nice build, but I've got one point to mention:

you take cdr runes summed up to 6.1%

plus you take items with cdr summed up to 40%

smells like cdr wasted, I would suggest to either replace the cdr runes with ap/mp runes or replace boots with mp boots.

that way you would not have any stats wasted and have a tiny little bonus somewhere in addition.

my 5 cents...

I really don't get why so many people want to have a lot of cdr on fiddle... Oké it is nice that you can spamm your ult every 50 seconds, but is it worth losing massive ap for it?
Oké cdr is nice early game to spamm your drain, but as you lvl it to lvl 5 you can drain all the time, so you don't need drain?

And last but not least you don't lvl darkwind... It is perfect to silence and harras, so plz lvl it with drain and leave terrify where it is... Read my guide plz

+1 but you dont need the CDR glyphs. The items itself gets you to the 40% cap.

I play fiddle a very different way... ill have to test this

I think you should at least put 1 point in dark wind at like lvl 4 to get that silence cc. Other than that, great guide.

Arguably correct, but a good amount of the time, Karthus won't channel requiem in LoS, he's gonna run off for a little bit until you see a beam of light above you. Kat's ult can be interrupted with a Terrify, so she poses little threat unless you play a fiddle who stands there and drains even when losing, not CC'ing at all. Ashe has good range, but her auto-attack, which includes her Volley and Cold Arrows, is only just barely out of Terrify's reach. I like to trick her by running back, getting her to follow, then quickly turning around by targeting terrify on her. If I get it on her, it guarantees the start of a drain which can eat her health, unless she stands there (which an Ashe has done before -.-"), then it gets you a kill. Just be careful to stay out of turret range and watch for ganks. Caitlyn has superior range to many of your abilities, making it difficult to reach her even with Dark Wind. Flash comes in handy though. Even still, I only rely on Dark Wind when I fight team fights and when I go up against Mage-eaters like Malzahar. His Malefic Visions, when highly leveled, can cancel out a drain, and his Call of the Void can prevent a drain or terrify from happening altogether. Mix that in with his voidling attacking you because you have Malefic Visions on you and his ultimate holding you in place of his AoE, and you make a recipe for one steam-fried Fiddlesticks, which is why it is the time I rely heavily on Dark Wind to silence him until I can get close enough to fear and drain. Don't get rid of Teleport for Ignite, though. Ignite may be good for a deal-closer, but due to Fiddlesticks' twig-like legs (lol?), he has very slow running speeds, so when things get stirring up late-game and you need to get somewhere FAST, you should definitely keep a teleport out. In the end, though, I agree. Abilities should be completely circumstantial with the current problems.

I could agree with you, magistrate, if you weren't self-superior in your name title (haha, just kidding, I like it. God's Magistrate) and one key error. The point of leveling up Drain and Fear together is not so that fear can get longer to give you more time to drain out his lifeblood and soul, but to keep an even balance of time to drain and strength of drain. True, if you did this with Terrify, it would cause a longer time to drain, but without leveling Bountiful Harvest up enough, then it won't be strong enough to get across that crucial DPS factor that makes fiddle such a baby-punching, puppy-kicking, anger-management-class champion for the enemies that you know they so love to hate. Your method would work well, but it could be a small difference between a kill and a teleport back to base for the enemy. On the other hand, with leveled Terrify, when the enemy ganks you because they hate you that much, it makes for a safer getaway, so it plays out either way.

You get a +1 from me automatically for being the first high-rated guide that doesn't say to begin leveling your Dark Wind ASAP. I love that, because I find Dark Wind is only useful as a farming tactic, and I don't kill people for a high K/D ratio, and I don't kill them for my XP and Gold... I kill them so they can't be around to gain experience while I level! But as for that last item, I have 1 complaint about your items. I enjoy the CDR spec, but when you are putting as many points as you are into drain, you don't want to build as an AP. Drain is pretty definite in its damage for AP, you'd affect it by going AP equivalent to 7-10 points per tick on a drain. The best thing you can do for Drain is to get MP, Magic Penetration! That last item you question? I'd save Rab's DC for that and invest in a Haunting Guise or >>Void Staff<< earlier. Also, for maximum effectiveness, later in the game (or early in the game if possible), I suggest switching out the Fiendish Codex for Morello's Evil Tome. It's pricier, but the AP, increased mana regen, and COOLDOWN REDUCTION 20% is DEFINITELY worth it. Fiddlez gotz Middlez, Drain that **** up!

I personally like to get a Spirit visage (early game) when I mid with Fiddle for two reasons:
1. Gives you 10% CDR
2. Boosts health regeneration of Drain by 15%
Spirit visage is a REALLY cheap item which means you can rush it early game and sell it later.
I also think that magic pen/AP items are far more important than CDR/AP items on Fiddlesticks. His AP ratios are total sh*t, so you need to worry about getting through the MR of your targets with your abilties as opposed to worrying about how fast you can get them up. Quantity does NOT beat Quality in this case. It doesn't matter if you can ult every 30 seconds (or whatever it is w/ max CDR) if half the time enemies escape with low health. It's one thing build a lot of CDR items on someone like Morgana who has 3 90%-100% AP ratio abilities that all have low mana costs, but Fiddle has neither the AP ratios nor the low mana costs to spam. He's meant to be a nuke and should be built as such.
Also (to the person whining about skill order in your build): Ability order should always depend on the situation. If you're midding against a ranged champ, you should take Dark Wind earlier than Terrify because silencing them to stop them from using abilities on you at range will keep you alive because they can stand at their turret and kill you before you're even in range to terrify (especially Cait or Ashe)...you need some of each they're ALL useful. The silence is an interrupt, so you shouldn't make it a dump ability. Arguably Terrify is too, but Kat doesn't have to be right next to you for you to take damage from her ult and Karth's not going to stand around like a doofus in the middle of the lane waiting to be terrified while he's channelling requiem. The longer range of Dark Wind is important to have.

I like everything except for the dependence on pure CD. 9/0/21 give you 3+6% CD, blue/golem gives you 25%, totaling 34%, you need only 6% to max out your CD for you Ulti.

9/0/21 already gives you an extra 30% Buff Time, so you can keep it up nearly 24/7. You can easily adjust back to your current item build based on the game ofc, such as if you have a jungler (obviously the buff is 'occupied').

Since you aren't focused on mana regen based on your item build, you should consider Tear of the Goddess. The mana from it will carry over for when it's upgraded and you get Archangel's Staff, thus giving a nice AP bonus.

I have the opposite approach, take drain as hard and fast as you can to harass peeps with. Just activating darkwind-to-drain right before they enter a bush takes a big chunk, then terrify as they run and drain again.

There's a huge number of things having Drain 5 at level 7 is good for: restoring your health real fast in an emergency, jungling faster than ever (hit the ancient golem first for regen and even more cooldown), and soloing dragon as quickly as possible, and finally a lot of times your teammate will also stun and you want to do as much Drain damage as possible in a short period.

My skill leveling goes Drain, Darkwind (to harass/farm a bit and for that extra 1.2 sec silence at the start of a combo), Drain, Terrify, Drain, Crowstorm, Drain.. the rest is leveling Crowstorm and Terrify as much as possible.

I strongly prefer Ignite instead of Teleport,becuase it does an extra 500 dmg in endgame which will always range from about 25% to 10% of the enemies health, good for finishing off the weakest guy after Crowstorm while you Darkwind->Fear->Drain the second weakest, and also reduces the healing of selfhealers/team healing and adds 10 AP when cooling down if you put one more point in Offense tree, which makes your AP 26 to start, after getting Doran's ring, which is good harassment at the game starting period when you hide in bush, then ignite followed by drain immediately when they are about to enter. That extra 10 AP does help the drain a tiny bit.

Of course this may be applicable only for levels below 30 because higher than that, you will want to take the peak skill of the Utility tree to reduce CDR of Flash and the other spell.

Let's put it this way, you overall farm IP and XP for your summoner faster if you can get people to surrender really quickly, so one way to do that is just pump drain and related drain amplifiers like mad. If you lane well in early game you can easily end up going one on one with anyone around level 9 or ten, suck all his life in *one* drain and finish the fight with full health and maybe 80% mana.

I find early survivability helps a lot when talking about item sequence. I would go basic boots, then catalyst (which also increase your mana pool and helps it keep topped up as you go level 1-7 or 8), then ionian, then rod of ages (for both AP and some more durability and mana pool), then fiendish codex and then as per original sequence.

However I think spending effort getting Archangel's Staff might be a bit of a waste of time, going straight for Deathfire Grasp would be better imho. At this point you pretty much CRowstorm at the start of every fight due to good CDR, which is really good damage for mana spent, and things usually don't last so long that you need that much mana.

A good combo i find is fear, drain, interrupt your own drain to darkwind the moment fear breaks because they are trying to press their own stuff then, drain, and by this time fear them if they run and drain them to death. Of course one will have to mix this up.

Against another Fiddle, remember to Darkwind him out of channeling, fear, run back a bit or ideally into a brush that he has to chase into to channel Crowstorm, then fear, then you'll have to adapt by hitting him with either Fear or Dark Wind whenever your Drain channel gets broken .

Finally, I suggest using flat mana regen runes to make your early game as dangerous as possible to the enemy. The higher your level becomes the more irrelevant your mana regen from runes becomes, you can just go kick Ancient Golem's butt whenever you feel like it.