With the release of Smolder on January 31 it's highly time I show you a guide with the playstyle, tips, tricks, as well as builds, summs and runes for our Fiery Fledgling.
Smolder is the next released ADC in Patch 14.2 after 2 years with the release of Nilah in League of Legends. I'm here to tell you all about him and show you a guide with all the deets you need to know! But first, make sure you roughly know his abilities!
Smolder: Build, Runes & Summoner Spells
Main Rune Path
Keystones
Press The Attack is a great choice for Smolder. While his Q also procs on-hit effects, you can easily stack PtA with an AA, followed up by your Q and another auto attack. On top of that, he is also more of an AD Caster, such as Ezreal or Lucian, and doesn't work with auto attacks that much. Therefore, Press The Attack is a better choice than Lethal Tempo.
If you face some lane bullies like Draven or Tristana, as well as poke supps, you can also go for Fleet Footwork to compensate some of the incoming damage. The short receipt of movement speed can also be useful to get out of some dangerous situations.
Arcane Comet is sometimes a great choice, too! With your W you got really high range with a slow on top of that, guaranteeing the hit with your comet. So, if you want to keep your distance and just poke your opponents down till your laning phase is over, Arcane Comet is the rune for you.
Remaining Primary and Secondary Rune Path
For the Precision keystones, you need to go for Presence of Mind, Legend: Alacrity and Cut Down. During your laning phase, you'll have some mana issues. Presence of Mind helps you out a bit. Legend: Alacrity lets you cast your rotation easier due to higher attack speed and therefore is also a must. Cut Down is also an incredible rune for Smolder, letting you take down even the tankiest enemies.
Secondary, you should go for Manaflow Band and Gathering Storm with the Sorcery tree. Manaflow Band makes sure that you don't run out of mana that easily, which is essential for an AD Caster. With Gathering Storm you'll become a true late game carry, especially with enough stacks on your passive.
If you run Arcane Comet as your keystone, you go once again for Manaflow Band, but afterward take Absolute Focus and Scorch instead of Gathering Storm. Scorch gives you even more poke damage and therefore is a better choice than Gathering Storm when you want to gain the upper hand during your laning phase. Absolute Focus grants you some bonus adaptive damage as long as you're above 70% of your HP. And since you just want to sit back and poke your enemies down with Arcane Comet, this is your go-to rune.
As your secondary rune, you can take the Inspiration tree with Biscuit Delivery and Magical Footwear. Biscuit Delivery grants you even more mana, meanwhile Magical Footwear lets you save some gold.
Smolder ADC Items
Essence Reaver and Navori Quickblades are your bread and butter. Essence Reaver lets you proc its passive with the use of your Q, similar to Ezreal and also makes sure that you don't run out of mana. Navori Quickblades lets you spam your abilities and gives you an easier time to rotate between your Q and your AA's.
For your boots, you should go for Ionian Boots of Lucidity. These bad boys make sure that you can cast your Q even more often, and since you don't really work that much with AA's, you don't need Berserker's Greaves, especially if you run Legend: Alacrity in your runes.
Now you got tons of great items to choose from. Rapidfire Cannon, Bloodthirster or Lord Dominik's Regards are incredible choices for your fourth and fifth items.
As your last item, you can go for something situational. Generally speaking, Guardian Angel is of course always a good choice. You can also go for the remaining item you didn't build as your fourth or fifth one.
Smolder Summoner Spells
For your summs, you always take Flash as your first one. As your second Summoner Spell, you usually go for Ghost. You got a lot of cast times with your abilities. Ghost makes sure to give you an easier time to kite, but also to escape dangerous situations or catch your opponents. Your E also synergizes with Ghost very well, letting you fly a bit faster.
If your enemies got tons of engage champs or aggressive ADC's in the bot lane, you can also go for Exhaust. Exhaust is especially great against champs like Draven, Tristana or Samira, as well as Nocturne or Zed.
In case you fight against lane opponents with tons of CC like Leona or Ashe, you should also keep an eye out for Cleanse to make sure, you're not stuck in chain CC for 5 seconds – if you even survive that long.
Smolder: Playstyle
Stacks of Dragon Practice
With Smolder, your bread and butter is gonna be getting stacks of your passive Dragon Practice. Dragon Practice got 3 stages:
- 25 stacks or more: damages all enemies surrounding the target
- 125 stacks or more: sends explosions beyond the target that deal 75% of this Ability's damage
- 225 stacks or more: burns the target, dealing 6.5% max HP true damage over 3 seconds. Enemies that drop below a certain amount of percentage total health while burning are getting executed
To get stacks, you need to do the same thing as with Veigar. Hitting enemies grants you stacks, but also last hitting with your Q.
If your Q starts to evolve, it becomes even easier to get multiple stacks with a single Q by your huge amount of AoE damage with 125 stacks or more. So make sure to always get the maximum amount of stacks with one single ability.
Strong Phases of The Game
Smolder is, through and through, a late game ADC. In the early game, all you want to do is get as many stacks as possible as fast as possible. He got a really short range. Therefore, the laning phase can be rough early game, especially against lane bullies like Draven, but also champs with high range, such as Caityln or Senna.
Keep in mind that at the end of your laning phase (14 min), you should have at least 125 stacks.
In the later stages of the game, Smolder truly starts to shine. With Essence Reaver and Navori Quickblades in your backpack, as well as more than 225 stacks, he can carry any fight with huge AoE abilities that deal an insane amount of damage.
For more tips and tricks, check out the video below:
Otherwise, I hope this guide helped you out to understand the newest addition for the bot lane: Smolder, the Fiery Fledgling.