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Recommended Items
Runes: Summon Aery / Precision
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+65 Base Health
Spells:
Flash
Teleport
Items
Ability Order
Short Fuse (PASSIVE)
Ziggs Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Akshan
[I would use the First Strike page in this lane, and start Doran's Ring.] Avoid trading with Akshan at all costs, and just try to get through lane without dying. Be very careful if you don't see Akshan on the map as getting jumped from stealth can be a death sentence for continued laning. Remember that the length of Akshan's boomerang is extended through minions, and that Akshan's ultimate can be blocked by minions, towers, and allied champions.
Amumu
Amumu has great set-up for a Ziggs with his bandage toss and ultimate combo being able to affect entire teams, letting you hit several people with your ultimate easily.
Amumu
Amumu has great set-up for a Ziggs with his bandage toss and ultimate combo being able to affect entire teams, letting you hit several people with your ultimate easily.
I'm Laima, also known as CLUB UNREALITY in game, and I'm a Master player that's been one-tricking Ziggs since 2018.
As a Ziggs enthusiast that's accrued over 2 million mastery on the champion, I've tried to optimise him to the best of my abilities, especially with itemisation, and will write down a lot of my knowledge in this guide to help out newer and older Ziggs players alike.

CLUB UNREALITY, one week into Season 14's second split
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Its effect is great for short trades against other mages or assassins, since other champions' basic attacks typically aren't empowered for free in the early game, so you can just go auto-for-auto and get out on top.
It also has an additional effect that makes it deal additional damage against structures, letting you destroy tower plates with ease whenever your opponent dies, recalls, or roams to a sidelane. Remember to make use of the cooldown reduction effect and use your



This ability is your bread and butter, being your main source of damage, and responsible for your high effective range. It's what you should prioritise putting your skill points into, to the point of putting a second point into it at Level 3 instead of


This is your main self-peel tool, being your only mobility spell, and also a disengage against assassins or fighters, however, due to its very high range and fast travel time, it can also be used very effectively to chip away at someone's health, secure kills, or kill minions from a very safe distance if your


This is honestly your worst ability during the early game due to its heavy nerfs in Patch 11.16, forcing you to put skill points into it over

Should you put a skill point into it in the early game, be very conservative with its use, as it can't even finish off Caster Minions reliably in conjunction with a

If you are using



Ziggs' ultimate is complicated. The damage it deals is acceptable for its massive area, but it simply takes too long to deploy, even at point blank range, making it really difficult to reliably hit enemies. I wouldn't recommend using it at long distances or to execute enemies after a fight without crowd control to accompany it, as it only becomes easier to dodge the longer the game goes on.
You should generally avoid relying on multi-bounce

Keep in mind that Bouncing Bomb's explosion radius is bigger than its hitbox, meaning that you can hit the enemy laner with bombs that wouldn't've otherwise hurt them by aiming for nearby terrain or minions.
When using

Alternatively, you should also use your Satchel Charge to push enemies into your other abilities, like knocking them into a nearby


First Strike encourages you to play more passively during laning. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, Ziggs typically prefers to be more aggressive during laning, so you should still be chipping down your opponent with abilities regardless of how First Strike encourages you to play. Despite this, you should still pay a lot of attention to the cooldown of your First Strike (and



Summon Aery is best used in lanes that Ziggs can completely dominate in the early Levels, typically against assassins (such as


Try to clear the wave faster than your opponent and aim to get Level 2 before them by standing in front of your minions and threatening your opponent with extended basic attack trades (which you're favoured in due to Aery and


Keep in mind that playing this aggressively can make you extremely susceptible to jungle ganks, so avoid doing it for extended periods of time without vision or knowledge of the opposing jungler's location.
Arcane Comet is best used in lanes where Ziggs has kill pressure on the opposing laner, but can't afford getting close to them to use basic attacks due to their burst damage, like against


Typically your poke will outperform your opponent's in such matchups, so you should just stick to whittling them down with


Keep in mind that Arcane Comet's remaining cooldown is reduced by hitting your opponent with abilities, encouraging you to poke your opponent down even more.

This set-up is not recommended for less experienced Ziggs players.
The main objective behind starting





The lesser mana sustain you have with this set-up (due to having no Doran's Ring or



You should mainly use your spells to kill minions you would miss otherwise, trigger First Strike and

Ideally you've played the lane conservatively enough to save enough mana for the 5th wave so you can use your abilities to kill the wave as fast as possible and recall earlier. This way you can potentially save using

Even with only 22 minions killed after 5 waves (and none of them being a Cannon minion), you'll earn about 660 gold, with






Ziggs should usually play lane quite aggressively due to him being stronger than a lot of other midlaners in the first few levels because of his







Keep in mind not to just use abilities on minions without any 'objective' to contest though, as that just ends up being wasteful to your mana while your opponent might be able to conserve theirs, forcing you to recall earlier. Aim for abilities that can damage both your opponent and their minions.
Generally if you manage to gain lane priority within the first few waves (meaning that you kill your opponent's minions faster than your opponent kills yours, having them walk into your opponent's tower), it'd be a wise move to place down a

The most useful wards are usually placed on the opponent's

Should you gain vision of the enemy jungler this way, you should position yourself opposite to them on the map based on their jungle clear. For example, if you ward the




If you have no clue where your opponent's jungler might be, it's best to hover towards the side of your own teams jungler. Keep in mind that if your jungler wants to gank you, you should slowly move towards the opposite side, so that you can create a pincer attack against your opposing laner.
Ziggs' fast waveclear after obtaining


It's also viable to use this time to place a

Remember that you should only hover around the center of the river at the furthest if you're uncertain about ganking a sidelane. Going beyond that point practically forces you to commit to a roam that might end up unsuccessful, and if you don't commit, you end up missing out on minions.
In preparation for Neutral Objectives such as

Due to his kit, he's able to set up great zone control in the jungle with his






Ziggs' mid game effectively begins once the Outer Turret in midlane or botlane is taken, as by that point you should typically begin rotating to botlane and let your botlaner and support take control of midlane.
In the best case scenario, the rotation is caused by you taking down the midlane turret first, as staying in sidelanes without an enemy turret to take down is pretty rough for Ziggs, whose income spikes are mostly determined by turret takedowns at this stage of the game. If this is the case, you should aim to destroy those sidelane turrets, ideally before turret platings fall.
Note that Ziggs' kit is pretty bad at dueling, so constantly splitpushing isn't recommended. You should only aim for sidelane tower takedowns if you have enough vision to determine that no threat is close to your tower of choice, or if you have your jungler or support guarding you.



Ziggs has a very high effective range during teamfights, so he should generally stand further back than other champions might. Ideally you'd be positioned behind or near a wall close to a fight going on, as that makes it more difficult to reach you, and your

While Ziggs' kit is generally better fit for killing lower health targets like an enemy marksman (For example, a



You should also generally use

First Strike is Ziggs' most generically applicable keystone due to its ease of use, but it isn't a perfect match for Ziggs due to First Strike favouring mid-late game champions like


Regardless, the gold generation it provides is still extremely valuable to Ziggs who wants to reach 3 to 4 items as fast as possible.
Summon Aery is Ziggs' ideal lane aggression keystone, though repeated nerfs to its damage output has made it relatively niche and only optimal against champions Ziggs can continuously pummel with basic attacks during laning phase with little, or easily counterable, resistance, like an


Arcane Comet is Ziggs' other lane aggression keystone, being more broadly applicable due to its higher base damage on abilities and being less reliant on basic attacks. Unfortunately, it is very easy to dodge, and Ziggs' crowd controlling effects having poor synergy with it, like


Dark Harvest is realistically the only other keystone worth thinking about, supporting a more burst mage-esque playstyle with Ziggs, however its poor scaling with each soul and ability power, as well as the

If you are adamant enough to play it regardless, try it in botlane as opposed to midlane, as being able to trigger it several times in fights as opposed to only once can make it much easier to accrue souls and strengthen the rune.
Ziggs is taking Precision for one of two reasons: hyper-aggression in lane, or opting into anti-tank options.
Should it be for hyper-aggression, Ziggs should always be using



Should it be for anti-tank purposes, Ziggs will always take











I do not recommend using the Domination path. These options are mainly written down if you choose to play






While I noted down



None of the Hunter runes are really all that good for Ziggs.






Sorcery is effectively Ziggs' best path, just due to how useful its individual runes are for Ziggs' needs.
















Resolve is Ziggs' worst path, and I wouldn't recommend taking any of these runes, even as your secondary path, but if you were adamant on using



Inspiration is easily Ziggs' second best path, just due to so many of the runes fulfilling specific niches that Ziggs benefits from heavily.















While all of the shards of the offense tree are 'fine', I strongly prefer both Attack Speed and Ability Haste over Adaptive Force as Attack Speed is significantly stronger during laning than Adaptive Force, and Ability Haste is much better in the mid-to-late game.
Ideally, you'd only use the offensive Adaptive Force shard in conjunction with







Attack Speed, on the other hand, has the broadest applications due to just being a really powerful stat and synergising well with Ziggs' innate thirst for aggression in the early game.
Ability Haste is a more niche, but still very powerful, shard, best taken if you have no other Ability Haste in your runes, mainly if you're not using


Realistically you should only be choosing the Adaptive Force shard in this trio, though you're free to experiment with the additional movement speed into more movement reliant matchups, like


The health options are very matchup dependent, as outside of the

If you think your opponent is strong enough to kill you within the first few Levels, like a










If you absolutely must buy Tear of the Goddess, do it on your first or second recall, though I elaborate on my distaste for

While building Luden's Companion and its components, you should be prioritising


When building Lost Chapter, you should ideally be buying the components in order of



You should typically buy Boots and Sorcerer's Shoes after finishing

The only exception to this would be if you're playing against specific matchups where you really need the additional movement speed to evade abilities, like when playing against a






While building your second item, you should be consistently checking the amount of

Since an opponent might buy Magic Resistance while you're building your second item, it's best to buy the non-committal components,


Regardless of which item you buy second, you should complete the other third.
Due to the massive importance that your core of Luden's Companion, Liandry's Torment, and Void Staff have on your damage output, I can't recommend buying either Banshee's Veil or Zhonya's Hourglass before finishing those 3 items. At the earliest, I would buy it before



The components, Verdant Barrier and Seeker's Armguard, are completely fine to buy even immediately after Luden's Companion, though, as long as the situation calls for it, like if you're facing an enemy


These items contest your flexible item slot with



These items are your main options for dealing damage in your flexible item slot. Shadowflame will be your best bet in most of your games, however, Horizon Focus starts outperforming Shadowflame against enemies with roughly 175



If building Shadowflame, buy it before



These items contest your flexible item slot with



A completed Morellonomicon is pretty mediocre, so you shouldn't upgrade it until you have all your other finished items purchased, but buying


Note that a single lifesteal item on its own usually isn't impactful enough to consider buying this item, and you should only really contemplate it if the enemy team has champions with a lot of innate healing in their kit such as







This item contests your flexible item slot with





Luden's Companion provides amazing chip damage on top of each Q. Once Ziggs has roughly 33


Liandry's Torment is just the best all-rounder item second. Although


Void Staff is similar to Liandry's Torment, being slightly outdamaged by Shadowflame when it critically strikes, or Rabadon's Deathcap against champions with under 55

Rabadon's Deathcap is just a generally great item for mages due to how much









Although Cryptbloom technically has the higher winrate of the two Percentage



Even so, if you are performing poorly and have another Magic Damage dealing champion on your team that is performing better than you in fights, like a


The Manaflow series of items, which are built using



Ideally, you'd purchase Archangel's Staff together with Luden's Companion as that also benefits both of the effects



Whenever the lifeline passive of




20/01/2025 - Updated item cheat sheet, replacing



25/09/2024 - Replaced


12/09/2024 - Updated long outdated runes & items to match changes in Patch 14.18
17/06/2024 - Changed text colors from 01FFFF -> 7DF8FA and F77EFF -> D97DF6
16/06/2024 - Item cheatsheet, main menu, various headers updated.
27/05/2024 - Kassadin matchup updated.
22/05/2024 - Corki matchup updated.
21/05/2024 - Changelog created.
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