Hello dear fellaz! This is a guide on how i like to play Rammus. I will focus on describing how to jungle the armadillo. I don't recommend you playing him in any lane, since his full potential is beeing utilised in the jungle! Therefore will the laning description be on really short words, since it's only something I've done in normal games to have a little fun with it (not editted yet, but are soon to come!).

My history with Rammus:
I started jungling about a year ago. Me and some friends started a ranked team "Called 2LeBlancs1Cup". By joining this team I took on the jungling role, and I've been jungling in almost every game ever since! I love jungling and because of some reason it falls really natural to me. I really never played Rammus before, since I was convinced that Rammus was a poor poor champion. Oh boy i was wrong! Rammus is a really underestimated champion, and he really work wonders in any situation you'll find yourself in. He is now one of my main champions, and I enjoy playing as him in every game!

Pros:

- Great mobility / Initiation on gank
- Great damage reduction
- Taunt with a amazing duration
- Tremor which is powerfull in teamfight
- Tremor which also will take down objectives
- Low CD on ult
- Strong late game champion

Cons:

- Weak early game
- Slow camp clearing
- Easily counter jungled
- Relies on his Defensive Curl

I've been through a lot of experimenting on the skill sequence. I've tried to maxing Powerball first, I've tried to max Defensive Ball Curl first and ofc. Puncturing Taunt first. None of these worked in a way that I felt comfortable about to use. So I tried different variations of mixing the 3 main armadillo abilities and ended up with the skill sequence you see in this guide!

Explenation of the 4 abilities + passive:
Spiked Shell (Passive):
"Armor up!" This passive is just lovely. Many Rammus players do the mistake of rushing armor, no matter how the enemy team looks like.. You should not rely on Spiked Shell for a great game with the armadillo. Allways have a great view of who your enemy carries are and then consider how to build up! Do you need MR, or do you need the armor? Yes the armor is great to have vs AP to, so you can decrease the dmg from turrets.. BUT if an enemy AP champion is rampaging, then you shouldn't dive him anyways. Ofcause you MUST build armor later to get some of that lovely attack damage <33. More about the item purchase's will be described in the section "items".

Powerball:
"They see me rolling, they hatin'!". The Powerball is your source of mobility. The Powerball grants you an accelerating increased movementspeed, which allows you to travel fast from camp to camp. Just make sure to activate it with the right timing. This is also the ability that grants you efficiant ganks all over the map. Not only because of the increased movementspeed, but also the knockup (which cancel channeling abilities) but the slow after the impact will allow you and your mates to do some damage before you use your Puncturing Taunt. There are Champion- and spell combos which will deny you from ganking really easy. I will come back to that later.

Defensive Ball Curl:
"I can't gank any lanes, because my team push to hard". That shall not be your excuse with Rammus! You rely on this ability more than any other spell Rammus is in possession of. Defensive Ball Curl increases your amor aswell it increase your magic resist for a duration of 6 seconds! Which isn't only great cause of it gives you superior damage reduction, but it will also improves your attack damage threw your Spiked Shell for the 6 seconds duration. Defensive Ball Curl combined with Puncturing Taunt will grant you more damage, besides your auto attacks, to you anemies! By forcing your enemy to auto attack you, you will punish the enemy with your Thornmail like extra effect of Defensive Ball Curl. If you got Powerball, Defensive Ball Curl, Puncturing Taunt, enough health/mana and you got your red buff. You should be capable to do a good tower dive! RED BUFF = sick ganks of almost any champ.. BUT Rammus can pull of an early towerdive because of his Defensive Ball Curl.

Puncturing Taunt:
"C'mon.. HIT ME!". Rammus loves getting hitted. Especially when you combine his Puncturing Taunt with his Defensive Ball Curl. As you probally allready have guessed, your primary target to taunt is your enemies primary carry. I say this now, and this is not only if you are playing Rammus.. Don't think putting your CC on carries will make you win! There will be different scenarios where focusing the carries with your CC will make YOUR carries vulnerable.. You must not let this happen! Particularly not when playing Rammus. If your support can't manage to keep your carries safe, then you should do the job!
Puncturing Taunt can be casted on creeps to! Puncturing Taunt will lower the targets defensive stats, which is useful when you are doing dragon / baron and you dont have enough time! More about how to clear creep camps will be described in the jungle section.

Soaring Slam:
I LUUUUUUUUUUUV THIS ULTIMATE! Soaring Slam is a magic damage over time spell. Rammus errupts the ground beneath him in a certain radius around him. Even though Soaring Slam is powered by ability power, it still do alot of damage. You want to trigger this ability in every gank, to make sure you or your laning champions secures the kill! However, I do recommend you using tremors at larger creep camps; Blue Golems, Red Lizard, Dragon and Nashor Baron. I will speed things up, and you don't have to worry about Soaring Slam beeing on CD for too long, since the CD is only at 60seconds! If you find yourself pushing an obejective with Rammus, get your minions to the tower without activating Soaring Slam. Soaring Slam can damage obejectives as well. Therefore you should walk behind the objective, activate you Defensive Ball Curl (for the ekstra attack damage) and when enemy minions approach, you'll activate Soaring Slam to! You will then clear the incoming minion wave and deal amazing damage towards your enemy objective. Use Soaring Slam wisely, but don't hesitate to use it at camps or objectives!

When Ganking
For a quick overview on how you abilities should be activated when ganking a lane!
-> -> ->Puncturing Taunt-> -> ->Puncturing Taunt

Skill Sequence's
I've putted out my favourite way to do Rammus' Skill Sequence. Here you can see an other way, if you find your self dying too much (focus on the )

My summoner spells:
- No need for explaining when you are jungling
- Use this to get in and out of battle, and escape over walls!

Possible summoner spells:
- OK boosting to power up your Powerball.
- This spells + the Enchantment: Homeguard will allow you to INSANE gank any lane with a ward.
- I will only recommend this spell to people who don't want to rely on Flash or Teleport.
- A good option, if you're not sure that you can catch the attended target

Don't pick these:
- You don't need this skills to stay alive.
- This spell is ********.. soz
- You are a tank. With your tenacity, you should not need this
- Don't waste mana on ignorant moves, and you wont need this
- AGAIN, you are a tank. No need for this.
- Why even pick this one up in the first place?

With Rammus I go 0/21/9 masteries. I do this since Rammus is a tank, and he's therfore in no need for any offensive mastery traits.

Defensive tree:
The idea of the defensive traits is that I want to build buff Rammus' passive, Spiked Shell but most of all i wanted traits that supports my way of playing Rammus. The idea was to build a bit of armor since it buffs Spiked Shell and it reduce damage from creeps. Now I wated som traits that supports my playstyle. For that I needed HP and damage reduction for as many situations i would like. Now I love to turret dive, I love to know the position of my enemies and I love to be well prepared for any lane.

Summoner's Resolve to get benefits of the Smite

Durability for increased HP

Tough Skin for DMG REDUC. vs Monsters

Hardiness for increased armor

Bladed Armor for DMG REFL. vs Monsters

Veteran's Scars for increased HP

Safeguard for better tower diving

Tenacious (1 point) as a filler to advance

Juggernaut for even more increased HP

Defender Bonus MR & Armor. You can spot your enemies!

Good Hands you are a tank, you might die alot..

Reinforced Armor Excellent when going face to face with enemy ADC

Honor Guard Better jungling, better diving, etc. Great trait!



Utility tree
By putting 21 mastery points in defense, I only got 9 mastery points left. The one traitpoint im really interested to get with these 9 points is the Runic Affinity , since I want to keep on the Blue and Red buff as long as possible. The remaining 8 mastery points has been used to get as much CD on the chosen summoner spells. We want to reduce the CD of Smite since we want to get the most gold from Summoner's Resolve , AND we want to clear camps faster. Therefore we got alot more time to gank. I'm also a fan of the Powerball and Flash combination. But more about that later!


Summoner's Insight 15seconds CD on Flash

Wanderer for more effeciant jungling and ganks (Movement speed)

Meditation (1 point) as a filler to advance

Mastermind 10% CD on summoner spells

Runic Affinity Increased time on buffs

- is good for you damage output on your Powerball, Defensive Ball Curl and Soaring Slam (Faster jungling and Better ganks).

- is powering your Defensive Ball Curl, plus giving you reduced incoming damage from creeps. I do not recommend you building scaling armor Seal's, since the ekstra armor doesn't make that much of a difference in mid/late- game.

- makes you more tanky (nothing special to say here).

- grants you a faster jungling route, and you can get out and gank alot more!

NOTE: All items are set in the proper build order. This means that they the order is priorytized. Some build orders can be changed during your game. It all depends what you are in need for, during the progression of the enemy team.

YOU ONLY START WITH!

This is pretty much a standard item for any jungling champion. The Hunter's Machete will

I'm publishing the guide now.. BUT FEAR NOT! There is alot more to come. More detailed information about mechanics and items. There will be made vids on special maneuvres etc. If you got anything you want to edit for the guide, let me know :-)! Ill gladly consider your opinions for the guide.

HAVE FUN OUT THERE, AND THANK YOU FOR NOW!

20/08-13: The guide were published

30/08-13: Changing from scaling armor Seals, to flat armor Seals in the Rune section (Thanks to Laggermeister, for his Feedback).

03/09-13: Changes in the layout of Masteries