Udyr Build Guide by LeifKlover

Introduction

Introducing Udyr, a character I rarely see played by anyone else, and thus started off not understanding him well. His abilities are all round and can be game changing depending on where they are used.

What makes him unique is that he doesn't have an ultimate, which is a turnoff to some summoners, but he makes up for it in his capability in level placement.

His Tiger Stance increases attack speed, his Turtle Stance gives him life and mana steal, his Bear Stance gives him the ability to stun, and his Phoenix Stance does burn damage to everyone in front of him every three hits. Their activation gives even better buffs. As a side note, he is not AP heavy, at all. You can build him AP heavy, but you will be hurting him in the long run.

Unique Skills

Your Udyr can do one of two things:
Tank or do hellacious amounts of damage.
No matter how you dice it, he's made for those two things. Sure, he can jungle, but without the right runes and masteries, you'll be blowing in the wind till mid game, under leveled and under fed on gold. Now, while you think about this, proceed to think about taking more damage than the rest of your team, or hitting like a train.
The other builds may be for you, of course, but play styles are play styles, and you must play around to find what works best, and this has worked well enough for me. I share this information with everyone in better hopes of people getting a better understanding of Udyr.

Skill Sequence

Here we go, the biggest thing about Udyr.
Stances.
Thats right, he doesn't use ultimates, nor does he really use abilities. Stances, fighting stances to be exact.
Lets see here, each of them have an activation, of course, but there are no skillshots, there are no CC's on activation, theres not even a nuke to be had. But each activation gives each ability an edge.

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[PASSIVE] Monkey's Agility: Every Stance you enter gives you +10% attack speed. This stacks three times, so you can keep chaining stances between phoenix, bear, and tiger, with a bit of turtle for mana boosting, with what appears to be a greatly boosted attack speed.

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Tiger Stance: This stance grants a passive attack speed boost, which can be great at any time, and most effective mixed with ionic spark, as it seems to proc more often with it, at least that's what it seems. Now, on tigerstance activation, Udyr decides he's going to punch a bit faster for five seconds. Not only that, but he does more damage over two seconds, each punch.

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Turtle Stance: This stance gives a passive Mana and Life steal. Thats right, MANA STEAL. It doesn't exactly vamp mana from the enemy, but you toss turtle style when you're too peckish to change stances, hit up the turtle. The higher the level, the more mana and health you'll get per punch. The more mana and health you have maximum, the more you get. Now, on activation, you get a shield that can tank a certain amount of damage for you, this is great for things like DoT's, like Cassiopeia's EVERYTHING, and Ignite. In fact, I've tanked Karthus's ult, Requiem, with this while taking nary a scratch. Now, its boosted a little with ability power, but it would be a waste to go into AP building.

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Bear Stance: Oh boy, this stance again. You see Udyr in this stance already at the menu screen. This is a beautiful stance, and a game changer. It can stun. For one second. Every six seconds. On a SINGLE champion. This seems a bit under rated, but think of it like this. Its effect is only on a single champion. This means that six second stun cooldown is only on a single thing, meaning while THEY are stunned, you can stun everything else. Now, on active, you get a speedboost. This is great for two reasons. Running away, and ganking. If they try and run, pop bear, donkey punch them, and your team can do quite a bit on them. In five seconds, your active cools down, pop it again, run up to them, and repeat. Its that simple.

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Phoenix Stance: People don't put too much into phoenix stance, and thats a shame. Phoenix is a great gold nabber, and great for clearing full lanes. Burning effect every three hits on everyone in front of him. Better yet, the active gives you a burning ring of fire that burns everything around him, boosts his AP, giving a quick turtle swap a bit of extra safety, and boosts his attack damage.

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Each one of these can be leveled to five, every single one. Now, this means you can 5/5/5/3 or 5/4/5/4, or any thing you see fit, but its always a give and take. You could get more from turtle, and lose some in bear, or take more in phoenix to stay in lanes longer, and lose some tiger for a tower push. Its always subjective, but the given skill build works the best for me, but you can play around with it as you see fit.

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Now, For the reasoning behind my build's skill choices:

Health Build:

• 1 Bear Stance gives an active speed boost and a stun you may need for that early gank. At Level 1, it will give only two seconds of speed boost, but hide in a bush if you're running top or bottom. Get your lane partner to get them to stick their neck out, and roll in with the guillotine. Stun, then do as much damage as possible with your buddy before they can run, before you die, or before their partner realizes that their teammate just got ganked into the ground. If you succeed, you or a teammate got an early feed, and that lane will be weak for the moment, and they will never catch up in level if you keep on them.
• 2 Once you gain a level, you may be peckish in health or mana, Turtle Stance is your bread and butter. Free mana, free health, pop it everytime you can. Level 1 won't give much, but its better than nothing.
• 3 Phoenix Stance on level three gives you minion feed, much more than tiger, bear, or turtle.
• 4 Tiger Stance will give you that carry you need, rolling a nice gank and flooding them with damage.
• 5 Turtle Stance for better sustain
• 6 Turtle Stance for better sustain
• 7 Turtle Stance for better sustain
• 8 Bear Stance because turtle stance can't be chosen, and it gives you a longer speed buff.
• 9 Turtle Stance for maximum sustain
• 10 Tiger Stance for better attack speed and damage, you should be doing heavy turret hits at this point anyways, this gives you better DPS on the turrets.
• 11 Phoenix Stance for better feed, and giving you protection from minions when hitting the turrets.
• 12 Phoenix Stance for better feed
• 13 Bear Stance for better ganking/running. Your speed buff is now 3 seconds long.
• 14 Bear Stance for better ganking/running. Your speed buff is now 3.5 seconds long.
• 15 Phoenix Stance for better feed and better ganking.
• 16 Phoenix Stance for maximum feed and better ganking.
• 17 Tiger Stance for better ganking and damage
• 18 Tiger Stance for better ganking and damage

By the end, you'll be 4/5/4/5

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AD/AP

• 1 Bear Stance gives an active speed boost and a stun you may need for that early gank. At Level 1, it will give only two seconds of speed boost, but hide in a bush if you're running top or bottom. Get your lane partner to get them to stick their neck out, and roll in with the guillotine. Stun, then do as much damage as possible with your buddy before they can run, before you die, or before their partner realizes that their teammate just got ganked into the ground. If you succeed, you or a teammate got an early feed, and that lane will be weak for the moment, and they will never catch up in level if you keep on them.
• 2 Once you gain a level, you may be peckish in health or mana, Turtle Stance is your bread and butter. Free mana, free health, pop it everytime you can. Level 1 won't give much, but its better than nothing.
• 3 Tiger Stance Will give you the carry you need, rolling a nice gank and flooding them with damage.
• 4 Phoenix Stance will give you the feed you need on minions.
• 5 Turtle Stance for better sustain
• 6 Turtle Stance for better sustain
• 7 Turtle Stance for better sustain
• 8 Tiger Stance because turtle stance can't be chosen, and it gives you a stronger attack power
• 9 Turtle Stance for maximum sustain
• 10 Bear Stance For better speed, therefore better ganks, allows you to get right up into the turrets to pop a tiger to rip into them before they can get to you.
• 11 Tiger Stance For faster attack speed and better damage on active.
• 12 Tiger Stance For faster attack speed and better damage on active
• 13 Tiger Stance for maximum attack speed and maximum damage on active.
• 14 Bear Stance for better ganking/running. Your speed buff is now 3 seconds long.
• 15 Bear Stance for better ganking/tunning. Your speed buff is now 3.5 seconds long.
• 16 Phoenix Stance for better feed
• 17 Phoenix Stance for better feed.
• 18 Phoenix Stance For the heel licking capability when chasing. It now does enough damage to make a difference when chasing.

You will now be 5/5/4/4

Runes

If you're going for the health builds, health is an absolute must, there is no doubt about it. A tanky Udyr is better than a dead one. He can make jabs and take down turrets when he's getting hammered by everyone, where other champions would die.

Now, if you're going for an attack damage and attack speed build, you may want to go all in for damage and a bit for attack speed in runes, since pulling a surge and tiger stance may hit the hard cap for attack speed, meaning Udyr will be hitting like a truck...every half a second.

Masteries

Masteries run on the same as runes, for health build Udyr, run into a full defense run.

On AD/AS, stay way from Ability power buffing as much as possible. (Which is impossible, given the offense tree's layout)

Why?

Because ranged characters are your biggest weakness, and you don't use too much AP for any of your abilities, and your phoenix stance active gives you an AP buff, which gives Udyr's Phoenix Stance a bit more punch, but not much else. I say this because you want as little AP as possible in case you're going against someone like Veiger, who's ultimate, Primordial Burst, would otherwise drop you.
Without AP, Veiger is like a fly, and AP doesn't do much for Udyr, as I keep saying. Some of your items will give you a small AP boost here and there, but its otherwise unneeded. Then it works into defense.

Items

So, Items.
Udyr's build isn't as gold heavy as others, but its nice to have the Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold in the early game on both builds for two reasons:
Udyr eats through mana early game, Turtle Stance just doesn't have enough mana sustain at level 1-3 to give you that edge, and Philosopher's Stone cushions that by quite a bit. Secondarily, Heart of Gold mixed with Philosopher's Stone gives you the beefiness to survive longer in a lane, coupling with Turtle Stance to keep you alive each and every punch and activation. These will be sold by the time you reach Atma's Impaler and Phantom Dancer respectively.

Next, on both, you'll be getting Berserker's Greaves. Obvious reasons on AD/AS, but health Udyr needs it for Turtle Stance and a well off pick-me-up.
Ionic Spark is essentially your Warmog's Armor feed on health build and your gold maker on both, a shock chaining to four different minions/champions doing 110 magic damage to each eats through minions quite fast, usually netting you last hit. The damage it does to champions is pretty well off, but when you mix it with Phoenix Stance, it can effectively clear an unregulated lane of every enemy minion, neglecting super minions, in about five seconds. The attack speed, again gives Health Udyr a bit of a pick up, and as mentioned earlier, a faster feed into the future Warmog's Armor.

Health's Giant's Belt builds into Warmog's Armor, as does your Regrowth Pendant, and most likely, you will have the cash to buy both, most likely maxing out your build until you can afford Warmog's Armor itself. I would recommend getting the belt and the pendant in one purchase set to maximize your health and keep you alive longer until you can purchase the armour. You will then purchase Sheen, giving Udyr a better strength all round, as he is an ability heavy champion, and you will mostly likely cycle through your abilities to make better use of your Passive.

AD/AS Wise, I've come to realize that Madred's Bloodrazor is a useful item against everything under the sun, baring those pesky squishy characters, which you should be swatting like flies anyways. A B. F. Sword gives you the damage pick-me-up you will most likely need, and when you get near your gold requirement for your next purchase, sell Heart of Gold and get the Phantom Dancer. Your B. F. Sword will then build into The Bloodthirster.

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Now, on the health end, you will be pushing for Trinity Force, and will be working hard on gold gain. You can either sell your heart of gold, as it will net you a nice 450 gold, or you can stay out there and wait for the gold boost passives to give you the gold you need. Never the less, sell that heart of gold before or after, as you will be dealing with Atma's Impaler next, and will need the room and gold.

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So, you've built the The Bloodthirster on AD/AS Udyr, you're next build is your most expensive, sell the Philosopher's Stone if the game is looking pretty tight, then belt into Infinity Edge. Most likely, by this point, you'll be doing under 1,500 damage a second, which totals a little under 7,500 damage for five seconds.
This is without tiger style even being touched, much less Surge. What does this mean? That tanky Cho'Gath is now a quivering hole in the ground and you've put your fist through Tryndamere's crying teeth. He can't cry to mother when you've done more damage than his health bar, faster than his finger can hit R.

Health Udyr? You've got Atma's Impaler, and now Banshee's. They hit you, they get blocked, and your health is high enough to give you a bit more damage...lets say, you have an infinity edge in a fourth slot. Yeah, you have over 4000 health, while Atma's Impaler gives you a damage boost equal to 2% of your health.
4000 times .02 comes out to +80 damage. They won't be able to sustain against you, since they're taking that from you as well as getting denied by Banshee's Veil's effect.

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Alternatives:
Banshee's Veil may be replaced at any time with Thornmail should you find their team auto attack heavy, it will save you much more health in the long run, but you will find atma's scepter slightly lacking

If you're buffing often or often find yourself dying before that last hit, invest in Guardian Angel in place of Banshee's Veil and Thornmail
Congratulations, You now understand two champions in one.

Summoner Spells

Is it really much to say? They are running, pop Exhaust, Bear Stance, stun, Tiger Stance and Surge to victory. Thats all there is to it. Would you rather them run as you flash so a single second stun can be your bread and butter? I've had an Ashe get away from me where only a lick from the Phoenix Stance at her heels would kill her in late game, but an Exhaust would have put her right out had I not been on cooldown. Every spell can be used on Udyr, some may replace surge, but do you really want to sacrifice a great boost in speed and power for something as simplistic as a heal that will get chewed away in about five seconds? Its either heal, or do a great amount of damage to them, enough for a buddy to poke them and drop them, even in your death. You want to maximize damage.

On that note, if you're team lacks a anyone with average DoT, go for an Exhaust and Ignite run. You would be amazed how quickly life stealing champions like Warwick fall to a good Ignite.

Now, on health Udyr, try using Cleanse...Thats right, cleanse... Personally, as an Udyr, I find most CC being focused on me because I'm constantly changing stances, so they decided to silence, and slow, and stun, and snare, just to keep me out of their hair long enough to kill you. Deny them that satisfaction.

The Turtling Bear

Lets say you're backdooring hard, you've knocked down a turret on top and you're getting near that bush near turret two. Master Yi pops out, and his lane partner comes out from the turret, Master Yi will pop his Alpha Strike and Highlander to keep his attack speed up with his Wuju Style's damage.
What do you do?
You run. You don't stop, you run. If the Master Yi gets in your grill too much for you to run, shove a bear claw between his teeth and haul it. Now, just as you run, pop Bear Stance, get the speed boost, then pop Turtle Stance, the speedboost will still be there, and you will now have a shield that can tank Master Yi for a bit until Bear Stance can come up again, even if their partner is something that could drop you if they had you still for a second.
As the shield from Turtle Stance wears off, or gets broken, and you activate Bear Stance again, Turtle Stance will be on a two or one second cooldown. Activate the moment it does get off cooldown, and keep the boosts from both alive.

Keep it up. You will almost always get back to your turret, base, or teammates. I've gotten away from whole teams, as long as they didn't use too much slow CC.
As long as you have a level 4 Bear Stance or higher, and a level 4 Turtle Stance or higher, you will almost always survive, barring you have at least a quarter health. The bear keeps you moving, and the turtle keeps you safe, and that's the way it should be when you run to safety.

The Mid-Life Crisis: Jungle Poking

So, by mid game, you've just about buffered out your mana problems, your turtle stance is maxed out by now and you're nabbing as much mana as you possibly can, but you needed that little boost earlier on or even a little bit afterwards. Have your jungler, if you have one, help you nab blue buff, keyed Crest of the Ancient Golem by the game. I'm sorry, I can't hear you over an increased Mana regen and reduced cooldowns. Yep, +20% cooldown reduction makes your abilities now 4 seconds on active. This means your Tiger Stance can chain.
Things are looking up now.
It would be in your best interest to grab blue buff every so often to give you that edge without depriving your teammates of it, because I do indeed know how it feels to be a Ziggs that just can't keep his mana up, and find that blue buff kept me in mid long enough to over-power a Shyvana.

So, while the jungle is rocking blue buff, there are three other notable things that Udyr is good with, which totals to just about everything. Red buff, Blessing of the Lizard Elder , gives you that extra physical attack edge, as well as a burning DoT AND a slowing effect. This buff reeks of ganking possibilities, and you will almost always be the biggest candidate on your team for it.

Important: Red Buff and Blue Buff may be passed on on death. If you're going to die, make it really hard for them. Don't risk your neck with these buffs on, because you may end up screwing your lane partner over and make them very unhappy.

Now, by later game, you're still a bit peckish on gold and possibly not understanding why there are two camps on the rivers between top and middle and Bottom and middle. On the bottom end, we have the dragon. He looks tough, but he drops pretty fast, and much faster with a friend. Upon his death, everyone, not just the participating slayers, receives 190 gold. Kill dragon as often as possible.

Then, there's the big daddy. Baron Nashor . I'm sure you've seen near top, and he's just so mean looking you stayed away from him early game. Late game, get your team together, and take him out as quickly and efficiently as possible. If you don't do it, the enemy will. Exalted with Baron Nashor , or often called Baron Buff by summoners, will change the tides of battle in an instant. With a passive attack damage and Ability power boost of forty for each, as well as increased health and mana regen, that comes out to a lot of hurt.
Now, this seems a bit much, but there's more.
When he dies, everyone gets his buff. All of your teammates. When you nab Baron, you make sure to go back, get health, and make the biggest pushes in the game. If you have yet to get Banshee's Veil, Infinity Edge, or Thornmail with his buff on, grab Guardian Angel.
Surely you're asking "Why?"
Guardian Angel has a passive safeguard. It resurrects you. With a certain amount of health. You keep whatever buff was on you when you died. So, should you be going to get Baron Nashor , purchase guardian angel as well. Why? You won't get the buff if you're already dead.

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Now, on that note, Udyr has great sustain mid game with his turtle stance, you can almost take the jungle over and help the jungler gank, or you can counter jungle to extremes and steal the enemy's everything. Just don't forget to pop Turtle Stance and everything will be fine. Stun CC from Bear Stance will keep the monsters from doing too much to you, and if you're looking peckish on health, hit up the ghasts and wolves with a single activation of Phoenix Stance.
Now, early game, if the enemy team has a jungler that may be going after blue buff with a leash, you could easily stun the jungler, steal the buff, and either run out, or get bottom lane to help you kill the jungler and leash, if the leash has stuck around.

Summary

Udyr has different ways of being played that are rarely seen, from being tanky as a six Feast Cho'Gath to hitting harder than Master Yi does. All there is left is to see what you can do and who you're up against. You can side lane easy, and solo laning is a piece of cake as long as you turret hug earlier on. Mid-laning can be a bit hard against ranged champions, who tend to take mid head on, but if you can get them to stick their necks out, pop a bear, then keep them locked down enough for them to retreat back to base or for them to die.

If you're up against Ashe, then, well, league be with you, because her slowing effects even top out Bear Stance's boost. There are just some champs that you can't cope with, and will thus need a friend to help you out.

Thanks to...

Vannish: For noting my less than stellar rune and mastery choice, hopefully it looks a bit more cleaned up.