Jinx, The Loose Cannon

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Crazy, psychotic yet not quite evil, the much anticipated Jinx has finally hit the League of Legends servers. Primarily filling the role of attack damage carry, Jinx is an explosive and deadly marksman with high damage and utility. There are millions of reasons as to why Jinx stands out so much ranging from her exciting personality to the recently released music video created specifically for her. However it’s her abilities that really made me want to pick her up. As an AD carry main I felt that Lucian, despite having an exciting background just felt lacklustre and occasionally dull when it came to actually playing him, due to his skillset feeling slightly awkward and not overly appealing. Jinx on the other hand has a multitude of fun, interesting abilities that really cause her to stand out.

Passive: Get Excited!

Jinx gains a massive movement speed boost whenever a champion or tower that she’s recently attacked is killed or destroyed. This boost decays over time.

Jinx’s passive is the only way that she can gain any form of mobility without the use of items, and it is an integral part of her kit. “Get Excited!” gives Jinx amazing chase and escape potential if she manages to kill or gain an assist on champions or turrets. The boost itself is massive and even with no boots it is incredibly easy to catch up to fleeing enemies in order to chain up kills. One thing that I noticed a great deal was that if I could get one kill, it was incredibly easy to get a second, even in lane I was walking away with double kills more often than not purely due to the fact that it is almost impossible to escape Jinx when she moves at such a high speed. Not only this, but it also gives Jinx massive cleanup power in team fights as once she gets one kill or assist she can proceed to just wreak havoc amongst the remaining opposition.

Q: Switcheroo!

Jinx swaps weapons:

Fishbones, the rocket launcher: Jinx’s basic attacks consume mana but gain increased range and deal increased damage to her target and nearby enemies.
Pow-Pow, the minigun: Jinx’s basic attacks grant attack speed for a short duration, stacking up to three times. Stacks fall off one at a time once Jinx stops attacking.

Jinx’s Q ability is one of the coolest parts of her kit in my opinion, as it gives her so much diversity and allows her to change her playstyle depending on the situation. The attack speed buff on Pow-Pow is integral to Jinx’s kit as it makes up for her insanely low base attack speed gain per level (1%). The fact that Jinx has to stack the buff also means that she is far better suited to longer, more drawn out trades where she can make full use of her attack speed steroid. I have also found that having a built in buff to attack speed has made it less important for me to grab a phantom dancer or statikk shiv as early as I usually would, and instead I have been building more flat AD and armour penetration.

Fishbones on the other hand is far more suited to poking down enemies from a distance, as the bonus range she gains from it is actually pretty substantial. It is also worth noting that if she has three stacks from Pow-Pow, these are not cleared when she switches to Fishbones. The bonus damage and splash damage from Fishbones are also able to critically strike, meaning that she can hit for a huge amount of area of effect damage with it enabled. The huge downside of this part of the ability however is that her attack speed with it enabled is incredibly low, and she loses a lot of DPS as a result. Because of this I have used Fishbones more to poke opponents from a safe distance, or to last hit an enemy that has just moved out of range of Pow-Pow. It is also good for clearing waves due to the splash damage, and nothing beats blowing stuff up with rockets.

W: Zap!

Jinx snaps off an electrical blast that deals damage to and slows the first enemy hit.

Zap is a pretty normal straight line skillshot that as stated slows and damages the first enemy hit. I have found myself using it a significant amount to poke enemies from range, as the damage on it is actually pretty high dealing 210 (+140% of attack damage) at max rank. This is another reason as to why I have been prioritising more attack damage over attack speed on Jinx, as Zap! can act as a strong poke tool. However it really stands out when being used to slow enemies. The range on Zap! Is far longer than I expected and I have been using it with her Flame Chompers to initiate. The large slow on this ability effectively means that other players spend more time on top of your Flame Chompers which increases the chance that they will get snared. This is incredibly useful as Flame Chompers does have a brief set up time. It can also be used when escaping, as Jinx doesn’t have any real escapes without her passive, however it does have a brief cast time.

E: Flame Chompers!

Jinx throws out a line of snare grenades that detonate after a few seconds, lighting nearby enemies on fire. Enemy champions who walk over a grenade will cause it to detonate early, rooting them briefly.

“Flame Chompers!” gives Jinx even more crowd control. The snare on this ability allows Jinx to continue dealing damage while the enemy is immobilised. There have been numerous times that I have managed to kill other players purely because Flame Chompers has given me the extra time to deal damage on a fleeing enemy. It is also useful at preventing ganks or people chasing you, as they have to take a long route around all three traps to avoid being snared. Flame Chompers do also give vision, meaning that they can be used to scout the bushes to prevent face checking. They are also long enough to block off some areas of the map, for example some paths in the jungle can be completely blocked off by Flame Chompers if they are placed correctly.

R: Super Mega Death Rocket!

Jinx fires a global rocket that gains damage as it travels. The rocket explodes on the first enemy champion hit, dealing damage to the target and all nearby enemies based on a percentage of their missing health.

Jinx’s ultimate is one of the most satisfying execute abilities in the game, hurling a huge rocket globally across the map. Even at a short range the rocket deals high damage against low health targets, however it really gets exciting when you snipe champions from across the map. It also deals area of effect damage which is useful if fired into a grouped up team during a team fight.

LoL jinx

I personally believe that Jinx is a strong champion right now, and there have been very few times that I have struggled with her although she does have her weaknesses. During the laning phase I have been trying to keep three stacks of Pow-Pow up so that I can deal maximum damage in close range trades. If the opposing champion plays conservatively however I have been poking them with Fishbones when they go for last hits or get into range. The fact that Jinx can switch between these two styles so quickly means that you can go from last hitting with Pow-Pow to hitting your lane opponent with a rocket using the extended range. Zap also gives her good poke potential if you can land it, as the damage is high, and if you hit with that first you can use Fishbones to auto attack them as they try and back off with the slow applied.

I feel that she scales well into late-game as long as you don’t fall too far behind early, in every game I have played with her I haven’t notice any real fall off in damage. She may not be able to out duel a Vayne, but her damage is still incredibly high, and her mobility when getting a kill or assist is incredibly strong. She also brings good utility and poke as well, I’ve found her incredibly fun and despite being strong she also has her drawbacks.

Having no real escape means that if she gets pulled by a Blitz she is pretty much instantly dead if flash isn’t up, and this is the same with a lot of crowd control abilities, especially in the late game. She is a champion who can’t afford to get caught out, unlike Ezreal for example who can arcane shift out of most situations.

Overall I would definitely recommend Jinx to any player, especially if they enjoy playing AD as she is insanely fun and also has a great theme. Her dialogue lines are funny, and she really stands out from a lot of the other female champions. Her Mafia Jinx skin is also worth a purchase if you’re the sort of player who buys skins, it has a changed recall animation, extra dialogue and a different animation on her Switcheroo!

Adam

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Adam

Adam is the owner of BC-GB, find him on Twitter. BC-GB is the place to get CSGO tips, news and blog.

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