Talon Build Guide by Classic Crime

Introduction

Hello. This is my first guide on MOBAfire, so im new. And what better first guide to write than on the new champion, Talon. Talon is a pretty interesting new character. He is very burst oriented early game, however with my build, he can sustain a high DPS and burst very hard late game, without being too squishy.

For what I believe is the most important part of Talon, read 2 chapters below. If nothing else, read that chapter.

Pros and Cons to playing Talon

Pros

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He can shut down their caster
Throws out a lot of AoE damage
Hard to kill
Can farm relatively well


Cons

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Squishy early game
Tends to be focused
Relies on someone else to initiate fights

Runes/Your role on the team

For my Talon rune page, its a pretty simple page. We go with armor pen marks, armor pen quints, magic resist glyphs, and armor seals.


Greater Mark of Desolation/ Greater Quintessence of Desolation well thats self-explanatory. He's all physical damage.


Greater Seal of Armor because Talon gets in there. Late game, these are not as important, due to the Atmas Impaler.


The big ones are the Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist . Alright, so heres my reasoning for not building any MR items. I'm not a huge fan of glass cannons. But talon only needs armor for this reason. Most teams have that one caster who dominates. You know what im talking about, that one annie, or that one karthas. Those jerks. Well here is where you come in. your roll in a team fight is to silence their caster and BURN THEM TO THE GROUND. Yes, you do some pretty impressive AoE with Rake and Shadow Assault. But using Cutthroat to silence their ap carry and do more damage to them is your most important role. However, if they are any good, they will learn to at least hit you once with one of their nukes. These help you shrug off that one hit. Have them dead soon after.


Also, Greater Seal of Replenishment seal could also be a great choice since late game Talon will have some armor already. They allow Rake to be used almost every time it is up, granting a (hopefully) better creep score.


Wall of text/random chapter pairing done.

Masteries

Masteries. Well, i guess I have to write this. Not really, but yeah. Not much to say here. These are my standard AD masteries. To me, they help me do the most damage possible. But for masteries, I personally believe that its all a matter of opinion.

Items

Wooh hooh. The part I was looking forward to writing about. Im going to TRY and be pretty in-depth, so if that isnt your bag, just look at the pretty icons up above.


Boots of Speed / Health Potion. Both are great first items. The slow from your rake and the move speed advantage you have over those doran noobies is insane. If you do go for a first blood kill, you should be fast enough to get it, if they flash you flash exhaust and chomp chomp chomp.
The pots let you get into the creep wave and rake and last hit. Sure, you will take some damage from creeps and the poke, but thats why we get pots.
In fact, get a pot or two every time you go back.


Next, we go for the The Brutalizer. Oh sweet jesus is this item sexy. It gives attack damage. Yay! it give you even more armor pen. Hoorah! It gives you CDR. Woopie! In short, best item you can buy. enjoy throwing out those rakes even more, for considerably more damage.


Onward to our Boots of Swiftness! BoS are my personal choice so you can outrun people. It works perfect for him. You can position yourself perfectly with your ult, chase down that kill, and flash escape from ganks. He's hard to gank. These make it even harder


Now, we build our Phage. From my playing at least, at this point in the game, I'm not the most focused person on my team. But I sure am drawing a bit of attention. This item is a godsend for him. More health, and more ad. Both things that in my opinion, are perfect for assassins.


Now onto the Frozen Mallet. This baby will increase your damage considerably. Yes, more health, yeas more ad, good stuff. But its the passive on the item that makes it shine. True your rake slows, but now you can slow your target and use your passive (for real. the phage doesn't activate it enough for me to really count it as its main use.)


Onto, the Infinity Edge. First purchase from this, get your BF Sword. You know the deal for this. More damage, more crit. Works perfect for this build. Now you might be thinking, why not a Bloodthirster? It has more AD! I will explain why I dont build certain items below.


Now onto the Phantom Dancer. Holy **** is this a perfect item for Talon. Move speed is (in my humble opinion) one of the best stats for Talon, as I said above. And more crit and attack speed is never bad. Pretty simple item, and we ride onward.


Time to round off our build. Remember that brutalizer that has been sitting in your inventory helping you do a ton of dmg? lets make it better. Lets turn it into a Youmuu's Ghostblade. More crit, we are getting close to the end game 98%. And it takes your awesome brutalizer stats, and makes them a bit better. A bit more AD, a bit more Arm Pen, and a bit more CDR.
And lets not forget the Activate. You pop the item, Cutthroat to their ap carry, autoattack them down in .0003 seconds, then ult out, hurting the rest of their team. gg teamfight.


And for our last item, we build an Atma's Impaler. I know what your thinking. Classic, what is wrong with you. Atmas? Thats only for people who have 5 maxed out Warmogs. Well.... I got to a position in a game where I had 1 spot left. And I realized, I have a lot of crit. I'm critting pretty hard. I'm taking out their AP in seconds. But I will be damned if that Tryndamere doesn't do a lot of damage to me. And then I was looking at my items and realized, well I have a lot of health. And it all clicked. Atmas. Perfect. Trust me, you still get a decent amount of attack from this, but it rounds off your crit to near 100%, and gives you some much needed armor.


After this, any other gold can be spent on pots, all 3 of which help, and oricals.

Skill Sequence

Rake. Rake Rake Rake.

Alright got that out of the way, now we max Noxian Diplomacy. Your Cutthroat isnt as important because you only have 1 target in the fights. Their caster. And you only need to use that ability once to get to them.

And of course, every time you can, level your ult. Its insane. The low cooldown on it allows you to nearly always escape after bursting their caster, escape ganks, or just do some general damage. But use it all the time, our brutalizer and ghostblade make sure we have nearly the lowest CD possible.

How to use Talon's skills

Rake Is your bread and butter. This skill allows you to slow an enemy (or 5), doing a lot of damage and allowing your passive to work on them. This should be used to farm, and to damage.

Noxian Diplomacy Here is your solo target nuke. End game, you can jump on a person with cutthroat, auto-attack them once, then Noxian Diplomacy to reset your attack timer, pushing out a TON of damage. Or, alternatively, you can activate Noxian Diplomacy before you jump on a person so his first action is immediately hit them with this incredible ability. Follow up with a rake and a few more auto-attacks and Noxian Diplomacy (since it has an insanely low cd) and most non-tanks should drop.

Cutthroat is why Talon is an assassin. You jump on their caster with this, silencing them, eat them in 2 seconds, then Shadow Assault out.

And for (in my opinion) one of the most fun ultimates in the game, Shadow Assault
Shadow Assault is everything an assassin needs. Its an escape tool that also does oh so much damage while your running.
If you are being chased, pop this. It will do damage to the enemy, and when they all return to you, they will hit the person chasing you as well, dealing quite a bit of damage. Or in teamfights, if your target survives your initial burst somehow, you can just pop this then use it again right after and the blades will come back in, dealing damage to your target and their team.

And the best way to use Shadow Assault is by taking advantage of our superior movement speed and the slow on our Frozen Mallet. Lets say you find an enemy Annie by herself. You can easlily beat her if you play smart. Open with your cutthroat, with a Noxian Diplomacy precharged. then rake her and Shadow Assault. most of this will happen before her silence comes off, preventing her from stunning you. If you are standing near her when you use Shadow Assault, you will hit her with many of the blades. And the best is when she runs. Simply run in front of her, and wait for your abilities to come off cooldown. Make sure to stay really close to here, yet still in front. then simply wait for the timer on your stealth to end, and laugh as all of the blades fly right back to you, through the poor little annie.

Early/Mid/Late game as Talon

Early Game

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Early game is easy as Talon. Spam Rake, try and get your cs up. And try and harass the other team with Rake while you are farming.

If you see the chance for a kill, due to harass or just dumb gameplay from other team, go for it. Cutthroat to your target, with a Noxian Diplomacy pre charged, then rake and auto-attack them down with your Exhaust on them. Dont be afraid to Flash after them if they flash! Get the kill, live on the edge! You can just Shadow Assault for the last bit of dmg and then sneak away from their teammate.

Make sure to use Health Potions every time you go back!


Mid game

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Talon is a monster here. This is when team fights start to happen. This is where you shine. Pick up as much farming as you can while your not team fighting, but always be there for the fights. Your team needs you! Use the strategies above to kill their carry, and start to win teamfights with your team. Team fight victories allow you to push towers, which is the most important aspect of the game.

Also note that if your team is pushing a tower, help them unless you are told otherwise. Talon can get towers down pretty quickly by using his Noxian Diplomacy to reset his auto-attack timer.


Late Game

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Late game is played very similarly to Mid Game. Unleash hell on their team. Always be in the teamfights. If you see a chance to pick off one of them, go for it. Your an assassin for a reason.


All Game

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Buy Sight Ward. If you are level 30 and you arnt buying Sight Ward, make a new account and go learn to play again. Try to make it a habit of buying 1 Sight Ward every time you recall.

For the love of all that is holy, buy Sight Ward. I cannot stress that enough. Can you really not afford that 75g every time you go back? Then you are not farming well enough. If you are being denied by an Ashe or something, then you should be buying them every other time you go back. But wards win games.

Summoner Spells

My personal spells

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Flash-Yes. Do I even need to go over why flash is so good? Flash over walls. Flash infront of enemies so your ult fully hits them. Flash in range of a Cutthroat. Flash. Ahh Ahh. He's


Exhaust-Works with your passive, also helpful for taking out ad carries and running. A personal favorite of mine.


Other spells

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Ignite-respectable, who doesnt want two pretty high damage dots in their arsenal


Heal-Meh, not my cup of tea. I suppose you can roll with this, or you just go flash and use your ultimate to escape


Teleport-Getting back to your lane to keep farming is always good, or just being in the right place at the right time.


Ghost-Always a respectable choice, Ghost is an amazing spell. Useful for escaping and chasing, however is till chose flash for the wall jumps.


Cleanse-Another great choice, removes all CC effects from you. Useful if you find that you are being exhausted quite often, or blinded from teemo etc.


Not to use (unless your trolling)

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Revive-I guess you could use it for... something... Not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, but still, not for a champion who can avoid death so easily.


Smite-I have heard of Talons jungling, but this isnt a jungle guide. creep farming is easy with rake anyway, so no need for smite in lane.


Fortify-Your not the tank. Its not a bad spell, dont get me wrong. But there are more useful spells for you.


Clarity-One of my first thoughts when I played Talon was how low his mana usage was. Rake can be easily abused in lane. So I find that clarity is not the best choice... ever.


Rally-Remember what I said about if your trolling? Rally by itself is lame. Rally when your 4 teammates drop it wins the troll award for most damage done ever, unless they move 3 feet away. So just dont use it.


Clairvoyance-Your not the support. Dont grab it. One of the best spells in the game though, so I suppose if no one else has it... you can take it. But usually, you dont need it with good warding.

Why not (insert item here)

Trinity Force-Yes, I know, its a great item for him. However, here is how I see it. With Trinity Force, you have less of a slow, and you move slower than if you have a Phantom Dancer and Frozen Mallet. Those two things are very very important. But by now your smashing your head against the wall yelling about how good a Sheen proc would be! Well, yes and no. Sheen procs once every 2 seconds. And if you slow down your ability usage to get 2 procs, their caster isnt going to die fast enough. you should be using all 4 of your abilities as fast as you can. In addition, the Trinity Force doesnt give you as much health or as good as of a slow as the Frozen Mallet. So what if they Flash away and you cant catch them before you get burnt down? Bet you wish you had a bit more health and a better slow. And it doesnt make you run as fast as a Phanton Dancer does, so you cant catch them as easily when they Flash. And finally, the Phantom Dancer gives you more crit. I have never been one of those people who does the math for max damage. However, this is how I see it

1. Trinity Force centered other build
Procs sheen with 300 ad, hits them for 450 (if they had no armor), then another attack for 300, then another attack for 300. All this for 1050 damage.

2. My build
98% crit chance with IE, 300 ad. I get in 3 attacks as well. However, all 3 of my autoattacks crit for 750, for a total of 2250. (with no armor of course)

So thats just my 2 cents on the Trinity Force issue. I am aware of the fact that Sheen procs can crit, which would do quite a bit of damage. But still, I believe that my build throws out the most burst and sustained dps Talon can do




The Bloodthirster-I build my Talon around crit, so Infinity Edge is the natural choice. However there is more to it than that. While the lifesteal on Talon is nice, BT has a lower base damage than the IE does. It only pulls ahead on dmg when you get to 21 or more stacks on it. And its possible to lose those stacks, seeing as bad teamfights do happen, or the random death. Its a part of the game. So i prefer the constant 80 attack I get from the IE over the 60-100 from the BT. And the 50% more crit dmg I get from the IE I THINK means it does more damage than the BT, but I could be wrong.

But its all a matter of opinion.


Doran's Blade-I start with Boots of Speed and 3 heath potion. This gives you more lane sustainability. More lane sustainability=more farm. Dorans Blade just doesnt do it for me. 3% lifesteal isnt anything to me. 100 heath? meh. you get 600 heath from using your pots. And Boots will be used all game, where as your just going to sell the blade. And 10 ad is useful, however being able to outrun your opponents and getting in a second attack is more dmg than our 1 attack with the blade.

Summary

Well thats the end of my first guide, for Talon. Just remember, you are an assassin. Jump in, take out their caster, ult out of the fight, then jump back in. Farm when you can, as much as you can, be a good sport, and have fun. Thanks for reading. And please feel free to post any suggestions, questions, item/spell/masteries ideas, anything for me. I will try to check as often as I can.

Pics! (or it didnt happen)

Ignore the custom game, I was just trolling around there.