User blog comment:Lacounty/First major damage items?/@comment-1330314-20141024190929

There's a lot of variation, but here's generally what you should go for:
 * If you're a marksman (ADC), your first damage item will almost always be . Its crit chance and crit damage may make it look like it's dependent on more AD to work, but a recent patch to AD items made it the best item for raw autoattack-based damage right from the start. Ideally, you should save up for a, then work from there to IE. However, if you're a champion like or , you might be better off rushing , which will give you much-needed early sustain and extremely good damage output at all stages of the game.
 * If you're a mage against another AP damage dealer, your best bet is usually : gives you the magic resist and mana sustain needed to stay in lane for a long time, and Grail gives you a decent amount of AP to go with it. If you're a mage against an AD damage dealer (there are a lot of AD assassin mids, these days), you're better off rushing a  and building it into a . Armguard gives you a good amount of AP and armor in one go, and Zhonya's will give you a lot of damage while making you a lot harder, if not impossible, to assassinate.
 * If you're an AP assassin or bruiser, typically you'll want to build a for the magic penetration it gives you. If you're a bruiser, you'll want to keep this and build it into  eventually (but not immediately, since its passive is weak early on), and if you're an assassin you're usually better off selling the item and getting a  or  instead (you can get either of these early on, as the AP and penetration is worth buying even when your opponents have very little magic resistance).
 * If you're a melee AD champion, you'll usually want to rush and build it into either  (if you're against an armor-stacking laner) or  (if you want more burst and mobility). Alternatively,  into  will allow you to trade a lot better, while also giving you far better sustain and waveclear, so if you want to dominate your lane against a champion who's hard to kill, this is a good choice. If you want damage but are against an AP damage dealer (there are a lot of mages, such as, who've become dominant top laners) then you might want to take a  and upgrade it quickly to  for its massive shield and raw AD. The only exception to the above is , whose unique bonuses (his crit chance is doubled) means you're usually better off rushing  and then  to max out on crit early on, as well as farm a lot quicker and poke better.  sort of falls into a similar build path, so you'll want to get a lot of attack speed and crit early on to work with your natural crit and AD steroids, but he also works well with the above items.
 * If you're a jungler, in terms of gold efficiency you're going to want to rush your top-tier jungle item, so (if you're AD and early game/spell-focused),  (if you're AP and spell-focused) or  (if you're autoattack-focused). These will all provide a lot of damage on their own and also grant you extra gold income in the jungle.  doesn't give you immediate damage, but after 30 kills/assists and/or large monster kills turns into, which will give you a lot of on-hit damage that will scale infinitely. Be mindful that going for Feral Flare means you'll be sacrificing a lot of early game damage and presence, so if you want to especially dominate the early game you might want to take Spirit of the Elder Lizard instead.
 * If you're a tank or a support, you're obviously not going to be focusing on damage, but if you want to be tanky while still dealing damage, is a very good choice, even against AP champions (it deals a bit less early damage than it used to, though). Supports now get to choose from one of three item lines specifically made for supporting, and the damage-focused one starts with  and ends with : it's a support item that gives you AP, a ton of gold income when you attack enemy champions and turrets, and an active with a bit of damage and a strong area-of-effect slow. It's a high-risk item, though, so you may not want to take it if you're not going to be playing aggressively, but it'll give you the most damage out of all the support lines. Alternatively, depending on who you're playing you might want to pick a,  or : supports have a lot more gold to spend now, and can afford to get one or two AP items, though you'll be picking these up towards the end of your build, rather than at the start.

This is a very general overview, so if you want more more detailed indications, let me know and I'd be happy to help. :)