Hey guys! I'm Sadman and this is my in-depth guide for Nasus. Nasus has always been one of my favorite champions since I began playing back in season 4. Across my varying accounts in different parts of the world, I have accumulated around 700 thousand mastery points for Nasus. I know I am by no means an exceedingly outstanding player, and I write this guide today as a memorial to both League and Nasus as I begin to pursue other things within my life. I hope that you will find the information within this guide useful, just as I have in my runs of League of Legends.

Grasp of the Undying - The best defensive keystone for Nasus, putting in an active effort to activate this safely can have huge rewards in the long run, allowing for a greater amount of time spent in lane, and overall greater max health.

Demolish - Surprisingly useful for gold and split-pushing. Taking trades between 9 – 14 minutes to force your opponent back, can lead to surprising amounts of gold gains, with Nasus being able to take 1-2 turret platings at a time thanks to his empowered basic attack. Furthermore the other runes here aren't great.

Conditioning - If used in conjunction with slightly magical boots, sets up Nasus for a powerful 12 minute power-spike, furthermore, this rune simply greatly out scales all other runes, and it sets up Nasus to be strong in the mid-game (20-30 minutes)

Overgrowth - Overgrowth is the strongest amongst the runes here as it compliments armour and magic resist in the mid-game, surprisingly, that 3.5% bonus also arrives around 12 minutes, adding to the aforementioned power spike.

Approach Velocity - One of Nasus's defining runes within this build, whilst Resolve acts as your bulk, Inspiration acts as your mobility. Approach Velocity essentially adds an additional effect to Nasus's Wither, empowering it with a 15% speed boost, a power-up significant enough to allow Nasus to chase down high priority targets, and compensate for his lack of mobility. Approach Velocity is also highly synergistic with Slightly Magical Boots, which by themselves give a bonus 10 movement speed. All of this dampens Nasus's lack of mobility surprisingly well.

Slightly Magical Boots - An amazing rune, with it essentially amounting to 300++ bonus gold, slightly more than 300 as it has a bonus 10 movement speed and the effect is global, not requiring one to be at base. As mentioned before, this additional 10 movement speed might not seem like much, but is crucial in a low mobility juggernaut like Nasus

Additional Stats
8 Ability Haste - allows for Nasus to stack his Siphoning Strike faster, this is significant because it helps both with his scaling and minion kills.
Additional Armor - allows for greater survivability in lane.

Flash is by far the strongest Summoner Spell within League of Legends, with an almost unanimous usage rate across all ranks, Flash bolsters champions both offensively and defensively, and it does so through the offering of instantaneous movement. This Summoner spell is especially crucial for Nasus who entirely lacks any true form of engage or disengage.
In my personal experience, Flash is often used to secure a kill once Nasus hits his power spike at level 6, at 12 minutes, and at level 12. In the early game, its usage leans more towards a form of escape for Nasus, as he often loses the early lane to different degrees.

Soul Eater is Nasus's passive, and it is absolutely amazing. Starting off at 12% lifesteal (not too shabby), it allows Nasus to sustain himself over long periods of time in lane, its effect mainly takes place through Nasus's basic attacks and Siphoning Strike. This passive upgrades to 18% at level 6 and 24% at level 12, and it is at these breakpoints that Nasus notices a significant power boost.
In the mid to late game, Nasus's passive becomes insane as his lifesteal scales with his ever scaling Siphoning Strikes, giving Nasus insane sustainability in team fights.



Siphoning Strike is the defining skill in Nasus's kit, and is the skill that will skyrocket Nasus into a mid-game monster. It is essentially free value that grows exponentially in the beginning (because of ability haste items, and leveling up of the skill), reaching its peak somewhere in the mid-game (20-30 minutes) and plateauing out in the late game (30+ minutes). If used correctly, it can deal around 700 - 900 damage consistently on a 2.5 second cooldown, making the ability insanely powerful.

Note that whilst it does gain 3 stacks per minion, it gains 12 stacks per cannon minion, large monster or enemy champion, therefore failing to kill a cannon minion with Siphoning Strike is actually very punishing.
Also do note that Nasus's Siphoning Strike is also an intant cast, with a shorter attack animation than a regular basic attack. This is important as it essentially allows you to hit with a regular basic attack first, before immediately casting Siphoning Strike to get what essentially amounts to a double hit. Weaving in basic attacks can actually stack up significantly in the mid-game.

Finally Siphoning Strike is extraordinarily weak early game, offering only a bonus 30 damage at level 1, it should not be used to trade against enemies, only for farming and stacking against minions.




Wither is Nasus's ace in the hole when it comes to raw 1v1s and chasing down targets. Think of it less as a slow, but the slowing down of time for the enemy, and a boosting of your own time. Wither first and foremost adds a base 35% slow that increases with time, at level 5, this peaks at 95% slow at the end, this slow in and of itself makes it nearly impossible for any Adc, support, mage or tank to even think of kiting or running away, it essentially forces a confrontation with the enemy. Wither also notably reduces their attack speed by half of the slow, this makes enemy champions struggle to output high damage towards you when confronted in a 1v1. Finally Approach Velocity when paired with Wither gives Nasus a tremendous boost in speed, making it even harder to escape. All in all, this ability forces enemies to confront Nasus's ginormous base stats in the mid game, putting enemies at a disadvantage whilst putting you in an advantageous one.

Note that Wither also has uses in lane. With strong wave management, and a good eye for freezing, Wither can be used to immobilize enemies for a gank by the jungler. Wither also has great applications in lane, particularly against aggressive players, using it to disengage or deter enemy champions adds a great deal to Nasus's survivability.




Spirit Fire is a Nasus's prime early game waveclear, being used primarily to clear waves, either being used primarily to prevent waves from crashing into the tower, and the other being to quickly push the wave to get additional gold from turret platings.

The importance of Spirit Fire in dueling and trading also cannot be understated. With its ability to reduce armor on targets hit, it presents a basic bread and butter combo when it comes to engaging for Nasus, mainly Wither as an enagage, Spirit Fire to deal some damage and reduce armor, before hitting with a basic attack and immediately hitting with an empowered Siphoning Strike, a strike that is buffed due to the reduced armor.
*Note however, that this combo is extremely mana intensive for Nasus, and should not even be used in the extreme early game. Use it according to your discretion after level 6, where Nasus gains his power spikes, and can likely secure a kill.




Fury of the Sands is Nasus's penultimate ability and it is his Ace in the Hole. Not only does it give Nasus additional max health for a period of time, it buffs his resistances to the extremes, buffs his basic attack damage by significant margins, and most importantly halves the cooldown of his Siphoning Strike. This ability makes Nasus an absolute beast in a team fight, being able to hit 1.2 - 1.5 second cooldowns on his Siphoning Strike and demolishing anything within range. Not to mention his passive AOE with Fury of the Sands dealing % damage to all nearby enemies.

It should be noted that Fury of the Sands should be used prior to entering a team fight rather than in the middle as activating it just before allows Nasus to maximize benefits from his enhanced resistances.

It should also be noted the Fury of the Sands can also be used as a bait for enemies trying to gank Nasus in lane close to tower, as Fury of the Sands gives a bonus 300 Max health, which can catch tower divers off guard.

I will first begin with a breakdown of Nasus's Starting Items, more specifically Doran's Shield & Health Potion Vs Corrupting Potion, their respective strengths and weaknesses, and the scenarios in which you should be choosing either.

Doran's Shield Start: Its strengths, it's weaknesses & Value Maximization
I will first begin with Doran's shield's strengths, Doran's shield is by far one of the best starting items that Nasus can take, simply because of the amount of time which it allows Nasus to stay in lane. With an additional 80 health in the early game, enhanced regeneration, and an effect similar to that of Second Wind, it allows Nasus to take spaced out hits over a long period of time. If used against opponent's who don't understand the nuances of Doran's Shield, it can allow Nasus to slowly build up a health advantage, especially with Nasus's Soul Eater.

However, as strong as Doran's Shield is, it simply struggles against enemies who can take trades which exceed the regeneration capabilities of Doran's Shield, this often manifests itself by Top laners bullying Nasus out of lane purely with their higher level 1 base stats and stronger abilities.

The key to value maximization of Doran's Shield is to take trades intermittently, leveraging it's regeneration as a means of competitive advantage in lane. This also means playing safe when you understand you cannot take certain trades, and avoiding going for minion kills too obviously, which the opponent can leverage for free trades.

Corrupting Potion start, its strengths, weaknesses & value maximization
Corrupting potion presents itself as the second option for laning with Nasus, it offers a potentially better lane prospect against especially strong lane bullies, or champions who are exceedingly more powerful than Nasus at level 1. These include champions such as Sett, Sylas and Vayne.
Corrupting Potion achieves this through its greater instant value, but lesser prolonged value. A contrast to Doran's Shields lesser instant value, and greater prolonged value.

Why Divine Sunderer over Trinity Force?
In my opinion, Divine Sunderer has always been the stronger option, simply because it scales much better into the mid and late game than Trinity Force. With a bonus 10% Max health damage per instance of basic attack after an ability, you can deal truck tons of guaranteed damage by weaving basic attacks together with Siphoning Strike, Wither and Spirit Fire. Whilst I do acknowledge that Trinity Force provides much needed mobility for the champion, the lack of % damage in Nasus's kit is too detrimental in Nasus's combat with fellow top lane Juggernauts or Fighters. With Divine Sunderer's recent buff, Nasus's [[Siphoning Strike becomes an even larger threat, not only being able to dish out more periodic damage but also to have greater healing potential for Nasus, all of this puts Nasus in an extremely strong position for 11.11.

Now for the key aspects of this build, mainly Nasus's movement core, its importance, and priority 1 Resistance Cores

Movement Core
Nasus as a champion is what we call an extreme juggernaut, he is the definition of what people think of when they envision infinite power and scaling. And to a large degree this is somewhat true, with a decently, not even well fed Nasus being nigh unstoppable in the mid-game. The issue with Nasus, and almost all Juggernauts lies in his mobility. Nasus has absolutely no way to dash around or jump around, his movement at its very best is the equivalent of running, and so running we shall.

Dead Man's Plate and Force of Nature both offer a bonus 5% movement speed which no other tank item in the game offers, on top of that Dead Man's plate grants what is essentially out of combat mobility, and both items are decently bulky tank items. Surprisingly, together with the additional speed from Slightly Magical Boots and Approach Velocity, Nasus comes very close to what is essentially constantly being under the effects of Ghost throughout team fights. This paired with his ability Wither allows him to fairly effectively take down high priority targets, such as ADC's and mages.

Plated Steelcaps and mercury treads are also key in Nasus's build, whilst Plated Steelcaps's passive and armor offers more baseline protection than Mercury treads's magic resistance. (Yes its AD and AP protection, but Plated Steelcaps offer more raw "protection"), Mercury Treads more than compensates by offering Tenacity, something much needed against teams with high CC.

Priority 1 Core Resistances
Frozen Heart, Spirit Visage and Gargoyle Stoneplate fall into this category simply because they are very easily arguably better than all the priority 2 Items.

Frozen Heart offers heavy bulk, both by limiting the attack speed of dangerous ADC's and Top laners, but also by reducing each instance of damage. More importantly, it also offers ability haste which allows Nasus to scale better with time. Frozen Heart simply beats out options like Thornmail and arguably Randuin's Omen because of its passive strengths and better scaling. With the recent buffs to Frozen Heart in 11.11, it is expected to severely increase Nasus's miid game bulk, whilst decreasing the true damage capabilities of enemy champs like Vayne with its additional 5% attack speed reduction.

Spirit Visage whilst limited in stats it provides, provides a much needed 25% boost to healing sources, providing synergy with Nasus's Soul Eater, whilst still offering decent bulk against AP champions. There aren't that many options for magic resistance, but even amongst them, Spriit Visage is a no brainer for Nasus

Gargoyle Stoneplate is the final item in this category, and it appears here simply because of the amazing stats and resistances which it offers. Offering both Armor and Magic resistance, along with % increase in these resistances per instance of damage makes Nasus an absolute beast in team fights.

Nasus's early game
Nasus is one of those champions that tests your basic understanding of the game to an extreme. Are you good at managing minion waves? I hope you are, because against competent opponents, Nasus almost always loses the early lane. The key is to manage how well you are losing, before coming back for revenge and obliterating them in the midg-game.
in the early game, a general strategy is to freeze the minion wave as close to your tower as possible, this must be achieved at all costs with the exception of dying. This can range from simple wave management, to baiting enemy champions to hit both you and the wave to force them to push the wave forward.
It also means being patient and waiting for level 6, or an item advantage before trading. It means knowing when to pushing the waves, how to crash waves into the enemy towers and steal turret plating gold, how to maximize value of early game items, and finally being willing to give up some CS in lane, knowing and believing that you will eventually outscale a non-fed opponent.

Nasus's mid game
Nasus has by far one of the strongest mid-game potentials out of any champion, at the mid-game, provided that you did not feed and did not lose lane too badly, you can quickly catch up on the missing gold and demolish enemies with your high stacks. At this point in the game (20-30 minutes) Nasus is at his strongest, and can potentially even 1v5 if fed properly. Nasus should be aiming to end the game within this time frame, as once late-game arrives, Nasus's Durability doesn't scale as well as his Siphoning Strike damage. Aim for objectives, split push where possible, split push when Baron Nashor is up. Finally, make sure to show up for team fights, and do so with Teleport

Nasus's Late game.
In the late game, Nasus's power will continue to dip as ADCs rise to the top, at this point in time, Nasus should potentially consider taking Sterak's Gage for additional survivability, and put an even higher priority on ADC's. Rush to end the game before Nasus's power truly dips after 40 minutes

Thanks for reading this guide, have fun!!