Nocturne/Strategy

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Skill usage

• Umbra Blades allows Nocturne to jungle well. Attack speed runes and his Shroud of Darkness synergize well with Umbra Blades since its cooldown is decreased with every autoattack landed.
• Using Duskbringer is an effective way to chase or escape an enemy.
• Be sure to hit your target with Duskbringer when you are ganking, as it will allow you to close distance and stay on your target more easily.
• Stealthed champions hit by Duskbringer will leave a trail, allowing you to momentarily observe their movements despite their invisibility.
• Duskbringer can be a good tool when attacking turrets. A well-aimed Duskbringer may not only damage oncoming minions, but also gives you the benefits of a Dusk Trail, allowing you to do more damage to the turret. However, this tactic should be used with caution if an enemy champion is nearby, as hitting an enemy champion with Duskbringer will cause the turret's priority to change to you.  Also, aiming this skill away from the tower while trying to split push could give you a fast escape route while still giving you the bonus attack damage.
• Unspeakable Horror has great synergy with Duskbringer. You can either use the fear to ensure landing Duskbringer or vice versa.
• Enemy champions closing on you might not see Unspeakable Horror in time. Use this to your advantage.
• Unspeakable Horror allows you to win fights that you otherwise wouldn't because of its hard CC.
• Save your Shroud of Darkness if you don't require it. It can be essential for surviving ganks or ganking others.
  • A well timed Shroud of Darkness can turn fights in your favor. Time it to avoid high damage abilities such as Requiem or hard CC.
• Early and mid-game, Paranoia is a great way to pounce on an overextended opponent for an easy kill. Late game it becomes a useful dash during teamfights ensuring that nobody escapes with low health.
  • Even if you aren't near the fight, don't be afraid to use Paranoia to confuse and separate the other team.
  • Using it during a teamfight in the jungle is extra powerful because the enemies outside of brush completely lose sight inside of it due to a lack of shared sight. It can cause them to unknowingly split up in the confusion.
• Nocturne becomes more powerful with more map vision. His Paranoia does not reveal the enemy champions, so you must have vision of them in order to dash to them. Because of this getting Sight Wards and placing them around the map is highly recommended.
• Nocturne's Paranoia can only target enemies in the radius of Paranoia and with sight. For this reason, Twisted Fate's Destiny synergizes well as it gives sight to all enemies, even invisible champions and ones in brush, allowing Nocturne to be able to hit a target in the fog of war.
  • For this reason, Warwick's Blood Scent also synergizes with Nocturne. As it detects a nearby low health champion, Allowing Nocturne to use his Paranoia and dash to the target.
• Nocturne can use other skills such as Unspeakable Horror while mid-dash with Paranoia. Using Unspeakable Horror while mid-dash will result in Nocturne starting the channel the instant he hits his opponent, resulting in a lesser risk of error and a smaller timing where the opponent can dash away.

Build usage

• Nocturne functions well as a mobile fighter or, more traditionally, a high-survivability assassin. His prime statistics are armor penetration, attack damage, and health.
  • As his Duskbringer, Umbra Blades and Paranoia scale off attack damage quite well, building attack damage can give him good burst when he hits all of his abilities on one target
• As with most DPS champions, Youmuu's Ghostblade has great synergy with Nocturne because of the armor penetration, cooldown reduction, and most notably the attack speed and movement speed active.
• Combining a Banshee's Veil with his Shroud of Darkness will allow Nocturne to ignore two enemy abilities, greatly increasing his survivability.
  • Be aware that activating Shroud of Darkness while Banshee's Veil is up will cause both shields to pop when hit by an ability.
• Randuin's Omen will greatly assist Nocturne in surviving due to the 400 Health, 60 Armor, and 10% critical strike damage reduction. Additionally, the Active will allow Nocturne to stick onto anyone he targets.
• Dead Man's Plate is also useful due to the 600 Health and 50 Armor; as well as the moves peed while roaming and slow on the first AA. This synergizes strongly with Paranoia to grant a slow upon reaching the target.
• Nocturne can certainly use on-hit effects, but does not necessarily require them. They can be very useful on him, though.
• Nocturne players should limit their choice of boots to a small range: Mercury's Treads, Ninja Tabi or Berserker's Greaves with emphasis on Mercury's Treads and Ninja Tabi due to his squishy nature.
  • When going for a more assassin-based playstyle, another viable choice is Ionian Boots of Lucidity. Despite being auto-attack based, Nocturne is still quite reliant on his abilities, both to survive and to cause damage.
• Getting attack speed items can give Nocturne enormous attack speed advantage over other champions since he naturally gains 40% attack speed due to the passive from Shroud of Darkness when fully upgraded.
  • However, one could argue that due to this fact that he gains attack speed, he doesn't actually need to build attack speed items, and can instead focus on pure attack damage items to increase the damage from his abilities. Indeed, it is viable to build Nocturne such way, but it is recommended to build at least one item that provides both attack speed and attack damage, such as Blade of the Ruined King or Youmuu's Ghostblade.
• Although Trinity Force provides a wide variety of stats, nearly all of which are quite useful to Nocturne (with ability power being the least useful, though not entirely useless as Unspeakable Horror has a 1.0 ability power ratio), Nocturne lacks both a low cooldown spamming ability and an ability that procs on-hit effects, which are something that most Trinity Force users should have. Most of time, it is better to buy Youmuu's Ghostblade. Not only it is cheaper, but it also provides the mobility, DPS, and damage that Trinity Force would provide, but on a way that benefits Nocturne more.
• In 5v5, If you think you are being targeted more often, it is best to build tanky items for survivability as Nocturne can be very squishy.
  • Frozen Mallet and The Black Cleaver are examples of items that benefit Nocturne's damage output and survivability.

Gameplay

• It is likely that prepared enemies are quickly getting Vision Ward to counter wards or Sight Wards to scout for Nocturne. Prepare to counter them fast and properly as soon as possible. Using an Sweeping/Oracle's Lens to counter their wards is an effective way to keep opponents unaware of your location and create optimal ganking opportunities.
• It's also advised to maintain good map control and counter enemy map control so you can more effectively surprise enemies with low Health when Paranoia is available.
• Enemies immediately prepare for being attacked as soon as Paranoia clouds the screen. Use this to your advantage before reacting too hectic.
• Hunter's Machete and two Health Potions are near mandatory on Nocturne in the jungle due to the reduction in sustain items and jungle monster damage output increase.
• Nocturne is very mana hungry, however building mana or mana regeneration on him is not recommended, as it make him fall off late game. Be conservative with your spells, especially in the jungle.

Recommended builds

Countering

• Although Nocturne lane dominance is great because of his Umbra Blades and Duskbringer, He is very squishy early game. Putting aggressive pressure on him will make him under-leveled or under-farmed.
  • Keep in mind however that he is resilient to zoning because of the spell shield from his Shroud of Darkness.
• Try to juke to avoid Duskbringer because this will increase Nocturne's movement speed if it hits you.
• Breaking Unspeakable Horror's leash can be critical to your survival. It is his only form of crowd control.
  • Keep in mind that means he can initiate his fights/ganks without worrying about a Veil blocking his Duskbringer or Unspeakable Horror if he does initiate with Paranoia.
• If Shroud of Darkness is being used, save your crowd control abilities for after it expires - or if you want to crowd control him faster, pop it with another ability. If he is chasing you, using a crowd control ability with a long cast time (e.g. Cho'Gath's Rupture) will be counterproductive as he will use his Shroud of Darkness to block the attack and greatly boost his attack speed. However, spamming low-cooldown spells will deal enough damage to Nocturne to render his shield useless.
• Always remember, Nocturne cannot target you with his ult if he can't see you. If you lose your vision, due to the effects of Paranoia, try quickly hiding in the brush or stealthing to prevent his dash to you. Another alternative is to use Quicksilver Sash or Cleanse, which will remove the sight debuff while his ultimate is active.
  • Also, while under the effects of Paranoia, you and your teammates can still see each other's map pings.
• Try to stay close with your allies when Nocturne uses his Paranoia so you and your allies are prepared to fight him.
• Never overextend when chasing Nocturne. If you are also low on health and is attacked by turret, he will activate his Paranoia and dash to you. This can result in your death.
• If you are playing as Nocturne and the enemy team also has a Nocturne, using Paranoia immediately as the opposing Nocturne does effectively makes his dash impossible, unless he is right on top of his target. Keep in mind that this tactic clearly costs you a chance to use your ult, but timing this technique can save a player near death.

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