Hey Guys. I'm Snadr, 17 years old and currently ranked the #1 Rammus in the world according to LeagueofGraphs. I've been playing Rammusfor years, even onetricked him for a few and managed to peak at Masters this season and have therefore tried pretty much all viable builds on him and knows what works to his advantages and what does not.

Most people think Rammus should be played as a frontline, that he is a tank. That is only partly true. Rammus must fully commit to one of two options.
1) Be an engage tool. With your Thornmail buy + Frenzying Taunt you can easily oneshot most adcs if you land your ult. Vs heavy ad comps your are not just tank - you are unkillable. Your job is to jump in the backline and kill the enemy carries and lock them down before they get a chance to deal damage. Most people underestimate Rammus' damage vs adc targets.

2) Peel. If you have a 1v9 adc/ap carry you can peel very well with your ability and absorb damage while using Frenzying Taunt on the enemy. This option is usually less viable but is the only option when vs champs like Xerath and Karthus. You will simply die if you go into the backline. This is also good when you team has kiting champs like Viktor or Vayne.

Overall, Rammus has both great ganking and skirmishing power. He works great with assassins you allow to get their combo off when using Frenzying Taunt on the enemy. Drake or Rift Herald usually aren't something you are gonna look to solo. You need to find ganks and picks during the early and mid game. Rammus is a team-oriented champion.

We've just established what Rammus' wincoditions are. We don't wanna take Ghost since the speed from Powerball and Turbo Chemtank are easily enough to catch your opponents. An extra ~150 movement speed aren't gonna make the difference when you have 1100 movement speed already.
So why Flash?
Flash is really good on Rammus. It serves for great suprise attacks/engage on the enemy team. Rammus' problem is usually not being able to hit the adc with his Powerball due to minions or champions blocking the path. Flash fixes this problem. It also gives Rammus a much needed extra wall dash.

Rammus is a very situational pick. Above gold, he must not be blind picked. He is easily countered by spell shields as Morgana's Black Shield or Sivir's Spell Shield, and is very weak vs true dmg as Vayne or consistent magic damage as Karthus. You wanna pick Rammus when enemy team has no more than 1 ap champ at best. He is a great pick if enemy team has 2 or more adc's (such as Lucian mid or Graves jungle + random adc) and don't have mage support. Vs full ad comps Rammus will be unkillable after getting Plated Steelcaps and Bramble Vest. Playing vs 2 or more ap champs is usually miserable.

There are 3 viable clears on Rammus (usually).

1) 5 camp clear. This is a straight forward 5 camp clear where you skip Ancient Krug and then go for the Rift Scuttler 3:15. You wanna do this when you path away from the enemy jungler thats isn't a good scaler so you don't need early pressure and can affort to lose a bit of tempo.

2) 5 camp reverse clear. This clear Goes Red Buff- Blue Buff- Gromp- Greater Murk Wolf- Crimson Raptor when starting Red Buff and Blue Buff- Gromp- Red Buff- Crimson Raptor - Greater Murk Wolf when starting Blue Buff. and after those 5 camps path into Rift Scuttler. You do this when you wanna be on the opposite site of the enemy jungler when they will win skirmishes and hence win the Rift Scuttler fight. You wanna do this vs champs like Olaf

3) 3 camps clear. This is the basic Red Buff- Blue Buff- Gromp clear that allows for early ganks. You wanna do this when enemy jungler outscales you and you have great gank setup in lanes (for example you versus Evelynn in the jungle and have Leona support)

Clearing either entire blue or red site into ganking is usually bad since you are easily invaded early and therefore lose out on jungle camps. Counter jungling yourself isn't really good to initiate unless the enemy jungler invaded you first and you can initiate vertical jungling.

Rammus can't really defend early invades vs champs like Graves or Elise. You are therefore looking to ward the opposite buff of what you're starting to make sure you are not getting invaded - or atleast, be able to know and counterjungle if you do.

Rammus has a lot of synergies. He works great with most backline divers and assassins. Rammus likes having followup to kill whatever he catches. He is also good at peeling and can therefore be very viable with both engaging and disengaging teamcomps. With a engaging teamcomp ( Malphite, Sett, Tristana etc.) he is looking to go in and oneshot enemy backline.
With a kiting and disengaging teamcomp ( Gnar, Viktor, Janna) He likes peeling for his carries and absorbing damage as much as possible

Synergies with Zilean or other speed up/set up champs is really good. They can help you find picks easily which is what you're looking to do as Rammus

Rammus is a very special champion. Alot of people are trying to reinvent the champ into something that he is not. There are lots of items that people believe are very good on him but really aren't.

1) Wit's End
Wit's End is a really bad item that doesn't really make sense considering the rest of your kit. You have plenty of damage vs adcs already and considering wit's end gives mr you are trying to build an item that counters mages. You should not try to make up for Rammus' weakpoint against ap champs, Instead try to avoid the ap champs and do what you are good at.

2) Dead Man's Plate
Dead Man's Plate is generally a really bad item. It really lacks the tanky stats that Rammus needs early to be unkillable. The ~60 movement speed it gives when stacked up is simply not worth it unless you are playing against 2+ ad kiters ( Lucian, Jinx, Graves etc.)

3) Titanic Hydra
Titanic Hydra is built to give more damage. But trying to built off-tank/bruiser as Rammus doesn't make sense. You can just pick another champ then if you wanna excel at dueling power. You need to play for your strengths

4) Frozen Heart and Gargoyle Stoneplate
Both these items give no hp. when Rammus presses Defensive Ball Curl he gets insane ammounts of armor and magic resist so the extra mr and armor you get from these items only scales on your current health (which isn't alot since they give no hp). Armor and mr gets exponentially worse, as the first 50 armor or mr you gets reduces your damage taken way more than an extra 50 armor or mr on top of your 400 you have from your core items + Defensive Ball Curl already. Building infinite amounts of armor and mr without caring for the passive of the item is therefore very foolish.

Powerball max) You should 99% of your games max Powerball. Maxing Powerball reduces its cooldown by a lot. Having Powerball multiple times in a teamfight/skrimish is priceless. This servers for way more frequent ganks and better mobility.

Defensive Ball Curl max) not viable ever!

Frenzying Taunt max) Only max Frenzying Taunt when enemy team has a REALLY high priority target you need to lock down. Maxing your Frenzying Taunt increases the duration for which the enemy i taunted. Hence why its only viable when you need to lock down 1 person and you have assassins on your team who can follow up.

The Legend: Alacrity and Triumph makes you excel at what your are good at already. Dueling adcs. Sorcery secondary is only viable when playing Ghost which is a bit worse than Flash in the first place. You should therefore always take Precision secondary, only ever switching Legend: Alacrity for Legend: Tenacity when your team has enough damage and enemy team has lots of slows.

That's it for the Guide. In this guide is everything you need to know to understand Rammus. You heard it from the best - the #1 Rammus in the World. Thank you very much for reading this far <3