Sivir Build Guide by jjvincenzo

UPDATES

October 2nd 2012: Small update to Pros/Cons regarding her rarity on the competitive NA scene today compared to some other ADCs.

October 24th 2012: Changes made to the Summoner Spells and Item Build sections regarding Cleanse and Quicksilver Sash.

Item Build

Start:

With Alistar or Taric: (because they can set up easy Boomerang Blade hits.

With anyone else: + x3

Early goals: x2 + +

Before you go back for your first buy, try to farm up ~1400 gold so you can buy everything above plus and sight ward.

Mid game goals: + + INTO + (optional, do not build it if you get Guardian Angel).

I find that getting Negatron Cloak before finishing your Phantom Dancer versus double AP (ability power) to be better because, well, you don't do damage when you're dead XD. Do not get Negatron Cloak if you are planning on building Guardian Angel or the enemy team does not have sufficient AP.

End game situational goals: OR OR + +

Pick your defensive item carefully. You can have more than one, but that just takes away from your damage output. Try to choose the one that best absorbes the enemy damage or that best suites your in game needs.

Introduction

Hello community, I'm Private Smackaho and this, is my Sivir guide.

This guide is going to highlight how good Sivir really is aswell as hopefully make you a better player. As an AD carry, Sivir has the potential to be a strong hypercarry and one of the best Solo-queue champions around.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Exceptional early/mid game burst potential.
- Very strong with Taric or Alistar in the bottom lane.
- Great team-fighting ultimate.
- Amazing chase and escape mechanisms.
- Good zoning tool in Ricochet.
- One of the best defensive abilities in the game in Spell Shield.
- Great for Solo-queue.

Cons:

- Hard to play due to the fact that as ADC you don't usually initiate.
- No escape mechanism, so Flash is a must.
- Not as common as say Graves or Corki due to their kits.
- Countered by range and harass from champions like Caitlyn and late game Tristana.
- Mid range AP carries like Ryze can hurt your effectiveness.
- Spell Shield is very high skill-cap and requires alot of practice to perfect.
- Her ultimate makes her an initiator, which requires alot of balls as an AD carry.

Counters in and out of the Laning Phase

Caitlyn:

It's great the you can get free mana from her Yordle Snap Trap and it's easy to block Piltover Peacemaker with Spell Shield but her range is what really kills you. Just try to hit your Boomerang Blade on her when she tries to harass you to scare her off.

Tristana:

Great harass out of her and she scales the same as Sivir into late game, except her range grows which makes it difficult to fight her 1v1 late game.

Ryze:

Self explanatory, if you step into his cast range, you must block the Rune Prison or face half your health dissapearing.

Masteries

Standard 21 down the offense tree, but the other 9 can be swapped around depending on the summoners you take which will be explained.

Runes

For runes, try to focus on early damage output and lane survivability.

+

Greater Marks of Strength x9 + Greater Quintessences of Strength x3

- Great for easy last hitting and the early damage output which works well on Sivir.

+

Greater Seals of Resilience x9 + Greater Glyphs of Shielding x9

- These help you trade with the opposite number in lane and gives you more general survivability.
*NOTE: If you notice the enemy AD isn't running the 13 bonus armor from the seals, exchange as much as possible because you will mostly come out on top.


Not very many alternatives, but if you really don't need early AD, you can try greater quintessence of desolation x3 for extra armor penetration.

Summoner Spells

This is Chaox's (AD Carry for Team Solo Mid of the North American Server) explanation for Summoner Spells on AD carries in general. I used this exerpt because he does a beautiful job of explaining it.

Explanation:

+

Flash is absolutely necessary to make plays and manage situations.

Only 3 other Summoner Spells are viable at the moment: Ignite, Heal and Cleanse.

> : For obvious reasons. But Ignite is usually taken on your support if it's an aggressive support such as Taric. But if you're in an aggressive lane such as Alistar/ Sona and they have Clairvoyance/ Flash or Exhaust/ Flash, you always have the option of running Ignite. (Don't forget to pick the mastery)

> : If you take Heal and the enemy AD takes Cleanse, then you can always try and force exchanges, because you will win in a full-on engagement. By constantly forcing trades, you will end up pushing them out of the lane. Run Heal most of the time, even without the 10% masteries, since missing out on 20% Buff Duration is a bit too much to pay.

*NOTE

Taking Cleanse and buying Quicksilver Sash may seem like overkill and against most team comps it is, but if they enemies are running lots of CC, assasins or just scary things that may impact your ability to deal damage, getting both isn't always a bad idea.



> : Even though they are fairly even in the laning phase, the usefulness which Cleanse brings into late-game is just unrivaled, being able to break all incoming CC (crowd control) is a dream for all AD's. Like Heal, I run Cleanse without the masteries.

Skill Sequence with Explanation

General skill order:

> > >

Situational skill order for passive lane:

From levels 1-4

- - -

A passive Sivir lane would mean having Sona or Soraka as a support or being up against someone like Caitlyn. After level 4, follow the general skill order like so:

Explanations:

On the Hunt:

Sivir ultimate is game breaking. It gives your entire team Ghost.. can you imagine having 3 summoners against 2?

A common misconception about On The Hunt is that it's an Aura, it's not. On The Hunt spreads to nearby allies and they acquire the buff for as long as Sivir has it.

On The Hunt is a great tool to set up ganks, especially if a Caitlyn is camped right outside your tower. It's also great for diving, towers, dragon and baron.

On The Hunt is why it's so easy for anyone to carry a team in Solo Queue, because Sivir can choose when to initiate. If you see an out of position enemy, use On The Hunt (go-code for the team), the team kills this enemy off the bat, and then they are on full retreat 5v4 against a Sivir ultimate? Easy teamfight.

For new players, it might be daunting to initiate fights with On The Hunt, but it's a very important skill to acquire, knowing when to fight and seizing the moment without hesitation.

Boomerang Blade:

Boomerang Blade is a great skill-shot nuke:
- Can clear waves along with Ricochet which makes farming and pushing simple.
- Does insane amounts of single target damage if it double hits one target.

Do not throw out random Boomerang Blades that have very low chances of hitting, since they eat away at your mana especially during the laning phase; landing one or two will win you the lane.

There are two ways to land them effectively:
- Land them after a CC such as Taric Dazzle - easy.
- Land them when your enemies are going for the last hit - hard.

Ricochet:

Ricochet is one of the best AD DPS (damage per second) abilities in the game. The only ability that rivals it is Vayne Tumble, which also resets auto-attack animation, although Ricochet doesn't have half as long animation as Vayne Tumble, which means Ricochet does more DPS than Tumble.

*NOTE: Being able to land an auto attack into Ricochet, into another AA is a MUST for all Sivir players, as the damage potential is crazily high once you buy an Infinity Edge.

Since Ricochet can hit crits (critical strikes which hit for 250% of your total AD with Infinity Edge), if you're lucky and get 2/3 crits on AA+ Ricochet+AA into a double hit on Boomerang Blade, you've likely one shotted someone (it's tons of fun :D).

Spell Shield

Spell Shield has a very high skill-cap in terms of usage. You can play a lot of mind-games, especially in the laning phase to get some free mana back.

The real reason Spell Shield is an amazing ability is because it can block infinite amounts of spells if the abilities are being blocked simultaneously, which create baiting opportunities.

Example: Pretend to facecheck into a brush with the enemy team inside, they use their CC on you once you get in range, but you use Spell Shield to block it all while using Flash to blink back into your team and using On The Hunt. Now your team is in a commanding lead for this teamfight, all of them are equipped with Ghost, while the enemies abilities are on cooldown.

Baiting with Spell Shield is more advanced, as long as you're using it in the middle of a team fight, chances are you're doing a lot.

Fleet of Foot

50 movement speed is great, and it synergizes well with On The Hunt and Phantom Dancer.

Take advantage of the speed buff, since the extra 2-3 AA's it allows may make all the difference in a kill.

Teamfights

Pick your teamfights carefully. Most fights should be easy because the fight should start when you're at a huge advantage due to catching someone off guard with On The Hunt. In teamfights you should hit the nearest target, because the only other AD that can out-dps you with equal farm is Vayne.

Stay safe, position well and do as much damage as you can do without dying.

Pretty simple stuff, but that's how you play AD :P.

Final comments

When you play Sivir, be a baws and remember to stay alive, farm, and dish out as much damage as you can all the time. It may not seem like it all the time, but always remember, On The Hunt is game changing.

Thanks for reading my guide and good luck, summoner!