Why Jarvan IV Support?!

The main reason for why you wanna pick Jarvan IV support is because it is fun, but also effective. Jarvan IV is a great engager that is almost unkillable with the amount of shields he gets with this build. Also you get to dunk on noobs, which is nice.
This guide will show you what to build and what your job is throughout the game.

Who is dis GMarius?

I'm a "casual" league player that mostly plays for fun with friends. I do play some ranked though, to get the end of season rewards, but that's about it. The thing about me is that I don't really have a main role or main champion, I play almost anything.

When I get support I like to try out off-meta picks like Jarvan IV support because the regular supports like Janna, Soraka, etc. are plain and boring.
If this guide is a success I might make some more guides on off-meta supports I play like Syndra or Nidalee.
Here's my op.gg if you are interested: GMarius (EUW)

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I also have a youtube channel - GMarius
I upload random videos, usually League of legends or PUBG related.

I also stream every now and then over at my twitch channel GMarius

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If you have any questions send me a friend request on league and I might just answer you.

PROS + Incredibly tanky + Lots of shields + Perfect for setting up wombo combos + Not too bad damage + Fun!

CONS - Can screw over team mates with ultimate walls Cataclysm. - Not 100% reliable CC because Dragon Strike is a skillshot. - Underwhelming damage when compared to Jarvan IV in other roles

Engage combo

The general engage combo is that you use your E Demacian Standard to drop a flag and then Q Dragon Strike right afterwards onto the flag. This makes you go flying towards the flag, knocking up enemies on the way. After knocking them up you want to use your W Golden Aegis to get the biggest possible shield.
You usually wanna ult Cataclysm straight afterwards, but if the enemies have escape abilities you might want to wait until they have used them so they can't jump out of your ultimate.

You can also be fancy and add the Flash combo into your knock up. The Flash combo is pretty much that you see that your knockup is not gonna hit so you flash midway through the dash and apply the knockup the exact spot you lane on. If you haven't seen it you should google sum Jarvan flash knockup combos and you will quickly understand.

Laning Phase / Early game

When you first get to lane at lvl 1 there is not much you can do except for using your Relic Shield stacks and poking with your Q Dragon Strike. Don't poke too much though, make sure you have your Q Dragon Strike ready for when you hit lvl 2 because thats a powerspike for Jarvan (in most matchups).
The moment you hit lvl 2 you should look for any opening to engage with the E+Q combo on the squishiest enemy or the one that doesn't have an escape. Usually that is the adc, but it could also be the support Soraka, Sona etc.
Before you engage you should always take a look at the enemy minion wave and your adc. Minions do a load of damage early on so you don't want to engage onto a full minion wave. You should also check if your adc is able to follow up on your engage (mana, HP, cooldowns, etc.)
If everything seems good start pinging that you want to go in on a specific target and then engage. The reason you wanna ping first is to prepare your adc for the engage and to make sure you both focus the same target.
This is generally what you want to do the entire laning phase. Don't forget to ward, maybe roam mid after backing and all the usual supporty stuff.

Mid game

In this stage of the game you become this scary, unkillable monster that nobody escapes from. Now you should have your support quest finished SO MAKE SURE TO WARD, but don't forget that you aren't a one man army.
In this stage of the game, specially, you never wanna be alone. You wanna stick with whoever has the most kill potential with your cc. This player is hopefully your adc if everything went well in the early game.
Your job in the midgame is to look for easy picks/engages and keep the strongest enemy damage dealer CC'ed at all cost in teamfights. Wards will be your best friends when it comes to finding easy picks. Don't forget to use your red trinket Oracle Lens to set up traps as well.

Late game

Jarvan support slightly falls off because he isn't as tanky anymore because the enemies have more damage items, but he is still a great champion for setting up wombo combos.
Late game is sort of the same as mid game, you wanna look for easy picks and keep the strongest damage dealer CC'ed but you also have to make sure you aren't outnumbered.
If you make the wrong decisions and engage a 4v5 and lose, it could cost you the game.
Use your red trinket to set up traps with your team in bushes and use objectives as bait for some easy picks.

You ALWAYS want to have Flash because it is too guud. It is good in general but specially on jarvan because you can do the flash knockup combo (see General playstyle > Engage combo).

OR

Most of the time you want Exhaust because it will often keep your adc alive. If your mid/top laner has Exhaust you might want to go for Ignite if you have a lot of kill potential in bot lane or the enemy team has a lot of healing (soraka, mundo, etc.).

The new runes for season 9 are out and I've been doing some testing and think I found the best runes for the dunking support of Demacia.
We definitly want to go with Resolve as our main runes because we want to be tanky. The keystone that I think works best is Aftershock because it fits the all in-knockup playstyle of Jarvan support.
Second we want Shield Bash because it you will always have a shield when you fight (need to do some more testing here, but I think this seems best).
Third we want Bone Plating because it's an insanely good rune that makes us even tankier.
Fourth we want Overgrowth because we want more hp to be tanky and it makes our W shield bigger because it scales with HP.

As for our 2 secondary runes I've been doing some testing and found 2 possibilities.
The best one is Domination with Relentless Hunter and Zombie Ward. This gives more movespeed to be able to engage/chase easier, and you get handy zombie wards whenever you use your sweeper to clear wards.
Second option is Inspiration with Magical Footwear and Approach Velocity. This makes you and your teammates quicker, and you get sum fwee boots (but can't get early boots)! Kinda meh compared to the domination route.
This could change soon depending on what gets nerfed/buffed.

Edit*
After doing some testing I found that going for Precision with Triumph and Legend: Tenacity as secondary runes could be viable, but I still feel like the Domination route fits better for support.

The support items in season 10 are roughly the same however, there is a slight change to the starting items. There are now four different starting items but it still works roughly the same. Two of them are for AD champs, while the other 2 are for AP champs. The two types are like the old Relic Shield and Spell Theif's. This means that we can get whatever we want with whatever scaling we want. For example, we can get a relic shield with slight AD scaling.

Also, it's good to note that they now upgrade automatically as you fulfil the support quest. Also you get more wards when it's fully upgraded so this is a fairly good buff for support items.

Patch 7.24
Jarvan IV got a little nerf to his passive and Q damage, but this doesn't affect Jarvan support too much.
Thornmail got buffed with damage being based on armour instead of flat damage making it even better for Jarvan IV as a final item.

8.2
Support items got changed but it doesn't really change much (sightstone was removed, as well as the non sightstone support items, which we did not use anyways).

Not updating this much anymore, but if you have some important changes that I missed, send me a message/comment and I'll update it :)

9.9
Pretty big nerf to the shield ;( changed from up to 3% of max hp to 1,5% at all levels. Jarvan support still works but he's not so unkillable as he used to be.

Jarvan IV is a tanky beast that has a lot of engage potential which makes him perfect as an aggressive support.
If you found this guide helpful please leave a rating. If did not find it helpful, tell me what I could do differently in the comment section. Positive and negative feedback are both welcome.

Have fun and good luck :)