So you're looking to pick up the troll huh? There is something primally satisfying about running up to peopel and simply bonking them over the head over and over again with a giant club until they die, I will give you that.

I'm writing this guide because I feel that a lot of the other guides available either recommend runes or items I feel are suboptimal, do not properly explain key concepts of Trundle, or get too bogged down in the details. This guide is presuming you know the basics of the jungle, you know basic acronyms and meanings of words, and you have a fundamental knowledge of the game. This is a guide for serious players looking to play Trundle at a respesctable level.


Let's take a look at some of the stregenths and weaknesses of the old troll boy.

PROS
- Absolutely demolishes tanks
- Good into bruisers
- Some of the most broken abilities in the game (E,R and Passive)
- Versatile
- Extremely good sieging
- Good ganks early on
- Useful even when behind
- Strong counter-jgler
- Lots of utility

CONS
- No gap closers
- Melee
- Weak to AP threats
- Pillar is a wonky ability
- Kitable late game


Trundle has been picked in pro play for as long as Sejuani has been meta. He is a very all-around champ that lacks most defined weaknesses. He is a very good stat-checker and counter to a lot of AD junglers. He's a versatile champion to add to your pool, but he's fun enough to play to make him your OTP if you want. He does not have a whole lot of unique skill expression, save from E, but he does rely on good fundamentals and good spacing, positiong, kiting, and orb-walking. Let's have a quick rundown of his abilities so we understand what we're working with.

PASSIVE - King's Tribute:

Whenever an enemy dies near Trundle, he heals for 2% − 7% (based on level) of their maximum health.

Do you see anything that says (Capped at x) here? No? That's because there is no cap. No cap. This passive is very very strong. Not only do you heal every single time you kill a camp, this applies to all units. This includes baaron. At 14k health, killing baron can heal up to 900 health once you kill it. Dragons can heal some 200-300 health. Champion kills heal well too. This makes trundle even more broken for jungle healing than other junglers, on top of all the healing from the jungle item, you get all the healing from your passive as well. Do a bad gank and get chunked down to 10% health? That's just one raptor camp away from full health baby.

Q - Chomp: Trundle's next basic attack within 7 seconds has an uncancelable windup, deals bonus physical damage and slows the target by 75% for 0.1 seconds. After using the empowered attack, Trundle gains bonus attack damage for 5 seconds and reduces the target's attack damage by half that amount for the same duration.

This ability is a basic attack reset, use it as such to speed up your clear substantially. This ability can also apply cheap shot, if you choose to take that. This is what makes Trundle so good into AD champions. He not only gains AD from this ability, he removes AD from the enemy target. The slow is also very overbearing, and allows you to catch up to pretty much any target if you can get one Q off. A very good move.

This ability proks on-hit effects, most notably Sheen which is why items that build out of it are so powerful

W - Frozen Domain Trundle coats the target location in ice for 8 seconds. While he is within the area, he gains bonus attack speed, bonus movement speed, and 25% increased healing from all sources.

An attack speed and movement speed steroid. Don't sleep on the healing power increase. This includes your passive and your healing from smite and the jungle item. You can get some pretty nutty healing with this. You want to use this ability to both gap close and as the place you want to take these fights. Not having this ability up when fighting will severely limit your duelling power, so be careful not to overextend out of this zone.

E - Pillar of Filth: [Trundle projects a pillar of ice at the target location for 6 seconds, knocking back all units directly over it 225 units on cast and acting as impassable terrain for the duration and slowing all nearby enemies.

Hands down one of the most underrated and overpowered abilities in the game. This ability is so nutty. I could not possibly list all of the crazy interactions this ability has, so I'll just summarize. This abilty essentially counts as a mini-stun, meaning it interrupts all channels, all movement abilities, and creates impassable terrain. Yasuo can ult off of this. Is MF ulting? Boop,cancel it with E. Someone recalling? Boop, knock em up. Shen taunting to you? Boop, knocked up. Xerath ulting? Not anymore. Leona Eing onto your carry? Nu-uh. You get the point. This is what makes your early ganks so strong, if you hit pillar they essentially have to flash. Be sure to aim it so that the enemy will get knocked up away from their turret and into your teammate. The knock up does break scuttle shield. It also, and I don't know why, does make you take turret aggro. So be aware.

And yes, as I'm sure you're probably aware, this slow does apply imperial mandate. It's not really a viable build for jg, feel free to play it support though.

R - Subjugate: Trundle starts draining the life force out of the target enemy champion, healing for a percentage of their current maximum health, dealing the same amount as magic damage, stealing 40% of their current armor and magic resistance, and increasing in size by 18% as well as reducing the target's size by 9.9%.
Half of the total damage and stealing are applied instantly, and the other half, as well as the size modifiers, are applied over the next 4 seconds, even if the target has died.

THESE PERCENTAGES ARE CALCULATED WHEN SUBJUGATE IS FIRST CAST AND REMAIN EVEN IF THE TARGET ENEMY CHAMPION'S STATS CHANGE

Why is this so important? Because of the way some champions work you can gain significantly more or less value out of this ability.

This is why Rammus is such a good matchup. When Rammus has one or two items, enters his W - Defensive Curl, and prok's aftershock, he may have upwards of 800 armor. If you Subjugate Rammus while he has this on, you will gain ~300 armor for the duration of the ability. Even after Rammus's W has ended you keep the armor. If you cast R BEFORE he enters defensive curl, even if he enters defensive curl while the ability is active you will NOT gain extra armor. This is why it is extremely important to know how the math is calculated in the game. The difference in timing can be the difference of hundreds of points of armor.

This is not exclusive to Rammus: any champion who gains or loses armor or magic resistance, it is most optimal to cast R when they have the buffed stats. Some champiosn that have such interactions include Jax (R Passive), Malphite (W passive), Rell (Mounted vs Unmounted), Olaf (Ragnarok passive), and Sejuani (Passive). There are more cases, but you can figure it out as you go.

This is why Trundle is good into tanks. Even if you are far behind, using this ult on an enemy bruiser or tank makes them significantly easier for your team to kill, and makes you significantly harder to kill. This ability can kill with it's DOT, but most of the time you're looking to take advantage of their reduced armor and MR. And remember, the healing from this ability is increased by 25% if you are in your W - Frozen Domain

Trundle is a unique pick in that he excels at two very different things. Early-game skirmishing and late-game sieging. You want to use your early game power to influence your laners as much as you can. During the mid game you will not be as impactful as say, a fiddlesticks. Therefore, you want to exert a lot of pressure while you have the advantage.

A lot will rely on the lane states, priority, and pushing lanes. There is nothing unique to Trundle in lanes he prefers to ganks. He is not an exceptional diver like other champions, though it is possible. He doest not have any weird gank routes like talon. You are looking for a lane to be pushing into one of your teammates, or a lane that is neutral in order to set up a gank.

Trundles ganks are extremely potent in the early game. The slow from E and the knockup, combined with its extremely long range mean a gank on a pushing lane will almost always net you a flash or a kill. REMEMBER to repeat gank flashless lanes, especially people with no built in utility. If Nasus top lane blows his flash never let him walk back up for CS.

You essentially have two win conditions as trundle, aside from any laners.

1 Smother the enemy in the early game and convert to a first baron or quicker victory
2 Slowly siege down turrets with Trundle's splitpushing prowess

I'll explain why Trundle is such a good split-pusher, in case it isn't obvious. With his W attack speed steroid he already can beat away at turrets extremely quickly. However, remember that his Q is both an attack damage steroid and an auto reset. If you have a sheen item, you will absolutely shred turrets as you'll prok spellblade every 3 seconds, while having approximately 2.00 attack speed at max rank, depending on build. With W's extremely low cooldown as well, you can easily escape almost any collapse, using E if you need as well.

AS A JUNGLER, NEVER SPLIT PUSH OPPOSITE LANES TO MAJOR OBJECTIVES WHEN THEY ARE UP

This should be obvious but I see it happen all of the time. If Baron is up, do NOT split push bot. Any well-trained team will just immediately go to the baron because they know you won't be there to 50/50 it. Split-pushing as a JG is an art, it requires good macro knowledge. Don't do it if you can't.

Are you wondering why almost all of my suggested builds rush tiamat? First of all, tiamat just synergizes well with Trundle's AA heavy playstyle. Second, AoE camps like Krugs and Raptors are sped up immensley by tiamat, giving you a faster clear and more time on the map. I do not recommend any other first item if you can afford it. If you die and have to build something sheen is your next best option, or pickaxe if you can afford it. If you are building stridebreaker go ironspike whip first. The active gives effectively the same effect as tiamat.

Trundle takes obj very well. Remember you heal a massive amount once killing the objective. Prioritize early dragons against scaling junglers like karthus or graves, if you have bot prio. Early rift heralds can blast open games. Dragon souls are viable win conditions, especially with the recent changes. Your Q + Smite does about 1100, so be sure to use that, it is not the greatest, but it works. You'll get beat by champions like Nunu and Lee's Q2 though, so care.

TL:DR

Early ganks and obj are imperative. Abuse your strong E. If you don't get ahead early play for the splits and start taking side turrets and inhibitors. They musta forgot.

Here I'm just going to throw out some tips I've learned from playing and interactions I've seen that didn't fit anywhere else. If you haven't, besure to read the notes for the runes, the build, and the summoner spells because I've included a lot of information there.

When doing dragon, W after the dragon lifts up. Otherwise you lose about 2 seconds of duration that it's up. It can matter.

As mentioned, E does make you take turret aggro.

Q's AD steal works on camps too, I usually Q the large wolf since it will be autoing the longest.

Even if your Q gets blocked from like Teemo Q or Jax E, you still gain the extra AD.

It is completely possible to get opponents stuck against the wall so that they cannot move with your E, it's just very hard.

Casting your E on allies displaces them. This can interrupt recalls and teleports. Not that you'd ever want to do that to the toxic top laner.

NOTABLE E INTERACTIONS

You can E someone out of Thresh Lantern if timed correctly.

You can E someone out of bard portals if timed correctly (probably a bug)

E can stop Tristana's W - Rocket Jump if positioned correctly.

E will stop Camille's hookshot, though she can also E onto it.

Akshan can swing on your E, it makes for strong synergies.

Vayne can condemn enemies into your E for a stun.

Your E will stop Corki's W - Valkeyrie but not W - Special Delivery

You can theoretically make Draven's axes near impossible to catch with good E timing.

E does NOT cancel Ezreal's E

E will interrupt both Fiddlestick's W and R channel and put them at full cooldown.

E will prok Fiora's W- Riposte

E will stop Irelia's Q - Bladesurge but will not put it on cooldown UNLESS Irelia did not reach any part of the minion.

E will stop Karthus R

E makes Kled's R bug out sometimes.

If predicted you can stop Nautilus's hook with E.

E will break Nunu's snowball if put in front of him.

E will prevent Ornn from recasting R - Call of the Forge Cods

E will stop Pyke from channeling a hook.

E Will stop Sion's R if placed in front of him.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed and/or learned something. If you did please be sure to leave a like or a rating. Everything is appreciated!

There are likely spelling mistakes and I will add more interactions as I find them.

V1.0 12-1-21 Created by Grahamster00