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Hi there, I'm Thalose and today I'd like to change the general outlook on Rammus. He is often known as "That ball guy" or "A taunt with legs." The taunt remark is a bit true in earlier levels to be fair. But Rammus has some very strong qualities that can: Ruin team fights, Shut down carries, back door objectives, and troll the enemy team if necessary.

When Used Properly he becomes a tanky assassin that can 1v5 with ease. His Defensive Ball Curl mixed in with his Puncturing Taunt and Soaring Slam he can easily go toe to toe with the best duelists. I'm looking at you Fiora. However, even though he can duel quite well, never forget that Rammus is a TEAM fighting champion and should be played as such. Always try to secure your team mate landing a kill unless it's the support because you have slight priority over them, well unless it's Annie or something of the sort.

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Pros

+ One of the best Tanks + Shuts down the enemy carry + Incredible mobility + Great for counter ganking

Cons

+ No jungle sustain + Item dependent + Low damage without Ult

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Movement Quints provide much needed ganking power.

Magic pen marks allows Rammus to keep doing damage even into later stages of the game. I've also been making use off Attack speed marks recently, they help out early clear time a lot and with how item dependent Rammus is they really help him get ready for Mid Game.

Armor seals because what else would Rammus have.

Scaling magic resist gives Rammus late game survivabilty

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Rush this item asap; it provides much needed tankiness and the Sunfire passive is a massive quality of life boost. Nuff Said

This item is Rammus' Bread and Butter. It gives him 25 AD from his passive and phenomenal clear time. Plus the obvious ability to take out the ADC without losing any health.

You may be asking "Why a Zhonya?" Well the answer is simple; Rammus makes great usage of all of it's stats and you can even get some of them cheap with Seeker's Armguard To put it simply this item adds a whopping 300 damage to Rammus' ults and the active lets you initiate without fear of being bursted. 2.5 seconds should be plenty of time for your team to catch up to you if you play smart. That and your ult keeps ticking while you're untargetable making the enemy team back off anyhow. There are almost no games where I do not pick this item up.

Situational Items

If you find yourself picking up a kill or assist every gank and already are fairly tanky; Don't forget how well Rammus scales with AP his Q has 1.0 and his ult has an Astounding 2.4 with your Duncecap and Zhonya's you can literally roll on into team fights and melt everything around without fear. Rammus is so naturally tanky with his DBC that it's ok to miss out on a tanky item here and there. especially when it boosts your damage this much. Of course it's all preferential and you don't have to listen to a word I say.

This will let you dominate both AP champs or champs with a lot of MR such as Galio. The stats on this are no laughing matter and it's price isn't too bad either. Any more I've been building this item over Sunfire almost every game for an early damage boost.

A good amount of health and MR, the passive isn't bad either. Typically I'll only take this when dealing with a fed AP carry like Fizz that can even burst down tanks.

There is never a bad time for a Warmog's. Ever since S3 it has been one of the most powerful defensive items around. The passive lets you stay in the game without recalling, and lets be honest 800 health on a single item, that's just dandy. "Reminder: it's best to have some resistances with the health, the synergy is too strong to pass up."

DO NOT BUILD

This goes for Frozen Heart as well. I'll most likely receive flak for this since both these items provide amazing tankiness but the problem is they slow attack speed. On most champs that's great but with Rammus you want the ADC to hit you as fast as possible and if you have either of these then you miss out on some major damage from DBC + Taunt combo. The only reason I'd ever build an Omen on Rammus is if the ADC is Vayne and can actually hurt with their AA's.

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Not a whole lot to say on this passive, pretty straight forward not exactly flashy but is nothing to scoff at. This passive allows him to even be a threat with AA's and really helps with turret pushing.

This move is easily the armordillo's trade mark. Just the sound of it will make enemies run under tower in fear. It give's Rammus everything a jungler could want; speed and CC. plus its damage is pretty scary with a bit of AP. My favorite time as Rammus is when the enemy flashes over a wall to escape and I still catch them with ease. Can also be used to maximize damage with your ultimate by running along side them instead of into them so you can stick to them with constant dps.

One of the best abilities in the game for mitigating damage. A lot of people complain about Rammus having low base health well with the huge amount of armor this ability gives his effective health is much higher than most. The damage reflection allows him decent clear times in the jungle and the ability to laugh as the ADC shreds their own health faster than yours.

puncturing taunt

This is why Rammus is a ganking machine. he may only have one major form of CC but wow is it a good one. not only is the ADC shut down but with his DBC they are forced to hurt themselves in the process. Even after the nerf it still has a very nice ability to hold them there for your team.

This ult allows Rammus to roll into a team fight and completely melt the enemy team. it's CD is insanely short and there is never a bad time to use it. Whether farming or ganking this ult will help immensely. I often times use it to quickly steal the enemy blue so i can donate mine to mid. This ability has 2.4 AP scaling I cannot stress enough how strong it is. If used properly it is quite possibly the strongest ability in the game. In the past I've beaten plenty of champs like Jax or Tryndamere in tower pushing speed with it. But like I said never be afraid to waste it; with its crazy short CD it will almost always be up for a fight.

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I take this setup to keep up with the enemies damage and allow myself to turret dive effectively. Of course only diving when it's not a lost cause. With the Nerf to his taunt, maxing it first is now a little bit less mandatory. If the opposing team is high in magic damage anymore I'd recommend maxing your W first. But since Rammus is normally a counter pick to an AD heavy team Taunt first is still a great option.

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Rammus isn't what most would call a great early game jungler. Once he gets a little tankiness he stops struggling but until your first back it's a bit annoying. Start blue with a decent leash. Then I normally take wolves wraiths and double golems so I'm level 3 before red, though if there's a nice gank available feel free to just grab wolves and red and put a point into your E.

Like I said it's all preferential. However taking red at level 3 allows you to have it later and then when the enemy jungler comes in for a gank in a couple minutes without red you'll still have yours to counter gank with.

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By the time you've got you Spirit of the Ancient Golem and Thornmail mid game with most likely have begun. This is your time to shine, Rammus can apply tons of map presence, the enemy is trying to take tower? Oh hey look at that Powerball behind them and pop your ult. Use W then taunt the biggest threat to tower.They won't have enough damage to kill you under tower. while you just sit there and melt whoever you taunt under a barrage of tower shots.

In a team fight your job is to initiate and to shut down the ADC. Try not to get greedy though, just because you're the tank doesn't mean you want to die. The problem with a lot of Rammus players is they overstep their limit. Contrary to popular belief Rammus can in fact be killed by towers, sure it may take a while but that's no excuse to dive all the time. My best advice for Rammus is the same for any other champ, play smart and stay in position.

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By now you've probably got a big ol' pile of gold sitting around. Well since you want to kill the nexus and you're probably pretty tanky by now, why not build some AP? A well timed Zhonya's can let you kill a turret by yourself when mixed in with your ult. Ap will let you chunk out their whole teams health by a vast amount just from the initiation.

To any of you who took the time to read this guide you have my thanks. I appreciate all feed back and even welcome criticism. Feel free to make any notes on how to improve the guide or anything i missed on the champ. (which i most likely missed something really stupid and obvious)

Mobafire has a great selection of guides that without them I'd have had so much trouble making this. Thank you to JhoiJhoi's guide on making a guide
and Matt and his BBCode Guide

Special thanks to quibble42 for giving me a lot of insight and taking the time to examine a smaller guide.

I got 200k views today and I'm walking on sun shine right now. When I wrote this guide I just wanted to give some input on my play style. I'm really excited about how much feedback I've received. To all of you that have taken the time to read and possibly try out my guide, you have my utmost thanks. 3/25/14