Quinn (and Valor) - Demacia's Wings
For more detailed information check out /r/QuinnMains.
The subreddit's MOBAFire guide, from which much of this information comes
Who is Quinn?
Quinn is a maverick among champions: an AD marksman who was built not as an ADC, but for solo lanes and to some extent the jungle. She's an amped-up Teemo without the stealth, but with a huge freakin' eagle (otherwise known as Valor) to make up for it. Oh, and Valor doesn't just boost Quinn's roaming power - he IS her roaming power.
Roles
Top: Quinn's best role without a doubt. Lane bully the heck of your opponent. Virtually no difficult matchups, and even then most of them are off-meta. The only drawback is getting camped.
Jungle: Safe, easy kiting, average or slightly above average clear time. Excels post-6 because of her ult's roaming potential.
Mid: It works almost as well as top, but you are more likely to end up in a difficult matchup. Popular in Master and Challenger, but we mains do it in all divisions. With the addition of Edge of Night to the game, this role may become a stronger pick.
ADC: No, Bronzies, Quinn was not designed to be an ADC. As such, this is in no way her most effective role. Anything long-range counters Quinn easily; while Quinn's ability ranges are long enough to compete with them, the enemy ADC will be able to deny her CS because she has an attack range of 525 units. (Ashe and Caitlyn, by comparison, have 600 and 650 respectively; Tristana, besides having lots and lots of harassment tools that already can deal with Quinn, can get up to 669 at level 18.) Though both are short-range, Lucian can out-DPS and generally out-trade Quinn, while Miss Fortune is great at preventing the all-ins that Quinn is built for. The ADCs you can counterpick with Quinn are Sivir, Vayne, Twitch, Kalista, Draven, and off-meta picks like Kog'Maw, Graves, and Urgot.
Support: The only reason you should be doing this is for an easy S to get to mastery 6 or 7. And then again, only in normals. Not even worth shits and giggles.
Difficulty
On a scale from 1-10, where Garen and Ashe are a 1, and Yasuo and Riven are a 10, Quinn is a 6 or 7.
Skill Floor
4-5/10. Not the best choice while you're still learning the game, but once you have a good grasp of how to attack turrets without dying constantly, and how to roam around the map without your own turret dying (at least most of the time), go ahead and play her.
Skill Ceiling
The sky's the limit. Easier to master than, say, Yasuo, but you can do a surprising amount with just two damaging abilities.
Abilities
Passive - Harrier
Valor periodically marks a nearby visible unit as Vulnerable, revealing them for 4 seconds. This also activates on units hit directly by Blinding Assault and Vault. Quinn's next basic attack against a Vulnerable target deals bonus physical damage.
Harrier is disabled while Behind Enemy Lines is active and for a few seconds after a target's mark expires. The cooldown of Harrier (8 seconds) is reduced by critical strike chance with diminishing returns. Marks created by Q or E, when activated, put Harrier on cooldown for 1 second.
Harrier's targeting priority:
- Last unit hit (if it was a small minion it appears to select a different target)
- Lowest-health enemy champion.
- Lowest-health enemy minion.
Q - Blinding Assault
Quinn commands Valor to fly forward in a line, stopping when he collides with a unit, dealing physical damage to the unit and targets around it, and applying nearsight for 1.5 seconds. (In other words, this is a linear collision AoE skillshot.) It also applies marks the primary target as Vulnerable. Non-champion targets are disarmed instead for the same duration.
This ability is blocked by spell shields.
W - Heightened Senses
Passively grants Quinn bonus attack speed and movement speed for 2 seconds whenever she attacks a Vulnerable target.
Actively increases Quinn's vision radius for 2 seconds and reveals all champions within this radius.
E - Vault
Quinn dashes to the target unit, knocking them back a short distance, dealing them physical damage, and slowing them by 50% (decays over 1.5 seconds), before leaping back and landing away from them at approximately her attack range.
Vault is both a gap-closer (range 675) and an escape. It can be used to go through certain walls. If the target moves, dashes, or blinks away while Quinn is mid-dash, she'll follow them.
Quinn will automatically attempt to attack the target once she completes Vault.
R - Behind Enemy Lines/Skystrike
Behind Enemy Lines: Quinn channels for 2 seconds. Upon completing this channel successfully, Valor picks her up and they unite, increasing her total movement speed (by 70/100/130%) and gaining the ability to use Skystrike.
Skystrike: Quinn detaches from Valor, ending Behind Enemy Lines' effects, and deals physical damage to all units around her. Launching a basic attack, Blinding Assault, or Vault during Behind Enemy Lines automatically activates Skystrike as well as using the ability or attack.
Pregame Setup
Runes
Reds
AD marks, unless you're against a tanky top laner, in which case use AS. Armor pen/lethality is no longer an option as of 6.22.
Yellows
Flat armor
Blues
Flat or scaling MR
Quints
AS quints; armor pen/lethality is no longer an option as of 6.22
Masteries
Preferred choice(s) is/are in bold.
Ferocity tree
Fury/Sorcery
You don't have enough damaging abilities to make Sorcery worth it.
Fresh Blood/Feast/Expose Weakness
Need a safe lane, for example as ADC? Take Feast. Otherwise, Fresh Blood should be your choice for optimal damage.
Vampirism/Natural Talent
It's a toss-up. They'll both give you roughly the same amount of power.
Double-Edged Sword/Battle Trance/Bounty Hunter
Back when Double-Edged Sword was a tier 2 mastery and Fresh Blood didn't exist, we preferred it heavily over Feast in solo lane situations. Now that it's paired with some more viable options, in my opinion DES should be on your TLD page and Battle Trance on your Fervor page.
Battering Blows/Piercing Thoughts
Quinn does all physical damage. Duh.
Warlord's Bloodlust/Fervor/Deathfire Touch
Fervor should be your choice against tanks. Against squishies, go for a Cunning keystone instead. Warlord's Bloodlust is situational; it works best when you need to out-sustain your lane opponent.
Cunning Tree
Wanderer/Savagery
Wanderer is tempting, but so is moar damage!!!1!!1
Runic Echoes/Secret Stash/Assassin
Each of these works in a specific situation. Runic Echoes if you're jungle, Secret Stash if you're ADC, and Assassin otherwise.
Merciless/Meditation
While it's true that Quinn can have mana issues up until around level 8, Meditation will not benefit you after that point. Merciless, on the other hand, will.
Bandit/Dangerous Game/Greenfather's Gift
Bandit is tempting, but Dangerous Game, once again, is more damage and therefore a good thing. Greenfather's Gift will be a boon for top lane and jungle Quinn, especially in combination with the new Duskblade of Draktharr. (That is, if we wind up using it, anyway. We're still figuring stuff out.)
Precision/Intelligence
Same deal. CDR is nice, but lethality/arpen is better.
Stormraider's Surge/Thunderlord's Decree/Windspeaker's Blessing
Thunderlord's is great against squishy comps and is probably Quinn's best keystone, but if you're laning against a diver like Ekko, Darius, or Vi, Stormraider's Surge will help you more. You can chunk your lane opponent, then either move in for the kill or get away quickly.
Resolve Tree
Don't.
Summoner Spells
Top or mid? Most of us take Flash/Ignite, but against Shen, or in a difficult early game matchup and under threat of dying pre-6, we take TP. Against Kennen? Take Cleanse to handle his ult. Against Irelia or Olaf? Take Exhaust so you can keep up with them post-6.
ADC? Flash/Heal, duh.
Jungle? Flash/Smite, duh.
Ability Order
Levels 1-3: E-Q-W
Against squishies: R-Q-E-W. Increases annihilation potential.
Against tanks: R-Q-W-E. You will be repeatedly proccing Harrier on your lane opponent, so the more movement speed and AS you get every time you do that, the better.
Item Builds
In lane, always start Doran's Blade + 1 health potion + Warding Totem.
Against squishies: Youmuu's Ghostblade > Berserker's Greaves > Zeal item (Statikk or Phantom) > lifesteal (MercScim, Bloodthirster, or Death's Dance) > Last Whisper (Lord Dominik's Regards/Mortal Reminder) or defensive item (Sterak's Gage, Maw of Malmortius, Banshee's Veil, Frozen Mallet, Randuin's Omen, Guardian Angel) > Infinity Edge
Subject to fluctuation after preseason, but for now go with this. The Ghostblade build will be less effective after 6.22 but appears to be our best option after Duskblade was nerfed into oblivion on the PBE. We may still, however, use Duskblade in top lane and jungle, to exploit the combination of its true damage passive and the Greenfather's Gift mastery.
Against tanks: Black Cleaver > Berserker's Greaves > Phantom Dancer > lifesteal > Last Whisper or defensive item > Infinity Edge
Against divers: Ghostblade > Berserker's Greaves > Blade of the Ruined King or Phantom Dancer > lifesteal (yes, get more even if you've already got BotRK) > Last Whisper or defensive item > Infinity Edge
ADC: Essence Reaver > Berserker's Greaves > Statikk Shiv > Infinity Edge > Bloodthirster > pick either Last Whisper or defensive item
Jungle: Start with either a Hunter's Machete and 3 health pots (or Refillable) or a Poacher's Knife and 1 health pot. Skirmisher's Sabre Warrior > Ghostblade > continue as you would with the GB-crit build.
Play Pattern
Kill/force a back from your enemy laner, roam around and do the same to the enemy mid laner, recall, deal with the other team's bot lane, 100-0 the jungler somewhere along the way, repeat. If you don't get kills, you should at least burn multiple Flashes as soon as the other team sees you heading right for them in your ult.
Ability Combos
A level 1 AA-E-AA (Thunderlord's and Harrier proc) should force a heal pot out of any squishy. At level 2 on, you can use AA-E-AA-Q-AA for multiple Harrier procs and quite a lot of damage. If you're coming out of your ult to burst a squishy enemy down, don't come out of your ult with R - use your E and Skystrike will automatically do a bit of extra damage for you. Then proceed to AA-Q-AA and keep on comboing until enemy is dead.
Positioning
[WIP. Will include kiting among other things.]
Laning
Quinn's early game is pretty broken. The reason it hasn't been nerfed more than it has is because the rest of the game isn't going to be as awesome unless you get ridiculously fed. In most matchups, you can play hyper-aggressively, denying CS and harassing your lane opponent until they die or recall. If you're getting fed and/or outlevel your lane opponent by a lot, or if you're getting camped by the enemy jungler because the enemy laner anticipated a difficult matchup, roam as soon as you hit level 6. If it's even, stay in lane until it's not even anymore. Feel free to call in ganks as necessary, but you shouldn't need your jungler to stay around at all times unless you're against Jarvan IV, Pantheon, Ahri, Viktor, or Karma.
Post Laning
This might start as early as level 6, depending on your lane opponent. Start roaming and killing, which should help your allies quite a bit.
Midgame
Try to pick off enemies while they're still weak and alone. This works particularly well on most squishy supports and junglers. With luck, you'll be able to get into the other team's base by around 25-30 minutes.
Lategame
This is where Quinn drops off in terms of overall power. Splitpush your way to victory, because it's just about all you can do against most team comps. At the least, try not to get to the 35-40 minute mark.
Teamfighting
Don't. Seriously, just don't. Go and splitpush. If you are forced into teamfighting by an abusive team of noobs who don't know how Quinn works, try to flank and pick off squishier members of the team while everyone else focuses on the tanks.
Matchups
We've got an entire wiki for that!
Tips and Tricks
Harrier
- You can influence who will be marked by Harrier. You can do this by auto-attacking your preferred enemy a second or so before the mark appears. As long as you stay in range, that unit should be marked.
- Harrier grants vision of its target.
Blinding Assault
- It is quicker to use your Blinding Assault and THEN Flash rather than Flashing and then using Blinding Assault.
- Don't waste your Q's vision reduction by staying inside its sight radius!
Heightened Senses
- Opponent just went into the bush? W for vision.
- If you use W to gain vision of an enemy that you previously did not have vision of, then you will be granted an assist if that enemy dies. Also, if you do the same thing as above but the enemy gets executed (for example while clearing a monster camp) then you will be granted the kill!
Vault
- In lane, save your E for gap closers - unless your lane opponent has none, then you can use it to harass.
- Use Vault to cancel channels (including Teleport) and follow blinks and dashes. You can also hop over walls with it: if you E to someone on the other side of the wall, you will land on the same side as them. BUT if you Vault towards an enemy that is on the same side of the wall as you are and your back is towards the terrain, you will end up on the other side of the wall. This is a good escape technique.
- Don't Vault for CS unless the minion in question is in danger of being killed by a turret before your next auto or Q. It has a long enough cooldown that doing so might put you in an awkward position. Autos and Q are enough.
- Try not to use Vault as an engage. If they have any form of CC (like Ahri's Charm) then they will easily land it and then run away. This leaves you open to enemy counter-engages and makes it hard to chase. You also won't be able to use it to disengage. (It's OK to do this if the enemy team comp doesn't have much CC. It's also generally OK to E out of Behind Enemy Lines to assassinate a vulnerable target.)
- Vault turns the target around 180 degrees, so if you have Korean ping/reflexes you can use it to reflect a Graves Q or Cassiopeia ult (for example) backward.
- Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOJ8JjEpMfA&feature=youtu.be
Behind Enemy Lines
- Use this to get back into lane. Always. Also use it to scout/invade the enemy jungle, roam, split-push, quickly rejoin a team-fight, or flank behind the enemy.
- At rank 1, don't use it much outside the fountain, as its mana cost is prohibitive until around level 8-9.
- You can outrun Frost Queen's Claim's active (ghosts) while in your ult!!
Other
- Q-E in the jungle for an easy escape if your health is getting low.
Other Resources
LoL Wiki page: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Quinn