Ladies and Gentlemen, Introducing the Amazing, Gravity Defying Camille! Soaring through Summoner's Rift Seeking Super Squishy Subjects to the end of her blades!
Seriously though, this Champion holds a special place in my heart not only because of her rich backstory but also because of her diverse rune-set, variety of roles, and r/Im14andthisisdeep Voicelines that establishes her cutthroat personality to the player without them having to even know about her backstory. This champion's design is amazing and it's no wonder that she's regarded as a fav for many high elo players I know.
Let's first talk about this champion's abilities.
A D A P T I V E D E F E N S I V E (Passive)
When Camille Performs Attack upon a target champion, Camille gains a shield that is entirely based in AD or AP for a few seconds. This shield scales with Camille's Maximum Health. The type of shield that Camille will gain is indicated by the presence of a symbol next to an enemy champion; if the symbol is blue and you auto attack that champion then you'll find Camille surrounded by a beautiful, blue bubble protecting her from Ability Power. If the symbol is orange and you do the same thing, the bubble will be orange indicating protection from Attack Damage.
This passive is powerful beyond words and garuntees you victory against any opponent you may find yourself running into top at level 1. Not only is it so useful offensively, this passive also allows Camille to have crazy survivability especially in the most dire situations as it allows many to turn the tides even of the most hopeless battles to your favour. This passive will be discussed further later in the guide when we talk about Runes, just remember that this passive is special compared to the shield passives of champions like Rakan, Malphite, and Yasuo because Camille is allowed to decide when she can use her shield rather than relying on a response from an opponent, preventing an opponent from widdling down your shield before they engage on you so that you're unprepared defensively.
P R E C I S I O N P R O T O C O L (Q)
Precision is the Difference between a butcher, and surgeon.
Camille’s Q, Precision Protocol is a somewhat confusing ability upon first glance. It has 3 stages: the initial cast, a short chance to recast, and the empowered second cast. The first stage: initial cast causes Camille’s next basic attack to deal additional damage, similar to a Nasus Q. Next, Camille has a 1-3 second time period to recast her Q, if she does so then Camille doesn’t reach the 3rd stage of the ability, instead, if Camille merely waits out the time period she reaches the third stage, the empowered Q. The empowered Q is monstrous: dealing DOUBLE the damage of Camille’s initial Q and based on the level of her Q, can potentially deal 100% true damage. On top of all of this already, Camille casting Q resets her basic attack animation.
Wanna take a wild guess at who has one of the fastest Press The Attack Procs in League? If you guessed Veigar I’m sorry to inform you of this but you’re severely mistaken. Camille’s insane auto resets are what allows her to be so terrifying to any cocky bruiser or ADC that comes across her path (hehe cocky). If a squishy target is unlucky enough to get into her melee range, they’ll be greeted with a fast Auto-Q(Auto)-Tiamat-Auto-Q(Empowered)-Auto(if need be). Completely exposing a target to the double, true damage from her Precision Protocol. This combo can work without Tiamat as well, however the item is essential to Camille not only for farming but for getting in the extra damage in the time her burst point is at the lowest: between the initial and empowered Q. In terms of attempting to put out Camille’s Maximum Q damage while playing attempting to avoid taking any damage yourself, all of Camille’s attacks in this combo excluding Tiamat are regarded as basic attacks. This means that Camille can activate her empowered Q and so long as the animation begins, Camille will successfully land the attack while cancelling the animation(ex. Using Zonya’s in the middle of your Q while building Guardian’s Angel). This ability is the reason why most Camille players tend to rush Tiamat and Trinity Force: it allows for Camille’s influence on the game’s outcome to spike. NOTE: Neither of Camille’s Qs will result in a Critical Strike! She’s not a Lee Sin rip off!
T A C T I C A L S W E E P (W)
“I am what you would call a deniable asset.”
Camille’s W is a mid ranged, low damage, and mid area of effect attack that is composed of two cones: an inner and outer cone. Upon activating Camille’s W, Camille becomes disarmed throughout an entire animation of her sweeping her leg out, slashing at the enemy. The main part of the ability is based around the outer cone of the attack: this cone deals additional damage, restores Camille with health based off of the additional damage dealt, and most importantly it slows the enemy champion’s movement speed by a whopping 80% for a whole 2 seconds.
To many starting off on Camille this ability may seem forgettable or unimportant, however this ability is surprisingly versatile. Whether you need offense, defense, sustain, general range, poke, or execution, this ability has your back. Need to stop a Tryndamere from chasing you under tower with his ultimate activated? This ability will slow him so he’ll take a few more towershots than he initially would receive. Playing against a Ryze that won’t stop poking you down with ranged auto attacks? Just hit him with that W and restore all of his basic attacks back while making him take the same pesky damage. Need to safely execute an extremely low Sion without diving him? Your W has got you covered again. The biggest drawback that this ability has is the high mana cost it repeatedly taxes Camille with.
H O O K S H O T (E)
“Character is displayed by the way one retreats.”
Camille’s E consists of 2 parts: Hookshot and Wall Dive. Activating Hookshot allows for Camille to attach herself to a wall 800 units away from the point she activates it upon attaching it with her hook she immediately rapidly pulls herself to the wall. This part of the ability’s movement cannot be stopped by roots or stuns while she pulls herself towards the wall. Once against the wall Camille moves into the second phase of her Hookshot: Wall Dive; kicking off against the structure she is attached to, in any given direction she chooses, this includes having the ability to even leap OVER walls that Camille attaches herself to. If she leaps in the direction of a champion the distance of her wall dive doubles, allowing her to cover a maximum distance of 1600 units. Upon leaping into an enemy champion, Camille’s wall dive comes to an abrupt stop, stunning the champion for .75 seconds.
Camille definitely would not be Camille if it wasn’t for her E. The hookshot ability is by far her most defining feature, acting as the small bit of CC required to display the strength of her full combo or to play safely in lane despite the constant threat of a camping jungler. When playing in a lane that requires constant movement, whether that be constant engages, disengages, or wall leaping, Camille will fully upgrade this ability first, and it is typically preferred by those taking Camille Jungle or when Camille is either being camped in a or losing in a top lane matchup.
Also this ability is what makes her the funny haha anime character.
T H E H E X T E C H U L T I M A T U M
“Did you REALLY think you could run?”
Camille leaps on a target, becoming untargettable through the duration of the leap. Upon landing she pushes away all other enemy champions and minions. The area they are pushed away from takes the form of a highlighted blue area that enemy leaped upon is unable to exit. While inside, Camille deals an additional 6% damage while the target additionally receives 6% more damage from all sources.
Camille’s Ultimate has a decent amount of uses to it, as it isolates a target from the rest of their team, defining her role as a squishy killer in the late game. Not only does this ability reveal the targeted champion from the rest of their team, but because it pushes other champions away from the target it prevents many enemies from peeling for the target immediately. The increased damage from all sources allows your team to shred that PESKY LITTLE TRISTANA THAT KEEPS JUMPING AWAY EVERY TIME I DIVE HER.
ABILITY CONCLUSION
To end this section I’d like to give you the ability upgrade path that causes Camille to scale the hardest: 1. Q 2. E 3. W 4. Q 5. Q 6. R 7. Q 8. E 9. Q. 10. E 11. R 12. E 13. W 14. W 15. W 16. R 17. W 18. W
Obviously this isn’t the Ability upgrade process that should be used for every single game, however it is technically the most meta, whatever that means.
Camille’s Item Build
Trinity Force
Easily Camille’s absolute core item, without this item you won’t have a Camille to play, and even in some instances this item can be rushed prior to Tiamat.
Tiamat
Commonly used right after Camille’s W to cancel the animation but still land the hit with the W, Tiamat becomes extremely helpful in popping the most damage off her enemies as fast as possible. Not only that, Tiamat helps Camille farm like many other top lane champions and it allows her to decide between if she wishes to build Tank or Bruiser. As far as actual placements in certain games go, this item does wonders with helping Camille gain Conqueror procs.
Honestly, I’m too tired to write more of these, like the rest of these items are all situational and other stuff it’s tank lol.
RUUUNNNEE TIIIMMMEEE BABYYYYY
CONQUEROR
Easily the most broken rune you can take on a champion as of right now, even on champions like Singed and Aurelion Sol. Based on your playstyle, Camille may not act as an exception. The additional damage that she receives from her 10 stacks allows for a massive blow of True Damage to your target with your empowered Precision Protocol (Q). As well as Camille does a good job of building stacks through a decently complex combo of E→Basic Attack→Q→Basic Attack→W→Tiamat→Empowered Q. Obviously this isn’t the only combo that you can pull off but it requires a very strict conservation and display of abilities. There are a lot of downsides to taking this rune. If you play into a champion that is squishy the rune becomes almost useless to you as you don’t get the full ability of bonuses without all 10 stacks. This rune is also easily countered, if Camille tries to engage on a target and the target flees, unless she can maintain her Conqueror stacks throughout chase by poking, Camille will have to deal with the long abilities cooldowns as a punishment. This new conqueror does a much better job at giving advantages to champions that can hold long fights or sustain pokes before performing a final engage, it is definitely not a recommended rune to be taken if you are new to Camille. However if you have enough experience with Camille it does give her the strongest team strength in late game. Giving her the role of a team fighting bruiser than an individual squishy killer. If you plan on taking this rune and Riot reverts it back to converting a portion of your damage into True Damage this Rune will become obsolete on Camille, as the second part of her Q already is entirely converted to True damage.
PRESS THE ATTACK
This is technically the MOST ideal rune that Camille can take and is what I highly recommend for players who plan on starting Camille. It allows you to get ahead of the game against your enemy laner by beating them in trades from level 1, and it allows you to fulfill your role of being a squishy eliminator mid to late game when ADC’s scale the hardest. This rune is also perfect if you pick Camille into a champion that makes quick trades, aka super annoying people that play RANGED CHAMPIONS TOP LANE. Quinn and Vayne mains, I’m looking at you. Anyways, playing in bushes allows you to take advantage over them at level 1, which sets you up with a strong level 2 advantage, making it possible for you to rush Trinity Force to beat them. God I hate those champs. Press the Attack still has its drawbacks: good luck trying to play with this rune defensively and effectively, if a champion can sustain themselves against you in lane longer it can defeat the whole point of taking this rune. It also forces Camille to become a 1v1 champion, despite the fact that there are many instances where her split pushing abilities are… questionable. Not bad, but questionable to say the least.
Overall, good rune if you plan on playing a normal average game of Camille.
COMET
Ahh, the good old days where this rune used to be the best rune you could take on Camille. This, similar to the next rune we will be talking about is commonly taken if you’re going to play into a lane where you’ll be playing solely defensively, with little to no chance of winning lane. It used to be that Camille would take this rune all the time, and simply wear down your enemies with the sustain you gain from your W. However, times have sadly changed, and Camille’s W now has a ridiculous cost in mana in exchange for the damage dealt, even when combined with the damage from runes like Scorch, Absolute Focus, and Comet.
GRASP OF THE UNDYING
This rune is by far Camille’s most unpopular rune. It’s the rune that you take when you’re certain of being dove under tower and that death is certain EVEN with her W slow, her E stun and her R untargettability. Even when Camille builds tank she’s now more likely to run Comet or Conqueror as they give her better sustain in lane or team fights respectively speaking. This rune attempts to give Camille sustain in both but it causes her to have a lack of damage. If you plan on taking this rune, also plan on taking Titanic Hydra first item and building more tank items from there.
MINOR RUNES
Shield Bash
This rune is AMAZING on Camille, and it is completely recommended for her to take on all builds as it pairs perfectly with her passive and auto resets. It’s one of the many factors that play into her early game damage advantage. The next best choice would be to go Demolish, however Camille isn’t really meant for split pushing, and if you really need damage against towers that badly her Q DOES do double true damage to the tower.
Bone Plating
This is your safety net rune, if all of a sudden things don’t work out in lane like you anticipated this rune has your back. More importantly it also acts as a life saver when battling out quick trades against an opponent.
Sudden Impact
This is only a rune I recommend taking if you’re going to be playing in Jungle, with jungle there’s no real need for taking a set of trading runes like shield bash or bone plating because… well you don’t really trade. Jungle Camille is similar to a lot of other junglers: dive in, help get kill, dive out before dying. And because Jungle Camilles tend to fully upgrade their E first for the cooldown reduction on it to be more mobile in the jungle this plays a far more significant role in ganking.
C O U N T E R S
R I V E N
Big scary girl that probably beats almost every top lane at level 1-2. Riven is like a horny teenager without a condom because her biggest strength is accidentally knocking someone up.
Your best bet of fighting her is by taking runes that give you Tenacity, from there you may catch advantage over her past level 6 assuming she doesn't get kills.
K L E D
He's just so much better early game like Riven. Not because he's stronger with knocking you up early, but because he has so much more survivalibility. Kled is perfect against overly cocky champs that try to fight too early.
Play safe against this fellow and keep him stunned under tower as much as you can.
F I O R A
Fiora just does a good job of countering Camille mechanically speaking. Her W prevents Camille from stunning her, and because it's an ability with 2 parts it makes it much easier to punish Attack on Titan woman (see that was me doing a funny haha joke, it's really late). Fiora also has the ability to harass Camille underneath tower with her Q and it's ability to poke hard. Unfortunately for Camille, her passive also counters Camille's passive. Because Camille gains an adaptive shield after auto attacking, Fiora technically doesn't even need to shred it to deal damage. Her passive true damage just destroys Camille and her legs.
C O N C L U S I O N
So that took like 3 days to make when I had the free time... so... yay. Tbh I really hope this inspires more people to try out this amazing champ on the rift she really is a blast to play but she can be tedious to learn mechanically.
