Fiddlesticks is a mage jungler that puts fear into the hearts of the opponents with a kit focused on fear. Fiddlesticks provides a good mix of crowd control and damage to carry games from the jungle and his out of vision engagements will give even the most experienced players some jumpscares. This Fiddlesticks guide will help you pilot League of Legend's most terrifying scarecrow.

Abilities:

Fiddlesticks’ passive is A Harmless Scarecrow. Fiddlesticks has his trinkets replaced with Effigies that act as wards. Upon reaching level six, Effigies will also be given the added bonus of acting as sweepers, revealing nearby wards/traps/etc for six seconds upon placement. Standing still for two seconds makes Fiddlesticks pose as an effigy. When seen by an enemy, these Effigies mimic Fiddlesticks’ ability cast and summoner spell usage without the effects of them or damage.

Fiddlesticks first ability is Terrify, and it has two parts to it. First, damaging enemies with spells while unseen or targeting an enemy with Terrify's activation strikes a target unit with fear, causing it to flee in terror for 1-2 seconds based on points put into the ability (1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2). The second part is a point-and-click ability that will apply the fear and deal magic damage. If Fiddlesticks has recently feared enemies with the first part of this ability take double damage if the active ability is used on them. Both Non-Epic Jungle Monsters and Minions can be feared so E over walls to do extra damage.

Fiddlesticks’ second ability is Bountiful Harvest. Fiddlesticks will select a target area and begin draining health from nearby enemies for up to 2 seconds, dealing magic damage every quarter of a second for the full two second duration. Bountiful Harvest will also heal Fiddlesticks for 30%-50% based on points put into the ability (30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, 50%), the healing is reduced to 15% for minions but not jungle monsters. At the end of the duration, Fiddlesticks will deal a burst of damage based on 12%-22% the enemies missing health (12%, 14.5%, 17%, 19.5%, 22%). If Fiddlesticks completes Bountiful Harvest’s channel, the cooldown will be refunded by 60%.

Fiddlesticks’ third ability is simply called Reap. Fiddlesticks slashes a crescent shaped area with its scythe, slowing all enemies hit for one and a quarter seconds and silencing enemies hit in the center of the crescent slash for the same amount of time they were silenced.

Fiddlesticks ultimate is known as Crowstorm. Fiddlesticks will channel for one and a half seconds then blinks to a target location, dealing AOE (area of affect) magic damage in the area every quarter of a second for up to 5 seconds.

Runes and Build:

Electrocute: This keystone gives Fiddlesticks a surprising amount of burst damage whenever he uses Crowstorm in teamfights, because the combo of Reap into Terrify will proc the Electrocute on the priority target in teamfights.

Sudden Impact: Sudden Impact gives Fiddlesticks extra magic penetration after using a blink, that being his Crowstorm. This increases the damage that Fiddlesticks can do in teamfights because most damage dealers will not be building a lot of magic resistance.

Eyeball Collection: This rune gives Fiddlesticks more scaling based on champions he kills or assists on, which will be plenty because of his very strong teamfight ability.

Ultimate Hunter: Ultimate Hunter allows Fiddlesticks to use his Crowstorm more often as once you kill or assist in a kill on all five enemy champions (Ultimate Hunter will cap out once you have a takedown on all five enemy champions) and will still give you ultimate ability cooldown reduction for each enemy champion that you have a takedown on.

Nimbus Cloak: This allows Fiddlesticks to move faster when clearing since it provides a burst of movement speed when you use a summoner spell (like Smite). It also lets you chase down enemies who are further away if you do not catch them in the fear of your ultimate (Flash after you use Crowstorm, not before).

Water Walking: Water Walking lets Fiddlesticks fight better while in the river around the neutral objectives like dragon, Baron Nashor and early Scuttle Crabs. So if the opposing jungler does not have Water Walking, you will be at an advantage in most river fights.

Two adaptive force and armor lets Fiddlesticks clear the jungle efficiently and healthy for early fights in the river as well as potential early ganks. Fiddlesticks’ build should focus around the AOE damage of Crowstorm as well as making sure the full duration of Crowstorm’s damage goes off in teamfights.

Zhonya’s Hourglass is a core item on Fiddlesticks. It provides Fiddlesticks with +45 armor, +75 ability power, and 10% cooldown reduction. Its active ability makes Fiddlesticks invulnerable for two and a half seconds, but Fiddlesticks cannot use abilities or move while in the stasis. Zhonya’s Hourglass is a good tool for surviving in a teamfight after using Crowstorm so you can get the full duration of Crowstorm off instead of it being cut short by dying.

Runic Echoes with Chilling Smite is your optimal jungle item, mostly because it is the only jungle item for magic damage focused junglers. It gives Fiddlesticks +80 ability power, +300 mana as well as cooldown reduction. Passively, once Fiddlesticks gain 100 charges of this item by moving around or damaging enemies, the next damaging ability will deal 60 + 10% bonus ability power as bonus magic damage and summon three lesser bolts that deal the same bonus damage the nearest three enemy champions or minions (or neutral monsters).

Smiting an enemy with this item will steal 20% of the enemy champion’s movement speed for two seconds and give you a bonus 20% movement speed for two seconds. It will also deal 28-166 true damage based on level to that enemy champion.

Liandry’s Torment is the last item that is a core item on Fiddlesticks. It gives Fiddlesticks +75 ability power as well as +300 health. Passively, every source of damage will give Liandry's a stack, each stack on Liandry’s lets Fiddlesticks deal 2% more damage that caps off at 10% increased damage.

In addition to the increased damage, Liandry’s Torment will burn enemy minions and champions for three seconds and will deal up to 4.5% maximum health damage as magic damage with each tick of damage occurring every half a second. The damage is increased to 7.5% maximum health damage if the enemy champion is immobilized or slowed, with Fiddlesticks’ fear applying to the crowd control effect requirements of Liandry’s

Liandry’s has great synergy with Crowstorm, as it applies an AOE burn to all enemies caught within the Crowstorm. It also lets Fiddlesticks deal with tanks a lot easier and have a surprisingly good amount of survivability due to the bonus health Liandry’s provides.

For the next two full items, Fiddlesticks can combine a mix of raw damage and magic penetration or more utility in the form of AOE slows as well as reduced healing.

Rabadon’s Deathcap gives Fiddlesticks +120 ability power as well as +40% bonus ability power based on Fiddlesticks’ ability power after the flat 120 ability power is added to Fiddlesticks’ current ability power. This is the largest raw power upgrade Fiddlesticks can get, but it can be substituted for more utility.

Void Staff should be purchased when the enemy team is stacking multiple magic resistance items, since it reduces the enemies bonus magic resistance by 40%, and not total magic resistance.

Morellonomicon gives Fiddlesticks +70 ability power and +300 health as well as +15 flat magic penetration. It will also reduce enemy champion’s healing by 40% when the take magic damage from Fiddlesticks. You should only buy this item when the enemy team has champions with healing built into their kit or are stacking lifesteal items as well as supports that can spam heal the enemy team.

Rylai’s Crystal Scepter slows enemy champions by 20% for one second whenever they are affected by Fiddlesticks’ abilities. This gives a good amount of utility to your team from the large AOE slow that can be dealt to the enemy team, but you will not deal as much damage in the late game due to Rylai’s only giving you not adding any bonus penetration or bonus damage.

Fiddlesticks’ boots will usually be Sorcerer's Shoes, since they provide a flat amount of magic penetration, plus most other boots do not provide Fiddlesticks with any added benefits due to them being more defensive boots.

Synergies and Counters:

Fiddlesticks does great in comps built around teamfighting. Champions like Orianna, Galio, Wukong, and Malphite provide great followup to Fiddlesticks' engages because they can provide large AOE crowd control without taking the enemies out of the Crowstorm. Team fight AD carries like Aphelios and Miss Fortune also help because of their AOE damage. The name of the game to play with Fiddlesticks is team fighting and AOE, so making sure you have plenty of that in your composition is key.

Junglers with easy crowd control do very well against Fiddlesticks as they can cancel his Bountiful Harvest and Crowstorm channels. Common picks to counter Fiddle are Gragas, Sejuani, and Zac because of their easy crowd control in teamfights. Olaf is a good counter early versus because of his early dueling potential against Fiddlesticks but falls off in later teamfights.

Tips to Improve Your Fiddlesticks

These videos give a better idea of the pathing options, It also shows the places where you can clear both jungle camps with your Bountiful Harvest, which improves your jungle clear speed.

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An alternate start to throw off the enemy jungler’s tracking that works on either side is Start Raptors, then go take wolves then finish your Blue Buff.

It is very important to manage the patience of jungle camps when doing double camp W as they will reset if improperly managed. When you want to invade the enemy's jungle, the best camp to invade on either side is raptors, most other camps are too risky to invade without assistance.

You can also double camp W with Herald/Baron and Crab as well as Dragon and Crab but these are much harder to accomplish.

Effigy Placement

Before Fiddlesticks hits level six, his effigies function basically as normal wards so use them accordingly, Post six they begin to function like control wards, so you can use them to sweep areas when preparing for fights, ganks or objectives. The length of time the effigy stays where it is scales with level (130 seconds to 280 seconds).

Crowstorm Spots

It is very important when understanding Fiddlesticks to learn what walls you can use Crowstorm to gank over, since it is your most effective and efficient way to gank lanes. White circles indicate where Fiddlesticks would stand, the end of white line is where to click. Try to place Effigy or Control Wards to make sure out of vision. If you are on vision, wait one second before ulting after clearing wards so you can get the AOE fear from ulting.

In fights, it is important to use your Terrify on priority targets, since it can only fear one target (if they have not already been feared). This can mean fearing the enemy’s main source of damage or peeling for your damage dealers when the enemy dives onto them.

Using Reap into Bountiful Harvest is a good way to out-trade your opponent, since the silence means they cannot respond to try and stop the Bountiful Harvest channel. Throwing in a Terrify then recasting Bountiful Harvest due to the cooldown being refunded after the channel is completed makes Fiddlesticks very annoying to deal with in teamfights because of the amount of healing Fiddlesticks can have in a fight.

Closing Thoughts:

Fiddlesticks brings a ton of teamfight capabilities to and composition and packs a punch once he gets rolling. He can make any team play so scared around fog of war because who knows if a certain scarecrow is waiting over the wall. Then, when you least expect it, Fiddlesticks blinks into your entire team from somewhere you did not expect, and you become a little more terrified every time it happens.