Talon Build Guide by Mpegial

So if you wish to main Talon you HAVE to know his lore, you simply must! (Not really but here we go anyways!). Talon is an assassin , he used to be a hoodrat that lived by stealing and killing at times for money, at some point General Du Couteau sent assassins to recruit Talon or should he refuse they would kill him , however Talon killed them and left their bodies to be found as an answer.General Du Couteau decided to visit Talon himself and the result was Talon's defeat. He gave Talon a choice to either join him or die, Talon decided to join due to his respect for the General after losing to him, and would follow only the orders of the one he respected. Since Talon joined, the General made him train his daughter Katarina, and since the General's disappearance Talon was the best blade master there was with Katarina being second. And now he is working for Noxus hoping that he will find the General since he is the only person he respects due to losing to him. As for his gameplay Talon is capable of assassinating many enemies with ease, but lacks a lot during late game.

1. Blade's End is applying a mark whenever an enemy is hit by an ability that deals damage. After getting 3 marks on an enemy once you auto attack that enemy they will bleed for a few seconds taking bleeding damage.

2. Noxian Diplomacy can act as a gap closer since it makes Talon leap to the target dealing damage and applying a mark, if in melee range Talon will perform a critical strike with his Noxian Diplomacy

3. Rake throws 3 blades applying 1 marks once when they come out and hit and 1 on the way back, it also slows the enemy hit on the way back for 40% at level 1 and 60% at max rank.

4. Shadow Assault throws 12 blades outwards from Talon's location dealing damage making him invisible for a short time and reactivating the ability will pull the blades towards Talon dealing damage and applying a mark , if the enemy is auto attacked or hit by Noxian Diplomacy during the Shadow Assault the blades will converge upon the target hit applying a mark. (Note: if Rake is used during this ultimate the ultimate will not converge on the target and will cancel the invisibility).

5.At last Assassin's Path allows Talon to jump over any wall setting that one wall in a cooldown during that cooldown Talon can not jump over the same wall , it also allows Talon to jump over champion made walls.

Pros
Huge burst of damage.
Strong early game.
Very good roaming/ganking capabilities.

Cons
Doesn't scale well in late game.
He is squishy.
Can easily be countered by crowd control.

Talon has few uses for other summoner spells other then Ignite and Flash, however that isn't to say that he doesn't use others, a good example would be Exhaust as it may make it harder for you to get a kill early on, however it is more useful at later game for catching enemies, assisting allies or during ganking. Another useful spell would be Ghost to increase mobility even further, or Barrier to help survival more. Now while all those are good the main reason Ignite is more often picked is because it helps Talon snowball in the early game and finish it faster, as he has problems the longer the game goes on.

So farming is important to everyone, but naturally it is harder to focus on farming when you are an assassin and it is easier to kill others, do not ignore farming however, as it is crucial to gold gain. Talon's main method for farming is by auto attacking and spamming the hell out of Rake, it is especially useful early on where you can poke your enemy while farming, Noxian Diplomacy can also be used to kill minnions to gain a bit of health and reset the cooldown by 50%. In general farming is important for all champions even if it is easier to kill rather than farm.

Main Rune:
So for the main rune Domination is obvious as a choice simply because it fits best for Talon's abilities. Electrocute as the main one is clearly the best option for Talon because it works well with his abilities with Rake and Noxian Diplomacy having the capability to do exactly 3 hits, and couple that with the passive Blade's End the damage output is really good. So Zombie Ward is very useful as it gives you a bit of stats and helps with vision overall, Eyball Collection is also an option however I believe it is less useful, as for the last Domination rune I believe that it is between Relentless Hunter and the Ultimate Hunter, both are useful as one grants a good boost to mobility and one allows, for your Ultimate to help you a lot more often.



Secondary Rune:
As for the secondary rune Precision is very useful for survival due to Triumph
and good for damage thanks to Coup de Grace, however Sorcery is also useful
for sustain during lane thanks to Manaflow Band, Nullifying Orb is as well
quite good for survival, and I could also recommend Transcendence for the use
of it's cooldown reduction.

I believe it is best you choose which secondary rune you pick as it helps you see which playstyle you prefer.

-Combos
1. R,W,AA,Q,AA Damage: High/Speed: Slow

2. Q,W,AA,R,AA Damage: High/Speed: Medium

3. R,Q,AA Damage: Low/Speed: High

4. W,Q,AA,R,AA Damage: High/Speed: Medium

5.R,Q,W,AA Damage: Medium/Speed: Very High

Team work, this is an interesting matter with Talon, as you may know Talon doesn't have any abilities other than Rake that could be helpful in assisting his team. However Talon has very high mobility and due to that he has a few options to help his allies, the most crucial one is Ganking, it is very important have map awareness. Having map awareness helps you know when to gank or not.

Another way to help your team is a simply assassination, Talon is an assassin and thus getting to the backline of the enemy and killing their weakest (Or members with the lowest health) targets helps your team charge in more easily without worrying about Damage and Crowd Control.

So, yes and no. Any champion can be played for ranked, Talon is really good at the early to mid game, however past that he starts becoming less and less useful, in other words you need to finish the game relatively faster. His potential fully depends on how good You are with him as with all champions, regardless yes he can be very good as long as you get kills fairly early and help your team overall with vision, ganking, or simply getting rid of the most troublesome enemy.

Thank you very much for reading the Guide to the end, I hope it helped you understand the champion better, and give you interest in playing him.

Now please go on and get First Blood on all those mages, and most of all have Fun