Tryndamere is a great character if you can use your abilities properly and farm effectively. He's great for soloing in either 3v3 or laning in 5v5. This build has been revamped and remade to fit solo top Tryndamere play style.

The reason I like to play Tryn is because he can be extremely powerful (obviously) and can be difficult to kill even if your opponents target him with ignite. Because he gets targeted so quickly, Tryndamere can be very difficult to play. He's also great for turning around a team fight, especially in 3v3.

Note: Before continuing and voting, please leave a comment telling me what you liked or didn't like. Thank you. Also leave a comment explaining why you downvote if you do.

UPDATED JANUARY 26 2012: Changed to the new masteries (finally), adjusted the build for 5v5 (finally), changed summoner spells, and improved all aspects of guide.

Pros

• Strong as heck
• Tons of crit
• Undying Rage
• Bloodlust for healing and passive AD boost

Cons

• Easy to hassle with range
• watch out for Ignite and Thornmail
• Gangplank counters him early top lane

It's nice to have cleanse in a situation where you are ganked early. Using Spinning Slash after Cleanse can get you out of almost all ganks while laning. This spell isn't only good for you in early game ganks, it's also the most important aspect of your strategy in team fights late game as explained in the gameplay section. Cleanse is essential as you will be targeted with the most CC from the enemies if they are playing smart. Also, now that it clears Ignite it will make your use of Undying Rage that much easier to use and increase successful escapes.


Really big for getting back to the lane and farming. Teleport can help you free farm as well if your opponent goes back and does not have this spell. It allows you to keep your lane pushed, your turret at full health, and your farm best in the game.

Other spells that are useful:

Exhaust - good for slowing the enemy in lane and potentially picking up a kill, this however is less viable if the opponent has Flash and can just get away.

Ignite - not practical late game, but early game in the laning phase, it can help you pick up a kill under a turret.

Flash - get in or out of a bad situation, good to use after Undying Rage to give you an escape route.

Ghost - same use as flash above, just to get into a team fight, possibly turning the tides dramatically, or to get out if you're dying.

So we have 2 things in the runes here, attack speed and armor. Why attack speed and not armor penetration, damage, or critical modifiers? Well simple. Early game your attack speed will be extremely high ~.85. This gives you a huge advantage for a couple reasons. The first is that you will hit more often than almost any champion you lane against. Second, you build rage extremely quickly which allows you to land crits 35% of the time. Also it allows you to heal super fast using Bloodlust. While other champions need to start with health potions, Tryndamere can lane without them (see gameplay section).

As for armor, It gives you an advantage early (12.6 bonus armor) and just helps you to be a bit more tanky in case your team doesn't have one or has a weaker one. This also helps to counter Gangplank and other ranged champions top lane who can poke you with range.

At this point you are probably angry as to why I don't include even one of the following runes in any form, not just quintessences, so I will explain:

Armor penetration seems like such a staple for any AD carry and with Tryndamere normally being considered one of the strongest, why not give him this? Well the answer is because he doesn't need it. The current runes are aimed to give him superior lane-ability and keep his rage at 100/100 for the passive Bloodlust bonus. If you are tremendously uncomfortable with this though, replace the first item, wriggles lantern with a The Brutalizer to give you that armor pen, but you will need to purchase wards to spot ganks. If you chose to do this, you can replace Last Whisper with Youmuu's Ghostblade Additionally Weapon Expertise gives you another 10% penetration and when you complete Last Whisper you have another 40% armor pen, so you start off with 10% armor penetration and will get an additional 40%, making rune armor pen not necessary.

It is puzzling to me as to why you would ever want these as any champion except Gangplank. Armor penetration makes way more sense to me than these. With the current runes, you have passively a 35% critical chance coupled with Deadliness it's actually 39%. So getting these runes (which don't even give you a 6% boost) is not really worth the time. Plus after building Phantom Dancer you will have 94% critical chance, while these runes will bring you too nearly 100%, 94% is plenty.

These runes make sense as an alternative to attack speed, but in my opinion, a 10% increase in attack speed is worth more than extra critical damage. My justification for not taking these runes is that Lethality will give you 10% increased already, and while hitting for 275% extra damage after Infinity Edge may seem attractive, it's only 15% more than the 260% you would get otherwise, and with attack speed runes you'll be hitting that 260% more often.

With this passive, you get a passive critical chance bonus which maxes (and remains at max) at 35% as long as you are still in combat. For this reason, extra critical chance isn't really necessary until later in the game.

This ability is the lifesaver for Tryndamere. After using Undying Rage you can leave a team fight and use this to heal yourself 300 when this is maxed out (with rage). But more than just heal, the passive that Bloodlust gives is extremely powerful, making you deal more damage per percent of health gone, and a flat damage amount.

Mocking Shout is the slow move that can be used in a few different ways. It is good for team fights using Spinning Slash to get in, then drop Mocking Shout to slow the whole team. After that, you can single out one champion and destroy them with your team. Alternatively, when soloing top lane, you can use Mocking Shout to slow the enemy, then Spinning Slash when your enemy inevitably turns to flee. This combo will allow you to land a few auto-attacks, hopefully some crits before they either Flash out or burn another summoner spell. This tactic is great for hassling opponents. However, be careful in case they are trying to bait you into doing this, keep the river warded.

Probably the most versatile ability that Tryndamere has is Spinning Slash. It allows you to go through walls for escaping, ganking, or just navigating the map. There are many points in the map where this can be used to get through a wall and, it's cooldown is reduced 2 seconds every time you crit something. It can be used with Mocking Shout to chase down a champion who has recently flashed out.

Tryndamere's ultimate kind of speaks for itself. Undying Rage keeps you alive for an additional 5 seconds, not allowing your HP to fall below 1. The best way to monitor when to use this ability, is to watch your health bar at the bottom of the screen. This one is bigger and you have a better idea of how fast you are losing health, allowing you to properly use Undying Rage at the right time. If ignite is cast on you during this time, look to see if it was cast before you used it or after, if it was used before you wen't into Undying Rage then you are safe and don't need Cleanse. Otherwise, use Cleanse and Spinning Slash out then finally using Bloodlust to make sure you are safe.

Sequence

Taking Spinning Slash first allows you to move quickly throughout the map and to get out of the way of whoever you are soloing if necessary. It also allows you to follow them and potentially finish them if that's the way the battle is going.

Taking Bloodlust the next two levels allows you to heal if you kill your opponent and be able to continue laning without having to go back. Also, you get a passive increase in damage dealt.

Mocking Shout is great to have at level 4, it's not too early and not too late. By level 4 you should be able to kill another champion in a 1 on 1. For this reason Mocking Shout makes it much more difficult for your opponent to escape.

After level 4, you should continue leveling Bloodlust and Undying Rage, after you max out bloodlust, continue working on Mocking Shout until it is at max to make your slow much stronger then just level up Spinning Slash with the remainder of your points.

Starting the game early with Vampiric Scepter is a HUGE leg up. Because you will be landing critical hits 35% of the time with full rage and they do 130-170 damage early, you will be getting back 20.8 - 27.2 health per hit (with the additional lifesteal from Vampirism . This is even more powerful using the Greater Mark of Attack Speed as you will be getting >.85 attack speed at the beginning of the game. This only gets more powerful as you get the Berserker's Greaves. Normally before you get your boots you will want to build Wriggle's Lantern which will give you some armor, attack damage, and two great passives, the free ward and a 15% chance of instantly killing minions for the low price of only 1150 gold. By the time you have both of these items, your armor is high enough to lane for long periods of time, and you've likely outfarmed your opponent making you in control of the lane with infinite wards for potential ganks.


As soon as you are done with your Wriggle's Lantern and Berserker's Greaves begin to farm as much as possible. Infinity Edge is the next item you will be getting, and you can put another team away quickly if you can get it early. A general rule of thumb is that you want to have IE built by 20 minutes in the game, if you can do this, your chances of winning are quite high. I suggest building infinity edge in this order:

B. F. Sword
Pickaxe
Cloak of Agility

The reason for this is that Tryndamere has enough critical at full rage that the extra 18% really isn't necessary right away. After Infinity Edge is built, his critical chance will be above 50% at full rage and your criticals should do above 400 damage, and your lifesteal on a 400 hit is 19% or 76, wow.

Even with how much damage your doing at this point, it may not be enough to take down the other team's tank. Especially characters like Rammus or Malphite who have loads of armor and possibly Thornmail. Because Last Whisper gives you that 40% armor penetration, you will now easily be able to dispose of these champions after taking care of the dps. However, if armor doesn't seem to be a problem, you can replace Last Whisper with Bloodthirster from the end game items.

Bloodthirster will make you nearly invincible at this point as your lifesteal combined with Wriggle's Lantern will be 44% when the unique is maxed out. The armor penetration with Last Whisper is very important for killing tanks, it is also good to do so if your opponents have built Thornmail. This will completely offset the 30% damage that it returns to you and actually allow you to still get lifesteal on top of that.

For the other defensive items, I suggest personally Guardian Angel as it is extremely good at making you not have to time your Undying Rage perfectly, you can simply die, come back to life, then cast it immediately to have 5 more seconds. Unfortunately you will have to choose an item to sell at this point too. If you are confident that your team will win team fights, sell your boots, otherwise I would get rid of Wriggle's Lantern as the extra armor will be compensated for with Guardian Angel. Alternates to these and situational items include Banshee's Veil if you are going against a good caster or getting just too much CC that even Cleanse isn't enough. Or Force of Nature if you want a lot of magic resist for Thornmail and enemy mages.

At the completion of this build your crits will be doing well over 1000 to neutral enemies (healing you ~450 per crit) and will dominate squishy champions. Your attack damage while at 1 health (using Undying Rage) will be ~415 making you extremely OP.

Tryndamere NEEDS money early and often. Fortunately it's not very difficult to farm with him solo in the lane. With high attack speed due to runes, you can last hit pretty easily even just autoattacking at all times. This is made better by the fury system. He gains serious critical strike chance through his passive, Battle Fury. This early in the game helps to make his lifesteal extremely effective.

Don't start jungling until right around level 6. It's best to wait until your minions are pushing the turret in top lane and your opponent has went back or been killed. This gives you time to get golums, the red buff, or even steal the enemy blue buff just so they can't have it and possibly gank mid. When you are buffed out, not only do you get more money and experience, but its significantly easier to send your opponent back. You will be able to solo the dragon in 5v5 as soon as you are finished building Infinity Edge.

Early game

Early in the game, while soloing as Tryndamere you will have a good amount of AD early and can even take some good damage. If fighting a ranged opponent, they won't get close to you, so your only chance (if you think you can) is to jump to them with Spinning Slash and wreck them from there (using Mocking Shout if after level 4). If you are attacking a melee character, it's possible that they will think they need to suppress Tryndamere early and that he is weak early in the game. While he is weaker, if you play smart, you are better than any character in the game. When somebody jumps you early, just allow your minions to focus him and take the damage he deals to you while continuing to attack minions (don't use abilities yet). This will give you full rage so when they have taken 100-200 damage from minions, you can begin the assault. If you crit, it will do over 130 damage, heal you and scare the hell out of them. When they try to flee, just use Spinning Slash to catch up and possibly Mocking Shout to finish them, using Cleanse if you need to lose any CC on you.

Mid/Late Game

It's good as Tryndamere to start team fights if you don't have somebody who is better to initiate such as Rammus. This is where you will do the most damage anyways, in the middle of the battle. If you have good communication and support, you will be able to survive for a while before using Undying Rage. When you do use it, the team will likely focus on you. This is when you need to use Spinning Slash to get out and try to drag some opponents with you into the range of your team.

If you ever find somebody all alone, Tryndamere can become an assassin of sorts. Surprise them if you can, hit them the first couple of times, if they use Flash or Ghost, you can just use Mocking Shout, then Spinning Slash then finish them using summoner spells if necessary.

Because some teams will be able to disable you or slow you often, you may want to purchase different boots. For example, if I'm ever playing against (especially soloing against) a Talon, I want to purchase Mercury's Treads for the tenacity. Tenacity can really save your life if you are soloing a slowing enemy. Also, I would suggest getting the boots before the Wriggle's Lantern if you are unable to farm efficiently and it will likely save your life more if you need to flee.

All in all Tryndamere can be a game changer. Building him with this build will give you high attack speed and lifesteal. It makes him more powerful early game and extremely powerful late game. He has the potential to crit over 1200, and lifesteal over 400 per hit. Do not underestimate these numbers! With a Tryndamere built right, your team has a huge advantage over any other team as you should be the first to win your lane and to 100 CS.