I'm FlirtyFeathers#Rakan. At the time of making this guide I'm a 1.5 million mastery Rakan. I'm sitting at diamond 1 but I'm going to climb further. Over the next few years I plan to get into streaming. For now I have a little YouTube channel I post videos on from time to time. Feel free to stop by I would love to hear from anyone who's interested in Rakan!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX-b2x6rkP-g_3Ov_jLWFYg

Obviously the abilities make up who the champion is. I will describe all of the abilities, then go in on a tip for each of them!

Passive : Fey Feathers ~ Rakan periodically gains a shield.
40-14.5 seconds based on level.
My best tips are pretty simple. You can go in when it has a few seconds until being up to surprise people with the shield. You can also feel safe to block skillshots for your adc knowing you can tank a bit with no worries. Try to keep your passive up in lane, or use it effectively to help your adc.
Lovers Leap ~ allows you to recall with your Xayah. If you’re in game with one. You can just use this when they shove wave to help them recall faster. Again not too important but you can shave a few seconds of tempo by using it effectively. Make sure you stand in front of your adc when you recall together, because you can keep recalling with your shield. In case they try to stop your back.
I like to recall anywhere I want if I know my shield can tank it. Rakan is one of the only champions that can recall in the middle of minion wave.

Q : Gleaming Quill ~ Rakan slings an enchanted feather, if it hits an enemy champion or epic monster (rift herald, baron, and dragons) then he marks an area around him. After 3 seconds he heals everyone on his team in that area, if he touches an ally then it heals instantly.
My tips for Q involve using it as an extra follow up. This is a key part of Rakan’s combo where you W-Auto-Then Q. But you can also use his Q to help you sustain in lane. Using it to heal you and your ally if need be.
I wouldn’t recommend spamming the Q as a poke tool, because this can give you mana issues really fast. Especially if you happen to miss.

W : Grand Entrance ~ Rakan dashes to a target location, knocking up nearby enemies.
This is the bread of Rakan’s kit. Allowing him pressure, the ability to engage, and giving him a window to trade.
I have a few tips. You can queue up your next action halfway through your W animation. This let’s you auto as soon as your W finishes. Or let’s you cancel the animation with your flash. If you really need to dash in and out quickly. Lastly just remain patient. This can be the hardest ability to hit so try to save it for when necessary.

E : Battle dance ~ Rakan dashes to a target allied champion granting them a shield. For the next 5 seconds Rakan can recast this ability to dash again.
The cast range is extended to Xayah
If Rakan’s W is the bread of his kit, this is the butter. It doesn’t carry him entirely but will save him often, and strengthens his kit. Try not to go in without this ability up so you can always dash out. My tip would be to use the ‘far side’ mechanic. When you dash to someone you get put on the opposite side of them. So if your teammate goes in and you dash from behind them then you can get an extra bit of distance coverage to land an easier W.

R : The Quickness ~ Rakan breaks into a sprint. Allowing him to charm anyone he touches.
My tips for this are the simple mechanics of it. Whenever you charm someone the duration of the ability is increased by .25 seconds. The first person you charm also gives you 75% movement speed that decays quickly. Other tricks with this ability include using it when people stack on top of you, to charm multiple people for your W. You can also use it to chase after someone so they can’t dodge your W. As well as using it to dash to an ally, charming anyone between you and your ally. I am also fond of using it when someone is dashing towards my ally or an enemy. Such as Vex ult, or a Yuumi W. By doing this you can cancel the dash or charm them as soon as they land.

Rakan is always a decent pick. Even in his worst counters a high skilled Rakan should be able to make it work. Although it could get rough.

In good matchups : This is the ideal situation for Rakan. You get to scale to mid/late game where you spike. But until then feel free to be aggressive by punishing them when they overstep. This will come up a lot, but just try to remember to punish. Don’t force fights though, remember to stay patient.

In skill based matchups : This is when in my opinion, your patience matters the most. If you can sit back and wait for them to overstep or engage then you will win the fight. Most of the champions on this list can just cancel your W and ruin your engage. But if you wait for them to use those abilities to try and engage. Then you can punish them by simply going in when the ability is on cooldown. So just be patient until that happens. I.e Leona dashes in, Renata uses Q, or in the case of Milio you have flash up to guarantee the knockup.

In bad matchups : Remember to remain very patient. The best thing to do in a bad matchup is just to wait and try to bait out spells then punish the enemy when they make a misplay or over extend. Worst casinario in a bad matchup as Rakan, you can and should be roaming.

Rakan is okay in the early game. He has some strong skill expression, and you can play very aggressive. The worst casinario is that you will have to E out if you miss anything. So play as aggressive as possible, but always make sure your ADC is close enough for you to E. A good indicator for your E range is the stealth ward range if your ADC does not know the range. You may also want to ask them when they feel comfortable going in, or look up a champion to see their level powerspikes. My personal way of doing this is looking up "Champion name mobalytics" then going to the guide section in order to find their powerpikes.

Make sure to roam on every recall, and don't be afraid to stand mid for a minute in order to make a cheeky play. Rakan's roams are very dangerous for the enemy mid laner, especially if you have exhaust to slow them down.

During the mid game (after you destroy bot tower) your ADC and you should look to move to mid lane. This will give you better access of the map. From there you want to keep as many wards around as possible and follow your Jungler to look for picks. Try to skirmish for mid tower and secure as many objectives as possible by roaming.

During the late game Rakan has two goals if you want to win.
1. Play around getting picks by setting up death-bushes, clearing and placing wards, five stacking into a lane, and invading the jungle with your jungler.
2. Defend your carry as much as possible. This is why Knight's Vow is a very good item for Rakan.

To recgonize who your carry is press tab. The signs of a carry is someone with a
1. Good k/da
2. Most items
3. Bounty

By playing around your carry you make sure that they are always avaible to deal damage, and you won't have to worry about them being out of range to follow up. You also hurt the enemy team by not allowing them to get the carry's bounty. Do not be afriad to die for your carry. One fatal flaw that Rakan players tend to make is forgetting their carry in a teamfight. Do NOT leave your carry behind, even if you see an oppurtunity for a multiple person CC chain. Leaving your carry behind makes your CC chain useless, and easily puts your carry in a position to die.

Warding is the most important aspect of support. Make sure you openly communicate with your team and track the enemy jungler to use your ward effectively. In this video and image I show some good locations for warding. These spots are good as they show a lot of information, while giving you enough time to react to the information before it is too late.
Yellow circles are stealth ward locations, and red are control ward locations.

Play Video

Bugs to watch out for :
Rakan has 3 game changing bugs as of now.
His R range isn’t proper to the tool indicator. The real range is 50, not 150.
Once in a while his W just won’t go over a wall.
His E animation is longer than it should be, meaning you can’t use certain items or objects for about a second after. Such as hex-gates, or everfrost.

My favorite Rakan skin is Arcana as of now, but when dragonmancer goes live it will definitely be my favorite skin. If you are curious how skins may affect winrates I actually do track my winrate on different Rakan skins (page two of this link.)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p9czh2jH9marSsPD60aZJCH9ErSZlRa8lAIKYvp5kbU/edit?usp=sharing

Don't look at IG though, I go it whenever someone picks Xayah and usually they first time her whenever I play Rakan to try and match.

Key Note: Dragonmancer Rakan is absolutely stunning but I wouldn't consider the Prestige worth it. As a collector I bought it but I prefer the base and love it much more especially with chromas. The skin also feels very strong and is the highest winrate on the sheet as of now.