Best Jinx build in League of Legends

Ever since Jinx was featured in the Netflix series Arcane, the marksman has become one of the most popular champions in the game. Jinx’s kit perfectly resembles her character as a criminal from Zaun that wreak havoc without worrying about the consequences: once she gets a takedown, she starts unleashing her full power with her mini-gun and rockets. At that point, she becomes an unstoppable force. 

Before getting to that point, however, Jinx needs to make sure she can get to the right power spikes and become the hypercarry that melts everything in her sight. Choosing the right items and runes is an important part of mastering Jinx, so we’re here to help you out with the recommended build paths and setups.

Here are the best builds for Jinx in League of Legends.

Runes

Lethal Tempo Jinx

Precision

Lethal Tempo: Just like most marksmen, Jinx is a champion that bases most of her damage output on auto attacks. Aside from increasing the attack damage, Jinx wants to have lots of attack speed to get the highest DPS possible. For this reason, Jinx gets Lethal Tempo as the main keystone rune. It’s a strong rune at all stages of the game, but its value ramps up exponentially in the late-game teamfights. What’s even better is the fact that the rune allows Jinx to go beyond the 2.5 attack speed limit, allowing her to fully utilize her passive. 

Presence of Mind: Triumph is no longer a good rune for marksmen, and Overheal can only be run with specific champions that build lots of lifesteal early on. Since Jinx doesn’t get any until the fourth item onwards, Presence of Mind is the rune with the highest value. The Loose Cannon is quite a heavy mana user, so it’s always nice to get higher mana regeneration: she can easily proc the rune with her fishbones or Zap! (W).

Legend: Bloodline: This is the only source of lifesteal Jinx can get early on, and since she has plenty of attack speed from Lethal Tempo, her passive, and her Q, Legend: Alacrity isn’t necessary. While the amount gained isn’t that much, it’s still better than nothing. 

Cut Down: As long as Jinx can get her resets, she doesn’t really struggle dealing damage. That said, she gets heavily countered by enemy beefy frontliners that can buy enough time for their own team. To shred like butter, Cut Down is a great rune that can greatly increase her damage by up to 15 percent. Considering Jinx’s low base health, she will always be able to take advantage of this rune. If you aren’t going against big tanks, you can consider switching to Coup de Grace to increase your damage on low-health targets: it should give you a good boost to get those resets rolling.

Inspiration

Biscuit Delivery: This rune is usually run by high Elo players with the goal of having extra health and mana to make aggressive trades, allowing Jinx to stay in the lane for longer and wait until the first recall to pick up the core item components. On top of that, it can be a difference-maker in close skirmishes, saving her from a certain death. If you know you’re not planning on playing aggressively, however, consider switching to Magical Footwear so you can save the 300 gold and avoid buying tier-one boots (and get a 10 bonus movement speed on them).

Cosmic Insight: Jinx is quite an immobile marksman, so it’s crucial to have Summoner spells ready as soon as possible. Cosmic Insight does a great job at giving lower cooldowns on her Flash thanks to the 18 added haste, which amount to a 46-second reduction on her Flash. For her other Summoner spells, it’s still more than 30 seconds shaved off (37 seconds for Heal, 33 seconds for Exhaust and Cleanse). Overall, it’s the best rune to have on her from the Inspiration tree.

Bonuses: +10 percent attack speed, +9 adaptive force, +6 armor

Jinx ADC build

Starting Items

Doran’s Blade: This is the usual and most common starting item for Jinx. It grants her attack damage, health, and Omnivamp. In other words, it’s everything she could ask for. Since she struggles in most matchups early on, the Omnivamp is a small but valuable source of sustain that allows her to stay in lane without having to recall everything she’s low on health. Make sure to always grab one health potion to use for any eventuality.

Core items

Kraken’s Slayer: Jinx no longer runs Galeforce as her Mythic item. Considering that she should have a matching support with her, she doesn’t need the extra dash to reposition herself. Instead, she prefers to have more damage output with Kraken Slayer, which grants true damage every third attack. On top of that, she gets more attack speed bonuses from the item’s passive effect, which will scale well into the later stages of the game.

Berserker’s Greaves: Like most ADCs, Jinx also wants to get Berserker’s Greaves for the additional attack speed. You can consider getting Plated Steelcaps if you’re struggling particularly against physical damage, but a good ADC player will always make the most out of Berserker’s Greaves, without relying on defensive stats.

Infinity Edge: Ever since Riot tweaked the ADC items in Patch 13.1b, Infinity Edge has become Jinx’s second core item, now that the passive effect activates with a 40 percent critical strike chance. This gives her a stronger mid-game spike and allows her to carry the fights way earlier compared to the past. 

End-game items

Phantom Dancer/Rapid Firecannon: Once you get the trio of core items, you have to make a choice between Phantom Dancer and Rapid Firecannon. Each item has its own distinctive strengths, so make sure to build according to the game state.
Phantom Dancer is usually the preferred choice because it grants extra attack speed based on stacks, and most importantly, the ghosting effect. For a kiting champion like Jinx, you want to avoid getting stuck between champions or minions.

If the enemies, though, have lots of ways to threaten you with their range, Rapid Firecannon’s energized attack is a great way to deal damage from a safer distance. 

Bloodthirster: After building four items, Jinx should have a consistent amount of attack speed, attack damage, and critical strike chance. At this point, she will need some extra healing so Bloodthirster is the best choice available. It grants more offensive stats, a good amount of lifesteal, and a shield to protect herself from enemies’ burst damage.

Guardian Angel: To round off the build, we recommend going for Guardian Angel. In the later stages of the game, enemies become incredibly threatening, as they will be looking to shut you down as quickly as possible. Guardian Angel not only makes you more resistant thanks to the extra armor but also grants you a revive passive that negates any potential aggression from the opposing team. Even if they shut you down, they will have to use most of their strong abilities, giving your teammates a better chance of taking over the fights. 

Situational items

Lord Dominik’s Regard: The main reason why you want to pick this item is purely to counter the beefy frontliners. If you’re struggling to take down the enemy tanks, then Lord Dominik’s Regard is a must-build item. That said, the item is also efficient when enemy non-tank champions are building lots of health items. For example, it’s quite strong against control mages like Viktor, Cassiopeia, and Swain since all three build AP items with health included in them. It’s usually built as a fourth or fifth item, depending on how much resistance the enemies have built already.

Maw of Malmortius: Build this item only when you’re struggling to survive incoming magic damage. The item will grant enough resistance and a shield to protect you from getting one-shotted by the enemies (usually the enemy mid laner). It’s not necessary to rush the entire item, as it will slow down your build path quite significantly, but make sure to get at least a Hexdrinker. Once you purchase all the other items, then finish off Maw of Malmortius.

Counters

Like any other champion, Jinx has clear strengths and weaknesses. While she’s great in front-to-back team compositions, she has particular troubles when facing poke comps due to the high range. 

On top of that, her early game is quite weak compared to other ADCs, so she struggles against bully laners such as Draven, Caitlyn, and Tristana. Unless you have a good support or your jungler helping you out, playing Jinx against these matchups is going to be troublesome. You will have to give up the lane priority completely, and your main goal will only be farming as much as possible without bleeding too much advantage.

Jinx also struggles against support champions that offer lots of crowd control and can pin her down long enough to kill her. Champions like Blitzcrank, Nautilus, and Leona are some of the most tricky supports to play against.