Amumu is an extremely valuable tank with his ability to initiate well with bandage toss, his stun from bandage toss and aoe snare from his ultimate to protect your team or chase down enemies. Along with good CC, amumu packs a bunch in damage, while single target is decent, all his abilities but one aoe causing extreme amounts of damage if amumu is allowed to simply sit there, not allowing him to be ignored. Coupled with good jungle capability and ganks that rival Nunu's, he is the most sought after tank in the game at the moment after Nunu was given a slight nerf, Shen has lost flavor, malphite has been nerfed, Maokai's kit being not quite as strong for his team, and Galio's ultimate being easily interrupted.

Since you are tanking, you want tank runes obviously, the health quints are just a nice addition but not extremely needed, i personally like it since you get rather low in the jungle without decent damage put into blue when pulled, the flat armor give you a consistent jungle, the magic resist is nice because there is nothing much better, and magic penetration for a faster jungle and to increase your presence in damage.

In the defensive tree, the armor is nice ofcourse for jungling, the magic resist is for plain tanking, and to lead into strength of spirit which combined w/ regrowth pendant provide decent regen while jungling to keep it up. The reason you skip dodge is because you dont want a jungle that relies on luck and w/o ninja tabi the increased speed when you dodge seems like a waste to me, along with the fact that 2 extra damage subtracted with harden skin coupled with tantrum's passive really adds up in the jungle, and finally, flat hp for obvious reasons. As for utility, the point in improved ghost is obvious, the other 3 dont really matter, i personally am not a fan of putting it in the less dead timer, i dont like giving myself the idea im gonna die haha, and the 4% regen when coupled w/ philo stone and force is atleast somethin to help maybe. The extra experience is needed in the jungle, increased buff durations is amazing, greed is nice for a little extra gold, meditation is nice since you are a mana hog and finally, 3% run speed on any kind of melee is just amazing.

Alright, for items, basically you wanna start with regrowth pendant because the only other possible buy is cloth armor, which is not bad, but it doesnt build into anything valuable except against high physical teams except aegis, which, while a good aura item, is lacking in the amount of personal survivability and damage it gives to amumu, and a tank that is not tanky enough or is ignorable is just useless. For that reason, i prefer being able to rush sunfire cape for faster jungle clearing, more tank ability, and more presence. The later philo stone allows you to not rely on blue as much and maybe give it to carries too which is always nice. Mercury treads i personally just find to be amazing, MR to be more tanky and CC is the bane of any form of melee, getting kited is bad obviously when your trying to catch a clutch ult on the other team. Force of Nature's run speed allows easier initiates, the regen is amazing, and the MR is always nice. Rylai's allows you to be a complete pain in the *** and carry your team. you might be saying , AMUMU CARRY? and im like, yup, sunfire + rylais + force of nature = inescapable, tanky, lots of damage, amumu the tank that does the damage of a tanky dps, its nice. Guardians angel will simply complete your stats to put it at nearly 200 armor/MR when the stats start to fall off. If you get far enough into the game ofcourse, you can build shurelia's with the philo stone to add to your tank ability and initiation.

Despair allows for the most damage on blue since it has a high hp so you want to grab it first, however, u wanna level tantrum first because you take less damage, it decreases its cooldown, and its damage increases decently with each level. Bandage toss ofcourse at 4 since thats around the time amumu can gank. You want to level bandage toss last because it increases your damage the least and isnt completely reliable.

Smite is a must obviously since you are jungling, however, the 2nd summoner spell is a matter of preference between ghost and flash, i personally prefer ghost on amumu and flash on most other characters since i have a hard initiate ability and the run speed allows me to catch people and make sure i stick to them so there carries dont freely destroy mine.

Amumu is a versatile and fast jungler who in the current meta game is the most valuable jungler as a tank after Nunu's nerfs, however, nunu is still a stronger jungler,just a weaker tank. With a regrowth pendant, you will get low in the jungle, but it still works fine if you go blue, wolves, wraiths, golems, bluepill, buy boots and 2 hp pots, get red, and gank. The early philo stone + 1 pt in meditation will allow amumu to not completely depend on blue and sustain his jungle easier along with the gp5 to help your gold income. Amumu's only problem jungling is his reliance on blue, when his blue is taken, he looses considerable speed due to having to back for mana. You can still jungle fine by doing wraiths - wolvess- little golems, back, and get red and repeat to hit 4 and gank, but you are just not as fast.

Ganks on amumu are actually very strong, with his ability to gap close and stun with bandage toss and at level 6 it remains strong even with other junglers getting there ultimates due to his amazing aoe snare that has a long range. The first mistake most junglers make when ganking is where they come from when ganking, if a lane is pushed up, come from the farthest side so you can corner them and easily gap close while they run, this way, you can save your bandage toss for there flash and kill them. Another extremely viable gank is to counter gank, if it is rather obvious where the opponent jungler is going to gank a push up player, wait in the bush for the jungler to gank and you can possibly land a kill or at the very least stop the player from dieing. A jungler has the most control over a game than any other role, so dont let it go to waste, put pressure on lanes, force flashes, i can gaurantee it will eventually land a kill for your team with your efforts, even if you yourself arent there for it.

You are the tank, make sure your team follows you and at the same time make sure you follow your team , as the tank you are the most important decision maker for when to go in and set up fights, you can be the downfall of your team with ******ed initiations or the godsend for your team with amazing plays, the biggest reason teams fail is because they either arent following there tank, or the tank isnt following them, or the tank is just ******ed and doesnt know how or when to initiate. Good tanks can carry your team to victory just as good as a carry can if not better with good decision making