A Support Champion Guide: Nami the Tidecaller

One of the newest support champions that is released on League of Legends, Nami the Tidecaller, has many CC skills that are quite hard to land at first. Playing Nami isn’t hard, but it will take some time to learn how to land each of her support spells in order to be effective.

Pros:
- Nami has very high CC, which can be used both in lane and even in team fights
- Good damage for a support class
- Able to pair well with almost anyone, by maxing out her healing spell (W) and her CC spell (Q) for engagements and (E) for boost to Champions
- Able to cast an Ult (R) that covers a straight line and slows targets down, while they escape or during team engagements.
- Good at following teammates escape or escaping team fights

Cons:
- A hard learning curve
- Quite weak and blown up easy
- High cooldowns for a support
- Not good at protecting that well, because of Aoe focused spells
- Missing skills with Nami can be punishing, because of long cooldowns and skill shots
- Needs to have a good AD carry to perform well in lane

Summoner Spell: Heal and Flash

Runes:

- 3 Greater Quintesssence of Gold (+1 Gold/10 seconds)
- 9 Greater Mark of Magic Penetration (+0.87 magic penetration)
- 9 Greater Seal of Armor (+1.41 armor)
- 9 Greater Glyph of Scaling Mana Regeneration (+0.055 mana regen / 5 sec. per level)\

Masteries

Items:

Starting Items: Faerie Charm -> 3 sight ward -> 2 health potion -> mana potion

Build:
Philosopher’s Stone -> Sightstone -> Kage’s Lucky Pick -> Boots of Speed -> Kage’s Last Breath -> Ruby Sightstone -> Ionian Boots of Lucidity -> Shurelya’s Reverie -> Mikael’s Cruncible ->Locket of the Iron Solari -> Enchantment: Homeguard on boots

There are many ways to play a support class and choosing the items that fit your playing style is what matters most.

 

Champion Abilities:

Passive: Surging Tides (When Nami’s abilities hit allied champions they gain movement speed for a short duration). This is quite a useful passive, as it gives your ADC a chance to chase down targets or even escape.

Aqua Prison (Q): Sends a Bubble towards a targeted area, dealing 75/130/185/240/295 magic damage to enemies, and stunning them for 1.3 seconds.

Mana: 60
Range: 875
Cooldown: 16/14.5/13/11.5/10 seconds

This ability works much like Cho’Gath's Rupture (Q) ability, where you must time it perfectly in order to land. But once it does land, it’s very rewarding. It’s quite hard to hit at first, but the more you play Nami and get the hang of the timing, the better you'll get using this skill. Missing the shot can cause long cooldown and makes you very vulnerable to attacks.

Ebb and Flow (W): Unleash a stream of water that bounces back and forth between allies and enemies

Ally hit: heals 65/95/125/155/185 health and will bounce to a nearby enemy champion
Enemy hit: deal 70/110/150/190/230 magic damage and bounces to a nearby allied champion
Bounces to each target only once, and hits up to 3 targets. The damage and healing value is reduced by 15% each bounce.

Mana : 70/85/100/115/130
Range: 725
Cooldown: 9 seconds

The important thing to know about this skill is how it bounces between allies and enemy. So casting it on the correct target is important. If you were to cast it on an ally, it would bounce from the ally to enemy and then back to another ally. But if you were to cast it on the enemy, it would bounce from enemy to ally than enemy again.

So choosing the right two targets is important. The problems that I had with this skill is that many times I would heal an ally, but the bounce would jump and accidently KS the target that my ally was going after. So beware of this when you use this skill.

Tidecaller’s Blessing (E): Empowers an allied champion for 5 seconds or 3 basic attacks. The ally’s basic attacks deal 25/40/55/70/85 bounce magic damage and slow the target by 15/20/25/30/35 % for 1 second

Mana: 55/60/65/70/75
Range: 800
Cooldown: 11 seconds

This skill is like a buff, that should be placed upon the AD or yourself when auto attacking. The extra magic damage and slow helps the AD to put out more damage and chase down targets. Also if you happen to be ahead of the target, casting it upon yourself and slowing the enemy can also be good use of this skill. This buff should be saved for trades or even chase down, because most times the AD carry would be wasting the buff on creeps, instead of on enemy champions. It should be used during harass, trades or engagement.

Tidal Wave (R): Summons a Tidal Wave from Nami’s Position. The Tidal Wave knocks up enemies and slows them by 50/60/70 %, dealing 150/250/350 magic damage. The duration of the slow increases based on how far the tidal wave has traveled, with a minimum duration of 2 seconds and a maximum of 4/4 seconds.

Mana: 100/150/200
Range: 2550
Cooldown: 140/120/100 seconds

It creates a big wave in a straight line, so this should be casted not in melee range of the champion, but at a distance, because of the stronger slow affect you receive. This skill also buffs allies who get hit by it, because of Nami’s passive, so it’s great to be used during team engagements, also a great skill to be used as an initiation for team engagement also.

Conclusion: Overall Nami is quite an interesting champion to try out; she might have quite a hard learning curve though. It takes a while to get used to her Q skill timing, but overall she is great to play with. Be sure to keep a distance and time your skill shots well. Play smart and supportive and you should have great results playing as Nami.