Vapora's Competitive Talon

My History With Talon

I saved up for Talon when he was first announced, when I was level 15 or something, because he looked like he was going to be really cool. After playing lots and lots of games with Warwick I finally had enough IP to buy Talon. So I played a match with him and...! I didn't like him. So I didn't touch him for ages. About a month afterwards the enemy team had a Talon on it. And he destroyed us all. His burst was too much for us to handle, and because he was roaming, he became more and more unstoppable as he kept killing us over and over again. We lost that match, and I decided to give Talon another go after being amazed at how well this person had done with him. I played him for a bit, but I wasn't doing well at all with him, so I gave up again, and went back to playing with Warwick, not touching Talon for ages again. I constantly dominated my matches with Warwick, and my friend who I'd introduced to LoL reckoned he'd become a better player than me, so he challenged me into a match. I destroyed him. Then he said that I'd only won because I was using Mr. OP, Warwick. So he challenged me to a fight using any other champion. I thought: "So... Who the hell do I know how to play that isn't Warwick?" Talon being the only other character I'd ever tried out properly, I picked him. My friend initially destroyed me with Teemo, but as I got more minion farm and more items, I began being able to burst him down pretty easily. Eventually I won the game after he surrendered. And from then on I knew how much damage a Talon with alot of AD can do.

So after this realization, I started playing him a lot more. I played some matches with him, and I quite often did badly with him, as was expected, having not played him too much. But as I played more games, I got better and better with him, to the extent I now ALWAYS get fed in my games, even with a bad early game.

Introduction

So, this is my guide on how I play Talon. Talon is an assassin that delivers his damage all in bursts using spells, basically an AD caster. Initially he relies on his spells to get him kills, but when he gets fed by doing this, he can deliver his burst on someone then keep on fighting with auto attacks while his spells are on cooldown. His role in a teamfight is to burst down the AD carry or the AP nuker, depending both on who's the biggest threat at the time and who's the squishiest.

This guide will teach you how you should be laning, and what you should be doing in teamfights.

Pros / Cons

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Talon's Abilities

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Talon deals 10% additional damage to any target that is slowed, stunned, immobilized or suppressed.

Not the best passive in the game... But at least you can always use Rake as the initiator to your burst for the rest of your burst to deal 10% more damage than it usually does.

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Talon's next auto attack will deal additional damage, and will make the target bleed over 6 seconds, dealing more damage over time and revealing their location to Talon for the duration.

Great spell. Main source of damage in our burst, and the damage can be enhanced by both Cutthroat and using Rake to slow them for Mercy to activate. With a small cooldown of 4 seconds not counting cooldown reduction, this is very spammable in fights. It also happens to resets your attack timer, so by pressing Q JUST as you begin an auto attack, Talon will auto attack then immediately auto attack again, this time using Noxian Diplomacy. This is great as the spell can also be used on towers ( But the tower won't bleed :( ) so you can take towers down pretty easily.

We max this first.

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Talon throws a volley of blades in a cone ahead of him, which then quickly return back to him. These blades deal damage each time they pass through an enemy, and slow them for 2 seconds.

This is a good spell too, and it deals a decent amount of damage when maxed as well as slowing them for the rest of your burst to deal more damage. I see a lot of Talon guides telling you to max this first, though I disagree.

We max this second.

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Talon instantly appears behind his target, silencing them for 1 second and amplifying his damage against that target for 3 seconds.

This is a great initiator for your burst, as it silences them, which is good when you're playing against AP casters. When I want the safest burst I just initiate with this, use Noxian Diplomacy, then use Rake as they turn around around and run away. We take a point in this at level three, but leveling it up after that makes a very small difference.

We max this last.

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Talon disperses a ring of blades outwards and gains stealth for up to 2.5 seconds while gaining 40% movement speed. When Talon emerges from stealth, the blades converge on his location. Each time a blade passes through an enemy, they take damage. Each enemy can only be damaged once at the start of the ability and once at the end.

This spell is one of my favourite spells in the whole game. It's always an awkward transition from Talon to any other champion for me because I'm so used to having this ult. This can be used for damage, for ambushing, for escaping, for rapidly clearing minion waves...

It's our ult, we max it whenever we can, duh.

Item Build - The Explanation

- Doran's Blade
More HP and more AD. This is my favourite starting item, but also viable to start with is Boots of Speed and 3 red pots, or Long Sword and 2 red pots.

- The Brutalizer
This item is taken on almost all Talon builds, and it's easy to see why. It grants more damage and more spell spammability. Also builds into Youmuu's Ghostblade.

- Mercury's Treads
Talon isn't heavily reliant on a specific type of boots to live up to his full potential. So I take Mercs because it offers more resistance against that pesky AP carry, and more tenacity to help combat CC. Another viable option is Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

- The Bloodthirster
It offers more survivability, and the most AD any item can give you. All of Talon's abilities scale with AD, so this is one of the best items to get on him.

- Banshee's Veil
All of our previous items give us a lot of damage output, so what we need now is the means to enter the fight, deliver the damage, and stay alive. Banshee's Veil is one of the best items to do that. Note that if you manage to get your first The Bloodthirster extremely early due to being fed, you can build this before your second one. Having a Bloodthirster at an early-level means your damage output will already devastate anyone.

- Youmuu's Ghostblade
May as well build The Brutalizer into this, no point in keeping it how it is. It offers 5% more CDR than the Brutalizer and 5 more armor penetration. The active on it is pretty sweet too. Can be used both for catching up to escaping enemies or used just before your ultimate for escaping. Make sure to activate it before your ultimate when escaping though. If you activate it while your in stealth it will cause your blades to come back and reveal you once more.

- Infinity Edge
By the time you've got this item, you'll have 40% crit chance. Talon doesn't benefit from it as much as an AD carry would, but it still offers great damage output. It is also as equally viable to take a third The Bloodthirster. Feel free to pick.

Masteries

Offense Tree

Summoner's Wrath - The armor reduction during Exhaust synergises well with the 10% damage boost from the slow.

Brute Force - More AD for more damage on all our attacks.

Butcher - Makes it easier to last-hit minions.

Demolitionist - The faster that tower goes down, the faster you can safely gank other lanes.

Alacrity - A useless choice for Talon, but necessary to take for the next mastery.

Weapon Expertise - More ArPen for more damage on all our attacks.

Deadliness - 4% chance for a crit is small, but it's worth it when it does hit.

Lethality - More crit damage is useful, as our ending crit chance is 40%.

Sunder - More ArPen for more damage on all our attacks.

Executioner - Makes last-hitting minions easier, and minimizes the chances of "ZOMG LUCKER, 10 HP."

Defense Tree

Resistance - More Magic Resistance to take less magic damage.

Hardiness - Killing your enemy and barely surviving their minions' attacks is so satisfying.

Durability - More HP makes it harder to kill you at all times.

Veteran's Scars - One of the strongest Masteries in the game IMO. The countless times this will allow you to survive with 20 HP is priceless.

Runes

• Greater Mark of Desolation. We take this so that throughout the whole game, we attack them as if they had no armor at all, unless they specifically choose to stack armor. Flat AD Marks would be better for early game, whereas these will suffice for early game, and are better in late game. Your call which you want to pick.
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• Greater Seal of Defense. Gotta watch out for them jungler ganks, man. Don't wanna lose too much HP with each gank or your enemy will screw you over. Not to mention, minions will attack you after you burst the enemy if you're close to them. Always good to take less damage, even if it is just from minions. I recommend per level ones because they come in handy more in late-game than early game anyway, but flat are good too.
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• Greater Glyph of Warding. More resistance to magic damage is important, as we have to go right behind our enemy to burst them. Flat CDR glyphs can also work, though.
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• Greater Quintessence of Swiftness. Movement Speed is good for an assassin like Talon, he needs to get in the fight quick, and get out of it even quicker. For that he needs movement speed, and because none of the items we take gives him passive movement speed, these could save your butt instead.
  
  

  Optional Runes

  
  
  

  
  

  • Greater Seal of Resilience In case of an AD lane, you will definitely need early armor for early survivability. Talon's base armor is very low.
    
  • Greater Seal of Shielding Godlike vs. mages, sweet vs. double AP team. Increases your MR/Level and makes you even more resilient to magic damage.
    
  • Greater Seal of Vitality Since these runes are amazing on Katarina and Talon shares somewhat a same playstyle (jumping enemies, fighting at close proximity, taking damage), these work too.
    
  • Greater Glyph of Shielding In case of an AD lane, you won't need too much MR early, so better get the scaling glyphs, because thery are twice as useful as flat ones in later game.
    
  • Greater Quintessence of Strength Who said early AD is bad? :D But you're giving up movement speed, which is important against smart opponents.
    
  • Greater Quintessence of Fortitude Best complement to Veteran's Scars. Together with Doran's Blade results in 737 HP at level 1.
    
  • Greater Quintessence of Desolation More armor pen. is always an option, but generally, armor pen. from Greater Mark of Desolation's and The Brutalizer should be enough.

So, Where Does Talon Fit In?

Every champion has their place in League of Legends. Some jungle, some support, some farm and carry the team later on. As for Talon, he makes the enemy AP carry's life hell in mid.

Why not use him solo top instead? Because he's easily countered there. Any champion that's naturally tanky holds an advantage over Talon. Whereas in mid, Talon counters most of the champions there. He can take the enemy down in 2-3 bursts, and just keep his distance while his spells are on CD. This causes the enemy to be a lot more hesitant about last-hitting minions. After having a taste of your burst once or twice they'll know if you land it again it will kill them. This way Talon keeps them from farming, and easily kills them when they inevitably step into his range.

When Not To Play Talon

- Because Talon takes the place of the AP carry, you need the AP carry to either go solo top and faceroll the enemy champion there ( there's a reason solo top champs don't go mid ;) ), or you need him to be Fiddlesticks and jungle. If there's no AP carry on your team however, this means that their team is free to stack armor to counter your entire team's damage output. Though there's not too much of a threat of them doing this on lower Elo, so it's safe to do it here.
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- When it seems the enemy Mordekaiser is taking mid... He's a heavy counter to Talon.
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- When the enemy team is composed of tanky champions. Talon excels at bursting squishies, any champion that builds HP and armor makes it harder to burst them.

My Argument For Not Taking Trinity Force

Maybe you noticed that I don't use Trinity Force in my build. Is this a stupid thing to do? I don't think so. Why? Let me explain.

Trinity Force: 30 Ability Power, 30 Attack Damage, 30 Attack Speed, 15 Critical Strike Chance, 250 Health, 250 Mana, 12 Movement Speed Multiplier. UNIQUE Passive: 25% chance on hit to slow the target by 35% for 2.5 seconds; on cast, increases your base Attack Damage by 150% for one attack. 2 second cooldown.

Key words there. 2 second cooldown. If it takes you 6 seconds to use Talon's burst you're playing him wrong. Talon delivers all his damage in short bursts, and as such, he can only make use of the Trinity proc once in his burst. Taking another Bloodthirster or Infinity Edge instead of Trinity Force is better because AD not only increases the damage of the 2 auto attacks you use in your burst, it also increases the damage of Rake, Shadow Assault, and both the initial extra damage on Noxian Diplomacy and the bleed on it. And with Infinity Edge, if you score a critical hit you've already done more damage than the Trinity Force passive would've done. Difference is you can score a critical hit twice.

The Bloodthirster > Trinity Force

Infinity Edge > Trinity Force

Gameplay

At the start play defensively. Try and get as much farm as you can, but not at the cost of a lot of your health. Once you reach level 3, you can begin dealing damage to your enemy with your burst. You can burst either by using Rake > Cutthroat > Noxian Diplomacy, or Cutthroat > Noxian Diplomacy > Rake. The first burst deals more damage as Rake will slow your enemy, causing you to deal 10% more damage with the rest of your burst thanks to your passive, but is harder to land Rake with because they might see Rake coming and move back, or just move back out of pure luck. I usually use the second burst, but bare in mind when they're too close to miss Rake that the first burst will deal more damage. After either burst you move back behind your minions, wait for your burst to come off CD, then rinse and repeat until they're dead.
nothing I classify mid-game as the part of the game that begins when you take down your first turret, and ends when teamfights begin. After taking down your first turret, you should aim to gank the other lanes as much as possible. Talon's ganks are phenominal, so go to whichever lane's enemies are most pushed and gank. Once the enemy/enemies are dead, try and help your team to take down the tower. If you succeed, recall for items, HP and mana, return to mid lane if your enemy is pushing to your tower and try to either force them to recall or get a kill. Push the minions ahead a little bit, then gank the lane you didn't gank last time. Once the enemy/enemies are dead, you once again help your team destroy the turret. When it's down, all of the enemy team's outer-turrets will be destroyed and it will no longer be safe for your team to farm a lane on their own lest they get ganked and die. This is where you all group up in mid and push, forcing their team to group up in mid too, marking the ending of mid-game.
nothing When the fight begins, and everyone on the enemy team has already picked their targets, you enter the fray and burst down either the AD carry or the AP carry, whichever happens to be squishiest. By this point in the game one burst should be all it takes to kill them, then get out of range before the enemy team focuses their attention on you. Wait for CD to come off on Cutthroat then rinse and repeat.

Section O' Scores

This is the section where I show my scores with Talon using this build / builds I used before adapting to this, to show that it works. Post any good scores you've had using this build in the comments and I'll add them into this section. Once I've got enough scores from other people, I'll add in a Hall of Fame section to show what players have had the best scores of all the people to send me their sores.
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