Hecarim Build Guide by relrax

Introduction

Hi im Relrax or ingame 'YP Reirax'

I play this game since 1 1/4 Years, and 3 months before the end of Season 3 my Duo Queue started to raise from silver III to platinum III.
I spent much time on this game thinking about stats, movement, tactics and stuff but usually never used them until I got to platinum V.

And now the pre Season started and I just felt like I should tell what I think about Season 4 jungle Hecarim, changes how it influences the game and how many tips and tricks to raise to platinum.
Also I'd like to get some feedback.
:D

Thoughts about Season 4 Jungle

First of all let's go through the changes:
The Patch notes:

What can we see?

Here I am going to talk about what the changes bring to the game.

50% more exp if you are lower level than the average (per level)
-> Gank heavy junglers keep up in level and can put more map pressure

Smite got weekered earlygame and decreased cooldown
-> Smite up more often when it matters most
-> different jungle routes, fits to the exp changes


Monsters got changed
-> jungling got more difficult!
-> 1 camp additionaly to RED and BLUE for level 3

Vision Changes

-> Trinkets
--> More Vision!!
---> Ganks 'working less' theoretecly... (gold 3 and lower this change did like nothing)


->

NO ORACLE AND VISIBLE VISIONWARDS

Why Riot?!? so we just deleted the only counter to invisible ganking junglers???
but as trade off Riot destroys them in jungle before level 4?!?

Result :

Invisible junglers and " Clear + Gank " junglers that scale great with gold gonna be " GOD TIER "

examples:
Kha'Zix !!!
Evelynn !!!
Hecarim !!
Udyr !!!
Volibear !!!
Shyvana !!
Lee Sin !!
Elise !!
Vi !

Pros / Cons

Pros:
- Really Strong in Teamfights
- Strong Initiate with Onslaught of Shadows
- High mobility
- Snowballs hard
- nice Cleartime
- Fun to play
- awsome in the right hands

Cons:
- Countered by farmjungler like Udyr or Shyvana
- Weak without mana
- Weak without items
- no real relyable Stun
- can get outplayed hard
- a bad Onslaught of Shadows can loose you the Teamfight

Masteries

Double-Edged Sword This increases your overall damage by 2% while taking overall 1% more damage. In the Jungle u may think 1% more damage is kind of bad because of the Monsters dealing more damage BUT if the camp is cleared faster it deals less damage!

Sorcery This Masterie gives 5% CDR, which makes together with our Runes 10% CDR at level 1, what increases Hecarims Damage per second really much.

Brute Force This increases your Rampage(Q)'s and your Autoattack's damage.

Martial Mastery Same like with Brute Force

Enchanted Armor , Tough Skin , Veteran Scars , Bladed Armor , Juggernaut are all 'MUST HAVE' for junglers because they offer all you want!

Oppression Well, this syncronizises really well with Iceborn Gauntlet and in fact only make you being a bit more tanky...

Hardiness , Tenacious No question! It provides armor what makes you getting less damage from Turrets, Champions, monsters and also minions!

Perseverance This gives Tanks durability and the possibility to heal their HP faster without Warmogs...

Second Wind : Spirit of Dread gets stronger due to it... also the lifereg increases... thats all I guess

Swiftness , Legendary Guardian Hecarim needs to stay close to his Targets so slows and Crowd Control counters him.

Alternative Masteries

The other thing I discovered is playing with 9/9/12 masteries!

Fleet of Foot gives you 1,5% movementspeed when maxed out what is really amazing

2 points in Meditation help nicely with mana isues

Summoner's Insight gives up to 10% summoner cdr what is usefull on everyone

Runic Affinity is one of the bigger threads! it makes your buffs least 36 seconds longer what is really strong. Especcialy between minute 5 and 6, where the enemy buffs usually wear off, you can still run around like a beast!

Vampirism this gives just a bit sustain what can be really good

Why would you do this, you may be asking

So the advantage in fact depends on timing.

ONLY PICK THESE IF YOU CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR TIMING

Runes

Marks
- Greater Mark of Attack Damage provides:
- medium Clear
- good early Damage
- bad scaling

- Greater Mark of Armor Penetration provides:
- medium Clear
- medium early Damage
- medium scaling

- Greater Mark of Attack Speed provides:
- good Clear
- bad early Damage
- medium scaling

Seals
- Greater Seal of Armor :
- you're jungle so nuff sayed

Glyphs
- 6 * Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction :
- gets you better to the 40% CDR cap

- Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist :
- Ap wont hurt that much early

Quints
- Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed provides:
- better Roaming
- better Ganks
- better escaping

- Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage :
- Damage.... nuff sayed i guess

Summoner Spells

Please! This is so Obvious!!! As Jungler pick Smite, and Ghost provides most utility as summoner spell for Hecarim.

Items

There are many possibilitys to Build Hecarim.
But Hecarim is also a Champ you want to build in brackets.

WHAT DOES BUILDING IN BRACKETS MEAN?

Building in brackets says some items synchronize really well together on Hecarim.
First get Ninja Tabi and Spirit of the Ancient Golem!
They make you awsome tanky early on give you tenacity, 10% CDR, and make you gain 10% less damage from auto attacks!

From now on it becomes complex:
do they deal more phisical or magical damage?

Phisical:
Go with Randuin's Omen for amazing tankyness or Sunfire Cape for tankyness and some damage! There is also Frozen Heart what gives additionaly 20% CDR and should be built if the enemys stick with an full AD composition!

Magical:
Get eather Spirit Visage for additional healing and 20% CDR or Banshee's Veil for better initiates and for to counter poke. But here is also an aura like item: Locket of the Iron Solari, this gives 10% CDR and an Awsome aura and shield.

Sheen:

Involve Sheen into what?
Sheen is an awsome item on Hecarim!
but what you want to build from it?

Usually you buy eather Spirit Visage or Frozen Heart for the CDR!
And here you should get Trinity Force because it gives nearly the same utility like Iceborn Gauntlet and a huge damageboost!

Now if you Bought Locket of the Iron Solari (I think this is outdated because the support is going to buy this item) or The Brutalizer you go with Iceborn Gauntlet.

Trinkets

The final thing you think about in the item section are 'Trinkets'

Warding Totem
Sweeping Lens
Scrying Orb

with their Evolutions.

When and why pick what?

Lets start with the most common : Warding Totem places a Ward for Wardcoverage.

-Why? It gives vision over a decent duration

Now let's go on with the next common : Sweeping Lens denys Ward coverage in an area for a short duration

-Why? To make the enemys not seeing you with Wards
-> it counters Warding
-> counters Vision control

Now the most situentual : Scrying Orb gives vision around a 'near' place for a short duration

-Why?
1. to not need to walk deep into the enemy area
2. to counter the Sweeping Lens
-> gives Vison control for a short duration
-> weaker than a ward but not able to get countered

Spirit of the Elder lizard

NO! NEVER!

I hate hecarim players buying Spirit of the Elder Lizard together with Mercury's Treads !
Yes it gives nice Damage... BUT you can't take any damage.

If you ever think of going the Spirit of the Elder Lizard build then simply say to yourself:
The Brutalizer gives you the same damage, costs less and The Black Cleaver gives you a nice armor shred and also some HP!

Team Work

Team Work is a big point in the Game League of legends.
On the map Summoners Rift for example you play as a team of five players
Hecarim is a champ who is able to do two roles well in the lategame:

- the 'Absorber' who jumps, trys to tank the much the possible without dying and trying to kill their carrys

- the 'Defender' who protects the own carrys from their frontline and help them taking down the enemy team

Objectives

As jungler it is your aim to maximize your Teams Income!

Therefor here is my Objective 'Tier list' :

1. Inhibitors are the best Objective to take down in my opinion!
It won't give mony to your team if you take it down BUT it offers much 'Map Presence' what means they have to defend their lane while your team can group and take objectives in 5 vs 4 fights.

2. Baron Nashor is one of the Highly contested Objectives! It spawns at minute 15 and can be done by about 3 players at minute 20+ . Increasing the power to take down tower and inhibitors and also giving the Team 300 gold for each member to a total of 1500 gold.

3. Inhibitor Turrets are the last 'Barrier' to the base of the team. It falling means gold for the destroying Team! Gold for turrets is calculated with 100 gold for each member and 250 gold seperated to the destroyer. this sums up to 750 gold.

4. Inner Turrets are the last objectives reducing the enemys mobility in the jungle. It falling means gold for the destroying Team! Gold for turrets is calculated with 100 gold for each member and 250 gold seperated to the destroyer. this sums up to 750 gold.

5. Dragon is an Amazing objectiv giving 125 - 260 gold depending on game lenght. Its only point is giving money to the team defeating the dragon.
This gives 625 - 1300 gold.

6. KILLS! They give 300 gold to the killer and 150 seperated to all assisting. Some may think: 'this is less then an outer turret!', well ur right it is less then a turret BUT it may result in more objectives. To make desicions easier I can say you could put KillS into the 8th point and then put it one tier up every 6 minutes.
total 300 - 450 gold.

7. Outer Turrets are the objectives reducing the enemys mobility in the jungle. It falling means gold for the destroying Team! Gold for turrets is calculated with 100 gold for each member and 250 gold seperated to the destroyer. this sums up to 750 gold.

8. Blue/Red buff are important objectives. Why it comes this late then? It's because it don't gives that much of an advantage for your whole team, only for one member...

9. Jungle camps give money and expirience needed to stay up with your team.

Jungle routes

Do not do the new camp!

Hecarim needs the same time to clear a camp, like he needs to kill the tankyiest monster of the camp! Also his Spirit of Dread heals you the more damage is dealt, so you want as many targets for your Rampage as possible!

There are 4 effizient possibilitys :

Starting Blue side and jungle until level 4:

Starting Blue side jungle until level 3:

Starting Purple side jungle until level 4:

Starting Purple side jungle until level 3:

What you do here is most likely preference. I for example prefer the level 4 ones since season 4.

Movement

As jungler it is necessary to help out your team to carry in solo que!
But you still do want to farm up...

{DO NOT COUNTERJUNGLE AS HECARIM}

So how can i manage this all?

First of all, i can tell that global objectives help your team the most...

In solo que you usually get matched with players of about equal skill level,
so for to raise you want to get your team ahead!

Watch out your lanes, and see if any of them need help AND
when and how you can help them....

-You usually should first think of 'where are the enemys' for to make any moves, we don't want them to get ahead due to lucky positioning...

-Now ask yourself Who of my team needs help, nad try to be on the proper side of the map!

-Get a good oppertunity and run in with [Devastating charge] and knock enemys back

-Get your team getting feed and fight when ahead to snowball to VICTORY

Tips and Tricks

Tips :
- Don't gank if there is more then 7 minions of the enemy until min 12
- Tell your team to watch out if you counterjungle
- Ping drake at level 7 and use the red trinket to clear the dragon from enemy wards.
- Don't engage if you don't know where the enemys are
- IGNORE UNNESCESARRY DISCUSSIONS
- Don't trade without your team nearby
- Take a look at your mana bar
- Buy some wards and place them around the jungle entraces or enemy buffs

Tricks :
- Time smite and an ability to appear in the same 0,1 seconds, this allows better objectsecuring
- Camp a lane if the enemy laner got no flash and no dash
- early toplane ganks can snowball the toplane
- camping botlane gives the oppertunity to carry 2 positions
- Gank bot at level 6 with your Onslaught of Shadows

Summary

Hecarim is a strong Champion using his damage, mobility and sustain to scale amazingly well.
His base power and tankyness is kinda low so he depends on his or his teams calls to operate as team or to catch an enemy. To make your entire team as strong as possible make calls on Objectivs and try to deny the enemys by pushing the waves if they are away.

Frequently Asked Questions

none yet :D

Change log

13.12.2013 : added 'Movement' Chapter
13.12.2013 : 3.15 Patch! some masterie changes...
04.12.2013 : added 'Thoughts about Season 4 Jungle' chapter
28.11.2013 : added a Trinket section into 'Item' chapter
24.11.2013 : added 'Alternativ Masteries' chapter
23.11.2013 : Started the guide

-FIN-

Thank you for reading my Hecarim guide! At the moment i planned to do some mastery analysis for season 4 and also create other mastery trees for the Pony whith detailed information why it is set like it is. I also try to update this guide at least every 14 days, and i try to read all the feedback and imply it.
Good luck in Solo/Duo Queue andi hope you liked my guide :D

Sincerely, Relrax