Nasus Build Guide by RTO

RTO Here! About Me I am a Peak 578 LP Challenger, North American Top Laner and Streamer representing Team Radiance, whose mission is to promote positivity in League of Legends. My main is Renekton, but I play many other champions when I am target banned. I also have an incredible amount of top lane knowledge that I want to share with you guys. I find Nasus to be a very beginner friendly, high scaling, high damage champion. He's a safe pick into most matchups, and helps to teach last hitting with ease. If you like this guide, make sure to check out my even more in depth guides at my new website

★ Unsealed Spellbook is very strong on Nasus, allowing us to trade out summoner spells after using one, meaning we always have something that is of use to us.

★ Magical Footwear saves us 300g on boots at minute 12, and also grants us an additional 10 move speed. Every takedown reduces the time you receive the boots by.

★ Helps your sustain in laning phase, restoring 10% of your missing HP and mana, and permanently increases your mana cap by 50 every time you consume, or sell, a biscuit - giving you the ability to cast more Siphoning Strikes before running out of mana.

★ Summoner spell and item haste makes this rune great in combination with Unsealed Spellbook as we will have summoner spells up more often.

★ After casting a summoner spell, you gain a movement speed increase and Ghosting. The higher the summoner spell cooldown, the higher the movement speed increase, up to 35%. This works well with Unsealed Spellbook

★ This provides us ability haste at levels 5 & 8, reducing the cooldowns on our abilities, and at level 11 every champion takedown reduces the cooldown on our basic abilities by 20%, meaning we can use Siphoning Strike more times in one teamfight.

[nextcol width=100] [nextcol]★ Grasp of the Undying is very strong on Nasus, especially if you're going to be trading a lot in lane. Every 4s in combat, you deal bonus damage, heal and gain permanent increased health with every basic attack. If you time it correctly with Siphoning Strike, you'll maximize your damage output exponentially.[/columns]

★ In the current meta, tower plates are one of the first objectives you want to be focused on, and Demolish helps you achieve this. Especially with Nasus primarily being a split pusher, and Grasp of the Undying increasing your health pool, you can annihilate towers with Siphoning Strike.

★ Second Wind gives you extra sustain in the laning phase, if you're going to be trading a lot with the opposition. You have life steal on your Soul Eater, and if you build Spirit Visage, the healing is greatly increased. Conditioning is a good secondary option for Nasus, increasing your armor and magic resist, making you even tankier.

★ Along with Grasp of the Undying increasing your maximum health, Overgrowth does the same, but when minions die near you. Once you've killed 120 minions or monsters, you gain an additional 3.5% max health. As Nasus, you're focused on farming and stacking your Siphoning Strike, so this is the best rune to take.

★ Helps your sustain in laning phase, restoring 10% of your missing HP and mana, and permanently increases your mana cap by 50 every time you consume, or sell, a biscuit - giving you the ability to cast more Siphoning Strikes before running out of mana.

★ You gain summoner spell haste and item haste, this helps reduce the cooldown of our summoner spells which can help turn the tide of battle if they're up sooner.

★ The more ability haste you have, the more Siphoning Strikes you can use, getting the stacks faster, and increasing your damage output.

★ Your next two runes are interchangeable depending on the enemy match up you're against. More AP? Take magic resist. More physical? Take armor. Want / need more hp? Take HP!

PASSIVE ABILITY

Soul Eater ✦ Nasus permanently has 12 / 18 / 24% (based on level) bonus life steal. ✦ Synergy's include Spirit Visage, Grasp of the Undying, Second Wind, Conqueror, Triumph

Q

Siphoning Strike ✦ Nasus's next basic attack within 10 seconds gains 25 bonus range and deals bonus physical damage - 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+ Siphoning Strike stacks). ✦ If Siphoning Strike kills its target, Nasus permanently gains 3 stacks, increased to 12 if its target is a champion, large minion, or large monster. Siphoning Strike resets Nasus' autoattack timer. ✦ Siphoning Strike's bonus range stacks with Fury of the Sands, granting 200 total range. ✦ Nasus can gain Siphoning Strike stacks by last-hitting any targetable enemy units such as - Summon: Tibbers, Noxious Trap, Jack In The Box etc.

W

Wither ✦ Nasus ages the target enemy champion for 5 seconds, slowing them by 35% and crippling them by half that amount, both increasing over the duration. Maximum Slow - 47 / 59 / 71 / 83 / 95% Maximum Cripple - 23.5 / 29.5 / 35.5 / 41.5 / 47.5% ✦ If Wither's duration is reduced by Tenacity, the effects will apply faster so the maximum values are reached when the shortened duration ends.

E

Spirit Fire ✦ Nasus unleashes a spirit flame at the target location, dealing magic damage to enemies in the area. Magic Damage - 55 / 95 / 135 / 175 / 215 (+ 60% AP) ✦ The flame then remains for 5 seconds, dealing magic damage each second to all enemies within and reducing their armor while they remain, lingering for 1 second. Magic Damage Per Second - 11 / 19 / 27 / 35 / 43 (+ 12% AP) Armor Reduction - 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35% of target's armor ✦ Spirit Fire grants sight of the target area (is smaller than the damage area) for a short duration on-cast.

R

Fury of the Sands ✦ Nasus empowers himself for 15 seconds, gaining bonus health, armor and magic resistance, increased size, and 50 bonus range on his basic attacks for the duration. ✦ The flame then remains for 5 seconds, dealing magic damage each second to all enemies within and reducing their armor while they remain, lingering for 1 second. Bonus Health - 300 / 450 / 600 Bonus Resistances - 15 / 35 / 55 ✦ While Nasus is empowered, he deals magic damage to all enemies around him each second, capped at 240, gains bonus armor and magic resistance each second, and Siphoning Strike's cooldown is reduced by 50%. Magic Damage Per Second - 3 / 4 / 5% (+ 1% per 100 AP) of target's maximum health. Bonus Resistances Per Second - 1 / 2 / 3 ✦ Fury of the Sands' bonus health is not affected by Grievous Wounds and Nasus retains it once the duration ends.

You generally don't want to be trading with Siphoning Strike, it's fairly weak early game and before you get your stacks.
You'll want to be positioned properly, making sure if you get engaged on, your minions will attack your opponent, causing him more damage than he wanted to take. If you get pushed in, you will want to freeze the lane just before tower range, giving you opportune time to farm up your stacks.
Spirit Fire will push the lane if you cast it around minions, so be aware of that and potential lane ganks from the river, or jungle. You can help peel yourself with Wither in this scenario.

At level 6, you will most likely win most trades and secure easy kills with Fury of the Sands. You can potentially 1v2 if the jungler comes for a gank, but only if your ultimate is available. Focus the highest priority target - the one with the most damage!

Once you're 6, you can focus on pushing the wave into the enemy tower and trying to take some early plates with Demolish.
Help out your jungler if he comes to take Rift Herald , and secure first blood tower for your team. At this point you can potentially invade the enemies jungle, taking away vital XP, gold and their blue buff, if you're on red side.


Outside of laning phase, you have the option to group with your team and take objectives, or split push. If your team has a strong team fight, you can group with them, invading the enemy jungle, forcing fights over objectives, or pushing lanes.

If you decide to split push, you can very easily keep stacking your Siphoning Strike, taking towers efficiently with Demolish and allowing your team to pressure other objectives.

If Baron Nashor is alive and your Teleport is available, you can split push bot lane.
If Baron Nashor is alive and your Teleport is down, you will be split pushing top lane.

If Baron Nashor is dead, and your Teleport is down, you will split push bot lane, especially if a dragon will be spawning.
If Baron Nashor is dead, and your Teleport is available, you can split push top lane.

You want to split push the lane opposite to the most important, neutral objective, if your Teleport is available. This way, you can take the majority of pressure off the objective, as the enemies will not be able to answer you solo, and they give up the objective to your team. If you know the enemies will be collapsing on you soon, you will want to spam ping your team to complete the objective as quickly as possible. If the enemies collapse on your team, you can Teleport to them to quickly reach the fight.

If you're in the middle of a fight, you want to pop Fury of the Sands first thing, and try to focus down the enemy ADC. You can Wither them, and throw out everything you have, smashing them with your heavily stacked Siphoning Strike. Be careful if the enemy team have a Lulu, she will Whimsy you, completely negating any of your damage and essentially rendering you useless. The same goes for any very hard CC such as Morgana's Dark Binding, or Malzahar's Nether Grasp, or an Ezreal that has built Frostfire Gauntlet to kite you.

I hope you have enjoyed and learnt enough from my Nasus guide, to strike down your enemies, and conquer the game.

If you're interested in seeing more of Nasus, Renekton and myself, please follow my stream! I am streaming every day, and I engage with my chat consistently.

If you like this guide, make sure to check out my even more in depth guides at my new website

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