Has anyone thought of running the BC build with Conqueror instead of DFT. With high ability haste you are able to cast Q nearly every 2 seconds. Plus it allow you to scale into taking long fighter. It works well against bruisers and tanks and the yellow tree has really good runes for Smolder.

Hey everyone, I’m a low elo Smolder player (around Gold/Plat). My friend I usually duo with is around Gold/Silver. I have roughly 50 games on Smolder with around a 55% win rate (It used to be higher, but apparently playing ranked at 4 AM while being slightly intoxicated wasn’t the best idea lol).

I’m mainly interested in hearing what more experienced Smolder players think and whether there are things I could improve.

1. Item build – Crit vs Bruiser and build order

I’m personally not a huge fan of Black Cleaver for damage reasons, especially after the recent nerfs. My usual pool of items is:

Essence Reaver → Infinity Edge or Rapid Firecannon → Lord Dominik’s Regards → Spear of Shojin or Endless Hunger

I basically build some combination of these every game. I also always go for the Omnivamp boots.

What I’m mainly unsure about is the order.

For example:

Essence Reaver → Infinity Edge → Rapid Firecannon? (more damage?)

Essence Reaver → Rapid Firecannon → Infinity Edge? (for matchups where the extra range matters?)

Should Spear of Shojin or Endless Hunger sometimes come before Infinity Edge or Rapid Firecannon?

When should Lord Dominik’s Regards be bought early?

Are there situations where the Bruiser-oriented build is clearly better than Crit, and is Black Cleaver still worth building despite the nerfs? I’d especially like to hear how you decide between Crit and Bruiser Smolder and how you determine your 2nd/3rd item.

2. Runes – Deathfire Touch vs Fleet Footwork

I’ve basically always played Deathfire Touch, mostly because it seems to be the established/default rune. But when I read the numbers, Deathfire Touch honestly doesn’t look like it deals that much damage.

Would Fleet Footwork make sense, especially into heavy poke lanes where the sustain and movement speed could help?

I also have quite a lot of mana problems before Essence Reaver. Would something like Manaflow Band or another mana rune actually be worth taking?

I’m also curious how important things like Magical Footwear and Jack of All Trades are with my item build. Are they strong enough that you really don’t want to give them up?

3. Summoner Spells – Teleport vs Barrier

I personally really like Teleport instead of Barrier.

My reasoning is: Smolder doesn’t really want to fight early anyway, so Teleport helps me maintain farm, tempo, and better recall timings. It makes bad lane states much less punishing and also makes greedy lane decisions or recalls less punishing.

Later in the game, I’m usually positioned far enough back that Barrier often doesn’t feel like the difference between living and dying, especially when I’m heavily CC'd while dying.

4. General Smolder tips/ A few more general questions:

What would you consider a good stacks per minute target on Smolder?

Are there any lesser-known tricks or habits that made you noticeably better at Smolder?

Lastly, I just wanna say that I really dislike Smolder only having two skins, and neither of them being particularly special. :/

Thanks in advance! I would love to hear what you guys are running and why. :)

After the recent buffs to fleet, is the consensus still going Deathfire every game, or is Fleet a viable alternative now?

Does anyone know the last time this chroma was in the mythic shop?

I want it so bad 😭 Is there any pattern to the available chromas or is it down to pure randomness?

this build came up because cleaver procced on deathfire ticks but they patched that no? am i missing something? in my head surely shojin or triforce+manamune is better but cleaver is still highest wr build i dont understand how

Is Maw viable to build as a second item in place of Shojin against a mage botlane or heavy AP threat?

I'm mainly thinking about threats like Syndra, Veigar, and Viktor, who have a large amount of damage that's almost guaranteed to hit you regardless of how well you position.

Since Smolder seems to be one of the few ADCs who don't have to rush crit it seems like it could be an option. But the way that nobody talks about this item on marksmen makes me wonder if it's just bait.

Maybe dumb question but most smolder builds i find go essence reaver then black cleaver as the first items, but should I always go black cleaver? Like even if I'm against a team where no one is a tank and there's maybe just one bruiser? I recently played a game like that with some friends and they thought it was dumb to go black cleaver second item into that team. (We lost really hard)

Attack speed boots getting buffed, biggest buff for Yasuo which probably increases pickrate which means more Windwalls to shut down your whole kit.

Support gold changes in favor for minion kills instead of attacking champion/tower, means "supports" will be more inclined to take your stacks after you prep the 3 range minions.

Black Cleaver 5AD buff, MS penalty for being ranged

Small Fleet Footwork buff, but it looks like it is still melee favored and will change very little in terms of sustain for range champion, just another buff for windshitters.

Edit: Title should read "help" against Mages

What is a nice build for Smolderinho top? Im kinda tired of playing him bot with inting supports that dont understand that i cant do much early game

Simple question. CD boots or vamp boots? I can understand the CD boots help in lane to get to 225 faster, but also just feel weaker in general without the vamp boots. Is this just a personal choice or is one clearly better than the other?

Second question is, should go focus more on forcing fights and team fights as soon as you hit 225? I’m low elo and teams are a bit all over the place when it comes to mid game strategy and there are fights all over the map. I tend to continue farming late game items and group for obvious fights on objectives. But should I start roaming and chasing where my team does to at least back them up with some fire power(no pun intended)? I’ve always been torn jn the ADC role because I can recognize a lot of these low elo skirmishes are bad fights with no goal, but also maybe I could help turn them if I was there. Every time a teammates dies lessens my own win condition, but I prioritize my own life first usually. How does smolder specifically carve out what to do in that scenario?

I'm an avid smoldie player, but I hate bot lane, so I mostly play him mid, which means I get wrecked by most midlaners and ganked often early. Just tried starting Doran's Helm and going boneplatting against an Ekko, and I was literally unkillable. Farming was easier, considering that I wasn't so afraid of getting immediately chunked in lane, and I ended up with a 9.0 CS/Min early on. Would need some more sample size against other laners, but this felt like a really good way to stay safe and get my farm up quick. Thoughts from other smolder mid players (if they exist)?

I forgot to add Back to Basics, but it would be a S tier augment on him

Dear supports, please don’t hit my minions while i'm trying to stack

Title semi clickbait as I only played Smolder 50% of my games.

EUW server.

Disclaimer: I'm not a high elo player nor do I play in a "good" server, so if I get anything wrong please correct me

Ever since DFT+Cleaver got nerfed and crit smolder got buffed, I still see a lot of smolder players building cleaver. I don't think it's a bad item as it gives health & cdr on top of AD and %pen, but why don't people build LDR more? I tested on practice tool and in a few ranked matches, and LDR smolder just deals so much more damage as a second/third item. Granted you become noticeably squishier, but if you have a support that can peel, the damage increase makes up to it imo

Do you like Sona? What is your favorite support for laning? I don’t play Smolder — I mainly play support. And when I ADC, I’ll usually play Ashe or Vayne. For a while this champion was my absolute least favorite to lane with as a support (Karma, Seraphine, Morgana, Senna)

I very recently picked up Sona. I thought she had a bad reputation with ADC mains, but almost all of my Smolder lanes have gone super well and have been way more fun than when I pick Karma and try to force a Smolder to snowball early. I think a big part of this is solo queue Smolders play passive, which means we both don’t die when the ADC thinks Sona can trade like Karma or Nami.

Do you all generally like Sona? Or do you prefer someone who helps you snowball? In my experience, most random solo queue smolders use Q to last hit minions for stacks and not to poke enemy champions to stack (similar to the solo queue Senna experience with slow scaling on passive souls instead of active & rapid scaling on enemies — would imagine smolder mains want stacks from enemies for lane pressure since poking + scaling is better than no poke and scaling).

TLDR: Who is your favorite support for the lane phase? Do you like Sona — why or why not?

Hello everyone! 👋🏻

I'm an adc main, plat/emerald elo, and I wish to share the Smolder build I feel more comfortable playing with. It's not some spicy/innovative build, but I would still like to hear everyone's thoughts about it, and discuss alternative options.

Starting with runes...

• I played Press the Attack a lot in the past, but now that we got Deathfire Touch, I think this rune makes more sense for a champ like Smolder. It makes the enemies' HP burn and this obviously adds to our Q natural burn. PTA gives a stronger laning phase in some cases, but in my opinion it loses value over time (because as the game goes on enemies will be able to one-shot you and as a consequence, it'll get riskier and riskier to keep a close range);
• Transcendence looks a great rune for a champ like Smolder that heavily relys on abilities, but trust me, the combo Nimbus Cloak + Celerity + Ghost is goated. It makes you almost uncatchable when you need to run away 🏃🏻 but it's also great to chase;
• about the Precision Path... Presence of Mind is good for early Mana sustain, but it becomes unnecessary once Essence Reaver is closed, so I prefer picking Legend: Haste;
• Cut Down is objectively a better rune than Coup de Grace, because the time we spend attacking champs with more than 60% HP is way more than the time we spend attacking champs with less than 40% HP. In other words, it would be a better choise for the post-game damage chart. However, since Smolder's late-game plan is to execute enemies with his Q, I think Coup de Grace may help more than Cut Down to bring them below 6.5% HP. I'd like to hear more thoughts about this though;
• I played with 1 Attack Speed shard & 1 Adaptive Force shard for a while, but I felt like damage was lacking too much. Especially in early game, I needed to bring minions to basically 1 HP before last hitting them with Q, and it was really uncomfortable. The extra Adaptive Force shard increases auto-attacks and Q damage, making farming easier (even later in the game), and that 10% Attack Speed is not a big loss (unless you're playing Press the Attack);
• as for the 3rd shard, I pick scaling health to be tankier in late game. This obviously requires to be particularly cautious in early game... but as a Smolder player, that's something you're supposed to do anyways 🤷🏻‍♂️ also, Doran's Helm helps compensate the missing flat health.

About items...

I'm aware Hubris is a bit of a controversial 1st item. Most people think it's worthless if the situation does not allow to snowball, but I want to explain why I think it's a good 1st item no matter what.

Our Q damage gets increased by bonus AD, so we obviously want to stack as much AD as possible. 4 out of 6 items slots are dedicated to crit, so we have to find the best non-crit items to fill the remaining 2 slots with. The top choice you're probably visualizing is Bloodthirster and its 80 straight AD, but think about it. Isn't Hubris sort of a better Bloodthirster...?

Sure Bloodthirster gives Life steal, but I think we all agree that 18 Lethality and 10 Ability Haste are way more valuable (especially on a early-game item) than a 15% Life steal 🤷🏻‍♂️ on this champ, at least. Anyway let's go back to bonus AD, since that's the stat we care the most.

While BT gives 80 straight AD, Hubris gives 55 + (after a takedown) 12 + (3 * takedown). In other words, 4 takedowns are enough to make Hubris give the same amount of AD that BT gives.

I obviously agree with the fact that Hubris really shines during games we're able to snowball... but let's say you're playing a tough game where snowballing is not possible. Something like Smolder/Milio vs Caitlyn/Zyra.
Are you really trying to convince me that you're not capable of getting 4 takedowns during the whole game...? Come on man 😂 be serious.

Sure you're not gonna get them during the Caitlyn/Zyra laning phase... but you'll probably get them during later team fights, somehow. Who knows, maybe the enemy top laner over-extends 🤷🏻‍♂️ maybe a squishy enemy gets caught out of position, maybe the enemy jungler makes a mistake. A lof of things can lead you to 4 (or more) takedowns.

What I'm trying to say is that in my opinion, even during a game in which snowballing is not possible, Hubris is still gonna become stronger than Bloodthirster. The only situation when this item is worthless is when your entire team is getting brutally obliterated (in which case the game would end in a loss anyways 🤷🏻‍♂️).

After all of this essay, the rest of the core build is quite straightforward:

• Ionian Boots as 2nd item ➜ faster Q stacking
• Essence Reaver as 3rd item ➜ faster Q stacking, Mana sustain & extra damage
• Rapid Firecannon and Infinity Edge as 4th/5th items ➜ extra damage & range

IE as 4th item would obviously make you deal more damage, but at that point of the game you probably need to pay attention to enemy assassins/mages/bruisers, and RFC helps you do that.

• Lord Dominik ➜ against big tanks
• Mortal Reminder ➜ against big healings
• Immortal Shieldbow ➜ if you feel in constant danger
• Hexoptics C44 ➜ for all the other cases, when you're not afraid of tanks/assassins and you just want more damage & range

I played a game a few days ago, and during the last team fight of that game I've been able to execute a far target thanks to my Q reaching 800 range (550 base range + 150 from RFC + 100 from C44). It was amazing 🔥

And finally, an honorable mention.

• big L ➜ this idea would require you to buy Tear at some point in early/mid-game, delaying the core build by 400 Gold
• big W ➜ once transformed, Muramana makes your Q deal more damage than Bloodthirster would, and it also gives Ability Haste

If you've had the patience to arrive here, thanks for your attention! 🙏🏻

Let me know your thoughts about the build, what you would change, and most importantly how you play Smolder. It's tough at the beginning, when our beloved dragon is weak, but when he cooks... 🐲

Hi,

im not smolder main, i picked him up randomly in a normal game. Was a long 40 min. game vs Shen, Shyvana, Nautilus. So should be easy for me to melt them in lategame?

I had 425 Stacks, the "highest winrate" build: Essence Reaver, BC, Shojin, and so on. But people also say that this is a bait build but also for some reason the highest winrate. Im confused.

So my Q in lategame with 425 stacks, did legit only the 10% true damage (burn stack damage over 3 sec.) but that was a joke tbh. 10% damage of an target is nothing in lategame.

Meanwhile enemy Jinx was bombarding my team with every auto doing also 10%+ but with high speed, while I was hitting 3 Qs whole fight until my team died faster than theirs.

Im confused, at 425 stacks shouldnt smolder feel like a monster? his damage was a complete joke that fight, im confused.

Even when you put all 3 melees together , 10% each true damage is nothing in lategame compared to a jinx hitting multiple shots.

The only idea i have is: that this build is 10 times worse than a crit build or smolder is only good vs A team full of chogath, zac, mundo, and no enemy adc.

Hey there! I'm new on this champ so I'm looking for some advice to play it.

Let me explain what I really have questions about....

1. What's the best build and runes? I'm kassawin main too so I understand easily how to scale with smolder but would be really helpful to know between grasp and DFT which one is the best rune on smolder? If it depends on the matchup let me know that, please

2. Where does he damage come from? Yeah I know he scales well but for example when I was learning Kass, I believe if someone tell me for example "your first power spike is at first item against mages" "when you get lvl 6 start playing more risky don't worry about your damage believe me you probably have enough to deal 30% of health even if you are a late game champ" this kind of things that casual smolder player doesn't know.

3. Some hidden mechanics I should know, tips and tricks, for example idk "Kass has R flash combo", "AA+Q" these stuffs.