For those of you who are too lazy to read the guide. I have attached a video onto this page which basically sums up everything I say here.

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This is my first ever guide for mobafire and i'm glad to say that after countless games, painstaking victories and crushing defeats - I have managed to create a build that is not only well-balanced, but beneficial for your team and yourself. So without further notice:

Jungle Amumu - An Indepth Guide

Note: It would be worth it at this point to note that this build is subject to vary. In other words - is the enemy team Ability Power heavy? Build some Magic Resistance first rather than grabbing a Sunfire Cape if you feel vulnerable. This guide was created with a "Covering all the bases" approach. When you get into that teamfight, you need to be soaking up AS MUCH damage as possible, regardless of whether it is Attack Damage or Ability Power. Use this guide as it is - A GUIDE - follow it if you are a beginner Amumu or looking to pick up some tips and develop it into something of your own.

Some of the abreviations used in this guide may be as follows:
BT/Bandage/Stun - Bandage Toss
CotM/Curse/Ulti - Curse of the Mummy
MR - Magic Resistance
AR - Armour
AD - Attack Damage
AP - Ability Power
QSS - Quicksilver Sash
CDR - Cooldown Reduction

12th August 2011: Build released. Video attached.

15th August 2011: "Abyssal Sceptre" added to situational items. Over 1,000 views hit

17th August 2011: Warmogs added to item build due to popular request. Heart of gold put near early of build. 7 items on build, aegis of the legion to be sold after 6th item slot is taken up

21st August 2011: 10,000 views mark hit. Thank you everyone - now 4th highest rated Amumu guide on MOBAfire

24th August 2011: Changed the build to be cleaner. Less cluttered. Changed masteries and masteries section. Amumu guide is now 3rd highest rated on MOBAfire

With every champion, there is pros and cons. Amumu is absolutely no exception to this.

Pros:

Extremely Tough
Can shred through health-stacking tanks
Has a game-breaking ultimate
Has a strong lane/game precense
Easy jungler
Major intimidation factor
Easy to pick up

Cons:

Pathetic auto-attack damage
Hard to master skillshot
Unreasonably long ultimate cooldown
Once initial two stuns have been used there is a long wait before another is ready
Damage output is relatively lacking
Without ultimate, can cause teams to lose team fights

This is a basic outline of the skills and usages of the abilities Amumu brings to the table.

Cursed Touch - Amumu's passive. Reduces enemy's magic resistance by 15 / 25 / 35 for 5 seconds upon attack.

Definitely a useful skill to have on Amumu, as he is a champion that needs to be in the middle of the team fight to do damage, his passive means he can lower the other teams MR to (sometimes) below zero if they have not built any resistance items. Amazing passive for setting kills up for AP carries.


Bandage Toss - Amumu's primary ganking skill. Fires a bandage out in a straight line and pulls Amumu towards the first non-building enemy unit it comes into contact with, stunning and dealing 80 / 140 / 200 / 260 / 320 (+100% of ability power) magic damage.

This is one of the skills that makes Amumu the great ganker he is. Even more lethal when you put him in the jungle. Due to the long range of his bandage toss, he can easily gank from bushes and surprise enemies as early as level three to set up first bloods for his team mates.

Despair - Amumu's toggle aura. Causes Amumu to cry, creating a damaging area around him. Damages enemies for 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 / 24 magic damage plus 1.5 / 1.8 / 2.1 / 2.4 / 2.7 (+1% of ability power)% of their maximum health each second.

This is the tank-shredder. It's like having half a Madred's Bloodrazor strapped to your face. When you get into a team fight you want this on at all times. You don't even need to attack enemy heroes, just run along side them chipping away at their health so you can help your carries finish them off.

Tantrum - Amumu's little mini-nuke that comes with the added bonus of Physical defense. With a passive that reduces physical damage by 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 and an active that causes Amumu to lash out with his bandages - Causing 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 / 175 (+50% of ability power) magic damage to surrounding units. Pretty good right? Well that's not all. Each time Amumu is hit, the cooldown on Tantrum is reduced by 0.5 seconds.

Meaning the more he's focused, the more damage he does. This is the damage dealer in team fights. If you are grouped together with a bunch of enemy champions you are going to want to do as much damage as you can while locking them down to spoon-feed your carries. The more you are focuses - the more damage you can put out fast.
Curse of the Sad Mummy - This is the gamebreaker. This is the skill that wins games, why Amumu is banned in a lot of ranked games. Upon activation Amumu entangles surrounding enemy units, causing them to be unable to attack or move for 2.5 seconds, dealing 50 / 100 / 150 (+35% of ability power) magic damage to them each second.

That's right, you root a massive area around you for 2.5 seconds. With good placement, you can potentially root an entire team to the ground, making your team able to melt them into the ground and make a cup of coffee before they are even unrooted.

There's a fine line for Amumu when it comes to summoner spells. Some work very well, others not so much. To save you time deciding - here's a list of "Good" and "Bad" choices of spells on Amumu.

Essential Spells:

Smite - Because this is not a jungle guide for no reason.

Good Spells:

Flash - Standard issue, helps you chase, helps you initiate ganks and escape.

Exhaust - Once you initiate a team fight you may wish to make sure a pesky flasher/blinker does not go anywhere too fast. This may just be your best friend.

Ghost - Definitely helps to chase and keep up with those champions that refuse to go down without a fight

Bad Spells

Clairvoyance - It is not your role to take this spell. Leave this to supports like Janna, Soraka, Sona etc.

Clarity - Pretty much useless when you have blue buff. Also a waste of a spell that could be used for something else.

Cleanse - A good pick for tanks, but with items like Quicksilver Sash readily available and cheap, this spell is not needed so much anymore.
Fortify - A good defensive spell, but as you are not actually protecting a tower it should not be your duty to pick this. Is bottom tower being pushed hard? Gank that lane and do some damage and make sure they are punished for pushing too hard. Then counter-push

Heal - When it comes to late game - if the enemy team can kill you, they probably deserve a medal. This spell becomes more-or-less useless late game and is a waste of a spell.

Ignite - Usually used to finish off fleeing enemies or reduce the healing of champions. It is not your job to do this, so you should not take it. Stick to locking down and slowing the enemies and let the carries handle the damage.

Rally - I do not think I have ever seen anyone take this in a serious game ever.

Revive - Taking this summoner spell may cause the enemy team to surrender at 20 minutes to do the crippling laughter you have induced by picking this spell. It is not a good pick so do not take it.

Teleport - By every means a good spell to help defend or set up ganks, but as a jungler you are very mobile as it is, use this to your advantage and you will never need a teleport.

Of course, every player may play a tank differently, from stacking health to focussing on a certain aspect of resistances. I build my rune page keeping in mind that I do not know what champions I am going to be up against, and as such I build my runes accordingly.
- Greater Seal of Replenishment x 9
- Greater Mark of Resilience x 9
- Greater Glyph of Warding x 9
- Greater Quintessence of Resilience x 3

There are plenty other potential runes that you can go with for Amumu. If you wish me to include any in a "Viable rune set-up" then please let me know.

Now of course this is just my set-up, I understand that people prefer to use AR or MR per level. However I find that the early levels are "make-or-break" moments of any game. Amumu is a character that comes in hard and can make a lot of trouble. You need that early game resistance to ensure his jungling goes accordingly and that he is just tanky enough to pull off some early game ganks.

I put my bulk of mastery points into defensive for the sole purpose of damage reduction. Some tanks are more skill dependent and may choose to go utility tank, but with this I choose my masteries with my early game in mind.

Offensive - 0 Points

Your role is not to do damage, it is to initiate, and lock-down your enemies for your carries to pick off the kills, if you put points into offensive and you are getting kills on purpose then you may be depriving your carries of much needed gold.

Defensive - 21
Resistance - 3 - 6 MR from the start of the game? Yes Please.
Hardiness - 3 - 6 Armour from the start? I'll have that too please
Strength of Spirit - 3 - great boost to your overall mana and health regen throughout the game.
Evasion - 2 - A little bit of extra dodge is always nice, I don't take blazing speed though due to the fact that we don't use dodge runes in this build. If you are playing ranked and the enemy team are - for whatever reason - very AD heavy then by all means take blazing speed and take ninja tabi. I find that Mercury Treats covers all the bases though, with the +35 Tenacity that reduces all CC and stuns - Which is always nice.
Defensive Mastery - 2 - Can actually help you a little at the jungling phase of the game
Harden skin - 3 - Take less physical damage from anything.
Veteran's scars - 4 - The initial 48 extra health could save your hide if you're in the jungle, definitely a nice little boost.
Tenacity - 1 - The big one. 4% reduced damage from ANYTHING. I shouldn't need to explain how helpful this can be.


Utility - 9
Good hands - 3 - 10% less time spent dead. Think how much time you may spend dead...
Perseverance - 1 - A little boost to your regen all round
Awareness - 4 - This can really help you get that upper hand on side lanes during your early jungling
Utility master - 1 - 15% extra time spent with buffs. Amumu is pretty mana restricted, so with blue buff he suddenly turns into a monster. You want to be able to hold onto that buff for as long as you can.

Note: Feel free to change up your masteries. I understand that most junglers take two levels in Utility master as a necessity. I find that being a jungling tank, it is more important to cover the tank side more than the jungling.

I thought that in this chapter of the guide - I would take a look at a lot of items and look at their viability with Amumu: The good items and the bad items as it were.

Good items:

These are the items that I would consider pretty essential on Amumu, as they work pretty well with him and how he works. Feel free to mix up this build in any way you want or comment/pm me with suggestions of items that deserve to be in this category.

Mercury Treads - Good resistance to all CC and stuns. Definitely a good choice for any tank

Aegis of the Legion - A very cheap item that covers all the bases in terms of resistances. MR and AR. Also comes with a great buff that boosts Magic Resistance by 15, Armour by 12 and Damage by 8. Not to mention that if someone else has an Aegis on the team - you both effectively DOUBLE your buff.

Sunfire Cape - Standard issue for most tanks. Particularly good on Amumu when used with his Despair skill. His AoE damage is effectively doubles at the lower levels with Despair turned on, which makes farming creeps even easier. Not to mention when you're in the thick of a team fight.

Banshee's Veil - Brilliant item for Amumu. The one thing that can deter an Amumu initiation is stuns, CC and silences. With a Banshee's veil you not only boost your mana and health pool along with your MR. You also have a spell shield that procs every 45 seconds, preventing one targeted spell to hit you. This not only helps you initiate, but can even prevent people from initiating ON YOU. If you are face to face with an Annie who has her stun up and you have your Banshee's Veil shield up; 9 times out of 10 Annie will not cast on you for fear of losing her stun and making herself even more vulnerable, and with her auto-attack being more-or-less useless against you. You can be sure you'll be getting away.

Force of Nature - Magic resist. Health regen. Movement speed. Everything a tank needs to get into the middle of an enemy team to pop your ultimate. Although a good item, can easily be traded in favour for a Banshee's Veil in terms of practicality.

Randuin's Omen - Amazing item to pop straight after your ultimate. Causing a huge loss in the enemy's attack and movement speed. Not to mention the slow is even longer for every 100 Magic Resist and Armour you have. - as well as this. The passive that has a 20% chance to slow enemy attackers means anyone trying to focus fire you will be signing their own death warrant effectively.
Frozen heart - Pretty decent tank item. 20% cooldown reduction and the passive debuff aura that reduces all nearby enemy champions movement speed by 20%. Definitely a good chasing item as the +500 mana is just what Amumu needs, being a tank that is very skill dependent with a very small mana pool.

Situational items

This category is for the items that can work well on Amumu, however whether they work is entirely based on the enemy line-up and whether they have certain heroes or not.
Abyssal Sceptre - I would recommend grabbing this if you feel as thought your team aren't laying down enough damage. As well as the nice MR boost of 57 with an AP boost of 70, you have the added bonus of an awesome passive - Enemies within the proximity of Amumu will have their MR lowered by 20. Meaning you not only do more damage with this item, but your AP casters do more damage when you're in the middle of team fights.
Quicksilver Sash - +56 Magic Resistance is pretty nice for this cheap item, but the actual functionality of the item comes from its active. Upon activation it will remove all debuffs on the hero with a cooldown of 105 seconds. It's basically a cleanse that takes up an inventory slot. It also stacks, meaning you can have two seperate QSS on two seperate cooldowns. The main reason I would buy these items is if their team has a very suppress-heavy team. If they have a Malzahar, a Warwick, an enemy Amumu, or even all three: You definitely need one of these to prevent yourself getting melted into the ground.

Leviathan - The tank equivalent of Sword of the Occult or Mejai's Soulstealer. With every stack gained (1 for assist, 2 for a kill) you gain 32 health. Capping at 20 stacks, you stand to gain a massive 15% reduction in ALL DAMAGE if you reach 20 stacks. The reason I put this in situational items is for the fact that in a standard game you cannot guarantee that you will get all the assists needed to get that reduction buff. By spending your money on it you are commiting to getting kills or assists which may actually end up hurting your team in the long run, money of which you could be spending on some other tank items from the good category.

Shurelya's Reverie - Where it is a decent item, I find that the actual health regen and gain are considerably lacking for a tank item. The active is very nice, and is essentially a ghost for 4 seconds, but it wont win you team fights. You need the enemy team to be totally locked down which means that if your team need a speed boost to actually catch the team you've initiated then you are doing something wrong. Where it stands is a chasing item, but if you are a good player with a good team then the chances of them surviving shortly after your ulti will not require any chasing.

Rod of Ages - If you feel your team is lacking in the damage department then you may feel the need to start building some AP. I would never generally build AP as it is not supposed to be your role to do any sort of damage, but in the event that you feel you absolutely need to build some AP, this item may be one of the two forgivable items you could buy. The health increase will no doubt make you tankier along with the passive increase of AP and health. It is definitely by no means a viable tank item though. Buy this if your team are really struggling to finish off the enemy team.
Rylia's Sceptre - As the case above would state: It is another "last resort" item. The health boost gives it the bonus of actually benefiting your tanking capabilites, but it still lacks what a tank needs. The AP boost will no doubt give you some extra damage, as well as the passive slow that, when you dive into that team fight - will slow everyone as long as you place your skills right. It makes a good chasing item for Amumu, but still not something I would ever buy or suggest to buy.

Bad items

This is the category that is for the items that people might pick but are generally not worth the money or effort required to buy them, or might just be plain silly.

Guardian Angel - Although this item could be placed into situational. I find it fits here more because it is a very expensive item that does not give you as many resistances as it should. The passive is nice, sure. However, if you drop in a team fight, the rest of your team are completely unguarded and the chances of them dying are much bigger. What's to stop the enemy team crowding round your corpse waiting for you to resurrect with a measly 750 health just so they can drop you again.

Frozen Mallet - I will admit that the health boost is pretty nice and yeah, the idea of the passive slow is nice, but you are not very auto-attack dependent. This ends up just being a waste when you barely use your auto-attack to any great effect when you could buy something that works just as well and also helps you tank far better like a Randuin's Omen.

Ionian boots of Lucidity - I find Mercury Treads far more useful, a blue buff and something like a Frozen Heart could easily compensate for this 15% Cooldown Reduction.
Ninja Tabi - Although you might opt to buying this if the enemy team has a lot of auto-attacking AD champions, the chances of that are pretty slim. You're far safer going with the CC reduction and Magic Resistance than the dodge chance that might not even work when you need it to.

Sorcerer's Shoes - Your role is not to do damage, therefore you do not need magic penetration with which to do the damage you do not do. Simple.

Boots of swiftness - Gives a good consistent speed, but with CC and stuns you are more likely to get locked down than with Mercury Treads, much better playing it safe than taking a risk with these boots.

Boots of mobility - A nice level 5 set of boots. Just remember that as soon as you are hit, you lose that speed and end up with level 2 boots that give you nothing. You are a tank also. So you should probably expect to be getting hit a lot...
Soul Shroud - Believe it or not I have seen Amumu use this, and where the aura is nice - it belongs on the support champions rather than the tanks who need something more than just a little bit of health.

Thornmail - There are a few reasons why I don't buy this: Where 100 armour is good, the fact that it gives you nothing else in terms of resistances puts me off. Where the 30% returned AD damage is nice, I find that it deters champions from going near you altogether. You can't tank if they don't want to hit you, and where this item is much better suited to someone like Rammus who can taunt you to make sure that you hit him - Amumu cannot do this and it does not benefit him as much as other items could.

Wriggle's Lantern - The wards are useful and the procs can help a lot with the jungling phase of the game, but as I said before - you do not rely on auto-attacks, which makes the lifesteal aspect of this item more or less useless. The wards? You can buy wards for 75g each. It is not worth spending 1600g on an item if one of the only reasons you want to buy it is so you "don't need to keep buying wards"

Warmog's Armor - I have always been slightly put off by this item purely because of the fact that it only gives health, I do not like stacking health as a tank purely because a simple auto-attacking hero with a Madred's Bloodrazor can absolutely rip health tanks to shreds. The health regen is nice but you can get something relatively on par with in when you build a Force of Nature, which also gives a great MR boost. By all means, buy this item for it's passive, but respect my choice to place it in this category as I am not stacking health.

Zhonya's Hourglass - Seems like a way to be tanky and do some damage right? Plus the active makes you untargetable, that must be great in team fights, right? Wrong! There is no point in a team fight where the tank should be unable to be targeted. You WANT the enemy team to target you while your carries deal the damage and your supports help you all out. If you are unable to be targeted for 2 seconds, the enemy team is not going to wait for you to get out of your stasis and then continue hitting you like nothing happened. They will do as much as possible to get behind you to get to those squishies you are guarding. While you are in stasis you cannot move or attack, this is the last thing you want to do when you are trying to protect a squishy against anti-carries.


These reasons are all just opinions based on watching Amumu players use these items and how they seem to work with everything. If you have a suggestion or a change that could be made - PLEASE, email or pm me and let me know your thoughts on my items and maybe give some constructive criticism. This is my first guide after all, we are all bound to make mistakes.

Synergising your skills is essential to being a successful Amumu. There's two possible situations you will find yourself in when attempting a gank. With your ulti and without. Pretty simple as your other skills are pretty low-cooldown. Just follow this combo when initiating ganks. I want to mention some other methods of initation after the obvious few.

Bandage Toss Initation with ulti:
->->->
This is the standard initiation. Of course after the initial burst, you will be wanting to chase down the stragglers with your Tantrum and stunning with your Bandage Toss when it comes back off cooldown.

The only other obvious initiation is,

Bandage Toss initiation without ulti
->->
Basically the same initation with the exception of no ultimate which you may not always have to initiate with, try to avoid team fighting without the use of your ulti as you may come to realise that the team you have been destroying are only losing because of your ulti. It is that powerful, so bear that in mind.

Another brilliant initiation method is by using the Randuin's Omen straight after you ultimate to fully utilize the slow and get as many people with it as possible.

Bandage Toss initiation with ulti and Randuin's Omen:
->->->->
I've found recently that by using flash as a means of initiation, you can use that left over bandage toss in order to pick who it is you want focused after you have them locked down.

Flash initiation with ulti and Randuin's Omen:
->->->->->
Depending on what you have available to you at the time should decide how you approach the gank. If you have very AoE heavy champions on your team such as Brand then you may with to save your flashes for chasing down enemies instead of initiating on them.

Jungling as Amumu is simple - provided you have the runes to take the hits off of the creeps.

Starting in your own jungle you want to start your jungle this way.

Blue buff golems

Wolves

Wraiths

Normal Golems


After you have done this first route. It would probably be in your best interest to go back to base quickly. If you have done all of this without any jungle ganks or dying to neutral creeps. You should have enough money to secure yourself a pair of boots and some more pots.

Note: Please try not to take Amumu in your early jungle. Amumu is not a champion that requires auto-attacks to down his opponents. If you can, make sure to get the red buff to a more-deserving champion in your team such as Ashe or Xin Zhao.

Once your first jungle run as noted above is over you should be around level 3.

Head back to Wolves and kill them for your second time.

By the time you've finished them, grab the Wraiths for a second time and you should be level 4 and ready to gank.

As an Amumu player it is important that you gank fast and gank often to help your team mates, even if you don't have your ulti yet. The more fed your team are, the faster they can drop their opponents when you catch them all with your ultimate.

Early game:
Gank, all day, every day. Amumu is great when he starts ganking and even better as soon as he gets his ultimate. As long as you can help your teammates you should find that the money will come rolling in, meaning you can get that equipment all the faster to get you in the middle of teamfights, giving your team an upper hand.

Mid game:
Mid game you'll find that most of your time is spent in the middle of team fights or trying to set up ganks. Don't be afraid to bait if you have the right support backing you up, if your early game went well, you should find that the enemy team will begin to run from you in case you have your ultimate. I honestly think that the fear factor is a major part of playing Amumu. If the enemy team is running away from you, thinking that you have your ulti, that's time that they're wasting fleeing instead of actually trying to attack you. Meaning your team has even less of a chance of dying.

Late game:
By this point in the game you should be helping to decimate the other team, if you're having some trouble with the other team. Perhaps they're getting Quicksilver Sashes or there's a gangplank in the other team you can't quite grab. Save your ulti for a little into the team fight, just because it's a great initiator doesn't mean you NEED to use it to start off the fight. Get your team to lay down some stuns and CC to get those Quicksilver Sashes popped. Once they're popped, ulti them and strike them down where they stand.

Amumu in ranked play can be tricky depending on your team set-up. It is all about Risk-assessment when you play opponents.

The top things to remember and take into account when you are playing ranked games are as follows.

Protection at blue to ensure you don't end up feeding the enemy team first blood.

A constant supply of wards from yourself and another support hero to ensure complete map control

A point I want to elaborate on is risk-assessment when ganking: The most important thing to think about when you are about to bandage toss into a tower is the possible outcomes of your actions.

How many kills with your team get out of this gank?

Will you die? Will all of your team who are in that lane die trying to get two kills?

Are your team weak? If you gank, do you KNOW your team can bring them down before the tower brings you down?


Aside from these simple facts, you should know how to land your ulti and be careful when ganking if you are playing ranked games hoping to raise your ELO with this game-changing champion.

Define your own game-style and by all means comment on this guide, letting me know how YOU play and changes with this guide that YOU would like to see.

If any of you guys would like to play some games with me or whatever then by all means feel free to add me.

EU WEST Summoner Name: HometownHero

If you have any suggestions as to what to add or what you would like to see, perhaps even another guide you would like me to do then please comment below and let me know. This is my first ever attempt at writing a guide and as such I am not entirely sure what I am doing right and what I am doing wrong. I would love your input to help me improve.

I would also like to thank all the boys I have played LoL with over the last few months and everyone who has read this guide, even though I rant on more than I mean to.


Thank you everyone.