Overview
Jayce? From Arcane? That’s right. One of a handful of champions in League of Legends that can swap between a melee and a ranged form, Jayce is a powerful champion that brings some versatility to the table. Known best for his ability to land big poke damage with his Shock Blast. Click here for the latest data on his best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more.
Top 3 Things to Remember About Jayce
While your melee form can be powerful, Jayce typically defaults as a ranged champion thanks to the safety and poke it provides at all phases of the game. Melee form is used in all-ins and to finish people off.
Between Acceleration Gate and Thunderblow, Jayce offers solid utility to your team. That said, the bulk of his value is still going to be the poke damage, so if you fall behind early, he’ll feel really underwhelming.
Thundering Blow is a great skill to finish a trade if not the kill itself -- once you poke them with your ranged abilities and swap to hammer form to go in, a typical trade pattern ends with you knocking them away to create space to revert to ranged form.
Strengths
Jayce has a very strong laning phase which is amplified by many top laners being melee champions. When left unchecked by the enemy jungler, you will be a big bully in the lane phase if you’re able to properly manage your distance. And any time the enemy decides to jump onto you, you have the ability to rebuild the distance with Thundering Blow, which makes it hard for them to all-in even if that’s what they need to do against you. Come late game, a single accelerated Shock Blast can push squishies entirely out of fights, so long as you are not behind on items.
Weaknesses
Because so much of his value is tied to damage as the game progresses, he’s tied to the quality of items you have. Coupled with the fact that he should win the early game, you are essentially expected to be ahead of the curve, at least relative to your lane counterpart. This means if you fall behind, you are not going to bring as much to the table and will need to rely on melee form to maximize your damage. This will place you in vulnerable positions where you will feel like you are just hoping to trade out kills with one champion.
Game Plan
Early Game: Shock Blast is your bread and butter when it comes to ability damage on champion, especially if you shoot it through an Acceleration Gate. But the best Jayce players are able to maximize his auto attacks to slowly pester enemies out of lane.
Mid Game: You should still have a lot of pressure in side lanes, but you can find a lot of value with good Shock Blasts on unassuming enemies before objectives. You’ll want to be at objectives ahead of schedule to get a few shots off.
Late Game: You have a ton of damage and can easily delete enemy carries if they step into your melee range. Even landing one Shock Blast can put them in range to be finished off with To the Skies and Thundering Blow. That said, your value still revolves around how many Shock Blasts you can land before fights begin.