Tips for Playing Pyke Support in League of Legends

To play this champion as the best support in League of Legends, then you also have to know the tips for playing Pyke correctly.

League of Legends has been completely turned upside down. The path of the bot has been changed, and bruises rotate left and right, replacing the role of the AD Carry archetype. But forget the state of the game for a moment, there's a new addition to Wild Rift and it could shake things up.

Pyke, The Bloodharbor Ripper, has joined forces with other champions in patch 8.11, and he is just as edgy as the other supports and can kill in one hit. 

That said, it brings an interesting and new dynamic to the meta. He is a champion assassin, but fits perfectly into the support role, making him a unique and potentially valuable asset for bot lanes. 

So, for tips on playing Pyke correctly and well, you can listen to the explanation in the article below.

Tips for Playing Pyke LOL

He is very useful in such a meta era. While he does have the possibility to get into the top lane, or even in the jungle, his gear is fine tuned and ideal as a means of support

With the newest champions in the Rift now available, let's get started. Here are tips on playing Pyke and how you can play it. We'll cover his abilities, playstyle, how he's built, and what runes suit him best in the Rift.

Ability

Pyke's passive ability coaxes him to build up Attack Damage. He gains one bonus attack damage per 14 bonus health.

Similar to Kench's E Tahm ability, Pyke also stores 30 to 81 percent (level-based) of the damage he takes from enemy champions as Gray Health in his health bar.

This represents about half of Tahm Kench's potential shielding, and could easily be used effectively, combined with Pyke's Ghostwater Dive ability.

Pyke's Q is the ideal ability to level up and max out first. It has two usage modes: When tapped, Bone Skewer stabs all enemies in front of him dealing physical damage, and when pressed, he throws his spear, pulling the first enemy towards him, dealing damage as well. Target is slowed by 90 percent for one second.

The spear will attract its target at a certain distance; therefore enemies at close range will be knocked behind it, similar to Singed.

Items

Tips for playing pyke won't be complete without knowing what items are suitable for him. He combines his assassin abilities effectively with his role as a support.

Ideally, he'd build straight into AD, similar to Zed in mid lane, to achieve his damage spikes, but he doesn't really have the option to do that in his position. 

He must first build support-centric items, allowing him to remain relevant in the game's laning phase.

In the early stages of the game, he still has the potential to play for the kill, allowing him to quickly build up his beloved AD. In passive situations, it can be hard to come up without a much-needed gank from his jungler.

Items, with nearly every champion, become situational after the first few core items. This is the case especially with support champions. Their job, as obvious as it sounds, is to support.

This usually involves building to protect AD carry them, or against a specific champion on the enemy team. In Pyke's case, it's very similar, but he, more than any other, has to aim to build aggressively.

The Relic Shield is the perfect opener, allowing Pyke to utilize his passive, build items into Remaining Aspects, convert bonus health into AD. It's cheap, reliable, tanky, and in its case, breakdown-oriented.

This could be followed by the boots, most of whom favor Boots of Mobility for additional pick potential, or alternatively, in some situations, Mercury's Treads, versus a heavily crowd-controlled team, or perhaps even Ninja Tabi, versus an AD-based line. 

The build can then go straight into Attack Damage and cooldown reduction. The key ability is far from lacking on cooldown, so the extra reduction would go a long way.

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runes

Pyke's skillset revolves around crowd control and dealing burst damage, and he has the ability to pick and kill enemy champions. He did have a few choices when it came to runes, but they usually stagnated.

He synergizes well with the Resolve tree. Aftershock gives Pyke's Phantom Undertow extra tenacity, giving it more burst damage and some needed sustain.

Bone Plating, again, gives Pyke the ability to be more aggressive. He can take the brunt of the damage and retreat or stay alive in a fight, allowing him to trade well.

Tree inspiration was then suggested. The extra +130 health synergizes well with her passive. A number of utility-based runes can be chosen, again, depending on preference.

This might include Damage, to sustain an extra laning phase, Cosmic insight to increase cooldown reduction, or even Approach Velocity, against an enemy team with heavy AP.

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Alternatively, the second Domination tree can be used for extra takedown bonuses, true damage, or potential picks, the choice is yours