Nocturne is an insanely strong jungler. His skill set puts him in prime position to come out of nowhere and completely devastate a lane. This guide will hopefully help you to play a nocturne that not only has an outstanding damage output, but also has the ability to survive if there is more than just his target around. Survivability and damage output is what its all about.

Marks- For marks you will go 9 Greater Marks of Alacrity runes giving you a 15% attack speed boost saving you from having to purchase any attack speed items.

Seals- For seals you will take 9 Greater Seals of Evasion giving yourself 6.75% chance to dodge attacks making yourself just a little bit harder to kill depending on the other teams composition you may end up getting Ninja Tabi giving yourself over 20% chance to dodge attacks.

Glyphs- For glyphs you will take 9 Greater Glyphs of Shielding in order to again try to boost your survivability. Giving you at lvl 18 a nice 24.3 extra magic resistance.

Quintessence- For Quintessence you will take 3 Greater Quintessence of Desolation Giving you a 9.99 armor penetration. It may not seem like much but you will not need much once you have last whisper.

Now for masteries you may have your own preference i have found this set works very well but you can also sacrifice points from the utility area to put into defense if you want to add just a tad more defense but its nice to have those extra points into utility giving you a speed boost as well as that point into cv since cv is one nocturnes most utilizable skills.

Ah the items, now most people seem to have this belief that when your nocturne you need to build as much damage as you can get your greedy little fingers on. The issue with this being that glass cannon builds are terrible, and that is all there is too it you might get lucky and manage to get kills when people are alone witch is fine for the first 10 minutes of the game but after that when people start going n group glass cannons are rendered essentially useless especially if your melee.

The goal of this build is to put out a decent damage output where you can go in take an enemy or two out and come out without feeling like you were in any danger of getting 2 shot killed.

Since you are jungling we will start with a vampiric scepter with the attack speed and the dodge you get from your runes this will keep you alive for what you need to do jungling early on.

After you go back again you will want to get a cloth armor and a health potion this will give you that extra safety cushion you want to take out the blue golem and go right up to gank top afterwards but i will come back to that in the jungling section.

By the time you go back again you should have accrued the gold required to get both a wriggles lantern as well as tier 2 boots.

Depending on the opposing team compesition you can go for either the ninja tabi or mercury treads this one is really a personal preference and dependent on you and the other team.

Now to add that damage that will push you as the carry throughout the game last whisper. It gives you that nice 40% armor penetration on top of the 10 armor penetration yuor runes are already giving you as well as a nice little boost to damage. The best part? Its cheap! Costing you only 2290 thats a bargain and a half.

Now we get to the survivability we will get a banshees veil. Adding both health and mana are nice but it also gives you magic defense as well as the best part blocking an enemy spell. Now this ability is great in and of itself but on nocturne its all gravy since as soon as that spell shield is broken he has a skill that does the same thing! Excellent addition to help your nocturne survive those enemy encounters.

Now Nocturnes health is not the highest in the game so we will help him out giving him a warmogs. Getting this item now instead of waiting till last will help you to get the numbers on it up witch will give you more survivability as well as help your next item out immensely.

Atmas spear Now this will give you not only the armor and critical strike but by this point you have stacked up a nice little cache of health between your Banshees veil and Warmogs so you will get a nice chunk of damage from its passive as well.

The Last Item Madreds bloodrazors are if the game ends up going this long usually you will have carried your team to victory well before it gets to this point, but if it does get to this point you can sell your wriggles lantern for the bloodrazors just to help you pump out a bit more damage as well give you a nice attack speed boost.

First skill you will max out is Duskbringer. This skill is great it allows you to move quicker and gives you a damage boost. Its a Beastly way to chase down enemy heroes and how you will be initiating most battles. An enemy hit with duskbringer hardly ever gets away.

Your lvl 2 skill will be Shroud of Darkness. You will only be putting 1 point into this skill until necessary to do otherwise. We are getting this skill second to help you with your jungling the passive giving you an attack speed boost. Besides the attack speed boost this skill is one of your greatest assets giving you the ability to block an enemy spell.

Unspeakable horror will be a real buzz kill to your enemies late game. Dealing a bit of damage is nice but the fear it induces gives you that ability to start smacking around the enemy team giving you some time to whack at them while taking no attacks to your own person.

And of course Nocturnes Ultimate Paranoia. This skill is one of the best ultimates in the game for a couple reasons. Most people use it incorrectly, it is NOT an initiating skill, it is a FINISHER. A chasedown for those heroes that managed to slip away before you got a chance to tear them apart.

His ultimate is not only good for chasing down enemies but also when you are in a predicament where you are are in a position where you just do not stand a chance maybe your outnumbered and outgunned you turn on your ult making the enemy lose vision of you rendering them unable to cast spells on you. you use duskbringer and fly away to safety.

Duskbringer is also the main reason you get cv witch i will get into in the next section.

Now as you are a jungler you will of course get smite helping you to get thru the jungle faster. I think smite speaks for itself yo know what it does use it.

Now Cv i have yet to see a nocturne in any game i have played use cv witch is a tragedy really.
Cv makes nocturne one of the most dangerous junglers in the game for a couple reasons.

1.) The main reason most junglers lose a gank is when they pop out into a lane the enemy runs into a bush you lose vision cant attack them and cant cast spells on them so they just make a sprint for their tower and make it out for the most part unscathed. Now if you have cv as soon as they hit the bush use it and now their hiding place is rendered useless.

2.) Use it while your jungling to help your team! While you are in the jungle if you notice a lane where your team is getting hit by an enemy that likes to keep hiding int he bush use cv give them a chance to toss a spell at them.

3.) Nocturnes ultimate can sometimes be rendered useless when you lose sight of an enemy. Maybe they ran up on a hill so you lost vision or they just ran outside the vision of another hero but whats it matter to you, you have cv! use your cv gain vision and put your ultimate to good use.

Pros
Ganking ability
damage output
survivability
carry

Cons
You become a target in team fights
not as much damage output as glass-cannon builds

You will start at the wraiths use your duskbrnger to hit the 3 small wraiths while using smite to take out the big one your passive should hit the 3 smaller ones on your next attack and from there its only a couple hits to take them out.

Next head to wolves use duskbringer on them you should be able to hit all 3 then take out the big wolf first. This should give you your second lvl put a point into shroud of darkness for the attack speed and finish off the wolves.

Third you head to the golums. Open up the fight take out one and your smite should be back up halfway through the second use it and go back to camp.

Purchase a cloth armor and a potion and head to blue golem. use duskbringer to hit all 3. kill the smaller 2 then take out the blue golem. this should put you at lvl 4 take use your potion then head top to gank. After the gank stick around till you are lvl 5 then head back into the jungle and kill whatever is up at your leisure popping out to desecrate any hero that gets in your way.

Nocturne being a jugler is a heavy team player. Your goal is to pop in take out the enemies in a lane so that the people in that lane can then push the tower.

Your unspeakable horror is great for helping out teammates that are being chased down by enemy heroes fear that enemy to give them a few needed seconds to put themselves out of dangers way.

Your ultimate also helps you to jump into an unfavorable situation for a teammate and perhaps to turn the battle around.

This build wont let you 2 shot enemy hereoes, but it will let you take them down fairly quickly while giving you the all important factor of survivability. Its nice being able to take a hero out in a couple hits but whats the point if your so squishy their teammate can take you out before your skills cooldowns are up. This build focuses on being able to dish out damage while also being able to take enough damage to remain in fights and keep helping, making you a scary melee carry hero.