Hey. I'm here to convince you that Tahm Kench Jungle is sleeper OP in the right circumstances.
If you want to watch a couple videos I made on the topic, such as a demonstration of his counterjungling and Scuttle contesting, as well as his healthy and fast clear, then click this link to be taken to the YouTube playlist:
There's only two videos there right now, but I'll be making more videos on things like Runes, Items, Mechanics, and more. I'll be talking about those below as well though, so keep reading if I haven't convinced you yet!
Why should I pick Tahm Kench Jungle?
Let me break down why Tahm Kench Jungle is a good niche pick:
When you need a tank with a fantastic early game.
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DUELING & INVADING:
He can duel almost anyone early game, especially if you run Hail of Blades, and it's not even a close fight. Lee Sin, Nidalee, Trundle, take your pick. Try it out yourself. Tahm Kench is essentially a Juggernaut who can Jungle, with insane tankiness and damage. If you need to pick a Tank that can deal with those early game bois, Kench is your guy.
If you run Approach Velocity, you get a 3 second 15% movespeed boost alongside your 3 second 30%-70% slow on your [Q], which has a 5 second cooldown at all ranks, by the way. So if you land those [Q]s, you get 60% uptime on the movespeed to run people down.
If you run Hexflash, you can escape after killing the enemy Jungler, or after stealing a Monster, which leads us to our next point:
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COUNTERJUNGLING & CONTESTING SCUTTLE:
Nunu might have some of the best neutral objective control as far as Herald, Dragon, and Baron, but I'm convinced that Tahm Kench is better than him at stealing smaller Monsters, and he can do it from range.
Tahm's [Q] + [W] combo can pull a monster into his mouth from 900 range, and then if you spit it in the opposite direction, you can put about 2,000 units between the Monster and the enemy Jungler. Not to mention, Tahm's W deals 11% max HP damage + base damage, which caps at 500 damage to Monsters (which is around 300-400 early game).
A level 3 Kench can essentially move a Buff 2,000 units away from an enemy Jungler, and deal close to 900 damage to it with [W] + Auto + Smite, and even WITHOUT Smite you can still deal a hefty chunk. Additionally, if you decide to keep the Monster in your stomach, its patience does NOT lower until you decide to spit it out, so you have 4 seconds to move it even further away, and your movespeed is not reduced when eating a Monster. No Scuttle or Buff is safe when there's a Jungle Kench.
Let's talk about Scuttle actually. Not only can Kench do the above trick with Scuttle when the enemy is directly contesting, but on specific parts of the map, he can spit Scuttle into his own Jungle and bodyblock it. He can hide it from the enemy in tribrush as he clears it, or behind Blue Buff. So basically, if there's a Jungle Kench, the enemy gets no Scuttles all game.
Watch my Counterjungling video if you want to see how to do the Scuttle trick:
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GANKS:
Tahm Kench's ganks are really not as bad as people think, even pre-6, with the right rune setup.
Hexflash is an extremely underrated Rune on Junglers. You can scale walls using it on immobile Junglers like Tahm Kench, getting yourself into a position behind the enemy. There are Sett Jungle players already abusing this in high ELO.
[Q] is a 3 second slow with a 5 second cooldown at all ranks, and the slow scales to 70%. 3 seconds. For up to 70%. That's INSANE, and combined with Approach Velocity, you gain a ton of movespeed for 3 seconds too, closing the gap.
Hail of Blades does the work here now. Your triple auto comes out extremely fast, stacking your Passive up almost immediately.
If your [Q] is up again at this point, you can [Q] to stun them, Auto them 3 more times, and then [W] Devour them, spit them out, and they're definitely dead at this point with an Auto and another [Q]. That's 6 seconds of slows, a 2 seconds stun, and 2 second suppress, with lots and lots of damage.
If your [Q] isn't quite up again, you can still [W] Devour them, suppressing them for up to 2 seconds as your team catches up, and then [Q] to slow them, which is still 6 seconds of slows, and a 2 second suppress.
And when you have your [R], this becomes even easier, as you can just pop out behind them from 2500 / 5500 / 8500 range and avoid all vision. Tahm Kench's counterganks with his Ult are best-in-class. Sorry, early game Jungler, but I'm here now too.
You can even bring the Midlaner with you, and set up easy 4-man ganks! Tahm Kench Jungle makes full use of his Ultimate since he can use it from fog of war every time, from anywhere, making him terrifying.
On top of that, I haven't even touched on Tahm's defensive abilities! His innate tankiness with his [E] allows him to shield damage if the enemy Champion he is ganking decides to focus him, and if he's ganking something like an Illaoi, Darius, or Heimerdinger that can 1v2, he can use his [W] to protect his ally from damage, or even eat Heimerdinger's turrets and spit them away from the fight!
In fact, Tahm Kench destroys anyone with pets by completely disrupting where their pets can go. Things like Ivern's Daisy or Yorick's Maiden of the Mist can be shut down for 4 seconds at a time (although, keep in mind that if it's a pet with a max range like Daisy or Tibbers, it will teleport out of your stomach early if you get too far away, or spit it too far).
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CLEAR:
Very healthy and fast for a tank, at 3:05 for 5 camps with full HP and no potions, especially if you start Red. His clears on single target camps are especially fast, which makes him great at taking enemy camps too. If you have Talisman, you can spit Red into Raptors to finish it off, and get lots of AoE on that camp.
Watch my ClearFrontier video for the full breakdown of how to do this:
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WEAKNESSES:
Tahm Kench struggles with being kited in teamfights like any Juggernaut, and he doesn't have AoE like most of them do, and his damage falls off, so he transitions to being a peeler. Now, he is a very good peeler, but if you don't have a hard carry like Jinx or something, or the enemy team is a poke comp with no engage, then his peel is not needed as much.
He's very good played with pick comps, however, as you can use your [R] to cut off enemies and trap them. If you brought an assassin or someone with hard engage with you, then it's even better. But in uncoordinated Solo Q, people might not catch on and you'll just get focused and die.
The best way to play Kench later on in my view is to steal enemy Monsters, splitpush, and Ult into a fight with an ally. Kench plays better in clownfiestas, rather than front-to-back teamfights, unless of course you have that hypercarry to peel for.
Also, Kench doesn't take Dragons and the like super fast without a teammate, although the on-hit damage based on 4% max HP on his Passive definitely helps with that, so he's actually about on par with a lot of tank Junglers!
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RUNES:
Domination
- Hail of Blades (triple auto to proc your Passive)
- Cheap Shot (4 second cooldown with Kench's 5 second cooldown [Q])
- Eyeball Collection (or any of them TBH, they all suck)
- Ultimate Hunter (really helps your LONG 140/130/120 cooldown Ult for more macro plays)
- OR Ravenous Hunter (Kench's [Q], [W], and Passive on-hit (yes, Ravenous Hunter heals from on-hit) are all single target so he gets full benefit, and it helps him duel and take objectives)
- OR Relentless Hunter (Really helps you land that first Q when ganking a lane)
Inspiration
- Hexflash (helps with his wall scaling and ganking)
- Approach Velocity (non-negotiable IMO, since this really helps him not get kited)
Some other Runes to consider if you don't go for the above Runeset:
Resolve
- Shield Bash (3 second cooldown shield procs this so often)
- Revitalize (Tahm has healing and shielding, and he can actually shield and heal more than his grey health amount if you stack this with Spirit Visage and Shurelya's Reverie)
- Unflinching (this just got buffed, and can really help you if you're getting kited a lot)
- Aftershock (could be decent if you're set on teamfighting, and you want to run Resolve primary, but you sacrifice the Hail of Blades for this)
Sorcery
- Phase Rush (the slow resist allows you to override part of your self-slow when eat an enemy Champion, and essentially kidnap them, and also makes you unkiteable, at the cost of some of your dueling or tankiness)
- Nimbus Cloak (OP Jungle rune when used with Chilling Smite)
- Waterwalking (OP Jungle rune in general)
- Celerity (move movespeed, especially good when combined with Approach Velocity)
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ITEMS TO CONSIDER:
- Cinderhulk with Chilling Smite (obvious reasons, helps his clear, HP scaling on his Passive, blue smite helps with chasing and ganking)
- Deadman's Plate (great if you need to rush armor and want to stop being kited)
- Spirit Visage (boosts the healing on his E, can even be healed above his grey health amount)
- Shurelya's Reverie (good to snowball, great movespeed active that can affect your entire team or a person you Ult with, super cheap, and gives shield and heal power alongside the HP and CDR)
- Righteous Glory (more expensive than Shurelya's but gives you more HP and Armor)
- Gargoyle's Stoneplate (great teamfight item, allows you to use your Ult to engage and absorb incoming damage)
- Titanic Hydra (if you need to splitpush, duel, clear objectives faster, clear camps faster, and generally play like a Toplaner who Ults in when a fight happens, and it also grants you an Auto-attack reset for stacking your passive faster)
- Thornmail (against healing specifically from auto attackers)
- Randuin's Omen (against crit, and the slow active is super nice in teamfights too; combined with Shurelya's Reverie, it's like a pseudo-Righteous Glory)
- Abyssal Mask (you deal mostly magic damage, and this can help to boost magic damage on your team, but keep in mind the aura range is 325, basically melee range, so your max range [Q] won't benefit)
- Liandry's Torment (situational item against multiple high HP targets, and you can proc it's full benefits very often with [Q] and even [W], so could be a good alternative if you need to poke and kite with Q; also deals more damage to objectives)
- Adaptive Helm (against multiple magic damage dealers with spammable spells or poke, like Brand or Cassiopeia)
- Warmog's Armor (Tahm Kench has very high base health, so he can proc the passive on Warmog's pretty early)
- Locket of the Iron Solari (another good tesmfight item, shield scales with your HUGE HP)
- Boots: Swifties (when you're getting slowed and snowballing) OR Mercs (against lots of hard CC) OR Tabis (against lots of physical damage and auto attackers) OR Mobis (if you're confident you don't need the in-combat movespeed, tenacity, or resistances, these help with ganks and invading a lot)
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COOL MECHANICS:
I go over these a bit in my video playlist, so watch that! I'll also be making a video on this soon too!
Nonetheless, here are some of them:
- Tahm's auto attack range is 175, which is longer than the 125 and 150 of most melee Champions (it is NOT 200 range like I say in the video, that's my bad).
- Tahm's [E] shield should be spammed when taking sustained damage, as blocking 100% of your grey health is always better than healing for 30% of it early game (scales to 100% heal at level 18). It's only got a 3 second cooldown (which starts when the shield ends at 2 seconds, or breaks), and any extra damage beyond the shield becomes more grey health, so try and take slightly more damage than your shield so you can keep spamming it as you sustain DPS.
- All of Tahm's ability animations interrupt his Autos and his movement, so try to use them between Auto attacks. This includes Tahm's [E] shield and 2nd cast of his [W] when he spits something out.
- When eating a Monster and holding onto it, Tahm can use up to 3 Autos (not including Hail of Blades) before he has to spit it out; try to manually spit out early so the animation doesn't cancel your next Auto.
- Tahm can Auto + [E] shield + [Q] before his next Auto can be declared, so make use of this knowledge to maximize ability useage between Autos.
- Tahm's [Q] + [W] combo on a Monster is interesting. Both abilities go on cooldown, [Q] will deal no damage, and [W] will use no mana. This combo is therefore worse for DPS on Monsters, but better for mana costs and stealing Monsters from range.
- For maxing order, I usually go [R] > [Q] > [E] > [W]. The reason I max [E] before [W] is because [E] gives 5% extra grey health conversion per rank and makes you way more tanky, whereas [W] gives you 45 damage per rank. The cooldown doesn't go down, the mana cost doesn't change, and a lot of times you only [W] once in a fight, whereas you're shielding multiple times in a fight. Maxing [W] second isn't bad necessarily though, in the case that you're snowballing, but overall I'd say it's not as good.
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Again, if you wanna see this in action, check the YouTube playlist for his Jungle clear and his counterjungling potential:
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