with rammus doing mostly Magic damage, besides his passive improving his auto attack, it would seem that going AP would be pretty viable, especially since his power ball has a 1.0 ratio and his ultimate has about 2.4 ratio if the enemy takes the full damage.

im thinking something like sorc boots (unless merc is required) Abyssal scepter (or void staff if theres not many casters on your team and you dont need the MR) Rod of ages, zhona's hour glass, thornmail/runduin's omen (which ever fits best for the fight) and deathcap.

seems pretty viable to me, but thats just in theory. anyone actually tried this build before?

The problem is that Rammus is a tank. While that might work in theory, in SR, where does rammus go? He goes in the Jungle, where he gets modest farm. He can't really top, mid right?

Due to this limited budget, and the need to be pretty tough, he just doesn't have the budget to go Tanky AP which is what you suggest.

A Cho Gath can pull this off because he gets a lot of free life (900) plus decent base life as well. And he has multiple high AP ratio spells.

Your powerball is more of a mobility thing than an actual attack spell. Your Ult is very strong but Living Longer tends to make it do more damage over boosting with AP. (see fiddlesticks)

Rammus also wants improved cooldown reduction for faster Taunts and more available Ults.

So I would not recommend this as a viable approach. You might try it in Dominion for Funzies though, since the farm limitation is mostly removed.

what about in TT, Im a TT player, theres plenty to farm in TT for him, and he can easily go in and out of the jungle quickly. for CDR we could also use frozen heart, though that would reduce his damage potential from defense curl.

so the tanky AP approach could work here, couldnt it?

Dominion I'll often build an Abyssal Scepter after Thornmail/Sunfire to abuse its synergy with both of those items. Never focused AP like building an ROA or anything though.

The only AP items Rammus should be considering are magic penetration related ones. AP focused builds for him aren't very effective unfortunately. They used to be better when his ball curl had an AP ratio, but that was a very long time ago.

You don't need that much AP, just go either Abyssal or Rylay's, but i do prefer Rylais because your W and R procs the slow.

Dude, don't rez 9 month old posts.