The idea of this guide is "strangely" enough to get a tough damage-dealing champion, which can serve as an off-tank, initiater or obliterator. Jarvans passive and AD scaling on abilities yield for damage builds, and I intend to try and share my build with the community, because this champion has huge amounts of potential.
Here goes!

Note: "the sequence" = Demacian Standard -> Dragon Strike

UPDATES:

5.03.2011: Added some more detailed information regarding situational and optional items.

Pros:
-Great chaser.
-Superb at lasthitting.
-Nice 1.-auto-attack-animation.
- Demacian Standard -> Dragon Strike .
-Powerful ultimate.
-Good ganker.
-Shield.
-Buff ability.

Cons:
-Ultimate can be hard to use properly.
-You will almost always end up in the middle of the enemy team.
-The shield's absorption depends on the count of nearby enemies.
-Low manapool.
-Enemies' only option to do, when locked in your ultimate is to kill you.

This ability is extremely vital and i consider it the trademark of Jarvan. I tend to compare it a bit with Pantheon's Spear Shot except from the part, which is that this ability is so more powerful than the spear shot because of its armor REDUCTION. Reduction > Penetration.
Of course this spell is important because of his main combo, which contains the pull-to-standard-sequence. Jarvan's harassment feeds on this ability. Its range is too awesome to ignore and the armor reduction makes him take more damage from minions (if you want to talk minimalistic damage this would be it.)
Overall an awesome spell, which you should use properly, with your low manapool in mind.


One of the reasons why people say he is a tank. The shield absorbs more the more champions there are. So basically this spell tells you to hump the enemies. Questionable idea. But nevertheless it is awesome and you are able to sustain for quite some time while humping them with this build although I build Warmog's Armor fairly late.
This ability can be used for ganking and get-aways. Should always follow an aggresive pull-to-standard-sequence.


Passive buff, active, buff, (minor)damage and a part of "the sequence" these are the benefits from this spell. You want to use this spell.
The sequence:
Try to place your standard just in the back of your enemies (not right on top of them, because they might get to run away from you before you can use Dragon Strike resulting in the NOT getting tossed into the air) and imidieatly afterwards you should use the Dragon Strike to assault them.
The sequence can be used just as you would use flash. PLace the standard on the other side of a wall and dragon strike. Simple enough.

Note #1: Ability can be used for scouting over walls
Note #2: Remember to use it in teamfights - not always to initiate, but to simply buff your teammates.


An ultimate that will wreak havoc among the enemies. Easily used for rounding up parts of their team during a teamfight. But remember that you risk getting owned inside your own arena. If you want to ignore stuff like that you can simply use your sequence to get out of the arena once again, thus your enemies are left alone to weep while your mates wait in desperation outside the arena.

Note #1: This ultimate is very tricky. Remember that you could end up locking up yourself while a fed Tryndamere owns you in 1v1.
Note #2: Can be used to finish off a chase.

I have chosen this spell because of its overall qualities such as: chasing, escaping, annoying and all of the other sorts of uses, which it has.
Normally I would pick flash for a dude like Jarvan but I choose not to because you can use the sequence over walls just as you can with Flash.
And it is easier to place your sequence if your chasing, than if you had flash.


I choose exhaust because of its defensive AND aggressive capabilities. You can disable a chaser or a target, simply said. The substitue would be Ignite but that spell has no CC - like exhaust has - and I personally hate to cling to the hopes of your ignite will finish them off.

3x

Jarvan needs armor penetration, since I play him as a damage-dealer, but then again I have Youmuu's Ghostblade and Black Cleaver and masteries and Dragon Strike so I have chosen to not fully go for armor penetration runes, and that is why i have crit% to make him more lethal when combined with Youmuu's Ghostblade and Atma's Impaler .

9x

greater mark of desolation
As mentioned before he needs armor penetraition. Here it is.

9x

A low manapool makes these seals vital. Even after the nerf they are critical.

9x

Simply to boost the crit% since you cant get ArP glyphs, and I have no further need of mana-regen (or well of course I have, but i would rather have some aggresive runes here than mana-regen.)

NOTE: If you have no mana-regen runes you can start with Boots 2x Health Potion and a Mana Potion to grant you more mana if you are in need.

Deadliness3/3 Being a damage champion this is pure logic.
Cripple 1/1 Longer and more effective Exhaust

Sorcery 4/4 I choose these masteries because my passive deals magic damage and by taking sorcery I am eligible to take the penetration masteries.
Alacrity2/4 I have only taken 2 points here because i choose Sorcery and magic penetration over 2% attack speed.

Archaic Knowledge 1/1 As stated earlier I am trying to maximize my damage output through magic damage from his passive.
Sunder 3/3 Once again. Damage maximizing through an increase of the damage created from all of your physical damage.

Brute Force 3/3 You are an AD champion. You want AD.

Lethality 3/3 You have got around 40% crit chance with runes so this mastery will be extremely handy.

Havoc 1/1 A 5% increase of all magic and physical damage boosts literally all your damage and you want that!

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Perseverence 3/3 This boosts your regeneration. But with a such a slow pace, that it almost doesn't matter, but I prefer it over the short death time, since you should be dying THAT much.
Haste 1/1 Natural improvement since you have not got Teleport and you have Ghost.

Awareness 4/4 Faster leveling makes you learn abilities faster and makes you reach level 18 faster.

Greed 1/1 I prefer gold over buffs mana-regen, since my type of playstyle does not really involve buffs as an active part of my game (call me a noob.)

Core:

These items are the ones that I use most of the times where I play him. Survivability and AD = My build.

Mercury's Treads Are for survivability and actually also for the purpose of chasing, since you will lose any debuffs quicker, thus you might catch your enemy. The magic resist makes you tougher - and toughness is pretty awesome when you manage to pair it with a high amount of AD.

Frozen Mallet Makes you hit harder (a bit) and the passive is just awesome for Jarvan. Sequence -> Autoattack and they are slowed. Quite easy chase there.
Of course the HP of this item appeal for Atma's and this makes him even more powerful, so that this item will end up providing 34 AD. That is pretty sick for a "survivability item".

Youmuu's Ghostblade Provides you with the tool for a 99% ensured gank. You will have the active to catch the enemy paired with your Frozen Mallet. The crit of this item is actually awesome too, since you will end up critting 600-700 late-game (depends on the amount of Black Cleaver-stacks.) AD and armor penetration is of course awesome too so overall an awesome item.

Black Cleaver Is the item, which will further boosts your damage-capabilities and boost your attack-speed. This item is awesome and it has a pretty nice animation when the stacks are applied to an enemy - and yes animations are lethal!

I have always been a fan of Atma's Impaler. I will not try to make you a zombie of mine, but seriously this item fits extremely many builds. And even though you have no health items, it provides you with 40 AD (since Pantheon is propably one of the lowest HP physical champions and he has 1999 HP) and armor and crit. Once again just an item, which might even be overpowered, but let us not mention that to anyone shall we?

Situational items:

You have only got 5 items in the core. This means that if you have any other ideas or need for a situational you should swap it with the Warmog's Armor

A defensive item, which boosts you ad by 7 (through atma's) and gives you the extra magic resist to last longer. Plus the passive and once again its animation - it makes people not wanna target you as the first...or you could end up getting bursted down anyway. Who knows?

Sick of the low manapool? Feel like boosting your AD? - This is THE item. IF you choose to include this item try starting of early with Tear of the Goddess for fast stacking of it.

An overlooked item. It is fairly cheap and has a massive MR/Gold ratio. Buy it if the enemy team has alot of ignites and maybe if they have got a Malzahar, Mordekaiser or Vladimir.

Optional items:

This item is really exciting in many cases. For Jarvan it is pretty exciting since you many times initiate with your sequence, which will trigger Tri-force's passive and later on it will trigger it once again when you use Golden Aegis for the slow. Extremely fun item. Especially when you have your passive too. Insane first auto-attack there.

IF you have no actual problems with engaging their team and you feel right about you can substitute the Warmog's Armor with Bloodthirster to increase your AD. Purely and only to increase the AD cause you will not get the optimal benefit from the lifesteal.

You have way too much ArP from this item and at this stage it is close to becoming superficial. But the AD from this item is really good for a cheap price.

If you want to really obliterate your enemies you might want to use those 40% crit of yours. 250+10(from masteries)=260% bonus damage at crits.

318*2,6=826,8

Nice damage boost.

Farming:

Farming with the prince of Demacia is incredibly easy since he has a very nice passive that I try to time with last hits. I always end up having a lot of last-hits and a lot of gold too (wow, weird huh?)
You can easily take out minion waves with your sequence and if you would avoid some of the minion damage from 1 or 2 entire minion waves you can activate your shield, because minions hurt!
You could also regularly farm the jungle for gold and for the blue buff that will help you and your mana puddle.

Laning:

When you lane with Jarvan you should as mentioned earlier - of course - try to last hit and other than that you might want to just get a glimpse of your enemies and determine whether they are killable or terrifying. As Jarvan I end up being the latter. Nevertheless you should ignore this completely and play defensively if you need to! I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Always be defensive if you have to. Dying and being unable to gather gold, experience and such benefits no one but your enemy. Keep it in mind. Just mind your own business and last hit if you have to.
Aggressive laning has also got to be mentioned when one talks about Jarvan, because he has vast amounts of possibilities of owning. Try to let them lane and push by only last hitting minions. If you can keep the line of battle (where the minions fight) at the middle of the lane or at your own turret you can almost always react aggressive without fearing a gank from behind.

Ganking:

If your enemies are pinned down at their turret or if you have the opportunity, you should gank. You are an AD champion why would you want to hide that from the enemy? You are actually a superb ganker too so do not feel frightened by ganking.

Ganking rotation (mostly):


After your knock up by the sequence do the autoattack to trigger your passive and then follow of by a slow to get some more auto attacks in on your enemy. Use your ultimate to ensure the kill but do not assume it is over. People might flash out of it or use an ability.

Watch: Katarina, Tryndamere, Maokai, Corki, Ezreal, Gragas, Jax, Kassadin, LeBlanc, Malphite, Nidalee, Shaco, Tristana, Warwick and Xin Zhao.
And possibly: (I am not sure) Vladimir, Renekton, Shen, Master Yi, Kennen, Irelia, Akali and Amumu.

That's a depressing list.

Jarvan is a really nice champion by himself but having played him very often recently I have experienced that he is really devastating when paired with some specific champions. Such as:


This combo was unbelievable devastating when I tried it out. Both Xin Zhao and I could initiate with either a charge or a sequence. The sequence would be the preferable initiator since it allows Xin Zhao to charge up and get the three auto attacks in and, thus allowing us to keep the target stunlocked for a while and afterwards get slowed by my shield.
Certified as a ragequit-generator*


Another powerful combo. This was rather successful and once again the lane was dominated by us. The vital factor was probably the charge and stun by Renekton followed up by my combo followed by a slow, while Renekton wanders next to them with his ultimate and dealing damage along with me.


When people are about to whine about the "bug" of Rammus' taunt they rarely like getting smashed up in the air by a sequence. The following scene goes like this: Jarvan activates shield, at approximately the same time as Rammus activates ultimate. Jarvan deals impressive damage alongside Rammus and ensures the kill by using ultimate.

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*Annie ragequit after 11minutes and a score of 0/3/0

This was my guide. The basic details of this champions playstyle are:

Use the sequence as initiator and escape mechanism.
Harass with Dragon Strike.
Your shield is not just a shield - it is also a slow.
Use your passive for effective last hits.
Try not to trap yourself inside your ultimate.
Be thoughtful of using your ultimate when the enemy has flash or a flashing-like ability.
Using exhaust and ghost both aggressively and defensively.

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