Fiddlesticks ganks are things of absolute legend and terror, after the first two or three of your crow storms, and you'll notice the enemy team starting to hug their turrets a lot more closely.

Some people consider Fiddle's a one trick pony who can't do anything outside of his ult, but there's a lot more to the bundle of sticks then sitting in a bush waiting around for someone to get over extended.

I read saintvicious' guide, and he is obviously a superior player, but I simply was not a fan of his write up. So I decided to sketch out my own guide on how I run the Harbinger of Doom.

I take AP Quints because the +15 AP actually increases the speed of your first jungle run, as MPr can't reduce armor further below zero (Jungle minions have 0 resistances). So getting that extra +8 ap on your drain actually makes this initial run faster.

Mana regen seals so I can get my jungle done faster and not wait for much longer then 8-10 seconds before I can down blue. AP blues for a lil extra umph late game.

Magic pen reds because hey, .45 AP modifiers suck *** and Magic pen is superior in some instances.

Pros:

Quick and safe jungler

Sustainable Jungler

Good CC in team fights (Dark wind silence can ruin some teams, not to even mention that fear)

Dragon solo / tank ability early

Powerful ganks and team fight ult of destruction.


Cons:
Squishy

VERY squishy

Ult can be easily countered by players who are quick to act with displacement abilities. (Alistar, Lee Sin. Good players will punt you out of their group quickly if they are able to)

Ganks are not as easy without your ultimate, or a few levels into fear.
Being an AP in the jungle, your team has to divert from the current meta.

Wards, a well warded map is a fiddlestick's hell. If they know you're coming, well, lets just say buying an oracles early can be a very healthy investment if you can stay alive with it.

Did I mention how squishy he is? :(

For the jungling path, I start golems.

Immediately smite -> Drain the first, two drains on the 2nd, and then we go wraiths. Pick up Dark Wind, and move to wraiths.

Open with throwing dark wind on big wraith, drain. Attack the lowest hp wraith, save drain for the highest hp. you should be able to melee down 2 and drain one, if not, drain the third.

Go wolves, drain big wolf, dark wind if you have the mana. Auto attack lowest hp, drain the 2nd when it's up. Finish off the wolves and move on to blue, pick up your lvl 2 drain.

Look at your mana, wait around for about 150ish mana, drain, auto attack, drain, smite.

Depending on how fast this all went for you, you will either have around 430-475 gold.

If you have 430, you went a lil slow, go down and kill red, then kill golems. B back and get your 2nd dorans ring, OR, if the lane nearby can be ganked, try for it, you should be lvl 4 and have fear now.

If you did B back, grab the ring, go to red, kill that and golems, look for a gank opportunity. if not, move on to your jungle, clean that up, and then once more look to help your team. Remember, just because you aren't 6 doesn't mean you can't toss out that fear and start draining, a lot of champions can make VERY good use of that one second fear. Don't be afraid to flash early to make it happen.

Items:

For items, I like to go for magic penetration early. Why?

Depending on what you're trying to kill, most people have either 30-100 magic resist before laning phase ends. Before that, you can get your boots, 2 rings, sorc boots, a rod of the ages, and a haunting guise.

Magic pen runes, fiddles passive, boots and guise bring you to around -59 magic resist on your target.

After you get that, abyssal rod further reduces that magic resist by another 20. So almost a total of -80 magic resist. Even tanks are going to be taking a beating from this, most people don't pick up more then a banshee's veil, and that simply doesn't cut it against a magic pen fiddle.

Edit:
Late game: In the late game you can swap out the haunting guise for a Void Staff, because by then some of the enemies may have a higher stack of magic pen by then, especially the more meaty dps.

Thanks to Locshe for making this suggestion!

Drain is SO important to max out quickly. Some like to think fear is where it is at so you can get a longer ult rolling, but THIS is what turns you from a powerful AP into a one trick pony.

Sure you can fear and ult, but being able to ult onto someone's tower, fear them, and drain through the damage while your teammate moves in for a second CC, or to ensure the kill, has a LOT more functionality then just a purely high fear early game.

Not to mention being able to tank dragon at level 6-8 is a MASSIVE plus.

50 magic resist is 33% dmg reduction
100 magic resist is 50% dmg reduction.

Lets make this nice and simple:

Both setups will have the fiddle passive, and sorc boots.


Needlessly large wand: 80 ap, .45 modifier on all abilities, so 46 AP onto our abilities

Haunting Guise: 250 HP (a nice bit of survivability), 25 AP, and 20 magic pen

Drain does 180 at level 5, so lets say we have our level 5 drain.

Our enemy will have 80 magic resist in this instance. So immediately, he is cut down to 50 due to our boots and passive.

With the needlessly large, we have 226 DPS on our drain. Due to 33% resistances, we are brought down to 151 dps (33% of 226 = 75.2)



With the haunting guise, we can 14 ability power, so we are at 194 DPS. Thanks to our -20 magic resist, our enemies resistances are cut down to 30, which is 23% damage reduction.

23% of 194 is 44.62

This bring us out to about 150 DPS.

So we lose 1 dps, for 250 hp.

With lower magic resist numbers, the DPS weighs in the favor of our magic pen, as the higher magic pen gets, the less bonus it gives.

Against a champion with 50 magic resist,

Haunting Guise: 194 DPS (0 magic resist)
Needlessly large: 188 (20 magic resist)

If you include the 9 Magic pen from runes, you can turn 60 magic resist into a lowly 1 magic resist with just boots and a haunting guise.

Fiddle ganks can be some of the most frustrating, horrifying, and just plain out evil ganks that can happen in the game.

If you have teammates that can stun (anivia, brand, taric, kennen, sion, annie) you don't even have to use flash along with the ultimate, hell, some times all you need to do is walk up fear and drain and you pick up a free kill.

A little bit of teamwork with a well played fiddle can ruin a lanes day in seconds. If you score a few early game kills, you can easily gank people directly on top of a tower by levels 9 through eleven. Ultimate, fear, drain, and you heal through tower damage pretty handily, and if you've received any assistance at all, it's usually a sure thing.

A good strategy is trying to get rid of enemy flash's early with just running out and tossing a fear. In some cases, I even prefer my enemy to hug their tower. From mid, you can roll up to wraiths on the enemy side, ult hop the wall, flash in, and make short work of them.

Great gank spots are of course from any bush where you can reach an enemy, such as sneaking into top lane or bottom lane's bush when the lane is pushed, or even bushes from mid. Usually harder to land because of wards. This is why I usually try to come from wraiths or the bush from the other side of the jungle and just melt them on their tower.

ANY time you gank bot lane, make sure to pick up dragon immediately. If you can, try to get a kill on bot lane without having to blow your ultimate. This way you can do dragon, and be ready to ultimate -> Flash into anyone who tries to stop your dragon attempt. Put your back to the wall if it is your jungle, or put your back against the side pocket if it is the enemy jungle. Worst case scenario you flash out without a dragon.

I know a lot of people always like to sneak around as Fiddles to set up that -perfect ultimate- but the reality is, that isn't always going to happen.

If you only try to set up for an ultimate, you're missing out on a few of Fiddle's best contributions to his team.

Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Fiddle's is more then just a scary ult and a fear?

Yes. If you sit back near your AD carry, you can peel with that fear, toss out silences, and really contribute a lot more then just waiting for the enemy to get out of position.

How many champions other then a tank can sit in front of an AD carry while he unloads a hailstorm of auto attacks and come out alive? (Not to mention while being drained by a -79 magic resist life steal ticking for around 300 dmg a second).

If you can land the ult from the jungle or from behind a wall, by all means get in position and make it happen, but if you can't, don't wait around all day for that opportunity, contribute to that team fight! A dark wind alone can stop the enemy AP's from doing their job, and that 1.2 seconds can be a very dead anything with the right coordination.

Why not focus on raw ability power?

Although ability power is the brunt of your damage, fiddle's scaling is a sad .45 on all his abilities. But, utilizing spell pen along with his passive, fiddlesticks can reach an even higher damage potential then just simply stacking ability power.
(I've literally played games where I can sit on some champions without interrupts, and drain 50%+ of their hp with just a RotA, sorc boots, two dorans, and a Guise)

No resistances/armor early or mid game?

Not your job! If there is a bruiser that can interrupt your drain, fear and GTFO of there. a lot of champions you can actually drain tank pretty handily, but some such as lee sin or nocturne can ignore your spells and chop you up fast before you can do anything. A little resistances isn't going to change the outcome of that scenario. Use your teammates as a barrier, silence them to stop those gap closers, and then fear them once they finally manage to get through to you.

Why not pick up Rabadon's sooner? Why no Rylai's Scepter?

Rylai's is **** for fiddlesticks. I said it, and I stand by it. Your fear lasts longer then it's duration, and crow tossing may slow, but again, it's a 1.5 second slow that you just don't need. Let your teammates worry about the slows and stuns, you worry about peals and positioning for your ult. Rabadon's, of course one of the best items in the game, is just so expensive. If you go out and land a triple kill and go home with a huge pile of gold, then by all means grab yourself a Rabadon's earlier then I sequenced.

No spell vamp?

You HAVE spell vamp built into your drain, anything extra is pointless.

Why get your hourglass so late?

In most fights, the strategy is not to focus down the fiddle ult, but to get the hell out of it or push him away. Only in late LATE game will you get to the point where some champs can 2 shot you, and that, is the point where you pick up hourglass.

Currently this is all I have on hand for videos of jungling fiddle. Theres a lot of locations in it, you just have to look at where I am coming from in each shot. Some scenes may be hard to follow but it's all I have at the moment.
Play Video
Good luck out there, happy jungling.