Warwick/Strategy

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Skill usage

• Though Warwick's strategy may vary from one summoner to another, he is an excellent jungler and a powerful solo laner.
• Due to the sustain granted by Eternal Thirst and Hungering Strike, Warwick can easily remain at full health in the jungle, allowing him to take many jungle routes and making him difficult to counter-jungle.
  • In the jungle, Warwick benefits most from armor and attack speed runes as it increases the effectiveness of Eternal Thirst while making it easier to kill jungler monsters.
• Hunter's Call can help a lot when pushing a lane since it will increase the attack speed of both you and your allies.
• Turn Blood Scent off to fool weakened enemies into thinking that you are not nearby, but don't forget to turn it on again later.
• Warwick excels at hunting down fleeing or weakened enemy champions after teamfights. At max level, Blood Scent reveals the location of enemy champs with less then 50% health from great distances and gives him a large boost in speed for chasing, it also reveals their locations for all friendly champs, making escapes very difficult while also preventing bush jukes.
• Once Warwick hits level 6, his ganking ability becomes vastly greater as his Infinite Duress can almost ensure at least one enemy will die in a gank.
• Warwick is also very useful in killing his pursuers. While running, cast Infinite Duress to regain most of the health you have lost, then spam the rest of your skills. This should shut down your pursuer's hope in killing you.
• Take care when initiating a teamfight with Infinite Duress, as the enemy team will likely focus you quickly.
• To maximize your ganking pressure you should try to force enemies to use their escape abilities such as Flash or Ghost before casting Infinite Duress.
• When ganking, try saving Infinite Duress for later in the fight when enemies are trying to run away. This way you have a higher chance of getting a kill, however it is sometimes better to use Infinite Duress to suppress your target until your team catches up to them.
• Only initiate the fight when your team can focus down an opponent to ensure they won't escape.
• When choosing a target for Infinite Duress, be careful of targets who have spell-blocking abilities or Banshee's Veil, as it will completely negate the suppression on your ultimate.
• Casting Infinite Duress on the enemy carry is the priority for Warwick in any team fight. The cooldown on the skill is relatively short, so don't be afraid to use it if you think it will grant your team a kill.
• Warwick's Infinite Duress suppresses an enemy, so using it on an enemy that is targeted by a friendly turret will ensure at least three turret hits. It can also be used to disrupt channeled abilities like Master Yi's Meditate or Nunu's Absolute Zero.
• Infinite Duress is easily disrupted by a stun, knock-up or suppression, so wait for the enemy disables to be used before using this ability.
• Due to the health regeneration from Eternal Thirst and Hungering Strike, Warwick excels at 1v1 fights. Use this knowledge to your advantage.

Build usage

• The attack damage scaling on Infinite Duress and the ability power scaling on Hungering Strike make attack damage and ability power items viable on Warwick.
  • Any ability power items should offer Warwick some other additionally beneficial statistic because they don't significantly increase his damage.
  • The Bloodthirster or The Black Cleaver. Lifesteal, in addition to Eternal Thirst and Hungering Strike, can give Warwick a good amount of sustain in a fight, making The Bloodthirster a good item selection. The armor reduction stacks from The Black Cleaver can help increase his physical damage, although it does nothing for his magic damage.
  • Hextech Gunblade offers a good mix of ability power and attack damage and sustain.
• If Warwick wants to build ability power, Nashor's Tooth is a hardcore item, as it gives Infinite Duress a 0.75 ability power ratio and with, Spellsword, a respectable 1.0 ratio. Hextech Gunblade also greatly increases damage on Warwick's Infinite Duress with its bonus attack damage ratio and ability power to synergize with  Nashor's Tooth.
• With Eternal Thirst, Warwick can benefit from attack speed items.
  • Due to the high damage and heal on Hungering Strike, Warwick works very well if you give him lots of resistance combined with spell penetration. While building him lots of on-hit effect effects like Wit's End and Nashor's Tooth is attractive, you risk making him a walking ultimate who will die very easily.
• His ultimate Infinite Duress procs all on-hit effects such as Wit's End, Blade of the Ruined King, Nashor's Tooth and The Black Cleaver five times, and Statikk Shiv once or twice. Using Infinite Duress gives it full stacks for The Black Cleaver, Wit's End, deals damage from Statikk Shiv and Blade of the Ruined King will deal 22.6% of their current HP (5% per strike).
  • Blade of the Ruined King has a great synergy with his ultimate, but due to its high price and as most players choose to build tanky before going for damage, it is recommended that it should be bought as a fourth or maybe fifth item.
• Since Warwick does significant damage by simply autoattacking, purchasing critical strike items like Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, or Atma's Impaler might be good for him. Take note that building critical strike is a slow process, requiring a fair amount of gold while offering no defensive stats, and can leave a melee champion like Warwick very vulnerable. Delaying the purchase of critical strike for survivability is suggested.
  • Remember that Infinite Duress cannot critical strike and does magic damage.
• Building some survivability is crucial for Warwick since he has no innate defense mechanisms as a melee champion.
• By building him tankier, Warwick becomes incredibly hard to kill due to high healing while still being able to put out hefty damage on enemies without having to fear sudden death. This will also maximize the effectiveness of any proc items you get by allowing him to stay in the fray for longer.
• A Banshee's Veil is great when you use Infinite Duress on an enemy champion, allowing Warwick to keep the suppression or give them second thoughts.
• Warwick's lack of any multiple-target or AoE damage means he may miss out on assists during a team fight. Statikk Shiv ensures Warwick does some damage to nearby enemies when attacking, allowing for assist credit. Buffing friendly champions with Hunter's Call will also provide assist credit.
• Warwick has the essential quality of any fighter, which is being both tanky and damage-capable. Therefore, a mix of items across tankiness, damage, and utility will maximize late game capacity on him.
• Getting a Spirit Visage will greatly increase Template:Csi survivability while he attacks as the healing from his Eternal Thirst and Hungering Strike will be increased, giving him an advantage in a 1v1.
• The movement speed slow of a Phage or a Frozen Mallet, in addition to Warwick's Blood Scent, can easily prevent any enemy's escape.
• Frozen Heart is a strong defensive item on Warwick as cooldown reduction works well with Hungering Strike.
• Cooldown reduction, although not a significant increase to his damage, is helpful because Warwick's abilities have rather long cooldowns.
• Doran's Ring can be a good starting item for a lane-wick because the mana regeneration and ability power helps sustaining yourself with Hungering Strike early game.

Jungling

• Starting items: Hunter's Machete 5 ×  Health Potion OR Cloth Armor 5 ×  Health Potion
• Skill progression: Hungering Strike → Hunters Call Hunters Call → Blood Scent → Hungering Strike → (optional → recc: Hungering Strike) → Infinite Duress
• Jungling order: Blue Golem (smite) → Wolves → Wraiths → Red Lizard (smite) → Small Golems → (Fountain / Gank) → Wolves → Wraiths → Small Golems → Wolves → Blue Golem → Wraiths → Red Lizard → (Gank) → Fountain at lv 7 → Dragon (assumes having Madred's Razors)
• Note: Another set of starting items could be Cloth Armor, 2 ×  Health Potion, Sight Ward. The ward is almost always used to ward your own Blue Golem or Dragon, so if an enemy jungler attempts to take it, you can set up a gank. Alternatively, you can place the ward at enemy Blue/Red to try to gank the enemy champion trying to obtain the buff. Use Hunters Call Hunters Call after the 2nd attack in order to gain the most healing efficiency with Eternal Thirst.

Recommended builds

Countering

• Buying a Banshee's Veil can force Warwick to get closer to you in order to use Hungering Strike to break your spell shield before using his ultimate.
• Quicksilver Sash is also effective for removing Infinite Duress if you are a high priority target.
• Before Warwick has a few ranks in Hungering Strike he can't trade damage well. Use this to your advantage to deny Warwick early on.
• Pre-6 Warwick lacks powerful crowd control, so escaping his early ganks will be relatively easy if you're not overly pushed.
• Warwick is a very resilient opponent at all stages in the game, and is fairly tanky along with his sustain from his passive and Q, so you should avoid focusing him.
• Always try to disrupt his Infinite Duress with a stun, silence, knockup, knockback, blind, or even Exhaust if you have one.
  • This reduces Warwick's overall damage while freeing one of your teammates for the fight.
• An opponent who can match his sustain and continuously poke him like Vladimir, Irelia or Renekton can handle him in a lane.
  • Forcing Warwick to switch targets during the laning phase with continuous pokes will prevent him from getting stacks in his passive leading to a much weak heal for Warwick.
• Much like Dr. Mundo, Warwick is very tanky with sustain, so while he can be bursted down, allowing him to heal back to full health will waste all your efforts.
• Build magic resistance to lower the damage from Hungering Strike and his ultimate, as those are his main sources of damage.
• Since his DPS comes from attack speed and on-hit effect items (typically Blade of the Ruined King and/or Wit's End), the counter is attack speed debuffs: Randuin's Omen and Frozen Heart along with champions like Malphite, Darius, Nasus and Gragas or any other tank/offtank with an attack speed debuff such as Ground Slam or Ice Blast.
• Getting health regeneration early on can be an effective counter against a laning Warwick, as his harassment is limited to using Hungering Strike.
• Try to use Executioner's Calling or Ignite on him in every teamfight to counter his high sustain.

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