Guide Details → About the Guide → Why Nasus Mid Pre-Game → Runes → Itemization

In-Game → Early Game → Mid/Late Game

Hello everyone. I'm Surfer and this is my Nasus Mid Simplest In-Depth Season 14 Guide.

I've been playing Nasus since 2015, and been playing Nasus Mid Only since 2021.

I have been wanting to make a Nasus Mid guide for a while, and I finally managed to borrow some time to do it :D

I believe most people nowadays want knowledge to be delievered in the fastest and cleanest ways possible. So this guide is written with the objective to keep information at a minimum, but at the same time, as In-depth as possible. I will organize information on what you need to do and why you need to do it, in that order. I hope this turned out well.


[OUTDATED]If you prefer watching a video instead of reading, here's my guide in video format [OUTDATED]:
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Please feel free to use the comments to suggest improvements to this guide if you feel like I can explain any topic in less words than what I currently have.

All the guide changes will be noted in the "Guide Patch Notes" Section at the end of the guide.

Thank you for reading this and if you have any questions either comment on this guide or ask on my stream at twitch.tv/surferkillerhd so I can answer you faster.

Simple Pros/Cons on Nasus Mid:

Pros → Smaller lane than top; → More stacks; → Overall easier matchups compared to Top Nasus; → Can run back to tower faster; → Harder for opponent to freeze;

Cons → If your mid laner roams before you build Sheen, you won't be able to stop them or follow them; → You lose hard if you get camped by the enemy jungler/support; → Enemy Top can swap with Mid.

Main Rune Setup

Press the Attack Lethal Tempo got removed. So I discovered this rune instead. You stack it pretty fast, either by auto attacking twice and using Siphoning Strike or using it in-between autos. Take this Rune Setup Vs. Tiny/Minor/Even matchups.

Triumph Best rune out of the other 2 in this branch. Absorb Life was killed early game in 14.17 so it's not a good idea to take anymore.

Legend: Haste Takedowns give you Basic Ability Haste up to 15. Very helpful, specially early on.

Last Stand More damage when you're low. Good for close fights. You will have lots of them.

Biscuit Delivery Very good for Health/Mana sustain. These biscuits will be one of your main healing sources until level 6. Use them wisely.

Cosmic Insight With the Ghost nerfs, I was forced to change to this rune, in order to have more lower cooldown. This is better explained in the "Guide Patch Notes" Section for 14.11. On top of this, Ghost got hit again in 14.15, so this rune is absolutely needed.

Attack Speed

Health Scaling

Tenacity/Slow Resist

Secondary Rune Setup

Fleet Footwork Take this Rune Setup Vs. Even/Major matchups. Stack and run away to safety when laning. With this build, you can get healing from up to 4 sources: Fleet Footwork, Biscuit Delivery, Doran's Shield, Health Potion.

Triumph Best rune out of the other 2 in this branch. Absorb Life was killed early game in 14.17 so it's not a good idea to take anymore.

Legend: Haste Takedowns give you Basic Ability Haste up to 15. Very helpful, specially early on.

Last Stand More damage when you're low. Good for close fights. You will have lots of them.

Biscuit Delivery Very good for Health/Mana sustain. These biscuits will be one of your main healing sources until level 6. Use them wisely.

Cosmic Insight With the Ghost nerfs, I was forced to change to this rune, in order to have more lower cooldown. This is better explained in the "Guide Patch Notes" Section for 14.11. On top of this, Ghost got hit again in 14.15, so this rune is absolutely needed.

Ability Haste

Health Scaling

Tenacity/Slow Resist

Rune Setup for Extreme Matchups (E Max/Hybrid)

This Rune setup is focused on Lane pressure Nasus. Read the Early Game Section for the explanation on that.

Summon Aery Guaranteed Hit extra damage with your E, can hit twice if the champion stays on it. You can take Arcane Comet alternatively. Can't hit everytime but does more damage.

Manaflow Band Gives you mana when you hit your E. Keep an eye on your HUD. Use your E everytime it's up until 250 mana.

Transcendence Good chunk of Ability Haste that you will need when doing this build.

Scorch Burn damage for your E.

Biscuit Delivery Very good for Health/Mana sustain. These biscuits will be one of your main healing sources until level 6. Use them wisely.

Cosmic Insight With the Ghost nerfs, I was forced to change to this rune, in order to have more lower cooldown. This is better explained in the "Guide Patch Notes" Section for 14.11. On top of this, Ghost got hit again in 14.15, so this rune is absolutely needed.

Adaptive Force

Adaptive Force

Tenacity/Slow Resist

Full Movement Speed Build

Doran's Shield Best starter item. Got buffed last season. Cloth Armor and/or Beads are not good to build anymore.

Your goal is to recall when you have 900G/1000G/1100G to buy Sheen/ Ionian Boots of Lucidity/ Mercury's Treads

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First back if matchup is Tiny/Minor/Even:

Sheen Best item for Nasus currently. I've tried other builds without Sheen, and nothing is comparable to the damage this boi gives.

First back if matchup is Major:

Ionian Boots of Lucidity Best boots for Nasus. Gives you a lot of Ability Haste and Summoner Spell Haste. Build these boots if the enemy team doesn't have much CC and is not full AD.

-OR-

Mercury's Treads Build these boots if the enemy team has a lot of CC. It gives you 30% Tenacity and you can have up to 60% Tenacity if you build Sterak's Gage and have the Tenacity and Slow Resist shard.

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1st Item

Trinity Force The best item on Nasus currently. I've tested different items like Spear of Shojin , Sundered Sky , Iceborn Gauntlet and Trinity still feels the best for our dog. We are building mainly tank with full movement speed, so we only need Trinity as our damage item.

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2nd Item

Dead Man's Plate Your main Armor item if there is no situations where you need other items like Frozen Heart. You build this mostly for the movement speed that it gives which is crucial for Nasus at the moment due to heavy nerfs to Ghost.

-OR-

Force of Nature Your main Magic Resist item if there is no situations where you need other items like Frozen Heart. You build this mostly for the movement speed that it gives which is crucial for Nasus at the moment due to heavy nerfs to Ghost.

-OR-

Frozen Heart Build this if the enemy team comp has attack speed based champs (E.g: Jinx, Master Yi, Irelia). Insanely cheap, gives mana and a huge chunk of armor.

-OR-

Sterak's Gage Build this if the enemy team comp has heavy Croud Control (E.g: Shen, Ivern, Veigar, Caitlyn, Brand).

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3rd Item

Force of Nature Build this if you already have Dead Man's Plate except when: -You need anti-healing. You build Bramble Vest; -You need anti-crit. You build Randuin's Omen; -The team is Full AD. You build Frozen Heart.

-OR-

Dead Man's Plate Build this if you already have Force of Nature except when: -You need anti-healing. You build Bramble Vest; -You need anti-crit. You build Randuin's Omen; -The team is Full AP. You build Spirit Visage.

If you bought Frozen Heart or Sterak's Gage build either one based on which type of damage is the strongest on the enemy team.

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4th Item

Warmog's Armor Build this if you already have Dead Man's Plate and Force of Nature. If you're missing one of them, then build them first. If you are building full Armor/MR, make sure you have these items: Full AD: Dead Man's Plate / Frozen Heart / Bramble Vest (If you need anti-heal); Full AP: Force of Nature / Spirit Visage.

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Last Item

Sterak's Gage If you already have this item, check if you're missing Dead Man's Plate / Force of Nature or Warmog's Armor. If you have all of them, refer to the "Other Items" section and do whatever is most appropriate for your game.

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Other Items

Armor Items

Dead Man's Plate Your first armor item if you need one. Check if you don't need Anti-heal/Anti-Crit or Frozen Heart. This item helps with movement speed which is really good for teamfights.

Frozen Heart If you need Mana or have less than 40 Ability Haste or if the enemy team comp has attack speed based champs.

Thornmail If you need Anti-Heal. Don't finish the item until it's your last. Buy only Bramble Vest.

Randuin's Omen If you need Anti-Crit.

Magic Resist Items

Force of Nature Main item if you need MR. It's better when combined with Dead Man's Plate.

Spirit Visage 2nd MR item if you need it.

Kaenic Rookern Another MR item if you need more.

Abyssal Mask If you have a fed AP champion in your team. It will reduce enemy's magic resistance and make them do more damage. You also get more MR for each enemy with reduced MR.

Others

Jak'Sho, The Protean You can build Jak'Sho as a replacement for Sterak's Gage or Warmog's Armor if you want.

Experimental Hexplate A good item when combined with the full movement speed build. You can replace Sterak's Gage with this if you want.

Black Cleaver You can do this if you're fed and need some extra damage. Black Cleaver helps you with a bit of armor pen which is nice.

Spear of Shojin Good item when combined with Trinity Force. Ideal for a full bruiser Nasus build if you want to go for it. I would not recommend this for Mid lane. Probably better in top.

Fimbulwinter I see some Nasus Mains do this. I think Frozen Heart gives you the mana you need, and the health you get from this isn't worth it. You're also forced to buy Tear of the Goddess early.

Hullbreaker This item can be built if you know your team won't win fights and you need a split pusher. Nasus already pushes towers really hard, so I wouldn't recommend it. Personal preference if you want to build it. Keep in mind that having Teleport helps with splitting/helping with objectives.

Blade of the Ruined King Build this if you're smurfing in Plat or below. It's fun :)

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Hybrid Build

Doran's Ring Obvious Reasons. You are going E Max Nasus early on.

Your goal is to recall when you have 900G/1000G to buy Sheen/ Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

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First back:

Sheen You still build Sheen early because you will be building Lich Bane later. You can do this before Ionian Boots of Lucidity if your jungler is camping you or if you feel that you can kill the hard matchup.

-OR-

Ionian Boots of Lucidity You will always build these boots when doing the hybrid build.

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Core Items

Malignance Has good passives that help your Spirit Fire and Fury of the Sands pop off. It gives 20 ultimate haste and it empowers your ult, reducing MR and doing more AP damage.

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2nd Item

Lich Bane This item makes the Hybrid build shine. It transforms your Siphoning Strike into a 45% AP damage and 75% AD damage spell with spellblade. You are able to fight with your Q from here on out.

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3rd Item

Jak'Sho, The Protean After building your 2 core items for the hybrid build, go back to building Tank. If the enemy team is full AD/AP then you build Frozen Heart or Force of Nature respectively.

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4th Item

Sterak's Gage No matter what 3rd item you build, Sterak's is gonna be your 4th. You will need to survive Mid/Late game with this build, and this item combined with Jak'Sho, The Protean gives you survivability.

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Last Item

Build whatever tank item you're missing to counter the enemy team. Choose one of the following: Spirit Visage / Force of Nature / Frozen Heart / Randuin's Omen / Thornmail / Dead Man's Plate

Don't forget to Build Abyssal Mask if you have a fed mage in your team.

Press the Attack/Fleet Footwork Setup

The First 10 minutes will decide your laning phase.

First: Don't touch a single minion besides last hitting with your Siphoning Strike. If you've played Nasus Top, you already know what I mean. Keep yourself under tower but don't let all the minions crash into it.

If you are running Fleet Footwork, walk up to a minion, stack and run away, as you get the movement speed to back off to safety. That way you don't get poked as much.

Second: Get 100 stacks in 10 minutes. The higher the better. 200 Stacks at 10 minutes means you can kill most of your matchups as soon as you have Sheen.

Third: Don't leave mid until you have Sheen + 100 Stacks + Fury of the Sands. No matter if your jungle is getting invaded, no matter if your mid laner is roaming early. Every time your laner leaves, tell your team right away. Push the wave with your Spirit Fire. Try to crash it into the tower. Fall back afterwards. Back to last hitting with Siphoning Strike.

Fourth: Don't let your jungler gank you before level 6. It will go wrong 90% of the time. If you still get ganked, use Wither and Spirit Fire and back off. Some junglers can win the 1v1.

Fifth: If you are low HP, it's better to be safe and recall, even if you don't have enough gold to buy anything useful. You will lose XP and Gold of course, but you don't give a kill to your enemy mid/jungler. With the new season 2024 map changes, Mid seems easier to dive now. Keep that in mind.

Recall at 900 Gold so you buy Sheen as fast as possible or at 1000/1100 Gold for Ionian Boots of Lucidity / Mercury's Treads. Remember to check the "Threats" section of this guide. If the matchup is Tiny/Minor/Even, buy Sheen. Else, buy boots following the logic that is in the "Itemization" section of this guide.

Do you have Sheen built? 100 Stacks? Check your matchup in the Threats Section of this guide. You might be ready to kill them. If you do, wait until they do the same mistake, then kill them again.

If you're ahead, look for fights outside of mid. Look at other lanes, check if they need help. Fight for objectives. Always keep an eye on your stacks and make sure you hit 400 by 20 minutes.

If the lane didn't go well for you, keep playing safe under tower and wait for some time. As soon as you see the opportunity, move to a sidelane and start scaling there. When my laning phase doesn't go well, I see myself swapping with my botlane most of the times. Same thing could happen to you.

Tough Matchup? Can't reach your 100 stack goal at 10 minutes? Check the "Threats" Section of this guide. If I don't tell you to do E Max vs that matchup, then next time bring Fleet Footwork.

E Max/Hybrid Setup

Some matchups won't just let your farm ever. So with them, I decided to start bringing Doran's Ring, Max Spirit Fire and Proc Manaflow Band.

Keep an eye on your HUD to check when you can Proc Manaflow Band. For the first few minutes of the game, only use Spirit Fire when Manaflow Band is ready. Afterwards, try to last hit minions with it and hitting your laner at the same time. Keep an eye on your mana so you don't run out too fast.

This way, you get 250 extra mana and insane damage + lane pressure against your matchup. You will still need to focus on stacking, so try to aim for 300 stacks at 20 minutes. You can also roam to help your jungler with invades/objectives before level 6 if you want. Just don't forget that Spirit Fire is your main ability until 10-15 minutes.

Lethal Tempo/Fleet Footwork Setup

Mid/Late Game will depend if you got ahead vs your matchup or not.

If you did get ahead, stop for a second and take a look at the enemy team.

Is someone insanely fed? Do you have a 10/0 Jinx in botlane? If so, time for you to start building against them. Try to limit test yourself into killing them, you most likely can, specially against ADCs. Save your Wither only for them. You most likely won't split push if you're winning, so just focus on objectives and teamfights. Stay close to your team.

If your laning phase didn't go well, then it's time to start split pushing. If you brought Teleport, it's gonna come in handy if you want to help with objectives. You don't have to mainly focus on stacking anymore, so try to use your Spirit Fire more often to clear the waves faster. If you have Flash, then keep an eye on objective timers, make sure you're there for your team when the objective spawns.

Focus on 1 lane at a time, for example, choose Top, and try to take the tier 2 tower. Look at your map every 5-10 seconds, look for the enemy team, if most of them are missing, they are most likely coming for you. Fall back, recall if it's not safe, if it's just 2/3 people coming, fall back to a bush and when they leave, go back to split pushing.

After you take tier 2 tower of that lane, try to take tier 3 + inhibitor. If you're struggling, switch to another lane, apply the same principle.

Remember, make sure you always have Ghost and Fury of the Sands ready. You're gonna need all these if you want to participate in a team fight. Flash will help if you have it, but you can fight without it. Always focus on the easy targets first (E.g: ADCs, Squishy Champions, Back-liners). If you brought Teleport, save it to go to objectives when you're splitting.

E Max/Hybrid Setup

Since your matchup was horrible to play against, you most likely are struggling with stacks, as soon as you get the opportunity, swap to a side lane and split push. You're splitting will work the same as in Lethal/Fleet setup, so read that part if you haven't.

In teamfights, try to stay a bit in the backline if you can, using Spirit Fire when available, and only commit fully if you know you can finish your opponent off. Keep an eye on the fed squishy carries, and all in on them with Ghost if you see an opportunity to catch them off guard.

The good thing that is good about Max E Nasus, is that you still deal a good chunk of damage even if you don't have your 400 stacks at 20 minutes, because your Spirit Fire makes up for it. Make sure that when you fight, you always use Spirit Fire, auto-attack once and then Siphoning Strike your enemy, you will realize you just did huge damage. That's the beauty of your E working. The only downside is that your Wither doesn't slow as much.

Late Game

For late game, it depends on what elo you're in. If you're at Platinum or below, I think Nasus is the strongest champion in your game. If you're at Emerald+, I think the opposite. I personally think Nasus falls off past 30 minutes. So the only thing I can advise you is to keep your focus on objectives. Elder Dragon and Baron are your game winners.

[14.18]:

I am still currently considering changing Inspiration back to Resolve, not because of Fleet Footwork but because of Biscuit Delivery. Riot is considering nerfing it to not give mana anymore. So unless the max health buff they want to give is really good for Nasus, I might go back to Resolve

-Changed Lissandra matchup from Extreme to Major.

-Changed Ekko matchup from Major to Extreme.

- Electrocute is insanely strong now and used by almost every mid laner. NEVER TAKE Press the Attack against any matchups that take Electrocute. If you can't tell what runes your matchup will take then take Fleet Footwork regardless.

[14.17]:

I am currently considering changing Inspiration back to Resolve, since Fleet Footwork got nerfed. That way we get a bit of healing back if I take Second Wind. Still testing this out, but feel free for you to swap it yourself if it works better for you.

-Changed Ban Priority:
Old: Sylas - LeBlanc
New: Sylas - Anivia

-Changed Runes in the Fleet Footwork setup:
Swapped Absorb Life with Triumph.

[14.16]:

-Changed Aurora matchup from Extreme to Even.

-Changed Cassiopeia matchup from Extreme to Major.

-Changed Ekko matchup from Even to Major.

[14.15]:

Ghost got nerfed again with Ionian Boots of Lucidity losing summoner haste. So I made the following changes to the Hybrid Build:
-Reworked the guide, including Armor/MR Item priorities to build Force of Nature / Dead Man's Plate / Warmog's Armor by default and assume other items as situational. I am now turning this guide from a Tank build to a Full Movement Speed build.
-Changed Secondary tree from Resolve to Inspiration;
-Swapped Second Wind with Biscuit Delivery;
-Swapped Revitalize with Cosmic Insight.

At this point it is recommended to run Ionian Boots of Lucidity 90% of the time in your games. Plated Steelcaps doesn't seem to be a good option anymore because of the 1200G it requires. Build Mercury's Treads only if there's a huge amount of CC in the enemy team.

-Removed any mention of Plated Steelcaps in the guide.

-Changed Aurelion Sol matchup from Major to Even.

-Changed Akshan matchup from Extreme to Major.

-Added Aurora matchup as Extreme.

Explanation for rune changes in 14.11:

With the Ghost nerfs, I've noticed that I'm fighting way more often without having it ready.

The current cooldown of Ghost with Ionian Boots of Lucidity is 218 seconds. On top of that, Tenacity got hit so hard that I'm getting CCed for 6 seconds every fight while having 30% Tenacity.

To combat these issues, I've changed the following:
-Changed Secondary tree from Resolve to Inspiration;
-Swapped Second Wind with Biscuit Delivery;
-Swapped Revitalize / Font of Life with Cosmic Insight.

This way, Ionian Boots of Lucidity stops being mandatory every game, because you will have 203 seconds of Ghost cooldown thanks to Cosmic Insight . If you do Ionian Boots of Lucidity and have Cosmic Insight , your Ghost cooldown will be 187 seconds. This way, you are not forced to do Ionian Boots of Lucidity every game. You can choose to do Mercury's Treads for the extra 30% Tenacity if there's a lot of CC in the team, with a total of 60% Tenacity if you built Sterak's Gage and took the Tenacity and Slow Resist shard. You won't have 50 Ability Haste anymore, but thanks to Legend: Haste , your Siphoning Strike will still be fast enough to be playable.