Who Am I?

Well, I'll be blunt. I'm just a Silver player that plays quite a bit of Singed. I've accumulated nearly 2 million mastery with him over several accounts. I started getting S grades with Singed before I was level 2 with him, and earning Mastery Level 7 with him was a breeze thanks to this build. I'm no authority in League, but my Singed build works and it works very well. I kept around a 75% winrate with Singed in Season 8 (and yes I played both before and after the Banner of Command meta. RIP, my little flag buddy) and a 60% in Season 9.

I have a problem.

Why Singed?

Singed was my first love in League. Over the years, I have picked up new champions, even considered myself good at them, but in my heart I am a Singed main. My playstyle has been nerfed, gutted, discarded, and made obsolete by the item changes, rune changes, and everything Riot does, but I refuse to change. This is not a guide. This is a cry for help.

His general utility make him a very good addition to most teams, and the fact that you can't keep him down makes it hard to feel behind when playing Singed. Even if you're 0/7/0, you still can have a huge impact on the game.

Out of all the champions available in League of Legends, Singed is one of the few champions that does not have to rely on their kit or playstyle to win games. He instead can rely on "the tilt factor." Like Shaco and Teemo, Singed tends to make his enemy mad. Spamming your laugh, taunting in the all chat, dancing on their corpse... all these are just as important, if not more important, than your Q and E. Making them want you dead more than they want to win drives enemies into breaking the number one rule of League: Do not chase the Singed.

Ghost+Smite

Singed is one of the few champions that prefer to take Ghost over Flash for a simple reason- you don't want to get away. You want to stay just outside of your enemies clutches, baiting them into thinking they will catch you... making them chase.

If you are a little masochistic, like me, you'll probably be running Unsealed Spellbook, which allows you to grab another summ as needed, giving you access to Teleport or Exhaust, or even a Clarity (which is an amazing way to keep proxying).
The reasons I take Smite as my "primary" summ are simple, and explained below.
1.It makes the enemy jungler uncomfortable- seeing the enemy toplaner with Smite gives you reason to be concerned for whichever buff of yours is closer to him, the rift scuttler, and rift herald. Having the jungler focus more on Singed in top lane gives breathing room for the rest of your team... so Singed has access to more stacks on his Dark Seal. Don't forget to ward their buff and wander down to try and steal is occasionally, too... you typically will be a higher level than them, so you outsmite them pretty easily. Be sure to thank them for the leash afterwards, too.

There were once more reasons. Those no longer exist. Why do I refuse to change?
Because Singed stinks. That is a compliment.

Ignite+Ghost

Because you are a coward who isn't taking Smite.

Ghost+Flash

Take this if you aren't using Unsealed Spellbook and don't feel like you can kill your laner easily. One can make an argument for taking Teleport instead of Flash, but I like to look at it this way- you can Tele back to lane after you die, or you can flash over a wall and not die at all. This is an incredibly wrong way to think about things, but Singed can flash E an adc and make them want to cry and that's worth not having Teleport.

What about Teleport?

You can take it using Unsealed. Do you need it more often?

Unsealed Path

Singed can benefit from multiple runes in the Inspiration path, or what I will from now on refer to as the HAX tree. I enjoy the somewhat trolliness of it- something Singed adores. Unsealed Spellbook gives you access to versatile summoner spell changes, so you can grab Teleport to make an unexpected roam, or Smite to secure Rift Herald (if you choose not to take it as your "primary" spell), etc., etc.
Out of the first tier of runes, the only ones that really benefit Singed at all is Magical Footwear. Your boots being slightly better than your enemies boots is a very nice thing to have on Singed, who cares about 2 things- making Summoner's Rift look like Auschwitz and being fast. We'll discuss that first thing later, but the latter is helped out by the free boots. The other two option in this tier aren't all that useful to our smelly scientist, unless you take Flash and therefore Hextech Flashtraption is a viable alternative.
The Minion Dematerializer gives you even better waveclear, something Singed doesn't need but will appreciate when proxy farming. Biscuit Delivery is also a very good pick on Singed, since he likes to let himself get low health, then chug potions and biscuits to gain a lot of health as his enemies try to last shot him (and therefore chase the Singed). Being able to enter debt is also a nice quirk, but I feel like optimizing your waveclear is more valuable. It's really a personal preference between Dematerializers and biscuits, and I prefer deleting cannon minions.
Finally, we have the most beautiful rune in the entire tree. Time Warp Tonic makes your potions better AND GIVES HIM MOVESPEED WHILE HE'S UNDER THE INFLUENCE. I like going fast, why not drunk drive while you are at it?

Aftershock Path

If you would prefer a more traditional way to play, Aftershock is the rune of choice. It gives you a great boost in tankiness and the damage from Aftershock can be surprising in the early game. Unfortunately, taking these runes bar you from the HAX tree, since Celerity is a must on Singed.

I'd recommend taking these runes into a tough lane, such as Yorick or Darius so that if they do force you to fight (which I'd be avoiding at all costs), you can Fling them and mitigate the damage.

Secondary Runes

Celerity is a beautiful thing to have in your secondary path, as Singed loves any extra movement speed he can get. While it is not what it once was, Singed still runs it so he can run faster... speaking of movement speed, we have Nimbus Cloak. Season 10 changed the rune up a bit, taking the movement speed away from your ult and giving it to your summoner spells. Buffing Ghost and giving you a tasty bit of movespeed every time you Smite is quite nice.

The Domination tree is another strong choice, however, and should not be dismissed. Taste of Blood gives Singed even more healing and Cheap Shot gives you free true damage. Both are good options, take whichever you are more comfortable with. Ghost Poro is a guilty pleasure of mine and I take it whenever I can. Increasing the duration of your wards- and rewarding your vision score with AP- is something invaluable when you are proxy farming. They even ping you when the enemy jungle walks by them! However, this makes it a bad idea to upgrade your trinket, since Farsight Alteration does not spawn ghost poros. If you plan to grab blue trinkets, take Ingenious Hunter so that you can decrease the cooldown on them (and on Righteous Glory!)

What About Conq?

To be completely honest, I just don't like Conqueror so I never take it. Like, it's good on Singed, sure, but XtheZ115 doesn't like the rune. I play Urgot and don't run it on him either. I personally dislike the rune and anyone who uses it.
#unsealedmasterrace

So the big thing about Singed's items is what you need to accomplish. If you want to be a tank, you build tank items. If you want to do a lot of damage, you build damage items. You can't really do both. You can, to a degree, but most bruisers are better at being bruisers than you. It's unfortunate, but that is how it is.

10/10
If this looks familiar, you are old. I am old, so I recognize Singed's old passive. It is good to see you again, old friend.

7/10
The healing on this is kind of nice, so if you want a little more damage, this is a good choice. It's a toss up between this and Fimbulwinter, and both have their moments.

MYTHICS
7/10
I've found myself building this a lot for AD matchups. Singed doesn't use the AA slow as much as some others might, but he does still use it. Keep in mind you can auto someone while they are midair from Fling.

8/10
This Mythic was the first to excite me. It has old Righteous Glory's active and gives you increased tenacity- you go faster, they go slower, and they can't make you go slower. Unfortunately, in practice I have found it sub par. Is it a good defensive item? Yes, very good. Does it do things Singed likes to do? Yes, yes it does. Is it the best choice? No, no it isn't. If you find yourself behind against an AP toplaner, by all means build this thing, but otherwise it just isn't worth the zooms.

6/10
Once, this was a no brainer. This is still a very good item, but with the new item system you have to choose if you want this over the other Mythics. It is a good choice, but the health on Riftmaker may give that item the edge if you are looking for damage out of your mythic item.

6/10
This thing is stupid; feel free to abuse it before it gets nerfed.

6/10
Well hello again, old friend. The first iteration of this item was a decent choice on Singed before it was reworked into a strictly support item. It's Mythic rebirth returns it into our shop as a very spicy option- after all, why not go for more movement speed? It's questionable if it is worth more than the other options, but this is worth experimentation.

LESSER ITEMS
11/10
Indisputably the best AP item for Singed. You want damage? We got em! Oh, you're into tankiness? We got you covered baby! You want to slow everyone chasing you? EASY! You want a dead meme? You're already playing Singed, who cares what's relevant!
No but seriously you aren't full build if you don't have a Rylai's.

7/10
This is the baby version of Liandrys. You want it. It makes you a little tankier, to boot. Solid item, 7 outta ten, lessa go.

5/10
Enemy team heavy AD? You want even more movement speed while also being harder to kill? ARE YOU STARTING TO UNDERSTAND THAT SINGED WANTS ITEMS THAT MAKE HIM RUN FASTER YET?
In actuality, Dead Man's has always been one of those interesting picks for Singed. On paper, it is very good, but in practice there are just better options. This is still true, but it is still worth mentioning.

8/10
Hey speaking of magic resist, this is probably your best option for it. Spirit Visage is solid, but the increased damage after you Fling someone is pretty lit. It helps you in lane and helps delete the ADC in teamfights.

9/10
This item right here? It's gooood for tank Singed. You're gonna wanna lovetap your adc, then fling yourself charge towards the most valuable enemy and fling them to their death. This is a kind of weird pick, but it's worked wonders when you are able to rely on your team.

8/10
Really more of a personal guilty pleasure, but ZZ'rot active is something I never see in enough games. It gives you nice stats and Movement Speed, so it's a solid item to build even if it didn't give you a cold and crushing reminder that it is one of the only items to build out of Raptor Cloak ever since they took away Banner of Command... I'm not crying you're crying. I'll never forgive you Riot.

-14/13
This is a very niche and is best used against very specific champs, like Heimerdinger or Singe- I mean it's a garbage item and don't build it against Singed what are you talking about.... HA EAT FARTS AND DIE SEASON 11 KILLED IT

Once minions spawn, you have 2 options on how you want to approach the next 20 minutes.

Laning

If you're are matched up with a melee champ that cannot outrun you (i.e. most toplaners), you may want to stay in front of their tower and fight like a normal toplaner. Zone them away from your minions using your Poison Trail, and Fling them whenever you can. Use your Mega Adhesive as a harass tool. People get worried that you are about to make a play when you drop a slow behind them and will tend to run off. Use their fear to dominate the lane... but don't forget to annoy them the entire time. Make them mad so that they try and trade with you, a scenario where you almost always win.
Ranged champions, such as Jayce or Gnar will likely give you trouble if you try to lane against them- split pushing is recommended.
An exception to this would be champions with hard cc, such as Jax or Renekton. Hard cc can turn the tides of battle from you very quickly, so be wary when trading with these types of enemies.

Proxy Farming

This is what makes Singed fun. Forget trading and all that normal top lane stuff! All you want to do is kill minions! Run through the jungle and go inbetween your enemies first and second tower. This wide patch of land is now your home. Use the bush near their second tower as a hiding spot/restroom as you wait for the next line of minions to walk by, then kite the whole wave towards the first tower. Once you get near the outer range of the first tower, turn and run back to your hidey hole. This should very easily kill all of the minions, depriving the enemy toplaner any chance to push your tower.
How do you win lane, you ask? It's very simple. When a Singed is proxy farming you, you have 2 options... ignoring him and farming, or trying to kill him.
The first option is the best option for your foe. No progress will be made in top lane unless one of you goes back to base to buy items/refill potions. Boooring.
If they try and stop you, feel free to smile a toxic smile. You will have to kite both the enemy champion and their minions without the aid of your own minions, because they will too busy damaging an undefended tower. You see where this is going? You get free tower damage and potential kills? This is fun! If your enemy catches wise to whats going on, be sure to tilt them back into trying to kill you.
Play Video
And this is what happens when you do tilt them into finally addressing you Play Video
Don't be upset if you die a lot doing this. Without kills, you eventually you will be worth less than minions, and time spent killing you is time wasted by the enemy team; still a win in your eyes. See more in the following chapter.

A general note on the Dematerializers- I've been using 2 on melee minions and the rest on cannons, which makes you clear the entire wave at roughly the same time, instead of being stuck auto attacking a cannon minion for several seconds after all its friends died.

There is a very valid alternate way to approach the bounty system in League of Legends. Typically, you want more kills so you can get more gold, but then if you get shut down, your enemies get a cash bonus for doing so. Singed is one of a few champions that can pull off doing the opposite- never getting any kills and repeatedly dying so that your enemies never get and gold off of you.
Typically, dying to an enemy nets them 300g. If you die 3 times in a row, this number decreases to 176g, and can go down to a mere 100g if you die 6+ times. At that point, it's hardly worth your enemies time to chase you down and kill you, which is exactly what you want. If you repeatedly throw your body at a tower, either you never get it- which means an enemy champion has to spend time protecting it from you, which helps your team- or you eventually will get it- which also helps your team. You can see similar strategies in Zero Damage Tryndemere or Inting Sion.

Please take note of your teamcomp when attempting this strategy, though. If you are the only tank on your team, you will be much more valuable to play that role instead of feeding. DO NOT repeatedly feed a Darius while the assassin jungler and mage support beg you to come teamfight. That is an excellent way to get yourself reported. Singed's strength is in his versatility, learn which situation calls for which playstyle.

I cannot stress this enough. Taking Smite gives you an uncounterable secure on dragons, Baron, and the Rift Herald. You should be pinging your jungler to come help you get the Herald at the 15-17 minutes mark at the very latest, or even doing it by yourself if the enemy jungler shows bot lane. Just avoid the smash attack and you'll be fine farting on the bug by yourself.

A side note- When fighting stationary or slow moving targets (such as Herald or blue buff), it is a waste to turn your gas on and leave it. Your trail lasts 3.25 seconds, so all you need to do it turn it on for a brief moment (there is a 1 second cooldown to toggling it, which is perfect) and then shutting it off for 3 seconds before doing it again. I affectionately refer to this as farting for obvious reasons.

There is a legend of a strange build marring the Rift. A scientist emitting clouds of gas, running through the war-torn arena... wearing two rings.
This is the story of Dark Seal Singed.
Joking aside, there is a very valid strategy of building multiple Dark Seal. While it's unique passive doesn't stack, there is a very interesting effect of stacking the item... the item's second effect. 25% increased healing from potions. Not a bad effect on a starting item, right? Notice how it is not a Unique Passive. That's right, with 3 Dark Seals, your Corrupting Potion heals for roughly 188 HP instead of just 125. This keeps the potion viable for longer than it normally would be, making your sustain in lane better and allowing for a dastardly trick- letting your opponent smack on you until you are low health and then running away. They see a low health enemy, they chase to try and kill you. Meanwhile, you are gaining health back very quickly and dealing additional damage thanks to Touch of Corruption.

This trick is even better when you have 3 Seals, but due to you needing empty item slots for your Dematerializers and free boots, you only have room for 2. If you opt for a different rune setup, buy a third Seal.

If you find yourself at full stacks once the laning phase ends, you can sell off the extra Seal and your Corrupting for a Mejai's Soulstealer, giving you even more damage and mana, as well as increased movement speed if you can keep it stacked up!

Season 11 saw the death of the better potion passive, so there is no reason to build multiple Seals now. RIP.

Many of the items mentioned below are reworked or gone altogether, but the ideas are still correct. This will be updated as I experiment with builds, but for now don't try looking for a Righteous Glory in the shop.

Once the laning phase is over, you have two main options as Singed- Be a second support or be a dedicated split pusher.

Toxic Teamfighter

Turbo Chemtank is the most important part of your build. Combining Noxious Slipstream, Ghost, Insanity Potion and Righteous Glory's active gives you around 300% increased movement speed (granted, that is the perfect scenario in which you draft off of all 9 other people in the game, but you get the idea). This is your initiate, your escape (due to the AoE slow it gives to the enemy champions near you), and a good bit of tankiness that will keep you alive. Rylai's Crystal Scepter is an all around good Singed item, but is essential here since your bolting through the enemy team just slowed all of them.
Every fight should start something like this- You try to draft off of at least one ally before activating Turbo Chemtank in order to maximize your movement speed, and run headlong into the enemy team. Use your Fling to grab the ADC or whoever is the squishiest and deadliest enemy you can catch. Your team will slaughter whoever was thrown, and your Rylai's just slowed all of your enemies, so your team can easily catch up and fight as you run towards the enemy base, clearing minions and damaging the enemies if they try to flee back home.
Due to your DoT nature, you likely will not get many kills this way, since you allies will like last hit anyone low enough to die from poison. While slightly less satisfying, this is since Dark Seal/Mejai's gain stacks from assists as well.
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Splitpushing Scientist

Is your team just weighing you down? Or maybe they are fed themselves and don't need you to play as the tank? Fantastic! Run to a different lane and cause chaos. The enemy team now has to make a decision- deal with the 4 people in one lane or the Singed in another. Your clear is disgustingly strong at this point in the game (not that it is ever weak). Run past the enemy minion line and loop back towards yours, and those little buggers should die before the first friendly minion throws a basic attack. I seem to remember an item that really helped with this strategy, but it zzems to have rotted from my memory... oh well I'm sure no one will miss it.
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There is nothing exclusive about either of these strategies, so please don't think that just because you have a Zz'Rot Portal you've been splitpushing you can't join your team in a fight. In fact, it is an often occurrence that I pop Ghost and Insanity Potion just to get some movespeed to make it to a fight in another lane. Singed cleanup is a great way to get additional stacks on your Mejai's Soulstealer or prevent major loss of objectives.

All in all, you have to remember one thing when playing Singed. League of Legends is an objective based game. Your kills and deaths are not what wins or loses games, it's how play the map and what you prioritize. Don't be afraid to give up top tower to go help your jungler secure Rift Herald. Don't run all the way mid to try and help the 1v3, shove lane and get that first tower gold. Teleport bot and push while your ADC helps get the dragon. Singed has many tools to his disposal that allows him insane versatility with getting objectives, and that is the strength you have to play to. If you get a penta along the way, that's fantastic, but know that Singed can go 0/12/4 and still carry the game with the mayhem and confusion he can cause.

If you came here looking for advanced tips and tricks, I'm sorry for wasting your time. I hope you got a laugh out of this bitter alchemists rantings, though. Go win some games for me.