Hello! I have been playing League since around season 4, and I have swapped roles and champions many times, such as Azir mid and Gangplank top. At the start of the year, I made an alt account to one trick and learn Nilah. Since then, I have hit my all time ranked peak of Master ~400lp in the first split only playing Nilah! Ideally, you might use this guide to supplement either your own experience playing Nilah, other guides you may have read, or both; I am by no means the best Nilah player out there, but I enjoy this champion a lot and wanted to share my thoughts on how to play her!

Pros → Good at creating leads/snowballing → Good scaling → Good follow up engager → Great at killing tanks → Amazing objective killing → Playmaking ultimate

Cons → Easily bullied in lane → Easily kited → Weak into poke → Not very bulky → Support dependant → Difficult to learn

Whenever Nilah kills a minion, she and the nearest allied champion gain an additional 50% of the experience they would have lost from sharing.

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 Formless Blade during Slipstream for extra damage. The ratios for the passive portion of this ability are 3.3% armour penetration and 2% healing from champions per 10% crit chance.

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 Flash during the animation to reposition the hitbox.

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 Formless Blade or Slipstream, but can be cast during Apotheosis.

Jubilant Veil is an incredibly powerful ability, and it allows you to completely negate important on hit effects, such as Headshot, and delay other abilities, such as Explosive Charge or Second Skin. You can also stack with your teammates to give them the effects, which might prevent their deaths!

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

Formless Blade can be cast during Slipstream for extra damage, and grants Formless Blade's enhanced attacks if an enemy is hit. Similarly, Apotheosis can also be cast during Slipstream for quicker engages.

Things to note!: Slipstream is an auto attack reset, allowing you to stack Conqueror very quickly.

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 Phantom Undertow.

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 Jubilant Veil, but she is able to move.

Things to note!: The healing from Apotheosis is increased by 3% per 10% crit chance, up to a total of 50% healing from damage dealt. You can also cast Galeforce during her ultimate to reposition.

Nilah's ultimate is a fantastic teamfighting tool, allowing you to deal massive damage, heal yourself and allies, and group enemies up for Formless Blade or your teammates' abilities. This ability has a level 1 cooldown of 110 seconds, meaning you can use it in lane to burn flashes and create future opportunities.

SUMMONER SPELLS - FLASH is a fantastic choice on practically every champion in the game, and Nilah is no exception. Flash can easily grant you kills if you ever need it to close the extra distance or reposition your abilities, and can save your life through dodging skillshots such as Enchanted Crystal Arrow. GHOST can be used to close distance, similar to Flash, but it also provides a way to maintain distance from champions you just barely outrange, such as bruisers. Staying on top of carries you reach is extremely easy with Ghost, and it is always worth considering. CLEANSE is another great choice for Nilah, as CC is one of your banes. Using it to cleanse spells in bot lane, like Death Sentence or Chain of Corruption, can severely strip the enemy botlane of options and make killing them much easier. In a similar fashion, you can use it to counter Exhaust and Ignite, and turn the fight that way as well. Cleanse can also work wonders against certain pick abilities later in the game, such as Sleepy Trouble Bubble. EXHAUST can be used either to deny damage from burst that you cannot counter with Jubilant Veil, or it can be used to slow the enemy carries as you engage on them. It can also be very useful to save yourself from jungle ganks or mid roams. HEAL is the old reliable spell of bot lane. It can prove very useful against longer range comps, and can help to mitigate health loss if you make a mistake. I think the previously discussed options are more useful, but don't let that stop you from taking Heal if you are more comfortable with it! You may think TELEPORT being here is odd, and that's because it is. I'm still learning how best to use it, and I only ever take Teleport if I'm confident I can win the bot 2v2 without needing any of the other summoners, or if I'm against heavy poke and could use the extra recall here and there. Teleport is great for turbo farming, and can even mitigate losses from an early death.

Nilah receives great power from building crit chance, but don't be afraid to build items that sacrifice crit chance for more survivability. Nilah is melee after all, so building tankier items isn't a bad idea in some games. She also benefits fully from melee item modifiers, so keep that in mind when choosing your build!

Building your first item on Nilah is all about assessing the trade off between damage and utility. There's a reason Collector is the most popular first item on Nilah; pure damage! The letahlity pairs nicely with the armour penetration you gain from building crit chance, and only becomes more deadly the higher your level and crit chance!

A personal favourite from patches past, Navori Quickblades has found favour amongst Nilah players again! All of Nilah's mythic options offer some form of damage and utility, and Navori is the damage option. Navori's Impermanence passive stacks amazingly with all your abilities, namely Formless Blade, and the Transcendence passive can reduce your ability cooldowns by hilarious amounts; around 50% with decent auto attacking! If you think you'll have the first strike in most or all fights, Navori Quickblades is amazing!

Galeforce is the mythic with the least damage, but the most potential utility, and previously was your go to mythic option. However, the nerf to its cooldown has caused most players to move away from it, but the item still has its uses! 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 Apotheosis to reposition. If your team is lacking in engage, or if you just need assistance reaching the enemy's backline carries, Galeforce can work wonders. The damage of the dash is nothing to scoff at either!

Eclipse is the mythic to build if you're looking for lethality, and it provides a solid middle ground in terms of damage and utility. It gives you a shield and movement speed in combat, which can be great for dueling, and its mythic passive grants armour penetration and movement speed, both of which are very nice. A build with Eclipse, The Collector, and Lord Dominik's Regards at 100% crit chance will give you 62% armour penetration and 30 Lethality, which is absolutely absurd! Eclipse is fantastic for fighting carries if you aren't relying on Galeforce to reach them. I mainly see Eclipse built by a Nilah player in NA Challenger named Enryu, so if the sound of lethality Nilah interests you, be sure to check them out!

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 ability haste and life steal can be built viably in Navori Quickblades/ Essence Reaver/ Eclipse and Immortal Shieldbow/ Bloodthirster, and you miss out on 20% crit chance, which also gives you 7% armor penetration, 4% healing from champion damage, and 24% bonus Formless Blade damage. That being said, if you think Ravenous Hydra is too appealing to ignore, I encourage you to try it! I don't think it's a bad item, I just think other options are better, but you might think different!

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!

Plated Steelcaps are a great purchase if you ever think you're taking too much damage from autos, even when using Jubilant Veil.

I used to be a big fan of Essence Reaver as a first or second item, but I've moved over to The Collector due to its raw damage. I still believe that Essence Reaver can be a good and fun early item however! It does comparable damage to Collector (provided you utilise the sheen proc), the ability haste is handy, and the mana restore is great if you're having trouble maintaing your mana. That being said, with experience you will get used to Nilah's mana costs, and at that point I think The Collector is a better item.

Lord Dominik's is a good item on Nilah because it enables you to stack armor penetration with the passive from Formless Blade. The item will only give you 27.9% armor penetration if you buy it as your first item (please don't), and each 20% crit chance will reduce the armor penetration you receive by 0.495%, down to a minimum of 20.1% at 100% crit chance. This may sound bad, but bear in mind Formless Blade is passively giving you 6.6% armor penetration per 20% crit chance, meaning having LDR at 100% crit will give you 53% armor penetration. Pair this with some lethality, and you will deal incredible damage to practically any enemy. The recent buffs to Goredrinker and Spear of Shojin also make this item a very strong choice.

Mortal Reminder also grants slightly less armor penetration than advertised and stacks identically to Lord Dominik's Regards, but it gives 5 more attack damage, making it better against squishier team comps. Lord Dominik's Regards Giant Slayer passive will give you the same damage as that 5 extra AD when the enemy you're fighting has 500 more max health than you, and will deal more damage above this threshold. The main selling point is of course greivous wounds, which can be a game changer against fed champions like Irelia, The Darkin Scythe: Rhaast, and late game enchanters like Soraka.

Immortal Shieldbow remains a reliable anti-burst item even after its change, and is the safest way to incorporate lifesteal into your build. The passive shield doesn't start scaling until level 12, so don't build it before third item at the earliest!

Bloodthirster is the more aggressive option for life steal with its new passive that grants attack damage while above 70% health. This high health threshold can be rather difficult to maintain as Nilah, so I'd suggest only building this item if you're incredibly fed and don't think you'll need Immortal Shieldbow to survive. Similarly to Immortal Shieldbow, Bloodthirster's passive doesn't start scaling until level 13, so build it later to obtain more value.

Guardian Angel is a staple defensive item for ADCs, and even allows Nilah to look for a play with Apotheosis. You can also be very difficult to kill if you revive with Jubilant Veil off cooldown.

Always remember: Nilah is a melee champion, and benefits from melee item modifiers, making Death's Dance incredible on her. Taking 30% of damage as damage over time, combined with her sustain, gives you a window to fight back and can make you borderline unkillable at times. Although Death's Dance is an armor item, the Ignore Pain passive works against ALL damage, meaning it can also assist you in surviving burst from mages!

If you haven't built Immortal Shieldbow to deal with burst, Maw of Malmortius is the best magic resistance item for Nilah. You gain the full shield from lifeline, and the lifesteal greatly increases your survivability. If the enemy has lots of magic damage that you're vulnerable to, but also has physical damage threats you can't ignore, the combination of this item and Death's Dance is amazing!

Mercurial Scimitar is practically mandatory if the enemy team has a Mordekaiser, Skarner, or Malzahar who enjoys pressing R on you. Also a great purchase if the enemy has lots of CC and you forgot Cleanse.

The Easy Matchups

Examples:

The easy matchups consist of a lot of immobile, auto attack based champions such as Twitch and Kog'Maw. Their range is respectable, but that's all they have going for them. Use Jubilant Veil to deny stacks on abilities ( Explosive Charge, Contaminate, Second Skin) and gapclose with Slipstream to burn flashes, and repeat to pressure kills. You can take advantage of your XP lead from Joy Unending during the second and third minion waves to gain a level lead and burn flashes early. You will almost certainly hit level 6 first, letting you use Apotheosis for easy kills.

Against Samira, you can attempt to use Jubilant Veil to delay stacks of her Daredevil Impulse. Even if that fails, you can use Apotheosis to interrupt Inferno Trigger.

The Even Matchups

Examples:

The even matchups all have long range and potential poke, but are all extremely immobile, with the exception of Ezreal. You will get poked away from CS if you position incorrectly, but as long as you stay in XP range you will be fine. You can always take Second Wind or Doran's Shield to make laning easier. Hitting level 2 first will be difficult, but you should still hit level 3 before them. Try to burn flashes with your level advantage to prepare for when you hit 6, and kill them with Apotheosis.

Against Varus, take Cleanse to deal with Chain of Corruption, since you can still use it against Exhaust or Ignite in fights before level 6, and do your best to farm safely and avoid poke. If Varus doesn't have Flash or his ultimate, he's an easy kill.

Aphelios always starts the game with Calibrum, the Sniper Rifle, so be careful not to get poked down. His next 2 weapons are always Gravitum, the Gravity Cannon and Infernum, the Flamethrower, so be careful not to get poked by him when he hits minions, and save a charge of Slipstream for if he roots you with Gravitum, the Gravity Cannon. Mind his weapons, and do your best not to fight him when he has Crescendum, the Chakram. If he has no Flash, he shouldn't be too hard to kill.

Jinx is a very similar story to Aphelios in that she has pretty consistent poke from level 1 with Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher. Make sure not to get hit by Zap! or Flame Chompers! and engaging on her should be no problem.

Ezreal is very difficult to reach due to Arcane Shift, but thankfully he has trouble poking you through minions, so stand behind them to preserve your hp. You might consider buying Galeforce to catch him easier, but hopefully your support can lock him down for you.

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.

Draven is a fantastic lane bully, as he can auto you for roughly 100 damage with Spinning Axe if you try to last hit the wrong minion. If you get level 3 and both you and your support have around 70%-80% of your hp, you can win fights. Make sure to block his axes with Jubilant Veil, and save a charge of Slipstream for his Stand Aside. Like almost all of the champions so far, he is extremely vulnerable without Flash. Having more gold than Draven makes him practically useless.

Jhin has good range, damage, CC, all of which can cause problems in lane. You could take Cleanse for his W, but I don't think it's life or death since it's not too hard to dodge. You can Jubilant Veil to dodge his 4th shot, but your W has a 26 second cooldown at level 1. You should be seeing a pattern here; play for xp, last hit where you can, and burn their Flash.

Early game Kalista is very squishy, but she's also quite mobile, and Rend can deal enormous amounts of damage. If you fight her before level 3 you will lose every time. Exhaust can be quite helpful to slow her down and even reduce the damage you take from Rend. Pair this with an engage support, and you can fight her quite easily from level 3 onwards. Similar to Draven, once you get a gold lead you can kill her very easily.

Lucian also has lots of early game damage, but he isn't as mobile as Kalista. Both of you spike from levels 2 and 3, so try to get an advantage if you can, and play safe if you can't. He is short range, so reaching him isn't too difficult. Exhaust can help by reducing the damage from Piercing Light and The Culling, but be careful not to tank either for no reason. Save a charge of Slipstream for Relentless Pursuit for your best chances of killing him.

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. Second Wind and Doran's Shield are reliable tools for lane survival against these champs.

Xayah is easily the most difficult marksman to play against. She has good range, amazing zoning with her feathers, and Featherstorm can save her from your engages. Your biggest chances of killing her are before level 6, but she can easily counter your engage with Bladecaller, rooting you and dealing massive damage. If she ever uses her E to clear minions, you can try to engage on her and get her Flash, but capitalising on that is still very difficult. Exhaust and Galeforce increase your odds of killing her, but not by much. I highly recommend just banning her.

Caitlyn has unrelenting poke, good terrain control with Yordle Snap Trap, and can make good distance with 90 Caliber Net. She is often paired with a long range poke support, such as Lux, so Doran's Shield, Second Wind, and even Unflinching can have massive value against her. Alternatively, you could take Cleanse for her CC, but that means giving up Ghost or Exhaust, two very useful summoner spells against her. Dodge her Piltover Peacemaker, don't step on traps, and do your best to avoid the slow from her E. The distance she gains from 90 Caliber Net is actually less than the cast range of Slipstream, meaning if you were close enough to her before she cast it, you can dash on top of her again. Galeforce is very useful for following Flash and killing her.

Thankfully, Sivir has very short attack range, meaning that getting on top of her before level 6 isn't too difficult. However, she has constant harass with Boomerang Blade and Ricochet, can block abilities with Spell Shield, and has powerful kiting with Fleet of Foot and On The Hunt. Exhaust is great for keeping her in range, just remember that she can block the pull from Apotheosis with her spell shield.

Zeri has the easiest lane out of all of the hard matchups becuase Burst Fire can't hit you through minions, and her Spark Surge doesn't take her far if she's in the middle of the lane. The problem with Zeri is her scaling and her late game. Zeri becomes uncatchable later in the game, so you should do your best to take advantage of her weak early game. Getting level 2 advantage isn't too difficult against her, and Slipstream dashes further than Spark Surge (provided it isn't used on a wall), and Jubilant Veil can block her Q. Exhaust is very useful for keeping her speed in check, and probably more valuable than Ghost.

Non-Marksman

The most popular mage bot laners right now are Karthus, Seraphine, and Swain, and all of them are nightmare lanes for Nilah. They can easily outrange you and chip away at your health bar, zoning you from the wave. These lanes mainly utilise positioning to avoid abilities, and crossing your fingers in champ select that your support will pick engage, since these mages are immobile.

Seraphine has respectable early damage, but her range is the problem. She can easily poke you off of the wave and harass you under tower, or she can stand far behind her wave and safely farm completely out of your reach. Cleanse can be extremely handy for dealing with her CC, and you should consider building Galeforce if you don't have an engage support.

Swain has annoying poke that can hit you through minions and set up for his support to combo off of. When he hits level 6, his ultimate lets him out-brawl you, so do your best to bait out his ultimate. Your best bet is to take advantage of his lack of mobility before he has his ultimate, and try to generate a lead you can snowball from. If not, you should do your best to farm and reach 3 items, at which point you might be able to beat him.

Karthus is a similar situation to Swain but with 2 key differences. The first is that he can potentially match you in fights from as early as level 2 due to his E. Aim to dodge his Q and conserve your health until a window arises where you can all in him. The second difference is that while Karthus is just as immobile as Swain, he's also a lot squishier, meaning that getting that first kill on him is a lot easier. Use Slipstream to escape his passive and dodge his Q, and don't forget to use Jubilant Veil to reduce the damage of Requiem. Try to pass it to your support as well!

Veigar's damage is rather low early game, and you can look to engage on him if his Event Horizon is on cooldown. Veigar will inveitably outscale you, and you'll have to rely on your team's help to deal with him. You can use Cleanse to ignore Event Horizon, use Slipstream to dodge Dark Matter or even Baleful Strike, and don't forget to use Jubilant Veil to reduce his burst.

Ziggs is a mage bot laner like the rest, but he doesn't share the traits that make them so strong against Nilah. He has good range, but his abilties are easy to dodge, and he doesn't have much to protect himself outside of Satchel Charge. An engage support or good positioning can make this lane much easier than the other mages.

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 Bailout and Chronoshift make engaging incredibly safe, whereas Starcall, Astral Infusion, and Ebb and Flow keep you healthy against poke. Tidecaller's Blessing is a fantastic ability for Nilah, as it gives you movespeed and adds a slow to your next 3 attacks, as well as damage.

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 Slipstream for when they attempt to escape. In particular, Rakan's Battle Dance allows both you and Rakan to follow up on each other, grouping enemies for either Grand Entrance or Apotheosis. Zac's Cell Division and Pyke's Gift of the Drowned Ones provide slight healing during lane, and both have engages that you can follow easily.

Taric is not strictly an engage champion, but he is one of the best supports to pick with Nilah. He combines an enchanter's healing, in Starlight's Touch, with great engage power through Dazzle and Cosmic Radiance. If the enemy bot is an all-in comp, you will be immortal in every fight past level 3.

One of the tricks Nilah has up her sleeve is the surprise level 2 engage. Due to Joy Unending's bonus XP, last hitting the first 8 minions will give you and your support level 2, which is 1 minion earlier than the enemy bot lane. Although Nilah's early game and laning is painful, this surprise level up can decide the lane if the enemy bot lane is unaware. Slipstream instantly grants you its 2 charges upon leveling it, and each charge does around ~66 damage at level 2. On top of this, Slipstream resets your auto attack timer, allowing you to very quickly stack Conqueror for even more damage. If your support is positioned properly, you can easily burn the enemy's summoner spells, if not kill them. Either way, you can safely farm afterwards and push the XP lead even further, which can lead to easier kills down the line!

This situation won't happen every game, but keeping a mental note of this opportunity can win you lanes, and you can even utilise it at other level spikes, such as level 3 or 6!

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;
Draven Karma for example. Now laning is very hard because of the damage that both of these champions can do to you, and if you don't repsect it and give up CS when necessary, you'll be giving free kills. Now how do you maximise your chances of winning this lane?

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 Formless Blade. Use the initial cast to last hit minions, and with enough practice you can attack minions that are high health, and use the cone damage to kill low health minions. In emergencies, you can use Jubilant Veil to protect yourself, but bear in mind the long cooldown.

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 Joy Unending works:

• 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!

If you aren't able to last hit minions but can still stand in XP range, you are able to keep up with the enemy bot lane, which is great. But if you can sneak in a last hit or two, you slowly receive more XP than they do, which can quickly catch you up if they're ahead, or even begin to create your own lead!

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 League of Draven, and chances are he's using Treasure Hunter too. Now he can finish last hitting the wave, push it under tower, and recall. With that money, he can buy Sheen, and when he comes back to lane, Spinning Axe is probably going to deal around 180 damage with the Sheen passive. Not to mention, you've just lost an entire wave's worth of XP and potential gold.

Now, think about the alternate scenario: You respect the enemy botlane's damage, and sit back in XP range, only last hitting with Formless Blade when you're sure it's safe to do so. With the wave pushing towards you, and you alive, you have some options:

• 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

If you have preserved your HP well, you can fight the enemy bot as soon as you hit level 3. Let's say your support in this lane has been Pyke. As soon as you hit level 3, Pyke can fish for hooks with Bone Skewer. If he hits, you can look to force Draven to use his Flash or potentially kill him, giving you the advantage. If Pyke misses his hook, you can both escape using Phantom Undertow and Slipstream. Gift of the Drowned Ones will heal Pyke, and you can look for another hook once it's off cooldown.

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 Wukong, Viego, Kindred, or Bel'Veth, your Jubilant Veil is extremely powerful if you time it right, especially to block abilities like Crushing Blow or Royal Maelstrom.

Jubilant Veil isn't as powerful when used against AP junglers, so you can either try to kill whoever is lowest or you can try and collect the wave. Remember that Formless Blade can be cast during Slipstream, and you can use this to clear waves quickly.

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 up and gaining access to Slipstream and Jubilant Veil brings incredible safety to your farming, and even allows you to fight certain enemy bot comps 2v2. Nilah becomes more powerful with each item purchase, especially if it grants crit chance, so remember to keep your farm up!

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. Nilah has an incredible damage spike at 3 items provided you've built either Lord Dominik's Regards or Mortal Reminder due to the ridiculous armour penetration she gains. If you're around level 12, Immortal Shieldbow's passive will begin to scale and become more valuable, and the same is true for Bloodthirster at level 13, so keep that in mind! If you see a large minion wave moving towards one of your towers and no one is on there may to collect it, move to it! Gold=items, items=damage, damage wins fights!

Taking Objectives

Formless Blade's low cooldown, high damage, and armor penetration make Nilah destory objectives quickly; even quicker if you have built Navori Quickblades. Be careful when sieging turrets, as your short range makes you vulnerable. If the enemy team has people defending their turrets from afar, the best you can do is try to hit the turret with Formless Blade. It does better damage the more items you have, but you should be careful of spells being thrown at you as you walk up.

You should also be mindful of your vision when looking to take towers. If you have no minion wave approaching, Slipstream will not be able to save you, and Jubilant Veil can only do so much against ability centric champions. Don't push up without your team nearby, and remember to pick up Farsight Alteration the moment you hit level 9; risk-free vision is invaluable!

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 Slipstream to dash towards the backline and catch them in Apotheosis. Patience is key on Nilah; Keep an eye out for abilities that counter your mobility, such as Taliyah's Unraveled Earth, or point and click CC, like Nether Grasp, Unstoppable Force, or Cease and Desist. Wait for the most threatening abilities to go on cooldown, and then you can go in unimpeded. Nilah is also great at dealing with tanks and bruisers thanks to her armor pen, so don't be afraid to help your team deal with the frontline if you can't reach the back!

If you find the enemy carries near a minion wave and your team is nearby, you can engage on them by using Slipstream on minions and grouping them with Apotheosis. Your team should be able to move in and clean up, and even if you die, you have made a massive play that your team should be able to easily turn into a free objective.

BUGS!Although there aren't too many, Nilah does have some bugs, and I wanted to make this section to bring awareness to them. I'll come back and change this section if they ever get fixed, because some of them are quite annoying!

Normally, the shield you receive from Formless Blade's healing at full health is uncapped. However, taking Overheal caps the shield to be the same size as the rune's shield. Additionally, damaging an enemy champion causes the shield to disappear entirely after 4 seconds, instead of gradually decaying over time.

Hitting an enemy champion with Formless Blade triggers Call for Help, causing you to take minion aggro. This usually only occurs when hitting champions with targeted spells.

Casting Formless Blade during Slipstream will ignore Formless Blade's mana cost. (Not sure if this one is actually a bug, just that Samira's E + Q combo uses the mana from both abilities) If you have Navori Quickblades, casting Formless Blade during Slipstream will not grant Navori's bonus damage to the extra wave. Casting Formless Blade during Slipstream will sometimes fail, but Formless Blade will still be put on cooldown. As far as I can tell, this occurs when trying to use the E + Q combo within roughly ~15 frames of the buff from Formless Blade ending, so try to avoid using this combo near the end of the buff duration!

Casting Slipstream sometimes does not visually use a charge, displaying 2 charges when you only have 1. Slipstream will not take Nilah over walls if the wall is thicker than the dash range. Slipstream has a very small, unintentional cast time.

Thank you for reading! I hope you found this guide helpful. If you find any mistakes or have suggestions on things to add/change, please put them in the discussion page!

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 Soraka to synergies (oops), and changed Bloodthirster's section to not recommend it anymore due to the nerfs in 13.6.
20/04/2023 Patch 13.8 - Updated the Intro, Senna's synergy entry, and added sections to the items section for Prowler's Claw and Ravenous Hydra.
28/04/2023 - Added op.gg of my account.
22/05/2023 Patch 13.10 - Updated item builds, item explanations, and added Ingenious Hunter and Cosmic Insight to the runes section. Added E max ability order with some explanation.
23/05/2023 - Added some explanation as to how Lord Dominik's Regards stacks with Formless Blade's passive in the item explanation section, and further updated the guide to reflect patch 13.10's item changes.
01/06/2023 Patch 13.11 - Replaced Ghostblade with Eclipse in item builds and explanations to reflect the nerfs it received.
10/09/2023 Patch 13.17 - Updated item builds, rune pages, item explanations, and updated the matchups section for mages.