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Amumu is struggling

Beerstein·1/13/2019, 10:03:50 PM·4 votes·3,473 views

I don't think it's just me, I don't see others play him. I absolutely adore this champion and the fact that he still feels like a true tank, and promotes pure aggression (no escape mechanism). He's my favorite but I rarely play him.

I have my own weaknesses as a player, and I've always been aware of them. I try to have fun more than be competitive as a former competitive gamer, to me you go for the top or you don't bother.

That said, despite my exceptionally weak play (Silver 1) and perhaps partly because it, Amumus weakness is really prominent.

Changes impacting Amumu recently:

  • Removed green ward item.
  • Buffed mana for mage junglers as they were a bit starved (indirect buff to his opponents, 0 direct impact on his itemization)
  • Shorter ward duration

People felt he was a bit weak to aggressive counterjunglers before this. So how did these impact him? Well, his opponents got even stronger with the item buffs. I don't mind mana management with him, every champion should have it to some degree, though very few do anymore.

But to me at Silver 1 the impact of removing the green jungle items was HUGE. It removed my vision. People at this level of play are very very light on wards, and their placement tends to be so selfish that sometimes it doesn't even help them (too close). Especially mid laners.

It can be very hard at this level of play to get the attention of laners. Very few see the JG as a 4th lane (will ignore ganks into allied jungle while screaming for ganks for themselves). This is even more of an issue with lack of vision no matter how good you are at tracking the enemy jungler.

Because of this, the 1 pink limit, and limited green wards, it's near impossible to protect my jungle or myself, especially with reduced ward count, and ward timers (I'm on the other side when jg respawns/ward expires) This means the side I'm on can lack protective vision, and the side respawning can also lack it depending on the situation. Basically, it's impossible to keep my jungle entrances warded well. I realize maybe the green ward jg item wasn't meant for someone like Amumu, or even removed because of him, but it hurt him.

He really struggles against opponents that understand him (most players, particularly junglers as he's and old champ)

I don't think he needs a huge buff, and don't want it. I just want to be able to have some mechanic to protect my own jungler (like the old ward jg item). He still has his niche despite being a champion that struggles, and I wouldn't WANT him at the forefront of the meta as those champions tend to get messed with too much for their own good and end up changing entirely to something different.

In short, I just wish Amumu had something to protect his jungle (like wards). Am I the only one that feels this?

As I mentioned at the start, we all have weaknesses etc. and I have mine, I mentioned this because when I pull up stats for some of my Junglers, despite all this, the results were ghastly. Since I'm the same player there will likely be consistent weaknesses, but definitely a pattern.

So I compare 3 champions, Warwick, probably the definition of well rounded, Yi, a hyper aggressive champ, and Amumu, the aggressive, but well rounded tank.

You get pretty much what you expect from Warwick and Yi, but then Amumu is just a shadow in the middle. Given that my personal skill doesn't change, this is a sad mummy. (may have to click image/link, for some reason I can never get previews to work) https://imgur.com/IfFdKCU These are basically how good you are at each thing, a good player will be far from the middle in most/all categories depending on play style, and some champions obviously trend with certain strengths/weaknesses. Red is last 5 games, yellow is overall.

Now again, I'm not a great player, and I'm open to disagreements, this is just how I feel and was wondering if others have any thoughts on this. "Don't play amumu at low tier" is kinda where I'm at, but I also understand that the higher I get the more people understand him and exploit his weaknesses as well. Does he really belong? Does he need a change? Does anyone else feel like the ward changes hurt him as much as I do?

Thanks if anyone actually reads/responds.

TL;DR Master Yi is secretly a fish, that's why he wears goggles.

11 Comments

The Ecdysiast1/13/2019, 11:14:47 PM2 votes

Amumu's always been lackluster.

Amumu himself has only 2 forms of CC. One single-target, 1s with a 16s cooldown for most of the game since he has to focus his E first to farm. And his ultimate, a 2s stun which has a cooldown 30s longer at all ranks than most other tanks' and doesn't move him to the enemies. 2 abilities with CC, with his others providing none whatsoever strictly because his ultimate has the potential to punish a team that's grouped too tightly and not warding.

Let's compare that to other jungle tanks (though with the current build for Amumu, he isn't so much a tank as he is a poorly-scaling AP bruiser): Maokai 2 roots and 2 slows, one of which is a conditional knockup. All on shorter cooldowns than Amumu's. 4 total Sejuani a knockup, slow, and stun with a large AoE slow. Again, all on shorter cooldowns than Amumu. 3 total Zac a slow/displacement, knockup, and slow that becomes a displacement. 3 total Nautilus cc on every single ability, including his passive. And that's not even including the top lane tanks that can either take his place as the tank while going top or even just replace him in the jungle. Or the tank supports.

All of which also have abilities with the potential to turn a teamfight, so it's not like that's incredibly unique to Amumu. And since he relies on a stun with no knock-ups, he's the only one entirely vulnerable to Tenacity-- which you can't build against.

On top of all that, he's physically quite small. Unlike most others, he can't as easily soak up skillshots like a tank's supposed to.

What he needs is to have his W and E replaced. An ability that is nothing but a low enemy-max-HP scaling DoT doesn't work well when most champions can either kill him before it's been very long or simply hop a wall. And with things like conqueror, challenging smite, and Guinsoo's, a low damage ability that only gets cooldown refunded for being attacked instead of actually punishing the enemy for attacking just doesn't work well against anyone but the jungle monsters. Nevermind that half of the champions in the game aren't AA focused and so don't give him even that little benefit.

Reaper Soraka1/13/2019, 10:06:55 PM1 votes

I don't think there's anything I hate going against more than an Amumu main.

Maybe Poppy main. Thank god neither of those are common.