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Caitlyn Build Guide by

[Season 3] Caitlyn - Not by a Long Shot

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Caitlyn Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (13) More Caitlyn Guides

Spells:

Flash

Heal

Items

Name

Enchantment

Ability Order

Caitlyn Passive Ability

More Caitlyn Counters

Introduction

Hi, my name is 1jamie50 and welcome to my second guide on MOBAfire. This guide is on , The Sheriff of Piltover. If you have any feedback, positive or negative, please tell me in the comments section. It helps me improve take notes on how to improve this guide in the future.

This guide will focus on my build of . In this guide, I will be going over my build and giving out strategies on how to play her effectively in bot lane as an AD carry.

Please take note that these builds won't work in every single match. There will always be times that you will have to modify your build according to enemy champions, what enemies are building and how your match performance is going.

Overview of Caitlyn

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is a Ranged Attack Damage (RAD) Carry. She specializes in long range poking/harassing as while as being able to pick up kills on running enemies. Caitlyn has the longest basic attack range at level 1 of any other champion in the game. This allows her to stay on the back line of fights and pick off enemies from afar.

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Pros/Cons of Caitlyn

Pros:

Longest basic attack range without ability usage.
Great at harassing enemy champions.
High Damage Per Second.
Very Strong Early Game.
Traps can be used as anti-ganking tools.
She never misses.

Cons:

Weak Late Game compared to other carries.
Ultimate is blockable and can therefore be rendered useless at points.
You're not durable.

Abilities Overview

Abilities

Headshot: Every 8th, 7th or 6th basic attack (depending on level), Caitlyn's next basic attack does 150% damage to an enemy champion or 250% damage to a minion or monster. If Caitlyn attacks from brush, the counter increases by 2 per attack instead of 1.
Piltover Peacemaker (Q): After a short delay, Caitlyn fires out a line skill shot dealing physical damage to every enemy hit. It deals less damage for each target it hits.
Yordle Snap Trap (W): Caitlyn places a trap down on the ground. When an enemy champion springs the trap, the champion gets revealed, immobilized and takes magic damage for a short period of time. Caitlyn can have up to 3 traps placed at once.
90 Caliber Net (E): Caitlyn fires out a net in a line skill shot. Caitlyn gets pushed backward from the direction she fired the net. If the net collides with an enemy minion or champion, they take magic damage and are slowed.
Ace in the Hole (R): Caitlyn briefly channels to snipe an enemy from long range dealing physical damage on collision with the first enemy champion it hits. Enemy champions can block the bullet for their teammate. This ability is also stopped if the enemy champion targeted uses Flash before Caitlyn fires the bullet or if the champion becomes un-targetable (Ex. Sanguine Pool, Playful / Trickster, Deceive).

Ability Usage

Headshot: This is a pretty basic passive. Since Caitlyn is good at harassing enemy champions because of her massive attack range, you can easily use this to poke enemy champions for extra damage everytime it comes up. You can also stack it quicker by basic attacking minions while in brush.
Piltover Peacemaker (Q): Plain and simple, this is best used for harassing underneath the enemies turret. This can be used to last-hit multiple minions at once and if you're trying to deal damage to enemies, it's best to not fire it through a minion wave.
Yordle Snap Trap (W): Place traps in bushes to watch for ganks. Place traps near Baron and Dragon bushes to watch for people taking them. Place traps in your enemies or your escape path to stop them from escaping or help you escape. Really, place them anywhere inside brushes so that they're invisible, it just depends on where you think you require them at certain points of the match. (A trap usage section will be added in the future.)
90 Caliber Net (E): This is your escape ability. An enemy champion comes in to gank you? Fire it away from them and get pushed back towards your tower and as long as you weren't super extended, you should escape. You can also create distance the opposite way. By firing it away from your enemy, you will be pushed towards them which will allow you to pick off running champions.
Ace in the Hole (R): I'm not too fond of this ultimate because it's just that easy to block. Try not to use your ultimate if there's 2 or more enemies around (unless all of them really have such low hp) because chances are it will get blocked. You also have to remember this is a channeled ability. Don't use it if you're out in the middle of a team fight or underneath a turret, channel it from a safe location.

Ability Sequence

Ability Sequence Order

: I take my first point at level 1. This allows you to place a trap in the bush in the river to watch for incoming ganks or place it in the enemies side bush entrance. This could allow you to trap an enemy and get an easy first blood.
: I take my first point at level 2. This allows you to lay down long range harassment on your enemies in lane or get last hits on multiple minions at once.
: I only take my first point at level 3, as it helps escape early ganks in bot lane. Use this ability for it's chasing/escaping potential.
: As your ultimate, take it when you can at levels 6, 11 and 16.

Prioritize: SPACE ---> ---> --->

Masteries

Masteries

In bot lane, my masteries are 21/9/0, going down the physical damage tree for increased attack damage and taking health and armor for survivability in defense. I also improve on the summoner spell, .

These masteries maximize my damage output while giving me additional defense for survivability.

Runes

Runes

: I take attack damage marks to help improve my damage output and fulfill my role as the AD Carry.

: I take armor seals for additional durability early game against the bottom lane carry as while as late game during team fights.

: I take magic resist per level Glyphs for more durability early game in mid lane and late game in team fights against the AP carry.

: I take attack damage quints to improve my damage output further to fulfill my role as the AD Carry.

Summoner Spells

The Recommended:

Flash allows you to quickly blink out of a fight quickly. Well you do have 90 Caliber Net which you can use to escape and hop over walls, you sometimes don't have enough time to fire it off. Having Flash makes it a lot easier to quickly escape and having two ways of escaping battles or ganks keeps you more safe.
Heal allows you to have a bit of extra health durability and/or tricking someone to dive you when you have low health only to heal it back. Heal can sometimes give you that little bit of extra health to win a fight or escape from one.

The Good:

Ignite can allow you to pick off running champions on low health early on in the match. This ability can be used in so many ways, whether using it on a low health champion for a kill or using it on a healing champion to counter the heal, Ignite allows you to grab more kills which is what your trying to fulfill as the carry. Be aware that Ignite has a shorter range than Caitlyn's basic attacks however.
Cleanse allows you to escape crowd control effects that may be targeted at you since your the main damage dealer. This can really save your life sometimes.
Ghost can be swapped out for Flash depending on personal preference. Personally, I feel like Flash fits much better on Caitlyn.
Exhaust can slow down an enemy champion coming in on a gank or slow an enemies escape from you if they stick around too long. Exhaust can help you pick up kills more effectively on champions attempting to run or can be placed on the carry upon initiation to lower their attack speed.

The Ok:

Teleport lets you to quickly get back to your lane and defend your turret. It can also be used as a ganking tool to some degree but Teleport is better for whoever is playing in top lane.
Barrier has now been transferred over from Proving Grounds. An extra shield to protect you from damage can be absolutely crucial for survival if you get caught out of position on an AD carry. However, Caitlyn is a pretty safe AD carry, so it's not as likely that you would need this often.

The Bad:

Smite: You are not a jungler.
Clarity: While not totally worthless on Caitlyn, there's way better summoner spells for her. You shouldn't be running out of mana really at all to be honest as most of Caitlyn's damage comes from her basic attacks. If you are running out of mana often, I suggest not spamming Piltover Peacemaker as much.
Revive: This guide is to help you not die... If you're using this.. I'm not doing my job.
Garrison: This is better on tanky champions in Dominion as you want your summoner spell slots open more on a carry.
Clairvoyance: This isn't for you. Leave this summoner spell for your support champions.

Items

Bot Lane Item Build:

It's best to always start off with Boots of Speed and 3 Health Potions on your AD carry. Caitlyn is relatively safe and well it's likely that you'll be taking less damage and could attempt to start with , you want to stay in lane as long as you can and the other AD carry will most likely end up out-surviving you.

Full Game Build:

This is my most common full game build on in bottom lane. I will now explain why I take each of these items in this build.

Early Game:

Berserker's Greaves: This should be your first end-game item to pickup. These boots will benefit you the most as the AD carry because you want to deal damage and deal it out as fast as you can. These boots will bring you roughly to 1 attack a second early-game.
Doran's Blade: Grabbing a couple of these allow you to have a bit more early game damage output and durability at a cheap price.

Core Build:
Infinity Edge: This is a staple AD carry item. It gives a massive attack damage boost, crit chance and improved crit damage. This is a must have on Caitlyn.
Phantom Dancer: This improves upon your attack speed massively making your damage per second way higher. The critical hit chance bonus also makes it much more likely to deal more major damage. This item is very good for Caitlyn because it also allows her to stack more of her passive Headshot, which also increases her damage output.
Bloodthirster: I now combine my Vampiric Scepter into a Bloodthirster. This adds a massive attack damage bonus (60 attack base, up to 100 attack if the max amount of minions are killed with it) which makes my damage output from Piltover Peacemaker, Ace in the Hole and my basic attacks that much higher. This is once again a staple item for any AD carry.

Late Game Items:
Last Whisper: At this late in the game, enemy champions will have lots of armor making Last Whisper a good final choice for an item. With a total 40% of armor penetration to blast through enemy tanks or bruisers faster as well as another small attack damage boost, it's a good way to tie up your damage build.
Guardian Angel: This gives you some late game durability. It gives you a mix of armor and magic resist as well as allowing you to be revived. This could save your life in certain situations and keep your kill streak going. It can also allow you to rejoin the end of a team battle.

What If I'm Ahead?

If you are far ahead of the enemy team and don't feel in danger at all, you can always switch your Guardian Angel out with another Phantom Dancer for even more damage output.

Enchantment:

I prefer to take the Alacrity enchantment as it helps you move around the map quicker, escape from enemy champions quicker and help you get to important areas of the map during this phase of the game (like Baron).

Consumables:

Late game, after you've finished your build completely, remember to buy these three potions whenever possible as you won't be using your gold for anything else other than these potions.

Situational Items

I did a Situational Items section in my first build guide, however I'm not quite sure if it's necessary in this guide because my build usually doesn't vary that much at all.

This section is in progress and will be up within the next week.

Summary

Caitlyn is a champion with very good farming capabilities and decent damage output as while as the longest attack range without abilities. She also has a decent escape ability. Overall, Caitlyn is also a pretty easy champion to use to farm with and is an easier champion to learn how to use well compared to other carries.

At this point, I would like to remind you to please test this build out first before rating it. I hope this guide helped you get better at playing Caitlyn.

If it did, I would appreciate if you would leave it a thumbs up because it took a lot of work for me to build and then re-build this guide. Thanks again to jhoijhoi for some of the templates used in this guide, which can be found here.

Change Log

Rebuild:

Separated Enchantments to a separate part of build.

12/17/12
The guide has now been fully updated for the Season 3 update.

12/07/12
Masteries have been updated for the new mastery pages.

10/31/12
Finished Ability Usage section.
Fixed HTML coding and prepared guide for release.
Removed Mid-lane build.
Guide re-released.

10/21/12
Birthday Update!
- Visual updates to Item Build section.
- Added Ability Usage section.
10/08/12
Finished Mid Lane Build in Item Build Section.
Added in Ability Usage section.

9/26/12
Finished up Item Build Section.
Added in Summary and Situational Items.

9/25/12
Changed build order in Bot and Mid Lane.
Changed info in Item Build.

9/24/12
Added Bot Lane build info to the Item Build section.

9/22/12
Fixed HTML coding errors in all previous sections.
Made all sections look more visually appealing.
Rebuilt Masteries, Runes, Summoner Spells and Item Build.

9/21/12
Rebuilt Introduction, Overview, Pros/Cons, Abilities Overview and Ability Sequence sections.

Pre-Rebuild:

Added Guide Reconstruction message.

8/19/12
Switched build order between Bloodthirster and Guardian Angel in bot lane.
Switched build order between Bloodthirster and Banshee's Veil in mid lane.
Switched Ignite to Heal on both builds.

8/15/12 - Hot Fix
Fixed HTML coding errors.
Added Cleanse to Summoner Spell list.

8/15/12
Article Cleanup.
Guide Published.

8/14/12
Finished Advanced Ability Overview page.
Fixed multiple errors in coding.
Added Summary.
Preparing Guide for Release.

8/13/12
Cleaned up multiple pages.
Fixed mistype errors.
Made layout for a guide better.

8/03/12
Finished Summoner Spells, Items and Situational Items pages.
Started production on Advanced Ability Tactics page.

8/02/12
Finished builds for Mid Lane and Bot Lane.
Finished constructing Intro, Lore, Build Overview, Pros/Cons, Abilities and Ability Sequence, Masteries and Runes pages.