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Shaco Build Guide by

[9.19] AD Jungle | 4by3's Indepth Shaco Guide

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Shaco Build Guide By Updated on

Support

Guide Discussion (2) More Shaco Guides

Runes:

Domination

Electrocute

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:

Ignite

Smite

Items

Starting Items

Core Items

Ability Order

Shaco Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Rek'Sai

Extreme

Just the common counter to Shaco. Her passive is just not fun that she beats you 1v1 in every stage of the game unless she doesn't buy tabi. You have to avoid as much contact with her and play opposite sides of the map, she has a lot of pressure so its hard to farm.

Alistar

Ideal

Shaco lacks CC, you aren't the one to engage since you need the team to engage first before you go in or else you just die after the first pick.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Alistar

Ideal

Shaco lacks CC, you aren't the one to engage since you need the team to engage first before you go in or else you just die after the first pick.

Champion Build Guide

Table of Contents
Skill Sequence	Items	Splitpush/Teamfight
Abilities	Runes	Efficient Ganks
Summoner Spells	Early Game	Ending Note

Hi there I’m 4by3, I’m a diamond Shaco main, I made my first guide on AP in the top lane about a year ago in season 8, and I've returned with my second guide for . My last guide was pretty boring to read with walls of text, so for this guide I tried my best making it as interesting as possible and unique to the champion of .

For the new players here trying to pick up this champion, you’ll probably encounter, or already have encountered a few things that may stop you from trying to main . Mainly how the champion isn't currently in a good place, he is a high elo pick, that he isn't as rewarding as AP, or overall how the community portrays the champion for his ****ty design/viability in solo queue.

Now, these aren’t problems that should stop you from getting into the champion. is a very unique, his playstyle is very different from the other junglers making him interesting to play, as well as having many players who still play the champion in his current state. When I started ranked seriously in season 8, I went from the bottom of bronze to plat primarily with . I'm currently sitting on a 60% WR with Shaco in diamond elo. Don't listen to the negativity towards the champion, he is obviously in an awkward place but don't let that distract you from

Watch my stream on 4by3_

In this guide, I go over mains builds players take, and detailed explanations to why players choose them over the other, as well as how to play the champion in the jungle ingame. Hopefully after reading this guide, you learn more about the champion's playstyle in the jungle, and how to play him to his fullest extent.

PROS

+ Very fun to snowball
+ Can be really slippery with strong invades
+ Scales pretty well, which surprises most players with good damage mid-game
+ Decent (not great) lvl 4/5 ganks
+ Good at taking objectives with and can sometimes solo
+ Can splitpush well with
+ Has snowball potential and can apply pressure easily

CONS

- Squishy, can be cheesed/abused hard by a good enemy jungler
- His design flaws and bugs can be tilting in game (E damage, R not dodging damage)
- Very item reliant which gives bad early game
- Items such as destroys his damage
- High skill cap and jungling
- His lategame doesn't make up for his terrible early
- Mainly a ontricked champion, but most players just don't enjoy his playstyle

TL;DR

Skill Sequence

- - -

Advanced Details

Damage Combo

+ AA + + + AA

Advanced Details

Summoner Spells

&
Advanced Details

Items

Starter Items:

Core:

Recommended:

Situational:

Tiamat & Jgl Choice:

Advanced Details

Runes

Primary:

Secondary:

Advanced Details

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On , levels give more stealth duration. This is used to jump on an enemy while being fully invisible. At level 3, the stealth duration lasts 3 seconds, which to most players is plenty of time, so instead of finishing , they start to level up to increase 's kill potential since the AD scales poorly.

Pre-lvl 6, you can put a point into if you level up in a fight. E.g. you are contesting scuttle and you manage to steal it and level up to 4. Most of the time the enemy jungler would take the chance to duel a who has on cooldown. You can put a level into E so you can duel the enemy jungler because you have level advantage and have a SS advantage (), so against most jungle matchups you can actually be able to out duel.

Remember that this is the basic combo, Q + AA () + + + AA. This puts out the most damage, even though E is an execute, it’s better to put out as much damage in a short period of time since you’re an assassin, and also gives time for your AA to come back up as well as proc faster.

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PASSIVE
ABILITY

Backstab (Passive): Basic attacking an enemy from behind Critical strike icon critically strikes for 30% (+ Infinity Edge 25%) AD (+ 40% AP) bonus physical damage, increased to 100% (+ Infinity Edge 25%) AD (+ 40% AP) against monsters. Backstab cannot happen on the same target more than once every few seconds

You should try and proc this passive whenever you can on your camps to have a faster clear and that it does additional damage to camps. Line it up behind your enemy when you’re in invis because its free damage. Your E doesn’t do additional damage from behind anymore so remember that.

Advanced

A̶ ̶b̶u̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶[̶[̶s̶h̶a̶c̶o̶]̶]̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶[̶[̶b̶a̶c̶k̶s̶t̶a̶b̶]̶]̶ ̶b̶u̶g̶,̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ ̶C̶D̶ ̶(̶s̶h̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶i̶r̶c̶l̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶i̶c̶a̶t̶o̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶e̶n̶e̶m̶y̶)̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶r̶i̶t̶ ̶t̶w̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶s̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶f̶u̶l̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶a̶m̶p̶s̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶d̶a̶m̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶a̶m̶p̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶p̶a̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶.̶ ̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶i̶d̶e̶n̶t̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶e̶n̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶u̶g̶ ̶o̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶l̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶p̶a̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶r̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶r̶a̶c̶t̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶.̶ ̶I̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶u̶g̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶m̶p̶i̶o̶n̶,̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶t̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶i̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶i̶t̶.̶

O̶f̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶c̶h̶ ̶9̶.̶1̶4̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶u̶g̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶l̶o̶n̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶s̶.̶ ̶H̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶i̶g̶n̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶e̶a̶k̶e̶r̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶.̶

So the bug can still be seen, but its very hard to proc it so you shouldn't actually try to actually proc it since its more efficient to just AA.

Deceive (Q): After a 0.125-second delay, Shaco Flash blinks to the target location, temporarily becoming invisible for a few seconds. After exiting invisibility, his next basic attack within 0.25 seconds deals bonus physical damage 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+ 40% bonus AD) (+ 30% AP) and reduces Deceive's cooldown reduction icon cooldown by 2.5 seconds.

This ability is basically a , you can jump over all the walls you can normally with , with an added bonus of turning you invisible for a few seconds. It takes 0.125 seconds before turning invisible, but 0.125 seconds isn’t a lot. Levelling it up to lvl 3 gives a 3 second invisibility, which is enough to gank and also give you that amazing and impactful damage of 30 AD [/s]. After lvl 3, you should be levelling up your E, it’s a lot more helpful with the slow, but importantly buffs his damage which he really lacks early.

You will not get out of your invisibility if you use your or your ultimate , which is good to note. If you attack an enemy while you’re invisible, your cooldown gets reduced by 2.5 seconds. Try proccing you’re since it’s really easy to line it up without the enemy knowing you’re behind them, and while you’re at it try placing a box to make the gank more successful since it zones where the enemy can stand. When you press Q, the cooldown timer doesn’t start until you exit invisibility. If you have a couple levels on this ability and want to have the cooldown begin sooner, you could back, which cancels the invisibility and helps you get the ability back up faster.

Advanced

Jack in the Box (W): Shaco summons a Jack In The Box at the target location, lasting for up to 60 (+ 5% AP) seconds. The box arms after a 2 second delay, becoming stealthed.
Triggering the box will startle nearby enemies for 0.5 seconds as well as cause them to turn and flee for a duration, during which they have a static 100 movement speed.

Once triggered, the box will immediately start attacking nearby enemies, up to one at a time. Its attacks deal magic damage of 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 (+ 20% AP).

This is ’s main CC. You can place it while invisible, and the box can be seen by players with vision for 2 seconds, before becoming stealthed and able to CC. While placing the box, your silhouette will be shown, as if you were hit while invisible, so keep this in mind since you will want to place a box then quickly do your combo.

The CC is a fear that scales per lvl, lasting 0.5 seconds at lvl 1, increasing by .25 every lvl. The poor health scaling makes it a one shot mid to late game since it has a base health of 150. Early game, there are only a handful of junglers you can duel just because of the early damage the box provides, so don’t forget its power early. The boxes will help with your first few camps, you will see the common starting paths players use later on this guide. Also note that when ganking the lane, make sure the minion wave won’t touch your box when placing, or else the box will proc on the minion wave, and not CC the laner.

The boxes are very useful for vision control, as they act as a 1-minute ward. This can let you buy early, while also having access to wards to have more control over the jungle since it has such a low CD. Recently Riot has made the box a pet type, making it proc runes and abilities such as , , which isn’t so useful for AD Shaco but is still interesting to note.

Advanced

Two Shiv Poison (E):
PASSIVE: Shaco's basic attacks slow enemies for 2 seconds while Two-Shiv Poison is off cooldown.
ACTIVE: Shaco throws a dagger at the target enemy, slowing them for 3 seconds and dealing physical damage 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 / 155 (+ 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 / 120% bonus AD) (+ 75% AP), increased by 0% − 50% (based on target's missing health).

Right now this ability is not in a good place. It’s actually an execute ability, but at level 1 does little to no damage, so it’s kind of treated like the meme of the champion’s kit. The ability would be very useful if it had damage, since the range is just slightly bigger than the range, making it easier to assassinate, so that’s why we max this FIRST. After lvling to 3, you already have sufficient stealth time, so the damage for this ability is more valuable.

Right now everyone is focusing on how bad the active is, but as players we must respect the passive slow this ability gives. Its respectfully a perma slow, and in ganks, it makes it very annoying for players to deal with. When the ability is off cooldown, your AA will give a slow, which scales per level making it even better for chasing.

Advanced

Hallucinate (R):
FIRST CAST: Shaco Hallucinate vanishes for 0.5 seconds and then blinks in the target direction while creating a clone of himself that blinks in the opposite direction, remaining within tether range of him as a controllable pet for up to 18 seconds.
SECOND CAST: While Hallucinate is active, it can be used to move it to the target location.

When the Hallucination dies or expires it explodes, dealing magic damage 200 / 300 / 400 (+ 100% AP) in an area of effect and spawns three mini-boxes. The three boxes remain on the battlefield for 6 seconds, share health and activate together, fearing nearby enemies for 0.75 seconds.

The clone deals 75% of ’s overall damage, and takes 50% increased damage. Tower shots do double damage to the clone, and it deals 35% to turrets and inhibitors, not objectives such as drake and . It lasts 18 seconds and can be controlled by using alt + rclick, as well as pressing r again on the area you want it to travel or target. When trying to target inhibs and nexus, you must press alt + rclick to have it target them since pressing R on them won’t make it target. When the timer exceeds its limit or the clone dies, it drops 3 miniature boxes very similar to the [[jack in the box in a triangular shape that lasts 6 seconds, with the same 2 second where it’s inactive until it will be able to fear.

The clone can also proc , so it’s very similar to the real but with no abilities. It will proc on hit sources such as , copy the same base stats as the real and can be used while invisible which will spawn the clone, while allowing you to stay invis. You can use this to bait the enemy’s abilities and CC on the clone.

There are a few purposes of this ability, one is for damage. Before AA the enemy, you can press R first so you will appear with 2 s doing more burst damage if you don’t want the enemy to react fast enough to escape or do something like or .

Another purpose is for dodging undodgeable CC or damage which you normally not be able to dodge. An example being CC like stun card, more on this in the advanced spoiler box below.

The last purpose is for objectives, since it adds a lot more damage to your kit, it’s really efficient in taking drake early. You can have your clone tank the damage, and have the real proc behind it, having a very healthy clear.

Advanced

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IGNITE

FLASH

The reason why should take over is because of natural synergy, the utility you usually get from is already included in ’s kit. You don’t need to engage since gives invisibility on top of an included . You don’t need to chase since you have built in slows in and a gap closer with the active. And you don’t need as an escape since typically you have boxes to zone, and because attacking an enemy during invisibility reduces the cooldown by 2.5 seconds which can allow you to escape with if necessary. Since is an assassin, he gets more use out of a damage SS than a primary escape SS.

Why newer players like running is because of habit. They are used to playing League with since almost all champions use it. If you are currently running on , you should give a try. It may feel awkward at first for most people, but you will notice how much more useful you are with .

SUMMONER SPELLS
-

Teleport: This SS is mainly used in top lane . Having kill potential with is much better than what gives you.

Smite: You need this for the jungle because it is necessary for playing or on any other champion in a jungle role. Without it you won’t be able to buy jungle item, meaning you won’t gain much XP from camps and can’t contest objectives.

Exhaust: This SS is mediocre on . Its pretty situational since the slow doesn’t help that much since has a decent amount in his kit. In some comps can help you against bursty assassins, or for your team, but you shouldn’t be dying to them anyway. is pretty good at dealing with assassins because of his engage and defensive abilities such as . Against burst mages such as you can build to counter her damage since is weak to AP damage.

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Starting Items

Hunter's Machete
You need this item to gain XP and have sustain in the jungle. is the other jungle item option for . While it will not effect your clear at all since lacks AOE, it gives mana sustain and can actually end up giving you a faster clear since you can use your abilities more often. The issue is that you sacrifice quite a bit of jungle sustain from farming. If you want mana sustain when running , buy a since its gold efficient, it's cheap, and can be an item you can buy when you have an awkward back.

Rejuvenation Bead
A very gold efficient start, it builds towards your which is an important core item. is pretty *****, you can use this item when learning since you're most likely to struggle with having healthy clears. is good, but rushing is a lot better, the only problem with is that when ganking, there are sometimes situations where you can't make a play just because you're low on health. I and many other players believe that the extra gold towards is more worthwhile.

Core Items

Tiamat
You need this item for clearing jungle camps, and the active is part of your combo, especially when you have . Without it you feel significantly weaker with no AOE for clearing camps like raptors or krugs, and not being able to push the wave after a successful gank. Usually finish upgrading this item last, because you need 's core items faster.

Berserker’s Greaves
Unlike most champions, your boots are a core item that you buy before your first finished item. Now, you may have scrolled down here just because you’re wondering why you don’t get on . The reason is that he simply doesn't have enough base stats to do damage and have map pressure with just . Since is an AA champion, you need attack speed since, well, he's an auto attacker and synergises with . His clear isn’t great, ’s kit is very well made for invading, and if you don’t have a good clear then you’re wasting so much potential. You won’t be able to be strong enough to duel anyone at all with mobies, and at lvl 2/3 Q you can jump on the enemy laner completely invisible, so there’s no need for the additional movement speed for ganking.
The rare occasion you'd buy is when swapping them out when there is a major objective like that you'd need to run to try and contest/steal. In this scenario you would have adequate attack speed from so you could stick with the boots for the rest of the game if you want. It is also not a bad thing to buy when you are building since it gives early attack speed. Also situationally when you're against a high dps AD assassin such as or , you can buy as your boots. Even though it will make your clear very slow, its better than having to endure getting zoned from your own jungle and being one shot. Having just a dagger that can be used to get later is more preferred. If you enjoy , I recommend you try out and hopefully find use from the earlier stats it gives.

Duskblade of Draktharr
This is just a must have on every build and is prerequisite to playing . It synergises with his so well, and is a really important powerspike that gives him that damage he really lacks early. After getting this item, you will start to see the ADC you were doing no damage to before will start getting chunked.

Situational Items

Trinity Force
This item is what most people believe is a core item, whereas some other players believe its more situational, due to it not being a heavy damage item. Everything in this item helps and gives a lot of sustain damage. The phage passive and sheen synergise very well with , in every full build you should have this item because it’s just that good. Attack speed goes well with and increases the efficiency of taking objectives. In some cases, it can be a better item for killing the ADC than a lethality item such as or , since on a high base armor ADCs, they would probably survive your full combo and start kiting you out. helps you chase and consistently chunk and be able to kill them even if they are kiting you.
It costs a lot of gold, 3733 gold is quite a bit, so if you want more damage earlier then a lethality item might be better. Some players also prioritise raw damage over because they prefer the assassin playstyle.

Edge of Night
This is a very underrated item, it is a good item giving health and the spell shield can be useful in so many scenarios. Late game it lets you do things you can't with the normal lethality item. You can clear and get vision in the jungle for free without the risk of getting hard CC'd.
Against a for example, if you don’t have up, you can just activate and because it has a 1 second charge up timer, you can block the damage from because the timer on it is very long. If the enemy has multiple CCs which would be hard to try and dodge with , is there. Now the only downfalls of this item are that it costs an extra 100g, but more importantly that it doesn’t give CDR. Late game you can get an extra 10% CDR from your blue buffs. You have to get used to the reduced movement speed, its annoying since movement speed is good, but will actually win you games against the handful of junglers it does well against.

Youmuu's Ghostblade
The situations in which you buy this item is usually when you have a very big lead, and want to snowball it, since it gives raw damage. When buying it with the snowball, right after is when you should buy it. If you like the movement speed buff and CDR, then you can buy it instead of . It’s a snowball item because it’s a 2,900g item, which makes it better to buy before which is a 3,800g item which is why a lot of other players prefer this over . Also most champions won't have a lot of armor since everyone will have early levels. 10% CDR early makes this really good for consistent pressure, and the movement speed, well, who wouldn't love that. When your getting caught, proc the active so you gain movement speed to run away. is good for dueling and against certain comps, whereas is more putting pressure on the map and doing as much as possible as a jungler which makes it a popular item choice in solo queue.

Lord Dominik's Regards
Simply put, this item gives a lot of damage. It’s straight armor pen, so its more late game orientated, and synergises well with your lethality items. It is an underrated item since there are so many items that are viable on . The problem is that it sacrifices sustain in fights, and makes you a lot squishier for not taking a bruiser item, because everyone late game does so much damage. If you want to do the math, it’s 35% armor pen, so when the enemy ADC for example has 100 armor, he will instead have 65 armor which is considerably good because 2 lethality items give 39 armor pen.
The alternative to is . When to buy this item is usually when there is a lot of heals or especially when there is healing support like or . These champions just straight heal and no one likes healing. It’s sacrificing 10% armor pen, so it’s kind of a big cost for grievous wounds. Don’t get that item if you’re worried of the ADC's life steal for example, it doesn't really matter since you’re an assassin, what will really bother you is sustainish champions with heals like and where you won’t burst them fast enough before they heal again.

Guardian Angel
It synergises with since when you resurrect you can just deceive into safety. This is just the traditional item for late game assassins because of the AD. If you are the guy that everyone on the team wants to focus, this item helps a lot because the resurrect counters this very hard. You can be oneshotting the enemy team's carry and have the passive kick in so you could still be alive which is very uesful late. You are sacrificing damage which is the only problem about this item, so if you're still unable to one shot then don't get this item.

Maw of Malmortius
This is a very situational item. Very good against burst mages, the MR helps with early and the passive gives you the ability to fight them. Get this when there is an overly fed mage who is killing you constantly in fights and it works wonders. The reason this item is very situational is because is also an option against the very high damaging AP abilities such as , with also being able to block CC and AD abilities as well. The MR is great, so against a heavy AP comp maybe trying to get this item after or . I don’t see this is a late game item, since there will be a lot of damage anyway, but I don’t recommend getting this before items since as we all know is pretty item reliant. Don't get this item when behind, if you’re behind you need the big items to have an impact on the game. It’s more when you’re ahead but there is that one dude that is very huge ingame and he can easily kill you, so you buy to not get ****ed basically.

Infinity Edge
The only benefit of this item is raw damage. As this item is very useful late since it gives you the potential oneshot damage which he needs since he's an assassin. Some players prefer this over which is situationally better if you sacrifice the utility such as CDR, sustain damage and phage passive for burst damage.

Skirmisher's Sabre - Warrior
Having red smite on is okay. Never get blue smite, you won't need it because has many slows. The problem with buying this item is that increasing the time it takes to get is not really worth to some players. You would want to buy this item against other junglers who buy red smite, to be able to keep up in duels and not get stomped by them just because they have red smite advantage. The red smite lets you have longer sustained duels, so if your laners have lane prio they can come support you which is a life saver in most scenarios.

When buying it, you get the for the dueling potential, and if you back with a lot of money with , you can just get [duskblade of draktharr]] straight away, and a few people don't upgrade it to a warrior anyway. The sustain from the passive is really nice, but sell this item late because needs his cores and the dueling isn't great after a while since you will be doing a lot of damage from your other items. is the alternative to warrior, the attack speed makes it so you don't need to get .

Tiamat Upgrade

Titanic Hydra
This is more of a utility item, which is different from most of 's core items, being a tank/bruiser item. If the enemy has a very low armor team, then building this item second last before your is a good choice. It will save your life against higher burst teams, and will give you more sustain in fights. The major problem about this item is that it gives a new passive, which overall makes it harder to combo with against a moving target.

Ravenous Hydra
The added damage gives is useful, and the bonus AD is very noticeable, helping with 's assassin power. The 2 key factors of this item is probably keeping the old passive, and the added bonus lifesteal. To most people and even myself hate using when assassinating. On a moving target, you can't instantly proc active (which is a big part of your combo) fast enough since you will need to walk the distance the enemy moved while you were stuck in AA animation. On most squishies, they will be able to escape or even worst burst you before you can finish them off. With the lifesteal you will still be able to solo with this item, and camps overall.

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PRIMARY RUNES
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Best Flexible Rune

ELECTROCUTE

Best Sustain Damage Rune

HAIL OF BLADES

Best Execute Rune

DARK HARVEST

Best Jungle Sustain Rune

FLEET FOOTWORK

These runes come down to personal preference and playstyle. For me I switch between and . is very easy to proc and is the basic rune for damage, and for playing him as a traditional assassin. is a situational rune, to use the rune to its fullest extent is to have the clone dish out the most damage with its increased attack speed. It can still be used as a burst and assassin rune, but does the job way better. If you want to decide which one is better in a scenario, does better against less CC and burst damage teams, since you would want your clone to stay alive to put out the most damage it can, whereas is more used in slippery comps where most of the enemy carries will be harder to kill and prioritised harder.

is a preference. is much better rune to assassinate, but this one synergises well with and executing someone on low health. Most players run this rune mainly because of the playstyle, and because of its satisfying lategame. It is not a bad rune and is 100% viable, but there are a few problems with the rune, firstly being how it doesn't proc on clone. Also having very little damage early, and just mainly not doing enough damage.

is still viable. Sustain in the jungle for can be good, but damage is a priority and its understandable for an assassin like . It feels very good when using the rune, the movement speed can be useful in fights but the sustain really helps out, enabling more efficient invades and ganks.

SECONDARY RUNES
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Sudden Impact vs Cheap Shot
For a while wasn’t a bad secondary rune combined with which was giving that early game damage and playstyle which we missed. Both of these runes synergise well with his kit, but lacked the damage after first back which makes it pretty bad. The true damage is only procced once or maybe twice early game, whereas ’s lethality lasts for 5 seconds which gives enough time for ’s combo and some of his sustain AA damage.

Eyeball Collection vs Zombie ward
gives more flat damage than , so if you want more damage than obviously you should take . is useful for vision, and is higher elo can be preferable over .

Relentless Hunter
Out of combat movement speed helps all junglers since it gives more map control. Most of the other runes don’t come close in beating this one. doesn’t need life steal, he doesn’t need any item CD or an insignificant cooldown reduction on his ultimate.

Alacrity vs Triumph
I see some players run over and I don’t see the sacrifice worth. is a very situational rune, attack speed helps with a lot of things, to his clear speed, to his skirmishing and sustain damage, to his objective efficiency. Also attack speed synergises well with , so the extra healing and gold is not really worth.

Coup De Grace
No need for deep explanation, more damage is the good. It synergises well with because of the additional damage to lower targets. This rune synergises the best with .

Absolute Focus
If you are running this rune it means you are running sorcery second. Before they removed the passive stats from secondary runes this was the go to secondary for . Now it is less viable and not as good as what it was before. Flat damage is nice, but sometimes you feel weaker when you’re lower which you can be at most times because has no sustain other than scuttle crab and the honey fruit. Late game you will be very strong, but the attack speed from the precision tree helps throughout the game.

Waterwalking vs Gathering Storm
Waterwalking is good for the pathing and the stats it gives are useful, but gives way more stats and can be used all the time. used to be the better rune with the old scuttle timers so you can contest scuttle very early, but since they are delayed it makes it harder so its better to have a late game rune to synergise with the late game assassin.

Nimbus Cloak
The movement speed works on your as well, so it won't reveal which one is the real for the enemy. It's used to help you escape from a fight after engaging into a fight. Since you have no disengage abilities, this rune helps with that and gives you the ability to escape.

Future's Market
This rune is popular to a few players since it helps get 's early faster. After the nerf to 's needing 75 more gold made it made players start using this rune to adapt to the new change. It helps with pathing and giving better times to back so you can get the powerspike, as well as helping against hard matchups that pressures from farming.

Cosmic Insight vs Approach Velocity
CDR is very useful on . When assassinating a squishy you don't have much of an escape, so CDR so you can get your back up after a clean kill is nice. is a good rune on because of how many times he slows. It is opinionated, and if you don't run for the phage passive then is almost a must, since it means you wouldn't be prioritizing CDR. These 2 runes are options for the inspiration rune page so you can get future's market.

Magical Footwear
This is not a good rune and will sometimes actually put you at a disadvantage, since you won't be able to buy your when you want to because you have to wait for the boots to finish. If you run then you can run this rune, but preferable run or .

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Is Shaco an early game champion?
At one point he was indeed a very early game champion, now he's been tweaked a lot, having very little to no base stats making him not really an early game champion anymore. He does not compete closely to junglers like or , but with experience you should know how to play out the matchup and not get stomped early. You might consider as a power farmer, since he normally would want to farm out to hit his core items earlier, and that most matchups wins are matchups that put less pressure and allow him to invade with ease (mainly consisting of tanks).

If you read his abilities you should know that has powerful invade potential with some items and decent ganks at level 4-5. You should try and abuse this power, as is a good champion in applying pressure when ahead because of his strong snowball potential.

BOX PLACEMENT
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NOTE: PLACE FIRST BOX AT 0:30 BECAUSE FIRST BUFF SPAWNS 1:30

You must unlock Deceive after you clear your red and jump over the wall leading to your krugs
Place box on the right side, hitting the big krug
Make sure to ask bot lane for good leash, or else you won't make it do your krugs in time
Place 2 boxes on red if bot lane can't leash efficiently
Backstab the medium krug once first, then attack the big krug

Hit gromp and drag it into box, then place another box behind it
Drag wolves into box then place another box behind the wolves
Place the box on the edge of the purple circle
Have the box hugging the edge of the wall so it doesn't get vision on wolves
Place the wolves box last, or else it will die before you get there
Kill the small wolves first, since the small wolves have MR and the greater murk wolf has armor.

Matchups and Lane Priority
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B
R
U
I
S
E
R

A
S
S
A
S
S
I
N

T
A
N
K

Most bruisers have good duelling potential early. These champion mainly consist of junglers who get red smite being , , and . All these champions are hard counters to due to their consistent pressure they can give to you early. You would want to farm safely, and gank side lanes when you see the enemy jungler on the other side of the map. Getting your laners ahead is the best option you can do, so during mid-game the jungler won't be a huge problem since you scale. You won't be able to contest scuttle most of the time, if you have both lane prio, then yes, but most bruisers can fight 2v1.

Against most assassin matchups, goes even in terms of duelling against most of them. You would want to get lane prio, so you can contest scuttle with ease. You can definitely fight 1v1 against most enemy assassins if you have a level advantage, watch your lanes since you don't want to get caught without your . Save it to escape, or a gap closer when the enemy uses , since without it you're significantly weaker, as if you had a on CD.

Most tank matchups are easy for , as long as they can't pressure early. Any jungler that can't pressure early, you would want to invade most of the time. Cheesing their buffs pre-level 3 or being 1 camp away from it is easy. To invade efficiently, you would want to have a general knowledge of the enemy jungler's pathing and what camps they would normally do. If you know the jungler has an unhealthy and weak clear, cheesing at their raptors or krugs can easily give you a kill and gold/xp from the camp.

EXAMPLES OF EARLY PATHING
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Normal Pathing

Aggressive Pathing

Enemy Starting Top Side

EARLY PATHING
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Level 1:
At level 1, you have to be careful with cheeses. It is very easy to invade a , since you have no and because your boxes are important for a faster clear for your first few camps. Sometimes if your team doesn't want to hold your jungle then you have to give up the few boxes which the enemy will try to pop. If you want to, you can tell your teammates to care for invade because you're , so you can avoid getting your teammates killed in the jungle or maybe save your boxes from being procced in the process which will help you a lot. A good tip while taking your camp is to look at side lanes to see whether the jungle was given a leash. If top lane comes late and the bot lane arrives much earlier means that the jungle was given a leash top side, letting you track the jungler way easily.

Level 3:

To get level 3, it would usually take 4 camps to get enough xp, or if you got krugs first you can get level 3 in just 3 camps. If you started blue side camp you will get level 3 from red buff, and if you started red side you will get level 3 from wolves or blue buff (whichever one you get first). This is why krugs is better to clear than raptors, since it gives more xp, and because the first spawn of krugs gives 30% less xp, if you clear it first it will give a lot more xp when it comes back up. At this moment of time remember this, spawns at 3:15, so in getting level 3 you have the option to full clear your 5 camps, so it can rubber band and will help future out. If you see a gank opportunity mid for example, such as no summs, low health, low mana then you gank. When you see your your teammate low, use the F keys (F2, F3, F4, F5) to see if the enemy laner is also low from the trade, or just manually click on the map. Just remember your level 3 gank is weak, so you must analyse, is this gankable? and whether by the time you walk down if the enemy will be healthier or backed. You will know this by how the wave is positioned, if the enemy still has pots, whether it is froze closer to the enemy laner's side or if the wave is just about to push into your laner's tower, so they will greed to push it in.

IF YOU FARMED 5 CAMPS: If you full cleared then scuttle is just about so spawn and you will want to go get it. You must think first if the enemy jungler can duel you (considering the champion's duelling potential and health from his clear), and lane priority. To know whether the jungler can duel you comes from experience with the matchup. An example would be , his clear is very healthy because his passive gives health, and because of his spell shield and his long fear CC, makes him very hard to duel. To know if your laner has lane prio, you must pay attention to their lane. While your about to finish your 5th camp, look at your side lane and mid lane, if they are shoving their wave into the laner. At the start of the game you should also take note on your lane matchups, like for example vs , has a lot of wave clear, meaning that the majority of the time, would be being pushed in since he lacks wave clear until level 6. If the lane is frozen, it means it would probably end up becoming a 2v2. Again same with the first tip, analyse whether you can win the 2v2 looking at the laners health, mana and summs. Remember to ping your laner for assistance or tell them in chat you're going to contest scuttle, so they are ready to come help you if you start a skirmish. If you can't contest, go to the other scuttle opposite to the river the jungler pathed to.

IF YOU GANKED: Try and leech xp for level 4, this may sound very toxic but is actually good for your laner. If you killed the enemy, your laner will have a gold advantage and would want to reset. If you shove the wave in you will help him back quicker which makes him come back to lane faster, while making the enemy lose CS from tower. When there is a cannon wave coming, smite the cannon so you can push the lane faster. If you have done 5 camps, you will get level 4, and it will be easy to contest scuttle because you will have a level advantage on the jungler. DO NOT DO THIS when your laner is healthy, AND has the wave frozen towards his side, it will tilt your laner.

Level 4:
After all of this you will level 4, and your ganks will be pretty strong. At this point of the game it would probably be 3:30, and your camps will be rubber banding in about one minute since they usually spawn back at 4:30 (4:15 if you started krugs). If you have gold for it isn't a bad decision to back. If you have been tracking the enemy jungler's pathing you should have a general understanding of which side of the map he would be on. If you want to put pressure you can do these three basic things:

Ganking
Invading
Objectives

"I can't gank my laner because (insert reason)"

If you can't gank your laner you can still help. Clearing vision and giving vision by placing a box in their river or bush can help a lot to put pressure off their lane, especially when you know the jungler is on their side of the map. In the future, you can foresee whether or not the lane is gankable, by seeing the matchup again and how the wave is positioned. If your laner is pushing in, but the enemy laner's wave is building up means it will start to shove back into your laner's tower giving an easy gank opportunity so you can path towards his/her lane sooner. If you suspect the enemy jungler to gank your laner maybe because they are low and pushed up, you can counter-gank by waiting for the jungler to gank, and then going in to surprise their 2v1 into a 2v2.

"How do I invade as Shaco?"

As I said before has good invade potential. Why? Firstly he can ward the enemy jungler with his boxes, as well as sweep for vision with . Most junglers have to sacrifice one of these options for the other but can do both. You clear jungle camps efficiently after and some attack speed. Try to look for an invade when the enemy jungler is dead or on the opposide side of the map.

"But everytime I invade the camps are already gone" To check if the camps are still up, or more easily the buffs, look at the enemy jungler on the map when you have vision and see his/her CS and buffs. E.g. a starts bot lane leash, he normally goes red into raptors, then wolves to blue. If you see he has 16 CS and double buffs it means he hasn't cleared his gromp.
*An additional tip, if you see the jungler have red buff and you believe he just stole it, left click on him and you can see how long he has the buff for under his stats on the top left. This is very useful in knowing whether he just took your/his buff or not.

"When is the best time to take objectives?"

The best time to take objectives is when its safe to secure, and when they least suspect it. Lets say you see the jungler ganking top side, and the enemy mid laner just backed. In this scenario you can 2 man gank bot, and then proceed to do drake, killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Firstly it will help bot lane get a good lead over the enemy, and also help secure drake more safely.
As you can also solo drake at level 6, since your helps a lot with objectives. When to not take an objective is when you know or don't know if the enemy jungler is near the objective, and just after clearing vision meaning the jungler will know where you are.

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TEAMFIGHTING VS SPLITPUSHING
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Splitpushing and teamfighting are two important decisions to make mid/late game. If you have you will splitpush very efficiently, and when you have you can delete carries very easily.

You would normally want to teamfight when your team has CC that synergises with . Since your an assassin with a lot of damage, you are able to burst down multiple enemies if you ambush on them. If your team is able to win teamfights easily, but there is one player on the enemy team that's making it hard for your team, while also being squishy you would want to teamfight because your invis is very frightening to the enemy.

You are able to splitpush when you're really ahead. If you are behind and splitpushing, the enemy can simply send 1 player to stop your push so its not really worth. When splitting, your helps melt towers really quickly and because has high damage and a very good escape with he is overall a powerful splitpusher. NEVER splitpush if your team has no pressure on the map. If you draw 2-3 players to stop you, your team can ambush an objective making it 3v4 for them. Also make sure you don't die, or else you lose that pressure your team needs and you will just look like you're feeding.

When making the decision to teamfight or splitpush, it becomes very situational and is a decision you have to make in-game.

TEAMFIGHTING ON SHACO
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When you teamfight, your role is obviously to assassinate. At late-mid game in teamfights you must know know whether you can 100-0 the enemy ADC or at least heavily chunk them so they will see you as their number 1 threat. In teamfights, always avoid initiating as . You're not the initiator, you're an assassin. Abuse your stealth to ambush the backline and kill the ADC or whatever carry is on the enemy team.

Now here comes the problem most players argue about:

"The enemy ADC has tabi and PD, how can I kill them?"

Now basically, yes, these are direct counter builds to and will increase the difficulty to damage heavily. These items are not fun and are very annoying. To counter this, you can either try to attempt to assassinate them anyway, even though you won't one shot them you will still create pressure. 2, you can instead splitpush so your team can instead try to fight a 3v4. And finally 3, you play actually play defensively and protect YOUR backline instead. This sounds very unnatural, but if the enemy is building defensive stats and your team isn't, means that if your protecting your carries, they won't need to worry about building defensively so they can be putting out more damage in their builds while the enemy team is trying to counter you.

When positioning to teamfight, chances are you already have a lvl 3 or higher. If you are assassinating, stand away from your team. The enemy's cameras would be situated broadly around the area of where your team is, meaning they can see your smoke when you do engage for the fight. Don't stand too far away, so incase the enemy does dive on your team you can still be there to help immediately. If you are pocketing your backline, play around your carries. You can use your es to block skillshot CC for your team, which can be lifesaving against for example a or . Also because these are major CC abilities, starting the fight with one of these abilities down can actually help win the teamfight.

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This is the where most newer players struggle with. Most players say this is where becomes a higher elo pick. It is not as simple as pressing Q and right clicking. First I will answer the most common question:

"When do I gank vs when do I farm"

For starters, try and look for ganks that synergise with your pathing. An example would be if you did your side lane camp (krugs/gromp), it will be best to gank that side lane since it is convenient and efficient. The best time to farm is when your ultimate is on cooldown. 's ultimate is quite strong in fights and if you have , that's where most of your damage comes from. Try playing around objectives, and when there is an objective coming up that you want to take, getting lane prio helps a lot in being able to claim it.

A very good tip that you should abuse in lower elo is to always repeat gank a lane with no summoners. Most low elo players will still play as if they had their summoners up. This means they will be pushed up and because you have invis and many gank routes it's a very easy kill.

Let's put all these tips together in a hypothetical scenario; you've just performed a successful gank mid, you used your ultimate and now you are resetting. Your bot lane is even, and drake is currently up. You know that bot lane summs are down and the top laner's summs are gone too. Your top laner is pinging you to gank because he has no summs but your top side camps are just about to come back up. What do you do? You either tell your top laner that you want to gank bot or you mute. You don't want to gank top because you have no idea where the jungler is, and because your ultimate is on cooldown. It will be risky to fight since the enemy can turn easily. You path downwards to bot lane, and by the time you finish krugs your ultimate is off cooldown and you gained a lot of experience from the rubber banded camps. You gank bot lane successfully and now you can claim drake and the enemy cannot contest since bot is dead.

Deceive Jumps
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HOW TO GANK AS SHACO (MICRO)
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As I said before, ganking is not as simple as pressing Q. Yes, it may seem this way but deciding when to go in and where you go in from may greatly decide the result of the gank. Firstly, what makes 's ganks different from the other junglers? His CC isn't good, its mainly used for zoning and the fear only lasts for 0.5 seconds. Abuse his strong slows built in his kit, the sticking power it creates is what makes 's ganks strong. The can also be used for projectile CC to block, which can be more useful than zoning if your laner doesn't have any CC or engage.

He has a built in flash and invisibility. To use this ability to the fullest is firstly as shown above, using terrain to jump over walls. Why do you do this? It is unexpected to gank from spots that enemies don't suspect, and are uncommon warding spots. If you when the enemy has vision, they simply walk away and making it hard for you to wait.

If you ever played , has this every sounded familiar? You went in for a gank on a lane you know they have no vision on, but you can see that the enemy laner falls back as soon as you jump in. This is because they can still see the red smoke puff from through fog of war.
To stop this from happening, you must wait for certain enemy abilities. for example, has a strong AOE ability that is used as poke as well as wave clear. When players charge , his camera would normally be placed on the wave instead of their character. This opens a great opportunity to gank, since its great to

If you have very few points into , mainly being in early game, then you can also use it as a gap closer instead, depending on the situation. If your laner has many gap closers such as with good CC then walking into lane with having off cooldown can be better.

If you're ganking a lane, and you think that you won't be able to oneshot the enemy laner then you might want to consider these 2 gank tactics:

Baiting

If the enemy has an aggressive trader such as or , you would want your teammate to bait some core abilities first before you jump in. It is hard to gank these champions since they have CC, high burst and are just strong traders overall which can easily turn the fight as well as escape easily. To gank these champions, you must first communicate to your teammate to engage first. On , he almost always uses and in his trades, which are both abilities that help him escape a gank. After your teammate initiates a fight, look at the key abilities the enemy uses. For , his , since its a CC and a defensive ability. After it goes off, he will become vulnerable and you can turn the 1v1 trade into a 2v1. If they are pushed up it will almost be a guaranteed kill since has slow after slow after slow, and a long with red buff makes it tougher. Place your box to zone the enemy laner away from the tower, making them have to force or die.

Collapsing

Its difficult to gank against champions who are passive and stand behind their minion wave. Usually they don't have escapes and have weaker trades who don't fight at all. To gank these guys its also pretty reliant on your laner to communicate. You have two options, engage first and because you have slows your teammate can start walking and help you out. The other is to let your teammate to all in and chunk the enemy, and when they run out with low HP you can finish them off.

When doing the first option, it is very easy to do if the enemy has no summs or escape abilities. If they have any of these, you would want your teammate to engage first to bait out an ability so you can kill them. You could also gank at the same time they engage so you can burst them fast enough before they can , and it synergises very well if they have a CC. Its very easy to engage at the same time with your laner, since your he can see you walk towards them invisible, so there's no need for intense communication.

TOWER DIVING
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's tower dives are strong due to his kit being slippery around towers. can dodge tower shots, and his as well as his clone can tank tower shots. You can use your box to save 1 tower shot from tower, or if the enemy has a projectile CC, using it to block it may be better. How you would normally want to tower dive is with minions, since similar to you want to kill the enemy, then use to remove tower agro. Almost always tank tower when diving, since its always better for the jungler to tank, and it lowers the chances of your laner dying. If you are solo diving, hover your cursor away from the tower when using so the tower will target the clone instead of you.

HALLUCINATE JUMPS
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Recently Riot made it so it wouldn’t be RNG where you get placed when you press R, so now in pressing ultimate, you will teleport to the direction of your cursor, making it so you can jump small walls. Down here is a map of possible jumps you can make, red being easy jumps whereas purple being a lot harder:

You can practice these jumps in practice tool, press the "fast forward 30 seconds" button since refreshing your cooldown won't kill your clone.

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Hope you guys enjoyed reading as much as I wrote this. I made this all in about a week, I might more guides in the future so look out for those and I'll be sure to update this guide every patch =). REMINDER Check out my stream, 4by3_.

Thanks all.

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[9.19] AD Jungle | 4by3's Indepth Shaco Guide

[9.19] AD Jungle | 4by3's Indepth Shaco Guide

Recommended Items

Runes:

Spells:

Ignite

Smite

Items

Ability Order

Backstab (PASSIVE)

Deceive (Q)

Jack In The Box (W)

Two-Shiv Poison (E)

Hallucinate (R)

Threats & Synergies

Rek'Sai

Kha'Zix

Graves

Udyr

Hecarim

Karthus

Nidalee

Kayn

Lee Sin

Rengar

Elise

Twitch

Kindred

Xin Zhao

Master Yi

Xin Zhao

Nocturne

Jax

Shyvana

Sylas

Amumu

Rammus

Ivern

Alistar

Yuumi

Orianna

Alistar

Yuumi

Orianna

Champion Build Guide

[9.19] AD Jungle | 4by3's Indepth Shaco Guide

Starting Items

Core Items

Situational Items

Tiamat Upgrade

League of Legends Champions: