Free Week #2 Analysis

New free week characters are here!

Here's a helpful guide for you to pick your new character

Amumu: What a cute, sad little mummy. This is my daughter's favorite character (the fact that him crying a puddle of tears is his best attack is hilarious to her). He has a tricky skill shot to master (bandage toss) but when you get it down, it's one of the best ganking abilities in the game (gap closing stun on a character with primarily AoE attacks). He's very good as a jungler. You want to build him with AP and tanky items (Frozen Heart, Spirit Visage, etc). Typically a jungler in Summoner's Rift.

Blitzcrank: One of the most prevalent support characters. He's what I'd consider an "aggressive" support. If you can get past his annoying waddle, he's very good. His Q is like Amumu's bandage toss in reverse (pulls an enemy towards him). He's a tricky character to build for as his Q and R scale perfectly off of AP but most of the rest of his damage is physical. You also want to have a decent health pool to increase your survivability from his passive. One note, with a modest amount of AP, his ultimate will instakill all normal creeps. So use it to clear out massive waves late game.

Evelynn: A melee assassin with innate stealth. Her abilities scale off both AP and AD (SLIGHTLY better off AP) so you can build her how you wish. She's got good MR and AR scaling innately as does her hps so she starts out slightly tanky to start. People seem to really like her in Twisted Treeline but I don't often see her in Summoner's Rift as the "assassin" type character doesn't really fit the meta particularly well at present.

Warwick: Used to be a top tier jungler but not an occasional top lane bruiser pick. Warwick has great sustain and relatively straightforward, simple playstyle. With only one ability that scales off AP (albeit, his most frequently used ability with a 1/1 AP scaling), I suspect he's typically built AD but I can't really say for certain. I know he hurts me a lot if he gets fed early.

Udyr: I don't know a lot about this guy other than he USED to be a really strong jungler. He seems really flexible with the ability to switch his stances as needed. His sustain seems ridiculous (Turtle stance granting an early 10% lifesteal and 5% "manasteal"). He is largely an auto-attacking monster though he does have a couple abilities (the shield from Turtle and the attack from Phoenix) that scale slightly off of AP.

Miss Fortune: A very popular AD carry. Milking her passive is a big part of success. She gains speed as she avoids damage. Keep it in mind, however, that if someone hits you with a slow, your speed is going to feel like it dropped to "walking through quicksand" level very quickly.

Vayne: Another AD carry that's popular right now. Very much a rhythm character. She's great in pursuit (with tumble and her passive). One of the things you want to avoid is throwing condemn all willy nilly. I made that mistake a couple times the one time I played with her. Chasing someone down and throwing condemn at them is a bad idea unless you can be certain you're going to knock them into a wall.

Leona: Okay. You may not play as Leona (or maybe you will) but you sure need to know how her passive works in case you play with her. Her spells (but not her auto-attacks) apply a mark to targets that will proc additional magic damage when someone ELSE (not her!) attacks that target. That magic damage counts as the OTHER person's damage (not hers) so she's a great support for getting lots of last hits.

Riven: Between her and Ezreal, sometimes it's hard to tell Japanimation girls from boys. Riven is a girl with a HUGE sword. She has a really great set of skills for an AD carry. A gap closer with a shield, a PBAoE stun and a small aoe chain attack that she can use frequently. She scales really well off AD and you want to grab a little bit of cooldown reduction and attack speed in that mix. She doesn't use mana (which is a little bit of a shame because Manamune would be easy to cap with her) and she doesn't have any health sustain so some lifesteal is probably also a good idea.

Xerath: I'm eager to try this guy. He looks like the definition of artillery. He even has an ability that roots him in place and extends his range of his spells (but not his auto-attacks, apparently). His Q ability already has a very long range and his chains give you the ability to really put a hurt on people. His AP scales into armor so you probably don't need to buy any armor items whatsoever. One note, his anchor ability gives % based magic pen that's fairly significant. Because of the way the coding works, that means you want to avoid things like Abyssal Scepter and focus on things like Void Staff. With a high end spammable ultimate, he's also a mana hog so Archangel's staff is also advisable. So a full build probably looks something like, Void Staff, Athene's Unholy Grail, Archangel's Staff, Rabaddon's Deathcap, Mercury Treads and either Lich Bane or Will of the Ancients (depending on whether you need the health sustain or if you want the raw damage). With that setup, you're at 662 AP before runes/masteries/etc. and 722 with basic masteries. You'll also be at 90% magic penetration when in stance (and 50% when running around). So you're essentially doing true damage. Your full combo would be Mage chains (847 damage), Arcane Barrage (dealing 708 + 1.5 stun), repeat arcane barrage two more times, fire an arcanopulse for good measure (668 damage). So a single target probably takes at least 2972 damage and everyone else in the area takes about 2100. Yeah... you probably want to be shooting from a bush or tree or something because you are GOING to be primaried.