Life Steal vs. Spell Vamp

It is based off of per monster.

But your basic strategy is wrong. League of Legends is a team game, and part of Amumu's job is to lock down opponents with his CC, letting the combined efforts of you and your teammate(s) take out your opponents. What you seem to be going for is survivability via spellvamp, which isn't a shabby idea with Amumu, except all spellvamp is typically available with heavy investments into AP. Yeah, there's spellvamp from quints and masteries, but you're sacrificing slots/points to get that spellvamp. In other words, it's a choice.

So to figure out the better use of your gold, you should consider various situations, such as what happens when you buy armor (you take less damage), versus spellvamp. And calculate the effective gold spent per damage reduced / HP gained. I don't have the time atm to do all the number crunching for you unfortunately.

Yeah, I know it's a team game, and I definitely never fight unless we are evenly matched (equal or more teammates than enemies). I try to pop out of the jungle and ambush the enemies from behind while they're concentrating on my teammates / minions, or when they're fleeing with low health. The SoloMid guide I've been loosely following is less of a tanky build.

Is there a universal damage formula? Or is it as simple as: <Damage from skill> - <Armor after reduction/penetration>?

Amumu is a tank. You shouldn't be having health regen problems...if you were level 30. See, at level 30 you would have runes, which would help you a lot with jungling (fyi don't buy runes until level 21). Since you are a tank, you shouldn't be carrying life steal or spell vamps. Leave those to the carries.

In the beginning, since you're apparently jungling (you're the first level 4 jungler I have ever heard of), get Cloth Armor + 5 potions (I'm assuming you already know this). This should help you out a bit.

Then, grab a Philosopher's Stone as soon as you can. You shouldn't have too much problems with hp regeneration after this. If you are for some reason still having problems, then grab a Catalyst, to be later upgraded into a Banshee's Veil. Note that you shouldn't really grab a Catalyst/Banshee's Veil because a Force of Nature is better when you're high level for tanks, but since you don't have any runes, I think this can be an exception.

Yeah, I had heard that it was a waste of IP to buy tier 1/2 runes, so I'm waiting till tier 3 gets unlocked. My masteries (all 4 points lol) are split between defense and utility.

The item I was looking at was the Will of the Ancients (+50 AP with an aura giving +30 AP & +20% spell vamp). I was thinking that it would give me a decent bit of AP to make all of my spells stronger, and also provide a bit of healing for myself and teammates.

Currently, I'm starting with Boots of Speed + 3x HP pot. Then getting 1-2 Doran's Rings for the mana regen (Blue buff works wonders for Despair), followed by sunfire, Abyssal Scepter, and Frozen Heart. I love auras... can't you tell? haha.

I tend to spend way more time thinking about things than actually doing them.

I did a quick search and apparently the Sunfire Cape does not trigger Spellvamp.

Does Despair?

EDIT: Yes, it appears Despair does trigger spell vamp.

EDIT 2: Wow... Google is already showing THIS thread in search results... :f6: