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

When you first gaze at a champion like Fiddlesticks, he might radiate energy that fails to match reality and falls far behind expectations. Fiddlesticks is associated with his ultimate ability and will forever be known by that single spell.

What makes his ultimate so potent is that a good ultimate can potentially fear up to 5 members of the team he uses it on. This also makes Fiddlesticks one of the few junglers in the game that can really “carry” the game.

Here is what you should know about Fiddlesticks as a champion in LoL.

Fiddlesticks is primarily an AP champion in League. None of his abilities have an AD ratio so it is pretty much impossible to go AD on him. Additionally, FIddle players have occasionally built tanky and went to the toplane and won due to his W drain out healing most toplaners’ damage alongside a tank item.

Fiddle also has access to a superb clear speed due to the drain on his W allowing for multiple camps to be done at the same time. Fiddlesticks was reworked back in 2021 and is often labeled as the “best rework Riot has done yet”.

Pre-rework, Fiddlesticks used to be a niche support pick and you would occasionally see him picked in the jungle role. Post-rework, his kit got an entirely new feel and all the clunky mechanics were removed in favor of incredibly useful high damage output ones.

Fiddlesticks is a one-of-a-kind AP assassin/battlemage and nothing can come close to his exact playstyle although champions like Kennen definitely try to.

What Are Fiddlesticks’ Abilities?

P- A Harmless Scarecrow

Fiddlesticks starts the game with a customized Scarecrow Effigy, which takes up the trinket slot indefinitely. Fiddlesticks may impersonate an Effigy by staying still for 2 seconds and not acting or being acted upon, during which time it adjusts its body like a scarecrow and extends its arm out to expose its lantern.

From level 6, putting an Effigy summons a demonic eyeball that offers obscured vision of enemy units that are not visible in the region for 6 seconds, as well as revealing and disarming enemy wards and stealthed traps.

Q- Terrify

Passive: If Fiddlesticks has been out of battle for at least 2.5 seconds and is not visible to the enemy team, or is pretending to be an Effigy, its next damaging ability will also fear targets hit for a short period of time.

Active: Fiddlesticks throws a crow at the target enemy, doing magic damage and frightening them for a short time. Terrify has a minimum damage threshold of 400 against monsters.

Targets frightened by Fiddlesticks in any way cannot be impacted by it again for the length of Terrify’s cooldown. Terrify’s damage and minimum threshold are doubled against certain targets.

W- Bountiful Harvest

Over the cast time, Fiddlesticks creates a tether between himself and each nearby foe, then channels for up to 2 seconds to harvest their souls, disclosing them in the process.

The tethered foes are dealt magic damage every 0.25 seconds while Fiddlesticks is channelling, with the final tick at the end of the channel adding additional magic damage. Bountiful Harvest does 135% damage to monsters and 50% damage to minions.

Fiddlesticks himself for a portion of the damage delivered before mitigation, reduced to 45% against monsters and 15% against minions.

If all targets have died or broken their tethers, Bountiful Harvest is over. 60% of the current cooldown is returned if the channel was not interrupted.

E- Reap

Fiddlesticks slashes the target area with its scythe, causing magic damage and slowing opponents in the area for 1.25 seconds. At the middle, enemies are temporarily silenced.

R- Crowstorm

Fiddlesticks channels for 1.5 seconds, then blinks to the target area with a murder of crows swooping frantically about it for 5 seconds, inflicting magic damage to adjacent enemies every 0.25 seconds.

Is Full AP Fiddlesticks Worth it?

Full AP Fiddlesticks will always be worth it, according to both his winrate and his play style. Fiddle will always function flawlessly as an AP assassin, which is why he rests at a mind-boggling 52.44% winrate in plat+.

In addition to his winrate, full AP Fiddlesticks has the clear speed of a coked-up Master Yi in his R and it feels extremely satisfying to oneshot camps after getting just one item. This also allows for mechanics to develop in how you clear camps.

Fiddle is basically the inventor of doing red buff and chickens at the same time and is the only champion in the game (if I’m not mistaken) who can consistently do so.

This champion is quite literally an elo-hack for anyone looking to climb in the slightest, so do pick him up since he is definitely worth it.

How Do You Play Full AP Fiddlesticks In LoL?

If you are looking for a build for Fiddlesticks that will dominate while working well in the current meta, We have it.

Best runes for Full AP Fiddlesticks in LoL:

• First Strike- Dealing damage or utilising a crowd control effect on an enemy champion within the first 0.25 seconds of champion fighting awards 5 Gold and First Strike for 3 seconds, causing all post-mitigation damage given to champions to deal 9% more true damage. Following that, you receive 70% of all bonus damage dealt over the duration as gold. If you are attacked by a hostile champion, this effect does not apply, and first strike will go on full cooldown.
• Perfect timing- You obtain a Perfectly Timed Stopwatch after 14 minutes (reduced by 2 minutes anytime you score a takedown against an opponent champion). The Perfectly Timed Stopwatch is the same as the Stopwatch, however it only provides 250 Gold. Before earning a Perfectly Timed Stopwatch, a free Gold cosmetic, “Commencing Stopwatch,” occupies one of your item spaces.
• Future’s Market- You can borrow up to 145 Gold 145 (+ 5 Gold 5 every minute) to buy stuff, which is reflected as negative gold in your treasury.

After leaving the shop, a 50 Gold 50 loan fee is added to the amount of gold you owe.

• Cosmic insight- Gain 18 summoner spell haste and 10 item haste.
• Sudden Impact- Dealing damage to an enemy champion within 4 seconds of using a dash or blink, or exiting from stealth, grants 7 magic penetration for the next 5 seconds.
• Ultimate Hunter- Gain 6 ultimate haste (+ 5 every Bounty Hunter stack), up to 31 at 5 stacks.

Earn a Bounty Hunter stack every time you take down an enemy champion, up to one per unique champion.

For Bonuses, go double AP, and Armour or Magic resist depending on the matchup.

Best Item Build for Fiddlesticks:

• Sorcerer’s Boots- Huge power spike for all AP champions since all champions in the game barring a few have way lower magic resist compared to their armor
• Hextech Rocketbelt- A free dash alongside more magic penetration to aid in doing the most amount of damage possible
• Zhonya’s Hourglass- Insane outplay potential by using it inside your R and having your R still do the damage regardless
• Rabadon’s Deathcap- An AP steroid for all AP champions, Especially useful for assassins such as Fiddle
• Void Staff- Further magic pen for if the enemy team builds good MR items such as force of nature or Maw of Malmortius
• Rylai’s Crystal Sceptre- A slow that is useful for the lategame on your ultimate as it will help catch people in team fights or CC them easier.

Other than these items Fiddlesticks can build Ionian boots of lucidity, Plated Steelcaps, Mercury’s Treads, Liandry’s Anguish, Shadowflame, and demonic embrace to name a few.

What Lane Is Fiddlesticks Played In?

Fiddlesticks was only ever meant to be played in the jungle after his rework. His place in the support role was diminished and the time people spend playing him toplane was just when his base W healing was way too overtuned.

That being said, if you want to try him out in any lane beside the jungle, I would recommend following some other guide. The guide I wrote above is specifically only good in the jungle and it probably sucks for top Fiddle and/or mid Fiddle.

Either way, try him out in normals and if you like him, enjoy the LP gains in ranked!

Final Thoughts

Fiddle is consistently one of the most played junglers in the game for a reason. That reason simply is the fact that he is one of the few outliers who never see any nerfs despite having an above average winrate.

Even if he is not fun to play, people will still play him due to this reality. Fortunately for you, the reader, Fiddlesticks is more enjoyable than most other junglers because of his insanely easy and fast clear speed and also his 1v1 potential around camps that cannot be matched by anyone, not even Lee sin (pre 6)

So, if you think my article did a good job of defining where and when to play Fiddlesticks, alongside the basics of what he does so you can apply it in your games, let me know by leaving a comment alongside any other suggestion you may have in the comments section below. Till next time!