League of Legends houses a bunch of champions that can either go AP or AD, depending on the mood and requirements. However, only a select few can hit it off as well as Rammus, the spinner. Unfortunately, deciding what and what not to do can be tough.
The shop has no shortage of items and potions that cater to both AD and AP playstyles. With so many options, a critical build path tends to become dim. You might just go Lunden’s Tempest as your first item and wonder why it wasn’t as potent as others.
As it turns out, AP Rammus is a mix between tankiness and magic damage. You’re mainly reliant on your Q instead of the usual thornmail-like W. Therefore, you need to build items like Everfrost and Riftmaker in order to really make him shine.
Needless to say, AP Rammus lies in uncharted territory when it comes to skill expression and playability. Therefore, it’s more like a fun pick that should be kept out of soloQ unless and until the situation at hand calls for it.
Also check out: LoL Twitch build guide
AP Rammus: Runes
AP Rammus tends to follow the same runeset as the usual tank or AD route. While some of his keystones have been interchanged to facilitate speed instead of tankiness, most of the build remains the same.
Having said that, you can either go the Guardian path or the Sorcery tree, depending on the match at hand. Let’s take a look at both of them in detail.
Guardian Runes
The Guardian runeset allows you to have better survivability despite being ultra-squishy. Your main keystone consists of Aftershock since it is a staple on Rammus due to his ability of constantly procing it with Q and E.
The Font of Life allows your team to deal damage while you’re busy one-shotting everyone. Pair that with Conditioning to make up for your lack of defenses. Lastly, Unflinching provides a good balance between escapability and resilience.
For the secondary runestone, go with Sorcery, and choose Celerity in order to increase your overall movement speed since you’re going to go in and out of battle more often than usual. Add the Gathering Storm to the mix because your pop-off moments are going to come late game.
Sorcery Runes
This runeset allows you to unleash the maximum potential of AP Rammus by increasing his plus points to the very limit. This includes his speed, damage, escapability, and flat AP. Having said that, you’d be primarily focusing on Phase Rush to be able to get out of a battle after dumping your combo.
The Nimbus Cloak allows you to gain even more movement speed by essentially using your Ultimate as an engage and disengage tool. Now, if you’re going Jungle, then Waterwalking will do wonders for you.
Otherwise, Gathering Storm can be a pretty strong runestone. As for the secondary rune page, choose Taste of Blood or Cheap Shot – depending on the match, and pair it with Relentless Hunter to gain maximum movement speed along with more damage or sustain.
Building Rammus: AP Route
AP Rammus tends to skew more towards a hybrid Tank+AP build than a complete AP one. He is essentially a tank. Therefore, there’s only so much you can do with his kit that warrants AP, Having said that, here’s how his build generally goes:
Mercury’s Treads
These shoes provide him with the necessary tenacity needed to go in and out of fights without being locked to death. While the bonus MR acts as a nice cherry on top, you’d be mainly using it for the movement speed of tier 2 boots and the boost in tenacity.
Getting out of CC also enables you to chase your opponents more effectively. Pair that with the added movement speed, and it’ll become pretty hard for your enemies to hide from you.
Everfrost
AP Rammus is generally a facilitator in teamfights. His main purpose is to lock enemies down while dealing massive amounts of damage. Since you’re not the frontline, you need to be as viable as possible.
Plus, the item grants a mix of Ability Haste, Health, and Ability Power. Therefore, it’s mathematically perfect for a hybrid like Rammus. You can use Everfrost’s active as soon as you create a crater with your ultimate ability.
The enemies will have to stay for a while in there while your allies get ample time to chain the combo with ultimates of their own.
Demonic Embrace
Granting Health and Ability Power, the Demonic Embrace is your go-to roundoff for any tank AP build. It allows you to deal tick-based max health damage while also making you more durable and tank.
While it’s generally picked for its burn, the AP granted by the item is nothing to scoff at either.
Cosmic Drive
Movement Speed is an essential part of any kind of Rammus Build. You need it for your Q charge up, your Ultimate range, and your escape and chase potential. What if casting any ability granted you a burst in movement speed?
Cosmic Drive does just that while giving Ability Haste, Ability Power, and Health in return. While the effect isn’t extremely potent, you’d still feel the difference – even after it activates once every three attacks (kind of like Phase Rush).
Zhonya’s Hourglass
Mages always use this trusty item to defend themselves against enemy bursts and all-ins. Since your kit is not really designed to get out of a situation. It’s better to deal your damage and press the stasis on Zhonya’s Hourglass to buy time for your team to wrap up the fight.
This not only allows you to have a reliable defensive option to fall back to but it can also be used to bait enemy team. The power of being in stasis for 2.5 seconds is quite undervalued in League of Legends. Therefore, there aren’t many teams that decide to counter-build against it.
Rylai’s Crystal Scepter
This item allows you to slow down enemies while attacking. Now, pair this up with the constant tick damage from the Demonic Embrace, and the enemy team has something very troublesome to take care of.
You just need to use your ultimate to land in the middle of the bunch and let the tremors apply both passives on them. The remaining part can be done by your team. However, you can still land the stun from the Everfrost while going under stasis – if things start to get rough.
Plus, this item also gives health and ability power, thereby making it perfect for your build.
How To Play AP Rammus?
AP Rammus is mainly reliant on dealing massive amounts of damage and then dipping out. The AP build has little to no resistance. Therefore, your main goal is to expand on the amount of damage you can deal in a single setting.
It’s generally really good for assassinating targets in the side lane. Simply start your combo with Q and E. Only transition into W mode if you’re confident in killing the enemy within one combo. Otherwise, we recommend you get out and wait until your Q cooldown is back up.
Takeaway
All in all, AP Rammus is a bit trickier to build and play compared to the tank version. It can be viable in most scenarios, but is rather hard to pilot. Therefore, we’d recommend you keep this idea confined to non-ranked matches.
Luckily, Rammus has the potential to one-shot enemies on the sidelines. Plus, you can always use his ultimate to throw the enemies’ position in utter chaos during teamfights. Unfortunately, the early game of AP Rammus is quite weak, and is often the reason why most opponents get ahead of him before he can reach carry status.
It’s all about calculated ganks, efficient pathing, and making full use of your damage when it comes to AP Rammus. Hence, we recommend you keep on practicing until you perfect your trade!
Check out more of our build guides, like this LoL Lucian build guide.
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