Wukong Jungel Item Choice

[Migrin]

Hey Everyone

I have fallen in love with Wukong lately and play him both Top and Jungle. I have read through several guides on him and apparently Spirit of the Elder Lizard seems to be the go-to jungler item for him. I have played several games picking up this item and I am not really convinced this is the best way to build him.

Spirit of the Ancient Golem gives me a decent amount of health and 10% CDR plus Tenacity For a reasonable price and allow me to invest into a Triforce plus cdr boots or ninja tabi directly afterwards without being afraid of getting rolled over when ever I gank a lane or get into a skirmish.

What is your point of view on this? What is your standard build Path?

[gildra]

my go to item when jungle is Ancient golem. The tenacity paired with tabi boots is just too good to pass up on.

If you succeed in picking up a kill or 2 with some lane tax then yes, it's might be worth picking up 1 of the other jungle items instead. The problem with jungling is that your guaranteed to take a lot of damage during ganks, so being tanky is most of the time a must.

[Deleted]

I'm not really a fan of SotEL on most of the champions. SotAG seems nearly always better.

[Duilliath]

Too situational to say for certain.

Do you have other initiators? Other tanks? Are you behind? Are you snowballing? Who is the enemy jungler? What is the enemy team?

The answers to those questions will determine whether you can go SotEL or if AG would be the better option.

[esoterickk]

As said above, it really is too situational to have a set "always get this item". However, I think Spirit of the Elder Lizard will win in most cases when playing Wukong in solo q unless you really have no dedicated tank/off-tank.

It gives him the damage he needs to keep up in mid-game and be a threat to the enemy team. If you go for SotAG you lose a lot of mid-game damage and it makes you a LOT less of a threat. Wukong's strength in team-fights comes from being able to AoE CC while providing high damage at the same time (normally can get squishy targets down to <25% from ult alone), and building tank items early nullifies this and you turn into a meat shield mainly.

Usually with Wukong Jungle I'll rush SotEL>Boots x1>Black Cleaver>Tabi>Spirit Visage. From there either Randuins/Tri-force depending on what's needed and you're usually pretty set.

[Duilliath]

I prefer Tiamat over cleaver rush. Really increases his clear speed.

[Drikkink]

I prefer Tiamat over cleaver rush. Really increases his clear speed.

I'll never like cleaver rush on anyone. The Brutalizer is really all the Armor Pen you need early and gives enough CDR. The stacking armor shred really isn't worth it... especially as a jungler. Might be okay as a heavy damage top laner (Riven) against someone stacking armor, but it's just a lot of money for not a lot of early benefit. It's like getting Void Staff as a first item as a mid laner. If you really want the MR shred, just go Haunting Guise. % shred is only good at massive amounts of armor.

[Isrozzis]

As far as the spirit items SotAG is almost always better since it makes you a lot more durable and wukong has decent base damages to go off of. You are going to destroy people if you go with SotEL, but you will be much more fragile.

After that it really comes down to the game. Do you need to go really tanky and be your teams intiator? You probably want to get a locket or randuins so you can make use of the utility of those items. Maybe you can get away with some damage. Consider picking up a black cleaver or a triforce (it's really expensive for a jungler but it gives you a large damage boost). I personally prefer cleaver to hydra on wukong as it really synergizes with his ult, but he does have a pretty slow clear without the tiamat. Perhaps sitting on a tiamat to help the clear, getting your other items, then finishing hydra would work, but at that point you aren't too far off of having hydra done so you might as well get it.

Another thing that Black Cleaver has over Hydra is that it shreds % armor. That seems like a really obvious point, but it is worth noting as it amps the damage of your ADC and probably your top laner as well. If you're not really far ahead as jungle wukong chances are you aren't going to be the main source of damage, so the utility from the shred helps your team do more damage. Basically Black Cleaver is a team fight / skirmish item, while hydra would be more of a split push / farm item. Getting one or the other should be dependent on what you want to accomplish in the game.

Imo since Wukong's team fight is amazing with his ult you want to build to increase your team fight capability. That's how I do it, but you will do more damage by yourself with a Hydra than you will with a Black Cleaver barring armor stacking.

As for boots, ninja tabi or gank boots are probably the best way to go. SotAG and ninja tabi make you deceptively tanky and give you the % damage off of autos as well as tenacity. It's a very cheap core to get as well. Since magic damage is less prevalent in the early game (mids aren't going to explode you before they get items usually) the ninja tabi helps reduce the damage you take from top laners and opposing junglers as well as the jungle itself. So they are my standard boot of choice. If you are ahead or you just like gank boots then get those.

As far as other items go, Spirit Visage is just a really good item in general for MR. You can go with maybe a hexdrinker or a banshee's veil, but in general I think SV is the better item. I also don't know how Banshee's works with your clone. If your clone maintains Banshee's it's fine, but if it doesn't it is really obvious when you use your clone.

So a core of SotAG, ninja tabi, cleaver / triforce, SV then whatever items you need will make you reasonably tanky while giving you a real presence in team fights with your CC and damage. It's worth noting that going 21 into defense is really good on wukong as you can pick up 4 points in Legendary Guardian (4 armor, 2 MR for each nearby champion) synergies really well with Wukong's passive. Which in turn makes building items that give you health even better than they already are since Wukong gets a good amount of free resistances. So you're SotAG and Cleaver give you a decent chunk of health that becomes more effective than it would be on other champions.

Hope this helped, i'm not a pro at jungle wukong, but i've played it a few times and this kind of sums up my experience.

[Migrin]

Thank you very much for your inputs. I am glad to see I am not making fundamental errors while building him.

To add my two cents to Banshees veil vs. Spirit Visage; In most cases I build a SP over BV because the CDR is amazing on Wukong and the increased Regen is very strong when you pair it with a Hydra, BT or a Warmogs plus the regen from your jungler item. But against certain champs BV is just invaluable. With the current amount of annie and leona play I find myself picking up a BV much more often than I used to.

Cheers Migrin