When looking for a powerful top lane Champion that can play nearly any matchup, Jayce comes to mind for many players. A strong lane bully, effectively both a ranged and melee top, as well as having a variety of tools for poking, farming, waveclear, peeling, and ways to outplay opponents. More so is his ever-rising popularity in a post-Arcane League of Legends, where suddenly everyone became a Jayce main with the free Arcane Jayce skin and had some questionable gameplay.

Hopefully, with help from Kyeong “Photon” Gyu-tae we’ll set things straight with a Jayce guide that can get you up to speed and ready to play Jayce like a pro Korean player.

When to Play Jayce?

Photon: “I mean, Jayce is kind of okay to pick every scenario if you have competence. People didn't play Jayce much these days because of lane swap, but I think he's still strong and is a flexible pick. So I think Jayce can go Jungle now, so he's flexible blue side I think. I also saw Zeus play Jayce at KeSPA Cup, and it was really strong, though it is Zeus.”

Zeus being as amazing of a top laner with many Champions aside, it’s more of a demonstration that in the hands of great Jayce players, you’ll always be able to find a way to be useful, if not dominant, in game. What Photon describes is more so the professional play landscape where pick flexing is far more common between teammates, but it can also apply to Solo Queue. Jayce technically is a Champion that was picked in every single role in pro play (yes, we count legendary Support Mata rage-playing Jayce Support in pro by technicality), and these days you’ll likely see him in either top lane, mid lane, and Jungle.

For matchups, Jayce ideally wants to play against a lot of typical top laners that struggle to deal with his poke. With some exceptions (Malphite is not a fun time, especially post-level 6), Jayce has the tools to deal with nearly any Champion in top. The introduction of lane quests has also eliminated random lane swapping in most scenarios, letting Jayce play out his powerful early game.

But don’t get me wrong, just because Jayce is strong early doesn’t discredit how he can scale. As Jayce, you’ll be able to transition into more of a poke Champion before teamfights, which is a role that not many top laners can fill normally. Damage Champions generally are the way to carry a game, and hitting empowered Shock Blasts into the enemy team before a teamfight is plenty to win the game.

Runes

Photon: “It's hard to say, it depends on the enemy top Champion. Like, if you play against Irelia, I would like to take Conqueror, if you play against Aatrox or something like Karma, I would like to take Phase Rush. If you play against something like Lucian, you can go Electrocute. If you play against tank Champions, you can take Grasp. You can change everything every time with Jayce, it just depends on the enemy champ.”

The question I asked Photon was how Jayce can go into nearly every rune page, and what are the best runes to take. With Jayce, you want to be picking primarily based on the situation at hand (so in this case, usually what you’re laning against). We’ll give a quick rundown for each one.

Conqueror: Arguably the standard rune for Jayce these days especially against bruiser Champions who excel in extended trades. Jayce can stack Conqueror fairly fast due to having extra abilities due to being a transforming Champion, as well as taking advantage of being both ranged and melee. You’ll likely take Conqueror in most scenarios due to the extra damage it provides in the typical scrappy brawls of top lane.

For example, here is a full rune page setup specifically against Irelia with this advice in mind.

Item Builder Source: shyv.net

This build tries to maximize Jayce’s damage especially in the first few levels where Jayce’s ranged form and extra abilities gives him a significant advantage over Irelia. You’ll usually go back for the Tear at 400g instead of starting with it because you want to be as dominant in lane as possible, which Doran's Blade gives you through a bit of extra sustain and more damage. You will basically try to be zoning and bullying Irelia early as much as you can.

Phase Rush: Phase Rush is unique in its usage, because it gives you a burst of speed and slow resist. Many people say that movement speed is an underrated stat, but these days I think most players know the value of movement speed, especially when seeing Champions like Gragas make it impossible to trade against skill rotations in lane, stunning you and immediately running away.

For Jayce, Photon mentions the Aatrox and Karma matchup. Aatrox is fairly straightforward, you want that extra speed to dodge and avoid being hit by Aatrox’s Q in the sweetspot, as well as having slow resist to run through his W slow. Karma is more nuanced, where you’ll want it to make quick trades, avoid her empowered Q, but also run away when she drops her root on you and tries to stick onto you. In general though, you want Phase Rush when you need the movement speed and slow resist to take actions like dodging or keeping up with an opponent, as well as doing quick short trades and needing a speedy escape.

Electrocute: Usually used against squishy Champions, this is for fighting Champions who will also force short trades against you. Consider Lucian, who is most likely going to auto-Q-dash-auto-W-auto (although this rotation may differ with W being used in the opening too or in between with dash saved to dodge/move to safety). These trades are quick, short, and bursty, which you want to match with Electrocute’s extra immediate damage that Conqueror doesn’t give. It also works well for assassinations, where the Champions you pick Electrocute against are more likely in the range to be one shot by Jayce.

Grasp of the Undying: Grasp is a situational thing where you can just make continual slow trades with your opponent who can’t really punish you but also take a lot of punishment. As Jayce you get a bit of extra bulk as well as being able to whittle down the other player. It’s the same logic as when players took Grasp on Caitlyn, where it’s free extra poke damage that can’t really be punished by top laners and a little bit of extra sustain.

Some other honorary mentions like First Strike (First Strike is a fun one similar to Electrocute in value but strongest against Champions who can’t hit you first), but generally the four above are the main runes you’ll be considering as Jayce. This kind of flexibility also helps you consider the secondary rune options, as you’ll have a greater variety for different matchups because Jayce can use nearly every main rune page.

Item Builds

Photon: “The Tear item, Manamune. Sometimes you just build Lethality like Youmuu into Muramana into Serylda. Sometimes you can build Eclipse into Manamune. Sometimes Black Cleaver. I think you have to build manamune every time on top side.”

Generally, the crucial item is always the tear item, in which case it is nearly always going to be Manamune. Jayce is particularly mana heavy in spite of having mana generation built into his melee form, but often times in the mid game you’ll be using quite a large amount of mana to waveclear, to throw poke into the enemy team, and in general because his kit has six different mana-spending abilities. It also synergizes well with his kit due to his ability-heavy nature that does weave autos in between, in a similar way to Ezreal.

There was a time when Jayce went full tank into Fimbulwinter, but those were dark days and Riot is unlikely to want to let players continue playing Jayce as a tank.

For secondary items, it is very situational after getting your tear. Photon mentions Eclipse can come first before Muramana, as it’s a cheap powerspike that excels in short trades due to the bonus shield and extra damage in burst. Black Cleaver over Serylda’s is more of a matchup and team-dependent thing, where your Jayce might be the best option to apply Cleaver for his AD-heavy teammates especially against tankier targets. Generally, you want to be adaptive to how the situation unfolds in the game, and Jayce is a Champion that can build both bruiser or assassin items effectively.

NA Jayce and What to Do in the Mid-to-Late Game?

A more fun question I asked Photon was what was the difference between the so-called NA Jayce and KR Jayce.

Photon: “I know the meme, but I don't think it's a kind of mechanical problem, it's more about the macro thing I think. When you play Jayce, you have to farm enough to play, but you have to know when to group, when to go side to farm, when to poke. But if you just look for a group or side push every time, they need to know when it is the right time to do either.”

While all fun and games, we can take from this the importance of macro play for Jayce. You have a ton of options because Jayce can split-push well with strong waveclear and a reasonable self-peel/dueling, Jayce can join up with his team and rain shock blasts on the opponent, and go in for assassinations with his high burst. You have to be able to decide when the best time to do any of the three is to surpass the typical Jayce who might win lane because they’re Jayce, but then be useless later because they decided to do the wrong thing at the wrong time.

I think the key is understanding what your win condition is. Consider your teammates and your opponents, and what they’re typically doing on the map. If your main win condition is securing objectives and forcing your opponent to play 5v5, you ideally would want to be with your team poking down the opponent to make it easier.

As Photon mentions: “I think I look for poke more as a Jayce, because when I play Jayce, I don't want to play 5v5 with full HP, I want to start a fight after poking. That's kind of Jayce's identity, so I focus on grouping and looking for poke before the fight.”

Your goal as Jayce is to make the fight difficult for the opponent before they get the chance to teamfight, if not prevent them entirely from contesting with your poke. Jayce’s biggest threat is his high damage from a screen away, and poking out carries often will win you fights because they can no longer participate safely.

In other scenarios, if your 5v5 is too weak, Jayce can be an effective split-pusher. He has excellent tools for taking towers (his W being both an auto reset and a max attack speed raiser), as well as ways to escape and disengage if he needs to through his Acceleration Gate. You’ll want to be split-pushing in the scenario where you need to pressure a sidelane but also can contest or be safe from someone matching you in the side lane.

Jayce Tricks

Jayce has a lot of different tricks in his kit that Jayce players know. It’s a long list. So much that it could be a guide explaining all of them and what you can do with it. For more simplicity sake, we’ll just list them out here from what Photon listed out for us.

Ranged Q Shock Blast: Use Q – Shock Blast first before E – Acceleration Gate, and try to place the acceleration gate as close to your Champion as possible when firing. This does two things: It makes it harder to react to because the Shock Blast goes into its faster enhanced mode much quicker when the gate is closer to you, but also lets you take advantage of Acceleration Gate’s movement speed immediately because it is placed on top of you. There are nuances where you might want to place the gate onto your teammate instead, but generally you want your Shock Blast to be harder to react to.

Pictured above: Photon in Solo Queue demonstrating using E - Acceleration Gate as close as possible to his character while pressing Q-E for a difficult to react to Shock Blast. Notice the Shock Blast is already empowered immediately even before the Acceleration Gate is fully visible.

Ranged W Hyper Charge: It’s an auto-cancel, so try to auto before using it. You can also take the attack speed into melee form.

Melee E Thundering Blow: You can auto attack in between your E to shove in both. As soon as the E hits, you try to shove in an auto before they leave the range of his melee form. Try not to cancel your auto by accident, it will be a little bit easier the closer you are to your opponent (although Jayce’s melee form is 125 which is pretty standard for melee Champions). The key thing to remember is your melee E has 240 range, which makes it easier to mess this up since your auto might be out of range, so you do want to move as close as you can (Jayce Q can put you there, especially if you Q onto something slightly past your opponent). In Jayce’s typical trading pattern going into melee form, you’ll usually open with your Q – To the Skies and have movement speed from changing forms immediately, so take advantage of this to get the extra auto attack in.

Jayce R Transform (Mercury Hammer/Mercury Cannon) Passive: It has two forms based on what form you switch into (Melee into ranged gives you defense shred, while ranged gives you extra bonus magic damage). This is important especially in the trading rotation where you shove in an extra auto between your E, where many Jayce players make the mistake of forgetting about it if they’re doing the fastest combo. Also take advantage of transforming into melee range before you take damage, as you’ll get extra resistances.

In situations where you go from melee form into ranged, be sure to auto attack immediately after you transform to take advantage of the shred for maximizing your burst.

Jayce R Mid-Transform: You can also switch forms as your ranged auto attack flies into melee, and it’ll give you some mana. Switching into melee also lets you benefit from the full passive of Hubris because you are now melee, so especially before you finish your opponent off, switch forms if you can for the full value.

Conclusion

Well, hopefully we’ve moved past the NA Jayce and the Arcane Jayce stereotypes and have learned a few things about playing Jayce. While Photon’s pocket pick is actually Gwen, we worked with him on this Jayce guide due to his dominant Jayce during his days on Team Vitality. It’s one of those picks that many players want to learn to play well due to the popularity of Jayce from Arcane, and we hope that this guide has brought you some tidbits of wisdom.

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