Jayce Build Guide by Zanryu

Introduction

Hey guys,

I've tried some Jayce builds and I want to post my build into my first guide.

This guide works for top and bottom in equal. The only difference will be the Summoner Spells.

Pros / Cons

Pros High Burst Very long range Percentage Max-HP Damage Good escape abilites Gap-Closer and Movementspeed Groupbuff

Cons Very low sustain (need free farm for sustain) High Skill cap

Masteries

Maximized Damage, mana regeneration and armor are the main focusses here.

Runes

Flat Damage, flat armor and magic resistance per level.

Summoner Spells

Many top chars have Ignite or other equal spells to catch you up. Others have passive heal abilites to receive a higher sustain. Ignite is a good option to engage this.

As top Jayce, you take Flash + Ignite.


As bottom, Flash + Heal. The normal Carry spells.

Also Possible as a top char are Clarity for more sustain and Ghost for more chasing and escaping abilites.

Skills

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As our early level main damage source, we will level this skill to harass our enemies.



The main purpose of this skill is the sustain in our hammer stance, but we need to go melee to receive the sustain. Level this at last.



At level 2 we need the gate to increase the damage and range of our Shock Blast. Through the percentage damage in the hammer form, we need to skill this as the second.



Skill ultimate whenever you can.^^

Skill Usage

This innate has two obvious purposes: hunting and escaping. Because we have our ultimate since level 1 we can make use of it each 6 seconds. Especially when you see that someone is trying to gank you, use your ultimate to flee.


To the skies
This gapcloser is your innitiate skill after switching into the hammer stance. Followed by a Thundering Blow you can deal a massive amount of damage as harras.

Shock Blast
This skill shot is a peril, because its range isn't the one noted by the mark, especially when you fire it through the gate. A few sessions with this combo will let you know its maximum range.

Advanced Tip: You can fire the ball and then place the gate at max range to surprise your enemies.




Lightning Field:
The most interesting part of this skill is the hammer passive. The damage of the field is quite low and only an additional effect when you want to kill an enemy, elsewise basic attacks with the hammer restore your mana.

Hyper Charge:
When you want to instantly harass an enemy at low level and your want to burst your tons of AD on your enemy this skill is your best friend.

Advanced Tip:
The attack speed also works in Hammer Stance after switching.



Thundering Blow:
This multi-purpose skill can be used in many ways, but mostly to deal the percentage damage as an executor skill.
You can also use RQE combo to kick an enemy into your turret (never forget that your innate let you receive no collision for a short duration.

Acceleration Gate:

Another multi-purpose skill. This gate will create an passable wall which increase the movementspeed of each ally which passed through it. Additionally a Shock Blast fired through it get enhanced with increased range, already mentioned.
The gate is a great tool for initiates started by your jungler to increase his movement speed.
When you are on the run and have enough space to fire a Shock Blast do so. Place a Gate in front of you, pass through, get some space and fire a Blast through the gate.


We only skill this ability for its passives and switching boni.

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Overall combo for maximum burst:

Starting in range stance


Passing through the gate, before you jump in with To The Skies! is an additional buff, which allows you to chase in hammer stance.

Items

Boots of Speed and 3x Health Potion is the best common start for Jayce. You can escape from possible early ganks, get a little bit health sustainability and for dodging skill shots. You also can start with 2x Health Potion and 1x Mana Potion. Both is very viable and depedend to your playstyle and enemy.

Sapphire Crystal is very useful on Jayce through he lacks on mana and Trinity Force is the second item we want to have it.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity are extremly powerful on Jayce with the Trinity Force. Additionally your Mercury Cannon / Mercury Hammer has a reduced cooldown which allows you to roam more. Additionally the CDR allows you to escape for a longer distance or a faster escape if you try to escape out of a fight.

The Brutalizer: In addition to the CDR the Armor Pen is quite ridiculous on Jayce because the Shock Blast is a physical source and deals a lot of damage.

Manamune is a really solid item in this build due the giant bonus mana and bonus AD. With the Elise-Patch Jayce received a small nerf in form of increased mana costs on his gate by 20. Manamune will help you greatly to compensate this "nerf". Even after a full scale team fight I experience my mana with a fully charged Manamune at approx. 20%. Today I can never think a Jayce without it.

Trinity Force: Do I have still to mention anything with this item? In this build it's the core item. Movement Speed, Crit Chance, Slow Chance, Mana, HP.

After this we need to stack AD: Infinity Edge, The Bloodthirster, upgrade your The Brutalizer to Youmuu's Ghostblade and The Black Cleaver.

The Black Cleaver combined with Lightning Field / Hyper Charge will instant shredder the armor of your target.

Additional Items

Boots:

Against many auto-attackers like Irelia or other carries these boots are a viable choice rather my recommended.

If your have trouble with a top-lane caster, a fed AP carry, a jungle Fiddlesticks or simply too much crowd control, these are useful when you try to escape for a short distance.

Damage Items:

I personally dislike this item, but it's very synergetic with Infinity Edge or when you want to make more damage out of the cannon stance.

Cooldown reduction and armor penetration and extremly strong on Jayce because his abilites are skaling very well. I build this item earlier but replaced it with Manamune. It is still very powerful on him.

This is a very good alternative to The Black Cleaver. It will not only increase your To the Skies! / Shock Blast, it is also better against champions with more than 125 armor.

If you play againstan AP Sion or something similar, this will bring him down, you'll become too tanky for his combo and when he wants to deploy it on you, you will become even stronger.

Defensive Items:

If you have serious problems with a) last-hitting and b) a pokey opponent or c) a babysitter, Wriggle's Lantern can be your best friend.

GP5's are only needed if you get trouble with your opponent. If you want to build the items out of these items you should build them very early, but that will tell your opponents what you want to build. That can be a very useful information for the enemy team.

If you want to fill the tank roll this item should be a core item in your build, elsewise it is very expensive. Due the fact it can be build out of Heart of Gold it can be very cheap, if the game last long enough.

Other item if you want to fill the tank role. And, of course, very powerful with Atma's Impaler.

When you get feed or playing the AD carry role a Guardian Angel can improve your life. The bonus armor and magic resistance is a very nice additional to this already good item for carries.

Farming

The main rules:

• Cannon Stance
• only lasthit
• use QE combo when the enemies are next to the minions or far away
• If nobody is near or your are safe, switch to melee stance and regain mana through auto attacking

Your laning opponents (Top)

As with many other sustianable champions Cho'Gath is a real pain in the ***. If he gets you it can be painful to escape. As with any other champion against him escape his skillshots. If those are on cooldown, switch to the hammer stance use the QE combo and run away. This is the only way to harras him in a short trade.
For this setup I recommend to skill Thundering Blow / Acceleration Gate first to increase your trading power.


STAY... ON... DISTANCE... there isn't anything else to tell about him. But there are some useful things to deal with him.
Apprehend's range is 550 (so 50 more than your auto attacks). If this skill is on cooldown poke him with your auto attacks, until he flee. Without this skill he's powerless against you.
Decimate's range is 475, so it will never reach you unless you are not on maximum auto attack range.


A fairly easy opponent. Attack him whenever he's in range. Whenever he uses Leap Strike change, change to the hammer and knock him back. Additionally you win each melee trade against him.


I've fought a really bad Mordekaiser recently, but I'll add him.
All of Mordekaiser's attacks will outrange you and this will lead to a really bad disadvantage, but only at initial poking power. Try to harras his shield down and then use some range/melee combos on him to bring him down. Due his weak early game, mana is your best friend, so you can burst him more. Also Hexdrinker is very useful against him.


Poppy is a freefarm lane as long as she doesn't use Heroic Charge on you with a range of 525. And don't cuddle with the obstacles or they will stun you. Additionally her innate Valiant Fighter allows her to almost ignore your burst.
If you don't want to level up Lightning Field / Hyper Charge first, which is really recommended if you want to stay on your lane, push your lane very hard and roam a little bit. If your midlaner gets some trouble you can be a wonderful help.


Shen is a real difficult opponent with a very high sustainability. His Shadow Dash will always reach you, when you try to auto attack him and his Vorpal Blade with its 475 range is easy to poke you. But on top of all Feint makes him almost immune to your poke. Ask your jungler to babysit you until you have an advantage over him.


AP Sion is a very mid-game dependent opponent. Additionally his Cryptic Gaze has a range of 550. That means whenever you can hit him, he can stun you to initiate a trade. And his innate Feel No Pain makes him less vulnerable to your auto attack pokes.
Whenever he stuns you try to switch to melee mode and knock him back with Thundering Blow / Acceleration Gate.
Against an AP Sion you'll have to depend on your QE range combo.


Vladimir is some kind of handy to deal with. His weak early game won't hurt you that much. Additionally you will always win a melee trade with him. Due his dot like ultimate Hemoplague a Hexdrinker is recommended.

Your laning opponents (Bottom)

Her crits will hurt you intensively, but Volley is harmless when you stay behind your minions. If you have a defensive supporter like Soraka try to make a farming lane out of it.


Ezreal's Mystic Shot will hurt you extremly hard wit hits range of 1100 which is your range doubled easily. Additionally with his Arcane Shift he can chase you fairly easy.
And with all those easys mostly he will shred you with it. If you ever have the choice to counterpick Ezreal do not pick Jayce. There are stronger picks.

I experienced him with a Nunu at his side and the early game was really smooth. It was a farm lane until their jungler start to babysit them. Even tho I gained a upper hand in the early and late game.
Stay cautious at every time because his weak early game will mostly be an alert fr the jungler to help him. When your Tear of the Goddess is finished and a little bit filled let him greet your To the Skies! / Shock Blast. He won't stay at a lane for so long at a non-healer setup.


Even though Vance has Tumble she isn't able to roll out of each To the Skies! / Shock Blast.
This isn't a hard encounter but shouldn't be thread easily.

Team Work

Jayce has many Team Work abilites and the gate is the most useful one, but remember: the gate works like a wall and will appear in a right angle to you.

In a teamfight always start to engange in the range stance and burst your QE combo on them. Continue to auto attack until somebody is trying to attack you in melee or somebody is trying to escape and switch to melee mode if that happens.

Changelog

15.07.2012

• Added additional item section
• Added lane enemy sections

11.07.2012

• According to the spamability and mana lacks of this build I've changed The Brutalizer to Tear of the Goddess and Manamune.

Notes

I will update the lane enemy section from time to time, based on my own experience.