Hello, Terania here with an awesome guide for the sniper girl Caitlyn. I picked up Cait early on in the game to play against my friends who were silver/gold level while I think I hadn't even reached level 20 yet, I used to just afk stand at my turret and ult whenever I could kill someone, It was surprisingly a lot of fun for me, but then I went on to play a bunch of characters I thought I would main but got bored of from overplaying, until I met Caitlyn again. I actually started revisiting her before the ADC updates but the updates made her a lot more complex and adaptive as a champion which I liked, it also defined her role as a siege cannon, specifically with her passive and traps. What intrigues me about Caitlyn is also her story, back when riot put effort more text into their lores:
The bandit, who always left a card with an ornate 'C' at the scene of the crime, became Caitlyn's arch-nemesis. To this day, Caitlyn still searches for this cat burglar, and the chase has led her all across Valoran. As she travels, she seeks to hone her skills and gain the influence necessary to track down the only quarry that has managed to evade her.
I really hope they will make this "C" character into a champion one day, unless Corki is a bandit I don't think they've come out already. I would also like to see some interactions Cait has but since all her quoting has been done already I doubt it. Although when this character came out she could have her quotes re-done; all at riots expense but gimme what I want and give it to me now.

My Caitlyn stats

I've been using Caitlyn in ranked the most as my top played champ but I do play other ADC's such as Lucian but he's never as exciting as Caitlyn ;)
Here are some stats from lolking.net:Maybe I should just main Karma e.e, that's support Poppy btw. Anyway this is about Caitlyn.not some punk *** mage.
How about we get back to the guide...

Okay so I have made some larger changes to the build to keep it up to date. I'm also going to start removing some of the older news updates. Thanks for 2 million views guys! I appreciate your support and it would be super helpful if you gave my guide a like :) The icons and items sections have been updated and I'm working on a Q-E combo skills section when I can get this windows 10 video thingy sorted out.

Sorry I haven't been updating recently, starting in higher education is always a challenge! I assure you the information here is valid and any changes that are needed, and that I use will be posted here. Thanks for all the support!

QSS NO LONGER REMOVES ZED ULT!!! My recommendation is to stay well away, but I have played games where he sacrifices himself just to kill me. Try to mislead him in the direction he wants you to go in, have exhaust if you really think you need it and flash away once he lands on you so he doesn't put damage on you

The W skill has been put into recommended, after testing it I found W helps with early game damage on ADC's and a support e.g Soraka. Q is not as good mid as you need zoning for weak mid game, still Q scales better so sustains it's damage, Q only does 33% damage after first target so how strong is it compared to 5 massive w snaring traps. See bottom of guide for good W trick.

Caitlyn is in a good spot, could be better tbh. The update to AD on infinity edge and last whisper is going to be amazing. Grab those top hats guys!

Pros

+ Great Range + Has escape with dash + slow + Has traps which root + Good Poke

Caitlyn's main advantage comes from her naturally large range, she is able to consistently stay away from scary carries in a team fight and avoid poke damage in lane if you use the range advantage to poke from behind your minions. If someone gets near you, eg. Vayne you can E away slowing and providing a set up for your Q and a basic attack from the net bonus. If the enemy is slowed you can predict their movement by placing a trap where they will walk, either forcing them to take a longer route around, meaning you can land more damage or walking into the trap giving you bonus damage and easier ability hitting. Being able to poke people is a great way to make people have to back, especially for a team fight. You can make a 5v5 a 4v5.

Cons

+ Ultimate can be blocked + Abiltiies(Q/R) not good late + Weak in the mid game + Squishy - bad close range

While Caitlyn's ultimate may seem very unfair, a relatively high damage ability that you cannot dodge, keep in mind that later your basic attacks will do more and its cast time is you not doing damage. Use it cautiously as once in ranked I was about to finish off a penta, I decided to use ult instead of auto attack the person right in front of me on low health, turns out they surrendered and just as the shot fired the nexus goes into the destruction cinematic leaving me upset. Late game Caitlyn rely's on her Auto attacks and runaans to proc her passive, the reason she is weak mid game is because she is transitioning between her strong early with abilities and strong late with auto's leaving her a bit stuck. She isn't useless though. And when you have long range advantage comes a evident penalty on your survivability, if they can get to you and you don't have E or they are playing Zed so one auto is enough to kill you then you aren't gonna have a fun time.

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This is the mastery page I use most with Caitlyn, for those who have read the earlier version of this guide, I used to run 18/0/12 instead of the current 18/12/0. This is because I was delusional about how tanky an ADC can be, you aren't going to be getting a GA most of the time, there are better items and it is purely situational, so it's all wasted when you can have what I thought was only 1 good mastery from the cunning tree when actually there is two(I know big woop). Merciless - Deal 5% (with 5 points) more damage to enemies below 40%, this is just crying for Caitlyn with her ultimate, and getting kills in general, I doubt this would work in high elo due to faster reactions, but you can stack a headshot, and flash auto attack which gets rid of the auto attack delay somehow making them die pretty quickly, this mastery gives you a boost for this tactic. That is if you are willing to use flash offensively for a 60% chance of success. Also helps her execute ultimate obviously. Dangerous game is one of the strongest non keystone masteries in the game, keeps you alive if you fight someone with ignite and helps you in team fights when you attack the front line. Apart from this the other question you need to ask yourself is Fervor or Warlords?

Fervor of battle

This is the mastery I run most of the time purely because of Caitlyn's range benefit meaning she doesn't have to be offensive or worry about sustain too much, of course you will take damage but it's not enough to justify warlords. Fervor is super OP late game and stacks on your runaans which is super effective for teamfights, also helps your early trade damage in extended duels.

Warlord's bloodlust

This is the mastery you take in a hard matchup, so say Sivir or Tristana(You're not safe from her range) or a Lucian ect. This gives you more survivability in lane and allows you to duel with your support without worrying about either of you being able to actually survive, you loose later damage but it's ultimately worth it rather than feeding your opponent.

This item is what makes Caitlyn such a damn fine sniper. Normal crits deal 200% damage, combined with 150% from her passive headshot, and 250% from infinity edge critting is 300% damage on one auto attack, and good damage with normal attacks, consider a critical headshot with RFC, a squishy person is likely forced back away, and with Caitlyn's range you can't go wrong. Essential.

The classic option for an ADC, provides needed movement speed, and allows enchantments to be built in, with a free homeguard at 20 minutes. Caitlyn isn't a CD ability ADC so lucidity is useless, and tanky shoes is just taking away DPS that she could get from berserker's. Essential.

Statikk shiv is THE superior choice over RFC, RFC is not as useful to Caitlyn as you may believe, sure she gets a lot of range for one shot, then nothing for ages. "You can poke turrets". Have you ever tried poking a turret with RFC it does close to no damage, mainly thanks to riots update to how turrets take damage with no minions around. It's not great for poking unless your passive is up, so it's unreliable. Statikk shiv however :D has better base stats. Does better base lightning damage, and the main part. It can crit! The lightning effect can crit for insane damage. As you are going to have a runaans and statikk shiv combo most likely, you are going to cause insane team wide damage. RFC isn't necessarily bad, it's just Shiv is better.

Best lifesteal/sustain item available, provides 20% lifesteal which is a lot considering your damage. Also gives a shield which increases your defence, good for bursty champs such as zed. Can get 2nd zeal item first but remember to take a vampiric sceptre for sustain. Would recommend this 4th over 2nd zeal.

Procs your headshot passive, procs your fervor passive, applies your headshot passive, more attack speed given than RFC, attacks multiple targets at once. Great item perfect for Caitlyn. Get this 3rd instead of runaan's if: You want more general DPS and the factors from RFC do not apply.

Decimates bonus armour nullifying almost half (over half with masteries) of a tanks armour(ONLY BONUS ARMOUR FOR LAST WHISPER/LORD DOMINIK'S/MORTAL REMINDER) also gives increased damage for targets with large max HP making it easier to take them down and enables you to 1v1 easier.

QSS Passive clears all debuffs which includes CC, Zed ults(NOT ANYMORE BECAUSE RIOT HATES ADC'S) and Malzahar ult ect ect. Also provides good sustain and a chunck of AD for you. Much better in Season 6. Sorry to all the other items that did not get featured here, but they are very self explanatory. There is a brief explanation for them in the notes if you want to check them out otherwise test each in a normal to you find out which is most effective against certain teams.

When you push with Caitlyn which you should most of the time if it's safe, then you can use this tactic to trap enemies and do a lot of damage. Due to the angle the camera is at when you are pushing to get a good view of the area(enemy as well) there is a section of ground that is invisible because the turret blocks it, what Caitlyn's traps can do is go under the turret view point and unsuspecting enemies walk through giving you a chance to try auto attack without hitting turret somehow and fire a Q to do full damage. Works great against Vayne who will walk forwards and back quite often for farming. 90% of the time they will walk through it, even multiple times.
For this one you have to place the turrets above it to work, it doesn't trigger as often because enemies don't often transition between the two sides of the turret, and it's more likely the enemy will see it as they move the camera left to right on the slimmer turret block section. It's still a trick to consider.

More trick's will be available in latter versions of this guide

This guide has reached BETA stage, it's mostly completed but could do with more improvement, you can help with that by voting and commenting. Each section will be updated every patch to explain the changes of patch if necessary and possible new sections such as a patch update section will be added. I will listen and respond to every comment when I can and have fun playing Caitlyn. I will plan to make a runes section in the future and maybe a summoner skills section but this is basic ADC sections and everything is here for you to play Caitlyn effectively apart from an extensive laning phase, team fight section.