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Recommended Items
Spells:
Smite
Exhaust
Items
Ability Order
Stone Skin (PASSIVE)
Wukong Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Shaco
He will almost always try to invade you early. If you know where he started it makes it easier. My advice would be start your buff, rather than a small camp. As he is likely running ignite, he can be very dangerous for the first few levels. Once you hit six however, he needs a pretty big lead to be able to go toe to toe with you.
Introduction

Hello there Aspiring Wukong Player! I am currently a Platinum 3 Wukong jungle main on the North American servers. I began playing late in season 4, and began my climb through ranked in season 5. After playing various champions, I finally found the one I enjoyed the most, and that was none other than Wukong. There was so much fun in being able to seemingly appear out of the middle of nowhere only to completely decimate three members of the enemy team before slipping away. My experience with Wukong has definitely had it's ups and downs however. I began maining him in the jungle, but soon switched to the top lane where I felt he shined in season 5. With the changes over the past months however, I really felt he wasn't able to have as strong of an impact as he used to since so many of his opponents were able to deny his ability to snowball. I still play him in the top lane when I don't get my role in the jungle, and I definitely think he is an exceptional niche pick for certain match ups, but I really feel like he currently shines in the jungle. That's where monkeys belong anyways, right???
While I can't claim to know the most about the game and strategies, and I without a doubt still have bad games and often times, terrible decision making, I feel I have a decent enough grasp to help most people who would like to learn this champion. To give you an idea of my experience, I currently sit at right over 900k mastery points on Wukong since the mastery introduction, and am still steadily climbing with a goal to get to at least Diamond 4 this season. I am continuously learning and will try to keep this guide updated as I do.
I hope you will enjoy this guide as much as I enjoyed creating it, and possibly learn to love this amazingly infuriating little monkey like I have. By all means, please feel free to leave any questions, comments, feedback, up votes, or suggestions.


Increases Wukong's Armor and Magic Resist for each nearby enemy champion.

Cost: 40 Mana
Range: 650
Wukong's next attack deals additional physical damage, gains range, and reduces the enemy's Armor for a short duration.
Wukong's next attack gains 125 range, deals 30/60/90/120/150 (+10% Attack Damage) bonus physical damage and reduces the enemy's Armor by 10/15/20/25/30% for 3 seconds.

Cost: 50/55/60/65/70 Mana
Range: 325
Wukong becomes invisible for a short duration, leaving behind a decoy that will deal Magic Damage to enemies near it when Wukong's stealth expires.
Wukong becomes invisible for 1.5 seconds, leaving behind a decoy that will deal 70/115/160/205/250 (+60% Ability Power) Magic Damage to enemies near it after 1.5 seconds.

Cost: 45/50/60/65/70 Mana
Range: 650
Wukong dashes to target enemy and sends out images to attack up to 2 additional enemies near his target, dealing physical damage to each enemy struck.
Wukong dashes to target enemy and sends out images to attack up to 2 additional enemies nearby. Each enemy struck takes 60/105/150/195/240 (+80% bonus Attack Damage) physical damage. Wukong then gains 30/35/40/45/50% Attack Speed for 4 seconds.

Cost: 100 Mana
Range: 315
Wukong's staff grows outward and he spins it around, dealing damage and knocking up enemies. Wukong gains Movement Speed over the duration of the spell.
Wukong's staff grows outward and he spins it around for 4 seconds, dealing 20/110/200 (+110% Attack Damage) physical damage per second to nearby enemies, knocking them up for 1 second the first time they get hit.At the start, Wukong gains 15% Movement Speed, and he gains an additional 10% per second over the duration.

These are my standard rune pages that I run when playing Wukong in the jungle. Armor penetration marks can be switched out if you feel like it will better serve you.

Runes





Runes






Runes





When it comes to our combos, the best combinations revolve around the attack speed buff from your





Your Q is an auto attack reset that shreds armor, so with this combo you get your initial auto, your Q, the reset auto with improved damage, the improved damage and attack speed off of E, and finally a full two improved autos from the attack speed buff from your E and armor shred of your Q, before finally dropping your clone on them. The downside to this, is that your opponent is very unlikely to just allow you to walk up and do this. You might get in range of the Q, but without the follow up auto, you are better off initiating with E. Very few champions can stand up to this combo in early levels, so if you do get the chance to pull this off, it is very likely that you are better off to just continue to all in.


Similarly to the above combo, it does extremely high damage, but you are using your clone to give you the element to surprise your opponent. Obviously the downside is the fact that you no longer have a means of disengage, but it can still be very useful when going for pure damage. This is the main combo you will be using when ganking a lane.


You're bread and butter. The gap closer and damage potential of this combo is what makes Wukong so dangerous, as the increased auto attack speed off of your E, combined with the reset of your Q, and disengage of your clone, the damage of this combo, although not as strong as some of our others, is nothing to trifle with. A variation of this is also often going to be our primary means of initiation during a gank.


Our kill combo. This is what we use when our opponent simply needs a decent chunk of burst to go down. We tend to use in combination with our ultimate ability when we are diving against a squishy opponent. Remember to charge your Q before using your E in order to get the armor shred.

There are several benefits to playing Wukong and several negatives to playing him as well. You should be aware of both, as well as be aware of your enemy team's advantages or disadvantages before picking him into a match.

- Invisibility
- Snowballs extremely hard
- Arguably strongest ultimate in the game
- Strong Mid Game
- Extremely strong team fight potential
- High burst damage
- Can be played with success in the top lane, the mid lane, or the jungle
- Ability to outplay opponents with clever use of his clone
- Very simple for the basic mechanics of his kit

- Weak early clear
- Weak early ganks
- Although his kit is simple, being successful requires exceptional decision making that often only comes from experience
- Terrible duelist
- Very limited escape potential
- Very difficult when playing from behind in terms of both being invaded and team fighting
- No disengage with the exception of the knock up on his ultimate
- Very little sustain
- Mana starved early game
- Not great at peeling, and can have a difficult time diving with strong CC or heavy back line presence
- Ability to surprise opponents by clever clone use can be negated through pink wards
As you can see, there are several benefits to Wukong, but he definitely is not without his weaknesses. To be quite honest, his high win rate astounds sometimes me when I think about it. If you can learn to overcome his weak early clear however, his ability to sneak in and burst down a squishy opponent will allow for plenty of exciting opportunities to snowball a game. A Wukong with a kill or two in the early stages of the game is a nightmare to have to worry about. On the opposite side of that, if Wukong is put behind, it can be extremely difficult to meaningfully contribute, or even farm in the safety of your own jungle.
When it comes to team fights, a fed Wukong is an opponents worst nightmare, often resulting in very popcorn worthy /all chat on how he's either no skill or how bad your enemy team's laner or jungler was. On the opposite side of the spectrum a simple stun, knock back, or knock up when engaging into a back line in a team fight, can simply nullify him, often resulting in a lost team fight and death.
Just understand, to play Wukong successfully, you will likely have to put in the effort to learn his limits and when you can capitalize on his power spikes in order to overcome your opponents. In my opinion, he is an extremely fun champion that offers a simple kit, but with a huge skill cap when it comes to learning how to maximize his potential and minimize his flaws.

A good jungler can have more impact than any other role. You have the ability to alter a match up into your team's favor when the enemy makes even the slightest mistake. I do however, want to start this guide off with a pet peeve of mine though, your job is to control objectives, but also to produce a lead for you and your teammates. This is done by pressuring lanes. AFK farming will not win you games, just the same as fruitlessly trying to force ganks onto ungankable lanes will waste your time and set you behind. Understand when you have kill pressure, and farm or ward when you don't. The jungle is a very fluid role that requires you to adapt as well as have exceptional decision making. You should be planning your pathing based on your cool downs and lane pressure. Is the lane going to push allowing you to gank from the river? Is the lane about to reset allowing you to move into the brush and gank from the lane? Do you and your laner have the CC and damage for the gank to be successful? Are their summoner spells up? Just because a lane is pushed or even warded, doesn't mean that the lane is ungankable. The biggest thing I want you to take from this guide, is to not waste time. Every second counts, and when it comes to the jungle, a second can make the difference between saving your teammates or snowballing the enemy. You have to be watching the map in order to know where to make plays. Keep an eye on your lanes and make sure you are helping them to keep vision up in order to keep them safe from the enemy jungle.
Secondly, there is a common idea that you should not waste your time ganking lanes that are too far behind. I want you to understand that this can be misconstrued in my opinion. At some point you need to stop the bleeding if you are able to. If you don't, you are simply allowing the game to turn into a 4v5 or even possibly a 3v5. This may require a heavy camp on your part, but the only time in my opinion that you should completely give up on a lane, is when you are likely to give a kill when trying to gank. Even then, if you trade one for one, but are able to secure the turret or dragon, it is usually worth it.
Lastly, I want you to take away intelligent ganks from this guide. Your focus should be on setting your team's carries ahead, and setting your enemies carries behind. For example, lets say we have a Sion vs Malphite in our top lane. While I wouldn't suggest avoiding ganking all together if a good opportunity presents itself, neither one of them is likely to snowball heavily to the point where they are a massive danger to our team by themselves, and regardless of how much you attempt to set them behind, they are likely still going to be able to create the necessary impact for their team. On the opposite side, let's say we have a Riven on our team versus a Nasus. What's going to happen if we don't set Riven ahead? Nasus is going to scale to an un-killable god, where as like Wukong, Riven is fairly worthless when behind, but a complete monster that is capable of carrying the game if she is given a lead. Even if we don't have a very strong carry in our lane, but the enemy does, we need to set them behind if they will be able to snowball off our laner. If you fail to do this, you will have a loss coming your way more than likely due to failure to exert intelligent pressure onto the lanes where it mattered the most.

Wukong has a notoriously lousy early clear. Not only does he take quite a bit of damage and struggle with mana, he is extremely prone to being invaded by early pressure enemy junglers. Leaving all this aside, he really lacks kill pressure until he has his ultimate at level six, or at the very minimum, his


The ideal first clear would be the Valkarin clear. This consists of taking your small camps and ignoring your buffs on your first clear, and performing a full clear on your second back. When performing this clear, be extremely cautious of showing yourself on the map unless it will be worth it or is absolutely necessary. If the enemy jungler is paying attention and sees you at low health or mana without your buffs, you are likely to have them stolen.


Early Mid Lane Skirmishes
Keep an eye on middle lane as you are clearing your second camp (You should always be keeping an eye on your laners regardless). The mid laners will hit level two right as you are clearing your second camp. It is not uncommon for them to go all in at level two. If they do, your laner may be low health and vulnerable to the enemy jungler, the enemy laner may be extremely low and an easy kill, or the enemy laner may have killed your laner and slightly survived (If this is the case, then enemy mid laner is likely extremely low and only one Nimbus Strike and and possibly an auto attack or so away from death which will push you ahead, and slightly help your laner's deficit if they were killed in the skirmish).
Start Your Games With A Plan
Once you get into higher elos, you will likely be expected to give your bottom lane one of the small camps. It takes eleven camps to hit six, which means if you start on the bottom side of the map while performing the Valkarin Clear, you will hit six when the enemy bot lane is level four or five, and you will hit it on the camp nearest to the bottom lane. If you coordinate with your bottom lane for a lane gank, you can almost always net a double if you took two Long Swords and your jungle enchant. This can be turned into a snowball for you, your bottom lane, as well as it will give you dragon control, but for this to happen, they will have to leash the small camp for you which can put them at a distinct disadvantage when their opponent is able to gain the experience lead on them. You don't necessarily have to start on the bottom side of the map, and even if you do, you don't have to commit to a bottom lane gank if it is unlikely to be fruitful, but I would highly encourage you to consider it as some of my strongest snowballs have come from utilizing this strategy.
One tip if planning to gank the bottom lane at six: I actually ignore the red buff if it is on the bottom side of the map on my second clear, and make it my first camp after my second back that way I have it available during the gank.

This is simply the clear you will take when you are concerned with early invades. Ideally it is best to know where the enemy jungle is starting (Keep an eye on when the lanes show, and their health/mana bars or simply get a ward), but regardless you simply want to start your buff, and move towards the opposite side of the map. Make sure you are warding once you get to the opposite side of the map as you are still vulnerable to being invaded. With a smiteless leash, you can start your buff, move to your second buff with smite, and then take your small camp that is farthest from the side that you started.

There is usually a difference between the junglers who are invading to steal your camps and the junglers who are invading looking for an early cheese kill. As a jungler who is prone to being invaded and getting cheesed, you are typically safe at your first camp, but at risk at your following camps. The difference between life, death, or simply having to unnecessarily waste your flash is often just a few steps away. To limit your potential danger, simply kite your camps to be as near your turrets as possible.

You want to try to kite them to limit your damage intake, but try to kite them towards your middle lane. It can be better to just take the minor bit of extra damage than risk being killed because you were too far from the safety of your turret.


You can use your decoy to limit his damage and pull him up towards the tri-brush. The enemy jungler when invading, will often just be looking for you at your buff, or checking to see if they can steal it. By pulling your Gromp forwards, you will at least limit their vision of you.


Simply Nimbus Strike into them and follow with a decoy and move them into the brush below. This will require you to slightly run past the brush, but this limits the enemy junglers vision should they decide to invade you, and if they happen to check the brush, you can either engage and collapse with your laner or simply escape back into the lane.


There is nothing special here, simply kite back towards your turret.


Okay so it's pretty common knowledge that Wukong in the top lane has an extremely strong level two all in. This is largely due to the burst he can put out. There are certain champions I would advise invading if you feel the opportunity presents itself to kill them at their buff, but I advise avoid invading at their blue bluff unless simply going for a steal (I don't feel the risk of this is worth the reward). The reason is simply pathing. When invading them at the blue buff, they will have vision if you come from the front side, which allows them to simply kite back until their laner has time to collapse on you. If you go around from the back side, you are in extreme danger of being collapsed on. Regardless, the enemy jungler is likely just a flash away from safety. When we look at the jungler starting on the red side however, we can move into the usual unwarded brush from the back side of the red camp, and move around to the side.

To pull off the invade, ping where you are going so your laners are aware, and make sure you are watching your enemy laners. The second they disappear from vision, assume you have walked over a ward and need to back away. When starting your first camp, you don't want to smite, simply take him down with





Wukong's early struggles in the jungle aside, he actually turns into an exceptionally strong threat once he has his ultimate. His burst, combined with his ability to sneak in unnoticed through his







Red - A successful gank will require the enemy to be either low health, or extremely squishy. Will likely require a dive. Proceed with caution.
Yellow - A successful gank will require the enemy to be either low health or semi-squishy. The gank is likely to be successful if the enemy lacks escape abilities in their kit and you have all of your cool downs available for use.
Green - A successful gank really only requires you to be there unless the enemy is extremely tanky or has very reliable disengage. Be cautious of minion counts or if your laner is too low to assist you during the course of a gank.
Blue - Bait Spots. Sneak in for a lane gank. With Wukong, this is one of the most potent forms of ganking. To make this work, keep an eye on lane pressure. You want to move into the brush shortly before the lane resets.

This is what you picked Wukong for. Let's be honest this is probably the sole reason that you decided you wanted to learn to play him. Perhaps your team had just managed to catch two people out of position and were now going to move onto baron or to take out a tower, and out of nowhere Wukong flies in and takes out 3 of your teammates before you even have time to target him. These are the exciting plays that Wukong can make if you know what he is capable of.
To perform at his best, Wukong tends to want to act as a secondary engage following up on a primary engage from one of our team mates. You can be a primary engage for your team with a good flank or

When diving the back line, you have to understand what your limits are, and what the enemy team's capabilities are. A good example I can think of was awhile back I had a game against a Twisted Fate, a Renekton, a Quinn, a Miss Fortune, and a Janna, while we had myself, an Ahri, a Graves, a Bard, and a Caitlyn. What would happen if I dove that back line? Simple, Janna would ult, possibly blowing me to safety, but more than likely I would simply get blown up before I could press R. To be honest we had a terrible team comp, so the only way we could really win a team fight, was if we managed to kill Renekton first when he tried to engage, or if Ahri could catch somebody with her charm in order to give us a numbers advantage. Don't misinterpret me here, there are plenty of times where diving the back line is a no brainer, but don't make the mistake of thinking that's how Wukong should be played every game, and to be successful you can't mindlessly dive the back line without proper timing regardless.

More often than not, your job is to blow up the most fed and squishiest member of the enemy team. Sometimes, this will be the mid lane, sometimes this will be the jungle, sometimes this will be the ADC, sometimes it will be the enemy top lane, and sometimes it will even be the support (Hello Brand). The point is, you tend to want to take out the biggest threat possible with your combo. On the opposite side of this sometimes it's simply better to peel for our carries if we will not be able to do anything to the enemy back line. I dislike having to peel with Wukong, but if you are behind or the enemy team has something like a Lulu or Janna, diving the back line without the support of your team is practically suicide.

There's not really a great rule for when you can or can't engage a back line. If you are strong enough to kill their carries, you can pretty much do as you please. On the opposite side of that, if they are sitting on pink wards waiting for your engage and holding their cc, you are walking into suicide. Your safest bet, is to wait until their major skills and CC have been used and then go in for your dive. Sometimes when you aren't the only back line assassin on your team, the only way to win the team fight is to simultaneously engage with your teammate/s. Regardless of what you decide, make sure to consider the enemy team's strengths when deciding when and if you should dive.

Wukong has a trio of items that help him immensely to get the engage he needs. The first item is







If you are the primary engage for your team, you have three options that can be used alone or together, either



If you are the team's secondary means of engage, you can simply use your



You ult stupid! No in all seriousness, put out your combo and get out unless you are strong enough to continue to take the harass in order to zone them from the rest of the fight. Once your abilities come back off of cool down, by all means re-engage, but don't feed a kill in order to do it.

Juking your opponents is one of the most fun parts of playing Wukong. Juking requires a bit of planning on your part, some unlucky guessing on your opponent's part, and some clever ad-libbing relevant to the situation.

The Standard Juke requires you to simply make your opponent think you are running one way, afterwards you simply drop your


The Fake Out Juke requires you to make your opponent think you used your


The wall hop is a simple maneuver that allows us to use our


The catching a ride juke is probably the greatest strength of Wukong due to it's versatility. When being used to escape, it is typically a combination of the above jukes in some form or fashion. You will often fake your




Things such as a Jarvan flag and drag or Riven knock up can be cancelled with your


Because Wukong lacks any form of traditional escape or disengage such as a non targeted dash, slow, or stun, it is imperative that you don't waste your


Any time you are engaging into a champion with a flash like getaway, it is best to try to hold onto your



This should be fairly obvious, but when ganking a lane, you can typically use your



Things such as Caitlyn's Ultimate, a Jinx Rocket, a Lee Sin Q, etc. can all be canceled out by allowing your



This is just a list of champions that tend to cause issues for you when it comes to team fighting. They are not necessarily counters, but you will likely need to approach team fighting with a different perspective than usual, and give some extra thought before moving in.

Her Charm, can land you in hot water when you are sitting in a back line of two or three enemies with high damage output. Give care when attempting to dive her. The good news is, as an assassin, she will often be found waiting to flank your carries when given the chance rather than sitting around at the back.

The queen of disengage. Her tornadoes can be dodged, but she also carries a shield for herself, an ally, or even a turret, an ability to speed up allies and slow you down, and a ultimate that will throw you out and heal her allies if things get even just a tad bit dicey. Proceed with caution as she is probably the biggest F U to Wukong in the game.

Any enemy with invulnerability is an assassins worst nightmare. Kayle is no exception as her invulnerability can be passed to whoever she likes, as well as she can put out significantly high damage just on her own.

Same thing as above, the only good news is that both teams are invulnerable. Try to save your


Yea, congratulations on getting that Vayne within an inch of death, only to knocked up by a big *** tree stump and to see that she is now 8 feet tall with a shield on and back at half health, while you are walking around as a squirrel that's been slowed. The worst possible team comps to go up against are typically a toss up involving her or Janna.

Your clone doesn't block her cage. Combine her high damage output with


A silence, high damage from his minions, a passive that grants a spell shield, space aids, and an ultimate that makes you just stand there and take it like a ***** all are what make this opponent extremely dangerous. The good news is you can possibly get him to ult your clone, and if that doesn't work just bring a


A lot of Morgana's tend to dive right in the middle of team fights to get their ult off, so that's good news, but if she is being a good support for her carry, then she sucks to deal with. Her black shield negates your knock up, her dark binding will lock you up and it's not like it's difficult to hit at close range, and her Soul Shackle is a slow and stun if things get hairy. Proceed with caution.

He tends to build semi-tanky, has fairly significant damage, and worst of all, can root you in place with ease. Combined, these things make this champion very dangerous to dive alone.

You have almost zero chance of killing anything on her back line unless you are extremely fed due to her heals. She needs to be your primary target typically if you do decide to dive, and I wouldn't recommend diving alone.

Never solo dive a back line that has a Swain unless you are ungodly fed and he was DC'd the first 14 minutes.

The worst for last. This guy stops you from doing everything you came in to do. Just killed that Varus? No you didn't, now all your **** is on cool down and you have two bombs about to explode on you.

Wukong tends to do okay in most any comp, although he does manage to struggle in poke comps, but these champions synergize particularly well with his kit.

A flash-stun combo from Annie, combined with a Wukong ultimate is going to leave some dead **** regardless of how fed they are.

Anybody who can lock up an entire team with one ability is an excellent team mate. Not to mention you can gain movement speed through one of his abilities.

You and Kayle are an extremely strong duo. There's not much scarier in League of Legends than an invincible Wukong throwing out endless combos onto your back line.

A wild growth cast onto Wukong leaving him 8 foot tall combined with a shield and movement speed? Yea you're going to be in trouble.

Any time Wukong has another teammate who can be the primary means of engage, he is much better able to do his job, and the Malphite ult is easily one of the best engages in the game.

The damage that comes from a Wukong/Orianna combo is absolutely ridiculous. She can give Wukong the movement speed and the shield to get to the back line, and finally use her ult in combination with Wu's combo to completely take out a team. The only question is to whom goes the penta kill?

Similar to Orianna, if you manage to get a good ult off that he can combo off of, the damage that you two can combine is absolutely devastating.

He can bring you back to life like Jesus, make you as fast as Usain Bolt, stun an enemy, and even give you a bomb that you can run to the enemy team. He's literally almost as troll as your clone.
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