This is my first guide, but I hope to create a quality and conciseness that stands out nonetheless. My goal is to explain with as much info and as little words as possible.

This build is an AP build for fizz that utilizes his Playful / Trickster and Urchin Strike more so than his Seastone Trident. I have found that this works best for laning fizz, especially early game and for solo lanes. What my build attempts to create is a dynamic, flexible fizz that can dart in and out of combat, but that usually does not need to once mature. I prefer to start with a combo instead of the Seastone Trident hits other Fizz players use to harass early game. I find this more useful, especially in 1v1, and it helps outfarm the opposing champions with lane control. I see this as necessary because fizz is highly dependent on gold, and the earlier he gets it the safer.

The most important thing to understand is that there is a play style that accompanies this build that makes it not only viable but also powerful. Maxing Seastone Trident last, a move hardly anyone does, should be a clear indicator of the differences to you. This style is one that aims to fully optimize the items of the build from the earliest point possible. So learn the style as well as the build.

Pros:
- Crippling burst
- Capable of carrying
- Flexible fighting
- Versatile build options
- Two slows ( / )
- Great chasing mechanisms
- Invulnerability (even against Requim!)
- Rewarding to learn
- Fun to Play

Cons
- Squishy
- High learning curve
- Requires map-awareness
- Needs gold early game
- Need experience for timing

My ability sequence is simple:
1) Playful / Trickster: I start with the Playful / Trickster because it is a very flexible ability. In the case of a rough early gank, it provides an efficient escape mechanism. On the flip-side, it is a great way to help ensure that low-health enemy champions do not get away from first blood.

2) Urchin Strike: I find this as a natural complimentary ability to either the e spell or the q spell. I select this second because of it's easy burst effect. Urchin Strike in, and use Playful / Trickster (+slow) then run out. With the slowing effect of Playful / Trickster, they can hardly land an attack in before you walk straight through their minions with your passive Nimble Fighter no unit collision.

3) Seastone Trident: Seeing as how neither Urchin Strike nor Playful / Trickster need a quick upgrade, I take this to get some early farming done.
4-5) Seastone Trident and Playful / Trickster I take these to ensure quick farming (important!) and take the high damage upgrade for Playful / Trickster before I use the next few levels to buff Urchin Strike and Chum the Waters so that it still packs a punch.

From there, I max Urchin Strike first, then Playful / Trickster, and lastly Seastone Trident (hear me out, there's a reason!)

Despite many opinions otherwise, I do not find Seastone Trident helpful to max first. In order to use it early, you have to take a lot of minion agro walking back and forth through the minions to melee. Despite the passive, it still cripples survivability on such a squishy champion as Fizz. Instead I find the aforementioned combo is better: Dash in with Urchin Strike and follow up with Playful / Trickster+ as stated before, if they are low health and starting to run, Seastone Trident a bit and/or use Chum the Waters then rinse and repeat with the original combo that should be off cooldown. This works very well for sticking to fleeing enemies and minimizes minion agro due to the flipping out of combat and invincibility of Playful / Trickster.

Urchin Strike provides the quickest damage and is useful for finishing low champs that run away. Because of this and it's relatively short cooldown in comparison with and , I max this first.

[Plaful / Trickster]] is a perfect nuke. After using it to dodge an enemy spell, you drop on them with a powerful counter-attack that also slows. It's use as an escape mechanism is fantastic. There's only one problem: after using it initially in a fight, what happens if it turns sour? The cooldown is too long to use again before you are brought to your knees. Because of this, I max it second in order to enjoy the start increases in it's nuke damage and especially to lower that horrid cooldown so that I don't have to wait to use it in fights else I have no way of escaping until mid-late game with cooldown items. After all, what's the point of a high-damage spell if you can't use it in a fight? For this reason, I see maxing Playful / Trickster as a high priority.

Seastone Trident is a powerful farming tool and DoT spell that works much the same why as Teemo's poison. However, while I always max Toxic Shot first, I cannot endorse this with Fizz for several major differences. For one, Teemo's poison is ranged. With Fizz, you have to stick yourself in front of the champion to use it. Secondly, Fizz is not (or should not with this build!) be attack speed. Toxic Shot is both a spell that requires minimal danger, no mana, and is massively incorporated with the attack speed items for Teemo. Since Fizz's attack speed is low, his attacks are melee, I see Seastone Trident mainly good for a combo with Lich Bane after using Playful / Trickster and for farming minions. Early game, however, Fizz just takes too much minion agro after using it on champions and if he used Playful / Trickster to undermine this, he'd have no mana and thus no harass in just a few sequences.

However: Before I max Urchin Strike (and before level 6), I do take an upgrade for Seastone Trident and Playful / Trickster each. The first, because it does help farming and allows it to be helpful until I level it, and Playful / Trickster because the nearly doubling of it's damage allows it to remain potent over the next few levels while I max Urchin Strike and work on my build.

These are the combos that will crush your foes, catch your unworthy enemies, and cremate teamfights.

NOTE: + or Playful / Trickster+ will denote waiting and landing to activate the slow cc on nearby enemies. - or Playful / Trickster- will denote using the quick double jump. AA denotes auto attack, AA+ denotes auto attack with Seastone Trident.

Level 2-5:
+ then run through minions out of agro. Rinse and repeat, until they are low enough finish them off.

Level 6:
+
-If necessary, which it shouldn't be, add to the end:
2x AA+
Only be aggressive at this point if you have Catalyst the Protector, and preferably with Sheen too.

Once you have Lich Bane, after each
add 1x-2x AA+
This compliments the high damage of after-spell effects from Lich Bane

+ 2x AA+ Chum the Watars AA+

After Deathfire Grasp, use the item ability after the enemy comes close enough to fully engage and catch with Urchin Strike should the ability deter them. By using this earlier, you are empowering the Seastone Trident missing health % effects. Due to the wide range of abilities that can be used to catch up with them and Ignite, it is not needed as a finisher.

Never purposely use Seastone Trident right before Playful / Trickster as a combo unless you wait to reap the benefits from the full 5 seconds before using it. The opposite works much better, since they cannot get out of range well if you land the slow. For this reason Seastone Trident is last, and after it Urchin Strike should be used to catch up and restart the combo. Chum the Waters should go in between combos in order to make sure you can get in range for Urchin Strike to land the next round.

With the 3.5 and 4.5 second cooldowns of and , respectively, repeating this combo over and over should be easy with the mana and mana regeneration granted in this build.

This rune sequence is for players who are either quick learners or already know the mechanics of Fizz. Runes for health and armor are not prevalent because this guide assumes adaptability with build and adeptness with Playful / Trickster to dodge skill shots.


This is one of the runes I would trade out last. I find the MP this rune provides as a replacement for the lack of Sorcerer's Shoes.


Fizz has great burst ability, however he is limited by his less than stellar cooldowns. Especially early game, this can cripple his ability to be flexible in combat or fight while still having an escape route ( or . Since the cooldown problem is primarily early game, before Ionian Boots of Lucidity and somewhat leveled abilities, I prefer the flat cooldown glyphs.

Greater Seal of Replenishment
Early game, fizz's and (especially the latter) eat huge holes in his mana pool. This requires either restrained harass or frequent recall trips - neither of which are preferred. Since his later AP items generally increase his mana pool and this problem vanishes mid to late game, taking flat mana regeneration is best.

Greater Quint of Potency
Oh, come on! He's AP, give him some AP buff! I shouldn't have to explain this.

The masteries of the main build are also chosen assuming some experience or quick learning. Taking 21 in offense is recommended due to the wide variety of buffs to his AP side. As well, the last offensive mastery, Executioner , works well with Fizz's Seastone Trident and Chum the Waters for cleaning up kills.

For the experienced Fizz players, the selected utilities compliment the risky play style of Fizz with the mana regeneration and mana pool buffs. I find these much more substantial than the puny +6 armor or MR (magic resist) that can be selected in the defense portion. After all, for 300 gold, you can pick up Cloth Armor and get 3x as much, or 400 gold for 6x as much MR with the Null-Magic Mantle. Overall, the 9 points in utility are much more beneficial than those in defense, which I why I chose to incorporate MR and armor into the build instead.

Other players might say that Doran's Ring is not very helpful for fizz to start out with, but I beg to differ. They claim that Fizz needs the movement speed and durability of the class boots and pots combo. However, since this build takes Playful / Trickster first, Fizz already has some flexibility. On top of that, since this build is not built on early harass with Seastone Trident but with the / combo instead, the boots are needed to reduce minion agro after harassing. As well, the mana regeneration and health boost help offset the cost of Playful / Trickster and First Blood.

Rod of the Ages
This should be Fizz's first core item. It provides him with much-needed increases in mana, health and ability power all in one. By starting with this, there is no need to buy a basic item for each of those before building them into separate core items. At this point Fizz can become bolder in his lane control and burst assassinations and should start using these to out-farm and out-level his counterparts. I cannot stress how important it is to last hit with fizz early to mid game, because he is more dependent on gold than others due to his early squishiness. So intimidate and farm!


Through this purchase, Seastone Trident finally becomes of use in this build. Jumping in, then applying to the first attack in conjunction with Lich Bane's passive turns harass into full-out assault that cuts through enemy health. And since all of this is just one melee after using the / combo, there is just a small window of time for the enemy champion to strike back. The other qualities of Lich Bane are also good increases to most sectors of need for this early-mid game faze.


While some make the case for Sorcerer's Shoes, I prefer these boots. While most cooldown reduction items are towards the end of the build, these provide an early cut that is both efficient and effective. The magic penetration possibly gained through the is achieved instead through the runes.


This was an interesting item to stumble upon when I was testing different builds. Not only is there the needed AP, but the cooldown reduction is addictive. At this point, Urchin Strike is reduced to around 3.5 seconds while Playful / Trickster is reduced to about 4.5 seconds! (28% of original CD) Not only is this enough to cycle through abilities in fights, but it saves you defense mechanism ( ). That's 56-58% of the cooldown of just the maxed abilities, and that's not including the runes. As well, the unique of Deathfire Grasp is great for finishing champions when Chum the Waters is on cooldown (less than a minute) and is useful for eating through tanks when you need to scare them off or get an early edge. When Chum the Waters is not on cooldown, use it first to make Sesastone Trident more powerful. When near the enemy nexus, use it to finish off champions near/in the healing area as they run away.


Towards late-game, Fizz should be fed enough to have all his CD reduction and some AP from , , and . However, this is nowhere near the target. Rabadon's Deathcap gives Fizz back the burst damage from nuking spells (which should occur often do to the great CD) that he had earlier. While Deathfire Grasp gives a unique burst, this finally gives Fizz the massive AP boost needed to really melt through enemies' health.


This is my go-to defense item for Fizz. With the revive, he is given enough mana to use Playful / Trickster and hopefully escape, and it provides both armor and MR in one item slot, which frees up the rest for AP/CD etc. The main reason a defensive item is needed is because Fizz is by nature a squishy champion. While previous items such as Rod of Ages counter this somewhat, in mid/late game the enemies will likely be focusing on you due to the high sustained damage with your AP and CDR items.

I take Catalyst the Protector before Boots because Fizz desperately needs the health and mana boosts of these items, while the boots are low priority early game due to the harass combo method instead of Seastone Trident. After you get Catalyst the Protector, you should be able to play somewhat aggressively with harass and are much more durable in lane, thus increasing gold and experience.

I grab the Rod of Ages before my upgraded boots because Fizz is still very squishy until he gets this item. Rod of Ages allows him to maintain lanes and survive teamfights. At this point the player should be comfortable with Fizz and not have to play quite so cautiously.

Taking the Chain Vest for the Guardian Angel before Rabadon's Deathcap (the item preceding Guardian Angel) allows Fizz to survive the enemy champions newfound ATD items until you can pull together the gold for Rabadon's Deathcap. Getting this armor and magic resist as early as possible is critical due to the nature of those stats. The amount of armor/magic vs damage reduced is similar to a log graph. If you don't know what that is, think of the opposite of an exponential graph: the lower your armor/MR, the more any increase will benefit. Here is a visual from Try-Hard Mode (http://tryhardmode.wordpress.com/):As you can see, getting small items such as Null-Magic Mantle, Chain Vest (or Cloth Armor if you're hurting with finances) really help, and getting them as early as possible is key. In this build, the Lich Bane provides the early MR, and so the Chain Vest is all you need to get early.

Granted, no match is the same. The above build is what works best on average. But you're not an average player, are you? With some adaptability, Fizz should be a driving force in the match, and with smart item choices should counter his weaknesses in any given match.
(in order of most useful and possible to least effective)


This item is a great trade when facing a team led by mages. It provides supple magic resistance, and it's movement speed/health boosts are both well-appreciated by characters like Fizz. In fact, due to it's speed buff, I recommend trading this in for the boots as well as the defensive item in return for a heavier damage item.
What to replace: Guardian Angel AND Ionian Boots of Lucidity
When to replace When the enemy team is AP-heavy and you feel safe without the armor.
Replace along with: Mejai's Soulstealer or Zhonya's Hourglass.



When the enemy team is lead by mages, this is a good core item to rush after Rod of Ages. Not only is it one of the best items to trade out of the build for, it is doubly effective against the mages:
1) it gives you AP, which allows it to be easily traded in.
2) it drastically increases magic resist (MR), which is why it is for use against mage teams.
3) it buffs magic penetration (MP). This is the key reason why this item is twice as effective against mage teams in my opinion. If you look at some of the AP/mana items, you'll notice that they often give some MR or health along with the AP ( , , , , etc) For this reason, Abyssal Mask counters two things: enemy AP/MP with the magic resist, and enemy health and MR with the ability power and magic penetration.
What to replace: Rod of Ages
When to replace: Mid-game or when necessary; when enemy champions have just started working up their AP



This item is a bit different as far as fitting into the build. It has such a great CDR that it also can trade out two slots of the build. By combining the CDR into one item, this trade leaves room for more AP and MP items in the build.
What to replace: Ionian Boots of Lucidity AND Deathfire Grasp
When to replace: late game when you need more magic penetration and AP. The Ionian Boots of Lucidity are in this build instead because they provide cheap CDR early game, but at this point you can start working the damage while keeping most of the CDR.
Replace along with: AP/defense items in this list according to the situation.



On the flip side, if the enemy team is mostly AD and you are really struggling, this item may be good. I do not include it in the build since Guardian Angel is used as a hybrid defensive item to take up on slot only, but in case of emergencies, this item can compound on that armor and increase AP.
What to replace: Deathfire Grasp or along with Force of Nature trade.
When to replace: Either when struggling with AD burst or with the Force of Nature trade. (above)



For use against teams led by attack speed/attack damage champions. This is an all right item if you feel like you need to play more aggressively against AS/ATD champions instead merely whittling down their health with harass.

What to replace: Guardian Angel
When to replace: When hounded by AS/ATD champions, weak enemy mages.



I do not highly recommend this item. It is only good when enemies have exceptionally high magic resist or your team has too many AP champions.

What to replace: Rod of Ages
When to replace: When enemies stack up layers of MR

I initially created this guide because I was discontent with the quality of other Fizz builds. That is not to say all them them are bad, in fact the build Fizzy Pop: Your Inexhaustible Ranked Companion build is quite nice, but it does not match my play-style.

My goal is that this guide will help Fizz become a game-changer for many people who use him, because those that I have seen are eclipsed into the background. In order to create a guide that fully realizes this goal with this lane Fizz, I would greatly appreciate any constructive criticisms or praise that would help me doctor and trim it into a well-rounded guide. Once again, this is my first attempt at a guide, so any advice is welcome. Also, help on how to record gameplay for examples of the play style for this build would be fantastic. Thanks, and enjoy!

[12/22/11] Corrected glyphs and added combo chapter