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Shaco Build Guide by

Shaco - Right Next to You

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Shaco Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (3) More Shaco Guides

Spells:

Smite

Ignite

Ability Order

Shaco Passive Ability

Introduction

Hello everybody, and welcome to my AD Shaco guide.
This is my second build. He's my favorite champion, that's why I wanted to show you the way I play him. Please be sure to reconsider any downvotes.

Hope you enjoy it!

Pros / Cons

Pros

Stealth.
Great escaper/chaser/troller.
A good backdoor-er.
Can neutralize enemy carries in seconds.
Can jungle without smite :) (i'm not doing that :/)

Cons

Very early-mid game dependable.
Item dependable.
Some mistakes can make you useless overall.

Masteries

I prefer usual offensive masteries to jungle with.

Runes

For runes, I choose my usually DPS build, even tho you can change them as you prefer it best. Now, to get tanky early game (so you can early game gank and jungle with no problem) you need armor and magic resistance.

Runes

Precision

Fleet Footwork

Phase Rush

Now, you may say that crit damage setup or even attack damage marks are better. Critical damage was O.K. on old . This new dude needs some armor penetration.

Viable and non viable summoner spells

Here I will explain you what spells i usually take with and what spells are not taken, because they do no effect/are useless to him and his tricky gameplay.

Non-Viable Summoner spells

is a support spell that does not fit to

SPACE

doesn't needs to jungle, he can do it quite well without it

SPACE

is usually taken by tanks...

Now, the good spells, the ones who's "worth it"

Viable Summoner spells

is a needed jungling spell, even you can jungle without it.

SPACE

gives a good damage output to finish enemies off

SPACE

is the best escaping skill![/colums]

Abilities explanation and sequence

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

Backstab
Bonus damage if you strike enemies from behind.
It's one of your best tricks to use. It's added damage is 25%, which can mean really much when you get some attack damage and start pissing enemy carries off.

Deceive
Four seconds stealth and a 100% critical hit.
This is your signature spell. You can use it to escape, chase enemies, get tons of damage if combined well with your passive.

Jack In The Box
Places an invisible box which gets activated when enemies get close.
The boxes are not so useful when you play as attack damage and lane, but much useful when you jungle. You can also use them to fear enemies and kill them faster.

Two-Shiv Poison
Throws a dagger which slows enemies.
You can use this skill passive to slow, take miss chance from minions (which can result in a better jungling) or just throw it to boost damage.

Hallucinate
Creates an illusion of yourself.
This illusion deals 75% of your damage but takes 150% increased damage. It's your best trick as a joker. You can use your clone to tank the dragon, to self explode for AoE damage, and to trick and troll foes, making them think he's the real YOU.

Core Items

Item Sequence

: We need this item to jungle better and to place wards around the jungle.
: Ganking boots. As you're a jungler you must "roam" and gank to get kills.
: Best choose. It stacks with your passive and Deceive so you will get tons of damage after this item is done.
: It gives you health, mana, ability power, attack speed, attack damage, so overall one of the best items to get.
: Resistance for mid-late game when you are pretty much squishy and easily killed if disabled.
: You can have a second chance every 5 minutes. Eminem had his second chance, why don't you get it too?

Situational offense items

The Bloodthirster
You can take this item if you need more damage with your skills and more lifesteal. Now this item is usually taken by carries. If your team needs another carry or it's carry is too weak you can do the role of the carry. Still it's too hard for you to carry, because you begin to fall off late game. Leave this job to guys like etc...

The Black Cleaver
If your damage isn't working fine against enemies with slightly 100 armor, you can take this item over , it will give you more damage, attack speed, and will work as well as last whisper at penetrating enemies' armor (+armor pen runes). Still try not to waste money on this item if it's not too necessary.

Last Whisper
Well in situations when enemy tanks are getting fed as hell and you can't get a piece of their damage you can get this item (combined with and armor penetration runes). But if the tank is so strong it's no problem for you because your job is to finish the carries, so this item is taken only rarely when they're really pissing you off. Don't forget to possibly combine it with .

Wit's End
Maybe it looks really ******ed. I'm not an hungry or a ninja but this item stacks perfectly well with and attack speed. Dropping their carry's magic resistance down makes him even more fragile and squishy AND targetable.

Phantom Dancer
It gives you attack speed, critical chance and movement speed. Each one of this items' goods stack with your skills and boots. As I said before, you need to leave items like these to carries. Please don't try to carry with this dude as in 80% of cases you will fail. You'll need to be lv18 with lv10 enemies to be really really successful and/or finish all your build before 25-30 minutes. Yes, now you can carry...

Situational defense items

Thornmail
Let's guess their team is full of attack damage carries. I think this item is your best choose then. It gives you +100armor, and it turns back 30$ of the damage they deal to you.:
30% x 300 = 100. Everytime they hit you (let's guess 300 dmg or crit 300) they'll take their damage back. So, no fear bozo' go straight to them. Still don't abuse, get this item only rarely.

Frozen Heart
It is an adorable item when it comes to ganking. Can slow enemies without even touching them. Combined with your slow the enemies won't ever run away. It's a great defense and offensive (a bit) item really but still remember to not abuse it. Until now I played only like 2 matches where I needed to take this item because of enemies running away with or .

Frozen Mallet
Again a "Frozen" thing. This item gives a big amount of hp, and also a big amount of on-hit slow. It works so good if combined with but together they cost like 5k+ gold. With that cash you can almost get + awesome combo. DON'T ABUSE IT!!

Warmog's Armor
This item is the last thing I would consider picking as you. It gives nice HP and it's the best HP item in the game, but seriously, I never used this item. You can buy a instead. It's on the list because it's useful at very rare cases when you can even go Atmog's ( + ). If it's worth trying it out, leave me your feedback so maybe I can try it.

Spirit Visage
I consider this as the best mid-game counter AP item. It's so cheap, and it gives you lots of HP and Magic Resistance. I personally recommend this item if enemies got high AP damage. It's a good and cheap counter...

Gameplay

To make the explanation easier, I will divide this chapter in "mini chapters"...

mini-chapter ONE:

Teamfights:

In teamfights your job is to quickly kill the enemy carry and get out ALIVE. Now, as you can notice I added and on my build. These two items will get you like 180 armor and magic resistance. You got a chance to escape from a disable and another chance to a second life. As soon as you kill the carry your team is supposed to rush in and confuse enemies. You can profit and flash away with Deceive] and run away. If you see your HP bar is not dropped a lot then try to cut enemies way out with [[Jack in the box.
Another good strategy is to first "box" all the possible bushes, or paths with so enemies can't run away. You must be really smart to do this. Think that you're fighting at baron. You can think placing the wards around here..

Yellow: Usual spots.
Orange: Thinkable spots.
Red: How can the enemies get there? o.O

So that's probably the best thing to do with you evil boxes.

mini-chapter TWO:

Roaming/Jungling

Now I follow the ordinary jungle route. The route is showed on this video which I took from Shaco - Why sow serious by spoon

Start at blue, place the boxes in the bush and 'kite' the blue big golem. What do I mean by kiting. You hit him, the dumb golem follows you and gets into your 'boxes trap'. After fearing him he will attack the boxes. If not, try to move between attacks so you can attack him in the back once per two attacks. After dropping him at ~570 hp smite him. Now, you can choose to gank either to keep jungling. At this point (level 2) i choose to take and start ganking. At 90% of my matches I got first blood. You see first blood gives not only gold, but it motivates your team to win. That's good, trust exercises.At level 6 if you got you can kill the dragon. Be sure to place wards around there, and tank the dragon with your super cool clone. Smite to kill him, and go back for .

mini-chapter Three:

Your best tricks

Now, you're a Joker. You must have a few tricks on you. The best trick is your invisibility. God Bless . If you use it good you can't even think how much profit can you obtain. Besides your skills, you got ---> | /d ; /t ; /l | <---
Maybe the dance;taunt;laugh trick can be used GOOD once in 200 matches. I got 'autohotkey' and i bind Numpad1 for taunt and Numpad2 for laugh. It works so good after you kill an enemy. Guys I'm talking about roleplaying a Joker. That's your role's life trick. However, you want tricks that can "trick the opponent" and kill him, not dance and taunt. Usually you can get blessed from Jack on the Box and run away safely. Or abuse the timing of . It gives you 1 second time to dodge spells like Requirem. That's just awful. For closer look onto your gameplay, you can watch at this video. It's not mine, it's Highlights from a Shaco game by Soubrique . It's his video, his copyrights.

So those tricks are useful not only to roleplay, but to get anything you want from your team and your enemies. Trust me enemies will hate you so much...

Summary

Thank you all readers. If you took your team to read all my guide, then please comment and give me +rep. I will be happy to see some upvotes and please if you downvote contact me so I can think about what I did wrong.

Special thanks to:

jhoijhoi

for his awesome template which you can find here:
jhoijhoi's awesome guide template

<3

Frequently asked questions

You said Shaco is not a carry, nor an offtank, nor a tank. Why should I pick him as a jungler? I can pick Amumu or Nunu & Willump or Warwick which are way better...

Even you can think is useless, with no role, I think his role is about like . He's a counter-carry. It's that important having a counter carry? With some brain exercises, you can plan that their carry deals more damage than any guy of their team. If you quickly 'delete' this carry you will delete enemies' damage. Enemies with no damage can't win. So in 50% of situations, you're the key to win a teamfight or loose it.

I can never win a 1v1 battle if I get counter jungled. What should I do to jungle successfully and without staying back with XP?

Still you got two opportunities. You can ward your jungle. What can you achieve by long-warding? Long warding means warding somewhere the enemy jungler can't think. Like early warding dragon. Let's say you're doing blue. He comes to gank you but you see him because of the dragon ward. You hide in the bush and call the range carry from <Bot> lane and counter gank him. The second opportunity is to create a bush of doom and kite the enemy jungler there. Place 4-5 there and the enemy will be like 'OMG'.

You said I can jungle without smite. Why you don't teach us how to do that?

To jungle without smite you must have numerous conditions. Never be ganked, Max (that makes your gank work not-so-well), have at least 5 boxes to kill blue and 6 to kill red (makes your jungling slower) and you need full AP runes (no more damage, survival..) so you must deny much damage to have a spell in place of smite? Don't do that!

I can notice at the beginning of the guide that you places two kinds of glyphs. Which of them fits more?

Both of them are good. I choose magic resistance over cooldown.