Trundle is rarely ever used and I think he's an excellent jungler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYmYZZ1wTOI&feature=plcp

Trundle is great early game, no doubt about that. But I think trundle is outclassed mid to late game by other anti-carry bruiser junglers like olaf, mundo, skarner, shyvana, etc. This is because when his ultimate is used on the carry for damage, he doesn't steal that much resistances to make him tankier. Also, the most commonly played carries like corki, graves, and ezreal can just blink, dash, or valkerie over the pillar of filth.

Another option I suppose is to play him as an anti-bruiser mid to late game. But the beef I have with this is that his pillar and his passive would be almost useless in a 1v1 fight agaist the enemy bruiser.

I'm hoping that riot buffs or changes trundle in the future. Maybe they can swich out his passive with one that enables him to life-steal without killing a creature first. Or maybe they could give his pillar a damage over time effect. Or they could make his ultimate steal a base amount of resistances, so that carries sometimes go into negative resistances. I think all these changes (besides the pillar buff I suggested) would make him no more powerful yet would allow him to fit the current meta.

Pooples, i think you're doing it wrong.In teamfights you ult the tankiest person on the enemy team, for example a Malphite: with this you reduce his stats and increases yours at the same, meaning that he wont last as long and you might last a bit longer. Your Q use either bruiser or adc to reduce that damage output, and last a pillar in the middle of the enemy team to disperse and slow. Remember that Trundle in teamfights more of utility than damage, you do get to do high damage if you know how, but you will manage to do it at some point.
Trundle is fine the way it is, he's underplayed and not understanded.
I saw a trundle buy all defense, no offensive items, i think his build was:
Merc boots, Thornmail, FoN, Warmogs, Randuins, Frozen Hearth and he just melted all ad output damage and became impossible to stop, he actually manage to withstand a 1vs3 quite some time, so yeah. Just learn him the way it is.

Ya I agree with Thorston13, I build him super tanky. Also you ult their tank, not ad, as the damage is around 250 which is nothing unless you need it to finish someone off. Also, I try to lock down the ad carry with him using frozen mallet to slow and rapid bite to make the enemy ad carry do minimal damage.

I personally prefer Trinity over the FM, is the only dps item i actually buy on him, since he actually benefits from all the stats, the sheen proc works well with your Q and helps those mana problems.

hmm good points. To be perfectly honest I never even considered building a full tank utility based trundle.

Though, to continue the this discussion, it seems that there are better utility champions out there that could do what trundle does but better. Alistar, for example, for obvious reasons as his utility is so fantastic. Maokai is another good example, with his defensive ult, knockback, ward, and root. Nunu also has 2 really nice slows plus a steroid for a teammate.

I think that Trundles pillar can be used for massive devistation, but it feels like that's his only good utility spell. His ult makes him extremly tanky late game and can make bruisers seem overextended when they wouldn't be otherwise. But the difference is minimal. If the enemy champion has 200 armor and magic resist, and your ADC or APC has last whispere or void staff + the right masteries, the ult would cause them to do 14% more damage to their target at first and 28% more damage at the very last tick of the 6 second duration. (Before: enemy champ has 50% reduced damage. Immediately after Trundle ult: enemy champ has 43% reduced damage. If I did the math wrong feel free to correct me.)

To me this spell does nothing but damage to the target its used on, both by trundle and by the teammates who attack the target. It therefore has no utility value but rather has high DPS values.

His Q only takes away 20 AD from an opponent, which seems like it'll make a difference mid game but not a strong difference. Late game it will make only a moderate differnce by reducing the damage output from the ADC by (if they have 200 AD) perhaps 7-10% In a teamfight I do not believe that this can be used as a strong utility spell to protect your teammates with.

I his W is an ability of an anti-carry bruiser and only provides utility to himself. It increases his DPS and makes him mobile enough to get over and do damage to the squishy carries. Seeing as though it only provides a high amount of utility only to himself it seems to me like it would not be as beneficial to a trundle who's role is to provide high amounts of utility for the team.

So, in my opinion, only one of trundles abilities can provide reliable utility to the team. However, since 3 of his other abilites make him stronger as a DPS bruiser, I feel that Trundle's role in a teamfight should mostly be to do damage to the enemy team. Anivia, for example, provides high utility during a teamfight with her wall, stuns, and slows, but more importantly provides damage throughout the game.

Good bruisers like Darius, Jayce, do a lot more damage than trundle also have a decnet amount of utility. Examples of bruisers with moderate utility plus tons of damage include Jayce, (nothing needed to be said here about jayces utility) Mundo, (a 40% slow at lvl 1 which is great for snowballing) Olaf, (an AOE 45% slow at lvl 9 that's spamable) Skarner, (nothing needed to be said here about skarner's utility) Darius (a AOE mini-blitz pul plus a 40% slow at lvl 13). Even blitzcrank can do about as much damage as trundle if he does well in top lane, plus he has insane utility.

In conclusion, other bruisers can do a lot more damage throughout the game and can still provide only a little bit less utility for the team than trundle, making them in general more viable than Trundle.

I still think Trundle is viable by the way... I just think there are better champions out there. I also think that Trundle provides an excellent nitch for the right team stradegy can therefore be a better pick than Jayce, Lee Sin, or Rengar at times. Also, like Leona's ult your teammates have to really know how to take advantage of the pillar, which isn't as strong in solo-q.

Looking forward to hearing your counter-argument Thorston13. Or anybody else's.

Pooples i do get your points and yes, Trundle is a little bit under the average at either Bruiser or Utility champ.
For example Lee develops both those roles at the same time with ease.
But i think you miss the small details that actually make some importance at any game at any moment; Your W and Q Spam would make you shred down the ADC, who should be always your main target, unless the top got fed hard, for example a Darius that once he snowballs is really hard to stop, imagine a Darius going all out and all of a sudden dying thanks to your Ult+Q combo.
If you are going to compare Trundle to the top tier champs in this meta, yes his mid or low tier (not sure), but he is worth while.

His passive might need a rework because it only works well in jungle or pushing lane hard.
Your Q stacks if i remember it right, your W actually it's not much of a help because it only serves you, if it had something like half the stats given to teammates would actually be a better spell, but it isn't so you can try to make the best of it, if your support is good, you can time your w+shurelyas and get to that ADC and burn a flash or two, you E the pillar is actually good, but it's main porpuse its not separating the enemy team, is more of a close an exit in a chase or make them stay behind and your Ult is always to the tankiest person and don't focus in the damage it does because you need to get some AP to make it work as a burst spell, it's more of a temporal buff for you.
Trundle works fine the way it is, yes the rework on passive and W might be great, but it's just about skill and practice, who to ult, how to take the adc appart and the such.
On personal experience i've seen trundles able to take down jayce/darius/riven top like nothing, how i have no idea how they just did.

If i have to say my experience on him, my best jungler i start boots and pots or even dorans sword and manage to go like a breeze on jungle, i haven't taken him to the top lane, but, at jungle it works wonders, ganking is hard since you have to come from all the way of their lane so you can do it right.

Overall he is a little bit under, but he is viable, and even if your team sucks or has a crappy comp, you can go for it and fill that neccesity, you have the means to go do damage if needed or go and be that meat shield.

You don't pick Trundle for his damage.

You don't pick Trundle for his utility.

You don't pick Trundle for his ability to be "dunkmaster"


You pick Trundle for one reason, and one reason only:

To shut down an enemy Jungler.

Trundle is one of the best 1v1 duelist in the game. He is fast and efficient in the jungle and has a great disengage and good movespeed/CC reduction with his W up, which allows him to escape sticky situations, or stick to targets to keep them from escaping.

There are only a handful of champions which can handle the kind of pressure a well played Trundle can apply.

Not only can he counter-jungle among the best of them, but his Pre-6 ganks are far superior to most other Junglers of his class.

Look at other Top Tier junglers:

Tier 1 – Lee Sin, Dr. Mundo, Maokai, Nunu, Skarner, Nocturne, Udyr, Shyvana, Trundle, Jarvan IV, Cho`Gath, Amumu, Shen, Nautilus, Alistar, Malphite, Hecarim, Olaf


For Pre-6 Ganks, Trundle is on par or superior to Lee Sin, Mundo, Nocturne, Udyr, Shyvana, Jarvan, Olaf, and Malphite.

For 1v1 capabilities, he's on par or superior to Nunu, Mundo, Lee Sin, Nocturne, Shyvana, Jarvan, Amumu, and Alistar.

Only a few junglers will give him real problems at all stages of the game.. Namely Udyr and Skarner.

If Trundle can play aggressively and poach enemy camps (including Blue and Red) as well as pull off a few succesful ganks pre-level 6, he can put his team in a position of superiority. After that, it is up to his team to make best use of that early game advantage and turn it into a dominant Mid->Late game. After Early game, he should focus on getting a Trinity Force, stacking Defense (like Randuins, BV, etc), getting an oracles and warding like a maniac.


1dang1, I would recommend going 9/21/0, and picking up boots+3 pots first. Better CJing and ganks. The only reason to go down the utility tree is for additional time on your buffs, which really isn't a big deal compared to the damage you pick up from 9/21/0. Not like Trundle has sustain problems in the jungle.

Skarner gives trundle no problems early and mid game. In fact I highly doubt skarner could 1v1 a trundle at any stage of the game. The rest of your points still stand.

Perhaps if both were at 100% hp with about the same money spent on items... yeah. But Skarner can constantly slow and speed himself him. Trundle is "slippery" against most opponents, but Skarner can make him hang around in places he doesn't want to be for longer than he should be. Same with Udyr. Speed up, Stun, Shield, Damage Damage, Speed up, Stun, shield, damage damage, etc.

It's not so much that either of these Champs can outright 1v1 a Trundle under the best conditions for both.. It's that they make it hard to be quite as aggressive and they can be just as aggressive to you. That's my experience anyway.