Champion Spotlight
Recommended Items
Tips
- Playing As
Olaf
- Olaf can combine Berserker Rage, Vicious Strikes and Ragnarok at low life to become deceptively strong.
- The bonus healing granted by Vicious Strikes amplifies your life steal form all sources as well as heals from allies.
- Playing Against Olaf
- Olaf becomes more dangerous the lower life he is. Save your disables to finish him off.
- Preventing Olaf from reaching his axe will minimize the amount of harassment he can cause in the laning phase.
- Olaf has reduced defenses from damage during Ragnarok, despite being immune to disables. If you can't escape from Olaf during Ragnarok, try focusing your damage on him with your teammates.
Tricks
- Ability Usage
- Berserker Rage's:
- Increasing Olaf's durability gives you more time to stay alive, more time alive means more time to land basic attacks.
- At level 18 Olaf needs 214.27% additional attack speed to cap, he only has 99.9% of the passive and 80% for 6 sec from Vicious Strikes:, leaving roughly 35% from items to reach the cap.
- Olaf needs to be on the edge of death to reach all of his damage potential but this leaves him vulnerable to enemy focus or executer abilities so building attack speed isn't bad at all, this because that extra amount of attack speed will allow him to reach the attack speed cap with more health, and more health means more survivality.
- When jungling, remember that you must continue to land basic attacks against the monsters in order to utilize your lifesteal.
- Undertow:
- This skill is recommended to be maxed first because:
- It has a good damage output, both in burst and sustained damage.
- The slow scales with level.
- Compared to other skillshots, it has a big missile width and doesn't have additional mana cost per rank additionally it don't reduces his damage per enemy hit like other skillshoots.
- It has a low cooldown and can be reduced with savvy gameplay.
- Throwing your axe can be used to explore the fog of war.
- Most of the time, you should try to recover your axe, even in a battle and specially in early levels, where it shines much better.
- Try to land the axe where you plan on moving in the future, this will allows you to chase and refresh its cooldown much quicker and increases the uptime on the slow.
- The axe will remove the fog of war in a large area around when it lands in the ground for a very brief duration, making it useful for checking bushes.
- Additionally if it doesn't reveals enemies, try to listen the sound effect when it hits them.
- This skill is recommended to be maxed first because:
- When jungling, use the stick function to your favor, put the monster between Olaf and terrain, in this form the axe will land closer to Olaf, with some practice the axe will be picked without going for it, like in old patches.
- Vicious Strikes:
- Max it at last, most of his statistics are less useful compared with other of his abilities.
- Active it only and only when you are close to your objetive and when Olaf has 50% or less of his health or when you are trying to destroy a structure.
- During the active duration, only use Undertow when your enemy are trying to escape.
- Reckless Swing:
- This ability is a double-bladed axe, it haves a incredible power but if you don't have care of it, that power will consume you.
- Take this on mind, if your enemy takes, for example, 100 True Damage Olaf will recive 30 Pure Damage so in fact is the same as if your enemy only takes 70 True Damage.
- This don't applies if you can kill the target with it.
- Take this on mind, if your enemy takes, for example, 100 True Damage Olaf will recive 30 Pure Damage so in fact is the same as if your enemy only takes 70 True Damage.
- Building some health items will reduce Olaf to help his enemies to kill him.
- Building Life Steal can help you to constantly poke enemies, but is not recommended to core it because enemies can buy Grevious Wounds to reduce 40% of the stat.
- Additionally, it is less effective when: your enemie has 100 armor or more and you don't have armor reduction or penetration, Olaf doesn't have critical strikes, or he doesn't have good AD.
- Remember that the ability has a higher range than Olaf's basic attack range, this allows you to poke with it.
- This ability is a double-bladed axe, it haves a incredible power but if you don't have care of it, that power will consume you.
- Ragnarok:
- Provides complete immunity to all forms of CC, and largely defines Olaf's 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.
- Olaf's most common and effective role during late-game teamfights is to function as a bulky assassin. Upon the commencing of a pitched teamfight, Olaf can activate Ragnarok and dive straight through the frontline of the enemy team, singling out the opposing AD carry. Because of the complete CC immunity that Ragnarok affords him, he becomes extremely difficult for the opposing team to peel away. Even if Olaf 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.
- Olaf is also a very useful peeler himself, operating to safeguard his own carry from the opposing team. His ability to chain-slow enemies with Undertow and the excellent damage output from Reckless Swing can make it extremely difficult for enemy champions to safely attack the carry without risking being kited and killed.
- Provides complete immunity to all forms of CC, and largely defines
- Rune Usage
- Precision path:
- Key rune:
- Press the Attack, this key rune allows to have a playstyle centered on basic attacks and kill the weak enemies by it, needs good defenses to shines on Olaf.
- Lethal Tempo, more centered in the ofensive late game, this rune can be very devastated when you can reach the attack speed cap with out it.
- Conqueror, incresases a few the damage output of Undertow and Reckless Swing, but helps Olaf to kill armor tanks more quickly, remember, it don't deals 20% bonus true damage it only converts that amount from the landed basic attack AD.
- Don't pick Fleet Footwork, it was made for critical champs and adc that can energized the effect more quick and efficient.
- Slot 1:
- Overheal, pick it if you want to be more initiator, you only can recharge it with lifesteal items and Vicious Strikes.
- Triumph, the must picked rune in this slot, is recommended to picked only if you can secure kills or assists from your team either on team fights or ganks.
- Slot 2:
- Legend: Alacrity, helps you to reach the attack speed cap.
- Legend: Tenacity, helps you against continous CC, you only will invulnerable to them for 6 seconds, after that, you are vulnerable.
- Legend: Bloodline, helps your sustain on he mid game, not recommended to use it without critical strikes.
- Slot 3:
- Coup de Grace, excellent option for full AD Olaf.
- Cut Down, perfect against health tanky champs, not recommended to use it if you build health.
- Last Stand, excellent option for bruiser Olaf and the favorite one, synerges great with Berserker Rage.
- Key rune:
- Item Usage
- Olaf naturally receives armor and magic resistance from the passive effect of Ragnarok. Because of this, it takes more effort to kill him, therefore stacking health on him is a very common build path.
- Consider Warmog's Armor or Frozen Mallet if a build with one sole health item is desired. Frozen Mallet is one of the most useful items for Olaf, 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 Undertow. However, if the player is confident with their ability to consistently land axes on a fleeing opponent, then Frozen Mallet can be substituted for a Warmog's Armor for its much greater health and survivability boost.
- Consider
- Sterak's Gage synerges incredibly with Ragnarok as it increases the survivality against enemy burst damage when they try to kill Olaf from prevent him to kill the mage or the adc during the effect and also it gives a lot of base AD that scales with Reckless Swing and more when Ragnarok is active.
- Titanic Hydra is an excellent option for Olaf because he will usually stack a lot of health late game, making Titanic Hydra's Cleave passive very attractive. Olaf does not need the lifesteal from Ravenous Hydra because he can already gain lifesteal with his Vicious Strikes. However, purchasing Titanic Hydra during the early game is not recommended as you need some health to make this item's passive (and active) worthwhile.
- Righteous Glory is especially useful for Olaf giving him health, mana and an active that grants him and his allies movement speed for a few seconds and heavily slows all enemies near him for one second at the end of the duration. In combination with Mercury's Treads or the Cinderhulk enchantment, Randuin's Omen and Ghost, Olaf becomes extremely difficult to stop and will most likely need to be focused down before he kills his target.
- When Olaf does not have Ragnarok or Undertow available for use, he can be extremely vulnerable to kiting. A Randuin's Omen greatly reduces the effectiveness of this tactic and also offers a considerable amount of health and a useful active slow which Olaf greatly appreciates.
- Dead Man's Plate can be considered an alternative to Randuin's Omen in a more offensive oriented build, as it also provides movement speed, situational damage and sticking power from the Dreadnought passive. However, it is recommended to build at least one AD item component such as Phage or Hexdrinker before completing Dead Man's Plate, to ensure that Olaf can actually deal enough burst damage once he gets to his target.
- Spirit Visage is one of the best items Olaf can purchase. It synergizes with Vicious Strikes, 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 Banshee's Veil that much because Ragnarok 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.
- Olaf does not need
- Some form of life steal or health regeneration is advised when dealing damage with Reckless Swing to negate the health cost. An early Vampiric Scepter can be sufficient for sustaining his health and removes the need to quickly level Vicious Strikes. Later on, it can be upgraded into The Bloodthirster for a highly offensive, with the life steal stacking with Vicious Strikes. A more utility-oriented upgrade can be found in Bilgewater Cutlass into Blade of the Ruined King - both offer extremely useful active slows and the latter additionally hastens Olaf, making him almost completely impossible to outrun with Ragnarok 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 Reckless Swing, but since Blade of the Ruined King 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 Undertow and Reckless Swing itself. The extra attack speed and the active from Ragnarok should compensate for that, however.
- Also, Blade of the Ruined King does not offer the minion clearing capabilities that Ravenous Hydra offers, forcing players to either buy Sunfire Cape or constantly spam Undertow to clear minion waves.
- Also,
- A Maw of Malmortius synergizes incomparably well with Olaf's kit - the passive attack damage boost as his health drops increases his DPS exponentially when combined with Berserker Rage, and the magic damage shield lets him stay at low health more safely.
- Cooldown reduction synergizes well with Undertow. With a maximum 40% cooldown reduction, the cooldown on Undertow 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 Undertow, 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 Reckless Swing - with access to at least 284 true damage nuke on a 4.8 second cooldown at level 9, Olaf has excellent damage output from it alone, allowing him to dedicate the rest of his build towards improving his defenses and tanking ability.
- Heavy cooldown reduction also greatly benefits his
- Olaf has no dash ability, so augmenting his mobility with early boots upgrade often proves to be very effective.
- Boots of Swiftness are a good option in this regard. They make Olaf hard to kite, but at the same time, they make him rely on Ragnarok to get rid of crowd control effects that do not slow. If those CCs are a problem, Mercury's Treads may prove to be a better choice. Additionally, in combination with Ghost, Ionian Boots of Lucidity are also effective.
- A Frozen Heart can greatly augment Olaf's 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 Reckless Swing deals decent damage to tanks. Undertow also benefits from flat damage. If the enemy team is especially heavily armored, The Black Cleaver is still a reasonable purchase though as Undertow spam and basic attacks can quickly shred the entire enemy team's armor.
- Countering
- If your team plans on killing Olaf, fully commit in doing so. Leaving the job-half done will make him even more dangerous due to Berserker Rage and he is likely to simply life steal all the damage your team did to him.
- Undertow is a slow projectile, meaning that you can dodge the spell easily.
- Save your CC while Olaf is using Ragnarok. It removes and negates any CC cast on him while it is active.
- Olaf's Ragnarok 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 Olaf is immune to any forms of CC placed upon him, the most effective forms of keeping him away are self-displacement abilities such as Arcane Shift and player-created terrain such as Cataclysm. You should try to save these abilities for when he uses Ragnarok to make him waste the duration.
- Keep Olaf from reaching your team. His high auto attack damage and high lifesteal from Vicious Strikes can easily take out most of your team with full HP if Olaf is left overlooked.
