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Recommended Items
Runes: Default Top
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10-180 Bonus Health
Spells:
Flash
Ghost
Items
Threats & Synergies
Olaf
I'm writing these matchups in the last week of s13, so i don't really take into the account new builds on other champs. I will try to update the matchups if something changes about them. Also i don't do jg matchups, because they don't really matter that much. You can kill most junglers early, but you still want to make the chances of your win as high as possible by fighting with number advantage.
Thresh
Anything with a good engage is good for olaf but a good thresh is the best support to play with, he can set up plays for you with his hook or he can throw you a lantern to surprise enemies engaging on him. Also his ult is very strong for you.
Thresh
Anything with a good engage is good for olaf but a good thresh is the best support to play with, he can set up plays for you with his hook or he can throw you a lantern to surprise enemies engaging on him. Also his ult is very strong for you.
Champion Build Guide
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If
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If you get fed early,
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The most important mechanics on
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- Being able to hit your
Undertow and then pick it up, remeber to not overthrow it so you don't have to walk up too far for it. If you want to start playing Olaf, you need to remember that picking up
Undertow refreshes it cooldown to 2.5s (reduced by AH). But don't worry because picking up axes will come to you naturally after some games, just like resetting Draven's q.
- AA and ability timings. When throwing
Undertow or casting
Reckless Swing you can sometimes cancel your AA, casting
Undertow at wrong time can sometimes lead to not extending your ultimate. Apart from the
Undertow timing, you need to remember that
Tough It Out is an AA reset. So to get max damage you want to AA > W > AA.
- Keeping Ultimate Up. Olaf's
Ragnarok is the strongest part of his kit, without your ultimate, you will just get cc'd or kited and killed.
Ragnarok gives you Immunity to CC and a lot of AD, it has a very low base duration (3 seconds after cast) but each AA or
Reckless Swing gives it another 2.5 seconds of duration. In order to get the most value of
Ragnarok you need to cast it in the right moment. Cast it only when you know you can stick to a target, so after you hit someone with
Undertow or the enemy is stunned/rooted, or if you really know that if you don't cast it you will get cc'd and killed. However remember that if you misuse ultimate, you shouldn't go in fights.
- Baiting enemies. You can try to bait enemies into thinking you can't kill them because you are low, to then 100-0 them with
Tough It Out shield, ending up with more hp than you began. If you don't have
Tough It Out up, and you know enemy is going to fight you, stall for time and wait for it to come up.
Remember that yourTough It Out,
Berserker Rage,
Ragnarok and
Last Stand combo is dangerous. You can stand still and auto attack and kill the enemy while gaining hp thanks to
Berserker Rage lifesteal.
At level 3, withDoran's Blade combined with
Tough It Out and
Berserker Rage and one cast of
Undertow and
Reckless Swing you have about 200 dps against enemy with 40 armor, so if they can't burst you out you will probably win if they have less than half hp.
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List of viable items and their use
Iceborn Gauntlet - niche item, buy it when you need tankiness, good against someone like
Tryndamere.
Eclipse - It's viable but nothing more than that, too long cooldown for it to be good.
Maw of Malmortius - Sterak's gage but only for 4/5 ap teams. If you really need magic resist you should just go
Spirit Visage,
Jak'Sho, The Protean or
Force of Nature. If the shield was normal and not magic it would be great, but with the magic shield it's only good into full ap teams.
Chempunk Chainsword - Best anti-heal option, but when playing
Olaf you shouldn't buy antiheal, just stay with
Executioner's Calling or
Bramble Vest and then sell it for a better item.
Dead Man's Plate - Movespeed, Armor, Hp, it synergizes well with
Olaf's kit but after buying
Death's Dance you already have enough armor, however it can be useful against mobile ad assasins such as
Zed. If you want to buy it only for movespeed, you should just go
Hullbreaker.
Experimental Hexplate - New item, and very strong for
Olaf. It has all the stats you want, definitely one of the strongest items for
Olaf.
Hullbreaker - Riot wanted to nerf it, but the only thing they nerfed is armor and mr, the rest I would say is even buffed. More damage to towers, more damage to champions and you don't need to be alone for it. It's very strong for
Olaf right now.
Black Cleaver - Tanks don't stand a chance against you, combined with
Undertow you get 40% armor reduction. Pair it with ADC building
Lord Dominik's Regards and ADC goes trough 58% of initial armor. One of the best items for team fighting.
Sterak's Gage - A lot of AD and a shield when you need it the most. Very good synergy with
Berserker Rage. Buy it when you need extra burst survivability.
Stridebreaker - Always good on
Olaf. AD, AS, HP and it's active. Buy it when against ranged/mobile champions.
Spear of Shojin - It's even better in season 14, as it boosts your ability damage. Very good first or second item, but kind of falls off late. Buy it when you need more frequent abilities or you want to poke.
Sundered Sky - Goredrinker but more situational. It can be op in teamfights as you can proc it on all enemies, and it has 6 second cd for each enemy. Very good item for
Olaf
Blade of the Ruined King - Situational late game item. Buy it for health stackers like
Cho'Gath or
Sion. It doesn't have a lot of value early game and against squishies.
Death's Dance - AD, Armor, AH and it's passive. Very good in teamfights when you want to go for the ADC.
Guardian Angel - It's okay but don't build it very often. It's passive isn't really good on you as you rely heavily on your ult in late game.
Ravenous Hydra - Makes
Olaf a 1v2 monster early. Gives you way more waveclear and sustain in lane. Very good item for
Olaf. Build either first or second because it has more value early/mid game.
Titanic Hydra - Good item, synergizes well with
Hullbreaker, more of a mid/late game item.
Trinity Force - AD, AS, HP, AH, all very good stats for
Olaf. It's passive makes it even more worth for
Olaf as it gives your attacks 200% base ad after using an ability, 1,5 second cd so it's almost the same as your
Undertow cd.
Frozen Heart - Good item into auto attackers. It doesn't lose value in late game.
Thornmail - Viable but i wouldn't buy it. Stats are good but not the best for this price. Passive is only good for it's antiheal, and that anti-heal is easy to avoid.
Randuin's Omen - Good into a lot of crit, active is also good.
Force of Nature - DOT counter, buy it when you need mr and ms.
Spirit Visage - Standard good item for
Olaf, mr, hp and it's passive that gives you 25% heal and shield power. It synergizes good with
Berserker Rage,
Tough It Out and
Sterak's Gage
Kaenic Rookern - It has a lot of mr and it's passive is good. But I would only buy it into heavy ap teams or as a rush for hard ap matchups like
Akali.
Heartsteel - HP is good on
Olaf but heartsteel will only be good for those off-meta tank builds with
Hullbreaker and
Titanic Hydra.
Jak'Sho, The Protean - Armor, mr and hp. It's very good into comps that don't have a lot of burst, but even with the armor and mr it gives you shouldn't buy it without
Death's Dance because you will still get oneshot.
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Use this knowledge to your advantage, I have explained which champions to fight lvl 1 in matchups tab, you can also go with your jungler to invade topside to help them snowball or to get an early lvl 3 gank.
Matchups you win early:
You want to be as aggressive as possible, poke them and contest every minion. Shove the third wave and recall. When you get back to lane, wave should be pushing into you, if enemy recalled then freeze and if they didn't - run them down, you should have item and hp advantage so they can't really do anything.
When you have a frozen wave, just keep last hitting and if enemy comes for a minion you can run them down or trade that minion for some of their hp.
Don't let them farm and keep them away from exp if possible.
When the wave is pushed up on enemy side, the only thing you can do is poke with q and e out of the tower range, you should go for dives only when you know you can kill them in one combo (q > AA > W > AA > E > AA) and when you know the enemy has no abilities to cc you or dash away. If they do, you will just get stuck unable to get away without using flash.
If you see a fight in topside river, and you know you can get something from it then go for it, if not, just stay in your lane and if your enemy comes back kill them or shove the wave if they recalled.
Matchups you lose early:
You mostly want to farm with q, and wait for the wave to push into you. If you know you can lose some hp while going for cs, try to mitigate it with
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Then it's the same as the matchup you win early with the exception that you should play safe when
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Another problem is that you can't keep up with his tempo, because he can gank through walls, and that's a big problem.
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In jungle the only way for
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Playing as
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That's why I like to start topside because i can go for a early bot gank. Pop ghost and they are most surely dead if they pushed up. As for mid, you can try ganking from the enemy's side of the lane but you don't want to prioritize mid as it's hard to gank for you, especially when enemy is a mobile assasin like zed or qiyana.
As for objectives, you want to prioritize getting early drake. Try to force it lvl 4/5 when you know the enemy jungler can't come. If you know he is botside, you can ward drake and go for voidgrubs.
After you have hit lvl 6, you want to play around your ult cooldown. Force objectives when it's up, or when you have succesfully ganked or killed the enemy jungler with it.
Remember -
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Mid game is
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After good lane phase, mid game is your playground. Once you have 3 items you are too tanky and deal too much damage for most other champions. You want to play for picks, push waves and taking towers. Mid game you need to generate as much gold as possible so you have item advantage over others. Try to feed your team, especially adc or other scaling champions (i.e
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If you lost or went event on lane phase, you want to play as a kind of second support.
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End items
Your end items will depend on the enemy team. You want to counter as much as possible with one item. For example
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If your team has a late game champ, stick to the playstyle, let your team do their job. Take every opportunity for catching someone, one mistake can decide the whole game. Don't run 1v5 into enemy team as you could in mid game. Play for your team and try to punish every mistake enemy team does.
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