And then you get items which are actually good on Olaf.

2x Doran's Swords are such an expensive diversion from actual itemization that it seems like a serious waste of time.

Spamming the Dorans items seems like a cost-effective short-term solution but it lacks the long-term viability that I'd be looking for. 870 gold spend on Doran's weapons would get you more than a Red Gem, Vamp Scepter and Longsword, but I can't see it being as valuable later on as the same amount of gold put into real items.

As opposed to spending 1k on items that aren't good on Olaf, you say 870 is a waste of gold?

Get out.

It depends on you.
If you jungle, W is the skill to start off with
If you lane start with Q (undertow) then get E(some lighting thing) then Get Q and at lvl 4 then you get W

Anyway, Olaf to me is one of the most Op charcter i seen...
E does 100 damage at lvl 1 and at lvl 5 it does 340 damage and only have a C/D or 3-4 seconds...
Then Q at lvl 5 has a damage of 255+Ap damage Then it has a 10 C/d at lvl 1 and stays at 10 but everytime you pick it up, it decrease 6 seconds.
W= hacks at lvl 5, each attack does around 250 damage for an autoattack :O

Soo if you tie all this up
-----> ULT+Ghost+E+W+Q+E
=death
E already does 340+255(ap can make it more)=600 life and thats is in like 1-2 seconds
active W for life steal and increase attack speed +damage =250 for every auto attack
5 seconds =1k hp? then within4 more seconds both your skills are free again and you can spam an extra 600 damage in 2 seconds

Soo in 10 seconds they be death if they dont run

basing this off lvl 18 and when you fight tankers. If you fight people besides tankers... they die in like 5 seconds.

Yeah, 870 spent on 2x Doran's Blades is a bigger waste than 1000 spent on Razors.

Razors do turn into valuable items, either the Lantern or Bloodrazor, and can sit in your inventory for a long time providing decent stats and an excellent farming benefit.

Doran's Swords don't turn into anything, provide an abysmally low lifesteal, damage, and health on their own. Two of them add up to something but it never becomes anything, and it's trading a debatable early game lead for a late-game one.

12 damage, 8% lifesteal and 240 hitpoints for two item slots is not better than 15 damage, 23 armor, an excellent farming passive and the ability to be turned into Bloodrazor.

And it lets you start with the cloth armor + 5 red potions setup at the beginning without losing anything by selling the armor back, starting with a red elixir, or starting the jungle with the Doran's Sword itself--which is slower and a little more risky. +18 armor is a significant increase to your early survivability, and 4% lifesteal is so bad that the only advantage to starting with the Doran Sword over, for example, a Longsword is the +120 HP. But a red potion provides 200 back in healing, so your aggregate, effective hitpoint level is higher with cloth and potions anyway.

So basically anyway I look at it I'd rather invest in an item that helps all junglers jungle faster, can turn into one of the best autoattack items in the game, or sold for a high return than a pair of items that provide a marginal benefit at slightly less cost and twice as many spaces and result in a slower early game.

Except, you know, valuable items that aren't at all good at Olaf if you understand the champion at a basic level.

A tank Olaf benefits early from Razors in the ways outlined above, and if you choose to and have the money for it, Bloodrazors is one of the best single investments into Damage you can make. I'm not sure how you can say that doesn't make sense. Olaf is one of the people who best uses Bloodrazor because of his attackspeed boost and the way it benefits his lifesteal.

Afterall, it does magic damage, which is able to be Spell Vamped by your Vicious Strikes, which is great.

It makes him a serious threat no matter what he's pounding on and is a better cost-per-return value than a lot of flat AD items. If you only get one attack item on a Tank Olaf going for Bloodrazor gives you a serious degree of output not mitigated by armor like the rest of your attacks are, an extremely high damage output, and you can always ditch the razor for minimal loss if you decide not to continue that path. Or you can turn it into the very cheap Lantern for a good lifesteal and free wards.

I agree that once the enemy see's a DPS olaf, he will get focused and go down fast. Tanky brOlaf is the way to go. I'm pretty confident the Bloodrazor's magic damage is not absorbed by his 'W' spellvamp. I like taking 1/21/8 and jungling, as long as your team has someone to 2v1. Otherwise, olaf isn't bad in a lane.

Here's two builds I want to try tonight.
goal: 40% CDR for reckless spam, 150ish armor for effective hp
cloth + 5 pots
heart of gold + boots 1
vamp scepter
finish randuins
brutalizer
finish boots of swiftness
finish youmuu's

After that either Banshee's for magic resist or starks if they are physical.

Second build..
goal: mallet perma-slow, damage through W passive + atma's
cloth + 5 pots
wriggles + boots 1
phage
atmas (starting with vest)
boots of swiftness
finish mallet

Has anyone tried either of these types of builds yet?
edit: I use arP marks, hp/lvl seals, cdr/lvl glyphs, flat HP quints.

I've just started playing Olaf and so far Wriggles has worked wonders - I don't see how it's a bad item on him. Armor, Damage, Fast Jungling/healing, and wards on demand.

I've been using Wriggles -> Mallet, but I'm thinking I'll do Wriggle's -> Ghostblade, and see how that works.

Red: arpen.
Yellow: flat armor
Blue: MR/lvl
Quint: HP
Mastery: 21/0/9
Spells: ghost & smite.

Start with cloth armor & 5 pots. Go in the jungle (train it in practice to find yours).
I start with Blue Golem or Wraith camp.

If there is no overextent, I secure the dragon at lvl 5.
If there's a jungler in the opposite team, I farm a bit more before the madred to get wards.

Items: depend a lot on the team & adversaries.
Frequently, I get
- atma
- frozen malet
- banshee
- IE
- starks

Skills order: depends.
I start with W and Q.
If they will have a lot of HP, I max W. If they are squichy, I max the true damage spell.
I get 2 in the axe, to have a correct slow.

After this, it's all about entering in a fight at the right moment.