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Shaco Build Guide by

[Updated 10.12]: AD HAIL OF BLADES SHACO

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Shaco Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (8) More Shaco Guides

Runes: Precision secondary

1 2

Domination

Hail of Blades

Sudden Impact

Eyeball Collection

Relentless Hunter

Precision

Legend: Alacrity

Coup de Grace

Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

Ignite

Smite

Items

Start

1st back

Jungle Item + boots

Dusk

2 pathways: Path 1 CRIT (choose 1 AS item and 1 AD item)

Path 2: TRIN+LDR/MR

Finish hydra OR zhonyia/GA (sell tiamat)

Final Build pathway 1

Final Build pathway 2

Situational: can swap for any item other than core 3

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

Nunu & Willump

Extreme

Hard matchup, Nunu is too tanky to beat in a 1v1, and his kit allows him to do quite a bit of damage and a whole lot of CC even if he's building full tank.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Champion Build Guide

Who are You?

I'm PrabhablyShaco, a S8/S9/S10 GM Shaco player on the NA server. My highest peak was last season around GM 350 LP. A little fun fact, I play league on a trackpad (the built in mouse on a laptop)

http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=prabhably
IGNS: Prabhably
onIy trackpad
https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=oniy+trackpad

I've been playing shaco for a minute, i think its been around 5 seasons. I first started using HoB when DH got reworked, and its slowly become the go-to keystone for AD shaco. I play Shaco both AD and AP in the jungle, but this guide is only for AD.

I hope you guys enjoy the following guide, feel free to comment on anything that seems to be off, as this is my first official shaco guide.

I just recently started streaming, so if you want to catch my stream, I've dropped my twitch below.
https://www.twitch.tv/prabhablyshaco

Enjoy!

Patch 10.12 (Current)

previous patches saw nerfs to shaco R where clone only deals 60% of AD instead of 75%, as well as the damage of on hit item procs for clone also being reduced from 100% to 60%. AD shaco takes a big hit with this, but its still viable.

Rework

Shaco rework! a strong early game jungler once again, thanks primarily to the buff of his E, which does some huge early game damage when opponents are below 30% health. W box change to AOE damage also significantly helps his jungle clear.

Patch 9.6

Same as patch 9.3, only difference is Rek'sai becomes a must ban.

Patch 9.3

Patch 9.3: previous patches jungle xp and gold nerfed. This forces shaco into a more gank oriented playstyle, instead of the traditional farm and scale playstyle. Hail of blades is well suited for this, more so over fleet footwork and electrocute.

Jungle Patch 8.23

Patch 8.23: Reworked DH, new DH gives backloaded dmg instead of frontloaded, and stacks can only be farmed by damaging a champion below 50%. I believe that this rune is still good, but is more situational and much more feast/famine than the old DH. In addition, DH will be further nerfed in 8.24, changing its base damage from 40-80 to 20-60. For these reasons, i exclusively run Hail of Blades.

Pros/Cons

Pros and Cons of Shaco

There are several of both Pros and Cons to playing Shaco. He is not a perfect champion, and there are a lot of ways the enemy can hinder his progress in the jungle. However, he is incredibly snowbally and can take over games easily.

PROS
-Fast first clear
-his Q (Deceive) is one of the best abilities on a jungler in the game
-Strong level 3 and level 6
-Huge Outplay potential
-snowballs hard

CONS
- Incredibly item dependent
-If you fall behind early it is very hard to get back in the game
- Some skill on the champ is necessary to be consistently successful on him (although not as much so for AD as AP)
-Early invades set you back, especially if you die

Rune Setup-HoB

Why Hail of Blades?

Dark harvest is better utilized when running AP shaco, as it helps with your E execute. Electrocute is decent but needs a combo to proc. HoB is a great rune for early dueling, and only has a 4s cooldown (out of combat), meaning it will be ready to use in most duels/ganks/skirmishes. It is also bugged with clone, to where if you ult with HoB active, the clone will receive a permanent attack speed boost. Damage with this keystone ultimately is decided by how many autos you can get off, and since the cooldown is almost nonexistent, this means you have the potential for dealing a lot of damage. It also synergizes extremely well with both the crit build path and trinity force build path.

Why Precision secondary?
This is actually more of a personal preference. In season 8, I only used sorcery secondary (absolute focus+WW or celerity+WW), however, now that the bonus adaptive force from runes is no longer tied to which rune page you run, I actually prefer precision.
Alacrity helps give great early clear and it synergizes nicely with HoB, zerk boots, trinity, and the crit items.
Coupe De Grace helps execute lower HP targets, even more so now that two-shiv poison (E) is now a proper execute. (Edit, first shard of rune page should be adaptive force, however AS can be used if you want a faster early clear)

What about Sorcery?

If sorcery secondary is more preferred, i like to run absolute focus/nimbus cloak-waterwalking. Absolute focus gives you a nice bonus of AD. Nimbus cloak allows you to stick to your targets, and with HoB, that helps maximize your AA output. Waterwalking is key for contesting crabs, river skirmishes, securing drakes, and getting to lanes quicker.

Offense, Flex, and Defense(Edit, first shard should be AS, not adaptive)

I go AS+adaptive+armor shards respectively. However, defense can be swapped with health/MR depending on team comps.

Build

The build path for shaco is a lot more open than it was pre-rework. This guide primarily focuses on AD shaco, however AP is also now equally viable. There are two build paths that I mention in the guide: Crit and Trinity. The crit build path is extremely strong, but only reaches its full potential when both the AS and AD item are built. It has a great 1-shot potential, often 1 hitting opponent carries without even needing to cast ultimate. However, it is also very costly, and should only be built if you are ahead or are able to stall the game and powerfarm for items.

The trinity path is more consistent, however it lacks alot of the burst the crit pathway has. However, it offers more survivability and utility mid-game, where you peak and are at your strongest. Late game though, it does fall off. Against teams that are nearly full-tank, the armor pen item can be swapped out for a Blade of the Ruined King in order to melt the tanks.

LV 1 Clear

HUNTER TALISMAN CLEAR
Hunter's Talisman is the most optimal first clear buy for Shaco because its passive allows you to heal off of your Jack in the Box AOE, and allows you to bypass Shaco's mana hungry abilities.
Typically, you should start red side on shaco, because it increases the speed of your subsequent camp clears and increases your strength in early ganks and duels.

There are two ways of setting boxes up for red side clear. One way is leashless, setting two boxes on raptors (placing the first box when Red Buff timer hits 40 seconds left until spawn), and the third close enough to red to where it does not activate. You clear raptors, and then lure red to the third box, while setting a fourth box behind it. After clearing red you can move on to krugs, or go to your blue side.
The second leashed box setup method: place one box behind red buff (40 seconds before Red Buff spawns), and one directly in front of it. Then place a box on krugs. Have your laners leash the red buff, then Q to krugs. Clear krugs with smite, then walk to raptors and clear it. Here you will be level 3, allowing you to look to gank/clear blue-side.

HUNTERS MACHETE CLEAR

Although talisman is the optimal buy for first clearing with shaco, going machete first item also has its benefits. Your first clear speed can actually be a bit faster than talisman, however you are sacrificing the sustainability talisman offers when clearing camps. Machete is also a great start when invading enemy junglers, especially if they started their jungle clear on the same side of the map as you. Here is the clear path you should take:
Start Red leashless by staggering boxes. To do this you place two boxes on Red similarly to the clear using talisman noted above. However, place the third and final box after the red has spawned and the other two boxes have activated. This gives you an additional fear from the third box and more dps on the Red buff. After you have taken Red, run to Blue and clear it along with Gromp. This allows you to be level 3 and look to invade the enemy's Red Side or gank top/mid.

I will be posting videos/pictures of the clears soon.

What to do after clear?

After finishing your first clear, you are level 3. From here, you should look to gank whichever lane is pushed in the most/most killable. Usually the best option here is mid lane, due to its proximity with the final camp you clear for level 3. However, do NOT force ganks if the enemy is at tower or if their jungle is in the area, unless you know for certain that you can secure the kill. Your early game damage is huge. If there are no lanes to gank, you can choose to either invade the enemy jungle. Only go back to clearing your own jungle if both of these avenues are not possible, and make sure that you secure either one or two crabs on either side of the map @3:15. The main thing to look for when playing shaco is to always exert pressure on the map, you always want to keep the other team on edge, or punish them for overextending/overstaying in their lanes.

After ganking/invading and farming your first clear jungle, hopefully you've picked up a kill or two. Once you've reached 1325 gold, you need to go back and buy . This is a MUST buy on AD shaco, because without it your clear is average at best, and jungle is all about saving the most time getting to and clearing camps as possible, and then pressuring the map. Getting tiamat on your first back is a HUGE power spike, and you are at one of your strongest points in the game.

If you find yourself out of luck and not able to secure any kills in the early game, you most likely will not able to first item buy unless you've been farming both your and the enemies jungle. If you find yourself in this situation, no big deal, recall and buy the components for it. If building first item, you can buy either or to offset mana costs. If starting first item, these mana costs will not be a problem, and you can continue to farm for .

Conclusion

Hope you guys enjoyed this little rundown of HoB Shaco! Do not hesitate to add me in game and message me if you have questions or comments. Also feel free to follow twitch and ask me there as well. Thanks!