With all the new item and Rune changes from 14.10, there are so many New Builds that have been popping up and dominating in Solo Q. In today’s discussion, we’re going to break down 10 setups that are extremely powerful, and you can look to take advantage of these for 14.11.
Featured Build: Volibear with Navori Flicker Blades
One of the most wacky yet strong builds that we’ve seen in a long time has made its way onto Volibear. Navori Flicker Blades as a core item is performing very well on the champion and is offering Volibear a very potent Skirmish.
The new Navori is great for Volibear because it includes Attack Speed and Movement Speed instead of AD. The passive on Flicker Blades is amazing for the champ as well because it puts your W on such a short cooldown when you are dueling. If you’re unaware, the passive reduces the cooldown of your basic abilities by 15% every time you auto-attack, and with Volle’s W on a base cooldown of 5 seconds, you’ve got near-permanent uptime on the spell as you’re fighting.
Optimal Build Strategy
Now, of course, by building Flicker Blades, you’re going to be a lot more squishy, so instead of going full out offensive, you want to either grab Rod of Ages or Riftmaker as your first item. Riftmaker with Flicker Blades and Nasher’s Tooth is actually the better-performing build analytically right now and offers more dueling strength.
Optimizing Split Push Builds
If you’re looking to Split Push, the more popular and slightly more durable build revolves around Rod of Ages and either Frozen Heart or Spirit Visage as core purchases. Flicker Blades is the only must-buy item in this build, while you can adapt all other items based on what you feel is best for the game.
For the Rune page, you’ll want to be running Press the Attack with Presence of Mind, Haste, and Last Stand. Secondaries are key to getting right, as Jack of All Trades works incredibly well if you’re going for the Rod, Navori, and Spirit Vis three-item core. Jack of All Trades is a new Rune that gives you bonus stats for each unique stat on the items you build, and that core build has 10 unique stats, so there’s a lot of value from the rune.
Mundo’s Health-Centric Build
With Warmog’s buffed last patch and Overlord’s Blood Mail being added to the game, this item combo synergizes incredibly well with Mundo and makes his mid to late game very strong. Stacking health on Mundo is great because he’s got health scaling on his abilities. It’s even better now due to Overlord’s Blood Mail, though, because the passive on Overlords rewards you for stacking a ton of health. Overlord’s passive converts 2% of your bonus health into attack damage.
So, if we do a little math here, you get 900 health from Heart Steel, 1,000 health from Warmogs, and another 500 from Overlords—that’s 2,400 health in total, and 2% of that is 48. This means Overlords alone is providing you a grand total of 88 AD, which is even more than what you get from Infinity Edge. All in all, this build makes Mundo super durable and tanky, but he has so much offensive strength at the same time. The complete core that you will want to run is the Heart Steel rush into Warmog second and Overlords third. For the Rune setup, it’s Grasp with Demolish, Second Wind, and Revitalize followed by Free Boots and Approach Velocity for secondaries.
Rengar’s Crit Revival
Crit Rengar has made a comeback over the past patch as the buffed Infinity Edge gives the champ absolutely ridiculous one-shot strength. You still want to build Lethality for the early game, as an Umbral Glaive rush into Profane Hydra second is the way to go.
It’s later on, as a third purchase, where you pick up Infinity Edge and begin deleting everyone in sight. Now, a lot of Rengar players are messing up their Rune page right now, as Futures Market was removed last patch. With Futures removed, many Rengar players have swapped over to running Time Warp Tonic when triple.
Revamped Rengar Runes
Tonic is just so much better; almost all high ELO Rengar players are running triple tonic as it’s just way more reliable. Cash back is also quite underrated right now as it helps you get to that Infinity Edge completion faster. With the 14.10 changes to Zek’s Convergence, it started to make its way onto champions that are not supports, most notably Hecarim. Health was increased on Zek’s, and there was magic resist added to the item, so it’s a more well-rounded item for when the enemy comp has both physical and magic damage.
Hecarim’s Optimized Build
Now it’s the passive that really allows the item to excel on Hecarim because whenever you use your ultimate, you’re going to receive a slowing effect around you for 5 seconds, combined with bonus damage for those 5 seconds. This allows Hecarim to stick onto his targets extremely easily once he’s engaged on them and gives enemies very little chance of escaping. The complete core build that’s been working really well for Hecarim consists of an Eclipse rush into Black Cleaver second, and then Zek’s Convergence third. For the Rune page, grab Phase Rush with Nimbus Cloak, Celerity, and Water Walking, followed by Triumph and Haste for secondary.
Midlane Build Adjustments
Moving on to a couple of midlane builds now, First Strike was changed last patch so that it now grants more gold early on but less later in the game. This has made First Strike really strong on champions who are longer range and can proc the rune very consistently during the laning phase. It’s not just the First Strike changes that have made Vel’Koz stronger, though. Blackfire being added to the game, in addition to the First Strike changes, were both extremely positive for Vel’Koz, and he’s now back to being a very strong Solo Q mid laner.
The summoner spell Barrier was even buffed, so it makes laning against more volatile champions a bit easier. Here’s a look at the complete optimal Rune page as you want First Strike with Free Boots, Biscuit Delivery, and Cosmic Insight, while Presence of Mind and Cut Down are for secondaries. As for the build, you want to be.
Vel’Koz and Cassiopeia’s New Item Builds
Abusing the burn setup of Blackfire Torch and Liandry’s, these are core for Vel’Koz, but from then on out, it’s more situational. All the craze over Blackfire Torch has been aimed more towards junglers instead of midlaners. However, one midlane champion who’s gotten a lot better because of the item is Cassiopeia. Cass is extremely underrated for Solo Q right now, as Blackfire is just the perfect rush item for her.
Cass has missed having that mana burn item that she can rush ever since Liandry’s was changed, so she’s back in a great spot now due to the Blackfire addition. Cassiopeia is also one of those non-jungle champions who actually benefits a ton from the bonus monster damage that Blackfire provides. Melting down a Baron or dragon is one of Cassiopeia’s specialties, and now that she has even more damage to do so, it makes securing objectives later in the game that much more reliable.
Cassiopeia’s Core Build and Rune Setup
So the core build that you’ll want to be running on Cass consists of a Blackfire rush into Archangel’s second. The third item really depends on the game as Rylai’s and Liandry’s are both viable options. If you’re against a comp who lacks gap closers, and the only way they can get on top of you is by running straight at you, going for Rylai’s is super high value as you can just kite them around very easily.
Vice versa, if you’re playing against a comp with heavy dive threat, where the Rylai’s slow won’t really do anything to keep champions from getting in range, going for Liandry’s is the play. The Rune setup revolves around Conqueror with Presence of Mind, Haste, and Last Stand, while Manaflow and Transcendence are for secondaries.
Revolutionizing Corki’s Build
There’s a brand new Corki build that has started popping off in Solo Q that you can run for both mid lane and bot lane. Corki bot is definitely the more viable place to play him in Solo Queue, but there are many pros picking him in mid lane as well. So, instead of running the standard Trinity Force that Corki has liked for the longest time, it’s a Lethality core with an Opportunity Rush that is outperforming. We’ve covered many builds in recent patches that have included Opportunity as a rush item, as it’s just so valuable if you grab it early in the game.
Corki’s Lethality Build Optimization
You get a ton of Lethality from the item, and with the armor shred from Corki’s E, you’re almost dealing true damage on that one item spike. You want to be maxing your E out first instead of Q with this setup, as it’s your auto attacks that are going to be hurting the most since Opportunity doesn’t provide any Attack Speed, but a lot of your damage is coming from autos.
The optimal Keystone Rune to go along with this build is Hail of Blades. Those three quick autos with Corki’s E active are going to absolutely melt squishies and give the champ a lot of upfront burst. It’s ideal if you pair Corki up with a support who has some strong dive threat, as once Corki completes his Opportunity, you can outduel most bot lane combos in the 2v2 and just play super aggressively.
The New Echo of Helia on Bard
An item that was changed in 14.10 and is really flying under the radar at the moment is Echo of Helia. The changes have turned out to be quite positive, and Echo of Helia is performing very well on champs that you would have never bought it on before.
Bard is one of those champs, and the reason why Echo is way better on Bard is due to how much easier it is to stack passive shards and how much more powerful its heal is. Whenever you damage an enemy, you get a Soul Shard. Once you reach two shards, healing or shielding an ally will consume those shards to provide bonus healing and bonus damage. With the old Echo, you needed three shards to proc this passive, but now with.
Optimizing Bard with Echo of Helia
With it only being two, it’s just so much easier to proc in a fight super quickly. All you’ve got to do with Bard is auto attack and use Q, and then you’ve got the passive ready to proc. Prior to this change, you would have needed to throw in an extra auto attack, which really delayed the value of the item. So, Echo of Helia is the new optimal rush item for Bard, while Locket slots in second. Solsa Slay works great for the support item upgrade to amplify Bard’s protective power even further. You can look to run Guardian for the Keystone Rune with Font of Life, Bone Plating, and Unflinching. The best secondaries are Zombie Ward and Relentless Hunter.
Seraphine’s First Strike Build
The final new setup that we have for you today is one for Seraphine, as she’s been performing very well with First Strike as her Keystone Rune. Very few supports ran First Strike in previous patches as a lot of the gold stacking from the rune relied on your ability to deal damage instead of giving you a base amount of gold.
Now that the base gold from First Strike is higher, while the gold that you receive from dealing damage is lower, it’s become a much more attractive option on a select few enchanters, and most notably Seraphine. Seraphine has a very easy time proccing First Strike in lane due to the long range from her Q, especially if you are in a matchup laning against a melee support. You should have no issues at all stacking up a bunch of early gold from the rune.
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