Overview
A bit of a lane bully, Nilah is a unique pick in that she’s typically a bot laner but doesn’t have the same kind of range as your traditional ADC. She’s a champion that wants to fight and get itno the thick of the action as much as possible as opposed to sitting back and auto-attacking from afar. She’s a great pick for players who want a bit more agency from bot lane. Click here for the latest data on her best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more.
Keys to Remember About Nilah
Nilah is a unique pick in bot lane thanks to how she wants to play -- she's a shorter range champion that wants to get up close and personal before repositioning with her Slipstream [E]. She plays much more like a caster than traditional ADC in that sense and will take time for ADC mains to learn.
Apotheosis [R] is a great tool at blowing up clumped enemies, especially if they chase her without major cooldowns up. She can instantly turn on them to get some huge damage off.
Strengths
Nilah’s passive, Joy Unending [P], allows her to reach level thresholds faster than her opponents -- she can abuse these timings to either secure favorable trades or outright kills if enemies aren’t careful. Each level spike early game especially contributes a significant amount of power to a champion, so she could be constantly looking to use it to her advantage, especially because Jubilant Veil [W] allows her to negate auto-attacks, which contributes a significant amount of damage early on. Later in the game, Apotheosis [R] is a very powerful tool in team fights, and it’s easy to find good positioning for it with Slipstream [E]. She’s great at dueling and fighting and should look to dominate the enemy ADC especially.
Weaknesses
Apotheosis [R] is a very powerful ability, but it puts her right in the thick of danger. This means she needs to be careful about when to use it -- it’s best combined with allies who also want to be in melee range with their abilities. If she ends up mistiming it, she’ll either be too early and die or too late and do no damage. It’s a different playstyle from traditional ADCs, which might make it harder for ADC mains to pick her up, and she is a bit lacking in other roles, which can make her a bit of a niche pick to learn.
Game Plan
Early Game: You can look for trades with Formless Blade [Q], but generally you want to be abusing your power spikes from your passive to secure lane leads. She can snowball a lane easily if she’s allowed to get a couple of kills early.
Mid Game: Your mid game is very powerful, as your abilities are very potent in team fights. The mobility makes it easy for her to clean up fights.
Late Game: Apotheosis [R] still provides you with a lot of damage, but at this point in the game, your lacking range and damage from afar will fall off compared to other ADCs. Try to hard commit to all-ins when possible as opposed to settling for stare offs.
