Talon Build Guide by TheMcDanee

Intro

Hi and wellcome to my guide on Talon The blades shadow.

Talon is a fun champion to play, as he got high mobility and burst damage.
He is a very versitile champion and can be played on any lane, he can be on top, mid or on bot as AD carry, but in this guide I mostly focus on Mid and Top lane, as it is there where he truly belongs.

He is a great counter pick against champions like; Kassadin, Ryze, Alistar, Riven and alot more.

This is a new intro to this guide as it got messed up somehow, so this is not the original intro for this guide

Lore

Talon's earliest memories are the darkness of Noxus' underground passages and the reassuring steel of a blade. He rememers no family, warmth, or kindness. Instead, the clink of stolen gold and the security of a wall at his back are all the kinship he has ever craved. Kept alive only by his quick wits and deft thievery, Talon scraped out a living in the seedy underbelly of Noxus. His mastery of the blade quickly marked him as a threat, and Noxian guilds sent assassins to him with a demand: join their ranks or be killed. He left the bodies of his pursuers dumped in Noxus' moat as his response.

The assassination attempts grew increasingly dangerous until one assailant met Talon blade-for-blade in a match of strength. To his surprise, Talon was disarmed and facing down his executioner's sword when the assassin revealed himself to be General Du Couteau. The General offered Talon the choice between death at his hand, or life as an agent of the Noxian High Command. Talon chose life, on the condition that his service was to Du Couteau alone, for the only type of orders he could respect were from one he could not defeat. Talon remained in the shadows, carrying out secret missions on Du Couteau's orders that took him from the frigid lands of Freljord to the inner sanctums of Bandle City. When the general vanished, Talon considered reclaiming his freedom, but he had gained immense respect from Du Couteau after years in his service. He became obsessed with tracking down the general's whereabouts. Talon's suspicions led him to the doors of the Institute of War, where he joined the League of Legends in order to find those responsible for Du Couteau's disappearance.

"The three deadliest blademasters in all of Valoran are bound to the house of Du Couteau: my father, myself, and Talon. Challenge us, if you dare."
Katarina Du Couteau

Changelog

• 2012/05/29 - Added a different build(Top/Mid), added information to Items and Runes pages, removed Maw of Malmortius from Optional items,
  
• 2012/03/22 - Added Maw of Malmortius, remade Runes, Items, Optional items, added Masteries page
  
• 2012/03/15 - Added two new chapters, remade Runes chapters, will probably do this again.
  

Runes

There are multiple rune pages that work on Talon. But I think these suit him the best-

*EXPLANATION*

• Greater Mark of Desolation For Marks I take Greater Mark of DesolationArmor Penetration as it will make you hit more with less AD, it will also make you penetrate their armor easier with more items.
  
• For Seals I take Armor as these will make you take less damage from AD champions, and especially their AD carrys.
  
• For Glyphs I take Magic Resist per level, it will make you take less damage from AP champions, and escpecially those anyoing AP carrys, and it will make you take less damage from other who deals magic damage, not just AP carrys.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Desolation For quints I take even more Armor penetration, it will make you deal tons of damgage against those who don't get armor.

If I'm going mid, I take the same runes, except for my glyphs.
I change my Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist into nine Greater Glyph of Magic Resist.
It will boost my level 1 mr with 12,1

Magic Resist with Greater Glyph of Magic Resist on level 1 = 31,2 + 12,1 = 43,3

Magic Resist with Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist on level 1 = 31,2 + 1,3 = 32.6

Magic Resist with Greater Glyph of Magic Resist on level 6 = 37,5 + 12,1 = 49,6

Magic Resist with Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist on level 6 = 37,5 + 8,1 = 45,6

Magic Resist with Greater Glyph of Magic Resist on level 11 = 43,8 + 12,1 = 55,8

Magic Resist with Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist on level 11 = 43,8 + 14,8 = 58,6

As you can see, the Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist gives you more magic resist, but not before level 11, so that is why I recommend the Greater Glyph of Magic Resist for when you are going to mid with Talon

Masteries

There are multiple ways compose masteries for Talon these are those who I think work best for him.

I max out all the Armor penetration I can in the offencive tree, making sure to also pick up the Cooldown reduction as well, this will give you another extra 10% armor penetration, and 6 extra that doesn't add to the procentage.

In the utility tree I take Mana per level and Mana regeneration, as Talon needs it so much, his spells drain alot of mana if used alot, and that is what you are supposed to do.

Items

As for runes there are multiple ways of building Talon, here is how the finnished build should look like.

*EXPLANATION*

• For starting items I take Doran's Blade, and your second item should be Boots of Speed.
  
• When you got your boots you start building The Brutalizer but you don't turn it in to Youmuu's Ghostblade as I don't include it in this build, and you don't really need it to chase people down with it, as you will just use Rake and Cutthroat and the passive from Frozen Mallet will also slow them even more with Rake.
  
• After you finnished The Brutalizer you should finnish your boots and build them into Mercury's Treads as it will give you much needed Tenacity and Magic ressist, as it will be your only Magic ressist item.
  
• Last wisper When you've finnished Mercury's Treads you should start building Last Wisper, you start by buying Pickaxe and then you finnish it.
  
• When you're finnished with your Last Wisper you should start building The Bloodthirster as it will give you alot of AD and life steal(100AD and 25%) if you don't die alot.
  
• After your The Bloodthirster you need to start building Trinity Force as it will give you alot of extra damage and attack speed, this will also be your only attack speed item,
  start by building Sheen, and then your Phage.
  
• After you finnished your Trinity Force you start on your Infinity Edge, it will boost your damage output alot.
  
• After you finnished your Infinity Edge you should get your Frozen Mallet, it will give you even more burst damage, and it will also give you more HP and make you slow your enemies upon auto attacking them. This plus Rake can be a pain in the ***, as it will lower your movement speed alot.

And this is how a finnished build against an AP heavy team should look like.

As you can see, both builds aren't that different from eachother. As the main build works great against any enemies, but this one is if you are going mid, I strongly recommend getting Maw of Malmortius first after your boots, it will save you!

Optional items

There are some items that are good on Talon but not good enough to fit in to this guide.
But they are still mentionable and I will mention a few here.

*EXPLANATION*

• Sword of the ocult Only take this item if you think that you will get alot of early kills and will snowball hard, if you take this item you must be sure to not to die.
  
• Ionian Boots of Lucidity These boots is also a viable pick on Talon. But I don't think that you should need them, as you will most of the time have the blue buff, if you don't have a mid lane that need the blue more than you.
  
• Ninja Tabi These boots is like Ionian Boots of Lucidity, only take these if you are facing a hard AD team, like Vayne on bot, Nocturne in Jungle, Sion top ad, and Caitlyn in mid.
  
• Youmuu's Ghostblade This is an item that I see alot of people taking when playing Talon, but I don't really think that you need it that much, alot of them also only takes it for it's passive, but then again you don't need movement speed bonus if you slow them down, and the attack speed you get from Trinity Force.

Armor if needed

If you are feeling that you need some extra armor against a heavy AD team, you can get some of the following items:

*EXPLANATION*

• This is a great item for any champion, it will fake your death once in a few minutes if you are to loose all your hp
  
• This item gives you both armor and crit chance, but it's not really worth getting unless you got ~3000k hp
  
• This is a viable pick, you can take this early against those who got high armor pen, like you. It will also give you a free ward every three minutes
  
• Do they have a Tryndamere? Take this item and he will kill him self trying to kill you

Skills

When playing Talon with this build, there are two ways you can level your skills.

Here is the first one, you should follow this one if you face an oponent who cast a lot of abilities or if you go mid

Are you going top lane? Are you up against Gangplank, Tryndamere? Follow this, it will help you. As you see, I allways level up Rake first, as it deals good damage against almost anyone.

Here is a basic over view on Talon's skills.

- Talon's next autoattack within the next 6 seconds deals additional physical damage. If the target is a champion they will also bleed for 6 seconds, taking additional physical damage each second and revealing their location for the duration.

- This spell has a big part of your combo, but not the biggest. It will make the target bleed and you will be able to see them on the map for a few seconds, it will also make them take damage over time based on how much AD you have. Remeber that this spell counts as a auto attack, thus it will also heal you from the initial damage if you have life steal, and this also resets the auto attack timer, meaning you can use this directly after an auto attack to hit even faster than you possibly can.

- Talon sends out a volley of daggers in a cone that then quickly return back to him, dealing physical damage to any enemies it passes through. Each enemy can only be damaged once at the start of the ability and once at the end. Additionally the enemy is slowed for 2 seconds, refreshing the duration of the slow if they are hit twice.

- This spell has a HUGE part in your combo, it's also one of your most damagin abilities, it will slow those who you hit with it and deal damage each time the blades pass trough them, and it will also refresh the slowing effect from the first time it hits them.

- Talon instantly appears behind his target, silencing them for 1 second and amplifying his damage against that target for 3 seconds.

- This is your initiate ability combined with your ultimate, you can initiate team fights with out taking to much damage, but this ability does not scale with AD as it does no damage, it will only silence the target and make you deal bonus damage against it.

- Talon disperses a ring of blades outwards and gains stealth for up to 2.5 seconds while gaining 40% movement speed. When Talon emerges from stealth, the blades converge on his location. When the ring of blades expands and contracts, enemies hit receive physical damage. Each enemy can only be damaged once at the start of the ability and once at the end.

- With this you can either escape from a gank, initate with your E first, and this right after, it can help you chase down those who are running, and it will also deal alot of damage if you trigger it again right away, as it sends out blades in a circle around you and they stay there for a few seconds or untill you use another ability, meaning you can burst someone down with it, as it has a low cooldown it can also be used for farming.

Laning and Killing

When you are laning with Talon you should aim your Rake so that you will hit both the enemy champion and the minions infront of him, as they go trough them, meaning you could use it trough a minion wave and still hit the enemy champion.

When you get to level three, you should start thinking like this; how much AD do I have?, How much HP does he have? Will he survive my combo? Will I die? Can I kill him?

If you think that you can take him and come out alive you should go for it, just wait at the right moment, activate your Q just before you jump to him with Cuttroath and then hit him once and then use rake, if he survived, keep chasing him to his tower or untill you have gone to far away from his tower and can easily be ganked, you can most of the time at least force him to go B, but if you are lucky you can pop Ignite on him and maybe it will finnish him off.

Summoner Spells

For summoner spells there are quite a few that fits Talon, but the ones I like the most are Flash and Ignite, mostly because they will help you secure kills and escape from ganks.

Other spells that work on him are;

• - It's a great spell for alot of champions, but I think it's a bit of unnecesary Talon as he has a great slow, and most of the time you can just use your Shadow Assault to escape.
• ] - I have seen more and more taking this spell on AD carry's and Talon but I think that it's more fitting on a support champ then on Talon.
• - This spell is great on Talon as it will allow you to either catch up or get away

I'm sure that I didn't cover all the summoner spells that are valid on Talon as there are a few

Engaging a mage

When playing Talon you can take on most of the mages in LoL, take for example Ryze, when engaging him you must initiate with your Cutthroat spell, making him incapable to cast a spell on you, after that you can either use Noxian Deplomacy or Rake, if you think that he is going to get help from an ally just finnish him off with Shadow Assault.

But there are some cases when there is better to backoff rather then engage, for example, when there are two or more, especially if one of them have a stun or a silence, if you stand in a brush and you see Brand and Taric your best choice is to backoff, because Taric has both an Heal and a Stun, and Brand has a stun that is quite anoying, and it will allow him to throw the rest of his abilities on you without you stoping him.

There are times when there are multiple enemies there but one or more of them are low on hp, so what you are going to do is to wait untill they seperate, and then engage those with low hp, for example, you see an enemy Annie with half of her max hp, a Tryndamere with full hp and ult, there is also Alistar who is recalling with full hp, you wait untill Tryndamere has continued on the lane and then you disrupt Alistar's teleport, and start focusing Annie when you've killed her you should start escaping, preferably using Shadow Assault before Tryndamere returns to help Alistar take you down

Engaging a tank

If you are going to engage a tank you need to think on two things, the first one being where their team is, and the second being if they are able to escape your lead their team to you.

If you think that you can take them down, go for it. There are a few tanks that you should stay away from, as they could crush you quite easy.

Here are a few tanks that you should stay away from;

• He can just knock you up, silence you and then nom nom nom at you and you will be looking at a gray screen, but this depends on if he got early kills or didn't get any.
  
• He will probably just knock you back and then run away, but if you can get in your Cutthroat on him you can probably take him down. But beware that he got two disables...
  
• He usually gets alot of armor, hes got a quite anoying taunt and it will make you follow him like his pet, but it will also make you hit him, meaning that he might kill himself if he want to lead you to their team.
  
• He can be quite anoying, his passive is a shield, he can steal some of your movement speed, he can knock you up, he can reduce your attackspeed... He is overall anoying.
  
• He got two stuns, locking you up so that their team can catch you, but after that he as no escape ability making him easy to chase, but you shouldn't allways chase someone, it can leave your team without damage output.

Engaging another assassin

You probably won't be the only assassin on the fields of justice.
There are a few that you should try to avoid, but there are also a few that are easy kills.

Those who you can kill easily are:

• Anybody can kill her, she is probably the most under powered champion in the game, with no natural escape ability except her Shadow Walk, but as she takes damage it takes longer for her to get invisible, which makes your Noxian Diplomacy a great tool for anyone who can be invisible, especially against Evelynn, as it is a dot as well it gives you vision on the target at all time.
  
• It's a little bit iffy if you should attack her, she can be a pain in the @ss or she can be a free kill, if she got two or three kills early you should take care against her.
  
• He is also one of those who can be a pain in the @ss or free kills, if he goes for an AP build he can deal alot of damage with his Pick A Card and Wild Cards combo, but if he goes for an AD build, you should make sure that you don't get stunned, because that will give him free attacks against you, and it got a low cd.
  
• You can shut down him easily by using Cutthroat and then Rake, as when he is silenced he can't escape or deal damage.

Assassins that you should stay away from:

• She is one of the most anyoing champions in the game, there is no way you can escpae from her by running, as her ult got incredibly low cooldown and she can deal a ****load of damage fast.
  
• He is an awesome champion with great abilities, he got a spell shield so don't count on your silence, and his fear is also anoying, he will fear you if you get to close and his main damagin ability also boosts him movement speed and attackdamage.
  
• He can be hard to kill as after he has attacked three times he will get a shield that blocks damage, and his stun is quite anoying, but he is killable, but you should go against him with care

Images

I will be posting some pictures from some games, if you want you can send me the pick and Ill put it up her.

My games:

Finnished

That's about it folks, if you liked this guide please vote and comment, I've spent alot of time gathering all information and trying out different ways of building Talon.

See Y'all :)