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Runes: Standard against Melee
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Threats & Synergies
Akali
Your main objective here is survive, so you can build an early null magic mantle+ruby crystal to survive her lv6 burst. There's not much you can do besides trying to play aggro during early game to chunk her and negate her all-in. You need to freeze the lane in front of your tower because you can't approach the wave in the middle if she has ult. After you get Everfrost it becames a lot more manageable.
Udyr
Bruiser junglers with CC are perfect with Neeko.
Udyr
Bruiser junglers with CC are perfect with Neeko.
Champion Build Guide
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Since then I've been in love with the champion and all the things she can do. If you want to play
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Some information I included I got from practice, some from watching good players. I don't perfect every concept I'll discuss here, because if I did, I would be rank 1 in the ladder. See this guide as a guide. It is still up to you to practice and apply to your own games. I'll add more information and video examples with time.
Right now I am leveling my only account in silver elo because well... my other accounts are in a kind of a long vacation, but I assure you, I'm reformed now and I write this guide as an very act of reformation, and I'll be glad If I can help the people of the community.
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Toplane
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On the other hand, neeko faces heavy competition from other champions who can fill these niches. Why play tank
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Why no one plays Neeko?
Neeko is not exactly hard to pick up for new players, but she's frustrating for many people because she has a LOT of counterplay, demands agressive and proactive play while being difficult to execute, abilities can feel clunky to use and out of synergy. For comparison, imagine the gameplay of a popular champ. E.g
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NEEKO ABILITIES OVERVIEW
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Q - ![]() ![]() |
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W - ![]() |
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E - ![]() |
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R - ![]() ![]() |
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The best (and most bugged{second most after viego got released actually})and more fun passive in the game,![]() ![]() ![]() |
CHOOSING YOUR PLAYSTYLE/ADAPTATION
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BURST MAGE NEEKO
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Burst Mage ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
PEEL/ANTI MELEE MAGE NEEKO
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While the burst mage build looks to engage agressively, this variation's main goal is to make the life of enemy assassins and bruisers difficult. Your laning is still strong and you have potential to make some agressive plays, but not to the extend of the burst mage playstyle. You 1v1ing and sidelaning is a bit stonger due to the fact that ![]() ![]() ![]() |
AD/HYPER CARRY NEEKO
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AD ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
FRINGE PLAYSTYLES
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Ultless trade: (stack W empowered auto) E + Q + auto(empowered).
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Your main combo pre-6. You'll want to empower your E through minions to give more sucess.
Unexpected Burst: (stack W empowered auto) Q + auto(empowered) + Ignite(optional)
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This is a combo that you can use to finish off low hp targets especially if you take
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Quick Root(E Buffer): E + Flash
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Useful for surprising enemies and make your E harder to react to.
Confident ult: R + E + Q > R + E + Flash + Q
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A combo to use against close targets if you know that you'll land your E to prevent their escape. Risky combo so be careful. The variation is a teamfighting combo with great value, remember to approach people with
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Standard catch: E + R + Q
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This is your one shot combo for laning phase, you'll have to empower your E for it to work.
Cute Combo and The Cutest Combo: Disguise + R + Protobelt + Q + E >> Disguise + R + Flash + Protobelt + Q + E
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Your main teamfighting combo for flanking and initiation. Expect to get many triple and quadra kills from this. The longer you can wait before the Flash +
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AFK Combo: Everfrost + Q + R + E
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Your main peeling combo with the
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TRICKS AND MECHANICS
- Q has bit of extra range if you're clicking at the edge of the circle indicator, if your cursor leaves it, you'll move to use the ability. If you're able to use it in smart cast without indicator your combos will be faster and you may land more Qs, but you need to practice it a lot.
Spoiler: Click to view
Spoiler: Click to view
- E like other abilities can still connects even if it passes a bit on the side of the opponent.
Spoiler: Click to view
- You can get bonus stats from
Inherent Glamour disguise: Base health regeneration, base attack speed and base movement speed. You can lower your ranged but not gain range. You can get the melee status disguising as one, for the purposes of bonus damage to turret plates and [[Grasp of the Undying] benefits. You'll want to disguise as the ally with the highest movespeed to roam the map/get to lane faster.
Example of champions with high HR:Vi,
Pantheon,
Qiyana,
Sylas,
Lillia
Base attack speed:Amumu,
Zac,
Yasuo,
Dr. Mundo,
Nocturne
Movement speed:Master Yi,
Jax,
Kha'Zix,
Shaco,
Shyvana
- You can escape ganks with W if you run in a direction, send your W clone there and run the other way. The typical way to use this is to send your clone in the direction of your turret and run in the direction of the river.
- You can prevent yourself from taking turret shots with your W clone. The same applies for minions so you can push faster.
Spoiler: Click to view
- You also can get good flanks using Hexflash over walls WHILE disguised then comboing after. In this case, you need to use a hotkey for your passive.
- You can block skills with your W clone. Like Nunu's
Biggest Snowball Ever! and Kled's
Chaaaaaaaarge!!!. You can also stay behind it when walking foward to block skills like Zoe's
Sleepy Trouble Bubble and Ahri's
Charm.
- You can prevent targeted skills and auto attacks from hitting you by making them lose target if you use W during their initial animation.
- You can use W to safely facecheck bushes and activate traps like Caitlyn's
Yordle Snap Trap and Teemo's
Noxious Trap.
Spoiler: Click to view
- You can use E during W invisibility to catch opponnents by surprise, even more useful after leaving bushes invisible.
- You can use your passive while invisible with W to mislead your opponents/hide your healthbar/gain bonus movement speed to escape.
- You can engage with R > Blast cone.
Spoiler: Click to view
What to Ban
Mid Lane
![]() | Hard counter to Neeko due to all her range and annoying abilities, also one of the most popular long range mages so if you don't like mirror mage matchups this is going to be your ban. |
![]() | Luckly, good Qiyana players are rare, but her mobility and high burst make counterplay against her quite difficult. You need to play very careful once she hits level 6. |
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A very popular champ that also counters Neeko. ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Probably the hardest counter to Neeko top. In midlane, at least you can spam your abilities and back off because the lane is short, but in the toplane she can combo and run you down pretty easily. At level 6 if you are in her R range you're half dead already and using your ultimate will make it worse as it will only serve to lock yourself in place for her to finish you off, giving all the ways she has to avoid it. Champ's also quite tanky so even if you manage to land a ![]() |
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Very similiar to Akali, but at least you can protect yourself with your ult to gain some time, she doesn't scale well and is harder to play than ![]() |
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This is my personal ban list, I notice that a lot of mid mains in general struggle against
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Laning
To understand how to lane better, you need to go through some basic general concepts/fundamentals, especially if you play midlane. Things you need to know about are basic wave management, spacing and vision. They sound simple but if you can really know to apply these concepts and use them right you'll reach the top of the ladder. Many people nowadays have already heard of them, but it still helpful to review them.
Wave Management
The first concept to understand is the even minion rule. It implies that if there's a equal number of red and blue minions colliding, the wave will automatically push in the direction of the most distant turret. That's because the minion wave with the closest tower arrive sooner. I'll post some examples of these techniques, the videos may be a bit laggy because I have bad specs, can't do much about that unfortunately.
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You can clearly see that the enemy wave has the closest turret, the enemy minions arrive sooner and overpower my minions, automatically pushing against me.
Based on this, you can control minion waves to put you in a good spot to deny farm to your opponent, harass or kill them. Per example, in this video, the wave is in a good spot for me because my minions are dying, thus denying my opponent's farm, and if my opponent and me trade kills, I'll get more benefit.
Freezing occurs when you let the enemy minions alive and let them overpower your own minions, but at the same time you do not let them reach your turret.
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It is tipically used when ahead, to make your opponent lose farm even if they play safe, to setup ganks and all-ins. You can also adopt this to play safe yourself, as it makes you difficult to gank and all-in and also makes it easier to farm. You need to kill just enough minions to avoid the crash, you can also tank the wave a bit if you can. This technique is a bit difficult to master but you get used to it. The freezing in this example itself was not perfect.
Slow pushing occurs when you have the lane control and start to kill enemy minions slowly. More of your minions will arrive and create a big minion wave.
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You use this when you want to go to base, wants to setup dives, harrass under tower or surprise all in before the wave crashes to make your opponent miss a huge amount of exp and farm.
Fast pushing occurs when you kill the enemy minions as fast as possible to crash your wave to the enemy tower.
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Remember that these tactics are more easy applied in toplane because the lane is longer so you have more space to manage the waves.
Spacing
Spacing can be explained as a broader term for kiting. Basically, every champion in league has a zone of influence defined by the range of their abilities and auto attacks. Spacing consists in playing around that zone of influence to avoid your opponent abilities and hit them with yours. Ideally, you want to be inside your zone of influence, while being outside of your opponent's.
As a Ranged toplaner, most of the times you gonna have a larger zone of influence than your opponent, but you'll mainly pay attention to the most dangerous ability of the opponent. If I'm against
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However, if you're playing AD
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Spacing has a greater impact in the midlane and is what makes good
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Other Aspects of Laning
You don't need to have impeccable vision to climb in soloQ, but anything that can increase your winrate is worth learning. Most common warding spots for toplane are these:
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Pink wards = Red side/Green wards = Blue side
- Defensive wards used to anticipate dives. It's very easy and common to get dove in the toplane and most of the times you will need to give the exp and cs of the minion wave because outplaying multi man dives is difficult(Don't worry that much if you're below diamond though).
- Defensive wards to prevent cheeses, especially at early levels. Most
Darius and
Urgot mains will hide in these bushes expecting you to walk foward to all-in you. Warding these bushes is also useful to prevent lane ganks, however rare, many toplaners don't expect them.
- Wards to place if you're in the middle of the lane so you have enough time to respond to ganks.
- Wards to place when you're playing agressive. These are mostly "outplay wards" because if you're this extended you'll not be able to run away and may resort to a desperate play to kill your oponent or buy time trying to escape through their jungle.
- Deep wards to track the enemy jungler and know their intention ahead of time. Can help coordinate counter-ganks and 2v2s with your jungler. Go for these when you just pushed your lane, have wards and don't know what to do.
- Utility ward that you place when roaming mid, your midlaner will like it.
You should only buy
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Farming is the most basic aspect of the laning and people talk about it a lot, but still can't do it efficiently. I'd say that if you ignore 80% of the teamfights and focus on farming instead, you'll climb. You can be terrible at the game, but if you focus on farming, you'll be strong every game and able to carry without thinking much, especially in low elo. If you are in Bronze, Silver and Gold and are able to get 6.5cs/min every game you will climb automatically.
Neeko laning and midgame overview
Every playstyle of
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In the midgame you can either split push or group with your team looking for picks and fighting for objectives. If you are AD or have
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Playing from Behind
If you lost your lane or your team is feeding, your main focus will be reducing the gold deficity as much as you can, that means:
- Not forcing even numbered fights. Instead, play around getting picks on vulnerable enemies, wait for them to throw.
- Farming as much as possible. You don't want to pick most fights when behind, so you main focus will be grabing side lanes waves and jungle camps.
- If you feel like your team comp is better (scale more, more range, good meta picks, has particular counters and balanced classes), don't desperate and try to stick together, many people tilt thinking that they are losing, when their team comp is just better and the win will come naturally.
- Don't drag down or tilt your team, especially if they are winning. Some games you'll just get carried, that's normal. Don't force anything dangerous, just do your task.
- If you get flamed, don't discuss or respond, it is not worth. /mute and play your game. Rarely you will learn something in these discussions.
- Try to get vision in objectives before attemping to contest, avoid facechecking them when you don't see enemies on the map. Don't overvaluate them. If the enemy is getting their third dragon, don't kill yourself over it if you're behind, play to get back to the game so you can contest the 4th.
- If you are ahead and your team is feeding, don't forget the game still 5v5. Don't try to 1v5 and give shutdowns to enemy. You'll always play around your team, even when they're behind. Always pick unfair fights and shotcall for your team.
Teamfighting as Neeko
Your teamfighting style will vary depending on your
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Neeko Late Game
Many players say that
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![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() With her being a agressive early game champion, ![]() If your playstyle is more team-oriented and safe, or you're playing tank neeko, or even if you feel like you simply won't kill your opponent, take ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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RUNE TREES
PRECISION
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DOMINATION
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The
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SORCERY
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RESOLVE
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INSPIRATION
Inspiration keystones are not exactly bad for
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Boots
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The prime choice for the AP Playstyle, Ideally you'll want to rush this every game, as the base damage values of Neeko are really high, the boost in power will be substantial. I don't remember ever taking other type of boots for AP ![]() |
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Your typical rush item when going AD/onhit variations. Enables you to kite your opponents better, especially in matchups like ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Situational boots to take in the toplane against auto-attack based champions that have ways to reach you in laning phase, like ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Very very situational in the midlane. Many people defend the use of this boots against CC and AP heavy comps for obvious reasons, I really think you should only take it against ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Only taken against ![]() ![]() |
MAGE PLAYSTYLE
Mythics
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This mythic is simply fantastic for Neeko, even more now that they added more magic penetration to it. The build path allows for you to have a very nasty powerspike with ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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The ultimate item for making the lives of melee players miserable. If you think you're not able to carry the game by yourself and need to focus on peeling for other carries, or if you find a fed assassin/bruiser in the enemy team and need a better chance against them, ![]() ![]() |
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Considered by most OG Neeko mains a noob bait, Luden's indeed is not that great. Rocketbelt offers a similiar burst potential while enabling good initiations and a bit of survivability, imo the item is completely outclassed. Without hitting ult, AP Neeko is just a worse version of ![]() ![]() |
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In general, I consider ![]() |
Legendaries
![]() | One of the most broken items in the game and almost always worth to purchase as 2nd or 3rd item. Basically it makes almost impossible to itemize against you because you will oneshot squishies even if they stack MR. And contrary to what most people think, the item is still good against targets without MR due to the fact that it is cheap and can be bought after hextech rocketbelt and sorcery shoes to give a whopping 29/40% magic penetration, which will make you deal true damage to targets without magic resistence. |
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A very popular item for ![]() ![]() |
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The biggest powerspike of most AP champions. Ideally you want it as a 3rd or 4th item after ![]() ![]() |
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A incredibly underrated item, ![]() ![]() |
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AD/ONHIT PLAYSTYLE
Mythics
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The main mythic of this playstyle. It offers the most damage out of the ADC mythics and the 3-hit passive has good synergy with ![]() |
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Not as powerfull as Kraken Slayer, this item is mostly built as a defensive tool vs a assassin enemy comp. If they have per exemple ![]() ![]() |
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Legendaries
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The typical third item of the AD build and a powespike equivalent to that of ![]() |
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This is a situational item against tankier comps, If you feel like you don't do enough damage with Kraken Slayer then you can build this item 3rd and delay your ![]() |
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Often built for the utility of grievous wounds and as a cheap way to get critical chance. It is a situational item, you don't really need it if your team has any of the others anti-healing items. If you're sidelaning against a champion with a lot of healing then it may be better to buy an early ![]() |
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A very good item to pair with ![]() |
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Often your final item and a way to stall lategame teamfights so your teammates can come to your aid. Most adcs build this with a good reason, it can buy even more time than ![]() |
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TANK PLAYSTYLE
The tank playstyle is almost never played by Neeko mains but imo is quite underrated. I'll just list a quick overview of what you can build and you can experiment with what you want, you may get surprised!
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If you have the mentality to get better and climb, go for it, but if you don't have, there's no point ruining your own mental health so don't beat yourself over it. This is just a guide, so you still need to forge your own path and apply all the knowledge you may have gained, that's for sure the hardest part.
I struggle with the English language, so any corrections are heavily appreciated.
Lastly, I'll leave this toplane bingo here to show you some common occurrences when you play ranged top. And also some players that I recommend you to watch and learn from if you want.
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I rarely play Neeko support so I can't help support players much. That's why I recommend https://www.twitch.tv/btanglol .For those who want to learn to play Neeko in this role this guy is the best out there. He typically streams at 7:30 PM PST and you can also join his discord if you want to talk with him, he even offers free coaching.
If you like the Burst Mage
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Thanks for reading, I hope I was able to help you learn something.
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