Talon is an odd champ. He is incredibly underused, despite being basically an AD Leblanc. 1 burst kill, and can take down towers as fast as any champ(Rengar anyone?). I first began playing LoL during season one, and since then I have played roughly over 200 or so games as Talon. I'm a bit obsessed with the character as you can tell. I learned just after the Nerf that everyone is so fond of saying "ruined" the champ, so I learned how to use him even with the mana cost increases and regen nerfs. With this guide I'll show you just how effective this champ can be, crits for over 1200(Ive hit 1508 before) as well as how to use with utility to back door, take out high damage targets and do so before the enemy team even has a chance to act.

This guide will show you how to dominate mid lane, and in the future how to use him Bot or Top (though he is best utilized in mid lane)

PROS -
- Insane High burst damage
- Awesome Escape abilities
- Takes Towers down as fast as champ in the game
- Counters any squishy champ mid, AP or AD
- Roaming ability
- Infiltrator

CONS
-Squishy
-Prone to be targeted
-relies on abilities for damage until late game

We gotta get all the stuff that happens before the game out of the way ofcourse. This set up however is JUST as important than any technique in the game. This page is how you get those early kills.


Greater Quintessence of Desolation + Mark of Desolation

- Armor Pen. Need I say more? It scales better than simple AD. With this guide you will already be hitting over 1k with auto attacks, not counting abilities, ArPen is the way to go.

Greater Seal of Resilience

- Vital. Before lvl 6, Talon can be very vulnerable. He is not by any means a tanky character, so having flat armor will help you not only survive ganks, but also hang around in lane pre-lvl 6 to out-push your opponent.

Greater Glyph of Shielding

- Necessary for late game. Talon should always rely on his finese to escape sticky situations, not armor or MR. However as long as it doesn't take up an item slot, it can help. Champs don't typically start with any(or much AP) so its better to take scaling ones that leave you with 24 MR at 18, thats a Mercury treads-worth of resistance. Not too shabby.

This is what the masteries should look like. The 21 in offense is pretty self explanatory, the wiggle room mostly being "Havok" and the life steal. I like to give myself more sustain for early game, but 1.5% more damage isn't a bad choice either.

Now for the defensive tree. I like to stack the Armor and MR because this and your runes are the only place to put them in. If you search a guide that has Talon wasting item slots on defensive items, do yourself a favor and leave immediately. Lastly the health Regen will also help immensely for early game, coupled with the life steal mastery will help sustain during the laning phase.

This is where alot of Talon players go wrong. This may also be the reason he is so very underused, I have seen many Talons evolve into a Talfeed.
- Escapability, movement.

- 3 of em. Need sustain for outlaning your mid counter part.

- Its very wise to grab a couple of these throughout the laning phase. I'll typically buy 1 or 2 before each major item buy. When to buy will be detailed in the early-mid game portion of the guide.

- The perfect early game item for talon, attack damage, cool down reduction and armor penetration.

- Talon is a straight AD caster, and for that he needs Cool Down reduction. Too often players attempt to turn talon into a half assassin/carry, and waste slots on defense. Talon's survivability comes from his abilities and the fact that, if you pick your targets right, you never actually get hit by them before they are dead.

- The passive is what makes this item great on talon. this will maximize your damage on a critical hits. Your Q can also crit, not the bonus damage itself but it will add on. This leads to 1500 dmg Q's at full build, tack that on with your W and Ultimate, the carry, along with a good portion of the enemy team's health will be gone whilst you scamper away invisible back to safety.

- At this point you will probably find yourself in a couple 1v1 situation, with your damage output on auto attacks, this will help you not only survive these encounters, but get out alive with a good amount of health.

- This is the center piece of Talon's utility. This Gives him all basic AD-Caster needs, CDR, AD, and ArmPen. The active is where it shines. Talon is a chaser and infiltrator, this speed boost coupled with his ultimate will make seeing you coming out of the jungle or brush a sight to behold. Not only is it a scary sight for the enemy team, but it also adds attack speed which paired with your Q make towers disappear. Fast.

X2 - Highest raw AD potential, and lifesteal.

- This item may look a little weird on an AD Caster, but it makes Talon scale into late game much better. True you could add more AD, and I'll provide some options below, however the critical strike chance boosts his end chance to 70%. 1k+ damage on 70% of your auto attacks make you very dangerous. The attack speed and movement speed bonuses help you chase and take down towers and inhibs even more efficiently.

- This is the main deviation from the build I use. If you are (and likely will be) a high priority target, the enemy team may stack some armor, if it is enough, it may be worth investing in one of these bad boys instead of the PD. The reason I typically like the PD over LW is that the enemy team will typically try to avoid you rather than change their builds to counter you, Thus I like having over 1K crits 70% of the time, rather than 40% armor Pen and 1K crits 40% of the time.

- As stated before, Im more a fan of going completely offensive than anything defensive as talon, but this item can help if the enemy caster is fed. Most of the time you will get to them before they get to you, but this item still had alot of AD and a nice passive, I would replace a Blood Thirster with it if I were to build it.

- Im not a fan of this item as talon, but I can see it's use. Talon already has his own slow and should rely on his abilities to escape, but if you really feel that you need some tanky-ness its not all bad, talon's passive will make this item more useful as his damage will amp 10% each auto-attack.

This is where things can get funky. Having Talon mid, you should always start with your W. This is your early game poke, as well as a slow, and also helps farm. However if you are facing anyone squishy, which you likely will, you should only invest ONE point into it.

Once you turn lvl 2 you should invest one point in your E This is a silence which will help an early gank, as well as save you from getting ganked if you over extend, just blink to the enemy ganker and run back to the nice safe and warm tower.

From lvl 3 on, you should be maxing your Q even before lvl 6, your EQW + Ignite combo will be enough to kill most squishy targets, and even if that is not the case their health will be so low they will be forced to leave lane.

And Of course, max your Ultimate whenever possible.

Contrary to popular belief, there are MANY more reasons to Max your Q before your W while mid.

Low Cost Slow - The main reason Talon is hardly used is his high mana cost, due to a previous nerf. The mana cost for rake at lvl 1 is already high, continually upgrading it will eat away at your mana until you can not cast a single thing. Noxian Diplomacy however is VERY low cost, so in my opinion it is FAR better to have the damage come from your Q than your W and you conserve mana for your ultimate ect.

Lane Control - Another fictitious advantage of maxing your W over Q. While your W does in fact help farming immensely, maxing your Q will drop your enemies' health rapidly, forcing them to leave lane frequently to heal, giving you plenty of room to farm off of auto attacks, and not only that you save yourself alot of mana that way. The mana cost of Q at Max rank is equal to W at its first rank.

If you want to see this skill progression in action, scroll down to the video at the bottom under KGBNoVA this is me playing Talon under this build.

When I chose to instead max my W over Q is when I end up laning against someone not squishy, be it a Sion or some other tanky-ish mid.

In this case, I will max my W to use as a poke as I will more than likely NOT be able to 1 shot this champ, or atleast get them low enough to push them out of lane. Also in this case I will use my W to farm and keep out of harm's reach. This consequently means more mana potions.

For an AD caster, there are really only 4 SS that apply.
- This is an escape tool, a ganking tool, a gap closer, there is a reason why its almost mandatory for most champs.

- A substitute for flash, however with Youmuu's active and your ulti, another speed boost is not as important in my opinion.

- Extra DOT to go along with your Q's. I can't tell you how sweet it is to burst a champ and see them get away, and then hear a "YOU HAVE SLAIN AN ENEMY" 5 seconds after.

- I typically like Ignite better, but this SS can neutralize a enemy AD champ as well as secure a kill, may be worth taking if no one else on the team has it.

This is a video of me as Talon in my new group YouTube Channel, this will give you some views on how this guide works, and its just pretty funny in general.

Kills 2:30 5:40 6:05 7:03 8:05 15:10-45 15:55

Towers 8:43
Play Video

If you like this vid you can subscribe to KGBNoVA or my channel for gaming videos.

STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION

I will be adding videos of early-mid-late games, as well as more written portions, but I wanted to get this guide live as it has all of the essentials.

Please leave a comment at the bottom for how I can improve this guide!

BLUEKOOLAIDMAN7

Youtube Links-

My Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/bluekoolaidman7

New Group Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/kgbnova?feature=results_main