Professional League of Legends has returned with a whole range of interesting champion picks. From new additions like Rell, Seraphine, Samira, and Yone to staple picks like Renekton, Olaf, and Nautilus. One surprising new addition to the pick/ban pool is the spirit walker Udyr. Let's take a look at how this champion has risen to prominence.
Why did Udyr return to the meta?
While his kit is rather dated in fact Riot recently held a poll to decide if he should be reworked, it does have some advantages. He can clear the jungle very quickly and healthily along with strong dueling and easy gank setup. He does objectives relatively quickly and the new tank items ensure he scales better into the late game and allow him to catch out key targets in team fights.
Udyr's Abilities
Passive: Monkey's Agility
Udyr gains stacking Move Speed and Attack Speed after using an Ability. Udyr has four basic Abilities that he may use to swap between Stances. Changing Stances immediately ends both the passive and the on-hit portion of the previous Stance.
Q: Tiger Stance
Tiger Stance: Activation - Udyr's Attack Speed is increased for a few seconds. Persistent Effect - Udyr's first attack and every third attack after will deal a high amount of damage over 2 seconds.
W:Turtle Stance
Active - Udyr gains a temporary shield that absorbs damage.
Persistent Effect - Udyr's first attack and every third attack after heals him for 2.5% of his maximum health.
E-Bear Stance
Active Udyr increases Movement Speed for a short duration.
Persistent Effect - Udyr's basic attacks stun his target for 1 second. This effect cannot occur on the same target for several seconds.
R-Phoenix Stance
Active - Udyr unleashes pulsing waves of fire, dealing damage to nearby enemies.
Persistent Effect - Udyr's first attack and every third attack after engulfs enemies in front of him with flames.
The skill order is at level one take Q, level two take R, level four take W and level five take E, then max R followed by E then finally W. You need no more than one point in Q.
Udyr's Build
At the start of a game as you will be playing jungle you have the choice between Hailblade to slow down and more effectively catch out opponents or Emberknife which would increase your dueling potential. Since the goal of this build is to stick to enemies I would recommend Hailblade.
To help with catching out opponents your Mythic item will be Turbo Chemtank. The health, armor, and magic resistance provided by these items give him the survivability to team fight effectively. However, the active which gives him bonus movement speed towards enemies and turrets along with a slow is the most important part of this item. It allows him to chase and lockdown stragglers. This is followed up with a dead mans plate for even more movement speed. From here on out the items are more situational Force of Nature against heavy magic damage teams along with some extra movement speed, a Thornmail against enemies like Renekton, Olaf, and Aatrox with a lot of healing, even Randuin's Omen for use against opponents with critical strike chance. His boots are usually either plated steel caps or mercury treads depending on whether or not the enemies have powerful crowd control abilities.
Udyr's Runes
Udyr uses the sorcery tree as his primary rune tree in an effort to gain as much movement speed as possible. Phase rush, nimbus cloak, celerity, and water walking all provide him as much movement speed to get where he needs to go. For his secondary, he goes into the precision tree to get triumph so he may earn greater rewards for his takedowns along with legend tenacity for some extra attack speed. Should the enemy team have a lot of crowd control he may pick up Legend Tenacity rather than Alacrity.
His stat runes are attack speed, adaptive damage and either armor or magic resist depending on the matchup.
Final Thoughts
Udyr may be one of Riot Games' older champions but he is clearly still very effective. Hopefully, my guide may help you get started with playing him and earn you some victory screens. It was certainly good enough to help Team Liquid secure the LCS lock-in tournament. So why not give it a shot.
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