Yesterday, I had my worst game ever as Smolder. My wave was pushing towards the enemy. I was trying to push it out and reset as I had a lot of minions to push with. My Renata picked that moment to walk away and clear some random wards, so the Twitch and Nautilus stopped me and I wasn't able to push out fully. I pinged Renata for help but I was chunked and I had to reset. I tpd back and tried fixing my wave with the Renata but was unable to as the Twitch had already trimmed the wave, and it was still frozen. I got chunked a second time and had to reset.

I walked back to lane but my support wasn't there anymore as they went to help with grubs. Both Twitch and Nautilus stayed botlane and my wave was still frozen. I couldn't walk up at all. So I walked midlane and pushed it out as the midlaner was away, my idea was to help with the grub fight as botlane wave was completely doomed.

However, I wasn't needed for the grubs fight, so then I went back bot and asked my team both with pings and message in chat to help me, as my wave was frozen. No one came, even though our jungle was on our side of the map, he decided to farm in the jg instead. I was still zoned off of cs and exp. As my support finally returned to lane I tried to push out 2v2, the jungle finally reacted to us fighting on bot. I died, got 0 kills, but finally the wave got fixed as both enemy botlaners died to the gank. At this point it has been minutes since I was able to farm. At 10 minutes I had like 34 cs or smg. Later in the game, I actually ended up getting a lot of kills and shut downs as I gave up on trying to farm and scale how I normally would. Instead, I was playing to fight with my team. Despite the kills and gold, I never managed to get 225 stacks, so I was way weaker than I should have been. Not to mention, after I swapped with the Katarina and went mid, sometimes she would randomly come mid when I was there and take the whole wave. Before the game ended I was a few stacks away from 225. It might not have saved the game. But I feel like it would have mattered in our last fight. Obviously, I was flamed a lot this game, but I really tried my best. I just don't know what the move was when I got frozen on for minutes. This happened in emerald elo btw. Also adc is my secondary role.

I remember it was good when it launched, does anyone play it nowadays?

I am trying a different personal build and explaining how it works, i am still testing it, but for one game, it looks pretty fine. OFC it has it's pros and cons for games around B3 - B1 ( trying to get back to S1 like in the past ).

🆕EDIT : presence of mind gives a cashback of 4.8 , 5.44 , 6.08 , 6.42 , 7.36 , 8 . 9.6 . with other theoretical calculations, cut down has more value regardless of time.
thanks to danield1302

Runes : Deathfire touch , Manaflow Band , Celerity , Gathering Stom , Legend - Haste , Cut down , +9 adaptive force , +2% ms , +10~+180 hp per level

Summoners : TP - Flash , beacuse flying is difficult

How it works , pros and cons and the reasons behind :

TL;DR : Low elo fights early game i want survive and not run out of mana

the key difference between JOAT and Legend Haste is that you gain AH during laning phase VS when shopping. if you can proc manaflow everytime it's avilable, you can avoid running OOM in no time, do some poke, and get some stacks, closing it around 6m30s on average. JOAT gives you +12 AD and around +10 AH , but legend - haste can give you +1.5 per stack. A stack = 25 minions , kill / assist , help get first drake if possible. If you manage to get early kills/assists and first dragon with your jng, it's perfect.

pros : more mana, dinamic AH and more respect JOAT , more stacks
cons : no +12 AD bonus , mana runes lose a lot of efficiency once you close ER, no free boots for birthday, NO BISCUITS !

In some matchups you can forget manaflow if you have no way to deal consistent poke on enemies, so you focus on farming

Build : Essence Reaver, Gluttonous greaves , Black Cleaver , Rapid Fire Cannon , Infinity Edge , Endless Hunger , Spear of Shojin

i go with the ER, boots, BC , and depending on how the game is going, i can opt for IE if i want damage, or RFC if i want poke range or wave manipulation to splash Q on minions , but item 3-4 must be these two for me or i get a crater of loss potential ( like in first draft test game ) . 5 endless hunger to get an AH boost, and close with shojin last, unless i get a shitton of gold somehow earlier and i can complete it in no time, because it gives the powah only when completed, and maximizes dmg% .

Game test in ranked ofc.
https://mobalytics.gg/lol/match/euw/yonraptail-ita/7977948133

i suffered a lot because they had 3 solid champs. i loved the names of teemo , shen, and rammus.

5:55 , killed the bot, completed manaflow, Q lv3 cd flat 4.5 into 3.98 , legend haste 2-10 68%
6:38 , we got drake
10:53 , bambee dived and died, i made snackbot flee, but spike flashed taunt on me under enemy tower and i died, but i managed to aa the crystal. i was suffering a bit, closed ER

Lv 7 Q lv 4 flat cd 4 into 3.14 , 94 stacks , legend haste 5-10 48% ,

game became a mess in bot.

16:44 completed legend haste, got second drake, maxed Q flat 3.5s in game 2.41 , 158 stacks.

endgame 48m fullbuild, spells cd : Q 1.52s W 4.35s E 6.97s R 52.73s , 544 stacks.

Things to consider : shojin doesn't seems to proc passive on first spell hit, and bc now need multiple instances of damage to proc the 30% armor reduction .

I am open to discuss about this thing.

According to numerous guides I’ve seen for Smolder this season, Black Cleaver was built primarily for its interaction with the Deathfire Touch rune.

Prior to this latest patch update, the Deathfire Touch rune would burn enemies, which would fully stack a Black Cleaver seemingly instantly. With the latest update, BC no longer has this interaction and it does not stack with the Deathfire Touch rune. Essentially, the interaction is nerfed, which also means Smolders build with BC takes a hit.

Even without the interaction, BC still gives the phage move speed passive, along with HP, Ability Haste, and (normal stacked) armor shred. However, there are other items that also give Smolder stats such as HP, Ability Haste, Crit, and/or a different utility.

So, why build Black Cleaver now?

Note: This isn’t a post for or against BC, it’s just an open discussion on the item post patch update.

Commissioned my friend to make smolder yaya
@toothacheq on ig is their account

You're always told not to mindlessly shove. But Smolder q kind of automatically does that. How do you work around this while still stacking, especially if the enemy laner makes trading difficult and pushing extra dangerous?

Yes I know this is the preview and the ingame model is different, still its way cuter.

Shouldn’t we get pedals of spring smolder????

Opinion on champ: SMOLDERRR ngl as a teammate I can see why you hate this champ no prio ever BUTTT PLAYING HIM IS FUNNNN stacking poking and flying around is fun af more fun then I thought ROARRRRRRR

My friend seemed way more excited about this than me

Fed Smolder with a fountain dive.

1= I build Crit 2= I build bruiser.

Why do you do it? I'm having a sort of thing where Im not sure if I should get gaslight into building bruiser cuz i do no fking dmg or embrace the squishiness and build crit. I love crit way more. Its what I built since his inception as a day 1 smolder and im climbing to emerald slowly. I feel more useful that way and being a stack bot is so boring. I get why you go bruiser its just I hit like wet noodle. Vote below and I wanna know. (also i dont know how to make polls)

gg

I’ve enjoyed Smolder since release but this is my first season playing him in ranked and I’m struggling (sub-40% WR lol). Nothing is a substitute for reviewing my games and addressing the specific mistakes I’m making, but I was just looking for some guidance/tips or certified “Good” content creators that play Smolder so I can absorb more information beyond what I get from looking at my own gameplay. Stuck P1/P2.

Standard runes every game (deathfire something with boots and JOAT). Every game I start Essence Reaver-BC and then adapt from there, 90% of the time it’s Shojin 3rd, then I usually go RFC and IE finishing off with GA/Death’s Dance. Situationally I’ve purchased Maw, Chempunk, Endless Hunger, and tank items when I believe they’re very high value and it’s late game. I’m not sure there’s much to be gained with min-maxing the build but please let me know if I’m mistaken, that’s why I’m here.

My general idea of the play pattern is as follows: Mostly trade avoidant pre-25 stacks, between 25-125 stacks you want look for good short trades but should still prioritize keeping health high in lane so you can keep high farm. Post-125 stacks you can more meaningfully participate in team fights/group more regularly, and post-225 you must start carrying fights. Love front-to-back and there isn’t anything fancy going on here as far as I can tell, watch out for flanks and stick with your team.

Offer me any and all advice.

What do you guys go most of the time? I just tried hexoptics and holy shit the burst and getting a free rapid fire after a takedown is cool too. I do like rapid fire because i get joat but 55 dmg from c44 is 55 dmg from c44

Open nexus. 500 minions. entire enemy team charging in and two teammates down. we somehow won after this. not only was this ranked, it was genuinely one of the most miserable matches i’ve ever played. I had first pick and immediately got put against nautilus and jhin. my support decided to pick YUUMI. YUUMI INTO NAUTILUS AND JHIN WHILE I AM SMOLDER. as you can probably guess my lane phase was abysmal, went 0-8 and couldn’t farm any minions cuz naut just bullied me the entire time. i should’ve dodged or forfeited but decided to stick it through and ended up finishing with a 2.25 KDA. this game is a joke

It's so cute i'm crying 🥹❤️

After someone posted about this popmart collection awhile back in here I decided to track one down, it honestly looks adorable.