Hi i'm mikechimike or IC: Firaworks and i'm a ADC marksmen player you can check out my guides here as Blue Beetle / Gaslight Batman or a slew of other characters. This is my guide (as I call them studies) for Green Arrow. For new marksmen players, he may be a bit tricky to pickup, but for anyone that has casually played any other marksmen, he's got a kit full of great potential. By the end of this guide you will be hitting that "THAT WAS EASY" button every time you select him.

Strengths

- has the ability to poke and strong lane harass abilities
- has a great reach, especially with his ulti Bullseye
- can be a team carry
- has a built-in escape / and can increase his move speed with "Q" Superfoam Stance
- You can get his ulti at level 1!
- all his skills have great utility

Weaknesses

- very squishy (but that applies to any marksmen)
- like all assassins and markmen you are a high priority target in team battles, so you need to stay in the back, and select your targets from a distance.
- his Ulti is tricky to use, takes patience and practice to get used to , if not its just a wasted slot

Weaknesses (that i think he has, yet to be proven)

- Flashy entrance (i can't stand it...) and annoying in game talk (he has this one phrase why he doesn't use guns and says it alot of times in a match)

Interesting Facts- that you probably already knew

-Compared to other Marksmen he has low will consumption.  (assuming you don't switch stances often).  On the flip side, his passive rewards you for switching stances often by giving you attack speed bonus and lowering your cooldown on bullseye.

- I think more than other marksmen his strength is when he has a high attack rate.  With ballistic arrows he has a built in attack penetration and his passive improves his attack speed.  Increasing his damage is a good way to go to take advantage of this, but so is increasing both penetration and attack speed.  If you don't follow my items, focus on attack speed and damage first, and work on penetration eventually (cause people will get armor)

Items

I find the following in th bulk of my core build.  Coda Blade (4) (for penetration), Velocity 9 Implants (4) (for attack speed/move speed oh and crit) and something with damage, so either [[Joe Chill's Revolver (4)]] or  [[Deathstroke's Claymore (2)]].  If you need sustainability, you can always go for Soultaker's Katana, but with the recent updates to it, you may want to opt for different Attack Lifesteal items.  For the other items, you do want to prioritize more damage, but the primary 3 will give you penetration, sustainability and much needed attack/move speed (and crit!). 

You can start with either a Coda Blade (4) or Nil Weapon, the key is the last hit to farm up these weapons, just like any other marksman, if you're underfed, you're dead.  The path you take will really depend on your allies and enemies.  Because Green arrow has a built in penetration in Ballistic Arrows, you can prioritize damage / attack speed / crit, above penetration , at least until you find you are lacking in that department with the big boys.

The rest of course are situational. If you need more penetration (because of suit of sorrows), then go for Atomic Axe (2) instead of Coda Blade (4), [[Joe Chill's Revolver (4)]] (for Crit and Dmg). Need to get stomped on less? get some armor. etc.  

LATE GAME you'll probably want to replace  Coda Blade (4) with Atomic Axe (2) if you find you're not cutting into the beefier guys.

Lately i've been swapping Soul Taker's Katana for Cheetah's Claws, which you can do for this guide too

Amps/Mods

Right now with my assassins and marksmen i have a set focused on Crit Damage/Attack Dmg/Attack Speed and another focused on Attack Penetration/Attack Dmg/Attack Speed. I find both are effective, however it really just depends on when you have the items relative to the rest of the champions on the other team.

Personally both work well for me, but my emphasis early and mid game is staying as marksman and utilizing his passive as much as possible. later in the game crit dmg and penetration either way could be effective, because if you are well farmed, your items will support it. So Penetration probably you see the benefits earlier on, but crit dmg is always that little surprise you never expect.

Skills

Focus on W > R > Passive > Q > E 
however Get "Q" and "R" early, it'll be explained below



"Q" - Superfoam Arrows - This is your escape.  With any marksman you need a solid escape because you will not be standing toe-to-toe with someone.  This is a great skill for 2 reasons,
1) it gives you a quick roll AND 10% movement speed bonus (as long as you aren't hit).  
2) the first shot has a slow bonus on your target.  

This works well 2 ways, if you are being chased, then hitting your chaser will give you better opportunity to run, and also if you're chasing (offense) then it will help you catch them.  Usually in a 1 on 1 fight you'll want to save this for when they run away, roll towards them, then hit them and switch stance, and hit them again.  Or roll away from them, hit them and run. (or just run after the roll).  


"W" - Ballistic Arrows - Your bread and butter, the key here is the attack penetration.  The higher the attack penetration the closer you are to the holy grail known as "true damage".  I always put this skil on priority, because it improves on attack penetration and also causes Bullseye to hit multiple targets.  


"E" - Thermite Arrows - A fairly good crowd clearing skill and also great on 1 on 1.  in the case of crowds its great especially when clearing minions on GD when attacking a base, with all the minions all huddled together area damage is at its most effective.  On a 1 on 1 , remember that his passive benefits the most when switching stances (from "Q" to "E" to "W" etc).,  a flashy way to finish off a 1 v 1 is if they are starting to run from you and you don't have any superfoam (cause it's on cooldown) the extra explosion at the end will hopefully knock them out.. however if you're counting on damage stick to Ballistic for the most part.  



"R" - Bullseye - the only ulti that can be learned at level 1.  It has great harrass potential and also great wave clearing potential too.  The only person that comes to mind that has a reach just as long is Star Sapphire (i learned the hard way).  It definitely takes practice to aim and predict where the opponent is going to be, but i find for myself i'm probably using it to help with waves rather than snipe.  To maximize the damage, let it go to full length and fire it off, however in real games, you don't want to hold it anymore than maybe half the length if not 3/4 cause that will telegraph to the opponent to run.

Paired with Ballistic Arrows you can use it well from the jungle and hit multiple champs from the shadows and take off.  

But if you're against people who are prone to running in straight lines, hug their minions tightly or telegraph where they are going to run, this is a great skill (otherwise you will be stuck on ballistic arrows mainly)



Passive - Adaptable Ammo -  a great passive.  When switching stances (from any of the above) you get bonus attack speed and bullsyes cooldown reduction.  I prioritize this over Superfoam because it increases the benefits without increasing cost (i really only use superfoam later on for escaping team battles/ganks and rarely for chasing).  You'll definitely see the benefits when going 1 v 1 with someone


Laning

I've been successful in top laning solo , mid or  laning with a person bot.  LIke any marksmen, always have your escape ready to use, if not have super speed ready to fire off incase you get ganked.  I always make sure i have cameras ready every time i go back to base.  Also last hit, LAST hit, LAST HIT... don't get underfed, cause once you are , you're dead.  



Combos

When chasing - When chasing, you'll want to utilize "W" (Ballistic as much as possible) if they start to get out of range, switch to ("Q" Superfoam towards them, hit them, run, and hit with them as much with "W" again, if you have bullseye and they are running straight, use it and repeat with "Q"

When in team fights - stick with "W", if they are huddling together, maybe throw in a "E"(thermite) , but the bulk of your damage will be from "E ".  

When Running - Use "Q" away from them.  if you can Kite , hit them with the first arrow and run.. repeat when you can. 


Closing

IF you liked the guide or found it helpful, please leave comments or give me a 'thumbs up'. otherwise...

I want to say THANKS to all of you reading this.  And thank you to Sacrilege for maintaining this awesome site

This isn't a cookie cutter guide, but written the best to my ability understanding GA. 

So if you want to make your allies green with envy (cause you're kill stealing left and right) , do it with Green Arrow

UPDATE: with the planned changes for Ballistic Arrows (lowered overall damage) in the September patch, the build is still viable, but i will be playing around with some alternatives.  However the Items and mindset should still be the same.  Good Hunting