"Time for a Bandle City beatdown!"

Rumble is a bully at heart. When nerds run in fear of him, he's at his strongest. When he's the one running away, he's at his weakest. Playing Rumble as the bully he's meant to be means grabbing every advantage you can. Take a solo lane so those nerds can't gang up on you. Make it top lane so they can't tattle to the turret so easily. Zone 'em out - if these kids want XP, they've gotta pay the toll!

So why does Rumble thrive as a bully? It's simple - his kit is gamebreaking. Ranged characters get dominated if Rumble plays like a melee. Melee characters get dominated if Rumble chips away at them from range. He can shrug off harass with + . Crowd control doesn't stop his . Since he's a manaless champ, he can spam skills without having to spend 400g+ early game on mana items. Add his ult to the mix - a massively damaging, long-range slow that can be used to bombard people who thought they were safe - and you have a champion that inspires much rage in his enemies.

The last thing I'll say before we get to the meat of this build is that Rumble is an easy champion to play. He is not an easy champion to play correctly. Most Rumbles fizzle out late game because they don't take full advantage of how good Rumble is early and mid game. You need good lane control, a good amount of matchup experience, and a good build to really unlock Rumble's full potential. This guide is an attempt to provide the latter.

Runes are:

9 Magic Penetration reds.
9 Dodge yellows.
9 flat Magic Resist blues.
3 movespeed quints.

This setup will help you win your lane early. Dodge runes scale better than armor and give you 10% movespeed whenever you draw minion aggro. Between that, your movespeed quints, and your W, you should be able to shrug off enemy slows and charge people for kills. I pity the Rumble who can't get off a full flamethrower on his enemies!

10/11/9, see above for exact setup. Again, this setup is about winning your lane early.

- The points in Offense give you MPen and AP.
- The points in Defense give you even more early game survivability and that sweet sweet movespeed boost when you dodge.
- The points in Utility let you hit 6 before anyone who didn't take XP mastery.

9/21/0 is also viable, but I would rather not sacrifice 9 points and an XP advantage for the damage reduction at the end of the defense tree.

See build order above. Rylai's is core and should be finished up before completing boots. The earlier you can afford the Giant's Belt, the more powerful it is, but always leave enough money for a Sight Ward and .

are a safe pick for boots. and are both good alternate choices, provided you can hold off on buying a Tenacity item for a while.

3rd item is Rabadon's Deathcap. You need to remain a threat after laning phase and this item delivers.

After that, you're free to mix things up. This is ordinarily the point at which Rumble starts to be superseded by the hard carries, so I like to transition into buying items that will help the team. is great if the team is AP heavy. is good if nobody's built it yet. Moonflair Spellblade is useful if you haven't picked up any Tenacity items. , , , and are all worthwhile purchases.

Q-E-W, R > Q > E > W from then on out

It's tempting to pick up a 2nd rank in Q at level 3, but you'll come out further ahead on trades if you take W and use it to get your heat up. You should be in the danger zone every time you engage.

: Flamethrower doesn't draw minion aggro if you hit a minion before you hit a champion with it. Use this to push enemy champions away from the minion line so you can snare 'em with a harpoon. If you turn your back on your opponent, you lose all of your Q damage, but why would you ever do that?

: A speed boost and shield combination. This skill is useful even as a 1-point skill. You can either mash it as soon you initiate, so it gets off cooldown faster, or save it for when you need the boost/shield. Its duration is pretty short.

: Harpoons! These go further than the graphic indicates and have a bigger hitbox than the graphic indicates. If you land the first one, the second one is pretty much guaranteed. For maximum slow, fire one as soon as you've got a clear shot, wait a couple seconds, and fire the second one. You should be able to get two full flamethrowers off on someone if you opened with flamethrower.

: A ridiculously long-range version of Kog-Maw's slime trail that slows and deals damage to people in the line. To use it, press R, then click and drag in the direction you want the ult to go. You'll get the most damage out of this ult by waiting until people commit, then laying it down on the group and their path of retreat. It's also good for finishing off runners. Imagine standing at the 2nd mid turret and getting killed by someone who's punching the 1st mid turret. That's the range on Rumble's ult.

Ignite gives you 10 more AP if you're following this guide and lets you burst down healers. Flash compensates for bad positioning and can be used offensively as well.

Exhaust is also a good pick if your team lacks it. Ghost is unnecessary with this build - between movespeed quints, dodge runes, Rylai's, your harpoons, and your ult, you're fast enough.

The first time I played Rumble was after I bought him, sight unseen, based on the description of his skills. I was quite unimpressed by his goofy looks, stupid voice, and 20-damage-to-minions flamethrower. When my friends asked me why I bought Rumble, my answer was, "I don't always make good decisions."

Then I stepped my game up, switched my build up, started taking solo lanes, and everything changed. Rumble is now my character with the highest Kill/Death/Assist ratio in Ranked (~1600 Elo, 7.1 kills, 2.5 deaths, 7.2 assists, 11 games played). Now his goofiness amuses me. Winning games with him feels like I'm trolling. Every so often, my enemies vent their rage at my trollbot with cries best summarized as "roomble op".

I'm glad I kept with him. Rumble is a versatile character who puts your game sense to the test. He's fun to play, a good mixture of facerolling good times, general trollitude, and involved, engaging gameplay. Other guides recommend a hybrid approach, but I feel like the fast Rylai's and Rabadon's really play to Rumble's strengths - his high-damage risk/reward game and that ridiculous, ridiculous ult.

Thanks for reading! May your Rumble be "Roomble OP"!