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Ambessa Build Guide by Coslan

Jungle Ambessa: Jungle Dancing [An insane mans guide to dancing with gromp]

Jungle Ambessa: Jungle Dancing [An insane mans guide to dancing with gromp]

Updated on January 6, 2025
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League of Legends Build Guide Author Coslan Build Guide By Coslan 8,048 Views 2 Comments
8,048 Views 2 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Coslan Ambessa Build Guide By Coslan Updated on January 6, 2025
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Runes: Standard Bruiser

1 2 3 4
Precision
Conqueror
Triumph
Legend: Haste
Last Stand

Resolve
Shield Bash
Conditioning
Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10-180 Bonus Health

Spells:

1 2 3
Standard
LoL Summoner Spell: Flash

Flash

LoL Summoner Spell: Smite

Smite

Threats & Synergies

Threats Synergies
Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny
Show All
None Low Ok Strong Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Synergies
Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Champion Build Guide

Ambessa: Jungle Dancing [An insane mans guide to dancing with gromp]

By Coslan
About Me

This guide is up to date as of Patch 1.22
Oh hi there I am CosLN as I appear on MobaFire, or Frog as I am outside of it.. I am a huge enthusiast of playing off meta roles, from making strange toplaners like Brawler Xayah, to committing second hand crimes with picks such as tank Diana support and Cassiopeia jungle.
Yeah Im insane


Now that we got the introduction done. I hope that you enjoy my guide to Ambessa- Dancing with the Gromp.
Table of Contents
Evaluation
Spell Overview
Runes
Early Jungle
Central Combat
Itemization





PROS

* Strong Dueling Potential
* Utilizes Energy
* Great Sustain Post 6
* Strong Skill Expression
* Difficult to Counter



CONS

* Mediocre Early Clear
* Difficult to Start
* Easily Invadable
* Very Weak into Heavy CC
* Average Ganks Pre 6
Ambessa is a highly mobile skirmisher that excels at teamfighting and executing high priority targets with her high target lock down and pressure. She posseses some of the best elements of the skirmisher class that allows her to serve multiple roles later on. Her ultimate: Public Execution is a incredible tool that allows her to impact opposing lanes and has crafty applications for her to mess with the enemy.

Unfortunately, Ambeessa has a rather low early game strength, which makes her prone to being invaded and bullied by opposing enemies - both in lane and in jungle. She especially struggles to handle Crowd Controll effects as they give her the most trouble due to her being unable to retaliate to the enemy as they back off. Fortunately, Ambessa does scale rather well with levels and or gold, partially due to her reliance on cooldown reduction. Her kit allows the user a large margin of skill expression and diversity in ways she can impact win conditions in the late game.

P: Drakehound's Step
Innate: During the delay or otherwise lockout of Ambessa's abilities, inputting an attack or movement command causes her to dash to or in the direction of the target or location, respectively, after the lockout ends. This cannot pass through terrain.
Innate: Whenever Ambessa casts an ability, she generates a stack of Medarda Maxim after the ability's respective lockout for 4 seconds, refreshing with subsequent casts and stacking up to 3 times.

Medarda Maxim: Ambessa's next basic attack on-attack is empowered to have an uncancellable windup, gain 75 bonus range and 50% bonus attack speed, and consume a stack to deal 5 − 30 (based on level) (+ 30% bonus AD) bonus physical damage and restore 40 / 55 / 70 (based on level) energy
Q: Cunning Sweep / Sundering Slam
Active: After a 0.225-second delay, Ambessa slashes in an arc in the target direction, dealing physical damage to enemies hit, doubled against those hit by the outer edge. If this hits at least one enemy, Ambessa can cast An icon for Ambessa's ability Sundering Slam Sundering Slam within the next 3.5 seconds.
Against monsters, Cunning Sweep deals 50 − 75 (based on level) bonus physical damage and the damage based on their health ratio is capped at 100 − 300 (based on level).

Active: After a 0.225-second delay, Ambessa slams her blades down in a line in the target direction, dealing physical damage to enemies hit, doubled against the first enemy hit.
Against monsters, Sundering Slam deals 50 − 75 (based on level) bonus physical damage and the damage based on their health ratio is capped at 100 − 300 (based on level).
W: Repudiation
After a 0.5-second delay, Ambessa smashes the ground beneath her, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies.

If Repudiation is used to perform An icon for Ambessa's ability Drakehound's Step Drakehound's Step's dash, she will smash the ground at the end of the dash instead of after the delay.
After 0.01 seconds into the delay, Ambessa additionally shields herself for 85 − 325 (based on level) (+ 160% bonus AD) for 2.5 seconds. If the shield mitigates any amount of damage taken from champions, large monsters, or turrets before Ambessa smashes the ground, Repudiation's damage is increased by 50%.
E: Lacerate
Active: Ambessa slashes to deal physical damage to nearby enemies and slow them by 99% decaying over 1 second.

Ambessa is unable to act for 0.225 seconds after casting Lacerate. She may perform An icon for Ambessa's ability Drakehound's Step Drakehound's Step's dash after this lockout by inputting a command during it or by doing so within 0.275 seconds of the lockout ending to dash instantly, slashing another time at the end of the dash in either case.
R: Public Execution
Passive: Ambessa gains armor penetration and heals herself for a percentage of the post-mitigation damage dealt to enemies, reduced to 25% against minions and 40% versus monsters.

Active: Ambessa prepares a strike in a line in the target direction, then blinks behind the farthest enemy champion within the area to seize them. If she successfully seizes the target, Ambessa attaches them to herself and suppresses them for 0.75 seconds, during which she reveals them and picks them up off the ground to afterwards crash them back down, dealing physical damage and stunning them for 0.4 seconds.











Skill Order
To begin with Ambesssa in the Jungle, we want to start out with Cunning Sweep level 1 and further max it out as your first ability for improved clear and dueling. Hitting the sweet spot of the Cunning Sweep is ideal for maximizing Ambessa's single target and multi target clear.
For level 2 we want to pick either Lacerate or Reputiate depending on the enemy situation. For me I prefer Reputiate due to allowing Ambessa to duel enemies earlier and have a healthier clear despite the little boost of damage it gives us for clearing speed.
Moving onto level 3 you should pick the final basic ability instead of 2 point starting Q, this gives us more mobility and finally gives Ambessa the strength to compete on invades. I would not reccomend second maxing W in jungle and instead use E. Once we obtain our ultimate the strength of level advantages increase dramatically, with clear and sustain becoming severely healthier and faster.
Q
Cunning Sweep
1 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 9
W
Repudiation
2 / 14 / 15 / 17 / 18
E
Lacerate
3 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 13
R
Public Execution
6 / 11 / 16
Understanding The Early Levels
1
2
3
4
6

Level One
Amessa's reliance on her passive and her abilities unfortunately means she is incredibly weak at level 1. I strongly advice you to ward your second buff, and to try to hit the sweetspot of this ability to gain a more quick clear. A faster clear allows you to keep up tempo better, if you are able to hit level 2 before your opponent, you can beat them with your temporary lead. This is a rare but ideal situation.

In jungle I personally would avoid combat if possible until you hit your level 3 spike. If you are cought in a duel with the enemy this early I reccomend using both Q's to dash backwards, and seeing if they back off before trying you use your passive auto attacks.
Level Two
At level Two you unlock Lacerate or Repudiation, by this point you can trade with your opponent while giving them a small window of time to react to it. Both W & E have different uses. I would reccomend choosing your E when the enemy seems to be squishier early on such as a assassin or a marksman jungler such as kindred.

If you think you are going to struggle hitting your sweetspot on enemies, then E is also preffered to allow for you to slow the enemy down. Both provide strong mobility and gives you the strength to react to the enemy.
Level Three
At Level 3, you have reached a very good power spike with finally unlocking your last basic ability. At this point I would reccomend saving your W as much as possible in the event that you are suddently attacked by the opposing jungler or laner, which would require you to use your W to mitigate damage. While you can duel some opposing junglers, it is still best to hold off until level four.
Level Four
By Level 4, you've accrued enoough skill points in Cunning Sweep to the point that your cooldowns should be slightly better, and offering you a much stronger ability to combat the opposing jungler. At this point you should be attempting to use W: Reputiate when your other abiltiies are ready to be used, allowing you to mitigate some damage as you execute your auto attacks or abilities. By this point as well you should have reached your first major component, giving you a much better ability to contest neutral objectives.
Level Six & Beyond
By Level 6, you've unlocked Public Execution and your ultimate passive is finally activate, giving you enough sustain that you can actively seek opportunies to contest the enemy jungler, and allows you a more advantageous opportunity when contesting objectives. If properly warded, your ult is a impeccable way to contest opposing junglers sitting on objectives. The large cc and range of Ambessa's ultimate allows her to snipe over the jungle walls into the opposing lanes, giving her a much stronger ganking ability. This is the perfect time to begin seeking more active opportunities in lanes, trying to hunt sidelaning champions who may be low health or pushed too far with your ultimate cc lock and damage.

Keystones
Runes
Shards
Conqueror
Conquerer is Ambessa's most used keystone, and for good reason. It pairs incredibly well with her long sustained damage and gives her a increasingly large change at being able to contest enemy bruisers while also adding to the abiliy to blow up fragile enemy champs with a singular combo.

While this is not my preffered keystone of choice, it is by far her most general rune that offers the widest applications and strengths.
Grasp of the Undying
Grasp of the Undying is a rune that is strange for jungle, due to more scarce opportunities to stack it. However, this rune does offer Ambessa free stats and much needed strength in the early game, as well as early ganks - offering her a more consistent choice for the early game.

While I don't think this is the do or die rune when compared to Conquerer, it has strong use cases and remains a viable option - though less so in jungle.
Electrocute
Electrocute is Ambessa's most lethal rune, and compensates for some of her weaknesses. It works best with her quick ability patterns and adds much needed burst damage to blow up fragile champions while minimizing their time to react to your spell rotation.


This is my preferred keystone of choice, and while you may feel the lack of sustained damage, it is somewhat compensated for by the snowball potential.
Phase Rush
Whilst the most unconvential on the Keystones, Phase Rush offers Ambessa much needed escape ability, early sticking potential and the ability to weave through a teamfight more so than any keystone offers. As it offers no direct impact do damage it may feel the most subtle in impact.

I reccomend this keystone for those who are already comfortable without major damage keystones, and who are willing to accept potentially worse snowballing potential.
Precision
I dont think I need to say much about the first selection here: Presence of Mind and Absorb Life are not incredibly potent in the jungle, and Ambessa scales too well with Triumph in teamfights and duels.

You have some choice for whether you wish to choose between Legend: Bloodline and Legend: Haste. Both offer very important stats for Ambessa, especially with the current itemization. I personally prefer Haste, but both work. As the final option I strongly reccomend choosing Last Stand. It has a strong synergy with Ambessa's kit and injects a surprising amount of damage that may be the deciding factor between life and death.

Going Triumph + Haste is my most consistent pick.
Resolve
As secondary runes the resolve pathway offers you some well diversed options: both focusing on damage, defense & sustain. As the first selection you really can not go wrong with Shield Bash. It offers a very strong amount of dueling potential and is rather noticable. The other options are more suble and based off preference.
Conditioning is a incredibly strong rune and allows for Ambessa to scale even better alongside her standard build path. The largest choice here in my opinion is between Revitalize & Overgrowth in the last path. Revitalize in the jungle is generally a smarter choice due to the large ammounts of healing from your ultimate and pet, where as overgrowth only helps give you some extra HP.

Any combo of these 4 works well. Full defensive or hybrid - your choice.
Domination
The domination pathway offers some both incredibly impactful, and also incredibly lackluster choices. While I dont think it is a bad choice to use this path as your secondary, it does lack the most potential out of the 5 secondary trees. In the first slot, you have to choose between Sudden Impact & Cheap Shot. This is mostly preference but I think Sudden Impact is too good to pass up on. In the second slot we have generally options focused around snowballing.
Here you can go Eyeball Collection or Ghost Poro for some free adaptive force.
As your final option here I generally would reccomend going Relentless Hunter or Ultimate Hunter. These 2 require you to play a more active role in ganking, but reward you strongly with very important stats.

My favored combination in the domination tree is Sudden Impact + Relentless Hunter.
Sorcery
The sorcery tree offers by far the most initially underwhelming of choices, but gives you more opportunities as the game goes on. In the first slot the only choice is really Nimbus Cloak which pairs beautifully with smite. In the second slot we have again not much of a choice Transcendence offering Ambessa the potential to reduce her long W cooldown alongside giving large amounts of free ability haste are frankly incredible.
As the last option we have the largest choice: Waterwalking or Gathering Storm. Here I personally reccomend Gathering storm as it feels better when paired with transcendence.

Overall, the reccomended combo of these three are Nimbus Cloak & Transcendence.
Inspiration
The inspiration tree offers some of the more ideal and comfortable choices as your secondary tree. It focuses more on options and gives you better chances at beating certain scenarios.
In the first slot it is by far the hardest decision. Cash Back, Hextech Flashtraption & Magical Footwear are all incredibly strong options. Cash back offers you a better time with come backs and snowballing. Hextech offers a unique way to approach ganks especially with your R. Magical footwear is a staple selection, offering you free boots + 10 free MS.
In the second slot we have a more free choice. Triple Tonic is really the only choice that I can reccomend in jungle. At level 1 the first potion: Elixir of Avarice is completely useless. However the second potion: Elixir of Force gives Ambessa the ability to win fights she would have been disadvantaged in. And as a champ who enjoys levels, Elixir of Skill feels simply fantastic. This is a good option.
In the last slot we also have another simple choice. Ambessa being unable to propely utilise Approach Velocity is somewhat locked into choosing Cosmic Insight, which is a fairly low impact but comfortable option.
My personall combination of the three is Magical Footwear & Triple Tonic.
Clearing

Red
Vs.
Blue
Ideally, Ambessa should start red buff for the extra damage from the Red Brambleback's burn, as well as the passive regeneration buff. She starts Red Buff into the Krugs before following into raptors, then moving to focus on the blue side. Blue Sentinel isn't as useful to Ambessaas red side due to being manaless. However, this side does offer some good ability haste, and is the preferred side to many who are not confident in warding off invades. The clear on this side is lower compared to red and may result in being forced to do a 5/6 clear to compete for scuttle bug.

Bruiser

Bruiser Ambessa is the standard build path for jungling. She can opt in to build Eclipse or Sundered Sky as her first item, allowing her to retain some tankiness and focus on her large damage outputs and teamfight power without being bursted down.
Assassin
woah thats alot of text ;w;

Assassin Ambessa is a more risky and snowball reliant playstyle of jungling. It relies on Eclipses & Profane Hydra's strong frontloaded burst damages. This build in my opinion specializes around using options like hextech and your ultimate to catch enemy laners off guard, and bursting them down instead of focusing on sustained combat. While you have the potential to fall off in a teamfight, the damage you do the backline is more guaranteed to secure kills and sway the teamfight in your favor.
Tank
Tank Ambessa is always going to be somewhat niche. This is the build that most focuses on her being able to grab the enemies attention and sustain for long enough while your team chips the enemy down. Due to this however this is a largely inconsistent build that relies on your team's success more so than ever.

Bruiser

Assassin

Sidelaning
Ambessa is a fairly strong duelist and splitpusher, however I wouldn't reccomend putting all your attention into sidelaning, especially when the enemy team are off vision. Ambessa, having no escape tools is forced into either gaining as much distance as possible, or reling on total combat in order to escape sidelines - adding to the risk of this strategy.


I would mainly recommend clearing out the waves as they come and then focus around positiioning yourself for objectives, brush and or larger brawls.
Teamfighting
While teamfighting is not Ambessa's specialty, she is able to remain relevbant through her ultiamte: Public Execution. This is one of the only ways for Ambessa to get herself in a ideal position to clear out the enemies without being spam targeted by CC. Due to the relatively small hitbox of this skillshot

- the application of it can either completely waste your ultimate or reward you massively. -

It is best to wait for your teammates to create ideal situations for you to use your ultimate. I reccomend following up another champions engage. The most important part of Ambessa's ultimate is that it is best used to complement your team's frontline by locking up and removing the enemy backline - who are often the largest threat. Once you successfully target the backline, I reccomend saving your for a few seconds after you land, allowing you to heal back some of the damage when you are being targeted.
Objectives



Drake

Ambessa can solo every dragon besides chemtech drake very healthily in the early game. However, it is especially important for her to establish proper vision around the dragon pit pre 6 to avoid being contested and caught in a unadvantgaeous situation.
Ambessa benefits by far the most from the infernal and hextech soul: Her being able to fulfill her large AD scalings and demand for cooldown reaction.


Void Grubs

Void grubs are by far the most necessary early objective for Ambessa to capture. Due to Ambessa's fair AOE on W & El, she can clear void grubs at a alright pace. Positioning yourself to hit the Q sweetspot improves the already satisfactory clear time. While Ambessa does not need assistance in clearing voidgrubs, it is always preferred and allows her to ensure they can match the enemy jungler.


Rift Herald

Ambessa can easily solo the rift herald at any stage of the game. While it isnt particularly dangerous I would reccomend getting your mid or top laner to help you due to a slow clear time on herald. Using your passive dashes you can easily clear the eyes of rift herald. Warding is just as important here as it is with the dragon pit, so I reccomend you sweep the area around you beforehand.


Elder Drake

Ambessa can fully utilize the buffs of elder drake to further progress a game. This is by far the most important objective for Ambessa herself. While Ambessa can solo elder drake, I highly reccomend you to grab a teammate: ideally the best teammate to help you with elder is a ADC who can dish out large damages.



Baron Nashor

Shockingly Ambessa is one of the champs who are able to clear baron at 3 items, however this is with a incredibly niche build that I will not be covering. Baron Nashor should ideally be fought alongside a ADC for the same reasons as Elder Drake. Ambessa does not have the fastest baron clear, but it is rather healthy compared to the competition and allows her to be ready to contest the objective.
Summary
So that was my short little guide to Ambessa Jungle. It was a fun journey writing this.

Ambessa has become one of my favorites, both gameplay wise and character wise, and I am hoping that with all this info, that someone may experiment and maybe enjoy the build.
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Coslan Ambessa Guide
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Ambessa: Jungle Dancing [An insane mans guide to dancing with gromp]

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