N.O.V.A. Vex Fast 9
Fast 9 Primary
Tier
Required
Econ
Econ
Item
Formula
Example
Main ▾
Main
Brawler Version
Lvl9
1
Traits
1
Bulwark
1
1
Dark Lady
1
1
Divine Duelist
1
1
Doomer
1
1
Factory New
1
1
Party Animal
1
2
Bastion
2 > 4 > 6
2
Marauder
2 > 4 > 6
2
N.O.V.A.
2 > 5
2
Vanguard
2 > 4 > 6
1
Space Groove
1 > 3 > 5 > 7 > 10
1
Anima
3 > 6
1
Stargazer
3 > 5 > 7 > 8 > 9 > 10
9 
108 1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
Comp Variations
Flex
Graves
Morgana
Lvl9
Brawler Version
Tips & Tricks
- In Patch 17.3, Morgana was changed from a 5-cost to a 4-cost tank. As such, the comp now has an additional unit to roll for as a frontline tank and she shares similar itemization to Nunu in terms of wanting mana tank items. Crownguard is good on her too.
- Duo carry can be Graves or Fiora. Ideally it is Graves, but if you find him late then consider playing for Fiora instead. This is part of why you should consider melee items over Power Frame or Marksman Frame items earlier in the game as they can flexibly go on Fiora.
- Play for Graves if high enough HP and hit him early enough. Otherwise can flex Jhin or Rhaast.
- All 3 Graves forms are viable, so play flexibly based on what items you have.
- The most important use of Glove in this line is Thief's Gloves (TG). Salvage Bin is good because it allows you to slam Glove items and then eventually remake them into TGs later on.
- In an ideal world, play for this line when you can winstreak Stage 2 and Stage 3 and then play Timebreaker while saving gold in Stage 4, spike on either 4-5 or 5-1 depending on gold / HP.
Strong Conditions
+2 Tier Conditions S → OP
+1 Tier Conditions S → S+
Economy Strategy
Fast 9
- Without econ augment, fast 9 is almost impossible without win-streak.
- Level to 4 if you have upgrades and a good item to place on one of those upgrades.
- Level to 5, unless on 3-loss streak.
- Level to 6 if on 4+ win streak (scout to see if necessary in high elo) or can stay above 40g.
- Level to 6, unless you would go below 30g. If you have to stay level 5 due to low gold (rare), then level to 6 on 3-5.
- Level to 7 if you can stay above 30g, otherwise stay level 6.
- Level to 7, or 8 if you can stay above 30g.
- Level to 8. Main difference from Fast 8 is how much you roll on 8. Ideally you are high HP and don't need to roll at all. Otherwise, roll for acceptable board and accumulate gold afterward.
- Level to 9 if you are rich enough to roll 40g+. Generally only possible with economy augment or encounter.
- Level to 9 if you can roll 40g+ or if low HP.
- Level to 9 and roll for important 5-costs. For the remainder of game, roll until you hit your 2 star itemized units. Can consider level 10 after hitting.
P
VexP
GravesP
Nunu & Willump
S
FioraMorganaDoomer
Vex
5
5Default
Best-in-Slot
Alt Build 1
Alt Build 2
Assault Frame
Grav Booster
Buckshot++
Patch Changes
Aatroxhero Ability
Previous
Patch 17.3
Rotate between three abilities:
Strike: Deal 140/210/315/535 (
) physical damage.
Sweep: Deal 100/150/225/380 () physical damage in a cone and remove 10 () Armor.
Slam: Deal 160/240/360/615 () in a one-hex radius around the target and briefly knock enemies up. If this only hits one enemy, deal 250% damage.
N.O.V.A. Strike: Cleave the battlefield, briefly knocking up all enemies and dealing 120/180/270/405 () physical damage.
Strike: Deal 140/210/315/535 (
) physical damage.Sweep: Deal 100/150/225/380 (
) physical damage in a cone and remove 10 () Armor.Slam: Deal 160/240/360/615 (
) in a one-hex radius around the target and briefly knock enemies up. If this only hits one enemy, deal 250% damage.N.O.V.A. Strike: Cleave the battlefield, briefly knocking up all enemies and dealing 120/180/270/405 (
) physical damage.Rotate between three abilities:
Strike: Deal 140/210/315/535 () physical damage.
Sweep: Deal 110/165/275/470 () physical damage in a cone and remove 10 () Armor.
Slam: Deal 200/300/475/800 () in a one-hex radius around the target and briefly knock enemies up. If this only hits one enemy, deal 250% damage.
N.O.V.A. Strike: Cleave the battlefield, briefly knocking up all enemies and dealing 120/180/270/405 () physical damage.
Strike: Deal 140/210/315/535 (
) physical damage.Sweep: Deal 110/165/275/470 (
) physical damage in a cone and remove 10 () Armor.Slam: Deal 200/300/475/800 (
) in a one-hex radius around the target and briefly knock enemies up. If this only hits one enemy, deal 250% damage.N.O.V.A. Strike: Cleave the battlefield, briefly knocking up all enemies and dealing 120/180/270/405 (
) physical damage.
, 
17.3▾
17.3
17.2b
17.2
17.1b
17.1
16.8
A → S
Board changed
Before
After
Band of Thieves II added with tier modifier +1 Band of Thieves II+ added with tier modifier +1 Band of Thieves II++ added with tier modifier +1Morgana
Morgana
Tip changed from This guide used to be called "Fast 9 Graves", but that is a misnomer as Graves is not always played or mandatory for this comp. → In Patch 17.3, Morgana was changed from a 5-cost to a 4-cost tank. As such, the comp now has an additional unit to roll for as a frontline tank and she shares similar itemization to Nunu in terms of wanting mana tank items. Crownguard is good on her too.
Econ TraitsPrimordian 3Timebreaker 2Formula
Example
Primordian RoguePrimordian 3Formula
Flex
Example
Power>Coolant>Coolant+>Void Coefficent is disgusting on graves
Mana+damage+damage items
this is the best info to be found on this comp anywhere.
bruiser version is good cuz tahm kench helps to 2star vex and graves of u can’t roll for everything.
infinity edge is good slam instead of strikers flail to put on carry stage 3/4 to save hp or win streak
I sometimes struggle to understand of itemized 2 star shen is better than morgana or bruiser tank
Idk about this comb… Sona encounter cluttered mind i get vex on lvl7 go 9 2 star everything just go 5 loss streak against corki, asol, bard…
Putting Items on graves just feels like a waste.
Maybe i just int but i dont see this comb working out very often.
If you go to 9 without combat augment it won’t be enough. Also yeah if you don’t get graves early with okay amount of HP, he generally will be quite worthless since he needs time to scale. Which is why you normally build graves items that can be thrown on fiora in case you aren’t in a position to play graves (as stated in Blue’s notes).
Also to really diagnose your problem would need a bit more context. Assuming you lost against corki asol and bard while having 2 star everything, it sounds like you had no tank items? That being said it is weird – in a vacuum – to just lose with 2 star everything against those boards.
After the recent patch, for some reason this comp is super mid. Might want to check into the actual rating of it now
Hello Mr Blue, shouldn’t prismatic Band of Thieves be S+ at least for this comp?
Added, thanks! Only issue with Band of Thieves is that it doesn’t give gold, and generally you can only afford one augment with this comp that doesn’t give gold. The top priority is always having enough gold.
red buff should be suggested performing well on vex
Nunu feels so useless after his nerfs, he’s def not good enough to be the primary tank of this comp.
I don’t know what board is best though between the tahm kench board or the Rammus main tank swapping in for Shen.
Brawler Version might be better, no Graves or Jhin items just put the Rhaast + cheaper, roll the gold for the higher quality units
currently there is no difference on the Main and Brawler version boards
I wonder how to play this comp. Start with primordian nova rogue then push level on 3-1, 3-2, 4-1, 4-5, 5-2?
most of the time you can only play this if you have the strongest board on Stage 2 and snowball from there, you need a ton of gold and slamming items thru Stage 2 and 3, enough gold from early game that Stage 4 you take Combat and send it to 9, Winout on 10
bro i swear you need to add battle bunny crossbow to graves, it’s sooooo good if you can stabilize
what are these nunu items lol
This bug keeps coming back 🙁 It’s fixed now. I loosely understand the issue, which is that sometimes when I am changing what champions are synced to a profile (like adding or removing profiles) across variations, it can sometimes end up in spots where a champion points to another champion’s build. My team builder handles this by saying “Nunu is trying to use a champion profile from Graves, that’s not allowed, so we’ll hard code the values” but my comp importer does not have that validation check so when I import, it looks completely normal on the team builder side but then the page has wrong data (e.g: Nunu using Grave’s build).
I’ll need to add the validation check to my importer and also figure out why sometimes references are wrong. For the record, it’s not as simple as just saying Nunu MUST use Nunu’s champion profile because a champion can have multiple profiles (e.g: look at Graves, who has 3 build profiles for each of his frames for example). At some point I really need to just dig and figure out why sometimes syncing or unsyncing to a champion profile can cause shifts in the references. I just don’t feel like debugging it currently, but thanks for pointing it out.
marksman frame is very flexible with items. imo rageblade is not necessary if you buy double/triple tap and rev up, you can run 2x kraken and flex the third, or go rb sb db etc. he really likes ad and his attack speed doesnt scale very well. for assault frame the rb titans + flex works pretty good as well, especially going down the emergency shielding tree. a good frontline and the durability upgrades give him time for rageblade to ramp up. busted with flickerblades
after further testing RAGEBLADE IS GOOD ON MARKSMAN GRAVES. double rageblade might be bis no cap. graves has terrible base atkspd but the marginal increases with rageblade increase the probability of proccing double/triple tap. same reason why flickerblades is busted. most upgrade options in the marksman tree feel good, havent tested precision scope as much but graves does have trouble finishing backline carries if he has to walk up. this is also one of the reasons why grav booster for assault frame is good. other than that all upgrades are good situationally just make sure you scout the lobby to see what upgrades you should prioritize. in general i think frag rounds is good against burst heavy comps and melee threats, rev up if they have a beefy frontline and fights are long, ripper bullets is good in general, and precision scope would probably be good if they have a backline heavy comp. but imo DOUBLE AND TRIPLE TAP ARE MANDATORY
Using Hatchet on early graves feels awesome because of all his HP buffs – buckshot plus HP got me to first just now
power frame graves feels good. assault frame takes a while to get online. but play towards whatever backline slams and good frontline you find. melee slams on akali for assault but i think maybe you can transition from nova fast 8 to graves with kindred and play him as a marksman
Morgana is not pasting on the planner
Wrong items on Nunu
Fixed, thanks for reporting