Shaco Build Guide by TetherSaw

Introduction

Greetings summoners.
I have decided to do this build for AP Shaco because of one important reason-Month or two ago (I can´t remember :D), Shaco got nerf about his attack damage and about his Deceive (Q) Ability (damage done in crit.). I used to play Shaco as AD assassin for more than year and then, he got this nerf and suddenly when i played him afterwards I immediately thought that it SUCKS!(it actually does not, he´s just not so strong AD as he used to be which gave us more viability to play him as AP burst champion)- Here ´s my build :)

WARNING: Please be notified that this build may contain advanced strategies/playstyle of AP so it is highly recommended to try playing him this way only for experienced players.

Pros / Cons for AP Shaco

BASIC Tips and Tricks

• The most important thing to keep in your mind is the fact that NOW, you are playing burst and squishy AP champion, so therefore you must pay more attention who is beying focused in teamfight. If it is YOU ,which is definitely logical step, do not panic! Just fall back with Deceive which you should use only for this purpose and spend a rest of teamfight behind your allies while throwing those extremely annoying Two-Shiv Poison.
• If there´s an enemy near you like with 400 hp and you got all your spells except Deceive on cooldown, DO NOT even think about jumping to him and trying to kill him with it´s critical strike passive and auto-attacks! Without your jacks, daggers and clones you got NO CHANCE against anyone except such a squishy burst champions as you eg.
• Always try to plant as many Jack In The Box as you can (even in team fights, DON´T FORGET ABOUT FEAR which they cause) and use them for example as temporary wards. (But be ingenious about planting too much of them - it costs a lotta mana).
• Never use Deceive to do some damage against enemies. Yea, sure it does nice critical damage but only with AD Shaco meanwhile this AP does with it pretty weak damage, so use it only to vanish (I hope you know, you can jump trough some walls with it) or get closer to your running enemy to do last hit.
• Don t worry about wasting your ultimate Hallucinate, use it every time you think about using it, the CD ´s not so big and it´s got really good harassing effect
• Maxing of ability is solely your business I only not recommend you to max Deceive it´s useless as damaging ability for AP Shaco and time when you ´r invisible is same at all ranks!
• Try to harass your enemies by throwing your Two-Shiv Poison quickly few times in early game (for doing this "stuff" it´s not bad idea to pick few potions for mana)

Items

Now we are getting to the most problematic point. I will try to recommend you all items which I consider as the good ones/useful. But please take on board that it´s just my opinion and I do not assure that those items are best for AP Shaco.


Early Game:
Let´s say that early game is level 1-8 okay?
Well from starting there are two ways, you can go for as it gives balanced ouput of health, mana and AP, simply time-tested item which is ussualy used if you are not so experienced or uncertain about your performance in early-game according to counterpick of your enemy team. But with few health potion size25 and mana potion size25 are much more viable for ranked games if you prefer better lane sustain and imrpoved movement speed which sometimes can save your life or just provide you better harassment options, it takes time to get used to it, but once you do, you will love this combination.
Afterwards,if you are doing well buy these boots, , viable are as well if you wanna harass your enemies frequently with Two-Shiv Poison and spam Jack In The Box everywhere (truth is that it is not much pleasant for your enemies :).....some people even prefer but I don´t see much meaning in that because it only gives you better movement speed out off fights so it is good only for running over to another lane if you are not tracked by enemies, I would not go for it it is good for support like Alistar or Soraka, but definitely not for you. If you are not doing well, or you just feel focused and too squishy do not worry to go for and once you have it, build from it . The other option which I actually do most frequently is to buy instead of it, for it´s great AP output and AWESOME active passive, which in combination with Two-Shiv Poison and Jack In The Box will make you harassment king of the lane.




Mid Game:
If you bought in early-game, then it is really extremely important to get for it´s massive ammount of AP plus bloody brilliant passive! Now comes the time of the bigest decision!!!When poeple play AP carry , they DO buy in mid-game in a massive most of cases. The reasons are quite obvious = item with THE OVERALL BEST AP RATIO!. It means, you cannot do anything wrong about buying this item in mid-game. But there is a few more possibilities. If you got extremely strong AP team against you (at least 2 AP carries) with champions like Fizz, LeBlanc or Karthus it is very good to go for coz of its balanced ammount of magci resist and AP with very useful passive (reduces the magic resist of your enemies by 20 in range 600), there is an option of buying if you wanna heal a lil bit through using your abillities, not much common item but it does not change the fact that it is a lotta useful for you. If you got against you extremely strong AD team with discouraging champs like Tryndamere you cannot do anything better but buying with its decent ammount of armor and AP plus awesome passive (Places your champion into Stasis for 2.5 seconds, you cannot do anything but you do not recieve any damage - extremely useful in teamfight when you are focused and got your Deceive on CD. Or even buying can be very good strategic step if you wanna have a really nice output of armor and you spam abillities (gives you incredibely a lot of mana plus CD, which is btw in combination with incredibly OP).




Late game:
Now I strongly recommend you to buy coz it´s really unbelievably universal stuff-it gives you good account of AP,movement speed,magic resist,mana and passive from Sheen which will cause that your Deceive will do let´s say decent damage as usable finishing spell in combination with your following auto-attcack which will cause increased damage thanks to passive from . Last troll item: I saw few times AP Shacos with final item , yeah it sounds crazy and I buy it as final item rarely but it really makes you let´s say little bit off tank coz you already got or so it is not so Insane as it looks. The last option of suitable and thinkable item for Shaco in late game is of course nothing else but , I kinda forgot to mention it before, sorry :D. It is of coourse item nominated for increasing your magic damage done to max, always very useful - not that much strong AP ratio, but its magic penetration is very useful and will increase your magic damage done almost so much as did .

Skill Sequence

Here, you are completely free, it´s absolutely your choice if you wanna harass you enemies with maxed Two-Shiv Poison first or plant and spam maxed Jack In The Box as first.....My experience is that I do it every game a little bit different- sometimes i max Jack In The Box first and sometimes Two-Shiv Poison it always depends on kind of your enemy (if they are AP/AD, if they are squishy, if they are burst type like you, if they got some blocking spell and similar stuff...). Sometimes I combine maxing of Jack In The Box and Two-Shiv Poison it´s really just your business....
Note:I ONLY DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU TO MAX Deceive AS I ALREADY EXPLAINED IN TIPS AND TRICKS-IT IS USELESS FOR HIM (as AP)....MAX IT AS LAST!!!!!

Masteries

As you can see I got most of points in Utility....It is in my opinion the best way of points in masteries for AP Shaco if you are playing 5v5-You can play him as a half jungler :) (spell vamp, CDs, experience, gold and movement speed in masteries) ....
But there is really so many great possibilities in masteries that you can of course find much better which 1. fits to your type of playing 2. is simply better :) ....
I tried many ways and this is that which seems to fit to me best (type of playing) but maybe just to me.....So first try to make your own masteries.....

Runes

You could see on top runes which I usually use. But there is much more good options for setting your runes so here I made a short list of another possible/viable runes....
Marks:
or - if you prefer big account of ability power in early/mid game than you can take these AP runes.
- I usually take these for really painful early game it maybe does not seem so, but magic penetration in early game is really useful.
The rest of magic Mark Runes with mana effects like are also viable but I do not recommend them much....

Seals:
or - again, if you like AP in mid/early game , buy these I do not see any problem with that.
combined with - Sometimes I use these if I see that enemy team got majority of AD champs, or I use it normally as well for better sustain.

Glyphs:
-again, if you like AP in mid/late , buy these, in my opinion the Best glyph runes.
- very useful as well if for example if you prefer harassing with Two-Shiv Poison. I use to say:"Some CD is always useful!"

Quintessences:
or - great and main output of your AP.
- not bad as well, good for lane sustain, but I still mostly recommend those Quint. runes for AP....

Note: There is of course in every category more viable runes with effects like mana pool or mana regen and so on.... And I think these are possible but not so good-expendables, it´s not so big problem to have little smaller mana pool despite of having smaller AP or magic penetration...

Summoners Spells

In this choice you are almost completely free. Well, you are completely free in choosing of course :D , but I will write down just few spells which i found useless for AP Shaco so I highly warn you about choosing those:
Flash- I know it´s propebly the most used spell and it´s awesome BUT Shaco already got "Flash", in nutshell I of course mean Deceive which is let´s say IMPROVED FLASH and when playing AP Shaco you use Deceive only for vanishing so I really don´t see any reason why should you take FLASH.
Ignite - Frequently combined with Flash. You can´t do anything wrong about taking/using this spell. Very useful in teamfights, scaring enemies or just finnishing off your enemy with its awesome true damage (410 at level 18).
Exhaust - Mostly I do combine this with already mentioned Ignite instead of Flash. It provides either slowing down your enemy or getting his damage down. Both of it is very useful in A) Escaping your enemy, B)Hunting him down or C) Just using it in teamfight to disable him for some time cause some big damage.
Revive- I found this SPELL COMPLETELY USELESS for most of champs, especially for Shaco....1st-IF you play him good or at least decent you really do not die much (escaping abilities), 2nd - It´s not a tradegy if you have to wait something about 1 minute MAX (in late game).
Then we got here spells such as Ghost, Teleport, Barrier, Smite and Heal. All these spells are also viable. Not as the earlier mentioned (according to this build) ones but if you think it´s better for you, feel free using them :)
The other Spells are let´s say possible...some of them more,some of them less, but the rest is still possible......

Summary

That´s it.
I hope you have enjoyed this build and that you will learn something useful from it. Please vote for it in the way you think it´s right/correct.To say some last words I can only wish you many wins and successes about playing AP Shaco :).