Olaf/Strategy

Skill usage

 * Because of effect and,  is one of the fastest junglers in the league.  allows him to gank effectively, and the combination of  and  let him both sustain his health throughout the early game and effectively take on and defeat most other junglers.
 * is a versatile ability and offers many different utilities to :
 * It is a very useful ability for chasing because of its own cooldown reduction (if you can pick it up while chasing). Throwing your axe where you are likely to chase your opponent lets you refresh its cooldown much quicker and increases its slow uptime.
 * It is an effective harassment ability. While many skillshots are consumed upon hitting the first target, or will lose effectiveness as they do, will travel straight through all enemies it hits for full damage. At early levels, however, recklessly spamming it will swiftly leave without mana.
 * It will remove the fog of war in a large area around where it is thrown for a very brief duration, making it useful for checking bushes.
 * Although sustained damage output isn't very powerful during early game, his burst is surprisingly strong as his  deals a significant amount of true damage which cannot be mitigated by any means. With a few ranks invested in the ability it can devastate the health of most squishier champions during mid-game.
 * If you have not invested in significant HP or health sustain as you level it, it can also fairly quickly devastate the health of himself if you are not careful with its usage. With this in mind, it can often be unwise to abuse this during a duel, as  may potentially wind up helping to kill himself.
 * can combine, , and at low life to become deceptively tanky. This makes him a great duelist, as he can take on most champions even at low health. When combined with items and spells such as  and , he can become formidably hard to kill.
 * In lane  has a higher range than 's basic attack range, this allows you to poke with it.
 * provides complete immunity to all forms of CC, and largely defines playstyle during the later stages of the game. It can be used either to initiate a battle, to improve his fighting ability midway through one, or to make an emergency retreat if the situation starts to become disadvantageous.
 * most common and effective role during late-game teamfights is to function as a bulky assassin. Upon the commencing of a pitched teamfight, can activate  and dive straight through the frontline of the enemy team, singling out the opposing AD carry. Because of the complete CC immunity that  affords him, he becomes extremely difficult for the opposing team to peel away. Even if  is unsuccessful in slaying his target, the threat he poses is often enough to drive them completely out of the teamfight in their attempts to avoid him, drastically reducing the enemy's team's damage output.
 * is also a very useful peeler himself, operating to safeguard his own carry from the opposing team. His ability to chain-slow enemies with and the excellent damage output from  can make it extremely difficult for enemy champions to safely attack the carry without risking being kited and killed.

Build usage

 * naturally receives armor and magic resistance from the passive effect of . Because of this, it takes more skills and time to kill him with the bonus armor and magic resistance, therefore stacking health on him is a very common build path.
 * Consider or  if a build with one sole health item is desired. A  is one of the most useful items for, as in addition to the large amount of health it has, it slows any opponents he autoattacks, giving him a much more reliable form of crowd control than his . However, if the player is confident with their ability to consistently land axes on a fleeing opponent, then  can be substituted for a  for its much greater health and survivability boosts.
 * is especially useful for giving him health, mana and an active that grants him and his allies 60% movement speed for three seconds and slows all enemies near him by 80% for one second at the end of the duration. In combination with  or the  enchantment,  and,  becomes extremely difficult to stop and will most likely need to be focused down before he kills his target.
 * When does not have  or  available for use, he can be extremely vulnerable to kiting. A  greatly reduces the effectiveness of this tactic and also offers a considerable amount of health and a useful active CC which  greatly appreciates.
 * is a particularly useful on - because of his natural tendency to obtain a significant amount of health, the bonus attack damage provided by its passive effect can be quite substantial. It also provides armor, improving his survivability, and critical strike chance, offering a powerful, if unreliable, boost to his DPS.
 * is one of the best items that Olaf can purchase. It synergizes with, increasing the sustain that is already increased by the ability itself even more, not to mention any lifesteal item that Olaf is likely to purchase. The cooldown reduction is also a great asset to Olaf. Due to these reasons, this item is nearly essential for Olaf, except when there are no AP champions on the enemy team.
 * Olaf does not need that much because  makes him immune to nearly every crowd control he would want to block with this item. However, it should still be considered if there is an important damaging spell that Olaf should block.
 * Some form of life steal or health regeneration is advised when dealing damage with to negate the health cost. An early  can be sufficient for sustaining his health and removes the need to quickly level . Later on, it can be upgraded into  for a highly offensive strategy, with the life steal stacking with . A more utility-oriented upgrade can be found in  and  - both offer extremely useful active CCs and the latter additionally hastens, making him almost completely impossible to outrun with  active.
 * It is important to note that Blade of the Ruined King deals damage based on the enemy's current health. Generally, enemies want to stack health to mitigate the effects from the true damage dealt by, but since BotRK counters this, there are very few things in terms of defense that enemies can do to mitigate Olaf's damage with this item. However, if offers lower raw AD, therefore less damage with both and Reckless Swing itself. The extra attack speed and the active from  should compensate for that, however.
 * Also, Blade of the Ruined King does not offer minion clearing capabilities that Ravenous Hydra offers, forcing players to either buy or constantly spam  to clear minion waves.
 * A synergizes incomparably well with 's kit - the passive attack damage boost as his health drops increases his DPS exponentially when combined with, and the magic damage shield lets him stay at low health more safely.
 * Cooldown reduction synergizes well with . With a maximum 40% cooldown reduction, the cooldown on is a mere 0.3 seconds after picking up the axe, as the flat cooldown reduction from picking up the axe becomes even more effective. For the sole purpose of maintaining the slow of, assuming that the axe is retrieved within 2.5 seconds of throwing it, 12.5% cooldown reduction is all that is needed for the target to be permanently slowed.
 * Heavy cooldown reduction also greatly benefits his - with access to at least 284 true damage nuke on a 4.8 second cooldown at level 9,  has excellent damage output from it alone, allowing him to dedicate the rest of his build towards improving his defenses and tanking ability.
 * has no dash ability, so augmenting his mobility with an early boots upgrade often proves to be very effective.
 * are a good option in this regard. They make Olaf hard to kite, but at same time, they make him rely on to get rid of crowd control effects that are not slows. If those CCs are a problem,  may prove to be a better choice.
 * A can greatly augment  carry-killing power by cutting their attack speed by 15%, in addition to its very useful armor and cooldown reduction bonuses.
 * Olaf does not need armor penetration. When choosing between flat damage and armor penetration, it is better to go for flat attack damage because his main target is the AD carry with low armor and the true damage from deals decent damage to tanks.  also benefits from flat damage. If the enemy team is especially heavily armored,  is still a reasonable purchase though as  spam and basic attacks can quickly shred the entire enemy team's armor.

Jungling

 * Starting items:, x5
 * Skill progression: →  →  →
 * Jungling order: Blue Golem (Smite) → Wolves → Wraiths → Wolves → Small Golems → Wraiths → Fountain → Red Lizard (Smite) → Gank

Countering

 * If your team plans on killing you have to fully commit in doing so; leaving the job-half done will make him even more dangerous due to  and he is likely to simply life steal all the effort your team put on him
 * is a slow projectile, meaning that you can dodge the spell easily.
 * You can deny from spamming  by preventing him from picking up the axe that the spell left in the path.
 * In a similar vein, making significant course changes while is chasing you will prevent him from picking up his axe and continuing to close the distance on you.
 * Save your CC while is using . It removes and negates any CC cast on him while it is active.
 * also gives him bonus armor and magic resistance. However, when activated, the passive bonus is lost and he gains a lot of AD to boost his damage. It might be wiser to try and burst him before the buff duration is over.
 * As is immune to any forms of CC placed upon him, the most effective forms of keeping him away are self-displacement abilities such as  and player-created terrain such as . You should try to save these abilities for when he uses his ultimate to make him waste the duration.