Startup Items

With this builds' masteries, you gain 2 free items, a Total Biscuit of Rejuvenation and an Explorer's Ward.


Do not underestimate this item as it is basically a half red potion plus some free mana. It might let you farm that extra wolves camp for money and xp early on or let you survive a clash with the enemy jungler with those 13 HP left that sends the enemy into fits of rage.

This is an awesome item because it does not cost you valuable starting money. You need all the health pots you can get for your first jungle run so you can't really spare any money to actually buy wards. This lets you have one for scouting for Counter-Jungling. I've put possible uses in the jungling section.


The startup item for the jungler. Lets you actually deal sufficient damage early on to be able to clear camps efficiently. Even more important now that they've changed the jungle (again) so that the main monster is so much more tougher. You need those basic attacks to take them down, the small ones usually die a lot faster to your Despair and Tantrum.


You need these to jungle properly. Use them whenever you fall too far in health. DO NOT BE CHEAP. Nothing is worse than running through your jungle with 2 health bars left and meeting the enemy jungler. Usually you wont even be able to escape fast enough with that little health left.

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First Recall

This is your new Philosopher's Stone, upgrade your Machete to this as quick as possible. It lets you farm your jungle for so much longer without blue buff.


You want to start ganking and to gank you need to stay in Cursed Touch with the enemy. To do so, you need to be faster than them. The close you can get to Bandage Toss, the easier it is to hit and the faster you are, the easier it is to apply Despair to the enemy all the time and be in range to spam Tantrum. Upgrading these to Mercury's Treads is the first priority for your next recall.


This is a nice item on the way to Mercury's Treads and helps you with ganking mid or an AP top by reducing incoming damage. Buy if you have sufficient money.


These are nice to regain health while not having any good healing option yet. Use the rest of your money on these. Use them whenever necessary.

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Early to Mid Game

Get these ASAP. More movement speed and tenacity help you stay in Cursed Touch, magic resistance makes you more durable until other items and your rune page provide for more of it.


Here's where the magic begins. This grants you A LOT of sustain while jungling, much needed CDR AND amplified damage. Your ganks now have become so much more fearsome and the item is really cheap, costing only 1.3k gold to upgrade from your Spirit Stone.

Almost any guide you will read will either ignore or condemn Spell Vamp on Amumu. Here's my explanation why I think Spell Vamp is underrated on Amumu:



If you have money left, buy one of these. You might run out of mana on a longer run and this might give you that mana to do that life-saving bandage toss or deal the killing blow on a gank. It's just 35gp ;-)

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Mid-late Game Items

This item is extremely cheap for the stats you gain. You gain some armor, mana and CDR, exactly what you need at this point in the game. You do not have to upgrade this til later, other items are more important to buy first.


This item is awesome for Amumu as it gives all 3 things he needs: damage, cc and tankiness. Your tears are now permanently slowing any enemy close to you. The health you gain from this item will really help you out surviving longer fights and the AP will amplify your damage A LOT.


Only get this item when nobody in your team has it, or the aura effect will be wasted. This adds lots and lots of damage and survivability to you. With the reduced aura ranges of offensive auras, you will be more perfectly suited for this item than for most AP carries as you will usually be in the middle of the enemy team so you apply the aura debuff to most or all of the enemies. Together with your Greater Mark of Magic Penetration and your Cursed Touch, you will be able to ignore most magic resistance enemy players will usually have in mid game. Remember that magic penetration can reduce the enemies' magic resistance below 0 so you cannot have too much of it ;-)

Alternatively

There is a surge for more AD mids right now, so if you are the only AP champ on your team or someone else on your team got Abyssal Mask, you should get Twin Shadows instead. It gives similar stats except for the aura, even more CC, a very nice movement speed bonus and is a good deal cheaper.


Build this item out of your Glacial Shroud. Great counter to AA-based champions. Adds some more CDR and more armor and reduces the enemies' attack speed. Attack speed has been made a lot more expensive in Season 3 so this aura debuff will hurt a lot. The added CDR will put you at 36% CDR, so basically maxed out. You dont really need the additional mana at this point in the game though, but you wont have to worry much that spamming your skills and that running Despair might deplete your mana.

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Item choices

In most games, you probably won't be able to finish your build, so these items aren't actually as important. These items heavily depend on your team composition and the enemies' team composition.

If you want more tankiness in general

A very nice item which gives you everything in terms of survivability and actually helps your team a lot too. Many supports will want to buy this item so watch what they're building and ask them. Try to avoid having two of those on your team as the aura will only apply once to your team mates. Communication is often more important than raw skill! You might want to get it anyways when the enemy team deals extremely much magic damage. The aura can be applied to twice to you, one from your team mate and one from you and this item adds 60 magic resist, more than any other item in the game anyways, as well as some nice health and armor too. Your team mate with the [[Runic Bulwark] will also receive the double aura buff.


Add almost 1k health to your hp bar. Second best choice of the general defense items.

If the enemy team has a lot (or fed) auto-attacks based champions

Yes, build it and punish them! You deal lots of sustained damage so they HAVE to attack you. This item wil punish them hard. If they try to ignore you, they get melted away by your damage and if they focus you, you punish them directly and take damage away from other team members. DO NOT build this if the enemy team only has that 1 not too fed AD carry as it will not be efficient. You want the enemy AD carry to attack you and not your team members.

If the enemy team has a lot of magic damage

This will negate A LOT of the enemies' damage as well as add health too. Awesome item if the enemy team has like 3 AP champions.


You will waste 6% CDR with this item, but add health and a good chunk of magic resistance. Also amplifies your Spell Vamp.


This item is really nice. It adds a good chunk of magic resistance and ability power, movement speed and an awesome CC active that is awesome for chase-initiations: two or three of the enemies have overextended a little, you pop the active and can get close enough to Bandage Toss in to get a kill or two. You might want to get this instead of the Abyssal Mask.

If your team needs more damage

Awesome item for Amumu as you will apply the magic damage DoT constantly. Esspecially awesome in combination with your Rylai's Crystal Scepter as the slow will double the damage from the DoT. You scale well with AP and you gain magic penetration and some health too. Best damage item to get for damage. It is esspecially good to build when the enemy team has a lot of magic resist. In a normal game, this is my final item.


This item will give you more damage. A LOT. More damage means more Spell Vamp so you indirectly gain some survivability too. I would not buy this in most games as it is very expensive and there are other, better choices as you do not actually stack that much ability power to abuse its passive.


A very fun AP item that adds a nice chunk of armor as well. The active part can cause a lot of confusion on the enemy team and your Despair keeps running while you are invulnerable. Definately an option to consider if your team severely lacks magic damage.


This item gives you some good stats, but it is quite expensive for what it gives you. 6% of the CDR is wasted , the mana regeneration from this item isn't all that important and a bit of an overkill. 60 AP isn't doing that much, 40 magic resist is nice but not huge. I wouldnt buy this one, except when you really want to stack magic resist. Situational or when you're afraid you run out of mana in team fights. You could use this item instead of the Abyssal Mask if another team member already picked up that item.


I had this item in my standard build first but had to realize (thx to the comments) that it wont work as well as I thought it did. This item is still awesome though. Upgrading to the Iceborn Gauntlet will let you follow your enemies, whereever they may go. The slowing field overrides the slow from Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Many people fail to notice that Amumu actually scales pretty well in damage per level (he has the 4th highest attack damage/lvl in the game), and you want to use your basic attacks anyways to apply Cursed Touch. Get this item instead of Frozen Heart can spare the tankiness for more damage and a double slow.


This potion nets you some AP and 10% CDR for 3 minutes for only 250 gold. Buy it to cap your CDR and add some damage to your spells, but be careful: If you tend to die a lot and you're behind on gold, don't buy this item as you might waste 250 gold every few minutes. Better save the money for the other items.

If your team needs more map awareness

This item lets you place 3 free wards around the map. It also adds some nice health. This way, when your team needs more map awareness or your team in general does not ward sufficiently (for example when your team has no real support because you are running a kill lane on bot), you will have used the item spot well. Get it the Sightstone after your Glacial Shroud and upgrade it later.