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Shaco Build Guide by WhiteKhala

[5.5] Runeterra's most practical jester!

[5.5] Runeterra's most practical jester!

Updated on March 25, 2015
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League of Legends Build Guide Author WhiteKhala Build Guide By WhiteKhala 8,250 Views 2 Comments
8,250 Views 2 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author WhiteKhala Shaco Build Guide By WhiteKhala Updated on March 25, 2015
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Spells:

LoL Summoner Spell: Smite

Smite

LoL Summoner Spell: Ignite

Ignite

Threats & Synergies

Threats Synergies
Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny
Show All
None Low Ok Strong Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Synergies
Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Introduction

Hey, my name's WhiteKhala and this is my Shaco build. I have over 2000 games with him spread over ranked and normals on separate accounts. I began to play him and eventually main him when the Lee Sin nerfs started coming in. What I saw in Shaco was a very very challenging and unforgiving champion. Sure, when you think about it, that doesn't sound pleasant at all! But, the thing about Shaco is that he has such high potential. This made it very interesting for me, since I wanted a jungler that could do two things, mess around with your opponents and split-push. I don't think there's any champion that could be more fun to be bothering your opposing jungler with than Shaco. This is all due to his build, exactly how his q reads, you'll Deceive your enemies!
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Pros / Cons

Pros
+Arguably the best duelist in the game
+Extremely rewarding once you begin making plays
+Can kill squishies in about half a second
+Will easily turn an opponent's gank back against him thanks to his kit
+Can juke all kind of spells with his ultimate
+When ahead and people see your true potential they'll start screaming for nerfs!


+/- Very high skillcap -\+


Cons
-Hard to learn, even harder to master
-If you get set back you can nearly kiss that game goodbye
-Needs you to be very aware of the map
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Your role

A lot of people aren't sure what you're supposed to do with Shaco at different stages of the game, so I'll provide a very simple guide on that.

First things first, let's see what Shaco excels at:
+Splitpushing
+Assassinating
+Disrupting


A lot of people think Shaco is garbage at teamfighting, but this absolutely depends on the enemy team's composition. Moreso, on their tanks utility. If their whole cc relies on their squishies, this isn't that much of a problem since you can pick them off extremely fast, BUT, if a good chunk of it is on their tank's hands, you're gonna have a very bad time. So, our main rule for 5v5 teamfighting is to avoid them unless their tanks don't have hard cc Amumu/ Malphite/ Sejuani/ Jarvan IV and instead just rely on being very thick and hard to kill Renekton/ Garen/ Singed.

Early Game
You're going to want to try and only farm your buffs and as soon as this is done, you have to try and pick off the enemy jungler, either this or ward his entrances if you don't find him/aren't ready to fight him. If this is done, proceed to gank the nearest lane that seems to be ripe for a gank. Rinse and repeat.

So, our main focus early game is either to get our team or ourselves ahead, or prevent the enemy team from getting ahead of us. If we're on par with the enemy team, our Shaco will be able to transition to mid-lategame. If behind, you can get mobies (try to only stick to them on early game if you do), these will let you do in-lane ganks. Which are extremely hard to spot since you're running through your lane into the enemy laner. (I will make a video showing this gank and link it in the near future).


Mid Game
In this phase of the game, we're gonna want to try and take control of every dragon and take outter turrets. This will give us more map control, making it very easy for us to do as we please as the game progresses. In this phase, unless you have your core items, don't try to fully commit to 1v1's that you're unsure of the outcome, and don't try to do full 5v5 teamfights either, do small skirmishes (3v3, 2v2).


Late Game
This is the part of the game where a lot of new Shaco's get lost and are unsure of what their purpose is. In this stage of the game you'll try to tear down turrets while your teammates distract the enemy, whoever decides to come and stop you will die since at this time at least your full core build should be done and you will have devastating 1v1 and split-pushing potential. If more than one person comes to kill you, your teammates can push and take a tower of their own, so don't be afraid to tell them this as sometimes they'll just keep turtling. While you're split-pushing, make sure you leave a relay of boxes on the jungle entrances/exits, this way whoever comes for you will be delayed and you'll have a chance to run (if you're not planning on fighting). If you manage to pick anybody off, and no lane's are extemely pushed on your side, force a baron. Even if the enemy team somehow manages to steal it, you should be able to pick most of their team off in that fight since it's a 4v5 and you can decimate any squishy in the first second of the fight making it a 3v5. KEEP BARON WARDED.


tl;dr = Get towers/dragons. Avoid teamfight unless enemy tanks have low cc. Assassinate squishies.
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Abilities

Backstab Your passive greatly increases your damage once you position yourself to proc it. In banks, your enemies almost always will begin to run from you once they see you as to prevent a death, making your passive proc over and over!

Deceive This is your escape/engage/disengage/juke. This spell will take a bit of practice before you can get into the mindset of where you should juke so enemies don't predict your location. It's also extremely useful in 1v1's against auto attack champions that will try to win the figh

Jack In The Box It might take a little practice to get used to how much damage these boxes do, but every single box shoots 9 times before it dies. Also, every box lasts for one minute, if somebody touches it at 58 seconds, it doesn't mean it'll die in two seconds (before it's able to shoot all 9 shots). It WILL survive until all shots are fired or it's killed. Also, these boxes can (surprisingly) tank 3 dragon hits. If you set up a small trap, you can chain 2 fears on an enemy which at any point of the game can be devastating. When ganking, make sure to lay this wherever your enemy is going to run to, don't forget that they take 2 seconds to activate, so try to place them accordingly (the faster the enemy, the further you'll have to place them).

Attention! Enemy Jungler can smite your boxes if he sees you place them anywhere!


Two-Shiv Poison This is your most reliable cc, it'll add an on-hit slow as long as you don't throw the knife, we max this first because it's got the most burst early-mid game from all your spells. It provides some nice sustain in the jungle since it'll cause camps to miss if they're under it's effects. If your enemy has to run a bit before they get to safety try not to throw the knife, so that you can stick to them for a good amount of time.

Hallucinate This spell combined with your Q is what will make you a very feared duelist. It can absolutely ignore most spells (for example Syndra ult and Vi). Although timing this correctly can be tricky, specially when you consider that some spells are extremely fast, or require you to ult at a certain phase of the spell. Against most champions, if you manage to ignore their most powerful spell, the fight will be yours. You can also use it to try and get your enemies to put themselves in a dangerous situation or waste spells on it.

Attention! Your clone can be smited by the enemy jungler!
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Summoner Spells

Ignite is a must-have once you get the hang of what you're doing. It'll provide that extra damage so that you can secure your kills and will tone down the 1v1 capabilities of champions that rely on their lifesteal to 1v1 you.

ALL junglers require smite, no questions asked specially considering that this season it provides additional gold and cc/sustain/even more gold/dueling power/burst.

If you're a beginner Shaco there's nothing wrong with going with exhaust, it'll really help you out on your ganks and in case you're counterjungled. After you get some experience, you will no longer need to get exhaust since you'll know how to pick your fights. In a few situations where you think that your lanes don't have enough cc or you need to keep somebody in control once you reach lategame or if they're prone to snowball, it could be used ( Fizz Riven Tryndamere Aatrox).

I wouldn't really recommend using this unless you're still getting used to your Deceive. It's just taking an extra safety spell instead of a utility/dueling when q will be enough (again, after a little practice).

It could be useful to split/stick to enemies, but splitting should be a breeze even without this.

By taking this, you give up dueling capabilities, but you will greatly enhance your ability to control the map. You could hide some boxes on uncommon areas just for teleportation purposes. I'd recommend taking this if you feel that the enemy team has great map control, for example a Pantheon top and a Nocturne jungle.
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Runes

After a lot of games I've come to the conclusion that Shaco needs his movement speed and attack speed in order to make the most of his early game.

/ Combined with the glyphs it'll give massive early game attack speed, this'll help clear jungle faster and also throw that damage unto your enemies, since we're gonna be trying to trap them in their second buff, chances are, you'll have at the very least one extra hit on them before they realize you're on them. This can really make a difference. Also, as we progress through the game, they'll let us throw more hits in while the enemies are running.
Last season these weren't really required on Shaco, since jungle monsters weren't that strong and his boxes could tank them. This season though, these are absolutely essential since they're a lot stronger (specially those pesky birds). Also, they'll protect you when you're going for that early blood in case the enemy jungler decides to put up a fight.
+4.5% Movement speed is a very high increase, once it's combined with static and boots you'll have an insane amount of movement speed. This will permit you to be all around the map and will let you have almost complete control over the fights that you participate in. Also, it lets Shaco stick to his enemies once he's chasing them.
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Items

Core Items

This is the strongest choice for our purposes. It provides a slow/movement speed/damage. Since we're a burst champion, we want to deal as much damage as we can in as little time as possible. It can also be used as an execution I can't tell you how many times I've been able to pick off running enemies with smite, it's range is massive letting you catch up in case your Two-Shiv Poison doesn't reach. It's been reworked, so now it acts like Malphite's Seismic Shard, USEFUL! The warrior part of it also provides three stats that compliment us. Attack damage, cooldown reduction, and armor penetration. All of these will give a massive boost to our early-mid game and they're all useful throughout the whole game, making this item very cost-effective when rushed.

Berserker's Greaves Your standard boot, you'll want these for your attack speed + movement speed gain.

Ravenous Hydra This'll be what creates a massive split-pushing beast out of you (even more so when combined with Statikk Shiv. It grants attack damage/life steal/turns autos into aoe/auto refresh. This'll give you a very noticeable spike in your damage, considering that it resets your auto, you'll be blasting enemies away in no time! One thing to look out for is that if you're barely out of range from anybody/thing that's right about to die and your Deceive/ Two-Shiv Poison are down, you can activate the proc from this and the aoe range can finish them off.

Statikk Shiv Gives both of our favorite stats and extra burst, what's not to like? Squishies will really feel it's zap. See what I did there?


End-game items

Berserker's Greaves - Homeguard You'll want the homeguard enchantment since it'll let you get back to the action as soon as possible, it's useful when on the offense or on the defense.

Trinity Force This item's passive massively increases your burst, that alone should be more than enough of a reason to get it. But there's still so much more to it. It provides mana/attack damage/ability power/attack speed/critical strike/health/movement speed. And even after all of that, it also provides even MORE stickyness with it's OTHER passive. There's no way anybody should be able to run from us once we have this item, all of our autos will give movement speed that benefits off of all our other movement speed increases. Also, once this item is completed, you'll be able to even tear tanks down!

Infinity Edge This will make squishies seem like they never existed. Great damage increase, decent critical chance, and it's PASSIVE. It procs our passive and off of our q, creating extremely high burst off of your q alone.



Situational items (Item exchanges/Last item replacements)

Last Whisper If your whole team decided to go full ad (lol) and they're ALL taking armor, you'll want to replace your IE with this beauty.

Randuin's Omen If the enemy team is full ad, or mostly ad and you're getting caught out you could take this massive shield to help you survive.

Maw of Malmortius When the enemy team's ap is either fed or a burst champion like Syndra or Veigar, both of these are very squishy, yet if they see you you're done for. This'll help a lot in those instances.

Mercurial Scimitar When the enemy has that hard cc (can't be a knock-up though) that will get you killed, you'll want to take this with you. For example a Leona that keeps ulting you whenever she gets the chance. This is mostly used if you're participating in teamfights (not full on engaging them either) or the enemy team decides to send a hunting party after you.

Banshee's Veil This item is very similar to mercurial scimitar, but it takes away the damage and movement speed and gains health. Also, you CAN ignore knock-ups with this. The downside, besides the damage loss is that you can't choose what cc you remove.

Mercury's Treads Get these as a replacement if their team has a lot of soft cc (anything that doesn't prevent your spells/autos combined.

Guardian Angel This one will help if everyone is on you all the time and you're forced to help your teammates more often, making it easier for the enemy to focus you. It'll let your teammates pick everyone after you pick off a high priority target and begin to wake up from a nap.

Ranger's Trailblazer A great alternative in case you're behind or you're still not used to how squishy Shaco is. Also, do note that it could be very useful around mid-late game because it will provide a very fast ranged clear which could help fight off pushers. I still believe that after a certain point of practice you'll know how to manage your health and mana, so early game it won't be as useful as Stalker's Blade.

Mobility Boots These make it extremely easy for you to make in-lane ganks where you just run through the lane you wanna gank and once you're in enough range as to not be seen q in. It is very hard to notice when a stealthed Shaco is coming towards you if he has these, granting you quite a few kills. If you're gonna get these, get them early game as that's when you'll be needing the ridiculous movement speed it gives the most, later on they just become overkill and need to be replaced with either Berserker's Greaves or Mercury's Treads.
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Ability Sequence

We're gonna want to max our spells in the following order > > > .

We get points in Hallucinate as soon as we have them since it'll lower it's cooldown, this'll provide the most ease in duels and utility.

We max Two-Shiv Poison second since it provides our most reliable cc and early-mid game burst.

Third comes Jack In The Box, we'll want it since it'll provide a longer fear. It's fear increase might not seem like a lot, but only one extra point would increase the double box fear from 1 second to 1.5 seconds, that's a 150% increase. Chaining two boxes on one person (this one person will very likely be the enemy jungler or anybody that creeps around in your fortified jungle) isn't very hard, since one will be placed while you're setting up your camp/setting up defenses and the other will be placed once you Deceive to them when they're either about to be feared, or just when they're feared.

Last, we'll get Deceive, this is because it's until we have a few items under our belt that we'll even feel the increase in damage that it provides. I've heard a few people debate that the lower mana cost can be useful instead of getting our Jack In The Box before it. But I do not agree since I'd rather have extra cc duration than barely any more mana (each point decreases it by a mere 10 mana, nothing).
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Masteries

I believe this is the part where most people will be curious as to why I've built this way, so I'll try to provide as much detailed information I can on it. I've tried all kinds of builds before I bumped into this gem, and I believe it's possibly one of the most effective.

Let's start with the Offense Tree

Double-Edged Sword This will increase our damage, pretty standard on any burst-damage champion

Fury Our Shaco's main focus is attack speed and movement speed, it'll help at all phases of the game

Butcher Your boxes proc this, it'll bump your clear speed up a notch on the early game

Brute Force We want that extra late-game damage, we're also putting points in here because we're building towards Martial Mastery

Martial Mastery This will increase our early game damage, 1 point = 6 extra attack damage, yes please.

Executioner We want to max out our burst potential, it's very often in early-mid game that you find (specially the enemy jungler) at around half their total health, this'll assist us greatly.

Warlord We're a lategame champion, so this is future-proof

Devastating Strikes Can't say no to hybrid penetration, specially early game when we have a decent mix of ap and ad damage.

Frenzy You'll really start seeing Frenzy shine once you have your stattik shiv. It's power will be essential for mid-late game, once we start splitting with our Ravenous Hydra/ Statikk Shiv combo.

Next, we'll go with the Defense Tree On this tree, we focus everything on early-game safety.

Block We're gonna want this for the early defense on our invades, also in case we get invaded.
Recovery This'll provide us some great sustain, since not always will our boxes tank everything for us.
Unyielding Last point that we'll have on our defensive tree, it'll take one step further on what did, and will give us some extra protection.

We're gonna finish up with our Utility Tree

Fleet of Foot Most of our Shaco's utility will come from how well he can take control of the map, this 1.5% increase to his movement speed will do just that.

Phasewalker / Scout These two are exchangeable depending on your play style, if you'd rather be a bit safer on your early game, take . Otherwise, take since it'll help get you to safety after you've juked away from your enemies and hidden. This one's power is way more noticeable throughout the game.
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Videos on Shaco's jungling prowess and potential!

Sorry, I'm still not able to embed the player directly unto mobafire.

Full Shaco game This video is packed with Shaco plays and tips, give it a watch if you're wondering how to put this build into use, or you'd like a taste of it.

Shaco's early game invade! (Silent video, sorry, new Twitch rules :/) In this video, you'll see how a level 2 invade is done, and how truly devastating Shaco's damage is.
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Summary

Thanks for dropping by! I hope you were able to learn something from my build and that you enjoyed giving it a try / using it. I will add new information as I bump into it when I'm playing Shaco. If you have any tips or constructive feedback please share them with me, this is my first guide and it'd be great to get some advice!

Please do not downvote the guide just because you don't agree with something, let me know why you'd believe whatever I said would be wrong or how it could be corrected. I'm not trying to push my way of building into others, but I do believe a lot of people would enjoy it and could find my tips and the build very helpful!


I'd like to thank jhoijhoi for her guide on how to make a build, I was really lost while writing this when it came to formatting. If you're looking to write a guide, I'd recommend giving hers a read-through (it's actually quite entertaining!).

http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/making-a-guide-101506
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