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Recommended Items
Runes: Comet
+8 Ability Haste
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order R>W>E>Q
Backstab (PASSIVE)
Shaco Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Zeri
If Zeri is meta it will be my permaban since she can destroy a box with a Q at level 1 which can make you useless in lane.
Jhin
Jhin is my personal favourite combo for Shaco support. You can engage and damage an enemy with an auto or your shiv so Jhin can then root with his W, allowing you to get an almost guaranteed box fear off on the target and making the target extremely vulnerable. Alternatively, Jhin can use his W when an enemy walks into a box. This forces them to take more damage from your box and allows for follow up.
Jhin
Jhin is my personal favourite combo for Shaco support. You can engage and damage an enemy with an auto or your shiv so Jhin can then root with his W, allowing you to get an almost guaranteed box fear off on the target and making the target extremely vulnerable. Alternatively, Jhin can use his W when an enemy walks into a box. This forces them to take more damage from your box and allows for follow up.
Champion Build Guide
Hey, i'm Maxwell A.K.A Feint, a Diamond 1 peak AP Shaco connoisseur from the UK who has been playing league since season 7. In my first season I mained Zac jungle (shoutout Reckful) and I have memories of getting dunked on by Shaco players who would just take complete control of my jungle. I would legitimately get worried when I saw a Shaco player on the enemy team LUL.
This led to me trying the clown myself where I continued to learn him in the jungle. As I got better with the champion I wanted to try different builds and roles, watching some Pink Ward content on YouTube sent me down the road of AP Shaco. Trying out and learning this new playstyle in the jungle was refreshing and I later moved into the top and support roles.
I hit Diamond in season 12, peaking D1 with primarily AP Shaco Support and decided to create this guide for fun. I have since decayed out of diamond due to inactivity. Keep in mind that this is all based on my own experience with the champ and the knowledge I have gained over the years.
This off-meta pick is great because it allows you to win games by outplaying your opponents with mind games when they often underestimate you. Shaco has a lot of depth to him due to this outplay potential, bringing him into the bottom lane means you don't have to spend time farming jungle camps and gives you atleast two enemies that you can mentally abuse from the start of the game.
Before you read any further if you are new to Shaco then I would recommend you learn him in the jungle with an AD build since you need some pre-existing knowledge and mechanical skill to play properly in this role.
If you are going to follow this advice then I would recommend checking out one of the following jungle guides:
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Guide Achievements:
My guide has been featured on the front page and received an honorable mention in the Season 13 Guide Contest (Off-Meta)! :)
PROS
+ Extremely fun to play and master + Great set-up for teamfights with Jack In The Box, especially with CDR items + Iconic tilt factor + Jack In The Box provides zoning and can create traps for your enemies + Can roam to gank other lanes or gain objective control for your team + Insane engage and escape with your Deceive + Gives your Jungler an early advantage with proper Jack In The Box leashing + Great outplay potential |
CONS
- Harder to play than AD Shaco as you heavily rely on utilising your Jack In The Boxes and Hallucinate explosion properly - Can struggle against certain comps, particularly high poke lanes in the early game - Vulnerable to Control Wards and Oracle Lens as these can let opponents remove your Jack In The Boxes - Certain players will grief or flame you for the pick - Needs thought behind Jack In The Box placement to be effective |
Description
Shaco's basic attacks deal bonus physical damage when striking from behind.
Deceive and Two-Shiv Poison also have additional effects when they strike an enemy from behind. Backstab is affected by Critical strike modifiers and scales with bonus AD.
How To Use
To make use of this passive you should try to Backstab enemies whenever possible as it will simply increase your damage dealt. After using Deceive striking an enemy from behind in stealth or 0.25s after exiting it will result in a guaranteed critical strike for 130% damage. Two-Shiv Poison also deals additional magic damage when it hits an enemy from behind.
Description
Shaco becomes invisible for a few seconds, and after a 0.125 second delay Flashes 400 units towards the target location.
After breaking the invisibility, Shaco's next basic attack within 0.25 seconds is a guaranteed critical strike for 130% damage and deals bonus physical damage affected by critical strike modifiers.
Deceives invisibility breaks when Shaco uses a basic attack or casts Two-Shiv Poison, but not from casting Hallucinate. Casting Jack In The Box causes Shaco to briefly shimmer revealing his position.
How To Use
Deceive tricks are discussed in the Shaco Tech section of the guide but this ability basically used to engage or escape since the blink will let you jump over walls and the stealth allows you to move in an unpredictable way in order to lose the opponents chasing you or to get into a better position to continue a fight.
Description
Shaco places a Jack In The Box at the target location which becomes stealthed after 2 seconds, lasting for up to 40 (+5% AP) seconds. The box is invulnerable and untargetable to enemies while stealthed but can be revealed with the use of Control Wards and Oracle Lens.
Upon enemy contact the box will pop out, causing all nearby enemies to flee and have their movement speed reduced for 2 seconds.
Once triggered, the box will start firing every 0.5 seconds at all nearby visible enemies, dealing magic damage with each attack. If the box attacks only one unit, it deals increased damage.
How To Use
Placing a Jack In The Box lets you and your teammates use it as a "safe zone" where enemies will be feared and damaged when activated giving you time to escape or engage on the vulnerable player.
The fear that the box provides lets your teammates (such as Ezreal or Ziggs) connect their abilities with the enemy for free, making it impossible for the enemy to dodge. It can also be great set-up for champions like Diana to engage and oneshot them.
This ability is one of your primary sources of damage so it's necessary that you and your teammates play around them. Try to set-up a series of boxes to repeatedly fear and damage your enemies. Tricks are discussed with examples in the Shaco Tech section of the guide.
Description
Shaco's basic attacks slow enemies for 2 seconds while Two-Shiv Poison is off cooldown.
Shaco throws a dagger at the target enemy that deals magic damage, increased by 50% if they are below 30% of their maximum health, and slows them for 3 seconds.
How To Use
Once you're in the mid to late game (when you have a decent sized mana pool and some CDR items) you should basically be using this ability on cooldown to poke your enemies, unless you are waiting to execute them with the bonus damage when under 30% hp or are still struggling with mana.
Remember that Deceive can provide gap closing to finish off enemies who are just out of reach, but that leaves you with only Jack In The Boxes or Hallucinate to escape.
Saving the Two-Shiv Poison CD will make your auto-attacks slow enemies for 2 seconds and will allow you to use the ability when the enemy is at a lower hp to make the most out of the execute. Using the ability early will let you slow an enemy for 3 seconds and potentially mean you can use the ability multiple times in a single fight.
Description
Shaco vanishes for 0.5 seconds and then Flashes 400 units in the target direction while creating a copy of himself that is summoned in the opposite direction, remaining within control range of him as a controllable clone for up to 18 seconds.
RECAST: Shaco commands the clone to move to a target location.
When the Hallucination dies or expires, it explodes, dealing magic damage to enemies near it and leaving behind three mini-boxes at its location causing enemies to flee for 1 second.
How To Use
Hallucinate allows you to play much more aggressive than you otherwise could because the massive damage and AOE fear it provides has a lot of value. It will also make enemies gamble which is the real Shaco and which is the clone, as you practise with this ability you will get better at tricking the enemies into attacking your clone but I also discuss tips on how to do this in the Shaco Tech section of the guide.
Using Deceive and then Hallucinate will leave you stealthed and drop your clone often making enemies think it's the real Shaco causing them to quickly use cooldowns on you leading them to fear and damage themselves. This is great to use in a cluster of enemies in a teamfight.
......Flash Ignite
You might be saying to yourself "...but Shaco has flash built into his kit, why would I take it as a summoner spell aswell?", well it makes you even more slippery and it also opens up alot of playmaking opportunities. For example, say you get caught out of position using Deceive over a wall to ward a bush, but an enemy Ahri happens to be there. She throws her Charm at you once you exit stealth, so you flash away towards a set of Jack In The Boxes you placed earlier where she immediately uses Spirit Rush to chase after you thinking she caught you with no CDs to escape. Ahri then runs into a series of boxes where you burst her down, turning a death into a kill. |
Ignite is core to Shaco, giving him additional kill pressure and playmaking which helps win your fights. To execute low hp enemies from far away, you can use Flash, Deceive and then Two-Shiv Poison with Ignite. At any point in the game when an enemy walks into a well set-up trap, Ignite can provide the extra damage needed to kill a target but also works as a source of antiheal, applying grevious wounds to the enemies for the duration of the Ignite. |
......Exhaust Ignite
Taking Exhaust provides safety for your team from dangerous enemies at the cost of the extra elusiveness that Flash provides. Reducing a targets damage dealt by 40% and movement speed by 30% for 3 seconds can be vital for buying enough time to shut down champions such as Yasuo or Master Yi. The movement speed slow is actually quite useful on Shaco because it makes it harder for enemies to run away from a freshly placed Jack In The Box. |
The additional kill pressure that Ignite provides is a core part of Shaco as it helps you win fights aswell as finish off low health enemies. In combination with Jack In The Box traps it allows you to solo kill enemies with proper set-up and execution. It also works as a source of antiheal, applying grevious wounds to an enemy for the duration of the ignite. |
This Arcane Comet rune build is perfect for Shaco support since it provides us with extra damage on our poke aswell as additional mana, CDR and lane sustain which are all incredibly valuable to us.
Sorcery Runes
Arcane Comet This keystone gives Shaco a nice damage boost on his poke every 20 - 8 seconds and gives us access to the sorcery tree for massive runes like Manaflow Band. In the early game, you have a small mana pool and long CDs on abiltiies which make the sorcery tree so much more useful as it mitigates some of these problems. |
Manaflow Band Mana issues are a big handicap for an AP Shaco as you will notice in the early levels, since it means we can't always spam our abilities on cooldown which is what makes us useful. Having the additional 250 mana and 1% missing mana restoration every 5 seconds is massive and what makes us take Manaflow Band over the utility from Nimbus Cloak or the sustain that Nullifying Orb would provide. |
Transcendence Just like Manaflow Band, this is the best rune by far for Shaco among the options offered. The additional CDR and cooldown refund makes you able to set up plays faster and with more boxes. Having Deceive up earlier can also mean the difference between life or death. |
Scorch This rune will give you some extra poke damage on your abilities and will proc Arcane Comet if it comes off cooldown. This can get you a kill on a 1% health enemy who believes they have escaped. Once you have purchased your Liandry's Torment then this burn can also proc from Scorch if it comes off cooldown. |
Inspiration Runes
Biscuit Delivery Like a lot of supports do, I opt to take Biscuit Delivery since it provides sustain for the laning phase by restoring 10% of your missing mana and health. Consuming these biscuits will also increase mana cap by 50 or a total of 150 mana. |
Cosmic Insight This rune simply provides summoner spell and item haste which helps us with playmaking with Flash or Ignite being up more often and even being able to use items like Zhonya's Hourglass more frequently. |
Rune Shards
Swap Armor for Magic Resist if the enemies have more AP than AD. |
While this isn't an extremely popular rune page, it can be very useful in games with melee heavy or immobile team comps as they will be slowed and have their damage output reduced by the glacial rays. Shacos Jack In The Box and Hallucinate fear along with Everfrosts root are the only ways to proc Glacial Augment, the keystone is very satisfying to play with and can give some nice utility at the cost of the additional poke damage from Arcane Comet.
Inspiration Runes
Glacial Augment This keystone will cause 3 glacial rays to emanate from an enemy champion when immobolized from Shacos Jack In The Box or Hallucinate fear. When enemies are in these glacial rays they will deal 15% less damage. |
Magical Footwear You will receieve free Slightly Magical Boots at 12 minutes reduced by 45 seconds for every takedown you acquire. This item will give you 35 bonus movement speed and will save you 300g. It can be slightly annoying gaining boots later on, especially if you are planning on roaming a lot in the early game. If you want to build Zhonya's Hourglass then you could substitute this rune for Perfect Timing. |
Biscuit Delivery Early game Shaco can struggle against certain compositions such as Lucian and Nami, getting poked out of lane while suffering from his long cooldowns and small mana pool in the early levels. Biscuit Delivery restores 10% of missing health and mana, helping you stay in lane and continue to use your abilities. Keep in mind the lower your health and mana is, the more efficient the biscuits will be. |
Cosmic Insight This rune simply provides Shaco some additional summoner spell and item haste. This means you will be able to use your summoner spells and active items like Zhonya's Hourglass more often. |
Sorcery Runes
Manaflow Band Mana issues are a big handicap for an AP Shaco as you will notice in the early levels, since it means we can't use our abilities which is what makes us useful. Having the additional 250 mana and 1% missing mana restoration every 5 seconds is massive and what makes us take Manaflow Band over the utility from Nimbus Cloak or the sustain that Nullifying Orb would provide. |
Transcendence Just like Manaflow Band, this is the best rune by far for Shaco among the options offered. The additional CDR and cooldown refund makes you able to set up plays faster, with more boxes. Having Deceive or Hallucinate up earlier can also mean the difference between life or death. |
Rune Shards
Swap Armor for Magic Resist if the enemies have more AP than AD. |
Core Items (Comet Build)
Ionian Boots of Lucidity These boots will provide 20 ability haste and 12 summoner spell haste allowing you to use your abilities and summoner spells more often. CDR is really important and will help you have better and faster set-up for team fights, objectives or any fight in general. |
Liandry's Anguish Liandry's is the best AP mythic on Shaco because each Jack In The Box attack will proc the passive meaning it will be up on the target for a longer period of time. This item also provides Shaco with 80 AP, 600 mana and 20 ability haste, all of which are very important stats. Building this item means you can purchase a Lost Chapter, this will give you some more mana sustain to continue doing your thing. |
Cosmic Drive Cosmic Drive provides all the stats we need with 30 ability haste, 65 AP, 200 health and 5% base movement speed. On top of all these stats you also gain 15% bonus movement speed decaying to 5% over 2 seconds after hitting a champion with 3 seperate attacks or abilities and a whopping 40 AP until exiting combat. Everything about this item greatly improves our playmaking, making us even more slippery on top of the extra AP and other stats. |
Boot Choices
Ionian Boots of Lucidity As mentioned before, these boots are your core because they will provide 20 ability haste and 12 summoner spell haste allowing you to use your abilities and summoner spells more often. CDR is really important and will help you have better and faster set-up for team fights, objectives and any fight in general. Building your Ionian Boots of Lucidity early provides you with much needed CDR in Shacos most vulnerable stage. |
Sorcerer's Shoes If you need the additional magic pen you can choose to build Sorcerer's Shoes over Ionian Boots of Lucidity but I would recommend to instead build an item such as Void Staff or Shadowflame instead. |
Situational Items (Most common items first)
(Most common items first)
Vigilant Wardstone Most games Vigilant Wardstone will be completely worth building since vision is so important. This item increases the cap of Control Wards you can carry to 3, allows you to place 2 Control Wards and 4 Stealth Wards at any given time. Additionally, it provides a 12% increase to bonus ability haste, bonus ability power and bonus health. This item transforms from Watchful Wardstone into Vigilant Wardstone at level 13, because of this you will start building this level 13 onwards. Some games you will need to substitute this item for something more important such as increased survivability, tank shred etc. This item only costs 1100g! |
Morellonomicon Nowadays, half of the games played will require antiheal because of the vast amounts of healing in the game whether its Soraka, Sylas or even just a fed Vayne with Immortal Shieldbow. If there is not a crazy amount of healing in the game you can often get away with just buying a Oblivion Orb after your Liandry's Torment and completing your Morellonomicon as one of your final items. However, the order of which you finish this item is up to you (as long as its after Liandry's Torment) and you should base this on how important it is to get the extra 20% grevious wounds on targets under 50% health. |
Zhonya's Hourglass This item is a life saver against any team composition and can be used to dodge skillshots like Lux's Final Spark. Becoming invulnerable and untargetable for 2.5 seconds is incredible at buying enough time for your team to back you up if you get caught or even just to delay to get your CDs up to escape. |
Demonic Embrace The max health burn from this item is great at shredding enemies with large health pools like Zac or Cho'Gath. You should keep in mind when you are versus these champions, they typically stack resistances too. Check the enemy itemisation and if they have a decent amount of MR then you should probably build an item like Void Staff. Demonic Embrace is a nice damage boost item even against a team composition that doesn't have tanks and can be perfect against a team with little to no MR. |
Dark Seal If you think there is any chance of snowballing the game you can pick up an early Dark Seal and if you start getting a good amount of stacks you can commit to a Mejai's Soulstealer. Just remember that you will be delaying your Liandry's Torment by 350g. |
Mejai's Soulstealer Building this item is high risk and high reward. It's great if you are confident you can snowball a lead, if you die you will lose 10 stacks resulting in -50 AP which is quite devastating after investing your gold on into this item. However, if you manage to fully stack your Mejai's Soulstealer this will provide you with 125 AP on top of the base stats! |
Shadowflame This item is useful against squishy oppponents and provides a noticeable boost to your damage output. The main part of this item is the 100 AP aswell as some additional magic pen. Void Staff would be a better choice against tankier targets who have more MR. |
Void Staff You would build Void Staff over Shadowflame because it provides 45 magic pen compared to the 10-20 from Shadowflame at the cost of 35 less AP. If enemies are tankier and stacking lots of MR then Void Staff is the more worthwhile purchase. |
Banshee's Veil This is a great survivability item since it gives you a spell shield that blocks the next ability, refreshing after 40 seconds of taking no damage from enemy champions. Crazy value can be gained from purchasing this item against certain team compositions. Examples include Karthus, Veigar, Annie and Nunu & Willump. Banshee's Veil also provides 80 AP, 45 MR and 10 ability haste for the low price of only 2600g! |
Rabadon's Deathcap Similarly to Mejai's Soulstealer this is a insane item for snowballing which would usually be built as one of your final items. It provides 120 AP with a massive passive of increasing your AP by 35%, which when you have other items can give you crazy value. In situations where you are snowballing hard or need the damage boost in the late game, you can build this. However, the 3600g price makes it harder to obtain and is the reason why you would only build it later into the game. |
AP Shaco Support Game Plan |
AP Shaco isn't really meant to be played like an assassin, instead, a lot of your time will be spent focusing on poking and irritating your enemies by throwing Two-Shiv Poison and setting up choke points, objectives and general points of interest (where you think your opponents will path towards) with Jack In The Boxes. This off-meta pick allows you to use deception to trick your enemies into starting fights that they have no chance in winning.
Throughout the entire game, you and your team want to be playing around your Jack In The Boxes because of the fear and damage it provides. If Hallucinate is off cooldown it will allow you to play much more aggressive but if not, you can play around any existing Jack In The Boxes and use Deceive to engage or escape if necessary.
To get better at this playstyle it requires experience as well as knowledge on what can be done with the champ. I have compiled a bunch of useful tricks for Shaco that will help you become a better clown, these can be seen in the next section of the guide.
So what actually is your game plan?
* Set up traps to kill enemies or provide zoning / kiting possibilties to your team * Prepare objectives with vision and traps * Start seeking plays more often once you've got your Liandry's Torment and Ionian Boots of Lucidity power spikes * Start poking and placing boxes as soon as they come off cooldown once you have these hit these powerspikes * Distract targets in teamfights so your teammates have less to deal with |
Teamfights |
This is where AP Shaco shines, creating chaos, distracting, cleaning up and killing enemies. You should start placing Jack In The Boxes about a minute before a teamfight takes place for maximum preparation, these can be used by your team to kite or to burst down enemies.
Being the support and not the jungle role allows you to focus all your attention and time on being prepared for fights or seeking out plays, because it removes the need for farming. Using Deceive to drop a Hallucinate clone in the middle of multiple enemies in a teamfight is an incredible tool that should be used often, once it gets killed you will fear and damage all enemies nearby.
Distracting enemies in a teamfight means they won't be targeting the rest of your team and because of how slippery Shaco is you can normally get away or even kill the target.
Early Game |
The most vulnerable point in the game for Shaco is the early laning phase, when you have a small mana pool and long cooldowns, this can make it hard to help your ADC against poke comps such as Lucian / Nami or Ezreal / Xerath. Against these comps you should try to soak some of this damage for your partner and play relatively safe.
Shaco's main objective in the early game is to provide safety for your ADC to farm while starting to poke for Spellthief's Edge gold and Manaflow Band procs. Grabbing your Ionian Boots of Lucidity and Liandry's Torment will give you much more impact in the game because of the extra mana, CDR and damage spike. Keep an eye on your mana bar and use Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will for sustain when necessary.
When facing engage supports like Blitzcrank you can peel for your ADC by placing a Jack In The Box in front of a hook or root. If you are expecting a gank and are lacking vision or want to push in the lane anyway, you can place Jack In The Boxes blocking the gank path. It is can also be worth buying Control Wards for drake vision and placing a few boxes if your team is planning to take it.
At this stage you should keep an eye out for potential roam opportunities as this can be extremely rewarding. However, the lack of mana and CDR can make this difficult.
Mid Game |
People will start grouping in the mid game, so preparing objectives and teamfights will become extremely important. Luckily, at this stage we will start getting our Ionian Boots of Lucidity and Liandry's Torment so we will have enough damage and CDR to be a menace.
This is the point in which roaming consistently could become the best option compared to sitting in lane, just make sure you are both gaining vision for your team and denying it for the enemies. You can even start seeking out solo plays with sufficient set-up and proper execution.
If you start an objective such as infernal drake when the enemy botlane is alive and they try to collapse on you, the Jack In The Boxes you placed before can help turn on them giving you free kills because of how much pressure they give your team. The main issue with doing something like this would be that if the enemy jungler is nearby then the drake is left to a Smite off.
Late Game |
This is Shaco's strongest point in the game because you be reaching your peak playmaking potential. Getting picks in this stage of the game is the most rewarding due to the longer respawn timers allowing you to have more time on the rift with a numbers advantage and objectives such as Elder Dragon and Baron Nashor having such massive impact on the outcome of the game.
Gaining and denying vision is even more of a priority now. Continue setting up traps as normal and communicate with your team for follow up on Jack In The Box or Hallucinate plays. You can act like you are getting caught out of position once you have set up a trap nearby causing enemies to over commit to a fight.
(Q)
- Faking Your Escape Route |
- Buy Time For CDs / backup |
- Nullify Hooks |
- Deceive Long Jumps |
(W)
- Blocking Skillshots |
- Blast Cones Will Move Boxes |
- Anti Gank Boxes |
- Use Boxes As Wards |
- Sidestep Chain Fearing |
- Dive Trick |
- Level 1 Cheese |
- Illuminati Box Placement |
(E)
- Use On Cooldown Or Save Shiv? |
- Hit The Target From Behind |
(R)
- Ult tethering |
- Fake Clone Trick |
- Skillshot Dodging |
- Clone Suicide On Towers |
- Clone Diving |
- Out Of Position Baiting |
- Hallucinate Wall Jumps |
- Inhib / Nexus Attack Bug |
Thanks for checking out my In-Depth AP Shaco Support Guide, I hope that it was useful and if there is anything that you think i've missed out on then please feel free to comment or message me on discord @ feint#4445.
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