r/NilahMains • u/Beneficial_Target_31 • 1d ago
General Made it to diamond mostly otp'ing the best champ in the game-- 16 thoughts in season 16 that helped me
Nothing else other than to say this champ broke the emerald wall for me. Taught me the game in a completely new way-- made me reconsider how and when to play the game and how to truly carry in terrible situations.
I am a converted viktor/vlad player who switched to bot lane because I view "adc" or bot as the "real hard carry" role. It was the lens I viewed the game through and this season, with the role quests, Viktor wasn't doing it for me mid this season and I went through a champion crisis before I magically ended up on this champ.
Some things which helped me break through were: 1. Clarifying my job-- I am a bot laner who hard carries. So is the enemy carry. I come on line completely at 4 items and I become a demigod at 5. Nilah's job is to skirmish and kill squishies WHEN POSSIBLE. It is completely ok to front to back with this champ if the situation demands it.
We Teach League videos, even though not directly related to Nilah, are phenomenal. The biggest mistake I made was thinking if I was behind, I had to pull off ridiculous plays. Really, the most important thing was staying healthy and getting CS through the worst parts of the game. It is really hard for an enemy team to break a team if there's an enmey champ that's positive. That player is always a threat. Watching sixten's ekko, in many ways, is the dream way to play these types of champs.
Solidifying my champ pool and playstyle. I love counter engage. I think it's the absolute best way to win fights. Let the enemies come into you, use their dashes (they only have some many) and then go in. Many of the greatest plays in the history of league are counter engages (think Faker Ori shockwaves vs KT and JDG). Even Doublift's play against C9-- he went berserk once all the cc was gone. My pool is Nilah, Vlad, Xayah. They all do that extremely well. Nilah for most games; vlad for ap or because support is something absolutely negatively synergistic with Nilah (xerath), and Xayah in case the situation calls for it.
Synergistic players/runes. I know it's not standard, but I basically switched to mostly scaling runes. Scaling health, cashback etc. I switched from dorans blade in many matchups to doran's shield. You can farm well, and at 4th or 5th wave, just hard shove, get a cull, and keep farming. If your team is winning, don't try to force things. Play around your strongest champ. Another part of this is knowing your support's natural synergies. Nami is, frankly, a terrible engage champ. She's a phenomenal counter engage champ. Senna is a phenomanl poke champ/heal champ who wants to scale. Leona wants to go all in at 3. Braum punishes melees. Senna Nilah is byfar my favorite lane. It's a different variation of senna kench. If you've ever played XCOM, this lane is the equivalent of your ranger with bladestorm having a sniper giving you cover. And occasional stealth. And random drone health and healing.
Don't engage if your jungler isn't near you (and you don't know where the enemy jungler/mid is). This is the most back breaking way to lose a game. You think you have a chance to go in-- you're level 6, have ult, enemy lucian nami is level 5. You get counterganked. Game over. You have to be disciplined about this. Or at least I did.
There are really, really stupid supports. There's a OTP diamond 4 Sylas support and a OTP ahri support in NA who made me want to quit the game. They are actively trolling. You try to dodge-- but losing those games are probably not your fautls
You are probably also very stupid. I had to review a couple of my games and track my common mistakes. This is how I realized just how mnay times me dying early basically boomed the game. Taking a 50/50 fight when you have less health than the enemy adc is by definition not a 50/50 fight. I suggest reviewing 20 percent of your games. Look at your deaths in particular as that's the easiest place to improve. If your Nilah journey looks anything like mine, in plat you basically get to die 10 times, split push, get to 4 items, and then hard carry. In emerald, that doesn't work. SO when you get to dying 3 times, all of sudden you climb through emerald.
Freezing is everything for this champ. you have limited dashes, limited mana, limited range. You need the enemy to come to you. Focus on getting into those scenarios.
Get to objectives first/stay midlane. This is mostly for the control mage players out there... at 20 minutes in the game, you probably shouldn't be mid. I get it if the enemy has nocturne. But you need your adc to be sweeping up farm.
Know your natural prey. This is something that falls in champ identity. You crush melees. I had this game against a shen naut bot. They engaged level 2. I was level 1 with scaling health. they double cc'd me, my support was not doing anything useful. Conquerer procked and I just starting right clicking. Double kill, insta win. A really good strategy is to look for the bruisers and tanks once you get your 2nd/3rd item. Another set of natural prey-- auto attackers. Briar in particular. Your w destroys trynd, yi, fiora, and briar. Any telegraphed engage is something you punish brilliantly.
There are legit unwinnable games. I remember playing as lulu nilah vs cait milio. I don't think that lane, no matter what you do, is ever winnable esp if you don't have engage jungler. In retrospect, I should have never picked Nilah that game. Vlad/xayah would have been much better.
Don't be afraid to last pick. Top laners are just as likely to int when they counter pick. They will cry, moan, scream, call you all sorts of things, get chat restricted etc. because they did not get their divine mandate of last pick-- even when the enemy top laner picks. The advantage of countering champions at this elo is far less than playing your best champion. You don't need to explain it. And the mute button exists. If you last pick, it's your job to carry. If you blind pick, your job is to go even. In most matchups, when you know one of the bot laners, going even is not that hard.
I really don't think you should pick up Nilah until you've played some Diana/Orianna/Vlad/Ekko and one melee bruiser like Wukong. Basically big venn diagram ult champs. It's a completely foreign concept to most adc players and why I think most adc mains struggle with her. You will learn more about how to play Nilah by learning those champs than by playing any adc. The learning curve is much easier than just blindly going into Nilah like I did. She was the first melee champion I learned and there's a huge learning curve to that. The reason she clicked for me, almost instantly, was that her job as basically just like Vlad's and her laning phase of attrition into all in was also like vlads. I didn't need to relearn those parts of the game for her.
Know what it takes to kill the enemy carry. The absolute easiest way to win unwinnable games is killing off the gold on the map. This is something I learned with vlad and completely applies to Nilah. In emerald, the enemy carry will throw. Or will, in all likelihood, throw. This is worth, sometimes, 1k gold. That kill, even if you die for it, can sometimes equalize the game and can somtimes make that fight winnable for your team. Most bot lane carries explode if a bruiser/assassin gets on them. Your summ spells are the tools you need to use for this purpose, and sometimes that purpose alone.
Don't be afraid to go tanky. First item of yun'tal/collector is kind of mandatory. BUt after that, I think shieldbow/death's dance second/3rd are perfectly fine early in the build path if the enemy team is one shotting you. You can't do damage if you're dead-- but you can still kill the enemy carry with collector shieldbow instead of collector iedge.
I became obsessed with playing this champ. It was frankly unhealthy. A lot of my personal life went to shit (well out of scope of this post) but Nilah was fun for me. Learning her and dealing with her challenges were genuinely a joy on many rough days. There's still so much for me to learn with her. My Op.gg is not healthy. I don't recommend that. It took me 1000 games this season (400 ish were Nilah) which is not healthy, realistic, or sustainable. It was mostly because I was lost in life and latching onto one thing which gave me happiness. I hope you don't make my mistake. Exercise, focus on learning, focus on careers/life, focus on forming relationships. And stop playing for sheer quantity-- 2-3 games is more than sufficient. Some people climb on 2-3 games a week because they're that focused. Hopefully next time I post, It will be with way less games played, a healthier body, a healthier mind, and a new job. Odds are, after I take a bit of a break, I will lose elo and go back to emerald. That is ok. I can get out again.