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Recommended Items
Runes: Gold Generation
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Cleanse
Flash
Items
Threats & Synergies
Xayah
Xayah is easily the hardest ADC matchup for Nilah. She can zone you with her feathers and deny your engage with her R. Your best bet is honestly just to ban her.
Taric
Taric is one of the best supports for Nilah. You are an unstoppable army of two, and can withstand and counter any engage. His heal makes surviving lane a lot easier too.
Taric
Taric is one of the best supports for Nilah. You are an unstoppable army of two, and can withstand and counter any engage. His heal makes surviving lane a lot easier too.
Champion Build Guide




Whenever a nearby allied champion uses an ability to heal or shield either Nilah or themselves, both they and Nilah receive a bonus amount equal to 7.5% of the healing or 15% of the shielding after a 0.5-second delay. Bonus shielding lasts as long as the shield that triggered the effect, up to a maximum duration of 4 seconds.
Nilah's passive does wonders for her laning potential. It allows you to create XP leads even while having to give up minions, as long as you manage to farm safely. This passive allows you to reach level 2 from the first 2 melee minions from the second wave, rather than the first 3. It also means you get level 3 from the first cannon minion, provided you are last hitting well. Nilah's passive also enhances the healing and shielding she receives from allies, making enchanters more powerful in lane.
Passive: Nilah gains armour penetration and post-mitigation healing from her basic attacks and Formless Blade based on her critical strike chance. Healing at full health is converted into a shield.
Active: Nilah cracks her whip-blade in a line, dealing damage to enemies hit. Hitting an enemy grants nilah attack speed, attack range, and causes her basic attacks to strike in a cone for 4 seconds.
Things to note!: This ability's damage, both base and AD ratio, increase by 12% for every 10% crit chance Nilah has, up to 120% bonus damage. This ability can hit structures, and applies life steal to the first target hit. You can also cast


This is your primary way of farming minions in lane, and your primary way of dealing damage in fights, alongside basic attacks. Both the initial Q and the cone attacks are great for pushing waves fast, and the Q does massive damage to turrets. You can also use

Nilah envelops herself in mist for 2.25 seconds, becoming ghosted, gaining movement speed, reducing magic damage taken by 25%, and dodging all non-turret basic attacks.
Touching an allied champion will grant them the same effects for 1.5 seconds.
Things to note!: Jubilant Veil cannot be cast during the animations of







Nilah dashes towards a target, dealing damage to enemies she passes through. Nilah can hold a maximum of 2 charges of






Things to note!:


This ability is the key to following up on your team's engages, and escaping from danger. Always remember that you can dash to allies, including your own minions, which can be very handy to escape ganks! The dash can pass through units, which can be quite useful for dodging skillshots or CC, such as

Nilah whirls her whip-blade, dealing damage to nearby enemies over 1 second and applying a 10% slow on each hit. She then deals a burst of damage and pulls hit enemies 250 units towards her.
Nilah heals herself and nearby allied champions for 20% of the post-mitigation damage dealt to champions, converting healing beyond full health into a shield.
During the cast time, Nilah is unable to attack or cast other abilities, excluding

Things to note!: The healing from


Nilah's ultimate is a fantastic teamfighting tool, allowing you to deal massive damage, heal yourself and allies, and group enemies up for


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![]() If you want more sustain and some HP, ![]() ![]() If the enemy team has tons of CC that you're worried about, feel free to take ![]() |
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First Item Choices- |
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Galeforce is your go to mythic option. It gives fantastic stats for Nilah, and the active works wonders both offensively, for catching and killing carries, and defensively, allowing you to dodge skillshots. The active can also be used during ![]() |
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Essence Reaver is a powerful and aggressive first item. You make good use of the sheen passive, it eliminates any concern of mana costs, and it is extremely affordable with a nice build path. A good purchase if you have a support that's great at catching and you think you can delay ![]() |
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With the dash on ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Ghostblade was the go to lethality item on 13.10, but it has been nerfed quite heavily in 13.11. A Ghostblade build will begin to outdamage an ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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An item absent in my guide so far that you might see many players build is Ravenous Hydra. After patch 12.22, Ravenous Hydra was a fantastic item for Nilah, but since it's nerf I don't think it's worth building anymore. While it does have a good build path and tons of damage, Nilah's AOE damage is already great, the life steal and ability haste can be built very viably in ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Crit Mythics- |
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In the current state of the game, I would advise you not to build either of the crit mythics. In my experience, fights are generally a lot shorter, and champions are a lot burstier, meaning it is difficult to actually get value from these mythics. On top of that, the opportunity cost is too great to build these items; Nilah benefits much more from the potentially life saving mobility of ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Shoe Shopping- |
| Berserker's Greaves are great boots for any ADC. If you either find yourself wanting more attack speed, or have no reason to purchase boots for defensive reasons, this is a very easy purchase. |
| Mercury's Treads are best purchased against comps with lots of CC or lots of magic damage. Tenacity is a very helpful stat to have on Nilah. Remember not to buy Treads to deal with knockups!. |
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Plated Steelcaps are a great purchase if you ever think you're taking too much damage from autos, even when using ![]() |
More Crit- |
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In 13.10, The Collector received 6 more lethality, meaning it is the best second item to build if you're looking for pure damage. It is similar to ![]() ![]() |
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Essence Reaver can still be a great purchase as a second item; although it does less damage than ![]() ![]() |
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Lord Dominik's is a good item on Nilah because it enables you to stack armor penetration with the passive from ![]() ![]() |
| Immortal Shieldbow remains a reliable anti-burst item even after its change, and it is one of the two best ways to incorporate lifesteal into your build. Unfortunately, the passive shield doesn't start scaling until level 12, so building it early probably isn't the best idea. |
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Bloodthirster is the more aggressive option for life steal with its new passive that grants attack damage while above half health. Similarly to ![]() |
Situational Items- |
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Mortal Reminder also only grants 30% armor penetration and stacks identically to ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Guardian Angel is a staple defensive item for ADCs, and even allows Nilah to look for a play with ![]() ![]() |
| Always remember: Nilah is a melee champion, and benefits from melee item modifiers, making Death's Dance incredible on her. Taking 30% of burst damage as damage over time, combined with her sustain, gives you a window to fight back, and can make you borderline unkillable at times. |
| Wit's End is the item to build if you need survivability against AP threats, but don't want to compromise on damage. The movement speed is nice too. |
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Alternatively, if you haven't built ![]() ![]() |
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Mercurial Scimitar is practically mandatory if the enemy team has a ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Tanky Alternatives- |
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Randuin's Omen can be a good purchase if the enemy team has multiple crit users, such as ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
| Force of Nature was quite harshly nerfed in 13.10, so if you need magic resistance I'd recommend the two in the section above, but the option is always there. Both the magic resistance and movement speed are great to have. |
| Honestly, Spirit Visage isn't very good, but it can be a funny purchase if you've itemised lots of sustain and have an enchanter or 2 on your team. |
Matchups
Nilah's matchups usually involve being poked to some degree, but what makes the matchups easy or hard is their vulnerability to retaliation. You can protect yourself from poke through positioning and experience, and you will eventually learn when you can safely farms minions. Easy matchups are ones where the enemy bot is short range or immobile, whereas the harder matchups involve long range, high mobility, or constant poke.
The Easy Matchups
Examples:





The easy matchups consist of a lot of immobile, auto attack based champions such as









Against





The Even Matchups
Examples:




The even matchups all have long range and potential poke, but are all extremely immobile, with the exception of




Against






















Lane Bullies
Examples:




The champions above all enjoy using their early game advantages over you and attempting to kill you before level 3. You will have to give up CS to preserve your health, but make sure you are in XP range. You will not hit level 2 first, but you may be able to get level 3 before them. Supports with CC will do wonders in creating kill pressure. If you leave laning phase with the same amount of gold as your opponent, you should have no problem dealing with them. Just remember to respect their strong early power.











Early game












The Hard Matchups
Examples:




These champions pose the biggest challenge for Nilah, as they all have good laning capabilities and great late game. They excel at staying at range and zoning you from CS, making it difficult to create leads. Engage supports or ganks from your jungler are your best bet.























Thankfully,
















Non-Marksman


The two most popular mage bot laners right now are






Support Matchups
Nilah is a very support dependant champion, and you should be mindful of the champion your support picks. Thankfully, Nilah works very well with both enchanters and tanky engage supports; the only bad supports to pick with her are mages. You should also keep in mind the enemy bot lane's comp, and think about how you can expect to interact with them.

Enchanters





When playing with enchanters, most of the time it's up to you to take advantage of bad positioning or long cooldowns from your lane opponents. They take a lot of pressure off of laning with their healing and shielding, and use their range to make space for you to collect minions. Abilities such as






Engage Supports





Engage supports sacrifice the range of enchanters for all-in power, so be mindful of preserving your HP to allow safe engages. All hook supports are pretty good with Nilah, as they can lock enemies down and allow Nilah to move into range, potentially letting her save













Laning Safely
In the matchups section, I used a few different ideas, sometimes phrased differently. "Preserve your HP", "Farm safely", "Stay in XP range" and such. I'll do my best to explain in detail what I mean with these phrases. It may be obvious to some of you reading, but I'm going over it anyway just in case!
Miss Gold, Not XP
Sometimes, you'll go into lane as Nilah, and your lane opponent either won't poke you, or won't have the means to poke you consistently due to the champions they've picked. In that case: perfect! Laning should be easy at that point.
But maybe the enemy bot lane have picked a long range or aggressive marksman and a support that's good at poking;


Preserve your HP!
This one is obvious; if you don't die, the enemy doesn't get kills! But preserving your HP in these kinds of lanes is (again, obvious) the most important thing, because it means that when you can walk up to collect CS, the enemy bot can't blow you up. What is the most effective and consistent way to preserve your HP?
Farm Safely!
The obvious way to farm safely is with


Farming safely requires you to look at the positions of the enemy bot laners. It's very likely that Draven is standing in the minion wave, ready to last hit, and Karma might be standing in the middle bush. Karma will try to harass you if you walk up to last hit, and Draven will do the same, provided he has no minions of his own to kill. If you are having lots of trouble farming minions, remember the next point:
Stay In XP Range!
This point is very valuable to remember as Nilah, because of how

- In a duo lane, when a minion dies, each of you gains 61.05% of the experience you would have gained if you were solo.
- When you kill a minion,
Joy Unending grants you and your ally 50% of the experience you would have lost for sharing (that's 19.475% more xp!)
- This means that every minion you last hit gives you AND your lane partner a total of 80.525% experience!
- Roughly speaking, every 3-4 minions you last hit with your lane partner nearby gives you 1 minion worth of XP more than your lane opponent!
- You can also think of this as each minion you last hit giving your bot lane 1.319x the experience the enemy bot lane would receive for killing the same minion!
What does this mean in a practical sense? It means with good last hitting, you can hit level 2 from after 2 melee minions from the second wave, rather than 3. You can also hit level 3 after killing the cannon minion from the third wave.
Respect the Damage!
Now imagine, instead of respecting the enemy bot lane's damage and giving up CS in favour of XP and HP, at around 3:00 into the game, you walk up at the wrong time, and Draven is able to kill you. Assuming that's first blood, you've just given him 400 gold for the kill, probably around 120 gold from




Now, think about the alternate scenario: You respect the enemy botlane's damage, and sit back in XP range, only last hitting with

- You can try to focus the wave and surprise them with how quickly you can hit level 3
- You could also call for a jungle gank if they are nearby






What if I get dove?
There will be times when the wave crashes into your turret, and the enemy jungler comes in for a dive. If you have seen them early enough on a ward or you have tracked their pathing, the best course of action is to give the wave. It hurts, but it's better than giving kills.
If you haven't seen them early enough and can't avoid the dive, your only option is to try and outplay it. Against on hit junglers, such as










In a Nutshell!
In the early lane against tough matchups, prioritise your health above all. Do your best to last hit when you think you'll take minimal damage, and make sure to stay in xp range when possible; move in and out as minions die if you have to. This way, if you fall behind in gold, you will be even or ahead in XP, and with decent amounts of health, you can level up when they don't expect it and turn it into a surprise engage.
The early laning phase can make or break Nilah, as you are very weak at level 1. Levelling and gaining access to


Mid and Late Game
After laning phase has ended, you should look to rotate to mid lane and continue farming. Nilah benefits greatly from purchasing crit chance, so your items 1-4 should give you some, unless there is a defensive item you can build that you think would be perfect against the enemy team.




Taking Objectives



You should also be mindful of your vision when looking to take towers. If you have no minion wave approaching,



Focus on Positioning!
The most important thing to remember on Nilah is that although you are melee, you are not a tank or a bruiser! Whilst you may feel tempted to stand near the frontline because you are melee, this is how you die fast! In the mid game, it is up to the bulkier champions on your team to initiate fights; you should be positioned to follow up, not to start them. Let your frontline face check for you and clear the way towards objectives.
Your role in fights is using






If you find the enemy carries near a minion wave and your team is nearby, you can engage on them by using


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BUGS! |
Normally, the shield you receive from ![]() ![]() |
Hitting an enemy champion with ![]() |
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Changelog
If the guide was updated recently with no additions to the change log, it was probably a change to grammar or spelling.
05/04/2023 Patch 13.7 - Added


20/04/2023 Patch 13.8 - Updated the Intro, Senna's synergy entry, and added sections to the items section for


28/04/2023 - Added op.gg of my account.
22/05/2023 Patch 13.10 - Updated item builds, item explanations, and added


23/05/2023 - Added some explanation as to how


01/06/2023 Patch 13.11 - Replaced Ghostblade with Eclipse in item builds and explanations to reflect the nerfs it received.
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