Trundle Build Guide by Spacewalk

Intro

Hello, and thanks for taking the time out to catch up on my guide to jungle Trundle. In this guide i will be aiming to describe, how i feel the most effective way to play Trundle, and how to stay a menace to all lanes from the summon to the destruction of your enemies nexus.

Your main aim as Trundle is to get on as many peoples nerves as much as you possibly can by jumping out all over the place unwanted and making thier lives hell, strike fear into 5/5 of your opposition permanently, make them so paranoid, that they darent leave thier base, because you could be there.

This is my first guide, but i hope you find it useful and you also see the ways of the troll.

Positive and negative feedback will be appreciated :)

Pros / Cons

Pros:

Strong early game
Not too item dependent
Underestimated duelist
Unique, Powerful CC
Has a "u mad bro?" face
Clears the jungle very quickly
Generally fast
CC resistant

High mana consumption/low pool
His pillar positioned wrong can actually result as a bad move
No AOE
No Gap Closer

Runes

I take Armour pen marks, armour seals, magic resist glyphs and Armour pen Quints. My main aim with these was to give me high damage to aid ganking while still remaining resistant throughout the game. These runes also work if your going for a more tanky way to play, your damage still remains a threat from the armour penetration.

How To Spec

I go with 21/9/0 with masteries, speccing into extra minion damage and Exhaust. I have tried different variations of masteries, going 9/21/0 and in my personal opinion I believe this to be the most beneficial to what your trying to do as Trundle. Speccing defensively seemed to lack damage during ganks, and when it came down to it, survivability isn't going to help you kill anyone while ganking, but thats not the go-ahead to discard it. Speccing into Durability and Veteran's Scars will help you stay buff throughout the game.

Alternative Masteries

If your looking for a more tanky way to play, here are masteries to go by:

9/21/0, maxing out both Hardiness and Resistance , putting two points into Vigor to save a point to improve smite. Take Veteran's Scars and max out Initiator , this will also makes ganking easier, 3 in Honor Guard and taking Juggernaut . The into the Offense tree, max out Summoner's Wrath , Alacrity and Weapon Expertise .

Summoner Spells

I take Smite and Exhaust for summoner spells. Its probably due to personal preference, speccing into Exhaust reduces the targets armour and magic resist, meaning you'll do more damage while they are under the effect, it also adds another form of cc to an allready CC machine, which i find very useful especially ganking early game, this can counter the Flash that people use to get away from your Pillar of Filth.

Alternative Summoner Spells

This is another option you could consider, however I found it a bit over the top. With max level Contaminate and all items increasing movement speed combined, that totals 507 movement speed, i feel that's enough. This is still a good choice, but its a little overkill.

This is never a bad idea. Can get you out of sticky situations when your Contaminate and Pillar of Filth cannot e.g. over walls or if they're both on CD. Id prefer the extra CC with Exhaust, but choose this if you wish.

If your looking at the ranked set-up, and your opposition has a lot of CC, you could consider this. Personally with Mercury's Treads and Contaminate, I feel that's enough CC reduction, but if your one of those that could never be too careful, this could be considered.

Skills, How Do They Work?

: Standard Bread and Butter move. This deals a percentage of your AD, increases your attack damage, and also reduces your targets attack damage by half of the extra AD damage that you gain, which makes it hard for other AD to turn around and stand toe-to-toe with you. Keep in mind that this resets your auto attack timer, so using this directly after an auto swing will increase your damage output. This is one of your key aspects to being a tough fighter.


: This is your second. Many people still underestimate Trundle highly when on this. This gives you a high percentage attack speed increase, CC reduction and also greatly increases your movement speed while on it. Combined with high AD your gaining from your bite, this makes you very dangerous. It also makes it very hard for them to escape when they realise thier fighting a losing battle. In the jungle phase, be careful about your positioning of contaminate, as careless postioning can lead to the giveaway of your position in the jungle. For example, when i was beginning to play Trundle, i placed my contamiate at the wraiths in a position where it wasn't hard for their midder to see, e.g. their midder being a Gragas, threw a barrel through the wall, killing 2 of my wraiths.


: A great form of CC. This summons a huge pillar which which becomes impassible terrain, and also slows anyone around it, the slow persists for 1.5 seconds after they leave the pillars location. This combined with Contaminate makes it hell for your victims to escape from you.


: A very powerful ultimate, this can and sometimes will be the difference between a kill and a death when fighting toe-to-toe. In a team fight, prioritise this on a tank, to make him easier to take down. While chasing or fighting a single target, this will make it much easier to kill them. Towards the end of this spell is when your Rabid Bite will do the highest damage.

What To Get

: Self explanitory, standard jungle item.

: I didn't feel there was any other boots that competed with these for Trundle. Magic resist, and also adds to CC reduction along with your Contaminate, making it very, very difficult to be locked down.

: Dat Tri-force. Its got everything, its perfect, more attack speed, more bonus from contaminate, some crit is always nice, gives health, mana, ad, a 25% chance to slow, semi solves your mana problems and also increases your agony damage by a little. Oh and also makes you move faster. Making it easier to chase. Perfect... if it wasn't the most expensive item in game. But as many should agree, the pros out weight the con.

: The next two items, the order in which you buy them is dependant on how the game has turned out. Assess your enemies team setup and buy accordingly. If they are AP heavy, and/or they're midder has one too many kills for your liking, prioritise Banshees Veil Next. More health, you wont have to worry about mana issues anymore, and a nice chunk of magic resist. Plus that one spell block every 45 seconds. Saved my life from a Karthus ult many a time.

: If the enemy are packing ad champs, or thier ad carry is putting out serious damage, Prioritse Atma's Impaler After Trinity Force. Bar Trinity Force this is my favourite item for Trundle. Nice Armour, nice crit, and also a great boost for AD damage, from the health your getting from Trinity Force and Banshee's Veil all in all this improves all aspects of you being able to go toe-to-toe with other fighters.

: A good amount of armour, nice magic resist addition, and also gives you essentially a second life. One more bite and you would have aced?, now you can. I found this item another i just couldn't pass up, makes you very hard to kill, not only that but it puts their team off wanting to burst you down, as you'll just get right back up. Combined with your others items when you finally go down, they have to catch you and do it again.

: I personally refuse to play a melee champ without a form of lifesteal. So this was my best option, replacing Wriggle's Lantern, gaining much more base damage and the same amount of base lifesteal. And getting this full-stacked, people will find it very hard indeed to fight you, if the game last that long.

Alternative Items

: If i didn't swear by lifesteal, this would be my final item, replacing Wriggles. A lot of damage, the attack speed without this is still a nice amount, and it lowers your targets armour further, making bite do even more damage, so with this, Exhaust and Agony, its very easy to devistate targets very quickly, still a very good choice.

: This I only recently replaced for Trinity Force. The perma-slow form this is fantastic the main aspect I found hardest to give up, the health is great, adds a little base AD and grants AD from Atma's Impaler also. A great item, i just found Trinity Force to have one or two more pros for how i play Trundle. I would heavily recommend this over Trinity Force if your looking to play Trundle a bit more tanky.

: Another good choice of item. Adds an extra CC to your list from the passive slow. Immense armour, nice health regeneration, and a little CD reduction, something you dont see much on tank items. Also condiser this is you want to play more tanky.

: This item might have most of you thinking, 'you mad bro?', but looking further into this item i found it intreguing. It empowers your ult's damage, which adds 60% of your ability power, it gives a lot of health which works with Atma's Impaler, then there's the most interesting part. This makes your ult work like Mordekaiser's, while your agony persists on the target, they have a 15% slow for 6 seconds, now i wouldn't say that's bad, all things considered. Its just finding what you would replace for it.

: Another great choice for Trundle if your wanting more durability, more ad boost from Atma's Impaler, or thier's pesky AD carries running around with damage numbers a bit too high for your liking. The armour gained is a good amount, adds a large chunk of health, which boosts your ad, and the passive also works well with Trundle, in team fights this will increase your overall damage output by a surprising amount.

Jungle Route

Having your mid leash the Blue Golem will resulting in you walking away from that camp virtually full health. Then proceed to killing the wolves-wraiths-small golems-lizard-wraiths. By this time you will be level 4, and because Contaminate + Pillar of Filth is such a nightmare to get out of, check to see if you could gank before recalling. This way if you pick up a kill you can go back and complete Madred's Razors and Boots of Speed. As the jungler your role is to gank as much as possible, but also cover lanes while allies port back. Although Trundle can easily clear out the jungle many times over without having to recall, keep an eye out for your top lane or other struggling lanes for when they might need cover.

While ganking, don't be too hasty to use Pillar of Filth, throw your contaminate down as you emerge from the bush, position it so it covers the entire lane, and also covers where your enemy will be retreating. What you will usually find is, if they have overextended, they run into the brush to avoid being targeted. Instead of going into the same brush to plant the pillar in thier face, place your pillar at the end of the brush they have ran into, and while still being on Contaminate, this will force whoever it is your ganking to go around it, leading him/her directly into you.

Bro, Does This Guide Work?

I left the defeat in there for a bit of realism. I think this build does bring out the best in Trundle, but im not going to sit here and tell you it makes you bullet proof. You will still lose games. But yes, i think this guide should help.

They See You Trollin', They Hatin'...

Trundle is a fantastic initiator to team fights, as he can designate the targets easily for everyone else to see. Using your Agony will usually end up with your team nuking whoever you have targeted. Choose wisely, this will make tanks go down much faster. Keep in mind that if your team doesn't have much CC, you might want to save Pillar of Filth to cut off escape routes for squishies that have tried to flee. Throwing down Contaminate Immediately will massively reduce a lot of the CC they throw at you.

Well, i hope you find this guide of some use to you. And remember to keep on trollin'!