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Jayce Build Guide by MRN.Heartbeat

AD Carry Heartbeat's Korean Jayce guide.

AD Carry Heartbeat's Korean Jayce guide.

Updated on June 13, 2013
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League of Legends Build Guide Author MRN.Heartbeat Build Guide By MRN.Heartbeat 57 5 281,448 Views 32 Comments
57 5 281,448 Views 32 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author MRN.Heartbeat Jayce Build Guide By MRN.Heartbeat Updated on June 13, 2013
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Introduction

SPACE Hi guys. My name is Heartbeat, and I'm a former professional League of Legends player from ex-Team MRN. Currently I have three accounts in Diamond 1, and I play every role at a very high level. I have played mid, AD, and support to a professional level.

So! enough about myself, let's talk about Jayce! He's been Flavor of the Month for quite a long time, and I see a LOT of people wanting to learn Jayce. So here I want to talk about how to play Jayce, and his tips and tricks, and what his match-up is against other champions.

Here is a video I made to demonstrate how Jayce works. I talk a lot about tips and tricks you can do with Jayce using his skills, especially being able to do your Q+E combo smoothly. so check it out!

Follow me on twitter! @HeartbeatLoL

My Stream

(Mondays~Fridays at 12~6 PM PST)
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Pros/Cons

Let's talk about what Jayce excels at, and what Jayce is weak at.

Pros
  • One of the longest range pokes in the game
  • One of the only AD pokes in the game
  • Is relevant and powerful in all phases of the game (early/mid/late)
  • Acceleration Gate brings huge utility to your team
  • Hyper Charge takes towers extremely fast late game
  • Thundering Blow does %Maximum Health damage
  • Can brushcheck with your Q
  • Can go mid or top (or AD too!)

Cons
  • Team might lack AP damage, so make sure the other solo (mid or top) goes AP
  • Extremely Mana hungry until you get your Tear of the Goddess stacked up
  • Q+E combo is hard to master (to do it perfectly fluid)
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Runes


9x
9x
9x
3x
... Greater Mark of Attack Damage
Greater Seal of Armor
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist
Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage

Marks
I choose to go 9x AD marks because Jayce has relatively bad AD at level 1, and having these will help you get more cs. On top of that, Your Q scales immensely off AD, so these are the best in slot.

Seals
I choose to go armor seals because if you go top, armor seals are very important against the popular AD bruiser/assassins. Otherwise, you can MAYBE take mana regen seals, but I still think armor yellows are the best in slot. Remember even if you do go against AP, AP casters still auto attack and armor yellows also help immensely against creeps/junglers as well.


Glyphs
I like flat MR glyphs. Basically, you want both armor and magic resist from both your seals and glyphs. If you're going against a full AD team, you would just want to replace these with armor glyphs - however most games you'll need both armor and mr.


Quints
Again, I'd go AD quints to complement your AD marks. Together they accumulate to +15 AD, and that will help your early game immensely in CSing or trading/harassing.
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Masteries


I choose to go this specific 21/0/9 mastery. A lot of you guys will ask why do I get the Arcane Knowledge magic pen? You have to remember that every spell in your melee form is all magic damage. So having magic penetration is actually a really strong mastery to have. A lot of other options include putting points into either Butcher (why do you need extra minion damage?) or Fury (is 2% more attackspeed stronger than having 8% magic pen?)

Having the 9 points in utility when I'm going mid is mostly because I will be handed off blue buffs, and the Meditation mastery as well as the increased Runic Affinity buff duration mastery will both help me with my mana intensive pokes. With the blue buff you should be able to poke without running out of mana, and having the increased buff duration mastery should let you poke freely for a longer amount of time.

If you face a harder match up, or you plan on going top lane against a bruiser, I recommend going 9 defense instead. You will be getting the 4 points in health per level, 3 points in armor, 1 point in mr, and 1 point in +30 flat health. This will increase your trading potential and make you a lot more durable.
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Items

I like Jayce because for both top lane and mid lane, You build mostly the same items. However, there are differences in starting items for both roles.

Mid Jayce Start

sight ward
OR

OR

Top Jayce Start


OR

OR

After you pick your start you should then rush your Tear of the Goddess as soon as possible to get your mana pool bigger. You will also try to get your Manamune ASAP as well.

Mid Game Items


The reasoning for this mid game build is to maximize the base damage on your Q+E pokes from your ranged form. Your Q has ridiculous base damage at level 5, and you want to make sure you have maximum armor pen so it deals the most damage mid game (when AD starts suffering. This is why a lot of AD carries are considered weak mid game)

Here, if you feel like you're losing lane too hard at top lane you should get Ninja Tabi instead. And if you feel like the enemy team has too many divers with CC, then you should consider getting a Mercury's Treads

However, remember the 15% cd on your boots means more speed up, more Q+E pokes, and more W to use on towers. So cooldown boots are ideal for jayce.

Late Game Items


If you feel like you don't need a defensive item, go ahead and round it out with either Bloodthirster, Blade of the Ruined King, or Infinity Edge

Bloodthirster - Adds the most base AD from one item. Also gives you really good sustain so you can get your lost HP back from auto attacking.

Infinity Edge - Synergizes extremely well with your W, and of course with another bloodthirster, if you do crit then it will do massive damage.

Blade of the Ruined King - If you feel like you want this item as a mini-peel, do so. It's not a bad item because w procs the passive on this item 3 times as well.

I'll explain your defensive item choices for that last spot:

Warmog's Armor - Gives you a huge pool of HP. Get this if you feel like you just need to last a little bit longer in teamfights.

Quicksilver Sash - If the enemy team has a supression ultimate, you should definitely get this.

Guardian Angel - I recommend this item if you don't know which item to get. This item pretty much gives you 2 lives, and lets you dive in in melee form much more comfortably.
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Skills

Hextech Capacitor (Passive)


Jayce gains 40 movement speed and ignores unit collision for 1.25 seconds each time Transform is cast.

A pretty decent passive at best. It's not the greatest, but it basically gives you free movement speed for a short duration every time you switch forms. This helps you catch up to your target when you're chasing them to cast a melee form Q, or to get to your lane faster/roam to other lanes faster by switching forms constantly.






To the Skies! / Shock Blast


To the Skies: Jayce leaps to an enemy dealing 20 / 65 / 110 / 155 / 200 (+1.0 per bonus attack damage) physical damage and slowing enemies by 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% for 2 seconds.

Shock Blast: Jayce fires an orb of electricity that detonates upon hitting an enemy (or reaching the end of its path) dealing 60 / 115 / 170 / 225 / 280 (+1.2 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to all enemies in the area of the explosion. If fired through an Acceleration Gate, Shock Blast's damage, range, speed, and explosion radius are increased by 40%.

Melee: This is your gap closer nuke. This skill also slows your opponent, so this will help you get more auto attacks in while you're on the chase, or so your jungler can catch up to you for a gank.

Range: Your poking spell. You usually want to combo this with an acceleration gate! It has extremely good scaling with bonus ad. Remember that this skill also gives vision, so use it to brush check if needed!



Lightning Field / Hyper Charge


Lightning Field: Passive: Jayce restores 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 mana per strike while in Hammer form. Active: Jayce creates a field of lightning that damages nearby enemies for 25 / 42.5 / 60 / 77.5 / 95 (+25% of ability power) magic damage per second for 4 seconds.

Hyper Charge: Jayce gains a burst of energy, increasing his attack speed to the maximum amount for 3 attacks. These attacks do 70 / 85 / 100 / 115 / 130% of his attack damage.
Cooldown: 14 / 12 / 10 / 8 / 6 seconds

Melee: Surrounds yourself in an AOE field that does damage per second. Usually this skill doesn't do much other than helping your wave clear. What's important is the passive, where it gives you mana for using every auto attack. Use this passive if you ever have the choice to use melee form instead of ranged so you can get your mana back.

Range: Gives you max attack speed for 3 auto attacks. A weak spell in earlier levels because it only does a portion of your auto attack damage, but in the later levels if does more than your auto attacks. This spell scales ridiculously well with your Muramana, because it procs the active 3 times very quickly. This spell is also very very strong for taking towers or inhibitors very quickly.





Thundering Blow / Acceleration Gate


Thundering Blow: Jayce deals 8 / 11 / 14 / 17 / 20 % of targets maximum health (+1.0 per bonus attack damage) as magic damage and knocks them back a short distance. Damage to monsters is capped at 200 / 300 / 400 / 500 / 600 magic damage.

Acceleration Gate: Jayce deploys an Acceleration Gate for 4 seconds, which increases the movement speed of allied champions who pass through it by 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% for 3 seconds. This movement speed bonus rapidly decreases over its duration. If Shock Blast is fired through the gate, its speed, range, damage, and explosion radius are increased by 40%

Melee: Deals a % maximum health magic damage to a single target. Extremely strong spell in trading or executing! Also, this skill knocks back the target as well. It's also important to remember that if you use E right before an enemy flash, he still gets knocked back the same distance from the pre-flash spot.

Range: Creates a gate that speeds up you and your allies' move speed. This spell also accelerates your Shock Blast(Q) so you want to combo this with that skill when you use it.




Mercury Cannon / Mercury Hammer


Mercury Cannon: Transforms the Mercury Hammer into the Mercury Cannon gaining new abilities and increased range. The first attack in this form reduces the target's Armor and Magic Resist by 10/15/20/25% for 5 seconds.

Mercury Hammer: Transforms the Mercury Cannon into the Mercury Hammer gaining new abilities and increases Jayce's Armor and Magic Resist by 5/15/25/35. The first attack in this form deals 20/60/100/140 additional magic damage.

Melee: Adds bonus damage to your first auto attack after using transform. Being in melee form also gives you bonus armor/magic resist, making you a lot more durable in melee form.

Range: Makes your next auto attack after using transform reduces % of enemy armor/magic resist for 5 seconds. This basically gives you free % armor/magic pen to the target you're attacking.. which is invaluable. When this stacks with your last whisper, you can ignore almost half of their armor with your auto attack.


So that's the jayce skillset. Sounds too good to be true huh?!
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Skill Sequence

A lot of people have different Jayce builds. But here's my skill order for the top/mid Jayce with my own explanation:

Top Jayce

Ability Sequence
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

This is the "No W" build that i personally like on Jayce. This is also the same skill order that CJ Frost's Shy uses in top lane. Earlier levels in W are really week, only doing 70% of your AD at level 1. Yes it does give you mana in melee form, but most of the time in laning phase you want to harass in ranged form instead of melee form. Because in top lane, trades usually involve trading with your spells and backing off more often than not, putting everything on Q and E is better because the both Q and E scales ridiculously well off levels.

Plus, you have 4 skills that you're maxing, not just 2 - so remember that! W is a very good skill, yes, but you don't really use W to chunk tower hp in early levels anyway, hence getting it much later when you're actually grouping with your team is much more efficient. W will still proc equal amounts of the Muramana active with each auto attack still.

Mid Jayce

Ability Sequence
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

For mid Jayce, I do like taking W early levels. This way you can control your wave a bit more, and you can use W to help last hit under tower. Against casters, you can pressure most of them early, so you can farm in melee form (in which W gives you mana back). I demonstrate this in my video guide (linked in my intro).

There's less trading in mid lane too, so you can have a point in W without sacrificing your poke Q+E damage. Also, W will still help you take enemy tower. Why is this different from taking a top lane tower? Well, sometimes you don't want to take tower top lane - if you're bullying your lane, if you don't take their tower you can bully them harder. For mid lane, it's different. Taking mid tower is HUGE for your team, it gets rid of map vision/control for half your lane and the opponent team is forced to ward more towards mid side which the mid tower gives.
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Match-ups.

In this section, I'm gonna drop some personal knowledge on popular mid/top picks, and how Jayce does against them. I'll be giving a scale of 1(easiest)~5(hardest) for each champion listed.

- 3 A match up of skill. You can bully her in lane early, especially if you can dodge her charm. Most of her kit is skill shot, so if she does land everything, she can stay even but if you can dodge her, you can bully this lane. After 6, don't stay in lane if you're chunked, because she can easily all-in you for a kill.

- 3 Jayce does relatively well vs the almighty Darius in lane. If you get pulled, you can just knock him back. Just make sure you play aggressive on him when his pull is on cooldown. Do not approach him when your melee form E is on cooldown, because you will die.

- 2 Diana does badly in lane vs Jayce before 6 because Jayce can punish her REALLY hard. After 6, if she R's to you, just knock her back and she has to pretty much force her R to go on cooldown to get to you. Without a second reset on her QR, you should be free.

- 3 This match up is good if you don't back out and get scared when she Q's you in ranged form. Keep harassing her, and do NOT get stunned. If you dont get stunned, you should stay even at the very least.

- 1 Dodge skittles, harass and zone with one side warded. Hug the warded side. If you get walled, you can just gate away, which nullifies the Karthus wall. You can also stop the Karthus from ulting with your knockback if you see him ult. Easy match-up!

- 2 Pretty easy match up. Kat is definitely annoying in lane because she will wittle you down. Just harass her a lot in lane before she gets levels. She should never be able to get a long ult on you since you have knockback. Easy, but annoying.

- 4 You only win in early levels, because simply you do more damage than her early. However, later on she can shield your poke, and if you ever melee form Q on her she can snare you. Not to mention if you get snared in lane you might die. I wouldn't recommend going in for a melee Q unless you can 100% kill her. You should get ahead in cs early game, so just keep that lead.

- 4 Hella annoying. She can heal your poke, and she can trade equally with you after 6. Again, don't get hit by her poke, because she can heal through yours but you can't heal through her pokes. You should still play aggressive early.

- 3 An even match up, she trades even with you. You can poke her, but she will shield some of your damage. After 6 if you can outplay her by using flash when she ults, you can probably destroy her. But at the same time, try your best not to get out-traded.

- 4 A hard match up.. If you're a REALLY good Jayce you can knock the renekton back sometimes before he hits a target with his E so he doesn't get a second one. But if you can't knock him back and he gets 2 procs, you generally want to wait until he uses up his 2nd dash before you knock him back. Either way, he gets incredibly tanky early so he is a very very difficult match up. You should still be able to farm fairly easily.

- 2 Pretty easy match up. You can bully him hard, but after he gets his items he will be another incredibly tanky guy you will have a hard time killing. If you're skilled enough you can kncokback shen before his taunt hits you. You can also interrupt his ultimate, so you can split push with him.

- 2 Really easy early. Your knockback has a longer range than his fling so he'll never be able to touch you. You can probably kill him in all phases of the game unless he goes like ninja tabis, and rushes thornmail or something. Even then your melee form does magic damage so you're fine.

- 1 Incredibly easy match up. Wait until he throws a pick a card, and play really aggressive for 3 seconds. Bait him to hold a gold card, and just back off. This way you can make him out of mana really quickly. He is INCREDIBLY squishy so you can kill him with just one skill rotation. You can also stop him from teleporting across the map, so try to keep him in your vision while staying out of your danger zone.

- 2 Another skill shot match up... If the Xerath lands his Q continuously you might be in trouble. One thing to remember is that whenever he enters his siege form you can use your Q+E at him and punish him. After 6, try not to all-in him if you don't have flash unless he's really low. He does a LOT of damage, and his passive will start being a nuisance.

- 3 Before the Zed nerfs recently, Zed used to poop on Jayce whenever his ult was up. However, his laning got significantly nerfed, so you can beat him early. Be smart about his cooldowns and punish him hard if he uses W wrong. After 6 however, you should still play very very carefully because even if you knock him back he will still stick on you.
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Laning Phase

Jayce laning is incredibly safe, but at the same time he's incredibly strong. How much you crush your lane has a lot to do with your ability to read your opponent's movement and land your Q+E combo in your ranged form. Early levels, don't be afraid to go in with your melee form after you land a ranged Q+E combo (of course, make sure you still watch your ward spots for enemy ganks). Your melee combo should be Q, auto attack (for the bonus damage from R), and E to knock him back - making him unable to trade back.


Mana management is also very important. If you didn't start faerie charm, and you're spamming your Q+E often, you want to start conserving mana so you'll always have the option of going melee Q+E after.

Only practicing and having experience will help your laning phase. Look at my matchup section and know what Jayce can or cannot do. I think he can at the very least stay even against any match up, and if you do end up messing up and falling behind, you can still farm from a very safe distance.

Please do watch my video guide, as I commentate on how to lane as Jayce.
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Team Fights


Before I talk about teamfighting, I want you guys to know that there are countless variables in a teamfight and while I can't talk about every single situation, I will surface on the general stuff on how to enter a teamfight with Jayce.

First of all, poke. You want to be poking as much as you can before you enter an actualy full-on teamfight. The more Q's you hit, the better chance you have of winning. Aim for the squishies.

Next, after the teamfight has started. Try to stick to ranged form for as long as possible. If you feel like you can Q in with melee form for a primary AD/AP carry without endangering yourself, do so! But the general rule of thumb is don't go in with your melee form if the enemy can just kill you after you dive in. This comes with experience.

Later on, your hyper charge auto attacks with muramana active damage will do massive damage. So assuming you can enter melee form safely into say, 2~3 people - You would Q+E (range) turn on w, attack 3 times, and transform to melee, W+Q+autoattack+e. And repeat. Jayce is also good for chasing for kills when there are 1~2 people trying to run away with low hp. Your gate can snipe stray targets or speed up your whole team. So just try to be good at managing cooldowns between your melee and ranged form.
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League of Legends Build Guide Author MRN.Heartbeat
MRN.Heartbeat Jayce Guide
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Heartbeat's Korean Jayce guide.

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