Hello, I am QWERTYkeys, a Gold IV Udyr jungle main with 140k+ (and counting) mastery points on him. I play on the Europe West -server and I live in Finland. I'm by no means good, so don't be fooled into thinking that I know what I am talking about. Please leave any angry comments or complaints in the comments-section, so I can fix the many mistakes I have inevitably made.

There's nothing much to it, I made this guide after many people on my friends-list were asking how I managed to climb four divisions in a week. If you're looking for a diamond level guide then there's the door, feel free to leave. If instead you are bronze, silver, gold or even platinum tier: Welcome! This guide should help you climb the ladder.

Any questions can be left in the comment section of this guide, I'll try to keep it up-to-date as much as possible, but right now I'm just making a short guide where I'll be telling you how to play AD Udyr (or Tigerdyr). I hope you enjoy this guide as much as I enjoyed making it and will find it useful.

Pros:
-Great solo carry if you know how to play and get ahead
-Semi-tanky later on
-Great damage
-Spells stronger than most other champions' pre-6 spells
-Great dueling potential
-Basically infinite HP sustain in the jungle with W (Turtle Stance)
-Now has waveclear with the new Ravenous Hydra -centric build

Cons:
-Can be useless when behind
-Needs kills to scale as TigerDyr
-Blue buff reliant
-No dashes
-Countered by hard CC and lockdown
-Easily peeled off and kited
-All damage is auto attack -based and deal physical damage

Udyr has little to no mechanical skill involved in his gameplay. You can quite literally play him 100% efficiently with one hand. It's all about knowing what Stances to transition to and how to "stance dance" efficiently.

While clearing the jungle you want to alternate between Q (Tiger Stance) and W (Turtle Stance) and not waste mana on anything unnecessary or you'll run dry without a blue buff before long.

When ganking you should walk up to the enemy and as soon as they see you, pop the E (Bear Stance) and stun them. Then you should quickly switch to Q (Tiger Stance) and keep hitting the enemy until they are dead. Walk with the enemy, clicking on the ground between auto attacks to move side-by-side with the enemy while dealing damage. This basic combo is used in every fight. Don't use R (Phoenix Stance) to do anything but clear minion waves in the lategame and use W (Turtle Stance) whenever you need a bit of sustain in the jungle or a small shield in PvP combat. Do not stay in E (Bear Stance) while fighting unless your next attack stuns the enemy, use Q (Tiger Stance) instead.


When running away from enemies or chasing one, there are two philosophies: using Bear Stance to get in or out as fast as possible, popping Turtle Stance whenever Bear Stance is on cooldown to mitigate damage and to keep up Monkey's Agility. The second one is to pop Turtle Stance first to mitigate any damage so that you have a chance to get to/away from your targets with Bear Stance, as movement speed doesn't help you when you're dead. I alternate between the two, using either Turtle or Bear Stance to run away. If you can, stun an enemy that is in attack range. do not run backwards to stun anyone, of course. Decide where you want to go and go there.

When you start your clear at Krugs (and you pretty much always start there), you will be using your Q (Tiger Stance) to take them down. Remember to smite the big one, since Udyr's passive and Q's (Tiger Stance) activation give attack speed to stun other camps' monsters and keep yourself healthy without having to use up too much mana. Udyr has a very limited mana pool, so start Red buff with Q (Tiger Stance), swapping between that and W (Turtle Stance). Do not switch stances until your Passive (Monkey's Agility) is almost about ot expire, or you will run out of mana before you can get to the Blue buff. If you let your passive run out you will miss out on attack speed that helps you clear faster.

So after taking blue buff you should be at least level 3 and able to gank any opponent that is on your team's side of their lane. I find top lane to be an easy place to gank as it is the longest lane so you have time to run enemies down, but depending on the champion picks, mid lane and bot lane may be easier to gank.

I don't suggest you play lane Udyr. Instead in this chapter I want to drill into your head the idea that if you and your laner get a successful gank off (you kill the enemy), then you should shove the lane (push it under the turret) and take some of those minions no matter what your teammates say. If the enemy laner has Teleport as one of his summoner spells, you can ask your laner if he wants to push the wave under the turret and kill the enemy again via a lane gank when he Teleports in. If the enemy doesn't have Teleport you can get some damage off on their turret, but don't overextend or die for it. It's not worth it.

Additionally, you can just farm it up and try to get into the same headspace as your enemy jungler, look out for possible counterganks (usually where your teammate fills the requirements so that if you were the enemy jungler, you'd gank them) and keep getting that income. There is no reason to force a gank and possibly get killed.

Because I am going to max out Q (Tiger Stance) first, I go for early game runes with 9 flat armor seals (as is commonplace), 9 flat attack damage marks (or 8 and 1 mark of critical strike chance if you're feeling lucky), 9 flat cooldown reduction glyphs and either two Movement Speed quintessences or two flat attack damage quintessences. In any case you need a flat cooldown reduction quintessence to reach 10% at level 1, so that you can keep spamming the same stance after acquiring blue buff without letting your passive's times run out.

This combination gives me earlygame pressure and helps me get to my targets. These runes are really nothing special. You can run whatever runes you want just as long as you have either flat or scaling armor seals. You need the early damage reduction from those to clear the jungle camps without having to back.

I take movement speed (which is generally really good on Udyr if you were wondering) and work my way down the Cunning-tree to get Thunderlord's Decree since when invading, the burst damage comes in really handy. As a bonus, the damage is magic damage and many junglers run scaling magic resist glyphs so it is better than most other keystone masteries. Other than that I take all masteries that give me increased damage or otherwise help me in combat except for double edged sword, because I don't like taking extra damage on my first clear. I spend the rest of my points on the ferocity-tree, taking increased attack speed and damage to targets that have impaired movement. This helps me get First Blood easily with red buff. If you are not confident in your clearing, you can take the two first rows of the defensive-tree instead of going too deep into the ferocity-tree.

The core items on TigerDyr are Boots of Swiftness, Ravenous Hydra and Trinity force. Once you get these items you should be able to act as an assassin, turning into an off-tank bruiser in the lategame with your three last items. Remember to buy a jungle item, but don't worry about buying the enchant to it, you are better off spending your money on other actual items until later on.

The most important thing is to build whatever works for you. You can try out the build I have provided or try out something else like building an Infinity Edge, but remember to build at least two tank items (one for AD one for AP), unless the enemy team is quite literally full attack damage or ability power focused.

Udyr is a great pick in the jungle if you like to split push and to be your own carry. He has clearly defined strengths and weaknesses that you have to play around. I suggest you try his clear in a few custom games before deciding to play him in any PvP game mode. Once you get the feel for him, it's hard to stop playing him.