still amazes me how many people still think AP shaco = jitb stacking. im sorry but after 30 minutes i only need 2 jitbs to kill their carry, 3 if they got some MR. i see no reason to ever spend more than 25 seconds in 1 place to build a nest to kill even their tank which likely wont hit anyone anyways. i prefer spreading them out to delay and do heavy damage to assassins who love to flank the teamfight to go for your carry's

as pointed out AP shaco is all about deathfire/shiv and later on lichbane aswell. using his passive that deathfire combo can do 70-80% of a squishies HP MR or not, even if you didnt kill them they wont be staying there to do damage in that fight, effectively taking them out of the fight and doing your job in 1 second.

as for shaco laning ill say this now, ive played him since 2009 as AP(hated AD shaco even when he was pretty insta win back then) and ive never jungled with my shaco, couple of hundred ap shaco games in lane shows hes quite decent at it. only ap shaco can do it as he runes up for his mana issues.

the way i lane with shaco in this meta is playing that support role. no jungler is gonna gank that lane knowing theres a jitb nest just waiting for him, and with brush control he can force the enemy to come at and retreat from you in the same path which lets your carry just free farm at a safe distance knowing hes very safe. i poke the squishy here and there avoiding their other support since i dont care if their support tries to farms. some lanes are very hard but most are quite manageable.

he does have some over the top lane control but the smart team will push past the bush an force u to defend turret.

ive never seen an ap shaco do well in premades. Im sure its fun pubstomp but in premades the tanks jus goin troll threw nest and if u weren't fed in some way ur not going burst a carry down before the team can respond. You will die to aoe dmg alone if u rush deathcap.

i personaly think shaco needs a few buffs hopefuly the when they release the rest of his bug fixes he will be up to par. As of right now his clone is the only thing that makes up for his easyly killedness. As long as they can pick the right one he will always be underpowered atm ina fair fight