League Champion Spotlight: Tristana

In this League of Legends champion spotlight, we break down the strengths and weaknesses of the rocket-toting Yordle, Tristana.

Tristana is one of the most fun attack damage carries (ADC) in League of Legends. North American teams had great success with her in the Season 4 World Championships, surprising everyone with her tower-pushing power. She’s mobile, quick-shooting, and can reduce objectives to shambles.

All you have to do is survive a relatively weak laning phase and start pushing. Once the initial start is over, Tristana turns into quite the opponent to try and take down.

Strengths

Tristana is known for her ability to reduce towers to ashes. Her E, Explosive Charge, is one of few abilities to work on turrets. And her Q, an attack speed steroid, makes it super easy to fully stack her E (up to four times max). If you see a Tristana alone with a turret, be prepared to kiss it goodbye.

When not hitting structures, Tristana also puts out some insane damage-per-second (DPS) in fights. In addition to her steroid, her passive gives her increasing attack range per level. At level 18, she has 669 range, by far the most of any basic attack in the game. That allows her to stay on the outside of fights and pump in heaps of damage.

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Many champions have either DPS or burst, but few have Tristana’s combination of both. Fully stack her E and combine it with her ultimate, Buster Shot, and she can quickly burst down a squishy in either a team fight or in lane. It’s not a lot, but against a fellow ADC, it’s often enough.

Lastly, Tristana’s W allows her to get out of tricky situations. She wants to push, and the jump helps her get out when necessary. Add in the peeling element of her ultimate, and she has a fair chance to shove and run. The best part? Get a kill or assist on a champion and her W cooldown resets. Stack her E fully? Her W cooldown resets. Resets upon resets.

Weaknesses

Tristana isn’t without her faults and a big one starts at level one. She’s not bad in lane, but it’s definitely a weakness. It’s hard to user her E to trade since it has the same range as her autos and without stacks, it’s a waste of mana. Her Q gives her a brief steroid, but she still requires the support to Crowd Control the opponent before really getting off a trade. Finally, it’s tricky to focus on trading at all since Tristana really wants to avoid being shoved under turret.

Smart enemies will focus on wave control and get her to miss creep score (CS) by shoving it under turret. CS’ing under turret is especially hard for Tristana because the passive on her E causes extra damage to minions that throw off the traditional CS’ing pattern. Good Tristana players will know when to trade and when to get hold of the incoming creep wave.

Tristana also falls off a bit in the mid game as her stat growth is outpaced by other ADCs. She still has the ability to destroy towers, but they’ll start winning trades until she gets more items. Also, since she provides little in terms of utility, she can be useless until getting those items.

Finally, the trick to maximizing Tristana’s kit is fully stacking her E and getting the W cooldown consistently. She is still good around fights, but being able to jet in and out adds an insane amount to her damage output. She can be good as a learning ADC, but her skill cap is decently high. That gives Tristana mains a lot to work on!

Next: League Champion Spotlight: Ekko

Overall

Mobile ADCs like Tristana are en vogue due to the prevalence of assassins and the general lack of appeal in solo/duo queue games. Add in her ability to push towers and a well-played Tristana can easily win the game on her own.