Hello,
welcome to my Jax guide!

I'm Arif and I started playing League of Legends in February 2018 in Season 8.

This is my first guide and I'll update it constant.


I highly appreciate constructive feedback! If you have a question or want to give feedback, feel free to leave a comment and rate!

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/arctecen
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I'm currently maining jungle and trying to climb the ladder - come around and say hello!

● Jax is a great duelist, especially the later the game goes
● Relative easy to learn
● High DPS
● Naturally tanky with Grandmaster-At-Arms
● Mobility / Gap-Closer with Leap Strike
● AoE-Stun with Counter Strike for fights or to interrupt channelings like enemy Teleport or Rift Herald
● Auto-Attack reset with Empower
● Strong at taking objectives due to Relentless Assault
● Overall a really decent all-rounder


● Can get shut down with heavy CC
● Can struggle when falling behind
● Weak waveclear
● Only one AoE-Ability and CC with Counter Strike
● Relative weak earlygame compared to other champions like Darius or Renekton
● Relative bad teamfight compared to other champions like Sion or Cho'Gath

Flash
There's a reason why everyone is taking this summoner spell. It is for sure the best one. You can dodge skillshots, blink through walls and (dis-)engage in fights.

Teleport
You can get faster to your lane and look for plays all over the map. It is also really good in mid-/lategame, because usually you will splitpush at a sidelane. With Teleport you can join your team at any time (teamfight/Baron Nashor). Overall the map pressure is great and the enemys have to respect this. There are some rare situations in which you can abuse Teleport to escape from the enemy, because the duration is only a few seconds compared to the standard base-recall. Keep in mind that you no longer can cancel your teleport.

Ignite
If you want to play really agressive (first blood) or smurfing, this summoner spell is an option. It can effect some fantastic early kills to take over the whole game and the CD is pretty low. Keep in mind that you don't have any map pressure without Teleport. So if you splitpush in mid-/lategame, the enemy team can collapse on your team or start Baron Nashor, when they see you e.g. botlane. Overall it gives you a way stronger earlygame and 1vs1 potential.

Conqueror gives us Bonus AD and healing.

Triumph is great for diving enemys under tower and e.g. tank 1 more towershot. The sustain in teamfights is also nice. Also we get a little extra gold per takedown.

Legend: Alacrity for more attack speed which goes well with our passive Relentless Assault. You can also take Legend: Bloodline for sustain in lane and a better scaling. The other option is Legend: Tenacity, when you face heavy CC enemies.

Last Stand is perfect for 1vs1 in (side-)lane and maximum damage. Coup de Grace to faster finish off low HP enemies.

Magical Footwear saves you 300 gold in the earlygame. This means that you get earlier to your Trinity Force powerspike. We also get a little bit extra movement speed, when we upgrade the Slightly Magical Boots.

Time Warp Tonic gives you sustain in lane and a small movement speed bonus while under the potion effect.

Cosmic Insight instead of TWP is the option for 45% CDR with Trinity Force, Death's Dance and the 1 - 10 % scaling CDR rune. Your summoner spells are also on a shorter cooldown.

At level 6, 11 and 16: Grandmaster-At-Arms (R)
1. basic max: Empower (W)
2. basic max: Counter Strike (E)
3. basic max: Leap Strike (Q)

In specific matchups it can be smart to max Leap Strike (Q) first to catch your enemy, but most of the time it will be Empower (W) first.

Standard
AA > Empower > Counter Strike or AA > Empower > AA > Counter Strike
You can reset your auto-attack animation with Empower. After that you can repeat or disengage. Use Leap Strike smart, because it is your only gap-closer and escape ability.

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Level 1 cheese in lane
AA > Counter Strike > AA > AA > Stun
This is a common cheese strat with Jax. You auto-attack the enemy to pull minion aggro, after that you use Counter Strike to dodge all incoming minion damage. This increases the damage of Counter Strike and you get a nice burst.

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Short engage to get a decent burst in lane
Leap Strike > AA > Empower
After that you just walk away into a bush to drop minion aggro, use Counter Strike to dodge enemy attacks or continue with attacking him. Of course you can also all-in the enemy, when there is an opportunity. Repeat this to always have health advantage and perhaps to safe towerdive your opponent.

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Instant burst damage
AA > Empower > Tiamat or AA > Empower > AA > Tiamat
You can reset your auto-attack animation with Tiamat/ Titanic Hydra.

Also it's possible to first activate Empower then Leap Strike to an enemy and activate Tiamat/ Titanic Hydra for a instant burst damage.

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Passive from Grandmaster-At-Arms
You can auto-attack a minion twice and then attack after max 2,5 seconds the enemy to get the passive proc at the first hit.

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Compact Tips & Tricks
1. It's possible to Leap Strike on Jarvan IV's flag and Thresh's lantern.
2. Counter Strike also reduces incoming AoE damage by 25%. This can be lifesaving, when an enemy is chasing or sniping you from far away.
3. Titanic Hydra active stacks your passive Relentless Assault.
4. Try to use an auto-attack between your abilities to keep the combos smooth (e.g. Leap Strike > AA > Empower).
5. Empower increases Jax's auto-attack range by 50.
6. Relentless Assault's stacks fall off one at a time every 0.25 seconds after not attacking for 2.5 seconds.
7. Stack your passive Relentless Assault, before trading with your opponent. This gives you a huge advantage.
8. You can Teleport to Thresh's lantern.
9. The Sheen proc from Trinity Force gives you bonus damage on your next basic attack. Use this to melt towers faster and fighting against enemies.
10. Keep Relentless Assault always up, when it's possible. For example when the enemy uses Stopwatch then try to attack minions or objectives to keep your passive stacks up.

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It is essential to understand that every used ability opens a cooldown window.

So for example if you use Leap Strike than you can't jump away for x seconds. This is bad when you need your jump to escape a gank. You have to abuse it, when the enemy misses an ability or just waste it for no reason.

The main goal is to foresee a trade in lane or in general at any stage of the game.

Ask yourself: What will he/they do, when I (or we as a team) do x?

The following video explains the basics about minion wavemanagement really good: Play Video
Source: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6GOH7UCsDwjWzGktJmsTwQ (Blitz Esports LoL)

In the earlygame with Jax you should focus on CS and use your combos e.g. Leap Strike > AA > Empower to chonk the enemy for a huge amount of damage and force him out of lane or kill him. Look at the combos section for more combos.

Note: A good CS is most of the time way more useful than a kill/assist.

Watch out for cooldown windows or misplays from your opponent and punish him with your combos. The main objective is to not fall behind. When you get your CS and go even in lane than it's like you won the lane, because Jax scales insane after a couple items.

For example you can push the minion wave into the enemy tower and just roam midlane to get a flash or perhaps a kill/assist from the enemy. You can also look for a Teleport play at the botlane. This caused decent pressure at the map. You should also try to steal enemy jungle camps for extra gold/exp. After that you go back to your lane and continues farming and pressuring your opponent. Jax takes at least 1-2 items to get perceptible strong.

With Ignite you can lookout for first blood or an early kill to slowly snowball the game. Keep in mind that it can screw your lane, when you do a mistake. So the simple and save way is to just take Teleport, get your farm and be patient for enemy mistakes.

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My personal approximate value for CS/minute:
<5 bad
≥5 OK
≥8 decent
≥10 perfect

In the midgame with Jax you should already have 1-2 items. Now you are a real threat at the sidelane and the enemys have to figure out who can match you.

Your main objective is to pressure the sidelane and play around objectives. For example when your team kills the infernal drake and Baron Nashor is up than you can splitpush at the botlane, because there is no objective available. The rest of your team groups at mid-/toplane or around Baron.

So mainly you try to push the minion waves to the enemy and always look for jungle camps to get gold/exp. It can be hard to kill/towerdive a tank at this stage of the game, when you are not extremely ahead. You have to figure out if you can towerdive and kill the enemy or not. When not than just push the wave and group with your team. You can repeat this the whole time while looking for opportunities at the map.

Always find out if the enemy toplaner (or the one who matches you at the sidelane) has a Teleport advantage or not. So for example when you have Teleport up and your opponent not than you can stick the whole time at the botlane and create great pressure. The enemy can't leave the sidelane, because otherwise you will take a tower for free. You can easily join your team, when a teamfight starts or to take Baron Nashor.

When you are ahead it is relative normal that the enemy needs at least 2 people to handle you. This gives your team a decent number advantage at the other side of the map.

Keep in mind that you can cancel the enemy Teleport or other channelings with your stun. This can be gamechanging, when the enemy loses his spell and you can Teleport after a short duration to your team.

Splitpush looks easy, but can be really hard. So try to get as much vision around the area which you are pushing and always keep an eye at the minimap. When you don't know where your enemys are than you should back. A lot of times the whole team rotates and you find yourself in a 1vs5 situation and probably die for free. Sometimes this can decide a game.

In the lategame with Jax and at least 3-4 items you are a really, really powerful champion. The enemys have to respect that it's almost normal that you can 1vs2 or perhaps 1vs3 and still win. So they have to think much more about how to handle you.

The main goal here is similar to the midgame. You play around objectives (dragon/Baron), get your CS at the sidelane, some jungle camps for bonus gold/exp and try to stay alive and put as much pressure as possible to your opponents.

If the game goes extremely late (+40 min) than you should honestly think about if it's the best decision to mainly stay at the sidelane. You have to keep in mind that one teamfight can decide the whole game, when the deathtimer is like 60 seconds. This is really important and especially, when the enemy has hard engage like Ornn or Malphite ultimate. If your team gets hard engaged, you can't be there in time, because teleporting takes a couple seconds and the burst damage at this stage of the game is immense.

Jax has a decent teamfight and can be a frontline for a team. His duelist capability is just way better and he can smash towers in seconds.

You have to figure out, if it's meaningful to splitpush in this specific situation or better just to group with your team.

In a lot of games the enemys don't know how to handle you or they just don't play as a team. These are the games in which Jax shines at the sidelane and can do whatever he wants.

Forword:
Always keep in mind for what a build you want to go and try to choose items which synergise well together. For example if you want to build Hextech Gunblade then building Spirit Visage too would be good for the upper healing.

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gives you AD, HP, mana, CDR, attack speed, movement speed etc. The one item on Jax that you can probably blind build every game.



gives us HP, AD, an auto-attack reset and wave clear. The faster clear is super for splitpushing. You can buy Tiamat early and upgrade it later.

has offensive and defensive stats. We get some HP and bonus AD. It also has a nice passive shield against burst damage which scales with bonus HP. In general we build Trinity Force and Titanic Hydra. Both items gives us bonus HP, so Steraks synergise really good with it. We also get temporary tenacity (= reduces the duration of plenty crowd control effects) which is pretty cool.

is only worth duo to the resurrection passive. The stats are not really important. It's a perfect item for more sustain and against heavy burst damage. A nice point about it is that it don't gives the enemy a reset (e.g. Darius's Noxian Guillotine (R)). When the passive is on cooldown in mid-/lategame, you can think about selling it for a better item.

gives us HP and we just get tankier. I really recommend this elixir, because Jax scales with bonus AD/AP. So in general you want to build as much as possible AD/AP and not tank items. With this elixir you get more sustain. You already have enough damage when building full damage.

You can buy this, when you sold your boots in the extremely lategame (+40 min) and want to increase your scaling or if you are really ahead in early-/midgame. It gives you massive damage to carry teamfights. In my opinion it's the perfect last item for the final powerspike.

gives you some lifesteal and bonus AD/AP which is good for your ultimate. I recommend to also buy Spirit Visage for more healing. Keep in mind that lifesteal only helps you, when you are attacking. So if you get hard CC and can't attack, you get obviously zero value from it.

is good against champions who stacks a lot of resistance/HP like full tank Sion and Cho'Gath. The percentage damage helps a lot to kill them faster. It also gives some lifesteal and attack speed.

A lot of bonus AD and lifesteal. If you want to go lifesteal, this item is an excellent choice.

gives you a lot of AD, lifesteal and a passive that transforms a part of the taken damage into a bleed. This is a decent lifesteal item. You can go Transcendence to profit from the 10% CDR, when you exceed the 40% CDR limit with this item.

gives you HP, a bunch of armor and a passive that infects attacking enemys with Grievous Wounds (= debuff that reduces all healing received by 40%) and a bit more damage that scales with bonus armor. This item is really good against heady AD enemys and in particular against strong lifesteal/regen like Dr. Mundo, Nasus or "Red Kayn" to reduce the insane healing.

I only build this item for the 20% reduced damage from critical strikes. It is really good against champions which build a lot crit like Yasuo or Tryndamere.

is a really good item against heavy AP. It gives you HP and the passive can reduce a lot of damage. It is good against mages who spam their abilities like Kassadin, Ryze or Swain. You can go Transcendence to profit from the 10% CDR, when you exceed the 40% CDR limit with this item.

synergise really well with e.g. Hextech Gunblade for the increased healing. I would only buy this item, when I have a lifesteal item. Otherwise against heavy AP I prefer Adaptive Helm, because the passive of it is actually great. You can go Transcendence to profit from the 10% CDR, when you exceed the 40% CDR limit with this item.

gives you armor and magic resist. It also get doubled, when you are near some enemys and the active let's you almost be unkillable for a few seconds. You can buy this item to be a good frontline for your team or when you really need a good defensive item against AD and AP. It is also relative cheap with 2,5k gold. An absolute amazing item.

is really situational. You should only buy it, when you face really, really heavy CC. It's perfect against Malzahar's Nether Grasp (R) to relieve yourself from the suppression. You can also get out of Urgot's Fear Beyond Death (R), because it is a suppression as well.

gives you a bit AD, armor penetration and infects the enemy with Grievous Wounds (= debuff that reduces all healing received by 40%). Good against lifesteal/regen champions to reduce the healing and the armor pen helps against full tanks.

gives you a lot of bonus HP and a CC in your kit. It scales pretty good with Sterak's Gage.

is especially good, when you are ahead and need more damage. You also get some nice lifesteal.

are in most situations the right answer. You get armor and take percentage less physical damage from auto-attacks. Really good against heavy AD respectively auto-attack reliant champions like Yasuo, Tryndamere and Twitch.

gains you magic resist and percentage tenacity. It's a great choice against heavy AP and particularly CC (= Crowd Control) teams. Keep in mind that knockups like Cho'Gath's Rupture (Q) or Malzahar's Nether Grasp (R) are not(!) reducible by tenacity.

gives us a lot AD, waveclear, an auto-attack reset and particularly some lifesteal. It's really good against poke enemys and to tank objectives like Baron Nashor easier. You can build it instead of Titanic Hydra.

is possible, when your team lacks AP damage and the enemys are stacking armor. You also get more MR from your ultimate.

is a really good single and early item against heavy AP damage.

In the following are the specific matchups in lane. If your matchup is not there, just let me know in the comment section!

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vs

In this matchup you have to avoid getting poked by his Vorpal Spikes (E). The good thing is that you can dodge them with Counter Strike (E), but this makes you vulnerable during the long cooldown in the earlygame. So use your ability advisely and try to get a good trade with it. The spikes do percentage damage, induce a slow and goes through minions. The key is to dodge his Rupture (Q). A lot of times he will try to put it under his foots or at a place you will go in the next second. So if you walk forward, you can dodge it a lot of times or just sidestep. It's not easy, but you can handle it. When he misses his knockup there is a cooldown window and you can use your combos. Be careful after level 6, because his Feast (R) can execute you with true damage.

Cho'Gath has great sustain duo to his passive Carnivore. You may can't force him out of lane and the later the game goes, the tankier he get. Try to play around this and get your farm or roam.

You can consider to buy Blade of the Ruined King against him, because he stacks a lot of HP duo to his Feast (R).

Stay at least even and you should be fine.

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vs

This is a quite hard matchup for you, because Darius is a lane bully and his passive Hemorrhage one of the strongest in the whole game. Especially in the earlygame.
Don't let him poke you with the outer part of his Decimate (Q). It will cause a passive stack, heals him and deals way more damage than the inside part of the circle.

When you can't dodge Decimate (Q) than you can Leap Strike (Q) into him to be in the inner circle. It is important to dodge his Crippling Strike (W), which is an auto-attack reset and slow, with Counter Strike (E).

Jax can outplay Darius in the earlygame with Counter Strike (E) and jumping into the inner circle of Decimate (Q), but don't underestimate his passive Hemorrhage. It gives him a lot of AD if it's stacked and the bleeds are doing quite damage. Also watch out for his grab Apprehend (E). When he misses or waste this ability, it is a really good cooldown window for you and you should look to punish him appropriate for it.

If you can't trade with him, it's completely fine. He can be really disgusting duo to Hemorrhage (P). Try to get your farm and stay outside of his grab range. Also keep in mind that his Noxian Guillotine (R) deals true damage and has a reset per kill. Buying Guardian Angel can be smart, so he don't get the reset, when he kills you with Noxian Guillotine (R).

You outscale him for sure. So try to stay at least even.

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vs

You have to abuse his extremely weak earlygame. Try to freeze the wave at your side and go for an early Executioner's Calling to reduce his Soul Eater (P) healing. So you don't need Tiamat, because with it you would push the wave automatic.

Jax can block his Siphoning Strike (Q) with Counter Strike (E). Lookout for his Wither (W), because the slow is insane and can screw you up under tower or at ganks. In general you play aggressive against him, because he needs his stacks to be strong. Don't underrate his Fury of the Sands (R), because it can turn a fight. You can try to bait his ultimate and just jump away and wait until it's finish.

Keep in mind that Nasus will try to poke you with Spirit Fire (E) and sometimes farm with it. At the end of the day it is an easy matchup, because he relies a lot on his auto-attacks and Siphoning Strike (Q), which you both can block.

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vs

He is kind of a lane bully and will try to poke you with his Roar of the Slayer (E). Try to bait his Soul Furnace (W) shield, so you don't trade against it in a possible all-in scenario. When he tries to stun you with Decimating Smash (Q), just jump at him and go behind him to dodge the stun. After that you can follow up with your combos.

Sion is tanky and when he plays passive, there is almost no way you can kill him under tower, but this is fine. You can farm, scale and just lookout for mistakes from him and punish it. Also keep in mind that he has a lot of CC, so the enemy jungler can gank you easier.

A lot of players will wait in a bush and charge their Decimating Smash (Q), because you don't see the ability animation, when they are in a bush. Lookout for this cheese strat - especially at the start of the game. Sion can also steal your blue/red buff at lvl 1 and one other camp with his Glory in Death (P). In general it's recommendable to defend your blue/red buff at the start of the game to make sure no one steals it.

Overall you might not kill him, when he plays passive, but you can farm for free and be really strong later.

Jax is the perfect champion, when you enjoy to duel other and be mainly at the sidelane. You scale really well into the mid-/lategame and definite have the potential to
carry the game to victory.

Thank you very much for reading my Jax guide!

Cheers
Arctecen