A twenty-minute Smolder practice routine
A concrete practice-tool routine for Smolder, built around its real cooldowns and ability costs.
Minutes 0–5: the passive, alone
Hitting champions with Abilities and killing enemies with Super Scorcher Breath grants a stack of Dragon Practice. Stacks increase the damage of Smolders basic Abilities.
Do nothing else for five minutes. The passive is the piece nobody isolates, and it is the only part of the kit that is always available.
Minutes 5–15: each ability, then the sequence
Dragon Practice
Hitting champions with Abilities and killing enemies with Super Scorcher Breath grants a stack of Dragon Practice. Stacks increase the damage of Smolders basic Abilities.
Super Scorcher Breath
Smolder breathes fire on an enemy. As he gains more stacks, this ability becomes more powerful.
Achooo!
Smolder lets out an adorable flaming sneeze that explodes when hitting enemy champions.
Flap, Flap, Flap
Smolder takes flight ignoring terrain and bombarding the lowest health enemy.
MMOOOMMMM!
Smolder calls his mom to breath fire from above, dealing extra damage and slowing enemies in the center of her fire.
Use the cooldowns as a metronome
Practice tool lets you reset cooldowns, which is useful for learning a combo and useless for learning a champion. Turn the reset off and cast on the real timings — knowing what an ability's downtime feels like is most of what separates a comfortable champion from a new one.
Smolder is mana-gated, which is the real limit on how often you can contest a wave early.
Minutes 15–20: last-hitting under tower
Unglamorous, and the highest-value five minutes of the routine. Ranged champions have completely different tower-farming patterns, and this is where you find out which one you are actually playing.
Riot's own notes on playing Smolder
These are the designers' words, not ours — the tips shipped in the client for Smolder.
- Smolder has a vulnerable early game. Focus on passive stacking and staying alive to become a strong dragon later!
- Smolder relies on his team to keep him safe. Try to find allies who can help you against enemy threats.
- Smolder can do a lot of damage to areas of enemies. Look for attack opportunities where the enemies are close together.