Boom, Headshot!

Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover

 Caitlyn is a ranged attack damage carry (Ranged AD).  Her skillset allows her to lane well, position well, catch enemies and fire off a long range nuke. We will look at her stats, skills, a cookie cutter build and general tips on how to play her. We will also take a brief look into some laning partners and matchups.

Base Stats:

Health: 390 (+80)

Health Regen: 4.75 (+0.55)

Attack damage: 47 (+3)

Attack speed: 0.668 (+3.0%)

Armor: 13 (+3.5)

Magic resistance: 30 (+0)

Movement speed: 300

Range: 650

 

Abilities

 Passive: Headshot

Every 8th / 7th / 6th auto-attack is enhanced to be a headshot, dealing 150% damage to a champion or 250% damage to a minion or monster. Attacks from brush increase the attack counter by two instead of one

Headshot is a great passive. The harass that you can deal with headshot is very heavy and it does tons of damage to minions allowing you to last hit easily as well as bring down buffs, dragon and baron quite quickly. Try to use this to harass the enemy carry. Don't forget that it procs twice as fast when in brush!

 Q: Piltover Peacemaker

Caitlyn revs up her rifle for 1 second to unleash a penetrating shot in a line which will deal physical damage to all targets hits. It will deal 15% less damage for each subsequent target hit, down to a minimum of 40% damage dealt.

Range: 1400

Cost: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 mana
Cooldown: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 seconds

Physical Damage: 20 / 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 (+1.3 per attack damage)

Minimum Physical Damage: 8 / 24 / 40 / 56 / 72 (+0.52 per attack damage)

Caitlyn's nuke. The time it takes to Rev is short but is a tell tale sign and makes it dodgable. Try to harass sparingly with this because it will run you out of mana if spammed. It is a pretty decent wave clearing tool however the damage loss must be taken into account if you dont want to miss last hits. In teamfights use this to poke or hit multiple people, because using this takes you out of auto attacking for a second and later on that can hinder your damage output.

Take this at level 2, Max it out first.

 W: Yordle Snap Trap

Caitlyn sets a trap at the target nearby location. The trap triggers when a champion walks over it. This trap is visible to both allies and enemies. When sprung, the trap immobilizes the champion for 1.5 seconds, dealing magic damage over the duration and additionally revealing the target for 9 seconds. Caitlyn can set up to 3 traps and they last 4 minutes. When she sets a trap once the cap has been reached, the oldest trap will deactivate itself.
Cost: 50 mana

Placement Range: 800

Activation Range: 135

Cooldown: 20 / 17 / 14 / 11 / 8 seconds

Total Magic Damage: 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+0.6 per ability power)

Snap traps are one of the main tools you will find yourself using as Caitlyn. A good trap can be the difference between escaping a gank or dying. A very good trap can be the difference between securing a kill and letting an enemy get away. Try to be smart about your traps. If you know a jungler is going to invade, trap the entrance to your jungle, trap the exit/entrance to blue. In lane, use traps to your advantage by placing them and forcing enemies to either eat them or avoid them. Catching a carry in a trap when they are going for CS is a lot of easy, free damage. 
Warning: Sivir will just spellsheild your traps and enjoy free mana. Try to avoid using them in lane against her unless you are trying to bait the spell shield.

Take this at level 1, you can choose to max this or 90 caliber second based on your playstyle

 E: 90 Caliber Net

Caitlyn fires a heavy net in front of her, knocking herself back in the opposite direction. The net will slow down the first target hit by 50% and will deal magic damage to it.
Cost: 75 mana

Range: 1000

Knockback Distance: 400

Cooldown: 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10 second

Magic Damage: 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+0.8 per ability power)

Slow Duration: 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 1.75 / 2 seconds

90 Cal Net is Caitlyn's go to escaping tool. It slows an enemy and pushes her back, think of it like a mini flash. You can get through THIN walls/cliffs with this however it can be touchy when jumping walls. You can use this then immediately Q to sort of mitigate the rev of Q. Try to save this for escaping, although you can use it to boost yourself towards running enemies by firing backwards. Like the traps, be smart about using this skill, the cooldown is very long at low ranks.

take at 3 or 4 and max this or snap trap second based on your playstyle

 R : Ace In The Hole

Caitlyn marks an enemy champion at a huge range and channels for 2 seconds to line up the perfect shot, providing vision of the target for the duration. She then fires the projectile to deal massive physical damage. Enemy champions can intercept the bullet for their ally.

Cost: 100 mana

Projectile Speed: 3200

Cooldown: 90 / 75 / 60 seconds

Range: 1900 / 2050 / 2200

Physical Damage: 250 / 475 / 700 (+2.0 per bonus attack damage)

Ace is Caitlyn's ultimate. It is a powerful skill for poking, killing or forcing people to back out. The bullet she fires is large and can be blocked, so if you are aiming for a kill, try to ult from an unexpected angle. If you get everyone running around to block it, chances are there is a lot of confusion and more chance that the bullet will hit your target. TL;DR Dont try to fire this through the tank line. 

Notable usage: Most people save this to ensure a kill, however it can be used to harass a squishy champion out of lane. Using this against a non sustaining bottom lane will force one champ out and give you the advantage to deny farm and free harass the remaining champ. Like all of her skills, THINK before firing this off.

Take this whenever possible (6, 11, 16)

 

Runes and Masteries

As far as runes go, AD is king in the current meta. Good early damage for last hitting and harassment. We also take Armor yellows (helps trades in lane and overall survival) as well as MR blues (tankiness towards support and any abilities that do magic damage)

Greater Quintessence of Strength  x 3 (6.75 Attack Damage)

Greater Mark of Strength  x 9 (8.55 Attack Damage)

Greater Seal of Resilience  x9 (12.69 Armor)

Greater Glyph of Shielding  x9 (24.3 Magic Resist at level 18)

 

Masteries can go one of two ways. Tanky (21/9/0) or Squishy (21/0/9) with a little room for deviation in between.

  AND   OR 

Pretty standard Offensive, taking damage, armor pen, attack speed and lifesteal. 

Defensive makes you tankier for trades, and you really want to take it when running summoner heal.

Utility allows you to use abilities slightly more HOWEVER you are squishier.

I recommend the defensive tree. The extra health will help you survive if they have anti-carries (champions who can stick to you with dashes/etc). Also, your job is to right click the nearest enemy not spam spells, so you won't need tons of mana. As long as you manage your mana effectively, defense will help you win trades and survive some burst.

Summoner Spells

90% of the time you will be running HEAL and FLASH

 + 

however you can in certain cases swap out heal for Cleanse, Exhaust and very rarely Ignite

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Itemization

Caitlyn, like most ranged AD carries, has a generic "cookie cutter" build that you will find youself building in the same order about 80% of the time. However, there will be the ocassional time that you will need to deviate and adapt to be able to win the game. Think about what you need to be effective in the current situation. Lets begin,

First items

If you have a sustaining support (Soraka, Sona, Taric, etc) you can get away with starting with a Doran's Blade

Otherwise you will want to start with Boots + 3 HP pots (allows you to move more freely, dodge skillshots)

 +   x 3

 

Early Core Items

Core items you will build every game as the provide you will all the basic things you will need to build upon.

Berserkers Greaves, 2 x Dorans Blades, Vampiric Scepter

 +  +  + 

 

Mid Game Items

These items should be built as soon as possible after the core, they synergize well with Caitlyn and are in order.

Infinity Edge --> Phantom Dancer --> Last Whisper + Bloodthirster (If they have lots of armor get Last Whisper First)

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End Game Items

Should the Game last this long, the optimal build for Caitlyn will include the 4 previous items and

VS heavy Physical,       vs heavy magical,       if you are far ahead

Guardian Angel OR Quicksilver Sash OR Frozen Mallet 

   OR         OR     

Super Late Game Items

Sell your boots, buy another phantom dancer, get Red and Green pots

Elixir Of Agility + Fortitude, Berserkers Greaves (sell) -> Phantom Dancer

  +    + 

 

Map Awareness

Map awareness is not a huge thing with Caitlyn however it is still important. Using her traps to control certain areas of the map is very important, for example using traps to zone out enemies while doing dragon. If for some reason you get insanely ahead in lane, you can go up to mid an participate in a gank using your ult. Also, buy wards if you need to, supports have to buy items as well and buying a ward can keep your lane alive and healthy OR catch an enemy out of position.

 

Laning Partners and Matchups

Caitlyn does very well in the lane phase. She does reasonably well with every support however a special note is to be made about Taric

Taric's stun lasts just long enough for your trap to arm under the poor sod that was stunned. This can snowball your lane out of control because of his shatter shredding armor too. Beware of the Taric Cait lane.

Alistar can also do this with a good pulverize. 

Who you counter

If you play well, you counter more or less anyone. Your range early leads to you being very dominant and some players can't mentally get out of that rut. You counter vayne, Corki and Graves hard. They can't compete with your range.

Who Counters you

Sivir, Ezreal - They can poke you, hard.

Kog, Tristana - They can outrange you, your advantage is then lost.

See counterpicks here

 

Gameplay as Caitlyn

Set traps to protect your jungle for the first couple minutes.

Go to your lane. Farm, farm, farm, farm, farm. (Last hit minions and control the wave so that you miss no exp or last hits)

Trade when you will come out on top, try not to ever let them get free damage on you.

Basically Early you want to out farm the lane, pick up kills if you can, avoid dying and help your team do dragon/steal buffs.

As the game progresses you want to keep your farm high so you can afford your extravagant items however you want to group with your team and participate in objectives (red, blue, dragon, baron) as well as tower pushes and teamfights.

In teamfights you want to abuse you range and make sure you have an escape route. Hit the nearest person, preferably squishy and if possible murder the enemy carries.