I don't understand why so few people play Rumble. He has amazing damage and utility. His ultimate is arguably the best in the game. He has insane AOE, a speed boost, shield, three slows and massive range. Oh and Lich Bane late game while overheating means 800 dmg to turrets.

I will say this. Most Rumbles I play with build tanky. I used to but then I went full AP. (Stacks then Cap then Lich Bane) and it's been ten times better.

I don't think I could do straight AP with him, I'd be taken out within a few seconds of trying to keep my Q on them.

Still, what a hilarious hero to play, I do give him a shot whenever the team composition allows for it

People don't play him because he used to be pretty good, but then he was nerfed several times. Some of the nerfs were pretty painful, like the ult one and also the one increasing the cooldown and reducing damage on flamespitter. All of his abilities (minus the ult) are pretty short range and his base stats are actually very squishy.

I think the worst was the cooldown increase as it makes it much harder to micromanage your heat without cooldown reduction. And unlike most other champions, Rumble does not really benefit at all from cooldown reduction since his skills are bottlenecked by heat buildup a lot more than the actual cooldowns. So it took an interesting mechanic that was kind of fun and made it considerably more difficult to micromanage the heat. You really don't want to be overheated unless flamespitter just started so you can get an overall dps increase, and even then you generally want to make that only at the end of a fight since the silence lasts quite a while.

It's true that he can do a pretty good amount of damage if you build pure AP, but then you have an essentially melee range champ that is really squishy, and his ratio on the shield is really terrible. Going full AP on Rumble will just make a good enemy team kill you first, or force you out of the fight except for the ult. You're actually adding more to team fights than most champs that are forced to stay that far back with the ult, but you're still basically doing nothing.

Primarily because of his range, Rumble is best at noob stomping and plays a lot like Garen hiding in the bushes. His laning ability is really terrible against any ranged character because of this, and you'll get zoned if they are smart unless you also have a really good ranged partner -- in this case his laning is actually really strong, and you should be able to zone them and get free farm. However, even a full AP Rumble's damage will become lackluster during mid-late game.

In my experience, the best way Rumble can contribute to the team is to do a mix of tank and tanky AP items, with a void staff as the last item, and always get Rylai's first. Your role is to initiate with the ult if it is up, and then pop the shield and try to lock down their carries with slows. If you build pretty tanky, they will not focus you first but you should still be able to do enough damage to scare them into trying to run (which they shouldn't be able to with your slows) or die from your damage (but mostly your teams'). Honestly he's a good addition to the team, but after the nerfs I feel like many other tanky dps characters outshine him.

Also, he plays just like a Garen, and Garen is getting buffs tomorrow soooo we'll see how that plays out.

He was nerfed pretty badly; he can't bully around in laning phase as much as he used to, plus riot didn't buff his late game (actually, they continuously nerfed it). So you get a decent early game (against certain lanes ie. melee only ones) and downhill from there.

Due to the need to build AP offtank items, unless you get super fed, by 20 minutes when the smarter people are buying MR your damage is heading downhill. Pure AP rumble just gets destroyed by better-scaling lifestealing AD carries. Tank rumble is a slowbot and nothing more. AP offtank tries to balance the two but without major gold he is neither as useful as a "tanky dps" nor is he a good offtank.

What riot should have done was put a 7 - 5 (or 6.5 - 4.5) second scaling cooldown on his Q, and changed his ult to a fixed 80 second cooldown. That was literally all they had to do. But nope. They also nerfed the revolver's spellvamp back, plus removing vamp from his innate. Starting with a regrowth pendant (or shield) + a second pendant nets you more net health regen over the same amount of time now, plus they build into a FoN eventually.

What's even more annoying is they didn't even buff his W, which is the worst shield and speedboost in the game. The speedboost is enough to move 40-100 units extra (or about 1/15 to 1/6 the range of conventional gap closers), while the shield is just utter ass - lowest base and lowest scaling.

Rumble was only really strong against squishy melee characters (and fail mages who use abilities on minions) - any sort of strong ranged poke destroyed him when competently played. Basically, he is (/was) well set up to exploit mistakes by the enemy team - facechecking, sending squishy melees in lane, and so on.

Rumble used to be lawlz common guys my utlimates up we got this 2v5 fight in the bag his Rockets go out and he gets his penta kill, now its just.... hes so tank and does ok damage I wanna burst him but I dont want to.

He just takes to much micro management to be fun. I played him for a while and he can really dominate if you can keep his heat levels balanced well but it's too much of a chore to have to do so all game.

The AP build is fun against noobs, but any coordinated team with FF you down insanely fast. Tanky Rumble starts with Rylai's so he does well early/mid and builds tanky afterwards to provide meatiness for his team and using his semi-decent aoe damage and slow.

As for his nerfs, I haven't found them to be too bad. Rumble is a great laner. Against ranged you need to pick harpoon first so you can farm with it. Learn to adapt, Rumble is great in just about every situation/team.

As for his heat levels, they seem easy to balance to me. First off, I don't use blue cooldown runes. The trick is to be able to hit the hot zone or even overheat at level one, but that trick isn't worth it imo. With 5.5ish cooldowns on shield/flamespitter I find it very easy to get in the zone as well as overheat vs turrets.

I fully agree with this. I like to pick him up once in a blue moon when he's free for like 2-3 games, but overall dealing with managing his heat every game would get annoying to me. Props to people with the patience to main someone like him.

No offense; just me. First time I went Rumble, I went something like 10/3/7 (Estimate). The hero is completely ƒk'd. lol. Over the edge OP =/

I have lots of fun with him and I win a lot too. I use tank masteries and runes. I can take mid or solo top, and ranged don't give me any problems. Last week I midded (that a word?) against an Urgot, an Ashe, Teemo, and a Malzahar and pretty much wallumped them. Kept them dead and experienced/gold deprived, and their team was effectively down a carry.

If you have problems laning against ranged as Rumble, it might be playstyle. He lends himself to very aggressive play, which I also like.

He's very similar to Mordekaiser, but more reliant on AP items to do damage.

Reason why he might seem OP to other players? He punishes people for playing passively, as you can just watch them and toss on scrap shield when they poke, and I never see carries take magic resist or tenacity, so double tapping them with Rumble's skillshot can ruin their day.