Hi, this is my second guide on the League's newest champion, Jarvan IV. I plan to update this guide as I get more games in with different builds/experiment, but theory-wise I see that the current build I listed is ideal. Anyways, I have already gotten the hang of Jarvan a bit, so I'll share some of these too.

Pros:
-Knockup can hit multiple targets

-Ulti is a powerful AD nuke and is useful in trapping squishies.

-Overall kit is just excellent

-Building bruiser style is very effective in damage and tankiness, with none of them being compromised.

-Can farm pretty well, despite being melee, using Dragon Strike

Cons:
-Takes a bit of effort to land the Demacian Standard-Dragon Strike combo

-Ulti can be used stupidly (put some rationale before you use it)

-Not very tanky unless he has the items for it.

-A mix of burst and autoattack makes him a bit awkward to use.

-Gets mana hungry without proper mana mangement./color]

These are my general AD runes. I plan to upgrade to Armor Pen Quints sometime soon though.

Greater Mark of Desolation - Very powerful marks, probably the best of them all. Run these for now, I do not see any other alternative that can match what this does for your game.

Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration - Jarvan is quite mana hungry after battles, but this helps his early game farming and harassing.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist - Gives Jarvan some resistance to spell harass. Excellent runes, if you are new to the game, I recommend the alternative.

Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction (alternative) - Flat CDR is always great to own.

Greater Quintessence of Health - Gives about 70ish bonus health. With a Doran's Shield, Jarvan is hard to take down when laning.

Greater Quintessence of Desolation - Powerful Quints, if you are a bit new or inexperienced, I recommend Health Quints instead.

I take one offensive and one defensive.

- Very useful spell, slows down enemies so you can use your E-Q combo on them or reduce their DPS. Offensive AND Defensive (a bit).

- Good for kiting, chasing, fleeing. Offensive AND Defensive (a bit).

- Good to get early ganks with, or reduce healing efficiency on certain champs (Swain, Mundo, Sona, etc.) I would only grab this if no one else on your team is. Just my preference. Offensive

- Escape or Chase. Similar to ghost, but you get some distance in just half a sec or you can cross walls with it. You already have E+Q, but you can grab this if you like. Offensive AND Defensive.

- A bit useful on Jarvan, but I would prefer to have other spells. Support.

- Same as teleport, Support.

- Grab it ONLY if you plan to jungle. My guide isn't meant for jungling, however.

Anything else, nah not too great.

21/9/0.

Truthfully, I didn't remember what Phreak ran, so I just went with this. Works out alright. Any other viable alternative that I don't see would hurt would be 0/21/9. Otherwise, you can experiment yourself, but I believe 9 in Defense at the very least would be very beneficial to Jarvan.

R>Q>W>E

- Jarvan's main damaging spell. Extremely powerful, low mana cost, low cdr, and scales with AD. I mainly use this to farm/harass in the early game phase. If you see low health creep and enemies standing behind them, go for the poke. I've gotten many accidental kills with this spell too just by shooting it at bushes. The damage is does is very high against squishies.

- Another very powerful spell, gives Jarvan a temporary health bonus (or shield) and it slows? Geez, Jarvan just has the one of the greatest kits ever. Use it when you are about to take a beating or to slow nearby enemy champs after Cataclysm or if they are just trying to chase you. Well, this just has many uses.

- Ohmygod. Haha, it's not gamebreaking or anything, but once you master the use of Demacian Standard with Dragon Strike, you can net a lot of kills or escape pursuers. Provides as a blink when you want to run away. Also, use it at neutral creep camps/Baron/Dragon/Turrets to take them down faster, as it provides as a rally. Note that you don't lose the passive bonus.

- There are smart ways and dumb ways to use this. I mainly use it to trap someone who is escaping, or to trap any enemies who plan to ditch a fight after seeing my team close in. Use this on squishies, and then go E -> Q -> W.

Core/Beginning:
Start with a Doran's Shield. This gives you great laning capacity. I've seen other Jarvan's go the ol' jungler's gatorades and jersey, but I really don't think it brings anything to helping him lane compared to Doran's Shield. Long Sword may be an alternative if you want to build your starter item, but it really has no laning benefits besides 10 AD. Try to stay in the lane as long as possible, and rush The Brutalizer. If you have to port and you don't have enough, grab an Avarice Blade and Boots if possible, but at the very least boots and health potions and a sight ward. EXCEPTION: If you have trouble laning against a high harass team, Heart of Gold, Chain Vest, and Negatron Cloak are very good choices to get instead of a ghostblade ingredient. Your core is essentially Mercury's Treads and Youmuu's Ghostblade, and try to get these items before 15 min in, otherwise you will lag behind. If you have trouble getting ganked or everything hurts, grab a Chain Vest, Heart of Gold, or Negatron Cloak. One of these defensive items will help you a lot early game. I should mention rushing ghostblade is only effective if you are ahead in your farming.

Core:
- As I explained, Doran's Shield is a very good starter item for Jarvan due the health regen and health bonus it gives. I would definitely start with this item, as no other alternative (for now) can really boost Jarvan's laning phase as much as this.

- Just a very well-rounded Attack Damage item. Not too hard to complete, gives excellent stats, and its Active has short cooldown and is useful as hell. Use it to chase, fight, or run. Very versatile, and adds a lot to Jarvan's overall DPS.

- Upgrade these into either or . I prefer merc treads, because Jarvan can soak up damage and the cc reduction will help a lot. Also, no other boots are really that much more useful. Zerker greaves are not as beneficial in the long run, and ninja tabis are just bad.
Movement boots are alright, but Jarvan does have decent mobility.
After Core:

- Ok item to grab on Jarvan, this is only if you actually plan to build Randuin's. IMO, Jarvan doesn't actually need HoG because he can farm really well with his Q. Also, a Doran's Shield should cover his tankiness for the first few levels. If you really need to get some armor, I'd rather you get a chain vest first.

- One of my favorite items, this item will work well with Jarvan with Cataclysm and Golden Aegis. If the team is mostly AP, however, I would skip this item for now.

- Excellent against mild-heavy crowd control, and gives health, mana, and magic resist. This should be enough so that you don't go mana hungry. You can skip this item if you don't need to build it. But recommended.

- I would only grab this if you are doing reasonably well or ok. It is a bit of a luxury item, so if you need attack badly get an Infinity Edge. Otherwise, not too reliable. Do not get this before any other health items (sunfire, bveil, frozen mallet), make sure you have the health to back it up

- A really great item to finish up your Bruiser build. Makes your Q and R hit harder, and your autoattacks are mean.

- A great armor item, works well with Golden Aegis. I would only get this item to replace Atma's or Sunfire depending on if the team needs Jarvan to tank.

- A bit situational and expensive, I would only grab this if they enemy team just has a lot of AP burst/casters. Replace it with Sunfire or Atmas. gives bonus movement speed, which is good because Jarvan has really bad mobiltiy.

- Bit too cost-inefficient, imo, because the attack bonus is a bit nil and the health bonus isn't really needed. The passive is incredible, but you already have Golden Aegis. I would prefer to get a pure Attack Damage item like Infinity Edge.

Other Items:

- Phreak's recommended core item, which he eventually sells.
It is arguably a decent item, especially because it is cheap and has free wards. However, it doesn't give much to Jarvan's DPS as much as Youmuu's.

- Not very great as an item overall. Jarvan's spells have low mana cost, and with clarity runes he regens alright. Also, his cooldowns aren't super low like Corki or Urgot, so maximizing this item's potential will take some time. Building manamune may allow Jarvan to roam longer, but truthfully he doesn't need to. Building manamune just compromises his beefiness.

- After the price nerf, this item is more cost efficient. However, not really recommended on Jarvan. Movement speed, crit chance, and attack speed are great, but I would prefer to build some tankyness or some attack. Bit of a luxury, so you can buy it if you want to.

- Attack Speed and Life Steal. Decent item, but the life steal is a bit negligible. I wouldn't recommend you build this in place of anything else, but it is decent to try out.

If you have not heard, Riot's purpose for Jarvan is to initiate fights. With his ulti singling out a target(s), he can destroy a team comp with some finesse. I will describe some combos Jarvan is capable of with his skills, and how their utility add to team fights.

Demacian Standard + Dragon Strike - His basic combo. You want to be able to land this well and everytime. Note that as long as Jarvan's body (including lance) touches the flag when using Dragon Strike, Jarvan will knock up anything in the path to the flag. Also, it will NOT damage anyone if Dragon Strike does not hit them. Knocking them up does not equal damage.

Use this combo to:
- Interrupt enemies (ie. Nunu ulti)

- Get out of roots

- Blink out.

-Interrupt enemies from running away, essentially a stun. Note the next combo for this use.

Demacian Standard + Dragon Strike + Golden Aegis - Use this to prevent enemies from fleeing. You can also use Golden Aegis first, then the E+Q combo in case the enemies aren't slowed enough.

Cataclysm + Demacian Standard + Dragon Strike - If you use the E+Q combo immediately, you can prevent enemies from attempting to flash out. Also, you'll do **** tons of damage.

So, if you haven't noticed, E + Q is a combo you must master to use Jarvan well. E + Q has so much utility, so try to get it down. It's not hard to master, however.

Team Fighting:
- Stay on the front lines, and use Cataclysm on a squishy if they get too isolated. DO not use Cataclsym on tanks if the enemy team is nearby, unless you team is capable of finishing the tank in a few burst rounds.

- Use the E +Q combo as much as possible to interrupt spells and burst combos. The flag will last long enough so that you can at least use the combo twice.

-Hit enemies as much as possible, use Golden Aegis when you are getting focused on.

Thanks for reading, I plan to update more on this guide. Hope you enjoy playing Jarvan! Please comment if you used my build with results so as to help me figure out the best way to build Jarvan.