Hello, and welcome to my Warwick guide. This is the first guide I've written for League of Legends, but the information offered here is, by and large, very solid. There is no ranked play for Dominion yet but I win around 70% of the games I play Warwick on Dominion, and when JabeBot used to be able to view hidden Dominion Elo, I was fairly consistently at around 1650 Dominion Elo. This build was partially inspired by the way Guardsman Bob plays Lanewick (on Summoner's Rift), as well as some experimentation on my part. I have yet to see anybody else build Warwick similarly on Dominion, and I've gotten tired of seeing other people fail over and over again as Warwick, so I figured I would share my build here.

This should go without saying, but please don't rate (up or down) unless you have tried it, and if you do, I would appreciate it if you could leave a comment!

So, why play Warwick on Dominion? This guide will teach you to play a very tanky Warwick in the role of a defender/disruptor, which means your goal is to disrupt the enemy team from capturing your points, and defend them from further capture. The advantages and disadvantages of this sort of play are as follows:


___Pros

• High sustain
• High mobility
• Good damage with only a few offensive items
• Strong single-target CC with his ult
• Offers support to team with Blood Scent and Hunters Call

___Cons

• Vulnerable to CC while ulting
• No CC other than his ult
• Short range means you can sometimes get kited easily
• Somewhat countered by healing reduction
• No AOE for clearing large minion waves

You don't have time to read through this wall of text of a guide - you're in a game RIGHT NOW as Warwick and you have no idea what to do. Or, you're just lazy and I tend to write a lot. You've come to the right place!

Runes/Masteries:
Defensive with magic penetration.

Skill Order:
> > >

Item Build:
Balanced / -> -> -> -> -> -> -> sell for

Armor / -> -> -> -> -> -> / ->

Magic Resist -> -> -> -> -> -> -> ->

Damage -> -> -> -> -> -> -> -> sell for


Gameplay:
Get three points and hold them, and don't be reckless pushing the forth and fifth one. Abuse your mobility to be wherever your team needs you, whenever your team needs you. Ult wisely in fights and make sure it doesn't just get immediately interrupted.

The above setup gives a very nice mix of/mobility, early and late game durability, and damage.

Marks: You want mPen - no way around it. Your on-hit effects, Hungering Strike, and Infinite Duress are all magic damage, which is why the majority of your damage will be magic. The only other possible pick could be attack speed.
Seals: You can swap out flat armor for scaling armor or scaling health runes, but I find the early durability most useful.
Glyphs: The only viable choices are either flat or scaling mRes glyphs. We don't need more CDR, since our item build and masteries get us up to 39.4% - just barely short of maxed.
Quintessences: Take movespeed, mPen, or health for mobility, damage, or survivability, respectively.

/magic damage, so grab the extra 10% magic penetration in Offense. There's not much else in the Offense tree that benefits Warwick, so take the remaining 21 points in Defense.

Make sure to grab 2 points in- Enlightenment , because with that and Sorcery and a full item build (Notably Frozen Heart and Spirit Visage) you'll be at 39.4% CDR.

Lets you be very mobile, and late game, can help you get to a point to disrupt a capture on the rare occasion your Blood Scent isn't active.

Disrupts other sustain-based fighters, giving you an edge against them, but more importantly, casting this when you ult is a sizable damage increase to your "combo" (I talk about maximizing your burst

combo at the bottom of the Skills section below).

Those two are both very strong on Warwick. Other viable alternatives, though:

Can be useful, since Warwick doesn't have any CC outside of his ult. However, as a rule, capture points are more important than kills, and if you can chase someone off of a point, it's usually more

important to capture it then chase kills. Plus, in the occasion you do want to chase a kill, Blood Scent makes you excellent at it already. This could be a good pick if you don't like building Frozen Mallet, however.

Take this in addition to, but never instead of, Ghost. I cover why I take Ghost over Flash in the section below.

You take the role of a defender for the most part, pushing opponents off your points and taking advantage of your great mobility to be everywhere at once, so this can be viable. Make sure to spec

this if you take it.

While Warwick hates getting CC'd out of his ult, this won't stop that from happening. Take this if the enemy team has very heavy CC, though (this advice only applies to Draft Mode, of course). Make sure

to spec this if you take it.

With the recent Warwick changes (his passive rework and Q nerf), this can help make up for some of the lost sustain. Make sure to spec it.

As mentioned earlier, your top priority should be to defend points, but if you like to push a lot, you can take this to help with that.

Don't even think about taking these:

You're not Magewick, which means the AP is wasted as the % based damage on Hungering Strike is still going to be higher 99% of the time, and none of your other skills scale with AP. You already

have an AS steriod, too. No reason to take this.

A 20 minute game means that you get, at most, three uses out of this. You're already very tanky, and with smart play, you shouldn't die often.

You have Blood Scent and it's a tiny map anyway. Don't bother.

There are health relics all over the map (which restore mana as well), and your mana pool is big enough by level 8 or so that you shouldn't be running out anyway. As well as boosted mana regen

from the Crystal Scar's Aura, and the fact that you build Glacial Shroud.

What? No. There's no jungle here.

I take Ghost over Flash for a few reasons. Dominion is on a much smaller map than Summoner's Rift, which makes blowing your Ghost simply to get to a point so that you can defend it a good tactic at times. Combined with speed shrines and the movespeed bonus from your E, you can get around the map insanely quickly. Ghost is also useful mid/late game for those rare occasions where you need to get somewhere quick but your Blood Scent isn't active. Overall, I find Ghost is the little extra mobility bonus you need to be everywhere at once.

TL;DR Ghost gives mobility that Flash doesn't. Mobility = very strong on Dominion.

Passive - Eternal Thirst

This passive is the reason Warwick scales extremely well with attack speed, and also makes building resists on Warwick powerful - essentially, armor/mRes make the effective health gained from your passive greater.

Q - Hungering Strike

This skill deals percent based damage; extremely powerful because Dominion is dominated (see what I did there?) by tanky champions. This skill is amazing for both harass and sustain. Max this first.

W - Hunters Call

Remember how I said Warwick scales well with attack speed? Well, this skill makes you extremely strong in 1v1 fights, and provides a very nice buff for teamfights. I max this last, because it only gives an additional 10% attack speed per level after the first one, and you get more benefit out of maxing your other skills.

E - Blood Scent

Not much to say here. You get a crazy awesome movespeed buff whenever nearby enemies are below 50% health, and they're revealed to your entire team. Max this second for the increased range, and you'll start smelling people practically halfway across the map because the Crystal Scar is such a small map. This skill gives Warwick great mobility and lets him chase extremely well when you need to.

R - Infinite Duress

This is Warwick's ult. Use it to completely change the tide of a 1v1 fight, use it to isolate a single enemy so your team can burst them down, use it to catch fleeing enemies (in combination with your Blood Scent); the possibilities are endless. This also procs on-hit effects five times, which is why we build an early Wit's End.

When using this in fights against more than one enemy, be smart. You need to take an inventory of which opponents have CC which can interrupt your ult (stun, silence, knock up, knockback). Make sure that they won't immediately knock you out of it and save their teammate; sometimes this means ulting their full health Janna rather than their low-health Graves in a 2v2 so your teammate can kill her with your assistance, and THEN you can turn to kill Graves.

When you use this skill, if your Q is off cooldown, make sure to hover your mouse over the person you're ulting and spam shift+Q (to smartcast Hungering Strike). Your Q will go off immediately after your ult finishes, even if the enemy flashes or blinks away, and often it's that extra damage you need to finish someone off. To maximize the damage from your 'combo' in a 1v1 situation, if possible, you want to Q, wait a few seconds, and THEN ult so that your Q will be up again when your ult ends (and don't forget to cast Ignite while ulting).

Take this skill whenever you can, duh. It's your ult.

You have a few choices for your starting items.


Gives a good amount of armor and magic resist to start off, and builds into a quick Wit's End.


You might start with this if you're building Mercury's Treads or Sorcerer's Shoes, or aren't sure at the start.

+ more potions or
For if you need early armor, or the enemy team has a lot of stealth.

After your starting items, your goal is to rush Wit's End, as your main offensive item, upgrade your boots if you haven't already, and build some durability (I recommend grabbing an early Chain Vest if your first two major items are Wit's End and Mercury's Treads, since you'll need the armor).

Next, Glacial Shroud gives a good chunk of armor and mana, which lets you stay out a lot longer without going back, and Spirit Visage gives magic resist and some much-needed health, and increased healing from your passive, ult, and Q. Both give cooldown reduction, which lets you spam your Q and brings down the cooldown on your ult pretty considerably, and both of these are also very cheap items, so you can get them quickly.

Your core build should look like this:
or or

After this, you need two more items to complete your build, and you need to finish your Frozen Heart at some point. You should be analyzing the enemy team's composition as well as how the game is going. Check which champions on the enemy team are carrying, and build to counter them. If you get completely melted in a fight, check the death recap and, if you took a lot more magic damage than physical damage, buy a Negatron Cloak, or vise versa, a Chain Vest.

Some good items to fill the remaining two slots are as follows:

Phage -> Frozen Mallet: Lots of health, and the 40% slow means they will almost never escape you. You can actually sometimes kite other melee champions with your Q, autoattacks, and the speed boost from your E once you buy this, which is hilarious.

Malady: I rarely have space in my build to buy this. However, if the enemy team is extremely heavy on one damage type (people seem to care less about team composition on Dominion, so this happens occasionally), and you can afford to not get one of your defensive items, this gives a great boost to your offense. You'll notice your ult doing more, as this equates to basically free magic penetration. Your ult also ensures that they have max stacks of the mRes debuff, making finishing an opponent off with your Q after an ult much easier. Thanks to LedahWolf for pointing this item out.

Bilgewater Cutlass: Gives a decent amount of damage and supplements Warwick's innate sustain nicely, as well as providing extra damage and CC on its active ability. The reason I don't get this item more often is because it doesn't build into anything particularly useful (only upgrade it to Hextech Gunblade as one of your last complete items), and because you don't get the most out of the stats since we don't have any armor penetration with this build.

Randuin's Omen: Gives health and armor, as well as a useful active for larger fights, but the passive is what really makes this item shine. Buy it if you have trouble getting kited by ranged champions like Ashe or Ezreal.

Thornmail: I rarely need more armor, but when I do, this item makes me nearly untouchable by any AD carry.

Force of Nature: Movespeed, lots of health regen, and more Magic Resist than any other item in the game. A great item on Warwick.

Odyn's Veil: Health! Mana! Magic Resist! This item has it all! Additionally, the active can add a nice little bit of extra damage to your burst 'combo' when you ult someone. You can't use the active while ulting, unlike using Ignite while you ult, but trying to won't break the channel either, so don't be afraid to spam the active while you're ulting so that it'll go off after your ult.

Kitae's Bloodrazor: Madred's Bloodrazor is common on Summoner's Rift Warwick, but the reason this item isn't core is that the decrease from 4% of max health to 2.5% of max health is pretty considerable, and you don't benefit much from the AD, as you have basically no armor penetration. It's expensive and not very cost-effective for Warwick. However, if the game goes on extremely long, you've built Force of Nature, and want more damage, you could consider selling Wit's End to buy this - it'll ultimately give you more damage in the late game (the proc begins to deal more damage than Wit's End when fighting someone with more than 1680 health).

Do not go bot as Warwick - your sustain is nearly nonexistant until you have significant ranks in Hungering Strike and several levels to buff up your passive. You'll usually get kited and harassed out, especially at higher levels of play where people pick a champion specifically to play bot rather than just choosing some random person on their team for it. Buy your starting items and head towards the Windmill, and make sure to run through the Speed Shrine to get there as quickly as possible.

This is very important: You are very weak until you get your Wit's End. Don't be reckless, don't forget to use your potions (always carry potions during the early game; they will save your life), and the majority of your use will just be buffing your team for that fight over the windmill with Hunters Call. Don't be discouraged if you're not particularly useful here, because you'll carry hard mid and late game. Once you get your Wit's End and your ult, you become substantially more powerful. Push the Windmill with your team, if you don't already have it, and with a well-placed Infinite Duress, the fight should be a piece of cake.

Now that you have three points, all you really have to do is keep them. It's easy, especially with your Blood Scent, to get greedy and chase kills, but you need to be keeping track of where the enemy team is on the map and only do so when you know you can do so safely.

-Treat captured points just like you would treat turrets on Summoner's Rift. It's true that they do less damage, but if your opponents make the mistake of fighting you on one, they'll regret it. If you're feeling confident, you can Infinite Duress an opponent the moment they come under turret fire, as the 3~4 turret shots they'll take because you supressed them will, if not net you a kill, at least force them to fall back and let you keep the point.

-The 4th and 5th capture points are very difficult to hold, because they're positioned so close to the enemy team's spawn. As a general rule, only push one of these immediately after killing 3~4 of the enemy team members with only 1 or 2 deaths on your side, and then know when to fall back.

- Oracle's Extract is a very underrated item in Dominion. I'm usually the only person buying it on my team, yet with the increased gold generation and the cost of only 250g, it's a ridiculously cheap price to pay to completely screw over the other team's stealth champions. If the other team has 2+ champions with stealth, buy this whenever you have the gold. Hold it in your inventory until you need it; this ensures that you don't use the item and then just die immediately, and often lets you bait an opponent into thinking they can just stealth away and being overly aggressive.

-DON'T GET GREEDY. This is really the bottom line. If you're doing well, late game you can 1v1 just about anybody and 1v2, depending on who they are, but only do so if you're fed. Your Hungering Strike and your passive let you almost always come out of skirmishes ahead, and defending your points and driving the opponent back takes priority over kills. They're often only trying to lure you off your point so that they can kill you and take it. Remember that kills only give 100 gold in Dominion, so you don't even really need kills to be fed (but, trust me, you will end up with plenty of kills, even if you play cautiously).

-Make sure to keep track of when your summoner spells are up, and act accordingly. On Dominon, I tend to play with a mentality of trying to use them as soon as possible when they come up, so that I get the most out of my summoner spells over the course of the whole game, as opposed to Summoner's Rift where it's more important to save them for key moments. That doesn't mean to Ghost so that you can get to the Storm Shield right away when it comes up, but if there's a situation where you will get a palpable benefit from using it, for instance, ghosting to stop their Evelynn from neutralizing one of your points, then, sure, do it. Same with Ignite: if you get into a fight with someone you don't know for sure that you can crush, and your ignite is up, use it when you ult for some extra damage. Unless, of course, the other team has someone like Dr. Mundo who you need to save it for.

-You might often get Exhausted, which is actually pretty laughable, as it doesn't effect your passive at all (it's flat health restored per autoattack, and Exhaust doesn't touch your AS). Just keep attacking through it; your damage might be a little reduced, but in most situations they still won't be able to race against your sustain. Ignite poses a much greater threat, as it gimps your healing capacity. If you get Ignited, fall back until it runs out, and you could still pull out of the fight with a kill or two.

-Ultimately, just get three points and hold them, and don't get greedy. You have great mobility, so be watching to figure out where your team needs you, and then get there. Most importantly, only push a fourth point when you can do so safely, and if you're not sure you can, then DON'T. It's better to be safe than sorry.

Well sir, that's where you're wrong! Want some proof?



(The last game on this screenshot is the first game on the next one, to show that these games are all consecutive.)



And lastly, because I found this amusing...


Right after I lock in Warwick: "el WW es bien op en dominion xD"

Well said, Mr. Spanish speaker, well said. :D

06/17/2012
Blood Scent
Warwick will now immediately gain the bonus of Blood Scent if he reduces a target’s health below 50%
Warwick will now immediately gain the bonus of Blood Scent when it is activated
-Yay, QOL changes! Not much to say here; there used to be a delay of a second or two sometimes in these circumstances.

05/10/2012
Updated Heal commentary in the Summoner Spells section.

05/03/2012
Switched around the location of the Overview and Pros/Cons sections.
Updated commentary on Oracle's Extract in the Gameplay section.

05/01/2012
Hungering Strike
Damage reduced to 8/10/12/14/16% from 8/11/14/17/20%
-An unfortunate nerf, but somewhat justified. This ability allowed Warwick to deal insane damage without building any offensive items, and it still does - just a little bit less. A 2500 HP target with 100 MR after mPen would have previously taken 250 damage; now they will take 200.

03/29/2012
-Minor text edits and typo fixes.
-Miscellaneous formatting changes.
-Added more color in certain places.

03/13/2012
-Edited the description for Kitae's Bloodrazor.
-Updated formatting on Items section.
-Added Overview section at beginning of guide.
-Moved Changelog section to end of guide.
-Fixed various typos.

03/05/2012
-Updated the formatting on the Skills section.

02/13/2012
-Changelog section added.
Eternal Thirst now deals 3-16 magic damage per stack, and restores an equal amount of health
Infinite Duress damage changed to 250/335/420 (+2.0 bonus attack damage) from 200/300/400 (+1.67 total attack damage)
Base attack speed increased to 0.679 from 0.644
-Warwick buffs! Sort of. Early sustain nearly removed, but we get a sizable increase to his damage (at level 18, dealing up to 48 magic damage per attack with full stacks, and this will apply to his ult, as well). Need to be really careful early game, however.
-Ult has higher base damage, but only scales off bonus attack damage now. This is an overall nerf, but means that certain AD items are better than they used to be on Warwick.
-More attack speed; nothing to complain about here.

Thanks for reading! If you had success with this build, please upvote and let me know in the comments, and if you have criticism, let me know as well. I'm always looking to improve. :)

Special thanks to LedahWolf, for being a big help with creating this guide and responding to comments, and to JhoiJhoi for her guide on making a good guide, which I used to clean up and make my guide look a lot nicer with.