Mercy Cutthroat

Hello, my name is Alexwolf and today I shall be sharing my Talon guide with you. My goal for this guide is to make it a one stop shop for Talon so that anybody can use this guide. For people who want to try and pick up Talon, as well as for Talon mains who hopefully learn a new thing or two from reading. So I would appreciate as much feed back as possible! Now, I love playing Talon because personally, I just like nuking people and deleting them off of the map. Talon excels in this, so that is why I picked him up and main him. Plus look at this champion! He is like some rogue assassin edge lord badass who has a bunch of throwing blades and daggers and just, mmmmffff, this guy is dope. Hopefully, you enjoy reading the guide. This is also one of my first legit guides so please let me know how I did! All and any type of feed back is welcome! Without wasting any more time, let's get right into this guide.

Pros

+ Is the Anti-mid champ + Very good at roaming + Large AOE damage + Easy farming + Invisibility

Talon is in most cases a great pick in solo queue. If you get ganked or are being chased, you can use Rake to slow pursuers or use Shadow Assault to make your get away. He provides large AOE damage in team fights with both Rake and Shadow Assault He scales with AD, so you can last hit easier early game and take towers quicker than an AP mage or AP Assassin. Talon also has a blink move via cutthroat, allowing you to burst somebody before they can do anything. After getting a few items, Rake clears waves instantly and is also a great harassing tool in lane. He can hop onto squishies and melt them before just going invisible, leaving the enemy team down a huge source of damage.

Cons

- Melee - Can become OOM easily if not careful with your mana pool. - Weak to early ganks - useless without kills

Like every champion, Talon is not perfect. He has pretty bad mana problems if you do not know how to be efficient and careful about your mana, which is something you just learn over time. A lot of inexperienced players spam Rake in the early levels and are OOM before they even reach level 5 or 6. He is also a melee champion, so he can get harassed from range with auto attacks or poke moves. Before level 6, Talon is fairly weak to ganks. He also cannot start bursting until he has at least one point in each move. Talon is also reliant on items and kills. If you do not snowball, you become rather useless to the team. You must also take consideration when it is safe to play Talon. If you don't have an AP Top, Jungler, or Support, I would not recommend it. The enemy team can build straight armor to counter you. However, this should not scare you from playing Talon, his strengths totally make up for his weaknesses.

21 OFFENSE 9 into Defense or Utility

T H E B L A D E S

sp

S H A D O W

// These are the masteries I use and highly recommend. 21 in the offense tree for standard AD stuff. And the 9 points into utility are for some added movement speed and summoner spell cooldowns. Tthe movement speed allow him to reach minions to last hit better. Also allows him to dodge some skill shots easier. And the lower CDR on summoner spells means flash and ignite will be up more often for escapes/kill potential. Q: Are these the best masteries for Talon? // For the offense tree, yes. You want to be dealing as much damage possible as Talon. However, if you feel that you would like more defense, you can place those 9 points from utility into the defense tree. But we shall always run 21 points into offense to maximize your damage as Talon.

• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: Pretty standard, for helping to last hit and a little early AD.
  
• greater mark of armor penetration: We take nine armor pent marks instead of full AD marks because you only lose a little bit of damage but now also have early game armor pent which will help your abilities do more damage to enemy champions. Talon is an AD Caster, armor pent is God like on him.
  
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: This gives you some survivability against enemy AP mids in the beginning such as LeBlanc or Ahri.
  
• Greater Seal of Scaling Health: These aren't the best runes for early game, especially since Talon's early game is not that great, but if you can survive the early game, these are far more worth it in the end.

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• Seals: For seals you can opt out five armor seals for five Greater Seal of Health. Lately a lot of people have been playing around with health runes since they got buffed. These health runes might also help against a poke reliant match-up at mid. Or flat of either health or armor also works really well too.
• Glyphs: For glyph's, if the enemy team has no AP you can swap out the magic resist for: Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction, Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration, Greater Glyph of Scaling Mana Regeneration, or Greater Glyph of Attack Damage. Also, if the enemy team has AP but not in your current lane. For example, a Elise in the jungle or a Akali top then you might want to get Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist instead.
  

Flash is a good "get out of jail free" card. Also helps with ganks and closing gaps.

Ignite is good for securing kills and stopping Heal/health regen effects such as Swain or Volibear.

Teleport is fun. You can use wards for mad base steals that win games.

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Mercy Mercy: Talon's autoattacks deal 10% additional damage to any target that is slowed, stunned, immobilized or suppressed. You just deal more damage to enemies who are in some form of most CC's.

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Noxian Diplomacy (Q): Talon's next autoattack deals bonus physichal damage and applies a bleed for six seconds. You gain vision of enemies who are bleeding out. This is just an auto attack enhancer. This also resets your auto attacks. This makes your next AA hit hard.

You're going to want to max out Noxian Diplomacy before Cutthroat and after Rake.

• Noxian Diplomacy is an auto attack reset. You can use this to combo off quick damage by going Auto Attack > Q > Auto Attack. This works on Enemy champions, Minions, Teemo's and Turrets.
• Noxian Diplomacy and Ignite can do a lot of damage over time to an enemy. Try to get a Noxian Diplomacy off as an enemy walks away with low health, the bleed just might kill them.
• You can activate Noxian Diplomacy and then Cutthroat to an enemy champion, instantly applying your Q. The damage will also be amplified against that target.

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Rake (W): Talon sends out a volley of daggers in a cone that then quickly return back to him, dealing physical damage to any enemies it passes through. This move deals damage both on the way in, and out. It also applies a slow. This is your main tool for harassing and farming. Use it to harass enemies in lane and later levels, farm large minion waves.

You're going to want to max out Rake after Shadow Assault and before Noxian Diplomacy.

• Rake is your main source of damage. It deals more damage if you hit the enemy when the blades are coming both in and out. Try to hit an enemy twice with Rake for more damage.
• If you are getting ganked early on, shoot Rake at the ganking jungler. Rake applies a decent slow, which should stop the jungler in their tracks as you retreat to safety.
• Rake becomes a great tool for farming once you have a bit of damage. It one shots caster minions and leaves front line minions with barely any health.
• Try not to spam Rake in lane at early levels. It can quickly leave you OOM, and it will not be dealing too much damage to the enemy mid laner or minions until you are around level 4 or 5.
• Rake applies a slow, so if somebody is at close range, Rake them then start auto attacking. This works with your passive, Mercy.

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Cutthroat Cutthroat (E): Talon instantly appears behind his target, applying a 99% slow for .25 seconds and amplifying his damage against that target for 3 seconds. This move is a target-able blink. You can use it to close distances or escape. But, you must target an enemy unit.

You're going to want to max out Cutthroat after Noxian Diplomacy and it will be the last skill you max out.

• Cutthroat places you behind the target, always pay attention how close your target is to the tower. You can accidentally blink behind the target and get put into tower range. NOT GOOD!
• To close distances, you can Cutthroat to a minion, that way you become closer in range of a target. For example, if somebody is camping in the back line because they fear you, you can go: Cutthroat to nearby minion, shoot Rake outward at enemy as they retreat.
• You can Cutthroat to things over walls if you have vision and Cutthroat can set up very nasty jukes/escapes. Such as warding a camp and blinking over the wall to a jungle creep. Or Cutthroat and Flash/ Cutthroat and Shadow Assaulting away.

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Shadow Assault (R): Talon disperses blades outwards in a 500-radius ring and gains stealth for up to 2.5 seconds while gaining 40% movement speed. When Talon emerges from stealth, the blades converge on his location. When the ring of blades expands and contracts, enemies hit receive physical damage. Each enemy can only be damaged once at the start of the ability and once at the end. This move deals a lot of damage and can be used to chase, escape, burst, etc.

You're going to want to max out Shadow Assault first. Take a point into this move whenever you can.

• You can now Flash while Shadow Assault is up and it will not break your stealth. So Flashing sometime during your ult can help you get really far away. Shadow Assault can just always be used as an escape period, it has a fairly low cool down.
• During team fights or if you are ballsy and by yourself, jump on the carry, burst them down and either immediately use or finish the carry off with Shadow Assault so you can run to safety after securing your kill.
• Shadow Assault and Youmuu's Ghostblade active work very well together. You can go Youmuu's Ghostblade > Shadow Assault in the fog of war where nobody can see you, then run into a lane and jump onto somebody before they even noticed you were there.

> > > cutthroat

We want to max out Rake because it is our main source of dealing damage, and is ranged as well. It also allows for easy farming and does huge AOE damage. Secondly, we max Noxian Diplomacy for its added damage. We max Cutthroat last. You only need one point into this move early for the utility of the blink and silence. The silence does not get longer as you rank up this spell, so one point is sufficient.

These are the best boots for roaming in my opinion. Take them if you are ahead and feel it shall be an easy win. If you are not doing so well, opt these out for Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi. We specifically take the Alacrity enhancement because Mobility Boots got nerfed. When you are out of combat, they are slower than regular tier 2 boots, so Boots of Mobility - Alacrity makes up for this. However, if you feel you need Boots of Mobility - Homeguard instead, then by all means pick those up.

This item is underrated on Talon. It has okay AD. But, it has armor pent and CDR, which is something we will happily take. It also builds out of The Brutalizer. The main reason we take it is for the pent and the active. The active increases your DPS, allowing you to get more auto attacks into your combo. On top of that, you can use the active + Shadow Assault to close large distances and do surprise stealth ambushes from the fog of war. This is my little key trick to insta gibbing enemies who are out of position. Enemies being out of position is something that happens quite often in solo queue, and Talon punishes people for being out of position.

This item is great. Gives a lot of AD, Life steal, and health regen. It's passive also allows for quicker wave clear. We take this item for it's active. It's active is essentially like a 5th skill to your kit. It does the least damage out of your whole kit, but, it does respectable damage and resets auto attacks.

Cleaver is great. A bit of health. More damage, cdr, and pent which is what you want on Talon. The unique passive is also good for shredding armor. Rake and Shadow Assault shred both on the way in, and on the way out with this item.

This is for when people are building armor against you but not stacking health. You will shred right through it and render their purchase useless.

This item is great. It is one of the best AD items out at the moment. Combined with your Youmuu's Ghostblade, you shall be criting for over 1.5k hp. If you need a defensive item, you can swap out the Infinity Edge.

: For when the enemy team is not building armor against you. Swap out either Black Cleaver or Last Whisper for this item. I used to get this as a core item on Talon before it was reworked. It is not a bad item, but I mean, Ravenous Hydra only has 5 less AD, splash damage, and a active that does decent damage and also resets your auto attacks. If you want to take this item, do not hesitate.

: For end game. Sell your boots and swap them for this item. Gives AD, AS, CDR, movement speed, and tenacity. This is a good item for late game.

: For when you are just dying a lot in team fights and need to live in general.

: For when you need a mix of both health and armor. The active also works well against attack speed reliant champions such as Fiora, Jax Lee Sin, and Xin Zhao.

: Against poke reliant enemy team comps, or for a Unstoppable Force.

: For when you need a way to slip out of a hard cc like Impale or for my friend, Zed and his Death Mark.

mercy cutthroat

So for the laning phase you just want to sit back and farm up a bit. Do not try to make any plays or all ins until you have all three of your abilities. Farm, harass enemy with Rake, and you can even use Rake to snag a few cs. Just manage your mana wisely. At around level 3-5 is when you can start making plays as Talon. If the enemy mid laner is fairly weak to you or melee, you should harass them moderately-hard in the beginning, so that when you are level 3 or 4, you can attempt an all in. for example, if they are trying to CS. You can walk up to them and do this combo: AA > Noxian Diplomacy > AA > Rake > AA > AA > AA. The amount of autos you pull off after rake depends on how many you can get in. But this combo is nothing to be trifled with, you will most likely chunk them for almost half of their health. If enemy is ranged, wait till you are 4 or 5 and have all of your moves. Harass them a bit with Rake until there health is low enough that you can Cutthroat > AA > Q > AA > Rake > AA > Ignite. This should kill them if you have been harassing and they do not have Heal or Barrier.

mercy cutthroat

So when things start coming to mid game and small skrimishes, fights for dragon, and turrets are being taken what you want to do is push your lane hard. If you can manage to kill your lane opponent again and then push their wave forward, that is even better. Once the lane is pushed look at the map and see if you can gank for either lane. Having Mobility Boots is very helpful at this point and it will make you an even more effective roamer. Gank lanes if you can and then push, maybe even take the tier 1 turret if you can. You should also set up a few Stealth Ward's in the enemies jungle, that way if you see them taking a camp at low health you can be a scumbag and go kill them. If you pushed your wave and you cannot roam or gank a lane, just lay down some DPS, or commonly referred to by my friends and I, THE DEEPS, on the mid lane tower. Just be wary for the enemy jungler. Remember to keep up with your farm as well, farming is a very important part of the game and will put you ahead in gold even further then you probably already are.

As I mentioned earlier, you want to roam and ward the enemy jungle. You don't have to waste too much money on wards, just buy 1 or 2. We will save our trinket ward for escapes and warding our lane from the enemy jungler. Here is a map giving examples of where to ward.

• Yellow: Vital to protect the jungler on your team
• Blue: For protection depending on which lane you're on
• Red: To guard Dragon and Baron
• Orange: In order to Counter-Jungle

The Blue Circles by each side of the river in mid lane is where you should be warding early on with your trinket and and stealth wards. Mid lane is the shortest lane, but can get ganked on either side. Most mid laners know to place a ward on one side and then stick to that side. If they get ganked, they can retreat to safety since the enemy jungler is ganking from afar. And if the jungler is coming from the side you warded, you can see him so you know to back off.

The Orange Circles are where you should be warding when you are roaming. The enemy jungler will most likely go through there. And the Yellow Circles are where you ward to protect your jungler and to have vision of your jungle if you are losing. The enemies will most likely be roaming your jungle if they have a lead and have taken a lot of towers.

mercy cutthroat

During the end game, team fights will be taking place. During a team fight, it is your job to jump on the enemy AD Carry or AP Carry and assassinate them, delete them off of the map. Never start a team fight as Talon, wait for your team to go in. Or if you get engaged on, wait till there is a clear opportunity for you to jump onto the enemy carry. Even though you shall be focusing all your skills on one person, you shall be dealing large AoE damage to the rest of the enemy team with Rake and Shadow Assault. Once the enemy carry is dead, either re-position yourself or stay in the fight and get more kills. Remember, it is okay if you die. As long as you assassinate the highest threat on the enemy team, you did your job. Let's say you killed their Lucian, but also died in the process. The enemy team lost a huge amount of their consistent damage and you give your team an advantage who still most likely has a carry alive. The worst case scenario would be that you die and did not kill your intended target.

Talon is an extremely fun champion to play and very rewarding if you master him. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, etc; please feel free to leave a comment. Upvote the guide if you liked it or learned something new, this is one of my first guides afterall. If you downvoted, please let me know why and I will try to fix it. May you be one with the shadows, and assassinate a lot of Lucian's on the summoners rift! Remember to always stay on the Razors Edge! -Alexwolf

Q: Why do you take nine points into utility? That seems like trash.

A: I take nine points into the utility tree mainly for personal reasons. I feel that Fleet of Foot helps me dodge skillshots easier early game and allows me to quickly snag CS faster, allowing me to retreat before taking harass. Summoner's Insight allows for Flash and Ignite to be up more often. Basically, this means an escape up more often and ignite for kill potential up more often. And finally, Alchemist and Culinary Master give you more bang for your buck when you buy and use potions, so in retrospective, this would increase your over all early sustain from using a health potion. Now, if you do not like these masteries feel free to place those nine points into the defense tree. It really makes no difference, in the end it all comes down to personal preference and I happen to prefer a little more utility over defense. If you want to go the defensive route you can take points into Block , Recovery , Unyielding , Veteran Scars , and Juggernaut

3/20/15

• Not much has changed with Talon, I did edit his masteries a bit, but these are just personal preference things. Also added in recommendations for warding.
• Trying to fix my Lolrecorder or find a new recording option since I want to get out more helpful videos for the guide. So look forward to that!
• Peace, sex monkeys.

12/24/14

• Updated for the new season. Luckily since he is not a jungler, not much in terms of laning has changed. Added in new elixirs to the build.
• I am starting to enjoy Scaling Health Yellows. I replaced Armor Seals for these seals. This is all preference however, Armor seals are still perfectly fine.
• Happy Holidays all you little Assassin mains~

7/4/14

• Guide has just been published, no changes have been made yet!
• Going to be making a chapter labeled "Lane Matchups" and I shall go over champions you will most likely see in lane. Explaining how to deal with each one in specific.

9/8/14

• Made updates to Runes and Masteries after playing a little longer.
• Working on adding a "Match Ups" Chapter.
• Also considering making a new guide for a different champion. If you are interested or want to see a specific champion, let me know.

9/27/14

• Talon has received nerfs in patch 4.16 his silence was removed from cutthroat and instead it applies a slow for a quarter of a second.