+ Show Spoiler [Patch Notes] +
v1.0.0.134 - 2012-02-14
Cyclone's allied ultimate HUD indicator will now go grey immediately after using
Fixed a bug where Crushing Blow could reduce the armor of shred-immune units (Dragon, Baron Nashor)
v1.0.0.128 - 2011-11-01
Crushing Blow
Total attack damage ratio increased to 1.1 from 1.0
Fixed a bug where Crushing Blow did not display critical strikes or benefit from life steal
Decoy
Casting Decoy no longer instantly shows a reduction in Wukong's mana bar to enemies
Fixed a bug where Wukong's stealth state did not ignore unit collision
Improved general Decoy behavior and placement - the Decoy should now more accurately mimic Wukong's previous position and behavior
Wukong is now pushed forward slightly when using Decoy, rather than the Decoy being pushed back from Wukong's position
Nimbus Strike
Attack speed bonus increased to 30/35/40/45/50% from 20/25/30/35/40%
Attack speed duration increased to 4 seconds from 3
v1.0.0.123 - 2011-08-09
Wukong will now attempt to attack a target champion after using Nimbus Strike
Cyclone Attack Damage ratio increased to 1.2 from 1
Wukong is now properly considered melee for items and spells that differentiate between melee and ranged characters.
Fixed a bug where Crushing Blow was shredding the target's base armor rather than total armor
Cyclone's allied ultimate HUD indicator will now go grey immediately after using
Fixed a bug where Crushing Blow could reduce the armor of shred-immune units (Dragon, Baron Nashor)
v1.0.0.128 - 2011-11-01
Crushing Blow
Total attack damage ratio increased to 1.1 from 1.0
Fixed a bug where Crushing Blow did not display critical strikes or benefit from life steal
Decoy
Casting Decoy no longer instantly shows a reduction in Wukong's mana bar to enemies
Fixed a bug where Wukong's stealth state did not ignore unit collision
Improved general Decoy behavior and placement - the Decoy should now more accurately mimic Wukong's previous position and behavior
Wukong is now pushed forward slightly when using Decoy, rather than the Decoy being pushed back from Wukong's position
Nimbus Strike
Attack speed bonus increased to 30/35/40/45/50% from 20/25/30/35/40%
Attack speed duration increased to 4 seconds from 3
v1.0.0.123 - 2011-08-09
Wukong will now attempt to attack a target champion after using Nimbus Strike
Cyclone Attack Damage ratio increased to 1.2 from 1
Wukong is now properly considered melee for items and spells that differentiate between melee and ranged characters.
Fixed a bug where Crushing Blow was shredding the target's base armor rather than total armor
+ Show Spoiler [Stats] +
Health ......... 435 (+85)
Attack damage .. 54 (+3.2)
Health regen ... 5.1 (+0.65)
Attack speed ... 0.658 (+3.0%)
Mana ........... 202 (+38)
Armor .......... 15 (+3.5)
Mana regen ..... 6.9 (+0.65)
Magic res ...... 30 (+1.25)
Range .......... 175
Mov. speed ..... 320
Abilities:
Passive - Stone Skin: Wukong's armor and magic resistance are increased by 4/6/8 for each nearby enemy champion.
Range: 1400
Pretty damn nice. Free 40/40 Armor/Mres for teamfights. The detection range is pretty large, so it's pretty reliable and is giving you a solid ~1300 gold worth of stats in the best case. Definitely boring, but very strong. Also note that this is a large driving force behind how you should build Wukong, as it shifts midgame priorities more towards HP than resists for becoming tanky.
Q - Crushing Blow: Wukong's next attack deals 30/60/90/120/150 + 1.1 Total AD physical damage and reduces the enemy's Armor by 30% for 3 seconds.
CD: 9/8/7/6/5
Mana: 40
Range: N/A
Pretty straight-forward on next attack modifier. As with other similar abilities, this resets your auto-attack timer upon activation so optimal use of this ability is to auto-attack first, and then hit Q to reset the timer and pull off another fast attack. % Armor reduction on this ability increases the value of flat armor penetration on Wukong since % reduction works the way old % penetration worked (applying before flat penetration). Also note that the AD scaling on this is total AD, not bonus AD, and that the damage is in place of attack damage, not on top of AD. So you gain net 30/60/90/120/150 + 0.1 AD on a typical auto attack with this ability.
W - Decoy: Wukong becomes stealthed for 1.5 seconds. An uncontrollable decoy is left behind that will deal 70/115/160/205/250 + 0.6 AP magic damage to enemies near it after 1.5 seconds.
CD: 18/16/14/12/10
Mana: 50/55/60/65/70
Range: N/A
If this ability doesn't get your panties wet, you should probably not play Wukong unless you're cool with being fairly bored and just having fun winning because he's a strong champion. At the most boring and straightforward level, this ability is a free disengaging tool that lets you drop aggro and reposition once you're satisfied with trades/engages, but there are more interesting and fun uses. I'll be talking a lot more about this ability under playstyle, but I guess I need to make some broad points about fun Decoy usage here. First of all, the core to understanding why Decoy is cool is that hitting 'W' to activate Decoy looks like you hit 'S' to stop to your opponents. What this means is that this ability actually adds a ton of mindgames to how you play Wukong, since you can be constantly hitting 'S' to condition your opponent to think you're just stopping, and then deceving them by hitting 'W' and using those 1.5 seconds of stealth to initiate without their knowledge. You can also do some slick shit like blocking skill shots with your decoy, and the ever-popular stop jukes when escaping from a shitty situation. As I said earlier, I'll get more into this ability later, but goddamn, it's so fucking cool and if you don't think so, you'll probably find Wukong terribly straightforward.
E - Nimbus Strike: Wukong dashes toward a target enemy and sends out images to attack up to 2 additional enemies near his target, dealing 60/105/150/195/240 + 0.8 Bonus AD physical damage to each enemy struck. Upon hitting his target, Wukong gains 30/35/40/45/50% Attack Speed for 3 seconds.
CD: 8
Mana: 45/50/55/60/65
Range: 625?
Pretty generic gap closer, the whole images thing sounds a lot cooler than it is, lol. The things that make this stand out are:
1. it deals physical damage, whereas a lot of gap closers deal magic damage for no good reason
2. it costs 45 mana at rank 1, while similar gap closers are typically costed around 70
3. it has an 8 second CD at all ranks, while most other gap closers are 10+ at level 1
4. it's Wukong's strongest non-ult nuke, meaning he levels it first, while most other characters have to wait to level their gap closers
5. on top of being a strong nuke, it also is a strong (albeit short duration) AS steroid.
So in other words, this ability is kinda boring, but it's very strong stat-wise and makes Wu very bursty and makes his burst very very repeatable (low CD and Mana cost) compared to other low-level bursters.
E -> Auto -> Q -> Auto -> Disengage is your standard Wukong burst harass in lane, but it's worth noting that since E does physical damage, if someone will let you hit them first, your strongest burst combo is Auto -> Q -> E -> 2-3 Autos -> Disengage
R - Cyclone: Wukong's staff grows outward and he spins it around, dealing 20/110/200 + 1.2 Total AD physical damage per second and knocking up enemies he encounters (enemies can only be knocked up once per cyclone). Wukong gains 5% movement speed every half second over the duration of the spell. Lasts 4 seconds.
CD: 120/105/90
Mana: 100
Range: N/A
AoE: 325?
As with Q, this scales off total AD, not bonus AD, so don't be thrown off by the low damage numbers at level 1, they just look low because we're used to bonus AD scaling nowadays.
Total damage over the duration is a staggering 80/440/800 + 4.8 total AD (!!!!!!). Let that sink in. Especially after you're comfortable with how bursty he is even without this move with just E -> Auto -> Q. Typically Wukong can get kills in lane with just 1 E -> Auto -> Q -> Auto, followed by a E -> Auto -> Q -> R once your CDs are up. Always try to hit Q on your primary target before your ult to get that 30% Armor shred. Ult usage in teamfights can be tricky, as there are 2 conflicting forces driving ult usage (knocking up as many opponents as possible vs. keeping carries in the AoE for the full duration). Typically you want to be abusing the crazy damage on this, but there are times I chase the carry and support away and then cut back in and use the 2nd half of the duration to peel for my team.
GUIDES
SOLO WUKONG
Summoner Skills: Flash + Ignite or Flash + Exhaust I prefer Flash + Ignite because Wukong is all about bursting, but Exhaust is also pretty beastmode on him because it makes it easier to stick on people with your ult and further reduces their armor.
Masteries:
21/0/9
I've heard tales of good Wukong's specing heavily into the defensive tree to cover his early weakness, but frankly, the numbers for heavy defensive investment don't add up to actually making you a lot tankier. I can see going 9 points in defensive over 9 utility depending on matchup, but more than that seems stupid to me.
Runes:
Quints: 3 AD, 3 ArPen, 3 Armor, or 1 MRes + 2 HP Regen
Marks: 9 Armor Pen
Seals: 9 Flat Armor
Glyphs: 9 Scaling MRes or 9 Flat MRes
Quints are a big question mark. I'd suggest generally going for Resists to be honest, since covering your ass early game to assure you get to his powerful mid-late game is the safest bet. If you're going more offensive, ArPen vs. AD on Quints is a matter of whether you'll be able to hit Q before E frequently. If you're vs. a strictly Melee Champ like Udyr/Irelia/Nasus, you'll be able to hit Qs first, in which case ArPen is better, if you're going to be hitting Qs towards the end of your burst, AD is better.
Skill Order: R > E > Q > W
If Wukong were just a stand there and hit them all day type champ, leveling Q over E would lead to more damage output because of the lowered CD, but since he focuses more on a burst -> disengage playstyle, the CD reduction on Q is not as big as the higher damage scaling on E.
Item Build:
Starting Items
+ x5
or
+ x3
Typically cloth + 5, but if you're vs. a squishy mage, boots + 3 is generally better.
Core
+
or
+ +
Wriggle's or double dblade opening. Wukong needs the sustain in lane since he has no built in sustain. Wriggle's is preferable in general, but double dblade is a suitable replacement vs. AP Carries that will let you get to other items more quickly.
What Next
?
HoG is a very safe next item. Remember, because of his passive, that Wukong scales best off of HP for teamfights, so HoG is a pretty safe bet. Also, as a bruiser, you'll want Randuin's Omen once ranged ADs start getting really scary, so getting HoG early makes a lot of sense.
?
Again, HP is great on Wukong, and so is AD. He also gets a considerable amout of chasing power from phage as you can hit E Auto Q Auto Auto and get a proc in the time of your E attack speed buff, which will then let you chase until E + Q are off CD again. Phage is a perfect fit for Wukong's kit and should almost always be bought.
?
Wukong loves everything Brutalizer has to offer. CDR, ArPen, and AD all scale well with his kit, and when you're looking to bully someone around, you can't do better than Brutalizer.
or ?
If you really need mres, these are your options. Aegis better defensively and as the game goes on, Hexdrinker is stronger offensively and falls off a bit as the game goes on.
Note: you shouldn't need to rush more armor than Wriggle's + Tabi early.
Boots Options
or
No real reason to get non-defensive boots. CDR probably makes the most offensive sense, but he doesn't need CDR badly enough for it to ever really make sense.
Staple Later Items
vs.
Since you should always have a phage early, this is the naturally the question for later in the game. Now, if you know me, you know I hate Mallet with a firey burning passion, but with Wukong's passive, it actually makes a lot of sense to get Mallet really quickly for the faster HP pool. Basically, Mallet will make you inescapable earlier and tankier earlier than Triforce, but Triforce obviously scales better to late game. Mallet's just really damn convenient on chasing characters that scale well with HP.
Omen is a necessity as a bruiser once ranged carries start to really hurt. It's active also gets a free .8 seconds from Wukong's passive.
The movespeed boost is great for chasing and you're usually building a brutalizer anyway, so Ghostblade is a natural way to use 1350 gold for more offense and utility end game.
?
Rarely worth it, but if you're getting a ton of farm, you can aim for Warmog's after trinity (would never get mog's before trinity, as if I need HP instead of finishing trinity, I would just rush Mallet). Wukong scales well with HP and so Warmog's is good on him, but it takes the build a long time to come together.
?
This item is obviously good on Wukong after you get your HP pool up, but I still find myself holding off on it for a long time, as I typically have to prioritize Omen over it. Generally a safe bet as 6th item, possibly before upgrading ghostblade.
?
If you need MRes after HP pool, go for it.
?
Last Whisper has negative synergy with your single target damage since you're running Flat Armor Pen and have 30% Armor Reduction on your Q. That being said, it still has it's place when you're looking on doing damage to the entire opposing team with your ult, as you can only Q one of them, and it's usually going to be the carry if you can get to them. When you want to bash up the opposing bruisers/tanks with your ult (your ranged AD >>> opposing ranged AD, or your team is straight AoE comp), get a last whisper. When your team is strong enough that they'll just let you chase opposing carries away, don't bother.
/
Hilarious if you get really fed. I wouldn't generally suggest these, but Cleaver with Ghostblade and your Q's armor shredding is simply absurd and early Bloodthirster with his AD scaling can let you solo penta-kill teams with your ult as a fed monkey.
My Standard Final Item Build
+ + + + +
Obviously sub in some Mres items if you need them (Some ideas for subbing: Mercs for Tabi, FoN for Atma's or Omen, Hexdrinker or Aegis for Ghostblade or Wriggle's), but against 1 AP teams, this isn't a rare final item build for me. Just from Scaling Mres Glyphs, his base MRes, his passive, and a friendly Aegis, Wukong sits at around 120+ MRes for no good reason, and in those cases, being able to ignore all their sustained damage with like 300+ Armor and leaning on your HP pool and positioning to not get 1 shotted by mages is preferable
Playstyle
Monkey's laning is all about burst trading. He bursts really well, engages really well and disengages really well, so you need to use these strengths to get the better of your opponent and wear them down in burst exchanges. Knowing the points where you can get the better of your opponent is really important, but it's hard for me to explain how exactly you should know when you're going to win exchanges, it's mostly about having experience and trying shit out. The general rule of thumb is that you beat people who can't auto attack well starting at level 1, you beat people with only 1 nuke at level 2, you beat people with slower but bigger burst than you at level 4, and you lose to anyone with hard CC and higher burst until your burst gets higher than theirs (typically 6, but against some, like Riven, it never gets higher, hence why Riven counters him). One pitfall I see a lot of Monkeys run into is that they will 100% of the time just go EQW to burst and disengage. Don't do this mindlessly. It puts a lot more strain on your mana pool than just doing EQ combos, and it also makes you lose out on autoattack damage from the attack speed boost on your E. Also remember to auto before Q. Doing this fast takes a bit of practice because Wukong's attack animations are pretty slow and goofy, but it's pretty important to do so, as it gives you a significantly higher damage output. Use W to disengage safely after bursting if you have to, but I find that I don't really need it a lot of the time. You can just E Auto Q Auto Auto as you chase them and then just back off most of the time.
Once you get ahead in lane, the fun begins. At this point, start just randomly hitting 's' between last hits. The point here is to condition your opponent to seeing your character stop randomly out of moves without being able to automatically associate this with you using your W. If you only ever stop to use W, you become predictable and your opponent will know when to play safe and when they're free to move up, so it's important to give them non W stops to keep them guessing. Everyone gets sloppy vs. this. EVERYONE. And it's because they have to. If they're forced to assume that every 's' from you is you actually using 'w' and that you'll just kill them by closing the gap while invis and then comboing them, they'll get completely zoned off of CS/XP. So eventually, you'll be able to pick up on what situations will tempt them into moving forward, and you'll be able to anticipate it, use W, close the gap and burst them whenever you want. Just be careful with using this if you're barely ahead, as using W to initiate when a jungler is about to gank you can just spell immediate death since you won't be able to drop aggro with your W.
After laning, be sure to be present for teamfights. Wukong's a huge threat in teamfights, and can wreck havoc with his R if the opposing team gives you the right opportunities. Feel free to initiate in the midgame using W to close the gap without the opponents knowing, but be careful later one when they have the damage to kill you quickly and an oracles to see you creeping up. Later in the game, W should typically be saved to disengage, as even with an oracles, opposing teams have a hard time keeping aggro on Wukong immediately after W. Dropping aggro for even a split second can be the difference between being disintegrated and living to burst another day. After your ult is down, your main role is as a chaser. With E's crazy low CD, you can chase Carries from the fight or solo and kill them under most conditions. But don't be tempted to chase too far, as Wukong is also a great anti-bruiser with the 30% Armor shred on Q. If you've made their carry run too far to keep fighting, just wheel back onto opposing bruisers and tanks and make your carry's job easier by chunking 60+ armor from those assholes.
Wukong is also a strong 1v1er and pusher late in the game. E's attack speed buff really helps tear down towers and Q procs the bonus damage and auto-attack timer reset on towers, so you can frequently be a split pushing threat if your team has enough kiting to draw out a 4v5, or if they're ahead enough to win 4v4s while you draw 1 away to stop your split push.
Here I also just want to discuss some other cute tricks you can do with your W:
1. Block skill shots, especially those that only hit champions, like Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow. If you're running away and you see a skill shot coming for you, you can W and you will be placed ahead of your decoy, which means that your decoy will happily absorb the skillshot for you.
2. Ward baits. There are rarely times late in the game where you can trick your opponents into blowing CDs on your decoy, but one of the most frequent is when you intentionally don't clear a ward that you saw them place and just camp that bush, then decoy out when you know they're coming for you. The reason this works so well is that while they will have an oracles, their oracles will be outside of the bush, so they won't be able to see you decoy out with a regular ward. This works especially well vs. long range initiates like Nocture/Ashe/Xerath/Sejuani, where they're really intent on trying to pick you off for being alone late game.
3. Stop jukes! When you're getting chased, hitting 's' and keeping W CD up is hilarious and rapes people pre-oracles so hard. I mean, sometimes they don't fall for it and then you look stupid, but w/e, who cares? The payoff from how fly you look when it works is totally worth the risk that they'll just kill you. There are 2 general trains of thought to stop juking and both are effective vs. different types of people. The first is that you should stop when in a brush, then juke backwards when the opponent passes through the brush. This works really well vs. blind chasers, but kinda sucks vs. good chasing champs who have the dicipline to sit in the bush and see which way you went (remember, they're assuming you used w). The other train of thought is that you should stop halfway between 2 bushes, wait 1 second, then activate w and go towards where your opponent just came from when they double back on where you stopped. This is a total mindfuck and I love it when it works so much, cause people tend to not have the sense to think "oh shit he didn't W right away, so maybe I have to re-check that bush that I just checked," and instead will assume you went the other way and chase that way. Don't count on stop jukes to work, if you have a free way out, just take it, but hot damn, shit looks so cool when it works and gets you out of an otherwise impossible situation, lol.
+ Show Spoiler [changelog] +
2/14/2012 - Created
2/16/2012 - Added last whisper as a situational item and wrote playstyle
2/16/2012 - Added last whisper as a situational item and wrote playstyle