I'm a little bit bored so I thought I'd write a guide to my favorite champion Amumu.
Amumu is an emo mummy who is both a great jungler and one of the best tank/initiators out there.
Passive: MR debuff applied by your autoattack. Your autoattack won't do much damage but be sure to attack your target just to apply this.
q: Bandage Toss: A classic 1 point wonder. This is a skillshot which is slow (has about a 1/2 second casting delay as well as a slow projectile). It stuns whatever it hits (will hit minions) for 1 second and pulls you to them while dealing a small amount of damage.
w: Despair: Amumu applies magical DoT (very rare) in a percentage of enemy HP. Note that this does not scale normally with AP. It jumps 1% at 100 AP and again at 250 (and I've heard again at 750 but I've never gotten there) but there are no incremental gains inbetween there. This will suck your mana dry at any stage of the game.
e: Tantrum: A small AoE magical damage which is great for farming or a little extra damage in team fights. This has a 7 second cooldown but it decreases by .5 seconds every time you get hit making it eminently spammable in certain situations. As a bonus it passively provides a minimal amount of protection against physical attacks (1 point per level).
r: The Gamebreaker: Amumu snares all enemies in a large AoE around him dealing DoT for 3 seconds!!! enemies caught by this can use skills but may not attack (it is not a stun and will not interupt Nunu/Kat/Fiddle ults - use 'q' for that). This (or the threat of it) makes amumu the best tank around. It has a massive cooldown so b sure to use it wisely.
Masteries, Summoner spells & Runes:
If Jungling (smite & Ghost):
1/16/13
Offense: Smite
Defense: +6 armor, + 6MR, 2 pts in the Health regen, -3 physical dmg , -1 dmg from minions, + 60 health. Note that we avoided all dodge masteries because they interfere with spamming tantrum.
Utility: 3/3 Good Hands, 1 improved Ghost, 4 imp. Experience, 3/3 Meditation, 2/2 Neutral Buff.
Red Runes: Flat Armor
Yellow Runes: Flat Armor
Blue Runes: Flat MR
Quints: Flat HP
This is something like + 96 HP, +19 armor, +13 MR which is huge for jungling.
Otherwise (Exhaust & Ghost):
Masteries are similar**, just move smite to exhaust and you can move 1 neutral buff to the gold or movement (you will probably to grab blue buff at some point).
**You can run 9/0/21 if you're careful and 0/21/9 (or 1/21/8) if you want to be tankier early. Amumu has a weak early game and is mana hungry so meditation and Veterans scars are a must for me.
Red Runes: Magic Pen
Yellow Runes: MP5/lvl - amumu is mana hungry and w/o a constant blue buff you need something and I hate buying chalice. Optional: Dodge, Armor or HP/lvl
Blue: AP/lvl or CDR (you could go MP5/lvl if you want to use yellow for something else). I like AP because these + AP quints + abyssal scepter breaks the 100AP barrier.
Quints: Flat HP (have I mentioned he has a weak early game when not jungling)? or AP /lvl if you went with AP /lvl blues ( I think you need 2 here to hit 100AP with Abyssal).
How To Jungle:
Buy Cloth Armor and 5xHP pots. Level Despair
2 options:
A) You have a good team that is willing to guard the blue buff while you grab it, this leads to a 5 min dragon. Most ganks come from the bushes near mid.
Autoattack golem and toggling despair on and drink a pot after you get hit once. Smite when it's near 1/2 HP, you should be level 2, take take tanrum. From here continue through your jungle sequentially (wolves, wriaths, Red Golem, 2 golems) drinking pots when their time is up and making sure you have 150 MP before staring a fight, use smite when it comes up on the red golem. At level 3 take despair again, at level 4 take bandage toss.
After killing the 2 golems, back to base and buy Ninja Tabi (I'm still experimenting on what else works) and run to the dragon, if you ghost, you should get there around 4:30 with both buffs active and one red pot left if you jungled well. Bandage to him turning 'w' on as you do and immediately tantrum use skills when available. I save the smite to help prevent someone stealing dragon. Dragon should fall no latter than 5:15. At this point (b to heal if needed) then help a lane, gank a lane or continue to jungle until 6 at which point you must begin ganking (your 'r' should be able to help land a double kill in the 2v2 lane). At this point I rush a sunfire even if the other team is all AP (I run with flat MR blues). The armor + AoE dmg allows you to tower dive low HP opponents really well.
Without a team to guard you start at the 2 small golems w/ 3 red and 2 blue pots, smite one and toggle on despair and drink a pot autoattack to win. Level up tantrum. Move to wraiths and repeat while drinking a blue pot. Repeat with wolves. Back and then get the blue buff and the wraiths should be back. Getting the dragon is a little tricky here since every 5 minute all creeps/neutrals get a buff. Have a teammate help or wait until level 7. Skills should be w > e > w > q > e > r then r > e > w > q (though if you like it better feel free to level despair instead of tantrum it doesn't make much difference either way).
How To Lane:
Laning with amumu is tough. I prefer dorans shield + HP pot. I make sure to only last hit and use tantrum to do so if necessary. Don't be afraid to tower hug. 1 sec stun usually isn't much while the dmg reduction in tantrum is massively helpful so I level skills as e> q> e > w > r then r>e>w>q. One thing to remember is that your bandage toss stuns, so if you're getting pushed and their creeps are about to die, stun the enemy if they're too agressive then hit them with tantrum. This may even do enough damage that you can chase and kill, but don't count on it.
The biggest problem I run into here is lack of farm so I only rush a sunfire if the enemy team has 2 AD opponents (sometimes pantheons early game strength makes him enough that I do it anyway).
Itemz - prioritized as I prefer them
Core build is boots (treads or mobility or ninja) + items as needed:
Note that if you jungled and bought ninjas just to kill dragon (they're not strictly necessary for dragon) feel free to sell them for more appropriate boots.
Vrs AP
Force of Nature (move speed + largest single item MR)
Abyssal Scepter (mpen, MR, AP) - a must have if you have the AP runes to break 100 Ap
Veil (HP + spell block)
Vrs AD
Sunfire (I never buy more than 1 but up to 3 could be solid, the farming ability this grants makes it worthwhile against even a full AP team)
Glacial Shroud (awesome AS debuff and CDR is massively welcome).
Raduins (the active slow is nice and decent if your ult isn't available and CDR is great for your bandage toss)
Thornmail (the problem with amumu as tank is not CC he just doesn't get focused enough by AD heroes for this to be worthwhile)
If you're facerolling or late game consideration:
RoA - AP, HP, mana
The armor + crit cape spear which adds AD based on max HP (especially if you have 1 or more sunfires) can really make your autoattack hurt.
Zhona's ring - provides 100 AP by itself and the ability to stand in the middle of your enemies with despair on for 2 seconds prior to ulting can be nasty.
Lichbane - can help drop towers, provides MR but the sheen buff isn't great since 'w' doesn't trigger it and tantrum/bandage are 7/14 second cooldowns.
Don't get
Rylai's Scepter - AP is good, HP are good but the slow is rarely useful for the price (only tantrum really could use it and since it's AoE it's only a 15% slow).
Playing as Amumu:
Jungle or tower hug until level 6.
At level 6 you are going to roll in the assists. Gather a couple people and gank. be sure to ping your target. If you can just all roll out there with despair on and wait for them to run before using bandage (the red buff should help slow them as well). If there are multiple targets, use your ult instead. Grab a blue buff whenever available in order to fuel despair and if you have at least 2 points in despair, take dragon whenever possible (always possible with a friend). Be aware if your target has a blink since you will need more stuns to kill them. If you have some armor (especially a sunfire) don't be afraid to towerdive low HP opponents. Start buying a ward everytime your back at base and ward popular spots (mid bushes, dragon, buffs). You're hard to kill but you are a tank, stay with your team.
In teamfights you want to get in the middle of as many enemies as possible and ult so your team can just ream 2 or three of them (always have 'w' on before going in since even if you eat a stun it will dmg the enemy). Initiation is as simple as w (can substitute ghost if you're saving the stun for certain ults - kat / Nunu) then q (move into better position if needed) then r. Catch runners with 'q' and start destroying towers if you win the fights.
If you get caught in a bad position with low health remember that bandage toss can pull you to minions. You will stop briefly as the bandage goes out but then it will pull you quickly away from enemies.
Remember to turn 'w' off if you don't need it (unless you have enough MP5 that you can use it permanently). Around level 11 if you have sunfire + blue buff you can farm creeps/jungle waves easily with despair and a tantrum.
Well my build just finished so I better get back to work.
I'm going to experiment with running full armor runes (except quints) and buying boots + minimal red pots with the idea of getting a full 700 for chain armor to get sunfire faster.
