Fanny has a 53.6% win rate in S39 and a 32% ban rate. Those two numbers tell the whole story: she dominates when played properly, and enemies know it. The ban rate also tells you that most players never get to practice her in ranked. When she does slip through, the gap between a polished Fanny and an average one is wider than any other hero in the game.
This guide is for players who already understand the basics and want to play Fanny in ranked seriously. You'll need to put time into training mode first. That's not optional.
#Understanding Fanny's Skills
Before touching a build or combo, you need to know what each skill actually does at a mechanical level.
Passive: Air Superiority Every time Fanny deals damage to an enemy while airborne via Steel Cable, she deals bonus physical damage. This is the engine behind her burst. The more cables you chain in an engagement, the more passive procs you stack, and the faster enemies die.
Skill 1: Tornado Strike Fanny spins her blade dealing AoE physical damage around her. Costs 25 Energy per cast. In fights, you usually trigger this automatically while flying through enemies rather than tapping it manually. It also clears jungle camps efficiently.
Skill 2: Steel Cable The defining skill. Fanny fires a cable at a wall or obstacle, pulling herself toward it. Each cable costs 25 Energy. When a cable tags an enemy, it applies Prey Mark, which amplifies damage from your next skills. This is the core of everything. Without cables, you are a melee assassin with no gap-close and no escape. With cables, you are the most disruptive hero in the game.
Skill 3: Cut Throat (Ultimate) Fanny leaps at a target, dealing heavy physical damage. Against a Prey-Marked target, this hits significantly harder. Cut Throat also repositions you, so you can use it to finish a target and immediately chain another cable to escape.
Skill upgrade order: S2 > S3 > S1. Prioritize Steel Cable every time it's available. It's your movement, your damage setup, and your escape.
#Cable Mechanics: What You Actually Need to Know
This is where most players stop learning Fanny after one bad game. Don't.
The Single Cable
Fire one cable at a wall. Fanny travels in a straight line along the cable's length. Simple. This is mostly used for targeted escapes or short-range re-positioning.
Double Cables (The Real Movement System)
This is Fanny's actual flight mode. Two cables anchored to two different walls determine her flight direction and landing point, governed by two rules:
- Fanny travels at the angle that bisects the two cables equally. Aim your second cable to adjust where she lands.
- The launch angle equals the landing angle. Fanny stops flying when the angle between the cables returns to what it was when you started. Smaller angles between cables = faster flight speed, more distance covered.
When you fire a third cable mid-flight, the first cable drops and the second and third become the new active pair. This is how chains work. You're always flying on exactly two cables.
The practical takeaway: You don't need to think in angles during a game. What you need is to train your hands to fire the second cable in the direction you want to travel. If you want to fly right, anchor left cable to the left wall, right cable to the right wall. If both cables point the same direction, you stop.
Straight Cable Trick
A straight cable fires the second cable in the exact same direction Fanny is already traveling, extending her flight in a straight line without changing direction. This is what you see pros doing to close ground on fleeing enemies. Practice firing the second cable dead-ahead while moving. It takes 200+ attempts in training mode before it starts feeling natural.
Energy Management
Fanny has 500 Energy base. Each Steel Cable costs 25 Energy. Each Tornado Strike costs 25 Energy too. Without the Spinner buff (the blue buff equivalent that reduces cable energy cost), you get roughly 10-12 cables per full bar. With Spinner buff, that number increases significantly, and her rotation becomes sustainable.
Blue buff is not optional for Fanny. If you lose blue buff, retreat to jungle and wait for it to respawn. Do not try to gank or fight without it. You will run dry mid-flight and die standing still.
#Best Build for S39
Standard Jungle Build
| Order | Item | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ice Hunter's Tough Boots | Reduces CC duration, your biggest weakness |
| 2 | Blade of Heptaseas | Burst damage on the first hit, great early spike |
| 3 | Bloodlust Axe | Spell vamp on cables sustains you through dives |
| 4 | Malefic Roar | Physical pen for tanks who try to absorb your burst |
| 5 | Hunter Strike | CDR plus movement speed burst when you kill |
| 6 | Immortality | Second life for dives that go slightly wrong |
This is the build that holds up in solo queue from Epic to Mythic. It balances burst with survivability.
Burst Build (Ahead by 2+ kills early)
| Order | Item | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Warrior Boots | Extra armor if enemy jungler is physical |
| 2 | Blade of Heptaseas | First blood spike |
| 3 | Malefic Roar | Armor pen online early |
| 4 | Blade of Despair | Raw physical attack for late-game dominance |
| 5 | Hunter Strike | CDR and chase |
| 6 | Immortality | Survivability |
This build is higher risk. If you fall behind with it, you have no sustain. Only run this when you're snowballing.
Item Notes
Bloodlust Axe is almost always worth it. The spell vamp heals you while you're flying through enemies. Against matchups where you need to dive a team, you'll noticeably last longer in engagements.
Skip Blade of Despair if enemies are building Antique Cuirass or Guardian Helmet. Malefic Roar does more useful work against tanky teams.
#Emblem Setup
Assassin Emblem:
- Tier 1: Rupture (Adaptive Penetration)
- Tier 2: Invasion (Physical Penetration)
- Talent: Killing Spree
Killing Spree is the go-to. Every time you kill someone mid-flight, you regain HP and gain movement speed, letting you chain into the next target or escape cleanly. In teamfights where you're picking off three people in a row, this talent keeps you alive through it all.
High and Dry (deal more damage to isolated targets) is viable if your team has no isolation tools and you're consistently finding 1v1s, but Killing Spree is better for most ranked games.
#Combos
Entry Combo (Ganking from jungle)
S2 > S2 > S3 > S1 > S2 (escape)
Cable in from outside vision, fire a second cable to land directly on the enemy, hit Cut Throat to activate Prey Mark damage and reposition, Tornado Strike for AoE, then cable out. The whole sequence takes under 2 seconds.
Sustained Pressure Combo (In-fight)
S2 > S2 > S1 > S2 > S1 > S3
Chain cables through the enemy, stacking Air Superiority procs with each pass. Use Tornado Strike between cables when you're over the enemy. Cut Throat as a finishing blow or repositioning tool if they try to run.
One-Shot Burst Combo (Lone target, full energy)
S2 (apply Prey Mark) > S3 (Prey Mark burst) > S1 > S2
Fire one cable to tag the target with Prey Mark, immediately Cut Throat for amplified damage, then Tornado Strike while adjacent, cable away. Against a squishy mage or marksman, this sequence at full build is a clean one-shot at level 9+.
Escape Combo
S2 (toward the nearest wall) > S2 (change angle to widen gap) > S2 (straight cable away)
Three cables in opposite direction from enemies. You can cross an entire lane in under a second. The mistake players make is firing cables backward toward enemies by accident. Train your finger to always aim away from the crowd first.
#Early Game Jungle Rotation
Levels 1-3
Start at the Spinner camp (blue buff side). The Spinner buff reduces your Steel Cable energy cost, which is the difference between 10 cables and 14+ per bar. After securing blue buff, clear the adjacent jungle camp, then mid lane minions.
At level 3 with blue buff, you can gank mid lane if the enemy is pushed forward. A simple two-cable approach and Cut Throat trades or kills for free.
Levels 4-6
You have Cut Throat now. Your burst threshold hits hard. Look for the enemy marksman in gold lane if they're overextended. Cable in through the river wall, land directly behind them, Cut Throat, Tornado Strike, cable out. They either die or burn Flash.
Don't fight near your own jungle at this point. If enemy jungler is tracking you and you're low energy, back off completely.
Blue Buff Control
Get blue buff every time it respawns. This is your main resource. If the enemy mid laner or mage is contesting it, that's your roamer's job to solve. Communicate before the 2:00 mark that you're taking blue.
If you lose blue buff to an enemy steal, do not try to fight without energy. Clear a jungle camp to restore some energy passively, and wait for the next spawn.
#Hard Matchups and How to Handle Them
Khufra (38.5% win rate against you)
His Bouncing Ball stops dashing heroes mid-flight. Fanny literally freezes in the air when Khufra activates it. The solution: wait until his Bouncing Ball animation ends before cabling in. His cooldown is around 15 seconds. Track it. After he uses it, you have a 15-second window to engage freely.
Chou (42% win rate against you)
Chou's Shunpo into The Way of Dragon can grab you mid-cable and punish a full dive. Play around his cooldown. Bait his Shunpo first, then cable in. If you see him dash at a minion, that's your window. He cannot follow up for 12+ seconds.
Franco (41.8% win rate against you)
If Franco hooks you, you're dead. Simple as that. Never cable into vision when Franco is alive and his hook is ready. Bait the hook first, then engage. Or go from an angle he hasn't seen coming.
Ruby (43.2% win rate against you)
Ruby's passive heals her as she damages you, and her CC chain makes it hard to leave. You can fight her, but only when she's isolated and below 60% HP. Don't dive a full-HP Ruby. Target her last in fights.
#Heroes Fanny Destroys
These matchups are heavily in your favor when played correctly:
- Layla (60.1% WR): Zero mobility. She cannot reposition when you cable in.
- Valir (62.1% WR): His knockback does nothing to you mid-cable. Cable through the pushback and kill him.
- Kagura (60.5% WR): Fast enough to kill her before she can trigger her umbrella escape. One-shot combo at level 9+.
- Lylia (59.8% WR): Kill her before she builds enough stacks to survive your burst, and don't let her use Gloom.
#Tips for Climbing with Fanny
1. Spend 30 minutes in training mode before playing ranked. You don't need to be perfect. You need your second cable to land where you aim it 80% of the time. That threshold is achievable with consistent practice. Set up a custom game and fly between two walls 100 times straight.
2. Memorize three entry routes per lane. Know your cable angles for entering mid, gold lane, and the enemy jungle. When you're in a live game, you can't calculate angles on the fly. Your hands need to already know the path.
3. Don't burn energy on clear if a gank is possible. If you see the enemy jungler is far away and the mid laner is pushed, go gank mid. Don't waste your energy clearing your red buff camp first. Kills give more than farm at this stage.
4. Read Prey Mark before using Cut Throat. If the enemy doesn't have Prey Mark, Cut Throat does significantly less damage. Make sure you've tagged them with at least one cable first. The visual indicator shows clearly on the enemy's healthbar.
5. Count CC cooldowns, not enemy HP. Your biggest vulnerability is not taking damage. It's getting caught. Before every dive, mentally note where Khufra, Franco, Chou, or any CC hero is on the minimap. If you can't see them, don't dive.
6. Cable into objectives, not just kills. Fanny's speed makes her exceptional at contesting Lord and Turtle. If both teams are walking toward Lord, cable ahead of everyone and start hitting it. The enemy team has to choose between contesting you and grouping up.
#What Makes Fanny Different from Other Assassins
Every other assassin in the game has a point-and-click mobility skill. Gusion blinks to a dagger. Lancelot dashes in a set direction. Ling walks walls. Fanny has no predetermined flight path. You build it in real time with physics.
That is both the hardest part and the reason she's so strong when mastered. There's no wind-up animation that enemies can read. Your angle changes mid-flight based on where you fire the next cable. A skilled Fanny player doesn't telegraph which target she's diving until she's already there.
The skill floor is genuinely high. But the ceiling is also higher than almost any other hero on the roster. If you're willing to put in the training hours, Fanny rewards you with a level of map mobility and kill potential that nothing else in the game matches.
Check the Fanny hero page for current win rate and build data, and the Jungler Tier List to see where she sits in the S39 meta.