Fiddlesticks Build Guide by Deathorientiert

Introduction

Why should you play Fiddlesticks in mid?

An easy answer: He is just op with his 1.2 sec silence and his 3 sec fear!
But when you try to pick him in ranked, you will often get flamed like "Fiddlesticks in mid - nice fail dude", etc. but on the lower elo ranks until ~1500 elo you can carry a lot of games with him, especially with an aoe stun ult, like leona, amumu or sona.

You don't believe me, just look at my stats:

Pros / Cons

Pros:

• very good teamfight ulti with a huge amount of damage
• with your 3 sec fear you can easy disable the enemy ad or ap carry
• after lvl 6 you can burst the enemy mid easily
• awesome with other aoe ultis

Cons:

• very awful farming, especially vs good pusher
• very squishy
• fail ulti fail teamfight
• easy to gank early

Masteries and Runes

There is not much to say about the Masteries, I play him normally with 21/9/0 or 21/0/9 for some extra movement speed.

As runes I use normal ap runes. Magic pen marks, flat ap quints and seals and ap per lvl glyphs. If you prefer mr as glyphs, just take them you won't win or loose a game because of these little differences.

Items

The most important issue on every champion is the itembuild., so let's have a look:

Startitems:

Doran's Ring
It gives you hp, mana reg and ap, so it is a nice item, but without shoes you can be an easy kill during a gank. So only take it, if the mid or jungler does not have much stuns, fears or taunt, like Karthus, LeBlanc or Ziggs in mid or Dr. Mundo, Shyvana or Master Yi, etc.




This are nice start items to avoid early ganks. You got enough sustain with yout Drain, so you don't need hp pots, that's why I take one mana pot, just transform mana into hp with fiddle. You need the boots, if you have good cc on your lane like Sion, Twisted Fate or Veigar or enemy jungler with tons of cc like Alistar, Nautilus or Blitzcrank. Without shoes you won't survive a gank.
And use your ward wisely, as an example ward the river behind the enemy blue, if they have a jungling Alistar and your team will see where he ganks first.

Coreitems:

Mejai's soulstealer
I just love this item. You can get very easy kills in mid, so you get your first stacks on it. After you finished Zhonya's Hourglass you get in a teamfight a lot of stacks and you have a good chance to survive the teamfight. That's why I try to purchase it as fast as possible.

Zhonya's hourglass
This is a must have on Fiddle! Ult in, Terrify the enemy ad or ap carry, use ur Dark Wind and be a golden biatch, while the enemy team dies. It is not usefull during the laning phase, but a must have in the teamfight. That's why i take sometimes Rabadon's Deathcap first, if I get fed very fast and after it the Zhonya's Hourglass.
There is one very important point with that item. Sometimes the enemy team just tries to run away after you casted your ulti, then don't use it, follow the enemies instead, only if they fight you, use your Zhonya's Hourglass!

Rabadon's Deathcap
No reason to explain, it is just a must have item for every ap carry.

Lategame items:

Rylai's Crystal Scepter
Again a nice item, you are very squishy so more hp is fine, but the best about this item is the 15% slow your ulti can deal in a teamfight and the 35% slow on your fear.

Abyssal Scepter
The passiv of this item stacks with Fiddlesticks passiv, so you lower the enemy mr about 30, this is huge! But if the other team stacks a lot of mr, i prefer to build Void Staff

Void Staff
Break the enemy mr, to let them feel your whole ap damage.

Game phases

This chapter is about the laning phase, which can be real hard.

The early levels:
After you pulled the red or the blue for your jungler try just to last hit the minions, do not deal additional hits. When there are only 3 enemy minions from the first wave left, harass the enemy with your Dark Wind, he can be hit up to 3 times and if this happens he will lose the half of his ap and you force him to take the first pot. But do not harass to much with your Dark Wind it will push the lane very fast in the early game, that you are at lvl 3 or 4 on front of the enemy tower and an easy kill in a gank. When you reach lvl 5 try to harass the enemy mid champ with your Dark Wind that he has about 3/4 of his hp left, than you get easy a kill on lvl 6.

If you harassed the enemy mid champ very hard and he is low on hp, try this:

Just funny:

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Ulti time:

SPACE

How to use your ulti with fiddle is the most important issue. After you have reached lvl 6 don't push you lane, harass the enemy to 3/4 off his hp. I prefer the red dot on the map to cast my ult. The enemy champ cannot see you (be sure, that none of the minions can see you), cast your ult, immediately Terrify him, use Dark Wind and Drain with Ignite to get the kill. With smartcast (I recommend it) this works in 90% of all attempts. If the enemy mid champ, or even mid and jungle is pushing your tower, move to the black point and use the same combo. The enemy minions will die very fast in your ult, so even your tower will hit them. I don't like the position from the purple points. It is often warded and it realy hurts, if you fail your ulti.

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Ganking:
If you win your lane easily, or the enemy mid roams alot, just start to gank.

SPACE

I prefer to gank bot, because there are the squishy champs you can kill fast, a tanky top especially with Mercury's Treads isn't a nice target to gank. If your team pushed the botlane, try to ninja gank through the bushes to the red dot, cast your ult and recieve kills with your Terrify, Dark Wind and Drain combo. If you already got Zhonya's Hourglass you can even dive the enemy bot lane. Ult over the wall, Terrify, Dark Wind and Drain, if you fell below 50% hp, use your hourglass and you or your ad carry will earn the kills. The purple dot is again a position I don't like, because it is often warded.

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Teamfights:
Always stay behind your team, if you get caught by the enemies at first, you are dead and your team will probably loose the teamfight. Never be in the range of an enemy Malphite, Alistar, Amumu or champs like them, who will jump on you.
I do not recommend to engage a teamfight with your ulti, only if your cast position is 100% safe (behind a wall, or in a bush), so nobody can cancel it and the rest of your team follows asap or they engage while you cast your ulti.
If a teamfight starts never channelling your ult in the range of sombody who can stop it. Sometimes it happens, that an enemy with a gap closer as an example Lee Sin jumps on you. Just fear him and then cast you ulti, you won't have the fear for the enemy carry, but it is more important that you can cast your ulti.

Team Work

As I mentioned in the introduction Fiddlesticks works very well with other aoe cc ultis, like Leona, Amumu or Sona. But there a very nice other possibilities.

The ulti from Kayle makes you 3 sec invincible, so even if you are caught out of position Kayle can use her ulti, than just cast your ult and nobody can stop you. Or you can engage a teamfight, right after you flashed in with your ult, kayle ults you, this causes that you can Drain 3 sec and get an easy first kill, after the 3 sec, if the enemy does not run away use your Zhonya's Hourglass, so the enemy team will feel the full 5 sec from your ulti.

Another nice ulti which makes you survive a teamfight is Shen's ulti. He can give you a huge shield right after you flashed in with your ult and he will taunt the enemies in your ult, this is just amazing.

How to play against

In this caption I will explain how to play against each champion in mid and I will upload some videos to show it. Still in progress, but it will grow the next weeks.

Ahri
Ahri can stop your drain with her Charm and has a long range harass with her Orb of Deception, but you play Fiddlesticks so you don't care about harass. If you need some hp back just stay behind your minions to avoid her Charm and drain a full hp minion, you mad Ahri who will have no mana soon? You should manage to stay nearly full hp the whole time, so Ahri cannot kill you.
To kill Ahri with your Crowstorm combo (I recommend smartcast) act that way: While you cast Crowstorm move your mouse over Ahri, that you can Terrify her so fast, that she cannot even use Spirit Rush fast enough to escape. After your fear use Dark Wind, it will silence her for 1.2 seconds and it will bounce a second time back to her, so she still cannot use flash or Spirit Rush and last but not least use Drain and Ignite to recieve the kill.

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Akali
Now let's look at Akali, she is melee and cannot stop your Drain, so stay inside your minions, everytime she wants to farm Drain her. I have seen a lot of player who try to use the Twilight Shroud to stop your Drain, but this does not work, they will sit invisible in their cloud and loose hp. If Akali is in her Twilight Shroud, she will become visible everytime she casts or attacks, when it happens don't Terrify her, because it is only enough time to cast one spell, so Drain her and again I recommend smartcast to drain her fast enough before she gets invisible again. Kill her with Crowstorm like every other champ, which is easy, because she has no real escape ability and cannot block your Terrify or Drain.

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Fizz
Let's get to Fizz, it is hard to play against him. Fizz is melee, which is an advantage, but he can burst you down in one combo and with his activated Seastone Trident your hp reg from drain is halved, which are 2 strong disadvantages. So you need to use your advantage: On early levels harass Fizz with your attacks, that you force him to use at least one hp pot.
If Fizz reaches level 3 you are going to have a hard time until lvl 6. If Fizz wants to harass you, he will activate his Seastone Trident, uses his Urchin Strike maybe he gives you a second hit and jumps with Playful / Trickster away. The choice is yours, when you see that he uses Urchin Strike you can Drain him immediately, because Fizz Playful / Trickster won't stop your drain, but you only get a poor hp regeneration because of his Seastone Trident. That's why there is a second possibility, after his harass wait until the dot is gone and drain a minion to get back to full hp again. The Crowstorm kill ist just like before, but your have to fear Fizz fast before he uses Playful / Trickster.

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Kassadin
I think Fiddlesticks is a counter against him and I picked Fiddlesticks in ranked against him and never had problems. First Let's look how Kassa works: He cannot burst you down in a combo like Annie or LeBlanc, instead he will harass you with his Null Sphere. Every time he does it, give him your Dark Wind in return and after every 2nd harass just heal with your Drain, he cannot cancel it, because he just used his Null Sphere for harass. That's why he cannot poke you, but you can poke him much better. Another point is, that Kassa is melee, just stay in you minion wave and after he used Null Sphere drain not only a minion, just drain Kassadin.
You can even kill Kassa with your ulti combo (I recommend smartcast). While you cast Crowstorm move your mouse over Kassadin, that you can Terrify him so fast, that he cannot even use Riftwalk fast enough. After your fear use Dark Wind, it will silence him for 1.2 seconds and it will bounce a second time back to him, so he still cannot use flash or Riftwalk and last but not least use Drain and Ignite to recieve a kill.

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Katarina
Katarina has no possibility to stop your Drain and she is melee, what makes it very easy to play against her. If she harasses you with her Shunpo say thanks and drain her, if she uses her ult you only need to fear or silence her to stop it. If you want to kill Katarina with your ulti combo make sure that there is no minionwave comming, so she cannot escape with her Shunpo.

How to harass Katarina:

How to kill Katarina:

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Morgana
To play vs Morgana is not that hard with Fiddlesticks, she cannot stop your Drain, so you can always have full hp. If she tries to kill you, just Drain her and her damage will not be enough to kill you. If you want to harass her, just drain and watch her loosing hp. When you want to kill her, it is important, that you move your mouse over Morgana during your Crowstorm cast, that you can Terrify her so fast, that she cannot even use Black Shield fast enough. After your fear use Dark Wind, it will silence her for 1.2 seconds and it will bounce a second time back to her and last but not least use Drain and Ignite to recieve a kill.

How to harass Morgana:

How to kill Morgana:

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