More thoughts on Fiddlesticks

I played a couple more games as Fiddlesticks last night and I really like him. I also bothered to read his "lore" section which is very interesting as well (and might actually make me read other lore sections). I'm, once again, impressed with the world that Riot has created. I wonder if there's plans to do books about some of the big favorite characters. It seems like a really obvious secondary revenue enhancement and there's certainly a big enough audience for it.

The character himself really surprised me and I wanted to offer up some additional hints/tips:

1) Drain is sufficient that you don't need Smite to kill things in the Twisted Treeline Jungle at lvl 1. I assume this is the same in other game modes but can't be certain. As a result, I'd drop Smite and replace it with something more useful for the rest of the game. Ghost / Flash once you hit 12 would probably be my preference. That gives you two escapes.

2) Take advantage of the bushes in combination with Crowstorm. If you hide in the bushes and then Crowstorm out, there's no visual warning for the opponent. Just BAM, you're there and nuking the tar out of them.

3) Crowstorm is a channeled ability to teleport. But you DON'T channel when you actually do the damage. So a good plan is to Crowstorm into a group and then IMMEDIATELY hit Terror so they can't escape. Throwing Drain on someone can then cover for the fact that you're probably standing in the middle of a ton of minions and at least two players.

4) Dark Wind does 5 bounces. I think as long as there's three, it will guaranty 5 hits (bouncing between them and hitting two of them twice. Keep that in mind.

5) I would suggest speccing for Ability Power and raw health with perhaps one armor item thrown in (Frozen Heart which gives a bunch of armor, mana, cooldown reduction and an aura slow looks tempting). Items like Rod of Ages (+health, +mana, +AP) and Rabadon's Deathcap (+ alot of AP and a % boost to AP) are really strong. Also strong is Hextech revolver (which essentially increases your draining ability by 1/3rd early on) and then later upgrading either to hextech gunblade or (if your team is heavily AP focused) Will of the Ancients.

6) Your passive is easy to forget. It knocks back the opponent magic resist by 10 in the area. That means a couple things. First, you should pal around with another AP character to share the buff. Most AP builds include a little bit of magic penetration so with this (and a likely Abyssal Scepter which gives AP, MR and a magic reduction aura of 20) you can really neuter the defense of a team. Alternatively, you may force them to REALLY increase their MR itemization and change their builds to something less optimal. Note: This does mean that if you're playing characters that always prioritize health as their primary defense, you may be at a slight disadvantage. I don't think Twisted Treeline has any items that knock % of life off of a target (Like Madred's Bloodrazer and Kitae's Bloodrazor).

7) The guides online say that you're weak if you prioritize AP but I've not experienced that. There are sufficient +hp, +AP items out there that you can be reasonably comfortable. The build I've been playing with has 173 armor, 122 magic resist and 2710 hps (again, all without runes and masteries). That appears to be generally sufficient.

The build I'm playing around with has 474 spell damage at level 18 without masteries or runes. That gives the following:

Drain: 1966 damage over 5 seconds (1573 healing). Must channel in range to hit that.
Dark Wind: 358 damage. Hits 5 targets.
Crowstorm: 2691 damage over 5 seconds (pbaoe). Must stay in area to hit

So a Crowstorm, Terror, Drain attack will likely land for somewhere around 4000 plus a couple random affects from items that you may have going on. I've not seen a champion in the game that can take that kind of damage. The fact that they can do little about it is only icing ;)

So go out and play with Fiddlesticks. He's fun.