League-of-legends – Zhonyas on Lee Sin

I dont know which article you are refering too, but M5 did this in pretty much every tournament they played in. M5 was the first team that got Oracles on their jungler in ~80% of their games, no matter if ahead or not. You can probably watch any M5 tournament game and see Diamond running around with an Oracles.

Even tho Udyr has a lot of diversity, he is played only in 2 ways, with one way beeing more of an soloq style(Tiger Udyr, only works against "bad" enemies on lower elos) and the only competetive way Udyr was ever played is Phoenixdyr.

For Masteries, you use 0/21/9, grabbing general tankyness in deffense (with MS!) and MS and increased Buff duration ins Utility. Udyrs role is to tank. You dont go for dmg, your base dmg will be enough for the first 30 min without any problem. For Runes, the best choice is MS quints, AS marks, Armor seals, MR/lvl glyphs. You can switch out the MS Runes, but I think pretty much everyone agrees that Udyrs biggest weakness is getting kited and thats nearly impossible with all the MS from Runes/Masteries. BTW: These are the Runes/Masteries Diamondprox used in the recent tournament as well.

You usually want to build Udyr as tanky as possible, since thats your main task in teamfights. You start with Boots 3 Pots, go for 2 fast gp10 Items (HoG and Philo) and then build situational items. If you are ahead you want to grab an oracles and a Aegis as soon as possible, Aegis can be grabbed if beh ind as well, but if your support planed on getting it, you can skip it (if behind) and get other items, like Randuins, Frozen Heart, GA against heavy AD teams; Wits End, Banshees, Force of Nature against heavy AP teams. If you feel your team needs dmg you can go for Trinity Force or Wits End, Frozen Mallet is a good Item Choice if the enemy is very mobile (eze, ahri, shyvana) and you need a way to stick to them. You can also upgrade your Philo Stone to a Shurelias.

Usually, you skill R > W > E > Q. You always get R on lvl 1, unless you are invading (E), and if you just want to clear as fast as possible you get W on lvl 2. If you want to invade and you think you are gonna cathc the enemy jungler, you should either skill your E (if he has no kill potential on you, like an Amumu) or your W (if its a good duelist like SHyvana/Lee Sin). If you only want to steal one of his buffs and get away, you can also skill Tiger on lvl 2, which will leave you without a deffensive skill on lvl 2, but 2 offensive skills, giving you the ability to clear a buff insanly fast, but throws you behind a little bit in general jungle/gank power and throws you behind a lot if you dont manage to steal that buff. If the enemy top laner is slow/has no escapes (Darius) and you are on blue side, you can gank him on lvl 2 with Blue buff, just to force a flash and return later with Red for a guaranteed kill.

You can do any route. You can start red for a lvl 2 gank (even tho I woudln't recommend that cause you run oom really reaslly fast) or you can start blue for the fastest clear out of any champ and for some amazing ganks after lvl 3 (MS masteries/runes make you outrun EVERYONE, red buff and stun are very strong ganking tools). Against weaker junglers (Amumu, Nautilus, even mundo early game) you can consider invading cuase you outduell/outrun every other champ int he game this early, beside a well played Olaf.

Your main point is early game really. late game, udyr is one of the strongest Tanks, but nothign more. Late game, the game is not in your hands anymore. You can slow down the enemy AD and be disruptive, but thats about it. If you want to carry a soloq game, do it early game. Against not very mobile mid champs (TF, Kassadin) try early (lvl 2,3 ) ganks, just to scare them away (if they push obv), do a lot top lane, it snowballs hard and top lane is easiest to gank for an Udyr (very tanky, can easily tank several towershots at lvl 3-4 already). If you figure the enemy team is pretty hard to gank (Ahri/Grag mid, Riven top etc), either just farm your jungle ( you can nearly keep up the 10cs/min with a well played phoenixdyr) or counterjungle. You can coutnerjungle every single jungler in the game since you are insanly fast in clearing camps and you run around really fast, but against some of them (Lee Sin, Olaf) you maybe shouldn't fight early, simply cause one mistake can cause them to snowball ahead and you do not want to do that. After clearing your jugnle, get some wards and ward the neemy jungle, steal his small camps and just set the enemy jungler back and yourself ahead. If you duoq iwth someone (or you have enough confidence) you can flash stun squishy targets (AP Mids) and if your laner isn't completly sleeping, you will probably be able to kill him, but thats easier to pull of if you are duoqing.

Dont buy Oracles to early, get at least 1 gp10 item before.

If you figure your taem has a shitload of dmg, you can also max Turtle after putting 2 points into phoenix (for better tower dives).

Mercs are a must on udyr, since cc makes him os much easier to kite. You can get Ninja Tabi early, but switch it for Mercs at least at ~25 min.

Darius is really easy to play with, because you don't need to build any AD items to do tons of damage. For the first time you leave base, I would suggest trying out Cloth Armor and Health Potion x5 for lane sustain until you hit Lv 5 or 6. Then (if you're solo laning) ask your jungler to gank so you can Back.

Build order should be (after first purchase of course):

• boots of speed (lv 1 boots)
• Vampiric Scepter
• Wriggle's Lantern (from Cloth Armor and Vamp scepter)
• Phage
• Mercury Treads (from boots 1)
• Hexdrinker
• Heart of Gold
• Maw of Malmortius (From Hexdrinker)
• Brutalizer (either sell it later to get a defensive item, or if you completely wreck shop then build it into Youmuu's Ghostblade, but only if your team (but yourself in particular) are doing so.)
• Frozen Mallet (from Phage)
• Randuin's Omen (from Heart of Gold)
• late game, sell Wriggle's Lantern for a Bloodthirster
• late game, sell Brutalizer for Guardian Angel / Thornmail / Warmog's Armor, or buy a Youmuu's Ghostblade

Skill Order:

• 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8
• q-w-q-e-q-r-q-w-Q-w-r-w-w-e-e-r-e-e

Runes and Masteries:

• Flat Attack Damage Marks - Self-explanatory. More damage for last hitting and harass in lane.
• Flat Armor Seals. Again, self-explanatory. Helps defend against auto attack damage and minions.However, if you're laning top lane versus an AP bruiser, (and you're in a draft setting and know this before loading screen) I suggest you have two pages for top lane bruiser, one with Armor and one with Magic resist.
• Magic Resist per Level Glyphs. These are for late game to offset some of the magic damage from the enemy AP carry and tank/bruiser/jungler. Personal preference for Flats or Per Lvl, but I find the Lvl MR runes to be the best for top lane.
• Movement Speed Quintessences OR Attack Damage Quintessences. Personal preferences, depending on playstyle. I tend to play extremely passively early game, and prefer more move speed over a bit extra damage, and since its percent-based movespeed, it scales better into late game when you're chasing people down like you've got Boots 3 instead of Mercury Treads.

Honestly, your Masteries will be up to personal preference, as will Summoner spells. I personally go with 21/9/0 and Ignite + Ghost, but again, personal preference. Just be smart and don't build down the AP tree and you can't really go wrong.

** A comment on boot choice **

Many people suggest getting Ninja Tabi on Darius. I would HIGHLY Recommend that you don't, and here's why:

Ninja Tabi: - Movement Speed 2 - 25 Armor - Unique Passive: Reduces damage from non-turret based AUTOATTACKS by 10%.

Woop de doo, 25 armor. Movespeed 2, eh, you get the same from the other boots. Unique passive reducing damage by a percentage? seems nice... But think about it this way: You're reducing 10 damage off of a 100 damage auto attack. or 100 damage off of a 1,000 damage crit. Now how good does that sound? Not very, huh?

Mercury Treads: - Movement Speed 2 - 25 Magic Resist - Unique PAssive: +35 Tenacity (does not stack with other tenacity items)

Magic Resist is okay, but the REAL gem here is that Tenacity. Tenacity reduces the duration of certain Crowd Control effects by 35%.

• Tenacity works on: Blind, Charm, Terrify, Fear, Taunt, Pacify, Silence, Slow, and Stun.
• Tenacity does NOT work on: Knockback, Knockup, Pull, or Suppression.

Generally once the enemy team sees a Darius, they'll want to disable you in some way to make you less effective for at least a short duration during the game, and Merc Treads come in handy more times than I could count, whereas Ninja Tabi I hardly ever get with anyone, because its just not worth it to me since Dodge was removed.

Improving early game in general is easy enough, but hard to pull off thanks to the human factor of the other team. What I would suggest, is whenever you Back to buy items, grab a couple wards and health pots. Ward the little round wall by Baron, next to the Tribrush and diagonally down from the river bush by top lane. This way you see if anyone is coming both up from river and out from their jungle, and you can see if they go into yours. Once you finish off Wriggle's Lantern, you can stop purchasing wards, thanks to its active ability.

While in lane pre-9, I would suggest playing passive and last-hit as much as possible. Don't spam your abilities until you hit Lv 11, because quite frankly, your mana pool is terrible early game. If you're a solo lane versus a double lane, last hitting under tower is the safest place to be. Let your tower hit the melee minions 3 times and the caster minions twice (iirc) before swinging at them.

When you go aggressive, lead with your Q, your spinning blade, and make sure you hit them in the outer edge of it for extra damage. If they run, pull them back in and activate your W at the same time, and make sure you procc it by auto attacking at least once. In between your abilities, always remember to auto attack! You need to stack your bleed passive as much as possible to get the full use out of your ultimate when you inevitably use it.

A word of caution, however: Darius is a detriment to your team overall if all you do is Ult every time someone gets low enough. You need to make sure your team gets kills as well, so you're not the only fed player on your team. While your personal build is probably one of the most expensive ones on your team (besides the ADC) at approximately 14K gold, remember that while you have 5 of your 6 endgame items at 40 minutes, the rest of your team might only have one or two. And its easier to focus one player down (even if its' Darius) than it is four.

Hope this helps you (and anyone else in your situation)!

And remember, summoners: When there's a Darius on the enemy team, Half your health bar is just for show.