This build is a passion project I came up with because I really enjoyed playing Gwen in the PBE before her release and went on a pretty lengthy win streak when I decided to run Guinsoos Rageblade out of curiosity, and found that it was absolutely disgusting. Soon after came release and a whole new monster of things to test and figure out. I was looking at how to best use Gwen as a Top Laner, and I believe that the current Meta build is not using her kit efficiently. Thus, I came up with this build that uses her on-hit and healing at the same time for the best all around results. Generally, full ap is not as effective because her AP scalings are pretty bad, so trying to stack AP and let her E make up for lost attack speed isn't going to be as good as having lots of ap AND attack speed all the time. With more attack speed you'll have better farming, better split pushing, better damage to towers at all phases of the game, and you'll be more useful in teamfights. There's only one part of the game where you won't outright win, and that's early game. The stats gained from this build also synergize more effectively than standard gwen build does, but before we get to the items I'd like to take a look at what imo are the pros and cons of this build and of the champion.

-Strong Scaling Power: As Gwen you scale hard into mid and late game and with Guinsoos it boosts that scaling even more. This is important especially with the recent nerf to her E making early game more of a struggle.

-Good AP/AS Mix: The current meta for Gwen is stacking AP and Resistances like Zhonyas, but the issue with that is you lose out on attack speed, and E is no longer able to make up for that. With this build you still get strong damage from abilities while retaining your attack speed for split pushing and dueling whenever needed.

-Good Situational Power: Gwen is a champion that can be a problem anywhere she goes due to her healing and true damage output. What people don't notice though is how strong her split pushing is. At rank 3, her E can be infinitely looped because your first hit with E auto reduces the cooldown by 60%, even on towers. This means you can infinitely loop your E cooldown on towers and use that bonus on-hit damage to shred lanes while the enemy team has to sit and watch. This means she can be a problem in teamfights with her True Damage and Healing, but also cause problems on side lanes with her incredible objective taking speed.

-Efficient Build Path: With your E and nashors farming with Gwen is incredibly easy as long as you're not being hard zoned, and since we're getting some rather cheap items with this build. You will not only be more gold efficient than most people but you'll hit full build sooner than most people.

-Insanely low Cooldowns: With 12.7 introducing some buffs to gwen's R cooldown and E cooldown reduction, plus running Cosmic Drive, you can get your cooldowns to ridiculous lows and make late game a spam fest where you just out maneuver everyone.

-Poor early game: Gwen's early game from level 2-5 was already kind of meh before the nerfs because you lacked early game power after your level 1 all in. Now that they've halved her rank 1 E attack speed her early game is down the drain. There are a lot more matchups that become coinflips and some that you outright lose now. The best thing to do until they make another change is to play safe until level 6 and then wreck **** from that point on.

-Squishy Doll: Despite my efforts to make up for your lack of HP by getting resistance boots to pair with W, she's still a bit squishy up until late mid game, and can be hard to use in trades if you don't fully understand the matchup. Once you get to guinsoos and Bork your healing will make up for your lack of tankiness but until then you can't just go in 1v4 even though it would be cool if you could.

-Bad Blind Pick: Gwen is in a state right now where blind picking her feels like a death sentence because she has so many bad matchups and even matchups that she's become incredibly skill dependent and if you're not a great Gwen player you will struggle to win consistently in lane. If you do end up blind picking her into a team, make sure you know the matchup so you can adjust accordingly.

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  Conqueror is easily the best keystone for Gwen as she performs best in extended fights and your mid to late game healing is really strong. The added adaptive force is a nice touch as well for early fights.
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  Triumph is great for teamfights and drawn out battles where your healing is most effective, and adds a little bit of gold efficiency.
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  Alacrity will be to help scale your attack speed with the recent E nerfs making it harder to go full ap and let your E do the rest.
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  Coup De Grace helps finish off enemies and ensure that you can win more close trades and difficult handicap fights.
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  Transcendence is going to be a nice touch of Ability Haste at levels 5 and 8, and then having the 20% cooldown reduction on takedowns will pair well with her Es cooldown reduction along with your Qs already low cooldown.
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  Finally, Gathering Storm is a perfect rune for Gwen as it works perfectly with her scaling power into the mid and late game. It also makes up for some of the AP we lose meaning we can do as much damage as a normal AP gwen while still having stupidly high attack speed.
  

  Alternative Runes

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  Lethal Tempo is a gem on Gwen as it got changed in 11.23 and instead of an immediate effect that fell off, it's now a Keystone that ramps up the more you use it in a fight, which is great for Gwen as extended trades are our expertise. It also fits well into the on-hit play style this build focuses on.
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  a good rune for close fights and extended trades, as gwen's healing ramps up over time and having that bonus damage when you're low is incredible with her kit.
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  Overheal will be to test if we can truly break Gwen's healing by pumping so much omnivamp into her that a multi-hit R will not only heal you to full, but then go further and give you overheal shield.
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  Demolish will be a good split pushing tool for Gwen as you already take towers pretty fast once you start ranking up your E. This way, even if you dont get ahead early you can push out top, get some gold and xp, and then regroup with your team and be caught up in time for your late game powerspike.
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  Revitalize will be our healing rune since we aren't getting Conqueror, and will help us through early and mid game until we get Riftmaker and start actually healing like crazy. It's also good if you have an enchanter on your team because the rune will increase the amount of shield you receive if you're below 40%.

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  Gwen's basic attacks, The Center of Snip Snip!, and Needlework deal bonus magic damage. Thousand Cuts also heals for 70% of post-mitigation damage on champions, and deals bonus magic damage to minions below 40% max hp.
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  Gwen snips in a cone with her scissors at least twice, and increasing depending on how many stacks she has. She gains stacks by auto attacking enemies and objectives, and can have a maximum of 4 stacks. While the edge of the ability deals magic damage, the center of Snip Snip! deals True Damage and applies Thousand Cuts. Since gwen's Q stacks are gained via on-hit, you can get to 4 stacks with only 3 hits with Guinsoo's Rageblade via its secondary passive.
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  Gwen creates a circle of defense around her which lasts 5 seconds or when she leaves the circle. your W can be recast once to bring the circle back to your position. While in this circle, Gwen is untargetable and immune to any and all abilities from outside of the circle. Gwen also gains armor and magic resist as long as she stays in the circle.
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  Gwen dashes a small distance and gains 10(+15% ap) bonus magic damage on-hit, bonus attack speed, and 50 bonus attack range for 4 seconds. Gwen's first attack during those 4 seconds will reduce her E's cooldown by 60%. Skip 'N Slash is also an auto attack reset and can be cast during any other her other 3 abilities.
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  Needlework has 3 actives. The first active fires 1 needle, the second active fires 3 needles, and the third active fires 5 needles. Each active has a restriction, where after the first and second casts you must hit an enemy with an auto attack or Snip Snip! to get the next active. Needlework slows opponents and each cast applies Thousand Cuts.
  

Nashor's Tooth is going to be our first item because it gives 100 ap, 50% attack speed, and gives on-hit damage in its passive. This item will synergize a lot better as a first item than Riftmaker, because the lack of attack speed early makes her trades less effective, and your natural mana pool doesn't handle ability spam all that well until mid game, so E spamming would drain your mana quickly. With Nashors you're gaining attack speed and AP so you can trade more while not having to use up as much mana. Riftmaker isn't first item because you gain less AP, and you don't do enough damage early game to get the best healing out of the item.

Riftmaker is going to be our Mythic for this build, as Gwen is one of the few champions who use it to its fullest potential. Riftmaker gives good AP, and the healing becomes more effective at late early game/early mid game, so having Nashors first is a good setup to scale and keep you ahead of your opponent. Not only that, but ever since they changed the numbers on Riftmaker's passive, it's now easier to max out, leading to more True Damage dealt. The True Damage will likely catch your opponent off guard and give you a few free trades, or even a kill if they get cocky. Nashors+Riftmaker is the best early item combo for gwen is it maxes out on the stats you want most.

For this build I highly suggest defensive boots. Whether it's Plated Steelcaps or Mercury's Treads is up to you. Generally, it shouldn't be too difficult to decide which boots to get, but I usually get steelcaps for heavy AD teams or Ranged matchtups, and Merc Treads for Heavy AP Teams or Heavy CC comps. You can get boots whenever you want as long as it's before Guinsoos.

Guinsoo's Rageblade is the most important Item in this entire Build. If it weren't for how good Nashors and Riftmaker are in tandom I'd put this item sooner. For this item you won't be focusing on the crit conversion at all. What you want to pay attention to is the 2nd passive called Seething Strike. Every 3rd attack, on-hit effects are applied twice, and Gwen has some good ones. Not only does she do on-hit magic damage on E, Nashors Tooth passive damage deals on-hit magic damage as well. For more kit interactions, Seething Strike interacts with Q stacks so every 3rd hit you're maxing your stacks. Meaning you're gaining the most value out of Q with 1 less auto 90% of the time. Meaning you stack Q quicker, which leads to more healing more often, and more True Damage more often if you can hit center often. Finally, Guinsoos also works with Blade Of The Ruined King by reapplying the damage from 3rd hit active. Did I also mention that Guinsoos gives you 45% attack speed, and with ALL THIS VALUE, it only costs 2600 gold. It's a crime that guinsoos isnt a meta item on her, and highway robbery to get all this for 2600 gold. This item is a must build on her.

This item is great for melting tanks and bruisers alike. Once you get to late game Blade of the Ruined King is going to be the best item to help you not only sustain, but to take down anyone who thinks they can step to you. Even full tanks like maxed out Ornn or full build Tahm Kench only survive up to 10 seconds at most once you get Blade Of The Ruined King. The life steal gain is incredibely helpful for staying healthy in side lanes, and contributes in the beginning of fights when your healing is the weakest due to not having riftmaker or conqueror stacked yet. Melee champs get the most use of the % health damage so Gwen also makes the best use of it. You also gain attack speed and the AD is a nice touch to make your autos slightly more effective.

Cosmic Drive is a good item for Gwen as her R cooldown and E cooldown reduction got buffed recently and her cooldowns aren't that high to begin with. It also helps get your W up as much as possible which can completely change how a fight goes as long as you know how to position it. It's a solid item that isn't too costly and will pack some extra punch to your late game powerspike.

Void Staff is going to be helpful for killing tanks since you're getting 45 magic pen, and still have good AP gain. It's an extremely gold efficient late game item at 2700 gold and makes getting full build quick and easy.If you need more defensive stats you could get the healing gain from Spirit Visage and run through anyone who isn't hard stacking Grevious Wounds. Then, if they're a super AD heavy team you could run Randuin's Omen because you gain 80 armor, 250 health, and 10 Ability Haste. The active will keep you on top of people for extended fights that'll work in your favor and the 10% AD reduction + 20% reduction to crit damage for 4 seconds will ensure you don't get blown up immediately. Finally, if you're extremely ahead and you want to blow people up with straight AP you can go Rabadon's Deathcap. The one issue with the item is just its high gold cost. If you're behind it's best to avoid getting this item. Otherwise if you want flat damage then its a great addition to the build

Shadowflame is one of the new ap legendaries from 11.23 and looks to be the ap equivalent to Serpent's Fang with some higher base stats compared to the other ap items. It's an interesting concept and wouldn't mind running it against shield comps.
Zhonya's Hourglass is a good situational item because it gives some armor to add on to her high base armor and the W armor and gives her a stopwatch. It's good for AD heavy teams or comps that can lock you down easily.
Lich Bane is a good item for on-hit as it gives AP, move speed, and gives gwen a sheen proc to abuse with all the other sheen items being AD. It's good for if you want to go all in on the on-hit playstyle and focus even less on stacking AP.

Below are a list of champions that I believe you should run gwen against. Remember that this is going to be based off of MY personal experience in the 200+ games of gwen ive played over the last year. Your experiences may differ, but for me these are the champions that I would always pick gwen against

1.
Dr. Mundo is one of the easiest matchups for gwen PERIOD. Your passive deals % max health damage so anything Mundo does just leads to his demise, He can't beat you level 1, and if you're good at moving between waves in trades you can get a few kills in levels 2-5. He's one of my favorite matchups and most of the time you can beat him so badly that he never recovers, granted you have a team that doesn't just int late game and let him come back. The only downside to this matchup is that if he has ANY room to do what he wants he can become a total roadblock for the rest of your team. Though that's more depending on your teamates and not you. Still, I definitelly suggest going gwen into this matchup as it is one of the easiest things you'll do in league. Also be sure to bring ignite if you feel his R is a bit too much for your early game.
2.
I love playing against Sion because he’s extremely predictable and as long as you aren’t on top of him you can position your W to block his Q. Without his Q his damage is pretty much nullified and you can spend most of the game abusing him. It also helps that we’re in a meta where Sion players just throw themselves at you even if it means they die 15 times, so getting fed is pretty easy which helps a lot considering late game is gwen’s strongest phase of the match. Once you get to late game you just have to figure out a way to manage Sion slamming his face into your towers the whole match and you essentially win. Though I will say that’s a lot easier said than done.
3.
Cho'Gath is a simple matchup that any decent gwen player will know relies entirely on you dodging his Q. Similar to Gangplank, without his Q Cho'Gath has virtually no way to beat you in trade pre or post 6. Be aggressive level 1, if he starts Q, E through it to stick to cho and beat him to death. If he goes E first just do your best to avoid the sprinkles of damage the spikes dish out and take trades when you feel confident. When it comes to trades where he uses W then Q, his Q animation shows Cho gath stomping before the indicator shows up, when you see this change direction to have a better chance of avoiding it. From then to level 6 get used to his Q patterns and use that level 6 to all in him. He has no mobility so the R slow will hurt him greatly and as long as you dodge the Q you will win. The only time you shouldn't trade with him at 6 is if you're already low hp since he can just W+R and then you're dead.
4.
Darius is one of Gwen's best matchups because her dash makes it easy to avoid his Q edge, her passive is always good against people who build a lot of health and Darius is included in that. Even if Darius starts zoning you, just farm until 6 and then you can walk all over him as long as you dont let him get stacks for absolutely free. His E cooldown is super high and if you're in W it won't matter as you're ungrabbable as long as he's not in it. He also falls off a bit mid game so you can take advantage of his dropping power to get a few kills on him.
5.
Tahm Kench seems like one of those matchups where you just get harrassed endlessly and can never fight him, but that's not true. Hide behind wave as much as possible to negate his Q, focus on kiting him instead of getting as close as possible. If he gets you to max stacks prepare for him to Q you and try to gain distance so you can use W. If he tries to E, dashing towards his original location will work 99% of the time to get you out of the knockup zone. While he's going through his animation, get stacks off minions to try for another max stack Q and keep kiting him. Level 6 is where you essentially win as long as you're kiting and forcing HIM to get to you instead of you running to him. he doesn't have a way to out damage your healing and the longer he goes without CC chaining you the harder it is for him to kill you. The only time I suggest you don't try to fight him is near his tower, as his R can capture you from a pretty sizeable distance and allow him to cc chain you under tower.
6.
Gangplank is one of the easiest matchups for gwen because a majority of his damage comes from barrels, and with your E and W it is incredibly easy to render the barrels useless. Either you W right before the barrel chain reaches you and it cant hit you, or you E and dodge the barrel completely. Easy enough. His W has virtually nothing to cleanse, and unless you play the level 1 poorly there are very few times he can kill you pre 6. His mana costs and slow E recharge speeds early game make sure of that.

Early Game is going to be your weakest phase because of the nature of gwen being a scaling champ and riot taking liberties to make her early game feel weak. For most matchups I’d suggest going for a level 1 trade as her level 1 is really strong. After that just farm until level 6 and then go for an all-in or just keep farming depending on if you’re ahead or behind.

Mid game is going to be the best time to maintain your CS and start split pushing until you’re needed for teamfights and major objectives. You’ll want to be as gold efficient as possible so you can obtain important items like Guinsoos Rageblade and better transition to late game. I usually prefer to farm until I get Guinsoos, but you can delay it a little if your team needs you for dragons or just for grouping.

Late game is when you’re at your strongest. At this point you’re at or near full build and you can take on anyone that isn’t MEGA stacked. Until you get full build make sure to keep up on CS whenever there’s down time and do your best to not throw. If you need to defend base remember that you take the giant minions faster than anyone else and can clear whole waves incredibly fast. If you have to frontline do your best to minimize the damage you take before a fight as your healing takes a second or two to fully build up and it’s still possible for you to get kited.

In Conclusion, this build takes the healing and power of regular AP Gwen, and combines it with the attack speed and pushing power to rival a coked out Tryndamere. You'll still be able to 2v1 anyone who tries to stop you, but with the speed to fully utilize Gwen's insane healing. I completely believe that this is the proper, and most fitting path to build Gwen, and that this build is more viable than the current meta build. This build is my greatest creation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.