For a long time I only played the heroes who dealt the damage, but to reach maximum efficiency and survivability for a team it's necessary to have at lesat one tank in the team. So I start searching trough the champions and fell in love with Rammus. He is incredibly fun to play and has very strong skills which have nearly infinity ways in using them. In this guide I want to show how I play him and give some ideas for other players to improve or even change their playstyle.

Important!

This is guide. JUST a guide. In most of the cases it shows the preferences of the player who wrote it. You don't have to follow or even copy it. It's there to give some ideas and a few pieces of advices. If you really want to master the champion you have to understand the basic ideas and change your build to a build which fits the different situations which can develop troughout a game.

Pros:

• Very fun to play
• longest taunt ingame
• insane movement speed
• nice champion to lane with
• passive which perfectly fits a tank
• AoE ultimate with 60 secs cooldown, also affecting buildings
• huge threat for physical DPS
• cool dance, awesome voice and funny sayings (you will never be annoyed and you always have a smile on the face ;)

Contras:

• few life for a tank
• very mana-dependent
• bad farmer unless you own a sunfire cape or use the ultimate

The passive will transform 25% of your total armor into attack damage. Or easier: For every 4 armor you gain 1 additional attack damage.

With activating this skill Rammus will change into a ball which is accelerating more and more until the skill ends. When you collide with an enemy unit, this unit and surrounding enemies will be knocked back and slowed. While spinning you can not activate any other skills but you can cancel Powerball with pressing Q again.

This skill will allow you to race around the map and be everywhere in time. Notice that it is not enough to right click the enemy. You have to came very close to him and get in range of the very small hitbox. Because it is an AoE skill it can be enough to hit a target near you main target. You can also use the knockback to put the enemy into place and keep him there.

Activating this skill will boost your armor and magic resistance and reflect incoming attacks. The reflection's damage is based on your total armor. This skill can be canceled too with pressing W again.

Puncturing Taunt The target chosen will be caused to attack Rammus and can not do anything else while that. At level 5 the taunt will last 3 seconds which is nice to stop an enemy or keep him in the place.

Rammus ultimate. A AoE skill which will deal magical damage every second over a time of 8 seconds. The damage also affects buildings and with a cooldown of 60 seconds you will have it whenever you need it.

My preference is:

which will boost your movement speed and you are able to go trough minions. It can be used offensive to chase someone down or defensive to escape your enemies. Combined with Powerball you will fly over the map.

which is in my eyes a must have because you can use it for many things: Start a teamfight, surprise a enemy with flashing out of the grass, escape or chase with flashing trough a wall and many more things.

Other good choices are:

is often underestimated. You can use every minute and it will destroy every plan of the enemy if used propably. Reveal anything at anytime.

will buy you some additional time to rescue your towers.

will maximize your mobility. It allows you to pop out every allied minion or tower and you can even use it while collecting speed with your powerball and use it for a nice surpring attack.

You should choose runes with fit your playstlye. In other words: They should improve your strengths or should take care of your weaknesses. For myself I chose the following ones:

You will benefit a lot from these runes in the early game and even later on the +100 life are a nice bonus.
Greater Mark of Desolation Because of the passive Rammus will have a high raw damage but suffers under a very low attack speed. Combined with armor penetration the hits you land will hit the enemy like a truck.
Rammus is very mana-dependent. Without mana he is useless and will be easy to kill. To avoid this problem you will have to have constant flow of mana and these runes will help with that.
The +7% don't sound much, but with the defensive tree and maybe with you are able to avoid a lot of hits, which is more useful then buying additional life or armor.

Below I listed some alternative runes:

Marks:

More damage with all your abilities (except the taunt)

Glyphs:

Cooldown reduction per level
Magic resistance per level

Seals:

Mana regeneration per level
Armor per level
Greater Seal of Vitality Health per level

Note: You can also choose flat versions of these runes. They will give you a bigger bonus in the beginning of the game but the per level runes usually catch up with the flat ones around level 5-7. Shortly: You have to choose between a stronger early game or an even stronger late game.

I go 0-21-9 which is pretty self-explanatory. The defense tree will allow you to take less damage while the utility tree should keep your mana up, improve you ghost for easier chasing or escaping and granting you some extra gold and experience.

For a tank it is hard, if not impossible to have a full build which works every game. You have to analyze the enemies team and get items to counter their source of damage. I recommend chosing from the items below. The order is up to you.

Magic resistance:

It will give everything you want and need. Magic resistance, a nice health and mana boost and an awesome passive which will block an enemies ability every 30 seconds.

Once you got it you can laugh about all casters on the enemy team. This item grants you a huge magic resistance and a nice life regeneration.

Fine boots for Rammus, giving magic resistance, movement speed and a huge crowd control reduction.

A cheap magic resistance item. It's real strength is it's active which removes all debuffs.

Armor:

The 99 armor will give you nearly 25 attack damage and on top of that you will get a huge mana pool. The best thing is the passive: 25% cooldown reduction and a reduction of the attack speed of enemy units in range.

Perfect boots against melees because of the dodging chance. Also provides some armor.

Great item. Armor, health and health regeneration, a passive which can slow attackers and an active which will slow all enemies in range for 2 seconds and additional 0,5 seconds for every 100 armor and magic resistance you have.

A great thing to have. It will give you health, armor and a 40 damage per second AoE aura.

Get one and all melee champions will kill theirselves with attacking you. Also provides a huge armor bonus.

Both:

A cheap but at the same time awesome item. It will give you life, magic resistance, armor and an aura for you and your allies giving even more magic resistance and armor plus some extra damage. Great for tanking and supporting.

The armor and magic resistance are nice but the best thing is the passive. The enemy will have trouble enough to get you down but now you will be revived and back on your feed ;) Great thing for starting a fight.

Health:

This can provide you a huge health bonus but is also risky because it is a stack item. Only buy this if your sure you will get a lot of assissts and you will not die.

Giving you health and a useful aura for you and your mates.

The non-plus ultra in health. Great health bonus and huge regeneration.

Balanced Tank:

Physical Counter:

Magical Counter:

Early game:

Once you spawned buy and 1 . Chose your laning partner and run towards the tower. Rest there until the minions have spawned. Don't even try to start an early fight because Rammus is not able to help much after using his skill. Try to avoid getting harrassed and get as many last hits as possible.

After hitting level 4, you can try to attack the enemy. Pick a target with your mate, taunt it, activate your Defensive Ball Curl and hit him. When he tries to get away, use your Powerball to slow him. When you reached level 6, you can push the tower very well with your ultimate. So kill your enemies or send them back to base and pressure as much as possible.

Try not to go back to base until it is really necessary. When you have gone back to base buy the boots of your choice and the first parts of and head back to your lane. You also should have an idea now if you will go for an armor, a magic resistance or a balanced build.

Mid game:

When the laning phase is still going on, do the same as in the early game. When you do not come forward at your lane, try to gank on the other lanes. If there are already team fights going on, take part in them and help as much as possible.

Late game:

Now you should tank a lot of damage. It's your job do initiate teamfights or tank unprotected towers so you team can advance. You have to be in the middle of every fight and disable the most dangerous enemies.

The Powerball start:

Go to the edge of the summoner pool and press Q. The mana will be used and you start gaining more and more speed while the mana will be refilled. Shortly before the last bit will be refilled start to move and you will leave with full mana. This technique will save some time while not losing any mana.

Moving around in general:

Never think you will arrive to late. When you see a fight developing hit Q and sprint toward you team mates. This can always make the difference. But be careful, powerball has a quite long cooldown so your maybe not able to use it to start the fight.

Be aware of the duration:

Always have a look at your buff list. Thery you can see how long the Powerball will last. It is not good when the powerball stops 2 inches in front of your target.

Mind plays:

I do not know why, really nobody wants to get hit by Rammus while he uses powerball. When you start it most of the enemies will go back because they think you want to play a fight.

Initiation:

Sprint into the enemy and start the fight. It is simple is that. Combine this with flash. Start the powerball and keep moving behind your minions. Now the enemy will think you activate it by mistake. Once you reached a high movement speed flash over the minions and suprise him. You can do this with bushed and walls, too.

Escape:

Be sure there is no enemy unit near you which could cancel your powerball. Avoid to get hit. A other nice thing is to hide in a bush. Now the enemies will follow. As soon as the first arrive run in any direction away from then and then race away with powerball.

Save allies:

Cut the path of your enemies and knock them back. You can also stop ultimates like the ones of or .

Defensive Ball Curl:

Use it when you are under attack. It will boost your defensive stats and give damage back. Also works offensive as defensive.

Taunting under the Tower:

When an enemy is close to your tower, taunt him and he will follow you. Be aware of that the enemy have to hit to get targeted by the tower unless there no other enemy units in range. Short before the taunt ends, start your Powerball and hit the enemy. It it the best to hit im in the front so he get knocked to towards the tower.

Interrupting:

Interrupt the enemies attack or skills with your taunt. Your target will be useless for 3 seconds.

Ultimate:

Use tremors to deal additional damage in fights or to tear down buildings.

Here I wanted to post some scores of mine, but the EU servers had big issues the last days and all scores have been resetted. I will add more scores when I have time to do some games.

In this ranked game I got 4 deaths, but every single death resulted in a teamfight won or a tower pushed down. Therefore I got 12 assissts which is your job as a good tank. The normal game is average for a balanced game. Some deaths from lost teamfights, but many asissts from tanking, keeping the enemy in the place and so on.


Useful tips:

• Last hit minions. Just attacking them is a waste of time. Wait until they are near death and finish them off.
• Use your ultimate whenever the tower is not guarded to damage it as high as possible.
• Use your summoner skills whenever it is good for the situation.
• Do not waste your taunt in the early seconds of team fight. Wait a few seconds and then pick out the most dangerous target.
• Give the carry the kills whenever it is possible. When the enemy can not get away let the other players do the kill because they need the gold more then you.
• You are the tank, so do your job. Try to get targeted and get the most damage of all.
• It is ok to sacrifice yourself when it leads to a succesful situation.

I hope you did not fall asleep reading this guide and it was useful for you.

Please rate and comment this guide. I appreciate constructive criticism very much.