After randomly picking Nunu & Willump Support (for the lolz) in a Normal Draft with friends and trying the new reworked "Stoneborn Pact" and Passive Ability, and having had great success in some Flex Queue games, I decided to create a guide for this Playstyle.

Please consider that this is my first guide on the Mobafire Network, and I partly got inspired to do this after I got matched with Vapora Dark on his smurf (?) in my team, with him playing Twitch. Since I enjoyed playing Twitch in Solo Queue for some time, and Vapora Dark played really good in that game, I asked him for tips and he sent me a link to his guide on Mobafire. I had been using Mobafire occasionally for several years of playing League, so now I wanted to create a guide myself.

I chose to create a guide on Nunu & Willump Support because it's something special. There are millions of guides for often played champions like Yasuo, Vayne, Syndra and so on out there, but how often have you seen someone play Nunu & Willump Support recently? It's fun to play, effective and in my opinion a legit pick.

Have fun reading this guide and maybe even trying it out in some normal games! Feel free to leave comments and ask questions. (Don't expect anything really fancy, I'm not experienced in BB Codes)

If you read the 7.7 patch notes you might have stumbled upon the changes on Nunu & Willump:

Base stats

-BASE HEALTH: 598.28 ⇒ 575
-BASE HEALTH REGEN: 8.4 per 5 seconds ⇒ 7 per 5 seconds

UPDATED: Passive - Visionary

NEW: I CAN GO BEYOND: Nunu & Willump's next ability is upgraded by 1 rank:

Consume: +160 damage and +50 healing (Rank 6: 1140 damage and 300 healing)
Blood Boil: +1% movement speed and +5% attack speed (Rank 6: 13% movement speed and 50% attack speed)
Ice Blast: +40 damage and +5% movement speed slow (Rank 6: 280 damage and 65% movement speed slow)
Absolute Zero: +250 maximum damage (Rank 4: 1375 maximum damage)

Q - Consume

-DAMAGE DEALT: 400/550/700/850/1000 ⇒ 340/500/660/820/980/1140
-HEALING: 70/115/160/205/250 ⇒ 50/100/150/200/250/300

This makes playing him Support quite good (ignoring his increase in the Jungle), especially with the addition of Stoneborn Pact in Patch 7.5:

NEW: Stoneborn Pact

-Bond of Stone replaced with Stoneborn Pact. Allies heal when attacking enemies you’ve marked with movement-impairing effects.

-NEW: STONE SKIN: Gain 5% maximum health
-NEW: HEY, LISTEN: Your movement impairing effects effects mark enemy champions with an earthen rune that heals other allied champions who basic-attack them for 5 (+2.5% of your maximum health) over 2 seconds. The mark lasts 4 seconds.

This brought picks like Ashe Support, which works similar to this playstyle, but is a ranged Champion and rather squishy. Nunu & Willump is tankier, but still deals good damage and has the ability to heal the entire team in teamfights if you use your Ult at the right moment. This is exactly the reason why I am writing this guide though. The idea behind Ashe Support was really interesting in my opinion and led me to try this pick to begin with.

On top of that, Nunu's abilities also have some advantages over Ashe's. I will explain further below.

Like said above, Stoneborn Pact is the Key to this Playstyle.

The rest of your masteries should focus on Defensive stats, but depending on your playstyle they can vary. The masteries above are solely a suggestion, which I personally use.
You can vary a lot of the skill points individually, take what you feel suitable for yourself. :)


The same actually goes for the Runes: I take AP, some defense and a little Utility. If you use other Runes, which you use for Supporting, go ahead. As long as they have some Tankiness in them you'll be fine! Like the masteries, this is just an example.

For further information on the Skill Order: Read the notes at the top of the build!

(Hold your Mouse on the Ability to see the exact Description)

(P) Visionary

This is the reworked passive ability, see the chapter Why Nunu, why Stoneborn Pact? for more Details.
TL;DR: Autoattack 5 times to make your next ability more effective and cost no mana.
->Use your passive to poke enemies by casting empowered E's on enemies. Prepare it for ganks so you get the most out of it.

(Q) Consume

Riot adjusted the True Damage and Healing on this ability, slightly buffing it later in the game. You would use it in the Jungle, but it's not that important as Support.
TL;DR: Eat a minion to heal some HP and deal true damage. If you consume a Jungle Monster or Epic monster (You don't have to kill it!) you will get a Stack of Well-Fed. Each Stack gives +2% max HP, increased size and 10 movement speed out of combat.
->Use this ability to leash your Jungle at Red Buff and to heal some HP when poked in Lane. If you're really good, you can use it to steal Drake or Baron (like me :^D ) Play Video

(W) Blood Boil

TL;DR: This ability gives you (and) an ally champion a buff on movement speed and attack speed.
->This helps your ADC in lane and in fights and synnergizes well with Ardent Censer! Use it to engage or disengage fights. It is a simple but universal and helpful ability.

(E) Ice Blast

TL;DR: This ability does a moderate amount of damage, slows enemies and reduces their attack speed.
->You will probably max this ability first, as it annoys the enemy ADC very much. Compare it with the older Exhaust Summoner Spell. ADCs that require high attackspeed can be shut-down by this really good. It's also handy for chasing enemies down, with the ~4s cooldown (or lower) that it has late game!

(R) Absolute Zero

TL;DR: Nunu's Ultimate is real good for teamfights (if you manage to time it well ->wait for the enemies to use their CC or just run in & hope for the best; they will have to focus their damage and CC on you, so your teammates can engage or disengage). It does massive damage after a rather long channel duration. Can also be used when baiting into bushes.

eye of the equinox

This is pretty easily understandable. Lots of HP, some CDR/HP regeneration and Gold Income.

As said in the Notes to the items, this item can be skipped. Building it (if the game is going OK and you don't need some Armor/Magic Resist items as fast as possible) is quite good though since it grants you lots of HP, Mana and AP for your abilities.

This item can also be left out if your team doesn't fit to it (not many auto-attacking champions/weak ADC/too many mages) or if you need more tank items fast. If you want to buff your ADC even more, you can get this item for him/her though. It grants attackspeed, magic damage on-hit and HP-drain, making it a really strong item combined with the cheap price of 2300 gold.

These items are super effective against AD teams, especially with a lot of attack-speed champions, as both of them reduce enemy's attackspeed by 15%. Their purchase order depends on what you prefer for your own playstyle or what suits your team better (if a teammate already has a Frozen Heart you might consider only buying Randuin's Omen)

These boots are really cost-efficient at the moment. If the enemy team has a few AD champions it's almost always worth buying these. The autoattack damage reduction is super strong. If they enemy team rather has AP champions, consider buying Mercury's Treads.

"Swappable" Items

If you don't need Frozen Heart or Randuin's Omen or you have one of those items, but don't need the other, consider buying one of these. Don't buy too many armor items, since they get less efficient the more armor you have. 170 Armor is the point, where you should stop buying more though (unless it's worth it -> enemy team doesn't have much magic damage, so you don't need MR).

These items grant a lot of AP, again strengthening your Stoneborn Pact and helping your team (heal and chase). If you have problems chasing down enemy carries, Turbo Chemtank helps, enabling you to throw more Ice Blasts (more mana) and giving you movement speed (and a slow at the end).

Magic Resist items, if the enemy team does too much magic damage for you to deal with. Spirit Visage synergizes well with your Q- Consume to eat minions and heal HP; Abyssal Mask makes your team deal more magic damage, while granting you more MR and AP.

You can buy these items if the game is going really well and you feel confident enoguh to buy them, and you feel that you'll still win. Hextech Rocketbelt is a fun item to use when trying to place yourself in the middle of the enemy team while dealing damage or helping you catch up with enemies to throw your E- Ice Blast. Liandry's Torment helps you deal damage against enemies with a lot of HP and/or a little Magic Resist. It goes well with your E- Ice Blast which doubles the burn damage by slowing the enemy hit. Magic Penetration is generally strong on support-ish champions.

If you're having trouble keeping your ADC alive, consider buying this item. It is relatively cost-efficient - you get more Armor/MR; take a portion of the damage your ADC would get yourself; and heal for a portion of the damage your ADC deals.

Buy this item if you feel the need to. If the enemy team has a lot of auto-attacking champions and you want to reflect some of the damage. Do watch out that you have enough HP to compensate the damage that still comes through though!

Like I said in the Build Notes; I have not had the possibility to test this item yet and am not sure, whether it works. If you try it out, feel free to let me know. In theory this item should be fun to use though.

Skills

Don't forget to use your Q- Consume to "eat" jungle creeps from time to time. This will grant you great HP and Movement Speed buffs. Remember: You don't have to kill the jungle creep to get the stack, you just have to take a bite from it!

Teamwork

If the enemies are grouped, try to use your E- Ice Blast on the enemy AP/AD Carry and get your R- Absolute Zero into the enemy team. You don't have to activate it to deal the damage, although it is useful, the initial cast already slows the enemies, activating Stoneborn Pact .

This is it for now!

I will keep this guide updated, the more I learn about lane matchups and so on. Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, recommend this guide to friends and even try this playstyle. I would suggest giving it a go in a normal game before taking it to ranked though. Some people occasionally see this pick as a troll pick. They will be amazed.

Good luck in game and have fun!

-CS

This section refers to a question asked about this guide, which I thought might be good adding right here:


I think I understand why you would want to replace Rod of Ages with Rylai's Crystal Scepter. With the nerf on Rylai's Crystal Scepter a couple of patches ago, the item was enhanced for supports: reducing the total cost, as well as the stats it gave. While Mid Laners may want to buy other items instead of Rylai's Crystal Scepter now, Supports like Zyra, Brand or Lux (to name a few) do profit a lot from the item. It still grants a lot of HP and AP, but the slow was also reduced to 20% for 1s on every spell.
(But Rod of Ages was changed too, quite a while ago, similar to how Rylai's Crystal Scepter was changed.)

But let's compare Rod of Ages with Rylai's Crystal Scepter:

Rod of Ages -> Cost: 2700g + 60 Ability Power + 300 Health + 300 Mana + Passive: TL;DR: Grants mana for taking damage from champions; Restores HP for spending mana.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter -> Cost: 2600g + 75 AP + 300 HP + Passive: TL;DR: Damaging abilities slow enemy's movement speed by 20% for 1 second.

And now I can try to explain why Rod of Ages would work better, maybe not on all Supports, but on Nunu:

First of all, the 100g difference in cost can be ignored, it's not really that much. What's more important is, that while Rod of Ages isn't that great initially, it is a super item later (after the 10minutes stacking time):
Rylai's grants the same amount of HP (300), but a little bit more AP (+15) in the beginning. It does not grant Mana though (which you kind of need to poke in lane, and for longer fights later in the game)!
And that's the point. After a couple of minutes, Rod of Ages already grants better stats than Rylai's Crystal Scepter and after 10 minutes: 100 AP (25 more AP than Rylai's Crystal Scepter -> abilities are more effective), 500 HP (200 more HP than Rylai's Crystal Scepter -> Stoneborn Pact scales better, the more HP you have) and 500 Mana ( Rylai's Crystal Scepter gives no mana!).
Also: the Passive ( Eternity) from Rod of Ages makes more sense on Nunu:
Nunu already has a slow on his E- Ice Blast, which slows for 2 seconds already, making the slow from Rylai's Crystal Scepter rather unnecessary. Nunu also doesn't have another damaging ability (The Ult would have to complete the channel first -> enemies can easily run out), so Rylai's Crystal Scepter would basically only "buff" Nunu's E- Ice Blast.

So that's why Rod of Ages makes more sense on Nunu. More HP, 500 Mana and more AP (after stacking) make it more reliable for teamfights and poking.
Since you max Nunu's E- Ice Blast first, the slow already scales up to 60% at level 5 on the ability, which is already enough to catch most enemies.


You can offcourse buy Rylai's Crystal Scepter for fun, or if the game is going really good and it wouldn't matter, this explanation here does not mean that I think it is a bad item; it is in fact still very good, but in comparison, Rod of Ages beats Rylai's Crystal Scepter in my opinion.