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Caitlyn Build Guide by

Caitlyn with an Assault Rifle

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Caitlyn Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (3) More Caitlyn Guides

Spells:

Ignite

Flash

Items

New player starting items

Starting Item

Early Edge

Core Items

Rest of Build

Second AS Item Alternatives

Alternatives for the Last Two Blood Thirsters

Example of Final Build

Ability Order

Caitlyn Passive Ability

Introduction

Introduction
Hello, I have been playing LoL for quite a while now and and I have to say that there are few champions I'm better with then Caitlyn. I have been playing her for only a year, and I have won almost every game I played as her. When I started playing Caitlyn, I just used my AD Master Yi build I used in Season 1 when I started playing the game. After about a year of playing Caitlyn with this build, it evolved to what you see in this guide. One day, after wondering if my guide is viable, I looked on mobafire and realized that no one had a build exactly like mine, just similar. And after I played a couple games against other Caitlyns with different builds and winning those games by a mile, I decided to create a guide for Caitlyn. This is my first guide, so please forgive any shabby work in this guide.

Reason for the name
In my build I give Caitlyn lots of AS but still give her lots of AD, so she can swap between rapid fire auto attacks and single hit pokes. She can also snipe with her ult, so thus, she has an assault rifle which, unless I am mistaken (which i often am), makes her weapon effectively an assault rifle.

// SPECIAL THANKS: Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

My Shorthand

AS= Attack Speed
Crit- Ctirical Strike Chance
Crit damage= Critical strike damage
AD- Attack Damage
ADC= Attack Damage Carry
regen= Regeneration (as in health/mana regeneration)
HP= Healthpoints / Health
xp= Experience points
lvl= level
CD= Cool-down
CDR= Cool-down Reduction
Ult= ultimate ability

Pros / Cons

Pros

Longest unmodified attack range in the game.
Long-ranged finisher ult.
Pretty independent in lane.
Works well with any lane partner.
Yordle Snap Traps to replace wards and control enemies.
90 Caliber Nets to keep enemies away and go through walls w/o using flash.
Piltover Peacemaker is a strong poke

Cons

Squishy (like all ADCs).
Her ult is blockable.
Yordle Snap Traps are easy to see.
Often attacked first since she the the ADC.

Ability Descriptions & Uses

Piltover Peacemaker

Description

This spell is great for poking the enemy, which will lower there health enough that by the time you engage them, they will die much easier. This spell also does more damage then your auto attacks and hits every enemy in its path instead of only hitting the first enemy, but it loses damage each time it hits up to 50%, which is still a nice amount of damage.

Use

Of course, this spell should be used as a poke, but one thing you should try to do while you are poking is shooting the enemy from the other side of the minion wave since the minions act as a wall and you get to hurt some minions while you poke, thus increasing your creep score and getting more gold and xp. Try to use this spell only to initiate and kill running away enemies qwhen you go into a fight. If you use this when you could be doing auto attacks, you deal less damage because this spell take about 2 auto attacks worth of time to be cast and fired. The spell can also be used to attack enemy on the other side of walls.

Yordle Snap Trap

Description

You place a beartrap with a cupcake on it at a target location that arms after a second or two. Once stepped on, the enemy championis stunned for a few seconds while taking magic damage, and then is revealed on the map, for a few second, even if the enemy is invisible. The trap can only be triggered by enemy champions.

Use

The snap trap can be used to check bushes and behind walls because it reveals the area around it for a split second. It is also quite useful to stack traps onto each other since the traps will be triggered at after the other instead of all at once to the enemy can be stunned for 6 seconds (or 8 if you put a trap on the stack after the first trap is triggered). sicne the traps can be walked over, you can stack then directly on top of eachother, hiding the lower traps under the top traps. The traps can also replace wards by placing them in brush that gankers are likely to be in. Since Caitlyn charges her headshot faster in brush, you should place them at likely entrance points in the brush so that when enemies enter to attack you, they trigger the trap. Another useful place to put the traps in along a retreat path which you come up with before you start a fight so that you can retreat. You can also place the traps the block an enemies path or control where they are going. For example, you can place a trap between the enemy turret and the wall to keep enamies from taking that route, making them have to take a longer path or get stunned. You can also do the opposite of that and put three traps along the other side of the turret to make the enemy go through the little gap between the wall and the turret. One last use for the Yordle snap traps is to, while you are in a fight where you and your opponent are standing still hitting/shooting eachother, you can either place the snap trap on the enemy to stun him/her and get in some free shots, or put them towards where you are running so you can run away, or you can put it in the enemy's path of retreat.
Below is a poorly made chart I made of where to put traps. X's mean that that location is also a good spot for stacked traps.

90 Caliber Net

Description

Your shoot a net in target direction that pushed you in the opposite direction and hit the first enemy that comes into contact with the net (champion or minion) and does minor damage them while slowing them.

Use

You basically use it just like flash except that you place your mouse in the opposite direction and you have to click. Also, if you see an ally running away from an enemy, you can use the net to slow the enemy for them.

Ace in the Hole

Description

After you click on the enemy champion, Caitlyn gets into position to fire her rifle, which takes about .2 seconds, and if the enemy become invisible(by spell or entering fog of war) during this time, the spell will fail and a couple second CD is triggered. Then Caitlyn aims her shot for 1 second, which is faster then most people chat react to. While you she is aiming her shot, a targert will appear over her target's head and a red line is drawn between Caitlyn and her target that will show the path the bullet will take. If the enemy target disappears, there is a chance the shot will be cancelled and a couple second CD is triggered, iwht the chancesa of the shot getting cancelled decreasing the longer she charges up the shot. After the one second is up, Caitlyn will fire her bullet and it will follow the line to thee enemy, and if the enemy moves, the shot will actually charge direction towards the enemy. If the bullet encounters another enemy champion, it will hit that enemy champion instead of the original target. I personally have never seen the bullet deal less damage then it says it does, even though it deals physical damage and thus should be weaken by armor. These facts were made from my own observations and thus might not be entirely true.

Use

This spell should only be used to kill enemies, not start fights and deal extra damage. Since it's an ult, it has a long CD, so make sure it counts. Also, the one second it takes to fire the shot might feel really long to you, but its generally too fast for must people to block, so don't worry too much about that, just make sure there there is no unintended blocking when you aim the shot. One useful tip is to look at the notches in peoples' health-bar to see how much health they have left so that you can get your ult off without having to worry about the ult not killing them. Though most people might think it will take too much time to count the bars, it's really not. If you do it enough, it becomes something you do without even realizing it. Also, number of notches you need to count is small, so you might be able to even count them unknowingly now, just like how if there are 3 balls lying on the ground, you know there are three balls, but you didn't count them. Another tip with that is that every tenth notch on the health-bar is marked off by a thick line, so for the higher number of notched, you can count back form that line.

Passive: Headshot

Description

After a certain number of shots fired (amount decreases as you level up), Caitlyn's hands glow and the next shot she fires deals more damage. Also, Caitlyn charges her passive faster if she fires her shots from the brush.

Use

basically, when farming creep, do so in the brush. also, the glowing hands will scare off some enemies. its also helpful the save the charged shot for hitting the enemies for a stronger poke.

Strategies/How-To-Play

General Strategies:

This build is designed for taking advantage of Caitlyn's long range by using lots of auto-attacks, so guess what you should do in fights?

when you are low on health and you have a Bloodthirster AND A Runaan's Hurricane you should kill the wolves and/or the wraiths with auto attacks only. The reason you don't do this before hose items is that you won't have the life steal and attack damage to at the very least break even with damage dealt and damage received unless you have those. Before you get those items, attacking minions is fine, but I find that they health less than creep.

If you are about to fight a fight you might have to run away from, or if you are about to fight the dragon or baron, you should fight with your back to a wall that you can use 90 Caliber Net or Flash to go through in case trouble arises.

Try to keep either 90 Caliber Net or Flash off CD when ever you go anywhere so that you can run away from ganks.

Try to always have enough mana to use your ult, you don't need your q to hurt enemies tothe point where you can use you ult so you don't need to save your mana for that too.

Your First Fight

Generally, your first team fight should be right around when minions spawn as long as you ran right to your enemies in-lane brush right after you buy the in the recommended section of the store. Once the enemies show up, you want to run away a little (or as i call it, advancing backwards) while keep the enemy just outside your firing range and you outside there's, then turn around as they follow you and start shooting them down, focusing the ADC. This will make the enemy ADC start running away and you will chase the ADC down. The support will try to do something to stop you from killing the enemy ADC but won't do much since the support is level 1. And so, you will chase down the ADC and kill it, even if you need to flash to get last hit or use ignite. once the ADC is killed, leave turret and attack support, since by this time the support is usually running away but not unattackable. Unless you have less then 40% health, turret dive the support, especially if you have a summoner spell left. this will get you two kills before the minions can even start killing each other.

Early Phase/Farming

Attack minions and enemy champs with your Q, attack minions from bush, headshot enemy champs, and use snap traps to harass enemies, protect yourself, and act as wards. Try to stay in lane as long as possible, letting your and life steal heal you. Whenever you can, try to do the what I described in the above section.

teamfights

Keep way from enemy champions, don't focus the tank, and try to stay out of the confused mass of champions so that you can fire your ult without hitting someone else.

Items

Starting Items

A great starting item because it has AD, some hp, and a little sustain. Some people may prefer to get a since that has the same amount of AD and allows them to get potions.

This item is generally liked because it gives movement speed, makes boots cheaper, and allows you to get potions. I prefer to get a because I want to extra damage.

Early Edge

These items are optional (I actually almost never remember to use them and I do perfectly fine), but can give you an extra edge over your opponents (if you can remember them). You can get these items whenever as long as it doesn't delay too much your or , but they are still better in early game.

It gives extra AD and hp.

You get extra money and it can turn into another item later.

I personally have not used this item, but it seems like it's as good an item as .

Core Items

You generally get the after the , but you can get it before that if you go b before you can get enough gold for a .

Loads of AD to make sure you destroy 300 hp with your ult and all of the other good things that come from having loads of AD

some life steal for sustain and more AD for the saem reasons as the .

some movement speed to run around faster and AS to get those much needed attacks out.

Tons of attack damage to slaughter your enemies with, but you need to not die in order to use it to its max potential, so be careful while taking your risks, even if the after repercussions of dying have been weakened a few patches ago. You should get this item before if you are in base before 15minutes into that game and have the money for a bloodthirster.

This is probably the best item in the build since not only does it give loads of AS, but i also shoots off to other, weaker, attacks to two nearby enemies, which will heal you with more with 's life steal because more attacks are going out there.

The Rest of the Build: Second AS Item

You will buy one of these items after you get the so taht you have the attack speed needed to slaughter because although the hurricane gives a lot of AS, its still not enough for a complete slaughter of enemies.

Loads of AS, crit, some movement speed, and the ability to walk through units. What more could I ask for in an item?

This item is basically a burst of s worth of AS adn three guaranteed critical strikes.

Basically, if you are getting slaughtered by mages: get this. If not: don't.

If your enemy has a lot of cc, then get this. Another reason to get this is if you prefer to make your spells more powerful and focus on attacking with your q and ult instead of using basic attacks.

The Rest of the Build: The Last Two Items

For the last two items, I should make at least one of them another Bloodthirster for extra damage and life steal since you need to make up for lost AD from building AS the Bloodthirster has the most AD of all the items in the game.

As mentioned above, this items is to help make up for lack of ad while giving you more life steal for more sustain.

This item gives a great amount of AD, thus allowing it to replace if you are dying a lot, but it also give some crit and increases crit damage, thus making you basic attacks deal more damage.

Only really useful if the enemy has a lot of armor.

Only use if you have an issue with the enemy healing, such as and .

This item is mostly only useful against mages and heavy cc.

This item should only used if you like bursts and/or the enemy team has a lot of armor.

Only get this item if you are getting attacked a lot, but not killed, and the enemies are somehow managing to constantly outrun you.

Use this item if you are dying a lot in the early part of the team fight, but only in the early part since you don't want to revive surrounded by enemies and no allies.

Masteries & Runes

I don't think I really need to say anything about these. They increase damage and sustain, that is all. No weird choices or mysterious reasons, just get those and do good. Anything I have said should be obvious why I got it. Feel free to use your own runes.