First Purchase

First Big Item

Core Items

Situational Items

Don't Build

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Introduction:

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The Joker

The Clown Prince of Crime
Role: Blaster
Ranged - Power

This guide's goal is to help players who are either new to the game, or playing as the Joker, learn the basics on how to play him effectively. I've been playing Infinite Crisis since the closed beta, as well as many other MOBAs in my spare time, with the Joker being my most played champion. In this guide, I'll be covering his abilities, items, and general advice on playing him. Hopefully after reading this, you'll learn something new about playing as the Joker, or playing against him.

Pros:
-Strong poke damage
-Huge AOE skills for ganks and team fights
-Escape mechanism with re-engage potential
-Built in sustain + cooldown reduction

Cons:
-Damage is dependent on skill-shots and AOE placement
-Position based due to short range on W and R
-Low health pool by nature/vulnerable to higher burst damage
-Weak against silences and stuns

The Joker excels at dishing out plenty of damage during team fights from a safe distance. He has a great set of tools to harass the enemy while they're distracted, as well as a versatile mobility skill. True to his character, the Joker is great at tricking people into taking fights they might think are in their favour. Your arsenal of burst damage, slows, and AOE over time let you swing fights in your favour and pick of lone targets with ease.

All of this comes with some minor downsides. While significant, I believe his pros heavily outweigh these. The Joker is essentially a sitting duck if caught out with his skills on cooldown unless significantly ahead. Despite his high damage output, he is prone to silences, stuns, or simply having someone able to burst him down before his damage kicks in. These can usually be avoided by good positioning however, which is made much easier because of his E, and our chosen stolen powers.

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Matchups:

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I'll cover my thoughts on a few matches, but there aren't too many people the Joker is designed to hard counter. Likewise, it's usually a specific function a champion has that's problematic for the Joker to deal with, rather than the champion a as a whole. That aside, here are some of my opinions on dealing with the enemy. In most cases, it comes down to a skill match-up, which is usually in your favour to begin with.

Good Against:
Green Lantern
His best chance at bursting you down comes from his ultimate. As long as your E is up, you should be able to jump out of the AOE before the jet lands. If any teammates are caught in the blast, you can fire a Q where you jumped from to stun enemies that decide to engage. If you catch him one on one, you can get the jump on him and unload all your damage faster than he can build up his rocket marks.
Green Arrow
You can deal with his strong lane pressure by staying back and last hitting with Q if needed. Bullseye can be dodged by side-stepping or using E. His only form of crowd control for you is a slow, which stop you from jumping in and out on him. He may have high sustained damage, but you can burst him down before he's able to kill you.

Bad Against:
Sinestro
This guy will stun you, silence you, and simply burst you down before you can get your damage off. Sinestro is easily the worst match up for Joker to deal with. Let someone tankier on your team deal with his initial damage, or try to poke him without getting caught out. Playing against him is just a massive buzz-kill, and he can potentially do massive damage if he turns on a whole team trying to dive him. Avoid with caution.
Supergirl
She can charge in and constantly knock you down, while pushing you around the fight and away from your AOE damage. Try not to let her get the initial jump on you, or have a strong front line tank the damage for you. Be careful when standing behind your tanks, because her Q will punch through them and still hit you.

Useful Allies:
Starro
Starro makes your burst even stronger with his parasite. He can also slow them, or simply hold them down inside your ultimate as well. Pairing the Joker with Starro makes pick-offs on even tanky opponents fairly easy.
Gaslight Joker
His ham toss can scare enemies back into your ultimate, or keep them off you. He has a lot of health to soak damage for you, and is fast enough to keep up with your mobility if you need his assistance. His ultimate goes well with yours since he can trap enemies in his AOE slow and damage over time, keeping them stuck in yours as well.

I'm sure there's more I could say about how the Joker deals with certain people, but I'd rather have the majority of this guide be about fundamentals rather than individual match-ups. Knowing the core strengths of the Joker is more important than one technique to use against a certain champion who might not even be in every game you play.

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Abilities:

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Mr. Punchy (Q)

Damage: 70/120/170/220 + 75% Power Damage
Cost: 40/55/70/85 Will
Cooldown: 6 Seconds

Mr. Punchy is a long ranged single target skill-shot, and the bread and butter of your damage sandwich. Your Q shoots a rocket in a line that deals damage to the first enemy it hits, and stuns for 0.3 sconds. It is our primary source of damage, thus we max it first by increase it at levels 1, 3, 7, 9. The can be used to last hit drones from a safe distance, or to harass enemies in your lane. Most people go for a point in every skill by level 3, but by getting a second point in Q at level 3 to nearly double it's damage, you have a better chance at going for an early kill.

Tips:
-Position yourself to the side of the lane to shoot around their drones. If your opponent goes up to last hit a drone, you can shoot him during his attack animation to almost guarantee a free hit, plus an auto-attack.
-Take advantage of the long range to snipe enemies running away from a fight, recalling to base, or capturing a relay before you get there.
-The 0.3 second stun is useful to keep enemies standing inside your AOE damage even longer.

Surprise! (W)

Damage: 40/70/100/130 + 60% Power Damage
Bite Damage: 30/50/70/90 + 25% Power Damage
Cost: 75/100/125/150 Will
Cooldown: /16/14/12/10 Seconds

Surprise! is an AOE delayed explosive, which spawns 4 teeth that slow, grant vision, and deal additional damage. This is your second non-ultimate damage dealer, so we max it second to maximize our damage output at levels 2, 5, 8, 11. Since this does AOE damage, you can use it to zone melee champions away from the wave, quickly farm drones, or the jungle camps. The slow from the teeth helps your team chase enemies, or buy you time to run away.

Tips:
-Try to place the present behind your opponent, so even if they try to run away, they'll be caught in the initial blast.
-Stacking the present on top of your ultimate allows you to deal even more damage, as well as keep them inside the cloud even longer.
-You can use this in the center of a jungle camp to kill all the small creatures in order to focus down the large one with your Q.

Vanish (E)

Cost: 100 Will
Cooldown: 22/20/18/16 Seconds

Vanish is your escape mechanism, which lets you blink away a short distance. When you blink away, it leaves a clowny punching bag which will aggro enemy drones and creatures for 2 seconds. If you use Mr. Punchy (Q) on the punching bag, the Q will apply the damage and stun in an AOE. Vanish doesn't do any damage, and only lowers the cooldown when leveled up, so we get a value point and max it last at levels 4, 16, 17, 19.

Tips:
-Use this sparingly, as it has a long cooldown, and should be saved for when the enemy eventually ganks you.
-Alternatively, if an enemy is at low HP far away or while recalling, you can use your E to quickly blink towards them and use your Q, effectively extending your range to pick off someone before they notice.
-When running away, look for opportunities to jump over a wall or obstacle, so they have to walk even farther to catch up.
-If you really want to play mind games with your enemy, you can use E to jump back around corners or into stealth pads for some sick jukes. Don't always count on these working as they could completely backfire.
-Be careful when jumping forward into unknown territory, as you could be left facing several champions without an escape. Don't be over-confident in your ability to fight multiple enemies at once, since you are prone to taking too much damage at once.

Last Laugh (R)

Damage: 75/110/145/180 + 40% Power Damage
Gas Damage: 250/375/500/625 + 150% Power Damage
Cost: 0 Will
Cooldown: 120 Seconds

Last Laugh is your ultimate ability, which deals massive damage over time in an AOE. The doll does initial damage after 0.5 seconds, then does a large amount of damage over the next 5 seconds to anyone standing in the cloud. Your goal in every fight is to catch as many people in this fight as possible, and keep them locked down for the whole duration. The Joker will almost always win any duel 1v1 if he catches his opponent in all of his AOE skills. As expected, you want to skill this whenever possible, so we level it at levels 6, 10, 14, 18.

Tips:
-Try to have someone with a lot of HP on your team initiate before you, in order to draw all the aggro. Get them to retreat back to your team or brick wall all the damage so you can bait the enemy into chasing into the cloud.
-This skill has incredible turn-around potential, so be cautious when you know he has it available. You can drop your W and R on top of each other, then Q stun someone in the AOE to deal massive amounts of damage in a short time before the enemy can react.
-In the chaos of a fight, you'd be surprised how many people don't notice the purple cloud. Keep an eye out for it if you're playing against the Joker, because it does a deceptive amount of damage for how lack-luster the effect is.

Sadist (Passive)

Power Lifesteal: 5%/7.5%/10%/12.5%
Cooldown Reduction: 1/2/3/4 Seconds
Duration: 5/6/7/8 Seconds

Sadist is a passive that gives you free power lifesteal, allowing you to stay in lane longer to get a credit lead on opponents who have to recall to heal eventually. When anyone dies around you, friend or foe, the power lifesteal is doubled for a short duration. On top of that, when someone near you dies, the cooldown on all your skills are reduced based off the level of your passive. This skill really helps during the mid game when you've maxed your damaging skills and have some items finished, so we level it at levels 12, 13, 15.

Tips:
-Since this works on both friendly and enemy deaths, you can use it to salvage a bad fight with additional spells or snowball a winning fight with skill cooldown resets. There's not much else to say about this skill since it's impact usually flies under the radar.

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Stolen Powers:

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Primary Powers:
Doomsday's Invulnerability
Having a strong shield lets us deal with enemies who deal high burst damage, letting us get our full damage rotation off during fights.
Flash's Super Speed
Positioning is key to the Joker, so picking this up is a guarantee. You should be running this every game unless you're extremely confident in your mobility, or have a constant stream of movement speed buffs from teammates.

Alternatives:
Gaslight Batman's Surveillance Camera
Grab these if you're worried about getting ganked from the jungle, or are in a lane which has a numbers advantage. Placing these in stealth pads let you avoid getting caught out, and let you land free Qs on people waiting in them for you to step too far forward.
Krypto's Healing Wave
If you plan on laning with a teammate instead of running solo, you can opt to get healing wave over your shield. On the other hand, if your ally has healing wave instead, go for invulnerability instead of stacking heals due to the diminishing returns.

Some people prefer to use damage oriented super powers like detonate or meteor drop, but I find the Joker already has enough delayed damage output. Having super powers that keep you alive allow you to duck in and out of fights more often, or win a duel you clearly didn't deserve to.

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Items:

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Leave The Base With:
Nil Ring 500 Credits
Nil Ring provides a hand full of cost effective stats for any power damage dealer. It also provides will regen, which combined with our base stats, gives us enough to keep our will pool topped off between fights. This item is designed to give early stats at the cost of not upgrading into anything, but the Joker can make good use of it's value to bully other opponents if they chose to a Tier 1 item instead of a Nil item.
Modular Health Vial (3) 500 Credits
Modular Health Vial is pretty standard on anyone who plans on laning. Getting the Tier 3 version allows us to get the maximum amount of portable health regen in order to keep us farming in lane rather than spending time heading back to heal. You should be able to manage without a Will Vial since you have plenty of will regen from your Nil Ring.

First Major Purchase:
Fatality's Energy Lance (4) 3000 Credits
The reason I want to put so much emphasis on this item is because the value it has in the early game over the other alternatives.

With our modifications, a Tier 4 Energy Lance will give us:
+85 Power Damage
+20 Power Penetration
Energy Blast: Activate to fire a blast of energy that deals damage to the first enemy Champion hit equal to 10% of their current Health as Power Damage, and increases further damage you deal to them by 10% for 5s (20s Cooldown)

Fatality's Energy Lance already lets us get some of the most power damage we can get in a single item, just behind The Starheart. We want to stack power as quickly as possible, so deviating from that goal for health or will only hinders our late game power. Early game, most people you'll be laning against won't be building power armour, due to having the same game plan. Being able to go through 20 of their 30 starting power armour lets our poke chunk the enemy for a lot more damage, forcing them to play passively or risk exposing themselves for a free kill.

On top of that, we also get an active ability that lets us amplify all our damage dealt by 10%. Early on you're not going to be fighting too many people at once, so being able to squeeze out that extra 10% damage on a single target helps secure an early game lead. Not only that, but you also get to do 10% of their current health as damage to compensate for your E not directly doing damage. This allows us to match, if not trade favourably with the enemy along with our passive power lifesteal. The active can be cast just before you use your Q on someone since there isn't a cast animation, giving them less time to react to your initiation.

I mean why would you want to give up all this value for something like Cosmic Belt?
+200 Health
+30 Power Damage
+15 Power Penetration

While Cosmic Belt may be 1000 credits cheaper, it only gives a little over a third of what Energy Lance does, and it has less power penetration. You may get health out of it, but you really don't want to be in the middle of the fray taking damage to begin with. It's a nice safety net at best, but the Joker is so elusive you can position yourself outside of fights to avoid damage to begin with.

Get These Every Game:
Psi-Scimitar (3) 2750 Credits
Psi-Scimitar gives us even more power, as well as bonus power damage on our auto-attacks after each spell. The Joker has enough time between spells to weave in some extra auto-attacks while they're stunned or slowed. Making sure to optimize the number of empowered attacks you get really increases your damage output, and getting it earlier allows us to take advantage of the flat damage bonus.
The Starheart (3) 3750 Credits
The Starheart and the Book of Eternity are pretty standard on any blaster. Since The Starheart gives you an impressive 100 power damage, plus 30% bonus power damage, no item matches the sheer power spike you get from purchasing it. Already having a few items lets us get a lot of value out of the passive as well.
The Book Of Eternity (2) 2250 Credits
People are naturally going to build power armour if you're snowballing out of control. Getting a whopping 35% power penetration helps us deal with high power armour stacking. The added power damage is just a bonus.

Situational Items:
Cosmic Staff (3) 3000 Credits
Cosmic Staff helps if your enemy is stacking a lot of HP instead of resistances due to the HP% burn.
Eclipso's Diamond (2) 2250 Credits
Eclipso's Diamond is good if the enemy doesn't have a lot of burst potential. You can capitalize on the power lifesteal by being able to constantly heal during fights without fear of getting popped by someone on the enemy team.
Neron's Contract (4) 3000 Credits
Neron's Contract in you need some attack armour against a fed attack damage carry, or you need the 2 second invulnerability to hide in your AOE.
Oa Gambit (4) 2250 Credits
Oa Gambit if you need some power armour against a fed blaster, or you want to further reduce their power armour. This also has the added benefit of being in an aura, so it can also help your team out.

Your last 2 items should be purchased based on the current state of the game. No item build should be 100% set in stone, but there are clearly some items which are always favoured over others.

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Mods and Augments:

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Mods:
Enhanced Power Damge: +15 (Tier 3)
Empowered Psi-Scimitar: Skilled Power 2 (Tier 3)
Enhanced Power Damage: +15 (Tier 1)

All of the items modded are part of your core, so there aren't any slots going to waste. Get the enhanced Fatality's Energy Lance and The Book of Eternity for an extra +30 power damage in total. Empowered Psi-Scimitar doubles the scaling and flat damage on the empowered auto attack, letting us right click for tons of extra burst damage late game.

Augments:
Comet:
+0.53 Power Damage/lvl (Max: 10.07) (G)
+1.4% Power Lifesteal (S)
Nova:
+4.21 Power Damage (G)
+1.4% Power Lifesteal (S)
Orion:
+0.53 Power Damage/lvl (Max: 10.07) (G)
+1.8 Power Penetration (G)
Blast:
+4.21 Power Damage (G)
+1.8 Power Penetration (G)

I picked Comet, Nova, Orion, and Blast for a mix of flat and scaling power damage to help us at all stages, as well as some extra power lifesteal and power penetration to synergize with our passive and item choices.

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Closure:

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Thanks for enduring this grueling wall of text I called a guide. Hopefully you've learned something about the Joker that you didn't know before. Following this build order has brought me a lot of success in my games, and hopefully yours as well. I appreciate any feedback or discussion on what you guys think. Maybe if I start playing someone else other than the Joker I may write another guide, but this took a lot longer than planned.

If you see me in game, I'll be going by the name Proogles. Feel free to let me know what you think of this and feel free to ask anything in-game. Also Original Gangster Joker is the best skin 10/10 no lie.

tl;dr: Don't build Cosmic Belt on the Joker.