Welcome to my Nilah Guide!
I published this Guide at July 14th with the release of Nilah and i will constantly updating it. I am hyped for Nilah Release since quite a while and we got a sivir rework on top so thats a lot of fresh air on the botlane within the next weeks.

I am going to give you my first expressions on this champ aswell as some tips i figured out.

If you find any Information missing thats worth mentioning or you have a different opinion on my build let me know in the feedback section, i highly appreciate feedback.

Passive: Joy Unending
Nilah amplifies the healing and shielding abilities of nearby allies. Allies that heal or shield Nilah gain a bonus heal or shield for themselves. And when an allied champion heals or shields themselves near Nilah, she gives herself a bonus heal or shield.

If Nilah last hits an enemy minion, she and her nearest allied champion will gain the normal amount of shared experience, plus half of the experience that would have been lost due to sharing.

Q: Formless Blade
Active: Nilah’s Formless Blade strikes in a line, damaging all enemies hit. Hitting an enemy will briefly increase Nilah’s attack range and attack speed and empower her basic attacks, causing them to splash in a cone and deal additional damage.

Passive: Attacks and ability damage against champions ignore some of their armor and heal Nilah for part of the damage dealt. This effect scales with crit chance and converts any excess healing into a shield.

W: Jubilant Veil
Nilah shrouds herself in a Jubilant Veil and briefly gains bonus move speed, takes reduced magic damage, and dodges all incoming basic attacks.

Touching an ally champion hides them in the veil as well, but they’ll be protected for a shorter period.

E: Slipstream
Slipstream lets Nilah dash through a target unit, traveling a fixed distance every time and damaging all enemies she passes through. She can store up to 2 charges at once.

Cast Formless Blade during Slipstream to pull a wave in your path, dealing damage after a quick delay and granting Formless Blade's enhanced basic attack effect.

R: Apotheosis
Nilah unleashes a surge of power, lashes her whip in an area around her and, with a final burst, pulls enemies in toward the center.

Apotheosis heals Nilah for part of the damage dealt, converting any excess healing into a shield. This effect scales with crit chance and is granted to nearby allies.

I really think that Lethal Tempo once again is by far the best rune on Nilah. You have build in Lifesteal, so Fleet Footwork doesnt change a lot in your laning phase anyway and for Conqueror fights might take too long to stack it. Also your low attack range might be a problem, so it can't never hurt to increase it.
Presence of Mind is way too strong not to use it in my opinion too.
Legend: Bloodline will solve the range issues by granting you additional sustain while laning and Coup de Grace adds some damage to your kit, while its the most generic Option in that row. If you feel like you have to play against a very tanky team, options like Cut Down might be playable aswell.

Nilah's Strenghts isnt in early game, so i highly recommend to go in Inspiration tree second and safe some gold by choosing Magical Footwear and Biscuit Delivery. That allows you to scale faster and adds additional sustain.

Nilah has built in Lifesteal and armor penetration after stacking some critical strike chance in her Kit aswell as the ability to overheal naturally. That doesnt mean you can completely ignore building Lifesteal and Armor penetration for the rest of the game, but if you feel like you will have a comfortable laning phase, i highly recommend to rush Kraken Slayer for the highest DPS and Immortal Shieldbow for problematic poke heavy lanes. (remember it doesnt work with Maw of Malmortius

Galeforce is the worst of these 3 items in my honest opinion, since you have more than enough Tools to survive in Nilah's kit. (2 Dashes, healing, overheal, lifesteal, and a spellshield)

The next best items to maximize your damage outcome will be Phantom Dancer Infinity Edge while IE might be better after Patch 13.1b. Items like Death's Dance or Maw of Malmortius offer more survivability while The Collector is still a fine damage boosting item, even though i feel like it got powercrept a bit.

a 100% Crit combined with Lord Dominik's Regards allows you to hit almost 70% armor penetration which is crucial against tanks, especially against Champs like Rammus or Malphite.

More situational Items like Heal reduce ( Mortal Reminder) or Guardian Angel require more testing, but aren't bad in general.

- Nilah works best with Supporters that have either Healing, Shields or both. Check out the Synergies section for further information, but keep that in mind if you are not sure if you want to pick her or now.
- Never fight when your Q isnt active. You are literally a melee Champ else.
- You can combine Q and your Dash, try that out in Practise mode before you jump in a ranked because it feels unfamiliar if you are new to nilah.
- Try to walk through your teammates when you activate your spell shield if you feel like you can save them, because you can protect them from very high ranged attacks with 1000+ Range coming from champs like Aphelios or Caitlyn. Try to walk through them as late as possible so the duration of the ability is higher.
- You cannot dash while using your ultimate. Fancy stuff like Dash in with 1 charge, and killing them while dashing out again doesnt work, you have to engage very organized if you go melee.
- Remember that you can safe your teammates from dying by healing them with your ultimate. That doesnt mean you should always play super risky and take every fight, but you atleast have the option to.
- If you snowball, you can snowball even harder with a nilah lane, because of the EXP Passive. Thats a very broken mechanic, so not only you will be a lot stronger compared to other adc's, but your support aswell. Situations like a level 6 zed roaming to bot killing 1 or 2 level 4 botlaners arent that common anymore if you pilot her correctly.
- Your early game isnt the strongest, try to avoid the important damage sources like caitlyn headshots or jhins fourth auto attack with your spellshield, as well as important things like twisted fate golden card. Do not use it to initiate irrelevant trades.
- Use your environment. If the situation is given and you can pull your enemies into Teemo Shrooms, Gangplank barrels, or prepare an amazing teamfight winning ultimate for Qiyana, feel free to engage and enable your team. If you are lucky (or fed) enough, you might survive and win the teamfight by your own.

++ Bonus EXP that allows you and your support to compete with solo laners if your lane goes well
+ Life steal, Overheal and armor pen built in
+ Spellshield that dodges auto attacks
+ Super strong late game
+ The ability to initiate teamfights as an adc
+ 2 Dashes. Thats pretty amazing


-- Low attack range
- Weak early game
- Hard times against fed enemies because your Ultimate ability forces you to go melee.
- Long cooldowns if you accidently wasted every ability

Nilah is a great addition to the botlane, especially for ADC Mains like me.
Her kit offers a ton of unique mechanics and finally we have an adc except samira that wants to go melee vs the entire team if the situation is given.
Her laning and attack range might not be the most fun thing to play, but if you start snowballing i can imagine it is pretty rewarding gameplay.

If you enjoyed my guide, i would appreciate a Vote, also if you want to see more of my content check out my Other ADC Guides or my Youtube Channel.

Here are Links to my other guides:

Jinx
Caitlyn
Ezreal
Xayah
Miss Fortune
Draven
Ashe
Jhin
Kalista
Kog'Maw
Sivir
Lucian
Tristana
Twitch
Varus
Kaisa
Zeri
Samira
Aphelios
Senna
Vayne