HELLO FELLOW TRYNDAMERE ENJOYER. I'm Chaddouk, a Tryn OTP who reached rank 521 (779lp) on EUW this season. I started playing Tryndamere in season 8, then completely OTPing him since Season 9. Over the course of 5 years, I played thousands of games of Tryndamere for a total of 5+ million mastery points, and have been able to play him in every role, into almost every matchup, against some of the best players on the server.

As everyone learning this champ, I started by watching Fogged, then Ranger and Ulleh, until I realized that I have gathered enough knowledge to be able to pass it on myself, and do it my own way, which would be the best way for some new Tryndamere enthusiasts. That’s when I started coaching, creating content and writing this guide.

I will make sure to update this guide regularly so it stays as accurate as possible. Feel free to ask me anything on my socials, I stream everyday and answer every single comment/message. You can also add me on Discord (Chaddouk), or book a coaching session if that can be of any help.

I’m sure all of you guys know what Tryndamere’s abilities do, but when looking to master a champion it’s mandatory to understand how to actually use them.

Q :

This ability is actually what kept Tryndamere alive before the range buffs, and make him really strong these days. It’s not his ult or crits lvl 1 that make him broken, it’s the fact that he can abuse infinite sustain. So unless you’re looking to trade hard and you NEED to crit on your opponent, you should absolutely SPAM the **** out of this ability. I coached many Trynd players that wait to stack fury to press Q to get more health and I used to do it as well, but it doesn’t work this way. The more you use it the more health you get. Press it on CD when you’re not looking to fight. Also Q’s passive give Trynd AD the lower he is in hp, that’s good to keep in mind but we’ll talk about it later.

W :

W has 3 uses, and kind of like his Q, people tend to misunderstand it (been there, done that).

Of course the most common use is the slow, it is important that you don’t use it mindlessly but try to read your opponents movements, and vs some champs you need to hold on to it for a bit (for example Jhin faces you when he uses auto or W, so wait for AA + W + AA and THEN you W, same for Caitlyn (Q and traps), Viego (Q) etc..).

The second most common use is to scout bushes. Indeed, when an enemy is in range of W, your W will light up, this allows you to “see” invisible champions like Shaco or Evelynn, or to check bushes without a ward. Here’s an example of W scout winning me a game.

The third and most overlooked one is THE AD DEBUFF. That’s how Ranger explained it to me when I got his coaching : W debuffs 20 AD. A long sword gives 10 AD for 350 gold. Thus, 20 AD equals 700 gold debuff. Now imagine you’re getting dove by 2 AD champs, by just pressing W for the debuff and not for the slow after they get hit by the turret, you create a 1 400 gold deficit on that play, which equals you having 4 kills for free, by just pressing it before getting hit by damage. Are you convinced now ? So you can use W even when your opponent is hitting your turret for plates to force make him need more autos for example.

E :

Your E is NOT A DAMAGE ABILITY, or at least 95% of the time it isn’t. You’re E in an ESCAPE and a GAP CLOSER. It’s really important that you hold on to it as much as possible to create or close distance, because when you’re using auto attacks, even if you kite well by default you’re slower than your opponent so he will be able to run away after a few, that’s when E comes in handy. If you absolutely don’t need it to stick on your opponent then you can use it for damage, but it’s pretty rare trust me.

R :

Pretty straightforward this one. JUST DON’T DIE. Now just 2 things to keep in mind, it’s good to try to last frame it, at least for let’s say 30-40 games, it will lose you some games in the short run but will win you games and experience in the long run. In some situations, it’s fine to use it very early because it gives fury, so crit, so helps you reset your E for distance. But it’s actually pretty rare that using it for fury is the best play.

Maybe you’re not familiar with the concept of a champion’s identity. Basically it’s what the champion is designed for. What it actually does, what it’s good at. And it’s important to understand deeply what your champ’s identity is in order to make the best of it.

Here’s how I see Trynd after years of playing it :

Tryndamere is nothing but a Ball of AD Damage, that runs fast on the map. That ball deals a LOT of damage if it gets to deal it. But the ball is not that big (a bit bigger now that we have more range) so it’s sometimes hard to deal that damage. Because of that identity, to make use of the champion we need to be hitting something, as much as possible, as hard as possible. Whether it’s a turret, a champion, a camp, a ward even, anything, we need to be hitting.

Let’s keep that in mind and see how it defines our playstyle.

REGARDING THE BUILDS/RUNES

Historically, there has always been ONE BETTER BUILD on Tryndamere because he’s all about the stats. Last season for example was either Kraken -> Navori -> IE or Galeforce -> Navori -> IE and that’s it. But since the recent changes making Navori, IE and Gale mythics, you now have way less good options, meaning that you actually have way more options.

Another way to say it is that now that nothing is GREAT, you can go for just what’s the “less bad” option, opening your choices on Tryndamere. That’s how I developed the different builds and how you see every single high elo Trynd player switching items so often.

You can consistently hit your opponent and are you looking to teamfight ? => Go kraken/navori
You can’t consistently hit your opponent but are looking to teamfight ? => Go stridebreaker/PD/Essence reaver
You can consistently hit your opponent but you’re not looking to kill (because too tanky) nor teamfight ? => Go Hullbreaker/Triforce and just hit turrets

Here’s my take in video.

REGARDING THE PLANS

Tryndamere is of course known for being a split pusher, but many players, even in higher elos don’t completely understand what “split pusher” means exactly. It doesn’t mean that you should go on sidelane and stay there, that’s not split pushing, that’s twerking on sidelane.

Many people wonder when to split push, when to teamfight, here’s my answer, but I’d recommend watching the video down below which explains it in better terms.

Basically you need to ask yourself a few questions :
if you go on sidelane, can you just kill your opponent without dying ? If yes, you should just do that. Because either one player matches you and you kill and get turrets, or they have to send two players and your team now has a 4V3 on the map.

If you can’t kill, can you rotate faster than your opponent ? Most likely yes (cuz trynd goes fast brrr) so push sidelane, then rotate and threaten a 5V4. If the enemy side laner has TP use that strat to make him use TP, then do it again.

If you can’t kill and can’t fight, then the game gets a bit hard and you need to find other useful things to do like contest vision, get jungle camps in between waves, look for a trap or just slowly lose the game because not every game is winnable.

Most important thing to keep in mind is that splitting actually means creating a pressure point. So you need to think about WHEN and WHERE you want to create pressure.

WHEN : You want to create pressure for something else to be played on the map. It doesn’t matter if you bring 3 people on side and kill one if your team is already dead or backing after a big fight. You want to make sure someone matches your pressure actually BEFORE an objective spawn. The goal is to force the enemy team to match you first, then you can look to rotate and be there when the objective has spawned or your team can use your pressure to take. If the objective is already up and you’re walking out of base, you need to either push mid or go to the fight because your pressure will come too late.

WHERE : Split pushing literally means SPLIT-PUSHING. You need to be SPLITTED from your team. So pushing Top when you want to play for nash is BAD. Because it means that the enemy team can both defend your push and the nash. You want to push at the opposite side of the objective. Or if you’re too late for the side just push mid.

Here’s my complete guide on how to win a split pusher in video.

STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES

Let’s summarize now the strengths and weaknesses of our favorite little ball of damage.

STRENGHTS :

. Infinite sustain is turbo OP
. Really good at split pushing
. Really good with CC in his team
. Moves fast on the map
. Big backdoor potential
. Really good at diving

WEAKNESSES :

. Very vulnerable to CC
. Pretty straightforward so easy to counter
. All he does is deal AD damage so Armor turbo counters him
. Has to go Ghost so can’t really go TP
. Pretty bad in late game (enemies are tanky enough to survive him while having enough damage to make him ult fast).
. Items are expensive and he’s very bad from behind.
. Needs summs or ally CC to function

I will start with an analogy. You, yes you who is reading this, you probably have played some sort of sport at some point in your life. And if not, you’ve probably witnessed people doing sports and trying to get better at it.

Let’s take basketball for example. Do you think that to get better at basketball, players spam basketball games ? Or do they go for specific drills (Shooting one day, dribbling another day, passing, cardio etc…). Well you guessed it, the good answer is drills.

So why do we, as league players, think that we will get better by spamming soloQ ? (spoiler : because we are stupid, that’s why we play league hehe).

My whole point is to learn to get better at Trynd or any other champions, you need to focus on concepts one by one. Here’s I think a list of what would be the most important to the less important :

[*] Laning fundamentals : how to recognize what a good or bad wavestate is and how to abuse it or fix it.
[*] Macro fundamentals : how to play for the objectives, how to snowball a lead to nexus.
[*] Trynd specifics : How to play your matchups. How to use your spells correctly, how to abuse your sustain early and how to find your place in teamfights.
[*] Any other aspect of the game : (like vision, jungle tracking, map awareness, micro etc...)

Well that’s WHAT to learn, now let me talk about HOW to learn :

A good general principle is that you don’t have to play the game to learn to be better at the game. While you’re playing, you have to focus on so many different aspects, it makes it hard to get better at a specific objective. For example if I try to get better at managing my first 3 waves, by playing I can only practice it twice or three times in an hour, but by watching and observing content in an hour I can one 2 specific videos on Youtube then 10 examples of pro players’ wave management, with full focus on it.

The secret is to watch PROACTIVELY, you don’t want to look at some gameplay and wait for something to happen, you want to think about it. For example, watch me or Ranger or Ulleh or any good Trynd player and press pause every 30 seconds : ask yourself “what would I do here ?”, find an answer, press play, look at what they actually did, try to understand why you were right or wrong (most likely you would be wrong, or you would be GM+ already, so you have many opportunities to learn).

THEN you go in a game and try to apply those new concepts.

Now because I’m a nice person, here’s a list of some of the best content creators IMO for those different concepts :


Laning fundamentals : Alois, Me, step1v9.
Macro fundamentals : Alois, Rangerzx, Me.
Trynd specifics : Rangerzx, Ulleh, Fogged.
Any other aspect of the game : Rangerzx, Skill Capped, Today on the super Server.

Level 1

You can Q at the start of the auto animation : this way you get the Q healing, but your auto will take into account the amount of fury you had before the Q. So you can crit with 0 fury sort of.

E flash : Tryndamere’s classic. You can E and use flash during the dash to surprise opponents or extend its lenght. Example.

Scout bushes with W : You can scout bushes or fog of war overall by just looking at your W. If it lights up, it means an enemy is in range. Example.

Level 2

Stay low after a kill to get platings faster : Keep in mind that the less hp Trynd has, the more AD he has. So if you just killed your opponent and you see everyone on map, do not press Q or use pot, stay low to clear the wave and/or take platings faster.

Walk back to the last turret shot if needed : that way it hits you earlier, can often save lifes when your ult is fading. Example.

Use E to go through turret taking only 1 turret shot : pretty self-explanatory, you just need the right timing.

Never miss a zhonya timer with E : you don’t have to time Zhonya’s perfectly, just E through the gime roughly when the stasis is fading because your E will apply damage instant as long as the opponent is in your E when he comes back.

Hit the plant when you’re giving a leash : by hitting the closest blast cone, you get 5 extra fury and more crit chance on the buff.

Level 3

W flash : you can W and flash during the animation, the slow will apply considering where your flash lands. Never useful honestly haha.

Scout bushes with W WHEN IT’S DOWN : if you spam your W while being on cooldown and no one is in range, it will say “you can’t cast this ability now”. If someone is, it will say “this ability is not ready yet”, pretty cool, no ? Neither me, Ulleh, Ranger or Bocap knew this just a few months ago, after years of Trynd experience.

Note that I'd add nightbringer in "Great"