Hello, first time poster long time reader. I'm not anyone special or anything, I'm just your ave player with a pretty ****py Ranked Elo. I'm not going to say this is for everyone and I'm sure there are more lerned people out there with a better grasp on Wukong than myself, All I'm asking is that you try it and see what you think before you downvote me.

Created 24 Aug 2011
24-aug-2011 : edited adding extra sections for feedback and tri-force

Okay, For runes it's pretty basic for most tanky DPS champs. Personally I go with armor pen marks and quints with armor seals and MR glyphs. You can however use dodge seals in place of armor and HP quints instead of Armor pen.

my choices:
greater mark of desolation
Greater Seal of Armor
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
greater quintessence of desolation

alternats:
Greater Seal of Evasion
Greater Quintessence of Health

I like to run 0-21-9 standard tanky set up. As far as the debate with Good Hands and Perseverence I will leave that up to you to decide what you think is better I usually just put 2 and 2 and stay out of that debate.

Atmogs is awsome.... nuff said LOL!

I start with a Regrowth Pendant and a Health Potion for early game farming and harrassing.

first trip back I try to have enough money to start my Boots and either get a Ruby Crystal or a Giant's Belt.

next I finnish Warmog's Armor and start on Atma's Impaler with the Cloak of Agility.

Then of course you finnish Atma's Impaler and your Mercury's Treads.

thats the meat and potatos of the build and from here on out everything else is just gravy.

From here you can do just about anything you want you have a bunch of health and atmas just gives you some great damage output.

i generally tend to grab a Vampiric Scepter to be able to steal a little bit of life from creeps and champs alike.

I build a The Brutalizer and Zeal next.

if the games lasts this long I finish Phantom Dancer, Bloodthirster and Youmuu's Ghostblade

Banshee's Veil is another item you could switch out with one of these if you feel that you really need it but I very rarely use it with this build.

I start off with Nimbus Strike. It's great for harrassing and/or last hitting groups of creeps to push your lane, then alternate Crushing Blow each level.

At lv 5 I grab Warrior Trickster because this is about the time the jungler starts to gank and it's nice to have handy around this time to get out of bad situations. I usually just keep 1 point in this and max out Nimbus Strike and Crushing Blow first, then finish Warrior Trickster late game.

And of course you max out Cyclone whenever possible.

Flash and Ignite.

these two skills are arguably the best choices for your summoner skills. Ignite can give you that extra bit of damage to finish someone off and help against life steal champs and Flash is just all around OP (according to the forums)

Other good skills you could switch out are:

Ghost which is always nice, (if you take ghost make sure to grab Haste in the utility tree)

Cleanse is an ok choice but really you have enough escape mechanisims this really isn't necissary.

Exhaust is another good skill to take for the extra slow but you have enough gap closers and damage output it isn't needed but is still a good choice.

any other spell is up to you but these are my suggestions

SO, this build is kind of pricey but the good thing is all you really need is Atmogs and boots to be effective. Keeping this in mind I generally like to duo bot and let my lane partner grab most of the creeps. I pick off a few creeps here and there when I know my partner won't be able to finnish them off or are blue pilling to grab more items.

I tend to like to push my lane under their turret and it's pretty easy to do with Wukong. The reason I do this is you and your lane partner can poke the **** out of the opposing team and let their turret kill their creeps and steal their gold while you can max out your partners and your own CS. and if you poke them down enough you have enough health and regen to dive under the tower take a few hits and sometimes get a kill and flash out.

also the reason I max both crushing blow and nimbus strike is that crushing blow works on turrets and Nimbus Strike is a great harrasser. so I tend to build up a nice creep push and smack the tower a couple times while the enemy is hitting me to poke down the turret early.

The way I like to work is to annoy the other team and help my team get kills. I try my best to not last hit champs untill mid to late game, and try my best to feed my lane partner early kills in lane.

once team fights start you should have Atmogs or be close to finishing up your Atma's impailer. I like to initiate with numbus strike and then smash cyclone and pop the other team into the air while my team is throwing everything they have into the fight. Once cyclone ends i hit my decoy to get out of the middle of everyone and jump back in with nimbus strike and crushing blow.

I decided to make a whole section dedicated to why I don't use Trinity Force in my build.

First off, My build is already pretty pricey with Warmog's Armor and Atma's Impaler being the starting rush items that an item as pricey as Trinity Force is just a little over the top

second- while i don't dispute that Trinity Force is a nice item it just doesn't fit my playstyle and well lets break it down...

Zeal - i build it into Phantom Dancer for the extra crit chance and att speed

Phage used to slow the enemy down- I figure with using Nimbus Strike as a gap closer, and being able to turret dive, i don't really need to slow the enemy down much they die before they get to far anyways and it's just fun to take away their since of security since they are trying to hide under their turret for protection. it's a major moral killer constantly killing them under their turret making them feel unsafe no matter where they are.

Sheen another great item, BUT i already pretty much double my damage output with Atmogs plus the crits are nice too. this is a nice item just not for me, plus the extra ability power doesn't really do much for me personally.

Trinity Force yeah it's nice having the extra movement speed bonus but I don't think I really need it with the way I play,and i'm tired of seeing it really. yeah it's a great item but it is also over used. I even see people play champions that shouldn't use Trinity Force but they still do.

To be strait to the point- Trinity Force is a great item, but it doesn't have to be for every char you play. i choose not to use it in my build because of this reason alone half the time. that and i wanted to do something different and if you look at any of the other guides just about all of them use Trinity Force

Vort wrote:

Nice guide. I too, am a believer that Wukong plays best as a tanky dps. I have a few untested ideas, suggestions, and the like, that i'll throw at you. Take them with a grain of salt. As far as items go, I love the idea of rushing to Warmog's / Atma's, but if you're expecting the game to go a bit longer, the Avarice Blade that builds into Ghostblade pays for itself after 25 minutes. I might consider getting this, possible even before boots, unless you really need the movement speed. (not the ghostblade. I like the idea of saving that for last). As for masteries, if you go with dodge runes (which I love on my melees), I'd toss the points from defensive mastery, and from Ardor, in place of Evasion and Nimbleness. Wukong doesn't really make a great use of Ardor. Most of his damage, i find, comes from his burst from his E and Q. I'd also drop 1 out of perseverance and add it to good hands. The first point in perseverance is the most important one, as it adds 2%. the other two points only add 1% each. Regarding skill sequences, I find I have mana issues if I level Nimbus Strike too quickly. I also feel that, for burst damage, crushing blow is a much more valuable tool. Because of this, I max it first... though I do open with a point in Nimbus Strike. I then get a point in Decoy at level 4, just to be safe, and max Nimbus strike second.

All in all, great guide. I like it a lot more than all the ones that attempt to build a Trinity force. I find that to be a waste of cash on Wukong. I'd much rather just build a Frozen Mallet.
Best of luck with the guide -- Cheers!

issue 1: Avarice Blade

This is a very good idea. I might not really use it myself but I can see it's worth enough to put it in the guide as an option. Having the early critical strike chance and the gold per 5 early would help out in the laning phase and also help get you some extra gold plus it does build into the Youmuu's Ghostblade so yeah I would agree since this builds into an item already in the build it could be worth it if the game looks like it might be a bit of a struggle from the start and need something a little extra to help early game.

issue 2: dodge runes

as stated this is a good idea and i've added an alternate build showing them in the build along with changing the masteries and how I would do that.

issue 3: skill order

Leveling Crushing Blow as first priority isn't a bad choice and i also threw that skill order in the alternate build as well. But as my personal preference I like leveling them both up together making Nimbus Strike first priority

issue 4: when to get Warrior Trickster

i think it's fine to get it at lv 4 but i find i don't really need to worry about ganks too much till i hit level 5, however i have on occasion gotten it at level 4 if the jungler seems like he is a little aggressive and is bugging my lane early.

issue 5: philosopher's stone stone ( questioned by "The Siren"

Yes if you feel that you need philo philo for early stability go ahead and use it, but the reason i choose not to is that I don't really have a problem with mana as long as I conserve it early game and use it only to poke at champs and the tower in my lane. As far as the gold per 5 if this is what you are going for I suggest Avarice Blade early since it helps with early burst and actually builds into something you will use later on in the game. all n all you don't really need the health from philo stone since you are rushing Warmog's Armor the only thing you will benefit from this item that you can't already get in this build is the mana regen which if conserved and used correctly isn't much of an issue.

Well I hope some of what I've said can help you. I know I ramble a lot, and I thank you for sticking with me and reading through what I've had to say.

I'm also aware that i'm a horribad speller and my grammar probably needs a lot of work but honestly I don't really care much.

Please feel free to upvote or downvote, but if you downvote please tell me why.

Enjoy and again... Tankwu for reading!