Nocturne is one of the most phenomenal junglers and gankers in League of Legends. Lately, he's been overshadowed by FoTM champions such as Lee Sin and Skarner, but he still remains a very potent champion.

One of my favorite things about Nocturne is his abilites have so many other effects. For example, Duskbringer, his Q, is an AoE nuke, a gap closer, and an AD steroid. Shroud of Darkness, his W, is a spell shield that doubles as an AS buff. These are the kinds of things that make Nocturne ridiculously fun to play.

This is my first guide, so constructive criticism is appreciated!
Please don't downvote my guide without giving a reason, because this helps me write better guides in the future.

THIS GUIDE IS STILL A WORK IN PROGESSS AND I WILL UPDATE IT FREQUENTLY
I PLAN TO ADD MORE TO THE GANKING AND COUNTER JUNGLING/MATCHUPS CHAPTERS

Pros Phenomenal Ganks Great utility Decent clearing speed Decent sustain Great dueler Never banned at high elo ranked play

SPACE

Cons Squishy early game Mana hungry Easily focused after ult Frequently banned at unranked draft pick/Low Elo ranked play Jungling speed/sustain not as good as Udyr/Skarner/etc.

SPACE

Primary runes:
I use:

• 6 Armor Penetration Marks
• 3 Attack Speed Marks
• 9 Armor Seals
• 9 Attack Speed Glyphs
• 3 Armor Penetration Quintessences

Alternate runes:

• 4 Armor Penetration Marks
• 5 Attack Speed Marks
• 9 Armor Seals
• 9 Magic Resist Glyphs
• 3 Armor Penetration Quintessences

9x Glyphs of Shielding (magic resist) instead of 9x Glyphs of Alarcity.
You may want to substitute your AS glyphs with MR glyphs if you're facing a magic-heavy team. To compensate, I use more AS marks instead of Armor Penetration.
You can also replace Greater Quintessence of Desolation with Greater Quintessence of Life Steal


Are lifesteal quintessences worth it??
Yes. They give a total of 6% lifesteal, which scales with damage. It also compensates for the recent lifesteal nerf on Vampiric Scepter.

Why attack speed runes over attack damage runes?
First of all, attack speed is more beneficial because AS lowers the cooldown of Nocturne's passive, Umbra Blades.
Second of all, this item build focuses more on attack damage, so the extra attack speed helps in the lacking AS department.

+10% Armor penetration
+6 Armor penetration
+3 Attack damage
+1.5% Attack damage
+10 Attack damage to Turrets
This gives you a large boost when taking down turrets after a successful gank, for the measly price of 1 mastery point.
+0.125 Attack damage per level (+2.25 damage at level 18
I only put on level into this mastery to gain access to higher masteries.
+6% Attack damage to enemies below 40% health
This works great when you're chasing after low enemies when ganking.
+10 Critical Strike Damage
+3% Life steal
This will give your jungle sustain a little extra boost.

+12 Mana per level (+216 mana at level 18)
Since Nocturne is very mana hungry at early levels, this mastery will help with his mana sustain. This mastery lets him spam Q more to harass like Nidalee's spear. This mastery also helps Nocturne after the enemy jungler steals his blue buff.
+3 Mana regen per 5 seconds
This is a pretty bad mastery. For 3 mastery points you get 36 mana regen per minute, which is useless. I only level this mastery to gain access to the Meditation mastery (+12 mana per level), which is quite good.
+20% Neutral buff duration
This is an awesome mastery; no need to go further.
-1 Recall time

My choices


This is a must-have on junglers. You CANNOT jungle without smite. You can secure buffs, steal buffs, and kill super minions with it.


Exhaust is helpful for newer junglers who have a hard time ganking, but also useful for veteran jungles as well. With Exhaust, you don't need to rely on red buff/Phage/Frozen Mallet to slow for ganks. Its slowing purpose falls off late game when you have Frozen Mallet for a 40% guaranteed slow.
Another use for Exhaust is dueling/teamfights. Since Exhaust reduces enemy attack damage by a whopping 70% for 2.5 seconds, you can use it to shut down the enemy AD carry or duel the enemy jungler.
On rare instances, you can even use Exhaust to escape from enemies.

Viable Summoner Spells


Flash is amazing. You can escape with it or close gaps with it.


You can use this to get in range for your Q and E if you're too far away, but I don't really like this spell. It doesn't provide any other buffs like Exhaust does.


You can use this to soften up health regenerators like Dr. Mundo and Vladmir, and also to soften massive lifesteal champions like Warwick/Master Yi. You can use it to finish off that Teemo who's running away with 5 hp.


Okay, hear me out before you flame me. With Teleport, you can set up some insane ganks. For example, telling your top lane bruiser to ward a bush. You can then teleport to that bush without alerting the enemy top, allowing for some crazy ganks. It's basically a global version of your ultimate if you use it correctly.

"Hi, I'm a Troll" Summoner Spells


You aren't support.


Why would you need this? You aren't a caster.


You're tanky; you can take the stun/disable.


Your sustain is not so bad that you would need this... You aren't AP jungle Ashe.


No. Just no.


I don't plan on dying.


You don't need the attack speed, and you certainly don't need the ability power.

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Your core items are , , and . You should always build these items every game, no questions asked.
The suggested items that you can switch up a bit are , , and . But first, I'll get into why I picked each item.
Buy , Sight ward, and whenever needed. Wards save lives.
Buy Oracle's Elixer if you're unable to gank because of enemy wards or if the enemy has heavily warded your jungle.

My Items
This is a must for jungling. It gives you armor, attack damage, and lifesteal. It also has a nice passive that helps when killing the buffs. Its active gives you a free ward every 3 minutes.
Always ward. Your Wriggle's active should always be on cooldown.

These boots give you a decent boost in jungling, and is the only pair of boots with offensive stats.

I absolutely love this item. It gives you a huge chunk of health (only 200 health below Warmog's) and a 40% guaranteed slow. It also gives you a small AD boost of 20. When you gank someone with Frozen Mallet, they simply cannnot get away unless they run under their turret or flash away. Even with flash, they are still slowed down and you can easily catch up to them. And even if they run under their turret, you'll be tanky enough to dive him and get the kill.

Atma's synergies well with Frozen Mallet and Warmog's. Atma's passive gives you 2% of your maxmium health, which is extra 40 attack damage without any hp items. With Frozen Mallet and Warmogs, you gain tons of damage.
It also provides some valuable armor and decent critical strike chance. You should crit roughly once every 5 attacks.

When you buy Wit's End, your AS will go through the roof. Your AS synergizes with Wit's End's passive, which gives you 42 bonus magic damage every attack. This is extremely useful with taking down that Rammus with the double Thornmail, and generally every champion who builds armor. It also provides a bit of magic resist.

Warmog's will give you an extra 18 damage right off the bat because of Atma's passive, with the chance to increase it thanks to Warmog's passive. It gives you a gigantic chuck of health and health regeneration.

Situational/Substitute Items

These boots are the only other viable boots for Nocturne. It gives some nice magic resist and some tenacity at a cheap price. Take Treads over Berserker's Greaves if you have Wit's End already and you can afford the drop in AS, or when you're facing an AP/CC-heavy team.

I don't like this item very much for its attack speed because you already have enough attack speed, so the 30% extra attack speed isn't that great. However, its armor reduction is amazing for taking down armor-stacking bruisers and tanks. It gives slightly less attack damage than Bloodthirster, at 55 damage.

You can get this instead of Wit's End if you feel like you're lacking in lifesteal or attack damage. It's an excellent item and you should be able to maintain stacks.

Only get this if you're fed beyond imagination. The 25 critical chance from IE and the 18 chance from Atma's gives you 43 critcal chance, which means you'll crit roughly once every 2 attacks.

This item is constantly berated for being overpriced, which it is, but it can work wonders against tanks. Bloodrazor's passive deals bonus magic damage equal to 4% of the enemy's maxmimum health. This completely scews over that Singed/Rammus/Valdmir with 4k+ hp. It also gives 25 armor, 30 attack damage, and 40 attack speed. This is more situational than the other items, because it is very expensive and only works great against tanks.

Replace Wit's End with this if you want to. The critical strike chance from PD and the critical strike chance from Atma's adds up to 48%, meaning you'll crit roughly once every 2 attacks. Do not get this instead of Wit's End if the enemy team is building lots of armor.

This is a very good item. It provides a cocktail of stats including attack damage, armor penetration, critical chance, and cooldown reduction. It's active is very useful for ganks and duels.

Only get this if the enemy Master Yi/Tryndemere/etc. is stacking lifesteal and raping your team. The 30% damage return should partially negate high lifesteal. Usually Frozen Heart/Randuin's Omen is a better pick.

This item has slightly less armor than Thornmail, but has better stats. It's more expensive, but it's worth it. In addition to 99 armor, it provides 500 mana and 20% cooldown reduction, which will allow you to spam spells like crazy. It's passive reduces the attack speed for nearby enemies by 20%, which is a HUGE difference and could be change the outcome of a fight.

Like Yommu's Ghostblade, Randuin's provides all sorts of bonuses. It gives 75 armor, 350 health, and 25 health regeneration. It provides 5% cooldown reduction and also 20% chance to slow an attacker's movement and attack speed by 35% for 3 seconds. It is similar to Frozen Heart's passive, but Randuin's passive gives a larger slow under riskier conditions (20% chance).

FoN provides the largest amount of magic resist for a single item in the game. It also has massive health regeneration, 40 health regeneration and a nice movespeed buff.

BV provides a nice chunk of magic resist with 375 extra health and mana. It's passive is not that great on Nocturne because he already has a spell shield. It's a tiny bit more expensive than FoN, so get Force of Nature rather than Banshee's if you're playing an AP-heavy team.

SPACE

or

SPACE I usually pick because: FoN gives 26 more magic resist, which helps when enemies start building Madred's You don't need the mana from Banshee's Veil because of the Expanded Mind mastery, which gives you 216 mana. You already have a ton of health from Frozen Mallet/Possible Warmog's. Force of Nature gives a huge chunk of health regen. 8% movement speed buff, which makes chasing/ganking or running away easier. The 8% also compensates for not taking the Swiftness mastery, which gives an extra 2% movement speed. Nocturne doesn't need BV's passive at all because he already has his spell shield.

Nocturne throws a shadow blade that deals 60/105/150/195/240 (+0.75) physical damage and leaves a Dusk Trail for 5 seconds. Enemy champions hit also leave a Dusk Trail.
While on the trail, Nocturne ignores unit collision and gains 15/20/25/30/35% Movement Speed and 15/25/35/45/55 Attack Damage.

Cost:60/65/70/75/80 Mana
Range:1125

You should always level up this skill first. It's an extremely long rang AoE nuke that can pass through minions. The fact that it can pass through structures and minions means you can use it to harass like Nidalee's spear. It scales well with AD. Combined with its low cooldown, you can use Duskbringer to poke. An interesting thing to note is that you gain the buffs of Duskbringer if you stand on the trail, not if you hit someone with it. This means you can use it to do some bonus damage to turrets.
Duskbringer also functions as a gap closer. You can use it to chase enemies easily. When you're on the trail, you avoid unit collisions, so you can chase relatively easily. It's not a Lee Sin Q-level gap closer, but its a gap closer nonetheless.



Nocturne empowers his blades, passively gaining attack speed. Activating Shroud of Darkness allows Nocturne to fade into the shadows, creating a magical barrier which blocks a single enemy ability and doubles his passive attack speed if successful.
Passive: Nocturne has 20/25/30/35/40% bonus Attack Speed.
Active: Nocturne creates a magical barrier for 2 seconds, which blocks the next enemy ability.
If an ability is blocked by the shield, Nocturne's passive Attack Speed bonus doubles for 5 seconds.

Cost: 50 Mana
Range: 20

Level this at level 2, but don't level it again until you've maxed out Duskbringer and Unspeakable Horror. The reason? Only the attack speed bonus scales with level, not the duration of the spell shield. A 20% attack speed increase from level 1 to level 5 isn't worth it.
This ability is fantastic. You can use it to block everything from Blitzcrank's grab to Caitlyn's traps to Karthu's ult. Since Karthus channels for 3 seconds and your spell shield only lasts for 2 seconds, be smart about timing your shield.
This spell is ridiculously handy when ganking mages/casters. Use this spell to block their stun/ult and profit! You have an easy gank. Nocturne's wicked laugh after he blocks a spell is extremely satisfying. Always expect flaming after you you block Lee Sin's 800 damage ult. :)



Nocturne plants a nightmare into his target's mind, dealing damage each second and fearing the target if they do not get out of range by the end of the duration.
Nocturne plants a nightmare into his target's mind, dealing 50/100/150/200/250 (+1) magic damage over 2 seconds. If Nocturne stays within range of the target for the full duration, the target becomes feared for 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 second(s).

Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 Mana
Range: 675

Take Unspeakable Horror at level 3, and alternate between leveling Duskbringer and leveling Unspeakable Horror.
This is a used for ganking. The leash of Unspeakable Horror was nerfed several months ago, but you can still use it effectively. This spell almost always causes enemy champions to flash. As soon as they see the swirling purple chains, they freak and flash away, even if they got out of range. On some rare occasions, you can use this to escape enemies by using this ability on the chasing enemy.
Even though this ability scales insanely well with AP, it's not worth building AP on him.



Nocturne reduces the sight radius of all enemy champions and removes their ally vision for 4 seconds.
While Paranoia is active, Nocturne can launch himself at an enemy champion, dealing 150/250/350 (+1.2 bonus attack daamage) physical damage.

Cost: 100 Mana
Range: 2500

This is the best ultimate in the game, right up there with Annie's Summon Tibbers and Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow.
The range of Paranoia at level 1 is not that great, but at level 3 you can gank top lane from mid lane, or bot lane to mid lane. The damage isn't that fantastic, but it scales very well with AD. You can initiate ganks with Paranoia or use it to catch fleeing enemies.
Do not become trigger happy and activate Paranoia too soon. Don't use it before checking the range on it first. Hover over the spell icon and make sure you're in range. Don't use on enemies fleeing into the bush. Since Paranoia needs sight vision to dash, I've failed ults countless times because enemies vanish from sight as soon as I press R.
One of the problems I've had with this ult when I first started playing Nocturne was the compulsive need to dash. I would activate my ult to gank one enemy, see 4 enemies pop out of the bush, and still dash. This usually ended up in "You have been slain." Don't dash if you know that you're going to die.

The Safe Route

This is an inefficient route, but it's safe. I don't really recommend this if you're looking to clear your jungle as soon as possible.

Start with Vampiric Scepter or Cloth Armor and 5 health pots. Start at wraiths. Smite the large one and hit all three wraiths with one Duskbringer. After that, go to wolves and kill them, making sure you hit all three wolves with one Duskbringer. You should be level 2 by now, so level W. Go to the small golems and smite one, and kill the last one. Double back and kill wraiths and wolves, then recall. Preform a full jungle clear after you recall.

Since you don't pick up the buffs on your first run, you won't find yourself at 200 hp face-to-face with a full health Shaco at your red. However, it leaves you susceptible to counter-jungling and invades. The benefit of the safe route is that you don't need a leash.

The Fast Route

Start with Vampiric Scepter or Cloth Armor and 5 health pots. Kill wolves, then take blue. Kill the wraiths and then kill the Red Lizard. Kill the double golems and recall. You need a leash if you want to take the fast route.

When to do Which Route?
Do the safe route if you're up against an aggressive counter-jungler like Shyvana, or an aggressive team that invades. Do the safe route if you have stupid teammates who refuse to leash. The fast route is usually much better, faster, and efficient.

Invading

If you decide to invade at the start of the game:

Steal Blue from:
Amumu
Fiddlesticks
Karthus
Malphite
Maokai
Nautilus
Nunu & Willump
Rammus
Shen
Skarner
Udyr
Warwick

Steal Red from:
Dr. Mundo
Lee Sin
Riven
Shaco
Shyvana



Difficulty: Easy
Steal his blue, and this guy will cry. Amumu is so blue-dependant that it's not even funny. You should always win duels with him.


Difficulty: Easy
Fiddlesticks is like Amumu; he will cry if you steal his blue. Fiddlesticks is also very mana dependent.
When dueling him, use your spell shield as soon as he gets near. Most Fiddles players will use their silence/fear as soon as they get into range. When Fiddles uses his ultimate, don't bother trying to tank the damage and just run away until his ultimate stops. Then you can destroy him.


Difficulty: Medium
Most Lee Sin players will start red and go for early level 2 ganks. Lee Sin will most likely take red early on, maybe even steal your red. He has fast clears..

When dueling him, you want to activate your spell-shield just before he uses his ultimate. Always activate your spell shield right after you activate your fear (not when Lee Sin becomes feared). Most Lee Sin players will try to kick you away to get out of fear range, but if you time the spell shield correctly, his 600 damage+ ultimate does no damage. If you can block his kick, then your chances of winning the duel improve drastically.

You should win a duel vs Lee Sin. Nocturne's fear screws up Lee Sin's energy management a ton because Lee relies on autoattacking between skills to get back his energy.
Lee Sin's Tempest/Cripple hurts Nocturne less than other champions because Nocturne's shield passively gives him bonus attack speed. Lee Sin's slow is greater than Nocturne's bonus, but it doesn't cripple (haha) Nocturne as much. If Nocturne blocks a spell, which is pretty likely, he gains 80% bonus AS for a few seconds.
If Lee Sin is trying to flee and kicks back Nocturne, Nocturne can always Paranoia to Lee and kill him.


Difficulty: Easy
Yi is so squishy it's hillarious. You can wreck him easily. Your fear will put a large dent in his damage potential, because he's auto-attack based.


Difficulty: Easy/Hard
Shaco is a pain in the *** early game. Note that many Shaco players will steal your blue or your red, so you might want to call your mid over and check. He will constantly steal your buffs and counter-jungle you.
He falls off a ton late-game. His Jack in the Box is good at stealing minions, but not useful at all in teamfights. Shaco's Deceive is murder when ganking, but not that useful in teamfights.
Shaco is incredibly squishy so if you can catch him out of position. His Deceive and his Hallucinate can mess you up trying to chase him, but always remember that the real Shaco is the one that has the buffs. A nice trick I've learned is to ping Shaco before engaging, so when he clones, only the real Shaco will stay pinged.


Difficulty: Hard
Her ganks are extremely lousy. So what makes her so dangerous? She clears the jungle before minions even spawn. Seriously. Shyvana is one of the faster junglers in the game, if not the fastest. Because of that, every Shyvana player will counter-jungle you to oblivion. If you're not careful, she will invade your jungle and steal her buffs like a child steals candy.
You should lock down all your camps and ward them. If you ward properly, you can often catch Shyvana unaware. If the communication with your teammates is good, then you can stop Shyvana before she snowballs.
Shyvana can be an extremely potent dueler, with her low cooldowns and her mana-less abilites, not to add her armor-shredding E. It is vital to time your spell shield. You can often lose fights by becoming manaless. Since most Shyvanas build tanky, the fight can last a lifetime. While you lose mana for every ability you use, she doesn't use mana, so she can draw out the fight as long as possible to bleed you dry.


Difficulty: Medium/Hard
Skarner's post-6 ganks are amazing and he clears the jungle fast. Most Skarner players will build him as an hybrid tank. While Skarner doesn't do a lot of damage, it may be hard to kill him. Remember to block his Fracture with your spell shield.
You can wear Skarner down by backing away and harassing him with your long-range Q. By doing so, you're preventing Skarner from using his pitiful close-range Q. Don't let him get his Q off early, because the 40% slow will cripple you.
You're also keeping out of range of Skarner's ult. His ult is a laugh in a 1 vs 1 duel since it only does 200 damage and its suppression is mediocre due to Skarner's poor damage. You should always win against him in a 1 vs 1 However in teamfights, Skarner can drag you straight into the enemy team and kill you extremely fast.


Difficulty: Hard
Like Shyvana, Udyr clears the jungle extremely fast and can counter jungle you easily. The same thing applies: lock down your own jungle if Udyr is playing aggressive, and try to catch him out of position.
In a duel, things can go either way. You should try and keep your distance and harass with your Duskbringer. Udyr is very easily kited and has no gap closer. After you've worn him down, you can start to fight him.
The problem with Udyr is that he deals sustained damage with his abilites, making them hard to spell shield against. You blocked one ability? No problem, Udyr switches stances and attacks you again. If Udyr gets too close for your liking, place Unspeakable Horror on him and back off. If he follows, you get a 2 second fear off and you can hit your Duskbringer on him again.

The Quick Gank
-> -> ->
Initiate with Paranoia from far away, use Duskbringer for the gap-closing buff and the extra attack damage, Shroud of Darkness to block stuns/slows, and finally Unspeakable Horror to fear the target.
This method is best when you're far away from an overextending target and need Paranoia to close the large distance. The problem with this way is that you waste your ultimate at the start of the gank. If you Paranoia to Master Yi and Master Yi uses Highlander to escape, then you have no long-range gap-closer. It's the same thing with high mobility champions like Riven and Tryndamere who can just run away after you ult.

The Close Gank
-> -> ->

Initiate with Duskbringer for the gap-closing buff and the extra attack damage, follow up with Shroud of Darkness to block stuns/slows, use Unspeakable Horror to fear the target, and finally use Paranoia.
This way is optimal when you are already close the target, close enough to use Duskbringer and hit them. You save your ultimate if you can kill the target quickly and you can use it to chase down Master Yi as he uses his 40% movespeed buff on his ultimate.
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Top Lane


Difficulty: Easy/Medium
His E boosts his movement speed by 7% and he can cleanse himself out of your fear and heal himself. However, your Phage/Frozen Mallet slow should compensate for that and turn him into a dead pirate. Things can get nasty if he plans his ultimate perfectly, slowing you and dealing large amounts of damage.


Difficulty: Easy
The only escape mechanism she has is her E, which can slow or stun you for 2 seconds. Her passive gives her 10% or 20% CC reduction depending on how many people are in sight radius, but the reduction is not very much. Your 2 second fear becomes a 1.6 second fear at 20% cc reducion.
When dealing with Irelia, you must gank her often. If you don't, she can turn into a late-game monster, destroying everything.


Difficulty: Medium
Riven is difficult to gank because she has a lot of mobility. She has a pitiful 0.75 stun, but she can easily Broken Wings out of your fear and shield.


Difficulty: Medium
If Rumble hits you with her Electrical Harpoon, she applies a massive 45% slow. If she fires another one and manages to hit you a second time, she can slow you for 91%. Her Scrap Shield also gives her a Ghost-like movement speed buff and a minor shield.
Tell your top lane to harass her when you come and gank. If Rumble overheats, she is silenced for a massive 6 seconds, turning her into a dead yordle.


Difficulty: Hard
Make sure to use your spell shield before entering a bush, because if you step on one of his shrooms and it reveals you, the gank is over. It's hard to gank a Teemo because he can just pop his Move Quick for a free ghost away from you. He can set up shrooms while running away to slow you. Remember, your spell shield can only stop one spell every 20 seconds.


Difficulty: Hard
On paper it looks like Trynd would be ridiculously easy to gank, but he's not. Let's imagine a scenario where you Paranoia to an overextending Tryndamere and you place Unspeakable Horror on him. Tryndamere Spinning Slashes through the wall, so you chase him. Then he uses Mocking Shout to do reduce some of your damage. Not disturbed, you shoot a Duskbringer towards him, You're catch up to him around half way to his turret and you do massive damage. Tryndamere heals himself and continues to run towards his turret. Tryndamere spins again to gain distance. He's at around 200 hp, so you follow. You turret dive him, and then Tryndamere uses Undying Rage to become immune to death for 5 seconds. Quickly, he crits you 8 times in a row and you die.

Tryndamere's Spinning Slash can be used to jump through walls like flash, making it difficult to chase him. Combined with his heal and his insane ultiamte, not to mention his movement speed debuff, he can escape you easily. The upside of Tryndamere is that he will always push, push, push and always overextend. If he's burned his ultimate you can gank him somewhat easier.

Never initiate a Tryndamere gank with with Paranoia. If you do, Tryndamere can just Spinning Slash away, and your Duskbringer is not enough to catch up. You also need the massive bust damage of Parnoia to finish him off so he doesn't activate his Undying Rage. Instead, initiate with Duskbringer and use Parnoia when he spins out of range. When fighting him, the goal is to keep Tryndamere at a health where its high enough that he won't be baited into using his ultimate but low enough so you can finish him off with one pranoia dash.

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Mid Lane
Nocturne is best at ganking mages and casters because he can block their ultimates/stuns/disables/etc.

One strategy that I commonly use is to tell my mid champion to recall. At high ELO play, you will often seen the enemy mid try to steal your wraiths to gain gold and xp. Wait in the river bushes next to the wraiths and gank the enemy mid when they try and take wraiths. This works surprisingly well.


Difficulty: Hard
Ahri is very hard to gank. If she hits your Charm on you, you're slowed by 50% for 2 seconds. It is vital to block her Charm. If you do manage to block her Charm, she can just use her ultimate - which is basically 3 flashes.


Difficulty: Easy
Brand is one of the easiest mid laners to gank. He has no reliable CC at all, apart from his stun. Since Brand is a very combo-based champion, he needs to get off two spells to stun you. If you block one spell, Brand's dead.


Difficulty: Easy
If you can block her ultimate, then you can gank her easily. The only other ability that she can use for escaping is Noxious Blast, which boosts her movement speed by 25% if it hits. If you can't block Noxious Blast, it doesn't matter because you can close the gap with your Duskbringer and counteract her MS buff with your slows.


Difficulty: Impossible
He sees you? You're silenced and you can't use any abilities on him. You suprise him? No problem, just Riftwalk away. Riftwalk's cooldown is a measly 4 seconds, meaning if you catch up to him after the first Riftwalk, you can't after the second.
How do you gank him then? Tell your mid to harass Kassadin as much as possible, causing Kassadin to burn all his mana so he cannot Ritwalk. This is a bit easier because Riftwalk costs a relatively high amount of mana.
Even this strategy is hard because Kassadin's W passively restores mana for every melee attack that he does.


Difficulty: Easy/Medium
It will be hard to gank him early game because of his annoying Lightning Rush. Lightning Rush doubles Kennen's movement speed for 3 seconds, enabling him to run away most of the time.
Wait until Kennen is pushing your turret to gank. Paranoia to him and use your fear. Even Lightning Rush can't stop the 40% slow from Frozen Mallet and a 2 second fear.


Difficulty:

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Bot Lane


Difficulty: Medium
Ashe is squishy as a teddy bear. The problem? She can kite you. If you try to dive her, she can easily run back and apply massive slows to you. If you get spot by her E, you can't gank. Even if you do get up-close and in her face, she can blow her Enchanted Crystal Arrow in your face and stun you to up to 3.5 seconds.


Difficulty: Easy
Before ganking her, tell your teammates to de-activate the traps she might have put in the surrounding bushes. You can use your spell shield to deactivate it,


Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Grave's Quickdraw gives him a scaled-down flash. If he lands his smokescreen right, he can slow you by 35% and hear his humiliating message that he "stole your darkness."


Difficulty: Easy/Medium
It will be hard to gank him early game because of his annoying Lightning Rush. Lightning Rush doubles Kennen's movement speed for 3 seconds, enabling him to run away most of the time.
Wait until Kennen is pushing your turret to gank. Paranoia to him and use your fear. Even Lightning Rush can't stop the 40% slow from Frozen Mallet and a 2 second fear.


Difficulty: Easy
You should always gank her from the side, because if you gank her from the front, you'll get your faced ripped off by her ult. Her Make it Rain can be a little annoying but it won't screw up your gank that much.


Difficulty: Easy
Sivir's 3 second spell shield can be annoying, but it doesn't prevent slows. The 20% movement speed boost from her ult doesn't hold up against Frozen Mallet's 40% slow, does it?


Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Tristna's Rocket Jump can get her out of many sticky situations, and she can knock you back a crazy distance with her ult.
However, if you gank her when her abilities are on cooldown, you can kill her easily.

Never, ever, initiate a teamfight with Paranoia. You should let your Ashe use Enchanted Crystal Arrow, or your Sona use Crescendo before you use Paranoia. If you are unsure if you want to take a fight, use Duskbringer to poke the enemy team, like a scaled-down Nidalee's spear. You can chip away at health with Duskbringer. Deactive all the traps around the area with Shroud of Darkness, if necessary.
After the fight is iniated, target the AD carry. Because you can dash past the enemy team, you can get in there, take out the AD carry, and the fight the rest. With the AD carry out of the picture, the main source of damage on the enemy team is taken out.

Thanks to jhoihoi for her amazing guide for making guides; it helped me a ton.

Thanks to dugong guy, Kredite, Dirtyamericanhoe, Domistress, Andrew Hazen and the others for being cool and tolerating me when I fed as Nocturne. :)

I hoped you enjoyed my guide, and I hope you learned something.
Again, this is my first guide, so constructive criticism is needed. I've put a lot of work into this guide, and I would like to make it the best that I can.

I'll end my guide with some cool screenshots.

1.0 2/17/12 Created guide
1.1 2/18/12 Added Shaco to Counter Jungling/Matcups and fixed a few spelling mistakes. Added Brand to the Ganking page. Added scaling numbers to the Skill Sequence page.
1.2 3/4/2012 Added ganking methods to Ganking.
1.2 3/24/2012 Added invading section to Counter Jungling/Matchups. Added information about lifeseteal quintessences in the Runes section.
1.3[/color 5/12/2012 Added info to the Lee Sin section and updated screenshots to include Ranked photos.