Hecarim has been my main since he was released back in April 2012. I picked him up on the day that he was released, and played him for about a week straight (in both top and jungle.)

From my endless amounts of gameplay since then, I have formatted two equally effective (I'm partial to build two) builds for Jungle Hecarim.

Hecarim is meant to be played as an aggressive jungler, ganking top as often as possible, and even counterjungling a bit (I like to steal the enemies big wraith after blue buff, as hecarim's clear is fast enough to get out without conflict.) His role in a team fight is to initiate the fight, survive the fight, and cleanup the fight.

He does this with his teamfight and chasing oriented kit, with Spirit of Dread and Spirit Visage working together to keep the pony alive.

Altogether, Hecarim is my all-time favorite jungler in the game. If you dislike him, go rot in the canterlot dungeons.

Pros

High Mobility
Tanky (in either build)
Good Damage (in either build)
Amazing initiate potential (ult pops banshees, and still goes through)
One of the best dances in the game.
One of the best gankers in the game.
Brony References

Cons

Needs to pick up gold momentum to do well.
Easily whiffable ultimate.
Often is forced ulting in order to escape.
Has no instant gap closers besides his ult, only a speed up.
If your team doesn't do much damage, Spirit of Dread isn't useful.

Warpath:Hecarim ignores unit collision and gains attack damage equal to 10% / 12.5% / 15% / 17.5% / 20% / 22.5% / 25% of his bonus movement speed

Warpath's anti-unit collision is probably the best feature. The bonus AD isn't a huge amount, generally around 20-30 bonus AD late game. It is there though, and it can help in some situations.

Rampage:Active: Hecarim cleaves nearby enemies, dealing damage. This skill deals only 66% damage to minions and monsters.

If Hecarim damages at least one enemy unit with this attack, he gains a stack of Rampage, reducing the base cooldown of this skill by 1 second for a short duration. This effect can stack up to 2 times.


This is how Hecarim gets a lot of his cleartime, and AoE damage. It's also why CDR is so good on him. Rampage is what you max second, remember that. Do not max it first, Spirit of Dread is more important.

Spirit of Dread: Active: Hecarim surrounds himself with the spirit of dread for 4 seconds, dealing magic damage per second to all enemies within its reach. Additionally, Hecarim is healed for a percentage of the damage enemies within the area take from any source. Healing from damage dealt to minions is capped per cast.

Oh my god I bloody love this spell. Spirit of Dread is the spell that nobody notices, but makes Hecarim the most annoying to fight. The 30% healing late game makes you harder to kill than Dr. Mundo in a team fight.

Devastating Charge: Active: Hecarim gains 75% movement speed, starting with initial 25% upon cast, over the course of 3 seconds, ending one second afterward. His next attack knocks the target back, dealing damage based on how far Hecarim has traveled during Devastating Charge's duration.
While Hecarim is charging, he gains 150 extra range (325 total).

Devastating Charge is hilariously useful. If you're smart, use it to run passed whoever you're chasing, then knock them back in the direction you want them to. The added range is hilarious as well, for reasons that aren't viable. It's just funny.

Onslaught of Shadows:Hecarim summons spectral riders and charges forward, damaging enemies in the path.

Hecarim releases a shockwave when he finishes his charge, dealing additional damage to enemies and forcing them to flee in terror from Hecarim for 1 second.

Onslaught of Shadows is the spell that Hec is famous for. It's the big blue ult that you see before you die. Yeah, that one. The spell seems straightforward, but it really isn't. It can be used to initiate, or escape.

Just one tip though; the ult isn't fear... it's terror. The difference? Terror causes people to run in a straight line away from Hecarim. They run in a line away from where Hecarim lands, so position the landing circle so they go where you want them to.

One thing that I see a lot of Hecarims do is max Rampage before Spirit of Dread. Why do they do this? Because they assume that because your main source of damage is Rampage, it's important to max it first.

Heres the thing; Rampage scales better on CDR than AD and Leveling. Leveling it up is not nearly as important as the sustain and tankiness you get from Spirit of Dread. It's just not worth your skill points.

Max Rampage second, Spirit of Dread is more important.

Philosopher's Stone + Your GP10 items. These boost your economy, so that it's easier to grab Trinity Force (your main source of damage.)

Mercury's Treadsare what you are generally going to want to buy, due to the Tenacity. However; Ninja Tabi are equally viable, if an Auto Attack based champion gets fed, and you want a counter.

TONS OF DAMAGE!!! Trinity Force is the item that, does in fact, allow you to do Tons of Damage™. All three sides of the Triangle assist Hecarim, giving him all the offensive stats you'll need for the game.

Spirit Visage increases Healing by 15%, and also give CDR. Both of these help Hecarim in Teamfights, and the Healing Increase combined with Spirit of Dread make you near immortal.

Shurelya's Battlesong is your replacement for Ghost in build one. It's a great chasing item, and gives your Philosopher's Stone a late game purpose.

Frozen Heart lets you shut down any AD Carry, and because you jump right into the middle of a teamfight, you'll shut them down very early. The armor and mana are nice too.

Randuin's Omen can be built with or instead of Frozen Heart. If you have to choose, go with the Frozen Heart. Active < Passive for items that do the same basic thing.


Your core is Mercury's Treads, Trinity Force, Spirit Visage and Frozen Heart. Shurelya's Battlesong is nearly core, but you don't always build it.

Other options to build instead of Randuin's Omen and Shurelya's Battlesong:

Force of Nature is what you want to build when you start seeing some fed casters. The health regen is also nice.

Guardian Angel makes you even more immortal. Really helps against people like Varus who can stop your Spirit of Dread from keeping you alive; it give you something to fall back on.

Sunfire Aegis is an all around great item for Hecarim. It's two stats that help, and the passive is nice. It's just an option against people like Darius or Cho'Gath (Gives you help against True Damage, without having to build Warmog's.)

Zeke's Herald Zeke's Herald is a better item for the second build, but you can build it if you want to, I suppose.

Altogether, build one plays sort of like a support-tank, with less damage but more survivablity than build two. Use it if you can tell from champion select that you're either going to get counter jungled out of some farm, or lanes are going to be really hard to get money from ganking.

For whatever reason, a lot of people hate Wriggle's Lantern. In my opinion, its an extremely aggressive and chance based option. (Build two is, to be honest.) My personal playstyle fits it, as I'm extremely aggressive with ganks and whatnot.

Mercury's Treadsare what you are generally going to want to buy, due to the Tenacity. However; Ninja Tabi are equally viable, if an Auto Attack based champion gets fed, and you want a counter.

Wit's End is an item that Bruiser-Hec is best friends with. The Magic Resist is lovely, and the Attack Speed (when combined with the slow from Frozen Mallet or Red buff gives you the power to permaslow people.

Frozen Mallet is everything that the second build of Hecarim wants. Health, Damage, Slows? Oh hell yeah. Using Wit's End, you can get off the permaslow I mentioned.

Spirit Visage increases Healing by 15%, and also give CDR. Both of these help Hecarim in Teamfights, and the Healing Increase combined with Spirit of Dread make you near immortal.

Bloodthirster is simple what you sell Wriggles in order to buy. It's the same thing as Wriggles, just bigger and without the ability to ward.

Sunfire Aegis is a bit more core on the second build, in my opinion. Barely though, it has essentially the same reasoning as in build one.

Your core items for the second build are Mercury's Treads, Wit's End, Frozen Mallet, and Spirit Visage. While The Bloodthirter and Sunfire Aegis are options to finish off, they aren't the only ones.

Zeke's Herald Zeke's Herald is a good alternative to Bloodthirster if you have a team with more then one other right clicker. EX: You have a Xin Top, or Pantheon Kill-Lane.

Force of Nature is what you want to build when you start seeing some fed casters. The health regen is also nice.

Guardian Angel makes you even more immortal. Really helps against people like Varus who can stop your Spirit of Dread from keeping you alive; it give you something to fall back on.

Frozen Heart is a bit different in build two, simply because building something that pricey late game is a bit difficult. It is, however, possible, and very viable.

Build Two is much more aggressive than build one, and it's also less safe. Build Two is more-so a high risk > high reward setup. If you build a wriggles, but then start sucking, you're going to need alot of farm to get back up. However, if you do well, you're going to snowball into nearly a hardcarry during the teamfight phase. If you're confident that you can be aggressive, go with build two.

Between both builds, the rune pages are almost the same. The only difference? Marks.

: I use Armor marks on the first build. Because this is a tank based build, the extra armor helps with surviving early clears (since I won't have attack speed or wriggles.)

: I uses Attack Speed runes for build two for the clear time and dueling potential. Because that build is designed around being a duelist/bruiser, the Attack Speed helps.

Those are the differences; the following runes are mutual to both builds.

: Armor Seals are pretty much staple for Jungling at the moment. They help for dueling as well, but you pretty much can't argue these.

: Scaling Magic res. is very nice, as you don't always go for Force of Nature, or any other negatron recipes. You could also do CDR, but you tend to hit max with Spirit Visage/Frozen Heart/Randuins, etc.

: YOU DON'T GET THESE FOR HIS PASSIVE. So many people argue that these aren't worth getting, because the passive doesn't help enough. You don't get them because of the passive, you get them because Hec is already faster than a midget on meth. Let's make him faster.

I don't like talking about Mastery Pages. Nobody actually looks at this section, and if you do, you really don't care. Masteries are rarely hard to figure out, and anyone can do them.

Build One: 0/21/9 for the tankiness/CDR/Movement speed in defense and the extra blue buff/mana/movement speed in utility.

Build Two: 8/13/9 for the attack speed + mastered ghost in Offense, tankiness in defense and the extra blue buff/mana/movement speed in utility.

If you have any questions, you might have a small learning disability.

If I even need to tell you why I don't have to explain Smite on a Jungler, then I don't want you reading my guide anymore.

Flash is the Summoner that I chose for the first build. In the second build, I chose Ghost for reasons I'll explain. The reason that I don't use it in the first build, however, is because Flash is a much more defensive Summoner than Ghost. Plus, I have Shurelyas if I need a movement boost.

Ghost is what I chose for the second build. Ghost is an extremely aggressive Summoner, allowing me to get a boost of Movement Speed (and AD from my passive) when ganking.

In terms of Ranked play, I actually reccomend the GP10 and Triforce build over the Frozen Mallet and Wits End build.

I've been running both with my team, and I found a higher success rate with the Triforce build. The reasoning is simply because of the Jungle's current state, in terms of economy.

Junglers don't have a lane to feed themselves with, and Hecarim is already momentum based (no pun intended.) The GP10 items allow Hecarim do play Passively, while still having the agressive utility of his kit.

Frozen Mallet and Wits End lead to more kills and a more obvious victory, but I reccomend the Triforce build, due to the fact that you can survive without successfully ganking every time.