The monkey king is a very sneaky, stealthy fighter who can easily trick his opponent into combat at his advantage. With his "escape" and burst damage, so many options lay in front of any summoner brave enough to wield him in combat. Don't be surprised that by late game you have rage quitters angry at you, surprised at the illusion of the"advantage" they thought they had over you. As long as you tactfully engage and utilize the item set you should be able to handle any situation at any given time!

This guide aims to assist any fairly experienced summoner into the basic knowledge of using the monkey king in combat, as well as bringing bad summoners up to an awareness of the monkey kings true advantages. As any guide is not perfect, and all situations are changing so also is the build. The "OPT" items will help you deal with surprised advantages the other team may have acquired, but the core items should not be ignored. As time goes by you may find your own build that suits your own play style but until that begins try starting here. Monkey can see, and Monkey can Kill!!

When building a champion out i like tend to focus on one main thing rather than doing everything ok. The monkey's goal is to do burst melee damage and if not completely successful, to escape out. So i started looking for combos, the Dodge runes stack well with the mastery's, and who can argue with the speed bonus when you dodge? In order to maximize our damage we focus on criticals and who can argue with +250% on damage? Since the Monkey is a tid bit squishy at the start we gave him some magic resistance which works well with his passive in team fights.

21/9/0
Gives The monkey excellent damage all the while boasting some defense to assist him in his early game lanning phase. Late game will mainly focus on life steal and this will give him survivability that he may lack encountering other fighters. Life steal comes from basic attacks and not his standard ability's, such as his ultimate "Cyclone". Remember this when engaging the enemy so as not to be caught of guard going, WTF happened i used my ult?

Some recent Monkey king players have OPTed for Nimbus Strike, maximizing it first, over his other abilitys. But through early game overview we aim to trick the opponent into making mistakes, and then capatlizing on those mistakes on our own terms.

For instance.

At level 1 start with decoy and rush into combat and pick a fighter and start swinging at him Wait for him to focus you and then hit "decoy" and back off for one second. When you do this the opposing summoner will tactfully think you're a fool for rushing right into a fight you can't win. But what he doesn't know is that your not the true recipient of the damage he is so gleefully dishing out. Sometimes enemeys will exhaust and stun and go all haywire on your clone wasting very valuable early game skills, and as they do your are gaining the advantage in the fight! Now all you have to do is smack him back using a crushing blow, and when he runs, use your gap chloser Nimbus Strike to run him down followed by an exhaust only if you know you can finish the kill.

Another tip early on is to hide in the bushes and wait for the enemey to walk in looking for you. Sometimes Patiences plays a good role. Quickly hit your "Decoy" right as hes about to engage. Then start smacking him back keeping him next to your decoy. He'll not only take damage from you but from the decoy and if you max your "Q" ability out well enough he will be stunned at how much life has been drained in such a short time that he will start to ghost and run. As he does, flash and exhaust and give him chase until hes dead.

The worst thing you can do is to run out of mana and not know it. It only takes a few times of using all 3 of your abilitys wto cost you quite a bit of mana and leave you drained for a time. As long as you do the math before you set up an advantage you should do fine. Just pay attention!

Cyclone
This is an extremely useful ability. It has a large radius, and the damage you deal can damage many opponents in a very short few seconds. this is also a good ability to use when the enemy is full on health at the start of a fight. If he stays near you to fight you will more than likely have a health advantage over him by the time your done tornadoing him! If when your done and your low on life, decoy out! If not he will now start to realize his advantage has been lost and begin to run, as he does chase him and save your nimbus strike just in case he has more speed than you do. If all goes well you have many tools to use along the chose that should employ you the finishing kill!

Crushing Blow
Great one time swing with a relatively short CD. Good for smacking on turrets. A good idea is to hit this before nimbus strike. The nimbus strike will not carry the ability over, but the immediate attack following it will. I recommend maxing this first for loads of quick damage that works great with nimbus strike!

Nothing makes a champion more unique, or more similar than any other champion than items! Sometimes its a race of "who can get fed faster", but most of that depends upon who is smarter and what teams plays better. You can't help it if your with a team mate who, for some reason, is doing poorly. But you can do your part by purchasing things in the right order and picking fights you know you can win. Sometimes its better to not die, than to get a kill. The last thing you ever want to do is to over extend and end up champ food.
On the same note, you don't ever want to sit back and cowardly assist your team in fights. Whatever you do play it smart!

You don't want to end up with items that do you little good, and in my opinion, trinity force is one of them. It does a lot of decent stuff, but it lacks the focus that we need, as well as taking a lot of time to build. Our main focus is "Speed, Crits, Damage, followed by, Life Steal! And Trinity doesn't magnify any one of these areas greatly, and instead it only flushes out many things weakly! So i suggest staying away from it for the sake of this build!

Start out with the, which you can sell later whenever you need the extra 238 gold for another item.

Next get the. If you are facing a heavy AD basic attack team, get the Ninja boots instead. But most of the time your speed and tactful use of it will keep you alive.

Next get thefully. Don't get Zeal and then build infinity. You want to be able to run around the map faster than anyone else so you can avoid getting ganked, as well as rushing into situations that may quickly present themselves. The damage will come with proper play and in Mid game when Crushing Blow is maxed out as well as nimbus strike.

Next get yourand prepare for a game change. It is at this point that i say to myself "would i be better suited adding this item now or later or at all?"

If you have a Master Yi and Trydamere and WereWick running around killing everyone, then get a thormaail quickly. If the entire team is filled with tons of CC get a banshee veil.
Whatever you do on this item do it now if you need to. Otherwise and if your dominating everyone, follow up with life steal items to make sure your squishy short term battles are nonexistent!

Core Items
Beserker's Greaves
Phantom Dancer
IE Blade

OPT Items

End Game Items

I went with, andThe monkey king has very little CC, "Crowd Control" and this can be harmfull for him when he wants to seal the kill or when he needs another escape. All-in-all it should be used early game for first blood, so the CD, "Cool Down" is reset for early mid game fights. Flash is, well, just flash. Its good for turret diving, getting closer on fast running enemys like blitzcrank. Its also a backup escape for when decoy is on Cool Down. With it you can hop over trees like a real monkey and get out of harms way.
Other Speels that are good are cleanse, or even ghost. But i stick with exhaust since i focused on it from the masterys.

The monkey king can take some mastering and getting use to. If you have yet to play with a champion with an escape or with invisibility than it may take several games to use and use correctly. His over damage and fights don't seem to work out well in the long run, you basically want to get it, hit, quit it, and get out. Which is what he excels at. He has one of the best escapes in the whole game, and as long as you focus on getting use to it for baiting, running, and even approaching, you should crush and kill anyone 1v1.

Pros
Good burst damage
Fun Escape/Bait Ability
Excellent Late game Carry/Assist

Cons
Suffers from stuns
Nukers can kill easy.
Still squishly