Starter items

Core items

Offensive items

Defensive items

Situational items

Love's True Champion!

This will be an introductory guide to Star Sapphire for both intermediate and new comers alike based on how I personally play her as of the March 24th Patch! I will focus on Star Sapphire primarily filling the role of a Top Lane Blaster, but feel free to take points from this if you choose to run her as a support since she as a champion is fairly flexible, and the builds don't vary too much. I will also go over some of her pros, and cons; as well as some general tips that you can use to help improve your play for Star Sapphire.

A small bit about Star Sapphire is that she is that she is a corner stone champion when it comes to team fighting. She excels in laning, team fighting, dealing a large amount of AoE damage as well as having some crowd control. Pretty much she is your staple of a Blaster, and can change the outcome of a battle on her own.

Pros to playing Star Sapphire Generally she is a safe pick into pretty much anything. She has great range on abilities. A good amount of crowd control. Utility from having a pet (vision/extra damage). Surprisingly high burst damage. Scales well all game. She can play multiple roles; support included. Lastly she has arguably the best team fighting in the game.

Cons to playing Star Sapphire Star Sapphire takes a great deal of skill to play well. She lacks mobility so she can easily be ganked. Reliant on positioning for good play. Requires good micro managing skills.

Skillling:This is a matter of personal preference, but as shown above is the order that I find works best for me when I play Star Sapphire. Since her mass amounts of changes I will explain why I chose to max certain skills over others.

Maxing Crystal Bomb (Q) will provide for a strong laning phase in the fact that you can both zone with it, and harass. Since the March 24th patch this is her main source of damage and wave clear now. So using it often and wisely will be the key to being a good Star Sapphire player.

Tip: Use this skill to zone (position in an aggressive manner) so if the opposing laner over extends you can reposition it and punish them by hitting them with it. You may also grant a small area of vision with this ability when using it in a selected area! Lastly if you need to reposition your crystal, but are not near the tether range limit (crystal reset point) just click the Crystal Bomb back to yourself to pick it up easily.

Bonds of Love (E) is high single target damage, and should be maxed 3rd, but if you feel you use it often go ahead and max it 2nd, and with an early point skilled this ability will go a long way. This will be your main form of crowd control outside of your ultimate. It also allows you to last hit under tower more easily earlier in the game; this is why it is skilled 2nd; not to mention it is your only prevention for early jungle ganks.

Tip: When using Bonds of Love you can actually throw a Crystal Bomb with it simultaneously near your opponent and it should bind to them catching them off guard. You can also pick up the crystal again, and chase around opponents with this skill.

Glimpse of the Predator (Passive) is not to be underestimated. It does a LOT of damage. This has synergy with your Crystal Bomb to bring about extra damage, and I recommend you max this immediately after Crystal Bomb.

Violet Harvest (W) should be scaled last considering it is already % hp damage. It is kind of tricky to get the full damage out of it because it mainly relies on the misplay of your opponents to stand in it. Also the wave clear on it is fairly poor so only use it if you need to shove the lane back for map pressure or lane pressure during elite drone waves only!

Manifest (R) will bring about the main burst damage of Star Sapphire's kit along with the massive AoE stun. You should get a point in this each time it is available. This is what makes her the best at team fighting, and a monster at tower killing.

Tip: By using your Alt key + moving you will control your Predator. This can be used as a camera for vision to check stealth pads safely.

Gameplay: The fundamentals of Star Sapphire are fairly simple. The name of her game is to zone, farm, and poke your enemy down with your Crystal Bomb until you can kill them.

If you are brand new to her just focus on farming with basic auto attacks, and your Crystal Bomb. Remember when last hitting under tower use both your Crystal Bomb, and Bond of Love to last hit efficiently; the better your farming the faster you'll get items.

Now, if you understand the concept of laning you want to focus on harassing or poking your opponents more often while keeping up on your last hitting. This means zoning with Crystal Bomb constantly (keep them guessing), and getting off some good Crystal Bomb plus Bonds of Love combos for damage. If you land the Crystal Bomb on your opponent remember it will deal extra damage due to Star Sapphire's Passive. Repeat this process until they are around 40% health then you can go for the kill with your Ultimate (Manifest). A side note for some extra damage use Violet Harvest, but only if you land the Crystal Bomb directly on the enemy since you will get one to two procs of the DoT just about all the time unless they are building items with move speed or dash out of it or have move speed augments.

If you have built a substantial lead, and won your lane you should also look to help out the rest of your team. Don't be a statue that is cemented to top lane. It will take any pressure off of the rest of your team, and they will appreciate it greatly. It also helps pick up the pace of the game.

Team fighting comes down to positioning yourself, and your crystal. You want to keep it either near yourself and your Marksman at all times, if you are more of a supportive player so you can peel for your Marksman (slow down threats) from the enemy's front line (Enforcers, Bruisers, Assassins) or if you are more of an initiator or an aggressive player then you want to attack their back line (their Blasters, Controllers, and Marksmen). If you hit their back line always focus the bigger threat of either the Marksman or the Blaster first. If you can hit both that is even better, but once you use Manifest your Predator should be on the main threat. When playing the supportive role and peeling you need to make sure you use your crowd control on whoever is chasing after your Marksman to protect them as best as you can. This will prolong your Marksman's ability to survive and continue to do damage. In some cases as Star Sapphire you will need to be doing both of these jobs at the same time. There are situations that you need to initiate on their front line, and peel for your back line. Star Sapphire is all about being flexible and nonlinear game play so don't tunnel vision!!!! After all you have a kit for helping out others while dealing damage!

Match Ups: There are many other possibilities, but these will focus on the most common ones that you will run into.

Wines.. I mean Sinestro currently is a bully at all stages of the game (as of the March 24th Patch). He excels at an "all in dive your face style" of play. This is probably the hardest match you will ever encounter since he can basically miss two of three attacks and still hit like a truck since he was OVERLY buffed, and he has really high base damage as well as ratios. The only thing you can do is play safe, and zone him with your crystal. Keep the crystal between you and your drones at all times against him because if he decides to dash onto you and you have nothing to Bonds of Love him to; you will probably just flat out die (Thanks Sinestro buffs!). Outside of that just look to dodge his saw and scythe, and keep an eye out when he starts becoming more aggressive because it means that he will want to use his Parallax to kill you.



Arcane Supergirl is similar to your playstyle. She wants to sit back, and poke you down. Most Arcane Supergirl telegraph when they do their combo of Firewall & Breath of Rao by dropping their wall first. So be on the look out , and be ready to dodge. Outside of this is the Pyronize and Firewall combo for a one second stun. Good Arcane Supergirl players will lead off with this since they can kill you if they land their full combo if you are around 70% health. So just avoid those two things, and trade poke with her, and you should win.



Mecha Wonder Woman is a strong laner, but not unbeatable. She will want to auto attack you down, and when she does you use your Crystal Bomb and auto attack her back. Just avoid her Glaive Storm since it will hurt a lot. Also if she has two procs of her passive on you try to get out of range until the timer for it runs out since the third hit will hurt.... a LOT.



Gas Bat is a dominant laner, but he falls in the same category with Mecha Wonder Woman. The only difference is Gas Bat uses his abilities much more frequently. Try to avoid his Sonic Batarang as well as his Sonic Shell. Again when he goes to auto attack you it gives you that time window to Crystal Bomb and auto attack back.



Joker is an interesting case. He can go for two styles of play. One is passive push play where he does nothing other than shove lane, and farm. The other is where he just tries to punchy you in the face as many times as he can until you die. So play accordingly, if he is pushing you push back and poke him. If he is trying to punchy you in the face non stop, you need to avoid it and take advantage of his poor positioning to go for that punchy and fight back then. It is all about timing windows.



I always hate mirror match ups, but in this case it just comes down to who is better mechanically, and who is better at movement predictions as well as positioning. If you have read the above sections it explains what you need to do. So having said that the counter to yourself is knowing what your win conditions are, and how you should be playing. If you do it properly you will succeed.

Itemization: I will break items down into three categories, and explanations of why I get each item that I do. The categories will be as follows. New Starter, which will be if you are a novice . Starting Items, will be for people with a fairly good grasp of Star Sapphire along with her strengths and weaknesses. Core, which will focus on the four items to have as a static build for all games. Defensive items that will allow you to be more resistant towards certain kinds of damage (power or attack). Lastly Luxury/Situational items, which are if you can afford it due to excess credits then by all means use the items; or in the situational case use it to counter specific champion abilities.

New Starter: Nil Ring along with Modular Health Vial (3) will provide both health, and will sustain for early game along with a decent amount of damage, and a nice little health boost so you can out trade your enemy if they don't start with this. Nil ring and health vials are probably the safest opener you can start, even if you are not new to Star Sapphire. Especially since it is EXTREMELY cost effective. On a side note this item setup will allow you to easily last hit due to Nil item's passive of executing a low hp drone ; it might not show it, but trust me it's there. So if you are looking for a safe general build; or a build to help you last hit a bit better this is always a good go to choice.

Starting items Fatality's Energy Lance (1) Doctor Destiny's Dreamstone (1) Modular Health Vial (2) is a standard setup that I like to run because it gives you a little bit of everything. You get some power damage, some will regen, and the health vials for a decent amount of damage as well as health and will sustain. The downside of this start compared to the Nil Ring three Health Vial start is that you don't get two extra vials, and you lose out on the 75 hp from the ring along with the easier last hitting ability. Though if you are confident in your laning ability I suggest this start as you are able to start your core items that much sooner.

Core: Fatality's Energy Lance (3) Doctor Destiny's Dreamstone (4) The Starheart (3) The Book Of Eternity (2)
All of these items will fill out your build, and they are essential for Star Sapphire considering it is where the majority of her damage will be coming from. With the core build shown I will explain why you go for the tier of each piece, in what order to get them, and when to get them. Fatality's Energy Lance (3) is going to be your primary source of damage until you can afford The Starheart (3). You want to rush tier three of Fatality's because with the mods I run you will get the extra +15 damage on it. Also it has flat power penetration allowing you to hit for closer to true damage; since reducing their power armor makes you hit harder, and since in the early game not too many people have power armor you will be able to hit quite hard.

Along side Energy Lance you should have at least a Doctor Destiny's Dreamstone (2) or a Doctor Destiny's Dreamstone (3) depending on how far ahead in the lane you are will determine which you should get. Again I run the mode for extra damage at tier three, but you don't always need it. The point of Dreamstone is just to provide will sustain; the damage is extra touch. You might be asking when to get tier two, three or even four since it can be a bit confusing. Tier two you can build right along side with your Energy Lance which will delay damage slightly, but give you that will sustain, or again after rushing tier three Energy Lance build up to tier two Dreamstone. At this point you have one of two options based on certain conditions. The conditions met for option one are as follows: Are you behind in lane? If so don't get tier three Dreamstone because you need a damage boost, and isntead rush keep tier two Dreamstone and rush The Starheart (3). This will provide more aggressive play since you will have more damage available then go back and get tier three of Dreamstone for the cooldown reduction. Option two is if you are far ahead (700-1000 credits ahead of your opponent) buy tier three since you have a reasonable lead , and this will give you more cooldown reduction a bit more power damage, and again more will sustain. The latter option is for safer play, and kind of prevents you from going too aggressive in lane since you won't feel super strong (just maintains composure) then build towards The Starheart (3). As for tier four you can get it after The Starheart (3) is completed or if the enemy team is building power armor on at least two people hold off on tier four because The Book Of Eternity (2) will be NEEDED. Book of Eternity will bring a great deal of power damage, and % power penetration. Percent power penetration is needed because it will make anyone with a lot of power armor (125-150+) become more vulnerable to your attacks since they will not be mitigating as much damage.

Defensive Items: Neron's Contract (4) Neron's is an AMAZING item in general. Typically you get it for teams that have a lot of physical damage since it gives you a good amount of armor (also a lot of power damage). However it will allow you to avoid damage that would potentially kill you such as Joker's Last Laugh. This will buy you time to then get healed or shielded and then get back into the fight. So you generally want to get this as your defensive item no matter what; think of it as a core item for later in the game. Also if you find yourself taking heavy amounts of damage from Bruisers, Assassins or Marksman you SHOULD take Neron's over Starheart because it will allow you to survive longer fighting against them.

Entropy Aegis (3) Entropy Aegis is meant for absorbing skill shots such as Sinestro's Parallax. It will absorb one skill every 60 seconds. So it is really effective against similar powers such as Parallax. This is really strong against Blasters considering it gives health, and the shield, and power armor!

Luxury & Situational: This will be a brief section since it is fairly straight forward. Cosmic Staff (3) you get if you are super far ahead, and there are no real physical or power damage threats on the opposing team. It IS a good item, but I feel that the others I listed give more for the price. You can put it as a core item if you wish over the others just make sure you have the disintegration 2 mod for it is because it is very useful, and does have synergy with her Violet Harvest. Cosmic Staff in general if you were to incorporate it into your core build is mainly if they have a lot of Bruisers or Enforcers on their team. The reason is because they generally will build a lot of health so the % health burn will allow your damage to be relevant against them since they will more than likely be having power armor built to deal with your damage.

Fatality's Energy Lance (4) is situational since the active is a skill shot. You really only need tier three of Energy Lance since for 1250 credits more you gain 20 more power damage. Again, the active is quite good, but if you miss it then you are out of luck, not to mention for that much you just start or finish your Starheart.

Psi-Scimitar (3) Psi-Scimitar is going to be for burst damage. I personally don't like this item because it forces you to get closer to whoever you want to deal damage to rather than sitting back and doing damage at your maximum range. If you do decide to take this just be sure to replace it with Doctor Destiny's Dreamstone (4) since having both is redundant in the fact that you are just stacking will regen.

Ra's al Ghul's Robe (2) Is luxury as well as defensive. It is basically used if you are hard carrying a game and being focused heavily to that point that your death at a later stage of the game will be very detrimental for your team. The really nice part about it is it gives you armor for both power and physical.

Mobius Core (2) You really only need tier one of this item, but tier two is good for the added power armor. This item should be built if there is a Starro, Nightmare Batman or Nightmare Superman, or any other champion with a lock down crowd control that is targeting you. With Mobius Core you can easily purge the effect so that you can get back to fighting.

Stolen Powers: Stolen powers are pretty flexible for Star Sapphire considering just about all of them can be a good choice for her. So variety is at her disposal. I will list the most viable ones; along with a brief description of what they do, and how they might suit your play style. Gaslight Batman's Surveillance Camera are for extended vision range, and allows you to stay in lane slightly longer than Green Arrow's since it has one extra charge, but not longer than Robin's Cameras. Green Arrow's Surveillance Camera are for vision denial, and frequent backing; because it has only two charges. Robin's Surveillance Camera if you plan to stay in lane longer due to it having five charges. Doomsday's Invulnerability will absorb the most damage out of all of the Invulnerabilities. Katana's Invulnerability will allow for a good amount of damage absorption, as well as reflect damage. This is typically good against things like Sinestro or Arcane Super Girl since they are burst damage and reflective damage will bounce back onto them for punishment. Green Lantern's Meteor Drop allows for wave clear, sniping kills at a range, and just added bonus AoE damage. Arcane Supergirl's Meteor Drop will bring an "execute" factor for people with a large percent of health missing; so it makes it strong against tank champions. Cyborg's Teleport this allows you to get to your targeted drone. camera, or tower faster. Catwoman's Teleport this will allow you to get to your targeted drone, camera, or tower more frequently. Krypto's Healing Wave provides extra sustain due to the healing over time or HoT effect. Poison Ivy's Healing Wave will be used both offensively and defensively for either more damage output or just for the sustain. Arcane Green Lantern's Healing Wave lastly this will again be used offensively or defensively for added armor or power armor to deceive your opponents or again to just sustain health. I will go over which combinations are used for some basic styles of play for laning phase.

Safe & Informed: This will be any of the Healing Waves listed above or Invulnerabilities with any of the cameras listed above. It will give you a safety net with having sustain from Healing Wave or damage absorption from Invulnerability. You will also be informed due to the vision from the cameras. Knowing when your enemies might arrive or where they are going to is VERY important.

Defensive/Aggressive A combination of Invulnerability and Healing Wave will just make you a rock in lane due to double defensive powers. You are not safe because you lack map information; so I suggest you ask a jungler to take cams and help you with vision if you choose to take these stolen powers. You can also use these powers to be aggressive by going all in, and using them to tower dive. Just remember if you do play aggressive with this it all comes down to play experience and timing.

Turtle/Push To turtle is basically to just sit as close to or under your tower for the majority of the lane phase and farm. You will be using Meteor Drop here to help clear the drone waves along with either Cameras to keep you informed; or Invulnerability or Healing Wave to keep your defenses up in case people try to dive you under tower. The opposite of this is to push. Again same combinations, but the style changes to where you use Meteor Drop aggressively to shove the drone wave each time it comes up.

Presence With this kind of play style you generally will be playing for the team. At times you can use it to be greedy to get more credits. Teleport is the main ability here since you can show up virtually to any drone, tower, or camera and help your team out via ganking or just presenting yourself to help defend an objective like Raider or Doomsday Device. The other Stolen Power is for you to choose since all of them can work with this. Cameras will give information, Invulnerability and Healing Wave give a defensive cooldown. Meteor drop gives wave clear and the extra damage.

Mods & Augments A setup like this is something that is meant for maximum damage. Sure there are others that can technically give you a bit more if you take into account cooldown reduction or stacking item potential, but realistically in most games you will never keep your full stacks or abuse every possible cooldown. So this is planned out for most damage per hit as far as mods are concerned. Augments are just personal preference in which I focus on penetration, but feel free to use anything else, just make sure it has power damage!

Before I delve into the reasoning of what I picked; I'll just point out some alternative mods you can look to use. Both Empowered and Discounted Nil Ring are good if you are looking for a more lane oriented build, or you are not that great at last hitting yet. Empowered will give you more will which will lead to greater sustained will upon collecting a coin or killing a unit. Discounted is just a fast track to your core items. Disintegration 2 on Cosmic Staff (3) is good for health burning tanks due to it's percent health damage it is also just good damage in general, but most effective against tanks. If you are looking for a more cooldown based build try out Accelerated The Logoz (2) which will allow you to quickly regain your stack if you have died; or just ramp up your damage and cooldown faster during the lane phase. Empowered Psi-Scimitar (3) will be for your auto attacks to do more damage.

So without further adieu the reasoning behind each mod. Starting with Dreamstone, it is fairly basic for damage amplifying for an early to mid game time window. Fatality's is in the same boat, and really efficient because of the pricing on it, and how soon you can get it so it can make an impact early on. Lastly Book of Eternity is same thing as the other two. Extra damage, and the damage boost for mid to late game. If you take into account that each mod has +15 damage which is a value of 375 credits each you then end up with a total mod value of 1125 credits which is practically a Starheart in just mods alone. So this setup gives some pretty good value for your core items, and allows for damage spikes throughout the game; not to mention its the highest amount of damage possible on each item out of all of the power damage items that there are to choose from.

This will conclude the guide! A special thanks to all who read this guide, Sac for redoing the site, and Pixxy for being the best. This was my first guide, so I hope it was informative as well as detailed enough. I will continue to make more if there is a demand for it!

Be sure to follow me & my duo partner/best person world Pixxy on twitter: @Inf_Mal, @MonstermashP. Also twitch.tv/maloth_ and twitch.tv/monstermashpixxy if you have any questions or need some help!