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Awesome guide! Upvoted! Now to ask my questions :)
1. I'm confused as to what you build after bilgewater cutlass; do you finish BORK or go to TriForce?
2. Why is TriForce not 1st item?
Tahnks!
I would strongly suggest a hydra. I always build hydra as the first item on Jax, because imo he's not good early, so I just farm a lot and hydra is really useful for that.
Not at all. Jax' strength peaks first at level 6, and he's actually a great midgame fighter, and one of the best lategame bruisers available. Hydra is an inferior choice to Blade of the Ruined King on him because 1) you're missing out on R passive damage due to reduced attack speed, 2) makes you a lot easier to kite, 3) Doesn't allow you to setup Jax' E like the botrk slow does.
What do you think of Ghostblade on Jax?
Youmuu's Ghostblade is fairly decent, but it leans towards more damage and less sustainability (since I consider that Trinity Force and Blade of the Ruined King are mandatory buys), and you may find yourself squishier than you'd like. If you're ahead and you don't fear dying to their team, by all means, go ahead.
Really good guide, but I have a question about randuins.
Its passive, cold steel, reduces your enemies' AS, but since you want them to AA you while you are in your E, doesn't it nerf your E?
I'm going to say several things about this. Notice how I max E last, right? That's because I don't really need that extra damage and lower cooldown that it provides. Jax's Counter Strike only requires one point in it to be useful, and it doesn't gain any utility from putting in more points (i.e. doesn't block more damage). Also, since I am maxing it last, it's going to have a longer cooldown. While it's down, I don't have the availability to use it to mitigate damage, so instead I buy a Randuin's Omen, so I take much less damage when I don't have my E up. Secondly, there is very little to be gained from other champions auto-attacking you while your E is up. The duration of your E stays the same, the cooldown stays the same, and the length of the stun stays the same. If anything, I only gain a little bit of damage if I dodge auto-attacks (+20% per auto, but max damage is a base 150 + 50% of bonus AD). That damage is so minimal that it doesn't matter whether they auto-attack you more or not. Now let's think about the situations. Your situation applies only when there's 1 or 2 people auto-attacking you. However, since you're the all-mighty Jax, that situation is very easy to handle for you (being one of the best duelists in the game) and the slower auto-attacks should mean nothing to you while you have your E up (remember, all they do is add damage to your E), since most of your damage comes from your auto-attacks. In a 5v5 teamfight, if you jump in, it's likely that 4 or 5 people will try to auto you, so you'll rack up the bonus damage on your E almost instantaneously, regardless of whether you slow their auto-attacks or not.
Hi im still kind of new and was wandering why no one builds a bloodthirster with jax.
Thanks in advance
Bloodthirster is pure damage. Although it's good for sustaining in lane, it's built for ADCs, champions that were meant to have huge damage outputs without much survivability. However, if Jax builds like an ADC and jumps into a battle, I can guarantee you, that Jax will die to 3-4 autos from the other ADC as long as that ADC has a support/tank/jungler that can peel. Jax was meant to be built like a bruiser; he already has strong damage output due to his kit, so what he needs to fill up the gaps in his weaknesses is tankiness. Jax, I feel, is unique among bruisers due to the fact that he can gain huge damage bonuses from relatively few damage items. You don't need a huge damage item to deal huge damage, so items like Infinity Edge and Bloodthirster are kind of irrelevant on Jax. Jax thrives on items that give him attack speed, because of all those on-hit effects in his kit. BT is a huge commitment on a bruiser, and it's rather risky since you need time to rack up your damage. If you don't have the tankiness or the attack speed to actually receive benefits from BT (remember, Jax does more damage the longer he fights), then you just committed 3500 gold to strong splitpushing and only slightly more damage in teamfights. BT is a huge risk, something many players don't want to take on a champion that needs to keep up with the game to be relevant. Hope that clears that up for you.
I might get back on working on this guide (first time looking at it in months), but Jax has fallen out of the meta recently and I'm not sure whether I really want to commit to this or not.
Thanks in advance
Its passive, cold steel, reduces your enemies' AS, but since you want them to AA you while you are in your E, doesn't it nerf your E?
I also drop Warlord (5% increase to bonus damage only) and put it into expose weakness, blade and spell weaving (3 points). this also grants up to 7% bonus damage for the three points, and if teammates have blade or spellweaving i believe it adds a stack for you (not sure about that though). This is because you will gain the up to 7% damage increase earlier in the game whereas the warlord bonus only really applies at the end game.
Just my thoughts on minor adjustments to masteries. Itemization for Jax is perfect!