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League of Legends Gwen Build: How to Build the Champion

By Andrea Saravia Pérez

Gwen is a unique top laner that should focus on getting as much AP as possible rather than building sustain.
Gwen is a unique top laner that should focus on getting as much AP as possible rather than building sustain. / Courtesy of Riot Games.

From the runes to the starter items, this is a guide on how to build League of Legends' new champion, Gwen. Because she is a top lane melee champion that counters tanks and juggernauts primarily, you will want to take many points in percentage damage and build a lot of ability power items that help her kit.

For runes, focus on the Precision and Domination trees. In Precision, these are the runes you are going to take.

Runes

Precision

  • Conqueror: This means that basic attacks or spells that deal damage to an enemy champion grant two stacks of Conqueror for six seconds, which gains 2-5 Adaptive Force per stack. What this means is that when Conqueror is fully stacked, you can heal for 9% of the damage you deal to a champion. This synergizes great with her passive (which heals her a portion of the damage she deals to enemy champions.)
  • Triumph: Takedowns restore 12% of your missing health and reward an additional 20 gold. During team fights, you will be chasing down a lot of enemies, and Triumph encourages that high-risk high-reward gameplay that Gwen offers as an AP fighter.
  • Legend: Alacrity: Gain 3% attack speed plus an additional 1.5% for every Legend stack for a maximum of 10 stacks. As a champion that relies on auto-attacks so much, attack speed benefits Gwen tremendously.
  • Coup de Grace: Deal 8% more damage to champions who have less than 40% health.

Next, you are going to focus on the Domination rune tree.

Domination

  • Sudden Impact: After exiting stealth or using a dash, leap, blink or teleport, dealing any damage to a champion grants you 7 Lethality and 6 Magic Penetration for 5 seconds (this has a cooldown of 4 seconds.)
  • Ravenous Hunter: Grants you Omnivamp of 1.5% per Bounty Hunter stack. Bounty Hunter stacks are earned the first time you get a takedown on each enemy champion. Omnivamp is only 33% effective when dealing area of effect damage.
  • Offense: +10% Attack Speed.
  • Flex: +9 Adaptive Force
  • Defense: +6 armor.

This is considered the most popular build with Gwen, and in short the goal is to maximize the effect of her auto-attacks and Q ability to the best of your advantage, which is why a lot of the runes offer healing, attack speed, and a reward for taking down enemies. '

Items

To take advantage of the additional armor from Hallowed Mist, build Gwen with items that add to her ability power.
To take advantage of the additional armor from Hallowed Mist, build Gwen with items that add to her ability power. / Courtesy of Riot Games.

For your items, remember that Gwen is not a top laner that is meant to be a tank in the mid or late game. She is meant to be all about damage that can tear through tanks, not be one. Instead, focus on her ability power (because frankly, you will be using her Q and W a lot.) Additionally, she gains 20(+5% AP) bonus armor while in Hallowed Mist, which is the one ability that prevents her from being one-shot by ADCs and other champions. With this in mind, here are the items you should build:

Starter Items

  • Doran's Ring
  • Two Health Potions
  • Stealth Ward

Early Items

  • Blasting Wand
  • Boots

Core Items

Items that benefit her attack speed and ability power are favored when building core items for Gwen.
Items that benefit her attack speed and ability power are favored when building core items for Gwen. / Courtesy of Riot Games.
  • Riftmaker
  • Plated Steelcaps
  • Nashor's Tooth

Full Build

  • Riftmaker
  • Plated Steelcaps
  • Nashor's Tooth
  • Zhonya's Hourglass
  • Cosmic Drive
  • Lich Bane

Those are the main items you should focus on building when playing as the Hallowed Seamstress, although of course there are items you might change here and there based on the situation you are in. Get a Morellonomicon if the enemy has a lot of sustain or self-heal, or a Demonic Embrace if there are a lot of area-of-effect abilities in the opposing team. For now, go out there and enjoy a new kind of top lane champion with this build (or your own!).

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