Hi guys. This is my first build on Mobafire so I ask that you guys not be so harsh on my guide. Constructive criticism is always welcomed, but I'd prefer it if there was no excessive flaming.

So who is Shaco?

Simply put, Shaco is one of the best junglers in the game. All of his abilities improve his jungling ability. He has a blink that gives him stealth, a fear, passive slow, and a damage steroid. He can solo dragon as soon as he gets his ultimate, and he can bypass most wards. Shaco is a notorious counter-jungler who's a great duelist. He can rampage into your jungle, place boxes in bushes, fear you, and kill you. If things ever go wrong, he can blink over walls and become stealthed. Playing against a good Shaco will make you want to break your keyboard. Luckily for you, most players who play Shaco aren't particularly good with him.

I hope to change that.

Things to Add/Updates
-add a section describing playing against other junglers and how to beat them.
-add situational item list
-add section describing how to use your ultimate properly

Pros -Incredibly strong early game -One of the best gankers in the game -Amazing split-pusher -Very good at 1vs1 -Strong counter-jungler -Great pub-stomping champion

Cons -Falls of late-game if not fed -Almost useless in team fights -Squishy as hell -Susceptible to counter-jungling -Fail early game= fail entire game -Rather long cooldowns

What Runes I Take and Why

greater mark of desolation
-These are generally going to be your practical marks. I personally prefer armor penetration the most, simply because a half decent team who sees that a Shaco is racking up kills and assists like crazy will probably build armor to counter you. Armor penetration runes will break through a chunk of their armor. However, if they're stupid and not buying armor at all, feel free to take attack speed or attack damage marks.


-Armor seals are my personal favorite runes to use for any jungler, but they're arguably not the best for a Shaco who's going to have to clear as fast as possible, and gank successfully as much as possible. If you plan to play a little safer, I'd take armor seals, but if you think you're going to want the extra attack speed and damage output, then be my guest.


-The reason I take attack speed glyphs over something like magic resist glyphs or CDR glyphs, is that I find that I don't really need the magic resist or the CDR. I'd much rather prefer hitting harder than being able to take just a little more damage. However, since Shaco is really squishy and has rather long cooldowns, MR glyphs and CDR glyphs are sort of practical.


-With quintessences, you have a couple of more choices to choose from. I'd personally pick greater quintessences of strength because I like an even stronger early game, but others work fine as well. Shaco is incredibly squishy, for health quintessences work fine. Shaco also benefits from armor penetration and attack speed for obvious reasons.

Your Core Items

-These items will give you great mobility, sustain, and a decent amount of damage. Boots of mobility will allow you to gank and counterjungle throughout the entire map, while Wriggle's Lantern will give you some defense, sustain, and allow you to clear camps much faster. The Brutalizer will eventually be built into Youmuu's Ghostblade, but we really just want the armor penetration and damage. The CDR is pretty great too, since we already know that Shaco has pretty long cooldowns.

A More Indepth Look at Our Core Items

- These boots are simply the best for Shaco. These boots will allow you to roam the entire map. Remember that Shaco doesn't have the greatest sustain or clear speed and you really need to farm champions. You absolutely NEED to be able to gank bottom lane because they're being pushed too hard and they need help, but at the same time, you need to be able to support your middle and solo-top lane. These boots help you the most at ganking everyone.

[as a general note- if the other team does not have a jungler, please for the love of god, DO NOT LURK AROUND BOTTOM LANE FOR CHEAP KILLS. You need to support your solo-top.]

- This item is crucial for every jungler in the game. It offers everything- wards, armor, damage, life steal, and a passive that helps you clear minion waves and camps at absurd rates. Even though Shaco shouldn't be in his jungle that often, there are times where no one can be ganked, or no one wants a gank. Here, we want to farm our jungle, but at the same time, we need to keep our health up if a lane needs help, ganked, or in the worst case scenario, killed. When we go to help, we don't want to give the enemy a kill because of us, or even a double kill.

- This item helps get rid of that pesky armor that the enemy has built to counter you. The CDR and damage is great, and the item that it builds into is also fantastic for such a high-mobility champion, but the armor penetration is really what you want. You want to deal as much damage as possible. If the enemy is not building armor, and you have armor penetration runes, then feel free to skip this item and go straight to building your /

- This item will eventually build into but the passive is definitely still strong. After using deceive and proccing sheen, your next attack will hit like a truck. However, know that will not add to the bonus critical damage from deceive, but it will only apply to your base damage.

Finishing our Core Items

-These two items will give us a huge boost in damage. Our build focus on getting critical hits, and Infinity Edge will make our critical strikes hit hard. However, something to note, is that Infinity Edge will NOT add to . In other words, Infinity Edge only applies to your critical strikes dealt by basic attacks when not in stealth because of Deceive. This also applies with Trinity Force. Neither of these 2 items will add to deceive's damage, but will only add to your damage dealt by your base damage.

A More Indepth Look at Our Core Items

-This item gives Shaco everything he needs. He gets critical strike chance, movement speed, attack speed, mana, a passive that makes his attacks after using an ability hit like a truck, health, attack damage, and a slow on his basic attacks. I used to doubt this item, as I used to prefer rushing a phantom dancer/infinity edge over trinity force, but this item really gives Shaco everything that he could hope for. This is a great item that helps Shaco with his ganks considerably. Don't underestimate this.

-This item is self-explanatory. We'll be hitting 55% chance of critical strike with this build, and Infinity Edge will make those critical hits hurt even more. In addition to its 250% critical damage, it gives 80 attack damage, the most in the game. (excluding bloodthirster with full stacks)

Our Final Build

-With this build, we will be able to hit some insane attack and movement speeds with active. However, if you ever get this far...good luck. Shaco is one of the weakest characters in the late game because he's just SO squishy. He gets dropped instantly if he's CCed, and he's near useless in team fights because he dies so quickly. Even so with this late game disadvantage, you are one of the league's best split pushers because of JJitB and his clone. Since he's so fast and slippery, Shaco will be able to escape most small confrontations, and maybe even some 5 man ganks if he's good enough. Your damage output will be at an all time high by deceiving, hitting a champion in the back, and then fear him.

-We choose Guardian's Angel because it gives a balance of MR and armor, but we really want its passive. Shaco dies too fast. Especially in team fights. This item shows that if the enemy kills you, you can just deceive away, and they'll have wasted valuable time focusing you're carry or AP mage.

-We finally build Youmuu's Ghostblade mainly for the active portion and the armor penetration. Youmuu's Ghostblade's active will allow you to duel most champions and give you more time to run away in your stealth.

-As an added note, feel free to sell for but be aware that you will no longer have that much armor or have a free ward.

-Since you already have a blink with you don't REALLY need and flash and taking it would be more of a luxury. However, a Shaco with flash can escape almost everything. Take this only if you think you'll need to escape multiple champions or a champion with their own blink like Kassadin or Ezreal.

-I always love this skill. This skill allows you to cover more distance while stealthed, and also helps you escape with a deceive stealth. I don't think this is the optimal summoner spell for Shaco so I don't really like it, but it definitely works.

- This is the spell to ensure a death for the enemy or a summoner spell used. This is my preferred summoner spell for Shaco simply because enemies will almost always turn their back in order to make a run for their turret, and the combined slow of red buff, two-shiv poison, and exhaust will give you a lot of time to get a kill.

- Other than exhaust, this is my favorite spell for Shaco If you know an enemy will flash, or is recalling near their turret, you can deceive in, hit them for a critical strike, throw a shiv, and ignite. This should kill any low-health enemy.

- Every jungler needs to have smite. No exceptions. This spell will make your jungling SO much faster and safer. Also, Shaco has a lot of potential to steal baron or dragon with smite. Always take this spell. No matter what.

Every other spell is not viable for Shaco. They are either not practical, or other summoner spells are better for Shaco.

Initial Jungle Path 1

-This is my preferred level 2 gank. Place 1 box at :45 at the back center of the camp. This will make it focus the big wraith when it spawns.

-Start placing boxes at the back of the lizard buff camp. You want to place it in the back because instead of attacking small lizards, the boxes will attack the lizard elder. You want to have at least 2 boxes by the time wraiths spawn.

-At 1:40, wraiths will spawn. Focus 1 small wraith and let your box focus the big wraith. Once the big wraith is at low health, simply attack it and walk to red buff.

-At 1:55, the Ancient Golem and the Lizard Elder will spawn. Place 1 more box at red and then focus the Lizard Elder. Do NOT use smite unless you think you will not be in your jungle for a while.

-You reach level 2 here. Make your decision. Take deceive if you're going to go gank. Otherwise take Two-Shiv Poison and go over to blue buff.

- Go to Ancient Golem and place 1 box down in the brush. Attack it, and slowly move to your box so that the small lizards don't tank the box for the buff. Once the box is triggered, start attacking the Ancient Golem and smite it. If done right, you'll have double buffs in around 2:40.

-Either recall, gank, or counterjungle.

Congratulations! You now have double buff and still a chunk full of health.

Initial Jungle Path 2

-This is normally what I do if I don't feel that level 2 gank is needed/possible. Basically, it's just the reverse of starting at red buff. It's a pretty safe jungle route and I normally find killing the Ancient Golem with boxes to be much more safer than killing the Lizard Elder with boxes.

-Place 1 box at the back center of the wolf camp at :45. This will help the box focus the big wolf over the small ones.

-Start placing boxes in the brush at Ancient Golem. You should have 3 boxes by the time wolves spawn.

-Focus the big wolf and take 1 small wolf.

-Attack Ancient Golem, but make it so that the small lizards will not tank the boxes for the blue buff. Do NOT use smite .

-Go over to the Lizard Elder. Place 1 box in the back center of the camp and wait for it to trigger. Then attack the Lizard Elder. Use Smite here.

Congratulations! You now have double buff and a chunk of health left.




Of course, while I prefer using these jungle routes, there are some other jungle routes that you can do as well. I find this to be the quickest to obtain double buffs, and remember that you are not going to farm off jungle creeps. These paths will allow you to gank as fast as possible. If any of you find a faster and safer jungle path, please, tell me so!

Farming in Lanes and in the Jungle with Shaco

-With Shaco, you'll gain experience with ganks, but if you can't get enough ganks and you're falling behind in levels compared to your solo lanes, then you'll need to start some quick farming.

-To clear smaller camps simply place one Jack-in-the-Box near the camps to get the fear off. Use your box as a leash and start attacking. It's rather simple to clear small camps with Shaco. Once you obtain Wriggle's Lantern clearing the jungle is extremely quick and easy.

-Whenever you're going to any lane, whether it's to cover for an ally, or just to rack up some exp, do NOT push the lane under any circumstance unless you want to leave the lane unprotected for a short while. The only reasons I can think of to push a lane is that you either want to recall, or the person who has the lane has left for whatever reason and you want to keep ganking. In order to not push a lane, simply last hit minions only. Do not use basic attacks or abilities to get rid of masses of minions quickly. Simply wait for your minions to bring an enemy minion to low health, then kill it. This will ensure that you get the EXP and the gold, while not pushing your lane.

Counterjungling- It's funny how Shaco is so susceptible to counterjungling, but at the same time, is one of the strongest and most notorious counterjunglers in the game. A general idea of counterjungling for Shaco is:

1. Go in enemy jungle.
2. Place boxes in bushes and near camps.
3. Wait for them to go off.
4. Kill them.
5. ????
6. PROFIT!

And at the same time, whenever something might go wrong, such as you're going to lose the duel or something, just deceive away and try again another time. While it is easy to simply place boxes down and sit in a bush, there is always the possibility that the enemy jungler will not walk into your nest of boxes and you will waste precious time. It is for this reason that you have to time your counterjungling. You want to catch your enemy off-guard and at low health because he just cleared a camp. You do NOT want to fight 1vs1 against a full health Udyr or Lee Sin or most higher tier junglers at full health. Ever. It wastes precious time for ganking and farming. Remember that Shaco falls off late game, so you really have around 20 minutes to get your work done and to get fed.

Here's some of my more preferred counterjungling paths and methods.

Counterjungling Spots

RED= Try to catch enemy jungler at low health in the jungle.
WHITE= Try to catch enemy jungler in a nest of boxes.

Counterjungle- Path RED

-This is definitely one of my favorite techniques to get a quick kill off the enemy jungler. Basically, what I do is, is that Shaco clears his first 2 camps really fast. And I mean REALLYfast. You can easily grab red buff and level 2 within 2 minutes.

-Get red buff and start off as if you are going for a level 2 gank.

Use your mouse and hover just beyond the circle. You can always teleport a little bit beyond what the game tells you to.

-Grab Deceive and hop over Baron Nashor's cave to the enemy's red buff. The enemy jungler should be at low health because they just got their blue buff.

-Place a box just outside their red buff so that the neutral creeps will not trigger the box. Once the enemy jungler comes over and triggers the box, deceive, attack, and unload your summoner spells.

- Another thing to note is that since your Deceive will probably be on cooldown if you try to escape with it, you want to leave at least 1 box as "insurance" in the event you're going to die and lose your red buff. Leave a small trail of boxes to run away because the 0.5 second fear will definitely help you escape. You're base movement speed, boots, and masteries should allow you to outrun anyone.

-If you got the kill, congratulations! Taking blue buff away is crippling for some junglers. Take Rammus for example. If you manage to take his blue buff, his threat level goes down so much, it's not even funny. Again, if mid or top lane come over to try to kill you and avenge their jungler, simply deceive back over Baron Nashor's cave. This works even better with flash, because you can escape almost anything with Flash and Deceive .

-This counterjungling method is pretty hard to time, but if done right, it can cripple many junglers. They'll need to recover and need to waste precious time farming instead of ganking. If they took red buff underneath your nose, simply deceive back and gank another lane, or steal 1 golem. Don't clear the camp because you don't want the camp to spawn again.

Counterjungle- Path WHITE

-This is a pretty simple counterjungle spot, and the tactic is actually quite effective. This can be done at other high traffic areas for junglers. The bush near the Ancient Golem works pretty well for this too, but this spot in particular is a main spot to cross because it's the quickest way to get from the left and right side of jungles.

-Instead of clearing camps first, sprint over to the bush near middle lane's inner turret.

- Once the enemy jungler has blue, they'll probably come over to clear the wraiths or to get red buff.

-Start placing boxes down in the bush. They will most likely cross this bush and trigger your nest of boxes. Boxes do so much damage early game that you will most likely get the kill and take their blue. It's simple, but effective.

-If you succeeded, great! You took their blue and probably got first blood. Early kills will really set Shaco on the path to victory.

-If you didn't succeed, this is really dangerous. The real reason why I don't like doing this is because if it fails, you just wasted so much time in their jungle. Not only will you have to recall with no levels or extra gold, you'll have a much slower clear time than normal. Use this only if you are sure that the enemy jungler will come over to the other side of the jungle.

Counterjungling in General

-As Shaco, you're a really dominant jungler. When counterjungling, you don't NEED to kill their jungler. Stealing their big wraith, stealing some of their neutral creeps, maybe even stealing their buffs- this is what you will probably be doing throughout the game. You want to deny experience and gold when possible. Your goal should NOT be camping in their jungle the entire game. Simply go in there from time to time, steal some neutral monsters, and get out of there to gank. If you get lucky, you will kill their jungler because you are a great duelist, or at least give sight of him so your team knows where he is. Your first priority should be to support your team by ganking lanes and putting pressure on them to outzone them. Don't get greedy by hunting for cheap kills.

Ganking, oh how this is so easy for Shaco. This is what Shaco is best at. He has a fear, slow, and a blink. These skills all allow him to get close to his target, then ensure a kill with the amount of CC he has. However, with the current meta and the increase of warding, this has been hitting Shaco pretty hard. You need these ganks to work in order to keep levels and gold. Luckily for us, we have Deceive This skill gives us some new places to gank from. Most players will not ward their tri-bush, or their wraith camp, but they will normally ward their bushes near the river. Take advantage of this.

But before we start to gank, we have to know, what is a successful gank?
-A successful gank is denying exp and gold. It's establishing zone control over an enemy and forcing them away from needed resources. If you're in lane helping a teammate, outzone them by going near them and pretending that you're going to damage them. A 3vs2 or 2vs1 will not appeal to the enemy, and they'll back off. If they don't, start tossing Two-shiv Poison at them and drop a few boxes down to create a protective line. This will deny gold and possibly experience.

-If you're going for a kill, a successful gank is forcing the enemy to recall, losing levels and gold, killing the enemy, or forcing them to burn a summoner spell. For example, making an enemy burn will make the enemy not play as aggressive. Your lane will have an advantage because they can escape further attacks, while the enemy cannot. In some cases, after forcing an enemy to burn a summoner spell, you can loop back around and try again.

-Basically, a successful gank is giving your team an advantage by denying farm and experience, outzoning or damaging the enemy, or killing them.

Oracle's Elixir

-This item is essential on Shaco. Proper warding effectively counters Shaco and without kills, you will eventually fall off in the late game. You need to be able to scout out for wards and get rid of them. Clear wards out to remove all vision for the enemy team. You really want to buy this in between Madred's Razors and Wriggle's Lantern Of course, if you're doing bad, you want to buy this once you finish your Wriggle's Lantern.

General Ganking

-Generally what you want to do with Shaco is ping to your teammates so that you know you'll be coming. Deceive in, run behind them, and place a box down a little bit behind them so that if they run away, they'll trigger a fear. They will most likely turn their backs to run away, so start abusing Backstab Combined with Shaco's slow, fear, increased damage, and another champion's abilities, the enemy should fall or have to recall. Ganking against enemies who do not ward is heaven for Shaco. Shaco is one of the few champions who can gank an enemy who turret-hugs. By deceiving over walls and unique places, you can easily catch enemies off-guard.

Ganking Past Wards

-Let's assume that you know that the enemy has a ward and you want to abuse the ward because they'll feel safe because they think they know if you're coming. Well Shaco can abuse this and exploit wards. There are so many places to gank from that the enemy will be wasting precious gold on wards instead of items. With an Oracle's Elixir you can clear these wards, giving you a new source of a gold, as well as forcing the enemy to continue wasting precious gold or constantly dying.

-Here's some creative spots that a Shaco can gank from:

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-This deceive will allow us to get past the river ward in bottom lane. By deceiving over the wall, we can appear directly behind the enemy without them knowing. Because they have a ward, they have a higher chance of overextending because they believe they are safe. This deceive is one of my favorites and almost always gets me kills.


to


-This deceive allows you to gank top lane undetected. By going through the tri-bush and deceiving over a wall, you can again exploit the fact that the enemy may feel too safe because they warded the river. You will probably use this the most because you should be supporting your top lane the most.



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-This deceive is a way to gank middle when they have warded both sides of the river. By tricking them into thinking they can get away with pushing their lane, you can deceive over their own wraith camp wall.



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-This is my favorite deceive. Most champions will recall near their turrets at incredibly low health. THIS IS WHERE YOU CAN EXPLOIT THEM. You can easily hop over the wall, hit them in the back, throw a shiv, ignite, and there's a free kill. You can get so many easy kills off this, but you might want to be careful when using this because you're so close to a turret.



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-This deceive is the bottom lane counter-part of our top tri-bush gank. By deceiving over a wall from our own area, the enemy will be caught offguard. With Boots of Mobility we can cover more ground in stealth.

-As Shaco, counterjungling does not affect you as much as people might think it does. The only thing you should really care about is your buffs. If you need to, ward your buffs and know when camps spawn again. You should be getting experience and gold of ganking, not farming your jungle. However if your buffs are taken, you should make some effort to rush certain items. For example, if your red buff is taken, you might want to buy Phage before Sheen . If you're blue buff is taken, you might want to buy Sheen and conserve your mana instead of spamming your abilities.

-As for a bad start, this is what you need to be careful of. Shaco needs a strong and successful early game to do anything in the late game. When you're not doing well early game, start to build more tanky items instead of pure damage. Build Phage to become slightly more tanky. Of course, buying a or always works too. Don't play too recklessly- you'll die more often than you should. Start farming other lanes too. Try to build a level advantage by farming your jungle if you can, and farm other lanes more often.

In order to effectively use your mana and farm your jungle place boxes only at golems and buffs- try not to use boxes at wraiths or wolves unless you need to. By doing this, you conserve mana and farm the jungle quite well. Remember not to take too long though- Shaco's late game is still weak.

What do you do as a jungler other than farming the jungle and ganking? The answer to this, is WARDING. You should always carry 1 or 2 spare wards to help out your team. Warding helps give timers on important map objectives as well as giving your team superb map control. With this, no lane will be severely damaged by excessive ganking because you can see so much of the map. Consistent warding in essential places really does lead your team to victory because ganking will become exceptionally difficult.

This is a map of where you should ward.

RED= Must ward, most important.
GREEN= Important to ward, but not the most important of priorities.
PURPLE= somewhat important to ward- these wards are more of a luxury and help you detect when a jungler may be coming to gank you. Optional.
BLUE= these wards are for counterjungling and to identify where the jungler is and helps you give you a time for when the next buff will spawn. These are not essential, but will help you incredibly if you feel like stealing buffs and counterjungling.


Your second job as a jungler is to cover lanes that need help. Say your top lane has to recall and you're in the jungle. It is not your job to continue farming. Get to the top lane and help keep the top lane safe. YOUR FIRST PRIORITY IS TO HELP YOUR TEAMMATES, NOT YOURSELF. If someone from middle dies, go over there and make sure the turret is not destroyed. If someone from bottom dies, go over there and help support them. Another thing to keep in mind, is that if 2 lanes are in trouble, you have to make the judgement to go to the one that needs the most help. A LeBlanc mid who's turret is nearly dead, but is against a Fiddlesticks will not need help compared to a Corki and Blitzcrank at bottom lane when there are 4 people pressuring them. You need to make correct judgements and support whoever needs the most help.