I don't take any credit for making this guide, the full original version can be found HERE.

I put this guide on this website because I noticed the top Mundo guides at the moment build Mundo as if he was a tank. Hes not, hes a damage soak and this will be explained in the Introduction.

The first build is if your solo laning.

The second build is if your duo laning.

Pretty simple eh? lol

Mundo Characteristics:
Carry, Farmer, Fighter, Haste, Heal, Melee, Pusher, Slow, Tough

MUNDO IS NOT A TANK:
Contrary to popular belief, Mundo is not a tank. He is a soak. A tank is someone like Alistar, Amumu or Shen who throw people around, stun them, or generally disrupt a fight. Mundo cannot do these. He can take damage and dish it out. This guide is focused on doing both of these.

This guide gives a playstyle similar to Tryndamere, Udyr or Warwick, but you are beefier than Tryndamere or Warwick, and hit harder than Udyr. You run faster than any of them and have your amazing cleaver for harassing, last hitting, and chasing. This skill gives you RANGE and only has a 4 second cooldown. Your cleaver is what sets you apart. If you are bad at cleaver, you are bad at Mundo. Practice makes dead things.

Mundo only has two skills he can optimize. Masochism through attack speed, critical chance and armor penetration, and Sadism through effective health. This guide will show you how.

Please post any comments or questions you have and rate this guide (after trying it out of course).

Adrenaline Rush
For every 66 hp, you get 1 hp/5 seconds. Nuff said.


Infected Cleaver
Use it to last hit creeps, pester enemies, run down enemies, check bushes, and kill invisible twitches.


Burning Agony
Turn on during team fights (reduced CC and it hurts the other guy), farming more than 1 creep, or tap on and off to deal 40 damage INSTANTLY to a creep you want to last hit.

It is important to get good at using this skill to last hit creeps early game. It is INSTANT which gives a big advantage compared to other heros when farming early. I haven't seen other guides emphasize this use, but it is important.


Masochism
Mundo smash. This guide will try to optimize this skill. Spam it.

Also leaguecraft has this skill mislabeled. It gives 40/55/70/85/100 damage and .4/.55/.7/.85/1 damage per %hp missing.

The build shown here have a big emphasis on getting to 30% cooldown reduction so this can literally be on all the time.


Sadism
If health is under 70%, turn this on. Dont save it for fights. Use it to stay at 100% hp all the time.
If you are in a big fight, use it once the chaos starts. Hopefully everyone used their ignites/anti-healing effects too early to shut it off completely. Don't be afraid to use it to run people down when you are at full health. At level 16 the speed and duration is pretty much the same as Ghost.

The part at where you buy Atma's, its situational.


Atma's if the team is balanced.

Only one Phys dpser? Go Force of Nature. Just cast Exhaust on the physical carry in teamfights, beat the hell out of them and watch as the entire enemy team tries and fails to burst you.

Almost no magic damage? Go Randuin's Omen for better tankiness and the good active/passive to slow attack speeds. They almost always have magic damage though.


And no, im not telling to you to buy two boots lol. Just replace the Luci boots with Merc's at that point.

There are a few items that look good for Mundo on paper but are just bad:

Sunfire Cape
You already have the passive with one level in burning agony and it costs the same as Stark's ferver. If you are playing a character other than Mundo though, it makes you a little bit more like Mundo, so you should probably get multiple.

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Frozen Mallet
I was really torn about this item for a long time. It looks so good at first glance for Mundo. You want to chase things down and it has slow. You want HP and it gives 700. You don't care too much about the damage but its still a nice touch. Sadly this item is not for Mundo. There are a few reasons why.

#1) If you are in a team fight, this item just doesnt do enough. Its great to chase people down, but first you have to get them to run. This item doesn't help enough with that.
#2) You have to be close enough to hit them for this to take effect. Phage/Frozen Mallet/Trinity Blade is great for ranged carries to take down their prey, but if you are trying to gank, they will either see you and get away, or get a cleaver/exhaust and be slowed anyway. Coming out of a team fight, one of the survivors from your side probably has a slow effect anyway.
#3) This item costs A LOT. It costs more than warmogs but doesnt give the same health regen and only gives a little over half as much health once your warmogs is full.
#4) Mundo has a very easy time getting lizard buff. If you want the slow effect this is a much easier way to get it.
#5) With 320 base move speed, Berserker Boots, Phantom Dancer, Sadism, Ghost, Infected Cleaver and Exhaust, you should be able to have enough of a movement difference to catch them and enough life to take a couple hits from a tower along the way. You are built for chasing so this item is redundant.
#6) It barely gives half the HP of Warmog's for a higher cost. Once you get Atma's Warmog's is an even better choice.

If you need a slow effect in item form, I say get Randuin's Omen. It gives more effective HP than Frozen Mallet. It gives an AOE slow and attack speed reduction for teamfights. It gives a single time slow for chasing. It gives CDR so you can throw more cleavers to get more slow. It is cheaper than Frozen Mallet too.

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Banshee's Veil
-75 hp and -7 MR is a huge hit. That is -300 gold worth of stats for Mundo. Combined with the nerfs to Randuin's, I find Warmog's to be a better choice for HP. Combined with Spirit Visage it gives good effective HP vs magic, and if you need more Warmog's + Force of Nature is a better idea.

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Phantom Dancer
They removed the dodge... That was what I really loved about this item. Its still great on Mundo, but I find other choices to be better most of the time. It no longer has that anti-carry zing. He has great movespeed with ghost/sadism/youmuu's so I find it hard to give this item a slot.

Solo Laning (1-13):
Just play extremely defensively, last hitting with cleaver and masochism off the tower. You farm off towers better than probably any other character. Don't bother trying to harass much because your cleaver doesn't do too much damage, hurts you too, and you need it to farm. At level 6 you can try to go for a kill with exhaust, ghost and sadism if you want. It will throw your opponent off that you have suddenly become so aggressive. Otherwise, use your ult to heal when they harass you too much and stay in lane until they leave. Then you push the lane, go back to base and buy.

Duo Laning (1-9):
First off, get a buddy. Early game is when duo-lane Mundo shines the most, so take advantage of it. Go bottom lane with your buddy who also needs to be a good DPS/Bust character, preferably beefy like you. Some good choices are Garen, Sion, Lux or Janna. If you don't have a jungler its a good idea to take the small creep camp close to your lane so you can get level 2 faster than your opponents. You can go for first blood at level 2 once you have masochism. I once killed a Zilean at level 2 in two shots and a cleaver because Janna shielded me and I got a lucky crit. If your friend has a slow, stun, silence or exhaust, you will get an easy first blood. Try to dominate the lane the whole phase with masochism auto-attacks + cleavers.

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Teamfighting(11-18):
You do not initiate. Either the other team does it or someone else on your team does. Once it happens though, follow these three simple steps:
1)Turn on Burning Agony.
2)Scream Mundo.
3)Charge.

Spam E. Once you are at about 70% life, pop your ult (or if they have been targeting you, pop it before charging). Keep burning agony on the whole time you are next to someone on their team. Find the enemy carry and exhaust/headbutt him/her to death. Cleaver when appropriate. With any luck they will die or leave. The rest of their team will have to focus CC on you, letting your team do what they want, or have their carry leave the fight.

Once the carry has left, turn to the nearest squishy (a mage or support usually) and continue headbutting. If you get low, run away and let your ult finish before running back into the fight. A Mundo at half health running back into the fight with Ghost is a scary thing. Chase down any stragglers.

I find this to be a very rewarding, if simple, way to play. It also fits with the character.

Yes, it sucks. No, it does not completely shut you down.

You only really have to worry if they ignite you then chain-CC you, which is hard to do if you have Banshee's Veil. It either stops the Ignite, so Sadism keeps you alive, or it stops the CC, so you can get away. If they dump all of their ignite and CC hate on you, your team if free to do useful things.

In a teamfight, if you go in the front (after the tank) then you do not want to use sadism unless you are getting focused. If you are getting focused, pop sadism and run away. Even if they ignite you, your speed gets you away. If they CC you, your sadism will keep you alive. Congrats, you have just drawn agro for your team! Good offtank Mundo.

You only really have to worry if they ignite you then chain-CC you, which is hard to do if you have Banshee's Veil. It either stops the Ignite, so Sadism keeps you alive, or it stops the CC, so you can get away. Now run a loop around the fight so you can come in on the side. Ignite only lasts for 5 seconds and Sadism lasts for 12. You still get most of your heal and took an Ignite that could have been on your main carry or someone at low health. You should be between 50 and 70% health

For your team:
You are the guy that can solo the dragon.
You are the guy that can tower dive.
You are the guy that can tank the tower while your team kills it.
You are the guy who runs back to base last throwing cleavers behind you.
You are the guy who buys oracle -_-'.
You are the guy who comes to the rescue when both sides are at low life (your ult brings you back to fighting shape).

For you:
You can go toe to toe with Yi, Pantheon, Warwick or any of the other Melee carries. Try to kill them before they kill your squishies, or kill the enemy team's squishies.
You can run down and kill any ranged carry that strays too far from their tower (assuming they aren't more fed than you).
You can stray a little farther from towers than the rest of your friends. Unless the other team brings all 5 against you, you can usually make it away with your high health, sadism, ghost and your high move speed. If they do bring all 5 just hope your team is doing something useful.

You are NOT the guy who intiates fights. That will get you dead, or at least get you to run back leaving them without Stark's Fervor. Throw cleavers until their team does it or both groups disperse. Make sure to let your team know you are leaving before you do. You don't want Morgana to be the last one to leave the party.

Good luck and go where you please.

Mundo IS a viable jungler if you know how to do it. Here is my video guide to show you how.

Jungling Runes:
Marks: + armor penetration.
Seals: + dodge.
Glyphs: + flat cooldown reduction.
Quintessences: + flat health.

Jungling Masteries.



Jungling (1-9):
Once you have Emblem of Valour you can jungle with ease. Pretty much float around the map like a normal jungler. If you run into the enemy jungler you can usually kill them because they don't expect you, and you have exhaust to shut down their red-buff auto-attacks. Once they have started running, you have won the fight. You can dragon at level 6 easily with a potion and sadism up. Just get a friend to watch your back.

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Pushing (6-12):
After a successful gank or when you find an empty lane, you can push. Use a potion if you are low on health from a gank because you never know when the enemy jungler will come by or when ashe will hit you with an arrow. Masochism makes you eat towers as fast as WW. Burning agony lets you push creep waves like no tomorrow. If anyone comes to gank/stop you then you either have teammates with you to fight again, or you have Ghost/Sadism up to run away. Ever tried to kill a Mundo with Ghost and Sadism on? It doesn't work.
Play Video
Greed > Deadliness.
It takes 5 minutes for Greed to generate enough gold to buy .66% critical chance. Also Greed lets you have enough gold to buy a potion with emblem on the first trip back.

Most junglers rely on 5 health potions + cloth armor to get started in the jungle. Those potions cost 175 gold. Golem and Lizard camps give 80 gold each, for a total of 160 gold. Goldwise, this makes up for not doing those camps on the first run.