Hello fellow League of Legends players! First off I want to thank you for spending your valuable time reading my short-but-effective guide to topping with Udyr. This guide has one purpose: to share with you all what I have found to be the most effective way to play Udyr in lane. My hope is that you take parts of this guide, or this guide in its entirety, to better your play with one of the most overlooked and underrated champions in the game.

No champion is perfect (accept Jayce!) and as such we must address what our strengths and weaknesses are at the start so we know our limits.

Pros

Extremely Strong Early Burst
Strong Innate Sustain
Good Chase Potential
Stun

Cons

Mana Hungry Early
Easily Kited
If Behind not a Great Recovery
No 'Ult'
No Fast Gap Closer
Predictable

Runes for Udyr are pretty straight forward. Red AD if or better last hitting and Q harass. Yellow armors for better defense as you will usually be laning against an AD champion top (if not they still are good for negating early AA damage). Blues Mres for more early tankiness. Movement speed quints because you are weak in that you can be easily kited and you want to prevent this however you can- MS quints help you get on people. You can use scaling Mres or a mixture of flat and scaling if you are confident you wont need the mres in lane too much.

See Masteries Notes

See Skill Sequences Notes

Your Items try to cover your weaknesses to make you a bigger overall threat. This is why manamune and Blade of the Ruined King are CORE ITEMS. You have trouble closing gaps and you go through mana like a mad man. These items help you spam moves and close the gap when going for a kill. After that theres boots. Go for the best for a specific game; team have a lot of slows and you wan to close gap faster? Swiftness. Team have a lot of CC/magic dmg? Merc Treads. Lane opponent primarily physical dmg with AA's? Tabi. After that there is some flexibility with how you build. It is important to get tanky after your core items because Udyr needs to be up in peoples faces to do damage and if you are a squishy pansy you will be dead before you know it. Randuins if the other team have AS-based damage dealers, Visage if there is even a considerable threat of AP as it is a great item for the cost, GA if you seem to be getting focused, Warmogs if they have a true damage dealing nightmare (yi, vayne).

As always, focus on farming. The difference between bad players and good ones is that good ones realize the importance of high CS. Try to perfect your ability to last hit both away from and under turret. When you see your creeps get low prepare to harass your opponent if possible. Simply Bear in past your creeps with movement through minions and stun him. CONTINUE MOVING PAST HIM AS YOU SWITCH TO TIGER. This is super important as it means he will have to run past you as you tiger and have very strong trade potential. At this point you want to AA with tiger up then click the terrain towards the direction hes running, then AA, then click, going to bear again for a follow up stun if you think you can kill. Udyr is mean. Udyr is nasty. Think mean. Think Nasty. You want to get on someone (as long as creeps aren't a factor). You want to fight them. You are a beastly duelist and you should act like it.

I cannot stress this enough. I see many udyrs that play a passive lane with ghost and tele going straight tanky and ignoring all that mean early game potential. This is NOT the way Udyr was meant to be played. Proxy Phoenix has its place but it is not in this guide. You want to think you are one tough mother****. The other laner should be afraid of you from the minute you step into lane. Hardly any champ has a stronger level 2 than you and, creep waves aside, you can and SHOULD go for a kill on any player.

You have two options for teamfight play. 1) Go rambo for their carries (generally better to do this if you have assassin based players on your team such as Ahri, Zed, Fizz) else you should do tactic number 2) Peel for your carry if THEIR team has mean assassins and keep them pumping out the mad dps while helping to melt the opposing teams front line with your Botrk and manamune.

I realize this guide is want of the bells and whistles and pretty pictures of many guides but what I tried to include is the brass tacks of topping with Udyr. I am a firm believer that no guide should be followed 100% faithfully an for that reason I leave a lot of it on you guys to decide what you think works best. Give this guide a shot I guarantee, with a little patience and practice, you too will agree with my way of playing Udyr in lane. I want to leave by giving 5 key tips for success.

1) Practice makes perfect- it helps you learn your limits of damage dealing, learn matchups, learn how to effectively last hit under tower

2) Ward frequently and pay attention to enemy jungler's presence in other lanes

3) Look for early kills in your lane as you are a mean duelist early and should go for early kills

4) Know your role and know how to build on a game to game basis

5) Be positive! This is a game and it is meant to be fun. If you execute according to this guide good things will happen I can assure you!