Here, you will find all of your Tryndamere questions answered and explained very thoroughly. What you are about to read is how I personally play Tryndamere. I have taken all of the knowledge that I have learned over the great amount of time that I've spent playing Tryndamere and have condensed it into an epic read more than worth your while. I highly encourage all strong criticism for it helps keep this guide in the shape that it's in. Having said this, please do not come here and act a fool in my threads. I've dedicated a lot of my time writing and keeping this guide updated, so please don't show disrespect.

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jhoijhoi wrote:
An amazing Tryndamere resource. Everything you could possibly want to know about Tryndamere is here. It is fantastically in-depth, and should occupy the reader for a good half an hour.


News, Updates, & Patchnotes

Update: Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Updated build slightly.


Pros & Cons

How can Tryndamere benefit my team and I?

Tryndamere is the one of the strongest, if not the strongest, melee carries in the game. This is because his attacks are based off of simply auto-attacking the enemies. Having said that, along with his Critical Chance from Fury, having high Attack Damage and Critical Damage matched with Attack Speed makes Tryndamere an unstoppable force. He is The Warrior of all champions in League of Legends no doubt. If played correctly, Tryndamere ability to carry reaches incredible peaks that can't be matched by any other champion.

Why can it be difficult to play Tryndamere?

Tryndamere utility is built primarily for his late game. He isn't another Pantheon running around with insane early game abilities. This is the biggest downfall to playing Tryndamere in my opinion. Tryndamere doesn't play well with all team makeups, so it's good to inform a team and have them work with champions around him. They need to be capable of supporting Tryndamere so that he's not rendered useless in team fights. He can be harassed easily, and there are many others who share his pain. The player has to make himself/herself beneficial to the team all game, and not when he/she feels like they've farmed enough for items. Only the best of the best will show themselves in high ELO games with this champion because of their ability to carry all game and not just partial game.


Ability Explanations & Proper Usage

Battle Fury:
It is very important that if you are jungling or even laning that you hold onto your Fury if at all possible.

Jungling: When you Elixir of Agility (Most efficient jungle/gank experience without getting Madred's Razors) you will hold your Fury until you gank or return to base to get item(s). The reason for this is maximizing damage output on both minions and opponents when you choose to gank. Trust me, if you're any good you can abide by this.

Laning: If you're going to lane, you do it under your circumstances. If you don't, then you might as well be consuming Fury in order to stay alive long enough to watch your opponent(s) farm your lane and possibly you. Basically, in champion select, if someone plays as a beneficial laning champion for yourself or if the team needs a solo top, then what I've stated earlier may apply (maintaining Fury). If not and the team needs a jungle, then choose Smite and jungle as long as it's a reasonable team composition. Otherwise, DO NOT choose Tryndamere.


Bloodlust:
The key to using this ability is paying attention and forseeing events happening. Trigger timing is important in team fights. Too many people use Bloodlust way before they should. Obviously, if you don't need to use it then don't. THE ONLY time that you shouldn't use Bloodlust before using Undying Rage is when you're sure that you won't die. It's either that or when you anticipate someone using Ignite to provoke propering healing in which case you need to leave a fight if you forsee death after triggering Bloodlust within triggering Undying Rage. This will come with practice.

Mocking Shout:
This ability can be used to catch an enemy, flee from an enemy, save allies and find hidden/stealthed enemies. The viewer can usually understand how these methods are performed best by display. The most simplistic way of providing this is by creating a tutorial. I will have this made soon.

Spinning Slash:
I shouldn't have to explain Spinning Slash too much. Basically, the ability used less as a way to deal damage, until later in a game when you're items contain more Attack Damage for ability scaling, as it is to enter or escape fights or move from one location to the next quicker. This is the primary reason why it's leveled last. It's an efficient jungling tool because it allows for faster clearance times. Keep in mind that it will lower its own cooldown when you critically hit an opponent or minion. This is nice when your trying to catch someone: critically strike a minion in a wave you're passing and continue on to your opponent. Another use is for escaping when Spinning Slash is at the end of its cooldown where there is a wall nearby, you're currently hitting minions in a wave and enemies are closing in on you while laning. There are other scenarios out there, this will help you understand how to better utilize this ability.

Undying Rage:
Not too much to talk about here. Primarily, don't stall when using this ability. Team fights are usually where individuals can fail to use their ultimate properly to avoid death. Knowing other champion abilities and proper use of those champions can help with this. Keep in mind that this ability can also be used to grant Fury when you need it. Some of the only times that you'll want to prematurely use Undying Rage are when you're boosting your Crit Chance to kill a minion, dragon or Baron quicker or have a sure kill on an opponent with a boost in Crit Chance.


Recommended Spells & Runes

Flash: Teleports your champion to target nearby location.

Mastery: Reduces the cooldown by 15 seconds.

Flash is one of those spells that you normally see everyone using because everyone can benefit greatly from it. The difference between normal champions and champions like Tryndamere is that we can open the possibility of having 2 Flash. Spinning Slash would be the other ability that acts like a weaker version of Flash (the types of walls you can go through varies in comparison to Flash. I'd have to say that Flash saves lives. It's saved me an ungodly amount of times and it usually does the same for others. I strongly recommend getting this spell.

Cleanse: Removes all debuffs from your champion and reduces the duration of subsequent stuns, slows, taunts, fears, snares, sleeps, silences, blinds and immobilizes by 65% for the next 3 seconds.

Mastery: Reduces cooldown by 20 seconds.

This is a very worthy spell. However, it does not remove the variation of debuffs that Quicksilver Sash does. Although it is not very popular, it is an extremely cost-efficient item, as the active is one of the best in the game.

Exhaust: Slows movement speed by 40% and reduces auto/basic attack damage by 70% and ability/item damage by 35% for 3 seconds.

Mastery: Improves Exhaust to also reduce the target's armor and magic resistance by 10 for the duration, and increases its duration by 0.5 seconds.

If you don't get Cleanse, then it's a safe bet that you're getting Quicksilver Sash (I hope) and this opens up the spell Exhaust for use. I originally wanted to fit Phage into the build as a necessary item, but Exhaust will have to make up for it. Plus, you have a safety net against heavy auto-attackers to get a head start on them with your own damage.

Ghost: Your Champion ignores unit collision and moves 27% faster for 10 seconds.

Mastery: Increases the movement speed by 6% and its duration by 1.5 seconds.

I've grown more fond of this spell. Having said this, I do not personally use it nor do I usually recommend it to contradict my previous statement. However, this spell is subject to personal preference as are the rest of the spells and many choose to use it in addition to ganking and escaping.

Smite: Smite deals 420 + (lvl x 25) True damage to a enemy minion, pet, neutral monster.

Mastery: Improves Smite to reward a bonus 5 gold when used, and reduces its cooldown by 5 seconds.

I'm not really worried about this mastery :P Anyways, Smite is very helpful only if you promise yourself to get Quicksilver Sash in Summoner's Rift. Exhaust isn't a must have spell, although it is extremely helpful. If you have a possible jungler already on your team, do not get this. If you have to be the last resort for a jungler, then I'd recommend getting it. It makes your jungling faster obviously, less intimidating, and allows you to get to ganking right away.


My Current Rune Book
Greater Quintessence of Swiftness
Greater Mark of Desolation
Greater Seal of Resilience
Greater Glyph of Shielding

So, why do I choose these rune types? They are all primary, meaning that they are the best of their rune type. However, that wasn't the only reason I chose them. They all play their role in games:

Greater Quintessence of Swiftness:
You will read throughout my guide that I am a big fan of Movement Speed. For that reason, my friend had read and asked me why I hadn't thought of using Greater Quintessence of Swiftness for extra Movement Speed. I've used them ever since. Since there are no other Movement Speed runes, these particular runes have the max possible effect for their type.

Alternative:

Greater Quintessence of Desolation:
Armor Penetration basically brings the user closer to dealing true damage. It will always be useful because every champion will end up surpassing our Armor Penetration in runes with their end base Armor. It never goes to waste. There is no other Quintessence, besides Greater Quintessence of Swiftness, that should replace these runes because nothing quite competes against them.

Greater Mark of Desolation:
Again with Armor Penetration, it's necessary if you want to come closer to dealing true damage. The current argument is whether to get these or Attack Speed runes for Marks. I will provide some nice calculations for the future.

Greater Seal of Resilience:
Why does a carry even want Armor? Isn't that stuff for tanks? That was a hot argument when I changed the Seals over to Flat Armor and then Phreak did the same in his Tryndamere Spotlight and everyone shuts up :P I'm a big fan of these runes because they are very helpful when it comes to laning and jungling. The only other rune type I would replace this for would be Greater Seal of Evasion. Nothing else compares so I rest my case.

Greater Glyph of Warding:
I find myself extremely intrigued that people choose Attack Speed in Glyphs. Not only is it a waste of IP, but is a waste of rune slots.

There are only two types of runes that I would recommend as Glyphs. There's a third that I'll mention, but don't recommend as highly as the other two. These types of Glyphs are Greater Glyph of Shielding, Greater Glyph of Shielding and Greater Glyph of Focus. All of these runes serve their purposes well for being Glyphs (which provide usually the weakest runes). Users choose Greater Glyph of Shielding for the benefits of late game Magic Resistance and getting the most out of their Glyphs. Other users choose Greater Glyph of Warding for early game laning and the rest choose Greater Glyph of Focus obviously for reducing their cooldowns.

If you do not agree with my runes, go mix and match your runes using this helpful site: List of Runes I'm not saying change them drastically, but it will show you the best of every rune class and it can be helpful.


Reasoning for my Spells, Skill Order, & Masteries

Main Spells
Flash is a must have spell. I've heard otherwise from others, but until proven differently, Flash is just too good to pass up. Choosing a secondary spell is up to you. My preference is Ignite because I'm more on the aggressive side in team fights of any number. Exhaust is another great choice to slow or weaken an opponent.

Skill Order
The only way your skill order will change is if you decide to jungle or not:

If you do jungle, your skill order will look like this:
Bloodlust -> Spinning Slash -> Mocking Shout right into the normal skill order from there. All that changed was the initial ability. You want Mocking Shout at level three if you can gank one of the two closest lanes to you.

If you don't jungle, you will follow the normal order of skills that my guide recommends:
It's smart that we start off with Spinning Slash so that we can benefit from the mobility asap in-case we need to escape a death threatening situation. Bloodlust isn't a worthy first skill to choose because it offers very low health and damage starting off. Mobility is our better choice.

Talent Tree


There are some questions you may have about the masteries:

Nimbleness
Why not get this? Because we have 2% dodge rate. Enough said. It's awesome to have with Ninja Tabi, but we can't foresee what the future has to offer as far as opponent lineup is concerned. It would be a hit or miss mastery.

Good Hands versus Perseverance
The first point in Perseverance offers 2% Health and Mana Regeneration, but the final 2 points offer 1%. Not a good trade.

Greed versus Utility Mastery
Wouldn't you rather have longer lasting red and/or blue buff(s) over a ****ty gold return rate? I don't know, maybe you would, but since Tryndamere can jungle well and you'll probably do it for the buffs, you're going to have buffs often and the extra time with them will be beneficial.


You, Your Team & Wards

Warding is way too over looked by many teams. I'm going to show you how to ward correctly, or at least how my team and I ward. The ward possibilities are obviously endless for 5s. These are the primary areas that you and your team will be warding each and every game.


Order of priority; Use Sight Ward and Vision Ward where necessary:


Baron/Dragon Wards:
However you decide to set these up with your team, whether it be orderly among the team or supports only buy wards, make sure these are always laid out! Baron and Dragon are what we're primarily keeping an eye on here. Early in the match it's not as important obviously, however, you still need to know whether top, mid, or bot will be set up for a gank when enemy laners/junglers are wandering about. These early kills can help the enemy sculpt the rest of the match and land a victory. We don't want to be allowing the enemy to kill either Baron or Dragon. That's a good chunk of gold that will distribute among their team, not to mention Baron's handy buff. Again, don't overlook these wards!

Note: I would recommend using Vision Ward for these locations, especially Baron mid-late game. If not Vision Ward, then make sure someone, usually the tank, has Oracle's Elixir for discovering enemy wards.

Self Privacy Wards:
There's orange points at top, mid, and bot hiding locations. I would hope that your entire team would try to ward the areas entitled to them. These wards are not entirely important, however, they are lifesavers. Junglers and wandering laners will use these bushes to set up for early kills. If you're pushing your lane, then it would be a good idea to ward the bush(s) that is closet to you.

Team Privacy Wards:
These are crucial wards to put out when the match can go either way by eliminating possible ambushes when pushing minions or entering your own jungle.

Game Changing Wards:
Of course all of the wards posted on the map are capable of changing the outcome of a game, but these wards are placed in a location that both teams will always drift by. Reasons to go through the wards (for both teams): Getting to Baron and dragon, changing lanes, shifting from allied jungle to the enemy's jungle (either by self or team) to steal mobs/buffs, shifting as a team to gank the enemy team, etc. If you just have a ward on either Baron and/or dragon, you can still miss the enemy slipping by into your jungle never knowing it. This allows enemies to set up ganks. Therefore, these wards change the outcome of a game because you know whats coming.

Invading Wards:
I thought it was appropriate to name these wards in this manner because you can enter their bushes knowing whether they're there or not before you attempt to set up a gank. The enemy usually walks through these bushes hoping to freely enter their jungle for experience/gold and/or buffs.

Buff Wards:
Monitor your's and enemy's buffs with these wards. Good to set in your own jungle if they start playing dirty and snatching buffs early game from your jungle. These wards are primarily for the junglers of each team.


Boot Selection

Mercury's Treads:
Mercury's Treads feature the highest value of Tenacity of any item and is in a tie for being the least expensive Tenacity item in League of Legends. It would be wise to purchase these because Tenacity works on every type of Crowd Control, except suppressions and knock ups, obviously, which is what Tryndamere needs most as he is easily harassed. Having 35 Tenacity results in 35% reduced Crowd Control duration. Enough said.

Berserker's Greaves:
This item provides 25% Attack Speed. If you don't care about or want Tenacity, then this is your second best choice. These boots are good if you need something cheap that will give you basic Movement Speed. You can sell them when you start bringing in more gold for Mercury's Treads at a later time. In my opinion, they are the most useless boots in the game.

Ninja Tabi:
Ninja Tabi is the only item with Dodge Rating in the League of Legends. The tabi should be considered your number one choice of boots when presented with an opposing team consisting primarily of physical damage and little to no Crowd Control. However, it is built usually by tanks, as it gives Armor and the ability to Dodge.


Item Building

Reviewing in progress with this section.

Keep in mind that you're exploring options with what you're about to read. Only use what I say as a tool to help you create a build of your own. These are not quite guidelines, but rather etiquette information to help you decide how you will build. It is extremely important that you read everything in this and the following section to get a grip on establishing your own build.

Starting Our Core Build
OR

Laning:
Brawler's Gloves is just about the best item that you can get that will branch into bigger items and still benefit you early on in your game. This, combined with a full bar of Fury, will give you better chances towards landing critical hits off when laning against your enemy. You may also choose to purchase Boots of Speed which is personally what I prefer to do. You will notice that I am a big fan of Movement Speed for Tryndamere simply because he needs to be as mobile as possible. I say this because he has the capability of being built to become a truly efficient killing machine, but isn't quite made for it without the proper items/stat. There are several other champions who can out-perform him without having these items simply because their abilities allow them to do so in unique ways whereas Tryndamere won't benefit without having a supplement; in this case items. Now, this is the same with any champion, but no other champion can hit quite like Tryndamere can, say it's a even fight. His strength relies completely on being able to continuously lock on and hit a focused target.

Continuing Your Core Build


Our pre-core build consists of Zeal Mercury's Treads (or w/e boots) B. F. Sword. Why is this? We do this because we want as early stable statistics as possible. Zeal provides Critical Strike Chance and Movement Speed to accommodate our early game needs. However, we will still need Attack Damage as soon as possible after purchasing this item. Mercury's Treads is just a very likely to be chosen item. For this reason, I provide them as a primary item to purchase. We will choose what we feel is most necessary to accommodate us in our game. Refer back to "Boot Selection" if you need help choosing the correct boots. B. F. Sword is an obvious early game essential. Where does any of our damage come from early if we have none?

Finishing Our Core Build
OR

This whole game revolves around us having Infinity Edge for our primary source of damage. Once we have this item, **** can start to get real. Unfortunately, getting there can, and usually is, the hardest part. However, there is an alternative to rushing Infinity Edge. I hate to admit it, but the member z3rg3m3n actually changed my view on what should be rushed on Tryndamere. He bashed my guide, but didn't throw out the idea of starting with The Black Cleaver. I check out Tryndamere guides often looking at all the ways other players build and play him. I ran across his guide and the first thing I realized was that he started with The Black Cleaver. He forgot to mention some reasons as to why this is such a great item to start with, so I will share those reasons:
The Black Cleaver offers 3 essentials to Tryndamere early to mid game. These essentials are Attack Damage, Attack Speed and Armor Penetration. We can farm lanes easier, deal next to, if not, true damage on squishies and build up Fury much quicker for increasing our Critical Strike Chance.
Unfortunately Infinity Edge is rather expensive. It's 1k gold more expensive than The Black Cleaver. This amount of gold doesn't sound like a lot, but it's equivalent to three player kills. It is so detrimental that we are able to deal damage as soon as we can because starting off, Tryndamere has very weak damage.
Other physical carries on the team will benefit from the number of stacks that we apply to a target.

Every game usually has a time-frame or window of opportunity for us to get so much gold to establish our core build. We are all individuals and can't always account for everyone on the map because we don't have to option of being in several places at once, obviously. When other players on our teams die to opponents, they are making our early game more difficult to work with. So, it's very crucial to build cheap and effective early on, in this case The Black Cleaver is an item that can allow us to do this.

After it's purchase, the item order doesn't have to follow my own. However, I recommended that you don't get to clueless with your item purchase after buying Infinity Edge as it will greatly affect your game's outcome.

Vampiric Scepter is our follow-up item after the purchase of either The Black Cleaver or Infinity Edge. The purpose of waiting for Lifesteal is having the damage to make it worthwhile. This is why it's so useless to have very early in a game. Where there is little damage, there is substantially less Lifesteal. This item is a placeholder for the legendary item The Bloodthirster which may come later or even Starks Fervor which is entirely situational for your team.

Lastly, an item such as Quicksilver Sash is very important to get before finishing Infinity Edge. If we don't get this item after The Black Cleaver then we may have a hard time accomplishing much in team fights of any number.

Building to Counter and Outlast


Of these items, Quicksilver Sash is usually necessary. It removes nearly all debuffs.

Force of Nature is there if you don't need the spell immunity from Quicksilver Sash and just need the Magic Resistance and other ******** that comes with Force of Nature. However, I highly recommend Quicksilver Sash in every game because we almost always need to neglect a Crowd Control and/or Silencing ability when entering team fights. Also, Tryndamere is very item dependent if you haven't noticed. With that said, he is an expensive champion to play, so any shortcuts that we can take, in this case a cost effective item, is more than necessary. These are high priority items to look at before moving on. At a high ELO standpoint, you will always face teams where one of these items are necessary to have in team fights of any number.

Banshee's Veil is an excellent item as well because it's in the same neighborhood as the other two items above as far as the amount of Magic Resistance provided is concerned, provides Health (whatever, it helps) and neglects an actual Spell every 45 seconds. Neglecting spells is insanely important for team fights, 1v1 and 1vX scenarios. Think of every event you've been in (that you can remember of) when you wanted to initiate a team fight as a team with whatever champion you're playing, whether it's a tank, support, AP carry or AD carry and you simply couldn't because the enemy(ies) had Banshee's Veil. It's an uncomfortable position to be in and it can be for the enemy as well if you build accordingly.



Don't get The Black Cleaver twice! If you already have it from earlier, you may choose to skip this section if you don't need the extra Armor Penetration.

The other team knows that you have Infinity Edge and they know that it's detrimental to their health. The tanks should be stacking Armor if they're smart, so, it's a good time to get an item that has Armor Penetration/Reduction. The real question from this point on is: How do I decide which item to get over the other? The answer is quite simple: look at the enemy team's Armor and the type of champions they are using. If you see a tank with a substantial amount of Armor, or about to build a large sum of it, then Last Whisper is a possibly good choice. Percentage Armor Penetration will not be nearly as great against weaker champions not building Armor as the percentage removed will not be as great as it would used against a tank. If you see a team with small amounts of Armor including the tank or just many weaker champions choosing not to build a substantial amount of Armor, then The Black Cleaver will be suffice. The Black Cleaver is an excellent item to purchase for Attack Speed to build Fury faster for higher Critical Strike Change and, in most cases, will be the item to purchase over Last Whisper.

Build Completion
Items that we will look at:


Hopefully you're a good carry and your team has gotten this far without vast difficulties. We needed to solve many stat issues that would interfere with our success: Magic Resistance, Attack Speed, Movement Speed, Immunity to certain abilities, and Attack Damage. All of these statistics were looked at and the build was adjusted accordingly to them. Anyway, onto our final items: Phantom Dancer The Bloodthirster. Phantom Dancer is just a nice utility item to have for your games. Along with Infinity Edge, these items are very common and basic to have for Tryndamere. All three statistics provided by Phantom Dancer are essential to him.

The Bloodthirster is hands down the best Attack Damage oriented item we can buy for Tryndamere after Infinity Edge and The Black Cleaver (if chosen for your build). That is if you can keep it sufficiently stacked. At this point in the game, if you're the one being focused because your opponents absolutely fear you, then it will be hard to benefit fully from you end game lifesteal. For that reason, you need to make sure that the other team doesn't have a reason to target you first by making a surprise entrance when entering team fights if at all possible. This is not always the case and you'll have to do your best and remaining un-targeted which isn't always easy.


Conclusion

With everything I do, I'll admit, I take some pride in doing so. No matter what it is, I feel as if I have to perform at peak performance. With that in mind, I also think about the viewers who will read my guide. As soon as new updates are released, this resource is where everyone should come to for updates and questions. This guide has been standing for over a year now, and I have encouraged several players to take Tryndamere up for play and have answered many of their questions along the way. Head to the threads for questions and either I or someone else will be sure to get to you with a response as soon as we read the post.

Subscribe to this guide if you want to be sure to get your news and updates as soon as they come out! Vote and comment ONLY after you have read my guide. Also, if you haven't tested it either, please do so before you vote. If you're new, it'll take time to get used whatever your new at: the champion, possibly build, and/or the game. Again, you can comment and ask questions, that's what I'm here for.