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Season 13 in-depth Jax guide (13.8) EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

will update if available/needed

Katsu

April 23rd, 2023 ⸱ 19 min read



Quick Setup

If you're unsure what loadout to use or just in a rush, this setup works well generally.



Quick Jax AD Top Build

Summoner Spells

Starting Items

Best Overall Build

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Intro

Hello! Im Katsu. I've reached Master last season mostly toplane, and im currently hovering in Diamond as i started making this guide. This is my first guide, but i hope this helps you in your climb :>

Main account (S12 peak)

S11 alt account

Why Jax?



Jax
is a splitpushing powerhouse, that is really fun to play, and not that hard to learn. He's also godlike in low elo. He's one of the best champions to climb with due to his stat-checky gameplay and 1v5 potential when fed.

Overview:

Powerspikes: Early game Mid Game Late game

Damage type: Attacks| |Abilities

Skill floor: Easy Skill ceiling: Intermediate - His straightforward nature requires the player to make plays based on good decisions due to little room for outplaying mechanically.

Pros:

- Great late game

- Easy to pick up and play

- Very tanky later on

- Great counterpick

- Fun to play

Cons:

- Mediocre early game

- No built-in sustain

- Weak to magic damage

- Easy to counter

Runes

Main rune pages:

  • Lethal Tempo (Optimal)
  • Conqueror (Optimal)
  • Grasp (Situational)
  • Phase Rush (Situational)

Lethal Tempo or Conqueror?

It's mostly preference, but

Lethal Tempo
kills faster, while
Conqueror
will give you sustain in fights. Personally, i like
Lethal Tempo
because of the increased attack range which comes in very clutch. I recommend
Conqueror
if you're not going to build either
Divine Sunderer
or
Blade of The Ruined King
but you want to have sustain.

If you're not sure which one to pick,

Lethal Tempo
is better in most situations.

Recommended spells:

Ghost
OR
Flash
+
Ignite


P.S. :

Jax
has great all-in potential, but has trouble sticking to opponents. I've been trying
Ghost
, and i had alot of success. Use
Ghost
with
Lethal Tempo
to be able to run down your opponents. For the second spell, i've been taking
Ignite
more since the
Teleport
nerfs made it better to win lane.

Why Grasp?

I take

Grasp of the Undying
into matchups where i only have time for one or two autos before they use their disengage which helps my short trading. The Grasp proc also gives you sustain which Jax doesnt have. This requires you to change your playstyle into short trades only and doesnt help as much late game so i only recommend this if you only want to amplify your early game.

The purpose of taking this rune is for safety in the laning phase, so don't expect to get alot of kills early on with this.

Recommended spells:

Flash
+
Teleport


Example matchups:

Gragas
,
Jayce
,
Quinn
,
Malphite
,
Kennen
,
Riven


Why Phase Rush? (P.S. use ghost instead)



Phase Rush
also helps into the same matchups above, since you can proc it with Q, aa, W, which gives you enough movespeed to catch up and beat them down, (
Gragas
and
Quinn
is pretty tough though, because they can E instantly.) since your problem with these matchups is not beating them in fights, but actually catching up to them. But it has a longer cooldown than
Grasp of the Undying
, so you would want to look for extended fights instead.
Phase Rush
also helps more in the lategame than
Grasp of the Undying
especially in teamfights, since
Phase Rush
helps you to not get kited when you use your Q. You can also take
Ignite
as
Phase Rush
can compensate for your missing flash, (if you went
Teleport
+
Ignite
) and it also helps procing your
Phase Rush
.

Recommended spells:

Flash
OR
Teleport
+
Ignite


P.S. :

Lethal Tempo
+
Ghost
and
Ignite
has way better kill pressure. I recommend using these instead.

Secondaries (in-depth breakdown)

Note: Any rune that i didn't mention means i dont think they are viable on

Jax
. "Why am i listing viable runes, instead of making specific rune pages?"
Jax
is very versatile in terms of items and runes, so i wanted to list all of the viable runes, and you can develop your own loadout and playstyle, based on the matchup, or even just your own preference. I will make examples of full rune pages below.

  • Precision
  • Sorcery
  • Resolve
  • Inspiration

Rune page building tips

  • - If you're not sure about your secondary,
    Resolve
    and
    Precision
    are the safest options.

Summoner Spells

Flash + Teleport

The classic toplane spells. Safe and consistent. You can take this every game.

Flash + Ignite

High early kill potential, but risky. Dying in lane without

Teleport
makes you unable to save the lane if you die at a bad wave state. Pretty bad macro-game since splitpushing without
Teleport
means you're unable to join your team if a teamfight suddenly starts.

Ignite + TP

Medium early kill potential. Less risky, but in different ways. Having no flash makes your teamfighting worse and you're easier to gank in the laning phase, but keeping tp enables you to splitpush. You can take both/either

Phase Rush
and/or
Nimbus Cloak
to compensate for your missing
Flash
.

Ghost + TP / Ignite



Ghost
actually works pretty well on Jax since he already has a jump but no movespeed buff. Also safe and consistent. Take if you value the bonus movespeed more than the extra blink. Personally, i love
Ghost
.

Like

Flash
, you can take
Ghost
with either
Ignite
or
Teleport
.

Exhaust + Flash / Ghost

I've been taking

Exhaust
sometimes and it's really good in certain situations. Take
Exhaust
into matchups where you can easily kill them if you don't get bursted like
Jayce
or
Quinn
.
Exhaust
is also very useful in teamfights against that one fed target, especially heavy magic damage like
Evelynn
or
Akali
.

Take

Exhaust
with
Flash
or
Ghost
.

Skill Order

  • Default
  • vs Non-auto attackers

Jax

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Default

Best skill order overall. Maxing

Empower
first gives Jax the most bonus damage and auto resets. Maxing
Counter Strike
second lowers its cooldown massively so it comes up faster in those close fights. You max
Leap Strike
last since leveling it doesnt give as much value as the other two.

VS Non-auto attackers

Start

Leap Strike
into matchups where you just beat them down level 1 to cheese them. They likely wont expect it. Example matchups are AP champs like
Akali
or
Vladimir
. You can choose to put 2 extra points into your Q since your E isn't very useful vs champions who don't auto attack much. Maxing Q all the way isn't advised since you will delay your E points too much resulting it to have a way longer cooldown in those mid/lategame fights.

Item Builds

  • Items

"Why am i listing viable items, instead of listing specific items to buy?"

Jax
is very versatile in terms of builds and runes, so i wanted to list all of the viable items, and you can develop your own build and playstyle, based on the matchup, or even just your own preference.

I have example full builds in my item set.

Starting items

Take

Doran's Blade
into matchups where you want to all in or
Corrupting Potion
into matchups where you just trade often and want sustain. Taking
Time Warp Tonic
together with
Corrupting Potion
is advised since the movespeed helps with catching up.

Early game buys



Sheen
helps alot with trading and bursting, while
Hearthbound Axe
helps with all-ins since it also gives movespeed.
Caulfield's Warhammer
is what you build instead for all-ins if you're going
Divine Sunderer
. Build
Vampiric Scepter
if you think you'll need the sustain to survive lane.

Why buy Dark Seal?

With only 350 gold you can get up to 55 AP when fully stacked which adds up to alot of damage considering your W has a low cooldown and your R passive procs every third hit. Only buy when snowballing. DO NOT UPGRADE into

Mejai's Soulstealer
unless you're trolling, playing for fun or so ahead that you literally can't die.

Trinity Force or Divine Sunderer?



Trinity Force
gives you attackspeed and movespeed, and more dps overall while
Divine Sunderer
helps you to survive because of the healing.
Divine Sunderer
is also better against tankier opponents because the sheen proc is max hp% and the mythic passive gives armor+magic pen. Combine with
Black Cleaver
for even more tank-shredding.

tl;dr :

Trinity Force
to snowball or vs squishies,
Divine Sunderer
to bulk or vs tanks and bruisers.

P.S. : If you built

Trinity Force
i recommend you to swap to
Divine Sunderer
after 4th or last item since it helps you better in the late game, damage and survivability-wise.

Spear of Shojin explained (NEW)



Spear Of Shojin
is an old item that was really good on Jax, but admittedly overpowered. Now it's back in 12.22, but with different effects. This is probably the item you will build every game 2nd/3rd, as it provides Jax ad, health, and ALOT of haste, not to mention you get more movespeed the lower your health goes. Too good to not build.

Iceborn Gauntlet explained (NEW)



Iceborn Gauntlet
is a new (or renamed) Mythic item realeased in Patch 12.22, that is almost the same as the old Iceborn Gauntlet. It now has a sheen effect, which makes it really good on Jax. Damage-wise, it is inferior to the other two sheen mythics, but it'll make you very tanky. The slow and cripple are also very useful, both in 1v1s and teamfights. You can build traditional bruiser and go this mythic, but it works well with a tanky build, especially if your team needs a frontline.

Boots choices

Pretty simple.

Plated Steelcaps
vs AD-heavy comps,
Mercury's Treads
vs cc-heavy comps, and
Ionian Boots of Lucidity
if you want neither of the previous two.

Anti-healing



Executioner's Calling
for early anti-heal, then later on complete into
Chempunk Chainsword
for more damage, or sell and get
Thornmail
if you want to be more tanky.

Anti-healing got nerfed, and is not as important as before. Only build if you're facing very heavy healing. (ex.

Aatrox
,
Fiora
,
Nilah
,
Soraka
,
Yuumi
)

Legendaries (breakdown)

  • HP items
  • Armor items
  • MR items
  • Other items

Full build examples

Example 1: All-rounder default

Example 2: Damage

Example 3: Splitpush (chain sidelaner)

Example 4: Anti-tank (2+ tanks)

Example 5: Heavy teamfight

Example 6: TANK JACKS (JANKS)

Item set

I made an item set that you can use ingame.

Paste it over here...

And there you go! Now you don't have to alt-tab out to check the item list.



Copy this:

{"title":"J A C K S","associatedMaps":[],"associatedChampions":[24],"blocks":[{"items":[{"id":"1055","count":1},{"id":"1054","count":1},{"id":"2003","count":1},{"id":"2033","count":1},{"id":"1036","count":1},{"id":"2031","count":1},{"id":"1083","count":1},{"id":"1082","count":1}],"type":"Lane items"},{"items":[{"id":"3057","count":1},{"id":"3051","count":1},{"id":"3133","count":1},{"id":"1053","count":1}],"type":"Early game buys"},{"items":[{"id":"3078","count":1},{"id":"6632","count":1},{"id":"6662","count":1},{"id":"3161","count":1}],"type":"Core (one Mythic and Shojin)"},{"items":[{"id":"1001","count":1},{"id":"3158","count":1},{"id":"3047","count":1},{"id":"3111","count":1}],"type":"Boots choices"},{"items":[{"id":"3153","count":1},{"id":"6694","count":1},{"id":"3748","count":1},{"id":"3074","count":1}],"type":"Damage options"},{"items":[{"id":"6333","count":1},{"id":"3026","count":1},{"id":"3143","count":1},{"id":"3110","count":1},{"id":"3157","count":1},{"id":"3193","count":1}],"type":"Armor options"},{"items":[{"id":"3091","count":1},{"id":"3156","count":1},{"id":"4401","count":1},{"id":"3193","count":1}],"type":"Magic Resist options"},{"items":[{"id":"3181","count":1},{"id":"3071","count":1},{"id":"3053","count":1},{"id":"6035","count":1},{"id":"8001","count":1}],"type":"Health options"},{"items":[{"id":"3123","count":1},{"id":"3075","count":1},{"id":"6609","count":1}],"type":"Anti-Heal"},{"items":[{"id":"6632","count":1},{"id":"3158","count":1},{"id":"3161","count":1},{"id":"6333","count":1},{"id":"3091","count":1},{"id":"3193","count":1},{"id":"8001","count":1}],"type":"Example 1: All-rounder default"},{"items":[{"id":"3078","count":1},{"id":"3158","count":1},{"id":"3153","count":1},{"id":"3161","count":1},{"id":"6333","count":1},{"id":"8001","count":1},{"id":"3091","count":1},{"id":"6694","count":1}],"type":"Example 2: Damage (chain AP)"},{"items":[{"id":"3078","count":1},{"id":"3158","count":1},{"id":"3153","count":1},{"id":"3161","count":1},{"id":"8001","count":1},{"id":"3181","count":1},{"id":"6333","count":1},{"id":"3091","count":1}],"type":"Example 3: Splitpush (chain sidelaner)"},{"items":[{"id":"6632","count":1},{"id":"3158","count":1},{"id":"3153","count":1},{"id":"3161","count":1},{"id":"3071","count":1},{"id":"6333","count":1},{"id":"3053","count":1},{"id":"3091","count":1},{"id":"6694","count":1}],"type":"Example 4: Anti-tank (2+ tanks)"},{"items":[{"id":"6632","count":1},{"id":"3158","count":1},{"id":"3161","count":1},{"id":"3110","count":1},{"id":"6333","count":1},{"id":"3091","count":1},{"id":"3193","count":1},{"id":"3156","count":1},{"id":"3193","count":1},{"id":"3053","count":1}],"type":"Example 5: Heavy teamfight"},{"items":[{"id":"6662","count":1},{"id":"3158","count":1},{"id":"3153","count":1},{"id":"3161","count":1},{"id":"3748","count":1},{"id":"3193","count":1},{"id":"4401","count":1}],"type":"Example 6: JANKS (TANK JACKS)"}]}

Combos

W auto reset

This is Jax's most important combo. You should master this as it will boost your overall dps output. Press W as soon as your auto lands. Do this everytime unless you need to use W immediately.

Okay, im just flexing my mechanics here, but you should practice the auto reset on both low and high attackspeed.

Burst trade combo

Auto a minion once before jumping so an aa+W will proc your R passive. You can then choose to back off or extend the trade depending on the situation. IMPORTANT: Recast your E manually before it ends to get another sheen proc, and try to get one last R passive auto before backing off for maximum damage.

Do this instead into matchups where you only have time for one auto. Cast W before Q so the W empower will go into your Q. Example matchups are champs with disengage like

Quinn
or
Gragas
. Note that you dont always have to use your E when trading especially if the enemy has disengage since it'll just waste your mana and your E on cooldown means they have a window to trade back.

Helicopter Jump

Use this to stun enemies fast. You can recast E mid-air to stun faster but make sure to not miss. This is also a nice trick when taking scuttle. You can see here that my E damaged the crab before my Q.

Basic Gameplan

Powerspikes

  • 
    Sheen
    - sheen+W or sheen+W+R3 will hurt more
  • level 6 & 11 - you get much tankier from the R active and you do more damage with the R passive
  • level 9 - your W at max level results in much more dps because its cooldown is only 3 seconds
  • 
    Trinity Force
    /
    Divine Sunderer
    - Jax spikes very well with these mythics
  • level 13 - your E at max level results in a much lower cooldown
  • level 16 - you get your last R point and maximum passive bonus attackspeed

Early Game (0-15mins)

Look for all-ins if you win early and play back if you dont. Trade around your counterstrike cooldown but for the most part just try to scale. You can look for more trades after level 6. Try to get the wave pushing to you to be safer from ganks and to find better all-in opportunities. You are very strong once you get your mythic so look for small skirmishes.

Mid Game (15-25mins)

After laning phase, sit at a sidelane and splitpush. You are a very good duelist and you should look to fight 1v1s in the sidelane as long as you're not too behind. If the enemy is trying to take an objective, you should think if your presence in the teamfight would matter, and decide if you're going to group, or continue splitpushing. You can also splitpush and use teleport if you want to join your team.

Late Game (25+mins)

Continue to splitpush if your team isn't at risk of getting caught. If you think your team will get caught, or the game isn't one-sided, you need to group with your team to help them fight. Play on the side of the map that has the next major objective up so you can rotate to take it with your team. If you have teleport, you can go to the opposite side of the objective and use it to join your team.

Extra tips

- Always try to poke with

Empower
, or
Leap Strike
+
Empower
> aa, especially with
Sheen
. This hurts alot more than you think and your
Empower
has a very short cooldown especially at max rank. This applies mostly in the laning phase, but you can do this in the mid to late game to squishies that you know you can't kill, but you can chunk them out and be annoying.

Matchups

Worth banning:

Malphite
,
Gragas
,
Shen
,
Vayne


I've decided to not make a matchups section because people have already made a handful of those. I'll instead be linking this google spreadsheet that i found on the Jax subreddit. (NOT BY ME) It's old, but it's still relevant.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iTwuMI8u0uGbNuDy-3k6uc34ia8eGG-AigLwz0nQv6M/edit#gid=0

End

Thanks for reading my guide. I will try to keep this guide updated. May your climb be successful. :>

Changes Log

4/23/2023: Minor Quick Setup changes. - Changed

Legend: Tenacity
for
Legend: Alacrity
. - Ever since the changes (nerfs) in Tenacity stacking, i've found more value in going more offensive with
Legend: Alacrity
than with
Legend: Tenacity
. Do still go
Legend: Tenacity
or
Mercury's Treads
vs heavy CC, NOT both, unless it's EXTREMELY heavy CC. - Changed
Ignite
for
Teleport
. - I still recommend
Ignite
most of the time, especially below Master. That said, this is a setup that should work for ALL matchups, and
Teleport
works for all matchups especially for the hard/unplayable ones.

4/4/2023: Just updated the name. There's still nothing to change here.

1/12/2023: Jax mini-rework. Nothing new about itemization. No, AP is not viable.

11/17/2022: Massive update, regarding new preseason items.

9/15/2022: Quick guide updated,

Black Cleaver
description updated,
Jayce
removed from ban list, (underpicked) anti-healing section updated, tip added, (gameplan section) minor changes.

9/4/2022:

Time Warp Tonic
removed. (THIS IS REALLY LATE LOL)

7/18/2022:

Time Warp Tonic
description updated.

6/25/2022: Item set added.

6/7/2022:

Serylda's Grudge
breakdown updated.

6/5/2022:

Hullbreaker
,
Ravenous Hydra
,
Blade of The Ruined King
and
Zhonya's Hourglass
breakdown updated, Quick setup updated, Pros and Cons simplified.

5/31/2022:

Titanic Hydra
breakdown updated.

5/14/2022: Quick guide updated, thoughts on

Hullbreaker
nerfs, added
Anathema's Chains
and
Zhonya's Hourglass
to item builds, removed matchups, linked matchup sheet.

5/10/2022: New quick setup, minor changes to runes,

Exhaust
added in spells.

4/1/2022: Many minor changes.

3/31/2022: Quick setup, spells and runes updated/enhanced.

3/25/2022: Minor enhancements. (namely

Tryndamere
matchup and legendary items breakdown)

3/10/2022: Tryndamere and Garen matchup added.

3/7/2022: Guide published!

TopJax
AUTHOR
Katsu
ABOUT

Peaked Master S11 toplane - Jax main - Likes stat-checky champions

9 Comments

Share your thoughs, feedback, comments...

0
Jeepney 5 months ago

How do you think jax will perform with the new mid scope update?

1
Duka stuka 6 months ago

I still don't know how to build on jax, im plat 2 and i watched every single guide on internet and there will always be enemy team comps where i will fail build and lose and be usseles. PS can you tell me your fav jax player mine is raen (raen on twitch you can check him out hes otp)... great guide can say best of best

0
Jeepney 7 months ago- Edited
This comment has been deleted.
1
mercal0 9 months ago

Contact me pls i wanna learn more about jax.

Thank you.

1
Jeepney 11 months ago

thank you for sharing!

Katsu
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