Nami has always been a viable support for many reasons, whether she is being used as a sustain healer, lane bully, disengage or engage. She brings quite a lot to a team and her skill set can be used to great effect when in team fights and skirmishes. Although she's not getting much love in the LCS, I'm here to let you know how she can still turn the tides in your team's favour.

Okay let's go over her pros and cons:

Pros

-Very strong laner and can turn around even an unfavourable match up
-She's versatile, she can fulfil more than one job for the team and there isn't many champions she doesn't work well with
-She has a lot of CC and fantastic peel for your carry/carries
-Long range knock up with her ultimate

Cons

-Very squishy champion naturally
-She gets through her Mana very quickly
-Her Q can be hard to hit and it's hard sometimes to judge the distance

Runes

For your reds you're going to want 9 Greater Marks of Hybrid Penetration. You use these because you can punish low range targets with auto attacks and the Armour Penetration will help the strength of your autos. Then the Magic Penetration for your abilities, fairly straight forward.

Then for your blues, I like to take 3 Greater Glyphs of Ability Power to give your spells more damage and your heals that bit more potent. 4 Greater Glyphs of Magic Resist to give you some defence stats against AP damage. 2 Greater Glyphs of Mana Regeneration to give you that extra Mana back because of the high cost of your skills.

For yellows take 9 Greater Seals of Health because of how squishy Nami is this extra health is so useful, not just only for Nami, but for most supports in general.

Lastly for Quintessences,2 Greater Quintessences of Armour, gives you Armour for lane to help against any harass you'll receive from the enemy ADC. 1 Greater Quintessence of Mana Regenerationto add to your Mana Regen Glyphs to gain more mana back, because like I said earlier it's a problem to manage at times, this helps.

Masteries

For Masteries I like to take what's probably seen as a standard utility support page. 3 Points spent on Meditation is fairly important to Nami, and all the movement speed you gain from Fleet of Foot and Wanderer will help you roam faster and safely get in and out when warding the map.

Summoner Spells – Flash and Ignite/ Exhaust

Flash is standard for most champions now, helps you catch champions with a Flash into Aqua Prison. You can escape a gank or even Flash to body-block for a carry, very versatile.

As for Exhaust this is a terribly important spell to have on a team especially if the opposing side has someone like a Riven or Katarina, someone more than capable to roll your team over, this spell will not only lower their damage output but lower their defences to enable a faster shut down. It also is useful against a gank, you Exhaust the enemy at the critical moment can save lives and also pick up kills too.

And for Ignite, this spell will help gain kills in lane and also help in duels especially with a support with heals because of the healing reduction and the vision that Ignite gives will help you stay on your target accurately. This spell may also deter a champion from diving you once they get ignited, it could save your life.

Skills

Now we've established her strengths and weaknesses and gone over her Runes, Masteries and Summoner Spells, we'll move onto looking into her skills and how and when to use them.

Passive – Surging Tides

When Nami's abilities hit allied champions they gain 40 (+10% of ability power) Movement Speed for 1.5 seconds.

This is fairly simple to understand and get used to. All of your abilities including your Q and R will speed up any allies hit by them and this scales with AP. This is great to help your carry get in range quickly which has great synergy with Tidecaller's Blessing which slows the enemy once hit. This is also very useful when using Tidal Wave to engage or chase because it will speed up your entire team in the enemies direction. Lastly but most importantly it's very useful when escaping, it's great to give yourself or an ally that bit more speed to escape a grab or a stun or if you get caught warding dangerously this extra movement you gain will often be the reason you get out alive.

Q – Aqua Prison

Sends a bubble into the air towards a targeted area. When it lands, it deals 75 / 130 / 185 / 240 / 295 (+50% of ability power) magic damage to all enemies in the area of impact and encases them into bubbles. Enemies hit by the bubble are lifted into the air and stunned for 1.5 seconds before being dropped to the ground.

This spell is Nami's greatest peeling tool and strongest single target CC, use this spell sparingly! If you're in lane and you throw out a bubble just to harass and it goes wide of the mark, you could be in a lot of trouble especially if you're up against someone like Blitzcrank or a Leona who you'll have a hard time of stopping once they engage. Instead save it for when the enemy is careless or when they move up to farm that cannon minion, then they have less time to react and chances are you'll catch them out with enough practice.

Another great way I like to use Aqua Prison is to wait for the enemies engage first and because this spell travels above units, it's very easy to hit incoming champions because you can just place it in front of them. Doing this you'll either trap them inside a bubble and maybe the fight can be turned around or they're forced to avoid it which will give your carry enough time to move away and wait for a heal.

This same point applies for team fights, you save this spell for the chance that an assassin or tank dives onto your carry/carries so you can imprison them and give your ally time to kite back. Another small tip I have is if a melee fighter is hitting your carry at very close range, if you've had enough practice you can even aim the bubble half on the enemy and half on your carry if timed right. This will not only trap the enemy but speed up your ally because of your passive.

W – Ebb and Flow

Unleashes a stream of water that bounces back and forth between allied and enemy champions.
On Ally Hit: Heals the ally for 65 / 95 / 125 / 155 / 185 (+30% of ability power) and bounces to a nearby enemy champion.
On Enemy Hit: Deals 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+50% of ability power) magic damage to the enemy and bounces to a nearby allied champion.
Ebb and Flow can only bounce to each target once and hits up to 3 targets. The damage or healing value is reduced by 15%(-7.5% per 100 AP) with each bounce.

This skill you usually want to level first and also max first. What it gives you is sustain in lane and also some damage and harass. If either you or your carry is being poked heal either yourself or your team mate but always try to do it in a way so that the wave bounces to an enemy and back to an ally for the most effective heal/damage. This spell is generally great in trades as it deals okay damage and also gives back the damage they will probably get onto you, which means if you're playing it smart then you're likely to win most trades.

One thing to note when using this spell, remember that this also speeds up which ever ally it hits including yourself. So if you're in a fight, let's say that the Jungler has ganked, you heal your ally and this speeds him up also it bounces to the enemy champion dealing damage then it either bounces back to your carry or it bounces back to you again for another heal and speed up. This makes it a pretty neat skill to scrap with and will see you stay fast and healthy in fights.

Lastly I'll get to some negatives about this spell. Getting the double bounce can be tricky to learn and also slightly dangerous, you're essentially walking up to the enemy to ensure you get a better trade but this could leave you vulnerable to a stun or a slow. Which could see you losing out on the trade especially if Aqua Prison isn't learned or is on cooldown. This spell also costs a ton of Mana to keep constantly using so you're going to want to take it easy and use when you have to, especially once you reach the higher ranks. The Mana cost is like this: 70/ 85/ 100/ 115/ 130. So as you can see it only makes it to rank 3 before it starts costing as much as your ultimate.

This spell is also a terrible kill stealer, even if you don't mean it and just want to heal an ally. Just try and calculate the damage and make sure you're not taking kills from your carries. But this spell has a pretty decent range so if you ever have to secure a kill then it's pretty easy to do so combined with your passive and use of your E, Tidecaller's Blessing which I'll move onto right away.

E – Tidecaller's Blessing

Empowers an allied champion for 6 seconds or until they have attacked 3 times. During this time, their basic attacks deal 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 (+20% of ability power) bonus magic damage and slow the target hit by 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 (+5% of ability power) % for 1 second.

Tidecaller's Blessing is arguably Nami's most underrated skill, considering how well it fits with her kit. For me it's strongest when used to set up an Aqua Prison. Slow the opponent by casting the spell onto either you or your lane partner, (You can even cast it while an auto attack is mid flight toward an enemy and it will gain the steroid before it hits the target if timed right) this makes hitting skillshots for you and your allies a lot easier with a slowed enemy champion.

Like I mentioned before this spell is useful to kite away and speed up allies and because you'll be maxing this last it will stay at a low Mana cost of 55 at level 1. This is good because you won't be spending too much Mana and conserving it for heals and cc which are potentially more important. Also even if you're playing with a Nami in your team and you gain the Tidecaller's Blessing, don't forget that this effect will still work on skills that apply on hit effects, such as Ezreal's Mystic Shot.

R- Tidal Wave

Summons a Tidal Wave outward from Nami's position. The Tidal Wave briefly knocks up enemies that it comes in contact with, slowing them by 50 / 60 / 70% and dealing 150 / 250 / 350 (+60% of ability power) magic damage. The slow duration increases based on how far the Tidal Wave has travelled, with a minimum duration of 2 seconds and a maximum of 4 seconds.

Tidal Wave is a really important spell for your team because it is a really great tool in a number of situations. You can use this spell to either disengage and knock enemies away as they jump onto your team, think of it as a slower, longer and one directional Monsoon from Janna. It can also be used to engage, using it's giant 2750 range and width as wide as the river. Cast it out toward the enemy team, catch and knock them up plus slow them when they land, all the while the wave will be speeding up your team with the effect of your passive for greater chase potential.

This spell is by far my favourite to use because of it's versatility. One of the best ways to use it while roaming the map is to use it's enormous range to catch people out (having good wards around the map and in the enemy's jungle will help a lot) and if timed right can stop them in their tracks and given that the slow length increases the further the wave has travelled makes for some great long range picks for your team. This can also be flipped around and be used as a long range saviour and halt an opposing champion from chasing your ally or allies, while also speeding them up with Surging Tides.

Lastly is a little tip when using this spell, say in a 2v2, a small skirmish or even in a team fight, use the knock up and slow from the Tidal Wave to easily land an Aqua Prison on a primary enemy target. Don't forget though, you can time this spell once you've learned the small cast time to outplay any enemy dashes or jumps.

Lastly we'll look at what items to usually build on Nami and also what items you'd not expect to see but why they can still be useful.

Okay for the beginning of the game you should take Spellthief's Edge, not only do you get gold over time, a bit of AP and Mana Regen but you gain gold and 10 additional damage with your auto attacks and spells to enemy champions and buildings. This passive of the item will help you bully hard in lane and gain quite a bit of gold. Also take 2 health pots and 2 mana pots for sustain, as well as a Warding Totem for early warding.

These are the items you're going to want come the mid game.

Upgrading to Frostfang is helpful at this point in the game you deal more damage to take towers which is really important around the mid game. You'll want a Sightstone and also Boots of Mobility, these will be used together, roaming the map quickly, getting wards in important places and staying out of trouble. Also you should have swapped out your Warding Totem for a Sweeping Lens by now. Chalice of Harmony at this point in the game will help greatly with Nami's mana issues.

The items you see here make an all round optimal item build.

Frost Queen's Claim is a powerful item for Nami and will help her peel even more with the active Ice Lance slow. Mikael's Crucible, yet another peeling item which helps free your carries from most hard CC, so important against a team that rely on this CC too. Ruby Sightstone for the extra 2 ward charges and 250 Health, great all round. I chose Frozen Heart because I love it for everything it gives, especially the Armour which is what this build was lacking.

I've been liking to upgrade my boots with Captain a lot, it helps your carries escape danger that little bit more when they run to your aid. Lastly the upgraded Sweeping Lens to a Oracle's Lens, this is so important for sweeping several areas for enemy vision but also this item is super useful for finding stealth champions like Twitch and Rengar especially if they try to escape using their abilities.

These situational items should be used if you need them, they replace some items in your inventory quite easily.

Locket of the Iron Solari is a brilliant item with a really strong Aura for your team, great for countering heavy AP enemy comps. This item is more useful on your tanks, so most likely your Jungler should build this over you as Nami. Righteous Glory is a fairly useful item with a lot of Health, Mana and Health Regen but the item's active is great for chasing down opponents. Again probably more useful on your Top or Jungler.
Zeke's Herald is a sort of forgotten item but pretty good on Nami, the CDR and Health is pretty nice but the Aura is what sells this item. Especially if you're playing with a double AD comp the extra Attack Damage and Lifesteal for all your allies including yourself, great snowball item. Twin Shadows is another unloved item but it's very effective especially if you're struggling to have vision on the map, this item will help you seek out hidden enemies and stop potential surprise attacks or flanks. It's also good for peeling and chasing, suits Nami fairly well.

Mejai's Soulstealer is an item often seen on back-line AP supports for good reason, you'll be gaining a load of assists and you'll be the last target for the enemy team. You play the game right, you don't have to die at all so you can fully stack this item and have a ton of AP for little cost. Last item here is Talisman of Ascension, it's a great utility item and particularly good when used to speed up allies to safety or to the enemy. I take this item over the Spelltheif route often because in Solo Queue you're going to be facing a lot of hard engage but also you'll probably have a lot of that on your team too. This item's active will help either way, I'd say it's more effective to engage or chase though.

Nami is one of my favourite champions and I hope you've enjoyed my guide to her. I hope this has helped you understand what she can bring to the team and what you can achieve once you lock her in. Quit flopping around, go and play Nami! Or are you afraid to get your feet wet?