Introduction Hi guys. This is my second TL champion guide, the first being our adorable Lux guide. As a disclaimer, I actually have not played Quinn in ranked yet (gasp!), because right now I'm not playing much ranked, I have a consistent network problem that's preventing me from being 100% srsface.
However, we have no Quinn guide, and I have been practicing Quinn for over a month now, specifically in mid lane. I know a few pros have been trying this out (Misaya), and she recently got a huge heaping mouthful of buffs, so here's a guide if anybody wants to try her out. Just remember this is a bit of a work in progress.
Quinn pros / cons
Pros:
Very strong ganks.
Big AoE teamfight damage.
Good counterpick to melee AP mids.
Strong split pusher.
Doesn't necessarily need blue buff (though she likes it a lot)
Cons:
Relies on successful ganks to get ahead.
No real CC.
Long ult cooldown.
Hard countered in some lanes.
You gotta learn how to use her ult in teamfights and not immediately get killed.
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.
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.
Valor periodically marks a nearby enemy with Vulnerability for 4.5 seconds. If Quinn attacks a Vulnerable enemy, she deals 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 / 65 / 75 / 85 / 95 / 105 / 115 / 125 / 135 / 145 / 155 / 170 / 185 / 200 / 215 (+ 50% bonus AD) bonus physical damage. This cannot occur again for 10 seconds, or 3 seconds if Quinn triggers the vulnerability. Valor will first prioritize Quinn's most recent attack target. If Quinn has not attacked anyone recently, Valor will target nearby low health units (prioritizing champions over minions).
Harrier is disabled while Tag Team is active.
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.
Active: Quinn commands Valor to fly forwards in a line, stopping when he collides with an enemy. Valor then deals physical damage and blinds nearby enemies for 1.5 seconds.
As Valor, you do the same attack, but in melee range.
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.
Active: All area within range is revealed for 2 seconds.
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.
Active: Quinn dashes to an enemy, briefly interrupting it, dealing physical damage and slowing the target's movement speed by 50%. This slow decays over 2 seconds.
Upon reaching the target, she leaps off and lands near her maximum attack range away from the target. Valor will immediately mark this target as Vulnerable.
Active - Tag Team: Valor dashes to an enemy, dealing the same physical damage and slowing the target's movement speed by 70%. This slow decays over 2 seconds.
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.
Cooldown: 140 / 110 / 80 Cost: 100 mana Out of Combat Movement Speed: 80 / 90 / 100% In Combat Movement Speed: 20 / 30 / 40% Skystrike Range: 700 Skystrike Minimum physical damage: 120 / 170 / 220 (+ 50% bonus AD) Skystrike Maximum Physical damage: 240 / 340 / 440 (+ 100% bonus AD)
Active: For 20 seconds, Valor replaces Quinn on the battlefield as a mobile melee attacker with alternate versions of Quinn's abilities. Valor can move through units and gains greatly increased movement speed that gradually decreases to a lower amount while in combat.
When you hit R again, Quinn returns to perform Skystrike, dealing physical damage to all enemies within range. The damage increases by 1% for every 1% of an enemy's missing health.
If Skystrike has not been cast during Tag Team, it will be cast automatically when Tag Team ends.
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.
A final note This guide is very much a work in process. I've done maybe 50-75 Quinn mid games, but don't think I have her figured out enough yet for it to be guide worthy. So if you're trying her out and have any suggestions, or find any videos of pros playing her mid, plz post.
Blinding Assault - Now has a 0.5 ability power ratio.
Heightened Senses - Passive as Quinn now grants 20/30/40/50/60 movement speed in addition to the attack speed bonus.
Vault - Now briefly interrupts the target.
Tag Team - Maximum movement speed bonus increased to 80/90/100% from 80% at all ranks. - Base movement speed bonus increased to 20/30/40% from 20% at all ranks. - Cooldown reduced to 140/110/80 seconds from 140/120/100. - Skystrike can now be cast 1 second after activating Tag Team, down from 2.5.
Patch 3.5 - 2013-04-14
Harrier - Valor now marks targets slightly more frequently - Targets are now marked more immediately when Valor lands on the target
Vault - Quinn now lands closer to her target when using Vault from far away
Quinn and Valor are an elite ranger team. With crossbow and claw, they undertake their nation's most dangerous missions deep within enemy territory, from swift reconnaissance to lethal strikes. The pair's unbreakable bond is deadly on the battlefield, leaving opponents blind and riddled with arrows long before they realize who they're fighting: not one, but two Demacian legends.
As a young girl, Quinn shared a hunger for adventure with her twin brother. They dreamed of becoming knights, but lived a quiet, humble life in the rural borderlands of Demacia. Together they imagined triumphant battles in faraway lands, seizing glory for their king and slaying foes in the name of Demacian justice. When daydreams alone could no longer satisfy their warriors souls, they embarked on daring wilderness adventures in search of true danger. One such quest turned to tragedy when a terrible accident claimed her brother's life. Overcome with grief, Quinn abandoned her dreams of knighthood.
On the anniversary of her loss, Quinn gathered the courage to return to the scene of the tragedy. To her surprise, she found a wounded Demacian eagle at the site of her brother's death - a rare and beautiful bird long believed extinct. Quinn nursed the fledgling back to health, and as they grew up together, a deep bond formed between the two. She saw the same quality in her newfound friend that had lived within her brother, and so she gave him the name "Valor." The pair found strength in each other, and together they pursued the dream she had once abandoned.
The Demacian army had never seen heroes like Quinn and Valor. Their deadly skills quickly set them apart from their rank-and-file peers, but many still had their doubts. How could a common-born girl, even with such a powerful creature at her side, forego years of military training? Quinn and Valor proved themselves on one critical mission, tracking down a Noxian assassin who had evaded an entire Demacian battalion. When they brought him to justice, they finally earned the admiration and respect of their nation. The two now serve as living, fighting icons of Demacian strength and perseverance. Together, Quinn and Valor will stand against any threat to their beloved home.
Journey into the Freljord: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6
Also, special thanks to lilwisper for buying Quinn for me and letting me try this build out. Really great guy
This is a pretty solid build that I think would work fine in top lane also. I a lot of times prefer getting merc treads as boots though, Quinn feels very vulnerable to CC particularly when she is in bird form. Also if anyone cares Quinn is pretty awesome in Twisted Treeline with her free vision.
I think people gave up on bot lane Quinn too easily. Her roaming potential obviously makes her strong mid since she can go and gank lanes but she wins a straight 1v1 against any ADC. Sometimes you can let your tanky support bait the enemy team and then you just ult and destroy the enemy ADC after the enemy support has blown everything on your support. You can also use her ult to get to mid lane from bot quickly to siege mid tower before the enemy bot lane is even half way there. I think her team fighting is pretty meh though unless the enemy ADC has poor positioning because then you can just go and murder them (and often times escape if the ADC's positioning is truly bad). Or otherwise you just use your ult for clean up which is something she's really good at (like probably better than any other ADC at cleaning up fights).
I've been playing her a bunch lately. I think she can definitely work as a traditional ADC. The recent buffs helped her a lot.
Being a top lane main who's played against quinn a few times, I feel that most common top laners (melees who have both a hard gapcloser and hard CC) give her a really hard time top. Many of the CCs you see top lane will fuck with her vault, even. The longer lane also leaves her really really vulnerable, her vision skill is on too long a cooldown and lane opponents can abuse the nearby brush in ways that aren't possible mid lane.
You might be right that people gave up on bot lane quinn too easily: Landing that blind on the enemy carry is basically a guaranteed win on the trade and you can press advantages very well while saving vault for disengage. At this point, your ult is more for going all-in in 2v2s (doesn't matter if you're in melee range if you're all-in against only adc+support, it's such a scary allin.) I don't see the problem with Quinn's teamfight: She's an ADC. With short, but not VERY short range, and very good kiting tools. Teamfight like an ADC (why are you focusing on assassinating the carry?)
I think the biggest problem with bot lane is the number of supports that can totally fuck you over if you use vault for any reason - any support is basically guaranteed to land their skillshots on you, which probably means big CC in the form of snares, grabs, or megaslows, along with heavy damage.
The reason why I don't like Quinn in bot lane is not necessarily because she's bad at bot lane (at worst she's as bad as other short range carries), but because the way she teamfights doesn't fit the ADC roll in the current meta.
An ADC wants to be at max range autoing people. Quinn can do that sure, but her range is short and her kit doesn't offer her many tools to assist in that. Valor doesn't always mark the closest champion, he marks the lowest health one, so even getting her steroid off of hitting her target isn't guaranteed. If you compare Vault to other ADC escape moves it's better for chasing enemy champs because of the slow and Harrier proc, but much worse for staying safe since it temporarily puts her in harms way where AoE's and such can hit her. When she's trying to autoattack from range she basically cannot use her ult at all.
If you look at her more from a mid lane burst mage role in a teamfight, then it makes more sense. Now she doesn't have to buy lots of ASPD and crit because you have an ADC who is putting out the sustained damage, and she can focus on AD and health for her burst combo. She doesn't have to be consistantly autoattacking the whole teamfight, because your ADC is, so she can come at fights from a flank or play safer in the back line now. And now she's not so scared of diving on the enemy ADC, because if she dives and kills them one for one, you still have a sustained damage dealer and now they don't.
I feel like if you're putting Quinn in bot lane you're making it a kill lane, and Draven or Graves are short ranged carries who probably do that better, and still have better teamfights from an ADC's perspective.
Now, maybe you want to do this in an arranged dive comp? Quinn bot might work there. Khazix mid, Zed top, Zac jungle, Quinn ADC, Thresh support, I can see that. Thresh hooks somebody and then all 5 people dive.
I'm not focused on assassinating the enemy ADC but with Quinn it's always possible to kill an out of position carry and it's something she can do that no one else in the ADC role can pull off. Obviously you should just play as a regular ADC in most fights but if I happen to notice their ADC is horribly positioned and I can jump on them I will as your burst is pretty stupid when you all-in on one target. Her kiting is definitely strong and she can escape from divers really well. I probably under sold her team fighting as she isn't awful at it but compared to other ADCs her team fight isn't quite as potent imo (her passive is good but is semi-unreliable in team fights, her only other steroid is R, and 525 range isn't ideal on an ADC but yeah it's not super awful).
There are definitely lanes that make her life hell but I think she can thrive in low CC bot lanes and as you said her all-in is pretty terrifying. I realize that my individual games don't mean shit but I don't feel like her laning is any worse than a lot of other common ADCs (although there are several ADCs with much stronger lane phases than her).
try running this, it's really strong and quite fun:
>longsword into brutaliser From there get boots of lucidity and stinger, that's your early game core for 40% cdr to get your ult up a lot and let you roam, plus make Q and E spammable in duels.
Then get a BOTRK If you're doing fine, finish a zephyr and yommus, if you're getting squished a bit too hard, grab a randuins then do which ever of the above you didn't.
Finish with a maw/merc and last whisper.
I consistently get big sprees in lane with this build, and have gone legendary a few times. I think I've lost one game using this build. It's hella strong. Bruta gives you such insane damage with your passive and W.
Your masteries feel a bit off to me btw. Havoc is terrible IMO, I'd take AS/the summoner mastery over it.
I'd also not go for crit masteries if you're only running 1 crit item (IE).
Personally I really like running flat AD reds (I would be running lifesteal quints but don't have those sadly). Rush brutalizer > BOTRK > CDR boots > LW/Phage/Hexdrinker > Ghostblade > defensive item > Zephyr (replacing CDR boots with AS boots at this point).
I agree that the crit masteries are pretty wasted on Quinn, but Havoc is absolutely not terrible.
In simple terms, it increases all of her DPS by 2%, while 3 points in attackspeed increases only her AA damage by 3%. In order for this to be a fair trade at least 2/3rds of Quinns damage has to come from autoattacks, which is simply not the case.
In more mathy terms, lets look at how much damage her big level 6 burst E->Q->R combo is increased by Havoc in comparison to say, the 3 AD mastery. Assuming a Bilgewater Cutlass as your only AD item.
Base damage E: 30+0.2 Q: 150+0.65 Cutlass: 100 R: 240+1.0 Total: 520+1.85 Total with Cutlass AD: 566.25
Extra damage given by AD mastery: 5.55 Extra damage given by Havoc: 11.325
This disparity only gets bigger the longer the game goes on and more AD she has. In a 6 item build Havoc is even giving her basic autoattacks more damage than 3 AD is.
For bursty caster types Havoc is mathematically the highest DPS increase of all the non 21 mastery points. It was in season 2 too, you guys just didn't do the math and actually look at it. There's absolutely no reason to not get Havoc.
But you're right that I'm not satisfied with the crit mastery. It's strong once you get some crit (Valor gets the +10% crit damage increase instead of the +5%), but when you're finishing an IE as your final item in most games you never get any crit. It's possible I'll start changing those points to the 3% attack speed.
I'm not convinced on Brutalizer first. Do you guys really think Ghostblade is stronger than IE for her as a final item? And that Brutalizer is stronger than Bilgewater as a first item?
I'm also not convinced on AD reds vs. Apen reds. I've tried both. Apen reds feel stronger to me right from level 1, and I know they scale better the more items you get. Some math on the subject would really be appreciated.
i went from 14-4 with quinn in ranked to 15-12 total and dropped from diamond 2 to diamond 3 T_T. any whooo, i play quinn top and ad just like any other ad would. had decent results and attribute my recent losing spree to impossible to help teams. i feel one of her greatest strengths asides from laning is her ability to punish people who are out of place. if you see someone just trailing and out of place, you can ulti and get on them incredibly fast and then burst them down. that's all i have to say. build is something like botrk zeal lw then triforce or pd then frozen mallet or iedge. here is my match history. + Show Spoiler +
You're right on the Havoc, I think I underrated it.
AD reds because rushing brutalizer with arp reds overstacks you on ARP too early imo. Quinn also has decent AD ratios on Q/ult and her steroid is AS, so I don't like rushing cutlass/BOTRK. Brutalizer into BOTRK is a pretty solid opener IMO.
CDR boots are also cool btw, but only for midlane where you limit your roaming by ult CD.
I mean, a lot of the time in Quinn games that I have right now, the enemy mid doesn't really understand it and doesn't buy armor, in which case you're definitely overstacking Arpen if you go Arpen reds and rush a Brutalizer.
If Quinn mid catches on, they won't do that. They'll start with armor runes and a cloth armor, and begin the game with between 30 and 40 armor. They'll rush Seekers Armguard and the disparity will get even higher.
The way I see Brutalizer vs. Bilgewater is that Bruta is better for bullying in lane, and Bilgewater is better for ganking. They both give 25 AD, so you're looking at either 10% CDR and 10 arpen, or lifesteal and the active.
I think the active is clearly better for burst damage on a gank. Brutalizer is better for sustained poking damage in lane, which Quinn is not so great at after level 3 against the majority of mids, unless you get way ahead at levels 1 and 2.
Bilgewater lets you play defensive and sustain in lane with the lifesteal, and at the same time the active makes your ganks much stronger. 100 magic damage added to your combo at level 6 is a lot.
I never said to rush BotRK btw. In the guide I say you should have Bilgewater, CDR boots, a Phage and a Pickaxe before finishing the BotRK. Quinn loves Bilgewater, the short range on its active doesn't matter to her (you can use it in the middle of a Vault btw), but she doesn't need to finish BotRK till 5v5 teamfights are breaking out later in the game.
All that said, I'm experimenting with a build where I get Bruta instead of the Pickaxe. It's more expensive, but I think maybe I like it more. It's real hard to tell and I'd like to do some math on the subject but I don't know how and nobody seems to want to help out. It also forces her 6th item to be either BC or Ghostblade. I think BC is probably better for her, but not sure.
I like Ghostblade, I just think it needs a buff to be as strong as BC. Only having 30 AD on it vs. 50 hurts, and the BC shred passive is probably better than the Ghostblade active, and it gives health.
Ghostblade might be better if you're far behind and split pushing, but if you are you probably aren't finishing a 6th item anyway.
Just tried this out, went 4-1-3 in lane, then died a few times as I got greedy. I've probably played 20 games with her down bot and this is a lot more fun :D
PS I'm a baddie who didn't use BoRK/Cutlass once all game, so that probably should have been 5-0 in lane
On May 06 2013 00:48 Serelitz wrote: You're right on the Havoc, I think I underrated it.
AD reds because rushing brutalizer with arp reds overstacks you on ARP too early imo. Quinn also has decent AD ratios on Q/ult and her steroid is AS, so I don't like rushing cutlass/BOTRK. Brutalizer into BOTRK is a pretty solid opener IMO.
CDR boots are also cool btw, but only for midlane where you limit your roaming by ult CD.
I don't get either of these points.
Almost everyone will have 20 armor by the time you can get bruta. Even without armguard, most champs will have that in runes/masteries.
That people aren't getting armor against you makes flat pen even better, and getting rid of that last 10 armor should outshine the ratio in almost all cases. I won't derail further with an ad vs. Arpen discussion, but the only time having an ad ratio makes enough of a difference to completely skew the decision is on a defensive ability like riven shield, or an ability with with ad scaling but magic damage (Ezreal ult).
Before they gave her the buffs, I would of thought by making her invulnerable (similar to Fizz Playful/trickster) during vault would have solved her issue of being a bit underpowered compared to other ADCs.
Might go give her a try mid lane this week, I tend to find her more exp-hungry when compared to other ADCs
Tried the build out, I'm a fan. I always find myself going too ham though and diving straight into them, should I be saving my ult for when they're lower or simply to get to lanes like a TF ult?
In teamfights you have to wait and use the ult towards the end of the fight. If you use it at the start of the fight you'll do your burst combo but then get killed right after.
Aside from Skystrike Quinns damage as Quinn is very similar to her damage as Valor. Valor has 40% more ASPD, but Quinn gets the Harrier procs which do a lot of damage at high level. Valors big bonus is the movespeed, so you want to use it to guarantee that a fleeing enemy cannot get away. Also, Skystrikes damage is maximized when several people on the enemy team are low health, so if you're in an AoE comp you want to wait and use your burst after the rest of your team has used theirs.
Really learning when to use the ult in a 5v5 fight is the trickiest part of playing Quinn.
On May 06 2013 15:48 Zariel wrote: Before they gave her the buffs, I would of thought by making her invulnerable (similar to Fizz Playful/trickster) during vault would have solved her issue of being a bit underpowered compared to other ADCs.
Might go give her a try mid lane this week, I tend to find her more exp-hungry when compared to other ADCs
If they made her invulnerable while Eing she'd be 100% broken. Her E is already crazy good harass because of the range, passive proc, and the fact that your slow sets up easy Qs (and in botlane E slow sets up so much easy CC for your support). If she was invulnerable her E would be some of the best botlane harass in the game and that's not even mentioning how much outplaying you could do with an ADC that can invuln herself (people still QQ about Ezreal E and it doesn't mess up half the CC that invuln E would).
Also Varus, MF, Graves, and probably Corki/Ez scale with XP better than Quinn. You mostly use Q for the utility of the blind and Es slow doesn't increase plus the passive proc is mostly what you want. The only really good thing about solo laning is faster levels on W (after the buffs maxing this second is pretty ideal imo) and a fast 6 for ganks/all-ins. Other ADs that spam spells get a lot more out of levels than Quinn.
So I've been playing a bunch of Quinn top/mid and I'm really enjoying her and generally doing very well in lane.
Wouldn't maxing E over W make sense though? (Still Q first) The damage increase would make it even easier to snowball and/or deny the enemy laner if you're doing well, and E mana cost doesn't increase as you level it.
Apart from that, anyone have any practical experience with BT vs BotRK?
Levels in E only give you an extra 30 damage in your burst combo.
In contrast, a level of W gives you an extra 5% aspd and 10 movespeed off your passive procs, 10% aspd as Valor, and critically drops 5 seconds off the active. That W active is so, so good for basically everything, I like to have it up as often as possible. It makes things like jungle invades or scouting for baron just perfectly safe, and in mid it's critical because you can use it in spots where it hits both lane bushes and the entrance to both wraith camps.
If you pop W in lane and see the enemy jungler at wraiths, it makes your entire team safer, and potentially gives top/bot the assurance they need to dive and get a kill. It's a big deal.
As top lane I could potentially see maxing E over W, if you're vs. a bruiser with a gapcloser and need to be bouncing off of him all the time. The cooldown reduction is going to be critical there and your W active is not giving you near as much map awareness in top lane.
As far as BT goes, I'm not sold on it. I doubt BT adds as much to your burst combo as the BotRK active does. I also doubt it adds as much to your autoattack damage as the BotRK passive does. And it's certainly not as smooth a build path as opening Bilgewater Cutlass. The cutlass active is just sooooo gooooooooood for those early ganks.
I could see opening BT in bot lane when you're playing purely for the late game and not building as much defense, but I wouldn't put Quinn bot over mid in the first place.
Even in bot lane Botrk is really good because you can rush Cutlass not only for the sustain but also for the extra burst to help you win trades, gank assist, and set up plays. The amount of slow from E+Cutlass is silly on an ADC. Quinn's also really good at kiting in team fights and Botrk compliments that so I feel like it's probably your best choice no matter where you play her (even in top lane the slow from the active can probably save your life or help you get kills better than a BT).
You have decent AD ratios but not enough to really justify BT on her. Come late game I actually really like having Botrk on any ADC more than BT because the active is so strong and the extra AS is more useful, imo, than the extra AD you get from BT but sadly there are several ADCs who essentially demand BT as their first big item. I don't think Quinn is one of them.
And finally, as was mentioned, the build path for Botrk is just a lot better than the build path from BT where if you get forced back before you can afford a BF sword you just come back to lane with zero new items while your opponent will be adding either damage or resists. I could see BT being better if you're ahead but in an even lane, or especially if you're behind, I like Botrk better.
Thoughts on this? Never really considered maxing E, but I can see how auto + vault + harrier auto could do some nice harass as well as being "guaranteed".
I think his points make a lot of sense for bot lane, but not for mid lane. In mid lane you need max Q to clear and early lifesteal/burst from the cutlass to sustain the lane and gank.
So, I spent a couple hours doing 6th item math for Quinn last night. I have fun doing pointless theorycrafting.
These were my results:
Note first of all that this is with my mid Quinn build, where your 5 items are CDR boots, BotRK, LW, Maw and Frozen Mallet.
What we're looking at is which of 3 items provides the biggest additional benefit: Infinity Edge, Black Cleaver or Youmuu's Ghostblade. I broke the calculations into two different sections. What gives more damage to her burst combo (R E Q BotRKactive R) and what gives her more autoattack DPS.
Note that for poke wars BC and GB are far better than IE. They both outdamage IE with Q, and give 10% CDR. I didn't do math on that because it's just super obvious.
The numbers below use a test target with 2000 HP and 100 armor, though I'll also explain how different HP and armor numbers change the damage. I didn't make a spreadsheet sadly, I tried to but I don't know how to use Excel real well.
Notes: We assume for the Black Cleaver that the target has 0 BC stacks when you begin to burst them, which is probably not a 100% accurate assessment. I'd say the Ghostblade and BC damages are basically equal.
As a targets armor goes up, BC and IE begin to overtake Ghostblade. BC's damage overtakes it right away, although we're talking about a difference of 2 or 3% till the target approaches like 300 armor. IE's damage does not equal BC/GB until the target has over 300 armor. Any other armor shred or AD bonuses on your team increase the armor cap at which IE will overtake BC/Ghostblade. If somebody else is applying BC stacks then Ghostblade is just blatantly doing the most damage.
More health on a target favors BC and Ghostblade, since it increases the BotRK damage which scales with armor pen and not AD, but the difference is fairly negligable.
Conclusions: Ghostblade and Black Cleaver damage for burst is about equal, and both are better than Infinity Edge. If somebody else is applying BC stacks, Ghostblade is the clear winner.
Autoattack DPS damage numbers. First number as Quinn, second as Valor. Italicized ghostblade is with the active on, the other is with it off.
Notes: For autoattacks I'm assuming that the target always has 5 BC stacks on for the BC calculations, since with BotRK and Harrier you're applying 2-3 stacks per autoattack. So realize that for your first 3 attacks the BC damage is actually slightly lower than that.
I am NOT including the added damage from BotRK in that calculation because the damage is reduced for every successive hit and the math is hard. However, realize that since the BotRK damage scales with Arpen, it favors Ghostblade and BC over IE. We're talking a difference of about 10 damage per auto, though, and the difference gets smaller the more armor the target has.
I am averaging out the increased damage from crits there. Random crit spikes do occur.
As Quinn I am assuming a Harrier proc every 3 seconds, which might be a little optimistic.
Valor does get the full 6 seconds for the Ghostblade active since he's melee.
While the numbers are different, for damage to towers the hierarchy is identical. GB with active > IE > GB > BC.
As a targets armor increases, IE and BC start to outscale Ghostblade. IE damage equals Ghostblade with the active on at 200 armor and then begins to outscale it. BC damage basically never equals Ghostblade or IE for autoattacks.
As a targets health increases the BotRK passive damage increases, which favors BC and Ghostblade. Since targets with more than 100 armor also typically have more than 2000 health, I feel like this serves to increase how tanky a target has to be for IE autos to outdamage autos from Ghostblade with the active on.
Conclusions: Against a squishy target, Ghostblade is best for AA damage, followed by Infinity Edge, followed by Black Cleaver. Once the Ghostblade active is down, Infinity Edge becomes better.
Against a real tanky target (300ish armor) Infinity Edge is best for AA damage, followed by Ghostblade, followed by Black Cleaver.
Other Considerations. After looking at these numbers, it's important to look at the relative cost and utility of these items, as well as their build paths.
Infinity Edge costs 3800 gold, and provides essentially zero utility.
Black Cleaver costs 3000 gold. It gives 10% CDR, 200 health (528 gold value) and increases AD damage from other teammates.
Ghostblade costs 2700 gold. It gives 10% CDR, and the active also gives 20% movespeed.
For build paths, BC and Ghostblade allow you to put a Brutalizer in the slot while you get gold to finish the item, which is basically better in every way than IE, which forces you to sit on a BF sword. Brutalizer outdamages BF Sword with its arpen, provides more utility with the CDR and costs less.
Overall Conclusions: This is what I get from all this, although feel free to tell me you think I'm a moron.
If your team has a lot of AD damage and nobody has built a BC, Black Cleaver is probably best, since it will apply the BC stacks for your AD teammates, and the extra 200 HP has nice gold efficiency.
If your team already has a Black Cleaver, Ghostblade is the clear winner. It does much more autoattack damage than BC and assuming somebody else is applying BC stacks does equal or more damage with skills as well.
Even though it does more autoattack damage to tanky targets, Infinity Edge is probably never the correct option. It costs much more than the other options, has a less friendly build path, no utility, and does less damage to squishies. The exception may be a game where that 400 armor Malphite or Rammus is just carrying hard and you have to take him out.
Let me know if anybody else has different conclusions.
Wouldn't you want a more defensive option considering your inherent squishiness (especially as Valor) and the need to stay healthy so you can survive the fight and play clean-up? Or do you rely entirely on Mallet's HP (and Maw's shield against magic burst) for this?
You basically just don't go in as Valor until the fight is more or less already over.
As you can see, the extra 40% attack speed as Valor barely outdamages the DPS you get from Harrier.
In teamfights you stay back, bounce off their divers, kill whoever is an opportune target, and then when the fight is decided and they're (hopefully) retreating, that's when you ult and go clean up. Essentially in big teamfights Valor is a tool to prevent enemy escapes rather than a damage increase.
And yeah, I feel like between Frozen Mallet, Maw, Barrier and lifesteal, you've got some defense. You're tankier than a typical ADC, that's for sure.
Further, I don't really like a lot of conventional defensive options on Quinn.
Sunfire seems a little awkward because she doesn't dive in at the start of the fight, so the sunfire damage isn't really maximized. She has no mpen or other magic damage.
Randuins is a little awkward because the attackspeed slow doesn't synergize with her blind. There's no point in slowing their attack speed if they're missing.
GA is a little awkward because I feel like GA is best on champions who can do things once they revive. It's great on Riven and Khazix and Zed because in all likelihood as soon as they revive they can use their skills to jump away or kill somebody else. If Quinn ults, dives in and dies, once she revives she has limited tools, she'll probably just die again.
Locket is probably the best option, if you want another tank item. And it's not a bad option, it's cheap and gives you CDR and a lot of defensive stats. If your team has a lot of damage already but is having issues initiating, I could see Locket as a 6th item and trying to start a fight that way. But realistically, Quinn is a terrible front line initiator, she excells at cleanup.
Atmas is another option, would give 40 AD, 45 armor and 15% crit. And it's cheapo.
You should do the math with a BT as sixth item as well imo. Your build is basically an AD caster build yet it's lacking arguably the best AD caster item in the game (except for Muramana but Quinn has no need for Muramana lol). Also I would consider BT as a semi-defensive item because Botrk+BT is some ridiculous life steal.
If you get a bruta early on since it's so good mid game I could see going BC or GB even if BT resulted in more damage (I'm not saying that it does or anything). I think BT would've been better for your math anyways as IE wouldn't make sense to begin with in a zero crit build.
Quinn really likes AD and scales really well with it.
Thoughts on this? Never really considered maxing E, but I can see how auto + vault + harrier auto could do some nice harass as well as being "guaranteed".
Max E sounds dumb in any lane as Quinn. E's damage sucks you're only using it to apply the passive. Q is pretty obviously the best skill to max first in every lane and W is pretty obviously the second best skill. When you level E the best thing you get out of it is a lower CD but I really can't think of any lane in bottom where the lower E CD would be better than the damage you get from Q/W. It's possible that E max might be good in certain lanes depending on your play style but I can't really think of a lane where I like E max.
edit: Hrm, apparently I'm real dumb. Max E seems to be all the rage for top lane Quinn since you need to abuse the MS/AS boost as frequently as possible in top. Voyboy endorsed it at some point in that reddit thread and a few other high level Quinn tops do it too. They go R>E>W>Q.
I used to rush Botrk on Quinn but have played around with other shit lately. I don't know as much about mid and top Quinn as I play it more rarely than bot lane Quinn but I would agree that in most cases BT rush is usually stronger in bottom lane. I only go Botrk if I'm getting decimated in lane and won't be able to farm up a BF sword very quickly. Botrk is really strong in mid though because of the ganking potential and it's nice in top lane because of how much threat some top laners can put on you if you make a mistake. I could see BT being good as first item in both lanes though if you get an early lead.
I didn't do the BT math because I was convinced that it was going to be worse than these other three options, but since it's requested, lets check it out. Assuming the BT is fully stacked.
Burst combo damage: 964.20
Autoattack DPS: 505.76 / 492.82
As you can see, while the burst combo damage is higher than it is for IE, it's less than either BC or Ghostblade, and the autoattack damage is much lower than any of them. Funnily, with a BT as 6th item Quinn actually does more damage autoattacking as Quinn than Valor.
The one saving grace on BT is that it actually does more DPS to towers than any of the others, even just beating out Ghostblade with the active on.
The reality is Quinn scales with armor pen better than she does with AD. Her AD ratios are quite low compared to other AD casters. Quinns burst combo: 135-185% (235% if you count Harrier in the combo) Pantheon: 500-570% Khazix: 330-397% Zed: 330% (also 25% bonus AD) Lee Sin: 480% Talon: 400% Riven: 370-490%
So I just bought Quinn and I'm finding her pretty fun, but I have no clue how to make her ult work. Could someone tell me how not-shitty it is? I don't see why I'd want to trade all my range for those piss poor bonuses. I mean, I use it as a catch->execute right now, but that's about it.
It's also a really good split push tool, if you get in a bad spot you can run away real well.
With Harrier your AA DPS is very similar as Quinn to what it is as Valor even given the ASPD bonuses, and your skills are arguably worse because they lose range. Use it as a movespeed / execute / escape tool and nothing else.
The bonus is that during the 20 seconds you can literally (not kidding) get from any point on the map to any other point on the map. Except maybe from one fountain to the other fountain. I should test this!
Assuming Quinn has rank 2 boots and no other movespeed bonuses, during Tag Team she can get from her fountain to:
With rank 1 - Enemy mid tier 1 turret With rank 2 - To the edge of the jungle wall past the enemy mid tier 1 turret With rank 3 - Nearly to the enemy mid tier 2 turret With rank 3 and Homeguard lol - To the enemy mid tier 3 turret
That's like 2x/3x the distance of a TF or Panth ult.
During this test I also found out that if you have homeguard boots, are in the fountain, and sell them, you keep the homeguard bonus till you use that application of it up.
What's your take on ionic spark for Quinn? I've been going botrk+ionic spark getting cutlass+avarice for lane (bot-lane) and then filling last items with situational stuff like IE, GA, LW. The crit matches well with her E for duels.
You are talking about Shiv right? Cause they took Spark out of the game.
Getting Shiv later on is fine. It's cheaper than PD but PD is better. I wouldn't go Cutlass+Avarice in bot lane. You'll lose trades with most people if you build Avarice in bot lane unless you get really lucky. And it's not like Quinn has the range or late game to just choose to afk farm against most ADCs.
Anyone here tried the new phage/triforce on Quinn with success? It seems like it would synergize well with her W passive for chasing and especially if you're snowballing. I tried it today and it does indeed stack. (I added furor boots too just for fun. Zoom zoom errwhere lol) Thoughts/ opinions?
While TF could be potentially useful on her, I find that PD (or even Zephyr) is better. The minor HP from Phage really doesn't do much for your survivability, and you don't cast enough in a consistent rotation for the TF proc to be useful.
I'm just not sure when you'd build it. Trinity Force seems like a good item on her, but I can't really imagine a situation where something else wouldn't be better.
The Phage change has really screwed with my mid Quinn build, because while she really really likes Phage, Trinity is not so amazing, and if she gets a Phage and then sits on it forever while she finishes her other stuff she ends up fumbling around at 5 items and having to do things like sit till 2k gold to get a GA or whatever.
It's really made me shelve Quinn altogether and wait to see if season 4 provides any avenues for improvement.
Furor really not important, what's important is a cheap level 6-11 item with HP+AD on it.
Besides Homeguard is too good.
My other big problem with Quinn mid recently is that what she does really well against is non-Kassadin melee mids. She does well against Kass pre 6 but after 6 he just destroys her.
Akali, Katarina and Khazix she destroys pretty handily and I haven't seen any of them in mid in a long time. Zed she's alright against but not as good as the others and I sort of prefer Lissandra against Zed.
Meanwhile, Quinn is really scared of safe ranged AP mids with all in potential like Orianna and Ahri, who we see all the time now.
i feel bad for having nothing to really contribute to this thread, but i'm sad that noone has posted in here since september since quinn is so fucking strong and i'm sure she'll become fotm at some point in the near future
I just wanted to say, I find it extremely dumb Quinn can vault before a Blitzcrank's powerfist animation goes off after a pull (at base attack speed). Random observation from ARAMs that makes me really mad. <_<
Malphite is really strong against autoattacking ADs. Reeeeeally strong. You have to be a kill up before level 6 or he's going to win the lane, IMO. With a gank you should be able to get an early kill though, Quinn has a lot of low level kill potential.
I tried some Quinn mid when the S4 patch came out but I didn't really have good results. I'm gonna wait and update the OP once the Rune changes come out and things settle down a little.
I really like Quinn, but primarily because her harrier / crit animation shoots 3 bolts instead of 1, and looks pretty cool, imo. I've tried normal AD carry builds, but it's just not consistently triple-bolty enough. I've decided that Sword of the Divine is core on Quinn because of this, but I'm not entirely sure what I should be accompanying it with.
I'm not looking for IE vs BT number crunching specifically or anything like that (although I respect your ability to roughly mathcraft things), but rather your knowledge of how she flows throughout the game, things like how much AS is too much AS, a good sense of how her AD scaling holds up vs defensive item timings in other lanes, and other things of the sort that I really wouldn't know how to fit into a semi-optimal build myself.
I'm not sure I can really comment on that because I'm not much of an ADC player.
Numbers wise what Quinn scales really well with is CDR and AD/armor pen, not really so much crit and definitely not attack speed. The biggest issue with her right now I feel is that itemization for her just doesn't exist. If Ghostblade were a better item it would be core, but it's not and remains awkward.
Realistically I think the core Quinn build should be Bilgewater Cutlass + Phage + Brutalizer. These three items give her everything she wants and gives her a strong mid game.
The problem with Quinn then becomes that each of these items upgrades into something awkward. Trinity is unimpressive because she doesn't have a good spammable low CD ability to make use of Sheen procs. BC is just not good on her and Ghostblade, while good, is too cheap and slot inefficient compared to big 3k gold items. She likes the BotRK active, but is unimpressed with the passive and attackspeed.
An end game season 4 Quinn build at this point might be BotRK, Triforce, Ghostblade, LW and Guardian Angel. I'm still planning on working on the guide at some point, but I'm kind of waiting until either favorable rune changes or her getting buffed, because I don't want to start the guide with "Hey, this champion is just not competitive in the current meta"
I can't answer the question as well as Ketara but I have done the math on ADCs. The answer for ADC's is mainly that if you have a consistent 100-120% or so(including passive level scaling) or so +attack speed you're pretty good and from there you're better off building damage, crit, and pen. This is modified by the specific champions of course, some have really hard AD scaling and so benefit a lot more from damage (Say, Lucian), some have really high base damages and so benefit a lot from Penetration (MF), some have high attack speed scaling and so benefit really hard from attack speed (vayne).
If we are considering Quinn an ADC (which we shouldn't be) we would have to note that her kit has a tonne of base damage in it, but not all that much scaling. We would note also that Quinn has a lot of free attack speed which should, more or less always be up as well as good base attack speed and decent scaling attack speed. The increase in base attack speed will slightly lower our optimal numbers because we don't need as much to hit a cap where we waste time moving.
As she should be leveling W second she will have between 20 to 40% free attack speed (and 40-80 in her ult) for the majority of the game. Since the W passive attack speed activates any time she triggers a mark, a mark lasts for 3 seconds and the w passive buff lasts for 3 seconds; Quinn should be able to have her attack speed buff up the majority of a fight. This means she only needs like 20%-40% more attack speed to hit the "roughly optimal ADC" levels which she would want to hit if she did not have a lot of base damage. If you're ulting then you need 0% more attack speed to hit your optimal amount of attack speed.
However because quinn has so much base damage if you decide to build attack speed Quinn will probably be a bit weaker than she could be otherwise. The only attack speed items you should consider are Ghostblade (attack speed on the active, also has Pen and AD, and CDR), BotRK (because it builds out of Cutlas), Triforce (synergizes really well with heavy penetration builds, has lots of move speed, as much attack speed as you will need, also builds out of phage), or Berzerker's greaves.
All off these with the exception of the Ghostblade will be a bit inefficient during your ult(though you can use your W and Q during your ult to get triforce procs its not as good as just having AD/Crit due to how much attack speed you have). Ghostblade will be inefficient any time you haven't used its active.
I haven't played a lot of Quinn but the problem of her early->lategame itemization should be pretty clear from this. She wants lifesteal for sustain, penetration for damage, and off-tankyness. Name two items that provide all of that. Vamp, Brut, Phage? Triforce is probably the best item for Quinn of the things those build into. Even with tanky items after triforce she isn't beefy enough to be a true bruiser and so dive the back line. So she wants LW on top of that. But now you have Triforce, LW as your core and you're missing out on the lifesteal.
Truthfully i would probably look at something like so Vamp->Phage->Brut ->Finish Triforce-> Finish Last Whisper -> Off tanky item depending on enemy team -> Finish Black Cleaver -> Finish BT. CDR boots somewhere in here.
Cleaver over Ghostblade because you get health from it, because you don't benefit as much from the crit on the GB or the active attack speed. As well since you may have to attack very high armored targets for a while in a fight, the extra penetration will be valuable. So if you combine your Triforce Health with your Black Cleaver Health with your off tanky item health you're going to have a good amount of HP, even with Quinn's poor HP values. You don't finish Cutlass because you're just using the vamp for sustain and the extra 2% isn't worth it. OK yes the active on cutlass is awesome especially since Cutlass is very efficient. But the AD on BT is better than the AS and passive on BotRK. And not upgrading it means we get the chase and damage from Phage/Brutalizer a bit faster.
So this is a guide WhattheMoose recently put out on Quinn. I haven't really tried the build he advocates, but it's really interesting to me. He goes for a super armor pen build with armor pen marks and quints, but instead of AD goes very very heavily into attack speed (and movespeed). His logic is that with very high attack speed and armor pen, you can build up Black Cleaver stacks quickly, Shiv stacks quickly, and get great mileage out of BotRK passive damage. The movespeed also gives improved kiting and chasing ability.
The attack speed focus does seem a little odd, but this guy is maining her at Diamond 1 and doing really well with her apparently.
It's the same thing mathematically in the end, because the percentage pen from BC, LW and masteries are still multiplied together. Yea, he messed that up, saying it was 60%. For what it's worth, it's still about 54% total pen from a LW and fully stacked BC w/ masteries though.
So this is a guide WhattheMoose recently put out on Quinn. I haven't really tried the build he advocates, but it's really interesting to me. He goes for a super armor pen build with armor pen marks and quints, but instead of AD goes very very heavily into attack speed (and movespeed). His logic is that with very high attack speed and armor pen, you can build up Black Cleaver stacks quickly, Shiv stacks quickly, and get great mileage out of BotRK passive damage. The movespeed also gives improved kiting and chasing ability.
The attack speed focus does seem a little odd, but this guy is maining her at Diamond 1 and doing really well with her apparently.
The video is really good at illustrating what I think the strengths of solo lane Quinn are.
I'm not super into his item build, specifically black cleaver, but it's not the worst thing in the world. Armor pen is the best stat for her, but her burst is very frontloaded and BC isn't really the right choice for that. I think Ghostblade is probably better.
I need to do a bunch of math and work on remaking the Quinn guide, maybe that's a project for next month.
The build I'm thinking about right now is something like
Cutlass + Bruta then Triforce then LW + BotRK then Ghostblade + GA
I actually think that mathematically Triforce is weirdly the best first item for her right now but I have to spend some time working it out. The fun part is you end up with this mid game build that's like Cutlass, Brutalizer, Phage, Zeal and Boots and that's actually like crazy strong.
There was an unsaid change to her passive in the patch notes. In addition to them showing Harriers cooldown now, it's also just a flat 6 second cooldown all the time now. Doesn't appear to change with CDR.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yxkZTi8.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/q1Pdq.png)
Flat Armor Penetration![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/b0Cl5.png)
HP per Level![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/dyS4h.png)
Flat MR![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bdrvl.png)
Lifesteal![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JUJGS.png)
Flash:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9IToF.png)
Barrier:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zUHJFqs.png)
Exhaust:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0uPQd8Q.jpg)
Harrier:+ Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nY1E1iR.jpg)
Blinding Assault:+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/m8IUvop.jpg)
Heightened Senses:+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8r1KjK1.jpg)
Vault:+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PQFcj7W.jpg)
Tag Team / Skystrike:+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/osBPEd5.png)
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