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Nocturne Build Guide by

Nocturne - The Nightmare of The Jungle

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9 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author qpwoei12

Nocturne Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (9) More Nocturne Guides

Spells:

Smite

Flash

Ability Order

Nocturne Passive Ability

More Nocturne Counters

Introduction

Hello! And welcome to my jungle Nocturne guide. This will be my first guide on MobaFire and also I have no experience on guidemaking, but I love Nocturne a lot and I want to make a guide explaining the way I play him and why. Hopefully you will enjoy this guide and use it during your games. Please note that none of the cheat sheet is set in stone but it's there to show how to build him and the way he plays with the build. As with all guides, use your best judgement and change whatever you need to during the course of the game. Do not strictly follow the item build every game!!

P.S. This guide is quite long in a sense because of all the typing I did. It looks like a wall of text -.-" Don't downvote for that sole reason and please give me some advice as to how I can shorten it down. I do enjoy typing and I think that's why it's so long. :)

Pros and Cons of Our Unfriendly Nightmare

Pros!

Fast jungler
Awesome ganker at levels 6+
Strong damage while able to maintain some tankyness
Good passive for the jungle Umbra Blades
Duskbringer is like a mini-ghost
AD steriod with Duskbringer
Spell shield Shroud of Darkness
Evil laugh when he ults and blocks with Shroud of Darkness >:)

SPACE

Cons...

Weaker early jungle than others
His fear has short range and you have to stay in that range for it to take effect
Somewhat squishy before his survivability items
Always asks if you're tired and that makes me tired >.<

Runes

Marks

For marks, I chose 3 AS and 6 ArPen. Why? Because the extra AS will help you proc your passive more often and ArPen helps in the jungle and during late game when players start to get a bit more armor.

Seals

For seals, you should use flat armor, these are the only *required* runes for any jungler. You need at least 11 armor in runes to make it through the jungle on Noct and these runes will get you there.

Glyphs

For glyphs, we would take the most common pick for junglers which is MRes/level. MRes isn't needed in the jungle and the per level ones will give you a good 24 extra MRes to deal with later game AP champions.

Quints

Quintessences aren't as strict as the others so I chose one ArPen quint to boost my ArPen a bit more and the other two as MS. This extra MS is helpful all game and I really think that any other type of quint is not as helpful throughout the game as MS quints. You can still choose other runes but they tend to fall off later and not be as noticeable.

Masteries

I run 21/9/0 which is pretty common for DPS junglers. 21 in the Offensive Tree will boost your damage and overall effectiveness through the jungle and 9 in Defense helps you negate the damage from jungle creeps. Not much to say here because it's a pretty standard set.

Items

Core Items

These items will give you good enough damage and provide you with the tankyness that you need. Almost always a must.

Situational Items

Mostly offensive items to boost your damage output in a certain way. Each of these excels in their own sense and you should choose accordingly.

Start with a , this will make sure that you take little damage while jungling combined with your passive. Next up is boots to get your MS going. Then you upgrade your Vamp Scepter to a Wriggles if you can. If you cant, purchase the parts of whenever you back. Build Merc's or Zerker's depending on the enemy team. I put Merc's up there because it is such an amazing item and it isn't often that you go up against a team with less that 3 CCs. Build a and leave it at that while you start your Atma's. Once you finish that, Warmog's will synergise well with Atma's and it will give you a good chunk of health to play around with. Now finish with a and another item of choice.

I would take most of the time because it will help with low armor targets, but if they have more armor, go ahead and take . If they are stacking HP, take to even things out. Lastly, if the game is still going on and you want more lifesteal/AD, replace your with a Bloodthrister.

Skill Sequence

For skills, you want to max as fast as you can while placing points into other skills as needed. The cheat sheet shows what I do most games, but you can tweak it so that it suits you and your other teammates. For example, if any lane is getting pushed hard early, you might want to take at level 2 instead of , because then you can go for an early gank. But usually, level 2 will give you enough AS at level 2 and more levels wont do much for you. Of course, take whenever you can.

Summoner Spells

These summoner spells help you with your jungle and ganking power. First off, is a must because it speeds up your jungle, ensures that your buffs and dragon go to YOU, and lets you steal the other teams buffs. I cannot stress how important is. I know that jungling is possible without it but it is not viable, it is not ideal, and your buffs get stolen :( So TAKE SMITE because if you don't, you're gonna have a miserable time in the jungle. My other pick is because it is such a useful tool in almost every situation. Combined with your ganks will become godly. It provides an escape too and you can quickly surprise anybody. If you want though, you can take a different spell.

Other Viable Picks

will provide you with full offensive power and it's usually used early to ensure that nice First Blood. is the one that I would take if i didn't take because it can be used both offensively and defensively, providing more utility than, say, . is good if you don't like flash or don't have it, but you already have a built in mini-ghost with so it's not as good on . is useful if you feel like you'll die as soon as you get CC'd but if you're really looking into a cleanse, is your item if you don't like .

Jungling, a Mini-Guide for Nocturne

Jungling is the art of going to the jungle and taking the creeps that peacefully live there instead of going to a lane. Most junglers are Tanky DPSers who can dish out a good amount of damage while not taking much themselves.
is such a champion in the jungle and he excels at his job. When you jungle, you take the smaller creeps(Wolves, Wraiths, and Golems) whenever they're up or as much as you can. Also, you try to gank the lanes in need and hold solo lanes when they need to buy. As , you are a premier ganker and you should be ganking more than others. Take blue buff earlier to help in the jungle and take red right before you want to gank. This will ensure that you do the most damage and raises your chances of a successful gank. A successful gank does not mean that you get a kill. If you force them to Flash or Ghost. you've already helped that lane.

The Route I Use

I take a pretty simple and safe route when I jungle Nocturne.
1. Wolves(Don't Smite)
2. Wraiths(Don't Smite)
3. Dual Golems(Smite the big one when it's low)
This should be sufficient to bring you to level 2, almost level 3

4. Wolves Again(no smite)
5. Blue Golem(Smite when he's low)
Then Wraiths, Golems, Red, gank, Buy.
You could choose to gank earlier if they need it or you are confident, but note that I don't back until I finish my gank. If you would like to gank earlier, take at level 2.

The rest is usually based on how your teammates play vs the other team. If the other team is pushing quite a bit, then gank more often. If they aren't, stay in the jungle and hold lanes when people go back and buy. I cannot predict how the game will turn out past this point and you should use your head and make changes to suit the situation. Also, try to take dragon after a successful gank, it gives almost 1000 gold to the whole team, being that each player gets 190g. This is almost necessary to make sure that your team gets the upper hand gold-wise.

Warding and Why

As your team's jungler, you *should* be the one warding important spots of the map. Warding spots like dragon and Baron will help your team by keeping sight of them. This will allow you to set up a gank when you see them take a certain monster. You will be able to control the jungle and if you do everything right, the enemy team can't do anything about it.
Here is a diagram of warding spots:

I will categorize the wards by priority.

1. First priority (marked as "1" on the map) are the wards revealing the Dragon and Baron Nashor. These two creatures are very essential for winning the game.
After the Dragon spawns (2:30 min) you should have a ward on him and gank your enemies if they try to take it.
Also when the mid game begins you also want to ward Baron (spawns at 15:00) because taking it your enemies will have great advantage.

2. Second priority are the buff monsters (marked naturally as "2" on the map). The buff monsters provide really good buffs so your enemies will want them. The places they are at, can also be reached by many ways. So if you place a ward on the right place, you can cover 5 - 6 ways plus the buffs so badly needed for the win.

3. Third priority ("3" on the map) are the wards preventing the ganks on your lanes. Used mostly during the lane phases and less when the lane phase begins.

4. Fourth priority ("4" on the map) are places where you can just cover a fair number of ways or just the most used gank places. Warding such places is most useful if you push a lane and you need vision. (e.g. if you push top, ward the ganking places in the top forest so you wont be surprised).

E. Exceptional warding places ("E" on the map) are the places where you ward in exceptional cases. If its unsafe to wander into the forest or to see the enemy position in base. The exceptional ward places should be used for the moment. These are not valid places for long term warding.

Thanks to Panglot for making the map and letting me use it! Check out his full guide to warding here.

Conclusion

Building this way will allow you to tank a good amount of damage, deal a good amount of damage, and heal up quickly if you get hurt. He can quickly and easily take out carries in a teamfight and his ganking potential is huge with and . Play him right, and you will dominate the game. Nobody will be able to kill you and you will still do amazing damage.

Thank you for reading my guide, leave a comment below and vote if you liked it. If you didn't like it, comment and tell me why and how I can fix it or help it instead of raging and giving me useless information. "This guide sucks" is not very helpful to me and anybody else who reads the guide.

Thanks

Credits

Thanks to jhoijhoi for her Guide to making Guides found here. It really helped me a lot with this guide.

And Panglot for making the map and letting me use it! Check out his full guide to warding here.