An Overall Guide to the Edgiest Jungler, Kayn.
Hey there, My name is VearowDC and I am currently a plat 1/diamond 4 kayn main on the NA server. I have been spamming kayn for about 2 seasons now and have climbed from Bronze to Diamond 3 with him with a 58% winrate. I am making this guide to spread the word about our lord and savior, Rhaast, and I will be updating it with every coming patch.
Hope you enjoy!
These are the best overall runes that you can run every game. But they can be tweaked to be more optimal depending on the champs in your lobby.
Quick Kayn AD Jungle Build
Summoner Spells
Starting Items
Best Overall Build
Choices of Runes for Red/Blue
The overall best rune page is listed above, but these are the more specific ones for your lobbies. Feel free to switch our MR for armor if their team has lots of AP. A good rule of thumb is that if their Mid laner and Jungler are AP, you want MR.
You'll generally like conqueror on Red kayn with last stand because you want long teamfights where you will get very low for maximum value out of your R.
On Blue, you can either go Dark Harvest or First Strike. Ever since its' nerf in patch 12.16, first strike has been performing significantly worse than Dark Harvest, so that is the one I use primarily.
- Red
- DH Blue
- FS Blue
Specifically, for red kayn, you can go either Resolve or Inspiration for your secondary runes. Go resolve if you need to be more tanky during teamfights, and go Inspiration for more damage.
And for Blue, if you Rush Umbral Glaive, you can go Ghost Poros for extra vision domination. You will have about 100 vision score at the end of the game and U.gg will always give you an S tier carry score.
Summoner Spells & Items Loadout
- Item Set 1
You will go Flash/smite 99% of your games on Kayn, no matter which form you choose.
However, the Koreans and some NA kayn mains have been going ghost for added move speed during teamfights on red kayn. It is okay, but you must keep in mind that it is insanely hard to navigate your early game without flash.
You can also go Ignite for early game dominance. Your form actually comes online faster if you have Ignite, because every tick will give you orbs. So make sure to abuse this for fast forms until they patch it.
Skill Path
- Red
- Blue
Kayn
Kayn
Max Q first on Rhaast because that is your main damaging ability against tankier opponents.
Max W after 3 points in q on Blue kayn, because that will be your main damaging ability, especially in the mid game. If you manage to get ahead, you will do 50% of A squishy's health with a W easily.
Item Builds
I was on a massive lose streak with goredrinker kayn recently, so I experimented with new builds in 12.17, and found out that Eclipse rush kayn is OP for both forms. No matter which form you go, eclipse will do insane amounts of damage while keeping you relatively tanky thanks to its shield. Make sure you abuse this build while you can.
- 12.1 Red Build7
- Blue
- Classic Red
Note: Alot of people used to go the Bluiser build where you would take goredrinker and go Shadow Assassin with it. It was good for a bit, but is heavily nerfed now so I would not recommend it.
Hardest Matchups for Kayn
- yi
- Trundle
- Graves
- Fiddle
- New Group
Playstyle
Now that you know your runes, counters, and build. Lets talk about Kayn's unique Playstyle.
Your Lobby determines how your game will pan out. Luckily, there is a simple rule of thumb regarding which runes/form to pick. If they draft 3 or more squishies, go blue. If they draft 3 or more tanky boys, go red. Of course, there is more nuance to this, but as a general guideline, you should be good.
EARLY GAME:
You clear fast. 3:09 fast. You want to full clear every game, so don't stop to look for ganks halfway through your clear unless they are ABSOLUTELY free.
Here is a VERY good website where you can learn every clear your heart desires. Just make sure you think about the gankability of each lane before you go for it. https://jungler.gg/champions/kayn/
As a general guideline, your clear from Red buff is the fastest since you have 2 people leashing you. Do this clear if you can't think of anything else.
Note: As of 12.17, it is a Bot lane determined meta. So you should be ganking bot more often than not right after you do scuttle.
MID GAME:
It is at this point around 15:00, where the first towers start to fall and you get your form that you become an unstoppable god of the rift. You want to start focusing less on farming now and more on objectives like towers, heralds, and dragons. If you have not fallen too far behind, your form powerspike should make you stronger than the enemy jungler, so go start stuff right in front of their face.
LATE GAME/TEAMFIGHTING:
late game on kayn is where it gets tricky. You have to perform perfectly in order to close the game on time. Make sure you follow the guidelines below to end the game before 40:00.
RED KAYN:
Look for teamfights. You dominate them. Focus on the frontline until you can get on the squishies in the back. You should be doing all of the damage on your team like a one-man-show. Just make sure to hit R when you are low and wait for antiheal effects to expire.
BLUE KAYN:
You want to splitpush on the sidelanes. You can kill anyone who comes at you solo very easily. Build a lead with the insane amount of lane minions and jungle monsters you get and take turrets when the enemy team isnt looking.
That's about all for my guide. Follow this and you should start winning games and climbing LP. Thank you so much for reading to this point and good luck on the rift!
3 Comments
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WHAT THE FUCK IS A DH AND SF
WHAT THE FUCK IS A DH AND SF
Very cool! Cant wait to play Kayn in my ranked games!