Welcome to my Jarvan IV guide to be an unkillable killer, and a great initiator for team fights. Jarvan was built to be an initiator, his abilities allow you to close gaps while knocking up enemies to allow your team to get in the fight right behind you. Of course you will have to be pretty damn resilient to just jump in the middle of an enemy team, so you will need quite a bit of tanky items to stay alive.

To me the problem with tanks is that they cant really do their jobs since no one ever attacks them since they do almost no damage, and thats why i like Jarvan, he dishes out enough damage to get the enemy teams attention. While Jarvan is tanking all the enemy blows, his AD and AP carries can start dropping the enemy team 1 by 1.

With enough kills and assists you will find yourself able to initiate those team fights, and walk out with your health still intact. With this build, I have been able to just dominate the map, with no fear of any enemy that may be lurking in a bush or any dark corner.

Jarvan is a great solo top, and with his passive "Martial Cadence" He packs a real punch, and to amplify this effect in the early levels, i suggest getting armor pen runes, so that you are dealing almost true damage from level 1-3.

To protect your self from enemy attacks, i suggest getting some defense runes to add to your resilience. Grater seals of defense to defend from basic attacks, and greater marks of shielding for some powers.

To give Jarvan a boost to his attack ability, I focus more on the offensive mastery than the defense mastery tree. Naturally Jarvan has a boost to his defense so we dont need much in defense, but to make Jarvan scary we need to give him as much of a boost we can for his physical attacks.

I chose these items for the reason of damage and resilience, if you notice most of the items i have on the build gives you both damage and armor of some kind. For a solo top, you dont want to be backing due to low health or mana with no pots left, so i added a philosopher's stone to give you mana and health regen to keep you in lane longer, and for further benifit you get a gp10 bonus in case there is an irritating jungler who is babysitting your lane.

I suggest staying in lane until you have enough gold to finish the philosopher's stone and grab some boots to race back to the turret. The next item is great because it gives you health and another gp10, so now you are starting to get tanky and generating more gold.

To add to damage and tankiness, the next item is a phage. You gain more health and a bit of damage. After that just finish the boots off to a mercury treads, then you can continue on to build the frozen mallet. To gain a boost in armor damage and critical chance, go onto to build an Atma's Impaler, and this is where people start seeing you as a real threat.

Around this time you are going to start getting in to team fights, and you will be the tip of the spear. You will really need to start getting more tanky so finish off that Randuin's Omen to get that armor and active ability to start initiating fights and devastating their AD carries attack and movement speed.

To add to damage and magic resist to bring even more pain to the table, you want to get that Hexdrinker then finish it into a Maw of Malmortius. By now, you control the game, able to walk in and out of fights and lay out the hurt, and walk out /laughing. Now people will really be gunning for you, so to be the most irritating enemy in the world, you grab that guardian angel. They will throw everything they got at you, to try to bring you down, but your Jarvan you go down, and then you get back up and all their powers and ultimate's are diminished. You walk out alive and your team mops up the rest.

First you want to start with dragon strike, it is a good way to harass enemies from afar, and you also want to max it out when ever you can because it does quite a bit of damage. The second power you want is Demacian Standard, so you can get in that combo with your dragon strike and even try for an early kill if you have the elements on your side, ex. large allied minion wave, low health from harassment, or other things that give him negatives in the fight. After a second level on dragon strike you get Golden Aegis, for extra protection against harassment or if in a fight with your enemy. I advise to max that after you are finished with dragon strike for extra benefits when going into fights. You will want to get your ultimate leveled when ever you can, and when everything else is all done, go and max out your Demacian standard.

Flash is a great summoner spell since it is so versatile, you can use it to escape, or to get in close to finish off you enemies, but if you do not wish to use flash exhaust is another great spell that will help you in many ways. If you followed my mastery guide you will have summoner's wrath, which takes away 10 armor from your opponent. Ignite is another summoner spell that is very useful and will help a lot in one on one fights. Usually people use ignite to finish off foes, or exhaust to slow their fleeing enemies, but i see them more as initiations. Combined with summoner's wrath, when ignite is used you gain an additional 5 attack damage while it is cooling down, and with exhaust on him he will have decreased armor and magic resist. Immediately you have the upper hand. This is how i usually handle this level 2 fight: I open with exhaust so i can have an easier target to cast my Demacian standard, then follow up with my Dragon Strike to close the gap. Now i ignite and begin my auto attacks with my bonus 5 damage. With martial cadence, and my Demacian standard, dragon strike combo with ignite on the target, he is about to get dropped. With flash the most used summoner power he probably zipped out of there, but good thing dragon strike is OP and has a pretty decent range, one good lance and he should be dead.

Jarvan is a great champ, and if built correctly he is the best champ that will be on that battlefield. Don't be afraid to be really aggressive, especially when you get your randuins, you will be near unkillable at that point, and with a decent team, if you go in they will be right behind you and they will be praising you for being the best initiator they have ever seen. It feels awesome when your team is just cheering you on, as you are taking on a 1v3 and you walk out of there at half health and a triple kill. This build has won me 3 4v5's and got me a qaudrakill and unofficial penta. Well good luck and have fun.

I am a terrible "farmer" but with Jarvan its just so easy, with his passive "Martial Cadence" it makes it so much easier to get those last hits. Another great way to farm is with your Demacian standard and Dragon Strike Combo, if not already dead the minions will be at low health to finish off with you passive.