What are things to worry about going in as Jungle Rammus?

JafarThePanda·Apr 11, 2016·2 votes·1,805 views

Rammus is a no-brainer for me to build for jungle, and I can adapt the build to heavy AD or AD matchups, because building tank... (SEEMS) easy enough to adapt to, and I'm working on how to properly build kind of a hybrid build (Balancing MR and resistance to armor pen.) if you want to call it that. However - counter jungling (if applicable) with rammus - how does one go about it? What's the bullshit matchups? (I know someone's going to say "mobafire gtfo" or something. I'm asking on here, shush) and I guess, what do you do as rammus when you're behind, or just not as ambitious as the more solid junglers?

10 Comments

RiotRiot SotereApr 11, 20163 votes

Trickiest thing is to keep accumulating gold. Find a way to do that, either by repetitive ganks or clearing the jungle and you should be golden. He doesn't tend to be a great counter-jungler in my experience. He's not fast enough, he doesn't have a ton of solo kill potential, and his buff/objective secure is pretty low. But, at the end of the day if you really want to, I'm sure you can make it work. :)

JafarThePandaApr 11, 20161 votes

Someone I saw did a Q + Flash (bonked a group. Haven't tried it since I'm not that clever enough to know if flash stops an ability like his Q) + E to taunt the champ he wanted, and then W + R for his combos in ganking. I have yet to really try him out in pubs because I'm still working on going faster on clears + build path.

This is kind of how I build. I'm not sure if there's a better way of going about it because matchup variance but

item 1401 item 3742 item 3111 item 3143 item 3190 item 3364

shoutouts go to item 3075 item 3047 (heavy AD picks) and item 3512 (never used portal but some people think it's groot)

AkeneroApr 11, 20161 votes

It's a good build, but can be improved a bit. Taking trackers blade instead of stalkers gives you more vision control, and let's you use Oracle's lens effectively, warding bushes after clearing Ward's so you can see the opponents go to ward them again. Dead man's is amazing on rammus, but CAN be swapped for a randuins omen if after stick potential, as can righteous glory. I'd recommend ninja tabi no matter what, as it reduces the damage taken from taunt. Buy banshees if you NEED the cc reduction, forcing the enemy to waste 2 cc effects to stop you, reducing their power in short skirmishes. Randuins omen and frozen heart are interchangeable, trading HP for mana and CDR. Locket can be swapped out for something else if your team is already building one, as the auras don't stack, reducing gold efficiency by a bit. Hope this helps!

Fanny ForecastApr 11, 20161 votes

From thinking of how his kit works, good people to invade would be people who have weak early games, have minimal cc, and are very auto reliant. One that comes to mind, that fits 2 of the 3, is Evelynn. She MIGHT out dmg you, but I don't actually know.

As for just counterjungling, the easiest way to counterjungle is map awareness. Bot getting ganked? Steal his top side jungle. Enemy taking their krugs? Take gromp. In early-mid game, gromp WILL be back up by the time they take krugs, and they're unlikely to go right back over there before backing. You have a decent window of opportunity at this point to steal their stuff and run. Make sure to ward, smite Raptors, and maintain scuttle control as those are more important than counterganking, and you kinda need these to do it safely.

As for a build, I THINK rammus scales off AP with his abilities. If so, Abyssal would be a good pickup. Other than that, MR-based items good on Rammus would be ZZRot, GA (if you're fed and wanna be an ass), and Spirit/Banshees (Banshees only if u wanna block CC like Morg Q).

JafarThePandaApr 11, 20161 votes

Rammus does work off AP. I was really considering that and zhonya's but I think it's too expensive to be realistic about. Abyssal might be if you're behind or super ahead

Fanny ForecastApr 11, 20161 votes

The thing with Abyssal vs Spirit/Banshees on Armor Tanks (Malphite/Rammus/Taric) is that it's only a matter of how much AP do they have and how fed are they. If they have a support and a mid laner, both are doing average, go Abyssal. If they have an Udyr jg who is fed as well as an ap mid, grab Spirit. It's a situational pickup thats basically a matter of how much do you actually need the MR and how well are you personally doing.

AkeneroApr 11, 20161 votes

Try building some hybrid armor Mr items, like a zz portal, and facing armor pen with thornmail is a good idea in general, since it uses pre-mitigation damage. As for prevention of counter-jungling, Ruby sightstone are REALLY good for heavy vision control, and grant HP, enforcing tankiness.

Very Hard EngageApr 11, 20161 votes

as a rammus jungler.... (for those games where i don't get mid lane >.>)

item 1409 -> ninja tabi / merc treds / mobi boots in that preferential order, where i reserve merc treds for cc heavy teams, and mobi's for "wow the enemy team is super pushing, let me go ahead and just repeatedly gank lanes"

second item has variation, but i will strongly consider warmogs/thornmail/righteous glory/ -> RG for more ganks, thornmail against those whopper AD only teams, and warmogs for a general balanced team. warmogs actually procs at this time, i will have 3k hp with it.

-> then go thornmail or warmogs for sure. (which ever one i didn't buy) ((but if i choose to build RG as the second item, then i will go thornmail next for the armor)

-> CDR items item 3110 item 3190 are you're two main choices. i look to see whos doing the best, whether it be the enemy mid laner.. ill pick up a locket, if its the enemy ADC, ill consider frozen heart.

-> example full build item 1409 -> item 1322 -> item 3083 -> item 3075 -> item 3800 -> item 3102 some might argue "why only one armor item, you're not using your passive" good question, this is a generic rammus build, (+120 armor from DBC is quite a bit, and offers just over 70% damage reduction for both types) if im truly looking to counter a full AD enemy team i will build

item 1409 -> item 3047 -> item 3083 <- switch warmogs/TM as needed -> item 3075 -> item 3143 -> item 3110 ^ offers 4k hp, and more than enough armor for those "i hope you've built a last whisper by now" moments.

the biggest concerns as jungle rammus, is that your team is pushing, and you're being invaded on.

you can mitigate invasions by warding your jungle entrances so you can react and potentially kill invaders.

but if you cant get early game ganks off theres no real reason to have rammus other than "im going to flash on top of your enemy adc in the late game"

rammus naturally has very slow clears, thats his weakness, so someone with devourer on the enemy team who is going ham and farming, will have a gold lead over you and will likely have more of an impact later on.

what people tend to forget that is rammus can towerdive sooner than most tank junglers thanks to his W, and rushed health pool.

Jungle Lux GodApr 11, 20161 votes

How you counter jungle with Rammus is that you don't counter jungle with Rammus. Rammus naturally has extremely slow clear speeds that make it hard to take a camp in an efficient amount of time and really poor dueling potential that leaves him in extremely bad positions if he does get caught out in either jungle. If you see the jungler gank a side lane while you are taking scuttle crab on the other side of the map then maybe you can steal a camp, but know that you are probably going to need smite to get the camp, which isn't always optimal depending on the camp.

Rammus generally has bad matchups against anyone that can bully him during the early game and has good matchups against those that can't. There aren't a whole lot of junglers that outscale Rammus in the late game, and if the enemy jungler can't bully Rammus it's extremely likely for Rammus to hit that late game, but champions that can bully him out early can prevent him from reaching that late game.

It's really hard to say what Rammus should do when he falls behind because I've personally never found myself in that kind of situation when playing Rammus myself, and when I have I haven't really been able to have much of an impact, but what I think would be ideal for Rammus is that if there's an enemy trying to dive your carries, like an assassin or a bruiser, then I would personally just stand by my carries. If they engage then I would Q-E them upon them engaging to peel and it would essentially offer a free kill while not requiring too much defenses. You can also try your hand at trying to engage with Rammus either through flanks or through brute-forcing it through Q with Righteous Glory, but it's really hard to do that consistently without having mastered Rammus.

PapaGreg21Apr 11, 20161 votes

Don't pick him first or the enemy will just pick AP champs. Don't buy AP items because he scales badly. Instead buy magic penetration items if the enemy has tanks. If you have blue buff you can taunt the jungle camps to lower their resistances. Consider ghost instead of flash. Also he is fast enough to gank through lane unlike most junglers.