
Nocturne Champion Guide: Essential Tips for the Nightmare Assassin
Nocturne is a powerful assassin jungler known for his unique map-darkening ultimate ability that creates chaos and forces enemies to retreat. He excels at dueling and can outmatch most junglers in 1v1 encounters.
Core Strengths:
- Easy to learn with only one skillshot (Q ability)
- Strong jungle clear and farming capabilities
- Powerful ganking potential with ultimate
- Effective duelist
Key Abilities:
- Q: Primary damage source and AD boost
- W: Spell shield for blocking crucial abilities
- E: Fear for CC and ganking
- R: Map-wide engage tool
Optimal Skill Order:
- Start Q (better clear speed and AD boost)
- Take W second (attack speed passive)
- Situational third skill:
- Q if purely farming
- E if planning to fight or gank
- Max order: R > Q > E > W
Jungle Strategy:
- Focus on efficient farming when ultimate is on cooldown
- Use ultimate aggressively for ganks when available
- Time spell shield carefully to block important enemy abilities
- Look for isolated targets to maximize assassination potential
Build Path Priority:
- AD items for damage
- Health for survivability
- Ability haste for ultimate uptime
- Tank items for teamfight durability
Playing Style:
- Farm efficiently between ultimate cooldowns
- Target isolated enemies for guaranteed kills
- Use darkness to create pressure across the map
- Coordinate ultimate usage with team engages
Core Items:
- Stridebreaker/Goredrinker as mythic
- Death's Dance for survivability
- Black Cleaver for damage and ability haste
The key to mastering Nocturne is balancing farm-heavy periods when ultimate is down with aggressive map pressure when it's available. Success comes from smart ultimate usage and proper timing of spell shield against key enemy abilities.