First off, yes this is a serious guide, yes that's the actual build and

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AS WELL AS MY FIRST GUIDE.

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This is a quick and dirty guide on how to play the "ZealWheel" Rammus. Essentially, it's only good for Dominion, and focuses purely on movement speed and capture rate. No health, no armor, pure movement speed. So what does that mean? You won't be tanking or defending...I feel I should repeat that.

You won't be tanking or defending...
You won't be tanking or defending...
YOU WON'T BE TANKING OR DEFENDING...

So what are you going to do? Take points, and that's it. You're essentially playing Solid Snake, and when the enemy team is distracted (say fighting at windmill or defending far away), you rush in and take a point. You don't join in team fights, nor do you stay on points. You hide in the middle, wait for the enemies to desperse from a point, then go in and take it. I'll try my best to explain how to play this, but it's really just up to practice and picking your moments.

But first, the basics:

Pros
- Your captures will be insane
- You will benefit your team greatly if they can defend properly
- You can often gain quest buffs whenever they appear very easily
- You will absolutely frustrate the other team to no end.
- YOU'RE JUST LIKE SOWNIC DA HEDGEHAWG

Cons
- For a tank, you are absolutely squishy as hell.
- You have absolutely no way to fight, absorb damage or defend yourself
- You're useless when trying to defend a point alone
- You will level a bit slower than everyone else
- All you ever say is "Ok"

It really doesn't matter all that much because in every single fight you will focus on running away and not dying. Thus, I picked health and armor runes. I chose the ones that vary by level, as you will reach 18 in dominion 90% of the time, despite performance. Honestly, the runes are't all that important seeing as you'e lamost never fighting.

The movement speed quints are VITAL. Do NOT change them, you need as much movement speed as you can get.

Defense so you can survive, Utility because really nothing else to pick.

Here's the fun part. Start with Mobility Boots and a Rejuvenation Bead. Your ideal starting point is to approach your closest turret (Either Drill or Refinery) and capture it. Use Powerball to get to it ASAP. Once it's captured, do NOT join your team up top at Windmill unless you feel you can easily win the fight. Otherwise, go straight to the enemy's closest point (Again, Drill or Refinery respectively) and capture it.

Now you need to pay attention. AT ALL TIMES PLAYING ZEALWHEEL, IF AN ENEMY GETS CLOSE, RUN AWAY.

I don't mean close as in they start running your way, I mean able to stop your capture close. I typically like to run once their little icon appears within my field of vision on the mini-map. From there either Powerball away or use another speed boost.

From here, rush a Priscilla's Blessing. It honestly won't take that long seeing aa you already have one piece and it's only 1350 gold. (If you can pick up some early game kills, it helps a lot. However keep in mind very early game is the only place kills with this build are advised)

Once you have your Boots and your Blessing. Get a Zeal. Then 4 of them total. They are the most cost effective movement speed item in the game besides boots. At 1195 gold, you get 8% movement speed. With 4 of them, it increases to 32% boost. that's a few percents more than 2 Phantom Dancers and costs nearly half the price. Finally, as the game winds down and you rack up tons of gold from never dying and capturing points, convert those Zeals into Phantom Dancers

You need movement speed no matter what, as one defensive item isn't going to help at all, and if you try to stack more you'll be too slow. 4 Zeals are the way to go.

Unfortunately Powerball's speed boost doesn't increase with level, otherwise we would power level the hell out of it. Instead, we want to maximize survivability, so we dump points into Defensive Ball Curl, but add a point to Soaring Slam when we can. Next Puncturing Taunt, as there are rare occasions when you will join a team fight and want to take the heat off your ally. Lastly, we level Powerball as leveling it accomplishes nothing for us in the long run.

PICK Ghost and Flash, seriously.

Everything else will be useless to you. You want to absolutely maximize speed, so Ghost is essential and can be used when all your other speed boosts are on cooldown. Flash is sort of an emergency escape plan. If you are getting absolutely team gang-banged or cc'd and hunted down, simply flash over a wall (Or, if your speed is high enough, as far as you can and then run).

Every other summoner spell will not help this build, I've tried nearly all of them. Many people are tempted to pick Exhaust, but you want to stay away from enemies as much as possible, not get in range to use it.

Others recommend Revive However, you will die only a couple times a game at the most, so I find it more efficient to avoid a death or two with Flash than feed and instantly come back with Revive

I'm glad you asked! Because honestly....I have no idea!





No, I'm kidding, I'm actually great at it.

Once you've made your opening move, its time to revert back to the middle. Once you have Priscilla's Blessing, you will really start to shine due to your inhanced capture rate and already great move speed. You job is to patrol the inside of the Crystal Scar, particularly moving from bush to bush, until you see a turret completely unguarded. You then will Powerball, Priscilla's Blessing's active, or Ghost your way to that point and start to cap it. What you use is up to you, your number of Zeals/ Phantom Dancers, and how close you are.

Now, while capturing, WATCH YOUR MINI-MAP If you see someone moving towards you, get ready. As soon as they cross into your natural field of vision (As in, you can see them right next to you, not from a minion, turret or teammate). Get out of there. Powerball is recommended, as you typically don't want to blow your other boosts escaping and want to save them for free turrets, but do what you have to do. If necesscary, Flash over a wall or into your teammates.

NEVER, NEVER STAY AND FIGHT. EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE TURRET. EVEN IF YOU HAVE A BUNCH OF MINIONS. EVEN IF YOU HAVE FULL BUILD. You will lose. Your opponents are stacking stuff much more efficient than your build in terms of killing power. You have no attack strength (Even with 4 Phantom Dancers Rammus' DPS is horrible), you have no defense, and really no way of winning any form of fight without immense team support.

This is literally all you do on the team, you capture the points the enemy overlooks. You are so fast and have such a great capture rate, often the enemy will only be able to get to you after you've at least neutralized a point. Do not be afraid to leave a point half captured, you can always come back and capture it when the enemy either gives up chasing you, because they can't possibly capture you, or your teammates intercept them.

When running, use Powerball if you have it no matter what. Your goal is to escape, hide, then try for another tower. If you've been caught or stopped, however, you still can maximize survivability. First, use Soaring Slam if you've got it. The damage won't keep them off you, but it will help deter them from persueing. Next, enter Defensive Ball Curl and run. Do NOT use Puncturing Taunt unless your teammate can easily finish them off without worrying about being CC'd. Your goal is to spam Defensive Ball Curl and Soaring Slam until your Powerball, Priscilla's Blessing or Ghost cooldown and you can run once again. You should almost never die with this build due to the sheer fact that no other champion in the game can catch you.

At first, this strategy will seem ineffective, and you'll believe being typical tank Rammus is better. But once you get up to your 4th Zeal and the game becomes all about tower control, you will absolutely shine.

Just a sampling of what I've done with this build.


My first run with the build. Deaths were too high from inexperience, but captures were still great.

10/13/2011, Whee Hours of the Morning - Created Guide, World collectively Groans.
10/13/2011, 3:23 PM - Fixed various grammar issues, added a couple facts.
10/16/2011, Some time I don't know - Fixed masteries because I'm a big dummy.