Wukong Build Guide by Kuhrel
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Ability Sequence
Not Updated For Current Season
The masteries shown here are not yet updated for the current season, the guide author needs to set up the new masteries. As such, they will be different than the masteries you see in-game.
Masteries
Introduction
Hi! Welcome to my Wukong
build!
First of all i wish to explain some stuff about me and those build:
I'm european, so maybe my academic english cannot sound perfect or well written, and I apologize for that, if you find some language mistakes, just tell me and I'll make all the needed changes :).
This is a damaging build based on cooldown reductions, it grants a good damage output with your abilities and, most of all, the chance to use them very often.
This build has been created specifically for 3v3 and 5v5 fights, but can easily (with some changes) converted for Dominion matches.
This is my first build, so do not be too bad with me! XD. Every constructive criticism will be very well accepted!.
You may take a little time to master this gaming style with the monkey king, but I ensure you it is totally worth the time spent ;).
I also do not like abbreviating a lot, so I'm sorry but you'll have to read words as they really are XP.
Try before rating!!
Pros / Cons
Pros
-Good early game ganker
-Nice survivability thanks to Decoy
-Great damage output thanks to Crushing Blow and 
Sheen
-Very strong in late game
-Very low cooldowns
-Economic build (Good damage output begins since a few items are bought)
-Good crowd control effects
-Excellent versus turrets
Cons
-A little squishy in early game (If you not play carefully)
-Suffers a little from vision wards
-Not so resistant from spell damage (If you do not manage to avoid it)
-You get usually targeted in teamfights
-Susceptible to crowd control effects
Why not critical attack damage build
Thinking about wukong skills, especially Crushing Blow armor reduction and Nimbus Strike attack speed increase, you could ask why don't I simply build it like a quick ad critical? Well this is a VIABLE way to build wukong, but is extremely item-dependent and weaker at early game, most of all because it loses versus champions like 
Tryndamere and 
Master Yi (for their critical and ad passive increases) and lacks a little of slowing-effect abilities that can help you following champs with good mobility (without cooldown reduction you won't Nimbus Strike so often). In fact, as you may have noticed yet, most of all melee champions who are usually built with critical (Trynda and Yi are again a fitting example) have two skill which help them to keep a close distance, while wukong can only use Nimbus Strike because his ultimate ( Cyclone) is actually extremely useful for chasing, but it is not that useful if your purpose is to land basic attacks.
Nevertheless critical is actually useful, really useful, but i prefer stacking it step by step as an extra stat from items and maxing it at late game thanks to 
Infinity Edge as we'll see further.
And for last, and not less important, my build works well too, so i want to share my way to play this awesome char ;)
Runes
Greater Mark Of DesolationGreater Seal Of Vitality
Greater mark of desolation: Wukong deals only ad damage ( Decoy is not to be considered a damage skill) so you'll need those for piercing enemy armor.
greater seal of vitality: Hp seals allow you to be less squishy and to farm better creeps in the jungle. I use scaling seals because I think they provide a better hp increase than flat ones. I also choose to go hp because you cannot know enemy team's composition before time.
Why not magic resistance seals? Well just because they provide a little resistance which easily got lost during the game and because, as we will see, you should fear more melee champs than magic ones, mostly because thanks to your Decoy and high damage output you can beat them quite easily.
Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction and Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction: As I said, this build is based on cooldown reduction, so those runes are an obvious choice.
Masteries
For masteries I choose 13-17-0 in order to be less squishy in early game thanks to hp increases and damage reductions and to help farming fast jungle minions to get the gold required for your items.
More specifically in offensive masteries i pick only essential buffs like the armor penetration one and cooldown reduction, which helps damage outputting and ability rotations.
Summoner's Wrath mastery works also really well with your summoner spells. The last point in
In defensive I've chosen to increase again my initial (and not only) health by taking the flat Veteran Scars buff and the scaling one of Durability, while going on with cooldown reduction thanks to Enlightenment and useful tools to increase resistances and specific masteries for farming creeps (tough skin and bladed armor).
If you want to play dominion you could remove offensive Sorcery talent and go on till the last one in defensive, because you level really faster in this mode so you do not really need an "early" cooldown reduction buff but can simply go on with your scaling one (which becomes effective like the utility one, 6%, at level 13). You may also not take creep farming masteries and go for something else, but for 3 points (that may be placed in +6 magic resistance) i like keeping them on anti-minion masteries, so i can push a little better while I’m assigned bot or if I’m alone trying to conquer a defended turret (using my minions by beating theirs).
Summoner Spells
For summoner spells I usually take 
Exhaust and 
Ghost because I think they are really versatile. Exhaust allows you to hold on in fights with strong or feeded champs (allowing team ganks) and ghost is an extremely versatile spell which allows either chasing and escaping.
I do not pick up 
Flash (even if it is an awesome summoner spell) because Ghost combines better with your Nimbus Strike allowing you to reach even fast champs that are trying to run away.
Skill Sequence and Purchase Order
Before talking about the itemization, I'd like to explain you how the skill sequence benefit from the cooldown reductions and how it shall be used in various situations.
First, let's talk about benefits
Some stats
In this phase, just respect the purchase order at the top of the build until you have your 
Phage and you'll be fine. You can swap the order of Phage and 
The Brutalizer if you rather go a little more defensive or offensive depending on the situation (the defensive one is Phage just for stating that XD)
Thanks to runes, 
Ionian Boots of Lucidity and The Brutalizer your cooldowns are so drastically reduced that you will base your entire fighting combos on hitting with your skills and a few basic attacks. In fact your cooldowns will be dropped down so drastically that your Crushing Blow will have exactly (or a little less when you upgrade your The Brutalizer in yomuu's ghostblade) 3 secs cooldown! while your Nimbus Strike will have a little more than 4 seconds and your Decoy will have more or less 6 seconds cooldown.
Different game styles
Your gamestyle will depend a little from how is going your item purchase, more specifically
The 5.4K phase
The "5.4K phase" is the one while you'll only be using your attack damage by skills to hit your enemies, and it is so called because you will fill your inventory with exactly 5412 gold (initial doran's blade is not counted) to have those six items:
Thanks to Sheen even if your items do not give you an high attack damage increase you will still hit hard either with your crushing blows and standard attacks.
How? well, in this phase you will mainly holding the line by landing some powerful hit-and-run attacks thanks to the simple combo Nimbus Strike Crushing Blow Decoy, that is really useful. You just have to land an empowered attack after dashing (your dash deals damage too) and Decoy immediately to get back safe behind minions or a tower. After 2-3 hits like that, if you manage to dash again you can exhaust and get your kill with standard attacks if you have not bought yet your boots or finish him easily with another Crushing Blow.
When you are a little feeded or feel able to sustain the fight (as soon as you have your cd red boots and stick) you can play a little more aggressive by opening in the same way, with a Nimbus Strike+ Crushing Blow then land a basic attack and immediately decoy. Thanks to Crushing Blow armor reduction your basic attack will be quite damaging too, and will allow you to continue fighting. Why? Well this time you are not going to fall back after decoy, but you will stay just stick to your opponent without attacking. The 1.5 second of stealth granted by Decoy are indeed enough to reset your Crushing Blow cooldown! So you will appear again, untouched, and land another great hit on him. After that if they try to escape you will find that your 4s cd Nimbus Strike will be ready again just in time to reach him (even if he flashes!!) to land another basic attack empowered by Sheen. After that, you still can use your Cyclone to knock him in the air and finish the job, and if he's a tough one you can simply stay close to him until your Crushing Blow is again ready to pin him into the ground. If the target doesn't want to run, just wait a second or two of basic attacks to land another Crushing Blow and then use Cyclone. In this case your health bar may drop a little, but you can Decoy immediately after to finish the job with your always ready Crushing Blow and Nimbus Strike.
The Upgrade phase
The upgrade phase has this name simply because you will start upgrading every single item in your inventory to get a further empowerment. First of all you will finish 
Trinity Force to free some space in your inventory and for the benefit this item grants (move speed, more sheen damage and so on). We do not want to upgrade this item earlier just because you'll find that cooldown reduction and armor penetration from The Brutalizer and the health and slowing effect benefits from Phage will be really needed before 
Zeal's stats.
In this phase, you'll be simply become more and more aggressive, by increasing your critical and attack damage with all your items, and adding a little armor from 
Atma's Impaler which can keep alive in ganks. The gamestyle of this phase is mostly the same, except that you can decide to not use Decoy to wait for cooldowns as your standard attacks become good too. Also, your Crushing Blow's damage is highly empowered by critical strike boosted by Sheen. For LAST, just if you manage to make enough money, you should build Infinity Edge to maximize your damage output. I usually take this as the last item for it's high cost because is easiest and faster upgrading step by step all your items into their critical recipes than holding 4k gold to buy Infinity Edge. Remember that you'll also have to replace Doran's Blade to have enough space to carry this item, while others simply replace the ones you hold in your inventory. Anyway, you can go for Infinity Edge just after Trinity Force if you prefer.
At last, you must use your Decoy wisely in order to avoid great amount of damage. Remember that as you usually get focused in teamfight you can use this at your advantage by entering stealth (this causes players to lose their target) and reappear tu unleash your crowd control ( Cyclone and Exhaust).
In fact you may often need in teamfights to Decoy just as you get focused. Doing so will create confusion in enemy team and allows your teammates to engage them easily. Remember to use wisely your seconds in stealth! Repopping in a good position can be a great advantage!
Skill Upgrading Sequence
For gameplay purposes I explained above, is generally useful to max immediately your Crushing Blow and after that you should choose which one between Decoy and Nimbus Strike will be more effective to be upgraded first, depending on how the enemy team's composition is. Maxing Decoy will be useful in case of aggressive champs, so you can have your stealth tool ready every 6 seconds to avoid attacks. Instead, maxing Nimbus Strike allows you to deal more damage with your dash and have this chasing tool more often (less than 4 seconds cooldown) if you need it in case of champions who have a good mobility.
You can also upgrade them both alternatively if you do not need one of those two features so early.
Fighting Against..... (Tips)
While fighting against enemy champs you may find a little messy dealing with very strong melee champs like Tryndamere Master Yi who base their damage on basic attacks or powerful casters like 
Annie or 
LeBlanc, but you can more or less deal with anyone if you manage to keep your blood cold. Just remember that wukong (especially with low cooldowns) can avoid massive amounts of damage thanks to Decoy and Cyclone. So here are some tips that may help you fight against various types of champs.
- Usually people react instinctively to your Nimbus Strike Crushing Blow combo, so remember to use Decoy immediately after champs you fear, this may have them cast their better spells (even summoner ones) on your clone.
-Strong critical-attack damage champs base their strength on basic attacks, deny them to hit you by using Decoy your Cyclone and Exhaust in a smart sequence.
-Remember that you can use the environment at your advantage. Dashing on an enemy and then using Decoy could be very confusing if you use your stealth time to hide in some bushes(also takes time for cooldowns).
- Cyclone can be used also as a crowd control in team fights, try to activate it wisely to grant the gank by not letting champs like 
Kassadin or 
Ezreal use their mobility advantage.
-If an enemy tries to escape with Flash and you are out of the range of yours Nimbus Strike you can use Ghost to pick up the kill easily by getting in range of your dash and then being faster for the auto-attack chase (or to land another Crushing Blow).
-Keep an eye on your mana! 
Sapphire Crystal is bought so early for a purpose!
-While an enemy is chasing you, you can go into a bush and wait for him to arrive keeping your champ facing the direction you took. Just Decoy as he spots you and take the direction from he were coming (the opposite you were running away). This usually is an excellent method to save your tail!
-Against strong but squishy champions you can use your Exhaust to avoid their burst damage while you kill them. Usually champs like 
Teemo can see their health dropped by an half with a single Crushing Blow
- Crushing Blow works really well with lifesteal. If you need to heal quickly after a fight you can use it on minion rows in order not to recall. Just remember to not drop too low your mana if you are planning to stay away from the base for long.
-Remember that Nimbus Strike can be used to dash to enemy minions for a quick escape.
-In Twisted treeline, thanks to sight granted by your minions, you can harass an enemy champ who is pushing on the top by passing through the dragon's wall with your Nimbus Strike. Remember you do not necessarily need to target the champ, as you can go on an enemy minion.
-Activating Crushing Blow before using Nimbus Strike ensure the hit just after your dash, but remember to not activate it if you're dashing to a minion near an enemy champ or you'll hit it instead of your enemy! (just activate Crushing Blow a little after the dash, ensuring you have targeted right).
-While playing with powerful allies, if you get focused and use your Decoy to avoid damage you can move to the back of your enemy team in order to block their escape with your Cyclone if someone tries a retreat, or using it to control others enemy members who are afar (like ranged and mages).
-Remember that Crushing Blow can be used against turrets as it simply enhances your next attack. It also reduces turret's armor for your next basic attacks, making you a really efficient pusher (you can hit and run several times causing a really good damage).
Items
Items choices are quite clearly explained in the whole build, so I'm going to simply post a little list of why nots.
WHY NOT ITEMS!
-
: you may ask why should you upgrade Vampiric Scepter in 
Executioner's Calling while you get a more powerful attack damage increase by The Bloodthirster. Actually going to build our bleeding red sword could not be a bad idea, but its cost and the upgrading purpose of the build brought me to choose Executioner's Calling for its lovely 15% critical strike.
-
: this item should be really useful in case our purpose is to keep the damage output based only on attack damage. But as we do not rise our effective attack damage so high, and always following our critical-upgrade goal, it is more useful getting a flat attack damage-critical item like Atma's Impaler
As I'll explain further, those two items can be used for an alternative itemization that changes things a little but is also quite good.
-
: this was the other item which I thought a lot about. It provides a decent damage increase and a good anti-magic survivability tool which helps you surviving team ganks. Actually this could be a really useful item but I think it works better with mercury threads than our beloved cooldown reduction boots, so it simply (also for inventory space needs) does not exactly fulfill the purpose of our build.
-
: this should be a quite useful tool. In fact its armor and attack damage bonus, combined with lifesteal, bonuses versus minions and the ward-placing ability are all quite useful. But the real mess is that your ape will need mana very very quickly, just as you will want to have Sheen bonus too. Upgrading Vampiric Scepter in Wriggle's Lantern before or after Sheen will be not useful. Before because you still need mana to farm effectively and you'll find yourself maybe at full life but unable to gank effectively after a jungle trip. After because Wriggle's Lantern bonuses become not so relevant in a developing game phase, as you'll find that Phage provides a better survivability and creeps in the forests can be farmed easily too without your lantern. And if you need wards well... just buy them.
-
: Actually you do not need this item. As I explained you should hit with your skills and only a few basic attacks, and for this purpose your passive Nimbus Strike bonus (which activates just after you use the skill) is enough. A little more attack speed is taken with Trinity Force creation too, so that boots are not as useful as cooldown reduction ones.
The Full Attack Damage Alternative
As you surely have noticed, I think that there are useful items that should work well too with wukong but are discarded in order to keep alive the critical-upgrade purpose of the build.
In this tiny session I'll publish an alternative (and still effective) itemization which alters a little the damage output but does not change at all gamestyle. All what I said about wukong works also with this build (as it is quite similar) and actually I'm not completely sure about which itemization is better. I'm a little oriented on a critical upgrade because it could make effective your auto attacks also versus armored champs, especially after your Crushing Blow hit. On the other hand going fully on attack damage increases the direct damage output of your Crushing Blow but reduces auto attacks efficiency (sure with that good armor penetration you have you'll deal not so less damage than your attack damage value, but criticals are higher).
Well, the first phase is the same, you have to take all the items explained in the section above till you have completed the 5.4K phase.
After that, your upgrades should bring you to those items:
Just be careful that with those items you'll need to play a little more carefully, as you are squishy versus other attack damage champs (because you lack armor).
Conclusion
In conclusion, let me spend a little time to explain a thing.
I'm NOT going to tell you how to farm creeps in the jungle, how to place wards and how to play in line with other champs. First because I think those stuff is that kind of tricks that a smart player should (possibly early :P) learn by him/herself. Second because my purpose with this build is to explain a combination of items and tips which can be really effective on 
Wukong but not how you do have to play YOUR champ in every single situation. As you probably not be ******ed you will also enjoy your own way to master this lovely champ, also by changing whatever you think should be changed in order to fit better your game style.
Thanks for the patience and all, my in-game nick is Kuhrel (just the same as the MobaFire one) so if you want to play a match together or send me a message I'm here to listen ;).
Good smashing and stealthing with your ape!.
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