About WP SAW Top
SAW is a VERY under-estimated hero, especially when building weapon power. If you have a proper build consisting of plenty on lifesteal, you can rack up triple kills and almost win 1v3's if done properly.
He is a ranged monster that does best at close quarters. If you play him at a long range, he will not be in the teamfight after 2 seconds because he has low movement speed and a medium range. With WP, you want to focus on building stacks early, and wrecking the enemies late in the teamfights.
Why Lifesteal? Top
I feel that SAW is very hard to be very good at without lifesteal, you just die almost immediately! With the lifesteal, you survive a lot longer and deal more damage. With this build, you are looking to get spikes of lifesteal with the passive boost, and the crit which deals more damage. The more damage you deal = the higher the lifesteal you get is. So two serpents masks will not be a good option with your lack of damage. Also, with the new serpent mask and eve, stacking lifesteal is now one of the worst things you can do in a game.
About the Build Top
Serpent Mask:
Purpose: Lifesteal to keep you alive. Gives you 20% of your damage as health to you.
Sorrowblade:
Purpose: Extra damage to enhance your lifesteal and damage.
Bonesaw:
Purpose: Shreds through armor, acts like a broken myth for armor. Buy when enemies are building armor.
Tyrants Monocle:
Purpose: Extra damage that deals enhanced damage randomly. Good as a fourth item when behind.
Breaking Point:
Purpose: Great if you are sustaining in fights to deal major damage. However, if you cannot survive over 7 seconds in fights, you are better off getting double monocle.
Crucible:
Purpose: Gives you health to survive longer and can negate stuns and damage when activated.
Boots: Speed to give your slow hero a boost.
Pros of WP Lifesteal SAW Top
- Great damage in the early game and almost unbeatable mid-late game if farm is high.
- Doesn't need to be fed to do well
- Great at a close range with extra defense + lifesteal
- Easier to farm in lane than CP SAW
- If fed, can 1v3 if done properly
- Great with Phinn, catherine, and ardan.
- Mad cannon still does good damage against tanks. No CP needed.
- Supressing fire when maxed at level 8 does massive damage if you get it early enough.
Cons of WP Lifesteal SAW Top
- EXTREMELY SLOW!!!
- Low roadie run damage
- Not great if you don't get a lot of farm.
- Does not have good synergy with most jungle carries.
Early Game (0:00-9:00) Top
You should start with the a book of eulogies and start gaining stacks ASAP with basic attacks, not surpressing fire. You want to try to avoid just killing the wave ASAP, but you want to get all the minions AND keep your stacks. So, what are you supposed to do? Well, you can do a few things:
1). Poke the enemy laner, but be careful not to over extend, or
2). Attack, wait..... attack, wait...... trying to max stacks and keep waiting for the last hit oppurtunities.
3). Estamated farm equation for SAW (3 minutes +) minutes elapsed + 10 = amount of farm
It is perfectly ok if the minions start pushing toward you, because that is why you have the book of eulogies!! Use it to your advantage and gain more last hits. It is better to lose 200 health and get all of the last hits than miss some last hits and stay at full health.
Now, gold wise, you should get serpent mask NO LATER than 5:30-6:00. If you don't you are very behind in farm. Farm is why SAW is so good, he can get farm very quickly, which allows him to get items fast.
At about this 8:00 minute mark, you should have a heavy steel, and about 70-90 farm. If you have any lower than 65, you are not in a good spot right now. But there is still time to catch up, and win the game.
Also, ganking.... if the enemy is overextending for farm, because the farm is on your side of the lane, call your team up. The more you can back the enemy out of the lane, the more farm you can get fast, and the less farm the enemy can get.
And, if you are getting ganked, use roadie run.... FAST. That is SAW's only escape.
Mid Game (9:00-18:00) Top
Now, the common 10 minute team fight is about to happen, but you need to get to the shop before it happens. If you can get there, you can definitely get a six sins, and maybe a weapon infusion, but a reflex block is always a great option.
Now after the fight, if there was one, you go up to lane and keep farming. Hopefully your team hasn't touched the minion mine because you help out the other team that way. You don't need the other team to get more gold than they already have.
By 11-12 minutes, you should have sorrowblade. If by 14 minutes you do not, it is very hard to come back and get your second serpent mask by 16-18 minute mark.
Now after sorrowblade, you have a make a very important decision... Are the enemy carries buying armor? If so, how much? Is it worth buying bonesaw?
Well, even if you see the carries building light armor, you know it will be more than that. So buy ahead and at least get a piercing spear. It will basically eliminate most of their armor until they get a metal jacket or atlas pauldron.
At the 18 minute mark, you should have: 2 serpent masks, a sorrowblade, and finishing crucible.
OR
1 serpent mask, 1 sorrowblade, 1 bonesaw, and building into your second serpents mask.
Another option is to rush 2 serpents, and get bonesaw as a third item.
End Game (18:00-27:00) Top
So, right now you should be the strongest hero in your curent game. About 120-150 cs, 3-4 items, and a whole lot of damage. With your current high lifesteal, you can survive any 1v1 (as long as you are spun up), and survive every teamfight pretty easily if you are not being targeted. If you find yourself being targeted a lot, use your reflex block to defend better against the burst. Crucible is also a great buy right now, especially because the game is lasting pretty long.
With your full core build of 2 serpents, 1 sorrowblade, and 1 tyrants (or 2 sorrowblade 0 tyrants), you and your team want to engage whenever possible. You are the hero that no one wants to mess with when spun up.
Positioning is very critical at this time in the game, and I am about to explain it in the next section.
Some builds you can try at this point in the game is 2 serpents, 1 sorrowblade, and 2 defense items, or maybe 3 serpents masks and 1 sorrowblade. I dont recommend 3 serpents because of your lack of damage, but you can get away with it if you focus on heavy defense.
Positioning and How to fight in teamfights Top
POSITIONING:
You are a short ranged ranged hero. You have to stay close to the teamfight and also have your team draw the fight closer to you. You want to make sure that your tank is in front of you at all times!!! Arden, catherine, and phinn are the best supports/tanks for SAW to play with. Arden has his gauntlet to force heroes close to you, and a vanguard to keep you at full health. Catherine stuns and keeps heroes locked down so you can kill them without any trouble. Phin can stun, slow, force people closer with his second ability, AND bring heroes to him with the pole. If you play with any of these heroes, you should have an easier win.
HOW TO FIGHT IN TEAMFIGHT:
Engaging is SAW's weak point, you have to make a quick decision: Do I use suppressing fire to gain stacks? Or do I basic attack to full attack speed?
The answer to this question is very situational. If your team is in need of immediate damage, use suppressing fire and deal some damage, but if you can hold onto your suppressing fire for a little while, just use basic attacks. You should feel comfortable at the beginning of every teamfight, because that is what is important. If you feel comfortable, you have more confidence in yourself, and I can tell you that you will do 100% better in every fight.
Targeting a single hero is hard to do with SAW sometimes, because the ranged carry is hard to get to sometimes. So you feel the urge to target the jungle carry, and sometimes that is the right choice. But never target the tank, and never target based on who is closer. Targeting should be based on who you think is dealing the most amount of damage.
Notice how I haven't mentioned your ultimate at all yet. That is because you should almost never use it. The only time you should use it should be against the enemy tank after everyone else has died. Never use mad cannon against the enemy carries because you are taking your damage away from yourself. Your basics do more damage!!! Sometimes, when you know a fight is brewing up, you can use your mad cannon to help your stacks go up slightly faster, this is also effective when taking the kraken.
Why mad cannon only on the tank?
Your mad cannon does damage based on how much health and shield the enemies are building. The more health and shield they build, the more damage you deal. The same goes for the amount of health the enemies have. The less health the enemies have, the more damage you deal.
Changes in 1.14 Top
No changes to SAW in 1.14. Enjoy the build!!!
Thank You!! Top
Thanks a lot for reading this guide. Hats off to you for reading up to this point (because I know this is boring, but contains lots of info). Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and made you a better SAW player! (Now you can trust those auto-lock SAW's) Please leave a thumbs up if you would like, and critisize me in the comments. I am open to any questions you have, and open to comments on how I can make this guide better.
Please check out my featured Skye guide if you would like to as well. I have updated it for 1.9 as well!
Link is here:
http://www.vaingloryfire.com/vainglory/guide/cp-skye-mobile-team-killer-1-9-11664
Thanks again and hope to see you in the fold!
Quick Comment (8) View Comments
You need to log in before commenting.