Nunu/Strategy

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Gameplay

Recommended Items

Tips

Playing As Nunu

Playing Against Nunu

Tricks

Ability Usage

• Utilizing Visionary can enable Nunu to constantly harass with Ice Blast and heal with Consume. Blood Boil can also be utilized to trigger Visionary more often, especially if laning with a friendly ranged champion like Ashe or Tristana.
• When supporting as Nunu, make sure to be a bully in lane by constantly harassing with Ice Blast and making the enemy target you. It is easy to use Consume on cannon minions without taking CS to recover health. If the enemy duo decides to focus you and spend CC, use Blood Boil on your carry and fight. This strategy is effective, but can be mana heavy, so be sure to regularly power Visionary on full health minions.
• Due to the high slow and long duration of the slow from Ice Blast, it is often a good idea to get at least one rank early game to help get kills.
• Consume allows Nunu to stay in a lane against ranged opponents, especially against Heimerdinger's H-28G Evolution Turret which can be destroyed with a single Consume. It also allows Nunu to be a fairly effective jungler due to its healing and true damage.
• Nunu is a great jungler but an even better counter-jungler. With Consume, you can steal neutral creeps from the enemy jungler and easily return to your jungle route.
  • You can use Consume to heal yourself if a fight is not going your way, or to heal some health if you are trying to escape from an enemy. It can often help you avoid death if you Consume a unit while retreating.
• Blood Boil has a long cooldown and lasts almost as long seconds. It can be cast on an ally or minion (or just yourself if jungling) and you will still receive the same effect. You should try to always have the buff active.
  • Keeping Blood Boil active, you'll need at least 20% Cooldown Reduction.
  • Combine this with Ice Blast to chase down a fleeing enemy or escape a pursuer without a gap closer.
• Use Blood Boil on an auto-attack based ally to improve their damage output.
• Using Blood Boil on a cannon minion can dramatically increase your pushing power.
  • Using Blood Boil on a promoted minion can even secure a kill.
• One possible effective skill order when playing Nunu as a support is to get one level of each skill, immediately improve Ice Blast to level 3, and max out Blood Boil as soon as possible afterwards. This leads to a good combination of harass and utility to make him a useful laning partner and contributor in teamfights.
• Regardless of whether you can channel the ability for its full duration, your ultimate Absolute Zero is an AoE slow and attack speed debuff that can easily affect the outcome of a teamfight or small skirmish. Prepare to interrupt Absolute Zero early quite often for partial damage if an opponent is about to escape its range - in midgame, most characters can escape Absolute Zero completely if given its full channel.
• Remember to take advantage of lulls in laning to grab neutral monster buffs with your  Consume.
• The full channel on Absolute Zero is most useful in late-game teamfights or if you have teammates with abilities that can knock enemy champions into its area of effect, such as Singed's Fling, Volibear's Rolling Thunder, or Poppy's Heroic Charge.
• Absolute Zero can be canceled by crowd control effects such as stun/silence/taunt/etc. Be wary of the enemy champions around you. You can use a Banshee's Veil or Black Shield to block crowd control spells.
• Absolute Zero is most effective when it is used alongside other AoE ultimates such as Curse of the Sad Mummy, or Idol Of Durand Idol Of Durand.
• Absolute Zero is a devastating tool if you bait a fight into a bush. Unwary attackers can end up rushing into an ambush point or a brush filled with teammates, being unknowingly slowed by your ult and becoming vulnerable as they are slowed or after the ult saps them of large quantities of health.
• A fully channeled Absolute Zero with the addition of Consume and smite can completely wipe a buff camp in the jungle, making him a very effective counter jungler and buff stealer.
• Similarly, Nunu can out-smite other junglers with Consume and smiting the buff afterwards if necessary. This is also a good way to steal Dragon Dragon and Baron Nashor on Summoner's Rift, or Vilemaw on Twisted Treeline.
• Absolute Zero does not do any damage while channeling; this means you can start channeling it at a monster camp before attacking to reduce damage taken, or threatening enemy champions while not attracting turret fire.

Item Usage

• Nunu builds like a cross between a tank and a mage, so Ability Power and Armor are in general  Nunu's most important stats, as he needs high armor to survive long enough to build up  Absolute Zero, and ability power for any real kill strength. Most Nunu builds are intended to make him very hard to kill and to keep him on the battlefield for very long periods of time.
  • Thus, building high-survivability items like  Locket of the Iron Solari is often a good idea.
• Nunu benefits greatly from both Health Regeneration and Mana Regeneration - particularly Mana Regen, because Consume is a source of health. Using a Faerie Charm combined with Visionary lets Nunu use far more abilities than other champions early on. If desired, adding a second Faerie Charm to the initial purchase allows Nunu to cast spells and heal with Consume almost continuously without running out of mana.
• If laning, Nunu likes to be tanky to be most effective. This puts Nunu very effectively in a role of bottom lane support, with both a single target and AoE slow, and single target haste and AS buff. With his high healing rate using Consume, a good Nunu player can absorb a tremendous amount of damage and still stay in a lane for a VERY long time.
• Nunu has a movespeed buff using  Blood Boil but will still be outrun by opponents without good boots. Ninja Tabi,  Boots of Swiftness,  Ionian Boots of Lucidity, and  Sorcerer's Shoes are all good boot choices for  Nunu depending on playstyle.
• As the game progresses to the teamfight stage, Ability Power becomes a crucial stat for Nunu. With defensive masteries, runes and a Rod of Ages, Nunu can be a team's tank without any tank items thanks to his high health gain.
• Because Absolute Zero can be interrupted with a silence, stun, etc., a Banshee's Veil is a very useful item, blocking the first crowd control application and giving a better chance of completing the channeling.
• Spirit Visage or Spellvamp from items like Will of the Ancients will increase the healing ability of your Consume immensely, allowing you to quickly recover after soaking damage.
• Liandry's Torment is also an excellent late game damage item for Nunu as its passive magic damage bonus will trigger from both Ice Blast and Absolute Zero, and it grants Nunu ability power, magic penetration, and health as well.
• Since Nunu has two skills that reduce attack speed, an additional Frozen Heart or Randuin's Omen can be used to effectively cripple all marksmen, as well as melee carries like Master Yi, Aatrox, Tryndamere and so on.

Countering

• Nunu's laning phase is one of the hardest to counter, due to his spammable Ice Blast, his Consume that restores health and gives him minion kills, and his Visionary that allows him to stay in lane for a very long time.
• Ice Blast is Nunu's only offensive spell against champions (aside from Absolute Zero, which is his ultimate). This means that Banshee's Veil will render Nunu useless, as he can't stick to a champion without this spell.
  • Using a champion that can become untargetable, such as Fizz or Vladimir, can also leave Nunu helpless, as Ice Blast is a delayed projectile.
    • Fizz is a good choice as his untargetable spell ( Playful/ Trickster) has a low cooldown. Also, Chum the Waters can interrupt Absolute Zero and has enough range to be cast outside of this spell's range. However, Fizz can't deny Nunu's sustain and lacks sustain himself (during early game).
    • On other hand, Vladimir has enough sustain to go into a sustain war with Nunu, and his Sanguine Pool can also be used to avoid taking any damage from Absolute Zero.
• Remember that Absolute Zero is a channeled spell. Save your hard crowd control to interrupt it. It may be a good idea to use ranged, hard Crowd control such as Draven's Stand Aside or Cho'Gath's Rupture to be able to interrupt Absolute Zero without actually having to enter into its range.
• A champion with a high distance dash, such as Kha'Zix or Tristana, may be able to instantly get out of Absolute Zero's range and avoid damage. But be wary that Nunu can intentionally interrupt Absolute Zero's channeling so that your champion still takes some damage.
• Although he has high survivability he's mostly dependent on his Consume to stay in lane so mana starvation will render him weak. Constant harassment in lane will force him to use his spells when Visionary isn't active, so he'll be left with no sustain apart from Health Potions. That can force him to tower hug or recall if you can harass him under his turret. Because of this, a champions with long range harass are a great lane counter. Examples are Caitlyn (decent range, and her Piltover Peacemaker can harass him under a turret), Twisted Fate's Gold Card can stop his ult and the range of his Wild Cards is high enough to easily harass him under a turret.
• When you see an enemy Nunu going to a brush, be careful of face-checking it. He might start channeling Absolute Zero if you get too close.
• Exhaust can be used to counter the high damage of Nunu's Absolute Zero if a way to disrupt the channel is unavailable.

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