Good evening to you all. My alias is fobdogga and I bring to you an optimal way to build Jayce after a good day of testing, research and tears. Jayce is an interesting champion that appears to do it all, however he is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. This build will show you how to perform most of Jayce's capabilities and I sincerely hope you learn a thing or two out of this guide rather than be that idiot that auto-locks him in.

Note, Jayce is actually quite an easy champion if you actually want to learn him. It will take approximately 3 games to reach his full potential.

Provisional Viewing



Play Video Play Video
For this guide, we will focus on Jayce's ability to play the role of solo-top.

THIS IS NOT AN AD CARRY GUIDE I DON'T REALLY THINK YOU NEED ANOTHER PERSON TO TELL YOU EXACTLY WHAT ITEMS YOU'VE BEEN BUILDING FOR THE PAST 2 MONTHS

I take optimal AD carry runes to maximise the damage output for early-midgame. I shouldn't really have to explain this out further.

Optionally, Quints can be traded for Armor/Mr if you are aware you are laning against somebody tough like Vladimir, Shen or Malphite who will consistently trade with you all day without any of your input in the matter

Jayce has a unique skillset, which makes up for his lack of ultimate. Read on.

Passive - Hextech Capacitor
This is a great passive with multiple uses
You may spam this to reach lane/a skirmish, or use this in tandem with Thundering Blow / Acceleration Gate to Gap Close/Run Away

To the Skies!
A gap closer with medium AOE damage.
This ability is your tool for getting in their face. Casting this is imperative to use after Transform: Mercury Cannon For the speed buff bonus.
Lightning Field
AOE Damage Over Time
Your W is nothing but a damage increase. I wouldn't recommend using this ability for anything but getting the extra burst on your opponents. The 40 Mana could be crucial for using Acceleration Gate When it comes off Cooldown.
Thundering Blow
A maximum damage squishy killer.
This ability is Jayce's closest thing to an ultimate. That 1second CC mixed together with a 1:1 bonus AD ratio is KEY to giving you the edge in a 1v1 Scenario. You can easily relate this to Darius's Noxian Guillotine of simply how much of a nuke this is.
Also, mobafire has a lack of images for Mercury Cannon (The following images were sourced from the wiki)

Shock Blast
Ranged AOE nuke at higher level.
This ability is core to playing Cannon Jayce and peppering them down as Hammer Jayce. The scaling on this ability is RIDICULOUS at 1.2 Bonus AD. THIS TRANSFORMS TO 1.68 BONUS AD WHEN COMBINED WITH ACCELERATION GATE

Hyper Charge
A great spell for shoving towers and wards.
This ability allows you to perform 3 auto-attacks in the space of 2.5/Second. By buffering this ability with your auto-attack you are able to cheat by using 4 auto-attacks in that span. #haters_wanna_be_me


Acceleration Gate
A mainly utility spell, this provides both damage and movement speed.
I use this spell for EVERYTHING. This spell is just so AMAZING for the cost it provides. Seriously. 30 MANA.

Transform Mercury Cannon / Transform Mercury Cannon
Change of Abilities, and Movement Speed gain from your passive.
Much like Nidalee's Aspect Of The Cougar This ability trades your Mercury Cannon Skills to Mercury Hammer Skills (And Vice-Versa.) Learning the cooldowns of your spells to continuously chain abilities is KEY to mastering Jayce Play Video
Each of your abilities are maxed in different orders ACCORDING TO THE SITUATION YOU ARE PUT IN

Each of your skills are useful depending on what type of role you are playing.

Optimal Hammer Jayce

This build focuses on taking a stance in Cannon for maximum damage with your Shock Blast

E is maxed 2nd for the damage received from Thundering Blow

Damage Jayce

This build focuses mainly on your Hammer stance and relies on your opponent being a bad top laner that really doesn't want to trade with you.

E is maxed for the20% OF YOUR MAXIMUM HP GONE AT LEVEL 9 WHAT

I have based my build guide off the information provided from the lol wiki Which you can click here.

Starting Items

Very strong starting choice which provides a balance of kiting, sustain and offensive capabilities.

Core Items

It is important to stack damage for the midgame as it turns you into a monster that cannot be stopped. The Brutalizer is a perfect compliment to Jayce as there is literally nothing he can't benefit from such a cost-effective item.

You are then allowed to branch from the following items.

Boooots

As this build focuses on the Melee Hammer Stance, Defensive boots are VITAL to playing this champion.
Ionian Boots of Lucidity are more of a damage option which I wouldn't consider taking unless I was 20/0 or something ridiculous

More Damage

AGAINST AD





AGAINST AP





PENETRATION





Zeke's HeraldVERY UNDERRATED ITEM. SO GOOD ON JAYCE.

More Beef

ANTI-AP
cool item




ANTI-AD
I would recommend using this over the item Thornmail as it provides a bonus to your whole team rather than to yourself.




Cool item to shut down their ad carry and stuff. Builds out of Heart of Gold which is cool.






BOTH
I take this item straight after Bloodthirster for maximum beef brudda




I do not recommend building too much damage on Jayce as simply you are a melee champion and need the beef from something like a Guardian's Angel However, you should look at the situation you are in and build accordingly.

As implied, combos are the way to separate the good Jayce players from the great.

I shall treat the following as I do with fighting games, and so I will refer to Hammer Stance as (H) with Cannon Stance as (C). This helps with ease of understanding.

Jayce has 3 main combos that he can use to his disposal. They cost relatively 100 mana each.

Cannon Combo

(C)E --> (C)Q


This combo is your bread and butter Cannon Combo. At maximum levels of Q this becomes a 500dmg AOE nuke.
TIP: It is important to SMART CAST both of these spells at the same time to remove any chance of your opponent reacting to this. It is also fairly luck based on whether you will hit this or not so just keep practicing it.

At maximum levels, this combo costs 105 mana.

Hammer Combo - 1

(H)Q --> H(E)

Run up to them. Knock back. big damage from this alone. This combo is featured HEAVILY on Ciderhelm's video, on which he thinks that spending around 20mins of footage on this one thing is relevant. You be the judge.

Hammer Combo - 2

(H)E --> (H)Q

Knock Back and Gap close. It's like Hammer Combo 1 but backwards ~~ ~ ~~ ~

At Maximum levels, the above Hammer combo costs a total of 100 mana


So what can be achieved from the above? You get a lot of freaky symbols that don't make sense at all!

(C)E + (C)Q --> R while running through the gate --> (H)Q --> run in front of them -->(H)E

At a cost of 205 mana at level 13 (lvl5 Q + lvl5 E) this is Jayce's bread and butter burst combo.

An example of this may be found here Play Video

The above 3 spells are my core choices on Jayce for maximum Movement, Damage and Survivability. I will explain the above and other choices below.

Movement

Flash

Jump over walls OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSHEEEEEEEEEET

Ghost

Pretty cool spell I've seen lately on top laners. Flash is objectively better but go ahead.

Damage

Ignite

What better spell to increase your burst Damage from your spells than this bad boy? This spell alone counters Swain And Dr. Mundo because of the 1/2 healing and regeneration so if you see one of those people in a ranked match or normal draft pick queue this is a must pick !!! lol-

Exhaust

I like using this spell in tandem with Heal for ultimate baiting. It's pretty cool but I find it almost irrelevant in the top lane as it's more of a sustained damage spell (Say on Jax or Riven) rather than what Jayce is, which is a burst caster.

Survivability

Heal

HEAL BAITS OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHSHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET

Cleanse

Relevant on Cannon Jayce because of how terrible your range is.

- Matchups
- A jungle guide (If prompted)

Thank you personally for reading this guide in it's fullest. I have spent the past day and a half ****ing over this dude so you better take this information to heart.

On a serious note, improving on this champion relies solely on getting to know your resources. Look at every build, see what they have to say about this dude. Heck, he got released literally 2 days ago.

I wish of you the best of luck with this champion, enjoy!

ALSO THIS GUY IS REALLY COOL LOL