Hello, I'm PH45, and this is my guide to top lane Jarvan IV. My real name is Patrik, but you can call me either way. I am a long time League of Legends player (started back in late Season 1). I'm a top lane main, and I mostly play bruisers in top lane. I reached Diamond 5 in Season 7, Diamond 3 53 LP in Season 8. My OP.GG for anyone interested List of my accounts I mainly play on right now(EUNE) I also got multiple other accounts but right now I mainly play on my main. Check out my Twitch, I've gotten more into streaming in the past months so come and check it out while I play live!

Flash: Best summoner spell in the game. Gives you escape potential or catch-up potential, especially extends your range for E+Q or you can do a flashy knockup play with it.

Ignite: Good for lanes you want to go aggressive on, but overall Jarvan IV won't be winning that many top lane bruisers so Teleport is imo the more superior choice for safety and overall for team play which Jarvan IV arguably revolves around.

Teleport: My go-to secondary summoner spell on Jarvan IV. Most of the time it enables you to splitpush and teleport to teamfights if you aren't near the fight when it breaks out. It can also help you in tough matchups where you have to back a lot early but main focus with Teleport is to have map pressure instead of getting back to lane to catch that one wave. Just be careful when using it since you can't cancel the teleport anymore so choose wisely when to use it.

Pros + Good early trading with Martial Cadence + Easy to last hit with + Good engage + Great teamfighter due to ult setting up enemies + Has a built-in escape with E + Q + Can migitate some damage with his shield + Can poke from range in lane Jarvan IV is a niche top laner, who can go tanky or damage and either peel for his team and setup teamfights or straight up delete squishies.

Cons - Can struggle against certain bruisers - Falls off a bit towards late game - Requires patience and knowing when to take fights - Depends on his team late game to deal the damage

I feel Resolve is the best choice for Jarvan IV in top lane since it helps you become more tanky and overall gives you tools to survive and trade.

Grasp of the Undying works rather well for your trading patterns. You generally auto after Golden Aegis activation so your Shield Bash damage procs, dealing a ton of damage combined with your passive.

Since your W has a shield, it works well for short trades or even for longer fights.

Bone Plating is a good rune, since it allows you get out of trades a bit more unscathed, but if the enemy has a poking ability you probably won't get much use out of this since the enemy can just proc it with one ability and then wait out the duration. Other choice is Second Wind, which will allow you to heal back up after trades a bit, or if you are getting poked a lot in lane.

Revitalize is a good choice to increase your healing and shield size to make you a bit more harder target to kill in lane/fights.

Inspiration gives you more sustain tools so you can stay longer in lane and scale.

Free boots, what can I say? You essentially get free 300g, only con being that you have to wait for your boots for a while, but getting kills/assists fastens it a bit. This rune is good since it allows you to sink gold into other items. Other choice is Biscuit Delivery for harsher lanes in case you need more sustain.

You'll be starting most of the time with a Corrupting Potion, so this rune works well with the item since you get some extra movespeed while the potion is active, and in addition you get some good instant healing with this which can catch your opponents off-guard during an early fight.

Martial Cadence: Jarvan IV]'s initial basic attack on a target deals bonus physical damage. This effect cannot occur again on the same target for a short duration.


Dragon Strike: Jarvan IV extends his lance, dealing physical damage and lowering the Armor of enemies in its path. Additionally, this will pull Jarvan to his Demacian Standard, knocking up enemies in his path. This effect can be triggered even when immobilized.



Golden Aegis: Jarvan IV calls upon the ancient kings of Demacia to grant him a shield and slow surrounding enemies.


Demacian Standard: This ability grants Jarvan IV extra attack speed passively. Activating Demacian Standard allows Jarvan IV to place a Demacian flag that deals magic damage on impact and grants Attack Speed to nearby allied champions. Jarvan IV can cast Dragon Strike towards the flag to dash into the flags location, knocking enemies up in his path.


Cataclysm: Jarvan IV heroically leaps into battle at a target with such force that he terraforms the surrounding area to create an arena around them. Nearby enemies are damaged at the moment of impact. Re-activating the ability brings the arena down.

Corrupting Potion Gives you good early sustain in lane, and also allows you to deal some extra damage if you pop this during a trade.

Doran's Shield A good starting item against poke lanes (ranged matchups mostly). Allows you to be a bit more safe during laning phase.

The Black Cleaver Great item for Jarvan IV. It gives you tanky stats, some CDR, damage and even some armor shred. Additionally hitting a target also gives you some mobility so you can stick on a target a bit easier.

Ninja Tabi Get this vs auto-attack reliant champions, or in general if the enemy team has a fed ADC as an example and you aren't that worried about getting CC'd.

Mercury's Treads Solid choice vs high-CC comps or if the enemy team just has more magic damage than auto-attack reliant champions.

Titanic Hydra Since you'll be building Tiamat most games, it's a solid choice to finish it as Titanic Hydra. The cone passive + active give you good waveclear and an auto reset for more burst. Also in general the item makes you more tanky which is always helpful since you'll be acting as an initiator/frontline most of the time.

Sterak's Gage Good item to help you prevent from getting bursted. Since you'll be engaging fights most of the time you are naturally going to be bursted often so this helps you a lot with it's stats it gives you + the shield and tenacity.

Dead Man's Plate Another good tanky item. It gives you some mobility once stacked up, armor and HP and when it's stacked up and you autoattack someone it deals some extra damage, which makes you more threatening to the squishies on enemy team when you engage a fight. The effect also slows the target at max stacks for 50% for 1 second.

Guardian Angel As the other items, this is again to help you survive when you initiate a fight. Guardian Angel is a great item itself as if you get caught, it gives your team some time to rotate to help you/collapse on the enemy team, or just a great item to protect your bounty if you have a big lead.

During early laning, try to take advantage of your passive Martial Cadence since it's damage is pretty respectable. That combined with your poke from Dragon Strike you should be able to do some decent trades. You can also simply just do a trade using Golden Aegis and your passive proc since Shield Bash gives you some extra damage after you activate your shield.

When you want to engage a fight/you are getting a gank from your jungler, try to see if you can slow the enemy down with Golden Aegis first and then Demacian Standard + Dragon Strike on them.

Your E+Q combo also gives you an escape tool for enemy ganks so always keep good vision around your lane and try not to spam your abilities so you have them up in case you need them to escape.

After level 6 you can setup ganks really easily for your jungler with your ultimate Cataclysm, forcing a Flash in most cases or a kill if the enemy has no way to escape your arena. You can also look to roam mid lane/TP bot lane since you have good initiation and lockdown with your abilities.



Out of lane you are mostly an engage tool for your team. Look to clear sidelanes if possible since you have good waveclear after you complete Titanic Hydra, but most of the time you want to stick with your team since that's where Jarvan IV really shines. Late game you are going to get out-dueled by most bruisers so you wont be able to match their splitpush in most cases outside defending.

Try to look for teamfights with your engage tools but be sure your team can follow up so you don't just suicide into the enemy team.

The Demacian Standard+ Dragon Strike+ Flash combo: The knockup from your combo is tied to Jarvan IV's model, so if you Flash before your E+Q animation finishes the knockup carries over to the location you Flash on to. With this trick you can do surprising engages on the enemies when they think you missed your combo.

Your ultimate: When you engage a fight, you most of the time start with your E+Q combo. If you hit an enemy with it, don't always straight away ult on them since if they have Flash up, they will just escape your arena leaving you with no tools to catch up to them for a while. Your ult has a small leap range so you can potentially follow them if they Flash away from you after you E+Q them.



Will add more in the future.

Jarvan IV is a great champion to pick if your team needs engage as Jarvan IV has good tools to do that. Additionally he will pose a threat to the enemy teams squishies with his burst damage and lockdown. Have fun locking your enemies down into Cataclysm as Jarvan IV! If you enjoyed the guide upvote it and maybe check out my other guide on Jax! Link to the Jax guide And of course if you enjoyed the guide and you are interested on seeing some live gameplay toss a follow on Twitch.tv, I don't have a proper schedule atm but I stream every week a couple times! Also some of the code used in the making of this guide is from http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/making-a-guide-101506#chapter11 @jhoijhoi - PH45