A twenty-minute Nunu & Willump practice routine
A concrete practice-tool routine for Nunu & Willump, built around its real cooldowns and ability costs.
Minutes 0–5: the passive, alone
Nunu increases the attack speed and Move Speed of Willump and a nearby ally, and causes Willump's basic attacks to damage enemies around the target.
Do nothing else for five minutes. The passive is the piece nobody isolates, and it is the only part of the kit that is always available.
Minutes 5–15: each ability, then the sequence
Call of the Freljord
Nunu increases the attack speed and Move Speed of Willump and a nearby ally, and causes Willump's basic attacks to damage enemies around the target.
Consume
Willump takes a bite out of a minion, monster, or enemy champion, dealing damage and healing himself.
Biggest Snowball Ever!
Willump creates a snowball that grows in size and speed as he rolls it. The snowball damages and knocks up enemies.
Snowball Barrage
Nunu throws multiple snowballs that damage enemies. When he's finished, Willump roots any champions or large monsters that were hit by a snowball.
Absolute Zero
Nunu & Willump create a powerful blizzard in an area that slows enemies and deals massive damage at the end.
Use the cooldowns as a metronome
Practice tool lets you reset cooldowns, which is useful for learning a combo and useless for learning a champion. Turn the reset off and cast on the real timings — knowing what an ability's downtime feels like is most of what separates a comfortable champion from a new one.
Nunu & Willump is mana-gated, which is the real limit on how often you can contest a wave early.
Minutes 15–20: last-hitting under tower
Unglamorous, and the highest-value five minutes of the routine. Melee champions have completely different tower-farming patterns, and this is where you find out which one you are actually playing.
Riot's own notes on playing Nunu & Willump
These are the designers' words, not ours — the tips shipped in the client for Nunu & Willump.
- Consume allows Nunu to stay in a lane against ranged opponents.
- You can choose to interrupt Absolute Zero early for partial damage if an opponent is about to run out of range.
- It's often beneficial to delay the casting of Absolute Zero until the initial round of disables are used. Try to hang back before rushing into a team fight.