Olaf Build Guide

Olaf Build

Table of Contents

Abilities

1

Introduction

2

Masteries + Runes

3

Items

4

Skilling Order

5

Summoner Abilities

6

Teamfights

7

• Abilities

  [spell=Berzerker Rage]

  Your passive is what allows you to be such an effective jungler. It also synergizes very well with vicious strikes and life-steal to give you amazing survivability.

  Undertow

  Underwhelming as far as damage is concerned, but at rank 2 it will slow enemies just enough so that you can close effectively (it can also be used to last hit enemies fleeing a teamfight at low health). In the jungle phase you can use undertow at minimum range so that you immediately pick up the axe and reset the cooldown. This will help you kill wolf and wraith camps quickly.

  Vicious Strikes

  This is your bread and butter ability. It synergizes with your passive and life-steal items to give you great survivability (provided your attacking something) It also allows you to increase your damage by stacking health. With nothing more than a frozen mallet this ability will add roughly 70 damage to your auto attacks. This means you can get all the health you want without sacrificing your ability to carry effectively.

  Reckless Swing

  This ability doesn't scale at all so its better in the early game and worse in the late game as people begin to stack more health. However it does deal true damage which makes it a very effective tool for bringing down beefy tanks.

  Ragnarok

  In my opinion this is one of the most underrated ultimate abilities in the game. The passive armor pen is fantastic for any melee champion, but 6 seconds of complete and utter immunity is simply fantastic on a champion like Olaf. Every other melee carry in LoL is vulnerable to CC and can be completely shut down in a team fight. Even powerhouses like Xin Zhao or Tryndamere (yeah i know hes not top tier but thats only because he CAN be CCed so easily)can be completely shut down by a well placed Stun,Blind, or Wither. Most team fights are decided in the first few seconds so having that freedom to move/attack will really help your team prevail. Also remember that you are only hard to kill while you are hitting something, an exhausted Olaf is a useless and probably very dead Olaf.

• Introduction

  Recent changes to the meta-game have resulted in a drastic increase in the popularity of Jungling champions. They provide additional experience for the rest of their team (because they are not leeching XP from minions in a lane, they draw their experience from a completely separate pool)and also because they can easily scout and gank. Olaf is a top tier jungler, because of his skillset, he is able to kill the neutral mobs much faster than most other junglers and thus gain experience and gold quicker.

• Masteries + Runes

  Quints: Health
  Marks: Armor Pen
  Seals: Mana Regen
  Glyphs: Flat Magic Resist
  
  These are negotiable of course. If for example you want more physical resistance than magic resistance you could swap mana regen seals for dodge and magic resist glyphs for mp5.

• Items

  And now the part you have all been waiting for. Actually the "items" section was what kept me from writing this guide for a very long time. Olaf has a variety of itemization paths which you can take and I wanted to make sure I had found the optimal item build before posting this guide.
  
  Starting item:
  
  [item=Doran's Dagger] + 1 [item=Healing Potion]
  Vampiric Scepter
  or
  Cloth Armor + 5 [item=Healing Potion]
  
  At level 4 your going to have golem and lizard and about 100 health so go back to base and buy
  
  Boots of Speed and Sight Ward
  
  Go place the sight ward at dragon and then look for a lane that is ripe for a gank if there arent any than continue jungling
  
  Note: I think it is possible to kill dragon at level 4 with golem and lizard (and smite)
  
  Wriggle's Lantern THIS is the item that Olaf has been waiting for. It's incredibly efficient both in terms of stats and gold and it gives you a free sight ward that you can use to further scout the enemy.
  
  Boots of Swiftness or Mercury's Treads
  
  Youmuu's Ghostblade
  
  [item=Stark's Fervor]
  
  Frozen Mallet
  
  If you complete these items you will totally diesel. Rarely will a game go longer than this (in fact it probably wont even go this long) but if it does OR if you feel you need them earlier in the game you should consider
  
  Guardian Angel
  
  and
  
  The Bloodthirster

• Skilling Order

  1. W
  2. Q
  3. W
  4. Q
  
  after this prioritize R > W > E > Q

• Summoner Abilities

  Smite Must have for Jungle Olaf
  
  Ghost You REALLY need a way to close and get through tanks in team fights.
  Cleanse With cleanse AND your ultimate you should never have any trouble getting CCed in a fight. Personally I find Ghost to be all round more useful and less redundant.

• Teamfights

  There are two ways to play Olaf effectively in a team fight situation. Sweeper and Cleaner. Which strategy will be most effective depends entirely on both yours and your opponents team composition.
  
  Sweeper: You are the front line of the assault you use your ultimate + movement speed buffs (ghost/ghostblade) to quickly close the distance to the enemy carries/nukers and kill them quickly (at the very least take them out of the fight and make them run away) You will take the brunt of the enemies initiation and will shrug it off thanks to your ultimate. This strategy works best if you have good support character on your team to protect you as you engage. Morgana, Kayle, and Jana are good examples)
  
  Cleaner: If you have little support and the opposing team has very high burst damage then this strategy will likely be the more effective of the two. Hang back (not too far back) and wait for your team to initiate, once the majority of the initiating spells have been used THEN run in and Mop up whats left. You should be EXTREMELY hard to kill now that their best spells are on CD.