Boards›Gameplay

What are some of your favorite viable meta breaking strategies?

Painted Celt··2 votes·1,004 views

Hey, all.

I was just wondering if anyone would like to get together to swap favorite meta-breaker strategies.

I really enjoy experimenting in League of Legends, so I am always looking for more off-builds/off-roles to try. Please share some of your favorite viable yet unorthodox roles/builds for champions.

Below are some of my personal favorites with example builds. I discovered some of these on my own, while I adopted some of these from various sources and adapted them to my playstyle.

Bruiser Support Ashe Ashe item 2302 item 1001 item 3025 item 3071 item 3143 item 3156 Poke support with decent laning and good lategame. Helps ADC by applying Black Cleaver debuff and Iceborne Gauntlet + Frost Shot slow on targets. Helps draw focus off of ADC by appearing vulnerable while being deceptively tanky. Hawkshot helps with vision. Enchanted Crystal Arrow provides global utility and extremely strong engage/disengage. 40% CDR for < 50 ultimate CD and rapid Volleys to apply BC stacks in teamfights.

Devourer Bruiser Shaco Shaco item 1403 item 1001 item 3153 item 3071 item 3748 item 3143 Decent duelist with very good sticking power. Teamfights better than regular Shaco while still split pushing well. Unlike other bruisers/juggernauts, Shaco has a very easy time catching opponents and forcing duels. If opponents attempt to flee, Shaco gains Backstab damage while being able to slow them with BotRK, Randuin's Omen, and his E Shiv. Bruiser Shaco gives up some of his earlygame power for midgame strength. Bruiser Shaco is very hard to deal with since many targets cannot duel or escape him.

AP Support Shaco Shaco item 2301 item 3027 item 3165 item 3285 item 3089 item 3100 Strong poke support with strong utility from Jack in the Boxes. Jack in the Boxes serve as strong disengage, zoning, and "warding" tools. High scaling on E Shivs provide powerful poke once you acquire some AP items. If you do well, you may even begin to be able to assassinate the enemy squishies by midgame.

Support Warwick Warwick item 2303 item 3674 item 3025 item 3143 item 3065 item 3742 Tank support with good sustain and utility. Q and Relic Shield provide good sustain while laning. W provides a powerful buff to your ADC during fights. Post-6, your ultimate can almost always guarantee a kill for your ADC.

Trundle Support Trundle item 2303 item 3674 item 3065 item 3742 item 3143 item 3071 Tank support with ridiculous sustain and good scaling. Passive provides crazy sustain combined with Relic Shield, making you pretty impossible to poke out of the lane. Pillar can be used to effectively stop enemy ganks in their tracks. Because his ultimate steals stats from his opponents, he can become very tanky in teamfights even if short on items due to a support budget. Trundle makes a nice fat bodyguard for the ADC, creating a strong deterrent against engages from enemy all-in supports like Leona.

Cinderhulk Bruiser Fiddlesticks Fiddlesticks item 1409 item 1001 item 3151 item 3116 item 3065 item 3157 Plays similarly to regular jungle Fiddlesticks but functions as a much more resilient drain tank. Fiddlesticks doesn't really fit well with the normal jungler mage item, Runeglaive, but Cinderhulk feels right with Immolate damage clearing small monsters in jungle camps while you use Drain on the large monster. The tankier build provides better survivability when ulting into the middle of a teamfight and Cinderhulk's Immolate adds extra AOE damage. You can feel pretty unkillable while using Drain in a teamfight as Bruiser Fiddlesticks.

Jungle Tank Shen Shen item 1409 item 1001 item 3022 item 3748 item 3143item 3742 Strong health stack scaling tank jungler with global gank presence. Jungle Shen was once considered a meta pick in the olden days but fell out of style. In my opinion, Shen has been back to being a viable jungler again ever since the introduction of Cinderhulk since it helps him clear while providing the stats he wants (health and more health). Furthermore, the introduction of Titanic Hydra and buffs to Frozen Mallet have helped Shen get back into the Jungle. Shen's taunt + Frozen Mallet result in powerful lockdown for ganks. Titanic Hydra + Immolate let Shen split push and farm effectively. Shen's ultimate lets him gank from any location on the map.

Jungle Bruiser Yorick Yorick item 1401 item 1001 item 3748 item 3071 item 3065 item 3742 Supportive jungler with good dragon control. Yorick is known for having mana issues, which blue buff helps resolve in the jungler role. Yorick is a fairly safe jungler, able to sustain himself thanks to his ghouls tanking jungle camps and lifestealing for him. He is also able to solo the dragon early on. Despite the common belief that Yorick "falls off" lategame, he actually has decent AD scaling and can turn teamfights into 6 VS 5 by ulting his most fed carry. Due to his ultimate, Yorick fulfills a strong supportive role mid-late game and actually has a statistically higher winrate in long games than he does in short games.

Devourer Jungle Teemo Teemo item 1403 item 3124 item 3115 item 3085 item 3089 item 3100 Fast clearing, high damage, mobile, ranged jungler with strong map control. It's been a while since I tested out Teemo jungle, and I am a bit hesitant to recommend it just because of how annoying it can be for his opponents. Teemo has extremely good clearing speed with a good onhit build, allowing him to potentially keep both his and the enemy jungles cleared. In the jungler role, Teemo has free roam to go around the map and minefield whatever he pleases. His passive can be used to drive his enemy jungler insane by ambushing them at various buffs. With the proper items, he has both good single-target burst and incredibly high multi-target DPS. I still remember how when I first began testing Jungle Teemo, I managed to get a 1 VS 5 pentakill by minefielding the river in front of Dragon and then ambushing them from passive stealth.

Roaming Support Evelynn Evelynn item 2301 item 1001 item 3116 item 3151 item 3124 item 3089 Poke support with good roaming ability. Hate Spikes provide decent harassment in laning, while Eve's passive allows you to regenerate mana while mooching experience in bottom lane. Eve's passive allows her to ward risky areas more safely than other supports and to roam more effectively.

Top Lane Taric Taric item 1001 item 3025 item 3068 item 3075 item 3143 item 3742 Anti-AD Tank with reliable CC, good trades, and decent sustain. As an anti-AD tank, Taric can counter a lot of popular champions, such as Riven. Taric can do well top lane in most situations where both the enemy top laner and jungler are primarily AD. With the current environment of heavy AD teams, Taric top is dazzlingly good.

"Mana Master" Malzahar Malzahar item 1001 item 3027 item 3004 item 3003 item 3078 item 3508 High mixed damage dealer with unlimited mana. AD Malzahar builds are some of the most popular means to break the meta. This particular build puts an emphasis on hybrid damage dealing and providing the mana to fuel AD Malzahar's Voidling army. As any AD Malzahar player will know, spamming spells to produce voidlings can drain one's mana reserves quickly. This build provides a massive mana pool, decent AD, decent AP, 40% CDR, and good mana regeneration. This setup takes a while to get going with 2 Tear items, but it allows spell spamming on a new level.

I may post some more of my favorite meta-breaker builds later. What are your favorite viable non-meta strategies that you have found?

21 Comments

CLG Scarra2 votes

Mine is teemo wards. I get level 6 and just ward. Max cdr. Wards everywhere. Late game, there is no more fog of war....

MilfHuntUnitXJ92 votes

Duo mid, Duo jung as soraka, duo top, solo bot, pure roam (taxing lanes)

These are all examples of breaking the meta.

What you listed is not breaking the meta but merely stepping a little bit to the left so you aren't in the middle of the path.

Painted Celt1 votes

+1 Eve and AP Shaco support work well as "pure roam" in a lot of situations. I roam a lot whenever I play them, especially Evelynn support.

Drive By Max2 votes

Urgot

delonix2 votes

Off-meta Supports: Rammus: Move fast, free armor, taunt, armor reduction, built in thornmail, ok. Irelia: Tenacity is very strong against CC-based supports, plus you get a 1-2 second stun if they poke you, Relic Shield for easy Q resets. Amumu: Basically Leona. Kalista: Build tanky, max W for sentinel vision and % health poke, save your adc with the best utility spell in the game (before Tahm). Tryndamere: Mock the enemy ADC so their gun shoots softer bullets, dive forever and never die. Renekton: No resources, armor shred, stun. Yorick: Annoy the enemy adc to death, then bury them.

I haven't decided on season 6 builds for any of them yet. I like taking Exhaust and Ignite on anyone with a dash I can use to get over walls. Support item + sightstone, then I build tanky/utility on most of them, so Locket/Frozen Heart/Randuin's. I occasionally build damage items when the champion warrants it.

Jungle Supports: (take smite, stick with jungler) Nunu: Consume all the things, Blood Boil for effective ganks. Bard: Roam forever, Magical Journey straight to 3v1 ganks. Shen: Land taunts for easy ganks. Alistar: Headbutt combo ganks. Braum: Passive is super strong for ganks. Warwick: AS buff, great vision, great ult.

Despite what the 5.22 patch notes say, the jungle is actually a bit more difficult in the preseason than it was before. This, and the addition of the Rift Herald, opens the possibility of Jungle supports. Your adc will not be happy, but you will clear the jungle super fast and your ganks will be legendary.

Things to note about jungle supporting:

  • As far as I can tell, jungle experience goes to whoever last hits the monster (the internet says 400 range, so maybe I just haven't been standing close enough). This means you could clear the entire jungle and still be level 1. On the plus side, your adc should be getting more experience, unless he/she is bullied out of lane, and there is a jungle experience catch up mechanic where experience from monsters increases by 50% for each level the monster is higher than you, so if you get a couple krugs or scuttlecrabs later, you'll level up quickly.
  • Take smite, but be careful. Whoever smites a monster first gets the smite buff, and the smite buff doesn't come back until the monster respawns. If your jungler is counting on smiting red for health, make sure he/she smites first.
  • Because you took smite, you get to build Tracker's Knife instead of Sightstone. You have fewer wards to place, but getting Farsight Alteration at level 9 instead of switching to Sweeper lets you ward as much as a Sightstone support.
  • Communication is very important. Even if you aren't in Skype with your jungler, you can ping and type so that you stay on the same page.

I haven't tested this enough, but I think that when 5.23 comes out, jungle supports will make it much easier to get the minion buffs.

Other Off-meta picks: ADC Azir: Don't build AD, build AP and be squishy, autoattacked based carry like every other ADC. Jungle Karthus: Press R to gank. Mid Renekton: Mages hate bullies.

Painted Celt1 votes

Nice ones. Karthus jungle is pretty sweet. I have seen it on rare occasion and tried it myself a few times. As long as he has mana, his clears are extremely quick. I love the global ganks too, since they are one of the main reasons I like jungle Shen.

I really appreciate the detailed instructions on jungle supporting. I may try this with friends sometime.

The Bearded Bard2 votes

AP Shaco top is my most played champion. Build is gonna look something like this: item 3165 item 1334 item 3285 item 3157 item 3089 item 3135. You really wanna focus on getting that full CDR, as it lets you place a rather ridiculous amount of boxes. Early game you're gonna wanna start in the jungle, grab a free level off the nearest camp. If your opponent is someone who is naturally aggressive and typically wins trades, you're gonna wanna max W, stack them in a triangular setup to avoid them being killed instantly and to maximize the fear duration. When doing this, your goal is to poke with E, and kind of goad them into fighting where and when you want to fight (in your boxes). It's all about tricking enemies (or infuriating them) into fighting when they can't win. Enemy ganks will also prove futile and will often give you a kill instead of you dying. Late game you have awesome objective control with your boxes, decent poke with E, great siege with R, high burst. He is excellent at prepping for fights, assassinating targets, splitting the enemy team up, and zone control.

Lately I've been looking for a new item build for him. As it is now, Morellos is kind of weak, but I really enjoy cdr. The next time I get the chance to play it, I'm going to give item 3115 a try. If that doesn't work out, I'll probably switch to item 3003 and replace my current runes for it with CDR per level glyphs.

Painted Celt1 votes

Hm. If you are looking for a new build to try, then perhaps an on-hit AP rather than poke-mage build would be worth experimenting with. Guinsoo's is a pretty strong item right now, so that's another incentive to try it.
Here is an example build:Shaco item 3020 item 3027 item 3124 item 3115 item 3100 item 3089

Or you could try adding item 3151 to a poke build for better attrition and a bit of survivability. I consider Liandry's one of the strongest AP items since its AP was buffed to the level of a lot of other AP items. The synergy with Shaco's kit is pretty decent too since slows and fears count as movement-impairment so you don't even need Rylai's for the full %hp damage.

Like you mentioned, scaling CDR glyphs could be worth taking if you are getting less CDR from itemization. By the way, when you play Shaco top, have you tried stealing an enemy buff/camp at the start of the game? I find that I can pretty reliably steal something with boxes, recall, then TP to my lane for a big early advantage.

The Bearded Bard1 votes

On hit builds are definitely more risky with less reward imo, as you have to get upclose and personal while still being incredibly squishy. Why put yourself in a dangerous position to do damage when you can just use E and W from afar, and R explosion for burst? If I'm going to get up close in personal, I'd prefer the burst of AD Shaco over the sustained damage of on-hit shaco. That being said, I think on hit AP would be better for jungle shaco so he can grab devourer, but personally I don't like anything but AD jungle shaco since devourer and runeglaive aren't so good on him (His clear times are ass and runeglaive reveals the non clone and doesn't work with his Q).

Typically I don't start in the enemy jungle because I start boxes, and run TP + ignite for top lane and smite ignite for jungle, so I haven't got any escape options if I get caught out. For me, early game is all about being at an advantage before the game starts, if I get caught out and die for first blood stealing a camp, I'm behind instead of ahead and then it's all downhill from there. If I'm pushing out as top lane Shaco I'll occasionally venture out and clear some enemy camps, but typically AP Shaco is a shit duelist unless he's got time to prepare, so killing the enemy jungler is out of the question. Normally if I'm pushing out in lane, I just set up boxes to prevent ganks (or get double kills in the event of a gank) instead of venturing outside my lane.

Athenes Lulu2 votes

Jungle Lulu is pretty legit.

Before 5.22 she can literally clear 4 camps before backing. After the patch, the first two camps are extremely difficult, but after getting item 3711 or item 3706 waveclear efficiency increases a lot.

Everything else run AP build, such as item 3089 item 3285 item 3157 etc.

DIRU2 votes

AP Xin with Devourer. You're basically a better Aatrox.

Painted Celt1 votes

Aye. I've seen a huge surge of AP Xins since the introduction of Devourer. It's crazy strong.

Lady Hammerlock2 votes

adc twisted fate good roamer and a stun along side a passive AS steroid however triforce change hurt him a bit

JG KOG'MAW death machine gun with enough peel

AP FORTUNE surprising lane bully power and that recent buff on her E range 800>1000 really helped

Painted Celt1 votes

I'd like to see a JG Kog. As for the others, I have seen them and can vouch for their effectiveness.

WookieJesuz1 votes

I guess i like jungle Kayle, but idk if its as whacky as your break meta things.

Devourer, rage-blade, as boots, hex-tech gun-blade, nashor, rylais Its op

On a different note, how did you get those lines between builds?

Painted Celt1 votes

Jungle Kayle is awesome, but I feel that it's caught on with the community enough to blur the line between "meta" and "non-meta".

The horizontal line rulers are created by typing three hyphens. Like this: -.-.- Remove the periods and you get:

WookieJesuz1 votes

Yeah, kayle one of those champs who, when op, the community freaks out and says shes broken op. When not meta, most people be like "y u play kayle its so bad useless"

For the lines, thanks.

Spoofghoul1 votes

Sion item 1415 item 3046 item 3022 item 3071 item 3142 item 1320

Also storm raider keystone And item 2138

Believe me with a build like this nobody will want to kill you so you wont need defensive items anyway.

Phoenix Kotori 1 votes

"Full damage Shyvana" Shyvana item 3930 item 3153 item 3078 {item 3006 item 3139 item 3006 item 3074

People normally build her as a tank or busier, but her AD scalings are remarkably underestimated when build damage her output is basically as scale as Master Yi except she doesn't need an ult steroid. She scales with both AS & AD really well because of her Q & W the build doesn't need to be exact she can go for near any AD or AS item. You have to be careful on your positioning a bit since it's less durable, but you're be able to burst people like you never imagined as her.

It can work outside of the jungle but the Q/Sated interaction is really powerful.

"Jungle Assassin Irelia" Irelia item 3931 item 3124 item 3153 item 3078 item 3142 item 3158

Between her stun and her w heal, she ends up having a lot better clear than you might expected, and pull off fairly decent ganks & very high true damage output when you smite people. Though you don't **need ** to build full damage, she can function well with sated & 1-2 of those items and can use item 3742 & item 3111 for a bit of durability if you need.

DREADN0UGHT1 votes

ADC Gnar

infinity edge and blood thirster. Berserk or lucidity boots depending on you

Then just go for traditional adc pathing depending on needs.

Very risky if you don't adapt your gnar playstyle to the adc role.

DIRU1 votes

I forgot to mention AD Malzahar. in the jungle

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by Painted Celt

Don't buff Sejuani or Sion.... Buff Cinderhulk.
Gameplay120 comments
127
votes
Executioner's Calling is the most rarely built item in the game...
Gameplay132 comments
114
votes
Dyru's Abyssal Scepter
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous71 comments
104
votes
Can Manamune please be buffed?
Gameplay82 comments
84
votes
Arcane Blade instead of Nimbus Cloak
Gameplay79 comments
66
votes
Frozen Mallet Rework
Gameplay65 comments
40
votes