Lissandra General Guide by shiava

Introduction

Welp, this is my first guide ever, i hope it goes well. Also, english is not my native language, so don't be gammar nazis plox kthxbye.

I've played Lissandra since the PBE and i think i've found a build that works really well with her, gets rid of mosts her cons and makes her deal a significant amount of damage

i'm not gonna get in every detail of "How many Void Staffs and Liandry's Torments you need to get the especific amount of magic pen to deal true damage to Teemo" or any super specific thing. This is more of a general guide.

Also, for what i've seen, my way of playing liss is kinda different than all the other guides. so, i suggest you give it a look ;)

The really interesting thing about lissandra is the amount of cc she has, and that's is what makes her so fun and "op" as some may say. Obviously she has counterplays, but everybody cries when the new champ comes out :P


Here we go!

Lore

Lissandra magic twists the pure power of ice into something dark and terrible. With the force of her black ice, she does more than freeze – she impales and crushes those who oppose her. To the terrified denizens of the north, she is known only as “The Ice Witch.” The truth is much more sinister: Lissandra is a corrupter of nature who plots to unleash an ice age on the world.

Centuries ago, Lissandra betrayed her tribe to evil creatures, known as the Frozen Watchers, in return for power. That was the last day that warm blood ran through her veins. With her corrupted tribesmen and the strength of the Watchers, she swept across the land like a terrible blizzard. As her empire spread, the world grew colder and ice choked the land. When the Watchers were defeated by ancient heroes, Lissandra did not lose faith and swore to prepare the world for their return.

Lissandra worked to purge all knowledge of the Watchers from the world. Using magic to take human form, she masqueraded as numerous seers and elders. Over the course of generations, she rewrote the stories of the Freljord, and so the history of its people changed. Today the fragmented retelling of the Watchers are seen as children’s tales. But this deception wasn't enough – Lissandra also needed an army.

She set her sights on the noble Frostguard tribe. Lissandra knew corrupting the Frostguard would take centuries, and so she launched her greatest deception. She murdered and stole the identity of the Frostguard leader. Then she slowly began to warp the tribe’s proud traditions. When her human form grew old, she faked her own death and then murdered her successor to steal her identity. With each generation, the Frostguard grew more insular, cruel and twisted. Today, the world still sees them as a noble and peaceful tribe that guards against evil creatures like the Ice Witch. In truth, they now serve the witch and long for the glorious return of the Watchers.

Lissandra knows that on that day nations will fall and the world will be reborn in ice.

“Close your eyes and let the cold take you.” – Lissandra

Pros / Cons

-Pros CC ERRYWHERE W+E combo gives great mobility With this build, the cooldowns are low enough Cool aoe damage Your ult has a lot of utility Farming is super easy Really good ganking

-Cons Consumes A LOT of mana if built wrong Cooldowns might be high depending on the build Kinda squishy Your main damage skill is a skillshot Kinda low-range mage

Summoner spells

Pretty straight forward

gives you even more scape/engage mechanics. We all know it


TO BURN PEOPLE EVEN MORE

Runes

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power x3 increasing the starting ap, will be needed

Greater Greater Seal of Scaling Health x9 to give some sustein trough te game (i used to have armor seals but those don't work so good now in season 3)

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration x9 also, to increase the initial damage (keep in mind that we won't have any ap item until starting building lyandry's)

Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power x9 Same as before

Masteries

Now you may wask


Because with this build i never had mana problems with liss. i preffer lower my CD on Flash and Ignite rather than having 10+ mana

Skill Sequence

The whole idea here is to max Ice Shard because it's your main damage skill with the shortest cd. After Ice Shard max out Ring of Frost, to freeze people more often, and last Glacial Path (just give 1 point to start at lvl 4)

so, the secuence will be something like this

Explaining the build - WTF IONIAN BOOTS GG NOOB

To start of, i play Lissandra as i play my Vladimir ( This vlad guidehelped me a lot ) the whole idea is to burst your enemies down asap with low cds, helping your team with the cc/utility you provide. i'll give more details about this later, now i'll explain the build

So, i've seen a lot of builds over the interwebz, and almost all of them lack cdr items that, for me, are super important on liss, or they buy them really late in game.



YOU ARE WRONG BILLY (kindof). the guide i linked before used to explain why cdr was way better than mpen on Vladimir. At first i thought "pff that makes no sense" but after giving it a try it worked great, and i was dominating as vlad.



ERRYTHIN'
let me say 2 things,

• I know that builds depend a lot on your enemy team, allies, etc, but like i said, this is a general guide and is the one that works the best in most the cases.
  
• I know Vladimir is Vladimir and not Lissandra, but here is why cdr is way better than mpen on liss:

(note that the vlad explanation was super specific and matematicall. i won't do that :D)

-Your Ice Shard has 4 secs cd on max lvl buying ionian boots + masteries, leaves this cd in 3.24 secs. Almost a whole second. not to mention that if you get blue buff, your cd will be 2.44. EVEN BETTER. You will cast your main damage skill, every 2 and a half secs, dealing 500ish damage each time

-Now, your Ring of Frost will have 8.4s cd, and 6.1s with blue buff, instead of 10, none of your enemies will scape

-Also, your Glacial Path and your Frozen Tomb will have it's cooldown lowered almost by half, i won't get in deteails again, you get the idea.

Now, i want you to think about this, all this cd readucted,now you deal damage and cc your enemies faster, that can make the difference when that gragas with 15 hp is about to pop his barrel to kill you. when you are trying to run away with 5% hp, you can just slow them with Ice Shard, and slow them again once it expired, and if they get close just pop your Ring of Frost + Glacial Path and you are gone!

i build cdr really early to help you deal more damage faster since the early levels. farming will be a piece of cake and poking will be hilarious

i will get in deteails about the gameplay in other section. but i guess

you get the idea of why cdr is good on liss



CDR has a 40% cap. now you get 4% cdr with your masteries, and in-game blue buff gives you 20% cdr, that gives you a totall of 24%. Ionian Boots of Lucidity gives just the right amount of cdr 15% to reach 39%. buying something like Athene's Unholy Grail will give you even more, but it won't make any differnce because you will be over the 40% cap



Yes, that was the problem i had while i was testing on the pbe. To solve that: Tear of the Goddess
Now, i've seen other people getting Doran's Ring and Chalice of Harmony or catalyst the protector, and it's cool, every item has it pros and cons, but i feel more comfy with Tear of the Goddess, evolving it into an Archangel's Staff/ Seraph's Embrace later in the game. Don't get me wrong, those are good items, and like i said before it depends a lot on your team and your enemies.



That's the spirit. Now, i like to rush Liandry's Torment, for obvious reasons (3 of your 4 skills slow your enemies) once i get that, is time to get dirty and buy a Rabadon's Deathcap, or a Zhonya's Hourglass incase you are dying a lot.
After that my game has finished, but in case those bastards haven't surrendered yet, finish you Archangel's Staff once you have full stacks on the Tear of the Goddess, Seraph's Embrace shield will help you survive in teamfights, plus will give you 120 AP! after that i'm pretty sure you already won. In case you didn't get a Void Staff and finish them off

Recaping, Liandry's Torment will burn your enemies down, once you have that rushing a Rabadon's Deathcap will give you a huge burst, and considering that you have 39% cdr, taking 3 enemies down shouldnt be a problem



I'm proud of you Billy :')

---

- Transforms into Tear of the Goddess or catalyst the protector
x2- to stay in line farming

If you choose starting boot + 3 pots you will have a hard time farming cause you'll get oom really fast

start with Doran's Ring if you feel like it

- read above, evolves to Seraph's Embrace

- read above

- Like i said before, seems pretty obvious, you will
ice-burn the enemy team down. consider not building this if the enemy team is full of squishies (go straight to rabaddon and some other bursty items). but consider that all your skills are aoe and this lil mask increases your damage a lot.

- gives you the burst you need, 120 AP and boosting all your other items. pretty straight forward




- 120 ap + mana + shield to survive team fights. GG

- gives you even more AP and the active skill that will also help you survive teamfights (keep in mind that you dont have a really long range skill other than the teleport, so you will get hurt a lot). Also, you might want to build this early if you are dying a lot


- will give you more utility by super slowing your enemis and giving you more HP. is a good choice

It's not my thing, but is a good item nonetheless. it will give you more mana+hp + mana+hp every time you lvl up + ap. is good but i don't usually build it. (If you are gonna build it do it before anything else, remember that the ap scales through time)

- It's a good idea if the enemy team is really AP heavy, and
you are one of the main damage dealers in your team. Doing the combo will raep erryone.

- build this if ou want to burn people down, but i don't
see much use on this (considering the way i play her)








- I've seen some builds with this, but i don't quite get why. this is super expensive, and gives you 20% cdr, now considering that you will get blue buff, and your masteries, you will have like 4% cdr over the 40% cap, and it seems like a huge waste to me. (if you get this and Ionian Boots of Lucidity you will have like 19% cdr over the cap, SUPER HUGE WASTE). Why buy a 2600g iteam when you can solve the same problem with the 700g Tear of the Goddess and Ionian Boots of Lucidity? With that amount of gold you could buy a Void Staff and you still have 400 gold spare for candies!

- Same as Athene's Unholy Grail

- seems kindof worthless to me. the idea is to build damage and burst people down asap. this won't help you. it's like building this on anivia, makes no sense.
"But you said you play liss like vlad"
Yes, but vlad's spells cost hp, and he wastes a lot of hp on them, so speel vamp makes obvious sense on vlad, but not here. liss spends mana. we already gave her mana regen things


That's it i guess
i'll keep adding things if i see something works/doesn't

COMBO + Your roll as the cool champ (seewhatididthere) in your team

Now, like i said before, i like to play Lissandra as i play my Vladimir. Helping your team with the CC PLUS burning them down in seconds. If you ever saw a good vlad, you know what i'm talking about. he goes in, ult, drains people and when you want to kill him he just pools. after that you are probably dead

So, let's get started




Farming with liss is fun and easy, just try to aim your Ice Shard to hit most of the minions and that it! super fast.
While doing this try to poke your opponent down. And when i say this i don't mean go 1v1. Try to land your Ice Shard on a minion and hit the enemy with the shards. Sounds hard but it isn't. Doing this will keep him away, he won't be able to farm, and you already won the lane. Clean the wave and get the jungle Wraith s = GG
PROTIP: if you get closer to the target you land your Q on, the shards will travel further

So, just far with your Ice Shard, maybe a casual Ring of Frost to finish a wave, but never, NEVER use Glacial Path.
NEVER
I'LL BE WATCHING YOU
NEVER DO IT (i'll explain why in a while)

Bein ganked: Now, be "carefull" because farming this fast and keeping the enemy away will make you push really fast and you will be more "open" to recieve ganks. i suggest buying wards.
But here comes the fun part. You are "immune" to ganks! (kind of). All you have to do is do some playz

• wait until they come close, freeze them with Ring of Frost, cast Glacial Path, go away (maybe you won't even need to cast Glacial Path)
  
• if you are kinda trapped, cast your Glacial Path(here's why you shouldn't use it to farm) in 1 direction and walk to another. you enemies will have to chose 1 path. in case they follow you just hit E again to teleport away. in case they follow the hand, just walk away (you can pull really funny thigs doing this, like teleporting over walls or teleport + Flash in different directions)

That's it. i barely get killed by ganks.

But don't get too cocky, junglers like Rammus/ Darius/etc and lanes like Ryze/ Fiddlesticks, with hard CCs, will get you down really fast. Most of the times you won't have time to cast your skills and scape. That's why i suggest wards.

Glacial Path is only for scape/engage moments, not to farm. Just like Vladimir's Sanguine Pool

PROTIP: if you are really low and the enemies decide to tower dive you, just let them hit you ONCE, cast W to freeze them there, them cast your ult on you to avoid damage. The turret will do the rest.





Ice Shard(if in range) + Glacial Path + Ring of Frost + Frozen Tomb (the target of your ult depends on the situation, will explain later) + Ice Shard + Ring of Frost



When you recieve help off your jungler: just wait until the enemy is near, get close, cast Glacial Path to make it land behind him. he will try to run away.

teleport, Ring of Frost, Ice Shard, if you have Frozen Tomb cast it too ON HIM, Ice Shard again and he's probably dead by now.

The idea is to keep him frozen to stop him from flashing away

PROTIP: Most of the times i get first blood by simply poking them with Ice Shard until they are low enough, then doing the combo. (just remember to poke from really far away with the shards)




Now you won your lane, time to help people
Ganking is also easy with liss, all you have to do is cast your
Glacial Path over walls. most people won't see it. Try to cast somewhere with a lot of minions to hide the landing mark. if they'll see you, cast it behid them to stop them from running away.

Again, COMBO. If you have to chase, your
Glacial Path and your Ice Shard's slow will help a lot.




Ah, teamfights, gotta love the smell of yordle blood in the air.

This is the time when you'll see the real power of Lissandra. Your role here is to screw with people and kill them. It's kinda suicidal, but if you do your job well, you will end with a triple/quadra, alive, and with a happy team.

Like i said, this champ works like Vladimir, you will have to go in, and burn people down. That's why i said it's kinda suicidal, and that's why you may want to build Zhonya's Hourglass. The main difference with Vladimir is that vlad is a Tank-Initiator mage, and Lissandra isn't. So what you have to do is let the tank initiate, wait until the fight starts (to see if the enemy stays or leaves, calculate the range of your Glacial Path, etc), and now do THE COMBO, cast Glacial Path (or leave it to escape) go in, cast Ring of Frost to stop anyone from scaping (like amumu's ult) maybe Ice Shard someonereally fast.

Now you have 2 choices:

• Frozen Tomb yourself: if you are being focused hard. This will confuse the team cause they will still try to hit you but you will be immune, giving your
  team an advantage in damage, and saving your own ***
  
• Frozen Tomb an enemy: I suggest doing this. What you have to do is freeze the most annoying guy (obviously not the tank for god sake). For example: if the enemy Graves got fed botlane and is 3shoting your team, you go in and ult him. This will prevent him from doing any damage, and will give your team time to kill him.

Whichever option you take, both will do insane aoe damage, and if you have Liandry's Torment, it'll be even better, after that, and thanks to your low cds (tm) you can cast Ice Shard and Ring of Frost again to finish people off or cast Glacial Path to run away.

What's so good about Lissandra is that she can change the outcome of a teamfight in seconds, by just ulting most of the times you take 50% of the enemy team hp away.



And that's mostly it. if you did the things right you propably got a nice killing spree, probably an ace. Time to win now

Mein victories

I'll add my stats as soon as my isp fixes my connection so i can play cortectly

Ranked Play

Soon (tm)

Thanks to

no one, i did this by myself

Soon

i'll be adding some images to make this look awesome and so