User blog:Dj0z/Dj0z's Assassin Nocturne Guide

''Note: This guide assumes you follow the exact Rune, Mastery, and Item build. Used successfully a while ago in ranked up to 1330 ELO, whatever it may be worth to you. I would not recommend you to use it nowadays in ranked however.''

Nocturne is one of my first major (6300 IP) buys, and i didn't really know how to play him back then. So i tried all kinds of different builds, from glass cannon to full tank, searching for the way to exploit his strengths to the maximum. This build is the result of these early weeks of experimenting with my playstyle, and is the build i like the most for Noc. Take note that this is because it fits my playstyle, so it will depend on yours whether it will work for you or not. Also, i have not tried the current meta build with things like Wit's End or Randuins, simply because i never felt the need.



Overview
They say roaming is dead, but with this build that can be proven false, and it's very thrilling when you manage to pull it off >:-)

With all the tanky Nocturnes flying around these days, i find it very rewarding to use Nocturne the way he was designed to be: an Assassin. As you can see from the assassin champion page, very few of them are built tanky in the current meta, with the notable exceptions of Irelia and Lee Sin (others may vary).

What is an assassin?Talon_DragonbladeLoading.jpg
Read the links above if you're not sure, here are the main points to consider for this build anyways:


 * 1) "mediocre defense", by far the most important. With this build you're not gonna ulti-dive a carry in the middle of his team to initiate a teamfight. If you do it's an instant death (and probably not the carry's).
 * 2) "who pick off weak enemies and carry champions at the right time. They should not be played for frontal engagements in team fights". This is the part where your experience of LoL, pattern recognition and predicting skill kick in: your success as an assassin will largely depend on knowing when, who and where to assassinate, so you can quickly disappear in the shadows again, alive. I'm going to re-use those keywords throughout this guide.



Why is Nocturne an assassin?
Nocturne's page clearly states that he is one but let's see the reasons.

Back when i had just bought him i expected to see "carry" among the tags but didn't find it, for a good reason: he's not a carry. Carries deal damage in a safer way. Usually it's simply range, but that already changes everything when you're squishy. If it's not about range, they have some kind of very strong fighting ability that makes you run away from them instead of fighting them *cough* tryndamere *cough*.

Instead, noc has:


 * The biggest gapcloser in the game, but it has huge cooldown compared to all others.


 * A CC, but it's nowhere near instant nor guaranteed (compare Vayne stun, which is a counter to Noc's Unspeakable horror for that matter. Wait no, Vayne as a whole is a counter to noc.) and scales off AP that you will never get unlike Jax for example.

All in all, Noc is able to deal heavy damage quickly, but let's face it, once Duskbring runs out, your CC is over and on cooldown, and the 5 seconds AS steroid from spellblocking is over too, you are at your weakest! At this precise moment it will become clear for anybody watching the fight that you're somehow way less dangerous than when you landed in that person's face with Paranoia just a few seconds ago.
 * Also has an AoE nuke semi-reveal AD-steroid but you need to land it, and it doesn't slow. That means both you and the target can run extra fast into the target's allies!

The result of this is pretty straightforward: kill them within approximately 7 seconds at most, or forget it because your chances of survival have already started diminishing exponentially.

How does all this relate to this build anyways?
There are key areas on which this Nocturne focuses his efforts, all directly related to the assassin job. You probably noticed that there is zero emphasis on any kind of tankiness.
 * 1) Mobility: to catch running preys and apply your damage where needed. Helps to land Duskbringer, which then lets you stick to them easily, or if you got enough skill, to manoeuver around their skillshots anytime possible.
 * 2) Damage: assassination involves a quick kill. Noc's innate sustain isn't amazing in duels. Also since i'm talking about true AD, it also makes you a marvelous pushing machine.
 * 3) Recon: this is probably the part you didn't think about, but it's also the one making this whole assassin build viable at all. This Nocturne knows where people are, where they aren't, and where his next victim is. Close-minded people will stop reading when i'll explain how exactly i achieve this.
 * 4) Speed: i know i've already said "mobility". This time i'm talking about overall speed. Farming speed, hitting speed. The idea is to be very quick at doing whatever you'll do at a particular place, so you can move on without delay to the next objective.

Preparing the battle
So you're inspired and willing to experience a new (or sadly forgotten) play feel with Noc. You will be the jungler, because that offers the ganking opportunities, provides more guaranteed farming than lanes where you might get zoned, and also makes it harder for enemies to know where you are.

Masteries
The ones below are not designed specifically for this build, but they're the ones i take when playing it.

The important parts are all the different sorts of AD dps boosts, and the maxed MS in utility.



Runes
So what are we doing here? You might be surprised.

Quints: Full MS.

Reds: At least 3 ArPen, the rest can be AS or AD. I'd recommend AS since the build has enough AD already.

Yellows: Personally i use Gp10.

Blues: Cdr Per Lvl.

That's right, no Mres. Note that Noc has it scaling naturally. I don't even use Armor yellows either. Time for an explanation:
 * You can pick ArPen instead of AD: i find the AD steroid from Q very strong. A free BF+ is nothing to be ignored. The ArPen ensures you always deal true damage to monsters and minions, and stacks nicely with the Brutalizer. They also counter the +13 armor yellows that everyone in this meta uses, too. You could replace all reds by flat AD or AS if you think you need it.
 * MS: here we maximize our mobility. It will both get you kills and save your life, definitely worth it. When you have built-in AS and AD, you can afford to skip the +7 damage quints.
 * Gp10: just a personal preference. Noc is such a god tier jungler that he could probably clear it with just masteries and no items. Take whatever you want here but if you go Armor, don't let it get to your head: towerdiving will Not suddenly become safe, for example, and it synergizes with nothing in the masteries & build (except lifesteal).
 * CDR per Lvl: I eventually found these more valuable than other possible blues (tankiness not needed, AP useless, etc...), because it is hard to itemize for CDR on AD champs, Zeke's Herald is a bad, costly item, and we don't get any with the masteries we chose. Why CDR in the first place? Noc's weakness is his downtimes. The shorter you make them, the more overwhelmingly opressive you become to the enemy team. Having ultimate ready more often is one very good result of those runes. Why per Lvl? Well they just give more lol, and early game cooldown on R is too high anyways, can't be helped.

Lobby and Summoner Spells
Now here's a tricky part. You will want jungle, but the current meta forces you to take Smite for it. Except we don't want it with this build, Smite never helped assassinate anyone (xcept stealing a red buff then using it, ultra rare). If your team is not psychorigid, just tell them you jungle, they pick accordingly, and that's it.

Else here is a dirtier way to do it: say you jungle, then proceed to select Noc, Smite and Flash (no-brainer). But at the last second you will change Smite into that (except if the support has it and is a premade friend that you're on teamspeak with):

.

.

.

.

.



Close-minded people just stopped reading.

.

Too bad for them lol.

Then you will explain to your team that you realized you don't need smite that much, and team has no CV, so you took it for counterjungling, and ulti. Because that sentence is just incredibly true.

The choice of Clairvoyance is the result of all these days of experimentation, which is always a surefire way to find stuff that works.

So people will say "omg take ignite" or some other crap. Ignite deals damage over a few seconds, period. Big deal. Assassin Noc already deals huge damage, if you need ignite to finish off an enemy then you're doing something wrong. Also it has longer coolodwn than CV and your ultimate. Ghost: you're already a formula one and Q gives no-collision. Heal: you should never need it, Assassin Noc assassinates, he doesn't fight uncertain matches. Exhaust: same as previous.

Now here's an observation directly forged from actual battle: '''there is no word for the frustration of popping your huge Paranoia cooldown, watching everything go dark, and seeing the minion, ward, whatever was giving you sight of your target, just DIE. Or target just runs out of sight'''. That means you're there like an angry blind man with a gun: you have the power and will to kill, but you just can't possibly do it. That makes the enemies laugh at your wasted cooldown, they feel safer, your credibility goes down in your allies' eyes, and the enemy 10 hp carry keeps his killing spree money.

Not anymore.



CV -> R -> Murder -> Disappear.

Much different result than the sight-less ult: The enemies don't laugh anymore (they probably did when game started, with the standard "LoloL SupPoRt Noc OP xD!"). Now they're crying to their allies in teamchat, and their allies are calling them noobs for not having walked all the way back to base instead of recalling in that bush or just behind that tower. Because they will! Everybody is lazy to walk base, good Ezreal and Ashe players probably know that already. The better you become at guessing approximately where they decided to recall, or where they are currently on their way to base, the deadlier your CV shots will become. Sometimes they're so low you can actually just get in range for a Q and throw it for the kill lol. Oh the things you see with unexpected CVs...

This is why you don't count on the support for CV if no teamspeak: this requires some experience and quick reactions, R doesn't have infinite range and by the time you write to the support to CV somewhere, there may be a problem (support dead, or used CV somewhere else, or badly estimated enemy position, or doesn't know which one is your ping because someone else pinged too at the same time, etc...)

Soon enough, the brains of your enemies will associate the distinct sound of your CV (and wards too since it's the same noise) with flying, brutal, unexpected death, and they'll start grouping together in fear.

That, is Paranoia xD

Awesomely cheap pun aside, it is actually somehow a bad thing for you that they group up: it reinforces their team spirit to some extent, and makes it extremely risky for you to kill someone in the group. More on that later.



Strategy
It might happen that your stubborn team appointed another jungler because they think you're a troll. Hell, i even bought the Frozen Terror Nocturne skin as a proof of my commitment to playing him so that those kids stopped talking shit and distracting us from efficiently playing. (it also fits very nice with CV lol).

Anyways if that happened, go top, else start at blue, but either way build is cloth+5 pots. This guide is based on the jungle way, i very rarely had to go elsewhere.

As usual watchout for any invade and react accordingly. Skill Q first, it goes as follows:



You don't have smite so if mid can pull (no hard pull needed) that will make it abit better, but all you have to do is Q golem and the small shits, then focus golem and use pots. then proceed to wolves and wraiths but always keep an eye out for the enemy jungler: if he lvl2 ganks someone not too far, countergank him. If he happens to counterjungle you, use your shield to fight and/or escape, but most importantly ping him, you might be able to trap him with your allies.

That is where your CV starts getting really useful: the bushes are no cover for your enemies! I've seen countless elaborate juking moves and pro stunts pulled off just with bush anti-vision. Well, you, have the anti-bush. Reveal whatever path the counter-jungler may have taken to go back, or whatever buff he may be trying to steal. At this point your team will most likely spontaneously go kill him, and you also know whether he has any allies hidden around too.



Level 3 is when you start ganking (unless you had a golden opportunity before that), so take red buff and your E. You have your full combo (Q, shield anti CC, and your own CC), killing a mid or something won't be hard. One bit of advice however: your E is still crappily short and deals very low damage, you might have to pop your flash for the kill if needed. The feed will make up for that later.

For now make the most out of your red buff and +6,5% movement speed from runes/masteries. That's 340 speed without boots instead of 320. The difference between your speed and a ranged's speed is almost the difference between an Ashe without boots and one with T1 boots. So when you land Q and you don't have boots, you're still way faster than an ashe with T1 boots.

Don't forget rule #1 however: Make sure to engage only when the fight is unequal. So either they stay and die and you don't die, Or they try to run away but you're faster so they waste their flashes and ghosts and heals and exhausts (watchout for the exhausts). If ever the enemy turns back to fight you again, take an immediate look around (CV if needed) for any incoming enemies. If you see one, just back immediately unless you're 100% sure your next attack will kill your target.

From then on tranquilly farm and gank anywhere safely possible. Because of Noc's passive, you're probably getting farmed up the fastest in the game in terms of cs. Keep an eye on their jungler with your CV too if you feel like counter-jungling, counter-ganking, or stealing some buffs.

Why Horror?
Maybe you're wondering why i don't max Q rightaway instead of level E with almost equal priority. Fact is your farming speed is already godlike, however your CC is completely weak at low levels. Its damage greatly increases with levels but most importantly, the fear also becomes longer, and the cooldown comes closer to Q's CD, allowing for some comebacks with your 2-spell-combo instead of just nuke and no CC, for when you had to do some tactical retreats.



Ultimate - Paranoia
By far the most iconic ability Nocturne has. The advantage is that this build offers it damage for the 1.2 scaling (unlike Wit's End for example), great CDR for more frequent uses, and uncancellable, instant, on-demand, low-cooldown large AoE vision, namely Clairvoyance, for both estimating the risk of diving somewhere, and most importantly being able to actually use the jump at all in any sight circumstances.

So when you got to level 6, the cooldown is huge and the range ridiculously small. You want to gank whenever there's an opportunity. However unless the enemy is already running away or already very low HP, do not ulti in. Instead use the normal Q-from-bush into immediate E approach, where they either flash out or end up repeatedly sliced in the face, and after the fear they will try to escape if not dead. That's when you ulti. Guaranteed kill in just sooo many cases. Because if you ulti in and they survive the jump, good job, you've just wasted your gapcloser. In some cases the ulti won't even be necessary, in that case save it for your next victim, and so on. The longer you don't need to ulti, the better you're doing. But when you do use it, it's a kill. They need to have that fact printed in their minds.

That is also the reason why you should not do like those newbie Nocturnes who use it right before they die. It's not a dash, you can only get closer to the enemy with it, and the sight reduction won't save your ass. If you made a mistake and you'll die, accept it like a man. Or a courageous person if you're a girl, whatever. Ulti CD is way longer than your respawn timer. Just keep it off cooldown to kill when you rez. Wasting it upon death also makes enemies feel alot safer, since you just died, killed noone, and they know you won't be ult'ing anyone for the next ~3 minutes. It's like Tryn on cooldown, except longer. Just don't.

Start
You started with the cloth, next get boots for amazing movement speed in your ganks. Oftentimes you will be landing hits at them all the way to their turret. Avoid towerdiving like the plague however. If they didn't die, you and your laner still dealt probably big damage, giving your laner a clear advantage from then on: easy zoning. That means the enemy is either forced to recall (losing XP and cs, pretty much same as if he died) or to stay away from cs and try grabbing XP at the edge of zoning range. It's a win-win situation. However if you dive and die, they get gold, you lose more XP and cs than you think, and they're not scared of you. You want them to be, scared enemies make mistakes.

Next


Now farm Wriggle's Lantern, Mercs, and Zeal, starting by Madred's razors for the extra fast farm speed, and getting zeal last. You will notice pretty quickly that you've already become a very fast farmer and ganker. All this comes in small pieces, every kill gives you one of the parts basically. From then on use the Wriggles to ward areas you want to surprise the enemies at, like their blue bluff, the bush near wolves, the little bit of bush at their red that you can see the lizard from. Let the support ward the usual critical areas like dragon etc.

First surprise assassinations
Always CV their jungle first then go plant your ward, for complete safety. When a poor innocent farmer goes there alone, sneak in from the closest bushes if possible with your amazing speed, and use your spells on them just before they can lasthit the monster: either you lasthit hit directly, or your passive will proc and steal it, or the target will be tempted to tank your damage for an extra second so they can finish it. That is one more second for your fear to proc, after which they should be cold dead. If they aren't yet, you've dealt your damage, get the fuck out before their allies arrive. Thay are definitely coming. Which is also why you don't engage if they're missing. You might need to train in the art of recalling from random enemy jungle bushes to make that part safer.

Youmuu


If this whole guide had to be represented by one item, it would be this one. It's pretty much the assassin incarnate: deadly stats, burst speed active for the quick assassination and the follow-up escape, and CDR for to wait less time before the next assassination. With our runes and masteries we also now have 41 armor penetration + 10 percentile ArPen. In addition to all the other stats, it makes you suddenly a real raging killer. When i was a noob i never used actives, until i built this item for the first time, and now i always use them. It's like the Mask of Madness from DotA without the cons. It's just that good. Now you can conclude the assassinations even faster, or in case of emergency, run extremely fast out of a bad situation.

Also if you think it's a midgame item, you're completely wrong. Never sell it for an extra PD or something. PD doesn't give ArPen, damage or CDR, and that active gives you even More movespeed at the times you really need it.

Final build
As you can see, those are extremely agressive and squishy stats. We are basically applying this oh-so-true principle:

"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can [...], and keep moving on." -- Ulysses S. Grant



This is the almost-final build to be exact. Replace the Wriggles with a Bloodthirster if it really lasts that long.

Situational variations:
 * The enemy has something like a Rammus with Thornmail. Avoid it like the plague, but just because it exists, you should swap the IE out for a BT, else he will make you crit yourself to death.
 * Enemies somewhow manage to always get away with extreme speeds (Teemos i guess), feel free to replace something by a Frozen Mallet.
 * Last whisper is for when teamfights tend to end with you and the enemy tank alive. cut throught his armor with that epic total armor penetration, lifestealing back his low damage. If he deals high damage (Volibears? Jaxes?) you should completely ignore and avoid him, and go pushing the easiest towers instead. He will be forced to come and try to stop you, so he won't push, no worries. Because there is no way in hell he could have even half your pushing speed.
 * If the enemies are Really giving you a hard time staying alive (like, chain stunners), replace PD and LW for example, by a good old Atma + Warmogs. Still better than feeding, and you can still assassinate carries.

Tactics
There are a few things that you need to know when you play like this.

Minion wave farming
As basic as it sounds, this is apparently something not every Nocturne player knows. Don't feel offended if you're already aware. His passive is flat out awesome at farming when properly used. Except what i see is nocturnes moving until they reach the closest enemy minion and attacking it...... what a bloody waste.

For maximum speed, when you see a minion wave, here's the way: if they're already fighting your minions, Q to hit as many of them as possible, then position yourself on the Dusk trail and DO NOT HIT ANYTHING before you've finished moving into the middle of them. Then just attack whatever, causing a wide circular 120% damage splash which, lategame, will clear the whole wave with 1 hit. You heard it right. Before lategame you can just keep autoattacking from the middle of them until the next passive proc. Compare newbie tactic: ~2 or 3 hits per minion multiplied by amount of minions which is probably 6 or more, and a Q or two; good tactic: 1 Q 1 passive, and max 1 hit per remaining minion. It's like twice as fast at least.



Teamfights
This is probably the most common thing that can hinder your domination: like i said earlier, enemies will group up in fear, spontaneously starting 5-man pushes or teamfights.

These are extremely delicate situations for this Nocturne because: in a pack that large, someone, somewhere, has enough CC to get you shut down. There is no getting close to them, period. I know that tanky Noc just dives right into it, but this build couldn't be better than it in every single way, could it? That will lead to a situation in which both teams poke each other and someone will eventually initiate. While lurking around, you need to keep a good eye on the fight, watch who pops his ulti and who doesn't, who is forced to run alone to save his life, etc. try to put your Wriggle ward in possible escape routes just when the fight is about to start.

What you want to do is jump in at the worst possible moment for enemies (when they're on cooldowns), or catch off-guard any important target (carries) who ran away alone. With CV and ult there is just no way they can escape, and with Q +E +Youmuu +W if they try to CC you, they'll be dead Real quick. Lategame you can kill an unsuspecting carry under a tower where only CV can give you sight, before the tower can even shoot 3 times (My personal favorite is Karthus, he's dead so fast it's not even fair, and you can W his post-death ulti. Yeah i said "carries", not "ad carries".)

Sometimes the enemy push is rather slow or hesitating: in that case you want to ward the way between them and one part of their base, then you go backdoor or discretely push it. As soon as they notice (sometimes it takes long), use your superior speed to get out safely, or recall from a previously-planned place that they can't possibly reach before you finish casting. Watchout for Ezreals, Luxes and Ashes if you do that.

It will take trial and error, but eventually you'll get this right. If you do take the right decisions on key teamfights, you can probably finish off most of the enemy team or push their base by obscene proportions, giving you a solid edge on victory.

Committing to a fight
This is a no-no. Either you have the farm advantage or some kind of situation making the fight a clear win for you within the sacred ~7 seconds, or you go find something else to kill. Your enemy could heal, exhaust, wait for his Ashe ally's arrow, be baiting you into some trap, and many other things. It makes you waste time, which is farm, and could get you killed.

You want them to know that if they see your blades close enough to them, it's because they're about to be brutally murdered. In any other situation, you have the potential of becoming a target even if just for a few seconds, changing the mindset of enemies. You don't want that.

Nocturne, unlike Xin Zhao and the upcoming Darius for example, can actually disengage from a fight: use your W to prevent ant-escape CC. If you're chased you can use E on the chaser behind you and in the same split-second re-order to run away, resulting in a backwards leash (it will look like you never stopped moving to cast) that will fear them and make them lose track of you (try not running too fast to not break the leash yourself). Even your Q can be used whenever you have a half-second safe (like, just entered a bush) to build a temporary high-speed path for faster escape. What's better with this build is that you already have high MS and CDR to make all of that even easier.

The only excuse for fighting to death is against strong permaslowers or fed carries for example, when you know you will not escape alive, so might aswell damage them as much as possible, who knows, someone might finish them off.

Stealing
With your extreme mobility, kill speed, and frequent intel on the enemy team and their jungle, you're very well equipped for stealing their stuff. Judging by the overall movement of enemies when you enter their jungle, you'll find out if they have wards or anything warning them of your moves (they'll quickly converge towards your position).

In that case, go back even faster than you came in, unless you're confident that you can escape in the direction Soraka (for example) is blocking, 3-sec-kill'ing her with Youmuu's active at the same time.

Else if they don't react, take the major monster in every camp you can and let a small one to block their jungle respawn. Also drop wards near all that: eventually someone will go there, and will feel obligated to kill the small blocking monster. That's when you come back for a quick execution if they're alone and squishy enough. even if that doesn't happen, you still give your team a huge money and buffs advantage.

Alternatively kill the entire monster camp, so that you have the minimap icon when it comes back up; You enemies will know at the same time, so when you see that icon, you know where and when a prey is coming.

Warding
Still in the Recon department, you can clearly see that this strategy relies heavily on knowing where all enemies are at all times. So you want to spam your Wriggles and buy additional wards whenever it could lead to a successful trap on someone, or if your team didn't ward baron for example. Great rushes of adrenaline often happen during the warding process when unexpectedly finding someone: you have to estimate the situation instantly and proceed to rip them to pieces whenever safely possible.

A problem that can happen is the enemy support oracle-ing your wards out. The solution is easy against uncoordinated teams: you wait for them near the next ward they'll attack, then beat the crap out of them when they start attacking it. That tends to be much harder against Alistar. He's pretty much a counter to this build.

Pros
-A jungler with superior map awareness.

-Incase of early feed, can quickly snowball and make their jungle yours.

-Very unlikely for enemies to get away alone with low HP. As a bonus you make them waste more time walking before they find a place that they feel safe to recall from.

-Potentially huge pressure on their jungle buffs from midgame on.

-Very good pushing and farming speeds.

-Very deadly CV -> R -> Q (+W) ->E -> Youmuu combo.

Cons
-Slower early jungling than if you had smite. Alternatively take CV and smite, but that's very risky and will draw enemy agro.

-No flashy Baron or Dragon steal attempts.

-Must handle teamfights with extreme caution, and pretty useless at the start of them.

-Rather blue buff dependant at start.

Conclusion
As usual i'll add in a few pictures of the endgame results you can expect with that.

Comments and constructive criticism welcome :-)

''Actually yeah tell me how you think i could improve it, like on the early jungle part if you have ideas about that. In b4 "drop CV for smite".''