Hello summoners! This is my second guide here on mobafire and it's about everyone's favorite spectral pony: Hecarim! If it's not made clear in the title, this is my guide for jungle Hecarim, so if you're looking for laning advice I advice you to look somewhere else. Now, let's get on with the guide shall we? Oh and feel free to comment and leave constructive critisism.

Pros:

+ Great ganker.
+ Great initiator.
+ Awesome teamfighter.
+ Is a badass ghost pony in armor.


Cons:

- Low damage output until he gets Trinity Force.
- Not a very fast jungler.
- Needs to be behind the enemy to initiate and gank.

: Greater Mark of Strength: These runes are great for many AD champions, since they give you more physical damage which will help you clear your jungle faster and do more damage early game.

Alternate choice:
Greater Mark of Desolation: Greater Mark of Desolation: They make your physical damage pierce a flat amount of the enemies armor and will scale quite nicely into late and mid game.

: Greater Seal of Resilience: The best Seals for junglers and most other champions in my opinion.

Alternate choice:
There is really no seals that benefit junglers as much as flat armor seals.

: Greater Glyph of Shielding: These are in my opinion the best Glyphs for most champions.

Alternate choice:
: Greater Glyph of Warding: They can work but mr per level outscales them quite fast.

: Greater quintessence of Swiftness: Hecarim needs to be fast to be effective, these quintessences gives him that speed.

Alternate choice:
Greater quintessence of DesolationGreater quintessence of Desolation: They're quite useful early-game if you like dealing close to true damage to enemies that had better things to pick up than armor.

I find that Hecarim benefits the most from 9/21/0 masteries because of the durability, speed and damage they provide him.

Summoner's Resolve: This mastery makes Smite the best summoner spell you're ever going to have.

Hardiness: This makes you more durable against jungle creeps and physical damage champions.

Tough Skin: I don't recommend jungling without this as you will most likely die or be too low to be able to gank.

Durability: Gives you hp per level and thus makes you harder to kill.

Veteran's Scars: A small bonus for starting hp,it is more helpful than you may think.

Bladed Armor: Makes creeps damage themselves when they attack you, makes jungling as well as farming very easy.

Indomitable: This coupled with Tough Skin = you're not going to die in your jungle unless there is another champion there waiting for you.

Initiator: This mastery is great for Hecarim, whether it be for galloping around the map faster or (Shockingly enough) for initiating.

Enlightenment:This gives you scaling CDR per level and will lower your cooldowns quite a bit.

Mercenary: This mastery is great for all champions, makes it so snowballing takes much less effort on your side.

Juggernaut: A 3 percent boost to you HP and 10 percent free tenacity? On Hecarim this mastery is LEGENDARY!

Summoner's Wrath: Makes Ghost give you even more speed than it usually does and thus give you more damage through your passive and make it so no one can escape you.

Brute Force: Gives a small boost to your damage which is always nice.

Alacrity: More attacks means more damage and thus faster jungle clear and champion kills.

Weapon Expertise: 10% armor penetration helps your damage more than you may think.

Cloth Armor + 5 Health Potions: Makes you able to build Wriggle's Lantern faster and survive your first jungle clear and a couple of ganks.


Boots of Speed: makes you faster and so more able to gank successfully and do more damage because of your passive.

Wriggle's Lantern: This item gives a nice boost to your damage, sustain and survivability and provides you with a free ward!

Heart of Gold: Gives you health and increases the rate at which you gain gold which is always nice.



Trinity Force: This is the best item in the game for Hecarim, the most important part of which is the Sheen passive.

Aegis of the Legion: This item gives you Magic resist, armor, HP and an aura that gives armor, magic resist and AD to nearby allies including yourself.

Atma's Impaler: Gives you Armor, Crit chance and turns 1.5 percent of your max HP into AD.

Guardian Angel size 55Guardian Angel: Gives you armor, magic resist and a passive that revives upon death, this coupled with your W makes it almost impossible to kill you in a teamfight.



Mercury's Treads: Gives you magic resist, Tenacity and makes you even faster! These are my favorite boots in the game and the best for Hecarim IMO.

Ninja Tabi: Gives you armor, reduces damage you take from auto attacks and increases your movement speed.

Banshee's Veil: Provides HP, Mana, Magic resist and a passive spellshield.

Randuin's Omen: This item gives you Armor, HP, CDR, HP regen and an extremely useful active and passive.

Force of Nature: This item gives you tons of Magic resist, + 8 percent move speed and insane HP regen.

Start off by putting your first point into Rampage and max this first since this is where most of your damage comes from. At level 2 put a point into Spirit of Dread and max this second, this skill is your sustain and will help you clear your jungle faster and stay healthy doing it. At level 4 put a point into Devastating Charge and leave it to last because this skill is mainly useful for the speed bonus and knockback effect. So your skill sequence should look something like this:

Ghost: This is the best summoner spell on Hecarim for escaping or initiating, always take this on him.
Smite: This is the best summoner spell for junglers, I do not recommend trying to jungle without this since then you will lose dragon and baron control and maybe die in your jungle.
Flash: This is a great summoner spell, you can take this if you want to but ghost is much more useful on Hecarim.


Exhaust: A good summoner spell, but not for junglers, if you want it REALLY badly then take this in place of ghost.
Ignite: Another good summoner spell, but like Exhaust it's not a good choice for jungle Hecarim because he does not have a relieble escape mechanism, I don't recommend it but if you want it then take it in place of ghost.

I start my jungling route at the blue buff and then I proceed to wolves, then wraiths, then small golems, red buff, and then wraiths again, at this point I should be level 4 and now is the time to GANK! When you go back to your jungle try to keep in mind in which order the camps will be respawning since they build up gold and exp the longer they are alive so try to maximise the gold/exp gain by doing them in order of Wolves then small golems and last wraiths if you followed my path. Only go back to your jungle if you don't see any available ganks.

Counter jungling:

When counter jungling you always want to know where the enemy jungler is, for example if you just saw him ganking bot lane then you can assume it's relatively safe to go into his upper jungle and take a few creep camps and maybe red buff if it's up. If you're the one getting counter jungled, consider putting a few wards in your jungle and have your team help out if you spot the enemy jungler or if they don't want/can help (and even if they do) go do some counter jungling of your own, always try to take a few teammated with you when counter jungling since if you get caught chances are you're not getting out alive.
When counter jungling you also want to know the order in which your enemy jungler did his jungle, for example: if you know he started at blue then his blue buff will most likely be up at about 7:10 so take your mid and maybe bot/top lane and steal that buff since it will help your mid lane win and frees up your blue buff for either you or your bot/top lane.

Also, keep the respawn timers of the jungle creeps in mind:
Red, Blue buff: 5 mins.
Dragon: 6 mins.
Baron: 7 mins.

Warding:

When warding you should prioritize objectives like Dragon and Baron Nashor, not only warding the objectives themselves but also warding the paths the enemy team are most likely to take getting to these objectives. Example: You are purple team and are about to take Dragon, you should ward the tri-bush closest to bot lane and also the enemies wraiths, this will allow you to see if the enemy are coming while you are killing Dragon, you should also buy a pink ward and put it on Dragon if you suspect that the enemy has a ward of their own there. If you are counter jungling you should ward the enemy buffs so that you can steal them with smite or at least get the timer if you are not nearby or unable to steal. You should also help your team by warding their lane, however this is not a high priority and you should only ward if they have stayed in lane too long and their own ward has expired, if they neglected to ward their lane or if you simply believe they are going to need it. Note: the support should also be warding the map and it's better if they buy the majority of wards since you getting items is much more important than them getting the same.

Start off at blue buff, or an invade to the buff closest to you blue and have someone leash it for you regardless of what you decide to do, then proceed to clear the jungle as described in the jungling section. At level 4 you should try to gank a lane, it does not matter which as long as the gank has a chance of succeeding or another lane requires you assistance. When ganking have you teammate bait or at least cc the enemy (preferably both) and then run in behind him and knock him into you teammate with your Devastating Charge, this should usually result in a kill unless the enemy has flash or ghost in which case you can stick around if you think you can take him or if you don't, go gank another lane or go back to your jungle, also: if you know the enemy has warded a specific place, (top river for example) try going in from another way, go in from the turret in bot and top lane or if mid, just try going from the other brush.


Around this time you should have begun contesting Dragon, an exceptionally valuable monster that provides each member on the killing team with 190 gold. This is the time where you stop laning and jungling and start moving more as a team and fighting the other team. In teamfights, you should be the initiator if you don't have anyone else who does it better. When initiating you should try coming in from behind or beside the enemy team and knock on of them (preferably a carry) into your team, if you don't think you can reach them in time try ulting just behind them since this will cause them to run towards your team and will count as distance traveled on you Devastating charge so make sure you activate that before you ult.


This is where Hecarim truly shines because you should have finished most of your build and thereby be doing tons of damage. You should also be so durable, both from your items and Spirit of Dread that you can act both as a tank and melee carry for your team. If the game manages to get so far that you get your full build then you have pretty much won because you will be nigh unkillable in teamfights and that carry you SHOULD be slicing up will not be getting away alive.

So there it is: My guide for jungle Hecarim! I may have forgotten something but I'm sure I'll add it later if I figure what it is or if someone would be so kind as to tell me what is missing. See you on the field of justice summoners!

Changes: Changed the build for more tanky and also modified masteries and runes.