Warwick Guide- The Gank Tank

Welcome

This is my way of playing Warwick and is conceived to be a tanky champion with the ability to gank for kills. This is my 2nd build and is made to pick off specific players of the enemy team while being able to escape easily afterwards and soak up some damage. Warwick can be played in a variety of ways with jungling, pure DPS, or even pure AP (Magewick).

I made this guide to show a different way of playing WW as this site already has a highly ranked DPS/jungle build and a faceroll AP build for this champion. Most WW builds have him constantly ganking and chasing for kills, but this build is centered more on making WW a team player able to deal the damage and support his team while the opposition attempts to focus him. "Tankwick" is the more viable option in competitive play (such as ranked games). The difference is that if my WW gets focused, he'll survive and end up disrupting anyone trying to focus him. I also guarantee that if this build is played correctly with decent teammates there is no way you shouldn't win. They will be unable to kill you while you and your team push all their turrets down. Prior talent and knowledge of the basics of Warwick and jungling should ensure success.



Skill Explanation


Q. Hungering Strike
- This ability is your main healing tool early game in combination with your awesome passive lifesteal. Basically when you strike someone you take out a good portion of their health and gain the same amount back.

When chasing spam this ability because it has greater range than your auto attack.



W. Hunters Call
- This ability is quite important at the start of your jungling route, however you only get one point in it to start and then max it out as the last ability. It has a aura attack speed buff for your teammates so when using it make sure to stand close to them.

This is a great skill for taking down turrets. Buff your allies and take it!



E. Blood Scent
- Well, this passive ability, which now has a toggle, is pretty much self explanatory; when an enemy champ goes below half health you get a movement speed buff.

When jungling, toggle this skill off as the enemy will get alerted to your presence if you are near. Just remember to put it back on when going in for any ganks.



R. Infinite Duress
- The best skill by far, it suppresses the enemy for quite a long duration and proceeds to repeatedly swipe. This combined with Madred's Bloodrazor is particularly lethal.

Use it to initiate a gank. It is also good to combine your ulti with help of damage over time champions. Example: you ulti in on an enemy at the same time annie pops tibbers. This will give her the max damage output on her damage over time fluffy bear.



CORE ITEMS




IN-GAME

Below, is a quick and general guide to how games might go down, the situations you should anticipate, and reasoning behind the buying of the items.

Early Game
Start by buying a cloth armor along with 2 health potions and 1 sight ward. Basically you're going to be jungling most of the early game and I won't write out how to do that here so please check out my step-by-step jungling guide below, it teaches how to counter enemy jungle and clean up your own jungle in the easiest way possible. Anyway, you'll start with Smite and Teleport solely because Smite is a must have for jungling and Teleport is awesome with Warwick, especially a tanky one that can shred a turret down instantly with 1 or 2 teammates nearby OR shut down 1 or 2 enemy champs trying to take a turret. Surprisingly enough, this game is about turrets and that is the key to victory. Getting a little off-topic, but basically after you port back buy Boots of Speed and Madred's Razor so you can get the 500 extra damage proc. A note on the boots: the type of boots you get and at what time you get them all depends on the difficulty of players you are up against. If they have only 1 or 2 champs with little CC then I get Sorcerer's Shoes, but more often than not teams these days have loads of CC so 80% of the time I get Mercury Treads. However I'm getting ahead of myself as we won't be completing boots until mid game. Then proceed by getting some nice AS with Recurve Bow, followed by finishing your Madred's Bloodrazor. This will be your only damage item (explained in next section).

Early Game Items




Mid Game
Get Spirit Visage, which is by far the best item on WW mid game. Why, you must be asking? Because of the item's passive which increases WW's passive lifesteal and his Hungering Strike, the CDR which allows you to continuously gank with a low cooldown ultimate, and the bonus magic resist make this item the best, cheap mid game purchase on WW. So you should always have lizard and golem on you and you should be ganking for more kills and gold which will then net you the highly coveted Madred's Bloodrazor which is your ONLY offensive item. OMG that's impossible a WW with only a Bloodrazor!!! Ohh nooess.. Well deal with it. Because you honestly don't need anything else, you can get mid game kills perfectly fine with just that. You drain their health and gain health back and that's pretty much it. You won't need more attack speed because there will hardly ever come a time when you and the opponent are sitting there trading hits and even if that does happen your lifesteal will win the battle. People are going to be focusing you now so let's build a Guardian's Angel. Commence late game win!

Mid Game Items




Late Game
The most important steps that a good WW player follows is to rush Bloodrazor, then Guardian's Angel, then Banshee's Veil. This will make you extremely annoying, which is the whole point of playing this champion. Basically you can come back to life at 900 hp with your Hungering Strike when people are focusing you. Not only that, Guardian Angel gives you sooo many resistances and its amazing base stats are just what you need at this time. This shall counter their focus and help steer your Warwick towards the direction that the meta game is right now, which is tanky dps. Gotta be able to support, defend, and push turrets if you wanna win. After you have your two key end game tanky items remember to buy Elixir of Fortitudes mainly for the extra 4 minute health buff. Finish off this build with a Randiun's Omen and the next time you ulti their carry, people will regret attacking you as they all get slowed and your team swoops in for the Ace and you end the game. Notice the bit of CDR it gives you, that combined with your runes (glyphs) and Spirit Visage, will let you stay alive, surpress, and support with a low CD Hungering Strike and Ulti. Also it's active is quite OP in teambattles, or when you initiate with your ultimate. You have around 200 MR and 260 Armor, that basically gives you insane CC for another 4 seconds on top of your ultimate. You'd better win that teambattle.

End Game Items






PFP's Basic Jungling Warwick Guide

Hungering Strike, Cloth Armor, Health Potions, and a Sight Ward should be taken to start. Buy your items as quickly as possible, and run to the enemy golem. If the the other team has a jungler drop the Sight Ward on their Golem buff. (If enemy jungler appears there, use Teleport to your Sight Ward when they have the buff at half health. You can then proceed by Smite-stealing their buff and killing them.
Move to your own Ancient Golem Buff and be ready for it to spawn at 1:55. Go straight for the Golem and keep using Hungering Strike when it gets off CD to stay alive and pop your health potion. Smite the Golem to kill (so you don't get it stolen) and kill the 2 lizards next to it.
You are now level 2 so grab Hunters Call and proceed to the wolf camp next to you. Activate HC and auto attack them down.
Proceed to wraith camp and take the three smaller wraiths first. Use HC and spam Hungering Strike to stay alive.
Now take the double golem camp with the usual tactic.
Go for lizard buff now. Take the two smaller lizards first and continue using HC and HS. When the buff lizard gets to 40% use Smite on it. You might need to use your second health potion at this time.
Port back to base, buy Madred's Razor and level 1 boots.
You can take dragon for your team very early (for quickest dragon you can go for it right after you clear up your side of the jungle and port back at level 4). Must have Madred's Razors and Smite up to take this properly. Having lizard buff helps as well.