Competitive Corki guide

Quick explanation on how to build Corki

Now that my guide became a bit complicated with all the builds, I decided to make this chapter for anyone who is not looking to read a guide about Corki, and just came here to get a general idea on how to build Corki, and what runes, masteries and skill order are recommended. Here I will give a short explanation and some recommendations on building Corki

• There are 4 builds in this guide, the first three are pretty much the same, and the last one is different however.
  I generally recommend the last build ( The Bloodthirster rush), I find it the best out of the builds in most cases.
  
• Masteries are not strict, as long as you have at least 21 points in offense, you're good. The remaining points you can put where ever you prefer.
  
• For runes I highly recommend the rune set-ups I suggested.
  
• For summoners spells, always take Flash. You need it to make plays throughout the game. For the second spell Heal and Cleanse are strong defensive options ( I prefer to take one of these spells), while Exhaust and Ignite are strong offensive options.
  
• Skills ranking order: Maxing Phosphorus Bomb first gives you a nice early Nuke, but I actually recommend maxing Gatling Gun first, which is very powerful combined with an early B. F. Sword.
  

These are the my general guidelines, good luck :)

Introduction

Thanks to Nyoike for the banner!

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Welcome to my guide and build for competetive Corki for rank games!
English is not my native language, but I will do my best to make as little mistakes as possible.

When I was still new to lol, I randomly bought Corki without trying him out before, and immediately fell in love with him. He is very fun to play, and one of the best AD carry in the game. He is my most played champ in rank games, and the only champ I bought a skin for, Urfrider! :)
These are my rank stats with him, elo 1600 Solo Q

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Season 2 has begun a few weaks ago, and I'm still having great succses with Corki using this build. My current Elo is 1610, and ranked in place 542 on the EU N&E Solo Q ladder.


Here are my updated rank stats:

I moved to EU W since then. I play less AD carry now, and more jungle and top, but if I feel like AD carry, I usually go for Corki. I feel that he is still a strong and viable pick, even more in view of his recent buff.


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For a long time, I used Reginald's Corki build. It really is an amazing build, but it is outdated. That build was written a while ago and fitted the old US Meta. After dreamhack, (I think it was after dreamhack, I'm on eu so I'm not exactly sure) US changed their Meta to the EU Meta. Reginald didn’t update his guide to fit the new Meta, and I believe a new up-to-date corki build is needed here on mobafire. Therefore, I decided to write my own guide and show my build, which fits the current Meta.
In the old US meta im referring to, you would go mid as Corki. Now, in the "new" eu meta, you go bot with the support. You probably already know this if you play rank games.

This guide includes 4 builds. They are all similar in the main core items, I explain more about each build in the chapter "The builds".
Build 2 is the main build. Builds 3 and 4 are different versions of build 2.
Build 4 is the new build, and it is the one I am currently using. Try the different builds, see what fits your play style and what works the best for you. Also feel free to play around with different runes and mysteries, although I highly recommend the rune pages that I show here.

I would like to give Credit to jhoijhoi and her* guide "making a guide" which you can find here. Thx for helping with formats and stuff, and making my guide look prettier =D

Player's scores using this guide

Here I'll show scores people got when using this guide.
If you used this guide, and had success playing Corki, you can post your scores in a comment and I'll show them here :)

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Acronyms

This are not all the acronyms I used, just some important ones that are needed for understanding what the hell im talking about

AD-- Attack dmaage
AP-- Ability power
Arp-- armor penetration
BC-- The black cleaver
CC-- Crowed control
DPS- Damage per second
CD-- Cool down.
LW-- Last whisper

A closer look on Corki

Before we start, let's get a better understanding on this great champion, Corki.

first, why do we play Corki as an AD carry, and not as an AP caster?

Corki's AP ratios are pathetic. Even if he had better ratios, he would still be a horrible caster, because using Valkyrie in order to do damage forces you to get right in the middle of the fight, and your galting gun is absolutely useless without AD... not good :(
So, why an AD carry? What makes him the strong and very viable carry that he is?

• Turns tanks into squishies, gets squishies to negative armor.
• Awesome passive for an AD carry
• Corki's abilities greatly boosts his early damage as well as his late damage, even without any AP items.

So, what do we get? A carry that deals physical damage, magical damage and true damage, have insane single target burst and AOE damage, shreds armor like nothing, has very high nuking damage in early-mid game unlike other carries and insane dps late game, and has a great escape mechanism. Sounds pretty good isn't it?

Now this is all really nice, but not everything is perfect about Corki!

• Corki's auto attacks range is 550. You must come very close to the action of the fight in order to deal damage, unlike carries like Caitlyn and Tristana, who safely shots from a mile away... Corki requires great positioning to do well in team fights. This is the hardest aspect of playing Corki!
• Corki is super mana hungry! An easy way to fix this problem is buying a Manamune, however doing this will sacrifice damage and slow down the core build progress. Another ways is to use mana regen runes. And the best, and yet the hardest way-is to simpley learn to conserve your mana well at early-mid game.
• Corki has a very slow basic movement speed of 300, 370 with lvl 2 boots. Trinity Force solves this problem.
• Corki is almost exclusively a pure damage dealing champion. He has no CC and Phosphorus Bomb is his only utility which detects targets for 6 seconds.
  If you fail to get enough Minions/Champions, you will be pretty useless o your team.

An important thing to know about Corki is that he is not an ordinary right-clicker carry. He is, just like Ezreal, what I call an AD caster. Only a combination of his auto attacks and his abilities will allow you to to reach Corki's full DPS potential.

Pros / Cons

spaaaaaaaace

Pros + High single target burst damage + AOE damage + Shreds armor + physical, magical and true damage + Excellent farmer + strong poke and harass + strong early-mid game nuker + Amazing late game dps + built in flash-like ability + Urfrider skin is epic

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Cons - Mana dependent without Manamune - auto attack range is 550 - Lacks any form of CC. - Low base movement speed - Somewhat hard to play and master - - - - -

Masteries

21/9/0 for higher damage output, and some survivability.
I actually thought that when Riot will nerf Flash( btw I'm actually very happy they did), I'll go full utility to have my flash with lower CD. But once I saw the new offensive tree, I knew it is too awesome to miss. Note that the new mastery trees have much less strict set-ups than the old trees, and they allow players to be much more creative and unique when it comes to choosing masteries. So feel free to try new things and play around with different set-ups and masteries, and find yourself the set-up that suits your playstyle.

Offense

Weapon Expertise and Sunder are mandatory.

Deadliness and Lethality Will incrase your late game auto-attack damage.

Executioner and Havoc in combination with Hextech Shrapnel Shells is insane.

Defense

Hardiness and Resistance: Will improve your durability a bit. The bonus armor is very useful in the laning phase.

Durability and veteran's scar more health, which means more survivability. Can't go wrong with this.


*I find that 9 points in the defensive tree is better than 9 in the utility tree, however 21-0-9 is also viable.

** For build 3 I Invest more than 21 in the offense tree, because I want to get 3 points in Vampirism, because in build 3 I get the bloodtherstier very late in the game, so I need extra life steal. After I get the 3 points in life steal, I can't get veteran's scar, so I just put the rest of my points ןמ improved Flash, some armor, and further more in offense. You can choose to take 21-9-0 for build 3 as well and just get an early Vampiric Scepter.

Runes

Summoner Spells

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By far my favorite spell. Great for squishes who need a fast get the **** out button. Combined with your Valkyrie, you are very hard to catch.

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/ Now that Cleanse removes Exhaust and Ignite, it is just amazing. Most of the times I will pick it. Not only that it removes all Crowd Control Effects that are affecting you and exhaust and ignite, it also lowers the duration of new ones applied by 65% for 4 seconds( with Summoner's Resolve). This is the ultimate spell for an AD carry currently.

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• Exhaust would be my next choice after Cleanse, if the enemy team has very little CC. It is a great spell, for duelings, chasing, escaping, and stopping anti-carries like Akali, Irelia and Nocturne from killing you in team fights.
• I value this spell much more now! For a long time I had a problem in games where the enemy team had 2 offtanks with jumping abilities that can dive and chase you in team fights, like Irelia+ Nocturne or Nidalee+ Renekton. Exhaust won't help you against two anti carries, and flash won't do either, you will be spending your entire team fight running and dying eventually. Take Ghost instead of Flashin this situation, and you will be able to run away and kite them.
• Possible , with it you can port to pushed lanes and destroy towers, and farm huge minions waves. However there are more important spells for you as a carry to take.
• Decent spell for Corki. Securing early game kills, nice true damage late game to finish off tanky enemies. I prefer Exhaust for an offensive spell.
• A very strong spell to have on a team, especially against AOE damage comps. Discuss with your support player before the game starts and make sure that one of you takes it. Its not a must spell to have on a team, but its highly recommended and helps a ton in small skirmishes and team fights.

Everything else is either useless or not your job to take.

Abilities

hextech shrapnel shells An excellent passive for an AD carry. Note that is also scales with Sheen and Trinity force procs.


Phosphorus Bomb
A strong harassing tool in the lane and your only utility. This should be maxed for high magical damage output very early on, and allows you to be a threat even before you got any of your core items.
Instead of the partial blind this skill used to have, it now detects enemies for 6 seconds. I know that many people are disappointed with this buff, but I have to say that I think Riot did really good job. The partial blind was pretty op and made it impossible for almost any AD champion to 1v1 him. Giving him that ability back would have made him OP again. However the detection make this ability useful again, without making it OP. Corki obviously still needs a few tweaks, but Riot are definitely going in the right direction.


ValkyrieYour escape/reposition/chase ability, And an amazing one. Huge range, and with a decent cooldown. In team fights, its almost always better to use it defensively rather than offensively. While escaping, use it to jump over walls. If you bought Manamune, spam it in order to move faster around the map.
Max this last, for obvious reason. It is an escape mechanism, and 1 point in it is enough.



Gatling Gun This is your melt face ability. Just spray the enemy team, shredding their armor to nothing. A very cool thing about this skill is that it keeps firing even if you are stunned.
I max this second. Like all AD carries, your auto attacks will be pretty weak early game, and so this skill isn't vey strong at early levels. I prefer to focus on being a nuker early game, by maxing Phosphorus Bomb. Gatling Gun, In contrast to Phosphorus Bomb, it is pretty weak early, however it becomes stronger and stronger as the game progresses.
*The remade to Gatling gun didn't really change Corki. It does a bit more damage per second now, since 68 is higher than 40% of Corki's base AD. Basically the remade made the skill strong at early levels, But made it weaker at max rank, due to the fact that the old Gatling lasted for 5 seconds at rank 5. This remade didn't buff or nerf Corki, and according to Riot, it was just made so they will be able to buff Corki in the future without accidentally turning him OP like he used to be. could


Missile Barrage Amazing skill which is used for poking, harassing and increasing your DPS.
AOE, and super long range. Once you get this, you should be able to dominate your lane.
Use it in lane to harrase. Poke with it before fights. Spam it in the start of the fight to deal massive AOE damage. Scout bushes for campers. And of course, shot it between autoattacks to greatly increase your damage output. Before a gank, make sure you have the Big One ready. At lvl 7, Q+R combo kills the 3 mage minions.
Its possible to steal baron/dragon with it. If you have vision on the Baron/Drgaon and the enemy team are doing it, click on the monster to see it's health, charge a Big missile, and wait for the right moment to shot. It's extremely hard to beat smite with it, but doable


General tip: Use SmartCast! I started using smart cast a few weeks ago, and I can say that it is much easier and simpler to play thit way. I noticed instant improvement in my game once I got the hang of it. I recommend to bind your normal Q W E R D F keys to Smart Cast and use it on every champion. Smart casting on Corki may not be as important as for champions like Graves and Akali, though it does makes your Phosphorus Bomb+ spamming Missile Barrage easier to use, but the main reason I recommend using it on Corki is Valkyrie. Before I started using Smart cast, I remember many situations when I was stuned and I knew that pressing W and then right-click would not be fast enough for me to survive, so I was forced to use Flash. However if you smart cast, you can spam W while stuned, so it would be immediately used when the stun ends.

Items

Before we chose our items, we first need to decide on which stats we are going to focus.
There are 3 stats that increase physical damage. AD, Critical strike chance, and attack speed

Critical strike is the best way to deal the most damage on an AD Auto attacker. Especially buying a Infinity Edge which is one of the best and most cost efficient item in the game.
And yet, our Daring Bombardier is not your ordinary rightclicker carry!
Corki's damage comes from his abilities just as much as from his autoattcks. You can check your match history, and you will see that half of the damage you deal each game is magical damage. Your Phosphorus Bomb and Missile Barrage do more damage than you think, and they can't crit! Also, Missile Barrage has a small AD ratio. Gatling Gun also gains damage from AD, and so is your passive. As you can see, AD is the stat that synergies best with corki.
For this reason, we are going to focus mostly on Attack Damage, and less on Critical Strike and Attack Speed

starting item

If you are not building Manamune, another Doran is a good idea.

Boots

Optional Manamune

Mid game main goal

Late game offensive items

Defensive

Last item possibilities (sell manamune)

Situational items

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The logic behind the build

Reginald in his build starts with or x5 This item choices fit the old US meta. Both items pathes are ment to help you stay longer in the mid lane. Now, you will have a support champ in your lane, who will heal you, so the pots arent needed :) (Unless you are laning with janna size or Zilean
The doran's blade is a great starting item and very cost efficient, a very good buy. If you skip the Manamune, I recommend getting another one. It will grant great early survivability damage, and sustainability. A third one isn't smart, because you will have to sell it due to lack of space while building up the Trinity Force

Only take this if the enemy team looks something like this: Or if they are very AP heavy.
If the enemy team doesn't look like the one above. I take this 95% of the times.
*Sometimes, I start with Berserker's Greaves, and sell them later for Mercury's Treads if I'm having troubles with CC or Magic Damage.

Should you buy it or rush Trinity Force? Player preference, more about this next chapter.

Amazing offensive item for Corki that also provides great utility. Expensive,yea, but worth it. We want this ASAP. Corki benefits from all of it's stats(except the AP). And of course the amazing passives: The Phage helps chase, kite, and keep people under gatling gun fire. Corki spams abilities all the time, especially his 1.20 sec CD ult. This means Sheen proc every 2 seconds! Corki without a trinity force isn't a true Corki...
I tend to start with Phage first, because I like to keep people under gatling gun. You can choose to start with Sheen first for burst damage and more mana.
* My final build for Corki is very similar to an ordinary right-click carry build. The difference, is that I have Trinity Force instead of Phantom Dancer.
Phantom dancer greatly boost Auto attacks damage. However, as I explained earlier, a lot of Corki's damage is done through his abilities. Because of that, Corki's overall DPS is greater when getting Trinity Force, which provides good Critical strike chance and Attack speed, AD which Strengthens most of his abilities, enough mobility (since Corki is already very mobile with Valkyrie), and the amazing procs. On top of that, we get more mana, health, and the ability to slow.

You are going to go like the build up to the trinity force every game. After that, it depends on the game. Last Whisper, The Bloodthirster and Banshee's Veil are usually the best choises, and the order in which you buy them depends on the game.

Best damage choice. Corki synergies with AD the best, and of course the life steal is great.
Last Whisper Now with the new Weapon Expertise mastery this is always better The Black Cleaver, and should be bought every game.
Banshee's is a great item on carries. Blocking a spell is priceless for you, and can save you from getting caught early in a fight by a stun, and from being 1 shoted by the enemy AP carry. Banshee's is best bought when the enemy team has some strong nukers that your team cannot stop from getting to you.
*Banshee's is a great defensive item and I pick it most of the time, however Guardian Angel and Quicksilver Sash are also great. It really depends on the situation.

If for some reason the game still goes on, sell Manamune if you bought it, and get:
For epic autoattack damage. Best choice for more damage.
if you need mobility.
If they stacked HP. Madred's Bloodrazor is an overpriced and generally not a very good item. However, it can prove to be useful if the enemy team stacked a lot of HP, which is very often in today's Warmog's Armor+ Atma's Impaler Meta.

Situational items

When laning with a support that has no heal, such as Janna, start with either Cloth Armor or Boots of Speed, and then rush Wriggle's. It will allow you to sustain yourself in the lane, get an edge on your opponent in the lane, and have dragon control. The downside to this item is that it slows down your core build by 1600 gold.

This is very situational. If the enemy team is VERY physical damage heavy with many right-clicker, like Yi+Ashe+Xin, take this along with a pair of Ninja Tabi.

If Banshee's Veil isn't needed (very little cc or none on the enemy team), But you still want some defense, this is a great choice.
* Gardian Angle is best bought in games when your team are doing bad and you are completely carring them- In this games you will get all of the focus in every team fight, and if you will die your team won'tbe able to do anything after your dead. For this games GA is the best choice for a defensive item.

Can replace Banshee's Veil to counter Warwick and Malzahar ults. Also used to counter Morde's Children of the Grave+ Ignite combo and Vlad's Hemoplague.
This item is also a great pick against teams that have many single-target CCs and nukes. Against these teams, if your Banshee's veil shield pops and a stun is thrown on you, it will be followed by a chain of CCs/nukes/both- which will kill you. Quicksilver Sash will allow you to escape these CC chains. *I actually value QSS much more now, and pick it over Banshee's Veil many times. Generally, get QSS vs many CCs and Banshee's vs high burst mages.

Consumables

Elixers help Alot, and people tend to forget about them. They are relatively cheap and vastly buff your champ for their duration. I dont recommend spamming them, because you will fall behind with your build, but you should get them at crutial points:

• When you know there is going to be a big fight over Baron or Dragon soon.
• Before a big full team push.
• When the enemy team are full team pushing into your base.
• When you want extra power for a certain reason ( for example to dominate your lane).
• When you finished your build and got nothing to buy anymore.

Remember to prioritize > >

Leave it to the support. You don't want to give your enemies another reason to focus you.

At early game If I finish buying, and I have room and a bit of gold to spare, I pick up a ward or two. But warding is mostly the job of the support and jungler, don't waste too much of your gold on them.

Manamune, Why yes and why not?

Should I buy this item on corki? This question has been bothering me for a very long time.
First, lets at the stats these item provides, and analyze it.

Why yes?

The manamune gives 350 mana at start.1350 mana when fully charged.
Lets say you went to the bot lane and focused on farming, as you should. by lvl 7 you have enough gold to buy the manamune. At lvl 6 corki has 465 base mana, 815 with the 350 from manamune. 2% of 815 is 16.3
So, at lvl 6 a Manamune will give 36 damage. This is obviously not worth it, considering the fact that a B.F sword gives you 45 AD for 1650. But, you also get unlimited mana . In addition, Corki can easly charge the mana up. At lvl 18 when fully charged the Manamune gives 78 AD. This is actually really great! 78 AD and unlimited mana! But, you have to remember, that at lvl 18 you wont have any problems with mana even if you didnt buy Manamune- so its actually only the AD. Still its cost efficent, You basicaly get some of the AD for free.

summary:

• Unlimited mana.
• Faster and easier farming.
• You won't get oom during or before important team fights
• Becomes cost efficent towards late game.
• Corki deals most of his damage from his abilities in mid game. Manamune makes sure you can always use them freely.
• Staying in lane for ever.

why not?

All it really gives in the offensive side, is pure AD. No special stats.
If you skip the Manamune, you'll very early enjoy the amazing utility and damage the Trinity Force will grant you. You will slow, have better mobility, and be a much bigger threat in terms of damage output.
Rushing Trinity force will let you Carry hard, right from the beginning of mid game.
Another argument against Manamune, is that early game, it will give you very poor amount of AD. But in the late game, when it actually provides good AD, the mana problems are already gone even without buying a Manamunu. So basically, late game its useless, because the mana was the only reason to buy it in the first place, and you could have bought an offensive item that actually brings important stats other than AD, like The Bloodthirster.

Summary

• Doesn't provide any important stats/utility. Only AD
• Late game mana problems are solved anyway. Bad offensive item Late game.
• Slows down your core build progress.
• Lower damage output.
  

In short

Manamune

Ability spamming, better farming. Lower damage.

No manamune

Carry hard, crazy damage. No ability spamming early-mid game, slower farming.

My opinion

Taking everything into account, I do believe that skipping manamune is a better way overall.
The amazing damage I have when I rush Trinity Force, is just too good. And yet, its very hard for me to be so conservative of my mana, especially due to the fact that i played Corki for so long and always got a Manamune as first item. I just love the feeling you get with Corki when you have manamune. Harassing like hell, moving quickly around the map by spaming Valkyrie, farming like a boss( you farm waves so fast, and you can stay on the map without needing to port back for mana, which results in more farming) , not having a care in the world about mana...On the other hand, I also like the feeling of having Trinity Force by 20 min, get into a big fight and destroy everything around me...
It depends on the player. Try both builds, and see what you like better and suits your play style.
Edit: After more games and tests, I'm now positive that build 1 is better. It's hard at first to get used to not spamming your abilities, and farming only with autoattacks... But once you learn to properly manage your mana, you will see great improvemt in your games with Corki. Manamune slows down the core build too much, also the mana isn't needed in late game anyway... It's not worth it.

Bottom line: Manamune is for players who are new to playing Corki. He is quite hard to play at first, since his skills can be very confusing. Having unlimited mana makes learning how to play him a lot easier. Once you are comfortable enough with him, you should start playing without Manamune. It may be difficult at first, but it's very rewarding.

The builds

Now that I added 2 more builds, I find it appropriate to add this chapter. Unlike the item chapter, this chapter won't give an in depth explanations about the items and the purchase order. It will merely give an overview on the 4 different builds, and their general purpose.

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Build 1

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spa

This is the main build. Tons of utility and burst very early due to the Trinity Force rush. The idea of this build is take advantage of Corki's high damaging and low cooldown spells, and make him a very strong nuker early-mid game, while also having more survivability and utility. After that getting the bloodtherstier to empower his his AOE damage, and of course for stronger auto attacks and sustain ( provided that you can keep the BT stacked. If you keep dying and not being able to farm it every time, you might as well get Infinity Edge instead). Late game transitioning into a Auto-attack AD carry, while still having pretty strong nuking power.

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Build 2

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spa

Build 2 is the same as build 1, just that it includes a Manamune. As I already explained in the guide, I find Manamune to be a bad item on Corki, though it is very helpful when learning to play Corki, since thinking about the mana and conserving it can be confusing when you are still not used to the champion and his mechanics. Though there are players who are not new to Corki and they still like to buy this item on him, there is nothing wrong with that, just player's preference.

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Build 3

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spa

This build is used when you are not able to deal AOE damage, and you need to count on your Auto attacks to deal damage in team fights. This usually happens when the enemy team have tons of CCs and have champions that can zone you out of the fight. In team fights like this, you can only auto attack from afar and not come close with your full combo, so getting Infinity Edge and Last Whisper fast will make your AA hit like a truck.

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Build 4

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spa

This is the new build, this is the build I use currently, and I'm having the most success with it. This build is different than the others, because I rush The Bloodthirster before Trinity Force, and I max Gatling Gun first. Unlike the other builds, build 4 is not about early burst damage. It is about strong sustained damage while Gatling Gun is on, extremely strong pokes and harass capability, and self sustaining. The downside of this build is lack of early burst damage, and having much less utility and durability early, due to the delayed Trinity Force. Note that when you use this build, it is better to be paired with a support that has many CCs, while heals are less important.

Farming

Farming is super important for carries. You should spend most of your early and mid game farming. Just farm all day, the more the better!! Only stop farming to join near by teamfights and ganks, and pressuring dragon. Other then that, just afk farm as much as you can. While you farm in your lane, harassing and aggression is important and good, as long as you make sure that you are safe and that you don't miss creep kills. Luckily for us, Corki's skill set makes him a potent farmer, one of the best in the game! + at lvl 7 kills the 3 caster minions. ++spamming destroy huge waves of creeps in 3 seconds. Destroying waves very fast, allows you to maximize your farm by quickly moving to farm a different lane or jungle.
So are you farming as much as you should?

Creep kills at 25 min

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Godlike-a 250 cs. //Insane score! Probably impossible if the enemy team is trying to stop you from farming

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Great- aa 200 cs.// This is what you should aim for.

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Good- aa 150 cs.// Not bad. Try harder!

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Bad- aaa/120 cs.// You should really work on improving your farming skills

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You suck- less then 100 cs. //You are a disgrace to carries and Corki in particular.

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Last hitting

I want to say a few words about last hitting.

Last hitting in League of Legends is very easy, and with Corki its super easy. He has an excellent attack animation, and with these runes and masteries, including the passive, at lvl 1 you will hit minions for~80 damage. In addition, you can use Phosphorus Bomb to kill multiple creeps.
The only problem you will face is if you are pushed to your turret.
If you don’t know how to last hit under tower, this is how it's done:

• Melee minions- Let the turret hit it twice, than hit it.
• Mage minions- Hit it once, then let the tower hit it, then hit it again.

In addition, Use Phosphorus Bomb if your autoattck will not be able to finish the creep before the tower hits it.

More tips:
If you aren't good at last hitting, play a custom game and just practice it.
Basically, the idea is that you want to wait and hit a creep only when it's HP is low enough so you can finish him in 1 hit, and not hitting it before (when you attack creeps for no reason, you push the lane).
There are 2 ways you can do this:
- Press on random spots near your champ to make him move a bit so he won't hit the
creeps, then Hit the itp when he is low enough.
- get near the creeps and hit S. Your champ will not take any action. Then hit the creep when he is low enough.

There several more tricks to make last hitting easier: Pressing S will cause your champion to stop in place and take no action, then you wait until a creep is low HP, then click on it for the last hit. This way you don't need to keep clicking around you to stop your champion from attacking. Another trick, is Using A to last hit, When pressing A you will be able to choose your target as if it was a targeting-skill. It's pretty useful, you are less likely to hit the wrong creep.

Placing Corki on a team

Before the nerf Corki got in patch V1.0.0.122, Corki was the unquestionable king of soloq. His ability to deal insane damage and farm like a crazy person without fear( Can not lose farm from getting zoned out due to Missile Barrage, and escape ganks with Valkyrie), allowed him to easily dominate pub games. Of course, he was also great in arranged teams/tournaments, best right after Ashe.

However, the nerf brought him down from that place. He took a strong hit to his damage output, but most importantly, he lost his one and only utility- Partial blind from Phosphorous Bomb ( which makes this ability pretty useless after the laning phase, and it should definitely get the blind component back). He is still a viable pick, though a bit weaker than other AD carries, such as Caitlyn and Vayne.
You may have noticed that While Corki rocked Dreamhack, He wasn't picked at Gamescome even once... That makes me sad :(

So as I was saying, Corki is not that strong at the moment, and in many situations there are better picks than him.

So when is Corki a good pick? What team composition are good for him?

Corki synergies extremely well with AOE damage teams that also have a lot of CC, and many Physical damage dealers.
Corki is able to deal tons of AOE damage, and the combination of him with other strong AOE champions, will lead to a very strong team-fights team. Lots of CCs are needed, because Corki, who deals his damage from a very short range, can not come too close to the middle of the fight. However, CCs will disable the enemies, and, well- control the crowd, so you will be able to come close and deal damage to multiple targets.

So why does Corki synergies with physical damage champions? Because he Shreds armor. Corki's Gatling Gun reduce up to 50 armor to multiple enemies. Add The Black Cleaver, and you will be able to reduce up to 95 armor ( for a single target however)!
Corki is great with 2 other physical damage dealers on his team. The enemy team will focus on getting armor, which you will shred anyway, allowing your AP carry to deal maximum damage.

Example for a great team composition for Corki:

Other great team comps:

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Against Which team compositions you should avoid picking Corki?

As I said, Corki is forced to get really close to the fight in order to deal damage. If he gets too close, he is in danger of getting caught by a CC and get bursted down.
Teams that are exceptionally good at locking down and focusing a single target, may be very bad for corki to play against. A team like that can kill you if you try to deal damage in fights, or just zone you out of the fight, making you pretty useless.
when facing teams like that, a much better pick than Corki would be carries with long attack range, who can deal damage from far away, such ase Caitlyn and Tristana

Examples for team compositions that are hard to play against as Corki:

Against the last team, I player myself in a ranked match. We had a big advantage over them after early game, we destroyed the tower in all lanes, we had dragon, more kills... And yet once team fights started, we lost them all. I was not able to be helpful to the team at all. Rammus stood as a wall between me and the teamfight. If i was even trying to come close to the fight, I was taunted by him and insta-killed by Akali and Brand. All i could do was hit that rammus, but since he heavily focused on armor, I wasn't even able to kill him. We won that game after all by quickly grabbing baron after killing Ashe who stayed for way to long farming alone in mid lane, and then pushing right into their base. If the game would go any longer, we would have lost most likely.
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• After recent nerfs, Corki isn't the top carry anymore, and most if the times there are better picks than him. However, at some situations he can still be amazing.
• Corki synergies great with AOE teams, who also has many CCs.
• Corki is a good pick for AD heavy teams, due to his armor reduction ability.
• Corki performs poorly against teams with many single-target CCs and Nukes.

laning partners

In the current Meta, in most games you will go to the bot lane with your support.
The main reason for this Meta, are:

• 4 champions gets maximum farm.
  
• The support gets no farm, however support champions does not scale well with items as other champions does. The support's supportive/disruptive abilities, such as Sona's Aria of Perseverance and Crescendo, make him very helpful to the team, even without items. In addition, he can get gold from Gold per 10 items and runes.
  
• Offtanks are great solo lane champions, due to the fact that they are great duelers, and most of they times they have some sort of way to sustain themselves, through an ability/their passive- like Irelia's Hiten Style and Udyr's Turtle Stance
  
• The AP carry is better for a solo lane, because he scales very well with levels. Leveling up his abilities makes him much stronger. AD carries on the other hand, doesn't scale that well with levels, so they are OK sharing experience with another champion, as long as they get all the creep kills.
  
• Healer+Carry is a great lane.( Healer, not any support. This Meta kind of kicked out Janna and Zilean who used to be top supports. They are a bit more viable after the major heals nerf though)
  The healer heals himself and the carry, providing them both with extreme lane sustainability. Any due bot that does not include a healer- have a hard time staying in that lane for a long while.
  But the most important advantage to the Support+Carry bot, is making sure that the carry can farm. AD carries are completely dependent on farming to do well. They scale extremely well with items, and they desperately need gold in order to buy them. Putting A carry in a solo lane, means that if he gets beaten and zoned out, there is no one who could help him, and he will quickly fall behind in farm. The Support heals him, use CCs if he has against enemies who try to attack him, harass the enemies, warding around the lane to provide protection from ganks. Basically, he will do his best in order to let the Carry have the best early game as possible and let him freely farm.

So basically, the Support job in the bot lane is to help you have the best early game possible.

So what does Corki needs to get from his Support in order to have a great laning phase?

To answer this question, we first need to examine Corki's weaknesses and Strengths in the lane:
The Biggest problem Corki faces in the lane is harass. Corki's short attack range allows longer range carries, especially Caitlyn, to bully him in the lane. In addition, he can easily get zoned by a support that has a CC who camps in the brush. However, past level 6, Corki's enormous damage allows him to become the bully himself. Other weaknesses Corki has while laning is mana, and the fact that he has no CC. His strength is that his auto attacks are stronger than most other carries in the lane due to his passive Hextech Shrapnel Shells.
To sum it up:

• - Corki gets bullied and zoned by strong lanes set-ups.
• - Mana hungry
• - No CC. Relies on the support and the jungler(when he ganks) to provide CC.
• + Extremely high damage output past level 6.
• + Strong early auto attacks
• + Usually dominates the lane past level 6.

now that we have an insight look on Corki's laning phase, we know what he needs from his support in the lane: Corki needs a support who can sustain him though heals and protect him through CCs, in order to allow him to passively, and yet effectively- farm his way up to level 6.
In addition, he requires the Support to have some sort of CC, to allow him to kill, zone out the enemies and dominate the lane, once he gets to level 6.

I will show now some great Supports for Corki, and some who are less good. There isn't really a "bad" support to lane with- after all they are there to help you. However some are better, and some are less..
* I have recently acknowledged the power of unconventional supports, like Nunu, Leona, blitscrank and more. I have listed here the main support champions in the game, the ones that you will usually see ( well except Karma :D ). I'll try to gather more information and hopefully more experience with laning with unusual supports.
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Partners for Build 4

Build 4 gets his own list. That is because it requires different qualities from the support.
Strong sustaining support is not that important, nor a support with strong harassing abilities. All you need is someone who can CC well, to keep the enemies under constant Gatling Gun fire.

Leona

spaaace

#1 is Leona, CC Queen. Before level 6 her 2 CC can net you a kill or two. But once she gets to level 6, and you get your B. F. Sword, you two are unstoppable. With 3 CCs, 1 of them AOE, high burst damage, and tankiness through base stats and Eclipse , she is the ultimate support for a Corki using build 4. The combination of her full CC and AOE damage Combo, that can hold 2 enemies for the entire duration of Gatling Gun and some Missile Barrage, is just destructive. I guarantee that once you are both 6, there is no way that you won't crush your lane, unless the enemy laner's have a much much higher skill level than you. However their is a downside to Leona, and that is that other than CCs, she can't do anything to, well, support you. That is of course, because she was not designed to be a support champion ( but what can you do, there is no room for pure tanks in the current meta, unless they can jungle well like Amumu or Rammus).

Janna

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Janna is #2, and she is amazing here for two reasons. First, the combination of her CCs can keep a running foe under Gatling Gun, auto attacks and Rocket spamming for a long time. Second reason, is her shield. When you already have high AD with The Bloodthirster, plus her shield which boosts your AD by 50 when maxed, makes your harassing damage with Auto attacks and Ult shooting incredibly strong. And finally, with a shield up on you, Gatling Gun firing, and Janna slowing down the escaping enemy, you can easily score a kill or force him to use summoners. Other than that, don't forget her great passive, and her ultimate, Monsoon, one of the most versatile spells in the game, that can also score you some kills in lane, or in other cases, save your life.

Sona

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Sona is #3. After all she is an amazing support for Corki, No matter how you build him. Her AOE stun Ult, high damage output, auras and heals, all just makes her a great support champion. Corki and Sona together can be very strong at harassing and zoning, and when you are both level 6 you can easily initiate a small fight in the lane, and probably win it.

Alistar

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Alistar is another strong partner. This Cow has super hard CCs right from level 2 (or 3, depends on what he skills), can dive like a baws, and has an heal. All good stuff. Plus, If you can get an early advantage in the lane, you two can completely zone out the enemies very early on. The problem with Alistar, is that he requires a lot of skill to play properly, and requires good amount of communication and mutual understanding between him and you, in order for the lane to go well. If you play in soloq, and you do not know the Alistar player, there may be some problems. A bad Alistar player, or an Alistar that goes for a CC combo when you are not ready for it, because you did not realise what he was about to do due to lack of understanding and communication, can just lead you both to feeding the lane hard. f you are afraid that that might happen, or unsure about his skill level, it may be better to ask that player to pick a different support.

Gameplay

Early game

Don't just go to your lane and sit there. The game starts at 0:00, NOT at 1:30 min.
Go to protect your jungler. Most of the times, the jungler will start at blue. You want 3 guys to protect the blue with him, and 1 protecting the entrance to the other side of your jungle (red buff side). If your team has a very good lvl 1 team ( ex: , , ) Or if your team has Clairvoyance and the enemies don't- go gank at their blue/wherever their jungler starts.

Early lanning-Passive farming.

In the lane, I usually play defensive, passively farming until lvl 6-7, while also poking a bit. I feel that before level 6, I don't have an advantage over the enemies in the lane, and that they have about the same chance of killing me as I have to killing them. I prefer to wait to when I'm 6, when I know I have an advantage. With that being said, you still should harass if you have a chance to do so without getting hit back. Your passive Hextech Shrapnel Shells means that when you and the enemy carry exchange hits, he will take more damage than you. Abuse it! Once you hit lvl 6-7, you should have 2000-2500 gold if nothing went wrong. Spam abilities, push your lane, and port back.

After first trip lvl 6-7- Aggressive play

Buy your stuff. Throw in a few pots and a ward if you have some money left.
Now its time to play aggressive. With ur ult, You now have higher damage than most carries.
Wait for your support to place wards in the entrance to the lane and on dragon. Now you are safe from ganks. These are the possible ways to behave in the lane now:

• Harass. Ults, Qs and Autoattacks. Force the enemy support to burn his mana on heals.
• Go for a kill. If you think you can kill, go for it. Especially if you have a support with cc like Taric or Sona.
• Zone. If they fear you, you can zone them.
• Push. With proper wards around your lane, pushing is a very good idea. Causes enemy to miss last hits, and you can damage their turret.
• Passively farm. If you think that the enemies in your lane has an advantage over you.

Now, you may be very strong after level 6, but it doesn't mean you have total domination and can kill whoever you wish. If you start an auto attacking fight with an Ashe who has Sona as a support, you know that at some point Ashe will Enchanted Crystal Arrow, followed by Sona's Crescendo, and you will die.
You want to bait the Ashe arrow first, throw a combo on her, and FORCE her to Ult. Since you have full-high HP, even if Sona also Ults, you won't die. Back off, get heals from your support, and NOW you are free to kill/zone them, when their Ults are on CD.

Mid game

Mid game usually starts when a turret is destroyed. The players from that lane start to roam the map, looking for ganks and lanes that require help.
In mid game, you still want to farm as much as possible . This is still your main objective. You can gank, and should join near by team fights and dragon kills of course, but always make sure you dont fall behind on your Creep Score.


Mid game fights aren't very hard.The AP carries are going to be the biggest targets, not you, and if you get too much damage you can always Valkyrie to safety.

*I cannot really tell you when you should do what, or how you should act at a certain situation.
Most of the time I Afk farm, only fighting enemies from my lane. However, sometimes it is better to do other things with your time, like come to or even start some team fights, push with your team, solo push, presure dragon a lot, gank, play aggressively and search for kills, etc... It depends on so many factors, like the teams compositions, how the game is going, where are the champions at that time, what people are buying, if your or the enemy team has a certain strategy they are using ( like strong pushing, heavy jungle control.) etc. I can't just give straightforward instructions on how to play Corki at mid game. This is of course also true for late game. The more you play the more you learn what you should do at different situations. The best tip I can give about gameplay, which is alsomt always my biggest goal in most games: is to farm. ALOT

Late game

Late game. You are now a flying mustached killing machine, destroying everything in it's path.
Late game is all about team fights, and your job in them-is to kill. Ill expand on lategame team fights next chapter. The most important thing to do is be very careful when you walk around the map. Don't go alone too far away, don't facecheck bushes-use Q or ult. If the enemy catches you and kills you- your team is in big problems. You are the biggest damage source of your team. When you are dead, the enemy team can do baron with no fear, or just push into your base. Have Map Awareness!

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Late game team fights

*This part is only relevant for mid and higher elo. When i was elo 1200, I didn't have any problems with team fights. I could stand alone right next the whole enemy team, but they wouldn't attack me because they wanted to kill chogath cause he is so big. Just press E and rightclick 5 times and it's a penta-kill right there... good times =D*

I will only explain on late game team fights. As i said before, mid game team fights for corki are not really a big deal. The main damage dealers in mid game are the AP carries, so you aren't going to get focused that much. If you do get focused, most of the times you will be able to Valkyrie to safety before they will be able to kill you.
However, late game team fights, are much more difficult.
In late game, you are the biggest damage dealer in your team. Your job is to kill people in fights, destroy their HP bars. If you die early in a fight, your team will most likely lose the fight, and it will be your fault, perhaps your team's fault aswell if they didn't protect you well.

In team fights, you have 2 objectives:
Deal **** tons of damage to the enemy team, while STAYING ALIVE!!!.
You are the late game carry- your job is to do damage and kill. That's quite simple. But, you must remember your squishines, and the fact that the enemy team has you as #1 target to kill. If you get caught early in the team fight and die, your team will lose the fight, as I said earlier, because the biggest damage dealer died, before doing even close to enough damage to the enemy team. Even if you die in the middle of the teamfight time-wise, it would still probably end pretty badly. In addition, in late game team fights, 1 second in which you are in a bad position- and the enemy AP carry will nuke you down from full to 0 in 1 combo. You must stay safe while dealing your damage---> Positioning is key. This means, that you can't just run in to kill the enemy Ashe that hides in the back of her team the second the fight started, because it will cause you to be in the middle of team fight, a horrible position- You will get focused and die.
Another example of bad positioning- Running right behind the tank when he initiates, in order to do as much damage as possible while he is using his CCs- BAD. Enemy team will throw CC on your head as soon the tank's CCs are off, or an enemy that didn't get CCed will. After that they will chain CCs to lock you down and you will die. At some situations it's good to deal this damage while they are CCed, but always make sure not to go too far in, and that at least the offtank is in front of you, and back off if the danger of being nuked rises.
So, how can we do deal damage while staying alive? With corki's short auto attack range, it can be difficult. It all comes down to your positioning.

First few seconds of the team fight

Stay back. In this seconds, everyone are blowing stuff up, throwing their CC, ults and nukes everywhere. Amumu use Curse of the Sad Mummy, Annie summons her bear, Anivia throws Flash Frost,Jarvan traps people inside his Cataclysm. Chaos. You dont want to be there when all this happens. You should be at the back of your team with your support. You can still do damage of course:
- Missile Barrage Spam it. Try to hit the squishies in the back.
- Target someone you can hit while staying safely away from the action. Obviously if a squishy is out of position where you can reach him with good positioning, focus him. But most of the times, your best and safest target will be the enemy offtank:

• The offtank will be in the front of his team, so you can hit him while remaining in a good and safe position.
• Gatling Gun and Hextech Shrapnel Shells are great tools to help you cut through offtanks's armor like its paper.
• Offtanks are used many times as anti-carries. They might try to ignore you'r front line and jump on the squishies in the back. Basically, either kill him, or he kills you.
  Classic example for an offtank you should focus is Irelia.
  

After the first skirmish- Going in

The big ults and CCs are now on CD. Its time to jump into the action, unleash the true horror that is- a late game Corki. Blast all your spells, spam them as much as you can. Don't forget- Do as much damage as you can- but dont die!
Who should I focus?

Basic target priority:

1. Carries and support
2. Offtanks/tanky dps
3. Full tank
   

Target priority you should use in most cases, in order to keep a safe position:

1. Offtank/tanky dps
2. carries and support
3. Full tank
   

If you didn't kill the enemy offtank in the first skirmish, he is still your best target to focus. Again, if you see an important target that is in a bad position, kill him, as long as you stay safe.
The reason I wrote "full tank" and not just "tank", is because a champ who is labeled as a "tank" such as , and yet build few hybrid tank-offensive items- should be considered and treated more as a "tanky dps" , rather than a full tank, due to the damage he can deal to you, which is far from ignorable.
Once the tanky guys are out of the way- proceed to destroy the now protectless squishies.

Summary

Main goal: Deal tons of damage, while not dieing.

How to play in a team fight:

• Stay away form the middle of the fight when it starts. Shot Rs into the fight and focus whoever you can reach from far away, most of the times it will be the offtank/tanky dps.
• After the big CCs and ults are used, finish the offtank and proceed to the main fight to deal massive AOE damage and destroying everyone.
• Target priority you are going to use most fights in order to keep a safe positioning is:
  Offtank/Tanky dps> Carries and Support> Full Tank, while focusing any Carry or Support if they are in a bad position.

*Everything written in this chapter, takes into account that both teams have a good team composition= Tank/offtank, offtank, AD Carry, AP carry, support, and have lots of CC.
In a situation in which the enemy team has very little CC- team fights should be much easier for Corki, and focusing on the enemy squishies instead of the tanky guys is probably a better idea. Again, as long as you don't put yourself at a risk of dieing.

Final words

This the end of my guide.
Thank you for reading my guide, I hope you enjoyed it and found it helpful.
This guide is directed for competitive play, but casual players can learn from it just as much.
Plz comment, tell me if you like it or not, and rate accordingly.



Thanks to JhoiJhoi for the banner!

Change log

9/8/2011- Guide published

16/8/2011- Added Zeke's Herald and as situational items.

20/8/2011- Changed my opinion on Manamune- its not worth it. Added "things to come". Also changed the format of the runes chapter. Thx to searz's template!

24/8/2011- Fixed tons of spelling mistakes. Added chapter "Last hitting". Changed runes for Build 2.

28/8/2011- Added a new chapter: "Placing Corki on a team".

3/9/2011- Added a new chapter "Laning partners". The chapter is not yet complete, and I intend to add to it a section on hard setups to lane against.

4/9/2011- Added some more infomation to the "A closer look on Corki" chapter, and expanded a bit more about Trinity Force in the "Items" chapter

7/9/2011- Added skilling order in the ability chapter. Lol somehow I completely forgot about it... Also added a bit of information about Quicksilver Sash.

9/9/2011- Thx to jhoijhoi's comment, I am now aware of many mistakes and problems I have with the guide including organization, spelling mistakes, formatting and more. For now I fixed some spelling mistakes and merged the "Final words" and "Things to come" into 1 chapter. I'll keep working to fix as many mistakes as possible.

11/9/2011- Changed the format of the runes chapter, and fixed an eror, that I showed Arp Quints and not AD Quints. Merged the "Gameplay and "Late game team fights" into one chapter.

12/9/2011- Many changes to the formats... Also swiched the builds, now build 1 is the build without Manamune.

20/9/2011- More changes to formats

2/10/2011 Added a new chapter "Players scores using this guide". If u had success using this guide, post your scores and I'll show them in this chapter :)

25/10/2011- Added Greater Glyph of Shielding as an alternative to Greater Glyph of Clarity in build 1.

8/11/2011- Format changes. Also added Wriggle's Lantern as a situational item, and placed Sona as the best support to lane with as Corki.

17/11/2011- Hugggge update for the new patch which included a Corki buff and new mastery trees. Changed to Last Whisper instead of The Black Cleaver, removed Greater Glyph of Clarity and added greater seals of resilience to build 1.

30/11/2011- Another major update is out concerning the big fizz patch.

7/12/2011- Added a new chapter "The builds". Added a new build.

12/12/2011- Changed Exhaust to Cleanse in all builds

15/12/2011- Made some more updates, stil working on others. Added laning partners for build 4, Changed Greater Glyph of Shielding to Greater Glyph of Warding in all builds.

25/1/2012- New chapter "Quick explanation on how to build Corki"

19/2/2012- Removed Sword of the Divine and Zeke's Herald from situational items