League of Legends Champion Profile: Tristana, the Yordle Gunner

Lanes Tristana Players Love

Ashe – Tristana ideally wants to have a quiet laning phase and scale towards three items. Ashe also wants this, which is ideal for Trist players as they can either opt into a farm lane and meet their opposite number in the late game or pick a heavy engage support to take advantage of Ashe’s lack of mobility and short range. In order to capitalise on this, wait for your bottom lane partner to initiate, then, if safe, follow up with a W – Rocket Jump and E – Explosive Charge combo to quickly reduce the Ashe’s health bar to nothing.

Kog’Maw – Almost identical to Ashe, Kog’Maw simply wants to leave the laning phase on even footing. Picking an engage-heavy support partner and diving the Kog at any opportunity is the perfect way to propel Tristana into the lead early on. It’s imperative to fight when his W – Bio-Arcane Barrage is on cooldown, as this is both his range modifier and source of most damage.

Xayah – Three in a row. Xayah prefers the late game to early (unless partnered with a Rakan) and can be very vulnerable early on. On top of this, her ultimate ability R – Featherstorm is useful for dodging most skillshots and crowd control, but importantly not Trist’s Explosive Charge. The damage from this ability will follow through despite Xayah being untargetable and can render her ult useless if timed correctly.

Lanes Tristana Players Hate

Blitzcrank – Every bottom laner hates Blitzcrank due to his obnoxious spam hooking and laughing. It’s even worse for Tristana, as he can interrupt her escape tool Rocket Jump with three abilities. In these situations, it’s advisable to play a lot safer and wait for jungle presence before making any proactive plays; Tristana is a scaling AD Carry and can be allowed to simply farm for the first 15 minutes if the threat from an enemy support is too great.

Draven – Draven is the bane of all scaling marksmen. His insanely high early game damage and potential to snowball the game out of control within the first 15 minutes is exactly the opposite of what a scaling ADC wants to be faced with. This match-up is a test of patience for the Tristana players, as often you’ll have to give up 10-20 cs in the early stages in order to win the game. Safety is paramount and shutting down Draven before he can cash in on his stacks is vital to succeeding in this lane.

Thresh – Thresh is extremely similar to Blitzcrank in the regard that he has more than one ability that can disrupt Tristana mid-escape, most notably his E – Flay that can halt any attempts to disengage from the yordle. As always, play patiently, wait for 3v2s, and always aim to get into the mid game unscathed.

Tips for Playing Tristana

• Safety is key. It’s much better to give up a few minions to ensure safety than get killed while greeding for the final caster. The less opportunity you give to the opposing laner to take you down, the easier it will be to reach three items and hit your power spike.
• Be intelligent with Rocket Jump. Is that a juicy, low health Ezreal waiting to be popped by a quick jump in? Surely it will be a free kill right? Well, always consider the map state before you fly in to secure a kill by burning your own escape tool. Often charging in recklessly will lead to your demise.
• Enemies never expect the large area-of-effect damage provided by an Explosive Charge turret detonation. Tristana’s E has an increased explosion radius when used on turrets and can often catch opponents off-guard, frequently netting cheeky, free kills below tower.

Tips for Playing Against Tristana

• She’s awful in the current meta! Leave her alone and win before she gets the opportunity to reach a third item. Solo queue is a jungle, and often you’ll find Trists reaching their third, fourth, or even fifth item. Do not allow that to happen. Before completing her second Zeal item, Tristana suffers from a lull in power level and thus you can take full advantage by shutting her down and snowballing to a victory.
• Bait out the Rocket Jump. AD Carry players, particularly those in low elo, are desperate to dive in and pick up what they assume to be “free” kills. Let them think that and be ready to re-engage when she foolishly dives into your team.
• Always be wary of a powerful Buster Shot. It could be the difference between a won fight and a clean enemy disengage. Try to force Tristana to waste her ultimate on a charging assassin, before going in for the kill later.

Champion Difficulty: 4/10

Tristana is probably the perfect champion to pick up for those looking to learn the AD Carry role. Her high range, ability in lane, and essential escape tool are all excellent for a novice marksman. There aren’t many combos to learn, it’s all about figuring out how best to reach maximum stacks on Explosive Charge, and when a Rocket Jump is a game winning ability, or an ill-advised dive into the enemy team.

Similar to Champions

Jinx, Sivir, Xayah.

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