Nunu Counters: How To Counter Pick Nunu

Nunu is a jungle champion that can build into a tank or AP burst player. He can also play a support role in bot lane. In this article, we discuss how to effectively counter Nunu.

Best Nunu Counters

• Cassiopeia
• Sona
• Sivir
• Soraka
• Kassadin
• Riven

Zombie Nunu

Nunu Counter Picks

Now that you know who counters Nunu, you can finally counter pick Nunu in any matchup. Let’s take you through some tips on how to use a few of these champions who are counters to Nunu. After, there is a general section explaining how to use any LoL champion as counters for Nunu. After all, if you know how to play against Nunu, you can play safely and effectively to defeat Nunu in a lane.

Riven

Riven’s shield has approximately the same cooldown as Nunu’s Iceball. Just save it for when he tries to poke you, and then go all-in on him. Save your stun if he’s ulting, or just knock him up with your third strike.

Soraka

Nunu can’t heal his lane partner. Soraka negates his poke with her heals and cancels Absolute Zero with her E.

Sona

The telegraphed Ice Blast gives plenty of time to use Sona’s W for resistance and Nunu lacks the power to all-in and stop Sona’s sustain and poke.

Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia vastly outranges Nunu. He can’t safely throw his iceball at you without risking a full combo from Q and a constant E barrage.

Sivir

Sivir’s shield is effective against Nunu’s Q and R. It also returns mana to you for each successful ability blocked.

TPA Nunu

Tips For Playing Against Nunu

• It’s imperative to disable (silence/stun/knock-up/displacement) Nunu when he starts channeling his ultimate – otherwise you will take tons of damage if you cannot escape it.
• If you’re brush checking and you’re suddenly slowed, Nunu might be channeling his ultimate inside a brush.
• That, or you just got hit by his Q.
• Banshee’s Veil is extremely strong against a Nunu because he only has his Iceblast to stick with you.
• Fight Nunu away from minions and jungle monsters to deny him his heal.
• Nunu’s laning phase is one of the hardest to counter, due to his spammable Ice Blast, his Consume that restores health and gives him minion kills, and his Visionary that allows him to stay in lane for a very long time.
• Ice Blast is Nunu’s only offensive spell against champions (aside from Absolute Zero, which is his ultimate). This means that Banshee’s Veil will render Nunu useless, as he can’t stick to a champion without this spell.
  • Using a champion that can become untargetable, such as Fizz or Vladimir, can also leave Nunu helpless, as Ice Blast is a delayed projectile.
    • Fizz is a good choice as his untargetable spell (Playful/Trickster) has a low cooldown. Also, Chum the Waters can interrupt Absolute Zero and has enough range to be cast outside of this spell’s range. However, Fizz can’t deny Nunu’s sustain and lacks sustain himself (during early game).
    • On the other hand, Vladimir has enough sustain to go into a sustain war with Nunu, and his Sanguine Pool can also be used to avoid taking any damage from Absolute Zero.

Other Tips For Laning Against Nunu

• Remember that Absolute Zero is a channeled spell. Save your hard crowd control to interrupt it. It may be a good idea to use ranged, hard Crowd control such as Draven’s Stand Aside or Cho’Gath’s Rupture to be able to interrupt Absolute Zero without actually having to enter into its range.
• A champion with a high distance dash, such as Kha’Zix or Tristana, may be able to instantly get out of Absolute Zero’s range and avoid damage. But be wary that Nunu can intentionally interrupt Absolute Zero‘s channeling so that your champion still takes some damage.
• Although he has high survivability he’s mostly dependent on his Consume to stay in lane so mana starvation will render him weak. Constant harassment in lane will force him to use his spells when Visionary isn’t active, so he’ll be left with no sustain apart from Health Potions. That can force him to tower hug or recall if you can harass him under his turret. Because of this, champions with long range harass are a great lane counter. Examples are Caitlyn (decent range and her Piltover Peacemaker can harass him under a turret), Twisted Fate’s Gold Card can stop his ult and the range of his Wild Cards is high enough to easily harass him under a turret.
• When you see an enemy Nunu going to a brush, be careful of face-checking it. He might start channeling Absolute Zero if you get too close.
• Exhaust can be used to counter the high damage of Nunu’s Absolute Zero if a way to disrupt the channel is unavailable.

Workshop Nunu

By using the champions who counter Nunu and the LoL Nunu counter tips above, you can now develop a strategy to help you, as a summoner, become an effective counter to Nunu players.