Jarvan IV – the Exemplar of Demacia, Prince Jarvan Lightshield the Fourth

The lance of Demacia/ Demacian standard

Jarvan IV is an AD-heavy tank/ fighter champion (his magic damage is insignificant, mostly from E-DemacianStandard), an exemplar of this kind of champions in my view. Jarvan is often played as a jungler, but in my view, he is also excellent and typical to be played at top. With three CCs, Jarvan IV can be seen as a CC-holder champion: W-GoldenAegis, the combo E/Q (DemacianStandard/ DragonStrike), R-Cataclysm.

The combo E/Q can also be used as an escaping ability, while the E-DemacianStandard can use to get temporary vision from distance.

Due to the CCs, Javan IV is a very strong jungler and very effective in ganking: he can use the W-GoldenAegis to slow the opponents (and protect himself at the same time), the combo E/Q and R-Cataclysm to catch them (and damage them as well). In combination with the team mates, it's really difficult for the opponents to escape from Jarvan IV's ganks. On the other hand, when being played as top laner, these CCs can also serve as escaping abilities: he can trap the opponents by R-Cataclysm then get out by the combo E/Q and slow them and shield himself by W-GoldenAegis.

For trading damage, the passive-MartialCadence bonus damage is very important, especially when it is used in combination with the armor reduction of Q-DragonStrike for more damage and W-GoldenAegis for less health lost.

Core items for Javan IV jungle and top

The clearing minion capability of Jarvan IV is kinda limited: the damage from E-DemacianStandard is kinda minor, while Q-DragonStrike is not a heavy AoE spell. Consequently, Jarvan IV may need much more AoE damage from items, most typically Sunfire Cape and Titanic/ Ravenous Hydra.

Sunfire Cape (or Cinderhulk) along with Titanic/ Ravenous Hydra will vastly improve Jarvan's clearing minion waves ability and AoE damage. The remaining items should depend on particular players, playstyles, opponents, and particular games – typically: Banshee's Veil, Thornmail, Dead Man's Plate, and Guardian Angel. Sometimes we can also build Jarvan IV as a true fighter with Trinity Force, Infinity Edge, and Last Whisper (Lord Dominik's Regards or Mortal Reminder).

Sunfine Cape is a very powerful item, not just for Javan IV in my view: it provides important amount of defensive component specifically against AD opponents, as well as a significant amount of AoE and DPS magic damage. There are two points we must notice in buiding this item for Jarvan IV:

+) When we play Jarvan IV jungle with Cinderhulk, this will replace Sunfire Cape.

+) When we play top against a heavy AP opponent, the first defensive component must provide MR, so if we still want Sunfire Cape, we must build it in later phases (not in lane phase for the best).

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Decoding my playstyle on Jarvan IV

For simplicity and safety to play top, we often take flat rune pages. Here I want to discuss one other favorite, complicated, different, and kinda risky playstyle of mine – specialized for different kinds of the opponent champion: scaling playstyle[1] – which is, in compensation, able to invoke the greatest power possible later game. The rune and mastery pages are shown below.

Quite similar to the case of Nautilus top[2], this particular playstyle on Jarvan IV top laner must adopt some solutions to fix the weaknesses. Basically, this puts critical impact on the very early game, including: the type of the opponent champions, the very first items (potions, Cloth Armor, Null-Magic Mantle,...), the use of Teleport for the first time at around level 3 or 4, etc.

Weaknesses: low indexes at low levels, especially in comparison with the flat counterparts (9 armor, 12 MR, and 15AD). We must get level 6th for the armor index and level 8th for the MR and AD indexes to be equal to those of the flat ones. Consequently, all the capabilities of defense and trading damage and last-hitting/ farming would be disadvantageous in comparison with the opponent.

Solutions: to fix the weaknesses, I always start games with a defensive item (Cloth Armor for AD opponents or Null-Magic Mantle for AP opponents) to reduce the gap in defensive capability. This, however, may reduce the farming and last-hitting effectiveness since I cannot get the Doran's Blade while the AD index is not really high. To fix this, (1) I'm very careful in last-hit at the early levels of 1 - 3, and very critically, (2) as soon as I get enough gold (often approximate 500, at about late level 3 to early level 4) I recall for the next item and use Teleport to come back quickly. At this moment, I actually get some advantages already:

+) I did get enough defensive capability and AD index, not so less than that of the opponent. I would also have some health potions as well.
+) My Teleport got used for the most effective, while would probably be available when I get level 6 and ready for a bot gank that time.
+) The scaling indexes will continue increase by leveling up toward the highest possible at level 18.

Warding and ganking impact: one of the most important factors to succeed in playing League in general and in playing top in particular, in my view, is warding and ganking (how to ward to avoid enemy ganks, as well as to cooperate with team mates' ganks (often jungler and mid) to take down the opponent). In a fair case, to be taken down is very disadvantageous; for this particular playstyle and build, being taken down is even more critical, since with this playstyle I suppose to be the underdog and always at risk at early levels. Consequently, I put a very strong impact on warding and ganking (avoid enemies's ganks and especially, exploit team mates' ganks).

Just like the case of playing support, there are two main paths and two places the opponent jungler and mid laner must go through when they gank top, corresponding to the two different sides of the map. For each side of the map, one of these places are least visited by the opponents, in my view, and so I always have a pink ward there (the eye icons inside white circles).

As shown on the images, the pink ward, along with an other green ward (white circles) would be able to detect the enemies' ganks right from beginning. Note that these positions are different for the different sides of the map. For more details about the similar warding patterns at bot, look at the discussion dedicated the support role: Support: master of the river (section "My own playstyle").

(1) In case of laning against heavy AD opponent, I may start with a Cloth Armor toreduce the defensive gap before level 6 and always recall when I get about 500 gold to buy then use Teleport to come back quickly. The rune page with 27 scaling armor is also my favorite rune page for jungle. (2) In case of laning against heavy AP opponent, I would like to take scaling health instead of scaling armor for better defense, as shown in the green circle. (3) In case the opponent's magic and physical damage is quite balance (like Jax, Hecarim,...), we must choose the appropriate indexes, depending on the oppnents, the champions, etc.

This is my favorite mastery page for Jarvan IV. Very interestingly, I find that all the defensive entries are helpful for Jarvan IV in different ways; for better sustainability in lane phase as a top laner at the very early game with a flat rune page, for example, all the entries in the green circles may be taken.

Finally, one of the most important factors to success in playing Jarvan IV, of course, is how to deeply master the lance and the standard of Demacia: to use the combo E/Q as the CC, as well as the escaping ability, and as one of the main sources of damage to damage and take down the opponents, to get some vision or AS, etc. The damage of the lance is very enormous, and I often see people seem to underestimate it: that is not good for them, definitely!

“ There is only one truth, and you will find it at the point of my lance.”

– The ''last words'' of Jarvan IV at his failed execution[3] –  

This post was completed; there would be just minor adjustments if any on this post
Last update: February 25, 2016

The Silencekeeper

References

[1] [2] For more discussion of my playstyles on playing top and playing Nautilus top, look at the following post: Nautling: how to Nautilus? Be the Titan of the Depths (section "Play styles")

[3] The lore of Jarvan IV, League of Legends © Riot Games Inc.

      http://gameinfo.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/champions/jarvaniv/
      For moral of League, check the following post: Morals from League