Aced by the Ace: A Corki Guide

Introduction

I have a few things to say,

!!!!SO READ THIS!!!!

1st off, this is my first guide on MOBAfire so feel free to give me any tips you got.
2nd of all, This is just an outline of how you want to build Corki if you're new to him, when you get good, experiment with whatever, and have fun with it!
3rdly, Don't just look at the Quick reference and go. "oh wat toal n00b! baddie" Read through and it's all explained.
4thly, Any questions you have you can reach me in LoL starting on the 14th (Damn 1 week bans for d/cing... Buggy client :( ) And I will also be checking this guide periodically for questions.

And that's about it, let's get to it.

Pros + Cons

Pros:
Epic Escaping, and some nice Juking
Underestimated Damage
Amazing long range poking
Easy farming, and good late game farming
Most useful AD Passive in the game (According to me.)
Good AoE if you build him for it
Epic Mustache
You can ride a seal. A. Seal.

Cons:
Really Squishy
Easily out harassed early on due to his short range
Often Focused if doing well.
Bad Farming = Awful game
Needs a competent laning partner.

Pros + Cons are pretty even, But I'd give Corki about a 7 on the Difficulty scale, because his short range and positioning in fights need some practice to get down.

Runes

Reds

• Greater Mark of Desolation Nice Armor Pen which goes into good late damage.
• Greater Mark of Alacrity Flat Attack Speed, allowing you to get a little aggressive, or farm faster, at those early levels.

Yellows

• Greater Seal of Resilience I find these to be Alright for seals, but they're not excellent
• Greater Seal of Clarity I love these, they give you that Mana Regeneration you need to sustain yourself in the mid-late game, but there are other seals if you're good with your mana (Which I'm not :P)
• Greater Seal of Alacrity Same as the Reds, but these would be a good choice for you if you are fine on your Mana
• Greater Seal of Strength/ Greater Seal of Might These are like the Alacrity seals, if you think you'll be fine without the Mana Regen, the difference is these will scale well for you into the late game, giving you a better attack damage setup, because you will have alot of Attack Speed already.

Blues

Alright, I'm going to be honest with you, AD carry Blues send me into a tailspin (Pun Intended, Cuz it's Corki... and he's a pilot... Haha.... Ha...) Anyways:

• Greater Glyph of Shielding These are my favorites, because they give Magic Resist, and most enemy Champions have some Magic damage.
• Greater Glyph of Clarity It's a pretty nice Glyph if you have minor Mana problems and don't think you'll need the Magic Resist.
  In all honesty, most of the useful AD Runes are in Marks and Seals, so the Glyphs can be used for anything you want, those 2 are just what I find useful for Corki.

Purples

• Greater Quintessence of Desolation Pretty Standard AD Quintessence, paired with the Desolation Reds, and ANY Armor Pen item, plus your Gatling gun, tanks will Run with their Tail/Poison/Rockness/Sword/Shield/Lance Between their Legs.
• Greater Quintessence of Might These give you an extra 13.5 AD, which is nothing to sneeze at.
• Greater Quintessence of Alacrity Once again, these are nice for the Attack speed,
  
  
  On a final don't get Quints in Might if you have them in Seals/Glyphs, and don't go for more then 1 Alacrity set. (I.E. Getting Alacrity Marks and Quints would be a waste)

Masteries

I'm not really gonna go TO In depth on the Masteries, because with the new Masteries, you will probably want to experiment with your own setup.

• Brute Force Standard for AD Carries going Offensive
• Butcher I know that this is used mainly for Jungling, but It helps me take down the last hits for the first 3 or 4 levels, when 4 damage can make the difference.
• Alacrity Again, pretty Standard for AD
• Weapon Expertise If you're gonna get Alacrity...
• Deadliness Why not Havoc? Because I love Crit with Corki, however, if you're gonna build into a more "pew pew shred them" damage style, then definately go with Havoc
• Lethality If you go with the Shred them Sustained Corki, not the Burst Crit path, then take the point you have left from this and throw it into Vampirism, Otherwise, this is great for Crits on Corki.
• Vampirism combined with the Doran's Blade will let you take 5-6% Lifesteal to start the game off.
• Sunder Armor Penetration! 1/2 off!
• Executioner If you put 20 points into the Offense tree and then skip this...
  Now that you have the Offense tree all set, you can do a few things.
• Fill Resistance And Hardiness then put the last 3 in Vigor
• Put 2 points into Resistance And Hardiness then go into Durability and Veteran's Scars
• Put the last 9 points into the Offensive tree, however you want.
• Go into Runic Affinity If you like to take Jungle Buffs alot

Anything you want to do with Masteries will probably work well, (Unless you go all AP as AD Corki, but, Y'know... Common Sense and whatnot.) Play around with it, have some fun.

Summoner Spells

The Good:

(Note: Recommended spells for Corki)

I love this Spell on Corki, it Drops Ignite, Exhaust, Taunts, and Stuns. Plus it's on a relatively Low Cooldown (3 1/2 Minutes, roughly once every team fight in the late game, which will be where it counts)

Flash, Oh Flash. How I love you, Flash, Pair this with Valkyrie You will be Getting out of there before they even know you left.

Another good one, if you don't like to take Cleanse, it will let you 1v1 ALOT of enemies.

Same as Exhaust pretty much, a good one for skirmishes and getting the extra early game damage you need.

It's a good replacement for Flash, if you want to GTFO then you can Valkyrie, which will put you out of CC range and you can run like a Bawss.

The Bad

(Note: These are Viable but not recommended)

Ehhh. It's alright, but the Attack Speed boost will be Not needed in the major team fights, and Exhaust or Ignite will work better 1v1.

If it gets to the point you need to use heal, you're gonna already be dead anyways, so don't get in that Situation!

Again It's alright, but when you get to the later game where you aren't mana Hungry, you'll be down a Summoner Spell

I personally don't like this one on Corki, just because you're main goal as AD carry in early-mid game is to Farm and not die, and you shouldn't be Teleporting to another lane as the AD carry.

The Ugly

(Note: Just awful spells. Don't use these for Corki, please.)

Really. Just don't die, which is kind of your job, and you'll be fine.

Mainly just for the Supporter people, not at all useful for Corki.

Stop Trolling me and go pick a better spell, Jungle Corki is NOT Viable, unless it's like, some crazy new thing that I haven't heard of.

Skill Explaination

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Hextech Shrapnel Shells: This Passive is great for an AD carry, the True Damage will go straight through Armor, no matter how much of it they have, Bear in mind that if you start the game with say, 80 Damage, you will be doing 8 points of True Damage no matter what.

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Phosphorus Bomb: This skill will be one of two things for you. This will either be your amazing early game poke, or your early game brush checking ability.

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Valkyrie: This skill is basically you kicking it into Overdriving and going wherever you need to go, it can get you over walls, right up next to champions, or out of the way of a CC about to land on your face. Use it well.

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Gatling Gun: This skill will be your Bread and butter in the end of the game, and at level 9 if you max it first. The Sheer terror this will bring when an enemy is 1v1ing you and just realized they lost their armor... At level 9, if you max this first, you will be taking at minimum around 20 armor off of enemies, that's in 2 seconds. GG.

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Missile Barrage: This is your Poke, your heavy damaging skill, your shortest cooldown, and most Unique skill: Every 4th time you launch one of these, it deals 50% extra damage, in a nice large AoE Which softens them up pretty nicely. Other then that, it's a tough skillshot to land, but if they're near a minion wave, there's no penalty for nailing the minions and letting the AoE get them.

Skill Sequence

Okay, so, Maxing Gattling gun first will allow you to win a fight 1v1 and send the enemy packing, Valkyrie is maxed last because we only use it for escapes/chasing, seeing as how we're AD, we also don't focus on Phosphorus because this build is geared for end game Kills, early game farm. HOWEVER if you want to go for a high poke early game then you would want to go: This way you will have a high Poke with your Phosphorus, seeing that you land it, and your E will still help you out some, just don't get in a sustained 1v1 fight, get in, do your poke, get out.

Item Build

I will be going over item choices, a core build and some extra items.
You're going to want to start with either Doran's Shield if you won't be laning with someone who can heal you, or Doran's Sword If you will be with a healer.
On your 1st B get your Boots of Speed and either a Null-Magic Mantle or a Cloth Armor if you're being harassed by AD or AP, otherwise go straight for Berserker's Greaves if you're dominating. At this point, you're gonna rush your The Bloodthirster To give you your sustain, now, assess the situation, if you are doing very well, no fear that anyone will best you and you want to get even more aggressive, go right on into your Trinity Force However, if you are not doing so well in your survivability you might want to go into a Guardian Angel if you need armor and MR and want the second chance sort of thing, Frozen Heart If the enemy team is super AD heavy, or Banshee's Veil for an AP heavy team. If you rushed your Trinity Force go into your Defensive item, according to the enemy team's composition. If you went into your defensive item then grab your Trinity Force
Now then, The last 2 items, have many different ways of being used, so I'll list a few things to counter situations.

The enemy team has gone all Tanky high Armor! Help! Easy to counter, you get yourself a Phantom Dancer And a Madred's Bloodrazor Those tanks will not know what hit them.
The enemy team is now starting to Focus me down!
You're gonna want to grab some defensive stuff, again go according to the enemy team, AP heavy, AD heavy, and so on, but a good item for Defense on Corki would be, In my opinion, a Frozen Mallet and a Last Whisper The Last Whisper will put your Armor Pen over the edge, while the Frozen Mallet + Other Defensive item (I highly recommend the Guardian Angel if you're being Focused hard, because in the heat of the moment, you see a corki at 1 HP you're gonan be spam clicking him, at least at lower levels, and that will give your team some time to kill them.) Will keep you kicking.
My team is doing well at protecting me, but I don't know what I should build. At this point, you can experiment, I like the Phantom Dancer + Infinity Edge build myself, but you can also go into some other items, like, The Black Cleaver + Last Whisper For Super Armor Pen
Or The Black Cleaver + Madred's Bloodrazor Just play around with the last few items, have some fun with it, you gotta have fun with the game. :P
Something I have to Add in before I start the Rennovations on this section:
Quicksilver Sash If you want to swap out one of your 2 end game choices for this bad boy, which is basically Cleanse on a shorter Cooldown and some Magic Resist, so that you can go into something like Exhaust or Ignite for yourself, if you prefer this to Cleanse then, More power to you.

Doran's Blades And Manamune

I'm going to add this section in for the Manamune, and Stacking of Doran's Blades.
So I, personally, will sometimes get a Doran's Blade on my first b if I'm being harassed heavily, or I'm doing poorly, However, what usually ends up happening is when I go Back, I can afford what I like to get on my first B, (Some Armor, a ward and a few potions)
Now Manamune

Manamune: 20 Attack Damage, 350 Mana, 7 Mana Regeneration. UNIQUE Passive: 2% of your maximum mana is converted to attack damage. Each time you attack, you gain one maximum mana. 3 second cooldown. Each time you use an ability, you gain 4 maximum mana, 3 second cooldown. Bonus caps at 1000 maximum mana. 2% of your mana may seem like a nice little bit, but when you put it in perspective: You are at say, 300 AD and 1500 Mana A little Math Will tell you that in total from this item, you will be getting 50 Attack Damage in this Scenario (2% of 1500 = 30 + 20 base AD) Now let's say you were to be using my quick reference build up there And you get this in place of the Bloodthirster Another bit of math If your Bloodthirster is Fully stacked you're getting Double the damage and some lifesteal instead of Mana.

Farming

Farming on Corki is Amazingly easy, like, seriously if you can't farm with Corki you should play support. So, with Corki, at level one, you will generally do a bonus of 7-10 bonus damage depending on your runes with your Hextech Shrapnel Shells So if you start with 85 damage, which is where I usually am, you will do Around 87 damage depending on your Armor Pen and which minion you're hitting. The only reason you shouldn't be able to farm is because the other lane has more range then you and you're being pushed hard, (In which case your jungler should be there...) Here's a what you'll want to aim for around the 15 minute mark.

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Good: 100 - 125 (This is my goal in every non-support game, and I reccomend
you strive to reach this goal too, because this is a good 2500 gold or, 8 champion kills)

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Not Bad: 75-99 You're getting there, but you could use some work

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Okay: 50-74 There's room for improvement but it's a start

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Bad: 25-49 You really need to reconsider your choice of role in these games.

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WTF: 0-24 /facepalm.

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Gameplay

Alright, I'm going to keep this one Short and Simple:

Early Game

You want to see who you're laning with and grab the associated Doran's item, You'll want to work on your Farm for your first 6 or so levels, Then start poking with your Ult, try to stay in lane as much as you can, and don't be stupid, if you're being denied farm, let it happen, you can farm in the late game as long as you don't feed in the early game.

Mid Game

At this point you're gonna want to be staying with your team, wherever you're starting to be, continue to farm if there's nothing happening, and ask your jungler if you can take red time to time, it works well with Corki for chasing.

Late Game

Team fights will be breaking out left and right, which is where you want to be careful, DO NOT charge straight into a team fight, count out in your head, One Mississippi, Two Mississippi... Then jump into the fight, get close enough to be hitting them with Gattling gun, but be able to Valkyrie out if things get bad. Phosphorus bomb will help the fight, and keep on the Missile Barrages.

REALLY Late game

At this point it's 60:00 into the game and you're at full build (I hope...) What you can do here, is swap your Beserker's Greaves For another Phantom Dancer, if you want to, but I'd grab the Mercury Treads if you're getting CCed a lot.

Team fighting and you

Yes, You. Corki player reading my guide. I talked briefly about this earlier, but let's go a bit more in depth on this.
So you are sitting there, and you and your team are in the showdown with the enemy team. You are (Hopefully) Poking them with your Ult, now, if you think that the fight is about to break out, make sure You have your Big One Loaded up, fire this bad boy right as they're clumping up for Maximum Damage. Then you will want to move in so you're just in range of them and Gatling gun them to bits, keep tossing in a Phosphorus for your AoE and make sure you pick a target to focus down, even with your awesome kit you do some amazing AD.
To Recap, Team fights should go like this:
> >
Then you will use Valkyrie For your Chasing/Escaping, and a note on Valkyrie in team fighting, let's say, you're in a fight next to the destroyed blue team tower, and you're blue team, you realize that everyone on your team is dieing, and they're overpowering you, assuming you are not being focused, you can easily get out of this situation, you're going to want to Valkyrie over into the Wraith Camp, and run for your bottom lane, with Valkyrie getting you right on over the wall, you will be able to out run most of them in time to get to safety.

Build Two

So I threw in a second guide for the early damage high poke Corki players instead of the Sustain damage low burst Corki people, the general game play of this build will be here, and the rest will be in the following sections.

So the Late game on this build doesn't change from the first build, however, Your early game is changed alot. When you are in your lane, you want to still focus on getting the last hits, but around level 5 you are going to want to start hitting the enemies with your Phosphorus Bomb and bringing them down on health, don't get in any sustained fights because your damage 1v1 isn't that good yet. In this build you're going to be more of a 1v1 king in the early game, and a team fighting god during the mid game (Levels 11-13 when you're maxing out Gatling Gun)

Runes 2

So the runes are different here,

Reds

• Greater Mark of Desolation Nice Armor Pen which goes into good late damage.
• Greater Mark of Alacrity Flat Attack Speed, allowing you to get a little aggressive, or farm faster, at those early levels.

Yellows

• Greater Seal of Resilience I find these to be Alright for seals, but they're not excellent
• Greater Seal of Clarity I love these, they give you that Mana Regeneration you need to sustain yourself in the mid-late game, but there are other seals if you're good with your mana (Which I'm not :P)
• Greater Seal of Alacrity Same as the Reds, but these would be a good choice for you if you are fine on your Mana
• Greater Seal of Strength/ Greater Seal of Might These are like the Alacrity seals, if you think you'll be fine without the Mana Regen, the difference is these will scale well for you into the late game, giving you a better attack damage setup, because you will have alot of Attack Speed already.

Blues

• Greater Glyph of Shielding These are my favorites, because they give Magic Resist, and most enemy Champions have some Magic damage.
• Greater Glyph of Furor So this is one of the ones I wanted to touch on. With your rushing of the Infinity Edge right after boots, these will be bringing you to some very nice crits, and you will be having them 1/2.5 Attacks, these can also be paired with the Crit Chance Seals or the Crit damage seals, but I prefer Alacrity, because this is geared towards the mid game 1v1s and late game clean ups.

Purples

• Greater Quintessence of Desolation Pretty Standard AD Quintessence, paired with the Desolation Reds, and ANY Armor Pen item, plus your Gatling gun Gg.
• Greater Quintessence of Might These give you an extra 13.5 AD, which is nothing to sneeze at.
• Greater Quintessence of Alacrity Once again, these are nice for the Attack speed, but I wouldn't get them with the Alacrity seals, but you can experiment away with whatever you want.

Item build 2

Item build is the same but different. We're taking a Banshee's Veil instead of a Guardian Angel To mitigate the CC from the enemies. The last 2 items in the build order are gone, mainly because you are going to assess the situation. If you have a pure tank like Shen or Rammus Then you can go for some heavy AD. If you have a high AP enemy team you can get a Force of Nature and something like the Phantom Dancer For some epic Crits. AD heavy you can do well with a Guardian Angel Or a Frozen Heart and a The Black Cleaver OR a Last Whisper for their Tanky guys.

You get the picture, assess the enemies, and counter them. If this helps I'll throw in a few pointers on countering.

Counter-Building

So this is something I didn't think of till I finished writing the 2nd Item build. Here're a few things you can do to counter enemies.

if you have an AD heavy team, (Ex. Nocturne Tryndamere Ashe Annie Nidalee) then you are going to want to build some things to hinder their AD, good examples: Frozen Heart Guardian Angel or Randuin's Omen. Bad Examples: Zhonya's Hourglass Atma's Impaler Sunfire Cape

If the enemy is AP heavy {Ex. Malzahar Swain Singed Karthus Xin Zhao) Then you want to get things that will handle their high AP burst, and allow you to end them after it's over. Good Example: Banshee's Veil (Included in Main build, good if skipped) Force of Nature Quicksilver Sash Wit's End (Good in Certain situations, if you get this skip a Phantom Dancer) Bad Examples: There really aren't many. Unless you lack common sense and build an Abyssal Scepter or a Lich Bane You should be fine.

Summary

Thank you for reading my 1st guide here on Mobafire, I'm sorry there's so much text, and not alot of Pretty stuff, but hey, Maybe if the guide is being used I'll Try to set some of that stuff up. Also a BIG Thank you to JhoiJhoi and her "Making a Guide" Guide, without it I'd be still trying to learn how to code this stuff. Anything you have for suggestions leave me a comment about, any Spelling or Grammatical Errors let me know, and that's about it. Have fun Acing them with the Ace ;)

P.S. Added in a 2nd build, feel free to test it out, and don't take my section on counter building and use it in every situation, adapt, for example, if they are CCing you like crazy and you skipped Cleanse Don't get the Force of Nature Get the Quicksilver Sash. That's it.

TO DO LIST:

• Make the guide look prettier
• Work on a farming section for Corki
• Teamfight Skill Sequence
• Add a second Quick page and a section dedicated to it.