Core

Nocturnes core items are core for a reason. He simply cannot survive without them. The dev is what nocturne is made out of. Almost all of his damage, assassination based or not, is coming from that item. Along with dev is bork, for the out-sustain during fights, the speed boost in chases and the %hp damage to eat tanks.
The %hp damage, magic onhit and later on penetration makes it possible to assassinate tanks almost as well as squishy targets.
The youmuus is also core because no matter which build path you take you need that penetration. It is so important, since nocturnes ad scaling isnt tremendous, to get as much pen for your AAs as you can fathom. (unless you are against an armorless team)

Teamfight/seige

Nocturne cant do much while a team is siegeing apart form split-push, and poke with his Q so if your in one of thoes games where you need to seige for some reason, zz'rots portal is an incredible tool. you can get off so much free tower damage without really having to get close, while ravenous hydra clears waves in an instant meaning your minions can go right for the tower.

Assassin/Splitpusher

Obviously the other end of the spectrum is splitpushing. While your team seiges mid, you can go top and get a free tower. The hydra allows for so much wave clear, coupled with your passive and Q, allowing you to push hard and fast while the Duskblade gives you some flat damage onto towers and pen onto people who would seek to end your splitpushing reign.

Tankier

I rarely build these items. Its honestly not often when we have no other tank and even then you dont always need one. Though if you are forced too, then these are some very important tools. Maw, along with the pen which we have discussed already, it comes with a stat booster when you get low hp in a fight, meaning even when your being focused down you can cause mayhem. Youll be looking to get Zz'rots again because if your looking to teamfight there will likely be a lot of sieging and it gives very nice raw tank stats.

Despite how little room there is for itemizing (or, as i have seen) on nocturne, i have started exploring builds with things like titanic hydra and frozen mallet and would implore you to do the same. These guides arent a set in stone, "do it this way or lose" kind of thing. The key to winning, is being explorative (only, be explorative in normals and take the good stuff to ranked).

The lifesteal quints are mainly for ease during the first few clears. Can be replaced with Attack damage or even attack speed quints. I like to take scaling cdr Glyphs since i dont usually build cdr and its always useful, but its not a must have.

I like my rune set up because the armor and lifesteal helps trivialize every clear you ever have to do, while the attack speed allows you to deal a lot of extra damage during a gank. Let me tell you if you start wailing on an immobile champ with your attack speed and red buff they are not going to have a fun time.

If my runes seem a little strange its because they are. I honestly dont have great runes because i keep forgetting to buy them and just keep buying new champions instead. I suggest messing with your page a little. (thought, attack speed is definitely a key stat on noc)

If you plan on teamfighting more then you should take Fervor of battle instead of Warlords bloodlust. Also if you think your in danger of being harassed in your jungle its useful to take feast for the extra sustain. The other 12 points can be put in Cunning or Resolve depending on how you intend to play, but usually i go into cunning for dangerous game.

The mastries are very important. Warlords is a very powerful tool for late game fights, to out-sustain your enemies weather or not you chose to take ravenous or not while the rest of the tree before it does all of his jobs. He has pen for assassination, %bonus damage after assassinating everyone once, even more sustain and nocturnes bread and butter, attack speed.


Amendment: going twelve points into resolve to get runic armor makes the clear so easy that you can do it indefinitely due to the synergy with nocturnes passive. I recommend this instead of the twelve into cunning.

Nocturne isnt a very hard champion. And you get no prizes for being great at him. Hes not in meta a lot and is quite a bit of a jack of all, meaning other junglers can mostly overshadow him, but because of this versatility you can easily carry a game, be it by killing the adc instantly or just by eating all the heavy shots during a team-fight. (carrying by proxy is still carrying).

Nocturne, as mentioned before, is a jack of all trades champ while he can tank, he isnt the best at it, while he can assassinate, there are others betters, because of this, if you are looking for a pure assassin, nocturne is not who you are looking for.

Honestly, nocturnes useful moments are pretty rare unless you know what your doing, which is why i suggest only playing nocturne if you have a really good grip on how to position yourself during fights and when it is and isnt a good time to get baron, for example.

Despite the aforementioned cons, nocturne, when done right, is a menace to the rift, and provides a very strong map presence. This coupled with his jack of all trades way of play, means hes never not where he needs to be, unless he ulted poorly.
Another very strong thing about nocturne is his inalienably to be 1v1ed. Nocturne is incredible at fighting down champs in 1v1s because of his single target, essentially point and click fear and spell shield. You cannot cc nocturne, but he is definitely going to cc you.

During a fight the obvious combo is QEW while mashing right click as hard as humanly possible. Obviously using the W whenever you feel like someone going to cc you, makes it a lot easier to not die. Nocturne can take a heavy hit, but he cannot take many unless he can hit back.

As nocturne until you have bork you cannot do much, luckily the building of this item comes around the same time as stacking dev. You dont really want to gank between getting dev and stacking it, but before and after ganks are vital. While you dont need to gank before beginning to stack dev, doing so can ensure you get it faster, if not, that your lanes dont feed while you stack it, and after it is stacked you have enough power to begin carrying. After your stacked (assuming someone on the enemy team isnt overly fed and/or mobile) you can either begin team-fighting or split-pushing depending on what your team needs to get done.

As nocturne, it is imperative to get dragon whenever you can (after you start stacking dev) and a lot of times, people will know this and try to take it before you start trying, which is why i have perfected the art of ult (or flash) smite stealing and securing. I have won many games because ive just outsmited the enemy jungler.

While smiting, you would have though, would be an inate skill on a jungler, it isnt. This is because the smiting isnt all about the smite, its about the lead up to it. The amount of time, for example, it will take for the baron to be smitable if they keep attacking it, and by how much that time changes if you hit it with your abilities.

Another key point is keeping the dragon warded. I myself usually keep my ward up as much as i can, in case i suspect them taking a dragon. If you find yourself unable to keep drag warded i suggest begging your support or even your adc.

Obviously this is very very based on your point in the game, but just for reference, it takes about .5 seconds to get within smite range with ult, including the channel time.

This is my first guide, and its probably not the best, but I would be grateful for any notes, questions or ideas you have on or about it :D. If i get enough good feedback ill start making guides on my dumb, offmeta, barely viable, almost troll builds :D.

Im also considering adding videos to this guide, of myself using the build and runes. Comment if you think it would help :D