I love Amumu because he is a very rewarding Jungler with a game-changing ultimate, lots of CC and depending on how you build him ridiculous tankiness or damage.

Please take your time to read through the item builds before you jump into a game with Amumu. On the end of the Item section I will include a few final builds.

Pros:

+ game changing, versatile Ultimate
+ reasonable amount of CC
+ quite high AP damage
+ has many different build paths

Cons:

- needs a little cover early on
- not a good dueller in the jungle (solution: just run away, ward your jungle)
- you have to land the stun, which is a skill shot

Flash and Smite.

Amumu is a fairly quick Jungler. With Smite he can be even faster.

Flash is just of one of the best Summoner Spells in the game. Learn to use it to get away, use it to close gaps and learn to use it to Ultimate initiate.

The discipline of jungling in LoL is a very interesting, challenging and rewarding one. If you do it right you will be instrumental in your teams success. Do it wrong and bad things will happen. A lot of jungling is experience. Do more of it and you will get better. There are also lots of awesome guides both on mobafire like Jungling 101 and Jungling 202. If you rather watch videos head over to Stonewall008's videos also look at his teir list.

Generally Amumu's path is Blue Buff to Wolves, to Wraiths taking Red Buff then do small Golems. If you manage to get a good leash you will be able to take Blue without Smite. To be even faster at jungling use your Q to get you over walls into the Creep Camps.

Amumu is a little weak early game. When he gets his first blue buff stolen or dies early it is a little hard to recover enough for Midgame. If you are doing draftpick, dont pick Amumu if the enemy jungler likes to counterjungle and/or has a lot of early game heavy damage Champions.

Take a look at the loading screen. Ask yourself: Are you going to get invaded early? Is the enemy Jungler a Jungler who likes to Counterjungle? Will your team help you with pulling? Do you have to countergank top on level 2?

Now starting Items on a Jungler depend on a few things. Take a look at the loading screen. Ask yourself: Are you going to get invaded early? Is the enemy Jungler a Jungler who likes to Counterjungle? Will your team help you with pulling? Do you have to countergank top at level 2?


Cloth Armor and 5x Health Potion: This is the standard opening on Amumu. Cloth Armor will give you the resilience for living through the Buff camps and your level 3 or Level 2 Gank. Health Potion will keep your health up.

Cloth Armor, 2x Health Potion and Sight Ward Start this way if you expect an invade or would help your Toplane with an early ward. You might have to recall after Golems though.

Regrowth Pendant and Health Potion. This is also a very standard opening for Amumu. It will let you build a Philosopher's Stone and get more out of this GP10 item.

Boots and 3x Health Potion This starting build is possible if you know you get a very good pull on blue and wont need to Gank before level 4.

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Cloth Armor and 5x Health Potion is my favourite opening. Maybe it is a bit safe for most people. But I like the fact that I don't have to smite Blue with a decent pull. That way I am faster in Bot lane for the level 3 gank/contergank with both blue and red buff. Also I don't have to recall after Golems but can securely take Wraits and Wolves before recalling. Also I tend to build Frozen Heart anyway so the Cloth Armor is a good starting point.
Regrowth Pendant and Health Potion is also possible, but more risky I think. If your pull consists of a teammate only auto attacking Blue once you will have to Smite blue AND use your health potion so that you don't die at Blue. Also after this you will have to recall after Red or Golems with little health. So no early ganks. If you know you are getting an amazing pull Regrowth Pendant is a good start.

Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold. Those items will make your jungling, ganking very safe and help your gold income.

Also you should grab second level boots. Here you have the choice between Mercury's Treads and Ninja Tabi.
In the current Meta you will more likely build Mercury's Treads for the tenacity (shorter duration of CC effects on you) and the magic resistance.
But if you are against Team that relies heavily on auto-attacking feel free to buy Ninja Tabi.

By minute 15 you can usually see which way the game is going. Are you getting fed, are you throwing your life away and getting your team-mates kills or did it not go so well in Early and mid Game and you are behind? Well luckily for Amumu there are builds for all occasions.

Now we have our Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads and should at least have built two Gp10.

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You are behind:

and / /

If you are behind you have to be as cost effective as possible and you want to go for a tanky support build. Your goal is to protect your carries, keep the enemy team CCed.

Keep your Gp10 items Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold as long as possible.
Frozen Heart is a very good option because you can build towards it at almost every recall as its recipe components are relatively cheap and give you good stats none the less.
After Frozen Heart you should complete Aegis of the Legion a generally good Aura item, especially against double AP. It is not that tragic if the support gets one too. If you die hopefully the support is there to still provide the aura in Teamfights and vice versa.
Next you should build Shurelya's Battlesong out of Philosopher's Stone. This item has a very neat active and a decent aura. Also Randuin's Omen out of Heart of Gold. Those Aura Items will help your team further.
If the game drags on you can decide one of this items as a fifth: Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Spirit Visage or Force of Nature. Amumu now has quite the armor and some health. I buy Rylai's Crystal Scepter if it looks like we are winning teamfights more and more and if I simply need more health and want a little damage. It is the most expensive item of the three. Spirit Visage is built if things are looking desperate and I need a little magic resist. If you can afford it always build Force of Nature over Spirit Visage. This item will give you more magic resistance. If it looks like you would be building for magic resistance anymways you can get a Negatron Cloak earlier in game.

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You are getting lots of assists:

Well that means you are doing something right. You want to be even a bigger distraction and live longer in teamfights. From all those Assists Gold you can get some more expensive tank items early on.

and /

You want to rush Rylai's Crystal Scepter. This item just gives you lots of HP including some AP so you get damage and tankiness, add to that a slow and you are set for teamfights.
Get the Randuin's Omen and Frozen Heart for more Armor and more slows.
Finish your build with Shurelya's Battlesong and another item.
Warmog's Armor and Force of Nature are both good finishing items. Force of Nature if you are facing a team with a lot magic damage or Warmog's Armor for the pure health boost it will give you.
Now if someone wants to kill you, it will take a time and your teammates should be able to pick the enemy off. You will still be able to deal some damage to the enemy, even if you are not focused.

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You got some kills and want more:

This is the build that makes Amumu ridiculous and it is also the reason why he was nerfed recently. You can go with it, if you have been doing well with ganking and got some kills and you are still left wanting more. Also make sure not to steal all kills from your team.

You will want to hold on your GP10 as long as possible.

and / /

This build is quite expensive and a little dangerous but worthwhile when you are in the lead. Please do not attempt this if you are not certain if you are in the lead. And by in the lead I mean stomping the enemy team.

The first items you should get are Abyssal Mask and Sunfire Aegis. Those two items were made for each other. Every time you go for Sunfire Aegis you need Magic Penetration or else it's passive ability will do little to no damage. Abyssal Mask should give you a bit of resistances and AP, Sunfire Aegis gives you health and more damage.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter will give you more tankiness and more damage. You see where this is going, dear reader? Yes next will be even more damage.
Yes, get a Rabadon's Deathcap. You will have to sell your first GP10 item for this. The enemy team should have got by now that Amumu deals damage and should be trying to kill you now so you want some more Armor or Health. So we are not getting a Shurelya's Battlesong and can sell Philosopher's Stone for the Rabadon's Deathcap.
Build Randuin's Omen if you want to conserve some money. Warmog's Armor if you want more health and Force of Nature if you want even more magic resistance.