Because of the 4.3 changes to Fiddle, he has become unusable in the jungle. Terrify under NO circumstance can have his target run away in a straight line from him. His whole utility is that the target will be in range to do other stuff to, such as Reap or gasp shock horror Bountiful Harvest... or even AA to finish them off.

With a higher skill cap now, you could play Middlesticks at low ELO, and this is a buff to support Fiddle, in that the target can be assured to move away from the carry.

But, as for jungle Fiddle, it's over.

is a versatile champ; he can play tank for a bit, and ofc he does the most lvl 1 and most full-build damage in the game (assuming you get 5 dudes in your ult, and they are incapable of leaving the AOE.) This is why he should be your jungler of choice. He doesn't have a true escape, because Terrify only affects one guy, and this guide seeks to help you to understand how to maximize your once-every-few-seconds Terrify and get away safely while doing enough damage to swing the tide in your favor. It's imperative you understand Terrify, and how it enables you to do your damage, and survive to fight another day.

Pros

[-]Does the most damage at lvl 1 in the game (well, except for one unused ability on a rarely played champ)
[-]Mechanics and button sequencing are easy to learn and to do in practice
[-]Has a hard escape (which can turn into a free kill) if the situation is 1v1
[-]Loses very little life as jungler and therefore ganks against you are not the easiest in the game.
[-]His kit is designed nicely to take on bigger jungle creeps (Blue golem, double golems, and Wraith), while leaving 3 abilities at the ready to use as anti-ganking mechanics. In fact, taking on double golems is easy as pie.
[-]Well-timed ult into the right place almost always results in 1-3 kills for you
[-]Any poorly-played enemy duo lane quickly takes massive damage from a 5-bounce dark wind

Cons

[-]Doesn't have synergy with bad players, i.e. Fiddlesticks is the Ultimate team champ, but any deviation from expected results by others makes you have to change strategy often, and massively. Fiddle is a straight a>b>c champ; so, like most champs, you'll have to play fiddle over and over to know how to overcoe the stupidity of your bot lane.
[-]No hard escape when outnumbered; a Fiddlesticks player cannot make mistake in placement, or you are dead.
[-]If during/right before a 1v1, you are lower level than your opponent, your abilities are designed such that they require you to make risk vs reward decisions very quickly; these cannot be made without a lot of playtime, and an understanding of how likely you are to be allind, and to lose such a confrontation.
[-]While not the most mana-hungry of junglers, Blue Buff does helps a ton. Not having enough mana to Dark Wind, Drain, Drain, often slows you down to the point where you are having to wait til you regen enough to double Drain, which can be at least 5 seconds...

How to begin the game/get to lvl 4 and pressure

Ok, so now that we have chosen to play (good choice), we need to understand his uniqueness. His Reap is insane, it will nullify the baby golems @ Blue and the baby duo-golem. Stealing enemy red (or Their Red, or even TR) is how puts maximum pressure on the enemy. does not need a leash on Red, but ofc it does help. Should you be going in all alone, my rune setup allows you to drop a trinket ward and then with Amplifying Tome you'll want to AA-hit then Reap > Bountiful Harvest the Big Guy. Once a tick has gone off, and the Big Guy is closer to you, fire off Smite (summoner spells and activated items do not inhibit the completion of Bountiful Harvest, so long as you do not click the ground to move), AA twice + Bountiful Harvest for the rest of it and watch him die. Should you get a leash, then save Smite til it has 390 hp.

Bountiful Harvest one baby, then AA the other. Run to double golems, AA the little guy, and as the animation begins Reap it, and in one smooth motion, mouseover/ Bountiful Harvest the Big Guy. It's not hard and is actually the easiest way to do it. The little guy is now dead with 3 quick keystrokes, and you step/AA the remaining health (which is probably 75 or so) on the Big Guy.

If TR is top-side, run to the top of the top-lane and harass the - but if TR is bot, then hug your side of the river-wall into the bush, then poke and fire off a Reap at a or , then head to OB > Wraith > wolves, and check their mini-wraiths; while on the way, check to see if the enemy or is turret-hugging and if so, position yourself to Reap the first minion when it comes by, so as to bounce it off of him to . You will wait a few seconds for the wave. Do not fret- when ganking a turret hugging baddie Reap should also hit minions; maximizing spells in LoL is the key to victory. If there is no wave, no creeps there, then wait til show up, and bounce DW off the minions that will be closest to the enemy after it hits the minion. I cannot stress this enough. Wait for an incoming wave before you fire that DW. If it's a cannon minion wave, and you are harrassing the enemy under turret, smite+AA the cannon if you can do so before the wave will moved past using DW on the champ. Savvy champs ill try to stay out of DW range, which quite huge.

So, to stress, prioritize using DW on champs; if you are wave clearing, use it on the caster minions (they should die from one pass of the bouncies but if one is still alive, kill it first), then AA the front line guys

Once you have both buffs, and have denied enemy jungler a lot of XP, take middle turret -- a jungler's job is to make a laner's job easier. Middle lane will prety much be the most advantageous lane to push. The best champs in the game right now are Mid-lane capable (Ziggs, Gragas, Yasuo, Ahri, Kassadin, LeBlanc, Orianna, Swain, Kayle, Brand). Therefore, take the middle turret as fast as possible while denying enemy jungler his creeps, all the while keeping or allowing Teammates to have your buffs. Never let the enemy jungler catch back up.

I personally do not play against , , , , , , , , and . There is too much that can go wrong vs these champs, and your kit doesn't do much vs them, because they essentially stop all your abilities, or at least render then moot. and are easy enough to deal with in teamfights, but 1v1 you can't dent them enough, and will blow you up when you stop pressing buttons, which cannot do all game...

has Counter Strike, a hyper-annoying ability that stuns you, and deals a bit of AD and then some more if he's been dodging somebody (won't be you tho, since Fiddle doesn't auto anybody more than once, and that's to begin a fight). players will not put a second pt in it til lvl 10, so from lvl 1-9, it will be on an 18-second cooldown. You must bait Counter Strike out of before you Bountiful Harvest, or your drain will last approximately .3 seconds. If you figure out he ain't gonna take the bait, you'll just take too much irreplaceable damage, so the best thing to do is just Terrify and run away.

has sigil of silence which silences you, making your entire kit useless while she pwns you then casts Mimic, which guess what, silences you again... (technically she can Mimic any of her spells, but she'll use it on you to chain silence you.) Avoid playing against LeBlanc if she'll be in your Jungle.

has Blazing Stampede, which stuns you. Any decent will wait til to use it til you start to Bountiful Harvest or after he is no longer feared. Therefore you should only engage him in team fights, and make sure he activates Blazing Stampede on someone, it has a 6-second cd.

has empowered Steel Tempest. It takes a few seconds to wind up if he hasn't already begun combat, but once he gets it usable, he'll knock you airborne. So, if he sees you coming, and has has two stacks of Steel Tempest, you will not win the fight. You only win this one if he is low from a previous fight, or he himself has been stunned so he can't cast his Q 3x in 10 seconds. Proceed with caution, this is a tough late-game matchup for Fiddle.

is yet another cheap trick champ with an anti-Fiddle kit. Pulverize knocks up, then stuns, Headbutt displaces you, ending your Bountiful Harvest prematurely, and finally Unbreakable Will removes your Terrify, and buffs him. will most likely try to FF your carry. And since Fiddle is a massive snowballing carry, expect to be focused by him whenever his nostrils catch your scent. This is a tough match-up, you'll most likely need help or be higher lvl to make it so win most of the time.

has Rocket Grab, displacing and stunning you, and most likely shortening your lifespan. Power Fist knocks up, and Fiddle doesn't do well with what comes next... Static Field silences you, making it impossible to Flash or Terrify (you could, however, Ghost). If you encounter a , stay behind minions, and make sure he uses Rocket Grab before you Terrify+ Bountiful Harvest, or you'll be scrambling a lot.

has 4 CC (the amount of CC is too damn high). His passive (on a 12-second per person CD, so he could use it on an entire team in under 3 seconds) Staggering Blow immobilizes you on a successful AA, so, if you thought you were gonna do something, whoops, nope, not now, you ain't. His Q, Dredge Line brings you and Naut just that much closer, ending your Bountiful Harvest, and making it so he can passive you. His ulty Depth Charge will knock up and stun the intended target, while also knocking up anyone in a line between them and , so although you can win this match-up, it isn't a guaranteed kill. Any good will have you lined up so he can quash your Crowstorm with his Q. Beware.

has Alpha Strike, which tears Fiddle up. You can't do anything to him, and there is now way to not take lethal dmg if he's fed. You only win this if he is caught unawares, or he messes up in a team fight. You'll have to hold back on all your abilities if there is a teamfight til after he Alpha Strikes, or you can't deal any damage, at all.

has his ulty, Infinite Duress, which makes you sit there taking beaucoup damage from everybody, while dealing none yourself. will be focusing you, so you have to outscale him hard, or he'll just run away if somebody on your team is low on life due to his Blood Scent.

Anyone not on this list can be outplayed easily as Fiddle. If you do not die, play properly, and continue to snowball and itemize as listed, no other champion gives you fits. After a few months, you'll see how awesome Fiddle is, currently ranked number one in winrate in North America, and for good reason; almost nobody truly stops Fiddle from dominating.

Fiddlestick's ultimate ( Crowstorm) and it's attendant sound effects are cool as hell. If you've ever played against a Surprise Party Fidds, you know what I mean. The damage it does is awesome, too.

's ultimate ( Crowstorm) allows you, and as a matter of good game play in fact requires, you to teleport a short distance away and suddenly appear right next to the enemy ADC. This is where your mechanics come into play.

's Terrify and Bountiful Harvest do not have the same range; you'll find when you first start playing him, you'll try your QW combo only to see running after a champ doing nothing and you're all like, wtf is going on. This is why, except when you 100% know you can land a Terrify and use the auto-targetting function to allow to to run after someone and not die (since, similar to Blitz's E, he can queue it up and wait for a champ to come into range) then use it on them when the gap is closed. This is risky. Be patient, young crow-hurler, and you'll be able to land QW with no lag in between more often than not. Getting to the point where you instinctively know not to Q if W won't land is how carries you. His Bountiful Harvest leash-length now is shorter, so make sure you can get the full effect over time that makes this ability teh broke. Practicing, kinda like 's coming-out-of-Q-into-W/AA+ult positioning, makes it so much easier to escape ( s' number one goal) and do enough to take out the ADC (everybody else's no. one goal)

When you ult, you have to land a Q right away on the ADC- using it on a champ who won't die to your Crowstorm + Bountiful Harvest + Liandry's Torment is futile. They will scatter like roaches when the lights come on, so be prepared to triangulate yourself so as to get maximum Crowstormage on as many champs as possible, so long as you can kill the ADC for sure.

I personally 95% of time will not Crowstorm if Zhonya's Hourglass is on CD; it simply isn't worth it. OFC play experience and guaranteed kills override that point.

One final word, do not die, and especially do not die during your Crowstorm, or as a result of a failed Crowstorm. Err on the side of not dying, and not wasting a Crowstorm. I have found that massive item-based CD reduction simply doesn't do as much in team fights as pure Magic Pen/AP. You got one shot to surprise them but good- use it wisely.

Working as a team is 's massive, massive forte. Once you have two pts in Bountiful Harvest, you can remove the ADC from the equation which makes the enemy team rethink tactics, or they are forced to flee.

Remember, though, most team fights in solo queue will require you to tank, kite, carry, and lead the march out of the fray, but no matter what do not die. Fiddle should be within range to Reap the enemy, but also be a in position to run from a bad situation. As , I try my best to hug walls and bushes, and use them to duck into and make the enemy re-do what they were intending. As you chase or are being chased, you should NOT be on top of anyone, but rather be thinking ahead and be in a place to kite a straggler, or better yet, plink him off should he face-check your bush. has one hard rule, do not die, even if your team is bat-**** crazy and toxic as hell. Use the ignore feature, and do not die. The longer you stay alive and regen mana and get closer to your next Terrify or Crowstorm the better chance you have to carry what would be a bad game.

Fiddles runes are not as straight forward as you would think. Fiddle does a lot of minion damage with a single pt in Reap, and because this build focuses on early-game ganks (and golly, the whole game is centered around this strat, and so all junglers should be ganking as early as possible), your runes will maximize lvl 2-6 damage output. Btw, Fiddle is a great champ all the way up til about 16 when you get 3rd ulty point, he then levels off, and other champs catch up to him, so get to 16 ASAP.

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http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/rune-page-planner#&rune=337:3-303:5-283:4-351:9-262:9

We take the Magic Penetration choices when we can, that would be our Quints and Marks because your passive A Harmless Scarecrow, and 6+ or so MPen shreds the enemy magic resistance. The difference (after lvl 3) between not having any MPen and having 16ish is noticeable. All your damage vs pesky bot-lane champs is therefore significantly augmented.

The Glyphs are all utility; I've found that all the cooldown you'll need early on can be achieved by having a few glyphs of CD Reduction and a few points in masteries (see below). Not all 9, mind you, but 5 is enough, that leaves us a bit of Magic Resist we can add. I'm not a fan of being without some resists, so this is the way we go about getting some. If the game progresses poorly, then you can grab an early Spirit Visage.

Then the flat armor yellows are obligatory, nothing much to say here except you'll take too much minion damage without them.

Our masteries are to help with Fiddles's early ganks and late game ulting.

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Double-Edged Sword is meh, but it's best of the bad choices left after we put 4pts in...
Sorcery, which is quite good.
Mental Force helps Fiddle overcome some health that champs have late-game.
Arcane Mastery therefore helps early game, it does enough to make it useful.
Executioner is another late-game choice. You'll be getting guys to 50%, no sweat, might as well be even more pwnering.

Dangerous Game I wish did more; it's supposed to be here to get you that health back that you lost chasing down a guy to get in the kill. But it actually doesn't do anything. It's best in my opinion just to not get caught out.

Recovery is a good starting point in this tree, and helps all junglers quite a bit.
Tough Skin We're jungling, so this helps with a bit of damage mitigation. Useful, and should not be skipped over.
Bladed Armor Helps us do our job faster, and that is never a bad thing. A must-have since we took Tough Skin.
Veteran's Scars Beginning health is an issue many, if not most chanps deal with. We put 3 points here to make it easier to survive all(in) that LoL has to offer.
Juggernaut makes it so if we have to buy a +health item early, we get a lot of bonus health. A defensive item in the first few levels never hurts, and this mastery is awesome for that.

Fleet of Foot We didn't take Movement Speed Quints, so we make up for it somewhat with these points.
Meditation Fiddle is a mana-based champ. Regening mana as you search for ganks is awesome. It actually lets you roam a bit and poke while you build up enough to take a buff mob or a creep wave by the time you get there.
Strength of Spirit makes the bonus mana regen that much more useful. You probably won't be getting a +mana item for a while into the game, so you should take this. Doran's ring, while nice, simply doesn't get Fiddle lvl 4-7 ganks as easily as Tome does.
Summoner's Insight This point is useful. It makes it so your Drains and Dark Winds come at them faster. Always a good thing. But only a single point, we're taxed...
Runic Affinity Having a buff for as long as possible is Fiddles goal. If you steal a buff, you can wait just that few seconds more before you go and take it on your own. A must-have for any jungler.

A quick note here on items

Fiddle does not use Hunter's Machete. Spectral Wraith is good on Fiddle, and if you are having issues adjusting to Fiddles playstyle, the thing about having to click on jungle creeps a lot, and not having the mechanics to Reap then Bountiful Harvest in consecutive fashion, then sure, go ahead and build into it. I would not take it lvl 1 tho, since Amplifying Tome is clearly superior in helping you to gank at lvl 2-4.

If you really are having issues learning to use Fiddle and his mechanics, then start off w Doran's Ring, red+blue pot, back to lvl 1 boots, 2nd back to Mobility boots, then progress to Hunter's Machete. This is a super noob build, I wouldn't build Doran's Ring to start after your first 3-4 Fiddle games. Once you can build Seeker's Armguard by 320 seconds in, you'll see the jungle clear and dmg difference.