Hello everyone! I'm just the Average League Player. I'm not the best player, not even high elo, but I have a lot of fun with Talon, so I wanted to share a pint of my experience with him with you guys, maybe you'll find him as fun as I do?

My peak elo has been Gold I. I think that's needed to clarify, but I was Top 100 on the world with Talon at one point, so I think I know what I'm talking about when it comes to Talon.

I like his design, he is, in my opinion, not only one of the best design assassins, but he is the empytome of the class as well, there's a reason the icon of the Assassin Class is a guy with a coat, and the wiki features Talon as the example of an assassin! You learn Talon, you learn the basics for everyone on his class!

Why you should play Talon?
As of right now, patch 13.6, Talon has been buffed. His base mana, passive damage, W damage and R damage have all been increased.
Another good reason, is that Talon is an easy to pick up assassin that may be able to learn core mechanics, like tempo, roaming timing, and picking up waves.

What are the drawbacks of playing this champion?
Talon is an easy champion, you don't need to be an expert to know what does he do, and because of that, he is highly exploitable. If Talon can't win lane, and can't even walk up to shove, he is doomed to either let his lane oponent take an enormous advantage, or risk it and roam, which makes him a high risk, average reward champion.

Electrocute will deal a good amount of damage to the enemy, and it's easy to activate as Talon, just the W Q Auto will activate this aditional burst.

Sudden Impact grants Lethality when jumping, which means, you'll get extra Lethality for the next few seconds after an E, Ranged Q, or even R, since it also activates when leaving stealth.

or Eyeball Collection grants damage per takedown, until a maximum of 10. You can use Zombie Ward instead for the same effect, but with Ward takedowns instead of enemy champions. This option will also help with your vision score and will help your map to look more visible.

Treasure Hunter makes you get some extra gold after a kill, up until five individual takedowns, which grant you the highest extra gold posible.

Magical Footwear will give you free boots after 12 minutes (each takedown reduces the timer by 45 seconds). These boots also give +10 Movement Speed to all the Tier 2 Boots, this is why we can skip them as the second purchase and go straight for the second item, Tier 1 is fast enough with this rune

Minion Demat is usefull to push the wave better, we use all three on the Caster Minions, so we can deal 12% more damage to them and push the wave even faster

The third Rune Shard can be Armor or MR, depends on the enemy laner, and thr first two, Adaptive Force because some extra AD is allways wellcome

There are alternative runes, both syles are up there

I usually take on D & on F. Pretty standard summoner spells for an assassin.

Ignite grants you a lot of kill pressure, being extra true damage over five seconds. Can and will help finishing off a kill, or decreasing healing before the all-in. Ignite is an agressive choice, and pretty easy to use effectively

Flash has a lot of uses, for starters, it lets you potition yourself instantly, so it can be used as an evasive tool, or in company of Talon's W to redirect his blades, you can also toggle Q before flashing, just to be sure you jump on top of your objective and deal damage as soon as posible

So, let's start with the important stuff, which items should you start with?
The Long Sword is your best bet. It's a component for every single one of your items, and is the item with the highest AD for less than 500 Gold, as it costs 350 Gold, you have 150 available for either three pots, or the superior option
The Refillable Potion helps a lot with lane sustain, and, since it reloads itself everytime you recall, this item has infinite value

Which items should you focus on acquiring early in the game?
& This two are your bread and butter. Both are components, not only for three of your four mythic options, but they also develop into other Talon items, like , , , etc.

Which items are core and should be bought every game?
Here's the thing, with Talon, each game has a situational core build, you can check all of the options and why each setup in the "Build" section of the guide

Talon's abilities wound champions for a short duration, stacking up to three times. When Talon basic attacks a fully wounded target, they bleed for 80-280 (+2.1 per bonus attack damage) physical damage over 2 seconds (levels 1-11). Talon's abilities will also wound all monsters for 120% damage.

Talon leaps to a target, dealing 65 / 85 / 105 / 125 / 145 (+1.0 bonus attack damage) physical damage on arrival. If cast within melee range, Talon does not leap but instead critically strikes his target for 150%. Whenever Noxian Diplomacy kills a unit, Talon heals for 10-70 (depending on level) and 50% of its cooldown is refunded.
Talon sends out a volley of daggers in a cone that return after a short delay. The initial hit deals 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 (+0.4 per bonus attack damage). The return hit deals 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 (+0.8 per bonus attack damage), and slows for 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60% for 1 second.

Rake deals 130% damage against monsters.

The traveling and returning pass each cannot affect the same enemy more than once.
Talon vaults over the nearest structure or terrain in a target direction. The vault's speed is affected by Talon's movement speed. Talon cannot vault over the same section of terrain for 160 / 135 / 110 / 85 / 60 seconds.
Talon disperses a ring of blades outwards 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 take 80 / 120 / 160 (+1.0 per bonus attack damage) physical damage. Each enemy can only be damaged once at the start of the ability and once at the end.

The blades can be redirected to the target of Talon's first basic attack.

You can combo easily with this abilities, as you can see, Talon's kit revolves around moving around in the map and using his passive, so no Talon combo is complete without an auto for the finishing touch.

Combo A:
, , then, after the W comes back to you, Auto to proc the passive

Combo B:
, , , Auto Attack

Comno C:
, , , Auto attack

Combo D:
Auto attack, , Auto attack

Combo E:
, , , Auto attack

You can chain it up with Prowler's Claw instead of Flash if you decided to use it

Talon is a midlane champion, who can also go as the jungler, this guide focus more on his midlane side, because I don't play jungle

Talon needs a sustain option in lane, which often comes in the form of Refillable Potions

Our strategy will be to harrass the enemy with W, just to marinate them for when the level two power spike comes around, we can kill them in a simple W Q Auto Ignite combo

We shouldn't forget about CSing. Talon's early pressure can help him to get CS easily, but that is not your main goal, your main goal is to kill the enemy laner, or at least, make them recall so you can control the map

You should pay attention to any roam oportunities, if your jungler is getting invaded, you should shove and roam to aid them as soon as possible, if your jungler is invading, you should shove and roam to make sure the enemy jungler can't kill your own, if you see the enemy toplaner going deep in the lane, you can go up there and sandwich him, if you see the botlane getting pushed, you can gank that as well, and if the toplaner made a good wave and is planing to dive, help them dive, the same can be said about the botlane.

Talon goes great with invade junglers who will go with him on his roams, and with late game junglers who bassically lend the ganking responsability to Talon on this stage of the game

At least 90 CS by 14 minutes. And that's on a non-stop roaming and when you don't farm that much, the ideal would be anything above 120 CS

When the botlane gets their turret, swap with them so they can siege midlane easier, in botlane, you have enough resources to get truly fed, and you can roam to Drake or any fight in the midlane

For this phase, is important you have at least your Mythic and at least half of your Second Item, or you'll start falling behind quicker than expected

You don't like to teamfight a lot, you like to make picks. If a TF breaks, you need to flank them and take their carry out. The carry is not allways the adc though, the carry is the one with the biggest damage output in the fight (if said carry is a tank, go for the second)

In case you can't flank, you want to play front-to-back, go in, deal damage, go out, go in, deal damage, go out, all-in onto their main force, and try to get out

You should be there to help secure objectives via scouting the area, getting rid of enemy vision, and taking out high priority targets, like the jungler for a fight for Drake or Herald, or the carry for a fight for a turret.

You should pay attention to the location of your teammates at all times just so you know if you can go in or not, the enemy jungler is the other important variable you have to give your attention, and the third is the enemy support. If you pick any of those two up, the next fight is over for the enemy

You should be split pushing and being ready to flee if they come for you, you should be aware of the position of your enemy, so you can pick them when they are alone. Most of the time they'll be busy defending midlane from the constant ARAM to be alone though.

It's important you have at least you third item. If you didn't built it second, the third MUST be the Serylda's Grudge, if you did, the third could be something like an Edge of Night or even a Black Cleaver.

The strategy for teamfights, objectives and map awareness hasn't changed. Keep an eye out for the jungler, support, and enemy carry.

If you are interested in more Talon advice or content, I do recommend watching Yamikaze's Stream and YouTube Channel, he is back after all.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Yamikaze
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/yamikazexz
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@yamikazena

Thanks for reading!