Before getting into the guide I’d like to explain who I am and why you can trust the tips and advice covered in it.

I'm a dedicated Ornn player who has been playing the champion for the past four years, so I’ve developed a deep understanding of the champion and how to use him properly. I have also reached Master only by playing this champion.

If you’ve never played Ornn and you’re reading this guide out of curiosity because you’re thinking about trying new champions, I highly recommend giving him a chance. He’s very underrated since he’s a tank and his gameplay might not look that exciting at first. However, after a few games and once you get comfortable with him, you’ll see how rewarding he actually is. He’s especially strong in low elo because he’s rarely played there, so most players don’t expect his base damage or fully understand what he’s capable of.

This guide will be directed to any kind of player, wether you've never played the champion before or you've been playing it for a while but want to learn more about it.

This guide will cover: the thought and logic behind rune and item choices, teamfighting which is Ornn's main strength and the aspect that really separates bad and good Ornn players and the mentality you want to have when playing the champion.

1. Ability tips

Living Forge (P):

This is one of Ornn's main strengths. It is really important to build an item component in lane during the early game as soon as possible to get a gold lead on your opponent and make trades more favorable. You can't forge item consumables.

- Don't forge an item immediately after using Searing Charge as the forging animation will get canceled due to a bug.

- You can pretend to forge an item in lane to bait your lane opponent into walking inside your Volcanic Rupture range.

- Try to upgrade a teammate who has a 1/2 stat item available on their inventory. Also try to prioritize upgrading teammates who are ahead. However, if you can't get to a teammate immediately and you predict that you won't be able for a while, you can just upgrade whoever is in range as soon as you can to get the extra statistics. Remember that Ornn increases his HP, AR and MR by 10% from all sources, increased by 4% for every item upgrade that you do, so getting them done early is also important.

Volcanic Rupture (Q):

- If you hit an enemy champion with this ability, the pillar will stop travelling and will appear right behind the first champion hit.

- During laning phase, try to hit both the wave and the enemy champion at the same time. Don't spam this ability too much, only use it whenever you have your other abilities ready.

- Ornn's pillar lingers on the map for four seconds after appearing, however, if you cast Searing Charge right before it disappears, the pillar duration will be extended. You can use this trick to bait enemies into walking into the pillar thinking it's going to disappear.

- Use this ability during a teamfight in a way that the pillar appears on a choke point or in a spot where the enemies might walk through. Do not think of this ability as an occassional damaging ability, but rather, as a zoning tool that stops enemies and enables knock ups with Searing Charge that weren't possible before.

Bellows Breath (W):

- The Brittle effect reduces the tenacity of the unit affected by it. During a gank, if your jungler has cc, if you manage to apply Brittle to the opponent, make sure not to auto attack the enemy right away and wait as much as possible to let your jungler cc the opponent, so that he stays crowd controlled for as long as possible. This tip also applies to teamfights: when you W a group of enenemies, don't auto attack them right away and just wait for a random cc effect from your team to activate it instead. Even if this doesn't happen, enemies are still slowed for longer when under brittle without this actually activating upon being slowed. Only prioritize proccing the brittle effect when you can kill someone/leave them really low HP, or when you can stun them with your Searing Charge.

- You can cancel your W finish animation with your Searing Charge if you buffer it, this will make landing E easier as enemies will have less time to react.

Searing Charge (E):

- One trick that I constantly use in game to land the knock up more often is using the range indicator. Go to settings (In-game) > Hotkeys > Abilities and Summoner Spells > Normal Cast > Spell 3. Bind the combination of keys: Shift + E (or whichever key you use for using E). This way, when you're in game, when you press and hold Shift + E, you will see the range indicator without actually casting the ability. This will allow you to know when you're close enough to a wall in order to knock up the enemy.

- This is Ornn's only form of mobility, which means that the champion becomes a sitting duck while it is on cooldown. Be careful of using it when you are on a sidelane as wasting it to hit the wave could get you killed if an enemy catches you in that moment. This tip also applies to laning phase: this ability should not be used aggresively against the likes of Gwen or Riven, as they have high mobility and chasing tools and they can just run at you and kill you after that.

Call of the Forge God (R):

- This ability can both be used proactively and reactively. You generally want to start teamfights with this ability from a relatively safe distance to prevent the enemy from cc'ing you and stopping your R2 cast. If you can't engage on the enemy or your team happens to get caught first, you can use this instantly to stop the enemy team and disengage or continue the fight as needed.
- You can use Searing Charge immediately after casting Call of the Forge God to get closer to the ram and cast R2 faster. This is only used when chasing someone or when roaming mid/bot to surprise the enemy with a fast R2 cast. You can also do Flash + Searing Charge to cast R2 instantly, or just Flash to surprise and outplay your opponent. You can also use this trick to redirect R2 from a different direction by dashing to the side.
- It's important to remember and get used to the time it takes for the ram to reach you. This is because in order to land R2 more effectively, you need to be looking directly at the enemy champion movement to predict where they might move or dash towards, instead of looking at your champion to see when you can cast R2.

2. Combos

Level 2:

>
At level 2 you will have Q and W up, so your main combo to contest the wave will simply be Q - W - auto brittle.

Level 3:

At level 3 many possibilites for combos open.
1. > > basic attack (brittle) > back
E deals the same damage wether you simply hit someone with it or knock up them with the pillar. This combo is mainly used at melee range, and avoids over extending by going back with E at the same time you pass through them with it dealing its damage.

2. > > > basic attack (brittle)
This is your main combo. It relies on hitting Q which pretty much always guarantees landing your E knock up into W > auto. You usually hit this when you're a bit further away from the opponent and he has used some of his cooldowns.

3. > > basic attack (brittle) > basic attack (as many times as possible before enemy exits E into Q knock up range) > > basic attack.

This combo is a bit less used, and uses the tenacity reduction from brittle to dish out a little bit extra damage. By using Q after W, you slow the enemy a bit longer because of brittle, which allows you to hit the opponent with auto attacks a couple more times before knocking them up with E. After using E, you can hit the opponent an extra time with an auto before walking back safely.
There are more varaitions of these combos that are used based on the situation and the champion you're fighting, however these are the most useful combinations to know and the ones that deal the most damage.

Level 6:

At level 6, the most important combo for Ornn is unlocked: TRIPLE BRITTLE:

> > > (recast)> basic attack (brittle) > > basic attack (brittle)

You can auto attack the enemy once after using Searing Charge before recasting Call of the Forge God for extra damage, however it' a bit difficult to do so I recommend new players to stick to the easier version.

- This combo relies on hitting the target with Q and him not running away quickly from E knock up range with a dash or mobility ability.
- You can 60-0 champions with this combo.

This combo is the easiest way to catch people from far away and lock them in a pretty much unavoidable CC chain that guarantees the triple brittle. However, you don't need to do it this way every time, you only need to land the triple brittle.

1. Main rune page

Ornn is a late game tank, which means he will almost always run the Resolve rune path.

VS
The best keystone for him is Grasp of the Undying. Aftershock might seem like the best option since he’s an engage tank who benefits a lot from bonus resistances thanks to his passive. However there is a big problem with this keystone: it's much worse than Grasp during the early game.
- It has a long cooldown
- Even though the damage per proc is higher, it ends up dealing less overall damage than Grasp of the Undying because you can proc Grasp many more times per minute, while Aftershock can realistically only be triggered a few times.
- It doesn't synergize well with Ornn's trading pattern. The enemy can play around it more easily, while Grasp of the Undying is far more consistent and reliable.

Ornn is especially strong in the late game, so our main objective is to reach it as safely and consistently as possible without falling behind. Grasp of the Undying helps us achieve that.

Guardian is not a viable option for solo lane since it requires a nearby teammate. If you’re playing support, that’s a different case (and I’d cover that in a separate guide, since Ornn support plays quite differently).




- Shield Bash is not good on Ornn because he has no shielding in his kit and it's not worth taking for Fimbulwinter because it's not a good item for Ornn.

- Demolish vs Font of Life:

Plates no longer fall off early, which lowers the value of Demolish. It’s mainly useful for split pushing and taking turrets quickly, which isn’t Ornn’s preferred playstyle. It also now requires three auto attacks on a turret to activate, making it harder to quickly proc it and back off safely. Also, with the changes to Demolish in the new season, the damage has been nerfed and the reduced cooldown doesn't matter for Ornn.

Font of Life, on the other hand, provides useful sustain during the laning phase and is occasionally good during teamfights as well because you can heal a teammate which can make the difference.



- We run Conditioning in easy matchups when we're guaranteed to win the early game and we don't depend on Second Wind sustain. Some examples are very easy tank matchups and Nasus.
- We take Second Wind against anyone else. We don't consider Bone Plating because it's an inconsistent rune, and Second Wind restores more HP than the prevented lost amount by Bone Plating. It's also better for late game thanks to the constant healing during teamfights and clutch potential during skirmishes.



- We will always take Overgrowth, as it's the most solid rune out of the three, it provides a decent amount of HP.
- As Ornn doesn't have any kind of healing or shielding in his kit, we're not going to consider taking Revitalize at all. It might seem useful at first, if you pair it with items like Unending Despair and Protoplasm Harness, both of which are really good on Ornn and benefit from the bonus healing/shielding. However, Unending Despair damage and in consequence its healing too, scale off of HP, which means that having more HP will also increase its healing. When comparing Revitalize bonus healing with Overgrowth bonus HP, Overgrowth will always be more efficient in increasing the heal amount, and it will also make us more tank so it's always better.
- I don't recommend taking Unflinching: the resistances are only really useful in the early game, you don't need them to survive, and the higher amount of HP granted by Overgrowth is just better.

1.1 Secondary rune path

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Ornn used to run Inspiration secondary, since you could access free boots and mana regen through cookies. However, Biscuit Delivery does no longer give you mana regen, so instead of that, I recommend that you pick Precision as your secondary path:

- Presence of Mind is a must for the mana regen.
- For the other rune, Legend: Haste is the way to go, because AH is a good stat on Ornn and better than extra damage.

Presence of Mind is also better than Manaflow Band during the later stages of the game, because even if you spam abilities to push waves and remain out of combat for a long time, getting 1 single kill in a teamfight already restores a lot of mana back, which allows you to keep fighting with enough mana. Getting multiple kills in a teamfight already restores most of your mana back, so you will be able to stay on the map and push waves/take objectives as needed.

The only good part about Sorcery secondary is the slightly better combat power thanks to Transcendence which gives 10 AH for your ultimate and a cooldown refund after a takedown which is good on teamfights. However after many testing, I have came to the conclusion that Presence of Mind is much better for the infinite tempo, allowing you to stay on the map infinitely as long as you can get a takedown every once in a while.

2. Aery rune page

We choose this path against ranged champions, since we won't be able to proc Grasp of the Undying. The minor rune choices are pretty much set in stone: Manaflow Band, Transcendence, Scorch. The other rune choices are not optimal or they straight up do not work with Ornn. For example, since Ornn doesn't have any AD or AP scalings, nor does he build any damage items, he doesn't benefit from Waterwalking, Absolute Focus or Gathering Storm. He also doesn't need Movement Speed so Nimbus Cloak and Celerity are not good with him either. Lastly, Axiom Arcanist doesn't give him enough bonus damage on Call of the Forge God and the R cooldown reduction isn't meaningful enough to consider taking above Manaflow Band

For the secondary path, we go Resolve and pick: Second Wind and Overgrowth. Second Wind is more impactful than Font of Life because it always stays active and gives more sustain.

3. Phase Rush rune page

We only pick this rune path against Darius and Olaf.
- Darius pulling you with E is pretty much a death sentence, and it's quite dangerous to approach him in order to hit him with Grasp of the Undying. That's why we will take Phase Rush against him, so we can escape from any bad trade after he pulls us with his E, and also to avoid being ran down after he uses Ghost.
- The same deal goes for Olaf, although trades are easier and not as dangerous, we still need to run Phase Rush in case we get hit in the middle of the lane by a Q and Olaf starts running us down. Phase Rush is also useful in this matchup because you can fake an all-in post-level 6 and bait Olaf's Ragnarok by running away with Phase Rush after engaging, making it run off quickly.


Lastly, for the rune shards, we always pick AH, and double HP scaling. With HP scaling we outscale flat HP after level 7, and we generally don't need that extra HP during the early game because we aren't looking to fight heavily during the first few levels to the point where we would need it. As for the AH shard, I find it more useful than AS because it's a more useful statistic on Ornn. AS only helps in farming a bit better under turret during the early game and that's it.

Ornn is a champion that's very straightforward when it comes to itemizing: the only viable items for him are sheer tank items that boost his durability and tank stats.

Armor items:

There are only four tank armor items in the game that increase the time we're alive with their passives: Unending Despair which heals you every few seconds, effectively increasing the time you're alive; Jak'Sho, The Protean, which directly increases your bonus resistances; Randuin's Omen, which reduces damage from critical strikes; and Frozen Heart which reduces enemy AS.

Recommended items

Unending Despair:

This is the universal AR item for Ornn.

Out of all of the previously mentioned items, Frozen Heart and Randuin's Omen are situational: they are only better when the enemy champions are affected by their passives. However these are not optimal to build against AD spell based fighters like Aatrox and many other champions. Jak'Sho, The Protean is not a good first item because it's too expensive and it doesn't grant great stats that early. Which means that most of the time we will be building Unending Despair as our first AR item.

When to build?: This item can be built at any time during the game. It's a good first/second item if you need armor early and there aren't any other good options, and it can also be built a bit later if we end up needing armor. It's also one of the best choices for the late game thanks to its passive which scales off of HP.

It's good against champions with sustained damage, sustain and tankiness, this is because you generally make Unending Despair heal proc a lot of times, making it give more value than an item with a little bit more of AR. It's also notably good against true damage because healing and shielding is the only way to reduce the time it takes for you to die against it. This item is also in general just really good because it synergizes with itself: every time you heal, the actual amount of HP that you gain is much more higher than the real number: this is because every point gained by the heal gets amplified by your AR.

Randuin's Omen:

The active is incredibly useful for us because it helps us land our main combo, as well as hinder the enemy mobility during a fight which ends up being really useful. It's also the best individual AR item when it comes to raw stats, that's why it's also viable as a first item.

When to build?: We will build this as a first item whenever the enemy laner deals damage through critical strikes, or when another champion on the enemy team does and is a big threat while also needing AR for the enemy laner. It's also better than Unending Despair whenever fights during the early game are really short, so for example against assasins or Darius. It's especially good against Darius because the slow from its active counts as an ability hit for Phase Rush which will allow us to proc it really quick. We can also build it later only if the enemy team crits.


Frozen Heart:

When to build?: We will build Frozen Heart whenever the enemy laner deals damage through auto attacks, like Zaahen or Vayne. If the enemy laner doesn't deal damage through auto attacks but multiple champions on the enemy team do, we will build it a bit later as a 3rd or 4th item depending on the enemy comp.

Magic resistance items:

As for MR items, there are three items that increase the time we're alive with their passives: Kaenic Rookern, Force of Nature and Spirit Visage. Spirit Visage is viable, however we will only build it later into the game and only if we have built Unending Despair, as it's the only form of healing we can have.

Kaenic Rookern:

This item is our only good choice against most AP champs. The Shield is incredibly good: it's good against %max HP magic damage because the shield gives us more HP against magic damage without actually increasing our real HP. It's also good in lane because it allows us to trade without receiveing any damage, making trades really favorable for us.

When to build?: Whenever the enemy laner is AP, and we can't stack Force of Nature quick enough.

Force of Nature:

When to build?:This item becomes better than Kaenic Rookern whenever the enemy laner has poison or burn effects, like Teemo, Singed, Cassiopeia. This is because we're able to stack Force of Nature relatively quick into the fight, and the extra 70 MR reduces more damage than the Kaenic Rookern shield.

Jak'Sho, The Protean:

This item is mathematically the best for Ornn in almose every game. It gives you the highest amount of resistances and is going to allow you to tank for a very long time in teamfights.

Protoplasm Harness:

This item is really good on most tanks, including Ornn, as the value that it provides is simply too high. While the base stats are not that impressive, only granting 600 HP and 20 AH, Ornn makes use of this item incredibly well because he's one of the champions that stacks the highest amounts of resistances, which will make us heal a lot with this item, even giving us more HP than Heartsteel if we fully heal. However it's only worth building during late game because there are better options early game.

Thornmail:

This item is really situational, since it's really inefficient to build and most of its gold cost is focused on the Grievous Wounds passive, that's why it's only worth finishing as a last item. We also have to make sure that the champions on the enemy team that heal do auto attack us during teamfight, that's why it's not even worth building against champions like Swain, Cassiopeia or Aatrox.

How do they work?

The way Ornn upgrades work is that the upgraded item will have 1000 gold worth of extra statistics. The only statistics that can be upgraded are: AD, AP, HP, AR, MR, AH and AS. If an item has multiple upgradable statistics, then the upgrade splits 1000 gold between all of them (the final amount isn't always 1000 gold because there are some inconsistencies when it comes to statistic values). The legendary item that is closest to the 1st slot of the inventory is the one that will get upgraded.

How to choose which item to upgrade?

As a general rule of thumb, the best items to upgrade are the ones that only have 1 to 2 upgradeable statistics. This is because, generally, most champions only benefit at most from 2 statistics, which means that splitting the gold between more statistics becomes less eficient than funneling it into 1 or 2 that can really give you a boost in power. The item you want to pick depends on the champion that you're playing. For example, if you're playing an artillery mage, you might consider upgrading an item with the only upgradable statistic being AP. However, if you're playing a fighter, items with AD and AH or AD and HP could be better depending on what you value the most.

As Ornn, most times, the first item that you buy ends up being the one that gets upgraded, since you don't usually have 2 items before level 13, but if you do, then just choose an AR or MR item depending on what kind of damage you will be receiving most in a fight. You don't have to prioritize buying first an item with 1 upgradable statistic so that the upgrade is as good as possible, what matters most is getting the right item during that moment.

Statistics value table

Information extracted from the LoL Wiki:
Statistics gold value is represented by the following table, which also lists the ones which can be upgraded. This table also formally represents Riot's official stance on each statistic's gold efficiency, although not all statistic types are included for the purposes of Masterwork items.
31.25 gold/1 AH (explicit)
20 gold/1 AP [( Amplifying Tome) 400 gold ÷ 20 AP]
35 gold/1 AD [( Long Sword) 350 gold ÷ 10 AD]
30 gold/1% AS [( Dagger) 300 gold ÷ 10% AS]
20 gold/1 AR [( Cloth Armor) 300 gold ÷ 15 AR]
18 gold/1 MR [( Null-Magic Mantle 450 gold ÷ 25 MR]
Variable gold/1 HP, based on how many upgradeable statistics exist on the item:
- If the item has HP only, or HP and two other upgradeable statistics, HP on that item is valued at 2.6 gold per point [( Ruby Crystal) 400 gold ÷ 150 HP].
- If the item has HP and only one other upgradeable statistic, HP on that item is valued at 2.702 gold per point.
- If the item has HP and three other (or more) upgradeable statistics, HP on that item is valued at 2.7 gold per point.
- While not currently possible, if an item has no upgradeable statistics, 1000 gold worth of HP will be added to the item.

The gold cost of Null-Magic Mantle was decreased to 400 gold from 450 gold after the changes to Ornn's upgrade, but no official update has been made to this statistic gold value in the table on the wiki. The value of MR should now be the same as AR, however the increase value in item upgrades of both of these statistics are different from each other despite the value being technically the same.

Effective HP: What is it?

Effective Health (which I will refer to from now on as EHP) is the theoretical amount of damage a unit can receive before it dies. There are three types of EHP, depending on the type of damage you receive.

1. Physical EHP/magic EHP:

It's the amount of physical/magic damage a unit can take before dying. It is increased by buying HP or AR/ MR respectively. The formula to calculate is:

EHP = HP*(1+ AR/100) (for physical EHP)
EHP = HP*(1+ MR/100) (for magic EHP)

In other words, every point of AR or MR will increase your current HP by 1% against physical damage and magic damage respectively. Let's take a look at an easy to understand example:

- Let's say you have 1000 HP and 0 AR. In this case your EHP would be 1000.
1000*(1+0,01*0)=1000

Now let's see what would happen if you had 100 and 200 AR respectively.
- At 100 AR, your physical EHP is increased by 100%, which means your HP against physical damage will be doubled: 1000*(1+0,01*100)= 2000. However if you had 100 AR and 0 MR, your EHP against magic damage would still be 1000.
- At 200 AR, your physical EHP is increased by 200%, which means your HP against physical damage will be tripled: 1000*(1+0,01*200)= 3000.

Misconception about the value of armor/magic resistance

Contrary to common belief, AR, MR (and AH too) do not have diminishing returns. This misconception originated because the more resistances you have, the less the damage reduction increases as stated by the game. However you can never truly reach 100% damage reduction, which is why this happens, as well as you can't reach 100% ability cooldown reduction either.

However, the important part is your EHP, and this is always calculated the same way and as you can see, it increases linearly. However there is one thing that's true: buying too much AR is less effective but only when you have little HP in comparison, and the same goes the other way.

That is why, for example, if the enemy team was fully AD, we want to have a 1:10 ratio of AR: HP in order to be as tank as possible. This is a very general approximation, and it can't be applied to every game, because there are a lot of different factors: resistance shreds, mixed damage, true damage, etc. But it is important to take into account when deciding which resistance statistic to build next.

Visual example:
1000 HP and 150 AR. EHP = 1000*(1+0,01*150)= 2500.
If you decided to buy 40 more AR(a Chain Vest)--> 1000*(1+0,01*190)= 2900
However if you decided to buy 350 more HP(a Giant's Belt) --> 1350*(1+0,01*150)= 3375
With the initial conditions, you have a 1:6,67 ratio of AR: HP. In order to make AR more effective again, you want to increase your HP until you have a 1:10 ratio or higher.

2. Total effective health

Total EHP is a little bit more complicated.

Total EHP can't be calculated with a simple formula like physical or magic EHP. This is because your total EHP depends on how much damage of each type you are receiving during a fight. If you had too much AR but little MR, and the amount of magic damage you received in a fight was 10 times higher than the physical one, you would still die fast, since there wouldn't be any MR to mitigate it, that is why your EHP against all types of damage is irrelevant without taking into account the amount of damage received.

For example, if we want to maximize our EHP with Ornn against a team whose damage is split approximately 70% physical and 30% magic, we would want to have a 7:3 ratio of AR: MR. This kind of calculation can't obviously be made or even achieved consistently or correctly in game, however it's still important to think about how much gold you want to spend for both resistances.