(Currently beeing edited)
Let's be serious.

OH HAI GUISE! This is the Jester's Script for the enemy's (delicious) tears.
Also: me showing how annoying a meme*** can get.
Ever wondered how this intricate and obnoxious champion can go AP and be useful teamwise and not just a simple box stacking coward? Well I had and I guess I figured it out so I'm sharing my thoughts not to feel the urge to dodge when I see someone lock Shaco after saying "going AP" In Summoners Rift champ select.

Keep these acronyms in mind:
Jack in the Box = JitB
Two-Shiv Poison = 2shivs/shivs
CC = Crowd Control effect (Stun, slow, fear, silence, etc).
Gold/10 = "Gold per Five item". Means that it gives you gold every 10 seconds. Well actually they give you 1 extra gold every 2 seconds. Each one is unique. You can have different Gold/10 items ( Heart of Gold, Philosopher's Stone, Kage's Lucky Pick, Avarice Blade) BUT NOT ON MY SHACO YOU WONT!
CD = Cooldown
CDR = Cooldown Reduction
DFG = Deathfire Grasp

Rate the guide, not your overall thoughts about the champion, I already know people hate a Shaco in their team.
Not sugested for ranked or competitive play at all.
This is just for having fun on LoL.

Here's a recent winning streak so you can see he's quite useful:

In this particular guide you'll see the following:
-Skill Order, Runes, Summoner Spells and Build explanations.
-Jungling.
-Teamfights and Solo role.
-*le trolling enemies
-Fight Initiation like a baws.

But you wont see things such as:
-Lane zoning through JitB in brushes.
-Massive texts that try to convince you through rethoric instead of logic.

As I see it, there are 2 ways to build Shaco. AD and AP.
Awesome top rated Shaco guide HERE.
Theres only one thing in common with my AP guide and that AD guide: Both are viable.

As I see it, there's no point in comparing Shaco's role as a jungler or AP in a team with other champs as in "why wouldn't I jungle fiddlesticks If I want an AP jungler in my team comp". If you don't feel like playing Shaco, don't do it and jungle Karthus or Fids. That's your problem and if you ended up here I guess you came for a reason.

Champion general

Pros

-Safe jungle.
-Efective ganking with 2 CCs
-Annoying lane presence.
-All of his skills can be used as a "panic button" for scaping.
-Gets the enemy team morale down when doing well.
-Boss tier mobility.

Cons

-Squishy (as in "If the AP carry throws all his nukes on you, you're dead for sure")
-Can't stay covering a lane by himself for long if the enemy has strong pokes.
-Can stay in a fight for long but not constantly dealing damage.

Against AD Shaco

Pros

-The potential JitB trap.
-Ranged nuke.
-Ult Clone Nuke.
-Increased chasing and escape mechanisms due to cooldown reduction.

Cons

-Much more team dependant without stacked JitBs.
-Cooldown dependant.
-Slower late jungling (no wriggles).

Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration X 3
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration X 9
Greater Seal of Armor X 9
Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction X 9

Runes are just standard Magic Penetration Marks and Quints, Armor Seals for countering some minion shots and flat CD glyphs for setting up a faster JitB jungling.

9/0/21 for each build, beeing the 3rd the only one that's different, taking points from mobility and flash into Expanded Mind to get more AP from Archangel's Staff. Go check it out now that you're aware of it.

The point here is to get a standard mage mastery page that focusses on experience bonus, magic penetration, cooldown reduction and mana regeneration.

Smite and Flash for the first to builds.

Ghost is a viable option but flash works fine for me. Dat insolent in-and-out-of-combat-as soon-as-he-gets-focused Shaco , so kewl.

Why did the third build got Ghost? lol it doesn't matter that much but it's just because I took four points in Expanded Mind , taking out the point in Blink of an Eye (flash mastery) and putting the point from Good Hands into Haste (Ghost mastery).

I wouldn't say any other spells besides the ones I already talked about and Ignite or Exhaust are worthy of any revision.

Yes, Shaco can jungle without Smite but a jungler should always take it. Specially shaco because he's awesome at stealing buffs or dragon after jumping a wall with Deceive.

I am going to focus on the potential use of each of shaco's skill. Not in-depth strategy, that's on a different chapter.


Check the range. It doesn't have a global range, lol. He leaps towards a location that's in line where you placed your cursor. That means you can target the enemy nexus from your base and he will just leap forward, Shaco wont walk until he's in range to leap.

This skill cooldown and stealth duration wont scale with levels, so 1 point is enough for an AP shaco.


Notice that the Fear duration, damage and mana cost scale with levels so cooldown reduction in this build is crucial. Casting this skill will break stealth so you might think about positioning yourself before placing a box while on stealth-ganking so the fear can go up (if it will be more effective to break stealth placing boxes rather than backstabing) because it takes 2 seconds for the JitB to activate.


This is your most reliable ganking CC. It's only a slow so try to get a stun from the laning teammate before throwing it (like after the enemy flashes in panic). A champ that's affected with red buff will be really slow after throwing this, making Shaco's ganks rather strong.


This brings you into a 50/50 scenario of dodging enemy nukes and CC while in a teamfight while playing AD Shaco but in AP Shaco enemies will get hurt A LOT if they happen to kill your clone. You are NOT able to control your clone while dead, but he will remember his last order, so be aware of it as a Kog'Maw must be aware of using his Icathian Surprise. Alt+Click to control it while alive, just like Tibbers from Annie's Summon: Tibbers and the ghost Mordekaiser gets from Children of the Grave

Summary of explanations:
W E Q E E R // R > W > E > Q
Lvl 1 JitB for jungling
Lvl 2 2shivs for jungling
Lvl 3 Deceive early ganking + safer jungling + counterjungling
lvl 4 2shivs for stronger slow on ganking
Lvl 5 2Shivs for the same reason as above
Lvl 6 Hallucinate because it is your Ultimate, right?
Lvl 7-10 Max JitB for Stacking Boxes and stronger CC
Lvl 11 Hallucinate just in case, amidoinitrite?
Lvl 12-13 Max 2shivs for obvious nuking/slow reasons
Lvl 14-18 Obvious skill choices, go figure them.

Level 1

Jack in the Box goes first. Always.
If you don't get it first... gg, no jungler.

Level 2

Two-Shiv Poison second. The chance blind on neutral minions helps a lot while jungling.
Take a point in Deceive if the circumstances can get you a kill on an early gank.

Level 3

Deceive.
Why? Because you don't really need a point in any other skill to finish your jungling and this can help you show some lane presence or get a gank while still early. If the opportunity doesn't show up, keep jungling. There's a much deeper explanation in the next chapter.

Level 4 and Level 5

Two-Shiv Poison.
This will get your ganks stronger with DEM SLOWS.

From here on it goes with this order of priority

> > >

This chapter is just for showing the utility of the Skill Point on Deceive on Lvl 3.

If you've jungled almost any champion before you know the feeling of distress when someone offers you a kill or you desperately need to help an ally that's committed into a fight but you don't have your "Lvl 4 skill of initiation". I am talking about Fiddle's Terrify, Rammus' Powerball, Xin Zhao's Audacious Charge, Amumu's Bandage Toss, Udyr's Blazing Stampede, Trynd's Mocking Shout... get the point? This advantage is huge when facing a jungler that has rather weak pre-Lvl6 ganks, be that Noct, Warwick and Fids... which pretty much secure kills as soon as they hit Lvl6).

Why is there so much of a difference if you help someone get a kill early in lane? That means experience, creep score and gold difference for the laner against his opponent.
Think about two AP carries that are clashing on mid lane, both of them start with a Doran's Ring. You help your mate get first blood and then he recalls.
Your teammate will return (most likely) with boots, potions and maybe a ward while your opponent is going to return with just a pair of potions and maybe one level below your teammate.
Teammate hits lvl 6 sooner, gets another kill (now that's a little bit of wishful thinking but it does turn out like that mostly with AP nuker-carries ( Brand, Morgana, Annie, LeBlanc and so many more.

Awww daaayum, this is going to take a while. kk later.


1337 starting item.

Because this item gives you AP, Health and mana regeneration. Derp.
The mana regeneration on it works awesome with the masteries chosen. When placing a JitB at Lvl 1 you will get like 80% of the manacost back when you're able to cast a JitB again. When you have succesfully stolen the enemy blue buff (see what I did there? Explanation of how to be so awesome on the next chapter). I don't even sell this OP badboy unless I run out of room for late game items or wards.


You're going AP, remember? kk, we settled.
If you want tenacity check the Non-Listed Items Explanation below.

Kage's Lucky pick
It is a gold/10 item and you are jungling. Doesn't seem so radical, right?
The awesome about taking this is the choices you get for your next one (Notice the difference between builds 1 and 2? I mean, you should.

Time to make some choices

Deathfire grants you Cooldown reduction. That's OP on Shaco. It also grants you a manacost Nuke based on the enemy's current HP. That's OP. You've got only 1 nuke and boxes that take a two seconds to activate. This will help you. A lot. Oh, Iniciate with it, of course.

Morello's. Morello is so evil he will have to nerf the AP ratios on Shaco soon. I love this item. It gives you Cooldown reduction and more AP than Deathfire Grasp gives. It also lets you hold on to that gold/10 item for longer.

Which one should you pick? Both? Don't get both. You'll have like 60% Cooldown reduction when holding the blue buff if you do and remember that CDR caps at 40%. Take morello's if your team has a lot of CC or they deal so much burst they don't even need an extra nuke when you're ganking. Take DFG if you're facing enemies with tons of HP that can't be finished with your current skills (Counters Swain, Morgana's OP Black Shield, Offtanks Top, And champs that need to be killed before they press the panic button of CC or GTFO like Riven, LeBlanc, Lux and such).


Slowing shivs are gonna slow harder. The slow applies multiplicatively, it ain't additive. Your JitB are going to keep enemies in range for longer, enought to apply like 1 or 2 more shots. Each. K, I'll break down a little math.

Let us suppose an opponent would be feared for 1.5 seconds and then run away from your stacked boxes. Let us asume he will normaly take 3 shots. He will now take 4 shots at least. A Shaco with this rune and masteries setup will have 195 AP at lvl 18 with just a dorans ring, kage's pick, morello's, and Rylai's. And 34.22/15% magic pen.

Each shot does:
115(+48.75) = 163.75 magic damage.
163.75 x 4(shots) = 655 magic damage

And let us sayyou stacked 3 boxes
655 x 3 (boxes) = 1965 damage

Thats a lot. Take in mind that is not true damage and each shot will be reduced by magic resistance, not the whole 1965. Also keep in mind that you can stack more boxes and that will help you initiate a fight, finish and/or chase with a super slowing Shiv throw until your mates arrive.

Rylai's adds survivability so, like, yeah. Get it.

Defensive Items

Defensive Items are always situational depending on who's owning you the most.
Viable Options are:

Guardian Angel Cons: 5 minutes without a passive. Pros: damn awesome passive, 2nd best on AP Shaco.
Zhonya's Hourglass Cons: way expensive. Pros: damn awesome passive plus big AP boost.
Randuin's Omen Cons: Expensive, adds little health. Pros: Helps scape, chase and adds you a role in teamfights shutting down that boring-to-play-right-clicking-easy-mode-carry
Abyssal Mask Cons: Adds no health. Pros: If you're around you're boxes, they gon hurt people.
Quicksilver Sash Cons: No health. Pros: Counters CC based ults like a boss (In other words, Malz/WW/Morg/Morde/Mumu/Ashe ults and its k).

But the best defensive item on a shaco that comes with Flash and a 40% CDR cap is:


You're likely to never get focused because of your in-and-out of combat leet skills so a 1 time nuke/cc block plus added health should be enough to survive. If it isn't enough, get GA. Remember that Hallucinate is like a 0.3 sec duration Zhonya's Hourglass and that is enough to loose enemy focus.

I don't usually go for the Spellblade but when I do... it works. It's cheap and gives you AP. Dem stuns aint no gonna stop you no more. Try it out.

Endgame viability

Lichbane makes your Deceive a nuke and the attack that follows a Two-Shiv Poison another nuke. Since you're going to need lots of AP to make it worthy, you'll get a rabaddon's first.

I choose this video of me and my friend Neonshaman (who's a pretty cool guy. Eh kills champions and doesn't afraid of anything) over others because it shows 3 things at the same time:

-Your teammates in a pub can suck big time.
-Shaco's JitB ambush is so strong and fast that an enemy affected by Malzahar's Malefic Visions will not be alive enough to even get a tic of damage (check how he didn't get an assist).
-And most important: where to stack boxes on ambush.

Here it is:
Play Video
I could've chosen a first blood video to look really kewl and get you thinking I'm so pro but whatever.

Place Boxes in the far southern edge of the brush so that if the enemy gets feared and goes running in the opposite direction (DAMN YOU LUCKY BASTARD THAT GOT ME TO LEARN THIS) still die. How come? because that way the boxes will have vision and range on the opponent. Tru story bro.

If I take long to explain this, you'll never get the point.

When doing something risky, like going into the enemy jungle, always get an escape route. That means place a box in the entry point you're taking.

Never deceive through a wall into the enemy jungle because you need it to be ready for an escape.

When deceiving out of a threat, try to do it through a wall because that will save you lots of time. Same for Flash. Anyone knows that.

When your stealth wears off, place a JitB. Place boxes inside brushes so that enemies with an Oracle's Elixir wont see them.

Try to escape through a route that's different from the one you took too enter. That's because someone could chase you from that path or is already doing so and that means that the JitB you placed as you entered is already gone.

If you have vision on the enemy team and only one champion is chasing you, you could use the JitB you placed while entering as the first of many boxes you'll place. Works like a charm.

Don't be afraid to spam your R when you're alone because the cooldown is fairly low and the clone is an expert brush facechecker that is also kind enough to get the enemy's skills on cooldown.

Low-res map of JitB trap Placement

Red spots are mainly a 1 box only thing to prevent ganks. You'll have to get jungle wise to know where to place a JitB in one or two of the spots on mid, that is, check where the jungler may come from (usually from the side his red buff is) and how pushed your mid partner is.

For side lanes: If you can get a pink ward in the "ganker waiting brush" so no one can see you try stacking boxes and tell your mates to push and harass hard so they get the enemy jungler's attention. He will come to get an epic double kill just to find the surprise of a whole lot of boxis tearing him a new... button hole on his shirt.

Blue spots are mostly for stacking purposes, not warding spots (on the enemy side, that is). Learn how your opponents preffer to scape and a couple of boxes will get you a kill. A 9,6 sec CD at 40% CDR on your JitB will make Teemo look like a joke as a map awareness champ. Oh, and take advantage of Noxious Trap if you get queued up with a Teemo.

It doesn't matter how -that nonexisting thing you call- "ELO Hell" has made you think, people are not that stupid. As a team fight over some key objective is going to break, your team will move towards your stacked JitBs and expect a someone to facecheck. The enemy tank, of course, is more likely to do so. Try not letting this to happen using your Clone from Hallucinate to facecheck and bait opponents to the trap. If the clone dies or has soaked up a lot of CC your team will most likely initiate. If this is not happening, use the chat system and make your initiating teammates know this.

As the fight breaks up you can either just walk into the middle of it or decieve into it so you can place a JitB.
If your team does not need a lot of help (in case you got them feed at laning phase) you could also decieve through the enemy lines and place a JitB in their natural escape route, then throw a Two-Shiv Poison to the enemy carry. If needed, Q then W near the carry, then E on him and he should be low enough and out of the fight for so long he will wish to escape. That should be enough work for your team to clean up the enemy team.
If you need a fight that can change the curse of the game, the enemy will want to initiate. Them falling into your trap should be more than enough for you and your team to get whoever initiated (please don't if its an ulted cow). While they're at it your work will be to get behind the enemy and place a JitB near the carry or in the natural escape route most people would take.
Remember that your clone is a nuke as AP shaco. Try to position it near the squishy ones.

Move in, do your thing, get in a safe spot, get back in and get anything you can. Your power relies in utility more than damage. If you would like to be an awesome damage dealing AP champ then buy another champ. Let me say you wont laugh so hard without Shaco, though.

Just by watching this you'll get the idea of how to jungle.
I strongly recommend you to gank at lvl 3 at the 4 minute mark.
Play Video

For any other standard shaco jungling route go check any other guide or video on youtube.

I'd appreciate if you comment this guide and let me know what's missing.

I'll add some videos of team fights. I think JitB traps are of no interest.