High tempo champion
Udyr has a very high clear speed and base dmg, but needs to farm just a little early game in order to start overtaking the map. His dmg is also good in fights after 1 dmg item and grows very well with every next dmg item. After getting ahead, his dmg is so high that farming become more of a side-task, not a chore, as you farm really really quick with more dmg items(or dark seal).

Great scaling
He doesn't only have good base dmg and ratios, but he converts most dmg to max health dmg and benefits from max health a lot in tankier builds with his w, allowing him to scale extremely well in both dmg and tank categories as long as he is building well.

Amazing versatility
Udyr has 4 basic abilities which can be aweakened by his passive, massively increasing their performance and adding additional effects to them. This means he has 8 total abilities he can cast in any situation and 5 abilities he can cast at the same time.
-Any item he buys synergyses very well with some part of his kit, he can build both ap/ad and health, and he has many effects on his abilities based on what he maxes and builds arround, allowing him to buil ANY item in the shop as long as he builds around it or it's idea.

Verry effective
Udyr is not only versatile, but very effective at what he is trying to do as long as he focuses on a specific part of his kit: for example his q and r deal a lot of dmg, so if he focuses on high dmg items he can oneshot people, he has good w scalings and ratios, so if he focuses on a very tanky setup, he will be close to unkillable.

Doesn't like dying and getting invaded
The main thing that will make the general Udyr player fail or feel bad playing him is dying early-mid game, as the champion requires to consume a lot of gold in order to build a lead and tempo the map or in order to scale, both being pretty easy, considering his high dmg upon 1st item.

#1-Strengths

1- Can fit multiple roles:
Very high ratios and high base stats upon maxing an ability, is capable of both carrying a team and supporting a carry by frontlining.

2- Great effective versatility:
Aside from having high ratios, his abilities do very diferent things and apply many effects, allowing for Udyr to pick between multiple choices of playstyles and builds according to the situation and also be very effective at what he's trying to do.

3- Tempo and scaling:
Udyr can play for both tempo and scaling, as long as the right build and playstyle is chosen for each situation.

4- One of the best for onetricking:
Amazing to onetrick as the champion is not only strong and capable of fitting into any team comp, but also has some niche specifics and limits with the different builds that can only be learned and understood by one-tricking and may catch many foes lacking, while allowing the Udyr player to explore different playstyles exclusive to Udyr.

#2-Weaknesses:

1-Vulnarable to early invades:
Udyr doesn't have an ultimate, but 4 basic abilities, meaning he is intended to use all four of them early and is weak without having all of them, therefore he can't gang pre first clear and can get very behind if he is invaded with the wrong setup(if he needs to play for tempo for example, but is set behind from the invade).

2- No dashes as a melee character:
As a melee champion that has immense dmg scalings he lacks instant mobility such as dashes, which can be pretty irritating or even limiting at times.

3- Innability to completely use the whole kit:
The cost of him being so versatile is the inability of abusing 100% of his kit at all times as you have 6 max ranks in all abilities instead of the traditional 5 and 3 for the ultimate, forcing you to make a choice at what to max and what setup to use in order to abuse the kit as best as possible.

#1- Udyr has a cooldown of 6 seconds on each of his abilities.

#2- Udyr has an internal cooldown of 2 seconds on his 3 abilities upon castin the 4th- when casting any ability all of the rest abilities enter 2 seconds cooldwn.

#3- Udyr's abilities have 6 ranks each the base power/effect of each ability is stronger than with other champions at rank 6, meaning that you scale with levels as much as you scale with items(so you can max your abilities as much as possible).

#4- The sigificanse of one more ap item or one more tank item can be the diference between you feeling very tanky/squishy or very strong/weak in terms of dmg due to your high ratios, but also due to your mentality. With dmg builds you rank up the dmg ability+e mainly, while on tank you max w way earlyer.

#5- Ultimate haste and diferent effects that prock upon casting ultimate(such as experimental hexplate's burst move/attack speed) would apply to Udyr's passive upon aweakening any ability instead of applying to his r, and dmg related effects(such as malignance's burn passive) trigger upon aweakening q and r and dealing dmg with them.

#6- Effective versatility: ***ide from having high ratios from the stats you buy on your abilities, you also gain and apply many additional effects such as: increased attack speed, healing, stun, slow, unstopable effect and etc. which effects are pretty strong and together with both your high base power and ratios you are not only versatile, but pretty strong in whatever you decide to do/build arround.

Q:
1- You build arround your q when you want burst dmg

2- The lighnings from aweakening scale with both lvl and ap, not with the rank of the ability.

3- The lighnings don't deal isolation dmg like kha'zix's q as the ability says, but are instead spread out if multiple enemies are close to the target, making it feel as an isolation ability so you don't actually lose dmg, it just spreads.

4- Speaking about the lighnings, if you aweaken q and instantly swap form(cast e for example), the lighnings would still fall if you auto attack unless the effect ends before you auto-attack.

W:
1- Its advisable to aweaken mainly when you build arround it or in very specific situations where you need the survivability

2- Awekaneing w heals, therefore it's better to use it after you have taken dmg.

3- The w's auto attack with both aweakened and non-aweakened w gives life-steal and additionally heals scaling with ap, meaning that auto'attacking after pressing w'(or aweakening it) will always heal you regardless of what dmg type you are building(good for sustain farming or when every point of heal is important).

4- The ability is insanely powerful early game-the base shield and healing is just too high to not use when having to frontline(sometimes it's better to kill the enemies by outsustaining them rather than oneshoting them)

E:
1- As the ability says, e has decaying move speed, meaning that it is best to use e, run a little and then aweaken e if you are trying to have as much move speed as possible.

2- Any slowing effect that has been cast on you will not be removed by your aweakened e, you will only be unstopable for 1.5 seconds and then remain slowed again.

3- Unlike other unstopable abilities of other champions, your e is a true unstopable, meaning that even in the case you are stunned while unstopable is active, you won't be stunnied afterwards.

4- Your auto-attack with e is counted as a dash, meaning that rune and ability effects related to dashes also work for your e when you auto-attack with it active.

R:
1- You build arround it when you want or are fine with having overtime or aoe dmg.

2- You build arround it when you want the capability to remotely dmg enemies.

3- The base dmg that it usually deals will also be dealt while it is being aweakened(not only the max health will be dealt, meaning that it is very strong against squishies as well, since the max health ratio si not that much, compared to q).

4- Your r speed after thrown out depends on the distance between it and you based on lvl.

5- The aweakened r will follow anything you auto-attack, except if it dies from the auto-attack.

6- Awealen r CANNOT move through terrain, any terrain-creating champion can counter it.

Should I itemize to tank, should I build dmg? Should I be more of a Juggernaut or should i be more of a Skirmisher?

Those are usually dificult questions at first, but with experience and time they become pretty obvious once you are familiar to the champion and his interactions. Regardless, here are some tips in what category would fit the best the game you play in:

1- Tankier builds are anoyng against enemeis that can't kill tanks and when your team has dmg, and the opposite, it would be very bad aginast vayne or master yi for example, or if your team has no dmg(or not enough dmg if enemies are tanky).

2- Higher dmg categories are prone die a lot easyer, so they would be hard to impossible without some form of frontlining from your team.

3- The most important thing about each category is understanding the mentality. Tankier build are not only tanky just because you bought one more tank item instead of dmg, but also because every single item you bought contributes to you being tankier, meaning that you set yourself to be tanky from the begining of the game, not mid game.

4- The same way, with dmg focused builds, every item is supposed to make you deal dmg and/or increase your tempo while making you capable of surviving(as you are a melee character), the tank items you might buy in skirmisher or bruiser or not supposed to primarely only make you tankier if you have no dmg (you can't really be a tank with 2 tank items, c'mon.)

Teamcomp-related tips!
1- Look at the dmg to tank ratio of the enemies against your team.
1-It is pointles to build full tank if your enemies have extremely low dmg even
if you are solo frontline. This is why Juggernaut exists...
2-It is pointless to go tank with two very tank oriented teammates, just go bruiser, your team probably lacks dmg.

2- Understand if a category would be entirely countered by the enemies and why:
1-Anti-tank champions are generaly also good against Juggernaut and Bruiser
2-High flat burst dmg champions are generally good against squishies, A.K.A
skirmsher and glasscanon and bad against tanks.

The concept of exceling and doing one specific thing vs stacking multiple stats and doing multiple tasks

Exceling represents being very effective at a specific thing: dealing dmg or tanking or being quick and dealing a lot of aoe and etc. It is usually good against enemies that also excel at something as long as you counter that thing: For example high dmg enemies might be susceptable to being oneshot, so builds that excel at dealing dmg might be best for them, same counts vs tanks if your team needs a tank for example(So that you can counter the enemy's frontline capacity by frontlining for a long time yourself).
- Exceling is usually amazing at scaling, as you are focusing on ones stat/role, full tank and glasscanon are good examples.

Multitasking: represents the stacking of multiple stats together and flexing into a more mixed role meaning that you don't deal the most dmg and you are not the tankiest but you can decently tank dmg and deal dmg(this counts for other things as well, such as being quick, disrupting enemies, anything that you might be doing), making you very effective with other teammates that also stack multiple things and flex into tanky+dmg categories(such as bruisers like Darius, who deals some dmg but is also a frontline and relies on frontlines to exist) or teammates that can react to your build, for instance: Juggernaut can both engage the enemy adc for dmg and threat to disrupt them from fighting freely or can just stay infront of his team to simply soak the adc's dmg.
-Multitasking/Multistacking is better when ahead, as when you are ahead your enemeis just don't have an answer to your mixture of dmg and tankines, can scale if you are vs enemeis that just can't excel enough at something to bring you down(or if your teammates are very good for that playstyle)

Should i go Ap or Ad?

Sometimes it is more important to pick the dmg form for the specific interactions and effects of your abilities rather than for the need of ap or ad in the team.

1- Enemies are all extremely squishy low mobility range champions but they will oneshot me if I frontline, you go Ap Skirmisher or Ap Glasscanon and let your ultimate deal with them for you instead of getting death close to them if u cant survive.

2- Master yi destroyes everything and everyone very fast, he must be shut down
extremely quickly-no version of Ap can do this, Ad can do it very effectively, go
Ad regardless of your team.

The dmg input between Ad and Ap with the same number of items is different!

1- When going Ad tank you will deal a lot more dmg than with ap tank, but it is going to be single target instead of aoe with a slow. Same is with the other builds/categories, your q base max health dmg is higher at rank 6 than your r rank 6 dmg, meaning you will deal more dmg with ad if you can perform the 4 auto-attacks with q.

2- Your r may deal less dmg, but it still deals a lot of dmg to squishies and decent dmg to tanky enemies with high ap focused builds. It's dmg is way easyer to acces as you can abuse it even when you can't auto attack or even release it to dmg enemies from afar, and it is also an aoe.
-In tankier builds it also provides slow consistently.

The mentality of a pure tank is to quite literally to just soak dmg while providing some form of utility or dmg to your team. You are only allowed to go 1 dmg item as a first item and a dark seal at most, the rest is tank items and utility tank items that allow you to frontline so your team can finish the fight.

As a tank you aweaken w mostly mid-late game or your e when engage is more needed than tankines.

Generally stronger when scaling or at the end of mid-game.

You can always convert to a higher dmg category if needed by buying more dmg items.

The juggernaut's main priority is being tanky enough to outsustain his enemies in order to kill them himself, or to provide significant dmg so that his team finishes the fight while he tanks. Perfect for games where the enemies don't have enough dmg to either deal with you alone or together with another frontline regardles of how tanky they are(You are still the main frontline, unless you have Ornn for example).

You aweaken mostly your w. You can aweaken your dmg in very nieche situations where your dmg will end the fight. You can aweaken e if engage is more important than tankines.

Generally stonger when ahead/when scaling into low dmg teams.

You can always convert to a higher dmg form after buying 2 ap items if needed by simply buying more dmg items.

You are trying to mainly deal dmg while also having enough sustaing to support-tank another frontline. The priority is still dmg, therefore it is perfect for games with other frontlines that can tank the enemy's dmg for you while you focuse on exterminating them and providing just enough frontlining so that your other frontlines don't soak all the dmg by themselves.

You generaly aweaken your primary dmg ability(q-ad, r-ap) or w if you are in mortal danger or to mitigate unexpected dmg, or of course e for engage when it's more needed than the rest.

Generally stronger when ahead, can scale into immobile squishy comps.

You can always advance to a higher dmg category, or to revert to a tankier category by simply changing the number of dmg/tank items you have if they would fit the category(Don't sell items, please!)

The skirmisher deals very high dmg while being only as tanky as to not get oneshot upon engaging. The primary focus is dmg and speed, this category is best played when you have a frontline or when you know you have to provide your team with dmg rather than frontlining(against specific enemies, or with a good team composition).

You always aweken your dmg ability, unles the enemy is very low/squishy and you need to engage with e.

You can always revert to bruiser as long as you have items that would fit the category by simply buying more tank items if you don't have 4 ap items(bruiser works with 3 and you don't want to sell).

Primarely good when ahead, can scale into squishier comps that can't kill him before he kills them(with frontline for example or if they have hard to hit skillshots that you can just dodge with higher speed.)

Additionaly don't buy heavy tank items if you don't deal enough dmg, as lacking both tankines and dmg could be critical(and you only buy max 2 tank items so u aint a tank for sure).

The glasscanon is entirely supposed to deal dmg without being tanky at all, or by being only as tanky as to get to their target and completely obliterate them.

You only aweaken your dmg abilities, except for very very specific situations when you know you need the engage more.

If ap: Primarely stronger when scaling, can be op if ahead, but his true power is felt at 5 items.

If ad: Primarely stronger when ahead, his dmg scales but he needs to go melee do deal dmg, so most range high dmg champions kill him late-game if without frontline/good engage, but he oneshots them as well once in melee range.

You can never convert to another category as the glasscanon requires a specific setup that is entirely chosen to increase your dmg and scalings..

Udyr if it was a Build

It may sound funny, but the idea of hybrid is to buy every core stat in the game, except for speed and pen items. This build uses most of Udyr's kit and holds the greatest possible versatility an Udyr build could ever have, as you build everything and can potentially aweaken every ability in different situations.

Generally strong if ahead rather than when scaling, as building into multiple categories/stats is extremely powerful when ahead, as you don't only kill the enemies that are behind but you also don't die, while if enemies scale into one specific category, they can outperform you in that

Regardles of that, even if enemies outperform you in any category, your other stats(tankines, some aoe, some single target dmg etc.) can also be pretty disgusting when paired with a good team

You always max q and r and can max either e or w afterwards depending on what you want, as you have enough ad to make e stronger and enough survivability to make w stronger.

The infinite possible combinations of items you can get in the last 2 slots(read the build notes) enhance the idea of maxing whatever ability you want 3rd even more(q and r are a must).

There are not many things to be explained about hybrid Udyr, as the possibilities are so many that it can only be learned form experience, but it is also extremely hard to play, as you are trying to get the best of all worlds simultanously while fighting against oponents that often excel at killing you. Still you can follow those mainpoints as a starter:

1- Out of all Udyr builds, your early-mid game dmg is generally higher and this build deals the most possible dmg to isolated enemies and objectives regardless of their early game itemization.

2- The previously said allows for very quick farming against single target camps, while the ap you build helps you clear the raptors/golems/wolves faster as well

3- Even if the build might look weak when standing in a middle of a wave or a teamfgiht(as u cant aweaken q there for it's full dmg and you are building ap), you can still aweaken r and auto-attack your enemy allowing for the use of both your Ad and Ap at a fight regardless of what dmg ability you aweaken.

4- You are building everything! Therefore you need to try to do everything: With ad Udyr you try to auto-attack consistently, with ap Udyr- you try to constantly keep the r on for the burn, with tank Udyr, you focus on not dying by turning w on, hybrid abuses all 3 mechanics together.

5- The build has so much ability haste that the previous point can be easelly achieved(the internal cooldown of your abilities is low) and since you max q you will also have high attack speed, making the swap of abilities mixed with auto-attacking very natural and fluid in fights.

6- With the main build, the high tankines allows for aweakening of w while gaining speed from your runes, which works mostly against at least 2+ mele characters that are worth hitting. With the second variation you upgrade e a little so you can potentially play it into squishies and range characters.

7-You always take more effective forms agains full or high squishy comps: hybrid is way better at replacing traditional /juggernaut/bruiser/skirmisher category rather than being capable of hunting down high dmg range targets, altho the second build might somewhat work as well.

8- Of all forms and categories of Udyr, you have THE HIGHEST ammount of anti-tank dmg, building both Ap and Ad while being capable of also buying both shreds and being tanky yourself, making you very good vs tanks and bruisers...

Don't ever build in ranked pls, your teammates are humans in most cases, not some bots made to bear with your(my) stupid ideas.

A shoutout to Williefknp: an ex Udyr one-trick streamer, he is my inspiration for Hybrid and many of the ideas in this guide:

https://www.youtube.com/@lolWillieP
https://www.youtube.com/@WilliefknP