One day little Tristanna managed to visit Disney Land and totally fell in love with Magic Kingdom. She tried out all those magical gadgets because she always envied cute little Annie for getting all the sweet boys.
Sometimes she misses those sharp swords she was carrying around, but her head seems to be shaped perfect for this beautiful Deathcap.

This guide isn't meant serious because you will want to be the AD carry in any game you aren't playing against bots. Moreover it isn't written for someone who has no experience with Tristana at all. I won't discuss playing Tristana here. I discuss playing her especially as AP. So if you're new to her, please read another guide, that introduces her Abilities precisely, first.

Pros

- AP scaling of most of her skills isn't too bad
- Enemys might be surprised by your tactic
- Can take out single enemys with total ease

Cons

- Really squishy because there are no defensive items in this build
- No crit
- Not enough AoE Damage for a serious ranged AP
- Not too much cc
- Not much benefit from your passive ability in comparison to AD buid

Not much too say here.
Magic penetration, Cooldown reduction for more damage. Life and armor for survivability in early game.

Exhaust and ghost are simply for chasing your enemy and killing them, mostly in early-mid game.

I do not choose Ignite because you already have a dot with healing reduction with exposive shot.


Other Summoner Spells depend highly on your team comparison and i won't discuss them here. Clarity is an option because you might have a decent mana usage when constantly harassing your enemys with explosive shot.
Flash is always an alternative to Ghost and depends on your own playstyle.
Fortify, Clairvoyance, Teleport and Heal shouldn't be your picks.
And lastly Smite is only for jungling

Core
Rabadon's if of course the item to choose for every AP build. It alone will give you around 600 damage for your W-E-R rotation. Lich Bane gives you some crazy boost for your auto attack.

Late Game
Both of these items share the fact that they are giving a stackable buff. One that debuffs the enemy, one that buffs you. Those are perfect late game items because with a maxed out Rapid Fire you can put those stacks pretty quick.

The build is centered around dealing massive Magic damage to a single target.

Early game

You should play a decent midlaner, but your chances of getting kills are higher in the outer lanes. Your explosive shot stacks 100% with AP and is perfect for harrasing your enemy or give him the final blow. If your enemy is a bit low, just rocket jump into him, autohit him, exhaust him after rocket jump slow vanished and give him an explosive shot when he's about to escape or gets behind his own tower. You should also not forget that you can tower dive with Rocket Jumpg because it's cooldown gets resetted after an enemy gets killed. If there is healing capability on your lane put explosive shot on the enemy right after landing Rocket Jump.

Level 6

Buster Shot has an incredible 150% scale with AP. So once you get the first parts of your deathcap you already do around 150 extra magical damage with your Buster Shot together with 100 extra damage from Explosive Shot and 80 extra damage from Rocket Jump.
In my opinion this phase of the game is your strongest.

Late Game

This is were stacking AP like Annie, Anivia or Fiddlesticks or other AP casters doesn't benefit you too much, because you'll only increase your single target damage. After you jumped on someone with Rocket Jump, Buster & Explosive Shot you basically stand around doing nothing. With Malady and Rageblade you manage to at least do a bit more physical damage and decreasing some enemies magical resistance. This could for example increase your chances for an ace if the enemys tank is about to escape and has high MR.

Explosive Shots passive also scales with AP so you might farm as easy as AD Tristana. For a quick farm just Rocket Jump into the enemy and then Rapid Fire the lowest Creep down. The Explosion might already kill the whole wave. If not just focus the second one down.

Well, the build isn't meant to be really competitive. Just showing a little calculation at the end.

With 400 AP at Level 18 you do:
250 + 320 = 570 magical damage with Rocket Jump.
230 + 400 = 630 magical damage with Explosive Shot over 5 seconds (tooltip is wrong here)
130 + 400 + 20 = 550 damage with your next autohit (lichtbane + malady)
500 + 600 = 1100 magical damage with Buster Shot (+ knockback)

This is, of course, pre MR and Armor. And it's nothing in comparison to a good Nunu or Kata Ultimate. But in comparison to AD Tristanna you're not constantly critting your enemies down but bursting a single enemy to death.

All in all this build has it greatest strength in killing an enemy carry down.