Hello, I am Allvarreth, an avid Nunu player, especially in the unusual role of Top which I consider to be very underrated in terms of both strength and fun. Nunu, although seldom picked, is a very useful Top laner because the large amount of utility and tank he brings to the table along with his early game damage which is nothing to be scoffed at. This guide will highlight how to effectively play Nunu as a top lane tank. I put a lot of time into this guide so feedback is appreciated and if you found this helpful I would love if you upvoted.

Pros

Nice early game poke
Huge 12 second attack speed steroid
Provides extra objective control
Free health from Q
Bursts squishies early
Ult can turn around fights
Anti-Marksman
Stays in lane forever
Free mini Titanic Hydra from Q buff

Cons

Damage falls off hard
No hard CC
Ult is easily interrupted
Team reliant

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Resolve Tree Tier 1 - As Nunu your job in the late game is to be extremely tanky and get in people's way. This 5% to Armor and Magic resist will just help you get tankier and tankier as the game goes on and you buy items. The health regen from recovery isn't necessary as you already have a lot of healing. Tier 2 - The damage reduction on tough skin isn't huge, but over time it will add up and allow you to stay in lane longer. Explorer isn't particularly useful other than when roaming to mid lane but you will be building swiftness boots and have a speed boost already so more movement speed in river isn't needed Tier 3 - Runic armor synergizes super well with your Q and spell vamp, building on your already impressive healing, to allow you even more sustain. Veteran's scars, while it does work well with your +10% health and 1% health on hit buffs, the extra health just isn't worth sacrificing the extra healing you get from runic armor. Tier 4 - Following the trend of building for high sustain, perseverance offers you great health regen, especially the insane 4x boost when below 25% hp which keeps you in lane for a long time. All insight gives you is having teleport up to roam more often, which isn't bad but doesn't benefit you as much as the in lane sustain from perseverance Tier 5 - Legendary Guardian will give you an extra 3 armor in lane which, while not major, is highly underestimated. The main appeal of this mastery, however, is the fact that it scales so well into the late game, giving you up to 15 magic resist and armor in a teamfight. Swiftness is by no means a bad mastery, but I would take the extra magic resist and armor as a top laner. Tier 6 - Grasp of the Undying is by far the strongest keystone on Nunu toplane for several reasons. First of all the damage, while a little underhwelming at first compared to other damaging keystones, compliments Nunu's consistent damage well and adds up overtime. 2.5% health scaling means that, assuming you keep your on hit buff up, every 4 seconds your next auto will do 3.5% of your max health and heal you for it which coupled with your 10% max health buff is very solid. Strength of the Ages should be avoided unless you are a jungler, and Bond of Stone doesn't synergize with Nunu close to as well as Grasp of the Undying does

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Ferocity Tree Tier 1 - Attack speed is very important Nunu, hence the 15% attack speed in runes and his E being an attack speed steroid. Fury will give you a damage boost, especially with your auto attacks doing 1% of max health when you are buffed. Sorcery isn't particularly useful because most of your damage comes from autos, your snowballs being more useful as utility. Tier 2 - You may have noticed that sustain/healing is a common theme in this guide and so feast is mastery that compliments this very well. When you consume a minion it will almost always die so this just adds an extra 20 health of healing to your consume. Double Edged Sword shouldn't be used as the damage is as the damage is not necessary and the last thing you want as a tank is to be able to take less damage. Expose Weakness is a solid mastery that I like a lot but as a top laner you are alone for a large portion of the game during which this mastery is uselss Tier 3 - Vampirism is just too strong to pass up. Apell vamp applies to consume which at max rank deals 1000 damage, so that little 2% gives you 20 health in healing, combined with your runes and feast is an extra 100 hp healed. Natural Talent isn't very useful on tank Nunu and doesn't come close to the spell camp from vampirism. Tier 4 - Nunu will constantly slow opponents, so the extra damage from oppressor will be up very often. Bounty Hunter shouldn't be taken because it offers no immediate bonuses and in a 1v1 lane you are likely to get only maybe +1% damage out of it till late game and even then you should be trying to give the kills to carries when possible.

• Greater Quintessence of Spell Vamp: This is a very weird choice of quintessences and is very unique to Nunu. Your Q deals 1000 damage at max rank so this will add an additional 60 health to the heal which is invaluable.
  
• Greater Mark of Attack Speed: Attack speed is very important on Nunu as with it you will be getting your auto attacks, which deal 1% of max health when buffed, off more often which is a huge damage boost and also helps you stack your passive faster.
  
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: This will help you deal with heavy magic damage dealers in the late game, but it is better to swap them out for flat magic resist runes if facing an AP opponent in lane.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: Armor seals give you extra survivability in lane against attack damage dealing opponents, but are best swapped out for scaling armor seals in the event your opponent is AP.

It is best to have 2 rune pages, 1 for AD lane opponents and 1 for AP lane opponents.

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Visionary: Visionary is Nunu's extremely useful passive that, when combined with your consume, allows you stay in lane for extremely long periods of time. As a support you should still be basic attacking minions anyway so getting free abilities from it isn't too shabby. Do not sit around saving your visionary you're wasting time that you could be stacking more of it, use it immediately to either poke the enemy if in range, heal yourself if necessary, or give your carry blood boil if there is no other use for it.

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Consume: In Nunu's normal role of jungle consume is incredibly important and is often maxed first, and as a top this doesn't change, but it is used differently. As Nunu top, consume will give you massive sustain and win you a lot of trades as well as it's secondary use of helping with controlling Dragons and Baron. Consume also will give different buffs depending on what it is used on. Consuming Red Buff, Blue buff or Krugs will give +10% max hp, Consuming Gromp, Dragon, or Baron will give 1% of max hp as magic damage on hit, and consuming Wolves, Scuttle Crab or Raptors will give bonus movement speed upon killing a unit. Try and maintain The HP and on hit buff. The speed buff isn't quite as important but is useful nonetheless

Max out [Consume] First

• Consume can be used on many player summoned enemies such as Tibbers, Heimerdinger's turrets and Malzahar's voidlings.
• Consume gives you special buffs depending on what neutral monster you use it on. Try to keep the buffs up by consuming Red or Blue buff even you aren't taking the buff.

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Blood Boil: Blood boil is one of Nunu's greatest strength's . This skill is just so strong and has so much synergy with ADCs. To put it into perspective, at max rank blood boil gives 12% movement speed 45% attack speed, which is more than any item in the game, for 12 seconds on a 15 second cooldown. This means that once you have some CDR you can have more than an items worth of attack speed on your ADC 100% of the time during fights. Blood boil use is very simple use it on your ADC unless they are not there in which case use it on which ever champ benefits from the attack speed the most. In lane this will help you trade a lot.

Max out [Blood Boil] Third

• Blood boil can be used on minions too so you can use it on a cannon minion to push a lane.
• Blood boil with always be cast on you even when you target another person with it. If you target yourself the nearest ally is given the buff so it is best to always use it on the person who benefits from it the most even when the intent is to blood boil yourself.
  

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Ice Blast: Ice ball is Nunu's primary form of both CC and poke. In lane you will be using it a lot to both poke the enemy, as it does good damage on a low cooldown early game, and slows enemies for an engage or disengage. Iceball also offers a -25% attack speed debuff to whoever is hit by it so ice balling the enemy ADC after blood boiling your own may easily win you a fight that would be other wise impossible simply by creating that huge 50 - 70% attack speed gap.

Max out [Ice Blast] Second

• Iceball's damage falls off very hard so you should normally only use it for it's utility late game
  

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Absolute Zero: Nunu's ultimate, Absolute Zero, is a very underrated ability that can completely turn teamfights around. Early game this ability will chunk insanely hard, doing up to 70% of an enemy squishie's health, when fully charged. Although the damage falls off late game it still does a decent damage to squishies, but the real value comes from the utility it provides. Enemies inside the absolute Zero are slowed by 50% and have their attack speed reduced at 25% so if the enemy team chooses to fight inside it they are at massive disadvantage and will likely take the ending damage as well, but if they flee with halved movement speed it will give your team a few seconds in which the enemy team is focused on fleeing not fighting, making it valuable for peeling. You should be using absolute zero after most of the enemies hard CC or silences have been used so it is not interrupted and you get the full effect.

Boots

Damage

Armour

Magic Resist

Health

Luxury

Boots of swiftness give great mobility, allowing you to traverse the map easily and thus roams as well as helping you stick to targets extremely well. This is my usual choice of boots

After the 6.11 nerf to Boots of Swiftness, Boots of Mobility are a viable choice when roaming a lot.

Ninja Tabi is best built against very AD heavy team comps that are very basic attack reliant and have a serious damage threat.

Mercury's Treads are a good purchase if the enemy team has solid AP damage and a lot of CC.

Thornmail is insanely effective against AD heavy comps, super cheap, and the damage and waveclear it gives is deceptively powerful. Thornmail is best built later in the game because it scales with your armour, thus being more effective when built after other armour items.

Great item for Nunu, the huge CDR + Mana mean you will be able to spam your abilities way more and the armor is only beaten by Thornmail. The best part of this item, however, is the passive which is incredibly strong and synergizes with your Q and Ult. Because the passive is an aura only one Frozen Heart should be built on the team. If somebody already has Frozen Heart build Thornmail instead.

Iceborn Gauntlet has very similar stats to Frozen Heart except it trades some armor and the defensive aura for great offensive power. This item is core on Nunu and is where a lot of your damage will come from.

Building Randuin's Omen is like giving the enemy ADC the middle finger. Giving armor, Crit resistance (which is a stat unique to this item) and attack speed debuff to anyone who hits you this will really lower the enemy ADCs damage to you and since there will be an ADC pretty much every game this item is useful in most games.

Dead Man's Plate gives similar stats to Randuin's Omen but it has a passive that gives mobility and CC. stacking Similarly to Luden's or Statikk shiv, the movement speed bonus on Dead Man's, combined with the brief 75% slow on your first auto, will help you roam and engage.

Sunfire Cape gives the same great stats that Dead Man's Plate does, except with a better passive that will give you a huge amount of damage. This extremely useful in both teamfighting and clearing waves.

Offering more magic resistance than any other item in the game, Banshee's Veil is invaluable against teams with heavy magic damage and is often very beneficial late game. The spell shield can also save you from some devastating abilities that would otherwise cause certain death.

Abyssal Scepter gives a generous 60 magic resist alongside it's great damage from the AP and magic resistance reduction aura. The more AP members of your team there are, the more effective Abyssal scepter becomes. This also a good item to take versus an AP heavy team when you need damage.

Spirit Visage is going to be your core magic resistance item, as it not only gives a lot of magi resistance, but also increase all healing received by 25%, which applies to consume. This will be build in any game that their are magic damage opponents.

The aura on Locket on the Iron Solari is invaluable versus AP threats and the AoE shields is insanely useful in teamfights. This item should normally be built by the support but you never know in solo queue. If you ask your support to buy a Locket of the Iron Solari and they still won't build it, they you should take on the burden.

Banner of Command has the same team oriented Aura as Locket of the Iron Solari, But loses a little health to give you some extra AP. Banner gives some magic resist and damage plus the aura helps a lot in teamfights. The active makes it a good choice when splitpushing is necessary.

Another great item for splitpushing is Zz'rot Portal. The active allows you to push waves and destroy turrets even faster than Banner of Command. But splitpushing aside, Zz'rot portal's mixed resistances make it a good item against teams with significant AP and AD. The point runner passive also gives a lot of mobility.

Similar to Zz'rot Portal, Guardian Angel has both armor and magic resist making it a great choice against teams of mixed damage. It is usually better to buy Zz'rot Portal, but if you find yourself quickly dying in fights even with all your tank items, Guardian Angel will be your best friend.

Righteous Glory gives a great amount Health, but the main appeal of it is that the active is super useful for engaging fights. Although you can get the speed and 1 man slow from Dead Man's Plate, or the AoE slow from Randuin's Omen, Their engages aren't as good as Righteous Glory's. It's also a better choice when the enemy team has no AD other than their ADC.

Warmog's Armor gives an absolutely massive amount of health, but no resistances at all. You also get some insane health regeneration outside combat which allows you to basically never have to recall late game other than to buy items. Warmog's is best bought when the enemy has a lot of one type of damage and you have stacked your Armor or Magic Resistance to 250 - 300 then you wanna get health over more resistances and when it comes to health nothing beats Warmog's Armor

Liandry's torment is generally my go to AP item. This should be built when your team is either in desperate need of damage, or you are really fed and can afford to buy AP. This gives some HP too so it's less of a luxury item when compared to other AP items.

Lich Bane's proc synergizes well with Nunu's playstyle of spamming Ice Blast while auto attacking but it is a very luxurious item as it should be built with another AP item meaning you should be very fed when purchasing this item

If you're running around chunking enemies with your ice blast because you are fed, then chances are the enemy will start to stack magic resist in order to survive. This is when you build Void Staff so you can keep up the slaughter.

This is the most luxurious item you can buy. It is only to be purchased when you are completely steamrolling the enemy into oblivion. If you are stomping lane consider building dark seal to get some early stacks, so if you end up being fed to the point of godhood you can upgrade to Mejai's Soulstealer and if you don't get fed it isn't the end of the world because Dark Seal is only 350 gold

The One Nunu Is an amazing Nunu player and a nice guy who has helped me a lot with building and playing Nunu.

Soultran Is a diamond 1 player who is the best Nunu player in the world, currently ranked at #1 worldwide on lolskill. I have learned a lot about both Nunu and the game in general by watching his stream which can be found at https://www.twitch.tv/soultran

jhoijhoi Helped a ton with the coding and formatting of this guide and it wouldn't be as nice to look at without that help. Her profile can be found here http://www.mobafire.com/profile/jhoijhoi-52504