I cant seem to do well with him at all. No matter who I lane against I feel like I feed, I cant duel anyone even with all that live steal.
Especially against Riven. her chase, stun, cc, and damage and cooldowns I cant seem to lay a finger on her.
I mean, I got Jax because I know he's strong, but since I've been playing him it feels like the exact opposite.
What are you maxing, first of all? Second of all, are you trying to engage with e q and e'ing to stun? If so, don't do that. Thirdly, what's your build path?
Jax hasn't been really strong for awhile, and when he is strong, he's a late game champ anyway. Also, Riven is pretty much a jax counter (way too bursty for him, bypasses his counterstrike). I'm not a Jax player, but those are a couple quick things to note with him.
Items: 
Masteries: 21/9/0
General Runes: AD/Lifesteal Quints, AD Marks, Armor Seals, MR Glyphs
Skill Order (vs Melee): EQWWWR, R>W>Q>E
Skill Order (vs Ranged): EQWQQR, R>Q>W>E
Summoners: Teleport, Flash/Ghost
Much of this is subject to change, as is any build for any champion, but it should be something for you to work off of.
I wouldn't recommend rushing Hydra on Jax. Get some early attack speed, AD, and on-hit effects.
Early game, Jax is pretty weak but he scales really well. Against someone aggressive like Riven, you should probably let her push you in and farm safely under your tower until you have items. Start Cloth Armor + 5 Health Potion, and consider running Armor Quints instead of Lifesteal. When you need to trade, get your passive proc available and Q her, then AA-W-AA, then walk away (using Counterstrike if needed). You don't want to trade a lot early though, since your mana pool isn't the best.
Late game you can teamfight, but you are probably better off splitpushing because you take towers very fast and are a really strong duelist.
Wow, okay thanks for the tips. I was doing it all wrong.
Generally I have lifesteal quints and get dorans blade for the sustain early game, I figured that extra lifesteal would work. IT let me get first blood on gnar, but then he got aggressive and kited me to death. after doran's I generally rush hydra. so should I got with BotRK first then? I try to get merc treads for the anti-cc.
I generally max empower first. then the e, then the q. thats my general skill pattern. You're saying counter counter, jump, then empower? Also, I suppose building off the jump first would be better for ranged. I shoulda done that when playing against gnar. Incidentally that first blood did happen when I went EQW, and not WEQ. So I suppose that is better.
I suppose aside from that how to position myself. Ive noticed team fights aren't his specialty. I've split pushed to nexus a couple times. Unfortunately I've lost the game both attempts anyway.
One game went on for an hour and a half. Respawn times were 80 seconds. -_-
Ah right. The problem with the jump is that I never have anything to jump to when I need it. I suppose placing a ward in a place I might need to jump to could be useful? I dunno.
That makes sense. I dunno about the item build though, I'll try it out in my next game. With this advice maybe I'll be able to just get better while experimenting. I dunno anyone who mains jax could give me some advice though.
What made him fall off the radar? As far as I've seen pretty much every jax (except me of course) has been super good and beats everything xD So yeah, I'll try BotRK first. I haven't actually built TriForce on him in a while cuz its so expensive. It does have AS tho, so probably a good idea. BotRK, Merc Treads, TriForce?
I don't see a reply button actually. Where is it? All I see is a "leave a comment" box at the bottom.
Anyway, I will do that. I just had a successful game, due in part to your guys' advice here. Thanks :) Though it could also have been team composition, at the end I was out sustaining a maokai, kalista, and lee sin. I died though (without using my ult...). That trinity force BotRK combo worked pretty well, and I was about to get Hydra, but was unsure as for my next item. Game ended before I could tho.
I've watched VoyBoy before but I don't think I've watched WingsOfDeath.
Ah, fair enough, after that build some tankiness? I'll try that then.
Also, I still cant find it. The reply button is literally not there. (ctrl+f only kept me cycling through the "reply" word in each of our comments)
I'm also on Firefox...
To start you can go on YouTube and try to find some decent gameplays from Jax players. I highly recommend watching the gameplays of renowned Korean top player SKT T1 Impact. Although the Dorans Blade buff stealing trick does not work in S5 you can see some ways that he outplays counters and strong early game champs. Other great Jax players include Dyrus, Voyboy and Wingsofdeathx, although you probably have to watch Dyrus' gameplays on his TSirDiesAlot channel as certain YouTubers seem to be attempting to discredit him by uploading videos of games where he played very poorly and/or lost the game.
I have been practicing playing him toplane on smurf accounts and I can say that one tactic you should use every game as toplane Jax is to take advantage of Jax's extremely strong level 1 to abuse your opponent early. As soon as you come into lane, tag up with your lead melee minion and start autoattacking the first enemy melee minion to stack your passive. Your lane opponent will likely come close to try to hit you with an ability and/or last hit your first melee creep, so after you kill the first minion walk up to them and autoattack them (making sure to keep your passive stacked by autoing a minion should you need to) and then once you have hit them and are now being attacked by their minions you want to activate your Counterstrike. The minion autoattacks that you dodge during this period will charge this ability to do double the normal damage as well as making it difficult for your opponent to retaliate. Continue moving in the same direction as them and autoattacking them as your Counterstrike is active to get the most free damage possible during this window of opportunity. Depending on who your opponent is and whether or not they had already used their abilities prior or during your counterstrike activation, you can continue to autoattack them as you will be able to hit them more times than they will be able to hit you back due to your attack speed buff which should already be stacked by the time you have stunned them. Personally I let my opponent waste their abilities before I do this and continue autoattacking them until they have retreated into their tower with the second wave of minions coming, this way you can get them to use their health potion early. Since the enemy minions have been attacking you instead of your own minions you will likely hit level 2 before your opponent does, I like to keep hitting minions to charge my passive then immediately get my Q and jump on the enemy with Counterstrike activated to even further abuse my opponent who is still Level 1. If they did not start with a Doran's Shield or Cloth Armor and health pots you can probably just kill them at this point or at least cause them to hug their tower/go back to base and lose gold and experience.
Against enemies such as Renekton, Riven and Pantheon who can wreck you with high-damage physical abilities early on you should probably start with a Cloth Armor and 5 potions. Against Pantheon especially I prefer to buy a few cloth armors and many potions plus a Flask early on with just enough AD to consistently last hit. Once you hit level 6 and have 6 stacks of your passive, you should outdamage your opponents in an all-in even without offensive items anyway provided they do not have a huge CS lead and/or a kill.
I've been maining jax since I started like 2 years ago. I play him in 99% of my games and I have over like 1000..I think. Maybe. Anyways I'm only silver but i FEEL like I should be around gold. I've been getting matched with high gold/mid plats lately in my norms. I win around...80-90% of my lane matchups against anywhere from teemo, ryze, renek (probably the bad renek players though..), singed, etc and I get first blood 70% of those wins. You can look up masteries/runes I use on lolking. Ign is infatuated.
These are what I start with/how I lane. Might not be for you but idk maybe it'll help.
Start with a long sword, 2 hp 1 mp pot. Get ignite and flash. Start q, then e, then w, then max w, then q, then e. Ofc add a point in ult whenever you can as usual. If you're vs nasus or singed, you could start w first. I usually go all in at level 2 assuming you hit level 2 before them.
-Prior to hitting 2, harass a little. Walk up to them when they're about to last hit and just auto attack.
-Try not to engage until level 2, and if you do hit it before your opp, be aggressive and zone them out. If they stick around and you get a few more autos, you could consider going all in.
-Remember that your e lasts quite a while. Don't reactivate it unless they run/are running. If they're staying around and attacking you, just let your e keep spinning. They'll do no damage while you wack them. Then finally when it stuns, they should be pretty low, q on them and just chase and ignite and if they get low enough and you're confident, flash in and auto them to get them lower and then back off and let ignite finish. If they're not low enough when they run, save your ignite and let them b so you can free farm.
-ALWAYS HAVE A WARD. ALWAYS. On your first back, get one ward if you can afford it. Prioritize items first though. Always ward your bush. Don't go too far past the river entrance without a ward unless you're sure enemy jg is far away.
-Remember to use your trinket. If you're too far away from your turret and you get ganked, try to avoid/juke some skill shots and then jump to a minion. If no minions. put down a trinket, q to it and then flash. Or flash then put trinket and jump.
-Wait for your opponents to use their skills before you use yours. Like ryze at lv 1. A lot of them start w/ their red ball. Wait for him to use it then q on him and wack him until he runs. Then you back off. He's less likely to keep fighting and will just run which gives you maybe 1 or 2 more autos before you back up because his skill would be off cooldown.
ITEMS
-Start a sword, build into cutlass. -After your cutlass, if you b and you have enough for a sheen and you're near level 6, consider getting it. Once you hit 6 you can take advantage of your ult passive. Hit a minion twice, and Q onto the enemy, which will proc sheen, and then w as soon as you land so you can put down some W damage + sheen proc. Then back off and repeat. 2 hit minion, q onto enemy. If he fights you can e and either keep fighting or just run. -After that, if you built a sheen, you can choose to get trinity or build your cutlass into a botrk. -If you didn't build sheen, just rush botrk. I usually don't get boots until botrk and tri are completed. -ALWAYS HAVE A WARD. -After tri and botrk, it really depends how deep into the game it is. If you're still laning phase, get boots. If not, build some hp for randuins or spectral for banshees and get boots later. -GET A WARD
I stress wards because they're mini flashes with a 6 or 7 second cooldown (your q). I don't know how many times it's saved my life from ganks. ALWAYS USE YOUR ULT WHEN YOU FIGHT. ALWAYSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
