In this player's opinion Talon is one of the BEST champs to play for some SERIOUS AD BURS (not a typo). However this is not to say that he is without problems. As with all champs if you want to be a Pro Talon then you will need to play him again, again, and again soooooo many times you know everything about the champ up, down, inside and out. This build is meant to give you an IDEA of how to build and use talon. If you use the same build EVERY GAME you will lose, and you will have deserved it. Now for the build....

Pros *High Burst damage *Destroys Squishy Champs *Able to go behind enemy lines and assassinate the carries in the back *Secures kills easily *Very fun *Very viable Dominion as well

SPACE

Cons *Somewhat Squishy *Not the best 1v1 champ *Early game mana problems *Farm may suffer if lanning with a ranged champ *Liable to get kited

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage The reason I take this is to help early game with farming and poke

Greater Mark of Desolation Never forget the ArP when playing AD characters, these runes are to aid with early game tank items such as Doran's Shield

Greater Seal of Armor Best runes for Armor in the game, never a bad buy.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist If you have good Armor runes, why not good MR runes?

GREAT:

Flash Get this 99% of the time. Aside from his Ultimate, Talon has no natural escape mechanisms so this is going to save your A** many a time.

Exhaust This activates your passive and if you go with the offensive masteries It will go reduce their armor, thus resulting in Higher damage.

*Great Talon's know how to use these spells both Offensively and Defensively.

GOOD/Viable:

Cleanse Getting CC'ed as an Assassin is pretty much a death sentence, and Quicksilver may not always be up, so its nice to have a backup

Ghost Same principle as Flash, except you cannot go over walls with this and that could mean the difference between "Legendary!" and "Shutdown!". This is preferred over Flash in Dominon though]]

Teleport Main reason for this would be if you are soloing a lane. You can also use this to teleport to a ward and REALLY catch them by surprise

Not so good, but not stupid choices...:

Clarity Talon does have mana problems early game, but eventually you learn to manage it.

Heal Same principle as Clarity, you might take damage when you start off playing talon, but you eventually learn to live with it.

Ignite On other people it's great but Talon doesn't benefit from it much other then a last hit, or heal reduction.

"Your trolling me right?":

Promote High CD, and very little utility makes this a no-no

Clairvoyance You are not support. Don't try to be.

Smite You are not a Jungler, but i guess you really want that CS?

Surge You are not an AS champ, and none of your abilities scale with AP, so why go here?

Revive no. Just, no.

Mercy This is not a bad passive as it scales as the game progresses, However this isn't so good as to build around it. Many Talon's build Frozen Mallet to activate it, but I find that to be a waste of Money and inventory space. You are much better off getting Red buff, because it's 1. free, and 2. takes no space in your inventory


This is Talon's nuke. This is your tool for 2-shot-ing a champion or taking a turret in 30sec. The more AD you build the more the bleed does as well, so even if that twitch ganked you, you're going to laugh when hear "You have slain an enemy!" after your death. Max this second

This is your main Farming/ Poking tool early game. Hence the reason why I max it first. The slow also activates your passive so this skill is great to get that champ running away.

Cutthroat This is how you initiate an assassination. The immediate silence means for no counter strike. This also allows for your damage to increase by a certain percent. This helps you burst people down and close the gap. Take a point in this early on but, max this last.

This ultimate is how you finish a kill, how to destroy a large minion wave, escape from a gank, and do AOE to a team. In short there are many uses to this Ultimate, both offensive and defensive, which can only be truly discovered through experience. Max this at every opportunity.

The Optimal Skill order should be :
cutthroat- - -

So, Blink to the Enemy with Cutthroat (giving you a percent damage increase), Rake them to slow (activating your passive), auto-attack once, then hit them with Noxian Diplomacy, pop Shadow Assault and move so that the majority of the blades from your ultimate hit them on the way out as well as back to yourself. If this doesn't kill them then Rake to slow them and Noxian Diplomacy once more. This is how it should happen OPTIMALLY so don't expect to hit this combo 100% of the time.

Early Game

Boots I always start with this and Health Potion x3 for the sustain and the ability to juke abilities and catch the enemy champs when they get too low

*This is where I begin what i call my SWORD STACKING STRATGEH!

Doran's Blade After I have enough (950g) I go and buy 2 Doran's Blade for the added damage, but I buy these mainly for the 200 health they provide. The 6% lifesteal is helpful but not a game changer

Avarice Blade Gp5 Items are always useful to have so buying this early is a nice advantage
*Note if you are being beat in CS in your lane then get this item before your Doran's Blade

Long Sword The final parts of the S.S.S is 2 Long swords these with the Doran's give you 40AD which make you farm much faster and easier.

*end of S.S.S.

MID-GAME

Ionian Boots of Lucidity These are my primary choice for Boots on Talon. But it is not unreasonable to buy Mercury's Treads if the enemy is heavy on casters or CC

The Brutalizer MOAR damage, ArP, and CD reduction? Yes.

Vampiric Scepter This helps with your sustain so whenever you start Burstin' someone down you start gaining health! After this buy you should also start to farm Creeps in the jungle (unless you have a Jungler who needs them)

Now if you have enough money from champ kills or what have you, then go and buy your B. F. Sword if not then go and buy Youmuu's Ghostblade

Youmuu's Ghostblade After this buy Talon should be able to Dominate. The Damage is great for Talon. The Active is what makes it one of the most useful Items on Talon. With it you can take Red/Blue Buff in about 10-15 seconds and if undefended Talon can take a turret from full to 0 with about 1 and a half minion waves. The ArP should be all you need for the game (unless they are tanks, but we'll talk about that later...). With Masteries, Lucidity boots, and Yomuu's, all of your abilities should have very short CD's,which is a must for an assassin. Your ulti alone should be around 30-40ish seconds of CD.

Once you have both Youmuu's Ghostblade and B. F. Sword I consider it ,

LATE-GAME

Bloodthirster This item will be your main source of survivability,and of massive Damage. So once you get this FARM, FARM, FARM!!! You should aim to hit 40 stacks ASAP. Always keep an eye on the map for massive groups of enemy minions,and for wraiths and wolves to come up. Note that Bloodthirster needs quantity over quality. Unlike items like Warmog's Armor that rewards you for killing champs, Bloodthirster counts a champion kill the same as a minion kill so you won't get to 40 stacks quicker if you only go for champs. This is the reason for always watching for wraiths and wolves who give you 4 and 3 stacks respectively.

At this point your CORE build should be done. The core is : Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Youmuu's Ghostblade, and Bloodthirster. Everything you buy after this point is situational...

If you are being fed/if you are fed:

Invest in Sheen then, move to Trinity Force accordingly.

Along with this fed route if you want more Damage go grab another Bloodthirster. With this combo you should not have any problem literally 2-SHOTing anyone

If the other team is building armor:

Grab Last Whisper this helps penetrate your enemy's armor (with Youmuu's and Last Whisp. your armor pen should be around 47ish%)

another useful item for this would be Black Cleaver for this reduces your enemy's armor thus allowing the WHOLE TEAM to do more damage

If the other team is heavy on AP burst or CC:

Invest in a Quicksilver Sash to get out of stick situations, and as stated before you could also get Mercury's Treads in place of Lucid. Boots

The main Idea of my build is to Build a Talon that can assassinate any champ. So by going with this, you shouldn't try to build "tanky" or even sacrifice Damage output for Survivablity. Talon is an ASSASSIN! You are meant to pop in, kill, and pop out. If you die it's because you didn't estimate your own (or opponents) abilities correctly. Don't blame anyone else for your death, It was all your doing.