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Rammus Build Guide by Adachim

Tank Rammus - Ballin' For Your Carry (Season 3 Jungle Guide)

Tank Rammus - Ballin' For Your Carry (Season 3 Jungle Guide)

Updated on November 20, 2013
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League of Legends Build Guide Author Adachim Build Guide By Adachim 194 13 2,623,627 Views 77 Comments
194 13 2,623,627 Views 77 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Adachim Rammus Build Guide By Adachim Updated on November 20, 2013
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Choose Champion Build:

  • LoL Champion: Rammus
    Meta Jungle
  • LoL Champion: Rammus
    OP Tank Jungle

Intro to Rammus

Have you ever dreamed of that one all around champ?
The one who can 1v1 ANY champ, yet also survive a 5-man gank?
Well then! Wthout further ado, I present to you:

Rammus, the Armordillo!


Onto the guide!


An Important Note: Make sure to look at BOTH builds for Rammus at the top of the page.
Each has different ability sequences and masteries, along with slightly different items.

Also, the Spirit Stone can be replaced with Madred's Razors in any Rammus build!

Back to Top

Pros / Cons

Pros


+ Great mobility/initiation with Powerball

+ Defensive Ball Curl = Supertank

+ OP-length puncturing taunt

+ Soaring Slam is awesome in teamfights

+ Strong late game

blaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Cons


- Early-game is weak

- Slower jungle than other champs

- Easily counter-jungled

- Powerball takes lots of mana

- Weak without Defensive Ball Curl

Back to Top

Abilites

So what makes Rammus so great?

His Abilities.

Powerball

fi Powerball is what makes Rammus amazing at saving people. As it charges up, you'll go faster and faster, eventually running out or knocking somebody up. using Flash with this is the ultimate distance closer for a gank.

Fountain-Balling:

1. Start Powerball at the fountain
2. Wait for your mana to fully regenerate
3. Take off with a speed boost to wherever you're going
Always use this tactic whenever you leave your base.

Defensive Ball Curl

fi This gives Rammus the ability to jungle and actually deal some damage. Combining this with a Thornmail will make the ememy ADC deal more damage to themselves than to you! This also gives you higher AD, letting you take down champs and turrets quicker.

Puncturing Taunt

puncturing taunt fi With this, Rammus has amazing ganking potential. To make up for his lack of early-game damage, puncturing taunt lowers the enemy's armor and lets your allies do the killing. Pulling enemies into the range of your tower with this is also great for landing free hits.

Tremors

fi Take down champs, towers, and minion waves without them even noticing! Soaring Slam is your ultimate ability that is awesome in teamfights. Powerball, Defensive Ball Curl, Puncturing Taunt, and Soaring Slam make Rammus into a tank AND a fighter.

Ability Sequences


To jungle with Rammus, you must start with Defensive Ball Curl at level 1 and then take Powerball at level 2.


From there, you can switch between leveling up Defensive Ball Curl and puncturing taunt depending on the circumstances. Also take Soaring Slam at levels 6, 11, and 16.


When should I take:

Taunt


puncturing taunt
fillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

OR

fillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

DBC?



filllllLevel 3

  • Take puncturing taunt if your lanes are pushed and you have enough health/mana to gank.
  • Otherwise, level up and continue jungling.

filllllLevel 4

  • Take whichever one you didn't take at level 3.

filllllLevel 5

  • Take puncturing taunt again if you're fairly tanky or believe that you can gank for a kill.
  • Otherwise, level up for extra survivability.

filllllLevel 6

  • Take your first point in and try to gank for a kill.

filllllLevels 7-13

  • Level yourpuncturing taunt and however you feel necessary, taking at level 11.

filllllLevels 14-18

  • Finish off by maxing your , taking at level 16.

Ability Combinations

When Ganking
or Initiating:
filler
filler
filler
When Chasing and stuff is on cooldown:
filler
filler
filler
When Running away:
filler
Always
start with

filler
|
filler
|
filler
|
filler
|
filler
|
--->
filler
filler
filler
filler
--->
filler
filler
filler
filler
--->
Roll towards the
squishiest/high
damage champ
filler
filler
Activate

filler
Continue
--->
filler
filler
filler
filler
filler
--->
filler
filler
filler
filler
--->
Immediately
activate

filler
Roll alongside and hit with

filler
Find the nearest
turret, brush,
or fountain
--->
filler
filler
filler
filler
filler
--->
filler
filler
filler
filler
filler
--->
And
use
puncturing taunt
filler
If possible, use
puncturing taunt
filler
Be happy you're

and recall

Feel free to use Soaring Slam whenever you need to. With a short 60-second cooldown
and a relatively small mana cost, this ability is really just easy damage.

Back to Top

Runes

Here are my choices of runes for this guide:

Runes

Precision
Fleet Footwork
Phase Rush
Magic penetration will help and demolish other champs and turrets. fille Base armor is a must for early-game sustain and damage. fillers Scaling MR will help out with late game AP burst from the other team. fil Movement speed makes jungling, chasing, and escaping all faster. A little bit can go a long way.
Other options:

Flat Armor Flat Armor

Taking the Greater Mark of Armor will give you a better early jungle than the
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration, but you will not be as strong in the late-game.

Flat Health Flat Health

The Greater Quintessence of Health is a good alternative to the
Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed if you want a bit more tankiness.
Back to Top

Masteries

Here are some masteries that fit this build and the meta for jungling well:

fill Meditation is a really great thing to get on Rammus, giving you just enough regeneration early-game to not have to worry about buying mana items. This also builds up into Runic Affinity , which is great to have on any jungler.

fillYou also may be wondering why I left Unyielding , Block , and Legendary Armor out altogether. Taking a bit less damage from champs would be nice, but that counters the effect of Thornmail when you're trying to send damage back to their ADC. Legendary Armor will be explained below.
fill
However, this is the set of masteries that I have found to be the most fun AND helpful:
fill

Legendary Armor

_________________________________________________________________________________________
fillThis is a very controversial mastery, so I'll try and explain how it works on Rammus as clearly as possible. Rammus has a base armor of 21, which gets up to about 90 by level 18. Legendary Armor gives bonus armor to everything but base stats. In an fairly good game, you may have about 210 or so armor by the end. This means that you got 210 - 90 = 120 bonus armor. 120 * .05 = 6 armor gained from 3 points in Legendary Armor . This works the same with MR, so you can figure you'll get 3-5 points of MR or AR in any given game. This mastery is viable on Rammus, however, because of the massive boost to armor and MR with his .
filler
Tl;dr: There's really not enough points to take this if you're using Build #1,
but this is awesome if you're going full tank with Build #2.

_________________________________________________________________________________________
fill
A small tip:
Defender
fill If you keep a close eye on your stats in the bottom left corner of your screen, you can tell if ememies are coming towards you. Anytime your AR and MR go up by 1, you'll know that there's another enemy champ in the area.
Back to Top

Spells

Spell 1


Smite because it's Smite.

Spell 2

fi

Viable Choices:


Gives you great escape and chasing ability. Powerball + Flash can get you many successful ganks and escapes.
fill

More map coverage and gank chances than Flash and Ghost, but leaves him with no escape if Powerball is on cooldown.
fill

Great for escaping or quickly rolling in to save a teammate. Pairs well with Powerball, but falls short of flash otherwise.
Back to Top

Item Builds

Disclaimer: All builds in this guide are situational, so feel free to modify your build however you'd like!


Early Game


  • and 5x : Mandatory for jungling in Season 3.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Why No Cloth Armor?

filler Cloth Armor is an option, but a very bad one in S3. Jungle times need to be faster for quicker ganks, and the is the only item that will let you do that. filler
_________________________________________________________________________________________
  • : This is necessary for sustain and damage in the jungle, so get it quickly!
  • madred's: This is an alternative to the , and is completely valid on Rammus.
  • : If you have 850 gold by your first recall, you can get these and the .
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Why is Philosopher's Stone "Optional"?

philosopher's stone filler Your should be giving you enough regen, and the gold generated by this item in a normal game isn't worth more than a few kills or assists. However, I would recommend this item if you are feeling mana-starved or if you are going for an early . This is also helpful if you are using my 2nd build. filler philosopher's stone
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Mid-Late Game

  • By now you should know what you're up against, so you can begin to build accordingly.

Which boots should I take?

Fillerillerille


+ Armor stacks well with your
passive, Spiked Shell

+ 10% Damage reduction is great
against all enemy AD's

+ Cheaper than Mercury's Treads

- Spirit of the Ancient Golem
takes a while to build
Fillerillerilleriller


+ MR is hard to find since the removal
of the Force of Nature

+ 35% Tenacity helps with
early ganking and escaping

- Costs 200g more than Ninja Tabi

- Spirit of the Ancient Golem
already gives tenacity

Bottom line

Take

Filler

If
They
Have:

Filler - Strong AD
and
- 4 or less CC's
Fillerill

and

Fillerill

Take

Filler

If
they
have:

Filler - Strong AP
and
- 5 or more CC's

Boot Enchantments


Cheap and good for a general movement speed boost, but not as helpful to the team as or .
filler

Awesome for saving allies that are running towards you and pushing lanes. This enchantment will probably benefit the team the most.
filler

+ + = Map coverage. It's great for saving allies at insane speeds, but is too expensive to use for early-game ganks.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
fill

Aegis of the Legion and Locket of the Iron Solari

fill These are usually a support's items, but they work great on Rammus. The Aegis gives some nice defensive stats as well as some health regen, making it good in any teamfight. The used to be my go-to for the MR, but now the is the only option. As long as you remember to use its active effect, this item is actually very nice! fill

Spirit Visage

fill Tanking AP in Season 3 is much harder due to the removal of the . To fix this, I have changed my build to include massive amounts of base health and regeneration by using the passive of the . Combined with the regeneration of the , philosopher's stone, , and you'll transform into a constantly ulting Dr. Mundo. fill

Thornmail

fill This item will make you the bane of the enemy AD carry's (short) life. Buying this gives you a passive 25 AD and 10 extra damage on your , and also returns 30% of damage taken (before armor) back to the enemy! is what really makes Rammus shine. fill

Randuin's Omen

fill In Season 1 this item was the bomb for all tanks. The used to make building this easy, but the makes it a bit harder. Nowadays the utility it provides makes it great. The slow on its passive and active are what really seals the deal,
giving you massive chasing and escaping potential.
fill

Guardian Angel

fill This item is nice in pretty much every scenario. Good armor and magic resist help with tanking, and the passive can save you countless times. Get this early if you're doing ridiculously well, but otherwise save it until after your main build. fill

Warmog's Armor

fill Warmog's gives you health. Having health can keep you alive. Staying alive is good. Therefore, getting a 's is good. So get it. fill

Optional Items

Philosopher's Stone

philosopher's stone fill See Early Game above. fill philosopher's stone

Frozen Heart

fill This item is similar to , but instead of giving you health gives you CDR and mana. This gives you 20 more armor than , but has a much less helpful passive and no active. Take this over if you like to spam abilities, but keep an eye on your health. fill

Sunfire Aegis

fill Amazing for taking down large waves of enemies, this item also gives you free damage on champs when you use puncturing taunt. This is definitely viable because 40 aoe dps combined with an and makes for awesome damage in a teamfight. fill

Quicksilver Sash

fill Gives a really helpful active and a nice amount of MR, but it's not cheap. This item is good if the other team has 2 or more hard CC's that keep getting you, but otherwise is not as cost-effective as other MR items. fill

Shurelya's Battlesong

fill This is an awesome item that you can build from the philosopher's stone late-game. The regeneration is helpful, and the active will let your team outrun or catch up with the enemy team. fill

Items that I don't like


Eleisa's Miracle

fill If you don't have , , or (which you shouldn't), the passive on this is useless. Your health and mana regeneration should be fine as well. And if that wasn't enough for you, say goodbye to your Gp5! You're not a support, so why would you get this item? fill

Banshee's Veil

fill The exclusion of this and may send many people raging, but I have good reasons for my choices. The catalyst the protector takes too much gold to build, and the itself gives lackluster stats. The shield can be helpful, but most of the time it is uselessly popped by the pre-teamfight poke. You can use this item if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it. fill

Wit's End

fill Gives the same amount of MR as a , and also includes a passive that is wasted on rammus. Even though this is in Rammus' recommended build, don't get it. fill
fill

Fun/Offensive Items

Rylai's Crystal Scepter

fill Using and will slow all enemies that you hit, making it easy for the rest of your team to run away or catch up to you. This is a fun and helpful item to have. fill

Abyssal Mask

fill This item gives a good amount of MR as well as quite a nice damage boost to and . The aura is also amazingly helpful for any AP damage done by your team. I often find myself incorporating this into my build when I'm doing well. fill

Hexdrinker

fill Building this into a will make Rammus into a monster when he's low health. The shield will protect him from AP burst, and his basic attacks will do amazing damage. fill

Twin Shadows

fill This item is relatively cheap and effective. It should also be quick to build if you got an early kage's lucky pick. Its active also allows you to easily chase or escape from up to 2 champs. fill

Banner of Command

fill Great for pushing lanes. Armor and AP will make basic attacks and flatten turrets and minion waves. Other than that, there's not much else to say about this item. fill

Zephyr

fill This transforms fed Rammus into extremely OP Rammus with insane speed.
This should be switched out with your late game for a bit of fun.
fill
Back to Top

How to Jungle

Here is a video detailing early-game jungling as Rammus.
This should give you a basic guide as well as some helpful tips.


(The jungle has been updated since this video, so an newer version will be made soon!)
fill

Example Jungle Strategy:


1. Ancient Golem (with leash) = Level 2
2. Wolf camp
3. Wraith camp
4. Double Golems = Level 3fill--->fillGank Top
fillOr
5. Lizard Elder fill--->fillGank Top or Mid lane, then recall
fillOr
6. Wraith Camp = Level 4fill--->fillGank Mid lane, then recall
fillOr
7. Wolf Campfill--->fillGank Bot lane, then recall


fill

Warding




Jungling at [Summoner] Levels 9-12?!

Yes, it is very possible and works quite well. As long as you get a fairly good "leash" on blue to start,
these masteries will allow you to jungle starting at summoner level 9, getting exponentially
better as you put points into Hardiness . By level 12 it'll be easy!fill
Most people don't jungle at these levels, so as long as you have a champ that can solo top well,
your team should have a massive advantage.
Back to Top

Conclusion

All in all, Rammus is a fun champ to play and a big help to any team.
I hope my guide has helped you to learn how he works and why he's so great!




If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for my guide,
feel free to post them in the discussion section below.

Thanks for reading!

Adachim

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Rammus - Ballin' For Your Carry (Season 3 Jungle Guide)

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