Rolling, Rolling, Rolling: A Guide to Ganking with Rammus

In the last few months, Rammus has shot to the top of the leaderboards with speed that is only rivaled by him coming off the fountain in Homeguard Mobility boots. While he boasts strong crowd control and has a reasonably safe early Jungle path, his strength is certainly the speed at which he comes out of the Jungle. With Powerball, he's able to come at solo laners from unexpected angles at roughly one thousand miles per hour, and with in the low communication/vision environment of solo queue, this oftentimes results in at least one summoner spell being burnt by the victim. 

Playing Rammus allows your teammates to run champions with much less crowd control, like Teemo. 
[Supr Teemo and Rammus Powr by Smidgefish] 

There is the matter of exactly where Rammus should make his appearance from. People have suggested that Rammus' best route is a classic lane gank, as Homeguard/Mobility allows him to get into position very quickly. And while Rammus does have the capacity to perform a very good lane gank, I worry that it really limits his capability to surprise enemies. Sure, the first three lane ganks put pressure on the enemy mid laner, but there are six, seven more angles you could come in from that are equally effective. And if there is one thing a Jungler doesn't want to be, it's predictable, as a predictable Jungler risks being counter-jungled or, even worse, counter-ganked.

The Mechanics of Ganking with Rammus

To give ganking paths for Rammus without explaining what we're exactly expecting to do once we get there wouldn't be very helpful, so here is a quick primer on how to perform an effective gank with Rammus. There are really three major parts of the gank itself. The first is hitting with Powerball - as simple as it sounds, actually connecting with the ball and knocking your target in the proper direction are crucial for a successful gank. And this has different complications based on where Rammus is ganking from.

If he comes from lane or river, Rammus needs to make sure he doesn't wall himself off from the target with the minion wave. If coming from lane, this usually means encouraging your lane partner to pressure either side of the lane to goad the enemy laner into taking an opposite position himself. If coming from river, this means waiting for the gaps between waves so you doesn't slam into a caster minion and embarrass yourself. Coming from lane has the second issue of not being able to take advantage of the knock-back portion of the impact - while it may seem irrelevant, placing yourself between the target and their safety allows you to use your taunt even if they attempt to flash towards safety. If you're coming from behind your target, perhaps from their Jungle, you face the problem of possibly running out of steam in Powerball before you impact your target.

The second is layering your taunt from Puncturing Taunt with the crowd control of your lane partner - You don't want to be using Taunt at the same time as their CC, as taunt is a more powerful form of CC than everything except suppression. Also, you don't want to waste the ability to draw the target away from safety with taunt, which something like a bind or stun will stop that. A good rule of thumb is for you to use your CC first if you initiate and allow your ganking partner to use their own if they start off the gank. This usually means that you'll be taunting first, as you're the one flying into lane.

Finally, after you get out of Powerball and have the lock, using Defensive Ball Curl and Tremors to add damage to the gank. People are hesitant to use Tremors because it's an ult, but that's ridiculous as it has an incredibly short cooldown and really adds significant damage to the gank. Tremors is castable while using Powerball, and oftentimes casting it as you impact is the correct decision. Defensive Ball Curl adds damage to your auto-attacks due to your passive, and holding onto it is just leaving damage on the table, as it doesn't slow you down to use it. Don't worry about saving mana, with Homeguard/Mobility boots, you can blue pill and be back in the Jungle in no time.

Gank Paths For the Armordillo

Below are two maps - one for mid and one for coming from the side-lane. The angles you take in the side-lane may be influenced by the side you are on, so paths for purple and blue are indicated by red and blue lines respectively. 

As you can see, the middle lane is rife with paths that Rammus can take advantage of, including flashing over wraith camp while in Powerball which is usually not the best path, but certainly one that will surprise the enemy mid laner. The real advantage of ganking middle lane is that there are a number of approaches one can take, which means that your Jungle clearing path doesn't have to be altered to take advantage of an opportunity. It also allows you an incredibly amount of flexibility for avoiding sections of the map that are dangerous or where the enemy has vision control. While Rammus' speed does allow him to blow past close wards without worry, a deep ward will give the enemy enough warning to evade your ganks.

The goal of each of these paths is to get Rammus behind the enemy and slamming them towards your teammate with Powerball. As such, you want to wait until between lanes (easily done by monitoring your own waves that mirror the opponents) so that the enemy cannot run through their minions and use them as a wall. 

The side-lanes provide more of a challenge, as there are really only three ways to get into the lane - from river, from tri-brush, and from lane. This is reduced to two when your ally is next to the tri-brush (unless the enemy is on your turret). But while there are fewer options of ingress, it is also a lot harder for targets to escape a successful gank due to the length of the lane. Enemies will often shadow towards the lane outer wall (assuming you don't have a Vayne/Poppy that could punish that behavior) to put a wall of creeps between them and the rolling ball of assent that threatens to murder them. As such, allowing yourself a wide turning radius when entering the lane is nice, so you can swing around the morass of minions at the halfway point.

Rolling Into Lane - Counter-Ganking As Rammus

With the speed Rammus can get from Nexus to lane, Rammus makes a natural counter-ganker as well. The mechanics of a Rammus counter-gank are similar the mechanics of a Rammus gank, with a few changes based upon the goal of the counter-gank. You want to use Powerball to impact the enemy Jungler away from your teammate, and place yourself between them and your vulnerable teammate. Again, this positioning allows you to use Puncturing Taunt wherever the enemy might go, allowing you to peel them away from allies. However, unlike a normal gank, you want to use Defensive Ball Curl and Tremors before the taunt - the damage will encourage the enemy to disengage from the gank themselves.

However, while Rammus is able to get into position to counter-gank very quickly, he isn't well suited to turning ganks around - you'll often lose most of your damage (Powerball/Tremors) in the first few seconds of the counter-gank, when you're attempting to peel them away from whatever their initial target was. Don't force for the kill if your teammates are unable to add to the lockdown - your appearance in lane has already denied the enemy an opportunity for a kill, there is no reason stumble into giving them a second chance.