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Choose Champion Build:
-
Standard Tank
-
Recommended Items
Spells:
Ghost
Ignite
Items
Ability Order
Berserker Rage (PASSIVE)
Olaf Passive Ability
Introduction

Updated items. Guide itself will be done soon.
My guide focuses on Survivability + DPS Olaf who can not only dish out damage, but take some too. What makes it different to many of the other Olaf guides out there (or similar to the good ones) is that it actually tells you how to play with him, tips and tricks that could come handy e.t.c rather than only the showing/explaining the build.
Credits to:
~~ "Qmonster" for his suggestion on Frozen Mallet
~~ "BusDriver210" for suggesting the different Rune options.
~~ "rembot" for suggesting to give and explain different boots + reminding me about the different options in jungling.
~~ "jhoijhoi" for her awesome Guide Template as-well as her dividers!
~~ "BusDriver210" for suggesting the different Rune options.
~~ "rembot" for suggesting to give and explain different boots + reminding me about the different options in jungling.
~~ "jhoijhoi" for her awesome Guide Template as-well as her dividers!


Pros:
+ Good early game damage with Reckless Swing.
+ Great chaser with Undertow if you can land it.
+ Decimates carries with his "True Damage".
+ Can soak up a lot of damage and extremely hard to kill late-game.
+ He's a fricken Viking!
+ Good early game damage with Reckless Swing.
+ Great chaser with Undertow if you can land it.
+ Decimates carries with his "True Damage".
+ Can soak up a lot of damage and extremely hard to kill late-game.
Cons:
- Prone to early game harassment and easily kited.
- Mana problems early game when being aggressive without Blue Buff.
- No natural escape mechanism pre-6.
- One of the most item/gold dependent champions in the game.

- Prone to early game harassment and easily kited.
- Mana problems early game when being aggressive without Blue Buff.
- No natural escape mechanism pre-6.
- One of the most item/gold dependent champions in the game.


Greater Mark of Attack Damage: Greatly helps last hitting in the laning phase as-well as general use.
Greater Seal of Armor - Armor to make you more tankier while you decimate their carries.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist - MPlv > Flat as most AP carries tend to scale well into late-game and your less likely to face one at top anyway.
Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage Provides some AD as just Arp is useless.

Viable Runes

Greater Mark of Desolation - Again, same as Aspd, I wouldn't recommend going full 9 with these, rather a mix (Something like 6-3, or 3-6 if using AD Quints) on these with AD



P.S If you feel there are more viable ones, please feel free to mention them in the comments. I will most likely +Rep you too if I feel they are acceptable.



Most people use teleport getting back to their lanes after recalling back, thinking "Oh, it's just a summoner spell to help me farm more!" Wrong. If you think that's what it's for, DO NOT GET IT! Teleport can be used defensively (The most obvious way) as-well as offensively (In ways many people do not exploit). Your team setting up for dragon? Push lane, recall to base, run to dragon, get it before the enemy even notice, and TP back to lane like nothing happened (OR Vice Versa). Read the section on teleport for tips and tricks on how to use it appropriately.

Ghost vs Flash. It's a common debate and in my opinion, it differs for each champ. Since Olaf is tanky, ghost proves more useful than flash because of the lower CD, and better distance covered by it in total. And it seems that after the Flash nerf, although it isn't much, ghost is definitely the better alternative for me.

Viable Options

Pretty viable on Olaf, probably the best choice after Ghost, although for some peoples play style it might even prove more useful. Try it out and see which suits you. However, this remains to be the seen after the Flash nerf.

Useful for health regen champs like Mundo and for finishing of fleeing champs, but I find that with ghost/exaust and your Undertow/Reckless Swing, finishing them off is an easy task.

Can help you get back to lane faster or defend/backdoor at will, but 1 of your means for chasing/escaping has to be taken away, which I feel is not a worthy substitute. Again, personal preference.
If your Solo Top however, which you most likely will be, check who is most likely to be your opponent. If it's someone you can dominate easily, get


It's obvious that you must take this if jungling, and don't think, for even one second that you can, or rather should, jungle without this. No doubt if youv'e been playing a while you will probably have seen champions like WW jungle without a smite once in a while ... well, not only does it slow you down, but you have no real guarantee of protecting your buffs, dragons and barons from an enemy team so yea ...
The rest you ask...? Well their not even worth mentioning for Olaf!



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• However, if they decide to to leave you completely alone, and engage in mid 5v4, you MUST, MUST go help mid rather than getting the tower unless it's like 1-2 hits away from falling. |
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For each 1% health missing, Olaf's attack speed is increased by 1%.
This will make your attack speed go through the roof when low on health, but can be a problem as Olaf has pretty low ASpd without items when full with health.

Olaf throws an axe to a target location, dealing 50 / 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 (+1 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to units it passes through and slowing them by 24 / 28 / 32 / 36 / 40% for 2.5 seconds. If Olaf picks up the axe, the ability's cooldown is reduced by 6 seconds.
Does what the description says. In the recent patch, this has been changed to +1 AD ratio but now results from BONUS AD only. So see your starting 55 AD (Usually), that won't count for 55 extra damage. Although

This skill is what differentiates the "Good" Olaf's from the "Bad" Olaf's. Also, this is your only from of CC (slow) so you must use it wisely when chasing or running. Also note that throwing this somewhere will reveal a small area around where the axe lands for a short time, so it is a good tool for checking bushes.
Scenario 1: Olaf is chasing a Xin Zhao who is 1 Reckless Swing away from death, but has greater MSpd than you. Olaf uses undertow at full range, hits Xin, but he still manages to get away as the slow did not last long enough and wasn't that strong for you to catch up.
Scenario 2: Exactly the same as 1, but this time, Olaf uses his Undertow to hit just ahead of Xin, so he is able to pick it back up, and throw it again giving you enough slow time to Reckless Swing that Asian pain the the butt to death.
You decide which is better.

For 6 seconds, Olaf's attack damage is increased by 7 / 14 / 21 / 28 / 35 base damage plus 1% of his max health. While active, Olaf gains 9 / 12 / 15 / 18 / 21% lifesteal and spell vamp
In the latest patch,

The lifesteal/spell vamp isn't noticeable until rank 3 or so, but the AD bonus is definitely nice. You always want to be using this in fights. Never think that the life-steal will prevent you from getting low HP to benefit from your passive is better than the AD bonus and a potential life-saver.

Olaf deals 100/160/220/280/340 True Damage to his target and 40/64/88/112/136 true damage to himself.
Your main nuking ability Early-Mid game, and late game tank mince-meat maker also. It dosen't scale that well into late-game, as 360 damage isn't much, but if it was increased, maxing it early and utter dominating early-mid would be too OP. Use this with your Undertow combo in lane for harrasing you laner. And since the mana cost has been taken off, it's even more useful. Also, the reason I now go with Armor and HP pots is so that I can repeatedly use this skill and recover the damage I take from Opponent/Minions/Skill usage.

Active: For 6 seconds, Olaf breaks all CC on him currently and is immune to disables. Also gives flat Armor/Magic Resist: Passive: Olaf has 30/45/60 increased armour penetration.
In some ways this is better, in some ways it is worse. The flat 60 MR/Armor isn't bad, and although the previous flat damage reduction which workes for DoT's like ignite e.t.c doesn;t apply to this now, it is still....o.k.
-
1.The passive is not to be ignored. 30 Armor Pen is quite a lot.
2.Immune to ALL disables. Any form of CC, e.g. stun,silence,fear,slow e.t.c. And now breaks any your'e in currently as-well ^-^
3. 60 Armor/MR just makes you tankier and tankier.
This is what makes you that "Anti-Carry". Rushing in, immune to all forms of CC, soaking up quite a bit of damage, completely obliterating the opponent carry then running out like it's a walk in the park, only with a angry bunch of mob attacking you with everything they got. All in a day's work for Olaf! ;)


I focus on levelling



-EDIT: Changed the skilling order, but the info below still applies if you need the slow more than that life-steal off minions.
You my be curious as to why I don't level my Vicious Strikes when I have so many HP items? The reason is,simply because it is not worth it until you actually GET the HP items. So as soon as I feel I start to get Warmog's (Or Frozen Mallet/Anything else, whichever I decide to go with first), e.g. [Giant's Belt, I start levelling my


Balanced Team
If you are against a pretty balanced team, but more oriented towards melee (e.g. AP mid,Range AD, AD Jungler,AD-Bruiser Top), only put 1 point in



However, feel free to put in 1 or 2 points before Lv14 as-well if you feel they are getting away too often.


First of, let me make this clear. There never is a "build". I cannot tell you what to buy for every match. You must think for yourself, who does the enemy team consist of? Who poses the most threat? Assessing the situation, you must then go onto buying the proper items.
Even the item "build" in the sheet above is merely what someone might buy in "one" match. It could differ drastically the next.All I can give you is a picture of what items would help you more in certain situations. The following build is just a general outline, a build that might be used against a balanced enemy team where both teams are similar in kills on each champ, so no 18/4 fed carries, but your team lacks a full on tank to take the brunt of the damage which often comes your way when you initiate.

This item at first glance might only seem good for junglers, but in reality, it is a GREAT item for laning too. Not only does it provide you with a free ward every 3 minutes to stop a gank, it has great lifesteal, armor and if that wasan't enough, a chance to hit for 500 dmg on a minion! Sure, not as much useful in lane as jungling, but still speeds up farming a lot. Most of the time when getting this, you can dominate lanes even if you seemed to have trouble with them beforehand. So definitely consider this. Now after trying it out, I would even consider this, in many cases, BETTER than the other options. Actually, after playing with it even more, I would DEFINITELY recommend this. Oh and if you do decide to get this, start with



I sometimes start off with this (Mostly in Twisted Treelin only though) as it can really help save your *** when you would have otherwise died without it.

Another items which nearly always make, no matter what the enemy team composition. Helps you slow down enemies as early on, your Undertow probably won't be good enough. Not to mention the health bonus.
After phage, you must look at the enemy team, and ask yourself the questions I wrote above. Ill re-illiterate: Is their team AD or AP based, or is it very balanced? If it is balanced, who poses the most threat? With the answers to those questions, you decide on what to build. The other viable options will be explained in the "Situational Items" section



Start working on this, but I usually get




The health bonus synergies's well with your Vicious Strike and helps you take a lot more damage. The thing with Olaf is that you can build a lot of tanky items, and still get a fearsome amount of damage due to Vicious Strike and


Not only does this give you 18% Critical Strike and 45 armour, as just health is useless, it synergies's EXTREMELY well with HP items, namely Warmog's/Frozen Mallet which are very common on Olaf. At first glance, 2% might not seem much, but with 4k hp, this adds up to 80 AD. And that's a whopping amount for an item costing only 2.3k!!

The health regen is great, especially when you have 4k+ hp, making it around 40 HP per 5 + 14 per 1 sec = 110 HP regen per 5 seconds. The movement speed bonus is not it's main factor, but don't under-estimate it. Now here comes the main part, 76 magic resist. The most on 1 item in the whole game!! Feel free to swap Atmas - This order depending on how well you are doing.

This is a great finishing item to get on Olaf after games have dragged on too long. Sell your wriggles and get this to be truly feared. There's 1 in a million chance of you dying, unless your'e team/you are stupid, and getting this means pretty much securing a win for your team if they are at-least smart enough to back you up. But don't get overly cocky, running in 1v5 thinking your totally un-kilable is well... I'll leave you to find out what it is.


Boots
As you know, every champ must have a pair of boots, and there isn't just 1 "Set in Stone" choice for Olaf, so here I will go into detail about the different options available, and when and why to get them.

These are pretty standard boots, the ones I usually use, since most of the time, I am facing against a pretty balanced team composition, with some form of CC or another. Also, the 25 MR is also very useful as they will be looking to burst you down before you get too tanky/strong for them to handle, so they really help. The Tenacity is no joke either, as it helps a LOT, especially when your against people such as



If you feel that there isn't any Major threat from CC or AP casters, these would definitely be a great choice. The Aspd is useful on any AD champ, and its definitely not an exception on Olaf, as his Aspd is fairly low, unless missing a lot of your health to fully utilize your passive.

Not seen on Olaf much, but if you feel than you are not in need of Aspd or MR/Tenacity, feel free to get these as they help greatly in chasing/escaping since Olaf is a fairy slow champion.

Facing off against champs like




Offensive




Or get Trinity Force if you are doing well (And have a main tank) since the movement speed bonus as-well as damage buff proc when you spam your











Defensive


Also, the active (60 sec CD) slows the ASpd and Mspd of all surrounding enemies by 35% for 2 seoncds (+0.5 per 100 Arm/MR, so 1.5 + 2 = 3.5 with this "build"). Quite useful for shutting down Aspd champs like






If you feel that you are having to use you ultimate quite frequently, and don't always have it up when facing off in team fights, feel free to get this.


Early game, you want to focus on last hitting as much as you can, but frequently harassing your opponent/s with Undertow. Watch your enemy and as soon as they come close to you, Attack them once -> Undertow -> Attack again and back off. Although be careful since using undertow every single time it's up can create mana problems, and you definitely don't wan't to get caught in a situation where you are running from an enemy and you don't have enough mana to slow them, getting you killed where you normally would have survived.
Some melee champions that will prove hard laning against include:
Note however, always leave enough mana for at-least 1 more Undertow. You never wan't to get caught in a bad situation where you hae no mana and that Undertow would have most likely saved you (When you summoner spells are used up, or even when they are up, as Summoner Spells >>>>>> 1 8 sec skill xD)

As for champions that are laning with you, the following are those that shine above the rest. These include
Blitzcrank,
Sona and
Janna.
Blitzcrank's grab is what will help you dominate your lane. Your best bet is getting
Reckless Swing at Lv1 and just waiting for Blitz to land that grab. If your opponent does manage to get away, using summoner spells most likely, just wait for Lv2 as Blitz will have his knock-up and you, your slow. Add an Exhaust if you didn't already use it and this pretty much GUARANTEES a kill, most likely a First Blood for you! ;)
Sona can keep you healthy on both HP and Mana, while also slowing down your enemies. This really increases your harassing ability with Undertow if the enemy is ranged, and keeping their distance, or Vicious Strike if its another melee champ. However, it is her ultimate,
Crescendo is what makes her really shine.
Janna's shield and knock up will allow you to easily land your
Undertow and get up close and personal with
Reckless Swing while taking minimal damage as-well as increasing your overall damage with the AD boost. Not to mention her slow!
/Other champions with CC to hold enemies into place, hard slows e.t.c.
Some melee champions that will prove hard laning against include:
Tryndamere - (Good ones of-course)
Irelia - Early on you should be OK, maybe a little danger. Later on you have the advantage.
Jax - Early, you should dominate him. But watch out when he gets that farm up as he can obliterate you. So focus on abusing your early advantage.
Renekton - He can throw you around like your'e made of nothing and totally abuse you early if the player is intelligent. Wait to get your items (Wriggles) and try to not take too much harass from him early and you should be completely fine mid-early.
Yorick - Never personally played against him as Olaf, but have played vs a Olaf using Yorick. I seemed to obliterate him but then again, he wasn't a pro Olaf.. =/
Garen - This guy can be pretty tricky as he is sort of an Anti-Melle so call for a gank as most Garen players I meet aren't that smart and auto-push lanes with Spin2Win so do that, get fed, and own. But do it early as his Spin2Win is soo annoying when all your CC's get destroyed
Note however, always leave enough mana for at-least 1 more Undertow. You never wan't to get caught in a bad situation where you hae no mana and that Undertow would have most likely saved you (When you summoner spells are used up, or even when they are up, as Summoner Spells >>>>>> 1 8 sec skill xD)

As for champions that are laning with you, the following are those that shine above the rest. These include










/Other champions with CC to hold enemies into place, hard slows e.t.c.


*Under Construction*
This usually marks the end of the laning phase, and people are starting to gank. You want to be ganking whenever you can, and farming as much as you can as-well, since if you start lagging behind, it can be hard to catch up as Olaf is a very item reliant champion.
If you see your jungle is fully up, take the time to clear it out (If your have no jungler/you are the jungler), and if needed, for e.g there is a enemy jungler, the other team's buffs as-well. However, be careful if there is more than 2-3 people MIA/SS.
Also be sure to take dragon whenever possible, as that 190 Global Gold + 25 for kill adds up as you keep getting it. Be sure to have at least 2-3 team members nearby, if not helping, to kill it, as there could be an enemy ward (Although there SHOULDN'T be, someone with oracle should have cleared it) hence, the enemy team could be coming to get you. Unless of course you can see where they all are on the map. However, note that once you get



In a balanced where where neither you nor the enemy team has been fed, but you are (hopefully) on a positive KDA (Kills-Deaths-Assist), you should have built your 3-4 main items, namely boots - trinity force - warmogs - atmas (Just an example), making you quite tanky while still having a lot of damage potential. You want to be roaming around looking for any targets that are alone, and away from the enemy team. Of course, never do this when 2 or more members are MIA/SS. Pick them off for easy kills, or make them think twice before trying to push/back-door.
As for team fights, you want to wait till your tank iniates, or in the case you are the tank, wait till one of them get out of position, and iniate the fight. Turn on your Ult BEFORE you run in, and head straight for the carry. You should be able to stay alive long enough, considering your build+damage reduction from

However, note that unless you are playing with people that you know the capabilities off, you should be wary doing this, as many times my team has failed to follow me in resulting in me being rapes and called a noob...
If things get bad, as most of the time they will keep focusing you even when the rest of the team is (hopefully) taking care of the rest), simply ghost out and wait till they get low to come back in and clean up.


Olaf is a very viable Jungler, and is one of the fastest junglers at this moment in time ( Shyvanna being the fastest)
His ganks are sub-par, and rely on you landing


Item Build
Item Sequence






Cloth Armor
300

Boots
300

Madred's Razors
750

Wriggle's Lantern
1800
Feel free to switch Cloth Armor with Boots depending on weather you plan on doing a early gank or not. After that, go according to the items I have mentioned in my Item Sequence/Viable Items.

Runes
Runes



- Greater Mark of Desolation: Awesome marks that allow you to pretty much do True Damage to most mobs as-well as keep you hitting through the armour of enemy champs in Mid-Late game where as completely eradicating it early on.
Greater Mark of Attack Speed: Greatly increases your Aspd, allowing you to clear jungle camps faster which in turn also reduce the need to be at low HP and be at risk of dying.
Greater Mark of Attack Damage: Another standard for AD champs. And as always, it helps with jungle time, like the rest of these runes do.
One thing to keep in mind for marks is that on


Runes



- Greater Seal of Resillience: Pretty much standard on 95% of jungler's, and
Olaf is no exception. However, if you really feel the need to do so, feel free to swap these out for the only other choice I feel is even slightly reasonable;
Greater Seal of Attack Speed.
Runes



Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: You need to be tanky against those pesky mages. These get the job done.Simple. The reason I choose these over
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist is because of the fact that jungle mobs are mostly AD, and we have no good Magic Resistance going into late-game, so these fare better in my opinion.
Runes



Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed: Read Below.
- Greater Quintessence of Desolation: Read Below.
Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: Read Below.
Ok, now the part that I wanted you to read. As I explained in my Marks section, getting a 6:3 combination fares better than the usual 9, but that choice all depends on what you choose for the Quints, with a touch of your personal preference as-well.
Attack Speed
Attack Damage
Armour Penetration
........ (To be finished when I have time)[/b]
Masteries
Summoner Spells
Smite: An ABSOLUTE MUST for any jungler. Don't think that just because you CAN jungle without it, it's any good.
When the time comes where you are getting your Buffs/Dragon/Baron stolen for not havingSmite then you will regret not taking it.
Ghost: Very useful for chasing enemies for the kill or running away from enemies, as-well as getting to a team fight you you are getting a little late to.
I takeGhost over
Flash because I feel I know how much damage I can take, thus can utilise Ghost properly in fights.
Flash: A great "I NEED TO GTFO" ability, or to Flash - Kill/Chase someone. A spell that's useful to pretty much every champ out there.
Get this if you are new to Olaf and aren't certain of how much damage you can take with him to successfully utilise Ghost.
Ability Sequence
This changes depending on which route you take,see below.

Jungle Routes
Start off by buying either a




Route 1 - Blue:
1. Start at Golem (Blue Buff) with 1 point in

2. Same technique with the Wolf Cap. Remember, always focus the big one first.
3. Smite the big, blue wraith and continue Undertow'ing those wraiths.
4. Double Golems, same as the previous ones. Then go B to heal.
5. Lizard Elder (Red Buff). After this, you can look for ganks.
6. If there are none, you can either continue jungling, going b to buy

Route 2 - Double Trouble:
1. Start with double golems, but this time getting

2. Onto wraiths, smiting the big one, and remember to use your

3. Wolf camp.
4. Blue buff. Ask for a pull if someone is near or you think you cant kill it without one. then go B.
5. Lizard Elder (Red Buff)
6. Gank, if not, continue jungling :)
Route 3 - Jungle Thief*:
1. Start in the enemies blue, asking your team for support. Get

2. Onto their wolf camp.
3. From there, go to your double golems. You will most likely have to B now.
4. Lizard Elder.
5. Your Wraiths
6. Your wolves.
7. Blue.
8. Gank if you can :o
Route 4 - Jungle Thief V2*:
1. Get

2. Head over to your wolves.
3. Your wraiths now, smite the big one.
4. Onto Double Golem's . Most likely B now,
5. Your Blue - Wolves - Wraiths - Red and then Gank.
Route 5 - Sneaky Jungle*:
1. Start with their double golems. Ask for support from top and/or mid.
2. Onto your blue.
3. Wolves.
4. Wraiths.
4. Double Golems. Most likely you will have to B now.
6. Lizard Elder.
7. Check and ward their blue. If it's there, feel free to grab it but with caution.
* These are most useful when there is an enemy jungler.
P.S Don't think that you must only gank when I say so in the above routes. Any time you see someone over-extending, and you think you can gank successfully (E.G Your health isn't too low, your partner is healthy enough to help - duo lane enemies e.t.c)


Overall,

Up-vote if you liked the guide, and down-vote if you feel it is necessary, but please inform me what it is that made you down-vote, as I would like this guide as best as I can.
Good luck, and have fun laughing at people when they try to pick you off for a easy kill seeing as your low hp. ;)
~ Shadow

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