Yes: under the documented rules, a valid support-item execute can preserve Nilah’s bonus experience (XP). Nilah must receive the minion kill credit from the item. When that happens, her support has finished the minion without turning off Joy Unending. A support taking an ordinary last hit with no charge is different: nearby players still receive normal shared XP, but that minion does not trigger Nilah’s extra XP.
The confusing part is the animation: in both cases, you see your support finish a minion. The support item’s kill credit is what makes the outcomes different.
This guide covers modern PC Summoner’s Rift. The execute interaction follows from Riot’s passive rules and documented item kill-credit behavior. It is a source-based explanation, not a claim that we reproduced it in a new in-game test.
Why a support execute can count as Nilah’s last hit
Riot describes Joy Unending as restoring half of the experience lost to sharing when Nilah last-hits a minion. The benefit goes to Nilah and her nearest allied champion. Her current champion page still ties the bonus to last-hitting. The current passive record, linked to its English tooltip, retains the 50% restoration value. Merely standing near a dying minion is not enough.
The missing part is the support item. The League Wiki’s current notes for World Atlas and Runic Compass say their minion execute counts as a minion kill for the allied champion receiving the kill gold. If that ally is Nilah, the two documented rules line up: the execute supplies the kill credit that her passive requires.
A charge can therefore help secure a minion Nilah cannot safely reach. An uncharged auto cannot do the same job just because the support meant to help.
An execute finishes an eligible low-health minion through the item’s effect. The Nilah interaction comes from who receives that kill credit, not from amplifying an item’s healing or shielding. Those are separate parts of her kit. You do not need to pick an enchanter for the XP rule to matter.
Gold, ordinary XP, and bonus XP are three separate checks
A gold popup answers only part of the question. Check who gets the kill gold, who shares the ordinary XP, and whether Nilah earned the passive bonus. Those outcomes do not always travel together.
This table assumes Nilah is alive and close enough to receive experience. The item rows also require a successful sharing proc, not just ownership of a support item.
For an ordinary shared minion, the support does not take all the XP by landing the killing blow. Nilah can still receive experience without receiving gold. What the duo loses is the extra amount attached to her passive, plus Nilah’s gold when the support keeps the ordinary last hit.
Suppose your support has no charges left and accidentally kills a caster minion with a poke spell. If you both remain in experience range, that is not a zero-XP caster for Nilah. It is a normal shared-XP caster without her passive bonus. That smaller loss can still matter when the next level is close.
Conversely, if Nilah is away from the wave when it dies, do not assume the item or passive sends her experience across the map. Kill credit, the support item’s sharing conditions, and proximity for experience are not interchangeable requirements.
Check the charge before touching the minion
World Atlas and Runic Compass use Shared Riches while their quest stages are active. They store up to three charges, replenishing a charge every 20 seconds. Those charges can be spent through champion or structure damage as well as minions. If your last charge went into a trade, the item can be in your inventory while its execute is unavailable.
The execute threshold also follows the support item’s owner, not Nilah’s melee classification: current item values are 50% minion health for a melee owner and about 33.3% for a ranged owner. The attack can bring the minion below that threshold. Do not expect a ranged support to use the melee threshold merely because Nilah receives the gold.
If your support just used a charge to poke the enemy, check again before expecting the next minion hit to execute. When there is no valid sharing proc, an attack that kills the minion is an ordinary last hit. Repeatedly hitting the wave while waiting for the charge also changes its health and can spoil Nilah’s own timing.
The item chooses a nearby allied recipient rather than permanently assigning all shared minions to the bot laner. When a jungler arrives, the closest eligible ally can change. A support standing beside the jungler and far from Nilah should not assume the next proc will fund Nilah’s passive. Keep the intended recipient close and check who receives the shared kill.
Do not carry the execute assumption into the finished support item just because it still provides wards or a combat passive. Check whether Shared Riches charges are still available at that stage. Once that charge-sharing effect is gone, normal support last hits do not become Nilah’s last hits by default.
These charge rules come from the current item records and their English tooltips. Some public item descriptions contain missing or unresolved values; old guides also show different gold rewards and ranges. You do not need to memorize those old numbers to make the right decision: confirm a charge, a valid nearby recipient, and the actual shared kill.
How much extra XP does Nilah actually get?
The passive restores half the XP lost to sharing. It does not multiply all your XP by 1.5. For the simple two-player lane, Riot’s 2026 experience changes give each champion 65% of a minion’s solo value. The gap is 35%. Half of that gap is 17.5%.
With an eligible Nilah last hit, each member of the duo therefore receives a calculated 82.5% of the minion’s solo XP: 65% ordinary sharing plus 17.5% restored by Joy Unending. Relative to an ordinary duo’s 65%, that is about 26.9% more experience from that eligible minion, not 50% more.
The following values are calculated from Riot’s current minion XP and the passive rule. They are not a recorded match or HUD measurement. Both champions are close together, only those two share the minion, and no other experience modifier applies.
The unrounded decimals explain thresholds; the game may display rounded values. A charge used successfully on a cannon preserves more bonus XP than one used on a caster because the cannon is worth more XP. Do not save a charge for a future cannon while a caster Nilah needs is dying now. If that caster supplies the next level, securing it can matter more than saving the larger bonus for later.
These are duo numbers. If another ally enters experience range, the normal split changes, and the passive names the nearest ally rather than every teammate. Do not apply the 82.5% figure to a three-person wave. The table also is not a formula for solo farming or distant-ally edge cases. Deciding whether the support should roam still involves wave safety, pressure, and the support’s lost XP; this duo calculation does not settle that decision.
One caster can change your level-two engage
Consider a clean first wave with three melee and three caster minions. Nilah gets every eligible last hit, both players stay in XP range, and neither has XP from a kill, ward, camp, or another source. Use the ordinary bot-lane rules, without a third ally or a lane-swap modifier.
Under those assumptions, each player has 230.175 XP after the first wave. An eligible melee minion from wave two adds 51.15, bringing the total to 281.325. The normal Summoner’s Rift level curve requires 280 XP for level two, so that first melee is enough in this calculated example.
Now let the support take one caster from wave one without a charge. Both players still get the ordinary shared XP, but they miss the 5.425 bonus. After the first eligible melee of wave two, the total is 275.90, short of the level. The next eligible melee can supply the missing experience.
One caster can leave both players level one when they expected to go in with a second spell. If the support had instead used a valid execute credited to Nilah, the documented interaction preserves the first calculation.
An ordinary duo without Nilah would have 181.35 XP after that first wave and reach 302.25 after the three melee minions of wave two. The comparison assumes the same death order and full XP access. It does not guarantee that your own duo has met those conditions. Watch both experience bars before committing. Even after the level arrives, check your health and the enemy wave; unlocking a second spell does not make an all-in safe.
Check yourself: the support has one charge
Nilah is nearby, no third ally is present, and the next melee minion would put both players over the threshold if it counts for Joy Unending. The support wants to execute it. Should Nilah tell them to stop?
Reveal the answer:
Not simply because the support would deliver the attack. A valid charge-sharing execute credited to Nilah can preserve the bonus. Confirm the charge is still there and both players can collect the XP, then time the level-up together. The support hitting first and the support stealing the credited last hit are different things.
Check yourself: gold arrived, but the expected level did not
The execute gives Nilah gold, yet the duo remains level one. Does that prove the support item broke her passive?
Reveal the answer:
No. An earlier missed passive proc, a minion lost outside XP range, a third player sharing experience, or a different minion death order can invalidate the clean example. Reconstruct the wave before calling the interaction broken. A gold popup only confirms one part of the event.
What to do in lane, rather than arguing over the last hit
If Nilah can take the minion safely, letting her do so avoids uncertainty about the item charge or recipient. The support can spend attention on the enemy’s angle instead. When she cannot reach it, a valid execute can secure the shared benefit without making her walk into an avoidable trade.
Under pressure, identify the minion about to die and whether Nilah will receive its kill credit. Near a level-up, count what your lane actually collected; a missed passive bonus can change the next breakpoint. While holding a freeze, avoid adding extra attacks simply because you have a charge; preserving XP does not undo the effect of killing a minion early.
After a failed or confusing proc, check the charge, the credited recipient, each player’s position, and the experience gained. If those checks still disagree with the documented behavior, save the replay and record the patch and exact minion event. That is more useful than treating every support attack as a stolen passive proc.
Two other pieces of older advice are easy to carry into the wrong situation. First, Riot removed the excessive-minion-kill gold reduction for supports in patch 26.7. That removal did not make every support last hit a shared execute. Second, old Relic Shield or Steel Shoulderguards discussions describe previous item systems; they are not instructions to buy those items for this lane today.
Joy Unending’s healing and shielding benefits are also separate from this XP calculation. Its current tooltip specifies allied champion abilities. A support-item execute is not a heal, and the XP interaction does not depend on triggering that other passive benefit. For choosing a partner around engage, protection, or sustain, see our best supports for Nilah guide.
Call out an empty charge counter before hitting the wave, especially when Nilah is about to engage. You want both players expecting the same minion to give them level two.