I am well aware that there are those people who do not even read the guide, let alone the introduction before posting a (-1) and a fail comment. Please be aware I have covered every aspect of my rhyme and reason for why I do things. Read the guide first for god's sake.

Don't be this guy.

VOTED -1
Why 3 boots?
Posted by Teriem

If you want to see what a non-fail comment looks like, check page 4 of the comments for ElevenEleven.

what you can expect from this guide


A strong idea on how to build Teemo and to learn from other people's experience
Some strategies and insight on how to be successful as Teemo
How to play my version of AP-Teemo
What items are a good idea to buy
How to work with your team and level efficiently


What you won't get from this guide

A "know-it-all" attitude
A "I'm right and you're wrong" perspective
Listing every single item in the game. There's a link for that.
Reiterating my above point; I will not cover every defensive and offensive item, these builds change constantly depending who you're playing against.

First off, thanks for taking the time to look at my version of AP Teemo. I hope for this to be an insightful guide, but please feel free to give suggestions and constructive feedback with as little trolling as possible :].

Yes, you're only choosing one pair of boots.

If you're questioning my masteries or items, please read the masteries and item chapters for more information.

***I would like to note that I put in many hours to create a guide for those Teemo players. Leaving a troll message and a bad score without due reason is very demoralizing and really not encouraging anyone to contribute to the Mobafire community. Please be sure to be thoughtful and courteous to those who genuinely want to help.***

Teemo, like many other champions, has a myriad of builds to his disposal. My personal favorite is to build flat AP with end game attack speed, as every damage dealing ability scales very well, and can offer a lot of map control when played correctly.

Other than being a DPS powerhouse, Teemo has some great kiting and scouting utility. A level 2 or 3 Ult. can often stop the advance of an incoming offensive team fight and can turn the tides of battle when communicating with a team; not to mention the every so often "free kill".

*Warning* I'm going to say this in the introduction before I go any further as I took some liberties on the item build shown above. The general order of purchases are usually the same, however you must prioritize accordingly to whom you are playing against and your current skill. Lich Bane shown above for example, is if you know how to "yo-yo" into team fights without getting killed, so the deciding factor on you getting that item is your ability to do as such.

Example: You are playing against Karthus who went mid and it already level 16 with his level 3 Ult. because of 4 failed ganks and has 18 stacks on Mejai's Soulstealer.
What you should do: Buy a Banshee's Veil/Zhonya's Hourglass/etc to offset his 1000 damage ult..
What happens if you didn't do that: You die.

If you have any prior experience with Teemo, you must be quite aware that the poor boyscout has some of the lowest base health among the champions currently in game. And chances are, you are going to get quite a few kills with your mushrooms (assuming correct placement), in that event the last thing you want to happen is to give their carry an easy 1,000.00 gold if s/he catches you on your shroom run, so plan accordingly.

A shout-out to ElevenEleven for reminding me the importance of just the bit of movement early game. :]

Teemo, as an early game champion is very powerful. You can often times zone out a single player with a Blinding Dart to auto-attack Toxic Shot follow up combo. If the enemy team is lacking a jungler and the enemy laner is pushing but not every aggressive, you may choose to forgo move-quick for your nuke spells.

With Teemo, I often grab Teleport and Flash. Teleport is a very powerful tool, as enemy players cannot see your teleport animation on a invisible object (IE: Noxious Trap), so I take extra care to have all the key places warded with mushrooms, not only for the potential free kill, but quick response time against an enemy tower push or team fight.
Flash is self explanatory. (Running away to a bottom or top lane bush and flashing over to the adjacent one when being chased is a good idea. )

A combination of Flash and Cleanse works fairly well. Get Mercury's Treads if you like the survivability.
Exhaust can be picked up on the off chance there is an enemy melee carry; a double blind from Exhaust and Blinding Dart can be devastating.

Ignite: in my personal experience, you will most likely not pick up many kills from this spell playing Teemo. With the now well adjusted listing as "support", you should be more concerned about creating an escape plan (minefield) for your team and blinding their melee champions. You really should not be in the thick of things as you will often be focused immediately. Pick off and assassinate low health champions all you want, but once again, it's up to you.

The other summoner spells have their uses, but I do not believe they have a space in this build. Theory craft some more and let me know some of your ideas if you have any qualms.

Runes should, and are self-explanatory. As your poison DOTs, blinding dart, and mushrooms are all based off AP, M. Penetration is very important and versatile with other AP champions.
Cooldown reduction allows for quicker regeneration of mushrooms and the like, and should be among the prioritized stats for Teemo if the enemy team is not stacking M. Resist.
Dodge: It's pretty cool, yo.
x 9 x 9 x 9 x 3

As far as masteries are concerned, there is a little bit of leeway depending on your build and play style. Please note that these are not carved in stone, and the choice is yours based on your build.

Item builds are always a heated topic among players. As I stated in my introduction, I believe that item builds are always situational depending on your current meta, with a few core exceptions. I will highlight what I personally choose to always have, and overview a few important topics.

Part A

Doran's Ring: There are those out there who vehemently believe that these items are trash, and I respect that. You may choose to forgo Doran's Ring and go straight for a Mejai's Soulstealer, but you'll be with a little less survivability.

Mejai's Soulstealer Is one of the most important items for any DPS-AP champion. Teemo in particular is able to build up Mejai stacks very efficiently due to his Noxious Trap [Yes, get this item asap]. I'll explain Teemo's team fighting role later in the guide, but once again with the prioritization.

a) Get this first if you are confident you can build up stacks without getting killed by faceroll characters.
b) Do not grab this item if you feel you may get shut down. Good indicators are characters like Katarina, Karthus, and Malzhahar.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity: Noxious Trap's mushroom regeneration rate is affected by cooldown reduction and will help with jungle and area control. You may switch these out for Mercury's Treads or Sorcerer's Shoes if you're having trouble with enemy stuns/other CC or enemy's stacking M. resistance, respectively. I understand that a few may not agree with me, however the boots are mainly up to the player; as this is simply what i choose to have early game, and switch out accordingly if I'm doing well.

If you're not me: Get Sorcerer's Shoes or Mobility Boots first. My playstyle revolves around switching things up and being flexible with the few hundred gold sacrifice. If you're not a fan of that, do not get Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

Rabadon's Deathcap should be one of your top "goto" purchases immediately after your boots. However, Zhonya's Hourglass will prioritize this item if you are facing a carry enemy Karthus with a ton of AP or becoming a primary target from melee DPS.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter Is an extremely strong item for Teemo. +15% Movement speed reduction on top of his Noxious Trap slow is almost a guaranteed death for an overextended enemy. Overall, this item with the passive health and slowing capability adds a lot of survivability and kiting potential. I normally grab this myself right after Rabadon's Deathcap.

EDIT*** Nashor's Tooth: I've been getting a lot of complaints lately that I have not been including this in the main build, so I'll go ahead and add this in now. I'm certainly aware that this is a very strong item for Teemo, but it did not match my play style so I initially chose to forgo it in the build. If you are the player who likes the element of surprise/know how to assassinate effectivly and know when to go into teamfights without getting killed, this is a great item. Otherwise, a bursty method with Lich Bane is also appropriate.

Malady: Is included with Nashar's tooth, but without the CDR. Grab this item instead if you're doing just fine in the cooldown department.

This is where the item build tends to change depending on your current situation. I will not overview every single item, as I'm sure most people have a general idea of what everything does. If not, learn the information first before theory crafting and come up with your own plan before going for help. What I will do however is highlight some possible tactical information for the items below that work well in this build.

Part B
There is no specific order of significance for the items listed below.

Deathfire Grasp is a situational item, but has scaling nuke capability as well as cooldown reduction. If you're facing some enemy tanks with low magic resist, please make sure grab this item after Rabadon's Deathcap. It can really help nuke down any single target, but the choice is yours.


Quicksilver Sash: Anti malzhahar, taunt, stun, etc etc etc. If CC is a big issue, staying alive is worth more than giving your opponents gold. Drop a little gold here and you'll have bigger returns later.

Banshee's Veil: One of the strongest defensive items in game, this is particularly useful against champions like Karthus and Evelynn. Get this as soon as possible if you suspect a good Eveylnn.

Oracle's Elixir: You should be getting this when facing an enemy Teemo, Evelynn, or Twitch. Try to work this in if you're building up stacks quickly on Mejai's.

Sight Ward and Vision Ward: Wards are an invaluable asset to your team. Not only can they prevent ganks, but they literally net you kills and pay for themselves. This may seem a little less important for a champion like Teemo, but wards have a larger radius effect and can be placed a good distance away from your champion, preventing say, a Rammus from powerballing your team, dropping it on top of a stealthed Akali, or even in the middle of team fights to completely deny Evelynn.

Void Staff: Facing a ton of magic resist? Grab this item as soon as possible and surprise the hell out of them when you start chewing through their health pool. I would grab this when you start to notice 3 or more people with 100+ mR.

---

Part C
After grabbing one or two items from part B, you may want to start looking at either stacking more AP or attack speed. I generally break this down into two categories; you can play more offensively and go tank killer spec and draw up a Madred's Bloodrazor/ Lich Bane; or stack more AP and CDR (cooldown reduction) to create kiting paths.

Remember, Max Cooldown Reduction caps at 40%

Please note that Lich Bane is a little more situational than you think. It may have the capability to add a lot of burst, however it gives little on sustained DPS. Lich Bane only allows the extra burst after using an ability; considering AP-Teemo's main source of nuke, Blinding Dart, is on a 8 second cooldown with full CD reduction, the only other option that leaves you with is Move Quick and Noxious Trap. Lich Bane is an extremely strong item if you know how to "yo-yo" into fights, but a poor item if you plan on sitting there auto-attacking. (Which you should not be doing with this build regardeless.).


I'll state it again, the item build is fairly situational aside from Part A, otherwise just give some different builds a try and see what you like. The most important part about playing Teemo, is actually knowing what you are capable of doing.

Noxious Trap can get a very effective means for clearing up a huge wave of creeps and farming up that last bit of gold. Use some discretion however when you're doing this, you could be using those shrooms for field and battle control.

Noxious Trap is also very useful for grabbing blue/red buff. Just place one down, let it stealth after a second, and kite the golem/lizard through it. Done.
Grab blue buff every time you can, Noxious Trap tends to be mana costly, and the cooldown reduction from the buff can also get those traps out much faster, up to one every 13 seconds.

Blue buff may be a concern to some players: If you have Nashor's Tooth, you will not need Blue Buff, give it to someone else. If you're me, than you do grab blue buff so you can focus on flat AP items instead. The choice is yours.

Early game: Toxic Shot can be used to hit many minions at once. Just right click over a minion and let the poison do the work, switch targets to apply the debuff. Just make sure you really want to be pushing the lane, you may just walk into a trap.

Attempt to grab MID- or another solo lane if possible (jungler on team), as the quicker you get out the Noxious Traps at higher level ults, the more control you give your team.

Early Game: Teemo is an extremely powerful pusher. Getting within range of a enemy champion for even a split second can be very punishing for him/her. Use care when pushing however. Putting points into Blinding Dart without using it often can surprise some players from the unexpected burst and land you an easy kill.

You can play very aggressively from 1-5, but start to back off as players start to receive their ultimates.
Ultimate Phase::Level 6: Begin warding your bushes and side lanes with Noxious Trap. Remember to place these strategically, meaning: exploit the autorun move paths for champions. LoL will often choose the shortest path to their target, meaning the champion that is autowalking to a location will be hugging the terrain. This will take some time to get used to, but after a few bot games and the like, you should know the basic move paths and where to shroom. Your regeneration rate for Noxious Trap will be fairly slow, up to 28 seconds per mushroom at this level without items, so use these for more defensive purposes. You may choose to shroom behind your towers to kite players around it if the enemy laners are hyper-aggressive and insist on tower diving.

Mid/late-game: Ultimate Phase 2: level 11-16: : At this point, you should have a fairly quick regeneration rate with Noxious Trap with the help of blue buff, your passive masteries, and possibly Ionian Boots of Lucidity. At this point, level 10-11, a few team fights should have broken out. Many people may disagree with me, but your role here should be to actually work with your team (sarcasm), covering their backs with mushrooms, and having the tank kite them backwards into your traps.

For team fights, the priority should be creating a kiting path, as simple as placing a couple of mushrooms right behind your teammates and have your team pretend to run away. Assuming the enemy team is pretty absorbed, (which they will be), they'll run right into the trap and cause a massive slow as well as damage over time. Noxious Trap damage does not stack with itself, it merely refreshes its poison, so allow a little bit of leeway between each trap. As you can imagine, this can also land you quite a few kills if your team is doing well, and an escape plan if the enemy team is winning.
So when the hell do I actually participate in the team fight?: you may ask. There are few exceptions when you should be running into a team fight, any semi-coordinated team will have you focused down first, leaving you dead within a silence.

1) Blind the enemy carry if you're at a safe distance away from the rest of the enemy team.
2) Assassinate people who are running away with low health. A good strategy is to have a few mushrooms planted on their sideline turf and teleporting to the appropriate location.
3) Giving your team a way out, and the enemy team no safe outlet.
4) Bursting down the last couple of people who are left.

You may choose to participate in the team fight if you have noticed that the a) the enemy team is bad b) they blew all their ults and are running out of mana c) you're still at a safe distance and able to attack an overextended target d) you are just that pro.

***Use your own discretion, I gave you a rundown on how I play and what tends to win us the team fights (Going on average >15 kills/<2 deaths/and a ton of assists from noxious trap isn't bad either). As Teemo, you should not be dying from team fights, you were either overextended or weren't warding up bushes with Noxious Trap for kiting/baiting. Remember, the enemy team will get the same amount of the gold for killing a carry Teemo as well as a carry 4,000 health Garen, but for 1/10 the work.

Super Late Game: Level 18These are just my thoughts on the subject: but for any extended period of time when the enemy team has formed a gank squad and is absent, it is best to save up shrooms and start planting them into your jungle if you haven't already. It's an extremely good idea to Noxious Trap all the buff monsters, including Baron and Dragon. Since this entire phase is mostly team fighting or back dooring, plan accordingly and shroom up their jungle if you guys are pushing hard, and the reverse if they're pushing hard. You may choose to shroom behind your turret areas, though they may get destroyed by minions after a tower downing, however this is a fairly effective method for discouraging tower diving.

**********: If you're doing well and sitting at 20 stacks on Mejai's Soulstealer, the enemy team most likely has a couple of oracle'd people on the loose. Once you start to notice this, it's best to keep all of your shrooms on the edges of bushes (this is already a good idea), and make it almost unavoidable. This just makes it harder to shroom up the middle of your/their jungle, but it provides bush warding just as well.

Depicted below are the shroom placements for important locations and an example of how i would place traps in a lane. There is not necessarily a required upkeep for all the buffs, but I highly recommend you do so. Baron is a must however. Must. You never know what you'll catch.

Just as wards may be used to stop a powerballing Rammus, you can use Noxious Trap for a similar effect, just drop it and let it do work. Rule of thumb is, if it's a skill shot and gets stopped by a minion, your trap will save you from the brunt of the force.



Photo courtesy of Leagueoflegends.com of Riot Games Co.

I'm including this section just in case someone may have skipped over it. Use your Toxic Shot early game to apply the poison debuff to multiple targets at once, or your mushroom for those mid/late game minion pushes. ***Use some discretion however when you're doing this however, you could be using those shrooms for field and battle control.***

Communication is key. Let your team know that you don't suck, and will have/have a couple of mushrooms up behind them and ask them to feint backwards. It's best to let them know ahead of time before doing this instead of rapidly clicking the mini-map.

Teemo is a potent assassin. For some reason, when people spot a cute furry animal, they just want to follow it into a bush. Use their ignorance to kite them into your team or a path of mushrooms.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read over the guide/comment/and rate. No doubt there will be a few trolls here and there, the very mention of a troll makes them flock together, but if you have anything to add or for me to edit, please comment below and leave an outstanding rating. :].

I haven't had the chance to completely proofread the manuscript as I wanted to get this out fairly quickly. If you see any errors now, they'll most likely be fixed within a couple of days.