Pros

*TONS OF DAMAGE
*Great Roaming Early Game
*Blinks Onto Targets
*An Assassin with CC
*Short Ult Cooldown
*Best Snowball in the game
*Really fast with Mobility Boots & youmuu's ghost blade

Cons

*His escapes are situational and don't always work
*Pink wards
*Can not fight tanks, at all.
*Uses Mana
*Weakish Early

Hydra?

Now probably for the most controversial topic on Talon. WHEN TO BUILD HYDRA!? The problem is it gives you AD but not the most for the cost and no penetration or crit. Instead it gives you sustain and more wave clear. I personally will build hydra if I see the need for the sustain and can't snowball off my raw DMG and pen. to assassinate. It is an Auto Attack reset kinda thing and can be used with Noxian Diplomacy.

Since laning can drastically control how well you do in a game, it is important to master your matchups and keep good cs. One thing I will talk about is trading & how you are to go about it in lane. In order to even lane you must master using your abilities efficiently and to their maximum potential. A lot of this will be very related to the timing of using the ability. So if you can not react fast/combo well I would suggest other champions.

Mercy This is Talon's passive. This is what makes his late game so worth it and his single target damage so strong. This passive is useful because stacked with cutthroat; it will alow you to do alot of damage to them very fast. It is especially usefull when you use Noxian Diplomacy with it to get fast burst, not to mention if you get a critical strike.

This is Talon's Auto Attack Steroid. It will rest your auto attack. This works nicely early game because it will make trading so much better. The bleeding effect also makes ignite that much more viable on him.

Talon's 'bread and butter' ability. It is your only form of poke. I can be used to secure cs, clear waves, harass your laner, slow multiple enemies, and lastly proc your passive. You will be maxing this no matter the situation. This is also why it is very important not to miss it after you blink onto someone because you will lose a huge part of your damage. It also does DMG to enemies twice, this is a reason Black Cleaver is so good on Talon.

Cutthroat This is your mobility, Shadow Assault gives you movement speed while stealth-ed. But this ability is the reason Talon is strong in my opinion. While it may not silence or interrupt. Mastering timing on this ability is almost as rewarding as mastering Master Yi's Alpha Strike timing. You can completely dodge enemy's abilities, slow your enemy, and get increased DMG on the target. The ironic part of this ability being so good is the fact you will be maxing it last. The cool down reduction is this build will help you have this ability up more often mid game.

This ability is unique in the fact it is different then all the other assassin's ult's. It is AOE & grants you stealth. This allows you to all in with not much fear of having to continue the fight if you lose (Look for pink wards in Tab menu). It also allows you to cancel enemies auto attacks while letting you get one right off the bat coming out of the stealth from the ability. You can wait the full duration to get cooldowns on your abilities or you can reactivate it for fast burst before they Flash or get away somehow( Arcane Shift, Living Shadow, Dark Passage.

Why Take (E) Second

Well, while it is not always the best thing to do, it is the safest thing to do so you can take 2 points in Rake & harass the enemy laner down while conserving mana. This will also allow you to run up on the enemy to land Rake & be able to cutthroat on a minion if the jungler shows up, and they may very well might. They will be done their second buff before you hit level 4 if they aren't AFK. Talon becomes incredibly strong while ahead, and much like that he becomes incredibly weak while behind. So play safer-ish early and take e early if you're fighting a mage ( LeBlanc, Orianna, Kayle, Ziggs, Xerath, Vel'Koz, Zyra, Syndra, Malzahar, Lissandra, Azir, Anivia, Ahri, Annie, Cassiopeia).

Ferocity

Sorcery5/5- 2% Increased Spell DMG vs 4% Attack speed
Double Edged Sword 1/1- Deal 3% more DMG and Take 1.5% more DMG vs Heal 20 hp upon creep kill once every 25 seconds
Vampirism 5/5- 2.0% Lifesteal and Spell Vamp vs. 10 AD and 15 AP at lvl 18
Oppressor 1/1- 2.5% incresead DMG to Crowd Controlled Targets vs 1% increased DMG for each unique champion killed.

Cunning

Wanderer 5/5 3.0% increased out of combat movement speed vs Savagery5/5 5 more true DMG to CS
Secret Stash 1/1- Helps you sustain early
Merciless 5/5- 5% increased DMG to targets below 40% Max HP
Dangerous Game 1/1 - Restore missing 5% MANA and HEALTH
Precision5/5- 3 flat Armor/Magic Pen. Plus scaling Pen.
Stormraider's Surge -Gain 35%! movement speed when 30% of a champions max HP is done in 2 seconds.

WHY NO THUNDER LORDS

Thunderlord's Decree From my personal experience, Stormraider's Surge offers a tool to escape with your ult off cooldown or wanting to save it. With the damage you build and have you will not need the little bit of bonus combo damage from Thunderlord's Decree .

So now that you know how your abilities work, you need to know how to use them together, we'll start with a basic combo.

Basic Combo's

A Simple Auto Attack Reset

AUTO ATTACK +
As soon as your auto attack hits, push q to reset the animation and do DMG very fast.

* First auto attack resetting with Noxian Diplomacy. This is useful in getting cs under tower, and winning trades in lane. It will also help push towers. Just be careful, spamming it will burn your mana.

A Quick Takedown

* + cutthroat

* If an enemy is in range, throw Rake out but as soon as it hit's the enemy, blink onto them with cutthroat. This is done to prevent blinking onto them and awkwardly missing Rake. It will slightly lower your damage on them, and it requires you to be in closer range. I recommend this when you have an extra low target in close range for a quick kill.

You can not escape me

+ cutthroat
Push E on your target (While out of range, and then Flash to get in range to immediately blink)

Master Combos

The Blade Spiral

Cutthroat + +

* This is only a good combo when the enemy team is grouped and you have Black Cleaver. Usually this can be done around dragon when they attempt to take it. Cutthroat onto the enemy ADC (You may want to use Youmuu's Ghostblade to get in range), auto attack and activate Shadow Assault, position yourself for a good Rake. This will leave you vulnerable because you will not have escape unless your Flash is up. You should try to wait for your team before you do this combo because you will need follow up. You can also rake before you use Shadow Assault but generally that leaves you vulnerable for too long in front of a team since the range of Rake is super short.

So whether you're completely winning your lane or losing it, doesn't mean bot lane is winning. So when should you roam? Well missing out on cs is never good, you have to be very careful. Sometimes people will roam into your lane thinking you ain't ****. You got to show them who Talon is.

My Personal Play

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>http://plays.tv/video/54a9d7c16ccea4ff9d<

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In the video I was 3/2/4 when I was roamed onto by bot lane and their jungler at 14 minutes in game. I used terrain to my advantage and waited for Thresh to blow is major form of CC before I cutthroat onto Lucian. I would recommend to try to do this in situations similar to this, however, if they would have not of blown their crowd-control so early the play would of been completely different.

When to Roam

And Ideal Time to Roam should have some of following features.
*Bot Lane is Pushed in
*You have good vision
*You have Youmuu's Ghostblade & Mobility Boots built
*You're ahead in CS mid lane
*The enemy mid laner isn't very mobile
*You see this is chat from one of the two people in bot,

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Thresh bought Stealth Ward for 75 Gold(RIP STEALTH WARD Tear of the Goddess)
IAmTheBest69:(Lucian)"Jungler gank"
420SupportIt:(Thresh)"Yeah you ****ing noob!"
IamB1indLOL:(Lee Sin)"OMW"

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*You should feel it in your bones

It's no secret that Talon's AOE is great in teamfights. The secret is how you you go about doing it. While myself named combo blade spiral may work well when the enemy team is grouped at dragon or baron. What will you do when the enemy team is split apart in one lane pushing a tower? Talon with Youmuu's Ghostblade & Mobility Boots can engage any fight. Picking whether to jump on the ADC or the enemy mid laner is just a matter of who ever is more likely to get caught and die by your unsuspecting damage.

Mid Laners that must die early in fights.

Orianna, Karthus, Azir, Cassiopeia.

AD-Carries that need to die earl in fights.

Twitch, Ashe, Draven, Caitlyn, Tristana, Basically all of them.

REMEMBER:The only good kind of ADC, Is a dead one.

-1/8/15- UPDATE: I've hit DIAMOND on my other account(No use for AP)! My other account (I AM TALON) still has over a 70% win rate with Talon(77 games). I've been using mages and other mid laners( Azir) but when I see the opportunity to play Talon, I do. Best of luck on the fields of justice with "The Blade Rogue".

-9/21/15- Smurf has been leveled and is Plat as well. Talon on my main has reached a solid 70% winrate!!! Hoping to be able to record some content for the guide soon.

Fun Facts

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* Talon's first title before "The Blade's Shadow" was "The Blade Rogue". I used it in this guide as kinda an Easter egg.

*The Picture of Talon, Katarina, and Swain, is at Swain's grand correlation as General Of Noxus's Army.

* Talon was picked up by Katarina's father, who was a master assassin in his class. He gave him the choice to join him or die, Talon never meeting a quarry as strong as him was forced to join him. Years later Talon grows attached to his new leader and learns a lot, however his leader mysteriously disappears. Talon Joined the league in hopes of finding his long lost mentor.

*Prior to Talon's current state in game he was homeless, this is reflected in "Renegade Talon". A 520 RP shows what Talon may have looked like before he was taken in.

9/1/15- HYDRA opinion added/build updated. Still rocking 70% winrate in mid/high Plat. No feedback to comment on.

1/8/16- Guide updates
-Masteries(Changes, with some unintended errors fixed)
-Match ups(Some Clarified)
-Passages(Many passages updated and grammar errors fixed)
-Hit DIAMOND (Evidence)
-Yasuo added to match ups
-Masterie Tree Added and explained