Some of the most powerful champions with guides to suit!

Last week in the column Mirai focused on the 10 most popular champions that week, but this time instead of rehashing the same list of champions we are going to look at some of the champions who, while not as popular, are also very powerful. As before, I will pick a guide from the wonderful LoLKing.net community that I feel offers the best advice on playing said champions.  

Kha'Zix, the Voidreaver

Kha'Zix is widely considered one of the most powerful champions with his poke and burst damage combined with great escape mechanics; in both the recent League of Legends Championship Series Qualifiers Kha'Zix was banned in more than 90% of the games. Attack Damage Casters (Kha'Zix, Zed, Talon) are really powerful in low-mid ELO due to their poke, burst damage and spontaneous nature.

Let's take a look at one of the featured guides on LoLKing.net for Kha'Zix. Scared_Leon wrote a very thorough guide on Kha'Zix that explains all aspects, including Jungle, Mid lane, Top Lane and even The Twisted Treeline (3v3) map. Leon explains all of the abilities thoroughly, even offering alternative levelling paths. When it comes to itemization, once again Leon goes above and beyond, detailing different itemization for various builds, “Kha'zix can be built 3 ways, Hybrid damage dealer with a subset in tanky disruptor/assassin, pure assassin, pure tank.”

With everybody in the community deeming Kha'Zix overpowered it seems likely Riot will nerf him in the future, so best abuse him while you can!  

Wukong, The Monkey King

The Monkey King, while under-appreciated, is in the LoLKing chart for “Highest Win Rate Champions” this week having recently broken into the competitive scene to great effect. Rightfully so too, he has all of the traits of a great champion with his poke ability, strong damage output, great escape mechanics and devastating ultimate for team fights. He is also extremely fun to play. 

Out comes another fantastic guide from the LoLKing.net community, this time from first time guide maker Draker88 who offers example videos and many alternative builds. Like in the Kha'Zix guide, this guide also gives advice for each lane and even includes videos to demonstrate techniques. 

In conclusion Draker honorably admits that, while Wukong is a fun champion to play, he can be easily counter-picked, so you need to choose wisely. Draker suggests, “He’s a great pick, especially against AP carries.” 

 Twitch, the Plague Rat

This is another champion that is massively under-appreciated and people are only now starting to pick up again. With his long range, damage-over-time effects and stealth for escape Twitch has the potential to beat most carries in-lane. In team-fights Twitch has the potential to destroy a whole enemy team in seconds with his ultimate – if left unchecked.

Now a guide from Panchie who “achieved triple diamond and peaked 2.4k in S2 playing AD carry.” In each section of his guide Panchie offers some advice on what spells, items and masteries you should take depending on your enemy. My favorite part of the guide is the adorable MS Paint illustrations demonstrating techniques during the different phases of the game; on a more serious note his advice is pretty solid and he describes techniques other guides may not bother going into.

As Panchie says in his guide, Twitch isn't able to clear waves as fast as others which could see him fall behind late-game. He also can't activate his “steroid” (damage boost) instantly like other AD Carries and his escape isn't instant either.  

Zyra, Rise of the Thorns

It would be crazy not to look at Zyra, following her performance the weekend past in the LCS EU Qualifiers - in the 22 games she was picked (most picked champion) her team won 16 games and lost only 6, that's a striking figure. She is most commonly played as a support champion for two reasons;  first she does a lot of damage and has strong crowd-control, and second when she dies, not only do her plant turrets fight on, she also has the ability to drop a ton of damage on her enemy through her passive. Since Zyra’s support will typically scale to have a lot of damage late-game she becomes more useful to her team than other supports such as Soraka or Lulu. 

This guide comes from Freye who appropriately titles the guide “Closer to the Flower, Closer to the Thorns”. It's a very concise and well organised guide that will be easy to read and offers different paths to follow, both in masteries and items. The best part of this guide is the “AD Carry Synergy” section which covers all the pros and cons of each bottom combo in detail. There is even a section explaining how the plant seeds work for those looking to fully understand the champion. 

As outlined in the “Pros & Cons” section of the guide, Zyra has no sustain or escape mechanism which is her biggest downfall as a support, her resource management can also be difficult. As such, it would be advisable to get some experience playing Zyra before jumping into a Ranked 5v5 game.

 Sona, Maven of the Strings

Time to look at another popular support. Sona is one of the strongest supports for her strong poke, heals, speed aura and her ultimate which offers a hard stun in team fights. She is commonly used throughout League of Legends regardless of skill for all of these reasons. 

Another great guide, this time from Cheezycookie who has written a thorough guide that slacks in no one area and covers everything in detail. The stand-out of this guide is the Runes section where Cheezycookie talks us through each of his 4 rune pages with screenshots. The guide is complete with a detailed itemization section covering the massive changes in Season 3 and the many options support now has. 

As with all supports, you need to be careful when playing Sona. She is very squishy and if you get caught in a bad position you are most likely going to die. 

 Fiddlesticks, The Harbinger of Doom 

The Crowstorm ultimate of Fiddlesticks makes him a very dangerous champion at level 6, not only in the jungle but also later in the game – with a well-timed Crowstorm he could destroy the whole enemy team. He also has high sustainability in jungle and strong CC. In the right hands Fiddlesticks can single-handedly shut down enemy teams and end games 

Oathstealer – who is above 2,000 ELO – took the time to contribute his Fiddlesticks guide, and what a wonderful guide it is. This well organised guide is very easy to read and is friendly for those of us who aren't quite that good – yet. It includes different mastery pages for Offense, Utility and Defense, and has pictures to demonstrate the best places to Crowstorm from. 

The biggest issue with Fiddlesticks is that he is super-reliant on the blue buff and can be easily focused in team-fights. Play it smart and you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

These are just a few of the many great champions in League of Legends. Honestly, the majority of champions are viable and all it takes is a good summoner to realize their full potential. With the competitive League of Legends scene in full-swing the meta will be constantly shifting as teams look for creative new ways to beat one-another. 

Be sure to visit LoLKing.net for more great guides like those shown today. We will be back next week to look at a fresh set of champions. 

Chris Rainey, Columnist