Rammus Build Guide by Jasbinschek

Introduction

Hello, i am Jasbinschek and this is my remake of my old Rammus guide, as most players knows, Rammus is a classic full-tanker that bases his gameplay in returning damage, also, Rammus is knows by having a LOT of armor/magic resistance.

What we have here is a basic build showing what strategy i use to play with rammus using those itens above, i highly recommend you, reader, to read what my itens do before trying this out.

OH, i must thank JhoiJhoi for her help while building this (i am doing that aproperly later!)

so without any more blah blah blah, let's start this!

Pro/Cons

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Pros + Balanced champion + Long taunts + Really fast while in Powerball + Good turrent defender + Strong tanker (hard to kill)

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puncturing taunt

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Cons - Not a good farmer - Cant do lots of damage alone - depends on your team to kill - hard to get gold

Masteries

What i am doing here is putting ALL masteries to build a full-tanker, the more important part here is the damage reduction and the extra health you get, Juggernaut is awesome! it stacks with Durability and with Veteran's Scars , Mercenary is also good!

Note: fell free to take 1 or 2 points out to improve your summoner's spell, i just dont feel like to do that!

Runes

• greater quintessence of Endurance: the HP% bonus will be AWESOME late game, and its quite usefull early game
  
• Greater Mark of Magic Resist: Magic resistance is like the most important thing to you earlier game, it will be your worst problem, but not late game.
  
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: Same as above.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: Why not magic resistance? simple, the bonus difference (almost DOUBLE) between armor and magic resistance was so big that it wasnt worth getting magic resistance.

Summoner's spells

Flash: Well, everybody knows what flash does, right? i chosen flash with Rammus for emergencies, sometimes you will need to flash out of enemies range to Powerball out alive (or else you will hit someone and lose your powerball).

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Ghost: So, another emergency use, but this one can be used to catch enemies who are trying to flee away, can be used for getting into your turret in time and save it from the forces of evil, or use it to save your life from the mean champions that are trying to slain you.

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Exhaust:It is awesome to disable their carry, you can taunt it while in team fight and when your taunt ends (if they carry is still alive) you can Exhaust him so your teammates can finish him, it can be used to save yourself, it can be used to taunt someone into turret and exhaust it and grant one kill (and lots more...)

Abilities explanations

• Spiked Shell: This one is very simple, that means you will need to stack a lot of armor, this is why im building a Thornmail earlier then an Warmog's Armor, for each 4 armor will get one Attack Damage (so Thornmail will boost you 25 Attack Damage)
  
  
• Powerball (Q): Ok, this one is quite usefull, most people use it for getting fast enough into someone's lane or to gank one lane, thats not "wrong", but we want to use Powerball in teamfights, as you can see, this ability slows enemies down, and also have AoE damage, if you ever played Rammus you will also know that it splits champions/minions. So, your main objective here is to split their team in 5v5 teamfights, and taunt their carry, if your team focus their carry, then your team will have high chances of winning this teamfight.
  
  
• Defensive Ball Curl (W): This ability makes Rammus an AWESOME tanker, it highly increases his armor(increasing your damage as well) and his magic resistance, this ability can help you against strikes like: Karthus ult ( Requiem), against Nidalee spear ( Javelin Toss) and it also returns damage to the attacker's basic attack with a bonus based on your armor, so if you are fighting one AD char, you can active that to combo your Thornmail and your puncturing taunt(you must remember that puncturing taunt reduces enemies armor), that will probably hurt them quite badly!
  
  
• Puncturing taunt Puncturing Taunt (E): This ability can be a life saver, actually we can use it in as an offensive skill, or as a defensive skill, i will explain that now:
  
  let's say your carry/DPS is near you and he is fighting against one AP and one AD, his prime objective is to focus their AP, logicaly, they are going to attack your partner first, so that's what we do, we puncturing taunt their AD while our AD beat their AP to death, and then their AD wont be hard to take down (unless he runs away)...
  
  Another case is: your team is near a teamfight (whatever, 3v3, 5v5...) and your job as a tanker is to initiate this fight, so your objective is to get into them and control their carry, make sure that your teammate ar following you, or else you will be raped, as you control their carry with puncturing taunt, your team beats him to death.
  
  You can also puncturing taunt enemies under turret, can prevent your enemies from running away (my favorite :D), can make on DPS suicide, can take them for a walk and etc.
  
  
• Tremors (R): Rammus ultimate is a skill that deals area damage to all EVERYTHING "evil" inside its range, including minions, champions and BUILDINGS, so that means (obviously) that Tremors deal damage to turrets and inhibitors, his bonus damage is based on AP, that skill longs 8 second dealing 30% bonus damage per second wich means that it deals a total of 240% AP bonus damage, your objective here is to use that in the middle of one teamfight, so you can inflict damage to all enemies and it is effective when taking turrets down, also...
  
  it is worth to raise your AP for this skill, as long as you raise your HP/Armor/Magic resistance, items like: Abyssal Mask, Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Zhonya's Hourglass are welcome here...

Abilities order choices

Main items

• :(not listed above) this one is sold late game, but will fit you quite well earlier game.
  
  
• : i would recommend this one over Boots of Swiftness or Ninja Tabi for two reasons:
  1- it is harder to get Magic resistance then Armor.
  2- tenacity will be more vital to your survaviability then a little bit more move speed.
  
  
• : As we know, Armor is more important then magic resistance for Rammus, thornmail returns 30% of physical attacks in magic damage, thats also good for stacking with your defesive ball curl, also thornmail is cheaper then Warmog's Armor.
  
  
• : Ok, HP is like essential for your tanker, also is Armor and Magic resistance, sometimes is not worth building Thornmail before Warmog's Armor, that will depend on enemy's team, if they have more AD then AP, we are building Thornmail first, if they have more hybrids than AD we are building Warmog's Armor first, if they have more AP then AD we are building Warmog's Armor first, if they are balanced, you will have to ponder that yourself.
  Remember that Warmog's Armor increases your HP for each kill you make (including minions).
  
  
• : Here it is, your main source of Magic resistance, this item has the biggest Magic resistance bonus of League of legends, but you know what? that's not what it make this item so great, actually the bonus Health regen is awesome, i normally build that after Warmog's Armor , reason is: Force of Nature regen bonus is based in HP%, the move speed will also help a little bit.
  Build Force of Nature before Warmog's Armor in case of 3/5 or more of them are AP (example: 3 caster, one tanker and one AD)
  

Optional items

Ok, we got 2 slots missing in our build, that's what i call "optional slots", we can build that as many ways possible, and we want to keep it tankish, obviously...
Thinking that way, lets build something that can stack with our build, let's see some options above:

• Extra armor:
  
  
  1st item: Randuin's Omen:
  Ok, it will give us 75 armor, also 18,75 Attack Damage (thanks to Spiked Shell), 350 HP and some HP regen, also two good things are the cooldown reduction bonus and the slow effect, resuming: extra survivalbility.
  
  2nd item: Sunfire Cape:
  this one is to combo with all your items above, we have a bonus armor, bonus HP and a permanent 35 magic damage per second to all nearby enemies, (you can build that sooner if you prefer...)
  
  
• Extra magic resistance:
  
  
  it's hard to finish this building using magic resistance, i would say, but if we need, it's because enemy's team have some strong AP, in that case we will need not only to raise our defenses against them, but we will need to raise our damage too...
  
  1st item: Abyssal Mask:
  Resuming that you read that fast explanation above, we need something that raises our magic resistance and our ability power, Abyssal Mask is our best pick in that case, also the 20 magic resistance reduction (aura) will help your whole team.
  
  2nd item: Banshee's Veil:
  We are grabing this one for the bonus HP/magic resistance. Also the spell block helps alot in teamfights, you can never know when you need that, i would pick that one in every hard game.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Balanced Rammus:
  
  
  1st item: Guardian Angel:
  This one is simple, it gives us armor/magic resistanceand revives you in case of death, that's a good choice for hard games also...
  
  2nd item: Frozen Heart:
  99 bonus armor!
  20% cooldown reduction!
  20% slow(attack speed) aura!
  surely this item wont need further explanation!!
  
  
  
• HP Rammus:
  
  
  Ok, i will leave more then one option:
  
  
  massive HP:
  1st/2nd item: Warmog's Armor:
  no extra explanation, we will have a HUGE ammount of HP and a huge HP regen.
  
  
  
  Tricky Rammus:
  1st item: Rylai's Crystal Scepter:
  this item will give you 500 HP, some ability power and slow in each skill you use, now think about Tremors and Powerball... just think about them with a slow effect (in case of Powerball even more slow!), isnt that great?
  
  2nd Item: Banshee's Veil:
  another small bonus for your HP, but this time we are using that against disables in teamfights! the magic resistance is also good.
  
  
  "get off me" Rammus:
  this is a different version of "Tricky Rammus", in this one we have a little bit more HP but less CC(Crowd Control).
  
  1st Item: Frozen Mallet:
  This item gives you 700 HP, and gives you slow effect in your basic attacks, that means, if your team focus who you are slowing and puncturing taunt, it will be an easier kill for your teammates, that's what i call "teamwork", it is a little bit hard at first to have that gameplay with Rammus, so it may need a little bit practice.
  
  2nd Item: Sunfire Cape:
  This item will help you out with focus, most of the squishies opponents will want to get away from you, that makes a gap beetwen your opponents, helping your team to see who is in better position to focus, giving your team advantage in teamfights.
  
  
  
  
• Slayer Rammus:
  
  
  for "Slayer Rammus" i convert his durability into damage, Rammus is not a DPS, you can build him as a DPS, but that's not my wish here...
  
  1st item: Atma's Impaler:
  crit strike chance + AD + Armor, we dont need to attack so fast, since most DPS will get hurt by Thornmail
  
  2nd Item: The Bloodthirster:
  Bonus AD and the most important: Life Steal!!
  
  
  
  There are many ways of building Rammus, i just put some ideias about what you can do, i am not really good explaining why i pick items, every game is a case, so i recommend you to try what you think it is better, get used to your build style, get used with Rammus.
  know your opponents, but know yourserf first!

Farming/Teamfights

No, i do not jungle with rammus, why is that? i just don't like to jungle...

We have 3 options here, solo Mid, Solo lane, lane with partners, i am discarting solo mid, we are not doing that!

as a Solo lane we can fight against another solo, or against 2 opponents.
Solo lanes usually go top.

just play defensively if your fighting 2 opponents, dont go too far away from your turret if you are fighting another solo fighter, take care with ganks, use wards if possible, and ask for ganks whenever you feel like, dont autohit minions, just last hit them, once you get to lvl 6 you can farm a little bit more with your Tremors, try to get a kill whenever you can.



as a lane partner try to assist your partner, taunting the enemies and protecting your partner, remember that you are the tanker! try to foresee opponent's/your partner's actions.




after laning phase ends your job is to initiate the battle, just stay near your teammates, and as sooner as someone get out of it's position, just grab him with puncturing taunt and leave it as "one kill" for your team, your opponents have to hit you, not your teammates, so make them hit you.

Rammus is a good turret diver, but make sure your teams will follow you if your doing that, or else you will die in a ridiculous way.

Rammus is very durable in teamfights, have a nice HP regen, a nice ammount of HP and lots of magic resistance/armor, thats your objective here! built an indestructible tanker.

if you read all this guide, you will have a lot of ideias of what you can do, i recommend you to read it before reading only "what to do in teamfights"

Ending.

This build can be used in Ranked games(5v5), Normal Games(5v5) and also in normal games(3v3), i wouldnt recommend 3v3, but it does work fine.


This build can be used as an learning experience for Rammus, but it wont make miracles, you wont probably make 40/0/20 in your first game, you can use it to improve your skills as Rammus, or to find another way of using it, remember to read it before voting/commenting.

thank you!

Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.