I've been playing a tank-spec Rammus for quite awhile now, doing quite well with him, but the thought occasionally pops into my head.
If you massed 600 AP or so, would a Powerball->Tremors->Curl->Taunt=Epic face smash?

I would say yes... let's see some stats:

Powerball - 1:1 AP
DBC - 0.25:1 AP per attack (1:1 after 4 attacks)
Taunt - N/A
Tremors - 0.3:1 AP per tremor (2.4:1 if you hit someone all 8 times)

Those are some of the (I dare say) best AP ratios in the game...

With 600AP Powerball does 900 damage, DBC does 800 damage after 4 attacks and Tremors does 400 AoE DPS.

Not too mention With defensive Ball curl he could take some damage.


Main reasons why people dont use AP rammus:

He can really only take it while DBC is up.
His Spells, while they scale well, are hard to land (not impossibly hard, but definatly not easy)

Ok, I just had a terrible terrible thought... Tremors can hurt turrets... Stack nothing but ap, buy an AP Potion, get a kayle as a teammate and go kill both of their nexus turrets at like level 16. You could do this to any turret for that matter. This thing sounds scary.

I like the idea of AP rammus but I don't know how well he could survive without being able to curl or PB as often as he would like... I kinda see him having to splurge on things like frozen heart in order to get his defense (and thus attack) and his CD's lowered.... this would mean his AP would take a big hit.

rylais, when i tank build him i add a rylais near the end to keep em around after the powerball slow is gone.

I havent gone full AP but I regularly get a Nashors tooth. It helps pump out damage a number of ways. It gives you good mana & cool down reduction which lets you use your abilities quicker and gets rid of some of the mana issues faced with using rammus. I used to use a chalice but like the extra damage over the MR. The attack speed is also good when you want to push a tower extra quick.

I've never found it particularly hard to land a powerball, plus throwing up tremors, curling, and taunting them back into the tremors or ghosting to keep it on them is a regular strategy.

You realize all buildings are invincible until the buildings in front of them are destroyed, right? You literally can't hurt the Nexus turrets until at least one inhib turret is down.

The problem I see with AP rammus is that it neglects his passive, as there are no items that give AP and Armor. However, with the kind of damage his abilities could output, it could be worthwhile. Perhaps if there are no Physical carries to armor-stack against, going AP-tank would work instead (RoA, Rylai's, Abyssal, Lichbane maybe)

the one good AP rammus i saw used 2 RoA, Rylais, and Mejai's.

I was terrified of him.

I think he was planning on getting a Frozen Mallet next, but the game ended.