Skill usage Edit

• 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 harrassing 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 15 second cooldown and lasts for 12 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 atleast 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 chargeup period.
• The full chargeup 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.
•  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 shrub 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.

Build usage Edit

• The lore lists Nunu as a fighter, but he builds like a cross between a tank and a mage. 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.
  • The Emblem of Valor → Aegis of the Legion → Runic Bulwark build path is a good choice for this kind of support laning.
• Because Nunu is hard to kill and has a movement and attack speed buff, items that have on-hit or on-kill stack effects such as Sword of the Occult ,  Mejai's Soulstealer , and  Guinsoo's Rageblade are good choices for Nunu.  In particular, an early  Sword of the Occult will often stack to maximum early in a well-played game and give Nunu 110 extra Attack Damage for only 1200 gold, helping his laning considerably.     Mejai's Soulstealer, which stacks Ability Power instead, is a slower build initially but makes Nunu's abilities massively strong by the end of the game.  Stacks are rarely lost when playing Nunu correctly.
• 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.
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter is a useful late game damage item. Using it with  Ice Blast before  Absolute Zero, possibly with Exhaust, can lead to a very devastating combo.
• 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 gives Nunu Ability Power, Magic Penetration, and Health as well.

Jungling Edit

• Starting items: Hunter's Machete, Health Potion x5 OR Doran's Ring
• Skill progression:  Consume →  Blood Boil →  Consume →  Ice Blast
• Jungling order: Wolves → Blue Golem (Smite) →Gank OR Wraiths → Small Golems → Red Lizard (Smite) → Gank

Alternative jungling method with high-level masteries and runes:

• Starting items: Sapphire Crystal, Health Potion x2
• Jungling order: Big Wolf ( Consume + a couple of melee hits to kill) → Blue Golem (Smite, leash recommended) → finish Wolves → Wraiths → Small Golems → Lizard (Smite)
  • The Big Wolf is taken out first because of the down time between the Wolf camp spawn and the Blue Golem spawn. This saves a few seconds and allows Nunu to hit level 2 after the Blue Golem dies.
  • Good runes to use are Flat Armor Seals, Attack Speed Marks, CDR or AP Glyphs, and flat Health Quintessences.
  • Masteries should either be 9/0/21 (getting CDR+Magic Pen in offensive), 0/9/21 (getting the smite Mastery and the armor, MR and HP in Defensive), or 0/21/9.

Recommended builds Edit

Summoner's Rift recommended items
Starting		5
Essential
Offensive
Defensive
Consumables

The Proving Grounds recommended items
Starting
Essential
Offensive
Defensive
Consumables

The Crystal Scar recommended items
Starting				3
Essential
Offensive
Defensive
Consumables

The Twisted Treeline recommended items
Starting
Essential
Offensive
Defensive
Consumables

Countering Edit

• Nunu's  Ice Blast is the only single-targeted spell he has. Therefore, buying a Banshee's Veil can block the spell once every 25 seconds.
• His laning phase is one of the hardest to counter, due to his spammable  Ice Blast and his  Consume that restores his health and gives him a single minion kill and his  Visionary that allows him to stay in lane for a very long time.
• 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 Potion / Crystalline Flask. 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, take care 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.