Welcome to Pumpyblo's Corki Guide!


My name is PUMP / PUMPYBLO, I've been CHALLENGER hovering around 1200LP during my peak in season 9, currently I hit grandmaster with a 67% winrate playing mostly Corki due to how much carry potential he has and due to him being a late game insurance, he is such a free win into some matchups if played properly and is definitely up there with best mid laners if the drafts stack up in your favour, I wouldn't main him if it wasn't the case.


But why play Corki ?

I firmly believe that in lower elos, Corki has the highest carry potential, simply because he's good against every type of champion late game, whereas certain "carry" assassin champions would struggle against the likes of Leona/ Amumu late game simply due to their lack of damage against tanks, also his package deals insaneee amounts of damage late game + a slow that allows your team to engage on a slowed back line.

Perma farm, there are games where I hit 11-12 cs a minute because farming is just that important, its such a consistant gold/exp income, roams vary from game to game, some games it won't even work, but if you see an opportunity, always do go for it, but since corki's kit makes him a bad roamer, I'd recommend just staying mid for platings/cs

Always go for the enemy junglers camps, I can't stress this out enough, enemy jungler bot lane? push mid lane and go for his raptors, your q/e/r allows you to get them relatively fast so not only do you set the enemy jungler behind, but you set yourself ahead.

It's fine to give CS away pre 6, it's completely normal, especially in higher elo, I think corki is one of the worst LANERS simply because his kit consists of weak autos early + a 90 dmg Q, lets be honest if you manage to solo kill anyone with these abilities then the enemy must really be outplaying, compare this to a syndra's 2 second 80 damage Q early for example and you're a joke, its not your fault you're being zoned mid, your champion is just that good late that you have to compensate by having a dog laning phase.

Try to time your packages with objectives, dragon up in a minute? leave your package and try to pick it up around 0:30 seconds before objectives spawn, too earlyand the enemy team will simply play around it and wait for it to expire before it engages, pick it up too late and your team will most likely engage before you even get there.

Generally don't trade HP with the enemy, you're trying to farm up in lane, what's the point of trading? starting cull means you have close to no sustain, you have no kill potential anyways so trading just means you're getting closer to kill range.
Abilities

HEXTECH MUNITIONS A percentage of Corki's basic attack damage is converted into magic damage. Corki can occasionally retrieve The Package inside his base, granting him movement speed and an empowered cast of Valkyrie.

PHOSPHOROUS BOMB ACTIVE: Corki launches a bomb at the target location that explodes upon impact, dealing magic damage to enemies hit.

VALKYRIE ACTIVE: Corki Dash dashes to the target location, dropping bombs that leave up to 3 blazing patches along his path, depending on the distance traveled, lasting for 2 seconds.

GATLING GUN ACTIVE: Corki sprays bullets in a frontal cone for 4 seconds, dealing equal parts physical and magic damage every 0.25 seconds to all enemies hit, and reducing the targets' Armor penetration icon.png armor and Magic penetration icon.png magic resistance with each tick, stacking up to 8 times and lasting for 2 seconds, which refreshes on subsequent ticks.

MISSILE BARRAGE ACTIVE: Corki fires a missile in the target direction that explodes upon the first enemy hit, dealing magic damage to enemies within the area. Every third missile Corki fires is a Big One Big One, dealing 100% increased damage as well as increased range and explosion radius.

Corki isn't really a champion with "Combos", but there are ways to use your abilities as efficiently as possible and surprise enemies with your insane burst

GENERAL COMBO

➙ ➙ AUTO ATTACK ➙

The idea behind this combo is you start off with your Q since it's slow and doesn't detonate straight away, it gives you time to cast your AA and Ult simultaneously with the Q which allows you to One Shot squishy enemies late game, remember to have a big rocket (3rd one) when using this combo, it's also most efficient paired up with essence reaver so the Auto Attack does bonus damage.

10/10 The OG corki skin, the tryhard skin as some call it, the urf makes a certain sound when you crit, auto attacks look smooth, rockets look smaller, definitely the highest skin on this tierlist.

9.5/10 The animations on this look so nice, if you're looking to have fun and not in as much of a tryhard mood, I definitely recommend this skin, the particles and sound especially are so crisp, rockets are also thinner so it distracts the opponents visually and audibly

8.5/10 This skin is just so troll, people hate on it so much but it's actually pretty cool, the skin model is definitely smaller and feels good to play in.

8/10 This skin definitely has some cool particles, not as cool as dragonwing but they're alright, it's not overbearing like corgi or astronaut, you can still focus on what's going on around you.

8/10 Same thing as with toboggan corki, it's a pretty cool skin model, extremely rare skin, small character model, no special effects or anything but it's nice to show off with, visually pleasing too.

7/10 The skin is definitely cool, but the particles are a bit too much, the sounds are also overbearing, I personally can never have a good game with this skin, alright skin to play with in normals but not recommended in ranked.

6.5/10 This skin is cute, but it's the same story as with astronaut, the difference is astronaut has cooler animations, the dog sound when you e is a bit annoying, and the character model feels a bit fatter.

6/10 I've played with this skin a few times but it's nothing special, it's definitely not bad, better than the base skin but it's worse version of ufo and ice tobbogan and has no special effects.

4/10 This skin does not feel smooth to play with, which is to be expected since its a season 1 skin, the character model is bigger than the others and feels a bit clunky to play with.

cba/10 Do I even need to explain??? look at the splash art man, the in game model looks even worse, its just an uglier base skin..

This rune is a necessity to take in certain matchups, matchups where you need the sustain to be able to lane, and in which you don't need neither first strike nor lethal tempo (since it's been reworked). It gives an insane amount of sustain later on in the game, and the movement speed allows you to duck in and out of trades earlier on, providing that extra bit of safety when needing it.

Overheal scales well with fleet, simply because any extra HP added to your health bar is added onto that shield, when comparing it to it's sister runes (Presence of mind and Triumph) neither are necessary, Triumph is just niche and luck based in most scenarios, and Presence of mind isn't needed due to rushing first item muramana, mana is rarely ever a problem, especially with corki's low mana cost on his ultimate which is the main ability he tends to spam.

Without a doubt the next best rune to take, since it just pairs up with overheal and fleet footwork so incredibly well, sustain on corki is always extremely essential in the later stages of the games, instead of basing every x time, you can regen back to full health on 1 camp + overheal and get back to poking the enemies for an eventual opportunity, the attack speed from alacrity isn't too important since you have enough from your build path, and and tenacity is useless since if you ever do get stunned late game, you're more than likely dead.

This rune comes down to personal preference, Cut down is suggested if you're playing into many health stackers, Leona, Sion, Sejuani on the enemy team for example, my rule of thumb is, 3 or more health stackers = definite cut down, if not I go for Coup de grace, because rockets deal more damage and execute from a high health range.

Absolute focus is great in lane for poking with your auto attacks,as corki you don't really want to trade much, so your health is always above 70%, plus with the fleet + bloodline + overheal combo your sustain can aide you stay above 70% at all times, it's great for scaling too and rewards pairs up great with the rest of your runes.

Let's be honest, you're only playing corki because you believe in your ability to scale, if the game ends pre 20 minutes it's over anyways and no other rune would save the game, your goal is to extend the game as much as possible, and when the longer you do, the stronger you get, Corki is insanely strong late game, and this only adds to his already insane power, since he's weak late, why go for an early game rune such as scorch? you never have any kill threat if your opponent is good anyways.

The best rune to go for if you don't need the sustain from fleet, great into melee matchups also since you'll always be hitting first, it's an extra gold income which means you can hit those core items faster, meaning faster power spikes which is always appreciated on a champion that's so item reliant.

Whilst corki could benefit from boots as early as possible, the other runes in the tree are quite useless, and getting that extra 10 MS on corki is essential since he moves extremely slowly, free boots also mean you save 300 gold which could go into your core items..

The other 2 runes in the tree aren't as useful and don't scale as well, cookies would also be an alright choice into trade-heavy mages such as syndra/orianna, but into something like sett where you won't ever trade health (if you play correctly) cookies are of no use and future's market could help you get that powerspike a wave or 2 faster.

Allows you to use your teleport and flash more frequently, which are pretty useful summoner spells on corki, the item haste allows you to farm up your muramana relatively fast, time warp tonic isn't a bad choice into mages such as syndra/orianna that just force trades and force you out of lane if you start cull.

Absolute focus is great in lane for poking with your auto attacks,as corki you don't really want to trade much, so your health is always above 70%, Great scaling rune to go for, a bit of scaling never hurts, especially on corki.

No surprise here, these are the 2 best scaling runes to go for, definitely recommend going for them, not much more to say.

SIDENOTE Going for precision tree second with first strike second is fine too, bloodline gives you that bit more of sustain since the 10% from immortal shieldbow doesn't suffice.

Your starting item should be Cull and potion every game, if you CAN go for it, then do so, it allows you to hit those powerspikes faster, gives you a bit of sustain and enough damage to be able to last hit efficiently, remember NOT to trade with this item since it's purely to farm up, and you 1 potion isn't enough sustain to trade with corrupting/refillable especially on a weak early laner like corki.

Second choice would be corrupting potion, I've tried going cull against the likes of orianna, and jesus christ are those matchups impossible, they just force trades on you and since you have no sustain you're forced to back so early on, of course if the player you're against is bad and doesn't trade with you, good for you, but if they're actually good, you've just ****ed up your entire laning phase, don't take the risk and just go corrupting..

Always go for shieldbow, it's so good and gives you that bit of survivability you need, not only with the shield, but with the lifsteal. After the divine sunderer nerfs no one goes for it on corki, can't remember the last time i saw it, the build path is just awkward and lacks damage now.

Manamune is the way to go, It gives so much AD, gives you the mana to permanently poke your enemies, and you buying it first item means you scale it apprroximately 7 minutes faster, and we all know how annoyingly strong corki with a muramana is..

Without a doubt essence reaver, the item just scales so well with corki's ultimate, you can have it up every 2/3 seconds, it adds to that burst with your E+Q+AA+R, try playing without it and see how much weaker you feel. + the crit is always nice since you can go infinity edge next. (need 60% Crit)

I generally go for infinity edge fourth, it gives you more burst, more damage which scales on all of your abilities, rapid firecannon is also a decent choice depending on the enemy composition, if you're against melee you won't really need a RFC, whereas if you're against caitlyn, syndra, long champions, it's not bad to replace Infinity edge with RFC.

The only boots to go for are sorcerer boots simply because it scales so well with all of his abilities, even his auto attacks, since they're magic damage scale insanely well with sorcerer boots.

EARLY GAME
Corki's gameplay is pretty difficult, simply because he's such a weak laner but the fact that he's a weak laner is compensated late game by how strong he is late game. He scales incredibly well with items which means more resources being funneled into you makes you a killing machine.


Early game you just want to survive until level 6, if you're into a melee matchup be sure to punish your opponent for every single creep they go for, try not to be too aggressive so you don't take too much creep aggro / a bad trade.

Once you're level 6 you can farm from further away, making you less susceptible to ganks, with your rockets up you can also farm the enemies camps more easily, pushing the mid wave in and going for the enemy raptors is a pretty smart idea because of how much AOE damage you have.


MID GAME
Mid game you want to package for objectives, rift herald, dragon, tower dives, using your package to zoning certain enemies is always a smart strat, enemies can only get to the dragon for example by going through your package.

Farming side waves / going for towers is the most efficient way to play corki pre 3 items, once you have essence reaver feel free to group up with your teammates and wreck havoc, your level 11/16 provide you huge powerspikes with your rockets too, remember to poke the enemies before engaging late game.


LATE GAME
Late game you just want to be grouping with your teammates. If you split at a later stage of the game your team might die before you get there, you need to have good positioning before getting into teamfights, aim for blind spots where the enemy has no vision and won't expect your rockets to come from.

Anoter thing to keep in mind is that when picking up your package, your rockets get fully recharged (goes back to 7 charges), meaning its always good to use 2 small ones and then pick up your package so you have a big one ready.