Hi everybody! I am TheDirtyGuvnah. I am an avid jungle main, always looking for ways to push the boundaries of the jungle. Since the release of the new jungle, it is becoming apparent that sustain is an almost must for a jungler since the jungle monsters are more punishing in the early stages of the game. Given Nasus' passive Soul Eater , Nasus can clear camps fairly quickly, and gain an insane amount of Q stacks at the same time. Getting a minimum of 6 stacks per camp can add up extremely quickly and you can become a the insane late game Nasus at 25 minutes. Nasus also has amazing ganks with wither, and if your teammate has a stun etc. it is a guaranteed kill. WARNING! THIS IS NOT A POWER FARM BUILD! YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO HELP YOUR TEAMMATES (unless they are extremely fed, then farm away!)

PROS

Amazing ganks with Wither

600 stacks at 25 minutes (oh yes, I kid you not)

Good Jungle Sustain with Soul Eater

Extremely diverse build paths (AP is amazing ;)

Great Objective Control (that moment when Q does more damage than Smite)

Extremely good at taking structures (Open the Gates)

YOU'RE D CANE!!!!



CONS

Farm Reliant (more than any champ in the game)

Only one form of CC (and its only a slow)

Can be kited quite easily (but all melee's do)

Susceptible to counter-jungling

Players can catch the "Farm Bug" (I'll explain that below)

Mana Problems if you spam W and E

Quite easily Countered

There are fairly standard Tank Jungle Masteries, so I won't go into too much detail The main point to make would be the Second Wind which grants you 10% on every form of HP regen when you are below 25% HP, including the lifesteal from Soul Eater. This makes your jungle clears a lot easier especially at lower HP. Also, I recommend 9 in the Utility Tree rather than the offensive tree. The most important of there is Fleet of Foot which grants you 1.5% move-speed. This makes you ganks a lot easier, and combined with Wither, you can stick to your target quite easily.

Honestly, you can buy whatever runes you want on Nasus. His versatility allows for you to go every which route. I recommend Move-Speed Quints for ganking and moving between jungle camps more quickly. I know that a lot of Nasus players take CDR runes, but I like to save the CDR for items. While yes, you will clear slower, most of your core items include CDR, so why waste the rune space on CDR? Again, its totally user preference. AP runes would be pretty amazing on Nasus if you wanted to go AP ;)

Smite is essential for a jungle.
I like to take Ghost on the build to for many reasons. One, you go REALLY fast! This allows for better ganking, and is a great escape tool. It is also on a much lower cool-down than Flash.

Teleport is also very viable on this build. TPing to a lane will most likely lead to a turret being taken if the enemy does not react immediately. Also, if you really don't feel like walking to clear a camp, you can always TP to a ward you placed. (We all have done it!)

Flash is also a great summoner for obvious reasons. It's completely up to you what spell you decide to take!

This is Nasus' only form of sustain while clearing camps (unless you build life-steal which is hilarious!) Soul Eater grants you % life-steal that scales with every ultimate level (6,11,16). The great thing about this passive is that as you Q gains stacks, the bonus AD you gain counts towards the life-steal. This means that if you get to late game, while your % life-steal is relatively small, you Q will do so much damage that you will heal for a lot of HP each time you Q. Also, if you are below 25% HP, Second Wind will increase this life-steal by a lot! This passive makes Nasus a good dueler too!

This ability is the bread and butter of Nasus. Every time you kill anything (wards, minions, monsters, and of course Champions!) with your Q, you gain stacks on your Q. If you kill a small minion or jungle creep, you gain 3 AD stacks on your Q. If you kill a large minion (Cannon minion or super minion), large jungle monster, or Champion, you gain 6 AD on your Q. More specifically, when you clear a jungle camp, you are guaranteed 6 stacks at the least. The only camp with 6 stacks would be Gromp, Dragon, and Baron. However, clearing Blue Buff, Red Buff or Wolves would grant you 12 AD assuming you Q'd every creep. If you do raptors, that's 15 AD, and Krugs would give you 9 AD. Now doing the math, a whole jungle rotation would grant you 66 stacks. Also, Rift Scuttler (river crab) grants you 6 stacks as well. So if you Q'd every creep including both Rift Scuttlers, you would gain 78 stacks. That is 30 lane creeps if you were to play Nasus in a lane (not including the cannon minions). Since you do not have 40% CDR at early levels, getting 26 creeps (78 stacks)in lane that early is impossible. Jungle Nasus can do it in about 3.5 minutes.


Now, this is the drawback. If you wanted to get 78 stacks during the early jungle clears, you will need to stand around and wait for your Q to come back up so you can Q the minions. This means you take a little extra damage, and spend a little extra time in the jungle at the early stages. However, I found it very efficient to auto-attack the other creeps in the jungle camp while you are waiting for your Q to come off cool-down. This will make your clear faster and much more efficient. Siphoning Strike also hurts champions for a lot of damage early, making it a great way to deal damage while ganking.

Wither is your only form of CC wile ganking. However, it is a crippling slow that will leave your enemies shouting at their computer about how OP Wither is and begging Riot for the slow to end. While it is only a slow, it is a great tool to set up another form of CC with (perhaps another Wither??). The slow also ramps up over time, rather than a decay. At level 5, Wither basically becomes a root with a 95% slow. Stack Wither with Chilling Smite and you have one slowed down enemy! Be wary though, Wither has a high mana cost early (80 mana), so make sure that you have enough mana to clear a camp with Siphoning Strike or to gank with.

Spirit Fire is an AOE armor shred that also does some decent damage. This ability is great to place on an enemy that you just Wither'd since they will be moving too slow to get out out the area. You Q and your allies will do even more damage to an enemy that is standing in the area. This also applies to monsters in the jungle, making your clears a little bit faster. Its relatively low cooldown also makes it very spammable when you get 40% CDR. However, just like Wither, Spirit Fire has a hefty mana cost, (130 at rank 5!!!) so use it wisely.

This ultimate is just crazy! When activated, Nasus gains a ton health (scaling with ultimate rank), 50 range on his auto-attacks, an aura of damage that deals damage based on percent health of his enemies per second, AND, he converts 6.375% of all the damage dealt by his aura into bonus AD for himself. So basically, Nasus becomes a god for a 15 seconds. The main point to take from this is the when you ult, not only will you do AOE Magic damage, but your Siphoning Strike's will do A LOT more damage. Stack that with Spirit Fire and cinderhulk and you are doing tons of AOE damage. Also, if you really want to have some fun, I recommend building AP-Tank Nasus, but that's for another guide!

Now for the hard part: Farming jungle camps to their maximum effectiveness. When you first start, I would HIGHLY recommend starting and smiting Krugs. This is because as you clear you other camps, you will want to be auto attacking the creep that you are not going to farm with Q. That sounds confusing, but here is an example. For example, after I do Krugs, I usually like to do red buff. I start off with casting Spirit Fire in the whole camp. This will do enough damage to allow you to kill one of the tiny creeps with your Q. The other tiny creep is also low enough to be Q'd but your Q is on cooldown. So as to not waste time, I auto the Brambleback (Big red dude), until my Q is off cooldown. When Siphoning Strike is back up, Q the small creep, and repeat the process on the Large monster until you can Q it. Your lifesteal from Soul Eater along with a health pot will leave you plenty healthy to farm the rest of your camps. I tend to go in a straight line with the first clears, starting with red buff and ending with blue buff. Taking the Rift Scuttler also not only helps you, but warns your team of incoming ganks.

When farming you jungle at the early stages of the game, I would highly recommend NOT Smiteing Gromp. I guarantee you that you will Q a creep, it will live with 1 HP left, and it will die to the Gromp buff. It is really sad to see those precious stacks go down the tube. However, late game when you have 100000000 stacks and are Uber tanky, Smiting Gromp is a good idea.

Ok, this is where you get to do whatever the heck you want to do. In this section, I'm just going to explain the most general items that I tend to build. There probably isn't enough space in this section to explain all the different build routes you could go.

1. Smite Enchantment: I think that Chilling Smite with Cinderhulk is the best Smite route Enchantment:for Jungle Nasus. The extra slow (or speed up if you want to be technical)is an extra from of CC, and while is is not AOE, it can really help you stick to a target. Stack the Chilling Smite with Wither and your opponents aren't going anywhere! However, it is complete personal preference. If you are having a hard time staying healthy in the jungle, Trailblazer is probably the better option.

2. Righteous Glory: Righteous Glory is a must have item for your team. The ability to engage on an enemy team without casting a spell is a huge bonus, and with its relatively low cool-down, this item is a true beast. This item allows for crazy good ganks, and even better teamfight initiation. The Health and Mana are a huge bonus for Nasus as well.

3. Frozen Heart: This is basically a core item for Nasus. The 20% CDR and 100 armor make you an absolute monster. The important fact about this item though, is the passive which slows the attack speed of your nearby enemies by 15%. This makes it a huge debuff for the enemy ADC, hindering their damage output by a lot. It also destroys auto attack-attack reliant fighters such as Jax and Azir.

4. Trinity Force: Here is the huge debate among Nasus players. Do I get a Sheen item or not? I say OF COURSE YOU DO! The real question is which item. In my personal opinion between Iceborne gauntlet and Trinity Force, Trinity Force is the way better option. Not only does it give you major stats such as AD and AP, but the Sheen Proc is 200% rather than 125% on IBG. Sure, IBG gives you CDR and that hefty slow passive, but Trinity Force has way more to offer. Again, completely up to you. If you feel that you need a little extra armor, IBG may be the better item.

5. Spirit Visage: This item probably will give you more lifesteal than a Trundle with every lifesteal item in the game. Ok, that's and exaggeration, but you get the point. You become a godly duelist with this item, as well as gaining some CDR, Magic Resist, and a lot of HP. What is there not to like about it?

6. Ionian Boots of Lucidity: Ok, DON'T FREAK OUT! The only reason I get this item is it is a extremely cheap way to get 15% CDR. The means that you will cap out your CDR with only these boots and a Frozen Heart (assuming you have the Sorcery Mastery). This allows for other non-essential CDR items to be bought.

Ganking with Nasus is probably the easiest gank you will ever do in LoL. All you have to really do is hover over your enemy with your cursor and press W!!! Easy as that! Now, you also have to pray that your laner actually saw your "On My Way" ping, and hope that they land their CC as well. After all, you do want to give the kill to you laner right? (BUT I WANT MY 6 STACKS!!). Also, when you become level 6, do not be afraid of diving under an enemy turret. You become realllyyyy tanky when you ult, and you also do a HUGE amount of damage.

The topic of counter-jungling is very hard to master. Basically, you want to be able to take the enemies jungle without being seen AND/OR caught. The easiest way to counter-jungle is to be constantly looking at the mini-map. If you see that the enemy jungler is waiting in a bush in top lane to try to gank your top laner, you can do a few things. You can a) Solo dragon (just make sure to get your +6!) or b) take the enemies bot side jungle. There is no champ that is fast enough to get from top lane to their bottom lane jungle in time to stop you from taking their jungle. "Let no gank go unpunished" is a great motto I like to use when jungling. If your allies get killed by a gank, counter jungle to deny experience.

Also, setting up for a counter gank is a great method to swing the favor of a lane. If you see a lane that your allies have pushed up to the enemy turret, chances are that the jungler will gank that lane over a lane that is not pushed. Setting up for the a counter gank may not only save your teammates live, but get your team a couple kills in the process!!!

Believe it or not, teammates dying greatly improves your Q stack number. Unless you are far away, covering a lane where either you teammate died or had to recall is a great way to rack up a few stacks. Be very cautious when you do this as you will give your position away, and open up the possibility of the enemy jungler taking some of your jungle for himself.

This is the the reason why Nasus players get such a bad reputation in League of Legends. The Farm Bug is when you become so obsessed with farming for your Q stacks that you forget that your team is fighting 4v5 fights all the time. Please do not contract this disease. I made this build so that Nasus can participate in team-fights and help other lanes. Sure, if you see that all lanes are pushed, and you really don't want to dive (which at level 6, you have no excuse not to dive!) then farm away. But remember, Nasus' kit along with this build allow for INSANE ganks.

I would highly advise playing Jungle Nasus in a few normals before you try it in ranked. It definitely have a different feel than the typical top lane Nasus, and requires a lot more map awareness. However, it really is not that hard to learn, so if you want to go right into ranked, go for it!!! You probably will receive a few "GG report nasus" or "Oh great, another Nasus that won't help the team." Trust me, I have a 100% win rate with jungle Nasus, and after every game, my team cant believe how I got 600 stacks at 25 minutes and still ganked their lanes to help them get ahead. So be prepared to bathe in the glory of carrying your team!!! (just don't feed!!)

In all, I really hope this guide inspires some of you to give jungle Nasus a try. A really farmed Nasus can stack (pun intended) the odds greatly in your favor. Please feel free to drop a comment, even if you think my guide is complete garbage (I hear complete life-steal Nasus is insane!) Any edit or recommendation for the guide would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for reading the guide and good luck in your League endeavors. I hope you all get to feel the true power of the Jungle Susan! Also, be sure check out my Jungle Shen Guide here!

-TheDirtyGuvnah