AP Bruiser Nunu

No doubt, the original king of the jungle, Nunu, is back in full force. A combination of buffs a number of patches back combined with his recent tournament use means that (unfortunately) he is definitely seeing a lot more solo queue play. The most common build is the very typical support/tanky build: double gold per five (Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold), counter build support tank items (Aegis, Frozen Heart, etc.). However, an infinitely more fun build that myself and other players started to see in solo queue are variant AP bruiser builds. Here is a short description of an atypical but very fun alternative to more standard Nunu builds.

The Concept and Items:
Taking advantage of Nunu’s generous ratios (1.0 scaling on his Ice Blast, 1.0 on the healing from his consume, and 2.5 (!!!) on his Absolute Zero), decent base values on abilities, and natural bulk in his base stats one can actually build to maximize his early game potential. This implies building for early and efficient AP/HP items: buying 2-3 doran’s rings (starting with one, buying an additional 1-2), and following up with a Haunting Guise, Abyssal Scepter, and Sorcerer’s Shoes. This build is derived from Wicked’s Rumble build (heavy magic penetrations off the Guise, Shoes, and Scepter) and the notorious “Azingy” Amumu build (using a ring stack). The idea here is to turn Nunu who is normally a supportive threat, using his slow and speed up to assist in ganks, into a major damage threat easily chunking light heroes .

Late game the idea is to slowly transition into the support role buying necessary items for either team (whatever your team’s support has yet to build) or your own survivability—Guardian Angel being my choice for survivability. You still want to be using your Ice Blast as much as possible during late game skirmishes and pushes; usually with the AP and penetration behind it, it damages reliably for around 400 damage and the debilitating slow means that, if your team’s position allows it, the champion hit will eat considerably more harass or even get initiated upon. 

To review the build order:

1st Buy: Doran’s Ring or Boots+Pots
2nd Buy: 1-2 Doran’s Rings. If 1 Ring, start on Haunting Guise
3rd Buy: Ideal is completed Boots 2 (Sorcerer’s Shoes) and Haunting Guise
4th Buy: Abyssal Scepter
5th Buy: Whatever you want, dude.

It is worth noting that the real core of the build (Sorc. Shoes+Haunting Guise+ Abyssal) costs a mere 5,235 gold. However, once a Doran's ring is thrown in and wards as well, the cost is close to 6k. Bare this in mind--you need to hit these items as soon as it is feasible. The longer you wait, the less effective this build is. It is certainly possible to skip the Doran's ring altogether, but I do not recommend it as the statistics it grants at level one are a huge boon to early fights.

Masteries/Runes:
Masteries are nearly irrelevant: even in vanilla jungle Nunu, almost anything can work and it comes to preference. I run 9/21/0, which gives me considerable extra bulk and allows me to hit the Arcane Knowledge mastery in the offense tree. Running more masteries into utility can work extremely well; if one takes full ranks in Greed and Awareness you can mitigate Nunu’s experience problems as well as his difficulty with acquiring money.

Runes are very similar to vanilla Nunu. The one exception is you will want to run spell penetration red (a full set). After that the yellows and blues are what you expect; flat armor on yellow and scaling magic resistance on blue. Quintessences you have a fair bit of choices. Attack speed or flat damage are good options for early, faster clearing--something very important since you are not running the more common attack damage set on red. Move speed allows you to run down and play overall more aggressive. More spell penetration is a possibility, or even hybrid penetration. Overall, customize to what you want to do.

Benefits:
Much stronger damage potential leading to more deadly ganks, stronger sustain off of consume (the heal is no dependent upon damage dealt, only base values), decent early game bulk due to doran stack and haunting guise, can force enemy team into building early magic resistance. This extra damage allows him to, for a time, actually bully around certain solo lane champions while covering lane. A more stealth benefit is that Nunu is now a priority target in early team fights, drawing fire away from sustained-damage targets.

Drawbacks:
Very difficult transition to late game due to specialization on early/midgame items, decent bulk but low defenses leaves you vulnerable to enemy champions building resistance reduction items (brutalizer, sorc. shoes). As well, it frontloads supportive/aura items onto the support—many of which (such as Aegis, Randuins) work extremely well on Nunu. As well, a high dependence on gold means that if you are not getting the kills and assists, it’s harder to ramp up in damage.

Alternative Items:
I’ve found Wit’s End to be the most common and quite useful alternative item for this build. The spell penetration with the item is nice and the immediate impact it makes is noticeable when versus an AP heavy team. General support items (Randuins, etc.) are also always good options. Other than that, if you REALLY need it or are that far ahead (and have that much gold to burn) a Rabadon’s Deathcap almost always results in good times.

Conclusions:
This is a high risk / high reward strategy. It sacrifices late game durability for midgame burst and dominance. Obviously, if your team falls behind this becomes far less viable so it is important to discern quickly if this build will be useful this game or force your team to play a 4v5. And remember, as the jungler it IS your job to divert funds to ward lanes and objectives if the solo lanes and support cannot go back to purchase them--this always takes precidence over buying gear.

Good luck, hope you enjoy and try this build!