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League of Legends: Strange Off-Meta Builds that Surprisingly Work
Throw off your enemies with an off-meta pick that can carry your game, or just give yourself a fun challenge with these five uncommon champ builds in League of Legends.
Throughout its 11 seasons, League of Legends has given its players the freedom to create all sorts of champion builds. Most players stick with what is meta, or the “most effective tactics available,” as doing so is a proven method to win the game. But, sometimes, you just want to break the monotony. While they require practice and tweaking, off-meta builds are immensely fun when you can get them to work. Here are 5 of our favourite, off-meta builds that surprisingly work.
Taric Top
Known as the Shield of Valoran, Taric is most commonly used in the support role thanks to his heals and shields. Why would anyone use him in the isolated top lane, which is solely self-dependent (jungle assists aside)? Well, Taric is surprisingly self-sufficient as a top laner.
First off, you can stun, heal, use AoE attacks, and stack armor for increased damage. Then, at level two, his dueling potential spikes up and he has the ability to reduce the cooldown of his healing with empowered autos. This gives him a lot of value in the early game skirmishes, if you have good timing with auto attacking between heal cooldowns. For item builds, we recommend getting Turbo Chemtank and Ionian Boots of Lucidity, then either Randuin's Omen or Force of Nature, while focusing on the skill order: E -> Q -> W.
Taric can hold his own up-top with his survivability, but he ultimately plays for the team. As soon as you’re level six, look for tower dives with your jungler and get that free LP. You should be able to squeeze in early game kills, but the real strength is in the dive potential after level six. Expect to be down a few CS due to Taric’s lack of auto attack range, though.
Engage and poke with E, but try to not use it too often to last-hit a single minion because you can lose all of your threat and mana. The best part of this pick is, opponents will underestimate you as a “support” champion, potentially becoming overconfident, leading to a lot of easy kills for you to rack up.
AP Varus
Yes, AP Varus is absolutely a thing. While Varus is usually in the bot lane, and associated with being more of a physical attacker due to his high AD scaling damage, the AP (more of a mage playstyle) variant capitalizes on the high AP ratio of his W and ult. AD Varus can dominate when the enemy team is less mobile, so you can capitalize on your damage with a strong frontline and good peel. However, when the enemy has a frontline that can stop you from doing as much auto attacking, this is where AP Varus can shine.
AP Varus does a lot of burst damage but is reliant on a few things. First of all, you need to have your ult up to apply stacks of blight, or have heavy peel from your team so that you can freely auto attack to apply the stacks. Either way, once stacked, you are able to one-shot unsuspecting tanks that may not have built magic resisting items yet. Your damage is based on the percentage of max health, so you’ll scale hard into the late game.
Earlier in the game, a Lethality or On-Hit Varus would do more damage but, once you get to late game, then it’s definitely in AP Varus’ favor. An example build looks something like this: Manamune->Luden's Tempest -> Horizon Focus -> Rabadon's Deathcap (or any situational item). It feels a lot more like playing ordinary Varus to many extents when you go with Manamune, though. It makes your Q without stacks better with slightly better auto attacks bundled in.
Remember, when building items, you’ll always have to look at what you're up against. If you see the enemy has magic resist, then go for Void Staff. Get Zhonya's Hourglass for assassins, and nab Morellonomicon if they have heals. If you're ahead, get your hands on a Rabadon's Deathcap and you'll be wrecking health bars with one combo, while also having lots of CDR (more R opportunities) plus attack speed from Nashor’s Tooth (just in case you miss your R or teamfight extends).
AP Twitch
Fortunately, AP Twitch is not dependent on who his teammates are. Since most of his damage is true damage (which ignores any magic or physical resistances), he requires little peel or support. Despite the fact that 0.5% of AP scaling on his passive has been nerfed, this plague rat is still frustrating for enemies to play against due to his true damage scaling with AP, dealing more passive damage over time.
The buff to AD is negligible because, while 1 more second on ult is nice, 5 extra AD for 6 seconds is not a big buff. Both AP and AD versions are insanely strong late game, but AP Twitch still has a much easier power curve. AP Twitch is a good option if AP damage is needed for your team. That variant centres more damage around your passive, instead of auto attacks. Therefore, less skill is needed to kite the opponents.
If both your top and mid are an AD, you can mix things up with an AP Twitch. This pick is stronger in the early game, but can still be a nightmare to deal with late game. Stacking your passive is the key to AP Twitch, whether it’s through proper Venom Cask placement or auto attacking. You can use your W and E combo to harass, then finish off, your opponents by going stealth and releasing your Spray and Pray.
Items you’d want to start with would be Hextech Alternator, while making your core Night Harvester, Nashor's Tooth, and Rabadon's Deathcap. Zhonya's Hourglass and other mage items are great to use as well. For runes, I'd recommend going with Hail of Blades + Sorcery tree.
Lethality Poppy Jungle
Imagine yourself in need of assistance, and out of the jungle pops out – not the outlaw Graves, the evil-doer Kha’Zix, or the deadly Elise - but the tiny (and mighty) Poppy! Have you ever tried playing Full Lethality Poppy Jungle? Don’t knock it ‘til you try it. This build is super powerful early into the game, but you will fall off as others get naturally tankier.
After 25+ minutes into the game, enemies will be harder to pick off, staying more grouped as team fighting becomes more frequent to take objectives. Lethality Poppy is able to 100 to 0 an enemy but, if someone else is there to prevent this from happening, you will fall flat. Remember not to overextend with this build, because you WILL get swatted like a fly. You have to remember you are not a tank poppy.
But OH THE FUN you’ll have when mashing an enemy into the wall, finishing them off as your Duskblade of Draktharr passive kicks in, and then just obliterate the remaining enemies before they see what hit them. This build really shines in early jungle skirmishes because you will have a lot of chances to knock people into a wall before promptly one shotting them.
If you're down for fun early games with a bit more danger into the late game, then this build is perfect for you. An example of a solid build is: Duskblade of Draktharr -> Youmuu's Ghostblade -> Black Cleaver/Edge of Night -> Guardian Angel. Rune options are Electrocute and Dark Harvest with Sorcery as Celerity and Water Walking to capitalize on your engage potential.
Tank Kog’Maw
The final build is one we first started noticing this year, which is starting to take the season by storm. While this pick may not be as uncommon as the preceding ones, it's a great example of a build that you never thought about in the past that is becoming more relevant today.
Kog’Maw is known for hitting hard and shredding tanks but, in return, the hardest part of playing him has always been just staying alive! This is where the tank build comes into play. He transitions well into the late game because of the percent health damage he can shell out from his ability Bio-Arcane Barrage.Building tank items counters the fact that everyone is going to focus on you and waste their ultimates. By the time they realize you’ve been building a tank the whole time, it’s too late.
For items, I’d recommend Wit’s End, Runaan's Hurricane, and then Randuin’s Omen. With these items you will be able to soak up damage and dish out even more. If this was a normal Kog’Maw, he would've died many times already (assassin and mages love you for that). It’s not vital to max out your E ability, so let's focus on W and Q first. Kog’Maw as a tank does a lot more than the carry variant. With just a single item (Wit's End), you should already be able to easily 1 v 1 the enemy ADC if you’re not behind. Late game is what you’re trying to get to.
As you get your core items, and are playing right, you should be almost unstoppable. You will do as much damage as the enemy ADC, but have the durability of an off-tank. Look for trades when W is up because you outrange almost everyone in the game. You may be a tank now, but you still have slow movement speed, so do NOT get carried away and caught out. This strategy does best with a support such as Lulu or Nami to buff you with on-hit damage.
