All Credits to "Slater Von Jager" from solomid.net for the text written and images provided in this guide.

Why create a Support Jarvan guide?

Jarvan is one of my favorite champs to play. I've seen games with players attempting to play Jarvan as a support, but they tend to fail at it because they tend to lose their lane due to not playing like an actual support. They try to compete for CS with the carry, they don't buy items that can benefit their team, and tend to think themselves invincible and start feeding. I wanted to present a guide that was not only viable, but useful to anyone looking to play Support Jarvan.



What is Support Jarvan?

Everyone knows that Jarvan is a powerful top and Jungler, but you don't normally see him as a support. Why? Well, he doesn't honestly have the typical characteristics of a support character. However, in the hands of a player that has taken the time to practice it, he can be a strong support. Like Leona, Blitz, and Pantheon, Jarvan can turn bot lane into a hard to deal with kill lane. His ability to boost his carry's armor and attack speed, Pop enemies into the air, lower their armor and slow them with out using a summoner spell creates a precursor to a secured kill.

Early on, Support Jarvan is capable of creating a lvl 1 or 2 First blood and establishing lane dominance for your team. However, because it's so much fun to pummel opponents with that big lance, it can be difficult to master the act of giving the kill to your carry. Support Jarvan can be difficult to get down right for those not used to playing a kill lane support, though I still recommend Support players learn to play him as they would Leona or blitz.


Pros
- Gap closer
- Good escape
- Armor debuff
- AS and Armor buff
- Slow and Wall
- Great early game damage with out AD items.
- Solid tanking ability

Cons
- Underwhelming Late game(no damage as a Tank support)
- Ult can be as deadly to allies as it is to enemies
- Can not Shield or heal allies
- Must put himself into threatening situations to feed his carry.
- Low sustain


Stats
Health 420 (+90)
Health regen. 7.0 (+0.7)
Mana 235 (+40)
Mana regen. 6.0 (+0.45)
Attack damage 50 (+3.4)
Attack speed 0.658 (+2.5%)
Armor 14 (+3)
Magic res. 30 (+1.25)
Mov. speed 315
Range 175


NOTE: This guide is More attuned to being a tank Support as opposed to tanky-DPS. Please take that into thought as you're reading on.

Passive: Martial Cadence

Jarvan IV exploits his target's opening, dealing 6/8/10% of the target's current HP as magic damage. This effect cannot occur on the same target for 6 seconds.

Explanation:
This passive is great when your solo top or jungling, but as a support, not as much. It still however has its place and shouldn't be considered useless as early game this passive is one of your best weapons in trying to establish and keep dominance of the lane. It helps your carry to quickly clear creep waves(move through and hit each one of them), and is capable of giving you the extra boost to secure a kill should your carry be incapable of doing so.



Q: Dragon Strike

Jarvan IV extends his lance, dealing 70/115/160/205/250 (+120% of attack damage) physical damage and lowering the Armor of all enemies in its path by 10/14/18/22/26% for 3 seconds.

If it contacts his standard it will pull Jarvan IV to its location, knocking up enemies in his path.

Cooldown 10/9/8/7/6 seconds

Cost 45/50/55/60/65 mana

Range 770

Explanation:
This ability, though taken second, is devastating early on in lane as being able to drop an enemy's armor allows your carry to deal a lot more damage, and that damage can be the difference between securing a kill/FB, or letting them get away only to come back later to jump the both of you when your weak. The ability can also be used to help lower the health on creep waves, allowing your carry the ability to finish the wave faster and push the lane. Lastly, this ability can secure that last hit on an escaping foe if no one else is capable of finishing them. It's biggest benefit however is it's synergy with Jarvan's E, creating a pop up, gap closer, and escape tool.




W: Golden Aegis

Jarvan IV forges a 50/90/130/170/210 (+20/25/30/35/40 health for each nearby enemy champion) health shield for 5 seconds, which slows surrounding enemies by 15/20/25/30/35% for 2 seconds.

Cooldown 20/18/16/14/12 seconds

Cost 65 mana

AoE range 600

Explanation:
While early on, the shield from this skill wont be a life saver for Jarvan, so its the ability to slow an opponent with it that makes it useful. It's cost is high, so one point early is all that is needed. Sadly, you cannot give the shield to an ally, thus this ability is used only for its slow early on, and an expensive costing slow at that. Good for tanking turrets with though.



E: Demacian Standard

Passive: Grants Jarvan a bonus 10/13/16/19/22% attack speed and 10/13/16/19/22 armor.

Active: Jarvan IV throws a Demacian flag to a nearby area, dealing 60/105/150/195/240 (+0.8 per ability power) magic damage to enemies in the area and granting his passive benefits to nearby allies and again to himself for 8 seconds.

Cooldown 13 seconds

Cost 55 mana

Range 780

Damage Diameter 150

Aura Diameter 1200

Sight Diameter 870

Attack Speed Aura: 10 / 13 / 16 / 19 / 22%

Armor Aura: 10 / 13 / 16 / 19 / 22


Explanation:
Its passive makes Jarvan tankier. That additional 10 Armor early on can make a large difference in lane. When active, it will deal magic damage in an AoE where the flag lands, and will then not only double Jarvan's buffs from the passive, but it will apply his passive bonus to all nearby allies. So as you can imagine, the ability to boost your carry's AS and armor gives them a huge advantage in an early fight. Once the flag is down, if you target Jarvan's Q at or near it, Jarvan is pulled to the flag's location, and launches everyone in his path into the air. With both his E and Q together, You not only double buff yourself, but you buff your carry, and debuff and pop up an enemy. Just throwing the flag onto an enemy makes for great harass as well by keeping them on their toes and guessing as to whether or when you and your carry will jump onto them.




R: Cataclysm

Jarvan IV heroically leaps at an enemy champion, dealing 200/325/450 (+150 of attack damage) physical damage and creating an arena of impassable terrain around them for 3.5 seconds.

Activate again to collapse the wall.

Cooldown 120/105/90 seconds

Cost 100/125/150 mana

Range 650

Diameter of Wall: 650

Diameter of Sight: 1650


Explanation:
This AoE doesn't apply a typical form of CC like other abilities. Instead, It's more reminiscent of Anivia's wall, except in a full circle. It damages the targeted champion and then traps anyone close by with in the wall for a longer duration than any stun. While your melee team members may be useless in a sense when outside the wall, your Carry wont be. Having that 3.5 seconds to pound away on an enemy incapable of escaping is priceless for a carry. However, this ult can spell doom for your carry, other team mates and even yourself. If a team member is near dead and trying to escape, attempting to save them with this ult is very bad idea as you can potentially prevent their escape, getting them killed in the process. It is better to use Jarvan's other skills or a summoner's spell to stop enemies from finishing off your escaping carry.

Early Game

Early on, the goal is to establish lane dominance right away and possibly establish first blood. While you can net that FB at level 1, your going to have a better chance at it at level 2.

So early on:

- Just harass the other team by dropping flags on them should they get to close.

- Camp their bush to force them to play cautiously(possibly separating them from the creep waves, thus allowing you and your carry to get ahead in exp).

- Be ready to pounce on them when they screw up. If the enemy carry is packing Flash, it would be wise to try and harass them hard enough to force them to burn that flash.


Once they burn that flash, and if they don't leave the lane to heal, you now have an easy kill once level 2 hits. At level 2, wait for that prime moment(be sure to stay in contact with your carry so they know what your doing) and strike.

- Drop the flag close enough to them to damage them and place it behind them, then Q into them. This will not only net some good easy damage, But will pop them into the air, allowing your carry to close in and/or score easy damage without recourse, and it will shred their armor.

- Once they land, hit them with exhaust(if they have the HP to warrant burning exhaust on them only) and your team should be able to secure the kill as it would take a summoner or burst heal for them to survive the assault without their flash or a flash like ability.


By level 4, jumping on the other carry becomes even more disastrous for them as you now have the ability to keep them slowed for a much longer period, and your E will produce an even greater bonus effect to you and your carry. At level 6, the other team will most likely be on the ropes about even coming near the creep wave/leaving their tower without more of their team present.


As you would with any support, make sure you buy and use wards. Even though you may be dominating the lane, without proper warding, you can lose that lane advantage very easily due to ganks from the enemy jungler and solo mid. So by keeping wards up, using CV if you've taken it to try and keep track of the enemy jungler, you can make your lane dominance an incontestable and safe lane dominance.

Mid Game

Be Cautious

As you are lacking the damage a typical top lane or jungle Jarvan would have, You should practice extreme caution when warding dragon, jungles, moving between lanes to assist, etc. I can not stress caution enough. You're tanky, but you deal no damage, thus you can be an easy kill to anyone determined to get revenge and/or net some easy gold. If you find yourself being hunted down, remember you have some decent escape tactics. You have the ability to sail over walls with you E/Q combo, you can slow your pursuer's with your W and exhaust. if you notice your teammates headed in your direction, kite your pursuer's to them to punish them for their greed.


- Your purpose early game is to provide a kill lane for your carry in order to get them as far ahead as possible. So by mid game, you should be focused on building the items important to benefiting your team and turning yourself into a tank.

- If you were able to establish and keep dominance of bottom lane, your team should have no problem taking dragon with little or no contest from the other team.

- Try to keep your eyes open to the map as much as possible and watch for the enemy grouping up, this is a sign that they will try to push to tower or they are planing to take dragon(possibly trying to force a team fight).

- Stay aware, stay aware and again stay aware. Map awareness is a key to survival and ultimately victory.

Late Game

At this point, you can be rather underwhelming. While still capable of pulling off great plays, setting up the enemy team for death, and tanking like a fiend, you just don't have any damage. You're passive is going to be your only real source of AA damage, but it only procs every 6 seconds against a single target. So play it safe, don't fight alone unless you can guarantee that you can walk out alive, such as targeting a player near death.


- Try to keep placing wards around at areas that you know the enemy team will pass through, dragon and baron.

- Get a few CS here to help you finish items when teams are stalemating one another(everyone is together opposite of the other team, but no one is initiating a fight, just poking at one another).

- Stay with your team when you're not warding so that if your team tries to oppose dragon or baron attempts, as you're there to tank. Team fights are the biggest focus at this point, so its important to be ready for it at any point. You're looking to win a team fight, most desirably by acing the other team, so that your team can finish the game.

Lane dominance, why you should be careful

Establishing Lane dominance is rather simple. At the very start, successful harassing can push the enemy team back a bit as they wont want to give up that first blood. This causes them to lose out on gold and depending on how far you can force them off, experience as well. Once you can successfully separate them from the creep wave, you must keep up the harassment in order to maintain that lead.

- An early first blood, and possible double kill has the ability to establish lane dominance early(though not always), by putting your lane ahead in gold and experience.

- Constant aggression and smart play is your key to dominance, as being passive will not allow you to dominate.

- An enemy that is constantly afraid to get close to the creep wave for more than a second, will back off quickly should you even sneeze in their direction, or is constantly camping under their tower with no creep wave at that the tower, is a sign that you have successfully achieved lane dominance.

As any support or AD carry should know, your lane dominance can be hazardous to your own team. By keeping a lane pushed, you are at risk of being ganked by the enemy mid lane and/or enemy jungler, and quite often at that. Dominance of a lane will more often than not cause enemy players to visit your lane much more often, thus challenging your dominance of the lane. Because of this it's important to keep wards up.

Warding alone will not save you if you have no map awareness. This is a problem that faces a lot of newer support players. As the support, you need to be watching the map just as much as the game so that you can inform your carry of an impending gank. This is what makes warding further out(close to dragon for example) important. As you are dominating the lane, you may have to trek into the enemy jungle a bit to place wards past the tri bush to create an earlier detection opportunity. Staying aware of your surroundings so that you can avoid in incoming gank(thus causing the enemy jungle or mid to waste time and miss CS and exp) will help you to maintain your dominance in lane.


- The Neutral grey area represents the area of the lane in which you are most likely to be safe from ganks while farming minions. Purple side however has a much better chance of avoiding ganks while the lane is situated in the neutral range. Blue Side still has the path from the tri bush that leads them open to a gank even in this range. Still this area provides you with a way to stay engaged, and be able to escape. The closer you move to the grey lines I've drawn, the closer you are or further you are from the danger of a gank.

- The Danger zones represent the areas of the lane that your in danger of being successfully ganked at. These areas will expose your back side allowing the enemy mid or jungler an easy opportunity to get behind you and cut of your escape. When dominating the lane, You will most often be in this general vicinity, thus the reason for map awareness being so important.

- Extending past the red line puts you in the position of having the least survivability. Tower diving at early levels can net your team a kill, but can also result in the other team walking away with a kill as well. if you manage to escape the dive alive, your still not safely away. the enemy jungler or mid may have been headed your way, thus they can finish you with relative ease should they run into you.

Warding

Warding is one of your most important responsibilities as a support. Without wards, you keep your lane(and later on your whole team) in the dark, literally. While it's not just the responsibility of the Support to ward, do note that your carry should never have to buy wards, their gold should go to the items they need to dominate. You are not going to be as powerful as the carry, thus by you being the one in lane to ward, you give them their ability to be powerful.

Warding your lane early on is as simple as keeping a ward in the river bush to watch for ganks, One in either your lane bush or theirs(depending on the current situation). Warding the tri-bush is also important, depending on which side of the map your one. If your on the blue side, a ward in that bush covers you from being ganked from behind. If your purple, it allows you to be aware of their jungler ganking from their jungle when you have them pushed to tower.

try to abide by the example show by this map of where to ward. Of Course you can't always keep everything warded by yourself, but you can at least keep the most important areas warded to provide better map awareness.

Top Carries to use Jarvan with:

Your typical Support can run with any carry, however, certain carries work better with certain supports. Some carries need a more passive support, while some prefer the benefit of having an aggressive support(in other words, creating a "Kill lane"). This is a list of the Carries I personally feel that Support Jarvan works well with.
NOTE: This list is subject to additions and changes as I have yet to experiment with all carries as some get picked more often than others.
: The king of the AD carry. Graves can lane with a passive support, or an Aggressive support, but what he really wants is that Kill lane support. He has a handy little dash that boosts his AS temporarily, allowing graves to quickly get in and start dealing damage as soon as Jarvan's flag drops and he begins his Q for knock ups. It also doesn't hurt that the AS and armor boost from Jarvan's flag mixed with the AS boost from Graves's dash and the armor from Graves's passive makes him even deadlier and harder to kill at the same time. This is your ideal lane.

: Shes great on harassing, has that nice heal debuff, and a slow of her own. Her passive allows her to follow up Jarvan's engagements much quciker then most carries. While she may be outclassed by many other carries, her aggressiveness works perfectly with Jarvan. Together, these 2 can dominate a lane through absolute projection of fear.

: His kit is what makes him work well with Jarvan. He applies additional magic damage with his attacks, his ult can immobilize, he can slow, can cause additional damage by procing his blight stacks, and his Q can finish anyone that gets out of AA range. Jarvan's passive aura from his flag also helps to make for Varus's squishiness in lane.

: True damage, A small gap closer that boosts the power of her next auto attack, a push back and stun, not to mention her ult, all wrapped up in a little package of doom. Jarvan can give her the time she needs to get in front of(or behind) the enemy to push them back or send them into a wall for a stun. Her early game is weak, but a Kill lane can make up for it by getting her fed quickly, and a fed Vayne is a scary Vayne.

Synergy With other Carries

Those carries that do not make My top list, shall be listed here with explanations as to how they work with Support Jarvan. Also any and all carries I have yet to lane with as Support Jarvan will listed here.

: Think of it like an Ashe/Nunu lane, except with a shorter AS buff, an armor buff, a wall, but no MS buff. Ashe brings her own slows, long range and a stun to the fight, meaning that without a flash or flash like ability, the enemy carry is as good as dead.

: Sivir is a very strong duelist, and can work well with just about any support. Her biggest default is that she's very mana hungry and has short range. She works with Jarvan, but not as well as others.

: Teemo Has been a strong pick since his fix, But I personally feel hes a better solo top as opposed to being a bot lane AD carry. He has great harass, but is just not a viable ADC pick.

: Shes not the strongest, nor is she the weakest. She has a kit that works rather well with Jarvan, but Without AP, her skill damage just caps off and she in turn falls off. good if your trying to keep the lane pushed all the time.

: Great range, but that's about it. Her ult can be intercepted, her traps do not stealth, and her slow is more of an escape tool than anything. She just doesn't have a large presence in game as she currently stands.

: Kog is able to out range any other carry, and without an kind of escape akills, he benefits rather well from a kill lane, or aggressive support as opposed to a passive support. Jarvan's flag may not apply the same boost to AS as a Nunu blood boil, but the drop in an enemy's armor, combined with confinement inside his ult(perfect for landing those kog ults) makes them work quite well together.

: The Anti AD carry. his ult can keep an enemy inside Jarvan's ult, and his nice little "aim bot" ability becomes easier to apply thanks to an interrupt from Jarvan. Jarvan just allows this guy to do the job he was made for just that much better.

: Range and speed is the name of the game with him. Because his skills give him great range, and the ability to jump in to bring people into range allow him to work rather well with Jarvan. Even if an opponent flashes away, Ezreal can still pick up a kill thanks to that rangeand mobility of his(as well as being able to flash out from under a tower with out having to use summoner flash).

: I would compare Draven to Sivir. He can do some excellent damage by keeping his Q going constantly, and carries a global ult that hits twice. However, once the laning phase has ended, Draven begins to drop off as his skills are not very well designed for team fights.

: Corki is a top pick these days. He has great utility, excellent skills, and can easily push a minion wave. Having a kill lane support in tow gives him an even greater presence and almost a guaranteed kill from every engagement.

I am unable to provide Video/VOD's of my gameplay with Jarvan as a support, but what i can do is provide my match history so that you may see the results of followig this guide.

As you can see Jarvan isnt a great damage dealer ot champion killer, but he can be involved in every fight and make a huge difference, picking up many assists every game.