Counter Guide

How to Beat Naafiri

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

Naafiri feels unfair because of how fast she arrives more than how hard she hits, and she's one of the very few assassins whose damage is genuinely easy to build against.

Dying before you've finished reacting is a legitimate reason to dread a champion, and Naafiri does it as well as anyone in the game. She's a real problem and the frustration is earned. She's also the rare assassin who has no magic damage, no untargetable escape after she commits, and no hard crowd control to lock you down with.

Matchup Snapshot Naafiri, the Hound of a Hundred Bites

Where You Meet HerJungle, sometimes Mid

Damage TypePhysical

Why She Is FrustratingArrives before you can react

MobilityTwo dashes, E and R

Biggest ThreatHounds' Pursuit [R]

Hardest CounterDiana

What a Counter Needs

Armor, because every point of her damage is physical
Area damage to remove her packmates before the fight resolves
Hard crowd control to punish a dash she has already spent

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Naafiri on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Naafiri

Diana679 games55.4%
Ekko835 games55.1%
Nocturne2,466 games54.7%
Rammus603 games54.4%
Wukong1,469 games54.0%

Picks Naafiri Beats

Rengar719 games43.4%
Kha'Zix1,532 games44.8%
Lee Sin5,365 games45.8%
Zed760 games46.2%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the jungle against Naafiri. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 51,467 Naafiri games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Naafiri Overview

Strengths: What Makes Her Dangerous

We Are More [Passive] spawns packmates that attack whatever she attacks, so a meaningful chunk of her damage comes from units you aren't clicking on.
Hounds' Pursuit [R] dashes her and the whole pack at a champion from 900 units, slows on arrival, and recasts for free plus a shield if she gets a takedown within the window.
Darkin Daggers [Q] applies a bleed and then converts it into missing-health damage on the recast, and it heals her when the second cast hits a champion.
The Call of the Pack [W] makes her untargetable for a second while it adds packmates, attack damage, and movement speed (enough to dodge a single skillshot mid-fight).
Eviscerate [E] is a dash that fully heals every packmate on landing, so her damage output resets even if you killed the pack a moment earlier.

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

Every point of her damage is physical. There's nothing magical in her kit at all, so armor is a straight stat check with no split to hedge against.
Her packmates are killable units. Any area damage removes several of them at once, and that's a real chunk of her burst gone.
She has no hard crowd control. Hounds' Pursuit [R] slows briefly and that's the extent of it, so she can't stop you from walking out or fighting back.
Once both dashes are spent she's stuck. Eviscerate [E] is 450 units, Hounds' Pursuit [R] needs a champion target, and neither one is a disengage.
She has to be in melee range to do anything. Her longest tool is a 900 unit dash straight into you, which is also her only way out.

Countering Naafiri

Based on the strengths and weaknesses above, beating Naafiri comes down to champions who can accomplish at least one of the following:

Stack armor early. Plated Steelcaps and any armor item are pure value here, because she has no magic damage to punish the lopsided build.
Clear the pack with area damage. Killing packmates cuts her real damage output well below what her ability tooltips suggest.
Hold hard crowd control for after she commits. Hounds' Pursuit [R] is an entry with no exit, so a stun or knock-up on arrival ends her fight.
Don't fight her alone in her jungle. She's built to win isolated skirmishes, and she has no answer to a second champion showing up.

If you're already locked into the matchup without any of those tools, these strategies still work:

Playing a Bad Naafiri Matchup

Track her ultimate rather than her position. Hounds' Pursuit [R] is her only long range engage, and at rank 1 it's on a 110 second cooldown.

Buy armor before you buy damage in this matchup. Her burst is entirely physical, and the difference between 20 and 60 armor is the difference between dying to the combo and walking away.

Stand near your team when your health drops. Darkin Daggers [Q] recast scales off your missing health, so being low (more than being caught) is what actually makes her lethal.

Punish her ganks rather than her clear. Darkin Daggers [Q] restores health when the recast lands on a champion or a large monster, so she sustains through her own camps perfectly well, and starving her of kills is what actually slows her down.

Best Naafiri Counters

These three attack Naafiri from three separate directions: her damage type, her packmates, and her willingness to commit. All three are jungle picks.

Rammus Stat-Checks Her Damage

Rammus is the hardest counter on Naafiri's sheet, and it isn't subtle. Defensive Ball Curl [W] gives him a large chunk of armor and magic resist and deals magic damage back to anything that attacks him. Naafiri and every one of her packmates take damage for the privilege of hitting him. Her kit is 100% physical, so the armor is doing full work.

Frenzying Taunt [E] is what closes it. Taunting Naafiri forces her to attack into the returned damage for the full duration, at exactly the moment she has spent both of her dashes getting to him. Soaring Slam [R] then knocks up her and the entire pack if he lands it out of Powerball [Q], and Spiked Shell [Passive] means his armor is quietly funding his own damage the whole time.

Wukong Erases the Pack

Wukong beats Naafiri by punishing the one thing she can't take back. Warrior Trickster [W] leaves a clone behind and turns him invisible for a second, so a Hounds' Pursuit [R] engage lands on a decoy while the real Wukong is somewhere else with both of her dashes now on cooldown.

Cyclone [R] is the other half, and it's specifically brutal against her. It knocks up everything nearby and deals damage over several seconds in an area, which catches Naafiri and kills her packmates at the same time. Stone Skin [Passive] stacks armor while he fights her, and Crushing Blow [Q] shreds hers, so the trade only gets worse for her the longer it runs.

Nocturne Breaks Her Combo

Nocturne wins by interrupting the sequence rather than surviving it. Shroud of Darkness [W] blocks the next enemy ability. The Darkin Daggers [Q] that start her combo (or the Hounds' Pursuit [R] that starts her engage) can simply be deleted, and blocking one doubles his attack speed for the fight.

Unspeakable Horror [E] then tethers her and fears her if the tether holds, and a feared Naafiri can't recast Darkin Daggers [Q], can't Eviscerate [E], and can't leave. Umbra Blades [Passive] heals him on a short rotating cooldown. That wins the extended fight she isn't built to have, and Paranoia [R] means he chooses when the skirmish happens.

Itemizing Against Naafiri

There's no reason to hedge against magic damage in this matchup, because she doesn't have any:

Plated Steelcaps and Randuin's Omen both cut the burst directly, Frozen Heart's attack speed reduction slows down her packmates as well as Naafiri herself, and Guardian Angel is the cleanest answer to an assassin whose entire plan is a single committed all-in that she can't repeat.