Hello ladies and gents, im Heimerrdingerr, a league of legends player from the NA servers. I'm currently sitting at Gold 5, have more wins on Heimerdinger than any other champ I play, and what to teach my knowledge of this extremely useful, underplayed, and overpowered champion. Lets get right in it then!

I'll keep this as simple as i can:

CONS:
Heimerdinger lacks any major CC, other than his E and his Ultimate+E, so if you're in a team fight, using Ultimate+E might be the only option available.
Heimerdinger's early game is really squishy since we don't run any defensive runes, so dodging as much of the enemy lanes' skill shots is key.
PROS:
Extremely good at harass
Useful in team fights because he has 3 ultimate abilities to chose from
Vicious in a 1v1 situation if you play it right
Undiveable due to his turrets
Deals massive damage to other enemy champions

This is the best part about playing Heimerdinger, he's so freaking awesome.

His unique skills are:
1- his Q. His Q ability allows him to place up to 3 turrets on the ground at a time, that team damage to the first enemy that comes near them/whomever Heimerdinger is currently targeting/whomever attacks Heimerdinger first (RIP to whomever that may be)
2- his Ultimate ability. We'll go into this more later in the guide, but his ultimate ability allows Heimerdinger to either have massive area of effect damage (Ultimate-Q), massive CC (Ultimate-E), or MASSSSSSSSIVE single target damage (Ultimate-W). As of 6/15/2014, he's the only champion in the game with 3 ultimate abilities.

In this section of the guide we are going to be talking about the most important segment of playing as Heimerdinger, zoning.

When you play Heimerdinger you want to create a zone of control, by that I simply mean an area where you can go and deal damage to your opponents. By creating this zone you can do many things, you can tower siege, you can objective secure, and it will be how the majority of your kills come to you. Notice I said come to YOU. With this zoning strategy, your enemy will be forced to either engage on you, or endure constant minion harassment, which will create many kill possibilities for you. Below will be visuals/descriptions of every single ability Heimerdinger has, and the range of that ability.

Heimerdinger's Q (H-28 G Evolution Turret):This is the range of a standard H-28G turret. This is the EXACT same range as a ward. Using zoning is easiest with his turrets because they have a visual circle that only you can see, so you know when somebody is going to get hit and they do not.

Heimerdinger's Q with UPGRADE:
This range is larger than the average turret, so its great for team fighting, you can plop it down away from the actions, and it will still have devastating effects on the enemy team.

Heimerdinger's W:
There are two forms of this ability.

There's the version that has a 5 degree hit box:

There's also the version that has a 90 degree hit box:

Can you guess what version of W i recommend? Yes, the 90 degree, or at least a wider hit box, is best when playing Heimerdinger, it helps set up a weaker opponent so you can finish them off later.
Heimerdinger's Stun Grenade:
This range is larger than the turret's range (even when it is upgraded) but smaller than the W's range. Goood for setting up a ultimate ability+w combo.

Heimerdinger's Stun Grenade UPGRADE:
This range is the largest of any ability Heimerdinger has. It is also the least used out of any of Heimerdinger's abilities. Can you guess how i set up a majority of my early game kills? This ability has a wider range than Lux's death-snipe beam, and has 1/4th of its distance. If you use this ability against a champion, follow it up with a flash, then a rocket wave and ignite, you'll most likely get a kill.

Collect all of the information you have seen above, and you are ready to set up a team fight. This knowledge of Heimerdinger allows your beams to hit opponents from all angles. And then you still spam W/stun opponents while being protected. This setup allows you to either push or defend against almost anything.

Once you know how to zone with Heimerdinger, you are ready to move on to farming.

The goal of early game Heimerdinger is simple, make sure that you can push up to the enemy turret, so that your turrets are just out of reach of the other summoner's turrets, this allows for great wave clear pre-6, and allows you to harass great if your opponent is stupid enough to try and destroy your precious children. Continue this until you are a high enough level and you feel comfortable roaming or doing objectives, this is your primary farming method, to deny them as much farm as possible while your turrets clean up for you.

The idea of magic penetration seems kind of stupid to most low-elo players, even to some high-elo players. Let me explain to you how it works in 2 different scenarios.

Player 1 has Zhonya's, DCap, and Mejai's on them right now, no boots, no Void Staff. This would give the player about 300 ability power, assuming Mejai's is decently stacked. If Xin Xhao and whomever is mid gank you, then you would probably place your turret ultimate and go into stasis with Zhourglass, dealing damage, but taking no damage back. This is great until you realize that you didn't deal much damage to the two of them, since Ahri, like every other freaking mage in the game, rushed a Unholy Grail, MR boots, and something damagey, and they jump back onto you after Zhourglass is used up, they kill you 17 times in lane, and now Xin Xhao and Ahri are 89/0/54.
Player 2 has Zhonya's, Magic Pen Boots, and Void Staff (NOTE THAT THE ITEMS LISTED ABOVE AND THE 3 BELOW COST THE SAME TOTAL AMOUNT!). Same thing as last scenario, except this time when they dive you, your towers deal TONS more damage! and you get a double kill, and end up going 130/0/25!

How can the above scenario happen?!?!? its simple. Magic Penetration.
Heimerdinger's turrets scale off 5 percent of his abilty power, meaning that even tho Heimerdinger may have had 100 more ability power in the first scenario, his turrets only about half of what they could have been doing due to Xin Xhao and Ahri's MR. On the second scenario, Heimerdinger had a Voidstaf, which cuts resistance by a flat 33 percent (THAT IS A WHOLE MOTHER FREAKING SHOT EXTRA PER THREE SHOTS) of damage on the turret bolt, and your boots gave you 10 percent too. This means that for each turret you had, they were dealing about 50 more damage per shot!

Summary: Although pure ap looks good on paper, magic pen is the way to go on Heimerdinger due to his constant damage output.

Once you hit 6, the game changes completely, you now actively seek involvement with other team players, you are just as versatile as any other champion in team fights, what you lack in mobility and assassination prowess, you more than make for with your versatility. The 3 abilities you have with your ultimate can make you a great 1v1 duelest, team fighter, or the ultimate CC master 3000.

When using Heimerdinger's Ultimate, think about the situation you are in:

Ultimate+Q: If you are ever in a team with Crowd Control Champions such as J4, Jax, Irelia, Renekton, Morgana, Leona, Thresh, this is the primary choice of an ultimate, it fires continuous damage, and is like a 4 turret that you can summon that is hyped up on methamphetamine and cocaine. This will deal all the damage you can ever need in your life.

Ultimate+W: If you are going to use this ability, you better be trying to catch somebody out in the jungle, or being dove on. This ultimate does out of this world single target damage, and it can't be absorbed by a banshee's veil since it comes in waves. This is best used if your team lands a snare on the most fed opponent on the enemy team, or if you are in early game trying to get an easy kill.

Ultimate+E: If your team has NO cc, or only 1 person with CC, then you want to make sure you prioritize this ultimate. This is the hardest ultimate to use, considering it takes the most skill out of any of the ultimate abilities to line up. You want to make sure you have at least 3 of them in the stun radius and 1 of them in the slow radius before committing to using Ultimate+E. However, if you land this correctly, it's by far the best choice of any ultimate.

This guide is definitely good enough to get you up to high elo. The only problem is most guides don't tell you how to play in team fights. This one does though! ;)

The best advice i can give you about Heimerdinger is to make sure that you put up your turrets and then back up and let them do the turret work, while using your E to peel for Caitlyn/Graves/Lucian/Whomever is the most op ADC who probably doesn't think you're good enough to be in his/her presence.

Remember this above all: You are NOT jax. you can NOT eat damage for days, you WILL die if you are targeted by the enemy team. Your sole goal is to stay alive, and deal continuous damage, in occasion burst damage, to enemy champions and their team.

It is really tempting to lead the charge since you get more done quicker that way, but if you get killed early in the fight you're almost useless. You want to be sure that you force the enemy to jump on you while you're set up, not the other way around.

1- Peel for ADC
2- Set up turrets, then stay in the back and launch W's at the enemy's head
3- Use your ultimate correctly
4- Have a decent early game
5- Roam mid game
6- Win

If there is anything you feel I am missing in my guide please let me know, and i will finish the guide with whatever bit of information you can give me, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed your guide.