Hello Guys and Gals once again it's Prenora from NA showing you my newest break the meta Ranked build, I'm currently gold in the preseason and climbing by no means am I a Pro at the game, but my builds are not to be taken lightly, they are months of trial and error to bring you the perfect combination of success and domination. This time Around I'm going to be showcasing my Secret AP Rakan Mid build, I'm opening the vaults on one of my favorite builds to give you guys a glimpse on how I do it, so sit back, relax and enjoy, how I bring a better Rakan to the ranked ladder.

So let me break this down for you non believers, to those who flame first and ask questions later. Too many times, I'm told, "You're a god" or asked "how are you doing that" and "how does it work?" It's not me guys, Rakan's scaling's are just ridiculous, to put it into perspective, his ability scaling's are better then taliah's, the same as Orianna's, and equal to if not better than Lux, what he sacrifices for only two damaging spells he makes up for late game with his amazing 1v1 ability, his fantastic team-fight presence, and his objective control. I'll go more into his scaling's below in the abilities section.

Rakan is multi use teamfight oriented AP carry. He thrives off of his strong early trades, and his ability to snowball pretty hard, as well as his talents in diving the back line and locking down picks. He is an extremely mobile, with high cc and above average scalings.

Pros
+ very strong early trades
+ strong self sustain
+ self peel
+ High scaling's
+ extremely mobile with multiple gap closers
+ versatile abilities
+ Strong team fight presence
+ Amazing objective control with Gleaming Quill
+ Game changing ultimate
+ can play from behind with high utility
+ impossible to gank
+ amazing roams and ganks, even with Pre 6 spells

Cons
- only two damaging abilities pre 6
- low damage scalings
- low early game wave clear
- nobody every wants to let you jump to them to escape danger T_T
- team mates will flame you (at first)

Fey Feathers is Rakan's passive. Pretty straightforward Rakan periodically generates a shield, blocking 33-254 damage depending on level. This passive scales to a whopping 90% AP. this turns from a little shield at level 1, to a whopping extra health bar end game with the shield popping up into the range of 800-900 health on a 16 second cooldown. This is already an incredibly useful passive but to make it even better, the cooldown is reduced by one second for every autoattack and ability on an enemy champion landing your full combo with autoattacks weaved in, even at level 1, can reduce the cooldown by up to 4-5 seconds at a time. On a 16 second cooldown you can use one combo and cut the cooldown in half.
But wait there's more, unlike most passive shields that have require you to stay out of combat or keep on the move, Rakan's shield comes back on full effect the second it comes off cooldown, nothing like being in the middle of a Yasuo ult, with ignite ticking on you, only to get a 400 health shield in the middle of it, and at level 18 this passive comes in clutch much more often than you'd think. 2-3 times per teamfight.


Rakan's Q is Gleaming Quill. Rakan slings a feather dealing magic damage to the first enemy hit, if that enemy was a champion or epic monster, the feather returns to Rakan, and after a brief delay heals Rakan and the nearest ally.

*update* This ability no scales to 60%% of your AP the base damage bringing it in line with other single target skill shots, while the heal stays the same 70% you get a lot more bang for your buck.
what's really amazing is that when it hits a champion, the heal you get is now 70% of your ability power, which is better then even soraka's heal, except Rakan's only costs mana, and it's on the same cooldown

at max rank with 40% cdr you can have this ability up 100% of the time, as soon as the heal goes off, the spell is off cooldown again, making it incredibly easy to spam with a very low mana cost, with 60 at all ranks. this is an incredibly cost efficient ability

in some situations it's ok to max Gleaming Quill first if you think you will be taking a lot of poke and harass but the fact that it has a high cooldown early game is going to cause you to miss out on a lot of early game damage and farm, as this can only hit one enemy, minion or champion.
remember that if you touch an ally while with the heal around you, they are also healed too, but better yet, it consumes the heal instantly, which can be the difference between life and death.


Rakan's W is Grand Entrance Rakan leaps to a target location dealing damage and after a delay knocking up all enemies within the pretty decently sized area
this ability scales to a *update* wonderful and whopping 70% AP and can hit multiple enemies. thats, a lot of damage.

Grand Entrance is an extremely versatile skill, first and foremost it is the main ability in Rakan's combo, and his main form of wave clear as if positioned correctly you can hit the entire creep wave. The jump range is much farther an many other champions can ever hope to jump, this ability is incredibly useful for diving the enemies carries, and locking them down, you can use this ability to jump over any wall in the rift making for easy chasing or escaping, and the cooldown becomes ridiculously low, so you can chase all day with it.
with this ability you become a missle, the dash speed is incredible for it's range, you will be able to close a gap faster than your enemy can even react, and the knockup area is large enough to ensure most enemies can't walk out of it, guaranteeing a hit.
Max it first, with the 20% extra scaling your lvl 2 all in becomes spectacular.

Rakan's E is Battle Dance Rakan can dash to a targeted ally champion shielding them, Rakan can recast this within a short time to dash again to a targeted ally champion applying the shield for a second time.
This ability is amazing, you get two medium range dashes, while applying shields to your ally's, you can even shield the same ally twice making 2v2's unfair
you can use this ability to jump over walls, dodge skill shots or even to jump out of unfavorable situations
all while scaling to 80% of your ability power.. that's right, if you thought a 500 health shield passive was great. wait until you give your ally two 500 health shields, or one 1000, health shield.
keep in mind though it only reapplies the shield so if you're shielding the same ally twice wait until the first shield runs out or you basically wasted it.
This ability though is useless if no ally champions are around, so Rakan naturally will have a much better chance of survival if his team mates are around, if you're alone, in a 1v1 you cut yourself down to 2-3 abilities, depending on if your ult is up, that being said, being able to 1v1 someone with only two abilities says a lot about how strong Rakan can be.
Max this last, Ap Rakan basically only uses this for it's incredible mobility


The Quickness is Rakan's ultimate ability, Rakan shines his gleaming cape causing all enemies he touches to take magic damage and are charmed for 1 second, the first enemy champion Rakan hits grants him a huge decaying burst of movement speed.

The Quickness is an amazing game changing ultimate that deals decent damage scaling to 50% of Rakan's AP (like his other damaging abilities). This can be comboed incredibly well with his other abilities, allowing Rakan the ability to jump in and lock down a target and keep them locked down, but even better, this ability can hit multiple enemy champions, while keeping you mobile and on the move. while being an amazing engage tool for teamfights, this is also a wonderful disengage tool for 1v1's, if an enemy gets too close touch them with your ult and then feel free to run away with that burst of 200% movement speed while they set there dazzled by your cape
remember this ability is a also a charm so you can use that to pull enemies into your allies traps, stuns or skill shots, or even peel them away from your allies if need be.
Like all ultimates put a point in this whenever available

Hover over the icon's to read a brief description of what they do, I could go on for an hour explaining what runes are good and bad on Rakan but for the purposes of not doing that, below instead, are the runes I run and my thoughts on why I run them


After many games and much trial and tribulation testing different builds, I finally settled on the Domination I feel that this path offers the best in forms of scaling damage and lots of gold worth of stats that you just miss out on running the Sorcery path.


Electrocute is the perfect keystone on Rakan, and quite frankly the only domination keystone worth taking on this champion. After separate attacks in rapid succession on an enemy champion, you call down a bolt of lightning that deals decent early game damage. Electrocute is incredibly easy to proc on Rakan once you land Grand Entrance, you're guaranteed a free auto attack while they are airborn, and enough time for a third attack or [Gleaming Quill]]


Sudden Impact couldn't be more perfect on Rakan, Grand Entrance automatically activates this rune, granting you a very decent magic pen and lethality boost, so you can penetrate the armor of your enemies, in the early game, that's a pretty good boost of damage that activates instantly at the start of your combo


While the vision options are pretty good, I prefer Eyeball Collection because this build isn't centered around big ticket AP items, so every little AP boost can only help your damage output.


Ingenious HunterBecause your first item is also your most important, being able to have the hextech protobelt off cooldown as much as possible will really help you whether you need to use in for teamfights, or just to wave clear, this will make sure that you can use it for both without worrying about not having it when you need it most.


While most mages run the secondary Sorcery tree if not the first, after having used it for countless games, I realized it doesn't really offer you that much. While Rakan can certainly carry and deal damage with this build, he's an all or nothing champion, who does best when his team is near. The Sorcery path will definitely allow you to stay in lane for a little longer with the sustain it provides, but it's meant for those who have a rough early game, it covers your weaknesses but doesn't add strengths, if you have strengths which Rakan has a lot of, then you want to capitalize on them, in the early game in and in the late game.

The Triumph Rune is amazing for Rakan because if you are in the teamfight, you are either getting a kill or at the very least an assist, you'll never walk away without at least shielding someone. But when you hit a 5 man ult and your follows up to finish what you started, each and every kill will restore you health. Which when you have to be in the thick of things, can mean the difference between life or grey screen.


I started running Coup de Grace when I realized that, often times, I'd deal incredible burst, but my enemies would jump away or barely escape with 50-100 health or even less. with this rune, you get a damage boost the lower health they are, making sure that this cant happen

After thougths, While the sorecery tree can provide decent poke, your only skill shot stops on the first minion so you wont be able to proc, comet Summon Aery is for suppors, while viable, still you lose so much damage for some late game shields which you already provide. I'm also a huge fan of Transcendence for not only the free cooldown reduction but the ap boost it provides late game, but when weighed against the other options, it's pointless to run a whole rune path just for one rune. you can't proc Scorchnearly enough and games are ending too fast for Gathering Storm to be really useful. so while you give up a useful 10% cooldown reduction, some poke, mana regen and a little bit of ability power

you gain, tons of free gold worth of lane pressure, lethality, damage and survivability that not only pushes your early game snowball but scales very well into the late game teamfights as well.

First buy

This is the normal starting item you should get , as it provides decent well rounded stats for starting the game, including a little health for survivability and some good mana regen to stay in lane a bit longer

Stealth Ward provides you the much needed vision to survive early ganks, Rakan wont be pushing the wave all that hard, but you will be bullying your opponent very well, so expect to get ganked early. Grand Entrance is your initiation but it's also your only escape. keep yourself warded so you don't leave yourself in a bad spot.

you're going to want to start with a few of these to heal back any undesirable damage you take, while you still have Gleaming Quill relying only on that to heal you will end up killing you more often than not.


Starting boots is another viable option if you're against skill shot opponents Zed, Ahri, Orianna...ect you will be able to dodge their skill shots easier and when you go in for early trades, you can walk away fast then they can really respond


The Hextech Rocketbelt is the first item you should get in all situations. It provides you with a decent 60 ability power, a very useful 10% CDR and most importantly 300 health. The Active provides even more mobility to your kit, that can be used to easily clear minion waves all for only 2500 gold, and it builds out of two items that give you a pretty clear defined boost in the early game. Health and damage for coming out of trades even more on top than you already do.
This item is incredibly important, to close gaps, it allows you to not have to rely on your Grand Entrance to close gaps, instead you can close the gap with the protobelt then use your abilities to deal damage rather than chase. having this item first, really increases every strength about Rakan while still covering quite a few of his weaknesses.


These boots ad free damage in the form of magic penetration which against tanks or non tanks alike is a pretty big spike to your damage, and a great way to keep your damage consistent into the late game.


The Nashor's Tooth is going to be the second item I highly recommend getting besides boots. You deal damage by spell weaving, you jump in, use your spells but you also use auto attacks, this item lets you capitalize on that, allowing your AA's to hit harder and to get more in, combined with the hextech revolver passive, it's a pretty potent combo, in addition you also get some ability power a huge spike of 20% CDR which really ups your teamfight potential and an even bigger assist to your last hitting and waveclear, speeding up your attacks to give you a couple of tries to last hit.


Liandries is an amzing item on you vs tanks. when the enemies start health stacking or MR stacking this item allows you to plow right through their defenses while whittling down their health bar, your cooldowns by now will be up so often you can constantly proc the passive, while additionally the base stats this item gives provides you more AP and even more health.


Your final big ticket AP item is going to be the deathcap, because your AP is on the lower side, the 120 AP from this item and the 35% passive AP boost is going to get you to a level where you can deal consistent damage in fights, if you don't grab this your damage is going to fall off. the only reason you shouldn't grab this is if you're really behind and you had to transition into a tankier build

Final Item needs to be a defensive item
Building Rakan as a glass cannon doesn't work, trust me I've tried..and tried..and tried...you jump in to deal damage and while you deal damage, you die, way too fast.
after a lot of testing I figured out the best thing to do, is to build your final item as a defensive item


Congrats you've gotten fed and made it to your full build and are deciding your final item
if you've noticed yourself taking a bunch of physical damage when you've died, up until now, then you're going to want to run the Iceborn Gauntlet. This item is perfect for keeping you in the fights longer when the end game touches down. The bonus damage from the sheen works very well with the items already in your build as well as your abilities. and with your cooldowns so low, you can keep the items passive up often. it provides with even more utility to stay sticky while being able to keep enemies locked down for your team, even when Grand Entrance is on cooldown


On the other hand if you've noticed yourself taking more magic damage then Spirit Visage is instead the item you'll want to grab, combined with the large amount of magic resist this provides, and the extra health, you'll find yourself in much better spots after using all your abilities, on top of that, this item incrases your heal by 30% helping not only you but your allies as well, especially that Gleaming Quill is on a 3.5 second cooldown end game


I don't prefer this item as much as the other two, in most situations, I will try not to get this item, but if you find yourself constantly getting deleted by the rouge Fizz or even if you jump in knock everyone up then die instantly, because the enemies are quite frankly sick of you killing them all, then the Stasis Passive on hourglass will give you enough time for your cooldowns to come back allowing you to escape.






Less Viable options

Many other Rakan builds suggest buying Rod of Ages as your first item, which makes sense for low range mages, but this item doesn't offer you anything for the early game but durability, which means you're still going to have a waveclear problem, and you're going to fall behind before you even finish stacking it.


The Morellonomicon is probably the most rushed mage item as it provides 20% cooldown reduction, 100 AP, increased mana regen and even grievous wounds, to low health enemies. while these are amazing stats, once again, it doesn't pop out any of your strengths, if you rush this item, you're still going to have waveclear problems, and you'll do less damage in your overall combo than with the Nashor's Tooth


While an autoattack is part of your basic combo lich bane only makes sense, but your base AD is too low to make great use of the passive, the bonus Mana doesn't go very far on you since you don't use a lot to begin with, and you have so many dashes you wont even noticed the 7% movement speed, while this will give your combo a little more punch, you wont use most of the stats, instead you can buy the early sheen and turn it into Iceborn Gauntlet later

Both other Hextech items provide better stats, than the protobelt, but again you don't benefit from the stats as much, the gunblades health regeneration, is reduced on AOE abilities which means you'll only be able to use it for one spell, and the GLP is tankier but more expensive with a less mobile passive, so you miss the early power spike for an active that's really only useful in teamfights, as using it's active actually stops your champions movement for a second

Ok so we've gone over the abilities and what they do, but how about in game how do you make the magic happen

Laning Phase

in the early game the first thing you do is focus on hitting level 2 first, this requires killing 7 minions, and your main goal is to do this before your enemy, meaning you want to chase them away from their own. In this crucial time don't underestimate your Auto attack range, while you are technically melee, your AA's actually have decent range, allowing you to out range all true melee mid laners Talon Zed Akali to name a few when your enemies go in to last hit they are most vulnerable, time your auto attack between their auto attack delays, this may sound cheese but every little advantage helps

Now the reason we took Grand Entrance first is because the damage from level 1 Gleaming Quill is negligible and you shouldn't have taken any damage so there's no point in trying to heal yourself, taking Grand Entrance allows you to be able to last hit your first wave of minons, and if for some reason your enemy gets too close you can counter or even escape if you have to.

Level two, level two is really good on Rakan, you now have Grand Entrance and Gleaming Quill so you can begin your basic combo, to harass your enemies. Level 2 is when you're able to really start playing aggressive, while most champions wait until level 3 for their full kit, you are able to not only already use your full combo but also proc Electrocute at level 2. see combos section for more detail. look to Harass your enemies whenever possible, when they go in for last hits, when the get too close, or even disrespect you, these Two abilities make trading early amazing, you can land two abilities and two autoattacks plus Electrocute and when the trade is over you heal back around 100 health, figuring the enemy was knocked up for your whole combo, 8 out of 10 times you come out with full hp while your enemy is most certainly at half

level 4 is when you put your first point into Battle Dance because level 4 is when your jungle will probably start to gank your lane, having Battle Dance available for when you have jungle assistance allows you to take all chance out of landing your combo. It also increases your Roam pressure should you have the opportunity
As Rakan with your poor early game wave clear though, you should be looking to stay in lane Pre 6 to avoid missing too much farm as you will probably be getting pushed in

level 6 you can now start looking to roam, and playing with your team which is where your advantage lies. push your lane and roam for to make a play, with your incredible utility, if you are in the fight, you're going to get something out of it

mid game, is generally the same, you're a very teamfight oriented champion with the ability to wombo with yourself, push your lane with your protobelt then look for a fight

Teamfighting and late game
As AP Rakan you should be looking to start fights, you can literally start the fight off of any champion because of your mobility, whether you jump into the front line or immediately penetrate the back line, but either way as a mid laners focus should always be, is to lock down and kill the strongest carry on their team, usually the ADC, seek them out during fights, and delete them with your combo. in unfavorable teamfights hang close to your carry, and peel for them, your kit has a lot of peel, you can shield them twice and keep enemies off of them.

* your shield comes off cooldown faster if you use your abilities, or attacks, try to force trades, to keep your passive up more often, as the shield becomes ridiculous late game
*try to all in combo when your passive is up otherwise your opponent will probably whither it down before you get to take advantage of it
* you can bait with your shield, if you're low health but your shield is coming back in 4 seconds (EX)...this is the perfect time to let yasuo land Last Breath while you're under tower, your shield will come back mid ult and you very well might be able turn the fight in your favor after he gets hit with 2-3 tower shots


*remember you can use Gleaming Quill on epic monsters as well, while roaming be sure to tag the dragon or baron over the wall to gain some free health for your roam, or even if you've pushed your wave it, walk to the dragon pit, and get some free health from the friendly fellow
* Gleaming Quill's cooldown becomes stupidly low late game remember to kite with this as you can heal to full health while running away while lowering your passive CD since the range is pretty far
*if you need to be healed instantly make sure you're next to a team mate not only will it heal you and your ally, but it will also be up faster as at 40% CDR the delay it takes to heal is longer than the cooldown
Gleaming Quill > Battle Dance is a good way to ensure the instant heal
*because of the low cooldown, with 20% CDR you can solo any dragon at 30-40% you can two man a baron even at 20 minutes, get your jungle to help you two man baron if the opportunity arises, you can and will be able to do it, assuming your jungler or even top laner can pump out even a reasonable amount of damage


*you can jump over walls with this ability allowing for an easy escape or sneaky initiation or even to chase a slippery enemy
*you can issue an attack command directly after the dash causing Rakan to move before the knockup animation has finished, use this to sneak in an extra Autoattack
Grand Entrance >(Mid animation)> AA
*This is a great counter ability to avoid CC when you know you're about get cc'd, dash out of range of the enemy so if you are cc'd they cant follow up, or to even counter cc
EX..when Jax goes to jump on you, cast this at your own feet, while you will still get stunned Jax will be knocked up resulting in a stalemate that nullifies his burst
*you can scout into unfriendly territory such as an unwarded dragon pit have an ally stand behind the pit, jump into the pit with Grand Entrance if it looks to dangerous, instantly jump over the wall back to your ally with Battle Dance
Grand Entrance > Battle Dance
*you can solo Ryft Herald with your two abilities, whenever the eye on it's back appears use Grand Entrance to jump behind it and pop the eye
*if running away from an enemy cast Grand Entrance so as the enemy will get knocked up on the very edge of the ring, that way you can gain a little distance while also stunning your enemy, allowing you to gain ever more distance afterwards


* Try to use Battle Dance to close the gap for your all in, not only does it allow you to save Grand Entrance but it also ensures that your ally is close enough to follow up, if you're starting a teamfight, this is a good note to keep in mind, if your allies aren't close enough to use Battle Dance then they probably are not close enough to follow you into battle
* when shielding an ally twice, remember to wait until the first shield pops before shielding them again, other wise you waste the first shield, use this during dives to shield your ally from the damage of up to 3 tower shots
*because casting it twice is free always try to cast it twice, even if it accomplishes nothing, it makes you hard to track by your enemies,
* remember to bait out abilities using Battle Dance waiting for an enemy to use an ability, then dodging it at the last second, can leave them in a pretty bad spot


* your ultimate provides amazing self peel, you can avoid the burst of almost all big ticket assasins by pressing R, they will jump at you and immediately become charmed, allowing you to counter play, or escape
EX.. When Zed ults you or an ally and you see the X on the champion stand on top of them and press R, as soon as he comes out of his ult he will be charmed, which you can then follow up with Grand Entrance
* you can use the MS boost this ability provides to catch that enemy who's just out of reach
* The Quickness provides a huge MS boost on the first enemy champion you hit, use this to catch other enemy champions
*you can also use the MS boost to run away at incredible speeds if you know you're about to be attacked, you can run away while they are still sitting still charmed
if melee The Quickness > Run like hell
if ranged Grand Entrance > The Quickness > Run like hell

Basic Combo (Level two)
Grand Entrance > AA Gleaming Quill> Electrocute > AA
With protobelt ( in range)
Grand Entrance > AA Gleaming Quill > Electrocute>(kite back)> Protobelt > AA
It's important to kite back before using protbelt to avoid clipping through your enemy and missing all of the protobelt rockets

if an ally is near start your combo with Battle Dance to shield them and close the gap
by comboing Battle Dance Hextech Rocketbelt and Grand Entrance you can close huge gaps, and it doesn't matter the order you use them in

Combo with ultimate
counter striking The Quickness> Grand Entrance> AA > Gleaming Quill > AA
(start with The Quickness to negate their burst and unleash your own combo)
normal initiation Grand Entrance > AA > Gleaming Quill > AA The Quickness AA > AA > AA
(end with The Quickness so you can sneak in several autoattacks while they are charmed

Farming combo
Grand Entrance >(kite away from the wave)> Hextech Rocketbelt clears the entire minons wave instantly

remember to use ignite and protobelt during your combos to increase your max combo damage
will surprise enemies every time with how much burst you can actually do, and in 4 seconds when your abilities are off cooldown.. when you do it all again.

Well I hope you had fun reading this guide and most of all I hope you learned something. Again while you may get flamed and called a troll, I sure do all the time, this is not a troll guide. If I missed anything, or if you have any questions as usual feel free to leave a comment, I check quite frequently and would be happy to hear your input. but I'm sure you're ready to rock the rift, so get out there and surprise your enemies, carry your team, and show the ranked meta just how Powerful it can be to break it.

-Prenora