{13.20} Menace To LoL Gwen Revamped!
Build Guide By King Turtle
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800
70
1,179,173
Views
78
Comments
Gwen Build Guide By King Turtle
1,179,173
Views
78
Comments
Gwen Build Guide By King Turtle
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Choose Champion Build:
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Gwen The Gargantuan
![LoL Champion: Gwen]()
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Gwenslinger
![LoL Champion: Gwen]()
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Gwen The Grey
![LoL Champion: Gwen]()
Recommended Items
Runes:
Precision
Resolve
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+65 Base Health
Spells:
1
2
3
4
5
6
Read Notes
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![LoL Summoner Spell: Mosstomper Smite]()
![LoL Summoner Spell: Scorchclaw Smite]()
Mosstomper Smite
Scorchclaw Smite
Items
Starting Items
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First Buy
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Last Item Alternatives
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Ability Order
Thousand Cuts (PASSIVE)
Gwen Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Threats
Synergies
Extreme
Major
Even
Minor
Tiny
Show All
None
Low
Ok
Strong
Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Jax
Jax is a champion that has a built in counter for gwen with his E and is one of a few champions with enough scaling power to match or beat her through mid game and up to late game. He's my perma ban at the moment mostly because he's impossible to win lane against, and difficult to outscale plus Akshan Top is such a rare pick that you're better off just banning Jax.
Synergies
Ideal
Strong
Ok
Low
None
Update on Mythic Changes and New Guide Layout
Figured I'd leave a small update on how this guide will work starting from now on. This guide instead of being one build with a lot of options will turn into 3 builds that stay relatively static with some exceptions. Hopefully It'll be just as good as the old guide was but due to Guinsoos becoming a mythic it is no longer possible to run the old build. Regardless the builds I am introducing to you should all be viable to run or fun to mess around with. Even if it bums me out to scrap the original build. Certain chapters such as abilities, build intro, matchups, and tips and tricks will likely be copy pasted into each build because they're all pretty universal. Otherwise each build will have chapters curated specifically for that build. I also won't be rewriting all the information for threats and spells because it's all pretty much the same and I'd just be saying the same thing in each build anyway. It's a work in progress but I'll do my best to lay it out in a way that's easy to understand.
Build Intro
This build is a passion project that I have been working on and updating since Gwen first showed up on the PBE, starting with a weird mashup of Titanic Hydra/Guinsoos+HOB to the guide you see in front of you now. I have had lots of fun keeping this guide maintained and hope that it can give both Gwen mains and new Gwen players a good experience whether you're in ARAM, Cusom Matches, or climbing the Ranked Ladder. Throughout these chapters I'll go over Pros/Cons, Runes, Abilities, Items, Phases of the game, Tips and Tricks, and preferred matchups for those just getting into the champion. Without further ado, let's get into the rest of the guide!
Abilities
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Gwen's basic attacks on-hit, The Center of Snip Snip!, and Needlework deal bonus percnt max health 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. -
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.
Any minions hit by this ability while at 20% health or lower are executed. -
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. -
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. -
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.
Gwen The Gargantuan Runes
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.
Triumph Gives healing and gold after takedowns. This will give you some added sustain in teamfights and handicap fights where you're able to pick someone off quickly. The added gold also makes it easier to get full build.
Alacrity will be to help scale your attack speed and give an extra boost to your split pushing potential and allow you to get your stacks quicker.
This rune will be good for teamfights, as you want to be in the fight as long as possible to keep your conqueror and tank stats and that may require you being relatively low health for a decent portion of the fight.
Second Wind is a great early rune for aggressive matchups and dealing with poke, which is something we'll be dealing with a lot in top lane.
Finally, Overgrowth will give us some bonus health to deepen our impact as a brawler and add to Demonic Passive to translate into more AP. All in all a pretty central rune to this build.
Gwen The Gargantuan Items
Demonic Embrace will be our first item in this build because it gives us needed stats early without needing to go through a component that's trash and the burn damage will be good against bruisers and tanks who stack health early. It's also not too costly and since we aren't super strong early anyway we can save mythic for 2nd item and play safe until we scale.
In the past I wouldn't go Greaves because gwen was so weak early and the attack speed didn't give enough help to make the laning phase bearable in the slightest, but in her current state I feel a bit more comfortable running attack speed boots in this build. Plus we'll need the attack speed since we're not running Nashors Tooth
Radiant Virtue as an item is usually kept to champions like Zac or Mundo, but with Gwen the way this item will work is to create a more teamfight focused build where you can go in, and instead of having to rely purely on your passive to heal you, you can go in, and not only heal off of passive, but heal from radiant. You also gain max health for 9 seconds meaning this item helps with extended fights which is something Gwen is great at. It's also extremely cheap.
A somewhat controversial thing with Gwen is magic pen. Many people in the gwen community don't like it was her center Q has a true damage conversion, but at this point magic pen on Gwen is more worth it as it applies to her passive, R, and Gwen's Q only converts half the damage in the center to true damage so you're still doing magic damage. Plus this item helps with tanks and bruisers who might stack MR to try and make you obsolete.
Sunfire Cape is a good tank option on gwen as it promotes extended fights with its passive, gives good base stats, and it's cost effective.
This item may seem kinda weird in this build because we aren't really using the slow for anything, but the base stats are worth it because you get a decent amount of AP, and the health will add to Demonic's effective burn for only 2600 gold, making the full build incredibly cheap but effective.
Note: The Alternative items will be to replace Sunfire Cape in the even that there's not much AD on the other team or you need to get Anti-heal.
Alternative Items
This is going to be the item to buy if there's a lot of AP on the other team as not only is it incredibly cheap at 2400 gold, but it also gives a solid amount of magic resist while also shredding Magic resist, becoming more effective in teamfights.
Warmog's Is a large health boost to add on to your Demonic passive and Radiant Virtue passive and to increase your sustainability.
Spirit Visage is going to be another magic resist option but instead of a magic resist shred you get some health regen and bonus healing power for slightly higher cost.
Thornmail is a secondary armor option if you need some anti-heal while still maintaining a little tankiness.
Gwen The Gargantuan Pros and Cons
-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 Stat Mix: With Gwen's scaling power, the runes we run, and the mix of stats in the items we buy, Gwen has the potential to shell out lots of damage while still being hard to kill and somewhat tanky in the event you don't have a ton of engage aside from yourself. With the Tank/AP mix you also get a decent amount of AP on top of your sustain.
-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.
-Good in teamfights: With this build you can deal a decent amount of damage while getting a good amount of healing in, plus you can also heal teamates. The healing won't be a ton for tanks but for ADCs and assassins with a much smaller health pool it could make a big difference.
-Incredibly cheap items: This build only has 1 item that costs 3000 gold or more, with the other items costing 1100, 2700, 2800, 2700, and 2600, which can be even cheaper if abyssal replaces one of the 2700 items. Effectively bringing the build cost around support build costs. Between Gwen's scaling power and her good waveclear you can get full build pretty quick.
-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.
-Lacks Disengage : Gwen as a champion is designed to go in to a fight and win by any means. She's exceptional at extended fights and has lots of potential in teamfights. The one thing holding her back is her lack of an escape tool. Aside from her small dash she can't really disengage once she goes in. Against some comps this can make jumping in really challenging, so make sure to read both comps and figure out if you're going to be able to jump in easily or not.
-Bad Blind Pick: Gwen is in a state 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. There's even some matchups where you can't take advantage of any of their weaknesses, like Tryndamere for example. The 2 ways to beat a Tryndamere are running away and hard CC. Gwen is too slow to outrun him and she has no hard CC. She barely has any CC at all and it's locked behind her Ultimate. So be wary of who you're going up against as it can range from baby mode to a literal pub stomp.
-Good Stat Mix: With Gwen's scaling power, the runes we run, and the mix of stats in the items we buy, Gwen has the potential to shell out lots of damage while still being hard to kill and somewhat tanky in the event you don't have a ton of engage aside from yourself. With the Tank/AP mix you also get a decent amount of AP on top of your sustain.
-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.
-Good in teamfights: With this build you can deal a decent amount of damage while getting a good amount of healing in, plus you can also heal teamates. The healing won't be a ton for tanks but for ADCs and assassins with a much smaller health pool it could make a big difference.
-Incredibly cheap items: This build only has 1 item that costs 3000 gold or more, with the other items costing 1100, 2700, 2800, 2700, and 2600, which can be even cheaper if abyssal replaces one of the 2700 items. Effectively bringing the build cost around support build costs. Between Gwen's scaling power and her good waveclear you can get full build pretty quick.
-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.
-Lacks Disengage : Gwen as a champion is designed to go in to a fight and win by any means. She's exceptional at extended fights and has lots of potential in teamfights. The one thing holding her back is her lack of an escape tool. Aside from her small dash she can't really disengage once she goes in. Against some comps this can make jumping in really challenging, so make sure to read both comps and figure out if you're going to be able to jump in easily or not.
-Bad Blind Pick: Gwen is in a state 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. There's even some matchups where you can't take advantage of any of their weaknesses, like Tryndamere for example. The 2 ways to beat a Tryndamere are running away and hard CC. Gwen is too slow to outrun him and she has no hard CC. She barely has any CC at all and it's locked behind her Ultimate. So be wary of who you're going up against as it can range from baby mode to a literal pub stomp.
Gwenslinger Runes
Conqueror will work well in this build as it will build stacks very fast and give some additional healing and adaptive damage.
Triumph gives health and gold after a takedown
Legend:Alacrity
Alacrity gives us some bonus attack speed to make up for not having Nashors
Cut Down will be good since this build is a lot squishier and we'll be fighting a lot of tanks and high health bruisers, making our damage more effective in all phases of the game.
Sudden Impact gives us magic pen every time you dash which is key because we'll be using E as our main source of damage.
With this rune you get some added AP which adds to the build nicely.
Gwenslinger Items
Nashor's Tooth is a pretty essential item for Gwen as it gives her some fuel for her on-hit abilities and still gives 100 ap, meaning it's an easy 1st or 2nd item in most builds.
Sorc Shoes are good because they add some needed pen as gwen doesn't need a ton but a little bit goes a long way for her AP damage, especially as her Q only converts 50% of the center damage to True Damage, so you're still doing a lot of AP damage.
Guinsoo's Rageblade is a great item on Gwen as it embraces her passive and E on-hit damage, gives some AP to bridge into the AP items near the end, and it's just a fun item in general.
BotRK is a good on-hit item for Gwen as she's already a natural tank buster and this item makes her autos deal % current health damage, and on the 3rd hit, slows enemy champions while giving you move speed, making it easier to stick to your target.
Void Staff gives us magic pen to shred champions that might hard stack MR to snub you in the mid game, especially with MR items getting better in recent months and becoming more effective. It's also only 2800 gold which is nice for late game.
Cosmic Drive is our final touch to the build, giving us 100 ap, good amounts of ability haste, and enough move speed to effectively get around in teamfights.
Gwenslinger Pros and Cons
-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 Stat Mix: With Gwen's scaling power, the runes we run, and the mix of stats in the items we buy, Gwen has the potential to shell out lots of damage and still have good sustain. Another special thing about this build is that it has incredible split push potential meaning even if you fall behind early game, you can split top and apply some pressure with your fast push times.
-Incrediblely destructive potential: With this build once you scale up a bit and get to mid game, you can absolutely demolish teams, not only squishies, but the build really hones into Gwen's tank busting capabilities makign it a lot easier to shred tanks and bruisers. If there's one thing this build does it's A LOT of damage.
-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.
-Lacks Disengage : Gwen as a champion is designed to go in to a fight and win by any means. She's exceptional at extended fights and has lots of potential in teamfights. The one thing holding her back is her lack of an escape tool. Aside from her small dash she can't really disengage once she goes in. Against some comps this can make jumping in really challenging, so make sure to read both comps and figure out if you're going to be able to jump in easily or not.
-Bad Blind Pick: Gwen is in a state 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. There's even some matchups where you can't take advantage of any of their weaknesses, like Tryndamere for example. The 2 ways to beat a Tryndamere are running away and hard CC. Gwen is too slow to outrun him and she has no hard CC. She barely has any CC at all and it's locked behind her Ultimate. So be wary of who you're going up against as it can range from baby mode to a literal pub stomp.
-Squishy: Naturally, since we're focusing everything into damage and on-hit, Gwen will be squishier and will need to be used more effectively to avoid CC and high burst champions that could take her down from afar. We're essentially a glass cannon with this build, but when it works it works insanely well.
-Good Stat Mix: With Gwen's scaling power, the runes we run, and the mix of stats in the items we buy, Gwen has the potential to shell out lots of damage and still have good sustain. Another special thing about this build is that it has incredible split push potential meaning even if you fall behind early game, you can split top and apply some pressure with your fast push times.
-Incrediblely destructive potential: With this build once you scale up a bit and get to mid game, you can absolutely demolish teams, not only squishies, but the build really hones into Gwen's tank busting capabilities makign it a lot easier to shred tanks and bruisers. If there's one thing this build does it's A LOT of damage.
-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.
-Lacks Disengage : Gwen as a champion is designed to go in to a fight and win by any means. She's exceptional at extended fights and has lots of potential in teamfights. The one thing holding her back is her lack of an escape tool. Aside from her small dash she can't really disengage once she goes in. Against some comps this can make jumping in really challenging, so make sure to read both comps and figure out if you're going to be able to jump in easily or not.
-Bad Blind Pick: Gwen is in a state 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. There's even some matchups where you can't take advantage of any of their weaknesses, like Tryndamere for example. The 2 ways to beat a Tryndamere are running away and hard CC. Gwen is too slow to outrun him and she has no hard CC. She barely has any CC at all and it's locked behind her Ultimate. So be wary of who you're going up against as it can range from baby mode to a literal pub stomp.
-Squishy: Naturally, since we're focusing everything into damage and on-hit, Gwen will be squishier and will need to be used more effectively to avoid CC and high burst champions that could take her down from afar. We're essentially a glass cannon with this build, but when it works it works insanely well.
Gwen The Grey Runes
Conqueror is going to be the best keystone for Gwen and with this page as this is all about full on power and damage. This is the build where you jump into a fight and kill someone with 1 R charge and a full stack Q.
Triumph will add to an already stacked collection of healing sources just incase your full combo doesn't heal you enough or you need the boost because they built grevious wounds.
Alacrity will have the same use as the first page, added attack speed to give a slight boost to your early game and making it easier to stack Q all the way.
Coup De Grace will be great for tank matchups or bruisers who stack a lot of health like Sett, Mundo, and Sion.
One thing that'll help us in this page is added Ability Haste to help get our W back as soon as possible since it's a key part of not getting poked to death while setting up teamfights or contesting objectives. As well as a a 20% cooldown reductin on non Ultimate abilities per takedown.
Aside from Conqueror, Gathering Storm is the next best rune on Gwen period. The longer the game goes on the more AP you get. Most games this rune will grant you about 48 or 80 AP which can make a massive difference in the mid and late game as your passive healing scales off AP making any healing you get from your abilities more effective.
Gwen The Grey Items
Riftmaker is Gwen's best mythic by a good margin, even if the item in a void is horrible. It's good for extended fights and applies some additional true damage to add on to her Q center snip. It also gives some omnivamp and makes her healing more effective.
Sorc shoes give some magic pen to better knock down tanks and make it harder for enemies to hard stack MR during the mid game.
Even when we're not going mainly on-hit, Nashor's Tooth is an essential item in most Gwen builds. It gives 100 base ap, much needed attack speed, and deals on-hit magic damage on top of her E empowered auto damage.
Demonic Embrace is another good tank shredding item, mixing into the build well and applying a burn that helps finish off enemies who don't die in the first full combo.
Void Staff works best as a tank shredder but can still be effective for enemies who might go more damage but with one or two MR items.
Morellonomicon works well as it applies anti-heal, gives some magic pen, and still gives a solid amount of ap.
Gwen The Grey Pros and Cons
-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.
-Insane Ability Damage: Seeing as we're building more as a spellcaster, This build is really good for burst and ability damage. At its peak this build can wipe 3 people off the map in one full combo.
-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.
-Lacks Disengage : Gwen as a champion is designed to go in to a fight and win by any means. She's exceptional at extended fights and has lots of potential in teamfights. The one thing holding her back is her lack of an escape tool. Aside from her small dash she can't really disengage once she goes in. Against some comps this can make jumping in really challenging, so make sure to read both comps and figure out if you're going to be able to jump in easily or not.
-Bad Blind Pick: Gwen is in a state 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. There's even some matchups where you can't take advantage of any of their weaknesses, like Tryndamere for example. The 2 ways to beat a Tryndamere are running away and hard CC. Gwen is too slow to outrun him and she has no hard CC. She barely has any CC at all and it's locked behind her Ultimate. So be wary of who you're going up against as it can range from baby mode to a literal pub stomp.
-Insane Ability Damage: Seeing as we're building more as a spellcaster, This build is really good for burst and ability damage. At its peak this build can wipe 3 people off the map in one full combo.
-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.
-Lacks Disengage : Gwen as a champion is designed to go in to a fight and win by any means. She's exceptional at extended fights and has lots of potential in teamfights. The one thing holding her back is her lack of an escape tool. Aside from her small dash she can't really disengage once she goes in. Against some comps this can make jumping in really challenging, so make sure to read both comps and figure out if you're going to be able to jump in easily or not.
-Bad Blind Pick: Gwen is in a state 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. There's even some matchups where you can't take advantage of any of their weaknesses, like Tryndamere for example. The 2 ways to beat a Tryndamere are running away and hard CC. Gwen is too slow to outrun him and she has no hard CC. She barely has any CC at all and it's locked behind her Ultimate. So be wary of who you're going up against as it can range from baby mode to a literal pub stomp.
Early Game
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.
For specific builds:
Gwen The Gargantuan: Focus on sustain and maintaining your resources until you've got at least demonic. With the early burn it'll be good to play defensively and find openings to counter and chunk your enemy down over time.
Gwenslinger: Depending on matchup going for a level 1 kill is very doable but make sure you know the matchup first. Since you'll be squishy it might be good to go ignite so you can focus on overwhelming damage to fend off aggressive matchups in the even they try to abuse you early.
Gwen The Grey: I suggest going doran's ring and focusing on farm and getting 6 before the enemy laner. Generally if you can get 6 first and find an opening you can all-in your laner. Just make sure you keep up in XP and farm because the sooner you scale and get items the sooner you can get involved in teamfights and important objectives.
For specific builds:
Gwen The Gargantuan: Focus on sustain and maintaining your resources until you've got at least demonic. With the early burn it'll be good to play defensively and find openings to counter and chunk your enemy down over time.
Gwenslinger: Depending on matchup going for a level 1 kill is very doable but make sure you know the matchup first. Since you'll be squishy it might be good to go ignite so you can focus on overwhelming damage to fend off aggressive matchups in the even they try to abuse you early.
Gwen The Grey: I suggest going doran's ring and focusing on farm and getting 6 before the enemy laner. Generally if you can get 6 first and find an opening you can all-in your laner. Just make sure you keep up in XP and farm because the sooner you scale and get items the sooner you can get involved in teamfights and important objectives.
Mid Game
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 and better transition to late game. I usually prefer to farm until I get my 3rd item , but you can delay it a little if your team needs you for dragons or just for grouping.
For Specific Builds:
Gwen The Gargantuan: At this point you've got mythic and maybe 3rd item. You can continue farming if your team doesn't need you or they havent grouped yet, but the sooner you can get involved around the map the better. Try to take advantage of fights in jungle and narrow paths as you can use Radiant Virtue healing best there and stacked up enemies make for easier kills.
Gwenslinger: Focus on split-pushing and gold farming. This builds bread and butter is 1v1 and 2v1 fights as you do insane amounts of single target DPS and can quickly turn the tides of a fight before they can lock you down. Split-pushing is very easy as your waveclear is solid and you take objectives with little to no effort. If you need to do teamfights try not to be the first one in as CC is your biggest enemy, so try to flank or go over terrain and catch the enemies by surprise.
Gwen The Grey: You can either continue farming and split push as you do loads of damage to towers, or you can teamfight and try to control objectives. When teamfighting try to go in when multiple enemies are grouped together or are in a narrow space as you can take multiple people out in one combo and turn all that damage into tons of healing. With this build landing Center Qs is incredibly important to get the most from her passive and sustain in fights.
For Specific Builds:
Gwen The Gargantuan: At this point you've got mythic and maybe 3rd item. You can continue farming if your team doesn't need you or they havent grouped yet, but the sooner you can get involved around the map the better. Try to take advantage of fights in jungle and narrow paths as you can use Radiant Virtue healing best there and stacked up enemies make for easier kills.
Gwenslinger: Focus on split-pushing and gold farming. This builds bread and butter is 1v1 and 2v1 fights as you do insane amounts of single target DPS and can quickly turn the tides of a fight before they can lock you down. Split-pushing is very easy as your waveclear is solid and you take objectives with little to no effort. If you need to do teamfights try not to be the first one in as CC is your biggest enemy, so try to flank or go over terrain and catch the enemies by surprise.
Gwen The Grey: You can either continue farming and split push as you do loads of damage to towers, or you can teamfight and try to control objectives. When teamfighting try to go in when multiple enemies are grouped together or are in a narrow space as you can take multiple people out in one combo and turn all that damage into tons of healing. With this build landing Center Qs is incredibly important to get the most from her passive and sustain in fights.
Late Game
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.
For Specific Builds:
Gwen The Gargantuan: At this point you have full build. Focus on keeping your carry safe, sustaining waves, and being an effective frontline in teamfights. Don't take needless fights, and keep tabs on objectives.
Gwenslinger: Either full commit to split-pushing to add pressure around the map and give your team openings to take other objectives, or use your dash and high DPS to get picks and wreck **** in enemy backlines. The most important thing regardless of what you do is to avoid CC as much as possible. Once you get to late game if you get locked down and focused you're probably going to be dead or out of the fight.
Gwen The Grey: Commit to teamfights and catching teams off gaurd with your high powered combo. Since you can kill anyone very quickly, go for enemies that are bunched up and stacked on top of each other. Your Ultimate and Q have some good AOE on them and your Ultimate can even hit the entire team if you can line it up well enough.
For Specific Builds:
Gwen The Gargantuan: At this point you have full build. Focus on keeping your carry safe, sustaining waves, and being an effective frontline in teamfights. Don't take needless fights, and keep tabs on objectives.
Gwenslinger: Either full commit to split-pushing to add pressure around the map and give your team openings to take other objectives, or use your dash and high DPS to get picks and wreck **** in enemy backlines. The most important thing regardless of what you do is to avoid CC as much as possible. Once you get to late game if you get locked down and focused you're probably going to be dead or out of the fight.
Gwen The Grey: Commit to teamfights and catching teams off gaurd with your high powered combo. Since you can kill anyone very quickly, go for enemies that are bunched up and stacked on top of each other. Your Ultimate and Q have some good AOE on them and your Ultimate can even hit the entire team if you can line it up well enough.
Preferred Matchups
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 W, 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.
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 W, 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.
Tips and Tricks on Gwen
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.
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.
Build Conclusion
In Conclusion, These 3 builds are all in some way either viable or entertaining on Gwen and you'll find value no matter what mode you're playing. You still get a solid amount of damage, you take towers fast, and you slap tanks around. Hopefully riot won't make any more major changes to core items so I don't have to keep redoing half the guide and I can just enjoy my builds as is. Hope to see some of you out on the rift, GLHF and Perma ban jax.
King Turtle
Gwen Guide
{13.20} Menace To LoL Gwen Revamped!
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