Main account Profile: Navcan
Smurf: Navn
Twitch Stream: twitch.tv/navcan
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Hi there! I've been playing Nami since her release(10 years ago)! This guide is just a very general guideline of how to play Nami, with runes and itemization. If you'd like to ask more questions, drop a comment or drop by my stream! I stream almost everyday, and still play Nami occasionally. Thank you for reading!

If you're interested in my other guides:

Enchanters:

Lulu -> Support Lulu
Nami -> Support Nami
Karma -> Support Karma
Sona -> Support Sona
Yuumi -> Support Yuumi
Milio -> Support Milio
Soraka -> Support Soraka

Mage/Tank/Utility:

Zyra -> Support Zyra
Ashe -> Support Ashe
Amumu -> Support Amumu
Heimerdinger -> Support Heimerdinger

Off-Meta/Fun stuff

Miss Fortune -> Support Miss Fortune
Veigar -> Support Veigar
Trundle -> Support Trundle
Jarvan IV -> Support Jarvan
Pantheon -> Support Pantheon

PROs:
- Strong laning.
- Works decently with almost everyone.
- Build Versatility.

CONS:
- Hard to deal with high mobility enemies.
- Difficult to scout unwarded areas.
- Slow missile speed CC abilities.

TLDR; If you plan to buy Echoes of Helia, buy Imperial Mandate first. Otherwise, buy Shurelya's Battlesong.

There's 2 main mythics to buy, and generally speaking, you will be rushing one of them. Your early buys can include, Ruby Crystal Faerie Charm Amplifying Tome since these build into both mythics.

Mythics

Reasons to get Echoes of Helia
- Fights are drawn out to get a lot of healing and damage value.
- Snowballing potential.
- If you get Imperial Mandate first and want to keep your damage high, then getting this second will do the trick.
- This does NOT work with Font of Life

Reasons to get Shurelya's Battlesong
- Fights are very quick and sudden.
- If there are no front-liners, then the mobility will help a lot in surviving and picking enemies off.
- This does NOT work with Font of Life

Reasons to get Crown of the Shattered Queen
- Lost Chapter is amazing for laning phase.
- Enemy team has a lot of burst.
- Enemy team has a hard time getting the passive off you
- Provides a lot of safety to face-check fog.

Boots/Shoes Choice
- Ionian Boots of Lucidity are the overall best choice, but there are some options below.
- Plated Steelcaps against all-ad team comps.
- Mercury's Treads if there's high cc AND high ap damage on enemy team comp.
- Boots of Swiftness if the enemy has slows that are very hard to get around such as Ashe.

Legendaries

Imperial Mandate
- This item is pretty much made for Nami because of whoever you put Tidecaller's Blessing on, they will proc this for you, which is super easy and highly effective. This item will be in 90% of her final builds.

Staff of Flowing Water
- Works nicely with Font of Life
- If your team mates are casting spells more often than auto-attacking then this will be good.
- Overall safe choice.

Ardent Censer
- Works nicely with Font of Life
- Great for hyper carries that attack a lot.
- The more auto-attack focused champions you have on your team, the better.
- If you have Echoes of Helia, the attack speed gained will help with getting shards.

Chemtech Putrifier
- Just an upgrade from Oblivion Orb
- If there's nothing else to buy, then you can get this. Otherwise it's just better to finish something else and sit on the Oblivion Orb since the Grevious Wounds effect is the only reason to buy this item.

Mikael's Blessing
- I'd be looking to buy this if there's a bit of CC to get rid of, but if there's too much CC, then it won't feel impactful at all. The main choices of CC, usually Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow, or Twisted Fate stun card or other ranged hard CC abilities to get use against. Otherwise, better to just build other items.
- If you can self cast this by buffering it just before CC hits you, this also becomes a Cleanse for yourself, which increases the value tremendously. Here is a youtube short demonstrating that. Mikaels as Cleanse

Redemption
- This can be really useful if you have a split pusher, being able to help the 1v1 on side lanes will be amazing.
- If there's nothing else really appealing to buy, then this is a safe choice as the active is amazing.

TLDR; Use your passive as often as possible! Do everything you can increase your chances of landing Aqua Prison.

Surging Tides
- The movement speed gained is DECAYING, so if there's a skillshot you need to dodge, then try to time your ability on yourself so you'll have as much movement speed as possible to juke the skillshot.
- If you have full mana and your cooldowns will be available by the time you're wherever you need to get to, cast any abilities on yourself, or your team mates (especially as you're leaving base), or even on your team mate who's teleporting away.

Q - Aqua Prison
- This has the same travel time, no matter how close or far you cast it.
- This is a very hard skill to hit if your opponent's movements aren't hindered at all, so here's a few ways increase the odds of landing it.
- You can use Tidecaller's Blessing to slow enemies, then try to bubble.
- It has a pretty big cast range, so you can always stand within range, but hold the skill to pressure your opponents since they'll have to always consider you can use it on them at any point.
- Wait on your opponent's to use all of their mobility options and they can't Flash or dash the bubble.
- (laning phase) The enemy bot laner who is trying to farm will stand in relatively predictable spots while farming, aim at those spots.
- Avoid casting this at maximum range (especially if you are walking INTO range to cast it), as it usually makes it extremely predictable, and your opponents can dodge it.
- You can use this for just movement speed as well from Surging Tides, but be careful as it has a pretty long cooldown at the start of the game.

W - Ebb and Flow
- The bounce range is slightly farther than the cast range, so if you can't reach them, then casting it on yourself to bounce on them will work.
- If you cast this on yourself, you can also immediately cast Tidecaller's Blessing on yourself, to get a surprise slow on your enemy, and possibly even follow up with a Aqua Prison.
- Casting this on an enemy that is running away from you, may cause it not to bounce back as they'd be out of range.
- This is a very strong trading tool in-lane if you can get even 1 bounce. If it bounces twice, it is extremely efficient.
- If you have full hp and full mana, casting this on enemies will be better. If you're low hp and low mana, then cast on yourself (and try to get it to bounce as the bounce range is still pretty far).
- You can use this for just movement speed as well from Surging Tides but becareful as this ability costs a lot of mana.

E - Tidecaller's Blessing
- This has no cast time, so self-casting will be one of the most common ways to utilize this.
- This has a high synergy with Imperial Mandate and in a lot of cases, will be extremely relevant.
- This does work with Font of Life, which then works extremely well with Echoes of Helia.
- If you(or any of your team mates) auto-attack an enemy, you can then self-cast Tidecaller's Blessing on yourself, before the projectile hits, for a very sudden slow.
- If you want to slow an enemy as long as possible, then space out the instances of damage to slow an enemy as long as possible, since using all 3 slows at once do not stack the duration, but instead refreshes the duration.
- Anyone that has a lot of burst damage, this will help them do even more burst, especially with Imperial Mandate. Keep an eye on them so that you can just blow enemies up before they can even react.
- Using this skill for Surging Tides movement speed will be the most common, since it has no cast-time and you won't lose any ground distance to cast it.

R - Tidal Wave
- The movement speed buff from Surging Tides is doubled for Tidal Wave.
- Try to cast this down narrow areas (usually jungle areas) to make it almost impossible to dodge.
- If you know this will hit an enemy, you can then use Aqua Prison just before Tidal Wave hits the target. Aqua Prison takes .75 seconds to land, and the knock-up from Tidal Wave is .5 seconds, so you can chain the cc so that your opponents can't move at all.
- This is also a great skill to cast if your opponent's can't see you since it has a .5 seconds cast time, and that is usually what makes it very easy to dodge.

TLDR; Font of Life Presence of Mind are crazy good runes. Stack runes for one of 3 things: Lane pressure, Roaming, Scaling.

Keystones

Summon Aery
- Good all around, can't really go wrong with this rune.

Guardian
- A good defensive option incase the lane match-up is really hard.

Sorcery

Manaflow Band
- Nami is extremely mana hungry, at almost all points in the game, so this rune is pretty much mandatory on her in this row.
- This will proc from anyone doing damage with your Tidecaller's Blessing.

Celerity
- This is a great rune since the movement speed from Surging Tides will give you even more movement speed.

Transcendence
- A pretty good rune, but won't provide you much for laning phase, which is one of Nami's strengths.

Scorch
- A pretty good rune, but won't provide you much for laning phase, which is one of Nami's strengths.

Waterwalking
- If you want to play to push the lane constantly and roam and/or play for your jungler, this can help those scenarios out.

Gathering Storm
- If you just want to scale and buy items, then this is the choice.

Resolve

Font of Life
- A fantastic rune, applies from 3/4 of your skills and even whenever you put Tidecaller's Blessing on an ally.
- Works amazing with Echoes of Helia, Ardent Censer, Staff of Flowing Water

Bone Plating
- Great against all-in lanes, but if enemy bot laner can peel this off you very easily, then don't take it.

Second Wind
- Fantastic against very poke-heavy lanes, so you can stay relatively healthy and still threaten all-in potential.

Conditioning
- If you just want to scale, then this is amazing.

Unflinching
- Amazing against high cc/engage lanes.

Revitalize
- If they don't have cc/engage, then go with this, it'll do a lot of work.

Precision

Presence of Mind
- The whole reason you're in this rune tree, is for this rune.
- Nami is mana-hungry at all points in the game, so each reset is going to be extremely valuable.
- If you're against a melee support, then you can harass them constantly to get mana regen.

Cut Down
- If you're against a tankier team and a melee support, then doing a bit more damage will be great, especially if you rush Imperial Mandate since it gives no hp.

Legend: Tenacity
- If the enemy team comp has a lot of CC, then go with this instead of Cut Down.

TLDR; Use your abilities efficiently! After laning phase, constantly use your abilities on cooldown

Laning Pahse/Early Game

- If you have Manaflow Band then look to stack this as fast as possible. To do this, wait until Manaflow Band is ready to be proc-ed then use your abilities.
- If you have Presence of Mind then be sure to always have it proc-ing from damaging enemies so you can keep casting your abilities.
- Always try to have enough mana to cast a full rotation of your abilities, so that you have kill/gank setup pressure.
- Try to stack your Spellthief's Edge or Relic Shield faster than the enemy support so that you can get your wards down before they do.
- If you can sit in an unwarded lane bush, then try to do that, as your opponents will have a really hard time dodging Aqua Prison since they can't see the cast animation.

Mid/Late Game

- Pay attention to who can slow/stun your enemies and try to chain the CC with Aqua Prison.
- Almost always be casting Ebb and Flow on anyone in team fights, and it'll just bounce all over the place healing and doing damage. The point is to just get your damage and healing out there and constantly participate in the fight, ESPECIALLY if you have Echoes of Helia.
- Use Tidecaller's Blessing on anyone that is looking for high priority targets. If it's front-to-back team fight, then just cast it on whoever so that your abilities aren't doing nothing.
- You should be one of the last people dying in team fights, so try to position relatively safely, and constantly buff/heal your team mates. At this point in the game, it will be your runes/items that do damage, and not your skills.

Grading Explanation below the lists! Check the RANK too!

- Nami is definitely still playable, especially with the itemization changes. She generally is played with Lucian but she can work at least decently with most champions because of her CC and Tidecaller's Blessing.

13.19 Emerald and Below

13.19 Diamond+

Tier List Grading Points

- Winrates
- Champion Difficulty (more relevant in platinum and below)
- Counter-play (more relevant in platinum and below)
- Flex pick for draft (more relevant in diamond+)
- Early game (more relevant in diamond+)
- Late game/scaling (more relevant in platinum and below)

Overall Points:

- Games last longer the lower in elo you go. Therefore, mage supports tend to do much better since you can buy your items, and you basically become another carry threat. This leads to enchanters/engage being weaker in lower level play since you would rely on your teammtes more often.

- Champions that are fundamentally easier to execute on will have higher win rates. Since it is more unlikely players are pilot-ing their champion runes/builds/kit efficiently, the easier the champion, the more likely to maximize their kits. This is especially apparent in Platinum and below.

- I would recommend playing any of the champs in S+, S, or A. However you can climb on almost anything, provided you always look to maximize your champion kit, mechanics, and impact on the game. Winning is the result of improving.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below! I'll be editing this as I go and be sure to let you know once I have more updates. Or if you'd like to ask me a question directly, you can go to my twitch stream! twitch.tv/navcan

There's also my tiktok
And my youtube!

Cheers and thank you for reading! Good luck on the rift