Ah the Ram-man... Ram-Turtle.. Whatever.

*Sunglasses.

Well, to be honest I've been thinking for a while now that Rammus has more potential than people are utilizing.

Really, it just comes down to giving him more utility than he already posses, which is quite simple, and can be done with just Rylai's.

Suddenly, your power-ball's slow is incredible, and your ult becomes 8 seconds of AoE slowing fun.

This is going to make is very hard for your opponents to team fight properly, and will probably force several flashes per team-fight from their squishy champs, just by buying one item.

I also see most Rammus player's stacking resistances which seems counter productive to me. Sure you will need some basic level of resistances, but with just Sunfire, Fon and Merc treads, I have reached 130-140ish armor and Magic res.

I would rather have higher HP, and use my skills to get massive resistances. This will also force the opponent to buy items like Madred's, which they may not have originally wanted to buy.

Part of winning in League of Legends, is forcing the enemy to react to what you have in mind, and then having the tools prepared to beat them for doing whatever it is they have done to try to beat you.

(Did that make sense? ;P)

You're going to jungle.

I'm not going to explain how, you can find Rammus jungling clips by searching on Youtube. Cloth armor 5 HP pots will work for almost any route you decide to take, and the routes can be explained there.

Rammus isn't the -best- jungler in League of Legends, but he's also not the worst. I think he's a better jungler than he is laning partner however.

Also, having a tank be your jungler is handy, because you're guaranteed a certain amount of farm in the jungle. You'll kill creeps, and won't have to worry about anyone farming all your minions and then you're starved.

You might have noticed something strange.

I have the greed mastery, AND I have 4 greater quints of avarice.

This sounds funny, and seems trivial at a glance, but there -is- a reason behind it.

By the end of a 30 minute period, you will have to have bought at lest 3 wards if you're a jungler at a competitive level of play, for you and your teams protection.

Ward = 75 gold. x3 = 225 gold.

Well, I'm going to take a copy out of my Supporting guide to show you the math here.

"Greed... 1 Gold, every 10 seconds. Most people think it's fairly bad (It's not great), but for a support, it's just what you're looking for.

1 gold every 10 seconds, implies that in 30 minutes of game, (1800 seconds) you will get 180 gold. Not that much right? And thusly, in an hour of game, only 360. (Correct me if my math is wrong.)"

So each half an hour, the greed mastery will pay for 2 wards. That's not even enough to cover the wards you'll be buying.

Yet, with the quints...

"We have 3 more gold per 10. So now we have 4 Gold per 10."

"So, the simple, (Obvious) math is, in 30 min, 180 * 4 = 720 gold. Now that sounds okay right?"

There we are. Now in a half an hour, we will have an extra 720 gold, which will cover your entire cost of wards and afford to a recipe item.

I don't know if you've ever tried to jungle with a tank champion, but until you have SunFire, jungling is not the most rewarding experience in relation to the amount of gold you will be gathering unless you land successful kills.

So in 1 hr, these runes and the greed mastery will offer us 1440 gold. That's a big help to any jungler, particularly since Rammus is not very difficult to counter if the enemy team is aware and playing smart.

Because of this fact, I think it is better to have gold coming in, even if it's not much, than to have a small amount of other bonus stats on Ram.

As a jungler it's your job and the supports job to buy wards, and since Ram doesn't jungle fast, you'll benefit largely from this set of mastery's and runes.

The reason I say he is a bit tricky to play well, is because it's hard to balance ganking and farming. He needs to get gold and he needs to farm, but he also needs to gank effectively, or he's not being an effective jungler.

Due to the odd balance, the runes and mastery's I've provided help tremendously in being a successful Rammus.

People might even be asking you how you pulled it off... ;)

He's sort of easy to see coming and you can prepare for him and s forth.

Because of this, a lot of people have the tendency to flash into a fight when playing Rammus.

This is -usually- not wise. If you can simply powerball into them, that's better. If not, and it's a for sure kill with a taunt, you can usually go for it.

-Sometimes- it's a game winner.

That's the nature of Rammus. If you're good, and know how and when to do something big and flashy, you can single handedly roll a team with a well timed power ball into an ult that slows, and a 4k health pool with high resistances.

If that doesn't sound strong to you, I don't know how you think taking is supposed to be done, but that sounds like a pretty good start to me =P

All you need is your Sunfire, Merc treads, and FoN, and you should be able to start initiating fights. As the game goes on you will get tankier and tankier, and be able to play more aggressively and tank harder for your team. Once you have Rylai's, the enemy team will be in a lot of trouble. You'll be doing lots of damage and your skills will have a much more profound effect post Rylai's. Not to mention your tankiness.

I don't like all of the tanks in this game. Not all of them scale well with gear and not all of them have gear that makes sense for them either. Not all of them have skils that make them capable of tanking well.

But, with this set up, you will be dealing decent damage (Which, contrary to apparent popular belief, it's a good thing for a tank to be able to do =_=) your HP will be massive, and because of your abilities, you will be able to have a secret TANKY curl mode at your disposal. Your ult will protect your team and cripple theirs because of the 15% AoE slowing effect it will have from Rylai's.

People are going to have a difficult time dealing with you. Carries will not be happy in your ult. And because it will slow them, they will be force to flash away from your taunt.

I don't think Rylai's is optional for Rammus. It's too good, it has perfect synergy with him as a tank. It changes him from a long taunt, to an AoE slow, an therefore a taunt that you can't escape

If you wanted to change anything in this build, I honestly think the only thing you could make an argument for changing might be Warmogg's for RoA, Banshee's veil, or a GA. I personally didn't find any of the alternatives to be worth the cost =)

I'm not going to explain how to jungle here. Clips as to how to jungle can be found on Youtube if you're unaware how.

Rammus is capable of more than people currently give him credit for!

There is a misconception about how to play Rammus, and hopefully this build helps you see his true potential.

He is still powerful, and you will put fear into the hearts of squishy carry's all over ;)

But, only if you're a REAL Rammus player ;D

*Sunglasses.