Rakan is a mix of an Enchanter and CC Tank Support, giving him split abilities. Rakan has the fastest engage in the game with R The Quickness + W Grand Entrance

Laning

• Rakan can play fairly passively, shooting Q Gleaming Quill for poke and to farm Spellthief's Edge stacks. Use W Grand Entrance to punish misteping enemies and snowball the lane.
• Ganks are easily avoided by not standing far up the lane for no reason, although Rakan's W Grand Entrance and E Battle Dance can be used to get yourself out of those positions it's better to not be in them in the first place.
• Stay in the Bot lane, roaming early isn't very valuable you can move to assist your jungler be try and stay bot and get level 6 as fast as possible.

Mid Game

• Be near the lane your ADC is farming in, get wards near that area to protect your ADC & Team.
• When you can move with your jungler to gank a lane or start a fight in the Jungle.
  Avoid moving alone or starting fights without allies nearby.
• Carry multiple Control Wards to deny vision from the enemy to easily catch them out.
• Spending ULT The Quickness isn't that detrimental if it goes badly since the cooldown is so low, so take some shots and see where it gets you.

Late Game

• Late Game Rakan can force game deciding team fights with a swift Flash + The Quickness + Grand Entrance engage.
• If you don't have be your team's main engage consider staying on your ADC and waiting for fights to start and peel for them
• Carry multiple Control Wards to deny the enemy vision on baron or around it

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Rakan is a mix of an enchanter and a CC Support, so you get a little of both, but he doesn't excel at one or the other. His initial engages are very, very strong and the fastest in the game, making it hard for enemies to react to properly.

Pros + Fast Engage + Heals and Shields + Early Snowball Potential + Great for Solo Queue

Cons - Burstable / not very tanky - Long Cooldowns on Abilities - Ruined by CC / Disengage - Hard to play

IGNITE Ignite gives you more damage, which helps a lot when taking fights, or to burst targets you engage on. It deals true damage based on your level and reduces healing on the target. Use it early in fights rather than later.

FLASH Flash is standard on most champions, Rakan is no exception. So much of Rakan's play making potential comes from the use of, or the threat of his Flash engages. Flash + R The Quickness + Grand Entrance is the fastest engage and longest engage there is in League of Legends. The better you get at doing it the harder you can punish enemies and faster you will climb on Rakan.

These Runes give Rakan better peel for his allies, while also enhancing his immediate engage. It enhances what Rakan already does without any extra effort or thought.

Resolve sorcery

GUARDIAN

Guardian adds a lot of shielding power to Rakan's E Battle Dance. During the laning phase you can block a good amount of damage with Guardian be either standing near your ally or using Battle Dance on them when they take damage. Try not to waste it on small damaging abilities or ticks of damage. If you leash for your jungler than don't stand near them or Guardian will proc before you go to lane.

Demolish

Demolish gives you extra damage on towers, if you happened to kill your lane early or pushed in lane as they recalled you can quickly get this damage off on the tower and probably break one of the early plates giving you and your ADC gold. This rune helps you win more and is the only rune in this row realistically useful for Rakan.

BONE PLATING

Bone Plating simply blocks damage for free, it's one of the simplest and best runes in the game. Bone Plating helps at all stages of the game, negages poke during the laning phase, helps you survive in fights, and lets you soak more damage in a late game team fight, and it happens automatically super good rune.

REVITALIZE

Rakan makes great use of Revitalize since he offers heals and shields, and does so often. The rune works passively and simply gives you more numbers. You can swap this rune for Unflinching if you are playing into a lot of CC or champions that would try and counter your engage such as Alistar, Morgana, etc.

Nimbus cloak

Nimbus Cloak helps Rakan with engages more so after he engages the bonus movement speed grant helps Rakan reposition / get away from the 5 champions he just engaged on.

Celerity

Celerity makes you slightly faster during engages and gives you some value when moving around the map, especially long distances.

So as you can see Rakan's kit is split into a mix of Enchanter abilities in Q Gleaming Quill & E Battle Dance, and CC abilities in Grand Entrance + The Quickness.

Q Gleaming Quill is Rakan's main ability in lane, it can be used to poke down enemies before engaging, and to keep your ADC healthing with every successful hit. Don't over spam it or you will run out of mana, but don't not cast it either.

W Grand Entrance is Rakan's all in ability, in lanes such as Xayah + Rakan you can start W Grand Entrance level 1 and all in level 1 right as you walk into lane so long that you land the W, in general Grand Entrance is your tool to catch out the enemy, and even if you miss you will have Battle Dance to escape.

E Battle Dance, although it's a shielding ability it is mostly for repositioning. When cast on an ally taking damage it will proc Guardian which is where most of the shield comes from since you won't be putting points into Battle Dance early. Use Battle Dance on your ally tanks / bruisers as they initiate fights or move forward so you can get closer to the enemy and ULT + W them. You can also buffer W Grand Entrance when you dash to a target, allowing you to immediately assist allies with enemies on them or around them.

R The Quickness is Rakan's main engage ability activate R then use W Grand Entrance for an instant engage charming the target and then knocking them up.

It's very important to get good at using R + W for engages, it's what makes Rakan so powerful especially in a solo queue setting. This is one of the fastest engages in League of Legends, so unless you delay or are super telegraphed you will be able to catch enemies off guard and engage on them.


Keep in mind that Rakan's abilities are on long cooldowns especially early game, so if you use them and miss you and you're team is going to feel it. This is the case for most CC Supports in the game so if you are new to the role get used to it.

Spellthief's Edge gives Rakan slightly more damage and rewards him with gold for damaging enemies. Rakan can proc Spellthief's Edge with Q Gleaming Quill and auto attacks. If you play completely passively you will gain no value out of Spellthief's Edge and fall behind in gold.

Ancient Coin gives Rakan 5% which is almost useless, but allows Rakan to safely get gold without having to put himself at risk to damage enemies for gold like you have to with Spellthief's Edge.



If you are playing for to win lane than you can get tons of value out of Dark Seal + Refillable Potion these items are very cheap so you can actually purchase them before the laning phase ends, and are very effective giving you more damage and effectively more health.

The Laning phase is easy for Rakan in most matchups you will spend a majority of the time idle and trying to get into position to land Q Gleaming Quill. Ideally you hit a Q without taking any damage. Don't force W's Grand Entrance, if you are moving forward towards the enemy with the intion of Grand Entrance, they will naturally move away from you. Grand Entrance has a travel and cast time so enemies moving away will likely avoid it. Use W Grand Entrance to punish enemies misstepping to far forward in the lane, keep a constant eye out for them and be ready.

Early in the laning phase you don't have to go out of your way to have an impact, so long that you are farming Spellthief's Edge effectively and not dying you are scaling. Rakan's level 6 power spike is very strong and that should be around the time you start to look to punish your lane.

If your ally has taken damage or is about too, casting E Battle Dance on them will instantly proc Guardian blocking a good amount of the incoming damage and keeping them safe to CS in lane. Keep track of your own Guardian cooldown during the laning phase as it can be very important during fights and all ins.

If you are in a pushing lane be mindful of where the jungler could be, warding beforehand will obviously keep you safer than not. You don't have to be super smart to simple put a ward in river and literally any time to keep yourself and your ADC safe.

The better you perform in lane the more gold you can earn and the better items you can come back to lane with giving you more advantage.

On any champion it's obviously important to not die in lane, if you can't kill your opponent don't put yourself in risky positions in which the enemy can kill you. Dying in lane as Support is negative for you, your ADC for the duration of the laning phase, and your entire team as you lose effectiveness Mid - Late Game. It's fundamental League of Legends to not feed early as losses in League of Legends compound throughout the game, a death at 4 minutes will be felt at 40 minutes into a match.



Mid game is when multiple towers go down on the map, or champions start moving around the map. Rakan can gain value from staying in the lane that his ADC is farming, and by moving with his jungler since he offers both protection and engage. Unlike other Tank Supports such as Alistar that can be caught out and ULT to get away, Rakan can be caught out and bursted before he can get away especially mid game, so don't go into the fog of war without allies around you, especially if you are moving into the enemies side of the map.

Your Macro skill will allow you to perform in the Mid Game as vision and map movements are how you gain advantages at this stage in the game. Watch the Minimap, watch the minimap, watch the minimap. Move your camera to see where enemies are moving. Keep the enemy jungler potential location in mind.

When you are moving around the fog of war play mindfully, think about who can be where you are going, understand the risk, and don't take the risk when it is too high. Would you walk in the enemy jungle when you have no wards in the river, the entire enemy team is missing and your allies won't be behind you? Of course not.

You should look to start fights with ULT The Quickness when you have a numbers advantage on the enemy, it also helps if the enemy is mispositioned and weak. The Quickness is on a fairly short cooldown so it can be wiffed or used just to get the enemies Flash without much reracution other than your team forcing fights while it is still on cooldown. Even if the enemy starts fights against your team while The Quickness is down you can still peel for your allies effectively with basic abilities, again the biggest problem you will likely run into is your allies playing incorrectly so ping them back as many time as possible and peel for your ADC.

So some basic goals for Mid game are:

• Defend ADC in lane so they can CS, and you can get experience / gold yourself
• Move with Jungler to start plays
• Watch the map to respond to plays being made
• Take objectives such as Dragon or Rift Herald with your Jungler when you have control of the map.
• Start fights with ULT The Quickness when the enemy is out of position or you have an numbers advantage.

Rakan's job Late Game is the same as early - Mid game, to get good engages and CC the enemy properly, but Late Game it is WAY more important to do this properly, messing up one fight could mean the game.

Be mindful of how strong you and your allies are, you can or can't take fights depending on items. You don't have to start a fight every time you see the enemy, your allies may need time to farm, but when your team has the advantage you should be in position to force the fights. Once you get a good feel for this you will understand how polzerizing it can feel to play Support depending on the game state, you are doing a lot or nothing at all, waiting for your allies to scale and for the enemy to push in.

If you aren't the only Engage for your team consider staying back in fights and peeling for your ADC. Say if both you and a Malphite CC the enemy back line, but the enemy Talon solo dives your ADC there is nothing your ADC can likely do to deal with it themselves The Quickness can be used to instantly charm enemies diving onto your carries.

When engaging you really have to make sure that your entire team is on the same page, and the only way to do this is through pinging, and pinging a lot. Pings are loud, quick, and everyone understand them. You can't be pushing down Mid Lane then take 5-10 seconds to type out " Hey guys i'm going to go in here pls follow up". By that time the wave has hit the tower and you are way to far away. Instead be in position to punish the enemy, and ping on the way or for assistance as many times as you can as you are engaging.

Don't be ARAMing the entire late game either, if you aren't warding or playing around the fog of war you are just showing yourself to the enemy and hoping they walk into you. It's a lot more valuable to make the enemy miss position when trying to ward the area you would be in, than it is to move at them down the mid lane because they showed up on your screen.

Rakan can be useful regardless of the game state because of his ULT The Quickness + W Grand Entrance always offering immediate and very hard for the enemy to avoid CC. The more items you have the tankier you can be during initial engages the enemy will likely get a lot of damage off on you, so without and item advantage you will have to play differently. Getting high value enganges is best, same concept that I covered during the laning phase forcing onto the enemy is harder than punishing them when they misstep the same is true for late game. Late game you can make use of Control Wards to deny the enemy vision around objectives and then catch them out or punish enemies when they have members farming side lanes or dead. Always be looking to see if you have the green light to engage.










Roaming on any support is pretty simple, it's when you take a timing window in which your ADC is safe to have an impact somewhere else on the map.

So when should you roam is very, very easy don't over think it, and don't over do it.

• When the Bot Lane wave is pushed into the enemy tower
• When you have recalled and can move to any lane
• When your ADC is dead / recalling and you would be alone bot lane
• When the enemy laners are pushed up

These are all good times to roam, how effective that particular roam will be is affect by literally everything on the map, the minion wave positions in Bot lane & the lane you are ganking, the likelyhood of the gank, the HP, Mana, level values of your ally laner compared to the enemy laner. Moving with your Jungler also helps pull off a gank. Some ADC champions such as Ezreal have abilities to farm the minion wave from long range safely, others such as Kai'Sa will be zoned completely if you leave.

When you do get a roam off, look to either recall and reset bot, or to immediately walk back to the bot lane. Do NOT overstay doing pointless things.

When you leave lane you will also be missing out on gold and experience. The longer you stay in Bot Lane the more levels and gold you will have.

ADC's ability to follow up.

Different ADCs will be able to follow up on Rakan's engage to different degrees, understanding which champions are good and not good at different stages of the lane with Rakan will come with time.

What's more important for you to practice is not only watching the enemy bot laners and trying to punish their mispositioning with an engage, but also watch your Ally ADC to see if they will be near you to follow up on your Grand Entrance.

With any CC champion, if you CC'd a target and got not follow up, you didn't CC them. If you got a 5 man Malphite ULT and your entire team was in another lane, what happens? Nobody dies and they all turn on you and you die.

The power of CC in League of Legends is that it enables your ally champions that otherwise don't have good options of dealing their damage to be given brief timing windows to deal their damage without any counter play from the enemy.

So simply put, don't ULT The Quickness + W Grand Entrance when your ADC in a million miles away from you in lane or you will be wasting your time.


Defensive
Defensive warding is warding on your side of the map
Neutral
Neutral Warding is in the river / lane bushes.
Offensive
Offensive warding is warding into the enemies side of the map (past the river).

When you should or shouldn't ward depends on your allies location and the enemies location / potential location. Look at the map and think.

Control Ward, Control wards are to deny the enemy vision, not to give yourself extra vision. Especially on a champion such as Rakan you can abuse the fog of war to surprise the enemies and engage on them unexpectedly.

Throughout the Mid - Late game there will be moments of no action in which it is optimal for you to drop 3 wards around an objective, then recall to refresh the ward count on your Remnant of the Watchers and return to your team.