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Spells:
Exhaust
Ignite
Ability Order
Eternal Hunger (PASSIVE)
Warwick Passive Ability
Introduction

New players to WW will most likely first notice his excellent self-sustainability which is due to his passive



First of all I would just like to weed out a few errors made by many WW players:
1.




I had played a few games as warwick and I had noticed his great ability to 1v1 every AD champion I came across. I got it into my head that I must be really good and decided to enhance my use of WW by buying a rune page for him. In line with the brilliant build I was using at the time (


















After that game and the constant verbal abuse following the 1v1 from both teams (yes I reported them all for "verbal abuse" xD) I put all my crit damage runes in the rune combiner and vowed to never play

2. Even if you find you are dominating your lane opponents, DO NOT assume that you are now a beast life-stealing carry and can initiate a later team fight whenever you have enough time to press 'R' on your keyboard followed by a left mouse click!!! This will pretty much result in you getting &^%^$^* on by 3 stuns from the resident










3. Whilst


With those common mis-conceptions out of the way, its time to explain my rationale for lane








My general play-style in the lane can be described as a harrassing AP caster. That is, you should be constantly seeking to use your Q (



Magic pen, magic pen, magic pen. I can't stress the usefulness of magic pen enough for not only the early extra damage it will provide you, but later on AP (specifically flat or per lvl runes) is fairly useless for
Warwick (and most AP carries for that matter).
Health quints and similar defensive runes (armor, magic resist) are more suitable for your tank. Now whilst you should always look to rush your core items being
Malady,
Madred's Bloodrazor and
Wit's End, after obtaining these 3 items your goal should be to begin building items according to your team's needs and the set-up of the enemy team. This usually results in you becoming an off-tank figther late-game, however the fact remains that you are not (and should not try to be) your team's tank nor initiator.
In order to maximise
Warwick's effectiveness you must resist the urge to take out that tasty-looking cocky-***
Ezreal (oh and you will take any squishy carry ie
Ashe,
Graves,
Caitlyn,
Teemo,
Kog'Maw etc down to 1 quarter health with your ultimate
Infinite Duress late game). Rather, you should play to your strengths which lie in your ability to completely remove your team's primary focus from a team-fight by timing your ultimate and not initiating. To maximise this fairly unique ability; magic penetration quintessences, marks and glyphs in combination with
Sorcerer's Shoes provide a massive amount of magic penetration for
Infinite Duress and
Hungering Strike (which both deal magic damage). What this means is that any magic damage you deal bypasses a significant amount of your target's magic resist, thus dealing more damage closer to true damage. The flat armor seals provide better than normal defence early lane however these are not too important and can be switched depending on personal preference.
Alternative runes include: flat and per-level cooldown reduction glyphs (a good alternative however at rank 3
Infinite Duress has a 68 second cooldown), flat cooldown reduction seals, cooldown reduction quintessences and movement speed quintessences (so much speed.....)
Edit: I have recetly discovered mana regen per lvl seals and they basically solve any mana issues you may have throughout the game (be it early solo lane or late-game chases). Again, not the most important runes for solo-top or dual lane
Warwick.
Edit: I have even more recently discovered (xD) flat mana regen seals, which in addition with the mana regen from the utility tree (yes i had to waste points on the mana per-lvl masteries to get this -.-) ensure you'll never run out of mana again! Yet again not your biggest, game-changing pre-match decision :)

Health quints and similar defensive runes (armor, magic resist) are more suitable for your tank. Now whilst you should always look to rush your core items being



In order to maximise











Alternative runes include: flat and per-level cooldown reduction glyphs (a good alternative however at rank 3

Edit: I have recetly discovered mana regen per lvl seals and they basically solve any mana issues you may have throughout the game (be it early solo lane or late-game chases). Again, not the most important runes for solo-top or dual lane

Edit: I have even more recently discovered (xD) flat mana regen seals, which in addition with the mana regen from the utility tree (yes i had to waste points on the mana per-lvl masteries to get this -.-) ensure you'll never run out of mana again! Yet again not your biggest, game-changing pre-match decision :)
The offense tree offers few masteries which are worthwhile for
Warwick, namely the extra magic penetration. Expanding down this tree is fairly pointless as increases in AP aren't going to help you as you will not be buying pure AP items.
The defensive tree is a good alternative to maxing the utility tree if you find your lacking some beef early game, however I find personally that its a bit of a waste passing up on the cool exp bonuses, mana regen, buff duration and cooldown reductions offered under the utility branch.
All considered, not too an important decision as long as you don't go wasting points on the offensive tree (30-0-0...)(unless you want to try the fun WW builds as provided above in the secondary build tree's xD)

The defensive tree is a good alternative to maxing the utility tree if you find your lacking some beef early game, however I find personally that its a bit of a waste passing up on the cool exp bonuses, mana regen, buff duration and cooldown reductions offered under the utility branch.
All considered, not too an important decision as long as you don't go wasting points on the offensive tree (30-0-0...)(unless you want to try the fun WW builds as provided above in the secondary build tree's xD)
As a rule I always take
Flash as it provides great escape and chase opportunities, especially to set up your ultimate or escape a bad decision to ult someone. Personally I take
Ignite for early kills (no enemy shall ever escape again with 20HP left!!) and becomes quite handy late game when you want to deliver
Tryndamere's, other
Warwick's and
Vladimir's their ***es on a platter (or any other
Bloodthirster/
Will of the Ancients wielding carries). My personal favourite is to ult the resident
Kog'Maw then ignite him while he tries to 1v1 me and watch the fireworks display that always follows (ie:
Icathian Surprise).
Useful alternatives include
Exhaust and maybe (maybe!)
Ghost and
Teleport if you feel like it. Everything else is fairly useless for
Warwick.









Useful alternatives include




By starting with the
Doran's Ring, you receive a sizeable amount of health (100HP) for early surviveability, a little AP (15AP) and a dash of mana regen (5 mana points per 5 seconds). This is pretty much the 3 things you want early for lane WW.
CORE ITEMS
Follow by rushing
Sorcerer's Shoes for even more magic penetration (your damage now does more damage!),
Malady,
Wit's End and
Madred's Bloodrazor (as it is your ******* core item boy!). Don't ask me how (read its unique passive) but that item does magic for
Warwick and in combination with
Wit's End, your ultimate will suddenly be insta-killing any non-health packing squishy carry. On a side note I thought i'd explain the difference between the other two core items of
Warwick:
Wit's End increases your magic resist per hit, whilst
Malady lowers your opponent's magic resist per hit with both dealing magic damage in addition to your basic AD attacks.
CARRY WARWICK ITEMS (ONLY IF FED HARD)
Now, here is where it gets interesting. If completly and utterly fedcore, finish your build by going massive carry
Warwick (lots of fun but rarely get the opportunity). Refer to the my build provided on "Team 1" on the second slot for this build (you've got to try this at least once, you will be squishy as hell though and you won't get away with it unless absolutely fed). On a side note, its not mentioned anywhere else, but both
Zeke's Harbinger and
Will of the Ancients are nice items if your team is either AD or AP heavy, respectively.
AD HEAVY TEAM
If you find yourself on an AD heavy team (ie:
Tryndamere,
Graves,
Caitlyn etc]]) once you build your core 4 (
Sorcerer's Shoes,
Malady,
Wit's End and
Madred's Bloodrazor your best bet is to rush both health and a
Thornmail. This will basically allow you to stand and hold off a fed (means very strong xD) AD carry levels above you due to the returned damage from its passive. Worthwhile alternatives include:
Warden's Mail (one of 3 building blocks for
Randuin's Omen) which decrepifies your AD opponents whilst a completed
Randuin's Omen has an awesome active ability!
Sunfire Aegis (good but not great),
Frozen Heart (very useful in that it provides even more cooldown reduction with a cool unique passive) and
Guardian Angel (very useful, however in some situations can be fairly useless) are also viable alternatives when facing fed AD carries. As I mentioned previously, WW (most of the time unless massively fed) is best played when built situationally. That is, build yourself to fill the role your team needs the most (most commonly an off-tank-squishy-hunting-bruiser) in a manner that best combats the set-up of the enemy team as well.
AP HEAVY TEAM
Again, once you have acquired your 4 cores begin helping out your team by building up some serious magical resistance.
Force of Nature provides not only great magic resist, but also some extra movement speed and health regen (% based of max health) which when combined with
Warmog's Armor forms an excellent combination.
Banshee's Veil is useful for
Warwick in that you will ignore interruptions (stuns, etc) which are bound to occur during your ultimate in an attempt to save their teammates life. Alternatives include
Guardian Angel (and again, assess the situation for this item) and
Quicksilver Sash (an excellent item if you know how to time and use it as it will remove many current de-buffs).
ITEMS I CANNOT RECOMMEND
First off
Spirit Visage....if any of you have read my
Vladimir guide you will know how much I despise seeing people wasting time and more importantly gold. Sure it might enhance your passive and reduce cooldowns, but if your versing another
Warwick who has the same items but replaces that spirit visage with a
Hextech Gunblade, you will lose. badly. All in all it is a filler item not worthy of your precious gold. Boots-wise,
Ionian Boots of Lucidity may seem a good idea but cooldown reduction isn't you primary focus as WW, as I have mentioned previously at rank 3 (lvl 16)
Infinite Duress has a cooldown of 68 seconds (which means it is short enough so that it will be back up and ready to go for the next team fight once the other team respwans or you 'B' to buy up).
Berserker's Greaves are just terrible as with
Hunters Call,
Madred's Bloodrazor,
Malady and
Wit's End you will just about have 2.5 AS (the max attack speed you can get) which isn't really necessary anyway. Finally, another reminder not to stack pure AD or AP items as you are not a carry! Unless fed..... ;)
Why not rush
Madred's Bloodrazor first like all the other
Warwick's?
Now, whilst madred's bloodrzor is probably your best core item in terms of hit-on effects for your ultimate etc, it is simultaneously expensive. like all other great items. An early
Malady is cheap, effective and you will notice the buff it provides for your ultimate from rank 1.
Wit's End is also relatively cheap and by this time not only will your AS will be very high (and thus more magic damage from the hit-on effects of
Malady and
Wit's End) but your ult will also be shredding (stolen from
Malady's description itself xD) your opponents magic resist, whilst raising your own (hence more survivability). Top this dangerous combo off with
Madred's Bloodrazor after these 2 items as you will find yourself surviving more often and securing kills more often which makes it that much easier to get madred's anyway!!!

CORE ITEMS
Follow by rushing









CARRY WARWICK ITEMS (ONLY IF FED HARD)
Now, here is where it gets interesting. If completly and utterly fedcore, finish your build by going massive carry



AD HEAVY TEAM
If you find yourself on an AD heavy team (ie:














AP HEAVY TEAM
Again, once you have acquired your 4 cores begin helping out your team by building up some serious magical resistance.






ITEMS I CANNOT RECOMMEND
First off











Why not rush


Now, whilst madred's bloodrzor is probably your best core item in terms of hit-on effects for your ultimate etc, it is simultaneously expensive. like all other great items. An early






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