Who am I?



Hey everybody! My name is Netwoorkz and in this guide I will try and share some knowledge on my favorite ADC Caitlyn.
I've been playing LoL since season 1 and I felt like I should contribute something to the community by sharing my wisdom of this game. Im not saying that's its the best kind of wisdom, because there's probably people who do it better, but I'm going to give it a shot anyways.

I play on the EUW server and am currently in Plat V!

This guide is going to be focused on Caitlyn, who used to be a underestimated ADC but made a realy good comeback in seasn 3!

At the moment I main Mid and AD.

Let's cut this chatter and move on to the actual guide shall we?

Base Stats


Damage : 47 (+3 / per level)
Health : 390 (+80 / per level)
Mana : 255 (+35 / per level)
Move Speed : 325
Attack Speed : 0.668 (+3%)
Armor : 13 (+3.5 / per level)
Magic Resist : 30
Health Regen : 4.75 (+0.55 / per level)
Mana Regen : 6.5 (+0.55 / per level)
Range : 650


Pro's:

She has a long range harass in lane
Great escaping potential
Usually pretty safe in a teamfight because of her range
She scale's pretty well into late game
Her traps give her some good map control, especcialy early game
Dat gun...

Con's:

Slowpoke might be faster then her (she's a slow)
Early game loss is usually a late game loss
Not the strongest mid game
Her ult is very situational
Did I mention that she's slow?

Passive: Headshot

Explanation:
Every 8 / 7 / 6 attacks (at level 1 / 7 / 13) (attacks while in brush count as 2), Caitlyn will fire a headshot, dealing either 150% damage to a champion or 250% damage to a minion.

To sum this ability up fast: more damage. Its a very straight forward passive and it doesn't realy need that much of explanation in my opinion. But there are some things that you could keep in mind:

This is a great harass tool for laning. If you want to go agressive on the enemy, make sure you hit every single Headshot Passive on the enemy AD Carry. You can refresh this ability faster when you are standing in your brush, so make good use of this.
If you don't want to go agressive on the enemy, use this ability to last hit enemy minions (like Siege Minions). This gives you guaranteed gold.

The passive also allows Caitlyn to get either Red or Blue buff extremely fast. Do this by standing in the brush. Again, this makes your passive cooldown proc two times faster




Q: Piltover Peacemaker

Explanation:
Caitlyn revs up her rifle for 1 second to unleash a penetrating shot which deals 20 / 65 / 110 / 155 / 200 (+130% Attack Damage) physical damage (deals 10% less damage to subsequent targets, with a maximum loss of 50%).

This spell is great for laning. It's realy good for harassing early game and it also hurts quite a bit. Use this if you want to push your lane and use it to deny the enemy AD Carry's farm. NOTE: Make sure river and tri bush is warded when you do this!
Since Piltover Peacemaker is considered a 'nuking' skill, it obviously means that it's realy strong early game and early mid game, but falls away late game because your Auto Attacks are stronger then your skill. However, you can still use this skill if you time it well. Auto attack and inmediatly after use your Peacemaker for great succes




W: Yordle Snap Trap

Explanation:
Caitlyn sets up to three traps to find sneaky yordles, which trigger on champions. When sprung, the trap immobilizes the target, reveals them for a short duration, and deals 80/130/180/230/280 (+80% of ability power) magic damage over 1.5 seconds.

Traps last for 4 minutes.

Cooldown 20/17/14/11/8

Cost 50 mana

Range 500

Great escape tool combined with your . Who's that comming out of the brush? !!! Place trap, E away. Great succes!
Also, this is one of the main skill that makes people rage when it comes to Caitlyn's Enemy tries to escape after a teamfight through the river, trap is placed, Boom... headshot ;)

Not only can this be an escape tool for yourself, it can also be used for a friendly on your team. Example: Olaf comes in to kill your AP Carry. Olaf is a melee champ and needs to get realy close to deal alot of damage. Prevent this by placing a trap in the escape path of your friendly AP Carry or right on him. Great succes for trapping Bruisers.




E: 90 Caliber Net

Explanation:
Caitlyn fires a net to slow her target by 50% for 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds. This deals 80/130/180/230/280 (+80% of ability power) magic damage and knocks Caitlyn back.

Cooldown 18/16/14/12/10 seconds

Cost 75 mana

Range 500

This ability can be used in two ways: agressive and non-agressive.
First off, and I'm going to keep this short, great escape ability.
NOTE: you can go through small walls with this ability.
You can use this ability agressively aswell. Example: enemy is on low HP, use the extra boost from to close the gap between you and the enemy. Finish off with or




R: Ace in the Hole

Explanation:

Caitlyn takes time to line up the perfect shot, dealing 250 / 475 / 700 (+2 per attack damage) physical damage to a single target at a huge range. Enemy champions can intercept the bullet for their ally.

Cooldown 90/75/60 seconds

Cost 100 mana

Range 1900/2050/2200

Wait a second, Caitlyn is a sniper? Oh... That makes sense then.
This ability is great to snipe down your unsuspecting enemies that try to recall.
Confident enough with your support bot lane? Let him take and snipe some people. This ability is best used when you enter a teamfight instead of sniping down low HP enemies. Reason for this is because you won't be able to focus on the entire enemy team when you try to damage them in a teamfight. If you use your ultimate when a teamfight is going on, it means that your own team loses ALOT of DPS in the process. Also, the shot from her ult will most likely be blocked by one of the other teammembers.
So again, use Caitlyn's ult BEFORE entering a teamfight for more damage output.

R then Q then W then E

Why do we take W at level 1?

Prevent an enemy invade
Secure buffs
Scout (it gives a small vision area when you place the trap down)
Trap enemy when invading

Why do you max W second and E not ?

Basically, since you are duo laning with a support you don't realy need the net for anything, you only use it for escaping. If you max the trap first and placed everything right so that nobody can come close (jungler has to step in one of the traps first), you won't be killed plus you'll have enough time to escape.

The cd on your trap is 8 seconds when maxed (on lvl 13). This is usually the time when you are roaming with your team.
If you do find yourself in a though spot (having a bruiser chasing you), the best way to deal with it is going in a brush, placing a trap, letting him get trapped, then Net away. If he decides to keep chasing, your new trap should be up again.


Skill order spam when entering a teamfight:

RQW > ON YOURSELF < E > FOR ESCAPING AND POSITIONING <

Right, in this chapter, I'll be going through most of the strenghts and weaknesses that caitlyn has.

Let's start off with her strenghts:

Level 1

Why level 1? Well, Caitlyn's trap is one of the best things against enemy jungle invade. Even if they don't step into it, just seeing the trap might cause the enemy team to back off because well, it might be A TRAP! Also, if you want to scout safely for your team, you can do it by placing down one of the traps in a brush. It will reveal the area around the placed trap for a second.


Laning Phase

By placing down traps (max. 2 in lane, keep one for the tri bush to watch for enemy ganks) you will be able to predict the enemy movement alot more. Combine this with your high ranged auto attack and your Piltover peacemaker and laning should be easy. Keep in mind tho, that you must always stay ahead in minion farm against the other AD carry. Caitlyn realy needs her farm ;)


Kiting

Yes... Kiting. Infact, Caitlyn is one of the best kiters in the game, especcialy with red buff. When you want to kite with Caitlyn, try to attack, run, attack, run, attack, run. Train this well and you should have a fun time kiting some random bruiser around. Remember to use your 90 Caliber Net and your Trap to induce even more rage ;)



Now for the bad stuff:

No comeback

Ok here's the thing. If you are having a bad game with Caitlyn and you find yourself dieing early game and getting pushed out of your lane alot, its game over for you. Caitlyn has a realy hard time to pick herself up after she falls down. No farm nor kills for Caitlyn means game over.


Late game damage

Ill be mentioning this in the upcomming chapters, but her Late game Damage is not up to par with the other AD Carry's. However, with this item build that I've provided, you should be able to match the damage.. also positioning... but this will be discussed soon ;)


Without tier 3 boots, realy slow

She's a freakin turtle. Just for fun, pick Pantheon for top lane and Caitlyn for bot lane. Have Caitlyn buy boots and Pantheon Long Sword and 2 pots.
Dat movement speed

Try to harass as much as you can with your passive. Whenever you see the other carry go in for a minion kill, use it to shoot that passive right on his head...shot... ha...
No other carry has a higher range then Caitlyn, so it should always be a hit if you time it right. Master this with your Piltover Peacemaker and Trap and you should always be able to win alot of lanes.
Remember, you (should) have Taric next to you as support. This means more armor, a little heal and ofcourse his stun. Trust me, whenever you see a Taric in lane next to a Caitlyn, be scared and prepared.

I don't know if I even have to mention this, but you realy need to farm with Caitlyn if you want to have a decent late game. She doesn't scale as well as some other AD Carry's in the game, so realy farm well with her, try to get every last hit possible. This way you can get your core fast (10-12 min in the game)

After watching the Season 2 matches (qualifications and finals) on twitch.tv, I noticed that bottom lanes that are winning in farm and can poke people out of lane would push alot of their own creeps under the enemy's turret to deny farm.
I've been trying this out with Caitlyn and it works realy well. Just make sure you and your support ward and trap everything right so you can escape whenever the jungler comes in to gank. Because trust me, he will come down.

Try to rush your main build items first! This depends on how the game is prolonging, but it's usually either BT OR Statikk.

Mid game is starting, laning phase is over, you have your first 2 main items. Teamfights are starting.

Try to do teamfights in the jungle or near brushes. This way you can make the best use of your traps.
Take objectives with your team (Dragon, enemy red buff, enemy blue buff and Baron) whenever possible. Group up and take everything you can. Let your Jungler and Support get Pink wards and maybe even an oracle to clear wards around these areas!

Remember to keep farming whenever possible. You still need gold to get all the items you need to be effective late game! Ask your jungler if you can have red buff! You can get it realy fast by standing in the bush near the buff to trigger your passive more.

Did you get Statikk yet? Excellent. Keep moving. Gotta go fast.
To make the best use of this item, you need to learn to kite. If you can kite already, bravo, this item should be awesome on you. If you have red buff, the kiting becomes alot easier because of the slow on red. Just make sure you get it when entering mid game.

If you find out that your team is winning almost every fight and you have all taken most of the objectives, you can roam to kill towers and farm some more.
NOTE You have to let your team push one of the other lanes if you are starting to roam. This means that the enemy has to make a dicision whether to follow you around the map with 2 people or to prevent the rest of your team to take more objectives.

I'm going to be honest here, Caitlyn's late game is strong, but it's not the strongest as some of the other AD Carry's like Vayne, Kog'maw and even Ezreal.
However, with decent positioning and making the best use of her passive, traps and Piltover Peacemaker, you can still pump out insane amounts of damage!

Remember to keep objectives like Baron and Dragon warded at all times! Heck, place 2 or 3 down to see if they place any wards down in the area.

If you've build a LW before IE , get it now. It's the best AD Carry item by far. Building Last Whisper first isn't bad tho. The new Meta for season 3 allows junglers and top laners to stack alot of armor. Even supports have insane amounts right now. Bruiser's like Jax and Vi will most likely crush you when they get to close, so getting that extra bit of Armor penetration while you kite them is realy not a bad thing, plus the procs on statikk will help alot aswell. Last Whisper will probably do more damage then Infinity Edge early mid game anyways. Unless you're fed ofcourse, then you go for IE right away.

Remember to buy Red Elexir if possible and only use it when you know a teamfight is going to happen. You can sell your D.Blade etc. for your end game items.

If you died, try to stack up Bt again before another teamfight. You can do this by asking your jungler to get some neutral monsters in the jungle or to just farm a bit in lane. Be very cautious of your minimap tho. The enemy team might just pop in to say hello if not everything is warded properly.

Stick to your support and jungler/top lane at all times, if you go out alone you will die.

I probably can't say this enough time's so I'm just gonna make it look big and in the middle of this chapter:

POSITIONING IS KEY FOR CAITLYN!!!


There... that should do it :)

Try to go for the main damage dealer if possible. If this is not possible, try to go for the target that's closest to you, this way you stay away from the epicenter of the battle but still deal tons of damage!! (thanks Phreak).

Remember when I said that Caitlyn's Q is a realy good ability for laning?
Exactly, LANING. You could cast this spell a few times to poke on the enemy team when a fight is about to happen, but never use it when you are actually dealing damage in the main teamfight. It will just make you lose DPS and you will most likely be focused down right away when you do this. Remember, Piltover Peacemaker is an ability that will make you stand still for half a second. That's enough for the enemy bruiser to come close enough and smack you down like WWE.

Don't get greedy on kills. If you see a low HP enemy running away from the fight, DON'T CHASE! It's a good thing that he's running away, less targets to focus and more damage on your own side. Running enemy's is usually a guaranteed team fight win. If it's late enough in the game, it's probably even a win.

Remember to use Cleanse when possible and if you bought QSS or even Mercurial use it aswell.

Other then that, positioning and teamcommunication is the most important thing!