So... you queued mid to play zed but then got auto filled support. Welcome to Pyke! He's an exremely unique champion to play, esspecially when played as a support (*cough cough* his intended role) so hopefully this guide will help you perform better on him. Feedback is always appreciated!

Yes I'm a casual player, no I don't play ranked very often, only recently even playing the mode consistently, if you want to know my current rank here ya go https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=wezaurd+poro, however it should be known that I don't guage my experience on this champion by my rank but rather my experience, holding almost 255,000 Mastery on the champion, as he sits at my most played. While not the most impressive standpoint I'm well aware, I hope to write this from the perspective of a casual to other casuals in an attempt to teach Pyke from said perspective. It should be noted early on that this is a Pyke SUPPORT guide so if you're looking for mid Pyke this ain't the place.

+Strong Early Game


+High Carry Potential


+Strong Roams


+Good at punishing


+Snowballs Easily


+Can 1v1 With Items


+High Mobility


+Amazing Ultimate

+Can come back from behind if given a good team fight

-Is weak if he falls behind

-Can't kill people on his own reliably unless fed

-All of his abilities are reactable

-Falls off late game

-Mediocre Neutral Game (bad poke)

-Squishy

-Susceptable to getting crowd controlled

Passive: Gift of the Drowned Ones When Pyke is unseen by enemies, he rapidly regenerates some of the health recently lost to enemy champions. Pyke also converts his bonus health into bonus attack damage instead.

Pyke's passive is a blessing and a curse, with the first part of it granting insane amounts of lane sustain, allowing you to take chip damage left and right and heal a good chunk of it back. The downside however is the second part, being your inability to gain any bonus health as all of it is converted to attack damage(AD). While it might seem nice, the amount of AD you get is pretty unfavorable so this part is definitely more of a down side than an upside. Something to note is that because you only heal if enemies can't see you, if you walk into a brush and you're not healing it's because the enemies more than likely have a ward in the brush.

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Q: Bone Skewer Tap: Pyke stabs and greatly slows the closest enemy in front of him (prioritizing champions). Hold: Pyke readies and then throws his harpoon, impaling the first enemy struck and pulling them a fixed distance towards him.

With his Q ability Pyke becomes one of only 4 supports ( Nautilus, Blitzcrank, Thresh, Pyke,) who possess a hook in their kit. Pyke's hook has the shortest range of any of them but not only does the most damage, but is also capable of flipping enemies over you thanks to it's fixed pull distance. Tapping his Q will instead cause his hook to come out much faster, applying the same damage and slow, but it won't have the pull effect, knowing when to tap Q for guaranteed damage or hold Q for the pull is essential for playing Pyke well.

(Note** Pyke's Tap Q no Longer hits all enemies, it instead hits the closest one, prioritizing champions, in the instance of the video shown below only the Swain would get hit)

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W: Ghostwater Dive Pyke dives into spectral waters, entering camouflage and gaining a significant increase to his movement speed that decays over a few seconds. Camouflage hides Pyke from view while enemies remain outside his immediate area. Attacking or casting spells immediately ends camouflage.

Pretty simple ability, this can be used during combat to make enemies unable to see you, ensuring your passive is able to heal you. The camoflauge makes Pyke perfect for roaming to other lanes and picking up kills. One thing to note that's not listed anywhere on the ability however is that enemies are actually warned when Pyke is nearby (you can see this in the video by the sharks swimming around Miss Fortune).

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Additionally a unique sound effect will play (for Pyke's enemies) the lower health they are, becoming a loud shriek when they are below your Ultimate's execute thresh hold. Being aware of these sound queues will help you know what information enemies are aware of.

Example of these sound queues HEADPHONE WARNING Play Video

E: Phantom Undertow Pyke dashes, leaving behind a drowned phantom. After a delay, the phantom returns to Pyke, damaging and stunning enemies it passes through.

Pyke's E is his only reliable mobility tool and as such is his main escape, as well as his main gap closing tool (especially early game). Playing around this ability's cooldown is essential, as knowing whether to use it to go in, or get out will be neccessary for playing Pyke in the most slippery manner possible (aka the way you play him and not die). The phantom will follow Pyke until it catches up to him meaning last second dashes like Flash or Prowler's Claw can grant your E just that little bit of range that it needed, as will you W's movement speed boost. Going over walls with this ability can greatly extend the dashes range, allowing for lot of out of combat mobility.

(Note** Pyke's E no longer damages minions (and monsters) as is shown in the video, only stunning them instead) Play Video

Ultimate: Death From Below Pyke strikes in an X-shaped area, blinking to champions and executing those below a certain flat amount of health. Enemies in the X that are not executed take damage equal to half of this amount. When a champion dies in the X, the last ally to assist also gains full kill gold, and Pyke can instantly use Death from Below again for a short period of time.

Let's be honest, this is why you're here. You've probably been hit by this ability dozens of times in game and let me tell you the satisfaction of landing chain ultimates on Pyke is unmatchable. For those that don't know, an execute means that the champion in question will straight up die, no questions asked. The only exception to this (assuming they aren't untargetable ) are champions who are able to become immune to death ( Tryndamere and Kindred). Pyke's ultimate only cares about the target's current health, not accounting for any shields, meaning that a target could have 1 health remaining but have a 3,000 health shield (*cough cough* Sett) and they will still die to Pyke's ultimate .

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Flash

Always run Flash, don't question this 🔫. On a serious note Flash is your best summoner spell on most champion's in league and Pyke is no exception. There are a plethora of universal options every champion has with this summoner spell but for Pyke specifically he's able to...

Bone Skewer and flash during it's channel
Phantom Undertow and flash to extend it's range
Flash to gap close, then use Death from Below once in range.

Without Flash you would lose out on all of these techs, and trust me when I say you will need every single one you can get.

Ignite

You should run this as your secondary summoner spell in 95% of your games as the grevious wounds and damage that Ignite provides can not only help snowball early leads (which you REALLY want to do), but it can also counter Heal, which most adcs will be taking, allowing you to even further snowball the laning phase. Using this early during your engage to counter any enemy healing is crucial at all stages of the game.

Exhaust

You should really only take this in one of two scenarios.


1. You're fighting a lane match up with insane amounts of burst damage (i.e. Draven Brand) and your adc is a champion who won't be able to get kills early game very easily (i.e. Ezreal.

2. Your ADC was greedy and took Ignite themselves, and you want to still be aggressive.

Primary Keystone:

Between Hail of Blades and Electrocute it's honestly preference (as are many of Pyke's runes). Hail of Blades offers more potential damage however you're forced to stand still and commit three auto attacks to actually get said damage off. If you prefer to stay on the move and be super slippery, as I do, Electrocute will be your rune of choice, as it still offers PLENTY of burst damage without being as risky as Hail of Blades. Predator can be taken for better roams, but [Pyke]'s Roams are already excellent, and you'd rather invest your early gold into damage than boots. Don't ever go [Dark Harvest], this rune is meant to offer scaling which Pyke doesn't want, as he'd rather snowball early, and not to mention mid to late game if an enemy is below half health and they're a squishy they're already dead to your ultimate anyways so this rune won't provide anything.

Secondary Keystones:

Sudden Impact should be taken if you value utility (as your passive healing , W move speed , E stun duration , and Ultimate damage ,) as well as general damage (since lethality will just make you deal more damage), will all increase. On top of this your have a multitude of ways to proc sudden impact through all the abilities mentioned above. Cheap Shot is another rune Pyke can take but Sudden Impact will offer more damage and utility over the course of a game.

Eyeball Collection if you're greedy and selfish, Zombie Wards if you want to be more of a team player. Don't even bother taking Zombie Ward in low elo lobbies though, nobody wards and you'll rarely get the full stacks.

Have I not praised Pyke Ultimate enough already? TAKE Ultimate Hunter... Relentless Hunter.

Presence of Mind is a nice rune to have on Pyke because thanks to all of your cool down reduction shenanigans you will run out of mana like no tomorrow come mid-late game, and while before (during season 11) you could consistently end games early and you didn't necessarily need the mana, nowadays with Season 12 slowing down the meta you should really have a plan for mid-late game even if you don't want to reach that point on Pyke.

You take Legend: Tenacity because... well you don't really care about anything else in this tree. The other legend runes don't matter on Pyke as he doesn't rely on auto attacks to use them, and of the damage runes Coup de Grace doesn't matter because if they're bellow 40% hp, chances are they're dead anyways to your ult.



Into Tank Supports, like Nautilus and Leona for instance, you will want Bone Plating so that in the event you get caught out or try to go in you have a much greater chance of living. Matchups where you'd want Bone Plating, you're also gonna want Unflinching so you might as well take that as well. Other than Demolish and (albeit niche) Font of Life there really aren't any other runes that fit Pyke's play style as this tree is meant for actual "supports" and stuff so let's get out of here!

Don't go and get too excited killing people now, you're still your team's support, and as such you'll have to provide the majority of your team's vision as you have the support item .

Wards 1 and 2 (in red) are going to be the spots you REALLY want vision on early game. While the area around ward 4 and 3 has changed since this image was taken the idea is still the same, if you're fighting around the bushes and the enemy support keeps abusing them, placing a ward inside is not a bad idea. Regardless of what team you're on wards 6 and 7 will be important ones as 7 will give you vision of Dragon (typically you only want to ward here when Drake is actually up) while 6 will give you vision of the scuttle crab pool, assuming the enemy team is the one to finish it off. If you're playing on the top side of the map ward 5 is a great place to not only ward in case the enemy tries to tower dive, it's also a good place to control ward so enemies won't see your jungler jump over the wall. Ward 8 is a good ward to have in general if you ever decide to ward mid, this bush is called the "pixel brush" and it's always a nice one to have warded. Wards 9 and 10 are good ones to spot the enemy jungler if you're playing topside.