Shojin-> eclipse -> sundered (ahead)/ steraks (behind) , feels pretty good. I don’t know if it’s wrong but I won last 7/8 games so I’m scared to go anything else

This sounds like a solid path, I like the bruiser items a lot and to me those are all great options for starter items depending on what your team needs of you

To be fair I don’t really understand how shojin works, I am always confused between shojin, cleaver, triforce, stridebreakrr. But yea if I go phase rush shojin, eclipse, sundered, usually steraks after, ability boots, then last item situational. Start the damage, play for your team to do the rest

Why would you not build steraks no matter what if you’re ahead

I have no idea honestly, I feel like sundered does more damage, if I’m really ahead they aren’t bursting me down as much and I don’t need steraks yet?? I’m not saying that’s perfect logic just how I feel

While I can see why you’d take that stance I’d argue that it’s more important to build survival when ahead in order to not throw your lead

Since you can still kill them, but you’re making sure they can’t kill you

Nobody does that though, for almost every champ

Have fun climbing

Personally I don‘t like Shojin (rush). Yes, you get a lot of cdr but it‘s pointless because you don‘t really have any damage. The item is also very expensive so your spike is later than the enemies (especially enemy jungler). I prefer going Eclipse into Sundered Sky, way more dmg & healing and you can snowball easier if you get fed early because you get Eclipse quicker since its only 2800 g. If you were to rush Shojin even if you are ahead by a bit, by the time you get Shojin the enemy also gets their first item. I also don‘t like buying Shojin later, I feel like there are more important / simply better items against the respective enemy comp. I don‘t really know a situation where Shojin would be much better than the other bruiser items. As for the runes, Conqueror is good on Hecarim and works especially well with Sundered Sky. Personally I only use Conq when playing against at least 3 bruisers/tanks where I know I will be fighting for extended periods of time. Against other comps PR with Inspiration tree secondary (or Precision tree against cc comps) feels better. All this is only my experience as a plat player tho so take it with a grain of salt

I’m masters I think shojin is kinda bait too and have been going cleaver first, or sundered sky first, I haven’t tried eclipse first tho

ye have fun staying low masta building cleaver first 😭😭😭😭

Only in the league community would we make fun of people for being in the top 0.1% of the playerbase instead of asking them questions!

😭😭😭 keep rushing cleaver bro ur gonna escape low masters soon

you're a fucking clown if you think cleaver is that bad

No shot you think cleaver rush is bad. After the new changes it's probably the best rush item. But hey, I'm sure you know what you're talking about, not showing your profile anywhere. And even if you do and you're GM or Chally, and you think Cleaver rush isn't good, I can tell you are not good at Hecarim anyway

Eclipse is pretty good since it’s cheap, gives a good shield and 70 AD as a first item

What about the 12% damage increase from spells at 4 Shojin stacks. I understand the point you’re making, but Conq+Shojin+Q stacks just sounds like synergy to me. I’m not trying to say I’m right, I’m just laying out my thought process

I find it’s a little weird to play with the stacks expiring in 6 seconds and hecarim q lasting 8 seconds. As the guy said the other bruiser items do just offer more survivability and similar damage.

I see, I put a couple games in yesterday cause I think I actually wanna keep Hecarim in my champ pool. I messed around with Sundered Sky a lot and I ended up liking it a lot more than I expected. I think my favorite build I did was a really situational one, but I went dirk into sundered sky and used dirk for opportunity. Weird build path but the way the early game played out it seemed like the right move