[Guide] - Ap Carrying

This will be a guide informing you about tips and ways to play an AP carry


What is an AP carry?
An AP hero is a mage caster champion. They focus on dealing damage through spells with each hero having a certain unique play style. You would tend to want to buy AP items to boost the power of your champion. There are many variations of AP champions and we will get into those different categories later in this guide.

How to play an AP carry
Generally, almost all of the AP champions in the game are burst or nuke dps champions. Which is basically, your champion will deal damage through spells and after you go through your spell rotation, your only way of attacking will go on cooldown. (your spells) That is called a burst and some champions have a nuke- which is basically one skill that does a ton of damage. When you play an AP hero, you want to focus on knowing when to use certain spells and when to save spells for later uses.

I will be using Annie as an example of an AP carry. Annie is a perfect representation of a burst dps mage champion. She has a single target nuke, and two AOE nukes; one of which is her ultimate which summons a pet that she can control. When I play Annie , I focus on building massive amounts of AP item-wise. Which is basically grabbing a Rabadons and a Zhonyas. Getting a Zhonyas is essential in playing burst champions. As activating Zhonyas active effect will put you in a non-targetable state, allowing you to have a few seconds of peace and allowing your cooldowns to be refreshed for a few seconds. Timed right and zhonyas can dodge certain abilities such as Karthus' ultimate and Cailtyn's ultimate to name a few.

When I play Annie, I make sure to buy some survivability, like Rylai's crystal scepter (not only does it give you tons of health and AP, it also gives you a passive of slowing champions when you damage them with any kind of AP) . A Rod of Ages is also very effective in giving an AP champion extra AP, mana and health. Rod of Ages (ROA) is better to be obtained early game: as its passive gives you more AP, mana and health over time.

Two big parts of playing a hero is positioning and knowing when to use your skills and when to save them for later. When you enter a team fight as an AP champion, usually two things will happen. If you are fed and are doing massive damage to their team. If the other team is coordinated enough, they will see it fit to kill you off first. That is when you want to hang in the back of your team and go in and out, waiting for your cool downs on the wings of the fight and then going back in. If they are not focusing you, then you can go wild on everyone, nine times out of ten, you will not want to use all of your spells at once on a tank. Consider doing the most damage you can to one of their DPS champions who might be able to kill your teammates easily.

Annie's passive is a perfect way to practice; knowing when to use your spells. After every five spell casts, the next offensive spell will have the ability to stun the target. The stun is a key to Annie's play style. Casting her W and E ability at your fountain or elsewhere to get your stun up is essential in surviving and taking down champions. Knowing when to use her ultimate and W ability is very essential to her play style too as those two OFFENSIVE abilities will allow her to stun multiple targets since those two abilities do AOE damage. Her ultimate: summon Tibbers, will summon a pet for her which does tons of damage on summon and tons of damage as it hits enemies. There are two situations in where you should summon Tibbers, no matter what. If you are taking on two or more enemy champions, summoning Tibbers as your stunning offensive ability to stun several of them, allowing your team or yourself to pick up a few kills easily. The second scenario is if you are pushing a tower and taking the tower is essential to your team's success, you would want to summon tibers to be able to have an extra damage dealer to the tower. Tibbers can also be used as a tank against tower as long as Tibbers doesn't hit an enemy champion, Annie will not draw tower aggro. (Tower Aggro - standing too close to the tower, or attacking an enemy champion near their tower will result in getting focused and hit by said tower)


Why you would want to play an AP hero.
If your team had no AP champion, that would put your team at a HUGE disadvantage. It would make your team a heavily AD team where the other team would have no hardship in buying armor to reduce the damage your whole team does. Having a balance of AD and AP champions will allow you to make the other team think twice about buying either armor or magic resistance.


Builds that we find effective:
Massive amounts of AP, this is for players who are confident in their abilities to get kills and not get killed.
1) Dorans Ring
2) Boots
3) Dorans Ring
4) Needlessly Large Rod
5) Rabadons
6) Sorcerer Boots
7) Rylai's Crystal Scepter (for health and the slow passive)
8) Will of the Ancients (for spell vamp)
9) Zhonya's Hourlgass
10) A defensive item- for ex. Banshee's Veil or more ap in the form of a void staff if the other team has alot of magic resistance

A build for very mana hungry champions
1) Dorans Ring ( sell later)
2) Boots
3) Catalyst the Protector
4) Rod of Ages
5) Upgraded boots that best suit your play-style
6) Rabadons Deathcap
7) Arch Angel's Staff
8) Banshee's Veil if you need it- this can be subsituted with another Arch Angel's Staff- its passive where 3% of your max mana turns into AP- that passive stacks.
9) Void Staff if the other team has alot of magic resist, a Rylai's or a Zhonya's if you feel you are dying too fast.




Super Burst Damage
1) If you feel up to it- Amplifying tome and 1 health potion
2) Kage's Lucky Pick
3) Boots
4) Zhonya's
5) Deathire grasp
6) Mercury Treads or Sorcerer boots
7) Rabadon's
8) Rylai's
9) Lich bane, Banshee's veil or a Void staff

If you are just starting to play, I would recommend Annie as a fun and cheap champion to buy and maneuver yourself with an AP champion before you move on to buying really expensive champions.

Annie

Thank you for taking your time to read this guide on how to play an AP champion.
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