8/5/2019 update: Most of the guide has been changed heavily after being outdated for an excessive amount of time. I haven't been playing as actively as before so if you have conflicting opinions on any jungle matchups or see any obvious errors let me know so I can possibly adjust them.

Kayn

Jarvan IV Demacian Standard Dragon Strike Dodge example, autoingand ulting him prevents being knocked up by hiscombo

Take the allied raptor camp

Then you go straight to your red making sure to Shadow Step Q over the wall to krugs, smite them and use Shadow Step

After doing these three camps you have pretty flexible choices.



You can gank enemy mid/sidelane.

You can path into the enemy jungle and either look for them or take camps.

You can go to your blueside and clear the camps there then do scuttle.

You're basically always going to start raptors so nothing shocking here. Shadowstep through the wall to red.

You're only going to kill the 2 small murk wolves, they die to 1 auto+both portions of Q and talisman/red buff.

Finally we clear blue and hit level 3 off it.

This clear is a bit cheesy but the basis of it is that raptors+red buff+2 small wolves+blue gets you level 3 and sets you up for an easy gank on the blue sidelane or mid.

Camps and lane to gank looks roughly like this

3. You have enough mobility in the form of Q, E, and r to generally avoid his crit zones but he's a pretty strong champ and might not be very easy to kill with his R and Ninja Tabi

2. He's hard to counterjungle because he clears camps very quickly and difficult to kill due to aftershock. However it's pretty good to scrap with him if you're looking to transition into Rhaast due to his low kill pressure excluding when his ult is up.

3. You have a good duel against him, particularly after warrior spike. With Warrior completed you can tear into Ekko Reaping Slash Blade's Reach

5. She usually doesn't have enough damage to kill you outright early game by herself. You also have a fantastic duel against her, even if you get hit by Cocoon Cocoon

8. This scarecrow is a constant thorn in your side as Kayn Bountiful Harvest

10. Fatman is pretty good at fighting you while also just having this massive early game pressure you can't hope to mirror. You lose all 2v2s until transformations and struggle to 1v1 him early game. While you're farming up a storm he's pretty free to put your laners behind. You can try to help based on enemy lanes but it doesn't always work out.

5. You're on about even terms with Graves early game due to the fact that you're both just going to farm and maybe get a gank or two off successfully. You both become quite strong off warrior spike, although you win the 1v1 if you don't get hit by the delayed damage portion from End of the Line

8. Hecarim's early game dueling is quite strong with conqueror so it's generally better to avoid fighting him unless you're certain you can win it but he comes online hard with warrior and you'll be at a huge power deficit until form at that point.

1. Kayn has a really good matchup into Ivern because of how quickly you can take his marked camps putting him drastically behind if he doesn't path in a way where you never see his marked camps.

9. His early pressure around the map is immense and he'll generally kill you if you run into eachother.

7. His early ganks are quite strong with red buff and you can't realistically 1v1 him. It's possible to win skirmishes but that depends on team comps more than anything.

4. Karthus jungle has an extremely efficient clear speed so you'll struggle to find him without warding ahead of time but you can usually kill him if you catch him out on a camp, although he can turn it in his favor if his hp is high enough due to his massive damage output.

10. You don't actually have enough damage to do anything meaningful to them, this combined with the fact that they have a solid amount of mobility and a slow allows them to kill you the majority of the time if they catch you while they have red. Playing against Kindred Kayn

7. Although Lee's early game doesn't have the same dominance it used to he's still a very strong ganking champion and duelist early game which gives him a solid opportunity to put you and your team behind, but this matchup is pretty volatile since you can come out ahead in skirmishes or even the one on one if you play well.

8. Master Yi is a horrible matchup for basically the entire game including early unless you really get rolling in form and he plays poorly. You'll bascially never beata him without a noticeable lead or your team backing you

8. One of the highest early pressure junglers. If nidalee finds you while she has red buff you are almost certainly blowing flash or dying if there's no convenient escape making itself present. If she finds you in river she just autos you with red buff until she gets an opportunity to spear for free. This matchup becomes a lot easier at level 6 and onward when you have some ad and enough damage from skills to pop her.

5. Nocturne beats you in a 1v1 but you can just walk away from him if necessary. He's a farm oriented jungler until level 6. You win hard with form if you're even and you win prior to form if you pay attention to the map state and countergank his ults.

4. His early ganks are pretty decent and you're not going to win 2v2 against Nunu until you have more items and even then it might not be easy depending on his laner.

10. He has the ability to catch you out early game even with your mobility thanks to Ghost Undertow

7. Rammus is one of the highest early pressure tanks due to Powerball Frenzying Taunt

7. This matchup throughout the entire game involves a lot of who jumps the other but throughout the earlygame Rengar is at advantage because his damage output is just so high compared to yours in duels and skirmishes.

4. Shaco doesn't really do enough damage to outright kill you in the early game but you need to be wary of him counterganking you. He comes online and starts being pretty strong when he finishes Tiamat and attackspeed boots.

2. Shyvana is a pretty weak jungler early game to the point where her team will thoroughly struggle in most matches but her dueling isn't bad so it's better to play for ganks.

6. Skarner has a clearspeed comparable to yours and is a strong duelist early with strong 2v2 due to his CC+damage output. Although he's rather easy to avoid and it is possible to win 2v2s against him.

5. Sylas has somewhat better ganks than you early but he takes a lot of damage during his clears presenting invade opportunities where you can blow his summs or kill him. Outside of these factors you're pretty even since you both have weaker than average early games.

7. You can't duel him and he's pretty sticky with way better ganks than you for the first couple levels. Be careful not to run face-first into him or you'll have to blow summs/maybe die. You can sometimes win later in the early game as long as his R is down if he hasn't itemized tabi.

3. the only scenario where you realistically die early to him is if you run into him when he's walking midlane level 2 with red buff and he just autos you to death. If he seems likely to go red->mid. you could do the same and try to turnkill by counterganking the cheese. Try to catch him out in his jungle when possible. Matchup can get noticeably difficult if he goes tabi after redsmite and plays well.

1. This champion is very underwhelming in general and that doesn't change much as Kayn, his damage is much lower than yours even early on so he doesn't present much of a threat

9. Xin has very high early damage output and you won't realistically beat him in duels or 2v2s pre form. His ganks are also very strong making him a proper threat early.

1. Zac has a slow clear which gives you a good opportunity to take camps away from him and put him far behind. His early dueling isn't great either and the only cases where he'd really beat you are early skirmishes where both his lanes rotate.

_____

Upon transforming into Rhaast your abilities are changed drastically to fit your new Darkin form.

_ Primary Tree

Triumph is the only particularly good option in this row for Rhaast, the extra health really comes in handy sometimes and the other two choices aren't that great.

The bonus damage from this is definitely worthwhile and it's not like the other options provide anything other than damage, recently some high elo Kayn players have been running Last Stand

___ Secondary Tree Choices

This rune is extremely efficient but is obviously delayed power since you get your boots later in the game. It's pretty worthwhile if you decide to splash inspiration and should be taken with cosmic insight.

Rhaast loves all manner of cdr, he's very happy to have the extra 5% flat for clearing early while also cherishing the 5% cap increase later in the game while shredding through frontlines. Summoner and active item reductions are considerably less relevant than straight up cdr but are both nice additions.

The healing from Ravenous hunter definitely stacks up over the course of the game. You'll frequently heal upwards of 4000 over the course of a match from this rune and in some games much more than that.

Zombie ward is a very prominent rune for junglers currently because of all the extra vision you get from clearing wards. My recommended splash is Zombie Ward/Ravenous hunter currently.

Sudden Impact is a pretty strong rune in terms of damage and if you favor it you could opt to drop Zombie Ward or Ravenous Hunter but I don't think it's worth more than them currently.

Unfortunately no example for this build.

3. Thanks to your damage output to tanky targets in conjunction with your CC and sustain Rhaast makes quick work of Aatrox, although you still want to be wary of his Q due to the amount of damage he'll get off on you if he hits crits which makes the fight a lot harder if he lands them.

1. Amumu can do very little against Rhaast except ult and run away. In a teamfight you need to be wary of dying to his team's follow up when he bandage toss + ults you. Teamfights can be rough against him if he's consistently hitting ult on your carries. Look do to similar things to his with w in some fights and peel your carries in others.

2. Ekko can chunk you pretty low with his combo but your retaliation will often force him to blow his ult or die if you have cooldowns up, since you can get Blade's Reach: Rhaast

5. This is basically a skill matchup since she actually has the damage to tear you apart even through a decent amount of magic resist, but if she doesn't land cocoon she will lose fights with you at all points, eventually the matchup sways hard in your favor due to Spirit Visage Cocoon

8. She will almost always have the jump on you thanks to her passive, if her charm hits you there's a highchance you're dead even through MR due to it shredding a massive percentage of your magic resist while also having a lengthy duration that she or her team can free hit you if it goes off.

6. This matchup was much harder in the past for Rhaast but Fiddlesticks doesn't really do enough damage once you finish visage to be the terror he was before. He's still pretty threatening due to silence and fear being very effective CC against an AD caster.

7. The amounts of peel present in his kit makes your life harder than normal. It's very easy to get ulted into the enemy team earlier in the game before you have tank items as well.

6. Hecarim is more of a squishy killer than anything else but his dueling isn't horrible due to his dps from Rampage Trinity Force Executioner's Calling Bramble Vest

6. He has a decent 1v1 with you until later in the game while also providing strong peel/engage for his team in fights against you and yours. His Demacian Standard Dragon Strike Cataclysm Blade's Reach: Rhaast

7. You have potential to kill Jax for a while midgame but his extremely high damage in conjunction with his stun makes it pretty difficult and you'll almost certainly lose when he finishes Spear of Shojin

2. Immobile mage jungler without any actual tools to fight back. You should look to catch him out when possible and kill him. He has very high damage output but not high enough to kill you before you can kill him.

7. Kha'zix is a pretty difficult one on one as Rhaast, but it's doable if you're solid at predictions and happen to hit Blade's Reach: Rhaast Blade's Reach: Rhaast

11. Incredibly hard matchup as Rhaast, Their mix of mobility to dodge your abilities and raw damage to tear apart your health pool in combination with Lamb's Respite

4. Dealing with Lee Sin as Rhaast is really easy assuming you don't position poorly enough to get kicked into his team and die. You can interrupt Resonating Strike Blade's Reach: Rhaast

6. Fighting Nidalee is pretty similar to a fight with Graves, You have to hold Blade's Reach: Rhaast Pounce

2. He's another softy tank that can't actually do anything to you and just gets torn apart by % hp. Look to end his Absolute Zero Blade's Reach: Rhaast

6. Olaf is a strong duelist but your overwhelmingly high % hp numbers and sustain give you an edge in the fight with him, he can still come out on top thanks to his sustained damage and healing so make sure you know your limits when deciding to duel him. In teamfights he's kind of like Nunu in that he permaslows your team members but rather than empowering his team he just tries to do a lot of damage to the targets he's slowing.

8. Rammus is surprisingly effective against Rhaast due to his defensive steroid being strong enough to take very little damage even from high %hp numbers. Not to mention the fact that for most of the game he'll be reducing your healing heavily due to thornmail being a core item on him. Taunt is just really effective CC in general but being hit by it during early fights often equates to a death if you don't have proper backup.

4. This one on one is in your favor but not considerably so, Rek'sai has very high amounts of damage available to her You'll generally be able to land Blade's Reach: Rhaast Unburrow Unburrow

2. This was a lot harder before her overtuned damage got nerfed but thanks to those nerfs this matchup is really easy in both duels and teamfights. Go merc treads to avoid being chain stunned by her, if you decide to go blue smite there's potential to smite ult someone to dodge her ult which helps a lot.

4. Shaco isn't particularly good against you but with his r and grievous wounds he does enough damage to 1v1 you if he has a lead or outplays you with his boxes or deceive. Very hard to hit W on him.

3. Shyvana is really difficult to deal with in any capacity as a melee duelist, you're not really going to win most duels with her unless you accumulate a large lead and she skips out on Ninja Tabi Blade's Reach: Rhaast

4. Depending on the enemy team you may need to go Quicksilver Sash

5. Sylas can be either really difficult or really easy based on the ults he's capable of stealing as well as the skill of the Sylas player. This matchup is really variable and can skew either way. The person playing better in the match will usually win. If he wastes his Abscond Blade's Reach: Rhaast

4. His 1v1 is good against most champs but you just do way too much damage for him to handle unless he has a massive lead, Blade's Reach: Rhaast Pillar of Ice

4. This matchup really comes down to if you're able to touch Twitch in teamfights without dying, if he's really fed or has his team playing around him it can get extremely difficult, same principle for 1v1 to be fair. If you can't reach Twitch quickly he will kill you but if you touch him he'll usually roll over and die.

3. Udyr does a lot of damage and might be able to win the 1v1 in some games but his teamfight is horrible and he can't really stick to you even if he's in a position where he can win the fight. Your W also invalidates him even more in teamfights since tagging him with any CC often ruins his chance to contribute unless he has Flash

8. This matchup is difficult until you have a lot of items under your belt by which point she might have already dictated the outcome of the game, it's a lot easier if you're playing well and Blade's Reach: Rhaast Vault Breaker

2. Volibear wants to stack health, which you're completely fine with due to high % hp numbers. His one on one is pretty good against you if he has a lead but once you have Warrior Cleaver he shouldn't be winning 1v1 in any scenario. Buy Bramble vest kind of early against him to reduce his passive healing if you feel the need. Try to knock him out of his Q with Blade's Reach: Rhaast

5. The 1v1 should be pretty close but often won't wrap up before teams get involved due to the tankiness and sustain of both parties. In a team fight environment you can reduce his impact a lot by hitting him with your W during either his E or the channeling portion of his R where he's suppressing a teammate.

1. This champion is really bad against you due to being all burst damage with nothing really meaningful after blowing his combo. You have to itemize Ninja Tabi

5. Xin is a pretty strong duelist and is liable to have a lead from the early game giving him an edge for a bit, but even with this in mind you can beat him in a 1v1 pretty reasonably. His teamfight is worse than yours, he's another prime candidate to peel with W off a carry.

1. He's never going to take a duel with you because there's absolutely zero way he wins it with his very low damage output, however he can stall for a relatively long time if you try bringing the fight to him, giving his team plenty of time to come pick you off. In teamfights he's much stronger than you but if you position around your carries you can knock him out of Elastic Slingshot

Combo Examples

__

__

Primary Tree

This is easily the best non keystone mastery in the game on Shadow Assassin and we'll be taking it every game due to the permanent uptime with the short cooldown of Reaping Slash

Eyeball collection is a debatably better option in this tree for snowballing but the value associated with extra vision from this rune is very nice, especially when we go duskblade and sweeper to clear vision. Realistically you can go either.

The healing on Ravenous is really strong and the movement speed from relentless is overkill when you're going shadow assassin since you already have E, Youmuu's, and Maybe Mobi boots.

___ Secondary Tree Choices

This rune isn't that good by itself but it's the 2nd best choice in the tree as a splash when you dip in to grab the next rune

This rune is easily one of the best in the game and sometimes you'll even want it as SA to avoid CC deaths and get away with killing carries.

Absolute focus is a nice rune for the flat damage provided by it and gets a lot of value from a champ trying to maximize their damage output like SA Kayn.

If you're not huge on absolute focus Transcendence is another really good choice since it lets you cdr cap with warrior/dusk/youmuu's and cdr is an incredibly good stat on Kayn.

One of the best runes in the game for scaling damage and the usual go to for SA splash. This rune helps keep your damage high as the game goes on.

This is probably the highest midgame value rune to splash since free boots is the equivalent of getting a kill. It doesn't scale as well as sorcery but it gives you a big spike when you hit it.

If you're going boots you realistically only take this rune. Even if the other runes were decent this is just too good to pass up because of the cdr.

4. He's generally going to itemize mostly health/damage items and will probably go tabi against you making him difficult to kill but you have a decent window before he beefs up to snowball and keep him out of the game. He struggles to hit crit Q's if you make good use of your mobility and ultimate which gives you a bit of an edge in that regard as well.

6. He does quite a bit of damage and can outshot you if he goes runic while also being pretty difficult to kill with Aftershock Quicksilver Sash

1. He's a squishy, skillshot reliant mage in the Jungle against a high mobility high burst assassin. Catch him out in his jungle and dodge his Sear

8. Due to her passive she'll nearly always have the jump on you, excluding if you ward her jungle camps and pick her then. Maw of Malmortius Quicksilver Sash

10. As Shadow Assassin this particular scarecrow should terrify you, his fear screws you in both 1v1 with him and teamfights where he disrupts your combo and enables his team to kill you in the duration. Bountiful Harvest Maw of Malmortius Zhonya's Hourglass Crowstorm

8. He will kill you faster than you can kill him with the massive amounts of burst present in his kit. If he goes a damage centric build you have some opportunities to kill him but it's basically whoever gets the jump on the other wins. Should he opt for a bruiser build instead, he can still one shot you for a large portion of the game while also contributing heavily to team fights.

3. You want to ward his jungle and try to catch him out as much as possible since he can't effectively itemize armor early due to needing other items first. You can just kill him with little repercussions but be careful if you get hit by Wall of Pain Reaping Slash Edge of Night Requiem

6. If he itemizes more armor than just Ninja Tabi Dragon's Rage

10. Any half decent Yi player will meditate your burst and then proceed to beat you black and blue. This matchup is okay if he doesn't go Ninja Tabi Ninja Tabi

6. Another jumpscare matchup, if she lands a spear on you from fog of war you're probably dead to Pounce Takedown

5. Nunu is a meatwall tank with one consistent peel ability in his kit that's consistently effective against Kayn. He's not very scary for you in teamfights and honestly probably one of the tanks Kayn is most likely to beat in a 1v1.

9. If you snowball early there are a few opportunities to burst olaf before he gets armor, outside of that good luck my friend. This monstrous duelist will absolutely kill you if he finds you and you aren't able to hop any walls, his teamfight presence with Undertow

10. You literally cannot even dream of killing him, you're forced to go Quicksilver Sash

10. There's this pattern where SA really hates playing against tanks, particularly tanks with uncouth amounts of crowd control in their kit. Playing against Sej is really hard and you need to keep track of Glacial Prison

1. This champion is really bad, try to deny vision in his jungle and kill him before he can q. Ninja Tabi

5. Shyvana is a very high damage bruiser and will probably 2 shot you if you commit to fighting her so it's generally better to play around her with your team and just kill her carries. She struggles to stick to you so it's not that hard to play around her 1v1 strength. Depending on the game her teamfight impact can be higher or much lower than yours.

8. Skarner is pretty difficult due to his ability to peel with you with his E or even ult you if you don't go QSS and that really diminishes your effectiveness until you can justify buying the item. You can't beat him in a 1v1 but that's not too surprising since he's a tank.

2. He's like Tristana but infinitely worse against assassins, ward up his jungle and look to pick him out over and over again to snowball. If he's not incredibly far behind before teamfights break out the game becomes much harder to win, and if it reaches lategame you lose the match most of the time.

10. If Warwick is on point with his Primal Howl Primal Howl

3. The amount of burst damage he has is comparable to yours and his ability to open from stealth or use stealth to dodge your abilities gives him an edge if he has a lead. If he doesn't have a solid lead Tabi nullify him as a champion since his damage is undertuned.

7. His teamfight is honestly not that great but his Q and R provide decent peel if he decides to play around you and can shut down a lot of your chances to kill a carry. On the flipside you're capable of beating him in the 1v1 for a large portion of the game since he doesn't build early armor the majority of the time instead favoring warrior/trinity/steraks.

4. If Zac is still relevant by the time you transform he can mess you up a bit with Elastic Slingshot Let's Bounce!

DO THE WORLD A FAVOR AND SAVE THESE FOR NORMS, THANKS

_____________________________

___

I’m Shade, a somewhat decent league player with a peak rank of Diamond 1 80 lp on the NA server. This is the first guide I’ve ever written. My intentions for this guide are to share my particular methods and techniques used when playing; providing an extensive amount of knowledge on him, and what makes him so unique as a jungler.My reasons for playingare that he’s a proactive Jungler, even if he isn’t ganking he’s generating pressure, and to be honest his assassin/bruiser duality draws parallels to me previously mainingMuch of’s nuance comes down to pathing and fight positioning. You play a very “tempo” centric playstyle; meaning that you’re always doing something to either put yourself ahead or impact the map. Due to this, you want to have an extremely efficient clear path and keep tabs on opponent’s summoners and locations to enable snowballing.Contrary to most early game junglersis rather weak at dueling but excels at clearing camps which enables him to heavily deny the enemy jungler while pushing himself ahead and this gold+xp lead gradually converts itself into the ability to duel enemies even as baseSomething I believe to be a misconception withis how many of the people playing him think that picking your form in champ select is the be all end all to form selection. Often times I won't choose my form in champ select. The ability to go Rhaast if your team needs him or Shadow Assassin if you're snowballing to end the game quickly definitely factors into my enjoyment as well as Kayn's usefulness.The flexibility presented by’s duality in transformation makes him a good pick most of the time in champ select and comps. Having the choice to be a hard snowball assassin or frontline shredding bruiser/tank makes you a solid fit into the vast majority of compositions. There are cases where you would rather have something like aorfor gank pressure on losing lanes to make them into winning lanes.Reason to pickover other junglers;is probably one of the premier snowball junglers in the game currently although as mentioned previously it’s in a different style. This is in regards to both forms, Rhaast with a lead is an immense frontline fighter that will shred through opposing teams and Shadow Assassin with a lead will kill anything he touches(Except tanks for the most part). Shadow Assassin is more snowball reliant but Rhaast is also just a safe fallback tank with the strong peel of his w and artificial tankiness through sustain even when behind.This passive is what makesunique, the singular piece that brings his kit(s) together to form this cohesive double sided champion. Part of the reason why Basestruggles to duel other champions is not having a passive early game due to this being his passive, but the transformations are worth the loss of a passive for the first 9-15 minutes of the game due to the immense power associated with his enhanced abilities post transformation. Generally even in a poor game you’ll get your transformation around 11 minutes sometimes later if you’re far behind, the reason I say 9 to 15 is because in some matches you’ll get your transformation at 11 minutes and have it be the completely wrong one for the game at hand and have to wait 4 minutes.This delay is absolutely devastating in some scenarios and can lose you games, in those cases it’s okay to just take the form transformation and try to put the game into your favor with a form that might not have been your intention that game.This is’s core ability for clear. This ability plays an extremely vital part in his combination of clear speed and mobility. It’s a mix of this and hispushing his movement to very high levels that allow him to move around the map and teamfights very quickly. It’s important to note that both the dash and spin do damage which is vital to dealing optimal damage to anything you fight. Make sure to hit both parts of yourconsistently on jungle monsters and attempt to do the same with champions as you lose out on massive amounts of damage from failing to do so. This makes it optimal to use yourat less than the max range which means usingorto close the gap sets you up to maximize your damage. Overall this is a very important ability to the cohesiveness of the kit.This is hands down’s bread and butter ability. This somewhat long range skillshot slow/nuke does a large portion of his damage to champions, although being marginally worse thanfor clear. This in conjunction with hisare the pieces of his kit that allow him to realistically gank pre-transformation. Being able to sneak up behind someone and tag them with a 60% slow allows the combination of you and your laner to get off large amounts of damage or burn the enemy’s summoners. This sets you up for another gank at a later time. The channel is somewhat lengthy, but the hitbox itself is pretty wide; due to this, it's important to pay attention to how your enemies move, so you can angle it for guaranteed contact. If this misses you lose a large portion of your damage potential and summoners/kills in many scenarios. You should put plenty of time into learning exactly where to place it in any given fight.’s standout ability in terms of mobility and uniqueness. Walking through walls is what makes his ganks and invades at all prominent. Holding onto this ability while you’re invading without vision of enemies. This is extremely important to avoid dying when collapsed upon or found solo by an enemy jungler with the damage to kill you.This ability also enables gank routes similar to Zac where you just come in from whatever angle you think is most likely to succeed: a great wall for executing on this is ganking the enemy mid laner from their raptor camp wall. Outside of that it’s whatever wall puts you in a good position to be successful in your gank or the teamfight. Angles of entrance are hard to teach but you’re generally going to be looking for a flank that allows you to chunk or kill an opponent if you can. Otherwise you just walk up and wait for opportunities to harass with’s ultimate has plenty of utility packed into the invulnerability of it along with a nice chunk of damage, the damage dealing prerequisite makes it hard to get off when being chain CC’d or bursted from full. But the thing is having an ability that lets you dodge things on demand is very powerful. Most of the time it’s used to either secure a kill, stall for time, or dodge an ability. The primary nuance to this ability is predicting things. Examples are smiting anand ulting her when you know she’s going to. Another example is to ult someone you know is going toand finish the kill. It has other niche uses as well such as following ausing histo a fight when he’s ulting another enemy or just straight up going along with someone using, similar thing applies toand his. Hit him then ult to join him at his destination.While you’re in base form your priority asis basically just to put yourself extremely far ahead in order to take advantage of your transformation spike and dominate the rest of the match. You route to maximize farm and look for ganks during this process; the more gold you secure during the time before your transformation the more devastating all the extra power you gain is going to be.Baseis weaker than most junglers in a straight duel for the first few levels but after that you’re fine against most and can actually kill a fair portion of the jungle pool during invades at around level 5.But mostlyattempts to avoid enemy junglers by clearing quickly so they can’t invade him and taking camps where they won’t be. His ganks aren’t particularly good but due to the routes he can take withthey’re not bad either. Depending on the clear path you take there’s certain intervals where you will be looking to gank either mid or one of the side-lanes.In terms of ganks associated with pathing I generally have a camp associated with specific ganks, although sometimes the ganks outweigh the camps and you need to keep your eyes peeled for that(Going mid when you have a level 6is more important than your raptor camp). Keeping your eyes peeled for obvious ganks from the enemy jungler such as two of your lanes being shoved under tower and one shoving up matters as well. Being there is more important than one camp.Doing either raptor camp = look for gank midDoing Red = think about whether mid or respective side-lane has a good gank.Doing Krugs = look for side-lane gankDoing Blue = look for mid/side-lane gankDoing Scuttle = look for mid/side-lane gank.If no prospective ganks just recall and keep cycling clear or look to invade and get vision in the enemy jg/river to defend your laners from ganks.Many people newer tomake a mistake where they camp whatever lane has a champion correlative to their transformation but this is just straight up wrong. There is no lane priority to get your transformation until roughly 8 and a half minutes when hitting enemies gives a large amount of bar for transforming, even then you don’t rush the gank and just wait for a nice opportunity. This is because you don't want to tunnel vision on form and want to play around win condition lanes as much as possible.The first thing you need to think about in regards to Rhaast is when should I transform into Rhaast rather than Shadow Assassin? Most of it comes down to preference or the state of the match you’re in but I recommend picking Rhaast in games that are clearly going to go long or games that you need to contribute some form of tank/bruiser presence rather than assassinate specific targets. Such as in a game where the enemy adc is easily dealt with or behind and they have strong tanks that will win them fights rather than their carries.Some team comps also just naturally dictate a Rhaast pick due to stacking tanks. A good example for picking Rhaast over SA in champ select is multiple bruisers or tanks that you won't be capable of dealing with if you're not Rhaast. In these games you'll either try to catch out the damage dealers if possible or just frontline and shred the opposing tanks playing a front to back fight.Become- Only icon, no gameplay changeThis passive completely dictates Rhaast’s ability to function as a drain tanking bruiser. The majority of his tankiness comes from dealing damage to champions and regaining his health. This makes Bramble Vest, Morellonomicon, and Executioner’s calling extremely effective items against him that you have to keep an eye out for. Particularly Morellonomicon and Executioners as they have an easier proc condition than Bramble Vest since they just need to hit you and not the other way aroundWithout this passive Rhaast would play completely different in how he positions and his build path to compensate for the lack of sustain. Due to just how much he’s healing from The Darkin Scythe in conjunction with the changes his ult receives listed further downand raw healthbecome particularly potent buys compared to other items.Most of the Rhaast builds go Warrior Cleaver so using that as a baselineQ will often deal 1/4th of an average tank's hp before resistances letting him rip through their hp pools really quickly withIn terms of damage to squishier targets,His Q still does a large amount of damage, often up to 1/3rd of their hp bar. He frequently chunks them out even harder than he does tanky targets since they don't itemize armor. Making him very effective at killing both squishy and tanky targets.Yet another reason whyis absolutely’s bread and butter ability. CC makes or breaks some bruisers and this is definitely true for Rhaast, being given the ability to hit both parts of your Q for free after landing w adds so much more damage that you could potentially miss without the knock up. Not only that but it’s just a solid ability in general due to being able to peel for your team with the knockup and enabling combos with things such as Miss Fortune ult, Ornn ult, Ezreal ult, Anything that’s very impactful when given a chance to hit for free is very potent with this ability. These factors are another reason why it’s very important to aimW in all it’s forms well.This change is absolutely insane for Rhaast’s sustain levels and ability to tear through other tanky characters, especially when taking into consideration the double dip with the damage dealt healing him due to his passive.Using Level 11 Ashe with Doran’s Blade as an example his ultimate as Rhaast with Warrior and Cleaver deals roughly 300 damage while also healing roughly 300 damage.Let’s use a level 18 Sej as an example for extremes. Most Sej players have around 4,500 hp at level 18 with 6 items. We’re going to assume his level is 18 while keeping his damage items at Warrior+Cleaver but we’re also going to give him a spirit visage which increases his healing by 30%. The ult deals about 1050 damage and heals Rhaast for a number somewhere in the ballpark of 1500. This means that in the extreme late game with lots of items on Rhaast and opposing tanks he can heal for nearly his entire hp pool if he goes a more AD centric build.This enables you to continue fighting on very low hp numbers then just ult a target to heal and proceed to fight for an even longer period than you already were while also having the option to chunk out a large portion of a tank’s health pool. There are still many cases where you can use this to either stick to a carry and/or finish a kill on them after landing, and some autos.Rhaast is capable of filling 3 roles in a team. He is capable of being an assassin with a lethality build, a carry centric bruiser by going a very high damage bruiser build such as Warrior, Cleaver, GA, Visage, and Mortal Reminder with Tabi as boots. As well as a tankier bruiser with a build such as Warrior, Cleaver, Visage, Randuins, and more defensive items or a GA. He has a ton of flexibility in his build and this really helps him thrive.Example of a good game to go lethality Rhaast - You are very far ahead at 10 minutes and get Rhaast as your transformation. The enemy team has 2 tanks that are currently building health rather than resistances. You will deal so much damage to the opposing team, both squishy and tank because of the massive amount of % hp against the hp stacking tanks in combination with the effectiveness of lethality against squishy targets.Example of a good game to go high damage bruiser - Your team has 1 tank or you are very far ahead against a well rounded team comp with either one fed tank or two+ generic tanks. This is somewhat like lethality Rhaast but better against armor and scaling well compared to it.Example game for tankier bruiser - Going against a team where it’s hard to consistently hit enemies to sustain such as going against strong peel. A good case for building this way would be a team such as Sej, Alistar, and Syndra. Your damage numbers will be much lower than the previous two builds but you’ll provide a stronger tank presence and play a more peel centric style than the other two.Outside of just deciding form and build you end up having to think about angle of approach regularly due to Shadow Step, even as Rhaast sometimes you just want to hard dive the carries and make their life hell. Which to be fair is helpful for disrupting the teamfight. But there’s also scenarios where you just butt heads with the enemy frontline for the entire fight and hope your carries can do a solid job and win the fight with you as their aide.In the event you decide diving the carries is your goal for a particular fight you take similar approaches to how you would as Shadow Assassin which is to say you attempt to deny enemy vision of the area over a wall in a team fight.(Maybe even going so far as to drop a pink ward on the raptor camp to deny wards in the camp). Then once it’s time to enter, either as engage or follow-up based on the state of the game you come in from the side of the walls.Rhaast has a window of power that lasts up until adcs or mages have enough items to tear through his hp in which he’s an absolute monstrosity on the rift and can win a large portion of teamfights by himself with careful placement of W and good target selection. Once this window ends even on more carry oriented builds you have to pay much more attention to positioning since even with the massive amounts of vamp, hp and resistance you itemize, these threats will tear you apart at a certain point.The first thing you need to ponder is “Will Shadow Assassin be the correct choice in this match?” Shadow Assassin excels at pushing a lead into a won game against squishy characters. He genuinely struggles against tanks and some bruisers because of how little damage he deals to them, even with a massive lead many tanks or tankier targets will be able to take you in a 1v1 with ease.So when thinking about going Shadow Assassin you have to ask yourself, how fed am I?, Does the enemy team comp have effective answers to me? One of these answers being massive amounts of peel. Another question you have to ask yourself is “Can I push my lead enough to win this game before carries have strong defensive items likeor”. This question is posed primarily because you fall off later on just as any other assassin does. It’s also hard to kill an adc later in the game when your only options are have flash up or run at them in a teamfight and hope you last long enough to kill them. Angle of approach becomes even more important when teamfights start breaking out while playing Shadow Assassin as they completely dictate whether you can enter the fight at all. Sometimes you pick the wrong angle and just have to walk away.Upon transforming into Shadow Assassin your abilities are changed heavily to suit your new murderous style.transition into your new abilities- Functionality unchanged, just icon.This passive is actually much more impactful than the numbers make it seem, an extra 12-44% of numbers like 1300-4000 is really impactful. A combo using your ultimate after it deals 12-44% increased damage on 1 W, 2 Qs, 1-2 autos, Duskblade, Whatever keystone you’re using, and your ultimate. This is especially potent when taking into consideration that the damage is magic which gives you a slight mix of physical/magic damage that causes you to be slightly harder to itemize against. Even without using your ultimate it’s still increased damage on w q aa as well as your keystone which is generally enough damage to kill any target that isn’t itemizing defensively.BREAD AND BUTTER, while both the change to Rhaast’s W and the change to SA’s W are very impactful, this change turns him into a completely different champion that not many compare to in terms of how his kit flows together. This enables the highest burst combo onthat removes squishies from the game faster than most people are capable of reacting. You generally use this ability when you’re either comboing for a kill or just as high damage poke. Be cautious when using this as poke due to the fact it disables your passive for 8 seconds upon doing so making you potentially lose out on hundreds of damage.The combo itself is as simple as w-> auto -> Q when the damage of the auto goes through but it’s still mid animation. However it gets a bit more complicated( and A LOT scarier) when you addinto the mix which is the most important combo on SA,->-> Autoattack->. You can throwinto the mix on these combos after your autottack when the situation calls for it, such as when an enemy is going to panic flash away from taking so much damage. That’s a nice easyfollow for a free kill.This ability ispick/roam ability. The ability to go through terrain while seeing over walls really helps you scout for and kill opponents you aren’t aware of, or hunt down those you are aware of. Keep in mind that you can’t see in brush so dipping out of the wall and quickly back in to check a bush can be valuable at times.The massive movement steroid associated with this ability and the cooldown being put at a flat 8 seconds allows for some insane map rotations which equates to a massive amount of pressure generated from how quickly you traverse the entire map. You’ll want to route in a way that allows you to continuously run through walls to maximize use of this ability but that isn’t particularly difficult given how many walls are on the map.The extra 200 units makes a huge difference on the effectiveness of your ultimate, I’ve a secured an innumerable amount of kills with the extra range on W+R that I would have missed as Rhaast or Base. 200 might not sound like much but it makes a massive difference in just how effective this ability is. As a point of reference 100 units is 1 teemo.Resetting SA’s passive is not to be underestimated either. Assuming a best case scenario after comboing you deal 12-44% increased damage on one Auto, Both parts of one Q and a duskblade proc which can easily deal over one thousand damage to a squishy target meaning this reset can provide hundreds of extra damage on your combo.Unlike Rhaast, Shadow Assassin is only capable of filling one role in a team. Squishy killer, destroyer of adc’s hopes and dreams. As SA your goal is to make any carry champion on the enemy team have a hellish time by nuking them when given the chance. His build is a much more straightforward than the myriad options available to Rhaast but there is still some decisions you make throughout the game on which items to purchase over others.Your build is primarily going to be Warrior->Duskblade-Youmuu’s->More damage items with very little flexibility in the first few items and a limited pool for later choices compared to Rhaast as well.As Shadow Assassin you’re also given less options than Rhaast in terms of how you approach fights. You are forced into playing around unexpected angles which also makes vision control of areas very important. You need to buy lots of pink wards and make use of Duskblade + Sweeper(At level 9) to deny vision of areas you might try entering a fight from. It’s helpful to remember you can tell if an area is warded based on whether you’re getting the duskblade passive(The damage one, not the vision one).Outside of approaching from odd angles sometimes you do still position with your team as Shadow Assassin and just attempt to land poke with your W to chip away at tank’s hp or put a squishy at dangerous hp numbers. It’s possible depending on which carry champion you hit to just ult them after landing w as poke and kill them outright with auto q once you exit, or in the case of being really snowballed W+R actually kills some squishies.In regards to the previous statement about W+R killing squishies at times it’s very important to know your damage on Shadow Assassin in order to properly estimate kill ranges and above all else to be aware you are an assassin and need to keep track of enemy cooldowns to avoid being peeled off and rendered irrelevant to the point or to avoid being killed by having something such as Sej Ult thrown at you or Gragas slamming belly first into you.Another topic I’d like to touch on for Shadow Assassin, and just assassins in general is that a key skill is knowing WHEN to pull the trigger on a combo or look for a pick, while also being careful not to get picked in any way. If you die/blow flash you lose tons of presence. If you die AND blow flash you’re giving up so much by being removed from the map and losing your important gap closer for combo As mentioned previously tracking enemy cooldowns is important, but so is tracking positioning of both enemies and allies along with your allied cooldowns. Keeping track of these things allows you to successfully make your picks in fights without dying more often than not. Knowing when you can and cannot successfully kill an enemy carry while escaping is important. So is knowing when your team wins if you kill the enemy adc, even at the cost of your own life. Yeah, it’s worth dying 1 for 1 to kill the Vayne that's killing your entire team. Obviously we prefer to avoid this but sometimes it's the only feasible play.Before I continue, I'd like to give special thanks to Hoppermh for some help with bbcode techniques.And my fantastic friend Quin . He helped me/made the vast majority of the art used throughout the guide(The Rhaast poorly edited onto Shadow Assassin is most certainly mine though. He was a great help and the graphics of this guide were definitely carried by him.If youinto a wall that is too thick to jump over the amount of time it takes to get off both parts of the damage is much lower, this is especially true if you q when you’re already against a wall. This is useful for winning close 1v1s sometimes or getting off your damage faster when someone facechecks a bush you’re in as you can get both parts ofoff basically instantly in melee range of a wall that is too thick for yourto go over.’sis stopped by knockback effects such as Gragasand Vaynebut usually goes through when you’re hit by a stun.You can usewhile into either move faster inside of terrain or to dash into a wall you’re not going to reach within the 1.5 second timerExample of shortenedIf anyone is keen on keeping track of my account for whatever reason I primarily play on Main account If you’ve made it this far thanks for reading through my Book ofand I hope even the more experiencedplayers learned a thing or two(or maybe 17) from this. That is all and farewell.