Hi all this my first guide ever so please give me some feedback on how to make it even better. Nocturne was the first champ I ever played and has been my favorite since. I decided to make this guide because I see too many people playing Nocturne wrong and I just want to clear the air about some things about him. Nocturne is a melee assassin who benefits from being built like a DPS. This means that he is NOT A CARRY. You will not believe how some people actually think that he is a carry. He is not. An assassin is someone who will target the enemy team's carries such as the AD carry and the AP caster. Your job is the disrupt the main damage dealing part of the team so that the rest of the team can help you clean up to get the ace. But I will tell you more about that later on. There are two different jungle builds here. One is the jungle tank and the other is attack speed. Please try out the builds before voting. Thanks in advance!!!

So the Pros and Cons of Nocturne

Pros

• He is a very fun to play with
• You get to hear about all the complaining from the other team about "DARKNESS!!!!"
• His ult is really awesome
• Great split pusher
• Great duelist/Finisher
• All his spells can be used for both defensive and offensive
• His skins are just awesome!!!

Cons...

• Kind of squishy in the beginning
• I advise that you buy some wards so that you don't get counter jungled the reason for this will be explained later.
• Very dependent on team work
• Needs to know when to activate ult

When I start out, I prefer the Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potion over the Vampiric Scepter. I guess I just like feeling safe knowing that I have some health potions to fall back on if something goes wrong. But I am not you. You should decide for yourself which of the two starting choices you want and feel comfortable with. The Cloth Armor path is ok for being safe and all but you sacrifice the fact that Wriggle's Lantern will be more expensive then if you were to start out with a Vampiric Scepter. However, the Vampiric Scepter path will not allow you to buy anything else but the scepter. So you should try to figure out which one you want by going into bot games and testing them for yourself.

Typically, the core items you should have for the tanky build are
Mercury's Treads
This is a must have item if you ever want to tank because it allows you to take all the CC the other teams has and still be able to do something.

Warmog's Armor
This item is made to take advantage of the fact that a lot of your leveling up is through killing the neutral monsters in the jungle. It will give you a lot of extra health that will help you survive when ganking if things go all bad.


Wriggle's Lantern
This very typical for most jungler's because of its effects. It gives out a free ward every 3 minute, and gives you armor and life steal. It is a very good starting item, but after mid to late game when people are starting to get more and better items, you will want to sell it for a Bloodthirster


Maw of Malmortius.
This item will give you some even more magic resist some you can survive the AP casters while still giving yourself some more attack damage. In addition, it has a life saving ability which shields you from 400 magic damage when under a certain life value.

These items will allow you to be a tanky champ that can dish out damage as well.

The core items for the attack speed should be as follows:

Wriggle's Lantern
Well this one is a repeat because this is a very typical item for most junglers because of its effects. It gives out a free ward every 3 minute, and gives you armor and life steal. It is a very good starting item, but after mid to late game when people are starting to get more and better items, you will want to sell it for a Bloodthirster

Mercury's Treads
I decided to choose this item because I don't believe Berserker's Greaves will be a good choice for him. It is because your passive on Shroud of Darkness will compensate that lost attack speed. Also with this item, the CC placed by enemy champs will be less threatening to you when you go in to gank.

Bloodthirster
You will need to get this item because it will be the start of your tankiness. Your attack speed combined with this will help give you the edge you need it the most. It is a must have early to mid game.

Frozen Mallet

This item will allow to to be a little bit tanky with the ability of slowing your targets down so they can't escape you. This will finish off the tanky part of this particular build because we will want to build up your attack speed now.

There are many item builds out there for Nocturne, but in my opinion they should really focus on survivability while doing damage. People should also know when to build items for certain situations. An example would be to not build the attack speed items if there is a teemo on the other team because teemo is a counter to all dps champs in my opinion. Some other items that can be used on Nocturne are
Infinity Edge
I claim this to be a situational item because normally I never get that far to be able to complete my build because either A) I'm doing really horrible and my team suffers from that, B) the other is just better than us and outplays us, or C) We sweep the other team and we win pretty fast

Banshees Veil
if there's that one annoying spell you are trying to block,

Quicksilver Sash
if there are more than 3 CC's on the enemy team,

Madred's Bloodrazor
when build AS(Attack Speed) items and if the enemy team is health stacking,

Randuin's Omen
if you are tanking a bit and the enemy team is AS heavy,

Wit's End
If you are going AS and you need a little bit more magic resist when going into team fights.

My rune selection is very simple. It focuses more on the offense of Nocturne with runes designed to shield him from some damage early on in the game. There are some other runes that can work with him such as
Greater Mark of Attack Speed
This will give you more attack speed early on in the game. In my opinion, I never really needed these runes, but I am not you so you should choose what runes fit you best.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed,

and attack damage runes as well such as

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage .

Runes are, in reality, good for early game because after that, you will need more than just 12 magic resist later on in the game. The other team will literally laugh at the sight of you having 12 magic resist. These runes basically give you a balance of armor and magic resists for both jungling and ganking.

With the masteries I picked for the jungle tank build, I chose to pick the normal offense masteries for attack damage champions. There really is nothing to talk about here since it is what most people usually pick in offense with little differences. You could change the fact that I chose Vampirism with Havoc . I think I decided to go with Vampirism because I guess I wanted just a little bit more life whenever I gank lanes. The part of the masteries regarding the utility tree I will go into detail with. I chose not to go with Summoner's Resolve , which gives you 10 gold every time you use smite because I usually don't need that extra 10 gold. Although you can use it if you want. I wanted the Runic Affinity mastery more than the 10 gold per smite mastery because it allows me use the buffs just a little bit longer. Especially blue buff because in the beginning on the game you are very mana dependent and thus blue buff will be very important for you. This is why I focused more on the mana masteries in the utility tree such as Expanded Mind and Meditation .

For the attack speed build I basically did the same thing as the jungle except I put points on the defensive side because you will not be as tanky as the other build. That's why I put points on Veteran's Scars , Durability , and a few on Resistance and Hardiness , and I also put a point on Summoner's Resolve because you will need that extra 10 gold to reach what item you need so you will be able to keep up with either the AD carry or AP carry. Although you might be rushed with the fact that the buffs you claim will be gone sooner than you think without Runic Affinity .

• Passive: Umbra Blades
  This Passive is an awesome passive because it is basically free healing. It is also a great tool when split pushing a lane because it deals damage to all units around you which leads to weaker units and you can push more. It is also helpful when jungling because it will heal you up at the last minute when you think you will die from the monsters.
• Q: Duskbringer
  This is a great chase skill. It is a skill shot and when it hits, it leaves a black trail in which you can follow and gain more movement speed and attack damage. You can also use it to make a trail in which you can follow to escape an enemy. It also deals physical damage and scales off of attack damage items.
• W: Shroud of Darkness
  This one of the greatest things ever invented. So many people hate the idea that it can block a spell and give the user more benefits. But in truth Nocturne must rely on this tool in order for his ganks to be good because most of the time when you go in for the gank, the enemy will freak out and quickly use some sort of spell which will stop you from doing anything. You want this to happen because then you can use this in order to gain some more attack speed and thus speed up their deaths. Plus it is also funny when Blitzcrank tries to use his grab on you. When perfectly timed, the spell will make it look like Blitzcrank's arm just stays on you for a quick second and you will be safe from the grab. In addition when you do block a spell you will hear Nocturne laugh and it is kind of worth it to hear it. My final note about this is to not use it for any spell. If it means taking a few small spells so that you can block a big one, then so be it.
• E: Unspeakable Horror
  This is Nocturne's only CC move. It is also a way of controlling a champions actions as well. If you start using this and stay within range of the champ you are attempting to fear then the enemy champion will either attempt to run away and get out of range or stay and take the fear. So it is a win-win when you are in a team fight because then you take one champ out of the battle. This move has great synergy with duskbringer because it allows you to keep up with your target and attack while trying to fear the enemy.
• R: Paranoia
  This Ultimate is super awesome. It allows you to be on enemy's mind at all times when you are not visible to the enemy team. All you do is activate it and "DARKNESSSSSS!!!" goes off and the enemy team will immediately try to run back or hide in the bushes to avoid you. One note though. In order to jump on another champ, first you have to be within range of the ult and second you have to activate it again and click on the enemy champ. To see the range of the ult move your pointer over the ult button but don't click it to see the range on your minimap. Your range for the ult will increase for each time you upgrade it. Another quick note about the ultimate. When you jump onto the enemy champ you should activate your shield soon after because the champ will freak out and immediately throw some sort of spell on you just out of panic so you have to be prepared.

There are many spells that work for Nocturne while jungling. I chose the two spells that work best for me which are Smite and Flash. Smite is very important for Nocturne because without it jungling will be very difficult for him. Plus it is also useful for when you try to counter-jungle. All you have to do is smite steal the other player's buff and experience and thus slow down their leveling. I also have Flash as either a gap closer or a quick getaway. Many players as you will see will have this spell along with something else like heal or ignite. Some other spells that could be good as substitutes for Flash are Exhaust, Ignite, Ghost, and maybe Cleanse.

• Exhaust would be a good substitute because with it you also reduce the targets magic resist and armor through the masteries from above.
• Ignite is also a good substitute but it is a very aggressive choice because you will have no immediate getaway tool. You will have to rely on your spells to get away.
• With Ghost you will have a very effective gap closer or get away tool. You are an assassin which means you need to be in and out of battle constantly so that the enemy team fears you and runs at the sight of you.
• Cleanse is an ok choice as a substitute for Flash because it can also be used aggressively and not just defensively. All you have to do is charge in guns blazing after the tank goes in and then when the CC comes in to stop you from doing damage, use it so that you are now free of the CC and will now take reduced CC and will be able to do more damage without too much interruption.

When starting out to jungle you will need runes other wise it will be very difficult for you to jungle. I personally start out at the Blue Golem buff with a leash by mid and having either bottom lane or top lane watch and guard the river depending on which side I'm on. Then go to wolves and then wraiths. After that I go to the red buff cause by then smite should be back in like 15 seconds so ou should wait a bit before engaging the red buff. After that I go to the golems just below and then start trying to gank other lanes. Remember!! You must put priority over the solo lanes such as solo top and solo mid over the duo bot lane because they will need the most help in pushing those lanes. When the other lanes don't need help, then you can help bottom lanes unless they are either too pushed up for you to help or they are in dire need of help that forces you to put priority over the other two lanes. An example of a situation of you helping bot lane before helping the other lanes is that they are being pushed back all the way to their tower and are asking for help constantly because they are getting harassed more than they can harass back. After the first round of attempted ganks you should recall or continue jungling. It is your call. When the blue buff comes back, you should give it to your solo mid or whoever is the AP caster because it will allow them to harass the other mid lane player more constantly and thus win the tower earlier than the other lanes. As a jungler, it is your job to be in the back of the enemy's team and keep them in constant fear so that your lanes can push and to assist the lanes in pushing and destroying towers. If you are being constantly harassed by the enemy jungler in terms of getting counter jungled and losing camps, don't fret. Nocturne is excellent at counter jungling as well. In addition, use the free ward you are given with the lantern and ward your own jungle so that it will help both you and your team in coordinating ganks and defending lanes. Buying wards does not hurt at all either because you will help keep the other lanes safe as well when warding. To prevent counter jungles put your wards in the bushes close by to your buffs because in the early game you depend on them for experience. If the enemy jungler happens to steal your buffs you will need to compensate that by being a little bit more aggressive in your ganks and ganking more often to get that EXP you need to get to lvl 6. The example of my beginning jungle will look like the picture below.The numbers are the order in which I go about jungling. The "X's" are the positions where mid lane and top lane or bot lane should be placed when guarding you at blue.

Nocturne is very team dependent since he is an assassin. When your tank initiates the team fight you should either ult in and jump on the carries of the team or just jump in, still going after the carries but saving your ult for either as a means of helping your team escape or chasing down a super weak champ. Nocturne's Ult will for a short time darken the enemy team's minimap; allowing them to only see what their champion can see on the minimap. Which is why some player's activate it and leaves you wondering why they activated their ult in the first place. So to wrap up this section, remember that as an assassin, you must target the main damage dealers of the enemy team so that you team can focus the other enemy champs and assist you in cleaning up the rest of the enemy team.

So this is the end f the guide. I hoped you like it and if you don't please don't hesitate to message me and let me know what to fix. I'll probably be adding more things like a section for screen shots of games you and I have had with these builds. Just think of it as a trophy section where you and I can display are great games we have had with Nocturne. P.S. sorry for a very blank guide. Still trying to figure out how to do some things since I just recently joined Mobafire.