Build Guide by RedFox134

Introduction

This is my first build for a character and I would appreciate any constructive criticism to help make it better or easier to understand. Thanks :)

A lot of Olaf builds focus on how to make him a crit dps champion. These builds work out great, but I noticed a theme with some of them... they all had an Atma's Impaler in them! While the builds were good at creating a high damage output for Olaf. None of them used Atma's Impaler to it's fullest! The first thing I saw was that with Atma's Impaler Olaf could be an Off-Tank and still dish out damage. Thanks to Atma's Impaler 's passive Olaf could now be given lots of health and gain attack damage from it at the same time! I have a core build that I use and change it to fit each games play style. One item I get is Leviathan ,but only if I know I can get the stacks for it. If I can't I get the stacks I get Warmog's Armor for the guaranteed extra health.

Story

Runes

Marks

For marks I got greater mark of desolation x9 this gives me an extra 15.8 armor penatration, so that Olaf can shred right through his opponents and even most tanks.

Seals

I got Greater Seal of Health x9 for the bonus of 48.15 health, since we're tanking Olaf and with the help of Atma's Impaler 's passive (2% of your max health is converted into damage) we also get some damage from these runes.

Glyphs

Spamming Reckless Swing is a fun ability of Olaf's; with the help of these Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction x9 I get a cooldown reduction of 5.85% and with Shurelya's Reverie 's 15% cooldown reduction we can spam it as fast as we want with our 20.85% cooldown reduction.

Quintessence Quintessence's are the strongest runes in LoL, so to assist with our tanking and damage output I got Greater Quintessence of Health x3. These will give us more health increasing our damage and survivability.

Masteries

I went with a 22/0/8 mastery tree. I stuck close to the standard 21/0/9 tree, but made changes to what I felt would help my gameplay of Olaf the most.
This is set up for how I lane, but can be used as a jungler. If you plan on jungling then you will want to respec you stats the way you play.

Core Items

Shurelya's Reverie
I got Shurelya's Reverie because Olaf has a small mana pool, and will run out fast when spamming abilities. Shurelya's Reverie gives you a base stat of 330 health, which gets us started towards maximizing Atma's Impaler 's passive. It also gives you a nice 30 health/ 5 seconds health regain and a 15 mana/ 5 seconds mana regain. Helping us get the most uses from our abilities is Shurelya's Reverie 's 15% cooldown reduction; allowing us to spam Reckless Swing many times. As an added bonus shurelya's Reverie 's active gives you an extra 40% movement speed for three seconds allowing for you to finish a runaway gank or escape from a team battle gone bad.


My second item to get is Mercury's Treads. I get these next because by now you may have noticed that your not the fastest champion out there. These will give you the movement speed to keep up with characters who also bought a 2+ movement pair of boots and with Shurelya's Reverie 's active you can even catch if not keep up with Boots of Swiftness and Boots of Mobility. Olaf 's ult Ragnarok does give him immunity to stun and slows when active, but it never hurt to have extra protection for when your ult is on cooldown or they silence you so you cannot use it. If you don't feel the need for the extra protection I would recommend getting Boots of Swiftness or Berserker's Greaves.



As a third item Frozen Mallet helps us a lot. If your having trouble chasing opponents, because they're just too fast or you are forgetting to use Shurelya's Reverie 's active then this item will help you a lot. With Frozen Mallet we gain 700 health which adds to our survivability and gives us an extra 14 attack damage when used with Atma's Impaler and another +20 attack damage from Frozen Mallet 's stats. The reason why this item is helpful when chasing is because now not only does your undertow slow opponents by 40% for 2.5 seconds, but Frozen Mallet 's 35% slow from physical attacks for 2.5 seconds as well makes you very difficult to escape from and almost guarantees a kill.


Atma's Impaler is the core of your build. It allows you to have massive health without sacrificing attack damage. It gives you 45 armor, 18% critical hit chance, and the reason for this item, it's passive, Atma's Impaler 's passive gives you attack damage equal to 2% of your total health. This means that with all the health items we get we also get attack damage, which means that we already have a great survivability and gain attack damage from it. This gives us an extra 91.323 attack damage in addition to our base attack of 137, which gives us a total attack damage of 228.323. Add Vicious Strikes to that you now have an additional 80.66 attack damage, which comes out as a total to be 308.983 attack damage without any additional health from Warmog's Armor 's bonus for getting kills, assists, or minion kills. As another attack bonus if you have Warmog's Armor 's bonuses maxed out you gain an additional 450 health to the base stat of 920 health, which makes Atma's Impaler give you an extra 9 damage, and now with that and with the new added health vicious strikes now adds 4.5 damage to its 80.66 which makes 85.16 attack damage added on. With the added health to Atma's Impaler and Vicious Strikes you now have 322.483 attack damage.


The Warmog's Armor item gets me immediate health and even more health regain. You get 920 health and 30 health/5 seconds. For each minion kill you gain 4.5 health and .15 health regain permanently the cooldown on this ability is 5 seconds. A champion kill or assist gains you 45 health and 1.5 health regain permanently the cooldown for this ability is also 5 seconds. This bonus health and health regain caps at 450 health and 15 health/ 5 seconds. When Warmog's Armor is maxed out you will have an additional 1370 health and 45 health/ 5 second regain.



I'll get this item if I need a little more magic resistance, while still keeping the health increase. I get a additional base stat of 375 health and 375 mana which will help with the amount of abilities I can use before recalling or falling back until I regain it. Banshee's Veil gives me 50 magic resistance and every 30 seconds it blocks a negative spell which gives me even more protection from stuns and slows.

Item Substitutes

Substitutes for shurelya's reverie

shurelya's reverie is a great item but sometimes I need more health regain then it can offer. Spirit Visage gives you 250 health, 30 magic resistance, and has a unique passive that reduces your cooldown by 10% and increases your healing and regeneration by 20%. It gives you health which is good for building Atma's Impaler and health regain. The only reason why I don't normally get this item is because then you have no mana regain. While you do get more survivability you now have to watch your mana and be aware of what abilities to use. This item helps you keep your health up making you tougher to kill.


Soul Shroud gives you even more health and mana regain. You get an additional 520 health,which is even more then either shurelya's reverie or Spirit Visage , and a unique passive aura that gives you and your lane mate a 12 mana/ 5 second regain and a 10% cooldown reduction. This item gives you mana regain and health, but you don't get any health regain. The health regain could be over looked though because of Warmog's Armor 's passive health regain. This item takes care of your mana regain, but you lose health regain. If the game is going well and you don't need to worry about your health I would get Soul Shroud for the extra base health and more mana for abilities.

Substitutes for Mercury's Treads

Many build Olaf as a dps character; Berserker's Greaves allows for this build to gain additional attack speed aside form olafs 's passive. Berserker's Greaves gives you 2 movement speed and 25% attack speed.


While Boots of Swiftness don't give any secondary bonus they do give you a +3 movement speed, which will allow you to catch or escape from most champions and situations.

Substitutes for Frozen Mallet

There weren't any items that I could find that gave me the slow, health , and bonus attack damage that Frozen Mallet gives you. I would say this item is a must and if there is something to replace it....well lets just say I haven't found it yet.

Substitutes for Atma's Impaler

Simply stated this item is the core of our build. Without it the build isn't as effective as it could be and there isn't any item that can match Atma's Impaler 's passive with health items.

Substitutes for Warmog's Armor

As I mentioned in the Introduction I only get Leviathan if I know I can get the stacks, otherwise Warmog's Armor would be a better choice. Leviathan gives you a flat health stat of 180 health and for every stack an extra 32 health. When you reach 20 stacks you gain a 15% reduction on incoming damage. You gain stacks from getting kills and assists; 2 stacks for a kill and 1 stack for an assist. You lose a third of your stacks if you die. With 20 stacks gained you gain a total of 820 health and 15% reduced incoming damage.

Substitutes for Banshee's Veil

Really any item at this point in the game could be placed here. As a helpful tip I would recommend something that goes well with the build, but any item you feel will help your gameplay could fill this spot.


Force of Nature is a good item to take the place of Banshee's Veil. Although it doesn't give you any health the gained 76 magic resistance, 8 movement speed, 40 health/ 5 seconds, and unique passive of restoring .035% of you max health every second.


Randuin's Omen is great for team fights. You gain 80 armor, 300 health, 25 health/ 5 seconds, a unique passive that gives you 5% cooldown reduction and a 20% chance to slow your attacker's movement and attack speed on being attacked by 35% for 3 seconds, and a unique active that slows enemies attack and movement speed by 35% for 2 seconds for an additional .5 seconds for every 100 armor and magic resistance you have. Randuin's Omen is just an all around good item to add for a different kind of protection (armor instead of magic resistance) and a great item to mess up the other team in a team fight.


One item that is in most Olaf builds and goes well with the dps nature of them is Zeke's Harbinger. Zeke's Harbinger gives you 20% attack speed and a unique aura that gives you and your allies 20% attack speed, 20% life steal, and 30 health regain/ 5 seconds. It also gives your enemies a -20 armor that can stack once with another aura of Zeke's Harbinger. This item is great not only for you, but also for your teammates who can return the favor if they're nice by getting one themselves. Thanks to this item you could now have 35.03 armor penetration and if you have a nice teammate you could now have 55.03 armor penetration!

Skill Sequence

Berserker Rage is Olaf 's passive and it's a fantastic one for a dps that has a lot of survivability. Olaf 's passive gives you +1% attack speed for every 1% of his health missing. This makes him viable to get a lot of health items and as he loses health becoming more deadly by increasing his attack speed. The more health he has the bigger the 1% seems to be making it take longer to kill him and allowing you more time to appreciate Olaf 's new found attack speed.


I get Undertow first, because I don't have the health yet to get a large increase of attack damage from Vicious Strikes. Going along with the lack of health is that the ability Reckless Swing does help, but you don't have the health to do efficient damage and survive against two or more champions at this low level. Undertow is a good first pick, because you immediately have the ability to slow your opponents and a finishing tool at those low levels by being able to get that last hit in even from a distance. Undertow deals 50/90/130/170/210 + .5 of your total attack damage and it slows the target by 24/28/32/36/40% for 2.5 seconds.


Every melee champion wants this ability, Vicious Strikes. Vicious Strikes gives you +7/14/21/28/35 base attack damage, additional attack damage based off of 1% of your max health, and a 9/12/15/18/21% life steal and spell vamp lasting for 6 seconds. This ability is going to be our favorite ability later in the game and the second one to max out. Gaining 35 attack damage and additional attack damage based off of 1% of our health gives us our 322.483 attack damage. Not only will we have a ton of attack damage for an off-tank, but we also gain 21% life steal and spell vamp. This with Frozen Mallet 's slow allows you to pound away at a fleeing enemy that can't escape from you.


Reckless Swing is the first ability we want to max on. Alternating between this and Vicious Strikes. Reckless Swing uses true damage or 100% armor penetration when it hits an opponent. This means that when Reckless Swing deals 100/160/220/280/340 damage to an opponent all of that damage goes into them even if they are a Malphite piling on that armor. The only downside to Reckless Swing is that every time you deal 100/160/220/280/340 you also take 40/64/88/112/136 damage to yourself and you cannot reduce it. This is a great ability to use as a finishing move because even though the enemy thinks they still have that 600 health that they are running away with after you land a Reckless Swing and an Undertow at level 18 they'll be lucky to have 10 health as your gaining on them thanks to undertows 40% slow to finish them off!


Ragnarok is a great ult, allowing you to take many cc (crowd control) effects while still barreling down the field to smash into the enemy's squishy carry. With Ragnarok you gain immunity to stuns and slows, although you can still be silenced or blinded, your passive gives you 10/20/30 armor penetration, and your active reduces incoming damage by 20/30/40 damage this all lasts for 5/6.5/8 seconds.

Summoner Spells

Ghost is a great spell to use as an escape tool or to chase down that opponent before reaches that turret. When combined with Frozen Mallet 's slow there is no way that your enemy can escape you without the help of his fellow teammates, and with how much damage you are dishing out they shouldn't have much time to reaction to his cries for help.


Ignite is a great spell with ghost. It allows for you to be able to leave a fight to help somewhere else, while allowing Ignite to finish it for you. Ignite also is a nice way to get that kill and not let him get away if his teammates show up sooner then you think causing you to retreat. This spell is good with Ghost because Ghost allows you to quickly gain on an opponent to cast Ignite or to retreat after staying too long to cast ignite on an opponent.

Alternate Summoner Spells

Heal is a good spell for anyone to take, although if you find yourself using it a lot you may be taking to many risks or staying to long in a fight. Your teammates may also like the fact that you have this spell by saving them from death as you come to help them.


Flash is a great ability to escape or engage with, but I would take ghost over this just because it lasts longer and can get you into the fight or out of it faster. There are arguments that Flash is a better escape tool than Ghost , because you can flash over walls to get away and you can still flash even while slowed or other aliments on you. It depends on your play style as to which spell would be better for you, but at the moment I use Ghost to help me.


Cleanse is a nice spell by removing all slows, stuns, blinds, and other stat problems. I wouldn't get this spell, because you already have your ult Ragnarok after level 6 and with Mercury's Treads you have a 35% reduction to them.


Clarity gets you and your allies mana for abilities, but you should not rely on clarity as a spell for mana.

Farming

This build requires 12,070 gold so you will need to do a bit of last hitting to get the gold as quickly as possible. Undertow doesn't deal that much damage, but it has range, which means you can avoid being harassed by the enemy and still get your last hits in to collect gold by waiting for a minion to fall low on health and then hitting them with Undertow.

Summary

Olaf is a great champion that makes a great dps, but can also be used as an off-tank. By maximizing Atma's Impaler and getting health items for him Olaf can take a lot of damage and still be able to dish it out.