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Classic Jarvan IV Guide - from a Chronoshift veteran

Competitive

Jarvan IV Jungle by Jonas — updated Jul 27, 2026

Demacia!

▲ 7

Item Build

Starting Items

you start with 475g

The standard jungle start. Jarvan certainly needs the potions in his early clear.

If you feel confident in your clear, you can swap out a health potion for a mana potion. This is a good hedge for if your blue gets stolen and a mana potion might come in handy during the early game regardless.

Core Build

Spirit Stone is your initial item for clearing. It's not as quick as Madred's Razors, but the mana regen is nice. Before upgrading it further, I recommend getting The Brutalizer to stay relevant damagewise.

Ancient Golem is next. With these items, you have solved your otherwise slow clear. Golem just gives great stats.

You can choose to upgrade The Brutalizer to The Black Cleaver if you want more damage, otherwise just finish Runic Bulwark, and then upgrade it. You can also choose to sit on the Brutalizer, and move straight to your tank items.

Most of the time I recommend NOT upgrading your Brutalizer.

You can choose to get Heart of Gold quite early as it's a component for Bulwark. If you happen to reset with the right amount of gold for it, it's not a bad idea.

Boots

For boots, you usually want to get Boots of Mobility in the early game. These are just honestly too good in this version of Classic League. They suit your gank-heavy playstyle.

Later on, you can sell them for Ninja Tabi. Do this when the enemy ADC comes online and becomes a threat.

Never get Mercury Treads. You already have Tenacity from your Ancient Golem.

Flex Items

Your next items are usually just going to be full tank. For Armor options, Randuin's and Frozen Heart are your go to items. Randuin's makes you tankier, but the CDR from Frozen Heart is very strong. For MR, similar story, Spirit Visage for CDR and Force of Nature for more tankiness.

Guardian Angel is not bad on J4 as it allows you to suicide engage. If you really want more damage, you can go Black Cleaver or Last Whisper but I wouldn't recommend it usually.

Summoner Spells

Skill Order

(E)›

(Q)›

(W)

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
	Q						Q		Q		Q	Q
		W											W	W		W	W
E			E	E		E		E
					R					R					R

Runes

9× Mark of Attack Damagemark
9× Seal of Armorseal
9× Glyph of Scaling Magic Resistglyph
3× Quintessence of Attack Damagequint

+9 Armor+15.75 Attack Damage+32.4 Magic Resist @18

Masteries

9 / 21 / 030/30 points

2/4

2/2

4/4

1/1

OFFENSE: 9

1/1

4/4

2/2

1/3

1/1

2/2

1/1

1/1

3/3

2/3

1/1

1/1

1/1

DEFENSE: 21

UTILITY: 0

On J4, you can choose to go a variety of different pages. 9 offense is generally good because the % armor penetration is very valuable for any physical damage dealer. Butcher is also very good with your attack speed buff from Demacian Standard (E).

The next choice is between 21 defense or 12 defense and 9 utility. Both have their merits. 21 defense obviously makes you a lot tankier. The big reason to go deep in defense are: the final mastery giving you 3% less damage taken, the tenacity and the 10% less damage from crits.

The big reason to go 9 utility is mostly for the buff duration. J4 really loves having both blue and red for longer in the early game. Improved flash is also pretty nice on Jarvan, but the rest of the masteries are not that huge.

It's not an easy decision and both pages are quite good. Perhaps a good way to think about it is that it's better to go 21 defense if you are the only tanky frontliner on your team or if you know that being tankier is going to be extra valuable.

Introduction

Hey, I'm a long time afficionado of Classic League of Legends. I have played since 2010 and was a closed beta tester on Chronoshift (RIP), so I have a lot of previous experience with old school League of Legends - both somewhat recently and from the very beginning. During my league career I peaked in the top 1000 on the ladder on EUW.

This build is for Jarvan IV, who is quite a decent jungler in Classic League so far. The guide is a bit barebones for now, since I think people are just looking for builds. I will add general strategy later if there is enough interest.