Play Video

Standard Runes:

Greater Mark of Attack Damage:
With the marks, I go with the Greater Mark of Attack Damage. These runes will allow your auto attacks and your Rampage (Q) to do more damage.



Greater Seal of Armor:
You need Armor in the jungle! These give the most benefit to your jungling.



Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist:
Now you are the tank, and will be rushing into the fight on the front lines. You will benefit from these runes by an incredible amount.



Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: I run these runes for several good reasons. First, with Warpath (Passive), these runes give you a little bit of damage. Second, Hecarim is supposed to be a very fast character, and these runes compliment him very well. I can't tell you how many times I have either gotten away from a gank, or made a gank successful, all because of these three runes.

Alternate Runes:

Greater Mark of Armor Penetration:
Now if you don't like the Greater Mark of Attack Damage, you can always switch to these for a different damage output.



Greater Quintessence of Scaling Armor:
I personally find that Hecarim is still a little bit squishy in the jungle, so I use Greater Quintessence of Scaling Armor when I am not running with the Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: runes.



Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage:
These runes are for if you think you don't need the extra durability, but the damage instead. I don't suggest these, as Hecarim's jungle sustain is horrible early game, and the more armor you have, the more durable you are in a team fight.



Greater Quintessence of Armor Penetration:
For these runes, it is the same situation as the one described above. If you feel you don't need the durability, but need the damage, this is a different rune you could use.



Greater Quintessence of Scaling Magic Resist:
Now this is probably the best alternative to the Greater Quintessence of Armor. You obviously aren't as durable when it comes to the jungle or champions that do massive physical damage like Graves, but it does allow you to be more durable against champions like Brand that deal huge magic damage.

Ghost is a MUST HAVE on Hecarim. It allows you to move across the battlefield quicker to get to a lane, to gank, to chase, or to escape. As a bonus from his Warpath (Passive), it also gives you some bonus attack damage. The only other spell I would switch this one out for is Flash.





If you are jungling, unless you are Warwick or Nunu & Willump, you MUST have Smite. If you don't, you are going to have a very tough time in the jungle and will be going back to base very often in the early game phase.





So, the only time I would take Flash is when I for some odd reason want to put myself through a lot of pain and suffering by playing a glass cannon build for Hecarim. In this rare circumstance, Ghost is not the ideal Summoner Spell. Flash will either allow you to get that split second distance that you are might need in order to get to that pesky adc or to get out of danger by going over a wall or getting out of range of a tower or another champion.

> > >

Warpath (Passive) is an awesome passive. It transfers 15 / 17.5 / 20 / 22.5 / 25 / 27.5 / 30% of your bonus movespeed into Attack Damage. It also makes you ignore unit collision, meaning you are free to move around and not get caught/trapped by the minions that get in your way.

---

Rampage (Q) is your bread and butter. You max this skill first because it is on a short cooldown. Every time that you damage a minion, monster, or champion, it gains a stack of Rampage. These stacks max out at 2. For every stack of Rampage, the cooldown is reduced by 1 second. Now take this short cooldown, and apply it to a team fight. This skill alone can do MASSIVE damage. Also apply the skill to your Trinity Force and your damage skyrockets!

---

Now Spirit of Dread (W) is arguably one of the best abilities in the game. Hecarim summons a circle around him damaging all enemies in the circle every second. The circle lasts for 4 seconds. 20% of all the damage dealt inside the circle to enemies, heals Hecarim. Be warned that there is a cap to the healing via minions at 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 / 210 HP.

---

Devastating Charge (E) is your ganking tool. We mainly just grab this for utility in your ganking, and without this ability, your ganks go from strong to absolute garbage. It gives you an increasing movement speed buff for 4 seconds and while it is still active, it will knock back the first enemy that you hit. It will go on cooldown when you hit someone, or when the 4 seconds is up. In combination with Warpath (Passive), it gives you some Attack Damage, which the skill scales off of! Score!

---

Onslaught of Shadows (R) (Ultimate) is the most over powered Ultimate ability in the game, in my opinion. Hecarim Summons spectral riders which always go a specified distance and deal damage to everyone they hit. Hecarim will only go a chosen distance. Wherever he lands will send out a shockwave that causes everyone hit by the shockwave to flee from him for 1 second. The closer they are to Hecarim while in this shockwave, the further they will flee during this second of pure terror.

Uses:
-If you manage to hit the entire enemy team, which I have done over and over and over again, your team will absolutely destroy the opposing team.
-You can also use Onslaught of Shadows (R) (Ultimate) to escape from a champion if they are chasing you. Now if you are the one doing the chasing, you can use this just like the Summoner Spell Flash to go over walls to to chase an enemy over a wall. If you lead far enough, you can actually fear them right back into the wall.

Core Items:

Situational Items:

Defensive Items

Armor

If the enemy team has at least 2 Heavy AD Champions, I would suggest grabbing at least one of these items. If they have 3 or more, I suggest grabbing at least 2 of these items.

Magic Resist

If the enemy team has 2 AP Champions, I would suggest grabbing one of these. If they have 3 or more, I would suggest grabbing at least 2 of these.

Offensive Items

If the enemy team has high amount of armor, the Lord Dominik's Regards/ Mortal Reminder and/or Black Cleaver need to be bought if you are going for an offensive build. The Lord Dominik's Regards/ Mortal Reminder allows you to ignore 45% of your opponents' bonus armor. Black Cleaver allows you to shred 5% of the enemy's armor which stacks up to a maximum of 6 stacks (which is a total of 30% of their armor). With the two of these items combined, you can deal a decent chunk of damage even through all of their armor.

The path that I use in the jungle is the one below

• Wolves
• Blue Buff
• Wraiths
• Golems
• Red Buff
• Wraiths
• Gank

Note:

• If you are on the blue team, mid and/or top should help at wolves. If you are on the purple team, bot should help.
• For the first gank, you should have Red Buff, Devastating Charge (E) and Ghost ready for the first gank. Make sure you use all of these for the most effective first gank and to take the enemy by surprise with your massive speed. To have your Devastating Charge (E), you MUST be level 4. Do NOT gank before this. Make sure that when you use Devastating Charge (E), you push them back towards your tower and/or away from their lane partner (do whichever is necessary for the most effective gank). Make sure to ALWAYS deal damage with your Rampage (Q) and Spirit of Dread (W) before hitting them with your Devastating Charge (E). This assures that you have the most amount of damage out of a gank.
  
  Note:
  Don't Smite at Wolves. Save Smite for Blue Buff unless your team is going to stay at Blue Buff to give you a Smiteless Blue Buff