[Champion] Nunu

EDIT: It's been a really long time since I wrote the first guide. It was pretty bad and outdated so I decided just to make a new one. If you want to check out the old one, just click the spoiler tag.

Nunu: The Yeti Rider

Nunu should only be played as a jungler, eventually transitioning into a support/tank role in the late game. He's definitely one of the best overall junglers with great speed, safety, ganks, and counter jungling capabilities. He's a little useless in the late game but he can definitely punish bad positioning and team play with his ult.

The Build:

Runes:
Flat HP Quints
Armor Pen. Reds
Armor Yellows
mr/lvl Blues

Nunu is not very reliant on runes, so I go for a fairly standard tanky page. It helps clear the jungle at full life for ganks and I just like to be tanky in general.

Masteries:
There are 3 choices you can go here.

1. Defensive Heavy
1/21/8
This is my preferred route, just because I like to be very tanky. The downside is that you lose the monster buff duration increase and your smite recharges a lot slower.

2. Utility Heavy
1/8/21
This is a completely acceptable route. You give up a little bit of tankiness to be a much more efficient jungler.

3. Defensive/Utility Mix
1/16/13
This gives you access to Veteran's Scars and monster buff duration increase. A good balance between the other two.

Your choice really depends on your play style and preferences. Do you want to be a better jungler or a better tank?

Summoner Spells:
Ghost and Smite.
Don't be a noob and grab flash because flash ult never works.

Skill Order:
I still stand by my QWE -> R > E > W > Q. Most people max w first, but I really do believe that 50 or so extra damage is worth the 10% movement speed. Max w first if you really want to.

Item Build:
1. Cloth + 5 Pots
or
Cloth + 2 Pots + 1 Ward

I pretty much start every game this way. You won't use all 5 pots in your first run, but it will still be useful in subsequent clears or you can always sell them when you need to finish an item. I get a ward if I want to try to steal their red or blue or I'm afraid of getting stolen myself.

2. Heart of Gold + Boots

Also super standard, not much to comment besides the fact that HoG is obviously amazing.

3. Banshee's Veil
or
Rod of Ages

The standard is just to rush the banshee's veil. I go for a Rod of Ages (or even two) if I get a lot of successful ganks. People say AP on nunu is worthless because you only have one consistent offensive spell, but you do have amazing ratios and RoA makes you pretty damn tanky.

4. Tank, tank, tank, tank.
Depending on the enemy team comp and whoever is dominating, get the appropriate items. Finish your Randuin's or Force of Nature or whatever makes sense.

Gameplay

Early Game:
Jungling with nunu is super flexible since he basically can do whatever he wants with his skill set. I'll just outline a few basic strategies that I use frequently.

1. Safe and Easy
Blue -> wolves -> wraiths -> red -> golems -> level 4 gank.
Really easy route that sets you up nicely for a full life gank with level 2 ice ball. If no lanes are gankable sometimes I make a feeble attempt at someone to try to bait a summoner's spell or get a little damage on the enemy to help out. Then I just make my way over to my wolves when they respawn and then get my wraiths again.

Throw in a wraith jack in the beginning if you are feeling saucy.

2. Red steal -> golem jack -> level 2 gank.
Don't do this unless your team has CV and you can see them all at their blue. Even then it's risky because it gets foiled if they take the long route to get to lane. But it does set-up a pretty devastating gank with ice ball and red buff from behind that's very difficult to see coming when it works.

Mid Game:
Here it's mostly about dragon control, ganking, and covering lanes. Remember always get a pink ward for dragon and go for it if bot pushes to the tower or gets a kill. If a solo dies at a lane, it's your job to run up there and cover it. Nothing is worse than losing an early tower because then your jungle is extremely vulnerable.

Late Game:
Late game is simple. Permahaste your carry, permaslow the most useful person you can reach on the other team. When things get crazy run in the middle and push R.

The End.

Old out-dated build:
+ Show Spoiler +

Nunu: The Yeti Rider

Preface
Nunu is known as one of the fastest junglers and has a pretty strong level 4 gank. Though he functions very well in lane, he should be exclusively used as a jungler because he scales quite poorly in the late game. This guide assumes you are an experienced player and you have a general sense of what Nunu is capable of.

The Build
Runes: Arm Pen Reds and Quints, Dodge Yellows, Mres/Lvl Blues
You can change around the runes to however you like since Nunu is not very dependent on runes. I don't like movement speed or aspd runes because my jungling speed is mainly dependent on how fast Q comes back. Mana is not an issue with Nunu's passive and you should have blue most of the time. I can see the argument for CDR yellow and blues or flat armor yellows if you want them.

Masteries: 1/8/21
Standard jungling setup. I get SoS and Awareness.

Summoner Spells: Ghost and Smite
Smite is non-negotiable. Flash can be used if you like flash ult shenanigans. I use exhaust if they have a bunch of ranged carries or melee dps types and no one wants to pick exhaust.

Skilling Order: QWEE -> R -> E -> W -> Q
1 point in q and w are enough to jungle. Maxing e is critical as it is your main ganking tool.

Item Build:
Opening - Cloth Armor + 5 pots
There are a lot of variations of the opening depending on your play style and the enemy team. Personally I like this because it keeps me at full life for when I'm ready to gank. I can't fault you for getting a ward but long sword is definitely the wrong opening. It doesn't make you jungle faster and your life gets precariously low.

1st Return: Lvl 1 Boots + Ward
If you are successful with a gank you can get a Madred's Razor.

2nd Return: Wriggle's Lantern (or whatever parts you can afford)

After this point, the build diverges depending on the enemy team comp and your team comp. Basically if your team is lacking tankiness you need to build tanky. If your team needs AP damage, build some caster items. The most common item I get at this point is Rod of Ages. Good tank items in order of preference are Banshee's Veil, Sunfire Cape, Force of Nature, and Randuin's Omen. Good caster items in order of preference are Abyssal Scepter, Zhonya's, and Lich's Bane. Remember to use your head, look at the opposing team's damage sources, look at what your team is lacking, and base your items on that.

A standard tank build against a diverse team with good CC might look something like this:
Cloth Armor + 5 Pots
Lvl 1 Boots + Wards
Wriggle's Lantern
Rod of Ages + Lvl 2 Boots
Banshee's Veil
Sunfire Cape
Force of Nature

Early Game
My standard jungling route is Blue -> Wolves -> Wraiths -> Red -> Golems -> Gank.
You can fool around with the route by going into the enemy jungle or getting an early red for a level 2 gank or something, but I feel like level 4 is your best shot of getting a gank.

The First Gank: After you grab the golem, you have to look at what lanes are being pushed, the health of the champions, and finally the summoner spells of who you can gank. If both lanes are being pushed or your teammates are at low life, just b or offer to cover the lane. If you decide that it is a good opportunity to gank, it's not a difficult process. Type ahead of time that you are going to gank, pop ghost, slow with E, auto attack, and E again whenever it is ready. If it works, great, if not, at least you will force them to b early. One thing to notice is that if they have flash you should just run up and auto attack until they flash or else they can dodge your ice ball and get away.

After you get your second round of items, get a ward to cover dragon. Without double buff or Wriggle's Lantern, you are too weak to solo dragon.

Mid Game
At this point just jungle whatever respawns and cover lanes. When I get level 6 I look to gank again. When I get a second round of buffs I look to dragon if it seems like a good time or just gank again. You should be mostly roaming around at the map looking for good opportunities at this time.

Third round of buffs should go to the rest of your team.

Late Game
At this point you are basically a support/tank champ. You don't have big damage outside of your ult so your job is to make sure your carry is permanently W'd. When a team fight occurs your job in to get in the center and push R. Use E on their squishies and keep spamming W on whoever needs it.

Closing
As with any jungler, a guide can provide very little for becoming good at jungling besides a starting point. Jungling is a skill that takes a lot of practice to develop your own style and the required instincts. There are many other guides on TL that talk about jungling so look into those if you want to get a lot better at this aspect of the game.
+ Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +

Last edit: 2011-02-28 23:47:29

LoL: Soles | forever 1600

TheYango United States. December 03 2010 14:21. Posts 15790

Profile #

A couple things:

1) Why Armor Pen reds over MPen? The vast majority of your damage seems like it should come from your spells.

2) A note is probably worth making about Teleport as a summoner spell option, since Nunu's Q+Smite lets you buff-steal/dragon-steal very effectively.

3) I generally skill QEEW, with the same priority as you afterwards. It doesn't feel like leveling W before E would result in faster jungling speed (particularly if you start at Blue and can spam E on cooldown), though I'll admit I haven't tested this so I'm not actually sure.

4) I dislike Wriggles on tanky junglers for whom a large component of their damage comes from their spells, and for whom the AD/Lifesteal components of Wriggles don't really go anywhere. IMO 1 or more Hearts of Gold are a much more solid way to go into the midgame (particularly since Randuin's Omen is a nice way to supplement Nunu's skillset). This could be a holdover from my playing too much Amumu, though.

Last edit: 2010-12-03 14:26:03

如果有一天星际没有了,如果有一天DOTA没有了,我不会消失.

BajaBlood United States. December 03 2010 14:29. Posts 147

Profile #

With QWQE you can solo dragon at level 4 and be done before most jungles come to ward it - this is really only viable at lower ELOs or against people who don't realize nunu can do this, though, so I'd suggest the skill/route listed above in most cases.

As far as the items go, I usually don't bother with Wriggles or even madred's razor - I find that the combination of Q/W/E lets him jungle quickly and healthily enough without those items. Instead I just work on RoA or Banshee's that much sooner.

I'm not sure what I would consider ideal runes to be on Nunu, but I think 25 arpen is overkill and in general I prefer armor to dodge seals. Running flat armor quints/yellows would probably allow you to get away with cloth+ward (or maybe even D. ring+pot) and still be at high health after clearing the creeps.

But yeah, Nunu is cool and imo underplayed. Ice ball is a hilarious permaslow and blood boiled carries are ridiculous late game.

Edit: got ninja'd, but I definitely agree that if you start with cloth upgrading it to HoG is a good choice.

Last edit: 2010-12-03 14:35:16

barbsq United States. December 03 2010 14:29. Posts 3039

Profile #

On December 03 2010 14:21 TheYango wrote:
A couple things:

1) Why Armor Pen reds over MPen? The vast majority of your damage seems like it should come from your spells.

2) A note is probably worth making about Teleport as a summoner spell option, since Nunu's Q+Smite lets you buff-steal/dragon-steal very effectively.

3) I generally skill QEEW, with the same priority as you afterwards. It doesn't feel like leveling W before E would result in faster jungling speed (particularly if you start at Blue and can spam E on cooldown), though I'll admit I haven't tested this so I'm not actually sure.

4) I dislike Wriggles on tanky junglers for whom a large component of their damage comes from their spells, and for whom the AD/Lifesteal components of Wriggles don't really go anywhere. IMO 1 or more Hearts of Gold are a much more solid way to go into the midgame (particularly since Randuin's Omen is a nice way to supplement Nunu's skillset). This could be a holdover from my playing too much Amumu, though.

ppl level bloodboil over iceball kus iceball is useless except for the slow, so 1 lvl is all u need. Also in apen vs mpen, i would actually opt for aspeed

i do agree on ur 4th point tho, wriggles is useless on nunu, either rush that bveil or get randuins

edit: oh just realized that op maxes iceball first too. w/e. I like maxing bloodboil first, since i dont get any ap on nunu, i build him pretty much straight tank.

Last edit: 2010-12-03 14:33:16

Look at this guy, constantly diluting himself! (╮°-°)╮┳━┳ ( ╯°□°)╯ ┻━┻

Jaksiel United States. December 03 2010 15:30. Posts 3266

Profile #

I also prefer getting E at level 2 and 3 before W because I feel like it makes more of a difference in your jungling speed. Unlike OP, I do have mana problems on Nunu sometimes, because I'm giving up blue buff to our caster on at least the third spawn (and sometimes the second). This might just be a personal problem thought, I tend to spam spells more than I should.

EDIT: Now that I read the OP more in-depth, I see he mentions giving up buffs on third spawn. I guess it is just a personal issue to be fixed, then.

Last edit: 2010-12-03 15:32:03

Zero fighting.

JokerSan United States. December 03 2010 15:39. Posts 180

Profile #

1) I don't like mpen because it gets a lot tougher taking down blue and red without the arpen but I do like the armor quints and yellow idea.
2) Ice ball vs. blood boil: The extra damage and the very slight extra cdr really does help in getting that first gank and subsequent ganks. The gains you get from leveling either is really shitty, but I still think E is the way to go. I will probably do some practice runs timing QEEW vs QWEE and seeing how it the mana, speed, and life differs.
3) Wriggles: Definitely valid points on the wriggle's lantern. It just makes getting dragon ez mode and of course free wards!!!!! I'll experiment getting HoG against ad teams and straight up rushing banshee's against most other teams.

LoL: Soles | forever 1600

jtype England. December 03 2010 17:42. Posts 1746

Profile Blog #

On December 03 2010 15:30 Jaksiel wrote:
I also prefer getting E at level 2 and 3 before W because I feel like it makes more of a difference in your jungling speed. Unlike OP, I do have mana problems on Nunu sometimes, because I'm giving up blue buff to our caster on at least the third spawn (and sometimes the second). This might just be a personal problem thought, I tend to spam spells more than I should.

EDIT: Now that I read the OP more in-depth, I see he mentions giving up buffs on third spawn. I guess it is just a personal issue to be fixed, then.

I'm the same with Nunu. I spam my skills way more than I need to, just to try and hurry up my jungling, when really, it can slow it down sometimes, or leave you with no mana to gank.

@jtypemusic

TheYango United States. December 03 2010 17:49. Posts 15790

Profile #

This is probably a small thing that you probably already knew about, but when Nunu's passive is up in the jungle, the the best spell to consume it is his E--even from rank 1, E costs more than his other spells, and the other 2 don't scale up in cost, while E does.

I can actually see barbsq's point in running aspd marks--it increases your physical damage dealt early on, while at the same time also reducing your mana consumption by triggering your passive more often.

如果有一天星际没有了,如果有一天DOTA没有了,我不会消失.

Iplaythings Denmark. December 03 2010 20:56. Posts 7086

Profile Blog #

I run my junglingpage with nunu as i do with everyone

aspd red
armor yellow
mr flat blue
health purple

I can clear jungle ez pz without masteries, though I open dorans shield + health pot.

In the woods, there lurks..

rwrzr United States. December 05 2010 10:59. Posts 1160

Profile #

Spell-Vamp nunu is quite strong. If you are looking to change things up.

FADC

r33k Italy. December 06 2010 09:50. Posts 2462

Profile Blog #

I just read this and I'm quite disapponted...

Not leveling E first is just dumb. All nunu has is his earlygame, especially if build tanky. You need the extra damage and you need the slow. E is just as good as malph's Q, except that it's on a shorter cooldown.

Leveling Q past the first point is useless and in most cases dumb, nunu is a ridiculously good ganker who doesn't need either of his buffs after the first run. If your mid is hardcountered (trist vs mf or something like that) you can even give them your first lizard and be perfectly fine.
Pumping Q only gives you a small heal that you can only use when in melee range of a creep, which since you are jungling, and often counterjungling won't always be possible. Q is your tool to eat 1 tower hit when diving, and shouldn't really be used otherwise.

Q also ensures that your buffs/dragon/baron will never be stolen, and 500 dmg is just as good as 900 since no other jungler has that kind of burst.

E owns, your passive owns and your ult is the best single-target slow in the game. And yes, I mean single target: since you attack in melee range and move way faster than anything you'll be hitting your basic combo is W the laner (if you still have 5ish secs CD just gank already), E your target, go either on top of him or right past him and ult to zone his shit and complete the kill.

In teamfights you will always be cancelling your ult so that you hit everyone and are free from the channelling.

I used to be a lv2 W enthusiast aswell, but then I saw a few streams and I realized that in all situations E is better:
-If everything is fine, you jungle faster.
-If you get counterjungled, E, ping (ghost) and kill.
-If your red gets warded you would think that you make a much better use of the MS from W, but in reality your opponents will see you passing by red and most likely attempt to gank you at golems, which again brings us to point 2.

As for runes/items I like tankier builds, because your strongest time of the game is when your opponents don't have merc treads yet, and you get damage from leveling your skills. After lv10, when your main skill is already lv5 your damage will keep falling and falling due to your opponents itemizing against you, and since you don't need the buffs in the first place a tankier build will allow you to turn into a solid support character.
My nunu runepage is as follows:
mpen reds
armor yellows
mres/18 blues
1 HP/2 MS quints (or 2 hp/1 ms, it really depends on playstyle)

Aspd yellows are good aswell since you have a slow and a built-in AS buff which allows you to trigger your passive while chasing people down, that also depends on personal preference. Mpen reds are in line with my exploit-the-earlygame playstyle.

As for items, You are blessed in that you don't need mana regen, ever. BEST PASSIVE IN THE GAME. (I can't really stress this enough). You don't really need to go to base either since you have free mana, don't take too much damage and have a heal.

So basically I really have 2 build openings i'll alternate depending on how I predict the game is going to be:
-Doran's Shield opening

-Cloth Armor opening

Cloth armor obviously means fast HoG. HoG is awesome, and randuin is like your passive but it stays on. Awesome. What this means is also that you will have regular intervals when you need to b. You can't hold a lane that got ganked when you have that sweet 675g. Yes, you could save up for a ward and maybe even for boots, but 800g is the maximum you can afford to b with. HoG=money, and since you will only be getting one of those and you'll be rushing a randuin's you want to get that cash flowing as fast as possible.
Recommended especially vs WW, since your first recall time will be slightly before his and he can attempt a quick dragon. The problem is that your first run does not leave you with enough money for a ward, so unless you got lucky somehow (or are running gold/10 quints, I hear they are viable on nunu) you need to loiter around mid or bot until you can afford a ward aswell.
If you really can't afford to snatch money from those lanes you can just b and buy boots+ward, since LOLMS characters such as MS panth and boots/MS vlad aren't as popular anymore. Your first ganks will be ridiculously strong, especially if you are using AS reds.

The doran's shield opening is my favorite. It is the proest opening there is right now since it is the most flexible. Every little bit of regen is really good right now, especially since in most games you'll be building a spirit visage. Doran's shield doesn't tie you to building a specific item, and it is my build of choice whenever I know I won't need a fast HoG. Especially if they have casters, dorans shield>mercs>negatron(x2) will make you the most solid tank even against a farmed veigar or a fed ryze.

Masteries-wise I go 1/14/15 because I like to be resilient against minions and because cdr only affects your ult (blood boil already has 100% uptime and bluebuff/randuins are enough to keep E applied on a target with mercs).

I'm not a fan of soloing dragon, you are good at ganking so you better go find them noobies and then dragon freely.

"you are the episotme of ass" HotshotGG

Misder United States. December 14 2010 11:25. Posts 1019

Profile #

Anyone else go boots+hp pot+ ward first? Take smite and tp?

Whaaaa?

rwrzr United States. December 16 2010 13:35. Posts 1160

Profile #

I shit you not spell vamp nunu after banshees is pretty silly.

FADC

STS17 United States. December 16 2010 14:20. Posts 1398

Profile #

I generally open health crystal first on jungle nunu - goes right into Cata for my RoA (or BV) and doesnt really effect jungle speed at all.

Running
aspd red
armor yellow
scaling mr blues
ms or health quints

Though I want to experiment with AP quints or blues and see how that goes, considering his ratios it might not be bad

Platinum Level Terran - Take my advice from that perspective

Dgiese United States. December 16 2010 16:14. Posts 1149

Profile #

On December 14 2010 11:25 Misder wrote:
Anyone else go boots+hp pot+ ward first? Take smite and tp?

I've tried ward + boots + pot nunu (I take flash smite for flash ult shenanigans, and to escape over the back of dragon if i get caught trying to sneak it at lvl 4). It's great fun... if you're quick enough on the buy you can get to enemy blue and ward it and get out... head back to your wraiths consume big one and kill another and then make it back to their blue buff in time for the smite + consume steal. Normally I just pussy out and go cloth + 5pot -> lvl gank / dragon.

I have had the tactic go horribly wrong... but it's a hell of a laugh when you sucessfully run up right next to the enemy jungler, ignore him and steal his blue then run off.

I know TreeEskimo had some great recordings of him running the strat... but they got deleted from his channel. I know there are a few games on Roku's channel where they double q'd and ran that strat... but the perspective is from roku's, not tree's.

TheYango United States. December 16 2010 16:32. Posts 15790

Profile #

Why would you ever cloth 5pot as Nunu? You only need 1 for Golem and 1 pre-gank. Save the other 105 gold or get a ward.

如果有一天星际没有了,如果有一天DOTA没有了,我不会消失.

Dgiese United States. December 16 2010 17:58. Posts 1149

Profile #

On December 16 2010 16:32 TheYango wrote:
Why would you ever cloth 5pot as Nunu? You only need 1 for Golem and 1 pre-gank. Save the other 105 gold or get a ward.

To get a lvl 4 dragon (+gank).

TheYango United States. December 16 2010 18:06. Posts 15790

Profile #

On December 16 2010 17:58 Dgiese wrote:

Show nested quote +

To get a lvl 4 dragon (+gank).

They you need 1, maybe 2 extra. Still doesn't warrant the whole 5.

如果有一天星际没有了,如果有一天DOTA没有了,我不会消失.

Dgiese United States. December 16 2010 19:36. Posts 1149

Profile #

Ya know... i'm quite content to splurge on the 5th pot. It's one of those things that is never not useful. When i go B i don't have any issues with my buy that 35 gold would change.

Kaneh Canada. December 17 2010 18:12. Posts 316

Profile #

madred > HoG(s) > negatron (if you need mr) > BR > tank

gogogo

better damage than stacking godforsaken ap items. solos dragon/buffs ez. farms harder, kills carries better (hey wait, what), and you still get to tank well. not unkillable well, but you're not a goddam initiator so why the hell do you need that much tank.