18/05/2013. I added in a third build, it is more burst oriented than aoe.
24/03/2013. I now use the first build almost every game with Amumu.

Hey guys, first I'd like to say thanks for viewing my Amumu guide. Amumu is a highly versatile champion and is great fun to play. Amumu isn't hard to play, but is powerful enough to win most games.

If you're looking for a permanent ranked champion to pull your elo up, Amumu isn't for you. But if you want to have some fun in normal games and make real people cry, then you have come to the right place.

I feel that Amumu is suited to the jungle so I will be focussing on this, though by all means play him wherever and however you want.

Please do comment, I welcome constructive criticism with open arms, down votes without explanation I do not approve of. How do you expect me to improve the guide without your suggestions?

I will continue to improve on this guide with new sections to come, new item builds and hopefully some nice pictures and gameplay videos. Upvoting will encourage me :)

Thank you jhoijhoi for your guide, I found a lot of the coding very useful :)

TL;DR:
Follow the first build above, buy any items that offer tankiness and ability power.

Pros +He's Cute +Game changing ult +Can deal massive damage with enough gold +Clears the jungle fast and efficiently, plus can farm massively late game +Gets rich easily +Tanky even with just a rylai's, ROA or Sunfire Cape +Has an incredibly versatile build which can be built in a number of ways +Great for ganking with Q and/or R Cons -He looks a little creepy -His Q can be difficult to land, especially if new with Mumu -Huge cooldown on his ult makes it painful if you miss -Mana hungry without blue buff/Items -You will be trolled for missing Bandage Toss and especially Curse of the Sad Mummy The cons aren't really issues which is partly to blame for Amumu consistently being banned by people in ranked. Those people are just jealous of his sheer, relentless awesomeness.

Ultimately, these runes are what I use for an AP Carry role. I only have 2 rune pages therefore I must make do with AD and AP runepages to fill support, adc, solotop and mid roles. There are always other runes that work well, though these all benefit Amumu as well as a range of other champions including support's, top and mid. They provide enough tankiness for the jungle but focus on AP damage output.

If you can, use movement speed quints instead of AP.

• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: Starting with 15 ability power is great and helps right through to late game. Will give a little extra kick in ganking as well as faster jungle clear times. These builds center around Amumu's AP damage.
  
• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: These marks are strong when coupled with other forms of M.Pen, though they are still equally as strong with none. I include these as they help especially on other AP carries (Diana).
  
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: These runes allow you to survive team fights better. Since I use this rune set for mid laners this is necessary.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: These are good seals and help give Amumu that little extra tankiness to survive both in the jungle, as well as in team fights late game when enemy adc's will target him before he ults.

21/9/0, 9/21/0, 0/21/9 and 0/9/21 are all great. I prefer a combination of the defense and utility trees.

I usually choose a 0/9/21 mastery tree for Amumu. This is pretty simple as since the S3 update the support tree has been brought into beast mode and now offers benefits to all champions, not only supports. As I have said before, Amumu is an incredibly versatile champion, and this extends to masteries as well. If you want to put 21 points into the offense tree, be my guest, the M.Pen and other benefits will go great on Amumu, I believe more gold is the best for Amumu though.

For jungle Amumu, I take the typical jungle masteries + health and improved Smite. These help him survive in the jungle and improve his cashflow since they were recently nerfed.

In the support tree I focus on gold improvements as Amumu is highly dependent on gold. The removal of heart of gold and my reduced reliance on philosopher's stone make it harder to buy the best items on Amumu, but he is no mere tank, Mumu deserves the best, so gold is a top priority.

As a jungler, movement speed is critical, therefore I take what masteries I can in this area to improve ganks and chasing when you know that bandage toss is gonna fall just a centimeter short. It is of course also 100% necessary to take runic affinity as Amumu is very reliant on blue buff until he's built his first tear.

Finally I take CDR, item CDR and mana to correlate with the seraph's and the Muramana. To build up the tear's Amumu will want to spam abilities which is why CDR is important, higher CDR on his seraph's will benefit him in tight situations seeing as he isn't as tanky as other Amumu builds. Finally the mana means simply higher ability power and higher attack damage.

If you are playing the pure AP build then you should consider the offensive route a little more seriously.

These summoner spells are the best options, I use Flash and Smite religiously with Amumu, though I can understand the use of Ignite and even Exhaust(if your team is lacking it) and Ghost(for initiating, chasing, etc).

Flash: This spell is great for ganking and escaping. It will help Amumu get in position to land his ult or throw down his bandage toss. When invading the enemy's jungle and he gets caught at blue for example he can flash over the wall to escape. The possibilities are endless with flash.

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Smite: Simply a great spell for any jungler, kills jungle creeps fast (blue/red/dragon), gives 10 gold on cast and can help steal buff's when invading/invaded. You can jungle without it, but you are taking a big risk if you do so don't complain if the enemy jungler keeps nicking your buffs.

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Ignite: If you want more AD and more AP, this is good. Also great for finishing off those pesky champions who escape on 1o health or champions that heal such as ap yi, etc. This is for those of you who want a little more burst or a spell which can help you kill champions, rather than just neutral monsters.

If you aren't jungling, go with flash/exhaust or flash/heal as you will likely be filling in a support or tank role. If you are jungling but don't take smite, be more cautious about invading enemy buffs as well as killing yours in the bush.

• Cursed Touch: This isn't the best passive in the game, but it is great regardless, especially when on an ap heavy team. Amumu's auto-attacks will reduce the targets magic resist by up to 35, so don't forget to auto-attack. This goes well with Mumu as you will be right in the center of the fight to spread as much AoE hurt as possible, so why not do a little more damage by reducing MR while you're at it? Amumu truly is a team player. Remember to auto-attack in team fights.
  
• Bandage Toss (Q): CC in the form of a massively long range stun. With a bit of practice you can master this ability. It will quickly fall into your arsenal as an excellent tool for ganking, positioning, engaging and escaping. Try to aim this shot where you think the enemy champion will move, for example when ganking the typical reaction is to run to their tower so pop it just behind them. When being chased, run to a wall by jungle creeps and pop it through the wall to jump to them. Then flash back over if you feel like a troll ;) Additionally, using this to initiate, then auto-attacking afterwards before using tantrum will take advantage of the MR reduction.
  
• Despair (W): This ability makes jungling with Amumu so efficient. It is an AOE ability which when toggled on will reduce the opponents health both by a defined amount as well as a percentage of health. When chasing down enemies on low health this can tip the balance for a kill. It is also strong against champions who stack health, a 600ap Amumu can happily drain 9% of Dr. Mundo's health per second, that can be 400 damage with a couple Warmog's Armor. Additionally, when you purchase tear of the goddess, keep this toggled on to drain mana and gain stacks in it. If you run out get blue buff or return to base.
  
• Tantrum (E): This move once again improves Amumu's prowess in the jungle. It is his primary source of burst damage, but also provides tankiness in the jungle from it's passive (reduced damage from autoattacks). Additionally, its cooldown reduces when hit by autoattacks making it easily spammable. When farming creeps in the late game it is better to be targeted by the creeps as you will be able to spam this ability to farm incredibly quickly. It can also be used to push lanes when ganking.
  
• Curse of the Sad Mummy (R): This is Amumu's signature trademark. The reason he is always banned. The reason he owns at league of legends. This ability provides massive aoe burst damage, but it's aoe 2 second stun is where it's op reputation comes from. Try and time this right and you can get your team an ace and win the game. Use it when ganking, or when duelling. Couple it with your bandage toss to initiate when the enemy team is close together and yours is prepared, then stun them all and let your team destroy them. Ofcourse, spam tantrum and leave despair on and autoattack. This ultimate will work even better with other ultimates, especially Gangplank's or Katarina's. Bare in mind this only shuts down autoattacks and movement. Any decent player will have the good sense to throw all their abilities at your team.

Combo:

You will just try to keep Despair toggled on when in range of damaging enemies. Likewise, when in range spam Tantrum. Here is a typical initiation by Amumu (ideally there will be a full tank to initiate and you can follow up with this combo).

=> => => => Then you run around dealing AoE damage.

This section is going to be big. It is what everyone's here for after all isn't it? Make sure you read this section if you are going to downvote my item builds. Additioally, I would like to analyse as many of the potential items for Amumu which unfortunately (and fortunately for you I suppose) is a lot of items. All of these items are strong on Mumu and I have given my opinion on which ones I like best. If you want a safe option, for example ranked or you are new to Amumu, I would try the AP AOE tank build or AP bursty tank build as they have more survivability. The AP build is for those who want to mix it up a little and have some fun and get some shocked faces when you stomp on them with a little green ball of toilet paper.

Jungle Items

Explanation

Hunter's Machete This item is hands down an awesome item for junglers. It allows most junglers to be capable of jungling, and makes Amumu clear the new jungle even faster than he cleared the old one. As much as I don't like the idea of an item which is useless against champions, I am afraid to say this is essential for jungle Amumu, especially with the change of how leashing works. Ok fine not essential, but well worth it. I don't upgrade it though, but rather sell it fairly early on. The upgrades are a waste of money and item space.

5x Health Potions You don't need 5 to get 700 gold and recall, but it is nice to not have to worry about invades on low health, or having the freedom to skip ancient golems and gank instead if you want. Take less up to you, I like 5.

Situational Boots

Explanation

Mercury's Treads The best boots in the game, situation dependent. Provides tenacity, which is important on Amumu as he if he is stunned and killed before he lets off his ult it can lose a team fight. The MR is also useful considering the res of his build is armour.

Ninja Tabi Good boots if the enemy team has 4 or 5 AD champions and little CC. Otherwise I wouldn't build these. Nice how cheap they are though.

Ionian boots of lucidity Great boots on Amumu but you wouldn't want them alongside 40% CDR already. Buy only if you don't intend to get other CDR items.

Sorcerer's Shoes Probably my second choice of boots in this build, M.Pen is good on any AP champ, though I went against it as I have included M.Pen in masteries and he has his passive. Also as it is a hybrid champion they won't help with the auto-attack side of Amumu.

Situationally dependent AP and Tank Items

Explanation

Philosopher's Stone

Philosopher’s Stone If you aren't getting Tear of the Goddess this item is a good way to cure some of the mana starvation Mumu gets. It also increases cashflow, hold onto it until at least 30min mark, probably won't pay itself off until closer to the 40min mark. I used to build heart of gold and philospher's first, now I am kind of against it, I'd rather buy some more AP and kill more creeps or a champion. This is not a permanent item obviously. You will sell it to make room.

Sunfire Cape My opinion on this item has changed. I used to choose Rod of Ages over this item but I now go the other way around. If you ignore it's passive for a moment, it gives enough armour and health to be a very viable tank in most early game situations. The armour helps you when ganking lanes with AD champions and I find I have considerably more health leftover when i go for little jungle skirmishes with this item. The main reason I changed though is my new build focuses on dealing as much AoE damage as possible. Effectively, I bandage toss in, ult, then run around lowering everyone's health. I would sell this though once I reach 6 items in favour of something like frozen heart, rabadons, etc situation dependent.

Rod of Ages This item is just awesome, when given time to build it will provide 80 AP, 630 health and 650 mana. And for only 2800 gold. Cure's the mana starvation FAR better than philosopher's stone and gives tankiness and damage to boot. Only drawback is it doesn't have a passive, for example Rylai's slow.

Abyssal Sceptre Amumu is in an excellent position to be throwing out some more AoE effects, which makes Abyssal Maskso strong on him. He can headbutt everyone to reduce their MR by 35 plus this item reduces it by a further 20. Makes bursting down squishies a piece of cake. The AP makes it good on AP tank Amumu, plus the MR adds to his tankiness.

Rylai’s Crystal Sceptre I really like this item. I am a fan of health on AP tanks, particularly when versing balanced teams. The ability power is also a huge bonus, but the 15% AOE slow that it gives is great at slowing lots of people down or chasing targets, and one bandage toss can reduce an opponents movement speed by 35%

Liandry's Torment I struggle to measure the effectiveness of this item since I don't actually know exactly how it works on Amumu. It certainly increases his AoE presence in team fights (and chasing) enough though for me to usually buy this. Health, ap and magic pen. is also great on Amumu. From what I can see I think the burn passive of this item procs on all of Amumu's abilities, but it mainly synergises with bandage toss (burning enemies for the full duration/amount) and his tears (burning enemies for half the duration but for the same amount per second - a bit hard to understand).

Frozen Heart This is a great item on all tanks, Mumu is included. As Amumu is a melee champion he focusses on being in the middle of the crowd. Frozen heart allows him to survive the enemy's ADC as well as reducing the attack speed's of all enemies nearby!. To top it off this awesome item gives 20% CDR which is great on Amumu, especially when you consider that a few seconds off his ult could be the difference between getting an ace and winning or losing the game.by 35%

Athene’s Unholy Grail This item is also great for AP tanks,it provides a good amount of AP for damage as well as MR, so if you're up against an AP heavy team get this item for sure. The CDR is real nice as well, it stacks well with items such as Frozen Heart or Iceborn Gauntlet. It's last two unique passive's aren't particularly exciting, though they do improve Amumu's mana regeneration.

Rabadon’s Deathcap This item used to be pretty op on any ap champion, and it still is pretty standard, but it is a lot harder to decide between this item which gives a tonne of ap, or another item which gives less ap but makes you less likely to die. Personally I would pick this if you find you are face rolling and no one can kill you. Otherwise, take into consideration that Amumu is ultimately a close combat tank that uses CC to win games. The longer he survives, the more likely you will win so maybe that Frozen Heart or Rylai's Crystal Scepter are better ideas.

Seraph’s Embrace This item must be begun early with a tear. Incredibly strong AP item when coupled with mana items such as Rod of Ages. The Active makes the AP Mumu have a bit of survivability as well which is great. Build stacks on the tear early with despair running and it will be a seraph’s in no time, if building I would aim to have it by the 15minute mark.

Runic Bulwark I've seen this item around and to be honest, it is really strong. I just don't see how it goes with Amumu's build, when I put in a support section I am sure it will. But for now don't build it unless you are playing support Amumu.

Thornmail This is such a cool item, 100 armour for only 2200 gold, plus it kills ADC's when it returns 30% of their damage. It is easily countered though, so only take if you are up against an ad heavy team with a well fed AD carry. And ideally if you have a fair bit of health too.

Zhonya’s Hourglass 100 AP and 50 armour on an ap tank? Yesss pleeeaseee. This item is good on Mumu, I don't like it's active though personally. It also has an active that turns you into an un-damageable statue for 2.5 seconds. I feel I am paying for an active that I won't need as I won't be in a situation to need to use it, and then if I am I will forget to use it, and if I do remember to use it in time, it will run out and I'll get killed. Kinda like Guardian Angel.

Deathfire Grasp This is a pretty awesome item, though one I never use. It looks like great fun in a burst Amumu build which is why I put it in the AP build. 100 ap plus a powerful active lets Amumu smash anyone's face.

Void Staff Pretty important if the opponent team has built a bit of magic resistance, so much so that your passive and Abyssal Mask

aren't enough. I would pick Abyssal Mask over Void Staff though due to it's aoe effect with Despair.

Farming

I wanted to mention this quickly before the jungling guide section. You do NOT steal other player's farm. You eat the jungle and you farm (but don't push) lanes when other champions return to base. There is nothing I hate more than playing a mid champion and having a nooby jungler steal my creep score.

If you are playing support, then you will not be farming until mid to late game - and not much even then. You will be sitting in the bush or following your adc around and trying to zone the opposition. It's your job as support to ensure your adc gets fed. Late game this is a different story as you will likely have the most kills and least deaths. In this case go ahead and farm like a beast, just consider it might be worth letting your team get stronger not just you.

Jungle Summary

The most important thing to remember with jungling is to have fun....not really tbh. You need to remember that unlike the support, who is the adc's b***h, you are everyone's b***h. If someone wants to recall you get up and cover their lane like a good doggy. If a lane is struggling, you get your *** down there and push it back up. If your Morgana in mid wants your blue you give them your blue because after first blue it is no longer your blue. It is mid's blue.

In addition to being your team's b***h, you want to be the thorn in the foot of the enemy team. You want to be a massive pain in the a**. I don't mean message them saying they can't play, I mean ganking the moment they overextend, stealing their buffs/dragon, stunning them, denying them kills and cs.

There is a lot to do as a jungler, which makes it the funnest role to play!

This guide is designed purely for jungle Amumu. This is where he excels. Stick a mumu up top and he'll struggle to farm, mid he'll get harassed to death by most mid champs. Support mumu works, though why stick such an excellent jungler as support when you can have Sona, Nunu & Willump, Alistar, etc etc full that role?

So now we know Amumu is a jungler. I will outline my jungle route simply. If you want advice on how to jungle, there are many guides which can teach you much better than I can. Despite this, if I get enough upvotes/comments I will most likely elaborate on this section, so there's an incentive ;)

90% of the time I will take this route, the other 10% I either invade or start at wolves as they spawn first, but in solo queue you wouldn't be wise to assume your team has the sense not to run before leashing blue or to do something stupid when invading. Follow the green headings for the route :)

The Route:

1. Start at Blue.
Get your mid and maybe top to lend a hand. You will want look outs just just by the river to watch for an invade. At 1min 55sec the blue golem will spawn, your leash/s will attack and help get it down to 445hp(more after the smite buff perhaps?) for you to smite. Due to the S3 update they will need to stay and damage it rather than just draw it's damage, it will target you. Now you can pop a health potion, level up tantrum and move onto wolves.

2. Wolf Camp.
Leaving despair toggled on, go up to the wolves, click e to use tantrum and autoattack the big wolf. Then cross the lane to wraiths, use a pot whenever your health is down a bit, don't wait until it's too low.

3. Wraiths.
Keep despair toggled on and just repeat as you did with the wolves. Onto the ancient golems.

4. Ancient Golems.
Keep despair on, use tantrum on them both and autoattack the big one. You will need to gulp down a health potion around here as well. After these two, level tantrum again.

5. Red Buff.
Repeat as you have been, despair still on and tantrum as often as it is off cooldown to drop the red lizard's health. When it is low enough to kill with smite, use smite.

6. Wraiths and Wolves.
Now go kill wraiths again and wolves again. You should have about 690 gold. Recall and you will have 700 to buy tear of the goddess.

7. Options.
You now have options. Firstly head to wolves and wraiths and kill them. Meanwhile watch all three lanes and gank if the opportunity arises. If any monsters spawn in your jungle, go kill them to get more. If someone needs to recall, go ahead and watch the lane for them.

You're lucky to have Amumu to gank with if you're new to jungling. Keep an eye out for lanes that are pushed up towards your turrets. That is an opportunity to gank. Try keep track if the river is warded, even if it is, you can still use it to come up behind them quickly and bandage toss the adc. Remember to ping your team so they expect this and can ideally secure a kill or force him to recall. If you are past level 6 you can use your ult to stun both the adc and support, it is great if your team can get a double kill with it.

If the river is warded and they get out of the way, you can try coming in from the lane and hiding in the side bush. Jump out with bandage toss and ult the champions.

When ganking mid it is particularly easy, just wait until the champion is pushed forward and come in behind with bandage toss. If you land it, it is quite likely that your mid champion will be able to burst theirs into nothing.

Top tends to be the lane that is out of the way for ganking and quite hard to gank and secure a kill due to the tanky nature of most top laners. Despite this, it is probably the most important lane to gank. Ganking top will keep the enemy team's solo top in a more conservative state, possible forcing him to recall or miss out on creep score. This is essential for your top lane to be able to dominate his lane.

Invasion of the Jungle dun dun dun

As it turns out, the enemy's jungle is full of even more goodness than yours. You know why? When you eat your blue, you gain blue buff, gold and experience. When you kill theirs, you get all this, but you also deny their jungler of all that tasty, tasty goodness. Plus the satisfaction you get when you leave having left one of the smaller creeps behind. I laugh every time I swear.

You need to weigh up the risk versus the reward, if you get killed in their jungle you just gave gold, experience and blue to them, plus they get all that satisfaction. If you see their jungler gank top at the 7min 30 mark then you know what you will do, you will take their blue and get out before they notice. It pays to have oracles or an idea of where they warded. If you see bot lane disappear from lane while you are killing their blue, you can guess they warded and you better get out. A good tactic is to flash over the wall after killing it. This leads us to another piece of advice: smite at the last minute. This reduces the possibility of the enemy jungler popping by and smiting it for you. If you don't have smite just lead it into the bush. Additionally, smite as often as possible. That's 10 free gold.

The most important thing to remember with jungling is to have fun....not really tbh. You need to remember that unlike the support, who is the adc's b***h, you are everyone's b***h. If someone wants to recall you get up and cover their lane like a good doggy. If a lane is struggling, you get your *** down there and push it back up. If your Morgana in mid wants your blue you give them your blue because after first blue it is no longer your blue. It is mid's blue.

In addition to being your team's b***h, you want to be the thorn in the foot of the enemy team. You want to be a massive pain in the a**. I don't mean message them saying they can't play, I mean ganking the moment they overextend, stealing their buffs/dragon, stunning them, denying them kills and cs.

There is a lot to do as a jungler, which makes it the funnest role to play!

This section will be very short. I have assumed thus far that you will not be playing Amumu in a ranked game. I assume this mainly due to how often he is banned. Practically always. Therefore this build is designed to play normal games.

If you are however using my guide to help you play ranked Amumu, perhaps you have a magic way to not get Amumu banned or you get lucky occasionally, then I strongly recommend you use the AP tank build. The AP build is there for a bit of fun, but in ranked you will want a little more tankiness.

Additionally, you will need to focus more on defending your jungle than you would in a normal game. Invading theirs will be much more dangerous as ranked games tend to have a lot more wards up and more conscious players (sometimes :S)

Amumu is a powerful champion, whether in the hands of someone experienced or new to the game. The thing to remember is that you can play him the way YOU want to play him. He has more than enough gold coming in from the jungle and base stats and skills to match your playstyle. I did not include a tank build for Amumu, but it is ofcourse a more than viable option.

Amumu is best played as an AP tank. There are so many tanky AP items out there that will slot into this build which allows him to match up to any situation. Just remember that LOL isn't all about playing the same build every time because you know it is good or because I told you to build this item. SO my final piece of advice is to experiment, max out something different first, use different masteries, runes, items and summoner spells :)