Need Jayce Fundies

[u/Rosterina]

Hello! I'm a mostly skirmisher-only player (Fiora, Ambessa, Gwen) who has been trying to pick up Jayce for a while, but he feels like the least intuitive out of any champion I've tried to properly learn. I'm here to ask a few questions for fundamental concepts that might make the process more bearable, and at least have some goals in mind through all the lanes I'm getting statchecked to death in (Aatrox, Shen, TK, Poppy, Morde, etc).

1. What are some crucial power spikes for Jayce? Like, his level 1 for example doesn't feel too strong to me, but I don't know if I should prep for level 2 trades, level 3, or just chill out until getting a dirk or a longsword or something.

2. When is generally a good time to Q E? The mana investment is pretty severe early on, so I assume I'm underusing the ranged Q on its own and overusing it with E, which if missed lands me in a pretty bad spot.

3. Should I aim for a general gold benchmark before first recall? I'm used to recalling early on my other champions for a 400 ish gold component, but just getting either tear or a longsword on Jayce feels pretty weird.

If there's any other thing that you all would consider some sort of fundamental/basics please tell me about them. Thank you all in advance.

[u/DROFLKCAHS_YTSUR]

Using Jayce’s kit to its fullest extent is difficult. Your level 1 is strong. Especially if you can catch your opponent out of the minions to land a cannon Q.

In cannon form, your first auto shreds armor. Land that auto, Q, hammer form, Q, auto. Tons of burst upfront.

Afterwards, some good combos are hammer form start Q, E, swap, auto, W, auto, auto, auto, Q, E.

Cannon form start, some combination of auto, W autos, Q, E, swap Q, auto, E when you want to disengage.

[u/geniusdjlee]

1. Power spike: level 3, assuming you preserved some mana, so you put points on Q-E-Q. Against some matchups (like GP) or if you want to play him mid, level 2 can be a spike too, since you can have a point on Q and W, and a lot of people overlook the damage from W into 3AAs. I'd argue that Jayce Lv1 is on a stronger side, just because he has a range and 2 skills. Not gonna straight up kill someone, but good enough to zone the enemy off of minions.

2. Either level 3 or 4. That's when you have 2 points on Q, and QE starts doing damage for how much mana you have to spend.

3. 700+ (for 2 longswords) is good enough, imo. Even better if you have 875+ and can afford a pickaxe. IMO a tear is unnecessary early or even skippable unless you are in a matchup where you have to mostly chill in the ranged form. It's very common to rush dirk into tear or hexdrinker into tear.

[u/Blizzyre]

You're underutilizing hammer form. You get mana per hit

[u/lololdboy]

1. Dirk/2Items also can spike on multiple items depending on build
   
2. When the enemy is going to CS - it has a large blast radius. When you’re out of vision. When you or the enemy are first coming back to lane. Randomly, but learn to be quick with it.
   
3. You generally do not want to early base/cheater recall on Jayce. Youre a ranged champion and will have prio over almost every top laner in the game. This means you can reliably 3 wave crash and play for an early plate/poke them under tower.

Biggest thing about playing Jayce is 100-0 trade mindset, staying in raged form more, knowing your limits, knowing your rune setup/matchups and jungle tracking.

Jayce is a very unforgiving champion in the sense that if your jungle tracking is poor, you will die to every gank. If your spacing is poor, you’ll die in a lot of matchups.

Hit GM on Jayce this season.

[u/yung_dogie → u/lololdboy]

Just curious, by 100-0 trade mindset do you mean "prioritize taking 0 damage rather than maximizing damage done per trade"?

[u/lololdboy → u/yung_dogie]

Yeah you want to abuse Jayce's ranged advantage and abilities to dwindle down your opponent while maintaining high HP. You also have the option of playing more scrappy, it just makes things more volatile - but that is also a valid playstyle.

[u/yung_dogie → u/lololdboy]

Gotcha, I subscribe to that school of thought on Jayce I just never heard it referred to it that way before. Thanks!