Passive - To Victory!
To Victory! isn’t an ability you really have to pay attention to. Once your team finishes the ‘quests’ to activate it, they all will effectively be getting a free tier 2 item with no conditions or downtime (
Thousand Fold Blade and
Enchanted Ring). Everyone can rotate faster, pressure more and hit harder. This passive is incredible, if hard to notice since it isn’t very flashy. You may just find yourself winning more fights than you otherwise would.
1 - Rend
Rend is
Nike's main clear and poke tool, so level it first, and its honestly outstanding. Combined with
Plan of Action, this ability does 570 + 120% damage. Thats comparable to a lot of ultimates. In addition, the protection shred applies to the third hit, making it hit even harder then they expect.
After level 6,
Nike can full clear a wave with a boosted
Rend, as long as she isn't stunned during it. This gives her some of the fastest clear of any warrior, allowing you to bully your opponent out of lane and put pressure on their side of the jungle.
In teamfights, prioritize hitting the same target with multiple strikes (multiple targets if you can manage it). If you can hit the ADC with all 3, the shred and disarm will likely be a death sentence.
2 - Plan of Action
Plan of Action is a very unique ability. On its own, it simply gives Nike her only form of sustain in a bit of HP5. However, it boosts
Nike's other abilities to extremely potent levels.
The specific boosts are discussed more in those abilities, but keep in mind that you should usually save this ability for
Rend or
Sentinel of Zeus, and it doesn't go on cooldown until the boost occurs.
I prefer to level this 2nd for the Cooldown and HP5 increases.
3 - Valiant Leap
Valiant Leap is
Nike's only hard CC, and it isn't the easiest to even land. A slow-travelling leap with a knock-up, this is your chase, set-up, and peel, but it is mostly your escape from ganks. This is the biggest downside of this ability: you constantly need to use it for different things.
Best uses of
Valiant Leap:
Stopping an escape in a team fight
Getting in range for a
Rend kill
Jumping over a wall to escape
Landing on the mid-laner to save your mid's life
The only time I
Plan of Action this is when urgency is needed (like example 4 above).
You can level this 3rd or 4th, both just add damage to skills not primarily used for damage.
4 - Sentinel of Zeus
Sentinel of Zeus is a fairly weak ultimate unless boosted. A tickle of damage, a very slight slow, and a health shield (350 at level 5). The shield gets much better late game as your health pool increases to be over 1000 extra HP (depending on item choices), making you a solid tank in teamfights.
If you do initiate a teamfight, I highly recommend boosting this. It doubles the slow, and adds another chunk of ~500 health to the shield. Both of these make you incredibly annoying to shift.
You can level this 3rd or 4th, both just add damage to skills not primarily used for damage.
You recommend starting with a Warrior's Blessing and a tier 1 item of certain trees. However, I really feel that you're putting yourself at a disadvantage by not picking up a Chalice of Healing. This item gives tons of value (750 Health in essence), especially for a solo laner. Also, I don't feel like the Mana Potions are needed as much either, as you will most likely have your blue buff active at all times.
Lately, my starting build for solo lane has been:
Interested to hear your thoughts on this subject.
Nike makes such good use of Gaia, and has built in Hp5, that I feel Chalice isnt worth the added defense from most of the tier 1 items.
However, with 5.4, this might all change if Gaia becomes a niche pick.
If you do get Genji's, you could consider a variety of other CDR options (meaning you don't have to go with BoV)...yes, you'll have lower CDR for a longer time, but CDR doesn't necessarily need to be maxed. After boots and Genji's, you can consider Mail of Renewal as you said, but also Spirit Robe, Relic Dagger, Witchblade, etc. Combine Genji's with a couple of those and you get a nice 30% CDR and a bunch of utility in various ways.
Also none of us are wrong about skill levels, we just have different mind sets. I've seen myself get the leap Early - erlang shen for example, you can bet your *** I get leap 2nd.
My mindset is all about fast wave clear and gaining Lvls, with 40%cdr I can clear my blue pop plan of action go back to lane and rend is ready again to clear the wave. Farm farm farm - get my items online quickly.
I think you're stressing to much about the jungeler. It's a very situational aspect.
Firstly, it delays getting the 2nd protection type... If you in fact got BoV 2nd to counter a physical solo, getting Jotunn's 3rd means you won't have any magical protection until at least item 4,in case it's a magical jungle or you rotate into mid for fights or ganks.
Secondly, items like Genji's and Spirit Robe are basically out the door if you get Jotunn's,and those are very solid items.
Thirdly, her base damage is pretty good, so although an offensive item is helpful for damage output, she's pretty decent as-is. IF you were to get better use out of an offensive item, it would probably be better earlier to have with that early lane dominance, but Nike is likely to lose out to a decent amount of other solo laners anyway and it's a bit risky.
Generally then, I'd suggest against Jotunn's as a core/set item unless you're just absolutely dominating and are very ahead in levels and such.
Literally exactly what he said
Thing is, at level 2/3, it's not about pushing lane...you're still going to be mostly concentrating on clearing your own wave with multiple basics after you use Rend...even with a buffed Rend via Plan of Action, you're still going to be likely cutting even, unless maybe if you're facing someone like Amaterasu (or heaven forbid, Loki).
If you aren't willing to meet at the mid-point where the two minion waves come together, then you're going to be fighting the minions at your tower and losing at least some farm. If you're at that mid-point, then depending on the Solo/Jungle combo and the support of your own Jungler, then that's far enough from your tower that you can still get ganked if you don't have Valiant Leap.
Also at level 2/3, you might not have backed yet...you seriously always pick up Wards at the very beginning? I don't see not having wards at the very beginning of the game = "you deserve to be ganked."
At least, that's what it seems like to me.
Generally, yes, you can delay your leap a bit if you feel safe doing so. However, if the enemy comp is (for example) something like a Hercules solo with Horrific Emblem and a Thanatos jungle, I'd probably invest a point into the leap.
Also, jungle routes right now are, for the most part, pretty predictable. Jungle starts at speed, does the small back harpy camp, then clears blue. Then, they usually stick their head into solo lane for a second or two to see what's happening. Your friendly jungler will most likely take this same route, meaning that you will have backup to dissuade them from making any moves. After a brief meetup period/wave share, the junglers head toward mid, not to be seen from again for a little while.
So, all in all, I wouldn't worry so much about a gank that it sacrifices my waveclear for it, unless there is a notable matchup/relic combo that causes me to reconsider.
So I was in fact judging based on situation and I made the wrong call. Generally would have gotten the leap 2nd, but felt confident. Probably won't skip leap 2nd from this point forward unless it's a serious mismatch and we're already getting kills.
If you didn't see the enemy jungler on the mini-map at any point during the game, you should not have been pushed up that far in lane at half health (Also, how were you half-health against a Xing Tian at level 2? Did you not have Chalice of Healing?).
To me, this is a general rule of solo lane. Your knowledge of enemy jungler position dictates how you position yourself in lane (at least until the point when you have your escape and wards). If, for example, the enemy jungler was in mid, and your mid gets eyes on the jungler to put him on the mini-map, and you see it, you have freedom to be aggressive in Solo for a while. But if you don't know where the jungler is, it is always best to assume he is right around the corner, and position yourself accordingly.
Also, if you opt for stronger waveclear over your leap, you can hang back and clear the wave closer to your tower before the minions step into your tower radius, so you won't lose out on any farm. This way, you will be in a more defensive position if the jungler were to try to gank you.
It's kind of hard to explain without a video.
(Also, I noticed that you didn't build any cooldowns on Nike that game. How did The Crusher feel on her?)
Anyway, I could be remembering incorrectly. I may have put a 2nd point into rend and been at level 3 when I got ganged. I know I wasn't too far up. Maybe mid point where the minions meet. Or maybe I'm full of it. I don't know. It's Sunday and I'm working at the convention and I'm drunk because we hosted an open bar. I'll follow up later with a real response XD
But know I know that I need to specify each item for each role when talking to Bran
Yeah, I totally don't remember what the actual situation was. I think I just thought, "okay Xing has some healing in his kit, so I'll grab Pest...the health and magical protection will be good against his and Ao's damage, and the anti-heal will also help."
Then of course I just bought The Crusher because I was being stupid and was thinking about wave clear. Dammit, this is getting WAY too much attention!!!
You've got a nice template going for your various guides. Some quick comments:
Sacrificing 1 level's time of pressure for that easy on mind actually lets me play more aggressive than Plan of Action would
Nemean Lion could definitely be considered, I always find myself choosing Void Shield over it for the kill potential with Rend's insane damage though. I actually prefer Witchblade over Midgardian here for the Attack Speed and CDR