Hello, this is my guide how to play jungle fiddle.

If you can play fiddle, you will be dominating thoose games you play. Fiddlesticks is an awesome jungler, at level 1 you don't even need a pull becuase of your drain(W). The only bad thing is that he is using ALOT of mana for the abilities.

This is my first guide, i hope you'll like it!

If you like damage, choose 21 in the offensive masteries, you will get great damage!

If you like playing more passive and take damage, choose the damn passive masteries.

Reds - Manapen is standard for casters. It will make you scale a lot better with AP and there isn't really any other viable choice of reds for traditional casters.

Yellows - Need armor for the jungle!

Blues - Cdr blues are far and away the best choice for fiddle. I think flat cdr is a better choice than scaling because they help a lot with early buffs/dragons and allow you to gank more frequently with your ultimate. Alternatives are: flat AP, scaling AP, scaling cdr.

Quints - Flat AP quints give you a good early game balance in conjunction with cdr blues. They are really good at boosting your damage for early ganks. There are a lot of Alternatives for quints, since quints are versatile. To list a few: Move speed(if you feel like being really cute), Magic pen, health, % exp gain.

Smite: Every jungler should take smite, even if you do not need it to clear the jungle. You need it for buff control and dragon/nash control.
Flash: Flash is essential for escaping certain situations and re-positioning your ultimate. Sometimes you can use it offensively in conjunction with your basic abilities(ie. flash then fear/drain), but mostly you want to try to save it for your ultimate or for escaping.

Nearby enemy champions have their magic resistance reduced by 10.

Explanation:
If you are bushed and standing close enough to an enemy, this passive will give the enemy a debuff, which they can see above their skill bar. That is about as far as you have to think this passive through. This rarely creates an issue though, as most players would not notice the debuff quickly enough to react.





Q: Terrify

Strikes a target enemy unit with fear, causing it to flee in terror for 1 / 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 second(s).

Cooldown 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 seconds

Cost 65/75/85/95/105 mana

Range 575


Explanation:
This is essentially a 3 second stun at max level. If you can manage to sneak into an enemy squishy's zone(eg. maybe because they feel safe on their tower), this skill becomes a kill button as long as you have 2 or more allies around. When you are using this skill offensively in a team fight, you want to try to fear valuable targets, such as carries. Use this ability IMMEDIATELY after using your ultimate. This will allow you to isolate and kill a valuable target while zoning(or killing) the rest of their team.




W: Drain

Drains 50 / 75 / 100 / 130 / 160 (+50% of ability power) health each second from target unit and gives 60/65/70/75/80% of it to Fiddlesticks. Lasts up to 6 seconds.

Cooldown 12 seconds

Cost 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 / 120 mana

Range 475

Explanation:
Drain is not about when you start channeling drain. Drain is all about when you stop channeling it. You need to learn when to cancel a drain. Enemies like to punish you for standing still. Watch them, and cancel the drain right before they can get you. Obvious things to note: Try to channel drain while you are waiting for your fear and dark wind to come off cooldown. drain gives you good dragon/nash control. Drain allows you to sustain yourself. Drain gives you really strong 1v1 presence. Drain can be a good followup to your opponents using their cc (as they will not be able to cancel your drain until their cc is up again). Try to drain valuable targets in team fights because drain does a lot of damage.





E: Dark Wind

Strikes an enemy target and then bounces to a nearby enemy unit. Deals 65/90/115/140/165 (+45% of ability power) magic damage and silences for 1.2 sec for each strike.

Can bounce up to 5 times and may strike the same target multiple times.

Cooldown 15/14/13/12/11 seconds

Cost 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 / 130 mana

Range 600


Explanation:
Use this whenever your opponents give you the chance. Damage is damage, and the cooldown is short enough that you will not need to worry about not having it. Use this ability after fear but before drain when you use your ultimate. The silence will help keep them from insta-killing you and can prevent them from flashing away if they are really slow with their flash. This skill is a 1 point wonder.





R: Crowstorm

A murder of crows flock wildly around Fiddlesticks for 5 seconds, dealing 125/225/325 (+45% of ability power) magic damage each second to all enemy units in the area. This has a 1.5 second channel duration and teleports Fiddlesticks to target location.

Cooldown 150/140/130 seconds

Cost 150 / 200 / 250 mana

Range 800


Explanation:
CACAWCACAWCACAWCACAWCACAWCACAWCACAWCACAWCACAWCACAWCACAWCACAWCACA. This ability is your bread and butter. Try to use it on clumps of enemies when they are not expecting it. Usually you do not want to initiate with your ult. You want to allow your tank to initiate so that you can dps the enemy team after they have used their initial burst. Otherwise you risk getting insta-killed by the enemy team. A lot of times it is okay to use this on 1 to 2 opponents during the teamfight phase. If you can isolate and kill one opponent with it, your team should be able to win a 4v5 afterwards. Don't be too hesitant to use this ability. The best way to learn how to crowstorm is to use crowstorm.

I am going to divide the path into larger categories with explanations and step by step instructions. I will summarize the path initially without explanation in order to give the reader a quick reference. Execute the path in the order that it appears in the summary(top: first; bottom: last).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1) Blue Buff

A) Wolves
B) Blue

(2) Red Buff

Option 1:
A) Red
B) Golems
C) Wraiths

Option 2:
A) Wraths
B) Golems
C) Red

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(1) Blue Buff


A) Wolves: Your team needs to auto attack these so that you can clear them in time to start blue. It is ideal for you to draw the agro yourself, since wolves run quite fast, meaning that you can waste time trying to chase them down. If your team does not give you any help, simply clear the large wolf and come back to this camp after blue.

B) Blue: Allow your team to leash this for you. If your team does not attack the buff several times, it could require a second drain. Use smite to last hit the blue. This prevents blue from being stolen by an enemy smite. Skill dark wind (E) as soon as the blue dies, and use it on the small creeps to clear them more quickly. You may want to activate your potion during this fight if your team did not give you a very good leash(or no leash at all).

Explanation:
Starting at blue is necessary as fiddle, since buffs are much more valuable than basic camps in terms of exp and fiddle is extremely mana dependent. In order to optimize efficiency, you have to clear the wolves before you start blue. This will generally require you to communicate with your team and instruct them to help you with wolves and then leash blue(At higher elo, this can be done with a simple ping. At lower elo, you may have to type in chat.). You will get counterjungled at blue from time to time. I will summarize how to deal with that later in this section.

(2) Red Buff


Option 1:
A) Red: Lead with E and stand in the bush near red while you drain. I like to pull the red entirely into the bush, so that my opposing jungler will have a harder time spotting red if he/she comes through while I am taking it. If you do red immediately after blue, you will not have smite. But smite is unnecessary if you started with an hp potion and have correct runes. You may decide to skill Q and gank at this point.
B) Golems
C) Wraiths

Option 2:
A) Wraths
B) Golems: You will hit level 3 here.
C) Red: In this case, smite will come off cooldown in time for red and you will be level 3, so your red is a bit safer in those regards.

Explanation:
I suggest taking red first because, even though you will not have smite, the timing at which you would take red is really unconventional, and is thus protected from counter jungling(ie. no conventional counter jungling path would put your opponent at your red at that time). Furthermore, red will put you to level 3 and allow you to skill fear (Q) and gank immediately afterwards. This allows for a very fast level 3 gank with red and blue while still being the fastest way to farm exp. Option 2 allows you to take red more safely, with 2 points in drain and smite off cooldown. If you don't have the right runes, Option 2 might be preferable.


Ganking


You will have to option to gank after each camp once you have put one skill point into fear(Q). You have the option to skill fear at level 3, and you need to decide whether or not do so while you are taking the camp that will get you level 3. To do this, you need to be aware of the lanes. Watch the laning that is taking place in nearby lanes, and decide whether or not a ganking is possible.

I will state the obvious here: you need to strike a balance between jungling and ganking. Generally, you should not gank while you have a buff up, since buffs are extremely valuable, although this is not always true. Because basic camps become more valuable over time, it is usually okay to let the 3 basic camps sit there while you gank knowing that you can clear them afterwards.

There is a lot of variation that goes into a solid jungle fiddle style. As such, in order to jungle fiddle properly, you need to be acutely aware of the status of all of your lanes. If you don't trust your map awareness or your ability to judge whether or not a gank will be successful, I encourage you to simply rely on the path that I have prescribed. But keep in mind that in order to jungle fiddle at an extremely high level, you will have to develop a good sense of when you should gank.

Tips on pre-6 ganking execution(copied from comments): WALK TOWARDS YOUR OPPONENT'S RETREAT PATH, not towards your opponent. (Walking towards them would be like sending a pass to a retriever's current location, rather than towards where they are going). Lead with fear, use auto attacks(assuming you have red buff) and dark wind while you position yourself DIRECTLY IN YOUR OPPONENT'S RETREAT PATH (ie. move, attack, move, attack, move; this takes a little bit of mechanical precision). Then use drain when you are DIRECTLY IN YOUR OPPONENT'S RETREAT PATH. If you couldn't get great positioning, you can drain them as they are getting away just for the hell of it. Also, PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING to alert your allies. Make sure your allies are capable of going aggressive before you move(ie. there is not a big snowball of creeps for your opponents).


Dealing with the Counter Jungle


Fiddle is a blue dependent jungler. Thus counter jungling can really shut him down. I will give a few suggestions about how to deal with counter jungling:

1) Ask your teammates to scout, so you know if your opponents are coming in.
2) If you feel like the opposing team has a strong level 1, you can use your ward on the small brush in river near your blue. This will let you know if your opponents are coming without putting your teammates in danger.
3) If your opponents come in and you feel like your team is capable of fighting them off, you can use your ward on your own blue brush. Vision of that brush will make it very easy to force your opponents to retreat.
4) If you feel like you can defend your blue, but are worried that your opponents could steal your red, you can ward your red. Alternatively, you can ward an entrance to your jungle that an opponent might take on the way to your red. I have afforded my team first blood this way in high elo.
5) If your opponents invade your blue and there is absolutely no way to scare them off, you have three new starting options: (A)their blue, (B)your red, and (C)their red. Decide quickly which one you will do:
5A) Usually they will expect you to try their blue, but often times they cannot stop you if they are stacked at your blue. Ask your team for help if you go for their blue, but remember that it is dangerous and, so be ready to flash away if your opponents come.
5B) Its is very safe to start at your own red in this case, but of course, this is the least rewarding action, since your opponents would probably not have tried your red anyway, so you aren't taking anything away from them.
5C) Your opponents will not expect this at all, but you have to be sneaky, and you should not do this unless you are sure that your opponents are staying for your blue. If you do this, base immediately and sprint towards your own red so that it does not get stolen. Remember that your team can give away your position on this one if they are careless, so encourage them to be careful.
If you went with B or C, you need to get 2-3 mana potions when you go back to spawn to sustain your jungling. Extra mana is costly, but you will need the sustain in order to jungle effectively.
6) Do not panic. This is paramount. Remember that when your opponents do steal your blue together, they are sacrificing lane exp in order to do so. Don't think that you are losing horribly if you lose blue. Just relax and think clearly about how you can farm exp as efficiently as possible.

~The ability to play through a disadvantage is essential for playing fiddlesticks well.~