Pyke Build Guide by Hanjaro

Pros

+ Extremely mobile + Easiest champion to roam on + Regenerates hp in stealth + Physical damage scaling + Outplay ability + Ultimate executes through shields

Why do I prefer Pyke over all other support champions in League? I started out favoring champions that used skill shots, it became a game to me to see if I could out think the enemy, and their dodge patterns. Knowing where they are going to go before they do, it feels great when you land those predicted hooks. So the ability to do this, plus have great mobility with stealth and a true damage execute that is re-settable? Yes please!

Cons

- Has no wave clear as of 9.13 - He scales only with lethality - Has to hit abilities to be useful - Ultimate doesn't reset on resurrections

I have played Pyke against an immense amount of High Elo ADCs and Support's in North America, so I can confidently say I am a master at this champion.

It is necessary to have Aftershock for survivability, considering you cannot get any tankiness from items. setting up plays in the bot lane, making sure you are playing around your Aftershock cooldown when looking for engages. With the cc built into Pyke's kit, it is easy to proc.

Font of Life is the best choice, since you have no wave clear. This rune helps your allies sustain, and scales nicely along with your team's max HP. Demolish is also fairly strong, since the quicker you can do damage to the tower before 14 minutes, the more gold you and your ADC receive.

Bone Plating is good with tank Pyke and helps him reduce damage from a single target, helping his tankiness in lane, and during skirmishes. Second Wind is still a decent rune to take, combined with Pykes grey health sustain, it's extremely hard to push Pyke out of lane when you take this rune. It gives him a lot of sustain vs poke lanes such as Xerath, Morgana and Zyra.

Unflinching giving tenacity and slow resistance are a great way to avoid CC duration from the enemy, with Pyke having a low HP pool, getting out of sticky situations a little bit sooner can save your butt a lot. It's easier to get in and out of engages and all-ins, and especially having the resist while your summoners are on cooldown.

The extra penetration from this rune will be applied very regularly, as it procs on four of your six abilities, and for that reason Sudden Impact is considered a staple.

Cooldown reduction is always welcome on Pyke - you're so much more lethal when your Death from Below is up, it makes this rune an obvious choice.

Duskblade of Draktharr > DAMAGE Duskblade of Draktharr provides ability haste, lethality and a big chunk of AD, all which are great stats for Pyke. Attacking an enemy champion deals bonus damage on hit and slows them for 99%, which enables us to hit our skill shots a little easier. Takedowns within 3 seconds reset this effect and grant you invisbility for 1.5 seconds, making this item very strong for slippery, squishy assassins. Your legendary items also gain 5 ability haste, reducing the cooldowns on our abilities.

Youmuu's Ghostblade > DAMAGE/MOVEMENT SPEED Youmuu's Ghostblade synergizes well with Mobility Boots, and Ghostwater Dive, giving you more movement speed, and enabling quicker roaming. You gain more lethality, giving you more burst damage.

Umbral Glaive > DAMAGE/MOVEMENT SPEED As primarily a roaming champion who likes to set up kills, Umbral Glaive's blackout passive (removed from Duskblade of Draktharr will help you clear out any enemy vision you come across.

Prowler's Claw > DAMAGE Another good option for our mythic item, allowing us to dash through the target enemy, dealing bonus attack damage, and for the next 3 seconds you deal 15% increased damage to the target. This makes us even more slippery, and increases our burst. We also gain 5 lethality on all legendary items.

Guardian Angel > SURVIVABILITY/UTILITY Guardian Angel will bring you back to life after taking lethal damage, once every 300s - useful to Pyke as he is still squishy due to his Gift of the Drowned Ones, and he gets up in the middle of the fray, can be chunked down easily if there's a lot of aoe damage flying about. Also a good pickup vs physical champions as you gain 40 armor.

Death's Dance > SURVIVABILITY/DAMAGE Providing us with ability haste, damage and survivability, Death's Dance has quickly become a great item pickup on Pyke. Storing damage received and converting it to a bleed is a great way not to get one shot as squishy as Pyke is, and on champion takedown, it removes all stored damage, as well as granting movement speed and healing you.

Sterak's Gage > SURVIVABILITY/DAMAGE Sterak's Gage gives us health and AD, as well as healing us when we damage an enemy champion, stacks and refreshing per unique champion, up to 5 times, meaning we can be very healthy during teamfights, dashing in and out of the fight. You also gain a 200 shield for 5 seconds, increasing by 8% of maximum health per stack of bloodlust, when you receive damage that would bring you below 30% hp - increasing our survivability exponentially.

Edge of Night > SURVIVABILITY/DAMAGE/UTILITY Edge of Night is a great choice when you're having trouble surviving in the fights you initiate. The spell shield can block crowd control effects or damage, and the AD + Lethality on this item allows you to keep your damage numbers up while simultaneously improving your defenses.

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Bone Skewer Phantom Undertow

Basic Pyke combo is using your Q into E. A fast follow using E after hook is typically a guaranteed summoner burn because the 90% slow for 1 second after landing a hook makes it almost impossible to dodge the stun.

Death from Below Phantom Undertow

Using this combo isn't necessarily meant to be an execute, if it is, great! If not, the utility from your stun alone can be enough for your team to clean up a fight. The objective with this combo is to catch the enemy if they are running, but aren't executable. You can Death from Below to the closest target and then Phantom Undertow through the enemy team.

Bone Skewer Flash

This combo consists of channeling your Q and then flashing to hook a target, can be difficult to do because you must hold the channel while doing other things.

Phantom Undertow Flash

I will usually reserve using this combo for a guaranteed kill, when my jungler shows up to my lane. Using your E and flashing behind a target is really difficult for them to dodge, or for them to know you are flashing until its too late. Options after this are either, stabbing the target with a tap Bone Skewer for damage + slow, or if you're good enough like I am (obviously) you can E + Flash close enough to the enemy that you have enough time to walk back to the front of them, and channel a pull towards your own tower.

Phantom Undertow Death from Below

With the closest point of your ult on the opposite side of the enemy. Pyke will teleport to the center of the X, past the enemy, pulling his stun through the target, while also dealing damage from the ultimate. This combo is great for catching someone out of position.

Phantom Undertow Flash Death from Below

Similar to last combo but adding a Flash into the middle of this combo for extended range on the catch/stun. Very difficult mouse movements for proper landing at all phases of this combo. Practice, practice, practice. (I've only done this a handful of times.)

Phantom Undertow Death from Below Flash

This combo is intended to stun a target beyond the target you are using your Death from Below to travel to. You will E + R to the first target and then Flash behind a 2nd target to drag the stun to them. If this is timed perfectly, you can change the angle of the stun midway through its return, to stun both targets. (Also only done this a handful of times.)

Pykes laning phase is relatively useless to his ADC, unless he is landing abilities. You can provide presence in lane by not using your Bone Skewer. Any time your Bone Skewer is on cooldown, the enemy knows they can punish your ADC.

Understanding the matchup you're in to begin with, is one of the most important things to know.
Evaluate level 1 enemy lane strength. Did the enemy team bring 2 ranged champions, and we are 1 ranged and 1 melee? If so, your carry or yourself, are going to get harassed off the wave. I would recommend not pushing here, getting CS from range and allowing them to push in early.

However, if they are not punishing you level 1 for being a melee champ, push the wave and try to get the level 2 advantage - (this does not mean push the wave into tower! Tt will just reset the lead you had, and they can still match you getting level 2.)

The first wave + 3 melee creeps or 2 melees + 2 ranged creeps in the second wave - in a shared XP lane - will give you level 2. When I see I will have the level 2 advantage, I start walking forward as my ADC is finishing off the last minion to level. This way I have a position advantage on the enemy while they are still level 1.

If you can land your abilities here, this will almost always secure a kill or summoners burned on their side (be mindful of enemy jungle position, it may have all been a bait).

During laning phase, monitor enemy jungle rotations and look for your engages on the enemy when you know their jungler is not near your lane. As a support a lot of what you should be doing is tracking enemy players on the minimap.
Everyone else is focusing on CS (except your jungler, of course - he's full clearing, and then recalling, while the enemy jungle ganks every lane, PVE is hard!)
If you have the ability to push your lane into tower, look for roams at this time. See if your jungler is on your side of the map, and looking to invade a camp or, if the enemy mid laner is overextended.
Staying at enemy tower is typically a red flag for junglers to come gank you (unless it's your jungler - they'd rather watch the tower burn than come to your lane - HOW DARE YOU NOT BE WINNING THE PUSH?!)

This is where we start looking for major objectives, after laning phase has ended, (this means our tower is down, or dragon has been taken while top tower and Rift Herald are alive). Keeping your duo lane near as many objectives as possible, is usually the key to making fast objective calls. If you take an early dragon and Rift Herald is up, you can swap lanes with your top laner to look for plays towards it. Rotating control of vision as you transition across the map is your main goal here.
If you leave the bot side of the map, you need to transfer your wards up near, and between, the objectives you are looking to take next. Not only to watch the objective, but make sure they're placed in a manner that will protect you from ganks/rotations. Once major objectives have been captured, such as Baron Nashor for example, you will enter the end game phase of trying to find an advantage for a final push.



After mindless stomping your enemy across the map ,you are now seeking a way to break into their base. You've captured Baron Nashor , and have really super minions, but 5 people standing at a tower can be hard to break.
Bring Control Wards with you at all times, and make sure you have a Control Ward outside of their base.
If I'm pushing midlane from the Red side of the map, I will control the small bush leading towards their Red side jungle.

If I were Blue side pushing mid, I will put my Control Ward outside their wall between their mid and bot towers. This gives me fog of war to shoot hooks from.
Your team can easily get kills over the wall if you have warded over. If they have Control Wards inside the base, look for hooks as minions go up to the tower, they should grant you enough vision to make a play. Landing hooks here, and getting a kill, should be enough to deter the enemy from the tower. Not only do you have really big minions but now you have a numbers advantage.
I'm kind of crazy here sometimes but I'm fairly confident in my ability to use Phantom Undertow into Death from Below for a extended range gap closer, into stun behind the enemy.

If you used your Death from Below for the first execute, you have 20 seconds to make that next play. Don't do anything you're not confident on, because you just might end up making it a 4v4 again. If you think you can make the game winning play and survive, I normally give it a go.
Otherwise play safe, use your Ghostwater Dive to look for that close range hook, and pull someone else into your team. You don't always have to go for the big fancy plays, but it sure as hell looks nice when you do something that other people are like "HOW THE HELL IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?! THIS GUYS A GOD!".

I hope you enjoyed, and learned enough from my Pyke guide, to play him as well as the pro's.

If you enjoyed my guide, you can check out my other guides here, in which I've covered more styles of supports, incase you want to branch out on supports such as enchanters ( Janna, Lulu etc!).

If you're interested in seeing more of me, please follow my stream! I stream every day but Saturday, from 12:00pm - 11:00pm GMT. I play a wide variety of supports, and I am always engaging with my stream chat.