Trundle, The Troll of Map Control
Firstly, I would like to say this is my first guide and I haven’t finished my testing and this guide may change as I continue to play and test Trundle and possible item mixes for maximum potential. After making that statement I welcome any feedback so that I may make both my Trundle play style and this guide better.
That being said, I find trundle to be excellent dps while aiding his team with map control that will make your teammates able to pickoff targets and land skillshots. Some people play him as a tank or semi-tank and if that is what you are looking for then look elsewhere this guide is purely for people who want to melt faces.
Lets, begin with his skills:
[Passive] – Trundle will steal 2% - 6% (based on level) of the health of any enemy that dies near him.
Very strong passive, making lifesteal items more of a luxury than a necessity.
[Q] – Rabid Bite
Trundle bites his opponent, dealing damage and sapping some of their attack damage.
This ability is a pretty simple to understand and will be a big dps boost while hindering your opponents that benefit from AD.
[W] – Contaminate
Trundle infects a target area with his curse, gaining attack speed, movement speed, and crowd control reduction while on it.
This is great for dps or escaping either way it helps you have better map control than your enemies who seek to put your cursed troll out of his misery.
[E] – Pillar of Filth
Trundle creates a plagued beacon at a target location, becoming impassable terrain and slowing all nearby enemies.
Trundle’s signature ability, this is how you will help your team dominate by blocking off the opposition to either escape or trap their champions and provide for some of the best map control in the game.
[R] – Agony (ultimate)
Trundle immediately steals his target’s health and a percent of their armor and magic resistance. Over the next 6 seconds the amount of health, armor, and magic resistance stolen is doubled.
Allows for Trundle to still be a strong/beefy character while building dps, this will make you either destroy a carry extremely fast or you can put it on a tank and last longer in team fights.
Now that we are done with the boring stuff that I’m sure 90% of you have skipped over because you know the skills and don’t care to see them again, we can begin to look at how I have had success with Trundle and the Masteries/Glyphs/Summoner Spells/Skill Orders/Items/Playstyles that are used to maximize your dominance of the map as well as your opponent.
Masteries:
These will depend on how you would like to get started, I will show you what I use for both jungling and laning
For jungling:
Trundle is a great jungler and I will describe that more in playstyles, however, I personally like to lane rather than jungle but since both are viable options I will show both
For this I follow the same Masteries as Phreak does in his spotlight, but since you may be as lazy as me and don’t want to go watch it again here it is
Offense:
1/1 – Plentiful Bounty
Defense:
3/3 – Resistance
3/3 – Hardiness
4/4 – Evasion
1/1 – Nimbleness
3/3 – Hardened Skin
4/4 – Veteran’s Scars
Utility:
3/3 – Good Hand’s
1/1 – Haste
4/4 – Awareness
2/2 – Utility Mastery
1/1 – Greed
For Laning:
This is my preferred method, but again I’ll get to that later in Playstyles
Offense:
None
Defense:
3/3 – Resistance
3/3 – Hardiness
4/4 – Evasion
1/1 – Nimbleness
3/3 – Hardened Skin
4/4 – Veteran’s Scars
Utility:
3/3 – Good Hands
1/1 – Haste
4/4 – Awareness
1/1 – Greed
3/3 – Meditation
Summoner Spells:
These are your preference, however spells that I use for Jungling are:
Ghost/Smite
And for Laning:
Ghost/Ignite
But, like I said everyone has their own favorites some other good spells are:
Exhaust/Teleport/Flash/Cleanse
And spells I would stay away from are:
Heal/Fortify/Revive/Clarity/Rally/Clairvoyance
I highly recommend using ghost because when it is stacked with your Contaminate and your items you will be moving insanely fast which will make a getaway, juking, or chasing very easy.
Runes:
These are my personal favorites but depending on your exact playstyle they can be tweaked and switched around a bit.
Marks – Flat Armor Penetration
Seals – Either Mana Regen Per Level or Dodge (I’ve had success with both)
Glyphs – Flat Cooldown Reduction
Quintessence – Flat Health
Skill Order:
These are my general preference, however tweaking may be needed depending on your opponents
For Jungling:
1 – Q
2 – W
3 – Q
4 – E
5 – Q
6 – R
After that the order to max skills are: R >> Q >> W >> E
For Laning:
1 – Q
2 – E
3 – W
4 – Q
5 – Q
6 – R
After that the order to max skills are: R >> Q >> W >> E
Items:
This is the part that most of you are here for, you know how to use the abilities, you know what spells/skills you want and when you want them, but now I will tell you how I Stomp upon my enemies and Grind their skulls between my cursed toes. With this the items that I get are generally the same between jungling and laning however the order that I get them in is quite different, and again like many things you will want to tweak this depending on who you are fighting and how well you are doing.
For Jungling:
Start with Cloth Armor + 5 health pots
Then you will use the Cloth Armor to finish
Madred’s Razors, then I begin and complete my boots before I get anymore items
For boots you have a couple options:
Berserker’s Greaves – my personal favorite, adds some great attack speed if you don’t have too much crowd control to deal with
Mercury’s Treads – if you are facing a lot of crowd control
By this time I am usually done jungling and have started ganking or helping out my lane if he is having trouble solo
Then I fully complete Frozen Mallet, beginning it with Phage if you are doing well or Giant’s Belt if you are in need of more health and are having a rough start
Next I grab Zeal as the movement speed will increase your dominance and map control and the attack speed and crit will be a big boost to your damage
Then the choice is up to you depending on how you want to build and how you are doing I either finish
Phantom Dancer or Madred’s Bloodrazor, either choice is acceptable but I usually finish my Phantom Dancer and then Madred’s Bloodrazor
At this point the game should be over or very close, however for those very close evenly matched games that go on long enough for you to get all the items you want…
Now the items you will be choosing will depend greatly on the situation you are in and to opposing champions, for example if you are destroying and are the only reason why your team has made it so far and they are focusing you at all times you will want to get something to make yourself more durable such as Warmog’s, Randuin’s, or Banshee’s Veil but…
If you are like me and don’t seem to die too frequently you want to pick out some more dps items to increase your already destructive ways some good items to add are…
My favorites: The Black Clever and Last Whisper
Other great options: Infinity Edge, Atma’s Impaler (if you grabbed Warmog’s or another survivability item), The Bloodthirster, and Youmuu’s Ghostblade
So your final items (if you choose my preferred item choices):
- Berserker’s Greaves
- Frozen Mallet
- Phantom Dancer
- Madred’s Bloodrazor
- The Black Clever
- Last Whisper
The last two items however are changeable based on situational circumstances
For Laning:
There are very few differences between the items I get when I lane and jungle so I’ll make this short
Start with Doran’s Shield + a health pot
Get your completed boots: as I stated earlier Berserker’s Greaves are my personal favorite but Mercury Treads may be useful if you are facing a lot of crowd control
Then get Frozen Mallet, starting with Phage if you are doing well and Giant’s Belt if you are having trouble
Next Grab Zeal and continue into Phantom Dancer
After you have completed Phantom Dancer get a Recurve Bow and completely finish Madred’s Bloodrazor when you can
At this point the game should be close to or over, but in case it runs a little longer than usual…
Again this can change a lot depending on your situation, how well you are doing, and who you are facing but I usually get The Black Clever and Last Whisper
So your final items (in the order they will be completed, and if you don’t need to get survivability or other situational items):
- Berserker’s Greaves
- Frozen Mallet
- Phantom Dancer
- Madred’s Bloodrazor
- The Black Clever
- Last Whisper
Play Style:
I’ll keep this short since you only need to know a few things to be effective and know how to control the map and your opponents
For Jungling:
First, I’ll describe the beginning jungle method that I have found most effective:
Always stand in the grass overlooking the path to side that you will start jungling in, I cannot stress enough how important this is because it will save you the embarrassment of being first blood in an easy level one gank for the other team, once the timer hits one minute thirty seconds though run to your wolves neutral and kill ONLY THE BIG WOLF with your bite (do not kill the other two wolves yet)
After run to the Golem and kill him using your bite, smite, and a health pot afterwards finish off the two wolves you left alive, then run over to the four spell casting neutrals (whatever the hell they are) after they are dead kill the two smaller golems, almost forgot to mention once you hit level two you will want to throw down a Contaminate with each group of neutral mobs you kill, following the smaller golems kill the dragon with the red buff using Contaminate, bite, smite, and a health pot, at this point you will want to take the blue pill and get your Madred’s Razor along with a health pot and mana pot
You should be level 4 at this point and with your Madred’s and two pots you can go solo the dragon using Contaminate, Bite, Smite, and both your pots
At this point you are done and can continue to jungle killing whatever neutrals you need or desire, at level 7 or so you can/should start your ganking
Here is a link to a youtube video that demonstrates exactly what I am talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hvApbh-CKg
and I would like to thank Stonewall008 for posting it
For Laning:
Stick near your minions even if wounded (but at safe distance if so) because with your passive you will want to stick around for the health gained when opposing minions die
You can go through your mana rather quickly so don’t just blow your Contaminate on killing minions try and save it until you can effectively harass the enemy champions (of course the squishy ones when possible), I like to hide in the bushes and then slow enemies with a pillar of filth with a follow up contaminate and bite to try and maximize the damage me and the person I lane with can do
Other General Things to Keep in Mind:
- When ganking/ambushing throw out your contaminate first so you can get better positioning against your opponent
- When an enemy is running from you and your teammates don’t just use pillar of filth willy nilly, make sure you put it directly in front of where the champion is running which will cause him to completely stop for a second and on top of the slow it will add its lights out for him
- In team fights you can use your pillar of filth to split up the enemy team which will buy you and your team a moment to hit the frontrunners hard while the others are running around to you
- In team fights you should try and use your ultimate on their tank so you will get the maximum bonus from the armor and magic resist steal and it will render their tank much weaker and easier to kill
- In team fights if its possible that you can use your bite on an Attack Damage carry do so because this will steal their AD rendering them weaker in a team fight and killing their carry is also common knowledge because of the damage loss the opposition has
That is all that I can think of at this point however with more testing and trials changes may need to be made, if anyone has any good input or suggestions please post them so that I can fix anything that I may have overlooked or fix any mistakes I may have made
??
Member
