Hello, and welcome to my Dominion Rammus guide!

I bought Rammus a few months ago, and while he's a pretty good tank in Summoner's Rift, he really shines (i.e. OP) in Dominion.

The following guide will focus on how to play and build Rammus in Dominion, if you are looking for a thoroughly detailed guide, there's a nice one here.

I will be expanding it when I'll have some free time on my hands, you could say "WORK IN PROGRESS".

To avoid trollvotes, I would like to make things very clear.

This build is based around helping your team capture 3 points, defend them, and help with fights.

This build is NOT based around rolling 24/7, trying to capture as many points as possible. It is also the reason why you won't see Mobility Boots and Priscilla's Blessing in the main build – Powerball alone gives you presence to two adjacent points and half of the jungle – you need the survivability that other boots and items provide.

Pros

• Very high suvivability
• Amazing mobility
• AoE damage, slow, capping disrupt
• Supreme peeling powers
• No mana problems

Cons

• Low damage output
• Not that good against magic damage

A few words about Rammus' abilities, Dominion-wise.

Powerball

This is one of the few things what makes Rammus isanely good for Dominition. With Powerball, you can get the any point of the map within 25 seconds, and 90% of the time under 10 seconds.

Use it to:

• Prevent capping
• "Backcapping"
• Chase down enemies
• Peel enemies
• Get anywhere on the map

Defensive Ball Curl

Not much different than how you would normally use it, if you know that there'll be damage, pop it.

Puncturing Taunt

An amazing three second taunt (that's basically a stun). This will win you any scimmage, thus basically the game. If you are new to Rammus or taunts, note the "ragdoll" effect! I.e. after you taunt, if you move out of the taunted enemy's range, he will follow you! Use this to drag your target along wherever you like.

Use it to:

• Make enemies dive under your point
• Drag enemies from under their turret
• Prevent capping
• Prevent any champion from doing anything worthwhile

Soaring Slam

It cannot bring down towers like in Summoner's Rift, but deals a nice chunk of damage to enemies anyway. Use it in any fight that's not 1v1, or to prevent any creep-powered capture attempts.

Combos

Basic
Powerball → Puncturing Taunt → Defensive Ball Curl (→ Soaring Slam). This will slow, disable and damage one or multiple targets, 99% of the time there is no need to adjust your combo.

AoE burst (w/ items)
Powerball (→ Puncturing Taunt → Defensive Ball Curl) → Randuin's Omen → Soaring Slam → Odyn's Veil

Garrison

It is an all-around good Summoner spell for Dominion, and is especially good with Rammus. If your Capture Point is in imminent danger, taunt one of your enemies and pop Garrison, it's basically a lighter version of Taunt + Fortify on Summoner's Rift.

Don't forget about its use on enemy point as well, it might save an ally or two if you use it well.

Flash

The reason I take Flash is because Powerball into Flash will save your allies countless times, as the creeps unfortunetely are still in the way constantly. You can also use Powerball into Flash to prevent capping when otherwise you wouldn't be in a good position to do that.

Other summoner spells

Ghost: A decent addition to Flash. It maximizes your roaming ability, although Powerball is enough in most cases. Replace Garrison.

Masteries

A pure tank-oriented 0/21/9 distribution, with one point in Reinforce and Utility Mastery for Garrison and the speedboost respectively.

Runes

The runes are fairly optional, they should be generally tanky. I use these:
Greater Mark of Desolation (Armor Penetration) runes for a little damage boost.
Greater Seal of Armor (flat Armor) runes for rushing and surviving top.
Greater Glyph of Armor (Magic Resist /level) runes for greater survivability against Magical damage.
Greater Quintessence of Health (flat health) for additional durability.

You can only build Rammus a tank really. The build might lack damage, but Rammus makes up for it with his taunt, and enables his allies to bring down the target.

The main build is meant against teams with both physical and magical DPS. Because team compositions aren't always like that, here are two alternative builds below.

Starting items

vs. Physical + Magical
vs. Physical


vs. Magical

Core items

vs. Physical + Magical


vs. Physical


vs. Magical

Optional items

Frozen Heart: Another hundred Armor, mana and cooldown reduction. The mana isn't really needed though, so only build it if you're facing a Physical-heavy team and already have Thornmail.
Aegis of the Legion: If your team is having a lot of 4v4+ team fights (should be rare in Dominion), feel free to get it.
Quicksilver Sash: Additional Magic Resist and Cleanse in a bottle.
Oracle's Extract: For all those pesky champs, I'm looking at you, Twitch, Evelynn, Akali, Shaco!
Priscilla's Blessing: The active and passive are nice, but Rammus will be defending points a lot more than capturing them, and he has Powerball for speedboost. Get it only if you have the money and your team has two or less capture points.

"Why"s

Why Guardian Angel?
Rammus' main role is to prevent point captures. Guardian Angel is there so you can be a continuous threat even when outnumbered. The enemy team don't only have to kill you, but kill you again before capturing the point. In most cases your teammates arrive before you're dead, but if they don't, Guardian Angel still gives them 5-10 more seconds to do so.

Why not ... ?
Warmog's Armor: Although it gives a great chunk of health, Rammus is better off with stacking Armor / Magic Resist. With roaming or defending all the time, getting stacks is also relatively hard for him.
Mobility Boots: It is a decent item, however a) useless in fights b) doesn't provide any bonus. Mercury's Treads gives Tenacity, which enables you to do your job effectively. If you cannot Puncturing Taunt in time because of some CC, your carry will be very much dead, and so you are eventually. It also gives Magic Resist, which Rammus somewhat lacks. Likewise, Ninja Tabi is godly against AD-heavy teams. It drastically increases your chance to put up a fight with Jax or any other AD for that matter. Like said a hundred times, you have Powerball for mobility, wasting your boots for just to get to the other side of the map 2 seconds earlier doesn't worth it

Why not Force of Nature instead of Odyn's Veil?
First of all, Odyn's Veil provides both health and mana, Force of Nature don't. Force of Nature does have a health regen, but Rammus can Blue Pill and Powerball back to his point faster than to wait for his health to go up.

Magic Resist-wise, Force of Nature provides 26 more, yes, however Odyn's Veil absorbs 10% of any magic damage dealt, which is huge. I'm not too for math but I'm pretty sure there are already topics to prove my point. Besides, Odyn's Veil's active deals damage as well.

P.S.: Don't forget the actives!

I believe Rammus has three main roles in Dominion.

"Rush top"

Due to Powerball, Rammus can and will get to "top" (a.k.a. Windmill) first. This enables him to secure the position, and actively interrupt any capturing attempts. Due to Chain Vest and Defensive Ball Curl he can survive an initial rush from the enemy team and hold position until the others arrive from capping the lower-top point.

Note: Route to top

You can take two routes to top, one being the direct autopath when right-clicking the point, the other is by touching the speedboost buff. Taking the speedbuff will actually get you to top a few seconds later, however you will come out of the jungle directly below the capture point, as opposed to left/right side. From there you can approach the capture point from the enemies' side.

I'd generally recommend to take the default route, because starting to prevent capturing on the enemies' side will leave you out of position when your allies arrive, and coming out of the jungle from your team's side will have you at a slightly bigger time disadvantage.

However if you see the enemy team not heading toward the Windmill, you can possibly prevent backcapping by taking the speedboost route.

Prevent capture attempts

As said, Rammus can get to any points under 20 seconds (usually around 5-10 seconds). This enables him to have presence at any of his team's points, and easily disrupt lone capture attempts. With two or more enemies at one point Rammus can hold them back until help arrives (getting killed in action might happen, thank Guardian Angel).

Win scrimmages

Rammus with Puncturing Taunt can easily turn around any small scrimmages' outcome. With Powerball, he will get to any fight within seconds, taunt, and let his ally freely melt the enemy away.

"Proof"

Here.

@ y u no mvp?!
Because of the playstyle described above, I don't get points for scaring off enemies.

This is a "WORK IN PROGRESS". If you have any thoughts, feedback, criticism etc. please share them via comments!