Can anyone give me tips on how to play good with hecarim?

Depends on what you mean. Top Hecarim is pretty bad, and shouldnt be used....

JUNGLE Hecarim is great, but he lacks alot of ganking ability before 6.

What exactly were you looking for? Tips, runes, masteries, items?

hecarim has great ganks after level 3, after he gets his e.

this is my preference all builds can have slight variations if you really nitpick.

runes: attack damage, armor, mr/lvl, move speed
masteries: 9/12/9, armor pen in offense, hp and bladed armor in defense, rune duration in utility

assuming you know when to start boots or cloth armor
build: boots, wriggles, hog (if fed, ie wriggles boots and hog within 15min), trinity force, maw of malmortious, frozen heart, randuin's (if hog) or Force of Nature, sell wriggles for Bloodthirster/Black Cleaver is they are getting armor

my normal path is: boots, wriggles, hog, glacial shroud, phage, hexdrinker. From there its what I need more, if super fed skip hexdrinker and get triforce first, get trifroce before glacial shroud if you have enough to buy it up front

I agree with Kaoelith on some points but not others . . .

I usually start cloth armor + 5 pots, I start at blue and clea all the small camps twice and go back for Ninja Tabi . . . With this, you are lvl 4 and are much faster than anyone else on the field. You may also have enough $$$ for a ward to place at the enemy blue buff.

My next item is almost always Sheen. It provides much more DPS than any other item at early lvls for hecarim (very similar to skarner).

I don't usually get wriggles because attack speed isn't a priority for hecarim early.

After you get your boots and sheen, finish triforce by getting phage etc . . .

If you find you need more health or if you are falling behind . . . HOG or a Giant's belt (into sunfire later) should be bought before you finish triforce.

Hexdirnker->maw . . .great items
Raduins-> fantastic (if you don't go sunfire)
Glacial Shroud->not the best item, but I could see it working against AD heavy teams

Phantom Dancer -> great late game troll item that works
Boots 5-> delays your ealry game by a minute, but can be fantastic.

Lucid1-

wriggles is amazing when you play invade junglers, which I do on hecarim
as for sheen first I just prefer the slow on ganks over sheens low damage early game
glacial shroud gives you enough mana to donate blue to mids, assuming they have mana

normally when I play hecarim I need to be the initiator with my friends so I have to build tanky, otherwise I would love to get PD

not trying to be mean just saying why I differ from you, since each person plays their own way and I didn't really explain why I build him that way

Kaeolith -

Yay . . . A response that isn't a knee-jerk, stfu n00b, slap in tha face.

I appreciate you're input, as I feel that Hecarim is really an underrated jungler, and worthwhile to anyone who like to see enemy laners poop their pants as you come charging in.

When you say "i don't build sheen first", I assume that you mean you build phage first (in the triforce progression)? I used to do this often, but i've found that in early ganks the extra 100 or 200 dmg from sheen really helps if they still have flash up. And since you Q so often and quickly, the dmg can really add up (especially on jungle creep). Either way, its up to personal preference.

Just for fun, try building PD after your triforce and tanky item (just once, for me <3). . . it is soooo much fund to ult in, freak out the enemy team and then gallop out with E as no one can catch you. (esp w/ movespeed quints and Janna on your team). The lifesteal with wriggles and your W would be pretty amazing as well.

As for Glacial Shroud . . . I've never found that I need more mana than the first blue buff . . . I may get low occasionally, but Q has such a low mana cost, if you use W and E sparingly, I usually find I can function w/o extra mana. (Thus, I find Sunfire more beneficial. armor healt + damage that regens life w/ your W)

I appreciate your differing opinions regarding Hecarim's builds, as everyone should realize, there is never only one way to play/build a character.

I will have to expiriment with Wriggles . .. Honestly I uslually only jungle tankier characters that don't use wriggles (malph/mao/mundo) so I'm not partial to the item. It may be more beneficial than I realize.