Shaco tips for low elo?

Bladerunner7777·Oct 13, 2015·1 votes·1,207 views

I started getting back into Shaco because he's a lot of fun to play and in hope that playing him will reduce the time of ranked games (win fast or lose fast, I want to be able to play more games in a shorter amount of time). The level 2 cheese invade seems to work every time for first blood and I would say I'm pretty good at ganking with him and getting myself kills. But I have trouble knowing what to do if the game drags on to lategame.

Splitpushing doesn't seem to work because I don't think most people in silver know how to play when someone on their team is splitting (I'm not sure if I know myself). And teamfighting seems difficult because of shaco's squishyness.

I played him recently and most of my split push attempts failed and my team didn't do anything when we had 4v3 advantage mid after they sent 2 people top (a reason why my splitpushing failed might of been because of twisted fate's ult revealing me every time I tried to make an escape).

So basically, what do?

Also, how should I be building him if I'm getting kills but I'm also dying (like going 6/5 and stuff).

9 Comments

NeranosOct 13, 20151 votes

I think if splitpushing isn't working for you, you should be focusing on making picks. Do your best to get as much vision on the map as possible and the instant you see someone alone out of place, delete them. You might not be great in team fights aside from possible area control with well placed boxes, but if you cripple their team before the fight starts, you might have the advantage you need to push to win.

I don't play Shaco though, so take that with a grain of salt I guess?

DeyndraelOct 13, 20151 votes

Late game depending on your team comp you probably don't want to start fights. If you built right you should be able to just Q in behind them and destroy whatever squishy you choose. Other than that yeah try to split push and remember to place boxes as you run up lane to help as well. You see Shaco is a dude that picks his fights and you don't want to go in unless you know you can get a kill you're an assassin you're supposed to kill whatever carry does the most damage maybe hurt someone else die and let your team cleanup.

The Bearded BardOct 13, 20151 votes

You want tips on only Shaco as an AD jungler? Squandering his potential man.

Anyways, tips:

It's pretty much never a good idea to upgrade your jungle item, start off with machete, then sell it around the time you get statik or something. If you really want you can upgrade it once to make your clears faster or your ganks more potent, but Shaco's clears are too slow for Devourer, too much magic damage/lack of physical damage for warrior, runeglaive doesn't work on Q, and cinderhulk is only for full tank shaco.
Building. Your ideal first back should be tier one boots and a tiamat, but that doesn't always happen. You should never back without enough gold for at least a pick axe, grab the pick axe, build your mobi boots, then upgrade pick axe into tiamat. From there you can either finish off your hydra for a power spike in clear time and damage or start building your statik. I usually finish off the hydra. So hydra, mobis, statik. If you find yourself behind, don't underestimate building attack speed, it's especially potent on shaco. Final build should look something like this , obviously there's room for changes if you'd rather have some different items, but core is mobis, shiv, hydra.
Ganking should be your main priority. Your clears are slow as fuuuuuuuck compared to other junglers. Get those lanes fed.
You've got two jobs in teamfights, delete enemy squishy and waste enemy spells and abilities. Shaco's got so much potential for escapes, get intentionally caught out and waste a few ults then start a teamfight by murdering their carry.
Shaco's bad late game is a myth. He's got some of the highest full build damage in the game, the hard part is actually using it since red trink shuts you down so hard. If they're pink warding and red trinking hard, play shaco like kat, dance around the edge of teamfights and wait for them to use the heavy stuff on other champs, then go in for the kill.
Shaco absolutely needs to tax lanes to stay relevant. His late game being bad is a myth, it's getting there that's the hard part.

That's pretty much all there is to AD shaco. AP Shaco on the other hand, plays a lot differently and is way more rewarding imo. Can also be played in more lanes than just jungle.

Back 9 BanditOct 13, 20151 votes

I too am an ad shaco player. but Im interested in your ap jungle shaco. Could you give a little insight on that?

The Bearded BardOct 13, 20151 votes

I gotchu, gurl. The main difference in AP shaco and AD shaco are the playstyles. With AD you're typically going to just play like a normal assassin, go in, attempt to get a kill, attempt to get out. AP Shaco doesn't have nearly as much burst, but what he does have is much stronger poke (1:1 ratio on E) and way lower cooldowns (Q cooldown goes from 11 to 6, W goes down to 10 with 40% cdr, which I get easily with runes and morellonomicon) which makes for easier escapes, safer split pushing, and way more traps and zone control. I play AP shaco like a zone control mage. Early on (I typically play him top lane) you wanna set up your boxes like heimerdinger turrets, in a triangle. The reason he's so good top lane is because he thrives on enemy aggression. Slap them with E until they get so annoyed with you that they engage, lead them to your boxes, enjoy the free kill. The triangle formation will not only ensure that they won't one shot all of your boxes, but also let's you maximize your CC. What it comes down to is if they continue in on you after triggering the first box, they'll trigger the second, now they're fighting in two boxes that each fear for a second and do about 500 damage if left alone. If they continue to go, they trigger the third and will die pretty much no matter what. Now I know what you're thinking, that's a great way to cheese, but I doubt it'll work more than once against an intelligent enemy. You're right, against good enemies you'll probably get one kill on the top laner and two on the jungler doing that before they wise up, but the good news about that is it doesn't have to get you kills. Proper box set up and use of Q will make you damn near unkillable in lane, but safety aside, if the enemy top laner refuses to go in on you and the jungler can't gank, you're free to either roam and let your boxes minion farm for you, or poke the hell out of the enemy top laner forcing them to back and miss farm. I like to force a back out of the enemy top laner, push his lane, go into enemy jungler and kill the jungler before the top laner gets back. Anyways, enough about lane, more about late game.

Late game you've got your initial job of killing the enemy carry, but you've also got more to do. With your boxes doing around 500 for three attacks (three attacks is what you're assured if an enemy walks into a box alone, unless they walk back into it after the fear, the fear will actually make them run out of the box's attack range) they ain't nothing to fuck with. With full cdr, you've got them on a 10 second cd, they last for 60, that means you can have 6 out at a time. You can either stack 'em up and hope someone runs into them for a sure kill if they don't have Bveil, or you can spread them out for some massive zone control. Use them to keep enemies off baron and dragon, stick them on the sides of mid lane to prevent enemies from flanking you, stick them where you think a teamfight will break out and enjoy a shit ton of cc and damage the next teamfight, or use them to warn you of gankers when you're trying to split push. There are so many uses for these little buggers. It's all about preparation. You choose where your team fights. You need to control the enemy team's actions. Moving on, your ult should be on a 48 second cooldown, 30 if you get the full duration of the clone, so don't be afraid to use it for silly things like poking the enemy team under tower, baiting them into box nests, clearing waves, or just fucking with them by randomly sending it into the jungle for the enemy jungler to kill and do 1k damage to himself on. Also I should mention how much easier it is to survive teamfights with AP shaco. Not only are people more afraid of your clone, your Q is on a 6.6 second cd. After you engage with it you need only survive for 6 seconds. That's not always easy, but with your ult, your boxes, and your zhonyas, you should be alright.

I missed one of the key advantages to top lane shaco, free level two off of gromp or kruggs or wolves or whatever. Set up your box nest at whatever one is closest to your lane, enjoy free level 2 and gold advantage without missing a single cs or using TP. That being said, you should still take TP as his bot lane TP ganks are extremely potent. Ooo another tip! You can ult, then TP and the ult will appear at the same time as you so the enemy will have no way of telling which is which. You can even quickly use Q to disappear as soon as you get in there and they'll almost always attack the clone thinking it's you.

Hope that helped! It works in the jungle too, but again, sheen items don't work on Q and it just doesn't seem as good as top lane.

Bladerunner7777Oct 14, 20151 votes

Thanks for the tips (to everyone)! I was interested in AP shaco but I would have to dedicate a new rune page to him and so far I've been scraping by with standard ad and ap runes .-.

also I never realized how good stattik shiv was on shaco and only thought it was situational

The Bearded BardOct 14, 20151 votes

Alwaaaays statik. huge damage spike with the auto Q crits, movement speed, and attack speed.

FFiresoulOct 13, 20151 votes

It takes experience to decide on whether or not split-pushing is your best option. It's true that a lot of players (and not just in silver) don't know how to play with a split pusher; you have to factor this in to the decision of whether or not to split push. Sometimes you'll get games where your team communicates fabulously and even calls out "1 3 1, me top, shaco bot" and it works like a charm. The other thing to consider is...sometimes split pushing is your only/best option. If you haven't snowballed the game in your team's favor, and the enemy team is a malphite/lissandra/leona/amumu....you probably can't teamfight them. You could go for a lot of map vision and look for picks, but if the enemy team stays grouped and/or their vision control is better than yours, split pushing and hoping they make a rotational mistake is probably your only option.

In terms of building Shaco - ravenous hydra is obviously the core item. Warrior is not bad either..it is a very stat efficient item, and unless you have a lot of gold on your first back, it's almost always worth it to get the ranger's trailblazer upgrade. It gives you more gold and more sustain/better clear, ESPECIALLY if you plan on giving blue buff to your mid laner. Statik shyv is nice because the passive can crit off your Q, and the atk speed and mobility helps you.

Here's the thing though. Don't be afraid to get some survivability in there. Hexdrinker is a must vs. a fed burst mage. I get merc treads or ninja tabi more often than I get mobi boots - it's a very stat efficient way to get some survivability against whichever the most important target is for you to kill. And I almost always get black cleaver on shaco. It's true that the armor pen isn't the best thing in the world for shaco, but the CDR helps you get that extra Q or W and the health helps you barely survive those close calls.

I'm no shaco expert...I'm a Plat player but whenever I play shaco in normals vs. golds I usually stomp using the above itemization and strategy. My final build is usually hydra, statik, black cleaver, boots, Maw, phantom dancer. I get phantom dancer as a last item becuase if the game goes that long, it gives me a powerful presence of being nearly uncatchable (remember as shaco you don't have flash) so I have the option to split push a well as stick to my targets if I decide to duel or teamfight.

Hope this helps! I too find him a fun champion, and wish so much they would simply give some QoL buffs on his clone. I love his kit otherwise, and the style of play it requires. It's much more decision making than mechanics.