Not too many players fully understand how Corki works as a champion in League of Legends. He’s been a meta ADC, mage, and an assassin while having more than one viable role in the game.
However, the AP Corki build is the strongest one when it comes to carrying in LoL, even in high elo.
And so, here I’ll focus on explaining how powerful AP Corki is and how you should approach the playstyle. I’ll tell you how his abilities work and what kind of damage they do.
But I’ll also tell you which runes to take and which items to build.
This guide will be a complete introduction to playing AP Corki in League of Legends. So even if you’ve never tried this build out, you’ll know what to expect.
Let’s begin!
Is Corki AP or AD in League of Legends?
Does Corki deal AP or AD? Is Corki magic or physical damage? Can Corki be full AP?
On the surface, Corki is an ADC/marksman champion. However, all of Corki’s abilities are actually magic damage and not physical. On top of that, Corki’s abilities have both AP and AD ratios.
And that’s why Corki can either go full AP, full AD, or a hybrid build of both ability power and attack damage items.
In this sense, Corki is similar to Ezreal. Ezreal can also build full AP or full AD, depending on your playstyle.
But Corki’s AP build is much more powerful than Ezreal’s. It takes advantage of the high AP ratios across all of his abilities. And with enough ability power, AP Corki can one-shot squishy champions on the enemy team.
However, there’s also a great difference between the AP and the AD build for Corki.
As an ADC, Corki’s playstyle is all about auto-attacking and kiting. And his abilities are just filler damage and poking tool before team fights.
But AP Corki has fantastic damage in all stages of the game. It’s great during the laning phase and it’s overwhelming later on too. It allows you to spam Corki’s rockets and one-shot enemies left and right.
Read Also: AP Varus One-Shot Build Guide
Corki’s Abilities Explained – Effects and Ratios
If you’ve never studied Corki’s champion design in League of Legends, here’s a quick rundown of how his abilities work.
Corki’s passive – Hextech Munitions has two effects.
First, it makes his auto-attacks deal 80% of his AD as magic damage and only 20% as physical damage.
And second, it allows Corki to pick up a package every 300 seconds. Corki’s package increases his movement speed and improves his W – Valkyrie.
Corki’s Q – Phosphorus Bomb is a simple AoE damaging spell with a relatively short range. It has a 70% AD ratio than a 50% AP ratio, and it also reveals all invisible enemies in the area.
His W – Valkyrie allows Corki to dash in a target location, leaving a patch behind him that deals magic damage for a couple of seconds and has only a 10% AP ratio.
However, with the Special Delivery package, Corki can cast his W from a far greater range, knock back all enemies he passes through and deal tons of magic damage in the process that scales with 168% of his AP and a freaking 1400% of his AD.
The E – Gatling Gun is a toggle-on ability that damages all enemies in a cone in front of Corki. This spell does both physical and magic damage but it only scales with 10% of Corki’s AD.
Additionally, Gatling Gun lowers the armor and magic resist of the affected enemies.
And Corki’s ultimate – Missile Barrage is a series of rockets he can launch at a great distance. Each rocket deals magic damage, but there are two different ones.
The normal rockets have a 20% AP ratio and a scaling AD ratio of 15 / 45 / 75%.
And the bigger rockets (every third rocket) deal more base damage while also having 40% AP ratio and a scaling AD ratio of 30 / 90 / 150% AD.
That’s how Corki’s abilities work in League of Legends.
Read Also: AP Miss Fortune Build Guide
AP Corki Build Season 13 – Runes
- First Strike
- Magical Footwear
- Biscuit Delivery
- Time Warp Tonic
- Transcendence
- Scorch
FIRST STRIKE is by far the best keystone to go for on AP Corki. When you first trike an enemy champion, First Strike will allow you to deal 10% more damage to that enemy champion for 3 seconds.
This makes one-shotting someone with AP Corki a lot easier to do.
After the 3 seconds, First Strike will give you bonus gold based on how much damage you’ve done. This gives you an advantage over your opponent, so don’t be afraid to go for trades during the laning phase.
MAGICAL FOOTWEAR is a super-useful rune that gives you free boots after 12 minutes. However, each champion takedown lowers this number, so you can potentially get free boots at minute 8 or 9.
With this rune, you also save 300 gold that you’d normally spend on boots.
BISCUIT DELIVERY grants you 3 biscuits in a span of 6 minutes (one biscuit every 2 minutes). Each biscuit regenerates a bit of your health and mana, so you can stay safe during the laning phase.
TIME WARP TONIC is another fantastic rune for dominating the early stages as AP Corki. It synergizes with your starting item – Corrupting Potion, making each use more valuable.
With this rune, 50% of your potions will be used immediately and your auto-attacks will burn the target while the potion is healing you. This makes trading with your lane opponent much more powerful.
So, don’t forget to pick up Time Warp Tonic!
TRANSCENDENCE is a great secondary rune because it gives you free ability haste. AP Corki depends a lot on cooldown reduction, and Transcendence helps out a lot.
Additionally, this rune helps you reset the remaining cooldown of your abilities on a champion takedown, allowing you to be more flexible in a team fight.
SCORCH is a poking rune that burns your target with bonus magic damage. You mainly pick it for the early game, but its damage can help you take down enemies on low HP too.
Read Also: AP Kai’Sa Build Guide
AP Corki Build Season 13 – Items
- Sorcerer’s Shoes
- Manamune / Muramana
- Luden’s Tempest
- Shadowflame
- Horizon Focus
- Rabadon’s Deathcap
SORCERER’S SHOES are the most valuable boots for AP Corki. And getting them as early as possible is essential!
Magic penetration is a key stat for Corki because all of his abilities are magic damage. And building magic penetration before your enemies build magic resist is a huge advantage!
MANAMUNE / MURAMANA should always be your first item on Corki, regardless of your build. As you saw above, Corki has high AD ratios despite having magic damage spells. So, the higher his AD is the harder his rockets hit too.
On top of that, Manamune will increase your total mana so you can keep spamming Corki’s abilities. Just don’t forget to pick up Tear of the Goddess early on.
LUDEN’S TEMPEST is the mythic item to build on AP Corki. It’s the best mage item for poking and increasing your initial burst.
Besides all the useful stats like AP, mana, and cooldown reduction, Luden’s Tempest helps with your wave clearing too. It also adds bonus magic penetration for each legendary item you have, so it’s the perfect mythic option.
SHADOWFLAME is another item you get specifically for magic penetration. It’s an anti-shield item in League of Legends that grants you more magic penetration against enemies that are shielded.
However, this also works when your targets have high health numbers. So, Shadowflame is a counter item to tanks in LoL as well as shielding champions.
HORIZON FOCUS synergizes very well with your keystone First Strike. Basically, it allows you to deal 10% more damage to enemies for 6 seconds after hitting them with an ability from over 700 range.
Together with First Strike, this amounts to a 20% damage increase. So any time you start combat with these two effects available, you’re going to obliterate your targets as AP Corki!
RABADON’S DEATHCAP is the last item you need to put in your inventory on AP Corki. It gives you 120 bonus ability power and it also increases your total AP by 35%.
In the late game, RA is the most useful item on a mage champion. It almost doubles your power, so it’s always recommended to save up gold for it.
Read Also: Full AP Lucian Build Guide (Master)
Optional and Situational Items for AP Corki
Different games require different itemization. So, here are my favorite optional items for AP Corki.
Crown of the Shattered Queen can be a valuable mythic item, especially when you’re up against assassins like Zed. For that, you also have Zhonya’s Hourglass.
Void Staff can be also be a great addition to your power if you’re against a tanky composition and you need extra magic penetration.
On the other hand, Morellonomicon can help you counter healing champions.
And lastly, Ravenous Hydra can be one of the most powerful items on Corki. It’s not AP but the item allows you to deal AoE damage with each of Corki’s ultimate rockets. It will help you heal too, so definitely try it out sometimes.
Read Also: AP Zeri One-Shot Build Guide
Ability Order and Summoner’s Spells for AP Corki
When you play AP Corki, the best way to utilize your ability order is to go Q > E > W. This will give you the most damage throughout the game.
So, here’s the full ability order for AP Corki, level by level, so you know which abilities to take and max out first.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| Q | Q | Q | Q | Q | |||||||||||||
| W | W | W | W | W | |||||||||||||
| E | E | E | E | E | |||||||||||||
| R | R | R |
And for Summoner’s Spells, you can take anything on Corki as long as you have Flash. Ignite works well for dominating your lane opponent.
However, Exhaust can also be helpful in 1v1 fights as well as Barrier, especially against assassins.
Conclusion
The AP Corki build is a powerful playstyle that can help you 1v5 the enemy team. The constant damage output can be so overwhelming to your opponents that you can easily carry a team fight alone.
Even high elo and professional players such as Faker enjoy AP Corki. And here’s a YouTube video featuring Faker with this AP Corki build.
For more similar guides, check Runetarium’s off-meta builds page!
Read Also: AP Twitch Smurf Build Guide
