Warwick Guide: Five Things You Learn from Maining Warwick

Our Warwick guide will break down the five biggest lessons you learn about the champion and League of Legends!

4. When to Tank and When to Carry

Just like Garen in our last gameplay guide, Warwick has a lot of different options for itemization. He can go Warrior, Black Cleaver, and Titanic Hydra for an offensive build or he can go Cinderhulk and full tank for a more defensive build.

Which build path you choose to take will depend largely on whether you are far ahead or behind, but each build should also inform your role in fights as Warwick. If you’re ahead and going full-offense, you want to be flanking, trying to land your ult on key carries to one-shot them in messy fights. However, you’re behind you want to use your kit more to tank and peel for your carries, plus using your AoE fear to separate a clumped up team.

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Unlike Garen, who basically functions exactly the same within a fight regardless of how he builds, Warwick’s different builds inform his playstyle in a game. Learning how to play differently depending on the game state is a fantastic lesson for beginner players to learn.

5. Clearing Camps

Warwick is unique from most junglers in one key way: his initial itemization. Warwick does not take health potions in the jungle but instead takes a Bead of Rejuvenation along with his starting jungle item (usually Hunter’s Machete). He does this because Warwick almost always rushes a Tiamat instead of upgrading his jungle item or getting a component of his Warrior/Cinderhulk.

This is because Warwick has no AoE damage abilities and has a hard time clearing the large AoE camps (Raptors and Krugs) before he has Tiamat. Warwick players need to learn how to leverage those small camps with fewer units and ganks to get Warwick the gold and experience necessary to back for Tiamat. Also, because you are not upgrading your jungle item from Hunter’s Machete until much later than normal, you will not get the mana regen in the jungle you normally would from Hunter’s Talisman.

These two considerations require Warwick players to conserve their mana (not spam abilities) when clearing the jungle. Players will also have to learn to prioritize those easy to clear camps (like Gromp and Wolves) and path accordingly. Doing the partial clear will not get you enough gold to back for Tiamat (even doing one crab) and trying to do a full clear on Warwick will cause you to go out of mana.

Learning which camps you can clear easily on a champion, how quickly you clear, and whether it’s more worthwhile to gank or clear is a critical skill to have. With Warwick, players will learn that early game pathing from camps to ganks.

What tips from this Warwick guide did you find most useful? Let us know and drop any other Warwick tips you think we missed in the comments and be sure to check our other champion-specific gameplay guides!