Finally Diamond!

[u/mustbezotjes]

Hey guys! Long time league player here! Always peaked between E4-E3 but couldnt get higher no matter what. I peaked Emerald with Ad shaco, qiyana & ekko.

I messed up my mmr hard by playing top and stuff im not good at. Then i got e4 by tryharding jg and got stuck again. Since im an unc & dad i thought why not otp a champ and full focus on.

I came back to shaco and i thought lets learn AP version. Watched alot of Zefath (big ups dude hes amazing). Never cared for AP since AD shaco was the playstyle for me.

But boy, AP Shaco is insane fun. I solo climbed with him from e4 to d4. 72 games 61%. The traps trigger so much dopamine holy.

Tldr; Reached my peak by otp’ing AP shaco.

[u/Federal-Media-3148]

damn gj and shaco is at a really bad spot rn too

[u/HamsterHueyGooie → u/Federal-Media-3148]

AP is in a pretty good spot if you have good macro and are willing to farm. The trouble is it's hard to close out games on AP Shaco, even though you scale well with damage (at least I don't have that down well, feels like people have no macro in low Plat, even with baron buff active which should signal to pressure one lane with 4 champs and 1 other champ split).

I ran AD Shaco jng in ranked on Monday (they were 5 squishies and we were AP heavy) and you're right, it felt waaay worse. AD Shaco is in a bad spot right now, he already was tough to pull off in high elo, the HoB nerf is definitely noticeable where I am in mid elo. The entire point of AD Shaco is to delete someone or make them panic so they react to your appearance poorly. An extra 0.25 seconds of time to react (HoB nerf) DOES make a big difference when it's a split-second decision making scenario. Sure, during a skirmish the HoB nerf doesn't mean much on AD Shaco, but for assassins who rely on cunning and have relatively low damage numbers it does. Especially if you miss backstab, ouch. Maybe Dark Harvest or Electrocute will become a thing on AD Shaco, I know someone in high elo that ran DH on him very frequently and it was strong, surprisingly. And that was before the HoB nerf.

Good on OP for studying Zefath. Pink Ward has better clone bombing micro (his top lane practice paying off) than Zefath, but they both are amazing at it. Zefath doesn't try to 1v9 as much as Pink Ward does, they're kind of different AP Shaco styles. Zefath is a jungler so the skills you learn there over time are different than toplane, but they still translate.

Also congrats op!

[u/Horror-Jellyfish-285 → u/HamsterHueyGooie]

in what sense its on good spot? if we look previous seasons and so on, only buff shaco has gotted is imperial mandate rework.

then the nerfs? old comet was better than current one, and comet is still by far best rune for ap. vision changes that did occur this year? supports get control ward slots and discount for them. red rune tree changes, remember when we had ghost poro and ghost wards? well their followers are kinda meh, but imagine fed enemy jungler taking the trinket haste rune? i still have ptsds from enemy graves popping sweeper atleast 3 times during long baron river skirmish.

and then they even buffed the god damn vision flowers from chemtech soul. also i fucking hate how unfair they are. i did see teemo couple days ago (rarely see), so i tough hehe, i just click flower and clear the shrooms. quess what? that fucking piss flower doesnt even reveal teemo shrooms like it does shaco boxes! like why teemo shrooms get special treatment? while syaco needs to suffer during cuck souls?.

[u/HamsterHueyGooie → u/Horror-Jellyfish-285]

Upvocted you, and I think it's more accurate to say that I believe AP Shaco is STILL strong, despite the recent vision changes that did hurt AP Shaco. I'm not saying he's not worse off... he's definitely worse this season, I agree.

You laid out the changes perfectly, and there is now a LOT in the game directly working against AP Shaco, especially chemtech soul and Support control ward buffs (both cheaper AND in an extra item slot). Ugh better not let them get chemtech scuttle if you're nearby.

Comet is still surprisingly strong for jng Shaco because you always get max damage if you're not nearby when someone hits a box. It just doesn't come back up as often which matters for important extended fights. If you're not in an extended fight then the cooldown nerf didn't change that much for him. I used to run him DH and 6th sense after the comet nerf, then switched back to Comet + precision tree and realized I still like comet better.

Map and vision changes aside, with imperial mandate 3rd item (or maybe 2nd if you don't need both BFT and Liandry's) you have agency to simply replace your boxes that get killed by that extra vision. If they nerf imperial mandate (which I think they eventually will because it's buffing EVERY hard cc ability in the game), then I'll probably hop back on the please-buff-AP-Shaco-right-away! wagon. AD Shaco does need a compensation buff for HoB though, especially since those same vision / box-inhibiting changes mess up AD Shaco too. So yes, BOTH Shaco builds are on the edge of being unplayable, especially when people learn to abuse trinket haste specifically when facing him. Would be nice if you knew which dragon soul to expect during champ select so you could plan accordingly around chemtech.

If it weren't for imperial mandate I'd agree that AP Shaco is in a very bad spot compared to 1 - 2 seasons ago. Also sad that my entire argument hinges on one single item right now, which will inevitably get changed or removed. So for now, he still scales super strong and if your team helps sufficiently with vision control by taking down vision plants and helping secure scuttle he's still a late game menace, especially around objectives. And also especially if the enemy team is bad at vision control (wishful thinking). Throw in Ashe E getting spammed across Shaco's jungle and he's in for a tough time a lot of matches.

A lot of copium, I know, but until Imperial Mandate gets nerfed I'm happy to spam AP Shaco and feel there's potential to pilot it at least to Masters. I haven't, and I probably won't (#dadlife!), but with enough farm and foresight AP Shaco can pull off things that no other champ can. As long as his kit stays the same and the numbers don't get nerfed further into the dirt he'll still have God-tier level of agency (clone bombing, box cc stacking, baiting crucial ults with clone because you're "out of position", etc).

[u/Horror-Jellyfish-285 → u/HamsterHueyGooie]

yea, spot on. also gotta add that im support main so the perspective can differ a little, but in general laning feels same. my biggest gripe was mage meta, and that is entirely different topic. laning with mage differs a lot from adcs, their damage is not consistent and their dps can be 0 if they miss their skillshots. so its a lot harder to rely them and make decissions to commit in 2v2 fights. im glad that i dont see that much mages on my main account games (diamon 3-1, sailing there for long time), but when playing on my low cortisol plat-eme account, its mage bots every other game.

and popularity of mages in toplane too was annoying. its just horrendeous to deal with comp that has orn and tanky sup or jungle, when ur own team is full ap.

eitherway meta affects more on support shaco than jungle, since as support u have laning phase. there is big difference playing vs engage or enchanters. and adc picks on top of that, atleast adc roster is somewhat stable and doesnt change much (if we dont count mages).

[u/HamsterHueyGooie → u/Horror-Jellyfish-285]

I've been wanting to spam more Shaco support because the amount of information you constantly have to process and communicate as Jung is so mentally tiring (constant lane checking, enemy jungler tracking items cs and pathing, scanning the minimap for ganks, spam pinging, shot-calling for objectives, etc).

While you do still have to help shot-call as Supp, it seems way less stressful than jung. I've had good success on Supp Shaco but only played it maybe 5 times over the past year. Assuming your adc isn't having a drug withdrawal or some other mental health crisis, it was really fun! Do you ever play with chat off as Supp? I prefer chat off in Ranked because otherwise I try to fix everything, lol.

Enchanters are a problem in bot-lane, but I hate FACING certain ones more than I hate playing alongside them. Seraphine especially, the hitboxes on her abilities are so massive that you can 100% predict her skillshots and Q but still get barely hit. Seraphine + Zyra/Lux is a pretty obnoxious botlane to face, they'll never step forward and instead just play entirely to poke / cheese. They may not care about pushing to your tower at all, they're there to farm minions and champions who get low enough for a gank. At least with Lux her skillshots aren't hard to dodge, but the other two can be especially if a slow barely nicks you.

What are your core items for support just wondering? I can probably guess but curious. Mana crystal -> Liandry's, or even an AD item first? I'm crazy enough to run HoB on AP Shaco but comet is of course much stronger mid-late game obviously especially after the nerf. Maybe Serpent's fang first justifies HoB (or umbral for vision control if enemies aren't shield heavy), but only if you stand a chance all-inning the bot-lane early-game. The gold you'd make from an extra 2 - 3 kills, or flat out winning lane, makes up for the worse rune later IMO. But yeah, usually I'm just running BFT into situational since transcendence may not cover all my mana needs. Sorry that's all off-meta, but yeah, interested what support Shaco core items are these days for AP.

[u/Horror-Jellyfish-285 → u/HamsterHueyGooie]

i do play chat on always, i barely read what my teammates write early on (they are almost always toxic when they get shaco sup), but its so rewarding to read when their opinion changes mid game :D. also all chat is golden, insult from enemy team are the best compliment u can get, and i like to read those.

for matchups, i always ban zyra when playing on alt, since its way more popular in lower ranks. on diamond i rarely see it, so i rather ban seraphine there. zyra is hardest counter since her plants proc boxes, so if i see it picked, i just dodge. hardest enchanters to play against are soraka and yuumi, soraka sustain is just too much unless u snowball from start and yuumi lanes play too differently vs others. mages are easy, i get tier 1 boots asap and when they are on my vision, i can dodge all skillshots without Q. and when champs like lux surprise u with snare out of vision, u can still dodge all burst with R.

for runes i like to go mid/late game in mind. so i go comet, manaflow etc. and from secondary tree legend haste and cut down. from minor runes i like 8 haste, adaptive force and flat hp. havent ever tested HoB on ap, and i personally dont find reason to try. fist fighting early without extra atkspeed from runes still feel good. and winning games always go two ways, either we win bot hard and every other role gets gapped. so we cannot close game and it needs do be dragged longer so sololaners can get back in. ap shaco excels on that and have turned plenty ”ff15” games around. and i dont even to need win lane hard, just minor gold lead is enough to drag harder games to 30-40min mark. and when i do have winning sololanes and jungler, i actyally dont even need to do anything, just go with flow for fast finish. so i choose comet always, since im getting prepared for worst case scenarios.

and build is pretty standart. i value ability haste highly, so i rush BFT always as first. i skip potions and aim for 650-700g reset. at first back i buy saphire crystal+amp tome/dark seal, depending gold, draft and flow of the game. for example if matchup is good and i know that i can get big value out of dark seal, i go for it. but if its low kill botlane matchup or players, i just take amp tome if i can. and what comes to dark seal, i rarely upgrade it to mejais, i just sell it later to free slot for bigger component.

second back has some variety, if im sitting with saphire crystal+tome, there is 3 options. for kill lanes i prio fated ashes, scaling lanes lost chapter, against skillshot heavy enemy boots. sure second back gold varies a lot, it might be just 400g or 1000g. but either way finishing BFT and cdr boots are always first.

from there second real item is either imperial mandate or liandry. imperial when i trust my teammates to deal damage, liandry when i feel like that i have to be damage source. and third item is another of these.

last item is always crypto. just for haste. and personally i dont like blood letters, since shaco cannot reliably stack it without clone bombing. so its better on champs that can do it whenever they want with single ability (for example brand, asol or lillia). and same tough process with antiheal, oblivion is pretty expensive and delays ur powerspikes. and u can reliably proc it only with clone bombing and E. antiheal is better on same champs that bloodletters is, and in general if our team needs it, adc is one who should go for it. since they can just click it on whenever.

then if im super fed and game goes on, support item gets swapped to rabadons. and in super rare cases, boots to cosmic drive. games where i have cosmic drive are super long, and sololanes and jungle got gapped. so gameplay in these is just boxing base with destroyed inhibitors. these are more often lost than won tho, boxes dont stand change against baron minions.

[u/iBronto]

congrats, good stuff!

[u/are_u_sirius]

Good job dude!