Jinx is a marksman that scales hard into a late-game hypercarry. In teamfights, she can dish out insane damage with her single-target Minigun or her AoE Rocket Launcher that has extra range, which lets her get reset after reset on her passive, Get Excited!. Mastering Jinx is an incredibly satisfying feeling; any Jinx player can stand there and auto attack, but an experienced one will know who to target, how to position, and how to carry a teamfight. Since she is a scaling hypercarry, she's weakest in the early game. Unlike other ADCs with an escape or disengage, such as Tristana's Rocket Jump or Vayne's Condemn, Jinx doesn't have guaranteed disengage. Although Jinx has a slow on Zap! and a snare on Flame Chompers!, both abilities have high mana costs and high cooldowns, but are not guaranteed to hit. This is one of the main reasons she can be abused during the early game, whether it be through repeated ganks or hard CC. Because of this, Jinx depends on her team during teamfights to peel for her if she ever gets focused. Despite the changes to Bot Lane and the marksman items, Jinx is still a viable and effective pick, that does exceptionally well even against unconventional Bot Laners.

Passive

Get Excited!

For 6 seconds after a champion, turret, or inhibitor damaged by Jinx in the last 3 seconds dies, Jinx gains 175% decaying bonus movement speed and 15% total attack speed, removing the attack speed cap.

• This passive is a core part of Jinx's identity that lets her pop off in teamfights with reset after reset. It gives her the attack speed and movement to win, turn, or escape a fight.
• Learning to play with the buff, its timings, and getting used to the sudden burst of attack speed and movement speed is a must to mastering Jinx; you don't want to be overzealous and all-in into the enemy team when the passive is running out and you can't get another reset.

Q Ability

Switcheroo!

Pow-Pow Minigun (default): Basic attacks grant a stack of Rev'd Up up to 3 stacks, giving a total of 30/55/80/105/130% bonus attack speed.

Fishbones Rocket Launcher (toggle): Trade in 25% of your bonus attack speed and 20 mana per attack to give your auto attacks 75/100/125/150/175 more range (a total of 600/625/650/675/700 range), 10% of your AD as bonus physical damage, and an AoE splash around the main target.

• Knowing when to use Fishbones and when to use Pow-Pow is a main characteristic of an experienced Jinx player. Because switching between guns has a cooldown of ~1 second (that can't be reduced), it'll take some getting used to before you can keep track of that cooldown and know when you can switch.
• Generally, you should be using Pow-Pow to focus one target that's in your base auto attack range, since constantly using Fishbones will drain your mana quickly. However, if the enemy team is clumped up, you should switch to Fishbones and hit them all with the splash, which feels even better when you have Runaan's Hurricane's bolts. Obviously, you should be using Fishbones to catch an enemy that's out of your range.
• During Laning Phase, you want to be using Fishbones to harass your enemy laner whenever they go for CS. You have the option of either directly hitting them with your extra range or hitting a minion to splash the damage onto them. The minion splash is, in most cases, the best option because it won't attract minion aggro, which hurts a lot during laning phase if you consistently take minion damage.
• As mid/late game comes around, you'll be getting upwards of ~3.60 attack speed whenever Lethal Tempo procs and you have Switcheroo! at 3 stacks and on Pow-Pow. This ends up making it extremely difficult to properly kite while keeping up your DPS.

W Ability

Zap!

Range: Cost: Cooldown:

1450 50/60/70/80/90 Mana 8/7/6/5/4 seconds

Jinx fires a blast that does 10/60/110/160/210 physical damage + 160% of her AD, revealing and slowing whoever it hits by 30/40/50/60/70% for 2 seconds. The cast time is reduced by your attack speed, from 0.6 seconds to 0.4 seconds, capping at 250% bonus attack speed.

• Despite being a high-damage ability, you should only keep this at rank 1 until level 8, as its cost ends up being too high for Jinx to constantly spam during laning phase.
• Although you'll be keeping it at rank 1, due to its high AD ratio, it'll still be dealing quite a bit of damage if you manage to hit it.
• You should mainly be using it to hit & slow someone you can't hit with an auto attack because using it mid-fight is a waste of time since it's not guaranteed to land.
• This is actually a very good ability to use in fights in lane against enemies with invisibility like Twitch, Pyke, Shaco, and Evelynn since it will reveal them for 2 seconds.

E Ability

Flame Chompers!

Max Range: Cost: Cooldown:

900 70 Mana 24/20.5/17/13.5/10 seconds

Jinx deploys 3 Flame Chompers that become active after a short delay and explode after 5 seconds. Once active, the Chompers deal 70/120/170/220/270 + 100% AP as magic damage over 1.5 seconds and explodes if any champions comes into contact with one, rooting them for 1.5 seconds.

• Since this is Jinx's only ability with hard CC and only self-peel ability, you should be using it sparingly. If you're being chased, drop Flame Chompers! so they activate right as they walk over the area, or else they're forced to walk around and give you more time to run.
• It will take a few games to get used to the activation time on Flame Chompers!, but it's a very necessary skill to learn if you want to master Jinx; you don't want to waste the Chompers by timing the activation wrong and missing the snare.
• You can also use this offensively when you know there'll be no threat to you after using it. Drop this ahead of someone running away from you so they can either get snared or walk around, which gives you time to slow them with Zap! or kill them with your Rocket Launcher.

Ultimate

Super Mega Death Rocket!

Range: Cost: Cooldown:

Global 100 Mana 90/75/60 seconds

Jinx fires a rocket that deals:

• Minimum damage: 25/35/45 + 15% bonus AD + 25/30/35% of enemy's missing HP
• Maximum damage: 250/350/450 + 150% bonus AD + 25/30/35% of enemy's missing HP

The rocket also explodes around in an area around the main enemy, dealing 80% damage to other enemies:

• Minimum AoE damage: 20/28/36 + 12% bonus AD + 20/24/28% of enemy's missing HP
• Maximum AoE damage: 200/280/360 + 120% bonus AD + 20/24/28% of enemy's missing HP

Another global skillshot ultimate. This time, though, it's an execute and not a tool for engaging!

• This is a great ability to snipe low HP targets running away, especially in teamfights as the missing HP damage will deal a bunch to their teammates.
• During fights in lane, you really shouldn't be using this mid-fight, since its a huge waste of time, isn't guaranteed to hit, and isn't guaranteed to kill if you fire it at a close range or if they aren't low enough.

You want to max Switcheroo! first so you can get fast access to its attack speed buffs and better splash damage from Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher. Since the mana cost doesn't increase, this is the best choice to max first.

Likewise, you can't be putting more than 2 points into Zap! during laning phase, because even though the damage is high, the mana cost isn't worth it. Plus, you're sacrificing the attack speed you'll get from a max rank Switcheroo!.



Lethal Tempo gives you bonus attack speed (40%-110%) after 1.5s after damaging an enemy champion, lasting up up to 6s. Coincidentally, this is the same duration as Jinx's Get Excited!. When both of these activate, she can reach close to 3.6 attack speed, which is no joke, considering her DPS increases dramatically with this. This is the best rune to take in most situations on Jinx because of its insane DPS increase.

Fleet Footwork heals you and briefly gives you bonus movement speed when attacking at 100 Energy charges. The healing is reduced if you attack minions, but scales very well with AD and crit. Very effective rune to take in lanes with poke and in general for its small burst of movement speed.

Triumph

This is an undisputed rune to take on Jinx, as the healing could come in clutch against enemeies with delayed-damage or damage-over-time like Zed, Darius, Brand, and Ignite. The multiple activations in a teamfight also keeps you healthy, which could easily turn a teamfight. You could also take Overheal if you plan on building more lifesteal items or if the enemy isn't heavy on DoT or delayed-damage.

Legend: Bloodline

Legend: Bloodline will give you 12% lifesteal after reaching 20 stacks. This is a very good rune to take on Jinx, especially because she delays buying lifesteal in exchange for crit items. Although this is less gold efficient than Legend: Alacrity, you're getting some lifesteal throughout the game that you'd have to delay your Runaan's Hurricane or Infinity Edge for. After about 20-24 minutes, you'll be fully stacked with 12% lifesteal, which is fine to sit on until you get to the point where you can buy lifesteal without it delaying your build.

Legend: Alacrity

Legend: Alacrity is a decent alternative to Legend: Bloodline and is more gold efficient, but gives stats that Jinx already receives plenty of with Switcheroo!, Get Excited!, and Lethal Tempo. It'll give you even more attack speed to hurl your bullets and crits at your enemies with. Generally, taking one or the other is based on your own preference and the matchup.

Coup de Grace

Coup de Grace is simply the best rune to take in this tree. It'll give you the damage needed to finish off low health targets with Zap! and Super Mega Death Rocket! as well as provide a consistent damage boost as your enemies get lower.

Absolute Focus

With the removal of the AD gains from Celerity, Absolute Focus has become the most optimal choice to run in Sorcery. In lane, it'll give you an edge over your enemies with its bonus AD and scales into a relatively useful rune late game.

Gathering Storm

Gathering Storm is a late game hypercarry's best friend. It'll give you AD every 10 minutes. It feels really weak for the first 10/20 minutes, but as late game comes around and you hit 30/40/50 minutes, Gathering Storm transforms Jinx from a late game monster to a late game god.

Future's Market

Future's Market lets you go into debt to buy items you wouldn't be able to buy otherwise. This is not the most optimal rune for ADCs, since it'll add -50 gold + whatever amount you spent over your balance to your gold balance. Despite all this, it'll let you reach your item spikes faster. Being able to finish a Stormrazor after backing with only 1200 gold + having its components gives you a small, but noticeable edge over your opponents.

Magical Footwear

Magical Footwear is another non-optimal rune for ADCs because it'll delay when you get your boots by at most 10 minutes, depending on how many takedowns you get. Since Jinx is a low mobility, low self-peel ADC, it's not the best option to wait 10 minutes to get boots. However, it's an okay option since it reduces the price of Tier 2 boots and adds an extra 10 movement speed when you get them. You'll just need to get used to moving slowly for ~10 minutes if you plan on taking this rune.

Cosmic Insight

Cosmic Insight is an all-around good rune. It gives you 5% CDR on everything and increases your CDR cap by 5%. This is great since your summoner spells will be up sooner than your laners, assuming they don't take Cosmic Insight.

Perfect Timing

Perfect Timing gives you a free Stopwatch that can't be used for the first 10 minutes. After these 10 minutes, if the enemy tries to dive or all-in you, you'll have a Stopwatch to surprise them. This rune can save your life, prevent towerdives, or help you dive the enemy. If you keep the Stopwatch after you use it, it'll still contribute as a component towards Guardian Angel, which saves a lot of gold and time for you.

Generally, you want to take the first set when you're running Lethal Tempo so you can ignore having to take the % Attack Speed shard and take the Adaptive Damage shard instead.

The second set is good when you're running Fleet Footwork and won't have the bonus attack speed from Lethal Tempo early on, so you accommodate that by running the %attack speed shard. If you feel like your enemy laners are a threat, you can swap out the Health or Adaptive Damage shard for an Armor or Magic Resist shard.

FLASH: Standard and irreplacable summoner spell; lets you engage, dodge, or run away.

HEAL: Gives a burst of movement speed along with a heal, which is very good to bait enemies with or to survive a fight. Since it also heals your ally, it's very good to take when laning with a support. Since it gives you that extra movement speed and little bit of health, you'll be surviving longer in fights so you can dish out more damage.

BARRIER: A defensive spell you can take instead of Heal. Its defensive power isn't as strong as Heal despite it having higher values because it doesn't give you that burst of movement speed. It has a lower CD so you'll be able to use it more often than Heal and is good to take into aggressive lanes or lanes where the support will have Ignite.

TELEPORT: Due to its nerfs in Patch 8.14, this is no longer a very good choice to take in most matchups. However, this is a decent choice against matchups where you'll be forced out of lane often, so using Teleport will help you get back to lane faster. Also very good to take for the first back potential, which lets you back, get your B. F. Sword, and then Teleport to lane to catch all the minions. In most matchups though, Heal or Barrier is definitely the better option to go, otherwise you'll be left with only one defensive summoner spell.

Starting Items

With these new changes to Doran's Shield, it's not as good to survive poke lanes because it is now based off %missing health instead of flat regeneration. However, against heavy poke lanes this is a nice pick up since you'll be able to take advantage of its 30hp regeneration.

Doran's Blade is another standard starting item most ADCs take. You should be looking to buy this if you plan on playing aggressively and making use of its bonus lifesteal and damage.

You can start Cull if you feel like your lane will be a farm lane or if your laner will let you farm without punishing you too hard. You can also buy this if you recall and don't have enough to buy anything else.

Core Items

Best DPS increase you can get for the cost. You should look to finish these right after Stormrazor or pick them up after B. F. Sword or after your two Long Swords.

This is an insane item for Jinx to have, despite her nature to consistently auto attack. Every time you stop attacking for ~1 second, your next attack will be guaranteed to crit and give you a burst of movement speed, which is a huge damage boost in teamfights. When you finish this during laning phase, it'll become very hard for the enemy Bot Lane to 2v2 or 1v1 you, just because of the advantage you get from a 100% Crit on your first attack. During late game, when you have a lot of gold and are at 6 items, you should sell Stormrazor for a defensive item ( Guardian Angel, Phantom Dancer, or Mercurial Scimitar) or a lifesteal item ( Bloodthirster or Mercurial Scimitar).

This item provides a nice good amount of waveclear and has great synergy with Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher. When firing a rocket, each bolt will have the AoE splash effect from Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher and will deal 100% of the splash damage. In fights, this effectively increases your damage, lifesteal, and range, giving you the ability to stay back and hit enemies with the splash from your Rocket Launcher. Besides those fun effects, it gives you bonus movement speed and attack speed, which will help you kite even better.

Infinity Edge will double your Critical Strike Chance, meaning that with Runaan's Hurricane and Infinity Edge, you'll have 60% Crit Chance. Infinity Edge also provides a huge damage boost whenever you crit, since it converts 10% of that damage to True Damage. And remember: with Stormrazor, you're guaranteed to crit after not attacking for ~1 second. Basically, every ~1 second, you'll be dealing 10% of a ~1000 damage Crit as True Damage. Because of this, you'll be melting tanks and popping anyone squishy.

Other Items

If you're thinking about getting another Zeal item to reach 100% Crit, Rapid Firecannon is the best one to get after Runaan's Hurricane. When your Energy stacks are at 100, your range will be increased to 825 with Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher, which is an incredible distance to be able to attack from. However, if it looks like you need another item immediately, such as Quicksilver Sash or a Vampiric Scepter, you can delay or completely ignore this item.

A second Zeal item that you can buy instead of Rapid Firecannon. Phantom Dancer provides great survivability as well as dueling potential with its passive that reduces the damage dealt by the person you hit. Very good item to pick up against assassins and mages like Zed or enemies like Vayne.

If the enemy has a lot of CC, Mercurial Scimitar will be your ticket out. You can choose to rush and sit on a Quicksilver Sash after Infinity Edge or after Runaan's Hurricane if the enemy's CC is a huge threat to you, and then complete it after you've finished your next item. Scimitar also provides a good amount of lifesteal that Jinx wouldn't usually have access to until she buys Bloodthirster or Blade of the Ruined King.

Bloodthirster provides 20% lifesteal, which is great for surviving fights and healing up on minions. Since you'll usually have Runaan's Hurricane, the amount of lifesteal you actually get is 150% of your damage due to the bolts.

Blade of the Ruined King is a great item to deal with tanks that are stacking health due to its %HP damage. With its passive that lets you reduce an enemy's movement speed by 25% and add to yours by 25%, you'll be able to kite and self-peel better. Because of that, this item boosts Jinx's dueling power immensely and is a great pickup for lifesteal as well. You definitely do not want to underestimate the synergy between lifesteal and Runaan's Hurricane or the synergy between %HP damage and Runaan's Hurricane. Picking up either a Mercurial Scimitar, Bloodthirster, or a Blade of the Ruined King is a must for Jinx.

This is the item that'll let you make your enemy's armor useless. If the enemy is stacking armor aganist you, this is definitely an item you want to buy. However, if they're being complete monkeys and ignoring your damage, you can delay this until they do decide to buy armor or ignore it and buy another lifesteal item, Guardian Angel, or another Zeal item if you don't already have 2.

If your enemies have a lot of healing, you should be buying a Mortal Reminder to apply grievous wounds. Otherwise, it's always better to buy Lord Dominik's Regards for its higher % armor penetration. If you do plan on buying a Mortal Reminder, you should buy and sit on a Executioner's Calling after your 2nd or 3rd item and wait to complete it as your 5th or 6th item.

Does the enemy have burst in the form of magic damage or multiple champions with magic damage? Maw of Malmortius is the perfect option when facing those teams. The item provides TWO nice passives that help greatly in teamfights. The lesser-known passive, Lifegrip, activates after the more flashy passive, Lifeline, is activated. Lifeline will give you protection and a shield against magic damage, but Lifegrip will give you 10% spell vamp and 10% lifesteal until you leave combat. You can ignore the spell vamp part, but the lifesteal is vital for Jinx, especially in a low-lifesteal build.

If you aren't the center of your team's attention and they aren't peeling their hardest for you, or if you're just getting bursted too quickly to save, Guardian Angel will help you survive teamfights more often. This item should be bought as a 5th/6th item, but you can choose to buy Stopwatch (or already have it from Perfect Timing) if you need the one-time use to survive burst. Once you use the revive, you should consider selling this item for another situational item.

Example Full Build

Early GameIf your Jungler asks you to leash, make sure you're coordinated with your support so you both leave at the same time. A good range to leave the buff is between 200-500 health. This way, you can get to lane faster than the enemy Bot Lane or at the same time, which means that you should be able to reach level 2 faster. As soon as you enter the lane, you should immediately start autoing minions. Since Jinx can quickly push with Pow-Pow, the Minigun and Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher, you should be winning the race to level 2 most of the time. However, if you start to lose this race, back off and be careful of your enemy's level 2 advantage. On the other hand, if your laner starts to back off, don't keep pushing; start to freeze the lane by only last-hitting minions. The wave should be in the middle of the lane or towards them when you do this. This achieves two goals: 1. It lets you utilize your level 2 advantage and lets you oppress your opponent with threats of Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher's splash and the large amount of damage from Zap! as well as a possible all-in with your support. 2. It makes you safer against a possible level 2 gank from the enemy jungler.

Any time you aren't focusing on CS, you should be looking to harass with Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher's splash damage whenever possible by hitting the Caster Minions.

Your main goal during the Laning Phase is to push your enemy under their tower whenever possible and get the first tower. Using this strategy against enemies with poor waveclear, such as Ezreal, makes it extremely easy to harass them with Rockets whenever they go in for CS. If done correctly, they'll start to get really low and lose a bunch of minions to tower, opening up opportunities for a free dive and tower. If you can't harass them under tower, you should be whittling down the tower as much as you can while keeping vision & staying safe.

Mid & Late GameAs soon as Laning Phase ends, you should be grouping up with your team to take advantage of your strong mid & late game. Whenever you group up, your goals are to win fights and take objectives. Besides this, you can push and siege towers with strong waveclear with Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher and Runaan's Hurricane. You can take towers relatively safely with Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher's extra range, too. However, you need to be careful about stepping too far up when you don't have enough support, especially because you don't have an escape ability like Rocket Jump to get you out quickly. If Baron Nashor spawns, all eyes should be on it. At this point, it's all about who has control over the game: who has more vision set up, who has the better team to take Baron Nashor, who has more dragons (especially Mountain Dragons), and who's more fed. This is where you'll start wanting to start a teamfight. If you end up winning it and the enemy has 2/3 down, you need to start Baron Nashor immediately. Even if the enemy still has their Jungler up, if they try to steal you can easily turn on them as a team and kill them before Baron gets low enough.

Teamfighting 101The golden rule ADCs should be following in teamfights: focus whoever's closest to you. While doing this, you should be staying in the backline to stay as safe as possible and to deal as much damage as you can. However, since there'll usually be more than one person closest to you and one/two high priority targets you need to kill, target selection comes in handy here. Good target selection is what separates experienced ADCs from autofilled ADCs. In teamfights, you want to keep your calm and assess the situation: who's closest to you, who can deal the most damage to you/your team, and who can interrupt your ADC things. If a high-damage champion like Zed is rushing at you with Youmuu's Ghostblade, Flash, and Death Mark, you should be staying as far back as possible while being protected by your team. You cannot go in to fight him and contribute to killing him; let your team kill him for you while you stay safe and deal damage to Zed's teammates. On the other hand, if a Bruiser/Duelist like Renekton is rushing at you with Slice and Dice and Dominus up, you also want to stay as far away as possible. The threat he brings with his CC and damage from Cull the Meek is not to be underestimated. If you end up getting caught by champions like him ( Renekton, Jax, Irelia, Camille), you're most likely dying because of how their tank/damage stats.

mafia jinx

By assessing how much of a threat the enemy is to you, you'll start to see who you need to kill and be wary of.

For example, if you face a team of Vayne, Lucian, Braum, Skarner and Ornn, you'll come to the conclusion that the two biggest damage dealers are Vayne and Lucian, who take top 2 priority. However, since they also have a bunch of engage and CC from Braum, Skarner, and Ornn, you'll need to keep your distance as much as possible while receiving peel from your team. If you see an opportunity to attack any of the two highest priority targets, you should be doing so. If not, you should be focusing down whichever tank is closest to you, so that they don't get an opportunity to lock you down.

In this scenario, if their team engages and the Vayne does Vayne things and uses Flash, Final Hour and Tumble to follow up on the engage, and she just happens to be clumped in with her tanks, you need to be focusing her so she can't do actual Vayne things. The moment she leaves your range and gets farther away, you need to switch back to whoever's closest to you, no matter their priority.


Thanks for taking the time to read my guide on Jinx: The Loose Cannon. I hope you enjoy playing her and maybe even mastering her! She's a really fun, impactful, and satisfying champion to play.

If you're interested in sharing your snipes, plays, outplays, just discussing all things Jinx, check out the League of Jinx JinxMains subreddit or feel free to join their Discord Server.

If you have any personal question you'd like to ask me, you can find me on my personal Discord server.

I'll be updating this guide for every new patch, hotfix, or whenever I feel the need to add anything. Feel free to ask me any questions about the guide, champion, or any other League-related question you have.

Other Guides
Thanks for reading! If you're interested in my other guides, please do check them out:

• Kayle | Top, Jungle, Mid, Bot, Support
• Kassadin | Mid, Top
• Vayne | Top
• Olaf | Top

Changelog
January 24, 2019:

• Updated to 9.2
  • Updated the values for Legend: Bloodline and the rune shards to their newest values.
  • Other than that, no significant changes for Jinx.

January 9, 2019:

• Updated to 9.1
  • Added in the new effect of Switcheroo! - cast time is now reduced by bonus attack speed, down to 0.4 seconds.

December 5, 2018:

• Updated to 8.24

November 21, 2018:

• The Preseason Patch!
• Updated guide to accommodate Patch 8.23 changes
  
  Detailed Changes

  
  Build:

  • Swapped Celerity out for Absolute Focus -- no longer gives AD
  • Added in the new stat bonuses!
  • Added in a second rune page for Fleet Footwork -- similar to LT page but uses different stat bonuses

  
  Guide:

  • Removed Press the Attack from the guide
  • Swapped out Celerity for Absolute Focus
  • Added in the new stat shards to the Runes section.
  • Updated text for Doran's Shield to correspond with changes