Introduction

DISCLAIMER: I AM STILL ADDING STUFF TO THE GUIDE IT HAS MORE THEN ENOUGH FOR A BASELINE BUT DON'T WORRY I WILL BE EXPLANING STUFF LIKE EARLY-MID LANE AND HOW TO PLAY IT AND TRADE AND HOW TO PLAY MIDGAME, SIDELANE ETC ETC

So who am I and what are my qualifications for making this guide?

Well, I'm Gladiore, a Challenger peak (currently Grandmaster) Fizz OTP who has been a dedicated Fizz one-trick since Season 5.

I decided to make this guide because there isn't really a comprehensive, up-to-date Fizz guide out there right now. Because of that, this guide might feel a bit overloaded with information — I'll keep adding and updating it as needed.

The formatting might not be perfect since I'm still getting used to Mobafire's editor, but I'll improve it over time.

If you have any questions that aren't covered in the guide, feel free to drop by my stream at twitch.tv/gladiore or join my Discord and ask!

Let's climb with Fizz!

Abilities

Passive - Nimble Fighter


This is Fizz's passive, and it is actually extremely powerful — Fizz would struggle a lot without it.

Use this in any matchup with skillshots by positioning yourself inside your own minion hitboxes while farming (if their skillshot doesn't go through minions). If you're on top of them, try to reposition inside their hitbox after every auto-attack, since it can be very hard to tell which direction they need to aim.

This also provides substantial early-game damage reduction against DoT effects and just general minion damage.

Q - Urchin Strike


Fizz's Q is one of our main mobility tools and a great applicator for Spellblade and Fizz's W. This ability applies on-hits, so it will proc your W when it lands.

A common way to use it is to Q onto an enemy minion after using E — this helps you clear the wave or trade safely since it's harder for them to trade back. It has a low cooldown, but be warned: without your W active or a Spellblade effect, it does VERY little damage and is best used purely for mobility.

W - Seastone Trident


This is where most of our damage actually comes from — through the DoT and the empowered autos from the active + subsequent auto-attack buff.

Try not to rely on the DoT to finish people off unless they are VERY low and have no potions. Make sure to have this up and use it in every single trade you can. You probably won't win any trade if you don't get at least the initial active W off.

E - Playful / Trickster


Ah, Fizz E… the thing that makes so many people hate him… and the thing that makes us love him.

This ability is Fizz’s bread and butter. It’s our mobility, our main AoE damage, our waveclear, our main trading tool, our engage, our escape, and our primary way to dodge skillshots. It can do everything — but that also makes it a double-edged sword.

If you use it for one thing, you can’t use it for something else, so you generally want to use it in ways that accomplish as many of those things as possible at the same time.

Keep in mind that whenever you use E in lane (especially early before you have points in it), you’ll usually have to back off until it comes back up since we lose our main form of pressure. One extremely bad usage of this ability in lane and you can just die from it.

R - Chum the Waters


FEEDING TIME!!!!!!

This ability is the reason we can sometimes work as a sub-par engage for our team and is our best tool for getting picks.

The ability has 3 tiers after you throw it, depending on how far away you were from where it landed (or who it attached to). Generally, you want to throw this from max range to land the biggest shark and get the most damage + highest slow.

Keep in mind that just throwing the shark max range into the middle of a teamfight can be devastating and win the fight on its own, even though it doesn’t actually do *that* much damage. (Yes, Fizz E generally does more damage than mid or long-range ult, but the disruption is extremely potent.)

Landing this on an ADC in a teamfight can be extremely difficult but will very easily win the fight if you do.

Side note: One of the most important things to learn on Fizz is being able to Q through a minion and then immediately R — it hides the cast of your ult and lets you extend the range. Make sure to practice hitting as many of these as possible, because missing too many early game usually means you just lose lane.

Core Items

MUST BUY



Dark Seal / Mejai's Soulstealer
Dark Seal → Mejai's Soulstealer

Why it's core:

This item... its just practically made for fizz and how he wants to snowball, you only ever upgrade to mejais if you have 10 stacks dark seal and you ALWAYS pick this up first recall if you have the 350 for it.

But be aware upgrading it IS a risk, if you upgrade at a bad time and instantly die without getting any extra stacks you can immediatly throw the game. If you aren't confident in the ability to keep the stacks after upgrading don't feel pressured to upgrade, dark seal is generally enough.

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Essential Damage Items

Zhonya's Hourglass
Zhonya's Hourglass

Why it's core:

This item also is practically just made for fizz, some people don't really like building zhonyas because it makes them feel like they have a lack of damage, but i say not having zhonyas 2nd just hampers your carrying ability by too much to ever be worth skipping.

The item lets you engage, it lets you dive safer, it is the only reason you can even win the side lane 1v1 in some matchups, hell it even gives fizz the armor he lacks.

DO NOT SKIP ZHONYAS EVER, every build has it 2nd for a REASON there are too many plays you cannot go for if you don't have zhonyas, using your zhonyas after an engage to stall for your next rotation is one of the most potent and strong combinations in the game because of fizz e existing.

I repeat DO NOT SKIP ZHONYAS.

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Choose One: Scaling Power

OR

Lich Bane / Dusk & Dawn

You can only build one of these items - choose based on your playstyle but make sure you have pta if you're going dusk and dawn.

Fizz needs a spellblade, its just stupid to not pickup a spellblade on fizz with how much you auto and with your q applying onhits and your w existing and everything...

Lich Bane:

Lichbane is just guaranteed more damage in an all in then fizz (aslong as you can live) and offers movement speed that fizz really likes. But...fizz isn't really the best at teamfighting with lichbane, if you land your r on the adc you generally will be able to kill them with lichbane almost all of the time, sometimes that just isn't enough though.

Dusk and Dawn:

So instead theres also dusk and dawn which is my preferred, it offers no stat fizz dislikes, (yes fizz even likes the attack speed we are autoing a lot) after patch 26.9 dusk and dawn did not get worse for fizz like most people thought but it got better, it still doubles onhits it didn't lose any haste on it but it also got a HEAL on the spellblade that works on MINIONS.

Why is this important you ask? Well fizz uses w to last hit minions all the time of course, so every other time you use w while last hitting a wave you'll generally get the spellblade proc and the free heal which of course you also get multiple procs of while in a teamfight or just all inning somebody.

IMPORTANT - Dusk and Dawn Tech:

One thing thats worth to note with dusk and dawn though is you NEED to make sure you have your w already active (i don't mean having already autoed once with your w i mean have it active for the initial effect) whenever you use your first spellblade auto, so if you're going to q them make sure your w is active before q hits...if you double e towards them w before you auto even once.

This is very important because even though normally you would want to use your w as a auto reset, with dusk and dawn doubling onhits its way more effective to make sure your w gets doubled instead since its a onhit effect.

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Boots

Ionian Boots of Lucidity / Gluttonous Greaves
Ionian Boots of Lucidity vs Gluttonous Greaves

Ionian Boots:

Fizz needs haste, i will explain this later on in the guide...but fizz needs haste and these boots give 20. You need them if you're going lichbane build.

Also don't undervalue how important the movespeed you get is from the tier 3 mid version.

Gluttonous Greaves:

I could be bias when it comes to sustain, i LOVE sustain and i've been ranting about missing ravenous hunter ever since they originally removed it, but sustain i firmly believe opens up a lot of options for you and truly does help you carry teamfights.

I'm fairly certain this is going to be nerfed next patch but unless the nerf is absoutely gigantic i'm still going to be buying them and i believe they're still the best option.

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Full Build Paths

Build #1: High Burst

Lich Bane → Ionian Boots of Lucidity → Zhonya's Hourglass → Rabadon's Deathcap → Void Staff → Shadowflame

Playstyle:

This is the build that you go if you truly want to try to just hard win lane and one shot one dude in a teamfight then hit zhonyas and hope your team can win the teamfight after u do that. You have 40-48 haste depending on which top rune shard you took and thats enough haste to be to get the second cast of e generally while still having enough damage to one shot squishies you land your ult on.

The reason i prefer the other build is honestly just because this sort of playstyle is so easy to get countered...hell if you're late enough in the game the adc could just buy a zhonyas and you're SOL if they want to sacrifice the damage.

But you have an extremely strong 1 item spike on this build that spikes again 3rd item after deathcap, the moment you finish your lichbane you can most likely 100-0 your laner if you sequence your abilities right to make sure you get multiple lichbane procs.

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Build #2: Higher Haste

Blackfire Torch → Ionian Boots of Lucidity → Zhonya's Hourglass → Lich Bane → Cryptbloom → Rabadon's Deathcap

Playstyle:

This is the build that...well honestly you just have tons of haste, since you have a mana item you don't have to go manaflow and that means you can go precision secondary for your runes with triumph and legend haste. Your e will be on around a full second lower cooldown depending on how far into the build you are which is EXTREMELY impactful because of the way fizz e works, but this build also has a weaker 1v1 with more a supportive play style in a way since you lack the damage to 100-0 a lot of people.

This build still isn't bad for solo carrying whatsoever it just requires you to play differently then the lichbane rush build, keep in mind its actually preffered with this build to get boots first.

You can honestly make more plays early with the higher haste but you have a much weaker 1 and especially 3 item spike. Blackfire does similiar damage to lichbane in an all in the problem is it does it slower, and sometimes that speed difference just means you die.

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Build #3: Teamfight Carrying Sustain (RECOMMENDED)

Dusk & Dawn → Gluttonous Greaves → Zhonya's Hourglass → Rabadon's Deathcap → Void Staff → Shadowflame

Playstyle:

This is the build i have cooked up with patch 26.9, i won my first 10 games of the split with it and i still have around a 70% w/r this split with the build. I currently am doing dark seal into the omnivamp boots since they need to be stacked but after they get nerfed that'll probably change.

This build gives you hp to be a little more durable, lets you take pta to have more sustained damage, and still has decent burst while having more haste then the lichbane build. The one item change from lichbane to dusk and dawn and changing your boots, the runes aswell of course DRASTICALLY changes how you can play and how effective you are in teamfights.

Everytime you qw someone in a teamfight or double e and auto them you're getting that heal from dusk and dawn spellblade aswell as the heal from having omnivamp. I would highly recommend trying this build for a few games before you make a judgement, you WILL struggle for a bit while you relearn how to trade with pta instead of electrocute but i promise you can still win lane with pta and the payoff after you get dusk and dawn makes it worth it.

I'll explain in a later section how to trade with pta in early lane. I should note that we take pta since dusk and dawn doubles onhits, it also doubles the count towards proccing pta which means when we q+w thats already 2 stacks and we need only auto them once more to proc pta.

Alternative Option:

You can swap Zhonya's Hourglass for Nashor's Tooth if you REALLY want to but i once again will say i think that makes it much harder to carry and closes a lot of doors when it comes to plays you can make, if you do do this MAKE SURE TO STILL GET ZHONYAS 3RD NO MATTER WHAT.

Early Laning Phase

General Gameplan
Generally you want to start E in almost every matchup and just chill until level 3. Some matchups you can trade at level 2, but if you’re not sure it’s safer to wait for level 3.

Don’t be afraid to give up a lot of the first two waves if you can’t farm them without eating heavy poke. Most games you’re playing to set up a good trade at level 2 or 3, then look for an all-in at level 4.

Level 1 – E Start
Wait for the three melee minions to get low, then E them to last hit (DO NOT hit enemy caster minions with your e here) and just chill while the enemy shoves the wave toward you.

• Don’t let yourself get completely zoned from XP, but it’s fine to miss last hits.
• Never take free autos just to last-hit — it makes the level 4 solo kill much harder.

Level 2 – Take W
On the second wave, just safely last-hit whatever you can without eating autos.

Sometimes the enemy shoves so hard that the second wave crashes into your tower. When this happens the third wave resets and meets in the middle — this is actually great for us because we can now push for level 3 first.

When going for level 3 priority, feel free to auto the melee minions even if you tank a few autos from the enemy laner. The moment you hit level 3 you can instantly start trading aggressively. This is the point where we beat ~80% of laners as long as we don’t waste our E.

Level 3 Trading Pattern
If they let you get in Q range, just Q onto them → auto + W → keep autoing until they use an ability.
Then E to dodge the ability (make sure to land the slow), and walk away.

A clean level 3 trade usually leaves them at 30-40% HP while you’re at 50-60% (both with potions). You now have priority — shove the wave as fast as possible to hit level 4 and try to crash it into their tower.

Level 4 All-In / Dive
The moment you hit level 4, look at your laner and ask yourself: “Are they in kill threat range?”

If the answer is yes and you want to go for the dive (Flash + Q + W + Ignite), put your second point into W instead of E.

Why?
The extra damage and reliability from the second point in W is much more valuable when you’re committing to an all-in. E’s extra cooldown and damage isn’t as important here, especially if they still have Flash (it’s very easy to flash Fizz E).

We still max E afterward — this is why you’ll often see Fizz skill order E → W → Q → W → E max.

One extra tip: when diving under tower at level 4, use your E mainly to reset tower aggro rather than for damage.