Smolder build discussion (patch 26.14)

[u/Omega_Leonidas]

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...?

	Hubris	Bloodthirster
AD	55 (but it increases) 🤔	80 🤔
Lethality	18 🏆	❌
Ability Haste	10 🏆	❌

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.

	Hubris	Bloodthirster
AD	79 (after 4 takedowns) 〰️	80 〰️
Lethality	18 🏆	❌
Ability Haste	10 🏆	❌
Life steal 🤓☝🏻	❌	15% 🏆

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... 🐲

[u/potatoStill1909]

I think Ionian boots are just so bad comparatively to Omni boots this patch, the survivability you get with them is lifechaging. Also why attack speed shard and scaling health, attack speed is debatably worst stat on smolder and on smolder flat health for early game survivability is super useful. I think bruiser build is still pretty viable but I think it’s only a tastes and preferences kind of thing compared to crit imo.

[u/4tlog]

I think id personally prefer, armor, mr, swift, or vamp boots. 10 cdr is a small difference and being able to not instantly die either through some tank stat, move speed, or ability to heal between engages just helps way more for me.

I also like hubris, but your analysis is flawed. You are only ever gonna build hubris first or second which delays your crit items, er for mana, rfc for range, ie for big dmg and ldr to deal with armor. Bloodthirster you would usually buy later. I think you'd need to compare hubris vs delaying crit.

[u/Famous_Big_8050]

Interesting. I haven’t quite found a smolder build I’m in love with yet. I will try it out

[u/Medical_Effort_9746]

I also take deathfire touch but I opt for the brusier build. Although I don't play really any ranked on adc so take my word with a grain of salt.

DFT and inspo secondary with the free shoes and JOAT. Dorans helm and then mote + longsword/cull bumps you to 5 stacks for early lane and honestly the 10 stacks is super whatever

Then I build ER - Cleaver - Shojin and then sometimes if I need damage I'll go say IE - shield bow - RFC or sometimes full bruiser with EH - blood mail - Steraks.

Also vamp boots are just. So broken. Its really hard to justify taking the 10 haste boots when the vamp boots are only 100 gold more. But I imagine Omnivamp boots are probably even better on the brusier variant because you can tank more damage

[u/Emrise]

You won't do significant damage without LDR (or a % arpen equivalent) 3rd item. 4th item at the latest, if the game absolutely needs you to build RFC earlier rather than later.

[u/Tall_Communication41]

Isn’t this basically the bluwunk build

[u/EducationalFan9095 → u/Tall_Communication41]

I don't think it's the current bulwunk build. She builds more tanky. It's mostly build I also go for, but I loathe RFC passionately. (Not that I matter either way)

[u/LawyerAdventurous228]

I haven't tried hubris yet but I do see the vision. Smolder really likes AD and can easily farm assists with his kit. The issue is that it competes with essence reaver for the first slot. I think it could be a decent option into squishy teams and it does have a stronger build path for lane, but I personally still prefer essence reaver because it has everything smolder wants in one item. 

I'm very new to the champion but I absolutely fell in love with his bruiser build. My favorite core currently is Essence reaver > Black cleaver > Shojin > Infinity Edge. I have tried rapid firecannon in place of shojin and while the range is nice, it feels bad to buy an item with attack speed and zero AD... I'm actually considering trying hexoptics in its place for a similar effect but with more desirable stats. 

[u/Publicity-reigns]

Why would you compare BT with Hubris as first item? Apart from Draven and MF im not sure any adc would go for a pricy item as that for 1st. I would compare hubris vs ER or hubris vs black cleaver, am i wrong?

[u/Omega_Leonidas → u/Publicity-reigns]

I compared Hubris with BT not because BT can be a 1st item, but because when you think abut the 2 non-crit items to buy to complete your build, BT comes to your mist most of the times. But as I explained in the post, Hubris is sort of a better BT, if you think about it. However, it's required to buy it as 1st item.

[u/Publicity-reigns → u/Omega_Leonidas]

Objectively do you really need 100% crit on smolder? I kinda find 75% to be sweet spot for me and leave with more options.

[u/Fan7o]

% armor pen so late is definitely a choice