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Choose Champion Build:
- Crit Shaco
- AP Shaco
- Tank Shaco
Recommended Items
Runes: Standard Rune Page
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+65 Base Health
Spells:
Ignite
Smite
Items
Ability Order Skill Order every game
Backstab (PASSIVE)
Shaco Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Rek'Sai
This guy is your worst nightmare, she is able to spot you during your invisibility because of her passive when she is burrowed, when RekSai is in burrowed form she can see any moving targets, they are represented as little circles on the ground, this includes stealth targets. That allows her to see you coming in trying to kill the enemy squishies even though you are invisible. Try to either wait until the team fight already started to engage so the enemy team cant pay attention to the circle or try and pick the enemy carries off when RekSai is not in nearby
Orianna
Orianna is able to shield you with her ball, which allows you to walk into the enemy team with stealth so she is able to use her ultimate allowing you to get a 5 man shockwave off which can turn around any game instantly
Orianna
Orianna is able to shield you with her ball, which allows you to walk into the enemy team with stealth so she is able to use her ultimate allowing you to get a 5 man shockwave off which can turn around any game instantly
Champion Build Guide
This is the highest winrate i ever managed to get by only playing SoloQ:
If you are interested in Tips and Tricks, VOD Reviews, Full Game Commentary, or just Montages of my best plays, then I would highly recommend checking out my Youtube Channel and if you want to catch me during one of my live streams in which I play Ranked and just talk to the people in chat then Twitch it is! If you have any questions feel free to join my discord and ask away at https://discord.gg/ZpskUVm !
Here are a couple of reasons as to why i think Shaco is 100% worth picking up as a new champion or even OTP
Here are a couple of reasons as to why i think Shaco is 100% worth picking up as a new champion or even OTP
-
- A lot of fun to play
- Insane Outplay potential
- Challenging but not too hard to learn
- Regarded as the best SoloQ Jungler
- Annoying for the enemy team
- Most people don't know how to counter Shaco
Of course every Champion has his Pros and Cons, because if a Champion only had Pros he would be the best Champion in the game and no one would be able to touch him, here is a list for both the ups and downs playing Shaco has:
Of course every Champion has his Pros and Cons, because if a Champion only had Pros he would be the best Champion in the game and no one would be able to touch him, here is a list for both the ups and downs playing Shaco has:
Pros:
-
- Best LVL 1 Clear in the game
- Doesn't need a Leash
- Fast Clear with 3 points in his Box
- Good Counter Jungler
- Very Strong LVL 3 and LVL 6 Power Spikes
- Having a low Cooldown Flash on your Q that also has invisibility and damage
- Able to play with Ignite for strong early Duels and Ganks
- Insanely Frustrating to play against
- Arguebly the best Assassin to 1v9 with
- Very snowbally
- Great Splitpush
- Easy to take Objectives with Ult
- Huge Outplay potential
- Very powerful when Mastered
Cons:
-
- Takes time to Master him fully
- Invading and destroying his Boxes LVL 1 makes the first clear really tough
- Armor greatly reduces Shaco's damage
- Somewhat useless if behind
- A couple of Bugs that make it a tad frustrating to play Shaco at times
- Requires Items to be strong
AD SHACO:
Every Assassin has some kind of initiation tool, for Shaco it's his Deceive, the 3.5 seconds of stealth and the Flash range blink built into it makes it really easy to get on top of your target. Here is where things get tricky though and this is something that ultimately comes down to experience. You have to know your limits and damage you are able to dish out. Someone like Rengar can usually jump into 3 people, kill someone and get out, Shaco on the other hand has to be a lot more careful and going for these kinds of plays requires a lot more planning ahead as well as knowing what your champion is capable of.
A big advantage over other Assassin Junglers it that Shaco has a great splitpush, because you have high base attackspeed and his Jack In The Box, clearing the waves becomes really easy. You also have your Jack In The Box to block off pathways the enemy team could use to catch you, allowing you to pretty much always get out of any sticky situation when splitpushing.
Hallucinate makes it really easy to duel pretty much anyone in the game that is trying to hinder you from splitpushing. This allows you to not only kill them, but then also have you and your clone push pretty much twice as fast allowing you to put insane pressure on the enemy team.
One of the coolest things about Shaco though, has to be his insane burst if you manage to get a decent enough lead in the Early Game, not only is it fun to see the Enemy Squishies poppin in less than 1 second, but whats even better is seeing their reaction in All Chat.
TLDR: Shaco requires you to know his limits and kit really well to be able to use him to his full potential, but once you get that down, he is the most rewarding and fun to play Assassin in the game, hands down! So if you want to put the time into learning Shaco properly, then you are in for a fun time, i guarantee it!
AP SHACO:
This playstyle is rather hard and requires a lot of confidence and experience! AP Shaco is all about outplaying the enemy through boxes and good Clone micro, meaning you have to be able to control your Clone properly to make this playstyle work!
The main objective outside of the early game is to try and bait the enemy team into your Jack In The Boxes, get your Clone to explode inside of the enemy team and just being a nuisance to the enemy team in general by poking them with
Two-Shiv Poison.
Lets start off with the Jack In The Boxes, there are several ways you can place them or use them. The usual way you want to use them is by putting them at choke points like lane entrances or at spots were the enemies usually path through, here is a little screenshot to give you a general idea of what im talking about:
The red dots obviously mark the areas in which you want to place Jack In The Box, but so do the 2 red lines, you can place boxes anywhere on that line aswell, these are especially useful for making picks when grouping or helping you to disengage when the enemy team tries to force a teamfight!
When it comes to using your Clone properly, this is where it gets hard for most people, you have to be able to control your own and the clones movement at the same time which is hard. There are several tricks to you can do but I'll run you down on the 2 most used ones.
The first one simply requires you to Deceive into the enemy team and then using Hallucinate, this does NOT reveal you but keep in mind that your Deceive stealth duration is not so long! Now all you need to pray for is the enemy team killing your clone so it explodes. The other trick you can use is to Hallucinate early, making your Clone run away from you while you Deceive into the enemy team, at a certain range the Clone will teleport back to you, so if you time it right he will leash back to you once you reach the enemy team. Again, this comes down to experience but is a better version of the trick above.
TANK SHACO:
I would almost never recommend to play Tank Shaco because your carry potential is very limited, obviously you can still carry games with it but its much harder than with AP or AD Shaco.
Your job as Tank Shaco is the same as every other tank. You want to soak damage for your team and dive the enemy backline. This is very easy for Shaco because of his Deceive. You actually have surprising dmage with this build, just not enough damage to oneshot enemy squishies, but thats not really your job with this build, you are just assisting your team and helping them play front to back.
I guess overall this playstyle is somewhat similar to AD Shaco cause you can catch people the same way, you just kill them slower, but at least they cant kill you back.
I already went over the differences of each playstyle in the "Playstyle" chapter, so if you wanna know more about the playstyle, read that first. Now to actually answer this question, both are equally good... yeah...not what you expected.
The thing is that both playstyles just excell at different things, AD Shaco can oneshot people really easily and then get out, while AP Shaco can keep the enemy team at distance and have great poke damage with Jack In The Box and your Two-Shiv Poison while also being great at turning around huge fights with your Hallucinate explosion.
So here is the actual answer to this question, yes both are equally good, that wasn't a lie, but because both excell at something different, there are scenarios where one is better than the other but that is really difficult to break down and is something you pick up after hundreds and hundreds of both AP and AD Shaco games.
Here is a video i made that tries to explain my decision making as simple as possible:
AD SHACO:
So lets start off with the keystone, Hail of Blades is in my opinion essential for the crit Shaco playstyle, it allows you to get those initial 3 auto attacks in faster, which is huge especially once you have your first crit item, allowing you to pretty much one shot squishy targets. Another reason why Hail of Blades is just insanely strong is because of how it interacts with the Shaco's Clone. The way the Clone works is he copies your stats the moment you cast Hallucinate, so if you cast it anywhere between your first 3 auto attacks from Hail of Blades your Clone will have the attack speed bonus permanently, not only for his first 3 auto attacks. This makes Shaco really strong through out the entire game, even if you die, your clone will still deal nasty damage if untounched.
As for the 1st row, there is a debate in the Shaco community whether to run Cheap Shot or Sudden Impact. I personally prefer Sudden Impact because it outscales Cheap Shot fairly quickly. While Cheap Shot allows you to have a little bit more damage in the first couple of LVLs, Sudden Impact gives you Lethality that enhances the damage of your entire kit, thus outclassing the little bit of True Damage you get from Cheap Shot.
Since Shaco is an Assassin, the best choice for the 2nd row is Eyeball Collection. Shaco is really snowbally allowing you to get the 20 stacks super quickly if you play the early game right.
Relentless Hunter is easily the best choice out of the 4 options you have in the 3rd row, you get an insane amount out of combat movement speed! This is useful in so many ways, but mostly because it allows you to travel further during Deceive, making it easier to catch up to targets in stealth. But it also allows you to create more pressure on the Map by being everywhere a lot faster, allowing you to win games more easily.
As for the 2nd tree you run Sorcery, with Absolute Focus and Gathering Storm you scale insanely well into the mid and late game, which will allow you to oneshot most targets quite easily while also having insane DPS with the current Kraken Slayer build.
AP SHACO:
Dark Harvest is by far the best choice for AP Shaco it has insane synergy with your Two-Shiv Poison so stacking it is pretty easy. If you don't like Dark Harvest you can also run Electrocute but that is usually more burst oriented which AP Shaco isn't really about.
The rest of Domination is the same as for AD Shaco except for Treasure Hunter. This rune is simply too strong not to take, it helps you get your Liandry's Torment which is such an important Item for Shaco in Season 13 as it helps with the clear, offers lots of CDR and insane damage. The reason we don't go Ultimate Hunter is because the more CDR you get the worse it becomes. Early on Ultimate Hunter saves you like 20s, but in the late game you save like 4s which is honestly just not worth it imo.
As for the secondary tree, the best choice is by far Sorcery, it gives you insane amounts of AP and with the setup im running it gives you even more AP!
I personally really like to take Gathering Storm as it gives you a lot of AP which comes in super handy during the mid game and especially during the late game where this playstyle really shines.
As for the second rune in Sorcery you take Transcendence this gives you more CDR which is really nice and allows you to get more boxes down which is what AP Shaco does best anyways. It also allows you to spam Two-Shiv Poison for some nice poke damage.
TANK SHACO:
The primary rune page is the same as for the AD Shaco Build, so check above for an in depth explanation.
The reason we don't go for the Resolve Tree or things like Conqueror, Lethal Tempo or Press the Attack is because they take way too long to stack, dont really work with Hallucinate and the Hail of Blades interaction on Hallucinate is just too good to not run here.
Having your 4000HP Clone hit the backline with you, while having 1.5 attackspeed permanently seems pretty OP to me.
As for the secondary tree, things are a little different, we don't really care so much about having as much AD as possible, instead we want the extra attackspeed from Legend: Alacrity cause it helps us make up for not going Berserker's Greaves and helps us proc Backstab more often for extra damage. Later on we also get more Titanic Hydra procs in, but that isnt the primary reason we go this.
You can also run Legend: Tenacity if the enemy team has lots of CC.
The other things in this tree don't really make too much sense apart from Triumph and Presence of Mind out of which I personally prefer Presence of Mind, it feels better to play but is probably worse, it just feels good to have.
So thats why I recommend going Triumph, but if you want you can try each rune out a few games or so, to see which one you prefer.
CRIT SHACO:
So first of all you want to start with Gustwalker Hatchling, it is generally the better option of the 3 choices you have, because it provides a lot of movementspeed once completed which is super handy when it comes to moving around the map or catching people when they are isolated. You can opt for the Mosstomper Seedling though if you feel like you need the extra survivability in form of a shield and tenacity, both are solid options and it comes down to personal preference.
The Build i currently run is very straight forward actually. The first 2 Items are always gonna be the same, just like the order in which you build the components and such.
You wanna try and get a Serrated Dirk for your first back, that is one of the biggest power spikes for Shaco throughout the game. If you cant afford it don't worry, just get a Long Sword or two and boots if you can.
Next you want to finish Essence Reaver, this item is honestly the perfect all rounder item for Shaco, it offers everything you want (at least for me). It provides CDR, burst, crit and is relatively cheap. It also boosts the clear speed with the sheen procs if you use them properly and the added CDR helps in that regard too.
This is where you can sneak in your Berserker's Greaves, you can already upgrade them after the your Serrated Dirk but I usually do it here.
After Essence Reaver you want to buy Eclipse, a lot of other Shaco Mains might disagree with me here but i think Eclipse is just too good of a mythic item not to buy. Other Options like Prowler's Claw or Duskblade of Draktharr are okay too, but with this build and the way i would recommend to play Shaco, Eclipse just makes the most sense.
My reason behind all of this is the fact that sometimes Shaco is not able to oneshot targets, especially once they get a little tankier, and this is where Eclipse really shines. You have an easier time dueling people with Eclipse because it provides super nice utility stats like Omnivamp or Shields as well as Movementspeed.
But even if you are going for the oneshots, then Eclipse has you covered too. It might not provide quite as much burst as the other two options, but its not gonna be very noticable and i honestly think that trading off that little extra damage is well worth the added utility and the much better scaling that Eclipse offers because of its myhtic passive which grants you % Armor Penetration, making it better the more Armor a champ has. And ever since the durability changes most ADCs will easily have around 100 Armor in the late game.
After Eclipse you have 2 options and they are fairly simple and straight forward.
Your first option is Lord Dominik's Regards, this is my go to item in I'd say 95% of games. Unless you know for a fact that the enemy team wont buy any Armor or HP, and has no tanks at all, then this should be your 3rd item.
If the enemy team is full of squishy champs and maybe your team comp is rather AP Damage heavy, then going The Collector might be the better options because it is very unlikely for them to buy any Armor, making the Flat Lethality better than the % Armor Penetration for Lord Dominik's Regards. It also offers more AD and has a much better build path.
Once you are done choosing one of the two items mentioned above, you only really have 1 choice because it is now by far best item to build and that is Infinity Edge. The reason this is the only sane choice is because once you reach 60% crit chance and have Infinity Edge it gives you a 35% damage bonus to all your chritical strikes. This means that your Backstab, your Deceive but also your Auto Attack damage will all deal an extra 35% damage, IT DOESNT EVEN HAVE TO BE A TRUE CRIT, it can be a backstab induced crit (when you hit a backstab with your first auto attack after Deceive.
Now is where you can start "adapting" your build depending on what you like and what you feel like you need. I'll do a quick rundown on possible items, you can choose whatever you like or just take a look at the recommended build at the very top of the page.
Now the situational items:
Death's Dance is now a really solid choice, i usually build it after Lord Dominik's Regards because it allows me to get more AD, which helps with dealing damage, but it also allows me to be a lot tanker and survive fights for longer with the 30% damage conversion to burn and the heal from Kills or Assists.
Maw of Malmortius is a solid option especially in combination with Death's Dance, but even without that it really shines when you are worried about getting oneshot by enemy Mages, it allows you to live just a little longer while also providing you with decent stats like AD and CDR and you get free Omnivamp when you drop low which makes it even better for longer fights.
Wit's End is not quite as good as it used to be because it got nerfed once or twice, but it's still a really solid option after Death's Dance for example if you want more DPS but also want to be a little tankier against a heavier AP team.
Blade of the Ruined King is a great option if you are trying to shred high HP targets like tanks, that don't have too much Armor. In combination with Lord Dominik's Regards this item can be really powerful to kill tanks, but keep in mind that your overall burst will be a little lower.
AP SHACO:
As a starting item for AP Shaco i always go Mosstomper Seedling, i don't think the other 2 options are good, the shield is super nice and also works on your Clone, so it isn't super obvious which Shaco is the real one, but the other 2 options are either bugged ( Scorchclaw Pup doesn't always proc on Jack In The Box) or are just not that useful Gustwalker Hatchling for the AP playstyle
Ionian Boots of Lucidity are your go to first Item, they provide you with 20 Spell Haste which is insanely helpful when it comes to clearing the jungle, but you also get to move around the map faster which makes counter jungling or counter ganking a lot easier. We don't really go Sorcerer's Shoes anymore, because otherwise we dont have enough Spell Haste in our Items.
Your next goal is to finish Liandry's Torment as fast as possible, this is your first huge power spike allowing you to farm your jungle a lot faster and also have a decent damage spike. You will not be super powerful yet, but your Two-Shiv Poison damage and the burn as well as Jack In The Box will be enough to chip away the enemies HP.
Demonic Embrace is next. It is a great item, it is basically a 2nd Liandry's Torment just a bit weaker and offers a bit of defence as well. Once you are at this stage of the game you start to become a serious threat, you have insane poke and running into a bod can easily chunk them 1/3 or 1/2 of their hp depending on how tanky they are and if you are able to follow up with a Two-Shiv Poison.
Void Staff is probably the best item after Demonic Embrace, it allows you to shred so much magic resist and in combination with Liandry's Torment you can shred even the beefiest of tanks. Even if the enemy team doesn't stack as much magic resist this item is still great because you can pretty much just deal next to true damage which is always great on AP Shaco
Here are some situational items:
Morellonomicon is good if you need its Healing Reduction. This is somewhat situational and usually you would want your AD Teammates to build Executioner's Calling but if thats not the case then you can definitely pickt his up.
Zhonya's Hourglass is really really nice to have because it makes your outplay potential just so much better, it has good stats, but the active just makes it super OP. Being able to Deceive into the enemy team, then Hallucinate and then bursting the enemy team down once your Clone pops is already really strong, but also being able to Zhonya's Hourglass afterwards to prevent anyone from killing you is just amazing. You can use this item in so many situations, you can dodge skillshots, you can buy time for your cooldowns to come back, bait the enemy team into attacking you but then using
Zhonya's Hourglass and many many more.
Rabadon's Deathcap is something i don't build too often. While it is insanely good because of the raw amount of AP you get from it, it doesn't have anything apart from that where as most other items have some kind of active or passive that really benefit Shaco. Don't get me wrong, having huge amounts of AP is good, but if you are not snowballing this item is kinda wasted in my opinion.
Banshee's Veil is a good choice if you need the MR from the item or want the initial spell shield to not get cc chained right away when looking for poke with your Two-Shiv Poison or when placing boxes. I generally dont recommend building defensive items because if you are good on AP Shaco you shouldnt die too much anyways, but if you struggle with it or really really need the item, then go ahead, not a horrible choice.
TANK SHACO:
For Tank Shaco you always wanna start Mosstomper Seedling, the others dont really make sense and with a Tank build you want to be tankier, and this Jungle Item helps you with that.
For your first back try to get a Bami's Cinder, this will boost your clear speed and helps you with duels early on as well, you are also somewhat tanky right of the bat and get to do a bunch of stuff that would be risky for regular Shaco, without losing a lot of damage (at least if you make use of the Bami's Cinder passive.
Your next objective now is to rush Heartsteel, this Item makes you incredibly tanky once you have it and offers surprising damage for a Tank Item. It's really easy to get procs in fights because the timer of its passive starts ticking even when you are invis with Deceive so by the time you appear behind them, the mark is almost ready. You also scale pretty well because you keep getting more HP and your hits will deal more and more damage, the more often you proc it.
Now it's time to finish Sunfire Aegis, this makes you even deadlier in teamfights because if you manage to stick to your target you will deal a good chunk of burn damage with Sunfire Aegis and the proc damage from Heartsteel while being pretty difficult to kill because of all the Armor and HP that these Items provide.
If you haven't already, you should finish your Tier 1 Boots into either Plated Steelcaps or into Mercury's Treads. The decision is rather simple:
Do they have lots of CC or do they have lots of Auto Attacking champions?
Usually they have one more than the other, but in the case of both, you can just choose whichever one you think you need more, either options is probably fine.
Now you can start adapting your Build based on what type of damage the enemy team has:
Usually go Titanic Hydra anways. It has great synergy with all the HP you have and get from Heartsteel and [Sunfire Aegis]] and makes you even tankier, while also dishing out damage based on how much HP you have every Auto Attack.
A good Armor Item would be Randuin's Omen if they have 2+ champs that deal damage with Crit Auto Attacks
Another good Armor option is Frozen Heart, this one is good against any auto attack heavy champ because it slows the enemies attack speed.
If the enemy team has lots of tanks then going Blade of the Ruined King is a good idea. It helps you shred those high HP targets while staying on the healthier side because of the lifesteal.
Wit's End is great if you want to have more damage but also want to get more Magic Resist. It also helps to stick to your targets while dealing magic damage on every auto attack.
Force of Nature is as tanky as it gets, build this if you want maximum tankiness in the magic resist direction.
Thornmail is a good option if you need healing reduction and want to finish that into an entire item later on. I wouldn't buy this against AP damage heavy enemy team comps because as a full Item it's just not worth it, your team should hopefully have some anti healing themselves.
THIS PART IS SOMEWHAT OUTDATED, THE CLEAR STILL WORKS BUT ISNT THE BEST ANYMORE, ILL MAKE A VIDEO ON THE NEW CLEAR ONCE RIOT FIXES THE BOX FEAR BUG THAT MAKES THE CLEAR SUPER INCONSISTENT
Since Shaco's Boxes were changed in Patch 9.21 there is now a pretty specific Box placement you have to follow to maximize the efficiency of the first clear, here is a video of how that looks like:
!!! VERY IMPORTANT !!!
Make sure to pay attention to the enemies items at all times! I cant stress this enough, please always check for stuff
like Plated Steelcaps, Seeker's Armguard, Stopwatch or just any Armor Item in general. Since Shaco deals mostly physical damage, Armor really screws you over, so always make sure to check the scoreboard for any of these items!
Don't neglegt farming your own Jungle though especially once you have 3 points in Jack In The Box it is really easy to get an efficient clear going. Finding the balance between Ganking, Counter Jungling and Farming your own Jungle is what makes a great Jungler, the order of priority is usually Ganking>Enemy Jungle>Your Jungle.
Tracking the Enemy Jungler also makes the game a lot easier, there are some great Videos about that on Youtube, but its too complex to get into it here, but let me give you a couple of tips:
-
Pay attention to the Map as you are clearing your first camp, the enemy lane that arrives late to lane is the one that most likely leashed the Jungler. This allows you to plan ahead where he is going to be when he finishes clearing his Jungle.
As soon as you see the Enemy Jungler on the Map, make sure to open the Scoreboard and check his CS-Count, every Jungle Camp in LoL grants 4 CS which means you can at any time, if you keep track of his pathing, know, what camps he cleared.
Buffs take 5 minutes to spawn, and smaller Camps take 2 minutes to spawn, so a combination of all these 3 tricks allows you to always know which camps are up and where the Enemy Jungler is.
Something Shaco really excels at too is taking Dragon or Rift Herald once he reaches LVL 6, having you and your clone deal damage at the same time makes it really easy to melt objectives.
The way you achieve that is by finding 1 Lane that you play around now, this should be a Lane that is ahead of the Enemy and is able to help you. Whether that is Top, Mid or Bot doesn't really matter, you wanna try and take as many Objectives as possible like Dragon, Rift Herald or Towers ultimately increasing your Gold Lead even more!
You should also start looking for Squishies that are on their own, to farm kills. This gives your Team the number advantage and allows for things like Split Pushing or forcing Team Fights. The Goal here is to try and get into the Enemy Team's Base and take at least 1 Inhibitor, preferably already opening up the other lanes to siege later on.
!!! CAREFUL !!!
This is where most Squishies have their defensive Items, so be careful when trying to go for Oneshots as they might not work out.
Late Game is pretty much the same as the Mid Game, but everything is just a lot more important but also risky, every death matters a lot more so you have to be extra careful.
This is where looking for picks is really important, this allows you to either start splitpushing while your team threatens to force a 4v4 fight while you take their base, or you can then try to siege and end. Taking things like Baron or Elder Dragon also works really well, makes the entire process of finishing the game a lot easier!
The cheat sheet should bepretty easy to understand, different colors indicate easier/harder matchups and each matchup has a couple of tips and tricks on what to focus on or how you can win said matchup. it also shows you wheter AP or AD is the better choice, but usually you can play either and adapt more to the enemy team/your team instead of the jungle matchup.
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