Hi, I am CHVelocity from EUW. I have been playing talon since he came out back in 2011 which means almost 4 years of experience. I've tried out something like every potential good build on talon ending up with my core builds as THE most viable build. I have around 70-75% win rate with talon and i gotta say i know this champion in and out.

Talon is an assassin that is purely based on getting down a kill in one burst(can exceed up to >2000 Damage in one burst). When i play him right i can get in the back-row of an enemy team and kill of ATLEAST one Glass cannon and get out again in somewhere around 2-3seconds.


In this guide i will go through:

- The talon playstyle
- Itemization and situational builds
- Farming and laning
- Matchups
- Spells and Combos

With this said i want to welcome you to THE ultimate talon guide and your key to OBLITERATE the soloqueue.

Talon has a really high damage output when entering early- and mid-game. His Rake and Shadow Assault deals A LOT of AoE damage. As Talon, you want to target down ONE of the squishy carries of the opposing team while you aim your Rake the towards more members of the enemy team. This leads to a case of placement; as Talon you want to come into a team fight from the side or behind. you want to use your Cutthroat(can be combined with an aggressive Flash) to get behind the enemy team and take down the squishier targets at the back-line. You want to be quick in and out again, so your Shadow Assault might be your savior to leave as the front row turns on you.

Laning phase:
Talon is VERY strong when he reaches level 4 or 5, if you start maxing out Rake you will deal a lot of the damage. Rake is talon's tool that deals the most damage and is the most flexible one too, so you want to max it first. Talon needs much focus on Armor penetration and Attack Damage. In level 2-3 you'll probably have The Brutalizer already, and that 10% armor penetration along with the 25 extra AD will give you a HUGE amount of early damage. Already now you got huge killing potential.

One key thing about Talon is that he is a VERY MANA HUNGRY champion. Using your Rake before you got 3 skillpoints onto it, it's not worth using it for poking. you might wanna use it to take the cs you won't reach with basic attacks, but if you plan on doing that, try to focus on hitting the enemy laner at the same time.

Team fights:
The reaction you want the enemy team to get is just pure insecureness. Their ADC and midlaners(squishy carries) will start to cram into the front line, so you really want to try making your teammates getting some AoE for the enemies crammed into one space. All your AoE Damage from Rake & Shadow Assault (possibly a Ravenous Hydra or Tiamat)as talon has a huge advantage if he engages, kills an ADC, then leaving alive. This allows for your team to pick up the rests of the other carry and taking down tanks without the backline to think about. Now you as Talon should be able to re-enter the fight and pick up the pieces that's left from the teamfight and hopefully take some objectives.

**PLAYING FROM BEHIND**

Talon is one of the hardest champions to get back into a game when already behind. Atleast I have found a few tricks that might save your games where you got ganked early or outplayed by a mistake; If you get behind you should try to freeze your lane at your turret and take wraits or wolves if no minions available. The main trick is basicly farming until you've got enough gold to finish your Tiamat and possibly a Bloodthirster. When these two items are finished you got enough damage to roam bot-lane and pick up kills there.

If you get dominated in lane, i would say abandon ship and only get back to lane when enemy is hard pushing. You want to gank other lanes as much as possible to create pressure and possibilities for your team to pull this game through(your lane is already lost ^^).

MAIN RULE: FARM UNTIL Tiamat AND ( The Brutalizer or Hexdrinker) IS FINISHED, THEN GANK THE OTHER LANES LIKE NO-ONE EVER HAS.

You might wonder why i build the items i do. The same did i when i first saw people building it back in preseason 3. I thought why should i build the Ravenous Hydra, and why not build a second Bloodthirster? I will go through the build and WHY i build these items now.

Why do i build the core items i do?
Ravenous Hydra:
At first i thought it wouldn't be necessary as the goal as Talon is to take down single targets from the back. Wrong! It is super useful as a huge damage dealing resource because when you jump in and activate it you will perform 3-4 basic attacks in a rapid succession and deal damage not only to your target, but EVERYONE in its range. It also provides some sustain that is useful for sustaining your health. Your health points is very valuable as you don't have too many of them.
I use to pop it's active right after my q hits. to deal quite a bit more damage(only do this if you don't get focused at once).

Bloodthirster:
The reason i build this is quite obvious. It brings a ton of damage and the sustain it provides at max stacks is phenomenal. The pure damage is valuable as many of your items is based around armor penetration instead of flat damage.

Last Whisper:
I use to build the Last Whisper as the primary Armor penetration item. It provides with 35% of your opponents armor shredded away for your damage to get through. This item provides with a big spike when it comes to your damage.

Black Cleaver:
this item shreds away armor of the opponent. it doesn't provide armor penetration but ARMOR REDUCTION. Armor reduction allows for all your team to deal more damage to the enemies. This also provides with some AD that lets us deal INSANE amounts of damage.

Maw of Malmortius:
The passive shield from the Maw of Malmortius is super useful when playing against burst heavy AP casters. The magic resistance is always great when playing against casters too. And last but not least we also get a huge amount of AD on top of this!(60 to be precise). The Hexdrinker that builds up to the Maw of Malmortius is good for getting back to game when behind.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity:
These shoes gives you 15% CDR. Which is nice for getting your next wave of spells ready earlier.

Early-game it is very tempting to use your Rake to farm creeps, DON'T DO IT!
Rather take the damage from a few basic attacks from your opponent. Rake deals such a small amount of damage in the first two spell levels. Do NOT use it before "spell level 3" if you can't hit a few last hits and hopefully dealing a bit of damage to your opponent in the same spell.
The ONE spell you should farm with early is your Q; the Noxian Diplomacy. It allows you to basic attack twice i rapid succession to kill two low creeps fast.

When entering mid-game you'll have quite the damage output from your maxed-out Rake. You may now use it for heavy farming. It may one-shot minions and give you plenty with time to either deny the opponent farm or to take your wraits or wolves.

Passive: Mercy
Mercy makes your basic attacks deal 10% more damage to slowed, stunned, immobilized or suppressed enemies. as your Rake slows enemies, you both have spells that slows, but also items like frozen mallet will let you basic attack for 10%more damage against enemies due to the slow (Red buff also helps tremendously).

Q: Noxian Diplomacy
Noxian Diplomacy will empower your next basic attack. If the target is a champion, this spell will make the foe bleed and is revealed for 6 seconds. My style to use this is to provide 2 basic attacks in a very fast manner. Also I would use this as a key thing in my "solocarry burstdowns".

W: Rake
Rake is the ability in my burst and strategies I weighten the most. I max this first and uses it to deal huge amounts of damage for relatively low costs(High Damage/Manacost ratio). I personally almost never touch the 'W' key before i got something like 3 points into it, I only use it for last hitting the few minions I can't reach in time. NOTE: IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE HITTING YOUR Rake, TRY PLAYING "CO-OP VS AI" AND SOLELY TRY TO HIT THIS. A TIP IS TO WAIT A QUARTER OF A SECOND AND SEE WHERE YOU ARE.

E: Cutthroat
I use cutthroat solely for a moveability and assassination spell. It got kind of a long cooldown, but if you use it wisely, it will not end up with limiting you anything. cutthroat leaves you behind your target, so using it and Rake combined might be hard at first to hit. Cutthroat amplifies all your incoming damage by percentages, so using it to engage is not a bad idea.

R: Shadow Assault

Shadow Assault is a low-cool-down ultimate. At max, it bases around 40-50seconds cool-down. As you gain some CDR(Cool-down reduction), you will end up with an ultimate with around 30 second cool-down. this means that if you engage a fight and gets out again. you are able to use it in your clean-up duty as well. This spell is high Damage AoE* and has a bit longer range than Rake, so if you won't be able to use Cutthroat I would just pop my ultimate for that big damage at the end. The Shadow Assault gives you a small speed boost and invisibility when active. I have 2 ways to use my Shadow Assault, and must say the second one is my personal favorite usage.
1. Using it for catching into a team fight using the speed boost. if using this technique, I often use Flash and cutthroat to get through whole the enemy team targeting the enemy ADC to deal damage to all of them.
2. using it as the high damage finish when attacking enemies. This method also allows me to use it as an escape if necessary.

AoE - Area of Effect. Damage or any kind of influence that affects a given area on the map.

I use a 'B' as a short form for a single "Basic attack" in my combos.
"E-B-W-B-Q-R". This is my most used combo and it deals SO MUCH DAMAGE IN 1-3SECONDS depending on the executor. I personally have timed it and ended up with 1.2 seconds to execute this whole combo. THAT is faster than a team can think about focusing you.

E-B-W-B-Q-R Breakdown
I engage with Cutthroat ending up right behind my target. If you target an enemy with cutthroat, you will automatically attack that target. Ending up behind your enemies is a nice way to throw a Rake on your target and hitting his team with the tip of it, this slows them and it allows your Passive( Mercy) to come in handy. Basic attacking and almost cancelling your basic attack with Noxian Diplomacy lets you attack quick. Since your Noxian Diplomacy is a basic attack, you will end up with two rapid passive procks.
Now comes your heavy damage in. you wanna try to move a few steps to deal the most damage to more people with these upcoming spells. Usage of your Shadow Assault, depends on if you kill your foe with the first cast or not. If you kill it with the first, use it as a briliant escape or run through the enemy team towards yours. If you don't kill the foe, you want to use it again to retract the knives and secure the kill