Hey LoL'ers! I've always wanted and meant to write some guides, but I just never got around to it, for whatever reason. I'm not sure what, exactly is different now, as far as why I'm finally doing it, but whatever the case, here goes nothing...

In this case, a lot of it has to do with my recent rediscovery of Heimerdinger. He's an underplayed and underappreciated champ, most because, I would guess, a general lack of understanding on how to best utilize him. The method I'm about to lay out isn't really traditional, but it's how I've always played him, and I have a blast.

It's well known that Heimer is, perhaps, the best pusher in the game. What is less known, and less pursued, is his ability to completely annihilate the other team while doing it. I've had more games than I can remember where I've ended up with 25 and 30 kills. Heimerdinger has the capability to be a sick-*** death-dealing machine, and one of the best things about that is, nobody ever expects it. Sure, they expect him to be annoying and to take down a couple turrets, but barely anyone expects to die at his little yellow hand. Using this guide, not only can you defy their expectations, but you'll make them sorry they ever underestimated the diminutive Yordle.

Edit: I'll be updating this guide as time goes on with more info, so stay tuned and whatnot.

For runes, I take...

- You want as much early magic pen as you can get.

- Same with ability power. I'm not generally a fan of stats per level runes, since by the time you're level 18, the amount of stats they contribute is relatively minuscule compared to what you get from all your items.

- The more mana you have, the longer you can sustain in lane. Same thinking as above with the flat amount, rather than per level.

- We're going for as much level 1 magic pen as we can get.

With these runes and masteries, straight off the platform at level 1, you'll have 367 mana, 14.16 ability power, and 10% magic pen. Nothing to sneeze at, considering.

Heimer deals magic damage, so this build focuses on ability power, magic penetration, and a couple mana talents in the Utility tree. There are 2 remaining points you can do with what you will. I generally put them in Swiftness, since Heimer moves notoriously slowly, and the quicker you can move, the sooner you can get into the action (or escape, if need be).

The ultimate goal of these items is to make Heimer as powerful as you possibly can. I'll tell you now, however, that rarely will you be able to actually complete it and get everything on the list. Not to worry, however; just get as much as you can. You'll be able to put a serious smackdown on just about anyone even if you're missing one or two of the items.

At the start of the match, your first item should be the Amplifying Tome. That, combined with your runes, will give you a nice boost at level 1. Around level 5 or 6, or when you have about 1500 gold, which won't take long, go back to base and get Sorcerer's Shoes and convert your Tome into Kage's Lucky Pick. That'll give you a nice boost in gold. Trust me; you're going to need it.

Once you have enough (I generally wait until I have nearly enough to buy it outright), pick up the Void Staff. That'll net you a hefty chunk more of ability power and magic pen, and it should about that time that you start to need it. Get the Archangel's Staff next (though, if you find you're having mana problems, feel free to get it before the Void Staff; I generally get that first because I like more power earlier). The mana > ability power percent conversion will help a ton, since you will have accumulated a pretty nice mana pool by that time.

It's about this time that you want to pick up your first Rabadon's Deathcap. I know, they're expensive, and I expect you to buy two?! It'll be worth the work, believe me, and between your turrets last hitting every minion in sight and the Lucky Pick, not to mention the numerous kills you should be racking up, you should have no shortage of gold at this point.

By now, the other team will be spending a good amount of time and effort trying to kill you (and if they're not, they deserve to lose), so pick up Rylai's Crystal Scepter for some much-needed health, even more AP, and a pretty sweet passive.

If you haven't sold it by now to make room or because you just needed 300 gold to get the next item, feel free to sell Kage's Lucky Pick to make room for your last Rabadon's Deathcap. The last time I was actually able to complete this build and get every item on the list, I had exactly 800 ability power, and there wasn't a champ on the field who could withstand my insane little turrets of death, chaos, and doom. The stats on here say this build will give a little over 500 AP; I'm wondering if it's not taking into account the 30% increase from the Deathcap. That wouldn't account for an extra 300 AP, in any case.

I'll lay out some specific items you can get instead of the build I listed above, depending on what the specific situation calls for...

If you're dying a lot - Guardian Angel is a great choice. Most folks get it for the passive, but the armor and magic resist are nothing to sneeze at. The best part with this item is that your "death" doesn't kill your turrets anymore; they stay up and keep firing during the resurrection animation, so you could theoretically get a kill while you're "dead." Talk about adding insult to injury.

If you need more defense - If you find yourself the focus of a lot of enemy hate, and your Rylai's Crystal Scepter isn't cutting it, pick up Zhonya's Hourglass. It has a pretty huge chunk of AP and decent armor, but the active is the reason most pick it up. Like Guardian Angel, your turrets will continue to wreak havoc while you're in stasis, giving them time to clear things up a little to give you time to escape, if need be.

For MP/5 and CdR - Deathfire Grasp is a good choice for cooldown reduction and a bit more mana regen. The active is pretty sweet, too, since it's basically an attack with a 1 minute cooldown that knocks off 30% of the target's current health. With 60 AP to top it off, it's a good choice to substitute the second Deathcap.

Your primary focus needs to be your H-28G Evolution Turret. Beyond that (and your ultimate, UPGRADE!!!), whether you max out CH-1 Concussion Grenade or Hextech Micro-Rockets first is up to you and really depends on your playstyle. Personally, I go for maxing my grenades out sooner than my rockets because I use my 'nades to farm a lot (following my skill order, by the time your grenades are rank 4, they'll one shot minions, making for pretty awesome gold accumulation), as well as the really-hard-to-land-but-gets-easier-with-practice stun.

I'll keep this section short, rather than list every single spell and why it can or can't work. I trust you enough to know that you know what each spell does and all that jazz.

I used to use Ghost and Exhaust with Heimer, but I found myself barely ever using Exhaust. I did, however, find myself running out of mana pretty constantly, so I started using Clarity, and I've found my laning sustainability has gone way up, and, as you know, the longer you can stay in your lane, the more gold, kills, and experience you get. I've heard that Promote, combined with Heimer's turrets, can knock out a big turret in record time, however I've never tried it. In any case, I find that I don't need much help taking turrets down. The reason I use Ghost instead of Flash is Ghost has a lot more utility. You can use it to get somewhere quicker, or to run away, whereas Flash is generally reserved for escapes only. You can also fire your missiles and grenades while running using Ghost, whereas with Flash, you just...flash away, generally out of range of your abilities.

Pros:

Heimer is the best farmer in LoL.
He's definitely one of the most unique champs, if not the most.
Mystifyingly, he's consistently overlooked and underestimated by almost everyone.
Did I mention he's an epic farmer?

Cons:

His build takes a gigantic amount of gold.
He's pretty slow.
He has a giant yellow head.
His grenade tempers out a number of awesome effects by being super slow and ridiculously hard to land.

Heimer is perfectly capable of holding his own against 2, 3, and even 4 enemy champs. His turrets, when maxed especially, combined with his rockets and grenades, make him into a one-Yordle army. That's not to say that's an ideal set-up, however it is very gratifying keeping 80% of the enemy team at bay all by your lonesome. In team fights, ideally, you want your turrets to be right in the middle of the action, and you should be on the outskirts. As soon as the fight erupts, hit your ult, chuck a grenade right into the thick of it, spam some rockets, then sit back and watch the enemy team wither and fall like flies. If any escape, feel free to give chase, and if you're lucky, you'll be just in range to fire the rockets that will end their sad life.

Heimer's passive, Techmaturgical Repair Bots is one of the best passives in the game because it's the only way to repair your big turrets. Granted, it takes a very long time to repair a turret back to full health, and I've honestly never stood there long enough to get even half that, but still, it's good in a pinch, since it might be the difference between a turret living or dying.

Heimer's turrets are unique, as well, since they're the only turrets any champ drops that don't have an expiration date. They just stay there until killed or replaced. The downside to that is, upon upgrading your gear, or boosting your skills, you have to replace the turrets since they don't upgrade passively.

The CH-1 Concussion Grenade is an amazing attack. It deals pretty huge damage, has a 3 second blind when maxed, and a 1.5 second stun with direct hits. The only downside is that it's notoriously hard to land a direct hit. There's really nothing I can say that will help with that, except practice, practice, practice. Practice aiming at specific minions as they travel in the absence of any champs to lob them at. I promise that, the more grenades you throw, the better your aim will get until the day comes when you chuck one and stun an enemy champ almost every time.

The Hextech Micro-Rockets are great little rockets. Chasing a champ down and getting a kill with them is definitely one of the cutest ways to get a kill (try it and you'll see what I mean). The only problem with them is they sometimes have a mind of their own. You fire 3 (or 5, if your ult is active) that hit the 3 (or 5) closest targets. With practice, you'll find that you can angle yourself in such a way as to sort of direct them where to go. Or, you can just kill all the other targets around, ensuring they hit the champ you want.

Heimerdinger is, bar none, the single best farmer in the game, and I'll tell you why. The reason is because, wherever Heimer's turrets are, he's there. What I mean is, if you plant your turrets down mid-lane then return to base, your turrets keep firing at enemy minions, continuing to rack up gold and experience for you without you actually even being there. If you want to be really greedy, you can plant one turret in one lane and put the second in another, making sure they're both in range of enemy creeps. You'll get the gold and experience from both lanes while you're able to go to the third and farm with your grenades and rockets.

I actually never thought of that; I'll have to do that next game, lol. Because I am really greedy, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I prefer to mid, as most Heimer's do, because I like to horde as much gold and experience to myself as humanly possible. I'm also a big fan of leveling up faster than the rest of my team, then going ganking once the enemy mid turret is down. And it will go down. It's a rare game, indeed, that the turret I go against doesn't go down first.

To summarize what I'm going for with this build, I'm going to tell you the story of a quadra-kill I got once with Heimer. Jarvan ult'ed, trapping myself, him and 3 of his teammates in his crater. Unbeknownst to them, both my turrets were also in the crater, I had full mana, and all my abilities were up. I hit UPGRADE!!!, threw a grenade pretty much on top of everyone, stunning 3 of them, fired my missiles, each person getting one, and by the time the crater went down, every single one of them was dead. I then let loose what I believe is my wittiest LoL comment ever in /all chat, "You didn't trap me in there with you; you trapped yourselves in there with ME!" Hehe. That was not long after Jarvan was released, and it wasn't common knowledge that he could take his crater down before it ran out of time.

The point of that story is to demonstrate the ultimate goal of this guide: to make Heimer truly shine as an incredibly dangerous opponent, capable of dealing immense amounts of burst damage and racking up a huge number of kills. And, as I said, nobody ever expects it, which plays smack-dab, directly into your hands, because you're ready, willing, and more than able to take full advantage of people who underestimate you.

Once they get a load of you, they won't underestimate what you're capable of anymore.

Edit: I neglected to thank all the future folks that may or may not end up reading this. If you try this build out and like it, feel free to vote it up! My ego is hungry :D