When Kayn becomes the Shadow Assassin he is suprisingly a full on assassin. Looking to kill a VIP as fast as possible to make fights one sided. This means you'll want to load up on as much damage as you physically can in order to decimate squishy targets. Domination and Electrocute are your best bet to do this. Dark Harvest also seems good, but to be honest you really don't need that much extra damage as it's very easy to overkill a target without even ulting. The early game damage and extra burst that is affected by your passive will make short work of anyone who walks in the wrong place. Predator seems really fun as well, but I think the cooldown makes it inferior to the other 2 domination keystones so I won't use it until it gets a buff.




Bread and butter for any champions who used to use TLD. Except same keystone but this deals more damage, has a higher CD and is harder to proc for specific champions (cough Zed cought). Hit a target with 3 unique attacks and you'll smash them for a boatload of extra damage. W/Q/Auto will trigger this and alongside The Darkin Scythe: Shadow Assassin giving extra magic damage and Duskblade of Draktharr in an auto attack your burst will be absurd without ulting. It also doesn't need to be stacked like Dark Harvest. DH is good if you can get 90-100 stacks, but I have a feeling the reliability of Electrocute will make it superior for most Assassins.





The only rune in this tier you'll ever take. Lethality after using your Q is perfect, and with your CDR and it's cooldown it means you can get 100% uptime with it. You'll need to make sure you Q before your W connects in order to deal the most damage in your combo, but that timing is Kayn's bread and butter anyway so it'll be fine. Even then, not getting 10 lethality on your W isn't the end of the world. Just make sure to Q before you ult or you attack with duskblade as those 2 should always have maximum lethality.




Eyeball Collection gives you extra AD on killing wards and killing champions. Great, always good as an assassin. However Zombie Ward has great synergy with Duskblade of Draktharr as you clear wards you can get free vision along side it. Also as a jungler getting rid of vision is one of your jobs and getting free counter vision is great. Damage vs Control, both are great.




All 3 hunters are great on SA. Relentless Hunter means you can buy a different set of boots than mobis as you'll have free mobis from this rune or simply stack them together for some crazy OOC MS. Ingenious Hunter will be great as you buy 2 active items as Kayn. GB/Edge of night will both have a very shot active cooldown which can be a game changer however I think this is the weakest rune of the 3. Ravenous Hunter will give you some much needed healing. Being 20% HP and blowing a full combo alongside Triumph you can easily sustain back up to 70%+ HP. Great for a more reset based playstyle.





For most assassins I think the secondary tree will be precision with these 2 minor runes. Triumph is great as healing can be just what you need after diving super hard and trading hits with a fed ADC in late game, the extra gold can be great to snowball as well.

More importantly, Coup de Grace will gives you a lot of extra damage vs low HP targets, which you'll create as SA. If you blow a full combo and they survive on 20% HP so you need to ult onto them. Sit inside the Umbral Trespass to get Duskblade back then re open dealing some crazy bonus damage with your combo a second time, no way would they survive it. Also good if you're trying to kill multiple targets as getting a takedown will give you AD.

You can also go into sorcery for extra CDR. Transcendence will offer 10% CDR when you hit level 10 which means you can get 40% with Mobis + Warrior + GB + DB + Edge + GA. Which is great on Kayn. It also means if you overcap on CDR you'll get good gold efficiency on the wasted CDR, but that isn't a problem for SA.

The Ultimate Hat offers a lot of CDR for your ult, and some games you need to ult to get the assassination on your target meaning you need to have it up as much as possible. 15% along side your 40% means having more than half of the base CD cut off is amazing.

Absolute Focus has a place as well if you don't need the CDR because you'll nearly always only fight at high HP and an extra pickaxe worth of AD can be enough for that kill.

Flash gives you an infinite number of possibilities thanks to sheer utility it provides. Offensive flash forward, defensive flash away, flash over skillshots, flash into skillshots for your team... There is nothing you can't do with Flash. The only downside this spell has is that it's got a long 5 minute cooldown. That being said, every champion will take it except people who can use Ghost like Hecarim or Olaf and champions that can get away with it based on their kit/playstyle ( Shaco is the only champ like this). You are not a Ghost user so you take Flash.

Smite is always taken because you're a jungler. You need it to buy the jungle items like Hunter's Machete, Skirmisher's Sabre - Warrior and Stalker's Blade - Warrior. Aside from the items you need to buy, it also gives you better clears (with healing) and killing big camps faster. It's also required to reliably get objective monsters like Baron/Dragon. If you don't take Smite and the enemy team has one, you will be at an insane disadvantage. You should ALWAYS take Smite if you're jungling.

Tabi:The default boot of choice. Right now I think these are still ovetuned. Double-dipping vs auto attack based champions and the fact most hard CC is dodgeable makes these solid vs any comp with an ADC (which they all have)


Merc:Solid choice vs a lot of magic damage or CC. When you don't need Tabi, you'll probably be buying these. However you should NEVER buy these boots just for the MR, it's the tenacity you're buying them for. You'll get enough MR from Maw/Mercurial + your runes.

For Kayn's first clear, you can fully clear the jungle with a solid 30-40% HP with no leash. Getting a pull or taking armour/ad runes can change this to a smoother 50-60%% or so. You'll need to use both refil pots to do this, but so do a lot of junglers. The clear speed is incredible thanks to the ability to melt camps with Reaping Slash. The video below is me doing all camps except krugs starting the raptor camp and hitting level 4 with the option to kill scuttle or gank top/mid. I would suggest killing scuttle for the HP/Mana then look for a gank with your E where the enemy wouldn't of warded.

Your route is fairly straight forward. You should pretty much always start at the Raptor camp because you will take next to no damage. The best way to clear it is to start at the back of the pit, auto attack the large raptor then wait a split second (halfway through the auto attack cooldown) for the baby raptors to group up. Then cast Reaping Slash hitting all the baby raptors. Then don't attack anything and just walk away for a second or so before walking past the baby raptors to auto attack the large raptor TWICE. Continue to walk away from the mob and hopefully they'll get stuck around the big raptor due to creep block. Walk towards the bush and as soon as your Reaping Slash is back off cooldown, you can then Q through the camp hitting level 2 and be almost full HP. Take your E and fade through the wall and you'll be full HP starting red.

Start to take your red buff, this will do a lot of damage so you'll probably chug a potion and you'll be smiting it. Walk in between auto's to make sure you take minimal damage. Don't be afraid to miss an auto attack or 2 to wait for your Q cooldown. Your HP will recover still due to the talisman passive.

Once they're both dead you'll be about 50% HP with a pot ticking. Walk across the mid lane but make sure to fade through a wall to regen another chunk of health then once you get to the other side attack the large wolf. Wait for all three to be close enough that your Q will hit them easily. Auto attack the small wolves so they won't do damage anymore. (You'll still be healing off of them even though they're dead)

Take your W and phase through the wall again, gaining about 102-107 HP depending on how much AD you have. Kill the blue buff by kiting it. If you step around properly you should get 2 auto attacks in for every 1 attacks it deals. Run away so you don't take any damage from it's last attack and finish off with a W/Auto.

Lastly phase through the wall again to heal and proceed to attack gromp. Hit him then walk away during his momentary rage before dashing into him with Q. Smite when it's up and just finish it off.

Once this is done, you're level 4 and are able to look for a gank on either top or bot (depending on team) and mid lane/scuttle regardless of side.

After your first clear, I would suggest Long Sword > Hunter's Machete > Long Sword > Boots of Speed > Caulfield's Warhammer > Upgraded Smite as your item priotiy when recalling. As you'll have about 650g after your clear, I would recommend staying out until you have about 800-1k gold (unless lots of free ganks open up, then just keep ganking). It also becomes a lot eaiser to sustain once you get a machete, so that + Long Sword is great for power farming.

Probably the most important part of the game for the junglers outside of deep vision and neutral objective control in the mid/late game is how you impact the map in the early game. After your first full clear, you're level 4 and have all 3 abilities ready to go. Your first target is almost always going to be the blue side lane (So on blue side you'll be ganking top/mid lane and on red side you'll be ganking mid/bot lane. This is simply the closest destination to go to. Scuttle is also perfect to increase your HP and keep your jungle/laners safe from a roam.

If there is no gank opportunities, I personally take the relevant scuttle crab and loop around to attempt a mid lane gank. If this doesn't work, or there isn't an opportunity there either I then usually take the OTHER scuttle (however usually by this time, the enemy jungler probably has taken it). Once both scuttles are dead, I look to ward a camp in the enemy jungle (Wolves or Raptors based on where you are) then proceed to recall unless ganks show themselves.

It's really hard to put into a guide how to/when to gank and when to counter jungle so the most important thing to get used to is paying attention to the minimap when you're walking around/clearing the jungle. As you're Kayn you can escape a lot of invade attempts thanks to the fact Reaping Slash goes through most thin walls and Shadow Step can still work in combat for a second. Counter-jungling is hard in the early game and isn't very rewarding as far as denying the enemy goes, but with how fast you can take raptors I highly recommend keeping those warded.

If you're getting counter-jungled by someone like an Ivern or Nunu then your best bet is to try and ward your camps. If you see them at your raptors, you should either be in a position to collapse with your mid or take theirs. If they're simply too fast or are thinking a few steps ahead of you, look for ganks and try to snowball a laner so you can increase the risk of the fed laner collapsing to help with an invade. Even showing yourself top lane can give pressure so your laner can get some uncontested CS/tower damage. Just don't stay too long because enemies with attentive eyes on their minimap will then look for rift herald/dragon/deep wards whilst you're just doing nothing.



As an assassin you need to snowball. This is simply the nature of the class arch-type. Thankfully, you have plenty of ways to do that.


I must emphasise to FARM YOUR JUNGLE. ON RESPAWN IF POSSIBLE.They take 1:40 to respawn. Or 100 seconds a camp. With how fast you clear the jungle with a Long Sword or two, you can seriously rake in XP/Gold faster than nearly every jungler. This also means you can contest their vision and ganks without losing out on anything. If you see a jungler have 5cs and gank your top lane whilst you finish off the red buff, you should IMMEDIATELY run to their gromp and take it. This is because a good jungler will always count CS for the first 3-4 minutes of a game when they spot the enemy jungler on the minimap.

Counting is easy, and once you do it you can determine what route they took and what will respawn. Buffs are 1, Gromp is 1, Wolves are 3 and Raptors are 6. Krugs are slightly harder to count as sometimes people only take the 2 big ones and leave the rest, meaning it can range from 2-10. However a lot of junglers actually just skip Krugs because they take so long to do early on.

Take your camps, look for ganks shortly, counter jungle. Rinse repeat.

This is pretty much the case until midgame where laners seem to want to take your jungle for some unknown reason and ADCs think red is theirs. However, you're the real carry. Oh it's more accurate when towers start to fall and people leave their lanes.

Midgame is where Kayn picks his form. Between levels 8-11 is usually the time where you'll have enough souls to transform, or wait +4 minutes to pick the other.

More importantly however you'll want to aggressively look for skirmishes that will end with giving you gold/exp and objectives. The best way to do this is to spam ping where you want to go. For example, the enemy Red Buff is spawing in 30s. You spam ping "on my way" to the buff and ping for assistance on your nearest ally. 9 times out of 10, they'll shove and come with you. Then, being a 2v1 or simply there before the opponent you'll get an uncontested buff or a kill + a buff.

The aim of the midgame is PRESSURE.Your goal is to create map pressure by killing, warding and being aggressive on objectives. A good thing to do is take an enemy camp then immediately go to a lane and push it in and get a few hits on the tower. After 2-3 times you'll either have the tower or the enemy team will attempt to collapse. At this point, do the same tactic on a different lane. Repeat until all lanes are unsafe to farm for the enemy.



You should also apply counter-pressure. Letting an enemy team do this to you is a big problem as I'm sure in your games you've noticed one team groups and the other follows suit. With the second usually losing/behind. Try to break that cycle by forcing fights at neutral objectives (Drag/Rift herald/Baron) or by split pushing. You're Kayn so you can most probably pick off any squishy champion on the enemy team if they're not paying perfect attention to themselves. There are exceptions, but most champions simply cannot keep away from you and if you played the early game propely you'll be ahead of them in items/xp.

Always try to look for kills as it's very important to stay ahead of the enemy team. You're a carry, you need gold and XP to keep the enemy carries from doing anything ever.

This is 5-6 items, bot lane carries become actual champions and the bruisers/tanks no longer hurt as much as they did 10 mins ago. This is your weakest point in most matches because this late into the game most ADCs can kill you in an auto or 5 whilst their supports are giving them 1k HP worth of shielding.

At this time, your big objectives are Baron, Inhibitors, Elder Dragon and towers. As a jungler, you'll be paying close attention to your Smite charges and always have one ready to go in case a neutral objective fight breaks out. Regularly ping your smite cooldown to let your allies know that you can/can't force a baron/elder or if you should just bait/fight.

Your job in late game fights is dependant on your form. As the Shadow Assassin your goal is to continue assassinating enemy squishies through flanks and vision control. You still deal a boat load of damage, so if an enemy isn't paying close attention to your position you can and should murder them.

If you're Rhaast you become a "mid-line" bruiser. Not a back line carry/assasin and not a front line tank/fighter. Your job is to disrupt the enemy team by getting in and dealing a lot of damage to several enemies before going into one of them or backing off and waiting for your cooldowns. As you'll probably be fairly tanky don't be scared to stay in the fight for a long time. Your ult at this point is a HP reset and you should use it as such.

As a jungler I've gotten to calling this end game dance "Outmatch and Outlast". You'll want to do both in order to clearly win a game (if you haven't won already).



Outmatch

Outmatching is basically picking favourable fights. You'll take those 4v5's where you're the 5. You'll prey on the squishy weak ADC who still can't deal with you. You'll bait the support into overextending for wards. You'll outmatch your enemy team. Creating a pick can win games almost single handedly. How many matches have been decided by the loser, not the victor? Be the one to spot the loser and calculate how to best pry that loss out of them.

Outlast

When 2 even teams with solid vision control or lack of, fight the victor is usually who can stay standing. Being Kayn this is pretty much what Rhaast lives for, but both forms do it as his playstyle. In the rift it's a very real way to win long matches where if you've crossed the point of being able to carry as an assassin, simply not being broken by tilt/anger/frustration can coax a victory. It's also a great way to teamfight! Being the one to survive means you get to delay the loss, or push the victory. At this point in the game you can win if you're the last man standing simply by how fast you push/take towers.

Don't let this fool you though, as it's your team that needs to outlast as well. Being the last man standing on your team, when 4 of them are alive isn't going to cut it. Take the hook for the bad Lucian. Flash for the ult KS on the Vayne JUST to make sure she can't get split second healed. Be the one that keeps your team together until the very end.

I've won countless games simply by being the one in control. Kayn is deisgned to create control through chaos. You kill the enemy carry and the enemy team is in chaos, but as an assassin that takes control. Keeping vision up (or down if it's the enemy vision) and outplaying the opposing team in teamfights are the best ways to win late game matches.

So in summary, Kayn is a mid game assassin jungler whom is very adept and killing squishy champions as a shadow assassin or standing toe to toe with bruisers as the demon Rhaast. Your early game is solid but your true spike is in the time between early/mid game where people don't have level 2 ults but you have transformed. Then for a few levels after as you sit on 3-4 items you're king of the rift.