Class: Stat checking diver.
Difficulty: 6.5/10

You may think Olaf is just like Garen in terms of difficulty, well... not exactly if you've ever played this champion you will understand what I mean, missing your Q in many scenarios can be game losing or engaging at the wrong time, Olaf cannot stop a fight once he went in.

His role basically means that you will have to play around your Item spikes more than other champions and falling behind = death.

Why? divers are champions that have access to the backline in teamfights ("Ambessa is the best example by far"), that means these champs generally speaking don't like front to back, they want to kill the enemy backline (Dive) then move back to the frontline.

Not being ahead = dying before you can even reach the backline, because Olaf does not have dashes so unlike an Ambessa you cannot avoid getting hit (which you want).

Your overall gameplan is, get your item spikes >>> group >>> dive enemy mid/adc >>> get LP.

There is a lot more to that but yeah, that's olaf simply put.

Olaf is a lot more mechanical than you would think simply because you have high attack speed and have to choose between AUTO ATTACKING, PRESSING Q, PRESSING E

Basics for each spell:
for Q:

-Q enemy + minion at the same time to farm + poke/all in
-Q the enemy pretend like you wanna walk up to pick up your axe then click back or left right to dodge their spells (aatrox matchup, darius matchup etc)
-Don't throw your Q instantly if the enemy looks like they are dodging too much, close the distance then Q

For W:

-W is an auto attack reset, so auto w auto always
-Using W when low HP provides a bigger shield

For E:

-Last hitting kills/minions with E makes it so you don't damage yourself with it
-Your E resets your R
-Your E has a faster animation the more attack speed you get (so using it when low hp = faster)

For R:
-Lasts forever as lost as you auto attack or E people, 3 seconds when popping R and it gets extended by 2.5 seconds
-Doesn't cleanse Airborns, so using it after Ornn's E will stun you, use it before
-Gives you 1 Second of speed.

How to initiate fights:
With no R: Q the enemy, then click BEHIND THEM, auto and then E, only do Q-E to initiate the fight if the enemy is a fiora or you want to take a quick trade, if you Q-E somebody that runs away from you, you will create distance between you 2 because the spell stops you in an animation. So Q, walk in auto E auto, use w late as an auto attack reset.

With R:
Q-Ghost and ULT, not if you ult from max range instantly and the enemy has a lot of dashes they will just Flash + dash away, so it is important to understand how far away they will be, if it's something like a miss fortune, she cannot dash away so ulting from farther away is fine.

when you get crit:
You can start using W as a burst tool, so Q-R as per usual, but now do Auto W auto auto E from max hp that will kill most squishy champs.

Summary:
- Q-E to trade, no autos.
- Q auto - E - Auto - Pick up axe when you want to initiate an all in in melee range
- Q-R when you want to all in somebody from Full HP
- Q-R auto - w - auto - auto - E + ravenous hydra (MAXIMUM DAMAGE COMBO)

Olaf's early game is one that is very misunderstood, you will think that you simply just stat check everybody by running into them continously, wrong. Olaf is one of the easiest champs to outplay, mainly because you can out trade him easily >>> all in.

Lvl 1 you are stronger than most champs so you look for:
1. a trade by letting the minions meet in the middle then Q'ing both all 3 minions to last hit them and also the enemy
2. Getting prio.

Both give you access to controlling the wave, your goal after getting prio is to:
1. Towerdive the enemy on wave 3 (cannon wave) if they are low enough hp
2. Crash in 2nd wave (If you want to make the wave push into you asap to fight them closer to your tower)
3. Crash in 3rd wave >>> proxy (usually against tanks)

All of these options make for a huge advantage early game

After finding a lead it is important to understand this, being 5/0 with 60 cs at 10 min is worse than 3/0 with 100 cs at 10 min. Riot nerfed killing people on repeat, so giving them 1:30 - 2 min in between waves is a really good idea. So either start perma pushing and hitting tower or zone the enemy in between towers (ideal scenario) freezing after you are ahead is HORRIBLE, not just bad, it sounds counter intuitive, but this is the reason why people say toplane is useless, if you are far way from your team, at least break the tower so you have the opportunity to not be so far away from them:PP


In general you will find one of these matchups:
-Bruisers/juggernauts (jax,sett,darius): Matchups where it is important to focus a bit more on spacing/baiting their spells out by clicking back and forth real quick to potentially make them do a mistake >>> punish the mistake by all inning them instantly, trading is possible and even preferred in specific matchups like (jax), you will alternate between points in Q-E a lot in these matchups.

-Tanks (malphite,ornn), slow matchups where you will want to build cull + tiamat asap and focus on getting 10-12 cs per min every game, kills are a bonus, pushing in with tiamat and taking the tower is the plan

-Ranged matchups (jayce/vayne) these are the hardest, you will rely heavily on cheesing and finding small windows to play, overall the ranged champion controls the lane, understand that, yes it's annoying, riot might nerf them soon so when you read this guide you might be confused (9/29/2026 season 16). With that being said Olaf is one of the melee champs that does best against them (Why?) because you can Q-R-Ghost run them down lvl 6+ (IN THEORY), now the reality is that many ranged champs will either stat check you in melee range or take Ghost + nimbus cloak + swiftness boots + Storm raider's. It is important to rush tiamat in these matchups and play to trade cs, remember surviving = winning, the ideal scenario is you try to all in them with ghost + flash, when it's down you go proxy till you have those up again, if the enemy ranged toplaner tries to stop you,generally speaking they will put less focus on trying to kite you when you are behind their tower.

DEALING WITH STORMRAIDER'S SURGE
This is probably your kryptonite, don't get me wrong it's annoying to play against people that take this rune, but you got to understand some things about it. After a certain level Ghost starts to match Stomraider's surge (about lvl 9-11) so if you have similar MS with them you can even run them down through it.

Now against people with stormraider's surge, it is important to avoid trading and focusing on getting prio and controlling the waves, you took a bad trade? crash the wave >>> recall , np. After you get vamp scepter, you can even let them hit you intentionally when the wave is close to your tower, they proc stormraider's >>> they back off >>> if they walk up again Q-Ghost run them down if they don't, no issues you heal up and crash the wave in. It is boring,but they will slowly lose minions and eventually they will run out of patience and make mistakes.

AFTER FINISHING RAVENOUS HYDRA this rune becomes worse honestly, as trading will become useless against you.

Bonus info:
-the 250-270 mana Rule, do not fall below this mana if you want to keep staying in lane/proxy and fight people, it will be enough to R-Q-W-Q.

The mentality for Olaf is the following mid to late, you are going to ask yourself questions:

-Am i strong enough to walk bot right now and 1vs3? Okay im going there.
-Does running top right now allow me to finish my item before the next drake spawns?yes? okay i'll sidelane for 30 seconds then recall.
-Am I so behind that I'm going to bait my team in teamfights since I die instantly? I'll go on the opposite side of the map and farm up or wait my summs till I'm actually a champion.

To simplify this, Olaf wants to have his summoner spells and join MEANINGFUL fights, you do not care about getting 1vs1 pick as Olaf all that much, you want fights on the enemy side of the map 1vs3's 1vs4's or 3vs3's 4vs4's those are meaningful plays that will actually put you closer to victory. If you aren't strong enough sidelaning against their weakest member and towrdiving them >>> breaking tower is the ideal scenario.

Macro is complex so going over text on it is not that useful imo.

Let's start with all the things that matter for teamfighting:
-Enemy comp
-Your teammates positions
-Your position
-Shutdowns
-Summoner spells

The better you are at understanding these are focusing on them the better your teamfighting will be.

How to actually teamfight? In easy comps (seraphine/ashe bot) you can simply wait for the enemies to walk in your range, Q the backline and run them down, you don't even need your summoner spells if you are ahead enough.

If you aren't that ahead to the point where you are a universal threat to enemy team and u could have beat 10 champs at once if it was possible to fight your team, then you will have to find some sort of advatange.

Flanking simply running on the opposite side of the objective that you are gonna fight on about 45-60 seconds before the objective spawns gives you an immense position advantage, if you have direct access to the backline and you sandwich the enemy with your team you will kinda win by default, now this is a position that requires you to PUSH UP TO A T2 >>> walk through jg, you cannot always do that

Trackin summs: If you have ghost flash up and the enemy adc is no flash, simply focusing them will guarantee you win the fight, but you have to prepare for that. If the enemy adc does have their flash up but their support doesnt focus the support first then the adc, for DD resets.

Baiting your team, do the enemy have too many counters? then you'll probably need to let your team die then go clean up, it is a very egotistical strategy that works insanely well if you have ghost up as you can get multi kills easily if they've used important spells (kayle R, taric R etc) or even flash at times.

I've been annoying enough already (probably),but if you truly want to master this champion I'm giving you the opportuinity to join my Skool community COMPLETELY FOR FREE: https://www.skool.com/kings-way-7791/about

I've put over 120 hours of gathering the information,clips,analyzing games all that you will need not just random ideas/text.