Nunu/Strategy

		Strategy is highly subjective and may become outdated without any notice. Because of this, the League of Legends Wiki has decided to retire strategy pages and would recommend using other platforms (such as YouTube) to find guides. For more information visit this thread. This page continues to exist for archive purposes.

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Tips

Playing as Nunu

• A level 3 snowball gank down the lane, then multiple times with the speed shrine is a surprise to be sure, but an unwelcome one.
• You can both trample and detonate snowball on the same minions for significantly higher base damage (at high ranks); good targets are small Raptors and caster minions.
  • Follow up your W with passive attacks immediately, as the duration starts as soon as a large monster is damaged.
• Rolling snowball scales in distance with level; consider buying a Raptor Cloak to further abuse this trend.
• Pull Gromp and Blue Buff together and hit them both with the the barrage so they both get struck by Willump's Turn.
• Nunu scales well with slow resistance. Unflinching, Boots of Swiftness and so on reduce the 50% self-slow that W inflicts on you, reducing the ramp time of W - and they also make it more likely you will get the root off against enemies who are fleeing from E.

Playing against Nunu

• Most importantly, be wary of his level 3 gank, which he can repeat after leaving the lane - using the Speed Shrine, his snowball is amplified in both size gain and maximum speed due to its multiplicative scaling with movement speed bonus.
• Nunu, needless to say, is a premiere healer. Purchase items with Grievous Wounds like Executioner's Calling and Morellonomicon.
• Avoiding his snowball is relatively trivial - step into the arc of fire smartly, striding forwards as he aims to you, for Nunu travels slower laterally than forwards. Then step where he was a moment ago, and he will never get to you.
  • Mind well its incredible range, however - there's absolutely no hope for a player who attempts to outrun it without exploiting its rigidity, as it travels twice as far as Powerball. This range means that Nunu can take a vast, slow arc through the river to readjust.
• Have some concern for a skilled Nunu's ability to create wide circles that do not end his W, if he builds momentum you will be forced to attack him or lose control of the marked area for several seconds.
• Nunu does little to no physical damage and only average magic damage, while his snowball is both half a stun and half a knockup. Build Mercury's Treads and you will find Nunu to be a useless enemy.
• Resign yourself to ignoring Nunu if you cannot stun him during his ultimate - particularly if he builds straight health. His durability is too resilient while he is channeling.

Playing with Nunu

• Should Nunu find himself wounded from action, a few bites off of a courteously handed minion wave should get him back in shape.
• Hard cc really helps Nunu hit his snowball, which allows him to initiate the rest of his combo.
• Nunu is mediocre at best in combat when not tanking or executing. Initiate with him to take advantage of his passive haste and help him earn some takedowns.
• Offer Nunu some haste while he is firing Snowball Barrage so he can keep up with his targets for the root.

Playstyle

Nunu and Willump are an early ganker and sustain tank with a focus on peeling for allies and being generally available for fights anywhere on the map at a moment's notice. As a sustain tank, he is capable of early objective control and part of his power budget is geared towards this. He is significantly stronger when ahead than behind, pressuring him to engage with the map early or suffer the consequences - he does this through the use of his snowball, an unreliable, extremely long range ganking tool.

Call of the Freljord [Passive]

• The effect splashes in an arc extending from Nunu and applies Tooth. It's important to strike all monsters with it at once, which in turn creates odd optimization paths for when you start or end fighting the large monster in a camp.

Consume [Q]

• Don't bother casting on enemy champions if you want just raw sustain as it heals less - but the cursor will prioritize those, so just make extra sure you click a minion.
• It's pretty good damage late-game since 3k bonus health will roughly double its power, so bear that in mind.

Biggest Snowball Ever! [W]

• The cooldown starts as soon as you fire it - if you know you're going to hit it, and you've maxed out the bonus (5 seconds), why not just press W?
• This instantly removes slows so just ram it into an adjacent wall for a free cleanse.
• You can whirl W around in circles if you have enough room, stopping opponents from entering an area.
• You can cast this ability right before using Snowball Barrage to make sure you hit the whole lot, then combo it into R.

Snowball Barrage [E]

• Bear in mind that its range extends as per Collateral Damage on strike and, unlike Ice Blast, it does not require lock-on and therefore can reveal camouflaged enemies.

Absolute Zero [R]

• The slow lasts for double the channel duration, which makes it good for peeling allies.
• Combined with Snowball Barrage, it mostly guarantees the Snowball Barrage root against targets that don't dash.

Runes

Demolish. It's good right now. If Demolish gets nerfed, make an account and delete this sentence

Aftershock

• The most basic-'itch Rune Page for Nunu is Aftershock-Bone Plating-Conditioning-Revitalize into Celerity/Waterwalking. No prizes as to why this is popular.
• The good, common Rune Page is Aftershock-Demolish-Second Wind-Unflinching, which scales better with Health-stacking. This can lead into Time Warp Tonic with Hunter's Potion - or Approach Velocity, otherwise - with Future's Market. This helps you get farm items faster early game and sustain health and mana, which Nunu kind of has issues with in a CDR build.
• You can take Overgrowth if you have Approach Velocity and are foregoing the Hunter's Potion - this is basically beelining for Warmog's Armor with Catalyst.

Predator

• Generally you'll see folks running Ingenious Hunter - Cheap Shot/Eyeball Collection/Ingenious Hunter.
• ...but Ultimate Hunter is probably better because his ultimate is absolutely overloaded. Get Demolish/Unflinching secondary since Predator is spam gank and take turrets.
• This is also, God help us, the AP rune, because landing W with CDR guarantees three casts of E > R, which in turn guarantees E2, and people think that means you should take the thing that enhances W. Probably Phase Rush is better.

Obscure Runes

Glacial Augment

• Magical Footwear with Future's Market and Cosmic Insight scales fast as you get to a spike with Kindlegem/Shroud and Ionian Boots of Lucidity (from Footwear) pretty fast, but relies on classic solo queue tendencies to let games spool out without exploiting weak or inefficient choices that are scaling-dependent. Lategame with CDR, Glacial Augment makes it very hard for enemies to escape Nunu's E - which itself scales with levels.
• You can either go Presence of Mind with Coup De Grace (lets you shortcut buying mana for a while due to passive giving you more assists than you deserve and also gives some free AP/execute damage)...
• ...or something like Demolish + Unflinching (with Swiftness boots). Health scales better than attack speed.

Guardian

• Nunu scales off both HP and AP, and he's a Warden. So, provided that you're wiling to walk onto someone, Guardian is viable and synergizes with Approach Velocity/Future's Market, as well as Font of Life, Chrysalis, Revitalize and Overgrowth. It can be considered more of a hybrid Rune than Aftershock and therefore is suited for Oblivion Orb/Haunting Guise builds that rely on Nunu's unusually high combined scalings.

Items

You don't have to build generic tank items because Nunu is good at escaping and peeling. You can just build support in the jungle and see how it goes - Redemption, Knight's Vow, Zeke's Harbinger, and Shurelya's Reverie are fine items - your Q and Cinderhulk kill camps for you.

Regardless of this, Dead Man's Plate and Cinderhulk are traditional, with Ninja Tabi. Knock yourself out.

• Go straight Talisman - Bami's Cinder every game. The Machete is worthless by comparison.

Counterpicks

• Nunu is particularly weak against fellow zone controllers and attack speed bruisers that resist, or are immune to, slows. Part of winning is drafting in champ select and playing Olaf or Anivia is a good way to make Nunu regret first picking.
• Nunu typically has an Armor-heavy build due to his CDR and movement speed preference, with the exception of his Spirit Visage. As a result, consider directing your mage/s to specialize in CDR and Liandry's Torment, for he is weaker against magic damage than physical damage - yet rarely has the ability to purchase Adaptive Helm (due to his existing MR item).
• Near all champions with magical percent health damage (Shyvana, Amumu and Kog'Maw) contest his beloved Dragons and concern themselves with the destruction of tanks.
  These champions are largely indifferent as combatants against Nunu regularly, but easily mop him up in extended, co-ordinated fights.
• Nunu has a special weakness to self-peeling AD carries such as Jayce and Quinn due to their ability to nullify his basic abilities fully. It is a foregone conclusion that he will fear these champions but is absolutely useless against them.

Synergies

• Nunu does best when paired with immobile artillery, roaming assassins, or objective controllers, that can fulfil the roles Nunu cannot - each of which benefit from his semi-global, unreliable initiation - or his special case complements.
  These assassins complement Nunu by starting fights that they can't sustain. Examples include Diana and Talon.
  Moreover, champions like Yorick, Nasus or Ziggs benefit by gaining breathing space to break upon the turrets in the lane with their respective effects.
  Meanwhile, immobile artillery profit from Nunu by exploiting situations that don't exist for them normally (very heavy intrinsic peel) created by his kit. Examples include Ziggs, Lux and Kayle.
  The special case situations tend to be champions like Maokai or Kennen that have ultimates that allow Nunu to get a free Absolute Zero, and vice versa.