Click to open network menu
Join or Log In
Mobafire logo

Join the leading League of Legends community. Create and share Champion Guides and Builds.

Create an MFN Account






Or

MOBAFire's first Mini Guide Contest of Season 14 is here! Create or update guides for the 30 featured champions and compete for up to $200 in prizes! 🏆
Not Updated For Current Season

This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page

x
Guide is Currently Locked

This guide is currently locked to archive mode. If you are the guide creator, please contact an admin for more information, or once you've updated your guide to resolve any pending issues.

x
Wukong Build Guide by Yamikaze

Middle [9.10] Yamikaze's Challenger Guide to Wukong Mid, Top, and J

Middle [9.10] Yamikaze's Challenger Guide to Wukong Mid, Top, and J

Updated on May 31, 2019
9.8
390
Votes
27
Vote Vote
platinum
League of Legends Build Guide Author Yamikaze Build Guide By Yamikaze 390 27 1,176,304 Views 18 Comments
390 27 1,176,304 Views 18 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Yamikaze Wukong Build Guide By Yamikaze Updated on May 31, 2019
x
Did this guide help you? If so please give them a vote or leave a comment. You can even win prizes by doing so!
Vote
Comment

You must be logged in to comment. Please login or register.

I liked this Guide
I didn't like this Guide
Commenting is required to vote!
Would you like to add a comment to your vote?

Your votes and comments encourage our guide authors to continue
creating helpful guides for the League of Legends community.

-Table of Contents-

Hi, welcome to my Wukong guide. I'm Yamikaze, a Challenger Talon player. My peak rank is around 30 on the NA server and I ended rank 100 Challenger in Season 8.

I hope you find this guide helpful as you learn Wukong. I also study Econ/CS at Northwestern and stream / make YouTube videos in my spare time. If you have any questions or want to discuss Wukong (or League in general), I recommend checking out my Discord channel. We have a pretty cool community and I'd love for you to be a part of it :).
Also, check out Yisus's stream for high level Wukong gameplay:
Currently, Electrocute plus Resolve is the best setup for Wukong.
Electrocute - More damage in your combo, which helps you one-shot enemy squishies.
Sudden Impact - Procs on your e. Free 10 lethality that stays up for most of any fight is too good to pass up.
Eyeball Collection - More AD as the game progresses. What more to say?
Relentless Hunter - Wukong likes to rotate and flank so free ooc ms is pretty good on him. No reason to run Ravenous Hunter over this as most of your burst will be done at the start of a fight when your health bar is near full. Ultimate Hunter is a viable alternative but since I don't like Mobility Boots, I personally prefer relentless for the ooc ms.
Bone Plating - One of Wukong's main weaknesses is his weak laning and lack of ranged farming tools. Luckily, Bone Plating combined with either Second Wind or Chrysalis (personal preference) and Corrupting Potion makes laning a piece of cake versus any champion. The strength of Resolve tree is one of the reasons why Wukong is so strong.
Chrysalis - Can be swapped out with Second Wind depending on whether you want extra health and AD later or a free Doran's Shield passive in lane.
Flash - You will almost always want to run Flash on Wukong. If you don't run this spell, you will die to ganks, miss out on kills, and you'll get flamed by your teammates. Also sets up your combo nicely and lets you secure kills on important targets in teamfights.
Ignite - Since Wukong snowballs hard from kills and ignite provides kill pressure, it's a nice rune to take mid lane or when you don't need Teleport top lane. Also strong into Heal and any champ that heals in fights.
Teleport - Usually you want to run this top lane, or else one death from an unlucky trade or an enemy gank will instantly lose your lane.
Wukong has one of the simplest kits in the game, but it's still worth going over it.
Passive: Stone Skin
Stone Skin
Wukong gains 4 / 6 / 8 bonus armor and magic resistance for each visible enemy champion nearby.
Can't really get a more simple passive than this. Basically, you get tankier the more enemies are in a fight. The resistances are a lot more than you might think, with 8 armor/mr per champ adding up to 40 armor/mr in a full 5v5 teamfight.
Q: Crushing Blow
Crushing Blow
Wukong's next basic attack within 5 seconds gains 125 bonus range, deals bonus physical damage and reduces his target's armor for 3 seconds. Crushing Blow resets Wukong's autoattack timer.
Just your standard auto-reset ability with armor shred and bonus range added on. Try to use this right after an auto when possible to maximize dps and, when melee range, consider using your q at the start of a fight to make use of the armor shred (this is especially good versus jungle camps).
W: Decoy
Decoy
Wukong blinks 100 units away, enters Twilight Shroud invisibility for 1.5 seconds and leaves behind a decoy of himself. After 1.5 seconds, the decoy performs a circular attack around him for 0.5 seconds, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies, and then vanishes.
Perhaps your biggest "outplay button" in your whole kit. Warrior Trickster pushes Wukong 100 units forward and leaves a clone behind. Contrary to what you may think, confusing enemy players into hitting your clone isn't actually the important part of this ability. When you use W, your resting animation will reset, which makes it obvious to the enemy player that you just used W. Rather, the important part is the stealth, the clone itself, and the pushing mechanic. Check the "Proper Usage of Decoy" section for more info.
E: Nimbus Strike
Nimbus Strike
Wukong dashes on a cloud to the target enemy and sends out images to attack up to two additional enemies near the primary target, dealing physical damage to each enemy struck. Upon hitting his target, Wukong gains bonus attack speed for 4 seconds.
This is your gapcloser and where most of your dps outside of your ult will come from. Use as often as possible to maintain high attack speed in teamfights.
R: Cyclone
Cyclone
Wukong spins his staff around for up to 4 seconds and gains 5% - 40% (based on time active) bonus movement speed. Reactivating Cyclone cancels it immediately. The spin deals physical damage to nearby enemies every seconds. Enemies affected by Cyclone for the first time are briefly Airborne icon knocked up.
Your primary (well, only..) form of cc and your main tool to win teamfights. This is one of the highest-damaging ults in the game, dealing up to 2 autos worth of damage per second. Can be canceled before it ends to finish a target with q or e if the fight looks close.
-Skill Order-

> >
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
E W Q E E R E Q E Q R Q Q W W R W W
Put points into your R whenever possible, then max E, Q, and finally W. E max will increase both the damage and attack speed it provides, which helps your dps greatly (so you should max it first). Then, max Q for more damage and finally W for the cooldown reduction.
Early Items
Corrupting Potion

Corrupting Potion - I run this into every matchup. Gives good sustain and most importantly, is the best starting item for early skirmishes.
Tiamat

This item is purely personal preference. I personally build it almost every game as a first item for the waveclear as fast waveclear into roaming is very important in high elo. However, some Wukong players also never build it. Try it for yourself and see. You will want to use the active at the end of your combos (cancel the end of your auto animation with the active). I would recommend skipping this if you are also building Hexdrinker.
Hexdrinker

A situational item that you rush ASAP and leave in your inventory. You buy this against heavy burst mid laners such as Syndra Fizz LeBlanc and etc. The reason you rush this item is so you don't instantly die to 1 combo once they hit level 6. Again, if you're buying this item, skip Tiamat.
Serrated Dirk

Unless you plan on buying Tiamat (see above), buy your dirk ASAP. If you do not have enough gold for Serrated Dirk, buy as many long swords as you can. Further, if you have extra gold after Serrated Dirk, buy a Long Sword if you have over 350 gold, Boots if you have ~300 gold, or just a Control Ward if you have less than ~300 gold.
Boots of Speed

Usually you want to buy this either between Serrated Dirk and Caulfield's Warhammer or after Caulfield's Warhammer.
Caulfield's Warhammer

Buy this around your second back if you have enough gold. However, if you don’t, buy Boots and a couple of Long Swords instead.
Core Items (First Set)
Youmuu's Ghostblade

I personally rush ghostblade every game. The extra mobility from ghostblade helps you get to fights faster, flank faster, and catch up to / escape from enemies easier. However, some Wukong players prefer to rush duskblade for the burst. Again, this is personal preference and you should run the one you prefer.
Duskblade of Draktharr

Always buy duskblade after ghostblade (or ghostblade after duskblade). Use the vision denial passive on Duskblade of Draktharr to clear wards and hide in the enemy jungle for easy picks.
Core Items (Second Set)
After your gb (ghostblade) and db (duskblade), you have many options. What you will want to build usually depends on the state of the game. If you're ahead (meaning you need to stay alive in fights to do more damage), you should buy BC ( Black Cleaver). If you're even or behind and need to focus on more single-target damage, buy a Lord Dominik's Regards or a Mortal Reminder.
The Black Cleaver

Buy this 3rd when you're ahead. The health from BC allows for you to survive longer in fights, the armor shred (which stacks quickly on your ult) will help your team finish targets, and the 20% cdr will max your cdr out and allow for more damage in teamfights. If you're even or behind, buy this after your last whisper item.
Last Whisper

This is upgraded ASAP to either Lord Dominik's Regards or Mortal Reminder. Buy this 3rd if you're even or behind to help amplify your single target burst, and 4th if you're ahead.
Guardian Angel

As a last item, sell your Tiamat for GA (or simply build the GA if you didn't buy Tiamat). This is because, once you're at 6 items, the game has generally progressed quite far and death timers are long. Thus, one teamfight will often decide the game. Having two lives in this fight can and will likely be the difference between a win and a loss.
Boots Options
Generally, you'll want to build defensive boots when ahead (so it's harder to focus you down in a fight) and mobility boots when you want to roam to get a lead. However, it's honestly personal preference whether you want to buy defensive boots or mobis.
Ninja Tabi

Run these into heavy AD and/or autoattacker teams (think Yasuo, Kaisa, etc.).
Mercury's Treads

Run these into heavy AP and/or heavy CC teams (think Twisted Fate, Syndra, etc.).
Boots of Mobility

Mobis help your ganks and increase your engage range in W stealth. However, you're also really slow in combat and your ms begins to soft-cap with all the extra out of combat ms from Ghostblade and Relentless Hunter. Personal preference if you want to run these boots over defensive options. Try them out and see how you like the trade off of being really fast out of combat but really slow in combat.
Situational Items
Executioner's Calling

A situational item that you buy early on (around the time you finish Duskblade of Draktharr to the time you finish Youmuu's Ghostblade) and leave in your inventory. You buy this against champs that have healing as a major part of their kit, such as Dr. Mundo Soraka and etc.
Quicksilver Sash

Buy this if you're getting ulted by a Malzahar or just need to negate a lot of CC in general. Upgrade to Mercurial Scimitar as a last item.
Despite what people think about Wukong being an easy, low mechanical champ, he actually has quite a few tricks up his sleeve. This section will cover them all (with the exception of W tricks).
The start of this video demonstrates some of the harder combos. Note the build is a bit outdated.
Combo #1: Trading in Lane at Level 1

Attacking twice after E procs electrocute. After this, you can either back off or go for the all-in depending on how strong the enemy laner's lvl 1 is.
Combo #2: Trading in Lane at Level 3 / Standard 1-Shot Without Ult

Again, E-AA-Q will proc electrocute and W to get away will hit the enemy laner for more damage and allow you to escape without taking damage.
Combo #3: Using Tiamat in Lane

Using Tiamat between two autos is going to be your highest damage combo without ult.
Combo #4: Canceling Auto Animation with W

Quite simple but I think it should be listed here. Simply cancels the wind-down part of your auto with W.
Combo #5: Canceling Q Animation with E

Use your E right as your Q goes off. Very useful animation cancel when you're fighting melee range or clearing a jungle camp as your E and the autos following will all benefit from the armor shred from Q.
Combo #6: One Shotting With Ult

Use your W before you enter line of sight so you can get in range to E. This should 1-shot most squishies unless you're very far behind.
Combo #7: Fast One-Shot With CC Lock

Similar to Q-E, cancel your Q animation with R. This combo doesn't give time for the target to escape the knockup.
Combo #8: Maximum Damage with Ultimate

Basically combines all the combos to deal as much damage as possible. Useful in a straight up 1v1. You can also save your W to dodge enemy damage in the middle of the fight.
Early Game
Since Wukong's first few levels are incredibly important, I'll go over them one by one.

Level 1: Always start E. Wukong has one of the strongest level 1's in the game but, if you misplay and go in at the wrong time, you'll die. If you're playing top and the enemy laner doesn't have an incredibly strong level 1 (think Olaf or Darius) and they walk into your minion wave (between your melees and casters, E and fight him. Otherwise, you'll want to play safe and farm. However, if you're mid laner, simply E if the enemy laner walks up. Never E into the enemy minion wave, as the enemy minions will hit you and you'll lose the trade.

Level 2: If you're top lane, usually you'll want to take W level 2 as Wukong's Q doesn't actually help him that much in an early trade. Most enemy laners will level a stronger ability and you'll die in a 1v1 if the enemy laner initiates. However, if you have W, you can simply W away if they try. If you're mid lane, you can take Q level 2 and try to all-in the enemy laner (as mid laners tend to be squishier level 2 and won't be able to trade back as easily).

Level 3 and above: Now that you have an engage and an escape, you can take trades if the opportunity presents itself. Simply E-AA-Q-W for poke and the enemy laner won't be able to retaliate.

After First Back - Usually you want to back when you can buy Tiamat. Once you get this item, you can shove the wave with your superior waveclear and roam freely.

Mid Game
Generally, the start of midgame is marked by a bot tower falling. When this happens, be sure to trade lanes with your ADC and support. It is much easier for Wukong to farm a bot wave without towers than an ADC and support duo. As you do this, always look for opportunities to catch off a solo squishy and then force an objective. Further, if you see a fight about to begin, start walking towards your team. Remember to enter fights late if possible. Wukong is great at cleaning up fights. Generally, when you side lane, simply clear the wave and then join your team to fight. However, if the enemy side laner is stronger than you, don't waste time sitting in lane with him. Rather, go mid and force a 5v4 so the enemy side laner either has to TP or the enemy team loses a fight.

Generally, you will want to approach a fight from the side. This is because, if you approach from a flank, you risk getting caught and dying. Further, if you approach from the front, you will simply get kited. Use W right before you get in vision. Get as close to the enemy back line as possible. If you can get into melee range, use Q-E and the rest of your combo for extra armor shred. However, if you cannot, use your E as a gap closer. Try to hit as many people with your ult as possible while making sure your original target dies. Keep in mind that, at the start of a fight, enemy players tend to clump up and won't suspect a Wukong if you've stayed out of line of sight. Use this opportunity to land a big ult to win the fight.

Also, you should always consider joining a fight late if possible. Do this by watching and waiting for the enemy frontline to use their CC (like Maokai's Twisted Advance or Malphite's Unstoppable Force). Once this has been used, watch for backline CC being used by anyone who can peel for the enemy squishy (usually a support, such as Janna's Monsoon. Although you can go in before the backline CC is used, it will be harder to kill your target. However, never go in before the frontline CC is used, as they will just use that CC on you and you will instantly die.

Late Game
Depending on your level and cdr, late game wukong will have around a 6-10 w cooldown (6 at lvl 18 and 40% cdr). This means that after using your clone and combo, you will need to stall a few extra seconds until your clone is back off cooldown. This is why Guardian Angel is such a great late game purchase because it stalls 4 seconds to allow for your true invisibility to come off cooldown. Use this to juke your opponent and get to safety or re engage as you likely were focused after e’ing in.

In late game teamfights, look to e onto a priority target and apply your q armor shred. After this, cancel your q animation with ult and look to knock up multiple targets and delete the priority target. Ideally, you can successfully e-q-r to instakill your choice target while ccing multiple other members on the team so your allies can clean up the fight.
Proper Usage of Decoy:
Here's a list of W tricks that will help you make the most out of this ability.

â–¸Since W pushes you 100 units forward, you can use it as a gapcloser when you're just out of range of a target.

â–¸If a champ like Fizz is in front of you and throws ult, you can turn around, W to block the ult (as your clone spawns behind you), and then turn around again to fight him.

â–¸Since the 100 unit push counts as a dash, you can actually escape thin walls like J4 ult with it.

â–¸A trick to getting enemy players to use abilities on your clone is to W right as you get in range of an ability (this spacing is a bit tricky). For example, if you know Malzahar's ult range perfectly, you can use your clone just as you enter range and there's a good chance he immediately ults it.
Teamfight Target Selection
Here's a hypothetical situation: You've made it past all the enemy CC. Now you can use your full combo to delete one squishy from the teamfight. Do you kill the 10-3-5 Ryze, the 2-3-8 Lucian, or the 0-1-10 Janna? Well, even I couldn't tell you which one to go for. Your mistake was not picking a target before the start of the fight.
Before a fight starts, you want to first consider which enemies you can even 1-shot. This list will usually include the enemy mid, bot, and support. From this list, you want to find the biggest threat to your team. This is usually the enemy that does the most damage but could also include the Soraka that keeps the whole team alive and makes it impossible for you to 1-shot the enemy carries.

Now, you've narrowed down your list of targets to 1 or 2 (in our hypothetical situation, this would be Ryze and Lucian). First, check for items like Guardian Angel, Stopwatch, or Zhonya's Hourglass. This is incredibly important as a well-timed stopwatch or hourglass often decides a fight. If your target has one of these items, reconsider whether it's worth burning all your cooldowns to pop either the GA passive or force the hourglass. So, let's assume Ryze has a completed hourglass. If you judge that forcing the 10-3-5 Ryze to stasis for 2.5 seconds is worth more than a kill on the 2-3-8 Lucian, then go for Ryze. However, if you judge that killing Lucian then going for Ryze as a team is the better option, go for Lucian.
Another factor high elo players consider are summoner spell cooldowns. This can be a bit overwhelming if you're newer to the game, but timing summoner spells are incredibly important once you get to around Diamond 1 or above. It's actually pretty simple. To do this, make sure to have your chat timestamps enabled. For example, if the enemy Syndra flashes, click on the flash on the scoreboard (lets say, hypothetically, she flashes at 13:30). Then, when you're walking to lane or backing, simply add 5 minutes to the flash timestamp. Afterwards, type something like "mid f 1830," with 1830 meaning 18:30. You can do the same with heal (4 minute cd), barrer (3 minute cd), teleport (5 minute cd), ignite (3.5 minute cd), and etc. Remember that Unsealed Spellbook and CDR boots reduce summoner spell cooldowns.
Jungle Pathing
Start Hunter's Talisman: Hunter's talisman > tiamat if you back with 1200 gold or are ahead, straight to warrior if behind or have awkward gold to buy tiamat.
What to buy if you back with X gold:
▸350g - Hunter’s Machete
â–¸650g - red smite (for dueling) / blue smite (for ganking)
â–¸700g - 2 long swords (i normally still go for smite upgrade for the mana tho)
â–¸1000g- 2 long swords + boots of speed
▸1100g - caulfield’s warhammer
â–¸1200g - tiamat
tl;dr red>scuttle>blue>gromp (for lvl 3)
When choosing your preferred jungle pathing, you need to know if you will be able to contest scuttle crab early or not. This is decided by if you will have lanes that are available to help, and/or a favorable jungle matchup. If you can contest scuttle, it is advised to go from red buff straight to the opposite side scuttle. As scuttle spawns at 2:00, you will get there at around 1:57 after clearing red, just in time to start it. After finishing scuttle, you can go back into your jungle and take blue and gromp for level 3. This leaves you with the option to either start clearing down towards your botside jungle, or go straight to a sidelane or mid for a gank.
tl;dr red>raptors>2 small wolves>blue (for lvl 3)
If you determine that it would be too dangerous to go to scuttle after red buff, you can go red>raptors>2 small wolves(leave the big wolf)>blue buff to get level 3. This will leave you with the option to either continue farming and take gromp, or leave your jungle to gank a sidelane or mid now that you have your 3 basic abilities.

To help wukong’s sustain, starting hunter's talisman allows you to walk to the middle of raptors, aa the large raptor and instantly w for a huge amount of health regen. After w’ing, immediately walk to your next camp to avoid being hit by any of the raptors
Thank you for reading.Special thanks to Hopper for banners and coding and, again, to Yisus for his help in this guide.
Also, check out Yisus's stream for high level Wukong gameplay:

Obligatory Flag Counters (From 7-11-18):



Download the Porofessor App for Windows
League of Legends Build Guide Author Yamikaze
Yamikaze Wukong Guide
Vote Vote

League of Legends Champions:

Teamfight Tactics Guide