Naafiri
Matchup Summary
Naafiri is a pretty straight forward match up, where Renekton will easily dominate trades and laning ability into her, however her W can pose issues of escaping our combos and kill angles. To successfuly deal with Naafiri, we can look to E1 to bait her W or E, then use E2 to dash ahead of her and stay on top of her. If Naafiri hasn't used W at this point, we can use our W right after to lock her in place and nuke her HP bar, however if she does W, simply hold your W until she comes out of it. As long as you're able to hold your W for her W, she won't be able to really do anything and will lose HP on demand. Items like Stridebreaker or boots can be very useful to sticking on top of her, removing her mobility to escape. Within later stages of the game, try to peel off your teammates of her engage, as that's her only role when it comes to the late game.
Detailed Tips
- 01
Level 1 E Start - Try to cheese PTA proc or Conq with E1 > 3 auto's > disengage with E2.
- 02
Play For Level 2/3 Kill Angle - Once you chunk out Naafiri you're most likely able to kill her with your W, Dash or Flash up. Look to shove the wave around your kill timer, so you're able to make Naafiri lose a lot more.
- 03
Avoid Naafiri Q - Naafiri is quite unable to do a lot when it comes towards Renekton, however Naafiri can use her Q early to help her poke Renekton, while using it to obtain CS and push against his wave clear. When laning into Naafiri, we can remove her sting of her Q damage by simply abusing D Shield and Second wind. Overall, Naafiri cannot really do anything to deter Renekton, as Renekton’s consistent sustain and wave clear allows him to burn through Naafiri’s mana while creating troubling lane states.
- 04
Respect And Abuse Naafiri's W - Naafiri’s W is her saving grace, allowing her to go quickly untargetable to prevent Renekton from being able to unload his damage. Naafiri’s W can really be annoying when it comes to kill opportunities, however her W has a huge CD of 26 seconds at rank 1. Typically as Renekton, the preferred way to play and abuse Naafiri’s W CD, comes at freezing the wave on your side while trying to force an attempt to heavily trade against her. Once you jump onto Naafiri, Naafiri will either instantly W to force out of Renekton’s combo, or she will tank your damage on top of using her W. Overall once you complete the trade, Renekton’s able to go back to his lane and simply freeze on her, allowing his next E to create a kill window.
- 05
Abuse Renekton's Early Game - In this match up Renekton is essentially able to do whatever he simply wants. With that said, really hone into your strong early to mid game strengths to help you dominate and win the game. Play to deny your enemy of gold and xp, play to proxy and generally lead any top side skirmishes with your insane lane advantage.
- 06
Play Wave On Your Side - Playing the wave on your side essentially means playing wave states on your side of the map, via abusing wave manipulation tactics or freezing on your side of the map. Simply use this to help you combo on your laner, taking away any space from them being able to trade you back (This also helps prevent the enemy running you down with their extended or sustained movement speed abilities). You can also use this wave state to run down your opponent with your abilities up, helping you obtain kills a lot easier vs stalemate or ranged match ups. Look to do this when your opponents are below 50% HP, or potentially make a mistake to provide you an all in opportunity to run them down.
- 07
Heavy Trades - Being that Renekton carries a lot of high damage, Renekton is able to just jump on his target nearly at will. Whenever your laners present you with the ability to jump on them, simply take the opportunity to burst them as much as you can. If you didn't kill them already from that, use your options of freezing or your tower diving ability to help you finish off your opponent.
- 08
Ping Naafiri Roams - Naafiri’s only viable playstyle into playing against Renekton, is abusing her skirmish heavy playstyle to allow her to roam towards side lanes, using her R to burst or finish off targets. Whenever Naafiri is missing, it’s always important to spam pings to keep your teammates aware of her missing presence, otherwise this will easily allow her to snowball and fulfill her assassin role within the game. Make sure to also abuse your wave clear and push potential to secure free platings and gold, while punishing Naafiri for missing her minion waves.
- 09
3 Points Q > W Max - This playstyle allows you to constantly have W’s to help you stay onto Naafiri while abusing your high damage ratios, allowing you to easily snowball and permanently shutdown Naafiri within all stages of the game. Make sure to put 3 points into your early wave clear and poke, then look to max W throughout the rest of your points. Once completed, max your E for additional mobility to help enable your up close stun abusing playstyle.
- 10
Build Eclipse, Black Cleaver or BoTRK - Go Eclipse for consistent power through mid game and damage mitigation with the shield. / Go Black Cleaver for additional CDR and other versatile stats for utility based gameplay. / Go BoTRK to one shot and snowball with a damage focused build.
- 11
Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Naafiri against Renekton is an absolutely horrifying experience for Naafiri, making it a complete auto lose match up within the process. Naafiri’s only chance of being relevant, is using her roaming power to help her stabilise her early losing position or allow her to completely dominate and fulfill a role within the game. As already mentioned, as long as you can constantly spot out or ping Naafiri’s movements on the map, she won’t be able to do much, allowing you and your team to do absolutely anything in the process. Within the side lane, Renekton can effortlessly 1v1 Naafiri, also creating trouble for her team in being able to match or deal with Renekton. Within teamfights, try to play to nuke Naafiri from the fight. Naafiri’s R creates a very telegraphed assassination attempt, so make sure to move towards her ulted target with the intention of stunning her as soon as she lands. Most of the time Naafiri will use W right after R in these moments, so make sure you burn two of her most vital abilities by being around her R target to help you deny her assassination attempt. Once Naafiri has no W or R, she is completely useless.