Hey and thanks for checking out my Gwen guide. I am an Australian one trick Gwen main who has played League since Season 5. This guide is the culmination of everything that I have learned from playing nothing other than Gwen since halfway through Season 11. I will try to keep this guide concise and try to include my thoughts and reasons as to why I play Gwen the way I do.

To put it simply, she is fun. Since I first played her I have been playing Gwen in 9/10 on my games constantly on that grind set even if she is not meta I will continue to play her (like when her WR dropped to like 42% or some **** like that). In my opinion she is at her best in the jungle as her clear is very good with her AOE DMG and her insane objective control. You also don't have to go top lane and deal with all of the ******** that comes with top lane as well as for the most part do not have to directly deal with Gwen's largest counters (ie Tryndamere, Sett, Riven etc) which are all primarily found in... you guessed it, top lane.

The Good
- The Fun: You can finally live out your fantasies of performing what appears to be very painful circumcision to 50% of the players in your game
- Great late game: Gwen is nuts after her third item single handedly able to 1v3 fairly confidently.
- Underrated splitpush: With her Skip 'n Slash, Nashor's Tooth and Lich Bane you can just sit back and watch those plates melt away.
- The W: This ability is bonkers. With the amount of AOE that Gwen does she is able to destroy enemy teams whilst watching every ability pass through her.
- Big Burst: Gwen has so much AOE burst with her last 2 Needlework proc's and a fully stacked Snip Snip!.
- She's cute: Self explanatory.

The Bad
- Poor ganks Pre 6: Gwen pre 6 has no CC and therefore less of a chance to secure or engage on a kill. Ghost kinda helps but it's still trash.
- Squishy: With this build she does insane damage however the trade off is that she lacks the meat that other brusers have though their items (ie; steraks).
- Weak early: Will be out jungled and outmatched by pretty much everyone before her first item.
- Needlework is slow: You will sometimes miss your Needlework due to the projectile speed as well as the cast delay.
- No hard cc: Her Needlework is only a slow and that's the only thing she has to affect enemy movement.
- Countered by Cringe: There are a few champs that will out duel you or outburst you (More below).

With the shift away from the sustain meta Conqueror isn't the be all and end all rune that it once was on Gwen. First Strike generates so much gold for you (avg 600 - 800 before full build) allowing you to snowball and snowball hard. Combining this rune with the gold generated from Triumph, the free booties and debt allows Gwen to, in most games]] reach full build first and carry hard. The extra DMG is also nice as it doesn't require any stacking which is great in current day where fights start and end in the span of a second

You save 300 big ones and your slightly faster. Even a lil bit of MS pays dividends.

This entire tier of the Inspiration tree sucks donkey balls however this is the most useful out of the three. With all the extra gold GEN you'll be able to get your items slightly faster for a 50g fee... yay.

You want to have Ghost up as much as possible as well as Zhonya's Hourglass.

You will almost never run out of mana as JG Gwen and overheal can be used however Triumph is GOATED, this little rune has saved me more times than I can count and it gives you gold?!? I usually average 350g per game from this rune's SECONDARY effect. SECONDARY. Denying the enemy gold from you living whilst giving you gold for getting good is way too good to pass up.

It's good as Gwen's Thousand Cuts allows for incredible sustain allowing you to stay at low health for a while Hahaha remember when you used to heal as this champ? This rune is just more damage and in general it does more damage then Coup de Grace.

Situational/Honorable Mentions

Take it, always. This is *used to be the best keystone on Gwen. Fights don't last as long as they did and tanks arn't as strong. However if the enemy team do have two or more full tanks on their team then I would go down the Conqueror route (see top of guide)

Attack speed means more DPS. I imagine that most people will think that damage is quite a nice thing to have.

Nine out of ten dentists recommend alacrity the other had to fight a Leona Sejuani Lissandra comp. Don't get me wrong, tenacity is good but this rune is dependent on the enemy comp.

You're a Gwen JG. The river is in JG. A lot of the important objectives are on the river. It's decent if you want to secure earlier drags and have better early map presence.

Ability haste is always nice and the 20% reduced basic cooldown upon a takedown decent, late game it mellows out a little due to your cooldowns being naturally very short.

Giving a scaling AP champion a scaling AP rune is always nice.

It's good for earlier ganks as Gwen dashes very often. If only this applied to camps.

Gives more gold then an average Triumph however you lose out on its utility value.

This should always be your first item, even before your mythic. Rush it ASAP it helps with your clear, your dueling potential, with drag, with split pushing etc.

Your fourth item is interchangeable with either this, Cosmic or Zhonya's. I build this for 8/10 of the games that I play purely for the fact that the burst is so hard to pass up especially when you are chasing some squishy **** and you cut them for 1/4 of their HP with Skip 'n Slash. Your Skip 'n Slash also allows you to proc the passive so often.

This item makes me so moist and it is in my opinion one of the best and most fun items Riot has added. Because Omnivamp on most AP items got the Harambe treatment this item kinda fills in that gap. Gwen's sustain is not what it once was so getting a teamwide heal on kill and 3/4 of the magic pen that Voidstaff has well... it's enough to make a man cry.

Good for closing off your damage build with more damage to increase your overall damage so that you can damage the enemy team with a lot of damage. Interchangable with Zhonya's Hourglass

Assassins and burst mages ruin Gwen's day as often they can get inside your bubble and mess you up. The 2.5 seconds of golden shiny time allows for your team to pull their thumbs out of their *** and try to assist the Gwen.

The Boot

Lucidity booties are (In my humble opinion) the best option for Gwen in most cases. Not only are they cheaper than the other options but having your ghost and smite up more often is just 👌. The other two options ( Plated Steelcaps and Mercury's Treads) should be used for heavy AD/AP/CC team comps respectively.

Other options

Gwen is the queen of extended trades so why not make them better. Every stat on this item synergises used to synergise so well with Gwen however after it demoted from mythic status and lost its always active Omnivamp its use case is limited to a majority tank team as fights do not last as long as they used to.

Simply more damage. Works better against tanks as most games Gwen benefits more from utility items.

Useful if their team has a lot of CC and you enjoy playing the game.

Helps with keeping up with fast. Its good for the fact that you don't lose potential kills when your ghost isn't up.

I hate building this item purely for the fact that there are so many better items that can utilize an item slot better. Anti heal as of now is a slight joke. I mainly build it if they have more than 3 sustain(ie) champs or if they have a Warwick or Nunu & Willump.

If you're doing good early or score a cheeky kill before your first back buy a Dark Seal on top of your Recurve Bow. If you haven't thrown your lead and you're still snowballing then treat yourself to a Mejai's, you deserve it king.

Basic Blue Side Clear

Red Brambleback ( Smite) > Ancient Krug > Crimson Raptor > Greater Murk Wolf > Gromp > Blue Sentinel > Top Side Rift Scuttler ( Smite) > Bot Side Rift Scuttler > Ancient Krug > Crimson Raptor > Greater Murk Wolf > Gromp

Basic Red Side Clear

Blue Sentinel ( Smite) > Gromp > Greater Murk Wolf > Crimson Raptor > Red Brambleback > Ancient Krug > Top Side Rift Scuttler > Bot Side Rift Scuttler > Gromp > Greater Murk Wolf > Crimson Raptor > Red Brambleback

First Clear

Your first clear should always try to be a full double clear. Now the thing with Gwen is that she can easily kite camps with her Skip 'n Slash which lets her remain relatively healthy on her early clears and her Hallowed Mist enables her to take no damage for 5 seconds as well which is very good on her first clear. Full double clear is achieved you've basically ham fisted the early game as if all camps are cleared twice (minus buffs), both Rift Scuttler 's are taken and all three Voidgrub 's are taken you will have backed with LVL 6, Blasting Wand and Fiendish Codex making an early solo Dragon as easy as forgeting to file your taxes.

Objectives

Gwen is ****... at early ganks but she is very good with taking objectives. When the Dragon pushes you away you are in the perfect distance to Hallowed Mist and Skip 'n Slash towards the dragon. Your Hallowed Mist is your most important tool here as well as resetting your auto's with Skip 'n Slash.

Powerspike

After Nashor's Tooth and either Riftmaker or Lich Bane you can basically handle *most* of the enemy team. Aim to split push with herald as you will more often than not be able to handle two enemy champions confidently. Gwen's splitpush is nasty with her Skip 'n Slash and Nashor's Tooth so take full advantage of that, try to help out lanes with their turret plating. After your third item you can then actively seek out kills as damage taken will be able to be healed back fairly reliably.

So I hate the way mobafire counters tab and I don't feel like talking about every bloody Jungler so I am going to just examine the champions that will give you the most grief whilst playing as Gwen JG. The main issue that Gwen faces are junglers that have a tendency to invade, counter JG or have very good objective control (to a lesser degree) so any champions that can do all of these well will be listed and expanded upon.

Junglers

My usual ban. His Alpha Strike can be used to easily dodge your Snip Snip! and Needlework due to how both abilities have a set time to complete their maximum damage output. Take care to not use both at the same time. Master Yi is also very good at objective control so do not attempt a post clear drag unless your lanes have priority.

He is very good at getting inside of your Hallowed Mist, he can go invisible messing up your auto's, he has high burst and he can and will often invade. On first clear a 1v1 is Kha'Zix sided to take care.

Kind of the same deal with Kha'Zix high burst assassin, can invade early except he is easier to fight and is worse at taking objectives.

Gwen's auto's are her lifeblood as you need to auto to reset your Skip 'n Slash. Jax's Counter Strike kinda ****s this up which will make him a major threat for Gwen throughout the entire game as he scales better then you.

He will be able to duel you up until your 2nd or 3rd item. His sustain makes dueling and objective control very good and as he is able to remain healthy in his clear he will more often than not try to counter JG you.

He can kick you out of Hallowed Mist... and its incredibly annoying when he does so. His Sonic Wave recast still lets him dash to you even if you were in Hallowed Mist. He is also able to outduel you early, take objectives well, all that fun stuff.

Other Lane Cringe

Thankfully Gwen doesn't really have much that she can't deal with in the Jungle, however that can not be said for her main counters which still exist. Fortunately in the early game she does not directly have to deal with them and when she does you will be more in a position where you will be able to effectively skirmish. The champions below are champs to watch out for as they will give you some grief post laning phase as the game progresses. Again, only listing Gwen's highest threats.

You will almost never win. You will only win a 1v1 if he is very behind or he does not have his ult up. This is Gwen's biggest counter and a large reason why I started to play Gwen Jungle. I hate this bastard so much.

Similar to Jax except when he blinds you not only can you not auto him, but you can't auto anything which disables your ability to get your Skip 'n Slash resets.

The main thing you need to look out for is his ult. Unlike other bruisers Gwen doesn't have the resistances or the items (ie; Sterak's Gage, Immortal Shieldbow) to withstand his ult. Even if you are fed all it takes is for him to Flash, Nether Grasp you and you're most likely dead. Recommended Spirit Visage or Banshee's Veil

So the guide is over, however for those further interested in Gwen gameplay lore you can continue to read these footnotes which help me further explain **** in the guide which didn't fit with the main body.

[1] Both of the viable anti-heal options on Gwen are not as good on her as they would be on other champions. Simply put if your team needs anti-heal your team should be building it as Gwen has a harder time afflicting multiple people with grievous wounds unless everyone is standing in a perfect line just waiting to get bit by your Needlework. Funny enough though in a teamfight you're often going to be using Needlework on the champion in front of you that you are fighting and if you accidently hit one fat*** behind them then good job. Unless there is a champ that you are simply unable to duel due to the fact that they outheal your DMG (ie; Warwick, Yone) you should ask someone who can more reliably apply grievous wounds to the enemy.

For Example: A front line tank, an ADC who can reliably hit specific targets, a mage who can apply its effects on multiple people.