This is my first guide on Mobafire! So bear with me, please!

I have no intention of explaining every single aspect of Twitch. Rather, I will try to show you how to use him to his best. So don't expect to understand this guide unless you have played the rat a few times and are getting the hang of it. I would recommend using another guide if you are starting Twitch (Use Let The Bodies Hit The Floor
By: Xaioli, its the best out there). So please, vote based on what I intend to do, not what I have not done!

This being said, I will not explain masteries or Runes. As I see it, this is up to you and won't affect the build enough as to having Twitch being played in a different way. I have tried utility, defense and offensive masteries, they all seem to work ok. I do however prefer the offensive build and perhaps so will you once you understand how I play it.


Once I learn how to post the item instead of just writing its name down, I'll update this guide!

Remember, you start winning or losing before you even load the game. If you have an unbalanced team, Twitch is useless. Only get him if your team needs a ranged carry or has enough support/tank.

PROS:
- Lots of fun
- Huge DPS
- Good ganker
- Great team fighter
- Not hard to play
- Stealth
- Inficlt paranoia on enemy team

CONS:
- Squishy
- Is focused on team fights
- Needs a smart lane partner (if laning)
- Requires patience
- Not such a good range
- Mana problems if using Expunge too often
- Gotta be smart, since he requires you to trick your opponent
- Knowledge on who to focus

I recomend Twitch only if you enjoy autoattacking over using skills. Otherwise he may seem stale.

It's really up to you. I think other guides cover this quite well, so I won't bother. I'll just explain why I choose Cleanse and Flash:

Cleanse: Everytime you miss step, get in front of your team, get ganked, etc. the enemy will throw CCs at you. If they do, you will die before you can even flash... Thats not nice! Cleanse will allow you to get free from those stuns and will cause your enemy to waste their crowd control. So cleanse away, hide in a bush and stealth! You might even save that flash for later.

Flash: Use it to jump over walls and stealth in safety! Use it to get into range to use your debilitating poison! Use to get behind your team mates in a moment! Enough?

I'm just gonna comment on one summoner spell: Revive

REVIVE: NO!

I don't think its important to explain the skill or the leveling up sequence. Check Xaioli's Twitch Guide for that!

However, it is important that you learn when and how powerful each of his skills are. So I will just post a few tips:

Deadly Venom: It does good damage early game. It is very useful for killing Tryndamere, as the stack continues on him when he endless rages. If he isn't careful, the rage will end and the stacks will kill him.

Ambush: Know that the attack speed you gain from this is the most important source of damage early and mid game. If you intend on killing a champion, you must have the bonus from this up. There is a whole section explaining a bit about stealth.

Expunge: Your damaging skill early game, but don't use it too much or your soon out of mana. When an enemy flashes out of sight, use this as you might get a kill across a wall.

Venom Cask: Great way to slow you opponents. From my experience, this is very useful for chasing as well as saving your team. Sometimes activating your Ult to have stacks at all enemies and slowing them all down will save people!

Spary and Pray: Never use this to chase! You will miss shots almost guaranteed! Save it for large teamfights, when it is the most damaging. This is the only skill that requires practicing and clever positioning. If you do it right, you might score that quadra kill I promised.

Tip: Use its range to you advantage. You can even destroy a turret without it being able to shoot back, due to its huge range.

Tip: Position yourself as to have 2 or more enemies in a straight line in front of you, even if you lose preciouse time that you could be dealing damage.

I'll explain why I chose this item sequence over the more traditional ones. I only recently tried this and it worked so well I felt like sharing.

Its important to note that this is a rather cheap build (15k full, without last item 12.5k) for such a high damage output. Plus the item sequence is supposed to be the most logical for ingame use, as I try to fill what you need at every moment.

ITEM SEQUENCE:

First off, why I dont start with doran's items: doran's items have a better stats/price ratio, however they do not get built into anything else. So your next item will probably be boots, since on your first recall you should have around 1k gold. Starting with a Long Sword allows you to buy a health potion and gives you +10 AD. Both are extremely valuable for getting first blood, if you choose to press on the beggining. Plus it allows you to get little trinkets on your first recall that help you out!

The next 2 items ( Faerie Charm and Rejuvenation Bead are built into the Tiamat, plus they help you sustain your lane as they give you mana and hp regen. Usualy on my first recall I manage to buy both of these and the Boots. Any gold left, which is usually little, I buy more hp potions and/or wards. On second recall, you should be able to buy the Tiamat

The reason I rush Tiamat is the following: I am able to get those few items which help sustain lane, plus it adds significant AD (+50) and splash damage. Though this splash damage may at first appear to be useless, I feel I must say otherwise. First off, creeps are almost always grouped up in threes. If you shoot the one at the middle, you will damage all three of them. This can help you push and farm better. Hitting one creep can get you 2 kills.

This not being enough, at Mid and Late games, your main skill is your Ultimate. If you use it well, you should be hitting at least 2 enemy chapions with it. If they are close enough, not only are you hitting both of them, the hit on one splashes to the other. This means you are dealing 2.6x more DPS than autoattacking. Now imagine how much more damage if there are 3 or even 4 packed up! This can lead to a Quad Kill.

Moving on, the next item is the Mobility Boots. This greatly helps gank, move around the map or chase an opponent while you are stealthed. Don't believe it requires much explanation, however, if you chose to get berserker, know you are getting more DPS but lowering your possibility for better positioning or making the best of your stealth. Plus, we don't need that extra AS late game.

Next I get a B.F. Sword. Now you have +95 AD from the BF and the Tiamat, which leads me to believe the best way to spend your next gold is getting attack speed. Zeal does this, plus it adds to movement speed and allows me to stack poison counters faster = MORE DPS!

Movement speed on Twitch is one of the most important stats! Not only does it allow for you to get the great positioning required, but also the escape from enemy jungle after persuing a low hp opponent. Just run into bushes and out of them, to make hitting you harder, until you throw stealth back up. Then laugh while your enemies move all over trying to find you.

Next is Inifinity Blade. By now lots of team fights should be occuring, and your team needs you to be doing lots of damage. Get this blade now that you have enough AD and AS to make your critics so much more effective.

You should be doing the most dps on your team or close to it. This will lead enemies to focus you. If you play right, you shouldnt die, but will take damage, but going back to heal every fight isn't right! Get a Vampiric Scepter and stay into all the fights you can.

About Zeke's Harbinger: get this if it will help your team and if no one else has it. Otherwise, skip straight to phantom dancers.

Phantom Dancers is one of my favourite items. It allows me to stack those counters faster, help me crit more often and give me even more movement speed! By now you should be tearing the enemy team appart!

If you didnt get stark's fervor, get Bloodthirster - Lots more damage (up to +100 AD) and more life leach. Get this or Black Cleaver (+55 AD, +30 AS, -45 enemy armor), depending on what you like better or how much gold you have.

Your last item is up to you! Its not really necessary on most games, but if you get to this point, I suggest getting The Black Cleaver, depending on the enemy team stacking armor. Even if enemy team hasn't stacked up armor, any (even carries) should have more than 45 armor, so Black Cleaver can be your choice. Bringing that armor down helps you entire team kill. Plus, if you use your ult, you might lower the armor of more than one enemy!

Stacking up more critical chance is also nice, so Youmuu's Ghostblade is a good choice, as it also adds a chasing active, armor penetration and CDR.

Why I dont get Madred's Bloodrazor: your critical hits will be doing around 700 damage late game. So its about 5 shots to kill any enemy. Plus your attack speed, when getting out of stealth, should be high enough as not to need the extra AS.

SITUATIONAL:

Get Banshee's Veil if enemy AP is giving you a hard time at any moment.

The last item build up top is a cheaper build that helps your team out while giving you more survivability. Startk's Fervor should help your team survive longer as well as deal more damage. Black Cleaver will also help your team defend, reducing armor of those nasty tanks beating your turrets up.

The way I play Twitch, I wouldn't get Banshee's Veil until we are pushing again. If you are turret hugging, Stark's Fervor and The Black Cleaver will help you get those kills your team needs to try and turn the game in your favor!

These calculations take into account a few simplifications, however are relatively accurate. I hope this helps prove that this is a viable build and a great DPS champion.

With the main build, you shall do:
268 (AD) * 77% (Crit Chance) * 2.6 (Crit DMG with Mastery) * 2.5 (Hits/Sec) = 1290 DPS
With 65 armor reduction (Runes + Youmuu's + Starks)

Say, for the sake of coming up with a number, reducing 65 armor means your doing 30% more damage. What really happens is that the damage reduction from armor on the enemy will be around 30% less effective.

DPS = 1290 * 1.3 = 1677
Life Leached/sec = 335 * .6 (enemy with 40$ damage reduction after armor penetration) = 200

IN CASE OF TEAM FIGHT

Now imagine you do use your ultimate, and it hits 2 melees that are close to each other:

DPS = 1677 * 2.6 (Remember Tiamat's splash) = 4360

Now that's a lot of damage in one second! And you haven't even used Expunge yet (Note: not true damage. I'd guess around 3k true dmg)

This is why I insisted that if you dont start off shooting the enemy, you will do better.

The secondary build does 5100 DPS (consediring 3 stacks of armor reduction, and shotting your ult at 2 enemies), however it doesn't have Stark's Fervor, which helps your whole team.

You are squishy! So if your thinking you can just rush into the enemy and kill everyone... HAHA! Even if you are way ahead in kills and loaded with items, you are easily killed.

However, if you learn to be patient and surprise the enemy team, by the time they switch focus to you, they are dead.

A few tips on how to teamwork on lanes:
- Choose your lane partner wisely. If you get another AD ranged carry, good luck competing who gets last hit on minions.
- Use the bush. "Why? I stealth!". Cuz if you stealth and they see you stealthing, its quit pointless. Go into the bush, stealth and get into a good position, on the opposite side of bush. Now your partner lures them into your side, the enemy falls for it, believing you are in the bush and they are safe.
- Returning from recalls is an awesome time to gank: stealth before they see you and surprise your enemy! Your team mate is important as he should be getting focused, other wise you will die.


Tips on team fights:
- I believe that the best way to use Twitch is on team fights. This is were he really excels! If you are patient, stealth and wait for you team to engage. Keep waiting until the enemy team is all bunched up, focusing on whoever - break out of stealth, using your Ult and blast the whole enemy team apart. The whole build was made for this moment, so PLEASE wait for the right moment. Using your Ult on a single target, like their ranged carry, is pointless. Hit as many enemies you can, even if you have to stop shooting and reposition. Again, this a surprise element: as you were not participating, your team start losing the battle. The enemy team stops caring about health and pushes like crazy. Once you start shooting, it will take them time to realize the tides have changed.

Remember that if they see you at the beggining of a team fight, you will get focused. If you wait until the enemy AP uses his spell on your tank, your survivability has just increased!

This is your most important skill. Use it to initiate a fight, to escape, chase, scout, follow, position, backdoor...

Initiating a fight: do it if your lane partner is aware of it. But most of the time, get into position and let them start.

Escaping: Learn to use Bushes. Remember you must not take damage for 1.5 seconds to enter stealth!! Using a bush will allow for this. One more tip: let your allies know that following you into enemy jungle may lead you to stealth and escape and leaving them vulnerable.

Chasing: the funnest part of our little rat. Say you are late for the team fight because you decided to get red buff at the wrong moment (blah!). The enemy carry is escaping and their tank is keeping your team from chasing. AH! FUN TIME! Stealth and follow (yay for boots of mobility and zeal). They should enter a bush somewhere and recall. Now, most players open the store before they finish recalling, so even if you are at low health, this should be a piece of cake. Just stand next to them, wait till they are almost recalling (this is funner) and shoot the life out of them. YAY for stealth!

Backdooring: This is very important if your team is having a hard time pushing because the enemy team is better organized. Twitch is great for pushing alone for a single reason: STEALTH. Save it and push a lane, even if you aren't getting bonus AS this way. Watch the minimap more than you watch your screen! When you get the feeling they are coming for you, stealth and leave. If they do show up without you noticing, stealth and run to the closest bush!

Finally, oracle and wards:

These will mess you up if your new to Twitch. However, once you understand how to use them in you benifit, they should be no big deal. First off, oracle is expansive - 400 gold. Killing the enemy who has it, removes it. If you let your team know who to focus, this can lead them to waste gold.

Vision Wards are a pain if you don't notice them placing it. However, if you watch closely, when placed the ward lets out an animation which can be seen even if placed in the bush. If you do notice, 2 things can be done: the most obvious one is getting a vision ward yourself and placing it next to the enemies, then killing it fast. They have wasted gold and your team can now see inside that bush.

The second way to use it in your favor is pretending you have no clue about it. Warn your teammate, stealth and move into its line of sight. Now you know the enemy will come for you, so you have the upper hand. This is a great moment to call in a gank!

Will work on this later, if the guide is liked =)


Quad Kill as promised!