People are playing ARAM all wrong

Nikeri·Jun 15, 2018·10 votes·10,737 views

Ignoring all the trolls who will comment on playing ARAM at all, I find too many people are playing and building in a manner for Summoner's Rift. I thought I would share a few things I feel are advantageous.

Tip #1: never build tear (especially if your Karthus)! I feel like this is every AP's go to starting item. I get it "I'm going to be spamming abilities, so I need mana." Two things:

If you are AP and don't need the heavy engage from Mark/Dash (Such as Morgana or Fiddlesticks) then you should take Clarity, Clarity is incredibly efficient, and provides a huge boon to yourself and your team.
The new health relics provide AOE health and mana, and spawn at 2:00. If your team goes damage instead of mana then it's likely you can push the lane towards the enemy turret. That means you can benefit from not one, not two, but three health relics! They however will only get one. And don't be afraid to back up to pick up the relics; the faster you grab them, the faster they respawn, the more advantage you build. My typical go-to is 1 amplifying tomb 1 blasting wand 2 health pots. I feel like they're the most versatile starting items; it provides plenty of AP, sustain, and you can build into many paths depending on the situation.

Tip #2: don't be selfish! Speaking of taking Clarity, remember, more than Summoner's Rift, ARAM is a team game. Many times on Summoner's Rift K/D is a big identifier as to how a lane is performing. In ARAM don't focus on your own K/D.

If you're a tank, don't worry about getting flamed by your teammates, Engage! In Summoner's Rift ADC's are paired with a support that usually provides some kind of CC so they can get into position. I hate playing when people are more scared about dying, than defending turret. I've seen plenty of games where the tank is afraid of dying, hides by turret with a 3/2 K/D, and then blames the ADC for not doing damage. Nothing is more frustrating than being an ADC on Howling Abyss and not being able to walk forward without being barraged with CC and being melted.
Speaking of which, body blocking is a thing. Sometimes your life is worth less than others on your team, figuratively and literally. Let's be honest, we're all going to die. If you can stall the 4/0 Caitlyn from drying, the kill gold will be less. and perhaps someone on their team may have to wait for an additional death before completing an item. Now don't needlessly throw your life away, but it may be better they stay in lane and continue to get CS than you.
Oh and about CS: give the minions to the pokey-est, AOE-est champions. If you want your team to output the greatest damage, let Ziggs clear the wave. Look there is only one lane, and everyone wants the cannon minion. Truth is if Tahm Kench keeps stealing CS, your team is going to lose. Keep that pressure on by giving the CS to your AP carry. Now there comes a point when the scale tips, and you'll have to judge it. At some point that champ will become a target for the other team, and if you don't have the comp to keep him safe, consider switching the champ that's killing the minions. Also judge by how much kill gold everyone is getting. If Ziggs is getting all the CS and the kills, but Jhin isn't doing much, give some CS to him before he falls off. Regardless, Zac shouldn't be fighting people for CS ever.

Tip #3: build for advantage. So it is ARAM, and there is a chance you'll get an all AD or all AP team. Perhaps one of you could change. But let me suggest some overlooked items. **1) Gargoyle Stoneplate. **There is a good chance nobody has read this far, but if you have, this is a gem. Some of you probably don't even know what this is. With it's passive active, Gargoyle Stoneplate provides more MR and Armor than any other item in the game, save Frozen Heart which provides 100 armor, and Thornmail which provides the same amount at 80. No single item provides the same amount of MR. Now, I'm not saying rush this item, especially because it provides zero health, however the aura on this thing is massive, which means if you are engaging it's likely that it will be active. If you're a tank and facing a mixed team of AP and AD few items will prove more valuable. Not only that, but its several hundred gold cheaper than many tank items, plus if you go down the inspiration tree you can cut off another 250 gold if you're into that sort of thing. I find this as a useful second item after building a health item like ROA or Crystal Scepter. **2) Rylai's Crystal Scepter. **Speaking of which if your team has minimal CC, someone should probably buy this. That slow is perfect to help your team engage/disengage quickly, even though its only a 20% slow. Your ADC's especially will thank you. 3) Mortal Reminder. Honestly this is on here to discourage Morellonomicon. Morellos on an AP is great, given they usually have AOE abilities, however if there is only one person you are concerned with, Mortal Reminder gives a longer lasting Grevious Wounds, and I find Bloodletter's Veil to be very valuable to increasing the sustainability of squishy APC's. 4) Ghostwalkers. I don't see people using this as a disengage as much as I do. If you're a tank, when you engage you obviously will pull a lot of aggro. Being able to escape, and reposition can be the deciding factor between winning and losing. 5) Zeke's Convergence. This isn't the greatest item. However, if nobody can take Rylai's, you need the CC, and your ultimate is relatively short, this can be tremendous. Linking to your ADC can also help them peel their aggressors while you focus on defending other players.

Honestly there's plenty of little things that I think could make ARAM more competitive if the community was more vocal about strategy. There is very few guides, steamers, or information about ARAM, though the community is large. I think this is largely due to there not being any ranked play, but I think having a discussion is a good start. If you disagree, or feel you could give some suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I am always trying to grow as an ARAM player. Thanks!

27 Comments

EchoZeeroJun 16, 20189 votes

I mean, I play ARAM for fun, and I almost always build a tear on mages, AND I take clarity. Sue me.

[slayer-jinx-catface]

2Charmnot2CharmJun 16, 20184 votes

I just take presence of mind (as any range damage dealer) and never have to worry about mana problems along with the bonus of my ult coming back faster.

SalamencęJun 16, 20189 votes

I have over 7500 aram games and tip #1 is terrible. Tear is amazing in aram.

NikeriJun 16, 20184 votes

As a first item it's terrible end of story. Lost chapter is much better if you want sustained mana and damage.

KÎŢŢΥKÂŢKÂŢÂRÎÑÂJun 16, 20186 votes

Oh and about CS: give the minions to the pokey-est, AOE-est champions.

ORRR you can let one of your tanks/adc's who have lifesteal and are low to heal up? eh?

Makes me sick when i see someone clear a wave when i have lifesteal and am on the verge of feeding.

NikeriJun 16, 20181 votes

I was mainly talking about early game, and yes that pisses me off too. But in early game, few champs have life steal, and the game is more about poke. Later in the game when tanks have built resistances and engage more, you've moved past the poke phase.

MagicFlyingLlamaJun 16, 20185 votes

Take Clarity.

Yeah, no. Between PoM, chapter, and relics, MP is the last of your issues. Clarity in ARAM was a flaming noob-brand before PoM existed and is an even bigger joke now.

As for Ghostwalkers, they randomly bug out and wont let you enter walls in combat in my experience, which probably has something to do with that.

NikeriJun 16, 20181 votes

Yeah prescience of mind is great as well. I don't take chapter, again because I want to get more damage, so I still have a place for Clarity. What summoners do you find more valuable?

MagicFlyingLlamaJun 16, 20186 votes

Nearly anything. mark/dash is a requirement on a lot of champs, but most mages are better-off with barrier or heal. Exhaust if nobody else has it, for those moments when Yi is fed.

Clarity ends up never used by 10 minutes, even in the most hungry comps.

Madsin25Jun 16, 20183 votes

I use to take clarity on nasus but with luden echo changes it's not really needed anymore.

Mr DallowayJun 16, 20185 votes

I only take mark (snowball) and flash on pretty much every champ. There is nothing more satisfying than killing a low health enemy who is hiding way behind their tower with a snowball while playing Soraka. Snowballs are also awesome for avoiding faceplanting into the entire enemy team when going into brush. If you do not have snowball or some ability you can cast ahead of you to detect enemies please avoid walking into the brush when there are unseen enemies.

If a teammate wants to take Clarity I won't complain but Lost Chapter is sufficient for mana regen in most cases. If you are constantly going OOM and you are sitting on a large surplus of gold it is probably time to die anyway. If your team is doing really well and you have zero deaths sometimes it is tempting to just try to keep it going and have a zero death game but your damage will suffer as a result. There are a few champs that I do take tear on if I feel like the shield from Archangel's Staff will be helpful but usually in ARAM the splash damage from Luden's is too good to pass up.

Another point about Mortal reminder is it gives you grievous wounds much faster than Morellonomican does because Executioner's Calling is only 800 gold. If you need the heal debuff because they have a Mundo or Soraka/Nami an AD champ would usually be better off going for at least Executioner's than waiting for a mage to build a 3000 gold item. Not enough AD champs will do it which is a shame.

NikeriJun 16, 20182 votes

Agreed, it is satisfying to kill with snowball. However typically I find more value in heal, clarity, and exhaust.

I am terrible at choosing a good moment to die. There are plenty of games where I have Ziggs or Lux with 0-1 deaths by game end, and did 3rd-4th on damage when I could have carried.

That is a fair point, thanks!

MreeshaiJun 16, 20185 votes

As an AP-building mage, you'll want to build either Luden's or Seraph's for that 20% CDR, depending on how heavily you spam that mana and which item's passives do you like the most. They share a passive in haste, so only one of them is 20% CDR and the other only 10% if you choose to build both. Tear is a solid starter pick if you choose to build it into Seraph's, since you can start to gather the extra mana needed right away. For Luden's builders, I'd go with Lost Chapter as a starter. Tear, boots and refillable potion has been a common starter combo for me when I go for Seraph's. I'd say that never build tear is wrong, but so is always build tear. For some champs, it might be better to start Luden's and see how your mana handles that. Clarity will also help in such occasions.
I sometimes prance around the relic when other champs in the team are low to see if any of them seems interested in coming to share the health benefits rather than immediate grabbing of relics without giving my team a chance to share. Some people don't seem to understand that it is team heal and don't come into towards the relic when I wait for them, though. I've seen even one hit kills do this kind of stuff, then die soon afterwards due to low health. Relic is team heal, share with your team.

Regarding tanks, my opinion is that tank's job isn't to always be in the front where he gets poked the crap out of and the ADC doesn't have the range to respond. Rather, your ranged guys chip away enemy team's health and tank stays ready to peel for them and tank the damage when necessary. When tank dies, the squishies lose the lane pressure if they haven't managed to damage the enemy team enough so that they don't want to steamroll forward. If you have long-ranged AP carries like Ziggs and Lux bombarding the enemy team, then all you have to do as a tank is keep them safe and let them do their job. Time for engage is when they are low from all that bombardment, not when there's a thick group of four full health champs that will destroy you quickly.

As for a tip of my own, here's one: Don't feed on low gold. Try to have enough gold to buy items on every death. You can play more brazen when you are loaded with gold and able to buy items to increase your performance, but see to it that your feeding doesn't cause the friendly team to collapse.

NikeriJun 16, 20181 votes

You are right about the CDR, mage cooldown is much harder. Your looking at hextechs, hourglass, veil, lichbane, ionian boots, or nashor's tooth, none of which are rushworthy under normal circumstances.

Let me give some terrible math (feel free to correct because it's likely wrong). With Archangel's you get 50ap, 20% cd reduction. and 650 mana + a variable ap gain passive. Takes about 5 minutes to build. Lets compare that to Liandry's which is around the same price. Looking at Kassadin who has a larger mana pool and you're at level 6 you have 660 mana, which is only 7 additional AP (+6 from Archangels). So Archangel's would give around 63 ap, with a 20% cd. Liandry's however would give 80 AP. Let's look at Lux at level 6 with 3 points in her E. With Seraph's she would scale 60% of 62 AP (50ap+12 bonus ap from mana) so 37 + base damage of 150 = 187. If you took Liandry's at 80 ability power you'd have 198. However with Seraph's 20% CDR we'll say potential damage output of 120% would put Seraph's at 224. So 26 additional damage. Her CD on her E would be 7.2 seconds, so we'll assume Liandry's passive would be maxed. To compensate (assuming champion wasn't slowed) Liandry's would have to proc on someone with at least 867 health. Nami has some of the lowest health and worst scaling, and would be at 781 health which would be 23 damage. You're looking at a loss of 3 damage. Now for 20% CDR to be 20% higher damage output you have to be perfectly efficient and not waste the 1.8 seconds cooldown you gained.

For argument's sake lets say the damage is equal at level 6. But lets look at level 3. A Lux with Lost Chapter would have 40 ability power while a Lux with an Amplifying Tome and a Blasting Wand would have 60. At a 60% scale you're looking at a damage difference of 12 per ability. Assuming after the first minute you used one ability every 8 seconds for 4 minutes (so 5 minutes total up to approximate building time of a finished item) your looking at a difference of 360 damage if you hit one champion with each ability. This damage output increases by each AP champ on your team building this way, and is also taking into account only hitting one champion with a low AP scale. But with a 10% cooldown from Lost Chapter lets imagine you used one ability every 7.2 seconds. You could perform 3 more attacks, and that's if your being 100% efficient. With Veigar's long 18 second CD, how many more times do you think you'd cast Event Horizon if it was 1.8 seconds shorter? I'd argue over 5 minutes it would probably be the same. But maybe you will run out of mana? I don't, not with prescience of mind, clarity, and health relics. Also when you do go back you have options on what to build next. Do I go Liandry's, Banshee's, Morellos, Rylai's, Void Staff, Lich Bane, or Luden's Echo? You have much more flexibility on your build path. You could even go ROA if you have an additional 435 gold to make up for the tome. But with Lost chapter you are stuck with Archangel's, Luden's or Hextech.

Now to be fair, while both Liandry's and Archangel's scale, Archangel's will hit a huge power spike when it transforms. I don't know how long it takes for you, but in the mean time you've been giving up all that pressure you could have gained elsewhere, which includes health relics and kills. I personally don't feel it's worth it.

I 100% agree. I meant to say that it depends on your team comp. If your team is on the other side of Ziggs, Lux, Xerath, etc it's better for you to go in and try to start something, rather than stay behind and get poked. But yes thank you for clarification.

Absolutely that tip is very helpful, thank you!

MreeshaiJun 17, 20181 votes

Having tested Seraph's in the training mode, A level 18 Lux gets +68 AP from Seraph's passive, the item totaling +1400 Mana, +20% CDR and 118 AP, assuming that you don't build other mana items. If you build Rod of Ages on top of that, the bonus AP becomes +80 AP. If you go fully mana/AP build by adding Luden's+Lichbane, then you'll have 108 bonus AP from Seraph's passive. Rabadon's on top of that and it's a 882 AP five item build, with last slot saved for boots.

As for the time it takes to build Archangel's, the more mana intensive champs are gonna finish it faster. For ones that it takes a long time to build, you could build Luden's instead and have better early pressure, taking Lost Chapter as a starter item. The point of starting tear is to finish Seraph's faster, I think. I would go for Seraph's start with Janna or Ryze and Luden's start with Heimerdinger, typically. Rabadon's is a common second AP item for me.

As for Archangel's completion to Seraphs, looking at my own games, Janna with Tear start did it around 12:30, Nasus with Lost Chapter start did it just few seconds before game ended, at 17:55 (I needed the mana and went Archangel's over Ludens for that reason. Nasus E spam is kinda expensive and I didn't have clarity in that game) and Syndra with Tear start finished at 9:00 with Seraph's ready. In my recent Annie game, Ryze completed Seraph's at 9 mins, Syndra at 10 mins and my Annie at 12:42.

CosnirakJun 16, 20184 votes

I disagree a lot with your first tip. Right now Tear isn't that good because it was nerfed, but it really depends on the comps and the champion. I prefer taking Presence of Mind and thus not needing Tear but if someone has good reason to not take PoM then Tear can be totally viable. The new relic things aren't very strong mana wise. Clarity is really only worth while on a few champions/comps because late game it's awful.

Tip #2, part 1 is a big point that I do agree with (at least mostly). I hate when the tanks on my team absolutely refuse to ever engage despite clear openings. I hate it even more when I'm the tank and I engage and not one person follows up in the slightest. That last one tends to happen when the enemy team out ranges us and all the melee carries on my team are so afraid to go in because they're getting poked. They fail to realize that we out stat the enemy team hard in every way except range and the counter to poke is to hard engage and murder them before we get poked too low to fight.

NikeriJun 17, 20182 votes

Valid point. If your champ and playstyle can benefit from it, who am I to say don't get it. However it is grossly overrated as a starting item. I feel like many inexperienced players pick it up when other items would be much more beneficial and help contribute to the team.

Jerry SeinfeIdJun 16, 20183 votes

Tear is fine? i never build it on karthus (not on SR either) but i still build it on Ezreal or janna. The goal of your build is still the same as in SR: empowering certain aspects of your champions kit. And it stacks fast as hell anyway.

NikeriJun 16, 20181 votes

I added that because I've seen way too many people playing Karthus with mark dash, and suicide before even getting close to running out of mana. Such a waste.

Darth CthuluSep 14, 20182 votes

I agree dont´t build Tear on Karthus in ARAM.
I disagree as soon as you have RotA you will want to yolo suicide bomb all day with Snowball. Never pick Clarity on Karthus.
Suggested ARAM Karthus Build: RotA, Zhonyas, Liandrys, Rylais, Void Staff and Rabadons if you want to get rid of your boots.

EG JïïzukeFeb 14, 20191 votes

I skip Zhonya altogether. I tend to go RoA -> Pen boots -> Rylai -> Liandry -> Dcap / Void staff -> Morello -> Void Staff / DCap (sell the boots).

YouKnowItsOreoJun 15, 20182 votes

I don't know how ARAM works, but they have to separate people by skill level or level or something, because when I play with my friend's I join games so much faster. Having ranked would just provide transparency and give you a goal.

MagicFlyingLlamaJun 16, 20184 votes

All queues have matchmaking levels, including ranked - and it is different from your actual rank, even in ranked. Making it visible would just give people one more thing to cry about and use as an excuse.

EyesOfTheFoxJun 16, 20183 votes

ARAM already matches you based on your MMR. ARAM can also be decided before the game begins thanks to good ol' RNG so a hard ranking system wouldn't be an accurate reflection of the skill needed to win.

KZ EngelJun 17, 20181 votes

imagine caring this much about aram lol

Ezreal item 3043 item 3048

YuGiHoJun 17, 20181 votes

No, why are u telling people to take clarity? most champs dont even need it with the mana regen the map gives u. and if u gut build a tear u will never need extra mana. item 3007 is an AMAZING item for mages.

EG JïïzukeFeb 14, 20191 votes

My two cents after playing over 2000 rounds of ARAM on EUW and EUNE:

Clarity is highly overrated. If a champion is mana hungry, they can buy the Catalyst or Lost Chapter as the starting item. Both build into good AP items. RoA gives some sustain as well as mana and HP. Luden gives a lot of CDR and wave clear. Pick Exhaust instead.

EDIT: Also, every AP Carry should run Presence of Mind.

Mark / Snowball is also overrated. Why on Earth you take it with AP carries or even ADCs? I don't even take it with Fiddlesticks, as with proper positioning and / or if you flash is up, mark is useless. As with Clarity, pick Exhaust or Ignite instead.

I agree on Rylai, especially with AoE damage champions. Rylai with champs like Karthus, Fiddle and Heimer makes your team immune to most of the enemy melee champs.

Warmog > Stoneplate. Always. If you are playing a champ that goes ham, you take Aftershock. Being full health after a fight is more useful than the Stoneplate active. Adaptive Helm is the real underrated item of ARAM.