Shroud of Darkness League of Legends EXPLAINED

As the eternal nightmare Nocturne, one of your key abilities is Shroud of Darkness – a powerful defensive tool that blocks enemy abilities while granting you a huge attack speed steroid. Properly utilizing this skill is critical for dominating your lane and team fights. Here’s an in-depth breakdown of how Shroud of Darkness works and how to make the most of it.

What Does Shroud of Darkness Do?

Shroud of Darkness has both a passive and active component. The passive grants Nocturne bonus attack speed, which scales from 20% to 40% as you level up the ability.

The active part is where Shroud of Darkness really shines. When activated, Nocturne creates a magical barrier around himself for 1.5 seconds. This barrier blocks the very next enemy ability that hits you during that window.

If an enemy ability does get blocked, the passive attack speed bonus is doubled for 5 seconds. At max rank, this means you get a staggering 80% bonus attack speed for a short duration.

The cost is 50 mana, and the cooldown starts at 20 seconds but is reduced to 12 seconds at the max level.

 

Using the Active Ability Offensively

The obvious use of Shroud of Darkness is defense, blocking crucial enemy abilities that could disrupt your assault or burst you down. In a 1v1 scenario, you can activate it preemptively when going for an all-in to block the opponent’s defensive ability like exhaust.

However, the cleanse effect presents some aggressive applications as well. You can use it offensively to remove crowd control effects like slows or snares. This allows you to stick to targets more easily when diving or chasing them down.

More importantly, proccing the 5-second attack speed buff makes Nocturne a terrifying duelist thanks to his sustained damage output. The key is baiting out ability from your opponent first before activating Shroud so you get the bonus attack speed.

 

Defensive Utility in Team Fights

In team fight situations, Shroud of Darkness is absolutely pivotal for Nocturne’s survivability. As an auto-attack-based diver, you’ll constantly be in the thick of things. Use the block effect to negate pivotal enemy CC or burst abilities that would otherwise blow you up.

Some prime examples are Lux’s Light Binding, Ahri’s Charm, and Ashe’s Enchanted Crystal Arrow. You can even use it to avoid getting picked off by something like a Caitlyn Ace in the Hole snipe.

The 1.5-second window is fairly generous, giving you time to react to incoming abilities. However, practice is still required to identify and block higher priorities skills in the heat of battle. Combining Shroud of Darkness with spell-shielding items like Edge of Night enhances your ability block as well.

Snowballing with the Attack Speed Steroid

Getting the attack speed buff from a blocked spell puts Nocturne into a terrifying threat mode. The sudden onslaught of lightning-fast attacks makes him a merciless duelist who can shred squishier champions in seconds.

Maximizing this buff is your key win condition on Nocturne. Look to extend favorable trades, secure kills, rip through objectives like towers or dragons, or even lifestyle up from a cluster of minions if you need to stall.

Because the double attack speed is so powerful, you’ll ideally want to activate it when you have your ultimate Paranoia ready too. This allows you to reposition with the spell’s vision shroud and spell immunity before unleashing your torrent of pain.

When to Max Shroud of Darkness?

There’s some debate around Nocturne’s ability max order, but maxing Shroud of Darkness second after your Q is most common. The consistent attack speed steroid enhances your sustained damage, making it ideal to prioritize after the primary poke/wave clear skill.

Some high Elo Nocturne players even put 3-4 early points into Shroud before maxing the ultimate Paranoia. While sacrificing CC duration, this emphasizes Nocturne’s insane scaling attack speed for monster dueling potential.

Build and Rune Synergies

To fully unlock Nocturne’s Shroud of Darkness power, make sure you build enough attack speed and sustain in your item paths. Core items like Blade of the Ruined King, Kraken Slayer, and Ravenous Hydra allow you to maximize the double attack speed windows.

For Keystones, pressing the Attack makes the most sense by ramping up your DPS over extended trades where you proc the attack speed. Lethal Tempo can work too if you enjoy super scaling attack speed and Chain Link provides nice bonus sustain.

Shroud of Darkness is what separates good and great Nocturne players. Master this ability’s nuances and you’ll find the Eternal Nightmare is a brutal powerhouse when played correctly.