Rest in piss to challenging and chilling smite </3.
Flash is the most consistent secondary for positioning in fights and for securing ganks. It can also be used to extend the knockup on E+Q if used during the animation.
Ignite is viable as a secondary spell into comps with very low mobility or junglers that you can confidently kill solo.
Best rune options
Conqueror is currently the most viable keystone to take in conjunction with his current meta items. Conqueror and precision tree give the best sustain available for primary runes. Secondary runes are mostly limited to domination and inspiration, but some fringe cases for resolve and sorcery exist too. Domination secondary is my personal favorite since it capitalizes on some of the more aggressive elements of his kit, mainly free damage from sudden impact and his ease of access for hunter stacks on kill or assist. Inspiration secondary is better for less predictable games since magical footwear will always net you an extra 300 gold regardless of the gamestate.
Most consistent
For low mobility
For less aggressive games
Take Tenacity over Alacrity into heavy CC.
Best core build options
Generally speaking it's more consistent to build sustain following Goredrinker since it saves you gold on building it later, but there are many cases in which building damage instead can be more valuable. Always try to build something with AD as a second item to Goredrinker. After building your second item you can afford to start on purely defensive items if you see them fit.
DD, Maw, and Sterak's are the best defensive options for core items. Build them accordingly if you need early sustain.
Black Cleaver, Ravenous Hydra, and SOS are the best offensive options for core items. Build them if you don't immediately need sustain and can afford to build damage instead.
Starting items
Breakdown
By far the most viable option for starting items. The recharging shield is invaluable for Jarvan's kit as it allows him to shrug off poke damage and peel for his team better. The tenacity and slow resist assist him in engages too, but it's important to remember that these resistances only last while the shield is active. The shield also stacks with Jarvan's W so it has inherent synergy with his kit. Build this for better engages.
Not every game depends on offensive or defensive stats, and having move mobility has an inherent edge on capturing objectives, counterjungling, and securing ganks. The extra tempo feels really nice and it's definitely a close second to the green one. Build this for more mobility.
Very strong starting item for damage while sacrificing defense or tempo. Since the damage scales with a champions max health, it adds a lot of potential dps to your combo. This starting item is particularly potent into tanks, adding lots of true damage to your kit over the course of a game. Build this into tanks.
Best items
Best items
Off meta items
Has the best synergy with Jarvan's kit out of all the mythic items for its stats and healing active. Its main component, ironspike whip, is a very strong item to get on first base since it helps a lot with clearing jungle camps early.
Take into CC if you didn't take tenacity rune or need MR.
Take into comps with low magic damage.
Very reliable sustain item if your team has good damage. Most viable following Goredrinker due to its high gold cost, but is a viable item later in build if very ahead. Its heal and damage reduction depend on takedowns, so try to only build it if you have enough damage to quickly activate its effect. Build this into sustained damage but Maw or Sterak's into burst. Better with more ad to scale with its unique passive.
Amazing item for diving and backlining for its revive and has incredible synergy with Jarvan's kit. Build every game if circumstances allow it since it is an incredibly strong item regardless of enemy team compositions. Can be bought after second item.
Great into 1-2 sources of consistent magic damage. Better with more ad in build to scale with its unique passive. Can be built second item or later in build if needed.
Incredibly potent damage item for its high synergy with Jarvan's kit. With max Q and full BC stacks you can get 56% armor shred, which is enough to make it a universally powerful item without even mentioning how well its stats synergize. Can be built second item or later in build if needed.
Good into teams with true damage or mixed damage in burst. Great as a general defensive item since it gives a shield that scales with health similar to J4's W. Better with more health in build to scale with its unique passive. Can be bought after mythic or later too.
Best defensive item to synergize with Jarvan's kit. Gives stats for both damage types and active is great against true damage. Better with more health and armor/magic resistance in build to scale with its unique passive. Better late game.
Great into teams with lots of onhit damage because of the AOE cripple it gives. Helps when frequently backlining. Better with more health in build to scale with its unique passive. Can be bought at any time past second item.
Amazing item to build against percentage-based armor or magic pen. Very cheap too, so it's a great option when behind. Gives good stats. Build in late game.
Good if you are forced to buy anti heal. Applies 60% grev wounds on E+Q. Better with more armor in build to scale with its unique passive. Can be built whenever needed after second item.
Good into multiple champions with crit builds (crit ADCs, Yasuo, Tryndamere, etc.) because of its passive. The active is also good as a supplement to your W. Gives good stats. Better with more health in build to scale with its unique passive. Better as a late game item.
Great into multiple sources of magic damage and lost of CC. Better as a late game item.
If you asked me a couple years ago if this item would be good on J4 I'd have said no immediately. However, since its return in season 13 I've found it to be really strong on him since all the stats it gives scale and its passive puts your knockup on a very low cooldown. Highly recommended, can be built early or later, but keep in mind the high cost. Better with more ad to scale with its unique passive.
Since its demotion to a legendary item it now has a niche use as a counter to artillery mages. The health and CDR synergize well with Jarvan's kit and the active can help for catching up to champions with ranged CC.
A good mix between damage and sustain, Ravenous Hydra can definitely work as a solid second item if you need lots of healing. While it provides no defensive stats, it makes up for that by giving a max of 14% omnivamp, which combined with Goredrinker can give you up to 22%. The innate healing definitely beats out most other sustain items like DD, where you would usually have to wait for a takedown to activate its heal. Keep in mind that the heal only works if you continue to deal damage, so into lots of CC it's not as effective. Can be bought second item. Better with more ad to scale with its unique passive.
A good tank item when you want additional damage over just stats. Gives good resistances and adds the element of health scaling damage with its aoe burn effect. Since it has increasing damage over the duration of a fight, it is great for engages and prolonged combat. Its cheap cost makes it a viable purchase at any point in the game. Can be bought whenever you see fit. Better with more health to scale with its unique passive.
A powerful item for damage when you build lots of health. Gives good stats too for health and AD while also providing more damage based on his bonus health. The aoe damage on auto attacks has strong synergy with Jarvan's kit on his passive and E. Can be bought whenever you see fit after mythic. Better with more health to scale with its unique passive.
Good into high mobility but has low synergy with Jarvan's kit since he can catch pretty well on his own.
Good for peeling with W and Goredrinker active.
Good if behind and need to peel for team. Ability power is irrelevant but armor and CDR are useful stats.
Its mythic passive is incredibly valuable since Jarvan's knockup hitbox increases with his size. The health is only good for scaling with W, but the heal has decent synergy since J4 gets good use of it as a diver. Since its passive deals physical damage with leaht its not a bad option over goredrinker if you build some form of AD scaling first. I see a lot of potential for this item in the right builds.
Amazing for denying vision and is a strong item to rush first for its low cost. It's great if paired with a tank mythic to compensate for it providing no defensive stats.
Gives useful stats but is more situational compared to defensive boots. Solid option for builds with little CDR from items.
Really strong tank mythic. Has stats for all types of damage plus deals damage and heals too. Combine this item with the right set of AD and health scaling items and it could make for a really solid build on tank J4, but definitely needs some testing to see what works best with it.
Rune analysis
Precision
Domination
Inspiration
Resolve
Sorcery
Rune shards
Conqueror is overall the most consistent keystone for J4. It offers ramping damage and sustain over the course of a fight, both extremely helpful for Jarvan's kit. The bonus AD for every stack helps to keep tempo in longer fights and coupled with Jarvan's high AD ratios allows him to easily burst weaker champions and chip away at tanks or bruisers. Even in games where you can't easily get all 12 stacks, Precision tree itself is enough to provide Jarvan with ample sustain in its place.
The bread and butter rune for Jarvan. The importance of this rune cannot be overstated. Triumph gives incredible sustain during fights, giving free healing for every kill or assist. Since the heal scales with missing health Triumph has value regardless of item builds. Even from a far distance this rune can still proc from Jarvan's E giving bonus attack speed to an ally, giving free gold without even having to be in a fight.
Synergizes well with Jarvan's inherently high attack speed. Jarvan E plus Alacrity and the attack speed shard allows Jarvan to reach very high attack speed, even high enough at level one to bring you to 1.01 attack speed. Jarvan has a lot of downtime between ability cooldowns, so having higher attack speed is essential for dealing consistent damage.
Tenacity has its uses into teams with large amounts of CC, mostly suppressions, silences, and blinds. Jarvan doesn't need this rune into roots or stuns since he can still use his dash and knockup through those disables, so in most games it's better to take Alacrity for its better synergy.
This rune is a great tool for securing ganks and bursting squishy champions. It helps Jarvan to capitalize on his combo and for dealing damage in ganeral.
While a lot less useful for ganks, this rune is definitely superior in extended fights. Despite having no inherent healing, Jarvan does have a shield that would allow him to use this rune without being too low on health. It also synergizes well with Goredrinker active and other items that heal, but generally Jarvan doesn't reach below half health during a fight.
Hugely increases Jarvan's potential damage output over the course of a game because of its high synergy with his kit. Jarvan has two dashes and an armor shred, both things that allow him to make very good use of this rune since it gives lethality and magic pen after using a dash. Jarvan has some slight forms of magic damage through his E and certain items that also benefit from this rune.
Capitalizes on Jarvan's gank pressure and overall tempo in the jungle. Even from the start of the game this rune gives free move speed, increasing for every unique takedown. Jarvan gets kill participation very easily from his E attack speed aura, so stacking this rune is very easy.
Into comps with less mobility, Treasure Hunter can be better than Relentless Hunter. It gives a total of 450 gold with all five stacks, enough to buy most item components relatively for free. In games with easy ganks, this can quickly add up when combined with Triumph also giving gold on kill or assist.
Good into games with lanes that are difficult to gank or pressure that is difficult to secure. The free boots come regardless of gamestate, but the tradeoff comes in a lack of early gank pressure.
Inherently a very strong rune for jungling in general. It reduces the cooldown of your summoner spells, trinkets, and items, but only slightly. This can be most apparent with Goredrinker or Ironspike Whip active since their cooldowns are reduced by this rune in addition to any cdr built. The cooldown reduction can also be useful for when you need to extend your knockup with Flash, something that otherwise would need to be used more sparingly.
Conditioning can give you an overall edge in games with lots of mixed damage. It helps a lot with itemization too since it gives a percentage increase to both resistance types. Into teams with little to no true damage, this can give a huge advantage.
Into teams with annoying slows and easy CC this rune can really help to catch and secure ganks. Slows especially are difficult to itemize against and this rune helps to deal with them by making them less potent and last less time.
Jarvan typically builds health to scale with his W shield so having increasing health over the course of a game is definitely useful. The percentage increase to health increases the value of any health built through items. Useful into true damage sources compared to Conditioning, but usually both would be taken anyways.
Useful for overall tempo, but not as much as other runes in different trees. During extended fights the bonus movespeed is definitely useful for positioning and escapes.
Good into comps with heavy magic damage or limited magic damage. Taking Nullifying Orb allows you to spec into more armor or health without sacrificing on magic damage reduction. Into comps with lots of AP it's even more useful since those comps typically have percentage magic pen. Has good synergy with Jarvan's W shield and the magic shield from Maw.
Great for extended fights and casting your knockup frequently. The free reset on takedowns lets you use your abilities many more times in a fight than you otherwise would be able to without Transcendence. The early CDR also allows you to get two knockups within just one cast of E, something that would usually only be possible with items that give it.
Useful for securing objectives and keeping tempo. Waterwalking helps Jarvan to capitalize on his early pressure for easy ganks or contests in either river of the map. It also gives a bit of an RNG advantage for games with ocean soul since it covers the map in puddles of water, meaning you can use Waterwalking outside of the river in some areas.
Always the best option for Jarvan's kit. Helps with using his passive and synergizes with his E attack speed. If you take Alacrity it even further increases his DPS on his autos.
Useful for spamming abilities early but unless you take Alacrity the loss in attack speed will feel awful to play with.
Always take one adaptive rune for the extra damage. Jarvan has high AD ratios and low base damage so losing even the slightest bit of damage can feel pretty bad in the early game and even worse as the game progresses.
Armor is almost always taken for its general use in clearing and sustaining, especially into teams with lots of AD damage, usually balanced by building Merc treads if you need both resistances.
Good if you absolutely need MR, often balanced by building Tabi's if you need both resistances.
Generally not as useful as Armor or MR but it is the only resistance stat that actually scales with Jarvan's kit on his W shield. Good into true damage and overall makes him just a little tankier in games where resistances are less important.
Ability orders
Skill Path
Jarvan IV
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Q is your most valuable ability for its knockup/armor shred. Additionally, its cooldown decreases, damage increases, and armor shred increases with levels. Jarvan's Q and R are his only sources of scaling physical damage so having his Q on a lower cooldown is incredibly important. Jarvan's E doesn't give any scaling damage and only gives attack speed and decreased cooldown with levels so it's not as valuable as maxing Q. Jarvan's W increases slow and base shield amount with levels (i.e. a +20 damage shield increase each level) without increasing the % health portion of the shield, and is essentially the worst ability in his kit.
There are some cases in which E can be maxed before Q, but maxing E is only viable in builds that emphasize on-hit effects or tank items since Jarvan's E has no scaling with AD.
Alternative builds
Jarvan is a very flexible pick with many different viable builds and playstyles, but the average player will always pick the meta for its ease of access and consistency. Jarvan has plenty of build options besides the regular bruiser build with Conqueror and Goredrinker, and there are many cases in which the meta build is not the best option available. Many seasoned Jarvan players naturally gravitate towards niche and strange items or builds for this exact reason, and here I am showcasing some builds that exist outside of the current meta and appeal to different playstyles than what is most commonly used. Since the start of preseason I haven't been able to test out any new builds but I plan to update with viable ones when they come up.
