Build Guide by Adonikam

Mundo!

I felt obliged to write this for those of you thinking to play Mundo in ranked matches. Now, lately the metagame has been favouring the off-tanks. Those who deal good damage, and can take punishment. Dr.Mundo, I feel, suits this metagame like a hand in a glove. He does not have the hard CC, like Amumu and Galio, for example, to do the tanking job and should not be considered as a tank in ranked games.

If you want my old build;
http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/dr-mundo-blue-pills-when-he-pleases-24861
I don't like this one at all anymore but it is good for learning Mundo.

I will start off by clearing your head of misconceptions.

How would you fit him into a team and what should his job be?

Good question. Generally, you want your team to look something like this; Ranged DPS, Support, Tank, Caster, Off-tank/Anti-carry. That is his place AND that will be his job. After your tank initiates a fight you want to either; run around and backdoor their squishies OR charge through to disrupt their formation and destroy their squishies.

What about your other guide? The one that got Warmog's?

My other guide was simply not made for Ranked. It was more of a "Beginner's guide to Dr.Mundo". This one is bridging your skills between Normal games and Ranked games.

Why haven't you gotten 21 points in the Offensive Mastery Tree?

Restrictnine got me on the right path when he said that, "reaching the end of a mastery tree is just a fad." You don't always have to go 21/0/9 or 9/0/21 for your champions. I am gearing for what I believe Mundo needs, not what is considered the best.

You haven't got enough attack speed

Yes I do, and DON'T BUY PHANTOM DANCERS, "but I wanna", DON'T! If you want AS, you need to activate . The reason I say not to take Phantom Dancers is that this build is already EXTREMELY expensive, you won't finish building these. Some games I swap this with or depending on preference.

Why do you still take ?

This guide is for "off-tanks" not for pub-stomp DPS Mundo's. This item compliments everything Mundo does well and protects him from things he doesn't do so well. For example, his magic resistance does not scale with level so and are necessary to protect him as every enemy team in the league will have magic damage. Also the CC reduction on compliments nicely end-game.

You die too fast to be useful in team fights

Stop initiating. You are not a tank you won't survive long. If you are still having trouble play hit and run or grab some bulk items.

Alright, I believe your heads are cleared enough for me to start teaching

INDEX

Summoner Spells
Masteries
Skill Selection
Runes
Items
Play Style/Laning partners
Late Game/Team fights

Summoner Spells


Your offensive or defensive spell to catch or flee. As will soon be removed you should be getting used to using this instead.

I know I said "near useless" in my other guide but here you want it. Can be used offensively (first blood, Armour/MR debuff, slow) or defensively (slow, blinding AAers). As your only other CC is cleaver you need a second option to be more useful in team fights.

Masteries

I've already explained this in the first section but I will again. You do not need 21/9/0 this is a fad, and 9/21/0 is too tanky for you to be useful. You need improved exhaust and ghost and everything else compliments items and rune selections. Here is another great option compliments of wishr (Though I adapted his idea to suit me more).

If you want to go 1:1 Magic:Physical Mundo, then use wishr's original mastery set located on the fourth page of the comments =).


Skill selection

I've changed my mind and I now take at level 4. Max and grab at 6, 11 and 16. Simply put; R>Q>E>W. If you are unsure if you want here is my opinion on it;

PROS

CC Reduction (level 1)+

=50%
Allows for slightly easier farming in an empty lane

CONS

Health cost is harsh considering you'll only need it when you are being attacked anyway
You will slow down your AD gain
You will not have an empty lane to farm in on Ranked

MY VERDICT: If it's at all possible to avoid the enemy CC's then do it (Amumu's Bandage toss for example) if not (Taric, Sion for example) then you may choose to grab a rank of at level 4. Also if you have trouble over committing or tower-diving then take an extra point in it.

Runes

These runes are good work for any champion you want to play and they are all primary runes within their sets. For more on runes read Searz' rune tips.
If you want a whole other option for your rune set then try this;
Marks: Crit chance OR Attack Speed
Seals: HP/lvl (Compliments passive)
Glyphs: CDR/lvl
Quints: AS, ArP or Crit chance

Items

For this guide start with + or or +two , depending on who you think you'll be laning against. 90% of the time I still choose .
An important part of playing any champion in League of Legends is knowing what your enemies can do and what items counter them. If you have read this far into the guide then good for you, you are interested in doing well and you know that those pretty pictures up at top are not all set in stone. However some are, the ones that you will get every game are;

or


These will form your "core" after this you will aim for (unless you NEED situational items);

or SITUATIONAL BULK ITEM (MR/ARMOUR) example:

Explanations;

As mentioned previously, this item compliments Mundo and is too good and too cheap to pass by.

These are preference for me in Ranked as every team will have some form of CC and the magic resist is great too, if you don't want these then grab .

This item has it all; ArP, Crit chance, AD, Cooldown reduction and an Active which is offensive or defensive.

A great item for you AND your team.

Synergizes with burning agony. Gives Mundo an offensive ability while still being tanky =D

This item is amazing and you should be aiming at getting this sometime in the game, due to it's expensive however you may decide to pack some other, cheaper items. This item is pretty cool but you might need bulk (Force of Nature).

Situational items and when to get them


This is for teams that have "reduced healing" skills or . Get this after . Bear in mind that this stops ultimate.

Grab this if those casters are really getting to you. I recommend grabbing either before or after this item so you can get the most out of it's passive.

Another sweet little item for a little anti-caster punch.

If you don't want to get then get this as it's active really helps in team fights, also gives you more cooldown reduction for more skill spammage.

Fantastic item and a must get unless someone on your team is already getting. Grab instead of .

I have been trying this out lately and ABSOLUTELY loving it! You may not need it though, yet if the enemies are stacking armour get it, for these reasons; it gives you a magic "attack" every four AA's you do and secondly it gives you an ArP on activation.

Thanks to Restrictnine for getting me onto this. If your enemies start stacking armour grab this AND it will really f*#$ with them. Making your magic damage to physical damage ratio like 1.5:1 or something like this. Also grants you super killer of Baron and other big monster status.

MAGIC TO PHYSICAL 1:1

So I tested out going 1:1 (ish) Magic to Physical damage Mundo and it is AMAZING, here's my score;If you are going to do this grab Archaic Knowledge on the mastery tree and then you will really roll faces.

In order to get the most out of Dr.Mundo you need to know what to build and when. This will take time and experience and I've tried to take much of the hard thinking out of it. The rest is up to you.

Play style and who to lane with

For ranked you will not be taking mid. I need to say that right away. You want top or bottom lane. If your team has a jungler then go bottom lane and save the 2v1 top lane for the Nasus' or ranged DPS' of this game. I believe you would be better off laning with a support like or .

You will also need to be coordinated with your laning partner and the rest of your team, yes, that means Vent or some other software. If you have trouble calling MIA's then you shouldn't be playing Ranked. Yes, that's harsh but it's true.

You must ONLY be last hitting, especially against enemy ranged champions or other good harassers.

If you are laning against another melee champion then your becomes a powerful tool. The blind from is amazing and holding your spell in reserve until the last minute can really make an enemy champion over-commit and then BAM! Suddenly they are missing all their attacks while you roll yours out with smooth precision.
"An enemy has been slain"

Another important tip to take note of is how hard it is to chase an enemy when your is being blocked by the oncoming minion wave. This is especially true in 3v3's where the lanes are puny. The only way to combat this is to stick to the edges of the lane, preferably in bushes and roll out your .

Now, another important strategy is ward coverage. I recommend buying at least one ward every time you are at fountain or prevailing upon your allies to grab one. You need to be able to tell when a gank is coming, especially when it's an enemy jungler who is a constant MIA.

If you are under heavy harassment in your lane you can do 1 of 2 things;
Swap lanes with an ally who has range OR
Last hit with cleaver only.

If you find that you are being forced out of fights too fast (by nuking or ignites etc.) then play the guerrilla. No, not that type of gorilla! You want to be a hit and run harass until comes off cooldown and the fight can resume.

Late Game/Team fights

You need to have one target in mind and it's the enemy squishy, I don't care how scary the enemy tank looks. You need to get to those squishies, activate and ( if needed) and proceed to destroy them. The other way you can save your team from heavy damage is by using on the enemy physical damagers.

ALSO, DO NOT INITIATE TEAM FIGHTS. DON'T. DON'T. Initiating a gank is fine. A cleaver from the bush is a fantastic way to help your team mate close the gap, but initiating a team fight is a whole other kettle of fish (right saying??). You don't have enough MR/Armour/Health to be blatantly jumping into 5 enemies. I can't stress this enough, if you find you are dying too much it's because you are over eager, take a breath, count to 2, THEN GET THOSE SQUISHIES!

Also, don't be grabbing either buffs, Blue is for casters, Red is for your ranged DPS.
In this game I was vsing; Morgana, Udyr, Sivir, Vlad and Xin Zhao. These are the items I decided I needed to win.
If you believe I am missing anything or have a query please don't hesitate to send me a message.

I would like to thank Restrictnine for the inspiration and tips, Chaotic Bliss theory crafting+item suggestions and the admins of MOBAfire for everything they do to support the community.