[8.12] Warwick, The Uncaged Wraith of the Jungle
Warwick
Summoner Spells Back to Top
I highly recommend to go flash 
because Warwick has no escape and is very vulnerable when he has to flee from a fight. You can combo flash also with your E to make opponents flee in the direction you want
On the other hand ghost 
is probably even more effective if you have to get out safe. The reworked Warwick has very low base movementspeed which makes escaping pretty hard. The other plus for ghost is a higher ult range, but I personally would never use it offensively, thats what you have your W for.
New Runes Back to Top
Abilities Back to Top
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Eternal Thirst
Not much to say about this. It lets you deal mixed damage from AA and gives you even more sustain the less HP you have.
This gives you amazing sustain in 1v1 and on-the-edge-fights similar to Olaf and it lets people constantly underestimate how hard to shut down you are.
Jaws of the Beast
This is allmost the old Q but a bit more complicated, just like any ability on the rework. It has two different possible executions. The damage is allways the same but by holding down the key you leap behind your target by any means. This includes things like flashes any capclosers or displacements.
Because it also aplies on-hit-effects it becomes a huge burst damage and sustain once you have titanic.
The reason why I take full AD runes is mostly because of this ability and I've allready stated it in the Mastery-section:
The total AD sclaing on your Q and R means, that every bit of AD you get from Runes as well as from Fervor of Batte stacks is not only transfered into magic damage (which is allmost allways better than normal damage) but is therefor also transfered into healing.
Blood Hunt
At first this skill is amazing by any means. Not even so much from what it does mechanically. It's just these "I will fest on your limbs"-feeling you get everytime someone becomes blood hunted. Playing Warwick just feels so much like beeing a predator out for his prey, it's awesome!
Ok befor I wet myself, what does Blood Hunt do?
At first it's like a big "gank-this-lane"-sign thats especially helpfull for jungle beginners. You can get to a skirmish extremly fast to turn it to your favor and chase down low-HP targets after a teamfight.
The point that, with the active (and with the passive when they're low), you can also sense targets no matter how much HP they have, making traps allmost impossible for the enemy team (bye bye Teemo and Twitch).Â
Most important are the bonus Movementspeed as well as the Attackspeed you get from it (passively or actively), which lets you apply your Fervor stacks faster.
For all the math-freaks like me out there:
With 5 points in it you get 110% AS and 55% MS on bloodhunted opponents, which are free stats worth of 3000 to 4000 gold (depending on whats your flat movementspeed is).
And this is only the first instance.
If you have an opponent under 20% HP everything get tripled and yes thats also means that you get probably more than 10.000 gold in terms of stats, even if it's only for a short time.
Primal Howl
This is allmost just Garen W with a fear. It makes you incredibly tanky in the lategame. Learn how to time the release of the fear correcty to fear someone into your teammate when ganking or interrupt channeled abilities
You can do much more fancy stuff with it, for which you should take a look in the combo section
Infinite Duress
Not as braindead as the old Ult, but I still love it. It is most effective as a secondary engage so you wont get bursted down immediatly. Together with you Blood Hunt the range increases extremely, perfect to dive someone over a wall who wants to backport at low HP.
If you find yourself crowded by opponents you can also use it as an escape. Remind yourself that even if it makes you CC-immune for the duration of the leap, you can still be bodyblocked by an enemy champion.
Also the Surpression can be interrupted by any hard-CC.
In a huge teamfight or during ganks, don't allways use it straight to engage. If you see the opportunity, use your W to run at your target and get a couple of Autoattacks of (to stack Fervor ). Then use it AFTER the target has used it's gapcloser or flash.Â
Skill order > > >
I personally like to start W. I feel most comfortable with two points in Q for enough burst but then max W for the free stats in longer fights. You can max Q first if you feel better or max both abilites in alternation. E allways last.
Items Back to Top
Starting Items
Core Items
Situational Items
Why this Rejuvenation Bead Start: 
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A jungler without AOE damage is a bad jungler, thats why you need Tiamat asap. Otherwise clearing krugs or chickens will become a royal pain in the ass. You don't need any pots to have a healthly clear and and a Rejuvenation Beadlet's you puchase Tiamat from only one full clearOptional:
With 7.9 the burn damage of Cinderhulk got doubeld against minions and monsters, so you can clear just as fast with like with tiamat. I still like the Tiamat into Titanic for an early powerspike on Warwick but now you have more options in your build for either building other offensive items or go Fulltank-WarwickCore Items:
Cinderhulk
Cinderhulk is just the best jungle enchantement for Warwick. Along with Tiamat you get a great clearspeed, while still getting tanky. Also every tank-item that you get scales directly with it.
- take Skirmisher's Sabre against Assassins and 1v1's
- take Stalker's Blade against high mobilty champs
Titanic Hydra
With Q - AA - Titanic active you can burst down allmost any squishy to less than half HP and as you know thats were the fun only begins. You will also get mostly HP-items so together with Cinderhulk passive it scales perfectly.Â
As I said befor since 7.9 it's not a must-buy anymore, since you don't need it for the AOE-clear.
Spirit Visage
I
can't think of any game I played with Wawick and not buyed this item.
Because of its passive effect, it is core on allmost every tanky champion
with any kind of sustain. 30 % more heal out of of every source is very
very much especially for Warwick: your healing from autoattacks is
increased, your Q as well as your Ult gives you more heal. Warwicks 1vs1-potential is
strong anyway, but with this item you're are allmost unbeatable in a
duel.
Dead Man's Plate
Great for Warwick to compensate his low base movementspeed. With the bonus first hit damage and slow it's great for catching people and get them low enough to let your Blood Hunt to kick in.
Sterak's Gage
With a much bigger shield and bonus-HP-scaling Sterak's Gage fits tanky bruisers like Warwick now even better. It has a great synergy with allmost every other item and let's you survive any nuke in the lategame
Trinity Force vs. 
Iceborn Gauntlet
Trinity ForceÂ
Yes Trinity a great item for Warwick on paper and if you're fed enough to get it. BUT, and this is a big but for a reason, think about the following disadvantages it brings with it:
- It's expensive as hell, especially for a jungler and if you get it after Titanic, you will have no resistances from items for a long time until finishing it
- Because of that, you will be nuked down quite easily and unfortunately you can't deal damage if you're dead
- The passive effects of the two core tank items, especially Spirit Visage are just to good to get them too late
- Even if it's nice to have some additional Attackspeed, the occations are very rare that you don't get allready some steriods from yourW passive or active (on max. level it's allmost three time as much only in the first instance)
Nevertheless, in cases you allready have a two-tank frontline and defenitly need some damage, the best time to get Trinity is after Tiamat and befor your jungle item enchantement. Get sheen first, it will give you a huge powerspike on it's own, then decide if you finish it directly or maybe get your cinderhulk and some tank-boots first, depending on the situation
Iceborn Gauntlet
Now thats a cheaper and tankier alternative to Trinity Force. I build it rather frequently if my team lacks a bit of damage and get it instead of Dead Man's Plate. In that case I also get it a bit later than I would like to get a Trinity Force in comparison. I usually grab myself a Spirit Visage and Ninja Tabi first. With 10% in runes and 10% from Spirit Visage you cap CDR with this, which let's you spam juicy Q's over and over.
Oh, did I mention the slow? No?, Well short version: NO one, will ever escape from you, if you got them once.
Why not Bloodrazor? 
On paper, Bloodrazor seems a pretty solid choice on Warwick, so here the pro side first:
- it gives 50% Attackspeed, more than any other item
- has a usefull and good scaling on-hit passive
- it's cheap
so everything fits Warwick, he has a in build on-hit passive that benefits from Attackspeed and his Ult procs on-hit effects too, so why not get it.
Most of the following arguments root in the same general reason: Bloodrazor gives Warwick nothing he not allready has.
You allready have tons of Attackspeed
The 50% from Bloodrazor are good too have in the earlygame but becomes irrelevant in the lategame.
You already have On-hit effects an %-HP-damage
The percentage damage from Bloodrazor is good against tanks. You know whats also effective against tank, the percantage damage that Warwick allready has and from which he also heals more if the target has more HP. Your only fear has to be to get nuked by one spell rotation from a Gragas or Galio, which is much more likely if your're squishy with Bloodrazor. If you build tanky, no tank can 1v1 you by any means.
Cinderhulk is just better
Even if the stats from Bloodrazor fit Warwick well, Cinderhulk is better on so many levels:
- Warwick needs tank stats, no dsscusion on this. A full-damage Warwick is about as usefull as a fulldamage Alistar if not worse. Warwick has allmost no tools to mitigate damage AND CC in a way other squishy skirmishers like Yasuo or Master Yi can. He has only his damage reduction which is useless without at least some tank stats, but will also not save you if you get CC'ed
- Cinderhulk scales directly with HP item tanky item you get (about 300 HP for free in lategame), mostly of course with Titanic Hydra which even increases your damage for about 40 per AA
Matchups Back to Top
-
AlistarHard -
AmumuMedium -
Aurelion SolEasy -
BlitzcrankHard -
DianaEasy -
Dr. MundoMedium -
FiddlesticksMedium -
Jarvan IVMedium -
JaxMedium -
KayleMedium -
Lee SinMedium -
Master YiEasy -
NunuMedium -
PantheonMedium -
RammusEasy -
Rek'SaiMedium -
RengarEasy -
ShacoEasy -
ShyvanaMedium -
SkarnerMedium -
TrundleHard -
TryndamereEasy -
UdyrMedium -
ViHard -
VolibearMedium -
WukongEasy -
Xin ZhaoMedium
VS
Alistar
Hard
This cow beats the wolf hard. To gank an Alistar lane is really hard with Warwick, because he has 3 different ways to interrupt your Ult and keep you from Autoattacking or bodyblock you when ulting and cleanse it immediatly.
VS
Amumu
Medium
VS
Aurelion Sol
Easy
VS
Blitzcrank
Hard
VS
Diana
Easy
VS
Dr. Mundo
Medium
VS
Fiddlesticks
Medium
VS
Jarvan IV
Medium
VS
Jax
Medium
VS
Kayle
Medium
VS
Lee Sin
Medium
VS
Master Yi
Easy
Warwick is the hardest Counterpick to Master Yi I can imagine. He is one of the few that can 1v1 him easiely. If you fight Yi, wait until he uses his Ultimate, then Ult him immediatly. So he will lose much time from his Ultimate, while you get your Fervour of Battle fully stacked. After that he should be half-HP, with no chance left to trade you. If he uses his 
W, even better, just keep attacking and heal yourself up on him.
VS
Nunu
Medium
VS
Pantheon
Medium
VS
Rammus
Easy
VS
Rek'Sai
Medium
VS
Rengar
Easy
VS
Shaco
Easy
VS
Shyvana
Medium
VS
Skarner
Medium
VS
Trundle
Hard
VS
Tryndamere
Easy
VS
Udyr
Medium
VS
Vi
Hard
VS
Volibear
Medium
VS
Wukong
Easy
VS
Xin Zhao
Medium
Why Warwick? (Pros and Cons) Back to Top
Even after his rework, Warwick is the perfect Champion for Beginners to the
Jungle-position or to LoL in general
Pros:
- massive sustain, one of the strongest duelists
- easy to play but not braindead or boring
- fast AND save clear
- Ultimate has strong CC and can burst a squishy opponent to half HP by it's own
- mixed damage output, which is hard to build against
- high damage output, even with full-tank build
- almost safe-kill-ganks with level 6 (if you can hit Ult)
- strong in pick-up-comps, but also fits in every other teamcomp
Cons:
- immobile (no reliable gapcloser besides Ult) and vulnerable if chased, because of his low base movementspeed
- weak pre level 6
- weak in 5v5
- can't take towers fast because he won't get AS buff against structures
Combos Back to Top
E - R: -
Your E will be immediatly reactivated if you hit someone with your R. This is of course pointless if you chase down a single target because it's CCed anyway, but if you engage a whole team, thats the way you do it. It's just like a weaker Hecarim Ultimate. It can also prevent opponents from interrupting your Ult with CC.
But if you do it, you need to be totally sure that your team can follow up, because you will otherwise just get nuked down. Another downside of it, that you completly waste the damage reduction from your E.
Q (hold) - R: -
As
Warwick you want to jump into the enemy teams backline and just tear
apart any squishy. Problem is: usually there is a tanky frontliner
between you and your prey who bodyblocks your Ult.
To still land your Ult on a squishy target, you can use the hold-Q. Use said Tank as a bridge to swing behind him and then R to your prefered target.
Keep in mind that tanks usually have strong CC, so even if they can't get hold of you, once you launch with your Ult, they maybe can hold you in place befor. Most of the times it's safer to flank from over a wall to have the element of surprise.E - Q(hold) - E(reactivate): - -
This is rather tricky to do and you also don't need it by any means because your fears slows anyway but:
By hitting E, jump behind your target with Q and hit E again, you can fear an opponent in a way he runs into the opposit direction (which should be your team btw.). In a teamfight you can also split up a team by jumping right in the middle and fear them all into different directions.
E - Flash - E(reactivate): - 
-
Just like above but with flash as repostion instead of Q. Much easier to do, but you burn your flash for it.
Full damage combo (without ult):
- AA - - - - AA - ...
With this combo you can burst a squishy target to half health and get your Fevor half-stacked in a matter of seconds, then immediatly CC them to deal even more damage with further AA's through Fervor and Blood Hunt.
Early Jungle Paths Back to Top
Fullclear Powerfarm
If you don't see any opportunity for a pre-6 kill, just do a full clear to get either Tiamat or Bami's Cinder asap. On both sites that would be:
Bluebuff - Gromp - Wolfs - Raptors (kill the small ones first) - Redbuff - Krugs - eventually Scuttler.
Now you can either try a gank or port back directly to spend the gold. With a second fullclear you should hit level 6 and gank immediatly preferably mid or bot to get an early drake afterwards.
First gank Top or Mid
Blueside: Redbuff - Wolfs - Bluebuff --> gank Top or Mid <-- Scuttler - Gromp.
Redside: Bluebuff - Wolfs - Redbuff --> gank Top or Mid <-- Scuttler - Krugs or Raptors
If you laners have pushed too hard, try to get Scuttler first and wait if the enemy jungler shows up, then countergank
If you got the First Blood you should now allready have the gold for Tiamat.
First gank Bot or Mid
Blueside: Bluebuff - Wolfs - Redbuff --> gank Top or Mid <-- Scuttler - Krugs or Raptors
Redside: Redbuff - Wolfs - Bluebuff --> gank Top or Mid <-- Scuttler - GrompLike the above, just reversed. Again, if you can't gank, don't force it! Take Scuttler and look for the enemy jungler.
Most junglers start botside and gank Top first, so if he shows up top, take his remaining botside camps or go for an early drake with level 4-5 (not Clouddrake, that one will kill you).
Earlygame Back to Top
Clearing and Objectives
Once you have Tiamat and/or Cinderhulk your jungle-clear will be very fast and you can take focus of getting an early Drake or Herald
Warwick can take drake solo very early with bluebuff, from level 4 on, but I would recommend to wait until level 6, so you can defedn yourself against the enemy jungler if they appear or, for a much safer dragon. Get it after a succesfull bot or mid gank,
On Herald you have to focus from about minute 12 on, keep it warded all the time and get it as fast as possible with your toplaner if they got a kill, the enemy Toplaner is base and/or if you sport the enemy jungler on the other side of the map. Warwick can even take do it solo but is takes a loooong time and the risk of beeing spoted is too high.
Ganking
Your W is a great indicator fo where to gank next but also use the active if you see the opportunity. Wheter you lanegank or gank from behind, allways try to position yourself with your E in way that your opponent get's feared away from his tower and in direction of your ally. Safe your Q for when the opponent uses his flash or other gapclosers to escape. If you can predict them right, you can even follow them directly. Past 6 I would also recommend to safe your Ult for similar reasons or safe it as a follow-up-CC so you won't miss it
Aside from Ganking warwick is an even better counterganker because he can CC two or more opponents at once while staying healthy through his sustain. He can turn fights pretty quickly and get's stronger the longer the fight lasts.
One thing you must remember in the earlygame is that he's very squishy and I would'nt recommend to force towerdives with Ult or Q. Both can bring you in very bad spots and put you behind early
Midgame Back to Top
Teamfighting
Once aning hase is over you should sit on Cindehulk, Tiamat and Armor or MR boots and in the best case a finished DMP or Spirit Visage or part items
Your next powerspike is after finishing Titanic Hydra, but befor this your damage kinda falls of while you're still not that tanky. In this phase there's the highest risk that you get focused down in teamfights very quickly and fall behind, so don't risk too much.
Don't engage if you're not totally sure that you team can follow up immediatly. Even if they're low, don't chase opponets into areas where you have no vision and you could thread finding yourself in a 1v3, that you definetly won't survive. If something has lost me games, it have been situations like this, so keep that in mind. You want to be the hunter, not the hunted
Catching
Speaking of Hunting, the best way to execute Warwicks stronger aspects in midgame is to make catches together with your teammates. Get wards down and look ou for opponents out of position. With two gapclosers Warwicks catching and chasing potential is damn high and once a opponent is under the magic line of 50% HP the kill is allmost safe.
On this phase you don't need any kills on your own anymore, because you just keep getting tanky from now, try to fed your midlaner and ADC kills from the catches you get and let tehm start snowballing. Of course, don't risk to let them get away, in this case allways take the kill, it's better than nothing
Lategame Back to Top
5v5 Teamfights
With Cinderhulk, Titanic plus one or two Tankitems, preferably Spirit Visage. Your survivability in larger teamfights will increase. While in this phase you can engage on your own it's still better to work as a secondary engage so you can thread their carrys but won't focused down by five opponents immediatly.
Strategy 1: Be the Frontline
If they focus you, good thing, keep autoattacking and Q'ing any opponent in reach to kee sustained, even if it's the tank (your Q heals more because of the percentage damage) activate your E and let your carrys take down the opposing team Strategy 2: Be the Diver
If they don't focus you, even better. Focus on getting into the backline and onto their carrys. Without peel, there's not much they can do against you. After they're taken down, your Fervor of Battle wll be full-stacked which let's your damage and therefor sustain go through the roof. In a scenario where both backlines got dived and killed, you're most likely in a better spot against the remaining Tanks and Bruisers
Strategy 3: Be the peeler
If you don't see the opportunity to dive the backline and the opposing team have a strong enough engage to get behind your frontline, it's better to use Warwicks good potential as a peeler who deals good amounts of damage as well. Bodyblock incoming CC, fear away engaging tanks and use our Ultimate to lock down more squishy divers or skirmishers like Irelia, Jax or Camille and take them down together with your carrys. Without a frontline, the remaining squshies are easy prey for you
Catches and side-by-side spiltpushing
Rather then beeing a splitpushe himself, I see Warwick in a better spot between the splitpushing teamate and the rest of the team. Your movementspeedbuffs allow you to get quickly to one site or the other, you can flank if you team get's into a fight, you can protect your splitpusher if multiple people rotate and you can catch opponents who rotate alone. As said befor Warwicks strengh lays in smaller skirmishes like 2v2 or 3v3, so this playstyle will get to his full potential.. On the other hand it's probably the one which is hardest to execute because it requires fast and precise decisionmaking and good team-coordination, which is much easier to achieve in premade teams than in solo-Q