Nunu: Examining his effectiveness and the way pro teams utilise the yeti rider

Recently Nunu has seen his rise and fall of popularity. Today I'm going to discuss all things Nunu and the way that some professional teams have used the counter-jungling menace with varied results.

Nunu found his niche primarily as a support in season 2 and was very effective. He received some nerfs to the attack speed given by his blood boil in patch 3.01, which contributed to his downfall as a viable support. Season 3 brought a large drop in Nunu's popularity as a whole, until recently. In patch 3.08 Riot looked to give him an incentive to jungle as opposed to top lane or support.

 

The changes to consume:

- Damage increased to 600 / 700 / 800 / 900 / 1,000 from 500 / 600 / 700 / 800 / 900

- Healing reduced to 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 / 250 from 125 / 180 / 235 / 290 / 345

- Healing ratio reduced to 0.75 from 1.0

- Consume now grants bonuses for 120 / 150 / 180 / 210 / 240 seconds based on the type of monster consume was used on:

- Golem-type monsters grant 10% increased size and maximum health.

- Lizard-type monsters grant Nunu's attacks and spells additional magic damage equal to 1% of Nunu's maximum health.

- Wraith or Wolf-type monsters grant 15% movement speed for 3 seconds after Nunu kills a unit

It wasn't until the following patch 3.08 that Nunu's power became clear to see. Changes to the jungler meant that by killing either the Lizard Elder (Red) or Ancient Golem (Blue) you would gain enough experience to hit level 2, making counter-jungling hugely effective and detrimental to the enemy jungler.

I first became aware of the terror of Nunu jungle when this video surfaced on League of Legends sub-Reddit. I personally found a huge emergence in solo queue and had a huge ban/pick percentage.

 

Within the LCS - Past

Week 3 of the European and North American LCS was the first week to be played on patch 3.08 with the changes to the jungle and we found that every team was savvy to the current patch.

- Nunu's ban/pick stats in NA and EU LCS week 3 were 100%. He was banned in 18 out of 20 games.

- Nunu's ban/pick stats in NA and EU LCS week 4 were 100%. He was banned in 19 out of 20 games.

Teams were clearly aware of Nunu's power and potential. Though we didn't get to see a huge amount of Nunu over the passing weeks in his most powerful state.

Did you see? Yellowstar of Fnatic picked up Nunu in the support role with the smite summoner spell in their matchup against Evil Geniuses. They planned to have him roam and counter jungle but it sadly didn't work as they had planned. The VOD is here.

 

Present

Fast forward to week 9, played on patch 3.10. Nunu's consume was tweaked: Damage reduced to 500 / 625 / 750 / 875 / 1000 from 600 / 700 / 800 / 900 / 1000.

North America

After 9 weeks: 41 Nunu bans, 9 picks.
Total win rate: 44.4% Total ban rate: 44.2%

 

Europe

After 9 weeks: 53 Nunu bans, 19 picks.
Total win rate: 31.6% Total ban rate: 59.3%

 

So after being initially the most highly contended champion in the game, a few tweaks on and he's completely out of favour. Amongst all of this, what I found very curious is that over this duration in competitive play of OGN in Korea, Nunu was never a favoured pick in the jungle or otherwise this season. Aggressive junglers such as Elise and Lee sin in particular had huge popularity.

Nunu was very strong, there's absolutely no discussion there. I would say that Nunu thrives in solo queue and against poorly organised teams. In the LCS, teams don't fit that bill. The blanket of early wards that you see in the majority of the game and good reactive, fluid play turns a predictable counter jungle into a witch-hunt. When you take away Nunu's strongest ability which is to disrupt the enemy jungler, get ahead, stay ahead and secure objectives. All you really have is a jungler with high base health that has no hard cc, a very easily interruptable ultimate (Which doesn't compare to many level 6 power spikes). You effectively have two utility based supports.

I think Nunu is currently in a good spot, though I don't think that he is a top tier jungler in the competitive scene and he was over hyped. Teams seem to have worked that out gradually and stopped fearing Nunu. I think this is why some teams have failed to pick up wins with him, Nunu is very one dimensional and predictable. Like every flavour of the month over-powered champion, people learn how to deal with it.

I'm not saying RIP Nunu. But I think right now other junglers fit the current meta much better. It was fun while it lasted Nunu.