Hey guys, this is a build for Jarvan IV, one of the best new champs released in a while I think. ^^

There are many builds out there that recommend straight AD or straight tank items and I think they are missing the point. If you want a straight out mellee DPS, there are many better choices such as Master Yi, Xin Zhao or Tryndamere. If you want a straight tank, you would be better off with Malphite, Rammus, Amumu, Shen...

RIOT made him to be a DPS tank, which means he survives well in team fights while still dealing punishing damage. Because of his passive attack speed and armor increase, Madred's Bloodrazor and Black Cleaver form the core of this build, because of their very strong ON HIT effects.

Greater Quintessence of Health for health.
Greater Mark of Desolation for Armor pen.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist for more lategame Armor!
Greater Seal of Defense for more lategame Magres!

Other runes you might want are attack speed, dodge, cooldown reduction, but Jarvan is great without runes too.

You're probably thinking, 9/0/21? That's crazy?! But actually the reduced recharge time on Flash is significant, the cooldown reduction helps a lot and so does the extended duration of minion buffs. However, this is just my playstyle, Jarvan is great with 21 in defence or offence too.

Ok this is where it gets important. Mercury's Treads and Doran's Shield give a nice base MR and Armor for the start of the game. Next we rush Madred's Razors because they give you some nice extra armor as well as helping you farm the jungle really fast because you have crazy wall jumping hacks with your E -> Q. At this point, you want to either build into Wriggle's Lantern if you really need the lifesteal, or keep building into Madred's Bloodrazor. Note this is an expensive item, but all the individual components are useful and you will farm VERY fast by combining your E->Q combo and Madred's Razors.

Once you have Madred's and a BF sword, you should already be a big threat to squishies, and you have the core of the build with Black Cleaver. Now you decide based on your team, whether you need to build defensively, like Banshee's Veil (Jarvan is a great initiator and can escape easily with flags/flash.) or offensively, Bloodthirster or Zeke's Harbinger. Stark's is a great choice if you have 1 or more other DPS on the team and they don't have it yet. It wins games.

The last three items on the build are situational. The ones listed above are for fighting a mixed AD/AP team.

You want to maximise E. E is great for so many reasons, not only the passive, but also for last hits if you are being denied by harrassment and for vision in bushes.

Q is my next choice because it has sick imba damage.

W is useful, but not as good as the other two.

If you are going mid, which you totally can and should do, then max Q first for the extra poke damage.

Flash is a must for suprising enemies with ulti. For example they push a tower on mid, you hide in wraiths, then flash out and ulti on their face underneath the tower. :) With the 21 points in utility the cooldown on flash is quite reasonable.

Exhaust is not essential, but it is one of my favourites because it helps ganking, 1v1 and fleeing, so is in general very versatile. Also the best spell for first blood.

Do not underestimate Jarvan's passive, it does BIG extra damage every 6 seconds to a champ. Use your E and Q combo to knock up the champs you lane against, then hit them once and retreat. This combo will do a LOT of damage early game and they will start to QQ OP. If possible try and hit each champion you lane against once every time you get the chance, just to Proc your passive.

The E->Q combo is obvious, great for farming minion waves, knocking up their entire team in a teamfight and for getting around quickly in the jungle. Be careful because the cooldown on E is quite long, so if you are jungling in the enemy's jungle save it for fleeing through the nearest wall.

Jarvan's Ulti is immense. Like I said try and combo it with flash, and always use on squishies like Teemo, Heimerdinger and Annie. Champions like Akali, Tryndamere, Jarvan, Shen, Maokai, Shaco and others can teleport or dash through walls, so don't waste it on trying to trap them. Don't forget you can cancel your ulti early by pressing R again.

Best combo so far with ulti was me using it and catching three of their team, just as Fiddlesticks on our team used his ulti inside. Other good combos are with Katarina, Anivia and Nunu & Willump I guess.

The reason this build destroys is because of the huge gold advantage you can get by jungling/farming with your sick attack speed and the proc on Madred's. Getting red and blue buffs is also very nice for Jarvan because he can run out of mana easily, he has no reliable slow and he has long cooldowns, so both buffs help a lot.

Important: DO NOT STAY IN THE JUNGLE IF SIDE LANES NEED HELP. Your team will rage at you and you will lose towers, which are worth 750 gold each. Typically the best time to jungle is when the other team have been pushed back and can only defend or in some downtime late game between team fights.

Jarvan IV is the prince of DEMACIAAAAA and he works great in combination with Xin Zhao, Lux, Garen and Galio the other four Demacian heroes. I am working on a guide for this team, I will release it someday with builds for all 5.

Overall Jarvan IV is a really good champion and fun to play. He represents a shift from RIOT in the metagame. For me, LoL is becoming more about supporting heroes who can take some damage like Karma, Maokai etc. and less about squishy nukers and super carries like Annie, Veigar, Miss Fortune.

Anyway, please try the build and leave some comments. :)