Nunu: The Monstrous Heat Sink of Slow Doom [A Rework]
Nunu, the Yeti Rider [A Rework]
Heya peeps! My name's Cardi and I’ve posted quite a few ideas before, and I’m back with a take on a successful, healthy gameplay rework for the frosty duo. The theme of this rework is "power over time". All of Nunu’s abilities take time to ramp up to their full potential. Why would this be a good and fun idea? Well, Nunu’s enemies can anticipate the Yeti beforehand and react accordingly, and Nunu can anticipate his enemies’ reactions to his actions, and back and forth ad infinitum. If Nunu pulls off his abilities in a meaningful and timely fashion, he’ll feel more powerful than ever before as the snowball-wielding, Willump-riding eskimo of permanent, icy doom. Enjoy :^)~
Collecting Snow (Passive): Nunu collects snow while attacking, moving, and hitting champions with snowballs. At 100 stacks of snow, his next snowball becomes a global skillshot: a gargantuan, slowing-moving, snow-steamroller that slows and damages all enemies it comes into contact with. If it hits an enemy champion, the snowball explodes violently, dealing damage and slowing enemies caught in the explosion.
Nunu's new passive is Collecting Snow. As the pair trek across the map, they take every opportunity they get to gather up some snow! Once they've rolled up a sizable snowball, the fun begins. Nunu takes his snowball fights very seriously.
Beastly Devour (Q): Willump chomps down ferociously in a short ranged cone in the direction of the cursor, dealing magic damage to all enemies bitten. Projectiles in range of the ability when it’s cast and targets with less health than the ability’s damage are destroyed or consumed, respectively. Deals triple damage to neutral monsters and heals Nunu based on his missing health if at least one projectile is destroyed or one target is consumed.
Consume didn't feel much like an ability. It was just something that Nunu did every once in a while and got pretty boring at times. Click on a target to heal was the main goal of pretty much every use of Consume. This take on the ability gives Nunu players a few more options on when, where, and why they would choose to blow their Q cooldown. It's no longer "Consume" - Willump’s insatiable appetite has been increased. He beastily devours absolutely everything in a short range front of him. As an added bonus, he can chomp down on dangerous flying things in the air too, as long as he times his bites properly. More ways to interact with champions and the environment. More food. BURP!!
Blood Boil (W): Empowers Nunu and a nearby ally with boiling anger, causing their attack and movement speeds to steadily increase over the buff’s duration to dangerous levels.
Reinforcing the idea of "power over time" even further, this blood boil buff gets stronger over its duration. Buff an ally at the start of a fight, pentakill for your ally at the end. As long as the ally you decide to buff is skilled, of course.
Disclaimer: Skilled ally not included.
Sticky Snowball (E): Nunu throws a high-velocity snowball at a target, slowing the movement speed of the first enemy it hits. The snowball travels in a straight line once thrown, but Nunu must have a target to cast this ability.
Cooldown: Very Low Range (Target): 400 Travel distance (Once thrown): 700
Nunu’s old icy blast was just too non-interactive and bland. This version doesn’t significantly increase the amount of effort required to use the ability on Nunu’s part, but does give more slippery champions (especially Assassins, for example) an opportunity to escape from a bitter cold perma-slow death. The range reduction guarantees that Nunu will have to stay close to his enemies to plant his snowballs in their faces (meaning a tankier Nunu build is rewarded) and full ability power Nunu players have to be more cautious about when and where to go in. Finally, the cooldown reduction allows Nunu to keep his perma-slow at the cost of staying alive. He has to chuck more snowballs at more faces more often from a shorter distance in order to maintain the perma-slow effect. The strength of Nunu's ability to slow his enemies consistently can be kept, as a result, unperturbed in a healthy way. Throw snowballs consistently until you reach your snow cap - then unleash your gigantic snowball for the teamfight finishing combo.
Absolute Zero (R): Nunu and Willump sap the heat out of a large area over five seconds. Targets that remain in the area have their movement and attack speeds continuously reduced, increasing over time. If fully channeled, the area explodes, dealing damage and stunning enemies for an extremely brief duration (about half a second).
Nunu’s brush bait pentakill potential will always be a core part of his identity. But increasing the duration of his channel and making it damage enemies only if it’s successfully, fully channeled will give enemies a wider window of opportunity in which to make plays against Nunu’s maelstrom of heat death. In exchange, the area of effect of the ability is increased slightly and slows enemies’ attack and movement speeds more than ever before. The immediate impact of the change is that Absolute Zero will always be a powerful Area of Denial against attack-based foes, even in the scenarios in which it fails to deal damage because it wasn’t fully channeled. The short stun at the end of the full channel, along with the full damage of the ultimate, seals the deal for the ability – it’s always strong during its channel as a soft crowd control ability and even stronger in the rare cases that it does successfully explode.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qofb26VZj7Q/maxresdefault.jpg
TL;DR -Nunu collects snow to make a huge snowball with his passive. -Q lets him eat everything in front of him. Everythinggggg*. -W buff gets stronger over time. -E has a short range, a shorter slow duration (slow amount unchanged), and a shorter cooldown. Works like Lucian's Q. -R slows for much more and for a longer duration over a longer distance, but only deals damage if fully channeled.
*Except that which he cannot eat.