Hecarim is a horse. Horses are really fast. Nobody can run away. Nobody lives. Ever. A jungling Hecarim can be worse than just about any other jungle (barring Amumu because of his ult). You will fill your enemy with fear, and their inventories with wards. His clear times are fairly fast, and your movespeed will make trying to counterjungle you a bad idea.

Utility Tree:

These are gameplay tested, ranked approved.
-You could possibly swap in Greater Mark of Attack Speed, but in the end greater mark of armor penetration will be thousands of times more useful than a little attack speed.
-Flat armor is perfect
-I have seen a few runs of 3 Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, 6 Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist. Personally, I think 9 Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist gives you more than enough tankiness early on, and turns you into a real beast last game.
- Do not use any other quint. Combined with Warpath you gain a good amount of AD end game. The real perks of these come from your ability to be so much more mobile. You travel faster to your camps and to lanes, making you able to gank more often.

Smite You're jungling. You need smite. No exceptions.

Ghost You are fast horse, you want to be faster. The movespeed gives you more AD. It lets your Devastating Charge hit harder because you gain damage over distance traveled.

OR Flash could work, but I prefer Ghost every match. You shouldn't need to flash away, or let the enemy get away at all.

Hecarim ignores unit collision and gains attack damage equal to 10% / 12.5% / 15% / 17.5% / 20% / 22.5% / 25% of his bonus movement speed.

Active: Hecarim cleaves nearby enemies, dealing physical damage. This skill deals only 66% damage to minions and monsters. If Hecarim damages at least one enemy unit with this attack, he gains a stack of Rampage, reducing the base cooldown of this skill by 1 second for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 2 times. Range:350 Cooldown:4 seconds Cost:25 mana Physical damage: 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+ 60% bonus AD) Minion/monster damage: 39.6 / 62.7 / 85.8 / 108.9 / 132 (+ 40% bonus AD)

Active: Hecarim surrounds himself with the spirit of dread for 4 seconds, dealing magic damage per second to all enemies within its reach. Additionally, Hecarim is healed for 20% of the damage dealt by any source to enemies within the area. Healing from damage dealt to minions is capped per cast. Range:525 Cooldown:22/21/20/19/18 seconds Cost:50/60/70/80/90 mana Magic damage per second: 20 / 31.25 / 42.5 / 53.75 / 65 (+ 20% AP) Maximum damage: 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 (+ 80% AP) Minion healing cap: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180

Active: Hecarim gains 75% movement speed, starting with initial 25% upon cast, over the course of 3 seconds, ending one second afterward. His next attack knocks the target back, dealing physical damage based on how far Hecarim has traveled during Devastating Charge's duration. While Hecarim is charging, he gains 150 extra attack range (325 total). Cooldown:24/22/20/18/16 seconds Cost:60 mana Minimum physical damage: 40 / 75 / 110 / 145 / 180 (+ 50% bonus AD) Maximum physical damage: 80 / 150 / 220 / 290 / 360 (+ 100% bonus AD)

Active: Hecarim summons spectral riders and charges forward with them in a line, dealing magic damage to enemies in their path. The wave of spectral riders will travel the maximum distance possible in the direction of cast, regardless of where Hecarim himself stops. Hecarim releases a shockwave at the location he finishes his charge at, dealing additional magic damage to enemies within his range and forcing them to flee in terror from Hecarim for 1 second. Range:1000 Cooldown:140/120/100 Cost:100 mana Charge magic damage: 100 / 200 / 300 (+ 80% AP) Shockwave magic damage: 50 / 125 / 200 (+ 40% AP) Total damage: 150 / 325 / 500 (+ 120% AP)

I have seen some Hecarims start Spirit of Dread. I don't feel that it really gives you anything extra with this build. Pick it up second, have a faster clear on wolves and blue, use the pots you bought.

Starting Items:
Hunter's Machete You do 10% more damage to monsters and minions, as well as 10 true damage. You want to start this for any jungle since the Season 3 changes.
Health Potion You want 5 of these because jungling hurts.

First Trip Back
Spirit Stone This boosts the passive from Hunter's Machete to 20% bonus damage. You also gain 14 health regen per 5 seconds, as well as 7 mana regen per 5.
Boots These will increase your clear time by letting you move faster, and do more damage because of Warpath.
Sight ward More is better. You want to have vision of as much of the map as possible. It is not a support only job. You roam more of the map.

After a Few Ganks:
Giant's Belt will give you more health so you can stay out longer, and be able to tank more for your team.
Kindlegem Gives you 200 health and 10% cooldown reduction. You can tank even more, as well as spam your Rampage faster.
Mercury's Treads You gain more movespeed, as well as tenacity to help you cut through CC. You don't want to be locked up going in to the enemy team.
Locket of the Iron Solari This prevents you from getting turned into glue. 300 Health, 35 armor, 10 health regen per 5, 10% cdr, and a scaling shield? Yes, please.
Spirit of the Elder Lizard Gives you 45 AD, as well as a 6-40 true damage DoT on every autoattack, Rampage, Devastating Charge, and Onslaught of Shadows.
Vision Ward You need to start getting these to clear out enemy wards. Dragon should be contested soon. Give your enemy no vision of it.
sight ward to keep track of the enemy.

To Round It All Off
Warmog's Armor More health and health regen.
Sunfire Aegis Adds in 40 AoE damage to proc more healing from Spirit of Dread. Adds 45 armor and 450 health.
Spirit Visage If you are getting nuked by the APC this gives you 50 magic resist. 200 more health, 20% CDR, and increases healing, regeneration, and drain effects on you by 20%. Spirit of Dread just got even better.
Iceborn Gauntlet Gives you 70 armor, 10% more CDR, a 30% slow, a 125% base AD auto attack every every spell cast, 30 AP, and 500 mana. That's a lot of stats, and for a reasonable amount of gold. I hold off on this unless I need it because of the cost, and because I feel that the stats from items listed earlier will benefit you more.
sight ward Vision Ward Oracle's Elixir Take as much map vision as you can get, and get rid of your enemy's vision.

Standard Start
As Hecarim you need to start blue buff. At 1:40 your wolves will spawn. With help from your mid laner and top (if blue side) or bottom (if purple side) take wolves, and then immediately to blue. Clear the camp with smite if you get very little help from your lanes. Level 1 smite does 490 true damage. Be sure to use it to finish off the buff. This will ensure it will not be stolen by an enemy, or an accidental steal by a teammate. From here you move on to your wraith camp, back to your wolf camp, then to your red buff. Make sure to note that smite deals 550 true damage at level 3, this means less time on the buff and more time ganking lanes. Now you can either gank, or take your wraiths again to reach level 4.

Smiteless Blue Start


Smiteless Red Start

This is your bread and butter. As Hecarim you have no stun, but you have a knockback. You will need to active your E shortly before you arrive to lane. Be sure to let your teammate know you are coming. Early on you are not incredibly tanky, and you could end up getting yourself killed trying to solo the top laner. Ask where things are warded if you can, or keep an eye on your minimap to see where people travel. Normally you can catch a support walking up towards Dragon from bottom, add 3 minutes to your time, and you know when the ward will be down. This doesn't mean you can't still gank, but you will want to find a way around the ward.

Blue Side Ganks


Purple Side Ganks

As a jungler you need to do a few things.

1.Ward the jungle. Yours and your enemies.
2.Watch lanes to see where you need to gank, or even just present yourself to add/relieve pressure.
3.Control your buffs.
4.Control map objectives.
5. Control the pace of the game through ganks and pressuring lanes.

Through your use of wards you should know when your enemy's camps will be available. Being able to steal away a buff from your enemy jungler puts them behind. You gain the experience, the gold, and the power. Blue and red buff are on a 5 minute respawn timer.

Knowing where to be takes time and practice. Some lanes you may never need to gank. Some lanes may need you to gank every couple minutes. It depends on who you are playing with. Occasionally you may just need to walk in to a lane to scare your enemies away. If this case arises, you have done a good job.

Always know when dragon will be up. Even if you didn't get the last one, pass the camp, get a timer, ward it. If you had Dragon warded when the enemy took it, it's on a 6 minute respawn timer. Use this to get the next one, or steal it away before they can take it. The same thing goes for Baron.

Controlling the pace of the game is crucial as a jungler. If you take a long time between your ganks without invading the enemy jungle, you will be losing out on experience, map pressure, and most importantly, control the pace. You are a mobile horse, you need to be ganking, clearing your camps, and ganking more. The more often you gank, the more pressure you put on the enemy lanes to hold while outnumbered, and the enemy jungler to respond with a gank of their own. You are one of the fastest junglers in terms of clear time and movespeed. Take advantage of your horse gifts.

Controlling the map also means knowing when to push and when to not push. If you can teamfight and take down an inhibitor before the enemy respawns, it is always a good idea. Knowing when to push to win, and when to back off means the difference between winning and losing. A good player in general knows when it is safe to take map objectives. Do not try to take dragon with their entire team up in laning phase. It is a bad idea (most of the time).

This is not and end all, be all ward guide. These are just wards I have placed and have seen placed that help immensely. You have the most roaming capabilities of your team, so you should be placing a good percentage of wards.

While Hecarim is very strong, he is not ideal in every situation. A good idea of when not to pick Hecarim would be :

1. You would be the only crowd control on your team. This should be rare, but it happens. Try to avoid it.
2. Nobody on your team will be able to peel for your carries. Hecarim is a diver, not a peeler.
3. You take offense to My Little Pony smack talk from the other team. Some people just rage. There is an ignore function for a reason.

It would be a great idea to play Hecarim when:

1. You have people to peel for your carries already.
2. You need someone who can dive in and disrupt the enemy team.
3. You want to clippity clop your way through the enemy team with the wind blowing your magnificent mane.

Some good shots of what this build can do for you:



And what does still happen sometimes:



More matches to come, as well as some gameplay videos.