Hi, I'm Vapora Dark, a veteran player that's been playing since season 1. During that time I've hit Master tier as a mid lane main in season 5, as an ADC main in season 7, again as a jungle main in season 8, and once more in season 9 playing a mix of all those roles including mid and Fizz. I can play every role to a very high level and have a very good understanding of the general aspects of the game on top of that.

I've been writing guides on MOBAFire since 2011, among which my achievements include winning the MOBAFire guide contest multiple times, achieving the highest score on the site multiple times with multiple guides, achieving the most comments on a single guide of all time by a very large amount which hasn't come even close to being surpassed in the 3 years that it's been archived, and having the most collective guide views on the site by a very hefty amount. I've also written some champion guides for Riot Games on the Lolesports site.

Aftershock

As a tanky supportive jungler the best option here is Aftershock. It's reliable to trigger thanks to being able to displace people in a pinch with the Biggest Snowball Ever! but can also be triggered by Snowball Barrage. It's consistent and powerful, making for the best default rune choice.

Font of Life

Your entire kit has a lot of slows that hit multiple people. Being able to give your entire team some decent healing will add up to a very large amount over the course of the game. As a supportive jungle this is the best rune here to support your team.

Conditioning

You don't need a small health boost early or a small amount of AP after some takedowns. You also don't need the healing second wind offers as that's for laning. That leaves the resistance buff you get after 10 minutes, which will give you a lot of gold efficiency the more you stack resistances and as a tank you'll have a lot.

Revitalize

Although your kit doesn't directly benefit from this outside of the healing from Consume, your other rune choices and items you buy will be affected by it. Guardian, Font of Life, Knight's Vow and Locket of the Iron Solari will all be more powerful from this rune.

Sorcery Celerity Waterwalking

Celerity is a great rune how much free movement speed you get from both Call of the Freljord and the Biggest Snowball Ever!. Waterwalking is the default rune for almost every jungler who takes Sorcery due to the neutral objective/ganking power. The extra movement speed is always nice when it comes to ganking and the extra ability power makes for taking scuttle crabs or Dragons/Barons slightly easier. You cannot go wrong with Waterwalking on a jungler.

Flash This summoner spell is one you should always take and the one you'll always see. Flash has a billion and one uses, from flashing in to get a kill, from flashing away from danger, flashing over walls and flashing over abilities. This is something you should be very familiar with by now and it's something you should ALWAYS have. There is never a situation where you don't take flash.

Smite Smite is always taken because you're a jungler. You need it to buy the jungle items like Hunter's Talisman and Skirmisher's Sabre - Cinderhulk. Aside from the items you need to buy, it also gives you better clears (with healing) and killing big camps faster. It's also required to reliably get objective monsters like Baron/Dragon. If you don't take Smite and the enemy team has one, you will be at a disadvantage. You should ALWAYS take Smite if you're jungling.

Passive: Call of the Freljord

Call of the Freljord

A very basic and uninteractive passive that grants Nunu & Willump bonus attack speed and movement speed for a short duration upon attacking a large monster/champion or structure. More importantly though is that these benefits are also applied to the nearest champion which is selected based on who has the highest attack speed. Aside from helping with your clear speed from the AoE cleave and bonus attack speed/damage it scales into the late game decently by giving your marksman extra DPS and mobility. Whilst the benefit itself isn't super high, having an almost perpetual extra steroid in the late game can make the difference for your carry to kill the enemy team before they kill yours. As it auto selects targets you really don't need to think much about this passive.

Q: Consume

Consume

This is what makes Nunu & Willump one of the best control junglers in the game. The extraordinary true damage this ability deals to minions and monsters makes this a top tier ability for a jungler. Being able to do more damage than Smite after a few points right up until level 18 means you'll always have objective threat, but because you can combo it with your own smite you'll also be very hard to steal from. It works both ways as well, being unable to be stolen from with proper timing is very nice but because the ability is so simple and is a point and click you can also steal things very easily. You can also take a bit out of enemy champions with Consume. Dealing some moderate damage that scales with both ability power and your bonus health. Whilst it's not a lot of damage, it does heal Nunu & Willump for a decent amount. I max this ability first for the incredibly high objective control and the jungle clear. Being able to outsmite people as soon as possible is one of your greatest strengths.

W: Biggest Snowball Ever!

Biggest Snowball Ever!

Being able to gank semi-effectively as a control jungler is very useful in the current meta. It controls like a mini Sion ultimate and is a nice engage for an otherwise immobile champion. Whilst you're still very slow and not the best ganker, being able to follow up on a laner engaging or simply having high movement speed can be good setup cc for you and your team. It also deals a pretty good amount of base damage in an area making it good for clearing as well as hitting multiple champions on an engage. It's worth noting it becomes significantly more powerful the longer you charge it, increasing the damage, slow and knock up duration based on how long you've been rolling it. I max this ability last as you only gain base damage for putting points into it, and your E scales a lot harder with points.

E: Snowball Barrage

Snowball Barrage

Your main damaging ability outside of your ultimate, Snowball Barrage is also your most reliable slow. You'll want to prioritise hitting either a single target for lots of damage or spreading out your volleys to then root up to 3 enemies. The 30-50% 1s slow is pretty heavy, which you can refresh a couple of times. This is very important against mobile champions as it allows you to stay in range for Willump's Turn. Which if they're inside the ring when it goes off will deal a small amount of damage and root them. As this is done independently of your movement/abilities you can actually combo this with your Absolute Zero making them unable to escape your ult. I max this ability second for its high base damage and is just more useful than your W.

R: Absolute Zero

Absolute Zero

An incredible area denial tool that causes enemies in the area to be slowed by a heavy amount. It also shields Nunu & Willump by a large amount. Most importantly however is if you're able to channel for the full 3 seconds you will deal a very large amount of magic damage in the area around you. Dealing some of the highest base damage in the game with a ratio to boot, it's not easy to get a full channel off. This is where Snowball Barrage can come in handy. If you're able to root someone in the area you can more reliably get a longer channel off to deal more damage. Even if you don't consistently get the damage off, it will cause enemies to run away from the area which can be enough to win fights. I put points into this ability at 6/11/16 like most other ultimates.

This chapter is currently under reconstruction following the Season 11 items rework, apologies for the inconvenience.

This chapter is currently awaiting an update, sorry for the inconvenience.


If you're not ganking, you should be farming. You want to get yourself as fed as possible so take as many jungle camps as you can, as well as take lane CS whenever the opportunity arises (explained further down). It's also really important to kill scuttle crabs when they spawn as they offer a large amount of gold and experience. As a control jungler it's very easy for you to take an early Dragon or Herald, and it's just as easy to steal a camp from the enemy jungler. Invading is very important to control junglers as it not only increases your XP/Gold but it also prevents your opponent from getting any, creating a larger rift between you both.

When you do gank you'll want to just attempt to flank a target allowing you to walk into melee range to being your Snowball Barrage. You can use Biggest Snowball Ever! to follow up on crowd control if your laner has a way to CC the enemy for a second or 2. As you'll be between them and safety slowing them with your barrage, it'll almost be a guaranteed kill thanks to your high base damage and the root you get. Just make sure not to be too forward, as you don't do a lot of damage. You need an ally to close out a kill unless the target is low on health.

Whenever one of your ganks succeeds, look out for an opportunity to get an objective out of it. For example if you double kill the enemy bot lane you can convert that into a dragon since for the enemy mid and jungle to contest that they'd have to 2v4. However, dragon is not always a possibility, especially if your team is low or if you only kill one of the enemy bot lane, and sometimes it's just not even the best objective to take. If you have to choose between taking a dragon or getting the tower first blood, you should pretty much always go for the tower first blood, since it grants a massive gold increase which is more immediately beneficial than that of the buffs given by dragons. And in general I would just always prioritize towers over dragons, since getting more map control by taking down towers makes it easier to take dragons later on, whereas choosing to take a dragon instead is harder to convert into taking towers later. Additionally make sure to hold lanes whenever possible, e.g. if one of your laners has to recall or dies, the enemy will be shoving that wave into your tower to make your laner miss CS, so you can take advantage of this by taking the wave for yourself since it would die to tower anyway, and thus get yourself ahead since lane CS gives more gold and XP than a jungle camp, and does so without being at the expense of your HP.

Whenever you counter jungle, if possible you should take the big monster but leave 1 small monster alive, to delay the camp's spawning as much as possible. When the enemy jungler wants to farm the camp, they won't find it already in the process of respawning soon, but have to kill the last remaining monster for a tiny bit of gold and a tiny bit of XP, and then have to wait the entire 1m40s for it to respawn.

As time goes on in the game you'll become harder and harder to kill whilst also making your team a lot harder to kill as well thanks to your items and runes. Your damage will always be fairly low outside of a long Absolute Zero channel if you're tank nunu but with the decent base damage, red smite and cinderhulk burn you won't be totally weak.

Nunu & Willump is a very basic control jungler that has the potential to take over entire matches without killing a single champion thanks to the power of Consume and the area denial Absolute Zero has. Being an unkillable perma slowing unit is charming in its own right as although there isn't much mechanical flair, winning signifies you're flat out better than your opponent and that alone is enough for most players. That's it for my Nunu & Willump guide. I hope you found this helpful and learn to play Nunu & Willump as well as you want to. Special thanks to Hopper for banners and coding, as well as some input on info. (Go check her shop out!). Make sure to follow me on Twitch if you want to see me play.