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Runes: Best runes after testing
1
2
Sorcery





Domination






+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
1
2
Standard summoners

Flash

Ignite
Items
Ability Order

Inherent Glamour
Neeko Passive Ability
Champion Build Guide
Introduction
Hello everyone! My name is Vicksy, I'm a high Diamond/Master tier mid laner. I've been playing since the start of Season 3 on the EUW server, and I've been a full on mid main since Season 4. I have achieved Diamond 1 every single season since Season 4, I even hit Masters 100+ LP in Season 6 mostly playing
Aurelion Sol,
Viktor and
Ahri, and I am known for playing
Zoe. I am a partnered Twitch streamer, and I like to stream every single day! Feel free to shoot me any questions you may have.
My guide will be a work in progress while people start figuring out how
Neeko works and sees if other rune or item combinations work on her, this is what I've personally found success with on the PBE. I will be streaming every single day playing
Neeko to further expand my guide with new information.




My guide will be a work in progress while people start figuring out how


Pros
+ Great burst damage + Great CC + Game-changing ultimate + Has high outplay potential + Decent waveclear + Great roamer/ganker ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Cons
- Very squishy - No raw mobility - Her ultimate can easily be countered - Hard to hit skill shots - Falls off when people get more items - Short ranged Since ![]() |
These are the best summoner combinations for
Neeko in my opinion. You pretty much always want to take
Flash, as
Neeko is immobile and it also helps her greatly to land game-changing
Pop Blossom, and the second one is interchangeable based on the game. I have gone with
Ignite because
Neeko's burst damage is quite high and this can enable you to get solo kills in lane or to get decent roams off.
The second best option to take over
Ignite in my opinion. Take this when the enemy team has very devastating CC that you need to stay safe from, especially from junglers like
Elise.
Rammus and
Sejuani, mid laners such as
Twisted Fate and
Veigar, supports like
Morgana or
Braum, tanks such as
Shen or
Maokai, or marksmen such as
Varus or
Ashe. It only takes one powerful CC late game to blow you up and completely lose the game.
Keep in mind you do not have to take
Cleanse versus only one champion that has CC, but if it's the enemy jungler or mid laner that has it along with it being unavoidable or easy to land, I highly recommend getting used to
Cleanse and taking it.
While these are great summoner spells, I don't think they're great in helping
Neeko achieve her goal - to blow up people in team fights with
Pop Blossom and unleash devastating CC. She needs the
Ignite for kill pressure and to help her get her items fast.
Barrier and
Heal are great on champions that want to survive laning phase and output fairly long range damage.
I think this summoner spell is a noob trap after its nerfs a long time ago. It was really good before because it gave you instant movement speed, but now that it takes a few seconds to scale it's pretty bad on most champions, unless you're someone like a
Viktor or a
Cassiopeia that can use
Ghost decently late game as they're mid range mages that have a lot of DPS instead of burst, which
Neeko doesn't have either. Even on those champions I think it's a death wish to take a non-combat summoner in lane that isn't
Teleport.
I do not think
Neeko is a great user of
Teleport - she can't really gank well with it as
Teleporting behind 3 people is certainly a death wish. I also think her lane phase is decent enough to not rely on
Teleport for her base timings, and she's also not a very good split pusher because she's too squishy and has unreliable 1v1 damage. She's a champion where combat summoners benefit her greatly to get her damage rolling and start unleashing devastating damage in team fights.






Other options
The second best option to take over












Keep in mind you do not have to take


While these are great summoner spells, I don't think they're great in helping





I think this summoner spell is a noob trap after its nerfs a long time ago. It was really good before because it gave you instant movement speed, but now that it takes a few seconds to scale it's pretty bad on most champions, unless you're someone like a





I do not think




These are in my opinion the best runes by far for
Neeko, and I will cover why they are good individually below.
Arcane Comet seems to be the rune on top for
Neeko after a lot of testing and studying ProBuilds. While it doesn't make much sense in teamfights as
Neeko just goes in and bursts people with one combo because she doesn't have the range to poke, it is absolutely amazing for laning and allows you to bully a lot of people out with your tangled-barbs into
Blooming Burst combo, and is exceptionally potent vs. melee champions.
Manaflow Band is your next choice here, but you can honestly swap this out for
Nullifying Orb if you feel like you're going to be bursted vs. a really high damage AP mid like
LeBlanc. Unfortunately,
Neeko does not work well with
Nimbus Cloak - she gains the movement speed while her animation lifts her into the air - meaning half of the duration is wasted.
Gathering Storm is the final rune you'll be taking under the Sorcery tree. As
Scorch got nerfed and
Waterwalking is a lot better for junglers this is the last option you have. It doesn't do anything for the first 10 minutes, but if the game continues to 30 minutes you'll have a decent chunk of extra AP to help you close the game out, and
Neeko's AP ratios are extremely high, making it even more worth it.
Taste of Blood will be your next choice for
Neeko. It's a decent laning phase rune and it can add up to quite a lot of healing over the course of the game. However
Sudden Impact gives you extra penetration as her stealth through her
Shapesplitter procs this rune. Try out either one and see what you like! However if you want to use
Ravenous Hunter this rune is the best for pairing with it.
Ravenous Hunter will be the final rune you will take. A pretty strong rune that helps not only for laning but for late game, great for healing on a wave after being poked out but you need to stick around and not base. Great for combining with
Taste of Blood for maximum healing.
The bonuses towards your runes are pretty clear cut here, you can opt for 10 adaptive twice (which is 20 AP) and choose between the MR or Armour for the final choice, as the HP one isn't very good. If you're in difficult match-ups you can just double dip in the defenses, taking +12 MR or armour allowing you to get through lane a lot easier.

Sorcery (Main tree)













Domination (Secondary tree)







Bonuses
In this section we'll go through
Neeko's abilities and skill maxing order!
Pretty much you want always want to be always maxing
Blooming Burst >
Tangle-Barbs >
Shapesplitter, as I think one point in each of her abilities instead of putting 2 early points into
Blooming Burst is more important, since
Shapesplitter can help you survive from early ganks. And of course, putting a point into your ultimate
Pop Blossom whenever possible at levels 6, 11 and 16. We max
Tangle-Barbs second for the increased damage and CC duration.
Inherent Glamour is
Neeko's passive.
Neeko is offered a selection of allied champions to copy their appearance indefinitely. Once chosen, there is a 2.5 second delay before selecting another champion.
This is the ability that makes
Neeko so sneaky! When copying a champion, you copy their champion model including any buffs they may have, voice lines, emotes, current health and secondary resource (such as mana, energy etc) - however you have to remember that her disguise breaks when you receive damage, and when casting
Blooming Burst or
Tangle-Barbs, and this puts it on a longer cooldown. You can combine this ability with
Shapesplitter and
Pop Blossom however for some crazy combos!
Blooming Burst is
Neeko's bread and butter ability.
Neeko propels a seed into a target area, which blooms after a delay dealing magic damage to enemies in its area.
If this ability kills an enemy unit, or damages an enemy champion or a large monster, it will bloom again after a short delay, dealing magic damage again, and this cannot happen more than twice per cast, allowing
Blooming Burst to damage up to 3 times with reduced damage on the second and third hits. This spell is a great way to waveclear once you prepare the minions so it pops more than once. Another thing to remember is that this ability does break your
Inherent Glamour.
Shapesplitter has both a passive and an active effect. For her passive,
Neeko's every third auto attack deals bonus magic damage and grants her bonus movement speed for one second. A great thing to remember about this passive is you can stack it on minions before going in for a trade, similar to
Twisted Fate's
Stacked Deck, and her 3rd auto's animation is a lot faster AND not a projectile, meaning it can pass through
Yasuo's
Wind Wall - allowing you to surprise enemies.
The active portion of this ability makes
Neeko stealth for 0.5 seconds, splitting
Neeko into 2 models - one being a clone, which you control by aiming your cursor at the chosen location for the clone just before activating
Shapesplitter. This spell works wonders when trying to gank a lane, you can cover multiple angles by splitting yourself in 2 and using the clone to force enemies to take a path right into the real you!
This is also a great defensive ability, especially when being dived on, allowing you to make getaways in scenarios where you otherwise wouldn't, and with enough practice at this champion you can use her clone to block skillshots that stop on the first champion hit, which is incredible!
Tangle-Barbs is
Neeko's third ability. She slings a magical spiral in a target direction, dealing magic damage and rooting enemies for 0.5 seconds. It will root for longer vs. the last enemy champion hit, and you can continue to increase the root of
Tangle-Barbs if it passes through 2 enemies, which also makes it faster and grows in size, and the root duration against the last enemy champion, when maxed, can go up to a whopping 3 seconds! A pretty amazing CC ability if you plan the set up for it, easily making one of the longest in the game.
Pop Blossom is
Neeko's ultimate.
Neeko begins charging over 1.25 seconds. She then shields herself, which is increased for each enemy champion nearby, and then leaps into the air for 0.75 seconds, and during that time enemies are slowed by 40%. Once she lands,
Neeko unleashes energy, dealing massive magic damage to all enemies hit and stunning them for 1.25 seconds.
And here comes the ability that makes
Neeko extremely satisfying! While this ability has a bit of set up to it, it's very worth it with an amazing 130% AP ratio on the damage portion, and a 50% AP ratio on the shield. If
Neeko is camouflaged by
Inherent Glamour, enemies won't see her initial 1.25 second channel, allowing you to close the cap to land your ultimate a lot easier. Disguising as the weakest champion on your team, or a melee champion that is not a threat until super close range is a great camouflage choice. You can use any ability while you're able to walk around, but she cannot once she descends in the air

Pretty much you want always want to be always maxing










This is the ability that makes








If this ability kills an enemy unit, or damages an enemy champion or a large monster, it will bloom again after a short delay, dealing magic damage again, and this cannot happen more than twice per cast, allowing








The active portion of this ability makes



This is also a great defensive ability, especially when being dived on, allowing you to make getaways in scenarios where you otherwise wouldn't, and with enough practice at this champion you can use her clone to block skillshots that stop on the first champion hit, which is incredible!







And here comes the ability that makes



Early game items
Doran's Ring
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Refillable Potion
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The Dark Seal
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Control Wards
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Standard items
Luden's Echo
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Sorcerer's Shoes
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Rabadon's Deathcap
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Morellonomicon
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Void Staff
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Zhonya's Hourglass
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Banshee's Veil
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Hextech Protobelt-01
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Spellbinder
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A standard lane combo you should be aiming for is hitting a






After getting pieces to items, you can start to look for roams, which is quite easy to do thanks to her great waveclear. Disguise yourself using







If you manage to push your laner out or even kill them and you're healthy enough to not base and/or you know where the enemy jungler is, you can do a lot of damage to the enemy mid's tower with

As
Neeko, you want to be playing team fights like an opportunist, waiting for enemies to blow important cooldowns so you can join the fray and unleash a devastating
Pop Blossom - and because of this, you want to be sticking with your team after laning phase has ended, or just slightly away from them to look for flank opportunities.
Neeko is not great at splitpushing or sieging with her low range, so looking for a flank behind an enemy while disguised with
Inherent Glamour is very important for a good
Pop Blossom as being disguised with
Inherent Glamour does NOT show enemies if you are charging your ultimate, which is pretty crucial.
You should be standing on the edge of fights while looking for your opportunity to engage, a great 2-man
Tangle-Barbs is great for pick offs and dancing around the edge of the fight throwing
Blooming Bursts whenever you have the range. Unless you have no other engage or the enemy team can't burst you down first, I think it's very important to let your team mates fight it out first and also engage first, if you're playing with a champion that has great lockdown such as
Camille or
Vi your ultimate combined with these is a free kill.
Leading on from wanting to group with your team outside of laning phase -
Neeko is not much a splitpusher. You want to get as much vision as possible with your team, and buy
Control Wards to make your life easier. Denying vision is so important with
Neeko to make sure her
Inherent Glamour doesn't get discovered, that you should even look to sell your
Doran's Ring late game to have a slot to purchase
Control Wards, and make sure to use your
Oracle Lens off cooldown.






You should be standing on the edge of fights while looking for your opportunity to engage, a great 2-man




Leading on from wanting to group with your team outside of laning phase -







Thank you guys for checking out my
Neeko guide! If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment, and if you liked the guide an upvote is greatly appreciated. Because she is such a new champion, I will be constantly updating her with the latest builds pro players decide to test out on her, and I will be constantly playing her on my stream, which you can view below.
I also have a highly rated Zoe guide which is also thoroughly in-depth, so if you like to play her or want to learn, feel free to check it out!

I also have a highly rated Zoe guide which is also thoroughly in-depth, so if you like to play her or want to learn, feel free to check it out!
08/12/2018 - Updated after testing more rune builds, found out
Arcane Comet to be the best by far.

Top Neeko Guides
[10.22] Vicksy's Master Mid AP Neeko guide
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