Sometimes the scariest thing you'll have to deal with in game is a Hecarim who comes flying out of the bush and follows you under a tower, giving zero ****s and securing himself yet another kill.

This build is designed exactly for that purpose.

My summoner name is Squixel, and I've spent the last few months trying to find a jungler to suit my juggernaut style of play. I discovered Hecarim a little while after Evelynn's remake (who was my placebo jungler - She's fun but far too squishy for my liking). Hecarim was recommended to me by a friend, whom this guide is credited to. Rawrboom - The kid is crazy.

This guide is predominantly a 'guide', and not a walkthrough of how to play the jungle perfectly. I give you the tools, you do with them what you will. But if you're a smart player with plenty of map awareness, I can almost guarantee a shadow pony who will carry your team to snowballing victory with little more than three to five deaths.

Pros

Terrifying ganks!
Swift map movement
Plenty of self-sustain in jungle and teamfights with W
Powerful towerdiving opportunities with a smart team
One of the true juggernauts of LoL

Cons

Slow jungle clear
Difficult ganks pre-level 6
Needs decent early farm to become effective
Somewhat reliant on team CC to secure kills.
Also somewhat prone to cc.

The mid - end game of Hecarim is the main goal of the game here, because once that Frozen Heart comes into play, you can tower dive the squishies and come out with a clean kill or two (within reason, of course, and a fully aware team mate).

"Why no attack damage runes? Lolur so stupid."

Okay. As pony, you're going to have a solid amount of constant damage from your Q, which is also a huge cleave effect. Not to mention the health returned from your W, and so on.


x 9
The primary reason for attack speed marks is to keep that red buff slow on the enemy target as often as you can. That's your only true form of cc once you've rampage'd onto your target.

x 9
Pretty standard for junglers. The armor makes you fairly tanky early game, and stops you dropping like a fly in your own jungle.

x 9
Scaling MR/level glyphs are incredible on most champions. These will make you virtually unstoppable against the AP carries and any other magic damage pokes they might try to put on you. (Key word here - TRY. LOL)

x 3
These are essential on Hecarim, as they activate his passive and give his ganks a little more oomph and chase.


NOTE: You can switch out Greater Mark of Attack Speed for Greater Mark of Desolationif you really feel the bonus red buff slow isn't worth it, but it's all up to you in the end.

1/20/9 Has been the most effective build for me so far, with a heavy focus on the movement speed masteries ( and ) and a few of the standard jungling points in the Defense tree (and )


"Erhmahgerd y u no take the 21 point in Defense? Ur so ******ed"

I'm maxing out on Hecarim's passive here, , so for the bonus movement speed that Ghost provides.


If you're worried about where your damage comes from, hold tight.

To start off, you're building your into a Philosopher's Stone to give you a wee bit more sustain to clear the jungle. So with your regrowth and a health pot, get some assistance on wolves and see if you can get a solid poke on blue. Route around to Wraiths, clear those nasties out and back to wolves.

It's recommended to pick up your before your full Merc Treads, simply because the added gp/5 is far more useful, as you still have your movement speed buffs from quints and masteries. Pick up your Merc Treads after this.

"Why Frozen Heart hecablol is damage dealer omg" - Wrong. He has a crazy amount of spammable damage with his Q and Red Buff, not to mention the On-hit capabilities of his Rampage. Frozen Heart gives you the entry-way to start snowballing towards a victory, if your team has any smear of intelligence. It also gives you enough mana and CDR to start handing out much needed blues to your AP mid.

is a glorious item on pony. It provides bonus hp regen, a massive amount of MR to stack with your MR/level glyphs, AND additional movement speed!! And with your gp5 items and hopefully clever and effective ganks, you'll have that running in no time.

Once you've got those two items sorted out, then you can start dishing out the damage items.
Sell your gp5 items when the time is right, and when they can help you build your big damage dealers.
for the starting damage and on-hit, as your Rampage will proc it, giving a huge damage burst when you first initiate that gank. Build into for even more tanky and speed (that is if the enemy haven't surrendered yet!), and the enemy team will be absolutely terrified of you.

if their team is more AP/magic damage based, but otherwise you're good to roll!

NOTE: Guardian's Angel is in there for the reason that it is my preference for a final slot, because the delay between 'death' and 'rebirth' will allow for your to come off CD and give you a very very good chance at an escape.

and

Why these spells? Well Smite is a no-brainer, since this IS a jungle guide. Hecarim doesn't have the jungle clears that one shot minions, and it takes him a little bit to get his buffs, so Smite is a necessity.

is pretty much the bread and butter of your ganks, and provides a sizeable damage buff to your Warpath. With the mastery, the speed buff is pushed up to 35%!

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Other Spells

There is no other real option with jungle pony. The only other option you could consider is , if you feel you aren't a safe-enough player. You lose a key element to Hecarim's ganks if you pick this over Ghost though.


^ That one there is a big no-no. You have the movement speed to cover your map very efficiently.

What a terrible, terrible attempt at a Floyd pun.

So, what's been covered in this guide may not be for you. You may aim to be an early-damage dealing wrecking ball. But the information I've provided here is more than enough to make your Hecarim one of the strongest initiators in the whole game.

Please be gentle as this is my first guide. I'll be adding little bits to it and editing as I go!