Teemo Build Guide by xMrSchmidtx

Introduction

Hello!

Teemo is an extremely strong champion. His movement speed and attack speed, combined with the AP this build will give, enables Teemo to fulfill a variety of roles within the team structure. As Teemo, I always try to mid. The reason for this is that I view Teemo as a carry, just like Vayne or Brand or Annie (you get it).

The second reason, as I will explain more fully later, is the need to zone your lane opponent, and it is much easier to do when there is only one. Teemo is one of the most effective zoners, and because of this there are few champions who can counter your zoning if you are doing it properly.

Teemo also fulfills many other team needs. His Noxious Trap acts as a ward, slow, and DoT (Damage over Time) spell at the same time. It is has offensive, defensive, and utility uses all at the same time. I may devote an entire section to explaining the myriad uses of Teemo's mushrooms, simply because they're so essential for a good Teemo.

Anyway, on to the guide. Please be forgiving of any mistakes I make, as this is the very first and possibly only guide I will make. Please also leave criticism for me, constructive or otherwise, when you vote. And at last, thank you for reading in the first place!

Enjoy!

Change log

• Dec 17 2011 PUBLISHED GUIDE
• Dec 18 2011 Added "Difficult Champions to Lane Against" section. Any additions? Comment.

Runes

Rune Time!

My runes may seem a litle odd to you. I have said that Teemo is a carry, and should be played as such, so why do I only have 9 offensive runes?

I take magic pen reds with Greater Mark of Magic Penetration. This is not actually to do more damage, but to nullify the magic resist you know your opponent already has runes for (if they don't have Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, then it's a plus to you!)

For blues and yellows, I have chosen MR with Greater Glyph of Magic Resist and Greater Seal of Magic Resist. Why so much MR? Well, keep in mind this is COMPLETELY my opinion, but I think Teemo's Blinding Dart already gives you an effectively infinite amount of armor, even if it is for a short time. Physical DPS champions are not the ones you need to look out for. Instead, mage characters and AP carries, who have skill shots or single-target spells that can't be dodged are. I'll explain later, in my zoning section.

For quints, I chose Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed. I think these are an obvious choice for Teemo, as your main goal is not to survive enemy damage, but avoid it altogether. Teemo's base movement, swiftness runes, and Move Quick will make you faster than most other champions, except maybe Highlander Master Yi. And you have your Blinding Dart and a team for him.

Masteries

The masteries in the offensive tree are self-explanatory, AP carry masteries. The only mastery that is a little different from your standard fare would be Alacrity , which, with the two points I put in, increases Teemo's attack speed by 2%. No, it's not very much, but every little bit helps, right?

I also but a point in Scout . This increases the vision gave by your wards, and mushrooms by 5%. Yeah. And you're going to have a lot of these suckers on the map. Plus, it freakin' has Teemo's face on it, so you can't not put a point in it. Srsly guys.

Items

Now for the fun part.

Doran's Ring is an amazing item. It gives you AP, mana regen, and health all at once! Of course, as with other Doran's items, it does not build into anything, but the beauty of it is that you can usually go through the entire game without selling it, so it effectively becomes a core item. Truthfully, since Teemo has such a low mana pool in the first place (along with low mana costs) Doran's Ring will keep his mana pool high and healthy throughout most of the laning phase.

There are instances when I would not begin with a Doran's Ring.
This is when you are facing a difficult champion to zone. I will put another section outlining the champions that are hard to zone. For now, I'll just give you the fast version: Boots of Speed, 2 Health Potion and 1 Mana Potion, plus a little bit of tower hugging will get you through their monstrous zone potential safely.

Sheen. OMFG. What an amazing zoning tool for Teemo. As AP Teemo, your harrassing combo is always Blinding Dart+Auto-attack. This is what you do to harrass! Sheen is made for this type of poke, increasing your AAs by at least it's base AP stat (+25 AP). It may not make you monstrous, but it does make you hit a little bit harder. I build Sheen into Lich Bane towards the end game. I think Lich Bane is a very synergistic skill for Teemo. +80 AP, +30 MR, +350 mana, +7% movement speed.

Malady is probably the weakest item on this list. Skip this if you're doing very well in the game. I think Nashor's Tooth is almost a necessity for Teemo. Read the item description to find out why :) It's a toss up on whether to get this before Rabadon's Deathcap. Usually I get the deathcap first, but it really depends on what order you buy the items.

My last item is Morello's Evil Tome. The sole reason for getting this item is to meet the 40% hardcap on CD to allow you to store mushrooms extremely fast. The AP is a nice boost for the gold you spend, and the mana/5 is kinda cool too, but the CD is really the reason I buy this over others.

Some situational items I would use. Rylai's Crystal Scepter is a hilarious item to get. Your Noxious Trap has an innate slow, but this item WILL apply Rylai's slow to all your mushrooms. Set a trap, hear opponents rage. TROLOLOLOLO
Otherwise, I would not recommend Rylai's for Teemo. I think that the health boost is almost unnecessary, as you are GOING to die when opponents focus you, no matter how many health items you build. Your #1 concern should be staying outside of the fight and using Blinding Dart and your mushrooms to pick off those low on health.

Mejai's Soulstealer I have used with success in the past. This relies on your ability to stay alive as Teemo. If you get two or three early kills, there's no reason not to get this item. Sometimes you'll regret not getting Mejai's, as I did when I play games where I get a ridiculous score, like 17/3/5 or something (it happens more than you think).

Other items that are possible are Void Staff (as long as you don't have sorc shoes), bloodrazors (I don't like them much on AP teemo tho) and Zhonya's (the ability can help you if you get focused, or if there's a Katarina on their team, letting your team rush in to save you before you're blown apart).

Skills

PASSIVE - Camouflage: If Teemo stands still and takes no action for 2 seconds, he becomes stealthed. Moving or taking actions will break Teemo out of stealth and will boost his attack speed by 40% for 2 seconds.

A very useful passive. Stealths Teemo for an undefined amount of time after he takes no action for 2 seconds. I see many guides push this off as a useless skill past first blood, but I would adamantly disagree with that. This passive is underrated and extremely useful. You can use this to gank (stealth in the middle of a lane and wait for your teammates to initiate), to kite, which is most useful in the jungle... Turn into a creep camp such as wolves or golems or lizard buff, by the time your pursuers field of vision reaches you you'll be stealthed (requires good judgement). Camoflauge will not allow you to set a Noxious Trap anywhere except immediately around you. Stealthing on top of a mushroom will also give you an excellent ganking oppurtunity. Judgement is also required for this :)

Blinding Dart: Teemo shoots a venom-coated dart at the target enemy, dealing magic damage (80/125/170/215/260 [+0.8 per ability power]) and blinding them for a few seconds, causing all their autoattacks to miss for its duration (1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5) seconds.

Blinding Dart is my first skill, and I max it by 9. Teemo's Q is, for lack of a better analogy, your bread and butter skill. This is your spam nuke. Since you're leveled higher than the majority of your enemies (because you midded, of course), your dart will deal a large portion of their health. It also has a relatively short cooldown, and this will let you spam it aggressively. Blinding Dart does NOT apply on-hit effects like your poison, so always follow-up with at least one auto-attack

Move Quick: (Passive): Grants increased movement speed until struck by a champion or turret. This bonus is restored 5 seconds after last being struck by a champion or turret.
(Active): For 3 seconds, Teemo gains double his passive movement speed (10/14/18/22/26%) and will not lose it regardless of whether he is hit or not. The passive is restored after the duration of the active.

This ability is, in essence, a free boots level. Getting this as your second or third skill will give you almost the same movement speed as if you had Boots of Speed, any boots 2 will be close to Boots of Swiftness. This ability is for kiting and chasing, and perhaps zoning at earlier levels. Keep in mind that activating this ability DOES NOT nullify the passive during the cooldown. As the cooldown is very long, we can be thankful for this.

Toxic Shot: (Passive): Teemo deals extra magic damage with his autoattacks (9/18/27/36/45[+0.14 per ability power]). Additionally, his attacks will poison the target, dealing magic damage each second for 4 seconds (6/12/18/24/30 [+0.14 per ability power]). This poison will not stack but the duration will be refreshed with every subsequent attack. (Total Magic Damage: 33/66/99/132/165 [+0.7 per ability power])

This is your DoT nuke. And now you can take the time to make laugh at how little sense that sentence made. Damage over Time nuke? Lolwtf. Truth is, this ability does a good amount of damage for how low the coefficients are. Just keep in mind that when using it, you cannot have 'stacks' of poison, as I see a lot of other guides espousing. Instead, the duration of the poison is refreshed for every attack, and the on-hit magic damage is re-applied per attack. At level 2, it's basically a Doran's Blade, except it factors with MR instead of Armor.

Noxious Trap: (Active): Teemo places a trap which stealths and arms after 1.5 seconds. It detonates if an enemy steps on it, poisoning all enemies nearby to be dealt magic damage every second for 4 seconds plus slowing them and providing vision of them (doesn't reveal stealthed units) for 4 seconds. This poison will not stack but the duration will be refreshed with every subsequent detonation. Mushrooms have 100 health and can be destroyed by autoattacks if they are visible, but they are immune to spell damage.

The traps last 10 minutes. Teemo will store one every several seconds, the charge time will be affected by cooldown reduction, and can have a maximum of three stocked up. Each cast requires and uses a trap. Cooldown 1 second.

Total Magic Damage: 200/400/600 (+0.8 per ability power). Magic Damage Per Second: 50/100/150 (+0.2 per ability power). Charge Receive Time: 35/31/27 seconds. Slow: 30/40/50%.

Sooo much I can talk about... How about I do us all a favor and just write a section specifically for the shrooms? TL;DR

Skill Sequence

I take R>Q>E>W.
That's Noxious Trap> Blinding Dart> Toxic Shot> Move Quick
I usually pick Blinding Dart as my first skill, because it is ESSENTIAL that your enemy is afraid of your damage output. I find on other AP Teemo guides that they have Teemo max Toxic Shot first, but I am of the opinion that while the DoT damage output is comparable (though not as high) as Blinding Dart, it will NOT make your enemy turn and run as when a giant chuck of their health goes missing.

When I'm facing a difficult champion to zone, sometimes I'll choose Move Quick as my first skill instead of Blinding Dart. This is because I need the extra passive and active of Move Quick to help me avoid their OP damage or PRO skill shots.

Usually I will never take Toxic Shot as my first skill, but it's your game, so whatever.

Summoner Spells

So... Summoner Spells? These are really the most opinionated part of my guide. I usually go with Teleport and Ignite. Teleport synergizes (God I hate that word) well with Teemo's ability to set a ward every thirty seconds. This skill has netted me a surprising number of kills. See a low-health Ashe run into your shroom and not die? Teleport to a shroom close to her. See the low-health Brand who just bursted you back to base and is now attacking your turret? Teleport to the shroom you set in the bushes by river. See bot lane in need of a gank? Teleport to the ward they BETTER have set in their river bush. If they didn't ward it, then they're not worth saving, it's as simple as that.

OP AP TEEMO - ZONING

Now for the meat of the guide!

Teemo is a special laner. He is incredibly powerful in lane against a majority of the carries you'll face. So, how should Teemo be played in mid?

Against most carries, you'll need to start the game very aggressively. Most games, I'll run straight to mid and stealth about in the center of the lane, but a little towrds top if I'm blue and a little towards bot if I'm purple. This is because of how the towers are placed. Blue tower has a longer range towards top, and purple has a longer range towards bot, which gives you a better zone of safety should you need to run away.

While stealthed in mid, you wait until the enemy reveals him or herself, and quickly Blinding Dart and back off. If it's a physical dps champion, perhaps I'll throw in an auto-attack or two, but I generally don't as to avoid minion aggro. Against difficult champions to zone, you should not be aggressive at all. Instead, take your CS from a safe distance and avoid their damage.

With other champions with good harrass, such as Kennen, Shen, Xerath, and Caitlyn, you'll see them harrass and back off to wait for their cooldown. With Teemo, you'll need to be in your enemies face CONSTANTLY, and use your Blinding Dart CONSTANTLY. In my experience, once you establish lane dominance by zoning, your enemy is forced to play passively in order to avoid your damage output. Because of this, you should be able to last his extremely easily, and be able to place your mushrooms wherever you want without the lane being pushed to hard (they'll be afraid that you've stealthed close to your turret).

Ap Teemo excels at zoning much better than AD Teemo. This is due to the fact that AD Teemo relies on a steady, sustained damage output, as opposed to burst AP damage. If you need to stand there and attack to do high damage, then you're a target. As AP Teemo, you should NEVER stop moving. See the difference?

Your burst potential increases significatly when you get Sheen. Sheen is a wonderful item for Teemo. Of course, it adds AD and Mana, but the kicker is it's UNIQUE passive, which increases your next basic attack (following a skill use) to increase by the amount of AP you have.

Watch:
Blinding Dart + Sheen: Auto-Attack + On-hit poison damage + Residual poison damage.
Woow.

Difficult champions to zone (read: OP champions)

As Teemo, you have the potential to zone anyone successfully based on your respective skill levels. Simply put, if you're better than your opponent, you can zone him or her. The problem comes when a champion has a very strong counter to your harassment. Below, I will list a few champions that I think are EASY TO LANE AGAINST, DIFFICULT TO LANE AGAINST, and ONES YOU THINK WOULD BE HARD BUT AREN'T IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT.

1.Champions that are simple to lane against and zone.

[*] Sivir OMFG so easy to deny, it's not even funny. Her really one and only skill that could keep you at bay is her Boomerang Blade skill shot, which, not only easily dodged with good FPS, but deals almost no damage if it hits creeps first. So, stand behind those minions and pop out to harrass.
[*] Ashe Another easy one. I don't want to get a lot of hate because I'm putting her on the easily zoned, but hey, if you play it my way, no physical DPS will give you much run for your money. Ashe is most threatening when one of her teammates come to gank. Her ult, Enchanted Crystal Arrow is difficult to avoid head on, and her Q Frost Shot still applies a significant slow, regardless of whether she's blinded (her AAs will do no damage while blinded, but her on-hit effects/slow still register). Other than that, stand behind creeps to avoid Volley and it's zoning as usual.
[*] Vayne same as Ashe. She will do a lot of damage with her basic attacks/ Tumble. You have your blind, so she should fear your damage output, if not, punish her when she tries to attack you. Keep in mind that her Silver Bolts still deal damage every 3 shots when blinded, even if her AAs don't deal base damage.
[*] Lux Dodge skills shots, with the dart/AA zoning technique you should have ample time to get out of the range of Lucent Singularity. With Lux, you have to be very careful for all the skill shots, so keep your eyes open. Otherwise, watch her squish under your damage.
[*] Twisted Fate TROLOLOLO so easy to zone, even with his recent buff, he's still so easy to out-CS and out-damage early game. If he isn't hugging his turret the ENTIRE LANING PHASE you need to uninstall noob ;)
[*] Tristana, basic ranged carry fare, watch out for Rocket Jump, she'll usually try it when your Blinding Dart is on cooldown, so just back off a little bit.
[*] Graves is one of those champions I hear a lot of complaints that like "ZOMG so OP Graves gtfo srsly." With the strategies outlined in this game, you just need to be MORE in his face than he wants to be in yours. Consistent damage output=win. If you need to wait for his mana to drop so he can't combo you easily, go ahead.
[*] Fizz. Just, lol. You should zone him easily. You may miss some of your blinding darts when he does the playful trickster ****, but honestly it costs him much more mana than it costs you.
[*] Corki is an easy champion to zone, as long as you understand his skills. Read up pplz.
[*] Evelynn, Twitch, and Shaco: Don't laugh, I've seen both Shaco and Evelynn try to mid against me as AP Teemo. If any of these champs try laning against you, I expect you to have their turret killed within twenty minutes. Just expect a lot of gank attempts, ward them bushes.
[*] Ahri: Skill shots dodge yea I win suck it fox lady. Seriously, just practice your dodging/kiting.


2. Champions that are difficult to lane against:

[*] Brand!! Haha keep your distance against this flaming dude. He can one-combo you w/o his ult or Ignite. He's that scary. Sure, his stun can be blocked by minions, but the damage output is still too unfair to try to match. Only harass him if you think he is a total n00b or you are 3pic pwns
[*] Kog'Maw: Remember when I said physical DPS should never give you a hard time? Meet the exception to this rule. Your blind is almost ineffective against his range with bio-arcane assault, and his Caustic Spittle is single-target and unblockable. Add to the fact that his skill shot slow Void Ooze is difficult to avoid, and his ult Living Artillery has a hard-to-estimate aoe zone. Oh, and his passive Icathian Surprise will destroy you. Good luck.
[*] Kennen I almost put in the toss-up section. Kennen's laning difficulty is completely dependent on the skill of the player. Maybe one game you'll face a Kennen who has no clue how to lane against you, and another you'll play one that completely dominates you. Just be careful. You can do more 'sustainable' damage because your blind is guaranteed to hit, whereas his Thundering Shuriken and Electrical Surge require skill and positioning to execute. TIP: When you see his shuriken glowing with lightning, WAIT for him to AA a minions to lose the Mark of the Storm passive.

Summary

This build is not complete yet. It is also my first build evar :)

If you need examples of mushroom placement/zoning techniques, WATCH MY LOL REPLAYS
If you do not have it already, download LoL Replay. My IGN is xMrSchmidtx
Did you think Karthus was hard to zone? Watch my videos.
Do you hate midding against shaco? Watch my video.
Do you like raping your opponents? Watch my videos.

Keep in mind that I'm NOT a pro, and I only upload videos I do extremely well in or ones that have high comedic value (such as the Karthus, Garen, and Riven that all decided to rage quit after my pre-made completely shut them out).

Remember to comment and +1! You can -1 if you feel you need to, but MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. :3