Jarvan IV Build Guide by RazRio

Introduction

Hey everyone, this will be my second guide on a full tank on Jarvan IV. I'll be covering the details on how I play my Jarvan :) My guides will be similar with each other since the items/spells/techniques I use are great for all my jungle tanks and have worked well towards a successful game.

Pros / Cons

Pros

- Great initiator for team fights/ganks
- Your is a nice AoE slow/shield
- Great knock up ability with the demacian flag/ combo
- Strong solo character

Cons

- Has pretty low mana
- can trap your own teammates
- Can counter quite easily with flashes and other champion abilities

Runes

Items

Starting Items:

Start with this for extra armor and a quick party of your aegis of legion.

Grab 5 potions for extra hp gain.

---

This is second items you can start with. Regrowth for the quick rush to your Philo's and hp reg.

Grab this 1 extra Pot, use it when you really need it like if you took to much damage from the blue. Once you have enough money for your Philo go b and rush it and grab some more hp pots if you have enough. The early extra Gp5 will benefit you well.


Secondary Items:


Grab the boots first if you really need to give your team some quick ganks or if you will like you just want the extra movement speed around the jungles.

I usually build up Gp5 items first, starting with Philo Stone as I will be playing as a full tank and this item is perfect for gathering gold while you need some time to roam around for ganks.

I build this next Gp5 item after Philo, if i need a quick boost in speed I grab my next Tier 2 boots. This item wasn't as good as it use to be, it also gave some extra armor and was stack able which made it pretty OP, it's still good.

I grab this item for almost all my tanks, it's a good item, gives MR + Armor + HP and its fairly cheap. Can sell this item for better ones late game when the game is still going on and when you finish your core items, might not be bad to invest it in something better.


Core Items:


Build this item first if there is a lot of magic damage being done or a lot of CC, gives a chance you will be able to block some interruptions.


Nice HP/Armor, great item, expensive but worth it. Great against heavy AD teams.


Before i start building my HoG into a Randuin I can sell my Philo Stone for for more room or I can optionally build it into a Shurelya.

Optional Items:


I build this if there is a lot of CC or heavy magic damage, I tend to grab these boots most of the time, sometimes I build my boots into Merc treads before my HoG if its urgent same with Ninja Tabi if one of these boots are needed early (build this anyway for your core if there is a relatively sustainable amount of enemy CC or Magic damage). This or Ninja Tabi should be one of your core items. Always build one of your Tier 2 boots.

Build these boots if there are heavy physical damage, gives armor/dodge pretty much what you need against them. This or Mercury's Treads should be one of your core items. Always build one of the Tier 2 boots.


You can build your cloth armor into a quick wriggle's for extra damage.


This item is great for tanks, once you are difficult to take down this will just intimidate your opponents to not bother to mess with you. I tend to get this item once I gather all my core items, sometimes i grab this before them to keep my unstoppable force alive.

Grab this item if the enemy team has some massive AD damage.

Great against Physical damage, has nice CD reduction and most of all the armor/attack speed reduction is spectacular against physical damage.

Gives a powerful punch of MR/HP reg I really recommend this item against major magic damage.


You can decide to build your Philo Stone to a Shurelya's or you can sell it to quickly build your Randuin or something more important for the extra slot needed for one of the item builds.

Great item against CC, consider buying this if your enemies' have a lot of CC.

Consumables:


I usually only just buy these items when I have finished my core items and have nothing else left to buy for just an extra buff.

Buy a maximum of 2-3 of these during your jungling phases on your extra slots. I would prioritize wards over health potions though for the extra slots.

I find them pretty useless since I have my blue buffs. Just practice on conserving your Mana if you must donate your blues for other teammates. Buy a Mana pot if you think you'll really need one.

Wards are really important in this game, Control Map = Win. Buy them as often as you can during open item slots and leftover gold. Ask your team to buy wards too, don't let them get to comfortable with you buying all the wards.

Nice item against enemy stealth/ suspected wards.

As a tank you should be the one buying the oracles since you will not be easily taken down as the rest of your team. Risky buying the oracle and being the one to be in the center of the team fights but with your items you should be bulky enough to have it all worth while.

Masteries

Offensive

1/1 A 5 CD reduction is actually a pretty good amount of time reduced as you might be waiting for your smite to be up before you engage a creep camp and the 5 gold bonus is excellent since smiting all those creeps will pay off. If you convert to laning you should smite every now and then to the minions as it will give you extra gold if you know you will not be continuing to jungle for the time being.

Defense

1/3 Extra MR, I put a point here for next tiers.

3/3 Extra Armor, Like the Resistance mastery i just slot in points here for next tier.

4/4 Slot points in here for the nice extra dodge. Great against enemy physical damage.

1/1 With the dodge runes/evasion this should proc quite often. Giving you a slight boost of movement speed every now and then.

2/2 Mainly used for damage reduction from jungle creeps and also reduced damage from minion aggro.

1/3 Just 1 spare point for the physical damage block from AD champs.

Utility

3/3 The death reduction outshines the HP/Mana reg provided from Perseverence.

1/3 Just slot in this for next tier. The 2% does not give a whole lot, but the next bonuses from it doesn't make much of a difference.

4/4 This is a must for all junglers, the experience boost is a lot and will help you keep up levels with your team as long as your jungling right.

1/1 I take a point in this instead of maxing Meditation for a small amount of extra gold that could be nice for last second items during your visits to the fountain.

2/3 Took a point out of this for Greed as I find the gold is more important than 1 extra Mana reg.

2/2 Longer buff duration at least 1 point in this is a must for all junglers. I grab 2 points in this for the extra advantage of my ganks.

3/3 Moving around the jungle quickly is pretty important.

1/1 Will help with flash's CD.

Summoner Spells

Good


Smite is a must need for all junglers.


Flash is a spell that will work well for all roles, it can provide the role of unexpected escape mechanisms, initiations, interruptions,chases and kills etc. I use this spell for pretty much all champions. Flash is still no.1 for most junglers who have great initiation like jarvan/maokai.



Ok


You can swap flash for ghost if you'd like too since it provides you speed to catch up to your enemies, (can always be slowed and countered)quick initiations and chase downs. I still recommend having flash.


I really don't recommend teleport but using this skill sometimes have its purpose. Quickly getting to your lanes and clearing the pushing minions, or a teleport to a lane can get you to initiate/help in a fight.


If there are a lot of CC. Prefer you stick with Flash and get a if it's that urgent.


You can use this spell against a heavy AD team, although I prefer you leave exhaust to your team.


After the Heal buff this spell has now become a really good spell although not recommended for junglers.


Bad


Leave this to your support.


Grab the blue buff.


Don't need.


Shouldn't be dying much.

Skill Sequence

((Passive) Nice extra damage for a tank, I don't think it's that great late game.

(Q) Dragon Strike does quite a lot of damage early game even with a full tank build, combo this with your to knock up your enemies not that hard to land flag/strike combo and you'll get the hang of it.

(W) A nice slow and HP shield for each champions around Jarvan. Gains more HP for each nearby enemy champion around Jarvan.

(E) Nice scouting tool for dark areas/bushes and gives you and your allies a good armor boost which is why I max this first. When you your you will knock up every enemy in your path. Great for initiating, which this makes Jarvan a powerful tank along with his Ult .

(Ult) This ult has its good and bad side, the good side is the great initiation skill of this ult which allows your team to pick out your targets and encases your enemy threat(s) in a a circular brick wall. Now the bad side of this ult is it can backfire, causing entrapment to some of your teammates, especially your melee, Also this ult can easily be maneuvered by a flash or a simple thing like Amumu's bandage toss requiring something to target of course.

Creeping / Jungling

With every jungler to have a nice successful enemy jungle invasion you need to have your team with you along with vision of where your enemies are with a or . You should start at Blue buff and gather your team to cover you and leash, your only damage source right now is the and your smite (Smite the Blue buff when its hp is around 600). You should only use 1 with your team to assist you and leash durign that fight. Once you get to level 2 grab a point in and head over to do the wolf camps. Use your on the 3 wolves and pop your , make sure with every creep you damage the bunch with your and use when your taking a lot of damage. Then go to the wraith camp and aim the big wraith first (Use a ), once you've kill the wraiths you should be level 3 and grab your next point in ,you can go do the red if you still have around 68 percent of your HP. If you've taken too much damage below that you can clear small golem camp and b or regain your hp with a and do the red with your left over Potions then return to your jungling phase. When you are at base buy your next items and buy some and . Once you have both buffs start looking for a gank, place wards in certain areas where you are not to sure it's safe to gank, check the bushes with your and if you suspect a wards nearby, don't use the obvious river routes, go the long wsy if you need too.

This is short video of a jungle jarvan from Stonewall. Please note this video was made before Jarvan's nerf, so just keep that in mind.

This is the normal Jungle Jarvan route:

Team Work

Teamwork is really important and one of the main components to a successful win in this game and almost in every other. Your role in your team is to support the team with ganks and tanking fights for the team. Assist the team with initiations for fights and ganks with /, or / depending on the different situations. Using will benefit everyone because of the armor buff. While tanking for your team make sure they are in position first to take advantage of your initiations from your or/combo. You are here to tank and to keep your team from ceasing the opportunity to burst out there damage, get into the center of the fight and ult and aim for whoever is going for your most valuable players, try and keep them off as much as possible with your auto attacks/skills. Communication is also key let your team know who to aim and it's also important to keep your rage to yourself you don't want them to know your losing your confident in them. I know it's sometimes stressing if you have a noob, but the more pressure you put on them the worst they become, keep that in mind for rank games :) A way where you can save your team if they are being chased is to ult the enemy team and / your way out of your own ult or out to keep the whole enemy team in.

Make sure you and your team are warding quite often, buy some / occasionally if your enemy stealth is a threat and enemy wards. Another way a jungler can also support his team without ganks is the ability to destroy enemy vision, you can buy early oracles to destroy their wards rendering them blind on the map. These are some of the ideal places on where you and your team should be warding.

Farming

Ideally you want your team to farm lanes which are being pushed by a bunch of minions to get them farmed before yourself, you can farm if you want and if your team is fed crazily, are dead or need cover on a lane and have no reason too then go ahead and farm the lane yourself. Get your farms from jungle creeps and your will Gp5 items will help out with gathering you gold.

Summary

Overall Jarvan is a very good tank, I'd say his one of the best because of his great initiations. His totally worth the 6.3k IP/975 RP and playing him as a team player is win. So go out there and have fun with him :)