EPT![[image loading]](http://www.leagueoflegends.com/sites/default/files/game_data/1.0.0.104/content/champion/portraits/24.jpg)
I'm BAAAAAAAAACK!
Why hello there, what are you doing reading a guide on a champion that nobody plays?
And to add to that, your point of view is understandable. Nobody knows how to play him anymore.
Jax was one of the titans of the LoL beta, dodging everything and being the one melee DPS who didn't have fear jumping in and rolling people.
Nowadays, he fits in a role that has completely disappeared in the LoL scene, that of the melee DPS.
This guide is not really meant to be something you can follow step-by-step, since really, there are like 7 people in total who play him and nobody plays him the same way. My personal point of view is that he is probably best played as a chasing hybrid like he used to be, without trying to use experimental burst or full AP builds.
A bunch of facts, theorycrafting and observation at the end, now for a small preamble:
Before he gets his ultimate, Jax is not a great last-hitter. Mainly because he has to get up close to his target to hit it, but also because becoming addicted to spamming W without bluebuff will quickly leave you out of mana.
Therefore, since he is a carry and is best played as one he is often played solo top (most dangerous deaths-wise route), as a jungler (very weak early, but you can mindfuck the living shit out of the opposing team since your jungling routes are variable, and if you are forced to recall due to unlucky dodge streaks the opposing team might just think you're MIA and fear a gank), or as a duo-laner (slowest and easiest route of the 3, provided you have a babysitter that doesn't need to farm. Janna>Taric).
Summoner Abilities:
Your lack of escape tools forces you into ghost/flash or ghost/cleanse in most cases, if you really really need to you can take ignite or exhaust instead of flash, ignite tho is only recommended in 10/0/20 heavy-AP burst builds.
Masteries: X/9/X is no longer a dogma. Really, nimbleness is good but your E proc will already tell your opponents that they should back. And dodge stacking isn't good.
21/0/9 is doable. Recommended for players with a very aggressive playstyle, used when jungling or duoing bot.
9/21/0 is the overly defensive solo top build. Take both SoS and nimbleness, only go this way if you are going to be against kennen or other really hard matchups which will force you into rushing Catalyst. The penultimate mastery looks good on paper but you can easily neglect it, especially if you took cleanse.
10/0/20 is the standard for burst builds. Ghost/Ignite or Flash/Ignite.
9/0/21 or 0/8/22 are equally good solid builds.
1/8/21 for aggressive jungling, 1/14/15 for standard jungling.
Roones:
Arpen marks, Dodge/Armor/Mp5pl seals, MR/18 glyphs. 2 MS quints, 1 HP quint if you opened with a Doran's item. 3 HP quints if you are going for a superdefensive solo-top-at-all-costs build. Which again, I do vouch against.
Not sure about runes for burst AP builds. I'm guessing a standard caster runepage of Mpen reds/quints, mp5pl yellows, mr/18 blues would do.
The basic skilling build is therefore R>W>Q>E, opening W when laning and E when jungling. One rank in E is enough in all-out offensive builds, If you want to feel safer get a 2nd rank in it prioritizing over rank 2 Q. (It should be noted that Tabi are bugged and give you 1% less dodge than they should, at least it says so in the champ screen. The bug "fixes" itself once you get rank 2 E).
The item build for Jax is what people have mostly been fiddling with. Contrarily to the trend doran's blade stacking is not optimal on Jax, since he would already gain health from fully offensive items, lifesteal-wise he is better off with a single vampiric scepter after lv6.
The advantages of playing a hybrid is that you are going to deal damage regardless of what your opponents build. No good players who have tried a full-dps or full-AP Jax have succeeded, and really he just screams rageblade in my ears as I'm writing this guide.
Laning Jax:
The opening is negotiable aswell: start with either doran's blade, doran's shield, boots or rejuvenation pendant (the itty bitty one) and the necessary pots. Don't neglect mana pots if you opened rejuv.
Jungle Jax:
Open cloth armor, you need the resilience and need the money, opening redpot although safer just leaves you with a 300g money gap.
From there, the roads split:
AS/Rageblade Jax:
Ninja Tabi (or Blasting Rod if you're bot) on your first b, then proceed to build your rageblade. By the way you are an old school carry: you buy wards/spend unnecessary money early game, you kick in too late.
Going for AS builds will keep you closer to the DPS route, therefore after your rageblade you should go ahead and get yourself some damage, the most popular items are: -Atmas' Impaler (it procs your passive just once back and forth, but it's enough of a stat boots to bring you on par with everyone else)
-Emblem of Valor, later Stark's Fervor: lifesteal allows you to solo anything and come out of the jungle from barely surviving a gank to full hp and ready to charge.
-New Malady: the passive stacks really quickly and it keeps you on the hybrid route. Very good if your opponents are choosing to ignore and tank you instead of oneshotting you.
-Banshee's Veil: get the catalyst early (make it your 2nd item) if you're against a really hard solo top.
-GA: you are going to die, tbh unless your team aces them while you're down you are just going to die twice.
-Zeal/Phantom Dancer: situational item, get it for the MS if you conquered their jungle and turn into a midgame ganking machine. Upgrade it for the dodge and AS vs melee-heavy teams.
-Wit's End: meh, will often overcap your MS. Only do so if your team has a kayle and they all have mana heroes. But it's hilarious to see how much you drain them.
-Bloodthirster Spam: your after-40 mins item of choice: pointless to get it early when you can still die, you charge them in no time.
Redpot and Greenpot are your salt and pepper. You are Jax. And you do not fear heart diseases.
Spike damage/Gunblade Jax:
-Bilgewater Cutlass>Boots 2>Gunblade. Some people go kage's lucky pick>Gunblade>DFG. Favor blue elixirs over green ones.
Full-on AP Jax:
-Open Doran's shield or ring, Blasting Rod on first b, build goes something like Rod>boots1>Start Bluepot spam>Zhonya's>Sorc boots>DFG. Take Ignite.
-Shield/Ring into boots1>catalyst>RoA is doable aswell. But really...
As you can tell from the different level of detail in the item builds I am totally favoring the good 'ole raegblaed route.
Playstyle differs with each build and lane you took. But mostly you want to sit back and farm with your W until lv6, junglers get a separate guide. As a solo top you can do some harassment, but without help you are never going to finish the job and kill your counterpart. Your E is a really nice tool for backing up after a Q>W combo.
After lv6 you are going to be lasthitting like a pro, so farm until you have your rageblade and then start looking for trouble (and make it double). Pre-emptively ult in teamfights you you'll die from CC.
Don't be afraid to buy redpots, they proc your passive and prevent you from dying, which as a carry is the worst thing that can happen to you. If you are lagging behind you will be dead weight all game. An unfarmed Jax dies really easy and tends to just end up feeding.
In teamfights your job is to burst physical carries down first, depending on how hard they hit you should have taken a phantom dancer to avoid them laughing at you while you run towards and then right away from them. Stun whenever possible, a farmed Jax can turn the numbers surprisingly well, just stun>stun>stun>stun them until reinforcements arrive, it's pretty fun. Galio is your #1 preferred teammate unless you are laning bot where he's a close second to Janna, but his shield and his ult are a boon to you. And not having to fight a Galio is always a relief...
As a jungler you surprisingly don't need to start at blue. But you definitely don't want it stolen from you, so leave a couple of spotters. You can attempt to lv2 gank. I am serious. Start at red, hop mid or top and burn their flash/ghost. Proceed by doing wraiths/golems in whatever order is closer for you and B.
The most xp-rewarding jungling path for jax is to open wraith jack (full camp, start by attacking a red wraith and after eating the first round of attacks smite the blue one, it pretty much ensures a safe E proc.), follow with xp steal->your blue or if your blue got stolen or your mid is picky about XP-leeching go wolves->wraiths->golems.
Jungle Jax's rule of thumb: ALWAYS B WHEN YOU NEED TO.
You can die on your first run, not kidding. But as I mentioned before if you recall with an odd cs your opponents will fear that you are setting up a gank and maybe make some mistakes or leave some creeps.
Standard jungling routes are safe aswell, just remember that in some games you will just have to stop and go to base to buy. As another rule of thumb you want to get Tabi as fast as possible, they speed up your E procs and reduce the damage you take.
Mardred's is useless on you since you only start getting noticeable AS after lv6.
So, as a recap of all possible routes, in order of my favorite to meh:
wraith (jack theirs)>blue->wolves>(wraiths)>golems>lizard>gank
blue>wolves>wraiths>golems>lizard>gank
golems>wraiths>wolves>blue>b>lizard>gank
You jungle pretty fast tbh, recalling halfway through your 1st or 2nd run won't hurt you as much as you think.
Chug potions one after another, favor W over E for damage unless you are in dire need of stunning the creeps because you are too low. Bear in mind that your stun has a cast time, and that you won't be attacking while you're casting, so it's more of an anti-buff creep ability, don't use it on normal camps.
Your first big purchase on your recall should be tabi+ward for dragon, don't buy any other wards after that. Jax is viewed as a glass cannon, so the enemy team will either be in your jungle trying to gank you or they will be huddling fearing your ganks. For your teams this means GET THE FUCKING CS LEAD OMFG WHY ARE YOU BEHIND GOD JESUS WTF DAMNIT!!!!1oneoneone
...or something like that. Keep this concept in mind if you're playing jungle Jax in an arranged team.
Theorycrafting (more or less)
Now let's look at a few of his perks: he has 10% free dodge, which now only applies to autoattacks (since all physical dmg abilities have been made undodgeable one by one).
-The champ has some really good natural scaling MR, but it's basically another set of scaling MR blues, don't overthink that.
-Unlike Tryndamere, which is now an almost completely legit pick, Jax has no "get out of jail free" card. The champ does not get out of jail. He stays in it and becomes the king by bopping everyone with his lamppost.
-You need to be hit to stun: or better, you need dodges. More attacks=more dodges, so just try and cross minion waves to get your proc up whenever possible. Jump often bugs when used on wards and is not a reliable wall-hopping tool, so you will need to cycle between your W and E to keep rageblade procs up out of combat.
-Jax's AS is ridiculous, he almost gets to 2.5 atks/sec at 18 with a charged rageblade and no other items, this means that while items such as wit's end will proc with every his attack the AS it brings can easily put him over the cap, same for bloodrazor. This also means that his damage is split into lots of really fast hits, making Sheen-based items less desirable than on slower, harder-hitting champs.
-You are a melee DPS, but your abilities deal magic damage. And since they are on such low CDs that makes you a spam hero.
-Your abilities deal magic damage, your passive makes you benefit from both AD and AP. A thing should be noted tho, if you plan to abuse your AS you will need to have redbuff always on and malady becomes the best item choice. Bloodrazor Jax is extremely easy to counter with negatron-stacking since it takes him so long to farm it.
-You have NO ESCAPE TOOLS. So think twice before ganking. You are playing a money-whore, but you have to keep in mind what risks you are going against. Playing with a coordinated team is the best way to ensure your ganks success, if they pull the waves and have a stun/snare/root you'll know they are your best friends.
-(Low ELO only): You own everyone in 1v1. Except nasus, but who the fuck plays nasus at low ELOs...
-A small role that Jax can play perfectly is the party-stopper on early dragons/barons, your AoE stun is great for scaring people away and proccing your ult on them when your targets are cornered.
P.S. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this took a while to build. Thank god I'm at work and don't have that much to do...
