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Hello:
This is going to be a brief “Guide” on how I play Olaf and how anyone can do the same thing. I may be no pro but I would say that 24 kills, 10 deaths and 12 assists is pretty nice. I will state right now that this guide is dependant on your Team, and this is not intended to be a Randoms Guide (a Guide to being successful on your own).
To begin I am going to state that this build is going to be dependent on your team to an extent. You are going to need slows/snares/stuns to help you get kills, you are not a one man army and you don’t have the reach to catch EVERYONE. My favorite hero to lane with is Morgana, she can put out an amazing amount of damage at such a low level and makes for a great assister. Anyone who knows me and has played games with me will know that I can be Hyper Aggressive and Reckless in combat. You sometimes need to be in this state of mind to get your kills.
Runes:
I won’t go into Runes because personally I havn’t gotten that into it yet, mostly because I want to wait till I’m Level 30 and have unlocked all my Rune Slots. But in general I switch to my Page that is devoted to Crit Damage and Health.
Summoner Spells and Mastries:
I tend to stick with Exhaust and Ghost. Exhaust is for Chasing and Crippling that Auto Attacker (Ashe, Twitch, etc.) that will burn you down in team fights or ganks. Ghost is taken for Chasing of course, Getting away, Getting to places faster and a couple of other reasons that you should be smart enough to figure out. I am not Level 30 yet so I cannot give a full Mastery Build, I can only suggest you pick up Improved Ghost from the Utility Tree and Improved Exhaust from the Offense Tree. After that I put the rest of my points into the Offense Tree:
3/3 Deadliness
4/4 Sorcery
4/4 Alacrity
3/3 Sunder
3/3 Brute Force
3/3 Lethality
1/1 Havoc
Items:
I normally leave the base with a Dorans Blade and a Health Potion. The extra damage you receive by taking up Dorans Blade will help you get an early kill(s). Your mission early game is to be as aggressive and reckless as possible, you need to put yourself out there to get those kills. Those kills will allow you to rush an Emblem of Valour. I have found that rushing a Starks Fervor is more efficient than a Frozen Mallet, the Life Steal will allow you to survive situations that would normally kill you if you had the Mallet. At that point it becomes a battle of who has the higher Damage output, you (with your Life Steal, Enrage and Increased Attack Speed at low health) or your enemies, it will get to the point that you are going to be hovering at about 10% health and your opponent is going to be out of mana and dropping fast, because of your Life Steal and increased attack speed you will win the fight. So after you have picked up your Emblem of Valour I would combo into a Berserkers Greaves. You should be able to be running around with a Dorans Blade, Emblem of Valour and Berserkers Greaves by Level 6. Once you have those three items you need to start tagging around with a Gank Buddy, because you will not be able to chase people on your own, you cannot spam Exhaust and Ghost to get kills. This is where you need to choose you buddy, my buddy of choice is Morgana. Her Stasis ability allows my target to sit still enough for me to mangle them. By levels 8-10 you will need to be picking up Starks Fervor. From here is when your opposing team is going to be catching up to you, this is when you start to focus on that Frozen Mallet. If you and your team has been doing this right you should have a decent amount of kills and your Gank Buddy should have a good amount of Assists, as you shouldn’t be the only person they are helping out. Pick up a Phage as soon as possible and get that baby upgraded to a Frozen Mallet. At this point the game should be reaching the stage where its becoming clear as to who is going to win. If the game continues then you should focus on grabbing a Soul Shroud, and if it hasn’t ended yet then an Atmas Impaler, and if it still hasn’t ended yet then go for an Infinity Edge…
The Game and Skills:
Your priority when it comes to Abilities should be RECKLESS SWING -> Vicious Strikes -> Undertow, and picking up Ragnarok whenever possible. Now anyone who has played Olaf should know exactly why I put Reckless Strikes in all caps. Its because Reckless Strikes is your main source of your Burst Damage. It will deal a flat amount of damage NO MATTER WHAT it will pass through Magic Resist AND Armor, that’s right IT DEALS TRUE DAMAGE. Vicious Strikes is second because it is the entire reason why you should stack Health with Olaf, this ability increases your Attack Damage by a percentage of your Health on Activation, in combination with your amazing attack speed at low health you will be able to stay alive with your Life Steal (MORE HEALTH = MORE DAMAGE = MORE LIFE STEAL = MORE KILLS). Undertow has always seemed like a lackluster ability that should ONLY BE TAKEN AT LEVEL 1, this gives you a little bit of reach in the beginning and the slow will be more significant because few player start with Boots. Ragnarok is an amazing Ultimate that not only provides a passive Armor Pen increase but on activation will actually negate a flat amount of damage from each hit you receive, much like Alistar’s Ult which makes him such an amazing Burst Tanker. This ability should be popped whenever you charge into a fight because it will act as a sort of shield, allowing you to gain the upperhand before you amazing Life Steal and Attack Speed become important. This also allows you to be Reckless. You can pop Ghost and charge in with Ragnarok activated, activate Vicious Strikes and burst your target down. Due to your amazing Life Steal and Ragnarok you will be able to kill that squishy and GTFO with minimal damage (the reason I say minimal is because you can run into another lane or into the jungle and Life Steal your way back to full).
The way I play is extremely reckless and often gets me killed. When you think about tower diving for a kill you need to think about who is going to get this kill. I am not too concerned with getting killed, just as long as im not falling to the same person everytime. The way I see it you can give your enemy some gold to spend and keep them happy, just as long as YOU ARE GETTING FED. You need to remember that YOU DON’T LOSE GOLD WHEN YOU DIE so charging in isnt that big of a deal. You need to be prepared to do WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET YOUR GOLD the faster you get your Life Steal is the faster you can start solo’ing heroes. And once you get your Greaves is when you can go on Ganks. You need to make sure your opponents know that you are willing to kill them NO MATTER WHAT, because you need your gold and as long as you get your gold you will get stronger (just don’t be stupid).
Closing:
You are not a One-Man-Army. You are just a Man, and a Man needs his comrades. As long as you have your friends you will be able to carry them to victory. They are your Brigade. Your job is to provide them with confidence in winning, let them know that you are there to kill for them. Charge in, Smash some faces, and Smile Big.
This is going to be a brief “Guide” on how I play Olaf and how anyone can do the same thing. I may be no pro but I would say that 24 kills, 10 deaths and 12 assists is pretty nice. I will state right now that this guide is dependant on your Team, and this is not intended to be a Randoms Guide (a Guide to being successful on your own).
To begin I am going to state that this build is going to be dependent on your team to an extent. You are going to need slows/snares/stuns to help you get kills, you are not a one man army and you don’t have the reach to catch EVERYONE. My favorite hero to lane with is Morgana, she can put out an amazing amount of damage at such a low level and makes for a great assister. Anyone who knows me and has played games with me will know that I can be Hyper Aggressive and Reckless in combat. You sometimes need to be in this state of mind to get your kills.
Runes:
I won’t go into Runes because personally I havn’t gotten that into it yet, mostly because I want to wait till I’m Level 30 and have unlocked all my Rune Slots. But in general I switch to my Page that is devoted to Crit Damage and Health.
Summoner Spells and Mastries:
I tend to stick with Exhaust and Ghost. Exhaust is for Chasing and Crippling that Auto Attacker (Ashe, Twitch, etc.) that will burn you down in team fights or ganks. Ghost is taken for Chasing of course, Getting away, Getting to places faster and a couple of other reasons that you should be smart enough to figure out. I am not Level 30 yet so I cannot give a full Mastery Build, I can only suggest you pick up Improved Ghost from the Utility Tree and Improved Exhaust from the Offense Tree. After that I put the rest of my points into the Offense Tree:
3/3 Deadliness
4/4 Sorcery
4/4 Alacrity
3/3 Sunder
3/3 Brute Force
3/3 Lethality
1/1 Havoc
Items:
I normally leave the base with a Dorans Blade and a Health Potion. The extra damage you receive by taking up Dorans Blade will help you get an early kill(s). Your mission early game is to be as aggressive and reckless as possible, you need to put yourself out there to get those kills. Those kills will allow you to rush an Emblem of Valour. I have found that rushing a Starks Fervor is more efficient than a Frozen Mallet, the Life Steal will allow you to survive situations that would normally kill you if you had the Mallet. At that point it becomes a battle of who has the higher Damage output, you (with your Life Steal, Enrage and Increased Attack Speed at low health) or your enemies, it will get to the point that you are going to be hovering at about 10% health and your opponent is going to be out of mana and dropping fast, because of your Life Steal and increased attack speed you will win the fight. So after you have picked up your Emblem of Valour I would combo into a Berserkers Greaves. You should be able to be running around with a Dorans Blade, Emblem of Valour and Berserkers Greaves by Level 6. Once you have those three items you need to start tagging around with a Gank Buddy, because you will not be able to chase people on your own, you cannot spam Exhaust and Ghost to get kills. This is where you need to choose you buddy, my buddy of choice is Morgana. Her Stasis ability allows my target to sit still enough for me to mangle them. By levels 8-10 you will need to be picking up Starks Fervor. From here is when your opposing team is going to be catching up to you, this is when you start to focus on that Frozen Mallet. If you and your team has been doing this right you should have a decent amount of kills and your Gank Buddy should have a good amount of Assists, as you shouldn’t be the only person they are helping out. Pick up a Phage as soon as possible and get that baby upgraded to a Frozen Mallet. At this point the game should be reaching the stage where its becoming clear as to who is going to win. If the game continues then you should focus on grabbing a Soul Shroud, and if it hasn’t ended yet then an Atmas Impaler, and if it still hasn’t ended yet then go for an Infinity Edge…
The Game and Skills:
Your priority when it comes to Abilities should be RECKLESS SWING -> Vicious Strikes -> Undertow, and picking up Ragnarok whenever possible. Now anyone who has played Olaf should know exactly why I put Reckless Strikes in all caps. Its because Reckless Strikes is your main source of your Burst Damage. It will deal a flat amount of damage NO MATTER WHAT it will pass through Magic Resist AND Armor, that’s right IT DEALS TRUE DAMAGE. Vicious Strikes is second because it is the entire reason why you should stack Health with Olaf, this ability increases your Attack Damage by a percentage of your Health on Activation, in combination with your amazing attack speed at low health you will be able to stay alive with your Life Steal (MORE HEALTH = MORE DAMAGE = MORE LIFE STEAL = MORE KILLS). Undertow has always seemed like a lackluster ability that should ONLY BE TAKEN AT LEVEL 1, this gives you a little bit of reach in the beginning and the slow will be more significant because few player start with Boots. Ragnarok is an amazing Ultimate that not only provides a passive Armor Pen increase but on activation will actually negate a flat amount of damage from each hit you receive, much like Alistar’s Ult which makes him such an amazing Burst Tanker. This ability should be popped whenever you charge into a fight because it will act as a sort of shield, allowing you to gain the upperhand before you amazing Life Steal and Attack Speed become important. This also allows you to be Reckless. You can pop Ghost and charge in with Ragnarok activated, activate Vicious Strikes and burst your target down. Due to your amazing Life Steal and Ragnarok you will be able to kill that squishy and GTFO with minimal damage (the reason I say minimal is because you can run into another lane or into the jungle and Life Steal your way back to full).
The way I play is extremely reckless and often gets me killed. When you think about tower diving for a kill you need to think about who is going to get this kill. I am not too concerned with getting killed, just as long as im not falling to the same person everytime. The way I see it you can give your enemy some gold to spend and keep them happy, just as long as YOU ARE GETTING FED. You need to remember that YOU DON’T LOSE GOLD WHEN YOU DIE so charging in isnt that big of a deal. You need to be prepared to do WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET YOUR GOLD the faster you get your Life Steal is the faster you can start solo’ing heroes. And once you get your Greaves is when you can go on Ganks. You need to make sure your opponents know that you are willing to kill them NO MATTER WHAT, because you need your gold and as long as you get your gold you will get stronger (just don’t be stupid).
Closing:
You are not a One-Man-Army. You are just a Man, and a Man needs his comrades. As long as you have your friends you will be able to carry them to victory. They are your Brigade. Your job is to provide them with confidence in winning, let them know that you are there to kill for them. Charge in, Smash some faces, and Smile Big.
Dorlishnek, The Lord of Storms.
