Champion Breakdown: Miss Fortune Support

With the introduction of First Strike, Miss Fortune support has become a potent pick thanks to how well she synergizes with this new keystone; let’s break it down.

Introduction

First Strike is a versatile keystone, as it increases your damage by 10% and grants you gold based on the bonus damage dealt to enemy champions. This effect lasts for 3 seconds and its cooldown ranges from 10-25 seconds (based on level), but in order to proc it, you must deal damage or land CC within 0.25 of entering champion combat. Therefore, it’s essential that you start a trade or react quickly when the enemy attacks first.

Thankfully, Miss Fortune support can initiate trades easily thanks to the long-range slow provided by her E (Make It Rain) and follow up with a Q (Double-Up). By buying Spellthief’s Edge, these trades will have their damage amplified and grant a great amount of gold between Spellthief’s Edge and First Strike. During the laning phase, focus on proccing First Strike as much as possible and chipping away at the enemy. The amount of poke damage you have at your disposal will translate into pressure and typically a pushing lane, so make sure you ward the river to ensure the enemy jungler won’t gank you while you are pushed up.

Mid/Late Game

Once you’ve been able to buy a couple of AP items thanks to the extra gold generated by First Strike, Miss Fortune’s poke damage becomes incredibly oppressive once the laning phase is over. By maxing your E and building Liandry’s Anguish and Demonic Embrace, the burn damage can shred through targets from afar and whittle them down before the team fight has even begun, while you stay safe in the back line. Strut (W) should be maxed second as the increased movement speed allows you to roam quickly around the map to place vision and prepare for incoming objectives. Your ultimate (Bullet Time) also has some AP scaling, meaning its damage will be enhanced and it can serve as an excellent zoning tool during a team fight.

Additionally, remember the gold granted by First Strike scales with the amount of damage you deal once it’s been procced, meaning you will be gaining more gold the later the game goes on and the more damage items you’ve been able to build. This means you are able to accelerate your gold income once you’ve picked up a couple of items and allow you to increase your damage much quicker than other damage-focused supports.

Item Build

As previously mentioned, Liandry’s Anguish and Demonic Embrace are essential items for Miss Fortune support as they can be procced very easily with her E and will shred through enemies. Sorcerer’s Shoes are optimal, as you don’t particularly need the ability haste provided by Ioanian Boots of Lucidity. The rest of your build will depend on the state of the game:

Morellonomicom should be built to counter teams with a lot of healing
Shadowflame can counter teams with a lot of shielding
Horizon Focus can increase your First Strike damage/gold after you’ve slowed enemies with your E
Zhonya’s Hourglass and Banshee’s Veil are great defensive options if you are being targeted

Runes

Considering how much you will be poking enemies, it’s very important you choose Biscuit Delivery and Manaflow Band to ensure you have a sufficient amount of mana. Scorch is great if you are looking to get ahead early and snowball to victory, while Gathering Storm can be chosen instead if you are hoping to scale.

Summary

First Strike Miss Fortune support is a really fun build that packs a surprising punch; once you have picked up a couple of items, the amount of poke damage you can do from such a long range is ridiculous, and you will often be topping the damage charts. The key to victory is to stay focused on poking from afar: this is how you will deal the most damage and generate the most gold, rather than getting greedy and putting yourself in vulnerable positions.

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