Jinx was one of my favourite ADC champions in League of Legends, so I was excited to see her added to the Teamfight Tactics roster. As with LoL, she also shreds in TFT. In TFT, Jinx is a gunslinger and she’s the best damn Gunslinger this town has ever seen; wel,l not quite, Miss Fortune is technically better as she has a higher DPS, but it’s rare that you get to level Miss Fortune to level 3 and a level 3 Jinx is better then a level 3 Miss Fortune, so Jinx wins.
Anyway, that’s enough of my obsession with Jinx, let’s look at what items Jinx works best with:
As usual with my build guides, just because I believe the Rapid Firecannon, Giant Slayer, and Hextech Gunblade are the best items for Jinx it doesn’t mean they are – the items are subjective and the build you aim for not only depends on the items they drop, but it also depends on the setup your opponents are building. Now I’ve covered my ass, let’s talk about the items in more detail:
Rapid Firecannon
The Rapid Firecannon can be put on to almost any ADC character (Gunslingers and Rangers) to great effect, so it’s no surprise to see it added to our Jinx build. If you don’t get lucky with the drops (the Recurve Bow is a much sought after item and unless a few drop at the carousel round you’d be lucky to get one), Guinsoo’s Rageblade will make a fine replacement. For any of you that don’t know, the Rapid Firecannon provides champions with double attack range as well as stopping enemies from being able to dodge your attacks. You also get the 40% attack speed on top of these buffs.
Giant Slayer (Last Whisper)
The Giant Slayer (known as the Last Whisper in NA) is one of the newer items to be added to TFT (first appeared in patch 9.19), and it allows the wearer to deal extra true damage per attack equal to 5% of the enemy champions max health pool (true damage ignores armor, magic resistance, and any other type of damage defending ability or buff apart from shields). The extra damage which cannot be blocked makes this a great addition for any Gunslinger or Ranger build, it’s arguably better than stacking more attack speed and can really help take down the bulky tanks early on. Getting three Recurve Bows in a game could prove challenging, however, so as mentioned above if you don’t manage to get a Recurve Bow or two in the early rounds you might want to consider swapping out the Rapid Firecannon for another damage speed item.
Hextech Gunblade
I always like to have some healing on my ranged champions. Some see it as a wasted slot but if you build a strong team around your main champion it provides you with good sustainability, especially if you come up against an Assassin build. It’s usually a choice between the Hextech Gunblade or the Bloodthirster, and in this case I chose the Hextech for the extra spell damage, but in all honesty you could use either and you could even swap this out for another defensive item like the Red Buff, as described below.
Other Items
The sad truth is that in TFT you don’t get the choice over which items you get (other than in carousel rounds, of course) which means you’re not always going to be able to build the setup above. In this case, you need to know which items make good alternatives, and these are listed below:
Bloodthirster & Red Buff
Red Buff and the Bloodthirster both make viable replacements for the Hextech Gunblade. In fact, in some instances depending on my champion levels and the enemy builds I’d take the Red Buff item over the Hextech Blade quite often. However, if you’re reading a build guide you probably don’t have the in-depth knowledge of the game that I do, so you may not know when you should swap to the Red Buff, in which case stick with the Hextech Blade or the Bloodthirster (depending on item drops) as they’re more well rounded items.
Guinsoo’s Rageblade
This item is a replacement for the Rapid Firecannon (as I’ve already mentioned). You might even prefer building with this straight away, and on occasion I will too depending on other players builds. Generally, if you’re coming up against more melee-based team comps then switch to the Guinsoo’s Rageblade as you won’t need the extra range the Rapid Firecannon provides. Guinsoo’s Rageblade will increase your attack speed by 5% with every successful basic attack (unlimited stacks).
Infinity Edge
The Infinity Edge can replace the Giant Slayer, however I would only make this change if you don’t manage to find a Recurve Bow after the first carousel round, as the Giant Slayer is a much better item for Jinx in my opinion. The Infinity Edge increases critical strike damage by 125% as well as providing +15 attack damage, +10% crit chance, and +10% dodge chance (it’s more of a Vayne item).
Hush
Hush can replace the support item (Hextech Blade) and it can prove useful in certain situations, especially if you’re coming up against a few Varus’ or other champions that have really powerful abilities. Hush gives basic attacks a 33% chance to silence an enemy, stopping them from gaining mana for 4 seconds.
So that’s it, my Jinx build guide. Do you run something different? Think my build sucks? Let me know in the comments!
Leave a Reply