League of Legends Teemo Guide

Countless demons and monsters roam Runeterra in search of blood, vengeance, and death but none are as scary as The Swift Scout that brings terror wherever he goes. The time has come for us to take a look at League of Legends’ most hated champion – Teemo. Take a look at why players dread this champion so much and how you can use this to your advantage when playing League. This Teemo guide will help you understand the advanced mechanics of play and master him in no time at all.

The Swift Scout’s Journey

Teemo was described by both the Bandle City military and citizens as an oddball. He comes off as a warm and playful soul but something inside him reeks of death. Teemo’s personality takes complete turn when in a mission, becoming an agent of death that knows not what mercy means. As the city’s first champion and deadliest scout, he has the highest success rate in completing solo missions. His signature weapon is a blowgun containing poisoned darts he gathers himself.

Teemo has a history of being one the most hated champions in League of Legends. He has often been called by players as “The Little Devil” of the rift since playing against this champion means that you won’t be having the time of your life. When playing against Teemo, the enemy laner has a 30% chance of being tilted to oblivion. Let’s try to abuse that as we take a look at this Teemo guide to learn how to master this champion and use him in competitive play. He’s one of the Most Fun Champions to Play.

Teemo General Gameplay

Teemo is played almost everywhere on the map but he most commonly played in the Top Lane which will be the basis of this Teemo guide. Teemo is a marksman so the core strength of his play lies in landing attacks from a safe distance away from the enemy and kiting them efficiently. Teemo aims to harass enemies into submission and kite them towards mushrooms to discourage them from pursuing you or turn the tide of the fight if they’re not aware if a mushroom was there.

Teemo Guide – Skills and Rotations

Teemo’s skills and abilities doesn’t offer anything flashy but they sure are annoying as if Riot Games tried to mix all the abilities that would tilt a player and place them in a single champ. In this Teemo guide, we’ll be learning how to use these skills not only to annoy the enemy player but also to make sure that you’ll have the highest chance of winning in high-level matches. Time to turn this meme champion into a messenger of death.

Passive: Guerilla Warfare

Innate – Teemo gains Invisibility after 1.5 seconds if he doesn’t move, take damage, or do any action that breaks stealth and will remain invisible as long as he doesn’t do any of these. If Teemo is inside a brush, he is able to gain Invisibility even while he’s moving.

Innate – Element of Surprise: When Teemo breaks steath, he gains Element of Surprise which grants him bonus attack speed for 3 seconds.

Guerilla Warfare is a really flexible ability and is useful when you want to burst down your opponent. You can use this ability to throw you opponents off by turning invisible at the right moment when making an escape. You can also use this ability to ambush enemy players who are caught out of rotation and force them to make the decision of trying to run away or fight you while you kite them towards your shrooms. Just keep in mind that AoE abilities can break the stealth.

Q: Blinding Dart

Active – Teemo shoots a poisoned dart at an enemy, dealing magic damage and blinds them for a few seconds. The duration of the blind is doubled when used against minions or monsters.

Blinding Dart is a useful ability for last hitting minions or harassing enemy champions. During fights, you might want to use this ability when the enemy tries to go all-in on your or tries to use an empowered auto-attack. Timing your Blinding Dart well is your key to surviving as Teemo and can mitigate the majority of the enemy’s damage sources. During teamfights, try to use this against a Marksman to maximize damage mitigation as long as you have a safe route towards reaching them.

W: Move Quick

Passive – Teemo gains bonus movement speed if he hasn’t taken any damage from enemy champions or turrets for 5 seconds.

Active – Teemo doubles his movement speed and prevents him from being disabled by damage for a duration.

This ability is Teemo’s main movement utility and is important when kiting or pursuing opponents. Be sure to always have this ability up before trying to engage an enemy player since it serves as your secondary lifeline when things go wrong. You can use this ability to harass as well by activating it and landing a few shots at the enemy player before retreating. Always use this ability when walking back to lane whenever you go back to the base if you don’t have teleport.

E: Toxic Shot

Passive: Teemo’s auto-attacks deal bonus magic damage and poisons his target.

Poisoned targets suffer magic damage for 4 seconds. Each subsequent attack refreshes the duration of the poison. Damage from this ability is increased when used against Monsters.

Toxic Shot is Teemo’s main damage source. Make sure that you have Poison active on the enemy laner as often as possible to slowly bring them down. Be careful when using this on minions as it might break your CS-timing from the DoT. You can harass enemy players efficiently simply by walking up to them and landing 1-2 auto-attacks and one Blinding Dart before running away. Do this frequently and you’ll find yourself at the advantage when in lane.

R: Noxious Trap

Passive – Teemo stores a charge of Noxious Trap periodically. Teemo can store a maximum of 3/4/5 charges depending on the level of this ability.

Active – Teemo tosses a Noxious Trap at a target location. Upon landing, the trap becomes stealth and arms itself after 1 second lasting until 5 minutes or until it is destroyed or activated by an enemy. Noxious Traps bounce if it lands on top of another trap.

The mushroom will explode if an enemy unit steps on top of it, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies, applying poison, slowing, and reveals them for 4 seconds.

Noxious Trap can only be destroyed by enemy champion’s auto attacks after revealing the mushrooms. Shrooms have a maximum of 6 health and suffers 3 damage from melee attacks and 2 damage from ranged attacks.

Noxious Trap is Teemo’s signature ability and is why he is considered the most annoying champion. The key to using this ability is to leave it on frequented routes, away from enemy minions or monsters that might walk in its path. When using it in lane, place it on the sides of the lane and on the river to avoid being ganked by the enemy jungler. Run towards your mushrooms when an enemy tries to chase you. Place mushrooms as often as possible but don’t cluster them too close, otherwise an enemy Sweeping Lens will clear them with ease.

Teemo Guide – Items & Builds

Building items for Teemo is very linear. No matter which role you play, you’ll want to build these items indicated on our Teemo guide. Teemo is primarily an AP champion and relies mostly on his DoT to make the most of his damage. As a marksman, attack speed is also a stat that he should build a lot.

Starting Items

Doran’s Ring – The best starting item for AP-based champions. This will help Teemo deal a lot of damage early on while being able to regenerate the mana he loses while harassing the enemy laner.

Core Items

Rift Maker (Mythic) – Rift Maker is chosen over Liandry’s Anguish because the latter is more oriented towards burst damage. In addition, Rift Maker provides more overall damage since Teemo likes to deal DoT through his poison and finishes with a nice True Damage burst. This item ensures that Teemo is as menace at a global scale.

Nashor’s Tooth – Nashor’s Tooth is Teemo’s main attack speed item. This item allows him to deal a ton of damage from his auto-attacks by adding bonus magic damage.

Recommended Items

Demonic Embrace – An item that works well with champions that like to deal DoT. Since Teemo specializes in dealing damage from his poison abilities, this item will ensure that he each tick will hurt. In addition, this item offers a cool amount of defensive stats if he’s able to apply DoT to more than one player.

Zhonya’s Hourglass – A mage’s best friend. Teemo is extremely squishy and survives mostly by avoiding short bursts of damage or kiting the enemy away. This item will help Teemo survive for a while and buy him time for his DoT to deal significant damage.

Void Staff – Increases the amount of magic damage dealt by increasing magic penetration. This item also gives a high amount of AP which is perfect to increase your auto-attack damage.

Rabadon’s Deathcap – Mages’ primary AP-item. This helps scale AP and increase your total AP percentage which results in a huge powerspike. However, make sure that you’ve built your utility items first or get a decent amount of AP before purshasing this item.

Morellonomicon – Best item to apply Grievous Wounds. Use this when the enemy has a high amount of healing that becomes annoying. It’ll also help your mushrooms become deadly as it’ll be extremely hard to heal through the DoT.

Lich Bane – A neat and fun item to have if you want to further increase the damage you deal via your auto-attacks. This item will give you Spellblade which is also useful if you’re focusing more on sieging and split-pushing the side lanes.

Teemo Guide – Runes

Primary: Precision

Keystone: Press the Attack – This rune is great for marksmen with high attack speed. It makes enemies take up to 12% more damage after landing 3 consecutive auto-attacks and deals bonus adaptive damage.

Legend: Alacrity – This rune further increases Teemo’s attack speed and is great if you don’t want to compromise building more attack speed items over AP items. It’s easy to stack this rune provided you’ve placed a lot of shrooms around the map.

Coup de Grace – Deal more damage when you’re above 40% health because let’s face it, if your HP drops to 40%, you can’t fight anymore because the enemy will just step on you.

Secondary: Domination

Taste of Blood – A necessary rune for Teemo to survive because of how squishy he is. Easy to get back the health you lose when engaging in short trades.

Ravenous Hunter – More sources of omnivamp which is essential to ensuring that you survive in the harsh environment. It’s easy to stack this rune because you gain assists from shrooms.

Teemo Overview

The demon of Summoner’s Rift doesn’t seem complicated to play but he has a lot of weaknesses that decent enemies can abuse. It takes a high-level of mastery for players to be able to play this champion successfully but once you’re familiar with him, you’ll definitely be a terror to your enemies. Our Teemo guide explains everything you need to get started on playing Teemo but there’s a long road of practice ahead of you. Avoid Common Beginner Mistakes and you’ll be on your way to be the next Teemo one-trick.