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Caitlyn Build Guide by

(10.21: Livestream) Caitlyn ADC, by D3 Sejwoonapiggle | 400K

Updated on

9.2

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Caitlyn Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (5) More Caitlyn Guides

Runes: Optimal runes

Precision

Fleet Footwork

Triumph

Legend: Bloodline

Coup de Grace

Inspiration

Magical Footwear

Biscuit Delivery

Bonus:

+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

Flash and Heal

Flash

Heal

Items

Start

Rush

Complete first item & boots

Important next item!

Attackspeed! Pick One Item!

Pick one

Example Build!

Ability Order Optimal skill order

Caitlyn Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Draven

Extreme

A good draven will just run at you with W, dodge your net and kill you any time you get close. Make sure you get lane priority and poke him early so you get a CS lead. Don't get pushed in under tower.

Zyra

Ideal

Scary all in lane, Zyra has amazing poke, zoning and crowd control. She's very squishy though so she's susceptible to dying against all in engage champions like Leona.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Zyra

Ideal

Scary all in lane, Zyra has amazing poke, zoning and crowd control. She's very squishy though so she's susceptible to dying against all in engage champions like Leona.

More Caitlyn Counters

Champion Build Guide

About Me

In the cheatsheet above, make sure you hover your mouse cursor on the Notes icon for more information!

Hello & welcome to my guide! I have been playing League of Legends since 2013, been above a platinum elo since season 5!

I am an ADC and support main who has 300,000 mastery points on . If you’d like to see me play Caitlyn ADC, feel free to come to my Twitch.tv stream where I will teach you how to play ! I will happily answer any questions you have about League of Legends! I would appreciate a follow on Twitch and an upvote on this guide - it really helps me out and makes it worthwhile for me to continue updating this guide. As a content creator it can be difficult for me to reach out to my audience and educate those who really want to improve at League of Legends.

I GO LIVE AT 3PM GMT+0 MONDAY TO FRIDAY!

Click here to go to my Twitch!

Pros & Cons

PROS

Great auto attack range (650)
Strong zoning potential
Safe laner with traps + net
Synergy with critical strike
Good waveclear and pushing power
Very high burst damage with passive

CONS

Poor sustained damage
Lack of a steroid aside from passive
High mana cost on Q, E and R
Limited mobility
Low attack speed stats
Weak mid game, not a hypercarry

Abilities

Ability Order

Piltover Peacemaker

Yordle Snap Trap

90 Caliber Net

Ace in the Hole

Headshot (Passive)

Caitlyn's next basic attack against enemies rooted by Yordle Snap Trap or slowed by 90 Caliber Net has 1300 range and deals 50-100% AD (at levels 1-18) (+ 150% critical strike chance) bonus physical damage, increased to 100% AD + (+ 150% critical strike chance) versus non-champions.

Piltover Peacemaker (Q)

RANGE: 1300
COST: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90
COOLDOWN: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6

Caitlyn revs up her rifle for 1 second to unleash a penetrating shot which deals 50 / 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 (+1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 / 1.6 / 1.7 per attack damage) to the first target struck, then widens by 30 units, dealing 60% damage to any additional enemies.

Piltover Peacemaker always deals 100% damage to champions revealed by .

Your Q acts as a self stun for 1 second. Try to use auto attacks instead of Piltover Peacemaker late game, as a critical strike will deal more damage.
Use your Q to push minion waves early game - pushing the wave will allow you to damage towers and get tower plating gold.

Yordle Snap Trap (W)

RANGE: 800
COST: 20
CHARGES: 3 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 5

Caitlyn sets up to 3 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 5 traps which can trigger on enemy champions. When sprung, the trap immobilizes the champion for 1.5 seconds and reveals it for 3 seconds. Traps last 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 seconds. Caitlyn can also fire one 1300 range Headshot at trapped targets, dealing 40 / 90 / 140 / 190 / 240 (+0.4 / 0.55 / 0.7 / 0.85 / 1.0 per bonus attack damage) physical damage.

Caitlyn can store up to 3 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 5 s at a time and gains charges every 30 / 24 / 19 / 15 / 12 seconds.

Traps grant True Sight of the enemy champions that are immobilized by them. If the enemy has a champion that uses stealth, use your traps to reveal them! This is EXTREMELY good against champions like Vayne, Kha'zix or Shaco who cannot be revealed by any means other than True Sight.

90 Caliber Net (E)

RANGE: 1000
COST: 75
COOLDOWN:
16 / 14.5 / 13 / 11.5 / 10

Caitlyn fires a heavy net that slows down her target by 50% for 1 second and deals 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+80% of ability power) magic damage. The recoil knocks Caitlyn back 400 units.

can also Headshot netted targets once at 1300 range. can travel over thin walls with the knockback, giving her a valuable escape tool.

You can place down a Yordle Snap Trap whilst dashing backwards with 90 Caliber Net. You can also cast Piltover Peacemaker whilst dashing backwards to cancel some of the animation of Piltover Peacemaker. This combo can help you secure kills, or if you are kiting backwards it can deal some heavy damage to the enemy champions chasing you!

Ace in the Hole (R)

RANGE: 3500
COST: 100
COOLDOWN: 90 / 75 / 60

Caitlyn takes time to line up the perfect shot, dealing 300 / 525 / 750 (+2.0 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to a single target at a huge range. Enemy champions can intercept the bullet for their ally. It provides vision of the target for the duration.

Your ultimate grants True Sight of the enemy champion that you've chosen as your target during the channel. If the enemy has a champion that uses stealth, use your ultimate to reveal them! Make sure that you don't use this against Braum when he uses Unbreakable or against Yasuo's windwall. The shot is a projectile and it will be destroyed by these abilities and your ultimate will go on cooldown!
Your ultimate can be intercepted and bodyblocked by another enemy champion to save the target from taking damage!
Ace in the Hole will go on cooldown for 5 seconds and it will still cost you 100 mana if the target dies before the bullet has been fired! If the target dies during the channel you will not get the 100 mana back so be careful!

Tips & Tricks

Use your traps to block enemy escape paths.
Combo your E and your Q together to cancel part of the Q animation.
You can place traps whilst being knocked back with your net.
Your traps and ultimate reveal stealth targets, use this to your advantage and make sure to use them at the right time to reveal that pesky Vayne or Kha’zix!

In the picture above, the RED SQUARE is highlighting a trap that has been placed. (In patch 10.7, traps have a little glow behind objects so enemies can still see them, but they are still very hard to see!) Place traps in areas where they will be obscured by towers or walls and you will get an easy headshot with added trap damage! There are many other places on the rift where you can use traps. Brush entrances, lane entrances or jungle entrances are good places too!

Rune Setup

Fleet Footwork

Fleet footwork gives you movement speed and health sustain. The movement speed allows you to reposition and the healing helps keep you alive. Fleet footwork is the best keystone for new ADC players to take due to its defensive properties.

Triumph

Triumph will give you additional gold when you get a takedown (assist or kill on an enemy player champion) and a heal based on your missing health. The 12% heal (based on missing health) is very good for surviving against ignite or damage over time ticks after a fight! The bonus gold is nice too.

Alternative to Triumph:

Overheal

Overheal will grant you a shield that blocks damage when you’re proccing lifesteal or healing effects when at full HP. This is also a great defensive room that allows you to survive in all stages of the game. This rune will save your life in many countless games!

Legend: Bloodline

Legend: Bloodline can grant you a maximum of 12% lifesteal. It is easy to stack this and you don't buy lifesteal until 3rd, 4th or 5th item, so it's good to take this rune. This rune will save your life in many different situations, and synergises amazingly with overheal!

Coup
De Grace

Coup De Grace increases your damage output against low health targets. This is great since we will be frequently headshotting and ulting low health targets, and this rune increases our burst. This rune will help you net many kills that you may not have been able to have gotten due to the extra damage boost!

Magical
Footwear

Free boots with a value of over 300g. Need I say more? This rune keeps getting minor nerfs but it is absolutely overpowered. It is extremely strong and will continue to be until Riot either increase the timer even further or rework the rune.

Biscuit
Delivery

Lane and mana sustain! These will allow you to bully in the early game, sustaining your mana and health pool so you can continue trading and zoning the enemy botlane!

Items

Infinity Edge

Infinity Edge increases the amount of damage we do with our critical strikes, grants us additional attack damage and gives us 25% critical strike chance. This is a fantastic item on Caitlyn as with this item being completed, we can start headshot-critting enemy champions for some serious damage, with numbers ranging from anything to the likes of 300 all the way up to 800 just 15 minutes in the game.

Statikk Shiv

Statikk Shiv gives you all the stats you want. Critical strike chance, attack speed, movement speed and an energized passive which deals a high amount of magic damage. The AOE burst provides waveclear and additional damage to your already ridiculously high damage trap empowered headshots.

Rapid Firecannon

Rapid Firecannon gives you critical strike chance, attack speed, movement speed and an energized passive just like Statikk Shiv. Rapid Firecannon’s attack speed is 10% less and the energized proc deals less damage but the trade off is it grants additional auto attack range upon energized attacks. This coupled with Statikk Shiv and Infinity Edge means you’ll be dishing out some insane damage with your headshots.

Stormrazor

Stormrazor is an item that gives you attack damage, attack speed and an energized passive which buffs all other energized effects by 35%. It also makes it so your energized attacks slow the target hit. Stormrazor is a good choice if you are far ahead and have built both Firecannon and Shiv. It has some nice stats but it is an expensive item and should only be built when you are also building the other two energize-passive items.

Phantom Dancer

Phantom Dancer is an upgraded zeal item which gives you critical strike chance, attack speed, movement speed and two passives which function as an anti-assassin or anti-burst buff. The movement speed allows you to reposition and the shield allows you to survive those scary combos from that or that keeps one-shotting you over and over again.

Blood-
thirster

Bloodthirster gives a very high amount of attack damage and lifesteal. The passive shield when coupled with the Overheal rune in the precision tree gives you a large amount of protection, and makes you virtually unkillable as long as you are attacking and have a support that can provide you with a substantial amount of peel and protection.

Mercurial Scimitar

Mercurial Scimitar is a great item if you need an answer to really frustrating crowd control, or if you want to simply be able to build an item that gives you lifesteal AND gives you magic resist. I would recommend that if you ever need magic resist to survive against a mage like Veigar or Lux, do not buy Hexdrinker or Maw of Malmortius. Instead, buy Phantom Dancer and Mercurial Scimitar. Sacrifice Statikk Shiv or Rapid Firecannon if you have to make room for the Phantom Dancer.

Mortal Reminder

Mortal Reminder is an armor penetration item which gives you a unique passive - when you inflict any form of physical damage onto an enemy champion, you apply grevious wounds. There is so much healing in the game currently in the form of keystones and runes that are ran, itemization for many champions as well as a lot of champion’s kits containing some form of health regeneration or lifesteal. It is very rarely an inferior choice to Lord Dominik’s Regard.

Lord Dominik’s Regards

Lord Dominik’s Regards is an armor penetration item that gives you 10% more armor penetration than Mortal Reminder does, at the drawback that your physical damage doesn’t apply the grievous wound debuff on enemy champions. In the very unlikely case that nobody on the enemy team has any healing or has very minimal amounts, and they are all stacking armor, buy this item!

Berserker's Greaves

Berserker's Greaves is a tier 2 boots upgrade that you’ll want to buy either on your first, second or third back. I recommend buying these boots over any other upgrade - Ninja Tabi and Mercury Treads are viable but Caitlyn has such a large auto attack range as well as a self-peel tool in the form of her E ability that she shouldn’t need to purchase a defensive boots option in a majority of games.

Gameplay

As Caitlyn you want to get priority in lane and try to get level 2. If you get level 2, great! You can use your advantage to zone away enemy players or engage a fight with them where you’ll definitely be stronger due to the level up. Once you’ve pushed to the enemy tower, set up your traps in a way that forces the enemy to play to a certain side to the lane. Do so in a manner that forces enemies to walk up and have to either trade with you, farm and take poke damage from you, or stand back and miss some farm. Make sure to be careful of enemy jungler ganks by warding and keeping an eye on the minimap, as well as being careful of the enemy support’s position so they do not engage onto you. Try to harass the enemy botlane, poking them and taking favourable trades. When you’re not poking, try to hit the enemy tower so you can get tower plates.

If you manage to get kills in lane, use your advantage to full effect. Deny and starve the enemy botlane of everything you can - freeze the lane at your tower, making sure to only last hit enemy minions when they’re low HP so you can still kill them and obtain gold for farming. Stand in front of near your minion wave and force the enemy botlane to play back, forcing them to either give up farm or fight you again.

Once you get to level 7, you’ll want to stop maxing your Q and start putting ability points into your W. This will allow you to have 5 traps by the time you hit level 10, which is the time you should have Infinity Edge and a Zeal item or Berserker’s Greaves built.

Synergies

Morgana’s root allows Caitlyn to chain cc a target by using her trap, allowing her to deal some serious damage with her headshots. Morgana also offers Caitlyn a shield that blocks magic damage and also blocks crowd control, which allows Caitlyn to play aggressively.

Janna’s shield gives Caitlyn more attack damage. Janna has some really good peel for Caitlyn, and can stop assassins from getting to Caitlyn, denying the assassin the chance to kill their priority target. Janna also has a lot of damage built into her kit because of her W, and she typically builds , which is a nice buff for Caitlyn to have since Caitlyn auto attacks a lot.

Zyra has incredibly strong all in, zoning potential, solid range and poke. You and Zyra can play as a kill lane and whittle down the enemy, and once both of you are level 6 you can completely obliterate the enemy botlane with your burst.

Nami does almost everything - she has good engage, damage, sustain, buffs and peel. The only thing she lacks is tankiness, but it doesn’t matter as Nami will be your best friend and give you the tools you need to succeed. There is a huge difference between a mediocre Nami player and a good Nami player, and as long as your support has two hands, they should be able to do their job which is to help you become strong enough to take over the game.

Counters

Ezreal has a lot of range and is very safe. It’s difficult for Caitlyn to punish him and a good Ezreal player will be able to poke you down with his Mystic Shot (Q), avoid your empowered headshots (trap, net) and if he builds , he will completely nullify any amount of damage you deal to him. Since Ezreal takes as his keystone, even if you go even in farm with him, he will still come out ahead due to his cheap item build and strong mid game...

Sivir’s auto attack range is 500, but her W gives her lots of pseudo range due to the bouncing blades. Her Q can chunk you for a lot of damage and using your traps against her will just give her free mana. You can place traps down and then wait for her to walk up and spellshield the trap so you can instantly follow up with a Q, poking her down, but this can prove unreliable as good Sivir players will anticipate you’ll do this and either dodge or bait out your Q. Her spellshield makes it difficult for you to ever kill her with her ultimate, and the movement speed she provides with her ult allows her and the enemy support to gapclose on you very quickly if you’re ever caught out of position. Sivir usually buys [doran's shield] so it'll be hard to whittle her health down in lane since she will just regenerate it and outscale you with her utility and waveclear.

Leona can lock you down and make your life completely miserable - often paired with a kill lane ADC such as Draven or Lucian, if you get hit by her Zenith Blade (E), you are almost guaranteed to have Leona follow that up with a burst of damage and a stun. Leona is extremely tanky due to the Aftershock keystone as well as her W giving her additional armor and magic resist, so good luck trying to kill her unless she plays really badly.

Soraka has an insane amount of healing, which completely nullifies any amount of poke damage you deal to her or her ADC. You need a strong engage/kill support such as Pyke, Thresh, Blitzcrank or Nautilus to be able to reliably kill Soraka, as you will simply not be able to outsustain or outpoke her heal.

Closing & Support Me

Thank you for reading my guide. It is really appreciated. If this guide was helpful, please upvote the guide and leave a comment. If you have any questions, come join me over on Twitch.tv where I livestream 5 days a week and ask me some questions you have! I read chat and always enjoy interacting with other players. See you there. :)

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Guide updates!

09/04/2020 - updated guide to include more information, revamped runes, build order and added a few extra matchups in the cheatsheet. Changed minor parts of the coding and fixed a missing icon.

11/04/2020 - Fixed a coding error that wasn't displaying in the runes section correctly.

23/05/2020 - Fixed typos.
24/04/2020 - Updated title. No new content updates that affect Caitlyn that I need to comment on. Ashe, Xayah and Tristana received slight buffs but it does not change the overall difficulty of each matchup.