Fiddlesticks Build Guide by crossfire

Impending Introduction

Hi, I'm crossfire or AnarchistRus in game. This is my second guide starring Fiddlesticks the heartless scarecrow thing.

In this guide was inspired by Videogamedunkey so check him out on youtube. Do it.

If you decide to downvote please leave a legitimate reason for doing so. Even better I implore you to reconsider any downvotes and leave a comment regarding your disatisfaction with my guide. I will most likely be able remeady your issue. Also please READ the guide and don't downvote solely for something in the build and actally try to build before voting.

Oh and I'm trying Jhoi's chapter name gag.

Well I was never really one for small talk so lets get on with the guide.

Why I Don't Jungle Fiddlesticks

Alright before we get into the real guide I think I better explain this. First lets go over what makes Fiddlesticks a good jungler.

He has good sustained jungling with Drain

He is rather easy to play jungler.

He has stong post six ganks with Crowstorm.

Now let me destroy these points before your eyes.

While yes he has lots of jungle sustainability he NEEDS blue to jungle effectively so if he losses blue to a counter jungle good luck with that. Also his jungle speed is one of the slowest out there. I think its even worse than Taric's. Yeah I just went there.

Can't argue with that :P

Sure his post six ganks are devestating as **** before that his ganks are medicore to say the least. You'll only occasionally get a kill on a extremely overextended enemy. Fid also moves really slow so have fun catching up with enemies. Also Crowstorm is on a very long CD so after you blow it your back to square one. You might say that Master Yi, and the half-dragon-person-who-I-don't-care-to-spell both have poor pre six ganks and are still considered good junglers. Thats because they both have fast clear speeds which Fiddlesticks does not.

In light of this I feel that Fiddlesticks should be played in a lane, but not bot for obvious reasons.

Somber Statistics

Ridiculous Runes

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Magic Penatration These are the only viable runs on an AP carry. They give you enough to penatrate through most squishes base MR meaning you'll do more damage. I really don't have much else to say. Flat CDR fiddlestick's CDs early game riduclous. Just look at Crowstorm. These runes can mean the differnece between life and death, kill or no kill. Maybe not really, but they help in reducing Fid's long cool downs. I prefer flat DCR because late game your cool down issue should be resolved.

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greater seal of vitality Health Per Level Wait just hold your horses or boar or whatever. When you think about it there aren't many viable yellows for AP mids. You could get armour but what purpose would that serve? At level 18 you get a free Ruby Crystal with out the loss of a valuable item slot. As an initaitor you need some health to survive the fight. Flat AP These are the prefered Quints of most AP mids as you get that nice early game oomf especially if you started with boots three health pots. Not much to say here...

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Marks: None
Seals: greater seal of replenishement, greater seal of resilence, Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration
Glyphs: Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power, Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
Quints: Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed, Greater Quintessence of Health,

Masterful Masteries

Pretty standard AP carry masteries, but I'll explain them anyways.

• Summoner's Wrath -Improves Ignite
• Brute Force -Easier last hitting. You're missing 3 AP boo-hoo-hoo.
• Sorcery - Fiddlesticks needs CDR end of discussion.
• Arcane Knowledge -Magic Pen, no explaination needed.
• Havoc -While 1.5% increase doesn't seem like much it adds up over time and is more use full then what? 3 AP?
• Blast -More AP=Good
• Archmage -Look above.
• Executioner -Good for finishing people off.

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• Summoner's Insight -15 seconds off flash is no joke. Take Improved Recall if you chose to take Ghost
• Good Hands -Helps when the death timer gets to 60 seconds.
• Swiftness -As you can imagine a scarecrow can't move very fast...
• Runic Affinity -Increase the duration of blue.

Sacrilegious Summoner Spells

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Flash is good for chasing, running, and positioning. I like this more than Ghost because lets see you Ghost through a wall.


Good for returning to lane or cordinating ganks. Espcially with that scary as **** ult of yours.


Every Team needs an Ignite. Top won't get it. Bot won't get it. Your jungler won't get it. That means you get it.

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Alternative to Flash.



Helps you counter hard CC and escaping intiates and counter initiaing. More usefull than Ignite late game because if they CC you, you're good as dead.


Good for chasing and fleeing. It shuts down a single target so use it well in teamfights. Exhaust while also make it more difficult to leave Crowstorm radius or break Drain.

Significant Skill Sequence

I start by taking a point in Drain as in the case a level one fight breaks out its the most useful imo, but you can start with what ever ability you want. I take Dark Wind second so I can easily harass my lane oponent. I then max Drain first as it will be you main form of dps and lane sustain. I then take 3 points in Terrify with 3 points in the ability you have enough time to channel Crowstorm which is essential in "counter comboing" which I'll go over later. After that I max Dark Wind as its you main form farm and poke. I then take the last two points in Terrify. Don't forget to take your ult whenever you can!

Sickly Skill Explainations

Dread
All enemies within 500 range of Fiddlesticks have their MR reduced by 10.
Not the greatest passive, but certainly better than Shadow Walk. Keep in mind that enemies get the Dread icon above them when your in range which can really ruin ganks/bush traps.

Terrify
Fiddlesticks strikes an enemy with fear causing them to move aimless for 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 seconds
I think this is the longest single target disable in the game. A 3 second fear is no joke and can turn the tide of a teamfight. Fearing people then Draining them is a good strategy. You can also fear people when Crowstorm is up to keep them in the radius.

Drain
Fiddlesticks channels and leashes to a target champion damaging them over time and recovering a portion of that damage.
This is Fiddlesticks signiture move. It allows you to stay in lane all day turn around a lossing dual, etc. However keep in mind that it is a channeled spell meaning that any "hard" CC will end it. I believe Shaco can break the leash with his ult. I'm not sure about Vlad so if someone can tell me it would be very appricated. Remeber when channeling Drain your a sitting duck waiting to be killed. It can also be used to keep you alive from DoT's or delayed damage like Hemoplague, Ignite, or Time Bomb.

Dark Win
Fiddlesticks unleashes a crow that silence for 1.2 seconds, does damage and bounces to 5 other enemy targets.
This is a great nuke/farm skill and is Fid's only multi target spell aside from his ult. With the recent buff its a viable farming skill. The range on this thing is quite large and is on par with Lux. It bounces randomly and does not target enemy champions. You can use this to secure "Jagular Kills" by targeting a different champion or minion and hopeing for it to bounce to to your desired target. Don't forget the silence as its a good way to stop channel abilites like Bullet Time or Absolute Zero.

Crowstorm
Fiddlesticks channels for 1.5 seconds, blinks to target location and summons a flock of crows to do tons of damage to all nerby champions for 5 seconds.
This ults ****ing scary to say the least. It does huge damage and can easily turn a lossing teamfight around. People may even burn flashes when they get trapped in its radius. People have two choices after this spell is channeled. Run or try and fight. Either way they get killed. Remember that after its channeled Crowstorm can not be stopped by any CC so ulting into a group of enemies and procing Zhonya's Hourglass is a good iniate. Do remeber while you are channeling this ability can be canceled which won't be good.

When and How to Use Drain

Most of you must be wondering: "Whats about Drain requires skill? All you need to do is Drain stuff to recover health" Well you be... WRONG. Drain is much more complicated than you think.

Drain enable you unable to move.

This is the main problem with Drain. It turns you into a sitting duck. Most intellegent players will harass you and wait for you to use Drain to recover your health. What they're looking for is a openning to attack. For example if Swain saw you use Drain what would be do? He's probably beat your ***. This mostly applies to burst mages, but is worth knowing because most of the time your doing to lane against a burst mage and you need to know how to deal.

If the enemy has CC ready and can combo you DO NOT DRAIN

Your probably like? But if I don't drain they still CC me an I'll die. Really do you think Brand or Ahri or heck even Annie will be able to land their CC if you remain at a distance? If you want to Drain you need to bait their CCs. For the most part their stuns and such will be in 10+ second CDs which is more than enough time to use drain. When laning against a SS stunner like Brand try to bait it. Make the opposition think you've gone insane by enter an very open area where they could hit you. When they shoot it off counter with Dark Wind or Terrify depending on which's disable is longer/in range. More realisticly skip this **** and just drain behind you minions. Doing this correctly will cause the enemy laner the loss of their CC allowing you to heal or corrdinate a gank. However targeted CC is harder to avoid. With someone like Annie just wait untill she decides to cast again and effectivly waste her stun. With Talon or Kassadin this turns into a whole other story. You can either:

A) Take a risk and Drain
B) Chicken out and recall.

Both situations have there obvious draw backs but B is the much safer. Really if you end up in a lane like that your only hope will to be to stand back and harass as much as possible with Dark Wind.

Drain does not apply Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

To my knowledge being a DoT Drain does not apply intate spell effect likes spell vamp or rylais. I may be wrong so if I am someone please tell me.

There are probably more, but you get the idea.

C-C-C-Combo Breaker

While Fiddlesticks is pretty easy to combo he is also good at disrupting and turning enemy combos against them. I'll explain what I mean.

Fiddlesticks is an exceptional disrupter with Terrify and Dark Wind.

Use this to your advantage. Dark Wind has and pretty long range. To my knowledge it out ranges pratically every other single target nuke and non-skill shot stun so you that to your adavantage. I'll give you an example of how to use this.

This would be the perfect situation to "counter combo". First hit Annie with a Dark Wind to prevent her from stunning you. She will either stupidly approch you or back off. Should she do the latter come in and Terrify her. Assuming you have 3 points in it channel Crowstorm and blink behind her. As she runs Drain her sorry ***. If you do it properly you will turn an impossible situation around and have enough health to take on/ flee from any back up.


There is one way to counter this, but it takes the worlds fastest reflexes ever. Seriously. What you need to do is right when she flashes in Terrify/ Dark Wind her. Even if she hits her Q she will be rendered helpless long enough to escape. Your only hope of doing this is with smart cast and some very fast reflexes. That said it IS possible.

Keep in mind the same tactics can be used if you aren't the one being combo'd. Its way easier to do if you aren't the one bitting the bullet or the Sear or Dark Binding or the-you get the point. This also works with other burst mages like Brand or Veigar.

Indesposed Items

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This choice gives the least sustain due to the lack of health potions however it makes up for that by providing flat health, mana regen, and AP. I take this when the enemy will not have abilities you can dodge. You get some extra mana regeneration instead of flat mana. Everything I said about mana crystal still applies here just instead you'll be rushing a Chalice which will build into your Athene's Unholy Grail later on. Really I think its better to dive straight into catalyst the protector and just skip Chalice, but its your choice.

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x3 The most standard start for everyone except maybe junglers. You get movement which is effective in counter champions like Brand or Ezreal. You also get quite a bit of sustain. However you have built in sustain with Drain so the health pots are rendered moot. It allows you to rush your Catalyst which is good. This will give you the ability to harass your lane opponent with out. I personally think this is the best start as you will be able to cast more ergo you'll have more sustain with Drain.

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catalyst the protector Sustain Crystal I get this on pretty much ever caster I play with a few exceptions. Its a great item giving a subsantial amount of health and mana and builds into Rod of Ages. Really this is all the survivability you're going to get for a while and if you want to survive initates you need this. Tier Two Boots After picking up your catalyst the protector you should get your teir two boots. Sorcerer's Shoes Your standard boots. Give you more damage. Mercury's Treads CC Reduction and MR a more defensive option. Ninja Tabi Good against AD teams and right-click-to-win champions.

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Double Doran's Most people like to get 1.7k gold and go for Sorc Boots and 2 Doran's personally I only run this route when I'm not building a CtP which is usually when I'm not the only initating. It gives a good amount of early game tankiness and damage to boot so this item shouldn't be ignored. Blanced Rod This is all around an amazing item. After 10 minutes of buying it you end up with around 2k health which is pretty damn awesome that early in the game. You also get 80 AP which is no laughing matter. You will also get a substaintial amount of mana so you can spam your spells a lot. This is all a round a great item now it just needs some CDR...

TUNRS YOU GOLD I would really leave the explaination at that but... Aside from turning you gold and making you completely invincible for several seconds it gives a bunch of AP which is nice and some armour to boot. You can jump into a group of goons with Crowstorm proc this and watch as they scarmble in maddness.

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Infinite Blue Buff You'll have like 70 Mana regen with this thing. Thats nearly as much as blue. This item is like Morello's Evil Tome except 10 times better. You get CDR which is pretty nice, a decent amount of AP. You can even build Chalice of Harmony earlier if you need the mana regen. Whats not to love about this item.

space Kiss Their MR Goodbye This item is essential once you get to late game and people start geting Banshee's Veil and ****. I personally feel that this is better than an Abyssal Mask when you're the only AP and they have less than 75 MR then Abyssal Mask is more benificial. However at least someone on their team will have more than 75 MR and at the end of the game.

Snotty Situational Items

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Will of The Anicents

Really there isn't much else you can get I'll get to that later.

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Quicksilver Sash

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Spirit Visage

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Banshee's Veil

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Guardian Angel

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Hexdrinker

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Kage's Lucky Pick
kage's lucky pick

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Chalice of Harmony

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Why Shouldn't I get [Insert item here]

For those of you wondering why I don't get a specific item you've come to the right place.

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Laning Phase

Your laning phase is actually pretty strong compared to some other mids. You shouldn't be leaving the lane very often due to Drain and can stop ganks with Terrify and Dark Wind. You have three tasks to preform durring the laning phase.

1. Constantly last hit minions to gain gold.
2. Try to harass your oponent with Dark Wind
3. Don't die

You shouldn't have too much difficulty preforming these tasks as Dark Wind has a long range and as I said above you can sustain with drain. That in mind you may find your self out of mana or oom often. You want to avoid that as many players will use that as an oppertunity strike.

Should you want to attack use your skills in this order.
Crowstorm--> Terrify--> Drain--> Ignite--> Dark Wind
If you did it properly they'll probably be dead. If there not and stupidly hange arpick them off with dark win.

Remeber to ward the side bushes and keep and eye on the mini map as you can't always rely on teamates to call MIAs. That said you should always call MIAs to spare teammate's lives.

Should you have trouble invest in some Doran's Rings and/or some health potions.

Laning Matchups A-H

This section probably won't be complete for a while so I'll give you a general run down of how fid compares to other mids.

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Teamfights and Late Game

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Teamfights are quite simple for Fiddlesticks. Here's the rundown.

• Crowstorm in to intiate or after initate.
• Terrify a high priortiy target like the ADC or the AP carry. A 3 second disable can make or break a teamfight and ultimately the game.
• Throw out Dark Wind.
• Proc Zhonya's Hourglass if nessecary.
• Back off.
• Spam your spells for the remainder of the fight.

Easy enough to remember Eh? If you do this properly you should probably win the fight assuming your teammates aren't complete idiots.

Targeting you go like this.
ADC-->Mage-->Tanky Dps-->Support-->Tanks

This order is flexible for example if Corki is superbly behind but Vladimir has over 9000 kills you should obviously target Vlad.

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This is one of the fun parts of Fiddlesticks jumping in on unsuspecting Baron fighters.

• A ward at Baron (obviously)
• Crowstorm off CD
• Bravery
• Foolishness
• A team to back you up. (optional)
• Zhonya's Hourglass active up. (optional)

This works best mid game were they'll take longer and take more damage. You should preferably have you team stationed in the the near by bushes. Once you see the enemy team doing Baron alert your team, if their alive, and ping them to it. Tell them to wait near by can attack once you've jumped in. Once you see Baron's health getting low jump in with crowstorm. Your team should ambush them and you should steal baron or in the worst case secenrio only kill most if not all of them. If you see that your team is slow on the uptake or chose to momentarly ignore Baron and wholeheartedly kill you remeber to proc your Zhonya's Hourglass. Keep in mind this is for your TEAM'S benifit. If you have to die in the conflict. So be it.

Farewell~Final Words

This guide is not yet complete. I need to finish the match up sections when I have the time and clean up somethings here and there. If you could spare a moment consider looking at my MF guide I'd gladly appriciate it. I always wondered what the heck am I suppose to put in these things? I don't really think this would be a good place to tell people to reconsider downvotes because I highly doubt they'd get this far. Anyways...

Sincerly, Crossfire/Cross/Adrian IRL

Change Log
8/31/12-Guide is Published