Nasus Build Guide by MeowfaceMcGee

Introduction

Ok folks, Here's a basic build for Nasus, The Curator of the Sands. This Guild includes Skill Order, Runes, Items, Masteries and the explanations of the choices I have made with regards to these options for bruiser (tanky) Nasus verses both AD and AP heavy teams and the extremely unusual AP Nasus. I generally play Nasus as an anti-AD bruiser but this is NOT THE ONLY WAY TO BUILD HIM. I am open to comments and new ideas or styles to play Nasus and will give all suggestions a fair trial.

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE GUIDE BEFORE DOWNVOTING AND INSULTING IT!!! Some of my ideas may seem strange to you (AP Nasus) but I explain myself later on so bear with me.

Tanky Nasus (Both forms)

Here is my general and generic tanky bruiser Nasus of doom guide. AP Nasus is further down the page.

Pros/Cons Of Nasus

PROS Nasus is an extremely brutal champion Extremely good late game Natural lifesteal grants early lane durability He is tanky and hard to push out of lane if farmed Gains massive damage by farming his Q, Siphoning Strike Massive one target slow and AoE armor reduction

CONS Reasonably low initial lane damage Needs a good farm on his Siphoning Strike to be useful No real anti gank or escape abilities If harassed enough becomes a dead-weight late game with no Siphoning Strike farm

Skill Sequence

A standard skill set utilizing Nasus' infinite damage buff on his Q Siphoning Strike per minion kill (like Veigar's Baleful Strike or Sion's Enrage) then bringing his rediculous slow up to speed.
Soul Eater: (Innate) Nasus drains his foe's spiritual energy, giving him a natural 14 / 17 / 20% lifesteal.
Siphoning Strike: (Active) Nasus's next attack will deal additional damage. Siphoning Strike permanently gains 3 stacked damage whenever it kills an enemy champion, minion or neutral monster.

• Cost: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 mana
• Cooldown: 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 seconds
• Next attack has more damage buff lasts for 10 seconds
• Physical Damage: 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+1.0 per attack damage) (+3 per enemy killed by Siphoning Strike). Resets auto attack timer and procs on-hit effects.

Wither: (Active) Nasus ages his target, slowing their movement and attack speed by 35%. Additionally, they are reduced further to reach an extra slow at the end of 5 seconds. If the duration of the slow is reduced, the extra slow will be applied faster for it to reach its maximum at the end of the duration.

• Cost: 80 mana
• Range: 700
• Extra Slow: 12 / 24 / 36 / 48 / 60 %
• Cooldown: 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 seconds

Spirit Fire: (Active) Nasus channels for half a second and then unleashes a spirit flame at a location for 5 seconds. Enemies caught in the area are dealt a burst of magic damage. Additionally, enemies in the area are dealt magic damage each second and have their armor reduced while on there and for 1 extra second.

• Cooldown: 12 seconds
• Range to Center of AoE: 650
• Diameter of AoE: 400
• Cost: 70 / 85 / 100 / 115 / 130 mana
• Initial Magic Damage: 55 / 95 / 135 / 175 / 215 (+0.6 per ability power)
• Magic Damage Per Second: 11 / 19 / 27 / 35 / 43 (+0.12 per ability power)
• Armor Reduction: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40

Fury of the Sands: (Active) Nasus becomes empowered in the sandstorm for 15 seconds, gaining extra health. While the storm rages, he drains a percentage of nearby enemies max health each second (max of 240 magic damage per second per enemy) and converts 6.375% of the damage done into bonus attack damage for himself until the sandstorm wears off.

• Cost: 150 mana
• Cooldown: 120 seconds
• Diameter of AoE: 350
• Health Gained: 300 / 450 / 600
• Max Health to Magic Damage Ratio Per Second: 3 / 4 / 5% (+0.01 per ability power)

Masteries

I build a general 0-21-9 based around armor/magic resistance (depending on who your versing) and health to give you more early game durability while your farming your Q initially. You NEED the farming phase otherwise you will just be pushed out of lane too easily later and the armor and health regen really help to prolong this stage. Also grab cooldown reduction so that your Q is off cooldown more often allowing you to last hit more minions with it. In the utility tree grab points in mana and mana regen and movement speed to allow Nasus to spam his Siphoning Strike and never run out of mana plus some chase/escape mobility. Using this set up provides a greater advantage than getting attack damage or cooldown reduction in the offense tree because you often don't have a large engine for mana early game and this causes you to lose precious farm time and survivabilty.

Runes

Almost always grab greater mark of desolation to give your Siphoning Strike some nice penetration which stacks nicely with your Spirit Fire's armor reduction making every shot count.

Grabbing some Greater Seal of Armor will grant you some extra survivability in the lane as you will receive less damage from your generic AD solo top bruiser and the minions you will be feeding on. Either that or some greater seal of regeneration (which outrank greater seal of vigor at level 4) to increase your life regain while they waste potions trying to harass you. Even grabbing Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration will increase your lane durability as you wont need to spend your Mana Potion and will be able to spam Siphoning Strike even more before running out of mana. If you know your versing an AP heavy team you may consider Greater Seal of Scaling Magic Resist to give you some late game magic resist.

Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction is rather helpful at increasing your rate of last hitting with Siphoning Strike allowing you to buff it up quicker and become more of a threat earlier. Pretty basic tactic but its what will make you ridiculous as a good little Nasus should be. Most other glyphs are pretty useless or impotent on Nasus.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage and Greater Quintessence of Armor both work well on Nasus giving him more damage or lane durability making the opponent think twice before trying to harass him. Once again if you are versing an AP heavy team you could grab Greater Quintessence of Scaling Magic Resist to buff up your late game again however grabbing one Greater Quintessence of Armor will reduce the initial damage you will take top lane.

Summoner Spells

Ghost is a very good summoner spell on Nasus as it provides him with a much needed speed boost and provides him a multi-person gank escape move which he would not otherwise have. You could also couple this with his insane 1v1 slow to ensure that no escape is possible.

Flash is yet another escape move that Nasus sorely needs but it can also be used to initiate with a slow then pummeling them with Wither then Siphoning Strike.

Teleport could have a lot of uses for Nasus as he generally has the tankiness to withstand attacks until he can complete the teleport and normally just his presence will deter a tower dive on an allied champion. This spell will also help slow old Nasus get back to lane faster to increase his minion farm after a dangerous gank or upon death.

Ignite is not unheard of on a Nasus player but it is not particularly useful on him as he has damage of his own and the ability to chase but it may just grant you that one tower camping champion or shut down a solo top Dr. Mundo.

If you plan to be spamming Spirit Fire then you might want to grab clarity because you WILL need that mana. Most of the time and late game this will be useless though due to the early Philosopher's Stone and Siphoning Strike's reasonably low mana cost.

Not really necessary on Nasus due to his passive lifesteal with Soul Eater and Siphoning Strike and his heal from his ultimate Fury of the Sands but if you really want even more healing power just to troll them then grab this baby.

Surge. On Nasus. Is Cruel. Just the fact that you can use Fury of the Sands AND Surge at the same time just makes you even more ridiculous and will allow you to cut a swath through their ranks just by walking. The extra ability power buffs up your AoE damage which then in turn buffs up your attack damage leaving the enemy team very sad indeed. Grab this if you're in the mood to be mean.

Items

Grab a Regrowth Pendant to act as a continuous Health Potion which when added with the lifesteal from Soul Eater and Siphoning Strike provides you with plenty of health to pretty much ignore their attempts of harassment until level 4 when you grab Spirit Fire and can shut down all of their initiates. To keep up your Siphoning Strike spamming to farm it up you will need the Mana Potion as you will run out of mana with to much use of Spirit Fire unless you grabbed mana regen runes although its better to be safe with your mana just in case because you will definitely have enough health with your health regen and lifesteal to stay in lane and so the only limiting factor is your mana.

This item solves most of your mana problems but you will still have to look out for too many Spirit Fires but it should generate enough mana for you to use if you're just using Siphoning Strike. Definitely save up money until you have enough to at least grab this and possibly some second rank boots as well.
These boots are very nice on Nasus as he needs that early cooldown reduction to build up his Siphoning Strike. Try as best you can to grab this on your first recall and try to do so as soon as you can buy both Philosopher's Stone and these shoes. Other viable shoes are just defensive shows such as Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi. If you find that you are too slow even with Wither on your enemy then you could go for some Boots of Swiftness but I don't really think that he will need them.

Frozen heart is a very nice item on Nasus as it grants him armor AND cooldown reduction making him even more super effective against the generic AD bruiser he will find himself versing top. He can tank more harass and farm more often with Siphoning Strike with the added bonus of an attack speed reduction aura.

[nextcol] When it comes to Spirit Visage and Force of Nature it really depends on your play style. Spirit Visage gives you magic resist, health and cooldown reduction with a nice boost to your Fury of the Sands' heal while Force of Nature grants more magic resist, movement speed and massive health regen.

Sunfire cape and Trinity force are some good items for tankiness and just generally being annoying. Trinity Force is a REQUIREMENT on Nasus because it gives health, a slow chance, movement boost and a damage buff which procs on use of Siphoning Strike. Sunfire Cape on the other hand isn't necessary but it just makes him hard to kill and adds another AoE that stacks with Fury of the Sands thus making you more annoying and more likely to get focused in a team fight because no one uses their head and take out the squishies. This is a good thing due to your armor/magic resist and lifesteal making you a massive thorn in their side if they just ignore you.
Just a bit of a buff for anti-mage Nasus giving damage, magic resist and granting a lifesaver style shield if they try to burst you down.
You think they hard a hard enough time killing you once..? Give tham another try ^_^. Who wouldn't love to be resurrected just to pimp up to full health in one hit giving you another go at that penta-kill. Also grants both armor and magic resist.
Now to finish off your build just build up your Philosopher's Stone into one of these, either grabbing Shurelya's Reverie for the AoE speed boost active as well as the boosted health regen but the cooldown reduction shouldnt help you as it is capped at 40% cooldown reduction and you should have around 37% by now (unless you skipped Spirit Visage). The tenacity granted by Eleisa's Miracle is very nice but if you dont feel like you need either of these you could always grab a novelty item like Sunfire Cape, The Bloodthirster, Banshee's Veil, Atma's Impaler, The Black Cleaver or Warmog's Armor.

AP Nasus Guide

From here on out its all AP Nasus stuff so if you're looking for bruiser Nasus he's above.

Pros / Cons

PROS Large AoE damage +armor reduction to assist in teamfights Natural lifesteal grants early lane durability He is tanky and hard to push out of mid by most AP champions Can walk through a teamfight being focused by five people and live due to Fury of the Sands Massive one target slow

CONS Reasonably low initial lane damage High mana cost for his main damage system Spirit Fire leaving him mana hungry for most of the laning phase. No real anti gank or escape abilities

Skill Sequence

Seeming as you are building AP Nasus this is where this guide will differ from most other guides. Firstly you need to build up your only AP move: Spirit Fire instead of Siphoning Strike as is the norm. This will give you a skill sequence something like this:

The main reason that AP Nasus actually works is due to his ultimate and the armor reduction granted by Spirit Fire allowing for a massive nuke with Siphoning Strike utilizing Lich Bane.

And just in case you didnt read it above here is an explanation of his abilities

Soul Eater: (Innate) Nasus drains his foe's spiritual energy, giving him a natural 14 / 17 / 20% lifesteal.
Siphoning Strike: (Active) Nasus's next attack will deal additional damage. Siphoning Strike permanently gains 3 stacked damage whenever it kills an enemy champion, minion or neutral monster.

• Cost: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 mana
• Cooldown: 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 seconds
• Next attack has more damage buff lasts for 10 seconds
• Physical Damage: 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+1.0 per attack damage) (+3 per enemy killed by Siphoning Strike). Resets auto attack timer and procs on-hit effects.

Wither: (Active) Nasus ages his target, slowing their movement and attack speed by 35%. Additionally, they are reduced further to reach an extra slow at the end of 5 seconds. If the duration of the slow is reduced, the extra slow will be applied faster for it to reach its maximum at the end of the duration.

• Cost: 80 mana
• Range: 700
• Extra Slow: 12 / 24 / 36 / 48 / 60 %
• Cooldown: 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 seconds

Spirit Fire: (Active) Nasus channels for half a second and then unleashes a spirit flame at a location for 5 seconds. Enemies caught in the area are dealt a burst of magic damage. Additionally, enemies in the area are dealt magic damage each second and have their armor reduced while on there and for 1 extra second.

• Cooldown: 12 seconds
• Range to Center of AoE: 650
• Diameter of AoE: 400
• Cost: 70 / 85 / 100 / 115 / 130 mana
• Initial Magic Damage: 55 / 95 / 135 / 175 / 215 (+0.6 per ability power)
• Magic Damage Per Second: 11 / 19 / 27 / 35 / 43 (+0.12 per ability power)
• Armor Reduction: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40

Fury of the Sands: (Active) Nasus becomes empowered in the sandstorm for 15 seconds, gaining extra health. While the storm rages, he drains a percentage of nearby enemies max health each second (max of 240 magic damage per second per enemy) and converts 6.375% of the damage done into bonus attack damage for himself until the sandstorm wears off.

• Cost: 150 mana
• Cooldown: 120 seconds
• Diameter of AoE: 350
• Health Gained: 300 / 450 / 600
• Max Health to Magic Damage Ratio Per Second: 3 / 4 / 5% (+0.01 per ability power)

Masteries

You should just build a conservative utility based mastery tree based around the cooldown reduction/magic penetration in the offense tree while bringing some sustain in with mana and mana regen points in the utility tree. Not really much more to say around this apart from you will NEED that mana, especially if you dont grab Clarity in your summoner spells.

Runes

To help AP Nasus level and scale into mid-late game grab Greater Mark of Scaling Ability Power to grant you that AP you will be needing. This rune outscales Greater Mark of Ability Power at level 6 which is when most of your damage comes out anyway so you shouldn't be initiating that much before then anyway.

Grabbing the Greater Seal of Magic Resist will give you some early game magic resist to withstand that generic AP carry mid and grant you more sustainability as you Soul Eater lifesteal their wasted mana back.

Using the greater glyph of replenishment will allow you to sit in lane for ages and will grant you the mana to keep up the farming. Seeming as Spirit Fire is a very mana heavy spell you really do need this early mana regen.

Now, currently you aren't doing much AP damage so you'll need to grab some Greater Quintessence of Ability Power to boost up that ability damage otherwise you'll have a very weak farm/harass early game.

Summoner Spells

Flash is going to be pretty much your only escape move unless you grab Ghost but you will need to grab one or the other or you probably wont be able to survive or escape from those nasty ganks (unless you're fed)

If you plan to be spamming Spirit Fire (which you can easily do if you grab this) then Clarity might be a very good choice for you. with this you may be able to swap out the mana regen runes for more AP or cooldown reduction but you should still try to ration your mana use even if you do grab this move.

Teleport could have a lot of uses for Nasus as he generally has the tankiness to withstand attacks until he can complete the teleport and normally just his presence will deter a tower dive on an allied champion. This spell will also help slow old Nasus get back to lane faster to increase his minion farm after a dangerous gank or upon death.

Ghost is a very good summoner spell on Nasus as it provides him with a much needed speed boost and provides him a multi-person gank escape move which he would not otherwise have. You could also couple this with his insane 1v1 slow to ensure that no escape is possible.

Ignite is not unheard of on a Nasus player but it is not particularly useful on him as he has damage of his own and the ability to chase but it may just grant you that one tower camping champion or shut down a solo top Dr. Mundo. The extra AP granted if you grab the mastery could also help you out and instead of just targetting one person, it will affect the whole teamfight with Spirit Fire and Fury of the Sands.

Not really necessary on Nasus due to his passive lifesteal with Soul Eater and Siphoning Strike and his heal from his ultimate Fury of the Sands but if you really want even more healing power just to troll them then grab this baby.

Surge. On Nasus. Is Cruel. Just the fact that you can use Fury of the Sands AND Surge at the same time just makes you even more ridiculous and will allow you to cut a swath through their ranks just by walking. The extra ability power buffs up your AoE damage which then in turn buffs up your attack damage leaving the enemy team very sad indeed. Grab this if you're in the mood to be mean.

Items

X2 Grabbing the boots will grant you the ability to dodge skillshots better and run into range faster for a surprise Spirit Fire. It will also help with last hitting. You should grab either 2 Health Potions and a Mana Potion or the other way around depending on who your versing and your playing style. Seeming as you don't start off with Siphoning Strike's damage and thus lifesteal boost you may not be as survivable however you must take into account the high mana cost of Spirit Fire so choose your potions wisely.

Catalyst the protector was originally built for AP based tanks to allow them to gain mana h=and health, both of which they should be using if they were doing a good job. This is a perfect early item for Nasus due to the extra survivability and lane durability granted by that health and mana regen.
Now i would suggest getting Mercury's Treads because of the anti-mage power they grant you. Now it will become nye-on-impossible for the opposing AP mage to push you out of lane without running out of mana extremely quickly. You shouldn't really need Sorcerer's Shoes because of your build later and your masteries plus your role late game won't really be helped by grabbing the magic penetration.
Giant's belt simply increases your healthpool and durability plus gets your Rylai's Crystal Scepter started.
Now time to grab some proper AP with your Rod of Ages which will allow you to initiate more often plus the mana and health pool increase granted over time.
Now you choose which one to get first. Either complete your Rylai's Crystal Scepter to grab you two AoE Slows for your teamfights or buff up Siphoning Strike with Sheen which will later be built into Lich Bane. you could also build Lich Bane now however you dont have much AP as it stands currently.
For this next big buy you need to decide depending on how your enemy team is building. So far you have been simply buying to annoy the hell out of your laning opponent but now you'll need to think for the long run. Should you grab armor or should you grab magic resist. Grabbing Frozen Heart will pretty much shut down their AD carries against you as it grant you armor and passively slows their attack speed. Couple that with a 95% all speed reduction from Wither and they're pretty much useless. If you decide on an Abyssal Scepter you will be reducing their magic resistance by 20, their health with Fury of the Sands and their armor with Spirit Fire pretty much making their entire team vulnerable to your entire team. Despite the new nerf on Abyssal Scepter's aura range it doesn't really affect you because you are a melee mage with a short range aura damage with Fury of the Sands so this really does synch quite well with AP Nasus' playstyle.
Seeming as you can pretty much own their team now its time to buff up your damage by grabbing the holy grail of ability power: Rabadon's Deathcap! Now you'll be hitting them REAL hard with both your AoE effects.
Now just to top it all off grab a Lich Bane which will now make your Siphoning Strike (technically) into an AP burst damage attack as you will hit this with your farmed strike PLUS your AP. A very nice way to finish off you build as your passive lifesteal will be granted by this as you have next to no spell vamp. That can be changed however by purchasing a Hextech Gunblade and replacing your Rod of Ages because this will give you EVEN MORE SLOWS and will grant you life regeneration from both your basic attacks plus your AoE abilities PLUS your now ability based Siphoning Strike.

Epiloge

Massive thanks to jhoijhoi for her guide-making guide which really helped me compile my ideas and put them out in an interesting way. Hope you guys liked my Shaco guides and if you have any questions or queries don't be afraid to chuck a comment down below or pop me a PM. Have fun with your new found ownage character :P
A Special thanks to SiIverFOX and the balls he had to make his AP Nasus: Team Fighter Guide before me :3
Another thanks to Isthatok and his code helping and hints which just made my guide look nicer ^_^