This build has been archived by the author. They are no longer supporting nor updating this build and it may have become outdated. As such, voting and commenting have been disabled and it no longer appears in regular search results.
We recommend you take a look at this author's other builds.
This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page
Your votes and comments encourage our guide authors to continue
creating helpful guides for the League of Legends community.
Recommended Items
Spells:
Flash
Exhaust
Items
Ability Order
Surging Tides (PASSIVE)
Nami Passive Ability
Introduction
Hello summoners. My name is cavaldragon1 I am at Bronze III, my favorite role is support and this will be my first guide introducing my favorite support champion: Nami. I am not a pro player and I rarely play ranked games since I am stucked in ELO HELL, but I know a lot of stuff about league and if you could help me with good feedback I would be grateful. Nami is a Crowd Controller, Healer and a Burster support so she can synergy with pokers and bursters marksman(AD Carry). I usually play Nami at defensive because I want to protect my bot partner and keep him farming. You can play Nami aggressively but it would be better pick Heal instead of Exhaust to win trades easily and I just recommend it with a burster marksman as Graves or Draven. Playing it: Nami is hard to master so don't espect excellent scores at the first match's. I recommend practice her skill shots in custom games or with a partner at Co-op Vs Al game, and then play PvP if you can aim her abilities easily. |
Say to me if it's better to delete this guide or if there is something you like.
|
Flash is her main summoner spell as she hasn't any easy escape. Can be useful to enlarge your Aqua Prison range to sure that they are stunned, it's also perfect to get a good position to launch Tidal Wave in teamfights and you can pass through walls. Exhaust is a great way to win trades, to give an easy kill or to incapacitate a fed enemy. This spell is perfect if your enemy dives too much confident. They get slowed, do less damage and became an easy target to Aqua Prison. I got some doubles with Tidal Wave, Aqua Prison and Exhaust combo while protecting towers :D Heal can help you a lot in trades too but i think is useless to poke marksman. Clairvoyance helps a lot Caitlyn and Ezreal to aim their ultis: Ace in the Hole and Trueshot Barrage. And its very useful to control enemy jungler and prevent ganks at your lane. |
|
Greater Mark of Armor and Greater Seal of Armor will help in early trades and works well with Ebb and Flow. With these combo you can make more secure poke and slows with Tidecaller's Blessing Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist turns your enemy support damage quite low, So if you have good health and enemy support as cast is CC abilities you can just ignore em and kill the adc. Greater Quintessence of Gold combined with Greed gives you 5 gold per 10 seconds, equal to Philosopher's Stone passive and that's pretty awesome, so if you buy one Philosopher's Stone in game you will get 10 gold per 10 seconds. These three runes are very important since support don't farm but still need a lot of money to ward. |
Defense
Utility
For Nami I recommend to start with Aqua Prison but to maximize Ebb and Flow first as at level 2 you can give great advantage to your marksman in trades. Then I prefer to maximize Tidecaller's Blessing to give my partner lots of slow basics and magic damage, you can use in yourself at the battles if you know exactly what to do since the damage given will be the same. Furthermore you should maximize Tidal Wave every time you can.
Shurelya's Battlesong it's Nami main item of my build, why? Well Nami is very strong mid game since she can turn and control teamfight and this item its amazing to start a winned teamfight or to run away from dangerous situations saving your partners it also gives good sustain, abilities cooldown reduction and great health. I like to activate this before or after send sending Tidal Wave Try to complete this first and then complete Ruby Sightstone. |
Locket of the Iron Solari turns you more tanky, gives cooldown reduction and helps your friends giving more sustain, this works very well with Zeke's Herald if your partners got AD damage and helps a lot in teamfighs or to save your partners combined with Shurelya's Battlesong. |
Ruby Sightstone is the most important item to support. I will just say this one time: Wards safe lives; Wards give kills and well placed wards carry a game. So tell your teammates to buy wards every time they can this will help a lot at your warding job. Never but never accept the guilty of a non-placed ward at mid or top. Your job is to protect your marksman and fed em, you can also control a lot enemy bot jungler if you are winning hard. So remenber: Never underestimate wards! |
Twin Shadows is a good item to activate while chasing or running from enemy's, they get slowed and your team have vision. So if your teammates are at the enemy jungle you can activate Twin Shadows to prevent ambushes or you can catch easily a lucky runaway using this item to aim Tidal Wave at the jungle. |
Zeke's Herald
Zeke's Herald can help a lot your marksman and AD champions in trades and at teamfighs furthermore it gives a lot of cooldown reduction and a good amount of health. |
Mobility Boots are my favorite boots to this build, you can put wards and travel map faster. Feel free to buy other boots however; if you buy Ionian Boots of Lucidity dont get zeke's herald it's a waste of cooldown reduction. |
Situational Items
Mikael's Blessing will help your marksman and you if the enemy team is harassing yours with CC. This item is especially useful against Ashe, Leona, Sona, Varus Sejuani and Nautilus as they have only one hard CC. It is also useful to release Death Mark from your marksmam. |
Mercury's Treads are very useful if are being harassed by CC like slows or stuns. Great against Lulu and Twitch |
If you are losing and if turrets near inhibitor are getting pushed by minions try to get Banner of Command to save every minion you can to keep pushing enemy's lane. If that happens use Banner of Command passive every time you can. |
Pros of Nami
- Gives heal and damage in one ability; - Great babysitter. - Nice stun and knock air; - Good slow with Tidecaller's Blessing; |
Cons of Nami
- Long cooldowns; - Mana hungry; - Not spam able; - Squishy; - Aqua Prison and Tidal Wave hard to aim. |
Match Ups
Nami is very versatile and can easily control a lane and a teamfight. She match up with almost every marksman due her great CC, heal and buff. But I'm gonna talk about the best match ups:
Varus and his Piercing Arrow high ranged burst can surprise you enemies when Varus is quite distant. This duo have great synergy since Varus can slow enemies making easier to being cathed by Ebb and Flow and Tidecaller's Blessing give Varus a easy way to charge the three basics he need to burt. At level 6 Nami and Varus can easily get kills using their ultimate's and abilities synchronized, and believe me, the target won´t do nothing between this combo.
Graves have great burst and can easily use Buckshot if you catch someone with Aqua Prison. Your Ebb and Flow is very useful on him as he gains more tackiness the more he auto attack. Due his passive he is good with Taric too but I think both works perfectly with Graves.
Twitch and Nami playing aggressively scars me a lot. Her CC and his burst synergy a lot: Venom Cask and Tidecaller's Blessing slow your enemy making a easy target or Aqua Prison, with this combo Twitch can stack Deadly Venom very quick and burst your enemies down with Expunge.
She is good with Draven, Ashe and Caitlyn too due her burst, slows and range.
Get Countered By:
As Nami is very squishy she can be easily harassed by hard poke champions as Sona, Lulu or Soraka that turns Nami useless with Whimsy and Infuse. She can get hurt by aggressive champions as Thresh, Blitzcrank or Leona. This last one and her stuns can erase your Tidal Wave movement advantage swimmingly. Nami can´t do much to catch Ezreal, Vayne, Graves or Lucian as they have dodge abilities. I think Janna is hard to bite too due her movement speed and her annoying Howling Gale, but that is my opinion.
She Counters
Nami is good against foreseeable champions for example Draven his Spinning Axe turns his weakness as you can catch him with ease with Aqua Prison and a Draven without Spinning Axe is useless. Taric and Nunu & Willump are a bit slow and they stop move to use Shatter, Ice Blast, Consume and you can cancel Nunu & Willump Absolute Zero very easily with Aqua Prison and Tidal Wave. This also happens with Katarina, her Death Lotus is useless if you are present.
Early Game
When the game starts your first objective is to provide vision to your team, like this your teammates wont be ambushed so easy, help the jungler doing Red or Blue buff with Aqua Prison and all three neutral monsters will be stunned by 1.5 seconds and that helps a lot your jungler.
Now go bot and try to conquer your bot bush, remember position is very important to Nami due her abilities as Ebb and Flow need proximity. Defend your marksman leaving him free to farm. Try to sight ward tri-bush and bot river bush to prevent ganks. You should ward well I extremely recommend this video:
If you conquer bot lane bush ward the other one and start poking enemy marksman, that can't be easy since the enemy support is there too but it depends on enemy support. If it are Blitzcrank or/and Thresh stay out of that bush and get close to minions and your marksman you are too squishy to be grabbed. If is Leona stay close to your marksman and aim your Aqua Prison to the enemy marksman and use Ebb and Flow in enemy to bounce for the three .Thus your marksman will hurt leona and probably she will get afraid to try again. If are Sona or Lulu try to clear your bush with Vision Ward to avoid is abilities poke and do not expose too much. At the rest you don't have to worry about the other supports. Furthermore you should not spam abilities keep always some mana to spam Ebb and Flow in a emergence.
Trades
Helping trades with Nami is very easy, buff you or your marksman with Tidecaller's Blessing, use Ebb and Flow in your marksman and try to catch enemy marksman with Aqua Prison or if necessary use Tidal Wave and next Aqua Prison under Tidal Wave knock air, use Exhaust if that weren't enough.
Ganks
If you are being intimidated go base and buy Vision Ward and clear a path on river then call for help to your jungler. Never look too much aggressive when your jungler is ready to attack, ping a target and try Aqua Prison on enemy marksman or support and Tidal Wave, be aware to their Flash, buff someone with Tidecaller's Blessing and use Ebb and Flow in who is being focused. If it goes wrong try to use abilities in you or your teammates to provide your passive Surging Tides.
Mid Game
If you and your partners destroy bot turret:
Ward their red buff, golems bush and tri bush to prevent ganks, be very careful and do not let your marksman alone, if they are taking to many risky attitude ping to go back. If you get ganked make sure your marksman run away and if necessary run to enemies and die to slow their pursuit, a good thing about being support is that you can die and you don't give much gold to enemies, at one time you will give less money than minions. That is a good tactic but don't do it early game.
If your enemy destroy your bot turret:
Ward your blue buff, tri-bush near the destroyed turret and put a Vision Ward at dragon. Stay near your marskman say 'ss', 'mia' or 'miss' and ping every time you no long see enemy marksman and support to prevent your teammates from ganks.
Late Game/Teamfights
As Nami have a awesome Crowd Control she can help a lot in teamfights. Try to initiate a favorable teamfight with a unsuspected Tidal Wave, active Shurelya's Battlesong and Locket of the Iron Solari when the enemy starts to figth. Protect your marksman andto use Aqua Prison in enemy marksman or at fed enemy fighter/assassin, buff someone with Tidecaller's Blessing and use Ebb and Flow in your marksman or injured partner. If someone escape with low health use Twin Shadows.
*changes at 07/08/2013:
- Masteries upgraded to turn Nami more tankness;
- Deep information about Flash;
- Clarity deleted, cause: useless and gives over trustful becoming week between cooldowns;
- Tip to counter Zed with Mikael's Blessing;
- More information about early game.
*changes at 08/08/2013:
- changed Greater Mark of Attack Damage to Greater Mark of Armor.
You must be logged in to comment. Please login or register.