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Full & more detailed build is at bottom of this guide, items in top just show parts of the build(s)

Last editing: 23.July.2012

Hello ladies and gentlemen, after my amazing guide for Jarvan IV (Link: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/jarvan-the-demacian-way-to-support-187906), i am here to present you a new support for the botlane: Nasus!

Some of you might think now: What? Nasus? He must be kidding, because i play him most of the time on toplane and do an AFK-farmparty with stacking my Q the whole game.

But i say: Yes, supportnasus is the way to go now, since the newer toplaners and a decent laneopponent can completely disable nasus from stacking his Q and be a beast lategame. But why you would like to waste an up to 95% movement- and attackspeedspeedslow, an armorreduction AoE, which is as wide as a whole lane and a X%-damage-per-second-ultimate, that deals TONS OF DAMAGE (hi phreak!) and makes you really tanky?

This is not a guide for rookies, you should know how & where to ward, know the basic skills of supporting and should be able to make situational decisions, otherwise this way to play Nasus will backfire and you won't have too much fun!

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About the runes: I generally take this runes on every supportchamp i play nowadays (and thx to premades in normal-draft, i have to play a lot of support), because they give you tankyness early on and allow you to eat a bit of poke/damage, so you can stay in lane longer early on. I was used to use Health-quints, but i noticed you do not need this extralife on the tankier supports. So i use nowadays gp10-Quints for a little bit more income and a MS-Quint for getting in range to cast my spells.

In general, i prefer tanky supports which are hard to kill (more time for your carry to escape/deal damage) over the gp10-rune-supports who have to recall every few seconds because they ate too much harass from the enemy team.

Same goes for the masteries: 0/21/9
Tankyness for more sustainability, Cooldownreduction, manaregeneration and additional mana for being able to cast more spells later in the game.

The way i level the spells of my supportnasus is aimed to completely cripple the enemy AD-carry, so your AD-carry can demolish the enemy while he is struggling to escape from your slow or is forced in a fight which will turn out bad for the enemy AD-carry.



Wither slows his movement/attackspeed for 35% initially, stacks up to 95%(!) at maximum level. (max this first)

Spirit Fire gives your AD-carry basically true-damage to the enemies in the affected area, combined with Wither it will force the enemy AD-carry to run & give free hits to your carry, or to stay and fight your carry, while his attackspeed will go down, down, down and down. (max this second)

Fury of the Sands allows you to towerdive at level 6 if needed, gives you a X% damage each second (quite nice in teamfights later) and also grants you some more survivability for teamfights later in the game. (skill it whenever possible)

Siphoning Strike will be maxed last, gives you lategame some damage, but is not really essential for supportnasus, since you only aim for tankyness and start really late in the game to stack your Q, so your damage with Siphoning Strike will be way under the level you are used to the toplane-Nasus.

Exhaust: Ou, enemy carry is already shut down, but Wither will run out? Better use exhaust for even more disable!

Flash: For the little bit extra safety/ get in range for another Wither!

Clairvoyance: Don't need Flash? Then take this amazing spell and help your jungler to invade!

I like this summonerspells the most, every other spell is in my eyes not useful on a support, of course you could take Heal, but i prefer my carry to take this skill, since he has to decide if he needs the extra bit of health or if he has enough, also if you use a Heal, your carry will only healed for 50%, so it fits better to your carry than to your way to play.

Note: The recallnumbers are optional, you might have to recall sometimes earlier, so you might not be able to afford the listed items! Also never forget to get wards for vision! Wards give vision, vision wins games!

Way to build #1:

Game started: Regrowth Pendant + 1 Healthpotion
Pro: Nice healthregeneration early on, combined with the runes used this allows you to eat some harass/stay in lane for quite a long time and also gives you the chance to chasing the enemies/open a battle with enemy creeps around you and get your health back after it.

Con: you do not have wards for some minutes, so you are quite a bit vulnerable to ganks and you and your laneparter have to be careful when your lane is pushing/is at the enemy tower

First recall: Philosopher's Stone + wards/pots

Second recall: Ruby Crystal/ Boots + wards/pots

Your decision if you need more tankyness, or if you need the speedbonus from the boots.

If you have enough gold for both items, you have to decide if you want the speed/health-combination or if you prefer the early second golditem Heart of Gold and continue to play without boots

Third recall: Heart of Gold + wards/pots

After this, the build for getting gold is finished, 2 golditems and a bit of movementspeed.

For upgraded boots Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads are good options in my eyes.

Start to get Auraitems/ Items which will help your team after this, but always start with the items that gives you more tankyness & health (e.g. Ruby Crystal, Kindlegem, etc.)

Way to build #2

(i hardly use this way)
Game started: Cloth Armor + 1 Sight Ward + 2 Health Potion
Pro: You can push early because you already own a ward so you see possible ganks coming

Con: Takes you longer to get your first golditem, also lower healthregeneration, so once your Health Potions are gone, you might be forced to recall.

First recall: Ninja Tabi/ Ruby Crystal/ Boots + wards/pots

Situational buy again: more health or do you prefer the boots for fast movement?
Also: if you go for fast boots, you will have to wait even longer for your first golditem.
Note: I prefer Ruby Crystal, because of the tankyness and the option for a fast HoG/Aegis of the Legion

Second recall: Ninja Tabi/ Heart of Gold/ Ruby Crystal/ Cloth Armor/ Null-Magic Mantle + wards/pots

Decisions over decisions: Do you want to rush for Aegis of the Legion, want your first (and only) Golditem or more movementspeed/the passive of Ninja Tabi?

Note: I made the experience that you hardly earn more than 10k gold as support in most of the games, so i only list items you will be able to get for around 9.000 gold, because you will have to get Sight Wards and Oracle's Elixirs aswell!

Core items you will have/should have in almost every game:

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Total gold used so far:
- 5.800 gold (with Ninja Tabi)
- 6.150 gold (with Mercury's Treads)

vs. AD-heavy team:

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Total gold:
- 8.050 gold after Randuin's Omen
- 10.825 gold after Frozen Heart

vs. AP-heavy team:

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Total gold:
- 7.550 gold after Locket of the Iron Solari
- 10.265 gold after Banshee's Veil

Many AD-champions in your team:

Zeke's Herald instead of Frozen Heart or Banshee's Veil
Total Gold:
- 10.195 gold (vs. AD-heavy team, instead of Frozen Heart)
- 9.695 gold (vs. AP-heavy team, instead of Banshee's Veil)

Many AP-champions in your team:

Don't pick Nasus as support when you have a AP-toplane and -midlane, in my opinion this would be a waste, because you want to maximize the damage of your AD-champions in your team with Spirit Fire, and AP-champions hardly autoattack. If you still want to pick him into this teamcomposition, i would personally recommend Abyssal Mask(2.650 gold) and Soul Shroud(2.285 gold).

vs. AD-heavy teams:

After activation of Randuin's Omen, it will slow the enemies in range and reduce their movement- and attackspeed by 35% for 2+ seconds.
Really nice effect, especially when the enemy bruisers/tanks try to reach your carries. They will get slowed and their DPS will be decreased, so your carries have more time to deal damage or kite them.

Randuin's Omen has also a nice passive which is similar to its active-effect. For a chance of 20% the enemies attacking you get their movement- and attackspeed slowed by 35%.
If the enemies decide to focus you instead of your teammates, this passive will reduce their DPS-output and movementspeed.

Randuin's Omen gives you also a nice boost of armor, health and a tiny bit of cooldownreduction, so it supports your aim to get as tanky as possible.

Nice bonus: you can convert your Heart of Gold without losing gold from selling it




Frozen Heart has a passive 20%-attackspeedreduction, which will reduce the DPS from the autoattacking champions in the enemy team even more, combined with Wither, Exhaust and Randuin's Omen you are able to shut down most of the autoattackers in the enemy team.

Frozen Heart gives you also additional mana and cooldownreduction for more spells per minute.

Last but not least: 99 armor, tankynesslevel over 9000!

vs. AP-heavy teams:

There are not many items which make you able to help your teammates against magic damage. One of them, Aegis of the Legion is in your corebuild, the other item is Locket of the Iron Solari.

Locket of the Iron Solari does not boost the magicresistance itself, it increases the effective health of your teammates once you activate it (up to 230 health at level 18), so some of the damage dealt by Casters will be absorbed from the shield Locket of the Iron Solari creates.

Nice bonus: Emblem of Valor, part of Locket of the Iron Solari gives you and your teammates some healthregeneration for laningphase, Heart of Gold is also part of Locket of the Iron Solari




Banshee's Veil gives nothing to your teammates, but it gives you health, mana, magicresist and one spell casted on you will be blocked. This allows you to bait some spells/nukes, so you can engage after they used some spells on you because these spells casted on you are on cooldown and the enemies will lack some damage in the fight now.

Use Wither if possible on the enemy AD-carry in fights to reduce his DPS to almost 0 for 5 seconds, if you want to avoid a certain champ to go for your own carries, use it on him instead. If you see in teamfights that some more enemies try to reach your carries, use Exhaust on one of them (if possible on the AP-based champion), and Wither will do its job to deny/disable the bruisers and reduce their DPS, but has no effect on the damage of AP-based nukers/heroes.

Spirit Fire is also useful if you want to push lanes really quick, because it also reduces the Armor of the enemy minions, so your carry will do way more damage and kill them more quickly. Don't try to use Spirit Fire to harass enemy champions on your, because it is quite a lot of mana it needs to be casted. Only use it in combination with your lanepartner to maximize the damage you deal. You have to give the pace for your Partner, whenever you use Wither, he has to be ready to go for the guy that is in middle of Spirit Fire

Soon[tm]

Pros:
- can shut down enemy autoattacking champions really easily ( Wither)
- gives your own carry nice damage even if the enemy team stacks some armor ( Spirit Fire)
- tanky champion that also can tank nashor/dragons with hardly any items


Cons:
- no stun/hard CC
- not that effective vs. champions with many skillshots (e.g. Ezreal/Urgot)

I started to make screenshots after/while i wrote this guide, so there are some older games missing. I am really sorry! I will add EVERY game i played him as supportnasus, so you can see he does his job.

Click on the games to get a link to the items bought in this game.





Special Informations for some of the games:

- Game from 2.April 2012 was a bit different, because we had a DC for 10 minutes, so i was able to take some farm & got some damage on my Siphoning Strike.

Things changed:

- checked for some grammarmistakes, hope i fixed most of them
- added new topic: Lategame/Full build
- added a new topic: Games played as supportnasus (with url-link to the items bought)
- minor updates in runes/masteries

Things to be added:

- "How to"-guide for using Wither and Spirit Fire
- add topic: reasoning for the itemchoices (Lategame/full build)