Jax/Strategy

Skill usage

 * When laning, is an excellent zoner when in the brush, because his  -  combo enables heavy harassment with a lot of pressure. Be careful as these two abilities drain a lot of mana.
 * can use to leap into the fray of a fight or make a quick escape when necessary due to the fact that  can  towards a friendly unit. You can use  to maximize your burst potential when using .  can also used right before  to lead to an instant stun.
 * is most effective when used as quickly as possible after a basic attack. This, in addition to granting the bonus magic damage from, effectively doubles base damage output for that attack. Since it is still another attack, it also counts toward building up  and  passive, so those are accrued faster by using this technique as well.
 * While engaging with seems to be a safer option, activating it after you take some damage can bait your opponent in focus-firing at you, thus mitigating more damage and may causes your enemies to be over-committed in attempting to kill you.
 * Activating right before a fight will increase your resistance to both physical and magical damage.
 * Note that has a rather short duration of 8 seconds and 80 seconds cooldown.  usually doesn't need it a in 1v1. Save it for team fights where it's really needed.
 * If used at mid or low hp, it can bait an enemy and make him over-committed to kill you. It has nice synergy with, getting extra armor and making the item's passive more useful.
 * can jungle effectively with and, ganking with  and .  can be used for killing stronger monsters without losing much health, but you are more vulnerable to ganks when it is on cooldown. Careful if the enemy counter-jungles.
 * At level 2 is extremely potent at ganking combining  with  to deal massive damage, although he should continue to jungle until level 3 for the stun from.
 * In 3v3, there can be a lot of fighting even before minions come. is good for getting early first blood, since you can use it both for dodging and stunning the enemy. It can also help you on solo top, especially against champions who depend on autoattacks. You should max  though, you can use it many times in a longer fight and it helps you heavily with jungling and killing.
 * While playing against a or, you can dodge their ultimates with your , it might save you from a gank or team fight.
 * Be patient with . Often the opposing team will focus you down due to your high damage output. If you are having a bad game, just focus on gaining gold through minion kills, kills and assists, and jungling. Once you get the items you need, you will be much harder to kill.
 * Be careful in team fights with as is a high priority target for the enemy team due to his high damage output and squishiness.  is reliant on his team to support him so make sure that you are on a team with initiation and hard CC and that you are at most the third person to enter the fight, behind your tank and off-tank. Try to save  to escape when getting focused, rather than to engage on an opponent.

Build usage
Even with his fairly high base stats, as a carry is very item dependent for his damage output and survivability, being able to obtain gold from any source and building the best items at the most opportune time is crucial to his mid and late game.
 * is one of very few champions, if not the only champion, that can be itemized for attack damage, magic damage, or both. Keep in mind that not going hybrid doesn't take advantage of a lot of kit and will leave  lacking either some armor or magic resistance on his  active.
 * in particular provides everything that needs: attack damage and ability power for chewing through health (and by extension, armor and magic resist with ), life steal and spell vamp for sustainability, and a ranged slow active that considerably helps chasing.
 * Spell vamp procs on all of abilities,, ,  and even the passive on , healing  on every third strike.
 * A with  and  allows  to deal a massive amount of damage in quick succession. Although  will not proc, it will proc  and leave  close to the enemy and ready to land a normal attack which will in turn proc . This all happens very fast, making it a good way to harass or burst down a target. If you find this efficient, consider a  in a build with more ability power and  in other cases.
 * If you choose to invest strongly in ability power, is a great choice.  cooldown is very low on its higher levels, allowing frequent use of  passive.
 * Combine with to further decrease all of  cooldowns, especially, and get some extra ability power and attack speed.
 * is an effective laning item for . The life steal increases sustainability, the proc is helpful for farming, and the promotes pushing and preventing ganks. Overall, it provides a large amount of lane control.
 * Attack speed is fairly important on . He should have at least one item that provides it to coincide with his . Consider purchasing, , , or.
 * synergizes with his passive and offers a good source of mixed damage. Consider this item in an offensive hybrid build, and remember than you can start stacking it by using abilities, especially if you engage on an enemy with, , and all at once. In a hybrid build, it is a solid third item after boots and.
 * is a good pick on for the mana regeneration, ability power, cooldown reduction, and attack speed without waiting for the stacking of  or his  passive. If you value any of those stats over the additional ability power and attack damage of, choose  over . Of course, you could get both as they are rather cheap for what they give.
 * A is most appropriate in a full attack damage build.
 * The attack speed of does not make it an offensive item and is mostly for the magic resistance. As  is mostly an offensive champion,  could probably be replaced with a more useful offensive item.
 * Because a large amount of damage comes from the passive on  and, a full ability power build with a little attack speed is acceptable on . Doing so would be ignoring his inherent hybrid balance with his abilities' attack damage and ability power ratios.
 * The magic penetration of can effectively increase the damage of  and the passive of . However because  is very susceptible to CC so  is a more balanced choice. Use  only if you don't expect much crowd control.
 * would easily make up for the lack of armor from in an ability power build.
 * ability power should eventually surpass 150% of his base attack damage making a better choice than  for the passive. You might still have to find other items to make up for all the other stats that  gives. Think about pairing  with  and.
 * If you find squishy and are looking for an item that offers both armor, magic resistance, and is rather cheap, consider a . Once enemies see a  on a, they'll have to really consider whether or not they want to focus him rather than some other squishy target.  should only be considered after completing the core damage build though.
 * With, consider taking a or  to further increase your damage while keeping your prey slowed.
 * , besides being 145 gold cheaper, procs on all of abilities, including the third hit from, making it fairly reliable at slowing enemies down.
 * Consider hybrid offense-defense items such as or.
 * active effect gives some extra armor and magic resist based on his attack damage and ability power. Thus, building  fully offensive is an option.
 * Consider, , , and . The various sources of damage (crit, on hit magic damage (Muramana usually hits for around ~110 at lvl 18's max 1800 mana for 16 autoattacks), sheen procs, gunblade's active) will make for a potent burst, as well as giving good offensive stats that specialize in attack speed (good luck getting the gold required). If you have experience with , consider playing Jax as a more bursty anti-carry.
 * This build can be shrunk down to an intermediate level by building vamp scepter, hextech revolver, tear/zeal, sheen, boots and chainvest.

Runes and Masteries

 * Being that is a mainly offensive champion, he is probably best with offensive masteries. Offensive masteries (21/9/0) are seemly better for his damage and with defensive masteries (9/21/0) there is a noticeable decline in his damage while not providing the survivability that one would expect.
 * A rune page of attack damage and ability power per level can give a powerful scaling amount of bonus damage on all of his abilities, or a flat attack damage and ability power rune page can give a massive burst of damage on and  for laning, leading to a an advantage over the opposition during the early and mid phase of the game. This is especially useful for shorter games, such as those on the Twisted Treeline.

Countering

 * is very strong at late game, but is fairly weak early. Zoning him can make him under-farmed and under-leveled.
 * relies on getting close to his foe to land a stun. Try keeping a safe distance for a few seconds after he uses his.
 * primarily deals physical damage. Concentrate on armor items to counter it, especially items that slow his attack speed.
 * and are the only two items that slow attack speed, but they both also have high amounts of armor. Where the latter is generally reserved for tanks, the former is viable for a larger variety of champions, thanks to the CDR and high amount of mana.
 * Focusing  when his goes on cooldown is one of the best ways of getting rid of him. But since he is one of the best duelists in the game due to and the high AD and AP ratios he has on his single-targetted abilities, try to outnumber him.
 * Keep in mind that only allows him to dodge auto-attack, abilities will still damage him. However, note that Area of Effect abilities are still reduced.

Champion spotlight
B18qApcVCRg