Kayn Build Guide : [UPDATED] MetaSolaray's Rank 1 Kayn In-Depth Jungle Guide

Hello Apprentice
Welcome to the MetaSolaray in-depth Jungle Kayn guide.

⋆ “I have nothing but darkness in my heart, misunderstood to a world that rejected me. I am cold to everyone but I’m actually really nice if you get to know me. I also carry this super awesome weapon that is actually a demon in di-“

Alright enough of the edgelord, anyone else reminded of high school?

⋆ Hey there apprentices it’s MetaSolaray and we’re back with a guide on the infamous duality of , The Shadow Reaper. This champion joined many other transformative champions but took the tale and entirely revitalized that mechanic into a beautiful end game ideal.

Whenever you’re first picking especially in solo que you’re left with that issue of “Should I go damage? Should I go tanky? Frontline? Assassin? Backline? Take a nap?”. We’ve all been there and have often felt like we made the wrong choice because our team either entirely lacked damage, had no hard cc, or worst picked a full AD hyper carry comp of top, jungle, mid and adc with a support for good measure. is the answer to many of those first pick solutions and can offer superb carrying potential when you’ve put in the time and energy to master him.

Note: While many guides spilt up the information I’ll be focused on giving each stance/form it’s own indepth detail together but separated so you can focus on improving the form you’re currently practicing. If you’re interested in having the forms separated entirely let me know!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Why and Abilities
Pros and Cons
Abilities
Combos
Runes
Items
Gameplay - Shadow Assassin
Gameplay - Rhaast
Conclusion

Kayn – Why should you embrace your inner edgelord?

’s ability in the early game is to farm, farm and farm superior to almost any champion in the game. With his great AoE clear he swiftly clears jungle camps with respective amounts of his mana intact. His gank routes are second to none as he simply looks at walls as an inconvenience and not an obstacle, allowing him to force favorable ganks regardless of vision. But is weaker then most champions, especially junglers in the early game. While he has the ability to outplay and can deal out a lot of damage being caught out can result in a swift death. So why would you want to play him? His passive, allows you to enhance your abilities and shift the entire format of your gameplay..

, or Blue (SA is the most common abbreviation we’ll be using throughout this guide) is the bread and butter assassin kit that takes the damage of Base and amplify it significantly by adding more burst, more mobility and a reworked passive that adds mixed damage to your output. With your much faster shadow walk you can rush through the jungle towards that lone ADC spilt pushing and quickly execute him before he can properly react. The jungle becomes your playground and your pick potential can ignore peel due to your ultimate.

But maybe the enemy team has , , and behind a ADC. While can work in picking off this comp sometimes the best gameplan is to be your teams frontline…

Enter (Or Red ) your weapon turned into true form and what most ’s tend to go from game to game. Trading in burst damage for powerful in-game sustain is the perfect offense against health stacking champions. Instead of enhancing the base damage of your abilities you’re given %health damage to deal with those pesky front line champions to remain a huge threat throughout the game.

But what front line champion doesn’t have CC (Besides ) and adds a knock up on his W combined with the applied slow. While your shadow walk remains similar to the base form the changes to your ultimate and passive eclipse this note. For all damage your spells apply you receive a portion base on level as direct healing while your ult heals you for a % of the enemy champions health as a bonus. Combined this with items like and runes like & , a single ultimate can lead you to fully recovering in the middle of a teamfight.

BASE KAYN

One of the fastest early game clears.
Has many routes to slip into enemy jungle and clear camps or set up proper vision for tracking.
With E, can simply ignore warding areas to open up many gank routes.
Is adaptable, can become Shadow Assassin or Rhaast depending on game flow.
Has surprising amount of damage if both parts of Q hit.

RHAAST

%Damage means you’re a threat to all and with a little base damage to ensure all squishies fear you.
Crazy amounts of sustain, if the enemy neglects their grievous you can recover full health in the middle of a teamfight.
W AoE knock up cc - that cannot be reduced by tenacity - can single handily win teamfights.
Ultimate allows you to regenerate in the middle of a teamfight from damage and their max health. Great to wait on cooldowns in the middle of a fight.
Fits into most comps, and still provides damage while being very tanky.

SHADOW ASSASSIN

Mixed damage means single resistance stacking foes cannot completely ignore your burst.
Ability to move during W with extended range allows for easier pick threat
Extended ult range allows you to follow up on blinks and dashes much better then The Darkin Scythe: Rhaast.
Passive is up front burst that resets after ult, the gift that keeps on giving.
Reduced shadow walk means catching someone spilt pushing which happens often in low elo is fast and deadly.

BASE KAYN

Highly reliant on hitting W and both ends of Q for early game damage.
Pre-form Kayn is less of a champion and more of a balancing factor against his more powerful forms.
Being denied the ability to do damage (AKA Being shut down) can result in very delayed form resulting in a very slow mid game.
Doesn’t really have a passive at all as his passive is simply a means of tracking his passive form transformation.
Has very long cooldowns and if caught out with them down can easily be picked off.

RHAAST

%Damage means against high armor champions you’ll sustain less and deal less especially if you’re not running Conqueror and Black Cleaver.
Slow, Q dash speed is set and E is the same as base Kayn. You rely on Black Cleaver's Phage passive and your enemies to come up to you.
Inability to move during your abilities means you’re going to have to land your W successfully to get full value of your kit.
If a target DIES before you complete your ult animation you will not heal, this double downs with the short range, meaning a target can get outside your ult range, as you have to damage them first.
People see The Darkin Scythe: Rhaast and will often pick up grievous wounds, making drain tanking more difficult.

SHADOW ASSASSIN

Many comps in Solo que rarely have a tank/bruiser top that can fill the role of engage for your team.
The Darkin Scythe: Shadow Assassin has less tools then champions like Zed, Akali, Kha'Zix who have many means to pick and reach targets despite SA’s access to wall power
The Darkin Scythe: Shadow Assassin falls off if he can’t pick off critical targets, and does not have a good backup plan if he loses control.
Low objective soloing power, if forced to, you’re not good on your own.
Low CC, a powerful slow is all you bring outside of the best CC of death.
Relies on maintaining good vision control to find routes to make picks, low escape ability and very squishy.

PASSIVE
ABILITY

The Darkin Scythe (Passive): wields an ancient, sentient weapon, that battles with him for control. Each instance of damage deals against champions (excluding damage over time) and takedowns causes them to drop orbs, red by melee champions and blue by ranged champions, that are automatically collected upon leaving combat, filling a bar around 's portrait.

Once the bar is filled, can return to the summoning platform to interact with his portrait to either be overwhelmed by or expel him to become , or wait 4 minutes until the other form becomes available, reduced by 5 seconds for each collected orb of their type after that.

The transformation type is decided based on the highest amount of damage dealt to the respective range type. If the two forms are within 8% of each other, the last champion range type hit, will determine the transformation. If both types are hit at the same time, the transformation will default to . The transformation will permanently change 's abilities and grant him Homeguard.

This passive is the key aspect that makes such a unique champion. When you are deciding which form to play this long extension is everything that you will be playing around. To keep it simple melee champions (Including champions like and currently in melee form) will drop orbs while ranged champions will provide orbs. As the game duration extends those value of orbs are increased in value as a form of ‘catch up’. You should be aiming for a transformation no later than 14 minutes in a game.

You’ll want to plan accordingly to what form you want so you can properly stockpile the correct orbs, should you have runes but trigger the transformation you’ll be hard denied for four minutes till you gather enough time or orbs of the correct form to fix this. Base can easily lose you games due to the amount of tools you are missing out on.

deals 12% − 44% (based on level) of post-mitigation damage dealt against enemy champions as bonus magic damage, lasting for 3 seconds upon entering in combat with an enemy champion, refreshing after 8 seconds out-of-combat with them or by using .

’s bread and butter, this tool gives you even more threat as you're both relying on (Better be running this) to give you dual penetration and the main reason why you’re going to want to aim for squishy targets. As squishier targets rarely are stacking MR for you you’ll often find you’re quite viable in how quickly targets will drop. Do note that your is also amplified by this damage so the more you can dish out before ulting will maximize your burst. For those hard to kill targets make sure to allow your cooldowns to come back up during your ult as you’ll have refreshed your passive once more.

Rhaast trades raw damage, for increased sustain through his abiltiies. With many of his abilities trading flat damage for % damage, the threat you present to squishier targets and tankier targets remains viable, but with the added bonus that you are healed for the % based on ALL targets hit. This can lead to a single well placed W, giving you the health you need to remain in teamfights. This passive is further amplified by and works well when accompanied with various forms of healing such as , and .

Q

Reaping Slash (Q): dashes forward, dealing physical damage to enemies he passes through, before swinging his scythe, dealing the same damage to surrounding enemies.

PHYSICAL DAMAGE:»75 / 95 / 115 / 135 / 155 (+ 65% bonus AD)

Both instances of deal 40 bonus damage against monsters.
The dash's speed scales with 's total movement speed.

and Base use this abilitiy in the same matter with no differences seperating the two. The main bonus applied from your passive is the only gain obtains but the understanding is the same. When using your Q aim to hit a target with both the tight lined dash and then the circular spin at the end of the dash. This move has a stagnant dash length so make sure to dash towards your target so they’ll take both ends of the ability. We’ll go over more tricks and combos you can apply in the combo section as it is evenly applied to both forms.

- 's damage is modified to deal 55% AD (+ 5% (+ 4% per 100 bonus AD) of the target's maximum health) for both instances. This damage is capped against monsters.

on the other hand gains a large difference as this ability loses out on raw flat damage to instead gain a signficant % boost instead. Both the dash and the actual cut apply the same % damage quickly allowing to heavily shred front line targetes health down with his damage and their armor down with . This ability can either be maxed first or second depending on your preference (And aim). Do note that unlike , only the CD drops very lightly for each point taken and does not increase in the scaling damage.

W

Blade's Reach (W): performs an upwards sweep with his scythe, dealing physical damage to all enemies in a line in the target direction and slowing them by 60% decaying over 1.5 seconds.

: 's range is increased by 200. Additionally, conjures a living shadow at the casting position to perform in his stead, reducing the ability's cast time to 0.

The first significant change in and what makes him a mobile assassin of death. no longer is forced to do difficult things like doing the attack himself but instead leaves a shadow clone to do the hard work for him. The added bonus is this clone does the full damage of the ability while you’re left free to move without delay. The icing on the shadow cake is the length of your W is extended beyond your normal form allowing you to poke out targets from a greater distance for your ult or to slow them down for a full Q to the face. This ability is often heavily preferred maxing first after your first three points are dropped into Q. Lead with this ability to make it easier to hit with your Q..

- knocks up enemies for 1 second.

on the other hand, relishes in personally hitting his former body against his enemies face. While forced to stand at attention instead adds a bit more power behind his swing for an AoE Knockup. As knockups and backs are not reduced by tenacity this ability is crazy powerful at holding down tankier targets for the duration of the CC so you can follow up with a well placed Q. Do note that unlike Shadow Assassin you get neither the mobility nor the extended W so getting up close and personal is essential for success. ’s W has a slight delay from when the indicator appears so if trying to hit a fleeing target remember to aim slightly ahead of where they’re going so they run into the target area.

E

Shadow Step (E): gains 40% bonus movement speed, is ghosted and can ignore terrain collision for 1.5 seconds. Immobilizing effects will interrupt .

heals himself upon moving through terrain for the first time and, if he's not in combat with enemy champions, 's duration is increased. While inside terrain, has unobstructed vision.

Receiving damage from an enemy champion or dealing ability damage to them after the effect is enhanced reduces the remaining duration to 1.5 seconds. The effect also cannot remain active out of terrain for longer than 1.5 seconds and will cancel completely if basic attacks.

: 's cooldown is reduced to 8 seconds at all ranks. Casting cleanses from all slows and makes him immune to them for the duration. Additionally, entering terrain will increase the bonus movement speed to 80% for the remaining duration.

needs mobility and the enhancements to his are critical to this aspect. The movement speed is boosted from 40% to a powerful 70% and immunity to slows as well. This makes targets like all the more jucier for you to lock down, but WAIT there’s more in the fact that when used in the walls you get a nice 50% REDUCTION to the ability’s cooldown allowing you to slip in and out of the shadows at startling speeds. Use E to roam the map and get into position for your next kill, use your E to get a nice health boost before your next camp clear. With you should almost never be standing still.

- Rhaast on the other hand gets the poor man’s E here, the only difference from your base E is that the color red is a really nice looking shadow. Use your E to recharge your health or close gaps towards your target. Remember you only have to enter a wall once per to gain the benefit of the healing.

R

Umbral Trespass (R): PASSIVE: marks enemy champions he damaged in the last 3.15 seconds.

ACTIVE: becomes untargetable and infests a marked enemy champion for up to 2.5 seconds, revealing them for the duration. Reactivating ends it earlier.

Upon reactivation or at the end of the duration, dashes out from their body 300-units away in the target direction, dealing physical damage to the target.

: gains up to 200 bonus cast range and emerge range. Additionally, emerging will reset 's cooldown.

's has double utility when it comes to his kit and itemization. As this ability requires you to have previously damaged the target if you’re looking for a quick ability dodge you can smite any target nearby to quickly ult them to avoid critical skillshots or even targeted abilities with a travel time. From base and even , has a longer duration so targets who try to leave your trespass range will be sorely disappointed. Your optiomal lead is to use your window of increased damage from your passive to lead, then using to get a reset on your passive and cooldowns to drop the target in the 2nd rotation. If you click R early you can exit the ulted target’s body in the desired direction and choose to either shorten or go the full length of your increased exit range depending on need.

- is modified to deal 10% (+ 13% per 100 bonus AD) of target's maximum health physical damage, and heals him for「 70% of the pre-mitigation damage 」.

Rhaast on the other hand has very important information regarding his ultimate. The first portion is that he deals % damage ONLY instead of the former flat damage with scaling. This damage provides the first portion of your healing based off your passive being applied to that. is then healed by a % of that targets ACTUAL HP that is regardless of how much damage you actually did which incentives you’re ulting of nearby targets over anything else. While you don’t get the extended range of your ult on the most important thing is making sure to exit the target while they’re still alive. If a target dies to another source of damage before your ult finishes you will get neither the damaging heal NOR the % HP healing which can easily result in you exiting into your own death. If a target is rapidly falling make sure to end your ult prematurely to ensure you get your healing in.

Wall Hopping with Q

Q’s dash range is fixed, but is able to bypass structures and walls with it if his end point would put him over that obstacle. Unlike you cannot be pushed to your exit point and need to mostly be where you should end. This allows you to hop over short walls, the wall near blue buff for example and also extend your E into slightly out of range walls.

Extending E with Q

By using your Q in the river you can make a short dash to reenter a wall before the 1.5 second timeout of E will cancel you out. This is often easier to do with than but is easily doable with tier 2 boots. Done correctly you can even E from one side of the river to the other.

Shortening Q Animation

Similar to the wall hopping but this time we angle the Q in a way so that we end up on the same side of the wall we’re currently standing. What ends up happening is the dash to slash portion of your Q will be significantly shorten which can often be used even in combat situations with enemy champions to surprise them with your burst. The cooldown of your ability remains the same and this is a great way to quickly lash out if you can properly aim the ability. Be warned that it’s easier when using the extended side of walls and angling your dash to make it impossible to bypass. Walls at Blue buff, Krugs, Raptor camp are very easily able to be jumped and cause the camp to reset.

E > W > Q

This is your standard engage regardless of form, W allows you to open up with your skill shot to either slow or knock up targets. If you've hit you’re far more likely to get the benefit of a full double Q on the target before looking to either continue the engage () or ult ().

E > Q > W

The chasing form of the previous combo. Use this combo when you’re out of range for a critical W ( into ultimate or for hard CC into maybe ultimate) Since your Q cooldown is so short it’ll easily come back up for more carnage should the chance appear.

AA > W > AA> Q > R

This combo is a hard hitting assassination done to fully take advantage of animation cancels to dish out quick damage. Before you apply your ultimate you need to ensure you properly fit in a single auto attack otherwise the passive and the bonus amp by your passive will go to waste. The first AA is only if you’re already on the target's you’ll often try to lead with your W first. While you can do the above combo with as the game goes on you’re going to want to prioritize using abilities due to your healing coming from them and not auto attacks.

Q > R > W

This combo is mostly to re position in a way to get a multi-target W off knocking multiple foes into the air for carnage. Remember while your ult is a boon of healing the ability to reposition alone can make the difference in a teamfight if you’re able to line up multiple targets to rip through together.

UNIVERSAL RUNES

> > or or > or . (Pick based on which you’re going for, Ravenous takes prio if really unsure)

> or or .

These runes are universally strong on base , giving you enhanced damage in the early game to increase the amount of point orbs you obtain. While these runes are more successful on the speed of access to and the burst damage still makes for a useful asset to 's trading patterns.

★ stands to provide with much of what any assassin/bruiser can want, more scaling burst damage. procs after a Q, W, AA combo for and providing a strong forward push for should you select to obtain this form. This rune provides you the best most consistent form of scaling regardless of game duration and scales purely on levels and items obtained and not directly via performance as does.

★ takes full advantage of the amount of dashes that Base has and only is further accelerated when applied to either form. enjoys the lowered armor to heal from while fully apperciates the mix penetration for his base damage which is then amplified by the magic damage conversion.

★ The third set of runes should be carefully considered and applied to your playstyle and elo. If you find yourself often buying earlier , denying enemy vision and forcing your way forward then you’re going to want to go for s. rewards you with additional vision control so you can both increase your personal power with adaptive ad but also grant your allies increased map vision control. The best part compared to the other runes is that when the game runs late and you’re likely obligated into sweeper you’re still obtaining wards throughout the game past the 10 needed for the full ad package. benefits even more with being a “Get Free Wards Now” indicator when the passive procs to one shot wards. Remember with s you only need to A: Sweep the ward, B: Hit the ward once: C: Reveal the ward with a scurrying orb to get the benefit of the zombie ward dropping and the AD if you haven’t obtained ten.

★ If you believe your elo is bad at warding or if you’re often forgetful of swapping to red trinket then provides you even more enhanced vision throughout the game. The bonus is once you’ve obtained the ten poro’s spawned benefit unlike eyeball this rune continues to give back in value. Unlike s it is more consistent due to growing with your control of vision then s requiring you to find the vision first.

★ However if you’re snowballing hard, nothing makes you snowball harder than . Requiring neither vision control you can freely swap between trinkets without penalty to your stacking. This rune provides more win more, but also lose harder if you’re being denied kill contribution. This rune is a higher highs, but lower lows and once you’ve obtained the AD from this rune it no longer provides additional utility unlike the other two. If you’re looking for flexbility and don’t mind playing the vision game as needed this is the set you go.

★ is the safest bet, adores this increase in healing and even can use it to narrowly pull out of sticky situations with his combo. However if unsure then know that can provide you even more mobility to quickly get into position for your E to phase through the walls and catch unsuspecting spilt pushing ADC’s with a darkin to the face.

★ is always going to be a solid rune for even . This rune increases your gold value for assists should you miss out on a kill (20 gold adds up throughout a game and makes snowballing even more powerful) but the greatest asset is the % missing health healing. This rune can provide just enough healing to avoid ignite killing you, saving a potential shutdown or kill being traded back to the enemy. with his increased bulk and likely purchase of should almost always double down on this rune.

★ For the last pick access the enemy team and pick accordingly, if against heavy CC make sure to run as even , being locked down for to long results in you being slain. If against plenty of bruisers, tanks, and other death by a thousand small cut champions then consider , especially on who lives for those extended duels at low health drain tanking. If unsure and not against significant CC then take which assists with both forms in turn but providing even more damage for the rotation style to secure the kill.

SHADOW ASSASSIN

Shadow Assassin Runes - These are runes tailored solely to when you preemptively have decided to run this form of . As mentioned before you should always try to pre-select your form to better suit your needs to the game at hand and work towards that form.

> > > or
(or ) > .

's goal is to single handily decide games by quickly picking out key targets then drifting back into the shadows to resume the process all over again. These are the runes that provide you even more ability to execute your targets and turn a snowball lead into a victory.

★ is the snowballing execution rune, allowing you to calmly gather up stacks in the early game to provide a much more powerful mid game. While not as powerful in single target execution compared to this rune can quickly allow you to pick target after target after target in succession. This rune’s fallback however is that if you’re unable to gather souls effectively you in turn will fall even further behind then should you run . Take this rune as your primary when you’re against many squishy champions and you’re looking to snowball a lead early and use it to chain shut down the enemy team by yourself.

★ increases your burst potential after your first Q, use this to make both your main source of damage and your passive hit harder than before and scale nicely with your overall numbers. Unlike Rhaast, fully takes advantage of both penetrations for greater effect.

★ scales best with snowball and loves snowballing games heavily into his favor. Use this rune to quickly gain a stat advantage over your enemies and then position yourself to reap their lives as quickly as possible. If you’re looking for a more safe snowball consider taking to scale nicely with your vision denial and to catch enemies off guard. If you’re unsure about the game’s early game potential consider taking to quickly sweep off vision. Once you get it’s passive will actively alert you to wards to snatch instead.

★ is going to provide with extra sustain in the early game when he is in base form, allowing you more time and safety to scale into . During mid game fights it’ll allow you to more often avoid trading one for one due to high burst damage meaning more healing for you. While this is not the main form of play you’ll want to aim for it is a possible option. If you’re feeling more adventurous and snowballing consider . While your E provides a large boost of MS this provides even more mobility when not in E form and stalking targets. Do understand this only provides for out of combat and the MS soft cap exists.

★ is what you’re going to want for your early game safety. has very few tools to sustain or maintain himself in fights and a dead is a useless one to his team. More gold generation and sustain will provide as always to maintain an early game safety into mid game domination.

★ You long for a worthy opponent so that you may cut them down, this helps your assassination patterns and is useful regardless of what foe you’re aiming to one shot.

RHAAST

These runes are focused on providing base a form to be safe, then once the corruption has been completed to completely take over the game flow with crazy in game sustain. With providing you much needed AD to enhance your abilities, provide unreduced additional healing AND true damage you’ll be a terror regardless of whom you’re against.

> > >
or or or .

★ The rune of bruisers and ’s favorite friend. This rune provides you even more sustain off your kit, a nice helping of AD and true damage allowing you to remain a threat to anyone even if they’re stacking armor against your damage. Remember that stacking this rune is per ability so make sure to weave in auto attacks between your abilities to ensure you can stack this rune as quickly as possible. There is real no other option for sustain you should be running for , especially as this rune makes you strongest against the very tanks, bruisers and other front liners you want to be drain tanking in the first place.

★ often builds high hp value items such as , and to boost his in combat survivability, provides him even more healing and scales with all the hp he’ll be purchasing to make him a truly terrifying drain tank. There is no exception to run anything else in this set up, as a later rune would be in direct conflict with .

★ As is often slower, bulkier and standing in the front lines you’ll want a way to ignore hard CC as quickly as possible. Take this rune to enhance your capabilities accordingly, if you’re against a team of very light CC and/or knockups/backs then you can take for faster combos for your Conqueror stacks.

★ This rune allows you to deal more damage when your health begins to drop, when your other items begin to provide you forms of negating death this rune will begin to amp your damage. Since your healing is based off of damage dealt you’ll stand to gain even more HP during the most dangerous of times and properly drain tank.

★ Your passive gives you ability healing, this gives you ability healing. Let the marriage of healing begin so you may sustain all the things, never trade this option out on as the in-combat sustain can simply not be matched

★ increases your healing and damage every time you dash, giving you high uptime in your increase damage. This is a better benefit as you gain lethality regardless of your performance and has far more consistency in play.

★ However if you’re looking for more AD to enhance your raw abilities then consider either s or to boost your resources. s plays safer in consistency and allows you to continue providing vision throughout the game.

SHADOW ASSASSIN

For itemization we’ll be focusing on the two item sets you’ll want to consider for both forms of . If an item is shared between the two they’ll also share descriptions so don’t feel like you have a case of deja vu.

Stalker's Blade - Warrior > STARTING
excels with powerful AD ratios and deleting a single target in game with his full rotation. gives you access to your ultimate when you need to quickly shift into a target by giving you a range target hit. Warrior enchant is the only enchant for . When building this item you can grab the first before dropping back into the blue smite if your first purchase allowed you to do so as provides a large boon to your mana regen in the jungle.

Boots of Mobility > MOVEMENT
wants to shift through the shadows and quickly capture targets as soon as possible when they mispostion. Take these boots especially when snowballing will allow you to quickly answer ganks, make picks, take advantage of gains gathered by your teammate and quickly remedy a bad situation in the making. Using your enhanced will make the enemy fear the shadows that you may be lurking in.

Duskblade of Draktharr > DAMAGE
The core of the assassin kit and vital to 's damage rotation. This item provides high lethality, cdr and AD for your base kit but also has two unique passives you can use to your full advantage. The best part is the damage is enhanced by your passive so you get even more bang for your buck. The second passive will inform you when you’ve been spotted by an enemy ward and give you visibility to destroy the rune in a single shot. However do note that you are not given information of where it is similar to so keep your focus on when it activated. Note that your ultimate does NOT reset the damage passive so make sure to get off your enhanced auto attack before you go into your ultimate.

Youmuu's Ghostblade > DAMAGE
Mobility is vital on an assassin without a large dash and this item provides you even more lethality to one shot a squishy. Take this item after to continue your snowball and grab some final murdering power.

Edge of Night > DAMAGE
This item is not always one you’ll need to go, but a more situational item you can take to give yourself more protection. When the enemy has a single core ability they’ll open with or powerful ultimates like that you’ll need to drop. Use this item active and possibly even rush this as a second is against one skill shot champions like , , , and others who have a single ability canceled will throw off their entire flow.

Guardian Angel > SURVIVABILITY
Avoiding giving out your bounties is one of the keys to successful carrying in lower elo games. If you’re snowballing after obtaining your core lethality items consider grabbing this defensive item that also enhances your damage. provides you a second life and a chance to get your cooldowns down so you can make an escape. Secondly the mental effect of seeing a foe with a large bounty and a GA will throw enemies from trying to kill you when you’re with your team, never underestimate the mental game you can play with this item.

Mortal Reminder or Lord Dominik's > UTILITY/DAMAGE
Sometimes the most vital target you need to remove from a game is a bruiser or champion who has more armor then you can use lethality alone to penetrate. In those games you’ll want to pick up either a mortal reminder for healing champions such as , , , and for every other case. Remember that the % penetration is applied first before your lethality. So for someone who has 100 armor you’ll go through 35 armor off before your lethality is applied.

Death's Dance > SURVIVABILITY
This item isn’t as powerful on but provides CDR, high ad and a form of sustain if the game has dragged on long enough. Remember your duties are to pick off one core target but there are times you’ll be forced into otherwise unfavorable matchups. For it’s simply a greedy, but powerful sustain tool that makes his healing power even more ridiculous in turn.

Maw of Malmortius > AP RESIST
If you’re against a heavy AP team comp, consider this item to itemize against them. The shield breaking can easily save your life from burst damage and the increase MR means you have more time to dish out your damage before being brought down by the enemy. Great as a situational build item.

RHAAST

Skirmisher's Sabre > STARTING
is a master of dueling, extended trades and his core item pick up reflects this. By taking the damage reduction of red smite you give yourself more uptime in duels and during teamfights. While Chilling smite is an option for , provides more damage, more uptime in fights, and a unique form of damage reduction against the target you’re dueling.

Black Cleaver > ARMOR SHRED
A majority of your damage is based of % Max HP, meaning your best targets to both damage and drain tank off will be bruisers and tanks. however often will be met with armor & grievous wounds to counter him. Your first item stands to deal with the former by providing you AoE shred to armor, cdr so you can constantly spam spells and finally HP so your last stand has a greater window to be amp’d without you being in one shot territory.

Spirit Visage > HEALING
provides much of what desires, HP, CDR, resistance to said damage but most importantly amplifying all of the healing you recevie by 30%. With most forms of grievous wounds being 40% reduction you need any way you can to amplify those numbers back up. The best part especially in lower elos where people tend to forgo adapting their build to the game and often grievous can be earned very late, this can make you a true terror into the right team comps.

Sterak's Gage > SURVIVABILITY
You’ll find a boon of health whenever you drop this item into your build, providing a bountiful amount of HP, AD and even more tenacity to add to your runes and possibly even boots this item is an expensive but useful item usually in your third or fourth slot. This item amplifies all of your HP purchases such as and to give you an anti-burst shield to counter any form of damage coming your way. The problem is % damage being dealt back to you will be a huge counter especially if it’s something like the . Consider enemy builds and abilities carefully before adding this to your roster.

Guardian Angel > SURVIVABILITY
Avoiding giving out your bounties is one of the keys to successful carrying in lower elo games. If you’re snowballing after obtaining your core lethality items consider grabbing this defensive item that also enhances your damage. provides you a second life and a chance to get your cooldowns down so you can make an escape. Secondly the mental effect of seeing a foe with a large bounty and a GA will throw enemies from trying to kill you when you’re with your team, never underestimate the mental game you can play with this item.

Mortal Reminder or Lord Dominik's > UTILITY/DAMAGE
Sometimes the most vital target you need to remove from a game is a bruiser or champion who has more armor then you can use lethality alone to penetrate. In those games you’ll want to pick up either a mortal reminder for healing champions such as , , , and for every other case. Remember that the % penetration is applied first before your lethality. So for someone who has 100 armor you’ll go through 35 armor off before your lethality is applied.

Death's Dance > SURVIVABILITY
This item isn’t as powerful on but provides CDR, high ad and a form of sustain if the game has dragged on long enough. Remember your duties are to pick off one core target but there are times you’ll be forced into otherwise unfavorable matchups. For it’s simply a greedy, but powerful sustain tool that makes his healing power even more ridiculous in turn.

Dead Man's Plate > SURVIVABILITY
This item provides high health and armor while giving the much needed mobility he needs to try to get in perfect position for the enemy. Often times this item is built fourth if you’re not snowballing as and are far more favorable.

For this section we’ll be going over full game play with alone, we’ll cover early game, early game form obtained (Pre 10 minutes) Mid Game, Mid game Form Obtained (10-25) and then Late game (25+) If you’ve not obtained your form by 25 minutes you’ve either been afk and or trying for a Full Pacifist Run of League of Legends.

Early game

Camp Clear 1 --> Red Buff -> Krugs -> Raptors -> Wolves -> Blue Buff -> Scuttle

Camp Clear 2 Raptors ->Red Buff -> Krugs -> Gank Side Lane

Camp Clear 3 Red Buff -> Raptors -> Wolves -> Blue Buff

Items --> ->

At the start of your game you’ll want to take up a defensive position after taking your items, at one of your many jungle entrances. is highly vulnerable at level 1 to various types of invades especially if your Q is cancelled mid dash can force out an early or even a first blood if caught out. If you’re forced into an early fight remember your highest damage possible is AA > Q > AA and the amount of raw base damage your Q can bring in AoE can be more helpful then people may understand easily. If possible you’ll want to advise your mid laner to ward enemy Raptors at 1:20. This ward is so heavily impressive with the amount of information it can glean for all of your laners. If you spot the enemy jungler appearing there around 1:50 with only 4 CS then vanish towards Blue Buff, you can inform your top he is free to play aggressive to punish the opposing laner and vice versa on the red side. For , you’ll instead want to focus on where you’re going to start your first clear.

’s passive Q damage is heavily loaded in the early game with an additional 40 base damage in bonus applied in AoE. This is for both the dash and the slash part of his Q and should be accounted properly when routing. is an AoE clearing champion so your primary focus of clear should be Krugs > Raptors > Wolves > Gromp in that order when you are crunched for time to clear. Your starting clear however, should be based on a few factors of your end result. If you’re looking for a high farm return value of XP and CS then you’ll want to go with Clear 1 which focuses on the most effective path possible. Even if you lose out on Scuttle, the amount of time you’ve saved with the rest of your camps on a clean respawn cycle will easily make up for it.

However should you want to look more aggressively for play making options then Clears two and three will more quickly open this up. Clear 2 focuses on surprising the enemy mid or side laner you started on (EX: Blue side this is bot, for Red side this is top) Many players in all elos do not expect a swift level 3 gank from and especially if this is a ranged squishy champion you can absolutely abuse this to give a lane a strong lead in the early game. Remember as your job is to obtain blue orbs the earliest damage gives sufficiently less orbs then later in the game so while the target isn’t that important yet it is something to keep in mind.

Your best ganks should focus on lanes who either have no escapes or even better have used core abilities such as ’s Q (Leap) ’s Shadow, ’s Q so you’re more likely to arrive with a kill. The best way to set up these ganks are to find a route you can shadow walk through, but be warned that your E will clearly indicate to the enemy when you’re heading into a gank. Lead with your W when possible so you can hit both parts of your Q. One of the things you’ll want to avoid is fighting in a direct 2v2, 3v3 gank since Pre-form is often at your weakest and many meta junglers will often have a strong early game to counteract your flow. This can be played around by watching enemy jungle clears, placing s in critical locations you can look to track enemies in bushes that aren’t normally seen.

Objective wise Pre-form will not have many options to force objectives. As you’re aiming for setting up ganks for bot lane is a great way to achieve the needed orbs to obtain your passive and during the early game a single good game you can easily obtain a for your team. Remember that s like are superb to helping your team sustain to the point of mid game, mountain will aid in snowballs while and will help in combat strategies. One of the things you need to ensure is the enemy doesn’t obtain dragons if the bot lane or mid lane are gaining an advantage. Your job as is to build your snowball by picking off the squishier ranged champions so that your is picked up early. However there are adaptions to the game and sometimes you’ll need to play towards your top lane to gain a lead to tide yourself over.

Mid game

At this point you should begin to see a trend towards what form you’re closest to. If your bar is blue to blueish then make sure to finsh off the collection with an attempt at a ranged champion’s life. Remember that enough damage at the end can result a surprise so you’re going to want to shift your attention to the squishier champions you can burst in rotation. If you’ve been falling behind, the orbs earned at this point of the game will often lead you quickly gaining up from a bad early game. Your focus if you haven’t already obtained it is to get this form as soon as possible. You should be aiming for form by 12-14 minutes as this will give you time to properly influence the map, any later and you’re only going to be damaging your teammates with your lack of team contribution.

If your early game s have been taken make sure to replace them. Pre 18 minutes you’ll want to have it located in the bot side of the map enemy jungle to track enemy movement towards objectives. Afterwards you’ll want to shift these wards towards . As the game nears , make sure to grab your if you haven’t already and begin making picks. In most games people will try to spilt the map 1/3/1 especially with sometimes being the enemy ADC. This is your perfect chance to use your to make vital catches especially if your lacking in the transformation department.

Avoid forcing big teamfights while you are pre-transformation. If the enemy team five man’s an , then at best - go for the steal but avoid going for those big fights till you can obtain your form. Similar to early game you’ll need to go for number advantage plays with your map mobility.

Shadow Assassin Obtained

Now that you’ve transformed it’s time to take the game into your hand. Your focus is to find those spilt pushing members and quickly delete them. If the target is squishy enough save your ultimate if possible to instead take advantage of the snowballed kill to quickly join and force out a fight. As an assassin, avoid coming directly into the enemy line of sight and instead use the to ensure you’re outside of enemy vision to find a flanking route. Use your W from range for the heavy slow and get into position with your Q. If you cannot close in fast enough to get off Q then ult to ensure you avoid any skillshots aimed at taking you down.

While the ADC will be your main focus in the game you should be mindful of whoever is the most fed AND squishier target. This often means you should be analyzing the front & backline of an enemy team to find the best chance to go in. Instruct your team especially if you have an hard engage support to draw attention away from the backline so you can begin making your picks. Even if you’re not terribly fed the amount of damage you can complete is simply amazing. If you’re against a squishier jungler aim to disable him when objectives are spawning to give your team the smite advantage. Your highest combo is W *Delay* Q into at the same time.

As the game starts heading into you’ll need to figure if your team has the proper ability to force . Since you cannot tank you’ll need to make solid picks especially against AoE teamfighters like and the enemy jungler to force picks.

Significant amount of skirmishes can result in a terrifying snowballed lead for . Once your form is obtained you’re going to want to priotize ensuring you have to abuse your shortened E cooldown. You’re going to be actively looking for lane focused on shutting down any enemy champions who are snowballing. With an early you are even a threat to bruiser like champions if you properly execute your ultimate combo by leading with burst and an AA for your if obtained and then moving into your ultimate to follow up with the finishing combo. Your ultimate while it can do enough to be the finishing blow is more so of a way of extending your combo pattern and catching a target who used an escape to disengage. You still are very vulnerable in soloing objectives so make sure to find picks then forcing objectives.

At this point of the game you’ll need to be the lead of game plays with a priority list. Shut down enemy carries especially if they are hypercarries and snowballing (, , , ). Crush enemies who are already beat down to throw enemy morale in the tank (The 0/5 bot lane? Make them 0/7) Follow up picks with objectives.

Late game

At this point unless you’re snowballing you’re going to start entering dangerous zones. Unlike other Assassins you have no way to gap close large distances without dealing damage first like or have invisibility or dashes like , or . You’re going to need to find a way to close this game and that tool is with and looking for closing games out. At this point of the game you’re going to need to force by making a critical pick, with death timers so large even picking the support may just be enough of a tide turner to end the game in your favor. Itemize for penetration, as natural armor gain and ’s will start appearing so you can still one shot any target you aim for. Avoid trying to assassinate a , especially if they’re among their teammates. If you get picked, you’re looking for a very unfortunate trade for an item cooldown which means , inhibitors and easily the game.

Consider getting a of your own at this point, or even selling your boots if you’re finding trouble to make picks. Catch supports who wonder near , trying to deward.

For this section we’ll be going over full game play with alone, we’ll cover early game, early game form obtained (Pre 10 minutes) Mid Game, Mid game Form Obtained (10-25) and then Late game (25+) If you’ve not obtained your form by 25 minutes you’ve either been afk and or trying for a Full Pacifist Run of League of Legends.

Early game

Camp Clear 1 --> Red Buff -> Krugs -> Raptors -> Wolves -> Blue Buff -> Scuttle

Camp Clear 2 Raptors ->Red Buff -> Krugs -> Gank Side Lane

Camp Clear 3 Red Buff -> Raptors -> Wolves -> Blue Buff

Items --> ->

At the start of your game you’ll want to take up a defensive position after taking your items, at one of your many jungle entrances. is highly vulnerable at level 1 to various types of invades especially if your Q is cancelled mid dash can force out an early or even a first blood if caught out. If you’re forced into an early fight remember your highest damage possible is AA > Q > AA and the amount of raw base damage your Q can bring in AoE can be more helpful then people may understand easily. If possible you’ll want to advise your mid laner to ward enemy Raptors at 1:20. This ward is so heavily impressive with the amount of information it can glean for all of your laners. If you spot the enemy jungler appearing there around 1:50 with only 4 CS then vanish towards Blue Buff, you can inform your top he is free to play aggressive to punish the opposing laner and vice versa on the red side. For , you’ll instead want to focus on where you’re going to start your first clear.

’s passive Q damage is heavily loaded in the early game with an additional 40 base damage in bonus applied in AoE. This is for both the dash and the slash part of his Q and should be accounted properly when routing. is an AoE clearing champion so your primary focus of clear should be Krugs > Raptors > Wolves > Gromp in that order when you are crunched for time to clear. Your starting clear however, should be based on a few factors of your end result. If you’re looking for a high farm return value of XP and CS then you’ll want to go with Clear 1 which focuses on the most effective path possible. Even if you lose out on Scuttle, the amount of time you’ve saved with the rest of your camps on a clean respawn cycle will easily make up for it.

However should you want to look more aggressively for play making options then Clears two and three will more quickly open this up. Clear 2 focuses on surprising the enemy mid or side laner you started on (EX: Blue side this is bot, for Red side this is top) Many players in all elos do not expect a swift level 3 gank from and especially if this is a ranged squishy champion you can absolutely abuse this to give a lane a strong lead in the early game. Remember as your job is to obtain blue orbs the earliest damage gives sufficiently less orbs then later in the game so while the target isn’t that important yet it is something to keep in mind.

Your best ganks should focus on lanes who either have no escapes or even better have used core abilities such as ’s Q (Leap) ’s Shadow, ’s Q so you’re more likely to arrive with a kill. The best way to set up these ganks are to find a route you can shadow walk through, but be warned that your E will clearly indicate to the enemy when you’re heading into a gank. Lead with your W when possible so you can hit both parts of your Q. One of the things you’ll want to avoid is fighting in a direct 2v2, 3v3 gank since Pre-form is often at your weakest and many meta junglers will often have a strong early game to counteract your flow. This can be played around by watching enemy jungle clears, placing s in critical locations you can look to track enemies in bushes that aren’t normally seen.

Objective wise Pre-form will not have many options to force objectives. As you’re aiming for setting up ganks for bruiser lanes is a great way to achieve the needed orbs to obtain your passive and during the early game a single good gank you can easily gain map advantage to begin pushing for dragons. Remember that s like are superb to helping your team sustain to the point of mid game, mountain will aid in snowballs while and will help in combat strategies. One of the things you need to ensure is the enemy doesn’t obtain dragons if the bot lane or mid lane are gaining an advantage. Your job as is to build your snowball by engaging with front line melee champions for . However there are adaptations to the game and sometimes you’ll need to play towards ranged foes to win the game.

Mid game

At this point of the game, laning phase has begun to die down and teamfights are beginning to break out rapidly. As Pre-form is still extremely weak you’ll need to shift your attention more attentively to your passive. If the bar is deep red or a tint of red you’re on the right path to shift into when you fill out your bar. However if the game flow has forced you into orbs remember that the value of red orbs are higher as the game goes on so one good execution can quickly shift the orbs accordingly. Depending on some games you may even obligate yourself to go with the form you obtain at first to avoid being without a form forever as while the four minute cooldown can be shortened by engaging in combat it’s still a subpar choice for a time where a single teamfight can quickly turn the tide.

Look to set up objectives with your teammates who are currently maintaining a lead as even this form of has zero chance at soloing an objective beyond . by the 14 minute mark is the optimal time you’re going to look to obtain this objective for plating, but if unable make sure to save it after a won team fight to threaten the enemy base. Avoid destroying nexuses unless you can go for a game ending fight as a single opened nexus easily will lead to someone on the enemy team quickly catching back up on XP and gold while the laner who no longer has a way to farm falls behind. Instead expose inhibitors and only begin to take them down near the 19 minute mark so you can threaten baron accordingly.

Till however, you should stay focused on that objective because…

Rhaast Obtained

You’re at the strongest point of your game and only going to get stronger. As you’ve completed your you can shred through any frontline target by reducing their armor effectively to a much more manageable position. As the jungler you’re going to need to start focusing your teammates towards objectives, especially s by calling the objective around the 1:30 before it spawns in. This gives your teammates time to reset, set up vision and potentially even make a pick of their own to safely secure the .

In teamfights your objectives you need to play into either two playstyles, if you’re the biggest player on your team you can threaten anyone who gets in your way and force the enemy to respond to you first and foremost. When you’re going even then make sure to plant yourself firmly in the frontline since your healing off your R and Q scales with the HP purchases of your enemy. With maxing W first after your inital 3 points in Q will give you stronger punching power against a squisher target due to the flat damage increase and the uptime on your hard CC can make winning extended duels easiest.

An early is a force to be reckoned with. If you’ve obtained your ability to begin sustaining is matched second to none and now you’re going to be a terror in the jungle. obtains hard CC and crazy sustain that Base had no hopes to achieve. Assuming that all of this early game dueling you’ve likely gathered several bounties for . Unlike you’re more than capable at locking down the enemy team in the middle of a teamfight and that is what you should be aiming for. If is available ensure you’re calling for this objective with your team so you can gather the last few stacks of in the teamfight itself.

Scuttle advantage is also much easier as you now have hard CC to reduce the resistances for the Scuttle. One of the advantages of obtaining Scuttle is that many lower elo players will tend to int attempting to contest Scuttles leading to a bigger snowball. If a ranged squishier target is starting to snowball try to shut them down at this point of the game. As early game tends to avoid large scale teamfights in the lower elos especially 's lack of target access isn’t as much of a trouble. While invading can be a potential you should avoid it unless you have priority or are heavily fed.

From here you’re going to want to use your E to engage your distance with the W so you can ensure you’re properly aligned. With the W try to lead targets ever so slightly since the knock up is so powerful that it can single handily win teamfights.

Keep in mind that at this point especially if there is another healing champion items like and will be completed to reduce your potential healing. If possible try to avoid taking the respective damage source but often times this will be subpar to simply bashing directly into the brawl.

Itemize your offensive/defensive depending on the enemy team comp. A is a powerful pickup if you’re snowballing and their primary threats are AD based. Magic based comps can easily be countered with a well picked up . If behind, a gives you even more mobility to start your carnage and lastly if you’re looking for a bigger pick me up then a provides a huge anti-burst shield but be wary against % damage enemy champions.

Late Game

At this point you’ve obtained and the game is clearly heading into the final decisive fight. Try to avoid running into the jungle with your face first especially if you don’t have backup, 's inability to move swiftly out of danger can result in you being picked and therefore your allies losing or to the enemy team. Instead make sure to ask for an escort as you deny the enemy vision with an and set up killpoints for the enemy team to investigate with their own faces. has powerful late game picks due to his knock up from the fog of war, even squishier targets will end up taking a good portion of their health with a W > Q combo and if you time your ult correctly you can even follow them when they attempt to disengage.

The best way to set up kill points is with s in the vital area of pit / pit then using to deny vision in the adjutant bushes. You need to maintain constant vision in these key objectives to bait the enemy into having to check to see if you’re actually attempting this. If your team was able to secure a this is only more lethal for your team to optimize.

Avoid diving fully into the back line as hyper carry & ADC champions will begin to come online and quickly outdamage . With the amount of anti-healing make sure you’re getting the value of what you can get and especially ensure to end your ult early if the target you ulted is on the brink of death. A single R that doesn’t heal you in turn can easily result in your death and with the amount of run in this game this can easily be the boost the enemy needs to ace your team. Your best attempt is to play to your win condition and guide your team to the objectives on the map for a final game winning secure.

If you’re forced into a 50/50 , your W is your largest single burst so try to time W with your to give yourself a large window.

So you’ve embraced the shadows or gave into the carnage of life, but in the end I know you’ll find the path best suited for you Apprentice. Now you’re armed with the tools you’ll need to find success on and the tips you need to ensure you’re picking the right tool for the job.

has always been a champion I’ve been rather keen on design, gameplay wise and his adapbility being similar to my main champ . If this guide was helpful to you, let me know in the comments and perhaps request the next guide you’ll love to see created.

From the Flowing Sun Academy, may the sun be with you. So that the shadows may be reaped.