Melee Carries

Melee Carries

This sub section still shouldn't exist. These champions are those that can't be tanky without being completely useless and need to be in harm's way with huge spike potential to be worth anything. For the most part, avoid these champions like plague.

This sub category used to have a stronger impact before Stark's Fervor got nerfed into Zeke's Herald, where there was a slightly stronger aura that they'd double stack with their support for an overall 40% Lifesteal and 60% attack speed while lowering the enemies armor by 20.

Nowadays it's just kind of meh with that loss. They need too much farm to be effective and are then only really great at backdooring turrets, which isn't bad, but easy to counter.

Their runes are based around offense, Flat AD or AS Marks, Flat AR, HP/level or Flat AS Seals, MR/Level or AS glyphs and then finally AD, AS or Movement Speed quints accordingly. They're glass cannons so the Attack Speed runes tend to be effective to get more damage out at the start of a fight.

Boot choices are almost always Berserker Greaves, where they can take multiple Doran's Blades or Wriggles early on, they tend to do well for building straight into a bigger offensive item such as Phantom Dancer and Infinity Edge or Bloodthirster.

* Evelyn
Dmg: **
CC : **
Utl: **
Dif: ***
Pot: ***

Core: Wriggle's, Phantom Dancer, Zeal, Phage.

Personal Opinions: Most people feel Evelyn is the weakest hero in the game, but I find her to be a very successful champion. She's a bit difficult to play, if you jungle her, you absolutely need a strong leash. There are unfortunately no exceptions to this rule. If you kill lane support make sure you use a carry with enough burst and force their support out of lane. My favorite use for Evelyn is in the jungle buddy system, which I'll cover in it's own subsection. Her and Twitch make awesome jungle buddies.

Skill Advice: R>E>W>Q. Ignore Q for the most part, it's a useless spell the way I build Evelyn, since she's a sufficiently weak AP carry. There's talk about Evelyn's stealth being reworked to how it was, where instead of a large slow when hitting somebody stealthed it'll stun them for a duration based on rank. I personally like the slow, but the stun has more utility, or rather it would without that 1.5 second delay before activation.

Further Advice: For those complaining about Oracles = Teh countarz 2 Everar, you need to be taken out back and shot. Yes, Twitch's element of surprise is destroyed by stealth detection. Yes, Akali's twilight shroud is not an effective escape mechanism with stealth detection. Evelyn loses very little with stealth detection besides the ability to sneak into brush from river. That's it. It's customary to stealth detect Dragon and Baron, so come in from the jungle while stealthed until they wise up, then, the most important factor, make good use of Boots of Mobility and her ultimate. Even pair it up with Ghost if you feel like it, the lack of an element of surprise doesn't negate the fact that she has a decent ranged nuke as well as massive speed buffs and a slow debuff.

Further Griping: Eve's squishiness is the only difficulty in her jungle, she can take Hate Spike at level 2 with blue buff and has little to no problems after summoner level 20. Champions like Fiddlesticks have to pick up an Oracle's elixir to clear wards for their element of surprise anyways, so she's a great candidate. If you feel that you'd rather roam, try partnering with Graves as a pseudo support for the first six levels then pick up Zeal and Boots of Mobility and punish every other lane. A single point of hate spike might help catching fleeing foes, but it's a wasted point anyways, try to coordinate with your jungler to donate red to you to make your ganks more effective.

* Master Yi
Dmg: **
CC : *
Utl: *
Dif: *
Pot: *

Core: Wriggle's Lantern, Phantom Dancer, Phage or Frozen Mallet.

Personal Opinions: Another champion that was destroyed when Stark's Fervor became Zeke's Herald, it was one amazingly itemized piece for Yi but now it's sub par. I find Yi only serves a purpose in the jungle because of his amazing clear speeds with Alpha Strike. Just don't bother showing your face to add pressure and counter jungle as best you can without getting scene.

Skill Advice: Alpha Strike is his general damage tool. Meditation is a very good survivability tool (AR/MR while channeling, screw the health, pop it early in bad situations) and his Wuju Style is best used in conjunction with his ultimate. His ultimate isn't that great, just try to conserve it for when you're winning a duel or coming out of the jungle to gank. It only refreshes CDs if it's active while you get a kill and only halves the duratino of CDs when you get an assist while it's active.

Countered by: Flash, Ghost, hard CC. His ultimate doesn't provide immunity to CC, just slows. If you can hard stun him to escape you can go back in and win any duel with Yi as long as he's not up +5 kills. All his damage potential comes from the reliance of his ultimate. Also, in early game, it's fun to bait him into using alpha strike and flashing behind your tower. Best reason to take a level 1 CC for first blood. Protip: most Master Yi players are stupid.

* Nocturne
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: **
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Wriggle's or Executioner's, Brutalizer, Phantom Dancer or parts.

Personal Opinions: Nocturne is a very gimmicky champion. He's a half decent jungler and excellent laner. I find him only useful fully stacking offensive items, such as triple bloodthirster, infinity edge and double phantom dancer.

Skill Advice: For the most part, Nocturne isn't completely reliant on your enemy reacting, but it's essentially the only way for him to win duels before his kit is complete. His skill nuke isn't a very effective means to chase without Frozen Mallet or Phantom Dancer, so pick accordingly. His shield should be used in conjunction with his Fear to see if you can panick foes into using some form of CC on you, in which you'll instagib them just about. Use his Ultimate to break through towers or to scare off potential threats in other lanes if you've been off the map for a while.

Countered by: Bulky champions or earlier burst potential. Nocturne is a dueling based champion that, until his kit is complete, requires an enemy to fall into his trap to succeed. If you can get two early kills on him in lane, you'll come out on top. If he's jungling he'll most likely be built super tanky, in which he's a CC threat with gank potential through his ultimate. He only deals physical damage, so Ninja Tabi are also a decent counter to him.

* Shaco
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: **
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Wriggles, Infinity Edge, Zeal.
Alternatively: Kage's Lucky Pick, Philosopher's Stone, Rylai's for a support Shaco.

Personal Opinions: Shaco is an overall gimmick champion. He has a very weak early game, which only comes around as a powerful mid game and then he tends to fall off in late game. The only reason he's banned so often in solo queue is because he can exert a large amount of pressure -if- he gets a couple early kills. Otherwise he loses every duel after level 4.

Skill Advice: Plant your boxes everywhere, especially in escape paths. Whether it's you escaping (plant it max distance in the direction you're moving) or an enemy escaping (pre-emptive boxing works wonders). Use his deceive to break into bush safety zones or out from bushes to do a surprise attack to their back, and use your two-shiv poison when they start to flee, not when they've already fled. He almost always forces a flash when made a threat.

Countered by: Dueling, his base damage is extremely low, so you have to make effective use of his passive to deal a good amount of damage. I can't stress how often I've been ganked at half health by a level 2 Shaco and just faced him to get double buffs. Shaco is only an early threat if he gets behind you or is stacking AP, in which either case he falls off in late game. The only time a late game Shaco is a problem if he built pure tank and is using two-shiv as a means for initiation.

* Talon
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: **
Dif: **
Pot: *

Core: Wriggles or Executioner's, Brutalizer, Zeal or BF Sword

Personal Opinions: Talon only really fits as a Jungler or anti-mid pick for all intents and purposes. He shuts down casters, and that's all he does. The problem is that he's purely damage and doesn't have the mana to harass, so if he gets shut down once by a caster he tends to fall off.

Skill Advice: This is all preference, his Rake is the best damage output and farming in lane or jungle. After that it's either Noxian Diplomacy (lot shorter cooldown, enough to use it twice in one squabble virtually) versus Cutthroat, where it's a more reliable gap closer to get in twice through the duration of a squabble. Just remember to use Noxian Diplomacy after an auto attack to make the best of it. Using his ultimate is annoying, the movement speed doesn't feel like enough for proper positioning but it's powerful in a group fight scenario.

Countered by: large amounts of front loaded damage. If he can't shut down his laning opponent in the first ten minutes of a match they'll typically overpower him, which is why Talon is a weak pick. His passive also synchronizes well with team mechanics or might give you a reason to purchase Frozen Mallet instead of Trinity Force, but stacking Phantom Dancers isn't a terrible idea anyways.

* Tryndamere
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Berserker's Greaves, Wriggle's, Phantom Dancer.

Personal Opinions: Tryndamere is a great solo top because of his mocking shout. That's it. He has a built in flash, a self heal and can build up to around 30% crit through his passive. He received a massive nerf with Stark's Fervor becoming tank oriented when it became Zeke's Herald, but god bless pedophiles with semi popular web comics, I guess, they made Tryndamere less played. Tryndamere's largest problem is that he'd always fall off late game and become a liability. Tryndamere as a bruiser is wasted potential.

Skill Advice: R>Q>W>E, pretty straight forward. His Q gives him attack damage so he can build into Attack Speed earlier. He doesn't really need bulky items because of immunity to death for a short duration, but it does make him reliant on Quicksilver Sash or Cleanse. Keep a full fury bar, save your E for escapes, pop W before going in for trades and you'll always win. Just remember to pop Q before you use his ultimate. My biggest problem with Tryndamere is that his ultimate gave him a full fury bar, not that it prevented him from going below 1 hp, that was easy to deal with.

Countered by: Frozen Heart and Late Game, essentially any bursty champion can one-shot him in late game with a full rotation of skills, that's why I started playing Vladimir before his buff, one full rotation would kill any Tryndamere. A lot of idiot Tryndamere players will build into a single defensive item (other than QSS) and it's almost always Thornmail because of it's itemization and cost, but it's a terrible pick in any situation.