AP Twitch Build: Items, Runes and When to Go AP

The rat with the crossbow, holding a Deathcap instead of an Infinity Edge.

AP Twitch keeps coming back because his poison was always half a mage's kit. Every stack of venom scales with ability power, and so does the button that detonates them. In bot lane it still holds up against the crit build that made him a God Tier marksman.

Here's the build, the runes, and the games where it's the better choice.

AP Twitch Build

Bot Lane AP Twitch

Off-Meta Build

The rat with the crossbow, holding a Deathcap instead of an Infinity Edge.

AP Twitch keeps coming back because his poison was always half a mage's kit. Every stack of venom scales with ability power, and so does the button that detonates them. In bot lane it still holds up against the crit build that made him a God Tier marksman.

We pulled every Twitch bot laner in our Patch 26.19 ranked games (Silver and up) who finished Rabadon's Deathcap, Banshee's Veil and Nashor's Tooth. There were 148 of them, a little under 4% of Twitch bot builds, and they won within two points of the standard crit build measured the same way. I expected that gap to be a lot wider. It's a build you can take into ranked.

How to Build AP Twitch

Abilities

R whenever available, Ambush [Q] maxed first

Summoner Spells

Flash

Barrier

Starting Items

Doran's Blade

Health Potion

Strategy

Farm safely until Nashor's Tooth, then fight around full venom stacks and let Contaminate [E] do the killing

Core Items

Nashor's Tooth

Berserker's Greaves

Rabadon's Deathcap

Banshee's Veil

AP Twitch Runes Setup

Twitch Bot Lane Runes

Precision

Sorcery

Precision: Lethal Tempo, Triumph, Legend: Alacrity, Cut Down

Sorcery: Axiom Arcanist, Gathering Storm

Shards: Attack Speed, Adaptive Force, Health

Lethal Tempo is the keystone the AP builders ran, and it makes sense once you see what Nashor's Tooth does. Every attack carries bonus magic damage on hit, so the attack speed Lethal Tempo stacks up is really ability power damage arriving faster.

Banshee's Veil is the one defensive slot. Bot lane fights are decided by who lands the first crowd control spell, and its spell shield eats that spell (you'll still want to walk up carefully, since it only blocks one).

When to Go AP

Look at the enemy front line first. If they've got two champions who'll be buying armor, your crit build is about to spend its whole game hitting a wall. The AP version doesn't care how much armor they stack, because half its damage is magic and the venom itself is true damage.

Then look at your own team. When your top laner, jungler and mid laner all deal physical damage, the enemy tank can buy nothing but armor and be right every time. Going AP on the one champion who'd normally add more of the same splits their shopping list in two.

Don't bother into a lane that's going to hit you hard at level two. This build is at its worst before Nashor's Tooth, and a bot lane that wants to fight early will make you pay for every minute of that.

How It Works

Venom Was Always AP Damage

Each stack of Deadly Venom [Passive] deals true damage every second, plus 3% of your ability power per stack. At six stacks that's 18% AP of true damage every second for six seconds, on top of whatever the attacks themselves are doing. The crit build ignores that ratio completely.

Contaminate Becomes The Nuke

Contaminate [E] adds 35% of your ability power as magic damage for every venom stack on the target. At six stacks that's 210% AP, and it hits every poisoned enemy in range at once (the range is 1,200 units, so most of a teamfight). Rabadon's Deathcap raises your total AP by another 30% (on top of its own 130), and a teamfight where three people are stacked up ends on one button.

Nashor's Tooth Is The Bridge

It's the item that keeps this a marksman build. You get 50% attack speed, so venom stacks go on as fast as they always did, and every attack adds its own magic damage on hit. Buy it first (it's 2,900 gold, so a bad first back really hurts). Until you have it you're a Twitch with no damage items at all.

The Ultimate Still Pierces

Spray and Pray [R] turns every attack into a bolt that goes through the whole enemy line, and each bolt applies on-hit effects to everyone it passes through. That means Nashor's damage and venom stacks spread to the entire team rather than your one target, which sets up the biggest Contaminate [E] you'll get all game.

Potential Pitfalls

Magic Resist Undoes The Pick

Once the enemy tank buys magic resist (Force of Nature and Kaenic Rookern are the two you'll see most), most of your burst goes with it. The venom's true damage still ticks, but Contaminate [E] and Nashor's on-hit are both magic damage. If the enemy team has already started stacking magic resist for your mid laner, the reason to go AP is gone.

Your Lane Phase Is Weaker

You're giving up the crit build's early trading for damage that turns up later. Play for gold. Let your support do the fighting until your first item is done, and don't take a trade you'd only win with a Nashor's Tooth you haven't bought yet.

Support Is The Wrong Lane For It

The old way to play this was AP Twitch support, and it doesn't hold up now. Twitch support won 41% of our Patch 26.19 games, and the AP builds there still won fewer than half. The support role never gets the gold for three finished AP items, and a Twitch without Nashor's Tooth has nothing to fight with.

AP Twitch Conclusions

Same champion, different answer to what the enemy is buying. When they stack armor and your team is all physical damage, AP Twitch gives them a problem their item build can't cover, and he loses very little against the crit build to do it.

Build Nashor's Tooth first and skip it entirely into a magic resist tank. If you're only ever going to learn one Twitch build, learn crit. This is the second one, for when crit is a bad idea.

More Twitch

• Twitch Patch History: Every Buff and Nerf
• Weird Pick #141: AP Twitch Support
• Every Weird Pick, Searchable by Champion

Have you tried AP Twitch this season? Tell us how it went in the comments!