Hello, my name is JP and I am Plat 5 on NA solo queue, I have recently found great success by playing nocturne mid and have been crushing lane opponent after opponent with my build that I want to share.

This Guide will be kept up to date so stay tuned for more.

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So why nocturne? well first he is super fun to play, and watching people ask riot how he is balanced is definitely one of the funniest things to watch. Also, there are other high Elo nocturne players, one I want to point out is ilililliilliili a Korean nocturne mid one trick(His OP.GG -> http://www.op.gg/summoner/userName=ilililliilliili) He is diamond in solo queue which is equal to NA challenjour which shows this is not a troll pick.

Pros--

• Very strong early game
• High burst
• Extreme wave clear with passive
• Great roams with Ult
• winning match ups get you so fed and lead to easy wins

Cons--

• Weak if behind
• Hard to play late game correctly
• Hard to survive early jungle ganks without items
• Bad match ups make it hard for you to be useful

These are my summoner spells of choice as ignite allows you to have kill pressure at the start of the game and combine that with Press the Attack you can kill at level 1 and start snowballing. And flash, well everyone needs flash unless your Singed

Teleport also works but only into losing lanes when you never have kill pressure, So Ignite is useless and Teleport is like the only other summoner that can be of use


Ghost ill try this but cannot see this ever being better than Ignite as Ghostwill be useless in the laning phase. In teamfights its better to have Ignite to stop their ADC from healing, rather than movement speed because normally they will have CC and then the movement speed it useless.

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I have tested many key stones such as Electrocute, Hail of Blades, And Press the Attack and the best by what I have seen is Press the Attack. the reason Press the Attack is so good is that once you get those 3 hits off all your damage is increase by 8-12%. this not only increases your burst by a ton but also your dueling as you can quickly burst a target and your key stone wont go on cool down (However it will feel like it is but the effect from press the attack lasts 6 seconds and you cannot use Press the Attack until the effect goes off). Thanks to your fear its so easy to get the 3 Autos off and stay safe while also increasing the damage by 8-12% after has Definitely made this my Key stone of choice.

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Electrocute is the second best key stone as it allows for quick immediate burst without warning as you don't need 3 Auto Attacks to prox it, now you only need 3 spells or Autos. its very easy to do since your ult Paranoia is 1, then your first Auto after ult is another, and with your Q Duskbringer its a quick 3 attacks for Electrocute. But it doesn't scale like Press the Attack does because having 12% increased damage in the late game is better than an extra 100 damage burst.

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Hail of Blades was recently buffed (As expected) so now here is what I found: Hail of Blades is still not the best rune for Nocturne just because the other runes are so much better. but Hail of Blades is not trolling, it does provide a relatively strong laning phase, but does not give the same damage output. All in all, I would take Hail of Blades if you know your in a winning lane and you just wanna have some fun because if you want to win, go Electrocute or Press the Attack.





After doing some more testing, I have found that Lethal Tempo is not half bad, and here is why.

• Gives decent attack speed all through out the game
• Allows you to avoid building any Attack speed related item later into the game
• Helps your dueling AND activates in perfect time with your fear

However, Lethal Tempo does weaken your laning phase. This is because Lethal Tempo does not directly give damage it gives attack speed which is better later into the game, not as much in the early game. Damage will always be the best early game stat, but if your looking to scale with your team then Lethal Tempo is by far the best option.

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For starting items always go Corrupting Potion as it allows you to take trades at any level and have some healing to fall back on, and since nocturne does have early mana problems the Corrupting Potion also helps with that. Long Sword is an interesting item as it does build into the Serrated Dirk but the mana problems do start to kick in, so if you do decide to go all in it better result in a kill or you might just have to back as you might be out of mana. but if you can make Long Sword work then it might be better, but until your very comfortable with the match ups I would stick to Corrupting Potion


These are my standard items for most games and in the order shown with the exception of the Boots which I buy and upgrade when ever I have enough left over gold. my first item is always Duskblade of Draktharr because while your in the mid lane you will normally always have a good 1-2 level lead on the other lanes which means the lethality that Duskblade of Draktharr gives is stronger as it scales with your level. second I go with Youmuu's Ghostblade because the passive on the item is good for roams. next Ravenous Hydra because it allows you to get even better wave clear which allows you to pressure objectives better and the extra 80 AD is always nice to have. then comes more tank items such as Dead Man's Plate or Frozen Mallet as they both provide a good amount of Health and a useful unique passive.