Amumu Build Guide by NinjaNick95

Notice - NEW GUIDE IS UP!

The new Season 3 Guide can be found here!

This guide will be taken down sometime tomorrow, December 7th. Thank you all for the support you've given me on this one :)

Season 3 Changes and Impacts

Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Sunfire Cape

• Boots of Speed have had their movement speed bonus reduced from 50 to 25. More on this in the boots section.
• Abyssal Scepter's MR bonus has changed from 57 to 45. The range of the MR reduction has been slightly increased to 700, which will hardly affect Amumu at all.
• Rabadon's Deathcap has been nerfed. The flat bonus has been reduced to 120 (from 140) and the % increase has dropped from 30% to 25%. This item will probably be replaced in this guide. This is not so much because of the nerf, but because of exciting new items that have great potential for Amumu.
• Void Staff's Magic Pen % has dropped from 40% to 35%. Again, this item will probably be removed for the same reason as above.

Amumu

• Hunter's Machete - Damage dealt to monsters increased by 10%, basic attacks deal 10 bonus true damage to monsters.
• Spirit Stone (builds from Hunter's Machete) - 14 health regen, 7 mana regen, 20% increased damage to monsters, +10 true damage to monsters for basic attacks.
• Spirit of the Spectral Wraith (builds from Spirit Stone) - +40 AP, +10 mana regen, +20% Spellvamp, +10% CDR, damage to monsters increased by 25%.
• Iceborn Gauntlet (possible replacement for Rylai's) - +40 AP, +500 mana, +60 armor, +15% CDR. Passive - After using an ability, next basic attack deals AoE bonus damage and a 35% AoE slow for 3 seconds.
• Liandry's Torment - +70 AP, +200 Health, +15 Magic Pen, spells burn for 5% of current HP over 3 seconds. Effect doubled if enemy's movement is impaired. Half effect for AoE.
• Seraph's Embrace - +1000 mana, +60 AP, +10 mana regen. Grants 3% of your mana as AP. Active: Drain 25% of current mana to gain a shield equal to mana lost for 3 seconds. Amazing initiation potential!
• Shard of True Ice (can't decide between this or Iceborn Gauntlet!) - +45 AP, +6 mana regen (aura), +4 Gp10, Active: Gives targeted ally (or self) a 4-second aura which slows enemy champions by 30%.
• Twin Shadows (how did I forget this??) - +50 AP, +20 MR, +5% MS, Active: Sends out two ghosts that chase the two nearest enemy champions (through Stealth!). If they touch the enemies, they reveal them and slow them by 40% for 2.5 seconds. Great gank starter or chasing tool!

• As mentioned above, Boots of Speed now grant 25 movement speed instead of 50. The 25 that is lost is being added to every champion's base speed (ex. Amumu's new base speed will be 335 instead of 310). This will most likely mean that starting with Boots is no longer the best choice, even for Amumu.
• Upgrading boots gives 20 more movement speed, with the exceptions of Swiftness (35 more along with a 25% resistance to slows) and Mobility (20 more, up to 60 more if no damage received in last 5 seconds).
• Sorcerer's Shoes have had their penetration bonus reduced to 15% from 20%.
• Boots may now be upgraded a third time. Any pair of boots may receive one of the following:
  • 475g - Alacrity - Grants an additional 15 movement speed.
  • 475g - Distortion - Decreases Cooldown of Flash, Ghost, and Teleport by 25%.
  • 475g - Homeguard - Restore health and mana instantly at fountain, and gain a 200% movement speed boost that decays over 8 seconds after leaving (4s on Crystal Scar).
  • 650g - Furor - Doing damage with a basic attack or single-target spell grants 12% movement speed that decays over 2 seconds.
  • 750g - Captain - Allies running towards you gain 8% movement speed. Nearby minions gain 25% movement speed.

Durability is now located on the first tier, while Hardiness and Resistance have been moved to the second. Enlightenment and Initiator have been removed. Indomitable has been renamed Unyielding and only reduces damage from champions. Block (requires both ranks of Unyielding ) reduces damage taken from a champion's basic attacks by 3. Tenacious reduces crowd-control duration by 5%/10%/15%. Juggernaut now increases max HP by 1.5%/2.75%/4%. See the blog entry at the top of this section for all of the changes and additions.

Swiftness has been renamed Wanderer , has been moved to the first tier, now has 3 ranks with a 2% max MS increase instead of 4 ranks, and only works out-of-combat. Expanded Mind has been moved to the second row and now grants +72/125/180 mana at level 18 instead of +72/144/216. Strength of Spirit has been moved to the third tier and now gives +1/2/3 health regen for every 400 mana you have. This looks to be an okay pick, depending on if you decide to build a decent amount of early mana, such as a Tear of the Goddess to rush Seraph's. I'll be experimenting with this for sure. Mastermind has been moved to the second tier and now gives +4%/7%/10% CDR for Summoner Spells. Artificer has been added to the second tier, which decreases item cooldown by 7.5%/15%. This may be useful because of an increase in the amount of viable items with Actives. Runic Affinity remains unchanged, as have Wealth and Greed . Kage's Lucky Pick has become of possible interest though, as it now builds into Shard of True Ice and Twin Shadows, both of which are strong ganking items. Awareness is unchanged but is now a strong pick over Vampirism , which will have no real noticeable affect on Amumu. Nimble has been added as the last tier Utility Mastery, and grants +3% movement speed at all times.

Introduction

Hit 72,000 views today, thanks everyone :) Also, I am now in the Top 5! Thanks for your support!
I have removed the comment requirement for voting due to a decline in the amount of feedback I have been getting. Please, feel free to comment after voting, especially if it is a downvote so that I know what I need to do to improve my guide further. Thanks!

Hello, and welcome to my very first MOBAFire guide! This guide will focus on an Off-Tank/AP build for
Amumu, my favorite jungling champion. The reason why I choose to build him Off-Tank instead of pure tank or support-tank is because with the AP this build provides, you will be able to provide more powerful ganks to help win lanes, as well as deal large amounts of AOE damage in teamfights.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy! Please note that this guide is still a work in progress. Ward placement, jungle patterns, and more still to come!

Please feel free to contact me in-game with questions or comments. My Summoner Name is the same as it is here (NinjaNick95).

Just How Good is Amumu?

fill

Amumu is currently the champion with the highest win/loss ratio in ranked games*, because of his ability to dominate teamfights and make powerful ganks while jungling. I highly recommend him to anyone looking to try jungling, as he is easy to learn, yet hard to master.

*Changes on a daily basis, check here.

Pro Player Pick Video

Pros/Cons

Powerful Pros

• Huge AoE damage and a gap-closer
• Naturally tanky
• Deals mainly magic damage instead of physical (MR doesn't scale with level on most champions)
• Cries on your enemies
• Passive damage reduction
• Great teamfight capabilities
• Great CC
• Powerful ganks with Bandage Toss, Curse of the Sad Mummy, and Flash

• Needs to be up close to be effective
• Lots of MR shuts down his damage
• Squishy early game and is extremely dependent on Bluebuff
• Slow if you don't take MS masteries.

Ability Breakdown

This section will explain Amumu's abilities, as well as give basic and advanced uses for them.

Bandage Toss

Bandage Toss is arguably Amumu's best skill aside from his ultimate. This skill has a massive variety of uses, which makes it crucial that you are able to time and hit these very often, as it is his only skillshot.

Basic Uses: Initiating a teamfight, usually followed by Curse of the Sad Mummy Initiating a gank Catching an escaping opponent Stopping a channeled ability such as Death Lotus or Requiem

Advanced Uses: Travelling though walls to jungle and take dragon quickly without being seen Escaping jungle ganks by throwing it towards a camp (usually through a wall) Catching opponents through walls when visible or on a predictable path

Click here to see a bunch of photos with some examples!

A handy shortcut from level 4 on when bluebuff is up - every second counts!

Another nice shortcut to get to wraiths faster.

Using the redbuff to escape a jungle gank is great - but only when it's up.

A great escape from a jungle gank, can force an enemy to use flash or abandon the chase.

The easiest buff-check in the world, but make sure you know where the other jungler is first!

An amazing alternative entrance to dragon. Can sometimes evade wards, and makes timing with your bot lane much easier.

Despair

Despair is Amumu's sustained damage and tank shredder. It deals a combination of flat and percentage damage (based on max health) making it invaluable in any fight. There are no real 'basic' or 'advanced' uses for this; if you're fighting, you should have it on. It does a lot of damage when allowed to run for extended periods of time, especially once we have a lot of AP.

Tantrum

Tantrum contributes to Amumu's sustained damage in fights and makes him more durable while ganking and jungling. Its passive is extremely strong, once you have a bit of armor it can completely negate damage from regular minions and even some camps. Ever been finished off by a group of minions? It won't happen with Amumu. Keep in mind that getting autoattacked reduces its cooldown, so being the center of attention lets you dish out more damage in shorter periods of time.

To use it effectively, use whenever it's up and as soon as it's up in fights or while jungling. It doubles as a great last-hitting tool in lane.

Curse of the Sad Mummy

Amumu's ultimate, and what an ultimate it is. When you build with a bit of AP, this is a point-blank nuke with a crazy long snare attached to it. You can deal well over 1000 damage if you use it in the middle of a teamfight - pressing 'R' has never won a teamfight quicker. However, it has a variety of other uses besides teamfights.

Basic Uses: Initiating a teamfight, usually following Bandage Toss or Flash Securing a kill during a gank Catching an escaping opponent (works amazingly well for catching champions in bushes or in stealth such as Akali with her Twilight Shroud)

Advanced Uses: Saving a teammate who is being chased Shutting down counterganks or punishing tower dives

Runes

Runes
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration 9	Greater Seal of Armor 9	Greater Glyph of Ability Power 9	Greater Quintessence of Gold 3

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration

Greater Glyph of Ability Power

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist

Greater Seal of Armor

Boots of Speed

Cloth Armor

Greater Quintessence of Gold

Philosopher's Stone

Greed

Greater Quintessence of Health

Greater Quintessence of Armor

Masteries

Masteries

1/1

3/4

2/2

4/3

2/1

1/2

3/1

1/1

3/3

4/1

4/2

1/1

1/3

Masteries

3/4

2/2

4/3

2/1

1/2

1/1

3/3

1/1

3/3

4/1

4/2

1/1

1/3

Defense Masteries

Summoner's Resolve - Standard for junglers, 10 gold is 10 gold. If you're willing to give this up, put the point into Bladed Armor or Enlightenment .

Hardiness - Again, extra armor for jungling and ganking early game. You need as much Armor as you can get (besides Cloth Armor, which I explain later).

Tough Skin - Very nice for junglers, as well as having great synergy with Tantrum's passive. Lasting longer in the jungle means faster leveling, which leads to faster ganks.

Durability - Well, it was either this or Vigor , so I'd go for this for the extra health. Health regen doesn't really become a problem as long as you remember to use your Health Potions properly.

Indomitable - Even more damage reduction, as if we needed it! Again, good synergy with Tantrum. If you want, you can take one rank instead of two in this and put a point in Bladed Armor for slightly faster clear speed.

Veteran's Scars - Extra health for jungling and early ganks.

Initiator - It might seem like a bit of waste on a champion like Amumu considering he has Bandage Toss, but trust me, when Vayne uses Tumble or another champion uses Flash to escape your gank, keeping up with them to continue dealing damage with Despair and Tantrum is a great feeling. Almost forgot, if you don't like this or think that Enlightenment is a better option take it instead. Excellent alternative.

Utility Masteries

Summoner's Insight - This one is iffy, really. The reduced cooldown on Flash is nice, but so is the reduced Recall time. Take whichever you like more.

Expanded Mind - Better than Good Hands , and can help with early game mana issues.

Swiftness - Faster clear speed, faster ganks. If you really don't like this (but I highly recommend it!) put the points in Meditation and the Defense tree instead.

Greed - Combined with our three Greater Quintessence of Gold, four ranks in this acts as a free gold item. A must-have.

Runic Affinity - Makes Bluebuff last longer, which is great for a mana-hungry champion like Amumu. Even Despair can't drain your mana with Bluebuff, so make sure you have it whenever possible. As a quick side note, the Golem respawns every 5 minutes. Try to be as punctual as possible to ensure it isn't stolen by the enemy jungler.

Wealth - This is what lets us start with Boots of Speed and four Health Potions. Since Cloth Armor doesn't build into any of our items, it's more gold-efficient to start with something like Boots of Speed, which builds into both Ionian Boots of Lucidity and Mercury's Treads. As a jungler, being efficient with your gold is important. The fewer items you sell, the better.

Items

Starting Items:

Boots of Speed

Cloth Armor

Click here to see why - warning, math!

• Faster jungle clears.
• Faster level 4 ganks. Considering everyone else starts with Boots, not having them puts you at an immediate disadvantage while ganking. If you don't start with them, you have to go back for them, which should be avoided whenever possible.
• Like I said above, Boots of Speed builds into other items we use, while Cloth Armor does not.
• Amumu has enough damage reduction already. Cloth Armor loses its potency when you have Tantrum's passive in effect after you get Bluebuff. Need proof?
  
  Amumu starts with 21.3 Armor at level 2. Add 12.69 from our Runes and 6 from Hardiness and you get 39.99 Armor (essentially 40), which is a total of 28.6% physical damage reduction. I'll use the Giant Wolf in this scenario because of its high damage and critical chance.
  
  The Giant Wolf hits you once for 24 base damage. Armor reduces this to 17.14 damage.
  Subtract 2 for Tantrum's passive, 2 for Tough Skin , and another 2 for Indomitable and you receieve 11.14 damage total.
  
  Now, without Tantrum and with Cloth Armor...
  24 base damage, except now we have 58 armor. Armor reduces the damage to 15.19.
  Subtract 2 for Tough Skin and another 2 for Indomitable , and you receive 11.19 damage.
  
  11.14 damage versus 11.19 damage....interesting, yes?

Tantrum

Cloth Armor

Ionian Boots of Lucidity

Bandage Toss

Curse of the Sad Mummy

Bandage Toss

Curse of the Sad Mummy

Mercury's Treads

Sorcery

Sunfire Cape

Sunfire Cape

Despair

Abyssal Scepter

Cursed Touch

Sunfire Cape

Curse of the Sad Mummy

Abyssal Scepter

Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Despair

Amumu

Rabadon's Deathcap

Void Staff

Zhonya's Hourglass

• Thornmail/ Force of Nature - for those teams heavy on physical and magic damage, respectively. Especially useful and most likely to be built when your team is low on tankiness in general; as the champion who is "supposed" to be a tank, it's pretty much your responsibility.
• Warmog's Armor - Only build this if you've already gotten your Armor and Magic Resist up to appropriate levels for the enemy team. Adds a huge amount a health, making you, again, more tanky. The regen can be nice between teamfights too, if you survive.
• Athene's Unholy Grail - A great item for Amumu if you can afford the fairly high cost. However, this item is best bought when a lot of the enemy team is magic damage and you chose to use a different pair of boots over Ionian Boots of Lucidity, such as Boots of Swiftness, Mercury's Treads, or maybe even Sorcerer's Shoes.
• Zhonya's Hourglass - More armor for those AD Carries, even more AP, and a 2 second invincibility active. Very nice for when those AD carries have gotten fed!
• Guardian Angel - Good for late-game teamfights, especially if you are getting burst down before you're in a good position to use Curse of the Sad Mummy. Also gives a fair amount of defensive stats.

Skill Sequence

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

In general...
> > >

Recently, I changed this from a fairly standard Jungle Sequence to the current Sequence. If you have comments or concerns please comment or message me and let me know!

The starting sequence remains unchanged. W -> E -> E -> Q is the best sequence for jungling and early ganks unless you plan on ganking at level 3, in which case you would take Q over the second level in your E and take it at 4 instead.

How to level after this is really hard to set in stone. Initially, I recommended balancingb Despair and Tantrum, but in games I found myself maxing Tantrum ASAP, as most other guides recommend. This is what inspired me to change the sequence in the first place. However, while I was doing that and looking at how I wanted to proceed from there, I realized that Bandage Toss is probably more important to get mid-game than Despair.

The true purpose of Despair is to deal sustained damage to all of your enemies in teamfights, which tend to happen most often in late-game, starting at ~14 or 15. Before then, it's either small skirmishes or ganks in lanes. For ganks especially, the higher burst damage provided by Bandage Toss is favorable over the sustained damage from Despair, to do more damage in a smaller period of time to minimize the chance that your opponent has to escape. Also, since we build Sunfire Cape first, we can afford to delay a bit of this sustained damage until later, as it will fulfill that role for us.

Also, if you end up chasing an enemy, the reduced cooldown that comes with additional ranks of Bandage Toss will be more useful than those ranks invested in Despair; if you aren't right next to them, you aren't doing any damage.

Another possible alternative would be to max out Tantrum first and then balance your Q and your W. I haven't tested this, so if you have or if you have any advice on the current sequence please let me know.

However, I can't stress enough the need to be flexible. If the situation calls for something different, do it. I personally almost never end up following the skill sequence completely. Remember, leveling Tantrum gets you more burst and damage reduction, while Despair gets you more sustained damage. Bandage Toss gets a lower cooldown and a damage increase with each rank as well.

Summoner Spells

Smite

Amumu

Flash

Ignite

Curse of the Sad Mummy

Bandage Toss

Amumu

Ignite

Flash

Exhaust

Flash

Jungling

Ah, the Jungle. I prefer to call this my jungle, personally. After building some AP, I wouldn't be surprised if Amumu had one of the fastest clear times in the game. The AoE damage from Despair and Tantrum is so high, and if you have Sunfire Cape and Abyssal Scepter, you'll be tearing through those camps faster than your Bandage Toss cools down. Remember to throw it through walls to maximize your efficiency. This can also catch enemy junglers off-guard!

Beginning the game, I prefer to take the Bluebuff first just to be absolutely sure it isn't stolen by the enemy team. If it's taken, you're in big trouble. Get the top-laner and mid-laner to come guard it for you if you can. The damage done by a stolen blue can be irreversible.

From Bluebuff, take out the Wolves, Wraiths, Golems, Redbuff (Smite), Wraiths again, and Wolves again. You should definitely be at level 4 by now. If you're low on health, go back and grab upgraded boots, maybe a health pot or two, and go gank!

• Tip: If you go and successfully gank bottom, take the opportunity and take an early Dragon! (With the help of teammates, of course.) This can really help your team early game, and you'll likely have it done before the enemy has even considered taking it. You absolutely cannot do this early game without help, so if no one is willing or able to come, don't waste your time.

Skarner

Shyvana

• Tip: If you plan on invading, take a couple wards with you and ward the river on the way there! This can help protect you from someone catching you stealing the buffs and help protect you from future steals. As a bonus, it'll cover for the other lanes if they aren't warding properly.

Amumu

Pictures

Story explaining the match below

Me and a group of IRL friends had the pleasure of playing what seemed to be an actual team one night (though their composition was a bit off, but hey). This is a picture of the full stats. We did end up losing, but only after a full hour. Please note that many late-game deaths as Amumu does not mean you are playing poorly. If you are dying in teamfights, you are doing it right. What it means is that either they're dumb enough to focus the tank, or they know and fear the damage output you can do. In this case it was the latter, and trust me, I was doing enough damage to be feared. You will probably notice that I have more tanking items than are in this guide. This is mostly because of that annoying Darius, but also because the entirety of their team was primarily physical damage. Flexibility is key.
Note: Match was on 9/15/2012.

Changelog

September 13th, 2012 - Original guide published!

September 23rd, 2012 - Visual overhaul and Changelog added!

October 9th, 2012 - Skill Sequence changed dramatically after some testing in-game. Other various changes as well, such as the addition of the Pro Pick video.

October 13th, 2012 - Grammar tweaks, GA added, and the 10k views mark :)

October 23rd, 2012 - Added the Ability Breakdown section and touched up a few places. Spoilers galore! They make the guide look much cleaner. Contemplating adding additional builds.