The Mad Man’s Guide To Winning With Jarvan, the Exemplar of Demacia

Jarvan Lol

Jarvan, the Exemplar of Demacia

Hey guys, this guide has been quickly created to bring you the best of Jarvan, the Exemplar of Demacia. Jarvan is a great physical damage dealer that can be very disruptive to enemy players. In this guide I will explain what I have discovered on the beast we call Jarvan.

Skills:

• Martial Cadence (Passive): Jarvan IV exploits his target’s opening, dealing 8% of the target’s current HP as magic damage. This effect cannot occur on the same target for 6 seconds.

Good for some extra damage. Not really an ability that you need to plan for like Jarvan. Swapping targets in a teamfights can be detrimental to downing targets quickly and is not recommended.

• Dragon Strike: Jarvan IV charges through his opponent, dealing physical damage and lowering their armor by a %. This will pull Jarvan IV to a Standard if it encounters one, knocking up all enemies in his path.

Jarvan’s signiture move. Spam this regularly. It is a skillshot that lacks the range of champs such as Ezreal, but its ability to penetrate through and hit multiple targets is great.

• Golden Aegis: Jarvan IV calls upon the ancient kings of Demacia to shield him from harm and slow surrounding enemies. Triggers automatically if damage would reduce Jarvan below 300 Health if it is not on cooldown.

Nice for the slow, the shield is kinda meh.

• Demacian Standard: Passively grants Jarvan bonus attack speed and armor. Active: Throws a Demacian flag, dealing physical damage and granting passive benefits to nearby allies.

Makes Jarvan feared! With this ability Jarvan can dash through the entire team to their carry while disabling the rest of their team. Works great as a get out of jail free flash also.

• Cataclysm (Ultimate): Jarvan IV heroically leaps at his target, dealing physical damage and creating a circle of terrain around them for a few seconds.

Gives Jarvan some one on one time with an enemy. Make sure your opponent doesn’t have flash up or this ability can make you look like a fool.

Recommended Summoner Masteries: 9 Offensive, 0 Defensive, 21 Utility

Offense:
3/3 Deadliness
1/3 Archmage’s Savvy
4/4 Sorcery
1/3 Sunder

cd, crit, armorpen. All good stuff.

Utility:
3/3 Perseverance
1/1 Haste
4/4 Expanded Mind
3/3 Meditation
2/2 Utility Mastery
3/3 Quickness
1/1 Blink of an Eye
3/3 Intelligence
1/1 Presence of the Master

More good stuff, the Presence of the Master ensures that you can flash around the battlefield a ton. I use utility tree over offence because of the increased movespeed and decreased cooldowns. While this build wont produce as high numbers as an offense build, it does offer a lot more options for how Jarvan approaches a fight. In most cases having options will net you more kills and less deaths than pure damage will.

Recommended Runes:
Red -  Armor Penetration

Yellow – Damage/Level

Blue – Cooldown Reduction

Quint – 2x Movement Speed (puts you at 3** movement speed without boots)

Quint – 1x ArmorPenetration

Recommended Summoner spells:
1) Ghost – REQUIRED. Jarvan may not be naturally slow, but as a melee champ he has to be on top of his opponent to do good damage. This is a must!
2) Flash – REQUIRED. Flash is that little bit of F.U. that Jarvan can pull out of his back pocket to jump on top of enemy casters hanging out like sissies on the back line. Simply standard-dragon strike towards them, flash and ulti right on top of their head. You will port forward by about an entire screen and leaving the other team saying W.T.F.
Recommended Item Build:
Manamune
Ghostblade
Brutalizer
Merc Treads
-Insert Survivability Items here-

Suggested ability guide
1) Q – Dragon Strike
2) E – Demacian Standard
3) Q – Dragon Strike
4) W – Golden Aegis
5) Q  – Dragon Strike
6) R – Cataclysm
7) Q – Dragon Strike
8 )E – Demacian Standard
9) Q – Dragon Strike
10) E – Demacian Standard
11) R – Cataclysm
12) E – Demacian Standard
13) E – Demacian Standard
14) W – Golden Aegis
15) W – Golden Aegis
16) R – Cataclysm
17) W – Golden Aegis
18) W – Golden Aegis

Why this build works: This build focuses on Jarvan’s great physical damage by maxing out all of his abilities that scale off of it first. Spamming his “Q” through the entire team is how he does a majority of his damage. The Demacian Standard picked up second allows Jarvan to put some great ability combos on the enemy.

A popular spell order for ganks is to throw your standard just beyond the enemy, Dragon strike to it, then blow your shield to slow them. If they are getting away then use your ulti to lock them in. By the time your ulti wears off you should have your standard up again to combo them.

CORE BUILD

Manamune (unlimited mana and great cheap damage)

Brutalizer (cheap damage, cd, and armor pen)

Merc Treads (runz fast!)

Ghostblade (Runz Faster! damage, enough cd to put you at 40%, and armor pen)

(After That I get some survivability depending on the enemy team comp. If I am having trouble staying alive earlier in the game I will get survival stuff earlier.)

—Consumables—

Elixir of Agility

Elixir of Fort

10000x Health Potion

How to play:
1) Meki Pendent + 2 hp pots

Grab a Meki Pendent and head to bot lane. You are a powerful harasser against certain champions. Abuse this! If they have long range skillshots then they will almost certainly be able to control the lane better than you. Grab your first rank of your Dragon Strike and last hit/harass as best you can. Your mana regen should be enough to keep you at reasonable levels. At level two pick up your standard and be watchful for an opportunity to gank. If the enemy gets low, set the standard down behind them and dragon strike on top of them. Remember that your passive will add an aditional 10% damage on your first strike. Save flash in case the tide turns and you need to make a run for it. Head back to fountain when you have enough to get your Tear of the Goddess and boots lvl 1. (about 950 gold)

2) Tear of the Goddess and Boots lvl 1.

Now you should have a few levels under your belt. Go back to lane and continue farming. Farm farm farm. A great way to kill the ranged creeps without becoming vulnerable is to Dragon strike them and then set your standard on top of them. This way you wont be flung right into range of the enemy champions. Become leet by saving up 1337 gold then port back to get a Brutalizer

3) Brutalizer

With the brutalizer comes the ability to destroy enemy squishies. You will have enough Armor pen to give you true damage. Oh and did I mention that Dragon Strike has a 1.1 weapon damage modifier? Make sure to grab a few potions and go out there and gank. You are strong, save up for your boots and to build the brutalizer into a ghostblade.

4) Ghostblade /Defense HP item

Your final item for the damage portion of this build is to buy a Ghostblade. You can build the brutalizer into a ghostblade first or just buy one outright. Just make sure that you buy another brutalizer to consume the one that is used in the formula. If you are having trouble staying alive, substitute the ghostblade for a survivability item. Remember that you do more damage alive than dead!

Random Tips:

1. Blowing your shield next to your team mate that is fleeing the enemy can save their life!
2. To farm up back minions without being ported on top of them, use dragon strike first then follow it up with standard.
3. Only use your ulti on enemies that you KNOW do not have flash available. Using your ulti on the enemy and having them flash out is humiliating.
4. If your enemy does flash out of your ulti or die, you can cancel the ground effect by hitting “r” again.
5. The standard/dragon strike combo can effectively get you over trees and hairy situations.
6. In a teamfight engage, you can quickly reach the back lines by using standard–>Dragon Strike–>Flash–>Cataclysm. You can port about a screen’s length in distance this way.
7. Use potions often!
8. Jarvan can easily hit 40% Cooldown reduction from the Brutalizer/Ghostblade combo.
9. Armor penetration effects Jarvan’s Q ability.

Conclusion:

This build has been tested in single queue of a mixed middle/high level game and was found to be effective in all tiers of gameplay in which it has been tested. Thanks for reading this guide!

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