As always, if you vote down please state why so I may improve my build ! Thank you!

Why Pick Amumu?
Amumu is almost always a great pick and fits well into many team setups. He has incredible presence in team fights with huge AoE damage and his ult decides battles. With a few early kills Amumu can hoist his entire team onto his tiny green shoulders and carry them to victory.

About this build
This is for all intents and purposes, A dps Amumu. That doesn't mean it's not tanky, it's tough as hell. My point is that the items we are going for here maximize Amumu's damage output, it's a very convenient side effect that they also beef him out. This build aims to maximize Amumu's threat level and presence on the battle field while building both armor and magic resist to keep him fat and happy.

Onwards and upwards....

Greetings. My name is Juffalo and I am a 21 year old Caucasian Male who likes to yell. In the following paragraphs I will attempt to teach you my preferred Amumu build. I have attempted to make this guide as noob friendly as possible and the one stop shop for new Amumu players. I do not claim to know everything and do not claim my build to be the end all. However I have experienced immense success using this exact same build game after game, and I hope it will work for you. As always please keep your criticism constructive.

Now that I've covered my *** I can go back to being an arrogant prick. This is the definitive Amumu build and if you disagree you are WRONG. If you are a new Amumu player follow this build to the T and I promise mad kill streaks*, puppies, and most importantly. Wins. (*kills not guaranteed, will probably get assists).

All About Amumu

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Amumu The Sad Mummy
Amumu is a bipolar schizophrenic who defeats his enemies by simultaneously crying on them and Raging on them. He is a skilled acrobat and keeper of an ancient curse. His Favorite bands are Linkin Park and Jimmy Eat World.

Amumu the initiator
Amumu's primary and most adept role, is that of the initiator. He is a tank second to his roll of initiator. A well played Amumu will ensure that your team has the upper hand going into every single team battle. Amumu's ult is a game changer and with this item build you will put out impressive AoE damage.

Effective Tank Theory
As a tank, you want to skirt the fine boundary between being beefy, and being completely impractical to kill. You want to be tough, yet jussttttt vulnerable enough to tempt their dumber carries into taking a few shots at you. If you do not pose a threat, your opponents will simply ignore you while galavanting off to ravage much more tempting targets. Yes stacking 4 Warmogs will give you 6.5k health and make you a royal pain in the Nasus to kill, but your opponents will simply ignore you while Ezreal and Corki run off to tag team your Ashe.

The Skills:
Real quick rundowns here: read the tooltips for specifics.

Bandage toss: Skillshot aim and throw, hitting an enemy will stun them and pull you towards them. has a cast time as well as a flight time so you need to practice to get a good feel for it.
Despair: Amumu cries on his enemies and forces them to listen to "Minutes to Midnight" in it's entirety, Slowly draining a percentage of their health.
Tantrum: activate to break dance and deal damage. Getting hit reduces the cool down. Passively reduces damage taken. Great farming skill, huge source of AoE damage.
Curse of the Sad Mummy: God I love this skill. Can be absolutely game changing when used well. Damage is fairly insignificant end game, all about the stun, launch this puppy well and watch the assists pile up. Timing is everything here, Know when to blow it late vs when to blow it early.


PRE GAMIN'

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Summoner skills
FLASHand TELEPORT Non-negotiable on both accounts.

Flash: An all around great skill for chasing and escaping. I take this over ghost as it helps much more to position your ult well for team fights. If your bandage toss catches a creep instead of the tasty batch of Akalis you were aiming for, simply flash right into the middle of them to assure you snag 'em all. Also, if you are just out of range you can intentionally "slingshot" yourself by aiming at a nearby creep and then flashing to your desired spot. Good teams will NEVER give you a clear shot to their carries and will plonk their fat *** 6 feasted Cho between you and your delicious targets, if you don't have flash you cannot place your ult well. The uses are endless and this is the no.1 skill for Amumu.

Teleport: I personally love teleport so I am biased - BUT - this is still hands down the best no.2 skill for Amumu. Being able to put yourself instantly anywhere on the battlefield allows you to take advantage of Amumu's incredible farming ability. Humongous creep wave half way down your lane? port your *** there and Nom the **** out of it before your freeloading Twitche can steal all the funds for your next sunfire cape. He'll thank you later when you set up his penta-kill.

OK are we good ? I swear if I see you with exhaust/ignite I will hunt you down, keylog your computer, and stick all your runes 2 by 2 into the combiner.

A quick look at other skills
Clarity: Admittedly I cut it very close with mana regen in my build. But F this. you have more important things to do. Make friends with a Morgana and make her cart it around.

Cleanse: a great skill. No argument there. However by dropping teleport for this you probably just passed up on about 1k gold of free farming throughout the course of the game. As well as losing your "get out of fail free card" if you die in lane.
I will also refer to specific times to use teleport in my strategy. So if you drop it you're gonna get left out in the cold. That being said, I hate dealing in absolutes (yes I am contradicting myself @&(#$ you) and at higher levels of play you may need to drop teleport for cleanse. You still have flash though. Right !?

Ghost: provides a great lowbie alternative if you don't have flash yet. Now go grind your *** to level 12.

Heal: lol
Revive: lol
Rally/clairvoyance: Make your support heroes pick these up if your team wants them. You are far to busy carrying their collective ***es to be bothered with trifling things like this.

Runes
Marks: Flat magic pen - best increase for your damage.
Seals: You're picking up plenty of physical mitigation with the sunfire capes so Dodge/armor here loses some of it's value. Yes, we will have golem most of the time, but if you get caught without golem you'll be glad you had these suckers loaded up. Also, they're dirt cheap.
Glyphs: cooldown per level - No discussion. by far your best investment. You primarily want this for your ult later in the game when team fights are becoming fierce and frequent
Quints[/u]:Flat Health - Can you wrong with these? No, you cannot. If you are a particularly skilled, bold, and daring individual swap these out for cooldown per level. I choose to roll with flat health however as it keeps you fat and happy while you work to your first giant's belt.

Masteries
9/0/21

WHAAAAA?!?!?? but Amumu r tankkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!

defense is for sissies and Europeans.
(go re-read "effective tanking theory" here)
For this item build. Offense utility offers far higher return on your points.

Offense: Tier 1 talents are all *****. Take the path of least failure and get up to the good stuff. Cooldown reduction and magic pen. Cute little boosts that stack very well with the rest of your build.

Defense: goose egg.

Utility: This where the good stuff at. for Tiers 1 and 2 simply pick your favorite route of gaining altitude. I pick up the regen which helps (although miniscule) and imp teleport. Grab 5 of either in tier 2. The good stuff starts in Tier 3. That extra 5mp5 is GOLDEN early on, you'll be ransacking Golems all over the place so utility mastery is a great return on your points. After that scoop up your imp flash, intelligence, and PotM. Boom, we're already at 16% cool down reduction.

Hopefully you didn't screw up your game before it even started. Check one more time that you don't have ignite as your second summoner skill and go ahead and lock in.

GAME TIME

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OH **** IT"S TIME TO GO.

Let's talk Items
Core: Philosopher's stone,Boots of speed,Sunfire Cape
This is your no nonsense core. Getting to sunfire cape as quickly as possible because once you have that, all items purchased thereafter are exponentially easier to acquire. The only possible flaw in my build (And it's barely a flaw I just point it out to make myself look reasonable) is that you don't have THAT much health early on until you get your giant's belt, so you will probably go 10 minutes without buying a health item.


Post core
After you finish you core flesh it out with another Sunfire Cape followed by Abyssal Scepter. you also want to upgrade your boots to Mercury treads. Why Merc Treads ? Primarily for the magic resist. You already have great armor gain through the sunfire capes, picking up merc treads ensures your protection from all sources of damage. Make sure you atleast have the null-magic mantle before finishing the second sunfire.

Luxuries
After your post core you have one additional spot. Which you should fill from the following list, if the game drags on sell your philosopher's stone and grab another luxury item.


Banshee's veil: If you have an incredibly skilled soraka/kassadin/some other cretinous douche bag silencing you while you are trying to pull off your ultimate, you will probably want to grab one of these. Really the only time I would buy something before The post Core.
Randuin's Omen: A solid choice for your last item slot, more cooldown reduction, armor, health, and a great active for team fights
Frozen heart: all in all inferior to randuins. If you feel you really, really want the mana then scoop this one up. Otherwise I find this a weak choice compared to your alternatives
Guardian Angel Always handy if you're gunning for survivability.
Rylai's Frozen scepter A really fun choice. Gives you slowing tears and more offensive power. Rylai's is a great choice if you are carrying your team and want another tool to lay down the hurt. Your build up to this point already has superb resistance and armor so that extra 500 health will go a long way.
Warmog's Armor:Just kidding, don't buy this, it's stupid. If you want regen get a force of nature instead. I put it in the picture because it needed more green.Much like the broccoli your mom placed on your plate as a child, it is only there for color, never to be touched

Luxuries are all good, Pick the ones that best suit your play style. If I had to pick my favorite though it would be Rylai's, So I tossed that one up in the item build above. Randuin's is a close second. If someone (mistakenly) insists their ult is more important than yours and is monopolizing golem grab Randuin's first.



Purchase order
Buy these in the indicated order, no cheeky **** here, do as your told.

start out with a Regrowth Pendant and head out to your lane, as soon as you have another 680 gold recall back and finish your Philosopher's stone to immediately nab that .5gold/sec. Teleport back to your lane and continue laning while your teleport cools down. Once your port is ready again recall and grab your Boots of Speed]. Once you are level 8 and you have your boots you can start clearing out your forest. If someone on your team has already taken your golem buff ward your opponents and try to steal theirs. Amumu is a great farmer, you should have no problem springing for wards.

After boots and your philo stone grab your Giants belt. Once you are level 10+ and have a giants belt you can solo dragon handily, can probably do it with help at 8 or 9. Keep farming till you accrue 1400 gold for your Sunfire Cape. Rejoice, farming is easy mode from here on out. Simply run into a large batch of creeps, turn on the tears and pop a headspin, boom you're rich.

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Well, without going into a painfully long explanation of game theory I'll go ahead and call this one a wrap. I realize I have left this a little light on strategy, I may add more if questions arise. I will happily answer any questions. Please keep all your criticism constructive and I will keep my rebuttals civil.