Important: Morgana just recently had her autoattack redone to be made more responsive and thus makes this build much more viable. I implore you, Try this.

Hello, I'm Moric Koschuken, and this guide is all about turning Morgana into a menacing DPS champion. If you're about to vote this down because "Ignoring Morgana's AP scaling is a sin", please note that the point of this guide is to build Morgana for DPS. Yes, she's an excellent mage, but her abilities can also turn her into a very threatening ranged DPS, especially effective against those mages. Try this build before you vote. DPS Morgana has been tested with positive results in normal games and in the future will be tested in ranked play. In Co-op vs. AI matches she has ruled the scoreboard almost every single time.

I play Morgana as DPS because she is able to effectively hold enemy champions in place, and beat them into submission. Her Q holds them down while she auto-attacks away, her W can be placed on the minion wave to provide some healing (People will likely focus you, and this can save your life), her E is perfect for sustaining spells and CC while she takes down that pesky DPS or mage, and her R can be used on a fleeing champ, with the stun at the end allowing you to finish off that last bit of health. She has survivability, and very high natural attack power. With just a little attack speed and a little critical chance, she'll be a scourge on the field.

DPS Morgana is VERY aggressive, and you should make your first kill at 6, then roaming and ganking. You should always pick the middle or top lane. Do not play this build if you expect to succeed by sitting back and never throwing yourself into the fray.

Pros

• Plenty of CC
• Destroys mages
• Shuts down melee DPS
• Tough to kill
• Great pusher
• Great farmer
• Unstoppable once built
• Can be played aggressively

Cons

• Early vulnerability to ranged AD champions
• Mana regen problems
• Must be played aggressively

Above are the runes I prefer with this build, although in practice, any rune build is viable, or even using no runes. I do have good reasons for picking the ones above though, and here they are:

• Greater Quintessence of Desolation Extra armor penetration is always good, and these runes will give your basic attacks the extra bite to be effective early game.
• Greater Mark of Attack Speed Some bonus attack speed makes Morgana more of a DPS champ to begin with and makes her basic attacks more useful in the early game.
• Greater Seal of Armor Extra armor makes you safer if you decide to attempt to snare and smack away at enemy ranged champs, especially during the early game.
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist Extra magic defense, especially early game, can keep DPS Morg hammering away at the enemy with her basic attacks for longer.

Clarity is a central skill to DPS Morgana. It allows you to keep her mana up while not having to devote any gold to mana regen items. Always get this.


Exhaust, along with its associated mastery, shuts down enemy DPS and can catch a fleeing foe if your abilities are on CD. You should get this if you are in a 3v3, and maybe in a 5v5, but only if you feel confident in your ability to stay up in the lane. Get something else if you think Morgana's Q, R, and the slow from Frozen Mallet is more than enough CC.


Teleport allows you to sustain your position in the lane better, and set up ganks at later levels. Get this in 5v5 only. Phantom Dancer gives you enough movement speed to justify dropping it if you are confident in 5v5, and its use in 3v3 is marginal.


Flash is always a good spell to have on hand, and if you don't like Exhaust and Teleport, it's another good pick.


Ignite is a great choice if you didn't want to pick Exhaust, and are secure in your CC/escape abilities. Also a great spell for cutting down those pesky heals.

All other summoner spells could be useful, but none have as many applications as these.

Important!: DPS Morgana is about dealing damage with basic attacks. Your spells will not be effective for killing champions and you will need to use them intelligently to catch them and ruin them.


Soul Siphon is a delicious ability, giving Morgana a sizable amount of spell vamp to start. Keeps you in the lane longer, and can save your life.


Use Dark Binding to hold enemies in place, and start hacking away at them with your basic attack until the snare ends or they're dead. It doubles as an escape mechanism, stopping enemies in their tracks as they come after you. You should have one point in it at the beginning for attempting to get first blood, and then leave it alone until you have nothing else to level.


Tormented Soil is a valuable farming tool as well as a skill that allows you to stay alive longer in a teamfight. At third level, or second if you like, depending on how soon you're planning to rush in and kill your enemy, you should take one level in this skill. Use it to farm minions primarily, and if the enemy champion is getting close to the minion wave, you can use it as a bit of minor harassment. At later levels, it should be thrown in the middle of a minion wave during a teamfight, to provide a boost in health from Morgana's passive. Drop it in a high traffic area if there isn't a minion wave stopped nearby, or if there are more than two champions, damaging them a little and healing yourself. This is the second skill you should focus.


Black shield is the skill focused by this guide. Every rank makes Morgana tougher. Champions who are heavy on CC will be unable to stop you. Mages will bash their keyboards hopelessly as their spells are absorbed. This ability allows you to keep on attacking and keep on living. Throw it up the moment you see a crowd control ability being used, or any magical ability, and start taking your shots. But beware, while the shield renders you immune to spells and magic damage, you are not defended from physical attacks! This is your most important spell.
Oh, and if you have to, you can save a teammate's life with this. Try to keep it for yourself though, so you can keep firing off at them.


Soul Shackles are to be mainly used for their slow and their stun. After you activate this one, stay near as many enemy champions as possible, and pop up your E to help make sure you stay alive until it surges again in 4 seconds. Great for teamfights or making a quick kill at 6.

Core Items

Berserker's Greaves are the boots to get for a DPS champion, and give Morgana some needed early attack speed. Always get these first.


Phantom Dancer gives Morgana a useful boost in movement speed, plenty of attack speed, and some critical chance. Always get this. It should be your second item.


The Frozen Mallet is very important. Not only does it give Morgana a much-needed boost in health, but gives her basic attacks a slow, for chasing your victims. This item by itself gives a huge survivability boost to Morgana. She gains a large amount of health, making her harder to take down, and the slow gives her an easier escape if a rush or a gank turns out badly. Always get this. It should be your third item, but if you find yourself being killed too quickly you should get it before Phantom.

Auxiliary Items

Infinity Edge is a great damaging item, giving you huge attack damage, critical chance, and a unique passive that improves your damage output like no other. This item should almost always be bought. Get it after Frozen Mallet if you're earning a lot of gold. If you aren't, you might want to wait until very late game. Rush for it if you feel you're lacking in damage output late game.


The Bloodthirster is a great item for life steal and adds a very large amount of attack damage. This or Infinity Edge should usually be item number four. If you need more regeneration during fights because your health is falling too quickly, get this first. This item should usually be included in your build. Don't forget to soak up some minion kills to maximize its effect.


Madred's Bloodrazors are great for shredding tanks. Get them fourth if the enemy is building a lot of health and you are having trouble taking them down. The boost in attack speed and damage is welcome and you should be able to take out the tanks pretty easily now. Otherwise, it's an excellent 6th item, because by the time the game get to that point, many champions have very high health. Great, but can be replaced with whatever else you need/want.


Go for this if there is an enemy armor tank, like Rammus.


A great item to buy if you didn't want to use Clarity for some reason. Adds attack, and adds mana.


Not the usual choice, but once you get towards the end of the game, if you're making tons of gold, or if you need some extra power, just aren't getting it, and need that extra item for the last push, this can make the difference.

Optional Defensive Item

Usually I don't need to purchase a defensive item, but one defensive item could be allowed if the player so desires. If you choose to do this, I recommend you get Randuin's Omen for its cooldown reduction and slow on hit effect, or Spirit Visage for the cooldown reduction and increased healing.

Doubling Up

In some cases, you may wish to double up (or triple up, in very rare cases, like if you're in an 80 minute game and start stacking triforces or something equally ridiculous) on an item in your build rather than purchase a different one. Viable options for this include but are not limited to: Phantom Dancer, Bloodthirster, and Trinity Force.

Early Game

Start out the game by buying Boots and a Health Potion or three. You can drop the health potions if you want to have some extra gold for your first trip back. I like to have it just to be safe (and able to be more aggressive), but Soul Siphon should be able to keep you alive if you're careful.

When you get to your outer turret, try to get a look at who you are laning with. Depending on who it is, you may wish to change your starting skill. If you see a mage, start out with Black Shield. This is the best-case scenario, because you can then run up, start attacking, and pop the shield up in time to stop any incoming spells. If the enemy champion is melee or prone to chasing you, stick with Dark Binding. Shoot, snare, attack a bit, and run back. Finally, if you are up against a ranged AD champion, just get Tormented Shadow and start farming.

When the minions first clash, utilize those boots to run circles around your enemy. He/she will be very confused to see Morgana, of all champions, charging right at them and autoattacking repeatedly.

If you don't have that irksome AD ranged champ in your lane *cough*Ihate Caitlyn*cough*, you should be able to harass the enemy into having to recall by the time you get to level 3 or 4, and you might even kill him/her. If you do have that annoyance, just sit back and get in to last hit minions, and maybe try to catch him/her on your Tormented Shadow. After you've used Clarity and run out of mana, you'll want to go back and buy Berserker's Greaves and Zeal, or however much of it you can buy. The next time you go back, try to finish up whatever you haven't, and either finish Phantom Dancer or buy Phage. If you can, buy Phantom. If you don't have enough for Phage, buy Giant's Belt. If you don't have enough for that, buy a Ruby Crystal. If you don't have enough for that, you are doing it wrong.

After you start buying your items, your opponent will be shocked to see Morgana going AD, and they will likely make mistakes now, thinking that you'll be easy to beat because you are "doing it wrong". This will work to your advantage until they realize that you are a killing machine, at which point they will focus you, but anyway..

At level 6, you should charge your opponent. By now your charge will be daunting to them and they will likely attempt to flee, so start out by letting them push a little. Rush up by the side, catch them with Dark Binding, throw Tormented Shadow under them, use Black Shield as necessary, and autoattack away. When your snare is up, cast Soul Shackles and keep them in range while still attacking. If they have Flash, try to make them waste it before this. If you've got the health and the mana, take a trip top and/or a trip bot, and see if you can't gank a few champs. Return home and finish up Frozen Mallet if you can.

Mid Game

At this point, you should have your first three items, and be roaming around, jumping out and making kills wherever possible. If you've been having trouble making kills, you can still go back to your lane and farm. Getting the Crest of the Ancient Golem will save you a lot of time and a lot of trouble by lowering your cooldowns and effectively eliminating any issue with your mana.

Try to rush Bloodthirster as quickly as possible, because it will give you even more survivability and the sooner you get it, the sooner you can maximize its effectiveness by killing minions and neutral monsters. After that, try to build as much of Infinity Edge as possible. If the enemy has a lot of tanks or a particularly pesky one has a lot of hp, and you can't seem to take it down, go for Madred's Bloodrazor first, then get the rest. In 5v5, be a dear and slay that dragon after you've gotten Bloodthirster.

Late Game

Ah, the late game..hopefully by now you've finished or are finishing Bloodthirster and/or Infinity Edge. If there are tanks, build Madred's Bloodrazor. If there is an armor tank, go for Last Whisper. If you have loads of gold, go ahead and build Trinity Force.

Try to keep one or both of the neutral monster buffs on you, focusing especially on keeping the Crest of the Ancient Golem up. If an enemy is separated from the group, pick him off. Q for the snare, and attack until dead. Your slow will be keeping him from getting away and even if he sneaks just out of range, your Dark Binding should be ready to snare again.

For teamfights, try not to initiate. Have the tank do it, then run in, drop tormented soil where the most enemy traffic is, throw up your E, and activate R around as many enemy champions as possible, and keep as close as possible over the next four seconds. At the same time, make basic attacks as often as possible. When the fight starts to break up, and the remnants of your foes are trying to flee, fling your Q and run them down. Also use your Q in the teamfight if you or a teammate needs an enemy to stay in place (for example, to keep someone in the way of Bullet Time). Alternatively, if your team is losing, pursuers can be deterred by your Dark Binding. Oh, an prioritize squishies.

Once the game reaches this point, all you have to do is keep snaring and keep killing. Stay with your team and keep the blue buff up, and the battle will soon be yours.

• Stay away from champions with the Thornmail if you can.
• Ranged AD is very threatening to you at the early game, but after you get Bloodthirster, you should be able to counter the hp loss by killing them quickly.
• Try not to exhaust your mana too quickly. You need it for your Q and E. Especially E. Without it, you are not very dangerous.
• Champions with missile dodging attacks will be especially bothersome. Get them to expend their move(s) before you try to catch them with Q.
• BE AGGRESSIVE

When using this build, you are more than likely to be harassed by the enemy team and possibly your own team for using Morgana in such a way. I recommend you laugh when they do this and bring it back up later when you've made 20 kills and everyone on the map is attempting and failing to kill you.

If you liked this guide, and even if you didn't, I'd be honored if those of you reading this would do me the kindness of signing up through my referral link:

http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4e284bb7e0a31829886968

Takes just a few games, you just have to reach level 5 for the referral to count. For a veteran player, this should take a few minutes at most.

Thank you very much,
-Moric