when nocturne got "reworked" they didn't actually rework him just increased his ult duration and now his passive cools down twice as fast against champs. However, I also discovered that Nocturne is one of the few champs that doesn't need a smite item. this allows nocturne to get an EARLIER duskblade and use the extra space for something more useful. also, nocturne can now be tanky WHILE doing metric tons of damage, thanks to his high base health, allowing nocturne a lot of duel capabilities with enemy junglers

Hello everyone I'm dreclub and one of my newer mains is Nocturne. I came across nocturne during rotation a long time ago, around July. When I first played him, I didn't know how to build so I used recommended items and if ANYONE has looked at Nocturne's recommended page it's a hot mess. At the time I didn't know that, so I used those items, got mad because I did horribly, abandoned him and didn't look back. Fast forward to October, I had an Eternum Nocturne shard, he came back on rotation and by then I knew how to build and played Nocturne with lethality for the first time and became obsessed. by the time he was off rotation I had bought him, upgraded the shard, and got mastery five on him with multiple s' under my belt. Later a friend had challenged me to play nocturne top lane (expect a guide in the future on that) as a tank. when I played nocturne top I learned a lot about the champ and how he is an EXCELLENT tank. I now
build tanky on him and am Mastery 7

Pros
2500-3000 damage burst!!!
Spell shield
Able to track enemies in fog of war(more on that later)
Easy escapes

Cons
Heavy tanks screw him
CC screws him

When most people ask "why Dark Harvest and not Electrocute?", the reason is because dark harvest actually can do more damage than electrocute in the late game. The reason being where electrocute only stacks off ad, dark harvest stacks off ad harder and stacks off souls, which combined with Nocturne's fast clear, gives him a LOT of damage.
This one is blatantly obvious. Your ult is a dash, Nocturne loves lethality.
This one is controversial. Some people say Eyeball Collection because you gank a lot and it gives you bonus AD. I prefer zombie ward because Nocturne can only ult where he can see. Zombie wards not only increase the lifespan of your wards, but place wards when you kill enemies wards giving you a lot of vision. More vision=more ults=more kills
The reason for this one is because nocturne needs to stick onto enemies and this helps.
i used to run ulti hat until this rune got reworked. this rune now gets your ult back faster then ulti hat after 2+ kills/assists, including ones killed by your ulti.
this rune helps you delete. what more do you want?

This is Nocturne's key for soloing raptors at the start and one of the two reasons nocturne can be considered an on-hit bruiser. When nocturne basic attacks when his passive is up, he will auto any other enemy in his auto range, gaining life for each enemy hit. When not up every basic will shorten the cooldown by one second, allowing you to lean towards an attack speed build; moreover, using Guinsoo's Rageblade makes the cooldown even shorter allowing for more lifesteal and aoe damage. Even though this passive scales off ap, there is no reason to go ap because the scaling is so horrible (15%) it's not worth building off of.
Oh Nocturne q, I could go on forever saying how amazing this ability is. For starters, at max rank it gives a 55% BONUS AD! This increases your damage more than any item. also, when he hits a champ with it, you can track the champ THROUGH THE FOG OF WAR! this can lead to an easy pin on invisible champs like shaco and wukong
this allows nocturne to duel/escape from/counter most champs in the game. as a bonus, any blocked ability increases your attack speed and lasts longer than Sivir's.
this is a very pliable ability like the rest of nocturne's kit. it can be used for ganks, escapes, you name it.
ah the infamous noc ult. love it or hate it, you just need to remember it is almost NEVER used in an engage unless you are guaranteed to kill them. you SHOULD use it in the middle of a fight or a finisher. also you can use it to get away too because of the nearsight.

rush this instead of warrior now because you simply get an earlier power spike
this item overall helps nocturne with his mana issues, gives 20% cdr, gives attackspeed to combine with noc's w passive, and gives him the phage passive.
insead of being full assassin you can go tanky while still doing metric * tons of damage. this item helps with that
when there are resistance tanks get this
get this if there are a lot of bursty champs on the enemy team.
get this if you need more movement speed and armor
get this if there is too much cc for your shield *cough cough *
get this if the enemy team is more ap than ad

the usual path (stay on q trail for extra ad throughout)
Raptors (no leash), red scuttle (you might have to wait a few seconds), Red, krugs, Blue Scuttle, blue, Gromp, wolves, Back.
for raptors, start by engaging with a q, hitting as many raptors as possible, then attacking the small raptors before the big one. then for scuttle when you are lvl 3+ wait to q until your e is finished triggering. for krugs go for the 1st medium krug, then the big one, leaving the tiny ones to be taken out by your passive. for wolves, only attack the big one.
this path gets you exactly 1200 gold to buy a tiamat. however if one of the scuttles are taken, your raptors should be up again by the time you get to them,

Nocturne's deletion power is not from straight ad like some would think. It actually comes from his q combined with his ultimate and red smite. When you ult with nocturne you have to do a few things AS HE IS ABOUT TO HIT THE TARGET:
1. Nocturne's ultimate has a whopping 120% ad scaling, which means you need as much ad as you can get with lethality. Nocturne's Q gives a bonus 55 ad when he is on the path, Which includes when he is flying to somebody with his ult. so when you are flying to someone, Q as soon as you get in Q range, giving nocturne a bonus 55 ad, which turns into +121 damage for his ultimate.
3.shield with if cc is a danger
4.Auto, triggering duskblade and dark harvest