Pretty much what the title says.. why max Q? you're playing a tank jungle that has a lot of buffs and debuffs. why would you want to max the Q rather than the snowball for solo lane ganks or if your team is aa heavy the bloodboil? Ive been playing him a lot lately and I havent done 1 game yet where i thought Q max would be best.
For counterjungle and objective secure. You got two smites, effectively, one on a very short cooldown. This is what Nunu is good in the jungle for.
If you want heavy lane pressure, Nunu just ain't the guy for that. You're better off with someone like Warwick with W active.
mostly maxing q is best if you want to be the cheeky nunu player that just walks in and q the dragon, herald, baron, etc and flash whatever mastery you have at them [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]
Nunu is more of an objective taker than a damage dealer. Due to his damage on Q and his attack speed buff on Blood Boil. Maxing his snowball won't do much for him, but getting 1000+ True Damage on monsters can make or break games because it makes Nunu the ultimate monster objective taker/stealer.
objective control and counterjungling. Having what is essentially is 2 smites is insane.
i can understand the pressure of the "2 smites" but i prefer to put lane pressure over jungling tbh. i dont counter jungle as much as i should! i usually put heavy lane presence. But thanks for all the input guys. was just curious. but i think ill still max E W cause that, to me, still seems more worth to the team aspect rather than just to assist myself. and the potential of a possible steal.
Nunu Jungle is basically a Second-Tier Ivern nowadays (i.e. Warden-ish). You want him for his Q objective control and his W Utility. You can even build him the same as Ivern just with Frozen Heart instead of Athene's Unholy Grail.
On the spectrum of Tanks, Nunu is somewhere between an Ivern and a Mundo in terms of playstyle.
EDIT: I also tend to max E last because the attack speed slow is the same at all ranks. The damage and % slow really aren't as great as the 45% Attack Speed your ADC or potentially your Top Lane (if they're something like an Irelia/Jax/Aatrox).
Snowball helps your team, Devour helps you. With the last changes to snowball, it's amazing to max because it's essentially a permaslow at rank 5. No one can simply get away without plants or strong mobility with your bloodboil/ice blast assault. I personally find this the better option, and opens up your build to a possible early AP item cheese build, which can turn some lanes around.
Maxing devour would be just for counter jungling and objectives. Very easy to run into the enemy jungle and smite/devour a big monster, and just walk out. The enemy should also in general never see another scuttle crab again. Do this when you get pretty stoned and want to play an amusing single-player Nunu.
Actually, maxing Q has one big advantage. If you counter jungle well enough, you'll force the other jungler to gank since he'll be gold starved. Ganks are a lot less effective when they're expected. Just be sure that if you're counter jungling, try to do it when the blast plants are there since that'll be your anti-collapse in case of wards.
