So hi. This is my first guide, and it is currently unfinished (no screen caps or video), but I digress: Talon is a pretty awesome character. Is he meant to carry a team? No. Does he deal great amounts of damage, get some good kills, and is he a general bad-***? You betcha! So I hope this guide helps you play a pretty awesome Talon. Also, I want to get this published pretty quick, so some more supplementary sections will be written at a later date.

Pros

Great damage
Good escape techniques
Nice crowd control for a carry
Good counter to AP carry mid metagame (we will discuss this in the to-be-written Ranked Play section)
Naturally fast
Purple

Cons

Squishy
Has a hard time laning against ranged AD carries
Can get killed in teamfights if not initiated properly
Can sometimes get KS'd (but this is a damn team game so it doesn't matter)
Kind of weak early game
He has a weird facial structure

These work really great

Good for chasing, saving yourself, or bringing down an AD carry in a teamfight. I personally take this, but other skills work well too.


It's Flash. Enough said


Good for dealing a finishing blow, or killing somebody's lane sustain in general.


Good for getting to a gank, getting away, or in synchronicity with Shadow Assault.

These work fine, but I wouldn't take them personally

And just don't use anything else.

Pretty standard AD Runes here, except for the Cooldown Reduction. I use Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction because they are more efficient than Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction starting at level 11, and in my opinion, most of the game happens after level 11.

Spam Talon's ult
That's about it

So that R is pretty great, isn't it? And with these CDR per level glyphs, you can pop it twice in a minute. Pretty neat.

So why not Trinity Force? The argument for Trinity Force is because it works well with Talon's passive. Well, here is my argument against Tri Force

Talon's passive is just not that good
Trinity Force is damn expensive
More sustained damage without it (more AD)
Because of more AD, you get more damage with

Rake and Shadow Assault, which are (in my opinion) Talon's "main" skills

Furthermore, Trinity Force is 4070 gold for a passive that will be useful once in a teamfight, when you could spend that gold on more AD. So my point: is Trinity Force good burst? Yes. Is it 4070 gold good? Not in my opinion. If you don't get Trinity Force, then you get more AD early, for a more powerful Rake and still a very very good bit of damage with Cutthroat and Noxian Diplomacy. Also, by not building Trinity Force, you get more AD quicker, making your early game less weak.


This is just my opinion and I have found it works. If you want to build differently, then that is fine. So pretty standard item guide. Rush The Brutalizer for some extra CDR, and everything else is some nice AD and some passives that I have found work well with Talon.

The Case for Black Cleaver

Talon is by no means an auto-attacking champion, but his Noxian Diplomacy requires an auto attack. So, you use Diplomacy, take another auto attack or 2, then Rake for massive damage.

You may also want to stack or instead of Black Cleaver. These are both viable because one is a bunch of AD and some lifesteal, which is nice. The other is more AD and some crit chance, which is also nice. Just do what you feel will win you the game. Remember: you have to read the game and adjust your play accordingly.

ONE THING TO ALWAYS REMEMBER ABOUT ITEMS

Tailor your item build to your game. If their AD is killing you and your team, build some armor. If Malzahar is giving you problems, build some magic resist. If you just feel like you need some more survivability in general, build a Frozen Mallet. Builds are suggestions that are then applied to games. This means it is up to you to analyze the game and build accordingly.

Last hit last hit last hit last hit last hit last hit last hit last hit last hit last hit last hit last hit last hit. I spam that not to get more words in my guide, but because it is that important.
One cool thing you can do is Rake some low health minions while an enemy champ is standing by them, thus farming and harassing while using less mana (although Talon is not particularly mana hungry)
Overall, you should get some decent farm going with Talon. Not the best, but definitely not the worst.

Major big in lane harrass/burst

E,Q,W. After that you can exhaust them and auto attack to death, or ignite (depending on which you took). When you do this, try to get one auto attack in after your E and then another after your Q to maxamize your damage.

In lane (over level 6) kill

(R),E,Q,W,(R). Here you can either initiate with R or chase and kill with it. It's nice if your lane partner has a stun or something of the like, but it's not necessary if you had some nice harass going.

General Stragtegies

Remember that Noxian Diplomacy resets the auto attack timer.
Also, remember that Shadow Assault does damage both going out and coming in
Furthermore, always try to silence and AP champion (duh)

One real quick piece of team fight advice because I want this published before I leave for my 1:20 class

After the tank initiates, pop your ult, and run to the back of their team (assuming there's no tower there). Then, Rake their team, Cutthroat to the front of their team, and meet back up with your team (relatively) unscathed. Then go about it like a normal teamfight (focus squishies. Fun thing: Cutthroat to their AP then do the Noxian Diplomacy+auto-attack+ Rake thing).

It is also not a bad idea to Exhaust their AD carry to shut him or her down for part of the fight, and facilitate a kill.

coming soon

This will be regularly updated, and new sections will be added. Please comment and vote and thanks for reading.