I'm a recent level thirty who mainly jungles Hecarim, or tops with Sion. On occasion, however, with my friends, if I'm not playing to win, I will play ADC or Mid. I have a fondness for Nunu as a mid champion, because he fits my playstyle. A relatively spammable harass on a 1.0 AP ratio. A movement speed buff for escaping ganks or more quickly activating my passive. And, most importantly to solo lane Nunu, a 1.0 heal that clears siege minions with no trouble. Nunu in lane may rarely kill his opponent without jungler ganks, and he'll never carry, but I can completely suppress the enemy AP by zoning them, harassing them until they are forced to back, and beating their cs by a landslide. In addition, I can grab dragon by myself.

Now, here is my problem. This recent patch, in favor of supporting JUNGLE nunu, lowered his healing ratio by 25%, and reduced his base heal from 125/180/235/290/345 to 90/130/170/210/250. And what do I get in exchange? A 15% movement speed boost for 3 seconds, if I eat a wolf or wraith. A miniscule bonus to damage if for some reason my jungler gives the AP red. And an extra 100-200 health, if for some inexplicable reason I'm near top or bot and grabbing golems. The extra bonus to damage is nice, but I don't think it changes the total number of Iceball/Consume combos I need to kill dragon, making it fairly pointless since it one-shots minions already. Riot claims they want Consume to be a 'cool' spell, but frankly, I found it very cool already. Now, I'm not so sure. I'm not as effective a lane bully because I can't always win the trade by healing up. Further, supports are harmed because their sole heal has just been nerfed.

"–Consume has traditionally languished in late game for everything besides objective control, so making it an attractive spell with these changes adds more depth and rank-up incentive."

No. You've nerfed my one advantage in lane, under the pretense of making it 'better.' Its not attractive. Its my ability to stand in the middle of an enemy minion wave in a teamfight, and win because of it. Consume is what makes Nunu unique. Now, I'm not sure I can take a burst champ in game. They'll simply assault me until I back away, moving me away from creeps and unable to heal. I'd really, really like to see this restored. The bonuses are so insignificant that they wouldn't even be noticeable if you kept them. Thoughts?

You're a recent level 30. Nunu used to be extremely popular as both a jungle and a support champion (although Riot only ever intended him as a jungle champion). I used to play him all the time.

But with the change to the jungle, he became less viable as a jungler, and with the nerf to his W, he became less viable as a support. And the only time he was ever played in a solo lane was when I was running promote Nunu in season 2...

The idea behind the changes to Nunu are to attempt bringing him back in the mix as a jungler. And when I saw the changes, I was excited to try new Nunu out in the jungle again. It's been a while since I've played him.

The changes were intended to strengthen Nunu as a jungler. This is the role they want Nunu in. He wasn't a strong solo-laner as it was, so if you feel they weakened him to the point that you don't want to play him in lane any more, it's probably for the better because you should've been playing someone stronger anyway.


So, from my understanding of Consume, you don't have to consume the Red Buff monster to get the damage bonus--you get it for eating any lizard, and there are two little ones in that camp. And the same for golems, there are 5 jungle golems between the two camps (well, 10 between 4). In fact, if anything, I think this is a strong buff even to lane Nunu, because no matter where you're playing Nunu, you should always take an opportunity to steal some of the enemy jungle. Now the incentive is that much stronger.

As for whether or not you're faster at killing dragon, perhaps your not. And yet, it already 1-shot minions. But there's all those monsters in the jungle that it doesn't 1-shot. And most specifically, there are jungle monsters like the blue wraith that it only 1-shots if you have enough points in it at the right part of the game.

As for supports being harmed? No. First off, Nunu's consume only heals himself. Second...he has to consume a minion to do this, which takes away from the ADC CS. At best, Nunu would consume the seige minion so as not to kill it so the ADC can still get the CS... but this only was once every 90 seconds. Support Nunu is all about the W and the E. Consume is not really part of support Nunu's kit. You don't take Consume as support Nunu until either your team is about to take dragon, or you're like level 13...

Consume is only a small part of what makes Nunu unique, and it made him unique because of the true damage to the jungle monsters. Nunu used to be one of the fastest junglers and one of the best counter-junglers. Lately, he just isn't even played. The Consume buff should bring him back in a big way.

The main problem with AP Nunu was that he was to much of a lane bully. You could literally not kill him because he'd just consume a minion, blast you in the face with a basic ability that has better AP scaling than most ults, and walk away to wait for Q to come off CD. Sure he had absolutely terrible waveclear as he relied solely on Q and AA to clear, but Riot has never been a fan of unlimited sustain and Nunu was capable of always popping Q for free because of his passive; giving him a very large amount of reward for very little risk.

What Riot is trying to do is make Jungle Nunu a more viable option because his current jungle situation is kind of bad. That and keep him out of top lane. Although I will admit that full AP mid Nunu sounds absolutely terrifying. You must be doing like 5k damage with your ult by late game.

I have no problem with Nunu or even laning against him, but I find it odd that a tanky champ gets better AP scaling than Katarina or Akali who are notably squishier. That's my only actual problem with him. If they'd lower his E scaling to like .5 I'd be happy. Although I have some issues with an ult that has 1k base damage on an AoE slow with 2.5 scaling, but that's another matter.

I'll admit my ignorance about support Nunu. I've seen people take it as a support, and at least at my level of play, one cs for a substantial boost in health for your support seems a fair trade, especially when that cs is secured by another player. That said, there seems conflicting views on whether AP Nunu is viable. For me, I've beaten Lissandra, Lux, Heimerdinger and several common APs in lane with him. I love his sustain and damage. I have only lost lane with Nunu once in about 15 games. I think thats a fair ratio to say he's viable, if not ideal.

However, on the idea of nunu jungling, I can see the benefit of the buffs as a jungler main (particularly for the golems) but isn't cutting his heal by 25% making him weaker both in the early jungling phase AND in the late game once he has his items? I like playing Nunu because if gold is the resource that determines victory, I know I can generally beat my opponent unless I'm totally outclassed. I like staying in lane well after my opponent backed twice. His harass is great, but he's not taking you in a straight fight. His sustain is what makes him in lane. Its vital to him to be able to do it effectively. Sure, there are champs dedicated to one role, like Soraka, but I think its generally a bad idea to weaken him overall simply to confine him to a single role.

You're always at 100% health with jungle nunu right now. the 25% cut won't hurt his early jungle whatsoever

See, that's the thing you have to keep in mind. You're a fresh 30. Most of what determines who wins their lane or who wins the match is who is the better player. Strength of champion doesn't matter that much.

A better player will be stronger with a better champion, but the fact that you're easily winning your lane with Nunu may simply mean that you're mechanically better then the average player you're getting paired with. Your positioning is well and your opponents are overly afraid of Nunu's snowball.

But watch any high level stream. Add some higher level players to your buddy list and spectate them regularly. Between the beginning of season 3 and today, Nunu was basically never picked for reasons I mentioned earlier. He's not a laner and never has been.


I haven't tried Nunu in a real game yet, but I just tried his jungle run out. My first impression is that the changes make him extremely strong in the jungle. I'm not a gold+, but based on my impression, I imagine he'll see some action in the jungle once more. Between the speed boost he gets from wolves/wraiths and his W, and the extra damage/tankiness he gets from lizards/golems (the consume buffs STACK by the way... that is to say, you can have one of each all at the same time), he has an extraordinarily fast clear time. And with a leash on blue (that you can still smite... so it's as fast as a smite leash with the advantage of saving smite), you can then go in and you have over 1,000 true damage ready to dish out to the red buff (whether yours or enemies) between Consume and Smite. And you'll get there fast because you have your W and the wolf buff.

Nunu jungle is extremely strong and extremely viable now.


He's not weaker overall. He's just weaker in a role he was already weak in and wasn't intended to be in in the first place. Rather than be an under par laner that was an extraordinarily rare pick, he's now going to be a very strong jungler.

The patch didn't confine him to one role. Nunu was intended to be confined to this one role from inception. The previous strength of his W temporarily made him a viable support. The nerf to his W and the changes to his jungle made him weak across the board to the point that it made him seem like he could play in lane.

That's not a testament to how good Nunu is as a laner--it's a testament to how weak Riot had made him as a jungler. And with this patch, Riot has finally fixed Nunu as a jungler as far as I can tell.