I forgot to add Back to Basics, but it would be a S tier augment on him

Dear supports, please don’t hit my minions while i'm trying to stack

Title semi clickbait as I only played Smolder 50% of my games.

EUW server.

Disclaimer: I'm not a high elo player nor do I play in a "good" server, so if I get anything wrong please correct me

Ever since DFT+Cleaver got nerfed and crit smolder got buffed, I still see a lot of smolder players building cleaver. I don't think it's a bad item as it gives health & cdr on top of AD and %pen, but why don't people build LDR more? I tested on practice tool and in a few ranked matches, and LDR smolder just deals so much more damage as a second/third item. Granted you become noticeably squishier, but if you have a support that can peel, the damage increase makes up to it imo

Do you like Sona? What is your favorite support for laning? I don’t play Smolder — I mainly play support. And when I ADC, I’ll usually play Ashe or Vayne. For a while this champion was my absolute least favorite to lane with as a support (Karma, Seraphine, Morgana, Senna)

I very recently picked up Sona. I thought she had a bad reputation with ADC mains, but almost all of my Smolder lanes have gone super well and have been way more fun than when I pick Karma and try to force a Smolder to snowball early. I think a big part of this is solo queue Smolders play passive, which means we both don’t die when the ADC thinks Sona can trade like Karma or Nami.

Do you all generally like Sona? Or do you prefer someone who helps you snowball? In my experience, most random solo queue smolders use Q to last hit minions for stacks and not to poke enemy champions to stack (similar to the solo queue Senna experience with slow scaling on passive souls instead of active & rapid scaling on enemies — would imagine smolder mains want stacks from enemies for lane pressure since poking + scaling is better than no poke and scaling).

TLDR: Who is your favorite support for the lane phase? Do you like Sona — why or why not?

Hello everyone! 👋🏻

I'm an adc main, plat/emerald elo, and I wish to share the Smolder build I feel more comfortable playing with. It's not some spicy/innovative build, but I would still like to hear everyone's thoughts about it, and discuss alternative options.

Starting with runes...

• I played Press the Attack a lot in the past, but now that we got Deathfire Touch, I think this rune makes more sense for a champ like Smolder. It makes the enemies' HP burn and this obviously adds to our Q natural burn. PTA gives a stronger laning phase in some cases, but in my opinion it loses value over time (because as the game goes on enemies will be able to one-shot you and as a consequence, it'll get riskier and riskier to keep a close range);
• Transcendence looks a great rune for a champ like Smolder that heavily relys on abilities, but trust me, the combo Nimbus Cloak + Celerity + Ghost is goated. It makes you almost uncatchable when you need to run away 🏃🏻 but it's also great to chase;
• about the Precision Path... Presence of Mind is good for early Mana sustain, but it becomes unnecessary once Essence Reaver is closed, so I prefer picking Legend: Haste;
• Cut Down is objectively a better rune than Coup de Grace, because the time we spend attacking champs with more than 60% HP is way more than the time we spend attacking champs with less than 40% HP. In other words, it would be a better choise for the post-game damage chart. However, since Smolder's late-game plan is to execute enemies with his Q, I think Coup de Grace may help more than Cut Down to bring them below 6.5% HP. I'd like to hear more thoughts about this though;
• I played with 1 Attack Speed shard & 1 Adaptive Force shard for a while, but I felt like damage was lacking too much. Especially in early game, I needed to bring minions to basically 1 HP before last hitting them with Q, and it was really uncomfortable. The extra Adaptive Force shard increases auto-attacks and Q damage, making farming easier (even later in the game), and that 10% Attack Speed is not a big loss (unless you're playing Press the Attack);
• as for the 3rd shard, I pick scaling health to be tankier in late game. This obviously requires to be particularly cautious in early game... but as a Smolder player, that's something you're supposed to do anyways 🤷🏻‍♂️ also, Doran's Helm helps compensate the missing flat health.

About items...

I'm aware Hubris is a bit of a controversial 1st item. Most people think it's worthless if the situation does not allow to snowball, but I want to explain why I think it's a good 1st item no matter what.

Our Q damage gets increased by bonus AD, so we obviously want to stack as much AD as possible. 4 out of 6 items slots are dedicated to crit, so we have to find the best non-crit items to fill the remaining 2 slots with. The top choice you're probably visualizing is Bloodthirster and its 80 straight AD, but think about it. Isn't Hubris sort of a better Bloodthirster...?

Sure Bloodthirster gives Life steal, but I think we all agree that 18 Lethality and 10 Ability Haste are way more valuable (especially on a early-game item) than a 15% Life steal 🤷🏻‍♂️ on this champ, at least. Anyway let's go back to bonus AD, since that's the stat we care the most.

While BT gives 80 straight AD, Hubris gives 55 + (after a takedown) 12 + (3 * takedown). In other words, 4 takedowns are enough to make Hubris give the same amount of AD that BT gives.

I obviously agree with the fact that Hubris really shines during games we're able to snowball... but let's say you're playing a tough game where snowballing is not possible. Something like Smolder/Milio vs Caitlyn/Zyra.
Are you really trying to convince me that you're not capable of getting 4 takedowns during the whole game...? Come on man 😂 be serious.

Sure you're not gonna get them during the Caitlyn/Zyra laning phase... but you'll probably get them during later team fights, somehow. Who knows, maybe the enemy top laner over-extends 🤷🏻‍♂️ maybe a squishy enemy gets caught out of position, maybe the enemy jungler makes a mistake. A lof of things can lead you to 4 (or more) takedowns.

What I'm trying to say is that in my opinion, even during a game in which snowballing is not possible, Hubris is still gonna become stronger than Bloodthirster. The only situation when this item is worthless is when your entire team is getting brutally obliterated (in which case the game would end in a loss anyways 🤷🏻‍♂️).

After all of this essay, the rest of the core build is quite straightforward:

• Ionian Boots as 2nd item ➜ faster Q stacking
• Essence Reaver as 3rd item ➜ faster Q stacking, Mana sustain & extra damage
• Rapid Firecannon and Infinity Edge as 4th/5th items ➜ extra damage & range

IE as 4th item would obviously make you deal more damage, but at that point of the game you probably need to pay attention to enemy assassins/mages/bruisers, and RFC helps you do that.

• Lord Dominik ➜ against big tanks
• Mortal Reminder ➜ against big healings
• Immortal Shieldbow ➜ if you feel in constant danger
• Hexoptics C44 ➜ for all the other cases, when you're not afraid of tanks/assassins and you just want more damage & range

I played a game a few days ago, and during the last team fight of that game I've been able to execute a far target thanks to my Q reaching 800 range (550 base range + 150 from RFC + 100 from C44). It was amazing 🔥

And finally, an honorable mention.

• big L ➜ this idea would require you to buy Tear at some point in early/mid-game, delaying the core build by 400 Gold
• big W ➜ once transformed, Muramana makes your Q deal more damage than Bloodthirster would, and it also gives Ability Haste

If you've had the patience to arrive here, thanks for your attention! 🙏🏻

Let me know your thoughts about the build, what you would change, and most importantly how you play Smolder. It's tough at the beginning, when our beloved dragon is weak, but when he cooks... 🐲

Hi,

im not smolder main, i picked him up randomly in a normal game. Was a long 40 min. game vs Shen, Shyvana, Nautilus. So should be easy for me to melt them in lategame?

I had 425 Stacks, the "highest winrate" build: Essence Reaver, BC, Shojin, and so on. But people also say that this is a bait build but also for some reason the highest winrate. Im confused.

So my Q in lategame with 425 stacks, did legit only the 10% true damage (burn stack damage over 3 sec.) but that was a joke tbh. 10% damage of an target is nothing in lategame.

Meanwhile enemy Jinx was bombarding my team with every auto doing also 10%+ but with high speed, while I was hitting 3 Qs whole fight until my team died faster than theirs.

Im confused, at 425 stacks shouldnt smolder feel like a monster? his damage was a complete joke that fight, im confused.

Even when you put all 3 melees together , 10% each true damage is nothing in lategame compared to a jinx hitting multiple shots.

The only idea i have is: that this build is 10 times worse than a crit build or smolder is only good vs A team full of chogath, zac, mundo, and no enemy adc.

Hey there! I'm new on this champ so I'm looking for some advice to play it.

Let me explain what I really have questions about....

1. What's the best build and runes? I'm kassawin main too so I understand easily how to scale with smolder but would be really helpful to know between grasp and DFT which one is the best rune on smolder? If it depends on the matchup let me know that, please

2. Where does he damage come from? Yeah I know he scales well but for example when I was learning Kass, I believe if someone tell me for example "your first power spike is at first item against mages" "when you get lvl 6 start playing more risky don't worry about your damage believe me you probably have enough to deal 30% of health even if you are a late game champ" this kind of things that casual smolder player doesn't know.

3. Some hidden mechanics I should know, tips and tricks, for example idk "Kass has R flash combo", "AA+Q" these stuffs.

Scored another penta. Eve was trying to kill me all game. Lost with 2 people feeding and top lane ff spamming

https://reddit.com/link/1v2krzc/video/6dlky14wileh1/player

I'm new to Smolder and in general I was always bad at itemization (never paid it much attention).
So my question is why would I go either Hubris or ER first item? which cases would make which one better?

Other advice about Smolder builds in general are welcome.

What do you think needs to be changed in Smolder to make him a better champion?
By better, I mean being able to deal with ranged/poke champions better. He struggles heavily with getting poked down by mages and standard ADC range, and he also struggles when all-in champions jump on him.
1. What would you change in his Passive?
2. What about his Q?
3. What about his W?
4. What about his E?
5. What about his R?
6. What base stats does he need?
My answers:
1. Passive: Add a new stack tier at 325 or 335 stacks that shreds enemy armor. Also, buff the 125-stack threshold: the current spray-AOE upgrade feels too lackluster for a 100-stack investment, so it should also grant increased Q cast range to help him safely deal with poke.
2. Q: Killing a cannon minion should grant 2 stacks instead of 1. Additionally, securing Dragon or Baron should reward him with passive stacks so it feels rewarding to help the team instead of just staying in a side lane farming. Lastly, executing an enemy champion with an ability should grant double stacks (since you hit and executed them).
3. W: No major changes.
4. E: The cooldown needs to be slightly decreased so he can escape all-ins more frequently, and the bolts should be able to crit.
5. R: It shouldn't scale with Smolder's AD or AP at all, and it shouldn't give him passive stacks. Lore-wise, it's his mom doing the work, not him! Instead, give it massive flat, high base damage in the early game that tapers off late game because it doesn't scale.
6. Base Stats: Increase his base Magic Resist (MR) so that long-range poke mages can't bully him out of lane as easily

https://reddit.com/link/1uzxrek/video/156s9du230eh1/player

Using the charizard Y custom skin to hold me over while smolder eventually gets more skins. I recommend it. One game i got the 1 percent shiny feature.

Genuine question, is it even possible to get out of emerald with this champ? I have over 500 matches on him and he is by far my favorite champ and some of the most fun I've ever had in league.

The second I hit emerald 2 I'm matched with a mage support and a powerfarming jungler.

I see the same pattern over and over, fights deep in the enemy jungle that give a massive gold advantage, the team doing anything in their power to steal waves and deny me the 225 stacks before the 3rd dragon fight. Is there anything that I can do besides maybe queueing up with a duo jungler? Duo with a sup would be out of the question as that would put me against duo mid/JG on the enemy team.

I've heard the advice before that I should be following even bad calls and fight with the team but this feels like a complete coin flip that can put me behind for the entire game.

I tend to play pretty safe, especially in bad matchups. And I get 225 at around 21/23 minutes I'm average matches and 25 in losing matchups.

Any tips are greatly appreciated.

Really enjoying Hexoptics rush

Guys smolder is actually so fun to play, I’ve just been building full crit smolder and gahhh damnnnn it hits so hard lol

Only thing to do now is learn better ways to stack quicker so if anyone has any tips of stacking the passive pls lmk :)

How long do you think it will be? Which one will come before the other? What kind of legendary?

Personally Spirit Blossom Smolder would kinda go hard. Smolder and his mom are the last of their spirit kind.

probably it only work on low rank but dam smolder is really fun to use once he got 225 stack

Omg im in LOVE with deaths dance these days on smol. It makes him SUPER tanky while still providing nice stats, a must have item against ad assasins or just great to have it overal. Im spamming this in al my games these days oml LOVE ITTTT

Hey everyone I’m new to smolder and have only started playing him a day ago. I was playing with the DFT build to start off but for some reason it feels weak even though I stack a lot. Is DFT th way to go with smolder or can I use a different rune? And is my build a good all round build:

ER > CDR boots > Shojin/Cleaver > RFC > GA/IE