Nocturne Skill Order

Normal order: R > Q > E > W. Take Q first, add E early, then take W once you are about to fight into real retaliation. Max Q first because it is the part of Nocturne that lets him actually reach people, clear space, and threaten low-health targets before he commits with R. Max E second in the default setup because once you are on a target, the fight is decided by whether they are forced to stay near you or walk out for free. Leave W for last unless your augments or the enemy comp make the spell shield more valuable than extra lockdown.

Normal Leveling Plan

  1. Start Q. Use it to contest the first wave, tag enemies who step too far forward, and create a path for short trades. If you start anything else, you give up early lane control and your team may get shoved under turret before you have a real all-in angle.
  2. Take E second if your team can follow a trade. When an enemy burns movement or walks into your side of the lane, E gives you a reason to keep chasing instead of just throwing Q and backing off. If your team is weak level one-to-three and cannot punish, still take E early, but play it as a threat rather than a forced engage.
  3. Take W third or before the first committed dive. You need W when the enemy has a clear answer to your engage, such as a stun, hook, charm, knockup, silence, or a high-impact burst spell. Holding W for that spell is usually better than pressing it at the start of every fight.
  4. Put points into R whenever available. Nocturne’s teamfight pattern is built around the pressure of R. If R is up, your skill order should support clean target access; if R is down, your skill order should help you survive poke and farm safely until the next opening.

Main Max: Q First

Q max is the standard because Nocturne needs threat before he needs style. In ARAM: Mayhem, fights start quickly and recovery windows are short. If Q is under-leveled, you struggle to push waves, you struggle to follow retreating targets, and your R becomes a one-way trip instead of a kill setup. Maxing Q first gives you the most reliable baseline: better lane pressure, better chase setup, and better damage access without needing the enemy to stand still for you.

The practical rule is simple: if you are not already sticking to targets for free, max Q first. If the enemy has long range, slows, disengage, or several champions who can kite backward while hitting you, skipping Q points makes every engage feel late. You may arrive with R, but you will not finish the job before shields, heals, exhaust-style effects, or peel punish you. Q first reduces that problem because it helps you create the angle before the enemy gets to play the fight on their terms.

Default Second Max: E

E second is the normal follow-up when your job is to kill one target, not merely survive near them. Once Q and R get you into range, E is what pressures the enemy into choosing between flashing away, committing defensive tools, or risking a full chase. This matters most when your team has burst, resets, or delayed damage that needs one victim to be held in place long enough to connect.

Choose Q > E > W when the enemy backline has fragile carries, low mobility champions, or players who keep stepping forward to poke. In those games, your best punish window is the moment they spend a movement spell or crowd control spell on someone else. Q in, R if needed, attach E, and force them to answer immediately. If they cannot break the sequence, your team gets a clean collapse.

When to Max W Second

Use Q > W > E when the fight is decided by whether you block the first answer. This is the adjustment against teams with one obvious spell that ruins your engage. If every dive gets stopped by the same stun, snare, charm, silence, hook, or burst setup, extra E points will not matter if you never get to finish the tether. In that case, W second gives you a more stable way to enter and keep attacking after the enemy tries to shut you down.

W second is also better when your augments reward repeated basic attacks, extended melee uptime, shield value, or surviving the first counter-hit. If your build wants you to stay in the fight and keep hitting instead of instantly deleting one target, W gains priority. The action changes too: do not throw R and W randomly at the same time. Wait for the enemy’s key response, block it, then commit. If you press W into nothing, you invite the punish right after it ends.

Augment-Influenced Skill Orders

  • Damage, ability haste, chase, or execute-style augments: R > Q > E > W. Stay on the normal order. These augments make your first contact stronger, so you want Q max to create more contact and E second to keep the target from escaping the burst window. If you detour into W too early with this setup, you lower your kill pressure and give carries time to recover.
  • Basic attack, on-hit, attack speed, or extended-duel augments: R > Q > W > E. You still need Q first to reach people, but W second becomes attractive because your damage pattern depends on staying active after the engage. This order is best when fights last long enough for you to keep hitting. If your team is all burst and the enemy dies or escapes instantly, E second usually gives more value.
  • Spell-shield, anti-crowd-control, durability, or frontline-entry augments: R > Q > W > E. Pick this when you are the first champion going in and the enemy has a predictable stop button. Your job is to absorb or deny that answer so your team can follow. The cost is lower pick control; if you cannot kill after blocking the spell, ping back and reset instead of chasing into the full enemy line.
  • Crowd-control, tether, fear, slow, or ally-follow-up augments: R > Q > E > W. Keep E second when the augment plan rewards locking one target down. This works best with teammates who have skillshots, traps, delayed ultimates, or burst that needs a target held in a small area. If your team is too far away, do not force the E chase alone; you will just drag yourself into peel range.
  • Wave-control or poke-heavy games: R > Q > E > W. Even if your augments are tempting, Q first is still the recovery plan when your team is being shoved in. Under-leveling Q in these games means you lose wave access, take chip damage for every minion, and enter fights already too low to dive.

Adjustment Triggers During the Match

  • If your R engages are reaching the target but not holding them, max E second. The problem is not entry; it is target retention. Add E points and coordinate with ally burst so the enemy has to spend defensive tools early.
  • If your R engages are getting stopped before you can fight, max W second. The problem is not damage; it is denial. Save W for the spell that actually beats you, not for random poke before the engage.
  • If your team lacks wave clear, do not delay Q max. Nocturne without Q pressure becomes a waiting-room champion. You sit around for R, lose health to poke, then dive from a bad position because the wave is already under your turret.
  • If your team has heavy engage already, E second is usually stronger. Let the tank or initiator start. You follow onto the first isolated target, attach E, and prevent the retreat. W second is less urgent when someone else is eating the first crowd control spell.
  • If you are the only engage, W second becomes much more reasonable. You will be targeted first every time. Build your skill order around surviving the counterplay, then let Q and R carry your access.

Cost of the Wrong Order

Wrongly delaying Q is the biggest mistake. You lose wave pressure, chase quality, and poke threat all at once. That forces desperate R casts from bad angles, and Nocturne is easy to punish when he arrives without enough damage or speed to finish the target.

Wrongly maxing E second into heavy peel can also lose fights. E only matters if you can stay close enough to complete the threat. If every attempt gets blocked, displaced, or locked down, those points do not solve the real problem. In that game, W second gives you a better chance to play through the enemy’s answer.

Wrongly maxing W second when the enemy cannot stop you wastes pressure. If carries are immobile and your team can follow, you want E second to make picks cleaner. Too much defensive leveling turns winning engage angles into slow trades, and slow trades give healers, shields, and backline damage more time to undo your dive.

Best default: R > Q > E > W. Switch to R > Q > W > E only when your augments or the enemy’s counter-engage make survival and spell-block timing more important than extra lockdown. Nocturne is strongest when his skill order matches the first real problem in the fight: reaching, sticking, or surviving the answer.