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Introduction

This is how



I used to think Shaco was underpowered, until I figured out that all the other builds I've seen out there are terrible. Now, I find him overpowered. He is one of the top tier assassins for solo-queue, in my opinion, because of the changes to pink wards and the removal of

Before I started using this build, I had a win rate of almost 0% with Shaco. The only game I won with Shaco was a 5 v 4. Then, one day, I had an epiphany, and I realized that Shaco is a burst mage, like


Pros
- Scary ganks
- Early game invisibility
- Some Crowd Control (CC): Fear and Slow
- Built-in scouting tools (boxes)
- Strong Burst Damage
- Strong Split Pushing
- A unique ultimate that can be used for a million creative things.
- Every spell is a disengage, so he is extremely good at staying safe.
- Very good at baiting enemies
- Early game dominance
- Mid game dominance
- Late game dominance (but not extreme late game)
Cons
- This build has some issues with extreme late game, if the enemy team has been allowed to catch up.
- Weak against teams that stick together and focus their CC on him (but then again, what carry isn't weak to that?)
Zhonya's Hourglass can be used to deny Shaco's assassination attempt. These can become very problematic, if you enter a fight, but your team refuses to back you up.
- Weak against life steal and spell vamp champs that have high defenses and/or strong CC in mid- to late-game, such as
Olaf,
Ryze,
Skarner,
Warwick,
Dr. Mundo, and
Riven. Basically, he's weak to all the popular champions at the moment. :(
- Very weak against fed hyper-carries, like
Vayne and
Draven.
For runes, I settle for nothing less than the best. That means ARMOR PENETRATION.
Most people complain about Shaco falling off late game, but this isn't true with the right runes and items. Most people get distracted by trying to make Shaco a monster early game, but he already is a monster early game, because of his invisibility, his slow, his box's fear, his burst damage, and his Red buff.
- Greater Quintessence of Armor Penetration
- You can replace these with
Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage. They give you a slight edge at level 1, because everyone is squishy at level 1. These also help against targets that have bought
Doran's Shield as a first item, because
Doran's Shield blocks a flat amount of damage from auto-attacks.
- You can replace these with
- Greater Mark of Armor Penetration
Greater Seal of Armor
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist
This will give you 19 Armor Penetration. With


Why armor penetration?

- He doesn't need attack damage, because his natural build path includes alot of early attack damage.
- He doesn't need much attack speed, because he is a burst mage, and his jungle speed does not increase with attack speed. Shacos that built attack speed in season 3 did so, because it would proc the randomized magic damage on
Wriggle's Lantern.
Wriggle's Lantern has been reworked so that it deals consistent damage, so there is no reason to build attack speed on Shaco.
- He doesn't need Life Steal, because his build path includes alot of Life Steal.
- Lastly, he doesn't get to build
Last Whisper until late game.
For masteries, I run 21/0/9, because Shaco can benefit more from the 9 points in the utility tree than from 9 points in the defense tree.
In the offense tree, you have the option of getting
Fury
(5% attack speed) or
Sorcery (5% cooldown reduction). The choice makes little to no difference in game; however, from a cost and resource standpoint, the 5% CDR is more valuable, since the CDR cap (40% CDR) is lower than the attack speed cap in the game (2.5 attack speed).
When comparing items in the game, a typical fully-built attack speed item provides 40% to 50% attack speed, with the exception of
Runaan's Hurricane, which gives 70%, whereas a typical fully-built CDR item gives 10% CDR, with a few items providing 15% and 20% CDR. Therefore, the 5% CDR from
Sorcery is far more cost-efficient.
! Please note that
Runaan's Hurricane's UNIQUE passive will not work with
Shaco, because he is melee, not ranged. The 70% attack speed will still work with
Shaco, though.
According to this article on the League of Legends Wikia, The 5% attack speed bonus gives you 5% of your champion's base attack speed, which is nearly nothing. The same article says that
Shaco requires 209% bonus attack speed at level 18 to reach the maximum attack speed. Doing the math, we see that 5/209 = ~ 0.0239. You are spending 4 mastery points on 2.39% of the maximum attack speed that
Shaco can have.
This mastery is deceptively good on Shaco, because his boxes count as single-target spell damage, and they attack 9 times. Doing the math, we see that each of his boxes deals 18 more damage to monsters. This helps alot at level 1.
These masteries are optimal for jungle
Shaco, however, as mentioned in other guides, going 9 points in the defensive tree is another possibility, and they should be used when playing Shaco in a solo or duo lane, so that you can survive your weak levels 1 and 2.
Offense Tree:
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vs |
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In the offense tree, you have the option of getting


When comparing items in the game, a typical fully-built attack speed item provides 40% to 50% attack speed, with the exception of


! Please note that



According to this article on the League of Legends Wikia, The 5% attack speed bonus gives you 5% of your champion's base attack speed, which is nearly nothing. The same article says that


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This mastery is deceptively good on Shaco, because his boxes count as single-target spell damage, and they attack 9 times. Doing the math, we see that each of his boxes deals 18 more damage to monsters. This helps alot at level 1.
Utility Tree:
Fleet of Foot - Shaco's early ganks are limited by his move-speed, because his invisibility may not last long enough to get to the enemy, so taking 3 points in
Fleet of Foot gives him a solid advantage when ganking. Move speed is also good for running away and chasing enemies.
-
Meditation - This is a small boost in Shaco's mana sustain issue. This mastery is less useful while Shaco has Blue buff, as Blue Buff gives him much more mana regen than this does.
-
Summoner's Insight - This mastery goes hand in hand with jungling AND playing a carry role. Shaco has some pretty bad clear times in the jungle before he gets
Ravenous Hydra, so getting his
Smite off cooldown faster gives him some much-needed farming ability. This also improves his jungle sustain, as he takes less damage in the jungle. Not only does it reduce
Smite's cooldown, but also
Ignite, which gives Shaco more kill potential.
-
Runic Affinity - This mastery is a godsend to junglers all over the world. But not all junglers can spend 9 points in the utility tree to get it. With this mastery and Blue buff, Shaco can farm longer and stay around the map ready to gank or counter-gank. With this mastery and Red buff, Shaco can duel enemy junglers and gank more times with the slow and true damage from Red buff.
These masteries are optimal for jungle

I believe that Shaco works best as an AD burst assassin. Sustained damage is not what he was built for. My results with this build have been stellar. With this build, you will deal about 70% of an enemy squishy's health bar with a single
Deceive, then your
Two-Shiv Poison deals another 20%, and your next auto-attack should finish the kill. Shaco has trouble dueling carries and bruisers that pack alot of life-steal and attack speed, like
Aatrox,
Nasus,
Yasuo, and
Rengar. To overpower their life-steal, I use two life-steal items as well as
Youmuu's Ghostblade, which has an active ability that gives him a bunch of attack speed for a short time, so that I don't have to buy much attack speed, and can focus on buying damage and critical strike chance. Another item possibility for dueling life-steal heavy champs is
Executioner's Calling.
At level 1, you should probably stick with
Hunter's Machete and 5
Health Potions.
Hunter's Machete gives you some sustain (5 health heal on hit, just like
Doran's Blade), 10% damage increase to monsters, which works very well with your boxes, and your autoattacks deal 10 extra damage to monsters. If this 10 extra damage works with Shaco's boxes, this would be amazing. I don't think it does.
For my items, I focus on Attack Damage, Life Steal, Armor Penetration, Critical Strike modifiers, and Critical Strike chance.








At level 1, you should probably stick with




For my items, I focus on Attack Damage, Life Steal, Armor Penetration, Critical Strike modifiers, and Critical Strike chance.
Item Sequence

Infinity Edge
3450

Ravenous Hydra
3300

Bloodthirster
3400

Last Whisper
1450

Youmuu's Ghostblade
2800

Berserker's Greaves
1100
Tiamat and
Vampiric Scepter - Buying these two items almost immediately fixes your jungle sustain issues. It fixes not only your health issues but your mana issues, as well. Why is this? Because Shaco will not need to use his spells to farm jungle camps. However, i still recommend taking
Health Potions with you, in case a gank goes wrong or you fight the enemy jungler and lose alot of health.
Ravenous Hydra - With this item, I believe all of Shaco's sustain and jungle speed issues are gone. The item will let you heal up in the jungle or while pushing a lane. The active effect on
Tiamat and
Ravenous Hydra increases your burst damage during a gank, and the active on
Ravenous Hydra even activates your life-steal, giving you a burst heal.
Tiamat and
Ravenous Hydra - This item path is the best solution for wave clear on Shaco. With this item, Shaco gains burst damage as well as Wave clear, so he can split push quickly and effectively, without spending mana.
Avarice Blade - This item is underrated. The Avarice passive gold per 10 is terrible, but Greed is a really good passive. When you're farming small jungle camps, this passive increases the gold you receive from small monsters by approximately 100%. This item is also a really good item to buy, if you are able to split push with Shaco, because you will earn between 6 * 3 = 18 and 7 * 3 = 21 extra gold per minion wave, which is almost as much as you get from killing a ranged creep and a melee creep, respectively. The other reason to use this item is that it gives critical strike chance. Critical strikes make your life steal work alot better, and they hurt like hell, if you crit an enemy champion.
Berserker's Greaves - This is your only true Attack Speed item. This is the pair of boots I would recommend on Shaco 99% of the time. Other boots are less valuable, because a good Shaco has the element of surprise, and his
Hallucinate (ult) lets him dodge one spell, so you don't usually need to buy defensive items, until end-game.
Bloodthirster - Good solid AD. gives your
Deceive crits a nice punch, and increases your survivability in a duel.
Youmuu's Ghostblade - An amazing item for
Shaco. It gives him so many valuable stats, and its active effect can be used to run away, to chase enemies, to assassinate beefy targets, and to scare the **** out of enemies. When they hear that Youmuu's pop, they will **** their pants, before and after you kill them. The cooldown reduction is very nice, because Shaco's chasing, damage, and survivability improve. There are many ganks where you secure the kill only by using
Two-Shiv Poison twice: once when you burst them down, and later, after it comes off cooldown. Combining the 5% CDR from masteries with the 10% from Youmuu's and the 10% from Blue buff, you are sitting on 25% CDR!
Infinity Edge - This is the icing on the cake. Shaco's kit is all about damage modifiers. His
Deceive is a damage modifier, and his passive,
Backstab is a damage modifier, his ult,
Hallucinate, is essentially another damage modifier. What could he possibly need another damage modifier for? Oh yeah, to kill people even faster! This is the crux of Assassin
Shaco! Damage modifiers!
Last Whisper - This item isn't super necessary, but it lets you deal true damage to carries, and it lets you help your team out with killing tanks. If people are building armor, this will make sure you stay relevant in late game.
Situational and Alternate Items
Black Cleaver - This gives you flat penetration and it works really well in team fights with your ult,
Hallucinate, and the passive and active effects of
Ravenous Hydra.
Ravenous Hydra allows you to apply the
Black Cleaver's % Armor Shred really quickly to multiple members of the enemy team. The Black Cleaver gives you flat penetration as well, which helps
Deceive hit squishy enemies like a bomb.
Sword of the Divine - A questionable item choice, but it can be very effective at killing squishy champions that build armor. The 100% attack speed and 100% Critical Strike chance fit well with Shaco's style of assassination. For example, if an enemy relies on
Zhonya's Hourglass to protect them, using
Sword of the Divine will make it much harder for the enemy to react, before they are dead.
Preferred Defensive Items
Guardian Angel - This is and always will be a strong stand-alone defensive item, but you must make sure you are using it effectively during a team fight. Getting caught away from your team and dying with it means you just wasted a bunch of gold on this item.
Zhonya's Hourglass - This item does in fact work as a defensive item, because engaging a fight with Shaco is very high-risk. This item increases
Two-Shiv Poison's damage by 120, and it gives you invulnerability, for a few seconds, which can block spell damage, so, if used correctly, it is more effective than
Guardian Angel.
Randuin's Omen - This is the strongest armor item on its own. It will allow you to duel fed AD champs pretty well.
Spirit Visage - The passive effect from this item increases Shaco's survivability by making him harder to burst down and increasing his life steal. This item is particularly strong in this build, because I have a bunch of life steal.
Banshee's Veil - This is considered the strongest stand-alone magic-resist item. The shield from Banshee's Veil gives Shaco an extra way to avoid spell damage, so with
Hallucinate, Shaco has two chances to become invulnerable to a spell. This item is extremely effective against champions that you know will all-in you with a single spell, such as
Annie's
Summon: Tibbers and stun,
Zed's
Death Mark, or
Ashe's
Enchanted Crystal Arrow.
Leveling Your Skills
- Always start with
Jack In The Box (W). It is the most useful at level 1. You can invade with it, you can leash your own Blue buff by stacking boxes on top of Blue buff, before it spawns, and you can watch the river with your first box.
Deceive (Q) is a good spell to get at level 2 in the Season 4 jungle meta, because you will be at level 2 for quite a long time. Junglers no longer reach level 3 after taking two buffs.
Deceive is a low-cooldown free flash with invisibility. How much more unfair can you get? With
Deceive, you can invade and start messing with your enemy's minds. It's also
Shaco's best disengage tool, so it lets you play aggressively without immediately being punished.
Two-Shiv Poison is Shaco's rape spell. Max it first, because it will greatly increase your ganking potency. It slows enemies so that they can't escape from
Shaco and his allies. It is also a very high-damage spell, at max rank, when you build damage items. This spell scales off of AP as well as AD at 100% ratios. It is effectively another autoattack + extra damage, but it deals magic damage, so it bypasses Armor defenses. This makes it more difficult for enemies to itemize defensively against
Shaco. If Shaco has 400 AD, like in my build, then
Two-Shiv Poison will deal 400 + 250 = 650 magic damage at full rank. Taking magic resistance (MR) into consideration, a typical AD carry with no defensive items will take approximately 3/4 * 650 = 487 magic damage, because most AD carries have about 42 MR (30 base MR + 12 MR from runes).
Hallucinate is a unique skill with all kinds of uses, because it can be used to distract enemies, bait them into engaging your clone with a high-cooldown CC spell, like
Taric's
Dazzle or
Zed's
Death Mark. Yes, I did, in fact, do both of these things in ranked games. It was hilarious to see
Zed all-in my clone with
Death Mark, just to have it blow up in his face. He thought I was face-checking the bush he was in, but I knew he was in there, so I baited his ult with my clone.
Casting your spells
Deceive (Q) is a gap closer, so you can use it to follow an enemy that flashes, if you can get in melee range before using it. However, for most of your ganks, you will open with your
Deceive and walk right behind the enemy while you're invisible. Your invisibility lasts for 3.5 seconds, so don't panic. You have alot of time to get in position, as long as the enemies are not walking away from you. Before your invisibility runs out, autoattack the enemy in their back. This will deal a pretty big chunk of damage.
- Immediately put a
Jack In The Box wherever the enemy is going to move, after they realize you are ganking. You want to block off an exit path for the enemy. This takes some thinking and practice. Sometimes, you are actually going to get killed by the person you are ganking (
Gragas and
Alistar mid, anyone? ugh.), so you might position your boxes so that you can disengage the enemy and save yourself.
- Your target will be slowed by your
Two-Shiv Poison's passive. If you need to burst them very fast to save an ally, use
Two-Shiv Poison's active effect on them. If you can't instagib the enemy, save your
Two-Shiv Poison, and wait for allies to catch up with you. If the enemy flashes away, using
Two-Shiv Poison will buy you some time to catch up. After a few seconds,
Deceive will be off cooldown, then you can maybe
Deceive to finish the kill.
Typical Jungle Start
For a typical start, you buy your items quickly, then run over to the river in front of your Blue buff. At 0:39 (39 seconds into the game), put a box in the river bush near your mid tower. It is a defensive box, and it watches for enemies who might invade your jungle. To date, I have never had an enemy invade my Blue buff as Shaco. This is probably because they know it's dangerous to invade against a Shaco. At 0:55 place your second box over the wall, on top of where the

Invading
If you invade, then a good way to harass the enemy jungler is to stack






Jungler Match-ups
I have to admit that I don't have as much experience as other players in terms of jungle matchups, but I think jungling with

- Easy: Offense-tree champions like
Evelynn,
Rengar, and
Kha'Zix. These kinds of champions are easy to out-trade with the help of your
Jack In The Boxes and your passive,
Backstab. If they are sufficiently low on health, then you can burst them down with
Deceive. Otherwise, you can outplay them with
Deceive. Tank
Evelynn is also easy, because she has no CC and she is not tanky until she gets her items.
- Medium to Hard: Defense-tree champions like
Jarvan IV, tank
Rengar,
Nunu & Willump, tank
Gragas,
Shyvana,
Lee Sin, and
Volibear. At level 3,
Shaco can harass these junglers with
Two-Shiv Poison while saving
Deceive for outplaying them or escaping.
- Skill matchups:
Lee Sin. This matchup usually goes to whoever ganks better, or whoever blinks first in a duel. If Lee Sin tries to use
Sonic Wave on you, you can use
Deceive to dodge the spell, and then fight him while his
Sonic Wave is on cooldown. This reduces his damage, so you can out-trade him. Just remember to disengage before 10 seconds, when his
Sonic Wave comes off cooldown, unless he's almost dead.
- More examples to come.
- Ultra-hard matchups:
Stealth Wards and
Vision Wards. These items kill Shaco's element of surprise. SURPRISE!
Ganking with
Shaco is fairly straightforward, assuming the enemy has no wards and is not
Alistar. Shaco can sometimes pull off a gank, even if they have wards, because of his
Deceive's gap closer, and his
Two-Shiv Poison's slow. The slow may provide enough utility to give your allies a kill, when the enemy would have otherwise escaped.
Copied from my Skill Sequence section above, this provides a simplistic step-by-step procedure for ganking most champions.
Shaco excels at ganking mid lane, because he can gank from every angle, and he can gank from inside the wraith camps, where people rarely ward during early game.
Shaco is also exceptionally good at lane ganks, because he can
Deceive while in the fog-of-war, then run down the lane to the enemy while invisible.




Copied from my Skill Sequence section above, this provides a simplistic step-by-step procedure for ganking most champions.
Deceive (Q) is a gap closer, so you can use it to follow an enemy that flashes, if you can get in melee range before using it. However, for most of your ganks, you will open with your
Deceive and walk right behind the enemy while you're invisible. Your invisibility lasts for 3.5 seconds, so don't panic. You have alot of time to get in position, as long as the enemies are not walking away from you. Before your invisibility runs out, autoattack the enemy in their back. This will be a pretty big chunk of damage.
- Immediately put a
Jack In The Box wherever the enemy is going to move, after they realize you are ganking. You want to block off an exit path for the enemy. This takes some thinking and practice. Sometimes, you are actually going to get killed by the person you are ganking (
Gragas and
Alistar mid, anyone? ugh.), so you might position your boxes so that you can disengage the enemy and save yourself.
- Your target will be slowed by your
Two-Shiv Poison's passive. If you need to burst them very fast to save an ally, use
Two-Shiv Poison's active effect on them. If you can't instagib the enemy, save your
Two-Shiv Poison, and wait for allies to catch up with you. If the enemy flashes away, using
Two-Shiv Poison will buy you some time to catch up. After a few seconds,
Deceive will be off cooldown, then you can maybe
Deceive to finish the kill.



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Ignite = Good |
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Flash = Bad |
When I see a





The reason that other champions take



- 2/12/2014 - version 0.2
- Implemented a few of EdisonKhoo's corrections and suggestions...
- Fixed the Runes section links from Quintessences to Greater Quintessences
- Added Jungler Matchups (incomplete)
- Added section specifically on ganking with Shaco
- Added a Change Log
- Added
Sword of the Divine to the viable items
- Added more info to the Items section.
- Reworked the Pros/Cons section
- Added a Summary
- 2/8/2014 - version 0.1
Overall,
Shaco is a really strong assassin jungler. I will continue to test things out on this champion, as I believe Shaco holds alot of potential for gameplay. It is my goal to see the pros use my Shaco build in solo-queue, and I hope that, some day, they might decide to use Shaco in competitive team play, as a result of my build guide.
I also hope you enjoyed the guide, and please let me know if you have suggestions. I might include them. Good luck, and I hope that my guide doesn't get
Shaco nerfed again.

I also hope you enjoyed the guide, and please let me know if you have suggestions. I might include them. Good luck, and I hope that my guide doesn't get

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