Shaco Build Guide : [26.9][P+/WIP] How to make ADCs disappear a Beginner friendly AP Shaco Support Guide

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just pushed my update, i still think comet is best in slot, but check out the stormsurge interaction that i went into detail about in the true chaos part of my builds, stormsurge will re-proc deathfire touch/blackfire/liandrys to essentially double the damage output, it can nuke a lvl 18 adc from 66-75% hp with an E + ignite depending on if the E backstabs, but its really weak in stored damage potential that the max haste/ap build has, and ive seen that comet will still deal around double the damage of deathfire if all the boxes are procced throughout the game even with the stormsurge double proccing the burns, but the triple burn with stormsurge seems really easy to play compared to my playstyle of max boxes controlled, so worth looking into

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I will definitely give the stormsurge build a try as soon as I can, but I don’t have access to my PC for the next 2 weeks.

I really think high-haste builds just add an immense amount of safety, which is why I recommend them for beginners even though they can’t play out the builds whole potential. Them having faster access to their abilities allows for a larger margin of error, especially when it comes to providing value to their team. Newer Shaco support players generally struggle with foreseeing what is needed of them and how the game will unfold; a high-haste build really helps to patch up that lack of experience.
(In practice:

allowing you to set up quicker after having forgotten to do so.
Offering flexibility with a protective setup; if you've messed up, you will have quicker setup times elsewhere or be able to patch up your mistake quickly.
More options/better chances in terms of escaping through your lower CDs.
Also, you have access to more CC in a fight, making a badly placed box, etc., less lethal.

)

But I’m really intrigued to try it out, especially after the positive feedback you’ve received. And I can definitely see it having its place for newer players or players in general who are less interested in a support-focused playstyle. Or possibly as a gateway to learning Shaco's micro through a less demanding playstyle.

edit: TBF, it’s just a 30AH difference between the builds, so it might not be as impactful as I thought. Reading this back, Cosmic Insight might be a better item for learning Shaco, as I previously thought. Might need to reconsider my builds.

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very valid points, i was thinking more along the lines of raw damage from a single E ignite to pick up kills for newer players that dont know how to use boxes effectively.

cosmic insight is really good with a zhonyas build, i used to run it back when i ran perfectly timed stopwatch (rip stopwatch - nuked out of existence by rito), i used to love running zhonyas back before i decided that glass cannon shaco was stronger, zhonyas saved me so much when i was learning shaco, using it right when my Q was 2 sec on cd then insta Qing after saved my life so many times, plus more ignites to play with from cosmic was really nice. tho that was all back in the protobelt lich bane one shot era (god i miss that so much), so i cant really say much about it nowdays as i havent used them in ages

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Yeah, I just feel like if you’re trying to learn to play Shaco support, as an actual support, you’ll just have to go through that possibly frustrating phase of learning how to use boxes properly. After all, they are what make Shaco the support he is.

Where I see the potential for this build is avoiding some of the frustration through the early phases of one’s learning process. Players who might struggle with motivation, could benefit from having a “fun build” to play, which will already familiarize them with Shaco’s kit and basic micro, allowing them to then have a more pleasant experience transitioning to a more supportive playstyle. This of course isn’t the most efficient way to learn Shaco, but I think a lot of people would benefit from this.

For the Zhonya’s + Cosmic build: I actually made a mistake and confused cosmic insight with cosmic drive. I really like cosmic insight though, I ran it with cookies when they still gave mana. But now the rest of the tree just isn’t really viable anymore. Otherwise, I’d still run it when playing with two combat sums.

Anyways, I think I need to redo my builds actually. I need to do some testing first, but I think the following build might actually be a better beginner build than what I currently have up.

I still really love Zhonya’s and like you’ve said, it’s really useful while learning Shaco, but it’s also just really annoying to build, so I tried to balance it out with building 2 Codex first and then selling pots for the second component of Zhonya’s. And continuing with a third Codex after just seems more gold efficient. That also leaves you with the option to build the most flexible item last so you can switch it if your needs change. Although you should probably hold back with the third Codex if you suspect that pivot to be necessary.

And then the Stormsurge-build as a try-out/getting-to-know-Shaco kinda build seems like a nice combo. But I’ll have to wait till I’ve tested them, which will take a while :( .

Any suggestions though regarding the Cosmic build?

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hmm, hard to say really, i still dont see how cosmic would fit into a build stat wise, for newer players yea the ms and hp is kinda nice.

but id say a better option would be a seraphs (even tho the shield can ruin a few clone plays, the newer shacos wouldnt really know how to do them anyways), still 25 haste, a massive shield which combos with zhonyas really nicely, high ap, i just dont have enough experience of seeing how useful it could be, if its more about the ms with cosmic and boots...

then maybe dipping into possibly a battlesong along with cosmic, its more supportive offering ms boost to your team, decent ap, decent haste, 4% ms, combos well with the amount of ms cosmic would provide?
i would probably go blackfire since its core, basic boots, zhonyas (need to build it early to get more worth out of the item even with the bad buildpath), cosmic drive (to get more worth out of the zhonyas armor by comboing it with cosmics hp), battlesong - also swifties boots in there somewhere but idk where i dont use ms shaco much apart from a crack shaco meme build i did with phase rush. with battlesong id say it makes both you and your team extremely hard to catch and kill when comboing with boxes because it helps your team kite to the boxes faster after getting caught/collapsed on.

idk thats kinda just off the top of my head, still a decent build id say

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(dont let brand mains know about this stormsurge interaction xD)

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Just worked 6 hours straight on polishing this update to finally be able to release it. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Hope y'all enjoy it :)

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wish i could make my guide chapters as good looking as yours, very nice update

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Ty. If you'd like, I would be happy to share my templates and the resources I used to learn about this stuff, including compatible image/video-hosting sites, etc. Also, I don't think it'd take you all that long to transform your guide. This update took me like 20-30 hours, but 70% of that was wasted on problem-solving because Mobafire makes it a bit hard to get the code right sometimes. And if you won't write any new sections, it would probably take you like 5 hours to transform, including learning.

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sure, im already a fair bit behind on updating/procrastinating parts of my guide, so it may take a while to get around to learning it, but ill appreciate the resources, ive already tried coding a lil bit but it was hard to get my head around

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Sorry you had to wait this long; I had trouble finding time for putting the templates together. I decided to put my templates, etc., in a separate guide so I can share them at the end of my Shaco guide and update them moving forward. This is also why I might be speaking a bit broadly at some points throughout the guide.

The guide is far from done, but I put everything in already; it just isn't exactly polished and might be confusing to read through.

I've put some of the info on how you can modify the code into the spoiler for my TOC; like I said, it's a bit disorganized. Also sorry for the eye-burning borders; I was a bit too experimental on those. And, in case you'd like to copy the color scheme and overall appearance of my guide, feel free to do so; I don't mind at all.

Template Guide

And of course if you have any questions regarding the code, just write a comment in the Template Guide's comment section. I also didn't include all the code I used in my Shaco guide, so if there is any specific section you'd like to see, just ask, but I'll probably also add the entirety of my Shaco guide in code form in the future, like tomorrow, but I gotta sleep XD.

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looks good, ill use it sometime in the future, my reply is a bit late aswell because im dealing with some irl trouble currently, so i wont be able to make major changes to my guide for quite a while, but once thats settled ill be sure to use it

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btw, ive restored my old guide (forgot i could even restore it when i made the new one) and updated it to have all the content from my current guide, ive archived that version so that your link wouldnt be broken, but might need to update your link to my guide if you dont want it linking to the archived version

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Yeah I'll update it tonight when 25.23 drops, and these are some impressive guide scores but also very much deserved.

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nice update, i used to love running hail of blades ap back in the era of protobelt lich bane, a bit of secret tech that hardly anyone knows about with lich bane/bloodsong that might fit into a ap hail of blades build, since they updated the clone to mimic ability casts, most people know that clone will spawn with a lich/bloodsong proc, but what they dont know is that mimicing an ability cast will actually give the clone another usable lich bane/bloodsong proc, meaning that shaco can get double the value out of it, might be worth looking into with your ap hail of blades build, barely anyone knows this interaction exists since i discovered it by chance a year ago, looking forward to seeing if you can make it work and what you come up with, ive done a bit of theorycrafting with that interaction before

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Thanks for putting me on that. I've looked into it a bit already and done some testing.

I haven't been using Lich Bane because it only makes sense as a second item, and by the time you get there, you usually don't want to go into melee range anymore. But I definitely see some potential in Lost Chapter → sheen into finishing BFT and Lich Bane (in that order), but we'll have to see how it holds up in game.

For the clone interaction, that is actually quite OP, in theory, but sadly when you proc H.O.B. into R for the AS on the clone and just let it auto, it won't mimic abilities. So you have to be clicking repetitively to have it walk around so it does mimic abilities (please let me know if I'm mistaken here, but I haven't found another way yet), which makes bursting someone down a lot harder or just takes a lot longer (this could be made up by near-perfect execution, but that is unlikely in-game), and you potentially won't gain any extra damage as your Clone isn't AA, so the Sheen proc only compensates for the AA you aren't doing, as you only gain 70% additional damage. which pretty much nullifies the use of that interaction and only complicates the combo.

I will try around some more, but that is where I'm at now. Still, I really appreciate you mentioning it. If I figure out a way to let the clone mimic abilities more quickly, I will definitely adopt that, but for now I don't think it's worth it. If you have an idea how, let me know. Also, if Lost Chapter + Sheen works out, I'll add Lich Bane as an option in my next update.

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yea, i ran into that problem aswell, its hard to fit it into an ap build nowdays with shaco being more mana dependent, and yea, it doesnt make a lot of difference when proccing hob on clone as youre right, its more efficient to just let the clone auto, one use is against a dash champ that escapes after your initial combo and dashes out and in retaliation you E to have clone catch up from the slow, the spellblade passive early makes the E Q crit quicktrade do an insane amount of damage early though which is why i was looking into it in the first place a while back, but couldnt really make it work without sacrificing alot in other aspects of the build, i take advantage of it alot when running my ad build with bloodsong alot early, but yea, i got stumped trying to fit it into an ap build effectively. bloodsongs spellblade passive is a decent early alternative to zakzak with the ap hob build if you want to take advantage of the early strength of ad shaco and the E Q crit quicktrades to hard win lane early while keeping the ap build, but falls off quite a bit late, but thats the same problem with hail of blades falling off lategame damage wise compared to comet multiple proccing with 2+ box chains anyay, was good to see your thoughts on it either way

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There is a major update coming until the end of the year

Here's what you can expect:

Table of Contents
Ability Breakdown
A Champ Profile Section with Pros and Cons
A section dedicated to builds, runes, and Summoner Spells
More in-game example videos and more mechanics
Matchups

Last Update: 29.10.2025
Since I started getting into BB Code some more to make a good-looking TOC (Table of Contents), I will proceed to give the entire guide a facelift and will go over its current contents once again, cleaning it all up to make it look more cohesive with all the new content and rewriting sections I didn't like. This is why I estimate that it will take me about two months. I'll try and get it done in time, but it's a lot of work, so sorry in advance in case it takes me longer.

The guide is work in progress, but I hope you've been enjoying it nonetheless.

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Update April 4, 2026 [26.7]:

Small quality of life changes, clarifications, and additions

Update November 5, 2025 [25.22]:

Minor Improvements on Structure
Removed some unnecessary sections
Improvements to "Current Recommended Build" Runes - Notes

Update October 11, 2025 [25.20]:

Brought back the H.O.B. - Ap build in a separate builds section and expanded on it.
Minor visual and structural improvements
Added The Patch & Content Bracket and clarified how I will handle updates moving forward

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very nice update, loads of stuff added and its super high quality, ive been waiting to see how your update would turn out and its honestly beyond my expectations, i guess ill have to get around to finally finishing the update ive been working on with mine

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Thanks, I appreciate it. What you have put out so far is very nice, looking forward to the rest.

[26.9][P+/WIP] How to make ADCs disappear a Beginner friendly AP Shaco Support Guide

[26.9][P+/WIP] How to make ADCs disappear a Beginner friendly AP Shaco Support Guide

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