‘Reason behind the madness’ is a new semi-regular series where our League of Legends team shares some of the lesser known nuances of some of the champions in the game.
Our first tip comes from Jonas “Trashy” Andersen, our Jungler who has some advice on one of his current favourite junglers, Wukong the Monkey King.
Most players will join a fight using Nimbus Strike (E), and then proceed to deal damage mainly with Crushing Blow (Q) and Auto Attacks. Trashy however, recommends using Crushing Blow before Nimbus Strike, to maximise damage output with the armour shred provided by the use of Crushing Blow.
So why does this provide the highest damage output? Let’s take a look at these parts of Wukongs Kit.
Crushing Blow: Wukong’s next attack within the next 5 seconds deals bonus physical damage (30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 110% AD)), gains 125 range (300 total range) and reduces the enemy’s armor by 30% for 3 seconds.
The description states that the enemy’s armour is reduced by 30% for the next 3 seconds, so while your Auto Attacks in this small period will deal extra damage, you will get a higher overall output if you use Nimbus Strike while the armour debuff is active. While many people just see Nimbus Strike as a gap closer, it deals a surprising amount of damage, shown below;
Nimbus Strike: Wukong dashes on a cloud toward a target enemy and sends out images to hit up to two more within 187.5 range of the target. Each enemy struck is dealt physical damage (60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240 (+ 80% Bonus AD)). Upon hitting his target, he gains an attack speed bonus for 4 seconds.
However, as with most elements of the game, this method of maximising damage output is situational, and sometimes you may not be able to get close enough to the enemy to deliver a Crushing Blow. The use of Decoy (W) can get you close in stealth, but if they start to move away from you it is better to just use Nimbus Strike to get to them, after all less damage is better than no damage.
