Yeah... This is an AD Rammus build and Yeah... it is an incredibly viable build. Take a moment to read through the explanation of the build first, otherwise you might just chalk it up as another **** build, which by looks alone I'm sure seems the logical thing.

The basis of this build is effective 1v1 fight ability in the hands of a highly capable crowd controller with the added bonus of being able to support his team with CC in group fights. This build WILL fill that roll.

Strengths-
1V1: Thornmail as well as the stocky hp and effective ad and life-steal with allow him to take on ad or ap champions 1v1 relatively easily
Crowd Control: let's face it, it is hard to beat Powerball, a 3 second puncturing taunt, and an Exhaust.
Ganking: Tying into CC, he is fast, controlling, and strong with this build; making any gank a highly successful one.
Support: His survive-ability and tankiness combined with a map controlling mentality will control how your opponents move around the map.

Weaknesses-
AP: Rammus naturally favors defense against the ad carries of lol, but without much magic resist it is hard to hold off against high damage nukes. However, most Rammus will still have that problem.
Early-Mid game: This build does seam to have a mildly rough start, so if you find that some changes should occur to the order of the build, feel free to adjust them. After the build is done though, you should see a remarkable level of damage output and game control. no one will want to 1v1 you or be in a fight in your area.

**THERE IS A MISS CALCULATION WITH THE ARMOR TO ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO OF HIS PASSIVE, THIS IS NOT NOTED IN HIS OVERALL ATTACK LISTED IN HIS STATS, KEEP IN MIND THAT THAT BONUS AD JUMPS WITH DEFENSE CURL MAKING HIM EVEN STRONGER**

-= IF YOU FIND THAT THERE ARE CHANGES THAT SHOULD BE MADE OR ANY ALTERATIONS IN THE ORDER OF THINGS, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT SO THAT I CAN ADJUST IT =-

As an AD Rammus it is important to get your game off on the right foot. Jungling is going to give you the safe advance to mid/late game with the added bonus of early game cc kills or assists. Rammus is one of very few junglers capable of effective lane ganking after reaching only level 2.

After you take the blue buff it is recommended that you gank the middle lane. The middle has a few easy paths to get behind minions for an effective Powerball and Exhaust(dont be afraid to use it here since the first kill is the most important and you probably wont need to use it till you pop out of the jungle again), and since it is an easy 2v1 it is likely that your opponent will not be able to cripple you enough "pre-kill" to ruin the rest of your jungle experience.

Continue jungling till potions are gone, return to base, resupply, and continue. Resume jungling and Ganking to obtain Wriggle's Lantern and Berserker's Greaves. After that your job will be to ward dragon/bottom lane and continue popping from lane to lane to remove pesky enemy pushes. Keep taking blue and red buff to maintain your personal strength in ganks. After you have cleared your jungle a few times pick up Oracle's Elixir to clear up any annoying enemy wards.

(since you are tanky and only risk death on ganks that stand a chance of a positive outcome, Oracle's Elixir should pay off quickly)

Runes favor early game defenses and mid-late game attack damage output.

Masteries tend to favor the same thing; most of the points are placed in offense with some points allotted to the defensive tree for the added flat armor and hp for early jungling.

With summoner spells focused around jungling and ganking smite and exhaust were the obvious choices. If you like to shift these around make sure that smite is always included. Alternatives for Exhaust might be considered as long as you are changing them to fit a different play style with the same build.
Flash: allow you to adjust yourself for better uses of Power-ball and Taunt.
Ghost: allows for faster ganking and map control
Ignite: better 1v1, controlling healing effects mid-fight (regen, heal, and lifesteal)
Heal: great for changing the tides of battle and maintaining your jungling health.
Surge: helps with jungling and 1v1, works decently with ad rammus
The rest are not viable for this build.


Skills should be focused depending on the time of game(minus the ult).

Early game: focus on jungling at lvl 1 and ganking through level 6-8ish.
Mid game: focus on crowd control since this period of the game is a bit chaotic. The cc will alow your team to easily take advantage of ganking and lane control.
Late game: Beef up your defenses for longer term fights and the bonus AD off of his passive.

ITEM SEQUENCE: This section is going to be under close watch while i continue playing with this build, as I want the build to be as reliable as possible at any point during the game. If you use the same build and find an item order that works better, please let me know so that I can try it and possibly change my order on here.


The item build favors:
Attack Damage
Attack Speed(to some degree)
Support through cc, warding, Oracle's Elixir clean up, and survivability
Strong 1v1 thanks to overall armor and hp

The build is rather self-explanatory
Berserker's Greaves: attack and movement speed combo for AD
Wriggle's Lantern: A relatively well rounded early item for this champion. the fact that it combines attack with defense only adds to the damage output. providing life-steal is important so you don't have to be so potion reliant for the rest of the game. Make sure to ward as often as possible to help side lanes stay alive.
Thornmail: works well on Rammus and doubles with his Defensive Ball Curl(the staple item of Rammus)
Frozen Mallet: increased hp and yet another form of cc
Atma's Impaler: feeding off of Frozen Mallet this will give him a large boost in AD.
Black Cleaver: combined with the armor reduction of his puncturing taunt and you will easily be able to tear apart any opponent.

Keep in mind that Rammus's passive turns all that extra defence of Thornmail and Atma's Impaler into bonus attack damage. The only possible substitution I would make to this build is replacing Frozen Mallet for Warmog's Armor. The added AD from Atma's Impaler works better with Warmog's Armor, sending your AD around 400-430. However, since the added cc of Frozen Mallet can always be a game changer, don't be quick to toss it away.

First off, these videos are from a bot match... The build works great but I didn't want to hassle with running a program while playing a real match. The benefit of that is I was able to get enough gold no matter what to build the entire set up, and in the end, alter an item or 2 to see some differences.
Second, I use two programs to take pictures/video of lol matches, neither of which are exactly "user friendly" so some of the quality is a little spotty.

Play Video
This first one shows how the crowd control as well as the hp allows easy 2v1 potential, the added AD lets you easily tear down your opponents.


Play Video
This short video shows to an even greater extent what all that cc, damage, and tanky-ness can do with the aid of a teammate, even against 3 opponents. Just because he does not build out like a flat tank doesn't mean he can't take a beating.


Play Video
This last video is to squash any concerns about AP damage output, one vs one with just Malzahar and Rammus. You can also have a look at the "actual" base stats of the build, the Attack Damage in the video is about 30 less then when Defensive Ball Curl is activated during the fight.

*Note that Malzahar has almost full HP, Mana, and all his moves are available; but the Powerball- Puncturing taunt combo stops him from being able to use any move for 4 seconds. This large amount of time alows the massive damage output of Gankopotomous to take over and do what it is supposed to.

This player is slightly dependent on over-zealous opponents. taking advantage of an over pushed lane will almost always secure you a kill. Spinning up power-ball early to get a nice speed boost and then combining the knock up upon collision with the defense curl and taunt combo will usually put your opponents 6 feet under.

Mid-late game focus on helping push side lanes and adjusting rapidly around the map where needed; taking advantage of possible numbers advantages to secure easy kills.

REMEMBER: your ultimate does a significant amount of damage to turrets and assuming you are grabbing the blue buff often enough, the cool-down on it is worth using on any turret you can.

Late game try and stick with another champion to share your powerful crowd control.

Obviously this is going to take some time for players to get used to, the build can only do so much in the hands of a first time Rammus user. DO NOT DISMISS THIS BUILD AFTER 1 ****PY GAME!!! this is an aggressive and lucrative build. Try and show off your skills with the ninja rammus skin, it sends the right message that way. ;)


Edit timeline:
7:30pm-3/7/2012: Changed out Zeke's for wriggles. Edited builds and guide content to fit.
10:55pm-3/7/2012: Added Videos of build in action. Bot match only.
-1v2 Rammus VS Lux&Garen
-2v3 Rammus&Morgana VS Lux,Sivir&MasterYi
-1v1 Rammus VS Malzahar
Added Ninja Rammus Picture. (copyrights to Riot on that one)
1:50am-3/8/2012: Massive coding addition in all sections excluding: [runes,masteries,summoner spells, and skill sequence] and [Team work]