Nocturne isn't anywhere in the 26.16 patch notes. He's God Tier anyway, and Riot has already put him on the list for 26.17.
Read the 26.16 patch notes end to end and his name never comes up. No buff, no adjustment, not even a line item. He's holding the top of the jungle on our solo queue tier list regardless.
Here's the build, the runes, and how long you've got to use them.
FOTM Report
Nocturne Jungle
Nocturne isn't anywhere in the 26.16 patch notes. He's God Tier anyway, and Riot has already put him on the list for 26.17.
Read the 26.16 patch notes end to end and his name never comes up. No buff, no adjustment, not even a line item. He's holding the top of the jungle on our solo queue tier list regardless, and we called him there on patch day before anyone had played a game of it.
So this one isn't a story about what he got. It's a story about what happened to everybody else. Riot spent 26.16 pulling supports out of the side lanes and trimming the item that propped up half the jungle. Nocturne didn't move. Everything around him did.
How to Play Nocturne Jungle
- Abilities
- Q, E, W then prioritize R > Q > E > W
- Summoner Spells
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- Starting Items
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- Strategy
- Full clear to level 6, then stop pathing toward objectives and start pathing toward whoever is standing furthest from their tower. Save the ultimate for a lane that has already used its escape, and cast the spellshield on the enemy's animation rather than before it, since it holds for only 1.5 seconds and pays out nothing unless it actually eats something
- Core Items
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The 26.17 Clock
Riot has already announced Nocturne nerfs for 26.17, with no numbers on them yet. Our LoL PBE Changes page tracks the patch preview and picks the values up the moment they land on the test server.
Nocturne Rune Setup
Precision
Domination
When to Pick Nocturne
Take him when the enemy team has squishy solo laners who go long stretches without a ward, and when their answer to a dive is positioning rather than crowd control. He's a fine blind pick too, because nothing in his kit needs a teammate to set it up first. That matters more than it sounds: most junglers who threaten a level 6 all-in need somebody to land something, and he just needs the enemy to be somewhere without backup.
Leave him alone against teams stacked with point and click stuns, and against enemy junglers who beat him in a straight duel before he's got two items. His first clear is fine and his first three levels are not a threat, so a jungler who invades on a timer will find him. He's also a poor answer to a team already grouped as five, since he does his best work on somebody who is alone and has stopped paying attention.
How It Works
Reduced Roaming
26.16 keeps supports in bot lane, holding the out-of-lane gold penalty until level 5 instead of level 3. Fewer early roams means a quieter jungle, and Nocturne is nothing much until his ultimate comes online. Hand him an uninterrupted path to six and he's a different champion.
The Ult Still Cheats Vision
Every other jungler has to walk into sight to start a fight. He doesn't. Cutting the enemy's vision and then arriving from off screen is the same play it has always been, and it's worth more on a map with fewer eyes on it.
The Spellshield Decides the Duel
Shroud of Darkness [W] is why he beats junglers who read better on paper. Most jungle skirmishes open with one big ability, and eating it doesn't just deny the damage, it doubles his attack speed for the next five seconds. That's a read rather than a reflex, and it's the single habit separating a Nocturne who climbs from one who feeds.
His Competition Got Trimmed
Sundered Sky, the item that carried the AD fighter junglers for a year, came down in 26.16 and is coming down again in 26.17. Jungle Nasus got reeled back toward top lane. The lethality build Nocturne actually runs was untouched by all of it.
Potential Pitfalls
Nothing Happens Until He's Ahead
He has no wave clear worth the name, no siege pressure, and no way to force an objective on his own. If the first fifteen minutes go nowhere, he spends the rest of the game as the worst member of a teamfight, waiting on a cooldown to find someone who has wandered off. Junglers who scale into a real teamfight presence do not have this problem, and he does.
Bait the Spellshield and He's Just a Melee Champion
Everything above about Shroud of Darkness [W] runs in reverse when the enemy knows the matchup. The catch is that a successful block pays him, so the bait wants to be something cheap thrown from range, where the doubled attack speed has nothing to hit. Spend it, then commit, because the shield takes twelve to twenty seconds to come back.
Hard Crowd Control Ends the Play Early
The fear needs him standing still and connected to the target, so a stun, a knock up, or a well timed dash all break it. A team with two reliable answers to a diving melee champion turns his ultimate into a very dramatic way of walking into four people.
Conclusions
Nocturne is the clearest example this patch of a champion climbing on somebody else's changes. Riot pulled the roaming supports home, and the jungler built to punish an isolated target found a map full of them.
The catch is the one at the top of this page. He's already on the 26.17 list, so if you're going to pick this up, pick it up now.
Sitting on the other side of this matchup? Our Nocturne counters guide covers the picks and the habits that shut him down.
Suggested Tier: God Tier
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