Amumu Build Guide : Jungle Amumu - Off-Tank/AP Build (S3 Guide Released!)

Notice - NEW GUIDE IS UP!

The new Season 3 Guide can be found here!

This guide will be taken down sometime tomorrow, December 7th. Thank you all for the support you've given me on this one :)

Season 3 Changes and Impacts

All information has been obtained from this blog, all credit goes to Emptylord for finding and recording it.

This section will outline item and mastery changes that affect Amumu, especially those that impact the build and function of this guide. For more information, visit the link above.

Sidenotes: and are unchanged at this point. The Golem Camp now has negative magic resistance. It looks like there is a very strong possibility that 0/9/21 masteries will be best for Amumu. It also looks like if you build appropriate items, you will be able to give Mid bluebuff after the first one :)

Item Changes: (not new!)

Boots of Speed have had their movement speed bonus reduced from 50 to 25. More on this in the boots section.
Abyssal Scepter's MR bonus has changed from 57 to 45. The range of the MR reduction has been slightly increased to 700, which will hardly affect Amumu at all.
Rabadon's Deathcap has been nerfed. The flat bonus has been reduced to 120 (from 140) and the % increase has dropped from 30% to 25%. This item will probably be replaced in this guide. This is not so much because of the nerf, but because of exciting new items that have great potential for Amumu.
Void Staff's Magic Pen % has dropped from 40% to 35%. Again, this item will probably be removed for the same reason as above.

New Items! (relevant to )

Hunter's Machete - Damage dealt to monsters increased by 10%, basic attacks deal 10 bonus true damage to monsters.
Spirit Stone (builds from Hunter's Machete) - 14 health regen, 7 mana regen, 20% increased damage to monsters, +10 true damage to monsters for basic attacks.
Spirit of the Spectral Wraith (builds from Spirit Stone) - +40 AP, +10 mana regen, +20% Spellvamp, +10% CDR, damage to monsters increased by 25%.
Iceborn Gauntlet (possible replacement for Rylai's) - +40 AP, +500 mana, +60 armor, +15% CDR. Passive - After using an ability, next basic attack deals AoE bonus damage and a 35% AoE slow for 3 seconds.
Liandry's Torment - +70 AP, +200 Health, +15 Magic Pen, spells burn for 5% of current HP over 3 seconds. Effect doubled if enemy's movement is impaired. Half effect for AoE.
Seraph's Embrace - +1000 mana, +60 AP, +10 mana regen. Grants 3% of your mana as AP. Active: Drain 25% of current mana to gain a shield equal to mana lost for 3 seconds. Amazing initiation potential!
Shard of True Ice (can't decide between this or Iceborn Gauntlet!) - +45 AP, +6 mana regen (aura), +4 Gp10, Active: Gives targeted ally (or self) a 4-second aura which slows enemy champions by 30%.
Twin Shadows (how did I forget this??) - +50 AP, +20 MR, +5% MS, Active: Sends out two ghosts that chase the two nearest enemy champions (through Stealth!). If they touch the enemies, they reveal them and slow them by 40% for 2.5 seconds. Great gank starter or chasing tool!

Boots Changes:

As mentioned above, Boots of Speed now grant 25 movement speed instead of 50. The 25 that is lost is being added to every champion's base speed (ex. Amumu's new base speed will be 335 instead of 310). This will most likely mean that starting with Boots is no longer the best choice, even for Amumu.
Upgrading boots gives 20 more movement speed, with the exceptions of Swiftness (35 more along with a 25% resistance to slows) and Mobility (20 more, up to 60 more if no damage received in last 5 seconds).
Sorcerer's Shoes have had their penetration bonus reduced to 15% from 20%.
Boots may now be upgraded a third time. Any pair of boots may receive one of the following:
- 475g - Alacrity - Grants an additional 15 movement speed.
- 475g - Distortion - Decreases Cooldown of Flash, Ghost, and Teleport by 25%.
- 475g - Homeguard - Restore health and mana instantly at fountain, and gain a 200% movement speed boost that decays over 8 seconds after leaving (4s on Crystal Scar).
- 650g - Furor - Doing damage with a basic attack or single-target spell grants 12% movement speed that decays over 2 seconds.
- 750g - Captain - Allies running towards you gain 8% movement speed. Nearby minions gain 25% movement speed.

No relevant Offensive Mastery changes have been made at this point. The lack of usefulness in the earlier tiers (besides a small amount of CDR) encourages me personally to look to the other trees.

Defensive Mastery changes:

Durability is now located on the first tier, while Hardiness and Resistance have been moved to the second.
Enlightenment and Initiator have been removed. Indomitable has been renamed Unyielding and only reduces damage from champions.
Block (requires both ranks of Unyielding ) reduces damage taken from a champion's basic attacks by 3.
Tenacious reduces crowd-control duration by 5%/10%/15%.
Juggernaut now increases max HP by 1.5%/2.75%/4%.
See the blog entry at the top of this section for all of the changes and additions.

Utility Mastery changes:

Swiftness has been renamed Wanderer , has been moved to the first tier, now has 3 ranks with a 2% max MS increase instead of 4 ranks, and only works out-of-combat.
Expanded Mind has been moved to the second row and now grants +72/125/180 mana at level 18 instead of +72/144/216.
Strength of Spirit has been moved to the third tier and now gives +1/2/3 health regen for every 400 mana you have. This looks to be an okay pick, depending on if you decide to build a decent amount of early mana, such as a Tear of the Goddess to rush Seraph's. I'll be experimenting with this for sure.
Mastermind has been moved to the second tier and now gives +4%/7%/10% CDR for Summoner Spells.
Artificer has been added to the second tier, which decreases item cooldown by 7.5%/15%. This may be useful because of an increase in the amount of viable items with Actives.
Runic Affinity remains unchanged, as have Wealth and Greed . Kage's Lucky Pick has become of possible interest though, as it now builds into Shard of True Ice and Twin Shadows, both of which are strong ganking items.
Awareness is unchanged but is now a strong pick over Vampirism , which will have no real noticeable affect on Amumu.
Nimble has been added as the last tier Utility Mastery, and grants +3% movement speed at all times.

Work in Progress!

Introduction

Hit 72,000 views today, thanks everyone :) Also, I am now in the Top 5! Thanks for your support!
I have removed the comment requirement for voting due to a decline in the amount of feedback I have been getting. Please, feel free to comment after voting, especially if it is a downvote so that I know what I need to do to improve my guide further. Thanks!

Hello, and welcome to my very first MOBAFire guide! This guide will focus on an Off-Tank/AP build for
, my favorite jungling champion. The reason why I choose to build him Off-Tank instead of pure tank or support-tank is because with the AP this build provides, you will be able to provide more powerful ganks to help win lanes, as well as deal large amounts of AOE damage in teamfights.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy! Please note that this guide is still a work in progress. Ward placement, jungle patterns, and more still to come!

Please feel free to contact me in-game with questions or comments. My Summoner Name is the same as it is here (NinjaNick95).

Just How Good is Amumu?

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Amumu is currently the champion with the highest win/loss ratio in ranked games*, because of his ability to dominate teamfights and make powerful ganks while jungling. I highly recommend him to anyone looking to try jungling, as he is easy to learn, yet hard to master.

*Changes on a daily basis, check here.

Pro Player Pick Video

Pros/Cons

Powerful Pros

Huge AoE damage and a gap-closer
Naturally tanky
Deals mainly magic damage instead of physical (MR doesn't scale with level on most champions)
Cries on your enemies
Passive damage reduction
Great teamfight capabilities
Great CC
Powerful ganks with Bandage Toss, Curse of the Sad Mummy, and Flash

Critical Cons

Needs to be up close to be effective
Lots of MR shuts down his damage
Squishy early game and is extremely dependent on Bluebuff
Slow if you don't take MS masteries.

Ability Breakdown

This section will explain 's abilities, as well as give basic and advanced uses for them.

Bandage Toss

Bandage Toss is arguably 's best skill aside from his ultimate. This skill has a massive variety of uses, which makes it crucial that you are able to time and hit these very often, as it is his only skillshot.

Basic Uses:

Initiating a teamfight, usually followed by Curse of the Sad Mummy
Initiating a gank
Catching an escaping opponent
Stopping a channeled ability such as Death Lotus or Requiem

Advanced Uses:

Travelling though walls to jungle and take dragon quickly without being seen
Escaping jungle ganks by throwing it towards a camp (usually through a wall)
Catching opponents through walls when visible or on a predictable path

Click here to see a bunch of photos with some examples!

Despair

Despair is 's sustained damage and tank shredder. It deals a combination of flat and percentage damage (based on max health) making it invaluable in any fight. There are no real 'basic' or 'advanced' uses for this; if you're fighting, you should have it on. It does a lot of damage when allowed to run for extended periods of time, especially once we have a lot of AP.

Tantrum

Tantrum contributes to 's sustained damage in fights and makes him more durable while ganking and jungling. Its passive is extremely strong, once you have a bit of armor it can completely negate damage from regular minions and even some camps. Ever been finished off by a group of minions? It won't happen with . Keep in mind that getting autoattacked reduces its cooldown, so being the center of attention lets you dish out more damage in shorter periods of time.

To use it effectively, use whenever it's up and as soon as it's up in fights or while jungling. It doubles as a great last-hitting tool in lane.

Curse of the Sad Mummy

's ultimate, and what an ultimate it is. When you build with a bit of AP, this is a point-blank nuke with a crazy long snare attached to it. You can deal well over 1000 damage if you use it in the middle of a teamfight - pressing 'R' has never won a teamfight quicker. However, it has a variety of other uses besides teamfights.

Basic Uses:

Initiating a teamfight, usually following
Bandage Toss or Flash
Securing a kill during a gank
Catching an escaping opponent (works amazingly well for catching
champions in bushes or in stealth such
as Akali with her Twilight Shroud)

Advanced Uses:

Saving a teammate who is being chased
Shutting down counterganks or punishing tower dives

Runes

To me, many of the Runes I give Amumu are pretty common-sense oriented, but I will explain both reasons and alternatives.

- These runes really are irreplaceable. Armor penetration has little benefit on Amumu, unlike most junglers. Since the vast majority of your damage is magic, you should really be using these. I don't really see any alternative.

- I choose these for the little bit of extra damage while jungling and going for early ganks. Many people choose , but since you won't be taking very much magic damage (until you gank mid, at least) I think the AP is more important than the MR.

- Extra armor while jungling is invaluable. You really need these, especially since my guide calls for starting with over .

- Probably the most unorthodox rune in my build, I use these to negate the need for a gold item such as Philosopher's Stone. When combined with all 4 ranks of , they act as a gold item from start to finish, for free. Very worth it in my opinion. Alternatives include and for extra tankiness early game.

Masteries

OR

^Badly broken, please refer to the cheat sheet at the top instead^

0/16/14 provides a great balance of Defense and Utility for a champion like Amumu, focusing mainly on flat damage reduction and QoL bonuses while jungling. The two layouts above are my top two recommendations. Tweak them as you see fit, but many of them are chosen for a good reason.

Defense Masteries

Utility Masteries

Items

Before I go into the items, I'd like to take a minute and clear up a common misconception I see in PvP games all the time. An enemy building AP does not necessarily mean they are doing magical damage, and AD does not mean physical damage! While this is the case a lot of the time, it is important to know your enemy and their skills. If you aren't sure what kind of damage a champion does, take a minute while loading (or dead...) to look them up!

Time to explain the items :) I chose these items based on a mix of offensive and defensive attributes, which suits an off-tank AP build perfectly.

Starting Items:

Let's get the big one out of the way early, shall we? Though it may seem silly, there are several reasons why picking is better than picking .

Click here to see why - warning, math!

TL;DR: One rank in is basically the equivalent of a on any other champion.

Mid-Game Items:

Ionian Boots of Lucidity - 15% cooldown on and makes you a more constant threat. It's possible that you'll be able to use twice in one gank, securing the kill where the enemy may have escaped otherwise. More importantly, it shortens the cooldown on by a significant amount, ensuring you have it up for every teamfight. If you feel you need more MR instead, grab . Since it's hard to get CDR anywhere else on Amumu, I choose to get it here. I do not, however, recommend investing points in .

Sunfire Aegis - I also chose these items based on synergy with Amumu's abilities, and has to be one of the best. It stacks with , giving more magic damage over time as well as bonus Health and Armor.

Abyssal Mask - The 100%, absolute, undeniable king of synergy with Amumu. It stacks with your and boosts the damage of and every ability you possess. It will also help your AP carry do some more damage. As a bonus, and have the same range!!

Late-Game Items:

Rylai's Crystal Scepter - Turns into a permaslow and gives you an AP boost as well as 500 additional Health. At this point, life (or death...?) is good for .

Rabadon's Deathcap - If you get this fed, congratulations. Rabadon's is nothing more than icing on the cake. If you manage to finish it, you end up with 400+ AP (don't listen to the stats above, they're wrong). You can quite seriously solo 3 or 4 members of the enemy team at this point.

Void Staff - Thanks to Janmm15 for this suggestion over . He is correct; if you are doing well enough to get this far, the defense won't help you as much as the MR shred and AP boost that Void Staff gives. More damage!

Alternatives:

Thornmail/ Force of Nature - for those teams heavy on physical and magic damage, respectively. Especially useful and most likely to be built when your team is low on tankiness in general; as the champion who is "supposed" to be a tank, it's pretty much your responsibility.
Warmog's Armor - Only build this if you've already gotten your Armor and Magic Resist up to appropriate levels for the enemy team. Adds a huge amount a health, making you, again, more tanky. The regen can be nice between teamfights too, if you survive.
Athene's Unholy Grail - A great item for Amumu if you can afford the fairly high cost. However, this item is best bought when a lot of the enemy team is magic damage and you chose to use a different pair of boots over Ionian Boots of Lucidity, such as Boots of Swiftness, Mercury's Treads, or maybe even Sorcerer's Shoes.
Zhonya's Hourglass - More armor for those AD Carries, even more AP, and a 2 second invincibility active. Very nice for when those AD carries have gotten fed!
Guardian Angel - Good for late-game teamfights, especially if you are getting burst down before you're in a good position to use Curse of the Sad Mummy. Also gives a fair amount of defensive stats.

Skill Sequence

In general...
> > >

Recently, I changed this from a fairly standard Jungle Sequence to the current Sequence. If you have comments or concerns please comment or message me and let me know!

The starting sequence remains unchanged. W -> E -> E -> Q is the best sequence for jungling and early ganks unless you plan on ganking at level 3, in which case you would take Q over the second level in your E and take it at 4 instead.

How to level after this is really hard to set in stone. Initially, I recommended balancingb and , but in games I found myself maxing ASAP, as most other guides recommend. This is what inspired me to change the sequence in the first place. However, while I was doing that and looking at how I wanted to proceed from there, I realized that is probably more important to get mid-game than .

The true purpose of is to deal sustained damage to all of your enemies in teamfights, which tend to happen most often in late-game, starting at ~14 or 15. Before then, it's either small skirmishes or ganks in lanes. For ganks especially, the higher burst damage provided by is favorable over the sustained damage from , to do more damage in a smaller period of time to minimize the chance that your opponent has to escape. Also, since we build first, we can afford to delay a bit of this sustained damage until later, as it will fulfill that role for us.

Also, if you end up chasing an enemy, the reduced cooldown that comes with additional ranks of will be more useful than those ranks invested in ; if you aren't right next to them, you aren't doing any damage.

Another possible alternative would be to max out first and then balance your Q and your W. I haven't tested this, so if you have or if you have any advice on the current sequence please let me know.

However, I can't stress enough the need to be flexible. If the situation calls for something different, do it. I personally almost never end up following the skill sequence completely. Remember, leveling gets you more burst and damage reduction, while gets you more sustained damage. gets a lower cooldown and a damage increase with each rank as well.

Summoner Spells

is necessary for a jungler such as , you'll have trouble clearing quickly without it.

I generally favor over because you can Flash into a , , or escape or chase over a wall if you need to. As you'll be sticking to your enemies long enough that you shouldn't need as much. But if you favor it over , go for it.

can also be great for top-lane ganks especially. If you think your top lane might have issues, consider taking it. Ignite and Exhaust are pretty interchangeable, to be honest. Take whichever you're more comfortable/experienced with if you're not taking .

Jungling

Ah, the Jungle. I prefer to call this my jungle, personally. After building some AP, I wouldn't be surprised if Amumu had one of the fastest clear times in the game. The AoE damage from and is so high, and if you have and , you'll be tearing through those camps faster than your cools down. Remember to throw it through walls to maximize your efficiency. This can also catch enemy junglers off-guard!

Beginning the game, I prefer to take the Bluebuff first just to be absolutely sure it isn't stolen by the enemy team. If it's taken, you're in big trouble. Get the top-laner and mid-laner to come guard it for you if you can. The damage done by a stolen blue can be irreversible.

From Bluebuff, take out the Wolves, Wraiths, Golems, Redbuff (Smite), Wraiths again, and Wolves again. You should definitely be at level 4 by now. If you're low on health, go back and grab upgraded boots, maybe a health pot or two, and go gank!

Tip: If you go and successfully gank bottom, take the opportunity and take an early Dragon! (With the help of teammates, of course.) This can really help your team early game, and you'll likely have it done before the enemy has even considered taking it. You absolutely cannot do this early game without help, so if no one is willing or able to come, don't waste your time.

After a gank or two, check the time! If you think your enemy jungler's buffs might come up soon, you may want to try and steal them! Consider who you're playing against before attempting this:b can't take you out by himself ever if you build tanky early. He will be forced to either run or Flash away. Champions like , on the other hand, are much stronger/faster and will chase you down and kill you if you're alone!

Tip: If you plan on invading, take a couple wards with you and ward the river on the way there! This can help protect you from someone catching you stealing the buffs and help protect you from future steals. As a bonus, it'll cover for the other lanes if they aren't warding properly.

Counter-jungling is not one of b's strengths. Yes, it can be done, but truthfully I don't find that I ever have much spare time for it! Buff-stealing, absolutely, but as far as taking Wraiths or Golems or whatnot, it doesn't seem to happen very often. However, taking Golems is a very good idea while assisting top lane. If you have a few seconds to wait for a good time to gank, go over to Golems and steal them. Who knows, you may stumble upon someone trying to take them themselves! This happens more than you think, and can give an easy kill early game.

Pictures

Story explaining the match below

filler text

Changelog

September 13th, 2012 - Original guide published!

September 23rd, 2012 - Visual overhaul and Changelog added!

October 9th, 2012 - Skill Sequence changed dramatically after some testing in-game. Other various changes as well, such as the addition of the Pro Pick video.

October 13th, 2012 - Grammar tweaks, GA added, and the 10k views mark :)

October 23rd, 2012 - Added the Ability Breakdown section and touched up a few places. Spoilers galore! They make the guide look much cleaner. Contemplating adding additional builds.

A big thank you to Jhoijhoi for her amazing guide!
A big thank you to you, as well. Thanks for reading!

Jungle Amumu - Off-Tank/AP Build (S3 Guide Released!)

Jungle Amumu - Off-Tank/AP Build (S3 Guide Released!)

Recommended Items

Spells:

Smite

Flash

Items

Ability Order

Cursed Touch (PASSIVE)

Bandage Toss (Q)

Despair (W)

Tantrum (E)

Curse of the Sad Mummy (R)

Notice - NEW GUIDE IS UP!

Season 3 Changes and Impacts

Introduction

Just How Good is Amumu?

Pro Player Pick Video

Pros/Cons

Ability Breakdown

Runes

Masteries

Items

Skill Sequence

Summoner Spells

Jungling

Pictures

Changelog

League of Legends Champions: