Udyr Build Guide by The Tadpole

Introduction

I have been Playing Udyr for a long time and have Played many games with him, these are the sorts of builds I use, however I usually vary them slightly more depending on the opponent, I build a tanky Udyr, as even built like this his damage is quite high using Tiger especially since the bleed from Tiger Stance gets such a high percent of your attack damage with such a low cooldown that if you just spam Tiger Stance even without much attack damage you should still pull out alright damage, and with all this health it is safe to use Bear Stance to run in and stun one to initiate teamfights. In this Guide Udyrs Damage is alright and he always has quite high health, He also always has high run speed as I believe this is one of the most necessary things to have with Udyr. In this Guide I will not tell you anything about how to lane with Udyr, as that is, in my Opinion, a ridiculous way to play, however you should learn all that you need to know about Jungling with Udyr.

Pros / Cons

Pros:

-Is balanced
-Is fun
-Uses Tiger

Cons

-Can be hard to gank before boots of speed
-Can fall behind or be useless if ganks not pulled off successfully
-Low Aoe since Phoenix isn't leveled

Unique Skills

This Build Doesn't have a lot of Unique Skill that other builds don't have a part from the fact that a lot of the guides for Udyr are based around Phoenix stance, now if you Like Phoenix stance then that's all fine and dandy, however I don't like it, and I think a lot of people build Udyr too close to a carry for comfort, instead of his real purpose, a fighter, with balanced health and damage. In this build I use Tiger Stance, because It does wonderful damage solo-target and is easier to use then Phoenix Stance which, if you prefer Tiger gives you an advantage over them, and I believe the Item choices in this Build are better than that in Other Tiger builds and better suit Udyr's Role

Masteries

Udyr is naturally quite a good defensive character, with his Turtle Stance mitigation and The Large run speed bonus to help escape from Bear Stance reduces the necessity the have a defensive based mastery or a utility based mastery, therefore having an offensive mastery will help you to kill the monsters quicker and to gank enemies more effectively than if you played otherwise. Vampirism Helps to give you back just a little health at the earlier game, the same as if you'd bought a doran's blade. Summoner's Resolve is a useful mastery for Junglers, considering it gives you 10 gold for free every 70 seconds when you use smite. This helps a lot as early game. Personally, if I didn't use offensive for Udyr, I would definitely Chooose Defensive over Utility as that is the least useful for him, as he does not need excess health and mana regen or movement speed.

Summoner Spells

Viable Summoner Spells

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Flash
This is Good Because The Instant teleport is always useful for either chasing champions or for running away, and since you have Bear Stance speed boost then, it makes ghost less effective since the speed boost isn't necessary

Smite
This is obviously very good as its very useful for any Jungler, this at low level provides a lot of extra damage to the mobs and because of the masteries it is also viable throughout the entire game due to the free 10 gold granted everytime you use it. Smite is also a wonderful tool for stealing dragon and baron from the enemy without any real input or danger to the player however it can be hard to try

Heal
This can be useful for Jungling and make it possible to use other items to start with and still finish on full health, however I would not suggest using this unless you just want to support your team in teamfights and try to save them

Teleport
This can be very useful to help your team to save turrets and stop people from pushing, teleporting to minions and turrets and then covering them. It can also be used to gank if your team can stop the enemy running away for long enough

Non-Viable Summoner Spells

All of The Others Basically.
If your gonna use any summoner spells, use the ones above, I always suggest Flash and Smite, but Teleport and Smite can work Just as well

Runes

Greater Mark of Desolation
Greater Mark of Desolation
I Chose this set of runes because I believe that all AD-based characters, need
some Armor penetration, and since I didn't want to choose any items with armor
pen as I don't think they are all that good for Udyr I instead chose these runes,
it'll give you a nice slight boost in damage, getting through that armor, it helps
to clear the jungle slightly faster at low levels.

Greater Glyph of Attack Speed
I Chose this set of runes because Udyr already has quite a bit of attack speed,
but at low level when you can't afford to keep smashing through your spells to keep
Monkey's Agility Going then these runes can be nice in giving you that little
extra speed taking out the monster's in the Jungle.

Greater Seal of Attack Damage
I chose these because at low level the damage boost is nice to help you pick off
those Jungle monsters quicker and to do just that little bit more damage in ganking
just to make sure that the enemies don't make it away.
Greater Quintessence of Endurance
Greater Quintessence of Endurance
I chose these runes because I always personally think Udyr should be a health-based character, and with these runes being percent based they always get you a nice bit of
extra Health, whether you choose to build for it or not.

Skill Sequence

Starting with Tiger Stance means that you can rush through the jungle quickly and its also useful to smash enemies in ganks and kill them even after you've stopped hitting them. Getting Turtle Stance means that you have a shield while killing the monsters and some extra lifesteal and mana vamp to get from the monsters while in the stance which is useful although not necessary, it is necessary to get Bear Stance at level 3 because this provides you with both a speed boost and a stun for ganks so you can stop them running away and actually reach them before they just outright flash or run out of the combat, allowing you and your team-mates to pick up the kills.

Items

Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potion enables you to get through the Jungle with either full or virtually full health by the time you finish as well as it being fully cleared and helps you build towards Madred's Razors / Wriggle's Lantern so that you can then Jungle Quicker, Building Warmog's Armor as soon as possible is useful as it will give you a health advantage over other Champions and allows you to get the stacks up straight away, getting Zeal provides a bit of extra movement speed. Trinity Force is useful as it provides many useful buffs for Udyr, and since Stances have a low cooldown and you want to keep changing between them anyway it means you can pop sheen very often while still Melee'ing. Although Frozen Mallet seems a bit silly after a trinity force I still believe its worth it as it provides lots of extra health and a 100% slow oppose to a 25% slow which I vastly prefer. By Now you have so Much health it would be silly not to buy an Atma's Impaler and Maw of Malmortius Just provides some extra attack damage and survivability against magic users.

Possible Variants

Atma's Impaler for Phantom Dancer : this provides even more movement speed and attack speed which is handy in general but especially along with lifesteal

Boots of Mobility for Phantom Dancer : This, along with your Trinity Force still provides enough movement speed and also provides some extra attack speed and critical strike chance which can be very useful at little loss to speed, especially when Bear Stance temporary effect if active.

Frozen Mallet / Wriggle's Lantern for The Bloodthirster since this still provides some nice lifesteal meaning you can gain back some free health from attacking it makes it usable instead of wriggle's however I would suggest keeping wriggle's as the wards can be very useful for warding either dragon or baron, even at end game, I would suggest instead swapping the Mallet for it as with high attack speed you should hopefully pull of a slow from Trinity force anyway

Jungling / Ganking

Here's the order of Jungling (I can do without Pulls but never say no to free help)
- Wolves (1 Potion) -\
- Blue (1 Potion) --\
- Wraiths (1 Potion) ---}Don't Use potions if they will be wasted. Save them for the next mob.
- Red (1 Potion) --/
- Golems (1 Potion) -/

This is a video of some Jungling and Ganking



Once you reach level 3 and have Bear Stance you can start to Gank, hide in a bush near a lane, pop bear stance and run out when you team-mates are in suitable places and so are the enemies, if you need to you can also flash, hit the enemy, stun them with bear form, switch to Tiger Stance and hit them and keep alternating between Tiger and Bear to keep up the Monkey's Agility and also to keep stunning and dealing damage.

Covering

Covering your team consists of, essentially laning, If one of your team-mates needs to recall, either to buy items or to regain health and mana then you go to their lane, either by running (But only if it is near enough for you) or using Teleport (on to a turret), and then you want to play carefully in their lane so that you won't be killed by their lane/laners or ganked by their Jungler, if the minions come in range of your turret you want to kill them to try and get last hits and also to stop the enemy from pushing your turret so that it can stay on as full health as possible while you doing the same, As soon as the other Champion comes back you can leave and go back to the Jungle However a good idea is to get them to gank from the bushes if they can so that your team can get another kill before you Go back to the Jungle.

Team Work

At Early level, the team work that Udyr can do, is of course common ganking, using red to slow enemies and also stopping enemies using Bear Stance to stun the enemies, but mainly at this point the only proper team play is covering other peoples lanes when they need to recall to either buy items or for health / mana, this is easier if you have teleport but if not you can only cover them if the lane is near to were you currently are.

In this build once you have both Warmog's Armor and Frozen Mallet You have a lot of health, along with Trinity Force and Bear Stance you can move very fast, slow, stun and have a high amount of health therefore, you are good for engaging team fights, saving your team-mates by stunning enemies, stopping enemies from escaping, and interrupting all forms of channeled spells, such as nunu's and fiddlesticks ultimate with your brief stun. You can also help your team just by doing pure damage and while you still have Wriggle's Lantern You can ward sensibly.

Yellow: Vital to protect the jungler (you!) on your team
Blue: For protection depending on which lane you're on
Red: To guard Dragon and Baron
Orange: In order to Counter-Jungle

(Credit goes to jhoijhoi)

Farming

Wants you start having to stand in lanes along with your other Team-mates so that you can team-fight with all of your already there, to kill creeps you can choose to last hit, and will have to do so if you don't have Wriggle's Lantern anymore, however if since your AD carry will also be there you will probably have trouble getting last hits. If Your Just in a lane on your own just hit the creeps and you should be able to kill them with just the bonus that Wriggle's happens commonly, especially since you will have quite a high attack speed.

When Farming or in the Jungle, Once you stop needing Smite to Help you get the kills you want to use it whenever you can since it only has a 70 second cooldown and since smite grants 10 gold per use you don't want to let that go to waste for no reason.

Summary

In conclusion to Play Udyr Successfully isn't as hard as everyone says. Just start in the Jungle as you would, follow this guide and it should all be good, I've done so well with this build so many times and it helps your entire team and will also get you nice creep kills from the Jungle. The Ganks are also quite easy, as long as your team doesn't push the enemy too much all you have to do is run out of a bush at high speed and stun the enemy and then just smash through them with Tiger along with the rest of your team. This build can work just as well with different items however I always think that Health is the best stat for Udyr, especially since he can do so much damage without building any Damage using Tiger. If your in to Phoenix Area of Effect and Ability Power Damage then this isn't the guide for you because I hate Phoenix Stance and don't use it at all.