Why NO ONE Plays: Rammus | League of Legends 

Best reason to pick Rammus: The enemy has a Yone main and you're just going to ruin their day.

I think one reason Rammus is unpopular is because of the matchups. Most matches in particular either goes 3 Attack Damage and 2 Ability Power or 2 Attack Damage and 3 Ability power. The numbers changr depending on the composition and playstyles. Rammus is basically the counter to Attack Damage especially with his kit, but if enemies are smart enough to not pick all AD, then AP is the way to recounter him. His playstyles is also very weird, he has CC , gank and tankiness yes; but with the meta favoring penetrayion items, anti heal and literally picking champions that deals true damage: Rammus has no good spot because of it.

As a Rammus main, I dissaprove. But OK.

Wise words from Ramus "Yeah" "Okay"

Didn't expect the Rammus mains to write a whole thesis on how Rasmus could improve I like it tho, they help a lot

My hot take: Rammus Q's dmg should have scale for movement speed. I always feel kinda left out when I go in 2400ms into an enemy and they take 180 dmg. Living cannonball would be fun

I view rammus as more of an anti carry. He is amazing vs ad champs and most hyper carries are auto attackers. He is also great at picking one person and saying “YOU FIGHT ME OK”

He might not be played but everyone loves him. He’s too goofy and cute.

Rammus was my first main back in the day and the changes they have made to him over the years certainly aren't without their flaws but were overall healthier for the game as a whole. That being said the biggest thing that gutted rammus's viability was the thornmail rework years ago. Old thornmail had no grievous wounds which nowadays sounds weaker but Old thornmail also used to reflect a % of the dmg taken back to the attacker. Currently a champion with just a BORK and nothing else can out heal rammus's dmg with just a thornmail, even through grievous wounds. Old thornmail by itself could deal more dmg to the attacker than BORK could heal making it so you had to have BORK and a Vamp in order to just break even against a rammus. If an item was added to league that took the place of the armor version of grievous wounds and thornmail was given back it's %dmg scaling or if Rammus w was given a %dmg scaling he would be more on par with his other tank counterparts in terms of viability and would most likely return to semi regular use. That being said just give the man a VGU so he can be ok again.

I've mained rammus since I started playing back in season 8 and he has been the only champion that I've always consistently played, at a first glance he seems like an amazing counter to melee aa based champs with his ol' reliable aftershock taunt defense curl combo to shut them down and let them machine gun themselves to death, as well as the absurd stat bonus of doubling his current armor and getting nearly a 60% magic resist increase thanks to being able to press w, and you would be kind of right, but he has way too many shortcomings for that to consistently be the case, buckle up fellas, this is a long one 1 - He's too slow (not in the literal sense) As I just said, Rammus can deal absurd damage with e and w to enemies with high attack speed, but for that to happen you need armor and mr, and to get armor and mr you need money, and to get money you need to either permafarm for ages, which means that you lose all pressure on very important objectives (mainly dragon ofc) while the enemy jungler kills your adc for the 6th time in a row and snowvall the game before you finish your first item, or to make plays all around the map, which rammus isn't very good at doing due to having very high cooldowns and low damage early on, what I'm trying to say is that Rammus takes too much time to come online and most games are already decided before he han do much of anything 2 - True damage and anti tank items are everywhere The title says it all really, between Rammus really needing armor asap and items with either armor shred (or true damage in the case of kraken) being easily available for all classes, Rammus is kind of stuck in a lose/lose situation no matter what he builds, if you build a bunch of armor and mr you have enough damage and some tankyness to be useful, but you can still get melted by kraken adcs, and you can't afford yo buy something like anathemas or waemog early because, as I already said, Rammus needs resistances to have an impact in fight and deal significant damage to big threats, this may be just me sucking at itemizing properly, but, assuming the enemy team is pretty balanced between their physical and magic damage threats, I usually have to sit on a bramble vest and buy either warmogs or fon demending on how scary their magic damage dealers are, but that leaves me with no inventory slots so I have to sit on a large amount of gold and fall even further behind as a result. (Also I almost forgot to mention this, but if you're having trouble against a rammus as an aa based champ, just buy wits end, the on hit hybrid damage screws him over hard, and unless you're up against someone busting out a hidden op Korean omg my parents divorced after this one sorcs shoes Rammus build™, the magic resist will gut his damage completely sonce he isn't buying any magic pen). 3 - He's predictable and easy to disrupt So let's imagine that you' re playing as Nautilus support, it's 25 minutes into the game, you and your adc are pushing bot lane when you see the enemy Rammus appearing in the lane and activating his q, what do you think he's going to do next? Try to get to your adc and kill them, that's right. So what do you do? You stand in the way between him and your adc, it's that simple, the minirework tried to help with Rammus being this predictable and it kind of helped by making his new ult give him the option to ump right onto the enemy adc, but as I said, kind of, his ult is still really slow and can be easily flashed or dashed away from, and as long as Rammus is cc'd and can't get on top of your adc, he can't do anything and will die pretty quickly unless he's really fed, champs with a lot of lockdown make Rammus completely useless in teamfights if they know how to peel, his only escape options are his q which takes time to speed up and gets interrupted if an enemy is on top of him, and his ult, which even though it can pass through walls it's slow and kind of short ranged. I could probably go on but it's 3 am for me and I already wrote this mess so ig I'll leave it at that, later Edit: ok

Time for my main’s pick rate to go up due to this video My thoughts? “Ok”

Long, long ago when I started learning how to play champs other than teemo, 11 year old me loved absolutely everything about rammus, I still play him from time to time, he's still the guy to play when you're in an ok mood

The fact that the old ult's shockwaves followed you around was infinitely better than what the reworked ult does. Now if the enemy gets out of the ult's landing zone, you have one less damaging ability

I was waiting for this video for so long, thank you. I played rammus back in the days where the thornmill did percentage of the attackers physical damage, his W did not slow him, and his R didn't cancel his W. Those where the fun days, I managed to get 1.2 m pts with him, though mostly I was playing normal pick ( yeah he was that fun to play). Now after the rework of his kit and items, he has no soul. I just pick him at very very very special cases, if enemy had +3 AD champs, +3 squishies, -2 hard CC, no True damage champs, -2 tanks and no fast or untargetable champs. In adition to all of this I have to relay on my team mates to do drake and jg Obj since it takes forever to solo them. I really want to play him more but not with the current state of the game.

Yeyyy rammus is one of the champs I wanted to hear you talk about the most I'm sooo hyped about it :D (Btw I love the new blue theme for the channel icon it looks amazing😍)

Without having any Rammus experience, heres a thought. How about giving his Taunt a short recast window. A few seconds after Taunting a target, he would be able to cast it again on another target, but not on the same target as to avoid a possible 1v1 cc chain.

As a rammus main all season 10 i agree especially since is a pocket pick. I suck against mages and clear speed early game horrible. After the mini rework to his kit and the chemtank nerf he really became underwhelming. I love the new ult tho. Just wished they kept everything else.

Honestly. All he needs: slow immunity on his Q and maybe something that reduces the effect of armor shred on his passive. Maybe some %max health damage somewhere in his kit. His ult could also use some tweaks so it isn’t almost useless if you do it without powerball (maybe reduced CD? Or the shockwave could follow him if he does it raw. That would work too) He’s niche and simple but he definitely is fun. I play him top these days. It definitely isn’t meta but it works against AD matchups. Another issue he has honestly is the CD of the taunt despite it being single target. Perhaps whenever he takes damage it should get its CD reduced by a bit? I would totally be okay with this

They need to revert some of his Q nerfs. I really hated it when they nerfed so that your Q could be interrupted and got the deadman's scaling speed. I really loved it when his Q lasted longer and you immediately got the speed you want.

As a rammus main 8 love getting fed and tower diving the enemy team with 900 armour and taking no damage

I used to play Rammus ever single game, the little armadillo was my boy. But when they changed his Q to be stoppable so easily it made him so much more frustrating to play, to the point where it felt like I was just an anti-ADC and that's it.

I don't even play LoL anymore but I just really like your videos! I used to play a lot of champions, didn't have a predominant one, I had six with M7, Khazix, Cho, Kindred, Rammus, Kled and Aatrox, all champions you have made a video on and those got me absolutely hooked, watched other videos and also liked them a lot. Great job!

I love this little ball of pain. Fullmetal Rammus was the first skin I got from a hextech chest, since then he's been my go to pick whenever the enemy team is full ad or I feel like my team's gonna need me roaming a lot at the speed of sound.

I have been waiting for this video!

First and foremost, needing either gromp or krugs for a 3 camp level 3 and no longer being able to buff/wolves/buff or buff/raptors/buff was a blow for most tank junglers because they're generally very slow at gromp and krugs is naturally slow. Other paths require 4 camps for level 3. Powerfarming is not an option either because one, they can't match other powerfarmer's speed and two, they're not carries to begin with. They're left in a limbo where other champions are better at anything they try to do. Second, tanks in general have been a dead class since 2018 and only now are starting to make a comeback. Third, what made Rammus stand out in the first place is no longer as relevant. The most effective stats against Rammus are armor penetration, magic resistance and life steal. %health damage, true damage, armor penetration (alternatives for armor pen), lifesteal and shields (functions like magic resistance) are so widespread you can literally get all three of these with 2 itens (shieldbow+lord doms) while still building your core stats.

I pretty much solo mained rammus all of season 11 with a pocket pick Sejuani (for particularly bad matchups/team comps) and still do to this day. The amount of true damage and armor penetration in the game that has been added over time has indirectly nerfed him as a champion to the point where I picked up Nunu and Zac as alternative picks for when I decide to play a tank in the jungle. Its tragic that in order to be good in any game he needs to stack armor, which is the easiest to counter stat because of items like kraken slayer and abilities that do bonus true damage. And like you mentioned in the video, his lack of ANY health scaling makes his build as one dimensional as his play style. despite all of that, going predator and turbo chamtank makes for some pretty funny engages in team fights and early ganks.

I have to admit that he really is a specialist. If I see and AP heavy comp i just pick someone else but if the enemy team is mostly AD then it is a dream come true. I love this little guy, but how easy it is to counter his Q really is a pain.

Hey! I'm Rammus Gaming on the NA server. I'm not sure if it was mentioned or not, but Rammus's R is unstoppable just like Malphite's. Also, you said that Rammus W has a 6 second cooldown and can last up to 10 seconds (which is true), but this does NOT mean you can have it up "theoretically forever". The cooldown starts as soon as you exit the W. Buff Rammus

I started playing Rammus (2013) because I got Chrome Rammus in a chest. I loved it. I dont play it anymore, but Rammus is iconic

Give rammus tenacity on powerball. Like 3-5% per ability level. That way it counters other cc like snares as well as slows.

Video Suggestion: Make a video on heroes with "Second Lives" like Sion, Kog'Maw, Zac, Anivia and Zilean (since he gives second lives to his team and can use it on himself too)

7:12 "In his defence... Pun intended" haven't heard that in a while XD

WHAT I ONLY play rammus jg when I jg. Super fun champ, amazing ganks.

I just recently got into Rammus and it's been a blast

Best moments with Rammus was when his passive scales from armor to AD, just building an armor gives him a percent of damage

Right.

I've mained Rammus for 7 years now and I can confirm I really like rolling at people and taunting one person into my team. It's not as amazing as other tank junglers with insane CC or big teamfight ultimates, but it gets the job done and I have a lot of fun doing it. I love him and hope he never gets a rework. He's fine just the way he is :)

i have been waiting for this moment my entire life

The latest "rework" screwed him over. Not only is his Q now interruptable - his R is also way weaker. It used to be aoe dmg boost, really useful against turrets and great in teamfights if you got a %HP burn items. The new Ultimate is just a gapcloser, and to have a knockup effect you have to combo it with Q... And even then it's so slow people can literally just walk out of it not even using dashes. Just why did they change it as such?

I think this is the first Why No One Plays video I’ve watched where it made me want to pick up the champion in question. Jungle Rammus, Junmus?, looks pretty fun

Hey Vars! Love the work. Just wondering is content creation your full time job? I've been wondering for a while.

I love Rammus, Hes been my most consistent go to jungler over the years. Pre-Aatrox Rework he was my 2trick... Post then hes kinda become my main stable jungle pick beside Hecarim.

What gets me as someone who likes playing rammas is that whenever I pick him they're whole team ends up being all ap

the live chat is just ok and It is glorious.

vars: trying to tell us why ramus can be easily counter ramus in the background: proceed to exterminate everyone he sees...

Offtopic from your video, but I'm loving the christmas themed vars

Buff ideas: 1.Give his Q damage a Movement Scaling 2.Make his E into a Fan shaped skillshot that can apply taunt on all the opponents caught into it 3.add something to his passive like when suddenly stopping after moving, receive the highest amount of Mov SPD you had during the last 3 seconds as Armour and magic resist (half the amount if it sounds too op) 4.Upon reaching the maximum speed allowed by Powerball, you become unstoppable 5.when Powerball gets stopped, you let out a fan shaped shock wave that deals half the damage you're supposed to do with Powerball. If you stop yourself by colliding with an enemy, you'll deal full dmg to the target and half the dmg on the shockwave

Hey Vars, i really like your content and I wanted to ask you something. Would you going to talk about Shen or is it not in your plans?

rammus, trundle, ornn, and tahm kench have a few things in common but they include both being my mains and all being in why no one plays

Rammus is one of my favorite junglers! HOW DARE YOU MAKE THIS VIDEO! (GJ)

rammus is an amazing sleeper pick bot lane with yuumi. It's strongest attribute is making the enemy team flame the enemy adc, because it's almost impossible to win lane against, and it will neuter the enemy adc unless the constantly gank mid, which you can counter with your beautiful speed.

I recently started playing rammus with brusier build (pen boots and demonic embrace into full tank, maybe hourglass) and his damage is no joke. It's really funny to see enemy adc one shot themself by atacking you hehe.

I'm fairly new to league and I was just suggested Rammus as a jungle champion because I liked Yi's speed but wanted to be tank-y. Now he's my favorite champion and I play him all the time. One time in draft pick he got banned and I was legitimately shocked

Getting Rammus and running through the river with q + ghost + chemtank + the speed sorcery runes while aiming at the enemy ADC is one of the most fun things in this game.

i never play against rammus, but he is my go to jungler other than kindred or ww (and i suppose ekko now as well). i personally am a support main so im used to the role of being a tank and engaging the enemy, rammus fits this perfectly. you dont play rammus to get kills, you play him to cc the enemy and let then die to you and your team which is why i love him. also rammus has the best voice lines in the game, fight me

I ALWAYS buy Wits End. It gives him so much dmg and much needed magic resist. Even against Ap champs he still has a chance with that

I used to play Skarner and Rammus all the time back in season 4 and 5. But season 10 and 11 I just feel like jungling is so brutal that if I make the tiniest mistake I just fall far too behind and become useless. I found success in Skarner top and still play him to this day, so maybe I should play Rammus again top.

I think they should give Rammus a pseudo-taunt that he can use to play mind games with his opponents. Like a charge ability that rewards the opponent if they are hitting him fast enough, so Rammus can use it to “taunt” then into hitting him then interrupt the charge or continue charging, who knows.

It's worth noting that Rammus' Q has something abilities like it (snowball and sion r) don't- the ability to back out. Rammus can pick his fights REALLY well, because unlike the cumbersome movement of the mostly straight-line abilities of Nunu and Sion, his is simply a movement speed augment. This does mean he doesn't have the ability to keep going through cc, but in exchange, if he doesn't like a situation, he can just turn around on a dime and head out just as fast as he came in. It doesn't sound that useful, but in my time playing Rammus, I've often used that fact to bait out abilities from the enemy team by scaring them into thinking I'm engaging, dodging them at hyperspeed, then running back in to finish the engage with an ult, and with all their cc on cooldown. It's nice.

I choose him once last week and now i can't stop playing him he's so so fun

"but malphite is toplane" **Laughs in unsealed spellbook malphite jungle**

I have some ideas on changes that would make him more reliable. Perhaps when his q get's interrupted he should get 50-70% cd reduction on it. There are already a bunch of abilities out there that get cd reduction on cancel. The single target taunt could get a bit of aoe, like you still cast it on one enemy, but you also taunt other enemies in a small area around you for a shorter duration. Maybe 1 seconds or lower. That could add a bit more skill expression

“U ever get hit by a bowling bowl before? That’s sht hurts” lmfaooooo

Back when I used to play Dota, and just hopped into league, there was this character called Sand King which I used a lot who was a sand scorpion with the same ult as Rammus but with a longer delay and stronger damage, both played a similar role of getting at the back and being annoying asf so when I first tried Rammus I instantly made him my Jungle pick (before Fiddle rework)

When Rammus works, he is so satisfying.

Recently they took away the movement speed slow when he's in his w, which helps. He was stronger back in the day when his taunt sliced their armor. If they kept the attack speed buff on his e, and added some armor reduction back into it, he'd probably be a bigger threat again. Either that or make his Q uninterruptable again, but that may be a bit too strong. I think his powerball did more damage back in the day too. It was easier to solo kill with him around s6-s7

Like the sonic and the black knight music :)

On the Brazilian server, Rammus is one of the most popular picks thanks to the streamer Lord_Semi, a Challenger that is Mono Rammus.

I just love that in this game with over 150 characters with extensive backstories and interpersonal relationships, one of them is just a spiky boi chillin' in the desert and being revered as a god for it.

AP Rammus is hilarious though. Then that power ball one shots the squishies

Yeah I clipped the outside of my ankle with a bowling ball once when I was swinging it forward. I can't bowl anymore because I cringe every time I swing forward from the backswing now so I can't get the ball in the same area code as my lane.

"Have you ever been hit by a bowling ball??" sadly, yes. more than once. and yeah- it hurts.

I love facing ramus as cho'gath. he trying to ramus me and I scream shut up at him and he just goes "ok"

I have actually played him in jungle pre rework of his ult. I loved him but that new ult just did not click with. His new damage output is just laughable. So to pick graveyard he went.

As a rammus one trick, Rammus is a very underated pick. He's an auto win into ad champs and auto attackers, amazing gank potenial, tons of cc, lots of peel for your carries

Rammus is one of the few champions that actually have a semblance of strategy to them in pick phases. I wish the game had more champions there specilize in being useful when the enemy picks a certain contellation.

Ive seen balori builded rammus with riftmaker and some omnivamp from runes, this build is actually insane when fed, he jumped alone 1v5 and killed 3 of them.The only problem is to get fed on the first place

This season, rammus' dmge problem is fixed, even vs ap champs, you can go sunfire cape and abyssal, both with give you mr and hp and both compensate for the lack of armor/ dmge, they also scale with hp so buying warmogs or anathemas after them causes you to be stronger vs true dmge and again compensate for the loss in armor by buffing your other item dmge. personally I find rammus really already gets enough armor from maxing W and enough speed from Q, I find that building more armor on top of tornmail to be very wastefull. Also to use 2 abilities to engage is maybe a big costs but its also a powerful engage and guarantees a free ticket to the enemy carry and a free taunt plus a potential knock up. A weird trick I saw from TheBausffs is that building magic pen boots also skyrockets his dmge because he does lots of small amounts with W thus causing +18 magic pen to be very effective, with 800 armor and tenacity runes you don't need any other boots.

Im new to League and right now, Im using rammus and Im enjoying it. I;m actually amazed that I can still kill a player even if Im at low HP as long as I activated my W, combined with chemtank is just frickin unbelievable for me. I do die a lot because I end up baiting all the enemy to attack me, but its really worthy sacrifice

As a Geb main in Smite, who basically has better Powerball as an ability...The slow immunity you suggest would make a big difference. Even if it only applies when you reach top speed.

I remember the last time I had a Rammus in my game. It was One for All: Mirror Mode. That was fun.

Lest we forget - before the ultimate was changed, the ultimate (an AoE effect with damage and stacking slows) was attached to Rammus. So, the need for an AoE taunt issue (back then) was not as much of an issue. I miss that version of Rammus.

Nice! I didn’t even realise he was that unpopular tbh! Will you be making another perfectly designed? I suggest Nami but let’s just ignore the whole electrocute thing lol

I feel like Nunu and Willump just does his job better, unless the enemy team is all AD.

"You better have some Jesus on deck because, you ever get hit by a bowling ball? That sh*t hurts" - Vars 2021

Rammus was my first ever jungler that I enjoyed, easy enough to understand while I was still dumb enough to use r on camps

I saw a Rammus last time around a week ago. In Aram. In the enemy team. .... I was Urgot and got a grey screen once I pressed w.

I feel like he could do with a different ult if it's impact is really that small. Mabey something akin to boosting his armor even more.

I feel like I’ve seen more people in unranked matches playing rammus not a whole lot but but enough I noticed.

Tecnically, you can get immune to armor % reduction on rammus. Do the math: If you have lets say 1000 armor, agains an enemy with 60% armor pen (A lot more then what a single lord dominik can give you), you ar facing a 400 armor tank. 400 Armor is enough to block like 80% incoming physical damage. So one strengh rammus have is that you can only really counter him with Magic damage in dps form, or true damage. Champs that do well versus rammus are very few: vayne, fiora, gwen, diana, morde, trundle.... otherwise, he is going to statcheck basically anything late game, so you might opt to focus on counters for his team instead. The thing is, rammus is niche and strong af, even against heavy magic damage. BUT in order for him to be a carry, he is game dependant.

OK this is going to be epic

I remember a video discussing Rammus and they mentioned that anytime AD/auto champs become more meta his winrate increases sometimes up to 60%

i were rammus main, and i must agree. Rammus was rly strong in s9-s10 but that rework literally destroyed him. he was LITERALLY a tank with so much armor and tant for like 3s. now u build him for speed or smh else and max Q instead of E, that destroyed him

There is nothing and there will be nothing as satisfying as picking rammus into a full AD auto heavy team, and just becoming a 1v5 monster jumping in by yourself and carrying the game by bringing everyone to no health by the time your team shows up

I think a remedy would be for his Q to do % max health damage that scales on movement speed

I agree that our lovely rammus could use some tweaks . But I also love his simple Play style . Easy to learn and effective , he helped me learn jungle . So :OK:

Yep. Rammus was my highests win rate in all Lanes last season.

been picking rammus lately due to the assassins meta and I’ve never lost a game,10 game win streak with rammus

Rammus is the tank assassin, with fimbulwinter kassadim at the side

I mainly played rammus in jngle for a bit. I ran an AD build based around Ravenous as my main build and tank if people didn't want me playing it. Then all the reworks to rammus came and I just fell off because somethings just felt so off with him.