Talon Build Guide by Facade

Introduction

Hello summoners! I'm Facàde and this is my very first guide! I hope to spread to you my wisdom of Talon, and get you started on playing this very unique and bone shattering champion.

So you want to play Talon and carry every single game with insane damage output? Well you've come to the right place. Within this guide lies all the little tips and tricks to carrying your team to dominance.

I'll be covering :
Laning
Items
Skills
General Gameplay
Doing so much damage your opponents soil themselves

Also I'll be covering runes and masteries and all that jazz

Runes and Masteries

RUNES :
I take flat AR Pen Marks. Greater Mark of Desolation
-Talon is AD, thus armor penetration can't go unnoticed.
Attack Speed Seals
-Again Talon = AD so the more you hit, the better!
CD/Per Lvl Glyphs
-At level 18 I find that the more I can Rake and Cutthroat the better!

Now lets go into detail.

The Greater Mark of Desolations allow to you to seriously hurt the enemy. It vastly improves the output on your Rake and Noxian Diplomacy throughout the ENTIRE game.

The Greater Seal of Attack Speeds give you that early game edge. I say this for a few reasons, the first being minion farming. You should be last hitting, but getting to each individual low-hp minion will help you last hit grouped up minions.
Secondly, your cutthroat. The way it works is you teleport behind your enemy. Simple right? But with the bonus attack speed from your runes, you'll be able to land a nice Noxian Diplomacy without them running back or flashing.

Finally, the Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reductions. Now your probably thinking...Facàde, you silly willy walnut head, why on earth would you give a burst AD champ cooldown reduction? The answer is simple : more burst, more often. I HATE waiting for cutthroat and I LOVE having it up more often for better HARASSING, and as an added bonus it's a great escape mechanism when your getting ganked while over-extended, and there's a nice group of enemy minions mid-lane.

As for the Quintessences, the Greater Quintessence of Attack Damages gives you a nice early game damage boost.
And as for the Greater Quintessence of Desolation well ... do I have to say it again? More penetration, in every way imaginable.

MASTERIES:

To quickly review the mastery sheet, it's built so you do more damage.
Sorcery gives you nice cooldown reduction that goes well with the runes.
Alacrity gives you more attack speed that also goes well with your runes.
Brute Force does well with the Attack Damage quintessences, giving you a combined bonus 7.25 AD.
And Havoc +4% damage will make your enemies rage quit.

Summoner Spells

I'm not going to spend too much time on these, just a list of viable, and not viable.

VIABLE

or

Both of these work really well with your ultimate, and give you a nice escape option throughout the entire game. On Talon, I would only pick one of these, save the other slot for something team-related.

or

Both of these are team related. Ignite can shut down other carry's lifesteal, health regen, and incoming healing spells. I'm not going to lie to you though, I usually end up getting 1 or 2 kills early game thanks to this ability. Exhaust can make a huge difference late game to your team. That Master Yi who's trying to 3 shot your Miss Fortune is going to have a really hard time doing that with a 70% attack damage cut.



If you are playing against a team with a lot of CC, you might want to consider using this spell. I would be very careful picking it up though, on Talon it is extremely situational.


NOT VIABLE



You are bottom lane, not top. You should only be backing after successfully killing an enemy champion, or a turret. This guide is all about staying alive, and not taking damage, so don't use death as an excuse. Push a lane, damage / take a tower, make sure you have enough time to walk back down. Not hard.



You are not a tank. This will -9 times out of 10- not help your team in fights, and that's where you are needed. Plain and simple.



As I say later in the game, you aren't a reckless spam machine. Learn when, and when not to use abilities, and you shouldn't have a problem with your mana.

ALL OTHER ABILITIES SHOULD BE OBVIOUS

Items

Welcome to Summoners Rift!

Here's a complementary Doran's Blade!
+10 Attack Damage
+100 Health
+3% Lifesteal

The Attack Damage with all of your runes and masteries sync's really well.
The Health and Lifesteal give you more survivability in lane. This means less backing and more farming.



5 to 10 minutes have passed, assuming you haven't gotten killed, and haven't been pushed back from farming (avoiding this will be explained in the Laning and Skills section) you should have enough for Boots of Speed and Vampiric Scepter.

I take Boots of Speed for the speed, the earlier you get them the better; if it saves you from needing to use Flash at least once, it was worth it.
The Vampiric Scepter is for more survivability. Don't worry, if you've done a good job of not being underleveled, you wont need high-end AD items quite yet.

--

Now you should be entering mid game with a few champion kills and a steady minion farm. Now is your time to finish Boots of Swiftness and you should be getting really close to your B. F. Sword. What does the B.F. stand for? Best Friend.

I take Boots of Swiftness over Berserker's Greaves for a very important reason. YOU ARE BURST. That means you need to get in, get out, and do it fast. You are an assassin, the blades shadow. You don't take your sweet time getting around. Picking up your B. F. Sword as early as possible after boots assures your bursts are really hitting the enemies where it hurts.

--

You're continuing mid-game, but there has been some progression. You should have enough money to full-out buy Sheen. This substantially boosts your Noxian Diplomacy's damage, and since it's what you're leveling AFTER Rake, the damage curve will be too much for your enemies to handle.

--

For the rest of the game, and item build, use your first B. F. Sword to finish an Infinity Edge. Get a second B. F. Sword and quickly after finish your The Bloodthirster Then, finish your Trinity Force. Your enemies should be falling at your feet at this point. The second The Bloodthirster is for AMAZING survivability and damage. And finally pick up a survivability item.

VIABLE BUILD FINISHERS



I usually go with Frozen Mallet, because it helps your team secure kills, and gives you a decent health bonus.

However, it's also completely viable to get any of the following :



The Banshee's Veil can give you a nice health boost, but also dramatically improve your survivability with it's spell-block.



The Hexdrinker is Talon's Guardian Angel. I'll explain this shortly. However this is a VERY situational item.
I would take this only under these conditions :
-The enemies Ability Power is your main damage intake
AND
-The enemies AP Champions are making it away from fights with low HP.

If the enemy Ability Power champions are killing you before you can even touch them, this item is almost useless.


The Phantom Dancer is a great pick if you aren't dying a lot, but your enemies are getting away with low health. The movement speed along with your Boots of Swiftness and your Trinity Force will assure nobody out-runs you, as well as giving you more crits, more often.



Yes. A third The Bloodthirster. Your lifesteal and damage will make God cry. I would take this if getting low isn't MUCH of a problem, and if you want to unbearably troll the other team with your completely absurd damage.

STAY AWAY

from items like :



The amount of defense and MR is nice, but it usually wont take you very far. And considering you should be using your Shadow Assault to get INTO fights, you shouldn't be very reliant on a GA revive + Ultimate to get out.
The reason I say Hexdrinker is more viable is because it keeps you in the flow, and gives you attack damage. The magic resist isn't really it's purpose.


and


You aren't a tank.
YOU ARE NOT A TANK
If YOUR tank can't handle the enemy team, it's most likely YOUR fault for not HELPING them in the mid-game. This being said, never resort to fulfilling the tank role. If Talon needs to tank, the game is already over.

Role, Laning, and Skills

ROLE / LANING

So you picked your Doran's Blade and you're headed down bot. Wat do?

First of all you realized to go bottom because Talon is SQUISHY and a TEAM PLAYER. In fact, without his team early game, he is completely useless except for clean-up. And yes, he is an assassin, but I wouldn't identify his role as clean up.

Talon Synchronizes very well with DAMAGE.

Good lane partners are :







These champions will melt away at your enemies health bar, allowing you to harass, and burst, and finish enemy champions. As you'll notice most of these champions have some form of range on them, this is generally what will give you the syncing flow of a bottom lane partner. You go in to farm, if the enemy gets too close, your range tells them no, you harass, you farm again.

Talon does MODERATELY well with tanks and support. You usually will have a smooth time laning, but you usually wont pick up any more than 4 kills before 15 minutes.

Now, how do you pick up kills as Talon? Do you spam Rake? Do you dive in with cutthroat every time it's up?
The answer is NO. You are NOT a hotshotgg 2 hit wonder. Not yet anyways. Focus on minion kills, without pushing your lane too hard. All you need to do is last hit a minion to get the gold, use the time you aren't last hitting to look at your map, build strategy, harass, and work with your laning partner.

"But Facàade, you said don't spam endlessly"

Exactly. You do have mana, believe it or not, so make your hits count. If there's an enemy Garen in your lane, and an enemy Ashe, if you so much as think of using any of your precious abilities on Garen, you're doing it wrong. If your excuse is that your partner is targeting Garen, THEY are doing it wrong. Ping the harassable, and eliminate the threat, their carries. THAT is your role.

As far as laning goes, play passive-aggressive. By this I mean be as aggressive as you can, without being reckless. Your strikes should be precise, well planned, and most importantly, SAFE. You shouldn't be aggro-ing full waves of minions.
TL;DR AVOID DAMAGE AT ALL COSTS

This doesn't apply to specifically Talon, but every time I recall, I grab 2 sight wards. One for enemy bush, and the gank-bush above the lane. Don't get tired of being ganked. Stop the problem before it even happens.

Also, Talon is NOT a roaming character. Sure, he might go mid for a gank if your mid needs help, but he shouldn't really even need to more than once. Save anything that isn't bot related till mid-game. Preferably after you get bottom tower. After that, help your teammates, place more wards, control the map.

SKILLS

In order of when to MAX them

> > cutthroat

First we start off with Rake. This is Talons early game best friend. You can stop enemies from chasing you, you can stop enemies from running away from you, you can do tons of damage, and you can maximize the benefit of your passive. Also, it can be a great tool when it comes to minion farm. This said, don't use Rake on full health minion waves. Where it might be great taking down more than 4 enemy minions at once, if you do it while they have full health, you will push your lane too hard.
TL;DR : Harass the enemy champions, not the minions.


The second skill we pick up is cutthroat, however we MAX it last. We get this skill second because it's what really kicks in Talons harassing. The damage amplification, plus your passive once you Rake them, allows your basic attacks to do higher-than-average damage early game. Once you hit level 2, start harassing, just remember to take the least amount of damage possible.

Finally we pick up Noxian Diplomacy. This ability won't fully thrive until you are maxing it out paired with Sheen, but it definitely helps your harass. More importantly, it help you focus on minion farm. If you have 20 minion kills at 10 minutes, you aren't doing it right.

As far as your ultimate, Shadow Assault goes, you really need practice with it to get the most damage out of it. I can't give you that experience, but I'll give you some tips to help the curve.

You can use Shadow Assault before the enemy sees you to get a fully surprising gank. Just remember you wont get the initial outburst damage. Take time learning when to use stealth over damage, or visa-versa.

Shadow Assaults damage is maxed if you hit the enemy once with the outburst, then multiple times on it's inward flight. You should have as many of the blades hitting them as possible.

You can close the gap between you and your enemies by using cutthroat while you are in stealth of Shadow Assault, just remember they will probably be running, so use your movement speed to your advantage and get on the other side of them BEFORE your blades get to you.

Any of your abilities you use [aside from summoner abilities] take you out of stealth. This is exactly why either Flash or Ghost work really well on Talon



EARLY GAME

Practically already covered. Ward, take a tower, get yourself some kills.

MID GAME

Now you really want to start focusing on helping mid and top. By this I don't mean populate their lane. I usually head into the jungle at about 20-25 minutes and keep farming up. Whenever I see a team fight about to happen, or an open ganking opportunity, I will head in immediately. A great part about jungle-farming mid-game as Talon is the ability to place sight wards!! Every 3 minions you kill you get a ward. YAY!! Try to have some of your teammates get wards too, but don't RELY on them. I usually get around 5-6 wards within the 20-25 minute period.
TL;DR BE CONSTANTLY IN THE JUNGLE AND CONSTANTLY IN TEAM FIGHTS

END GAME

You are a MURDER MACHINE!! That enemy Ashe should be falling to your feet in a matter of SECONDS. Even the beefier off-tanks will have trouble picking themselves up from your bursts.

DON'T BE FOOLED - You still NEED your team to win. Don't be initiating, and don't be split pushing. Remember your ROLE is to jump into the fight AFTER it's started to COMPLETELY DECIMATE the enemy CARRIES. If you do this properly, your team should have no problem saying hello to the enemy nexus.

Summary

Thank you for reading my guide! Again, it's my very first guide, so I appreciate any feedback you have for me!

I hope you gained some sort of new knowledge on Talon, he is a great champion to master with a great mastery reward!

Have fun out there in the battlefield summoners!



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