In between my Talon matches over the past two weeks I’ve found myself playing a lot of Shaco. I’m not sure what brought me back to him – maybe the bug fixes, maybe that a friend was looking to learn him – but whatever the case, I’ve really been enjoying Shaco.

I think part of the turnaround is that I realized how similar Shaco is to Lee Sin. The real power of Lee Sin is that he can provide strong ganks incredibly early in the game. It’s entirely possible to hit level three before the enemy mid does. The same is true for Shaco. By setting up a box nest at lizard and the double golem camp, shaco can burn through one side of the jungle and hit level three long before the enemy mid. It’s just a simple matter of ganking.

That said, Shaco’s ganks aren’t particularly strong, especially early in the game. His slow is minimal and his early crit doesn’t deal much damage. For that reason, positioning is key to successful Shaco ganks. My ganks have a much higher success rate when I take the time to get behind my target. That extra 20% damage makes a big difference at every stage of the game.

Shaco still has the same old Shaco problems. He’s not survivable enough through the mid-late game to contribute to teamfights. He’s mana-starved in the early game. His jungle is heavily dependent on the level one nest. Despite those things, though, I still enjoy Shaco immensely. If you’re in need of a new jungler, he’s at least worth a shot.

I’m a little surprised and bit more embarrassed to say that I was glad for the end of Shaco week. It wasn’t good. In fact, it was disturbingly not good. I can’t stand feeling like a non-factor in a game, and for most of Shaco week, that’s exactly how I felt. I’ve also never been in love with the pet controls in League of Legends, and I had more than a few frustrating encounters with my own clone. I’m worried for Shaco’s future, mostly because he has such a great ganking kit. A slight buff in the wrong direction and he could become a big problem.

As one forum-goer mentioned this week, players don’t really have a reason to pick Shaco when Nocturne is on the board. While their kits aren’t exactly the same, they do perform similarly, it’s just that Nocturne is the much stronger of the two. I know some of you have said that Shaco is really designed as a split pusher, but I have to disagree.

In my experience, Shaco requires much more farm to effectively split-push than many of the other characters in the game. For one, he does not clear creeps well, even with a Madred’s. That’s pretty much the bread and butter of any split pushers kit – can they burn down creep waves to amass a little pushing army behind them. Shaco can’t until mid-late game. Master Yi can do it by level seven. Many of the best split pushers also have an attack damage or attack speed modifier to help them push. Again, Yi is a great example, but so is Sivir, Ezreal, Nasus and as mentioned above, Nocturne. All of those characters also have creep clearing ability, which makes them infinitely better than Shaco at the split push. If he has one thing going for him, it’s that he can escape gank attempts better than many of the others, but that doesn’t really make him a good split pusher so much as a safe one.

I think Shaco’s biggest problem is that his Deceive and his Jack in the Box no longer work well together. Some time ago, Shaco was able to drop JitBs from stealth, which made him excellent at ganking. He could deceive in, drop a box behind the unsuspecting enemy, and still get the crit bonus from Deceive. Now, though, he’s forced to decide between that Deceive damage or planting a box. The box is pretty much always the better choice, but it gives away your position and allows the enemy a chance to make an escape.

That said, Deceive can be extremely frustrating to play against, especially if the Shaco gets fed. For every complaint I have about Shaco, I’m certain I could find someone who loathes him the way I loathe Mordekaiser. I get it. Fed Shaco is like fed Eve, but he’s more escapable. Still, I think Shaco is overdue for some love, and from the look of Guinsoo’s Twitter feed he’s about to be getting some, along with some bug fixes.

If I could change one thing about Shaco, I think it would be to remove Jack in the Box and replace it with something else. While I think JitBs are great little gag additions to a jester’s kit, they serve very little purpose beyond Shaco’s early jungle and ganks. They die far too easily to AoE, get accidentally triggered by minions entirely too often, and deal pitiful damage. He needs another skill that gives him a more reliable jungle or more reliable lane. He already has a poison, so my suggestion would be some kind of attack speed or attack damage modifier or possibly another AoE style skill to help him plow through the jungle.

That doesn’t really address his survivability problems, but I think with more consistent damage and more utility out of his W, he could scale much better and be able to purchase a bit more survivability along the way. Shaco was fantastic once, but he hasn’t kept up with the bruisers and he can’t possibly withstand deathcap mages.

Check back soon for this week’s Champ of the Week!

One of the most frustrating parts of playing Shaco is that after a certain point he is just way too soft for his own good. Past level nine he basically can’t initiate a fight without expecting to die. He’s typically much better off waiting until the fight is mostly over and then cleaning up the stragglers. I wouldn’t call his durability a problem if it didn’t manifest so early in the game.

I just played a game that perfectly exemplified Shaco’s durability crisis. I started the game at my own lizard, taking it and the wraith camp to get level two before running to the enemy jungle. I was up against a Fiddle, so I quickly set up a nest of JitBs at his lizard, knowing that he would come to drain it for the massive lifesteal. Sure enough, he stumbled into the brush, giving me first blood and golem buff. I could have left, but I still had three health pots and his lizard was still up. Time for another nest – same spot, same story. He came stumbling along at level 2 and, now that I was level three from the kill and sporting both blue and red, I worked him. I ran to some nearby brush to hide from his teammates, but not before Irelia could dash in and slow me. I dropped a JitB at our feet and tried to fight through an exhaust, barely picking up the kill before a Resolute Smite from Galio dropped me. All told, I was 3-1 at the five minute mark. Hell yeah.

Not so much. By the time I hit level nine I couldn’t go anywhere near Irelia or even Fiddle, who I had counter jungled so hard that he didn’t see another buff in the first 20 minutes of the game. Either champion would utterly smash me in a fight, forcing my Flash or Deceive for the escape. It was maddening.

The problem, of course, is if he gets a serious survivability buff, he becomes way too easy to jungle with and he could snowball with the best of them. Despite my poor fortune with Irelia and Fiddle, Shaco does fare pretty well against many of the game’s softer toons, which makes that survivability buff a bit of an issue.

I still love Shaco, but the metagame has shifted in a way that leaves him looking a little weak. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts later in the week.

After the mess that was the Executioner’s Calling Jungleplank, I wanted to get back into the jungle this week with someone I knew how to play. Shaco certainly isn’t the most reliable jungler in the world, but he has a nice kit for ganking and I can’t help but love the guy. I would bet he’s among my most played characters in normal games and certainly one of my favorites. Allow me to introduce this week’s Champ of the Week: Shaco, the Demon Jester.

Shaco has a bit of a troubled history in the League. He started as a character capable of nearly 1-shotting squishy mages at level one thanks to the old elixirs and crit damage runes. After that situation was nerfed, he transitioned into an aura champion, relying on his clone to deal massive damage thanks to stacking auras and a nasty Bloodrazor bug. That too was fixed, leaving him in what some would say is a relatively underpowered state. I actually think Shaco is in an okay place, so long as he can get a strong start.

Shaco’s early jungle is unique to the League in that it’s one of the most susceptible to disruption and yet most powerful at level one. Because Shaco relies on a Jack in the Box nest to take the buff camps, he’s not as flexible as other junglers. Most teams will try to gank him early, but with the right allies that JitB nest becomes a powerful level one damage source in a team fight. The success of that fight really depends on how well Shaco’s team can support his early jungle.

I think Shaco has some uncelebrated counter jungling potential. While his most common path is to take Lizard buff first, he can take Golem faster than just about anyone at level one, giving him plenty of time to set up at the enemy Lizard. Deceive gives him an unparalleled ability to jump in and out of the enemy jungle, which means he can effectively counter many of the game’s strongest junglers.

Unfortunately, Shaco is also vulnerable to counterjungling because of his reliance on Jack in the Box. The skill makes him a bit slower than other junglers, at least until he has his razor. It’s a problem that counters like Nunu can easily exploit.

I’ll be focusing on effective builds and survivability issues with Shaco. With the recent bug fix on his clone crits I think a straight physical build could trump the typical Bloodrazor rush. Check back later in the week for more impressions on Shaco’s relative jungle strength.