The Queen of Screams, a Cliodhna Jungle Guide

Hello, this is my second guide here, my first being Swift as a Coursing River (Mulan Jungle S9) which was just updated for season 9.
Currently I play a lot of Cliodhna, I'm close to 60 games as of writing this guide. Hope you enjoy it.

Also, I'm including a build explanation at the end of the guide.

Also again, don't buy Elixer of Power. You're already at 400 power and the 50 of each protection, 10% Damage Mitigation and other bonuses are more worthwhile for endgame teamfights.

With all Junglers I recommend beads so that you can either get away, or remove CC to chase a squishy. In S9 that remains the same. I personally think that Temporal Beads is the superior T3 bead for Cliodhna because you probably are engaging with abilities or running away with abilities and as such a cooldown burst is very helpful in either way for us.

I don't have a strong reccomendation on second relic. I like Blink Rune to chase single targets, Horrifying Emblem to mess up a team fight, and Ankh to potent Anti-Heal. Go with your heart here.
However for the upgrades:

Corrupted Blink Rune is better to leverage an engage for yourself, and we can already escape easily so Scorching isn't that valuable.

Emblem of Incresing Peril I think is the superior choice. This doubles down on why you picked up horrific Emblem. I don't really think that Trembling Terror is very worthwhile

Blighted Ankh is the ankh I would recommend, but unlike the others this one is closer. If I get Ankh it's because I want to turn off someone's healing and deal extra damage to them for the duration, Blighted Ankh gets extra bonuses to both of these. Drowned Ankh is also very usable but I feel its better on a support or a warrior.

Combo #1
-Use your 3 to close the distance and deal damage.
-Use your 1 to deal more damage.

That's it.

Well that's not it, there's one more discussed in the "Flickering Visions (2) Tech" tab but this is generally the only combo.

Cliodhna is pretty straightforward in terms of combos. This combo is how you'll clear jungle and it usually kills camps after you finish your first item.

When dashing with your 3, you do a big slash at the end of the ability.
You can:

Go the full dash and then slash.
Refire the ability to stop the dash and slash.
Or cancel the ability and slash.

This is how you can control where the slash happens.

You can still angle your camera while dashing to change where you slash. If you're quick enough you can dash through, dealing damage, and quickly 180 and slash dealing more damage.
This technique is pretty difficult with a rather low payoff so unless you're really skilled with high sensitivity play, I wouldn't recommend it.

Cliodhna has a very unique passive, she can go into walls. Spooky. While she is in the wall she takes damage over time, this DoT scales up the longer you're in the wall. Additionally her 1, 3 and 4 change in the wall. Plus she gains physical ability lifesteal while in the wall and just after leaving.

Firstly, Cliodhna gains 10% ability lifesteal when leaving the wall. Normally you'll have 25% from Soul Eater, and if you just dropped below 40% you can get an extra 30%.
This means when you pop out of the wall you'll have:

35% ability lifesteal if you are near full health.

OR

65% ability lifesteal if you're at low health.

NOTE: Damage in the wall can trigger the Jotunn's Vigor state allowing you to choose to engage with the massive ability lifesteal if you want.

Normally when using your 1 you do a cone in front of you. When in the wall this will become a semicircle originating from the point on the wall closest to you. This is complicated to describe but it feels very natural.

Normally when you use your 3 you dash and then slash, when in the wall the beginning of the dash doesn't start where you war, but at the closest point on the wall. This doesn't extend your dahs infinitely, it only extends the dash by 10 units, but this will be helpful sometimes when you chase low health people.

Normally her 4 places a wide line of damage over time. When in the wall she places a trap that, when an enemy walks into its damage field, will fire the 4 like normal. Or if someone is already in the targeter then it will fire like normally but from the nearest spot on the wall. IMPORTANT any enemy will trigger this trap, jungle camps and lane minions count. Be careful where you put it.

Finally, while in the wall you don't exist. This means that things like a Nu Wa ult can't hit you in the wall. Enemy Cliodhna can't see you in the wall. I'm not certain if you'd miss a Fire Giant buff but it seems likely. This is good and bad.

So the idea of being able to go through walls is pretty exciting, and thats why it has a cooldown. When you leave the wall you cannot go back in for 16 seconds. Your top passive indicator, the skull, will display this cooldown. (It isn't impacted by cooldown reduction.)

Primarily we'll use the wall for two things:

Surprise Engagements
Escaping


Surprings Engagements are so great. While other junglers need to rely on a jump, walking around, or maybe stealth, we just get to appear like a jumpscare. You will almost always want to engage by using your 3 from the wall and hitting someone with the follow up of. your 1. Works especially well at the game start as at level 2, with our starters, the combo deals ~270 damage which is a lot for a level 2 midlaner. But beyond this all game you'll start your ganks by going into a wall and jumpscaring.

Escaping as Cliodhna becomes a fun game. You cannot enter the wall below 25% health, but you can above this if you think you're going to lose. Even at relatively low health, ~40%, you'll still have about 10 seconds to make a decision about how you want to leave the wall if you need to fully retreat. Generally you'll either pick the farther point on the wall and leave there, or your wait for them to try and go around and leave where they already were. Watch for a second or two about what they'll do.

Odin Note, You cannot escape through the walls of Odin's Cage, BUT YOU CAN escape through a normal wall to leave that way! I give it about a 50/50 if you get hate mail from doing this.

Cliodhna's 2 is strange but very useful. You fire a line that does a small explosion when hitting an enemy, like Kukulkan's 1 if you've played him. You cannot fire it when in the wall.
Then some stuff happens:

If you hit a god they get a debuff indicated by a little blue eye and dark smoke effect.
This debuff makes them unable to see you.
While this debuff is active, you gain a 25% movement speed buff.
When you take or deal damage you flicker back into vision.


So, you can use this as an in combat stealth in a 1v1. It's hard for them to hit you if they can't see you and you can line up another ability more easily.

You can also use this to run away, because it's easy to run away when you have a speed buff and your pursuer can't see you.

Finally you can set up 1vX engagements well. Fly out of the wall in Duo for a gank? Hit the support with your 2 so they can't see you and you can close the distance on that squishy ADC a little more easily while also likely avoiding the support's CC.

Cliodhna's Ultimate is a line damage over time that starts wide and gets thinner, it places an object so you can continue to move after this, and is also impacted by being in the wall. Besides this it DOES BIG DAMAGE.

The first proc of damage after you fire it deals 150/225/300/375/450 (70% of your Physical Power) which. is a large number.
Beyond this is does continual damage of 80/120/160/200/240 (+30% of your Physical Power) which can proc in total like over 15 times, but it does less damage each time it procs down to, by my calculation 16% of the base damage.
Finally it also slows targets for a little bit.

How can we use it?


Well, obviously we can snipe. I've gotten a lot of kills by hitting a squishy with the tip when they're running away and you will too.

Additionally we can snipe from within the Wall. Pretty much the same as above but you're in the wall. In the passive section I said it leaves a trap, if someone is already in the targeter it just fires normally.

We can use it to zone off an escape route in tower. Most squishies will be scared of your damage. So if you're in the wall by tower go to the halfway point and set up a trap, then they'll be scared to go that way and you just created a killzone for you and you teammates.

We can zone in a 1v1. Just as before you can wall off areas to create more predictable enemy movement for you to take advantage of.

You can create horrible battle spaces for enemies. If you and an enemey are walking toward one another, fire your ult at them and turn a little to the left or right and fire again and stay in the area. This means you can deal your ability damage from a safe zone and out damage them, or they will walk in to hit you and you out damage them.

Finally, secure objectives and minions. If you're going to Fury or Fire Giant lat down both ults and watch it melt as you stack your scream ontop of that.


Your ult has a 50s base cooldown but at max Cooldown Reduction it has a cooldown of 30s. That's pretty quick.

Someone needs you to cover mid for a second? Place and ult to clear a wave and go clear a side camp instead for better farm.

Alright so how does our map presence work?

With Cliodhna our jungle clear is super easy so that's in our favor.

Start at yellow buff and then head to the 3 harpies just past this. Killing these will give you level 2 so make a choice here.

If the enemy midlaner is at full or near full health then go clear the two harpies closer to left then go to mid.
If the enemy mid is close to half forget those harpies and go clear the two harpies on this side of mid so you can jumpscare them right after.
If the enemy midlaner is low (you have a great midlaner) forget camps. Rush into that wall next to their tower and jumpscare them. You'll probably get the kill,


After this you're going to patrol Duo jungle for a bit, maybe try to gank duo if the enemy is low, and just wait for Red and Purple to respawn so you can get extra gold and XP for your first back.

After this you go back to yellow camp and the 3 harpies, but this time make sure you drop blue buff for solo. Keep it classy.
From here you want to grind gold up to Transcendence and then just watch the map. Go where the enemy is low and kill camps on your way there and back since you do it so fast.

So, with the core build you'll notice that we have 50% cooldown. Obviously we don't wasted stats like this so I'll discuss why. For Cliodhna we want a lot of power and so we want to keep Bumba's Spear and Transcendence as:

Transcendence gives 114 power. Bumba's Spear gives 70 power + 10% after a jungle camp clear.
This means these two items give 1/3 of max power and cannot be dropped.


Next we build:
Jotunn's Wrath because this item gives 20% cooldown and is rather cheap. We CAN sell this later.
Soul Eater gives us an additiona; 10% cooldown and 25% ability lifesteal.

At this point in the game, before we finish Bumba's Spear, we hit 40% cooldown, and ~206 physical power.

So now we're looking for power to get to 363, becuase this will give us 400 with Bumba's Spear Buff, and extra damage from abilities. So we will build:
Heartseeker, this items give a lot of power, percent penetration, and extra damage off of abilities.
Crusher, this items gives some power, flat penetration, and ability damage.


So by this point we have 5 items and Bumba's Dagger, upgrading to Spear will give us the necessary power and power buff after a jungle camp kill. So YOU have two choices. You can either buy:

Jotunn's Vigor, will give us extra Ability lifesteal, up to 55% physical ability lifesteal. This will keep you alive for a while if you don't get one shot.

OR

Hydra's Lament, will remove the wasted Jotunn's cooldown and give a great deal of extra basic attack scaling while only losing 5 power.

In either of these finishers we hit either 374 or 369 physical power before the Bumba's Spear buff, and just over 400 physical power when we have the buff.

I spent a while playing with other ways to build in Jungle practice right when the season dropped and I wasn't able to find more builds that were more efficient for me.
Maybe you want to drop Jotunn's for Serrated Edge and Potion of Power. That's awesome. Maybe you want Titan's bane and potion instead because the enemy team is super tanky, also awesome go for it.
This build is a base and general template for you to get to know Cliodhna and then when you fall in love with the banshee queen you can swap these out to better fit you.

Go out and try to give those scares.