[Guide] Caitlyn

[Hidan]

Caitlyn Guide

1) Reasons to play her
2) Runes
3) Masteries
4) Skill Order
5) Item Order
6) Summoner Spells
7) What you should be doing in fights / your play style.




1) I will start off by saying Caitlyn is a mediocre champion. If you really want to carry well, she is not the hero for you. Even if you play her at your peak of skill level, you will still fail in comparison to heroes such as Ashe. The reason I play her, of course, is the accent she talks in. This is enough to get me playing on a hero, yeah. Her abilities are pretty much all skill shots. Making her have a high skill level with little reward from it.


2) Your rune page depends on whatever you have. In my case, I barely have any tier 3 rune pages so my current rune page is as follows:
Marks : Armor Penetration
Seals : Mana Regeneration / Level
Glyphs : Mana Regeneration / Level
Quints : Armor Penetration

This allows you to be able to keep up a higher amount of mana early game. While MAYBE flat mana regeneration runes could be better, I wouldn't know. I can't afford them.
Keep in mind, Caitlyn is a heavy mana intensive champion, and even with these runes + masteries I still end up lacking mana. This will be discussed later.

3) Your Masteries should be 12/0/18 (Weird number, I know) I listed them in tiers where the top most mastery is in tier 1 and then continuing down goes up in tiers.

Offensive Tree:
3/3 Deadliness +1/3 Archmage's Savvy Explanation : You don't get smite or exhaust on her, and you need critical chance more than ability power.
4/4 Sorcery Explanation : Leads up to Archaic Knowledge, I personally never get the attack speed mastery.
1/1 Archaic Knowledge + 3/3 Sunder Explanation : Archaic Knowledge makes your traps + net do a tiny bit more damage, Armor Penetration helps your Q + R and your auto attacks.

Utility Tree :
3/3 Perseverence + 1/1 Haste Explanation : Extra health regen, you should use ghost so that helps too.
4/4 Awareness + 4/4 Expanded Mind Explanation : Level up faster + more mana so manamune will be more effective + more spamming skills.
3/3 Meditation Explanation : More mana regeneration = more abilities early on. This gives you effectively 5 mana regen per 5 at lvl 1.
3/3 Quickness Explanation : Faster on a mobility hero? Yes please.

4) Q->E->Q->W->Q->R->Q->E->Q->W->R->E->W->E->W->R->E->W

You want your Q maximized first since it provides last hitting of multiple creeps, harassment and damage boost all in one. I find it an important part of her laning phase.
Net is over Trap skill point wise since it provides more slow duration, but I recommend you keep them balance since if you put more points into Trap it has lower cooldowns.

5) Item Order that I found works:

I. Doran's Blade + health pot
II. 3x Doran's Blade + Movement 1 Boots (Yes, I actually farm this much before having to go back)
III. Tear of Goddess
IV. Finish Manamune + Berserker Greaves OR Mercury Treads
V. Wriggles Lantern
VI. Phage
VII. Giant's Belt
IIX. Frozen Mallet or Black Cleaver (Thanks Ramp)
IX. Hex Drinker
X. Last Whisper
XI. Wriggles sold for Bloodthirster

You can sell Hex Drinker later for something else. I use Wriggles / Hexdrinker for some decent armor/mr early game along with some decent damage on the side.

If you actually get to XI, then I recommend your team surrenders. At this point Caitlyn has little to no use in comparison to most carries, and is mainly used for fleeing enemies with her ultimate. You can still do decent damage of course, but probably other heroes do better.

6)
Exhaust : Bad (You have trap, you have net, why do you need this)
Ghost : Good (I always take this on Caitlyn)
Heal : Bad (This spell is banned at lvl 30, don't expect to even make it past Champion selection screen, most people will que dodge if you have it.)
Revive : Bad (I don't need to explain it)
Smite : OK (I mean, if you really want to farm well I guess you could take it, but I recommend you don't.
Teleport : OK (Always a useful spell on anyone. Can use it to teleport to a ward somewhere and then help ultimate a fleeing o r recalling opponent.
Cleanse : OK (I bet it would be helpful, but I don't run it.)
Fortify : Bad (You don't get this on carries, noob)
Clarity : Bad (Your mana problems should be gone by the time you get manamune)
Ignite : OK (Works well with her ultimate if you're in a solo lane, always helpful to have but I don't personally recommend using it.)
Rally : Bad (You're to mobile to get use out of it.)
Clairvoyance : Good (Works well with ultimate, helpful in some cases. But should be on a suport in your team.)
Flash : Good (I normally take this on Caitlyn, I find it works really well using Net + Flash combo to get away.)

7)

Laning Phase : This is where you are queen. As far as I have seen so far, there is no hero that can outdo Caitlyn in a lane, she is simply a lane stomper in most cases. You have super range (650) and your passive makes it so you do extra/additional damage to harass opponents. Use your Q to harass well, and they will be kicked out of the lane / dead very soon.
After you kick your opponent out of your lane, you are hopefully level 6 (if you didn't kick them out of the lane by now at least once, its gg. No joke.) Go to either top or bottom (whichever has gotten your opponents to the lowest hp) and help them gank by using your Q from behind the forest and then use your ultimate to take them down.
Late Game: Your job is to take down opposing carries. Use the fact that you effectively have a double flash to get around, set traps up in places where you think the enemy carry is coming from, and burst them down. Stick with your team and use your ultimate to kill people that are running away on low hp.

 

[Hidan]

Can whoever voted/rated this thread 1/5 please explain what I could do to make the thread/guide better ? Thanks. I know the guide may seem terrible, I was trying to show what I found to work decently well on her.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ramp]

I didn't vote, but I will say that your item choice is pretty bad along with your masteries.


You do not need all that mana regen as once you get past level 6 or so mana should not be an issue, unless you just run around spamming spells for no reason what so ever so going 21-0-9 benefits her far greater than what you currently have, in fact even 21-9-0 due to her low starting armor would be good.


As for your damage there are sooooo many other items you could have on her to make her much better than she is.

3 x dorans blades pretty good, see that a lot of AD carries.

Mana mune.... not what I would choose but I guess helpful if you actually max out tear first and not just rush mana mune.

After the dorans blades or tear if you go that route get an infinity edge and than a last whisper.

After this depending on how the game is going get either a black cleaver if you are doing good, or a frozen mallet if you find that you are dying a lot due to low health *cough* health quints are beast

After this you have several choices. You can get a ghostblade, banshees veil, starks, or even sword of the divine which compliments her passive really well.


Buy boots at some points and get red and green pots as needed.

Feel free to mix and match these last few items, but rushing a IF after your dorans blades is pretty much a must.

 

[Sabion]

Please...No Manamune...That item is just...So not worth an item slot in my opinion...Just roll the mana regen runes if you need mana in my opinion as a lot of ranged carries do.

 

[Clix]

I find your masteries and your weird, for example, Armor Pen Qnts? For a little more offence you are giving up alot of your early/meta-game survivability. Thats where Caitlyn exceeds. Also, your masteries are shown are completely unorganized, with special points in crits (but with no follow up of crit damage) and armor pen. I would focus on a bit more "larger" scale and focus on how Caitlyn participates in fights and lane. Here is my masteries for her:

Another thing summoner spells : Personally i take FLASH and EXHAUST , and i dont understand why exhaust is bad on Caitlyn, you have a trap, that takes about 2 seconds to arm up, you have your e that shoots you like 2 inches back. In fights, if the enemy team is smart, they will focus you. And the champions who's roles are in team fights to attack and deny carries and other auto-attack damage dealing champions such as caitlyn are champions like Poppy, Trynd, Akali, Ezreal, Xin Zhaou, Master Yi, etc. (champions listed roles Include, not are limited to) When you are in a situation mentioned, exhaust's slow effects and blinds are very viable and may be the thing you need to make a clean flash, or "e" to get away.

Q->E->Q->W->Q->R->Q->E->Q->W->R->E->W->E->W->R->E->W

Also i prioritize my Q first then my W then me E.



For me Caitlyn's stats would be :

Runes :
Qnts : 2HP Qnts 1 Attack Speed Qnt
Marks: Armor Pen
Seals: Dodge chance
Glyphs: Cooldown's per Level

Masteries: (Shown above)

Skills same as Hidan's but i prioritize my w more then my e.

Other than that it was a very thoughtful guide, i "overall" agree with your item order, with some exceptions .

 

[Hidan]

I didn't vote, but I will say that your item choice is pretty bad along with your masteries.


You do not need all that mana regen as once you get past level 6 or so mana should not be an issue, unless you just run around spamming spells for no reason what so ever so going 21-0-9 benefits her far greater than what you currently have, in fact even 21-9-0 due to her low starting armor would be good.


As for your damage there are sooooo many other items you could have on her to make her much better than she is.

3 x dorans blades pretty good, see that a lot of AD carries.

Mana mune.... not what I would choose but I guess helpful if you actually max out tear first and not just rush mana mune.

After the dorans blades or tear if you go that route get an infinity edge and than a last whisper.

After this depending on how the game is going get either a black cleaver if you are doing good, or a frozen mallet if you find that you are dying a lot due to low health *cough* health quints are beast

After this you have several choices. You can get a ghostblade, banshees veil, starks, or even sword of the divine which compliments her passive really well.


Buy boots at some points and get red and green pots as needed.

Feel free to mix and match these last few items, but rushing a IF after your dorans blades is pretty much a must.

Thanks for your feedback so far! I guess I didn't clarify on how I was exactly playing Caitlyn, which is why the build may seem strange. I'll explain a few things.

When I play Caitlyn I am always constantly putting up new traps over old ones, simply because if a trap has been sitting around idle for about a minute it will most likely not be getting to much use later on. I also use her Q quite frequently, simply because I feel as though Caitlyn is not the kind of champion that you want to go really close in a fight with, so what I do is while I do auto attack heroes, I spam this ability constantly. In the lane, Q is nearly always on cooldown for me. I use it to harass and last hit at the same time. While I can certainly last hit perfectly fine without using it (believe me I do, how else would I ever get my passive up) I also want to harass my opponent at the same time. A big bonus to using her Q to harass with is so far, it seems like you don't aggro minions if you use this to hit someone. However, if you attack with an auto attack you will, and in some cases may take more damage than it was worth. As for my masteries, I'm a firm believer that in most cases going 21 points in Offensive is never really worth it. And since I use my Q so much (I just explained why) I find that dumping points into Utility Spec for mana issues (+ the bonus movement speed you end up getting, in my opinion thats the most important part of speccing into utility) is totally worth it.

As for the items you were talking about, I guess I'll clarify it a bit. The 4x Doran's Blade that you get total +400 hp, +32 damage, and 12% lifesteal. This allows your ultimate to do +64 extra damage, and makes you less squishy and be able to stay in the lane a bit longer since you have a lot of life steal now. As for the manamune, by the time I generally actually finish manamune I get ROUGHLY +25-30~ damage from the passive, which in my opinion is pretty dang good. I was considering getting Black Cleaver like you suggested. In reality when I thought about it, Black Cleaver is most likely the most cost efficient item you can build on Caitlyn. It provides attack speed (more attacks = faster headshots built up), more attack damage (scaling on Q + R) and armor reduction, which allows your Q, R, and Auto Attacks to all do more damage. I didn't put it up in my guide, but if there were any other weapon to be added to the list, then this would be it. I get the Frozen Mallet so you can keep your opponent constantly slowed, with 650 attack range and pumping a slow, with a disable and a blink that you can use every 10~ seconds, you should be able to take down any running foe easily. You mentioned Health Quints if you needed more survivability, however I sadly do not even have T3 Health Quints (Sad I know) so I cannot attest to how well it works.

I'd like to add one last thing, I feel as though rushing Infinity Edge on ranged carries is overrated. In reality I find that most people who attempt to do this generally are much more easier to shut down while they're doing this, since what happens then is their damage will go up in big bumps, but there are such big gaps in between when you will get your next BF Sword, or Pickaxe, or finish your Infinity Edge, that your damage will fail in comparison to people who go my style of building (AKA getting small items, lots of them and it adds up to lots of damage while still keeping up with everyone elses damage.)

Thanks for your comment, Ramp.

Please...No Manamune...That item is just...So not worth an item slot in my opinion...Just roll the mana regen runes if you need mana in my opinion as a lot of ranged carries do.

Like I said to Ramp, and I think I mentioned it in the OP, Q is used heavily by me and its required so I still have enough mana to do other things.

Thanks for your comment, Sabion.

I find your masteries and your weird, for example, Armor Pen Qnts? For a little more offence you are giving up alot of your early/meta-game survivability. Thats where Caitlyn exceeds. Also, your masteries are shown are completely unorganized, with special points in crits (but with no follow up of crit damage) and armor pen. I would focus on a bit more "larger" scale and focus on how Caitlyn participates in fights and lane. Here is my masteries for her:


Another thing summoner spells : Personally i take FLASH and EXHAUST , and i dont understand why exhaust is bad on Caitlyn, you have a trap, that takes about 2 seconds to arm up, you have your e that shoots you like 2 inches back. In fights, if the enemy team is smart, they will focus you. And the champions who's roles are in team fights to attack and deny carries and other auto-attack damage dealing champions such as caitlyn are champions like Poppy, Trynd, Akali, Ezreal, Xin Zhaou, Master Yi, etc. (champions listed roles Include, not are limited to) When you are in a situation mentioned, exhaust's slow effects and blinds are very viable and may be the thing you need to make a clean flash, or "e" to get away.

For me Caitlyn's stats would be :

Runes :
Qnts : 2HP Qnts 1 Attack Speed Qnt
Marks: Armor Pen
Seals: Dodge chance
Glyphs: Cooldown's per Level

Masteries: (Shown above)

Skills same as Hidan's but i prioritize my w more then my e.

Other than that it was a very thoughtful guide, i "overall" agree with your item order, with some exceptions .

Early game I do heavy heavy harassing, which is where the extra armor penetration comes in. It makes it so I can do full damage with my attacks on most squishies, so I do really well as far as harassing goes. The reason I put points in the crit mastery is because its better to put points into that to get into tier 2 than into ability power, since AP only affects 2 abilities, both of which I think have bad scaling anyway.

For your Flash and Exhaust spells, I was contemplating taking Exhaust, but because of the fact that I'm always high on mana, I am constantly setting up traps where I'm about to move to get in range to attack, so in most cases if someone tries getting me then I'm already prepared to root them and then net away. Lately I've played lots of games vs Poppy, and while she is tank I've been able to do fairly well so far playing vs her by doing this.

I can't comment on your runes, cause like I said, I really have no runes lol. For my runes that I currently have done pages for :

Mark :
Armor Penetration
Critical Chance
Ability Power / Level

Seals :
Mana Regen / level
Attack Speed
Flat Armor

Glyphs :
Ability Power / Level
Mana Regen / Level

Quints :
Critical Damage
Armor Penetration

Yeh, I'm broke as far as IP goes.

Thanks for your comment, Clix.

 

[Clix]

Stop everything and get some HP qnts . they will save your (in-game) life one day.

 

[killer4000]

if you are getting the summoner spell get the mastery for it and you want the regein over the less time died it really is not a noticeable mastery

 

[Hidan]

Stop everything and get some HP qnts . they will save your (in-game) life one day.

Honestly, I've "done," this about 5 times now. I always tell myself "I'm gonna buy HP quints next." And then spend the IP on random runes. In my case I spent it on AS runes D:

 

[killer4000]

" And then spend the IP on random runes. In my case I spent it on AS runes D:

eww as runes

 

[Carmine]

eww as runes

Quiet, attack speed runes rock on junglers and Irelia.

Also, I have lots of problems with the guide's build, but I don't feel like going into details right now. Let me just say that I believe bloodthirster + last whisper + banshees veil + black cleaver is the way to go on her. You got the runes right though, safe ranged carries benefit more from armor pen quints than flat health, especially a character like Caitlyn with a flash/slow and very long range.

 

[Hidan]

Quiet, attack speed runes rock on junglers and Irelia.

Also, I have lots of problems with the guide's build, but I don't feel like going into details right now. Let me just say that I believe bloodthirster + last whisper + banshees veil + black cleaver is the way to go on her. You got the runes right though, safe ranged carries benefit more from armor pen quints than flat health, especially a character like Caitlyn with a flash/slow and very long range.

Yeah I play jungler Irelia occasionally (Honestly, Irelia is one of my favorite heroes, I just suck with her D:.

With your item suggestions, Bloodthirster, Last Whisper, And Black Cleaver (After one of the members posted a comment suggesting it.) are already within the item build. I'm just simply the type of person who believes it is much better to start out small rather than rush something big. Maybe this build only works for me because I can last hit everything in a 5 mile radius, who knows. I consider swapping out Hexdrinker however later on for Banshees. My item build that I chose is a "base build." I certainly hope no one is going to be using Wriggles Lantern 50 minutes into the game.

 

[Carmine]

Yeah I play jungler Irelia occasionally (Honestly, Irelia is one of my favorite heroes, I just suck with her D:.

With your item suggestions, Bloodthirster, Last Whisper, And Black Cleaver (After one of the members posted a comment suggesting it.) are already within the item build. I'm just simply the type of person who believes it is much better to start out small rather than rush something big. Maybe this build only works for me because I can last hit everything in a 5 mile radius, who knows. I consider swapping out Hexdrinker however later on for Banshees. My item build that I chose is a "base build." I certainly hope no one is going to be using Wriggles Lantern 50 minutes into the game.

I'm pretty damn good at farming, I have been able to outfarm Mordekaisers and Sivirs with Caitlyn. My problems are Manamune is pointless since you are using mana regen blues and yellows and Wriggles Lantern is really more of a jungler item, the lifesteal you can get from a scepter while building bloodthirster, you don't need the armor with your range and the passive is useless because of her large amounts of farming power granted by peacemaker. Frozen Mallet isn't ideal because you shouldn't need so much health if you are playing carefully. Your jungler should be letting you have red buff after he is done ganking making the slow obsolete. Hexdrinker, to put it lightly, is bad. Banshees Veil is way better, and doesn't cost much more.

Starting off with bloodthirster works well on her because she is similar to Sivir, that large amount of AD will work well with her abilities that scale heavily with attack damage. Last Whisper should be a priority after that because once again, her abilities gain the 40% armor pen from its passive, and it boots her autoattacking power pretty well. Banshee's Veil is a must for RDPS survivability, nullifying a spell cast is incredibly powerful. Black Cleaver I suggest with hesitation, since it's rework it isn't bad, if you didn't get berserker's greaves you need some attack speed, but if you did get BG I would just suggest another bloodthirster.

On the subject of Doran's Blade, I would always start with one, and usually would get another one, but unless I am having trouble gaining lane dominance I would just stop at two so I can start working on my bloodthirster.

As for masteries, 21/0/9 all the way. You shouldn't really need the extra point in extended buffs or the move speed from utility over Havoc.

Oh and she isn't really as bad as you make her out to be, especially with the buffs she is getting. Her only real problem was her janky ultimate, other than that her skillset is solid.

 

[Hidan]

I'm pretty damn good at farming, I have been able to outfarm Mordekaisers and Sivirs with Caitlyn. My problems are Manamune is pointless since you are using mana regen blues and yellows and Wriggles Lantern is really more of a jungler item, the lifesteal you can get from a scepter while building bloodthirster, you don't need the armor with your range and the passive is useless because of her large amounts of farming power granted by peacemaker. Frozen Mallet isn't ideal because you shouldn't need so much health if you are playing carefully. Your jungler should be letting you have red buff after he is done ganking making the slow obsolete. Hexdrinker, to put it lightly, is bad. Banshees Veil is way better, and doesn't cost much more.

Starting off with bloodthirster works well on her because she is similar to Sivir, that large amount of AD will work well with her abilities that scale heavily with attack damage. Last Whisper should be a priority after that because once again, her abilities gain the 40% armor pen from its passive, and it boots her autoattacking power pretty well. Banshee's Veil is a must for RDPS survivability, nullifying a spell cast is incredibly powerful. Black Cleaver I suggest with hesitation, since it's rework it isn't bad, if you didn't get berserker's greaves you need some attack speed, but if you did get BG I would just suggest another bloodthirster.

On the subject of Doran's Blade, I would always start with one, and usually would get another one, but unless I am having trouble gaining lane dominance I would just stop at two so I can start working on my bloodthirster.

As for masteries, 21/0/9 all the way. You shouldn't really need the extra point in extended buffs or the move speed from utility over Havoc.

Oh and she isn't really as bad as you make her out to be, especially with the buffs she is getting. Her only real problem was her janky ultimate, other than that her skillset is solid.

I only buy Manamune because I run into mana problems EVEN with seals/glyphs and the regen mastery. Caitlyn is actually the first hero that I've ever actually incorporated a Manamune into its build, simply because generally the runes and masteries are suffice. But with her I find lots of problems, so I get Manamune.

The wriggles is because of the fact that you can heal off of the 500 damage proc with the lifesteal that comes with it. It provides generally like 50-90 health once it procs, which ensures staying in the lane for a lot longer.

I get Frozen Mallet because generally I can't expect anything good from my team so I just purchase it so I don't get problems (EX: I've had games where vladimirs are always the one taking red buff, who don't even auto attack most of the time.)

Hexdrinker is good early on since most abilities don't do TO much damage so the 300 damage shield actually comes in quite handy. The main reason I purchased it is because it provides damage and survivability. Lately I find that I mostly need hybrid-ish items more than flat out damage. For instance, rather than purchasing a Blood thirster on some heroes, I find it is simply better to buy , say, Wriggles + Brutalizer, to make up an example. I find that items that contain little amounts of multiple stats help me a lot more early game than items that only focus primarily on one stat, but this is only what I've seen so far.

My judgement as to her being bad is mostly based on how terrible her ultimate is. Even with the buffs to it in the next patch it will still be terrible since people will always 100% of the time block it for their allies.

Thanks for your comment!

 

[Carmine]

I only buy Manamune because I run into mana problems EVEN with seals/glyphs and the regen mastery. Caitlyn is actually the first hero that I've ever actually incorporated a Manamune into its build, simply because generally the runes and masteries are suffice. But with her I find lots of problems, so I get Manamune.

The wriggles is because of the fact that you can heal off of the 500 damage proc with the lifesteal that comes with it. It provides generally like 50-90 health once it procs, which ensures staying in the lane for a lot longer.

I get Frozen Mallet because generally I can't expect anything good from my team so I just purchase it so I don't get problems (EX: I've had games where vladimirs are always the one taking red buff, who don't even auto attack most of the time.)

Hexdrinker is good early on since most abilities don't do TO much damage so the 300 damage shield actually comes in quite handy. The main reason I purchased it is because it provides damage and survivability. Lately I find that I mostly need hybrid-ish items more than flat out damage. For instance, rather than purchasing a Blood thirster on some heroes, I find it is simply better to buy , say, Wriggles + Brutalizer, to make up an example. I find that items that contain little amounts of multiple stats help me a lot more early game than items that only focus primarily on one stat, but this is only what I've seen so far.

My judgement as to her being bad is mostly based on how terrible her ultimate is. Even with the buffs to it in the next patch it will still be terrible since people will always 100% of the time block it for their allies.

Thanks for your comment!

If you are running out of mana with both meditation and mana regen runes you need to learn to manage your mana more carefully, I never have problems on Caitlyn.

With Caitlyn's range you shouldn't be taking too much harass, lifesteal from blades and vamp scepter should easily be enough to keep you laning.

Not really a problem for me. Even in solo queue the majority of players I get queued with understand to give ranged carries the red buff.

My main problem is your build is REALLY slow. You don't get any really good powerhouse items with your farming, which is what you should be doing as a carry. It seems like you would be more suited to playing a character like Olaf. You just aren't going to properly fulfill your role in a team with your build on Caitlyn. When you lock in with a ranged DPS people expect you to put out a lot of damage, you build just doesn't allow for that. Your build doesn't fit the character, and it doesn't play to her strengths.

 

[Sabion]

I also dont see any problems with Armor Pen quints on ranged carries since as long as you time your yordles and flash decently, you can escape without the need for HP quints...Also, stacking 3 doran's blades already give you quite a bit of survivability...
I also agree with just building bloodthirsters/banshees and black cleaver on Caitlyn would be one of the best builds for her

 

[Fallouttt]

.

Also, I have lots of problems with the guide's build, but I don't feel like going into details right now. Let me just say that I believe bloodthirster + last whisper + banshees veil + black cleaver is the way to go on her.

Just like an Ashe.....

 

[Carmine]

Just like an Ashe.....

That would be a terrible Ashe build. Ashe needs her Infinity Edge.

 

[Sabion]

That would be a terrible Ashe build. Ashe needs her Infinity Edge.

Wouldnt say terrible...It just wouldnt be as effective as an Ashe with an IE

 

[killer4000]

That would be a terrible Ashe build. Ashe needs her Infinity Edge.

couldn't put it better