The guide is not done yet and has been archived!

The following chapters have never been added:

• Mid Game
• Late Game
• Twisted Treelines Versus Summoner's Rift
• Advanced Tactics: Battles in the Jungle
• Advanced Tactics: Psychological Warfare - Tilt
• Advanced Tactics: Psychological Warfare - Fear
• Critical Knowledge: Knowing your Enemies
• Critical Knowledge: Choosing your Allies.
• Jungle Singed

Dear Reader,

This guide is about our favorite noxious Noxian champion; Singed. It is intended for use in normal/ranked games on the Twisted Treelines and Summoner's rift, although it can also be adapted for Dominion.

Singed has been among the first champions I ever bought and he has been the absolute first to have survived as one my mains up to this day. I like to think that I play Singed differently than other players, but please keep in mind that I have always thought that I were special. Regardless, I will try to cover anything about Singed that I think is absolutely awesome as well as explaining my item-, mastery- and rune-choices along with my tactics.

I hope you will have as much fun reading my guide as I will have writing it, and that it results in an even more vivid and enthusiastic community of players who play The Mad Chemist.

Empowered Bulwark
Increases Singed's health by 25 for every 100 mana he has. This ability is always nice and it is one of the abilities that allow Singed to perform well in a damaging caster role as well as in the role of a tank. Personally I do not make a lot of use of Singed's innate, instead preferring to buy flat-out health or resistance items. Sometimes, however, I do make use of mana items like Frozen Heart or Rod of Ages. In those cases, Empowered Bulwark is a more than welcome bonus.
Poison Trail
Leaves a trail of poison behind Singed, dealing damage to any enemies caught in the path. This is the ability that makes Singed as frightening as he is, and it is his primary source of damage. One of the best things about the poison trail is that it does not need you to be around to be damaging, allowing you to quickly turn complete areas into no-go zones for the enemy. The poison trail is extremely useful in many different ways, and that is why I will give a more detailed explanation of the skill in the tactical chapters.
Mega Adhesive
Throws a vial of mega adhesive on the ground, slowing enemies who walk on it. This is Singed's main crowd control ability, slowing up to a base 75%. It is one of the strongest multi-target slows in the game, and it slows all enemies in a large area. Used in conjunction with his other abilities Mega Adhesive can devastate any vulnerable character in the enemy team, exposing them to your own team to be picked apart by your carries. As if that is not cool enough, Singed sounds like he vomits when he casts Mega Adhesive. This is the first skill that made me decide to use cooldown reduction. Its 14-second cooldown can be brought down effectively, allowing for increased harassing slows, which makes it virtually impossible to either escape from or chase Singed.
Fling
Damages target unit and flings them into the air behind Singed Fling is Singed's most disruptive ability. It can be used in ganks, teamfights and chases. It can be used both offensively and defensively, and even if not used it will create a certain 'fear-zone' around Singed. Enemies will try to stay as far away as possible from you because of this skill, but they hardly realize that this too can be used to your advantage. Not only is the utility on this ability absolutely awesome, but it can also be used as a minor damaging nuke, dealing up to a base 250 damage along with scaling 1:1 with your ability power. The ten-second cooldown on Fling can be brought down quite effectively, further allowing Singed to put out a rather damaging nuke on enemies as well as disrupting them further. This is the second skill that made me decide to use cooldown reduction.
Insanity Potion
Singed drinks a potent brew of chemicals, granting him increased combat stats. This ability is what makes Singed into the great initiator, chaser and tank or tanky caster that he is. Along with providing a maddening bonus movement speed Insanity Potion grants Singed a stacking tenacity bonus (it works in conjunction with tenacity items, such as Eleisa's Miracle, as well as the Juggernaut mastery) and a large increase in his armor and magic resist. The ability also grants a large amount of MP/5 and HP/5. It does, in fact, regenerate more mana than it costs to cast it. This is the final skill that benefits from cooldown reduction. It has a duration of 25 seconds and a cooldown of 100 seconds, and if you decide to build up to the full 40% cooldown reduction, you can practically use your ultimate in every stressing situation or even to regenerate between fights.

The mark of insight is a typical caster rune, and given the fact that most of the damage that Singed deals is magical these marks will help you to get as much damage through your enemies' resistances as possible. The nine marks of insight add up to a significant 8,55 magic penetration, which is especially useful against the enemy carries.


The Singed we play focuses on late game. We can afford to make this focus since Singed also has a very strong early game, allowing him to increase his strength even further before snowballing into the game. At level 18 these seals will provide 24,3 armor. They surpass the Greater Seal of Armor at level ten, a level you will reach quite quickly, since you tend to play a solo lane.


Singed excels at disrupting the enemy team and at escaping from 1v1 action as well as from team ganks. If played properly, he can save teammates and destroy anybody in the enemy team by using his two disruptive abilities. That is where the runes of celerity join into this build.

I chose to use these runes instead of the Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction and the Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction because I feel that especially Singed's slow reaches its full potential at a higher level, which is also when the runes of celerity surpass the runes of focus. I would also like to point out the fact that Singed is extremely mana-sensitive, especially early game. If I would go for cooldowns right away, I would risk running out of mana by using my abilities too often.

But Kinaré, why do you not use ability power runes?!

That is an excellent question! I believe that Singed is best played as disruptive as possible, taking a strong support/assist role. His damage output is slow whether you use ability power runes and items or not. What really makes Singed so strong is that it is punishing to remain around him because he can survive a lot of abuse while dealing steady damage, combined with the fact that he is capable of destroying any vulnerable carry or support by 'misplacing' them.

Also try:

Singed always inquires whether the player would like a drink. Why? Obviously because Singed himself is a very empathic person, and if there is one thing he can relate to, it is thirst. This is because Singed is an extremely mana-thirsty champion. I felt that this thirst should be dealt with properly through the use of the standard mana-regeneration seals, which add up to a significant 3,69 MP/5, which is better than the 3,00 MP/5 that the Faerie Charm offers.

I have taken a 0/21/9 masteries combination, thus putting the emphasis on defensive masteries. My primary concern here is to provide Singed with an even greater survivability as well as guaranteeing that he can safely lane in any lane with as few recalls as possible. I will shortly go over the specific masteries.


Resistance and Hardiness provide Singed with the necessary resistances for early game laning, giving him that slight and necessary advantage to be able to remain in the fight longer than his opponent.

Vigor gives Singed a minor but noticeable early game HP/5 bonus that will allow him to sustain in lane against harassing champions.

Veteran's Scars will guarantee that little more health necessary to survive in early battles while Durability will grow into a welcome 108 health as the game progresses.

Taking three points in Enlightenment complements our rune choices well, providing a total 23,22% cooldown reduction at level eighteen.

Honor Guard will reduce any incoming damage by 1.5%, further enhancing our already tanky champion. Given my risky style of play and the fact that I try to push out as much as I can with Singed's health pool this mastery can very well spell the difference between life and death. If you escape with only ten hitpoints remaining, cackling like a maniac, remember which mastery saved you.

Last but not least Juggernaut provides a further 10% Crowd Control reduction as well as increasing our max health by a further three percent. It is one of the many things that make us beefy, and stacked with Singed's ultimate, Insanity Potion, and potentially a tenacity item like Eleisa's Miracle our champion becomes almost intangible and capable of surviving focus from even the most crowd control heavy teams.



As I stated before, Singed drinks mana with every meal of minions he eats. Especially near the start of the game his outrageous mana consumption can give him a hard time remaining active in his lane. This is why we take three points in Meditation . Giving a total of 3 MP/5 this mastery is an equivalent of starting with a Faerie Charm.

Expanded Mind is an extremely good first tier mastery for Singed. It scales with him as the game progresses, providing a useful 12 mana and 3 hitpoints per level, up to a total of 216 mana and 54 hitpoints.

I took [/color] Improved Recall mainly to advance to the next tier, although the slightly faster recall is always welcome when recalling in enemy territory or when you need to return to your lane as quickly as possible.

Singed has an extremely good endurance, and thus likes running, chasing and being chased. Taking two points in[/color] Swiftness is, as far as I am concerned, the best way to spend the two last remaining mastery points. The one percentage of extra movement speed it provides might be that minor edge Singed needs to catch up with or flee from an opponent.

Usually I follow a standard order while leveling my skills: I take one point in Fling at the start of the game but maximize it last. I do this because the only advantage Fling offers when leveled is that it deals more damage. This comes with the huge disadvantage of putting an even greater strain on our mana pool while we only really need Fling for its utility, not its damage. I take Insanity Potion whenever I can and maximize my Poison Trail as soon as possible, as it is my main source of damage output, with Mega Adhesive as the second skill, for its crazy slow at the higher levels.

There are a lot of viable summoner spells to use for Singed. I will describe all of the summoner spells in the game, ranking them from Best to Mediocre to Bad/Terrible.

Teleport Is the number one spell of choice for our champion when laning top. I started using it a while ago and after several games I have learned to love this summoner spell. Most games I can stretch my early laning far enough to be able to recall, buy at least one item, and then teleport back to my turret without missing out on more than half a minion wave! Rinse and repeat turns a good Singed into a fed Singed. And a fed Singed is absolutely indestructible. Later on in the game we can also use teleport to defend against backdooring as well as join team fights all over the map. At the time of writing this guide I have managed to end four games in a row (one defeat, three victories) with all of the top turrets still standing and theirs gone by level ten at the worst.

Ghost is a wonderful summoner spell to use on Singed. It lasts long enough to allow you to catch up with most every opponent, as well as giving the you necessary speed to escape from ganks or teamfights. Try popping an Insanity Potion along with this summoner spell for maximum effect. If you can somehow secure the wraith buff as well when playing on the Twisted Treelines, you speed by anything like a Missile Barrage.

Heal is an excellent replacement for the fabulous Teleport summoner spell. Sometimes you find yourself laning with another person. At other times you feel that there is a lot of mobility in the team. Maybe you are playing on the Twisted Treelines where the map is not big enough to find a worthwhile summoner spell in Teleport . If this is the case, Heal can secure that tiny bit of health Singed will need to survive. He is a risk-taking champion, and the valuable extra health it promises should not be underestimated. Your teammates will love you when you pop it during a teamfight and then Fling one of the enemies who thought they had the upper hand into your team.

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Ignite Is definitely a worthwhile spell to take when playing Singed . You already deal damage over time, and the ignite adds another huge bonus on top of that. Are you chasing one pesky champion who refuses to die to your poison trail soon enough? Pop an ignite and run away laughing. The combined damage will usually take them down.

Cleanse is also a valid summoner spell for our champion, although I usually trust on my ultimate, my masteries and perhaps even an Eleisa's Miracle to make me practically intangible. If you do find yourself facing a team that is heavy on crowd control, take this spell. It may also function against that pesky Ignite that halves the regeneration in our build and on our ultimate.

Clairvoyance could be counted among the Wild Cards . I almost never take it, unless I am laning on bot with a carry in either the Twisted Treelines or on Summoner's Rift. Even then I rarely take it unless I suspect we are playing against a gank-heavy team. In that case this summoner spell can save lives as well as maintain a healthy map control.

Flash is the summoner spell that is chosen most often. It is not rare to see every champion in a team use this spell. But Kinaré, then why don't you pick it as a core summoner spell?! Flash is a very situational spell. It is meant to help relocate your champion in an emergency or to adjust your position so that you may land your abilities. While it can serve this goal for Singed I find Ghost does a much better job. Singed rarely finds himself in a situation bad enough to warrant a Flash. And if you do find yourself in one such situation, this summoner spell will not help you survive. You could try combining Flash with Fling for an instant 'relocation' of the enemy, but I feel that Ghost serves this purpose much better.

Exhaust is the last summoner spell that you might choose instead of the others. Sometimes you find yourself facing a team with, frankly, an emphasis on attack damage or attack speed. Exhaust can effectively cripple one of the enemy carries and turn them into an easy kill for your team. While nowhere as good as Ghost in terms of chasing enemies when on your own, it can be a real life-saver for both you and your teammates.

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Clarity is perhaps better than most if not all of the summoner spells listed below. But it still belongs in this list because it is worthless compared to the summoner spells listed above. Why? Because we will stop having great problems with our mana after our first recall and we might need it only if we are extremely wasteful or when we are in a large and extended teamfight where our abilities are necessary. We will simply waste a summoner spell slot.
Garrison If you were considering to pick this spell, then please slap yourself on the cheek to wake up. Garrison is a dominion spell and this guide is focused on normal games.
Promote should never be used by Singed. It is a pushing tool, and if there is one thing you do well, it is pushing. Why let someone else do your dirty work if you can do it better?
Revive is not worth using early game because you will respawn within mere seconds regardless. If you die late game, you either died by sacrificing yourself to get your team three of four kills, thus making your respawning unnecessary, or you were the last man standing and respawning will not help your team in any way. In the latter case, the game is lost both with or without you.
Surge is a summoner spell intended to give carries a temporary boost to their damage output to push down a turret or tip the scales in a fight. Your damage output is slow and Surge will barely increase it.
Smite is a spell for junglers, and unless you find great pleasure in one-hitting cannonball minions it is absolutely worthless. You can push by yourself and there are many better junglers than you. Because you are a terrible jungler.

Whatever the round and whatever the situation, there are four items I can always trust. Rarely do I ever pass through a round without buying these items, and if I did not buy them, it is either because I was still planning to but did not have the time, or because the circumstances were especially demanding and I had to buy another item to meet these demands. My four core items are listed below, and I will shortly detail and explain why these items always recur in my build.


The Boots of Swiftness give Singed a sizable speed bonus, working well with his abilities, my tactics and the fact that as a tank, he should be mobile enough to be in the right place at the right time. Last, but not least, combined with your ultimate Insanity Potion these boots may help you escape from or chase down anything.

Force of Nature is an excellent item for our already tanky friend. It offers us much-needed movement speed, awesome regeneration, a large amount of magic resist and a scaling regeneration buff with our max health. This item, together with the Boots of Swiftness entails the speed part of our build, which makes it a priority to build as soon as possible.

Warmog's Armor scales excellently with this build. It is our primary health item, and it also provides a huge bonus to regeneration, especially when combined with the unique passive of Force of Nature. Usually I take it somewhat later in the game, as I will not have a hard time killing the 100 minions needed to completely stack it.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter provides us health, ability power and an awesome utility bonus that gives our Poison Trail a 15% slow as well as upping our Mega Adhesive to an eventual 90% area-of-effect slow, allowing us to practically snare an entire group of enemies for a maximum of six seconds. It is this item that replaces the popular Rod of Ages.

But Kinaré, why do you not use the Rod of Ages like a normal Singed?


The Rod of Ages is an admirable item, and I understand completely why one would use it in their build: It provides a player with a large chunk of health, mana to use with their passive and for their abilities, and the Catalyst the Protector used to build it helps a Singed remain in the lane because of its passive. The reason that I do not buy it, is because for my build there are more worthwhile items to buy early game than a [Catalyst the Protector which will also help greatly when laning by making me tankier. Thus, when I finally decide to buy my ability power item, it is more economic to go for Rylai's Crystal Scepter, as the passive of Rod of Ages that triggers upon leveling is no longer viable on the higher levels, nor do we have the time to wait for it to grow to its full strength. In the end it is the utility on Rylai's Crystal Scepter that tips the balance between these two great items. For easier reference I have constructed a comparison for.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter + 80 Ability Power + Can be built later + Provides amazing utility (slow) - Costs 3105 gold - Gives 0 mana - Gives 500 hitpoints

Versus | | | | | | | | | | | |

Rod of Ages - 60 Ability Power, ten minutes to 80 - Needs to be rushed to be really effective - Provides no utility at all + Costs 'only' 3025 gold + Gives an eventual 725 mana + Gives an eventual 811 hitpoints (HP/Mana Included)

With only three items in our build we are far from done. That is why I am going to describe some of the items I think are absolutely great for our disruptive Singed as well as talk about some items I think are not as useful as they could be. Before I will go over these items I would like to remind you that I play a tanky Singed, and my perspective of these items will be biased by that. Like with the section on summoner spells, I will be arranging the items from Best to Mediocre to Bad/Terrible. I will not discuss every single item, as I think some of them are obviously of little relevance.


Great Boots


These two pairs of boots can be an excellent replacement for the Boots of Swiftness if the circumstances are demanding. By taking these we may sacrifice some speed, but we get either magic resist and tenacity with the Mercury's Treads or armor and a damage reduction of ten percent on basic attacks with the Ninja Tabi in return. (Unconfirmed; The Ninja Tabi may also reduce damage on on-hit effects.) These two pairs of boots are largely conditional. Take them against your laning opponent if they deal a lot of either type or damage, or if the enemy team is building an excessive amount of one type of damage.


Mediocre Boots

There is only one type of boots that is worth getting besides the already mentioned Ninja Tabi, Mercury's Treads and Boots of Swiftness: The Sorcerer's Shoes. Use these if you are ahead of your opponents, or if they are generally squishy. Remember: Increased armor and magic resist have diminishing returns. If someone has only 30 magic resist, the 20 magic penetration from these boots may very well increase all of your magic damage by (an estimated) 30%. Usually I do not take those, as we do not focus on damage and your teammates do not benefit from this item: Only you do.


Bad Boots


Whatever happens, do not pick these boots! It is quite obvious why you should not build the Berserker's Greaves, unless you want to get reported for trolling, so I will instead focus on the other two pairs of boots:

The Mobility Boots might seem attractive at first, but they are a bad item choice! I tried them once, thinking they might very well help with initiation and moving across the map. I found out the hard way that Poison Trail cancels the extra movement speed whenever it damages something, and that I could use these boots neither to escape nor to engage because of damage I would receive. The enemy could kite me by simply shooting back once, and the extra effect on these boots became useless. To put it differently; Imagine that you actually have to avoid hurting people with your beloved Poison Trail because it would slow you down!

The Ionian Boots of Lucidity might also seem like a good item choice. We are, after all, building ourselves some nice cooldown reduction. But if you buy these boots, you forget the reason we are building cooldown reduction: because it helps disrupt the enemy. The boots listed above will be a much greater help at disrupting the enemy than these boots, especially given the fact that we already have a lot of cooldown reduction because of our runes. We will also most likely buy another item that can provide us with cooldown reduction, which will make these boots a further waste. So the Ionian Boots of Lucidity are a waste of space and gold.


Great Items

Frozen Heart is a great item for Singed. It provides useful Cooldown Reduction, but even more importantly, it gives a great 99 armor AND it helps your team survive by severely weakening enemy attack damage carries like Ashe and Miss Fortune or Master Yi by reducing their attack speed by 20%. I take this item in at least fifty percent of the rounds, rushing it instead of Force of Nature if laning against an attack damage heavy opponent.

I want to emphasize how good the passive on this item is. You reduce the attack speed of every enemy around you by 20%, and thus effectively the incoming physical damage by 20%. Practically, it is like giving every allied champion around you a very decent armor item. (And that is without counting in on-hit effects like those on Madred's Bloodrazor).

For the mathematically inclined among us: To translate this effect to physical damage reduction use this formula: (100 - current physical damage reduction) x 0,2. So if you have 0 physical damage reduction, that means you get an effective 20 extra physical damage reduction. At 80%, you get (100 - 80)x0,2 = 4% extra physical damage reduction. It takes 1 : 0.8 = 1.25 times as long to kill you using solely physical attacks if we count only the aura (not the extra armor).

The Abyssal Mask is a great item when the enemy team is dishing out lots of magic damage. Your ability power carry will also love you for this item as it decreases the magic resist of all surrounding enemy champions by twenty. It gives you ability power, supports your team, and makes you more tanky. What not to like about this item? I take it about as often as I take Frozen Heart, but usually later into the game.

Banshee's Veil is a great item on and against Singed. Do you find your Fling blocked by enemies with this item? It is time to return the favor! It works great when playing against a team with a carry who needs to hit one ability before their combo, like Cassiopeia with her Noxious Blast or Ryze with his Rune Prison. This item will eliminate the first ability coming your way, effectively rendering their combos worthless. As if this is not great enough it can also block a crowd control effect, allowing you to initiate safely or escape from ganks. It can be built both late- and early-game, and it also provides some nice magic resist, mana (thus health) and flat health.

Guardian Angel can save your life, and by saving your life, the lives of your teammates. It is a good item when your team is facing a bad game and when the enemy appears to have the upper hand. You can sacrifice yourself while your carries retreat. The enemy will either choose to continue to pursue your carries while being harassed, damaged, slowed and misplaced or they can choose to kill you, wasting valuable time waiting for you to be revived by your Guardian Angel. As a great bonus, it gives a fair amount of resistances and health.

Acceptable Items

Aegis of the Legion is quite frankly a strong aura item, and especially the more vulnerable elements in your team will profit from its effects. Still, I find that the resistances that it gives are a bit low when you can also build another aura item like Frozen Heart or Abyssal Mask to assist your team. This item is usable but it is a situational item: Whenever you feel your team contains too many squishy champions while the enemy team can dish out lots of damage very quickly, you take this item.

Sunfire Aegis is an excellent item to buy when the enemy team is low on magic resist, relatively squishy, and if you are already at an advantage. It makes you tankier by providing flat health and armor, and any enemies who already found themselves incapable of being around you will now be completely unable to go near you. It is fun to see how they can not stand to be your presence, as if you forgot to shower the last couple of weeks. Which you most likely did forget. Because you are Singed. And you stink. Of awesome. Right?

Thornmail is a somewhat situational item. I usually only buy it when the enemy team has one or several attack damage carries who are being a true pain, like Ashe. If the enemy is indeed really oriented towards attack damage, this item will punish them for focusing you. Combined with your other armor items and a sizable health pool and regeneration it could cost their carries over half their health to destroy you.

Randuin's Omen is one of the best counters versus an attack damage-heavy team. It builds from a gold item and if its passive is combined with Frozen Heart's Aura and you toggle its active, their attack damage carries will find themselves barely capable to move, and even less capable to attack you. Take them out while they are weakened. The reason that this item is in the 'acceptable' category instead of the 'great' category is because it depends strongly on its active, and I have a tendency to forget the actives on my items.

Eleisa's Miracle builds from the Philosopher's Stone, my main early-game sustaining item. I usually never buy it because the game has a tendency to end before I would replace my Philosopher's Stone, and even then I would only buy it against a team that is heavy on crowd control. If the enemy team is, in fact, heavy on crowd control abilities or items, this item combined with your ultimate and your masteries will make it practically impossible to root in one place. Use it to absorb their crowd control.

Shurelya's Battlesong is built from our Philosopher's Stone as well, which is always a good thing. But like Randuin's Omen it has an active I am bound to forget, and there may be better items to buy: Besides the cooldown reduction, this item offers only little health and the regeneration it gives is no longer significant at this point in the game. While the extra movement speed is nice, especially with Singed, I prefer seeing this item on a full support character. ((Note: You might like this item more than I. Try the Twisted Treelines Wraith buff, Force of Nature and Boots of Swiftness combined with Insanity Potion and the active on this item for hilarious effects.))

Bad Items

Quicksilver Sash is a very bad item on Singed, as far as I am concerned. It is cheap and it offers some magic resistance, but frankly enough that is all it does. Singed does not need a Cleanse in item form when he can take the punishment without it, especially with an active Insanity Potion. While the item can, in fact, be useful, there are so many items that are better that I do not think Quicksilver Sash is worth considering. Try using it on a squishier champion instead, like Ashe

Soul Shroud is an item I have experimented with in several rounds. The hard truth is that it does not work as well as I thought. I took it mainly for the cooldown reduction and the extra mana regeneration, but then I improved my mana management skills. The item became worthless, as there are many items with more bonus health and the aura is nowhere as useful as some other auras. A champion I would like to try this on is a jungling Nautilus or another mana-dependant jungler.

Spirit Visage gives a rather sizable boost to regeneration along with cooldown reduction, health and some slight magic resistance. But that is everything it offers. A lot of other items offer utility, more magic resistance and often also more health. The only thing this item offers is a further increase in regeneration, but we are already practically indestructible at this point because of Insanity Potion, Warmog's Armor and Force of Nature. If the enemy does not nuke us or focus us down with their entire team, we come back within a minute to fight again. This item does not change that.

Interesting

I have never used the Locket of the Iron Solari on Singed before, but I think that it might be a decent item as it builds from a gold-item and it can save your team in a teamfight by absorbing damage with its activated ability. The fact that it is an active would probably give it a lower place in my rankings, but it could be a great item still.

I think that there are two great item sets to start with, both of them allowing a good Singed to stretch his first recall long enough to buy some very critical early-game items. I will shortly go over both item combinations.


This combination of items gives you a good speed bonus to start with as well as providing you with some potions to lengthen your first show-off in the lane with your opponent.


These two items are a completely different approach to your first moments in the lane. You plan to stay longer and your Regrowth Pendant will guarantee that you can take quite some damage without having to recall. The mana potion will allow you at least one more Fling or extended use of your potion trail for harass, farming or escape.

But Kinaré, how do I decide which starting set I will take?!

Once again you ask me a great question! Thank you for reminding me of this important consideration at the start of the game. The items you choose can determine a great portion of your early laning game, and you are picking items to stay in lane as long as possible while maintaining a farm advantage. There are three important main questions you need to ask yourself when choosing your starting set.

• Who is most likely laning against me?
• Where am I laning?
• Who is laning with me?

The first question is one of the most important questions to ask yourself. Are you laning against a ranged champion or a champion with a ranged ability like Gangplank with his Parrrley or are you laning against a complete melee champion like Garen? Against a champion with harass like Gangplank or a steady output of damage it is wise to take the option without boots, as the Regrowth Pendant will allow you to sustain their harass. If you are laning against a champion who is rather passive in their lane like Nasus feel free to take the boots to allow you to always be there where you can best harass them and counter their farm.

The second question does not just apply to your lane, but also to the map. If you are playing on the Twisted Treelines and you occupy the top lane you may find yourself profiting more from speed than from anything else, and the boots may very well be the obvious choice. If you have decided to support your carry on bot in Summoner's Rift you may decide to pick either the Boots to help place your Fling or your Regrowth Pendant to build into a Philosopher's Stone as soon as possible for the gold over time.

The last question applies mainly when you decide to support on bot on either the Twisted Treelines or Summoner's Rift or when your team has no jungler and instead fields two top laners. Try to synergize with your teammate. If you believe you and your teammate will be capable to pull off a first blood with the speed your Boots offer, then by the Gods of mad scientists, take them! If you feel hesitant, on the other hand, you may yet again consider the Regrowth Pendant for reasons stated above.

So the game started, and we are on our way to top lane, assigned to us by our friendly team. What is the first thing we do? We observe their team and ours. Use 'Tab' to get a nice overview. Consider the damage your enemies will be dealing, and the roles they will be playing. Do the same team for your team. Are there any weak points that might need defending?

You might have three ability power champions on your team, for example. This may mean that you should focus on helping your attack damage carries deal the enemy, who will naturally build magic resist. I can not tell you what to do in every single situation. That is what you do best! As you play more and more games you learn to adapt and to make the correct estimations.

Our goal during the laning game is to starve our opponent, while getting ourselves fed. Singed does not necessarily need kills to do this, but you should quite logically be an active threat to the enemy laner and take every opportunity for a kill as if it were a gift from something divine.

Like I said in the previous chapter, we have chosen for either boots or a regrowth pendant as our first real item. Our goal is to return from our first recall with a Philosopher's Stone and our Boots, for gold, mana- and health-sustainability and speed. Both starting sets help with one of the items. Either we already have our Boots, or we only need to buy our Boots and complete the Philosopher's Stone. Another great item to consider buying is a Sight Ward, to help escape from ganks. After our first recall, our inventory should look like the inventory on the chart below, and we return to our lane right away with Teleport. ((Minor note: Buy the Philosopher's Stone first and then the boots when in the shop. It may mean the difference between 2 extra gold or not, and we are greedy.))


Both before and after our first recall, we want to assess the enemy laner. Do they have some sort of sustainability? What items did they buy? What kind of damage do they deal? Do they deal enough damage to be able to effectively harass us? Are they dependent on mana? Even before my first recall I tend to lane very aggressively, especially if the enemy champion has no real harass and is not ranged.

If the enemy farms from melee range, like Nasus and Irelia, I concentrate on toggling my Poison Trail in bursts to lay short trails between our minions and their minions, damaging minions as well as punishing them for moving in for last hits. When I am high on mana, I occasionally Fling them to keep them out of range of the minions and to put a greater strain on their health, always putting them in the direction of their own turret to prevent opening myself to ganks.

If possible, I push the enemy completely towards their own turret so that their turret may eat the minions. I usually only do this when the enemy has no jungler or if I warded the bush. If I warded the lake, I am practically ungankable because I can fling enemies over my head with Fling.

If enemies are missing and you are not sure where they are, retreat to the middle of the lane, between the turrets. When your minions die and their wave once again moves closer, walk towards them, poison them, and lure them towards you. You will kill the entire wave with ease.

If you are faced with two enemy champions or one extremely strong opponent like Shen, who can harass you a lot, just concentrate on placing your trails when the waves have been weakened, and keep closer to your turret. Your Fling can do wonders to deal with overly aggressive opponents who move in for a kill.

We preferably want to stay in lane with our Philosopher's Stone and our Boots until our Teleport comes off cooldown. By the time that happens, we will most likely have enough gold to buy a good advanced item.

But Kinaré, how do I pick among all those great items that I can build?!

Good question. The answer is quite simple. We are playing a tank. So what do we add to our build? An item to counter the enemy. Examine their team very well, as well as the person you are laning against. Do you receive a lot of attack damage? It might be a very good idea to invest in part of the items needed for or a complete Frozen Heart to put you at an advantage.

Are you barely taking any damage and is the enemy starved of experience and minion kills? Or is your enemy dealing a lot of magic damage? Then start building Force of Nature. If the enemy is already barely capable of destroying you, this item will help further our advantage by making it impossible to escape from your wrath. Also consider the boots you will buy. Usually I go for Boots of Swiftness and part of the items needed for either Force of Nature and Frozen Heart, but again you should examine the enemy team. Countering the right types of damage can mean the difference between life or death and defeat or victory. Do not forget to buy one or two Sight Wards, and remember that the secret of getting the right items is by buying them reactively.

Now that we are durable and fast we continue to play aggressively, aiming to take down their turret. If we play well and the enemy is forced to recall or retreat very often, the turret should be down very soon. This means that it is time to turn our eyes elsewhere. It is time to turn our eyes to..

We have countered our enemy and forced our lane into the mid-game stage, or we lost our own turret and again are stuck in the mid-game ourselves. Small teamfights are breaking out across the map and we can almost hear our team screaming for us: Singed, please, help us! We excel at this stage of the game as we excel in harassing our laning opponent, and we will heed their call.

You have two responsibilities during this stage of the game. The first is to accompany your carries to give them that edge they need for the
Your responsibility during this stage of the game is to accompany at least one carry to keep them safe and help them kill the enemy for gold, as well as defending any lanes where the turrets are in danger.

A lot of thanks goes out to JhoiJhoi for offering some good templates and some tips and tricks in her guide on making a guide. Her guide allowed me to quickly pick up on positioning icons and that helped a great deal.