I bought amumu today and started playing him, needless to say, i winged it. Multiple games later i have a set build i like to play him with, but its maxing despair over tantrum and bt. I havent done bad at all, i can still solo buffs by level 8, facetank towers by level 12 or so,I get ninja tabi, a trinity force (sometimes 20 minutes or less depending on lane), followed by either warmogs (only tried it once, worked great), force of nature, or sunfire cape. This seems to be working well, i always die under 5 or 6 times, and always have 10+ kills with the same amount of assist, so its not like im ks'ing. But its come to my attention that playing amumu this way will get you called a nub, no matter how well your tanking or ganking, purely because tantrum the classis build with him. im only level 11, and i realize that later as i play better people, i problably will have to start dumping more into tantrum, as people dont run from you anymore, but is this build viable even in higher ranking games? Any input would be awesome

tantrum > despair actually, partly because of the passive enabling you to tank physical damage a little bit better. you do start with despair if you're jungling blue, but keep despair at rank 1, and the stun at rank 1 while maxing ult and tantrum.

as for builds, a tank should never have a set build, but well i do think sunfire and boots 3 are perfect on him. the rest of the defenses should be planned according to your enemy, and btw raw hp from warmogs isnt the answer. if you're doing really really well, you can buy a rylai's and perma-aoe slow the enemy with your despair for your allies to pick off. FoN is perfect for MR, and then randuin's/frozen heart for armor. i dont like thornmail coz it gives people even less incentive to hit you, which is what you actually want them to do.

despair if you want to be able to dragon/baron/buff asap, tantrum to harass more.

yeah, i find right now, with the level people im playing, when i level despair, even though im not "tanking" in the classic way, the ability to make people turn in run from me helps out my team almost as much as tanking all the damage. Throw in factors like stealing their blue/red, early dragon, and mid/late game, if it goes our way, the enemy team is pretty much secluded to their side of the map with seldom buffs. I do change up my item build based on team comp, but i found that trinity force >25 minutes is pretty devastating with the despair damage...problably gonna try 3 boots though, ive often been outrun with despair on with the enemy barely surviving because of speed. I get warmogs and such because of the health regen mid/late, i can stay out forever with the combo of warmogs, trinity, and force of nature. Even with cloth armor and 5x hp pots at the start, ive been able to stay in lane sometimes until level 7 or 8 without going back, then going b to finish boots, and get red crystal and damage sword for mace, but im gonna give tantrum dumping a try, if it works out any better, thats great, but if not i can just always go back to my regular style of play..great advice btw

Generally i play a lane amumu, i'm not a big fan of jungling him, but he does make a good jungle, usually i'll pick up BT first for the extra little harass and the stun early game is really nice, and from there i will max tantrum, ult, despair. The damage of tantrum is great, plus the fact that the cool down is lessened by being attacked, and it makes you take less damage really makes it far better than despair.

As for build i generally go with philo first(getting the health regen portion and a health pot to start) however i never build it into anything, i keep it for the extra regen and gold ramp and at the end of my build will end up selling it for a better item. after this i build the boots that i feel will best suit the game usually with swiftness or mana resist(not a big fan of ninja). From there i will usually rush SFC, not only is it a great item, its even better on amumu, and really help ramp up his farming and damage output. From there i usually get abyssal scepter, its nice for the magic resist plus it gives you a great amount of utility as well as damage output, making it so that your actually a threat and the other team has to focus you(no sense being a tank you dont have any damage output and the opposite team just ignores you). After these initial 4 items which i almost always buy, in this same order regardless of the game, my build will change depending on the opposite team, i usually never end up getting warmogs, but if the other team is more magic based i'll get a FoN and possibly even a Banshees veil. If the team is more dps heavy i'll usually pick up a thornmail and rylais. There are also times where i will go the less tanky route and get a rylais, death cap, and some CD reduction, and be a far more heavy hitting death machine.

Hope this helps at all, its the first guide of any sort i'v ever done for a character, and i know its not perfect, but i do quite well with it, and it is the reason why amumu is my favorite tank to play, he is very versatile, and can actually be threatening enough where the other team has to focus him, and his BT+ult or flash+ult is just an AMAZING way to initiate any team fight.

i max toss first, tantrum second. ulti when it's possible obviously. despair on level 4 and level it last after that. it doesn't gain that much more damage early on.

laning. ignite(or whatever tbh) + flash. build is boots + 3 pots, catalyst, cd boots, RoA, deathcap. you will have about 300ap i guess. toss deals 600+ damage, tantrum 300+ and ulti 650+ at level 16. turning the team fight instantly to a 4v5 if you land your toss which is pretty easy.

depending on your angle of engagement you can either catch a squishy with toss then ulti + tantrum while despair is turned on, or you flash in ulti and target squishy with toss + tantrum.

you will not lose any games doing this until you reach a higher elo.

I logged in just so I could tell you the amumu secret. I ain't great at lol, but I'm **** good with the little guy. Are ya ready?

Abyssal scepter. That's it. Get it on every build with him and grab a sunfire cape and you can't go wrong. The scepter does 3 great things for amumu. First, the mr is great, and the ability power is good since he has 1:1 ratios on 2 of his spells. However, the minus 20 mr to everyone around him is the gem of the item because it helps sooo much with despair and the cape, plus it helps the rest of your team.

Seriously, do it, love it. It's an item made for the little guy.

If you're jungling, I STRONGLY suggest you go tantrum first. The extra phys dmg tantrum absorbs as a passive is amazing and it's cdr reduction from being hit makes you jungle very quickly. The only downside is it's mana intensive. So you start w/ 1 pt in despair for blue buff then max ult > tantrum > despair > bandage toss. Of course, grab 1 pt in bandage toss at lvl 4, since typically you'll finish your jungle run, hit lvl 4, then start ganking... and you can't really gank w/o bandage toss.

Also, as a previous poster said, as a tank, you're core should be very small and you really should just be focusing on building whatever counters the enemy. The only items in my build that I consider 100% necessary core are merc threads and banshee's veil. Merc threads b/c CC is a real problem and the MR is nice. Banshee's veil b/c of the MR and building catalyst early really helps w/ your jungle as well as w/ roaming/ganking. I often get Aegis too, but once in a blue moon I don't if it's clear that the dmg is really lopsided (either all AP or AD).

Oh and finally, meneroth2 is right... Abyssal is amazing in the right team comp. It helps the team and helps you dps just a tad more... AND it has great MR! Excellent item all around. I just don't suggest getting it if they are all AD, but it's certainly worth looking at. I'd even go so far as to say grabbing Abyssal over FoN after Banshee's if you need more MR. Don't get me wrong, FoN is super good, but Abyssal helps the entire team dps and synergizes w/ Amumu's passive. Abyssal + Amumu passive can equate to negative resistances -- something that can rarely be achieved through other means.

Thanks all for the great advice xD any other characters yall play that are as fun as mumu? Im always looking for new characters to play

I like Malphite a lot - similar mechanics to Amumu and builds somewhat the same way, so he might be easy to pick up next. Great ult, in that it charges into the enemy and stuns them, so it's sort of link Amumu's bandage toss + ult rolled into one. He also builds well with armor/MR items and a scepter, and he has a decent ranged attack that also steals movement speed (from them to you), which is nice, so he's easier to lane with them Amumu is, I think. Supposedly he's good in the jungle, too, but I usually run him in lane and break away to gank once I hit 6.