Dr. Mundo is not a tank.

There, now we have that out of the way. What? You think I'm wrong? Well, sit down kiddo and I'll explain it to you.

Dr. Mundo is the kind of character that doesn't take your ****. You've probably seen him meandering around in some game, throwing Infected Bonesaws with abandon and boasting around 4k health.

Uh, yea SomeGuyAtADesk, and that's what makes him such a great tank!

Shut the hell up, first of all, I'm not done talking. Now, if you've ever played with or against everyone's favorite sadomasochist genius, you've probably noticed his skillset and how he tends to fare. Laning against him is a ******* nightmare. It's like every bit of bad karma you've accumulated your entire life just **** on you in one glorious moment. After that, people who play Dr. Mundo are generally a pain in the *** to kill and they're throwing Infected Bonesaws all day. However, guess what? YOU CAN IGNORE HIM.

That's right, boys and girls. Tank Mundo can be completely ignored until he's the last available target. He's got a single-target skillshot slow and mediocre magic damage. If he activates Blunt Force Trauma he'll hit you kinda hard, but his attack speed is so damn awful that it's not much to worry about. Maximum Dosage is a fantastic heal that makes it that much harder to kill him and makes him pretty quick. However, he can't keep your Xin Zhao or Nocturne off of his squishies. He can't isolate a high priority target from the enemy team so your team can focus them down, except in the rare occasion where a squishy like Ashe ventures into cleaver range and no one from the enemy team is around, Ashe's Flash is down and you've got a character with a stun around. See that example? That's never gonna happen unless they have bad squishies, in which case Tank Mundo can win you the game. However, if a squishy is playing like that you could do the ******* hokey-pokey and win the game. Who cares?

If I haven't convinced you yet, do the following. Open up a custom bot game. Pick Kennen. Build him like you see most Dr. Mundos build: rush a Warmog's Armor, get a Spirit Visage, Sunfire Aegis, y'know the works. Congratulations, Kennen is now a more useful tank than Dr. Mundo.

SomeGuyAtADesk, what in the **** are you talking about?

Well, my good man, the Kennen you just built is super hard to kill, but instead of a mediocre slow from Infected Bonesaw he can stunlock one of the enemy team's squishies. He has a gap closer and an AoE ultimate that can lock down a whole team almost like Amumu on a delay (they have to be hit three times by the ultimate before their stunned). Does this make Kennen a tank? No indeed. Why? He can serve a team better by building differently.

Runes
Greater Mark of Desolation
Greater Quintessence of Desolation
These are pretty typical for physical damage dealers. In case you haven't noticed, Dr. Mundo is one of them. ZOMG BUT WHAT ABOUT CLEAVERS THOSE ARE MAGIC DAMAGE!

Right you are, my boy. However, what are you doing to those evil little bad guys after you hit them with a cleaver? Oh right, YOU'RE FEEDING THEM THEIR TEETH BY SMASHING AND/OR HEADBUTTING THEM UNTIL THEY FEAR YOUR GIANT PURPLE ***.

Greater Seal of Evasion
Yes, Dr. Mundo is not a tank, if you agree with what I said above. If you didn't, well whatever, you're still reading so I'm gonna preach to you heathens anyhow. You still run evasion seals because, frankly, **** 175 health at 18 from Greater Seal of Vitality and my Mastery build takes Nimbleness . Why's that? Because you're Dr. Mundo, you silly little whippersnapper. Your early game is one of the most annoying things in the entirety of League of Legends, but more on that later. Patience, goddammit. Patience.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
Again, you're not a tank. I'm not going to stress this anymore. Hopefully you get it. The magic resist per level serves better than Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction since you'll be building a bit of cooldown reduction anyways. A little bit of survivability goes a long way on any character, and unfortunately you have to be close to them to bash their ****ing skulls in when you're Dr. Mundo. These help you ignore that annoying *** Annie and let you proceed to headbutt her until her screen is grey and she's wondering what the hell just happened.

Masteries
Masteries are a bit weird, but then again Dr. Mundo is a bit weird. You'll take Haste and Cripple if you use the same summoner spells as I tend to on Dr. Mundo. More on those in a bit, though. Obviously, more armor penetration from Sunder is badass. 18 points in the Defense tree help keep you alive, and unless you're Karthus you've probably noticed that you do considerably less damage when you're dead. Big masteries to take are Nimbleness and Veteran's Scars . If you take Strength of Spirit I will find you and beat you with a sack of oranges.

The Ones Listed Above
I take Ghost on Dr. Mundo for the same reason I take it on Singed. If you pop it while using your ultimate, you zoom around like a madman. It's awesome with Dr. Mundo. You feel like you're doing a drive-by shooting every time you nab someone trying to run with a cleaver when you're Ghosted. And you know what? You pretty much are.

Exhaust is useful to kill a deadly target, such as Annie, that relies on a quick burst of damage to take you down. It slows, it messes with physical and magic damage dealers, it's just great.

Other Spells to Consider
Flash is the most annoying summoner spell in the whole damn game. Always has been. A big part of me wishes that they'd just take it out of the game, but I crutch on it super-hard when I'm playing someone like Alistar or Veigar, so meh. A Dr. Mundo blinking over a wall to beat the hell out of you while you're just trying to innocently get blue buff can be quite frightening.

Cleanse used to be my go-to spell on Dr. Mundo. Then Riot decided that using Cleanse to stop Ignite was lame (bastards). It's still useful to get rid of crowd control effects, but if you have Heart Zapper on the difference can be negligible.

Ignite can help seal the deal on those pesky kills that get away with next to no health, but I generally don't take it. I'm just not a big fan of using it, but if you are replace Exhaust with it. It's the summoner spell that people say counters Dr. Mundo. It can completely **** your world up, but that's why you have to know when to use Maximum Dosage. If it's too much of a problem you can build a Quicksilver Sash. It's like the old Cleanse but you have to pay for it and remember to hit a number on your keyboard.

Prepare Yourself
Alright the game's getting started. Keep an eye on which douchebags on the enemy team have Ignite. If it's a ranked game, every damn one of the *******s might have taken it as soon as you decided to pick Dr. Mundo. Life sucks, but you'll deal with it. In most games, you'll want to pick up a Doran's Shield to help you lane as long as you want to and abuse your early game. If you don't think you need the armor or health regen, a Ruby Crystal is a fine choice as well. Hell, you can even pick up a Regrowth Pendant if you want, but the former two options are generally better.

Masochism at its Best

That's right, abuse your early game.

You're Dr. Mundo. You don't give two ***** about their harass in almost every scenario save for a double stun lane with an Ignite up your *** to follow suit. Your Infected Bonesaw is on such of a joke of a cooldown that in the time it takes you to think about where to throw one you could have already thrown it and had the cooldown up again. If you're playing Dr. Mundo you HAVE to abuse this. Early game is what helps you into late game and it's almost impossible for anyone to outharass or outfarm you in a lane. Between Infected Bonesaw and Blunt Force Trauma you can make money like Kobe Bryant on a basketball court. But with cleavers. ******* Kobe Bryant with cleavers. Spam your cleavers. And I mean spam. Every time you see one of them get from behind their creep wave punish them for it. If they stay behind their creep waves, run into the brush, move to where you can line it up, and hit them anyway. You want your opponents to hate you. They'll be struggling so hard to make any cash in lane that they very well might try to switch lanes or gank the hell out of you early. That's good. You have a spammable slow that makes ganks hard to pull off and if they're switching lanes that means they're running from lane to lane and not getting experience or gold. You are.

So You've Got Some Duckets

After you get back to base, you're going to buy some shoes, you uncivilized bastard. Boots are generally good enough until you finish your Spirit Visage, but go ahead and upgrade them if you want.

I listed Berserker's Greaves above. Heart Zapper can generally remove the need for tenacity, but play with your ******* brain. If their team is loaded with crowd control and you know they can hold you in place or kite you to hell and back, pick up Mercury's Treads. If they've got a bunch of hard-hitting physical douchebags, grab Ninja Tabi. I sometimes get the Tabi just to let it stack with your dodge from Greater Seal of Evasion and Nimbleness . A ten percent movement speed boost just for dodging creep autoattacks can make a gank or towerdive that much easier to pull off.

After your Spirit Visage is done your ultimate will heal you for a ****ton. Yes, I did the calculations, and it will heal for exactly one ****ton. You're ready to jump into fights without even caring right now, and you never have to go back to base unless you want to or you get ganked without your ult up. It happens. Remember: you've already pissed off the enemy team during laning so they're bound to be a little miffed at you.

Now What?

I'll tell you, don't worry: Now you need some attack speed. Look at Blunt Force Trauma for me. It's an insane damage buff (100 AD at level 5) that lasts for 5 seconds on roughly a 6 second cooldown. Know what that means? You get a free 3300 gold worth of damage (2 BF Swords) JUST FOR ****ING HITTING 'E'. So yes, you're building attack speed and you're going to like it. Now, attack speed comes in many shapes and sizes, but Zeke's Harbinger and Phantom Dancer are almost always the best choices. Zeke's Harbinger gives a sexy team aura, lifesteal, health regen, and makes you feel like you're hanging out with Jon Snow on The Wall in A Game of Thrones. Phantom Dancer is just ****ing hilarious to build on Dr. Mundo. His crit animation is my favorite in the game because even though he's holding this giant cleaver, when Dr. Mundo crits you he ****ING HEADBUTTS YOU. Not to mention the movement speed that means when you pop Maximum Dosage you're hauling *** like Wesley Snipes from the IRS.

Umm... What Do Now I Are Confused?

Yea, I know. Sorry. The build listed here is cheap because that's your core. You want those items before the game's over. If it ends before then, that's fine. If you absolutely have to deviate from it, then that's fine too. If the game's going on after you finish your core build, you have to make the choices now.

Spread your wings and fly, baby bird. You're a scary purple bastard that can burst heal through initial damage in a teamfight and you exist to shove cleavers into places that the enemy team's squishies won't want to talk about. I'll put a few options here below, but the rest is up to you. All I can do is give you the start.

Scenario 1: ZOMG MASTER YI HURTS
Sunfire Aegis, Guardian Angel, Randuin's Omen, and Thornmail will all put that meanie back into the place where he belongs: Burning his Highlander to run from you as you beat him like he stole your lunch money when you were 7 and you told him to give it back but he ran off and you were upset because the cafeteria was having Italian Dunkers and you really liked those.

Scenario 2: HOLY ****ING ANNIE WTF
Quicksilver Sash can help you out as well as give you a free Cleanse to ignore Tibbers. You're more intimidating than that ******* teddy bear anyway.
Force of Nature, Banshee's Veil, Hexdrinker, Aegis of the Legion are all options here, and they'll all help you laugh off magic damage and continue headbanging like you're at a Metallica concert in the 80s.

Scenario 3: I'M SO FED. WOW.
Infinity Edge will make your headbanging that much more ****in' hardcore.
Last Whisper can preemptively say "bite me" to those douches building armor.
Madred's Bloodrazor gives you even more attack speed and a passive that can help you beat down the REAL tanks.

As I said, it's up to you, but I have faith in you. After all, you made it all the way through this guide even though my first sentence contradicts over 2/3 of the Dr. Mundo builds out there. I'm proud of you, you little meatbag. Now go out there and kick some ***. After all, you're a doctor.

Q: SomeGuyAtADesk, Tank Mundo can ignore enemy teams and push towers!
A: First, that's not a question, you ***. Second, I know damn well how hard it is to kill a Dr. Mundo that builds pure tank. If the enemy team lacks strong physical damage AS WELL AS burst, he can get farmed to the point where he's unkillable. Soaking up damage, however, doesn't make you a tank. A team presence does.

Q: I tried your build, but just can't seem to get it to work. What am I doing wrong?
A: You're probably still playing Mundo like you're tanky as all hell. My Mundo is killable. All game. However, he also kills ****. All game. You have to play him like tanky dps. Sometimes you have to build some armor, magic resist, or health after your Spirit Visage. That doesn't mean you're failing, that just means their early game damage is annoying. As long as your attack speed, movement speed, and lifesteal get built and you can get in to fights at good times, you'll see the difference. Mundo can have balls the size of Tony Montana's early game, but mid game to late game you have to play like a more traditional damage dealer or offtank (depending on build sequence).

Q: Why do you use so much profanity?
A: I ****ing want to. Next question.

Q: Why not Atmog's?
A: Probably the best question I've been asked about my Mundo. Admittedly, I have built Warmog's and Atma's on Mundo. It's great. However, it's around 6000g with no attack speed. Atma's gives you damage and crit chance, but Mundo's base attack speed will make it feel like you're trying to beat the enemy to death with a bottle of Dr. Pepper. Tankier Mundo builds aim to outlast the enemy while dealing consistent damage. However, I find that more and more teamfights are breaking down into giant nuke-fests. If your team is dead, I don't care that you can outlast anyone on their team 1v1. You can't 1v5. Hell, you might even kill 2 of them. But you WILL die and they'll push. The more you build Mundo as a tank, the more the enemies can choose to ignore you. You want to always be a threat, even a priority if that means they'll stay off your Veigar, Ashe, or Annie long enough for them to **** on the enemy team as well.



That's the guide folks. Comment and vote if you wish. If you're going to downvote, justify it. And not with "MUNDO'S A TANK NOOB". We've been over this.