In-Depth Guide on Ne Zha (Season 8)

First off, I would like to point out that Ne Zha is listed as an assassin but I believe that he is best suited as a support. Building Ne Zha as a typical glass cannon assassin will most likely find you dying quickly after securing a kill with your ultimate. I find that Ne Zha is most effective at supporting due to his phenomenal set up potential. With that being said, this will be a Ne Zha Support guide. This build may seem unconventional but I promise I will give you detailed explanations for every choice I've made. I've also played the game since Beta so I have a very in depth knowledge of all of the gods and how to play with & against them. Let's jump into it.

AoE = Area of Effect

CC = Crowd Control

CDR = Cooldown Reduction

Abilities = Skills

With Season 8 bringing in a lot of new items, you have more options than ever.

I would highly recommend starting with War Flag. This item is going to increase your attack speed as well as your movement speed which will allow for some easy early game kills to really get you building items quickly. The attack speed and movement speed buff will also apply to your adc. Also, the upgraded version, Spartan Flag, which you can acquire at level 17, will be really effective on someone like Ne Zha, dropping an AoE buff zone, similar to Hachiman's ability, at your feet upon doing damage to an enemy god.

After grabbing War Flag, I would start with boots and potions. Always get more health potions than mana, considering Ne Zha's kit forces him to dive on people.

Relics are going to be up in the air. Personally, I think blink and beads are going to be your most effective relics on Ne Zha but some situations might call for a change. Blink can be used defensively and offensively. You will more than likely be using it to dive the back line and get that pesky mage or adc up in the air with your ultimate, often forcing the rest of the enemy team to converge and focus all attention on you to try and save their friend, allowing the rest of your team to set up for the kill. Beads will help you get out of sticky situations considering the only escape you really have is burning your ultimate.

Being support, I would finish your boots first and grab Warrior Tabi. From here, you can kind of choose whatever you feel will help your playstyle the best but I will give you a few options and reasons for them.

Sledge is a very effective and useful item on Ne Zha. It will give you a big boost to health & mana while simultaneously offering a modest amount of power and up to 24 protections for both magical and physical, starting at 8 and stacking up to 3 times for each enemy god within 55 units. Being a support, you will almost always get the max protections from this item and the health and mana will give you even more sustainability.

Ancile is a very potent item on someone like Ne Zha and can often save your life. This item will give you a huge power boost, a modest amount of protections, 10% cooldown reduction and, the best part, an effect that silences all enemy gods around you for 1s after taking magic damage. Basically, you use your sash and once a magical god hits you with an ability, you're going to silence everyone around.

You will almost always want to work in a Magi's Cloak at some point. This will give you immunity to 1 hard cc effect every 70sec. Being a god that has to dive in order to get your abilities off, having the ability to shrug off a root or stun will be detrimental to your survival. This item also offers a big health boost and some minor protections against both physical and magical.

In the same tree, you'll probably want to pick up Mantle of Discord. This item offers a big defense boost to both physical and magical protections as well as providing another 10% cooldown reduction and having a passive effect that will trigger an AoE stun that last for 1sec and makes you immune to cc when you reach less than 30% hp. Again, due to the nature of Ne Zha's kit and how he should be played, you will find this item to be extremely useful and helpful when trying to stay alive.

Since you'll be having all of these other protections, you might as well pick up Gladiator's Shield. This item is going to give you health, power, physical protections, 10% cooldown reduction and give your abilities bonus damage based on the amount of protections you have, making that ring of death hit even harder.

I would get rid of your Spartan Flag if you upgraded at 17 or get rid of the War Flag if you didn't and grab one of the items above to replace it in the later stages of the game.

If it's a long game, I would say sell your Warrior Tabi, grab your Elixir of Speed and pick up Blackthorn Hammer. This will give you just 5 power less than your Warrior Tabi but it will give you a huge boost to your health and mana. Whenever you are above 25% mana you will gain 10% cooldown reduction, putting you at the 40% cap with all of the other items listed above. Whenever your mana drops below 25% you get a big boost to your mana regen with +50 MP5. The extra health and mana will help you take more damage considering you are losing out on health with Ancile & Mantle of Discord. Ne Zha has a self heal so, with the extra MP5 and max cdr, you should have some pretty good sustain.

All in all this would be considered more of a bruiser build than a standard support but Ne Zha's supporting is more so done through his set ups. You need the ability to dive people and still get out of the fight. This build will help you take damage while still giving you the power to dish it out. Playing a support where you feel like you're actually doing damage while also setting up really nice plays for your team is very satisfying.

1 quick mention, if you need anti heal, build Brawler's Beat Stick. This item will give you the most effectiveness because your Ring Toss is one of the best skills in the game when it comes to applying anti heal. You could get away with Toxic Blade simply just because it's such a great item, providing health, movement speed, attack speed and penetration, on top of applying anti heal with your basic attacks. This, however, will be harder to apply vs getting Brawler's Beat Stick and applying it with your Ring Toss.
I would recommend replacing Sledge with one of these two anti heal items. Preferably Brawler's Beat Stick.

Tainted Steel could also be an option but I think you'll be losing a lot of early kill potential by not getting War Flag and, since you won't be building Sentinel's Gift and getting the extra gold like the enemy support most likely will, you'll need to secure those early kills to keep up in gold. Plus, your adc will love you for building War Flag. I, personally, would not recommend building this item. I am fully aware of how good the item can/would be on Ne Zha but not having the early game kill potential that you get from War Flag can seriously hurt you in the long run without the extra gold boost. If you could sell War Flag and then pick this up, I would do that 100% of the time. Unfortunately, that can't be the case and Tainted Steel isn't really going to do anything for you as a support in the early game.

If you're going to change any item, I would say look to replace Sledge with whatever you may feel is better. I know that, in Season 8, it's not as good as it once was but, with the rest of the items in the build, you will need something to boost your overall health so keep that in mind. Sledge just happens to give health, power, mana & protections.

Ancile, Magi's Cloak, Mantle of Discord & probably even Gladiator's Shield are all going to be useful. Most certainly the Magi's Cloak & Mantle of Discord. Obviously you need boots so this will only leave you with a few different things you can interchange.

As far as skills, Ne Zha is pretty easy to pick up and learn.

Your passive, stacking up to 20 times, will increase your movement speed by 0.5% per stack. The movement speed is nice but you will mostly be acquiring these stacks to further empower the heal from your second skill, Flaming Spear.

Your first skill, Ring Toss, is just that. You throw a ring that will bounce between enemies starting at 4 bounces and going up to 8 as you level up the skill. This skill also reduces enemy protections and applies a slow to all enemies hit by at least 1 bounce. This will be the skill that you start with at level 1 and your priority skill to level up first so that you can get the extra bounces, thus giving you more damage, chances to slow & reduce protections. People will often try and leave 1 minion from the wave left to bounce the ring off of and ensure that you get a nice amount of bounces on the enemy gods.

Your second skill, Flaming Spear, is just a buff that gives you increased attack speed, crit chance and a heal that scales depending on the amount of stacks you have built up on your passive. You will probably want to grab this skill at level 3 and this will be your second most important skill to level up because it will increase the amount you can heal for.

Your third skill, Armillary Sash, is a ranged stun that holds the enemy in place and sends Ne Zha flying at them like a grappling hook. You will want to grab this skill at level 2. This ability cannot damage minions and can only be used on enemy gods. After level 2, this will become your least important skill to level up.

Your ultimate, Wind Fire Wheels, is going to be your main set up skill for your adc/mage to capitalize on. You will almost always use this ability immediately after landing your Armillary Sash on an enemy god. With that being said, skilled players will expect you to do just that, so you should try to get in the habit of waiting just a second or 2 after landing the sash to avoid wasting your ultimate. This skill will send you and the enemy god you hit flying into the air, giving you 3 chances to land 3 critical strikes as long as you attack when prompted. It's really easy to hit the crits so don't worry too much about it. While in the air, you have 2 choices, you can hit all of the crits and come crashing back down or you can purposefully not land the crits to stay in the air as long as possible, giving your teammates more time to get into position and set up for the killing blow or just to remove someone from the fight for a bit. If need be, this skill can be used as an escape. This skill has a pretty short cooldown which will be even shorter if you've acquired the items I recommended so don't sit on it because you will have it up nearly every minute.

You need to keep in mind that you are a support so don't hold on to your ultimate trying to get kills on people, use your ultimate to lock someone down and allow your teammates to get the easy damage in.

Your typical combo will be to use your Ring Toss on the minions which will then bounce to enemy gods, applying the protections debuff and the slow that will make it easier for you to land your Armillary Sash. Once you've used your sash, pop your Flaming Spear for the attack speed and crit buff. You should be able to get a few hits in and still keep up with the enemy because they will have been slowed and stunned, on top of the fact that your passive makes you fast and War Flag will make you even faster. That's if your ultimate is down or if you don't have any teammates around to get good use out of your ultimate. If your ultimate is up & you have teammates around, you will do Ring Toss, Armillary Sash, wait a second for the beads and then use your ultimate. Once you've come crashing down, pop your Flaming Spear. If there aren't any minions around, try to land your Armillary Sash and then use your Ring Toss when you're right on top of them so that you don't miss. This will also give you that extra second or 2 for them to activate their beads before using your ultimate.

There are some gods listed in certain categories that seem a bit out of place and I believe that Ne Zha is one of those. He's listed as an assassin so, naturally, people are going to want to take him into the jungle. He can be a great jungler, no doubt, but I think he really starts getting punished late game when you've built him as this glass cannon assassin and you get your kill from your ultimate only to have the other 4 players waiting to pick you off as soon as you come down and absolutely no way to escape. Not to mention, there are just too many better options when it comes to jungling.

To me, everything about his kit really screams support. He pairs really well with a lot of hunters, allowing them to get their kits off with ease. Artemis and Ne Zha can be a pretty dirty combo but, honestly, I think Ne Zha can help any hunter win their lane early on, especially with the War Flag buff. Ne Zha also does great even when transitioning into the mid lane, especially when paired with some of the top picks like Scylla & Ra. You will be able to guarantee that your mage can land his ultimate with ease.

You will need to be fairly aggressive and definitely be the initiator for your team and try and control the flow of battle. You want to blink in and grab an enemy god with your ultimate before the enemy team can get coordinated and strike your team first. The goal is to always keep them panicking and trying to react or peel off your ultimate. Keep getting the free poke from your Ring Toss and just coordinate with your adc/mage for easy kills. With Ne Zha, you're really going to want to go for those early kills and snowball off of that or you will quickly find yourself falling behind without Sentinel's Gift and you're not going to be as durable as other supports the longer the game goes on and your item/level advantage is all but gone due to the fact that you're an assassin.

You really need to communicate with your team and pick your fights intelligently. You are not a typical support that can just take a bunch of hits and W key at people. Your best feature is your ultimate because, if used with your team, it will almost always guarantee your team a kill. If you don't have your ultimate, shift to a peeling support. Utilize your Ring Toss to slow and debuff as well as the sash to give your teammates a chance to escape. You can also use your ultimate to get the enemy off of your teammates.

The mobility from your passive, combined with War Flag & Blink will allow you to catch up to almost any other god in the game with ease. Your main focuses need to be the ADC, Mid Laner & Jungler. These 3 people will still be fairly susceptible to your bruiser build.

Try your hardest not to go Rambo and always try and keep a carry with you at all times.
With this build, your damage will feel pretty good but you still need to fulfill that support role. Your ultimate is for your teammates to get the kill, not for you. Be generous and it will boost your whole team morale. Don't be afraid to use it on someone with full hp because you're not trying to get the killing blow, you just want to soften them up and allow your team to get in position and get their skills prepped to finish them off.

With that being said, this is not a 45min conquest build, this is early game kill potential and snowballing off of that so you will need to be somewhat familiar and confident in your ability to play Ne Zha. Keep getting the easy kill combos with your mage and adc to easily secure the objectives and get your team rolling. You basically just want to run at them early and force the enemy team into an f6 before they get too tanky or start blowing you up.

I really hope this guide helps.