League of Legends - Nunu Guide

Nunu is a powerful jungler and also has a strong laning presence, allowing him to perform well in either role. Nunu's abilities have powerful Ability Power scaling aswell as offering support to his team through slows and movement speed/attack speed increases for him and a chosen ally.

This Nunu guide aims to be a basic and simple introduction on basic strategy that should be adopted when playing Nunu, it is recommended for people just starting to use Nunu.

Abilities

• 
  Visionary (Passive) Who doesn't like being able to cast spells for free? Nunu's passive is helpful and slightly reduces his overall mana costs, but it is definitely not game breaking.
• 
  Consume Consume is a very powerful self healing effect that also deals true damage to minions, this ability gives Nunu amazing laning presence and allows him to jungle effectively.
• 
  Blood Boil A great support skill that should always be cast on somebody else as Nunu still receives the benefits when it is casted on an ally. Its movement boost is great for ganks while its attack speed increase is great for destroying a tower quickly. This ability should be focused on the physical carry whenever possible.
• 
  Ice Blast A very strong single target slow on a low cooldown that makes Nunu an extremely powerful ganker during the early levels. With some cooldown reduction Nunu can keep an enemy permanent slowed, making him impossible to escape from.
• 
  Absolute Zero (Ultimate) Nunu's ultimate has amazing Ability Power ratio, while it is very hard to pull off correctly it can devastate an enemy team. Absolute Zero should be cancelled early if the enemies within it are about to escape, this will mean that they still receive some damage.

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Generally the best way to level your abilities is:
(Ult) > Consume > Ice Blast > Blood Boil

Taking Consume level 1 allows you to take out blue golem with ease. Consume is your main priority before level 6, this will allow it to reach rank 3, which is sufficient enough to jungle effectively, anymore points are wasted as it has limited use outside of the jungle. Grab a point in Ice Blast at level 2 which allows you to pull off an early gank if need be, Blood Boil at level 4 will help you with jungling speed and make ganking even easier. After level 6 your main focus should be on Ice Blast and then Blood Boil leaving Consume till last.

Runes

Red (Marks) - Armor Penetration // Magic Penetration
Yellow (Seals) - Armor // Mana Regeneration
Blue (Glyphs) - Magic Resistance // Cooldown Reduction
Purple (Quintessences) - Flat Health

Nunu can either go for a jungler based rune setup or a caster based setup depending on what role you play him as. For jungling you want to run armor penetration on Marks to improve your overall jungle speed. Otherwise you want to take magic penetration on Marks to improved your harassment ability in lane. For Seals armor is best but you can also run mana regeneration if you are laning. Glyphs offer either magic resistance or cooldown reduction. Finally Quintessences offer you a great starting health boost.

Summoner Spells

 

Best Summoner Spells:
-Flash
-Smite

Flash and Smite are the best summoner spells available to jungle Nunu. Flash allows you to flash away from danger or Flash into the enemy to pull off a devastating ultimate. Smite helps you clear the jungle much faster and is standard on jungling champions.

Other Good Summoner Spells:
-Teleport
-Exhaust

If you choose not to jungle as Nunu then you can replace Smite with Teleport to give your team a boost to their map control. Exhaust is another solid choice as it works great with Nunu's ultimate, preventing your target from escaping.

Masteries

A 1/8/21 setup works best on jungle Nunu, but if you decide to lane with Nunu then consider a 9/0/21 setup.

Grabbing improved Smite reduces the cooldown slightly and offers you extra gold when you use it.

The defensive tree offers some improved armor and magic resistance as well as some health regeneration.

This leaves 21 points for the utility tree which offers you reduced death timers, increased experience, mana regeneration, improved duff duration, movement speed, improved gold, cooldown reduction and improved summoner spells.

Item Build

 
Final Item Build:
-Mercury's Treads
-Rod of Ages
-Abyssal Scepter
-Banshee's Veil
-Frozen Heart
-Rabadon's Deathcap

Steps/Reasoning:
-Start with Boots of Speed & Health Potions, this increases your jungle time and helps great with your first gank, which Nunu is capable of doing without re-calling.
-First trip back you want to upgrade your boots to Mercury's Treads, giving you some early magic resistance and tenacity.
-Next you want to build towards your Catalyst the Protector, hopefully turning this into a Rod of Ages. Alternatively you can turn this into a Banshee's Veil if the team is extremely crowd control heavy and you are unable to use your ultimate effectively.
-From here you'll want to look at Frozen Heart and an Abyssal Scepter this will give you a strong ability power boost and magic resistance debuff while also providing you with some much needed armor.
-A solid late game item is a Rabadon's Deathcap, which will provide you with powerful damage output, making your ultimate an ability to be feared.

Alternatives:
-Thornmail (A strong armor boost)
-Force of Nature (If the enemy team is magic heavy)
-Guardian Angel (If you are looking for a final item and need abit of both resistances)
-Void Staff (If you want to increase your damage output)

General Nunu Tips

• Always use Blood Boil on somebody else so that you both receive the benefit, this should be your physical damage dealer during team fights and tower pushers.
• Don't forget you can cancel your ultimate early for partial damage, some damage is better than none.
• Your ultimate can be used while in the bush to catch enemies unaware. It is great when combined with a bait.
• Nunu is a very powerful jungler and is hard to kill thanks to his high health levels (during his jungle route) and slow from Ice Blast, you should have complete control over your jungle and the dragon.

Early Game - (Level 1-6)

• Nunu's jungle path is very standard:
  Blue Golem > Wolves > Wraith > Red Lizard > Small Golems
• Don't use Consume on Blue Golem until you have taken some damage.
• Always use Consume, Ice Blast and Bood Boil when they are off cooldown in the jungle, Blue Buff and your passive cover all the mana costs.
• While auto-attacking you can scout out other lanes and take note of who is doing good/bad. Consider who will be your first gank priority and who may need lane cover while they return to base.

Mid Game - (Level 7-12)

• Your primary objective at this stage of the game is to control dragon and gank lanes for your team, pushing and destroying towers with Blood Boil as well.
• You can offer blue buff to your AP carry and red buff to your AD carry during this time of the game.
• Start stealing your enemies buffs from their jungle, Nunu can quickly take down these targets and thus can do it quite safely. Be much more careful if the enemy has a jungler though.

Late Game - (Level 13-18)

• Nunu's ultimate is a great counter initiate or can be used in conjunction with Flash as an initiate.
• Blood Boil should be up 100% of the time (don't forget to cast it on someone else!)
• Maxed Ice Blast has a devastating slow, use it to ensure kills on enemies and to save your allies.
• Don't forget to use Smite, you will be out of the jungle more but you should be using it every time it is off cooldown.
• Try target the enemies physical carry during team fights with Ice Blast, it reduces their attack speed and thus their overall damage output. 

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