Taliyah is a very versatile champion that can play from most game states; almost all game states in low elo. But she has many strengths and weaknesses you must understand.

Strengths:

• One of the best midgame mages at lvl 9-13
• Very fast jungle clear
• Great teamfighter
• Incredible burst damage on a low cooldown
• Great zone control and cc with W and E
• High DPS with Q and Q2
• Great map presence with passive and R

Weaknesses:

• Weak early and weak ultra late game (35 min +)
• Weak 1v1 without good mechanics
• Incredibly squishy with the smallest starting base armor in the game
• Struggles immensely vs. champs that can dodge W + E (Master Yi, Katarina etc.)
• Needs lots of AH to function effectively

I'm creating this guide to show you how we can make the most of her strengths in the jungle, and overcome her weaknesses.

As soon as draft is over we need to select our runes and decide which build we're going. Generally, if vs. a squishy team we want to go Dark Harvest + Pen Build, and vs. a beefy team we go for the First Strike + Haste Build. Vs a mixed team (Jayce + Lethality Briar + Sylas + Maokai supp ex.), I generally like to go for Dark Harvest + Ludens, and then round it out with Cosmic-Raba-Cryptbloom, but its up to preference.

The Pen Build is best usually as it fits the jungle Taliyah playstyle better. The biggest problem with the Haste build is having to go Ionian boots and the loss of tempo with tear and skipping dark seal. In 14.4 with the extra haste buffs to Seraphs, maybe Sorc shoes will be viable in the haste build, but till then the Haste build gives up tempo. The Haste build also doesn't have a good 1 item power spike so for that playstyle you generally want to play for at least 2-3 items and then try having impact, where as the pen build can have more impact starting at 1 item.

As soon as champ select is over you need to be thinking of your first path. Are you doing a full clear torwards top or bot? Any 3 camp -> gank angles? What does the enemy jungler want to do? Are you going to get invaded? For the purposes of low elo we can assume the following:

1. We will do a full clear top to bot (doesn't matter if we are red/blue side). Reason being bot lane is the easiest lane to gank in S14 and it has the most resources (2 enemies). Usually one bot laner doesn't have hands and we can kill them with a well placed W.
2. We will maybe look for a 3 camp into mid gank if it looks free
3. The enemy jungler will do a full clear bot to top, because they want a leash from their botlane
4. We will not be invaded (unless vs Graves, Kindred, or other early game aggressive jungler)

In my experience from low silver to low emerald, these assumptions have held true in 80-90% of my games. As you play the game and get a better understanding of early macro, you will be able to identify the best decision to make in each game. However these assumptions are good enough for emerald.

Its also important to get a ward into the enemy jungle to know what the enemy jungler is doing. While we can assume they will clear bot to top, its best to ward the enemy topside buff to make sure this is the case. Versus some junglers like Kayn, Belveth etc. warding their raptors may be better. In these elos people cover the botside jungle entrances but very rarely do they cover the topside entrances so warding there is easier. Check bushes with Q so you aren't face checking anyone while doing so.

So we'll be starting in our topside. Make sure to put 3 Q's down before doing your first camp (4 if taking AH shard). Aim to get a full clear around 3:15, although faster is possible. Save smite for scuttle since 14.3 buff makes our first clear fast enough. Look for a botlane gank, take bot scuttle and reset. This is how my early game goes around 80% of the time.

Your default state as Taliyah jungle should be full clearing. Think of Taliyah as Karthus but with better ganks. Clearing puts your camps on respawn timers which is very important for your next full clear. During the full clear, you can look for gank oppurtunities, but you should ideally be thinking about where to end up after your full clear. Since we started topside, our next fullclear also starts topside. Now we have some options:

• We can look for a top gank before starting our fullclear
• We can look to do our topside camps, and look for a midlane gank or look to do grubs
• We can look to fullclear to botside and look for another botlane gank, or a botlane dive (risky below plat!!)

Generally I like to go for a toplane gank, into a fullclear bot, into a botlane gank. Midlane is too difficult to gank without ult or good setup. This means that we are sacrificing grubs, but that's ok; we can look for a dragon with our botlane that we ganked twice now.

Until we get boots + 60-70 AP, this is our gameplan. Fullclear, and help laners in between the fullclear.

Crossmapping is when you invade the enemy's jungle on the opposite side of the map that they're currently on, i.e. Enemy goes for a bot gank we go for a topside invade. Taliyah is probably the jungler that can do this best because of our passive movement speed and fast jungle clear. Try to keep track of the enemy jungler's camps (through the jungle pet counter and vision).

When you're sure the enemy jungler is doing dragon, go for a topside invade. If you're sure the enemy jungler is doing grubs, look for a botside invade. You might think giving up objectives is bad (and it is), but if you're behind or vs. champs that are strong early game its best to forfeit those objectives and make plays elsewhere. I've had so many games where my toplaner/midlaner is pinging me because we are giving all 6 grubs, but I've stolen 5-6 camps during the time the enemy jungler is taking grubs and went for easy 3v2 plays in botlane (no one expects R). A very good jungler would clear their own camps before doing grubs in games like this, but most of those junglers are in dia+ so this strat works pretty well below emerald.

Taliyah scales really hard at 2-3 items and maxed Q and E, so once we've hit that power spike after our fullclear - gank - crossmap cycle, FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. You're exodia mode with insane burst, DPS and zone control (if you can hit skillshots) so now is the time to look for aggressive plays. Now this doesn't mean we should never farm our camps and push sidelane waves, but we should definetly fight for objectives and group more often. Generally to end the game you need to win 2 teamfights, one to get some towers and the other to get baron and end. With our 3 item powerspike, these teamfights are where we need to 1v9. If you can't end the game and it gets to 4-5 items you can still win, but you're relying on your team more at that point.

I hope you've learned something about Taliyah or jungling. She's a pretty good one trick in low elo because people don't really know what you are capable of and she scales great with macro knowledge of the game. This is my first guide so I'll appreciate any comments you might have let me know if you'd be interested in other or more in depth guides.