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Recommended Items
Runes: Universal Rune Page
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Threats & Synergies
Warwick
This is my cute way of saying you can rely on yourself very well. ANY tank in front of you will help you reach backlines, and any decent backline will cover you while you drain tank. Otherwise, you're a split pusher forcing 1v2s or more, allowing your team to do other things. There's no specific synergies with WW that come to mind, so I decided to put this here instead.
Warwick
This is my cute way of saying you can rely on yourself very well. ANY tank in front of you will help you reach backlines, and any decent backline will cover you while you drain tank. Otherwise, you're a split pusher forcing 1v2s or more, allowing your team to do other things. There's no specific synergies with WW that come to mind, so I decided to put this here instead.
Champion Build Guide
Truthfully, drain tanks are mostly 'forgotten' because literally everyone who can and will use Conqueror will become a kind of sustaining drain tank in some form, and so Grievous Wounds is extremely common. Trying to build a drain tank in this gruesome meta is ridiculous, but we'll do it anyway.
Also, hello! I'm Cryo (or Cryobeat), an Off-Meta player that creates off meta builds pretty much all the time and tries to make them work in the most effective way they possibly can. My other builds include AD/Manatank Kassadin, Tank Support/Jungle Lissandra, and AD/On-Hit Thresh. The latter of these I have also done a guide for here on MOBAFire! The rest you may be able to find on my YouTube channel, Cryo.
As well as an off-meta player, my favourite champion has always been Thresh, but my second-favourite champion has and always will be Aatrox. And by that, I mean before his rework. Not too much hate for the current one, he's fine and fun to play, but barely resembles the old Aatrox at all.
In despair, I wanted to find other champions who were similar enough to Aatrox, and amongst many, I eventually, pretty much two years later, settled on Warwick. At first, I tried to be more Aatrox-y (On-hit, lots of attack speed), but later settled on the build I currently use and recommend in this guide. What I mean by this section's subtitle 'A Unique Take' is that I had no frame of reference for other Warwick builds besides what I had seen in game, which was usually Cinderhulk and Titanic Hydra, a too-tanky combination that I did not bother with. As a result, the ideas I present in this guide are purely my own, after years playing drain tanks, Aatrox, and analysing Warwick's kit for maximum drain satisfaction and viability.
Of course, there are many meta guides out there, many from very high-elo champions. I am but a humble off-meta experimenter sharing my ideas. If you want to scale elo, you have a better chance doing it by looking at those other guides.
If you're still here after that, thank you, and I hope you enjoy the guide and build!
Conqueror gives you healing off of all damage you deal, plus adaptive force on-hit. The fast-attacking nature of Warwick with his W passive and Ult, it isn't hard to stack and every attack benefits from it. Even if your adaptive force is giving you Ability Power, your Q will still scale with it and deal devastating damage and healing. For this reason and more in the next section, don't be afraid to start

Later on, as your damage scales, so does the healing on your Q, and all the healing from Conqueror. It is simply the best rune for drain-tanking like mad and forces enemies to ignite you or purchase Grievous Wounds.
Don't worry, we have ways of dealing with Grievous Wounds as well.
As for the rest of the runes, refer to the page above. You can swap things like Tenacity out for Alacrity or Bloodline as you prefer, or as enemy team compositions show less Crowd Control. You could take Resolve secondary, but Ravenous Hunter is VERY hard to pass up with our full drain tank idea. Taste of Blood gives extra healing when you trade in lane with Q, and any and all healing is great. Alternatively, change for any of the 2nd tier. Sudden Impact and Cheap Shot are not worth it.
Ability use is key to drain tanking with Warwick properly. Let's go through each one in order.

Below 50% maximum health, Warwick heals off of the damage (calculated POST-mitigation, meaning after magic resistance reduces it), and below 25% of maximum health, it is increased by 150%.
In combination with your E and R, this passive can have incredible healing despite not scaling with AD or AP! The ability scales with attack speed as an on-hit effect, and the heal scales with armour and magic resistance... More on that in the items section!

Additionally, it applies on-hit and on-attack effects as well, but these do NOT count for the % healing done on this ability.
If you hold this ability, Warwick will attach to the enemy, swinging to the other side of the enemy. The ability is unstoppable when he bites them (whether you hold or not), but if you do hold, Warwick will follow enemy flashes and blinks!
This is your burst-heal, which is as it sounds, a burst of healing. It can be used early on to deal burst damage, or saved till you're lower HP in order to bait opponents. Bear in mind, it does not benefit from the increased healing on your passive.
The held part of it following flashes is something you must practice, so when you think someone's going to flash away, TRY AND FOLLOW THEM, and if you don't get it this time, maybe next time you'll get it. Eventually, you'll be getting it off quite often. Of course, it is a small dash, and greater distance is covered by holding, so always hold Q in a linear chase.


Additionally, Warwick gains between 70%-110% bonus attack speed when an enemy unit is below 50% health.
You can activate the ability to sense nearby champions regardless of their health, and begin hunting the nearest champion. You get a blood trail so you can sense their location as well.
So on the surface, this is great for catching up to weakened foes and finish them off, and the active lets you run at someone and ult or whatever. However, you can also use this ability for recon purposes. Akali went into stealth and you don't know which end of the shroud she'll pop out of? Hit W and you'll get a blood trail telling you exactly where she is. Teemo hiding in a bush? Same thing. Soloing Herald? Hit W to check if anyone's nearby. If no blood trails appear, then there's no one nearby. DO NOT use this as a substitute for proper vision and warding though, they're just as important if not more so.
It reduces cooldown twice as fast if no one's being hunted.

During the charge-up time, damage is reduced by 35%-55%.
^This here, this is the best thing.
Damage Reduction, much like with armour and magic resistance, increases your Effective HP (Read more on that in the Item Build section) not only of your total health pool, but also any health you get from healing and lifesteal. Therefore, try activating Primal Howl (Just the first part) when you go below 50% or 25% health. You're essentially increasing the value of your passive on-hit healing during this time! This allows you to duel and 1v2/3/4/5 at very low health and survive.
Learning to master choosing to use this for it's 1 second fear, or to save it for the damage reduction when you need it the most is essential to playing this style of Warwick.

Commonly this is used as initiation or to catch out an enemy. If you use Primal Howl (E) before using R, then landing R will instantly activate E but not end the damage reduction period early as it normally does. Once again, like E, I like to save this for healing, as it's a huge swing from 1% HP to 100% a lot of the time, comboing by applying passive at <25% health to get tripled healing on the first few on-hits. It also combo's well with

Once again, choosing when to ult first on a priority target, or when to save it for healing/baiting is an essential part of playing this style.
Additionally, if you miss your ultimate, Warwick slides to a halt. During this time, he can't attack or cast movement abilities. Cancel this pause by casting Q on the target if you can, additionally gapclosing back towards them. Of course, you can also save Q for healing and baiting as usual.
You can also cancel it by casting W but that's a much less likely choice.






Hope that clears up the choices. These are my conclusions after my own experience playing Warwick. If you want to change starting items, go ahead.
Let's talk about good early game items, first as a Laner, then as a Jungler.

A quick note on raw AD (and AP), the scaling on Q damage is phenomenal, so raw AD or AP will not only increase it's damage, but also it's healing as you max Q as fast as possible. This makes the healing ridiculous on this ability and really makes me wonder why everyone rushes Cinderhulk on this boy (more on Jungle items later).
















Complete Items


Don't build against 100% physical damage comps, just build more armour to increase EHP of your heals.

Defensive Items
I've thrown a few terms around like "EHP" (Effective Hit Points) and flat resistances, let's quickly explain this.
"Effective HP" basically means the amount of HP you have against a specific damage type by calculating your total health and armour OR magic resistance. All you really need to know is there aren't really diminishing returns on the effective HP you get from building resistances, this is a common misconception due to the damage reduction numbers the game shows you. The other thing you need to know is:
Whereas building health increases your total health pool, armour and magic resist not only increase the efficiency/effective hit points of your health pool, but any health you heal back as well.
Let's say your Q heals 100 health and you have 1000 health. It heals 10% of your total HP. Now if you have 2000 health, your Q now heals 5%, but still heals the same amount.
Now let's talk effective HP, still going with same numbers. Every 1 point of armour/magic resistance increases your effective HP by 1%, so lets say we have 50 armour. 1000 + 50% would mean 1500 effective health against physical damage if you had 50 armour. Got it?
Now for the heal. This means your Q heal of 100 also gets the 50% effective HP multiplier, if we think about it like that. Essentially, your Q would be healing 150 Effective HP against physical damage. If you had 100 magic resistance, it would be healing 200 effective HP against magic damage, and so on.
So if you were to buy Chain Vest (800g, 40 armour) instead of Giant's Belt (1000g, 380 HP), with the same numbers as before. Belt would put you at 1380 total hp, and assuming 0 armour for the sake of maths, that's your effective hp.
If we add 40 armour onto 1000 total HP, it becomes 40% more effective, so it would be 1400 effective health against physical damage, meaning it is cheaper AND more effective than buying health just going by totals.
Now let's add healing.
Q heals 100, like before (just an example by the way).
Healing back 100 on the Giant's Belt build will give you 7% of your max health back.
But if we build Chain Vest instead, we also increase the healing of the Q due to effective HP, so it heals 140 effective HP, therefore, it still heals 10% of your effective HP, unlike the Giant's belt example.
tl;dr: Resistances scale your healing, buying health doesn't.
Of course, that's one damage type. Things become more complicated with multiple damage types, like pretty much every team has, but I will often build



You're free to have different opinions and criticize the math as to be honest I haven't double checked it, but I know it's along the correct lines.
There is still, however, a reason to build health instead of resistances. And that's Grievous Wounds. Like how resistances and damage scale your healing, Grievous Wounds will scale it back, reducing the amount you heal back. Therefore, relying on healing become less reliable.
I have to say this before continuing Grievous Wounds does not stop healing, it just reduces it. It is not the end of the world just because the enemy has Grievous Wounds. You're weaker, yes, but you can still attempt to heal through fights, if you apply Grievous Wounds back to a Conqueror user, you even the playing field somewhat. Believe it or not, Warwick can still heal a surprising amount even during Grievous Wounds.
That said, sometimes it's too much. Welcome to the Anti-Grievous Wounds Item Section!



I should also mention that CC like Stuns and Roots are even more of a counter than Grievous Wounds are. If enemies have tons of CC, these anti-Grievous Wounds items and tactics also apply for them.



Normal Defense Items





Other Items
Here are some alternative complete items to care about... sometimes.












If you have any other items that you think would work well, go ahead and try it out! After a few games, think about what went well, compare it to alternatives, and make your own conclusions. I'm just reporting on what I've found, and there's bound to be tons of items and combos I haven't tried yet.
This is How I Play Warwick (Drain Tank Warwick Montage/Compilation/Memetage)
Not too heavy on the memes in this video, nor the series really, more about the gameplay and build. (I do have a more memey video called "AD Thresh.exe" if you're into that tho).
Overall, I've had a ton of fun and great success in my games with Drain Tank Warwick. It's uncommon that I see him built this way, but it's great fun and I invite you to try it, especially if you ever think that Warwick doesn't do damage or heal as much as you want him to.
As usual, there's no freelo promise with this build or guide. If you play it in ranked, that's on you. You're welcome to try though, I know I will!
Thanks for reading, and be sure to check me out on YouTube, and any other guides I may have on Mobafire!
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