Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight featuring Wukong, the Monkey King
The Monkey King is a tricky, elusive melee damage-dealer.
His abilities allow him to dart around combat or jump into the fray and take on all your opponents at once.
His passive is Stone Skin, which bestows bonus armor and magic resist for every nearby enemy champion.
Crushing Blow causes your next attack to deal bonus damage and lower the armor of whomever you hit.
Activating this ability resets your attack timer, so try to use it immediately after landing a normal attack.
Decoy leaves behind a copy of yourself while you turn invisible.
After a brief delay the decoy damages all nearby enemies and your stealth ends.
Using Decoy looks almost identical to simply pressing “S” to stop, which can give you a lot of interesting tricks.
Nimbus Strike causes you and two clones of yourself to leap toward and damage up to three enemies in the target area.
Immediately after leaping, you gain bonus attack speed for a short time.
Cyclone is Monkey King’s ultimate. Cyclone gives you bonus movement speed and damages nearby enemies for a few seconds.
Any enemies hit by Cyclone are also knocked into the air, but only once per ability cast.
Early game harassment with Nimbus Strike can really set you ahead, especially against slow mages.
Throughout the early game, you can really get some free harassment with armor penetration and an early Doran’s Blade.
At level 2 you can upgrade this harassment. Close the gap with Nimbus Strike and follow up with Crushing Blow.
As you can see, I repeatedly force Veigar back to his turret, chewing through Health Potions.
I continue to pressure Veigar throughout the lane, knowing that I can secure the kill with Ghost and Flash.
After dropping him to 10% health, I try to head behind his turret to cut off his escape. Seeing him hide underneath it, I make sure to take my time.
Once I see him cast Dark Matter, I move around it and only push in when I know I’ll land all my abilities. I Flash out and take the kill relatively unscathed.
Cyclone is a great way to set up for your teammates. I see Pantheon begin Grand Skyfall, so I use Ghost and Cyclone to guarantee a knock-up on Veigar.
Once I know the kill is secured for Pantheon, I back off to make sure I survive the encounter.
In mid, I take on Ezreal. I leap in with Nimbus Strike and after he tries to evade me, I hit him with Crushing Blow to reduce his armor before taking him down with Cyclone.
Because of Sheen, my burst damage is strong enough to take on Olaf, forcing him to run.
Monkey King also makes for a great assassin. Here I clean up Ezreal after a small fight.
With Ghost and Trinity Force, I have an even easier time with Leona. With over 500 movement speed, there’s no chance for her to escape, especially when I trigger the slow from Trinity Force.
Monkey King has a ton of hidden complexity. As I run from the fight in mid, I Decoy and then change directions, hoping that my opponents will continue to head left.
They guess correctly, so I Nimbus Strike to the enemy farther away, which allows me more distance from the enemy Monkey King.
Once I make it out, I see Leona get into a fight. Unfortunately, upon seeing Veigar, I don’t see a way of helping, so I have to let her die.
After retreating, I see Decoy is back up, so I stay around to see if I can get a fight. Sure enough, the enemy Monkey King shows up.
In close quarters, you want to lead with Crushing Blow as it will make Nimbus Strike deal more damage.
At this point, I Decoy. Pantheon is coming in from the top left, my Decoy is camping in the brush, and I head to the bottom right.
As a result, there’s no way for him to escape, and we pick up the kill after his stealth ends.
Pressing “S” for “stop” looks almost identical to actually activating Decoy.
As I’m getting chased, I simply stop to trick my opponents.
After waiting exactly 1 and a half seconds, they assume I ran to the bottom brush, as that’s the only location I could have reached without being seen.
So, I Decoy and head up, guaranteeing my escape as they check below.
We get into a large teamfight in mid. Immediately I head for Olaf to try to save my teammate.
As I chase, I can’t quite get into range for Nimbus Strike. However, I know it will target multiple enemies, so I jump to Ezreal and the resulting clones kill Olaf for me.
I chase Ezreal with Cyclone and lead him to knock up Veigar and to wait for his Arcane Shift.
As I Nimbus Strike Veigar, a perfectly timed Flash allows him to escape me. Turning to Leona, I use a couple of small tricks and optimizations:
I land Crushing Blow first to lower her armor. Then I land a second basic attack, which lets her walk out of range, but I can Nimbus Strike and catch back up.
I use Decoy which allows me to get extra close with Leona while I wait for Crushing Blow’s cooldown.
I use the fact that Crushing Blow resets my auto-attack timer to get two attacks in much more quickly than I would otherwise be able to.
Let’s show the previous trick more cleanly. We dive Ezreal at his turret.
I jump him with Nimbus Strike, follow up with a basic attack, and immediately use Crushing Blow, dropping him to less than 1/4 of his health.
As he runs I simply chase with Ghost and Crushing Blow because I know he’ll die in one more attack.
Juking enemies with “Stop” is probably my favorite part of Monkey King, so I’ll show it to you again.
Here I’m chased by the enemy Monkey King. I press “Stop” and he just turns around, giving up the chase, so I simply walk away.
I run away from a teamfight in mid. An unsuccessful “Stop” juke gets me low, and ultimately I have to use Decoy and Flash to escape.
Thankfully only Ezreal follows me.
I hit him for over half his health and retreat when his team comes to help.
Waiting off in the wings I notice that Ezreal has been left all alone, so I Ghost back in and take him out with Nimbus Strike and a basic attack.
Seeing Leona and Olaf come back, I attempt to “Stop” juke, which causes them to run.
I activate Decoy which lets me get a free attack off on Leona before turning around.
As the fight continues, I Nimbus Strike onto Veigar and land just one basic attack before using Decoy.
In the confusion they have no idea if I’m real or not, and unload most of their cooldowns onto my clone.
My teammate Leona joins the fight so I head back in, taking down Olaf before escaping.
For runes I take armor penetration marks, flat armor seals, flat magic resist glyphs, and flat health regeneration quintessences.
This setup allows me the most power at early levels in lane, where you can really shine.
My masteries are 0/21/9, with Ghost and Flash, allowing me to play extremely aggressively in lane, shrugging off most of the enemy minion damage.
I take two points in Crushing Blow early, getting a single early point in Decoy and maxing Nimbus Strike first, going back to Crushing Blow after.
My goal is to have the same cooldowns on Crushing Blow and Nimbus Strike. Nimbus Strike gains more damage per level-up, so this level order gives me the best harassment.
For items, I take a Doran’s Blade to start, almost always heading immediately to Mercury Treads followed by Trinity Force.
Beyond that, I choose to build him a bit tanky, but you can find a build that works for you.
In the Spotlight, I built Atma’s Impaler, Force of Nature, Last Whisper, and Bloodthirster.
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