Best Gwen Build Guide | Runes | Spells | Items in League of Legends

Gwen is one of the champions that Riot Games officially involved with League of Legends during the events of Ruination, a League of Legends event in season 11. These are the best Gwen build, runes, spells, items League of Legends can offer her, and her greatest counters.

Best Gwen Build

Gwen is not a simple champion to play. She is a top lane skirmisher, whose job is not to tank damage, the way Ornn would but to slice through enemies and then back off.

Best Gwen Runes

As a top lane skirmisher champion, whose strength lies in her damage and mobility, instead of tankiness and sustain, Gwen uses her damage and attack speed, in conjunction with Precision Tree runes, to make up for the difference.

Gwen’s abilities allow her to quickly stack the Conqueror rune, and thus heal back the health she loses in an early game trade, while Presence of Mind restores her mana.

Last Stand is there to allow her to deal even more damage, because while playing Gwen, you must fight in the frontline without the advantages afforded to the pure tank champions.

Best Rune Path	Precision	Resolve
Best Keystone	Conqueror
Best Slot 1 (Rune)	Presence of Mind	Bone Plating
Best Slot 2 (Rune)	Legend: Alacrity	Unflinching
Best Slot 3 (Rune)	Last Stand

As expected, to help along her early game trades with other top lane champions, as Gwen deals magic damage and needs some time to gather Ability power and be a threat, the second best Gwen runes are Resolve.

These allow her not to get run down by the enemy team, top lane and jungle, so easily.

Best Gwen Rune Shards

There are a few League of Legends champions, designed by Riot Games, that are melee and yet specialize in Attack Speed. One of them is Gwen.

Best Rune Shards	Effect
Offense	+10% Attack Speed
Flex	+9 Adaptive Force
Defense	+6 Armor

As a magic damage dealing champion, she thus chooses Attack Speed and Adaptive Force as her two Rune Shards.

And, as most champions in the top lane deal physical damage, her last Rune Shard is Armor.

Best Gwen Spells

When it comes to Summoner Spells, there are only a few champions who are managing League of Legends trials, without using Flash. Those are Shaco or Tryndamere, for example. And Gwen is also part of that rank, though her own dash is not as useful as the others who forego Flash. Instead, she picks Teleport to gain an advantage in wave management, and perhaps make a good teleport play.

Best Spells	Icon
Teleport
Ignite

Ignite, on the other hand, is the usual pick for champions that need to deal bonus damage to secure early game kills, and those who play Gwen top, know how needed that is, to carry the inting bot lane.

Best Gwen Abilities Order

The first ability to level on Gwen, out of her ability order, is her Q - Snip Snip. It serves as her waveclear and main trading ability, due to how good it is to stack Conqueror, Legend: Alacrity, and Presence of Mind stacks.

After that, the next ability in her skill order is her E - Skip N’ Slash, which allows Gwen to dash a short space and gives her an attack speed, magic damage On-hit, and attack range buffs, making for an easier trade.

Finally, besides Gwen’s ultimate, we have her E - Hallowed Mist. The only use of this ability is to stop enemy attacks that are cast outside of the mist. As the ability only scales by lowering its cooldown, there is no priority in leveling it.

And, as always, Gwen’s Ultimate, must be leveled at levels 6, 11, and 16. It applies her passive, A Thousand Cuts, and allows her to shred through tanks.

Best Gwen Items

Gwen is all about shredding through the enemy champions and surviving the ordeal, whose entire job is to survive enemy damage and catch and kill damage dealers.

Best Starter Gwen Items

Gwen is a mana user, and as such, Gwen always starts with Doran’s Ring as her starting item. And health potions to round out the gold, of course.

First Item	Second Item
Doran’s Ring	Health Potion

Best Mid Game Gwen Items

In the mid-game, if you’ve played the laning phase correctly, your core build should be ready. It consists of a non-negotiable Riftmaker as a Mythic Item, for some Omnivamp and true damage, Plated Steelcaps, and Nashor’s Tooth.

First Item	Second Item	Third Item
Riftmaker	Plated Steelcaps	Nashor’s Tooth

Riftmaker allows Gwen to stay in fights a lot longer while dealing bonus and even true damage after enough stacks, while Nashor’s Tooth joins her E, and deals On-hit Magic Damage.

Best Final Late Game Gwen Items

Gwen is a scaling champion, through and through. During the late game, she deals massive amounts of magic damage, and with time, even start dealing dealing true damage.

First Item	Second Item	Third Item	Fourth Item	Fifth Item	Sixth Item
Riftmaker	Plated Steelcaps	Nashor’s Tooth	Zhonya’s Hourglass	Rabbadon’s Deathcap	Cosmic Drive

As such, her full build is geared towards synergy with her abilities, giving her as much damage as possible, while also giving her survivability, in the case of Zhonya’s Hourglass and Cosmic Drive.

As Gwen mains know, a late game Gwen is a champion who tears through all tanks, and can’t be killed by an ADC.

Strongest Champions Against Gwen

Gwen loses to champions that don’t allow her to play her in-and-out early-game trading playstyle. Riven locks her down with her stuns and wins trades, while Kayle plays from a distance and outscales her, while Singed stops her from dashing and then does what he does best, which is being annoying.

Champion	Win Rate %	Icon
Singed	39.4%
Kayle	40.8%
Riven	42%

Weakest Champions Against Gwen

Gwen excels playing into health-stacking tank champions. After all, her passive allows her to deal a percentage of their own health as damage. So, as she is made to shred through them, no matter how much health they stack, all they are for her is bigger bags of money.

Champion	Win Rate %	Icon
Yorick	54.9%
Dr. Mundo	53.2%
Sion	52.8%

It’s these enemies that Gwen has the best win rate against. And, by following this Gwen guide, you will too!