Ziggs is one of the most powerful Mages that players can roll in ARAM. Ziggs can deal high ranged damage and in most cases should not be re-rolled by players.
Ziggs has a fairly simple learning curve and can be built for high damage or long-term sustainability.
All of Ziggs’ abilities are useful, his Q deals long-ranged damage, causing a bomb to bounce. Ziggs’ can use his Q to deal heavy damage to seal last hits.
Ziggs’ W can be used to push enemy champions back or to help Ziggs spring back similar to Tristana’s W. The one worry about Ziggs’ W is the fact that players have to be careful as there is no way to be certain where Ziggs will land, though he will move away from the explosion. Ziggs can also use Satchel Charge to destroy enemy turrets when they are below a certain threshold (will cover later.)
Ziggs’ E is a powerful AoE that places a circle of bombs on the floor. While his E can be used to damage enemy champions, the better use for it is farming out minions.
Ziggs’ R deals heavy damage, dealing more in the centre.
QUICK RUNDOWN:
SUMMONER SPELLS: Flash & Clarity
RUNES: Dark Harvest, Taste of Blood, Eyeball Collection, Ravenous Hunter // Transcendence, Manaflowband
ABILITY POWER UP: Q, E, W
FIRST BUY: Lost Chapter
BUILD ORDER: Luden’s Echo, Sorcerer’s Shoes, Liandry’s Torment, Morellonomicon, Rabadon’s Deathcap, Void Staff
SUMMONER SPELL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ZIGGS
FLASH
Flash is the most important Summoner Spell players can choose when playing ARAM as it will help ensure that players can escape is tricky situations.
In most cases, Ziggs players will never have to Flash forward due to his long-range abilities and can most-often use Ziggs’ W, Satchel Charge, to shoot themselves forward.
CLARITY
Clarity is not necessary when playing Ziggs and will highly depend on your playstyle and the items that you typically build. If you choose Domination as your primary rune tree versus Sorcery, Clarity will come in extremely helpful.
Clarity will refill your mana by 50% and nearby allies’ mana by 25%.
IGNITE
If players choose to take Sorcery as their main rune tree, players will want to take Ignite as it inflicts enemies with Grevious Wounds and deals true damage. Use Ignite to finish off enemy champions, especially if they are about to run away.
RUNE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BURST DAMAGE (DOMINATION/SORCERY)
Ziggs plays like many other mages such as Veigar, Morgana, Twisted Fate, Heimerdinger, Brand, Karthus, Anivia, Teemo, Zyra, Soraka, AP Miss Fortune, and Malzahar where he can either use domination runes or sorcery runes.
As mentioned, with Ziggs there are a few different Rune trees you can take to make your gaming experience smoother. Choosing which rune tree is better will depend on your play style and whether or not you are comfortable with the perks from each tree.
The following are the runes I always take with Ziggs in ARAM. They help make sure that I get takedowns and are especially useful when pairing using Ziggs’ Bouncing Bomb & Hexplosive Minefield. Since Dark Harvest has a 100% proc chance when enemy champions are hit, players who are able to land skill-shots are more likely to deal heavier damage than they would with Arcane Comet.
Other pros of this build include the massive amount of health it provides for damaging champions on enemy minions.
DARK HARVEST
Damaging champions below 50% deals 20-60 (+ 15% AP) damage based on your level. Each soul that you harvest adds +2 Damage (ARAM only).
Players will only be able to collect souls every 45 seconds or can reset Dark Harvest’s cooldown to 1.5 seconds by being part of an enemy takedown.
Ziggs can easily proc Dark Harvest with his Q, sealing kills for his team. Dark Harvest works extremely well with Ludens Echo and Ziggs’ E, especially when enemies let down their guard and don’t think of Ziggs as a threat.
Since Ziggs’ damage plateaus, simply because he’s a mage and cannot deal sustained damage, Dark Harvest helps balance him out to make sure that he is still powerful by end-game. I can’t tell you how lovely it is to have 20+ stacks of Dark Harvest 10-12 minutes into a game, because every time you smack an enemy champion you just keep building on that preset damage.
It’s important to note that even though runes like Scorch or burns from Liandry’s Torment are extremely powerful, they do not proc Dark Harvest. Ziggs players will have to be on top of their damage to make sure they are always making use of Dark Harvest. There’s nothing worse than having a soul to collect and allowing teammates to kill the enemy before you collect the soul.
TASTE OF BLOOD (OR CHEAP SHOT)
Damaging enemy champions heal players between 18-35 health based on level + 10% of their bonus AP. Taste of Blood can proc every 15 seconds in ARAM.
Taste of Blood will help players receive a bit more health while damaging enemy champions. While Taste of Blood isn’t the best way to heal, there are no other runes that are worthwhile, other than maybe Cheap Shot.
Cheap Shot will deal 10-45 (based on level) bonus true damage to champions who have impaired movement or actions. Cheap Shot has an extremely short cooldown, being 4 seconds. Cheap Shot works really well with Ziggs’ E.
EYEBALL COLLECTION
Collect 1 Eyeball per champion takedown, up to 10. Each eye gives a 1.2 AD bonus or 2 AP per Eyeball. Once players have received 10 Eyeballs they will also receive 6 bonus AD or 10 AP.
Eyeball Collection is the only Rune players can take in this tier for ARAM.
RAVENOUS HUNTER
Abilities Heal for 1.5% of damage + 2.5% per every champion takedown for a maximum of 5 stacks. Healing is reduced to 1/3 on AoE damage.
Ravenous Hunter is the absolute best rune in my opinion when it comes to healing, especially because it does not have a cooldown and can help mages like Ziggs survive without building Rod of Ages.
As soon as I started using Domination as my main rune tree for Ziggs, I realized my damage skyrocketed simply due to the items I was able to build earlier instead of waiting to build defensive items.
MANAFLOW BAND
Hitting enemy champions with an ability will permanently increase your maximum mana by 25 (cooldown 15 seconds), up to a maximum of 250 mana. Although players will receive an increase in the maximum mana they can have, proccing Manaflow Band will not provide an increase in your current mana.
Once players have capped out their maximum mana at 250 bonus mana, they will receive 1% of their missing mana every 5 seconds.
Manaflow Band can be swapped out for Scorch in my opinion if Ziggs players don’t need the extra Mana or if they are focussing on building more damage. Gathering Storm also works well for long games, though Scorch is better for early game.
TRANSCENDENCE
At level 10 players will receive 10% CDR and 1.2 AD or 2AP for every 1% CDR that goes over the 40% cap (or 45% if using Cosmic Insight).
I would always recommend taking Transcendence especially because cooldown reduction is necessary to play Ziggs well. If players do not have enough cooldown reduction they will quickly realize how vulnerable Ziggs really is and may continuously die.
Ziggs doesn’t have any getaway tricks, other than his W which has a fairly long cooldown in comparison to some other mages, so getting at least 30% CDR is important.
RUNE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUSTAINED DAMAGE
The following is the classic rune setup for Ziggs players. Although players can benefit from choosing to keep Ziggs in his Sorcery box, players will still want to stick to using both Sorcery and Domination.
Choosing to play Ziggs with Sorcery as the main rune tree and domination as the second will still allow Ziggs players to deal high damage, though arguably Ziggs will not be able to play as aggressively.
ARCANE COMET
Damaging enemy champions with an ability causes an Arcane Comet to be thrown at the enemy’s current location. The Arcane Comet can deal between 30-100 plus +20% AP. Damaging enemy champions with abilities will help reduce the cooldown of Arcane Comet, though the cooldown sits between 8-20 seconds based on player levels.
Arcane Comet can be avoided in many situations, which is why I avoid taking it. Players can secure Arcane Comet hits by impairing enemy champions, though this may require the help of teammates.
If players are using Sorcery as their main rune tree, Arcane Comet is the best keystone rune as the others do not provide as helpful stats to Ziggs.
MANAFLOW BAND
Hitting enemy champions with an ability will permanently increase your maximum mana by 25 (cooldown 15 seconds), up to a maximum of 250 mana. Although players will receive an increase in the maximum mana they can have, proccing Manaflow Band will not provide an increase in your current mana.
Once players have capped out their maximum mana at 250 bonus mana, they will receive 1% of their missing mana every 5 seconds.
Manaflow Band can be swapped out for Scorch in my opinion if Ziggs players don’t need the extra Mana or if they are focussing on building more damage. Gathering Storm also works well for long games, though Scorch is better for early game.
TRANSCENDENCE
At level 10 players will receive 10% CDR and 1.2 AD or 2AP for every 1% CDR that goes over the 40% cap (or 45% if using Cosmic Insight).
I would always recommend taking Transcendence especially because cooldown reduction is necessary to play Ziggs well. If players do not have enough cooldown reduction they will quickly realize how vulnerable Ziggs really is and may continuously die.
Ziggs doesn’t have any getaway tricks, other than his W which has a fairly long cooldown in comparison to some other mages, so getting at least 30% CDR is important.
GATHERING STORM
Gain adaptive damage for every 6 minutes of gameplay. The stats are as follows: 0, 8, 24, 48, and 80 AP
Since Gathering Storm takes a while before it gives players a big boost in stats, players will want to make sure that they are on their way or going to build Rabadon’s Deathcap. Without Rabadon’s Deathcap, Gathering Storm tends to be useless or not as effective.
If players don’t see themselves building Rabadon’s Deathcap or are not fans of the item in general, I would recommend taking Scorch instead as it provides more sustain damage from the beginning of the game.
EYEBALL COLLECTION (OR CHEAP SHOT)
Collect 1 Eyeball per champion takedown, up to 10. Each eye gives a 1.2 AD bonus or 2 AP per Eyeball. Once players have received 10 Eyeballs they will also receive 6 bonus AD or 10 AP.
Eyeball Collection is the only Rune players can take in this tier for ARAM (unless they choose a different tier and go with Cheap Shot.)
Cheap Shot will deal 10-45 (based on level) bonus true damage to champions who have impaired movement or actions. Cheap Shot has an extremely short cooldown, being 4 seconds. Cheap Shot works really well with Ziggs’ E.
RAVENOUS HUNTER
Abilities Heal for 1.5% of damage + 2.5% per every champion takedown for a maximum of 5 stacks. Healing is reduced to 1/3 on AoE damage.
Ravenous Hunter is the absolute best rune in my opinion when it comes to healing, especially because it does not have a cooldown and can help mages like Ziggs survive without building Rod of Ages.
As soon as I started using Domination as my main rune tree for Ziggs, I realized my damage skyrocketed simply due to the items I was able to build earlier instead of waiting to build defensive items.
SKILL LEVEL UP RECOMMENDATIONS & STRATEGY
Ziggs is an interesting champion to play, especially because players can choose whether or not they want to max out his Q or E based on who he is up against.
I recommend maxing out your abilities in the following order Q, E, W, and maxing your Ultimate out as necessary.
BOUNCING BOMB (Q)
Ziggs’ Q, Bouncing Bomb, will allow players to do high AoE damage from a distance. Maxing out Bouncing Bomb first will allow Ziggs players to stay far away from enemy champions, poking them down with relative ease. Maxing Bouncing Bomb first is extremely effective if players choose to use Dark Harvest as their keystone rune.
Bouncing Bomb should be used every time it is off cooldown and players should not have to worry about spamming the ability. Ziggs players will probably do the most damage using their Q and can even deal damage to enemy champions while they are standing under turrets.
Upgrading Bouncing Bomb will raise the mana cost by 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70, will decrease its cooldown to 6 / 5.5 / 5 / 4.5 / 4 seconds and will raise its damage by 85 / 130 / 175 / 220 / 265 (+ 65% AP).
HEXPLOSIVE MINEFIELD (E)
Ziggs’ E, Hexplosive Minefield is equally as powerful, however, it lacks the range Ziggs’ Bouncing Bomb has for the trade-off of AoE damage. If you are playing on a team that doesn’t have great wave clear, I recommend maxing out this ability first as the damage can annihilate waves of minions. If you choose to use Sorcery you may want to max out your E first, though be wary of overusing it as you may run out of mana!
Always make sure to lay Hexplosive Minefields down whenever you are in team fights as it is one of the best ways to deal heavy damage to all enemy champions. Mexplosive Minefields will also reduce an enemy’s movement speed, slowing them down for 1.5 seconds. Enemies that take damage from multiple mines will take 40% damage from subsequent mines.
Upgrading Hexplosive Minefield will raise the mana cost by 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110, increasing the slow to 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50%, increasing the magic damage per mine to 40 / 75 / 110 / 145 / 180 (+ 30% AP) and raising the additional magic damage to 16 / 30 / 44 / 58 / 72 (+ 12% AP).
SATCHEL CHARGE (W)
Never max out Ziggs’ W, Satchel Charge, first or second. It’s never worth it.
Satchel Charge deals AoE damage after 4 seconds or upon reactivating the ability. Ziggs players can use Satchel Charge to knockback enemy champions or will cause Ziggs players to fly (double the distance of knockback)
Upgrading Satchel Charge will reduce its cooldown to 20 / 18 / 16 / 14 / 12, raises its magic damage to 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 (+ 50% AP) and will allow Ziggs players to immediately demolish turrets with Satchel Charge when it has 25 / 27.5 / 30 / 32.5 / 35% of turret’s maximum health.
Make sure to place Satchel Charge early so you can cause it to explode even if you’re not right next to the turret.
GEAR ORDER FOR DAMAGE (DOMINATION/SORCERY)
First Buy: Lost Chapter (High damage, 20% max mana upon level up and 10% CDR)
LUDENS ECHO
High Ability Power, Extra Mana, 20% Cooldown Reduction and can cause extra AoE damage to help proc Dark Harvest? Yes, please.
SORCERER’S SHOES
Sorcerer’s Shoes will provide players with magic penetration and movement speed.
LIANDRY’S TORMENT
If players do not need any defensive items or do not need cooldown reduction I would recommend using Liandry’s Torment so they can do sustained burn damage.
Liandry’s Torment gives 75 Ability Power and 300 Health. As a passive Liandry’s Torment will also deal 2% more damage per second in combat with enemy champions, up to a maximum of 10%. Spells will also burn enemies for 3 seconds dealing 1.5% of the player’s maximum health per second. If enemies are experiencing movement impairments they will receive an extra 2.5% damage from the burn.
MORELLONOMICON
Morellonomicon will provide players will Ability Power, dealing 70 AP and giving players an extra 300 Health, which will also work very well with Liandry’s Torment.
Morellonomicon provides players with 15 Magic Penetration as well as Grievous Wounds for 3 seconds.
RABADON’S DEATHCAP
Need to amplify all that sexy Ability Power? Grab Rabadon’s Deathcap for 120 AP with a 40% AP increase.
Rabadon’s works best with Gathering Storm, however, is just useful no matter what.
VOID STAFF
It’s always great to have magic pen, especially if you’re up against a tanky team!
BUILD ORDER FOR SUSTAIN (SORCERY/DOMINATION)
First Buy: Tear of the Goddess or Catalyst of Aeons
ROD OF AGES
Rod of Ages gives bonus Health, Mana and Ability Power every minute for up to 10 minutes. This equals out to 200 Health, 100 Mana and 40 Ability Power, on top of its already 60 Ability Power, 300 Health, and 300 Mana. After 10 minutes Rod of Ages will have a total of 100 Ability Power, 500 Health and 400 Mana. Those are some pretty sweet stats at the end of the day. Players will also restore mana equal to 15% of the damage taken from champions.
Rod of Ages is not necessary, however, given how hard it can be for Ziggs players to escape, it can be one of the best ways to heal yourself up in times of need. Rod of Ages provides Health equal to 20% of mana spent for up to 25 health per cast.
SORCERER’S SHOES
Sorcerer’s Shoes will provide players with magic penetration and movement speed.
ARCHANGEL’S STAFF
Quite frankly, Archangel’s Staff is one of the best ways players can make sure that they always have enough mana to fight as Ziggs.
Archangel’s Staff will provide players with 50 AP, 20% Cooldown, 650 Mana and will also provide players with AP equal to 1% of their maximum mana and will always refund 25% of their mana spent.
Every 4 seconds players can proc 3 charges, providing players with 8 maximum Mana upon casting an ability. Upon receiving 750 mana from this passive, Archangel’s Staff will transform into Seraph’s Embrace, which provides players with an active shield.
MORELLONOMICON
Morellonomicon will provide players will Ability Power, dealing 70 AP and giving players an extra 300 Health, which will also work very well with Liandry’s Torment.
Morellonomicon provides players with 15 Magic Penetration as well as Grievous Wounds for 3 seconds.
LIANDRY’S TORMENT
If players do not need any defensive items or do not need cooldown reduction I would recommend using Liandry’s Torment so they can do sustained burn damage.
Liandry’s Torment gives 75 Ability Power and 300 Health. As a passive Liandry’s Torment will also deal 2% more damage per second in combat with enemy champions, up to a maximum of 10%. Spells will also burn enemies for 3 seconds dealing 1.5% of the player’s maximum health per second. If enemies are experiencing movement impairments they will receive an extra 2.5% damage from the burn.
Liandry’s Torment can be paired up with Rod of Ages to deal more damage from maximum health. Rod of Ages will also provide players with extra healing based on the damage players deal to enemies. If players choose to team Liandry’s Torment up with Rod of Ages, Rod of Ages should be built as the first item.
RABADON’S DEATHCAP
Need to amplify all that sexy Ability Power? Grab Rabadon’s Deathcap for 120 AP with a 40% AP increase.
Rabadon’s works best with Gathering Storm, however, is just useful no matter what.
CONCLUSION
At the end of the day, the way that you play Ziggs is going to depend on what your playstyle is. The lovely thing about League of Legends is that there are multiple pathways to get to the same goal.
I, for example, am a Domination slut, while my partner will use Sorcery over Domination any day. I personally love to go in and avoid building health items, relying on my runes to heal me throughout the game instead.
So, I’m curious, how do you like to play Ziggs? Do you think that he has a specific META he should follow while playing ARAM? Let me know in the comments below!
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