League of Legends

[Setun]

Kind of like Broin, some asshole took Setun, so I'm using Sharsis.

[Da6onet]

For those of you who play LoL please feel free to post/vote yes/bump/upvote my post on this thread.

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=694336

tl;dr - Ryze got "balanced" in an odd way and I'm offering a solution to fix that.

[Keeloth]

I've been playing as well, ingame name is Keeloth.

[Kassandra]

you all playing on NA servers only? currently looking for some people on the EU servers to lvl my account there up with, so just checking in, since I might disappear on that client for some time ^^

[Keeloth]

I wouldn't mind starting a new account on the EU servers.  Not sure how to go about creating it, though.

[Kassandra]

its a bit dumb, you need to download another client and create a new account

[Arawn]

you need to download another client

You lost me right there... sorry :S

Why do you want to play EU anyways?

I'm scared ill be really laggy on the EU servers anyways

[Kassandra]

Im so liking playing with 30 ping instead of almost 200 first of all...and tbh its just something Ive decided that I want a lvl 30 on both servers, just cus I can....meh...kinda using my time on something until more interesting games appear

[Arawn]

Lool got it... Thing is... i got 200 ping in US server already... dunno how much in EU :S

[Da6onet]

***Warning, Wall of Text***

I feel like I have a jungle/ap/tank amumu build that is up to snuff for ranked games, but I wanted to throw this out there for those to admire or criticize.

I kind of don't want to post on Mobafire just because I never seen anyone else doing what I do with Amumu and I don't want it to become the flavor of the month (resulting in an inevitable nerf).
Main Stats
~3400 HP
~200/160 or 150/210 armor/mr (150 = 60% mitigation, 200 = 67%)
~500 AP

Theorycraft section:

Why Jungle?
Amumu has inherent damage mitigation with the passive on his Tantrum, and great anti-hp (read tank/golem/lizard/dragon) spell with despair. Coupled with defensive masteries and he becomes a viable jungler without any traditional jungle runes. Why jungle? I personally feel Amumu has a weak laning ability early game. His mana pool is small relative to the cost of his abilities, and bandage toss has a very long cooldown for harassing, as well it puts Amumu in potentially bad positions. Amumu early game, like any tank, is susceptible to death fairly quickly. So weak harass and relatively weak defense = poor laning phase in my opinion. Basically it comes down to this, my Amumu build requires gold, lots and lots of gold, and you're not going to farm kills with Amumu early game, at least not consistently. Enter jungling. Essentially, a non-countered jungling phase earns as much gold and experience as a perfect laning phase does, but without the inconsistency of a laning phase. By this I mean you can actually figure out how long it will take you to get to each key point of early game, making you consistent in each game, making the only real variable the relative strength of your team vs theirs (which then dictates how you will approach mid-late game).

Why AP on a tank?
Most people in LoL when they think of a tank as someone with 4000+ hp and 200+ armor/mr or a 300/150 armor/mr ratio. For a tank like Rammus, this is preferable, as adding AP or attack damage to him does not increase his killing potential; slow attack speed and low AP ratios and only two of his four spells that benefit from AP. Amumu is a unique beast, one that got overlooked in my opinion, and hopefully Riot devs won't nerf him any time soon. Like Sion, he has two spells that have a 1:1 AP ratio, his ult and bandage toss. Unlike most champions, except for casters (even then!), he actually has an AP ratio on all four of his abilities. That means AP adds damage output to Amumu, making his utility skills into "ow my butt hurts now" utility skills.

Full build level 18:
-Bandage toss with 500 AP does 800 Damage
-Despair with 500 AP does 24 + (5.7% of enemy's max HP) per second (that's essentially an AoE bloodrazor, also don't forget you have a 40dmg/sec sunfire too :-D)
-Tantrum with 500 AP does 427 damage each time you cast it (CD reduced half a second each someone hits you)
-Curse with 500 AP does 755 damage to everyone in a 600 range.

Oh and did I mention, when you auto-attack someone, you reduce their magic resistance by 35. Coupled with an abyssal scepter and mpen marks you're looking to take off/ignore 63.5 magic resistance, which is what most squishy people like a Sivir have total by end game. I have in fact, killed an end game miss fortune with a three hit combo (BT->Tantrum->Ult). She was like "but you're the tank!"..... Exactly :-D


What is a tank?
A tank is someone who intentionally puts himself between the enemy and the carry (ashe/corki/annie/kass, etc). The tank is the initiator, the person who starts the fights. Typically speaking a tank cannot kill the enemy or enemies by himself, he is merely there to hold them in place so the damage dealers can come in and get off their damage combos unhindered.

As I stated earlier, you see a typical end game Shen running around with 3500+ health and 280/200 armor/mr. That means his effective hp is around 12,000. His damage? 137 on auto attacks with a 1.027 speed, his one offensive ability, does 230 damage. Every 8 seconds (less 2 seconds per hit taken) he deals bonus damage (222 bonus damage damage in this configuration).

So in 8 seconds Shen can do 1548 damage with 8-10 arpen or mpen. To put things in perspective, in 8 seconds
My Ashe can put out about 8200 damage (460 AoE) with 40% arpen (4700 ehp)
My Ryze can put out about 6000 damage (2400 AoE) with -58mpen/red + 15% mpen (8100 ehp) - Pre nerf it was about 6700 damage :-/
My offensive Amumu can put out about 5800 (4200 AoE) damage with 63mpen/red (8400-8700 ehp)
My more tankish Amumu can put out about 5100 (3700 AoE) damage with same pen/red (9800-10000 ehp)

The benefit of AP Amumu though, isn't purely in his damage. No, just like Shen, it is his utility. Amumu can stun a single target for 1 second and stun pretty much everyone on the enemy team for 2 seconds. In addition, the more people in Despair's radius, the more damage Amumu does to the overall enemy team.

I'm not knocking Shen as a tank, I actually think he is the best dedicated tank in the game.

Tank Theory and why a slightly weaker/more powerful "tank" is better:
The problem I see with most tanks, especially faux tanks, is that nobody in their right mind is going to take a whack them and tanks usually, like Shen, can't do enough damage to really be a concern. So tanks are intentionally ignored in team fights, even when they initiate, and so the tank is trying his hardest to taunt/stun/slow disrupt the enemy team long enough for his allies to kill them. Sometimes this works, sometimes it does not. Playing as Rammus, with a single target taunt, that works great when your team focus fires their carry, I noticed all too often, I just wasn't disruptive enough to a team of 5 people. Enter my Amumu, a slightly weaker "tank" that hurts like a son of a bitch if you ignore him, and hurts more if you do attack him (tantrum) :-D

I believe it was Keeloth who stated it best, "As a tank, you have to give them a reason to attack you." I believe this is what many people miss out on when they build their indestructible tanks that everyone will try to avoid attacking.

With my damage output (which gets absolutely stupid silly with Baron's buff and elixirs), if the enemy team chooses to ignore me, I will make them pay. If they choose to attack me, I will last long enough that my tantrums, and more importantly, my team, will make them pay.

Ok, so what exactly are you doing with Amumu?
Runes
9xMark of Insight (marks are really only good for offense, and these work best on an AP character)
9xSeal of Defense (gearing toward late game, originally got these when they nerfed HoG, but now allow a larger variety of end game situational items)
9xGlyph of Shielding (I put these on nearly every character I own, MR is the weaker of every character's base defense stats, and most teams are AP heavy these days).
3xQuintessance of Shielding (see above)

End game this gives 44 mres, 24 armor, and 8.5 mpen

Summoner Spells:
Smite (if someone says they're jungling and they don't have this, dodge the queue. Even if they can jungle without it, they will be much much slower at doing so, which defeats the purpose of jungling).
Ghost (Escape/Chase skill)


Masteries:
0/21/9
Defensive:
Tier 1 Resistance 3/3, Hardiness 3/3 (tank stats)
Tier 2 Evasion 2/4 (my preference measly dodge>measly HP regen in a team fight)
Tier 3 Defensive Mastery 2/2 Harden Skin 3/3 (jungle/tank stats)
Tier 4 Veteran's Scars 4/4 (great early game hp for taking on golem at level 1)
Tier 5 Ardor 3/3 (AP boost ftw)
Tier 6 Tenacity (tank stat)

Utility:
Tier 1 Good Hands 3/3 Haste 1/1 (Good hands > Perseverance unless you're a dedicated healer and/or stacked hp regen person like Mundo/Vlad, haste for the ghost spell you'll take and 4th point in T1)
Tier 2 Awareness 4/4 (jungle stat and great to have in general, you don't want to fall behind)
Tier 3 Greed 1/1 (Greed > Smite mastery, if you need me to show you the math, I will, biggest trap just about all junglers fall into. I also use this instead of the extra 40second buff I'd get on Golem/Lizard buff for two reasons: 1- pays for a ward every 12 minutes 2- that extra 40 seconds doesn't really get me that much utility vs a 3minute ward)

Skill order:
W->E->E->Q->E->R, Then R>E>W>Q

Item Build Order:
Ruby Crystal -> HoG -> Faerie Charm + Sight Ward -> Philosopher's Stone -> Boots 1 -> Chain Armor + Sight Ward -> Negatron Cloak + Sight Ward (if needed) -> Rod of Ages -> Merc Treads -> Sunfire Cape or Abyssal Scepter (typically SFC first though) -> Sell Stone, get Rabadon's -> Situational Item (see below)

Situational Items:
If you've gotten to this point in the game 40+ minute mark, you should have a pretty good idea how the game is going, what your team needs, what the enemy is dangerous with, etc.

Offensive choices:
-Zhonya's Hourglass (vs AD heavy/dangerous team and you have another tank/tanky person on your team to help with initiating)
-Lich Bane (vs AP heavy/dangerous team and you have another tank/tanky person on your team to help with initiating)

Defensive choices:
-Randuin's Omen (vs AD heavy/dangerous team and you are the only tank or the other tank/tanky person is an idiot or quit)
-Banshee's Veil (vs AP heavy/dangerous team and you are the only tank or the other tank/tanky person is an idiot or quit)

Even with the offensive items you'll still have 8400-8700 ehp (better than tanky dps who hover around 7300-8200 ehp), so you're not exactly going to get burst down. Tanky items give you 9800-10000 ehp, right about where most dedicated tanks end up, the difference is you do 3-4 times their damage.

Strategy:
Early Game:
Assumes Unleashed Golem Start
Ancient Golem -> Base -> Ghost to Wolves -> Wraiths -> Base -> Heart of Gold
That should be around 3:45, 3:15ish if you had a good leash and could skip first base recall. You should start with Despair, then level Tantrum twice.

Then go to Lizard Elder -> Golems -> base -> Faerie Charm + Sight Ward.
This should be right around 5-5:15 minute mark. Place the ward where you want (I prefer river with the ability to see at least two of the enemy's jungle entrance/exits and dragon if possible). You should level Q when you finished with the golems.

At this point you can help gank, cover a lane, or continue jungling. Whatever you choose/need, be sure to place that ward somewhere useful (I personally ward river by dragon by the water lillies)

Ganking:
You really shouldn't be ganking at this point unless someone on your team specifically asks for one. This is because you still aren't that "tanky" and you do not have boots. But you do have Bandage Toss, and if the person calling for one is competent, you can at least harass someone out of a lane or assist in the kill if the enemy is over extended. If you can land a kill or even an assist, kill a few minions and what not while you're there, you should be able to finish off your philosopher's stone before the 7 minute mark. Remember though, risk vs reward, if you die, you're looking at 8minute or later mark.

Cover a lane:
This is a handy thing to do for two reasons. Firstly, your blue golem won't respawn until about the 7:15-20 mark, so you have about 2 minutes to kill anyway. As well, the only spawns that are back up are the wraiths and wolves. Ideally you can grab both of these on the way to cover a lane, but even without them, you should be able to farm enough gold off a couple minion waves to afford your philosopher's stone. Even if a game is going badly, you should still be able to finish your stone before 8 minutes. As soon as you have enough gold for it, go grab it. The key with gold/10 items is the faster you get them, the faster they pay for themselves and earn you a tidy profit (past 21 minutes, you're making pure profit).

Continue Jungling:
If nobody is calling for a gank nor needs you to cover while they buy/heal, then by all means continue jungling. If the other team has a jungler, don't try to steal their jungle unless you see their jungler on the mini map and he's on the opposite side of the map (or in one case I saw, they get executed by their golem, then gogogogo). If they don't have a jungler, it's a good time to go get their wolves and blue golem (in that order). Then come back and get your wraiths and wolves. You should have enough gold to finish philosophers. If they have a jungler and nobody needs a lane covered, go to the top solo lane or whatever lane is getting pushed back and farm minions after you've cleared banshees and wolves. The goal is to get to 620 gold.

Out of Early, into Mid Game:
Now you will assist lanes as needed. As soon as you hit level 6, you're going to start really fucking with people. Basically mix farming jungle, ganking, farming creeps to get your gold up. Boots 1 are worth going back to base for as soon as you have 350 gold, after that, work on your chain armor and negatron cloak (get whatever you need the most first), getting another ward (or 2 if really needed) before you start working on your catalyst/RoA.

I usually can't get Dragon before level 10 because usually there is too much ganking/defending going on that requires Amumu's assistance. That said, once you're level 8 with chain armor you can start getting dragon as soon as it pops up. It also helps to let your team know your intention because two or more people getting dragon makes it go faster and helps defend against an unexpected jungler or other foe happening by dragon.

Mid Game into Late Game:
Once you start working on your RoA, all your slots will be filled and you will not have space for a ward again. This is the biggest disadvantage to this build in my opinion, so join the lobby for a dedicated ward inventory slot on the LoL forums! Ideally you want to get your catalyst by level 12, but I realize that games can go badly and your item progression will be slow.

Late Game:
Once you finish RoA, go back and turn the boots into merc treads, armor into sunfire, negatron into abyssal (you can flip flop the sunfire/abyssal depending on what the other team is doing).

End Game:
At this point 90% of games will be over one way or the other. However, if it's turned into a bit of a stalemate, fear not, Amumu has an answer for that, it's called Rabadon's Deathcap. This item will enhance all your abilities and make a true anti-hp stacker (read Cho'gath) killer (if they're stupid enough to keep standing next to you). You'll need exactly 3200 gold for it, as your Philo Stone sells for 400. After that see the section on Situational items. HoG can be upgraded to Randuins, though usually I end up selling it in favor of Banshees (vs usually AP heavy teams or more recently Zhonya's for hilarious amounts of damage and defense).

"Ok I need to go to work" Game:
I can count on one hand the number of games that have progressed to my full 6 item build, and I ended up winning everyone of those for two reasons. Baron's buff + Elixirs. Amumu with these on him becomes an enemy team's nightmare (not that he is a picnic without them). With tanky build you're around 3700hp with over 500 AP, up to 35% cdr (with blue golem buff) and great mana regen (leave w on). I haven't tested the offensive build, but I think it's around 600-650 AP, only 3300 or so HP.

Your team would have to be pretty incompetent to lose with an Amumu with those stats. I take any squishy in my AoE down to about half health with just my ult, let alone if I target them with my stun (which I do). Everyone else is just clean up with W/E.

tl;dr Amumu is awesome, I build him with AP and still have tank stats :-D

[Keeloth]

Wow, awesome guide!  I've been toying with Amumu as my next character (*dreams about the all-star Yordle team), I think I may have to try this out.

[Erathaol]

Overall, it looks pretty solid with one big caveat.  This Amumu REQUIRES team coordination (but doesn't everyone?) to be effective.

I see a lot of "ifs" there, and that's actually an excellent thing to see for any character strategy.  It shows flexibility and a built-in method to adapt to essentially any situation.

But this Amumu needs an informed team, for their sake, to survive.  
Since you start at blue, you're vulnerable to an early gank that will wreck your day.  Your team will need to ensure against that.
Amumu is vulnerable to hard counter-jungling from say a Nunu, so your team will need to be ready to converge on the intruding yeti to eliminate him.
Since your Amumu isn't ganking until at least 6, your team will need to play a bit on the back foot and survive their lane.  More importantly, they can't push or they WILL get ganked and they WILL blame the jungler (you) for their own stupidity.

I also think you can get Dragon earlier, so long as you get bottom lane's help.  Not sure how early you can get it safely, but that'll be something to work on.

In short, with a team that understands and supports the build, it should work beautifully.  With a team that doesn't do either, you're a bit hosed as your allies will crumble with so little early jungle support.

[ArchNemesis]

Nice read! I've been trying to think up a similar ap tanky build for shen for a while but his biggest problem is that he can't farm anywhere near as good as amumu.

[Da6onet]

Yeah I forgot to mention that it needs team support to start off with, Top+Mid if blue team or Bottom lane duo if purple team.

One should cover river entrance and one helps leash. This is ideally, and to be honest, I wouldn't take this build into a solo ranked game, especially if the other team had a strong jungler/counter jungler (warwick/nunu).

I can start ganking at around the 5 minute mark at level 4, but you are correct in stating that the good ganks don't start until level 6. That said, each of the three lanes can have one of three outcomes before I enter the picture.
1. Get a kill/out harass and push hard.
2. Stalemate
3. Get killed/out harassed and pushed hard.

I do expect that even if a lane is getting pushed back hard, a competent laner can hold their lane for 5 minutes (read tower hug for 5 minutes). If they can't hold that long, I have found it's because the teams are mismatched (they're way too good) or more likely, that person is having a bad game. Even then, it is rare to lose a tower under 5 minutes.

If 2 or more lanes are having problems, a jungler can only do so much (can't be in two places at once).

That said, I'm trying to play solo queue in normal to get experience with bad teams and worst case scenarios to get practice with my movements around the map.

As for taking dragon earlier, next chance I get I'll test out how early I can do dragon solo. With 2 people I know I can do it at level 8 easily.

EDIT:
I can take dragon at level 8 solo with chain armor. Level 7 would need one more person. 6 and earlier only with at least 3 people.

Level for me happens around the 9:30-10minute mark (junglers like fiddle/warwick can solo dragon pre-level 6 at around 6 minutes)

[Arawn]

Wow! Very nice read! Good Job Dag! Btw i lab your Amumu <3

Yeey for groopies?