Aight, I've gotta start by saying that I'm not a god at the game. But after 4 seasons of being a hardstuck Bronze legend, I had an attitude change and got myself to Plat, so I'd like to think I'm qualified to talk about climbing, at least in low elo. I've got a ****ty twitch stream on which I play Fizz most days, and I've been told that I'm somewhat entertaining as I do so. I'm a Xerath main - I have ~500k mastery on my main account at the time of writing, and a further ~350k on a smurf which ended up surpassing my main account's rank. But when I want to have some agency and not die to every single gank, I play fizz - he's kind of my secondary pick.

--12.10 DISCLAIMER--

The durability patch has not been a good one for fizz. I really don't reccomend picking him right now.




The answer to this is pretty simple: you hate your opponents with a passion, and in particular you hate people who have the AUDACITY to play adc. You get some kind of sick twisted enjoyment out of nuking the **** out of a squishy and then flip-flopping your way to safety. You want everyone else to suffer.

Seriously though, here are (in my opinion) the main pros and cons of the champ.

Pros

Hyper Mobile
This is really the major selling point for this champion. In the modern game, being able to duck and weave in and out of teamfights and skirmishes is a really vital aspect of a champion's viability. If you look at high elo meta, almost every champion commonly played has some form of dash or blink.

Crazy snowball potential
Essentially, if you get far enough ahead you can kill any adc/mid laner with Urchin Strike, an auto attack, and Seastone Trident - and still have 3 out of 4 abilities off cooldown. At this point, any team below about diamond elo is pretty much gonna ff the game and give you free lp.

Amazing BM
Not really gameplay related, but holy **** can you tilt your opponent by spamming Fizz's annoying *** laugh and his play dead taunt. I love it.

Cons

Pretty unfun when behind
As an assassin, your job is to dive in and kill an enemy carry. When you're behind enough that you can't do that job even with your full combo, your utility approaches 0. Try to farm up and get back into the game.

No range
You're really only ever useful at melee range, so against a heavy poke comp your choices are often either to take a bad engage, or lose your entire hp bar with no answer.

Overall, if you really just want every other player in the game to feel yucky, play Fizz. Especially great in low elo, where a lead is easy to obtain.

	Although there are some hipsters out there who'd tell you that you don't need flash on fizz, I think they're idiots. Mobility is everything and flash is mobility.
	This is the secondary I take every game. It's really your bread and butter for getting early kills in lane or in the mid/jg 2v2, and the best way to give some momentum to your snowball of death. Also generally strong in the healing-heavy meta at the moment.
	Perhaps the best secondary to take if you're VERY confident in your macro play and ability to affect the map. Often better into ranged midlaners, where early solo kills are less free due to the auto-space.
	For the Voyboy wannabe sonic speed tech memesters out there, I guess. Pairs well with the biscuit/time warp rune page for the high roam potential. Not really optimal but definitely fun.

These are the runes that I swear by for almost every matchup.
Here, I talk about the choices for whoever cares about that kind of ****.

	This is the absolute bread and butter of your kill potential. I don't really think Fizz ever benefits from a different keystone more so than electrocute, it really just puts your damage combo up a notch, and it's amazingly easy to proc with the auto-attack reset from Seastone Trident. Perfect for quick trades.
	Urchin Strike is a dash, and Playful / Trickster is also a dash. Sudden impact is going to proc every single time you fight, so it's unbelievable value.
	I have to be brutally honest here, I'm not a good enough player to really use Ghost Poro or Zombie Ward efficiently, so I just take the damage rune. If you have an intricate understanding of vision control, Ghost Poro can be a useful tool to assist in your roams.
	By the time you reach late game, your full combo does upwards of 3k damage, so you're going to be healing for a few hundred over the course of the fight. It's often just enough to make the difference. Ultimate Hunter is also a good choice if you're looking to make the enemy adc miserable.
	As an assassin, you're pretty often going to be in the situation where you get a kill with about 30 hp left and an ignite/D.O.T/turret shot ticking on you. Triumph saves you about 10% of the time here, and when it happens it can be game changing.
	You're an assassin, you want to do damage to low health enemies. Go figure.
Minor Runes	Double adaptive force, and then take either armor or magic resist depending on your lane matchup.

Core build

	I start every game with a corrupting potion. The sustain is amazing, it has excellent synergy with Dark Seal's bonus healing, and the damage over time, especially early in lane phase, is not to be ignored. It's really pretty necessary to getting through the poke of the first few levels, and it gives more kill pressure.
	If you can back with 1050g at about level 5, you're in with a 90% chance of getting a kill when you return to lane. No one really expects the burst that it offers so early in the game, and the stats by themselves are worth the cash.
	Given the aforementioned synergy with your Corrupting Potion, as well as the raw stats and snowball potential, I try to buy Dark Seal whenever I have even a sniff of a lead. Anytime you back with an odd amount of gold, consider picking one up - i.e. if you have say 800g, and can't afford Hextech Revolver, consider returning to lane with one of the needed Amplifying Tomes plus dark seal.
	I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH THAT YOU NEED TO BUY THESE!!! If you're already a high elo player you can skip to the next section - but speaking as someone who's climbed out of the depths of elo hell, buying control wards is unimaginably important. I honestly didn't start buying these consistently at all until about September last year. Coincidentally, I hit Platinum on the 1st of November.
	Once laning phase is starting to end, you don't really have much need for your Stealth Ward, as you will now be starting to roam the map, and to this end clearing enemy vision and avoiding being spotted is far more valuable than vision in side bushes. I usually try to swap trinkets between levels 7-11.
	For a while, I was stuck in my ways and didn't believe in this item over Lich Bane as Fizz's go-to rush. But it's so cheap, and the active so powerful, that you can finish it and be able to reliably score kills against either your laner or the enemy botlane before anyone else really even has the items to defend themselves. Building Sheen before finishing it can be a viable strategy, if you're staying in lane and your opponent is relatively immobile, as it will give you your damage spike earlier in the game.
	Now we really get to the good part of playing fizz. By the time you have Hextech Rocketbelt and your lich bane finished, you're ready to take out basically any target on the enemy team. Lich bane procs when you use Urchin Strike to give you massive up-front damage, and it's useful for pushing waves since you can nuke minions with the extra damage plus Seastone Trident's active.
	If at any point you have the luxury of 650 spare gold, pick up a Stopwatch, but try to sit on it until absolutely necessary. Zhonya's really shines in the midgame, where you're getting into teamfights, assassinating one target, and then using the active to survive until Playful / Trickster comes back off cooldown.
	Since your base damages are already quite high, you don't actually need to prioritize heavy AP until quite far through the game, as you're still likely to one-shot ADCs and mages even with as little as 200 AP built, until around 25-30 minutes. Not a lot to say, but getting it 4th or 5th item is really just ensuring that you keep your damage on par with their survivability.
	This is the final item I would consider to be part of the 'core build' for Fizz. Again, evaluate the enemy team and see how much magic resistance they have built. As long as there are at least 2 targets that have built at least one full magic resistance item, void staff is a worthwhile purchase.

Situational Items

	While usually an item reserved for smurfs and normal-game pubstompers, I think that Mejai's is a very viable purchase on Fizz, due to his unbelievable kill potential, and the excessive slipperiness afforded by Playful / Trickster and Hextech Rocketbelt. If I manage to stack Dark Seal fully in the early-midgame, I like to upgrade it to Mejai's Soulstealer either just before or just after building Lich Bane. Sell if you're permanently sitting on <10 stacks, as it takes up a slot and offers little.
	Although it's not optimal, the extra health can make you into a pseudo-bruiser which in some team-comps can be useful. I really only build this into Vladimir, occassionally Ekko, and heal-bot supports like Yuumi and Soraka.
	Kinda troll, but if you're facing some speedy gonzalez ******** like Jhin, Vayne, or Hecarim and having trouble sticking to them, it can be a niche pickup. Realistically, you should be using Chum the Waters to catch up to fast enemies, but there are a few situations where you might find it viable
	If you're like 30 kills up and already hit full build, you can get away with selling your boots for the s p e e d o r b. Not really a common situation, but it can keep you relevant as other champions reach their 6 items anf you start to fall off.

	This ability is actually pretty slept-on. People really underestimate minion aggro and minion block, when in fact these are pretty important parts of the laning phase. Fizz's passive significantly reduces the former, and negates the latter, so you have way more freedom to play in and around the enemy minion wave than other champions might. Try to abuse this with aggressive lane positioning where possible.
	Fizz's standard method of engaging fights. A short range dash that does damage and applies on hit effects - a big part of the reason Lich Bane is so ideal. Note that if enemies flash away from your q just before it hits, they will not take damage. The damage doesn't scale amazingly with level, and the cooldown is quite short at level 1, so max this ability last.
	The most important tool for wave management, quick trades, and assassination potential. Make sure you're comfortable using it to auto-attack reset - as you will need to be able to quickly and consistently aa-reset in order to proc the 3-hit Electrocute rune. Use it to last hit minions under tower - even at level 1, caster minions will die to AA -> W after 1 turret shot. I like to take this ability at level 1 in situations where I don't need Playful / Trickster to skirmish, so I have the option to shove the wave by aggressively last-hitting for the reset and mana refund, or I can quite safely ensure last hits if getting harassed.
	This is the ability that gives fizz his identity as a champion. I almost always max this, occasionally I will take 3 points and then max Seastone Trident against champions with lots of dashes, since you're not always going to be able to land your e on them. Try not to use it to engage where possible, as it is far more valuable as either an escape or a finisher. Ideally, you'll be able to execute Fizz's full combo in the order shown below, saving Playful / Trickster for the end.
	Although it has a fatty hitbox, this ability is quite easy to dodge if thrown at max range from vision. Try to use it from fog of war, either by faking a roam and doubling back to mid, or from the bushes above botlane. If using in a 1v1, don't be afraid to use it at minimum range - while it will do less, the damage is still extremely significant. I demonstrate below how to throw an 'undodgeable' ult while dashing in Urchin Strike. ('Undodgeable' in the sense that you need to have flash and very quick reactions to actually dodge it).

Below are a few videos of basic Fizz combos.

Early lane poke quick trade with electrocute proc (Q -> AA -> W -> AA -> E to safety):
Play Video
Undodgeable ult, press R while still travelling in Urchin Strike:
Play Video
Mid to late game full damage combo, over 3000 damage:
Play Video

Early game

In most matchups, you're going to look for an all-in around level 3-4. You can trade before this, but you should be very careful to minimise the length of each trade - you basically want to pop your Corrupting Potion, proc Electrocute with an auto-reset, and back off to your wave - if you keep trades to this very short exchange you will outdamage most champions. Once you hit level 3, try to engage with Urchin Strike, proc electrocute, and if your opponent has less than about 200 hp, try to look for the kill with damage from Playful / Trickster and Ignite.

Take recalls when you can afford Hextech Revolver, or if you get an opportunistic early kill, Dark Seal and an Amplifying Tome. Once you hit level 6, you can start to look for roams to botlane. Shove your midwave, and buy Oracle Lens - try to leave at a time that doesn't make it obvious that you're heading down to bot, i.e. when your laner is missing or en route to lane.

Mid-late game

Your number one priority throughout the mid-late game should be assessing which of the enemy champions is the strongest threat to your team, and figuring out when you can safely assassinate them. Try to flank as much as possible in teamfights, be constantly alert for opportunities to catch enemies by surprise with Chum the Waters, and get at the very least a 1-for-1 in exchange for their fed carry. If their fed carry is a 4000 hp Dr. Mundo or something like that, your best bet is probably to start a surrender vote.

Have fun on the rift my fellow fishmongers!

I'll be updating this guide when I can, and hope to improve whatever I am able to. Let me know if there's anything I should add or change. I'll be streaming daily while this ******* pandemic keeps going on at https://www.twitch.tv/crabbix.

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