For players trying to learn a new champ or players new to the game, it can be confusing to understand the build path. There are so many champions in the game that benefit from more than one play style as well as different item paths.
For people looking to learn Draven, the build path is generally straightforward. The play style, however, is much more difficult to execute. This is an iconic champion in the game League of Legends. He is one of the oldest champions and one of the few champions with a play style set in stone.
To answer the initial question, Draven is an attack damage or AD champion. That does not mean that there is only one build on the champion. Even among AD items, there can be a lot of varying build paths. These change according to the game situation and the enemy team.
Essentially, there are two main routes available to Draven players as far as the build path is concerned. You can go for either the lethality path or focus on doing damage via critical strikes. Furthermore, there is also the rune page and play style to know before one can truly be effective on the champion.
Why is Draven AD and Not AP?
All damage-dealing champions in League of Legends do either physical or magic damage. The physical damage dealers generally benefit from items that give attack damage. Similarly, the magic damage dealing champions benefit from ability power.
If a champion has attack damage ratios in his abilities that boost their damage, making attack damage will be advantageous for them. While champions with ability power ratios in their abilities and kit will find it in their interest to make ability power.
Draven is an AD champion because of a couple of things. His abilities damage is enhanced by making attack damage. The other thing is that he is an auto attacker by nature. “Blood Rush” gives him an attack speed boost while the majority of Draven’s damage is in his Spinning Axe which increases with his physical damage.
So, it becomes pretty obvious that this champion is an attack damage champion. Since Draven is also a ranged auto attacker going for a critical strike-focused build is often the best path for him.
Runes and Starting Items
For the primary rune page, there are not many different options that you need to choose from. Draven works best with “Lethal Tempo” as compared to the other keystone options. In some cases, people also go for the “Hail of Blades” or “Conqueror” but Lethal Tempo is by far the most common.
After Tempo, you take “Triumph” and “Legend: Bloodline” while for the last rune you have an option. You either go for the “Coup de Grace” or “Last Stand”. Both of these runes are viable and constantly used by Draven players. Although, Last Stand does seem to be more preferred as compared to the Coup de Grace.
For the secondary rune page, Domination is the best option available. “Eyeball Collection” coupled with “Treasure Hunter” is the most approved combo in this rune page. You can replace Eyeball Collection with “Taste of Blood” to get more sustain for the lane but Treasure Hunter is irreplaceable for Draven.
The starting item that is most commonly bought on Draven is the “Doran’s Blade” and a health potion. If you feel that the lane is one where there will be a lot of fighting, you can also go for the “Long Sword” start. This not only gives you a couple of extra health potions but more AD for early trades.
Lethality Build Path
The Lethality build path for Draven is often the best way to go. This item path works best when the enemy team has a lot of low resistance or “squishy” champs. These are generally easy-to-kill champions for which you do not need to invest in making DPS or penetration items.
The Lethality items give a lot of burst damage. For Draven, a champion that has extremely high damage on his own, this gives him the opportunity to kill off enemies really quickly. Not to mention this also enhances his ultimate damage quite a lot.
The mythic or core item for this build path is “Eclipse”. There is no alternative, this is the best mythic item for Draven. Eclipse is followed by “Essence Reaver” and then you generally go for “The Collector”. “Maw of Malmortius” is a very legitimate option for defense against magic damage.
If you do not need magic resistance, you normally go for “Lord Dominik’s Regards”. The last item is most often a choice between several items. You can go for “Rapid Firecanon”, “Guardian Angel”, “Infinity Edge” or “Bloodthirster” etc. It comes down to which item works best in the game.
Critical Strike Build Path
The critical strike build path incorporates many of the items that the Lethality style uses. This is mainly because Draven is an auto-attack-based champion. As such there are not many variations in build paths that offer you the same effectiveness.
The crit build path is generally more focused on dealing with tanky opposition that requires more DPS to kill. The mythic item is still Eclipse as this item ends up giving you a large amount of armor penetration. The other option is “Immortal Shieldbow”. This is a defensive item that offers survivability.
The second item is either the Essence Reaver or The Collector. Unlike in the Lethality build path where you made both of these, you have a choice to make only one of these in the crit path. Most of the time the third item will be Lord Dominik’s Regards to provide armor penetration.
The second last item is Infinity Edge. Infinity Edge can also be made before the armor penetration if you feel it will give you more damage. The last item, however, is either a Bloodthirster, Guardian Angel, or Rapid Firecannon. These are the best options available among the items you can buy at the end.
Playstyle
Draven is the biggest bully in the bot lane. He does more damage than any other ADC in the early game. This is thanks to the “Spinning Axe” which adds a lot of damage to the champions’ basic attacks when active. Due to this advantage, he is able to win the majority of trades against the enemy bot lane.
Since he is so strong in the early game, Draven is an extremely aggressive champion in the laning phase. You wish to dominate the enemy lane and make leads for yourself early on in the game. Draven scales appreciatively but not as much as some of the other ADC champions. This is why the champion needs to get ahead using his early game prowess to not be out scaled by his counterpart.
There is a downside that you need to be aware of when playing Draven. His major damage boost comes from the Spinning Axe and to maintain that advantage you need to constantly catch axes. This is easier said than done and requires a lot of practice and understanding of the champion.
Once you have access to the “Whirling Death”, you have significantly more kill threat in the lane. This is because of the boost in burst damage you now have thanks to your ultimate. The enemy laners often play even more defensively due to this and end up giving Draven way too much freedom.
Final Thoughts
As we now know, Draven is without a doubt an AD champion. His damage increases exponentially from making physical damage. He is widely regarded as a heavy-hitting marksman with an overwhelming advantage in the early game over his marksman brethren.
The lane dominating and aggressive playstyle has been tried and tested over time and proven to be a success. This is because Draven has to this day not received any single change or update that deters him from being played in this manner.
(5 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)
Loading...