September 27, 2011
Well, Finally first update though prob no one cares (cept me! and others maybe >.>) Dominion inserted in.

Skip this if you want to get to more important stuff.

I have always loved Heimerdinger because of his ability to throw down turrents and so naturally I had checked out some guides on him. I looked at the top three or so and they all were about maximizing damage with his W the rockets. I used to follow a guide that suggested Turrent at level 1 which is pretty usual but then rockets at level 2 and 3 followed by Turrents at 4 and 5.

Basically, he suggested to get E at level 7. However, I had always deviated from this build and got E at level 3 instead of 7 replacing one of the rockets. Rockets could not save your life. A stun and/or blind can. Rockets are good damage, don't get me wrong, but his E also does damage, you just have to land it.

From playing him for a while, I've gotten use to throwing the CH-1 Concussion Grenade and have switched to not using rockets, at least not as much.

Pros:
Has good CC: Stun and Blind
Has good mana usage
Good in Teamfights
More Defensive

Cons:
Harder to use
Less Aggressive than a rocket build
Stun requires timing and can be hard to use

Now we get into the imporantant part. While Masteries and Runes are great, they won't help if you build Heimerdinger completely wrong with bad items and such.

I never pick up rockets until level 13. The reason? Well, I don't need it. In fact, it wastes my mana to use it. I don't need it to last hit as I can just last hit manually and I'm not using it to kill. I'm using my E. As I said before, rockets don't save your life a stun will. And a stun with some turrents can be way more effective than just a rocket hit.

Rockets do a lot of damage, but they go for the closest 3, (or 5 if you use your ulti) and so minions can block you which happens alot. Minions will not block your grenade, in fact your enemies may get minion blocked a bit and it may help you.

Of course, leveling up rockets as a priority may be good for damage but I find that they are not as great for teamfights, and saving you or a teammates life. The stun does affect more than one champion or minion. I've had stuns that get 3 or 4 champions at a time. Let's see rockets do that.

Let's look at a evaluation of Rockets vs Grenade.

Rockets mana cost: 65/85/105/125/145
Grenade mana cost: 80/90/100/110/120
Grenades are cheaper manawise later on but cost more at level 1 and 2. In my opinion better.

Rockets range: 1000
Grenade range: 925
Rockets win here but not by much.

Rockets damage: 85/135/185/235/285 (+0.55 per ability power)
Grenade damage: 80/135/190/245/300 (+0.6 per ability power)
Rockets win at level 1, but lose at everything else. 1 Point to Grenade.

Rockets CD: 10 seconds throughout
Grenade CD: 13/12/11/10/9
Interesting, I'd give a tie here. While rockets maintain their CD, grenade ties and then beats it later on.

Miscellaneous:
Both can hit more than one target but rockets can be easier or harder with minions in the way. Tie

With ulti, rockets tend to have a better effect than the grenade. Point to rocket.

Grenade has stun and blind. Rockets have nothing. Point to grenade.

Rockets are almost instant and require little amount of power to use(just press the button) so two points to rockets.

Grenades can kill more than 3 or 5 minions. Point to Grenade.

Grenades can be thrown in bushes and other places to give vision. (doesn't reveal stealth champions though)


The score? 5:4 for the Grenade. In my opinion the Grenade is better. The fact that it can stun someone and have that person blinded afterwards is a big deal to certain characters such as Yi, Jax, Trynd, Cait, Kog'Maw, Vayne and so on. And the stun is just great by itself anyways. Being able to stun is one of the best ccs in the game. And being able to stun more than 1 at a time is even better.

Is what I use the most and almost always on Heimer

Teleport is great as it can be used on your own turrents and the towers that you'll be defending. At level 5 your turrents start to have splash, which means your grenade and a turrent will be able to clear out 2 or 3 waves of built up creeps pratically all at once.

Flash is pretty obvious. Almost everything champion benefits from it. I prefer Flash over Ghost though, incase you miss a clutch stun and need to create some distance quickly.

Other Summoner Spells in order of Good to Terrible:

Can be a replacement for Teleport if you want. It's not bad, as Heimer is pretty weak. He is a great baiter.

Typical spell you could see anyone use. Not bad, but your turrents already provide a slow and your stun should stop them from attacking anyways.

You might need this as Heimer definately needs mana. Pick if you like to spam. With good turrent placements and harassment once in a while, you won't need it. Also if you had teleport, recalling for items and mana and health, you'd be back anyways.

Again, not a bad summoner spell but situational. At least, too situational for Heimer.

You might want it, but your grenade can be thrown to reveal bushes anyways. Typically, a tank or support would get more than you, so don't.

You don't need this because you innate gives you health regen.

Situational.

I've tested this and teleport is more useful in early-mid-late game. Fortify is all useful for defending those inhibitor turrents, as a teleport can often be used instead because they have the same cooldown unless of course, tons of enemy champions are there.

You will not be jungling (but I guess you can if you want)

Need say more?

I always rush to get philosphers stone first. Picking up Fairie charm and some pots will do you well to get there. The amount of mana and health pots are up to you. If you need more or less it doesn't really matter. Generally I recall once I have enough for Philo stone and boots.

Philo stone works very well with Heimerdinger. Hp and Mana Regen work great on him, and the gold is very nice too. I dislike going Tear of the Goddess because I find that it's a waste. I don't need so much mana that I can't even spend it all during a teamfight. I'd rather be low on mana after the fight because I'm going to recall anyways. Plus philo stone is way cheaper and gives gold.

is a great choice for Heimer. Gives health, ap, and slow. Very nice.
pretty standard, great item.
again great item. Gives some armour too. Buy the armour earlier if you are having trouble though. I sometimes buy armour before getting my Rabadon.

So why Sorc boot after Rabadon? I find that I don't really need speed to get away or catch when I have my stun handy. Also, I think that you need ability power first before Magic Penetration becomes useful.

The last two items are purely up to you. I usually get Will of the Ancients for Spell Vamp.
Warmogs is used to make sure Heimer can withstand more.

Runes are pretty basic. I get CDR because I like CDR for my spells, especially my E.
Heimerdinger needs some mana regen. I do not build items like Archangels staff or anything.

For Masteries, again pretty basic. Pretty much all Heimer guides would be about the same. 9 in Offense for the spell penetration and 21 in Utility for well, everything else.

Defense is great, but not much will help Heimerdinger. He has very low armour and MR but giving him a bit more won't help that much. You shouldn't be getting damaged anyways as your turrents do all the work.

Now I'd like to say that Dominion is very very different from the standard play. Dominion focuses a lot more on your turrents, and since they're less minions and lots of roaming, rockets do become very useful. However, do not think that the stun is useless. When seeing someone capping the point, a stun can catch him and you and your tower will be able to take him.

Rockets do have the range and will not miss and I'll agree rockets are very useful maybe more than the stun in Dominion. I'll put it like this though, a hard cc is very useful in Dominion. Get it at level 3 (You should be getting 3 levels at the beginning of the game.)

The build I use is a fairly defensive build focusing on holding the bottom two points.

I usually do a lot of pushing with Heimer, if I'm able to control 1 person then it's basically a 4vs4 for the other points. Ghost will help you incase you need to run or get back to your point incase an enemy is there, although placing and leaving on of your turrents there will sufice. This means that whenever you place down an attacking turrent, place it a lot farther up to insure that it'll die on the next minion wave or from the enemy champion. If the enemy champion attacks it, spam E and rockets on him.

Playing Heimerdinger is fairly easy in Dominion. Playing as a defensive role, you don't need to move up as much as others. Promote is a very nice spell for pushing the lanes. Heimer pushes lanes even better since Domninion turrents do a lot less damage. Turrent set up can either be used to hold your control point or push up to reach their bottom control point.

For items, the set up is for a defensive push, survivability based with damage.

Gives health, slow and ap. Very good choice.
Gives pure ap. Good, but not as important as in standard.
Gives a very good active and high ap and armor. This causes your defense to be superb.
A new item in dominion that does damage based on stored magic damage on Heimer. With Heimer's good health regen and taking of a beating, you'll be able to kill them with a stun, turrents, ulti, rocket, odyn.

I find the Stun very useful and like this build very much. This build was inspired when I was playing Heimerdinger one time and one of my teammates claimed that they had fought a Heimerdinger last game. He claimed that he was harassed a lot from Heimer. When I asked because of his rockets? He responded, no because of his blue circle thing. From then on I tested it and I found it to be very sucessful.