4/30/2012 - Added a comment question to the Item Section of the guide

5/4/2012 - May the 4th Be with you. ^.^
5/4/2012 - Fixed up a few spelling errors that no one seemed to notice >.>
5/4/2012 - Add a Question/Statement Section. Ask a question and it will be put into the guide and answered. PM or Comments are valid. ^.^
5/4/2012 - Colored the Question and Answer to make it stand out more.
5/4/2012 - Wondering how no one saw me type "For me I like the the Summoner Spells" I mean come on lol. "the the?"

6/8/2012 - Moved the "UDATES TO DA GUIDE" section to the top instead of the bottom.

7/7/2012 - Fixed up the Summoner Spells section of the guide so it look nicer and is easier to read. ^.^

7/9/2012 - Added REVAMPED item section. (Guide Inclusion soon.) This allows anyone who liked my old build to still be able to use it.
7/9/2012 - Added a lot of content and edited some other errors that where too ninja to be noticed.
7/9/2012 - Added the Items and Situational Items(Revamped Item Section) so you can easily see and hopefully understand they new choices post patchs.
7/9/2012 - Added Warding as a Mid. Original picture is from LoL Forums and the ward picture I added I got from Mobafire. My only thing is combining them and adding colored circles. Feel free to use for your guides if you want, just please source where you took it from.
7/9/2012 - Added Lasted hitting as Ziggs section to the guide. The Video belong to IPL. It was not made by me, therefore I have no claim to it.
7/9/2012 - Added Team Fights section to the guide.
7/9/2012 - Added Ganking with Ziggs section to the guide.
7/9/2012 - Fixed typos in new sections
7/9/2012 - Moved the "Item and Situation Item(Revamped Item Section)" down so it is easier to determine where it starts and where the old one ends.
7/9/2012 - Add Highlighting color to the new sections to make them easier to follow
7/9/2012 - Removed Ziggs lore. If you wish to read it, go to the League of Legends character information. This link for lore.
7/9/2012 - Changed Masteries around after doing lots of math. Explained in Masteries section.

7/10/2012 - Fixed some Typos and moved the sections around alittle.

This build is to maximize AP damage and get as many kills as the enemy team will give you. This is not a tanky Ziggs, or a pure support Ziggs, or an (please let me never see another one hehe) AD Ziggs. This build will maximize AP with enough other bonuses that you will pentakill your way to fame.

This is however my first guide on mobafire. I mostly just handwrite guides for myself or tell my friends other builds that I know.

Please feel free to comment, but please only comment on things that are relivant to my guide or the character Ziggs. And please no, "I hate Ziggs, he is so OP" comments. I hear them enough in game lol.

Also be nice. ^.^

Thanks again =3

Before I get into my guide I would like to give one quick shoutout to JHOIJHOI. Halfway through this guide I saw his how to build a guide on the side. I relized that the Vayne guide I use was made by him so I checked it out. He is the reason that my guide looks pretty and has all the proper BBCode. I only knew the basics and his guide helped me find the little links that Mobafire has. So once more...THANKS JHOIJHOI!!!!

Making a Guide <-- There is a link for the guide I read ^.^

Now onto my Ziggs guide!

Ziggs is an amazing character to play and to watch played. He is super high AP damage, fast, and very adaptable to almost any situation. He can move quickly and escape with not only one but TWO of his abilities. His "w" is Satchel Charge which launches him over walls and about the same distance as a Flash. His "e", which is Hexplosive Minefield, will slow any enemy that walks into it. His only downfall is that he is extremely and utterly squishy. If he gets ganked right after he uses his abilities and you decide not to take Flash, you are pretty much dead.

So

Pros

• Extremely High DPS
• Has 2 escape abilities
• Good in team fights
• Slowing Minefield
• Near Global Ult

Cons

• Low HP
• Moderate Mana Pool

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Now runes, like masteries and summoner spells, depend on the player him/her-self.

I take the Greater Mark of Magic Penetration x9 to gain that added magic penetration. This allows Ziggs to ignore a portion of an enemies magic resistance. Ignoring magic resistance is what allows you to do near full damage to an enemy. No one likes fighting those tanks.

I also take the Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration x9 for the added mana regen per level. This aids in allowing you to forgo the mana regen items. In doing so you are able to add even more AP items.

The glyphs I take are Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power x9 so I can get that extra AP per level. As you can see, all this does is add even more damage on top of the vast amounts you will already have.

For the quintessences I use Greater Quintessence of Ability Power x3. I use these instead of the Greater Quintessence of Scaling Ability Power because the flat AP boost is just high enough that it is almost essential to early game feeds and mid game fights. It is also just high enough that it still matters late game too.

Now lets get into those Masteries.

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offensive AP mastery build works great here. I choose Summoner's Wrath due to the fact that I use Ignite. I then take 3 ranks in Brute Force for the extra AD which it actually better. I will explain in a minute. Then I then proceed to take 4 ranks in Sorcery for the cool down reduction. After that I choose to place 1 point in Arcane Knowledge and 3 points in Havoc for the spell penetration and extra damage. After that 4 points in Blast for the extra AP. Then 4 points in Archmage for the AP %. And last but not least, I take 1 point in the Executioner for the added damage to ensure that I get the kills.

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remaining 9 points in the Utility Tree. Finishing my standard 21 - 0 - 9 build. I take 1 point in Summoner's Insight for the cool down reduction on Flash. I then take 2 points in Good Hands since Ziggs is squishy and does tend to be focused. After that I take 3 points in Expanded Mind for the extra mana to increase Ziggs' mana pool without needing special items to do so. After that I place the remaining 3 points in Meditation for the extra little mana regen.

This complete my mastery build and as you can see, it is mostly about added damage or added mana with the two summoner masteries added on. I recommend this build for almost any mage champion out there. I use it for Ahri, Lux, Brand and Fiddlesticks and it seems to work just fine.

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Now as to why I picked Brute Force over Mental Force is all based on the extensive math I did to see if IceCreamy was right about Brute Force being better. After all my math with a level 6 Ziggs using 2 Doran's Ring and a level 18 Ziggs using this full build, I've concluded that Ziggs loses, at any one time throughout ALL the levels, 1.13316 - 3.6855 AP depending on which ability he uses. Now think about this. I lost 2.5 AP (We will go in the middle), but gained 3 AD. Early game, you basic attack a lot to CS and harass. Ziggs's combo starts with Basic Attack + Short Fuse then procedes to be Bouncing Bomb -> Basic Attack -> Basic Attack. This means I lost 5 dmg through AP ( Short Fuse and Bouncing Bomb) but gained 9 AD damage. SOOOOO, that means we actually gained 4 damage. This is extremely viable, based on my math, but it is such a small difference you can still use Mental Force .

That is my reasoning for using Brute Force instead of Mental Force .

I feel that, like with most characters, Summoner Spells are completely up to the person that is playing. Choosing a spell should assist the way that you play or assist that of your team.

For me I like the Summoner Spells Flash and Ignite. I will go into greater detail about all the Summoner Spells that I recommend in a second, but first let me tell you all the decent ones that Ziggs can maximize on.

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The Handy Summoner Spells are Flash, Ghost, Clarity, Ignite, Heal, and Revive.

Now I will go in detail why I believe that these are good for Ziggs and why some others are not.

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Flash is a great ability when you need to quickly jump up to a running enemy to either get that kill or harrass em even more. It can also be a great escape tool. For instance when you are caught in the jungle mid gank and you need to jump through a wall to get away. Normally a Satchel Charge would work, but your mana is low or it is on cool down (CD). To aid in the way I play, which is very aggressive, I need flash to get that first blood and early feed.

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This is good for those players who arn't high enough level for Flash, or just don't like Flash's CD. It can also save your live or a teammates. Ghost allows you to run fast, if that be at an enemy or away from one is up to you. I used to use Ghost all the time, but when I used Flash I fell in love with the wall hopping.

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When I first used Clarity on Ziggs, all I noticed is that it kept him in lane longer. This can help if you are in the middle or just want to minion farm while still doing some major damage to the enemy team. To me, I feel that it isn't important enough, but I still think people can use this ability to help them out a lot. One downfall with it however, is that Clarity does not do much in late game.

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Ignite is by far my FAVORITE Summoner Spell. It is great for harassing an enemy by making them panic and possibly fall for a gank, or just finishing off an enemy that is to fast to catch. It can be used early game, mid game, AND late game.

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I personally don't ever take this Summoner Spell, but I can see where it helps in late game fights. Ziggs is uber squishy and if he dies, I could understand not wanting to sit there and wait 60 seconds to revive.

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Heal is another viable, but odd choice for Ziggs. Heal will keep in you lane longer, possible help you mid, MAYBE help you survive that Cho'Gath gank, but does diddly squat late-game. I have used it, and it did work out, so there must be something to how it helps early game.

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Summoner Spells I don't think are useful for Ziggs, but you might. They are Exhaust, Smite, Surge, Teleport, Cleanse, Promote, Clairvoyance.

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Exhaust is kind of unneeded due to Ziggs's Hexplosive Minefield. The minefield slows them down a lot and lets you get the kill, so Exhaust kind of losses its edge.

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Smite... Ziggs isn't the greatest jungler in my opinion, trust me I have tried, so I wouldn't take smite due to this fact. However, mid-game(when you don't need smite anymore) Ziggs is insanely awesome at taking the buffs and dragon without even being seen. O.O (dun dun dunnnnnn)

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Surge...Really...He is mainly all abilities. A small amount of attack speed and AP doesn't help him too much.

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Teleport, I can see it being handy when midding, but any other time...I don't think you would want to start a Teleport and then the enemy pushes and Teleport infront of a Garen or Tryndamere.

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I don't ever use it mainly cause I forget about it, but it really doesn't help a whole lot in my opinion. I am sure there are those that use it all the time and wreck shop, so it is viable, but I don't feel the need for it.

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This is a good Summoner Spell, but Ziggs has other Summoner Spells that would help so much more, and he can minion farm so well that this wouldn't really do much other than push the turret a twee tiny bit.

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Same as Promote. This spell is a great Summoner Spell, but I think having Ignite and Flash or Ghost is WAYYYYY better. Isn't Clairvoyance mainly a support thing anyway? :P

Before I go over the Skill Sequence I feel that I should talk about the skills themselves.

Ziggs' skills are amazingly devastating. Every one of his skills is a high AP damage skill, so with spell penatration, he can solo most of the enemy champions. I have 1 v 3 and won before just because of his high damage.

Short Fuse(Passive):

This is pretty much one of the best passives I have ever seen. He can do so much damage by opening with the combo, "e", Basic attack( Short Fuse), "q", "w", Basic attack, Basic Attack( Short Fuse), "q".

Bouncing Bomb "q":

This is definitely Ziggs' most important skill. It is most of his damage, as you can see from the 65% of AP, and it's cool down is not very long. This should be taken at level 1, 3, 5, 7, 9.

Satchel Charge "w":

This is how Ziggs can run away or jump over walls. Throw a Satchel Charge down, run on it and press "w" again. This is useful for ganking, running, quick map movement, stealing enemy blue then running, stunning enemies for a second, minion farming, and even to just do a little extra damage.

I take this ability at level 4 and max it out last.

Hexplosive Minefield "e":

This is by far, one of his most useful abilities late game. It also is HIGH DMG late game due to the 30% AP(150% total) and Magic Penetration. The slow allows you to get off a Short Fuse and Bouncing Bomb to generally finish them all off if the Hexplosive Minefield doesn't already do that for you.

This ability is taken at levels 2, 8, 10, 12, 13.

Mega Inferno Bomb "r" (ULTIMATE):

This is Ziggs' most devastating skill. It is a near global Ultimate and is extremely high damage. I generally save this(when doing 1 v 1 or 1 v 2) until the enemy's hp is below the amount of damage that it does and is running. If doing a team fight, I wait until they group up and I'll open up with it. This will force the squishies to back off, possibly giving me or other gankers kills, and the tanks will be so hurt that that rest my team will decimate them.

As with all ultimates however, I take it at level 6, 11, 16.

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His best combo of skill(In my opinion) is:
Basic(Short fuse), Bouncing Bomb, Hexplosive Minefield behind or infront of them depending on where they are running to, Basic, Bouncing Bomb.

Now if you already cannot tell, my old build is from before the patch where they added Athene's Unholy Grail. I believe that was the Varus patch, but I could be wrong. So I've been working on a new item list with the updated AP Caster items, and well, here it is. I hope you like it as much as you have like my old build.

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I have listed these items at the start first to show that it is definately viable to start with Boots and three Health Potion. Infact, I start most of my games like this so I can dodge all those skill shots from champions like Ahri. It however isn't the only way to start.
You can also start with a Doran's Ring. This is also extremely viable, but you only really want to do this if you like to bully the enemy with your Bouncing Bomb and keep them away from you. The mana regen will let you spam Bouncing Bomb like a pro as long as you time them right. As a side note, try to not use bouncing bomb unless you will get more than one CS(Creep Score) or hit the enemy champion. If there is a good chance of missing both, it is a waste of throwing it out there.

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Now no matter how well you are doing in your game, I always recommend one Doran's Ring. The second however is optional. I always buy it because it gives me the extra mana regen and AP. This allows me to spam and Bouncing Bomb without actually taking Blue Buff. (Never decline Blue Buff if your jungler offers it to you.) If you feel that you are doing well and do not need the second Doran's Ring, then you can opt to skip buying the second Doran's Ring.

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After you buy you Doran's Ring or two of them, you need to upgrade your Boots. I recommend the Sorcerer's Shoes. I feel that they are the best of the available boots.

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Now that you have the tier two boots, Sorcerer's Shoes, we can move onto your strongest and most important item, Rabadon's Deathcap. This is where you get most of your AP, which is where you get most of your AP. Fairly easy to see why this item is important.

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Now this is where you have to look at what is currently happening because at this point, your are either in the roaming phase or the team fight phase. If you are being shut down by the enemy, I recommend buying a Zhonya's Hourglass. Buying this will allow you to Basic attack+ Short Fuse and Bouncing Bomb, then pop the active on Zhonya's Hourglass and use Bouncing Bomb again. This can get you a kill or just hurt them enough that you win the team fight.

If you are doing well, but need alittle more health because of Area of Effect(AoE) damage, I recommend Rylai's Crystal Scepter. This give you more health and a slow will be added onto your Bouncing Bomb. This will allow you to move out of the AoE zone and give you alittle bit of HP to survive AoE burst. Which is honestly all you really need if you move out of the zone. If you have trouble moving out of those zones, I recommend avoid such possible zones or just buy the Zhonya's Hourglass in hope that it's active can still save you. The problem is that it has a rather long cool down versus being able to have a long range slow and move away.

Now onto the Will of the Ancients. I feel that it is a great item, but when I buy this Item, I notice that I rarely get to use the spell vamp that it give due to the fact that when I take damage, I am focused so quickly that I go from full health to dead. This can be problematic if you are trying to get sustain. So pretty much when I have a Will of the Ancients I either am at full health or dead. Therefore the spell vamp is wasted. It is still a viable item buy, but from my experience, I do not recommend it.

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Now that you made it to this point, I recommend getting all of the items listed above. These items, plus you Rabadon's Deathcap are the core items for this build. By having Sorcerer's Shoes, Rabadon's Deathcap, Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Athene's Unholy Grail, and Zhonya's Hourglass you will have so much AP and burst that you will be able to kill most champions with just one combo. And since all of your damage is AoE, yes thats right, you will hit a small area with each combo for full damage. This makes getting kills very easy, and I am sure that you know that one ACE can win you the game no matter the circumstances.

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After you get the five core items you can get your last item. Lich Bane synergizes really well with Ziggs late game because of his high AP and passive Short Fuse. This combo pretty much makes it so your basic attack + Short Fuse takes nearly 50% of their health, if not more (Unless they are a tank). This is the icing on the cake, the trump card that Twisted Fate wishes he had. This can turn a game around so if you need it, do not wait to make it your last purchase, but this is a high risk item. When the enemy sees that you have this (as I found out) they will focus you. If you get this to early, expect a lot of 1 for 1 exchanges because you get one kill and then they kill you. Or you will get ganked ten times in a row and never get another kill. The reason I save this for the last item is by the time I get it, our tank has enough HP, armor, and magic resist to block the damage and attention so I will not get focused quite so fast.

As you know, ganks can be so hard to escape, which often leads to your untimely demise. Which for Ziggs is a short flight and small explosion ( <--He he, see what I did there). This is why we buy Sight Ward and Vision Ward. Now the following image displays the viable ward locations.



Now as you can see, from this image I made for us, we have seven viable warding locations for mid. Now it is always nice if your jungler does your warding, but that can weaken your jungler, so lets go buy a couple to keep everyone alive. Now, for convienance, I have also color coded the wards.


Lets start with the Green Sight Ward. That is the most common, and probably the most helpful spot to place a ward. Make sure it is right in the bush and it will make it 100 times harder to gank if, as long as you keep those wards up. Its that easy.

Moving onto the Yellow Sight Ward. If you are blue team, these are good spots to drop wards because it will let you bully the lane and watch for the jungler. This will tell you if the enemy jungler will try to head to the bush and gank, or run right at you to save their Mid. If you are purple team, this applies to the Red Sight Ward and not the Yellow Sight Ward.

Now from Blue teams perspective yet again, if you are getting bullied and having to turret hug, placing wards on the Red Sight ward locations will give you knowledge on if their jungler or other lane champions plan to run in and dive you. Having this knowledge can get you a kill or two. If your purple team, this applies to the Yellow Sight Ward and not the Red Sight Ward.

Now for that lonely Blue Vision Ward. This is a situational ward. If you are up against stealth champions like Shaco, Twitch, Evelynn, or even Akali you will want a Vision Ward. What this does is make their stealth ability completely useless as you can now see them perfectly. As I said however, this is a situational ward location. If they don't have a stealth champion, it is pointless to place a Vision Ward at the Blue Location unless you are clearing the enemies Vision Ward for your teams stealth champion.

That is all there is to warding mid lane. It is truely that easy.

Well, first lets look at last hitting in general. I think this video by IPL explains it perfectly enough to get the basics down.

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Now after watching that you can see how last hitting helps you out a lot. Well last hitting with Ziggs is the exact same as that video. Wait until they are low, throw a basic attack at them. When you see a weak group of minions (atleast three) you can throw a Bouncing Bomb to REALLY get that farm guarenteed. CS is very important for Ziggs as the build I use can be rather pricy, but I have also never had a game below 150 CS. My average is 200-300. Last hitting can also be the key to getting both Doran's Ring really early to help you dominate Mid Lane.

Well, obviously you all know what a team fight is...I hope. You do know right? Well, a team fight is simply one full team versus another. Believe is or not, this is where Ziggs's damage shines. Throw out mainly just Basic Attacks and Bouncing Bomb, waiting for them to either run or group together. If they run, block their path with a Hexplosive Minefield or knock them backward with a Satchel Charge. HOWEVER if they group up to make themselves harder to kill, c-c-c-combo them!

Basic Attack + Short Fuse -> Bouncing Bomb -> Hexplosive Minefield -> Basic Attack -> Bouncing Bomb. So on and so forth.

IF they group up enough that your ult can hit three or more of them. Use it. The damage from your Mega Inferno Bomb will make short work of their life bars, which will ultimately lead to you winning that team fight.

PRO TIP WITH Ziggs! Never stand in front or in the middle of you team. Be close enough that you can assist perfectly, but not close enough that the enemy team can target and CC you. ALSO never travel alone. If you die, you team is out a good chunk of their damage and this will allow the enemy team to push.

Ziggs, like Ahri, is an amazing ganker for being an AP Carry. His Mega Inferno Bomb can be all the help top or bottom lane needs to win that fight, or maybe just finish them off after they just killed your solo top and you don't want them to hit the turret. He can also run to either lane and simply throw a Hexplosive Minefield to block their escape and then Bouncing Bomb for the burst to either scare them or kill them.

NEVER just run out of the bush during a gank however. It is almost better to sit in the bush and just throw out Bouncing Bomb than to run in their face and let them kill you. Another thing that you can do with Ziggs is use Satchel Charge to jump over walls to cut off enemy escape routes. This can guarentee you an easy kill if you do it right.

Now the items I use are for pure AP with some armor and health at the end for late game fights. As with everything else, items kind of depend on the player, but if you want to decimate every enemy, my build should help you out with that.

First off, at the start of the game these are the starts that you should look at.

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This is always a good start for AP mages because of the health, AP, and mana regen early on. The only downfall with this item, you will end up selling it mid to late game to buy a better one.


This is a standard start and it seems to work out fairly well since you can then upgrade to the Sorcerer's Shoes quickly or Mercury's Treads(if you need the tenacity vs a mostly CC team. The only downfall is that you don't have the extra AP and mana regen in the start which means, you will not lane as long as if you had the Doran's Ring.

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After either start you should always get your boots of choice and then determine if you need the high AP boost of the Rabadon's Deathcap or the slowing effect and health boost of the Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Generally if you lack kills because they run to fast, get the slowing effect. Otherwise the Rabadon's Deathcap is the better choice.

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After you have BOTH of the items, Rabadon's Deathcap AND Rylai's Crystal Scepter you should move onto the Void Staff. This gives you that extra magic penetration to do more damage to champions, and adds 70 AP.

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Once you have the Sorcerer's Shoes, Rabadon's Deathcap, Rylai's Crystal Scepter, and Void Staff, you should then decide which is more important, cool down reduction and AP or spell vamp and AP. In this decision you pretty much have two choices.


I prefer the cool down reduction that Morello's Evil Tome give you, that way Ziggs can spam his Bouncing Bomb and his Hexplosive Minefield will come back sooner. I can however see how the spell vamp can save you in certain situations, but with as squishy as Ziggs is, it can be hard to land more than 1 ability in those times that you need the health. Another choice here is more of a pure AP effect with neither of these boost and that is to buy a second Rabadon's Deathcap. I do this in games where we are just destroying the enemy team and the added AP from Rabadon's Deathcap works just as well.

HINT: Unique Passives DO NOT stack. Having two Rabadon's Deathcap will not give you its special boost twice. Buying the second Rabadon's Deathcap will only add 140 AP + 30% AP boost. No 60% boost will be obtained.

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After the difficult choice of either Will of the Ancients, Morello's Evil Tome, or a second Rabadon's Deathcap, you must then choose between two more items. Depending on the enemies you are facing you can get a Zhonya's Hourglass or a Lich Bane. The Zhonya's Hourglass will give you 100 AP with the 50 armor that you might need vs Garen. The Lich Bane give you the 80 AP and the 30 magic resist that could help against LeBlanc. The bonus with Lich Bane is that it will allow you to do extra damage with your basic attack. Kind of like a second Short Fuse. The Zhonya's Hourglass give you the 2 second stasis that could save your life if they prefer to target you. Assuming you can remember that you can activate the item.

Now I had a comment about Abyssal Mask. It is a great item for ability dependent champions like Ziggs, but Ziggs does rely on his basic attack to trigger Short Fuse.

In this case with Abyssal Mask,
Bouncing Bomb -> Basic Attack( Short Fuse) -> Hexplosive Minefield
The damage from your basic attack( Short Fuse) is lower even with the enemies MR lowered also than if you had Lich Bane. With Lich Bane your Bouncing Bomb now hits harder by 13 AP( Rabadon's Deathcap) and when your Basic Attack Short Fuse hits, they now take AD + Short Fuse + 100% AP(Which is really high 650+). That is my reasoning, but this is a guide, not a law. ^.^

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-> -> -> -> ->

This is what the end of my build usually looks like.

In short, Ziggs is an awesome champion whose range, skill shots, and utility abilities are some of the best in the game. He is amazing to play, horrible to lane against (if they are good), and really just a fun champion. He does, as Phreak says, "Tons of Damage" and is just overall amazing. Send me pictures of your awesomeness with Ziggs and they will definately find their way onto here. Hope to see you around Summoners and do have fun.

Cause why should a game not be fun?

First question/statement:
From Pikachu Hat
...Another thing is to Maybe take Abyssal Mask instead of Lich Bane? im not really sure if the auto attack passive is needed from Lich Bane but if you like it thats totally cool!

Answer:
Okay, I know I already added this to the Item Section due to how amazing this question really is, but I feel that you should be given credit for the suggestion AND make it easier to find my reasoning behind my madness...I MEAN choices. '>.<

Abyssal Mask is a great item for ability dependent champions like Ziggs, but Ziggs does rely on his basic attack to trigger Short Fuse so I feel that since you have to use your basic attack anyway, why not make it even stronger with Lich Bane. Short Fuse is one of the best passives in the game in my opinion, but when you add an item such as Lich Bane your damage will be even higher. Basic + Short Fuse + 100% AP is insane!!!.