[Champion] Rammus

NOTE: This guide is for playing Rammus on Summoner's Rift. I have no interest in writing anything for him on Dominion.

Role:
As the metagame shifts, pure tanks have mostly been phased out by tanky DPS, and Rammus is no exception. Currently, Rammus is best played as a tanky DPS champion, who takes advantage of the large AD bonus from his Passive, the natural toughness of Defensive Ball Curl, and his powerful CC suite in order to display a powerful teamfight presence.

+ Show Spoiler [Patch Notes] +

+ Show Spoiler [Pre-Season One] +
+ Show Spoiler [Season One] +
v1.0.0.125
Attack damage per level increased to 3.5 from 2.75
Rammus can now immediately switch between Defensive Ball Curl and Powerball.
Defensive Ball Curl magic damage return changed to 20/30/40/50/60 from 22/26/32/38/46.
Defensive Ball Curl cast time removed.
Defensive Ball Curl now correctly displays the armor amount in the tooltip when active.

+ Show Spoiler [Stats] +

Rammus is best played as a jungler. The facts that he has no ranged abilities with which to harass in the laning phase, no natural forms of sustenance, no useful gap closer and no burst damage until he has his taunt leveled up and his ultimate, make him quite possibly THE weakest laning champion in the game. On the other hand, Rammus is one of the fastest junglers around thanks to Defensive Ball Curl (which helps him clear out jungle camps quickly) and Powerball (which gets him from camp to camp quickly and also deals some significant damage), and makes for one of the most effective gankers due to his mobility and great crowd control.

As with any champion, you should play to Rammus' strengths whenever possible. Knowing when to be decisive and initiate is an invaluable skill on the armordillo; it's hard for his victims to escape his CC train, as it is hard to escape when he's pursuing you. Rammus doesn't take well to the turret-supported harassment and poking playstyle. His burst damage consists of Powerball, Puncturing Taunt (armor reduction, forces target to attack Rammus), Defensive Ball Curl and Tremors- coupled with the fact that you're crowd-controlling your target and autoattacking, this is quite deadly vs. squishies.

Akinator knows what makes for a great LoL champion

Masteries:
I like to use a 0/13/17 build, picking up 2/3 Strength of Spirit, Defensive Mastery and Harden Skin from Defense and Awareness, Greed, 2/3 Meditation, Utility Mastery, Quickness and Blink of an Eye from Utility.

Runes:
I like to take Flat Armor Quints, Mana5/level Seals, MRes/level Glyphs and AS Marks.

Some people like to take ArPen Marks. They are strictly worse than AS marks. Best case scenario (opponent has armor 15), they provide equal DPS to AS marks; realistically, they will typically add less DPS (run the numbers yourself if you don't believe me), and these don't help you proc Madred's Razor / Wriggle's Lantern more often.

Summoner spells:
Smite + Flash. There's really nothing more to say here.

Skills:
WQQE then R>E>W>Q

Taking Q at level 3 is because it boosts your jungle speed more than W and allows for stronger ganks (50 more damage is significant).

Defensive Ball Curl is great for jungling, as is Powerball. As you start looking around the map for ganking opportunities, however, Puncturing Taunt will be your best friend and you'll want to max it out first. Defensive Ball Curl is critical to your being tanky, so you'll want to get that before maxing out Powerball.

Items:
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Cloth Armor + 5 health pots to start off with. You can start with a Vamp Scepter if you take 21 points in offense, thus saving gold on potions- but your jungle will be riskier, it will not be faster, and your ganking opportunities will suffer greatly during the first 6 minutes.

Typically you will clear all your jungle camps once, then portal back home for boots1, a Sight Ward and 3 health potions.

"Standard" item build:
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Replacing your Wriggle's Lantern:
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Adding an endgame DPS item, or an endgame tanky item:
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(yes, another one)

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Other items:
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Sunfire Cape brings earth-shaking midgame power if you choose to buy it. You get a large chunk of health to complement Defensive Ball Curl, Armor in case you want to towerdive someone, and a pretty massive amount of damage (for this point in the game) for a such a tanky and affordable item. The downside? Sunfire Cape is an evolutionary dead end; as far as defensive stats go, it is very inefficient (you barely get anything over the base Giant's Belt + Chain Vest you need to build it), and offensively it falls behind pretty heavily as the MRes and Health scores of your enemies go up. If you're expecting a lot of midgame teamfights, Sunfire Cape is very good; if you're expecting passive play (which is sadly the norm), don't get it.

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You could get Frozen Mallet instead of Warmog's after your Wriggle's. Frozen Mallet + Atma's is also a strong combination, with the obvious added bonus of the slow proc compared to Atmog's. If you do choose to get a Frozen Mallet instead of Warmog's, I recommend going for a Warmog's anyway later on if the game gets that far, as having nothing but a Frozen Mallet as a source for health is insufficient for endgame.

Some Rammus players like gold/10 items on him (Philo Stone + HoG), some are advocates of Randuin's Omen, you could choose a Stark's Fervor to boost your team instead of a Phantom Dancer, or an Aegis of the Legion. Other Rammus players like to build AP on him, but that's pretty much only a troll build.

Final Comments
You should practice and be comfortable with different jungling routes; you can just as well start at small golems, then move on to wraiths then wolves then ancient golem on Rammus. If clearing the Ancient Golem camp doesn't seem safe, start elsewhere!

Call your ganks! If you're going to go gank a lane, type it in chat; if you've started your Powerball, ping your target.

Other Guides:
An "ok" guide by Chaox: OUTDATED
Southlight / Utahime's Rammus guide.
Sarah's Jungle Rammus Guide

+ Show Spoiler [changelog] +

Last edit: 2011-11-09 23:07:13

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BajaBlood United States. November 22 2010 21:34. Posts 147

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Hell yeah Rammus thread!

I actually run 1/8/21 with imp. smite offense, armor/mres/s.o.s defence - haven't put too much thought into it and might try some of the other mastery sets you listed (though I'd definitely take buff duration as my 9th point in a 0/21/9). Reduced smite cooldown helps when doing a wraith jack jungle route, as rammus doesn't need blue right away to jungle effectively.

Ghost is nice for landing a second taunt in a teamfight and escaping, flash is nice for initiating on the best possible target and can help you gank. Smite is non-negotiable. Ignite would be interesting to try, but I think I'll end up sticking with Smite/Flash.

My items are cloth+5pot, boots+ward, HoG to start. From there I'll generally finish randuins or build a banshees depending on whether I'll be taking more physical or magic damage. Often I'll build both of these as my item core unless the enemy team is unbalanced damage-wise. Rushing randuins is viable on Rammus because ball curl will give you enough armor/mr to get a good duration even if you don't have other items yet. Banshee is just a really good item in general.

Other items I get:
Merc treads (I don't think I've ever not gone merc. treads, they're just too good)
Haunting Guise (if I'm doing particularly well in a game I'll grab this to make Rammus deal a surprising amount of damage)
FoN can be nice as Rammus is actually pretty slow when not powerballing, which can make taunting people a pain.
Frozen Heart is a decent secondary armor item. The aura is decent, and CDR and mana will allow you to continue using your abilities while letting your teammates take blue buff.
QSS for dealing with those dark bindings (uncommon, usually I'm content if I'm soaking up CC, but sometimes there's someone on their team that it's imperative to CC immediately - a fed carry or twitch could be an example).

While sunfire synergizes about as well for rammus as it does anyone, I just don't feel the 700 combine cost is worth the passive. If you want more damage pick up a Haunting Guise, otherwise just build items like Randuins.

Edit: one more thing I forgot. The skilling order for the jungler is what I often run, but I've started to think about taking more levels of W before maxing E (maybe something like WQWEEREWEWREWQQRQQ). I often feel somewhat squishy around levels 10-12 if I don't have ~4 levels of W if teamfights are occurring then and adding more W also increases your jungling speed, which begins to fall off compared to other junglers as the game progresses.

Last edit: 2010-11-22 21:54:33

ghen United States. November 22 2010 21:41. Posts 1081

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I start 2 HoG and boots 1 on my rammus. This gives him much needed HP and mad mad cash. They should be finished by about 12 minutes if I remember correctly. After that, finish merc treads and get basic items as needed (giants belt, negatrons)

Your job as a tank is to be extremely fluid with item choices. There won't be a single game where your build will be exactly the same, and some times you might even have to sell an item if a champion on the other team starts feeding hard and aren't a threat anymore.

I agree that thornmail is a situational item. One mistake I see on other rammus is they think it's a core item on him. Really though, if their yi is dumb enough to try and kill you in a team fight just laugh as your tristana tears him up. (he probably isn't farmed either if he likes attacking tanks) A sunfire is a better choice here anyway. Still does a little damage to him, but gives HP instead for a more well rounded defense with your ball curl up.

Unentschieden Germany. November 22 2010 22:38. Posts 1144

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If there was a core item on Rammus it would be Randuins. It´s an incredible item on Rammus (and in general). The active is boosted by Rammuses W extending his already great CC combi.

The problem with Sunfires on Rammus (besides them not being Randuins) is the Rammus has trouble actually sticking to enemy champions once his Poweball -> Taunt wears off. They are valid once you do have Randuins but Games rarely last that long.

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Zato-1 Chile. November 22 2010 22:57. Posts 2577

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On November 22 2010 22:38 Unentschieden wrote:
If there was a core item on Rammus it would be Randuins. It´s an incredible item on Rammus (and in general). The active is boosted by Rammuses W extending his already great CC combi.

The problem with Sunfires on Rammus (besides them not being Randuins) is the Rammus has trouble actually sticking to enemy champions once his Poweball -> Taunt wears off. They are valid once you do have Randuins but Games rarely last that long.

I'll try it, and add it to the list of recommended items (possibly instead of Sunfire even) depending on whether I find it to be as good as you say it is. Thanks for the tip

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Unentschieden Germany. November 22 2010 23:28. Posts 1144

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Randuins is a very, very powerful item in general because all stats it provides are usefull and cost effective, even if you don´t count the Goldcomponent on HoG while you have it.
Most importantly it has a durationscaling AOE snare and attackspeed debuff.
Rammuses W alone extends the active by 1.5 seconds on top of the base 2 seconds - to compare how much CC in the game lasts longer than 3 seconds in the first place?
I´m playing with the idea of opening a Tankitem discussion thread because these considerations pop up constantly.

Last edit: 2010-11-22 23:31:38

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Lunek Poland. November 23 2010 01:16. Posts 80

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I think flat armor yellows are solid on rammus. At lvl 1, if you get cloth armor + 6 armor from defensive masteries, you start with 61 armor, without DBC. 73 damage.

Niton United States. November 23 2010 02:00. Posts 1497

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I don't really have much to add to the topic, but I feel that this needs to be added to it in some way:

tree.hugger: Coming off of [(T)fantasy v. (T)Really] into [(T)Barracks v. (T)MVP] is like coming out of Manhattan into New Jersey. You just have to speed up and ignore it.

ghen United States. November 23 2010 07:35. Posts 1081

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On November 22 2010 23:28 Unentschieden wrote:
Randuins is a very, very powerful item in general because all stats it provides are usefull and cost effective, even if you don´t count the Goldcomponent on HoG while you have it.
Most importantly it has a durationscaling AOE snare and attackspeed debuff.
Rammuses W alone extends the active by 1.5 seconds on top of the base 2 seconds - to compare how much CC in the game lasts longer than 3 seconds in the first place?
I´m playing with the idea of opening a Tankitem discussion thread because these considerations pop up constantly.

I've never actually read the tooltip for Randuins Omen that closely. Here's what it says:

Active UNIQUE - Slows movement speed and attack speed of surrounding units by 35% for 2 second + 0.5 seconds for each 100 Armor and Magic Resist. 60 second cooldown.

Rammus's W at level 5 adds 150 armor and 150 mres, so even without base stats using W+Randuins = 3.5 second AoE slow+attack speed debuff, probably closer to 4-6 seconds at any given moment.

So the full combo would be something like this:

powerball to carry, taunt, "W", when taunt is about to wear off use Randuins, "R", ghost or ignite to either keep up as they run or hopefully kill them as they ghost away from your ult.

Last edit: 2010-11-23 07:38:14

HazMat United States. November 23 2010 07:41. Posts 9197

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I get a 2nd point in Q at lvl 3 to make my gank a bit stronger. Then I just max taunt.

@ShakeDrizzle. I love you all.

ghen United States. November 23 2010 08:10. Posts 1081

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On November 23 2010 07:41 HazMat wrote:
I get a 2nd point in Q at lvl 3 to make my gank a bit stronger. Then I just max taunt.

Looking at the numbers that might be a good way to go even for jungling speed. WQQEER.
Powerball gives an extra 50 damage per level so the monster would have to hit you 12 times per defensive curl to make up the difference going WQW. Also, powerball is a shorter cooldown. So I don't think 2 points in Q would affect jungling speed at all, and of course no one attacks your DBC during a gank anyway except the 1 second stun at level 5.

BajaBlood United States. November 23 2010 14:56. Posts 147

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W also gives you 6 bonus attack damage (rammus's passive) and it probably actually grows by 6.5 (4 + 10% of the 25 extra armor) damage return per level assuming it calculates the damage return based on your armor while using DBC. Plus you won't be taking as much damage from the creeps due to the bonus armor and you'll really want maxed W and E for midgame teamfights more than a second level in Q. If Q is faster in the jungle I wouldn't expect it to be worth the survivability both in jungle and in fights.

You would be able to deal a bit more damage in ganks with 2 levels in Q, and increasing the slow % helps a little, though you'll usually have red buff and be taunting them soon after rolling into them anyway.

Last edit: 2010-11-23 15:08:17

ghen United States. November 24 2010 08:03. Posts 1081

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That's what I get for trying to do math. Rammus has too many numbers for me

LightRailCoyote United States. November 24 2010 09:43. Posts 814

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I tried 2 levels of Q in a game with TL peeps, and it didn't make too much of a difference in jungling speed/survivability. As for how it helped in ganks, i wouldn't know, all lanes were too pushed to find out.

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Unentschieden Germany. November 24 2010 09:52. Posts 1144

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W is more important I´d say. When Rammus ganks it´s not about his damage output but his CC, thus he needs to level his Taunt. Otherwise he needs W because it´s a LOT more substainability both HP and Mana (don´t hog the bluebuff!). You need decent HP to stay on the map to gank and farm.

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Zato-1 Chile. November 27 2010 07:49. Posts 2577

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On several games, I tried Randuin's Omen instead of Sunfire Cape with mixed results. The item seems to be viable on Rammus, but the combination of its higher cost and lower HP makes me feel vulnerable to magic damage for a while. Additionally, the timing for when to use it never felt quite right in a team fight- it was either overlapping with my CC combo, or if I used it afterwards there weren't enough targets close by. I still edited into the OP though.

Last edit: 2010-11-27 07:58:38

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Kaneh Canada. November 27 2010 14:56. Posts 315

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so am i the only one that goes WQEEER

lose out on... dun dun dun... 50 dmg from powerball, or get .5 sec more cc on ganks up to lvl 8?

iounno. then again i run 9/0/21, which gives me a much faster smite in addition to the little bit of extra damage from ap/mpen (which helps with ganks too) and little bit of speed/runes (which also help with ganks)

i just think it all adds up for a much stronger early game that gives you a better lategame. Defensive masteries just scream "i want to farm to lategame", which is definitely something he can, but probably shouldn't do.

Kaneh Canada. November 27 2010 15:02. Posts 315

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exhaust is probably a better choice imo. getting in more ticks of his ult is better than ignite damage, plus it blinds, plus it is actually useful lategame.

you say you like ignite, but then don't take masteries or skill choices that make your ganking even better. (2 levels of W?) which kinda confuses me.

BajaBlood United States. November 27 2010 15:24. Posts 147

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Yeah, I don't see any reason to take ignite on Rammus. If you feel like you don't need a mobility summoner skill then take exhaust (I think it is necessary, though, as Rammus is ungodly slow when his Q is on cd, and ghost/flash can contribute to ganks as much as ignite/exhaust at times). IMO Flash is a bit better than Ghost > Exhaust > Ignite.

While maxing E quickly makes for stronger ganks, I feel like you're sacrificing too much survivability and jungling speed by skipping a second level of W. I still stand by something along the lines of WQWEEREWEWREWQQRQQ (2 quick levels in W and 1 in Q, then keep W and E about the same level while taking R when possible).

@Zato: If there's a substantial amount of magic damage on their team (particularly types like Annie/Anivia who are hitting hard around the time you're finishing your first big item) I generally buy a negatron cloak before finishing randuins - your EHP will be higher with HoG/nega/warden than it would be with Sunfire or Randuins alone. If they're really scary you can just build a banshees right after your HoG

Last edit: 2010-11-27 15:32:07

xDaunt United States. December 07 2010 04:36. Posts 4365

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I picked up Rammus recently to be my new dedicated tank. Jungling with him is very quick and easy, and his ganks are lethal. As for the ideal item progression, right now I'm liking cloth + 5hpots => boots + ward + more hpots (after first jungle run and before first gank => HoG => sunfire => merc tread. After that, I'll get wardens or a negatron cloak depending upon what type of protection that I need. I don't like completing randuin's too early because I like the HoG income too much. You really don't have a lot of time to farm.