// What can this guide offer, I hear you ask. This guide will offer :

• An aesthetically pleasing guide
• Indepth information
• Detailed explanations on everything
• A wide variety of item choices
• Two strong item builds

// This guide clearly has a lot to offer - Which is why I recommend actually reading it, instead of just reading the cheatsheet and whining that you lost to a team of full ADs, or whatever nonsense these people who don't read guides like to say. Anyway, if you're reading this, you're probably planning on reading the full guide anyway, or you're just confused and for some reason, decided to start reading, instead of glaring at the cheatsheet.

// Thanks to :

• Jhoijhoi - For teaching me how to write an aesthetic guide, and informing us about voting! Also, for the banners in my guide!
• Apotheosis - My warding information is from his Tryndamere which you can find here
• DuffTime - For helping me improve my builds, and create the atkspeed build!
• You, the reader - Yes, you, the one reading this! Without you, this guide would be useless, obviously!

// A pretty average mastery tree for a tanky mage - Taking 21 points in offense, grabbing points in summoner's wraith to improve the summoner spells you will probably be using as Fizz. Then, you take masteries for AP, such as Mental Force , for a better early game, Sorcery as a pre-requirement, Arcane Knowledge to make tanks and tanky DPSes slightly easier to manage. Then, we take Blast for a bit of extra AP, and a pre-requirement. Then, we take Archmage , which is basically 1/6th of a deathcap, minus the AP of course, however, I don't mind 5% extra AP for no cost at all, and also executioner to work extremely well with Seastone Trident. Finally, we spend our other 9 points getting more armor and magic resistance, and topping it off with a bit of extra HP.

// This is a pretty standard skill sequence for a solo top Fizz - Nothing out of the ordinary, but in case you are still confused about why I chose this skill order, and plan to pick something else, I'll run you through my picks :

• Urchin Strike - I start with this at level 1, simply because it offers more mobility than Seastone Trident and requires much less mana than Playful / Trickster, however, I don't max this until last, as unless you're doing an AD build, it does the lowest damage out of all your skills, and level 1 will work for juking people.
  
  
• Seastone Trident - I max this first, because it allows you to dash in during laning, hit your laning opponent once, then, you drop back and they take damage from the damage over time. Also, if your solo top opponent is sustain heavy, like Vladimir, if you go to 1v1 them, you'll have to use the active to cut their healing. Also, this is good for fighting 1v1.
  
  
• Playful / Trickster - Although this is a great skill, and will help you dodge many skills, and leap many walls, it's not all that useful in early laning against people without skillshots, but also, it's VERY mana heavy, and the more you level up, the higher the mana cost is, and the more you get the chance to spam if. By maxing this first, before you have your catalyst the protector, you'll constantly be out of mana.
  
  
• Chum the Waters - Now, this being your levelling priority is pretty self explainatory - As it's your ultimate. On most characters, who don't have a terrible ultimate, or none at all ( Udyr and Karma), your ultimate is your main priority. Plus, it's a great skill, with 1.0 AP ratio, a knockup and an AoE slow.

// If you are going to play Fizz in a lane (Any lane that isn't bottom lane, as I won't be including that, as Fizz is a solo top or mid laner, or otherwise he's probably jungling or a bad player), I recommend you read this section of the guide. You may not want to, but I suggest you do, unless you're an amazingly pro player and don't need any help at all, then just skip this.

// Fizz is a rather strong laner in general - He can dodge harass and avoid ganks, or such things like that, allowing him to escape out of many situations, including jungler ganks. Besides that, he has many tricks in his bag that can ruin many opponents, such as his passive, Nimble Fighter, allowing him to walk through minions, to either escape, or get up close to harass his enemy. This makes him excellent against squishy top laners aswell, although they are uncommon. However, this doesn't mean he is bad against tanky solo top laners, he can easily take them on unless they're actually at 4,000 HP and 200 armor and magic resistance.

// As you can see, Fizz isn't exactly the greatest laner, however he isn't anywhere close to the weakest - He's very balanced, and has his strengths and weaknesses. Due to this, he may not be viable in the lane vs certain characters - However, this does not mean you cannot win your lane, or keep up a good amount of farm with hardly any deaths. If you want an easier lane, here is some traits you should look for in the enemy laner.

• High cooldown harrasses, so you can easily dodge with Playful / Trickster
• Not a lot of point & click CC ( Sion), as ganks may get you then
• Not too much sustainability, so your harass sticks to them
• If they do have a sustainability skill, is it on a long cooldown?

// Now, they don't have to meet all of those properties - In fact, they don't even have to hit any at all, most of the time, it depends on how good the player is, and who outplays who. However, even a bad player may win the lane. Why? Their jungler. Junglers may be a problem for Fizz as he farms away, these are properties that you should look for before you pick Fizz (Again, they don't have to meet any of these) :

• Skillshot gapclosers like Lee Sin, dodgeable easily with Playful / Trickster
• Skill-shot reliant ganks like Nocturne's Duskbringer
• Channeled CC like Nocturne's Unspeakable Horror
• Slow projectile CC that you can probably dodge with good reactions

// Now, although you may not notice it, base stats may be what makes or breaks a character in lane - Like when you see that character escape on 1HP, or when that guy manages to kill you before you kill him with exactly the same items - Whilst some may call this luck, this actually comes down to their base stats - If that guy had a little less health/armor/magic resistance, he would of died, if that guy had worse base stats, he would of lost the fight. Let's take a look at Fizz's base stats, shall we? :

• Damage - 51 (+3 / per level)
• Health - 414 (+86 / per level)
• Mana - 200 (+40 / per level)
• Movement speed - 310
• Armor - 13 (+3.1 / per level)
• Magic resist - 30 (+1.25 / per level)
• Health regen - 1.8 (+0.14 / per level)
• Mana regen - 1.22 (+0.09 / per level)

// As you can see, at level 1, Fizz is rather squishy - But then again, who isn't? His level 1 AD, HP and mana isn't too bad - And as a solo top, not many heroes you will face will deal that much magic damage - Not even Akali, in fact, most of her damage is physical, when she procs her Mark of the Assassin or Lich Bane. Also, the armor isn't bad - As if you look at our rune and mastery set-up, we have taken greater seals of resilience and Hardiness , giving us an extra 18 armor - And that's assuming we start with Boots - Other great starting items include Doran's Ring and Cloth Armor - However, these depend on who you are facing.

// So, you've called solo top, locked in as Fizz, and you're on the loading screen, when you suddenly notice something - The character you thought was going to jungle isn't actually jungling - He's actually swapped roles with the person you thought would be jungle - You realise they'll give you a hard time. How do we stop this? We change our starting item(s)! Yes, that's right, you don't ALWAYS have to start with Boots! Let me run you through some of the more common picks.

// Warding and map awareness - Something that you must learn if you want to be a good player - If you don't ward, you're doing it wrong. Unless you're at a really low level, you should be warding - It protects buffs like blue and red, or major objectives such as Dragon and Baron - But the most important of all, you, your lane and your life. Wards will warn you of incoming ganks, allowing you to react and back off in time, or perhaps even get your own jungler to run over and fight or counter-gank them. Let me give you some warding tips :

• If you have 75 spare gold when you go B to shop, buy a ward, or two!
• Always try to place a ward in the bush - That's where most surprises are!
• Take care when placing a ward - You don't want to miss the bush
• When warding, you want to show as many paths as possible

//I'm now going to put an extract from Apotheosis' Tryndamere Resource. Go over and check it out if you want to play Tryndamere, he has some very useful information!

Warding is way too over looked by many teams. I'm going to show you how to ward correctly, or at least how my team and I ward. The ward possibilities are obviously endless for 5s. These are the primary areas that you and your team will be warding each and every game.

Order of priority; Use Sight ward and Vision Ward where necessary:


Baron/Dragon Wards:
However you decide to set these up with your team, whether it be orderly among the team or supports only buy wards, make sure these are always laid out! Baron and Dragon are what we're primarily keeping an eye on here. Early in the match it's not as important obviously, however, you still need to know whether top, mid, or bot will be set up for a gank when enemy laners/junglers are wandering about. These early kills can help the enemy sculpt the rest of the match and land a victory. We don't want to be allowing the enemy to kill either Baron or Dragon. That's a good chunk of gold that will distribute among their team, not to mention Baron's handy buff. Again, don't overlook these wards!

Note: I would recommend using Vision Ward for these locations, especially Baron mid-late game. If not Vision Ward, then make sure someone, usually the tank, has Oracle's Elixir for discovering enemy wards.

Self Privacy Wards:
There's orange points at top, mid, and bot hiding locations. I would hope that your entire team would try to ward the areas entitled to them. These wards are not entirely important, however, they are lifesavers. Junglers and wandering laners will use these bushes to set up for early kills. If you're pushing your lane, then it would be a good idea to ward the bush(s) that is closet to you.

Team Privacy Wards:
These are crucial wards to put out when the match can go either way by eliminating possible ambushes when pushing minions or entering your own jungle.

Game Changing Wards:
Of course all of the wards posted on the map are capable of changing the outcome of a game, but these wards are placed in a location that both teams will always drift by. Reasons to go through the wards (for both teams): Getting to Baron and dragon, changing lanes, shifting from allied jungle to the enemy's jungle (either by self or team) to steal mobs/buffs, shifting as a team to gank the enemy team, etc. If you just have a ward on either Baron and/or dragon, you can still miss the enemy slipping by into your jungle never knowing it. This allows enemies to set up ganks. Therefore, these wards change the outcome of a game because you know whats coming.

Invading Wards:
I thought it was appropriate to name these wards in this manner because you can enter their bushes knowing whether they're there or not before you attempt to set up a gank. The enemy usually walks through these bushes hoping to freely enter their jungle for experience/gold and/or buffs.

Buff Wards:
Monitor your's and enemy's buffs with these wards. Good to set in your own jungle if they start playing dirty and snatching buffs early game from your jungle. These wards are primarily for the junglers of each team.

// Zoning is an important part of laning - It manages how much damage you take during laning and such. You should probably learn about the distance of skills also - As longer ranged skills will create a larger zone - Such as Fizz being a melee champion, but his Urchin Strike practically increases his zone to 550 - That's as long as most AD carries, and much longer than most AD carries - If you're dealing good damage, no one will want to get within 550 range of you unless they're going to get a creep kill. Here is some zoning tips :

• Bushes create their own zone - Ward them and you'll remove their zoning
• Minions with no targets have a zone - Go into bushes to drop aggro
• Ranged skills create larger zones - Beware of this
• Try to imagine the range of your enemy - This is his zone, try to stay out of it

// In my opinion, lasthitting is one of the most important parts of the game - If you don't lasthit well, you'll find yourself lacking enough gold to buy your core items. The if a team has significantly more CS (Creep score) than the enemy team, they'll probably win the game - They are probably significantly ahead in gold, unless they fed the enemy team hard, which you shouldn't be doing anyway.

// Whilst it is important to get as many creeps are possible, it's important that you don't simply autoattack the waves - This will cause the death of creeps significantly faster, causing you to push the lane forwards - Leaving you open to ganks, and if the enemy pulls off an offensive movement, you probably won't have enough time to safely make it back to your turret - Causing your death. However, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't occassionally push forwards with autoattacking etc. If the enemy goes B, and you have your lane warded, so you can see incoming ganks, you can easily push forwards, deal a lot of damage to their tower, or even push your minion wave to the tower, then go B, shop and come back to find you've hardly missed any CS. Here are some tips and tricks for farming and CSing :

• Try to estimate how fast your creeps deal damage - Get the timing down, and you'll find yourself missing less CS
• If there's 2 CS that will die at the same time, you may want to use a skill on one, and autoattack the other, grabbing 2 CS at the same time
• If you find yourself pushed to a tower, you'll want to learn how to lasthit under the tower - If you want to kill a melee minion, you let it tank 2 tower shots, and do a single autoattack on it, whereas, a ranged minion, you autoattack once, the tower hits, and then you finish it off with a lasthit
• You'll want to try to freeze the lane just outside your tower range, so you don't have to lasthit under the tower, but you also aren't in the middle in the lane, putting you both in equal safety - When you're close to your tower, and the enemy is pushed past the river, they are easily gankable - Meaning you can probably pick up a free kill
• If the enemy dies or goes B, and you know the whereabouts of the jungler, you can easily push forwards and take a cchunk of their turret HP, or even the turret itself, or push the wave forwards, go B and miss hardly any CS.
• Don't forget to harass, but also don't harass too much, or you'll find yourself missing CS

// Fizz has a very strong early game, especially if you take Doran's Ring, Greater Glyph of Ability Power and Greater Quintessence of Ability Power (Despite these not being what I normally take), including an incredibly strong combo at level 4, when you get all 3 of your skills, and then you get an even deadlier addition to your combo at level 6 - You should be able to pick up the kill. This is what you should do in lane :

• 1 - You should probably be defending your jungler if he starts small golems on the Purple side, or Golem if he starts on the Blue side. If he isn't starting at these camps, just leave it and go to your lane. If you do get an early game encounter, you should try to scare them off, or deal some significant damage.
• 2 & 3 - Peacefully farm - Lasthit minions, and attempt to zone your target away, you may attempt harassing, but try not to get out of mana, or miss CS. If you spend too much time harassing, you'll set yourself as far behind as you set the enemy back.
• 4 - At this point, you will of unlocked your full combo, you should show the enemy what you're made of, by doing Seastone Trident, then doing Urchin Strike, finishing off with Playful / Trickster and autoattacks, this should get them relatively low, and possibly force them back. Go back to farming some more, and if the enemy is foolish to get too close again, unleash your combo again, forcing them back, or maybe grabbing a kill.
• 5 - If you did successfully in level 4, you should of forced them back, continue farming freely for a while - You're beginning to gain an advantage over your opponent, this means you'll hit level 6 before they do - Meaning you can probably get a kill before they get their ultimate. You should save your mana to allow for a full combo.
• 6 - If you completed level 4 and forced them back, your opponent will still be level 4 - 5, this means you can attempt an easy kill. Lead in with Chum the Waters, then, activate Seastone Trident and Urchin Strike in, they'll be knocked up at this point if you did it fast enough, keep autoattacks going. When they land, do Playful / Trickster if they can possibly get away, otherwise just use more autoattacks. If they flash, just Urchin Strike back onto them.
• 7 - 10 - Farm some more, you should already have a significant lead over your opponent, and be outfarming them by a lot, if you lasthit well, you should have around 110 CS by 15 minutes or so. When you have atleast 2585 gold, you can opt to go B, and collect your catalyst the protector and Sheen, however if you aren't too low, you should wait until 3285gold to go B, and pick up Ionian Boots of Lucidity too, and possibly a bit longer to grab some more Health Potions and sight wards.
• 11 - 14 - Go back to lane and farm up some more. You'll probably end up with both Playful / Trickster and Seastone Trident maxed, this will give you some nice damage. You should keep pressuring your lane, and possibly pop down to other lanes to gank, grabbing some more kills. When you have around 3920 gold, you should go B and complete your Rod of Ages and Lich Bane.
• 15 - 18 - You're fully in lategame now, you'll want to group up with your team and start teamfighting now. You'll want to grab CS if your team is grouped in a lane, slowly farming towards your endgame items, such as Rabadon's Deathcap, Madred's Bloodrazor etc; I'll cover what you should do in teamfights in the next section.

// Fizz plays a different role than most solo tops in teamfights - As most of them are tanky DPSers, who enter fights, stay in fights and deal a lot of damage, however Fizz is different - Fizz is an anti-carry, like Evelynn, or Poppy - His job is to jump in onto the mage or AD carry, and destroy them, and quickly get back out - You shouldn't wait too long, as you aren't extremely tanky. After you've cleared out the first target, you should wait for your cooldowns, and bounce back in, focusing the second priority - After this, you'll find yourself left with a support, probably your solo top enemy and the jungler. Now, you focus the support, then you focus the solo top and jungle depending on how tanky they are. So, assuming the enemy team is :

• Caitlyn - AD carry
• Alistar - Support
• Brand - Mid
• Malphite - Solo top
• Udyr - Jungle

// Your focusing order will look something like this when playing an anti-carry :



// As for the on-hit secondary build, you'll want to maintain the same focus order - However, this time, you won't have to bounce in and out of fights - The build provides quite a reasonable amount of survivability, whilst also giving you amazing damage - Even on high HP targets! Also, you're a great problem for the enemy team - If they don't focus you, you quickly destroy the enemy team, therefore forcing them to focus you, however, when they focus you, the AD and AP carry on your team aren't receiving incoming damage - Causing the same problem again, the AD and AP carry quickly destroys their team.

// Now, I've said before this guide is fairly lane-based, however I'm up for giving you all the freedom possible, without allowing you to find yourself creating a completely ******ed build. Whilst I don't personally like jungling, Fizz is still pretty viable in jungle - He may be tier 3 in Stonewall008's opinion, but in reality, it's only his pathing and jungling that's bad - He has great ganks, with 2 gapclosers, a slow, a DoT & heal debuff. If you gank a lane, and your laner isn't ******ed - You'll probably get a kill, or a summoner spell. Basically, Fizz plays a lot like Riven in the jungle, but maybe a bit slower at jungling.

// The next section will detail all the jungle monsters, and the buffs they give, and information on how useful they are. I suggest you learn the respawn timers to counterjungle and control Dragon effectively - You should always note Dragon/Baron/Blue/Red in the chat, which is done by simply adding 6/7/5/5 minutes onto the current time respectively.

// I'd like to thank anyone who read the entire guide, and learnt anything from it. I'd love an +upvote if you found the guide useful, however, you don't have to, don't make me force my opinion on you ^_^ - But, on the other hand, if you didn't enjoy it, and were thinking of downvoting, maybe you should reconsider - Or perhaps leave some constructive comments, that will help me improve my guide, after all, it's not the 'I WENT 27/0/50 WITH THIS BUILD' that improves a guide, it's the people who tell you what you can improve.

// Anyway, enough rambling on about my, I hope you found this guide useful, and I hope you learnt something useful, and have successful games using this build. Leave any constructive comments if you feel like it. Also, expect updates soon!
SPAAAAAAAAACE~Adeori

// Any previous updates will be listed here :

• 20th of Nov 2011 - Guide released
• 20th of Nov 2011 - Added a laning section
• 20th of Nov 2011 - Editted the build
• 21th of Nov 2011 - Added Jai's banners to my guide! Thanks!