Introduction
Ever since his nerf in Patch 5.2, people have been looking for new ways to play our favorite fishy assassin. First popularized on the European servers, AD fizz is starting to make a splash in the North American scene as well!
How to Build
As a bruiser top laner, most Fizzi (fizz-eye) tend to take 21-9-0 masteries with standard hybrid runes, and then prioritizing R > W > E > Q
In regards to item path, there are a variety of paths, most of which either start or end with Trinity Force or some sort of tank item like Sunfire Cape. Some Fizzi also build items like Iceborn Gauntlet and on rare ocassion something like Manamune or Hydra.
Example Build
Thoughts on Effectiveness
Damage - As a tank maxing W, Fizz does have some excellent stacking damage that works well for executing low health targets. At point blank range and plenty of health, he also has a high chance to land his ultimate and more time to aim it.
Laning - With his passive that ignores some auto damage, he trades well against auto attackers, but not so well against bursty top laners.
Tankiness - Fizz is excellent at collecting aggro and then jumping out of the fight and/or avoiding dangerous AOE skillshots. This makes him strong as a front line as long as you have plenty of follow-up (think Fiddlesticks).
1v1 Potential - Fizz does well against champions with dodgable spells. He does have quite a bit of trouble against certain popular top laners like Riven pre-6 though.
Conclusions
As a high skill based champion, Fizz definitely gains a lot of breathing room with a tankier build, and is always fun to play regardless. As a top laner he's definitely a viable pick, but I wouldn't say he's leading the pack by any means.
Likely placement: Tier 2 [Balanced]
Thoughts? Have some insight on AD Fizz? Comment below!
Going to have to try this, will re-post with results soon. (D5 top lane main)
ReplyDeletefizz's w no longer applies grevious wounds i believe
ReplyDeleteI think you are correct, was reading his skills off an outdated site :P
ReplyDeleteI saw AD fizz go hard in jungle this week. He built warmogs, witz end, frozen Mallent
ReplyDeleteI've been seeing high elo streamers building botrk as a rush, as its synergy with W (which is now on hit %missing rather than a DoT) means he deals between 10% and 8% MAXIMUM health on hit rather than just missing or maximum. It probably ahould be included in the list of items they build here.
ReplyDeleteThere is a bug that QSS can not remove Fizz's ulti . I wonder if that increases the pick rate of Fizz (as top laner as well as jungler) ?
ReplyDeleteYep, this is what I hear about more often then not. Would be great to hear some thoughts about how core BotRK would be.
ReplyDeleteBotrk+Gauntlet work very well on fizz atm
ReplyDeleteIts nota bug, QSS only removes the slow of his ult.
ReplyDeleteBeen hearing about AD Fizz a bit lately, but I hadn't really been looking into it at all.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the analysis @SSJSuntastic, based on what you said here I'm inclined to agree with a Tier 2 positioning.
I would imagine you build him quite a bit like people were building Gnar when he first came out, BORK + Trinity as his core damage items. (That has changed a bit lately).
ReplyDeleteI could also see him starting Brutalizer + Sheen too. Typical first buys for me on Gnar and then I build tank before finishing my damage items. (Ghostblade or Cleaver + Trinity Force, BORK late option unless the other team stacks armor).
I could see this working well on Fizz too. Early Sheen + Brutalizer is very strong for trades.
I went ahead and tried out AD Fizz top.
ReplyDeleteWas up against a Darius who wailed on me pretty hard in lane, getting two fairly early kills. After my jungler ganked (I killed Darius, but I lost my jungler in the process), I was able to afford my BotRK. Immediately started roaming with Teleport and made a massive comeback, winning the game after having lost every lane except mid. I went 9-9 or something that game, but it was in part due to the massive amount of aggro I generated.
My final build was Blade of the Ruined King -> Boots of Speed -> Sunfire Cape -> Mercury Treads -> Iceborn Gauntlet -> Banshee's Veil. Did a pretty impressive amount of damage while being fairly difficult to take down. I think finding a way to incorporate magic penetration into the build somehow would be great (BotRK + Wit's End?).
All in all, it was a very fun pick and something I'll probably fool around with in the future. Definitely confirmed my suspicions that AD Fizz still has a difficult time dealing with dedicated lane bullies like Darius, though.
That's how I've been doing him. Bork Triforce. Then I've gone Randuins and defensive boots. Note I started it before the pros, and haven't really seen what they build, so I have nothing to work off of other than a reddit comment from when it was on the PBE suggesting W and Bork. I actually like a void staff since all 4 skills scale off of AP as well as dealing magic damage. I might try Lucidity if I want to go Void, otherwise I might just get Wits instead. Was thinking of Hydra as well, since he seems like he'd be a great split pusher (great 1v1 and escape.)
ReplyDeleteJust... ban Fiora. She's awful. She dodges your ult with hers, wins trades with W, and has a strong double engage on you.
I swear to christ, when an assassin gets nerfed people just won't accept the fact that they got worse and instead try to make some other build/role viable. When Twitch/Olaf gets nerfed no-one cares because they don't have a dash. This is really annoying to me, when an assassin deals 2/3 the damage Velkoz/Swain deals, they are bad. I don't care what LCS picks or how youu think you can outplay, in Bronze-Gold elo I hope to god I don't see this or Nidalee jungle in my ranked games. But what am I saying, kids just want to be Bjergsen.
ReplyDeleteWhats wrong with experimenting though, there have been plenty of well known and popular champions playing in roles not originally intended for them which all work fine. Bruiser Fizz is good and has been a thing since way before the fizz tweaks came out. I personally feel it has high viability.
ReplyDeleteNidalee jungle came with the nida passive buff. It seems like jungle nida was what riot were aiming for.
Players wanting to play builds and champs they see in lcs isn't bad like people may think. It allows for people to play and get experimental with whats good or not. Especially in top lane where the role is so vague that anyone can go top. Just because we want to play around a bit with builds doesn't mean that the build is bad.
Nidalee jungle is actually really good, but I see what you mean in reference to low elo. A lot of my friends have tried and failed Nidalee jungle, AD Fizz really isn't that bad of a pick that you are making it out to be though and he isn't really a hard champ.
ReplyDeleteI love expirementing myself but people ONLY EXPIREMENT WITH ASSASSINS. The problem is that people will not play anything but assassins these days. I understand they might work for you sometimes but from my typical experiences, an assassin who recently got nerfed and tries something else loses games most of the time. Also if they are feeding they provide very little to the team.
ReplyDeleteFrom my experiences beforehand, AD Fizz Top has fed allll day. Mainly because AD Fizz takes away some power spikes for some early game: Level 6, DFG, and Zhoyndas. Also good Bruisers have at least 1 instant CC while Fizz's CC is on a longgg CD and easily dodgeable.
ReplyDeleteAm i the only one who noticed the trinity force on fizz's head ion the thumbnail?
ReplyDeleteSeen this Fizz build in so many of my games lately. Kinda ridiculous actually, but it's a FOTM I actually wanna try.
ReplyDeleteThis is bad info. Triforce is not even his best item. His damage output with BotRK alone is AMAZING. The attack speed and max %hp help at high health, and his W with the AS still do great damage at low health. It's like having a max %hp BotRK.
ReplyDeleteMe too. But I've been doing jungle with the attack speed on hit enchantment. It's REALLY good once you finish BotRK. You can go full on tanky from there if you want but usually I'm so far ahead that I just keep getting bruiser items. Wit's End has some good synergy with his W as well.
ReplyDeleteVery. Even if you check lolking it shows that the win rate is significantly higher than triforce. I've been playing it a lot and I see no reason to rush anything other than BotRK. It is just so deceptively powerful.
ReplyDeleteI've been doing it and last 2 games I went perfect, and very high KDR before that. I get the on hit enchantment, then BotRK. Once I finish that it's a huge power spike and I try to make plays. You can go tanky after that if you want, but I have yet to find a need to. jungle item + BotRK + triforce + wit's end are the best items on him, I think, in that order. If I had gotten to finish a build yet, I'd most likely go Randuin's as well.
ReplyDeletehmm... so the shark is not dropped, and still cause damage&knockup?
ReplyDeleteI thought QSS should drop the shark (at least it used to be).
Perhaps this is an "unofficial" buff to Fizz (kind of "undocumentation" change).
Hey Riot that's a smart way to increase champion win-rate, but not an actual balance thing to do... If you don't want nerf Fizz just buff other champs that's all.
I played like 20 jugnle games with ad fizz and I tried so many different builds on him. I found, that as jungler it is not so efficient to rush on hit/as items (BoTRK, devourer enchant), because during ganks you do not deal so mcuh AA as you deal during trades on top lane, but you need to burst people. Also you do not have so much gold to afford 2 early offensive items as bruiser.
ReplyDeleteFor this reason my build is folowing:
Ranger's Trailblazer -> basic boots -> sheen -> juggernaut jungle enchant -> if my toplane is tank/tanky bruiser as jax/irelia I can afford cdr boots, else I go for tanky ninjatabi -> finish trinity -> omen, banshee and as last item I go for BoTRK
In my eyes the situation is the same as with top lane bruisers. If they go trinity -> tank they are incredibly strong in midgame teamfights, but does not deal so mcuh dmg as trinity+BoTRK....if you go trinity+BoTRK you just have to splitpush until you get at least 1 tank item. With this 2 items you are able to 1v1 most champions, but you can not go into teamfight where bursty APC just deletes you.
For this reason I say:
jugnle - trinity -> tank
top - splitpush - BoTRK->trinity->tank
- teamfighter - trinity -> tank
Today I played two times fizz jungle on ranked (diamond) and his clear time is great with w. When you get you core (botrk and trinity) NO one stops you and then you buy randuins, banshee and cdr boots. It´s great
ReplyDeleteTrue true.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny cause AD Fizz was literally the first thing I did when he was released back in S2, only then it was considered a troll pick although it was pretty much the same as now, but with far less damage due to the non existence of the Ruined King and his W being different.
ReplyDeleteSadly, it won't be long before he gets nerfed again, leaving this new AD life pretty much useless until he gets a full rework.
Yes and Triforce makes it better with more Mana and Health, like how Jax builds. Get the fuck outta here.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Sun, you should check the magic pen tanky build by Maulface, it's extremely fun to play, you're annoyingly tanky and mobile, and you deal enough damage thanks to your runes and item choice.
ReplyDeleteHis ult has always worked this way however spellshields drop the ult.
ReplyDeletewow i didn't notice that :O
ReplyDeleteDid you forget about Shyvana? She has only one form of weak knockback and that's her ultimate. Not to mention that fizz's Trickster is also a 60% slow for 2 seconds. Also triforce is an insanely good powerspike for fizz and his ultimate still places a 20% magic damage mark on them for 6 seconds (Plus no one gets dfg as a powerspike anymore).
ReplyDeleteYour judgement on AD fizz seems to be entirely based on anecdotal evidence while ignoring the actual flaws that AD fizz has, namely his lack of waveclear (even with E max second it's pretty lame) and the fact that he might step a bit too much on Irelia's toes.
fizzi...
ReplyDeleteer... there was madreds
ReplyDelete