This build / guide will be constantly updated

Hello everyone, my name is AceEpsilon or LyingFace on league. I don't play ranked often but I peaked silver 1 and I am a Rakan one trick. I may not be very good at league but I'm very good at compiling information I gather and my ultimate goal out of all of this is just to help people nothing more, nothing less.

In this Mobafire guide I wanted to highlight one of my favorite Rakan builds that I believe to be the most effective made by Strzelba and I wanted to give people a glimpse of what building AP on Rakan can really do for you. Pretty much as soon as this build got found out and I was on it I really never stopped using it. Hopefully from this guide I can help spread my knowledge that I've gained throughout the time of my Rakan experience.

If you want clarification or help understanding anything at all, or want to leave any criticisms I will be willing to respond to any and all comments.

Pros • Very good team fighting champion • Versatile in what he can do • Scales extremely well • Excellent mobility • High skill ceiling • Excels at counter engaging and followup • High AP ratios

Cons • Not the easiest champ to play • Poor disengage • Somewhat weak early • Squishy • Weak to almost all forms of CC

Fey Feathers - Rakan periodically generates a 33-254 +90% of your ability power shield with a cooldown of 40-16 seconds (based on level). Damaging an enemy champion with a basic attack or ability reduces Fey Feathers cooldown by 1 second.

Gleaming Quill - Rakan shoots feather forward, dealing 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 magic damage +60% of your ability power. If Rakan hits a champion or an epic monster (Dragon, Baron, etc.) with the ability. Rakan heals himself and his surrounding allies by 18-120 (based on level) +70% of your ability power.

Grand Entrance - Rakan dashes forward, after 0.35s he leaps into the air and knocking up surrounding enemies for 1 second, dealing 70 / 120 / 170 / 220 / 270 magic damage +70% of your ability power.

Battle Dance - Rakan leaps to an ally champion, shielding them for 3 seconds for 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 +80% of your ability power. Battle Dance can be re-cast for 5 seconds at no cost. If Xayah is the target, Battle Dance's range is increased by 300.

The Quickness - Rakan gains 50% bonus movement speed for the next 4 seconds, dealing 100 / 200 / 300 magic damage +50% of your ability power to each enemy he touches and charming them for 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 seconds. Enemies can only be affected once. The first champion charmed grants Rakan 150% decaying movement speed.

Here I'm going to answer some questions that may arise while looking at my guide about some aspects such as abilities and build that might be commonly asked.

Why Level Up E Level 1?

Taking E first is really safe. If you aren't going to cheese with W you can shield your jungler during his leash to make an easier clear for them, it helps against early level 1 poke against your ADC, and it allows you to retreat if you get caught out however you can get abused by the enemy support or ADC if they play aggro enough due to the fact that you don't have a punish tool.

Why Level 2 Points Into Q?

2 points into Q makes it worth using as an ability and helps with extra poke / damage in your combos going from level 1 to level 2 Q is somewhere around a 33% damage increase but that increase gets lowered down as we level it up further making 2 Points the most optimal for using your entire kit.

Why Do We Want To Build AP Over Heal And Shield Power Or Tank?

We want build AP because his healing and shielding have very high AP ratios. If you stack heal and shield power it won't be as effective as raw AP in general because you are losing out on more support like qualities and damage. To add on, if you build straight tank it won't be doing anything at all except for outputting CC and nothing else because Rakan has no Armor/MR or HP scalings in his kit at all.

Xayah Isn't Listed As The Best Synergy?

This synergy is weird. While Xayah's best synergy is Rakan, Rakan's best synergy isn't Xayah. Now this is because of a couple reasons. When you look at Rakan's "best" synergies or synergies that stand above her they all have something that Xayah either doesn't have or is very meh at doing. For example comparing her to Tristana, she helps you engage with her jump but also can follow up really well on your engage and burst down the botlane with little to no setup. Compared to Xayah needing to setup feathers or already be attacking the enemy to give you a bonus. This is the reason why one of Xayah's best synergy is Rakan, due to the hard CC he provides for her setup.

Champions with dashes or gap closers are generally better for Rakan due to his extremely good followup and outliers like Miss Fortune or Twitch have ways of helping you engage and burst burst down targets really hard without needing to set up beforehand by auto attacking the enemy first. Miss Fortune for example has high movement speed to be able to catch up to you very easily if you are slightly out of range and a slow that can set up for your W leading into the Rakan MF R combo. Twitch can use his invisibility to make a launchpad for you leading into a surprise engage. These are just a couple of examples and if you look in the Synergies part above this it will tell you why X ADC is good with Rakan

While the attack speed to shred towers, increased E range, and duo back is nice it's not a set in stone win because you picked that duo. It has strong player synergy requirements that both need to overcome but if you can do that, say if you get lucky in soloq or if you duo you can pretty much stomp lane if it's played right. It's okay not because it's bad it's just there are other champions who fit Rakan's needs better than her.

Why Is There No Shurelya's?

To put it simply decaying movement speed is bad, the stats aren't that good compared to Hextech Rocketbelt and the mythic passive sucks because of movement speed caps and you can never trust your teammates with movement speed in soloq, it will just make them int harder rather than get more kills or hard carry with it and there is almost never a situation ever where you need Shurelya's Battlesong or you lose because you didn't buy the item. Why do you think no other support but Rakan takes Shurelya's Battlesong as much as he does?

Guardian - Guardian is situational now compared to other runes but it's good against burst like Pantheon for example. Other than that you can use it if you want to but there are most likely other runes that fit the situation. Some cons about it is that it doesn't proc on from you taking damage if your passive shield is up and it's very abusable since it's cooldown is fairly high and straight poke can get rid of it. Aftershock - Good against other champions who pick Aftershock. For example Nautilus, Leona or Blitzcrank. The reason being is because you don't lose trades as much as you normally would because you have the same amount of tankiness to combat that, either leaving you with the same or a bit lower HP than them. Demolish - It's a meh rune in general if you are behind it doesn't really do anything. Font of Life - It's an okay rune and can proc Staff of Flowing Water. Shield Bash - Shield Bash is probably the best option out of all of top row of resolve runes, your shield gets more defense and your auto can do more damage when it's gone. Conditioning - It's one of the best resolve runes for you since you become even tankier in general. You also block more damage than Bone Plating as the game goes on. Second Wind - You have to lose HP to use it and doesn't work when you have your passive shield up. You aren't really a frontline champion either so you don't get the full use out of it. Bone Plating - It's good in some situations but in botlane it can get outplayed very easily by just the support hitting it since it only blocks that champion's damage, overall Conditioning is probably the best option unless you are fighting against champions who can combo you hard. Overgrowth - Gets overshadowed by Revitalize and Unflinching but if you need more health for whatever reason it's not bad. Revitalize - Works very well with Guardian, Summon Aery and Rakan's kit in general. Unflinching - Very good rune to fight against CC since a lot of the CC can mess with you hard.

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Summon Aery - Good against damage over time champions, poke and tanks. While it's main downside is that it can't proc on your second E cast it can make up for it with the huge shield stack you get from it every time your E is up compared to Guardian where it's only up every 70-40 seconds. You can use this downside for more damage with any of your abilities or auto attacks so it doesn't get wasted. Phase Rush - A rune that comes in handy when you're up against champions with a lot of slows or hard slows, for example a Thresh / Ashe lane. It works exactly like electrocute where you only need 3 attacks for it to proc meaning it's very useful for getting in and out quicker. Nullifying Orb - Out of the 2 other choices to take this rune as long as the enemy has any sort of AP. If the enemy doesn't have any AP and you still need to take Sorcery as a primary tree just go with Nimbus Cloak. Nimbus Cloak - It's an okay rune but I don't like it personally because of how the rune itself works and having to waste a summoner for a tiny bit of defense. Transcendence - A must have if you are going sorcery, AH is always really good for Rakan and it helps with getting a lot of it. The added bonus to decrease your cooldowns on takedowns is huge so you can stay in the fight longer rather than hovering. Celerity - This rune is really useless and barely gives you any movement speed to make it worth using ever. For example you get +7 Movement Speed with tier 2 boots. Gathering Storm - The go to rune for Sorcery. It has scaling AP which benefits your entire kit immensely and outshines the other 2 options in the bottom row of keystones. You'll be able to benefit from it no matter what since games usually last around 20-30 minutes.

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Electrocute - One of rakan's best runes. If the enemy botlane or their entire team in general is squishy or if you just want to do more damage, take it. For example a Vayne / Seraphine lane can be easily squished with electrocute. This rune also allows for better trades and securing kills that may have been lost without it. Early you can pretty much near half health the enemy ADC with a combo. Taste of Blood - If you need extra sustain in lane it's not bad. Sudden Impact - It will always outdamage Cheap Shot and can be proc'd by his W, E, Hextech Rocketbelt, and Flash. Making this the go-to keystone for Domination Rakan. Zombie Ward - You need Oracle Lens to stack it so you either lose out on a ward or wait until your quest is done. Ghost Poro is just better for faster stacking of the rune. Ghost Poro - Amazing rune you can start stacking it as soon as you get your ward, you have more vision and gain AP Quickly with it which is what we mainly use it for. Eyeball Collection - It's an okay choice but you're losing out on vision and it will take longer to stack I'd say it's only worth if you took it for solo lane only. Relentless Hunter - If you're a type of player who likes to roam take it but I prefer Ultimate Hunter. Ultimate Hunter - This gives you ultimate CDR so you can fight more often and it's my go-to rune for domination.

Starting Items

Relic Shield - The safest and most consistent starting item for Rakan. The loss of AP compared to Spellthief's Edge isn't an issue since the amount of HP we get from the starting item is more valuable because we are more squishy and can makeup the AP from other items.

Spellthief's Edge - Good into easy matchups like Braum due to the fact that you can harass with Q, autos, etc.

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Core Items

Hextech Rocketbelt - It provides an extra dash with movement speed and more combos while also increasing your burst potential and ability to engage better as well something Rakan struggles with at times. After getting this item a lot of 2v2s go in your favor if you aren't hard losing.

Cosmic Drive - It gives you all the stats you need for Rakan (AP, HP, AH) and gives some extra movement speed as an added bonus but since we are already so mobile already isn't too insane but this item helps us with our cooldown issue significantly. But we eat up AH like candy so this is just a really good item to have.

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Situational Items

Banshee's Veil - If the enemy has a lot of CC like Solar Flare or Event Horizon, abilities like that where it's hard to get in to engage / counter engage without one.

Zhonya's Hourglass - An all around amazing defensive item if you need to use the active from getting 1 shot after going in, or need some more armor.

Demonic Embrace - It's a pretty good in and out item that beefs you up for going in and the passive is also good against tanks or resistance stacking opponents because of the max HP DOT.

Chemtech Putrifier - If the enemy team has a good ammount of healing like bruisers or Yuumi just go for it since grievous wounds is super cheap.

Zeke's Convergence - It's a good situational item for Rakan, it doesn't offer any AP but if you are with a fed hypercarry like Twitch you can take it since they are the ones who benefit the most from it.

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Other Items

Rabadon's Deathcap - Primarily as a very last item, Dcap offers a ton of AP meaning everything in your kit will get boosted.

Vigilant Wardstone - For getting lots of AH and the % increase is movement speed is nice for replacing boots so you don't feel sluggish.

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Boots

Mobility Boots - Mobies aren't that good. You're getting boots that cost 1000 gold with no combat stats whatsoever and it can easily be proc'd making it inconsistent to use. If you're going to roam heavily all game take it and then replace them for other boots later on, if not look at the other options and see what you could use.

Sorcerer's Shoes - If you want to snowball harder while already snowballing these are great for increasing your damage.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity - If you want more AH OR want to do flash combos or something these are alright.

Mercury's Treads - Probably the best boots for Rakan as CC is a huge issue when it comes to getting around and trying to do what you're suppose to.

Plated Steelcaps - Good against an all AD team

Boots of Swiftness - Basically it's the better Mobility Boots. If you want extra movement speed in general but don't want to deal with the higher cost or a major loss in movement speed while going in. You also get some slow resistance so that's a plus.

Credit for the runes and the itemization items goes to Strzelba, a Challenger EUW Rakan one trick.

The people of the Rakan Mains Discord (insight on synergies, matchups, etc.)

Thanks to SaltCat for giving me inspiration on my new title.