Introduction Pro and Contra Abilities & Sequence Runes Reforged Summoner Spells Starting Items Items Boots Changelog or click the spoiler below

For suggestions just write a comment. I'll get a mail and answer as soon as possible! Hope you guys like it. I'll update for patches and changes as soon as possible, you can find the latest news and updates in the changelog or the spoiler below this table of contents. Good luck with my guide on Pyke! For every German reader: Ihr könnt mir ruhig auch auf Deutsch schreiben und Fragen stellen :)

Hello there! My name is DasNerdwork. Finally a dark atmosphere with the Bloodharbor Ripper. How long have I waited for an evil supporter like Thresh? I will show you how to slit your enemies throats and cross their names of your list! If you have any suggestions or feedback I'd appreciate it if you comment and discuss with me. I'll always have an eye on the comments. I'll try to update this guide as often as I'm able to and give you the best advice to main Pyke. This guide has only a support part yet (but other builds will come soon). If you have any questions just comment or direct message me and i'll answer as soon as possible.

If this guide helped you and you learned something new feel free to upvote and help it to become more popular! I'd really appreciate it ^^

Let's start to stalk then!

Pros

+ Able to slow and hook and stun + Can hook targets over walls + Smooth ghostwater engages/disengages + Extreme damage as support + Ultimate can ignore shields

Pykes incredible similarities to an underwater jack the ripper make playing with him a lot of fun. As you are able to slow enemies with Bone Skewer or even hook them back over walls as well as stunning them with Phantom Undertow you are incredibly useful for your team. Also the ability to share your kill gold negates any negative effects of you building full damage.

Cons

- High cooldowns - Weak poking potential - Designed to be a "support" - Not able to use most defensive items - High risk high reward champion

With all his useful abilities there come also a lot of dangerous points to add. If you decide to engage you go high risk and if the enemy team has a lot of CC or got fed for example you are not able to build defensive items. You have to play very very defensive and some of your abilities become pretty risky to use.

Passive: Gift Of The Drowned Ones When Pyke is unseen by enemies, he rapidly regenerates some of the health recently lost to enemy champions. Pyke also converts his bonus health into bonus attack damage instead.

Q: Bone Skewer Tap: Pyke stabs and greatly slows all enemies in front of him. Hold: Pyke readies and then throws his harpoon, impaling the first enemy struck and pulling them a fixed distance towards him.

W: Ghostwater Dive Pyke dives into spectral waters, entering camouflage and gaining a significant increase to his movement speed that decays over a few seconds. Camouflage hides Pyke from view while enemies remain outside his immediate area. Attacking or casting spells immediately ends camouflage.

E: Phantom Undertow Pyke dashes, leaving behind a drowned phantom. After a delay, the phantom returns to Pyke, damaging and stunning enemies it passes through.

R: Death From Below Pyke strikes in an X-shaped area, blinking to champions and executing those below a certain flat amount of health. Enemies in the X that are not executed take damage equal to this amount. When a champion dies in the X, the last ally to assist also gains full kill gold, and Pyke can instantly use Death from Below again for a short period of time.

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To maximize the ultimate first is probably obvious. We want to max Bone Skewer as our first standard ability because it has the lowest cooldown later on and the most usability. We can slow and hook enemies with it and the high range provides us with the best possibilities early on. We then want to put our second skill point into Phantom Undertow. It's way more useful for the early game than Ghostwater Dive because it gives us a stun and a dash in one single ability. Ghostwater Dive on the other hand provides us with camouflage which helps us better in mid or lategame for ganks, roams, etc. Keep in mind that the cooldown of Phantom Undertow always remains on 15 seconds and is not affected by it's level. Only the stun duration and the damage increases and it's therefore better to maximize Ghostwater Dive before Phantom Undertow even if we put one or sometimes two skill points into Phantom Undertow before.

Precision- Keyrunes - Runes

Domination- Keyrunes - Runes

Inspiration- Keyrunes - Runes

Resolve- Keyrunes - Runes

Sorcery- Keyrunes - Runes

[Nope.] Press the Attack: Hitting an enemy champion 3 consecutive times makes them vunerable, dealing bonus damage and causing them to take more damage from all sources for 6s. As building Pyke on attack speed makes no sense using this keystone would also be useless. As ADC you are missing a lot of range and as bruiser or toplane champion you lack in tankiness because of your hp conversion.

[Better not] Lethal Tempo: 1.5s after damaging a champion gain a large amount of attack speed. Lethal Tempo allows you to temporarily exceed the attack speed limit. It works better on champions with a lot of attack speed combined with on-hit effects like Master Yi, Kog'Maw or Kai'Sa. As Pyke isn't really an auto-attack reliant champion it's rather not recommended.

[Big Foot] Fleet Footwork: Attacking and moving builds Energy stacks. At 100 stacks, your next attack heals you and grants increased MS. To get your attacks out and to use the stacking mechanic properly Pyke would need some attack range, but with 150 range this rune won't work as good as on ADCs. Also with 20% the haste got nerfed in 8.11 next to other nerfs.

[Possible] Conqueror: Entering combat generates up to 4 stacks, your next basic attack against an enemy champion grants bonus Attack Damage and converts 20% of your damage to champions to true damage. As this rune consist of bonus damage, true damage and that melee champions refresh the bonus damage duration when going in combat by affecting enemy champions it's a considerable choice to take. Still weaker than other runes because you'll most likely get bursted down by the enemies before using it properly.

[Situational] Overheal: Healing in excess of your maximum health is converted into a shield for an amount of up to 10 (+ 10% of maximum health). The shield lasts 6 seconds, and then decays over a 2-second duration. Receiving healing, dealing or taking damage will refresh the shield duration to 6 seconds. Not useful except when building a lot of lifesteal. Possible with Death's Dance but not really a good idea.

[Always fine] Triumph: Champion takedowns, after a 1-second delay, restore 12% of your missing health and grant an additional 20 gold. Always a good idea to choose, but kinda conflicts with your passive.

[Mana mana, badibidibi..] Presence of Mind: Champion takedowns, after a 1-second delay, restore 20% of your maximum mana and refund 10% of your ultimate's maximum cooldown. Very strong and pretty well combinable with Death from Below.

[No need to] Legend: Alacrity: Gain 3% (+ 1.5% per Legend stack) bonus attack speed, up to 18% with 10 stacks. Gain Legend stacks for every 20 points earned, up to 10. You get 20 points for either champion takedowns or epic monster kills, 5 points for large monster kills and 1 point for minion kills. Easy stackable if you decide to go for Relic Shield. As we don't really aim for attack speed it's not necessary to take this "Legend" rune.

[None of your business] Legend: Tenacity: Gain 5% (+ 2.5% per Legend stack) tenacity, up to 30% with 10 stacks. Gain Legend stacks for every 20 points earned, up to 10. You get 20 points for either champion takedowns or epic monster kills, 5 points for large monster kills and 1 point for minion kills. Easy stackable if you decide to go for Relic Shield. Possible to choose and probable the best out of all "Legend" runes, but still the whole tier 2 runes of precision aren't that good on Pyke.

[Sucks?] Legend: Bloodline: Gain 0.8% per Legend stack life steal, up to 8% with 10 stacks. Gain Legend stacks for every 20 points earned, up to 10. You get 20 points for either champion takedowns or epic monster kills, 5 points for large monster kills and 1 point for minion kills. Easy stackable if you decide to go for Relic Shield. A possible choice if you want to build lifesteal or play against tanks where you can heal yourself, but rather useless because of your passive.

[Oof] Coup de Grace: Deal 7% increased damage to champions below 40% maximum health. Additionally, you gain 9 bonus Attack Damage or 15 Ability Power (Adaptive) for 10 seconds whenever you score a champion takedown. This bonus does not stack but is really strong and superior compared to the other two tier 3 precision runes for most damage dealers.

[Cut their throats] Cut Down: Deal 4% bonus damage to champions with at least 150 more maximum health than you. This increases up to 12% bonus damage versus targets with 2000 more maximum health than you. Don't go for this rune if you wanna build Frozen Mallet. Stronger on ADCs, but also possible and stronger than Last Stand.

[meh..] Last Stand: Deal 5% increased damage to champions while below 60% maximum health. This increases based on your missing health, up to 11% increased damage while below 30% maximum health. Literally unplayable und unnecessary because of Gift of the Drowned Ones.

[Sure] Electrocute: Hitting a champion with 3 separate attacks or abilities in 3s deals bonus adaptive damage. Very easy to apply with a combo out of Bone Skewer, Phantom Undertow and a basic attack. This is your standard combo and very easy to apply, therefore a good choice to take as keyrune.

[Torpedo] Predator: Add an active effect to your boots that grants a large boost of MS and causes your next attack or ability to deal bonus adaptive damage. Very very useful for a jungle build or even a roaming support build as it can be combined with mobility power items and Ghostwater Dive to engage very fast and deal massive damage. As the enemies can't see you unless it's too late a perfect synergy with Pykes theme too!

[Still a choice] Dark Harvest: Damaging a champion below 50% of their maximum health by any mean deals 20 − 60 (based on level) (+ 5 per Soul) (+ 25% bonus AD) (+ 15% AP) bonus Adaptive damage and reaps 1 Soul. This cannot happen again for 45 seconds, resetting to 1.5 seconds on champion takedown. Incredible strong, but you won't get that much stacks if it doesn't suit your playstyle. You have to roam a lot, help your team a lot and support very well to make good use of this rune.

[Also a choice] Hail of Blades: Basic attacking an enemy champion grants bonus attack speed for your next 3 basic attacks. While active, Hail of Blade removes the attack speed cap. As Pyke has no stacking mechanism and the only time this rune can be used properly is with stunning enemies with Phantom Undertow or Bone Skewers slow it's not as effective as for champions like Talon that deals bonus damage with the stacking passive.

[Synergizes] Cheap Shot: Basic attacks and damaging abilities deal 8 − 40 (based on level) bonus true damage to slowed or immobilized enemy champions. Synergizes extremely well with Phantom Undertow and Bone Skewer and is a very good choice.

[Mosquito] Taste of Blood: Every 20 seconds damaging an enemy champion heals you for 18 − 35 (based on level) (+ 20% bonus AD) (+ 10% AP). Again better for a lifesteal oriented item build or champ and not Pyke.

[LETHALITY] Sudden Impact: Going in combat by affecting an enemy champion within 3 seconds of using a dash, blink or Teleport, or exiting from invisibility or camouflage, grants 7 Lethality and 6 Magic Penetration for the next 5 seconds. The more lethality the better increasing all of our lethality scalings, making this our number one priority rune.

[Triggers often] Zombie Ward: Scoring a Damage rating takedown on an enemy ward summons a friendly Zombie Ward in its place (10 second assist timer), and your next damage against an enemy champion deals 30 − 90 (based on level) bonus magic damage. If the brush where you killed the enemy ward already contains an allied ward, you instead gain a Zombie Ward in your Trinket Slot that can be placed at any location within the next 30 seconds. A good choice if you go for Oracle Lens and Duskblade of Draktharr.

[Lack in vision?] Ghost Poro: Entering a brush instigates a 1-second channel that, upon completion, swaps your current trinket for a Ghost Poro. You may move while channeling but must remain within the brush for the duration and you will be interrupted by damage. When you leave the brush, the Ghost Poro trinket is lost and you swap to your previous trinket. The Ghost Poro can be placed at your feet, granting sight over a 450-unit area for 300 seconds, or until you place a new one. If an enemy enters brush with a Ghost Poro in it, they scare it away, making it ping its team and putting it on a 60-second cooldown. Whilst either you or your Ghost Poro is in enemy territory (slightly after the other half of the map), gain 3 − 12 (based on level) bonus Attack Damage. A very good choice if you think your team lacks in vision or you want to play even safer than normally against stealth junglers.

[Only with lifesteal] Ravenous Hunter: Heal for 1.5% (+ 2.5% per Bounty Hunter stack) of the damage dealt by your abilities, on-hit effects and items, up to 14% at 5 stacks. Benefits from Heal Power. You earn a Bounty Hunter stack for champion takedowns, up to one per unique enemy champion. Again a situational rune for a lifesteal heavy build combined with Overheal, Legend: Bloodline or life steal items etc.

[Not a real support :( ] Ingenious Hunter: Reduces the cooldown of item actives by 15% (+ 5% per Bounty Hunter stack), up to 40% at 5 stacks. This effect also applies to trinkets. You earn a Bounty Hunter stack for champion takedowns, up to one per unique enemy champion. Pretty useful if you'd go for real support items, but as it would only affect Youmuu's Ghostblade and maybe Edge of Night not necessary.

[Mopsgäschwindischkeit!] Relentless Hunter: Gain 8 (+ 8 per Bounty Hunter stack) out-of-combat movement speed, up to 48 at 5 stacks. You earn a Bounty Hunter stack for champion takedowns, up to one per unique enemy champion. Useful to catch up and depending on your playstyle. If you benefit from it take it! Otherwise go for Ultimate Hunter.

[Possible] Relentless Hunter: Reduces the cooldown of your ultimate ability by 5% (+ 2% per Bounty Hunter stack), up to 15% at 5 stacks. You earn a Bounty Hunter stack for champion takedowns, up to one per unique enemy champion. This means, that your ultimate can get a cooldown of 68 seconds. Wonderful an very strong to execute as often as possible.

[Don't] Grasp of the Undying: Every 4s your next attack on a champion deals bonus magic damage, heals you, and permanently increases your health. As this rune scales with your maximum health it's definetly not recommended and pretty useless to take.

[BOOM!] Aftershock: After immobilizing an enemy champion gain defenses and later deal a burst of adaptive damage around you. This shockwave scales with your HP, bonus AD and AP, resulting in a lot of damage as we go mainly for lethality.

[Don't x2] Guardian: Guard allies you cast spells on and those that are very nearby. If you or a guarded ally would take damage, you're both hasted and granted a shield. Again the shield scales with ability power and your maximum health, therefore just as useless as all the other keyrunes of the resolve tree.

[PUSH TO KEEP THE DARK FROM COMING] Demolish: You generate stacks on enemy structures within 600 units, up to 6 after 3 seconds. Your next attack versus a structure with 6 stacks deals 100 (+ 30% of your maximum health) bonus physical damage. Demolish will only go on cooldown upon triggering the damage. Not very useful as we won't build any great amounts of HP., except we go for Frozen Mallet and Black Cleaver combined with other HP items.

[Suck 'em up] Font of Life: Slowing or immobilizing an enemy champion marks them for 4 seconds. Allied champions (excluding you) who basic attack marked enemies heal for 5 (+ 1% of your maximum health) over 2 seconds. Again the same as with Demolish, but more useful if you want to teamfight or trade in lanes compared to Demolish which focusses on pushing.

[Where R My Shield?!] Shield Bash: While shielded, gain 1 − 10 (based on level) bonus armor and bonus magic resistance. Whenever you gain a shield, your next basic attack against a champion deals 4 − 21 (based on level) (+ 1.5% bonus health) (+ 8.5% shield amount) bonus Adaptive damage. The empowered attack lasts up to 2 seconds after the shield expires. As we don't get shields that often rather useless.

[Whut?] Conditioning: After 10 minutes, gain 8 bonus armor and 8 bonus magic resistance and increases your total armor and magic resistance by 5%. Seriously, we build lethality and not resistances.

[2nd Passive?] Second Wind: After taking damage from an enemy champion, gain health regeneration equal to 6 (+ 4% of your missing health) over 10 seconds. This is literally your passive and but a weaker version of it. Possible if you play a lot with it.

[Stegosaurus] Bone Plating: After taking damage from an enemy champion, for 1.5 seconds, the next 3 spells or attacks you receive from the same enemy champion deal 25 − 50 (based on level) less damage. Very strong, even though it's just 1.5 seconds.

[You're not a tank.] Overgrowth: Every 8 monsters or enemy minions that die near you permanently grants 3 bonus health. After gaining 15 stacks (120 monsters or minions), you gain an additional 2.5% maximum health. Useful again if you go for a HP sided itembuild instead of lethality.

[WAW!] Revitalize: Grants 5% Heal and Shield Power. Outgoing healing and outgoing shielding is increased by 10% versus targets below 40% health. Incoming healing, incoming shielding, self healing and self shielding are increased by 10% while you are below 40% health. Incredible synergy with your passive and very useful.

[If you die too often] Unflinching : You gain 10% Tenacity for each of your summoner spells on cooldown, stacking up to 20%. You gain 15% Slow Resist as well as an additional, multiplicative 15% Tenacity for 10 seconds whenever you cast a summoner spell. Possible to go and not that bad, but not nearly as strong as Revitalize.

[Not worth] Summon Aery: Your attacks and abilities send Aery to a target, damaging enemies or shielding allies. As none of your abilities shield or heal nor affect your allies in any way this rune is rather useless, because the damage it deals is definetly not worth using it.

[Possible choice] Arcane Comet: Damaging a champion with an ability hurls a damaging comet at their location, or, if Arcane Comet is on cooldown, reduces its remaining cooldown. Rather hard to use because if you want to poke enemies from a far distance with Bone Skewer you have to pull/hook them. Still with building defensive items or slowing items like Frozen Mallet makes it unbelievable hard for the enemies to dodge the comet. Possible choice.

[Meh..] Phase Rush: Hitting an enemy champion with 3 separate attacks or abilities in 3 seconds grants a burst of movement speed. Not really necessary for Pyke and way more useful on champions like Swain that follow the enemy to deal more and more damage over time.

[Snail] Glacial Augment: Your first attack against an enemy champion slows them (per unit cooldown). Slowing champions with active items shoots a freeze ray at them, creating a lingering slow zone. Very effective to catch the enemies even more, this synergizes very good with your abilities like Bone Skewer. Also melee champions profit of a higher initial 45% slow that increases to 55% instead of ranged champions with 30% - 40%.

[The greedy goblin] Kleptomancy : Your first attack after using an ability grants gold and sometimes consumables. If you ever feel like getting too less gold as a support and want your damage items even quicker this rune is the best one for you! The consumables are also very useful, especially for a support that can uses them more often and Pykes low hp.

[Ask Ryze] Unsealed Spellbook: After 6 minutes swap one of your equipped summoner spells to a new, single use summoner spell. You cannot select a summoner spell you have already equipped. Selecting a summoner spell reduces the swap cooldown by 15 seconds, up to once per unique summoner spell. You must swap to 3 different summoner spells before returning to one you've already used. Kind of hard to use properly and know when to switch and to what you should switch. Still switching to Heal to help your ADC, Ignite when you roam and want to kill or Teleport to split-push later in the game offers a lot of possibilities and for advanced players/users of this keystone it can definetly be useful.

Flash: As always one of the most useful spells. It provides you with endless possibilities, jump over walls, engage, disengage, dodge, etc. I'd always recommend using Flash as your enemies also most likely take it. Works also very well combined with your abilities. E.g. hitting your charged Bone Skewer or stunning enemies with Phantom Undertow.

Exhaust: It still slows the target which helps your ADC (they are often very immobile) to keep up and kill them. Additionally it reduces the damage so you don't have to take everything whilest engaging. Makes the enemies more vulnerable as you can hit your abilities easily.

Ghost: It's a good choice when focussing on team fights. Still it's not very strong for lane fights because it gives you 28-45% movement speed accelerating over 2 seconds. It can help Pyke reach the enemies with Ghostwater Dive for better engages. Exhaust is more focused on teamfights with slowing and debuffing the strongest enemy. Take Ghost for strong "one-time" engages and Exhaust if you think you are able to pick the highest damage dealer out of the fight and debuff him (which is probably more worth in the end).

Ignite: Great for a very aggressive playstyle or with having a very mobile ADC. For example Draven who can catch up with his Blood Rush. It's also very effective if there is a strong healer in the enemy team, especially something like Soraka or maybe even Sona or Nami. It can also help with annoying lifesteal champions or some that build Spirit Visage like Vladimir or Swain. Also you don't have to worry about getting kills, as your ultimates passive effect gives your kill assistant the full kill gold.

Barrier: Shields your champion for 115 - 455 (based on level) for 2 seconds. It gives you a temporary shield and not permanent health like Heal, but if you take damage equal to the entire value of the shield barrier it would be more effective. Great against burst damage enemies for example Syndra or LeBlanc. If you go on a lane together I'd still recommend Heal because it affects both of you instead of only one or Exhaust to handle fights and little conflicts easier.

Cleanse: Removes all disables (excluding Suppression like Nether Grasp and Airborne (A unit that is made airborne is moved in a specified direction or to a specific point) and summoner spells debuffs affecting your champion, as well as granting 65% Tenacity for 3 seconds. The higher your ping, the worse cleanse is. Aside from that, it's not obviously useful in all-in situations, it requires a good read on your opponent, if you don't have one, you'll cleanse CC that they wouldn't have followed up, or you'll cleanse late. It's much trickier to use which is the reason it's not picked as much, but in terms of raw power it's on par with Ignite, Heal or Barrier. Even though it's probably not as needed as other summoner spells because of your Ghostwater Dive.

Smite: Smiting deals 390 - 1000 (based on level) true damage, based on champion level, to a monster or enemy minion. If you try to jungle, your high cooldowns would most likely leave you way behind. Better usage on full tank supports that can secure their Relic Shield procs. Even though you can use the Stalker's Blade as a little and weaker version of Exhaust to compensate the missing combat summoner spell. As Pyke you have your Ghostwater Dive and Phantom Undertow to be able to escape junglers like Olaf or Master Yi easily and even stun them. Your adc does not have these possibilites and without Exhaust you will not be able to protect them properly. If you know that your jungler is also very good (high elo or sth) and can sit you on botlane when you loose because of the missing combat spell it could really be a good choice to go. Not to forget the benefits of having a double smite for dragons or herold/nash. All in all you can help your jungler a lot with weakening your own lane intentionally.

Teleport: After channeling for 4 seconds, your champion teleports to target turret, minion or ward. You cannot reactivate Teleport anymore to cancel it! If you play well, you and your AD carry should be able to control the creep waves well enough to not fall behind in levels. Here's the thing, if you take Teleport and the other support takes Exhaust, you will pretty much lose all the early game trades, because they have a combat summoner over you. The reason why people take it is so they can gank other lanes, either because they don't need Exhaust/ Ignite to win their lane, or they know they won't win it even with those summoners. Instead, they take teleport to gank and win the other lanes. Now, with that in mind, if you go teleport and gank another lane, you will leave your AD carry to 1v2 their bot lane, and either get zoned or killed. That is why the AD carry would quickly fall behind in levels and have to farm without their support with them.

Clarity: Only available on Howling Abyss and Crystal Scar Rotating Game Modes. Restores 50% maximum mana to you and 25% maximum mana to nearby allies. Clarity is good if you want to be very aggressive. Pykes high cooldowns make it less worth aswell as building a mana item in the beginning makes it useless for lategame. Other summoner spells don't have such problems, therefore not recommended and way more worth for supporters like Sona.

Spellthief's Edge: It's base mana regeneration is very useful on Pyke but the ability power doesn't have any use. You simply don't scale with ability power. Neither are you able to proc easily because you either have to engage or hook the enemies with Phantom Undertow. Pyke ist definetly not a poke champion with his abilities and therefore this starting item is not recommended.

Ancient Coin: You get a lot of gold and mana with picking up the coins. Especially the mana coins are great for Pykes early mana problems in the game. 5% cooldown reduction and 5% movement speed are perfect for us and some early game engages. Also you don't have to play as aggressive as you'd have to with Spellthief's Edge on other champions. If you want the easiest starting item here you have it! Also free wards after upgrading to Nomad's Eye and running a little bit around to collect the coins. The possibility to get a coin and disengage with Phantom Undertow or Ghostwater Dive also emphasizes this item as a very good choice.

Relic Shield: With this guide we want to achieve either a full aggressive assassin-support or an utility supporter. A lot of people still think Relic Shield being often used by tanky supporters like Blitzcrank or Alistar could be a choice. On Pyke it's not really a tank starting item. The 50 health get converted into 3 bonus attack damage and with a fully upgraded Eye of the Aspect you get around 25 attack damage which is the highest amount of attack damage you can get through a support item. With playing full AD it's very easy for Pyke to kill the minions but it's probably just as easy as collecting the coins from Ancient Coin. You have to evaluate on your own if you prefer the coins and some movement speed or more attack damage and higher base health regeneration with a little healing passive when you stack for you and your ADC.

This section is sorted from A-Z (Abyssal Mask to Zz'Rot Portal). The items are not always recommended but to show you on the first look which are the good choices and which aren't I colored their names from good choice over situational to not recommended.

Abyssal Mask: This item can be pretty useful, but it’s focused on giving you mana and hp. Spending mana restores hp and you gain additional mana with building it. It’s really not worth it, because Pyke has too high cooldowns to really profit of that passive. We are too mobile and fast with our Phantom Undertow, also we have our own heal Gift of the Drowned Ones. Therefore the magic resistance doesn't help you much if the enemy team has for example Zed in the middle and a normal ADC like Vayne. Last but not least it's passive is useless for you except whilest being with your teams APC or if you have an ap jungler, because with being near enemy champions they earn more damage through ability power. The problem is that you cannot stick with the apcs alone and you are not as tanky enough to stand next to enemies for hours. Also the radius is way too tiny for you to really make a difference. This should not happen because you have to protect your teams ADC too. I wouldn’t recommend this item as it works better with tanky AP champions.

Adaptive Helm: With giving you besides the cooldown reduction and health regeneration mainly 25 AD and 55 magic resist this item is focused on protecting you against mages. "Taking magic damage from a spell or effect reduces all subsequent magic damage taken from that spell or effect by 20% for 4 seconds". This passive makes this item to the Thornmail of ability power. A possible choice for you if an AP carry like Brand or Fizz get's fed and does tons of damage (especially over time). Also it works best against damage over time abilities and low cooldown abilities like Toxic Shot or Twin Fang.

Blade of the Ruined King: Attack damage and life steal as the main components next to some attack speed comforts Pyke very well. Especially the acitve with slowing the enemy by 25% of their current movement speed synergizes well with Phantom Undertow to stun them easily or to land a sure Bone Skewer hook. Also the passive helps you to deal with tanks if the situation needs some more life steal. All in all it's rather a good choice but still somehow situational.

Dead Man's Plate: 60 armor and 30 attack damage are not the greatest stats, but the passives of this item make it worth buying. The "Momentum" it generates by moving provides you with 60 bonus movement speed, that is very useful for a fast Phantom Undertow dash/stun. Also after landing the stun you can discharge all stacks to deal up to 100 bonus magic damage and slow the target by 50% for a second. Another slow afterwards through Bone Skewer helps your ADC wonderful to get enough auto attacks through to kill every target.

Death's Dance: Generally for melee champions, life steal is most needed if the enemy champion is in possession of strong poke. At the same time as life steal helps you sustain this damage though, it forces you to basic attack minions or champions, putting yourself into the poke range of the enemy. As such, unless you can outsustain the poke (which you can't without HP), the life steal itself might be useless. Still this item provides you with a ton of attack damage and it's second passive suits your anti-hp kit very well, as you can survive for shortly longer periods.

Duskblade of Draktharr: Attack damage, cooldown reduction and lethality. Sounds like wonderful stats. After being unseen for at least 1 second, your next basic attack against an enemy champion deals bonus on-hit physical damage and slows 0.25 seconds. This works perfectly with the life restore passive Gift of the Drowned Ones. Also you can easily stack Eyeball Collection with the second passive and can be sure to gank or roam easily and unseen with the third (blackout) passive.

Edge of Night: 72 attack damage and 18 lethality. This item does not provide you with tankiness but as a full aggressive choice with a protective active. The spell shield itself shields you for 7 seconds but Ghostwater Dive lasts for 5 seconds. The 2 second span of engaging left is way too low and you have to play very forced by this item. If you want to use Ghostwater Dive as a disengage tool and the active as an engage helper you could run into the problem of a lacking gap closer because Phantom Undertows dash doesn't really help you rather than going full suicide. It's situational and if you can handle it and play/time it well it's definetly considerable to buy! But as it's very hard to play with and not a perfect choice.

Frozen Heart: Frozen Heart is an item best suited for tank champions because of the high amount of armor and cooldown reduction but can also be useful for tanky support champions as both tend on be middle of enemy team during teamfights thus spreading the attack speed cripple aura. Also to use it properly for lane fights you'd have to stick to your ADC (who has a auto attack range of approximately 550-650) because the range of this aura is only 700. When you stay outside of fights or play defensive in the backline you shouldn't use this item. Otherwise go for it, especially if you want to survive easier and never want to have any mana problems again besides playing aggressive.

Frozen Mallet: Tanky champions who prefer to use basic attacks but lack sufficient built-in crowd control (like Gnar and Shyvana) benefit the most from Frozen Mallet, allowing them to stick to their opponents by applying and refreshing its slow constantly. The difference for Pyke here is that it provides us with 80 attack damage instead of 30 and 700 HP so we deal a ton of damage with this item as well as slowing enemies after a Bone Skewer slow, hit or a Phantom Undertow dash. As this slow is 40% for melee champions it's fairly easy for our team and ADC to catch up and kill the enemy as long as you can survive or you kill him on your own. If you build some more slow items and resistances like Iceborn Gauntlet it's even stronger and you can apply the slow longer.

Gargoyle Stoneplate: It provides you with some resistances but besides that it works counterproductive for the champion design. Less damage more health as passive? Way better for a full tank champion that has to stick to the team or stay on front of them to prevent engages. Also forces you to stay with the team which leads to weaker or even no solo kills from you.

Guardian Angel: Defensive aswell as aggressives stats with armor and attack damage. As you're kind of an assassins it'S a very great item for you. You could get revived from it's passive and disengage with Ghostwater Dive or cast your ultimate Death from Below instantly afterwards if the enemy is low enough on health. As this is a commonly used item by assassins and ADCs it's also a viable choice for an aggressive support Pyke.

Iceborn Gauntlet: A lot of cooldown reduction, armor and mana for a very defensive playstyle. Also the Sheen inside this build works perfectly for Pyke as after engaging, hooking or stunning with your abilities you'll deal some extra damage. The second passive generates an icy zone which slows enemies within by 30%. Sadly the radius scales with your bonus armor and therefore this item works best with some other armor items or a defensive Pyke build at all.

Knight's Vow: The stats are ok but the unique passive with redirecting the damage is absolutely useless for Pyke and way more counterproductive than it would be for a tank.

Locket of the Iron Solari: Again good stats but as the actives shield scales with the casters bonus health it's absolutely unnecessary to build.

Lord Dominik's Regards: Is there much to say about it? 40 Attack Damage and a lot with 35% total armor penetration works incredibly well if the enemies try to go tanky or to stack armor against you. They think they can counter a Pyke with armor? Pathetic.

Maw of Malmortius: Anti-AP item that still provides you with some attack damage and cooldown reduction. It's passive works very well because reducing your maximum health below 30% can happen very fast and easy and when this happens you get a magic damage shield, 20 attack damage, 10% spell vamp as well as 10% lifesteal. If you want a defensive anti mage item that still supports you with more damage to fire back even harder this is the right choice.

Mercurial Scimitar: Mercurial Scimitar works best as a late game upgrade for AD carries or assassins from Quicksilver Sash. Very effective and very useful to stay alive and can always be combined with Ghostwater Dive to get an even higher movement speed bonus.

Mortal Reminder: Not really a high amount of attack damage but instead 25% total armor penetration and grievous wounds that deal damage over time. Very effective against enemy healing supports or champions and suits an assassinlike playstyle very well.

Ohmwrecker: It's ability to disable turrets creates opportunities for aggressive turret dive maneuvers. Support roles may choose to invest in the item to allow their team's assassins and other divers to focus on more offensive and defensive stats. It works like a defensive armor item for Pyke with 21 AD (converted from 300 health) with some cooldown reduction and base health regeneration. Depends strongly on the teamcomposition and your playstyle but still a good item to buy.

Randuin's Omen: Armor and -20% damage taken from critical strikes makes you a lot more resistant against AD reliant and especially crit champions like Yasuo or Tryndamere with another aggressive active. You can slow all nearby units within 500 units range by 55% and combine this with your abilities to make the targets vulnerable for your team aswell as killing them easier. As this item also gives you 25 AD, which is definetly not a lot, it's counted rather as a defensive item for you, but still a possible choice. Especially against multiple or fed crit champions.

Ravenous Hydra: A lot of attack damage combined with life regeneration and life steal leads to a very aggressive but still end-game survival playstyle. Activating the active does not reset the auto-attack timer. Rather, the effect uses the champion's auto attack animation to display the effect. But still it's very useful fro jungling or even dealing aoe damage. If you want to buy it I highly suggest to take a look at the enemies composition and how the game goes. Only if you need a very aggressive end-game item which still keeps you alive I'd recommend this. Otherwise other items can be way more effective.

Redemption: Useful stats except the bonus heal and shield power. As Pyke has not a single ability that heals or shields our teammates it can only be used as a defensive choice to boost your team engages or to safe them while you're far away. Also possible to combine with an engage of yourself but as you'd have to exchange a damage item with this one not reall recommended.

Righteous Glory: Not the best stats as they are again a combination of defensive and offensive but the active is very useful. When activated after/while engaging with Ghostwater Dive it boost your movement speed by 75% and after a short dealy it emits a shockwave that slows enemies by 75%. The possibilities the slow the enemies by a ton with Pykes combos make this item worth buying even though other abilities may be stronger in defensive or offensive stats.

Spirit Visage: Besides cooldown reduction and base health regeneration it provides you with 55 magic resistance and 32 attack damage. Comparable to Maw of Malmortius except we have less attack damage but some more magic resistance here. Therefore this item is a anti-mage or anit-AP item with an incredibly useful passive. It increases the effectiveness of all sources of health restoration by 30% including life steal, spell vamp and health regeneration. If you read every description since this item you'd have noticed that a lot of suitable items for Pyke have life steal or base health regeneration and therefore you can combine them pretty good with Spirit Visage. Works best as a late game item to boost your lifesteal.

Sterak's Gage: 32 attack damage with additional 30 - 47 (depending on level) attack damage. Sadly it's passive is very weak for Pyke because it scales with our bonus health again and the stats itself are not worth buying.

Sunfire Cape: 60 armor and 30 attack damage sounds good, but as we are not tanky enough to use it's passive properly and can't deal a lot of damage with it because of our low health and it's low range not recommended.

The Black Cleaver: As all it's health is converted to AD it gives us a lot of damage and 20% cooldown reduction. Very nice and strong stats for Pyke, but I don't really think you can stack it's passives armor reduction easily. As dealing physical damage and kills grant you movement speed and Bone Skewer can slow the enemy, maybe even with a Phantom Undertow stun still a good choice to take as it makes the stacking easier for you.

The Bloodthirster: The Bloodthirster is a good defensive option for ADCs when under lane pressure or poke damage, as it allows the wielder to shield from damage and heal back when hurt. As you can neither really farm nor poke it's way easier to build as a late game option. Especially combined with Spirit Visage as a more mage defensive choice it's very strong.

Thornmail: A ton of armor and some little attack damage with a passive that scales with your bonus armor, therefore best used on a defensive build with some resistances next to damage instead of a full damage build. Thornmail is a particularly effective defensive option when facing down opponents whose damage is dealt primarily through basic attacks, or against opponents that utilize on-hit healing to survive fights (such as life steal).

Titanic Hydra: The stats are ok but as both the passive and the active scale with maximum health not recommended.

Trinity Force: Perfect stats for Pyke but as it's best used on champions that have a combination of low-cooldown abilities, high base attack damage, abilities that grant flat movement speed, on-hit abilities or champions with the difficulty to stick to a target not really suited for Pyke. Still a considerable choice if you want to try it. Maybe it fits your playstyle and erases some of your weaknesses!

Warmog's Armor: You will most likely never achieve 3000 health as a maximum... sorry :(

Youmuu's Ghostblade: Just like Duskblade of Draktharr but with +40 movement speed out-of-combat aswell as an active granting you even more movement speed. Combined with Ghostwater Dive and Phantom Undertow wonderful. Definetly a must-buy.

Zeke's Convergence: Again an item that focusses on defensive stats with a lot of armor and some magic resistance as well as some mana and cooldown reduction to use your abilities more often. It's unique passive with slowing enemies and dealing more damage with the fire and ice combination works well with Death from Below as long as your allied "Conduit" is near. Perfectly if you need an item for more survivability that still deals some damage and keeps you alive, but only if you can play well with your allies.

Zz'Rot Portal: Full defensive stats and wonderful for split pushing or pushing at all. Sadly the first and the fourth voidspawn gain 15% of you maximum health as damage, which is very low and therefore this item should only be used if it's really needed and you don't have a tank that could make a better use of it.

Boots of Mobility: Those are the best ones probably. Only five seconds doing nothing and you already get +140 bonus movement speed. This is an insane amount and the highest possible of all boots. Pykes engages and disengages also get empowered with moving faster in your Ghostwater Dive which opens a lot of new or easier possibilities the more movement speed you have.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity: Cooldown reduction is very useful but because of Pykes low poke possibilities rather useless. The amount you get through items you build seems to be enough and neither your summoner spells nor your abilities are that important to be cast multiple times. Also you would need huge amounts of mana to be able to achieve the highest usability.

Berserker's Greaves: Does pyke look like an ADC for you? Does he have enough range to be able to get a lot of auto hits? Can he be compared to Udyr or Shyvana who can possibly build Berserker's Greaves? Case closed.

Boots of Swiftness: Also a possible choice to enhance disengages with Ghostwater Dive, but I think depending on your own playsyle you’ll rather use it to engage and not to disengage. Therefore you should try Mobility Boots!

Mercury's Treads: If you decide to build full resistances rather than a full AD build and you want to be like a tank for your team there would be a lot of better champion choices. But the CC reduce can still be useful. Either against the enemies AP carry or against their support you’ll be able to react quicker after a lot of their abilities and could safe your team members life easier.

Ninja Tabi: Very useful against basic attack champions. Did their Udyr get fed again? Also useful against assassins or the enemies ADC because of its armor. Pretty often useful and therefore as a defensive choice recommended.

Sorcerer's Shoes: Pyke has no AP scalings and can’t use magic penetration.

• 15.05.2018 - Guide created :)
• 25.05.2018 - Finished the design of all section headers
• 27.05.2018 - Finished the "Boots" section and rearranged some stuff
• 28.05.2018 - Finished the Item Setup, added a second build, edited the Starting Items and the Summoner Spells section.
• 29.05.2018 - Added all keyrunes with explanations.
• 30.05.2018 - Deleted some unnecessary spacers and rearranged some texts.
• 31.05.2018 - Added the items from A like Abyssal Mask to O like Ohmwrecker
• 01.06.2018 - Finished the item section :)
• 13.06.2018 - Updated for Patch 8.12 and remove Banner of Command
• 04.12.2018 - Updated for Patch 8.23, added some more rune details and fixed outdated information throughout the guide.
• 06.12.2018 - Fully updated for Patch 8.24!
• 13.01.2019 - Updated for Patch 9.1, changed some of the descriptions, corrected some copy paste mistakes, etc.