Boom! Whatup! SoloRenekt- whoops wrong intro 😅.

Hey everyone, I'm eBrixton, the galaxy brain Warwick main. I've been one of, if not the best Warwick top main on the NA server since season 8. I started playing Warwick top because, at the time when I picked him up, no one else really played him top lane and it made me feel like I had something that made me stand out from the rest of the crowd. I started to main him more seriously once I realized that I could take him to a whole new level, and I did. Recently, other people have been asking me how to play Warwick top, so today I'm here to liberate the masses from their confusion on how it's done.

Before we dive into this guide, let's help a brutha out by dropping a follow and watching me whenever I stream live @ https://www.twitch.tv/ebrixton

Every view counts!

With that being said, let's get into my credentials. I hit challenger in season 8 and I've been playing in masters+ elo ever since. I was planning on going for another challenger push in season 10, but, unfortunately, a car crashed into my living room while I was on the climb(true story). If you're interested in knowing more about that situation, you can the vod of it happening on my twitch.

Anyways, here's proof of challenger

Here's proof of season 10 Grandmasters

Now that we have that out the way, let's jump right in!

So why would anyone in their right mind play Warwick? Well, here's some pros and cons you want to consider before picking him up.

Lane sustain is out of this world

Powerful early game champion

Beats or can outplay most champions

High Pick Potential

Mid Game King

Speed boost from blood hunt

Massive burst damage for killing squishies

Can ignore cc with ultimate and q

low skill floor, but high skill ceiling in order to play him at the highest levels

Easily Kitable if ultimate is on cooldown or blood hunt is not active

Terrible vs ranged champions in lane

Easily gankable if summs and ultimate is down

Doesn't scale very well into late game if behind or even in some cases

Susceptible to/Highly countered by true damage

Most people assume Warwick is going into the jungle, so you can pick him at any stage in champion select. The only times where you shouldn't pick Warwick top are into team comps that have a ranged top laner, or team comps that have one of the highest level threat champs on their team!

For the most part, the most common and efficient keystones for Warwick are currently Press the Attack and Grasp of the Undying. Currently, Grasp falls short of PTA because PTA can be used to burst squishies AND provide your team with an extra 8-12% damage buff.

This is HUGE in the current META where either full damage or full tank builds reign supreme. The reason why you take Grasp vs Renekton (And possibly Volibear too) is because Grasp will provide you the extra sustain you need in order to survive their burst. These two champs don't scale that hard into late game so surviving laning phase is already half the battle when it comes to laning vs them. Otherwise, you'll be losing out on valuable damage that can help you to win 1v1s or even outplay a 1v2 if you time your cds properly. Also, you should be starting tear, so now you have a reason to spam q even without running Grasp.

You can switch out Presence of Mind for Triumph depending on what feels better for you after a couple games. When it comes to your secondary tree, you should always be running Second Wind and Revitalize in every situation without any exceptions. For Runes you'll take attack speed, adaptive, then whatever resistance counters your lane opponent!

Barrier + Flash is the end all, be all, for your top lane summoner spells. Warwick's kit does not allow him to effectively utilize Teleport ganking without being level six. The problem here is that, by that point, you should be using your ultimate as an escape, a way to finish off your opponents in lane, or as a way to set up ganks!

Season 11 pre-season was rough in the beginning but after running it down multiple times, getting blocked by one of my favorite streamers at the moment, and being accused of trolling in multiple games, I have finally narrowed down a reliable and viable build path for Warwick top.

First, we will not be running a Doran's item during the laning phase.

We will start the game by running Tear of the Goddess and 2 Health Potion. T.O.G will help to increase our mana pool and will work great as a replacement for the former version of Presence of Mind(May S10 P.O.M rest in peace 😭). It also gives us a reason to utilize our q because the new T.O.G works by using your ability on an enemy. That's right, it does not have to be a champion in order to stack it. This works in our favor because every time we use our bite when a T.O.G stack is up, we profit regardless of whether we use our q for healing or for poke damage.

Now, instead of rushing a mythic item, we want to immediately rush Manamune because the build path is not only the cheapest, but it is also the most efficient now that it builds from a Caulfield's Warhammer(double long swords) and Tiamat builds from a Pickaxe(and it doesn't have the active anymore either, sigh😔). Afterwards, we finish our boots - buying Mercury's Treads or Plated Steelcaps depending on the matchup.

Next, we rush our mythic item. I prefer Divine Sunderer because it gives great damage, sustain, and it allows our legendary items to provide 5 percent magic and armor penetration. You're going to get this additional pen very fast because Manamune is the cheapest legendary that money can buy in the current state of League of Legends. You can try out Trinity Force, but you'll lose out on the penetration.

For the Divine Sunderer build path, we need to go Sheen 1st, then Phage, then Kindlegem before bringing it all to completion. Sheen is very cheep at 700g and will provide a massive damage spike while you scale into Divine Sunderer.

We build Death's Dance or Spirit Visage next because we will need some tank stats at this point in the game. Whichever you decide to build 1st, make sure you complete the other choice right after.

For late game, you can finish the build off with Guardian Angel or Wit's End. Wit's End provides magic resistance and a great on hit passive, while GA gives us armor and a free revival passive that lets us initiate for our team in dire situations.

Once our build is complete, play according to objectives and in the end we will be rewarded for the hunt!

I'm not that good at explaining abilities, but the League of Legends tooltip has a built in description of how every ability works in the game!

Once you figure out how Warwick's abilities work, read ahead to learn some tips and tricks!

Tips and Tricks:

1. You can dodge cc with your Infinite Duress and Jaws of the Beast because these abilities both make you immune to cc during their cast times. This means that you can hold q through an enemy to prevent yourself from being slept by Sleepy Trouble Bubble or you can avoid being brought into Mordekaiser's Realm of Death if your abilities are timed properly!

2. Your healing is tripled when you are below 25% hp so try to save Barrier until you reach that point in order to skyrocket your healing and increase your chances of outplaying your opponent at the last moment!

3. You will attach to an enemy and follow their Flash and even their Teleport if you hold onto Jaws of the Beast so make sure you time your q for when someone will flash away from you in order to ensure kills!

4. Finally, a little known fact that people tend to forget is that if you activate Blood Hunt on an enemy, you IMMEDIATELY gain your movement speed AND attack speed bonus as well on that target. You can utilize this ability to provide you with that extra umph in your stats so you can completely remove an enemy champion from the game as quick as possible!

During the early game, the most consistent strategy is to farm up while playing it safe until level 3. Only poke if can get your Jaws of the Beast off without taking large amounts of damage. Around 2:35 you want to Vision Ward up to prevent an early jungle gank, then once you're level 3 you want to start constantly poking the enemy whenever possible. Once they're at 50% hp or below and you are higher than 40% hp, you can typically all in and get a free kill. Keep in mind that you have Barrier, so you can bait opponents to take a risk to kill you, then pop barrier while using Infinite Duress or Jaws of the Beast to heal back up!

In matchups vs champions like Renekton or Volibear you want to focus on farming and surviving the lane. Make sure you're constantly warding to prevent yourself from dying to ganks!

Most of the laning phase will consist of you gaining vision control and poking the enemy down to either force them to leave the lane, or die a gruesome death for underestimating you!

Once laning phase is over you should have your Manamune and a boot of your choice, or you should be close to it. During this phase, what you'll want to do is split push while setting vision up for your team by dropping deep wards, or buying a sweepeer and clearing wards from the enemy team. Apply as much pressure as possible in one of the side lanes by yourself, and always pre-emptily group for an objective 20-30 seconds before it spawns!

P.S. You can also look for picks on important targets by locking them down with Infinite Duress and Primal Howl

Depending on your comp and how fed your team is vs the enemy team, you're going to be diving or peeling.

Typically, you cant to get a flank off or a targeted Infinite Duress onto one of the enemy carries in order to buy time for your team to burst them to smithereens while they're cc'd. If you can't find an opening, then focus on prevent your squishies from dying by dishing out Primal Howls and using Infinite Duress.

Try to save your Barrier until you're below 25% hp. I know it's tempting to use it when you're at a higher amount, but unless the enemy team has an execute, you're going to get the best use out of it by saving it for those clutch moments!

For Late game you're going to continue the steps for midgame. Once you're full build, you need to start setting up waves and or clearing waves as needed. A lot of Warwick's macro during mid to late game will be dependent on general knowledge of top laning because being mechanically skilled will only take you so far in the long run if you don't know why you're doing what you're doing!

I have listed how each matchup you're going to face 99% of the time will go in the threats and synergies section above! The matchups listed as outplayable can be won depending on who is the better player in terms of mechanics and/or skill!

Finally, we've reached the end of the guide! I hope that the information here can help any and all aspiring Warwick top mains to ascend to a higher elo!

If you have any questions whatsoever or you want to continue the journey with me past mobafire, drop a follow and come watch me live @ https://www.twitch.tv/ebrixton !

I also created a montage - edited by yours truly - if you guys want to watch some sick Warwick gameplay when I'm not online!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQny1tJbotE

Thank you for reading, I hope this helped, take it easy!

✌🏾