Why NO ONE Plays: Nilah | League of Legends 

Nilah's biggest problem is that rather than giving her a base kit that fits Botlane and let her be her own thing, they used her passive to jerry-rig her into a role she doesn't fit in, and if you try to build her the way that is intuitive given her kit, you are punished by her unique scalings.

Yone players can take what they know and apply it directly to the uninstall button.

The thing that let Nilah keep all the broken parts of her kit is the fact that no one plays her

They have a champ with melee range, fast autos, multiple dashes, high turret damage, a skirmisher type of defensive W and a high damage sustain ult. They took that champ and decided she wouldn’t do damage with her Q or have sustain unless you built crit then also decided that she only has a passive if you force her ADC. Rito did what they always do with champs that go outside the role they “belong” in except this time her “role” was so incongruous with her kit they had to destroy her other roles before she even launched

The issue is that Nilah is balanced around her passive, which gives bonus XP. This means the rest of her kit must be designed around the fact that she is *intended* to miss minions and XP. Remove the bonus xp passive, and suddenly you free up the rest of her kit to give more; more range, longer counterstrike, more damage, etc.

Nilah is like the Kayle of botlane, if that makes any sense 😂

Ironically, Nilah is my comfort pick for adc. I usually feel vulnerable and not very strong with conventional marksmen.

It tends to lead to the most atrocious 1-6 grind, but Nilah/Renata is insane once you both hit your 6 spike. Suddenly you've got the most insane engage and peel and you start getting big damage too.

Ya as a nilah main you right I even feel unstoppable with a soraka or sona support

Wild Rift completely axes her bonus EXP passive and changes her bonus heal and shield passive to just lifesteal based on crit, akin to Nasus, so she can actually get good value out of an engage support, plus, Wild Rift only need 4 items for 100% crit chance instead of 5, so Nilah gets going faster, and she has the option of building stuff like Guardian Angel or something. Funnily enough this also lets her thrive in the Jungle, I have no idea why.

Love the ol' cheese comp of Nilah and Taric, you just play super aggressive into the enemy and win hard due to the extra sustain and once tarics ult comes online, the two together produce an insane amount of damage mitigation.

Nilah is a refugee from Inside Out who's emotions were all burned to death except Joy.

I definitely agree with your points of Nilah needing the supports to know how Nilah works. I’m a Nilah main in Master elo, most players in that elo know how Nilah works. Her lvl 2 spike at 8 minions instead of 9 or lvl 3 at 3 waves instead of 3.5. So people usually play around that, both enemy and your support. The main issue arises from her not being a blindable adc. If shes against a heavy cc comp or long range poke comp or a double range matchup bot, its going to be a hard time. So you usually would need to see the enemy team comp before picking her. However with the swapping introduced in champ select, adcs, sups, and jg usually go first, so you dont see the full enemy comp b4 picking. And newly in S14 with the grubs, supports liked to roam up for it leaving you and the enemy adcs to stare at each other bot for awhile. So your exp passive isnt being utilized until they come back.

She's literally my key to climbing ranked along with Jinx. When she is ahead she snowballs like crazy.

As a nilah main I’ve been waiting for this for so long

I think her main fix will be a simple mini rework, making the healing part of her passive more useful universally. Maybe a way to make her heal herself more so she doesn't require a specific, other champ to make work. I like the idea of shaking up whats allowed in each lane, but they need to be careful how they do it. I still find Pyke an annoying mistake of champ, but I think his existence is good. It shows a willingness to shatter whats normal an what isnt.

As a Nilah player I took that personally.

I don't think I had any idea what Nilah's abilities did before this video lol

I play Nilah botlane a lot with my partner who mains soraka, the moment I have to play to with another support that synergies even a tiny bit less the difference in my ability to survive fights or have meaningful impact is night and day.

That thumbnail is very nice! I like how it’s more focused and neat

Unrealated info from a Soraka OTP: Soraka Q gives her HoT (heal over time) effect. Nilah gets healed whenever Soraka's Q HoT ticks which is like 6-8 visually times and if Soraka uses her W that HoT effect is given to the target as well. The noise that Nilah's passive effect makes when Soraka heals herself with Q so Nilah gets a heal combined with Nilah heals from Soraka QW so Soraka gets healed is truly by far the funniest thing and noise I ever wittnesed in my 14 years with league 😂😂😂

It's been a minute since I've watched your videos. But it reminded me why I used to binge them in the first place! Gonna replay alla them while gaming yeeeehaw

as a mid lane main from s13, she was easy to learn after I tried learning other roles with the new map changes. i didn’t mind her weak early game bc i like to play a very safe laning phase. putting her with a enchanter support is fs the best way to maximize her kit. during late game, i was able to dive and kill a whole enemy team with a yuumi support!

Every time you post a “no one” plays I get the sudden countercultural urge to play the hell out of them, so thanks for the Ls my guy 😎

Nilah is one of many riot's failed champions. But in this case failed in a bad way not failed as in being broken like yone samira and others

FINALLY AFTER A LONG TIME. I remember the day I commented on one of your Twitter posts about this and it's now happening YIPPIE

12:44 Nilah can become a more frequent pick if they introduce more melee bot laners, since once critical mass of such characters is reached, they will all go form niche picks that aren't exactly worth it to master, to a main stay it's kind of similar to what Genshin's Navia has to deal with, there aren't enough DPS characters that take up half a rotation to do their damage to compliment her, which lowers her meta viability, because the only other character that fills that role is Ningguang, and she is trash due to being a 4* Geo DPS, also known as the second worst possible combination of attributes a character can have in Genshin, only behind 4* Physical DPS units

Samira was the first champion that I truly fell in love with playing - when Nilah was revealed, I was super excited because I thought she could be my backup for when Samira was banned... but when Nilah released it just felt like she was the far lesser version of something that was already doing just fine...

I knew this day would come :(, I just didn't know when. I love some Nilah.

as somone who plays every lane i love playing nilah mainly because i was a kat main so i enjoy here dashes and she was the champion that finally got me to play adc since this was the only lane i didn't wanna play since it's play style wasn't really enoyable to me well at least until i got her and started to play her and it was crazy i won my first 5 games in a row either way im just yapping now just wanna say she is very fun and i kinda hope she never becomes meta because she is basically my only adc well her and zeri she is fun too.

Hey Vars! I've been watching you for a long time and I was waiting for this video for the longestttt time, as a Nilah main, thank you. I was afraid you were gonna mention how she should get nerfed into the ground because of her godlike late game.. She's my favorite champion and she will always be meta in my mind ^_^

As a yone yasuo 2 trick I picked up nilah on pbe before he release and she immediately became one of my best champs I already had adc experience from playing aphelios

Being honest for the way that Nillah works it gives so much vibes of Quinn and Corki... And i think that it would be a moment when with a change she would end in completely different role

As a Nilah player I took that personally

How is this compared to the Nilah on Wildrift? Her kit there is reduced such as xp and healing on her passive as well as other effects on skills such as Q other effects. Would it be best to say that its the more balanced version or much weaker if ported to pc?

As a top main she is my go to if i get autofilled adc, the playstyle is definitely familiar, you just need to communicate what you need with your support, if they are any good they catch on pretty quick

Is that Tales of Symphonia music playing in the background? Reminds me of one of the dungeon themes. It sounds so familiar.

Still love the background fire emblem music

I love this champ but I’m also a deranged mofo that learnt adc by playing kayn bot in s10 when I opted him. And nilah just played like kayn did where u chill untill u get a wave bounce or an opportunity to all in. It’s fun and I love it

@Vars, at around 5:30 minutes, you're comparing chanpions that are all in the class. While Nilah does not function like normal ADCs, wouldnt you compare her to Samira often? Melee options, w immunity, e dash, AOE R? Her Q even has an AOE component. Being a recent ADC main swap, I've compared those 2 often.

I have two friends that duo together with me as a third friend. When they both lane together their most successful picks were Nilah/Yuumi. They were unstoppable if they did well in lane. Crazy not a lot plays Nilah than your usual bot champs

her passive should gain a shield when a nearby champ CCs an enemy, gives her more synergy

the three houses music is crazy

4:10 Vars: ADC mains My hear: AD Semens 🤨🤨

The struggle is that she has all these major problems, and things you have to know and play around as the Nilah, while praying your support knows what they're doing, And then, when you do all that successfully and can use your strength lategame... suddenly everyone complains that Nilah is broken, no-skill etc. Well, the lategame 1v3s, 2v5s and pentakills make up for it.

I decided to main her a month before the last season ended. Never had as much fun AND success on botlane. It's a bit delicate to make your support understand to play around you though :,)

great video but small correction: her dashes are not free target, you need to have an enemy or ally unit in range to click on in order to use it

I love how theres some people on youtube literary speak for a huge community in a right way just by oberserving the situation. Great content man

In Wild Rift Nilah is a jungle skirmisher like Yi. Riot could rebalance her there and she'd probably find more success.

This video should go viral.

MY MAIN FINALLY HAS A VIDEO, LETS GOOOOO

Are u using fire emblem ost? As background?

Happy to hear Fates music.

I've been playing Nilah and I feel like the hardest thing to pick up is knowing when to go in and learning her trading patterns. She's so fking strong once she gets a couple of items but that's because she pretty much HAS to be in range of everyone to do her thing, while building no defensive items. Also her laning is hard, especially against champions that want you to go in on them like Karma, Thresh, Alistar, etc; or long range marksmen like Ashe and Jhin.

I was thinking how I should start opt again since that's the best way of climbing but then I also remember they keep changing items and runes making some champs just go useless

I got my first Penta with Nilah, but yeah a lot of the things said in this video is true. I even hated when I can’t cs properly when the enemy duo goes poke.

I really want to see a Nilah ult and then an Illaoi ult right after her. Imagine!

I think the way nilah xp work is it make the xp shared -1. Meaning that 2 people gaing xp like there were alone. 3 people gain xp like the were 2people sharing, etc. Cause the way xp share work in league its not linear. Its no like if 1 person will get 100xp, 2people will get 50xp each, they get something like 70xp each.

Lowkey curious though. what happens if you put zilean and nilah in bot together?

Nilah is one of / if not my favorite champion. I feel like a god fighting other marksmen lategame, and against melees in general. Tank fighting with passive lifesteal and armor pen is also great.

As someone who has mained ADC for a decade, I found Nilah to comfortably fall into my lineup because, despite seeming like she is a foreign entity, she has a very close sibling in bot lane named Samira. I play a ton of Samira, not as much as Vayne, but enough to understand the ins and outs and her kit is essentially button for button the same. Q to deal damage, just a line instead of Samira's melee swipe. Use it during dash to get a free (almost) guaranteed hit. W to avoid damage when you're getting focused E to dash into the enemy team or out of a bad spot R when surrounded to win the game

In my experience. Nilah works better with an engage or poke support than enchanters. Regardless of what you do in the lane you will get poked out if you just cs. So going on the offensive and going for the kill is more efficient than trying to farm under turret. Nilah is really strong early and late but has a massive dip in the midgame

Another amazing breakdown video Vars. No one does it better than you

i think if they give nilah a similar crit passive to the wind brothers she could be better maybe the break point at 4 items instead of their 2 and gives her 100% crit one item earlier than other adcs. i don't what would have to be nerfed to compensate though

Three houses sound track background music lol

Vars could tou judge my rework idea? - Auto attacks (ADJUST): she should have only her Q cone ranged attacks as AA and she can move while attacking, so she can have more room to trade with other ranged champions. - Passive (NEW): each 6 whip slash hits (auto attacks, Q and Ultimate) towards enemies, she gain a temporary barrier that could stack into a certain limit. Exceeding barrier will be converted to heal Another possible implement: If has nearby allies, her passive barrier and passive heal will be share/divided for all of them. - Q : same Empowering: more range and brief stun all the enemies hit in the area - W (NEW): same , but she use only in herself and gain temporary attack speed. Passive: absorb some enemy damage dealt to her, converting into energy to her orb, empowering her Q - E: same (but change her q interaction animation... Instead a wave could be a whip slash) - R (NEW): a violent whip slash sequence in a rectangular or cone shape, that damage all enemies in area. It has a long range and she could move during the cast. Each hit per enemy counts as 1 whip slash. After cast she gain temporary attack speed. Can be interrupted by CC abilities.

she is so fun and cool! i played nilah when she was free (vs bots) and i wanted to main her IMMEDIATELY. but a bitter surprise awaited ahead. eh, i wish they would rework her for another line or smth...

I main mid and jungle, but when playing with friends i was sometimes forced into adc role, nilah was absolutely perfect for me

nice analysis

As a Fiddle jg main, Nilah is my favorite adc. She plays somewhat similarly so she’s easy to pick up.

I learnt Nilah and I thoroughly enjoy playing her. I’ve already got 23 penta kills this season alone on her and ranking up is so easy because I 1 shot the enemy team late game. You just need to farm well and be confident enough in your ability to scale to let a dominant matchup win early without killing you so you are still able to maximise your gold.

Last year, the idea was Nilah would be too powerful because of XP scaling; like one of the Old Mordekaisers. Any ideas for what differed for her vs him?

What is the name of that first track used again?

I duo bot lane with Nilah and my sup spams Pyke. In low elo, it’s the freest lane combo ever if Pyke spam engages

i used to play her a lot on release but poke comps started gaining popularity in low elo and i just couldnt get through that early game laning phase.

My favorite champ, I like the feeling of rushing into the middle of the enemy team

shes a water bedning samira, but instead of working best with hard engage supports like samira does, riot designed her to work with supports who do the exact opposite,

I love playing Nilah, you definitely need to do it with a duo. As long as the enemy support locks in a melee support me and my duo insta lock Nilah Taric, it’s a very oppressive lane and you can basically drain tank through everything

2:05 90% of the time my supp is tring to shot me down not the enemy adc

the reduced viability due to her passive is HUGE. But I also think about part of why she suffers is that her gameplay is super linear. Her E and W exist mainly to support her being melee in bot lane. So her Q has to carry the bulk of her damage and gameplay, but since its just a simple skillshot and Cone AA's shes not very exciting. U hit Q, ok thats all u gotta do then. Im surprised she doesn't also seem to pair well with Bard or ivern , but ig Taric and Rakan are just much better combos

The joy unbound Except bot lane, which she is bound to

As a Samira main, Nilah was an interesting experiment to me when she first came out because she felt so similar but nilah somehow being even more supp dependent is the reason i couldn't put her in my adc rotation

the thing i dont like about nilah is that sometimes its kinda hard to stick on ur targets. like she needs a reset on her E

Not sure if it happens to other champs since i only play nilah, but the chances of your support getting mad at you and going to permaroam, is like 50-50 (some exaggeration possibly)

I really like how they made Nilah in Wild Rift. While not absolutely perfect, it gets rid of the trash passive she has and allows her to be played in jungle.

speed. We are speed

the problem is that nilah also needs her support to stick by her side but in current league the support leaves for vast portions of the game to secure both grubs and roam which hurts nilah even more than most other adcs unless shes ahead enough to 1 shot the enemy adc

I play a lot of Samira. Nilah for me is basically Samira w/o the gun. Both need to know when to go in so they can Ult w/o hindrance. I'm winning a lot with Nilah thanks to me playing mostly Samira. But! Only when I know my support can use my passive. Atleast a Nautilus or Pyke for a hard engage.

Nilah, my first pentakill on my third game on her

Nilah main here 😢 yeah your right

idk man. last year i picked nilah just by being curious about this champ. climbed from gold3 to emerald playing solo

Nilah launch was nuts. I watched one 1v1 a jax who had an item and a half and multiple levels on her by standing still and pressing every button. Most 200 years shit I've ever seen.

Ironically Riot trying to rotate ADC meta is like an all you can eat restaurant changing the dishes at the counter. Different foods for those hungry solo laners to feed on, and not get bored of killing the same champs

Interesting you release this now, just as Nilah suddenly appears in half my games. I hadn’t seen her for ages and now she is suddenly picked or banned every other game

My friend is a nilah one trick but i dont play support so our games are usually 50-50s in bot lane

Vars because you did this video on nilah I will one trick her all way to masters I know I not good right now but with nilah I will get there mark my words ❤

Bout to start playing Nilah top with Doran blade. Gonna see what happens

Nilah is a solo laner with parts of her kit taking power in a duo lane... very good design as always.

Unpopular opinion as 300k nilah main : Nilah could be a great jungler if they buff her in many ways : - more dmg on jungler monster + drakes - more resistance from their dmg - buff her when she is near water Because nilah thematic + lore Fit very well in the jungle ! She knows baron nashor and she slays legendary monster's and demons And her abilities depend on water She will have something similar with diana on ganking ( lvl 6 ) Also she will not take much xp When ganking and pushing waves And can give her allies move speed + ghost + dodge auto/reduce magic dmg So she can really be playable as jungle with her currently passive ! Or if riot want to change her passive She can be a good top laner Because her dmg on towers is insane But that will make her unbalance As ADC and will change her alot So i prefer if riot buff her as jungler Because that will be alot easier And will fit her lore accurately 🔥

HOWEVER once you DO figure out and pick up Nilah, she is very fun and very strong. She is very matchup dependent however, if shes matched against most of the long range ADC's, shes going to lose. She can win/beat most mid to short ranged ADC's, but her weakness are long range ones like Cait. Also her support is important (as outlined) but the support she is against is also key. Shes a good champ, but far too narrow in what matchups she wins.