Hello there summoners!

I want (re)introduce Rammus as jungler for you, in my way.
I read all the guides here about Rammus, but I missed things from there, or I would made many differences. So there will be different things than the usual/recommended stuffs!

(Sorry for my english (and grammar), its not my primal language)

So here it is: Rammus as jungler!



First of all,
Rammus is very underrated and/or underestimated jungler, therefore I wouldnt recommend him for beginners, whos learning how to jungle and this champ would be your first choice.
Or for anyone else with lack of patient, team-coordination, and dont have acceptance for failure.

In my opinion, Rammus is hard to play at first, since there are more "easier" and "favorised" junglers there like Lee, Xin, Olaf, Amumu, Shen ... etc.
But when you can master it your jungler style with Rammus... Dude! Its fun! And Rammus is a BEAST. An indestructible one. Almost like Mundo.. But come on! Can Mundo spin like this way?! Can he taunt you down? Or just being awesome like Rammus? No! :)

(I also consider picking Rammus when you playing with friends. Much more easier to coordinate ganks, since you guys knows each others playstyle.
Nothing can be so frustrating when playing with randoms and fail a gank, becouse of the lack of communication, or misunderstand a poke/harass that wasnt a sign to start a gank, or not trusting in each others to make a tower dive.)

Rammus is about timing. You kill with taunts! If you cant reach your target, or taunting wrong enemy, or in wrong time. You are just useless as an afker Teemo, except he can kill with evil shrooms!

Spiked Shell (Passive)

As the tooltip says: You get more damage from armor. Even more when you use Defensive Ball Curl

Powerball (Q)

You can use summoner spells like Flash, on-use items and your skills while you spinning.
Using Defensive Ball Curl (W) skill will cancel your spin.

Mastering Powerball techniques makes you a good ganker/chaser and a great escaper.
Like the spinning - flash over the wall - continue spinning - taunt combo :) also flash over creeps
Also gank from bush, you have to let charge up the rolling speed bonus, then go in.
Beside the knocking up, its also interrupt certain enemy skills/ults. AND! When you rolling over stealthed enemies, like afker Teemo! He gets revealed! or Shaco, Akali, Twitch, etc..

Defensive Ball Curl (W)

You using this skill almost everytime, except when nothing to do and you are on your way to gank/farm. Because of your passive, you using your shield everytime when you attack, to hit harder, and get less incoming damage when you getting attacked.
Using Powerball (Q) while shield effec is up, will cancel it.

Puncturing Taunt Puncturing Taunt (E)

While your shield is up, and you have Thornmail (Rammus is not a Rammus without Thornmail),
you can hit back pretty nice. You can save your teammates with taunt, catch runners from gettin away, but most of all, you taunt your team focus target, to nuke him down, not let him get away or do serious damage. Some cases you taunt off the most dangerous enemy that threatening your carry at teamfight so your team easily manage to take down the focus target.

Mastering your taunts makes you being a good Rammus.
Tricky combos like the flash-taunting, even if you not spinning, to save it to knock up your target when taunt went off. Same trick when you jump out and taunt back an enemy to get under to your tower. Taunts can interrupt some enemy ults also.

Tremors (R)

Your ultimate skill for 8 sec. With this you melt down anything. It has low cooldown while you got blue and the proper mastery + item. You also do damage with it to structures, and can use any of your other skills while its up, wont cancel it.

Maxing priority: (R) > Puncturing Taunt (E) > (W) > (Q)

I chosen maxing taunt over shield, because you always has to be ready for ganking!

Skill sequences on players are situation based, well almost always start with Q -> E -> (R) -> W.
Or when you lurking in the bush, save Q for chasing. E -> (R) -> W -> Q -> (E)

When you farming in jungle always start with Q becouse you can knock up the creeps again when your shiled went down and the cooldown is almost off from Q.

You cant hit structures with Q. Wont damage it, wont stop spinning, no inpact.
So just walk up to the tower, turn your shield on for extra dmg, and hit it.

3x Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed
9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
9x Greater Seal of Scaling Armor
4x Greater Mark of Scaling Magic Resist
5x Greater Mark of Armor

You can wonder why these runes?

Well, I like to planning on late game, thats why lvl-up runes.
And like the things in "balanced". At lvl18 these runes gives 29 - 29 armor, resist. And ofc being fast and spinning faster, just awesome. With homeguard, you start out like a rocket.
(I tried many combos, like flat runes, healt ones. I found this setup to be best for me.)

Ofcourse you can use any suitable tanky runes, that fits to your playstyle. However I not recommend any other runes than: armor, resist, +% healt.
So no armor/magic pen., attack speed-damage-ability runes. Thats not the way of being tanky Rammus.

I wonder riot why making "useless" or aint so effective masteries. To make us think there are viable choices? Well some of are maximum "ok" at lvl 1-2. then later is nothing, or there are much better choices so wouldnt pick it anyway. So thats I wondering why people even choose these?

On a tanky mastery i feel these options are just weak:
Unyielding , Block , Defender , Reinforced Armor , Safeguard (Mastery).
(Using "[Safeguard]" gives me Lee Sin ability feedback ._.)
Tough Skin and Bladed Armor are useless after lvl1-2.

Viable options beside my 4/22/4 when you can take
Perseverance and Tenacious and Improved Recall over Sorcery and Wanderer (0/28/2)

You can take off Good Hands and put to Improved Recall , if you not dying a lot :) (4/21/5)

If you have mana problems, you can try 0/21/9
Take off Good Hands , Sorcery, Wanderer , and put to Improved Recall , Meditation ,
Expanded Mind , Runic Affinity .

If you insist to Runic Affinity and dont have mana problems can go with Wanderer and Mastermind .

So the question is why I go 4/22/4 ?

Becouse I dont have mana problems, and can give blues away if needed.
I found Sorcery and Wanderer a good choice for myself. With blue and Spirit Visage (39%),
I got almost the cap cd reduction (40%).
Without blue still got 19%. And yes, every seconds count! You cant taunted the enemy before went under tower, becouse taunt was off by 1 sec? Yes, it happened, yes, not just once.
Wanderer ? Speed is always essential.

You can wonder again why I choose these items over another.

With these items I get enougth healt, and armor-res close to each other. Nothing fancy.
Ofcourse there are some items that may others prefer, or could go with it. Like:

Randuin's Omen, Runic Bulwark, Atma's Impaler, Sunfire Aegis, Banshee's Veil,
Frozen Heart, Rylai's, Shurelyas, Spirit of the Ancient Golem,
Abyssal Mask, Frozen Mallet. Or boots like: Mobility Boots, Mercury's Treads, Ninja Tabi.

(Any other item not so superior for Rammus. (some AP stuffs for AP Rammus, but this not that guide)
Havnt seen any Rammus, or guide with my "standard item build".)

Why Wriggle's Lantern and not Spirit of the Ancient Golem?

Cloth Armor as starter item provides the +armor with my rune build (without many flat armor runes) to take blue even totally alone, without any pull/leash/damage from teammates.
You can get Madred's Razors for 700g instead of Spirit Stone for 800g.
And the passive on Madred's Razors especial in early game, far superior than Spirit Stone, and you dont need that mana regen. Just 2-3 hit the creeps. Faster jungle.
Even later, you finish Wriggle's Lantern for overall 1600g vs 2400g to get Spirit of the Ancient Golem.
And still better passive for jungle, also You can help warding lanes, or counter-ward enemy jungle.

Thornmail, Guardian Angel, Warmog's Armor are common items for Rammus.
Many players goes with one/all of them.

So again why I choose Spirit Visage, Maw of Malmortius and Boots of Swiftness over other recommended/commonly used tanky items?

Spirit Visage is cheap. 2200g. Decent magic res with health and good passive.
Runic Bulwark 3200g, Frozen Heart 3100g, Randuin's Omen 3100g. They cost much more and there are other reasons I dont use them. Many supports also buy Runic Bulwark and Frozen Heart. Sometimes both. Some tanky top also likes Randuin's Omen, also seen on support aswell, but rarely.
Beside the price and item distribution in team, I also like distribute my stats in some way.
So for me, Spirit Visage a magic resist base item.

I should buy Banshee's Veil, you would say. Yes, thats a viable option. Almost same price, magic res, awesome passive, and gives more hp beside the + mana. But not instead of Spirit Visage.
The passive and cdr too good to give up on this item to get more hp, or armor.
(Yes, Rammus dont have drain effect, but the increased healt regeration works with Warmog's Armor.)

There you go ->

Maw of Malmortius. Its an unusual choice for full tank. Usualy tanky (top)fighters buy this item.
Well its also fun with Rammus. Its give you magic resist beside the attack damage and the passive is good when you taking down casters/hybrids. Yes, you can do damage after all.

At this time when you bought your Maw of Malmortius as "7th" item, you are lvl18.
With 3.2k hp around 240 armor and 180 resist. And 250 or more attack damage while your shield is up.
You are taunting and hitting them. So your Thornmail, shield reflect and ult will consume your enemy :)

Also if you want go more tanky, you can get Banshee's Veil or Randuin's Omen
instead of Maw of Malmortius.


Almost forgot about boots. I like Boots of Swiftness becuse some jumpy, fast movement champions can escape from your ult faster if you are not so fast. And this boots gives you the speed.
Well Mobility Boots gives even more, but not in combat. You catch brake off runaways from teamfight faster with Boots of Swiftness. Many supports and some top players or champions with slow movement or lack of escape ability like using Exhaust. Relentless + Boots of Swiftness passive will say goodbye to Exhaust while you spinning :)

Depends on your playstyle and on enemy team, Mercury's Treads is viable also. Especial if you want more magic res and enemy team got many cc-s. Ninja Tabi will stacks your armor even higher, but the passive for Rammus aint so good on this boots later. An AD carry wont hit you with 1K so the passive wont save 100dmg, to reduce it to 900dmg. You see my point.

(Made 2 other item builds against full AD and full AP teams for fun)

As I mentioned, I prefer pick Rammus with my friends/regular team. But dare to pick it whenever you want :)
I wont make you a jungler 101 guide, since its a Rammus Guide. So when, where and how to gank its up to you and your team. Also the warding-counterwarding part.

Since Rammus dosnt have any long range ability, no jumps, slows, stuns from far away, also no stealth, you really need to roll in the right time, from the right angle, avoid creeps and other enemies. You going straight forward to the face and taunt.

There needed a good team play/communication, and situation awareness.
Rammus gankyness deeply rely on the teammates more than other jungler I think. Especial early game, where you cant really 1v1.

Early game you always have to start with blue.
-> Wolves
-> Wraiths
-> Red if you had help and nice dmg on blue, otherwise smite down Golems. -> lvl3
-> Recall. Buy Madred's Razors and go for a gank. If cant, keep farming in jungle. -> lvl4
-> Recall. Buy Boots and go for a gank, If cant, keep farming in jungle. -> lvl5-6

After lvl6 you have to force ganks and start counter-jungle if you can.
Depends on the enemy jungler and your team, where needed a help, go and defend the lane.

Pros

Exceptional cc ( Puncturing Taunt)
Fast movement speed ( Powerball)
Strong Tank (even without Defensive Ball Curl)

Cons

Short range
Less mobility (no jumps, blinks over walls)
(Yes, you got Powerball, but you have to avoid unintended collisions with creeps or wrong target)
Weak early damage