THIS GUIDE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. IT DOESN'T HAVE ANY PHOTOS, YET. IT DOESN'T HAVE COMPLETE EXPLANATION YET. HOWEVER IT IS COMPLETE ENOUGH TO SHOWCASE ON THE WEBSITE. ENJOY!

Hello Everyone, my name is Forrest. My in game handle is Jigglehorse. Feel free to add me whether you have an concerns, or personal questions about this, or my other guides, or even if you just want to play a quick game. This guide will be covering the fundamentals of Udyr, the animal spirit.

Udyr is a High sustain, off-tank, jungler, with the best counter jungling potential in all of the league. His presence in the early game can easily force the enemy team into a spiraling depression with his high mobility and lane pressure. However, as the game progresses, his ganks fall off, but his talents, in the jungle only improve.

Pros

Fastest clear in the game
Comes out of the jungle with full health
Great early game presence
Hard CC
Gap Closer
Great sustain in the Jungle
Awesome map presence
Best Counterjungler, ever

Cons

Kited very, very easily
Falls off late game without having snowballed
Ganks are lackluster

Udyr runes a standard rune page that 90% of the most popular junglers in the current meta should be running. The logic is pretty simple. One might ask: why attack speed over attack damage, or magic pen? Well, Udyr's Phoenix form benefits more from attack speed over time. It's pssive states that every third shot with expel a firball dealing excess magic damage, in addition to your current AD. With that in mind, Udyr is far stronger when building attack speed over AD or magic penetration.
Armor yellows are straight forward. In addition to being tankier when ganking lanes, most jungle camps deal physical damage, and armor mitigates that damage.
Magic Resist Blues are straight forward as well. They are picked for the same reason as their yellow armor counterparts, for additional tankiness and mitigation whilst clearing.
Movement speed quintescences are what I run on all of my junglers. They compensate for the movement speed I lose for starting cloth armor, and they also making my ganks amazingly fast for the junglers that start boots. Very strong choice for jungling.

the 0/21/9 build is the standard build for most supporty tank, and off-tank junglers. 21 points into the defense tree allows the much needed tankiness for surviving the jungle, and creep aggro you'll acquire while ganking. It is the only way to go in my opnion.

the 9/21/0 build isn't a build I use, but in theory, it can be used. Notice that I put my points into 10% spell pen. Remember phoneix deals magic damage. 10% base spell pen makes your ganks and clearing, stronger.

As a tanky jungler, Udyr can select from a plethora of items to fit the play-style of the game he is currently in.

Wits end is an awesome early game item for Udyr. Simply put, its cheap MR AS and on hit damage. It removes the need to buy wriggles.

Frozen Heart is another awesome item on Udyr. As a constant form of of cc in team fights, Udyr can hop on the carry and prevent from doing half of their total damage. It truly is an amazing item. Its also good to note that udyr struggle with mana in the early game, if u manage to get the prerequisite glacial shroud, clearing would be easier.

Wriggles lantern is a BAD ITEM for Udyr. Many novice players will get this item with their early game gold and have nothing going into the late game. The only time Udyr should buy wriggles in the jungle is in 3v3. And with the recent update to the map, it isn't even necessary. DON'T BUY!

Randuin's Omen - It's good to buy Heart of Gold early as Udyr. Over the course of the game it will pay for itself, this is the logical thing to buy after.

Trinity Force, is the quintessential item for bruiser dps. Seriously building this as your only damage source, will still allow you to output a considerable amount of dps. The phage proc is also very strong in terms of countering your ability to get kited. Udyr's tower potential is also very strong with sheen, considering he's always spamming stances to keep up his passive

Udyr's passive grants him additional AS when having switched stances three times. This allows some Udyr's to reach AS cap by the end of the game. This passive serparates good Udyr's from bad Udyr's. Udyr's can potentially have the highest AS at level three if you gank correctly. Instead of ganking immediately from the brush in bear stance. Run into the brush in turtle, then pop bear, then pop phoenix. This maximizes your ganking potential.

Tiger stance isn't covered in this guide. Jungle Tiger is fun if you want to push objectives (Towers, Baron, Dragon) secretly, but this skill is maxed last and should only be used at level 18 for tower pressure, phoenix is far better when maxed first.

Turtle stance is Udyr's most underrated stance, and truly separated the good Udyr's from the great Udyr's. One too many a game I have played where our Udr jungle takes blue off cd due to improper mana management. Seriously with the aid of Wit's end and your passive, farming in turtle stance means your mana is infinite, try to pop phoenix once at the beginning of a camp, and farm the rest in turtle.

Bear stance is referred to by many as a "One point wonder." It truly is. A gap closer that doubles as a stun. One point will do. Some Udyr's make the mistake of only putting three points into this and five into tiger. As Udyr's damage falls off in the late game, Maxing tiger would be a waste of points. Simply put, increased stun duration means less overall damage done buy the carry.

Phoenix stance is what I've put emphasis into this entire guide. Strong AoE clearing, strong ganking passive for early game. Nuff said.