Pyke combos: cooldowns, costs and the order that matters
Ability-by-ability breakdown of Pyke with real cooldowns and costs, the combo worth drilling, and why order changes the outcome.
Damage is a sequence, not a sum
Casting in the wrong order on Pyke does not shave a little damage off — it frequently wastes an ability outright, because the setup lands after the payoff.
At 150 attack range Pyke has to walk into damage to deal it, so every trade begins with a decision about whether you can afford the walk.
The kit, with the real numbers
Gift of the Drowned Ones
When Pyke is hidden from enemies, he regenerates damage that he has recently taken from champions. Pyke also cannot gain extra Maximum Health from any source, and instead gains Bonus AD.
Bone Skewer
Pyke either stabs an enemy in front of him or pulls an enemy towards him.
Ghostwater Dive
Pyke enters Camouflage and gains significant Move Speed that decays over time.
Phantom Undertow
Pyke dashes and leaves behind a phantom that will return to him, stunning enemy champions along its path.
Death From Below
Pyke blinks to and executes low health enemies, allowing him to cast this spell again and granting additional gold to an ally who assists.
Skill order, and how to reason about it
Take Death From Below at levels 6, 11 and 16 — the ultimate is always worth the point it costs.
For the basic abilities, Ghostwater Dive (W) gains the most from being ranked: its cooldown falls by 4 seconds between rank 1 and max, which is the largest improvement in the kit. That is the usual argument for maxing it first.
This is reasoning from the cooldown data, not a win-rate ranking — a matchup that punishes you can invert it.
- Q · Bone Skewer — cooldown 10/9.5/9/8.5/8s, improving by 2s across its ranks
- W · Ghostwater Dive — cooldown 14/13/12/11/10s, improving by 4s across its ranks
- E · Phantom Undertow — cooldown 15/14/13/12/11s, improving by 4s across its ranks
Reading the cooldown column
Those cooldown figures are per rank, lowest first. The gap between the first and last number is the best argument for a skill order there is — an ability that drops sharply as you rank it earns those points; one that barely moves does not.
Pyke is mana-gated, which is the real limit on how often you can contest a wave early.
Riot's own notes on playing Pyke
These are the designers' words, not ours — the tips shipped in the client for Pyke.
- Pyke is very fragile so don't be afraid to temporarily run from a fight. You can regenerate a significant amount of health from Gift of the Drowned Ones when enemies can't see you.
- Hitting an enemy with the Hold version of Bone Skewer will always pull them the same distance. Use it in melee range to throw targets behind you.
- The Tap version of Bone Skewer is much faster and deals additional damage.
- A lot of your agressive spells are also your escapes. Make sure you always have a plan to get out of the fight.
Drill it in practice tool
Practice tool has no MMR attached and lets you reset cooldowns on demand. Ten minutes there beats ten games of learning a sequence while somebody fights back.
What the stat line does between level 1 and 18
| Stat | Level 1 | Level 18 |
|---|---|---|
| Health | 670 | 2540 |
| Attack damage | 62 | 62 |
| Armour | 37 | 116.9 |
| Magic resist | 32 | 66.9 |
Movement speed 330 and attack range 150 do not grow with levels — they are the two numbers that stay true all game.
Full Pyke page — abilities, stats and every skin →