Hello! and welcome to my first ever guide! My name is Volt Havoc and I'm just your average everyday player, My Elo is nothing special and I play for fun. My goal for this guide is to hopefully help at least a few players who would like to play a new champ, or an old champ that they love in a new role that they might not have thought of before. If you are looking for an experts guide on Hecarim then go and find another by a pro player.

Pros:
High Mobility
Strong Mid/Late game
high damage once you get your sheen
Tanky thanks to his Spirit of Dread(w)
Easily escapes ganks
strong aoe ulti
Godlike initiate
excellent teamfight presence
unconventional top laner, nobody knows what to do against you
strong roam and ganking capabilities while running teleport
he is a pony.

Cons:
Weak Early game
no sustain
isn't a very good duelist, strong in team fights
He is very susceptible to strong harrass from champions such as Teemo and Nidalee
susceptible to CC

-strongest summoner for hecarim aside from Ghost, this can be used for objective control, tele-ganking, protecting your lane, and of course split pushing.

- synergizes with your passive, and enhances your already incredible chasing capabilities.

-acceptable, but overall weaker than Ghost, does not work well with your kit that is revolves around chasing over time, you have no instant gap closers, its all about the over time, making ghost more viable.

-the only other summoner i expect to really ever see on the laning pony, good for securing kills, but limiting you later for more team beneficial opportunities such as ganking with teleport and securing objectives.

all other summoners are bad on Hecarim(in my opinion)

First Back:
Get your Giants Belt and boots, you will be very tanky when you return to lane and harrass will not effect you nearly as much as it would prior to you backing, or you picking up your sheen instead of the giants belt.Always get additional wards and pots when you go b, its essential to Hecarim as he has no sustain.

Core:
Decide at this point whether or not you would rather go for your Iceborn Gauntlets, or sunfire cape, or decide whether you want a Randuins instead of Sunfire Cape.

Mid game:/
At this point you have plenty or armor, all you need now is AD and MR. To compensate for your low MR go for a Maw of Malmortius, at this point in the game you should only be able to afford the hexdrinker, and finish it of into a Maw later into the game.

Late game:/
Its Teamfighting time, your time to shine. By now you should already have your core, some damage items, and plenty of HP, MR, and armor. Picking up a Spirits Visage may seem like a weaker item, but it enhances your Spirit of Dread considerably, increasing the amount of HP you get back for the damage you and your team is dishing out. Spirit Visage is a very strong item and I personally always get it.

Complete Build://
Decide whether you need more tanky items, like warmogs if you are getting focused. Or go for some more damage like IE as shown in the example build at the top of the guide. REMEMBER ELIXIRS AND ORACLES.

Very useful passive, allows you to use ultility masteries and runes and still have equal damage to other bruiser who are forced into using damage materies and runes. Helps for chasing, no unit collision= no annoying minion ****blocks.

This is your Bread and Butter, your main damage source and your sheen proccing machine, with max rampage stacks, you get a sheen proc automatically every 2 seconds, the maximum you can possibly have. This skill is to be maxed first due to its low mana cost, decent damage, and low cd.

useless in laning phase, but amazing in teamfights. 20% lifesteal/spellvamp in a teamfight in an aoe is ridiculous. The recent nerf to this abiltiy weakened its late game potential and completely screwed its scaling, but made laning hecarim more viable as they buffed his Q, and made it viable to secondly max your E. get 1 point in this at lvl 4 and leave it alone until your finish the other abilities.

Great utility, and good damage at max range. This skill is great for when the jungler ganks and for securing kills that use their flash or escape abilities. Use this to get ahead of the enemy then hit them backwards. Not much to the skill besides that, dont waste it on cs and be careful not to charge into turret range since it carries you with your target. TIP: start this ability and then ult behind the enemy. they will be feared and you will automatically hit them backwards extra distance, this is great for when you are getting ganks or need just a bit more time to finish off a kill, you activate the ability BEFORE ulting because you get more damage the farther you travel while it is active, so when you move with the ult you get more damage. Activating after would result in the same thing, but with less damage dealt.

A very powerful ultimate. This can be used to initiate a teamfight, escape a gank, escape over a wall, secure a kill under turret, tele gank, initiate a gank in lane with your jungler. and secure a kill on a running enemy in a teamfight. The uses for this ult are many, and the ult can be hard to master. I wouldnt consider myself a master with it and i have used Hecarim is hundreds of games. Learn to use it properly and you will be a force to be reckoned with.

Max out your Q, main damage source and is great when you get your sheen, do not get extra points in your w. The sustain is pitiful and the lifesteal/spellvamp no longer gets higher with ranks, now it is a flat 20%. Secondly max your charge for extra dps and a shorter cd. lvl ulti whenever possible.

the laning phase for Hecarim can be very annoying. Most tops have an edge over him for the first 10-15 minutes of the game. You are very easy to harrass and your Q cannot compete with other champions harrass until you have sheen or IceBorn Gauntlets to combo your AA's with. Focus on farming and only commit to going for kills if you are absolutely 100% sure you can win, or you have a jungler coming in to gank.

This is the point where you can start to show your presence as powerhouse with tons of damage. Use your teleport at your discretion to either gank bot and mid, or to get to your lane faster to stop the enemy from taking down your turret. I recommend using your first teleport to get to your own lane, and the second to gank another lane, if there is n opportunity... save it, its a 300 second cd and you may regret using it because you were too lazy to walk to your lane. This is also when objectives come into play, dragon primarily. Teleport isn't THAT common in top and running it is very beneficial t your team, you have much more global presence than the other top lane and can help with objectives such as dragon much more easily. Take advantage of your mid game power by pressing your lane, teleporting to other lanes, and roaming as much as possible(without falling behind your lane).

You are a pony, in a teamfight you are one of the strongest ones there. This is where your team is looking either to force a fight on Baron Nashor, or to win a teamfight to push for the win or take baron and look to end the game in one more fight. use your teleport to either split push, or to initiate off of wards from fountain as you should have homeguard by now, nothing is scarier than a Hecarim rushing into a teamfight that the enemy team thought they had in the bag at 1300 movement speed. Decide whether to save your ultimate, or to initiate with it. Most people say to always use it as an initiate but I find that it is very useful and beneficial to sometimes save it and use it to finish off or chase down a couple of runners from the enemy team. A few tips, dont roam alone unless you have wards and teleport up, do not initiate a fight where your team cant follow you in(over baron nashor wall). And look for opportunities to catch enemies alone.

Your job can be one to two of three things. You can be the initiator, the peeler, or you can be the one who jumps into the enemy ADC and kill them. In most cases i leave peeling to champions with stronger peel and i go for the enemy ADC. You can beat any adc in an average teamfight and with the help of another teammate such as Diana or Akali, you will net a kill for sure. Hecarim deals massive damage while being very tanky and you will be able to outdamage the adc with all the armor you have picked up by late game(over 200). When initiating look to hit behind the enemies so that your ultimates dynamic fear(meaning they run in the oppsosite direction you are at the end of your ultimate) pushes them back into your team if they are running, if you see them grouped up, just ult in the middle and your team can jump right in and fight off your initiate. In the case you are the peeler for your carries, make sure to get as many Iceborn Gauntlet procs as possible, and also use your E or charge to push them AWAY from your carry. Hecarim can do many things in teamfights and in my opinion, has one of the strongest teamfight presences out of all the champions in the game.

just a couple tips to farming as Hecarim,
use your Q to finish off creeps that you would miss otherwise.
dont use W as you will use all your mana.
try to abuse brush to avoid as much harrass as possible.

Thank you for taking the time to read my guide to one of my favorite champions. The guide may be a bit rough as it was my first guide, and i have no idea how to use mobafire yet :P. And it is 3:30 in the morning and im tired. I will put in runes and masteries probably tomorrow, since its very late and i want to sleep, also i will work to improve this guide as i learn to use the website more efficiently and i will add new bits to the guide as i learn more to Hecarim(yes, i still learn even though i have used him for a long time). If you have any question about how i play Hecarim or any other champion, or you just want to play with me sometime or to tell me how amazing i am, message me on LoL, my name is Volt Havoc and i'm on the NA server. Please feel free to comment leaving me advice on how to improve or to tell me how to use things from the guide creator. Again thank you for taking the time to read my guide and please feel free to leave a like if you enjoyed the guide. :)
-Volt Havoc