Rammus Build Guide by Death_possum

Introduction

Hello all! I bought Rammus for dominion during the beta (of dominion), before he was nerfed, and I hadn't used him for a while and I decided to try to jungle. I found I loved it and I was going really quite good with it, so I decided to make this guide! Enjoy.

Some things to cover:

For your information, the second guide is for the other build possibilities.
And I would request that you would be kind enough to try this build and guide before down voting. Im open to suggestions so please suggest in the comments!

Lore

Rammus's lore:

Ravaged by Rune Wars long past, the lands south of the Great Barrier are wrecked by chaotic magical storms, leaving the grasp of nature's rule tenuous at best. While abnormal flora or fauna are the norm rather than the exception in these ruined areas, perhaps none is more curious than the case of Rammus. While no one is entirely certain why an armadillo from the Shurima Desert crossed the ***ungu Jungle into the Plague Jungles, Rammus made just such a journey. There, amongst the twisted vines and festering rot, he came across an oddity - a healthy evergreen hedge maze, stretching as far as the eye could see. As he explored the maze, something compelled him toward its center - a light, a presence of some kind. As he drew closer, the light surged, blinding him and knocking him unconscious.

When he awoke, Rammus' whole world had changed. The maze had vanished and he felt truly cognizant for the first time in his otherwise unremarkable life. As his predicament dawned on him, Rammus had a moment of panic. As he trembled, the earth around him began to shake, the intensity increasing until he managed to steady himself. As the quake receded, Rammus arose and left the Plague Jungles in search of others like him. His search brought him across all the lands south of the Great Barrier, but everywhere he went, he was unique.The hardships of this sojourn inspired him to craft the suit of armor that would earn him the title of Armordillo. Rammus' quest eventually drew him to the only place where a sentient armadillo is less than confounding - the League of Legends.

''I've seen a lot of things, but this... this is a first.'' - Ezreal, the Prodigal Explorer, after first meeting Rammus

Pros / Cons

Pros: Fast jungle Incredibly tanky Amazing ganks Can do allot of damage Can save teamates Has a built in Thornmail with his Defensive Ball Curl Is pretty much a turtle.

Cons: Hard to completely master Anti CC's such as Tenacity and Ionian Fervor can be extremely annoying In Draft or Ranked he is more likely to be banned than other champs Can be quite vulnerable without Defensive Ball Curl His dance isn't amazing :'(

Masteries

With the masteries of 0/21/9 take everything that reduces damage, this means you can jungler faster with less consequences on your health and taking Summoner's Resolve means you can get some extra gold from using smite.

Taking Improved Recall also helps with jungle speed and ability to assist the team, though you could take Summoner's Insight if you so wished.

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Other choices:
0/13/17 Is another set of masteries you can use, this way you gank earlier with taunt, though it trades out for defense, this set of masteries also helps with gold as it gives an extra 2 gold per 10 seconds. As I said above, you could also take Summoner's Insight in place of Improved Recall

Runes

• Greater Quintessence of Health - with these Rammus gets an extra 78 health to start with an extra boost of health, starting with just under 500 health, this will let you gank even better with more endurance.
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - Gives Rammus some nice early game MR that he does need, as he can take allot of damage from magic damage early on in the game.
• Greater Seal of Armor - Gives Rammus a boost of armor for extra damage and survivability.
• Greater Mark of Attack Speed - This for Rammus is a nice boost of attack speed that helps with pretty much everything

These are the runes I recommend, feel free to make changes and suggest changes in the comments.

Summoner Spells

This makes for allot faster jungling, and an ok gold source. It is also good for stealing enemy buff's and even baron or dragon. I strongly recommend taking this always.


I use this over Ghost, for the jumping over walls, you can also use this to jump over minions in the middle of Powerball to get an enemy champion.

Since Rammus is very fast with his Powerball this can be used to get anywhere very fast, though it's not as good at escaping as Flash purely because you don't jump away Immediately.

This is especially useful when it's late game and your extremely tanky, as you can surprise an opponent by healing at the last second.


This can be very useful to gank and defend or push. For ganking you can teleport into a bush via a ward and gank.

This is only plausible if you take Summoner's Resolve in my opinion, though that speed boost with shurelya's reverie and Powerball can get you across the map very fast, and can startle the other team that your back.

This isn't very useful, as I find with Rammus you either leave someone on about 1/4 health or above, or they die.

Again this isn't that useful, as Rammus can't chase and do damage at the same time very well, though it would be useful if you had someone like Master Yi with you.

I would say this is the least "viable" option out of this section, you should have blue buff most of early and mid game, so you shouldn't need this.

Useful for those annoying CC's especially if you bought ninja tabi.


This has quite a big cooldown, and you could heavily benefit from something else, also attack speed and AP isn't SUPER helpful for Rammus, especially late game.

This is only really useful early game in my opinion, since late game the minion is quickly killed. Your also jungling so you wont be in lane much early game to use it.

This is for dominion only and this is not a dominion guide.

Leave this to your support

Ability Explanation

• Spiked shell: This gives Rammus more damage the more armor he has. For example, if Rammus has 100 armor he would get an extra 25 damage.
  
• Powerball(Q): This you your main chasing, escape and all round getting round skill. It gives you a massive speed boost, and has some ok damage on it - Use this whenever you can.
  
• Defensive Ball Curl(W): This is Rammus's built-in Thornmail, even against champions who don't do allot of physical, or auto-attack damage like Ryze it is extremely good, as it returns a set amount of damage, it also gives him a very nice boost to his armor, and hence damage - Use this whenever in combat.
  
• Puncturing Taunt Puncturing Taunt(E): Maybe Rammus most annoying ability, and called "OP", this allows Rammus to stop champions running, or even saving your teammate, it also reduces armor - Use this whenever in combat if you feel safe doing so, even when jungling, for the armor reduction. This is also amazing at suppressing mages, because they just auto-attack while taunted.
  
• Tremors(R): Rammus's ultimate, good at clearing minion waves, getting kills or pushing towers - Use this when ever you need to do any of the formerly mentioned things.

Ability Sequence Order

You want to max out Defensive Ball Curl first for defense, a boost of armor and damage. Then you want puncturing taunt, so you can save teammates, or grab a kill easier. And finally you want to max Powerball last, as it levels up the speed boost doesn't increase and the damage isn't amazing, so we max it last. Of course you take Tremors whenever you can.

Items

A note: The first build contains a balanced build, if your versing a balanced team I recommend using that.

For armor for early jungling, builds into your Aegis of the Legion.

x5 I'm sure I don't have to explain.

You need some speed early on.

Philosopher's stone For some extra health and mana regen, makes you more sustainable over time, also for GP10.

Nice boost of health and some more GP10

Your first real "tank" item, it also supports your team with it's passive. It brings a nice balance between health, armor and MR.

These are most useful, whenever there is a bit of CC in the game, without them you get hindered extremely easily.

Useful if the opposing team have a few auto-attackes and not much CC, like Master Yi or Tryndamere.


Very useful for getting to places fast, that's about it.

A nice speed boost like Boots of Mobility but constant speeds.


These aren't that useful since Rammus doesn't benefit from attack speed a whole lot, especially late game.

Rammus is not a mage. 'Nuff said.

Rammus doesn't have massive cooldowns, but if you really want to spam, I suppose you could take these, but I still don't think they are viable.


Your boots, whatever ones you choose.

Shurelya's reverie This, I never sell, it is an amazing item, purely for it's active, it can support your team with a speed boost to run, get somewhere, chase, or just get you one of those. Use this whenever possible.

Click here or see Situational items for the rest

One of the few definite items that you get later. Only if the opposing team is 4-5 magic damage champions should you change this out for a situational item.

Amazingly useful, especially since when you get it last, you should be tanky enough to tank at least one champion for a while. I would not recommend getting this if you are being completely smashed, though I would doubt you would get to this item if you are.

Situational items

This part is an extension of the core build part of items, since I do not have a full set of "set" core items.

I will just say, don't get this if the enemy team has 1 or less magic damage champions.

Again, I will just say, don't get this if the enemy team has 2 or less physical damage/auto-attack champions, I say 2, because there are other items that can do half of it and protect against magic damage better like Sunfire Cape.

Get this if you want some extra armor and health. Useful is the enemy team has more physical damage than magic damage champions.

Get this if you want some more damage and health, useful if there are reasonably squishy champions and a mix of magic and physical damage champions.


Useful if you need some more MR and CC's are getting annoying.

Really only useful if the enemy team has a very even mix of magic and physical damage champions.

I think this is the least-useful item out of this section, as late game you don't need mana, you can get the armor from a thornmail, and the CDR isn't really needed. Although if the enemy team is heavy physical damage and you already have a thornmail, you could choose to get this.

Useful is ALLOT of CC's are annoying you, you can just wait until they are all on you and then use it, though I prefer Banshee's Veil.

Teamfights/Taunt chart

In teamfights, Rammus should initiate, unless you have Amumu as I think he is the best initiator in the game, thought if he can't Rammus should.

Rammus should be in the middle of the battle using all your skills, below is my small guide to teamfighting/initiating skills.
Use Powerball to initiate, and if you don't initiate use it anyway. Then activate your Defensive Ball Curl and puncturing taunt someone at the same time, also use your Tremors. After that you pretty much just spam.

Protect your squishies, especially your carry. Here is my taunt list (who to taunt over others).

Jungling

While making this guide, I came up to this point and I didn't know how to start, so I decided to think about it over night, and it's christmas day here, and I still have no idea how to start it, so i'll start with the jungle route Pre-jungling options and go from there.

Note: Pictures will be below if you only need the route and not the whole deal.
So, when you start the game, before you buy items, you need to check if the opposing team has a jungler, if so you want to decide if you want to gank him. If you do use the starting of the second build what is; Cloth Armor, 2x Health Potion & a sight ward, you will want to buy as fast as possible, then rush to wherever the enemy jungler starts, there will be a list of where junglers usually start where below.
You will want to place the sight ward so you can see the monsters they are starting on, but you also want as much vision as possible (Picture below). After that, you can choose to plain out gank him with your team and grab a kill, you could wait for them to nearly kill the monster and Smite it, or you could do both. After you have done this, if you do, just start your jungle.

Note: Pictures will be below if you only need the route and not the whole deal. There will be not pictures for this section

I have't tried these, so they are all just in theory.

The only alternate jungle routes, I can think of, is start Red buff and move to Small golems/Wraiths and move from there. I wouldn't recommend not starting blue, as Rammus has some mana problems early game.

You could start Small golems>Red buff>Wraiths>Wolves>Blue buff. Or Wolves>Wraiths>Small golems>Blue buff>Red buff.

Where to ward if your invading before jungling:
Jungle routes:


Video of the jungle route and a jungle invasion:


Sorry for the res, I don't know what happened.
And the full replay of that game (Click here).

Enemy jungler starts

Some of these may be wrong, these are just to my knowledge, so please inform me if they start somewhere other than I have put down.

Ezreal - Blue buff Lee Sin - Blue buff Nunu - Blue buff Shaco - Blue buff AND/OR Red buff Akali - Blue buff/Small golems Alistar - Blue buff Amumu - Blue buff Skarner - Blue buff Veigar - Wolves Malphite - Blue buff Maokai - Blue buff Cho'Gath - Small golems

Nunu - Blue buff Cho'Gath - Small golems Alistar - Blue buff Volibear - Blue buff Amumu - Blue buff Shen - Wolves Rammus - Blue buff Malphite - Blue buff Maokai - Blue buff

Volibear - Blue buff Skarner - Blue buff Shaco - Blue buff AND/OR Red buff Ezreal - Blue buff Lee Sin - Blue buff Akali - Blue buff/Small golems Blitzcrank - Blue buff Caitlyn - Blue buff/Small golems Gangplank - Blue buff Jarvan IV - Blue buff Jax - Blue buff Master Yi - Small golems/Blue buff Nasus - Blue buff Nocturne - Blue buff Olaf - Blue buff Riven - Wolves Shyvana - Blue buff Trundle - Blue buff Tryndamere - Small golems Udyr - Blue buff Warwick - Blue buff Xin Zhao - Blue buff

Summary

I thank you for getting to this point in my guide, if it helped or you liked it, I would appreciate an upvote. And if your downvoting, please tell me why so I can improve!

If there is anything wrong/needs to be added/needs to be removed, please don't hesitate to tell me in the comments, I'm sure I've got some grammar or spelling wrong, and although I'm from New Zealand, I've done everything the american way (I think), so it would be nice if you told me so I can fix it and make my guide better.

So please post your thoughts in the comments! Also thanks to jhoijhoi for the "Making a guide" it helped allot!

Thanks for reading!
-Death_possum