How to Find the Best Builds in League of Legends

How to Research League of Legends Builds

When it comes to climbing in League of Legends, you must give yourself the best chance of winning the game before actually getting into the game itself. One way you can do this is by ensuring you have the best possible Runes, Summoner Spells and item build in mind.

In this Mobalytics guide, we will discuss how you can research item builds for your favorite champion and how to find the best build for them.

The topics we’ll be covering:

• What is a build?
• Why researching builds is important
• How to research builds
• How to learn from pro builds
• Recognizing different options for different champions
• Situational items

What is a build?

Firstly, we need to understand what is meant by the term “build”. Traditionally, a build refers to the items your champion buys throughout the game and the order in which you buy them.. These include Starting items such a Doran’s Blade, Epic items like Bami’s Cinder, or Mythic items like Moonstone Renewer.

However, it’s not just the items you buy that make up a build. It’s also the runes and Summoner Spells that make up a build. Runes like Guardian and Summoner Spells like Flash or Heal are also factors for building your champion. Some champions can take different runes and Summoner Spells depending on your playstyle or the matchup.

While you cannot change your choice of Summoner Spells or runes in-game like you can with your itemization (unless you’ve taken Spellbook/Omnistone), taking the best runes and Summoners for your champion will help you win the game.

Why researching builds is important

Having an optimal setup will increase your chances of winning games as you will be building items or taking resources into the game that empower and synergize with your champions kit.

If you take things that don’t offer you the best chances of winning the game, you’re going to struggle from the get-go. For example, taking incorrect runes can make all the difference during the laning phase.

Also, if you’re buying the wrong items, you may be doing more harm than good and for instance, buying items that are not needed until the late game will not help you during the laning phase. Rabadon’s Deathcap isn’t a good first item!

How to research builds

There are many different ways you can do your research to find the best build for your champion. Honestly, there are many websites and resources that provide builds for every champion in the game. But, you need to be careful about blindly copying every site, make sure that your source is trustworthy.

Starting off, you’re on the Mobalytics blog so we’ll naturally begin with our own tool recommendations!

• Head to our Champion Pages to find builds for every champion, based on stats such as popularity and win rate.
• If you have the Mobalytics Desktop App, you can get the builds from the Champion Pages auto-imported every game so you never have to worry about taking the wrong runes.
• By using our Pro Builds section within the Champion Pages, you can find builds used by pro players and one-trick ponies. This can be a good way to find builds before they become popular.

Other tools:

• Check out guides that are made from high ELO one tricks rather than the guides created by lower-level players in places like Mobafire.
• Look for Youtube guides of your favorite champion, but they can be hit or miss. Watch out for clickbait builds that are meant for entertainment.
• Sites like Lolalytics can be useful but the site isn’t exactly friendly to new players and is better for more experienced players.

How to learn from pro builds

Checking out what pro players are building for your main champions is also a good idea. Learning from the pros is a great way of improving as a whole, so it makes sense to copy their builds too.

Head over to Mobalytics new pro builds section of your favorite champion and see what pros are building for that champion. If we head over to the Kai’Sa pro build page, we can see what matchup they were in, and what runes, Summoner Spells, and items they were taking too.

If we click on a build, we can also see the breakdown of what items they brought during the game and when. This can be helpful if you’re not sure when you should buy certain items and in what order.

Finally, we can also see the skill order they took in this game. Now, for the most part, champions don’t take different skill orders, but in certain matchups, you may wish to.

For these particular cases, try out the matchup search feature to see how top players handle different matchups.

Recognize different choices for different champions

Some champions have multiple rune setups and different builds. For example, Janna can take either Arcane Comet, Guardian, or Summon Aery.

In these cases, it’s good to understand the matchup and what to expect from it and take the most appropriate rune set up according to the matchup you’re in. For example, if you’re against a Leona as Janna, you could take the Guardian keystone rather than Arcane Comet which would be more of an offensive option while Aery provides a middle ground option that gives a bit of offense and defense.

To understand what the best rune or build set up is when you have many options, ask yourself a few questions. “What does the enemy laner want to do?”,  “Am I able to utilize this keystone?”,  “Will we win this matchup if I take this keystone?” Once you’ve asked those questions, you should try to take the rune that answers most of those questions.

It’s okay though, you will need to experiment with each build setup to know what to take in the future. So don’t worry if you make a mistake and take a non-optimal setup at first, just remember for next time! Like we said before though, you could just take a standard setup and do perfectly fine against the enemy if you don’t wish to customize your runes.

Situational items

Situational items are very impactful in League of Legends. Every champion has a traditional build or set of builds that they can go, but sometimes you need to go against what websites or creators suggest to increase your chances of winning the game.

In the current state of League of Legends, there are tons of healing across the map. If the enemy team has a lot of healing, you need to buy items that will increase your chances of killing them which can be done by purchasing items that apply grievous wounds to cut down on their healing.

Items such as Oblivion Orb or Executioner’s Calling will make dealing with the enemy team easier as they will not get as much healing back in fights. For example, you need to rush Executioner’s Calling against a Senna + Soraka lane in the bottom lane if you want to get kills. If you don’t get this item, then you’ll never be able to kill them.

If you want to know what items are classed as situational items and when you should adjust your build path to accommodate these items, check out our item guides for Season 11.

On the Mobalytics site, you can also see what situational items are suitable for each champion and which will help you if you need to adapt your build path against the enemy.

Things most champions can adapt to:

• Healing reduction (Oblivion Orb/Executioner’s Calling).
• Starting items (Relic Shield/Spelltheif’s Edge).
• Boots (Plated Steelcaps/Mercury Treads).
• Defensive items (Guardian’s Angel/Zhonya’s Hourglass).

Conclusion

Taking good runes, Summoner Spells, and building items that benefit your champion will increase your chances of winning the game. Make sure you take and build things that help your champion and increase your chances of winning the game.

If you have any questions or want to learn more, check out PicklePants’s stream.

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