Champion Build Guide
ARAM AP Twitch: Cheese-ing the Damage Graph
By Copbeta
Introduction
Hi, I'm Cop Beta, a high MMR ARAM player on the NA server. I've been playing League of Legends since Season 3. This guide is intended to help you frustrate your enemies and impress your friends with AP Twitch.
Why AP Twitch? Although AD Twitch is perhaps more viable, this off-meta guide is more fun, easier to execute, and has higher damage potential (for that all-important graph). AP Twitch is not matchup or team-comp dependent in the way that AD Twitch is, since a lot of his damage is true damage and he requires little peel or support. He is weak early, but scales incredibly well into the late game, which is the most important phase of ARAM games anyway. AP Twitch, as with other AP/AS champions, is one of the fastest tower-takers in the game due to the 50% AP damage ratio on structures.
Items, Runes, and Abilities
Please refer to the notes section at the top of this guide for my brief thoughts on items, runes, and ability order. This chapter will provide a little more context elucidation for skeptical readers, as well as mechanical tips for getting the most out of your gold and abilities.
Items are chosen to maximize Ability Power. I'm giving my rationale for my proposed core items below, while other items should still follow the maxim of optimizing AP while being situationally suited. Mythics are generally bad on Twitch, but get better as you build more legendary items for their passive - Riftmaker is probably the best one in general. By the end of the game, with Gathering Storm you will have over 1000 AP.
| From mouse to rat. Gives you stable DPS early, as well as a good chunk of AP. The base damage is low compared to the AP ratio, so will only get better as the game goes on. |
| Spreading the plague. In conjunction with Manaflow Band, will eliminate your mana problems! Also the largest base AP item in the game. |
| Rat with a hat! Great third item, synergies well with Seraph's Empyrean passive. |
Runes are above. Manaflow Band and Gathering Storm are the only essential runes, because they both contribute directly and significantly to maximizing AP.
Abilities are fairly straightforward on Twitch, but have some high-tech optimizations that I've listed below.
| True damage. AP ratio has been slightly nerfed recently, but still does a ton of damage. At full build, with full stacks, enemies will take approximately 1200 true damage. Stacks last 6 seconds after the most recent stack is applied, so if an enemy has high stacks, you should try to add one more with W or a cheeky auto in order to maintain those stacks and refresh their duration |
| Use to get poke off. Often too much of a mana investment for too little utility before Manaflow Band is done, but required to approach safely in the mid and late game. If you know your teammate is about to engage, you should use this for the extra AS, if nothing else. You can get the jump on the enemy team by using this to properly position before the engage comes. |
| The slow is absolutely devastating to immobile champions - with enough AP and levels, it quickly reaches >90% by the middle of the game. Also, the zone is sneakily big, which allows you to zone enemies from teamfights and close off angles on the already narrow Howling Abyss. Can apply up to 3 stacks if enemy is in the center when it connects. Useful for applying stacks to minion waves to clear quickly with Contaminate. |
| This is your main burst damage, with tremendous AP scaling. With Manaflow Band and Seraph's Embrace, you should use this even on single stacks of poison, because it has a 33.3% AP ratio per stack. At six stacks, that's a 200% AP ratio! A good cask and a full contaminate can oneshot squishies late game. The range is also long and not-well known, so you can catch enemies offguard by using Q to sneak close enough to detonate (even multiple times on the same stacks after you own ability haste). |
| Use to apply passive stacks to multiple people and add a little damage. Can use to melt towers from long range later in the game, when you have minions pushing up nearby but can't approach the tower. |
Early and Mid Game
You have three goals.
1. Win the rat race by gathering as much gold as you can. Lie, cheat, and steal to gobble up the CS, and make sure you stay near enough to get the consolation gold if you can't get last hits. You scale harder on gold than most other champions in the game, and need it to reach your late game power.
2. Stack Manaflow Band and Tear of the Goddess. Hitting enemies with just one stack using Venom Cask works.
3. Don't lose! Try to protect towers by staggering your team's deaths and not allowing the enemy to get a huge gold lead via kills and CS. Avoid the rat-trap of not dying - if you haven't spent your gold, the enemy team can crush your team and take a tower. Look for opportunities to get executed by enemy towers, since Twitch has no innate sustain unless you go Riftmaker.
Late Game
In ARAM, I consider the late game to be any point in the game where a 5-0 ace will be devastating and potentially game-ending. At this point, you want to start chugging Elixir of Sorcery if your core items are done and the 500 gold won't make a huge difference in completing a legendary item.
You want to be poking the enemy, when possible, with Venom Cask and Contaminate combos. Scurry about with Ambush to get to safe places to throw casks from, and keep track of the enemy's long range abilities (including snowballs) to avoid getting caught in a trap.
In teamfights, your job is control zones with Venom Cask and Spray and Pray, and do massive damage with Contaminate and Deadly Venom true damage. Play with your team. Focus their frontline or backline based on your build and your team's needs. Look for opportunities to get a huge Venom Cask off on multiple targets or champions who have blown their mobility.
Game Evidence
While I obviously haven't been able to play hundreds of games of AP Twitch due to the random nature of ARAM, here are some of the ones I'm most proud of in my recent history (probably played about 8 games of AP Twitch in this time frame, these are the two best).
Game 1
Game 2
Thanks for reading my guide! Advice and formatting help from here.
Special thanks for my League-playing friends, who helped proofread this guide and have been trading me Twitch for the last few months.
