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The Monkey King Lives

15 0 105,675
by crack_of_dawn updated September 21, 2015

Smite God: Sun Wukong

Build Guide Discussion 15 More Guides
Tap Mouse over an item or ability icon for detailed info

Sun Wukong Build

Conquest Solo start

Build Item Bluestone Pendant Bluestone Pendant
Build Item Boots Boots
Build Item Healing Potion Healing Potion
3
Build Item Multi Potion Multi Potion
3

Full Build

Build Item Warrior Tabi Warrior Tabi
Build Item Mystical Mail Mystical Mail
Build Item Jotunn's Wrath Jotunn's Wrath
Build Item Runeforged Hammer Runeforged Hammer
Build Item Spirit Robe Spirit Robe
Build Item Titan's Bane Titan's Bane

Actives

Build Item Shielded Teleport Shielded Teleport
Build Item Shield of the Underworld Shield of the Underworld
Build Item Greater Purification Greater Purification
Build Item Weakening Curse Weakening Curse

Non-Conquest start items

Build Item Steel Mail Steel Mail
Build Item Healing Potion Healing Potion
Build Item Mana Potion Mana Potion

Optional Replacement Items

Build Item Midgardian Mail Midgardian Mail
Build Item Shifter's Shield Shifter's Shield
Build Item Deathbringer Deathbringer
Build Item Heartward Amulet Heartward Amulet
Build Item Stone of Gaia Stone of Gaia
Build Item Mail of Renewal Mail of Renewal

Hyper Aggressive Conquest Solo Start

Build Item Bluestone Pendant Bluestone Pendant
Build Item Potion of Power Potion of Power
Build Item Healing Potion Healing Potion
3
Build Item Multi Potion Multi Potion
2

Sun Wukong's Skill Order

The Magic Cudgel

1 X Y
The Magic Cudgel
1 4 6 7 8

Master's Will

2 A B
Master's Will
2 13 14 15 16

72 Transformations

3 B A
72 Transformations
3 9 10 11 12

Somersault Cloud

4 Y X
Somersault Cloud
5 17 18 19 20
The Magic Cudgel
1 4 6 7 8

The Magic Cudgel

1 X
Sun Wukong's Magic Cudgel grows in length, and he slams it down, damaging all enemies in front of him. Minions and Jungle Camps take an extra +30% damage.

Ability Type: Line, Damage
Damage: 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 / 260 (+60% of your Physical Power)
Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70
Cooldown: 12s
Master's Will
2 13 14 15 16

Master's Will

2 A
Sun Wukong strikes around him, damaging, Slowing, and Slowing the Attack Speed of all enemies hit.

Ability Type: Circle, Slow, Damage
Damage: 90 / 140 / 190 / 240 / 290 (+65% of your Physical Power)
Movement Slow: 30% for 3s
Attack Speed Slow: 30% for 3s
Cost: 60
Cooldown: 11s
72 Transformations
3 9 10 11 12

72 Transformations

3 B
Sun Wukong transforms into an Eagle, Tiger, or Ox, and charges forward.

Eagle: Is the fastest of the three forms. Immune to Slow and Root effects.
Tiger: Mauls the first enemy he runs into, Stunning and causing damage.
Ox: Knocks aside all enemies in his path and causes damage. Immune to Slow, Root, and Knockup effects.

Ability Type: Dash, Crowd Control, Damage
Tiger Damage: 100 / 170 / 240 / 310 / 380 (+80% of your Physical Power)
Tiger Stun: 1.4s
Ox Damage: 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 (+60% of your Physical Power)
Cost: 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85
Cooldown: 16 / 15.5 / 15 / 14.5 / 14s
Somersault Cloud
5 17 18 19 20

Somersault Cloud

4 Y
Sun Wukong leaps onto his cloud for up to 5s, leaving a Pet behind to fight. While on the cloud Sun Wukong is invisible and regenerates Health. He may leap off before the duration expires, dealing damage. The Pet inherits 100% of Sun Wukong's Health and Protections and 50% of his Basic Attack Power. The Pet is killed instantly if hit by a hard Crowd Control excluding Banishes and Knockbacks. If the Pet dies, Sun Wukong is revealed on his cloud.

Ability Type: Circle, Heal, Damage
Damage: 200 / 275 / 350 / 425 / 500 (100% of your Physical Power)
Healing: 3.5% per second
Radius: 25
Cost: 100
Cooldown: 110 / 105 / 100 / 95 / 90s

Introduction

Sun Wukong is an amazing god. A lot of players don't know how to play Sun Wukong properly and don't do too well, which makes other players think Sun Wukong isn't that great of a god. But, I'm here to tell you that Sun Wukong is extremely strong. With the proper build and the proper play style you can get the most kills, the highest player damage, the most damage taken, and the most damage mitigated in a single game (not that that is what your goal should be).

One reason many people try playing Sun Wukong for the first time is his kit just looks so much fun. His 72 Transformations is an extremely unique and fun skill, as is his ult + decoy. Unfortunately since Sun Wukong is a fairly complex character, a lot of players try him once, do poorly, and then never play him again. So, below are the pros and cons of Sun Wukong before we go into Skill information and detailed item/match up info.

Pros

Extremely hard to kill
Safe wave clear
Able to build tank and still do damage
One of the most fun gods to play



Cons
Damage is not bursty, hard to take down tanks
No sustain in lane other than ult
Wave clear doesn't come online all the way until level 9 or after Mystical Mail is completed
His 72 Transformations skill can be hard to use quickly - requires a lot of practice

Skills

Undefeated Body

Sun Wukong's passive is fairly underrated by the player base. It's actually quite strong. When you're below 35% health, you get extra crit chance and protections. This makes building some HP on Sun Wukong quite important, as 35% of 2700 hp (945) is much higher than 35% of 2000 hp (700). It gives you more time/life with your passive up. When your passive kicks in it might not feel like anything has changed, but that crit% and protections makes a huge difference. I can't even tell you the number of times I survived something with <100hp when I would have definitely died with a different passive, or the number of times I got a basic attack crit to kill someone and was able to use 72 Transformations to get out.

The Magic Cudgel

Your main wave clear/jungle camp clear ability. Thought by many players to be extremely underpowered. This ability used to do face value damage (the damage in the skill description) to minions and buff camps. Awhile ago it was buffed to do +20% damage to minions and buff camps, and then buffed again to +25%. A lot of players don't realize how good it is now. When this ability is leveled it can one shot clear the wave (minus the brute), and from a very safe distance. Many players say that Master's Will should be leveled first for wave clear/poke but that is usually a mistake. Master's Will does slightly more damage to players, but a lot less damage to the wave. The best way to poke the enemy laner is to clear the wave faster and then basic attack him.

Master's Will

This ability applies a slow that is the same at all levels, and does damage in a ring around Sun Wukong. The ring is just large enough to hit the entire wave if you position yourself exactly right. I recommend leveling this ability third - just before the ultimate. There's not much to say about this ability, the slow is nice, the damage is OK.

72 Transformations

Sun Wukong's signature ability. The ability that makes everyone want to try him for the first time. One of the coolest abilities in Smite in my opinion. This ability transforms you into either a bird, a tiger, or an Ox. To choose which one you become, you have to aim the camera up or down through a range of 3 areas of the skill. It can be tricky to hit the Tiger portion (which is the middle area) quickly. Practicing being able to use tiger instantly/fast separates the bad Sun Wukongs from the great ones. Tiger was recently buffed to stun longer at lower levels, making it an extremely strong skill early. Late game Tiger does a ton of damage (a surprising amount really). Ox does OK damage and is mostly used to disrupt team fights (you can knock up the entire enemy team one at a time if they position themselves right, making a fight swing in your teams advantage). Bird form is almost entirely used to exit fights quickly, or to get from base to lane faster.

Somersault Cloud

This ability is great because it can be used both offensively and defensively. A good Sun Wukong knows when to save his ult for special situations and when it can be used freely as an offensive tactic. With this ability, you have a small windup time where you're CC immune (but can still be damaged/die), after which you leap into the air on a cloud, creating your decoy that runs at the nearest enemy and starts basic attacking. This decoy can actually do a pretty good amount of damage, hence why this ability can be used offensively. If your enemy is low health and camping under his tower, you can run right into his tower while channeling your ult, and your decoy will attack him and take tower aggro, at which point you can jump out of your ult on to him and freely engage while your decoy takes all of the damage. Note that this only works well if you started out at high HP otherwise your decoy will die fast. Another note, if you're against an enemy laner that has high kill potential on you then you absolutely must save your ult for defensive use. Example of a high kill potential enemy is Bakasura - if he ults you and you don't have your ult available he will kill you before you can get away.

Items

Below is a list of the various items I recommend building on Sun Wukong and the reasoning behind them.

Bluestone Pendant - This item just got changed, the new passive does 30 damage over 2 seconds to anyone you hit with one of your abilities. Unless/until this item gets nerfed it is a 100% necessary pickup first item on Sun Wukong in solo lane. Not only will it allow you to single-ability full clear the wave really early, but it will allow you to poke your enemy out of lane REALLY fast. You can hit them with your tiger stun, AA a couple times, hit them with your 2, AA a couple more times, then hit them with your 1, and you've just added 90 free damage to your overall poke for those 3 abilities. In the first 5-10 levels of the game this gives you really high kill potential and even if you never get set up for a kill it still makes your wave clear much better.

Potion of Physical Might Potion of Physical Might - Obviously this is something a lot of people pick up at the end of the game after full build when they have extra money. However, if/when you're confident in your ability to not die early game, you can combine this with Bluestone Pendant at the very start of the game, and it gives you extremely fast wave clear and very high kill potential until it wears off. Wait to drink the potion until 20 seconds before the game starts, then pick up your two multi potions, and run to your start point. This helps you clear the two jungle camps fast, get to lane fast, and clear the first waves very fast. If you play your cards right (of course depending on who your enemy laner is), you have a very high chance of killing your enemy laner as soon as you hit level 3 (1 point in each of your 3 damage abilities). Even before that if they make a mistake. If you die with this pot still active without getting a kill, you've wasted money, so it might be best not to buy this as a first item if you think you might die in the first 5 minutes.

Mystical Mail - A lot of players view this item as overrated but, in my opinion, this item is absolutely core on Sun Wukong and possibly the most powerful item in the game for him. It does so many things. It gives him lots of HP and protections, enhances his wave clear significantly, and adds a ton of damage when he's slowly whittling people down and sticking to them. It also provides fringe benefits like pulling Ao Kuang out of his stealth or allowing you to spot where a stealthed Loki is going so you can follow him, or pulling gods into combat so they can't blink, etc. The item is expensive, but it is absolutely amazing. In all non-conquest game modes I rush this item first (e.g. buy Steel Mail at the game start plus some potions, and then buy the full mystical mail before buying anything else).

Warrior Tabi - Another core item on Sun Wukong. Boots are necessary for everyone. In non-support roles, the only two real options are these or Ninja Tabi, but attack speed is pretty useless on Sun Wukong so Warrior Tabi is the only option. The speed is nice, the damage is very nice - once you complete this item your 1 will full clear the wave minus the brute (assuming you have it leveled all the way).

Jotunn's Wrath - Any physical ability based god will want to pick this item up fairly early, and Sun Wukong is a physical ability based god. The cooldown reduction is very important for your entire kit, and the penetration, damage, and mana are all very very nice as well. I usually pick up this item third unless I find that I absolutely need another protection item at that point.

Runeforged Hammer - Another very very good protection item. This gives you tons of HP and protections and converts some of your protections into damage, and all for a very cheap price! Synergizes extremely well with Mystical Mail or Midgardian Mail. Can be picked up as a first item depending on the circumstances (if you need the protections faster than you'll be able to get them by picking up Mystical Mail or if you think you will be picking up a Midgardian Mail instead of Mystical Mail then pick up this item first.

Spirit Robe - A very underrated item. Decent protections, an extremely good passive, and cooldown reduction. The only thing missing is HP which is why you should never pick up this item until you have at least one protection item with HP on it. I usually pick this up after I've already picked up 2 other protection items (so 5th item)

Titan's Bane - A great final item. Since you have very little penetration at this point your damage against tanks is almost nil. This item gives you some power, tons of penetration for hitting towers and at least being able to hurt tanks a bit, and also will give you some additional penetration towards the squishy targets allowing you to kill them a lot easier. Aside from Jotunn's Wrath this is the only penetration item I recommend picking up on Sun Wukong.

Heartward Amulet - This item is very very good. The reason I list it as situational instead of core is because in conquest specifically your support will almost always get it, and it's not generally useful to have a second one. Same with non-conquest game modes - if someone else is going to pick this item up then don't get it. If nobody else is going to pick it up then it's extremely good. One big problem Sun Wukong has is running out of mana quickly, and the mp5 on this item helps tremendously with that. It also provides a ton of HP and magic protection at a fairly low price. When I buy this item I usually replace Runeforged Hammer, but sometimes I will replace Spirit Robe instead. It depends if I feel like I will need CDR more, or if I feel I will need more damage. Don't forget this item also helps out the rest of your team.

Midgardian Mail - This item is extremely underrated. It's pretty cheap, provides boat loads of HP and tons of protection, and has possibly the best passive in the game against auto attack gods. You will always want to pick this item up instead of Mystical Mail if the enemy team has 2 or more hunters, or more than 2 auto attack gods (e.g. Freya, a Hunter, and Kali). Also, since Mystical Mail becomes less useful the longer the game goes on (hp pools keep going up but Mystical Mail still does 40 damage per tick), late game after you have a full build it can be useful to sell Mystical Mail and buy this item instead as it gives you slightly better defense and the passive is much better against late game hunters/auto attack gods. If you do pick this item up instead of Mystical Mail then I recommend buying it after Runeforged Hammer. If you buy it too early your damage will drop significantly.

Shifter's Shield - An interesting item. A bit expensive which is probably why it isn't picked up very often. It can synergize with your kit very well (allowing you to do more damage at high health and then kicking in at a similar time to your passive giving you massive protections at low health). The problem is finding which item to replace with this one. The best candidate is likely Runeforged Hammer. If I'm way ahead I will sometimes pick this item up instead as it will give me even more damage to get further ahead.

Deathbringer - I never really pick this item up, but some if you really just want more damage late game this is probably the single best item you can pick. High amount of power, and when you auto attack with this item after your passive kicks in you have a decent crit chance and OK crit damage. However I think overall Titan's Bane is a better pick up late game.

Stone of Gaia - This is an item for a specific purpose. When you know your enemy solo laner is going to be a magical god, you can start with Emerald Talisman first item (no potions or anything). This gives you great anti-poke and good hp5/mp5 for sustain. I usually do not upgrade Emerald Talisman to Stone of Gaia until last item, or I eventually sell Emerald Talisman for Spirit Robe.

Mail of Renewal - I've added this item to the guide after the fairly significant buffs it received recently. I haven't done extensive testing yet but as of right now the item seems quite good. The issue is fitting it into the build. I think in general Mystical Mail is still better. A situation where I would pick up this instead is if I'm a bit behind, instead of rushing Mystical Mail rush Runeforged Hammer which is cheaper, just to get your defenses online faster. Then you can pick this item up either after Warrior Tabi or after Jotunn's Wrath depending on how fast you need the extra defense. This item still synergizes well with Runeforged Hammer. If you pick this item up then you'll need to swap out Spirit Robe for something else otherwise you'll overcap on CDR. My suggestion in that case would be to pick up Runic Shield if the enemy team has a Freya or Chronos, Heartward Amulet if your team doesn't have one yet, or maybe even Hide of the Urchin if you can't think of what else to buy and you think you can get a few stacks quickly.

Counter building

Whether you're in solo lane or another game mode, it's important to always play and build toward your opponent(s). If you're in solo lane against a Chang'e or Ra it doesn't make sense to rush into a Mystical Mail. If you're in Siege and the enemy team has 3 magical gods and one physical it probably doesn't make sense to rush Mystical Mail there either.

In most cases, if you are playing conquest solo lane and it's clear your lane opponent will be a magical god, you should start out with Emerald Talisman. This item is very good for it's cost and will help you in the early game with sustain as well as the magical protection you will need to avoid poke from the enemy. There is no need to upgrade this into a Stone of Gaia. In fact you will likely sell this item at the end of the game to build into one of the standard items in the standard build.

For non-conquest modes, it almost never makes sense to build straight into a magical defense item unless the entire enemy team is magical. Even if you're in Siege and there are 3 magical and 1 physical it's better to start off with either damage, or physical protection + hp. In many cases I will rush Runeforged hammer. Even though this item gives physical protections and not magical, it gives a lot of HP and also gives some damage, and it's cheap so you can get it online early. The HP is quite valuable early game and the physical protection works against minions so you can still use the item to be aggressive in lane.

Sun Wukong is a very safe god overall but one thing to be warned about: Bakasura. Bakasura is the only real counter to Sun Wukong. If you are in solo lane against a Bakasura may god have mercy on your soul. But seriously, don't try to fight him, don't try to harass him. Just level your 1 to max and clear the wave and run back to your tower. You have no kill potential on him and he has tons of kill potential on you. Just survive to the mid-late game and you'll be way more useful than he is, to the rest of the team.

Team Fighting

So what happens with Sun Wukong after the laning phase is over and teams start to group up and push objectives? This is one of Sun Wukong's strongest points in the game. You can start off getting annihilated in lane (see Bakasura comments above) and come back hard in the mid-late game. By the time the mid-late game rolls around, you want to be pretty tanky as Sun Wukong. By this point you should have at least 1 physical defense item and 1 magical defense item, or 2 physical defense items.

You have multiple roles in the team fights. You can be an initiator, you can peel for teammates with your Master's Will and 72 Transformations, you can clean up almost-dead enemies with the long range of your The Magic Cudgel, you can knock up a bunch of the enemy team to set them up for a I'm a Monster or Release The Kraken!, etc.

In short, you're going to secure tons of kills, annoy the hell out of the enemy team, and when you finally get low enough to be killed (which will take a very long time) you're going to nope the hell out with your Somersault Cloud or the bird form of your 72 Transformations. I can't even count the number of times I initiated a team fight, stunned someone so my teammate could kill them, mopped up a second person, and bird formed out of the fight with <100 hp left.

Final Thoughts

Sun Wukong is a great and highly underrated god. He's a ton of fun to play, and is extremely powerful in the right hands. You can really surprise people if you play him well. I hope you take the information from this guide and use it to try out Sun Wukong or polish up your Sun Wukong game a bit.

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Collapse All Comments

1
Frickboi | April 2, 2016 10:59am
Very informative guide. Made me think about things I never thought of before. I'm curious, though, why Bakasura beats Sun Wukong so hard?
1
Stuke99 (56) | March 10, 2016 4:12pm
ExSmokinAce wrote:

I only down voted based on passive for runeforge hammer no longer provides power from phys. protection. Otherwise a solid guide.

Necro, and this is an expired guide.
1
ExSmokinAce | March 10, 2016 3:41pm
I only down voted based on passive for runeforge hammer no longer provides power from phys. protection. Otherwise a solid guide.
1
Zilby (132) | November 18, 2015 5:04pm
He's still fine, with Bluestone Pendant he's basically balanced now, it's just that when the inevitable bluestone nerf comes he'll be too weak to be viable.
1
iReauxbot (11) | November 18, 2015 2:26pm
Is he still gonna be good even after his mana cost rising? How does this change his starting methods?
1
Zilby (132) | November 18, 2015 2:00pm
Stuke this guide is 2 months old it's fine smh.
1
Stuke99 (56) | November 18, 2015 12:56pm
kriewonkel wrote:

That guide made him attractive for me. Played him so much. Won so hard. Thanks

This guide is outdated, try a different, fresh, SWK guide.
1
kriewonkel | November 18, 2015 12:40pm
That guide made him attractive for me. Played him so much. Won so hard. Thanks
1
crack_of_dawn | September 20, 2015 7:23am
You can definitely rush mystical mail first item. However, on SWK (especially with bluestone) mystical mail isn't necessary for wave clear. The mystical mail is more for poke on the enemy laner (punish him for being near you) and overall damage to the rest of the team in team fights. Mystical Mail actually does a lot of damage in teamfights, especially on SWK because when you ult you still do mystical mail damage right below you the entire time you're up in the air, so even if you feel like mystical mail is late, it's still an absolutely great item.

The biggest issue with mystical mail taking a long time is if you're getting destroyed by your enemy laner and he's physical. If you're having trouble staying in lane before you even finish boots, then you might want to rush runeforged hammer after boots as it's a lot cheaper and still gives you a bit of damage. If you do that, you may not want to pick up mystical mail at all, but you still could depending on your finances later in the game. If I pick up runeforged second item I usually go midgardian later instead.

As far as building actives, 'just before you need them' or 'when you need them' is a vague answer, but the best one. If you need teleport you usually buy it when you back so you can immediately get back to lane to not miss a wave. For beads, the goal is to buy it before you get killed in a situation where it could save you, but if you die to something you should have been able to beads out of, buy it after that. I usually start buying at least one active after my first item or partway into my second item. I usually finish my first active after finishing mystical mail and I usually start my third active after my third item and finish it shortly after that (before or after fourth item, depending on what my second active is).
1
DaretwoDie | September 19, 2015 10:53am
Hi, I'm new to Smite and so far I really enjoy playing Sun Wukong. I've been trying out your build and the one problem I keep having is that it seems like I get Mysticl Mail online too late. By the time I get it I'm already almost one-shotting the wave with the rod.

Do you think I should try to alter the build order to move it earlier, or just go with Midgardian Mail later in the build after Runeforged Hammer?

Also, another newb question: At what point in the game do people start building their actives?
1
crack_of_dawn | September 2, 2015 6:22am
I can tell you that even with the tanky build I use I am almost always #1 or #2 damage on the team. Don't underestimate Mystical Mail - the amount of damage it does over the course of the game is incredible and there have been many times where I get kills I never would have without it. Transcendence isn't great on SWK - the damage it adds without more penetration is negligible (which is why I usually go Titan's Bane last item). You'll likely get more damage out of a Deathbringer than you would out of Transcendence.

Runeforged Hammer isn't as great a pickup if you're not picking up another high physical protection item like Mystical Mail. The combination of Runeforged Hammer with Mystical Mail and Spirit Robe is actually an OK amount of power and in addition you get the 40 damage per second from Mystical Mail and the 15% CDR from Spirit Robe. Try the build, I think you'll like it. The faster you get Mystical Mail online the better. I also played a couple games last night and the new Bluestone Pendant is a really really good item on Sun Wukong. I'm going to edit the guide to include that for the starting build as unless it gets nerf it's way better than Death's Toll now (you can clear the whole wave with your Magic Cudgel at like level 6 with it).

That being said, Stone of Gaia is a solid pick up if you're laning against any magical god, I usually start Emerald Talisman in that case but I usually don't finish Stone of Gaia until every other item is complete (or I sell it late game for Spirit Robe).
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