Jayce is a very unique champion. He clings the closest to Lee Sin and Nidalee, because he uses multiple skills and even uses 2 stances. Like Nidalee, his ultimate is to chance stances, more particulat from melee-stance to ranged-stance. The difference is that you get your ultimate at level 1, for free ! And it is upgradable at level 6, 11 and 16. What I like a lot about this, is that you accually have 2 skills at level 1.



As top-laner, you can never be lazy. It is you versus another guy, that you don't like. You want to win your lane! That's why I will utilise all of Jayce his skills, wich bot-laner Jayce won't do that often. Both stances scale greatly with AD and you need to benefit from the opportunity to be able to ranged and melee attack. That's why i made this guide.



Most Jayce players say that he isn't strong enough. That's just a myth. He is extremely strong and you can play him passive if you get countered, or extremely aggresive, without losing ANY minion kills.


His skills allow him to poke enemies from a ridicilous distance, you have a gap closer, you have a good and even better escape, and the best of all: you can combine these 2 escape moves to go even faster. Your ultimate has an extremely low cooldown and doesn't use mana at all, in fact you will NEVER ever have any mana problems playing this champion.

Jayce gains 40 movement speed for 1.25 seconds and ignores unit collision each time Transform is cast.



The passive only activates after you use your ultimate. And this passive will be your escape tool. Use Ranged-stance E (Acceleration Gate) + your ultimate/passive to have an even better escape.






- To the Skies!
Jayce leaps to an enemy, dealing physical damage to his target and to enemies in the area, slowing them for 2 seconds.


- Shock Blast
Fires an orb of electricity that detonates upon hitting an enemy or reaching the end of its path, dealing physical damage to all enemies in the area of the explosion.

If Shock Blast is fired through an Acceleration Gate, the area of effect, missile speed and range will be increased, and its damage will increase by 40%.



To the skies! is the melee-stance Q, comparable to Jax his Leap strike. This is the gap closer.
Shock Blast is the ranged-stance Q and is a skillshot. This should only be used together with the Ranged-stance E to poke more accurate, harder and faster.





- Lightning Field
(Passive): Jayce regenerates mana each time he strikes an enemy while in Hammer Stance.
(Active): Creates an electric aura, dealing magic damage over 4 seconds to nearby enemies.


- Hyper Charge
(Active): Jayce gains a burst of energy, increasing his attack speed to maximum for 3 attacks. These attacks deal varied damage depending on rank.



Lightning field is the melee-stance W and does a fair amount of damage early levels. It's an aoe attack. If you are in melee stance, this skill will let you regen mana whenever yo hit something. Note that you don't even need to kill the minions, like Swain, Malzahar and Karthus.
Hyper charge is the ranged-stance W and comes in handy to poke champions that are coming for a minion kill.






- Thundering Blow
Deals magic damage equal to a base amount plus a percentage of the target's maximum health, knocking the target back a short distance. This damage is capped against monsters.


- Acceleration Gate
Deploys an Acceleration Gate for 4 seconds, increasing the movement speed of all allies who pass through it for 3 seconds. This bonus fades over the duration.



Thundering Blow is the melee-stance E and can be used like Maokai his Q. Though it is often hard to get behind an enemy champion and knock them a bit towards your own team. In laning phase I use it as my last attack in my combo to knock them back and retreat without getting any damage from the enemy champion. Although Olaf won't agree with that, and here I mean his E skill.
Acceleration Gate give movement speed, usable with your Ultimate/Passive and makes a ranged)stance Shock blast a megafast orb, wich goes further then a regular ane and does more damage. This combo can be used to kill caster minions or to poke heavily when the enemy champion comes to the front line. Utilising this properly will often win your lane.





- Transform: Mercury Cannon
Transforms the Mercury Hammer into the Mercury Cannon, gaining new abilities and ranged attacks.
The next attack in Cannon Stance reduces the enemy's armor and magic resist for 5 seconds.


- Transform: Mercury Hammer
Transforms the Mercury Cannon into the Mercury Hammer, gaining new abilities and bonus armor and magic resist.
The next attack in Hammer Stance deals additional magic damage.



Automaticly usable at level 1. Great skill.

Jayce is a skillbased champion, wich wants you to react different in different situations. There are more then 700 skill combinations at level 3, wich makes it often difficult. It will take time to master this champion.

I take the E skill at level 2 to escape easier if i get an early gank, but that's it. You need to be level 3 to be able to do all the combinations anyway.


If you master last hitting well, wich you should obviously, The easiest way is to stay in ranged stance most of the time and this for 3 reasons: Enemy melee champions will need to come and melee hit the minions. Here is the point you can poke them, without them being able to poke back. Furthermore you can use your E-R combination to escape when getting ganked. The downside is that Jayce his ranged attack animation is pretty slow, so it took me a while to get used to it. Same for the melee hit animation too btw. Furthermore, while being in Rankged stance allows you to do the E-Q combination, when the enemy comes to the frontline, wich is a massive poke. The plus side here is that it is a very fast skill shot and it doesn't push your lane that hard when it impacts on minions.


The skill order i think works best is the following:


You start in melee-stance, use R to go to Ranged-stance. Then normal hit ( Your passive will do extra damage on the first normal attack.) Then you your E-Q combination and follow it with a W if possible ( most enemies will have backed already and won't allow it.) Then change back to Melee stance, use your Q to jump to him, activate your W midair, give him a normal hit ( passive proc), use E to smash him back, he won't be able to damage you and run into the bush to prevent that enemy minions damage you too hard. Your enemy has lost 50%-85% health this way. Note that in many cases you won't be able to land the full combo, but also note that at the end of this stance, the Ranged-stance cooldowns are up again, so you can keep on attacking if you need to!


That is also the reason why i like ignite on Jayce, to finish the combo with a powerfull dot to finish him.

Jayce is an extremely bad initiator and is a semi-tank champion at most. Don't pick a fight. Personally I hate this, since i like initiating champions. But just don't fuck it up for your team ! You have no initiating move. Your melee-stance Q is not meant to initiate at all.

Your skills allow you to reach their enemy AD/AP carry easily, do massive damage on them, have enough sustain to survive it and accually kill the carries. What you shouldn't do in many cases is trying to protect your own carries too much and this sounds noobier then I mean it. You are not an Alistar, not a Nautilus. ofcoarse you should watch your own carries, but often the jungler/support in your team will take the biggest role here.

See the Early game chapter for this part.

People that are not used to top lane often fail a lot when they try to learn it. The hard fact is: you need to know your champion, and the enemy champion to win your top. And this takes time. You need to know when to poke. Or you can damage them without receiving ( a lot of ) damage. This is obviously the ideal situation. Or you damage eachother at the same time and you both lose the same amount of health. This can be in your favor as some champions, but it also depends from your opponent. If you build lifesteal, you can just heal it back on minions, and since this is a Jayce guide: in ranged-stance. This equal damage exchange however is not cool when facing an opponent like renekton, Nasus, olaf, and champions that are able to heal themself.

The least ideal situation is when you get out harassed, wich should nearly be impossible as Jayce. The only champion that managed to do that so far was Vladimir.


If you play Jayce, you must learn how to use your combos without thinking about it ! there are a lot of combos wich you'll use.

BUT so many combos will require you to do something, and thus you will play aggresive most of the time. You really really really ! Need to play very aggresive, with a touch of teemo style ( harassing and moving back). Till level 7-8 your ranged harass will be superior to the melee harass + it's safer anyway.

Jayce is a mobile champion, and you should take the advantage to gank mid if your lane is getting pushed, or to ward their blue.

You should continue acting as a mobile champion in teamfights. The enemy will try to defend their carries, but you will still get there.




Top lanes often snowball easily. That's why I'll try to post how to counter other top champions as Jayce as soon as possible. Ofcoarse I need way more time and face all champions to do this. =)