Warwick Build Guide by giantzombie

Welcome

Hi everyone, I'm Giantzombie and I'd like to welcome you all to my season 3 Warwick guide. I've made some improvements and ofcourse used the new items & masteries to get the new guide up to date. The layout and the coding is mostly ripped from Jhoijhoi Making A Guide. Don't forget to Vote after reading this guide and if you know a way to improve this guide then please share it with me!
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Focus of this guide

First of all you must know that this guide is only for Lanewick. This can be the toplane or the midlane, but not the jungle!. If you want to jungle Warwick then you should look for another guide. This guide will build a tanky Warwick, using on-hits effects as Wit's End and Blade of the Ruined King. Early game the main source of damage will be Hungering Strike. This will be the skill you use to damage your enemy and also to regain lost life. To max this damage cooldown reduction and some magic peneration is bought early game. This is combined with magic resist or armor to also counter the enemy toplaner. And since Hungering Strike scales with the enemies max health the skill will stay useful the whole game.
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Lane vs jungle

Riot has designed this champion with jungling in mind. They made Warwick not to bad in the jungle and he never gets to low life. The problem is that he clears slow and has terrible ganks before Infinite Duress. There are a lot of other champs that clear faster and gank better. Other champions like Lee Sin, Jarvan IV and Volibear can gank way more effective pre lvl 6. So even though I love this champion I feel like it is no top tier jungler. However there still is a solo lane free for tanky characters and that could be Lanewick!

Infinite sustain and harass with Hungering Strike, towerdive with Infinite Duress, every gank of your jungler is a success with Infinite Duress to hold the enemy and Blood Scent for a little chasing. Even though this champion was designed for the jungle, it does a lot better in the top-lane!
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Change Log
19-03-2013: Finished the guide!

Pros / Cons

Pros Extreme Sustain; with Eternal Thirst and Hungering Strike you have two ways to regain health. Together with your health/armor/magic resist it will be impossible to get you out of your lane. If you are low health after a teamfight you can also regain your lost health fast. Good Towerdiving; if the enemy is low and tower hung you can jump on him with Infinite Duress. Some auto attacks and an Hungering Strike will most likely finish him of. Because of Blood Scent he won't be able to get away. Hard To Kill; you will be tanky with lots of armor and magic resist. On top of that you steal health. This makes you last long in teamfights Buffs Whole Team; in a teamfight you can give your whole team more attackspeed. This will be useful for everyone except for maby the AP carry Nightmare For Enemy Carry; If a teamfight start you will be in his face dealing great damage. Your Blood Scent will make sure he won't get away.

Cons Kitable; you are a melee character. The enemy will be able to cast spells on you from a distance and run away if the are faster. Skills like Frost Shot are your worst enemy. Vunerable For CC; if you get stunned then you are not able to regain your health. Your ultimate will also get cancelled allowing the enemy to get away. Not A Good Initiator; you are tanky, but you are not a tank. Your only CC gets you right in the middle of the enemy team. Slow Farmer; if there is a group of minions waiting to be slaughtert then you have to kill them one by one. You have no multi target spells so this will take a while. black

Masteries

When choosing the masteries you have to keep the goal of this build in mind. We want to have cooldown reduction, magic penetration, survivability and mana. The chosen masteries setup gives all of this except for the mana. That is why mana regen runes are chosen.

Runes

• Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration: An easy way to get magic penetration. Why magic penetration? Eternal Thirst, huntering strike, Infinite Duress, Wit's End and Malady all deal magic damage.
  
• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: We want even more magic penetration. This is a most have and I have no other options for these marks.
  
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction: These give you the last needed cooldown reduction. With Sorcery and Frozen Heart this wil get you to 31%.
  
• Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration: You will need a lot of mana for your Hungering Strike, and since we are not getting this with our masteries we are getting it here. These runes are chosen over the flat mana regen because at the time you start spamming your Hungering Strike these give more mana regeneration.
  

The runes shown above are the preferred Runes. There are ofcourse other possible runes:

• Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: You are not the fastest of champions and the only gap closer you have is on a long cooldown. These runes can change all of that and give you the much needed movement speed.
• Greater Quintessence of Health: These quintessence make you more buffy and combined with Durability and Veteran's Scars you will have +200 health extra.
  
• Greater Seal of Mana Regeneration: In case your playstyle needs more mana from level 1. I used these first but I most say that the Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration works better for me.
• Greater Seal of Armor: To get even more tanky. Will help you stay healty while getting those early creep kills but those shouldn't be a problem anyway. Not a bad choice, but the mana regeneration is better.
  
• Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction: If you want your cooldown reduction from level 1 you can get these.
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: When you want more magic resist these are an option.

Summoner Spells

Flash: This spell should be taken on almost every champion, especially champions that have no build-in flash like Arcane Shift or Shadow Dash. This spell can safe you and can help catch enemies. Just too good to ignore.

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Ignite: This spell makes you deal more damage and stops the enemy from healing. Good for your burst damage and good for getting first blood.

Other possibilities are:
: Some top laners like this spell and it can be useful to get back to lane fast or to gank/escape gank. Always fun to teleport to a botlane ward and ulti on the enemy AD carry! Still the other summoner spells are preferred over this one.
: If no one else in your team chose this guy and you are not facing Mundo than this can be a valid choice. If you are for some reason going AD damage then I'd take this skill by replacing Ignite with it. If not then Ignite is just way to useful for getting that first blood.

Ability Sequense

Get Infinite Duress whenever you can. Its your ulitimate, no more reason needed.
Second important is Hungering Strike. This skill is your poke and your health regain and it gets way better every level.
Then get Blood Scent. This skill will allow you to run after low life champs or run away if there is a low life enemy champ nearby.
Lowest priority is Hunters Call. Get this 1 time at lvl 4 to have a 40% attack speed boost when you go into a 1v1 fight with the other top laner. More points in it don't make it much better. Later on its good for group fights so thats when we want to put points in this skill.
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Ability Explanation

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Eternal Thirst

This ability makes Warwick a good fighter. It gives extra magic damage and a fixed amount of health back. An indication of the dmg/life gain: 3 hits lvl 5 gives 30 health and deals 30 magic damage. 10 hits at lvl 9 gives you 189 health and deals the same magic damage. At lvl 18 10 hits give 432 health and deals the same magic damage. For this numbers you need to be attacking the same targets to keep the stacks up to 3. !!!TIP!!! This skill gets more useful if you place more auto attacks on the same target. This makes placing a few auto attacks on the same minion more effective then placing the same amount of auto attacks on different minions for regaining lost life.

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Hungering Strike

This is a great skill to deal damage and to stay in lane. It doesn't only do great damage. It also heals you for 80% of the damage done. Of a squishy carry with 2k health it will deal 320 damage +100% AP (so not much more then 320 with this build) and heal you for 256 not considering magic resist. Great skill to poke the enemy champ with and finish of enemies that are running away from you. If needed it can also be used to kill creeps from range if you have the mana to do so. !!!TIP!!! When you are at full health don't just run to your enemy to use Hungering Strike because that is a waste of health you might gain. Try to get 1-2 auto attacks in first. Feel free to use this skill if you can't get close enough or are not at full health.

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Hunters Call

When you jungle this is the first skill you pick. When you lane it is the last skill you pick. Use it when the enemy want to fight you 1v1. A 40% AS boost is welcome at that time. Other than those few times this skill isn't all that useful in lane. Other than that this skill is used for clearing minion waves/dragon/baron and to give your team an attackspeed buff in a teamfight. !!!TIP!!! This is more a tip for jungling, but you might be attackin red buff or the dragon on your own so I'll share it anyways. If you want to stay as healty as possible when attacking red buff/dragon alone then the skill sequence should be autoattack- Hungering Strike-autoattack- Hunters Call-keep auto attacking. This is to make most use of the extra damage and health regain given by your passive Eternal Thirst

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Blood Scent

It is not a gap closer, but it does allow you to get to low life enemies in no-time. You can see enemies with under 50% health on a large range at level 5 and you will be faster then almost anything with the 40% speed boost. In teamfights this will make you run from enemy to enemy in no-time. This skill also allows you to run away after a lost teamfight if one of the enemies is under 50% health. It spots low life enemies in a long range and also if they are hiding in bushes. !!!TIP!!! When you are sneaking up to an enemy and he is under 50% health then toggle Blood Scent off. Otherwise they will know you are near because of the huge marker on their head. This way the will not know that you are coming! Toggle it back on when you are about to start the chase.

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Infinite Duress

With this skill you jump on the enemy and make 5 hits. Each hit will deal 84 + 0,4 bonus AD as magic damage at level 3 and apply on-hit effects including Eternal Thirst. The on-hit effects on items like Blade of the Ruined King will be applied. This will make Blade of the Ruined King deal around 20% damage of current health, 100 damage with Malady and with Wit's End an additional 200 magic damage. This brings the total magic damage somewhere around 1100 if you jump a champion with 2500hp and 50 magic resist. That is a scary amount of damage! The proc of Frozen Mallet is also applied. My most favorite use of this skill is catching an enemy champion under your tower. Thats almost an guaranteed kill. !!!TIP!!! When your jungler is coming to gank don't just use this skill to catch the enemy. Wait for the jungler to come close and go in for a Hungering Strike first. Only use it if it is really needed.

Start items

• & 3x : You need movement speed couse you can't jump away from anything. The health pots you can buy are also useful at low levels where hungering strike still gives little health back. By far my most use starting items.
  
• 2x & 1x sight ward & 3x : When you are facing an magic damage enemy and you are going to rush Chalice of Harmony. I like starting with boots better, but this does also work.
  
• & 2x : If you are facing an AD champion, the jungler is also AD and you are going to rush Glacial Shroud then this is the way to go. Not my favorite, but gets the job done.
  
• & 5x : If you are going to get Ninja Tabi despite me disliking that then you can start with these items.

Early game items

• : This makes everything you do hurt even more. If you were thinking about Mercury's Treads, you will get the needed magic resist in other ways. The magic penetration is just to good to not pick up. Only skip this item if you really, really need the cc reduction and mr that Mercury's Treads gives or are only facing ad champ and want the Ninja Tabi.
  
• : This item will give you all the mana you will ever need. There is no need for this item if you are facing an AD champion and have build your Glacial Shroud. If you are laning vs an AP champion then this item is a good choice first choice. If you are facing an AD champ then skip this item. One important note; never build it into Athene's Unholy Grail. That item is no good for Warwick
  
• : Gives you cooldown reduction and a lot of armor. It also gives more mana to cast even more Hungering Strike. This item will later most likely be build into Frozen Heart. Good first item when facing an AD champion. If you are fighting an AP champion then it can be build later.
  
• : you will need this item every game. I like getting it not to late, after the Sorcerer's Shoes and Chalice of Harmony or Glacial Shroud and sometimes after Wit's End if the enemies have some feeded AP champs. It gives you some extra damage and lifesteal. The active is also very usefull. If Blood Scent isn't active yet or you want to catch the enemy even faster then the active will do the job.

Core items

• : This item gives extra magic damage and extra magic resist. It gives even more magic resist after hitting an enemy. If you use Infinite Duress on a champion then it will give the 20 bonus magic resist when your ultimate ends. With this item you can jump the enemy AP carry without ever fearing to die. Pick this as first core item if the enemies deal any magic damage at all.
  
• : Every stats on this item is great for Warwick and thats why you should get it every game. It gives damage, attack speed, life steal a great on hit effect and an activated ability thats slow an enemy and makes you faster.
  
• : This item gives great survivability, some extra damage and a great passive. No champion will ever get away from you after you've hit em with this item.
  
• : Gives a lot of armor, mana cooldown reduction and a very usefull passive. Since you will already have Glacial Shroud this item will come natural.

Other items

There are more items good on Warwick. As we all know we should always build the items that are needed in the game and these are the other useful items for Lanewick.

Offensive

• : Gives attack speed, some magic damage per hit and also reduses magic resist. Makes you hurt your target a lot more and almost gets full stacks after Infinite Duress. A cheap way to some extra damage.
  
• : A little health, cooldown reduction, 55 damage and a lot or armor penetration. Good item if you don't want Malady.
  
• : Can be seen as a more defensive form of The Black Cleaver. Can get this if you want more damage, but also want to survive longer.
  
  

Defensive

• : This item is great for Warwick. Still I don't often use it. For some quick magic resist Chalice of Harmony is better couse it cost way less. Also with Sorcery , Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction and Frozen Heart we will reach 31% CDR already. For the same price Wit's End is prefered. You can get it after the chalice if you need more magic resist and there is no need for any offensive items on you.
  
• : If you already have Frozen Heart and still need more armor then this is the item to get. I prefer it over Guardian Angel because you want the enemy to attack you and not the carry.
  
• : Good item for every team but support could better get it if needed. There are better items for you to spend your gold on.
  

Boots and stuff

• : 12% movement speed bonus every time you hurt the enemy. Allows you to catch them even faster.
  
• : Gets you around the map faster and good for catching enemies that are out of range.
  
• : Can get these boots if you need some early armor and Glacial Shroud is not enough.
  
• : Only get these if you need even more magic resist and they have Amumu and Galio or other mass cc that you worry about.
  

Gameplay

No matter what you are facing, you always want to max Hungering Strike first. Every enemy will hate you for it. Our whole early game will be based on getting the most out of it. Best is to cast it on the opponent champion. This way you hurt him and will get the most health back. If you have more then enough mana, need life and can't cast on the enemy champ then you can use it on a creep. Also if you have a hard time getting creep kills for some reason then this skill can be used to farm. Just make sure to keep enough mana for you Infinite Duress whenever you are level 6. If you get Hungering Strike at level 3 then you can harassing you enemy with it. You might get him low enough to kill when you hit level 6.

On your first time back, hopefully after pushing you minion wave to the enemy tower you buy the items needed to counter the enemy top laner and if you didn't already have them Boots of Speed. This can be a Glacial Shroud if you need armor or Chalice of Harmony for magic resist. If you are going the way of Glacial Shroud then you don't have to buy Chalice of Harmony. The other way around is not the same.

After a little while you will get level 6 and if the jungler didn't come for a gank before then its time to call him over for a gank. Only your burst will hurt a lot, but you want to make that sure kill. First use Hungering Strike and use Infinite Duress when the enemy is escaping or when the gank is going bad and you or your allie is dying. If needed use Ignite to secure the kill. Don't be afraid to do a little chase with your Blood Scent activated. If they are at very low life your Hungering Strike should make a quick end. Tower diving with Infinite Duress is also no problem.
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At around 15-20 minutes in game you are though and can spam your Hungering Strike. You are on your way of becoming a killing machine. You are now also a great ganker with Infinite Duress. Don't be afraid to go gank the mid lane if top is pushed or if you need to go shopping anyways. Go counterjungle with your jungler. At this point the enemy should fear you. Getting creep kills is still a high priority but you most not forget to use your ganking skills to get some kills. Since you are in the top lane it is important to keep an eye on the dragon timer to be there on time. Your Hunters Call will be of great use to kill it faster and if you see an off position enemies trying to sneak to your team you can use Infinite Duress to catch him.
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Where mid game is a kinda undefined part of the game, teamfights are very clear. These are the 5v5 fights that will make or break your game. You might already have your Wit's End when they start and you deal good damage. This damage will of course be focused on the enemies main threat, most likely a carry. You will focus this guy until he is dead. You are build for this job and Infinite Duress gets you where you want to be in no time.

What you do need to know is that you are Not the Initiator. You might be tanky, but you are not a tank. If you just jump in you will get stunned and maby even killed. You wait until the fight has started and then you jump on their carry. Of course you can also jump on an out of position enemy for an easy kill before the fight starts even if this is not the carry. 5v4 is ofcourse always better than 5v5. When the fight starts you use Hunters Call to buff your team. Look for their carry, cast Hungering Strike on him, grab him with Infinite Duress and use Ignite if needed and if he runs you go chase him if he is a sure kill. Otherwise stay with the group, spam Hungering Strike and watch the enemies die.

So remember that you are not a born initiator, to not just waste your Infinite Duress before needed, cast Hunters Call when the fight start and spam Hungering Strike as often as possible!

Wall of fame

Screens will be added if I ever recieve them from other ppl using this build. Its just way to easy to upload them from my own games