Nami General Guide by wizvault

Guide History

V. 0.9 (July 17th 2013) - Just did the basic stuff for the guide, hoping to get more done ASAP

Introduction

"I control the tides!"

Thanks for taking an interest in wanting to support as Nami and deciding this is the guide to learn to do it with. This is my first guide, so it's not going to look as nice as some other ones till I learn formatting and all that other cool stuff. This guide is going to be a slightly in-depth look into what you should be doing when you support as Nami, as well as some basic "this is how you SHOULD be supporting" tips sprinkled in. With it, you should be able to control the tides of bottom lane with the greatest of ease and have every ADC (sorry, Marksman, Riot wants us to know they don't always "carry," lol) begging to duo with you.

Masteries

These are the basic masteries for Nami that I take. The only ones ISTRONGLY recommend taking are the ones for Wealth , Biscuiteer , and Explorer . These three are super important for almost any support and I feel it almost 100% necessary to take. Wealth gives you the extra gold for nicer things, the biscuit is both delicious AND gives mana, something you may need if you get into a bit of a spam-y moment, and the Ghost Ward is an extra ward.

Outside of this, I take the other masteries because of my playstyle. I give myself extra HP and Armor with my 7 in the defense, the 1 in offense is to improve Exhaust, and I want to get another benefit from harrassing the enemy marksman with Pickpocket .

I do stand by, however, that you should take the masteries YOU feel comfortable with. Masteries and Runes are invaluable, but a champion player they do not make.

Runes

My runes are, admittedly, unusual for most supports, so I'll go into a little extra detail here.

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This is pretty self-explanatory, give you money for existing.

I choose to go with the extra 100+ mana so I can use more of Nami's Abilities. While this does leave me vulnerable to damage, the extra mana gives me more time to use abilities to help my marksman.

I go with these seals to give me that extra mana regen throughout the game. As a support, you should be able to use all of your moves AT LEAST once in every fighting situation. These give me the ability to continue to stay with my team with mana for all parts of the game.

Because I take Pickpocket , this gives me DOUBLE incentive to auto attack the enemy champions. While it IS risky to go this route, you can easily deal some significant damage to the enemy marksman and push them out of lane.

Skill Sequence

I choose this Skill Sequence for it's Emphasis on healing, trading, and peel.

You don't need a lot of points in Aqua Prison, since it's only the damage and not the length of the stun that go up. Even if you hit it a lot, you're a support, so you're damage is "meh" at best.

As for Ebb and Flow, this is the main skill you should be leveling for the laning phase. Because of how Ebb and Flow works, you can even take a shot from themarksman and heal back a fair amount of it early game. Also, it heals you or an ally, which is always good.

Tidecaller's Blessing doesn't get NEARLY enough love for what it does. The next three AA's deal extra damage AND slow their target. Combined with Nami's Passive, Surging Tides, Tidecaller's Blessing can help you hunt down that fleeing target.

Tidal Wave...do I need to explain why this is good? It can knock-up and slow a whole team and speed your whole team up. It's just fantastic.

Spells

The two spells I go with almost 100% of the time are Flash and Exhaust. Honestly, there's not much to explain here, Flash gets you in and out fights, Exhaust does the same. You could argue Heal or even Clairvoyance, but honestly, they don't have the same oomph as these two.

Items

Itemization for supports is pretty bland in the current meta, so we're gonna go over the Starting Build, the Middle/Final Build, and finally, Other Options.

Starting Items

We start with these items for maximum Mana Regen, Maximum Vision, Maximum Counter Warding, and Maximum HP regen (via potions). You should hold onto the Vision Ward longer then the rest since you want to place it AFTER the enemy supports Vision Ward. If you have to drop it for vision though, do so. It doesn't give you vision in your inventory. The sight ward should be placed either by dragon, or in the tri-bush, so it can give maximum vision for the time it's up. Since the Explorer's Ward only lasts for 60 seconds, use that in one of the two bushes in bottom lane (your bush if they push hard, there's if you push hard). I'll have pictures for warding in a future update.

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FIRST AND SECOND BACKS

These items should be among your first buys. I might say upgrade to Ionian Boots of Lucidity before upgrading the Sightstone to the Ruby Sightstone, but that's a matter of preference. You need the philosopher's stone first though. The passive gold it gives you is too good to pass up on and will help out tremendously. The Kindlegem is picked up here instead of Kage's Lucky Pick, because it can build into two items in our final build. It gives you more options for your late game itemization, which can greatly help your team.
Also note that I didn't put down wards as part of this.

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Middle/Late Game

These items should be things you look for going into late game. Kage's Lucky Pick gives you extra gold and some extra damage/heals, plus it's upgrade, Shard of True Ice, gives a good slow effect on your initiator. Locket of the Iron Solari, Shyrelya's Reverie, and Runic Bulwark all give great effect to your allies, while also giving you some well needed (and hard earned) stats to stay alive and do more stuff. Enchantment: Homeguard is just a standard choice, none of the enchantments are bad, honestly.

Conclusion

I'm still going through this guide and updating things but this is a basic overview on how I play Nami and how I feel she should be played. If this guide helped feel free to let me know! Also, I'm still adding things to it and updating it as much as I can, so don't be scared to ask for another section or more details on something. I hope you can learn to control the tides of battle with this guide!