Hello Mobafire community, I decided to write a guide for Rumble as I really liked the champion from the minute I started playing him. It has only been 2 days at the time of writing this guide that rumble has been released, however I have played a lot of games with him already and I think I know him well enough to write a guide to help people who want to start playing him or need some help.

This build's focus lies heavily in the "Beefy dps" category. In my experience this is the way Rumble is supposed to be played.


I could not manage to upload a screenshot of a few game scores. But I have had great scores in both ranked and normal games so far. I have 71% win on ranked solo queu on Rumble over 7 games (not much but at the time of writing he has been released 2 days ago)

Pro's


- Can take quite a beating, especially with this build.
- Great chaser/escaper.
- Fun, unique and versatile ultimate.
- FLAMETHROWER FWOOOSHHHHHHHH

Con's

- Not a very strong late-game, even if you are decently fed.
- Terrible farmer, probably one of the worst.

Runes are always highly subjective imo but here are the ones I use to give you an idea of what to take.

Marks:
9x Magic penetration, these are imo by far the best marks you can take on Rumble.

Seals: I take Armor seals because I want to be tanky. You can pick up dodge too, whatever you like the most. You can use armor/lvl too if you prefer that.

Glyphs: Magic resist for the same reason as armor. Again you can use MR/lvl if you want too.

Quintessences: Now I have not fully experimented with this yet but I think that 4,5% movement speed on rumble is pretty good. I love to have the movement speed utility on rumble and I reflect that in this build.

Here are some thougts on quints:

I have used flat hp quints but I found them completely useless early game and ofcourse even more mid and late game. You really don't need the added Max hp early game with your shield and doran's shield hp regen.

Because Rumble has terrible AP ratio's you should not get flat AP quints. If you want this sort of thing just get Magic penetration quints as they will do you much more good than AP quints.

The masteries I chose are quite simple.

Offense

I put 9 points in offense for the magic penetration.

Defense

I put 21 points in defense because this helps Rumble greatly in his ability to be an off/semi-tank. Simply taking all the points I think fit him well.


Utility
It is not worth taking any points in the utility tree simply because the magic penetration in offense and tenacity in defense are both far too valuable for Rumble to miss out on.

I take my first point in flamethrower because of the incredibly low cooldown it has.

The most important thing is to ofcourse always take your equalizer when you can and otherwise chose between flamethrower and your scrap shield. You can switch up between these 2 as you see need. Always take your harpoons last after you take 1 point in them at lvl 3.

I always take up Ghost.

As a 2nd summoner spell you can pretty much chose whatever you want as long as it makes sense.

Things to chose from as a 2nd summonern spell for me are:
- Ignite
- Exhaust
- Flash

But you can take other stuff like teleport, whatever you are in to really. Aslong as you have ghost you have the most important summoner spell for him in my opinion.

Now for the most important part, the item descriptions. I don't know how to make those nice small icons of items yet because this is my 1st build, however I will look into putting these in the guide. Please message me if you know how to do this, thanks!

I don't believe in a strict building order. So I give you my core and then the list of items I chose from after I finish my core. This always greatly depends on how the game changes and you should learn to see this. Simple question you should ask yourself always is how AD/AP heavy is my enemy team? In normal games it happens very often that there are for example 4 AP carries in your enemy team. Obvious reaction is to get magic resist items and mercury treads.

The items that go with Rumble the best are the ones that have some extra utility on them of some sort. The force of nature for example with not just MR and hp regen, but also movement speed.

I try to have 1460 gold the first time I go back so that I can immediately buy boots of speed and giant's belt.

Core

- Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Your absolute core item is the Rylai's Crystal Scepter as probably all of you already know. This item is 100% Rumble and should always be obtained ASAP. The slow works for all of your abilities and the HP and some AP are just what you need early-mid game. Your ultimate and harpoons gain bonus slows and your flamethrower gains a bonus slow, wich makes the ability twice as amazing just buy buying this 1 item. This item will make you an even better chaser, but also a slightly better escaper. (Harpoons)

Rumble's Item list

- Force of Nature

I really love force of nature against teams with 3AP or more. The health regen works pretty nicely on Rumble and obviously the magic resist to make him more tanky against magic opponents. However the main reason this item is so great is the 8% movement speed bonus. You will really notice the difference and the possibilitys with this added utility are endless. From getting away with 1 bar of hp to getting to a teamfight faster or chasing enemies. It's great!

- Abyssal Scepter

If some of the enemy team's champions are getting magic resist and they have some magic damage aswell (almost always), this is THE item to get. You help your entire team penetrate their magic resist and you get some extra AP and Magic resist.

- Sunfire cape

I always almost end up taking this item as the dot really adds up with your flamethrower, not only that but since you are a melee champion and quite tanky you are going to be in the heat of battle nearly always. This is a great item to get but if they have only 1 AD carry and he is not extremely fed wich can happen, you might want to consider skipping this item and getting something with more MR.

- Zhonya's hourglass

Another great item for rumble if you need armor. We all know how good the use effect is, and this is not different for Rumble. As I have said before you will be taking quite some damage in teamfights mid-late game because you have to me close up for flamethrower. Using this on the right time when you are being nuked and people are using their ultimates on you can EASILY turn the tide of the battle as you immune what would have been maybe 100% of your hp in damage. This item is especially great vs teams with karthus and some form of an AD carry in them. You can simply immune his nasty ultimate with 5% of your hp.

- Randuin's Omen

This is a good item for Rumble, this will make you a stupidly good escaper and will also help you greatly with chasing. Having said that the health, armor and health regen are all stats that benefit Rumble greatly.

- Void staff

I had 1 normal game where my own team was extremely AP heavy and the whole enemy team was stacking MR. In such situations where the team is very MR heavy for your liking you can get a void staff. AFTER you get a Abyssal scepter as it will help your team much more!



Items that you might look OK but that you should NOT get!

- Rabadon's deathcap

I have already seen some people like and use this item on Rumble, but I disagree. Rumble has TERRIBLE AP ratio's and the whole point of this build and my playstyle is getting items that have some ap AND always some other utility. This makes him a great off-tank with nasty damage and great utility to bring to teamfights. Stacking AP on Rumble does not work in my experience.

I have experimented with different boots and here is what I found.

Mercury treads and Ninja tabi are your bread and butter boots. Boots of swiftness are optional but I really recommend getting mercury most of the time, and ninja tabi for heavy AD teams.

What not to get!

- Boots of lucidity

Rumble has really short cooldowns as it is and adding CDR is really useless I found. Most of the time you end up overheating after a few seconds already wich can be quite bothersome at times, however this ofcourse can also be a good thing.

The main point not to take these is that Rumble should be beefy and mobile, wich Mercury treads help him greatly with and in some AD team cases ninja tabi.

As I have said in the con's list, Rumble is an extremely bad farmer. Especially early game. I will update this if I find some way of reliably farming however I think that we just have to accept that Rumble is terrible at farming :(

At mid-late game you can quickly push however with your flamethrower and pick up some gold. Early game however doing this will result in pushing your lane hard but not getting a lot of last minion hits at all. You might think the flamethrower is a good last hitter but it is actually very counter-effective early game for farming. You should focus more on harassing your opponents constantly anyway with short flamethrower bursts.

I will try to describe how I play Rumble to give people who are looking for this kind of thing an idea of how to play him.

-Early Game

Rumble is not a good champion to go in enemy's bushes with at lvl 1. There are many more champions who have much stronger lvl 1 abilities and who can own you so I tend to just go to the 1st bush in the lane after the turret to keep an eye out for my enemies until the minions arrive.

Once you get the hang of your flamethrower range, you can really spam it all day long and harass them with short flamethrower bursts by standing in the max range and quickly back up using your shield the second you are about to get hit by minion fire for example. This will save you hp over the long run and keep you very high hp the whole time while harrasing very hard early game. I really like this style and this is why Rumble fits me really well.

- Mid game

Now that you hopefully have your rylai's scepter you can really start ganking and killing people. Rumble is a very good ganker, especially with ghost and his short speed boosts from scrap shield you should be able to move around quickly.

For a gank, use your ultimate in the escape path of the target starting the ultimate on top of him. This will keep him slowed at least long enough to reach him with your harpoons X2 to severely slow him down and finish him with flamethrower. If you think you are build enough for some diving don't forget to use your shield to get those last flamethrower hits on your enemy to finish him off.

- Late Game

Late game you should be really tanky and a great help to your teamfights. However will never be able to kill a carry 1v1. Map awareness and ward spam is essential for your map awareness to avoid these certain death situations. Just make sure at this point be patient with your ultimate so that it hits the enemy team where it hurts; When they are chasing, when they are running, or just pop it on an all out 5v5 teamfight followed by shield+flamethrower spam. Use your spears only to slow people down who are running or to catch that ranged carry behind enemy lines.