Views: 941 Jungle Kench
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Tahm Kench has received a number of buffs to the point that people like Voyboy have been monkeying around with him in the Jungle. I've tried a couple of variations on builds for Tahm to see how he stacks up.
No. 1 Issue
I haven't tried out a build that gets you through more than about three jungle camps and slowly at that. Generally you will have to back after Krugs and Red Buff even with a good leash. This means that he is very vulnerable to counter juggling during the early stages of the game, by either being caught while on low health or simply being out of the jungle as you back to heal.
Now after you get a point in you three basic abilities, life gets much easier.
I've tried maxing both Devour and Tongue Lash and it doesn't seem to make that much difference in terms of clear speed.
Part of the issue is that he can't eat the Red Brambleback or the Blue Sentinel. This makes those camps interminably long to take down. I've tried starting those camps so I can get help from my laners and it doesn't seem to make that much difference.
Once you do get going though you have a choice of going complete tank or more bruiserish.
I find going Enchantment: Devourer to be more entertaining. You can pair that with a Titanic Hydra and Dead Man's Plate for some insane damage output.
You can round out your build with something like Spirit Visage and Warmog's Armor for some insane tankiness plus even more damage output because of the passive damage you gain by putting levels into Devour. Boots are case by case. My top three choices would be Boots of Swiftness, Mercury's Treads, or Ninja Tabi.
Tahm is super good at peeling, so if one of your carries is fed, all you do is stick by them and fend off any attackers. Word of caution though, try not to deposit a half health ulting Nasus next to your carries.
Late game with the above build you may even be one of the carries, albeit a really hard to kill carry.
Devour
If you eat say an ulting Garen before the animation completes, it will stop the ult.
Oh since you don't have any preconditions to eating an ally, unlike an enemy on which you need to get three stacks of An Acquired Taste it is easy to accidetally eat a nearby ally close to your target rather than your target, so be very careful where you click when attempting to devour someone in a scrum.
Devour
Is kind of hard to use for transportation if you aren't in a call with one or more of you laners.
Also I've had trouble with accidentally only hopping a short distance if I have it on smart cast. It has two components. You first have to select a target location and then press R again to go there otherwise you will sit there and channel for the full duration even though there may be no one there to hop aboard.
If you want to go directly into the Dragon pit {from blue side) you have to be about even with the first line of trees outside your base.
tldr;
If you make it out of the early game and you laners are in decent shape, you are probably going to be able to carry the game if you go Devourer. If you get invaded and your laners get shut down you are going to have a difficult time coming back.
Update
Running 9-21-0 with Atk Spd, Health/lvl, MR/lvl, Arm Quints you can get though the majority of the jungle in pretty good order if you go Devour then Thick Skin, but it is clean your shorts out close on Red. You heal up a pretty good amount after. Bad time to be caught by the other jungler though. Double juggling could fix this, but not something I would count on at my ELO. I would get Tongue Lash third to have an additional damage ability, then one more in Devour if I am going to farm though, if I were going to gank, I would opt for my fourth point to be in Tongue Lash for the increased damage and slow.
So farm:
W+E+Q+W
gank:
W+E+Q+Q
No. 1 Issue
I haven't tried out a build that gets you through more than about three jungle camps and slowly at that. Generally you will have to back after Krugs and Red Buff even with a good leash. This means that he is very vulnerable to counter juggling during the early stages of the game, by either being caught while on low health or simply being out of the jungle as you back to heal.
Now after you get a point in you three basic abilities, life gets much easier.
I've tried maxing both Devour and Tongue Lash and it doesn't seem to make that much difference in terms of clear speed.
Part of the issue is that he can't eat the Red Brambleback or the Blue Sentinel. This makes those camps interminably long to take down. I've tried starting those camps so I can get help from my laners and it doesn't seem to make that much difference.
Once you do get going though you have a choice of going complete tank or more bruiserish.
I find going Enchantment: Devourer to be more entertaining. You can pair that with a Titanic Hydra and Dead Man's Plate for some insane damage output.
You can round out your build with something like Spirit Visage and Warmog's Armor for some insane tankiness plus even more damage output because of the passive damage you gain by putting levels into Devour. Boots are case by case. My top three choices would be Boots of Swiftness, Mercury's Treads, or Ninja Tabi.
Tahm is super good at peeling, so if one of your carries is fed, all you do is stick by them and fend off any attackers. Word of caution though, try not to deposit a half health ulting Nasus next to your carries.
Late game with the above build you may even be one of the carries, albeit a really hard to kill carry.
Devour
If you eat say an ulting Garen before the animation completes, it will stop the ult.
Oh since you don't have any preconditions to eating an ally, unlike an enemy on which you need to get three stacks of An Acquired Taste it is easy to accidetally eat a nearby ally close to your target rather than your target, so be very careful where you click when attempting to devour someone in a scrum.
Devour
Is kind of hard to use for transportation if you aren't in a call with one or more of you laners.
Also I've had trouble with accidentally only hopping a short distance if I have it on smart cast. It has two components. You first have to select a target location and then press R again to go there otherwise you will sit there and channel for the full duration even though there may be no one there to hop aboard.
If you want to go directly into the Dragon pit {from blue side) you have to be about even with the first line of trees outside your base.
tldr;
If you make it out of the early game and you laners are in decent shape, you are probably going to be able to carry the game if you go Devourer. If you get invaded and your laners get shut down you are going to have a difficult time coming back.
Update
Running 9-21-0 with Atk Spd, Health/lvl, MR/lvl, Arm Quints you can get though the majority of the jungle in pretty good order if you go Devour then Thick Skin, but it is clean your shorts out close on Red. You heal up a pretty good amount after. Bad time to be caught by the other jungler though. Double juggling could fix this, but not something I would count on at my ELO. I would get Tongue Lash third to have an additional damage ability, then one more in Devour if I am going to farm though, if I were going to gank, I would opt for my fourth point to be in Tongue Lash for the increased damage and slow.
So farm:
W+E+Q+W
gank:
W+E+Q+Q
The devourer build certainly is fun, but it is quite a bit more risky as you are relatively squishy and hence vulnerable to counterjungling or outright dying when ganking. If the rest of your team is oriented toward late game you might want to skip this build in order to be strong enough to facilitate your team getting to late game.
In the top of the list below I have two losses:
4/8/8 game - my mid laner and top laner where struggling either do to an unfavorable match-up or in Kassadin's case, wanting to try out Kass and not being overly familiar with the champion, which is fine since it was a normal game. I started picking up kills toward the mid game and believe I could have kept ramping up, but it was too little, too late.
1/4/2 game - Ekko who is powerful at level 3 paid me a visit while I was trying trying to take Red Buff and ended up killing me. He spent the remainder of the short game showing up in my jungle at extremely inconvenient times making my life a nightmare.
The victory in the list
12/4/12 game - In this game I had an opportunity to farm in relative peace and only gank when good opportunities presented themselves. By the end of the game I was making Garen cry because I would just eat him then proceeded to murder his team before spitting him back out so that my entire team could deal with him.
Masteries: 21-9-0
Runes: Atk Spd, Health/lvl, CDR/lvl, Arm Quints
Jungle Start:
Gromp with a leash, Smite, click on him so you can see his HP, Devour Gromp at 430HP. Waddle over to Blue Buff and spit Gromp into the camp. Get your second point in Tongue Lash. Finish off Blue and then go slow, via Tongue Lash, and then eat the Scuttle Crab with Devour. Spit it against a wall and it will sometimes get stuck, either way aa until it is dead. Go to Wolf Camp. Eat the large wolf and then alternate autos between the two small wolves. Spit the big wolf into the two little wolves and then finish the camp off with autos and then put a point in Thick Skin. You can go take Raptors now, but you probably will not make it through Red Buff, so your best bet is to base. With the scuttle crab gold you will have enough money to buy a Jungle Item upgrade and a couple of potions. I prefer Stalker's Blade because you can slow people from a distance with it and then follow up with a Tongue Lash. You can miss Tongue Lash, you can't really miss a chilling smite.
Head back into the Red Side of your jungle. The route choice at this point is pretty much up to you. Just don't forget about the scuttle crabs as they offer good XP and gold and don't do any damage to you and your kit is great for taking them pretty quickly or even snatching them from the enemy jungler if they are trying to take them.
Devour - just don't use this in a scrum. Seriously. You have way more chance of eating your laner than you do an enemy. I think it prioritizes allies. Instead, if you have full stacks on an enemy target, use Tongue Lash to stun them. Only use Devour on a fully stacked enemy if all of you allies are clear of your target.
Tips:
On things you can devour aside from enemy champions, you can use Tongue Lash and Devour together in order to eat them. Just cast Tongue Last and while it is in route. Hit Devour.
Exposed inhibitor or minion wave pushing on a turret? Have you team go cause a disturbance elsewhere and take your ADC or anyone good at killing buildings and give them an Abyssal Voyage over to the turret or inhibitor to quickly take it out.
Don't forget to activate Thick Skin if you are starting to get low in health. This effectively doubles your health pool, which allows you to soak up a lot of damage.
Builds:
You can go Enchantment: Devourer on Tahm. It actually works pretty well with him and you can still get pretty tanky with all the new busier items because they offer decent chunks of health.
However if you are the only tank on your team or you get behind early then go tank.
--Tank Build:
Stalker's Blade + Enchantment: Cinderhulk
Ninja Tabi, Mercury's Treads, or Boots of Swiftness
Giant's Belt into Dead Man's Plate (GB first because of the synergy with Cinderhulk)
Zz'Rot Portal (if they have magic damage, grab the Negatron Cloak first)
Spirit Visage Tahm benefits greatly from all the stats
Randuin's Omen last because at this point in the game ADC are going to be hurting you
Why Zz'Rot Portal. Tahm benefits from all the stats it provides. He is also a great candidate for getting it into place. He can Devour in and place the portal in a bush near a tower and then waddle back out, or you can waddle in and then Devour back out if you need to get back to your team quickly.
--Bruiser Build:--
Stalker's Blade + Enchantment: Devourer
Ninja Tabi, Mercury's Treads, or Boots of Swiftness
Giant's Belt
You have quite a few options at this point since Giant's Belt build into so many things these days.
Armor + HP + Bonus Move Speed + Dmg + Slow: Dead Man's Plate
HP + Dmg + Active Dmg/aa reset: Titanic Hydra
Arm+ HP + Atk Spd Reduction + Active Slow: Randuin's Omen
My usual preference is for Dead Man's Plate as it helps you get to your target. Then if I am ahead I will opt for a Titanic Hydra. If I am even or behind, I usually go Spirit Visage.
And follow that up with Titanic Hydra and cap my build with Randuin's Omen.
So final bruiser build will usually be:
Stalker's Blade + Enchantment: Devourer
Ninja Tabi, Mercury's Treads, or Boots of Swiftness
Dead Man's Plate
Titanic Hydra
Spirit Visage
Randuin's Omen
You are definitely less tanky with this build path, but you will still be quite bulky and dish out extreme amounts of damage, a large potion of which is AoE thanks to Titanic Hydra.
Why don't you just eat one of the little dudes at red or blue and hit the main monster with that? It is admittedly weaker than eating the main monster directly, but damage is damage.
Good question. That is in fact what you resort to. But it does pretty minimal damage to the buff monsters. I've also found it to be somewhat tricky to actually hit both the buff monster and the remaining creep with the one in you belly. It is kinda like bowling. Sometimes one pin blocks for the others.
Like you would think that
X x
o
If you chucked o (the one in your belly) right between X (buff monster) and x (the other small creep), you should be able to damage them both, but it doesn't always work.
In fact you usually end up devouring both little creeps at some point. It takes that long to kill the buff camps.
Another tactic for dealing with Blue Buff that I read was eating Gromp at 430HP and then spitting it at Blue to start that camp. Going to have to give that a whirl.
If you accidentally eat your laner. Use Tongue Lash on the stack target to stun them and then spit your laner at the target while they are stunned.
Thriek has a Jungle Tahm Kench guide here on Mobafire with some useful tips. One of the tips I found most useful was to devour the large creep in a camp and hold them in your belly for as long as possible while you kill the small creeps.
Another reason to eat the largest creep in the camp is that when devoured they take damage based on their maximum health.
I hate taking blue and red buff with Tahm. The other camps are smooth. If only you could eat The Red Brambleback or The Blue Sentinel. Tahm's early game weakness is causing me to want to drop him as a jungler.
One guide i read recommends doing Krugs, Raptors, Scuttle Crab, Red, then ganking. Will give this a whirl and plink around with runes and masteries a bit more now that I have a better idea of how to maximize his early jungle to see if I can come up with a combination and route that minimizes Tahm's difficulties in the early jungle so that I have the option of ganking a lane if a good opportunity presents itself.