Talk:Rammus/@comment-26090928-20150216081306

I really have to condemn people building Randuin's and Thornmail on Rammus together. Often you'll see people tell you to build TM because of its synergy with W and massive cost efficiency thanks to Rammus' passive, but Rammus is already a resistance based tank rather than a health or sustain based one, you're easily going to hit the point of diminshing returns with it and your level 5 W, and you're left with no bonus health. In reailty, TM is a hybrid offence/defence item for Rammus.

Now, how does Randuins factor into this? Well Randuin's passive is to reduce the attack speed of incoming auto attacks. both Rammus' W and TM work upon being hit, meaning the more hits in the short interval the opponent is taunted the better (with the 240 armour from TM + DBC alone you're golden, a few extra AAs isn't too big a deal) and puts thornmail to its maximum use as a hybrid offence defence item. Randuin's actively works against this.

Now, the alternative to Randuin's is sunfire cape, which a lot of people consider a bit of a noob trap because the passive is almost never worth anything substantial and it gives less armour and health than RO. But on Rammus it is actually often the superior choice (assuming you're looking to use it in conjuction with thorn mail to deal sizable damage through your E>W combo). Randuin's is often outclassed and is best bought if you absolutely have to prioritize taking less damage over dealing extra damage (which you often want because of your role as initiator and your ultimate Tremors) and its active is needed for super heavy lock down, say you have a largely squishy team comp or skill shot reliant mages. If you're getting RO don't get TM, they conflict.

And on a side note, if you do go the sunfire + thornmail build, an abyssal sceptre is extremely good to pair with it. You get MR, a small amount of AP for tremors, and most importantly its aura is almost the exact same size as Tremors as well as Sunfire cape, meaning SC and Tremors will be doing almost maximum damage, as well as the magic damage you reflect with TM and W. It allows you to create a powerful zoning field that ruins enemy positioning simply by getting into proximity of them.