Nunu Build Guide by kadun

Introduction

Hello everybody, and welcome to another of my mobafire guides - I've worked hard to make this guide helpful, yet compact so please leave a rating, and your thoughts on my work - Hope you enjoy! ;)

Before you move on, I would like to ask you guys a favor, please please please... Don’t just downvote my guide, give me critics, or any source of reason why you downvote at least. There's nothing worse than getting random dislikes, when you can’t do anything about it.
- Thanks! ^^

Oh, and if you play on West, just add me.. My ingame name is Kadunz - See you ingame! ^^


Oh, and before you start reading on - I would like to say this thing, which you should always remember:
Don’t just play 100% like I say in this guide, adapt to nunu, find YOUR playstyle, and what you think is best for him! ;)

Future Updates:

A Midlane/Toplane opponents chapter (How to beat them)
In-depth on each build
A Nunu Spotlight


Green = Positive that this will be done in a near future.
Orange = Not sure when it will be done, but it will come at some point!
Red = May not come at all, but i hope i'll be able to make it.

Pros / Cons

Different Builds

Summoner Spells

Runes

Masteries

The 09/21/00 build:
This is currently my main masteries because i really like being tanky and still do damage, but if you don't pick either exhaust or ghost feel free to change the point in Summoner's Wraith and put in it Mental Force

The 09/00/21 build:
This a more "magic" based build where you go for buffs to yourself etc. more exp and gold, if you know you will be underfarmed and forced out of lane, this can really help, since you doesn't need that much exp to get level and you will get some gold all time

The 21/09/00 build:
This is the super aggresive build, which i often never go with, but if you're facing really squshy people this can be a great setup + it adds some survival and ekstra start HP

Skill Sequence

[cetner]

When to max what

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You should always start by maxing out your E which are your Ice Blast since this is your damage, harrash, and slow ability, not much to argue here.
Now, when to max Q ( Consume) this is maxed for increased lane sustain or if you're getting bullied a lot which often can happen since you're melee
Then, when to max W ( Blood Boil) for laning this is actually bad, since you're not focussing on auto attacking, but last hitting, but if you're roaming a lot Blood Boil is the better choice, or if you have to support the ganks a lot you can max it, etc. a jungler without a close gap

Skills

Visionary
Passive: Every seven hits, your next casted ability will be free of charge. Great passive during the laning phase, but afterwards, I tend to ignore it because mana isn't a problem. While you are harassing with Ice Blast, Visionary really sustains you in the lane. Conflictingly, I find that this passive sucks (for laning purposes) and it forces you to auto-attack minion waves.

When you have Visionary up, know what the mana costs of your abilities are. Use your passive on your most expensive abilities, for example:
Ice Blast a little wolf (using Visionary) and then Consume the Big Wolf (just saved you 25-40 mana).

Double Visionary: "Even while you have the Visionary buff active, it still accumulates your attacks towards 7. This means if you attack exactly 13 times, you can cast for free, auto attack [once] to get the Visionary buff again, and cast again for free."

I feel as if this passive is only here to fuel the ridiculously high cost of Nunu's Ice Blast.


Consume
Q ability: Smite+Heal
Heal that keeps you full during laning phase. Consume doesn't do enough damage to kill a full life Siege Minion.

Consume can be used on minions that aren’t neutral or lane minions such as: Annie’s Summon: Tibbers, Malzahar’s Summon Voidling, Teemo’s Noxious Trap, Shaco’s Jack In The Box, and Heimerdinger’s H-28G Evolution Turret, and Sight Ward.

Cost: 60
Range: 100
Cooldown: 18(15.3 w/ 15% CDR) / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10(6 w/ 40% CDR) sec
True Damage: 500 / 600 / 700 / 800 / 900
Health Restore: 125 / 180 / 235 / 290 / 345 (+1 Health per AP)


Blood Boil
W ability: Buff
For tower beating, pushing, running, chasing, traveling. When casting, always cast it on anything that moves with a green health bar, with allied AD champions as priority because it will be the same as if you casted it on yourself anyways. Prioritize casting this on AD carries, like Master Yi or Ashe. Nunu should almost always have this buff on him for more than 90% of the game.

Right before leaving the spawning pad, be sure to activate the spell to save some mana as it will be recovered instantly.

Cost: 50
Range: 700
Cooldown: 15 (9 w/ 40% CDR) sec
Buff
Attack Speed: 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 / 65 %
Movement Speed: 11 / 12.5 / 13 / 14.5 / 15 %


Ice Blast
E ability: Main Ability
Use it to harass. Use it for last hitting (preferably only when Visionary is up).
Shoot it at chasers to get them off of your back, use it when chasing to get on theirs. Use this especially on enemy AD carries due to the generous 25% attack speed reduction. It is vital that you use this ability to hamper an enemy from chasing down your teammate. The slow effects on this ability lasts 4 seconds.

Cost: 75 / 85 / 95 / 105 / 115
Range: 550
Cooldown: 6 (3.6 w/ 40% CDR) sec
Magic Damage: 85 / 130 / 175 / 225 / 275 (+1 Damage per AP)
Movement Slow: 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 %
Attack Speed Reduction:25%


Absolute Zero
R ability: Ultimate.
First off, this ability has the highest damage to AP ratio in the game at +2.5 Damage per AP. The trade-off to this damage is the 3 second channel before you explode. During this time, the ultimate can be negated by stuns, silences, pop-ups, tosses, knock-backs, "UNIQUE active" item abilities and anything else that will make you move (that includes Flash). While this ability is channeling, enemies within the radius are slowed. Most often, if an enemy is touching you, they can't move fast enough within 3 seconds to escape the blast, but any movement buff might get them out fast enough. It is near impossible to hit any enemy with Flash, or any other kind of flash-like ability. If you can get off an Ice Blast before casting the ultimate or use Exhaust while channeling if you can see they would just get out, the enemy will be slow enough to remain within the ultimate if they are at least halfway in. If an enemy is about to exit the radius before the three second channel completes, you can prematurely detonate the blast by moving from your current position or tapping on the ability again at the cost of significantly reduced damaged.

The most practical way that you will utilize this ultimate is by Flashing(if you chose flash) into the middle of the enemy team and activating it after initiation and after the enemy has committed to the team fight. By then, the players who have saved their CC's for you will unleash it on your channeling ultimate. This allows your team to enter with less attention on them and more on you. If the enemy team can't stop your ultimate or doesn't focus you, they all lose a massive amount of health.

You should use this ability between your teamate and their enemies when your teamate is running from them. The enemy will either turn around and hopefully be caught in the blast, freeing your carry, or they can continue their pursuit and take it to the face due to the impossibility of traveling through the 41.2% slow.

The most effective/powerful use of this ability though, is to hide the ultimate by hiding in a bush so that your ultimate can't be canceled or seen by enemies. Try to have your teamates push/lure the enemy team into the bush you are hiding in. When advancing towards your bush, more often than not, enemies will not realize what is happening, remain confused, and will continue to proceed until it is too late.

Cost: 150
Range: 575 (Area of Effect)
Cooldown: 150 / 120 / 90 (54 w/ 40% CDR) sec
Magic Damage: 625 / 875 / 1125 (+2.5 Damage per AP)
Movement Slow: 41.2%
Attack Speed Slow: 25%

Items

Laning phase

Nunu are actually a decent choice as a solo top candidate, first of all they don't expect it and second his snowball deals tons of damage against squishy targets like Teemo, as solo top he can actually use his great ultimate abolosute zero to demolish any enemy walking into a bush.

If you decided to go with nunu as a solo top candidate you'll have to farm a lot (less roaming(running around on the map)therefore i would properly go with Flash + Teleport which allows you to farm at the top and teleport to objectives (Don't use Teleport to get back to lane except if you tower is under 25% and the other top hits it
You should be focusing on last hitting all the time and if the enemy is ranged try to stay in bushes and only come out of for last hit, but if the enemy is melee always harass him with a single Ice Blast to get him a bit lower than you. Nunu doesn't have a lot of kill potential

If you started Boots of Speed and 3 Health Potion which in some circumstances are better than the original Sapphire Crystal and one of each potion, then you should go back when you got around 1.400 gold +/- so you're able to get at least your catalyst, if you're getting outfarmed or out played or if you or the enemy can't kill each other you can go for the early philosopher´s stone to get some mana/health regen and some decent amount of the gold (this is only recommended if you think the game last +45 minutes, since it will slow down your core build)

If you did the original start you want to go back a bit earlier than 1.400 g (around 1000g) since you'll need to have your catalyst to be able to stay in lane all the time.

Nunu are rarely seen in the middle for some reason, but i actually think this is one of the most efficiency places for him, since his snowballs does a lot of damage to the other class canon mids these days. As a mid champ you shold still be focusing on last hitting and harassing. If your lane are pushed you should be ganking other lanes, nunu are great at this since he moves pretty fast thanks to his Blood Boil and there's nothing more dangerous than a nunu suddenly appearing from behind of the enemies and blocks the way with an well placed Absolute Zero which often takes 50-75% of the hp they got.

The great thing about Nunu is that he's able to adapt to any situations etc. having a hard time get 3 early ranks in Consume, destroying lane, keep up the good job and max Ice Blast, against an easy ganked lane get some early points into Blood Boil (( Do not max Blood Boil over Ice Blast in this situation)

If you're winning lane hard you can even go take their wraiths and Nunu does that quite well thanks to him Consume and if you're doing poorly push out lane and take your wraiths (ask jungler first)

Log

***************08-09-11**************
Added Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold under optinal items
***************13-09-11*************
Added Flash, Mejai's Soulstealer and Spirit Visage
Added Will of the Ancient, and added flash option under mastery
***************10-10-11**************
Fixed few spelling mistakes
Added logo's to Pros and Cons
***************13-11-11**************
Fixed Rabadon's Deathcap's tooltip under items
Fixed spelling mistake under Pros and Cons
***************16-11-11**************
New Mastery added due to patch
***************24-12-11**************
Edited the old masteries to give me some more survivability
***************20-01-12**************
Edited masteries to fit my playstyle more
Added more to the thanks section
Reached number 3 of the nunu guides on mobafire
Edited Laning Phase
***************31-1-12****************
Changed ghost to flash
***************03-04-12***************
Remade my guide

Thanks