Hello, my name is Sacritor and I am a low Platinum player who has been playing since Season 1. While not the greatest of players I have always been a fan of alternative builds and breaking the meta. So here is one of my favorite builds on one of my favorite champions. I would like to thank The Last AP Tristana and his guide for helping me perfect this build back in Season 7, it gave plenty of insight and new ideas on how to do this build early game to maximize its potential and this guide wouldn't be what it is without him.
This guide is not intended for ranked play, while it can certainly work at lower elos, it will often tilt your teammates who think you are trolling. This build is meant purely for fun and to showcase a build many rarely ever see let alone try.

The Magical Megling Gunner did not die in Season 5, she merely changed. With the removal of Deathfire Grasp all hope seemed lost as fun alternative AP builds were cast aside with the nerfs intended for the Fizzs and Ahris on the Rift. But the idea lived on, never fully formed but always in the back of the minds of those seeking the hidden meta builds, those long buried and forgotten dreams. So here I am, to uncover what has been long forgotten: the AP Tristana mid.

AP Tristana is a glass cannon, almost literally. Her burst is reminiscent of Veigar but combined with the mobility of Kha'Zix and auto attacking efficiency of Teemo. Your job is to peel your carries with your ultimate and to assassinate the squishies foolish enough to stray away from the rest of their team. This build is a massive sleeper hit and is typically treated as a joke until you get first blood and leave your enemy mid laner dazed and confused. Tristana is nearly impossible to gank with her Rocket Jump and her burst damage with Buster Shot is horrifying. Her Explosive Charge's passive also gives her amazing waveclear built into her auto attack, an unprecedented feature for a mage assassin. She is also a terror for turrets as her Explosive Charge will leave them as nothing but rubble if the enemy mid laner is foolish enough to leave lane unattended for a long enough period of time. So if you are looking for a build with plenty of burst and plenty of shenanigans then look no further than AP Tristana

Draw a Bead

Tristana gains range on her auto attacks, Explosive Charge, and Buster Shot as she levels up: from 525 at level 1 to 661 at level 18.

This increase in range makes your poke very difficult to avoid late game as your combos can be initiated from even further away. This passive is something that you will get used to as the game progresses and you innately learn the extent of your range. Factor those changes into the range of your Rocket Jump and you will quickly learn the effective range you can engage enemies at safely.

Rapid Fire

Cooldown: 20/19/18/17/16 seconds
Tristana gains 50/65/80/95/110% attack speed for 7 seconds.

Use this ability whenever you initiate a fight for the small damage bonus or whenever you siege towers. Not the strongest ability but it helps out in a pinch. If you are pushed under tower or need to kill a minion fast before it dies, using this can allow you to farm more effectively for a few seconds early game. This ability should only ever be maxed last and should only be taken first at level 4 as its effectiveness is dwarfed by the damage bonus you could instead receive from a second point in Rocket Jump at level 3.

Rocket Jump

Cooldown: 22/20/18/16/14 seconds
Magic Damage: 85/135/185/235/285 (+50% AP)
900 Range jump that deals damage and slows by 60% for 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 seconds in AoE upon landing. Cooldown resets upon champion takedown or when Explosive Charge explodes due to reaching 4 stacks while on a champion.

Your primary early game damage and gank escape tool useful for both engaging and disengaging. Because it is reset upon kill, assist, or a fourth stack on Explosive Charge you can jump in, do your damage, and then jump out allowing for a swift and effective assassination of enemy squishies. Proper timing can also negate enemy CC effects as the quarter second before she jumps makes her immune to all forms of CC, making escape from that pesky Blitzcrank who keeps ganking mid much easier when the ability has been mastered. The speed at which you jump scales inversely with the range at which you jump, making far jumps take longer and close jumps nearly instantaneous. This is imperative to your level 2 combo and will catch many enemies by surprise as you deal an extra 100 damage to them out of nowhere when you reach your fourth stack of Explosive Charge. Max this ability first for the large damage boost it gives you and for the greatly reduced cooldown allowing you to stay mobile and deadly mid game.

Explosive Charge

Cooldown: 16/15.5/15/14.5/14 seconds
Physical Damage: 60/70/80/90/100 (+50/60/70/80/90% Bonus AD) (+50% AP)
Passive Magic Damage: 50/75/100/125/150 (+25% AP)
Throw a bomb onto an enemy that explodes after 4 seconds or upon gaining 4 stacks. Stacks are gained through Tristana's auto attacks or ability hits and increases the damage of the bomb by 30% per stack up to 120% bonus damage.
Passive: When Tristana kills an enemy with an auto attack, they explode dealing AoE damage around them.

This is your poke ability, throw it on an enemy when in lane and follow it up with an instantaneous auto attack to deal a small portion of damage that will force the enemy to back off for 4 seconds for fear of stacking the damage any further. Summon Aery works very well with this ability as it can proc twice with this combo, dealing damage on your first auto attack and then returning to deal damage once again when the bomb's timer runs out. Your Rapid Fire synergizes with this ability to allow you to stack Explosive Charge faster and is the main reason Nashor's Tooth is rushed in this build, so that the fourth stack can be obtained quickly and consistently. Tristana can also use this ability on turrets, which in combination with an early Nashor's Tooth makes you a devastating demolitionist. Sadly Explosive Charge scales terribly with level and so is not maxed first like on standard Tristana, but in exchange her passive becomes far more important than before. Tristana can waveclear much more effectively than any other mage with just her auto attacks as the AoE damage on minion kills can kill entire waves in only a few attacks mid and late game. This passive is also a nice source of poke and can be used to zone enemies away from their low health minions, keep a caster minion at low health to ensure that their farming is as awkward as possible. Max this ability second for its combo and passive damage.

Buster Shot

Cooldown: 120/110/100 seconds
Magic Damage: 300/400/500 (+100% AP)
Knockback: 600/800/1000
Tristana fires a massive cannonball dealing damage and knocking back the target and all surrounding enemies.

This is the big boom, the main reason AP Tristana works so well. With 300 base damage at level 1 and 100% AP scaling this ability is essential Veigar's Primordial Burst. For a damage comparison Primordial Burst does 175/250/325 (+75% AP) (+1% per missing HP) while Buster Shot does 300/400/500 (+100% AP). Against a target at one third health at level 6 Primordial Burst does 292 (+125% AP) compared to Buster Shot's 300 (+100% AP), with 50 AP that comes down to 355 and 325 damage respectively. Late game with 600 AP that turns into 1300 and 1100 damage. Tristana is essential a mobile version of Veigar, dealing massive amounts of burst damage in a simple point and click ability. Combine that with its utility uses for pushing away enemies that jump onto you or allies, its use for separating enemies from their team, and its ability to push enemies underneath your tower, and you have a very powerful ultimate. Do not be afraid to use this ability whenever you feel threatened or to secure a kill, it is better to be safe than sorry when the death timers are 52 seconds long.

Summoner Spells

This build does not go for any additional health and only sparingly gains resistances. Barrier provides a source of safety for the reckless rocketeer to make more reckless plays. If you find yourself against a Veigar or Zed that you don't know how to deal with then take this for the extra safety net.

An alright summoner spell when against enemies with a large amount of reactible burst if you do not feel confident enough in the match up. Do not take however against CC champions ( Syndra, Lux, Ahri) or those that are hard to target such as Talon, Akali, or Fizz. Best used when against high DPS champions such as Yasuo, Viktor, Katarina, or especially Zed.

A must for almost all mid laners, no other alternative can compete with the mobility Flash provides in a pinch.

Barrier is just straight up better mid lane due to the high prevalence of Ignite, and the movement speed bonus is negligible.

Now that Ignite out damages Barrier this is almost always my pick. It helps out immensely for getting first blood which leads to you snowballing out of control mid game.

You are able to make it back to mid lane fast enough, as getting pushed out of lane is far less punishing than it is with top lane. This is just an unnecessary summoner spell that does nothing in particular for you. Tristana can gank decently already with her Rocket Jump and going Relentless Hunter insures she can speedily assist her teammates.

Usually Electrocute is best, but in a match up where you can abuse your laner with auto attacks then Summon Aery can prove to be the better option of the two. Melee mid laners are usually the easiest to abuse but this is not always the case. Getting up close and personal at early levels against a Ryze, Brand, or Xerath will usually intimidate them into running as they cannot competitively trade auto attacks with you and Summon Aery will only increase your ability to force your opposing laners back.

This offers the most burst runes can buy and so it fits into this build perfectly.

While a great idea in theory, this builds basic attacks are very weak comparatively and your burst combo only requires two basic attacks and not three. Electrocute just offers more burst throughout the game and is easier to make use of.

The obvious choice of the three, easily proc'd off of Rocket Jump the other two options cannot compete.

Offers more vision to help you spot ganks sooner and to provide more vision for your team mid and late game for objective control and easy picks on straggling enemies.

More damage for the damage oriented build.

Useful healing, made slightly redundant by Hextech Gunblade.

A great rune for this build as it allows for more Buster Shots, however it competes with Ravenous Hunter and Relentless Hunter. If you find yourself not needing the sustain from Ravenous Hunter and rarely leave lane mid game for Relentless Hunter to be useful, then consider this rune as an alternative.

Good for ganking bot or top lane mid game, not inherently bad and a case is to be made for it if you can use it properly. If you find yourself helping other lanes often consider taking this rune, otherwise the movement speed is wasted as you have Rocket Jump for most of your engaging needs.

Increases the power of your auto attack poking early game. If you feel your mid and late game burst is fine and you are able to bully your laner with auto attacks early game then this is not a rune to sniff at. I usually prefer Electrocute but its long cooldown can leave you feeling much weaker without it while Summon Aery is always there to increase your damage in team fights.

Almost always guaranteed to hit if your Rocket Jump lands in combos, but worse poke in lane compared to Summon Aery as it is easy to dodge if it procs off of Explosive Charge. Generally Electrocute just feels better and offers more consistent and stronger burst damage than Arcane Comet, while Summon Aery offers better poking in lane.

With the removal of The Ultimate Hat, Nullifying Orb becomes a possible take against high burst mages such as Veigar, Syndra, or fizz]].

Free 10% CDR reduces your normally long cooldowns to a manageable time allowing you to make more plays in lane and the AP it provides past 40% keeps this rune relevant late game. Also allows you to build Berserker's Greaves instead of Ionian Boots of Lucidity giving you more much needed attack speed early game.

The extra movement speed helps you dodge skill shots in lane, avoid ganks, and catch up/run away from enemies in fights. All around good rune, while not extremely powerful I find the speed boost to be instrumental in being able to out poke enemies with auto attacks early game, giving you the ability to weave in an additional hit against slower mages.

Slight damage boost early game, can help secure those first bloods.

Truly out shines all other runes past 30 minutes, so if you expect a long game then this is the rune to take.

Against a lot of magic damage champions or champions with pick abilities ( Blitzcrank, Morgana, Thresh)? Then take this item to insure your survival late game.

Sorcerer's Shoes though not as effective for Tristana's burst as it is for other mid laners as her Explosive Charge deals physical damage, it is still good. Ionian Boots of Lucidity provides much needed CDR. Berserker's Greaves gives a nice increase to attack speed. Ninja Tabi is very useful against Zed, Yasuo, Talon, or any physical damage mid laner and can insure your domination in solo fights.

With the changes to runes and introduction of adaptable damage I figured Doran's Blade would be great for this build's early damage and could even further increase her first blood potential. I was horribly wrong, her combo early game loses a ton of damage without the proper amount of AP, the only benefit is her auto attack poke which only increases by about 10 damage per hit which is overshadowed by her 70+ damage burst from Doran's Ring

Tristana's Explosive Charge scales with both AD and AP and can make the most of the damage this item provides. It increases your auto attack's effectiveness and boosts the burst of your combo while also offering healing, keeping you in the fight for longer. While expensive this item provides a huge power spike and allows you to 100-0 most squishies in seconds upon completion.

Normally I would love this item as Tristana can make easy use of the active when she engages with Rocket Jump, the health keeps you alive longer in the early game, and the 10% CDR is a nice touch as well. Buuut Hextech Gunblade's damage works far better for this build. If you find yourself losing early game and you cannot afford Hextech Gunblade then consider taking this item instead and save the 900 gold.

A great additional source of damage and a fantastic turret shredder. If you find yourself in need of a bit more burst, or just don't need defensive items then take Lich Bane as one of your last items.

The mana from this item is completely useless so disregard it immediately. You primarily farm with auto attacks as your spells are saved for engages, so you lose mana at a very slow rate compared to other mage assassins. What you are left with is 90 AP, 20% CDR, and a bit of burst damage. Lich Bane is just better than this item, for 10 less AP and 10% CDR (which is often too much anyhow) you get more burst and movement speed.

Rushing this item is imperative for this build. The attack speed it provides allows you to hit your fourth proc on Explosive Charge to reset Rocket Jump faster and the passive scaling damage keeps your auto attacks deadly into the mid and late game. 20% CDR puts your Buster Shot on a criminally low cooldown, and the 80 AP increases your damage by a fair amount.

THE mage item, a must buy item late game for any AP build.

Same situation as Sorcerer's Shoes, even though it may not be fully effective it still provides good damage and if your opponents are building magic resistance then this item is crucial to remaining relevant in team fights.

Against many physical damage enemies or do they have a fed Zed or Kayn? Then this is the go to item for any mage.

Draw a Bead Nerfs: 550-669 -> 525-661 Range
Rocket Jump Buffs: 60/110/160/210/260 -> 85/135/185/235/285 Damage
Thoughts: The nerf to her range is devastating for your early game poke and I would normally despise these changes except for the buffs she also received. +25 damage at level 1 on an ability that you can easily reactivate due to your Explosive Charge synergy, adding an additional 50 damage to an already absurd level 2 combo? Yeah, that more than makes up for her nerfs. Tristana's level 2 powerspike is now through the roof in terms of potential damage and Summon Aery is probably just straight out bad to take on her now that her burst is so insane.

Buster Shot Nerfs: 100/85/70 -> 120/110/100 Seconds
Thoughts: This was a Veigar like ultimate without the Veigar like cooldown. While a hard hitting nerf it is far from unfair and I hope Riot manages to tone down ADC Tristana's power in a way that doesn't make AP irrelevant (looking at Shaco's changes in particular here).

Rocket Jump+ Buster Shot/ Hextech Gunblade:
You can use Buster Shot during your Rocket Jump allowing you to put a massive amount of distance between you and whoever is hunting you. You can also do this with Hextech Gunblade to slow enemies or all three at the same time to pick up a kill, reset your Rocket Jump and double hop immediately afterwards (extremely difficult but very satisfying).

Explosive Charge+Siege Minions:
When you want to fast clear a lane you are best off putting your Explosive Charge on the siege minion as it is usually nestled in the center of the wave allowing the AoE from Explosive Charge to hit every minion around it resulting in near instantaneous waveclear when combined with Rocket Jump.

Explosive Charge+Turrets:
Your AoE from Explosive Charge doubles when used on a turret, forcing your opponents even further back when you siege them. Stay far back and proc the fourth hit and orb walk immediately to deal a sizable amount of poke damage, wave clear, and turret damage all at the same time without taking turret aggro. Do this whenever you can early game as Tristana's turret shredding capabilities can consistently grant your team first tower gold if you win lane.

Buster Shot+ Rocket Jump+Turret:
If an enemy gets foolishly close to your turret then Rocket Jump just barely over them and Buster Shot them right before you land to put them into your turret range to pick up an easy kill.

Weaving Lich Bane:
If you want to maximize your burst potential then saving Rapid Fire for a Lich Bane proc can be helpful if you find the attack speed mostly useless in a fight. After finishing your standard Rocket Jump+ Explosive Charge combo, wait a second then use Buster Shot so that your following auto attack also applies Lich Bane's damage. This is usually an unnecessary strategy but it has fringe uses against squishy enemies whom you just barely cannot kill with your standard burst combo.

Farming Explosive Charge Passive:
Explosive Charge will cause you to push your lane without trying, so you must control the AoE and AA only to last hit in order to freeze your lane. Learn your passive damage so that you can efficiently kill multiple minions at the same time, not doing so will often lead in you bringing nearby minions too low and having them die before you can last hit.

Explosive Charge+Dying Minion:
If your enemy gets close enough to a caster minion but is just barely out of range of AA, then instead you can throw an Explosive Charge onto the nearby minion and follow it up with an AA to kill it and deal AoE poke if standard poking is either too dangerous or difficult.

Rocket Jump+ Explosive Charge:
As Tristana Rocket Jumps onto a target use Explosive Charge while in mid-air to put the bomb onto them right before your Rocket Jump lands in a similar manner to Kha'Zix's engage. She can then auto attack immediately putting the stack at 2 in an instant which is about 300 damage in total when the bomb explodes. This will force any enemy early game to run for fear of stacking that damage any further, and if they do decide to stay then you can easily get two more auto attacks off to reset your Rocket Jump. If used directly on top of yourself, Rocket Jump can go off almost instantly leaving no time to react which can easily net you a first blood. The reset can also be used to chase if the enemy uses Flash realizing their mistake, or can be used to escape if it is you who have underestimated your opponent. Be aware though, this combo can only be done with vision of your target before you jump. If you hop a wall into fog of war you cannot place your Explosive Charge fast enough to get an immediate stack from Rocket Jump's damage.

Rocket Jump+ Explosive Charge+Basic Attack+ Buster Shot+Basic Attack
This is your main burst combo after you have built Nashor's Tooth as the attack speed is necessary to pull it off effectively. Do the above mentioned combo of Explosive Charge while in mid-air then follow it up with an auto attack upon landing, then immediatly Buster Shot your opponent but do not click after you fire it. Tristana can auto attack an enemy while they are mid-air from Buster Shot allowing you to proc all four stacks of Explosive Charge in less than a second. This damage combined with Hextech Gunblade and Electrocute will annihilate anything that so much as looks at you cross ways.


Good luck and happy gunning on the Rift!