My Tristana Build vs. what Im told

Playgroundlgnd89·2/17/2015, 5:00:26 AM·2 votes·1,646 views

Ok so Im a fairly new player, not only to this game but this genre as well. I just hit level 30, and I just played my first ranked game.

I got my rear handed to me, there is obviously a huge learning curve from normal vs. ranked.. its all good.

I was ragged on pretty hard because I wasnt doing so well, and got alot of comments on my Tristana build (shes my secondary)

I do really well with it usually in non-ranked but I was insulted pretty heavy because I dont have item 3031 in it.

Heres my normal Trist final build (in order of what I work on usually):

item 3006 item 3153 item 3046 item 3072 item 3085 item 3137

It works really well when Im at full build and deals a TON of damage, I came up with it myself

Anyone see any major issues with it that I might be missing?

18 Comments

freeformline2/17/2015, 7:10:32 AM3 votes

I would say that you should build what you want as long as it works well for your team. That said, I would not recommend this build in all but the most exceptional situations. Here is a hopefully error-free mathematical explanation of why you should consider modifying your build:

Aside from defense (AR, MR, lifesteal) and utility, the most important stats for ADCs are their attack damage (AD), attack speed (AS), and crit chance. Armor penetration is also a major damage source, but we will mostly ignore it for now.

Attack damage is what defines the AD carry in many aspects. It applies to your auto attacks and any abilities that have AD scaling. You can look up Tristana's AD scalings here: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Tristana. In general, the more of this you have, the more damage you will do, so ADCs tend to build a lot of this, almost always buying an item 3031, item 3072, and an armor pen item item 3035/item 3134 as appropriate.

Critical strike chance increases the frequency of critical strikes, which do 200% damage. With an item 3031, they will do 250% damage. Crit chance is calculated in terms of percentages. There is a hard cap of 100% crit chance, and the percent crit strike offered by items stacks additively. That is, if you have two crit strike items, one with 10% and another with 25%, your total crit chance will be 35%. Critical strikes do not do extra damage to structures.

Attack speed is a measurement of how often you complete an auto-attack animation, and it seems to be what you are focusing on building. Because doing sustained damage to champions and structures is the specialty and duty of the AD carry, it is a very useful stat, but you should be careful about how much you build. Like crit strike, AS stacks additively, but it starts with a positive base AS rather than the base 0% of crit strike on most champions. AS is measured as a number rather than a ratio, with a hard cap at 2.5 attacks per second. Tristana's base AS is .656 attacks per second, and inborn scaling gives her 25% bonus AS by level 18, so an AS of .82. Tristana's Q will grant her an AS steroid of 110% at max rank. Thus Tristana's maximum attack speed without items or outside modifiers will be .656 * (1 + .25 + 1.10) = 1.54 attacks per second, which is a character-defining high speed.

Your item build grants 210% bonus AS, making your total attack speed without outside modifiers .656 * (1 + .25 + 1.10 + 2.1) = 2.92 attacks per second. Unfortunately, AS is hard capped at 2.5, so your extra .42 attacks per second will not occur, and you would be better off spending gold elsewhere. With just item 3046 and item 3006, your maximum AS at level 18 will be 2.03, roughly two attacks per second. If you really want to max it out, the item 3153 would probably do you the most good, as it also adds attack damage and life steal along with the 2.3 AS.

I trust you are intelligent enough to do the rest of the math for yourself (the League wiki will help a lot with this), but here's a quick comparison of Tristana's damage per second (DPS) with your build and a typical ADC build, accounting only for auto-attacks at level 18 and ignoring item passives and actives:

Your build: 208 AD, 2.5 AS, 35% crit strike. DPS without crits: 208 * 2.5 = 520 physical damage per second. With critical hits, this averages out to be roughly 702 DPS from auto attacks alone, ignoring armor effects.

Generic ADC build: item 3006 item 3031 item 3072 item 3046 item 3035 item 3026. 200 bonus AD, 75% bonus AS, 55% crit strike, critical hits do 250% damage. On a level 18 Tristana using her AS steroid, this would be 303 AD and 2.03 AS. DPS without crits: 303 x 2.03 = 615 physical damage per second. Accounting for critical hits and the IE passive, this comes out to be a total DPS of just over 1120.

You can see, then, that a standard ADC build with an IE rather than an extra AS item or two will generate much more sustained damage to a single target than the full AS build you have been using, even without accounting for higher ability damage due to higher AD. I have also not accounted for armor penetration in this calculation, but doing so would make the difference even more significant. (Edit: I left out damage from the item 3153 passive, but that should not have a significant impact on the conclusion that you should replace an AS item with an IE.)

Keep in mind that the generic build I have shown you is not the ideal build in every situation and champion. item 3085 does well on champions who benefit from hitting more frequently, such as if they have a stacking mechanic or strong on-hit effects, and can improve the wave-clear of any ranged champion. Different crit chance, armor pen, and life steal items will be more useful in some situations. An item built on item 3140 (such as your Dervish Blade) can do you great good against a heavy CC team, and the item 3026 will probably not be an ideal purchase if you die more often than its passive can revive you, or if your team will not be able to save you once you are revived. Use your intelligence and intuition to work out the best build for each situation. As I mentioned earlier, the League wiki will be a great help in understanding the mathematics of League and will give you information useful for improving your builds, skill order, and styles of play.

If you have questions or would like to play with this friendly support main, feel free to add me in game. Best of luck and happy farming!

Kouga2/17/2015, 5:10:29 AM2 votes

The main reason you'll get knocked for not building an I.E. is that your typical, standard definition of an Attack Damage Carry is someone who deals the bulk of their damage via sustained, high DPS via their Auto Attacks. In order to do this, they generally rely on Critical Strikes & Damage. Because even at its base, 200 AD with a crit is better than 350 AD without one. The power that critical strikes give is just too big to not build that. And IE just makes your crits even BIGGER. So now 200 AD with an IE crits for 450, making it pretty much a mandatory buy for AA ADC's. Especially now that BT & IE grant the same AD.

Before, it used to be that BT built up to 100 total AD, making it a higher damage (not counting crits) item on ADCs. This gave it something of a trade-off. More base damage or higher crits? The IE would pay off in the long run as you built up Crit Chance but an early BT could give you a lot of momentum.

There are some that arguably still benefit more from BT. Ezreal's primary damage source is his Q which does not crit, but DOES apply Lifesteal, so BT is a good pick for him. But overall you're going to get flak for running without IE.

Playgroundlgnd892/17/2015, 5:14:03 AM1 votes

I build the item 3072 because of the lifesteal since Trist is so squishy

The Chin2/17/2015, 6:05:30 AM1 votes

item 3031 item 3006 item 3046 item 3153 item 3035 item 3026

Is probably the most optimal build for tristana, you could probably swap out botrk for BT but I like the extra attack speed and the % hp bonus damage

Leti the Yeti2/17/2015, 9:14:37 AM1 votes

http://puu.sh/g0FR3/e9116f6863.png fill empty slot with blood thirster you're on your way to diamond :D!

AwesomeChad2/17/2015, 9:49:29 AM1 votes

Alright so first off two major issues i see with your build:

  1. You build too much attack speed on tristana who already has a built-in attack speed steroid. By doing this, you essentially make one of her abilities useless since the atk speed cap is 2.5.
  2. You didn't build Infinity edge which is very weird considering your build has an insane amount of attack speed. Infinity is somewhat of a necessity late game because players get tankier late game with more armor and health. Depending on solely your base AD will not be enough dmg as infinity edge increases your crit dmg to 250%, meaning 300 AD translates to potentially 750 crit dmg. Having more attack speed means you have a much higher chance of getting more crits off. If you're snowballing very hard and still deal alot of dmg, you may not need it but for other games, it is a necessity. Furthermore, if you consider tristana's current skill kit, most of her dmg comes from her autoattacks and her E scales with AD items so this build isn't very optimal on her since IE makes your autoattacks hurt more.

Also, your build doesn't incorporate last whisperer (in a normal build) which you'll need when the enemy stacks armor. Without it, your dmg is really low. And last but not least, i noticed that you have a mercurial scimitar as your last item. Its not always the best last item to get on tristana. Sometimes, you may need a banshees veil or a guardian angel or perhaps some other defensive item. You cant always expect to build full glass cannon because each game is different.

freeformline2/17/2015, 10:47:35 AM1 votes

Side note: I would not recommend playing ranked immediately after hitting level thirty. People are a little more wound up and critical in ranked games, and you'll be a lot more likely to place well and have a good time if you wait until you are truly skillful at the game. Different people will tell you to wait for different indicators, but I would recommend waiting until you are confident in each role with about three champions who each have different playstyles. Other people will recommend you wait until you finish a rune page or two, but I think a solid understanding of the game from playing diverse roles and champions is much more useful. Also, be sure to ward frequently. You'll be better than almost everyone out there if you ward more than ten times in a game when you are neither supporting nor Lee Sin (and your support will love you to death if you upgrade your trinket and actually use it).

In any case, you probably shouldn't dive into ranked until you get a firmer grasp of the underlying mathematics and strategy of League. There is a lot of good information out there to help you learn it. Reading the wiki, watching gameplay and streams, looking up and comparing guides, playing ARAMs to get used to many different champion kits, and playing with more experienced players are all good ways to build the knowledge to make you a stand-out summoner.

The Chin2/17/2015, 5:01:49 AM1 votes

wtf is that green item

Faith Breaker2/17/2015, 11:51:34 AM1 votes

Personal summary: Critical strikes is a crucial element of AD carries. By not having the IE, every single auto attack you performed, under or at the 2.50 atk speed cap, was not benefitting from the IE's passive. You were basically starving yourself of a crucial, tremendous late game spike. AD Carries want three things (stat wise not gameplay wise) They want attack damage, so when they hit, it hurts. They want attack speed, so they hit more often, and thus give more hurts. Finally, they want critical strike chance and dmg, combining the former dmg and atk spd together and creating a third dmg source outlet.

Playgroundlgnd892/17/2015, 5:11:19 AM1 votes

So I take it Dervish blade ( item 3137 ) is a bad choice.. Ive gone with item 3172 instead a few times thats what you guys meant right?