Ryoma in the Jungle

Build and Guide Ryoma in the Jungle

Cheat Sheet

Arcanas 

Red Bloodlust x10

Purple Assasinate x10

Green Skewer x10

Atributes Bonus

Attack Damage +5

Armor Pierce +6.4

Life Steal +0.5%

Move Speed +1%

Items

    Leviathan

    Sonic Boots

    Spear of Longinus

    Fenrir’s Tooth

    Muramasa

    Ancestral Glory

Talents

Punish

Introduction

If you’ve come here from League of Legends, the best intro I can offer to Ryoma is that no, he is not Yasuo. Look closer and you’ll see that Ryoma wields a naginata rather than a katana. More of a polearm, Ryoma’s weapon of choice gives him more range than most other melee attacks – but he won’t be shielding himself or his allies from any projectiles with a wind wall.

Playing Ryoma is a little tricky. His increased range opens some new doors for sure, but he’s all about positioning – something that can easily backfire when it comes to his channeled ultimate. He’s more of an assassin than a full-on warrior, but his frequent AOE abilities can call that into question, too. Patience is the key with this man. Position, stun, stab with the ultimate, and know when to cut it short and retreat. Greed won’t get you further than the graveyard. 

Abilities

Naginatajutsu – This passive ability grants Ryoma a longer auto-attack every 5 seconds. Typically allowing you to be around 3 steps from your target, the cleaving swing damages those on its outer rim more than those caught in the centre, but slows anyone hit by 50% for 2 seconds. 

Pinwheel – A fun time if I’ve ever seen one, Pinwheel sends Ryoma flying back, damaging anything in a fairly wide line forward, behind, and within his travel line. Fast to execute, this move needs to be aimed in the opposite direction you want to travel, but can be used effectively as a way to attack, retreat, and close a gap. It’s cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds if it hits an enemy hero.

Wailing Blade – A long-range attack, this one damages enemies within its line of fire, but stuns those in the outer section of its range. Pair it with Pinwheel to more easily line up for the stun. 

Spectral Ire – Ryoma’s ultimate channels for a short period of time, quickly unleashing a flurry of stabs in a short cone in front of him. These stabs inflict massive damage if left unchecked and even heal Ryoma as they land. The healing effect isn’t bolstered for each enemy caught by it, but they will be equally damaged. Pair with a Wailing Blade stun for maximum carnage 

Skill Order

Since you’ll be spending most of the early match in the jungle, your skill order won’t make all that much difference from the get-go. It’s recommended that you start with Wailing Blade as the stun essentially mitigates some of the damage you’ll take against each mob. Unlock each skill by the time you’re level 4, but put your third point back into Wailing Blade to lightly reduce its cooldown.

After that, focus your efforts in Pinwheel to get it ready for some serious ganking as the match goes on. Refer to the cheat sheet at the top of this guide, but you’re essentially going to max out Pinwheel first despite focusing on Wailing Blade at the start. 

Talents

Punish – Considering this is a Jungle guide, Punish is your only real option here. Punish unlocks the ‘Jungling’ item tab in the shop, allowing you to get the item that eventually becomes Leviathan. 

Keep Punish on cooldown while jungling to maximize your DPS and the rate at which you’ll gather buff stacks on your item. Once you’re actively ganking, use it between Wailing Blade/Naginatajutsu enfeeblements to keep enemy movement speed down, or keep it on hand as a finishing blow. 

Items

Leviathan will obviously be your first port of call for a Jungle-specific Ryoma build. The reason we go for this over something like Soulreaver is primarily due to Ryoma’s typically high chance of being sniped while trying to finish off or poke a target. Leviathan won’t provide anywhere near the damage increase of some other Jungle items, but its scaling HP and static defense bonus should bulk him up suitably for some early/mid-game ganks. Sonic Boots are a little more of a divisive pick, but again, the armor will help.

Building on that idea yet again, Spear of Longinus is a popular choice soon after. It’s build tree nets Ryoma some Armor Pierce and much needed Attack Power, ultimately leading to an item that bolsters his own physical defence while shredding his opponents. His ultimate is a good way to quickly apply the armor reduction stacks.

Due to the nature of Ryoma’s combo, shredding a target to critical HP in one quick execution isn’t a rare sight – assuming they’re not tanks, at least. But after that, he’s about done for the day. The Beast becomes a worthwhile pick here as a way to help eradicate those last slivers of HP by dealing 30% additional damage to targets below half HP. Paired with the strong 200 Attack Damage bonus, this is Ryoma’s most deadly tool. Muramasa comes soon after to aid in cooldowns and to negate a static 40% of a targets armor before Spear of Longinus stacks are even applied.

Round things off with Ancestral Glory. As a peculiar mix of Assassin and Warrior, biting off a little more than you can chew is bound to happen at some point. The extra life can make up for this.

Arcana

Just as Ryoma’s item choices make him look like a tank, so does his typical choice of arcana. Attack Damage and defensive options like Max HP and Armor are popular picks, but smaller increases in Attack Speed can be thrown into the mix in an effort to squeeze out an extra auto-attack or two during a skirmish.

Tier-1 Arcana don’t have much when it comes to choice, so Attack Damage, Life Steal/Max HP and either Armor, Magic Defense, and Armor Pierce for those Green slots are all viable options. Just aim to plug your most vulnerable defensive hole.

For Tier-2 users, Attack Speed makes an appearance as it comes ready mixed with Attack Damage. Passion gives Attack Damage and Max HP in the Purple slots, so pick up that if you’re a more cautious type. Once you’ve mastered the moveset, Attack Speed and Life Steal from Vamp could be a decent option. Ravage is your strongest Green choice, offering bother Max HP and additional Armor Pierce.

Early Game

Most of your early game time will be spent in the jungle, so pick up your first item and rush on over to the Might Golem with Wailing Blade ready to go. Open with Punish to get the cooldown timer going, then use the slight distance between you and the golem to stun with Wailing Blade and attack at range with your passive. Then just beat it down as usual.

Once you level up, you can actually use Pinwheel to more quickly move between monster camps, as it can be used to clear thin walls and obstacles usually found around the camps. This can put you in prime range for a stunning Wailing Blade, too, so learn to maximize your effectiveness there. 

Once you’ve unlocked all your skills, it’s time to look into potential ganking. Ryoma still has trouble if singled out in a group. And with how viable it is to spring into battle with Pinwheel, you’re sometimes left without an escape route should you get pinned. Try to only gank lanes with a single enemy hero for the time being. Keep your focus on farming the jungle to buy Leviathan and max out its HP stacks.

Mid Game

Ryoma has a tendency to really fall off in terms of damage and overall viability if he’s denied a suitable cash flow. At the point where jungle monsters add nothing to your original item and teammates start to sap the golem buffs away from you, it can be difficult to stay in the game as team fights that threaten to KO you become more apparent. For this reason, it’s very important to use your abilities to farm creep whenever your team don’t absolutely need you by their side.

Being a character with no resource to spend when attacking means using your abilities to traverse the map with speed and burn through creep waves is a very viable strategy. Most of Ryoma’s attacks are incredibly fast and enjoy a short cooldown period, but they typically hit in a straight line, too. This means attacking creep head on is usually the best way to dispatch them with speed. Build up your bulk and look to at least have access to The Beast before you start to attempt any serious attacks. Poking from a distance with Wailing Blade, Spectral Ire, and your passive is generally ok; but try to save Pinwheel as an escape rather than an initiate.

Late Game

Consistent team battles pose a bit of a problem for Ryoma if he’s not careful. His further than average melee abilties certainly help, but his need to still get fairly up close and personal puts this character in a bit of a tight spot. Ancestral Glory will alleviate some of the worries of taking on the opposing team, but you’re absolutely going to be playing your strengths down a bit as the match goes on.

Getting greedy with Ryoma is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed. It’s fine to use Pinwheel as an initiator to jump on softer opponents that may have broken free of their pack, but repelling ahead of your team and into the opponent’s in the hopes of landing a stun with Wailing Blade isn’t the best idea. Whether you get the stun or not, there’s a strong chance another foe will take advantage of your relatively still position during your 2-3 combo to hit you with deadly CC and finish you off without breaking a sweat.

Your best bet is to play on the defense side of things, poking with Wailing Blade and your long-range passive strike while keeping Pinwheel prepped as an escape tool in case things go bad. Wait for your tank to go in before engaging yourself, and try to position so that you can land most of your moves through the safety of the brush. If the enemy team is starting to lose a few members, you can start to Pinwheel closer during a successful stun to keep them within Spectral Ire long enough for some decisive damage. Catching the enemy tank within Spectral Ire will shred their armor for allies to abuse, but gunning after their tank is never a priority.

Just stick to poking when enemy team is full. Save the aggression for finishing off a broken team.

Tips

The stun distance of Wailing Blade is the perfect range for Spectral Ire

Pinwheel is a great mobility tool for entering/retreating from a fight as well as repositioning during a duel

Ryoma’s lightning-fast ability executions make him great as harassing the enemy team. Pinwheel can be used to engage, retreat, gap-close, and reposition.

Spectral Ire is on a short cooldown. Don’t be afraid to cancel it if you need to move.

Match-Ups

Root-style crowd control is Ryoma’s worst enemy as he’s fairly brittle and can be shut down almost instantly – even with the defense we get from his popular items. He’s designed as a finisher-style assassin or a simple harass, either doing small amounts of damage in bursts to stay out of trouble, or high amounts of damage and quickly disengaging if it isn’t enough to defeat his target. He can take a few mutual blows from physical attacks, but mages like Diaochan and Veera will usually beat him to the punch.

Omen is a tricky one to tackle and seems to act as a choice counter, locking Ryoma into an area where Wailing Blade’s stun becomes incredibly difficult to pull off, and Pinwheel can’t be used to escape. Your best bet there is to use Omen’s damage counter on Pinwheel, and use Spectral Ire to keep your HP up long enough to wait out Omen’s prison when, hopefully, Pinwheel is available again as a getaway tool.

Ryoma’s favorite targets are Ranged ADC, Mages, and similar melee warriors. It’s all about getting the drop on the target, though. Without landing the stun, it’s difficult to execute Spectral Ire without becoming a prime target for a dodge-counter. Just learn to back out if you combo doesn’t deliver the finishing blow, and maybe use Pinwheel to hunt them down once your cooldowns have recovered. Use the brush.