Nunu has been a favorite champion of mine that was left in an odd place after the changes that were made to the jungle. As counter jungling has become less crippling other junglers gained prominence, and excuse the bad pun but, Nunu was left out in the cold. Nunu recently got some buffs, his passive requiring one less attack to trigger the free ability and the increases to both his base, and more importantly, per level attack speeds. With these recent buffs a hair brained scheme was dusted off in my lab of theory crafting. With a few tweaks to the formula, courtesy the help of a trusted friend and comrade in battle, a new Nunu (tongue twisting I know) was born…
Wriggles + Metagolem Nunu.
Nunu is a champion that the meta says MUST be played Tanky/AP. With his great AP ratios, especially his ridiculous 2.5/1 AP ratio on his ult I do understand that thinking: AP also gives him improved sustain and a nuke spell. The problem is that his ult is in a way a trap that sucks people in. How often do you get a fully channeled ult off? Landing that ult will do massive damage but it is takes incredible positioning and/or baiting. Too often your ult as Nunu is broken almost immediately this leaves you with your Ice Blast for damage. Once you throw your Ice Blast in a fight AP Nunu is not a threat, he is a support champion. Consume is often useless late game in teamfights because minions are not present and can no longer provide you sustain.
As I discussed earlier Nunu received buffs to his passive and his attack speed (base and per level) which allows him to build himself into a viable Tanky DPS champion with insane sustain. Building Wriggles Lantern, combined with free consumes from his passive Nunu becomes nigh impossible to push out of lane. Wriggles provides great sustain throughout the game, something AP Nunu struggles with, as well as baron/dragon control. Nunu’s Ice Blast has incredible base damage and early game is great for harassing enemies. Once you have boots and a phage it is time to whittle down the enemy while you sustain and then pick your moment to engage. Ice Blast, Blood Boil and close the distance. With phage procs the enemy will be almost perma slowed. If you have a competent jungler once you get phage ganks are incredibly strong. The ward you have form Wriggles will also provide you some protection against ganks.
From Phage I like to build Mercury treads next then Frozen Mallet: to be able to perma slow enemies. I then go into Warmog’s Armor, Atma’s Impaler or Trinity Force depending on the enemy team comp. If I am getting kills or we have other tanky champs I will get Trinity Force. If I need to tank more against AP I get Warmog’s. If I am tanking against AD I get Atma’s. By building like this I am a threat throughout the entire fight and have the ability to shut down an enemy’s ability to escape.
With this build I give up the ability to nuke enemies to give myself sustained damage. I find that there are far better tanky AP champions available to fit the role people put Nunu into, Rumble and Cho’gath being the easiest examples to list. There are many choices for Tanky DPS, but go out on a limb and give Nunu a try, you may be pleasantly surprised, my friends and I were.