Singed Build Guide by corruptsoul

Introduction

Hey Corruptsoul here with two Singed builds for most situations you will encounter. I have found that Singed is a very versatile character with a lot of untapped power. He has the ability to be both extremely tanky and powerful and can change his build to fit any situation without losing much ability. This guide is meant to help you understand how to play Singed in the two most common uses of Singed: AP Singed and Tank Singed.

If you have any criticism for me, please don't just downvote, tell me in a comment what you don't like. I would love to hear why you are downvoting so I can fix the problem. I will also attempt to keep updating this guide as I get feedback, so check back regularly if you want to see new things. I will keep an update section after this to let you know what will be changing as I go.

A special note: I have been experimenting with different Singed builds and if you are interested my guide with double tank bottom can be found here.

Pros / Cons

Pros Versatile Great disruptor can isolate players Strong late game natural tank

Cons can have slow early game cc can detriment control requires excellent player no harass until boots often focused (not always a con)

Masteries

AP Singed

For playing AP Singed, your focus should be on putting out damage and and giving us the utility to escape after teamfights break up in late game. This means our focus should be 21-0-9. The 21 gives us our damage and the 9 in utility gives us Expanded Mind for some extra mana and also gives us an additional 2% movement speed with Swiftness to keep up with our opponents throughout the match.

Realize that the mastery page is very flexible so if you think you want some more defense at the expense of some damage, you can.

Tank Singed

As a seasoned Singed player, I have found that using the defensive mastery tree generally gives the best stats when he's played properly. Basically, Singed is going to be running wild through the middle of the enemy team and the defensive tree helps us reduce the damage we take while doing that. The final 8 points are put into the utility tree to give us that 2% movement speed boost to make Singed absolutely impossible to catch.

Runes

AP Singed

The Greater Mark of Magic Penetration is our buffer to magic resist as the game progresses. Since this whole build is focused around AP, any attempt to stop you is going to be with magic resistance. This helps by cutting through some of it to keep out damage output up.

The greater seal of defense helps against the AD carries that will focus you. Since the items we buy build magic resist, getting armor also spreads out our defense to help against anyone you come against.

The Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power give a little boost to our AP throughout the game. It may not be big but it stacks well, especially with our DoT Poison Trail in a team fight and helps turn the tide in a close fight.

Greater Quint of Swiftness is a must have. It just adds to our speed and lets Singed roam and kite better. Can't ask for a better utility for him.

What are some alternatives?

Seal Alternatives

Great if you don't need the extra armor but find that you are mana hungry. While not the best choice in my opinion, they can work very well if you play smart.
If you want to put out more damage early game and can go without the armor, these will do the job. Gives that extra kick to early level ganks and 1v1's to turn the tide.

Glyph Alternatives

If you find yourself dying a lot from AP bursts before you can do any real damage, it might be a good idea to pick these up. They just give a little more survivability and don't sacrifice too much damage while doing it.
greater glyph of vigor While I haven't yet tried this, I think these might give a little bit more lane presence. If you are being harassed by a ranged character on the top lane and you need some way to regen while in the field, these would give you roughly 5/per 5 sec health regeneration and reduce how many times you need to head back to the nexus.

Quintessence Alternatives

Survivability is always important. Early game Singed is weak to ganks and high damage opponents. These will help you early game with taking damage and let you be a little more aggressive for the early kill.
Getting chased but they can't keep up and you can't kill them? This solves both. You lose your movement speed quints but you gain a significant amount of AP in the process.

NOTE: While we do have our runes built for both survivability and damage, it is important to remember that surviving the fight is ALWAYS more important than AP. If you can't stay alive, you can't win the match.

Tank Singed

Our Greater Mark of Magic Penetration is a basic necessity. It grants us the magic penetration necessary to boost our Poison Trail and Fling. It also allows that damage to hit hard, even if we haven't build our AP items yet

The Greater Seal of Defense and greater Greater Glyph of shielding are our basic durability boosters. They are cheap and keep early game harassment from taking too large a toll.

For quintessences, Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed are the ultimate Singed rune. Normally, these are rather poor choices, but they stack amazingly well on Singed and allow for better kiting and escaping to keep you in the game.

Are there other options that could work well with Singed? Yes, and these are a few of the better alternatives:

Seal alternatives

Great if you feel you can lose some Mres and could use more mana for your farming and kiting.
greater seal of defense Good if you plan on building more Mres than armor and would like more starting armor to keep you viable.

Glyph alternatives
Excellent if you want to play more aggressively and would like to build more AP in the beginning
While this rune gives you more magic resistance late game, the early game Mres is more important and therefore this rune is less useful in this case.

Quintessence alternatives
Greater Quintessence of Defense Much like the seals, if you can sacrifice some speed and would like to be more tanky, these will give you that boost to armor you need.
Good choice if you take a lot of early game damage and need a buffer to carry you through your build.
Another item to boost your AP to help put out damage with your Poison Trail.

Summoner Spells

Summoner Spells can be very variable depending on the team you are playing against and what your role is in your team composition. These are the spells that I find are the most useful based on how Singed is played.

Ghost is Singed's perfect spell. When it is used with Insanity Potion and Mega Adhesive, no one will be able to get away from you and it helps land that clutch Fling to finish off the final retreating enemy. I don't think there is any reason not to get Ghost when playing as Singed. It compliments him too well.

Ignite is that extra damage to let an enemy stay in your poison for too long. Let the opponent get too close, Fling them, land ignite, and let Poison Trail finish them off behind the tower as you laugh at them. This spell is more useful on AP Singed to deal just a little more damage to get the kill when you need it.

Cleanse is an extremely useful spell. Using Cleanse will let you get through hard CC to get to your opponent to initiate a fight or to catch the fleeing AP carry. This spell is more suited for tank singed but works well for both of these builds.

Flash can be useful but with all your speed and slowing ability, it's not as useful as on other champions. If you are going to use it, you will need to understand the advantages you lose by doing so.

Exhaust can be useful in team fights and when you need to catch up to an enemy but you already have your built-in slow. Still a viable option if you want to lock down one champion while your team takes them out behind you. As such, this is better for tanky Singed to help secure kills for your team. As Singed already has Mega Adhesive for single targets in lane, it isn't necessary.

If there are some other spells you want to use, by all means feel free, but you need to remember the context of the team and remember that these spells allow for the most useful Singed player.

Ability Explanation

A great passive that, with this build, give you upwards of 500 health. This lets us build a little bit more mana in the beginning without sacrificing too much health.

No matter what situation you are in while playing, this ability is your bread and butter. You can deal great damage to every enemy in the game AND you can zone people out just by running around properly. To top it off, late game you'll have enough mana to basically leave it on all the time, just to add that little bit of trolling to playing Singed. Remember that Poison Trail only stays around for a few seconds so don't get too far ahead of your target when trying to kite.

This ability is Singed's escape method in hairy situations as well as his way of catching up to fleeing opponents. It lets you push well early game while being very forgiving to overextension. I think it's one of the biggest slows in the game at 75%. The best part of Mega Adhesive is that it cannot be cleansed. This means that it will work as long as the character is on top of it and players like Gankplank can't just use scurvy to get away. Be sure to place it where an enemy is GOING to be and not where they are to maximize the slow.

This is my favorite move that Singed has. It lets you screw with the enemy's positioning and deals high amounts of damage in the process. When playing as Singed, remember that those throws into the tower, especially for early game casters, spells instant death. This is our initiation ability. Remember that throwing every champion into your midst is not the best thing to do. See the Fling chapter for a better explanation.

This ability is your kiter. Get in a team fight, throw this bad boy on, and watch as the whole team tries to chase you down as your team picks them off. It give an amazing boost to all his stats and will last through just about all of your team fights. Using this and Ghost basically will guarantee your success at catching anyone you desire due to the massive speed boost but also how long it is sustained. Basic mantra of Singed should be "If you need to be stronger, use insanity potion".

Ability Sequence

AP Singed

For AP Singed we want a point in Fling first, then Poison Trail, and finally Mega Adhesive. After that point you level up your ultimate first, Poison Trail second, Fling third, and finally Mega Adhesive gets leveled up last. Always level up this way.

A good way to remember this is Insanity Potion> Poison Trail> Fling> Mega Adhesive

Tank Singed

Our tank build is just the same but we want to get our utility skill, Mega Adhesive, leveled up faster than our Fling. Since we aren't focused on damaging with Fling, one point at level one will do before leveling up the rest of our abilities.

The order should be: Insanity Potion> Poison Trail> Mega Adhesive> Fling

NOTE: I have been asked by several people why theability sequence is different and I would like to elaborate. As AP Singed your goal is to deal as much damage as fast as possible. Leveling up Fling first allows you to do this and stacks with your early AP. On the other hand, Tank Singed is made to throw your enemy into your team and get the assists without dying. This means that the Mega Adhesive, which gives you better utility as you level it up, is the better choice. Both options are strong with either build but this particular set up allows for the best fit in your team.

AP Singed Items

AP Singed is centered around building AP while also giving us a bit of survivability so we have time to put it out. Our first item to be built should be our Boots of Swiftness. These will allow you to be faster than the enemy and keep them further away from you to give you that buffer zone to farm well early on. THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST TO STAY VIABLE AGAINST FAST OPPONENTS. Some players use Sapphire Crystal as a starter but I have found that you are too slow and take more hits than needed, which shuts down your farming.

Before we finish our boots, we should rush our catalyst the protector to keep us from running low on mana. Then we should get sorceror's shoes to give us some more magic penetration and a little more movement speed.

The RoA is something we need to completely build early in the game. Since it takes 10 mins for it to stack to its full effectiveness, the earlier we can finish it the better. It gives us a little bit of all the basic needs we have: AP, mana, health, and a boost whenever you level up.

Getting this early on in the build just keeps us from being shot down while trying to poison our enemies and gives us the health regen to keep out in the field instead of having to run back home.

Rylai's gives us everything we want at this point of the game: health, AP, and a decent slow to hold down enemies as we run clouds around them. You couldn't ask for a better fit to this build right now.

This item lets us break down the enemy and put out more damage. With the extra 70 AP and 57 magic resist, we make it easier to run through the enemy team and the aura on it lets your poison reach out and hit a little harder.

Rabadon's is our final item for a reason. If the game has made it this far, it's time to end it with a bang. The AP boost this gives is enormous, giving you 140 AP and then a 30% boost to your total AP. A great item for that final push to finish the enemy off.

Tank Singed Items

For Tank Singed, we are going to build for early game sustain and late game AP carry. To start off with we want Boots of Speed, one Health Potion, and one Mana Potion. This gives us the speed to keep farming and keep the enemy back while allowing us to sustain health and mana, because Singed is very mana hungry early game. The rest of the build is focused on getting our survivability up while allowing for maximum chasing and team control. Realize that this reflects opponents choices and the team needs, so this build WILL NOT always be the best. Make sure to build to your needs in terms of armor and magic resist to counter the AD or AP carries. I will add the decision process to help you figure out what items to get, when after I finish perfecting the other sections of this guide.

Our first item to be built should be our Boots of Swiftness. These will allow you to be faster than the enemy and keep them further away from you to give you that buffer zone to farm well early on. THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST TO STAY VIABLE AGAINST FAST OPPONENTS.

When we first go back we should finish our boots first. While there are several good choices, Mercury's Treads are the most universally useful. They offer some early magic resistance and also increase our tenacity. This is very helpful because you will be the focus of the enemy CC when trying to initiate or run through the enemy.

The RoA is something we need to completely build early in the game. Since it takes 10 mins for it to stack to its full effectiveness, the earlier we can finish it the better. It gives us a little bit of all the basic needs we have: AP, mana, health, and a boost whenever you level up.

is a necessity in almost every situation. Building a Banshee's Veil allows for the early game mana and health boost we need as well as giving us one of the best tank skill in the game: we can block the initiating attack in most fights. This means stuns and slows usually get knocked out and allow us to keep tanking while the other team follows behind. This can be replaced with Rod of Ages if you don't have any AP carries to deal with or any major stuns.

NOTE: Rush this when playing against your AP casters with a lot of CC. This will keep you from getting locked down

This gives us some health and health regen to keep in the field, but also gives us more movement speed, which makes us that much more dangerous in a team fight.
NOTE: If you are suffering a lot of early hits, you may want to take the Regrowth Pendant that builds into Force of Nature to help sustain better before you build Rod of Ages or Banshee's Veil.

Rylai's is a wonderful item for Singed. With Poison Trail, it offers great crowd control and gives both health and AP to boost your damage output and survivability.

Rabadon's is our final item for a reason. If the game has made it this far, it's time to end it with a bang. The AP boost this gives is enormous, giving you 140 AP and then a 30% boost to your total AP. A great item for that final push to finish the enemy off.
NOTE: This can also be replaced with another tank item if there is a need for it.

Most of the build is situational. IF you are using this guide, you need to understand when to build more AP and when to build more Armor or Mres. I will make a section on this later and update the alternatives after I finish refining other parts of the guide.

Alternative Items

This section is made to help you understand what to build, when. The item builds above are by no means perfect because every game you play will be different. In this section we will talk about how to build according to the enemy team's structure and your team's needs.

These items are not meant to be the only items you should use, but more a guide to what type of items will work best in different situations. This section is split into a few main categories of things you might come across and need some help in. Without further ado, here they are:

Heavy CC (stuns, snares, slows, etc.)

Mercury's Treads: These boots are great if the enemy team is AP heavy with a lot of CC. They give you magic resist with a Tenacity bonus to help reduce the enemy's ability to slow you down.

Banshee's Veil: This is probably the best CC item for Singed, especially tanky Singed. You can block one shot every 45 seconds. You can take CC for a teammate like Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow or Caitlin's Ace in the Hole without a scratch or you can keep that stun from ruining your Fling opportunity. It also gives you some good Mres, health, and mana.

Moonflair Spellblade: I put this in here because it can work as a cheap tenacity boost. It sgves you some ability power as well but is probably not the best option.

Quicksilver Sash: Great item if you know how to use it. It gives you a good amount of Mres and can remove multiple debuffs every 90 seconds. Great against teams with a lot of CC.

AP Heavy Team

Aegis of the Legion: This is a good item if AP casters are hurting your team in team fights. Gives you some health, Mres, and armor but also boosts your team near you with its aura. Recommend getting it if you are staying alive but your team needs some more survivability.

Chalice of Harmony: Great if you need a little Mres boost and find yourself low on mana early game. Should be considered more of a temporary item to help the transition from early game to late game.

AD Heavy Team

Frozen Heart: great if you have some attack speed champions like Vayne or Master Yi. Not only does it give you armor but it also reduces their attack speed, giving you a little advantage in fights.

Ninja Tabi: These are great if you don't need the Boots of Swiftness or mercury's tread and want to stop those AD carries. Gives a little armor and reduces incoming damage by 10%.

Randuin's Omen: While I don't get this item very often, it gives you a little bit of everything. On top of its initial stats, it has a great passive and active for stopping AD carries. The passive gives a chance to slow any attacker by 35% and the active slows attack speed and movement speed based on how much armor and magic resist you have. Great if you want to be able to lock down a team fight while your team massacres the enemy.

Zhonya's Hourglass: This is a wonderful item, especially for AP Singed. If you find yourself getting focused early in a team fight, get this and it helps your damage output, armor and its active is amazing. The active grants you invulnerability for 2 seconds while you are immobile. This can work well if the enemy has a lot of burst damage and you get focused, forcing them to waste their abilities while your team attacks, then you get right back in and continue to fight.

Fling Targets and Uses

Singed's Fling is great. It can disrupt enemy ultimates, displace the enemy and save an ally. This section is focused on explaining who to fling and when to do it.

Disruption

One of the best uses of Fling is when it is used to disrupt ultimates. In team fights, it is best to either save your Fling for high CC or damage abilities that channel or can be disrupted. So what characters and abilities should you look out for?

Nunu Absolute Zero
Malzahar Nether Grasp
Warwick Infinite Duress
Karthus Requiem
NOTE: Cannot be stopped while Death Defied is active
Miss Fortune Make it Rain
Katarina Death Lotus
Fiddlesticks Drain and Crowstorm
NOTE: Drain can be interrupted by getting Fiddlesticks away from his target and Crowstorm can only be interrupted during the channel. DO NOT FLING FIDDLESTICKS INTO YOUR TEAM WITH CROWSTORM ACTIVE

Jarvin also can be tossed out of his Cataclysm if you are in it but this isn't quite the same as the above abilities.

People you want to Fling

These are champions that you want in the middle of your team for a quick kill. They represent mainly carries and should be the focus of your engagement especially if you are going to initiate the fight. Some champions haven't been chosen due to their CC and AoE abilities, which makes them less ideal.

High Priority
These champions are the easiest to control and take down after the fling and should be the highest priority when you focus:
Ashe While her slow is annoying, once she is in the middle of the team she can't do too much
Heimerdinger Nothing without his team and turrets
Lux Her snare can be a problem but if she is in the middle of the team, it doesn't matter
Evelynn Once she's out of her stealth and focused, she can't do anything
Karma Just a lowly support. She can't stand against the whole team for long.
Miss Fortune Her damage output is high but her survivability is too low to stand against a fling focus.
Malzahar The faster you can prevent him from his damage, the faster the enemy team will die afterwards.
Caitlyn Has no escape mechanism to get her away from you.
Veigar If you can get him out of position and throw his burst out of the window, you seriously detriment the other teams damage output.
Ziggs Get rid of that annoying bomb.
Xerath Hurry and kill him before he ults

Low Priority
These champs are slightly harder to control and have abilities or characteristics that make them less desirable but should still be focused if there are no higher priority targets.
Anivia Her AoE can do damage but you should be able to kill her before she does too much. The reason she is low priority is because of her passive.
Graves His ult thrives on you being close together but still doesn't have the survivability to do too much to you
Karthus You don't want Karthus's passive active while you try to kill the rest of the team
Kog'Maw Has some serious damage output and Icathian Surprise will rape your whole team
Morgana She has some serious CC and is quite tanky late game.
Orianna Her ultimate can be bad if everyone is stunned. Try to get her before she can ult.
Ryze The closer together you are, the more his abilities can bounce. Still very squishy
Sivir Her Spell Shield makes her less than ideal to fling. You'll just be helping her.
Teemo Bane of your existence. Just try to get him before he gets too much poison out there.
Twitch Ultimate can be hard-hitting but is a glass cannon
Vayne Can stun you with her arrow or can Tumble out.
Viktor His abilities are all powerful and can hit the whole team. Just avoid getting hit too hard before you commit.

There are other targets that still are good to fling into your team but these are most of the high priority people to look for.

DO NOT FLING

These champions are a horrible choice for Fling. You are just helping them or hurting your team by doing it. There are a few exceptions to these but as a general rule, this works pretty well.

Amumu You just helped him. He'll just use his Curse of the Sad Mummy and wipe your team out.
Alistar Has enough survivability to do it and enough CC to do it well.
Galio Just going to Idol of Durand while their team falls over you.
Garen Not going to spell automatic doom but he can spin to win and survive long enough for his team to get there.
Singed Insanity Potion and shrug it off.
Skarner He'll pull someone away as you try to kill him.
Rammus Defensive roll and ult while his team kills you.
Volibear He's un-bear-ably hard to kill but it can be done...kinda.
Wukong Just will pop his ult and kill you off.

Team Work

After the laning phase, your job as both AP Singed and Tank Singed is very similar. For tanky singed we are focused on initiating the fight and flinging a weak character to our teammates. The champion you choose should be according to the section above. To do this, you need to decide who to pick and who not to focus on. It will probably be the AP carry or AD carry depending on the game. Then you need to get in the fight. Activate your Poison Trail. Throwing out Mega Adhesive is a great way to split the team apart as you Fling your target into the fight. At this point in time the enemy will do one of two things: they will sacrifice their teammate and run or they will turn and try to save their teammate. Both work in your favor.
If they turn to fight, you should run straight through them and try to set a large cloud of poison all around the whole team. This maximizes how much damage you do as well as acting as a distraction as your team picks them apart. If a squishy character is running away, you might try to chase them and fling them back towards your team. Remember to always be aware of the team needs. If Nunu is using his ult, Fling him and stop it from bursting and killing your whole team. If Master Yi is mindlessly bashing Morgana in the back, throw him away and squirt some poison in his face. You should be the rock around which your team is moving.
As AP Singed there should be a couple differences. You should let your main tank initiate to avoid being focused early and should also focus on landing your Fling on the lowest health enemies. It should be dealing massive damage and you need to try and finish them off with it to avoid them getting away.
If the enemy abandons their teammate, the plan becomes very simple: kill their teammate and set up for the next attack.

One aspect of Singed that allows for quick kills is his ability to roam. With his speed, you can be everywhere and support the whole team. After the initial laning phase, you should try to move between the lanes and give support where it is needed. You can save a teammate or gank an enemy. As Singed you should be most aware of your game and keep your team communicating and alive.

Summary

Singed is a great character and is underutilized in League of Legends. Hopefully, I have given you some good ideas and information to get you through the basics of Singed. Have fun and play hard!

Realize that this build is in progress and if there is anything I forgot, PLEASE TELL ME!!! I want to know how to make this the best possible.