Hello and welcome to my Nocturne - The Eternal Nightmare Champion Guide!

In this guide I will show you some tips and tricks you can pull off with Nocturne.
I play Nocturne as a jungler or laning with a partner, if you are asking yourself "which way is the better way ?" I would say both ways are just fine, but seeing Nocturne doing so great damage at early game, sometimes its better to start as a lane player, solo or with partner, and letting some other player be your jungler :)!

18/03/2011

Added: Introduction; Build - Update's; Champion - Skills; Champion - Pros / Cons; Champion - Summoner Spells; Champion - Creeping / Jungling; Champion - Items Selection; Team Work [LANE] - Tips, Tricks; Summary

19/03/2011

Added: LANE runes; Items , new description to some items, Items list NOT to get.

Removed: Items , , from possible items to get.

20/03/2011

Changed: Item build for jungle and lane Nocturne.

Let's start with Skills:

Umbra Blades (Passive): Every 10 seconds, Nocturne's next attack strikes surrounding enemies for 120% of his physical damage and heals himself for 15 / 20 / 25 per target hit. Nocturne's basic attacks reduce this cooldown by 1 second.

Duskbringer: (Active): Nocturne throws a shadow blade which deals damage, leaves a Dusk Trail, and causes champions who are hit to also leave a Dusk Trail for 5 seconds. While on the trail, Nocturne ignores unit collision and has increased Movement Speed and Attack Damage.

* Cooldown: 10 seconds.
* Range: 1200.

Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 mana.
Physical Damage: 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 (+0.75 per bonus attack damage).
Movement Speed Bonus: 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 %.
Attack Damage Bonus: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 .

Shroud of Darkness: (Passive): Nocturne empowers his blades, passively gaining attack speed.

(Active): Nocturne creates a magical barrier for 2 seconds which blocks the next enemy spell. If an ability is blocked by the shield, his passive attack speed is doubled for 5 seconds.

* Cost: 50 mana.

Cooldown: 20 / 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 seconds.
Passive Attack Speed Bonus: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 %.

Unspeakable Horror: (Active): Nocturne plants a nightmare into his target's mind, dealing magic damage over 2 seconds and fearing the target if they do not get out of 600 range of him for the full duration.

* Range: 500.

Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 mana.
Cooldown: 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 seconds.
Total Magic Damage: 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 (+1.0 per ability power).
Fear Duration: 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 1.75 / 2 second(s).

Paranoia (Ultimate): (Active): Nocturne reduces the sight radius of all enemy champions and removes their ally vision for 4 seconds, this includes champions, minions, wards and towers. He can then launch himself at a enemy champion with a large range. Deals physical damage on arrival.

* Cost: 100 mana.
* Range: 2000.

Cooldown: 160 / 130 / 100 seconds.
Physical Damage: 150 / 300 / 450 (+1.2 per bonus attack damage).
Range: 2500 / 3250 / 4000 .


Here you can see the improvements of each level in every skill, range, damage, cooldowns, etc. The skill sequence is built in the beggining of the page :)

This is why/how you should play Nocturne:

Pros:

Great ganker;
Awesome dive;
One of the best farmers in the whole game;
Excellent passive for jungle or just regenerating in lane;
1v1 = win;
Huge attack speed w/o attack speed items;
Huge damage early game;
Great chaser;
Scary Ulti;
Has fear!

Cons:

Ulti used the wrong way = death;
Needs many help in Teamfights;
Easily nuked, deals a lot of damage and enemies will want to get rid of you first;
You are an assassin, so please don't throw yourself alone into 3 or more enemies!

My main spells are:
and when laning.
and while jungling.

Other GOOD spells for Nocturne:
Ignite is a great source of damage and helps reducing the heal of or among other healing skills.
Flash, another cool spell you might wanna try out on Nocturne, its a great combo with his and , either in, or out.
Cleanse, this spell is just AWESOME when you come in with your Ulti and BANG! No one stops Nocturne here, but as long as you play him carefully and entering at last in teamfights, you will only need your to avoid getting CC'ed since everyone already used his skills.


Spells NOT to get:
Passive has lifesteal, you don't need to keep coming back to base, and with the reduced deathtimer now, you don't need this since you aren't much time dead at early game. At mid game ? Yeah it should be usefull, but you already have your Ulti by now, use it!
Lifesteal, lifesteal, lifesteal... bah!
This one is good, its a great combo for your Ulti! But since you aren't a support champion, why not to ask one to get it ? Or maybe just a ward here and there will do it ;)
As long as you don't spam skills like a silly, you won't have problems.
Nope. You know why.
I guess it won't make a difference, you damage is so big, you won't even have time to place this!
I bet you read this in all builds, leave it for tanks :P

Alright, if you are starting to jungle with Nocturne your in the right place.
First skill: , why not another one ? Because with Shroud of Darkness you get 20% more attack speed and that helps you using your passive more effectively for regenerating and killing faster.
For items, we'll stick with the old and 5 and head ourselves to the 2 golems, start attacking one of them, smite him and pop up a health potion.
You should be now level 2 because of the increased exp from Masteries, so, put one point in and use it for a faster jungle (don't forget, when you are jungling ALWAYS put yourself in the mid of the minions, so you can drain the max hp you can from them with your passive!). Now, go to Wraiths, target the blue one and pop a health pot, followed by Wolves...
You reached the Blue Buff and you should still have half or more than half mana and ready for use!
Again, put yourself in the middle of the minions and start attacking the golem, at this point you should have left 2 health potions, so use them both if you have to, smite the dude and get the Buff.
Recall, buy some stuff like and 1 or 2 and return to jungle, clean it, grab Red Buff and if any of your teammates needs your help to protect the lane or just to push/gank, go and get your first kill (use or to get faster near your target and get him with and finish him off with auto-attacks and ).
At this time of the game you must have money to grab and the first thing you wanna do with it is place a ward, near the river, or in the enemy's jungle buffs or escape path's. This will make an easy kill to you, because your Ulti doesn't work well if you don't see your target, this will a big surprise to them and some more money to you, plus 1 kill ^^!
Finish your or even make (if the enemy team is full of disablers and/or mages).
Once your are leveled enough, keep farming a lot, ganking a lot, and playing like you should, like an assassin :)!

In this build you can see that my main items are listed above, when your team is playing well and none of the enemies are fed, in occasional situations like when some of them get fed by some players not so good from your team, or just being lucky, whatever.
I'll write down some recommended items and items you should not buy much often.
Also a good idea is to have items with ACTIVE's, such as .

Offensive items:

Good choice, I never bought it, APen is always welcome.
GREAT item for Nocturne, a MUST!
Has a little bit of everything, a good passive and also slows.
Works like it should with Nocturne, instead of buying , buy this one. Gives you more HP, means more survivability, and its passive is very annoying to other champions. Although, with Frozen Mallet you don't have bonus atk speed, move speed, crit chance like you do with Trinity Force, and Nocturne likes a lot those 3 bonuses, not to mention passive to help their hp bar going doooown!
Well, its a good item for you to combine with .

Defensive Items:

With this you have Armor and Magic Resist, with a little help from your lifesteal, you won't have any problems, and with its passive enemies might not target you at first, but others! Also you might end up saving your bonuses and who knows, saving the game!
Great idea having one, 2 shields :D!
Magic Resist like you want it, movemment speed, and some high regen. "Say hello mages!"
Also good against high DPS team.

Items NOT to get:

Meh, just for the HP and armor, its passive won't be much of help when you fully target someone.
Assassins can't be targeted first, use your movespeed and you to run away when having problems.
You don't need hp neither you need hp regen, you have plenty lifesteal.
You won't get much hp pool, so it makes this item useless.
You don't need this, it'll only occupy one item slot and besides, you already bought a temporary item to fulfill your lifesteal needs: .

You just started a game, and you decided you want to go lane with your partner instead of jungling.
If your partner is a heavy damage DPS like you are, , or don't hesitate, level , wait in the grass and take your opponents down, both of you, don't forget to use !
At Mid game, some ganks are being made by both teams, keep asking your teammates to place wards in the river so you can keep control of who's coming and who's not when someone is missing.
Ask your supporter if he/she can Clairvoyance their buffs and jungle, if you find any enemy without their teammates around, get a little closer, turn on your ulti and get him faster, kill him, turn on your and run. If nobody is leaving lanes, just RECALL fast before you get any surprise...
Talking about surprises, if the enemy team has a or , place some near your lane to avoid ganks on you. If you have your ulti ready, warn your teammate and rush them together, your enemy won't even know how that happened ^^!

So this was my Build/Guide, it's not complete yet, I will keep updating the build, adding new content, tips, tricks, items I shall try out with Nocturne, etc!

I am sorry if theres any mistakes in my writing, my mother language is not English ^^!
I hope you enjoyed my build, don't forget to leave a comment if the build worked for you, what didn't work, anything, I'll try to make it right or at least better!

THUMBS UP please! :D