belo im bluwunk and im a Smolder OTP :3 i hit Challenger playing mostly Smolder.

I started maining smolder in early 2025 and I became obsessed with his stacking gameplay and late game carrying capabilities. I think he's really fun and he has a lot of cool things he can do! I have a:

Twitch where I stream most of my games,

Discord server where you can be a part of a community and ask me questions.

Youtube channel where I upload stream highlights (and lowlights).


Follow my guide and I'll show you how to do more damage :'3

PASSIVE

Dragon Practice ✦ Whenever Smolder hits an enemy with an ability or last hit a minion with q you will get 1 stack of Dragon Practice. These stacks improve the damage of and upgrade your abilities, so you always want to maximize getting them.

Q

Super Scorcher Breath ✦ Super Scorcher Breath is Smolder's main damage ability. It works kind of like an auto attack, applying on-hit effects and scaling with crit. Super Scorcher Breath has 4 different thresholds depending on how many Dragon Practice stacks Smolder has: At 0 stacks it's basically a glorified auto attack and does about the same damage as one. At 25 stacks the fireball explodes and does the same damage in a small area around its target. At 125 stacks it splashes in a small area behind the target. At 225 stacks it burns anyone hit for a percent of their health as true damage, as well as allowing Smolder to execute anyone below 6.5% health.

W

Achooo! ✦ Achooo! is a pretty standard ability. It's just a fireball shot in a straight line. Whenever it hits someone it does an aoe splash which can also hit another person giving Smolder multiple stacks of Dragon Practice.

E

Flap, Flap, Flap ✦ Flap, Flap, Flap is Smolder'smain movement ability which lets him fly over walls for a short period while giving him vision in the area and shooting 5 bolts at the lowest nearby enemy. Every 100 stacks of Dragon Practice adds another bolt to this attack.

R

MMOOOMMMM! ✦ MMOOOMMMM! calls down Smolder's mom. Her attack has a wide range and anyone who gets hit in the middle takes more damage and gets slowed. It also heals Smolder slightly. This is also Smolder's only ability that doesn't scale with Dragon Practice.

Smolder has a lot of build options for an ADC so it can be hard to figure out what build is best for him. Currently I think there are 2 builds that I go depending on the enemy team comp. In this section I'll explain the builds, the small variations, and when and why I take them.



The Critical Strike Chance build gives you great burst potential as well as the range and mobility of Rapid Firecannon, which is one of the main draws of this build. I used to build more lethality with this build since that gives the most damage on a full rotation, but I found that it's too hard to reliably land W,E,R on squishy champs late game. Going 100% crit gives you the highest damage threat on high range squishy champs lilke ADCs/Mages. Usually at that point an auto + Q is enough to kill them or at least do 80% of their HP bar. This is pretty much my default build now. It has less DPS to front line champs and bruisers, but you generally don't struggle vs those champs anyways. The burst damage from a 100% crit auto+q on squishies gives you the best kill threat on them.


Get these every game

Hubris ✦ Hubris recently was buffed to cost 200 gold less, making it a great rush item. The Essence Reaver build path is also just really bad. Smolder really prefers raw attack damage early over the sheen proc, and small amount of crit. Also Hubris lets you scale harder into the late game cause Attack Damage is his most generally useful stat.

Essence Reaver ✦ Essence Reaver is still a must-buy on Smolder especially in this build.

Rapid Firecannon ✦ Rapid Firecannon has really good synergy with Super Scorcher Breath. You're able to shoot an auto attack and a Q from one Rapid Firecannon proc. Use it to poke teams down before teamfights start.

The order of these can change

Lord Dominik's Regards ✦ Lord Dominik's Regards got it's giant slayer passive back (deal more dmg to champs that have bonus hp so it's a really good buy into hp stackers or even mages or supports that get like 2 items that have some HP. ALSO IF YOU'RE BEHIND you probably have to get this item 4th since once champs get to high levels like 15-18 they get a lot of base armor so you're gonna need your last whisper item to actually do dmg.

Mortal Reminder ✦ Mortal Reminder has 5% less armor penetration than Lord Dominik's Regards but since Smolder does so much mixed damage, he can afford to give up that 5% for anti heal most of the time. However keep in mind you're also losing the Giant Slayer passive on Lord Dominik's Regards and Mortal Reminder is 300g cheaper so make the decision based on all of that VS having anti heal.

Infinity edge ✦ Infinity Edge is a good 4th/5th item because it needs some Critical Strike Chance from your other items to make good use of it's Critical Strike Damage multiplier before being useful. Going Infinity Edge will make it so that when you aa + q on Smolder you'll do a giant burst of damage from far range. Its especially good if you go against a lot of adcs/mages that you can't easily get close to.

Last item can be any of these depending on what you need.

Endless Hunger ✦ Endless Hunger is the new bruiser Ability Haste item that gives 65 Attack Damage and Ability Haste scaling with your bonus Attack Damage. You should end up with like 40 Ability Haste from this item as a 6th item. Its' Omnivamp passive should be pretty easy to trigger as a 6 item Smolder as well. This item is generally going to be your best last item in this build since the rest of the build is lacking in Ability Haste.

Guardian Angel ✦ Guardian Angel is good against undodgeable assassins like Rengar or Talon. Make sure you try to play forward and pressure the enemy team with this item. If you die last in a teamfight there's no point in buying this.

Mercurial Scimitar ✦ Mercurial Scimitar is a fantastic item since it's recent buff. Build this against annoying CC like Skarner or Lissandra or Malzahar. It has enough lifesteal to keep you healthy between fights and the magic resist and Movement Speed on the active are really useful.

Bloodthirster ✦ Bloodthirster is the item that gives the most Attack Damage in the whole game while also giving you Lifesteal. This can be your first End Game Item if you're against a poke champs like Xerath Zyra Vel'Koz.

The Bruiser Build is going to be decent at taking down tanky teams (think Sion Ornn Tahm Kench) while keeping you alive against assassins that are guaranteed to close the gap (think Zed Talon Fiddlesticks). The point of this build is to keep you alive longer with the hp stacking and farm as many Dragon Practice stacks as possible on fat tanks with the huge amount of Ability Haste in the build.

You'll be slightly weaker in the early mid game compared to the other builds but your insane Ability Haste and health and attack damage late game will make you unkillable and do a billion damage.



Get these every game

Essence Reaver ✦ Essence Reaver is Smolder's best item now after they added Sheen back to it. Honestly it's probably getting nerfed soon if I had to guess, all the adcs that build this item look OP right now. POST NERF UPDATE: I WAS RIGHT!!!

Black Cleaver ✦ Black Cleaver gives you Ability Haste which is the main point of this build while also giving you Movement Speed which helps you kite, and Armor shred which will help you and your team kill tanks faster. Having more Ability Haste means spamming more abilites.

Spear of Shojin ✦ Spear of Shojin is a really good item to build against tanks because it gives you percentage damage on all your skills based on how many stacks you maintain. It's especially good with Essence Reaver because you'll be spamming a lot of abilites as both of these items give you Ability Haste

Endless Hunger ✦ Endless Hunger is the new bruiser Ability Haste item. You should end up with like 25-40 Ability Haste from this item by the end of the game. It also gives you a little bit of omnivamp which should be enough to heal up after a little random damage, and some tenacity which should help you not get CC'd to death.

Buy these in whatever order you want

Death's Dance ✦ Death's Dance is a good item because it gives you Ability Haste and Armor along with it's passive which helps you survive dives. Its 50 armor goes a long way with all the health you're building. The heal after takedown is also really useful since it scales with attack damage. This is honestly probably one of Smolder's best items, try to build it if you can.

Overlord's Bloodmail ✦ Overlord's Bloodmail has good synergy with your 2 health items, which give you a bunch of bonus attack damage, and then you get even more haste from Endless Hunger because of all the attack damage Overlord's Bloodmail gives you.

Maw of Malmortius ✦ Maw of Malmortius is a good replacement for Death's Dance if you're against a heavy ability power team.

Maw of Malmortius ✦ Chempunk Chainsword can be built along with Overlord's Bloodmail if you need antiheal.

Smolder only has one super op shoes which is Gluttonous Greaves. It's the best shoe by far because he uses omivamp extremely well.

gluttonous greaves ✦ Gluttonous Greaves is smolder's best shoe, you will probably go this shoe every single game unless they're full ad or ap.

Plated Steelcaps ✦ Plated Steelcaps will make you tankier against heavy attack damage teams or a lot of auto attackers.

Mercury's Treads ✦ Mercury's Treads will make you tankier against ability power damage and give you some tenacity to not get CC'd to death.

Boots of Swiftness ✦ Boots of Swiftness are fine if you can't see much value in either Mercury's Treads or Plated Steelcaps or if you want the slow reduction from Boots of Swiftness.

Ionian boots of Lucidity ✦ Ionian Boots of Lucidity are a lot worse this season than last. Their main advantage in season 15 was upgrading them to Crimson Lucidity, which were OP. Honestly I think current Ionian Boots of Lucidity in their current form are bait. The 10 Movement Speed from Boots of Swiftness is better than the 10 Ability Haste that this item gives.

CRIT BUILD

PROS:

- Highest auto+Q Burst dmg
- Highest range with Rapid Firecannon

CONS:

- Low Haste unless you get Endless Hunger last but if you do that then you're really squishy at 6 items
- Can be worse at killing tanks.

BRUISER BUILD

PROS:

- Highest survivability build
- Highest haste build as well, can help you stack very fast.

CONS:

- damage can be low before 225
- need to buy Essence Reaver first and deal with its bad build path

I go this page most games since generally Deathfire Touch is Smolder's most consistent keystone and Jack of all Trades has huge value if you can stack it, which you can with the crit build.

Deathfire Touch ✦ Deathfire Touch is Smolder's best rune as all of his abilities use it really well esppecially his Super Scorcher Breath ability. You can almost always proc 4+ seconds of Deathfire Touch on smolder dealing dobule damage.

Nimbus Cloak ✦ Nimbus Cloak was buffed towards the end of last season and has reall good synergy with Barrier due to its low cooldown. Try to not Flash and Barrier at the same time since the movement speed wont stack.

Celerity ✦ Celerity has great synergy with all the other movement speed runes i like to take like Nimbus Cloak and the movement speed shard. It also helps you get your entire Flap, Flap, Flap damage. The other two runes in this slot, Transcendence and Absolute Focus are ok too though if you prefer them, there's not too much of a difference but I prefer Celerity.

Gathering Storm ✦ Gathering Storm is the only rune I'd suggest in this slot since Smolder can't really take advantage of Scorch.

Magical footwear ✦ Magical Footwear is super good especially if you take it with Movement Speed shard and Celerity. I like to sit on unupgraded boots until after 3rd item most games. You can also go Cash Back here if you prefer it but both are good.

Jack of All Trades ✦ Jack of all Trades is the best minor rune if you're able to take advantage of it. After you get Serrated Dirk + Glowing Mote you get 6 extra Attack Damage. You can also hit 10 jack stacks late game in all of the builds other than the bruiser build so don't take this rune if you go that build.

I won't talk too much about this page since it's the same thing as the Arcane Comet page except with First Strike instead. First Strike can be Smolder's best rune if you're able to proc it reliably. It works well since most of his damage is very front-loaded. Basically it's good for the same reasons that Press the Attack can be hard to use. Anyways I don't run it often cause I sometimes run it down to get the First Strike gold LOL but it's a good rune I swear.


These stat shards apply to all builds

Stat shard 1

• Adaptive Force is the best general option since most of the time you want the Movement Speed shard in the second slot.
• Ability Haste is the best for scaling into late game but it kinda makes your lane unplayable so only go this if its a free lane

Stat shard 2

• Adaptive Force is a viable option for more early game damage.
• Movement Speed is the best option right now because they buffed it and if you combine it with Celerity you move really fast.

Stat shard 3

• Flat health is good if you're worried about early lane being rough
• Scaling health is better in general since you want to play passive early most of the time

Starting in season 16, getting back to lane is really fast due to the buffed homeguards. Because of this, I no longer take Teleport since the homeguards get you back to lane so fast anyways. If you have Barrier try to use it as often as possible in short trades since it's a low cooldown. In a hard lane where you get poked out really hard early (think Caitlyn Karma), I usually back when I'm low and buy Cull.
Level 1-3 is pretty simple, your main goal is to try and farm with Super Scorcher Breath and hit the enemy laners with Achooo! as much as possible to hit 25 stacks. Before getting 25 stacks, try to not commit to long fights and focus on short trades/getting stacks because Smolder is super weak before 25 stacks. When trading level 1, do not trade without Super Scorcher Breath up. Most of the time you should have the lane shoved towards you so it's safer. After 25 stacks you can start to put a little more pressure onto the enemy team as you can now push faster and do more damage through minions with AOE. Try and look for scenarios to land Super Scorcher Breath on minions or so you can splash damage onto their ADC while they're CS'ing. You should also try to time Achooo! to hit them while they try to last hit.


Here's an example of a quick trade pattern for early game. This trade is almost always going to be in your favor if you don't eat any huge skillshots (think Kai'Sa Void Seeker) or get all-inned afterwards (like getting hit by Draven Stand Aside or Thresh Death Sentence'd).



Here's an example of good farming with Super Scorcher Breath at 25 stacks (ignore the minion minions)


Smolder's mid game is pretty strong as long as you don't get absolutely demolished in laning phase. After rotating to mid lane, I try to take raptors on repeat as this camp gives a lot of stacks. In fights you should be looking to splash your q onto their backlines whether it's through Super Scorcher Breath'ing the minions or objectives. Your goal mid game is just to push mid wave on repeat and rotate to fights that are happening on the map. At this point you should be able to get 4-6 Dragon Practice stacks per wave. Position yourself to Super Scorcher Breath the backline minions to hit the enemy if they are also hitting the wave that you are. Other than that, your mid game is pretty similar to every other ADC.


Here's a clip of me poking people and being annoying with Super Scorcher Breath in the mid game. Do this as much as possible to get extra stacks and poke people down.


I wouldn't have gotten this Super Scorcher Breath to land without Rapid Firecannon it's really good :D



Once you've finished your Rapid Firecannon (Ideally you have 225 at 3 items), what you should be doing is poking enemies with Super Scorcher Breath from afar to set up fights. Being able to chunk people before team fights is pivotal, as it can set your team up for success. Your goal is to do as much damage as you can while not dying, use your Flap, Flap, Flap intelligently as it can help you play aggressive without being caught. It's important that you use your Flap, Flap, Flap to fly over walls and disengage especially against champions can't follow ( Flap, Flap, Flap over a wall after Nocturne uses Paranoia on you). Try to look for opportunities to hit enemies with the center of your MMOOOMMMM!, don't just use it whenever you feel like it. A good time to use it would be when someone gets CC'd or in the middle of a team fight because not a lot of people would be paying attention to your ult because it usually isnt very highly impactful. A bad time to use it is at the beginning of a team fight to engage. Because MMOOOMMMM! is really slow, it won't hit them most of the time.


Here's what your MMOOOMMMM! can look like if you're patient with them. They're usually so much better if you wait for someone to get CC'd first.

Super Scorcher Breath-
One really cool thing you can do with Super Scorcher Breath is use and auto attack and a Super Scorcher Breath with the same Rapid Firecannon proc.

Here's me using Super Scorcher Breath and an auto attack with the same Rapid Firecannon proc on a target dummy cause i was too lazy to find a real clip c:

Achooo!-
You can start Achooo! as a first ability if you're going against long ranged bot lanes that don't allow you to walk up and auto the wave. This lets you trade with them while staying a safe distance.
Also I usually start Achooo! if I see 5 people invading for free 5 stacks and better AOE damage. You should only use this ability if you know you're going to hit it, hold onto it if you don't think you can as this ability uses a lot of mana. When you don't have w, your skirmishes and trades are going to be significantly weaker.
One more thing you can do is a Achooo! + Flash combo. You can start to buffer Achooo! and then use Flash into the rest of your combo to get some quick unexpected damage on someone.

Flap, Flap, Flap -
Most people don't use this ability to deal damage and only use it as an escape tool. Flap, Flap, Flap actually does a lot more damage than you would expect it to, especially with the Hubris build. A cool thing you can do with E is if you're getting tower doved, you can fly into the wall on the bottom side and this will make it hard for the enemies to hit you. You can still get CC'd so try to do it before you get cc'd and try to dodge cc while in the wall.

Since Smolder's execute only works on damage HE applies, a cool thing you can do once you hit 225 stacks is you can use Flap, Flap, Flap to execute enemies after you apply your burn on them at low health. Flap, Flap, Flap does a lot of burst damage which can guarantee you an execute.

Here's a clip of me showing a great way to survive dives using Flap, Flap, Flap. If you've ever seen a Kayn use Shadow Step outside the map to get away, this is kind of the same idea.

Here's a clip showing what I mean with finishing off someone with Flap, Flap, Flap. It's a great way to confirm a kill once you hit 225 Dragon Practice stacks.

If you press Super Scorcher Breath or any ability while flying with Flap, Flap, Flap, it'll end the ability early. You can use this to your advantage to decide which side of a wall to land on while also using your Super Scorcher Breath or Achooo! on somebody like I did in this clip.

You can also bait out abilities by faking out flying to one side of a wall then going to another like in this clip.


MMOOOMMMM! -
MMOOOMMMM! is an extremely slow moving ability. In a 1v1 try to combo it off of your Achooo! to make it easier to land the center. One cool thing you can do is you can ult backwards to make it easier to get a Center hit. It's a very situational but it can make or break your fight. Usually you should use it in a 1v1 against the other ADC to ensure that you do enough damage to kill them. This can also work against a Braum Unbreakable since it only blocks skillshots from the front.

The backwards MMOOOMMMM! (right) hits way faster

If you want to play Smolder not in the bot lane, the second best lane would be top and then mid.

Smolder in solo lane is a lot more difficult than bot lane due to him being incredibly easy to kill so it's best that you pick smolder solo lane as a counter pick against Malzahar, Galio, Yorick etc...

As for the builds for solo lanes, if you're going the lethality build you can swap out Bastionbreaker for shoes any shoe you might need.
And in thte bruiser build you can swap out one of the tank items for any shoe.

IM ACTUALLY PLAYING A BIT OF SMOLDER MID SO I'll make a Smolder mid guide soonish.

16.6
- ADDED A NEWER DEFAULT BUILD (crit build)

16.4
- added new default build

16.1
- entire build overhaul and added a couple clips to the tips & tricks

15.21
- lifesteal on Doran's Blade removed so Jack of all Trades is a bit nerfed but it was OP enough that my builds aren't changing. You just hit the 5/10 jack stacks a bit later.

15.22
- Going Movement Speed stat shard with Magical Footwear now because the Movement Speed stat shard got buffed so it's really good with Magical Footwear. Can also go Celerity if you feel like it's a good game for it.