Sivir Build & Rune Guide

Sivir looks like your standard ADC champion with the most normal-looking human champion design. But it's only until you play her that you see everything she’s capable of. Sivir might just look like a woman with a cross blade, but her maneuvering and skill expression takes her well above many other marksmen champions.

Swerving and slashing her cross blade through the enemy team, she is also one of the few ADCs that have a team-wide utility ultimate. This doesn’t just deem her a threat, but rather all ally champs nearby. Let’s see what makes this crossbow-wielding warrior so good.

How To Play Sivir In League Of Legends

Sivir is a marksman champion, so, like all other marksmen, she needs to keep her distance in teamfights while basic attacking enemies to death. Her kiting potential is very high, especially when R is activated, so she can easily dodge out on most skill shots.

Sivir doesn’t have an extraordinary attack range, so you’ll need to get up close and personal to land basic attacks, but with a long-range boomerang and the ability to ricochet blades off of enemies, she can often poke them down without getting too close. Make sure to position yourself and use your W wisely to stay alive.

What Do Sivir’s Abilities Do?

Sivir has some of the best wave clear plus teamfight damage in the game. This isn’t because of insane attack speed or high burst potential but rather her AOE abilities. Using both her Q and W, Sivir can quickly clear waves on waves of enemy minions within seconds. The same goes for enemy champions. A well-placed Q can often take off 5-10% health from the enemy ADC’s health bar. Regardless to say, R is considered her most defining ability, buffing all her nearby teammates as well as herself. Take an in-depth look into how she pulls it off.

Fleet of Foot (Passive)

Movement speed is everything for Sivir, and her passive compliments this need perfectly. Every time Sivir hits an enemy champion with either a basic attack or damaging ability, she gains a 55-75 burst of decaying move speed for 1.5 seconds. This scales with level, so the higher level she is, the more bonus movement speed she will receive.

This passive is especially useful for Sivir as she can ricochet her crossblades to damage enemies from afar, constantly gaining the movement speed buff. It also makes engages much easier as she can gap close and then kite the enemy ADC much more easily.

Boomerang Blade (Q)

Boomerang Blade is Sivir’s best source of damage in the early game. Allowing her to chip her enemies’ health bar from afar, she can take them down to half health without ever fully committing. By using this ability, Sivir throws her crossblade in the targeted direction, dealing physical damage to all enemies in its path.

When the crossblade reaches maximum range, it recoils and returns back to Sivir, dealing the same amount of physical damage on the way back. The damage is reduced by 0-60% based on non-champions hit during its journey. Sivir can use this ability to constantly poke her enemies and keep them off the minion wave while simultaneously wave clearing with Q.

Ricochet (W)

Unique to only Sivir in League of Legends, Ricochet allows her to bounce her auto attacks off enemies to deal damage to other nearby enemies. When activated, Sivir empowers her basic attacks for 4 seconds. She gains bonus attack speed and the ability to ricochet her crossblades to nearby enemies, dealing physical damage. If the primary attack critically hits, so will the ricocheted blades.

The blades can bounce up to 8 times before disappearing and execute minions that would have 15 or lower health remaining. The blades can only hit targets up to 2 times per blade as she has a total of 3 empowered auto attacks. This ability can easily proc her passive.

Spell Shield (E)

While most champions need to buy Banshee’s Veil or Edge of Night to receive a spell shield, Sivir and Nocturne aren’t bound to those items. Sivir’s E grants her a spell shield whenever activated, blocking the next ability thrown at her. This can be either a damaging or CC ability. Not only does it block the immediate effect, but Sivir also heals herself and regens some mana if she successfully blocks an ability. This is great to get out of those initial engages by the enemy.

On The Hunt (R)

Sivir’s R is a teamwide ability that drastically improves her and her allies’ movement speed. When activated, Sivir grants On The Hunt to herself and nearby allies, granting everyone a movement speed buff.

On top of that, all of Sivir’s basic attacks reduce the cooldowns of her abilities by 0.5 seconds. Each time Sivir scores a champion takedown, the duration of On The Hunt is refreshed. A great team fight ability, this buff can help clear the enemy team entirely.

Sivir’s Build Path (Items + Runes)

Sivir follows a pretty traditional ADC build path with stacking attack speed and mana regen. While she doesn’t have much lifesteal initially, due to her insane kiting potential, she can easily leech off her runes to heal back up fully. Take a look at how to build Sivir efficiently.

Runes

Primary: Your primary runes are Lethal Tempo into Presence of Mind, Legend: Bloodline, and Cut Down. Lethal Tempo is the standard for most attack-speed champions, as you gain an insane amount of attack speed. Legend: Bloodline gives you a bit of lifesteal early on before you get your Bloodthirster, while Cut Down helps shred through tanky engage champions quicker.

Secondary: For secondary runes, go for Magical Footwear followed by Biscuit Delivery. Biscuit Delivery gives you a slight mana and health regen, so you don’t have to recall, while Magical Footwear grants you free tier 1 shoes as the match progresses.

Items

Starting Item: Doran’s Blade is your item of choice during the start. The extra minion damage and lifesteal are very helpful to Sivir as an ADC.

Core Build: Sivir’s core build consists of Kraken Slayer into Navori Quickblades. Sivir does not need the extra movement speed from Galeforce, but Kraken Slayer helps quickly finish off enemies. Navori Quickblades reduces basic ability cooldowns with increased Critical Strike Chance.

Situational Items: Bloodthirster and Phantom Dancer are great pickups for Sivir. Bloodthirster is Sivir’s only lifesteal item, while Phantom Dancer helps her kite better, weaving auto attacks in between.

Boots: Bereserker’s Greaves are the way to go due to the additional attack speed.

Final Thoughts

Sivir’s playstyle is unlike most other ADCs. While we wouldn’t call her a safe pick, she can get out of mispositions sometimes with her W, making her a less mechanically-demanding champion. However, the lack of damage early on and the need for good utilization of abilities can be difficult to deal with. However, if you’re eager to learn her, she is a worthwhile champion to invest your time and effort into.