welcome to my guide about Fiddlesticks.

This is a work in progress,so please bare with me :)

Having played over 500 games with the terror from the bush, i decided to share some of my observations.(any inputs are most welcome)
When laning with fiddle you have two choices: either go mid against the enemy ap cary or lane solo top. Your Bountiful Harvest can help you dominate each of these lanes, your Reap is a powerfull harassment tool and your Terrify make it possible to escape virtually any attempt of ganking. Lets continue. Laning a dual lane bot is not recomended since fiddle gets too easily focused down early game if there are two enemies.

Fiddle has one of the best cc of the game combined with a ridiculus damage output. 3 second fear with a total of 2.1 ap ratio from ult as well as drain if all 5 second of the skill affect you,combined with the possibility to use both at the same time makes it an easy job to assasinate low hp carries and dpsing down tanks and melee champions, combined with the ridiculus life steal of drain that makes a good fiddle almost impossible to kill 1 v 1.
that being the case fiddle has a fatal flaw: his inability to kite. Draining requires him to stay still, turning him into target practice for skillshots as well as letting opponents run away with fragments of life, and lastly being very succeptible to cc since he has virtuall no burst damage but tons of damage over time.

all in all

Pros:

- great laning power utilizing your lifesteal from Bountiful Harvest
- easy harassment via your Reap
- great cc all through the game, either aoe silence with Reap or 3 seconds of fear with Terrify can turn the tide on a battle.
- one of the best 1 v 1 champion on the game due to the high amount of vampiric from Bountiful Harvest and the ability to keep it open virtually without stoping
- his ult, Crowstorm has one of the highest aoe damage output all through the game,and the ability to move it with you makes it a wining move for your team in most of the battles.

Cons:

- extremely succeptible to cc, you need to keep draining to do damage and its a spell that can be interupted.
- Crowstorm his ult is hard to do successfully since it has an 1.5 second casting time,at which you can be interupted or the enemies can flee away.
- you have to stand still while draining, make you target practice for skillshots and alowing your enemies to gain the controll of the space in a battle.
- your only option in farming is last hiting, none of your skills can efectively farm a wave untill mid to late game.

your passive is A Harmless Scarecrow,reducing the oponents mr by 10,your early focus should revolve around rounding it up to a zero,dealing absurdly more damage that way. Overall a good passive for early game, but with a fatal flaw. It is an aura,meaning oponents coming near a bush you stalk can actually see it in their buffs before they see you.

mechanics: reduces the surounding enemies magic resist by 10 via an aura,can get neutralls in the negatives when jungling, not sure if that can hapen with champions though.


Terrify is one of the strongest cc of the game. 3 seconds of pointless walking for your enemy,and 3 seconds for you to atack or run away. However,do not spam this skill, it should be your trump card instead.

mechanics: fears your target,making him move in random directions for 3 seconds (changes direction every 1 second and moves slower compared to his normal movement speed)

(note: Xin Zhao Three Talon Strike will keep hiting even after you fear him,untill this bug is fixed you dont want to be draining until after you land back from his cc)


Bountiful Harvest is any fiddle favorite move. The casting time and the cooldown overlap,making you a mean draining macine.Also the vampiric it gives you can let you 1 v 1 anyone up to solo baron with half your build done, not to mention presents you with an extremely easy jungle.

mechanics: you stand still opening a chanel that drains health from your enemy to you. Any cc with the exception of snare as well as you moving will interupt the spell.
You drain health from every shield of the game except Mordekaiser and Karma, those nulify your draining untill they are depleted.
you also have the ability to drain from invisuable enemies if you start draining before they go untargetable


Reap is a great harassment tool at early game, an exceptional cc since it can silence for quite some time if you are facing two enemies,as well as silence the entire enemy team in a teambattle. It is also your only method of farming mid to late game.

mechanics: the projectile will bounce 5 times dealing damage and 1.2 seconds of silence with each bounce. However it wont strike randomly.
Dark wind picks its next target like this: First on the list are enemy champions,after that it doesnt want to strike someone twice if there are enough targets available,picks the lowest hp target first,and finaly trying to hit targets close to his previous one. That makes possible to bounce dark wind on a creep and having hopes that it will track down that enemy fleeing with a fragment of hp left.


Crowstorm is one of the highest damaging ults all through the game,and as such it is usually what decides the outcome of a battle.

mechanics: fiddle charges for 1.5 second,at which point his ult can be interupted, then teleporting to the targeted location dealing aoe damage over time for 5 seconds. After the initall casting his ult can not be interupted by any form of cc so feel free to run around chasing for the duration.

Note
fiddle ap ratios will seem low in the first glance, however they are nothing but. Dark wind can hit the same target up to 3 times, and both dark wind and drain have 0.45 ratio each second, meaning you deal a 2.25 ap ratio per casting for their full 5 second duration,and if crowstorm and drain are used together at the same time you have a total of 4.5 ratio in 5 seconds not considering their base damage.Aside that the ability to spam drain without having to stop in between castings pretty much garantees you a 0.45 ratio for each second that the battle lasts, if you add it up it is ridiculusly high compared to burst mages damage output.

Runes being a subject to each players unique game style, i have come to a couple of conclusions of my own about fiddles. What you must try to achieve is an adequate laning experience untill level 6,at which point you can easily dominate your lane with your ult. For that you will need magic penetration marks,which along with your passive will leave the opponent with fragments of mr,giving a nice boost to your damage output. Also flat ap quints are essentiall for a good laning experience. Beyond that are many viable ways to go,taking mr and armor, mp5, and so on and so forth, but my favorite setup would definetly be seals and glyphs of force, giving you enough ap on each level to keep your damage razor sharp without the need to b,due to your overall exceptional laning capabilities.

masteries are 9/0/21 making sure to grab magic penetration from the first tree,and reduce the cooldown on flash as much as possible on the third. Movement speed also greatly helps the overall slow fiddlesticks and a couple of points on neutrall buffs can help since you will eventually want to steal the openents blue or take your teams when your jungler no longer needs it.

You will want to max your main nuke,drain,first,as well as taking ult each time it is available to maximize your damage, maxing your fear right after that. Dark wind comes last on your skill list,since it wont be used for nothing else other than harassment and last hitting untill mid to end game, and gets no utility after level one,just damage.
In most games you will find the need to start off with dark wind however. It is great for harassing your opponent, and starting with drain can get you killed if you are facing any kind of cc or ignite/exhaust at level one.

You will need flash at any game with fiddlesticks,either to relocate after a slighly off timed ult,or to drain from a more suitable position cutting off your opponents escape route, even to avoid being kited or doing a quick get away after a dive. All in all its a must.
Aside that you can try a multitude of spells for the second position, with the top three being exhaust,ghost and teleport. Playing a bit with lane fiddles you will notice that you rarelly have to recall when in lane phase. if you combine that with teleport it gives you an advantage in experience and gold since you wont have to be away from your lane but for seconds at the first half of the game.
exhaust and ghost are used both for the same purpose: to hunt down the enemy when you ult, opinions over each spells utility being unique to each player the choice is up to you :)

When building fiddle, you will want to primarly focus on your drain as well as keeping in mind that you will be a usuall target when you ult. That being the case you should seek for utility from your build as well as resistances.
Dorans ring is a great starting item for any caster,and at that fiddle is no exception, folowed by sorceror boots (at that point you have 40 flat magic penetration,which leaves most enemies with 0 mr).
At this point you should look at your situation. You got a champion with ridiculus vampiric and damage. If you are facing a caster folow up with an abysal scepter. If you are against ad go for zohnias hourglass. This will give you the absolute controll of the lane since the damage output of your oponent will be smaller than your life steal,keeping your damage pretty high at the same time thanks to your runes and your flat magic penetration.
Aside that you should consider getting a relatively early rabadons to keep your damage up, an abysal scepter to synergize with your passive and to keep enemy casters for bursting you,zohnias hourglass for the active skill which is a must during team fights in accordance with your ult,rylais to keep chasing people while on your ult as well as drain them for as long as possible,and finaly a void staff to be able to damage enemies stacking mr at late game. At that point you will also want to change your sorceror boots for mercuries to avoid people from destroying you through cc,as well as getting a very important oracles to make sure that the bush you are ulting from is not warded.
Lastly you will find yourself taking a deathfire grasp to assasinate an over fed enemy cary at times,but that will be discused at battle tactics.

Unfortunatly enough here lies one of fiddles greatest problems. You will find yourself being able to farm only by last hitting, using dark wind only in later parts of the game when you have build your ap. Farming can be such a tedius job for fiddles that it's anoying. Good luck :P

So game starts. You want to keep harassing with dark wind, especially when the enemy is near creeps. A lucky bounce can get him to half health with only one casting of the skill. Getting a level two drain in most cases let you to go a bit more aggressive, using it on the opponent the moment he comes close to you, trying to keep him away from his minions and farming.however used on opponents with cc you should be carefull because it can backfire. Time goes by and you reach level 6. If you are solo top you want to enter the bush asap, and w8 for an oportune moment to ult at your harassed enemy,using fear and drain to finalize the kill,having flash ready at hand in the mean time. if you are mid things are a bit more complicated. you can try ulting from the side bushes but that generally wont work,Leaving you with 2 courses of action. One is to ult from far back,out of the enemy's view, using flash at the very moment your ult goes of,ending up on your oponents head for fear and drain, or take second level of fear on level 7 which at this time will be exactly the time your ult needs to cast,meaning you can fear,ult silence and drain making sure your opponent takes at least 2 seconds of your combo untill he manages to run away.

So lane phase is over and the team fights start. At this point you want to have your zohnias ready as soon as possible since it is the only thing that will turn an off timed ult into a success.
Begining, you dont want to initiate. It is wrong, it usually fails, but some times you just cant resist ulting the juicy carries. At that point you should be prepared to cast silence as soon as you land,fear your target,and stay close to him,using zohnias at the first sign that people are moving to intercept you. If you having a good team they will rush to your side giving your team a couple of easy kills and saving you at the proccess. Else you will find it is painfull to dive for a kill. That being the case however, some times you just have to take out that fed guy with the cary. You should make a death fire grasp at this point, and use it right after fear and before zohnias, making sure you take the kill before you have a heros death for your team.
The right way to go about this however is to stay behind the tanks and the melee,spaming dark wind and fearing key targets untill you find a clear opening for your ult. you will want to cast it from a bush or a place your opponents have no visuall, after the initiall round of cc and burst damage has gone off. You still want to have zohnias at hand however because it is very likely you will become everyone favorite target the moment your ults CAW CAW CAW starts resounding at the field :P

On one versus one or two versus one you have a clear path ahead: keep spaming drain and dark wind, keeping fear for an emergency like a quick get away, stoping you enemy from fleeing or w8ting for drain to go out of cd when the enemies use cc on you

So the enemy jungler tries to gang you. your course of action is to return to your towers range and start drain. It will be near to impossible to outdps you like that even if it is two versus one. Generally you want to avoid being slowed or stuned, so using fear on the enemy jungler(usually carying a red buff) and silencing your lane opponent should be enough,having flash at hand also greatly helps.

however you can use your ult as a getaway tool if the situation is not so bright as you would want it to be. remember that you actually move when you ult. when top enter the bush. the enemies will usually try to block your path by going around it. move to the end close to your turet and ult towards it. you will find yourself right next to it, and the enemies will be in the very dificult situation of having to turet dive a fiddle with open ult. it is a guaranteed getaway plan

jungle with fidds is relatively easy. you still go for the same build in the same order, taking flash and smite,a tome and an hp pot as starting items and starting with drain,silence,lvl 2 drain and then draining anything you like.
you should start at blue. ask for a leash,and start draining right away. Start hiting blue as it turns towards you and drain a second time. open the potion,hit some more auto atacks then start drain number 3. at that point smite should finish the deal. feel free to auto atack and drain the 2 minions. wolf camp you dark wind and drain the big one,start auto atacking and w8 for the reuse on dark wind. you dont want to be wasting mp here. move to wraiths, dark wind and drain the big one,it will die without any auto atacks needed. get rid of the rest wraiths and take level 2 drain. now you can keep draining freely, even the red golem will deal less damage than what you will drain back.

Here is an example of my jungling:
Play Video
When you get a lvl 3 drain,having blue you can do a quick solo on dragon if you are sure you have cover or that the enemies wont atack you while at it. it will take you about half a minute but you will end up with almost full hp at the end nevertheless.
Going lvl 16 with abysal,zohnias,rabadons and giant belt from rylais you can get blue and solo baron if the situation allows it. Having the ad cary to help you might make it possible from lvl 14,if you are unlucky however the cc from baron will break your drain too soon and will get you killed.

fiddle has some of the best gangs in the game. generally you will find yourself hiding in the bush, stalking on up to 3 enemies. ult at an oportune moment using silence right away,folow them for the next second,they will flash away usually. folow them with your flash,fear and start draining. generally that combo will be enough to take anyone out,and its the best way to maximize your early damage. If your team mate helps though it is a guaranteed kill,so you can just fear from the begining. Experience will show you however that spaming fear is not so wise.
if your fear is maxed you can fear and then use ult, it will still be 1.5 seconds of fear left when your ult goes off.
finaly ulting folowed by flash can make you travel through a great amount of space,allowing you to catch a fleeing oponent.
And remember,activating zohnias after a successfull tower dive is a good way to take the aggresion of the turet away from you and back to the creeps,giving you a clean getaway.

your main counters with fiddle are high cc enemies like Blitzcrank Alistar Cho'Gath Rammus
when playing against them you dont want to use drain unless they have used their cc,or just fear them and run away, depending on the game. It is a battle not worth fought.
Veigar generally has enough juice to kill you in one burst so keep an eye on him,trying to take him out in team battles or keeping your distance
Kassadin and LeBlanc can keep you silenced while dps'ing you down, which makes 1 v 1 against them a bit hard

On your top 2 easiest champions to kill are Vladimir and Akali.
If you cast drain at Vladimir before he use Sanguine Pool you will keep draining him while he is at it, that combined with him having no cc whatsoever and his low damage output makes him an easy target.
When facing akali you want to step righ in the middle of Twilight Shroud and w8 for her to atack. when she does use drain on her, you will continue draining even if she is stealthed,forcing her to run away from her shroud.

Any ranged ad can only hope to kite you,if they get close enough for you to drain they cant outdps you by any means, some times using flash to get close folowed by fear and drain can get you an easy kill.

drain having the ability to keep working even when the target has gone untargetable can be pretty usefull in some sitations. if you drain either LeBlanc or Shaco and their clone shows up, you will keep draining the real one.

thats all i can think of at the moment,i would be happy to answer any questions and i'm open to any ideas and sugestions, there is always ways of becoming better ;)