Talon Build Guide by xRosco19x

Introduction

First things First, This is my 3rd guide here on Mobafire, and this time it's Talon. So, let's get to it then.

So who is Talon?

Talon is not a Bruiser, not a Tank, not a carry, he is an assassin. You could say an AD Caster as he relies on combo's rather than auto attacks.

Talon gets his damage from stacking Pure AD, Armor penetration, and cooldown reduction. Talon has a burst when he is fighting, meaning he does A LOT of damage a VERY little amount of time.

Talon is the type of champion that when they see you pick him champion select, you think, "damn it....." and your team thinks, "DON'T FEED TALON!!!"

Now that you know the basic of what kind of badass Talon is, Let's get on with the Guide!

Pros and Cons

Pros -Amazing at ganks -Counters most AP Mids -Strong all game, Early, Mid, and Late -Almost Ungankable with Ulti -Almost un-escapable

Cons -Can be mana hungry -If jungler camps Mid, cant get fed or gank other lanes -Can be weak against other AD mids -Relies hard on Items to be strong

Abilities

Mercy Talon's auto attacks deal 10% more damage to enemy champions that are slowed, immobilized, or stunned. Most people think this makes all of Talon's damage increased to cc'd enemies, but it is only basic attacks, including Noxian Diplomacy.

Talon's Next basic attack to deal additional damage and makes the target bleed over 6 seconds, dealing additional damage over time and revealing their location for the duration. This ability does more damage to cc'd enemies, due to Mercy and should be used after Rake for the most possible damage

Talon sends out his blades in a cone, dealing damage each time they pass through an enemy, slowing the enemy for 2 seconds. Use this to farm in lane, but only if you can kill 1 or more minion at a time with is, otherwise save the mana for harassing or fighting.

Cutthroat Talon instantly teleports behind an enemy, silencing them for 1 second, and making his damage amplified on that target for 3 seconds. Be sure to take this at level 2 if you are fighting someone you can't simply walk up to like a Lux, but take it at level 3 if it is someone you can walk up to like a Diana or a Kassadin.

Talon disperses a ring of blades dealing damage for each blade that passes through an enemy, he also gains stealth and 40% more movement speed for 2.5 seconds. After this duration, the blades come back to him dealing damage for each blade that passes through an enemy. Try to get a little behind the enemy before releasing the 2nd part of the ulti, so every blade will hit the enemy. This will do a ton of damage, and should guarantee a kill if they are squishy enough.

Masteries

Summoner's Wrath :Take this for Ignite, when it's off cd you gain 5 AD and 5 AP.

Sorcery : I take this for the cooldown reduction (4%), which is amazing on Talon. The 4% CDR will give about 1 second off of his abilities.

Butcher : Reduces damage taken from minions, now when you use Cutthroat on an enemy, minions attack you, this mastery saves you maybe 20 minion damage per engage.

Deadliness : Increases AD per level, giving 12 at level 18. Not much else we could want from this mastery.

Havoc : Increases damage dealt by 2%, makes a good difference early levels, making your harass do a little more.

Weapon Expertise : The BEST mastery there is for Talon, giving a whole 8% Armor Penetration, this mastery HURTS.

Brute Force : Gives 3 AD, couldn't go wrong with that!

Sunder : Another amazing mastery, 6 full armor is ignored with this, and since most mid champs start with about 32 armor, all the offense masteries ignores about 12 armor at level 1-3

Executioner : Does 5% percent more damage to enemies under 50% hp. In one burst, the enemy should get half hp after Rake, meaning Shadow Assault deals 5% more damage.


Resistance : Gives 2 Magic resist so you can take more of a beatdown from the enemy mid laner, no much, but some.

Hardiness : Take this for 2 additional armor, which helps out with eneme basic attack harassment at early levels in the game.

Durability : Now this is a useful mastery, giving 108 HP at level 18, since you have no other defense, this is pretty useful.

Veteran's Scars : Adds 30 HP, making your early level just a little more tanky, and provides the means to take a little bit more harass.

Runes

Greater Mark of Armor Penetration: Amazing damage at early levels with Rake, if the enemy mid starts with Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions, they will take a lot of damage even with armor.

Greater Seal of Armor: Take this just in case there is an enemy AD lane like a Lee Sin or a Zed. It also helps with basic attacks of AP casters.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: This you should actually have against mid laners, since most of them are AP, and if they aren't, it's a Zed who you can out damage pretty easily.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: Armor Penetration is nice, yes, but you do need some AD to get you going.

Core Build

Take these boots after The Brutalizer for a good amount of CDR and it will help you dodge and will help chase down an enemy. This with the enchantment Furor is a great offensive approach, so they will hardly be able to escape.

Take this, ALWAYS on Talon. AD, armor penetration, and cdr is all what you should build on TalonThis item alone is enough to kill the enemy mid or adc. This is a very good start to a snowballing Assassin build. Get. It. Always.

This right after The Brutalizer will increase your initial burst damage by TONS!This along with The Brutalizer can provide enough damage to kill multiple enemies alone, and by that I mean 2 enemies at once.

Full Build and Other Viable Choices

Gives 100 AD at full stacks and gives abood amount of lifesteal. Overall, tons of damage and sustain. After only one of these makes your damage increase by a lot, almost doubling the damage on your burst. This is an extremely important item on your build. Get 2 or 3 of these.

Adds 55 AD, and a passive that shreds armor per attack. It gives good cdr and armor penetration. Get this Item last, but be sure to get The Brutalizer first. This gives more damage on your burst, against all enemies, due to the armor penetration and armor shredding passive.

Gives an enormous amount of AD, an active that deals a good amount of damage aroung you, and clears waves with just a Rake and 2 autoattacks, plus some good amount of lifesteal, you can't go wrong with this.

OTHER CHOICES

Gives AD,MR, and an awesome passive that gives more AD the lower HP you are. Get it if you are losing your lane against an AP. Of course once you get caught back up with the rest of the players, sell this and continue with the regular build.

Gives AD,MR, and an awesome active that gives a cc removing buff, like a cleanse but an item. You can sell this and continue with the regular build like normal.

Revives you upon death. Get this if they are focusing you down. It also gives a bunch of Armor and Magic Resist, making it harder to kill you, of course if they stop focusing you, sell it and continue the build like normal.

Amazing for roaming and ganking other lanes. With these on you can almost be everywhere at once time. Now they don't give any tenacity or any other stats so you need to sacrifice a stat for this movement, your choice though.

Take these boots if you need a lttle resistance against your enemy mid lane, also if the enemy has a jungler like Sejuani or Amumu. They give tenacity, which you need to survive hardd cc and be able to do your job in a teamfight.

Tankier Options

Although this isn't the way I recommend to go, it is a great way to not get focused in teamfights, giving you time to kill the enemy carry. Now get one of these tankier items if you die way too easy in teamfights and can't kill the enemy carry fast enough because you are focused.

Now this isn't the way I would recommend to go unless you are being focused very fast in teamfights, giving 100 HP this item is a great way to become much more tanky, and the enemy team to have to focus your adc over you.

Early Game

At level 1 take Rake for farming. Now this is VERY important: Only use Rake to farm minions IF u can get more than 1 minion with it at a time. You can use it for harassing but try not to use it too much or you will run out of mana and have to recall.

At level 2 get [Cutthroat]] so u can start doing damage. When they use an ability, like a Brand uses Pillar of Flame , their damage is down, so E > W them to damage them with little harass back. Make sure not to engage when the jungler just left another lane, they may be on there way to you now. Try to engage when you have the tri bushes warded or they are at another lane.

At Level 3, get [Noxian Diplomacy]] and start harass on them, now only harass them when their damage move is down, so you can E > W > Q them.At this point you can start to try and kill your enemy. They do have summoner spells unless they used it before hand, so be wary of using Ignite or Flash.

Keep doing this and be sure to buy Health and Mana Potions if needed,but always get 2 Wards to protect from ganks.

At level 6 get Shadow Assault and kill them. E > W > Q > R > Attack > Ignite, KILL.

Mid Game

Start roaming and ganking and making plays. Ward Dragon, enemy blue, red, wraiths, golems, wolves, top lane river, and/or bot lane River. Everytime you see a SAFE opportunity, kill someone. You can kill really anyone who doesn't have more kills/gold than you. You want to be taking dragon, towers, and at the same time, farm and kill people as much as possible. If you gank top and kill the top laner, take blue or take tower, if you kill both bot laners on a gank, take dragon or a tower. Keep this up and eventually try to take inhibitors or baron.

Late Game

Teamfights, where it all matters. Even if you are sooo fed and can 1v3 the bot laners and the jungler and win, DO NOT GET COCKY! Try as much as possible to stay in a group and keep warded. In teamfights you want to wait until the fight starts to go in. The enemy will be focused on the fight already, aim the ADC. E > W > Q > R > Ignite > R.Now turn to peel for the carry. Once you have your abilities up, get whoever is left alive, focus the least squishy, unless it's the support. This should be your job as an assassin to kill the adc or mid laner.

Mid Lane Match Ups

Difficulty: Easy
Now this should be an easy lane, she will most likely use her Q to farm and as soon as she does, harass her. Careful to use your Shadow Assault when she uses her ulti, she can get out of the range of the ulti. She is almost uncatchable when she hits 6, so kill her before. Difficulty: Easy
Akali is pretty damn op, but she is squishy after all, and she is not very strong until level 6, even then you can kill her. Get an Oracle's Elixer so she won't get away so easily and you should have no problem with this. Be sure to ward so you don't give her a kill. Difficulty : Varies
My main mid laner as well as Talon, he can easily stop your harass and burst you back to kill you. So, here is what you need to do. Wait for his Pillar of Flame or Sear to be used to go in, try to dodge his Sear after another ability so you do not get stunned. Ward your lanre and be sure to shut him down early so he doesn't carry later. Difficulty: Easy
This is such an easy lane, wait for her poison to be used up and jump her, wala! you win this lane, care at level 6 so she can't kill you with her stun and poison plus ignite combo's, consider taking Barrier so you can negate some poison damage. Difficulty:Easy
Same as Cassiopeia you dodge you win, but she is easier to beat. She is melee, so when you dodge her Crescent Strike she will either lose farm because she backs off to avoid harass or she tries to attack minions which will get her attacked with a Rake to the face. Difficulty:Easy
Anivia starts out with the least amount of hp in the game, about 400 flat, so have fun with that, be wary of her passive and try to dodge her stun before you go in, pretty much the same as everyone in mid, dodge, you win. When she ulti's you, get out of it asap! She will deal tons of damage to you with her other abilities and ulti DPSing you all the same time. Difficulty:Easy
Easy lane here, he has a large burst with his ulti but before that you can kill him pretty easily. Wait for his Playful/trickster to end to fully go in. Try to bait it as much as you can and you can kill him easily. Easy, piece of cake, on a scale from 1 to 10 on difficulty, he is a -4. Countered in every way here, he is dead. Simple, dodge his stun and kill him. Hell, take Smite to kill his towers if you want and his damage gets even less. Difficulty:NONE
Easy as hell, he cannot kill you until you kill him, and a fed talon vs. fed Karthus? Lol never. Stay by minions so [Lay Waste]] does like, 30 damage. Kill him whenever you can do it safely. Difficulty:Varies
Talon's silence is more ranged than Kassadin's is so you can harass him before he can you.He is pretty squishy, but that is really all there is to it. Difficulty:Varies
Now this is a little weird, depending on the enemy and you, you can rape them, or be raped. It all depends on you and them really, If you can harass her before she can you and get out without her using Bouncing Blades back, it can go your way. Play carefully and farm as much as you can. DifficultyEasy
Pretty easy lane if you can out harass her. Her passive is really nothing since Rake and Shadow Assault don't need to focus on a singe target you can kill both the real and fake LeBlanc. Difficulty:Varies
The enemy Lux depending on how good or bad they are will depend on if they use their stun to harass or stop you from harassing. Wait for the snare to used to go in, so she can;t escape without flash or when the snare comes back. Her ulti will do a lot of damage so consider taking barrier against her. Difficulty:Easy
This is a very easy lane, he has no cc except ulti, at level 6, so levels 1 to 5 kill him as much as possible, dodge his silence and you can go in without worrying about dying or taking more damage than him. Difficulty:Easy
Don't let him farm his Q, harass as much as possible and avoid his stun. His ulti does nothing to you since it damages off of your ability power and Talon has none. Wait for his stun to be down then go in and kill him. Difficulty:Varies
Depending on the Zed, they can get stomped or be stomped, after level 6, it all depends on who gets there burst down first. For example, when Zed uses R, use Shadow Assault so his basic attacks won't count to deal damage a second time and try to burst him before he can you. Consider Barrier to counter his ulti's damage and to most likely win the fights. Difficulty:Hard
Lee Sin is a very strong mid laner and has a very good early game, he has multiple moves to escape with so bursting him with your ulti combo isn't such a good idea. He has passive lifesteal and a shield, and can knock you back into his tower. Play passively and wait for a gank. Difficulty:Hard
Lissandra is a very hard lane for Talon, she has a very low cooldown skill shot, that explodes on impact damaging enemies behind the target that it hit. She has an AoE stun and happens instantly. She can get away easily with her E, and can negate all your damage with her ulti. Do not fight Lissandra.

THANKS!!!!!!

Thank you for reading this guide and please have fun playing Mr.Stabby!