Sup. I'm Goregasm. Welcome to my Evelynn guide.

Evelynn is a squishy melee assassin, who excels at stunning targets from stealth, eliminating them, and having the mobility to immediately dart away from danger or move onto the next tasty target.

This combination of being squishy and melee is part of Evelynn's core weakness; being an assassin, you are likely to annoy the rest of the team to the point where you become their focus in teamfights. For this reason, we need to balance it by capitalising on Evelynn's ability to stun her enemy from stealth and maximise the damage she does in those precious 1-2 seconds. For this reason, I believe the most effective way to build Eve is as an AP burst champion, and that is what this guide aims to achieve.

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Many will notice that this build looks a lot like Calfurion's excellent Evelynn build, and with good reason. This guide is essentially a result of playing with that guide and tweaking it for my own diabolical purposes.

Having said that, I decided to create a guide because I believe this one differentiates itself from Calfurion's in a number of important ways - ways which I will justify as the guide goes on - such as:

1. Runes ( Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration, Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power & Greater Quintessence of Ability Power)
2. Masteries (9/0/21)
3. Early game playstyle (no semi-jungling)
4. Spells ( Flash)
5. Skill progression (Max Ravage first)
6. Item build (though largely inconsequential differences)

04/05/2011: Published the guide.
09/05/2011: Fixed some errors and added my experimental anti-tank Evelynn item build.
10/05/2011: Bunch of minor edits (moved skill sequence above items, etc.).
14/06/2011: Changed the build order (re-arranged early game, removed Void Staff to leave the last slot open) based on playtesting and edited the masteries section due to the changes to Havoc .

I'd like to warn you those who just want items, runes, spells and masteries, that you're better off looking at the pretty pictures above. In this guide, I not only try to justify the decisions I've made in order to land on using those pretty pictures, but to explore the alternative pretty pictures I could have used and ultimately, to explain why you might benefit from following the pretty pictures I have compared to some others.

Because of that, some of this will appear considerably wall-of-text-ish. For those who want a detailed guide, read on.

Given that you build the same items, runes and masteries as I've specified above, a level 18 completely built Eve can expect to have:

Health: 2376
Mana: 1244
Magic Resist: 81 (~45% damage reduction)
Armour: 81 (~45% damage reduction)
Magic Penetration: 8.55 | 49%
Ability Power
(no Soulstealer stacks): 596
(10 Soulstealer stacks): 700
(20 Soulstealer stacks): 804
Movement Speed
"In combat": 422
"Out of combat": 475
Combat + ult: 490
Out of combat + ult: 530

These figures could be very wrong.

Also tits.

Pros:

• Long-lasting stealth
• Can reliably stun and burst targets from stealth
• 1:1 AP ratio on her Ravage
• Can be nearly unstoppable if somewhat fed late game
• Highly mobile
• Easy to gank and scout with
• That whole sadomasochistic ***** design is pretty cool
• Also tits

Cons:

• Highly squishy while also entirely melee range
• Requires a strong early game to perform well late game
• Poor farm
• Unable to jungle effectively
• Can be a pushover in some lanes
• Relies on an aware, skilled team to pull off early game ganks
• Hate Spike targets what it wants
• Would probably be into pegging :\
• (best not to Google that)

As you can see, Evelynn has her fair share of pros and cons. What needs to be emphasised most is how much her early game determines her late: Tryndamere, Master Yi and Jax are quite capable of farming all day and then dominating teamfights late game. Whilst Evelynn is capable of dominating late and carrying a team to victory, she must struggle through a difficult period of earning bread early game in order to do so. For this reason, I have found that her pre-game setup - runes, masteries and spells - are quite critical to pulling off a successful game as Evelynn, to try to outweigh her cons (most of which are limited to early game) as best we can in order to maximise her strengths.

Note that while stealth characters are inherently incredible early and mid game, Evelynn's damage is quite lackluster at this point. You will therefore be relying substantially on your team (as they do on you) to co-operate with you and participate effectively in ganks to get you started on kills/assists so that you can steamroll to victory.

Often I am told that building Eve AP instead of AD doesn't make any sense and is a waste of her otherwise great abilities, as if I'm building AP Shaco or something. Instead, I tend to think of AD and AP Evelynn builds as suiting different purposes and having their own particular strengths and weaknesses. The AD vs. AP Eve debate, however, ends up looking a lot like the Poppy and TF debate:

AP Eve's Strengths:

• 1:1 AP ratio on Ravage
• Decent AP ratio on her Hate Spike (.28) for an ability with a .8 second cooldown
• Hate Spike procs Lich Bane constantly
• Stun synergises well with high burst damage
• MR reduction from Ravage + magic pen marks = guaranteed true damage to those who don't get additional MR

AP Eve's Weaknesses:

• Wastes the AS boost of Agony's Embrace
• Limited to cooldowns
• Entirely shut down by silence (no Ravage, Hate Spike, and thus no Lich Bane = no damage)
• More difficult to farm with

AD Eve's Strengths:

• Makes use of the huge AS steroid of Agony's Embrace
• Hate Spike procs Trinity Force constantly
• Still does decent damage when silenced
• Not limited to cooldowns
• Can farm/push/split-push without relying on mana

AD Eve's Weaknesses:

• Wastes the nuke potential of Ravage
• Hate Spike does no damage; only use to proc Trinity Force
• More sustained damage means more danger: you have to stay in fights longer and need survivability

Each approach unfortunately wastes a particular aspect of their character (either the damage on Q+E, or the AS on her R), where a hybrid might fail at maximising either of their strengths. I won't argue that one is better than the other. I simply build Evelynn as AP because it suits the way I play her. I look forward to experimenting with AD builds to see how viable they are, and I may include an AD build in this guide eventually.

Ok, first, let's get Evelynn's pre-game setup out of the way.

Evelynn is the kind of character that needs a strong early and mid game in order to scale well into late game. Luckily, her abilities give summoners the opportunity to achieve this quite well: all she needs is the runes to give her a bit of an edge.


Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: On a character who aims to maximise their magic damage by WTFsploding squishy champs, there is no greater choice for marks than these. From the League of Legends Wikia on Magic Penetration:

The 8.55 flat magic penetration given by 9 Greater Mark of Insight provides a 7.04% increase in damage against targets with 30 magic resist (base for most champs).

Note how much difference this makes in all phases of the game in comparison to the alternatives: 5.31 AP from 9x Greater Mark of Ability Power or 0.9-16.2 AP from 9x Greater Mark of Scaling Ability Power.

Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration: Here's where I might run into some disagreement. Some may argue that, as an Evelynn player, you don't need much mana, just the occasional Hate Spike to last hit minions or a heap of mana when the time is right and you decide to nuke down someone from stealth.

I disagree entirely. I find that I use quite a bit of mana early game: counter-jungling; roaming; playing important mindgames; keeping in stealth near minions waves when you are being zoned by a particularly harass heavy or aggressive lane but want to continue to gain XP, etc. For this reason, I find the mana quite valuable.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power: These are my personal favourite on Eve. As stated earlier, Eve needs a strong early-mid game in order to scale well into late, and these are the glyphs which will help us achieve that best. Unlike the AP/lvl marks and seals, these give her a more substantial AP boost (0.17 AP/lvl). And we just can't let that 1.0 AP ratio on Ravage go to waste.

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: 14.85 AP? From the start of the game? Holy ***buckets. This is amazing. It's like having a second Doran's Ring, and gives a massive boost to your early-mid game. The reason I choose these over Greater Quintessence of Scaling Ability Power is because these aren't outscaled until level 12, and by the time you hit late game that 8 AP isn't going to mean ****.
Greater Seal of Replenishment: A potential alternative to seals of Clarity, these give better MP/5 until level 7, where they become outscaled (Replenishment runes gives .41/5 MP/5, Clarity @ level 7 gives .455/5 MP/5). If you find you have more mana problems prior to level 7, take these, but I find that it's around this point where I start to become aggressive and need the most mana.

Greater Glyph of Ability Power: A potential (no pun intended) option over AP/lvl glyphs; however, it's important to realise that the Force glyphs outscale these by level 6. It's at this point where you want to start becoming most aggressive, and for that reason I prefer Force runes for a greater advantage.

Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction: I used to run these on Eve, and to be honest, they're not a bad option. More Hate Spike spam, more opportunities to use Ravage and Agony's Embrace, and you don't have to wait around for Shadow Walk to come off CD.

Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration: Again, another possible option. 9 of these grant you 5.13 Magic Penetration, and if you ran these with Greater Mark of Magic Penetration, you'd reduce a base 30 magic resistance champion to 16.32 magic resistance, taking their damage reduction from 23% to ~14% (as opposed to just 17.66% without the Insight glyphs).

The reason I've chosen not to run this is because most people forget about Ravage's side effects: it reduces the target's magic resistance by 10-26. And because most of our targets don't have scaling base magic resistance, we end up with the possible scenario where we might be wasting 10 magic penetration where we could instead be benefiting from a sexy AP boost instead.

Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration: I used to run these when I was using a typical caster rune page. However, as with the magic pen glyphs above, 5.67 magic penetration is nice, but due to the debuff on Ravage we don't want to overdo it and waste our advantage. I want my penetration to mean something.

Greater Quintessence of Health: These are certainly safer options, but I buy Doran's Ring for survivability. If you want to use these, your damage will suffer a little. Consider starting with an Amplifying Tome and Health Potion to try offset this if you feel you must run these quints.

I don't think there are any alternative Marks or Seals. AP and AP/lvl Marks and Seals are just ****ing abysmal. With the Seals, you could go for extra health, dodge or armour, but I feel the runes are best spent tackling Evelynn's mana problems instead of her squishiness (which can only be mitigated so much).

I run 9/0/21 on Evelynn, and find every other setup on an AP Evelynn build a little confusing.

Evelynn only benefits from 4 things in the Offensive Tree: The CDR on Sorcery, the 15% Magic Penetration on Archaic Knowledge , the tiny AP boost from Archmage's Savvy , and Havoc . Havoc used to just increase the base damage of all damage by 5%, but now it increases your total damage by 4%, which is a substantial improvement.

Putting this into perspective, you're getting an extra 4 damage per 100. End game, when you're nuking for 1000 damage with your Ravage, you're getting an extra 40 damage on that. This is ok and everything, but it means you have to waste 11 points in masteries that benefit AD champions to get a mastery that will hardly boost your damage at all.

In my opinion, it's not worth it, and those 12 points after Archaic Knowledge would be best put in another tree.

This option definitely makes me feel less like puking than 21/X/X. While 21 points in the defensive tree give bonuses that benefit champions universally, and which certainly therefore benefit Evelynn's survivability, I still prefer the 21 in Utility.

Why? Put simply, I think that 21 in Utility maximises both her offensive and defensive capabilities. The way Evelynn lives is by scurrying away in stealth, or flashing away: i.e., mana, CDR, movement speed. These are three things that also benefit her offensively.

Because you're a cool guy with lots of friends and you have sex all the time.

From the offensive tree, we take the most useful things for our AP Evelynn build: AP/lvl, CDR and the most important 15% Magic Penetration.

This leaves you with 21 points so that you can take those sexy looking masteries in the utility tree which an AP Evelynn would actually benefit from, such as increased buff duration, mana regeneration, movement speed, improved Flash, lower cooldowns and lower recharge on your summoner spells. Whether you end up with Red Buff, or stealing theirs from either their jungle or from the high-heel-punctured corpse of their squishy ranged AD carry, you're going to want to hold onto it for longer. The movement speed is essential on an assassin. Lower cooldowns = more Hate Spike spam, more opportunities to use Ravage and Agony's Embrace, and not having to wait for Shadow Walk to come off CD. Lower recharge on Ignite + Flash = more kills, less deaths.

Also, as to why I picked three levels of Good Hands over Perseverance: http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=219077

Recommended

Ignite

I take Ignite for two reasons:

1. As an assassin, you want to stack on as much damage as possible, and particularly as Evelynn, you want to make sure that barely-living bastard is an actually-dead bastard.
2. Evelynn occasionally has problems finishing off lifesteal-heavy champions, and the healing debuff really helps with this.

Flash

As with all champions, Flash has both defensive and offensive uses.

Defensive: Let's face it: sometimes you're going to want a kill and end up getting yourself into a stupid situation that no amount of movement speed or mashing the W key will get you out of. Flash is there for you, baby.

Offensive: As a melee only champion, sometimes that tasty enemy champion is only just out of your reach. Flash + Ravage will take care of this for you.

A brief mention of a valuable use of Flash over Ghost as a gap closer: due to Agony's Embrace, Evelynn can be exceptionally good at tower diving. The one downside she has is that towers have true sight and can see you in stealth, giving champs who are at low health recalling at their towers the opportunity to see you advance on them at the last moment, and CC and kite you around the tower. A tactic that works is to approach the tower in stealth, Flash in, pop Ravage and Ignite on them, then activate your ult and flee, cackling like a demented, alleyway ****.

Viable

Exhaust

A great way to secure a gank by giving them a crippling slow, or to make sure you're out DPSing the person you're assassinating should they choose to fight. I prefer Ignite over this for reasons of pure damage, but I can't argue against this should you choose to use it.


Ghost

Another good potential choice, particularly when you activate this with your ultimate to get across the map. In this aspect, Ghost provides more mobility than Flash. What it does not provide is the option to Flash away when you are flanked, or to Flash into people to shut them down, or to run into people to get that one bastard Teemo and then flash out again.

Situational

Teleport

Again, another great option for the sake of mobility or counter-jungling: see a tasty target at top, teleport to an advancing minion wave, stealth and rape them. Or, ward their jungle, see them approach blue, teleport, stealth and rape them. However, taking this leaves you with either no escape spell (forfeiting Flash/Ghost Teleport) or no offensive spell (forfeiting Ignite/Exhaust). I prefer having both. Plus, our boots and ultimate give us plenty of mobility to roam around the map.


Cleanse

Another possible choice, though if you're using Cleanse it's because they've hit you with CC and are now approaching you. I prefer Flash because it is more likely to prevent this situation even happening.


Smite

This guide is not designed to jungle. You will get hardly any use of it in a lane or whilst roaming the lanes. The only potential use is for counter-jungling, and in order to make that much use of it, you'd have to be entirely dedicated to that task.


Revive

As this is not a SorakaBot jungling setup, but a laning/roaming guide, Revive is not recommended.

HNNNNG

Clairvoyance: Might be handy for counter-jungling, but better for your support. Plus, if you pack it and they get CV'd in the jungle, they'd be absolutely sure you're coming. You want to catch them unexpectedly.

Fortify: This goes to your tank/support.

Clarity: With our runes and masteries, mana shouldn't be a problem.

Heal: Our ultimate nullifies the need for this.

Rally: Because they'll never know you're coming with that totem on the ground.

Alright, that's our pre-game setup out of the way. Now you've loaded up, the announcer welcomes you to Summoner's Rift, and Teemo has started an argument because he wants to take mid from your Ashe.

Be prepared to look at some of the ugliest icon art in League of Legends:


Why? Well, your first level should be used to either scout for incoming ganks in your jungle (if you have a jungler), scout their jungle so that you can gank theirs (if they have a jungler), to scout in top/bottom lanes to see if anyone's going to jump out and rape you from the bushes, or to wait in mid bush and get a level 1 kill on their mid.

The second level of Shadow Walk and then ignoring it until the later levels is because 20 seconds appears to be the golden time for stealth. I find that leaving it at level 1 means I'm not able to have the patience to wait for a good opportunity, whereas anything more than level 2 is unnecessary. Add more early levels of Shadow Walk if you feel the need, but be careful not to gimp your damage.

Maxing Ravage over Hate Spike

As demonstrated in this thread here, where the OP eventually edited his first post and took back the title claim: Jungle Eve players: Stop maxing ravage.

...in a Platonic plane of perfect forms, Hate Spike will do more damage over time. To this, I say good luck at arriving at such a beautiful situation. Because you cannot target with Hate Spike, it is ******** unreliable. If you've got tiny burst and a massive Hate Spike, you risk wasting it all if they're sitting in the middle of a minion wave when the best opportunity to gank arises, or running through it on their way back. Or if Garen pops his head into the fight, you could end up hitting him with the primary damage instead of having unloading it all onto the correct target's glistening face.

Consider also that it's rare in these early stages of the game that you're assassinating targets on your own, and the increased armour/MR debuff from Ravage not only helps you do more damage to the target, but your teammates too.

I tried maxing Ravage first as an experiment, and I found it works much better.

Keep in mind the item build that you see at the top of the screen is merely what I end up building a majority of the time, but it is in no way set in stone. More than anything, when playing League of Legends it is important to be ADAPTABLE. Build according to your needs in whatever situation you find yourself in. Getting targeted and only have you core completed? Build some survivability, whether in the form of something that also helps with your damage (Rylai's) or something entirely focused on survivability (Banshee's).

Having said that, it is important to look at the way the numbers add up and think about the way your champion plays in order to see which options help us to accomplish particular objectives.

Potentials for starting items include:

Amplifying Tome + : I now prefer this set up over a Doran's Ring so I can build into an early Sheen. While you lose the MP5, you gain more AP, and a health potion is really an extra 200 HP if you think about it (though only if you can get out, and you do have Flash).

Sapphire Crystal + : If you still want to rush a Sheen but think you're going to have a harder time in your lane, try this instead. You'll lose some early ganking power but make up for it in more sustainability without delaying your build too much.

Doran's Ring: My old favourite. Gives you a nice mixture of power and survivability, granting 15 AP, 100 HP and 5 MP/5. However, it delays your core build slightly.

Regrowth Pendant -> Philosopher's Stone: A great choice that I played with back when I used Calfurion's guide, and a great recommendation on his part. Purchasing a Regrowth Pendant and then making it into a Philosopher's Stone after only a few hundred gold really helps your early game sustainability against heavy push and lane harassment until you're a high enough level to start giving it back. It's also good for roaming, since you'll no doubt receive some damage and spend some mana when ganking a lane, successful or not, as well as be missing out on minion kills. If you sell it 13 minutes and 20 seconds after building it, the GP/5 means you have made your money back, giving you an early game bonus at essentially minimal cost to the rest of your build.


That's seriously it. The rest of the items are up to you.

While it doesn't matter too much, the order I generally build my core in is:
-> -> -> -> -> -> -> -> ->

Sheen: Sheen synergises incredibly well with Evelynn because of her Hate Spike spam. It insures that every 2 seconds, she is autoattacking the enemy for double her base physical damage. This allows you to Ravage from stealth, activating Sheen and doubling the physical damage on your next autoattack, and then extra damage every 2 seconds while you desperately spam Hate Spike. Early game, this is the biggest way of boosting your damage, and the kills it will grant you will allow you to get your core completed faster.

Mejai's Soulstealer: I realise that snowballing is generally a controversial choice and that some people hate it. However, I feel that this item is part of Evelynn's core because it fits her role incredibly well. Your job is to approach unseen, assassinate a target, and leave immediately. You shouldn't be around taking the hits unless you're already dealing massive damage, which doesn't come until late game. And with a stealth, movement speed steroid and heal on any kill or assist, Eve is supposed to survive. Given that, I feel snowballing is particularly effective on Eve, and is the most cost-effective way to gain AP given how reliable her snowballing can be.

Mobility Boots: Again, making "gank boots" part of her core is something else I need to justify. Eve should be roaming around the map at any opportunity, not only to remove people from the map temporarily, but importantly to gain stacks on your Mejai's.

Lich Bane: I sometimes encounter criticism about getting an early Lich Bane on Evelynn. I am often told that I should just skip Sheen and go straight for massive AP, or build Sheen, wait to get extra AP, and then build Lich Bane much later.

Firstly, Lich Bane offers a number of stats which are fantastic on Eve, irrespective of the item's passive. 80 AP, 30 MR, 350 MP and 7% movement speed are all fantastic stats on Eve.

Secondly, if you manage to get this around mid-game - I'm thinking around level 12-14 - you should have a sizable amount of AP to make the passive on Lich Bane surpass the passive of Sheen, and to do so substantially. Put simply, this allows you to do a whole lot more damage than you think, and more reliably than simply boosting your AP and hoping Hate Spike picks the right target while Ravage is on CD (****ing minions).

For more detail on why rushing Lich Bane is a great idea on Eve, and how Lich Bane+ Blasting Wand actually does more damage than Sheen+ Rabadon's Deathcap, see the section "In Defence of Lich Bane" below.

Alternatives for Boots:

Sorcerer's Shoes: A good choice, and will undoubtedly increase your damage. However, as with the discussion of runes earlier, you don't want to cap your penetration against the targets that really matter: their squishies. If the important, delicious targets build Mercury's Treads first, then feel free to purchase these instead of Boots of Mobility. However, if they aren't and you still want to build these, keep in mind that you may be sacrificing a great deal of ganking opportunities, as well as escape plans for those times when you see those little portraits converging on you like the SS.

Boots of Swiftness: A decent option to swap out if you don't like needing to be out of combat to move around quickly. This, however, weakens your ability to roam, gank and scout as quickly.

That's it for the core. Now onto your other items.


These are generally the next 2 items I build, and in this order. However, the order on these can be quite flexible if need be. If you're taking heavy fire, they're an AoE team (Eve hates AoE), or if they're building quite tanky, you may want to begin with Rylai's. Otherwise, assuming you're having a nice, unproblematic game where you're assassinating at will, this order does wonders.

Rabadon's Deathcap: Grab this item if you aren't having any problems staying alive or you just want to WTFsplode their Teemo. The reasoning behind this is simple: lots and lots of AP + Lich Bane = lots and lots of damage.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter: Whether you like it or not, at this point in the game you are probably the focus and you are beginning to take heavy fire. No amount of stealth will prevent you from taking damage, so it's time to man up a little. If this happens much earlier in the game, if they're an AoE team, or if they're building particularly tanky, I will grab this before the Deathcap, or even before Lich Bane. Remember, you deal more damage alive than dead.

It provides Eve with 3 things that benefit her greatly. Firstly, 80 AP. Secondly, 500 HP. Thirdly, a slow that is activated by that Ravage and Hate Spike you're spamming on them. This ensures that you stay alive, continue to do lots of damage, and make sure no one gets away.

Alternatives:

There are other possibilities if you want to swap out the above items for slots 4 and 5. These are merely the ones I've had the most success with. Here are your options and why I generally prefer those listed above:

Deathfire Grasp: 15% CDR, 10 MP/5 and 60 AP makes this a great item. However, the real reason you'd want to grab this is for the amazing active ability. An autoattack-stun -> DFG nuke -> Ravage combo deals a LOT of damage.

Morello's Evil Tome: It's basically Deathfire Grasp with improved stats and no active. 20% CDR, 12 MP/5 and 75 AP. If you want a good source of CDR that doesn't skimp on AP and don't get much use out of the active, try using this. Another option would be to rush this before Lich Bane to take advantage of the mana regen, or perhaps just to build it afterwards.

The reason I don't like this as much as the other items is because it doesn't provide as much damage as Lich Bane, nowhere near as much AP as Deathcap, and doesn't give you the bulk and slow Rylai's does. Most of your damage is coming from Ravage and Lich Bane procs: Ravage's cooldown is long and it's unlikely you're going to use it more than once on a target no matter how much CDR you have, and Lich Bane's cooldown is internal and unaffected by CDR. However, if you find you want cooldown reduction and don't have access to your (or more importantly, their) blue buff, take this.

Will of the Ancients: 80 AP + 25% spell vamp? Wow. I haven't actually used this, but with Evelynn's insane damage that she can pump out with Soulstealer Stacks, Lich Bane and the Deathcap alone, Will of the Ancients could provide you with insane sustainability in fights, healing hundreds of HP while killing champs, then gaining even more with your ultimate. Definitely an item I need to test on her. Because it relies on high damage, which you get from Lich Bane and Deathcap, it would probably have to be built in place of Rylai's, but you will be sacrificing slows and a large amount of HP.

Zhonya's Hourglass: This item is wonderful and has lots of potential - 100 AP and 50 armour. Apart from the Deathcap, this provides more base AP than the other items on my list, and is definitely one to consider if you feel the need to do more damage. The armour is always an added bonus too. The real potential, however, lies in the active. Imagine flashing into a tower, hitting them with Ravage and Ignite, then using your Hourglass to wait for Ignite to kill them off so you regain enough HP to dart out with your ultimate on.

The active on Zhonya's also has an amazing added perk. If you manage to activate the stealth and then immediately activate Zhonya's before you go invisible, you will replace the period you would normally spend running away from attacks and praying to Jesus with a glorious moment of standing there whilst glowing and untouchable like a twisted, murderous, piss angel.

Having said that, the reason I don't grab it is that I'd rather sacrifice the 20 AP and the very situational active for Rylai's passive, as the slow can be incredibly valuable both offensively and defensively. Also, I'd rather take 500 health over 50 armour. I don't want to go into what effective health means (you can do so yourself here); however, 50 armour = 50% more effective physical health. At level 18, Evelynn has about 1900 HP; this means that an extra 50 armour grants you 950 HP vs. physical damage, whereas Rylai's grants you 500 HP vs. physical, magical and true damage. I'd rather take the latter and have all my bases covered, but if they're mostly physical and you have more use for the active than I do, you may want to take this item instead.

Abyssal Mask: While the stats on this item are great for Eve, the item is poorly suited for stealth champions as the debuff aura will give you away to the enemy team if you're stealthed near them.

Archangel's Staff: Once you calculate Eve's mana at level 18, this item looks like a godsend. Eve's mana at level 18 is 894. Add to this the 1350 from a fully charged AAS, and 350 from Lich Bane, and you have 2594 mana. Thus a fully charged Archangel Staff (not difficult to do with Hate Spike) grants Eve with 45 AP, plus 77.82 AP from her mana pool, altogether adding up to ~123 AP.

The downside? You're spending nearly 3000 gold on an item that gives you 123 AP and... not much else (a pointlessly large mana pool does not count). And this is after you've charged it up and hit level 18, when you needed that advantage about 10 minutes ago. For that, you could almost buy two Needlessly Large Rods and get 160 AP. Or one of the many more useful items above.

Rod of Ages: To be clear, this item is not at all bad. It's an item I build on most of my casters. It's just difficult to fit into what I see as Evelynn's core build. You could rush the Catalyst instead of Sheen, but you're delaying your killing power for lane sustainability. You could build this after your Soulstealer, but then you're delaying your damage while you wait for Rod of Ages to grow. The longer you wait, the further on the game goes, and the quicker you lose your midgame advantage, which inevitably stunts your ability to instagib Teemo late game.

Nashor's Tooth/ Guinsoo's Rageblade: AP Eve's strength lies in launching a massive burst with Ravage out of stealth followed by Lich Bane and Hate Spike cleaning their twitching remains off the ground. While her Hate Spike and Lich Bane allow her to sustain damage afterwards, you don't want to hang around long as Eve. These items focus on benefiting hybrid champions such as Kayle, Teemo and Nidalee whose AP-scaling abilities combine with their autoattack to give them sustained damage. i.e., not4u

Good for pushing towers I guess, but you can do that when they're all dead.

So the game has really gone on this long? Ok, you need something to complete your outfit. Either you're looking for more of an offensive boost, or you're starting to have trouble now that they're all saving their R key for you.

Void Staff: If the targets on their team are grabbing Banshee's Veil and you're having no trouble surviving, this is what you should grab. You may want to grab this before your last item if they begin to itemise against you early. Not only is it a great, cheap AP boost; by this point, at least someone that I want to die has grabbed a Banshee's Veil or Force of Nature. With that much magic resistance, the percentage based magic penetration of Void Staff begins to outweigh items like Haunting Guise (ew) or Abyssal Scepter (which you shouldn't be grabbing anyway really). Keep in mind that by grabbing this item with Archaic Knowledge , they multiply together, giving you 49% magic penetration. Sexy.

Morello's Evil Tome: While I'm uncomfortable with swapping out Lich Bane, Rabadon's Deathcap or Rylai's Crystal Scepter for this, if they haven't got any more than around 40 MR then feel free to grab this. This will give you more AP than a Void Staff, plus 20% CDR brings you to 29% with your masteries.

Will of the Ancients: As before, I haven't tried this out yet, but against a team that has failed to itemise against you, and with the AP you have at this stage of the game, this could potentially make you nearly invulnerable.

Banshee's Veil: Handy if they're saving stuns for you, or if you just want a little more bulk against their abilities.

Guardian Angel: A more mixed source of damage mitigation. If you are focused first and your team has the balls to engage rather than leave you for dead, this is a great item to have. Nothing frustrates a team once they've finally managed to kill that pesky Eve than realising that she's got an extra life.

I'm quite aware that building an early Lich Bane on any champion is generally a bad idea because it doesn't offer as much as any other item you could rush. This isn't the case with Eve, particularly the way I build her. Let's have a look at why.

If you're willing to take my word on it or aren't interested in the theorycrafting, skip over this section because it is pretty wall-of-texty. If you're mildly interested in the reasons why I would take LB over an early Deathcap, there's a TL;DR section at the end there just for you. For those interested in how I arrived at those conclusions, though, continue reading.

Why Eve is a Unique Case

When playing Veigar, Annie or Lux, maximising your Lich Bane means spacing out your combo with autoattacks, allowing the enemy the possibility of getting out of your devastating abilities in the time it takes. On some characters this is even worse because your abilities have a longer range than your autoattack, meaning you have to place your squishy body closer to theirs and ask them to hold still while you pelt them.

For most AP characters, this means you need loads of AP to make sure that autoattack you're using instead of your next ability in the combo is going to be worth the possibility of not hitting them with the entire sequence. In cases where you need to be in a shorter range to autoattack than use your abilities (i.e., not Annie), it also means having enough survivability to get in range and survive any focus you draw while autoattacking. For this reason, Lich Bane is understandably a later item on many of these champions.

Evelynn is not one of these characters. First of all, Hate Spike requires no animation on Evelynn's part. That **** just happens. Therefore, it interrupts nothing, and her "combo" (if you could call E, right-click, QQQQQQQQQQQQ a combo...) doesn't have to be spaced out at all. Secondly, Evelynn's already in range, spiking your genitals and making you barren. So Lich Bane doesn't add any extra risk that you weren't already taking.

Rushing Lich Bane vs. Other Items

Again, some will say I should just build Sheen and then go for Rylai's/Deathcap to boost the AP, and then get Lich Bane, because at those levels Sheen will still be doing more damage. Let's look at this statement more closely.

As an example, let's assume we're level 13. According to the League of Legends Wikia, at level 13 you should have about 87.6 base AD (though I think it may be slightly higher than this [~90], I'm not sure). This means that when your Sheen activates, your autoattack is doing ~175 damage. In order to top this, you need at least 88 AP, a feat that we have already accomplished at this stage. Archmage's Savvy (13*0.6=7.8) + Glyphs (13*0.17*9=19.89) + Quints (14.85) + Doran's Ring (15) + Mejai's (at least 20) + Lich Bane (80) = ~157 AP. So at this point, Lich Bane is increasing your autoattack damage from 175 (with Sheen) to 244 damage. THIS IS WITH NO STACKS ON YOUR SOULSTEALER.

Now let's try and compare rushing a Lich Bane and a Rabadon's Deathcap using these level 13 stats. Keep in mind I am including Sheen in the Deathcap comparison because, based on what it provides for so little cost, it's something you should be buying even if you rush a Deathcap. Because this combo costs more than Lich Bane (by 1390 gp) we're going to add a Blasting Wand to the Lich Bane combo (and you still have 530 cash left over).

Sheen + Deathcap = 4860 gp
Lich Bane + Blasting Wand = 4330 gp

Comparing the damage outputs of both builds
Sheen + Deathcap + lvl 13 AP = 1.3(25 + 155 + 157) = ~438 AP
Lvl 5 Ravage = 320 + 438 = 758 damage
Lvl 4 Hate Spike = 70 + 0.28(438) = ~193 damage
Sheen autoattack = ~175 damage

Lich Bane + Blasting Wand + lvl 13 AP = 80 + 40 + 157 = 277 AP
Lvl 5 Ravage = 320 + 277 = 597 damage
Lvl 4 Hate Spike = ~148 damage
Lich Bane autoattack = ~365 damage

Over a 4 second period you could maximally get off 1 Ravage, 5 Hate Spikes, and 2 LB/Sheen procs. Let's look at how much damage you could output over this period without factoring in MR or armour.

Typical 4 second fight:

Deathcap = 758 + 5(193) + 2(175) = 2073 damage
Lich Bane = 597 + 5(148) + 2(365) = 2067 damage

Look at how close that **** is. Even with an extra 160 AP, Deathcap is only doing an extra 6 damage. Keep in mind that this is an optimal situation and doesn't include the highly possible scenario that minions or other champions could be ****ing up your Hate Spike. Hate Spike hits what it wants; Lich Bane procs are targetted. Therefore, any situation where your Hate Spikes aren't choosing your main target sway in favour of an early Lich Bane.

Some may argue at this point that because of Deathcap's passive which multiplies your AP by 130%, extra stacks will actually scale better with an early Deathcap rush. Let's do the math with 5 stacks:

Comparing the damage outputs of both builds @ 5 stacks

Sheen + Deathcap + lvl 13 AP + 5 stacks = 1.3(25 + 155 + 157 + 40) = ~490 AP
Lvl 5 Ravage = 320 + 490 = 810 damage
Lvl 4 Hate Spike = 70 + 0.28(490) = ~207 damage
Sheen autoattack = ~175 damage

Lich Bane + Blasting Wand + lvl 13 AP + 5 stacks = 80 + 40 + 157 + 40 = 317 AP
Lvl 5 Ravage = 320 + 317 = 637 damage
Lvl 4 Hate Spike = 70 + 0.28(317) = ~159 damage
LB autoattack = ~405 damage

4 second fight

Deathcap = 810 + 5(207) + 2(175) = 2195 damage
Lich Bane = 637 + 5(159) + 2(405) = 2242 damage

See what happened there? Lich Bane actually scaled better with extra AP than a rushed Deathcap did. This is because Lich Bane is essentially adding a 1:1 AP ratio to your autoattack, essentially giving you extra mini-Ravages.

Mixed stats

Rushing a Lich Bane not only grants you equal/greater damage than a Deathcap; it also grants you other bonuses which work fantastically on Eve. These include an extra 30 MR, 350 MP and 7% movement speed.

Damage types

Another thing to keep in mind is that Lich Bane adds this damage to your autoattack as physical damage. This means that not only are you dealing crazy magic damage from your abilities, but you've also got a very painful source of physical damage as well. Mixed sources of damage that require you to only itemise for one of them make you more difficult to counter in terms of damage mitigation items.

Small steps

Finally, as stated earlier, Evelynn has a slow start. Rushing massive items has the upside of being very cost-effective, but a downside of having a relatively large period of time where you're falling behind everybody else. As Evelynn, It can be very difficult falling behind the rest of the game while you wait to build a Needlessly Large Rod for your Deathcap, or a Giant's Belt for your Rylai's. Lich Bane, on the other hand, builds out of very small components.
___________________________________________________________________________________

TL;DR?

An early Lich Bane is worthwhile because:

• With 0 stacks: LB dmg = Deathcap dmg
• With >0 stacks: LB dmg > Deathcap dmg
• More reliable damage than just Hate Spike (LB = autoattack = targeted)
• Does not interrupt ability damage
• 30 MR, 350 MP and 7% movement speed
• Builds out of smaller components (smoother progression)
• Gives you large source of physical damage (more difficult to mitigate)

Evelynn's gameplay has three potential stages, corresponding very roughly to the phases of the game (early, mid, late) but more accurately to how much food you can gather for glorious Russia as the game goes on:

1. Initiating
   Where you are able to initiate ganks in lanes on targets early game by utilising your stealth to deliver an unknowing stun and small burst. You're more likely to get assists unless you're lucky.
   
2. Assassinating
   Where you are able to competently kill off weakened targets on your own, or initiate and deal a large portion of the damage on a target.
   
3. Instagibbing
   Where you're so fed that you can instagib that Teemo before he can even press W.

Realising what you're capable of at different stages of the game is absolutely vital to succeeding with Evelynn; however, it will only come with time. The most difficult part of playing Eve is transitioning from one phase to another: knowing when all you can do is stun and kill weakened targets, to killing squishy targets yourself, to thinking that that enemy Mordekaiser looks like he could go down pretty quickly.

So everyone's taking their position. Where is yours?

What Eve can't do (effectively):

• Laning solo mid
• Laning solo top
• Jungling

(At least, not as well after the nerfs. Leave this to someone more competent.)

What Eve can do:

• Laning duo bottom/top
• Roaming

I find that I have the most luck doing a combination of laning and roaming.

The Goal

It's important while playing LoL to always have an overarching objective, and for early game, that objective is to get food. Evelynn's goal at this early part of the game is to acquire enough bread to trade in for her core build. She gathers food in two ways: getting kills/assists, and farming creeps (which Eve sucks at).

Eve's means of income is quite unreliable. Because of your poor farm, you depend on the strength of your teammates at disembowelling the targets you secure. You essentially want your boots, Soulstealer and Sheen up as quickly as possible so you can start growing in power. Luckily, these are quite cheap. If you can keep up a relatively average CS and constantly look for opportunities on the minimap, you can get your core up.

Once you have your Soulstealer, you can start getting more aggressive, more powerful and transition from initiating ganks to assassinating targets.

Sidequest

**** their jungler.

Laning

Let's be honest: Eve's straightforward laning presence is pretty weak. She has no range, no gap closers, and no bulk to dive straight into enemies and expect their retaliation to not hurt. This makes it incredibly difficult for her to farm. So in order to get that CS above 3, you're going to need to time yo-yo-ing into minion waves to get the occasional minion quite well. Do what you can, but if you're getting harassed too heavily, it's better you not die than feed.

If you're getting zoned very heavily to the point where you're receiving no XP, spend that mana you're not using going into stealth, hanging out near the minion waves to get XP, and then falling back when it wears off. Hey, it's better than nothing and getting ragey sitting at the tower.

Above all, play mind games.

Initiating and good lanemates to make sure they die

I've read guides that argue that the best lanemates are those with CC. CC is great and all, but stuns are what you bring to the party. At this point, you don't have trouble holding someone down: you have trouble killing them (this is why we picked Ignite).

High damage, CC-lacking champions like Olaf and Tryndamere are good for this. You provide the CC they lack, while they provide ridiculous early game damage. Tryndamere is a special case: his damage is intense, but he is still ludicrously squishy. If only he could hold that target down...

Having said that, CC doesn't hurt, especially if you can deliver the first stun/snare that allows a lanemate to set up another they might otherwise have trouble landing (Veigar, Morgana, Brand, Blitzcrank, etc.).

Roaming

Roaming is becoming quite popular in the current LoL ranked metagame, but a number of people have no idea what it involves.

Roaming is like jungling without the jungle. It essentially involves you being an annoying *****, and this is in fact the key: the more annoying you are the better. You need to be as disruptive as possible by feeding yourself and your teammates, and allowing your team to dominate their lanes through your disruption of their pushing and farming.

It involves moving from lane to lane and disrupting enemy attempts to farm or push by weakening them down or killing them, counter-jungling by destroying neutral camps or ganking the jungler and, again, either killing them or getting them on such low health they have to recall.

This has a number of advantages and disadvantages:

Pros:

• Two solo lanes on your team (three, if you have a jungler); more gold and experience for those champions
• Disrupts enemy teams attempts to gain gold or destroy your tower
• More kills and assists = more gold = better mid game

Cons:

• Does not work well in games without strong solo laning champs
• Full-time laning results in you being 1-3 levels behind the duo lane
• Relies on kills/assists for her income
• 0 farm (though Eve sucks at this anyway)

In order to try and soften the blow from the cons, I tend to oscillate between laning and roaming. This of course gives that third champ less of an advantage, but if you oscillate between the two, your enemy lanemates will fear you enough to play cautiously and let your lanemate farm up. How much I do one or the other depends on how behind I end up being in XP, and how capable I think my lanemate is of handling a lane if I disappear momentarily.

Remember, even though the enemy may say so in chat, a "fail gank" is not a failure at all if they have to recall or sit at their tower.

Mind games

Stealth characters, especially Eve and her stun, are notorious for inspiring fear and uncertainty. They are also the most devastating when unexpected because it allows you the easiest means to exploit their weaknesses. Use this to your advantage by playing games with the enemy champs in your lane and remaining unpredictable:

Pretend to advance:
Go into stealth while moving either directly at them or moving into a bush ahead. Thinking you've decided you're going to initiate on them, they will either run back, stop pushing, or cluster together. Either walk backwards to hang around the minion wave and gain XP, or use this opportunity to roam other lanes or the enemy jungle.

Pretend to roam:
Essentially the opposite of the above. Pretend to go in the direction of another lane only to return to your own and wear them down or kill them.

Pretend to pretend:
After enough of that, they'll start to guess what you're doing. So be unpredictable by being utterly predictable. Stealth and move directly into them, and when they don't budge, bring them down. Careful of skill shots though.

It's hard to know when you've entered this territory. It can change from game to game, as it depends not only on the strength of your team and the amount of bread you've acquired, but also on the strength of their team, as well as how tanky they are.

But you know it when it comes. You look at that ranged carry... on their own... 3 metres from their tower... innocently shooting minions and you think... "that **** looks tasty."

To that I say, do it.

****ing do it.

This is when you start getting aggressive. You've got a respectable amount of stacks (5-7 maybe), which along with your runes gives you a nice mid-game AP advantage. And you know from the damage you're doing that you can start killing people on your own.

The Goal

Evelynn's goal at this stage of the game is to continue getting food to acquire more powerful items and to increase her stacks to eliminate the most important targets effectively, either forcing them to invest in damage mitigation and lowering their output, or continuing to be eliminated.

It is also incredibly important that Eve not just kill people who are on their lonesome, but to participate in teamfights instead of watch them and kill all the ones who leave on 3 bars. While it's important that no one gets away on Eve's watch, she needs to participate in teamfights, albeit in her own particular fashion.

It's important to note that the items in Evelynn's core build are what allow her to function effectively at a very basic level. Essentially, that is what I feel she needs to even work at all. At this point, you're not grabbing items so that you can function at a basic level: this is when you are acquiring items to perform well.

Sidequests

• Scouting
• Split-pushing (or backdooring)

It's important at this point to know where the balance between playing aggressively and conservatively should be. Unfortunately, this will come from two things: common sense, which tends to take a leave of absence when you get greedy, and practice, which we all lack in the beginning.

Scouting

Evelynn's stealth and mobility makes her more than an assassin; it also makes her your team's scout, a mobile ward. Look around the map while invisible, taking breaks in the brush and using your ult to escape if necessary. Check out their jungle and raid it. Control map objectives such as the Dragon by keeping a lookout while your team takes it. Prevent enemy ganks and allow your own with the information your vision of the enemy territory provides.

Initiate "micro-teamfights"

I may eat my words for this one, but once you've played Evelynn a few times you begin to realise which situations you can initiate in and which you can't. Generally, if your team is already organised, you have a fair amount of how many of the opposite team are MIA, and backup from your team is certain, you can initiate ganks or even small-scale teamfights. However, stakes are generally higher at this point: they do more damage and so do you. Found Miss Fortune, Mordekaiser and Irelia? You're probably ok to rape MF and duck out if the others can back you up. Found Sion, Katarina and Blitzcrank? Maybe let your Malphite run in this time.

Split-pushing (or backdooring)

By this stage of the game, Eve's stealth, boots, ultimate and Sheen/Lich Bane make her particularly adept at pushing a lane and damaging the tower. Make sure you're not suicidal about this: do it when they're pushing your lane and held at a tower and you think you have an opportunity, or if your team is pushed to their tower and have the opportunity to push another lane. Doing it while their Nocturne with an Oracle is mia is just asking to be slaughtered.

I've placed this in a separate section because Evelynn's teamfighting style is important, unique, and relevant at all phases of the game.

Assassins occupy an interesting space in teamfights. While they initiate early game, they cannot do so as the game progresses lest they be held down and rape anally. They cannot run in right after the tank as a melee DPS would either, as they lack the bulk and will most likely be focused. And unless they're Twitch, they lack the ability to sit in the back and fire at people like the ranged DPS and mages do. They must wait until the battle is engaged, analyse the situation (quickly, don't just watch everyone die), and figure out who it is safe to target and where from.

If massive teamfights occur, it is important that Eve not have initiated them. Eve must join a teamfight in medias res, after the tanks have initiated and the first round of hate and CC is on CD. This is when you ping a target and go right in. Open with Ravage, put on Ignite, activate your ultimate and spam Hate Spike. If they change focus to you and you know you can't handle it, duck out. If they chase you, you've broken up the teamfight and can circle around, which is good. If they don't, stealth and come in for a second wave. This is how Evelynn contributes to teamfights: darting in and out, destroying single targets and leaving when she takes the heat. Without a substantial advantage (i.e., you're really fed or they're losing the fight), an Evelynn who stays in the middle of a teamfight will lose.

It's generally most important to bring down their support (if they have one) first: get Zilean to waste his ult on himself, or Janna to break up the teamfight early out of desperation with her ult, or Sona to fire her ult at a single target. Eliminating the support means you can down their carries (physical or casters, scores tend to reveal who), who are of course the next targets.

This is where all your toil in early game pays off: Eve's slaughterhouse of a fed late game. It's possible that you never make it far enough to 2-shot that Teemo. You essentially need 1-2 of your massive AP items and 15+ stacks. You can essentially become so powerful that you can roam their jungle on your own eliminating most of their team.

If you've managed to get incredibly powerful at taking down single targets at this stage, make sure you're still teamfighting as before. Keep in mind that while Eve does insane damage late game, champions generally have enough of their core items to be able to afford to itemise against you now. Get stupid and cocky, and you'll lose stacks.

The Goal

Win.

Sidequest

Kill Teemo so many times that he ragequits.

If Eve has managed to keep up with the rest of the champions on the other team, Eve is quite capable of single-handedly taking out individual targets if no help arrives. This particularly applies for ranged physical carries.

Due to the immense damage and assassination capabilities of a well-nourished Evelynn, late game can often result in them either offensively roaming in tight packs or defensively remaining within the safety of their base.

If they roam in tight packs, you lose the ability to instagib lonely targets. But what they gain in strength they lose in mobility and control. Remember to let the rest of your team initiate teamfights and do your best to scout out opportunities. If even one target breaks away from the pack, you may be able to bring them down and get out before the rest of the team can come running. If you still have good vision of the map, feel free to safely exploit their lack of map control due to how closely grouped they are by taking map objectives or pushing lanes. A 5-man group can't be everywhere at once.

If they are hiding in their base, once more you lose the opportunity to instagib lonely targets. However, because they have the home advantage, they have more control over what fights actually occur. It's a lot more difficult for your team to initiate at their base without taking heavy damage. Your team needs to capitalise on their defensive play by taking ownership of all the map's objectives, gaining uncontested access to Baron, both blue and red buffs, and the minion waves. It's also important that instead of waiting for them to come out that you keep the pressure on and push the lanes. If a stalemate occurs where you're unable to push to a tower without being destroyed, instruct the team to push multiple lanes. This will force them to split up and make tower-diving a whole lot easier.

If they buy oracles and wards at some point during the game, it means one of two things:

1. They fear you.
2. They want to feed on you.

Either way, treat this as a compliment to your whorishness. When they aim to counter something that is a core part of your gameplay, you need to figure out how to counter their counter.


Vision wards are what you'll likely encounter early game, preventing you from abusing your stealth mechanic to gank enemy champions. Pink wards are, in some respects, actually more difficult to counter than Oracles, as Oracles are plainly obvious (unless on another stealth champ), whereas if no one notices that a pink ward has been placed on the map, you'll have no idea that you are seen until it's too late.

Pros:

• Vision isolated to a location
• Temporary
• Stunts item builds (when bought early game)

Cons:

• Invisible (you don't know you're unseen)
• Shuts down that area for 3 minutes and (somewhat) prevents ganks

How to counter:

• Make sure your team keeps an eye out for the placement of pink wards
• If no enemy champions are in the lane, walk around incoming minion lines and see if you draw any aggro (they will glow yellow around the edges if they are coming to target you)
• If trying to gank mid or an overextended solo, approach them from behind so they either can't escape anyway or have to waste Flash/Cleanse/Ghost
• If they're doing it a lot, buy an Oracle to waste their money. Keep in mind that your Oracle's vision range is shorter than the ward's vision range, so they will still see you before you see the ward, but you'll still be able to eliminate them
• Pink wards are generally placed in the open, allowing you to still hide in bushes around the lane and flash/ult into enemy champs before they can escape

Oracle's Elixirs are a little easier to counter, as unless they're hiding in the bushes, you know when you're being seen, and therefore know who to avoid.

Pros:

• The big pink eye above champions let's you know who to avoid
• Lost upon death (meaning wasted cash)

Cons:

• Can encourage the enemy team to group up
• If placed on very tanky champions, it can be hard to eliminate (e.g., Mordekaiser, Cho'Gath)
• Mobile (prepare to be chased)

How to counter:

• If it's not their tank, try to have your team focus them down
• Oracle's vision range is shorter than their normal vision range; keep this in mind when hanging around enemy champions
• Use team separation to eliminate targets who feel like they're safe
• Try to use distraction from the rest of your team engaging in teamfights to eliminate targets at the back

This section constitutes a little site of brainstorming and experimentation. Feel free to suggest builds that may help in this situation. As such, it's not exactly a part of the guide and I'm not looking to be rated on it just yet, but it is here to show you a work in progress.

So, let's say you're playing solo queue and you load up to see 5 off-tanks and/or tanks on the opposite team. A normal nuking Evelynn is not going to be able to do much, as teamfights against tanky teams are often longer in length and it's a lot more difficult to burst down someone with so much durability. I'll be honest: this team composition wrecks the job of AP Evelynn quite substantially. Even normal AD Evelynn suffers as a result, as her need to do more sustained damage means the enemy team has time to react and focus her down.

Once you've loaded up and facepalmed, it's time to think about how you're going to counter all that HP and MR. I'm not providing summoner spells, runes and masteries for this, as it assumes you're in a normal game and have no idea this is coming. You're essentially prepared for a normal game as Evelynn, and greeted with 5 super morbidly obese champions on the other team.

I've considered adding a Deathfire Grasp to the regular build, but really, that isn't enough. First of all, it deals damage as magic damage, meaning it's just as prone to resistances as anything else. And while a Void Staff present in the build with 9/0/21 masteries gives you 49% magic pen, it's still prone to getting substantially mitigated. Secondly, it's only got one use per minute. Great to shut down one tanky champion. What do you do with the other 4?

My thinking is, while people stacking MR can be compensated for with a Void Staff, the high health that tanky teams possess is more of a problem because you have no specific counter for that. It's usually only once you're substantially fed that you can usually start to target the tankier champions before the rest of their team arrives in a game with an average enemy team composition.

So, things we need to counter a tanky team:

1. Sustained damage (you're not going to be able to burst down an off-tank without already being fed)
2. Anti-tank damage (%hp damage and/or magic penetration, to deal with the massive amounts of HP and MR you'll face)
3. Survivability (synergises with the need for sustained damage)

So, the current way of thinking with this build is:



Looks kind of strange, doesn't it? This works similar to a particular way of building Kog'Maw: utilising his %hp damage and simply buffing his attack speed. This build aims to utilise Evelynn's already massive attack speed to maximise the damage on Madred's, with some magic pen to make sure we're doing as much %hp damage, while giving her enough survivability to stand there and actually deal that damage. Keep in mind we're not actually switching to AD as Madred's actually does magic damage, but the style (autoattacking for glory) becomes the same.

Why not more attack speed items to capitalise on this? Quite simply, because late game we don't want to waste lots of attack speed by going over the cap when using Agony's Embrace. Even with Nashor's Tooth, I believe you'll be capping it when you get the third level of your ultimate.

Starting Items

Cloth Armor + 2-5 Health Potions: Eve is a ****ty farmer, and she has a ****ty time in a lane, but you may find you're going to have a harder time co-ordinating ganks on teams who have enough HP to escape. While this is great because you're denying those champs gold and XP by forcing them to leave the lane, the likelihood that you won't be picking up kills mean you need to farm up a little more, and only leave the lane to perform a gank when the outcome is a little more certain.

Boots + 3 Health Potions: Like the former, but with movement speed over armour to allow you to roam the map if need be or to dart in and out for a last hits without suffering too much harassment.

Regrowth Pendant -> Philosopher's Stone: As with before, Regrowth into Philosopher's Stone could be a great idea. Offsets Eve's terrible farm a little while also giving her a little sustainability to do so. Biggest problem is the fact that it doesn't build into your core, and you need to get Madred's as soon as possible to be effective.

Core Build

What a weird looking set of items. Let me explain. Offensively, on a Madred's anti-tank build, you only need three things. The first of these is, obviously, Madred's. The second of these is attack speed, to maximise the amount of times you're hitting them with the %hp magical damage from Madred's. Eve's built in AS steroid means we don't even need to spend much time itemising for this. The third of these is magic penetration, to minimise the extent to which the magical damage from your Madred's Bloodrazor is being mitigated by their resistances. To repeat: Madred's, AS, magic pen. This is all we need offensively.

Madred's Bloodrazor: This is our golden item, our one possible ray of hope against bastard tank teams. It is your only reliable source of %hp damage, and it works quite well with you because of your AS steroid. I'd probably finish the Madred's Razor component first, just so you can farm up the rest of this expensive item with a little more ease, and even jungle/counter-jungle a little if you have to.

Mercury's Treads: Unless you're facing a team of Mundo, Mordekaiser, Rumble, Olaf and Nasus, you'll find that most tanky teams are often quite high in hard CC. Even if you were facing that team, you might want to consider getting rid of all those slows. Because CC shuts down Evelynn quite nastily, I consider this item to be one of the better pairs of boots to get.

Stinger -> Nashor's Tooth: Now, I'm quite sure that with just Madred's Bloodrazor and activating a level 3 Agony's Embrace, you are actually hitting your attack speed cap. However, we still need a way of maximising damage prior to level 16, or to still do great damage when your ultimate is down. Out of all the attack speed items, I went with this one. The CDR will mean your ultimate is up more often, and your ultimate being up more often means maximising your Madred's damage.

Because Nashor's Tooth is a little expensive, and you benefit from one half of it more than the other half with this particular build (the AP is fairly useless), I'm thinking of building the Stinger and then coming back to complete it as a luxury with 15% more CDR after completing my next item.

Void Staff: Most people will look at this and not have a clue why I bought it. I've only got a measly amount of AP, so why try to increase the magic penetration on my nuking? Why build this so early, and as a core item?

Firstly, Madred's Bloodrazor deals magic damage. Because of this, it is mitigated by their magic resistance, meaning that sexy 4% you think you're doing every hit could be more like 1% against a tanky, MR-heavy team. However, as with any other magic damage you deal, your magic penetration stat is still factored into how much damage you'll be doing to them.

Secondly, we get this out of the way early because, well, they're a tanky team. Chances are, most of them will at least be building Mercury Treads and Banshee's Veil/Force of Nature, meaning it's a near certainty that you're going to have to build some sort of magic penetration. If they've built those two items, Void Staff grants you more magic penetration than any of the other items you could get on Eve, most of which are ill-suited for her anyway.

Alternatives for your AS item:

Sword of the Divine: Grants even more AS than Malady or Nashor's Tooth for around the same price as Malady. However, this has less late-game utility than Nashor's, because both Nashor's and Sword of the Divine push you over the AS cap when using level 3 Agony's Embrace. And you're also missing out on the CDR. I'd rather just grab the Stinger first for cheap AS.

Malady: At first, this was the item I had thought to recommend as the one extra AS item over Nashor's. It's cheap (the main positive), it gives plenty of AS, and it also gives you an MR reduction debuff that works with your Madred's.

However, because percentage magic penetration is applied last, flat magic penetration/reduction and percentage magic penetration kind of work at odds with each other. So while the relative cheapness of this AS item and the addition of an MR debuff with on-hit effects looks great on Madred's/AS Evelynn, I'd much prefer to build an early Stinger for almost the same attack speed as well as some CDR, and then simply finish it off after the Void Staff.

Guinsoo's Rageblade: On a hybrid Eve, I like the idea of this. However, we're focusing on maximising our Madred's here, not give us extra AD. Flat AS is all we need.

Wit's End: Would have been an interesting alternative if not for its upcoming remake in the new patch.

Phantom Dancer: Too expensive, and crit is wasted. Build Stinger for cheap AS and non-wasted stats, and upgrade it later as a luxury.

Alternatives for your boots:

Berserker's Greaves: On any other champion we're using to autoattack but Eve, this would be a fine option. However, we've got plenty of AS from our ultimate and one AS item. This would constitute overkill.

Mobility Boots / Boots of Swiftness: Can't disagree, but I will say this: as you're not bursting, you need to actually be in teamfights a little more rather than darting in and out. For this, I prefer durability.

Sorcerer's Shoes: We're building Void Staff, so we don't want to waste any possibly useful stats on our boots by picking these up instead.

Survivability:

These two items aren't set in stone or anything; they're just the two that I would prefer to take in a game where you're taking relatively balanced damage. Because they both have health, they function multiplicatively, increasing the benefits of each other against both magical and physical damage.

Keep in mind that with Mercury Treads, you've got relatively equal MR and armour at level 18. So, if you're wondering which to build first, either is good.

Banshee's Veil: This is simply the item to buy for countering magic damage, as well as ensuring your survival quite generally. Stealth, movement speed steroid, Flash and now a spell shield, more health and more magic resistance should keep you going in a fight and allow you to escape tight spots.

Randuin's Omen: Of all the HP/armour items, this is my favourite for an anti-tank situation. In terms of effective health, Banshee's/Sunfire gives you more effective magical health (because Sunfire gives you more health than Randuin's but less armour), but Banshee's/Randuin's gives you more effective physical health. Overall though, I prefer Randuin's because of the better unique passive and active. 35 damage per second isn't going to mean anything in a fight against a tanky team, whereas CDR, attack speed debuffs and slows definitely will. If you plan on building this, consider whether you want a Heart of Gold somewhere earlier in the build.

Countering magical damage:

Force of Nature: Only get this if you've gotten Banshee's Veil already and need more magic resistance. The reason for this is that even without taking the spell shield into consideration, because Banshee's Veil gives you multiplicative stats (HP and MR), it actually gives you more effective magical health than Force of Nature, meaning you'll actually be bulkier against them with a Banshee's Veil, not a Force of Nature. However, if you've already built that, this is the next logical step.

Countering physical damage:

Thornmail: The cheap and nasty hardcore counter to physical damage. The damage return is generally best for squishy, heavy AD, autoattack champions rather than those who use their abilities such as Master Yi, Tryndamere, Twitch, Ashe, etc. However, there's absolutely no downside to using this after you've grabbed your HP/armour item for countering heavy physical tank teams.

Guardian Angel: This item works well when you're taking lots of focus in teamfights and your team can't prevent you dying. Either take it with Banshee's Veil as a replacement to Randuin's Omen for mixed damage, or in addition to Randuin's Omen for a heavier physical counter. Because this item doesn't grant you HP like Banshee's, Randuin's and Sunfire Cape, it won't grant you as much effective health as any of those do in conjunction with each other. But let's face it: you're taking it for the unique passive.

Frozen Heart: If you're taking heavy physical damage and already have a Randuin's Omen, this is one of the best final items to grab. As much armour as Thornmail, some mana, and an attack speed debuff aura. Some heavy downsides though: this item will alert enemy champions to your presence the same way that Zeke's Harbinger and Abyssal Mask do by placing a debuff on enemy champions in range. Also, you go way over the limit in capping your CDR, making it a wasted stat that you're still paying for. It's still probably the best item to grab in terms of survivability and utility in teamfights, but it's costly and ruins your stealth mechanic a little in ways that Thornmail do not. Use with careful consideration.

Sunfire Aegis: Normally, I like Sunfire Cape, but as above, the damage from its passive isn't going to mean **** in a tanky game. Get Randuin's Omen instead for its useful unique passive and active. If you've already got Randuin's and are looking to find something to hard counter physical damage, then a pure armour item is much better.

I haven't had any opportunities to playtest this yet or anything, but I will as soon as I get the opportunity. If anyone else lands in this unfortunate situation, try this build and let me know how it goes!

Ultimately, Evelynn is a tricky but rewarding champion to play. Her playstyle is unique and fun, and often requires a lot more thought and precaution than others to succeed (cough Garen cough). Where other champions' skill level lies in the way their abilities are used, Evelynn's skill level lies in the way you think strategically. Doing stupid things will get you destroyed, whereas decent strategy and co-operation can eventually elevate you to a godlike status that allows you to rip holes through their team.

Good luck!