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Shaco Build Guide by

[12.12] Shaco Jungle/Support

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Shaco Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (14) More Shaco Guides

Choose Champion Build:

AD
AP
Bruiser
Tank
AP Support
AD Support

Runes: AD

1 2 3 4

Domination

Hail of Blades

Sudden Impact

Eyeball Collection

Relentless Hunter

Precision

Legend: Alacrity

Coup de Grace

Bonus:

+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

1 2

Assassin

Chilling Smite

Ignite

Items

Boots

Delayed Mythic

Galeforce

Kraken Slayer

Shieldbow

Duskblade

Eclipse

Prowler's

Ability Order Heavy Ganking

1 2 3

Shaco Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Lulu

Extreme

Hard to play into because she can polymorph you and has a lot of defensive abilites. She can negate you E damage and remove your boxes easily. Play bruiser or AP and try to force her to ult herself.

Yuumi

Ideal

Provides good engage and better one shots when going AD.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Yuumi

Ideal

Provides good engage and better one shots when going AD.

Introduction

I'm a D4 Shaco main on the NA server who loves to theorycraft builds on him. I'm Vietnamese American and am studying Cognitive Science. I plan on transferring to either Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, or UCI in 2022. If you guys want to learn more tips and tricks, let me know. I also want to note that the order of the items matter in the builds I show.

Going AD is very good if you can capitalize on the early game a lot. Factors such as laners that have good set up, enemy laners that have low mobility, squishy, or easy to dive champions. There are a lot of counters to AD Shaco so be ready to pivot into AP or bruiser in champion select. There is also Approach Velocity + Boots but it falls off heavily in the mid to late game. It's probably only good with Lethal Tempo and Conqueror builds. Against champions that have invulnerability like Tryndamere and Kayle, CDR boots are better than Berserker's so you can play around your Q cool down. CDR boots is generally good in team fights, the early game, and if you are behind. It is more team reliant than Berserker's since you are playing around your Q and ultimate more often. Berseker's is generally good in 1v1s, faster burst, and better dueling.

AP is stronger in the mid to late game because of how strong your utility and DoT is. You want to try to be as useful as possible in teamfights because they last very shortly. Hold onto yellow trinket to provide vision for your team in the early game since you aren't that strong. At the 20-25 minute mark, it's fine to swap to sweepers afterwards. To explain Sorcerer Shoes versus Lucidity Boots, you want to consider how much magic penetration you have. The minimum magic resistance for a champion at level 18 is 38.5 and Void Staff gives you 17.5 from this value. Any other magic penetration item will let you reach around 38.5 so you only need 2 total.

Tips:

If they have a lot of shields (+3), replace Sorcerer Shoes with CDR boots and Mejai's with Shadowflame.

Sell boots for Shadowflame late game.

Best items in terms of damage are:

1. Demonic Embrace

2. Horizon Focus

3. Cosmic Drive

AD, AP, or Bruiser?

Your team comp comes first when deciding to go AD or AP. If you have at least 1 AP, then you can go either build. If you have 2 or more AP (including your support), you must go AD because MR stacking will be a problem for your team to play against. If you have no AP, you should go AP. If you think at least two of your laners will be pushed in a lot or if your team has good setup for you, you can go AD. If you think that your team is not vulnerable to dives, ganks, and the enemy jungler is also weak at ganking, then going AP is good. If your team scales well, AD is good in order to snowball them. Otherwise, you need to scale well, so AP is good. AP generally has better matchups than AD if it comes down to specific champions counters like Rek'Sai and Twisted Fate. It's very easy to gank as AD and create leads, make plays, and be more useful compared to AP.

Objectives

Normally as AD, you want to focus on the Herald a lot so that you can open up the map more and end the game faster. For AP, dragons are better to take because you want to scale into the game better. Save your Herald until the 14:00 minute mark so that you can destroy towers once they are at the Herald threshold charge health. Hextech dragon is hard to solo as AP since its attacks chain, so don't try it unless you can get it with your team. Second Herald is generally good if your team is ahead or even so sieging is better. It's also good if you don't have all the outer tower destroyed yet as well.

Trinket

On AD, I normally keep the yellow trinket if the enemy jungler is very active around the map in the early game. I'll get sweepers after the 10 minute mark if that happens, but getting sweepers on your first back is also good. For AP, I usually hold onto the yellow trinket since I'm not actively looking for plays on the map; you are more trying to counter gank and follow up on teammate plays if possible. I tend to get sweepers maybe after 20-25 minutes depending on the game state and how ahead we are.

Support

The goal of AP support Shaco is to try to neutralize the laning phase because there are a lot of more useful supports in the meta right now. Later, you want to try to get boxes in choke points a lot, mostly in jungle entrances from mid lane and leading into the river. You can't really initiate a play so you want to try to follow up on as many plays as you can. The benefit of playing AP support Shaco is that you don't have to worry about farming but setting up for objectives and covering flanks.

Support Mythics

There is a lot of technology you can use in support such as Liandry's, Luden's, Everfrost, and AD. First, you want to look at if your team has any reliable AP damage. If not, then going Liandry's or Luden's is good. If they have two or more champions that stack HP, go Liandry's. Otherwise, Luden's is good. Second priority is if your team needs CC, which Everfrost is good. As for AD, it's good when your team has 2 or more AP champions; there's either Lethality or Crit. I personally think Crit is better in lower elos because lethality becomes incredibly weak in the mid to late game. Umbral Glaive is a fantastic item but you cannot do much in teamfights. The Shieldbow build is good since it gives you a defensive option and scale slightly well into the mid game.

Early Game

Run to jungle entrance near your raptors and place a box in the bush behind your red but closest to the river. At 50 seconds, start placing boxes where the boxes will be able to solo the small raptors. There are three methods; the first one I'll discuss is the 2 boxes at raptors and 1 at red. The first two boxes should be at raptors and the last box should be at red where you can get a leash sometimes and then smite the big raptors when it approaches you. The second method is the same strategy but instead, put your third box slightly out of range of red. Start at your raptors and auto the big raptor. Afterwards, Q over to red and pull it to your third box. The last method is putting three boxes at raptors and doing red at the same time. When the big raptor approaches you while on red, you just need to auto it once.

After doing any of these methods, place another box while red is feared. Q over the wall and do krugs. If you did not use smite, smite krugs here. When the medium krugs are at 20% HP place a box and see what lane you can gank. If you can't, then do your wolves into gromp. Hit the vision plant after blue to see if the enemy jungler is on the crab at your blue side. If not, proceed to do crab into gank or blue. Otherwise, decide if you can contest the crab or just do your blue buff. You should have one smite, so if you can't fight for the first one, walk over to the second one and contest. If it is difficult to cross map and the enemy laners have a lot of priority, it's fine to clear your raptors into your krugs again.

Mid Game

Pathing doesn't matter that much anymore. If you see an easy kill or a countergank, commit to it as long as you know your limits. Otherwise it's better to farm and/or push mid before objectives spawn. If enemy mid tower is still up, do the Herald if you can and use it when your side lanes are pushing. Don't go for Heralds if you team can't push without dying; there is essentially no use when you can contest towers. Do dragons if you can and if you have ultimate. Flipping objectives is fine since your E has a strong execute. Make sure to buffer your E first and then smite so that you can combo the epic monster for the objective secure.

Late Game

Play around your carries or engagers; decide if you can play front to back or back to front depending on who is strong on their team. If there is no answer to one of their frontliners, play around killing him first. If the enemy team is playing safe, you don't have to commit to an engage. If your team is behind, it depends on whether you are AP or AD. If you are AD, you want to look to start the fight first. If you are AP, you want to wait for them to come to you. Don't Q in blindly unless you know where their team is; their sweepers can potentially spot you.

Thoughts on Mythics

Prowler's Claw: The item is powerful, but if Galeforce out damages this item anyways then I see no point in going for it. Not a good option.

Eclipse: There are two scenarios: one where you kill their carry and one where you don't kill them. For scenario one, if you have Duskblade, you go invis and it buys just enough time for your Q to come back up, so you get out for free. Eclipse isn't really worth it here. For scenario two, Eclipse is better because you get a shield to survive them kiting you. However, what's the point engaging when I know I can't kill them? Eclipse doesn't have CDR, Attack Speed, or strong burst. It's a strong dueling item, good in 1v1s but bad in teamfights.

Duskblade: I think this is actually the best assassin mythic mostly because of the amount of CDR you get and the invis passive for safety measures. If the enemy team is vulnerable and are mostly likely not to buy defensive items, then this item is really strong. A good option when they have multiple AD squishies so that you can continue to get resets on Duskblade.

Galeforce: I think this item is the best in terms of singular damage on someone mobile. A good option into comps that have only one carry threat.

Kraken Slayer: This item is also good into singular carry comps when the carry is immobile. You can also fight a lot of bruisers and tanks. The reason why you don't have to go Duskblade here or with Galeforce is that there is not enough damage threat against you that you will need the invisibility from Duskblade.

Immortal Shieldbow: Good defensive crit item that scales well into late game. Build when the enemy team has carries that build defensively but are still vulnerable.

Goredrinker: This is a really good item into comps that are very unfavorable for you. You are basically going a bruiser build and dealing a substantial amount of damage. This is mostly good into comps that have very high damage output and burst. It's also good when your team needs a tank.

Stridebreaker: Good overall bruiser item that lets you have good engages to setup your team. You also get a lot of DPS as well as damage from this item. You want to be able to stick to them with the active and passive while being tanky enough and being a threat to them.

Sunfire Aegis: They keep buffing this item but I the problem with this item is that it takes too long for the passive to start kicking in. Once it does, your health is already so low that you need to get out of the fight. The item is also quite expensive and the damage is not noticeable early game. If you are trying this build, Lethal Tempo and Approach Velocity + Magical Boots are your runes to go. It's easy to stack Lethal Tempo in 1v1s but in teamfights, it is difficult if there are multiple people focusing you.

Frostfire: This is a very interesting and good item for a bruiser build. The tankiness you get with the mythic passive is nice and the extra slows from the passive helps with sticking to targets. It's like Sunfire but more utility focused. However, after 11.24, the nerfs are too significant so Sunfire is probably better.

Trinity Force: Still trying to figure out what scenario this item is good in but I think it's good against duelists and bruisers. It's a very "jack of all trades" item but pairing it with Lethal Tempo lets both fully stack at the same time. Testing still in progress.

Liandry's: Probably the best AP mythics into teams that have two or more HP stackers. Your damage is centered around your boxes, so make sure you can place them well.

Luden's: Good into teams that have all squishies. Maxing boxes first is important for fast clearing but your E is your main damage source. Your Es can kill squishies at 40% if you are ahead enough. There are also 2 builds: assassin and poke. I'm still waiting for them to fix the Horizon Focus bug on boxes but I think both are viable depending on the enemy's comp and your comp.

Everfrost: This item is pretty cheap now but the clear compared to Liandry's and Luden's is not as fast. It's good for getting a guaranteed box so maybe good with a catch comp or if you need CC. You also want to go Cosmic Drive with this build since Everfrost counts as a proc and your box will deal more damage once you combo them with your smite and E.

Situational AD Items

Normally, it is fine to sacrifice Collector and then Essence Reaver if you need Serpent's Fang and/or Mortal Reminder. However, I think it's possible to play without them since crit can destroy shields very easily and having to opt for one of these items can stunt your damage a lot. For suppression, you can go Mercurial but again you are taking away your own damage.

Situational Bruiser and Tank Items

Edge of Night: Good into champions like Nocturne and Twisted Fate, mostly mages.

Wit's End: Good into two or more AP champions.

Death's Dance: Good into at least 2 high burst AD champions.

Chempunk Chainsword: Good into comps that have high healing and if you are bruiser.

Guardian Angel: Good if the enemy has at least one AD champion and your mythic is either Stridebreaker or Trinity Force because both of those have low survivability. Also good filler item if armor is needed.

Deadman's Plate: Good overall armor item if you don't need any of the other armor items. Also good into champions that are mobile so you can stick to them.

Maw: If the enemy has no AD and all AP this item is a good for the bruiser build.

Black Cleaver: Good into tanks and goes well with a Stridebreaker bruiser build.

Randuin's: Good against teams that have at least 2 crit users, such as Graves, Yasuo, and Yone.

Frozen Heart: Good against champions that deal on-hit damage, such as Vayne, Kog'Maw, Jax, and Irelia.

Anathema's: Good item when the enemy team only has one source of damage of that type. Very supportive item, only build when your team can carry.

Silvermere: Good against suppression champions like Malzahar, Warwick, and Skarner.

Knight's Vow: Good against assassins and when your team can carry. Very supportive item, only buy when your team is strong and your support doesn't have it yet.

Force of Nature: Good against heavy AP comps or full AP comps.

Warmog's Armor: Good against poke champions like Maokai and Xerath.

Sterak's Gage: Good against high burst champions like Veigar and Syndra.

Gargoyle's Stoneplate: Good filler item if you have nothing else to build last item. Also good if they have evenly split AD and AP on the enemy team.

Demonic Embrace: Good with Frostfire and Chemtank against teams that don't have a lot of MR. Also good against high HP or melee targets.

Abyssal Mask: Good if your team has 2 or more AP champions and if the enemy team has 2 or more AP champions.

Fimbulwinter: Good with Grasp of the Undying since you want to be weaving in and out of fights.

Blade of the Ruined King: Good against most bruisers and tanks.

Tips:

If the enemy team has an assassin and it is very likely they are to build Serpent's Fang, you don't have to build Sterak's.

The max attack speed you can have is 70% until it over caps on the clone with HoB.

If you need more than one situational bruiser item, it's fine to replace Titanic Hydra.

Prioritize anti-healing first, then their resistances, then your resistances.

If the enemy team has more than two of one fulfillment, such as two tanks, two crit users, or two assassins, then you should get the corresponding item. Otherwise, you can just build the item if that champion is incredibly fed.

Good Item Synergies:

Stridebreaker + Deadman's Plate

Sunfire + Wit's End

Goredrinker + Death's Dance

Divine Sunderer + Black Cleaver

Trinity Force + Frozen Heart/Randuin's

Boots

This mostly applies to Galeforce,Prowler's, and Shieldbow, but you can pivot to either CDR boots, Berserker's, Steelcaps, Mercury Treads, or Swifties depending on the situation. If their ADC has defensive abilities then go Berserker's. If they have all AD champions, go Steelcaps. If they have hard CC on at least 3 of their champions, go Mercury Treads. If they have a lot of slows, go Swifties.

Good Bans

I ban Evelynn because of how hard it is to lock her down. Next in line is probably Kayn because of how slippery he is as assassin. As bruiser, his W knock up and healing is very difficult to counter. If those two are banned, I will ban Graves because playing standard AD into him is very difficult because of his armor stacking on E and smokescreen. After that, I will probably ban Lulu because she hard counters AD or Lee Sin because he out-duels AD Shaco.

Good Synergies

Good synergies are champions tha have easy CC or engage like Alistar or Leona when playing AD. For AP, teams that have a very turtle composition, meaning defensive, are good to play with since you can also peel. Interesting combos you can do with other champions are Orianna ult, Shen ult, and Yuumi ult since you will be invisible when those ultimates are used on you.