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 tested multiple rune pages along with a wide variety of items from bruiser to tank to mage to on-hit and really had the most fun running machine gun auto spam gwen, so I decided to make it into a guide! With this build you can reach near max attack speed and still get a solid 300-600 AP depending on what you run as your final item so your damage outside of autos isn’t neglected. I’ve been playing this champion and running this build for almost a full season now and hope that it brings as much enjoyment to you as it did to me. With that said, let’s get into the rest of the guide!

-Strong Scaling Power: As Gwen you scale hard into mid and late game and with Guinsoos it boosts that scaling even more. That scaling also means you can vary on your item selection and use different items for multiple purposes while still being extremely powerful.

-Good AP/AS Mix: One part of gwen that I don't see a ton of talk about is the fact that her auto attacks deal bonus magic damage *on-hit*, as well as the fact that her E autos also deal bonus magic damage *on-hit*, meaning that when you add attack speed you're giving her another powerful damage source and with this build you do that while still letting your main abilities shine.

-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 4, her E can be infinitely looped because your first hit with E auto reduces the cooldown by 55%, 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.

-Poor early game: Gwen as a champion isn't very strong early game. She has low damage output and her healing isn't fully built yet because you don't have Riftmaker or enough AP to have passive make a difference yet. She can still win against favorable matchups or people who don't take a good gwen seriously, but as a whole it's better to just farm and get your items as fast as possible.

-Glass Cannon: Gwen isn't a very tanky champion, as she's meant to be more of a skirmisher like Irelia, and the only build that would really change that is a tank build. So while you may do a ton of damage with this build you're also going to need to make sure you can get an actual opening in a fight instead of just barreling into 4 people by yourself.

-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.

Circumcision Professional

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.

Overheal is a fun rune that gives gwen a little shielding while split pushing or after getting a solid R off in a fight. It's going to be more subtle throughout the game but the amount of shielding you get from it will add up quickly.

Alacrity will be to help scale your attack speed and give an extra boost to your on-hit and split pushing potential.

A pretty effective rune for finishing off enemies in teamfights and generally having better burst in early trades where there's less sustain and people can stay in lane on low health for a while if needed.

Nimbus Cloak will be effective at multiple parts of a fight. Early game it'll give you a boost with ignite/flash/ghost for all-ins at 6, or just early trades that give you the opportunity for a kill, or later on with Teleport you can jump into a fight and get better chances for kills or to get out if the fight turns sour. It could also be a nice surprise for laners not expecting the move speed, allowing you to get in close and chunk them before they retaliate.

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.

You Cannot Handle My Potions

Conqueror is going to be the best keystone especially with this rune page because this rune page is meant to be a little more bruiser focused. All the positives of it in the original rune page are still in this one.

Overheal with this rune page works well because the extra healing from potions plus a good early Q could give you a decent shield boost, which would help negate damage from poke or a trade and make it easier to farm until you can get your Riftmaker and start using passive effectively.

Alacrity will have the same use as the first page, added attack speed to give a slight boost to your early game.

Coup De Grace will be great for tank matchups or bruisers who stack a lot of health like Sett, Mundo, and Sion.

Biscuit Delivery is will add addtional healing sources and unlock some early sustain when Gwen's sustain is at its worst. Add on Corrupting Potion and you could potentially take riskier trades without it hurting you as much long term.

Time Warp Tonic works hand in hand with Biscuits and Corrupting Pot to go full sustain and give you a better chance of negating poke from aggressive laners until you get your powerspikes and are able to all-in.

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  Gwen's basic attacks on-hit, The Center of Snip Snip!, and Needlework deal bonus magic damage. Thousand Cuts also heals for 50% 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 50% 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.
  Any minions hit by this ability while at 20% health or lower are executed.
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  Gwen creates a circle of defense around her which lasts 4 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 all projectiles 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 15(+20% ap) bonus magic damage on-hit, bonus attack speed, and 75 bonus attack range for 4 seconds. Gwen's first attack during those 4 seconds will reduce her E's cooldown by a scaling percentage of 25%/35%/45%/55%/65%. Skip 'N Slash is also an auto attack reset and can be cast during any of her other 3 abilities.
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  Needlework is Gwen's Ultimate Ability. Gwen has 3 actives that she can fire out. The first cast deals magic damage and slows enemies hit for 1.5 seconds. Needlework can be recast 2 additional times. Each cast has a 6 second window before the ability is put on cooldown. The additional casts add 2 needles each for additional damage, but a reduced slow effect. Needlework has a 1 second cooldown between casts.

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 on your passive. It becomes a nice setup for Nashors as that's when you'll really put some power into your passive and apply additional on-hit damage to your build. Just make sure you're able to keep up in gold as Leeching Leer might be one of the worst mythic components for early game, so actually getting to Riftmaker may be a bit of a struggle.

Nashor's Tooth is going to be our second item because it gives 100 ap, 50% attack speed, and gives on-hit damage in its passive. This is when you can really start to be more aggressive because you'll also be leveling E and will be able to effectively split push while gaining a lot of damage and sustain from the AP applied to passive. Whether you decide to split or group you'll have a chance at making an impact from here on out.

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 AD 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. Completely worth the purchase and a solid item for a more damage focused build.

Demonic Embrace has been a staple AP bruiser pickup for a while now and I still believe it is. You get a solid amount of health for an AP item, a burn effect that applies to all of Gwen's damage, and you get additional Health based on your bonus health. This item will make you a little beefier while still applying some additional damage.

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 a great 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 a few 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. Despite how good this item is for this build it's also the most expensive item in the build and will likely not be in every single game you play. Regardless it's entirely worth purchasing and will make a huge difference.

Zhonya's Hourglass is a solid defensive item for Gwen as it gives her some armor while still adding a decent amount of AP. The active also gives her an out if she gets caught in a fight.

Seraph's Embrace gives you a healthy amount of mana so running out never feels like an issue, and a decent spread of stats. Like Demonic Embrace you also get bonus AP from the passive, but you also get a shield once you drop to 30% max hp.

Shadowflame gives a lot of base AP, and helps against champions that use a lot of shields or just tanks in general.

Cosmic Drive gives a good amount of AP and gives Gwen move speed. Generally I like to get Cosmic Drive when I'm running ghost as I can ghost into a teamfight and by the time people start dispersing I'm able to get around at mach 5 and catch up to anyone retreating.

Morellonomicon Is going to be your best option for anti-heal if pure damage isn't enough to defeat the other team.

Thornmail is another option for anti-heal if damage isn't really an issue and you just need to be tankier.

Spirit Visage is an excellent tank item on Gwen because it makes her healing more effective while still being a good source of magic resist.

Wit's End is another source of Magic Resist but instead of giving additional tank stats this item will be good if you want a little defense while still having effective on-hit damage.

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 the easiest matchup 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. This matchup is one of the rare cases where I wait to choose my level 1 until I know what ability he chose. If he goes Q go E, if he goes W or E go Q. Be aggressive level 1, if he throws a 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.
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.
5.
Gangplank is one of the easier 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.
6.
With Gwen's mini rework changing her R to automatically give her the other charges instead of making her auto or Q to get the next charge, Teemo's only big advantage outside of being ranged gets trivialized post 6. A big counter teemo had against gwen was his Q blind because he could blind her and she wouldn't be able to use her autos to get her next R charge for up to 3 seconds. Meaning shed either need to waste Q or wait out the blind. In that time Teemo can kill gwen, run away, or reposition to a more advantagous spot. Now with the rework, that blind has little to no effect on her post 6 all-in. Granted, his pre 6 is still going to be frustrating because most Teemo's will use that time before level 6 to poke you constantly. Just play safe and keep up in experience and you should be fine.

I got this idea from another Guide I saw while looking through mobafire, so I'm going to drop some tips for things that beginner Gwen players might not know, or just general things I see people do or don't do.

1. Using Dash to it's fullest extent.

Gwen's dash has a lot of versatility just aside from the auto reset and cooldown reduction. A big part of improving as gwen is improving your positioning and poke using E. Similar to how Fiora can dash in a certain way to hit the enemy while leaving space to avoid creating an opening, Gwen can do the same with her E+Q combo. There's a few ways to do this. You can dash a shorter distance and Q to hit them with the edge of Q and not throw yourself too far forward. you can Q first and then dash away to chunk them a bit, get some health back and better avoid any retaliation. For example, say Garen Qs towards you and you're too close to just dash out. Q as he gets to melee range and dash back. This way you deal some damage, negate his damage with your healing and you put some distance between you and him. You can also do the E+Q combo dashing sideways if you need to continue fighting but want to dodge an ability like an Urgot R or Sett W. Obviously, these are all to be used when needed, and aren't best case scenario at all times but are effective when used right.

2. Learning how to position W properly

This may seem obvious, but I see tons of Gwen players who don't know how to position W and try to use it strictly for a single ability that wouldn't have enough impact on the fight to warrant using it just for that. Remember that W can be used for more than just projectiles. For example, if you're in Sett W and can't get out in time, as long as you can create enough distance to put him out of your shroud, his W won't have any effect. In another case, if you're up against a Quinn and she hits you with E, use your W as soon as you possibly can and she will backflip out of your shroud and not only will her full combo be useless, but there's a chance she'll try to click you and end up walking towards you instead. Best case scenario that's a free kill, or even just getting a free trade as there's a good chance they won't be expecting to miss everything. Finally, if you're against a Nocturne and he tries to Ult you while you're in the open, Activate your W and try to get to brush somewhere he can't see you. As long as you're in your W he can't actually Ult you because he won't be able to target you.

3. Stop wasting your Q I swear to god

The single biggest mistake I see gwen players make is wasting their Qs. If you need to let off a 1 or 2 stack Q to finish off a near dead enemy or kill some minions then so be it, but DO NOT use a 1 or 2 stack Q on a healthy enemy or objective like Baron/Dragon. There is virtually 0 positives to rushing your Q aside from the 2 things I mentioned. Every time I play against a gwen I see them rush Q and waste so much potential damage and healing. It frustrates me, and I'm usually the one they're trying to kill!

4. Stay humble

Whether you like it or not, you're going to get your *** kicked A LOT while learning this champion. Build, Pro Gwen Highlights, and all the guides in the world will not change that. Gwen takes a lot of trial and error before you can get to the point where you can get counter-picked to high hell and still come out relatively unscratched. Even now I have certain champions that I struggle hard against. The difference now is that there's maybe 3 champions that I feel that way towards. Back a year ago I would've had a dozen or so champions I refused to play against. Don't get me wrong, Guides will help you improve faster and give you an idea of where to start, but if you go into Gwen just based off highlights you see in the LCS and Clip channels you're going to be severely dissapointed. Just go into her with no expectations and push through the bad games. Eventually you'll get to a point where you can pull off some pretty cool **** and carry games.

5. Pick up on specific interactions

A few things that you should know as a Gwen player involving kit interactions. Gwen's Q cannot be interrupted by CC. You can Q through anything as long as you activate it before the CC hits. There's an interesting interaction involving Gwen's E+Q combo. If you E+Q and you end up within auto range gwen will automatically hit your target with an auto attack. For certain abilities like Lillia R, if she activates R on you and you W with her outside of your shroud before the sleep activates, the sleep will have no effect. This also works with Karthus R.

6. Don't be afraid to be behind early

I know it sounds weird, don't panic about being behind? Yes. Gwen is one of the hardest scaling champions in the game. And depending on matchups you could go from getting mopped to shredding someone in seconds. For example, I had a game against Renekton where I died a few times and fell behind completely, at 30 minutes we 1v1d and I *****ed him in the open for everyone to see. Gwen is on Jax/Kayle levels of scaling where you can be 40 CS down and behind by 2 levels but CS for a few minutes and get a tower and suddenly you're caught up. Even just one good teamfight can skyrocket you from bum of the team to a demi-god if you know how to play it properly. It's ok to soak XP early if the enemy laner is aggressive and trying to zone super hard. Most champions who do that sort of stuff end up being champions that fall off later anyway or do so to try and establish dominance so they don't have to try and outplay you in the late game.

7. Have Fun

Regardless of what you want to play Gwen for, whether that's to climb ranked, to find a new main, or just a fun character to play on the side, have fun. Try goofy stuff, if you're extremely ahead go try to solo baron or 1v3 the enemy team because you can. Test your limits and actually enjoy the champion. Gwen is already a pain in the *** to consistently win with, if you hate playing her ON TOP OF THAT you might as well just find a new champion to play.

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 of laning phase just focus on farming and focusing on defending against trades. Try to keep 4 stacks so enemies are more wary about attacking you. The ways you can use 4 stack Q early is by using an E>Q combo to dash forward and land the Q on the enemy as you're dashing. This is best used into enemies with no reliable gap closer or long cooldowns as it's harder for them to trade back. Another way you can use it is by doing Q>E backwards so you still hit some of the Q and you're able to get out of range so they cant trade back. Don't go for super long trades as the nerf to her E's cooldown reduction made her pre 6 trades significantly less effective. Aside from playing safe and limiting trades, try to keep ahead in farm and worst case scenario be close enough to soak xp so you're not 3 levels down.

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. Out of all the build paths to run on Gwen I find this path to be the most entertaining and flexible with what you want to run later on in the match. It take some time to master as all things gwen do, but once you fully understand the build and playstyle involved you'll see the full potential of this build path. Good Luck and Have Fun!