Tryndamere Build Guide by Vlasec

Introduction - Why not pure AD?

Tryndamere is mostly an autoattacker. I expect many people to have no understanding for my build. The goal of Trynda, however, is always the same: to land huge crits on enemy carries. I don't argue this, but sometimes I found myself having crits over 1000, but not quite able to reach carries with them.

This guide will show you a slightly different approach, giving Trynda some extra agility. It is more of a late game build. There is no sacrifice of early or mid game performance, though, in fact, early game is very similar to most jungling Trynda builds with a small twist.

This guide can help you with solo top Trynda as well, but you might need to adjust it a bit, best by using some good solo top build in comparison.

In AP scaling, Trynda is a bit similar to Master Yi. He has two abilities that scale with AP, one of them being heal. Unlike Yi, he can't be played as pure AP nuker. He can make somewhat useful tanky AP, but I am not sure it is more than a joke. Even fully AD Trynda has some use for AP, but it is mostly cooldown reduction which I think helps him greatly. For playing with 0 AP, I gave you alternative items.

Introduction - Two builds

I made two builds for Tryndamere. Both are quite similar, the differences are mainly in choosing between Zeke's Herald and Nashor's Tooth; or between Hextech Gunblade and The Bloodthirster.

• The one with The Bloodthirster can get you as far as to 44% lifesteal. The additional 20% not evaluated by the system here are for a teammate's Zeke's Herald and for 40 stacks on The Bloodhirster.
• The one with Nashor's Tooth gives you 40% cooldown reduction. It also gives you some slight AP to survive any DoT (damage over time) debuffs after your Undying Rage is over and you are running away. The active slow of Hextech Gunblade is very useful, too, however, this build gives you slightly less destructive power.

Change list

• Added Guardian Angel and Trinity Force as situational items.
• Added one result into the ranked play section.
• Changed the title a bit. In Introduction, I added the reason why pure AP Trynda would fail.
• Updated team work section
• Added some info about tanking with Trynda and link to my tanky AP Trynda build
• Improved the masteries section with more explanations and a bit of choice
• Revamped most parts of the guide slightly. My rating grows, the guide should reflect it.
• I noticed some guys voted me down, if I keep diving, I think I stop working on that build. Not worth it if I am not read anymore. Well, let's see ...
• I added a notion about playing Trynda on solo top or with 0 AP, to the introduction. I added a build with Zeke's Herald as primary build, moved the one with AP as secondary. This way, when someone is illiterate, watching only items, he will miss the AP, not the AD one.

Advantages of cooldown reduction

Since AD items rarely decrease cooldowns, Trynda is rarely played with 40% CDR. The only CDR item that is seen on Trynda quite often is Youmuu's Ghostblade. In this guide I included Nashor's Tooth even though the mana regen is completely useless for a manaless champion.

The topmost advantage of higher CDR is lowered cooldown of Spinning Slash. It allows your faster travelling, chasing, running away and agile behavior in a teamfight. The cooldown is only 5.4 seconds now, further reduced by every crit you land. It saves you 3.6 seconds or 1-2 crits you would otherwise need to spin somewhere else.

Just an example of its usefulness: Let's say you spinned into a fight and landed two crits on their AP carry, the poor guy being stunned by your team. Now he is dead and you need to move elsewhere before the ground becomes too hot. Their AD carry already tries transforming you into a swiss cheese from a range of 550 and he even made you rage. You spin right behind him, denying him escape and killing him quickly as well. Then you just spin away from the fight ...

Your short while of immortality, Undying Rage, will have a cooldown of 54 seconds. After each use, you can be daring again 36 seconds sooner. You should still better use it well, only when it helps you kill or when you need it to run away.

Other skills take advantage from CDR as well, but your Bloodlust cooldown still doesn't allow you to use it both before and after Undying Rage. It can only get to 7.2 seconds. However, if you use Bloodlust and try to run away, getting caught on the way, you will probably be able to use it again when the Undying Rage, resulting from being caught, ends.

Advantages of ability power

Trynda has two abilities that scale with ability power. His Bloodlust gives him 1.5 points of self-heal for every point in AP. This ability is usually relying on a full rage bar, giving only a heal of 70 HP otherwise. With AP, the heal can be much better even when on a longer runaway. His Spinning Slash gets 1.0 scale, which is good, but he still gets 1.2 from AD. This would still make AP slightly favorable, if Trynda wasn't mostly an autoattacker.

A bit of extra AP can help, but the items should help with something more important as well. In case of Nashor's Tooth, there is a lot of attack speed and cooldown reduction, which both help Trynda greatly.

In this build, I even have spell vamp. Trynda has not much use for it though. Hextech Gunblade is mostly taken for its active and AP, spellvamp only gives up to 50 health per enemy hit by Spinning Slash. Trynda relies more on lifesteal and AD than spellvamp or AP, that's why I build Bilgewater Cutlass so soon, but I upgrade it to Hextech Gunblade so late.

Pros / Cons

+ ranged active slow from Bilgewater Cutlass helps ganks
+ more agile in a fight thanks to lower cooldown on Spinning Slash
+ slightly better self-heal than on fully AD Trynda
+ lower cooldown on everything, including the so much hated Undying Rage

- slightly lower damage than on fully AD Trynda
- no free wards or armor from Wriggle's Lantern
- no Quicksilver Sash for CC removal
- you can keep forgetting to use the actives of items; in this build, there are two of them
- risky before level 6, you run in your jungle nearly naked and on low hp

Runes

Take 6x Greater Mark of Desolation marks of armor penetration, to make killing of neutral monsters and champions a bit easier.

Take the usual jungler seals, 9x Greater Seal of Armor. It is a must to survive jungling on lower levels. Even with that, early game jungling is a hell and you run with low HP all the time.

For glyphs, take 9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist. Trynda is very squishy and AP nuking can kill him before he rages with ulti. He will need this in mid/late game.

For quints, take 3x Greater Quintessence of Critical Damage. Combined with 3x Greater Mark of Critical Damage, it gives you 20% crit damage increase. Trynda has 35% crit chance from just rage, so it helps him from early game to the end, more than any flat increase of something. The only sad thing is that the crit damage stacks additively.

Masteries

Take every attack damage, attack speed, critical, lifesteal, armor penetration ... even Havoc . Trynda can be played with no defense, he can become immortal for a short time instead. I put 24 points in offense, same as some of the best rated Trynda builds on mobafire.

From defense tree, take only some vital minimum for jungling, Hardiness is a must. Then you can take Tough Skin as well, or take two points in Good Hands instead, reviving few seconds sooner can save a turret or inhibitor. If you have no experience with low level Trynda jungling, better take Tough Skin , monsters are scratchy and some mistake combined with bad luck on crits can cost you life.

You should take Summoner's Resolve . The gold from Smite is well worth one point. If you take Cleanse, the extra second with reduced CC counts as well. Summoner's Wrath is useful as well, but only if you take Exhaust. Since you are jungler, there will be more people using the advantage of lowered armor and resist. If you don't take Exhaust, better take 1x Butcher .

You can build it different way, you can even include some AP instead of time spent dead. I fiddle with masteries sometimes, trying some other approaches. The basic rule is clear, though: You have to be a killing machine, not a tin can.

Items

With this build, you will get roughly 300 attack damage (even more when on low HP), 280% crits, attack speed around 2.2 when you use active of Youmuu's Ghostblade and armor penetration of 36. You also get 40% cooldown reduction and 135 ability power. You can build it in almost any order. However, you must be able to kill in any moment, don't rush for AP too soon. For CDR, you can build Youmuu's Ghostblade and Stinger a bit sooner, but remember your role of a killer.

Berserker's Greaves will guide you through early game. They are one of the cheapest ones and the extra attack speed will help you with killing and lifesteal. Later, when crowd control becomes a bigger issue, you should buy Mercury's Treads instead, as it gives you some tenacity. In a team fight, it can help you a lot.

Bilgewater Cutlass is somewhat unusual choice for a jungler. It is good enough for effective farming of a jungle, but it offers no free wards. I trade free objective control for better gank potential. Objective/map control must be archieved by buying wards or by teammates. If you don't desire the extra gank potential, feel free to replace it with Wriggle's Lantern or Executioner's Calling.

Infinity Edge and Phantom Dancer are pretty obvious for anyone who already played Trynda for pure AD. Trynda relies mostly on autoattacks and crits and we even have crit runes in this build. Crits are a must to make Tryndamere dangerous.

Youmuu's Ghostblade is the best item (after you take those two obligatory picks) for Tryndamere. It gives him most of what he needs: Some extra attack damage, crit chance, penetration and cooldown reduction. And its active surpasses effect of second Phantom Dancer. I made it part of the "trinity" of items needed by Trynda.

Nashor's Tooth is an item that is not really usually build on Trynda. I wrote about it earlier. It gives you nice attack speed and cooldown reduction and it improves your heals a bit. Not a must, but it helps you get far better agility in fights or chasing.

• You can take Zeke's Herald instead. Just make someone else buy it as well. With double aura, you get 40% attack speed and 24% lifesteal. It is a great item in teamfights, but a poor one if your teammates are selfish. This makes it situational.
• Nashor's Tooth lets you cap your cooldown reduction, Zeke's Herald leaves you at 30%. You can still steal enemy blue or buy a blue elixir to compensate this loss.

Hextech Gunblade is also a choice that is not usual. The early Bilgewater Cutlass is a good choice for better gank potential or chasing. Now you can upgrade it to get a slow with a huge range of 700. It also gives you some AP, which gives you +105 to your heal, giving you better chances for escape.

• You can choose The Bloodthirster instead. The item gives you 5% more lifesteal and even that only when fully stacked. Still, it gives you much more attack damage (100 instead of 40, when fully stacked), resulting in more powerful autoattacks. You lose a nice active by that, and the extra heal. But I think you can live without these.

Situational Items

Executioner's Calling can help you if healing is more of a problem than movement. It has lifesteal and critical chance, you can use it to replace Bilgewater Cutlass in early game. In late game, it could be your mage's or support's role to buy Morello's Evil Tome.

Guardian Angel is a nice item for Trynda as well. Ignore the mana part, you just get another life if you were just about to die. Use it well, maybe you have a heal ready, maybe a spin, or maybe you just pressed your ulti too late. Nevermind, you are still alive, let them know it. Take this item instead of boots though, there is not much room for it.

Quicksilver Sash is often advised for damage dealers as a cheap anti-CC and anti-magic item. I still think Mercury's Treads should be enough. If they aren't, better take Cleanse than taking one of the core items' room by this item.

Maw of Malmortius can save you from being nuked before you start raging. It also gives you huge damage increase. It is not a bad choice at all, but I still consider it situational.

Atma's Impaler is not as good item on Trynda as a Youmuu's Ghostblade. You can replace Youmuu by it (and buy blue elixirs for CDR), if the enemy team lowers you HP way too quickly by physical damage. Not the best item for Trynda, but a dead Trynda is no help either.

Last Whisper is what you need if even the enemy carries buy some armor against you or your team's AD carry. It is generally better than The Black Cleaver, because it reduces armor instantly (whereas three attacks can usually kill the target instead of just debuff]. If only tanks buy armor, ignore it, you aren't a tin opener, you prefer squishing.

Rabadon's Deathcap is a funny pick. It can be taken instead of boots in lategame. It gives you a huge boost of 220 AP. With that, your heal is much better and your spin does more damage as well. Better heal means that you can often run away without using ulti, returning to the fight right after you sweep some minion camp to steal their lives.

Trinity Force is an item that is sometimes seen in Trynda's builds. I don't think it is much useful though, the 150% bonus scales only with base AD. It gives you same movement speed as a Phantom Dancer, but lower attack speed and crit chance. You can build it though, if you have Executioner's Calling instead of Bilgewater Cutlass and you want some more slow and a bit of dmg. However, this item is expensive and I don't think it is much worth buying it for Trynda.

Randuin's Omen instead of Youmuu's Ghostblade and Wit's End instead of Phantom Dancer are viable items if you are assuming role of a "burst tank" (explained in Team Work chapter). They lower your damage significantly though, only use it if you have other major damage dealers and not enough tanks in your team. In combination with Guardian Angel, you should be pretty much tanky, but you will need red elixir for some HP, blue elixir to max your CDR and green elixir if you still want to kill.

I am sure there are other useable items. Many of items useable for Trynda are in other guides though, and this build is unusual for a reason. If there are some good ideas in the discussion that can become a nice part of this build, I will gladly include them there.

Skill Sequence

Bloodlust has a nice passive. It is similar to Yi's Wuju Style, passively giving AD. Extra damage is needed, especially on low HP. Take it first and max it first. Adding levels will also increase the heal significantly, although you need rage to heal effectively.

Mocking Shout is good for some soft CC. It is a bit like mass Exhaust, lowering both movement speed and damage of affected enemy. You are not the CC king though, but a killer and you already have Bilgewater Cutlass for slows. Take 1 point early, but max it last. There is one more thing about this skill, it is only useable if any champion is in its range of 400. If you see no enemy, but this skill is useable, they are hidden or stealthed.

Spinning Slash gives you agility. Even though it does damage, it is more useful for escapes and shortcuts. Extra points also lower cooldown, so take first point at level 2 and max it on level 12.

Undying Rage is what makes Trynda so terrifying. To really kill him, you must get him to low HP, then survive his rage by using some CC and only then he can die. For ganks, it is a must. Take first point on level 6, the other two on level 13 and 16. There is no significant advantage in upgrading it before Spinning Slash is maxed.

Summoner Spells

Best picks

Smite is a jungler's must. Not only that fully offensive Trynda has hard times with some bigger monsters on low levels, it helps with stealing buffs, last-hitting Dragon or Nashor. Since you play jungler, take it.

Exhaust is probably the best spell for a jungler Trynda. It increases his gank potential. Combined with Bilgewater Cutlass and (unreliable) Mocking Shout, it gives you a slow that never seems to end. You should better keep it for defense though. It can save a chased or dived ally. Still, if you need it for scoring a kill, feel free to use it.

Cleanse can help you if you are under heavy CC. Unlike items, this also gives you a huge CC reduction for 4 seconds, which is a big part of your ulti. If you expect too much CC, take cleanse instead of Exhaust.

Somewhat useful

Ignite can be useful if you expect the enemies to heal too much. You can replace Exhaust with that, leaving you with less CC. Or you can take Executioner's Calling and still keep Exhaust. Your choice. The item can be used every 20 s, while the spell is much more occasional.

Heal can be useful spell. It can be used for example right after Undying Rage to get quickly to reasonable HP and stop being chased. However, I think this is rather a spell for solo top Trynda.

Rather useless

Surge could possibly help, too, both AS and AP are useful in this build. However, the build combined with active of Yoummu's Ghostblade is enough to get you to 2.2 attack speed, no need to push it any further. The AP won't save you either.

Flash or Ghost could possibly be useful for getaways or chasing, but I think Trynda does that well already with his Spinning Slash or Youmuu's Ghostblade. Better pick something else.

Teleport is rather stuff for a solo top player, not for a jungler. It can be good, but I think there are better picks which can help Tryndamere survive or kill.

Garrison, Revive, Promote, Clairvoyance - could anyone seriously take those on a jungle Trynda? If so, he is probably a troll, a lack-wit, or both.

Creeping / Jungling

Jungling in early game is a bit hard with Trynda. Since you went 24/4/2 or 24/6/0 in masteries, you have low armor. Your damage is not huge yet and compared to other junglers, you don't have many spells to spam on the monsters. You only spin to them and then autoattack. If you want to heal, it will consume your rage, lowering your damage, making you steal less life ... You are jungling on low HP before you get Bilgewater Cutlass and some levels.

My jungling route starts on Wraith s. Your mage should help you with damage. As Trynda likes to say, their deaths will only feed his rage. Let mage pull Lizard Elder and Smite the poor monster. Hit both Golem s* with Spinning Slash over the wall and kill them. Then go back to Wraith s and spawnkill them. Ancient Golem is the next stop, don't be selfish and reward your mage for the pull. After that, you just cycle Giant Wolf , Wraith s and Golem s, until you have 920 gold for Berserker's Greaves.

*) This is a bit risky without Smite. The Golem is a strong monster. You need moderate luck to succeed. If you crit too little, you can die. If you crit a lot, you will be healthy and kill it quickly. If you have very low HP after Lizard Elder , better recall. Being executed could invite enemy jungler for a visit you don't want yet.

As for ganks, Trynda ganks poorly before level 6. He is item dependent and he should gank on at least moderate health, but on lower levels he jungles with very low health, being completely unable to gank. If some ally needs you to hold their lane, you can carefully try to do so. Don't gank though, you could die too easily. Gank only if it's safe, preferably with Exhaust as well. By just farming your jungle, you should hit level 6 soon.

Since level 6, you are to be afraid of. Your short immortality makes many enemies prefer running instead of fighting. Use that for your advantage. However, they will only run slowly, because you use your Mocking Shout and Bilgewater Cutlass on them. They may still flash away to safety, but even making enemy flash is a partial success.

You should gank a lot from now, but don't forget farming your jungle. Being on a gank all the time sets you back in levels, if not gold. You can counter-jungle as well, but beware of enemy jungler and misses on lanes. Your Spinning Slash is a great runaway tool, but it doesn't save you if you are stupid. If you steal enemy jungler's farm, it sets him back, making his future ganks weaker. If you even steal a buff, it feels grrreat.

When laning phase ends, you can now kill minions, too. Your team should let you hit a minion once per several seconds to keep your rage full. Feel free to clear any monster camps along the way unless you are in a hurry. However, you should concentrate on teamfights, pushing and objectives, not only farming.

Team Work

With this build, you have more crowd control than usual. This helps in early and mid game with ganks. It also prevents low HP enemies running later in game. You should use your Bilgewater Cutlass to prevent enemy from running away or chasing your ally. If the enemy is slowed, you can usually get out of his range easily with your Spinning Slash. There are different roles you can assume in teamfights:

The squisher
If you are fed better than most of your enemies, you should use the advantage to squish enemy carries. Let tank initiate the fight, so you aren't the main target of crowd control and damage. Your Undying Rage should be used when you are already fighting, not when you are entering the fight. Then use Spinning Slash to spin through their front line right to the squishy carries in the rear. Slow them and kill them quickly, then run away. Your team should help you in that effort, so that you can get to safety just when Undying Rage ends. Your goal in this role is to make their carries a head shorter.

The ambusher
Similar to previous role, however, you wait for the teamfight somewhere in a bush or behind a wall and appear behind their team when the fight starts. This can cause a lot of disorder in the enemy team, causing your team to win the fight much more easily. You go for carries and squishies as usual. Don't fall into a trap though, and don't surprise your own team. They must be prepared for that, while enemy team shouldn't know about you (better check wards).

The burst tank
This role is good if you aren't fed so well or your enemies have too much CC like throws, suppresses and knockbacks. You pretend an attack on their carries, being CCed instantly with most of what the enemy team has to offer. Now it is your team's time to leap into the fight, your tank should overtake the tanking role and you should run away in time, maybe landing some crits first. Beware you are only a "burst tank", you can survive any burst, but then you are very vulnerable. Letting your enemy waste some ultimates can be very useful though, it can turn your teamfight into a victory.

For this role, tanky AP Trynda is better suited. I wrote a guide on tanky AP Trynda as well, but consider it mostly a funny or trolling build. Try it only if your team can dish enough of damage and they need some more tank, but you have locked in with Trynda already.

• If enemy team has Darius, you can try to bait him into using Noxian Guillotine on you. If he does it while you have Undying Rage turned on, he is half so useful in the rest of teamfight, because his ulti won't reset now. He messed up, while you probably saved some lives.

The bait
You can wander in enemy jungle or other places to provoke them trying to kill you. In this case, map control should be denied to enemy team. You look like an easy kill, then you spin over a wall, where your allies wait. In chasing, the team strategy goes to hell, enemy carries or assassins can even go in the front of the hunting party. Your team can nuke them instantly, making it easier to push or kill Baron Nashor .

In that role, you should try to run away without using your Undying Rage if possible. Mocking Shout can help you lower their damage output for a while, even though they are not showing their back to you. If you can keep your ultimate ready, feel free to join the teamfight when you steal some life from monsters and minions, if not, better recall and heal. A tanky AP Trynda is a better bait than you, though, you should still be the killer, not just a bait.

The hunter
You can chase the guys who run away. With this build, you can be the best chaser in team. With Spinning Slash, you can travel almost as fast as Kassadin, but with no mana cost. Flashing over the wall can't save them. Combined with Mocking Shout, Hextech Gunblade and Exhaust, fleeing in terror from you is usually not a way to safety. Even if they reach a turret, you can still dive and use Undying Rage if needed. However, don't chase if your team needs you in a fight. Better lose an easy prey than let enemies kill half of your team.

Unique Skills

Compared to usual fully-AD Trynda, this build has more agility thanks to cooldown reduction. Your Spinning Slash has low cooldown even reduced by crits, making you able to spin all over the map, chasing or running. Slows or short stuns can't stop you from chasing or running so easily.

You also have item that allows you slow the enemy, Bilgewater Cutlass. Combined with your agility, it makes it really hard to run from you. It can be also used to help your AD carry kill someone who was already running away, if you are not in a shape or mood to fight.

Your Undying Rage can be used much more often. When you get into a need of using it, better play safe for the next 51 seconds. Then you are the immortal champion yet again. Your cooldown is 36 second shorter, that is a lot.

Your healing with Bloodlust is somewhat increased. A common practice with countering Trynda is to Ignite him a while before his Undying Rage ends. With some extra heal, you can survive even a well timed Ignite.

Farming

When Trynda's damage or AP is high enough, he can kill a lot of minions just with his Spinning Slash. This is useful for defending turrets on lanes. Next best thing is autoattack. With huge crits and attack speed, he can farm really quickly only using his autoattack, too, killing a minion or lesser monster by just one hit.

Ranked Play

I tried this in ranked games and the early game slow was useful. I never got to late game though, the games weren't long enough. I have 1150 ELO, so I am not sure how much more careful would I have to be on higher ELO ranks. Being counterjungled on lower levels would be a disaster, especially if you had your Spinning Slash on cooldown. If you suppose this to be happening, better ask your team to ward the entrances and keep you safe by that. It will keep them safer from enemy ganks as well. When you survive lower levels, you can be a major threat.

My averages with Trynda in ranked games are 7.5/4.5/5.3 so far. I started with other builds, so it says nothing. In my Match History, I have a game where I had 14/6/4 score. The game was a loss, our AD carry was bad and mage had somewhat successful laning phase, but failed the teamfights as well. I still did well, killing both on ganks and in teamfights, killing their carries. It would be a victory if the rest of team played better, I was crushing them. Still, it wasn't enough to stop the enemy team from destroying our base.

Summary

Using active slow from Bilgewater Cutlass can help Trynda get kills and assists when ganking in early and mid game.

To perform well in late game, Tryndamere needs something more than just pure damage. Using cooldown reduction and some slight AP, he can be more agile and less vulnerable to slows or damage over time.

This guide is not perfect, so I am open to critics. I thank for all positive reactions and I am glad there are no stupid-kid-style comments like "Trynda is pure AD, you are an idiot". I welcome any your experience with playing Trynda this way, or any advices how to improve the build or the guide. I will keep this guide up-to-date in case anything changes Trynda's gameplay significantly.