Talk:Hecarim/@comment-82.22.20.117-20120505005340

Although this guy may be weak, if you get to late game then you will be a huge threat as you will dish out so much damage and crowd control while being so tanky. This is why he has such a weak early game. My optimal build is:

cloth + 5 hp pot > boots > philo > hog > lvl 2 boots > shurelias / trinity (depending if u need hp, if not then trinity) > finish other > randuins / maw of malmortius. Sell cloth armor whenever you need to to get philo stone. Of course build parts of your randuins e.g chain mail or parts of your maw of malmortius e.g negatron cloak if there is a particular person fed.

You might be asking why not invest in armor or magic resist before trinity? His W will heal all the damage they deal to you and you should have just enough armor and mr from masteries and runes aswell as health from the items you brought to be tanky. Therefore, getting armor or magic resist will mean you wont lose too much health but you will do VERY low damage. Skipping armor or magic resist will mean W will heal you enough so that you wont die but you will do consistent damage.

Some people may question why 2 gp10 items instead of Wriggles? Well I think this is a personal preference. I mainly jungle with Q and W meaning philostone is needed. It also builds into a shurelias that will make an excellent initiation when you ult into an entire enemy team, using your randuins active and then use Shurelia's which will help yur team follow up. That is pretty much GG right there.

On the other hand, many people like to clear jungle creeps with wriggles. It will be similar clear speed to a 2 gp10 item build. However, why would you buy wriggles when you get good sustain with philostone allowing you to spam and that spamming Q, W and autoattacking is similar speed than autoattacking with wriggles proc? Especially when it does not proc. The armor is negligible because you should have enough via masteries and runes to help you survive in skirmishes or low level team fights with your W. The free ward is also kind of crap because you can already buy a ward for a mere 75 gold, whileas having 2 gp10 items will generate enough gold where you get free wards.

You also might be wondering why start with cloth and then sell it? Well that's because you NEED cloth + 5 hp pots set up to be able to clear the jungle and get lvl 4 and then gank after. Any other will make you too low to be able to gank after. I also explained earlier that you do not need that much armor because W should make you survive in skirmishes or low level team fights, hence why you sell it.

Also, never pick Hecarim if you expect counter jungling. He is vunerable to counter jungling and he cannot duel others. But if left alone, protected or used as a pick where you know the jungler wont counter jungle you, pick him as he will scale late game like a beast and you can carry your team.