I don't like this rune. League is not only played in the river. There are going to be many fights where you are not in the river and then you have 1 less rune than anyone else. Also the 10 Movement Speed is neglectible in my opinion. Sure it's something but at the same time it isn't much. It gives you 18 AP at lv6 so basically an Amplifying Tome for the first dragon fight which is decent but Triple Tonic would give you that same boost (although it obviously doesn't give you anything late game).

This rune is awesome but also not. Sure the Flash cooldown is amazing on Fiddlesticks. But you aren't really using the item haste bonus, so therefore this rune is losing value. Zhonya's Hourglass might be your only active item and its cooldown is short enough to be used once per fight. But the other downside is that, when your Flash is actually ready, this rune gives us nothing since we are a jungler with Smite (not Teleport or something else). And you don't want to be spamming Flash just because it is ready. So if you think about all these things, I don't think this rune offers much.

There are 2 important tips to understand with Fiddlesticks combos:

• Your passive will turn all your abilities into a fear and at the same time almost double your Q's damage if you use it after someone is already feared.
• Your Q does current health damage. So you want to use it as early as possible into the fight. On a low health target it deals almost no damage at all.

Start With Q

The combo: Q -> R -> E -> W.

What is useful here is that your Q fear gives you enough time to channel and land your R. Use this:

• In a 1v1 duel
• When ganking and R from a distance is not possible

Start With E

The combo: E -> Q -> R -> W.

• When you are standing in a bush and your E will fear
• When you can't catch the enemy. Remember your E has longer range and has a slow.

Start With R

The combo: R -> Q -> W -> E.

• When you are out of vision and have a perfect R.

Late game Q+W

The combo: Q -> W

A lv5 Q's fear lasts longer than your W (2.25 > 2). So once your Q is lv5, look for Q+W combos which deal an insane amount of damage. And you still have 0.25s left to throw an E afterwards. Also your Q range is the correct range to use W on.

I have some minor Rift Herald tips:

• After spawning it, it will always face to the direction of the nearest tower
• To get the initial ride direction right, the key is to keep holding down right click when you right click to enter it. If you let go of that first right click then it has some weird initial direction regardless of where you are pointing.

Here are some good to know pointers about full clears.

• After 1.5 full clears you can afford boots
• After 2.5 full clears you are lv6
• After 5 full clears you can buy a full item (assuming you also bought boots) and the game time will be around 14min and you will be lv9

1. Focus on getting 0 deaths. This is extremely important as Fiddlesticks because if you are jumping into their team with R and dying every time then you aren't playing Fiddlesticks correctly. Also as a jungler it is important to stay alive. Dying as a jungler holds more value than other champions because because no smite on the map means the enemy has a free objective.
2. Don't gank tank lanes. As Fiddlesticks, tanks are your biggest counter, so you greatly lower your usefulness trying to kill them.
3. When ganking mid, always walk behind the wall instead of going through the bush. Because you get further into lane and you avoid the bush ward.
4. If you can purchase a full item, back right away. The 20s you lose is probably worth having the advantage in an upcomming fight. I prioritize buying over doing a perfect clear. With the Fiddlesticks items, always back and buy a Needlessly Large Rod when you have enough money for it, because usually items that need this only have their next big spike another 1k gold ahead.
5. Late game, take enemy jungle before sieging towers. Unless there is only a small window to take a tower of course. The reason is, if you die sieging, the enemy has no camps to get so it is an equal-ish trade. If you die without taking the camps, the enemy gets the kill on you and camps which is a massive win for them.
6. Don't ult champions with a dash, unless you are in fog and the fear will trigger. Otherwise dash champions will immediately dash out of your R and you usually can't catch up again.
7. Pioritize ganking your pushing lanes. Fiddlesticks is one of the best tower diving champions with his R. Tower diving also means you are usually helping an already winning teammate which is amazing. You also generally make the enemy lose a lot of CS. And you could get plates or a tower on top of that. Or you juts counter gank to stop your winning teammate from dying. All these things mean a lot more than just killing a pushed up enemy.
8. Wait for stuns/silences etc. Your R's channel and your W relies on not being stunned. In team fights and especially in 1v1s, it is crucial that you want for the to use stuns before starting your combos. Your R you can get away with Q/E them and then R. But your W you really need to wait for them to use their stuns. The reason is if they interrupt your W then it goes on a massive cooldown and you then lose any fight.
9. It takes 30s to run from base to Grubs on blue side, with upgraded boots.
10. When you place a pink ward in the Dragon/ Baron pit. If the pit opening is towards your side of the map, then place the ward in the side corner of the circle. We do this so that they can't clear it from over the wall. If the opening is towards the enemy side, place the ward deep against the wall of the pit. We do this to cause then to need to overextend deeply to clear it in which case an ally could jump them over the wall.
11. Don't put down an Effigy if you know the enemy is there, otherwise it will just trigger right away. You should be using it to place it at choke points or to clear wards.

Pathing For Voidgrub Is Best

I do think pathing for Voidgrub is better than Dragon for Fiddlesticks. The reasons:

• Fiddlesticks does Voidgrub really easily and realy fast.
• You can't really do Dragon alone (you can but it takes FOREVER). So taking Voidgrub relies less on your team and therefore lowers your winrate variance. Many times you can even do Voidgrub and still get to Dragon if the enemy is screwing around.
• Technically getting Voidgrub is good, because you can always catch up on Dragon later in the game, but you can never catch up on lost Voidgrub. Obviously take this tip with a grain of salt because you could just lose the game before this even plays a role.

Your 2 Pathing Options

When your plan is to take Voidgrub you have two options:

1. Do two full clears and take Voidgrub. Not recalling or purchasing in between. The downside is you have no items to take fights with. The upside is you get an extra camp and after the Voidgrub you return to map with powerful inventory.
2. Do two and a half clears, base to buy Sorcerer's Shoes or 2 x Amplifying Tome, then do Voidgrub. The advantage is that you have items for a Voidgrub fight. The downside is that you lose out on one camp and you don't have a great inventory after finishing Voidgrub.

Personally I think option 1 is better. For the reason that Fiddlesticks can basically not 1v1 any other jungler. So no matter your items, if the enemy arrives while you do Voidgrub then you just need to give it up. So if we are doing that anyways whether we have items or not, then rather just stay on the map and collect more resources?

Also, if the enemy is pathing in the opposite direction with their full clears, there is a high chance you won't even run into each other anyways. So you have about a 50% chance of no even running into them regardless of your decisions. And if you aren't going to run into them anyways, then backing to buy is a big mistake.

How To Do The Clears

Option 1 is easy, literally just do a full clear, take Scuttle, walk back to your starting camp and do it all again. Then you should arrive at Voidgrub before the spawn.
Option 2 is a bit more complicated. Mirror the camps on blue or red side, but I'll explain it in terms of blue side.

1. Do normal full clear. Smite Krugs and smite Scuttle.
2. Walk straight to Raptor and do a ful clear again, except you recall at Wolves. You don't do Gromp
3. Buy Sorcerer's Shoes and a Control Ward (you don't have money for anything else)
4. Run straight to Voidgrub

Three points are important for both clears:

1. After your first full clear, only on blue side, try to drop a ward at their Raptors. This will tell you in what direction they are clearing.
2. You cannot waste ANY time ganking or anything else. You only have 5s leeway. If you do end up wasting time or getting killed or something, then ignore all of this. Because the only point of all this is to arrive at Voidgrub on spawn so that you can take them with the less HP they spawn with. If you don't know, for the first few seconds after they spawned, they have a lot less HP! So if you miss this window, it is better to just play a logical game and ignore all this trickery.
3. In both options, you don't Smite your camps on the second clear. Save both Smite for the Voidgrub. Also, once you start the Voidgrub. Use one Smite right away because there is a 15s delay before you can use the second one.