Talon Build Guide by lggnition

Introduction - Who am I ?

So first of all I'm lggnition and I actually am not a high Elo (yeah I'm stuck at Bronze IV) BUT( !!!) don't just click away my guide and I will try to explain you some mechanisms of Talon.

My win rate isn't high I know (guess what, Bronze IV haha ..) but winning is team dependend so win rates cannot be totally related to someone's knowledge (don't get me wrong, you can actually carry your team as a Talon but if everybody agrees to your opinion is another story) about a champion. I did play Talon for a while now and I experimented with him a lot (and since pre-s4 started there are so many more options to vary with a Talon).


Some of my latest Gameplays with Talon (I don't play ranked often though so they're just normal games).

The reason why I play Talon as my main is because he excels very much in kills and even if he is behind in farm, levels etc. because of good early ganking rushing his first items will let him still snowball really hard.

Why am I writing this guide ?
Simply because I didn't see any kind of guides based on my play style (except for Vapora's Guide).

Pros / Cons

So Talon has several Pros but likely to every champion it also has Cons, here's a list:
Pros
- Counters most mid laner
- can be played as a bruiser, a crit Talon, carry etc.
- good roaming
- excels with kills and/or cs
- cuts down most champs (even the tankiest ones) 100-0
- can do 1 vs multiple enemies
- no skill shots => easy to hit the enemy (you could consider Rake and Shadow Assault to be skillshots but it's nearly impossible to miss those skills)
- his dancing moves are from Michael Jackson (who wouldn't like such champ)

Cons
- hard to escape from group ganks (you can learn it though)
- fast reaction time needed to know when to use which skills

Runes

As Runes you can vary between Flat AD and ArPen because ArPen slightly buffs you more late game but in the beginning for last hitting Flat AD would be preferable so it depends on
1.) if you are going to play aggressively in the beginning
2.) if you cannot last hit very well

In case of 1.) you should mainly use ArPen to do more damage to your enemy champion and in case of 2.) the other way round, to deal more damage to minions.

Marks and Quintessences: I take Ad/ArPen because those two Runes give the most AD/ArPen, 'nuff said.
Seals: Gives the most amount of Armor and Armor is necessary since you won't have a basic item with Armor so you want to have Armor Runes.
Glyphs: Same goes with MR also because you are a mid laner and most mid laner will be AP based.

Masteries

Double-Edged Sword it gives you 2% more damage and only 1% more damage to the enemy now considering the enemy (APC ranged) has that mastery as well (which is unlikely though) you do 3,5% more damage and the enemy does only 2,5% more damage which can make a huge different due to your already epic burst damage.
Sorcery and Fury are both good on Talon since a little buff in AS and in CDR aren't bad but you have to decide between early game AS buff or late game CDR which I would more prefer since Talon doesn't really need that 5% AS early game to ra*e the opponent.
Brute Force in my opinion is really weak but you need it for 3 points but you need it for the extra 5 points in Martial Mastery .
Expose Weakness and Spell Weaving are adding themselves to more damage and can be used on Talon since he has a low Cooldown in average and his burst requires AA so it adds up.
For more sustainability use Butcher and Feast instead because of the easier Last hitting and the extra heal per Creep.
Warlord gives 5% on 3/3 I think this doesn't need any explanation.
Devastating Strikes though this Mastery would be perfect for hybrids (e.g Jax, Akali etc.) the 6% can make a HUGE difference to your damage output.
Havoc Similarly to Warlord the 3% gives a massive damage bonus just that it's for flat AD.
Block and Unyielding both are good early game but late game you won't feel any difference.
Contrary to those two Enchanted Armor has a really good buff of 5% Armor and MR at 2/2.
Veteran Scars was nerfed since in S3 you only needed only 1 point for the same amount (If I'm not mistaken) of hp so this mastery is more like useless since pre-S4.
Juggernaut existed in S3 as well but is now further on top so you can use it with only 9 points in Defense. Positively you can stack hp while having 21/9/0 hence much damage, the bad thing is that you cannot have the extra Armor and MR since those are now more at the bottom, hence you need more than 9 points in Defense. This should only be used on Talon if hp is going to be stacked on him, if not go for 21/0/9.
Fleet of Foot increases your movement which is perfectly made for a roaming Talon.
Meditation gives you Mana/5 secs so starting with the 'Aggressive Start' or the 'Standard Start' will not be a big deal in terms of mana issues.
Summoner's Insight reduces your Cooldown time on Summoner Spells so you can use them much more (e.g on 3/3 the CDR is 10% so Flash which actually has 300 secs on its Cooldown now has 270 secs and Ignite has only 189 secs).
Alchemist makes your potions and elixirs maintain 10% longer which means that all your Health Potions will heal 15 more each and Crystalline Flask heals 12 hp and 6 mana more each time you use it. Combined with Culinary Master you heal 20 hp instantly so each Health Potion will recover you 35 more than you would without those two masteries.


I hardly can't say much more about the Masteries, there are two options

1.) as crit Talon (for detailed information look forVapora's Guide) you should use 21/0/9.
2.) 21/9/0 when playing Talon tankier than any average Talon player since the last point in Defense gives you 3% hp and you want to use it as efficiently as possible.

but of course you can vary with those two options.

Items

As for the Aggressive Start you want to have Elixir of Fortitude and 3x Health Potion basically because going aggressively means that you will also take much damage so you want to heal yourself with pots and Elixir of Fortitude to deal that extra damage + have more hp than the enemy (regarding you are on the same level). When the enemy decides to stay with less than half of his hp just burst him down and ignite him. This kind of start is preferred against squishy champs with low armor. The disadvantage on this start is that you won't have any mp heals so you need to spare your Rake harass and back off when you don't have much mp left.

The safe start with Crystalline Flask and 3x Health Potion enables you to sustain for a long period of time on the lane. This kind of start is good against Talon counter (e.g Diana) or as a basic start since you want to maintain as long as you can on your lane to rush The Brutalizer as fast as possible. The disadvantage here is that you deal less damage than the aggressive one but maintaining on the lane is preferable over killing since being aggressively can mean death when the enemy jungler is ganking you.

The basic start vs. skill shots:
Boots of Speed and 4x Health Potion. You have a higher sustainability than the aggressive start but using this start requires you a good internet connection and reaction time respectively knowing when the enemy would use his skill shots on which location. There is clearly no real disadvantage on this start but like said above you need a good reaction time to evade skill shots and to spare as many pots as possible.

The first back should be enough for you to buy a The Brutalizer if not just buy 2x Long Sword. The reason why you want to have The Brutalizer first is because it gives you a good amount of ArPen, Flat AD in addition and CDR so you can use your skills more often (which synergizes very well with a Crystalline Flask because of the mana regeneration).
There are two kinds of builds.
1.) Vapora's Guide (which is kinda crit based)
2.) A deadly Assassin with a little bit too much hp
For 1.) just click on the link, for 2.) this guide right here :)
So both builds have in common to rush the same items in the beginning, like already said the The Brutalizer, afterwards Last Whisper for another flat AD item as well as %ArPen which extremely excels your damage at the time you should be able to buy it.
B. F. Sword gives a good amount of flat AD which is also a component for either The Bloodthirster or the Infinity Edge.
The next item depends on what you're going to build, Tiamat should be bought ONLY for Vapora's build otherwise just let it out.
I won't be concentrating on Vapora's build anymore since you can just read about his build in his own guide.
So next you want to build your The Brutalizer into The Black Cleaver so you can start shredding the enemy armor like it never existed.
Now you want to build your B. F. Sword into The Bloodthirster, the damage output by now should be enough to 100-0 every champion (even the tankiest ones).
As of now you want to have some hp so you are going to build a Frozen Mallet for a lot of hp, a respectable amount of flat AD and a passive that synergizes with your passive.
Finally, you can choose between more damage or more hp both are a good option so you want to have a Warmog's Armor or a Trinity Force.
Those are standard builds which I normally take but every experienced LoL player knows that the order of your items and even the final build varies in each game based on the situation so there are optionals:
: Gives you a lot of armor, mana and cdr which means that you can counter ADC a lot easier since you have tons of armor and mana + cdr for faster and more skill usage. Including the passive you also reduce the dps output of the adc significantly.
: Also an anti-ADC item with even more armor than the Frozen Heart and a passive which damages the attacker hence, much hp means more damage to the attacker. But don't depend too much on the damage the attacker receives since mostly every ADC have a good % of Lifesteal so they'll get the lost hp back anyway.
: A respectable item for chasing and defending. It gives you a lot of HP and Defense but regarding it's passive the enemy who should be running away from you cannot use the hit and run style (e.g Ashe with her Frost Shot) since they will lose movement speed for slowing you, also it's active enables you to secure a kill by jumping on the enemy with e, than using the active and burst him down.
: A REALLY good item when you find yourself facing a DoT(Damage over Time) champ (e.g Teemo or Cassiopeia) since you can remove all debuffs , it gives a really good amount of flat AD and also MR so it can be used when you see a fed apc (hopefully the "2nd apc"(known as the supp in S3) and not the mid laner apc since you shouldn't be feeding him).
: Similarly to Mercurial Scimitar this is also an item with good flat AD and MR. The passive lets Talon excel as longer the fight goes on since the extra AD you get depends on how much hp you have left, this would synergize very well with hp and Lifesteal since with much hp you have more hp with the same % as if you would have low hp (e.g 50% of 4k hp would be 2k hp while 50% of 2k hp would be only 1k hp so chances that you die at 1k hp faster is higher than if you would have 2k hp while it has the same effect).

Now to the last part with the boots - some questions you should be asking yourself are
1.) Is the enemy jungler ganking you often ? If yes, does he have any slows/disables etc ?
2.) Are you going to roam around often before the first tower on any lane has been destroyed ?
3.) Is your enemy laner aggressive ?
4.) Is the whole enemy team a composition of disables ?

referring to 1.) it should be about laning phase so you rush your mercury treads at that point (regarding the enemy jungler OR your laner has any kind of slows/disables etc.)
2.) roaming around needs speed - boots of mobility
3.) most mid laner are ap so aggressive ap's means mercury treads
4.) likely to 1.) mercury treads
so basically you want to have mercury treads vs. APC and disables and boots of mobility for roaming.
For the enchantment I would decide between 4 tiers - Enchantment: Alacrity, Enchantment: Captain, Enchantment: Furor and Enchantment: Homeguard.
Enchantment: Alacrity for fast movement so you can even use it on mercury treads to roam arround faster.
Enchantment: Captain would fit for split pushing since Talon can push hard.
Enchantment: Furor for chasing so a kill is more likely to happen (though you shouldn't miss a single target but you never know what can happen).
Enchantment: Homeguard can be used in two situations:
1.) most of your towers are destroyed
2.) you want to get back faster on your lane.

Skill Explanation and Mechanics

" Talon deals 10% additional damage with his Autoattacks to any target that is slowed, stunned, immobilized or suppressed."
This passive is not the best ingame and is not very useful for the 'Simple Burst' since you won't be Autoattacking often during your burst, but there is a tricky way to use this passive efficiently.
First of all, your Rake is the only skill you have that will activate your passive(<-that contradiction xD but you get what I mean I guess..) but there are other things you can do so you don't need to rely on your Rake's slow since it only lasts for a short time and is a part of your burst. A Red Buff or a Frozen Mallet will do it since as well because both slow the enemy on-hit.
Why will this be effective on a Talon burst ?
Both the 'Standard' and the 'Advanced Burst' are using Autoattacks 3 times and Noxian Diplomacy 2 times (though I'm not really sure if his Passive also synergizes with Noxian Diplomacy please correct me if I'm wrong !) in total you get 50% more damage which could be a passive skill with 0.5 AD ratio so it's not that bad as people claim.
" Talon's next autoattack deals 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+0.3 per bonus attack damage) additional physical damage. If the target is a champion, they will bleed, taking 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+1.0 per bonus attack damage) over 6 seconds and revealing their location for the duration."
Noxian Diplomacy is a skill which resets the attack animation means, you can autoattack first and quick press Q to land Noxian Diplomacy right afterwards. That way an attack with 300 flat AD would result in 300(AA)+250( Noxian Diplomacy)+350(bleed) (disregarding the enemy armor) in an instant.
Though the enemy bleeds for 6 seconds I would not use it to secure a kill and just run away just to regret it later on since you have to think about for how long you attacked after you used Noxian Diplomacy. Just use Ignite instead since That would be another multiple of 100 damage.
" Talon sends out a volley of daggers in a cone that then quickly return back to him. This attack deals 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+0.6 per bonus attack damage) physical damage every time it passes through an enemy. Additionally, the enemy is slowed by 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% for 2 seconds."
Best.Skill.To.Farm. At level 9 with The Brutalizer you can kill every minion with only one Rake and the radius of this skill is so big that you can clear 4 whole waves with just one Rake (if you miss minions you still have your AA's and Noxian Diplomacy). The clear time cannot be beaten by any other Champion since using Rake does not even take a single second.
The slow is nearly unnoticable but still there so using it over the wall or to chase is always a bad idea.
The trick behind this skill is to harass the enemy laner and there is even a further trick: if you aim at the opponent with just the edge of the skill range it is still hard to react on the animation because it is way too fast, though don't rely too much on this trick as it will work only 1-2 times and the enemy laner will understand this mechanism.
" Talon instantly appears behind his target, silencing them for 1 second and amplifying his damage against that target by 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 % for 3 seconds."
People often underestimate Cutthroat and say this skill is just dumb because of the silence which "only" lasts for 1 second and the damage amplication which "tends not to be bursty enough", but this skill can be used in so many ways.
This skill can be used to stop channeling skills (e.g Katarina ult, Karthus ult which are both OP and hurts the whole team) as well as to dodge skill abilities (e.g Charm, Orb of Deception which hurts the attacker because the skill combo totally breaks down) and even outranges many other skills (e.g Null Sphere) while the Silence which lasts "only" 1 second enables Talon to do his full burst since it denies the enemy to stop your combo with disables (e.g Kassadin, Ahri etc.). The 1 second Silence is often underestimated but with Talon even 1 second is enough to burst the enemy down.
Disregarding this "dumb" ability to dodge, burst, gap close and stopping enemy channeling there is also the damage amplification which is 3% until late game but when you max this skill you have 15% damage amplification for 3 seconds, which is totally enough for Talon to use his full burst.
Lets use the example you have 300 AD and you are level 18. You jump on your opponent with Cutthroat, autoattack(300), Rake(460), auttoattack(300), Noxian Diplomacy right afterwards(250+350) then Shadow Assault(665) and end with autoattack(300) followed by another Noxian Diplomacy(250+350). In total that would make 300+460+300+600+665+300+600=3225 most people would say " Noxian Diplomacy has a cd of more than 3 seconds so it would not count on the damage amplification on e" that's true, but regarding you would have a The Black Cleaver and a Blue Buff it becomes another story. (Of course the enemy Armor is not calculated in this calculation) (3225 - 700) * 1,15 ~ 2904 (-700 since bleed won't be amplified). The difference between 2904 and 2525 is 379 which is not a huge damage to say "Oh my God this is the best skill ever" but it is respectable and it shouldn't be underestimated since sometimes the slightest damage can change the whole fight.
" Talon disperses a ring of blades outwards 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. Each time a blade passes through an enemy, they take 120 / 170 / 220 (+0.75 per bonus attack damage) physical damage. Each enemy can only be damaged once at the start of the ability and once at the end."
Talon's ultimate is one of the best ultimates ingame imo because
1.) It has a low Cooldowntime
2.) Can be used to Burst down enemies and to escape ganks due to the stealth
3.) is hardly countered
4.) use stealth to regain skills

1.) Shadow Assault naturally has an already low Cooldowntime but thinking that you have the CDR from The Black Cleaver (and Youmuu's Ghostblade) and Blue Buff you can spam this skill at every gank, team fight to burst or to disengage. The special thing late game is that in a longer team fight you can even use your ultimate up to twice (I've never seen a longer team fight till now but who knows..) and the enemy team will be sitting there having such eyes: ô_O since you already do a lot of damage but considering that you literally spam your skills will let the whole enemy team look old.
2.) It is kinda self-explaining since Shadow Assault has two options: Damage and Stealth which is optimal to damage the enemy and to run away using stealth (or to wait until your skills are up again =>4.))
3.) There are only few Champions who can negate the effect of Shadow Assault. There are two options, negate the damage (e.g Vladimir) or make you visible while you should be actually stealth (e.g Lee Sin) but mostly they cannot kill you anyway because your damage is too high for them (except the whole team fed him while you were one of them).

Likely to every skill, even this skill has disadvantages. Using a Vision Ward. Greater Vision Totem or Sweeping Lens can hurt you really much since you lose the ability to maintain stealth to regain your skills on top of that, every enemy can just simply use that kind items so every Champion can actually be a threat to you. Additionally you can still be attacked while you are stealth using skill shots so there can happen two things:
1.) you are disabled for a period of time (e.g stun) so the enemy can a.) escape or b.) chase you while you couldn't do anything useful for the 2,5 seconds.
2.) you used your ultimate and are glad that you can escape but that Nidalee's Javelin Toss hits you and you die. Before that happens, use your ultimate right on time and don't be afraid to use your ult early enough since you will regain your ultimate the fastest.

Skill Sequence

Two most efficient possibilities

The Skill Sequence on Talon varies but mostly you want the priority to be like R>W>Q>E but still you can choose how you wanna start off.
Basically your start is that you level up Rake first and afterwards Cutthroat then you can decide if you want to burst your laner early on with E->Q->W or just harass him with Rake a little bit more. Both ways are possible and none are better nor worse.
Simple Burst
The most simple Burst is E->Q->W->R and somewhere in between Ignite.

Standard Burst
A little bit harder version of Talon's burst is E->AA(AutoAttack)->Q->W->R and somewhere in between Ignite. You can also swap Rake with Shadow Assault and wait while you are stealth next to your enemy so you have your Q ready again and you AA->W first and then AA->Q so it would look like E->AA->Q->R->AA->W->AA->Q

Advanced Burst
The hardest but efficient burst imo is E->AA->W->AA->Q->R->AA->Q and Ignite somewhere inbetween. This burst can also be used from level 3 on with E->AA->W->AA->Q and deals the most possible damage (from my experience) as Talon. But don't overuse it as it will cut off your mana really fast ! (=> "mana efficiency")

Match ups

This match-up needs an extra level of "difficulty" since he is totally countered by Talon. Kassadin's passive Void Stone is only good against AP casters but you are Talon so you totally counter him in terms of passive. Adding to that, Talon's Cutthroat outranged Kassadin's Null Sphere so you can burst him down before he can even silence you. On top of that Null Sphere is his only Damage ability until he reaches level 6 since his Force Pulse isn't charged by your skills so he cannot rely on it too much as a Damage ability. When he gains Riftwalk he will obviously start ganking bot and top lane since he will be able to move faster than you. At this point you need to act fast, you tell your laner to be careful and to maintain his lane until the jungler arrives and you gank the opposite lane of it or you help your laner which would be ganked by Kassadin. Logically you help your laner when you see that the opposite lane is totally doing fine and there is no champ in sight.
Other than that Kassadin shouldn't be any threat to you and your team.
The only thing Kassadin can do against a Talon is building up a Rod of Ages to stack hp but any other defensive item on Kassadin is not an essential to the build so any more defensive items will result in Kassadin lacking of damage while Talon won't have any problems dealing with Kassadin's hp anyway.
Lux is an easy match up for Talon since Lux relies on her Light Binding Lucent Singularity-Combo but Talon can easily evade Light Binding since it has a slow animation and Lux will stay there defenseless which is an easy target for Talon but don't be fooled ! Any early tower dive on Lux can result deadly since she can use her Prismatic Barrier and in worst cases Flash away from you so you stay under the tower with the tower aggro on you. Final Spark: the only ult with a lower Cooldowntime on it (yeah, I know that there are Akali and so on but you know what I mean ..) plus it is a global skill so Lux doesn't need to move from the lane and kill every laner with low hp.
The special thing about Lux is that mid - late game when team fights start she is one big threat to up to 2 teammates since she can first snare them and when they are low hp she can use her ult to double kill them. That's the mechanics of Lux so be careful that she won't accelerate through team fights.
Likely to Lux, Ahri is Combo-dependend first using Charm and immediately Orb of Deception afterwards followed by Fox-Fire. Even Talon can be hurt hardly by this Combo since this does more damage then Lux could do, but Charm can be also dodged with Cutthroat though Charm has a better range so always be careful, another alternative is to use Cutthroat on a minion next to you since there is no cast time in Cutthroat you will immediately move to the minion. Unlikely to Lux Ahri can only be a threat to one team mate since her Charm hits a maximum of one Champion but her engaging and disengaging abilities can be used to kite any easy kiteable Champion so be careful !
Morgana is actually a strong Champion and can be a big threat to your team in a team fight due to Soul Shackles but the channeling can be interrupted with your Cutthroat so try to spare it in a team fight !
Furthermore Dark Binding is a great skill because it deals tons of damage and Tormented Soil can be casted right afterwards for the extra damage. The range on this skill is not to laugh at so be careful when walking near some walls as she can snipe you from the other side of the wall. The disadvantage Morgana has is that she has a long Cooldowntime on all of her skills so if she uses her skills and you burst her down, she is defenseless for the rest of the time while you can regain Rake and Noxian Diplomacy in that time.
Veigar is one of the deadliest AP casters with a flawless Combo and accels as long as the game goes since his Baleful Strike Passive gives him AP each Monster/large minion/champion etc. His AoE damage is also not to laugh at since the ratio is 100% of his AP though it has a cast time of 1,2 seconds it is deadly.
His Combo is mainly Event Horizon-> Dark Matter-> Baleful Strike and whenever he can he ults, early game you can evade his combo by using Cutthroat immediately after you are free from being stunned and do your burst but later on you cannot evade Dark Matter since it's stun time increases based on it's level.
Katarina is one of the strongest mid laner in my opinion but Talon counters her in many ways. Pre-6 you can harass Katarina with your burst or your Rake but at level 6 don't engage with your Cutthroat as Katarina can use Death Lotus on you while you can't do anything except trying to kill her first. Just wait for Katarina to engage with Shunpo and use your burst and she will attack you until she realizes, your Cutthroat nullifies her Death Lotus. Additionally Katarina can't farm under tower while Talon can push hard so it is just obvious that you push as hard as you can vs. Katarina but always keep an eye out for the enemy jungler.
Zed is a counter and can be countered by Talon since Zed only has skillshots and AoE skills (except for Death Mark) so even not being able to see where Talon is Zed can use skillshots to attack Talon. Most people claim that Talon's Shadow Assault is a counter to Zed's Death Mark but since Zed's Death Mark's remaining time has been increased it can be combined with Sweeping Lens and a Zed can use his skills on you. Don't worry though if Zed doesn't have any Sweeping Lens he won't be such a harm to you.
Always watch out for the Living Shadow since a good Zed will use it to engage and disengage while most people just don't realize that there is a Living Shadow on the field or in the brush.
Likely to Kassadin Zed will try to feed himself from other lanes when he realizes that he has no success on your lane but here you want to block the river so he won't be able to get away.
Karthus is also an easy laner since he only has his Lay Waste which also has a delay so it's just easy to evade and his Defile which is not even strong since it needs a lot of mana and only dealing low damage. The only threat to the whole team can be is when he uses Requiem because it is a global attack so Karthus can kill anyone without being near to them, to prevent Karthus from channeling Requiem you can use your Cutthroat on him but this is impossible when Karthus is dead or when he is somewhere outside your range.
His passive is also not really special itself since you can just kill Karthus and get out of his range and you are safe.
When chasing or being chased be careful not to enter a jungle because Karthus can use Wall of Pain which lets you no other way to escape.

Laning Phase (Early - Mid Game)

So first of all Lolnexus.com is a very good site to analyze your enemy BEFORE your game even starts. That way you know what start you should take, who will be easy to kill/gank and Lolcounter.com is a good site to see, which alternatives you should buy to fight efficiently against your laner and what to do against your laner and you can even check how much you counter whom.
Also "Mana efficiency" is a good term you should consider to sustain longer on the lane, for more information on Lolnexus.com and Mana efficiency check out Vapora's Guide as I won't copy his guide.
Additionally, depending on the enemy if he can use stealth skills or not you buy a Warding Totem or a Sweeping Lens.


Basically my start is a slight Blue pull with my Rake standing on the other side of the wall to get back on my lane as fast as possible by that time you should get the first minion. Always try to stay back and avoid getting near your enemy if possible but try to kill the minions in the back as well, if your laner goes aggressive on you try to use your Rake to last hit and keep your distance.
Everytime you need to last hit with your Rake try to hit your enemy as well so you can be "Mana efficient".
At any normal game try to E->Q->W or E->AA->W->AA->Q the enemy from level 3 but try not to get as much damage so your laner won't attack you while you farm because that would be a self burried grave and you can even deny his farm and exp that way by patroling behind the last minions.
BUT(!!!) always keep an eye out, where the enemy jungler might be and when he might be ganking you, so place wards and play safe when you realize that your enemy jungler ganks you often.

When you hit level 6 you might have a The Brutalizer or atleast 2x Long Sword which would be enough to 100-0 (in the worst cases 80-0 to secure a kill) any enemy laner who has no defensive items (regarding the enemy has not a 0/30/0 Mastery build and only Armor Runes) even with the Simple Burst.
If you fail to kill the enemy, don't panic. Just don't try things which can kill you (like early diving, chasing for too long etc.). Stay on your lane and farm since you will have much more cs and a higher level and since you are a mid laner, neither top nor bot laner would be at a higher level than you.

From level 6 on don't be afraid to roam around and even dive half hp ADC with your team if necessary but also always ward your surroundings so there will be no interruption by the jungler or even your laner. That way you will snowball like no other Champion and your kill counter will rise significantly (and you will be popular by the enemy team so they will try to group gank you but there are several ways to prevent such deaths).
Always take care of your lane though when roaming because if you lose your tower two kills on bot lane won't make it up, since towers are the priority, not the kills, so better make sure your laner is dead by the time you start roaming or at least he backed up and you pushed the lane to the tower.

By now the first team fights (alternatively at the Dragon Nest and/or Baron Nest) should start which is in my opinion one of the signs of Mid Game.
So in a team fight there are two options, you wait for your team to bait the whole team and wait for a gap where you can assassinate the enemy ADC from the side and engage the enemy from behind or you wait for your team to lower a champs hp and you engage with E->R and use AA->W->AA->Q and ignite somewhere in between on the ADC, this kind of engaging can be varied and that's not one of my favorite engagement since
1.) you let your team fight 4 v 5
2.) E->R isn't as effective and needs a good amount of damage to kill the enemy ADC with such less skills left
The reason why engaging the ADC from the side/back is the best option
You don't waste your skills on a supp/tank/APC and when you activate your R you cannot be hit by the ADC's basic attacks, hence his/her Lifesteal is useless at that point. By the time you use your second AA->Q (and eventually Ignite) the ADC should be dead and you can use your Flash to go to your team for cover or any other kind of disengaging. Since the ADC is dead it should be an easy team fight now though. Plus you are the assassin, there should be no other champion who should be doing your job (except for a possible Zed on Top lane or Evelynn from the jungle).

Late Game

Late Game there are many options
1.) Split pushing while the team is baiting the enemy
2.) Baron to win team fights even better(/easier) (Dragon as well for more Global Gold)
3.) Just keep the team fight

What you should always do: ALWAYS WARD BARON since the enemy will try to take any chance to kill Baron and Late Game it won't take long to kill Baron with a full team. I can just underline this statement.

1.) You tell your team to keep the enemy in range but not to engage since they will be on a severe disadvantage. From there on you need to analyze the situation, is there a lane which is pushed hard by that time ? How much hp do you have ? Which jungle to which lane is warded most ? (Blue buff camp / Red buff camp ?)
Preferably you go to the lane which is pushed really hard (I would define this term that you need to clear one wave and would engage a maximum of one minion wave to the next tower) if there is no lane like this and you build up Talon with 4k hp and are nearly full hp you can take out every tower (except the duo tower at the nexus) at full hp when you have a Blue buff and you use your Q as often as possible (at any normal situation the sequence is AA->Q->AA->AA->AA->Q immediately). Tell your team to tell you right after one enemy leaves (in most cases to you).
2.) Likely to 1.) analyze the situation, how many enemies/teammates are alive ? On which side of the map can you see them ?
At any rate try to do Baron when your team is on an advantage in terms of quantity (e.g 4v5 and the enemy ADC is dead, they would not dare to engage a Baron) and when you can see enemies on the bot lane pushing, at worst cases send one fed team mate to the bot lane while doing Baron since he should be able to take out multiple enemies with a Baron Buff (which he should have by the time he reaches the bottom lane). (In normal cases the most fed champion should be you anyway) The next thing you and your team mates do is taking out enemies OR the tank tanking the next tower and pushing as hard as possible so the enemy cannot keep pushing bot lane
3.) The idea behind this is to ace the enemy team and destroy as many turrets as possible while the enemy death counter is on countdown (which should be at a very high number late game).

Afterword

I want to thank you for reading this guide, I'm still a newb I know it but I don't play to be the best but to have fun with my mates (Yun and mah Bro) and I decided to help other people with my main champ since helping is fun too :)
This guide is not complete in my opinion since you always discover new aspects from a champ especially because a new season will begin soon which means there will be renewals for or against Talon as an advantage/disadvantage so I will try to keep it up with my guide and I will try to update this guide as often as possible (and I even want to make videos to show some examples of how to play Talon since some people just can play better after seeing videos).
That's it for now, please rate, comment and ... no not subscribe xD
Critics are welcome but don't just rate this guide bad but let it pass without comment and please tell me, which part could be done better, if any questions are left you can also use the comment section. (I'm pretty sure I wanted to add some more Chapters, unfortunately while writing the last Chapter I forgot it .. xD)

Peace out, yo ~