Dr. Mundo Build Guide by Aseafy

Introduction

Hello, this is Aseafy with an interesting guide to solo-top Dr. Mundo. While mundo is normally played as a jungler, this build exploits the current meta to have late-game dominance. This build requires farm, and needs you to get gold by either farming or getting kills. However, since lane mundo is relatively weak in comparison to some other champions, you will want to focus on farming. (:

Now why would I want to purposely pick a weaker laner?? The current meta forces everyone to buy a lot of health, and even makes the carries on a team want to buy a warmog’s. With the percent damage from liandry’s torment and Infected Cleaver, we can take advantage of the enemies builds. While you may not think it is that effective, each cleaver hits for roughly 15% of the enemies total health. (Up to a maximum of 33%) On a 3 second cooldown, this is HUGE poke. Take into thought that we do not have mana, and that we can infinitely throw a cleaver every 3 seconds late game, we will be dealing very consistent damage.

Once Dr. Mundo gets his core items, he becomes a huge threat to the enemy, and can stay in lane with his massive health regen. You become almost unkillable with your huge amount of health, and your ultimate ability. While this build will make you a bit less tanky than usual, this can be overcome by simply playing a bit more careful. Don’t forget though, you are STILL ridiculously tanky.

Most people will also ignore you, and realize your potential damage until it is too late. NO ONE expects a Dr. Mundo to do damage.

The basis of this build is to peel for your team and soak up damage to be your team’s tank, and melting their health while you are doing your job. This build CANNOT be counter built. The more health they build, the more damage you do, and the more magic resistance they build, the better for your team. Your cleavers will always deal more than 10%, even if the enemy stacks 200 magic resistance. That is the power of this build.

Going onto the build, I hope you enjoy reading this, and maybe even test it out for yourself. While this guide will be relatively short, it contains what you need to know to tank for your team. Dr. Mundo is not a hard champion to learn, and it will take your own league mechanics to play him well.

Disclaimer

I AM NOT SAYING THAT THIS IS SOME TOP-NOTCH CHALLENGER TIER HIGH ELO KOREAN OP BROKEN BUILD. While this build is mostly for fun and the sanctification of chunking people as Dr. Mundo, it also works very well for carrying a team as a tank.

While many tanks can attempt to carry a game with a ****py team, like Malphite and Amumu, those ultimates are still useless when your team does no damage and feeds nonetheless. This build is a solo-top build (which can also be used in the jungle) for playing Mundo and going wherever the heck you want to go.

Please read the whole guide if you are going to go all super saiyan on me and lecture me for hours about why my build sucks. While I may change some small things (from suggestions that actually benefit the guide) I am keeping my position on magic penetration mundo.

Updates:

Magic Penetration Mundo got buffed!
Feb 14th, 2013: spirits visage is better, and Liandry's Torment does more percent damage now. We did not care about the ap anyways.

Why this build works

If you are skeptical of the build, you can take a look at some numbers. While testing it in a game is always the best way to find the legitimacy of a build, you may not want to. Also, if you are bad at a champion, it will not matter if the build is good or not, because you will probably end up losing anyways. Below are the calculations for our main damage, Infected Cleaver. I leave it in a spoiler bracket for those who don't care. It is here for those people who need numerical evidence. Don't feel obliged to read it.

When this build works

This build prefers a team that has some kind of utility in crowd control, but needs a tank to peel for them. However, this build works best when there is an AD caster mid with an AD jungler. With the reborn of The Black Cleaver, this is very viable. It is easier for AD champions to tear through resistances than it is for AP champions.

The enemy will usually build flat armor when they see your team comp, and only realize that they need a ****-load of magic resistance once the team fights start, from Dr. Mundo. It takes a lot of magic resistance to lower the huge damage of Infected Cleaver to a feasible amount. This means that no matter what the enemies build, it will be in the favor of your team.

If they build armor, your Infected Cleaver's hit for the full 33.33% health.
If they build magic resistance, your Infected Cleaver still hits for 15% health, but your team shreads the enemy.
If they build health, you Infected Cleaver's just deal more damage.

This is assuming, however, that the game is an even game. This is not possible if you lose your lane very hard, and end up feeding the enemy jungle and top lane. This means that picking Dr. Mundo not only needs a good team set-up, but also an enemy top lane who you can farm against without losing your lane.

Runes

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: We want as much magic penetration we can get without it being inconvenient for our build. These runes give our cleavers more hurt around the early game, and are still useful late game.

Greater Seal of Armor: These armor runes are the best option for a tank and solo-top. Even when you are laning against an AP caster, you can use these against ganks and jungle camps, and minion lane harass. Generally the best choice. While other runes may give a stronger late game, like percentage health, Dr. Mundo needs these runes to farm in lane.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: We can take either flat or scaling magic resistance, it does not really matter. Depending on who your lane opponent is, you can decide in champion select. However, if you are playing blind pick, you will want to take flat magic resistance.

Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: There are not many good choices for quintessences that will help our build. While you can get magic penetration quints, health/health regen quints, or even gold quints, movement speed is generally a nice option to have. The quints will be the players preferred choice.

Masteries

The 9 points in the offensive tree give you more magic penetration. The percent penetration is calculated before the flat penetration, so this mastery should give your Infected Cleaver’s more damage, which scale into the late game. While the cooldown reduction and percent magic penetration are nice, they are mainly used because there are not many better options.

The 21 points in the defensive tree are all targeted towards being more tanky. Durability is a pretty obvious choice because it leads up to Veteran's Scars . I take 3 points in Hardiness because it is free. You will find this helpful in the early game. I grab 3 points in Perseverance to sustain harder in lane.

Unyielding and Block offer free damage mitigation, which is actually better than flat armor because it cannot be pierced. Enemy AD champions will deal a huge 5 less damage, and while it may not sound that huge, in reality, it is. In combination with a doran’s shield, you can make a farm lane easier, as the enemy will be doing significantly less damage.

The next several points can be reallocated anywhere you want, because there are so many choices and it is really up to the player to decide. Tenacious , Legendary Armor , Juggernaut , Reinforced Armor and Good Hands are all decent choices. My choices are tenacious and juggernaut, because tenacious with the passive of Burning Agony allow me to not buy mercury's treads. Juggernaut gives a lot of health late game when I have my core items, and scales pretty well mid game too.

Finally, Honor Guard is the last point in the tree and is a nice finish to all the tanky masteries we have already taken. While this 3% is not that much, all our defensive choices will add up to a good amount later.

Summoner Spells

The 2 summoner spells I use for Dr. Mundo are flash and teleport for simple reasons. Flash is a core spell because mundo already has Ghost in his ultimate. Overall, flash is just a great skill. It is also nice for running away, because once Dr. Mundo has some distance between his enemy, he can kite relatively easily with Infected Cleaver. Finally, Dr. Mundo does not really have a solid escape before level 6 so you may need flash to get away from ganks.

The second summoner spell I use on Dr. Mundo is teleport. I do not use exhaust or ignite because, as mentioned earlier, I am not going for kills. While the situation may arise that I miss a kill or two because I didn’t have ignite/exhaust, teleport is a much more consistent spell. It allows me to teleport to lane and not miss gold/experience, or get a free dragon by teleporting to bottom lane for a 4v5. Teleport lane ganks are incredibly scary with Dr. Mundo as well, because he can tank turrets while slowing you down. We can abuse teleport ganks with homeguard.

Late game, Teleport outscales most summoner spells because it allows you to keep farming, and then be at the teamfight. A Mundo that gets behind in farm is susceptible to being bursted, but as long as you keep up your farm, you will be almost invincible.

Exhaust: You can use this if you want, as it will help you peel for your team and stick on the enemy carries. However, because top lane is so segregated from the game in comparison to other roles, taking Teleport allows me to make a bigger impact on the game.

Ignite: I highly advise not taking this because it doesn't really give you anything you need. While you may miss one or two kills, this spell is inconsistent because you will most likely not be getting kill opportunities and you cannot count on be able to outright win your lane.

Item Builds

A quick note about Quicksilver Sash: You should be getting this item when you have a team that’s feeding or behind. This item allows you to carry harder because you don’t have to fear the enemy ignite. If you team is doing good, you do not need to buy this item because you just buy a better tank item. However, if your team is doing horrible, you need to stay alive and dish out the damage. Do not upgrade this item to Mercurial Scimitar right away do it after you have bought flasks and oracles.

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THE CORE BUILD includes the items that you are going to be buying almost every game. The passive on spirit visage makes all your health regen a lot better, and combined with your ultimate will heal massive amounts. It also gives you health, cooldown reduction, and magic resistance, all stats that you need to tank. Warmog's Armoris another core item, and will sometimes be bought twice when sunfire cape is not needed. It gives a solid 1000 health for a cheap price, which scales with your ultimate. Finally, liandry’s torment great because it gives you a lot of percentage damage, which is the focus of this build. It also gives health. You do not have to buy liandry’s torment early in the game, but rather when you feel tanky enough that you can afford to build damage.

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At the beginning of the game, we want to buy items that will sustain us in lane. However, because Dr. Mundo does not really have any escapes, we want to start with a ward. I like to start with 2 wards because I usually stay in lane for a very long period of time. 9 health potions allows us to trade, and stay in lane for as long as we can before recalling. However, if you feel that you will have an easy time in lane, you can start with a Rejuvenation Bead instead. It gives less health regeneration, but it saves gold because it is part of the build for warmog’s armor. Do not build a Rejuvenation Bead just because you save more money, the 180 gold is almost unnoticeable.

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Our main early game goal’s will depend on your lane opponent and how well you are doing. It will also focus on mitigating the damage of the enemy’s main threat. What you want to come back to lane with also depends on how much gold you went back to base with. Not taking in consideration to counter building, the main lane items are:

You want to stack health so that you can stay in lane without being bothered by the enemy. Because of your sustain, as well as your ultimate, you will be able to keep last hitting consistently throughout the laning phase. Stacking health allows you to survive even when the enemy jungler ganks. Finally, it makes the health costs from your abilities very low in comparison to your total health.

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You want to buy your boots sometime in the early game. You are fast enough without them, so if you have only 1000 gold after buying wards, you can just buy a giant’s belt, and buy boots later. The same goes with tier 2 boots. While it is more favorable to buy magic penetration boots, you may need to buy mercury treads/ninja tabi if the situation arises.

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However, you cannot simply buy health all the time. When against a hard lane you need to buy items to help you farm. Buying armor or magic resistance makes it a lot harder for the enemy to win his lane. Doran’s shield is a very nice addition for mundo, because it gives him all the stats he needs. The passive combined with masteries will give a lot of straight-up AD mitigation.

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All the other item choices not in the core are all optional based on what your team needs. There are also items which allow you to carry harder, or items that will help your team. All tank items, however, are viable because Dr. Mundo only needs health, and magic penetration (in this build). Do not be afraid to buy a second Warmog's Armor just because the passive is unique. The health regen is not the important part of the item anyways.

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This is a situational build depending on HOW MUCH of their team is AD. If they are all AD, you can go for straight up armor and health. While the passive on Spirit Visage is really strong, we can actually tank the enemy team without it. If the enemy team is full of autoattackers, it is a smarter idea to grab Ninja Tabi, however it is usually the case where you do not need it by now. While they will be able to get through a lot of your armor (armor penetration), your health is insanely high.

If they still have 1 ap on their team, you should buy a spirits visage (but only if they actually do a lot of damage). If they are not getting fed, you can simply ignore their damage with a Warmog's Armor.

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This is a situational build depending on HOW MUCH of their team is AP. The Banshee's Veil gives us a lot of initiating power, and even though it is a waste of mana, it is still a strong item. While we could buy Abyssal Mask or Quicksilver Sash, none of those give us the tankiness from a Banshee's Veil.

If they still have 1 AD on their team, you could buy a Randuin's Omen, because the active is still insanely strong for sticking to your target and peeling the enemy. You may want to buy it near the end of your build though, as you probably won't need it so early.

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By having a good team, you know that buying a Runic Bulwark will not be wasted in some ****py players who have bad positioning and die anyways. Also, you want randuin's to peel / chase. While we still keep the overall magic penetration items for the big damage, we want to build team items. If your supporting is building Runic Bulwark, you can buy zeke's herald or Locket of the Iron Solari.

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If you need to carry your team really hard, you do not want to build support items. You need to be as big as you can for the teamfights. This means a second warmog's, and items that benefit mostly you. Quicksilver Sash is need when the enemy ignites you. Here is the general carry build. It can actually carry a team because of the insane tankiness and damage as well.

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We do not have the luxury to buy magic penetration if we got destroyed in lane. However, do not be depressed and think you are useless now. Dr. Mundo scales incredibly well, and is still an amazing tank without the damage. In fact, he is mostly played as a jungler for the role, and does not get as much money as a lane does due to jungling. Not having as much gold as the enemy laner is not that huge of a problem that it is an automatic game loss. Our new role is to peel for the team, and mainly for our adc.

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Wards

Always buy wards. While you probably already know this, wards are even more important to Dr. Mundo because once the enemy starts killing you, he will keep killing you and it will be hard for you to farm. Wards stop the enemy from getting big leads on you, and attempts to eliminate the enemy jungler from affecting the lane. Below are the normal ward placements I use for the start of the game, throughout the game, and the wards I drop when I am going to farm in between the enemies turrets. (Like a Singed.)

Skills

This passive is a pretty bad passive that it overrated by a lot of people. Early game it is pretty much unnoticeable, and late game your warmog’s will heal much more than this passive will. It is decent for the laning phase. Please buy more health regen items, and do not think this passive will be enough.

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A skill shot nuke with an insanely low cooldown and a small cost. This is Dr. Mundo’s main ability which we are focusing our build around. This ability does percentage damage, meaning we can build tanky and still chunk the enemy. Regardless of if the enemy builds magic resistance, this ability will always deal around 20% or more of the enemies health. I will do the math for that in a later section. It refunds half of the health cost when hitting, so make sure you land these in the early laning phase.
Tips:

• Do not use this too much early game, because it drains your health really fast if you do. You should only use this to last hit when you cannot reach the minion, to help your enemy jungler, or to stop the enemy jungler/laner from initiating on you.
• The range on the cleaver is actually a bit further than the skill shot arrow shows. After some time playing with Dr. Mundo, you will get used to your cleaver range.
• This skill makes Dr. Mundo a fast baron/dragon champion, because it chunks percent damage.
• You will want to spam this ability as much as possible once you have your core items, because the health cost is not an issue.
• Use this to scout bushes. You will hear a splat if it hits the target. If you do not play with volume, you can check to see if you heal back a certain amount. Remember, if the cleaver hits, it refunds half of the health cost.

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This is an area of effect ability that drains health when it is toggled on. Early game, this skill is not wise to keep on because it drains your health pretty fast. Late game, this skill should be left constantly on unless you are doing absolutely nothing (walking to lane). The reduction in crowd control allows us not to buy mercury treads, which saves gold.
Tips:

• You can toggle this ability on for a split second and turn it off. This will deal 1 tick of damage and not cost any health. This should be used for last hitting when you are about to miss one, or last hitting under the turret.
• Keep this on while you are running from an enemy to reduce any stuns or slows coming your way.

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This is Dr. Mundo's AD steroid. It is actually really strong, and is the biggest AD steroid in the game, with 100 AD at level 5. We mainly use this skill for last hitting, but during team fights we can turn it on and still do decent AD damage. It scales better when you are missing more health, however this is not important for the build we are going.
Tips:

• When you are in a winning lane or someone who you can trade/fight, you may want to max this second. It deals huge damage without having any other Attack Damage items.
• This should be on all the time during the late game, because cooldowns allow you to.
• Last hitting under the turret is made easy with this.

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This is Dr. Mundo's ultimate, and what makes him scale so well with health to be a good tank. Combined with Spirit Visage, you are almost unkillable for the duration of the heal. While it is less so with my build, you are still super tanky. However, if you overestimate your tankiness, you will probably end up dying. This skill is also a Ghost, which allows you to stick to your targets very easily.
Tips:

• The initial cost to activate this skill is based on your current health. If you use it with lower health, it is more efficient as it will cost less. This means you usually do not want to activate it while you are full or near full health, because it will cost a lot.
• A good enemy player will ignite you almost every fight once your ultimate starts ticking, or even before that. Do not run away as soon as you see an ignite drop, you are still incredibly tanky and this still heals for a huge amount.
• The cooldown is really short, so you can just pop it in lane when you are low, so that you do not have to recall. Once you hit 6, you can stay in lane for almost as long as you want. (However, you should recall so that the enemy doesn’t have item advantage for too long.)

Skill Sequence

The skill sequence is actually a bit situational for Dr. Mundo, because you need to put points differently depending on how you are doing (winning or losing). The sequence I have in the cheat sheet is for the average game where you may be equal or winning by a bit.

The general points are added like this in order from most important to least important:

at level 1, we want to grab Infected Cleaver first. However, you do not want to use it too much in lane. It drains a lot of your total health, and will simply give your opponent free harass.

at level 2, we take Masochism in case the enemy initiates on you. It gives a huge amount of 40 AD at level 1, which gives you an advantage in 1v1’s. Masochism is not much use at level 1, and scales better around mid game.

The skill we max will depend on how you are doing in lane. If you are losing lane, you want to clear your lane and go do something else. You do not want to stay in lane for too long, because you will just get zoned. This is why we will max Burning Agony. The cheat sheet maxes Burning Agony first because I do not expect to win my lane as Dr. Mundo.

You can max Masochism if you are winning your lane. You will deal surprisingly big damage with each auto attack despite only building health, because the AD steroid on Masochism is so high. However, if you are losing your lane, you will probably be unable to fight the enemy. Masochism is to win a 1v1 when you and your enemy are fighting each other.

Responsibilities as a Top-laner

Respond to your jungler: If the enemy is in your jungle, go there. You are expected to have some kind of map awareness and make sure you save your jungler from any stress he is having while being invaded in his own jungle. The same goes if he wants to steal an enemy buff. If you go along with him, you can get potential kills, and you can have less risk of your team just feeding kills because they got out-numbered.

Gank Mid-lane when reasonable: Sure, I don't expect you to gank mid lane if it's a kassadin at level 6, but I expect you to try when you can. However, DO NOT do this if you are getting 1 kill and you are losing your turret. You should do this when you have fully pushed your lane and the enemy isn't back yet, or when you have just finished farming between the enemy turrets, and the jungler is not in sight.

Tell your bot lane to ward their bush so that you can Teleport Gank: Before doing this, tell your jungler to cover your lane for you. It will be great for him (he gets lane farm and experience) and you get kills. Dr. Mundo is an extremely strong teleport gank champion because with his built-in ghost, and Infected Cleavers, it is hard to get away. He can tank the turret like a boss as well.

Call mia's and ward you lane, etc: These are the things that go for all the lanes, but you still need to keep them in mind. The last thing you want is the enemy top lane roaming all the way bottom for a forced 4v5, and throwing the game like that. If the enemy appears in another lane, at least take his turret. I absolutely hate it when top-laners do not take their turret when they can, when there are 5 enemies bottom and the top laner is recalling. TAKE THE TOP TURRET AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Mindsets during Play

Early Game:
From levels 1-5 you may want to just farm the lane safely. While you can harass the lane opponent, it is safer to simply farm. If the enemy initiates on you, you can Infected Cleaver him, and try to hit him while he is running back. But your main focus is getting as many last hits as possible. Farm with your Infected Cleaver if the enemy is zoning you, and use your Health Potions when you take damage. Being at full health when ganked will definitely increase your chances of living.

Out farm or equal in farm to the enemy, and the lane is usually considered won.

Once you hit 6, you can lane better and actually fight many enemies. The damage on your Infected Cleaver is usually very unexpected and will allow you to chunk your opponent. While the enemy will always have an ignite saved for you, your heal will still give you the advantage in a battle. However, you do not want to go out of your way and miss last hits. Your main goal is still to farm. If you can control your lane, just stand by the minions and free farm.

Mid Game:
From here on, you want to try and show some dominance, assuming that you have some health items built and you are very tanky. While you can take a lot of damage, never forget to stop warding, for your teams safety as well (if top ganked another lane). By now, you can also farm between the enemies turrets if you push. When you have warded the top lane area, you will be able to see the enemy coming and escape using Infected Cleaver’s and your ultimate. Sending the enemy jungler top is essentially wasting his time.

Push your lane and take double golems when you can. While being on purple side will make this more lenient, always be careful when clearing double golems, because the enemy will usually have wards and know where you are going. You want to constantly push your lane so you don’t have to be there, and so you can teleport bot lane for dragons/lane ganks.

Late Game:
By now, both teams should be looking to initiate on the other. Your team can simply push a lane, and you can poke if they try to initiate. Even at their turret, they will be taking a lot of cleaver damage from you. Always look to zone the important members from the enemy team out of the fight. Even if you cannot reach them because they are getting zoned, if you force 1 or 2 enemies to back off, it will effectively be a 3v4.

However, if your carry is getting jumped, you want to peel for him and deal damage on the bruiser/tank who is jumping on your carry. Your damage in one cleaver will usually be enough for them to back off (unless they can keep chasing, like Akali.) Your goal in peeling is to chain Infected Cleaver will killing them as you are peeling.

Lane Match Ups

Jungling

Jungle mundo works because of how fast he clears. This is not a jungle guide, but this build is here in case you do want to try it out. The path is usually:

Wraiths -> red -> double golems (smite big golem) -> wraiths -> wolves -> blue (smite blue)

Wraiths -> red (smite) -> wolves -> wraiths -> double golems -> blue (smite)

Wolves -> Blue -> wraiths -> red -> double golems -> wraiths -> wolves

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed reading my guide, and that maybe you will try it out before doubting. While it may not be the most competitive top notch guide to a top-laner, this guide is fun, and allows you to carry games with one of the best tanks in the game, while dealing crazy damage. I am NOT saying that this build is not viable!

So give me a vote, and drop a comment down below! I will read comments usually when they are made and will answer as soon as possible.

Dr. Mundo goes where he pleases. So please. Go now, to wherever you please. (: