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How to play Naafiri – Full Guide, Build, and Tips
Looking to learn how to play Naafiri in LoL? Here is everything you need to know about the newest champion that will hit Summoners’ Rift in Patch 13.14.
Image Credits | Riot Games
How to play Naafiri – the newest Season 13 LoL champion
Naafiri is the second champion to be released in 2023, following the Ixtal support Milio. She will be the AD, Darkin, mid lane assassin who wants to hunt down her prey. In this guide, we will be breaking down all the necessary information on how to learn and play Naafiri in LoL. This will allow you to get a headstart over the other players, as they will have to spend more time mastering his kit and optimizing his build and runes. Without further ado, let’s jump right into it.
Naafiri Base Statistics
This is an analysis that is usually skipped over, but it’s essential to understand how a champion behaves throughout the game, and in particular, during the laning phase. Below are all the base stats for Naafiri (they might be subject to nerfs and buffs in the near future):
- Health: 650 – 2690 (+113.3/level)
- Mana: 400 – 1335 (+51.94/level)
- Health Regen: 9 – 24.3 (+0.85/level)
- Mana Regen: 7.5 – 24.5 (+0.94/level)
- Armor: 32 – 111.9
- AD: 57 – 92.7
- MR: 32 – 66.85
- Crit damage: 175%
- Movement speed: 340
- Attack range: 125
- Base Attack Speed: 0.688
- Attack windup: 17.5%
- AS ratio: 0.625
- Bonus AS: 0 – 35.7%
- Gameplay Radius: 55
- Selection Radius: 111
- Pathing Radius: 35
- Acquisition Radius: 400
Naafiri Abilities Rundown
Below you can find all the numbers in Naafiri’s kit. If you want to know briefly what her spells do and don’t want to look at all those numbers, you will find a TLDR below with a basic rundown on how to play Naafiri.
- Passive – We Are More
- Naafiri creates a Packmate every 25 – 10 seconds (based on level) that will attack enemies that she targets for (6 – 30 (based on level) + 4.5% bAD) physical damage, increased to (8 – 39 (based on level) + 5.85% bAD) after she uses an ability.
- Hitting champions and large monsters with abilities reduces this ability’s cooldown by 4 seconds. Killing enemies reduces it by 1 second
- Max Packmates: 2 – 3 (based on level)
- Packmates take 76 – 50% damage from AoE abilities and effects
- Packmates take 50% damage from monsters and minions.
- Q – Darkin Dagger
- ACTIVE: Naafiri hurls a dagger in the target direction that deals physical damage to enemies hit and inflicts them with a bleed for 5 seconds, which deals bonus physical damage every 0.5 seconds over the duration. Darkin Daggers can be recast after 0.5 seconds and within 4 seconds at no additional cost.
- If a target is already bleeding, they are instead dealt the remaining bleed damage plus additional bonus physical damage which is increased by 0% − 100% (based on target’s missing health). If that target is also a champion, Naafiri heals herself.
- Packmates will leap at the first champion hit and attack them for 3 seconds.
- Deals 70% damage to minions
- Flashing during cast time will now cause the Q to spawn from the new location
- Cooldown: 11/10/9/8/7 seconds
- Initial damage: 35/45/55/65/75 (+ 20% bonus AD)
- Second cast damage: 35/50/65/80/95 (+ 70% bonus AD)
- Bonus physical damage per tick: 3/6.5/10/13.5/17 (+ 8% bonus AD)
- Healing: 45/65/85/105/125 (+ 40% bonus AD)
- Mana cost: 55/60/65/70/75
- W – Hounds’ Pursuit
- ACTIVE: Naafiri channels for 0.75 seconds to single out the target enemy champion. Upon completion, the target is revealed for 1.5 seconds and Naafiri and her dash to the target, each colliding with the first enemy champion hit. Upon impact, Naafiri deals physical damage and slows the target by 99% for 0.25 seconds, while Packmates deal 10% of that damage to their own targets.
- Packmates become untargetable during their windup and dash, and can individually damage targets.
- Physical damage: 30/70/110/150/190 (+ 80% bonus AD)
- Packmate physical damage: 3/7/11/15/19 (+ 8% bonus AD)
- Cooldown: 22/20/18/16/14
- Mana cost: 70/60/50/40/30
- Hounds’ Pursuit refunds 50% of its cooldown if the channel is cancelled.
- E – Eviscerate
- ACTIVE: Naafiri dashes in the target direction and deals physical damage to enemies she passes through. Upon arrival, she explodes in a flurry of blades to deal physical damage to nearby enemies.
- vanish during the dash and reappear near Naafiri on her arrival. They are also healed to full health.
- Dash physical damage: 35/55/75/95/115 (+70% bonus AD)
- Flurry physical damage: 65/105/145/185/225 (+ 100% bonus AD)
- Cooldown: 11/10.5/10/9.5/9 seconds
- Mana cost: 35 flat
- Target range: 350
- Effect Radius: 210
- Collision Radius: 50
- R – The Call of the Pack
- PASSIVE: gains bonus cast range.
- Bonus range: 80/160/240
- ACTIVE: Naafiri prepares her grand hunt, immediately despawning all active and then summoning the maximum number of new ones along with extra Packmates. She grants herself and all Packmates bonus movement speed that decays over 4 seconds and is doubled while out-of-combat. She also grants sight of the surrounding area for 2 seconds and reveals nearby enemy champions for 4 seconds.
- Naafiri goes on the hunt for 15 seconds, during which she gains bonus attack damage, increases the maximum health of all her Packmates by 25%, and reduces the total cooldown of by 50%. Her first basic attack or ability hit against a champion will grant her a shield for 3 seconds.
- Naafiri’s first champion takedown within the duration refreshes all effects of The Call of the Pack, restores all Packmates to full health, and grants Naafiri the same shield again, though not stacking with the first one. When the hunt ends, any extra Packmates are despawned and all other ones are restored to full health.
- Cooldown: 120/110/100
- Mana cost: 100 flat
- Effect Radius: 2100
- Packmates gained: 2/3/4
- Shield amount: 125/325/525 (+ 50% bonus AD)
- Bonus MS: 35/42.5/50%
- Bonus AD: 10/20/30 (+ 15/20/25% total AD)
- PASSIVE: gains bonus cast range.
To put it simply, Naafiri’s passive allows her to summon packmates, similar to Elise’s spiders. They attack enemies when she does and the spawn timer will reduce when killing enemies or hitting champions.
The Q, Darkin Daggers, Naafiri throws a dagger in the target direction that deals damage to enemies hit. If it hits a champion, she heals herself a little bit. All enemies hit are affected with Bleed. If she uses her Q against Bleeding targets, the ability will deal additional damage. Packmates will lunge at the first target hit but will prioritize champs. It’s her main harassing ability that also provides some sustain during the laning phase.
Her W, Hounds’ Pursuit, is her main dashing ability, allowing her to jump to an enemy and slow them. Be aware that she will stop upon collision with the first enemy champion, meaning that other enemies can block her dash.
Her E, Eviscerate, is another skirmishing ability used to restore health to packmates that are fighting while dealing additional damage.
The ultimate, instead, allows Naafiri to gain bonus movement speed, and upon hitting an enemy, she gains a shield and packmates are empowered, dealing more damage and being harder to kill. The duration refreshes upon the first takedown only.
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How to Play Naafiri – Build and Runes.
Naafiri’s Rune and Build Page
Based on the initial numbers of her abilities and how the kit works as a whole, we expect Naafiri to function like an AD assassin, putting a lot of emphasis on lethality and armor penetration.
But before diving deeper into her build path, let’s first talk about the runes. The most logical and effective keystone rune is Electrocute. Not only does it grant extra damage whenever Naafiri goes in for short trades but it’s also the most consistent. You could consider going Dark Harvest as well, but it would take too much time to stack for it to become strong.
Considering you will be running the Domination tree, go for Sudden Impact, Eyeball Collection, and Ultimate Hunter as the three minor runes. While the first two are pretty much the best choices of those two rows, you could swap out Ultimate Hunter with Treasure Hunter if you want a more snowbally setup, and use the extra gold to further push the lead.
Image Credits | Riot Games
From the secondary tree, run Triumph with Coup de Grace so that you can deal more damage while going for kills and getting extra gold and health upon takedowns.
When it comes to Naafiri’s build, you have different items that you can consider, depending on the game state. That said, the Mythic item is always going to be Duskblade of Draktharr due to the item’s ability to amplify the damage based on the target’s missing health. It gives Naafiri a great one-item spike and it will increase her chances of hunting down her prey.
Image Credits | Riot Games
After that, you have two different paths that you could go for. You either go for a full assassin build or a more bruiser-ish item combination. The former includes running items like Prowler’s Claw, Edge of Night, and Axiom Arc to get the highest amount of lethality and take advantage of all the item’s passive effects. It will make Naafiri quite squishy, so it’s probably not going to be the more common option.
The bruiser build, on the other hand, revolves more around stacking % armor penetration with Black Cleaver and Serylda’s Grudge. After that, you want to round it off with Ravenous Hydra and Death Dance for increasing resistances and lifesteal. Maw of Malmortius is always going to be the alternative against magic-damage-heavy team compositions.
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How to play Naafiri in-game
Laning phase
Naafiri is a melee mid lane champion so her laning phase is mainly dictated by which matchup she goes against. She will suffer most long-range mages that are able to harass and poke her consistently while she should fare well against short and mid-range champions due to her mobility and strong in-game potential.
During the laning phase, you’re mainly looking to apply poke with the daggers and chunk down the enemy’s health bar. Simultaneously, you want to wait for your packmates to spawn before jumping in for a trade since they will add a lot of damage to your combos. Don’t be too aggressive right off the bat, and wait for your first small spike once you buy the Serrated Dirk. This small item component is highly cost-efficient and it will allow you to deal a lot of extra damage.
Just like most assassins, your kill potential will come in as soon as you hit level six. You don’t have to necessarily kill the lane opponent, though, as you can also use your ultimate and dashes to quickly roam around the map and pick up a few kills on the other lanes.
Mid-game
Once you get to the mid-game, your goal is to find the right angle to jump in and burst the enemy carries. Thanks to the shield and Naafiri’s mobility, you shouldn’t have many problems taking at least one target down. Take advantage of the gold lead and extend the item gap between you and the opponents. The more damage you have, the easier it will be for you to shut down enemies and live.
Late-game
During the late game, things might get trickier since the opponents will have built a few resistances, making it harder for you to do your assassinating job. Therefore, be smarter with your flank angles and play with the fog of war to find isolated targets. You don’t want to jump into the fight unless you’re sure you can pick up the kill: wait for the right moment once the key ultimate and abilities are used. Always wait for your packmates to spawn and don’t let the enemies kill them for free.
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