Hi everyone! I'm ryu2k, and I've been maining Shaco since season 6. I've been a midlane main before, but then I saw some streamers play Shaco and immediately fell in love with him. When I picked him up his kit felt incredibly intuitive and natural and fit my playstyle perfecty.
I am not the most consistent player, depending on mood and tiredness, but when I started playing ranked only when i was in the right mindset I hit gold quite effortless with a 70+ winrate.
In the preseason I've been mostly experimenting with other stuff, playing champs that I never played before and trying out stupid stuff like ADCs everywhere but botlane (seriously who wants to play a 2v2 lane?!). I feel like my knowledge about champs and how the game works has grown a lot in the process though.

I've also experimented alot with Shaco builds and come to the conclusion that more damage heavy builds work best for me at the moment. Everyone has less armor which makes oneshotting a lot easier and the games are really fast paced, so a pick post 20 can already be game if you capitalize on it.

Because Mobafire helped me out a lot getting into League I want to give a little back and want to share my experience on Shaco with you.

So I hope you enjoy reading my guide to Shaco and I can help some of you out.

Backstab: Shacos passive ability allows him to do a mini-crit for 130% of his total AD and 40% AP on enemies he hits from behind. This is affected by cooldown reduction and massively increases his damage output. On monsters it crits for 200%, so dont forget to kite monsters around and hit them from the back as often as you can. Tips - You can use this to sneak early solo dragons post 6. By letting your R - Hallucinate tank the dragon you can constantly hit it from behind and thus melt it very fast.

Deceive: Blink to a location up to 400 units away and become stealthed for 1.5 / 2.25 / 3 / 3.75 / 4.5 seconds. This ability is your core engage, escape, chase, juke and outplay tool. Since the nerfs to it in Shaco's rework it doesnt do any damage anymore and the stealth duration increases with level, so you want to put a couple of points into it early. If you attack an enemy briefly after exiting stealth, you reduce the cooldown of this ability by 2.5s. Tips You don't always have to sneak in on enemies with Q when ganking. Only do this if you need the element of surprise or can burst them. If you can just walk up to them it's sometimes better to hold your Q to follow their dash/ Flash. When you're being chased dont necessarily Q straight away from them! Get creative to confuse them, create some distance by making them run in the wrong direction or to hide in a bush. Be careful as this is you only movement spell especially since you're not going to run flash! Think before you use this spell agressively. What kinds of burst/cc does the enemy have? Can they focus you down or oneshot you before you can kill them or your team can follow up? Placing a Jack In The Box or using your R - Hallucinate doesn't break your stealth. Use this to your advantage to make the enemy think your clone is you or to place a box so that you have a safe way to retreat. This ability is very useful to steal Dragon/Baron, as you can wait invisible in the pit until you can smite. It takes some practice though to get the right timing and to stay calm and ignore the enemies and just focus on the smite When you press B immediately after Q, you recall in stealth which reduces the time enemies can see you recalling to up to 3.5s. When you have baron buff you can recall completely in stealth.

Jack in the Box: Place a box that becomes invisible after a short delay. Enemies activate the box on approach and get feared for 0.5 / 0.75 / 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 seconds and attacked for 5 seconds. This ability is mostly used for utility on AD Shaco. While clearing make sure you let the box tank the camp's damage. Tips You can throw your boxes over walls with blast cone. Use this for a more fluent clear. When ganking place a box in the enemies possible escape route. When you invade you can place a box in your way to have a safe escape for yourself. Set up traps in bushes to fear fecechecking enemies. Lategame your boxes are very squishy and get oneshot by most abilities. It is still a good idea to place some around possible teamfight locations in advance. You might catch enemies off guard when they run away or be able peel for your team as you retreat. Beware that a good enemy jungler will smite your boxes to get rid of the fear.

Two-Shiv Poison: Shacos basic attacks passively slow enemies for 2 seconds while this ability is off cooldown. His E-ability's active throws a poisoned dagger applying the slow for 3 seconds and dealing physical damage scaling with the enemies missing health. Tips: The passive reduces monsters' attack speed, thus having this ability off cooldown will result in a healthier clear. For full benefit of this ability use it last to finish the enemy off with the execute damage

Hallucinate: After going invisible for half a second you spawn a clone that deals 75% of your damage and applies onhit effects for 18 seconds. Damage the clone receives is increased by 50%. Versus turrets the clone deals less and receives more damage. Upon death the clone explodes, deals magic damage and spawn an illuminati triangle of boxes. The clone can be maneuvered by holding the alt key. Tips Use Clone for taking first turret and for splitpushing Solo dragons / rift herald by letting your clone tank Beware that any visible DoT ( Ignite, Malzahars Malefic Visions) on you will only be seen on you after cloning, making it easy for the enemy to identify the real you. When chased let the clone explode in choke points to ensure a safe retreat. Juking/Outplay Hide in bushes letting your clone clear a wave; let enemies engage on the clone instead of you. If you know a bush is warded you can use R in the bush and leave the bush yourself. Laugh as the enemy engages your clone agein. When you are in a disadvatagous fight with your clone (e.g getting engaged under enemy tower) make the clone run away instead of you. Most enemies will chase the clone giving you time to escape in a different direction. The short invisibility time as the clone spawns can be used to dodge any ability (like Caitlyn's Ace in the Hole) and even tower shots or dragon knockback. The timing needs to be really precise though and requires some practice. It's possible but hard to pull off in teamfights to dodge crucial cc. You can use the invisibility time as well to glitch through small walls like dragon pit. To do that use R right next to the wall and spam the other side. Quite hard to pull off in game. To tilt the enemy dance together with your clone on their dead body. Most advanced and important clone tactic: Move your clone while its dancing. To accomplish that you need to give your clone a movement command just as its about to stand back up from dancing.

For your first clear you have different options. By stacking W - Jack In The Box starting at 0:30 - 0:40 you can get down four boxes as the jungle creeps spawn, so you will take no damage from your first camp. Beware that you place one box just as the camp spawns, so that you chain 2 fears.

For my standard clear I usually start the top buff, because most enemy junglers will start bottom side to get a good leash. After taking the first buff I level Q - Deceive and jump over Baron-/Dragonpit to steal the enemies top buff by placing a box and smiting it. If you invade the enemies blue buff make sure you ward over the wall so you see the enemy jungler coming in case he skipped wolves or just cleared fast in general. When taking red you can ward after taking the buff to spot the enemy jungler when he comes to clear it. After taking the enemies buff i proceed to take Gromp/Krugs to hit level 3. From these camps you will take some damage so make sure to chug a potion! With level 3 you can transition into a toplane gank, given that the enemy is pushing. Coming from Krugs you can walk behind the Tribush into the lane, which puts u directly behind the enemy and will almost always guarantee a kill or at least blow a flash. When coming from Gromp you can use the Blast Cone to get into top river brush and then either walk or deceive up to the enemy, depending on his position.

Tips and Tricks:

• Tell your Toplane (or Bot if you start there) not to push to find an easy early gank
• If you know that the enemy jungler will get low on his first clear or you see him on your ward you can set up a trap on the buff you have stolen. Wait in the buffs brush with a box put down, Backstab and Ignite him as he gets feared, this will blow his flash 99% of the time. Then you can follow up with your Q and finish him off.
• Make sure not to greed too much for the enemies buff! If the buff was warded and you see enemy Mid/Top rotating dont hesitate to run away using your Q over a wall. Many times your laners will react slower or being pushed in and not being able to react. Getting that buff isnt worth giving away first blood.
• Tell your botlane to protect your bottom buff and ward it at 1:30. Many enemy junglers know that you will invade them at level 2 and avoid you by mirroring you on the botside. If they are spotted, Mid and Bot can rotate for an easy first blood though. But even if the enemy gets your buff, you are at an advantage because you took two camps.

Concluding i can say that this is a cheesy strat that works mostly in low elo, but i've had great success with it up into mid gold so far. Beware though that some players will be well aware of what you try to do so you need to keep an eye on the minimap and react fast if they collapse!



Another clear i have been experimenting with is the fast level 4 clear:
You start Wolves, but only kill the big and one small wolf. Then you take Blue and Gromp, kill the small wolf and proceed to take Chicken (Smite big one) then Red Buff (Smite again). You should be level 4 at around 3:10 with full health and double buffs.
To prepare this clear you want to put one Jack In The Box where wolves will spawn at 0:35-0:40. Then you place two boxes in front of Blue's spawn, but at a little distance so they dont activate right away.
Then you go back to wolves and place a box as they spawn. With two boxes you can kill the big and one small without taking damage.
You proceed to take blue buff by kiting it back into your boxes and placing a third one. From there on you just place a box on every camp.
This clear works well if the enemy jungler has a lot of power and you can't duel him early (e.g. Lee Sin) or you wanna get a good gank on bot with that extended Deceive level 4.

An example of how much damage you can dish out when ahead.
Full burst build used.

21.01.2018:

First clear added Pros and Cons added Introduction added Runes updated

22.01.2018: Ability explanations added