// Jayce is one of the few hybrid champions, reason why he is hybrid is because of his ranged/melee swaps, not the 50/50 magic/physical damage. He can be built as tanky bruiser with Randuin's Omen and Trinity Force or a well AD carry with Infinity Edge/ Bloodthirster and Last Whisper. I believe he must be played mainly top lane and build tanky on early game with Randuin's Omen and Trinity Force as his core items and in mid game starting to shift into what is needed to finish the game. Whether it is being more beefy and getting additional Magic resist via Maw of Malmortius or more sustain through Bloodthirster or maybe more sustained damage from Wit's End.

His role is to be anti ad carry, his kit is perfect for that. He has a jump Q(melee form) and E percentage damage(melee form) and on top of that he can switch into ranged form where he can finish off the running target with his Q or max attack speed ability W.

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Pros + // Has range + // Has % damage nuke + // Has closing gap ability + // Has Long range poke + // Has Shurelia like team buff + // Bruiser or ranged ad + // Armor shred

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Cons - // Mainly physical damage - // No passive sustain - // Has high skill cap - // Not a tier 1 top lane pick - - -

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• : // As almost every top lane champion you start with Boots and 3x Health Potions for better trades and laning controlling combined with 19/11/0 masteries. Jayce's early game is good if you max E; you can deal some nice damage to make enemies worry about their health pool.
  
  If you dont need to pull blue for your jungler then you can pick up a 4th Health Potion.
  
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• : // You can make a quick first trip back for Doran's Blade + Sight Ward and always 2-4 Health Potions. Usually second item should be Heart of Gold and then farm up for Phage, Sheen, Zeal and combine it into Trinity Force.
  
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• : // Your core items in every game should be Randuin's Omen for active when you jump on AD carry and Trinity Force for added utility and some burst. Later items should be decided against who you play, whether it be Wit's End, Frozen Heart, or Maw of Malmortius. If there is no Frozen Heart yet, but enemies have high armor for example, mid laner with Rabadon's Deathcap + Zhonya's Hourglass or Jungler with Aegis of the Legion + Randuin's Omen, Last Whisper is a wise choice.

// Having +15 attack damage runes helps him early game, also he is scaling mostly off AD, so for starters i believe its the best way to build a rune page.

Alternative Rune Builds:

Could use MoveSpeed quints against champions like Irelia, Renekton, Riven since your goal is to evade their combos.
Can use MR/lvl glyphs
Since i am laning him top and this guide is about top lane, having armor seals is mandatory even if he has armor in Hammer form, it is not enough for top lane.

// Reason why i choose this mastery page is to keep on exchanging with enemy and negating most of the damage from creeps, it also allows you to freeze the lane and punish enemy for it while not losing your precious health.

Ignite: // Allows you to finish off enemies with additional damage.

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Flash: // Since you have movespeed steroid on your Gate spell E, Ghost is not necessary and having flash allows you to escape or make combos with your knockback ability.

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Exhaust: // Alternative to Ignite could be Exhaust against one trick pony based champions like Kennen, Jarvan IV or even Jax.

Laning phase

You start with Boots and 3x Health Potions, go into your own jungle or invade enemy one. You have 2 damaging spells if you start with Q, which makes you the most powerful lvl 1 champion due to your first attack on proc from changing forms. If there is no lvl 1 fight, then help your jungler as much as possible whether its wolves or blue golem. If you don't need to help, then wait for 4th Health Potion.

Always change in between your forms and spam E to get into lane or while traveling through map. His manacosts are pretty balanced in my opinion, don't hesistate.

You may want to land every Q and E on enemy as soon as possible, but keep in mind that you need to be aware of enemy jungler and staying safe in ranged form sometimes is the best choice. Although if your jungler is invading enemy jungler, dont hesitate and push top lane with your melee form W and go help him in the jungle.

Being a ranged champion is advantage, you can push the lane and use your range as early advantage and make a first trip back for fast Sight Ward.

Laning against champions as Riven and Renekton, try to test them if they want to fight you level one or not by walking near them and see if they cast a spell or not, if they do, then use your melee form E and you will have made a first exchange, if they don't fight, then push the lane with ranged form.

Ranged champions are harder to gank in top lane due to their ranged of course, but Jayce has MS buff and at the same time a knockback and jump+slowing ability.

Mid game

You may want to fight for dragons/buffs more often right now since you are very strong mid game champion, your long range E Q ranged's forms spells are excellent for getting advantage in small fights.

Late game

Lead your team to best as possible team fights with your MS buff and you will have easy time to pick important targets yourself. Being an utility champion in late game it is very important to make the Big Plays!


Tactics

Your team fight tactic is to speed up your team's initiators with your Acceleration Gate while at the same time trying to poke them with your long ranged Q through the gate, also don't forget to run past it yourself!

When the fight has started you have 2 choices:

Follow the team's target

If you see someone with low hp or getting stunned while whole enemy team is not in position to help him, don't hesitate and jump on him to finish him off with your Q E in Hammer form.

Focus the AD carry

The main role of Jayce i believe is being perfect anti AD carry, since he can become one while being a bruiser... that's his trademark, either start with Acceleration Gate and Q and W and immediately switch into Hammer Form and smash him with your remaining abilities, start with Q and try to go behind him to knock him into your team or land it if you feel it is enough damage to kill him with it.


Non-stop push top

What i found out that he is excellent pusher from long range with his E+Q in ranged form, if you ward enough around enemy buffs and river on top lane, you can one man assault the lane without getting into trouble.

Also it is possible to hold two lanes with Jayce with his high range and being very mobile.

Use your Acceleration Gate wisely

Timing the initiation time, harass and actual "go in" with Acceleration Gate should win you the team fights. As team gets MS buff, you poke with Q and jump in with your hammer form on focus target.

Safe range farm

Later in the game past 20 minute mark you should be able to farm top, mid and jungle in a very efficient way, by using your ranged E Q combo, at rank 3 of Q ranged creeps start to die by themselves.

• : // As your role is to take down AD carry down, Nocturne is your best friend from jungle for that. Combining your Jump, Nuke, MS buff there should be no problems doing that.
  
• : // Since Jayce has a knockback ability, it would allow Twisted Fate to land more than 2 gold cards in a single gank and it should ensure kills.
  
• : // Be it AP or AD Kog'Maw, they want to kite enemies and your MS buff will assist him very well.
  
• : // Combined your MS buff and Skarner's shield MS, can lead into unexpected initiations.

• : // Irelia is painful to every champion who doesn't have Randuin's Omen or Frozen Heart yet as her maxed W and E burst is very hard to survive if you are in bad position where knocking her back is not enough to get into safety before she catches up.
  
• : // Playing uncarefully in laning phase can result in a lost game for your team. Having a snowballing Riven and no one in your team to stop her is bad news. Avoiding her initiation is key to victory.
  
• : // Basicaly the same as Riven.

Path 1:
Path: Wolfs -> Blue(Smite) -> Wraiths -> Wolfs -> Red(Smite) -> Wraiths->Gank
Skill Build: W->E->W->Q

This path focuses on farming while sustaining as much HP as possible until level 4 where you have double buffs and all of your basic skills. With these tools you are looking to gank over extended enemy lanes, or extremely strong gank lanes (lanes where your allies have good CC, such as Alistar, Ryze, etc.).
NOTE: I choose to do Wolfs again after Wraiths is because Jayce’s damage is primarily AoE based, so it will be easier to kill Wolfs instead of Double Golems, thus you save a lot of HP. In addition, Jayce’s range allows him to safely do the wraith camp from over the wall as well as positioning to be closer to the wolf camp than a normal jungler would be. The Wolfs respawn 1 minute after death, which would be around 2:48~ if you got help with it.

Path 2:
Path: Wraiths -> Red(Smite) -> Double Golems -> Wraiths -> Wolves -> Blue(Smite)
Skill Build: W->E->W->Q

This is an alternative path you may choose to take with Jayce. Jayce’s low mana cost and ability to regenerate mana by auto attacking allows for him to start Red buff. However, I still feel that the Blue buff start in Path 1 is much stronger since the cooldown reduction helps you jungle faster and I rather have the Red buff expire later and Blue buff to respawn sooner to give my AP mid. The time it takes to do this path is pretty much about the same as Path 1.

Path 3:
Path: Wolfs -> Blue -> Red(Smite) -> Gank -> Return to farming small camps
Skill Build: W->Q->E

This path requires a very strong leash from your allies such that you take little damage from Blue and able to kill it fast without using Smite. You then go to your Red and kill it with Smite. With double buffs and a point in your each skill, you are able to gank very efficiently. However if there is no gank opportunity soon, skill W as your third point and continue to farm and skill E at level 4. I would not recommend trying to steal the enemy red with Jayce, you are easily killable if caught and you are not able to kill Red extremely fast, plus I normally start Cloth Armor 5x Health Potions so I do not have the movespeed necessary to easily escape if I am caught.

Early Game

In the early game, you want to focus on farming your jungle until level 3 or 4. Jayce is able to gank level 2 by skilling Thundering Blow / Acceleration Gate, however this requires the enemy laner to go aggressive and be over extended. I suggest using one of the routes above. Always make sure to look for opportunities to gank and gank the lanes that need it most. Lanes that have opportunities to gank are lanes that are pushed towards your side, have summoner spells on cooldown, and your laners have sufficient resources (HP, mana, cooldowns) to follow up on your gank. Lanes that need ganks are lanes that are behind either from the lane match up, or assistance or level one fights in the enemies favour. Whenever you do not see an opportunity to gank or have to put a lot of pressure on a certain lane, you should take the opportunity to farm your jungle or go to base and buy if you have money for a big buy (ie. getting a Heart of Gold). Look at Tactics section for how to gank efficiently. Counter jungling is quite easy with Jayce once you hit level 4(read the Tactics section for counter jungling info). In addition, if one of your laners require you to hold the lane while they back, do so as well. You also want to control both your blue and red buffs, as well as the enemies. Timing the respawn time or knowing the general respawn time of these buffs are crucial for doing so. Control of Dragon also becomes a big factor and whenever your team has a safe opportunity to do so, you should take it. Oracle's Elixir is not bad on Jayce. This is since he has the ability to give himself a burst of movement speed every 12~ seconds. In addition, Jayce is able to check bushes with Shock Blast making it safe to check bushes for Sight Wards. Being able to deny the enemy vision allows you to do much more over the map, such as sneak dragons, gank, and counter jungle safely.

Mid Game

The mid game is quite similar to the early game. However at this point, you are farming less as your carries may be taking your farm, and you have to be in position to gank and contest Red and Blue buffs, Dragon, and Baron. The same things you do to control those, applies in the mid game, time the respawn of the neutral objectives and buy Sight Wards to make the job safer. The power of Oracle's Elixir persist in the mid game on you or your support.

Late Game

In the late game, you are a tank and a ranged damage dealer, you have to be up front in the fight soaking as much damage as possible, while being as disruptive as possible, but still poking before the fight starts. However, this does not mean you should be so up front that you are taking free damage from the enemy team. Just stay slightly in front of your carries such that you are able to peel and use Acceleration Gate for them. Hit the targets you need to, and if possible dive the carries if the opportunity arise. Baron also becomes the focal point of the game, with most fights taking place around the area. Basically, group with your team and get control of Baron. Get an Oracle's Elixir if you are really tanky and your support can't afford one.



I think Jayce to be a decent counter jungler after he hits level 3 or 4. His ability to aggro and gain vision of Wraiths from a safe distance over the wall makes the task quite safe. In addition, Jayce is able to supplement this safety with high damage and good escape. When counter jungling, you must be aware of where the enemy jungler was last seen, and the status of your lanes. If creep waves is pushed towards your side, it is more likely you can caught in the enemy jungle. You should almost never attempt to counter jungle if you do not have an idea where the enemy jungler is and if there is a ward where you walk through to get into their jungle.