Hello and welcome to my guide for Shaco. I will try to keep this guide up to date with changes to Shaco and how they will affect him and the gameplay you use while playing him. But why would you listen to me? Well, I have about 100 games played with Shaco, Most of them ranked in season 1. ( I was s1 gold ) However when I played Shaco in season 1 I played him as an AD assassin, However this guide is not for AD Shaco. There are already lots of these out there. This is an AP Jungle guide.

Edit: Adding a Laning section.

The Pros / Cons for AP Jungle Shaco -


Pros
Super fast jungle
Insane poke
Great ganker
Good at counterjungling
Can insant kill enemy carries if well played.


Cons
Hard to play vs clever enemies.
Super Squishy
Somewhat Countered by current bruicer meta game.
If invaded at start getting back into the game can be hard unless you know what you are doing.
Falls of super late game. Shaco's full build < Other Junglers full build.
Bad farmer.

Not much to say here really, Standard Caster Masteries but with improved smite.
Runes is important. I run flat AP over AP/level because Shaco is an early game champion so the flat AP feels more fitting for me. Of course if you feel like going magic pen or AP/level do so. I've seen some really good Shaco's run Flat mana. I also do mp5/level over armor yellows. You are not going to get hit much while jungeling. MPen red is just mandatory.

This is very important for Shaco. If you build him wrong he will be very, very week. This is why I focus in hitting hard daggers and doing much JITB damage. There is two ways of starting Shaco. 1: You buy Dorans Ring and go do your Blue, then head straight for the enemy red and stack 4-5 boxes waiting for their jungle to walk into them. When they do, the fear will be 0.5s, you throw a dagger and you hopefully got a kill. Note: Only do this if the enemy jungler is starting blue buff.
2: Start Cloth armor and do your whole route.

The second item you buy should be the Kage's Lucky pick. You wont be farming much so the gp5 is really helpful and you want the deathfire's grasp later on anyhow. Pick it up at your first bluepill preferably. If you cant afford the whole Kage's buy boots of speed. Remember to buy health pots when you get cash over. Never buy more then 3 tho, you wont need that many. After you finished the Pick and Sorc boots head straight for Deathcap. Most of the time the game will be over right before or right after you get this item. If not, go for Deathfire's Grasp.
Note: When you are still in early game, when ever you have to go base and don't have enough cash for what ever item you are building, Consider buying another dorans ring. They are really powerful for their cheap price and I often find myself having 2 of these and a Kage when the game ends. If they game still goes on after you got your Deathcap and Deathfire's go for more damage with Void Staff. You need those daggers to really heart. Usually after Deathfire + Deathcap they do 1000damage in the back of squishy targets. I have never had a game as shaco that have lasted long enough for me to finish the void staff. If you do however I would suggest buying some defensive item. Probably Guardian angel which is really, really strong on Shaco. ( Decive behind target, DFG, Dagger JITB, Ult, you die and your cooldowns go off, throw another Dagger and decive to safety.) If you want more damage go Lich Bane so you can autohit aswell, otherwise your Decive will only grant you about 150damage which is useless lategame.

There are several ways for Shaco to jungle. If you do AD you probably want to start red and do a level two gank, but Since this is a AP guide I would suggest starting at blue buff. I clear The whole camp in 3seconds flat. Including the little creeps. this means that when your done with your blue the opposite jungler still have their blue at about 70%. you are way ahead. I usually don't go wolves. I head straight for enemy red buff or Wraiths. If my team CV's their jungler and shows that he just finished blue, go Wraiths and stack boxes in the little bush right there and wait for him to arrive. When smite is up walk away from the boxes, so you don't accidentally pop them, and smite the blue wraith. If the enemy jungler however is fast stack your boxes at his red buff out of vision from the wraiths. When you have 4 boxes there put the 5th on his double golems and use smite to clear them fast. I usually end up killing their jungler if he is not careful since 4-5 boxes on a level 2 Warwick is devastating. If he doesn't die he will at least flash causing him to be very afraid for you while he jungles. If you force him out of his jungle just clear as much as you can and try to stay there for as long as you can. Ask your support to get some wards for your jungle so that you can see if he tries to counter jungle you. If he does, make him pay. If he don't make him pay more. No other jungler can 1v1 Shaco at the lower levels if Shaco have 2 or more boxes near him. Lee Sin Might, but he should be banned 100% of the games you play.

I will try to add some pictures when I can logg onto LoL of where to place boxes and so. I might also add the red buff jungle route if I feel it could be useful for AP Shaco. But for now I think this is enough and you should be able to use this info to get some fast and really fun wins.

Also Pro tip: When you have JITB rank 3, don't be afraid to waste some time stacking them in random brushes you think the enemy might walk into, such as their blue buff, triangle brush, dragon and such. You would be surprised in how many kills this will give you. Even just if you put out one box in the center of the river might give you a kill, an assist or save an ally. JITB is such a strong skill combined with the dagger.

Pro tip 2: Deathfire's Grasp benefits from Shaco's passive making it deal 20% more damage in the back. Think of that whenever you feel like using it.

Hallucinate is a very unique skill and as AP Shaco it can feel very useless or super useful depending on the situation. So I will add some pros and cons of Hallucinate for AP Shaco.


Pros
Good for baiting at low elo. (Same with AD)
If bait is successful super AoE damage will occur on your enemies.
when fighting 1v1 you might get lucky and your clone will die causing you to win the battle.How ever, as AP Shaco you never wanna fight anyone, just poke and bait.
Good for making low health people leave their tower. Just send the clone towards the tower and make sure it gets tower agro, no one wants to stand close to it and your team can succesfully push the tower.

Cons
Deal non to very little damage with autoattacks.
Can not tank baron/dragon longer then a few seconds and during this time it will do 0 damage until it dies.
No wriggles lantern or Bloodrazor for 15min baron.

AP Shaco's bread and butter. When you master this skill you will master Shaco. I wish I knew exactly how to use it, but I don't. ( I have only played Shaco this way for about 8-10 ranked games. All with great success tho.) This is what makes you jungle soooooo fast, this is what makes you able to do dragon soooooo fast and I've also heard that you can kill baron solo at 15min. I have to try this out tho. I will come back to you about this later today. Also stacking JITB somewere not in a brush can be very useful, If you stack 5 boxes infront of wraiths and then bait with your hallucinate towards red buff, most people will try to avoid following your clone and walk right into your trap. however, if your fed place 3 boxes at the escape path and 3 boxes at the place you are baiting. Chances are much higher your enemy will walk into it then.

HAVE TO TAKE A TRAIN WILL FINISH SOON!

Pros
Good poke.
Safe laneing.
Free wards (Jacks.)
Godlike ganks and burst.
Almost ungankable due to Decive.


Cons
No sustain.
Poor farming.
Bad at bot lane.
Bad at mid lane.
Bad at top lane.
Blue dependant.

this being said some of you might just say: " meh, he is bad in any lane why would I then lane him?" The answer for that is ganks. ganks ganks ganks. He is really terrible versus anyone with any sort of sustain or bulkyness. So the best way to place him is mid or vs a squishy top. Bot lane is not so good, since the enemy support will pwn your harass. What is important to know is the mindset and limitations of shaco. Do not think you will be able to sustain any other champions full burst. Unless it's like janna trololol. This means that whenever you play shaco you only want to do either poke 1 or poke 2 possibly poke 3.
Poke 1: Throw a dagger.
Poke 2: Decive and Throw a dagger.
Poke 3: Throw a dagger and Decive away.
When it's early game go with poke 1. If you got blue buff go poke 2. If you are afraid of getting killed do poke 3. Always poke if you are not under 50% health. Then you might wanna chill a bit. Also jack in the box is really good in lane. If you gonna poke, put a box right on top of yourself as a safety net. This way you will be safe if your opponents decides to follow you. And you wont waste a lot of mana and/or the cooldown on decive. You often can't kill you lane opponent without him/her stepping into a box trap consisting of 2+ boxes. The way you should get kills early is either your jungler coming in and doing some damage or the easier way, leave your lane. Go bot. throw 1 dagger + ignite and get kills. Works almost every time due to the level advantage you have. Also, ward is inefficient cuz you can take alternate routs with your decive.

The item build for lane shaco is almost identical to the jungle one. Except you start boots + 3 pots. Then you can either get some dorans rings or go straight for deathcap after boots and Kage's.