Keep that in mind when reading this guide, because that very idea contradicts everything a guide will tell you which usually to do "this" and "this" in "this order".

My argument for this build is not based on the authority that I'm a high elo player, or some sort of claim that because I main this champion I deserve to teach everyone how to play him. I will present my opinions, which for all intents and purposes are true and you will base its validity on how well I will convince you.

YOU WILL NOT:
Be a sheep and follow this build if I happen to be a high elo UDYR main.
Dismiss if I don't happen to be a high elo UDYR main.

YOU WILL:
Read the build and judge it for yourself, but hopefully you try it in game before judging.

Actually I do...

But only until level 4:
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You might want to get BEAR at 3 if you desire early ganks.

Why start with TIGER for jungling? Why get both PHEONIX and TIGER for jungling when one is clearly better for jungling?

This is the part where I prove UDYR is the most versatile champion in the game, and where I unfold the lies...

UDYR is a heavy-hitting-fast-reacting-assassin-peeling-teemo-chasing (and can be faster provided there's no shrooms)-damage-soaking-control-and-farm-counter-jungler-extravaganza. The simplicity of a permanently fast, hard-hitting bruiser with a spam-able stun and shield makes UDYR very versatile.

UDYR's spammable skills aren't skills per say, but free stats that you have to activate and that scales with putting points into them when leveling up.

Essentially an ideal UDYR permanently has the stats his abilities are providing him if he is using them at the right moments.

On that note, if you need to be tanky put more points in, if you need better chasing potential put some points in . Don't pigeon hole yourself into leveling first if you are the only damage soak on your team come midgame. Put some ******* points in when you're jungling, it is essential for ganking, even if PHOENIX is better for the clearing part of jungling.

You should not have to use PHOENIX for burst single target damage and TIGER for minion clearing. THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE BOTH.

UDYR's strength and weaknesses will vary each game depending on how you level him.

So Udyr has multiple build path, great, that makes him versatile.

He has a movement speed boost coupled with a on-hit stun, great, stun=versatility. It is literally useful for everything and actually scales into lategame. (Unlike his damage)

Leveling your abilities depending on need is pretty unique to UDYR and lets you play a little differently every game, it adds versatility to his Kit. (Great)

These are some of the things that make UDYR versatile. However UDYR has some very abysmal inherent weaknesses that simply cannot be alleviated, let's take a look at them:

As much of us knows, he gets kited to hell and back.

Most of the time, he is forced into a tank role, while he can still dish out a respectable amount of damage with tank builds his initiation is simply nonexistent.

His sub-par mobility means his ganks aren't reliable unless his allies lay down some major CC (Leveling BEAR helps a little in this respect, but not a lot), or unless his enemies are very over-extended.

His strengths are just as noticeable as his weaknesses:

He absolutely murders other junglers in 1V1 while being able to quickly steal their camps.

From early to midgame, if he somehow manages to catch you in ganks, you are dead.

His clearing is great.

He transitions well into a tank.

Stunbot OP.

This guide is about playing on his strengths. And each topic will attempt to explain to exploit a strength while dealing with the weaknesses.

That's simply untrue.

Jungle UDYR needs TIGER. End of story. The burst from TIGER is essential because in ganks because BURST IS BETTER. It might be true that PHOENIX might have greater sustained damage. Since this is UDYR we're talking about, you have trouble even catching up to most laners, therefore you want to make the most of the short period of time you are able to stick to the laners before they can disengage. Therefore TIGER.

If you happen to actually gap-close successfully, you should be able to constantly stick to your enemy as long as you continue spamming bear. You will rotate TIGER into PHOENIX. Since UDYR`s stances activate stack into each other, TIGER`s attack speed increase will merge over into PHOENIX`s AD boost and combustion procs.

The resulting effects sounds like this: Play Video
You will deal more damage by using rotating TIGER into PHOENIX, even if they were both at rank one, than if you only used PHOENIX and that was at rank 3. This is because TIGER's attack speed with PHOENIX's free AD and combustion proc is multiplicative.

You should be able to use BEAR right after your rotation. Assuming it went on cooldown right before you used TIGER.

But wait...don't I want to specialize into PHEONIX so I can clear faster?...

This is definitely a consideration, but specializing in one thing doesn't mean completely ignoring the other, especially when the abilities are whispering to us that they were meant to be a combo.

Yes.
As I've said before, the whole point of the guide the build is an attempt to alleviate his weaknesses while playing on his strengths.

Yes, Your clearing speed and sustain in the jungle will suffer because you did not buy any real jungle items but going double Dorans will net you some key advantages:
is the best early game item for the most amount of essential stats on UDYR at the best price.

Going double dorans is cheaper than any finished jungling item, meaning you can get started on your second item earlier.

The damage and health regain on-hit synergizes perfectly with the free attack speed of TIGER.

Stats will are extremely relevant in early and midgame fights, when UDYR shines the brightest. Starting with a double Dorans blade will let him downright murder other junglers early on.

UDYR's kit alleviates the risk and weaknesses of starting with Dorans as a jungler.

Starting with Dorans does not provide a unbearable sustain problem because TURTLE is actually a lot stronger than most expect, and regaining 10 health per hit certainly does not hurt.

Your clearing is still very acceptable due to UDYR's innate ability to clear waves fast.


Why am I not getting standard jungler items?

Jungler items help your average jungler clear faster. UDYR is not your average jungler.
was never required with UDYR because already cleared at the speed of light, and you are putting points in that anyways even if you are starting with TIGER.

Anything that builds out of is not essential on UDYR for a couple of reasons. UDYR does not need for either the clearing speed or the sustain. His sustain is alleviated by
And let's talk about 's upgrades. You don't want because the health stats will conflict with the Frozen Mallet that you will build on UDYR (I'll get into that). Besides Mercury Threads will and always have been just fine. Is too expensive for too little defensive stats for UDYR. (To be honest I'm not sure who this would be good on)

Putting a point in PHEONIX early will help you clear at a very acceptable speed even if you didn't buy any jungling items. If you have both TIGER and PHOENIX, rotating one into the other will help you clear the jungle faster to compensate for that fact that you didn't specialize into PHEONIX.


Stonewall does a UDYR run with Doran's starting at 8.15

Play Video Note that the clearing speed is still the same on the first wave.

However this build presents a problem on the first clear in that you are very vulnerable when clearing red (or any camp for that matter), since you will likely be at a lower health than with a standard jungle start.

Let's ignore the fact that even with a standard jungle start, and if the enemy finds you in your jungle at anything less than full they can still do mean things to you. Alternatively you can also start at red, save your smite for blue, and get blue right afterwards.

After your second Dorans, you should honestly be able to murder any jungler you find.

If you are still really uncomfortable with the sustain, then don't use this build.

Let's get this out of the way before I move on to midgame items...

This set-up I have is the best set-up there is.

UDYR is a very simple champion, if he can successfully gapclose, he will always win the 1v1. If he successfully gapcloses in a teamfight, he will draw a high amount of aggression from enemy teammates because they know you will always win the 1v1. Even if you aren't on top of someone your mere presence threatens the livelihood of your enemy because they know you will always win 1v1s. This threat level, coupled with the fact that he can easily be build tanky, is what makes him a tank.

My set-up here emphasizes on him reaching an enemy and sticking to the poor bastard.

RUNES:
Standard jungler fare, attack speed because you bought a Doran's blade.

MASTERIES:
The key here is Tenacious and Relentless . Rest is standard jungler fare.

SUMMONER SPELLS:

All junglers should have.


Why instead of ?

UDYR's strength comes from his high sustained damage, with TIGER providing a little bit of burst. That strength is coupled with an spammable movement speed buff that can be very potent when leveled. His damage output and threat level is based on sustained damage that increases based on how long he sticks to his enemy. Therefore you want a spell for him that let's him "be there" for longer periods of time.

is for champs who lack mobility for positioning, and whose targeted or skillshot abilities rewards instant mobility. Flash lengthens the effective range of these abilities. This is especially useful with crowd control based abilities.

An example is how Lee Sin can use flash to set up a so the vital enemy target flies into your own team. Or how Maokai can use flash, to lengthen the range from which he can use . A strong and reliable CC ability.

UDYR has none of that. His range of influence at any given time is his auto-attack range, and he must alter that by constant repositioning, which he excels at with BEAR. further enhances that.


And the ability to react to ganks, catch up with enemies in a long chase, flying to key objectives on the map is something that only ghost can provide while still retaining the gap-closing and escaping capabilities on a much shorter cooldown.

After your magnificent doublestart. You will build another
JUST KDDING, but not really. You want a next. This serves multiple purposes, but mainly to alleviate one of UDYR's main weaknesses, which is sticking to people in early ganks. When ganking, a one second stun every 6 seconds often isn't enough in the face of innate flash abilities, that ability called flash, and pesky supports with knockups and stuns. You want to keep the luckless bastard from moving.

Also at this point we are approaching midgame, when the earliest forms of team-fighting starts as dragon contests. Health and damage are essential stats for those encounters.

After you finished your you will build it into either one of the two midgame behemoths for bruisers. or .

Basically if you are fed and you feel safe enough, buy a trinity to supplement your damage.

Since junglers are mostly expected to acts tanks these days, into will provide fantastic defensive stats for you and the aura effect basically makes the item a mandatory buy. Afterwards, get tanky to your hearts content. It doesn't really matter what you buy as long as it's got defensive stats.

Alternatively you could opt to skip phage entirely and buy later on. This would work just as well since sheen is fantastic with UDYR.

The usual motto for bruisers come lategame is "Get Tanky".

Are all good choices for UDYR.

UDYR fits in most team composition.

However he especially enjoys hard CC from other teammates if he can get it (but then again which team doesn't). He likes utility based mages, such as Zyra, Anivia and Orianna. Control supports like Leona, Taric, Nunu & Willump, or Alistar. He can tank in the Mundo or Olaf sense; to be beefy and be able to kill stuff, but not in the Maokai, Nautilus or Alistar sense, to be able to initiate fights and control the enemy's actions through CC for the benefit of your team.

His damage output is comparable to melee wrecking balls like Jax or Darius if he so chooses to emphasize damage. He can become incredibly tanky but still retain presence thanks to good base damage and good abilities. Abilities that are designed around a spammable kit with no ult means that he essentially has no "down time".

He has a strong clear, and his kit emphasizes a strong constant presence. Being UDYR is presence. Whereas for example the presence of an Annie will depend whether her stun is up and whether her ultimate is up, not to mention if she can time those abilities properly.

He scales incredibly well with any AD, decently with attack speed, and fantastically with defense, thanks to strong base resists and TURTLE stance.

His true weakness is that while retaining a constant strong presence, he will never be as scary as a Lee Sin with Dragon Kick up, or Maokai turning into a little ball of green death to lead the charge for his team. He will not excel in one area is decent in many different areas. But that specialization is customizable to some length by choosing how to level his different abilities.

Having only a measly movement speed early on, only being able to upgrade to be more acceptable rate later, UDYR's has a trouble catching up to most laners. However, catching up to someone will usually result in a blown flash on the enemy or a successful kill. If possible, get your laner to lain down some CC so you can follow up with your stun.

Ganking with UDYR is all about relative position of you and your enemy. Generally, you want your enemy at least at the half-way point in any lane to even attempt anything and you also want to be closer to the enemy base than the person you are attempting to gank (a reason Udyr's lane brush ganks aren't the greatest). With that said, if those conditions are met, and you know the person you are ganking doesn't have flash, feel free to ghost up, run in, and hope for the best.

You are not aiming for Lee Sin or Shaco style aggression where getting first blood is almost mandatory and lanes can be ganked even if the laners are playing very safe. These champions need to be constantly pressuring lanes to be played to their full effect.

You must also be reactive, and notice when their lanes are pushed. If they are heavily pushed, running half-way across the map for a gank is worthwhile, especially if your teammates are in trouble. Be aware of when your lanes are pushed to set up a countergank.

Counterjungling with UDYR is on par with Shyvana's. Just make sure you bring mana and smite with you.

UDYR has great cleanup and chase potential, as well as being able to lock down out single targets.

In teamfights, gunning for the closest enemy squishy is fine, as your drawing agro onto your heavily armored *** and not your team. Perhaps a more effective strategy, is to play the bodyguard, wait till your enemies tries to gapclose to your ADC or mages and stun them in their tracts.

As I've said before, UDYR cannot intiate fights. What he is decent for is long chases, where a spammable movement speed buff will actually outpace the escape ability most champion have.

In Conclusion:

Udyr is a champ which is not essentially complex and whose kit does not require exceptionally high finger dexterity but whom you have to really be able understand when a situation deserves full commitment or complete apathy, because those are the only two "modes" Udyr has. Knowing which fights to fight and which fights to run from will secure your place as a quality Udyr player. The good thing is; given most circumstances you can out 1v1 most champions.

So in conclusion of the conclusion:

multicolored indie rock song thing !!! Play Video