TRUNDLE THE CURSED TROLL

I decided to write this guide because since the rework Trundle has grown to become my favourite champion in the league. I have played Dota, Dota 2, HoN and of course LoL. I have had many favourite heroes throughout these games and i have enjoyed many in League of Legends but i, for whatever reason had difficulties finding my favourite champion. Now i have Trundle.

Secondly, all the guides i have found on Mobafire, IMO haven't really been in depth enough as there are guides on other champions. Some of the guides also aren't really about what i see in Trundles potential as a champion. So after around 6 years of playing Moba style games and never writing any guides before I give you my guide to Trundle

You definitely want to get the Madred's Razors when you first back if you don't you will be wasting a considerable amount of time finishing off the big wraith, wolve, etc. If you just spam bite to clear the camps faster you'll just become Blue Buff dependent, NOT GOOD!

If you don't back early then you can just wait until you have enough to finish Boots of Swiftness and your Madred's Razors.

The Doran's Shield is picked up because it simply makes trundle 1000 times bulkier early game. Because i run some damage reduction masteries and you STEAL attack damage off of AD carries, junglers, AD bruisers. This extra 8 damage reduction and 100 bonus life makes Trundle so incredibly bulky and powerful early. You'd be surprised how much of a difference it makes. Besides it only costs 440.

Your second time visiting your base you should be looking to pick up the Boots of Swiftness if you haven't already, and the Vampiric Scepter. This lets you can life off of jungling which makes you have to back significantly less often.

On certain occasions you can swamp out the Boots of Swiftness for either Ninja Tabi, or Mercury's Treads. I choose swiftness as the core boots because 90% of the time you'll want the MS and slow reduction is all you really need from merc treads anyways.

Core Items
Wriggle's Lantern is a must. It provides a ward which i use for buff stealing, brush checking, and covering my exit strategy if i invade. Trundle is amazing at invading.

Spirit Visage is really what unlocks Trundle's full potential, for this reason i build and finish this item third. You'll start healing 1/4 of your life off of dragon, and even 150 life per champion death through the mid early-mid game. It also synergies with the double life steal items in my core.

The Ravenous Hydra. This item makes sure you don't start to scale off towards the late game. This makes sure you can split push, and farm like many other solo top and/or jungle champions. It also gives you a substantial amount of sustain in team fights. Those reasons alone make it my number 1 Damage item of choice on Trundle.

Offensive Items
Blade of the Ruined King I usually just sell wriggles for this later into the game. not as my next buy after i finish my core but perhaps when my items are maxed out or after my I complete like a Zephyr or Trinity Force.

Zephyr. I purchase this item when i on the path to becoming Godlike. This will almost make you impossible to kill. You'll have so much slow and tenacity(+15% from masteries) and you will around the map so quickly it will be hard to keep up. Plus you can chase anyone down.

Because Trinity Force is so Expensive i usually only start building this if i need help dueling someone, ie; Irelia, Jax, Shen.

Frozen Mallet for when you need to glue yourself to a specific champion, most likely an ADC. Or if i plan to purchase an item like Atma's or Maw.

Maw of Malmortius is great when you have a ton of magic damage coming from the enemy team. Combined with your Spirit Visage you will survive a lot of magic damage burst and be chunking the enemy's with your bite. Overall just a great pick up against heavy magic damage teams.

Last Whisper, pretty self explanatory. Buy this if there are too many enemy champions stacking armor.

Defensive Items
Randuin's Omen is probably my favourite defensive item in the game period. It add's some great bulk to Trundle while still complimenting his strengths. It helps you fight ADC's and even better slow down the enemy champions for your team to either catch up to you, help you get distance from enemy champions.

Runic Bulwark is great on Trundle because of how long you stay alive. If your team is ever going to be aced you are probably going to be the last one to fall. It's also just another great item.

Warmog's Armor and Atma's Impaler I would usually just purchase these together. There isn't too much of a reason for purchasing these. I only do if i don't really need specific resistances and i just want the HP.

I pick up Guardian Angel for when if i die early in a fight for whatever reason, it will get my whole team killed. Some occasions without you, your whole team may fall apart you will want this item. I also buy it if a lot of other champions are buying it(both ally and enemy).

I only choose Iceborn Gauntlet if i know i cant afford to start a trinity force but i want the burst from sheen. It also increases your cooldown reduction and give 70 armor. It's actually a pretty good pick up, not to mention more AOE in combination with your Hydra.

Ghost
After many games of using both Flash and Ghost i have decided on using ghost. Many people say the difference of these two spells are just personal preference but if you truly understand the game, your opponents and your champion then it will be more than that. Flash is a great summoner spell, specifically on AP carry's. reason being is how relevant the split second position change is for those champions. In a mid battle it can be the difference of dodging an Annie ultimate and following up with your own burst damage. It can also keep you out of Jarvan IV ultimates and get behind your tank, and of course jumping over walls. But these are not things i ever needed to have when playing trundle. Spirit Visage is a core item for trundle that gives you 50 Magic resist. You also have 24 @ lvl 18 from your masteries. Not to mention Trundle has amazing sustain you shouldn't need to worry about dodging a single ability with a summoner spell. Secondly you wont need to flash over walls either. Trundle can follow and/or catch up to anyone on your own team and you have 2 abilities that help you can distance when being chased. Now Ghost increases your ability to get away from a tight spot, but it does so much more. Trundle has to be attacking a target, and ghost makes you stick to whoever it is you're targeting much better than a single flash that lets you land a single Chomp. My strongest argument is that Ghost WILL get you 1-3 kills every single game before mid game. It will secure your first gank. It can make you chase down the enemy jungler in their on jungle when you counter gank and it will help you run past those warded bot lanes. Take Ghost.

Smite this is somewhat self explanatory. You are jungling, and this increases your jungling clear time. A nice benefit is how early and efficiently you can dragon. I have solo'd dragon at level 8 with just a Wriggle's Lantern and i bet you can probably do it sooner, however usually you would just get help. You can tank it very early though and you will gain like 400 life when it dies, pretty awesome!

King's Tribute This is a pretty neat champion passive, definitely one of the better ones. This helps you jungle immensely. It also makes you heal tons off of dragon, and gain a nice amount of bonus health in team fights. My only note on this is try to have your Frozen Kingdom active when you are about to kill either blue or red buff, dragon or an enemy champion. You'll heal more:)


I max Chomp first, finishing at level 9. Chomp is the core of Trundle's entire gameplay design, without it he is almost useless. Chomp steals damage from enemy champions. This means you can rush an ADC use Chomp and tank anything he can dish out. This is so effective early game. Unless backed up with a lot of support an ADC just shouldn't be able to kill you for the first portion of the game. This lets you gank bot lane with much less risk than other junglers. You can almost assume you CANNOT die unless their jungler or mid shows up for back up. Use chomp throughout the game on the ADC and AD Bruiser champions, diminishing their damage output and increasing yours. This skill also just naturally makes you a great dueler.

Frozen Kingdom is Trundle's next ability i focus on maxing out asap. Finishing all 5 levels by level 13. This steroid ends up being an 80% attack speed increase for 8 seconds.. That's almost as good as Rapid Fire. It also has a substantial move speed increase which helps Trundle stick to his targets or get out of dangerous situations. Lastly and most importantly it has a 20% increased healing buff. This synergies with Subjugate and King's Tribute, which is what makes Trundle so naturally tanky. It also increases all the life steal from this build, in both my masteries and item purchases.

Pillar of Ice is your main ability for catching up to enemies. It also either fully or partially blocks off many choke points, pins opponents against terrain and has a slight knockback. This move has some champion interactions, an example is placing it in front of a Zac just before he launches from Elastic Slingshot will prevent him from going anywhere :). The slow and cooldown change with level but his other abilities have much better scaling with levels. As an important ability of Trundle i pick this up at level 3 but max it last.

Subjugate... Holy, this spell is crazy. You steal 1/4 of your opponents life, and 40% of their resistances. This makes anything an easy target. The bulkier a Shen gets the more bulky you will become in team fights when you focus down the enemy carries. It makes you win duels, it heals you TONS of life against opponents peaking 3000 life or more. This skill is absolutely amazing, it makes Trundle effective at fighting so many champions. It even makes Yorick wimpy. Plus if you Chomp an enemy you also steal some AD in addition to all of this :p, I level this whenever possible.

I choose 9/21/0 masteries on Trundle.
I take improved Ghost and the basic AD based masteries available with 9 points for Weapon Expertise .
I put the majority of my points in defense because Trundle naturally has great damage output but his strengths mostly come from stealing stats off of enemy champions. I like the damage champion based damage reduction from Unyielding and Block and 3% total damage reduction Honor Guard from the defensive tree rather than some extra burst available from the offensive tree Executioner . I also take all of the slow resistance Relentless and tenacity Tenacious available from the defensive tree to makes sure you are less likely to be kited and have as much time being able to attack as possible. The longer Trundle lives the more enemies you have to watch bleed out on your Tundra.

MARKS
I choose flat attack damage marks to strengthen the damage from your Chomp and auto attacks. I don't recommend armor pen runes over flat damage. You don't really have any physical damage spells besides your Q and AD scales amazingly with your Chomp.

SEALS
Flat armor seals are practically standard for all junglers. You will want the flat armor bonus starting at level 1.

GLYPHS
Scaling magic resist is to improve your durability as the game progresses. You shouldn't see too much magic damage early, so scaling is superior to flat.

QUINTS
Originally i was using flat attack damage quints, but i found i was purchasing too many health pots until i could afford wriggles. I figured i could save myself about 200 gold a game on health pots and that extra 6 damage wasn't 100% mandatory. It helps you keep your health high as you jungle pre wriggle's and also helps you in those early counter jungle situations. I strongly believe these are the most effective quints for Trundle.

I find jungling is more about your play style than anything else, however i can give you some tips you can take into ranked queue and come up on top.
If i start BLUE TEAM i take blue buff with help and without using smite, then i directly head over to take red and use smite. This should give you a quick level 3, after learning Pillar of Ice i gank either middle or bottom. you should be level 3 when the other lanes are probably just turning 2. Also some junglers like Lee Sin tend to take red then level 2 gank top(purple team). If his gank isn't successful you will already be a level ahead of their jungler. I take blue first just so i end up on the bottom half of the map after i take red.

If i start PURPLE TEAM then i do the opposite. I start red, smiteless, then head over to blue buff and do the same thing as above.

The only time this changes is when i spot or suspect someone stealing my buff. Usually its a blue buff steal if thats the case i just start red on either team and then directly move across the river and take their blue. Since you didn't use Smite you will be able to finish it very quickly, You'll also be able to escape if he does spot you as you finish it.

throughout the whole jungling lane phase as you clear you spawns i try to see where the enemy jungler is spending his time. In some of the lower ELO i find people tend to stay in a certain zone of the map. For example Hecarim playing on the purple team might gank top then wraiths, gank mid, mini golems, wraiths, gank mid, gank top, mini golems, wraiths, etc. Never really making their way to bottom unless there's something going on. This actually happens a lot. It's really not even that bad of an idea. you will between those lanes so frequently it will be hard for them to play aggressive, especially because of the mobility of Hecarim.
In these situations i invade jungle he isn't really using. this could mean free wolves all game and even better, really late blue buff timing on his part. This is really good you can pretty much steal his blue, gank middle on your way to your own blue to give to your ally mid laner. otherwise just get that Wriggle's Lantern and beatdown the enemy jungler. As i have mentioned before Trundle honestly just doesn't lose 1v1's and even if back up happens or someone has red buff and you dont. They wont catch you. Not even Hecarim

Lastly about ganking, try not to use your Pillar of Ice right away. Get up close and lay on some beats before using it. After an enemy flashes you can usually knock them back a little and slow them, this can be enough for you to land another bite, or you ally get in range for followup. Pillar is also a great ability for when some makes it into the brush. just throw it in their and you can either knock them out of it, or push them against the wall making them half to walk around it. You will find your ganks more successful if you hold onto your Pillar.

Let me start with the assumption you have completed your CORE ITEMS.

Ravenous Hydra is how you keep yourself in the game. Without it you will take too long clearing the jungle, pushing or just farming a lane. This really does make a huge difference and is why it is a CORE item. You have to buy this every game!
Because of Spirit Visage you should find in those mid game skirmishes(2-3 champions per team) any champion that's damage source is magic based wont be able to burst you. Even if you take a Summon: Tibbers to the face you can just Subjugate the bulkiest enemy around and with your Frozen Kingdom you will be healthy in no time. Your sustain and magic resist will help you make better decisions in fights because you wont be forced to target the AP carry. This means in Jungle skirmishes you can prevent the enemy AD carry from racking up any lucky triple kills.
As long as you don't take a substantial amount of damage all at once you will be able to tank a TON of damage. This will increase to a nearly unstoppable point when you are beating down enemy champions with your accumulative 33% Life Steal(15+12+6). The best part is with your Frozen Kingdom healing and attack speed buff in combination with Ravenous Hydra You will be healing SO MUCH LIFE.
I mean you can be beating up a Mordekaiser with Sona and Ezreal beating on you and it wont make a difference. With you leaching away Morde's life and resistances you can kill him, and immediately switch targets to Ezreal.
The key to keeping Trundle alive is whenever you are getting bursted too quickly back out, they wont be able to catch you. Then rush back in on a defenseless Sona. Gain your life back and jump right back in. As enemy champions fall you gain life back, you can steal life and resistances with Subjugate, you can steal attack damage with Chomp, AND!! you can split up the enemy team with Pillar of Ice or just use it block escape routes. Trundle is strongest on his Frozen Kingdom so try not to use it as a gap closer but then fight off of it once you start the fight. It's a 15 second cooldown without reduction so i would suggest using your Pillar of Ice to initiate a team fight.

I think my favourite mid to have on your team is Anivia. Her entire toolkit is perfect for Trundle. With Crystallize and your Pillar of Ice you can keep the enemy wherever you want them to be. You can also very easily split apart the enemy team team. You will just naturally make team fights a pain and you make retreating for you team very easy. Anivia also has a slow and a stun with pretty good range which is great for follow up, plus a enemy that is effected by Subjugate will drop so fast in her Glacial Storm O.o
above all else this will make for some very great mid & jungler skirmishes. Because even if Anivia gets bursted they wont have a kill yet. They need to kill the egg because of Rebirth. In this time you can just obliterate them, and because Trundle makes enemies weaker they might not even be able to finish off the egg :p.
Plus.. they are both Ice type.

Other than Anivia you'll basically just look for people with manipulating abilities. Anything that makes things hard for the enemy. Blitzcrank is great because you can Rocket Grab an enemy and follow up with a Pillar of Ice to keep the enemies from saving him. Lissandra is good too for her ability to keep up with you and fight around you slowing and and damaging the enemies. She also has great follow up when you gank her lane.

I would look to have ADC's with high mobility like Ezreal Corki Vayne. Trundle moves pretty quickly and its nice if your ADC can keep up. It also mean when you are retreating you wont be leaving your poor buddy behind. Ashe is also pretty awesome for the constant slow, and amazing long range ultimate.

Trundle is strong against a ton of competitive champions such as; Lee Sin, Yorick, Riven, Darius, Jax, Xin Zhao, Hecarim.

You have much more sustain than these champions inherently in your abilities, and you take away the stats they need so desperately. They all lose 20 attack damage which already hurts but on characters than gain bulkyness like Xin Zhao or Jax from their ultimates just make you bulkier.
There will always be an enemy champion in each game you play you can just abuse with Subjugate.