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Talon Build Guide by

Nikjojo's Challenger Talon Guide with Video GIFS

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Talon Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion More Talon Guides

Runes: All Rounder Runes

Domination

Electrocute

Sudden Impact

Eyeball Collection

Relentless Hunter

Sorcery

Absolute Focus

Scorch

Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10% Tenacity/Slow Resist

Spells:

Flash

Ignite

Items

Starter

1st Rush

2nd Rush

Core Item

Typical Build | Bread and Butter | My Build in 80% of games

Situational Viability Items

Ability Order Skill Order

Talon Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Mordekaiser

Extreme

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Champion Build Guide

Introduction

NIKJOJO

Challenger 550LP Peak
Talon and Gangplank Main

YouTube.com/NIKJOJO
Twitch.tv/NIKJOJO
Twitter.com/NikjojoLoL

Vanity

VANITY

Abilities

ABILITIES

PASSIVE

Blade's End (Passive): This is your MOST IMPORTANT ability. Your combos MUST include your passive in them in order to do the optimal amount of damage. It has a 200% AD SCALING. Failure to proc your passive will mean failure to to miss out on approximately 20% to 30% of your damage; you will fail your assassination attempt

Noxian Diplomacy (Q): You will typically instantly auto attack immediately after using your Q (ranged or melee). IMPORTANT: The melee range Q will reset your auto attack timer.

Rake (W): Your wave clear, harass and cs-ing tool. Quite an overloaded ability. The return on the Q will do more damage than the initial toss.

Assassin's Path (E): This ability is whate makes Talon fun, and what defies a high rank Talon from a low rank Talon. IMPORANT: Don't E across a wall you may not urgently need to jump through as you may want to use it as an escape.

Shadow Assault (R): Talon's iconic ability. This ability is both offensive and defensive, and incredibly useful to help with repositioning to land the return of your W. I typically open with this in a team fight.

Runes

RUNES REFORGED

Electrocute: Literally your only option. No other rune simply works for Talon. Champions known as Assassins and champions that build a high amount of flat AD or AP AND have high AD or AP scalings will go for this rune as it simply adds more damage. A simple Q auto and ignite will proc this passive, and sometimes that JUST the right amount of damage to pull of a close kill.

Sudden Impact: On paper, it doesn't seem like it does a heavy amount of damage. In actuality, I find that this rune ADDS roughly just below half the total amount of damage that electrocute outputs in an entire game Definitely not an insignificant amount of damage.

Eyeball Collection: Straight up gives you more AD as you fight more. Ghost Poro can be an alternative, but I wouldn't recommend it for new players.

Relentless Hunter: The winrates and highly rated Talons agree that speed is KING on talon. You rune walls faster, you roam better and you can one shot your target easier. Ultimate hunter is a decent, weaker alternative.

Absolute Focus: Talon doesn't fight extended fights. You will almost always enter fights with full HP, drop a full combo, then attempt to escape as the enemies start attacking you while you have used up all your cooldowns. Therefore, the above 70% health is almost non factor for your decision in picking this rune

Scorch: Helps you to first blood your opponent before your first back. The high amount of early levels 1-2 damage this rune adds on is significant, as I always recommend to take the risky all in trades with the first blood king: Talon

Skill Order

SKILL ORDER

Diamond+ Global Winrates

Source: lolalytics.com

As shown in the winrates, both W max and Q max are viable options. HOWEVER, I've noticed that the MAJORITY of all challenger Talon one tricks go W max first 9 out of 10 times. Keep this in mind.

Option #1: W Max
I run W max talon in nearly all of my games. I nearly never go Q max as my playstyle revolves around repositioning so that the returning W almost always hits. W max is alot more noob friendly than Q max, as it helps will long range harass, poke and wave clear.

Option# 2: Q Max
The major benefit of Q max talon is the 0.5s cooldown reduction per level, as well as a higher output damage if you managed to snag a melee crit Q with it.
I've seen Talon's run Q max against opponents like LeBlanc and Yasuo; targets that hop around far too much are good opponents to max Q first.

Items

ITEMS

Listed in order of importance

It's never a good idea to blindly follow a build. Adapt to your situations.

Starter Items:

Long Sword + Refillable Potion

- Probably your ultimate/best start. Talon has the best early level kill potential, especially at level 2
- Talon scales exceptionally well with AD due to his passive which has a 200% bonus AD scaling
- A level 2 full talon combo with a Q and W and Passive can net you around ~50 more damage than a corrupting potion start
- Long Sword can be quickly built into a Tiamat
- You'll have better slot efficiency with this starting item combo. Which means more item space for more Long Sword stacking
- The refillable pot can be sold for 60g in order to purchase another 350g long sword later in the game

Corrupting Potion

- I ONLY recommend taking this LeBlanc in the midlane, or possibly if you think that you will have an exceptionally difficult time in lane vs your opponent
- You will significantly more health regen and mana regen than the Long Sword Refillable start
- More mana means more Q executes for more health regen
- A situational starting item for toplane Talon
- Falls off hard very hard as the game goes on
- Item slot inefficient; it's good to sell this item early on if you want to snag a 6th item slot Long Sword

Rush:

Tiamat

- Makes Talon one of the best fast wave-clearer at a low level.
- Fast wave clear = higher lane priority = quicker roaming and response
- You save more mana: Tiamat makes you less dependent on your W to wave clear; you go Out Of Mana (OOM) less often.

Boots of Speed

- You run fast as f*** boyyyy
- Jump walls with E faster
- Run to other lanes faster
- Catch your opponent easier

2nd Rush:

Serrated Dirk

- Lethality early-game is always good
- Ludicrous abouts of damage against non armored early enemies (because of +10 lethality)

Boots of Mobility

- E wall jumps are signifincalty faster
- Respond to other lanes quick
- Gap close your target to one shot them easier

Major Core:

Duskblade of Draktharr

- Higher lethality than Youmuus's
- Extra passive damage on hit; passive damage is incredibly useful on Talon as you'll typically be running around in the jungle, and your combos will utilize the Duskblade passive almost every time
- Mini built in automatic red trinket; killing wards gives you EXP and gold
- Allows you to skip building red trinket and stick with yellow trinket (personal preference)

Typical Full Build Items:
(in order of purchase sequence)

Youmuu's Ghostblade

- Next best item after purchasing duskblade
- Passive and active movespeed is strong and typically underrated

The Black Cleaver

- Good mix of damage, tankyness and CDR
- Provides armor pen for your fights against armored targets.

Edge of Night

- Can be bought before Black Cleaver if the enemy isn't building any armor
- Strong against opponents that have 1 ability to screw you over e.g. Vayne E (her only ability that can screw you over)

Situational Items:
(in order of likelihood of purchase)

Lord Dominik's Regards

- Higher armor pen than Mortal Reminder
- Can be bought even if you already have a black cleaver

Hexdrinker

- VERY NICHE
- I only ever potentially build this against Diana

Guardian Angel

- MUST BUY (probably as 3rd full item) against a Zed or Rengar. The Stopwatch allows you to outplay both targets and prevents you from becoming free kills against AD assassins (Qiyana is a non-issue, lol).

Ravenous Hydra

- VERY HIGH Attack Damage.
- Typically my 6th item full build to complete the build

Mortal Reminder

- If the enemy team is running a Vladimir, Soraka, Aatrox, Sejuani AND a high amount of armor on them, buy this item

Maw of Malmortius

- AVOID becoming dependent on this item
- I can't remember the last time I purchased this item
- I only ever purchase and sit on the Hexdrinker, then sell the Hexdrinker for a black cleaver

Essential Combos

ESSENTIAL COMBOS

Not every Talon combo, but his most important ones

General Combo Tips:
- Talon will immediately auto attack right after casting his Q
- However, his MELEE Q IS AN AUTO ATTACK RESET, NOT HIS RANGED Q. For example, if you auto a minion and immediately fly to your opponent with a ranged Q, you won't auto attack them immediately after landing the Q.
- When in melee range, try to weave in an Auto Attack before and after your Melee Q. So something like [Melee] -> Q -> [Melee]
- Your ranged Q will land you directly on top of your opponent
- Use Tiamat to animation cancel your auto attack or W animation

ALWAYS aim to proc your passive. Your passive is VITAL towards killing your opponent

Level 2 Combos