▶ About the author
Hi lads, I'm Aveson. I'm a european Gold toplaner and this is my Dunking Top with Jarvan IV guide. I've worked hard to make this guide as good as possible, and I would appreciate any and all feedback from you guys. I've loved Jarvan IV since game 1 and cant get enough of him!

▶ Content disclaimer
Doing this guide, I've been using to 100% my own experience and these are all my reflections while playing Jarvan IV. Everything here has been tested by me. Take everything I say at face value; I am just like you, an avid League of Legends fan. What does this mean for you? It means that this guide may not be optimal to the pro standard. If that's a problem for you, I suggest you to go and read another guide.

▶ What's included in this guide?
In this guide, along with detailing summoner spells, mastery points, runes and skilling order, I will also cover generic gameplay, roaming, team fighting and laning. I'm also planning on adding a few videos for all the visual learners!

For any abbreviations you might not understand, click here!

Pros

+ Effective farmer + Can reveal brushes with + Amazing CC and initation + Dunks

Jarvan IV is a great pick in any kind of ranked-play. You're rarely going to be afraid of ganks concerning your sick escape, if played right you will rarely have any trouble at all regardless if the jungler camps or not. Jarvan IV's duelling potential is huge once you get a core item or two. Most important when considering playing Jarvan IV, is his teamfight impact. He provides the team with an attack speed and armor buff and a sick amount of CC as well.

Cons

- Fairly low base damage - Bad at dueling before he got his core items - Requires a lot of practice to master - Doesnt dunk before level 6

As per all champions, Jarvan IV has his strengths, and his weaknesses. Compared to other Toplaners, if he fails during laning phase he will probably not do a comeback. Its exceptional since I have succésfuly done a comeback a few times thanks to my team. Additionally if you're bad at positioning you're probably not going to do very well as Jarvan IV.

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OFFENSETREE 4 point into Sorcery since you get +5% cooldown reduction, isnt too bad. I prefer this over +5% attack speed since you almost only want to AA when you're about to proc Martial Cadence. 1 point into Double-Edged Sword , Butcher and Feast. Highly preferred since you're increasing your survivability during laning phase greatly. 3 points into Brute Force and Executioner and ofcourse 1 point in Martial Mastery as well. Since these simplify farming and duelling early on I dont see a point not using them. 3 points into Warlord and Devastating Strikes . Nothing wrong with some bonus AD and armor penetration. And than putting the last point into Havoc obviously.

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DEFENSE TREE 2 points into Block and Recovery . Quite standard, these providing you with overall sustain. 1 point into Unyielding since it'll help you win trades and fights during the laning phase. Nothing special or weird with that. 3 points into Veteran Scars as of the +36 health, provides you with additional survivability. And yet again, the last point, I recommend you to put it into Juggernaut . Standard as f!ck.

I highly prefer Greater Mark of Attack Damage since being aggresive as f!ck is my standard and since it'll ease csing. The Greater Seal of Armor suck now since the nerf and therefore I run Seal of Health and x1 Greater Quintessence of Armor instead. Greater Glyph of Magic Resist is great since this guide is all about wrecking them early and dominating them later on, however you may run Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist based upon preference and matchup. Get Greater Quintessence of Life Steal for the survivalbility early on.

Recommended runes:

x9 Greater Mark of Attack Damage
x9 Seal of Health
x9 Greater Glyph of Magic Resist
x2 Quintessence of Life Steal
x1 Quintessence of Armor

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Best build EU (Offensive)

Start

or +

Early Game

Mid Game

Late Game

+ or

Worst build EU (Defensive)

Start

or +

Early Game

or +

Mid Game

or +

Late Game

+ or

As Jarvan you will usually have an advantage over any other melee champion, mostly because your range is 175 and most other melee champions like Lee Sin have a range of 125. During laning phase against a ranged champion such as Jayce or Nidaleeyou should start with Demacian Standard for the bonus armor. While facing a melee, the combo you want to execute at level 1 is AA to proc Martial Cadence then hit Dragon Strike, watch out for the creeps as they does tons of damage early on thought. I recommend you to practice this alot so that you can get used to the mechanics. I usually try to accomplish something with this combo when my opponent attempts to last hit. I suggest you to proc Martial Cadence each 6 seconds on your lane opponent. Keep that in mind.

At level 2 if you managed to proc and harass they should've burned all health pots away. If you hit level 2 before them, your best bet is to just Dragon Strike + Demacian Standard them before they do, if you're lucky you might just pickup a kill however if its someone tanky like Shen you can just zone them until they hit level 2.

If your lane struggles you should call for the Jungler and once he comes in make sure you land your Dragon Strike + Demacian Standard because it increases your killing potential alot. Don't get baited. Many times when I'm winning my lane I instantly initiate to kill him but in return his jungler comes up from nowhere and I end up dead. My point is that you shouldnt use your combo without perception of ​​where the rest of their team is, as that's your only escape excluding Flash. Using a few Stealth Ward might be use, invest in them!

I find roaming to be the key to get ahead unless you melt the lane opponent, roaming is really easy with Jarvan, especially at level 6 because of Cataclysm and if their Flash is down. You can easily melt them with Demacian Standard + Dragon Strike + Cataclysm and once you got the kill (hopefully) procced to take turret/dragon and than head back to toplane.

When in team fight as Jarvan you should look for an opportunity to zone and kill the AP Carry or AD Carry on their team, do this as soon as there is an opportunity. You should try to land this combo on carry of your choice, Demacian Standard + Dragon Strike + Martial Cadence + Ignite + Cataclysm
If you get focused and belive that you're dead already make sure that your Demacian Standard is there for your team, the bonus attack speed is quite helpfule. One thing you always need to keep in your mind while initiating is that Cataclysm can kill your allies as much as it can help them, it may cost you the entire game failing with your ult, if you trap your allies and a crisis arises you might as well reactive it and break it to prevent further suffering and a few pissed off teammates.

Later in the game Jarvan do fall off as the ADC usually have a Guardian Angel and the APC a Zhonya's Hourglass by then which hurts Jarvan tremendously, if you are having trouble killing people later in the game and getting melted for trying to burst someone you should probably give up on the damage items and focus on getting tanky enough.

I would like to thank JhoiJhoi as well since her awesome BBCoding guide helped me understand BBcode. I had a tons of fun making this guide and I hope that I will stimulate people to play Jarvan IV top and that people who's already playing Jarvan IV might've learned something they didn't know before. Thank you for reading my guide!

-Aveson

EMPTY

2014-08-05:
- Added banners to each chapter
- Updated introduction chapter
- Updated pros / Cons chapter
- Updated masteries chapter
- Updated itemization chapter

2014-08-04:
- Added matchups
- Added masteries chapter
- Added runes chapter
- Added items chapter
- Minor spellcheck