Sup ;)

My name is PvE, and my favorite hero as well as my main hero for multiple seasons are WP (weapon power) and CP (crystal power) SAW.

Two seasons ago, I intentionally dropped my ELO on my PvE account to approximately Hotness Silver from POA Bronze. Using only SAW, I was able to return to POA bronze within the timespan on three days. This shows that if played correctly at a higher level, SAW is able to succeed in the fold.

My highest rank this current winter season is POA gold, and I was approximately two wins away from VGR Bronze (I soloqed to there) this season. My end goal this season is Vainglorious Bronze.

Don't be overwhelmed, let's hop into the world of SAW!

In this guide, my goal is to show a different way and perspective of playing SAW as not only a early game turret pusher, but as a strong late game carry as well.

The common belief is that SAW is ONLY strong in the early in mid game, but in this guide you will learn how to effectively play him throughout all stages of the game.

Let's begin with separating WP SAW from CP SAW, as they are pretty much two heroes built into one. This not only makes SAW one of the highest skill cap heroes in the game (down with whoever rated him easy - he has always been considered a very hard hero to play in high tier!)

So here is the most complex part of the guide, here I will explain the reason behind the builds and the way I play SAW. I don't play SAW as an 'all in or nothing' carry because that is unreliable; instead, I play him as a standard carry with four offensive items, or sometimes three offensive items if I'm getting wrecked by a weapon carry and I need the slot for defense.

With a healer as a roam, you don't need any sustain in lane, Book of Eulogies. Just make sure you ping your healer, Adagio or Lyra, to come to lane with you as soon as possible to apply tons of pressure. With a Lyra on your side, you can also use the speed boost from her Imperial Sigil to POKE (run up and damage) the enemy carry. Boots will maximize this movement speed, as well as providing an extra escape for you in case a wild Glaive ganks you early and your Roadie Run is on cooldown. You want to stay in lane as long as possible and stay as high up as possible while clearing minions. When your jungler comes up to help, push the wave and move into the lower enemy side bush on the lane - this allows you to see ganks coming AND poke the enemy turret early. I've provided screenshots below:





Without a healer, you cannot afford to overextend in lane because you WILL get ganked. The strategy I personally use is clearing the first wave of minions as fast as I can and pinging the white GROUP UP ping to the enemy jungle notifying my team of my intentions. I rotate down, and along with my team, I invade the enemy jungle. This will put your jungler ahead, starve the enemy jungler, and start a snowball into mid and late game. You will generally win ALL engages early because you are literally a walking turret, and no one can 1v1 a turret early.

Other early game items mentioned in the build are Light Shield and Light Armor. This is only if you are taking damage from a enemy counter and NEED to build defense against them. This is fine, as you will turn your Light Shield into an Aegis later in the game, and you also have the choice to build a Metal Jacket with three offensive items.

The reason you want to use the Breaking Point Tyrant's Monocle Tyrant's Monocle core over any other build is because of SAW's passive attack speed. His passive, Spin Up gives you an extra 300% attack speed which allows you to stack items like Breaking Point and Bonesaw faster than any other carry in the game.

The two Tyrant's Monocle provide enough WEAPON power to max your Breaking Point stacks, as well as make all of your added weapon damage from the Breaking Point critically strike, which is significantly more damage than one Sorrowblade and/or serpent's mask.

Now the controversial item in the build that many SAW players disagree with as a viable purchase; Tornado Trigger. reason you want a Tornado Trigger AND the extra attack speed from Breaking Point is to stack your passive even faster before anyone even tries to use Atlas Pauldron on you or approach you - this is what allows this build to 1v1 other carries while other generic builds don't - SAW has extremely low base attack speed, so without Tornado Trigger, he won't be able to fight other carrys. Again, your passive at max stacks gives you 300% extra attack speed, which is nearly 3x more than what Tornado Trigger and Breaking Point give you combined, so you want to get the passive quick. This is what allows you to not fall off late game as well. In addition, building Tornado Trigger removes any randomness because your crit chance will be a flat 100%.

You should always to buy Journey Boots for the mobility boost when playing SAW. Using this during fights allows you to re-position and make it almost impossible to escape from you.

Aegis has so many uses, it allows you to escape from damage and CC (like stuns and silences), as well as block Atlas Pauldron.

If the enemy weapon power carry is giving you trouble, you can always build a Metal Jacket to protect yourself. This also gives you more survivability to stack your Breaking Point longer as well. The issue with this is that it falls off harder than if Tornado Trigger is kept, and therefore should only be bought if you are dying to the enemy weapon carry a lot.

Buying a serpent's mask is a good strategy in case you need more sustain over damage, however, don't buy it against sustain heroes like Krul or Reim. The point of the lifesteal is to help manage against BURST heroes, like Koshka, not sustain heroes as you'll never lifesteal more than a Krul with a viable build.

Bonesaw is a good replacement for Tornado Trigger in the case that all of the enemies buy tons of Metal Jackets. It will still give you a decent attack speed boost to stack your passive, and is extremely effective against highly armored enemies.

It is my assumption that you know how SAW's abilities and passive function, if not, you can read up on them here:
http://www.vaingloryfire.com/vainglory/wiki/heroes/saw/abilities


This is the core of not only weapon SAW's kit but is also the main reason Tornado Trigger and Breaking Point are built. This passive allows SAW to do more damage per second than any other carry in the game because at max stacks, it gives an extra 300% attack speed to SAW.


Now, for weapon power SAW you ALWAYS want to max your Suppressing Fire ability as soon as possible. This is because of two reasons; the base damage scaling of this ability is insane (960 total aoe damage at max level), and the slow increases by 0.5 secs at max level which is helpful for not getting jumped when you use it.

The usage of Suppressing Fire comes down to three essential uses; the first is to clean up kills that are beyond your auto attack range (the range of Suppressing Fire is significantly longer than your auto attacks). This is SAW's way of making up for his lack of chase to clean up a kill early in the game. Another effective use of Suppressing Fire is to use it on the enemy laner when a jungler with a gap closer ability (like Glaive's Afterburn), allowing your team to catch up and kill the enemy laner.

The third use of Suppressing Fire is to instantly get to full stacks; however, I don't recommend using it in this way unless the enemies are already IN THE PROCESS of engaging on you. I can't name the number of times I witness a SAW use his Suppressing Fire at the wrong time and left standing in the enemies' dust wondering where they went.

This is SAW's most simple ability to understand the uses of. It is either an escape (use it and run away at lightning speed), or as a clean up tool before enemies use an escape. I only recommend using it as a clean up tool if you are sure you can reach the enemy and kill it; otherwise you will be horribly positioned after the speed boost subsides. I don't max this ability.

This ability is extremely effective with the Tornado Trigger build. Most WEAPON SAW players would disagree with maxing this ability because they believe it 'decreases your damage per second', because of the 36% attack speed reduction it has upon use. However, since you have built Tornado Trigger and Breaking Point, the attack speed difference is negligible with stutter stepping practice (covered in another chapter), and because this ability gives you Spin Up stacks faster than your auto attacks (2 spin up stacks per auto with Mad Cannon). This ability also allows SAW to do 15% extra execute damage, which could make an enormous difference in teamfights.