Hi, my name is Bizzleberry and I am a longtime League of Legends player, playing since before Season 1. Over the years I have achieved high ranking in solo queue, from Platinum in Season 1 (the highest at the time) to Challenger multiple times throughout the years. I used to stream in season 4-5 and stopped playing League for a year during season 6. I have now returned and am currently in Diamond 1 on EUW as a support main. You can catch me on my stream or my Youtube channel. I try to explain what I am doing in most situations; feel free to ask any questions on stream or leave a comment on the guide!

Pyke has the ability to catch people off during the laning phase and mid-game when working with his team to secure easy kills. You are able to share your gold income with your ultimate Death from Below and have easy access to mid-lane by getting past wards with your stealth with Ghostwater Dive and locking them down with your hook Bone Skewer + stun Phantom Undertow combo. Being able to roam is key as support and pyke will be one of the best supports in this role.


Pyke's Advantages

Able to gank mid-lane incredibly easily, especially if the mid-laner has no escape.

Able to give himself and teammates increased gold generation through his ultimate.

Able to gank his own lane (Only a few support champions can do this easily, Tahm Kench ultimate is comparable but his ult makes a loud noise indication!).

Can hook Bone Skewer through small walls, to pull an enemy to him.



Pyke's Disadvantages

All bonus HP is converted to AD with his passive Gift of the Drowned Ones. The HP to AD ratio is bad, discouraging you building HP and making you squishier.

If you fail your roams you will fall very far behind. When roaming your ADC has a chance of dieing 1v2.

Vulnerable to early poke in lane.

Can struggle to get away against Crowd Control.

You have two Builds you can do. Domination or Resolve Primary.

Domination

Hail of Blades Gives you insane attack speed for the next few auto attacks which helps greatly during the laning phase after you engage to whittle the enemy down.

Cheap Shot Provides extra true-damage which scales badly but does well during the laning phase. Make sure you damage the opponent with an auto-hit / another spell after you have either slowed or stunned them.

Zombie Ward will provide you with some easy stacks once you pick up Umbral Glaive in order to clear out vision.


Ultimate Hunter means that you will have more opportunities to flank or to try and use your ultimate as an escape more often. Other options are:
Relentless Hunter Provides you with bonus out of combat movement speed as you rack up kills. Allows you to get around the map and roam even more effectively.

Resolve

Resolve provides you a tiny bit of extra ad per level with its health scaling.

Bone Plating Works nicely as you will take multiple hits when you first engage and will block a decent amount of damage.

Unflinching reduces the duration of CC on you which can help you get out of a few nasty situations.




Resolve

Aftershock provides you with greatly increased Magic and armor resistance when you land CC. If you land a hook and do not engage your aftershock will be 'wasted' and you will generally need to wait until its back off cooldown to make a diving play.

Demolish Can help increase the amount of gold you and your partner gets during the laning phase.

Bone Plating Helps reduce the amount of damage you take when harassed or going in for a play.

Unflinching Can be helpful to get out of CC quicker in order to stay alive.


In Domination..

Zombie Ward will provide you with some easy stacks once you pick up Umbral Glaive in order to clear out vision.

Ultimate Hunter means that you will have more opportunities to flank or to try and use your ultimate as an escape more often

&

Fairly standard. You can use Flash with Phantom Undertow to do a spicier stun if needed. Ignite is needed to secure kills early to help you snowball.

Gift of the Drowned Ones

Passive: When Pyke is unseen by enemies, he rapidly regenerates some of the health recently lost to enemy champions. (Can be trigged by walking into a brush or using Ghostwater Dive).

Pyke also converts his bonus health into bonus attack damage instead. (Note - This scaling is intended to be poor, and not encouraging you to buy health items in order to gain bonus AD).

The regeneration on this passive is dependant on being near enemy champions and the amount of lethality you have. If you are only near one enemy then you will get a massively reduced grey health bar. However, if you are near two enemies then you will get a much bigger grey health bar which will then refill when the enemy cannot see you.

This was a change to buff Pyke Support but to nerf Pyke mid.
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Bone Skewer

Tap: Pyke stabs and greatly slows all enemies in front of him.

Hold: Pyke readies and then throws his harpoon, impaling the first enemy struck and pulling them a fixed distance towards him.

Both uses of Bone Skewer do very similar damage, so you don't need to take that into account. You will need to decide one of two things when using this. Is it worth holding and hooking in one target into the middle of your team (most of the time this is a yes), however in bigger team fights where hooking isn't a valid option then just tapping Q will apply damage and a slow , which can help lock down a champion caught out, or even provide a small peel when running away.

Bone Skewer Will also always pull the target a set distance, no matter where you hook them. This means if you hook someone right in front of you, the target will go BEHIND you. Similar to Singed's Fling.

Leveling Bone Skewer first gives you increased cooldown reduction and damage. At 5 points its on an 8s CD, with my item build you will be around 5s when max'd.
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Ghostwater Dive

Pyke dives into spectral waters, entering camouflage and gaining a significant increase to his movement speed that decays over a few seconds.

Camouflage hides Pyke from view while enemies remain outside his immediate area. Attacking or casting spells immediately ends camouflage.

Ghostwater Dive is your roaming engage and also your disengage to quickly heal with your passive if needed. When you press the button, stealth is INSTANT, but works similarly to Evelynn's passive and can be seen by Control Ward and if you are near enemy champions.

Max Ghostwater Dive last - Movement speed is increased by how much lethality you have.
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Phantom Undertow

Pyke dashes, leaving behind a drowned phantom. After a delay, the phantom returns to Pyke, damaging (Champions only) and stunning enemies it passes through.

Phantom Undertow is what you will be using when coming out of Ghostwater Dive. Applies a small stun to all targets hit and moderate damage. Can also be used as a dash to escape. When using this ability a clone is left behind and you will be 'writing' a path on the floor, shortly the clone will follow all of your pathing and will stun everything in that line. You can use Flash to increase the clone pathing range.

Level Phantom Undertow second and as of 11.6 cooldown will be reduced per point. Stun duration is increased per point of lethality.
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Death from Below

Pyke strikes in an X-shaped area, blinking to champions and executing those below a certain flat amount of health. Enemies in the X that are not executed take damage equal to this amount.

When a champion dies in the X, the last ally to assist also gains full kill gold, and Pyke can instantly use Death from Below again for a short period of time.

Death from Below's execute damage goes through shields. Also there is a white indicator on the enemy health bar, if their HP is under that line, Death from Below will kill them and you will have a short window to use the ability again. Bare in mind it can be flashed as it is a skill shot.
Death from Below has to be used on an enemy champion to be able to dash away.


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Steel Shoulderguards

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Steel Shoulderguards will allow you to execute minions in order to generate gold for yourself and your partner. The health on this item will be converted to AD as per his passive.

Boots of Mobility

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Provides Pyke with extra mobility to either roam around the map to help mid-lane to get ahead. Very much required if you want to have an impact mid-lane and get back to help your bot-lane in time! Ionian Boots of Lucidity If you are unable to roam / want to focus on bot-lane then these boots give a huge amount of bang per gold. Lower cooldowns mean more potential plays including your summoners.

Duskblade of Draktharr

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Duskblade of Draktharr Is a viable option as a Mythic if there is a lot of crowd control on the enemy team and you are worried about dying after engaging. The stealth can be huge in terms of getting away or repositioning for another ultimate.

Prowler's Claw

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Prowler's Claw has an active that allows you to get behind your enemy (includes minions). A standard use of this is casting E then using Prowler to catch up the distance to still be able to stun the enemy. Extremely good in small fights (1v1 / 2v2)

Umbral Glaive

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Umbral Glaive Will be your first Legendary item. This will help you clear out wards incredibly fast throughout the rift. You do not need to oracles part of this item in order to do extra ward damage, it is active throughout the entire game, so if you see a ward planted and if you are quick enough you can kill it immediately. Make sure you have Zombie Ward as this will also increase your vision on the map as you kill wards!

Youmuu's Ghostblade

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Youmuu's Ghostblade Provides you with even more lethality and movement speed. Once again helps you roam around while providing you with even more damage!

Edge of Night

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Edge of Night Provides you with even more lethality and a spell shield. Can be useful if the enemy have a quick CC they can use on you when you go in.

Guardian Angel

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Guardian Angel works nicely after purchasing a Duskblade of Draktharr due to the fact that it encourages the enemy team to focus you down, using cc abilities on you rather than your team. This then gives you a chance to respawn and Ult clean up. Also the path build gives you a Stopwatch which can catch the enemy off by surprise and give you an opportunity to do a clutch / bait play.

Vigilant Wardstone

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Vigilant Wardstone is something I generally don't purchase on Pyke. This is because I would rather have another damaging item as my final slot than more wards. However if you feel your team really needs the vision that control wards provide late in game still, then this a cheap, ok-ish purchase still.

During early stages your Bone Skewer has a very long cooldown, so only use if you are confident you will land it.

When landing Bone Skewer use your Phantom Undertowand auto hit to proc Electrocute or just generally auto hit for increased damage with Hail of Blades and then disappear again with Ghostwater Dive if needed to regenerate health with your passive Gift of the Drowned Ones. If you are using Dark Harvest you will want to ensure you hit the enemy below 50% as often as possible to accumulate souls.

On your first recall try to roam to mid straight away and stealth through the lane with Ghostwater Dive then rotate back to bot to help your ADC.

Always work with your jungler and try and watch his pathing. You may need to help get the scuttle early in the river or/and invade buffs. Pyke provides a lot of CC and some damage early in the game but ideally needs another player to ensure those kill secures as once he has used his abilities he doesn't do a lot early due to long Cooldowns.

Lurk in the flanks when a teamfight is breaking out, you will want to go in once someone is close to your Death from Below execute range and then you can clean up fights.

If you are the only engage on your team, you will need to do your best trying to hook enemies, preferably over terrain, with Bone Skewer.

If caught, use Death from Below as a last option to dash away from the enemy (Must target an enemy).

Try and ensure you are always out of vision to make the enemy guess where you are!

If you wish to ask me any questions about Pyke or any other support champion, feel free to ask me on stream at www.twitch.tv/bizzleberry

Also check out my Youtube channel for daily support content, including, guides, gameplay videos and Tier lists - www.youtube.com/bizzleberry

I hope this guide helps you!