-OR- -OR

Mercury's Treads > TENACITY If the enemy team has a lot of CC, or a lot of AP damage, you can trade other boots out for these. They offer +25 magic resist, along with reducing the effect of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, silences, blinds and immobilizes by 30%. Assassin's are squishy and rely on getting in and out, you can get shut down easily if they enemy team has high CC. Boots of Swiftness > ARMOR If the enemy team has a lot of slows, you can take Boots of Swiftness for the slow resist and you also gain the most movement speed out of all boots except Mobis.

Youmuu's Ghostblade > DAMAGE/MOVEMENT SPEED Youmuu's Ghostblade's active offers you a burst of movement speed, enabling you to roam efficiently, and catch fleeing enemies, or even make that clutch escape. Outside of combat, you gain an additional 40% movement speed, and you gain a nice chunk of damage from this item.

Guardian Angel > UTILITY/SURVIVABILITY Armor, damage and a resurrection can be a saving grace with how squishy assassins can be, especially as Qiyana has to get up close and personal to kill her targets. She's quite immobile outside of her Flash, stealth -if she can get the brush element - and small dash.

Edge of Night > UTILITY/DAMAGE Edge of Night is like a Banshee's Veil for AD champions, granting you a spell shield for. Very useful to block any CC from an isolated target you're wanting to burst down, such as Light Binding from a squishy Lux. You also gain lethality and 250 HP, increasing your damage and survivability.

KEYSTONE Electrocute: One of the best keystone's for assassins, bringing you extra burst damage on your combo, and helping you annihilate choice targets faster after hitting 3 abilities or attacks, in quick succession. MINOR RUNE Sudden Impact: Very good rune for Qiyana, offering her extra burst damage after a dash or stealth, both of which Qiyana can take advantage of. Taste of Blood: Can also be a good choice if you're vs a hard match up in laning phase. MINOR RUNE Eyeball Collection: Every takedown you gain 1.2 AD or 2 AP, gaining an adaptive bonus of 6 AD or 10 AP once you've taken down 10 champions - again, increasing your damage output to burst down your targets. MINOR RUNE Ravenous Hunter: You heal for 1.5% (+ 2.5% per Bounty Hunter stack) of damage dealt by your abilities. Very good to keep you alive during teamfights, and can be the difference between life and death. SECONDARY RUNE Triumph: You restore 12% of your missing health after every takedown, potentially turning a fight in your favor, and you gain an additional 20 gold - always a good bonus. SECONDARY RUNE Coup de Grace: You deal 8% more damage to champions with less than 40% health, increasing your damage and helping you to secure kills with the bonus damage you received. SELECTIVE RUNES You generally want to be taking adaptive force for your first two selective runes, and then you can choose between your final defensive rune depending on what comp you're facing, whether you need more MR or more Armor.

AS OF 9.20, Edge of Ixtal's base damage has been lowered from 80/100/120/140/160 ⇒ 60/85/110/135/160, so be aware your trades are not as strong previously before max level.



Take the elements that you think will benefit you most in the situation. Make sure to always be holding an element, they do not lapse until you use them.



Outside of laning phase, you're going to want to be looking for easy to kill, isolated targets such as a squishy, immobile ADC ( Jhin, Ashe, Miss Fortune etc), mage supports, or even your opposing midlaner. Any time you can make it 5v4, getting in and out without dying yourself. River is a good element to choose if fighting over the Drake, or Baron Nashor for easy CC on chosen targets.
Brush is a good element for sneaking into the backline during teamfights, and assassinating the enemy ADC or mage.

Your ultimate is a powerful teamfight tool, knocking back enemies - you can use this like
Lee Sin to knock an enemy back into your team! - and creating a shockwave across any river or brush it passes through, dealing physical damage and stunning any enemies hit, for a short period of time.
You want to focus on flanking your enemies, catching them off guard, you can use your Terrashape to dash through walls if positioned correctly, using fog of war to your advantage - Umbral Glaive helps with clearing out enemy vision!

You can focus on split pushing if you have taken Teleport, or choose to 1v1 an enemy, assassinating them and then teleporting to your team, making it a 5v4.
Split pushing is an important mechanic to learn, especially if you can force one or more enemies to back off your team, to defend. This can set up valuable objectives like Baron Nashor and Elder Dragons. Make sure to have proper vision set up, otherwise you might be the one getting flanked and killed.

I hope you enjoyed, and learned enough from my Qiyana guide, to play her as well as the pro's.
She has a lot of cool mechanics built into her kit, playing around with the elements, dashing between enemies, and assassinating squishies!

If you enjoyed my guide, you can check out my other guides here, in which I've covered most supports, incase you want to branch out on your laning choices!

If you're interested in seeing more of me, please follow my stream! I stream every day but Saturday, from 12:00pm - 11:00pm GMT. I play a wide variety of supports, and I am always engaging with my stream chat.

08/02/2019 - Updated to reflect 9.15 changes
08/28/2019 - Updated to reflect 9.17 changes
09/10/2019 - Updated to reflect 9.20 nerfs
11/26/2019 - Updated for 9.23.
01/23/2020 - Updated to reflect 10.2 nerfs
11/22/2020 - Updated for preseason.
01/22/2021 - Updated for 11.2.