Raptor's cunning: Nocturne mid

                               

Welcome to my new series where I analyse and theorycraft unusual builds and/or picks. This series will focus on unusual picks within the current meta. For the first article in this series, I'll be looking at one of my favourite champions: Nocturne. Nocturne has been a fairly successful jungle pick for quite some time now, but here I'm going to focus on another I believe he can fill in: mid. In the last patch, many assassins have been nerfed so new options may arise.

  

General gameplay

Nocturne is a high damage champion that relies primarily on auto attacks to deal damage. He has two very powerful steroids: an AD steroid on his Q and a AS steroid on his W. His passive is very good since it scales well of of these two stats. 

The nature of his ultimate grants him the adjective of "assassin", however Nocturne has little burst damage as his Q and R (his only AD scaling abilities), have low AD ratios. His assassination is therefore slower than other traditional assassins such as Zed or Talon. This is compensated by his very high sustained damage when he has just a few items.

In the jungle and in lane, Nocturne has a very farm heavy style that focuses on gaining core items and waiting for his steroids to kick în to out damage his enemies. 

His ultimate, Paranoia, makes him a deadly roamer and grants him enormous pick potential. It also makes him a deadly diver in teamfights. 

Now that we have outlined Nocturne's core strengths, let's see what he can do in the mid.

What is a good mid champion?

Originally, mid champions were usually mages, who focused heavily on magic damage, utility and waveclear. We then also had assassins: Kassadin, Ahri, Akali and Fizz. I believe it was Froggen who brought first the idea of AD casters in the mid lane with Lee Sin and Jarvan. We now have three main "AD assassins": Zed, Yasuo and Talon. 

These champions don't bring the usual qualities of a mid champion but instead focus primarily on dueling, split pushing and assassination. 

Why pick Nocturne?

I believe Nocturne's kit allows him to fulfill the same roles:

• Nocturne is an excellent duelist: his spell shield can block enormous amounts of damage from the enemy laner as you will mostly encounter mages who have very high impact spells, but weaker long term damage (think Orianna/Ziggs ult, Zed death mark...). He also has high damage with his AD steroid on his Q and his AS steroid on his W.
• Assassination: Nocturne has undoubtedly lower burst potential than regular assassins but has way higher pick potential thanks to his deadly roam post 6. His fear allows him to secure otherwise lost kills.  
• Split pushing: his Q and passive grant him decent waveclear in the mid game, additionally building tiamat allows him to put a lot of pressure on the enemy team. In the later stages of the game, Nocturne can easily rejoin a fight thanks to the long range of his ultimate. 

Other strengths of a mid Nocturne:

• High farm in the mid lane helps you gain levels and items faster, which is pivotal to his playstyle. 
• Can assist ganks fairly well with his fear.
• Very few unfavorable matchups: your spell shield allows you to win many matchups against champions who rely on important spells (Ahri, Fizz, Syndra...)

Unfortunately, Nocturne is not without his weaknesses:

• Low harass, his Q doesn't have the best damage and his fairly slow.
• Can be bullied by some ranged laners with spammable spells.
• Doesn't have a fast gapcloser besides his ultimate like many other AD mids (Zed, Talon, Yasuo).
• Is melee and doesn't have high burst so building straight damage is more dangerous than usual. 
• Sustaining means pushing the lane most of the time, which can render you vulnerable to ganks.
• Has limited escape options.

Gameplay:

During laning phase you should mainly focus on farming effectively and not getting bullied out of lane. You can't really harass, but you trade quite well if you Q and passive combo. Your spell shield is an effective way of winning trades as it both prevents damage and increases your own. 

Post 6, your kill potential goes through the roof as well as your roaming. Learning how to use this power spike will render you a powerful threat to the enemy team.

In the mid game you should concentrate on punishing bad positioning and creating picks with your ultimate. You should always carry at least one ward in your inventory at all times (on top of your trinket) in order to aid you do this and ward important places around dragon/your mid tower (think enemy wraiths, their red etc...). Off of these picks you should then take dragon or a tower. Proper coordination with your jungler is key here so if you can duo with him, it can be hugely beneficial. 

Late game you can act as a split pusher and rejoin fights with your ultimate or you can play the pick game just as you did in the mid game. In both cases vision control is extremely important in order to not die/do your job. 

Teamfighting

In teamfight, you should look for every opportunity to dive the enemy carries. Ideally, you should wait for your tankline to engage or for the enemy tankline to do so in order to jump on the enemy carry. Punish bad positioning but remember that your ult is a one way ticket so use it carefully.

Build

                       

 

I concentrate mainly on a duelist style so I rush Blade of the Ruined King into Youmuu's ghostblade. I then go for either a defensive item or a Tiamat. I finish off with a Last Whisper and a final defensive item. For boots I go for Mercury's Treads.

For defensive items I really like Randuin's Omen because it allows you to stick really well to enemies and allows you to become an "ADC killer".

One thing I would like to experiment with is getting a blue trinket instead of the usual yellow one to create maximum pick potential. Also get wards so you can create picks in the enemy jungle.

Conclusion and final thoughts

Nocturne is a unusual pick to bring in the mid lane, however I believe it has potential if he is played as a duelist mid. What makes or breaks a mid Nocturne is surviving the early game and pulling off the first few ultimates as they can make you snowball the game out of control. I will further test this strategy and maybe make a followup post about this.

What do you think? Do you think this has any potential? What are your suggestion either for this pick or any other unusual strategies?