[Champion] Quinn and Valor

I feel like this section needs to come first, because while I think Quinn is strong, the uniqueness of her kit in the current meta is going to make her always a niche pick in serious games.

Where?
First of all, I think playing her mid is the "correct" place to play her, for the following reasons.

#1 - The biggest advantage to her kit is her roaming capability. Her ult gives her response times similar to Twisted Fate, and mid lane allows her to roam the most.

#2 - She likes farm. She can clear wraiths pretty fast, and makes great use of blue buff.

#3 - Her W and her E give her a lot of safety in mid lane because it's so short, but aren't as good in side lanes.

#4 - She shuts down melee mids really, really hard, much like most AD mids.

The fact is her kit is just not suited for bot lane, and while she is a strong split pusher, she can split push just fine from mid, and doesn't need to be up in top lane. This guide is going to focus on mid Quinn.


When?
Quinn has ridiculously strong ganks. Her level 6 burst combo is very strong, and Tag Team lets her gank anywhere on the map. However, unlike Twisted Fate, she doesn't bring CC with her. She works best when your side lanes can start a fight and she can come clean it up. Lanes with champions like Leona or Thresh or Renekton etc mean fun times for Quinn.

Quinns matchups in mid can also be fairly sketchy. There are some champions she really shuts down (Katarina, Diana, Fizz), and others she has a lot of trouble against (Ryze, Orianna, Malzahar). She plays like a TF but can't push as hard as him, so a mid laner who sits in mid forever and is constantly pushing to the tower can be difficult for her to deal with.

Finally, she's an AD mid, and you want to be careful your team isn't all AD and fighting a Taric who's gonna armor aura their whole team, obviously.

Because of these three points, I feel like she's situationally a very good choice in some games, and not a good idea in others. Not like my Lux guide where I'm all "PLAY LUX AGAINST ANYTHING LOL" because you can play Lux against anything. Gotta be careful with Quinn.

I only use one mastery page on Quinn: http://www.finalesfunkeln.com/s3/#laUvSlqTvUasvEd

Obviously switch between MR and Armor in defense based on the enemy mid.

I don't get the crit masteries because realistically, you won't have any crit till your sixth item if at all. Most games you will never get any crit. Instead I take 2% attackspeed and the 5% tower damage, although the tower damage is preference. If you fall behind you become a split pusher and the extra tower damage becomes a big deal. You can also do 3% attackspeed. I feel like Quinn doesn't benefit too terribly much from attackspeed.

These are my current runes for her, based on opponent.

Page 1: This page is for playing against a standard AP mid.
Flat Armor Penetration
HP per Level
Flat MR
Lifesteal

Page 2: This page is for playing against a standard AD mid.
Flat Armor Penetration
Flat Armor
Flat CDR
Lifesteal

Page 3: This page is for playing against somebody that does a lot of mixed damage like Kayle, or if you're playing against an AP mid with a strong early ganking AD jungler. Like say, Lissandra+Xin Zhao. Or if it's say Zed and Akali and you don't know which champ is going mid.
Flat Armor Penetration
Flat Armor
Flat MR
Lifesteal

Page 4: This page is specifically for playing against AP mids who are very easy to deal with pre 6, and harder to deal with post 6, such as Akali, Kassadin and Diana.
Flat Armor Penetration
HP per Level
MR per Level
Lifesteal

Flash:
Very self explanatory. Quinn is short ranged and needs this badly.

Barrier:
This is very important for Quinn later in the game, because she dives in teamfights while not building very tanky. It's not so amazing earlier, but is an important part of her teamfight.

Exhaust:
For a while I tried Exhaust Flash Quinn just to make her ganks even more ridiculous. You might give it a try, but after a dozen games or so I decided that Barrier is just necessary for her to not die later in the game.

I'm not going to go too in depth with this section, you probably already know what Quinns skills do.

Her starting skill order is either EQQW or EQWQ. Typically I go EQQW, but if I'm far ahead and pushed up to the enemy tower when I hit level 3 I'll grab W and use it to scout for the enemy jungler.

Following that you're going to go R>Q>W>E for level priority.

Base Stats:+ Show Spoiler +

Harrier:+ Show Spoiler +
Basically, Valor marks stuff and you do bonus damage to that stuff. Manipulating Harrier takes some practice and getting good at it will make you a better Quinn player. However, Valor's coding seems to be weird/buggy/aggravating, and I'm still learning. This is what I've figured out.

1 - Valor will typically mark the last thing you shot at, if it's not dead yet. If you Q'd a group of stuff as your last attack, he will mark the lowest health thing your Q hit.

2 - If you haven't attacked anything since his last mark, Valor will prioritize enemy champions first, then go to minions. He'll go for the closest champion or the lowest health minion.

3 - His timer is about 4 seconds, but if you miss a mark it's longer than that (LoL wiki says 10 seconds but it's def. less than 10 seconds).

You CAN manipulate Harrier to make sure Valor marks the enemy champion. After you last hit a marked minion, start counting to 4. At about 2-3 seconds right click the enemy champion and make sure you're in about 700 range. It doesn't work 100% of the time but it will make Valor mark them over a minion a good deal of the time.

4 - Valor hates marking blue buff and it will piss you off.

Blinding Assault:+ Show Spoiler +
This is like your I use this for everything skill. It's poke, it's ranged burst, it's waveclear, it CC's enemy carries, it does all the things.

Heightened Senses:+ Show Spoiler +
This skill is so ridiculously good. The active is a great scouting tool, between this and Q you never have to facecheck. You can also use it to get sight of blue buff / wraiths and jump over the wall to do them quickly, and it can let you jump on enemies running through bushes. Since this costs no mana you should be using it often.

Finally, the passive gives you huge steroids. Is so good.

Vault:+ Show Spoiler +
This is an interesting skill because it's your main escape tool, but in lane it's also a very good champion harass tool. Quinns standard damage combo is to get Valor to mark the enemy laner, auto, E, auto again, then Q while they're slowed and can't dodge it.

Since the Harrier proc is doing most of this skills damage and that scales with levels, you don't need to be levelling this.

You can also use this to jump over the wraith/blue buff walls. For wraiths, use Heightened Senses while standing next to the wall, and jump to the wraith farthest away from you. You'll land in the middle of all 4 of them.

For blue buff, do the same, but jump from the part of the wall where it's thickest. Vault lands you slightly closer if you jump from far away, and this actually means from that same spot vaulting to blue buff lands you inside the wall, and then vaulting again from the same spot takes you outside the wall. Use the vision from the Harrier proc to get the last hit on the buff, and walk back to lane. Iz gr8.

Note that with the recent interrupt added to this, you don't have to be scared of vaulting on Udyrs or Rammus's etc. You stun them before they stun you and get away safely.

Tag Team / Skystrike:+ Show Spoiler +

This ability makes Quinn what she is and making maximum use of it is important. Some points to note.

1 - From mid lane, Quinn can get anywhere on the map from level 6 with this. When you decide to gank use it the instant you think you're out of vision, don't wait.

2 - Skystrikes AoE is huge. It has a larger range than her autoattack range, so after using it you can always get one more auto in if you need that to finish someone.

3 - The cooldown actually starts when you cast Skystrike, so if you're not doing anything with your birdform, end it early. It'll be up again a few seconds earlier.

4 - The ASPD steroid you get as Valor is very good for killing turrets if you're split pushing.

What I've found with Quinn is that while she more or less goes towards the same items every game, the order she gets stuff in has to vary on the fly. I'm also not convinced my build is the best all around damage build for her, and I would love it if we could all discuss math on the subject. She's the only champion not listed in Ask Mr. Robot, for shame.

Opening:

Boots of Speed
2 Health Potions + Ward / 4 Potions (typically 3 HP 1 MP)

Alternatively vs. a very heavy AD team (Zed mid, AD jungler for example) I'll start Cloth Armor, 4 HP pots and 1 MP pot.

Early game core:

Bilgewater Cutlass
CDR boots
Buy 1-2 HP pots and wards every back.

Bilgewater Cutlass is big on her because it gives her all her necessary laning stats (AD and lifesteal), adds to her burst combo, and gives her that little bit of extra CC, since her ganks lack hard CC.

I buy the second Longsword my first back if I feel like I'm ahead in lane, and the Vamp Scepter first if I feel like I'm behind.

CDR boots are big to get early because you're playing Quinn for the ganks, and her ult has a 140 second cooldown. More CDR = more ganks = do a better job of winning another laners matchup = win game.

CDR boots also help more with her late game teamfight than ASPD boots I feel, which I'll discuss later in the guide.

Mid game core:

Bilgewater Cutlass
Homeguard CDR boots
Phage
Pickaxe
Don't buy as many HP pots now, maybe 1, but keep buying wards.

While Bilgewater Cutlass is great on Quinn, you don't need to finish the BotRK before late game because she's not so crazy on attackspeed. The Phage and Pickaxe do a better job of dealing damage and keeping her stuck to targets.

Homeguard boots are important, because Quinn is not a fantastic pusher, and needs to get back to her lane after ganking ASAP to protect the tower. Here's my thought process on homeguard. If it lets you clear one wave in mid that you would have otherwise missed, it's paid for itself. Maybe not strictly in terms of gold, but when you add the EXP you didn't miss and damage to the tower you prevented, it certainly has.

Late game core:

Blade of the Ruined King
Homeguard CDR boots
Last Whisper
Phage
Hexdrinker / Negatron Cloak
Keep buying those wards.

The MR is optional, but helps a lot in most games. Negatron if you're going to build a QSS. Other than that, pretty self explanatory.

Final build:

Blade of the Ruined King
Homeguard CDR boots
Last Whisper
Youmuu's Ghostblade / Black Cleaver
Frozen Mallet
Maw of Malmortius / Mercurial Scimitar

Ghostblade / BC will depend on whether or not somebody else in the team has a BC. Since Quinn gets a lot of sustained damage from the crit and Ghostblade active, if another teammate is applying BC stacks Ghostblade is the winner. Maw or QSS will depend on how much you're getting CC'd by the enemy team, I prefer Maw most of the time because you're not starting fights as Quinn, you're cleaning them up.

Alternate items for specific matchups:

VS an all or very heavy AD comp I switch the build to Armor boots instead of CDR boots, and a Locket instead of the Maw/QSS. This gives you armor and the Locket makes up for the lost CDR. Plus it's cheap and gives you an excuse to sit on a Kindlegem.

I tried Randuins for a while vs. heavy AD and decided I didn't like it. It's expensive, and attack speed slows don't synergize too well on Quinn because you blind them, so their autoattacks are slowed while they're also missing you. Prefer Locket.

If you're way behind early game you should rush a Hexdrinker to keep the enemy mid from killing you, but it's going to hurt your ganks a lot. Sometimes shit happens.

If you're real far ahead early game, and I'm talking like a doublekill before your first back, you can go for a fast Brutalizer + Bilgewater + rank 1 boots, and use that to get even farther ahead. But don't do this unless you're carrying like a boss right from the beginning of the game, if you aren't it's going to delay your Phage/BotRK a lot and you'll end up getting killed repeatedly in the mid game.

Finally, if you're super duper nothing else to do late game, you can sell your boots for a Zephyr like a real bonified AD Carry would.

Early game:
You're very strong at level 1 and level 2, and you want to abuse the fuck out of it. Beat on the enemy laner as much as you can, because unless you're in control of the lane by level 3 you have to start playing safer. After level 3 you need to make sure you're not about to get ganked before you use E to harass the enemy laner.

At level 5 you want to stop using skills altogether and save mana for your level 6 gank.

When you hit level 6 clear the wave immediately, then go gank bot, get a doublekill. Tell them you're going to do it early, talk to them, get them to set it up for you. Your ganks are very strong and Valor moves fast enough that you don't need to worry about it being warded so much, but your lack of CC means you want the laner to start the fight and you to dive in after.

Mid game:
Ignore the enemy mid unless you really think you can punish them. Just clear waves and gank on ult cooldowns. Between ult cooldowns do wraiths if you've got blue buff, otherwise just waveclear and conserve your mana.

Late game:
After level 11 your power spike is starting to decline, and you need to start playing very very carefully. You're probably saving up for your BotRK at this point and the enemy lanes aren't as terrified of you as they were at level 6.

If you're far behind at this point, you might have to split push. You're good at it, you've got self wards and your ult is an amazing escape tool, but you still have to ward up and be careful. You're not Nidalee.

If you're ahead, Quinn has a strong teamfight but it can be a little tricky. You never use your ult at the start of a teamfight. You want to poke with your Q, which is where your CDR boots come in handy, it's a good poking tool and it has a short cooldown. Auto enemy divers and poke with Q.

You use your ult to clean up the fight and make sure no enemy champions get away. When the fight is decided and the low health enemies try to run away, that's when you ult. It will prevent them from escaping.

If you're split pushing and a fight starts without you ult immediately and get there ASAP. You're not Twisted Fate or Shen but you can get across the map real damn fast.

I'm not real savvy on this section yet because I haven't played her in ranked yet, though here are a few points I've found.

1 - She's strong against melee mids and weak against long ranged mids who are constantly pushing the lane, or ones who have instant click hard CC (Ryze)

2 - She likes to gank lanes that can CC for her.

3 - She likes poke comps and big AoE Black Cleaver comps for teamfights. MF or Wukong with a BC makes her ult hit really, really hard. Poke comps with say Jayce synergize with her very well, you can poke with the team with your Q, and when they're too low to fight you ult and prevent them from running away.

I did some practice with a friend going MF and building a fast BC while I built a fast LW, and our ult combo was getting me quadra and pentakills. Was real fun.