I outline the important things in light green. So you don't need to read the whole guide, but only the sentences outlined in green. Things that I haven't outlined is not that important, only for making my guide more in-depth.

People who are using this guide regulary, would appreciate if you guys create an mobafire account and up-vote this guide. Thanx! ;) If I get more up-votes, my guide would reach out to more people.

ENJOY!

Pretty nice games with this build (only ranked games):

(^Played: 11/27/2012)

Since many wouldn't know if I won the above matches I showed you two defeats too. Red=defeat and dark green=victory

This is my first guide and I hope you guys will enjoy it ;)

!!Please don't down-vote if you have not tried it out first!!

The reason I'm writing this guide is because I have had great success with this build playing jax.

NICE TO KNOW...

Jax has been my main almost all my time playing league of legends, but when he got "nerfed"(at least after my opinion), the way I built him then, didn't suit him anymore. (It was a really big change with his passive and ulty).
After the "nerf" I almost didn't play him anymore, because I disliked the changes so bad.

Then I watched a live stream of "WickD" playing jax, solo top, in ranked (a high elo game, not long time ago. march 2012). They won and WickD played a really good game. They had an early win (mainly because of him I would say), so I tried out to continue his build from that point, and chose the items I think is the best to continue with. As my guide, WickD bought the same items till the part where I buy Bilgewater Cutlass, then he bought an amplifying tome which requires for getting hextech revolver and finishing hextech gunblade. Most likely he was going to do so ^^
(comparing WickD items to my solo top - jax guide).

This is my first guide and I hope Mobafire members will up-vote this, but please don't downvote if you have not tested it out. If you still dont like it, after you have tested it out too, please read the guide and see if you have done something wrong... PLEASE! XD ;)

Pls comment and say your opinion!! :D

If you think that the item section is too informal pls say so. If you rather want it to be like the Rune section I could do so. less info... XD

I'm updating my guide, cause of changes in my build!

Introduction section - updated

Runes section - updated

Mastery section - updated

Items section - updating

Jax Jungling - Items section - updated

Skill Sequence section - expired

Summoner Spell section - expired

Summary section - updated

NB!In the item section I haven't put up all optional items yet... it will come for sure, but it will take sometime cause of school :(

Greater Mark of Desolation Greater Mark of Desolation - Flat Armor Penetration, great for shredding champion's armor early game.
Greater Seal of Resilience - flat armor seals, nice to have. Early game, turret hits are deadly, and if you make a dumb mistake or getting FB under their turret, this could maybe save you ^^ this runes will reduce the damage taken while jungling, which is beneficial for early jungling.
Greater Glyph of Shielding - magic ressistance pr/lvl - This will help you against AP champ's deadly bursts at mid to late game.
Greater Quintessence of Desolation Greater Quintessence of Desolation - Along with your marks, you will get a nice ArmPen early game ;) Great for last hitting minions easier. (The Mark's and Quintessence's description counts for both)

This runes gives jax some deffensive ressistance, will increase his damage output and will do the trick for last hitting minions easier, which is nice, when going solo top =b

When jungling i choose to make a minor change with my runes. This will help you clear the jungle a little faster.

Greater Quintessence of Alacrity - flat AtS. For clearing your jungle faster.

Greater Mark of Alacrity - flat AtS. same reason as the quintessence except that I choose to hold on to my 6 Greater Mark of Desolations which is better then going all AtS. You need some ArmPen for faster clearing.

21-9-0. Since jax is a great damage dealer you need the offensive masteries. Picking up the Alacrity , Weapon Expertise and Arcane Knowledge , which is the main reason why I go for the offensive tree.
Since this is meant for solo top, you will mainly go 1v1. Therefore you should choose your masteries for 1v1 fights or for your survival when ganked. Therefore i choose the last 9 points in the deffensive tree, picking up Durability and Veteran's Scars for some increased health.
21-9-0, except for changing most of the deffensive masteries. Since I have already told you why I go for the offensive tree above, I'll explain the deffensive masteries.
Since I have chosen Smite and going for the deffensive masteries, I choose to put one point in Summoner's Resolve . That will give you 10 extra gold when using smite. If you use smite as often as you can, in 35 minutes you will earn exactly 300 extra gold. It's not that much, but it's still some when only sacrificing 2 magic resist.
This is a great mastery for clearing your jungle faster. When getting one point in Bladed Armor you need two point in Tough Skin , which is nice for your sustain while jungling. With Tough Skin , every time all five Wraiths attack you, the damage will be reduce by 8/16/24/32/and so on... ^^

or Whether you choose Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads really depends on what damage type you fear the most, AD or AP. Solo top is all about winning and defending your lane. You will either be 1v1 or 1v2. If you are 1v1 buy your boots depending on if the champ you're laning against is AD or AP, AD= Ninja Tabi and AP= Mercury's Treads. If there is one jungler on your opposing team, you should consider your boots after the damage type that champ is too.
If the one thing you fear the most is CC, and not that the champ is AD, you could then also go for Mercury's Treads.

What kind of full boots is really game dependent, but if you went for Ninja Tabi, it could be smart to change to Mercury's Treads late game, cause CCs late game are deadly.

Trinity Force is really nice on jax. It gives you 150% of your base damage as bonus damage on hit (after a cast).
That's the reason why I choose to max empower first, before leap strike....
Maybe you understand why now, but let me explain.

Cause of empower really low cooldown (3 sec in lvl 5), you will gain around 100 to 160 extra physical damage on your empower every 3 second. That's quite nice ^^

You should buy Trinity Force in this sequence; Phage, Zeal and then Sheen.

Phage first because of the needed health early game, with my runes and masteries the health from Phage is really effective. The slow chance is nice for getting kills. Why the slow chance is really good on jax is because when you leap strike on an enemy champ, and stun him/her, you will be able to get more than just one hit. That will increase the chance of slowing them for each hit.
The more tries you get, the chance of succeding will increase ;)

Zeal second because of the increased movement speed, and increased AtS which procs good with his AtS passive. The increased movement speed with zeal and the chance for slowing with Phage, decreases the change for your enemies to run away from you. Zeal gives you great mobility which makes it easier to dodge skillshots. It also helps you hit your stun easier; cause sometimes an auto attack will make you fall too far behind to be able to stun an enemy champ. Zeal will help you keep up and hit your stun even though. You don't need to run along with him and not auto attack him while chasing.

Sheen gives you a nice damage output, but Phage and Zeal is better for your survival and for chasing down enemies, which I think is better. Therefore I choose Sheen last.
Since I choose to rush Trinity Force, The damage from sheen, which increases pr/lvl, will not help you that much right away if you get it before Phage and/or Zeal. Sheen gives you 100% of your base damage, as bonus damage on hit (after a cast).
Hextech Gunblade suits Jax greatly, every aspect of this item is nice on jax. You get AD, AP, slow on activation, life steal and spell vamp. Allaround a great item for your sustain and damage output.

You should buy Hextech Gunblade in this sequence; Bilgewater Cutlass and then Hextech Revolver

Bilgewater Cutlass first for two reasons, hextech revolver has been nerfed from 20% spell vamp to 12%, and also for the slow on activation. Bilgewater Cutlass will give you 10% life steal. The life steal is nice combinating with Trinity Force' bonus damage, which is as physical damage.
With Trinity Force' slow chance and Bilgewater Cutlass' slow activation, it will be almost impossible to run away from you. The slow activation will help you get several hits on a champ which will increase the chance of slowing with Trinity Force too. |o|

Hextech Revolver is a nice item that gives you 12% spell vamp and 40 AP, which is good, but I'm more fan of Bilgewater Cutlass' chasing ability, so therefore I buy it last. Hextech Revolver was first nerfed from 20% spell vamp to 15% and then to 12% spell vamp. Putting it up against Bilgewater Cutlass 10% life steal and slow, I will say that you should never get Hextech Revolver first. Still, it's your choice ^^

great item against a heavy armored team. Compared with The Last Whisper The Cleaver is better for jax. The only reason you should buy Last Whisper over the Cleaver is if almost all on the opposing team are building an insane amount of armor ( about 150+). The Last Whisper and Black Cleaver will shred equally amount of armor if the target has exactly 100 armor. Does that mean you should buy Last Whisper if they all have above 100 armor? No, you shouldn't, cause the Cleaver gives you 15 more AD, 250 health and some CD reduction which fits a bruiser like jax.
The Black Cleaver gives you the needed ArmPen to maxing your damage output.

P.S very important that you remember to use Bilgewater Cutlass/ Hextech Gunblade's active which will slow a champ by 30%/40% for 2 seconds and deal 150/150(+40% of AP) magic damage with range; 400/700. Very nice item and often seccures you kills or making you escape easier ^^

P.S.S :) I always buy two or more, , health potions when I recall (if i can afford it), because of jax's quite nice ressistance those 300(+) hp is worth a lot. I usually stop buying hp pots when I have bought bilgewater cutlass or hextech gunblade.

Exclusive for jax jungling

While jungling my first items is Wriggle's Lantern and full boots. The item sequence of what you buy when you go back to your base really depends on how much money you have and what you think will benefit you the most, in your game situation. The first time you back, you should have enough money for an item or two. Those items should help you clear your jungle faster, for your sustain and helping you ganking more and better. If you think you will spend most of your time roaming and ganking early on you should get Boots before going onto Wriggle's Lantern.

I chose Mercury's Treads for jungling, mainly because I already got some armor from Wriggle's Lantern, but also for it's unique passive; 35 tenacity. This will reduce the duration of CC's harshly, and often can be the difference between ganking succesfully or ganking unsuccesfully. Not only while ganking but also while escaping this is an OP item.
The only reason you should get Ninja Tabi instead of Mercury's Treads is if the other team got no CC's, only champs without Exhausts, stuns, slows, suppresses, etc., and with mostly AD champs, you could go for Ninja Tabi, but that rarely accures.

Guinsoo's Rageblade is probably the best item on jax for farming and pushing lane. Since in ranked, early on, you normally wont be able to farm untouched, but if you do, it will not be smart to push your lane. Since if you push your lane you will be ganked. Early in games you should only last hit minions in your lane, not pushing it. Since Guinsoo's is mainly an item for pushing and farming you don't need guinsoo's early on. Rather getting items so you could deal more damage when "poking" your enemy in lane, and for getting kills.
If you're not playing ranked and you're "always" farming undisturbed, (facewrecking your enemies in lane) or not being ganked. You should then get Guinsoo's Rageblade as soon as possible, since with this item, you will farm like a BOSS, I can promise you that ^^

Maw of Malmortius is a great item to buy when playing jax. Since normally your opponent's AP carries will have a high damage output. This item will give you some magic ressistance and a 400 magic damage shield. Which is really nice against AP carries.
This is also an offensive item with 55 AD and the passive which gives you 1 AD for every 2.5% of health you're missing (up to 40 AD). With Jax's ulty, this item will give you some extra armor.
It will give you both magic ressistance and armor in a total of 42.5 to about 65 deffensive ressistance with jax's ulty. This item is pretty good for your sustain, durability and it comes with some offensive stats too ^^

I will add more text to the items under quite soon:

Iceborn Gauntlet is an optional core item for Trinity Force...

This is my first guide and I hope Mobafire members will up-vote this, but please don't downvote if you have not tested it out. If you still dont like it, after you have tested it out too, please read the guide and see if you have done something wrong... PLEASE! XD ;)

I hope you enjoyed this guide and will have alot of fun playing jax, at least I will ^^

P.S this guide is still under progress ;)