don’t need extra mana. If you ignore the mana, this upgrade is just a budget Deathcrown, making it only useful if your midlaner is rather far behind, and at that point you have other teammates you should be upgrading items for. GOLD VALUE: AP: 652.5 Mana: 350 Total: 1002.5



RABADON’S DEATHCROWN

This is by far the single best upgrade Ornn has. This offers 77 AP after taking into account it’s own passive, which is worth over 5 kills worth of gold. This means that your 3/2 Syndra is now effectively 8/2. The sheer ridiculous amount of AP this gives for free is insane, unless your mid laner either doesn’t build death cap or is significantly far behind, waiting to upgrade a deathcap is almost always the right call. GOLD VALUE: AP: 1674.75 Total: 1674.75



SALVATION

Of the two support upgrades, this is the lesser evil. Though it’s better than Circlet of the Iron Solari and has a higher gold value than some other items, it’s still not ideal since most of the stats it gives don’t grant much immediate power in a teamfight or skirmish. There are very few champs that can’t build an upgradable item besides Locket and Redemption, similar to Locket, only upgrade this if there is no other option. GOLD VALUE: Health: 266 HP5: 450 MP5: 250 Total: 966



ZHONYA'S PARADOX

Unlike Ludens, there are lots of champs which are willing to sacrifice a little AP for a bit of armor. While those champs would still prefer a deathcap upgrade any day, it’s perfectly fine to upgrade a zhonya’s early if you feel like the game could end in the next team fight or two. GOLD VALUE: AP: 543.75 Armor: 300 Total: 843.75













Top Lane is Ornn's most standard role. Going top lets him get access to his item upgrades, which is arguably his one and only win condition, much more reliably. Top lane has the downside that many matchups are rather volatile. If Ornn gets sent far enough behind, there is no chance of recovering unless the game manages to last ridiculously long since he’s one of the few late game hyper carry’s that rely on levels to gain most of their power.

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In general, you have three goals for laning: Try to hit lvl 12 before laning phase is over. Most of the time this isn't possible, but the longer you get to stay in lane, the more xp you get to obtain. Delay the laning phase as much as possible, after lvl 12 your chances to win the game sky rocket.



Rush a sapphire crystal as your first item built in lane, do it as early as possible to make full use of your passive. Casting abilities before hand will reduce how much mana you get from building it in lane. Ornn suffers from mana issues early during laning phase, so it's important to put a bandage on the problem till you scale.



Save your mana for the first couple of backs. Use Q only if you know you can land it. You don't always need to follow up a successful Q with a W or E, especially if the lane is volatile(An example would be Darius, who can easily kill you if you stand still to use W).





Try to freeze wave right infront of your turret, know that Ornn's weakest stage is the early game and that he scales harder than most hyper carries. If you manage to end the laning phase without missing cs or dying, you've pretty much already won the game.



SKILL MAX ORDER Against ranged champions that can poke you out of lane like Teemo, Kennen, Jayce, and Vayne, You should be maxing Q since it lets you poke back and safely farm.

ITEMIZATION Since you're going to be using Q very often during the laning phase, I recommend building 1-2 sapphire crystals. Rushing Ninja tabi is also a great option since it's relatively cheap and it's passive will allow you a safer laning phase. Depending on the type of damage the enemy laner deals(Kayle and Teemo will mostly deal magic damage while Vayne and Jayce will be dealing physical damage), you want to rush either a Sunfire Cape or an Abyssal Mask. If you're really struggling in lane, stacking 2-4 ruby crystals will greatly reduce the opponent's kill pressure since you can build the crystals in lane, meaning you're getting hundreds of extra health the enemy laner doesn't have.

PLAYSTYLE At a glance, Ornn seems like the type of champ that would struggle into ranged matchups. He has very broadcasted abilities, little to no mobility, no in built sustain, and most importantly he’s very easy to kite during the early game since his abilities have high cooldowns. However, two traits makes ranged matchups almost a breeze for him, the fact his q does a VERY solid amount of damage, and how powerful and consistent his engage can be when played right. You will outscale almost every matchup top lane due to how powerful your upgraded items are, the only issue is getting to that stage. Rather than playing aggro right off the bat into ranged matchups, you want to safely farm and poke using Volcanic Rupture







SKILL MAX ORDER Against melee champs that don’t have much kill pressure on you like Cho’gath or Shen, you should go W max since in an ideal game, you want your w to be on as low of a cooldown as possible. Against melee champs that can 100>0 you if you misposition like Darius and Riven, Q max is the way to go since you will eventually outscale them, so winning lane isn’t that much of a priority. If you max Q, you’ll be able to safely cs and if the enemy laner ever does engage on you, you can use Q to slow them and E away to safety. ITEMIZATION Health is an absolute must have against melee champs. Rushing a Bami’s will be your standard go to component against most melees. Against champions with lots of healing like Fiora, Darius, or Renekton, you want to rush and sit on a bramble vest for the grievous wounds. Rushing a Sunfire Cape against AD melee top laners will give you lots of waveclear and important stats like Health and Armor. Against AP top laners like Nautilus and Sylas, you want to build an Abyssal mask first item. If the enemy team has a mix of AP and AD(most of the time they do) You want to build an Abyssal mask or a Sunfire cape after your first item. Against a full AD team, Rushing a Sunfire > Iceborn will give you all the armor you need, and with a warmogs 3rd item, you’re sitting at a bit over 80% physical damage reduction and well over 4k health. Full AP teams are rare, but they do happen. In the case of a full AP team, rush an Abyssal mask along with mercury’s treads, you don’t have much in terms of MR item upgrades, so either an adaptive helm or Spirit visage will be your next item. In games against full AP teams, it isn’t worth building a sunfire cape just to have two upgrades. It’s better to stack MR and Health at the cost of wasting an upgrade.

PLAYSTYLE Ornn is constantly playing a dangerous game between all-inning the enemy laner and getting all innned. You have to know when you can kill the enemy laner while they’re under the duration of your cc chain, normally this tends to be when they’re below 30% health and you have ult up. If you have ignite, you can all in them while they’re at around half hp at earlier stages of the game, and when they’re around 40% at later stages. Ornn doesn’t need to back often, but it’s important to understand when you should. With biscuit delivery, corrupting pot, and your passive, you can stay in lane for a VERY long time, but even those have a limit. Back when your low on resources and either the enemy laner is dead, or you have the minion wave under their tower. This will let you get back to lane without missing too many minions.











Though Ornn is mostly played top lane, this isn't to say he can't be played support. Ornn Support, one of the best Ornn mains out there, is a Challenger Ornn one trick that, like his name says, plays him only as a hyper engage support. Do to your brittle procs being insanely good against squishy champions, which most of the current meta bot laners are, Ornn support works incredibly well with an aggressive ADC like Tristana and Draven, a long ranged ADC that can follow up on his engages without much delay like Caitlyn, or an adc with reliable CC that can be used to proc brittle like Jhin.

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These are some general tips that you should follow:

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If you have an aggressive, snowbally ADC that can win the game off of a couple of kills during the laning phase, make sure you match their playstyle by constantly harassing with Q and engaging on low health enemies with your standard Q > E > W > Auto.





ALWAYS stack canon minions or melee creeps using Targon's. They offer more gold than casters, which is VERY important because of how much gold Ornn needs to achieve his near unkillable status after 3-4 items.





Try not to engage on the enemy with E unless important enemy ability/summoner's are on cooldown or you know you'll manage to knock up both players. Ornn can get blown up rather easily during the early game, especially if you aren't going Aftershock(Which you should be going >:( btw), meaning that if the you knock up the Vayne but not the lux and your ADC takes too long to follow up, odds are you're the one that's going to die.





SKILL MAX ORDER If you’re paired with an Aggressive ADC that relies on early game kills to snowball, you want to go E max so you can engage as often as you want. You should try to all in at lvl 3 since very few bot lane matchups can contest Ornn’s engage at lvl 3.

PLAYSTYLE With an Aggressive ADC like Tristana, Drave, and to an extent Twitch, they NEED early kills to snowball into a lead. You’re job is try and hit level 3 ASAP so you can all in with your Q > E > W > Auto combo. Since you’re support, you’ll almost always have ignite so you should ignite right after knocking up a target with your E so the grievous wounds reduces the inevitable heal the enemy ADC will use to try and save themselves, their support, or both. Ornn has one of the strongest engages in the game since his E is a 1.5 second knockup, with an aggressive ADC that’s a guaranteed kill or two every time you land a knock-up.





SKILL MAX ORDER If you have an ADC that doesn’t want to all in whenever they can in hopes of a kill, maxing Q will let you poke the enemy team down and lets you safely targon stack without getting poked down yourself..

PLAYSTYLE With a Passive poke/late-game adc like Sivir, Vayne, or Ezreal, you want to focus on poking down the enemy laners long with your adc. If you can get the enemy laners below half health and you have ult up, don’t be afraid to engage. The thing about Ornn is that his damage remains the same regardless of whether he gets played top or support due to him scaling with levels rather than damage items. A full combo with ult will still 50>0 someone, especially since most meta botlaners are rather squishy.

Relic Shield is obviously your starting item as Support Ornn, but it doesn’t have to be your only starting item. The item was made for champs that don't scale well with ap or ad, and while ornn has a very high total ad ratio on q, going Spectral Sickle+Youmuus+Triforce as support Ornn is a reportable offense.











LOCATION Ornn strives in areas with lots of walls since that lets him have more places to land his Searing Charge

TARGET SELECTION Ornn’s CC is very broadcasted, making it difficult for 5 man ults/knockups. More often than not, when the sound of your horn blares across the map, the enemy team will scatter, making it possible to only hit 1-3 of them depending on the location of the teamfight. In this scenario, you have to decide who is the highest priority target that will die when collapsed on. For example, if you have to choose between a fed Volibear or a fed Kog’Maw to hit with your ult recast, which do you think would actually die if your team followed up? A fed Volibear could probably get a kill or two and run away at half health if you baited your team into collapsing on him, but a fed Kog’Maw would explode with a single brittle mark.

TIMING YOUR CC While it’s fun to explode all of your cc on a single target and watch their health blow up in an instant, it’s never what you want to do in an actual teamfight. Most champs, even after a knockup ends, are “micro-stunned” for a fraction of a second. If you make use of this and space your E knock up, Ult, W, and brittle procs, you can easily cc chain someone for 4+ seconds.

UNDERSTANDING INTENTIONS All League of Legends’ champions have a set of things they want to accomplish in a teamfight. Vlad wants to look for a quick way to get into the middle of the enemy team and burst them down like the disgusting AoE assassin he is, Aatrox wants to follow up one someone else’s engage and apply even more cc on the enemy team, Master Yi want’s to wait until the end to clean up kills with his ult and E, etc. What separates a good Ornn from a bad Ornn lies in being able to understand what your team wants to do, knowing what the enemy team is trying to do, and using your abilities to help achieve your team’s goals while crushing the hopes and dreams of the enemy. If a Vlad wants to enter into the middle of the enemy team, create an opening for him to do so with your knock ups. If Aatrox is waiting for you to engage, make sure to trust in him and pepper people up with brittle marks for him to proc. If Master Yi want’s to engage when everyone on the enemy team is low so he can get resets on his ult, engage for him and try to deal as much damage as possible with the rest of your team so he can cosplay as a budget Cowsep and clean up the fight after you all die.