'League of Legends' Will Keep Two of Nunu's Abilities During His Rework

Riot Games is reworking Nunu, one of League of Legends' oldest champions, and is letting the Yeti Rider keep at least two of his iconic abilities.

When champions are reworked in League, Riot typically keeps the champions' overall themes intact while adjusting their gameplay, visuals and the rest of their kits to modern standards. Sometimes abilities are kept, or at least the general idea of them are preserved, such as Akali's new Twilight Shroud, but other times, they're totally scrapped for new moves. According to Riot Games' Ryan "Riot Reav3" Mireles, Nunu will hold onto his monster-eating ability and his ultimate.

In the latest Champion Roadmap that was shared on Monday, Riot Reav3 said that the team working on Nunu tried several different variations of the champion's updated kit before deciding that Absolute Zero, the champion's massive AOE ultimate, would remain part of his identity.

"As stated last time, our goal is to bring Nunu & Willump's kit up to modern standards while also rolling them towards a more whimsical theme," Riot Reav3 said. "We tried out a ton of iterations for their kit, and in the end, it felt right to keep their ultimate intact. Absolute Zero is a high-impact ability that many players know and love, but current Nunu can struggle landing it. We're looking to give them more agency to set up plays around their ult by utilizing the rest of the kit."

While he'll keep Absolute Zero, it's expected that it'll be adjusted to make it a more reliable ability. It currently acts as an ability power nuke if Nunu can power it to full charge, even if he doesn't have many damage items. It also acts as a powerful zoning tool. It's quite easy to stop though, considering how many champions now have crowd control at their disposal, so perhaps Riot will make the move more dependable for Nunu players.

His Consume is also going to remain part of his kit when he's reworked, the ability that defines Nunu and his jungling abilities. Riot Reav3 said that Consume is staying, but the rest of his kit outside of those two abilities will be changed.

"We also wanted to keep Consume because it's a very iconic ability and gives them their unique niche as objective control junglers. The rest of the kit will have significant changes in order to give Nunu & Willump more ways to set up creative and hilarious plays that will keep the two telling stories and laughing late into the night," Riot Reav3 said.

Nunu's rework is "just around the corner," but there's no known date for when it'll be released. Riot did share the artwork above to give a preview of the direction that Nunu's visuals are headed.