Hey guys! This is my first guide so take it easy on me please :). This guide will be on Jarvan IV, my favorite champion. This is a Top lane guide for Jarvan IV, and it will not discuss the jungle.
Jarvan IV

Pros:

Extremely tanky with a surprising amount of damage.
Very Mobile with E+Q combo.
Chases/Escapes very well with E+Q combo for both, Ult for chasing, and W for the slow (Also for both.
Sustains in teamfights very well after getting Ravenous Hydra and Spirit Visage.
A lot of AOE damage with Ravenous Hydra.
High First blood potential and great trading with passive.
AOE CC with E+Q.
He's the only champion that makes craters!
Prince :)

Cons:

You must learn to hit your E+Q. Damn you Riot! How dare you nerf the radius of my favorite combo! :(
Don't trap your AD/AP carry in your ult!

Marks: Armor Penetration. The obvious choice for AD based tops. This goes along very well with your Q armor reduction and Brutalizer/Black Cleaver. This will enhance your autoattacks a lot.

Seals: Flat Armor. 13 Armor is too hard to give up for mana regen or anything that might be somewhat viable on J4. This will help a lot in trading hits, especially with your passive. You can use some (1-4) flat mana regen seals if you're against an AP opponent that doesn't depend on autoattacks (Not Teemo).

Glyphs: Scaling MR. Most tops don't have a lot of magic damage, and scaling MR prepares you for mid-game, where AP mages are the strongest. If you know your laning opponent has a lot of Magic Damage, you could switch some scaling MR glyphs to flat MR glyphs. (Example:Zac)

Quints: Flat AD. 7 Bonus AD is good for very good for the laning phase.

For this champ:

R>Q>E>W


This skill sequence doesn't always follow this pattern, although it usually does.

At Lvl 1, I take E because it gives a 10 armor and 10% attack speed and that helps a lot in trading. The attack speed also helps out with hitting creeps. Then, at Lvl 2, I take Q to get the E+Q combo immediately for a possible first blood or escape from a gank. At lvl 3, I level up Q for more damage and less cooldown. Then I take W at lvl 4 for the slow. At this point, a gank will probably come soon if it didn't come already. Make sure you use your warding trinket.

Starting Items:

Crystalline Flask + 3 Health Pots.

This helps you sustain in lane. The mana pots are also VERY useful, as J4 is really mana hungry early game.

Core Items:

25 MR is useful, this means you don't have to get a negatron cloak early; this item also gives you 45 movement speed, and movement speed is extremely important.

Good old Brutalizer. You can't go wrong with this item. This item fits Jarvan PERFCTLY. 25AD? Perfect. 10 Armor Reduction? Synergies greatly with Q and ArPen Marks. 10% CDR? Jarvan could marry CDR. You can keep it at Brutalizer for a while. It's not necessary to upgrade it into Black Cleaver until later.

Great wave clear and helps in early teamfights A LOT. It is much better to rush this than Randuin's Omen, which you will be getting later. You should get brutalizer and lvl 1 boots before you start building this item.

Late Game items:

Ravenous Hydra helps you do a lot of damage in teamfights with its active and passive. It also allows you to sustain. 75 AD is always nice.

Spirit Visage synergizes with Ravenous Hydra. It gives a good chunk of MR and Health Regen, as well as a heal boost.

Black Cleaver allows you to have ArPen and a lot of AD. This prevents your damage from falling off late game.

Randuin's Omen is an EXCEPTIONAL teamfight armor item. It gives a lot of health, armor and a slow and AS debuff. It is a must if no one else has this.

Tell either the support or the jungle to get Locket of the Iron Solari, you simply do not have enough item slots.

If they have many autoattack dependent champions (Tryndamere and Vayne come to mind) sell Sunfire Cape for Thornmail late game. This will shut them down if they cannot reach your back line. (good peeling support and a good aimed E+Q will help that a lot)

The most important part of your laning is last hitting creeps. The butcher mastery and your passive help you do this more easily than some other top champions. Remember, CS is extremely important. One kill is 300 gold, and 15 CS is about 300 gold too. If you end laning phase with 155 CS and the opponent only has 125, you have about a 2 kill advantage in gold. Remember to ward the bush with your totem and get out with your E+Q and flash if necessary.



Harassing is the 2nd priority. You will have a good late game, so you do not need an early lead. Try to trade hits every 6 seconds for your passive, as you will do about 2x the amount of damage they will do, but do not miss CS. If you can spare the mana without dying to a gank because you don't have your W slow/E+Q combo to get out, do Q+autoattack. Q shreds armor and makes the passive enhanced autoattack much stronger because of your Q. Try not to all in unless you know you will win as you are better off autoattacking every 6 seconds or q+autoattacking until they're low enough to either kill or force them back to base.

Role:

Your role in teamfights is very simple. Tank a lot of the damage and let your AD/APC do damage safely by peeling with your knockup, ult, or slow. If you have another tank/offtank on your team, and you are tanky enough compared to their damage, you can E+Q to knock up their back line. (Usually ADC/APC/Support) Try to save your ult to clean up the fight and to lockdown the people who are running away. If an assassin is jumping your adc, E+Q them right away. If your ADC isn't in the range of the crater, you can ult them and have the adc/apc hit them to kill them too.

Some strategies:

1. Be in the Middle of the Enemy team so people focus you. (You want them to) Make sure you're hitting as many people as you can with your Ravenous Hydra. E+Q there if possible.

2. Don't always hit one target. If it's the ADC, you might want to kill him right away;but if you're hitting the front line because you don't think you're tanky enough to E+Q into the back line, don't always hit the same champion to maximize your damage potential with your passive.

3. Stay with your front line and don't E+Q into enemy team if your ADC/APC needs peeling.

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Points2Shop

Above is the sign up link.

Good luck and have fun earning points!

I hope you enjoyed my guide. I cannot tell you what to do, but here is my idea of playing J4 correctly.

Thanks for reading!

~Andeat