Rammus Build Guide by Ezparrow

Introduction

Hello there. Welcome to my guide about rammus the armordillo. This is my first guide on mobafire. I hope you will like it and upvote this guide. Please note that this is my way of playing rammus, which does not mean that it is the best way to play rammus. I have been very succesful with rammus, so I wanted to share my idea of rammus with the mobafire community. If you don't like this guide or have anything to say about it, please comment about it and tell me what I did wrong/bad. If you ask a question about something where the answer is already written in this guide, I will not respond to it. Hopefully you will learn something about rammus and improve your performance with him.

Why pick rammus?

Rammus might be one of the best tanks in-game. Thanks to his passive Spiked Shell you get loads of attack damage just by stacking armor. Though, this can get you in trouble against a full AP team. With his combo puncturing taunt + Defensive Ball Curl you can easily shut down the enemy carry in 2 seconds while still damaging the rest of the enemy team with Tremors. This makes you very strong in teamfights mid/late-game. A good rammus can even get a pentakill while being build full tank. This is exactly why I love rammus so much.

Rammus Champion Spotlight

Pros / Cons

Pros: Easy to learn. Still deals loads of damage even when build full tank. Great initiate with Powerball. Has great ganks thanks to puncturing taunt. Ultimate Tremors has one of the lowest cooldowns in the game. Great escape mechanism with Powerball.

Cons: Is kinda weak early game. Has a fairly low hp-pool early/mid-game until you get Sunfire Cape. Very vulnurable when Defensive Ball Curl is deactivated. CC can be annoying. Can consume alot of mana early-game, because you can only fight with your combo. A bad initiate can get you killed fast.

Runes

A first thing about runes: You shouldn't bother with runes before lv20. Firstly, the runes before lv20 don't give really good bonusses. Secondly, you will lose alot of money, since runes can be expensive. Especially compared to the bonusses they give. Before lv20, you should only think about saving up money for champions you'd really like to play.

For marks I normally pick Greater Mark of Magic Penetration, because all your abilities deal magic damage. Thornmail returns damage in magic damage as well. Other viable options are Greater Mark of Health, because rammus is fairly low on hp early on or Greater Mark of Armor for extra armor and of course attack damage.

For seals the only runes I recommend is Greater Seal of Armor. Since seals are specialised in physical defense (armor), they give you the most armor. Other seals like Greater Seal of Magic Penetration or Greater Seal of Health don't give alot of bonusses.

For glyphs, the best choice would be Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist, because you probably are going to stack armor due to your passive, which makes you vulnurable against magic damage. Since glyphs give the most magic resist, I take these for some extra magic resist.

And finally with the quintessence you can pick any of these quintessences. Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration, Greater Quintessence of Scaling Magic Resist, Greater Quintessence of Health or Greater Quintessence of Armor. They are all good, just a matter of how you like to play.

Masteries

Jungle

For jungling, in the defence tree I take most of the normal tank masteries plus the jungle masteries. Nothing special. In the utility build Runic Affinity is a really nice thing to have as a jungler, since your buffs will be gone before the buff camps have even respawned, unless the enemy has no jungler.

Lane

The lane masteries are almost same. Only the the jungle masteries are removed, because they are not so effective when playing in a lane. In place of the jungle masteries are more tank masteries, which can be and are in my opinion much more effective.

Summoner Spells

Viable summoner spells for Rammus are in my opinion Flash, Ghost, Teleport, Exhaust and Ignite.
Smite is a must when you are jungling, you won't survive the jungle without it.

Flash has many uses. It let's you escape over a wall, it makes landing puncturing taunt easier, etc. It's just so useful to have, that's why almost everybody takes Flash.

Ghost is another viable option, because you will be even faster with your Powerball. I think Flash is more handy though. You can't Ghost over a wall and you can still be CC'd while using Ghost making you waste a summoner spell.

Teleport is one of my favorite summoner spell when playing as solo top. You can return in your lane so fast that you get more exp and possibly more creep farm than your opponent. It can also save turrets, not only your own, but also your teammates's turrets.

Exhaust makes it easier for you to gank, however this shouldn't be a problem at all with Rammus's skill set.

Ignite can come in handy, but as Rammus you will probably never need it. I don't recommend this.

Abilities

(Passive) This is one amazing passive for rammus. It gives attack damage based on how many armor you have, 25% of your total armor, which is alot. When full build, rammus has still a pretty high amount of attack damage, while having an enormous amount of armor. Don't be fooled though, you also need Magic Resist against ability power champions. Almost never will you play against a team which has no ability power champion, unless you are lv2.

This skill is an awesome gank initiator. The last second of this form almost doubles your movement speed. This can be used to escape as well, not even Master Yi can chase down a rammus while he is in Powerball form. The other thing that is nice about this skill is that when you hit your target, he is flinched for a small second. This gives you time to click on him for your puncturing taunt. Be careful though, when you hit minions you deactivate this skill too. We max it as last, because if you upgrade this skill, it doesn't increase the speed or lower the cooldown. It only increases the damage, but we don't really use this skill to damage the enemy.

This skill is a build in Thornmail. It gives you loads of armor and magic resistance and returns 10% of your total armor plus a fixed amount to your attacker. Thanks to this skill you can solo 3 people if you are a bit fed. You should watch out, though, because when this skill is deactivated you are a little bit weaker then normal for a few seconds. Also, when just starting to play with Rammus, you might sometimes accidently deactivate this skill. We max it second for the extra armor, magic resist and the damage returned to the attacker.

puncturing taunt

Well you wouldn't be a real tank if you didn't have this sort of skill. This skill is what makes Rammus's ganks so succesful. You don't have to chase down the enemy, because he can't flee for a couple of seconds. Plus he automatically attacks you, which makes Defensive Ball Curl do its job of returning damage. We max it first to make the duration of the taunt longer.

This ultimate is in my opinion one of the best ultimates in the game. You attack everyone around you for loads of damage and it's cooldown is only 60 seconds! Compared to other ultimates which can take up to 120 seconds, this is extremely low. We max this when available of course.

Items

Starting Items

When jungling, this is a great starting item, which most junglers take. It gives you more survivability in the jungle and 5 hp potions to use. If you get a good leash on blue, you can clear one round while still having 1/2 potions left to gank. You won't have to return to base to regain some health to gank and lose time on your buffs.

When going to lane, I mostly start with this item. It later builds into philosopher's stone and it gives some nice health regen against poky champions like Nidalee or Jayce.

Most people start with Boots of Speed and 3 health potions. This is good, since you will be faster and you can dodge skill shots more easily.

Boots

Normally I get this item, because it gives a little magic resist boost, which Rammus lacks, and alot of tenacity against CC, which can be very annoying with Rammus.

If you face a heavy Attack Damage team, Ninja Tabi can be more useful than Mercury's Treads. It gives a nice little armor and ofcourse some attack damage with your passive.

Normal Build

This item is nice for Rammus, because it gives some health to ease your jungling and it gives you extra gold, which can be sometimes hard to get as Rammus. This item can later be build into Randuin's Omen.

This is my favorite item on Rammus. I always take it first after your boots, because it boosts your Defensive Ball Curl by alot plus providing you 100 armor and that is very much for onlu 2000 gold.

This item is great on Rammus too. It has around the same effect as your ultimate and helps your creep farming alot. Plus this item gives health, which Rammus doesn't have alot. This item might irritate you while jungling though, because jungle camps will now just randomly attack you due to it's passive.

This item has great stats, a great passive and a great active. Together with Thornmail and Sunfire Cape you are almost unstoppable. Since you got Heart of Gold at the start of the game, this is an amazing item to build it in to. Don't forget to use the active though, I forgot it alot.

Did I say Thornmail, Sunfire Cape and Randuin's Omen makes you unstoppable? Then I forgot to say that Guardian Angel will really make you invincible. When you die, you won't! No need to be Karthus or Zilean. Aside from the jokes, this item gives a fair amount of magic resist too, which is nice as Rammus.

If you really want to annoy these enemy ad carrys, then this is what you should buy. It reduces the enemy's attack speed by 20% and gives you another 99 armor! You know what I like about this build? It's much cheaper than most builds, but still very effective.

Situational Defensive Items

This item gives an amazing health boost. Altough, armor is more effective on Rammus, because of his passive, this item can be more useful lategame where 1000 health is more worth than 80 armor. When you stack alot of armor, the higher your armor, the less every armor is effective. having 700 armor doesn't mean that the enemy doesn't do damage anymore.

This item is very useful when you play against a heavy ability power team. Rammus players often lack alot of magic resist, that is when this item comes in handy.

The same as with forces of nature, really nice against a heavy ability power team. Altough, it gives less Magic Resist than Force of Nature, it blocks a negative spell 45 seconds which can safe your butt a couple of times.

Gives nice stats for the price plus a nice aura for your team. If your team is doing bad in team fights, this can really help them out.

Gives a fair amount of magic resist and a nice active which can save you sometimes. It is really cheap for the amount of magic resist it gives.

Situational Offensive Items

If you think you are tanky enough and want to deal more damage, then there are alot of items that can suit your needs. Keep in mind that if you are the only tank in your team, it could be better for you to stay full tank than to go offtank, since your team might get killed very quickly.

If you want to deal more damage, but still want that tankyness and the effect of your passive Spiked Shell and the damage of your Defensive Ball Curl. Then this item is great for that. Your two damaging abilities Powerball and Tremors both scale great with ability power and this item gives alot of ability power while still giving pretty much armor.

If you really are in need of magic resist, but still want to keep some damage this is the item you should pick. It gives really alot of magic resist and even more ability power. The passive is also really good.

This item gives a fair amount of magic resist, including a magic shield as passive, and alot of attack damage which is also great. Altough Rammus's abilities scale with ability power, you can land some auto-attacks on the enemy while you are using puncturing taunt on him. And since rammus is a tank and has pretty much health after getting some tanky items, he gains even more attack damage with this item.

Jungling

This is the normal route for every jungler. Starting with blue buff for unlimited mana, so you don't have to go back in between. Then wolves and wraiths for exp and gold. Then you can choose to do either red buff first or double golems. If your Smite's cooldown is still higher then 15 seconds, it might be smarter to do the double golems first. After you have had a couple of blue buffs, you could give it to your mid caster sometime, because he/she will greatly benifit from it. Unless it's a no mana champion like Katarina, then taking it yourself would be much preferable.

By the way, you shouldn't jungle with rammus before you've got runes. It might be too hard for you and you could die in the jungle. Early levels, people don't know how to pull/leash either. If you really want to jungle early on, junglers like Warwick are much easier to jungle with and I recommend them more than rammus.

A last note about jungling: The jungling part is not important, what is important are your ganks. You will only dominate by having good ganks and helping your teammates on the lane, not having the fastest jungle clearing time.

Your Role in Teamfights

Your role in teamfights is not that hard. If you have to engage you should use your Powerball to do so. Then try to use your puncturing taunt on their ad carry as fast as possible. If you don't have to engage, then just Powerball to their ad carry and use your puncturing taunt afterwards. When their ad carry is dead, just try to stand in the middle of the enemy team to make full use of your ultimate Tremors and attack the nearest most dealing enemy champion. Your team can make some decisions about who to focus and be sure to follow them as it can be an important fact to the outcome of a battle.

Additional Tips

• If you use puncturing taunt near your own turret, the turret will begin attacking the enemy you just taunted.
• You can use Flash when ganking to make it easier to hit your Powerball.
• Use your Defensive Ball Curl after you used puncturing taunt to maximize the damage on your target.
• You can use Tremors to easily clear minion waves, because of it's low cooldown and high AoE damage.
• Use your Powerball to quickly travel over the map or to travel from jungle camp to another jungle camp.

Ending

I hope you liked this guide and learned a lot from it. Please upvote this guide if you like it and comment about what you don't like if you don't.
Thanks for reading!