The flow of battle might be dictated by many different factors in League of Legends, but a good support is always important, even if they’re not always highlighted within a gameplan. Nami isn’t the flashiest champion on Summoner’s Rift, but she can easily control the tide of teamfights by setting up her teammates for success.
She can heal her allies in a jiffy, provide a ton of crowd control, and even bring a surprising amount of burst that can drown out any unsuspecting enemy bottom laners in the early phases of a game. Players must, however, make a choice to out-trade or outlast their opponents, since the two builds can vary in path.
Here is the best build for the Tidecaller in season 12.
Runes
Domination
Electrocute: Since damage has become less prevalent following Riot Games’ recent durability update, Nami can help her AD carry partner in skirmishes by providing some burst with her own kit. The Electrocute rune activates when a player hits an enemy champion with three separate attacks or abilities, which can be absolutely destructive in conjunction with Nami’s E, Tidecaller’s Blessing.
Lucian is a perfect example since he can launch multiple attacks in quick succession, which in turn, deals a massive amount of damage combined with the Tidecaller’s Blessing buff and electrocute.
If you aren’t looking to battle it out, you can still opt into a healing-based build with Summon Aery, a great way to protect your partner in lane with extra shielding while still dealing a good amount of damage whenever you hit an ability on the opposing champions.
Cheap Shot: If Nami is able to land her Aqua Prison on an enemy champion, she and her lane partner should be on the fast track to a kill. Cheap Shot’s extra true damage will be great for delivering the final blow on any low-health opponent while they float helplessly in the air.
Eyeball Collection: Since Eyeball Collection scales off of how many champion takedowns you get, players should be incentivized to be active around the map to get as many assists as possible. The extra damage will be needed to help the team whittle down opponents throughout the game.
Relentless Hunter: Nami is relatively slow with a base movement speed of 335, which makes Relentless Hunter important to her effectiveness around the map. She is most useful when hovering around the carry champions of the team, which means that in the later stages of a game, she’ll need plenty of speed to catch up to her other teammates.
Sorcery
Manaflow Band: As an enchanter, Nami needs a pretty significant mana pool to keep her allies healed and buffed up while throwing out CC in fights. Manaflow Band should force players to continuously push the envelope with poke, since affecting an enemy champion with an ability permanently increases her maximum mana by 25, up to 250 mana.
Once she hits the max stacks of 250 extra bonus mana, she’ll start to regain one percent of her missing mana every five seconds, letting her spam more abilities without any worry.
Scorch: A little more damage never hurt anyone, and in lanes where players can live with a sliver of health, the burn could help secure kills that would have otherwise gotten away.
Bonuses: +9 adaptive force, +9 adaptive force, +6 armor
Items
Starting items: Spellthief’s Edge, two health potions
Like most other enchanters, Nami starts off with Spellthief’s Edge for the extra AP damage, along with the extra gold that she can get from poking enemy champions with auto-attacks and her ranged abilities.
Core build: Imperial Mandate/Moonstone Renewer, Chemtech Putrifier
Depending on the playstyle, Nami can grab either Imperial Mandate or Moonstone Renewer as a Mythic choice. If you’re looking to skirmish early with your opposing laners, pick up the former for the bonus magic damage and movement speed you get when you pop the mark on immobilized or slowed enemies.
If you want to hang back and heal your marksman buddy instead, you can grab Moonstone Renewer to be a fountain of life for you and your allies. The only other item that needs to be picked up is Chemtech Putrifier, since it not only increases your base mana regeneration, but also allows you to buff an ally’s attacks with Grievous Wounds.
Final items: Staff of Flowing Water, Ardent Censer, Mikael’s Blessing, Watchful Wardstone
Not only does Staff of Flowing Water fit perfectly with Nami thematically, but it also helps buff her healing power while giving both her and her healed allies increased AP and 20 ability haste for four seconds. Ardent Censer is also an easy pickup for Nami enthusiasts who are playing with a champion that auto-attacks a lot, since it gives bonus attack speed and on-hit magic damage for six seconds.
To help out any teammates who are too stubborn to buy a Quicksilver Sash, Nami can also buy a Mikael’s Blessing to help cleanse any crowd control that gets layered onto her allies. Finally, Watchful Wardstone is key for any support to have to maintain ample vision control around the map.
