The one champion in the game who can hold a lane without being in it, standing where your marksman was supposed to be.
Heimerdinger bot lane is the oldest trick in the game applied to the one lane that punishes it least: put three turrets on a wave, stand behind them, and let the enemy bot lane decide whether they'd like to walk into that.
So how does this actually work?
Weird Pick #170
Bot Lane Heimerdinger
The one champion in the game who can hold a lane without being in it, standing where your marksman was supposed to be.
Heimerdinger bot lane is the oldest trick in the game applied to the one lane that punishes it least: put three turrets on a wave, stand behind them, and let the enemy bot lane decide whether they'd like to walk into that. Bot lane is a two versus two, so the thing that usually kills a turret mage (a solo laner with a gap closer and nothing better to do) isn't there. There's a support standing next to you instead.
How to Play Bot Lane Heimerdinger
- Abilities
- Q, W, E to start, then prioritize R > Q > W > E
- Summoner Spells
-
Flash 
Barrier - Starting Items
-
Doran's Ring 
Health Potion Health Potion - Strategy
- Place the turret line where the wave is going to be in ten seconds, not where it is now, and never spend all three charges of H-28 G Evolution Turret [Q] at once. Hold CH-2 Electron Storm Grenade [E] for the moment somebody steps between the turrets rather than throwing it as poke, since a stun inside the turret field is worth a lot more than chip damage outside it
- Core Items
-
Malignance 
Sorcerer's Shoes 
Rylai's Crystal Scepter 
Liandry's Torment 
Rabadon's Deathcap 
Zhonya's Hourglass
Bot Lane Heimerdinger Runes Setup
Sorcery
Inspiration
Support Synergies
Lulu
Lulu solves the only problem this pick really has. Whimsy [W] takes the enemy assassin out of the fight for the two seconds it takes the turret line to kill them, and Wild Growth [R] turns a dive that should have ended the game into a very expensive mistake. Pix also chips in on the turret targets for free.
Morgana
Every way an enemy bot lane opens on Heimerdinger starts with one piece of hard crowd control, and Black Shield [E] eats it. Dark Binding [Q] does the reverse (it pins somebody in place inside a field of turrets), which is the closest this pick gets to an execute.
Nautilus
The engage version, and it's meaner than the peel version. Dredge Line [Q] drags a target backward through the turret line rather than pulling Nautilus toward them, and Depth Charge [R] means Heimerdinger doesn't need to land CH-2 Electron Storm Grenade [E] himself to get his stun.
When to Pick This
The signal to look for is an enemy bot lane with no way to reach you. A short ranged marksman next to a support with no dash or hook has no plan against three turrets except to give up the wave, and giving up the wave against a champion who clears it from a screen away is a slow way to lose the lane.
It's also the right call when your team has already locked in enough physical damage that the enemy can stack armor and stop caring. The item path here leans on Liandry's Torment and Rylai's Crystal Scepter (both punish health stacking rather than being punished by it), and it puts a second magic damage threat in a lane where the enemy expected to buy one set of resistances and be done.
Don't pick it into a fed jungler you already know about. This is a first rotation pick or a counter pick, and it won't bring a lost game back.
How It Works
The Turrets Are The Bodyguard
A marksman trades health for damage. Heimerdinger doesn't trade at all. The turret line keeps the lane while he waits behind it, so the usual bot lane math (where you have to walk forward to farm and every step forward costs you) simply doesn't apply to him.
He Cannot Be Zoned
Push him off the wave and the turrets keep farming it. That's the part enemy bot lanes take too long to understand: the lane bully strategy that beats every other mage down here does nothing, because his farm and his body aren't in the same place.
The Ultimate Is A Fight Button, Not A Steroid
UPGRADE!!! [R] turns one spell into something the enemy has to respect immediately. The upgraded turret is a small siege engine that appears mid fight, and the upgraded grenade is a much larger stun that's genuinely hard to walk out of. Holding it is how a lane that looks passive suddenly kills two people.
He Takes Towers Faster Than A Marksman Does
Once the lane goes even, turrets siege. Three of them plus a wave shove a tower down while Heimerdinger stays well outside its range, which converts the pick's boring safe laning into map pressure without asking him to win a single fight.
Potential Pitfalls
The Turrets Don't Move, And Neither Does He
Heimerdinger has no dash, no blink and no escape of any kind. Everything he built is bolted to a spot on the map, so the moment the fight happens somewhere else he's a mage with no mobility and no burst, walking. Rotations and dragon fights are where this pick loses (lane is the safe part).
A Jungler Ends It
Two versus two is the good matchup. Three versus two isn't, and Heimerdinger is close to the worst champion in the game to gank. Ward a bit earlier than you think you need to, and treat any missing jungler as a reason to give up the wave rather than a reason to place another turret.
Champions Who Simply Delete The Turrets
Anyone with cheap, repeatable area damage clears the whole line for one spell and walks in behind it, and there's no counterplay to that beyond replacing turrets you can't afford to replace. That matchup is a losing one, so check for it before you lock in, since the pick has no fallback plan to switch to.
Bot Lane Heimerdinger Conclusions
This is the rare off-meta pick that asks you to play a different game from the one the enemy prepared for. A bot lane that's practiced trading and spacing against a marksman gets a champion who refuses to trade, can't be zoned and doesn't need to be in lane to farm it.
What it costs you is everything after lane. Heimerdinger contributes to a teamfight on his own terms or not at all, so the pick works best when your team already has the engage and the front line, and you're the piece that makes a chokepoint or an objective pit impossible to walk into. Get that part right and the turrets do the rest.
If you want the Heimerdinger who didn't need a strategy guide to be frightening, Formerly OP #13 is about him, and it explains a fair amount of why the turrets still feel unreasonable to lane against.
Suggested Tier: Tier 3
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