Hecarium looks to be a tanky dps who's role is to initiate, provide some aoe dmg and focus down squishys, his Rampage with its built in CDr for using it procs perfectly with Sheen WITHOUT CDR, once it has 2 stacks it casts every 2 seconds, oh look at that just perfect for Sheen, his Spirit of Dread gives him great fight sustain even without lifesteal/spell vamp which you can get anyway once you get tanky. His Devastating Charge is a strong initiate and reasonable disable, that also doubles as an escape. His ult is decent dmg, and also hits aoe fear which pushs enemys away from you is a extremely strong initiate, and good way to seperate the enemy team.

Early game he is quite mediocre, but after getting Sheen, aslong as he doesn't get nuked he already gets respectable dps, although, with his base stats, he is already quite bulky. following sheen depending on how well you are doing, you can get more offense, or more survivability. The goal of this build is to be very bulky, with strong dmg and fantastic fight sustain. First in, last out/ dead D:!!!!

This is what i am using at the moment because i am poor, and this is the best i have. In my opinion this rune set up is good enough for him, although you could mix in some flat ad reds if you are bad at last hitting, or mspd/hp regen quints if you want that.

quints are a bit odd, i know, but my alternatives are magic pene and ap. mana regens let me spam alot on lane. a fast Devastating Charge, Rampage combo is almost certainly free damage, and Spirit of Dread helps with the lane sustain.

Edit: changed mana regens for mspd quints, still testing what is best for him in the quint slots.

Ah, his skills. Personally i like to get his Devastating Charge first as it gives him a knockback which equals a free hit, and it does dmg, as well as a nice mspd buff if you need to run away, after that, i lvl Rampage whenever possible then alternate between Spirit of Dread and Devastating Charge and lvl Onslaught of Shadows when ever i can.

Skill analysis

Rampage: with a base CD of 4 seconds and a rampage stack of -1sec cd that stacks twice, with 2 stacks you get 2 seconds flat cool down, funnily enough sheens proc is also exactly 2 seconds. and people say irelia's op due to her transcendant blades able to proc Sheen perfectly, you can do the same thing non stop forever with your Q. proc sheen and some nice aoe dmg. life steals off spellvamp but the regen is negligable but it is icing. In a team fight will give you some nice hp with your W active.

Spirit of Dread: weakish aoe magic dmg in this build but the thing is ALL DMG DEALT regardless of source you get 20% of that back in hp. Think that through, say enemy team has 5 champs all around 2.5k hp, all of them take enough dmg to drop to 1.5k hp, total dmg they recieve 5k oh look, free 1k hp for you for, standing there, although it has a nice ap ratio of 0.8 doesn't really suit his style of play to be a full on ap.

Devastating Charge: gain increasing mspd over 4 seconds and next auto atk kb's and does bonus dmg? works great with your passive with a Sheen evn more dmg, adds onto your passive bonus ad from mspd +, good CC good for ganking if you position right. over all a nice skill. ALSO WORKS ON TURRETS.

Onslaught of Shadows: Surprise ghost pony rape. Fears once you finish your charge, pushing opponents away, ok dmg. ghosts run the full length. This is one of the better initation skills i have seen. set it so you stop in the middle of their team, so you split them all up, as well as damaging all of them. Then you go smack squishys about while not dying cause of your tankyness and Spirit of Dread and ur team focus fires. lol jk wat is this, perfeect world? but you get the drift, also works through walls, can be used as an escape.

A quick analysis oof his ratios, to see what would be an effective way to build him

Warpath: 25% of bonus mspd turnedd into ad, 50mspd=5ad, his base mspd is 330, with a respecatable 450 mspd, bonus mspd= 120, ad bonus 30, good yes, worth building 82438753297538925430294mspd for? not really.

Rampage: can't work out the ratio, but with almost 300ad, it only gets bonus 100 so somthing around 1/3? its not that though, i think its a % of bonus ad + a different % of base ad, but too lazy to work it out. ratio isn't all that strong

Spirit of Dread: 80% of ap nice and simple, DoT skill damage applied over 4seconds, ratio is decent, however targets can leave the circle at any time during the duration, base dmg is rather low only 260. the hp gain effect is 20% of all dmg taken by enemys in range given to hecarim as hp.


Devastating Charge: again another ratio very hard to work out, though also quite poor.

Onslaught of Shadows: 2 parts, first the charge 0.8 of ap, second the explosion when you arrive 0.4 of ap, decent base damage, total ratio 1.2, very strong ap ratio.

Hecarums ad ratios aren't impressive, and with no inbuilt steriod, his ad carry potential is low. 2 of his skills have good ap ratios, however they aren't spammable both with extremely long cooldowns.

Rampage skill's cooldown is 4seconds, hoever with the inbuilt passive, can be reduced to a 2second cooldown, this perfectly conicides with Sheen. Hecariums base ad at lvl18 is 110, 170 base on rampage at lvl5, with both sheen and max passive, minimum extra 280dmg every 2 seconds ontop of his standard ad.

Spirit of Dread damage is poor, hoever the hp return component seems to be its main purpose, lasts 4 seconds, gives 20% of all dmg recieved to targets in the aoe back to hecarim as hp, limited return on minons.

Devastating Charge decent base damage, poor scaling off ad, unknown ratios, primarily for utility, KB, with sheen proc can do perhaps around 400 damage.

Conclusion, with his skills not scaling off aspd, oor ad scaling, and only 2 skills with good ap scalling, he is not meant to stack ad or ap or aspd, with only 25% of his bonus mspd given as ad, pure mspd stacking is not viable either. at 800mspd, a VERY generous assumption, 800-330= 470/4= roughly 120. Based on his Rampage's synergy with sheen, and Spirit of Dread's fight sustaining ability's, we can conclude 2 things, tanky, high resistances to benifit from Spirit of Dread's hp return, and a sheen based item, trinity or litchbane.

with rather poor ad scaling, but only 2 ap based skills, atkspd hybrid similar to jax would be his ideal offensivebuild, however neglects his w's hp return. building tank with just trinity/litchbane for damage reduces his effectiveness, as outside of his 2 charge moves, he has no crowd control. building bruiser, is thus the optimal build. focusing on high resistances moderate hp and reasonable offense, this maximises his effectiveness as an initator, and by being a threat to enemy carries and modestly tanky, he protects his team carrys well.

Using this build , 276ad around 1.1aspd and sheen proc, per 2seconds he will do 650 targeted damage, 360aoe damage ignoring his w, 450 with w active. and with 170armour 175 mr and 3.1k hp not a good idea to attack over a carry.

I think opening Boots and 3 Health Potion is the safest bet for him if you are laning, from there Sheen and tier 2 boots should be your next buys. Vampiric Scepter is nice if they like to poke you after that, builds into Hextech Gunblade or if you aren't so rich, wriggles lantern(should be last buy).

Following Sheen you can either build health, or more offence. Health means Frozen Mallet/ Warmog's Armor, offence means Trinity Force. After that, depending on how you are going, build the other, or go straight into a Guardian Angel. this gives you a great amount of armour and mr. after this a Maw of Malmortius tops off you resistances to a very impressive 170 175. Then if your enemy is still fighting a Hextech Gunblade gives you more offense and fight sustain.

Justifications

Boots: Mercury Treads/ Ninja Tabi, move fast, and resistances, personally after getting to mid game merc treads are probably the better boots due to the tenacity.

Trinity Force: gives mspd, aspd, ad, sheen proc, hp and a mild slow. everything is good for hecarum. definatly a core item. Sheen procs with Q, mspd helps his passive and lets him chase. not much else to say.

Frozen Mallet: gives health ad and a reliable slow. Great for tanking a good RELIABLE chase tool, given hecarium isn't the fastest of auto attackers, trinity slow might not proc when you are chasing, particularly against people like jax or kat with a leap, that one hit slow can mean the difference between a kill and them getting away. if they lack champs like that, or just are easy to catch thanks to your Devastating Charge get a Warmog's Armor, more hp, means less deaths after you initiate.

Maw of Malmortius: more mr and ad best offensive mr item there is, makes that Veigar be like aww shiet not that guy.

Guardian Angel: mr and armour, best hybrid defence, and your main source of armour, passive isn't completely useless as popping w means you can stick in the fight longer, or you can run out with your absurd mspd after popping e/ Ghost, if they don't have the dmg to drop you, a good alternative is Aegis of the Legion, similar stats, with an aura

Hextech Gunblade: for the last item, i was really scratching my head, Bloodthirster is good, but personally i think hextech is better because, as the initiator, when you charge in at the start, you will be taking the brunt of the damage. the spell vamp will vamp off your ultimate, and also helps on all your ability's, the life steal with his now rather decent 300 ad is also going to help him out. the ap adds some nice damage, and the ad is also nice. and don't forget that active with the imba slow, but the main reason is for that burst heal when you ult aswell as the lifesteal

[Ghost]] and Ignite/ Exhaust.

for jungling, my preference is smite exhaust, as Exhaust really helps with ganks, but depending one what your laners are using, and if they have CC, you can go Ghost or Ignite

cloth 5 start is the safest, allowing you to gank whenever there is an opportunity. A fast wriggles lantern is pretty much required, followed by a sheen then survivabilty according to team comp. my run off the mill buld when i jungle is obviously the second one. Again do note these are just builds, if you are facing a full ad team, a maw really isn't that much use, get a thorn/ randus, etc obvious stuff like that. Jungle hec is reasonable, however sacrificing ghost is almost a necessity imo as after his charge, pre-6 he has 0 CC, exhaust will buy the time required in most of the ganks to kill them. however if you see your laners running exhaust/ also have some form of CC, ghost or ignite is a good option.

Hecarim is definatly supposed to be a trinity bruiser/hybrid, but due to his Spirit of Dread giving him rather strong sustain in a fight i think a very tanky bruiser build is the best way to go. Although his passive gives ad based on bonus mspd, even with just a trinity popping e gets him to over 600 mspd 800+ with ghost, the bonus is nice but after a while it tapers off alot. By focusing on tankyness and fight sustain, he won't be soloing any fed Tryndamere's but he will do his job, and do it well, initiate, and scary squishys by beinga giant ghost pony rapist.



Please give the build a try before voting, have had a few people say certain items aren't that good such as the gunblade and mallet, mallet helps vs people with bult in flashes/leaps like jax kat ez and the like, as you really want that garenteed 1 hit slow, and as i have said before, gunblade is icing on the cake, after you have built yourself to be tanky, it gives you more fight sustain, and a reasonable boost in offense.