Overview
Joy is an assassin/mage jungler that specializes in high mobility and burst magic damage. With her skill-based rhythm mechanic, she can quickly move across the battlefield, dodge enemy skills, and deal devastating AoE damage. She excels at early snowballing by invading enemy jungle and securing objectives with her fast clears and high sustain. Joy is best played as a jungler but can also flex into mid lane depending on the draft.
Strengths
Joy has very high mobility which makes her hard to catch. She can clear jungle camps quickly while staying healthy. If she gets an early lead, she can snowball and control the mid game. Her ultimate deals strong area of effect magic damage that can disrupt team fights. With practice, her rhythm based skill allows her to move smoothly and avoid enemy abilities.
Weaknesses
Joy needs high skill to use her rhythm mechanic correctly. If she misses the timing, her damage and mobility are reduced. She is weak against crowd control because stuns and suppressions stop her from moving. She is also squishy and can be killed quickly if caught. Joy depends on items to deal strong damage, so if she falls behind early, it is hard for her to recover. In the late game, she struggles against tanky heroes with high durability.
Rhythm Breaker⚡
This emblem build focuses on cooldown reduction and magic damage for Joy. The Mage emblem gives magic penetration and ability power to increase her damage. Temporal Reign is the best talent because it reduces the cooldown of her skills after she uses her ultimate. This allows Joy to dash more often and keep her rhythm going. With this build she can stay active in fights and deal consistent damage to snowball the game.
CD/SUSTAIN DMG
The Mage Emblem with Temporal Reign is the best choice for Joy. It provides cooldown reduction and magic penetration, which helps her deal more damage in fights. Temporal Reign is very strong on Joy because it reduces the cooldown of her skills after casting her ultimate, allowing her to dash more and keep up her rhythm. This setup gives her both sustain and burst damage, which fits her snowball playstyle in the jungle.
Battle Spell
Retribution is the best spell for Joy when played as a jungler. It allows her to clear jungle camps faster and secure objectives like Turtle and Lord. The spell also helps her invade the enemy jungle during the early game, which is important for her snowball playstyle. Always upgrade Retribution into Ice Retribution or Demon Slayer depending on the match to increase survivability or damage
Tips
Joy shines in mid to late game when her cooldown reduction allows endless dashes. Stick with your team and use your ultimate to disrupt enemies and secure kills in team fights.
Best With Grock
using grocks durability and grocks insane crowd control joy can easily follow up to grock because joy has the fast mobility in skills
Watch Out For Fredrinn
fredrinn is a great counter for joy using fredrinns cc he can triggered and remove the 2nd skill full stack of joy and catch all the damage because fredrinn is a utility jungle tank and can provide on her allies