Set 8.5 Items for New Units | Jhin, Aatrox, Twisted Fate, Garen, Warwick & Neeko - Guides

Contents

Jhin Items

Like most AD units, Last Whisper (LW) is crucial to Jhin’s itemization as it provides much needed armour shred. This can sometimes be by passed if you have a Morgana or other forms of armour shred already on your board.
Deathblade (DB) is his best damage item by far as he scales purely off of AD.
Infinity Edge (IE) is a very strong 3rd item that only gets stronger once the previous items have been built. Infinity Edge allows Jhin’s cast to critically strike which occurs frequently due to his unique 4-shot passive.

Alternatives Options:

Guardbreaker is good as Jhin targets the frontline units (who are likely to have shields) until his 4th shot which pierces into the backline (much like how Taliyah worked) with the added damage bonus.
Hand of Justice (HOJ) provides healing and more damage. The sustain plays a role helping Jhin stay alive making him more likely to proc Renegade’s “Last-Man Standing” buff which gives him x%.
Giantslayer (GS) is good
Runaan’s Hurricane (RH) and Jeweled Gauntlet (JG) are playable.
Jhin always attacks at the same speed so items like Rageblade (RB) have very little value on him and should generally be avoided.
Jhin has absolutely no use for mana generating items like Shojin or Blue Buff.

Aatrox Items

Warmogs , Bramblevest and Dragon’s Claw are your generic go-to tank items and they work on great on Aatrox. Itemizing Aatrox is pretty straightforward as he’s meant to be a generic tank but there still a few important takeaways. Mainly that Aatrox is currently quite underwhelming without any items. Aatrox’s first cast heals HP and grants him max HP while every consecutive cast heals him for the same amount – the issue is that with his 0/90 manapool and lackluster defensive traits he doesn’t gain enough value from his first cast to make it to his second cast. His spell is heavily HP based which further emphasizes his need for items as the more stats he has the more effective the HP he gains will be. Furthermore he offers no utility outside of tanking such as crowd-control (CC) or ally-shielding drastically lowering his value as a tech-in option. He is essentially the opposite of the unit he replaced – Zac, who’s value was being highly effective without any item investments. If you’re going to play him, make sure he’s going to be fully itemized.

Alternatives Options:

Gargoyles Stoneplate covers both armour and MR while only using two components making it a cheap and effective method to give Aatrox a lot of stats early on.
Titan’s Resolve (TR) is a great 2nd or 3rd item as both Aatrox’s healing and damage scale great with AP. As he only gets the Armor and MR from TR at full stacks make sure you build other tanks on him first so can survive until then.
Due to the importance of getting his first cast early, Protector’s Vow (+45 mana) and Redemption (+15 mana) are great options to ensure that he does.

Twisted Fate (TF) Items

Twisted Fate is a flexible unit that can fit in many comps and holds several different item builds depending on whichever one he’s in. Mainly you want Atk. Speed (AS), Damage and Magic Resist (MR) shred.

General Build:
Stattik Shiv (Shiv) provides MR shred and procs often with TF’s AS. He does not need to be the one to hold the MR shred item but regardless it’s a strong tempo item that still scales well into the late-game. Shiv preforms a lot better alongside Guinsoos’s Rageblade or higher attack speed.
Guinsoos Rageblade allows TF to scale his AS even further which increases the amount of cards he draws during his ability resulting in more damage and faster casts. If you’re playing 4+ Duelists, Rageblade may be passed over for another damage or utility item as he will already have sufficient AS.
When TF is played in 4+ Spellslinger comps, TF will have enough AP for Jeweled Gauntlet (JG) to be more effective than just plain AP as crit damage scales better the higher AP/AD you have (~60 AP threshold).

Alternative Options:

Hextech Gunblade can be played over any of these items as it help keep your front line alive longer which means TF has more time to scale with Duelist or Rageblade.
In combination with a Jeweled Gauntlet you can play Hand of Justice (for healing), Guardbreaker (for more damage) or Quicksilver (for CC immunity) practically as the glove component that makes up each of these items also increases your crit chance.
Giantslayer , Rabadons , Archangels are all fine substitutes for damage items.
Zeke’s Herald is a great item that does not go on him but can be placed on a Janna or Syndra with TF next to them to increase his starting Atk. Speed.
Chalice of Power is another great aura item for more AP and starting mana for whomever it’s built on.

Mecha Prime: Garen Items

With any Mecha Prime unit you are effectively equipping 3 units making itemization often more strict and important in order to get the fullest value.

Since Garen is a Defender unit he already has plenty of armor from his trait meaning magic resist (MR) items take a higher priority. Dragon’s Claw (Dclaw) protects him from magic damage while healing him for 4% of his maximum HP every 2 seconds. The more maximum HP a unit has, the more value ‘percentage healing’ provides with Mecha Garen having a very large health pool.
Redemption also provides the same percentage maximum health healing and additionally provides a 25% damage reduction against multi-target attacks (ex. Viego’s spell, Neeko’s Spell, etc…)
The third item can be quite flexible filling in any missing gaps in Garen’s defence the previous two may have missed.

3rd Item Options:

Gargoyles Stoneplate works great as Garen almost always take the entire team’s aggro (all units will be targeting him) and it covers both Armor and MR
Even though Garen already has lots of armor, Bramblevest further counters AD and most importantly nullifies 75% of any critical damage taken
Titan’s Resolve has good value on Garen as he does significant damage both with his attacks and spell not to mention the 25 armor and MR granted at full stacks.
Blood Thirster and Protector’s Vow grant a max. HP shield and provide healing and stats respectively.
HP items like Sunfire Cape or Warmogs aren’t great but can be fine as long as you have your first two items already.

Warwick Items

Itemization on Warwick can completely change depending on the ADMIN and what type of comp he’s played in. That being said these three items work so well with Warwick that you can’t go wrong with them.

Runaan’s Hurricane (RH) mitigates Warwick’s single-targeting weakness allowing him damage another unit while scaling well with his high AS and AD which he can get from various ADMIN effects. Warwick’s powerful passive also only activates after the first kill so if Warwick is stuck on a particular tanky unit, having the bolts to potentially pick up an early kill for him is a valuable asset. Furthermore every attack Warwick makes during his spell also count as an ‘auto-attack’ meaning Runaan’s will shoot out a bolt for each of his six attacks he makes in rapid succession.
Warwick uses every stat Titan’s Resolve provides: AD increases damage, AP increases % healing and Armor/MR increases his defences. Additional Warwick will quickly hit max. stacks in no time with his ability and high AS. Playing two Titan’s Resolve is also a strong option.
Quicksilver (QSS) is the 3rd item you want to build on him as it does very little in the early game where CC is less common. In the late-game QSS becomes near essential as Warwick is a melee carry who relies on his autos to do damage.
With QSS, Warwick ignore all forms of CC (except for manareave) for a full 18 seconds while also providing him with a bonus 30% starting AS and 30 MR.

Alternative Options:

Guinsoos Rageblade ramps up quickly much like TR and RH and is a very good replacement over any of the above options
Edge of Night gives Warwick an extra life and 15% AS which can be useful when Warwick infiltrates the backline with Hackerim
Last Whisper is benefical if you’re not ‘hackering’ Warwick as he will have trouble with tanks like Garen and Aatrox
Warwick has built-in healing allowing healing items like Bloodthirster or Hand of Justice to be largely ignored in favour of more damage.
Infinity Edge allows Warwick’s ability to crit. It is best for 4 ADMIN comps with the +AD effect to maximize damage output.

Neeko Items

Jeweled Gauntlet lets Neeko’s ability crit and work with her high AP
Guardbreaker supplements Jeweled Gauntlet’s crit damage and activated easily with Neeko’s ability. Build after Jeweled Gauntlet.
Spear of Shojin allows for a 3 auto cast with 4 Star Guardians.

Alternative Options

Gunblade keeps Neeko and her friends alive longer.
Giantslayer can replace Gunblade for more damage
Neeko can use Morellonomicon to spread anti-heal when TF is the main carry.
Archangels is a good item due to the length of combat in the current meta.
Both Chalice and Zeke’s are great items to build on a supporting unit next to Neeko.
Blue Buff doesn’t do much if a anything to lower Neeko’s cast time. Not recommended.
Like all AP units Neeko needs some form of MR shred in the form of Ionic Spark or Stattik Shiv on a supporting unit.