About the Author

Hey guys, this is my first MOBAFire build, and I decided to do it on the champion I love most - Shaco. He is the champion I feel is the most underrated in my Elo, and hopes this build does justice to the clown I am currently in Silver 4 on the OCE server which I do realise is fairly sh*thouse, but I just picked the game up around 2months ago and am still learning - any criticism is taken positively :] Remember that I will be updating this build and any and all feedback would be highly welcomed - I have study to do and the more comments will give me motivation to complete every necessary chapter of this build step by step :)

About shaco: Shaco is one of the most complicated champs to excel in, but concurrently the easiest champs to play - escape, fear, slow, clone, f*cking clown etc. To start off, Shaco's jack in the boxes (I'll just call it jitb for short) do all the hard work of 'leashing' and destroying the 1st buff camp, whether it be red or blue, by simply spamming your jitb where the buff spawns. The next objective is to secure your second buff quickly without losing much hp by using your jitb to tank and smite to clear super-fast. This is critical as Shaco is super squishy/weak early-game when securing buffs. After taking both red and blue, if you did it quickly you can either decide to:

- Counter-Gank
- Counter-Jungle
- Lane-Gank
- River-Gank

Important: DON'T GO TO THAT INSTALOCKER TOP OR FEED CHAMPION WHO IS CRYING FOR HELP. Look for the best option possible as Shaco is a snowball champion - pick up a few kills early game and your clear times/power on the rift is unmatched, esp. after grabbing your early Tiamat/Hydra. Try to choose the lane that is pushed/playing aggressive.

The hard part about Shaco is which buff to start at - red or blue. If you're an inexperienced Shaco player and in Low Elo, just start at where your bot lane can help if you think you're going to stuff up the placement of your jitb's. Getting invaded is a possibility, and so ask one of your laners to ward your other buff and place deep wards in the enemy jungle early.

If you do get invaded at level 1 and/or die, just go to your other buff and smite it, and do a full clear of the jungle - e.g doubles, wolves, wraiths then blue if you started red buff on the blue side. Just remember to FORCE A GANK, PLES. Once you spot that one (aggressive) lane, kill him and woo you're all caught up as if nothing happened :D.

Late-Game Shaco can be a pain in the **** for new Shaco players, esp. if you weren't able to snowball yourself/your teammates early game. If somehow it gets to late-game but ur fed af, just jump into the teamfight and tear sh*t up :D. Just split push if this isn't the case, and take obj's while your team is distracting them and stalling. Remember to communicate with your team that you're going to split push so they don't get mad when you're team gets aced because the initiated on a 4v5 (i.e Low Elo Players). Try doing either a 1-3-1 splitpush if you're top lanes is someone like Shen, OR a 0-4-1 split if you're the only champion who can splitpush effectively.

Pros:

- Assassin
- Can go invisible.
- Don't have to take flash.
- Snowballs.
- Strong Counter-Jungling.
- Amazing Ganks.
- Great Map control.
- High Skill Cap.
- Can dodge EVERY ability with use of Ultimate (Hallucinate).
- Great splitpush potential.

Cons:

- Squishy
- Prone to Level 1 Invades.
- Unreliable CC - Jitb Fear Has Delay - Quite Hard to Get Right if Unexperienced With Shaco.
- Falls Behind Quickly.
- Little Team Fight Damage Early Game.
- FoG Can Reveal Your Deceive and Be Seen by Experienced Players.
- Unreliable Jungle Clear.

As stated above, these masteries are a must when playing assassin burst Shaco, and going 9 in Utility is not recommended due to its use IF it get's to late game. 9 in Defense 99% of the time, taking 3 points in Armour for the sustain in the Jungle.

These are my preferred standard runes on Shaco but if you feel like you don't know what to do in team fights when ur fed and get focused, chuck some armour seals and mr glyphs :)

Maxing Two-Shiv Poison first 99% of the time, as it gives the most burst and reliable cc slow (reducing ms by 30% at level 5). I have heard people maxing jitb first for higher clear speed, but Shaco is a kill-seeker, not a clearer. You will get farm once securing a kill or burning a flash in lane and shoving to the opposing laner's tower. I usually then go by maxing jitb second for the quicker clear times if you do need some extra gold for an item, but you can get Deceive second for more burst, as after getting out of invisibility you crit for 120% at level 5. Remember to get jitb for quickest possible clear by stacking.

Ignite for securing kills and the extra burst

You can take flash but you already have an escape that can jump walls and is not helpful to Shaco.

Smite is a must on Junglers for securing buffs and objectives such as Baron Nashor and Dragon.

1) Orb-Walking (Attack Walking)
This actually applies to almost every champion, but is especially important for Shaco since you don't have hard disables or high attack speed - you are dependent on your slow to keep chasing the enemy. One way to help this is to move in between every attack while your attack is on cooldown, allowing you to keep your slow on them for much longer, and probably sneak in ~3 extra attacks in a gank. I am only mentioning it here because it is extremely necessary when playing Shaco as the passive proc'ing on every aa if the enemy is running away from you

2) Using your passive.

Shaco gains additional attack damage from hitting the enemy from behind. This also applies to neutral buff camps, so running behind the red/blue buff when you're low leveled makes the world of difference as it will mitigate the damage you take and this is vital if you start with Doran's Blade. If starting D-blade and you don't do this, by the time you complete both buffs you will be at half hp and make the harsh decision of backing and wasting time or risking a gank and dying.

3) Smiting Correctly. You need to ensure that you will win a smite-battle against the other jungler. In Low Elo, not all junglers know that Smite does more damage with your level, and don't even know that you can see what damage smite does and by left-clicking on Drag/Baron, you can see their health bar and smite as soon as it reaches that spot. Try combo'ing a shiv and smite to do extra damage at the same time to widen the margin for error. Using a shiv-smite combo can increase the split-second damage you do on an objective by 100-300.

4) Dodging with Hallucinate. This can be the most mechanically difficult technique to execute in the game in some situations. For those unaware, Hallucinate dodges ALL abilities while being cast. With minimal practice, you should be able to dodge 100% of target-projectile abilities like Dazzle (stun) from Taric and Disintegrate (high burst) from Annie. Doing this alone will probably make the difference between a lot of ganks. However, what really makes GOD Shaco is when it comes to dodging much harder spells - Curse of the Sad Mummy (cc for days), Summon: Tibbers, (extremely high burst + possible stun) etc. Needless to say, dodging these abilities also almost always makes the difference.