See title.

Streaming here: www.twitch.tv/itslevi !

are you absolutely terrible at ranged champions because u've only played nunu?

Depends what you mean by terrible. Probably still better than the large majority of the LoL playerbase, but yes quite horrific by Challenger standards.

hah, love that line.

What strengths do you think Nunu has these days that other junglers don't offer?

Objective control. He's absolutely in a class all his own. I take Dragons on top of wards. I take buffs in people's faces while they hit me. I 2-man Barons at 15 minutes without warping my build in any way.

How do you counteract his lack of usefulness late game outside of objective control? Or am I off base on him falling off late? (Thinking about it blood boil is probably pretty strong these days with Trist/Kog being FOTM)

The late game centers around the ADC- Blood Boil and persistent slows not only protect your backline, but restricts the movement of their frontline. The gigantic difference in team mobility is enough utility to justify Nunu's position on the team. Consume also scales off resists, so Nunu can do some pretty unreal things as his build develops. You can tank Baron for free, and when turret sieging you can actually tank the turret for your minions while body blocking for your backline and then immediately heal up. This makes Nunu desirable whether you want to pressure inhibs or Baron, which is what late game is all about. The fact that the attack speed bonus on Blood Boil scales really hard off completed ADC builds just makes him all the better. It also has the neat side effect of persisting even if you die, which is one of the (many) incidental perks of playing Nunu that add up fast.

Going to bed for a few hours, will answer any other questions when I wake up.

What item build do you recommend?
Specifically is Frozen Heart still the obv choice now that Golem give you extra HP from HP items?
What item should I get if I want to add some damage?

Runes/Masteries/Standard build?

Thanks.

Do you ever lane with nunu? I've played him a few times this week in the top lane and have absolutely wrecking people. Not sure if it's dumb luck or he is just that strong. His sustain is unmatched and the harass from the snowballs is just lol.

Standard build is 0/30/0 with Attack Speed reds, MS Quints, Scaling Armor yellows and then Flat MR/Scaling MR/CDR blues depending on enemy team composition (usually scaling MR, but I'll use flat MR if the only source of AP damage is an enemy Elise or Evelynn for instance. I only use CDR vs full AD).

Frozen Heart is still really good situationally. You may lose out on some bonus HP from Ancient Golem, but since a lot of your effectiveness is from sustain through your Q, maximum health isn't as important as it is on some junglers.

Core build is usually: Machete/Pink Ward/Health Pot level 1, into Quill coat, into Sightstone, into Ancient Golem, into Boots. After that, resist/tanky items are best, usually starting with Frozen Heart or Locket. The only "offensive" items I usually build are Zeke's (15%~ of the time) or Abyssal (5% of the time) if my team composition is particularly imbalanced. Otherwise it's almost always FH, Randuin, Thornmail, Sunfire, BV, SV, etc.

Not very often, but it definitely still works. Another Nunu main named Simon hawkes hit Challenger about a week ago playing primarily lane Nunu. He held an AMA on reddit very recently- his build is approximately the same although he usually gets an early Hextech Revolver. I think that playing a champion that suits your playstyle greatly outweighs objective champion strength. Hell I saw a guy named Opened who mains Heal/Smite jungle Poppy who wrecked vasili with support Poppy.

A lot of meta picks are usually just copied from LCS, and people forget that the player pool in the LCS is quite small and that yeah- pros have their own favorite champions too- and that a lot of champions (like Lee Sin) are very high skill cap and much less effective in the hands of a Gold player than a champion like Sejunai would be.

What are some of the inherent weaknesses of nunu? How do you overcome them? What are some tips you'd give for a silver nunu jungler to make it to gold and beyond?

The biggest weakness is definitely his ganking, especially so when you max Q like I suggest. Often times you'l lose games where your lanes are getting crushed and there isn't a lot you can do to help. You offset that disadvantage through objective control (each dragon is worth 2-3 kills, and denies the possibility that the enemy team gets it) and aggressive counterjungling and an early Sightstone that weaken the enemy jungler's ganking potential. But yeah, if your lanes are just getting smashed on their own, there isn't too much you can do (and is often accompanied by annoying whining about how useless Nunu is).

My playstyle is also very risky, a lot of plays I make involving Baron/Dragon I believe are positive expectation but with a significant chance of backfiring. Your average solo queue player doesn't have a poker background and as such are far more risk averse and results oriented than they should be, you have to be honest with yourself if decisions you're making are good on average, whether they work or not, and ignore results-oriented whining.

Thanks for the insight, a lot of LoL players are lvl 1 type players where they only see what they see in terms of kda/ganking being a great indicator of jungle success instead of looking at the whole picture of map control, dragons/barons, and the like.

Appreciate the AMA. Nunu was one of my favorite (and probably best) champs in Season 3, and I've been trying to find an excuse to start playing him again.

Can you give a quick guide at what minute/level/items you feel comfortable soloing dragon? Baron? Do you do any early game cheese strats regularly? What's your usual clear/gank path?

Also, do you ever alter your build if you are getting all the kills? Suppose your team is up 4-0 early, and you have all 4 kills.

Thanks for all your answers.

You're welcome. You don't need much of an excuse, the change to Ancient Golem was a buff to an already powerful and underrated jungler since tenacity was often a waste of the item budget.

I'm very active level 1. But I also play with the same people over and over, so I have to mix up my early game play. Level 1 invades are definitely ideal on Nunu, the champion is very resilient even if they backfire and you can easily snowball if they go well, so they're low risk-high reward. By default I think starting the buff opposite the enemy team's bot lane and then pink warding the equivalent buff on your side is the safest and most consistent start, and what I would do 100% of the time against unknown players.

You want level 9 to 2-man Baron at 15 minutes (for max out Q), and usually a buff (ideally blue). I usually start focus on Dragon around level 5, but with double buffs or if the wave bot lane is in a favorable position I'll often try to 2 man it around level 4. But the level 5 Dragon timing is awesome, not only because you get the critical level 3 Q but also because around 7:00 (which is when you'll typically be 5), the enemy jungler will be preoccupied with the respawn on their initial buff. (You can see a textbook example of this in one of my games from yesterday, http://www.twitch.tv/itslevi/b/546070436 around 59:00. Also the first game in that VOD demonstrates the double jungle strategy I do notoriously often).

That rarely happens since I'm very deliberate about trying to pass kills unless it's absolutely necessary that I don't. When it does, I still follow a typical build path, just because the tanky build when fed is still the most powerful build path you can do. High levels of tankiness lets you get away with some pretty ridiculous things like letting you zone carries out of their own lane between two turrets, counterjungle in people's faces, and force Barons at no expense to your health or CDs. That said, if I do get early kills, you can freely put some extra points into Ice Blast or build a Hextech Revolver to increase your offensive potential at little/no expense to your tankiness (since you'll often have 5 ranks of Q by the time Baron spawns anyway if you're getting a lot of extra exp from kills).

How are you multi challenger and been around since 2008 but you're just now joining the league sub-forum?

I was encouraged by some friends to be more active in the LoL community. After Black Friday the majority of my time on 2p2 has been lurking in NVG and OOTV.

thanks for the ama. I used to play nunu a bit but I always found it really difficult to make good use of his ultimate because it's so easy for the enemy team to cancel it. How do you make it work?

Short answer: It's a great counter-initiation and zoning tool for your backline. A little over a year ago, Riot patched most AoE slow fields (i.e. Singed W) to where they weren't effective if the enemy player stepped out of them. For whatever reason, Nunu was exempt from this, and the residual slow persists even if the ultimate is interrupted (this also makes it a handy escape/chasing tool, where you can chain slows between Ice Blast CDs or escape multiple pursuers by starting your ult and then immediately cancelling it). Think of it like a point blank AoE Evelynn ult, but since you can't target it, it's most effective to counter enemy initiations. Remember because you have access to the strongest healing spell in the game, the onus is on the enemy team to initiate on you, or the free turret damage/poke to their front line (which can be converted into Baron) will add up. Just keep in mind, this isn't like AP Nunu where you're trying to juice that sexy 220% AP ratio for a quadra kill out of a bush or something. I almost always finish dead last in damage dealt to champions, even behind most supports.

Longer answer: Nunu's ultimate constitutes a small portion of his "power budget", so even if it's immediately interrupted, it's about as important as the CC that's wasted on him to interrupt it. If Nunu gets CC'ed in a team fight, it doesn't really matter since the relevant part of his W (attack speed on an ally) is unaffected if Nunu is stunned, and his other abilities are gated by CDs anyway. In other words, if an Elise (for example) burns her E to cancel your ultimate, then you still come out ahead because the power level of her remaining kit is greatly inferior to Nunu's remaining kit, in addition to the utility and minor damage of the residual slow that happens even if the ultimate is interrupted.

I would think Nunu is one of the better champs to snowball with.


DO HO HO!!!!!


(thank you for the thread, this is great stuff)

What's your summoner and server?

Take the Draw, NA

screenshots?


If they force u to play top/bot , do u play nunu?!