The recent item system rework in the League of Legends preseason has made it more important than ever to know what builds are working out the best in the bottom lane.
There are plenty of viable bot lane champions thanks to some of the new items, so finding out the champ that best fits your playstyle shouldn’t be too hard.
Here are some of the best preseason builds for the bottom lane. We’ve included plenty of builds for various archetypes to help you decide which items to rush so you can dominate your games and get that sweet LP once season 11 starts.
AD attack speed
Runes
As an ADC focused on attack speed, you want to get one of the crucial runes from either the Domination or Precision tree. Pick Hail of Blades from Domination to gain a lot of early pressure or focus on getting Lethal Tempo for more mid to late game scaling. The other runes shown above focus on fixing your health and mana issues.
Items
The core item of all attack speed oriented ADCs now is Guinsoo’s Rageblade. You’re no longer required to stack it in combat and you get a new passive that converts your crit chance to on-hit damage, making your attacks more deadly as you gain more crit chance.
Berserker’s Greaves: These should be your core boots in every game since you need the attack speed tied to them.
Guinsoo’s Rageblade: This item enables all on-hit ADCs to be strong. It’s a great first item to rush to boost your constant auto attack damage without having to rely on a critical hit. The component item of Rageknife is also cheap and feels great to rush.
Immortal Shieldbow: You’re going to be focused a lot as an ADC, so it’s a great idea to get some defensive items early on. This item received the Phantom Dancer shield passive, so it’s a priority to ensure that you don’t get blown up in fights. It’s fine to acquire this as a second item instead of rushing it, though.
Runaan’s Hurricane: This item replicates your auto attacks like before, making you a menace in teamfights once you start applying all of your on-hit damage to a couple of enemies at a time.
Bloodthirster: The reworked BT with critical chance is still great to purchase. The shield is a life-saver and can help you survive those pesky assassins that have infested the meta with their lethality-based items.
Mercurial Scimitar: This is one of the best defensive items in the game, allowing you to get out of sticky situations and completely nullifying key abilities from the opposing team. It’s a must-have item in the current meta with so much crowd control on various teams.
AD lethality
Runes
As a lethality-oriented ADC, most of your damage will be coming from your items. That means picking runes for either sustain or movement speed is a huge priority. Precision is the best tree in this case, giving you access to Fleet Footwork for movement, Presence of Mind alongside Legend: Bloodline for sustain, and Coup de Grace for a finishing move.
The secondary Sorcery tree is mostly taken for Nimbus Cloak, a rune that’s been abused by most champions in the game recently due to how strong it is.
Items
Berserker’s Greaves: While there are some exceptions, you can never go wrong with these boots in this archetype. They’ll grant you some attack speed, which you’ll be lacking from your other items.
Eclipse: This is the bread and butter Mythic lethality item that deals damage and grants you an absorption shield. The percent armor penetration Mythic passive is great as well, ensuring you’re able to kill tanks just as easily as you can take down the carries on the other team.
The Collector: This is an interesting item, the first of its kind, by giving you both critical chance and lethality—two great stats when combined together. While you’ll need 3,000 gold to buy these stats, you’ll also have access to a low-health execute against enemies, which is valuable.
Youmuu’s Ghostblade: This is a great lethality item to help you move faster around the map. It will allow you to get from one objective to another in less time, shaving off crucial seconds over the course of the entire game. In teamfights, you can use its active to kite away from enemies easily.
Edge of Night: This is a great defensive item with a nice spell shield effect. You can absorb crucial spells during a teamfight with it, so make sure to not waste its effect outside of a teamfight.
Serylda’s Grudge: This item is a must against armor-stacking champions. It grants you 30 percent armor penetration alongside 45 attack damage and 20 ability haste—three valuable stats. When this item is combined with the percent armor penetration from your Mythic passive, you’ll be easily ignoring more than 50 percent of the enemy’s armor.
AD casters
Runes
AD casters still hover around in the meta in the bottom lane. While they aren’t as popular as either lethality or attack speed oriented champions, they still have their spot with the latest itemization rework.
Items
The Tear of the Goddess rework will allow you to start with it, but that’s a noob trap right now since it doesn’t grant any offensive stats. While you can acquire it at the start of the game, it’s recommended to get it as a first base item instead because you need the health, attack damage, and lifesteal from Doran’s Blade.
Ionian Boots of Lucidity: This is a solid boot choice to increase your ability and summoner spell haste. Forego this if you feel like you’ll need more attack speed by going for Berserker’s Greaves instead.
Manamune: This item received a small rework. It’s no longer stackable by throwing out spells randomly. You now have to hit enemies to actually get stacks, making it much more difficult to stack up. But once it’s stacked, it becomes stronger and you’ll no longer lose mana from using Muramana like before.
Trinity Force: This is the Mythic item that you’ll be getting in most of your games. It basically has the same build path as before, a slightly stronger passive, and great stats all around. The only downside is that you’ll be missing out on other Mythic items or passives to boost yourself.
Death’s Dance: This item is still busted even after losing its magic resistance. It allows you to become a mini-tank, making you deceptively hard to kill.
Ravenous Hydra: This item is a slightly weaker version than its previous one, but it can be activated by spells now, making it a huge pickup for a wide range of AD casters.
Guardian Angel: A defensive item in your build is a requirement. While Death’s Dance does solve that issue, getting Guardian Angel as a second chance is even better. You might get caught by an enemy and Death’s Dance may not be able to save you, but Guardian Angel can buy a couple of seconds for your team to arrive.
AP
Runes
Some mages are finding themselves roaming the bottom lane quite successfully. Notorious champions that seem to be on par with ADCs right now include Swain, Karthus, Syndra, and Ziggs.
While Swain and Karthus have a more melee-oriented approach, Syndra and Ziggs can nuke the opposing bot lane from long range. Sorcery is the core rune page for these champs while the second option is up for debate. Precision helps a lot by giving you Tenacity and mana from Presence of Mind.
Items
Liandry’s Anguish: This is a great Mythic item to acquire to deal maximum health percent damage to enemies. The ability haste Mythic passive is crucial to ensure that you can spam your abilities more often. Aim to get it as soon as possible.
Zhonya’s Hourglass: Zhonya’s is a great defensive item that you can start building toward early. The Seeker’s Armguard component was buffed to cost less, so it can be rushed as a first item to make you a beefy mage.
Chemtech Purifier: This is a solid anti-healing item if your team needs something for all the heals on the opposing team. It’s cheaper than Morello and gives you much-needed ability haste.
Demonic Embrace: This item is strong, especially when combined with Liandry’s. If you buy Demonic Embrance, you’ll be melting through tanks in no time. The resists granted also make you a little bit tankier.
Rabadon’s Deathcap: This is the best AP item in the game, boosting your damage output throughout your entire kit and making your items that benefit from AP even stronger. Acquire it once you have some AP already.
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