Talon - Noxus Or Nothing

Welcome to "Talon - Noxus Or Nothing", with this guide, I will be explaining all things that include anything to do with Talon, I will be explaining why I build each item, explaining all of his skills thoroughly, and including some of the setups I have for me as far as Mastery Trees and Rune Pages go. You should be notified that this is a Tanky-DPS build similar to some of my past guides, but what this does is allow you to actually LIVE in a teamfight, and glass cannon builds just don't do for you.

Here is where I'll be posting all the recent updates to the guide.

8/27/11

Guide Opened! I have added Randuin's Omen to the "End Game Choices", undervalued item, and can really help out your damage cause of your passive proc.

Greater Mark of Desolation Greater Quintessence of Desolation

Greater Mark of Desolation

I run Armor Penetration Reds just cause it'll amplify your basic attacks depending on how much armor they do have. Just great early game cause they are low armor, and if they do decide to build armor late game, this takes a few pinches of that away.

Greater Seal of Armor

I run Armor Yellows, what this does is provides more sustain in lane because you won't be taking in as much damage as before, it helps boost early game, and it helps add to your late game stats.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist / Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist

This helps against those AP Casters or just AP Tanks thinking of doing some damage to you, helps you take in some damage. Shielding helps you in the long run and Warding helps you earlier on.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage

I like to finish off my Rune Pages with adding some damage to help boost that early game harass or just early game damage in general. With this 7 Attack Boost, you can find yourself not really needing a Doran's Blade to begin with, and instead going with the Cloth Armor in my build.

Greater Quintessence of Desolation

You can still build this but, I find it unnecessary, simply, you'll see as the game progresses I do build a Brutalizer, that pretty much covers the Armor Penetration missing. If you'd like you could still add this, it helps more so late game than it does early game.

Good Choices

• Increased Movement Speed
• Good Chasing Skill
• Good Running Away Skill
• Earliest Mastery Point

• Great In Lane
• Slowing Down Enemies
• Denying Ghost
• Good Chasing Skill

• Another Blink
• Can Go Through Walls
• Counter-Gank Spell

• Not Recommended
• Good If No One Else Has It
• Good For Cleaning Up Pushed Lanes

• Invulnerable to CC
• Low Cooldown
• Pairs Well With Ghost

• Gap Closers of Death
• Could Be Why You Are Fed

Bad Choices

All of these Summoner Spells to me fall under a few categories.

Here are what they fall under

• Useless, Personally
• Waste Of A Spell
• Better On Someone Else
• Long Cooldown

Making the Spells I listed above, better and more viable choices as Summoner Spells.

21/6/3

Standard Melee / Bruiser / AD Carry Mastery Trees. I grab the Exhaust mastery and run a standard Offense mastery set, 6 ArPen, 4% Damage Increase, 3% CDR, 3% Attack Rate, 12% Crit Chance, and 3 Damage Increase. I get Defense to amplify his early game sustain, 6 Armor, and 6 Magic Resist, putting you at a 20 Armor/20 Magic Resist boost with my runes. I finally grab 3 points in Perseverance in the Utility tree because 4% Increase in All Regen, really helps your sustain as well.

This is my Mastery Tree, you can use 21/9/0, 21/0/9, 0/21/9, or 9/21/0 because they all can work well with Talon. I run these because they fit my gameplay.

Talon's Merciful Kit

Mercy Cutthroat

Passive : Mercy

Talon deals 10% additional damage with his autoattacks to any target that is slowed, stunned, immobilized or suppressed.

Q : Noxian Diplomacy

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

Additional Physical Damage: 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+0.3 per bonus attack damage)
Physical Damage Per Second: 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 (+0.2 per bonus attack damage)
Cooldown: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 seconds

W : Rake

Talon sends out a volley of daggers that then quickly return back to him, dealing physical damage every time it passes through an enemy. This means that each enemy can be damaged up to two times. Additionally the enemy is slowed for 2 seconds.

Physical Damage: 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+0.6 per bonus attack damage)
Slow: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 %
Cooldown: 10 Seconds

E : Cutthroat

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

Damage Amplification: 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 %
Cooldown: 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10 seconds

R : Shadow Assault

Talon disperses a ring of blades 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. Each time a blade passes through an enemy, they receive physical damage. Each enemy can only be damaged once at the start of the ability and once at the end.

Physical Damage: 150 / 225 / 300 (+0.9 per bonus attack damage)
Cooldown: 60 / 50 / 40 seconds

Reasoning

Reasoning behind why I max Rake first and alternate between Noxian Diplomacy and Cutthroat. Rake is such a great farming skill and will be why you can buy all those expensive and shiny things in the shop. The range on it is also very nice and you will find yourself to harass easily without being touched. The mana cost on it is so little that if you spam it you can easily regen the mana back with the regen masteries. Alternating between Noxian Diplomacy and Cutthroat is what I normally go for because the cooldown on Cutthroat is EXTREMELY high. Alternating amplifies your attacks for greater damage and your Noxian Diplomacy still deals great damage because of the Sheen proc that amplifies it. Why not alternate it, lower cooldowns, greater damage, and yeah that's it..

Your Combo

Shadow Assault -> Cutthroat -> Rake -> Noxian Diplomacy

Game Start

First Trip Back

I run this normally not because of the 10 additional armor but because of the potential 1000 Health regeneration, what does this mean for you? Sustain is all it means, which will let you stay in your lane longer to get your farm up for your Madred's Razors and hopefully a Boots of Speed. After getting your Boots, prioritize yourself on finishing up the Wriggle's Lantern.

Game Start

First Trip Back

It's not what I usually go for because Talon has a base 325 speed already but this is always an option. If you find yourself doing better and having more sustain through 3 potions, be my gust, this is NOT a bad choice at all. Same thing as above, Madred's Razor > Wriggle's Lantern.

After grabbing Wriggle's Lantern I prioritize myself to more damage. Phage doesn't come with much damage upfront, the slow in it activates your passive, and will deal more damage to a slowed enemy. Sheen is the same category because it builds eventually into a Trinity Force, but with this after each spell cast, your next attack will deal an additional 150% damage. Let's say this, Noxian Diplomacy maxed and add 150% of your base damage, easily shreds through turrets and enemies.



Go for the CC reduction boots, not only boosting Magic Resist, but could be the factor of why you get away with Shadow Assault when being chased. I prefer these over Berserker Grieves because, he's squishy, any additional tenacity and magic resist could be the things keeping him alive.



Finishing up your Trinity Force, this gives you the slow, the speed, and the 150% damage proc from each ability. Not much to say here except that this is the one thing I wish Phreak would have actually built into Talon during the spotlight, and the bonus damage from Q makes it oh so much deadlier.



Instantly rushing The Brutalizer, granting more Armor Penetration, and a nice 15% CDR. Youmuu's Ghostblade is a nice follow up to your abilities and his burst is actually really nice. After it though, his cooldowns are horrid before Level 18. What this does, is calls for a more upfront melee stance, doing damage from auto attacks, and the active lets you chase down an enemy along with the Phage slow will grant maximum damage because of his passive.



Will explain why I just build this for now later, but this is just to add to your squishy status, letting you live quite a bit longer, and will help towards your Atma's Impaler. It can be built into a few things later on in the game.



I finally finish it off with this, granting a nice damage boost, some armor, and well that's all it grants. This forces you to build tanky, because you are tanky, you can live longer. He's got great burst, but if your team is relying you to the AD carry, how can you be the AD carry if you die so fast.

I normally run this build if the enemy team doesn't consist of AD over AP carries. You won't need the extra armor that Sunfire Cape would provide you with and this would grant you way more Health + Health Regen so you could have even more damage than other choices. At this late in the game, you should have no problem farming this up.



If the enemy team does consists of more AD over AP attackers, this is the counter to that. You already have the armor from Atma's Impaler, grabbing this, should shut them down as far as attacking you goes, in fact, because they are AD, you should have no problem killing them with your burst this late.



This is actually a pretty decent option. Making you even harder to kill and now you can perma-slow an enemy again, which would proc your passive for 10% damage increase.

After you decide whichever one of those two and if the game hasn't ended yet, this is where you sell your Wriggle's Lantern. I won't be explaining in depth how each item works but more on why you should build it.

1 Item Choice Left

• Counters Heavy HP Champions
• Nice Damage
• Nice Attack Speed

• Replaces Missing Lifesteal
• Great Damage
• Easy To Stack
• Easy To Lose Stacks

• Great Damage
• 250% Critical Damage
• Increases Critical Chance

• Counters Armor Heavy Champions
• Good Damage

• Movement Speed
• Health Regen
• Magic Resist

• 45 Anti-CC Shield
• Health and Mana Boost
• Magic Resist

• Shorter CD Cleanse
• Magic Resist

• Great Undervalued Item
• Slow On Hit
• AoE Slow Active
• Chase/Team Contribution
• Passive Works With It

Tip : I preferred if you go for extra damage more so than another defensive item, one thing Phreak did agree on is that if you go for defensive items, than you will be lacking damage items. I set up my build like 1 Pair of Boots / 2 Defensive Items / 2 Offensive Items, leaving room for your last choice to either go with Defensive or Offensive. I normally run either The Bloodthirster or an Infinity Edge to finish up the game, so then, depending on enemy team composition, you will have to decide for yourself.

Laning

Early game laning should be easy. Mostly just grabbing last hits and dealing as much damage to turret as you can. You want to grab as much farms as you can because your build isn't all cheap stuff. Don't full combo harass if you want to harass, try to keep them in range of Rake, and if you hit them twice, that should be enough to deal 100 - 200 damage initially without the damage boost, depending on what level Rake is.

Ganking

This is probably his easiest function. Simply because no one can see you for a good 3 seconds, after you pop up, it's all burst damage. It's easy in the ways of getting a gank or granting a gank to another lane. Depending on how well your team works together then a kill can be easily secured.

Farming

Farming should be easy as well because after you get the Madred's Razors. After you get your Wriggle's Lantern, you can find getting your Core is a lot more fasting than usual if you don't stay idle just waiting for something to happen, and keep on farming up to the point where the fight happens.

Using Skills

Using Rake is good for harassing because you can harass hopefully without having them to deal their full burst on you. The range on it is nice and you can use it to farm as well. You can use Noxian Diplomacy on turrets too, pair this with Sheen, and you rip through turrets. Your combo is Shadow Assault -> Cutthroat -> Rake -> Noxian Diplomacy, if one doesn't die, pop the Youmuu's Ghostblade, auto attack, auto attack, and with the Phage 10% increase to your hits. If they are still not dead, you are lying, or you can just use your refreshed skills with Cutthroat -> Rake -> Noxian Diplomacy.

Feel free to send in your pictures using my build!

To put it simply, he's a better Tanky-DPS champion, than he is Glass Cannon - Easy Kill mode. You find yourself getting a lot more farms, more map awareness, more damage in the long run, contributing a lot more to your team, and still have the ability to 1v1 another champion for the most part.