Olaf stands as one of the best junglers for new League of Legends players thanks to his simple kit, which includes only one skill-shot and has built-in sustain to help clear camps without losing too much health.
While he has fallen from the meta for a couple of months, he’s still a good answer to some popular junglers currently terrorizing solo queue.
As with all League champions, specific items are going to be more useful depending on the situation. But there are certain items that are effective on Olaf in all games. These core items are going to ensure that you have the best possible chances of destroying the enemy Nexus with this champion.
Here’s the best build for Olaf in League’s season 10.
Runes
Precision
Conqueror: Conqueror has remained one of the best keystones for most bruisers in the game—Olaf included. It gives you extra attack damage and an amazing healing effect if you stack it up, which is easy for Olaf since you’ll have a lot of attack speed from your W. But if you’re not facing tanky champions, you can go for Press the Attack instead to get a good amount of burst damage on your target.
Triumph: Triumph is a great snowballing rune to help you survive low-health encounters and earn a bit more gold on takedowns. In teamfights, this can be the difference between life and death after a gank.
Legend: Alacrity:Â Legend: Alacrity is a basic rune to increase your attack speed and make your attacks feel more fluid. It is the default rune against all types of teams. If you’re facing a heavy crowd-control focused team, however, you can go for Legend: Tenacity instead. If you feel the need to get some lifesteal early on, then go for Legend: Bloodline, but this should be rare since your kit has built-in lifesteal already.
Last Stand:Â As Olaf, you’re likely going to take poke damage as you walk up to enemy champions. As a result, activating the Last Stand effect is quite easy and makes you extremely deadly if you reach opponents with a low amount of health.
Inspiration
Magical Footwear:Â Magical Footwear gives you a pair of free boots, granting you additional movement speed. Your ganks will contribute to how early you will get this, though, so focus on plenty of ganks early on.
Approach Velocity: With your Q, you can easily activate this rune and become a fast-tracking machine who looks for his prey. Even allies’ crowd control activates this rune, so it’s a worth taking.
Bonuses: +10 percent attack speed, +9 adaptive force, +6 armor
Starting items
Hunter’s Talisman
Hunter’s Talisman is a required item to start in the jungle. It helps you clear camps without losing too much health by giving you a healing and damaging effect, and regenerates your mana while you are located within the jungle. Just make sure to kite a bit in the jungle to get maximum benefit from this item.
Refillable potion
You’re going to take damage from monsters while clearing your jungle. Having this potion allows you to regain 250 health over 24 seconds, which can be refilled by going to the base. It’s a small gold investment for such a bargain.
Core items
Ninja Tabi
Ninja Tabi is the best defensive option as Olaf since you’re a melee champion. You’ll be getting auto attacked quite a lot early on and getting this item reduces all that pressure on you and allows you to survive the early to mid game.
You can rush this item early on if the enemy is heavy AD stacked. The only exception would be if you’re facing heavy crowd control-focused teams, which would be better countered by Mercury’s Treads.
Enchantment: Warrior
Enchantment: Warrior is your core item in all games with one exception: if your team needs a tank, then you need to purchase Cinderhulk instead. Warrior grants you attack damage and cooldown reduction, making you a mid-game monster for a bit of gold.
Black Cleaver
Black Cleaver is a core item against most compositions unless they are all squishy. It grants you health, cooldown reduction, and a great armor-penetrating effect, allowing you to melt tanks easily. The passive movement speed effect is great as well, allowing you to stick to targets with ease, especially when combined with your movement speed runes.
Oracle Lens
Once you provide some early vision via the yellow trinket, you won’t be needing it anymore. Swap to an Oracle Lens after your first or second back and use it to deny vision from the enemy. You can set up a gank by using it to clear vision or use it near the dragon or Baron to clear vision so that the enemy has no idea that you’re taking objectives.
Control Ward
Always buy two Control Wards when you can. While the Oracle Lens has a cooldown and can be countered by the enemy team after it expires, the Control Ward remains in place and ensures no enemy vision is in the nearby area. As a jungler, you want to make sure that you have one on the map at all times and one in your inventory for backup, especially if you intend to do objectives.
Late-game items
Death’s Dance
This is the best offensive-oriented item in the game. Death’s Dance grants you plenty of defensive and offensive stats while providing a great damage-mitigation effect. It will ensure that you don’t get burst down within seconds by putting a damage-over-time effect on you instead of the upfront damage.
This item used to be mediocre on Olaf. But its rework allows Olaf to become unkillable due to how much sustain you have. The build-path is great and allows you to have great stats while you build towards the item.
Spirit Vissage
Spirit Vissage is one of the best magic damage-oriented defensive item. It grants you magic resist, health, and increases the healing you receive—three perfect stats you benefit from quite a lot. Against heavy AP-oriented teams, it can be rushed as a second item instead of Black Cleaver, but that will make you less of a threat.
Sterak’s Gage
Sterak’s Gage serves as a core item for Olaf since you’ll be getting into the fray first as the frontline your team needs. This item ensures that you are tanky enough and prevents you from being burst down within seconds by giving you an absorption shield, which scales with health items.
This item gets better as the game goes by and you get more health items. It will grant you a couple of thousand extra health when the shield is activated by the end of the game.
Situational
Deadman’s Plate
Deadman’s is a great tanky item that enhances your movement speed. It grants you health, armor, and a slow effect against melee champions..
One good tactic with this item is to stack it up then sit in a bush, waiting for a lonely enemy to come by. You can then pop your ultimate and destroy them with swift attacks.
Randuin’s Omen
Randuin’s Omen is a great defensive item against AD champions. The slow effect also helps you reach carries easily. The build path is cheap and you can rush this item as a third or fourth item without doubt.
Bramble Vest
Bramble Vest reduces the healing output of enemy champions attacking you. It can be purchased if your team has no healing reduction effects.
If you’re facing mages or tanks, then getting Executioner’s Blade is a better option to apply the Grievous Wounds effect since it’s unlikely they’ll auto-attack you to activate your Bramble Vest.
Quicksilver Sash
This is a great item if you’re facing champions who can lock you down with heaps of crowd control. It’s cheaper and can be activated at will to cleanse crowd control at any time. Building it against champions like Leona, Nautilus, Braum, or Syndra is a great idea if you want to be able to move around in teamfights. Even if you have ultimate to break crowd control, having an additional cleanse sometimes can be the difference between life and death.
Guardian Angel
This item is great to make you an even bigger threat by giving you two chances to take down opponents. If the enemy team focuses you down and waits for you to revive, then your team has enough time to dismantle them as you come back to life.
While the stats granted by it might seem mediocre, the item is gold efficient and the revival effect which resets in five minutes can win you the game.
