Check the Guide Patch Notes segment for any relevant changes.

Now before you can even take this build into a ranked game and feed the enemy botlane ten times in a row, then blame some "alleged" otp rakan player for "allegedly" being good with this build... Here's a few things to consider.

First, here's an exhaustive and overcomplicated paragraph about me and my questionable life choices, along with what role bird boi plays into all of this and why should you even touch him out of 150-ish other champions:

I'm a support main. Rakan is fun.

And this concludes the about segment. Thanks for reading those words, all seven of them.
Do keep in mind this was tested on one of the worst servers ever (EUNE, EUW's autistic little brother).
Go watch LS (Nick) for coaching and actual info on how to get better, no champion can fix your poor mechanics.

Just to show where Rakan lacks and excels at.
(Top 5 and Meta Support Champions Only)

Rakan has the lowest Base HP at 480, out of all meta support champions.
Rakan has the 2nd lowest HP Regen at 5/5s, the lowest has Soraka.
Rakan has the 2nd lowest HP Regen Gained per level at 0.3/5s, the lowest has Soraka.

His Mana and Mana Regen stats are lacking during early game, okay during mid/late game.
He scales well with items that give Magic Resist, Mana and Mana Regen during the early game.
He scales extremely well with items that give CDR, Ability Power and Heal/Shield Power.

Rakan has the highest Base AD at 70, out of all meta support champions.
Rakan has the highest Base AD Gained per level at +3.5, same as with Blitzcrank.
Rakan has the 3rd highest AS Gained per level at +3%, the highest have Braum and Thresh.

His low MR and MR gained per level are same as with other meta ranged support champions.
His autoattack range is 300 (range debuff during ult) and is therefore considered a ranged champion.
-> No executes from Relic Shield, Knight's Vow healing/reduction is only 50% effective.

None of his abilities (including passive) scale with AD or AS.
All of his abilities (including passive) scale with AP.
Rakan has one of the highest ability (including passive) AP scaling ratios out of all meta support champions.

Adapt, survive, overcome. These are your choices:

(Or if you want to tryhard, stick with only the main choices).

Primary Rune Tree

GUARDIAN An extra shield that scales with Ability Power and makes you faster when it pops, what's there not to like? It even plays nicely with almost all your inventory items. It triggers on any damage from enemy turrets, champions, pets and all neutral monsters.

OTHER OPTIONS

• Aftershock - If hit and run isn't quite your style and you want to slap just a bit harder in a teamfight, this is an okay combination with Spellthief's Edge.
  
  
• Grasp of the Undying - If for some reason you want to constantly push your lane and you manage to stand next to an enemy that does absolutely nothing to punish you, this is a tolerable choice.

Shield Bash Free resists with a shield and almost guaranteed several bonus damage procs during an engage when combined with Guardian. And it just gets better late game.

OTHER OPTIONS

• Demolish - Mixing a pushing marksman with a weak enemy jungler or a passive enemy botlane, you get this concoction of fat stacks of turret gold. Gets even better when building health early on.
  
  
• Font of Life - You don't have sustained impairments and you aren't rushing health, a bad choice overall. We aren't building tank Rakan here, we're doing heal and run guerrilla tactics.

Bone Plating Up against hooks and obvious engages, this rune is your best friend. The actual blocking part won't trigger if an attack doesn't go through your shield, only direct damage will give you the blocking effect.

OTHER OPTIONS

• Second Wind - The only option against heavy poke, it will greatly help you not to rage quit after you lose half of your health every few seconds from enemy glass cannons. Usefulness drops heavily late game.
  
  
• Conditioning - This is the best choice if the enemy team decides to rely upon only one type of damage, whether it be only AP or only AD. Or if nobody wants to be the tank and they all pick assassins.

Revitalize As if your several heals and shields weren't overpowered enough, here's something to bring your caught allies from dying in two shots to almost full health after two jumps. Guaranteed to make enemy healers jealous.

OTHER OPTIONS

• Overgrowth - Actually good against several enemies that just want to delete their next target in half a second. Or if everyone on your team is a tank and you don't want to feel left out.
  
  
• Unflinching - Since your job is to dodge stuns and roots, not walk into them, you even have the ability to counter engage, this is reserved only against those teams with several aoe stuns.

Secondary Rune Tree

Transcendence To assert intellectual superiority over your opponents whomst lack the brain capacity, you'll need to throw off their sense of timing and damage prediction. This also enables you to convert more than 40% of your thinking capacity into something useful.

OTHER OPTIONS

• Absolute Focus - Absolute trash, unless... The enemy botlane has no hard poke and they pretend you don't exist in teamfights. Actually happens more often than you'd think.
  
  
• Celerity - If you really want to run past everyone that tries to come after you, now they can bite your dust as you dive deep into the enemy team, only to bites za dusto yourself. Stop trying to be like Leeroy Jenkins.

Manaflow Band Want to spam abilities and get rewarded for it? Look no further! You'll most likely have a problem with how fast your mana bar goes down during early game and this makes you even more annoying.

OTHER OPTIONS

• Nullifying Orb - Better choice if the enemy team has an abundance of ability power on their support and jungler or a roaming mid. Also used to piss off death mages and blood mages.
  
  
• Nimbus Cloak - Fast, fast, fast! I'm gonna engage in a blast!
  This fight, I'll fly, and be your lover! Yeah, YEAH, Y E A H !
  I'll be so quick as they flash! And I'll be your heeerooo!

Gathering Storm Is that a late game scaling team you see on both sides? What's that? You want to make Rabadon's Deathcap a core item in your build? Your fortune cookie told you so? Say no more, just wait. Eventually, it Just Works™.

OTHER OPTIONS

• Waterwalking - Walk fast on water. Like Jesus, but you're probably faster. Okay for constant roaming or deep warding, so you don't miss the xp. You can also kill scuttle crabs and dragons one second faster! Wow!
  
  
• Scorch - If rubbing salt on enemy wounds is your forte, this rune still doesn't make it okay. Best used against sustain lacking squishies or not used at all. If you have nothing better to do, always go for the latter.

I'll cover other viable rune trees in another update, don't you worry.

HIDDEN PASSIVE Increased chance of getting cringy summoner names whenever those two love birds are on the same team. Increased chance they'll feed the enemy team nonetheless. They share the shortest remaining recall duration while standing uncomfortably close to each other and you have an increased hugging range towards Xayah, she also shares her damage and attack speed buff with you.

PROTIPS

• Xayah is great for when you want to play rough. In the lane, not in bed, weirdo.
  
  
• Their voice lines towards each other are both great and obnoxious at the same time.
  
  
• I'll insert some other meme here later. Or better yet, tell me one in LGIAY (Last Guide I Asked You).

PASSIVE Rakan stares at his tiny mirror so much that he gives himself a shield every once in a while.

PROTIPS

• When the shield breaks, your autoattacks and abilities will reduce Fey Feathers remaining cooldown by 1 second for every enemy champion hit.
  
  
• This has no restrictions, so if you hit all 5 enemy champions with Grand Entrance, your passive's cd will be reduced by 5 seconds. Same goes for The Quickness.
  
  
• Revitalize will increase your passive shield by 5%, but if you are below 40% HP, it will only increase a newly generated shield by additional 10.5% for 1 second. Additional testing needed.
  (If you require further explanation about this interaction, please post your concerns in the discussion segment.)

Q Rakan reaches double levels of annoyance by both damaging the enemy and healing himself and others around him after a short delay, making your enemy butthurt twice as much.

PROTIPS

• Getting close to any allied champion removes the delay and heals yourself and every allied champion in a short circle around you immediately.
  
  
• AOE heal  TRIGGER RANGE  that you get during the delay might be misleading for beginners, because the AOE heal  TRUE RANGE  is slightly bigger. Ask in discussion segment for further explanation.
  
  
• The heal will trigger on every enemy champion (even if they have a spellshield), and all epic monsters (Dragon, Herald and Baron). Enemy pets don't count, with one exception. Against an epic monster pet, i.e. Mordekaiser's Dragon, you get the heal.

W As a true feathery creature, he flies to a location of choice in an instant, where every enemy around him becomes more susceptible to Yasuo ults and death for a brief moment, whichever comes first.

PROTIPS

• Dash speed DOES NOT scale with any bonus movement speed or the boots movement speed anymore. It will always be a constant 1500 units per second, even during the ult.
  
  
• Your knockup can only be interrupted during the dash and only before you reach the selected destination, but not after and during the 0.35 second cast time it takes to actually go off.
  
  
• Be careful when casting across thicc walls, as sometimes you might not go across, and the AOE might still go off on the other side anyway. Make sure you hug the wall first to avoid that.

E Speaking of hugs, Rakan can hug allied champions twice, reducing their suffering for three seconds each time. (This ability has one known bug, please check the Guide Patch Notes segment for more information!)

PROTIPS

• This is theoretically the strongest single target shield in the game (80-240 +80% AP) that also lasts the longest (6 seconds).
  
  
• Shields don't stack on top of each other, to block the most damage on the same target, wait for the first one to expire then cast again.
  
  
• When you dash to an ally that's standing around like a rock, you'll always land on their opposite side of the dashing direction.
  
  
• You can buffer the second dash during the first one, becoming a blur on the screen for most enemies and a rollercoaster for a certain blind monk.

R Rakan temporarily turns into Sanic, moving at speed of sound, quickest birdman around, got ourselves a situation, stuck in a new location, without any explanayshooon... You know the rest, right? And for a while, his anime harem powers become so overwhelming to every neaby enemy, that he practically turns into their best waifu/husbando for a short time, and they drool towards him.

PROTIPS

• You can cast your ultimate at any point during your W and E dashes. If your reactions are fast enough, you can land your trademark combos more consistently, stop yourself from wasting the ult or extend crowd control potential.
  
  
• If you think you can just slap your opponents in love after missing the ult, think again, your autoattack range is reduced to 50 units on any uncharmed enemy and reverted back to 300 units only on charmed enemies.
  
  
• For every enemy champion that you charm, the remaining ultimate duration gets extended by 0.25 seconds. You basically get 1 extra second of naruto running towards someone trying to escape your manly charms.

Damn you, Riot's Nerf Team. Rakan was fine until you came along. Diamond players were nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking at Korean Players, I could've one-tricked and been half way to Master.

You there! You and me. We shouldn't be here. It's these brainless metagamers the Diamond Police wants. Build this:

Ancient Coin If you haven't been keeping attention so far and skipped the notes, out of all three starting support items, this one offers the most amount of gold generation with the least amount of risk involved. You'll miss out on dishing out some poke, but denying enemy poke is also viable.

PROTIPS

• You get more mana from mana coins the more mana you're missing when you pick one up. This means you can stay longer in a lane, with more opportunities for poke and stacking.
  
  
• You always get a coin from the cannon minion. If the last coin that some other minion dropped was a mana coin, then the CM will always drop a gold coin right after, and if the last one was a gold coin instead, then the CM will always drop a mana coin right after.
  
  
• Upgrade immediately to Nomad's Medallion after the first back and replace your Stealth Ward with Oracle Lens if you had around 300 gold collected with Ancient Coin. Then on average the next two waves will be enough for you to get the wards passive.

Nomad's Medallion This is just my personal preference, but I never upgrade it to Remnant of the Ascended. The gold I save by doing that goes directly into my next item with stats that actually matter. You do you, though. I won't judge... Openly, that is.

Or if you know what you're doing...

Spellthief's Edge You get gold by bothering the enemy botlane as much as possible. Aside from all the physical and mental abuse you give, the risks are far too great. You expose yourself constantly to the enemy botlane and if you start losing the game, good luck getting any gold out of this item with all your outer turrets down and little to no vision.

PROTIPS

• You get only one gold proc when hitting multiple enemy champions with your Grand Entrance. Although the possibilities of getting first blood with Xayah are great for the first few levels, you'll benefit much more if you get Ancient Coin when paired up with any other allied marksman or markswoman.
  
  
• To maximize your earnings as a spell... thief, you'll be on easy mode when up against slow tank supports and really squishy enemies. High risk for a high reward type of situation. Hitting enemy turrets when nobody is looking also works.
  
  
• Upgrade immediately to Frostfang after the first back and replace your Stealth Ward with Oracle Lens if you had around 300 gold collected with Spellthief's Edge. Then on average the next three spell rotations will be enough for you to get the wards passive.

Frostfang Just so I don't repeat myself, here's a fun fact. Did you know that banging your head against the keyboard for one hour burns around 150 calories? That's why Sona players are always in peak condition.

BOOTS You need those to be faster and dodge better. Simple as that. And here are the upgrades that you should consider.

Upgrades:

• Ionian Boots of Lucidity - More chances for you to get in or get out and great for hitting that cooldown reduction cap as fast as possible. You also get bonus ability power when combined with a certain rune.
  
  
• Ninja Tabi - So you got the enemy marksman fed and now he hits so hard that you thought your monitor color settings were set to grayscale only. This will remedy the problem, if only for a little bit. Also great against empowered autoattacks and several crit oriented enemies.
  
  
• Mercury's Treads - The longer you stay in one place rooted or stunned or whatever, the shorter the time on your hands to help out those in need. If you want to be charitable, and in other ways other than just soaking up every enemy cc you come across, these are a must.

Mobility Boots - Warning! If you're just going to run it down inside your own lane for the first twenty minutes, then there's no point in getting these! You are just torturing yourself by getting to your lane sooner just to die sooner. If you know how to aggressively roam, good for you. For everyone else, buy Boots of Swiftness instead!


Sorcerer's Shoes and Berserker's Greaves - Ravioli, ravioli, don't... just... don't. I'd like to also point out that you should spam your Grand Entrance every chance you get to move around the map. And stop building other movement speed items, dammit! You don't need them. So just... move along.

CORE ITEMS

Redemption Tactical heal incoming! Try to cast it during a teamfight and around your allies, not in the middle of the enemy team! Okay, so it does some damage, but now you've wasted healing almost everyone on your team anywhere between 300 and 1000 health.

PROTIPS

• Revitalize will increase the healing, of course. If you didn't take that rune, sucks to be you. The huge mana regen it gives also benefits the next item in line. And you can use Redemption while dead, don't forget that!
  
  
• Because of its huge cast range, you should stop staring at the enemy botlane all the time and take a look at what your jungler and midlaner are doing, so you can turn the tides of a battle without actually being there.
  
  
• Follow the collective movement of your allies. Your team just engaged? Cast the heal in front of them so they don't have to back off just to get it. Your team is backing off? Cast the heal towards where they are going so they don't get picked off standing in a circle. Yes, the enemy team can see the circle.

Athene's Unholy Grail It feels like this item was made just for you. And the underrated passive is what really makes it good. You get bonus ability power for every item that offers mana regen, including itself. And every time you damage an enemy, you'll see a number increase next to the item. That number is by how much your next heal is increased and by how much you heal your ally when shielding them.

PROTIPS

• Redemption's heal will be increased by how many blood charges you have stored. I'm unsure if the charges are divided equally amongst multiple allies or if only the closest healed ally to you gains all the bonus healing.
  
  
• Guardian and Locket of the Iron Solari also trigger the healing, while Revitalize increases the healing itself, along with every other item that gives increased shielding and healing.
  
  
• Mikael's Blessing's health regen will be disabled, you'll get none of it if you build both items. That's usually not the problem because of all the other great benefits this item gives.

Zeke's Convergence Become a harbinger of an ice blizzard, as you walk through the fire and flames. You survive the ongoing destruction for longer, makes your grand entrance even grander and makes your allied marksman do decent damage for once. Are you feeling it now, enemy team?!

PROTIPS

• You can switch the designated ally as many times as you want, the item will only activate after you ult and go on cooldown right after the ten second effect ends. If your ally dies and you still have ult up, switch the designation to another one. Though you have to be closer than 1000 units for the item to activate.
  
  
• It's best used with allies that are either fed, can easily follow up on your engage or have sustained damage, not just your carries. Feel free to switch the effect over to your damage dealing jungler or a gap closing bruiser.
  
  
• The bonus magic burn damage your ally does will be equal to 15% of the damage they do immediately, followed by additional two ticks of 7.5%, for a total of 30%. One tick per second and they don't stack.

RECOMMENDED ITEMS

Spirit Visage Why do tons of healing to others when you can also do tons of healing to yourself. Increases all the bonuses for self healing from items. And if your carry ever decides to use Heal on you, that's increased as well.

Morellonomicon This item is only included here because there's an alarming trend going off right now that includes certain champions healing themselves over and over again while they do an insane amount of damage. And if someone from your team finally notices and decides to rush this item, or any other that provides grievous wounds, feel free to build almost anything else. Other useful items are at the start of the guide.

DO NOY BOY

DON'T YOU DARE I constantly see people trying to shill and rush this item indefinitely. And if you are one of those people, I have one question for you. Are you trying to lose early game as fast as possible? Here's but a few of several valid reasons why this item should be removed from every guide featuring Rakan.

JUST STOP

• The item's passive is completely useless for you. If you haven't noticed, Rakan is considered a ranged champion for some reason, meaning the damage reduction you give and healing you receive is halved, only 6%. Also, why would you ever want to willingly take any form of damage on a squishy champion.
  
  
• The stats it gives are mostly useless and considered snake oil. You don't need armor early game against scaling enemy ad carries and ap damage dealing supports. The health you get equals to less than two health pots and you literally have and aoe heal built into your kit. And you don't need movement speed, you have three dashes.
  
  
• If you actually want to be useful in early teamfights, rush Redemption or Athene's Unholy Grail, which are also 100 gold cheaper, go along with other items nicely and grant several useful stats that you definitely need early and which you and all your teammates can use to your advantage, not just one designated ally.

I have more up my sleeve, but that's enough for now.

Early Game

- Always help out your jungler at level one with shields if he starts on the same side as you. In lane, if the enemy support has Spellthief's Edge, stay close to your carry and starve them of any gold procs as much as possible. You need to deny enemy engages or bait them out. Try to waste their mana without getting hit, you'll get your mana back with Ancient Coin.


- Never fully commit to an engage unless you want to poke for procs, watch out if your jungler tries to do anything funny by invading at early levels. Try casting and hitting your Q whenever possible to build up mana stacks and heal any damage. Don't mindlessly dash into the enemy botlane if you see that your carry can't follow or would rather farm. Wait for your jungler.

Mid Game

- When it comes to teamfights, most of the time your purpose won't be to engage first, but to wait for someone else to engage and then disrupt and deny enemy engages with your ultimate whenever possible, because your charm during this part only lasts 1-1.25 seconds and stacking it up immediately with the dash knockup won't do much to help out your team.

- At times when your ult is on cooldown and there's a teamfight going on, and hopefully you already have your athene's completed, your prime strategy is to do damage, heal, do damage, shield, rinse and repeat. That way you're building up those blood stacks and enhancing your every heal and shield. Making your allies last so much longer in a fight is your top priority.

Late Game

- Your worst ult-blockers are a strong enemy tank frontline, the kind that your allies can't follow up on or they get stuck with, and targets that can actually survive your engage if your team isn't fast enough to react. Again, some damage followed by healing and shielding rotations is your top priority. The enemy is also more likely to clump up for those sweet combos.


- DO. NOT. RUSH. Whenever I see an enemy Rakan dashing first into a fight and just zooming back out in a second without any follow-up, I feel intense urge to laugh at him and feel pity for his team. You flash combos are the best when used against one or two enemies caught out of position, or against the whole enemy team during a fight that someone else started.


I'd like to avoid giving any more details, because there's so much to this type of semi-aggressive, engage-denying, utility-focused playstyle that you would seriously have to watch someone do it, and not just get it explained in text.

TL;DR - Don't play Rakan. If you still want to play Rakan, do it my way. The true way. I'm not responsible for any misery you cause and my lawyers are at the ready to prove it by taking away your meme privileges if you happen to live inside the EU.

I have a challenge for you. Count how many dead memes I've featured in this half coherent excuse of subtle comedy and humble bragging. Here's a hint, it's somewhere between 0.25 and 9001. This also counts... Or does it? *certain music plays*

If I could rate Rakan with a score, it would be the number of times my botlane carry manages to just barely stay outside my dash hug range and won't even stop for a moment so I can save myself, over the insane damage he takes that I have to heal back just so he could be useful once throughout the whole game. So, a large number over an even larger number.

One last thing. Please, oh please, bother and annoy me with any questions, suggestions, corrections, impressions, objections and obsessions that you might have regarding this and any of my future guides. No, I'm not being sarcastic here.

Yes, this is my first guide. Yes, writing a guide is harder than you'd think, much like everything in life. I've designed the segment art in this guide myself. I'm feeding on the EUNE Server with the same username. That is all, you can go now.

You can see all relevant changes made to the guide here.

Known bug: You cannot recast Battle Dance for free as long as your current mana is below its mana cost (60-100 mana), even though the second cast is free (costs zero mana). 100% tested and confirmed. Wait for hotfix or next patch.

30th of March, 2019 - 1.0.0
- Initial Release

3rd of April, 2019 - 1.0.1
- 9.7 Game Patch Released
- Rakan was not touched directly in this patch. His items were not buffed or nerfed.
- Leona and Pyke are now bigger threats for you and your team, but they still remain in their designated threat categories. Morgana also stays in her designated threat category due to slight nerfs, she is now more susceptible to your poke, and you're less susceptible to hers. You'll still die if you get caught.
- Demolish and Overgrowth are now a bit more viable as other options, but they still remain as optional rune choices, no actual changes made to the main rune tree.

4th of April, 2019 - 1.0.2
- Found a way to brag even more in the about segment.
- Slight changes to this segment, added a known bug and to-do list.
- Fixed some of my dyslexia by shifting letters in the right order and removing extra letters.

5th of April, 2019 - 1.0.3
- Removed a couple of dead memes and replaced them with Jojo references.
- Added the last sorcery tree rune options, just in case.
- Subscribe to Felix

17th of April, 2019 - 1.0.4
- 9.8 Game Patch Released
- Rakan was not touched directly in this patch. His items were not buffed or nerfed.
- Nautilus could jump up a threat tier if he becomes a meta support pick.
- Several changes to the guide are on the way.

To-Do:
- Add other viable rune options.
- Add other viable item descriptions.
- Grammar check the whole thing.
- Make a corresponding video guide.