Wukong Build Guide by CrusaderOfLegend

Introduction

Rookie Fella's Wukong Surviving Guide

Wukong

Pros / Cons

Wukong is a very interesting champion who, along with every single champion, has some important pros and some cons we are going to face and get through.

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Pros + Good early damage + Good harassment + Has escape mechanism + Fun and easy to play

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Cons - Squishy early game - No escape jump from heavy fights - Hard to master - Difficult to acquire (costs 6300 IP)

Masteries

Masteries

1/1

3/4

4/4

4/3

1/1

1/2

3/3

3/1

1/4

1/3

3/3

2/1

3/3

These are somehow mostly dps masteries I use on wukong, despite the fact that we build him more tanky. Anyway, the only thing I wanted to point out is that the 3 points in Vampirism could be more useful, in case you play solo top or want to use wukong in order to push the lane, on Butcher and Demolitionist .

Another way to use these 3 points on Vampirism is to add them instead on Havoc if you wish to deal extra damage, although this guide, purpose is to help you survive heavy fights mostly and deal average damage.

Masteries

1/1

2/4

1/2

3/4

1/1

1/3

3/4

4/3

3/3

1/2

3/1

3/1

3/3

2/3

1/3

I hadn't come up to any utility tree during game so I thought I shouldn't put any of them up. I believe making Wukong a tanky character is what we should look up to first.

Runes

I mostly use the runes I showed to you above, but I believe there are also more runes to use on Wukong, which could be useful. Most probable combination on Wukong is this combination of runes:

greater mark of desolation Greater Mark Of Desolation

Greater Glyph Of Shielding

Greater Seal Of Resilience

greater quintessence of desolation Greater Quintessence Of Desolation

Weapon Expertise

Greater Mark of Attack Damage

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist

Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction

Mercury's Treads

Wukong

Cyclone

Corki

• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: Provides early game with sustaining attack damage, in order to get squishies soon off lane.
• Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction: Gives you nice cooldown on your abilities in order to spam them faster than usual.
• Greater Mark of Attack Damage: Just like Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage, it gives you more ad for early game.

Greater Quintessence of Health could also prove to be real help for Wukong along with the build we use here, so an x3 of these could also be an effective replacement of the greater quintessence of desolation.

Skill Sequence

Wukong is an attack damage champion who we will build as a tanky chump. Still my opinion is that the skill sequence should go like this:

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

Nimbus Strike

Crushing Blow

Wukong

Q: Why don't I get Crushing Blow first so I can early lower enemies' armor and try to get first blood?

A: The problem with Crushing Blow is that, apart from the damage and armor lower i provides, it does nothing more. In the meanwhile, Nimbus Strike helps you either deal lots of damage to your enemy with the increased attack speed, or help you gank out of bushes, or even escape from a gank early game, when you haven't yet unlocked Decoy.


As you can see, let's guess in this pic I am ganked by Leona and Olaf so that the passage to my turret is completely blocked. Also, let's gues, just to make matters worse, that we are at top lane (sorry for simple and not great photo but my pc has crushed down and the one I'm writing from doesn't have the graphics required to play so I show you on my own) and that the mid champ is also ganking from the bushes so that you cannot afford to escape by going south. Best you can do, even though very dangerous and risky, is to try and Nimbus Strike on the enemy that is closing in and is more behind than the first one coming, in this case Olaf. Leona will probably try to stun you, which will let Olaf unleash all his abilities on you and not impossible, kill you. Nimbus Strikeing Olaf may help you avoid Leona's Zenith Blade and send you close to your turret. Even though Olaf will manage to deal lots of damage t you, you should be able to escape this ganke, safe, but not sound for sure.

Also, please make sure you don't pay attention on the levels and health of the champions in the picture, it's just a random pic i found to show you what I actually meant.

Skill Explanation and Combos

So now that you basically know what to put concerning runes and masteries on we should also check what skills he has and best ways to use them in-game. So, they go like this:

• Stone Skin is Wukong's passive ability. It is an excellent passive for late game. Specifically, as many enemy champions you have close to you, that much stronger gets and so more difficult he becomes to be killed in teamfight. Nothing more to say.
  
  
• Crushing Blow is your most important harrasment tool during early game, as well as your strongest weapon late game. Combined with your Nimbus Strike you can close enough to the enemy and slap him with a before he manages to deal any sample of damage to you. I suggest you max this ability first.
  
  
• Decoy is your of highest importance fight-and-gank-escape ability. I suggest that you unlock it soon early game, but not max it until level 18, as its damage is not significant and scales solely with ability power, which we don't and no one should ever build on Wukong.
  
  Decoy could also be used in an early-game-combo of:
  Nimbus Strike---> Crushing Blow---> Decoy--->Run away from damage
  
  
• Nimbus Strike is your main utility to enter fights quickly and help allies, or close enough to an enemy to harrass him before spamming Decoy to run away. Nimbus strike should be maxed by level 13, since the attack speed it provides gives you great damage during a fight.
  
  
• Cyclone is Wukong's ultimate ability. Just like all ultimates, it should be upgraded on levels 6, 11 and 16. Cyclone is 's great weapon during a teamfight, as well as an escaping tool to complete the Decoy utility. Specifically, as soon as you enter a teamfight, target a champion and him, autoattack and then spam your Cyclone to deal heavy damage to all nearby enemies, as well as knock them in the air.
  Actually, spamming your ultimate during a serious heavy teamfight could mean disaster to the enemy team, e.g. for baron nashor , once all your allies and enemies have joined except for you, enter the fight with nimbus strike, someone, autoattack then spam Cyclone in order to send the whole team knocked up to the air. The enemy team will for sure first be confused on what to do next as well as disorder. Meanwhile, apart from the fact that you may have protected your carry from the enemy carry, you also gave your carry the ability to get one/two kills after this assault.
  
  Last note about Cyclone is that this move gives you increasing movement speed as time passes. It could help you escape ganks or chases, although I suggest you don't spend your precious ultimate on escapades, except on SERIOUS situations.
  
  
  Spoiler: Click to view

  Decoy can also be used in another way against your enemies' concentration on you. Specifically, Phreak himself had shown this trick in Wukong Champion Spotlight: Just while you are running away from your enemies, you can press the ''S'' button to make your champion stop his movement instantly. In case of Wukong, doing so is very easy to confuse your enemies and make them think that you are the Decoy you just left behind in an escapade desperation. If they run forward or toward the nearest bushes, where they may think you could have fled, then use the decoy or even keep it and instantly change direction to a safe zone. HOWEVER i must note: some players, for unknown reason, no matter what, will attack the Decoy. If you have targeted which of your enemies do that, make sure you never attempt a trick of this on them, because they will attack the real you for sure. I'm speaking of a personal experience I once had against a Tryndamere. When I left Decoys behind, he just attacked them and let me escape. But when I tried the above trick with button ''S'', he just attacked me and of course ended up killing me. Who knows, perhaps he attacked the Decoys to heal himself (he had The Bloodthirster twice]]). Anyway, please be real careful around this section.

Summoner Spells and Alternatives

For Wukong I get Flash and Exhaust. i suppose your first question would be ''why?''. well, I answer like this:

This is a great spell for many champions. Especially Wukong. Since he doesn't have any natural abilities for jumping out of fights, despite using Decoy you can easily be trapped and taken down. Flash gives him this lost ability and helps him jump through walls and usually to critical safety.

This spell isn't that important. Like, I wouldn't tell you ''USE THIS SPELL OR THERE IS NO TOMORROW'' etc. I use it mostly in order to weaken my next target champion or slow him down so except for me being fast with trinity force], the rest of my team could catch up with him. It also stacks with [[crushing blow so you can see your enemy's armor going down ''like a torpedo''.

Alternative Spells:

• Ghost could be a great replacement for Wukong. Instead of using your summoner spell to weaken a sole enemy and slow him down, you can fasten yourself to the max, giving you two advantages: either catch up to low-health enemies, or escape from ganks.
  
• Ignite could be useful to Wukong since combined with Summoner's Wrath it gives you bonus attack damage, even though we aren't building full ad but ad tank.
  
• Teleport is a spell I recently saw several Wukongs use in game, just to gank effectively or get back in lane fast. Well, ever since this build makes Wukong a tanky champion, you won't need a gank/solo top/mid spell.

Wukong

Items

Items are what makes Wukong a good player following his ability usage (who doesn't?). These are the items I suggest, with a low pool of alternatives.


Boots of Speed, along with three Health Potions is a normal start for any Wukong.

You could start with Doran's Blade instead, but I advise you to acquire it later, and if needed.


Phage is a great item for Wukong, suggested also by Riot Official Tournaments. You can upgrade it to Trinity Force, or if you feel you are a low hp pool, upgrade it to Frozen Mallet.


is the item you should get next. you will have 35 Tenacity early, around level 11, as well as several hp from phage so you won't be an easy gank target.


I suggest you next get Sheen for Trinity Force but you can also get Giant's Belt if you wish to buy Frozen Mallet.


Trinity Force Or Frozen Mallet? I also have that query but I believe having some quantity of everything is better than having lots of hp and an effect. Trinity Force may be much more expensive than the Frozen Mallet but it gives health, mana, movements speed, attack speed, critical chance, effect of Phage and Sheen.


Now you should start building Warmog's Armor which will give you the tanky characteristics you will need and combine them with Atma's Impaler.


Atma's Impaler will give you significant armor to survive enemy carries, as well as increase your attack damage by lots combined with Warmog's Armor's effect.

Now that you are in late game you can purchase The Bloodthirster so you can become more deadly in teamfights. You can replace it with Infinity Edge because of the critical chance Trinity Force and Atma's Impaler provide you with, but I don't suggest it.

Finally, the decision is yours to make. I put up the two items I advise you to purchase according to the enemy team. If your team is building on heave=y ap casters, you should get Banshee's Veil to build up magic resistance and stop the enemies' abilities so they get less deadly against you. On the other hand, if the enemy team builds attack damage champions, you should buy Thornmail to make them die by themselves, or mostly suggested, Guardian Angel. It gives you armor, magic resistance and guess what, a second chance in case of a bad operation.

Team Work

EARLY GAME

My Wukong guide isn't exactly for playing solo top but laning bot along with another teammate. So, what you should do bot lane, I suggest is stay behind your carry's fire and last hit minions whenever there is a chance. Also, most important is to constantly harrass the enemies with the --->--->, which will help you deal the enemy damage while they don't manage to get a hit on you. Sure costs a lot of mana, but it may be worthwhile later.

Also, since you will be an ad melee character bot, probably your team may be missing a support which could help much more against the enemy team bot. In order to face this, just because the enemy team will have acquired a support champion to cover their carry, you should target solely the support.

Constantly attacking the support doesn't allow it to assist or heal the carry, even if the carry itself deals damage to you. If you push the support to leave lane, the carry may be left alone behind, good prey for a gank of your mid, or go back too. That would be a nice time to push your lane back to the semi-safe zone, but not up to the turret, in case of ganks by the mid-champ or the jungler.

MID GAME

By now, in case you haven't had (m)any deaths, you should have at least purchased Mercury's Treads and Sheen and should be headed for Trinity Force. In this time of game, around level 8-14, the teams keep searching the jungles and killing the buffs and the dragon to acquire the gold they need for their builds. So should you do, too.
Also, just if no one else is willing to buy a ward, buy a ward at this stage and place it in front of Baron Nashor . It won't be long before the teams start looking up to getting the Baron 's buff, which almost always provides victory, so you don't want it to fall in the wrong hands.
Another good thing is that Wukong can easily kill-steal the dragon before the enemies do, and once again the wards can help you do that. Place a ward behind the dragon so you know when the enemies are headed for him, wait in the bushes and in the right time, do not hesitate to go in with Nimbus Strike, crush blow the dragon and if he doesn't die, even spam your Cyclone, stunning your surrounding enemies as well as almost for sure killing the dragon. After that, head fast outside the dragon camp and make sure, if they come after you, to use your Decoy in order to confuse them.


LATE GAME (Important)

Late game is when almost all players have reached level 18 and (again) almost everyone has completed their builds. If my calculations are correct, you should have almost completed our build except for The Bloodthirster and the final item ( Banshee's Veil, Guardian Angel or Thornmail.

Your role should be like this: Since at this point of game enemy teams keep colliding and heavy 5v5 teamfights occure, you should enter the fight around the 3rd or 4th of your team. Sure you have lots of survivability with your core items but you need to enter the fight in a way to avoid the ap caster's burst damage. You should at least wait for the real tank of your team. Then, you must, as we mentioned above, start with Nimbus Strike and follow up with Crushing Blow on one of the enemies, probably the carry, but not, I say NOT the TANK. It's just a waste of time and allows your enemies to harrass and destroy you while spending your efforts and abilities e.g. on Volibear with a maximum of 4000-4500 health points.

Cyclone is a must in teamfights, since it stuns almost all 5 enemies if you are close to all of them. Along with your passive Stone Skin, 5 surrounding enemies buff you up to the full in matters of armor and magic resistance. Survivability increases but still be careful for one of the enemies may target you and, who knows, you may find yourself dead in no time, no matter how much defense you have built up.

Updates

After some comments, i realised the guide will require some adjustments which I will put up here.

16/8/2012 Published Guide
17/8/2012 Added ''Updates'' and ''Match Section'' sections.
27/8/2012 Removed separation lines from item section as requested.

Match Section

If this guide helps you out and gives you wins, or even in defeats gives you a nice score, don't hesitate to send me the results so I publish them here.

Summary

Well, this was my first guide and I don't expect it to be as good as I thought it would turn into. I hope you guys can help me find out my mistakes in the text, as well as give me some more inspiration on using Wukong on other ways and even more effective builds. Well, your opinion means a lot and I look forward to finding it out.

Credits

Credits go to Jhoijhoi and her Making a Guide article as it helped me somehow build my guide in a somewhat called correct way. Also, special thanks to Jhoijohoi's BBCode Guide which helped me find out how to use the codings and put them in my guide, making it somehow more ''interesting'' than what it would be.

Oh and another thing, I need someone to teach me better team options with Wukong, as for sure what I know is of less importance. Saying the advice helps some people who hear it but for some reason I suck in teamfights.