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'm also a proud owner of The Fastest 100 Stacks World Record on Nasus (05:18:00).

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.


If you prefer watching a video instead of reading, here's my guide in video format:
Play Video
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 (Can freeze easier and can run back to tower faster. Even after the season 2024 map change);
- More stacks;
- Overall easier matchups compared to Top Nasus.

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.

Main Rune Setup

Lethal Tempo - Gives you Attack Speed and Range. Huge and Broken. Good for kiting. Over 300 range with Ult.

Triumph - Gives you health on takedown, gives you gold, saves you from dying to ignite/burn in close lane fights.

Legend: Tenacity - Takedowns give you tenacity up to 20%. The less time stunned on a morgana Q the better :)

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


Second Wind - Good for sustain in lane. Keeps you alive. This run is a must have.

Unflinching - Got changed recently but I am still taking it, as it gives you Armor/MR for 2 seconds after getting CCed. Nice for teamfights. You can also take Overgrowth if you prefer it. It gives you a good chunk of health.

Rune Shards:
Take Ability Haste, Health Scaling and Tenacity and Slow Resist.
If you want, you can swap Ability Haste with Attack Speed, if you struggle to farm caster minions under tower. You can also swap Health Scaling with Movement Speed if you prefer.

Secondary Rune Setup (Same as Primary, but Fleet Footwork instead of Lethal Tempo and Revitalize instead of Unflinching )

Fleet is good if you're struggling against a specific matchup. Stack and run away to safety.
Revitalize helps Nasus heal more with Fleet. Which is a good combo and better than Unflinching

Rune Setup for Hard Matchups (Max E/Lane Pressure)

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.

Absolute Focus - More Damage for your E when you're above 70% health.
You can take Transcendence alternatively. Personal preference.

Scorch - Burn damage for your E to be annoying to enemy champs. :)


Second Wind - Good for sustain in lane. Keeps you alive. This run is a must have.

Unflinching - Got changed recently but I am still taking it, as it gives you Armor/MR for 2 seconds after getting CCed. Nice for teamfights. You can also take Overgrowth if you prefer it. It gives you a good chunk of health.

Rune Shards:
Take Adaptive Force, Adaptive Force and Health.

Starting Items

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

OR

Doran's Ring - If you're going Max E (Read Early Game Section for more info)

First back

Your goal is to recall when you have 900G to buy Sheen. In Season 13 I was recalling at 1650G to buy Sheen + Lucidity. But since Sheen is now 900G, it's not a good idea to recall only at 1850G.

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

Ionian Boots of Lucidity - Best boots for Nasus. Gives you a lot of Ability Haste and Summoner Spell Haste. If VS a full AD/AP team I personally go Plated Steelcaps / Mercury's Treads. Up to you if you want to do the same.

Core Items

Trinity Force - The best item on Nasus currently. I've tested different items for 40h of gameplay like Spear of Shojin , Sundered Sky , Iceborn Gauntlet and Trinity still feels the best for our dog. We are building mainly tank, so we only need Trinity as our damage item.

2nd Item

Jak'Sho, The Protean - Build this if the enemy team comp is composed by a balanced amount of AP/AD. (E.g: Rumble, Hecarim, Lux, Sivir, Milio)

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

Kaenic Rookern - Build this if the enemy team comp has 3 or more AP champs. It's like Sprit Visage but with more health regen and a nice magic shield.

3rd Item

Sterak's Gage - No matter what 2nd item you build, Sterak's is gonna be your 3rd. It gives tenacity now, and it's the last shield we have left :(

Rest of build

Depending on what 2nd Item you build, just do whatever you're missing to counter the enemy team. Some of these items can be down to personal preference (like choosing Spirit Visage over Kaenic Rookern). You don't have to follow this to the letter.

Armor Items

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

Unending Despair - If you need Armor and built Frozen Heart. Check if you don't need Anti-heal/Anti-Crit. This item does insane damage when comboing with your ult.

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. (E.g: You have Yasuo/Yone/Tryndamere in the enemy team)

Magic Resist Items

Kaenic Rookern - Main item if you need MR.

Spirit Visage - If have less than 40 Ability Haste.

Force of Nature - If you need MR and built Kaenic Rookern and Spirit Visage.

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.

Other items you can do

Jak'Sho, The Protean - You can do Jak'Sho at any point in the game if you need to build any Armor + MR item. When I don't build it 2nd, I usually build it last.

Dead Man's Plate - If you're against a full ad team without any Anti-Heal/Crit, you can replace either Thornmail / Randuin's Omen with this.

Anathema's Chains - If someone in the enemy team is solo carrying. I don't do it personally, but I know of some Nasus Mains that do it.

Fimbulwinter - I see some Nasus Mains do this. I think Frozen Heart gives you the mana you need. 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.

Serylda's Grudge - Build this if you're smurfing in Plat or below. It's fun :)

Lethal Tempo/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. 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. You NEED it to fight your laner. If you personally think that you can't kill your laner with Sheen, then buy Ionian Boots of Lucidity instead.

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 Max E vs that matchup, then next time bring Fleet Footwork.

Max E/Lane Pressure 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.

Max E/Lane Pressure 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.

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.

The rest of this setup works just the same as the Lethal/Fleet setup.

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.

[14.8]:

-Galio Matchup text changed:

OLD: I rarely see Galios, but his Q hurts. Play safe until 6, careful with his taunt. You should be able to win around level 8. Pay attention when he roams and let your team know.

NEW: Galio has been a more common pick since 14.8. His Q hurts. Play safe until 6, careful with his taunt. You should be able to win around level 8. Pay attention when he roams and let your team know.

-Skarner Matchup text changed:

OLD: Since the Skarner Rework, people started playing him mid. As most champ reworks/releases, he is too strong currently. So take Fleet and play safe unless you're confident you can win trades vs him.

NEW: Since the Skarner Rework, people started playing him mid. But after his adjustment in 14.8, people might back down from playing him as much. Keep an eye on his mid lane stats if you can. As for the matchup, do the same thing as said in the Azir matchup.

[14.7]:

-Added Skarner Matchup to the "Threats" Section.

[14.6]:

-Aurelion Sol Matchup text changed:

OLD: Do Max E vs him. He's not a hard matchup, but it's easier using Aery to win. Everytime he uses Q (Vomit), he stands still, so hit him with E. You won't be able to kill him this way, but you can force him to recall a lot and lose gold/xp.

NEW: I've made Aurelion a major matchup since 14.6 because of his current state. You're on a timer to win your game, no matter if you won lane or not. After 25 minutes, Aurelion outscales Nasus, so it becomes extremely hard to kill. Do Max E and take Aery vs him, It's easier on you if you do that. Everytime he uses Q (Vomit), he stands still, so hit him with E. You won't be able to kill him this way, but you can force him to recall a lot, lose gold/xp and potentially delay his powerspike.