I will show a way to clear the jungle to level 5 in under 7 minutes, with Red Buff, Madred's Bloodrazors and enough gold to buy Boots of Speed if you choose so.

The best part about Jungle Wukong is that he is a great ganker, and has the ability to carry late game. In this guide I will teach you how to gank effectively with Wukong, and how to use him in combat.

Non-CC heavy opponents

Go with the first build masteries/runes.

1. Durability
Wukong is much more durable than Irelia, Xin and Shaco thanks to his passive ability Stone Skin and his ability Decoy . He is also extremely fast, with a move speed of 330, making him one of the fastest heroes in the game.

With my masteries, I take 4% less damage, also less physical damage and damage from minions.

To deal with DPS, I have a dodge build. When I am focused in battle, the 10% move speed increase from Nimbleness , lets me escape further with Decoy . Stone Skin and my masteries add to my armor.

To deal with AP heroes, I rely on my burst damage and Decoy with a well timed Cyclone to interrupt their spell chain. Decoy can absorb Ashe's arrows, and be the target of spells. It's very important to gain experience in when and how to use your Decoy . Timed correctly, you can absorb most single-target spells. For example, a stun from Sion and Taric can be completely avoided with this. While Stone Skin adds to my magic resist, late game, you have to build some extra magic resist.

Dodge and magic resist combined with his abilities and masteries make wukong an extremely durable hero. Notice how I did not mention items in the above descriptions, which means that even with a very damage-oriented item build, you remain hard to kill.

2. Attack

Wukong's abilities scale with attack damage. Also, his Crushing Blow resets his attack timer and Nimbus Strike grants him extra attack speed naturally. This makes items with on-hit effects and with high dps excellent choices for him. He also reduces armor, so items that reduce armor stack up nicely for very high damage output.

I recommend wriggle's lantern as your opening item, then get the Ninja Tabi . With these two items you can farm the jungle non-stop, gank properly, and easily save up for a B.F. Sword . You want to get some MR after that, and a Phage . At this point you are well-rounded in defense and attack and don't have to fear a team fight. I get my Black Cleaver next, then get a little tankier, and if the game lasts long enough I will get more situational items. For my last item I sell wriggle's lantern and replace it with lifesteal that gives me more damage: The Bloodthirster .

CC heavy opponents

Go with the second Wukong build. This one has an offensive mastery tree but has more CC protection. You may need some extra practice to jungle with this, because you will take more minion damage. You could also choose to swap out dodge for armor in the first Wukong build and adjust the masteries in the defensive tree a little. Then get the item recommendations from the second Wukong build.

Your core jungle item. You need it. Don't build the green claw because the magic damage doesn't add to your ability damage.


You COULD build trinity, but I think you really need the extra hp, and the slow effect is superior on Frozen Mallet. You don't have mana problems, and you will have a great run and attack speed with my build, so the only thing trinity really adds is the bonus damage.

or
I explain the combo between Ninja Tabi and Decoy with Nimbleness in the 'How to build a great Wukong' chapter. If the team is so heavy on CC that you feel like Tenacity will outweigh the 10% move speed, then by all means go for the Mercury's Treads instead.


Amazing item on Wukong. Just go figure how powerful it is to jump on an enemy, make him immovable with your Mallet, and reduce his armor by 30% with Crushing Blow and then with this item. You are able to proc 3 stacks instantly.

Your team's ranged dps carry will likely have armor penetration. This combo will remove 45 armor and then also 30% of their armor. Imagine how much damage they will deal with their armor penetration, all the while you are guaranteed to slow them by 40%.


I build this in almost all my ranked games, in my opinion its the #1 survivability item for team fights. But the other effects of this item make it perfect for Wukong: health regeneration works perfectly with a hit and run strategy, so that when you are ready to fully commit to the fight, you are still full health. The other reason is that you can't have enough move speed on Wukong because it allows you to travel further with Decoy . If you won't build Force of Nature, you would need the move speed of Trinity after all.

The numbers on the map indicate the sequence for the Jungle. The numbers below don't correspond, but describe the steps to take and the tricks in the same sequence.

<7 Minutes: Level 5, Madred, Boots and Red Buff

1. Smite the blue wraith as soon as it appears
2. Use Nimbus Strike on the three small wraiths
3. Hit each small wraith 2-3 times while you wait to use Nimbus Strike again. This is a trick. Don't focus one wraith dead because your ability hits all three targets and reloads fast!
4. Run to the wolf camp, focus on bringing the blue wolf down. This will give you level 2. Use your first Health Potion .
5. Immediately after your first hit on one of the small wolves, use Crushing Blow once. This will give you an extra attack and debuff its armor. Use Crushing Blow once more on the other small wolf, this conserves your mana.
6. Running to the small Golems, use your second Health Potion . Smite will be up in a few seconds. Spam your abilities to bring them down as fast as possible.
7. Teleport to base and buy a Long Sword , and another Health Potion . You have two Health Potions now.
8. Head toward the Blue Golem. Use Smite . There is a trick to clearing this camp as fast as possible while taking the least amount of damage. Nimbus Strike hits three enemies at the same time, so aim to kill both small lizards with your second Nimbus Strike, this only requires 2-3 direct hits on each small lizard and is very efficient thanks to the attack speed increase of Nimbus Strike . Use your Health Potion . Don't be afraid to spam your abilities, soon you will have the blue buff. In less than 10 seconds you have killed both small lizards and made a big dent in the HP of the Golem.
9. You will have enough health left to clear the wolf camp. I usually wait for my smite to get out of cooldown and clear the wraiths or the small golems as well before teleporting to base.
10. Buy Madred's Razors and a Health Potion .
11. With your core jungle item complete, you can now finish Red, Wraiths and Small Golems without using a single Health Potion . If you want to gank: go Red using the health potion and gank bottom or mid. If you do decide to finish the jungle route, you will have 350 gold and you can buy Boots of Speed with Red Buff at the 7 minute mark, being level 5. Sometimes I buy some extra potions and keep jungling until I have enough gold to buy wriggle's lantern before any boots.

Shaco vs Wukong: Shaco is slightly better at ganking the AP carry lane pre-level 6 thanks to the slow of Two-Shiv Poison . I would argue that Wukong has the advantage when ganking the DPS lane because of the armor debuff of Crushing Blow . Once you hit level 6 with Wukong, the stun on Cyclone makes him a great ganker.

Let's look at the ways you can effectively gank:
The black lines and the red lines demonstrate different approaches to the gank.

The Black Path
This is the type of gank you go for when your lane is pushed. It's the best gank position. If you followed my jungle route, you could use it to gank mid around 6:30 with the red buff. Always start by announcing your gank to your team, ping in advance if neccesary. This allows your team mate to start inflicting harassing damage, increasing the chance of a kill.

If they don't have flash , approach them with Nimbus Strike a first time, then auto attack once with the Nimbus' attack speed bonus, immediately followed by Crushing Blow , which resets your attack timer. You will hit them three times in the time they can hit you one time back (or run), and debuff their armor. Combined with your team mate, almost a sure kill. Most likely you will finish them off at the tower with your second Nimbus Strike , before flashing out.

If they do have flash , simply walk up to them, careful to stay between them and the tower, so perhaps they feel they need to flash toward the side bushes, which makes it easier to kill them. If they wait to flash and run toward the tower, you can land a red buff slow on them, which means you can Nimbus Strike to dive them if they are low enough HP, and you still have your own flash ability left to escape the tower. To get a kill in this situation, they need to either push really far, or have half their HP missing, or you need a really good summoner in the mid lane, perhaps one that knows how to land a stun. If that's not the case, then you are probably better off continuing the jungle to get to level 6 and Cyclone .

Once you have Cyclone , use the same strategies, but the odds of killing are greatly improved thanks to the stun.

The Red Path
In this path, you start in the bush, and you ambush an enemy out of nowhere.
The trick is to activate your Decoy while in the bush, then immediately run towards the enemy while you are invisible. This is a VERY nice way to gank, and often you can get away safely after the fight because your Decoy will be back up.

Even though I said Wukong is durable, it doesn't mean he is a tank. You should never be in the middle of the fight, always on the edge, continuously moving in with Nimbus Strike and out with Decoy before you become a target.

Resist the temptation to Cyclone + Flash into the fight because you will surely die. Flash should only be used defensively or when you are sure to land a kill when chasing an opponent. Knowing when to use Cyclone will make you a great Wukong player. Usually the best thing to do is to wait until the heavy CC is gone. At that time you should have positioned yourself slightly on the side or behind the enemy team, harassing the ranged dps and magi with the Nimbus/Decoy combo. This is when you can use Cyclone to throw their whole team in the air, while moving toward your team mates and receiving support to stay alive. Your dps/ap nuker team mates will often get double or triple kills at this time.

Wukong is a very fun and rewarding hero to master, he is an OK jungler, good at ganking, good at chasing down opponents, and can make a difference in team fights.

The biggest challenge to playing him is not in the items or even masteries. It's learning how to use his abilities to avoid damage. Remember that Wukong is an agile, nimble hero, he is meant to be played with finesse and perfect timing.

I hope you enjoyed the guide!

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