Is Evelynn AP or AD? – Everything You Need To Know

Evelynn is one of the most prominent assassin junglers in League of Legends. However, there are many junglers in the game that belong to the assassin role. So, what makes this particular champion stand out from the rest?

For starters, Evelynn is the only champion in the game that is permanently camouflaged thanks to her passive, Demon Shade. No other assassin in the game has such a quality. As one may guess, permanent camouflage is a feature that highly increases the potency of an assassin.

Furthermore, even though the champion is melee by nature, it is an ability power champion. There are not many truly effective AP junglers in the game. There are even fewer out-and-out AP assassins of any note that are viable junglers. This adds a lot of value to Evelynn’s usefulness as a champion.

Now that you have more information on why it is worthwhile to learn this champion, there are a few more things to know before you can get into it. You need to know the build you need to follow for maximizing your champion’s use. You also need to know the general game plan and playstyles you need to adopt.

Runes

As we know, there is a primary as well as a secondary rune page that you have to choose. Evelynn has options available in both of them. It is beneficial to discuss these different options and understand the difference in what they provide.

Primary Rune Page

The primary rune page is the page from which you can select a rune out of every row. For Evelynn, the Domination page is the front runner for the primary rune page. The choice for the primary rune page is mostly decided by what keystone you want.

“Electrocute” is the best keystone choice for this champion. It gives a significant amount of additional burst to an already high burst damage assassin champion. “Dark Harvest” is also an option but Electrocute is just the better choice for Evelynn.

The keystone is followed by “Sudden Impact” and “Eyeball Collection”. To round off the page, “Relentless Hunter” is the widely accepted choice. “Treasure Hunter” is also a decent option. The permanent increase in movement speed from Relentless Hunter usually outweighs the early boost in gold.

The only other keystone that seems to be available for Evelynn is the “First Strike” rune. However, as the Inspiration page is much more utility-focused, it cannot compete with Domination in terms of combat stats. Thus, Domination is the first choice by a long shot.

Secondary Rune Page

For the secondary rune page, there are two main choices for Evelynn. These are the Sorcery and the Inspiration page. In the Sorcery page, the runes you take are “Absolute Focus” and “Gathering Storm”. Thanks to her ultimate’s passive Evelynn is almost always at a healthy HP, thus the reason for taking absolute focus.

In the Inspiration page, your best options are “Magical Footwear” and “Cosmic Insight”. These runes are focused on providing utility as opposed to the combat bonuses that you get from the Sorcery page. It depends on the player and what they wish to take into the game.

These are the choices for the secondary rune page if you are going with the Domination page as your primary. In case you are taking the Inspiration page as your primary with the First Strike keystone, then you take the Domination page as your secondary.

“Sudden Impact” is the irreplaceable first choice. The second rune offers much more flexibility. You can go for the Eyeball Collection to get bonus magic penetration. Other than this, you have the Relentless or the Treasure Hunter runes to choose from. Movement speed or a boost in gold from early takedowns.

Starting and Early Game Items

The first decision of the game for all League players is what to buy as the starting item. For junglers, the choice is between the “Hailblade” and the “Ember Knife”. Evelynn heavily prefers the Hailblade. This adds some bonus damage as well as the ability to steal movement speed from enemies.

“Dark Seal” is a frequently bought early game item on this champion. This is one of the few champions in the game that actually likes to upgrade the Dark Seal to “Mejais Soulstealer”. The reason behind this is that Evelynn can consistently get kills as well as have a reliable escape via the “Last Caress”.

It is also not uncommon to see an early “Sorceror’s Shoes” buy on the champion. This is because these give Evelynn statistics that are extremely useful on the champion. First of all, the magic penetration that the boots provide is a massive damage boost in just 1100 gold.

Secondly, the increased movement speed to get around the map can hardly be overlooked. As a jungler, being in the right place at the right time to help your team is integral. It not only helps you gank but you also get to counter-gank the enemy jungler a lot more efficiently.

Build Path

The build path for Evelynn is quite unique. The start is simple enough as you buy the most ideal mythic item to start off your build. “Hextech Rocketbelt” is that item for this champion. It gives a gap close, an additional burst of damage as well as stacking magic penetration as its passive.

The second item is where the build goes off the beaten path as far as ability power champions are concerned. Evelynn likes to get “Rabadon’s Deathcap” straight after the Rocketbelt in almost every situation. This is something that you see rarely on other champions but it is the norm for this champion.

For your third item, you have to assess the game situation and choose from one of two options. If the enemy team does not have tanky champions or people that are stacking magic resistance, you buy “Lich Bane”. If the afore-mentioned situations are occurring then you buy the “Void Staff”.

In any case, you will end up buying both Lich Bane and Void Staff in most games. For your last item, you will either have completed the Soulstealer if the Dark Seal was giving fruitful returns. If not, then the last item is a “Banshee’s Veil” for defensive purposes. “Shadowflame” is also an option if the enemy has shields or low-health targets.

Playstyle

The most important feature of Evelynn’s kit is the camouflage she gets after reaching level 6. The camouflage allows her to go unseen from all types of wards except for Control wards. You can use this quality to gank enemies or catch them off guard after lane in ways that normal junglers are unable to.

Evelynn can literally be in the middle of the lane and the enemy will not know. This is just one of the many examples of how the Demon Shade allows you to gank and impact the game with much more ease than the average jungler.

Other than the invisibility from Demon Shade, the other ability to aid in ganks is Allure. You mark a target and after 2.5 seconds they are charmed if you hit them with an ability or attack. Thanks to this built-in crowd control ability, you do not need your laners to provide any crowd control for a gank to work.

Evelynn’s ultimate does higher damage to targets with low health and also helps you escape while going untargetable. The Last Caress can be used simultaneously as an execute and an escape. Lich Bane is highly effective because Whiplash applies on-hit effects and thus the damage from Lich Bane as well.

Final Thoughts

There is only one drawback that comes to mind when you think about Evelynn. She needs a bit of time to get going. Essentially, you need your level 6 for Demon Shade’s upgrade of camouflage to start being effective and really impacting the game.

As we know, the jungle role is all about having an impact right from the early game to put your team in an advantageous position. If the enemy jungler is super active before the level 6 mark, it can put a lot of pressure on the Evelynn player.

Having said that, as you get more and more used to playing the champion, it will also give you experience on how to deal with such a situation. Once you do hit level 6, impacting the game is much easier for Evelynn than the jungler that has to find creative gank pathing to avoid enemy wards.