Vikings. Vikings. Vikings. This guide is all about Vikings. Vikings are these brave, unstopable men with beards from northern Europe. Tough people, smelling terrible and wielding axes in their hands. Do you want to be one of them? If your answer is: "Hell, yeah. Let's get in the fight and roll some faces!" then Olaf is the perfect champion for you.
This guide is not about telling you Olaf is the best champion in this server lagging game. I also won't tell you that you will absolutely rock with this guide. But...

... you will learn how to play Olaf
... you can be able to absolutely rock (anyway this depends on YOU)
... you will have great fun

As I'm telling in my other guides you should answer a final question before playing this champion: Who is Olaf?
Of course the answer is: A fcking viking. But this is not the answer I want to hear. What can you expect when playing Olaf?

Olaf is what some people would call an Offtank. Thanks to his W turning his life points into damage he gets great use out of items like Frozen Malett. The Warmogs + Atmas - combo is very (very, very, very) great for Olaf and I highly recommend to use it.

So...
Olaf deals a good amount of damage.
Olaf is one of the fastest junglers.
Olaf can gank pretty good (although he is not the best).
Olaf can tank and initiate fights (anyway your main tank should do that).

To sum it all up: Olaf is a tanky damage dealer with a great jungling ability.

So finally we should talk about how to build Olaf. For Runes I prefer armor penetration and dodge. Anyway this is totally up to you. I noticed everyone got his own favourite rune composition. So feel free to change this.

0-21-9 is pretty good on Olaf. It gives you great defense and farming potential. Most masteries I chose don't need a explanation I think. If you got any questions feel free to ask them.

Other good choices:
9-21-0 (however you will lack EXP and your red buff won't last long)
9-0-21
21-9-0 (same here)
21-0-9

Many people are going for Perseverence instead of Good Hands. Those people should think about its use. Perseverence will only give an additional regeneration of 4%. This is almost nothing. Good Hands will reduce your time being dead by 10%. And now think of yourself how many matches you are playing without any deaths. In most cases you will die at least about 2-3 times. 10% less time being death actually is enough to be back in a team fight, to defend a tower or just to roll some faces.

Skills are what makes each champion unique. Skills show us how to play a champion. So let's have a look at Olaf's skills.

A great passive, especially for jungling and 1 on 1. The lower your health get the more dangerous you are. This is the way of the Viking. But anyway, don't stay in a fight with almost no health.

Olaf's slow. Actually its damage is pretty small. So we just put one point in it and maximaze it last. Don't use this for jungling except you are not lacking mana. You should be able to hit moving enemies with it as its your job to slow somebody when ganking. Olaf is lacking a good an easy slow like Nunu has e.g. This is why you either need to be great with Undertow or need to have red buff. Best would be to be both.

Viking power! This is just an amazing skill. Damage according to your life, life steal and spell vamp. That's the skill that makes you to a great jungler. And that's the skill that makes you to kick some enemies when ganking or in teamfights. Two points in it will help to jungle fast and save.

This is Olaf's damage skill. Use it whenever possible. But... you are losing life when using it. So have an eye on your own health bar.

I could write "Vikings!" all the way down when talking about this ultimate. It's just great. This makes Olaf a great and dangerous ganking. As Olaf does not has a "nobody can move"-slow like Nunu, Amumu or a great stun ability like Udyr you will mostly need this to gank. Most enemies will try to slow you when you start ganking. Just scream "A VIKING CAN'T BE SLOWED!!!" and kill him as fast as possible. In addition to that this ability makes you even more tanky than you actually are. It helps to follow escaping enemies or to escape. So don't waste it.

This Olaf actually got nothing you could call a core build. And there is only one item you should change for some reasons. In addition to that you don't have to follow the order of items I gave. Always buy them according to the actual game status. But check yourself...

Start with a and some Health Pots. When you got enough money buy a . It's a great farming item, giving armor, lifesteal and some damage. The free ward is just great. Especially in early game it can save your mates from a gank.

As i actually told you Olaf is lacking some constant slow. This is why I buy quite early. Finishing it with a later. This item is awesome on Olaf as you will even get additional damage by its life point boost.

By buying a you become really dangerous (and i mean really dangerous). With this item you got that much lifesteal that it's actually no problem to heal the most damage you get. Now Olaf can actually win a 1 vs 1 against any other champion (well expect Tryndamere maybe...)

As already said and are unbelievable great on Olaf. Never play without this cute, little combo. Being almost unstoppable with a huge amount of damage. What would you actually need more?

By buying these items Olaf becomes a tanky, dangerous DPS. But hey, I promised there is one item that can be changed. And this iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis:

...

When facing a enemy team with huge amount of life points buy a .
When facing a enemy team stacking armor buy a .
When facing a enemy team with a huge amount AP you might want to buy a .
When your own team got some AD and nobody else want to take it:


Shoes:
Many people don't like the shoes I finally took and they are right with that. Actually you can take any shoes of your choice.
When fighting against a AD heavy team and you think you will have some trouble just buy .
When facing a AP heavy team and/or a team with a lot of CC you can buy .
Olaf's movement speed is pretty slow. When you think you need to be faster buy

Olaf is one of the fastest junglers in game and pretty save. So let's have a closer look on jungling with Olaf:

I usually start doing the small Golems. Use a health pot and smite the first one. Then it's up to you either doing the wolfs then the wraiths or the other way round. If the enemy team got no jungler get to their jungle and farm till you have 700g, then recall and buy Madred's. Otherwise look for a opportunity to gank or even do blue buff. When you finally got Madred's get red buff and start ganking. Constantly jungle and gank when you got a chance.

If you prefer you can start with blue buff. Actually that's more risky but a bit faster.


Here is a picture showing my jungle route:Please notice that you can also do Wolves before Wraiths. Also you can get to the other jungle before 4 to get Madred's earlier or look for a oppurtunity to gank (cause you don't have red buff yet you need a enemy on low health)

Here two videos of how to jungle with Olaf from TheOddOne. He does not use the same build as I do but it actually shows how to jungle with him.
Play Video Play Video
PS: Videos and images are not from me. Thanks to PsiGuard for his idea adding this media.

You need Smite!
I'm used to see people jungling without Smite. Many are saying especially Olaf does not need Smite. Well, you can Jungle without Smite. You can also play Caitlyn on AP. But is it useful? Both questions: NO!
1.) Smite will help you to jungle faster.
2.) Jungling faster will help to gank earlier
3.) You are jungling easier and saver.
4.) So you will survive ganks easier and you can gank yourself more often.
5.) You can save buffs/dragon/baron.
6.) You might be able to steal buffs/dragon/baron.
7.) Have I already said you can jungle faster?

Don't believe me? Relax and watch: Play Video

Finally you read through my guide and arrived at my final section. How to play Olaf?

I already mentioned it: Olaf is a mixture of Tank and DPS. Anyway Olaf should not be the main tank in your group. Olaf can initiate a team fight when there is no other option (e.g. tank dead and you think you can win that fight).

Target the enemies Carry. You should live long enough to kill him/her pretty fast. Anyway do not leave the team fight to kill escaping enemies as long as you are sure the others don't need you to survive and win.

In a team fight use your ultimate to make sure nothing will stop you from killing the opponent Carry.

Ganking:
Ganking with Olaf is pretty.... tricky. Olaf is a great jungler because he is very fast. But ganking actually needs a lot of practice. That's why I want to tell you a few tricks:
The problem is that you don't have any slow or stun you really can rely on. I already said that several times. Ganking with champs like WW, Udyr, Nunu, Fiddle, etc. is very easy. Olaf needs to be smart:
- Tell your team mates not to push in lane. You won't be able to gank if the enemies are around there own tower as long they are not on very low health.
- Communicate with your team mates. Tell them to stun or slow your main target when you start ganking.
- Practice to hit with Undertow. Try to hit your enemy (ofc) but don't through it to fast away. So you will be able to pick it up and you can use that slow very soon again. If you do that right you will be able to slow the enemy long enough to kill.
- If your enemies got any kind of slow, stun or something that will disturb you (and 99,99% of your enemies will have that) use your ultimate.
- Everything is about surprising your enemies. If you noticed that they started placing wards buy a oracel. It will help to destroy that wards. Anyway you can't gank immediately - obviously... - but you can a few time after that.
I can't tell that enough: Olaf needs practice to become a decent ganker. Olaf is great from early to late but his real strenght is in strenght is in late game.


So in the end there is not much to say about Olaf anymore. If you got any questions feel free to ask.

Olaf can be played in lane. Anyway I would recommend to jungle. If you already got a jungler but you really want to play Olaf you can keep this build.

Just replace Smite with Exhaust or Ignite. If you want to you can replace Ghost with Flash, Ignite or Exhaust.
Replace with another or one of these 4 items I actually said you can replace them with Bloodthirster (but you should buy at least one Bloodthirster with Lane-Olaf).
Start with a or . Then finish your build with an order of your own choice.

You should skill first to go for First Blood or protect you or your team mates for getting killed on First Blood. When laning against two annoying ranged you might want to level that skill earlier.

Thank you so much for reading my guide. I took time to write it. So please take time to comment and vote. Respect the work others put into their guides and let us now what you think. I don't care if you like or dislike it. Just tell me so I can improve it.

To sum it all up: Let's kick 'em, Viking!