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Recommended Items
Runes: First Strike (Standard)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Exhaust
Smite
Items
Ability Order Ability Order
We Are More (PASSIVE)
Naafiri Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Shyvana
Shyvana's my ban. Regardless of her being AD or AP, she will ALWAYS one shot your dogs immediately, and she will shred you and you will never be able to duel her.
Thresh
Engage + tanky supports like Thresh, Blitz, Naut, Ali, and Rakan are great for setting up ganks for you, and can help lock down the enemy early on long enough for you to kill with ease, as well as helping to make sure they don't escape.
Thresh
Engage + tanky supports like Thresh, Blitz, Naut, Ali, and Rakan are great for setting up ganks for you, and can help lock down the enemy early on long enough for you to kill with ease, as well as helping to make sure they don't escape.
Champion Build Guide
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I've been a jungle main for most of the years I've played league for, sometimes playing some top or support here and there but always returning to jungle. When I saw Naafy's ability showcase, I immediately knew that I wanted to jungle with her, and honestly, I feel it's incredibly strong despite the poor winrate and what most people are saying about it.
Since I started playing her, I've reached a 61% win rate in 54 games on her and I've very rapidly climbed from where I placed in Plat to Emerald II, and I don't seem to be slowing down. Her clear speed is pretty bad, but her gank potential is amazing and she's very good at contesting early scuttles and counter ganking due to immense mobility and long-range engage potential. I'd say the champs she plays most similarly to would be Nocturne and Xin Zhao, though you need to be a lot smarter with using her targeted dash (I go into this more in the ability section).
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Honestly, I think both are great.
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I'd almost go so far as to call
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I'm still kind of experimenting between the two right now, but I think exhaust will be the better choice if you're unsure which to take.
Inspiration Primary |
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First Strike |
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★ ![]() ![]() |
Future's Market |
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★ As ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Approach Velocity |
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★I see that a lot of people playing ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Domination Secondary |
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Sudden Impact |
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★This is pretty much impossible to pass up on ![]() |
Treasure Hunter |
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★Another incredible rune for ![]() |
Precision Primary |
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Conqueror |
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★ A great choice into very tanky team comps where fights are going to be prolonged no matter what you do. Pretty much everything in your kit will allow you to very rapidly stock conqueror, and the healing paired with the healing proc from your ![]() |
Triumph |
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★![]() |
Legend: Tenacity |
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★![]() |
Coup de Grace |
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★![]() ![]() ![]() |
Domination Secondary |
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Sudden Impact |
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★This is pretty much impossible to pass up on ![]() |
Treasure Hunter |
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★Another incredible rune for ![]() |
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Following your mythic,
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Completing cleaver opens up a couple of options. Most of the time I'll go
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After you get your third item, there are a lot of options that you can go with, so I'll just list off when each of the items is best, in my experience.
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I kind of talked about
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Dogs! This ability gives you pets that follow you around and attack with you - you start off with 2 maximum, then get 3 once you hit level 9. Additionally, your ult allows you to break the cap as long as it's going, allowing you to have up to 7 pups following you around at level 16 (or 8 with a Neeko ;)). On top of supplementing your damage, dogs will stack the damage of your W, block skill shots, tank jungle monsters, and can tank tower (though they always die in one shot), which can sometimes come in handy. Additionally, landing an ability on a large jungle monster or enemy champion will reduce the cooldown of summoning your next dog by 4 seconds, and it's reduced by an additional second on killing any enemy.
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This is the bread and butter of your kit, and where most of your damage comes from. It's a 2 charge skill shot that pierces all units. If the target isn't bleeding when it hits them, it will apply a bleed that deals damage over time, as well as continuously proccing things like cleaver, conqueror, serylda's, and so on. However, if they ARE bleeding already, then the remaining bleed damage will instantly proc AND it deals execute damage, scaling with the target's missing HP. As if that wasn't enough, Q'ing an already bleeding champion will also heal you for a chunk of your hp. Your packmates will also jump onto the target that you Q.
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This is an interesting ability. It's a point-and-click engage that reveals the target on hit, slows them, and deals more damage based on how many packmates you hit with (your packmates are also untargetable during this time). However, you stop on the first champion hit so it's very easy for a tank to just body block it, and you're not unstoppable during it, so something like Syndra, Thresh, or Ziggs can just smack you out of it if they play their cooldowns right.
While it's good for engaging - particularly on squishies if they're alone - I generally hold onto it in ganks and skirmishes. For ganks in particular, it may seem obvious to just W in immediately, but then if they flash or dash away you can't do anything. If you run in and damage FIRST, though, then you can chase after them with W and prevent them from escaping. It's also great if you need to temporarily peel off of a fight/need to back up for a second, allowing the enemy team to shift their aggro onto someone else while you back up and get in a good position to W back in on their carries.
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Your E is a short range dash that deals damage to units that it travels through AND deals a larger burst of damage in an area around you after landing. It can be used to jump over small walls (ie Dragon Pit, Raptors, most River Walls, structures), and honestly it nukes pretty hard, especially late game.
Also important to consider, though, is that your packmates get pulled back to you and are healed to full after you use E. If you're just Q'ing someone for poke and don't want your packmates to hop in and die, you can just use your Q's then E to pull them back to you and keep them alive. It's also *really* important while clearing early on to hold your E until one of your packmates is going to die, rather than just using it off cooldown.
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This is where the fun comes in. Popping your ult instantly summons additional packmates (2/3/4 at 6/11/16), grants you a massive burst of decaying movement speed, reveals the area around you within roughly a screen, halves your passive cooldown, and grants you additional attack damage. Your first attack or ability that hits an enemy champion will grant you a large shield, AND will reset up to one time on getting a take down (which resummons packmates, gives you MORE movement speed, AND you get another shield on the first enemy hit), AND it increases your W range based on the ultimate's rank. That's a lot.
The shield it grants pairs great with Eclipse, and the burst of movement speed is amazing for chasing down squishies or catching up to a fight that already started. I will generally pop my ult before going in, but if you don't know if you're going to commit to a fight yet there's nothing wrong with engaging and popping it after you're already on top of their team, which also ensures the shield doesn't get wasted if you don't immediately go in after, saying, landing a Q.
Now that that's out of the way: I always 3 camp to a gank, if I can (blue buff -> gromp -> red buff or red buff -> gromp -> blue buff based on who I'm trying to gank). Unfortunately, your lanes aren't always gonna be in great states, and sometimes you just need to keep clearing until scuttle spawns, then go for that into a gank. Getting an early kill or assist (really just enough gold for a dirk first back) is really, really important. It makes your clears way smoother and makes dueling + ganking far more likely to succeed.
Your clear's also a little weird compared to other junglers, since you want to keep your pets alive and juggle aggro with them to keep your HP in check while making sure your dogs aren't constantly dead. For the first buff, I generally
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After you have
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Once gromp and your second buff are dead, you now have W, and should look for a gank between middle or whichever lane is on your side of the map.
If you know where their jungler was clearing to and they're likely to do an early gank, setting up for a counter gank is a really good idea. If no lanes are gankable, just clear wolves or raptors and set up for scuttle or look for another gank. Using your W on camps is good very early on (pre 6), since if you're struggling to keep dogs alive you can W to either take aggro or hope that the monsters aggro on another dog with full hp, but I wouldn't recommend it mid game when it's got a longer cooldown and the game starts moving a lot faster.
Moving past that, objective control is really important, but unfortunately a pain on Naafiri. I'm not sure if it's a bug or intended, but due to how your packmates take aggro dragon can and will reset multiple times if you're soloing it, especially if you pull it, (I've seen up to 3 or 4), which makes it completely miserable and makes it more likely to be contested. Always try to get help with dragons if you can at any point in the game. It's better for everyone if you're not left soloing it, but if you see a really good drake opportunity and need to solo it, it's not the end of the world.
Early Heralds are a lot easier to get since it won't constantly reset and push you away and you can pop the eye for a lot of damage since you don't have that much early on. Just make sure that at least one of top and mid have priority in case you end up needing help, though it's almost always free if the enemy jungler shows bot lane. I'd also almost always recommend trading dragon to get the first herald if it comes down to it - the early plate gold is huge, and helps your laner of choice with getting first tower.
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*This isn't related to ganking, but E'ing over one of those walls is also a great time to drop a pink deep in their jungle which can be huge early on - the bushes behind the red buff wall are very rarely checked for some reason, and can provide a LOT of information on the enemy junglers whereabouts.
Once moving through tri, simply walk up and E to the enemy laner, pop your Qs, and try to kill. If they commit to the fight, you may not have to use your W at all unless they hard dive your laner, but if they try backing off or flashing away, your W can very quickly close the gap and give you time to hopefully finish them off.
If they're hard shoving and under your tower, then chances are they're confident they can win lane and your laner's probably missing a good amount of HP at this point. W'ing on them to start might be better here, because if it's something like a Renekton, Illaoi, or Sett, they're likely going to hard commit on and possibly even dive your laner, and you need to make sure that doesn't happen because you will NOT be able to solo them. If they're not committing, though, then I'd recommend holding W and playing it the same way.
Once you hit 6, ganking gets a lot easier. Instead of just walking up to them, you can sprint at them with youre 50% decaying movement speed and very quickly collapse on them with your packmates.
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I feel like Naafiri's ganks go best when you're counterganking the enemy jungler. If you're anywhere on that side of the jungle, you can start walking up, ult when you're a screen or two away, and then rush into the fight and collapse on them, hopefully before your laners die and turning the fightaround in your favor. As such, keeping up vision is REALLY important, and helping your lanes with it by sweeping whenever you can is a great way to both build pressure on that side of the map and set up for potential future ganks.
Naafiri's also a great dive champion - your W allows you to easily get on them from under tower, and honestly, if the minion wave's arriving after the dive you can even use it as an escape by W'ing to the wave once they're dead. Just make sure it's with laners that can follow up and it's not a champion that is always a very risky dive, such as Nasus, Thresh, or Vladimir.
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Fighting near objectives is probably my favorite area to skirmish as Naafiri. A lot of the time, their ranged carries (ie ADCs, artillery mages, etc) will sit on the opposite side of a wall and kind of just kite your team backwards or deal damage from there. Well guess what? You can just W onto them for free! Chances are their front line will be trying to peel off your team, giving you the perfect opportunity to oneshot their squishy.
Naafiri doesn't really have any important combos to know, imo, but for something like that against a squishy, I generally do
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