Sup, im Harshmouse and im bringing you guys shaco guide.

Shaco is a very misunderstood assassin, some people do not know his true strength. Shaco's use in solo queue is to apply pressure early game, split push when losing or necessary, and kill the enemy carry at all times. Some people that have not played with or against a Shaco player as good as me think that Shaco loses his strength and presence as the game goes on. They are wrong and I am going to show you how to play Shaco to his highest potential.

To play a good Shaco, you will need good map awareness, need to know when to fight, need to know which champs you can handle, and you will need to know the range/dmg/cooldown of all the skills the enemy have or else you will die. Unfortunately, you will not learn most of these things through a guide, that's why you need to practice. I will try to cover as much as I can in this guide. Once you learn Shaco you will learn how to manipulate players and destroy players who don't know their champ.

Okay you decide to play Shaco obviously you will jungle.

I've tried many routes with Shaco but in my eyes the best jungle route is Reginald's route, credit goes to him.

You reach level 3 at 2:40 Minute and you got red buff and enough Health and Mana for a gank.


Buy Cloth Armor + 5hp pots .
Head to double golems and place 2 Boxes in near them so you can pull the golems into them right when they spawn.
Go to Lizard Buff and place 2 Boxes so they aggro on him when you pull Lizard into them.
Went to wraiths at 1:39 so you can smite the big one right when they spawn.
Head to two Golems again, but place 1 more Box at red.
Kill two golems
Now kill Lizard. But place 1 more box behind him so you don't lose too much HP.

Now you can gank or complete your jungle.

Tell your team to cover you at red, but don´t let them leach any experience at wraiths.
If you get ganked at red you should go to blue as fast as possible.

Just place 2 -3 box at blue and you should get no problems with taking Blue down.

When you are forced to do blue first you should take at 2 and gank.
Or if you want to play safe you should take Shiv and clear your jungle as fast as you can and then start ganking or counter jungling.

Passive: Backstab

Shaco deals 25% bonus damage when striking a unit from behind.

Explanation:
This passive is strong as far as you use it efficiently while ganking/jungling. It scales with deceive really well.




Q: Deceive

Shaco instantly stealths for 4 seconds, and teleports to target nearby location. If he attacks while stealthed, the attack is guaranteed to crit for 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120% bonus damage.

Cooldown 10seconds
Cost 90 / 80 / 70 / 60 / 50mana
Range 25000

Explanation:

Shaco's main escape spell. You can actually extend the range of deceive when jumping over walls, by clicking on the wall at the farthest range possible.

To be a good shaco, you must always understand the situation of the battle and choose wisely on using Deceive offensively or as an escape. In order to improve as Shaco, always try to land deceive on the back of your opponent. His Passive does 20% extra damage on attacks behind the target. His first attack on Deceive is always a critical, so being able to land deceive on the back of an opponent consistently will make you a top-notch Shaco player.

When playing against opponents with particle stuns such as sion or taric, deceive while the particle is flying at you. You'll still be stunned, however you will not take any further damage.

Tips: When ganking an opponent with an escape or flash, it might be better to ghost up to the opponent and use deceive when they use their escape. Make sure to hit the opponent on the back with deceive, so you'll crit them for an extra 20% bonus damage.




W: Jack In The Box

Shaco creates a Jack in the Box at the target location. It will Stealth after 2 seconds, and pop out when an enemy comes near, fearing nearby enemies for 0.5 / 0.75 / 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 seconds and attacking them.

It deals 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 / 115 (+25% of ability power) damage, and lasts 90 seconds while stealthed or 5 seconds while firing. Casting Jack In The Box does not break stealth.

Cooldown 16seconds
Cost 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70mana
Range 500

Explanation:

In my opinion, this is shaco's strongest ability. Using this ability efficiently takes a high amount of skill. This ability is used differently each and every time depending on the situation.

There are a couple ways to use boxes: stacking, spreading them out, and putting them at key locations to use as temporary wards.

In the early game phase, stacking boxes will be much more effective than spreading them out because of the high damage that boxes do. The good thing about stacking boxes early game is that the boxes can easily kill an opponent from 1-9. In the late phase, AoE spells can easily decimate your boxes- making them do no damage.

Tips:
Spread boxes around baron to bait a fight
Spread boxes around dragon
Use boxes as wards when farming lanes.
Always use boxes at any location when you have Golem buff
Boxes is a .5 seconds stun, always remember that.
Drop boxes over wall to give sight.




E: Two-Shiv Poison

Passive: While Two-Shiv Poison is ready to cast: Shaco's attacks poison his target, reducing their movement speed and chance to hit by 20/22.5/25/27.5/30% for 2 seconds.

Active: Deals half weapon damage + 40/80/120/160/200 (+100% of ability power) Damage to target enemy, and poisons them for 3 seconds.

Cooldown 13seconds
Cost 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70mana
Range 625

Explanation:

This spell is usually to finish off an opponent or to harass with golem.

A good strategy is to wait for an opponent to flash before using two-shiv. Waiting on the flash to two-shiv poison them will help you catch up to maximize your damage. Using two-shiv at a close distance is only when you're confident that they will die, which means they've already burned their escapes and you're trying to deal the most damage possible.

Shaco has very little mana without golem, remember to not spam two-shiv too frequently, you might not have the mana to deceive away.

Using two-shiv at the right time is crucial. If you were to stack boxes, try to two-shiv at a close distance to slow your opponent when they're next to boxes.

Tips: If you're stacking boxes, make sure to two-shiv the opponent right as the fear ends. Doing Two-shiv at the right time will secure an early kill.




R: Hallucinate

Shaco creates an illusion of himself nearby, which deals 75% of Shaco's damage and receives 150% increased damage. (Deals half damage to turrets.) On death, the illusion deals 300 / 450 / 600 (+100% of ability power) magic damage to nearby enemies.

Lasts up to 30 seconds.

Cooldown 105 / 90 / 75seconds
Cost 100mana
Range 500

Explanation:

This spell is very tricky, it can be used to do many things such as: dodging particles,escaping, doing close range damage, and even used to do aoe damage on players early game.

When tower diving with shaco, make sure to use hallucination at the right time, you can redirect the damage to creeps or even tank tower damage with your image.

During dragon, use your image to tank and position yourself on the back of dragon to deal extra damage from his passive.

Tips: Doing Shaco's Ultimate at the right time can help you negate 1 damage tick of ignite.

Let me list his Pros and Cons :


Pros

- In my Opinion, the strongest Pre-Level 6 ganks in the game, due to the fact you have an guaranteed crit, a fear, a slow and a nuke.
- Great damage output.
- Snowballs well.
- One of the best backdoor champs in the game.
- Strong pusher.
- He laughs like a Bawsss.
- Hard to master, but very rewarding when you do.
- If played well the enemies will fear you and lose farm because they will hug the tower
- Can easily solo Baron/Dragon
- For me the most fun Champ in the League
- Good escape mechanism
- Can chase very good
- Very good at solo queue

Cons

- Hard to master
- Very risky (but but has high reward if played well)
- Can be easily get countered
- Buggy
- Current metagame makes him less viable (2 AP Carries)
- Hard to make a comeback if you have a rough start



I believe he can be one of the best junglers in the game, if put in the right hands.

Even if he can´t carry 1 vs 5 he still can win the game nearly solo, just because of his awesome early game control.
With his amazing ganking power he can help his team win their lanes, which can very easily snowball into a win.
He can stop the enemies from farm just with his presence in the game.

ganking power is awesome early in the game. Especially before Level 6.

Some tips to be a beast ganker with Shaco:

Always try to deceive from a good spot, so the enemies cannot see the deceive "smoke".


This image shows some great spots to use [Q] when ganking.

Always try to hit [Q] in the back of the enemy early game. It will hit like a truck when combined with your passive.


Only use [E] to finish your enemy off or when they aren't in melee range so you can get in range and slow with red buff. You want to try to slow them as long as possible with the passive of [E]

Most people think that Shaco is horrible in team fights. I actually think he does his job as an assassin well and his jungle ganks and pushing are much more superior than other assassins.

Team fighting you will basically want to do the same thing throughout the game which is to kill the enemy AD, AP and Support in that order. When your team is pushing as 4 or 5 mid you want to stay hidden in the back just planting boxes behind your teammates for safe retreats or counter initiation and boxes in bushes to prevent flanks.

When someone initiates you want to stay back for about 2-3s wait til people blow CC's and CD then deceive in to the enemy AD. Usually you do not want to deceive over the tanks to the AD but deceive in a slant passing the tank who most likely has an oracles. If the support has the oracles then this will make your job a little bit harder. You will have to walk around and flank the enemy AD, you can't just deceive in a slant.

So you have deceived over and behind the AD and are pounding him, when the enemy support notices you, lets say taric, he will try to throw a stun in when it's off CD. This is usually where you will want to ult dodge it and continue pounding on the AD. Do not throw shivs immediately after deceive, wait to see if he blows flash or escapes. If the enemy AD has an escape and he used it to run from you then you have two choices.
If the AD turns around to fight you then you will need to chase him down with shiv and maybe exhaust to scare him off until your deceive is almost on CD then repeat steps above.
If the AD withdraws from the fight then go after the AP carry or Support.

After I have killed the AD I move onto the AP carry or I will run away and find a safe time to deceive back in again and repeat until we have scored an ace.

COMING SOON ~