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Nasus Build Guide by AboveGodlike

AD Offtank AboveGodlike's Guide to Nasus (updates soon for Season 3 pat

AD Offtank AboveGodlike's Guide to Nasus (updates soon for Season 3 pat

Updated on December 7, 2012
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13,207 Views 2 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author AboveGodlike Nasus Build Guide By AboveGodlike Updated on December 7, 2012
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Nasus' lore




The enigmatic creature known as Nasus came to the League from a faraway world, and served as part of a vast and learned desert empire. There he was a respected and enlightened individual, having been made the Keeper of the Great Library. However, he was also part of a race of animalistic creatures that served as the rulers and protectors of the people. Unfortunately, there were others of his kind that believed they were more than protectors. They were under the egotistical delusion that they had ascended to become gods. War on Nasus's world was never more than a breath away, as these deluded others sought to enslave the people and establish a totalitarian sovereignty. In the midst of a heated battle, just as Nasus was about to slay his treacherous brother Renekton, he was pulled through the cosmos to a summoning circle in Runeterra.

At first angered that he had been taken just as he was about to cripple the enemies of his people, Nasus' advanced intellect won out when he heard the pleas of mercy from the summoners. He learned that Runeterra was also filled with its own brand of injustice. This danger was no less threatening than what he had fought against at home, and champions were needed to protect the people of this world. Heeding the call, Nasus chose to take his place in the League of Legends, knowing that his brothers and sisters would carry on the fight back home. These days, he is the Curator of the Sands, feeling most at home in the crumbling ruins of the Shurima Desert. However, recent disturbing news has reached the Keeper's ears - rumors that perhaps his brother had not in fact been left behind. If this were the case, the destruction of Renekton would quickly become Nasus' main priority, before this world too faces the threads of his brother's forked-tongue and endless ambition.

The Curator of the Sands, though contemplative, is not to be trifled with.


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Minor introduction

Hello fellow League of Legends players. My nick is AboveGodlike and I'm bringing a guide featuring Nasus, the Curator of the Sands. Mobafire possess alot of guides to the different characters existing in the game, however after reading through alot of Nasus guides I felt like a few changes suited me better. This guide is as every other guide a personal taste on a character and isn't therefor the right way to custimize the character in any means. However, I hope you will enjoy the guide and feel free to either downvote or upvote the guide due to your taste and feelings regarding the guide.
Note: I would however like a small comment on why you either downvoted or upvoted the guide, not due to the percent between the two options but because I would like to add/fix whatever is nessecary to help others having a good time playing Nasus, like I have.



Nasus related introduction

Nasus, the Curator of the Sands is a melee character who combines the utility of a strong solo-target slow Wither, his (W) and a large amount of life-steal through Soul Eater, his passive ability early on to gain time to overcome the different character he might meet in the lane the chooses to fill. However like any other character there exists lanes who is often recommended for different characters in the game due to the current meta of the game itself. At the momemt the lane Nasus might want to choose is the Top Lane, which is often a lane for different kinds of "Bruiser Classes"(which refers to characters who has an above average amount of health and/or a combination between Crowd Control and gab-closers to pressure the lane without any other character in the lane to forfill either of those options.) Examples of characters that is often seen in the Top Lane could be Darius, The Hand of Noxus, Dr. Mundo, The Madman of Zaun, Cho'Gath, The Terror of the Void, Fiora, The Grand Duelist and many others. What makes Nasus special compared to these characters is the mechanics behind a skill named Siphoning Strike, his (Q). Normally Bruisers possess an "escape ability". A few sacrifice the "escape ability" to grant them a early high amount of damage or range to dominate the lane. Like Darius, The Hand of Noxus (Bonus Damage, No Escape-mechanism), Yorick, The Gravedigger (Bonus Range, No Escape-mechanism) and only a few others. However Nasus is a unique character who sacrificed his Escape-mechanism to neither of those but to dominate the end-game like no other "off-tank"(A character who doesn't have the amount of "Defensive Bonuses" needed to almost ignore the other teams damage-dealers, like tanks normally have, but still be able to take a few hits.) normally would be able to. The ability to almost make a AD-Carry (Attack Damage based character who focuses on a high amount of damage and accept a bellow-average amount of defensive stats) jealous of your damage out put comes from the skill previos mentioned Siphoning Strike, his (Q), the skill enhances Nasus's next attack with an amount of damage based upon both his total amount of auto-attack damage and a bonus which gets larger every time Nasus kills an enemy champion, neutral creep and minion with it. Due to the current meta of a Solo-Top Laner, a Jungle/Roamer, a Ranged AP Carry in the Middle Lane and a Support helping the AD Carry at the Bottom Lane. This gives Nasus the chance to collect minion kills without sharing and therefor adding more damage to his Siphoning Strike, his (Q) than if he had a other character in the lane. Another reason that Nasus feels at home in the Top Lane in the meta is because almost three quarters of the characters who is often placed there is based upon Attack Damage that Nasus is more protected against, because of his "normally used item choices" and his Ultimate Skill Fury of the Sands, his (R) which steals surrounding enemies healh and convert into Attack Damage for the duration of the skill.


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Nasus' positive and negative aspects





Basic information for the chart, the gold letters represent the most important aspects while the silver letters represent the lesser important aspects of the category

Major Positive Aspects
+ The ability to Snowball
+ Natural Life Steal Percentage by his passive skill Soul Eater

Minor Positive Aspects
+ The ability to check bushes for enemies via his skill Spirit Fire, his (E)
+ Different focuses than other characters
+ Not very item dependent



Major Negative Aspects
- No Escape-mechanism
- Relies heavily on last hitting with his (Q) skill Siphoning Strike
- Often only shine late game
- One hundred twenty-five range champion

Minor Negative Aspects
- Small mana issues through the entire game


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Nasus' top laneing



It's hard to keep this section up-to-date because Riot keeps on adding new champions to the game, so I've decided to only talk about Nasus and add different comments on features like stun, silence etc. and how they effect his game-play. This section will also suggest a few tactics on how to handle miscellaneous champion situations. First of all, I never believed in "losing in the picking phase", the enemy players can't win a lane based upon which character they take versus yours. It's all a matter of skill and team-strategies. If you don't believe you can stay safe in the lane either get your jungler on your team to help you out or train with the character you chose more against the specific character that won the lane against you. The closets to a counter Nasus may meet is features like ranged stuns, like Sion's skill Cryptic Gaze, his (Q), Taric's skill Dazzle, his (E). The reason for this is, due to Nasus' need for last hitting with his (Q) skill Siphoning Strike, your movements can become predictable and a ranged stun may interrupt you from getting the last hit you seeked in the first place. Characters who has Ranged Silence can interrupt you from last hitting with the skill but not from "getting" the last hit (which at least gives a few gold pieces), like Cho'Gath's skill Feral Scream, his (W). In situations like those just let them push the lane and wait for the last-hitting part beneath the tower's range. (Minor note: A tower hits a melee minion two times before leaving it vulnerable to a last hit, either by auto-hitting it or Siphoning Strike, his (Q)).

If they however focus on interrupting your last-hitting with Siphoning Strike, his (Q) be sure to inform your team so the jungler may have time to help you out soon... by killing your enemy or assist on the project of getting him killed. This will often let you overcome the set-back you have encountered because you might get all the minions with last hits that comes by, because of a low cooldown on Siphoning Strike, his (Q) combined with the fact that the higher level he was, the longer will it take him/her to respawn, which means you might have plenty of creep-waves just waiting for your hits.

If the player you meet top or any other lane seems to dominate a gank or two might resulting in you taking over the lane due to level advange and often time enough to get the last hits you have missed.

As Nasus you might like to get the jungler to gank as soon you reach level two+ due to your skill/spell setup. Early on a Wither, his (W) combined with the summoner spell Exhaust (if the Jungler has it)is usally enough to get a kill (if you have a average-damage-dealing jungler like Lee Sin, Dr. Mundo etc). Often a jungler and Wither, his (W) should be enough for letting the enemy use his escape mechanism and/or Flash, which will leave him more vulnerable the next time the jungler decides to help you out top (As long as it's before the enemy's Flash has cooled down or it might had been waste of time unless he has to return to his base for health-regeneration. Leaving you alone to collect minion-last-hits.) Remember, every last-hit missed with Siphoning Strike, his (Q) equals seven point five damage lost permanently, theoraticly. (an explanation exists under the section for items later.) So be sure to focus on last-hitting the minions through most of the game or until you have gathered enough strength with your Siphoning Strike, his (Q) to make the difference either you or your team seeks in the tides of battles League of Legends has to offer.



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Difficulty to play



I wouldn't say there exists a number that can explain how difficult a character is to play. If I should comment on the normal understanding of the difficulty of Nasus, it would be that almost all the guides commenting on the skill-level of Nasus are wrong, Nasus isn't a easy character to play, even though his skill setup seems pretty straight forward. The reason I claim he isn't easy to play is because he lacks both the strength to compete with other top-characters 1v1 early on and shall focus on both the minions health, the enemies health and expect to be harassed while trying to land last hits, meanwhile he has to sustain it as a non-ranged character... Alot of people confuses "skill-shots" (a skill that dosen't lock on a target and is suppose to hit targets by predicting where the target might be heading) with difficulty, while it in reality only adds strength to the character by adding additional options to the skills. (The ability to damage through areas you dosen't have vision on is one of the strongest factors in League of Legends (checking bushes, damageing through walls etc), next after an escape-mechanism. Due to the fact that alot of League of Legends characters has these kind of skills an average player will get used to it with time.


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Personal item choices



First of all, there exists no right from wrong item-build on any character. Every match is different, and the enemy champions will hopefully make you change a few items shown above in the item-category-list, which is one of the many merits in League of Legends. Every match is different and requires a combination between the enemy champions damage element (Attack Damage and/or Magic Damage) and your own opinion on what item seems important in the following match to fight their characters and item-builds best. However, the shown item-category above is a well-balanced off-tank related Nasus-build with enough utility to become a treat to the enemy team while still being able to take a few hits by either Attack Damage (often related to as AD) and/or Magic Damage (which almost three quarters of the skills are strengthen by Ability Power(AP)).

However I believe two of the items I'ce chosen should be explained because of the mechanisms and options they bring to the champion Nasus.
The first one is Trinity Force:

Minor Affixes
+thirty Ability Power
+thirty Attack Power
+thirty Attack Speed
+two hundred and fifty Mana
+two hundred and fifty Health

Important Affixes
+fifteen Critical Strike Percentage bonus
+twelve Movement Speed Percentage bonus
+Unique Passive: twenty-five Percentage on hit to slow the target that was hit by thirty-five percentage for two and a half second

Critical Affixes
+Unique Passive: On cast, increases your base Attack Damage by one hundred and fifty Percentage for one attack. With a cooldown of two seconds.
- Does not stack with either sheen or Lichbane

The ability to enhance your next attack with a percentage of one hundred and fifty is important because of Nasus' (Q) skill Siphoning Strike. The skill adds an amount of damage equal to your damage + one hundred and ten + three damage per enemy and/or minion killed with it through the entire game. This unique passive from Trinity Force mentiend above, takes that amount of bonus damage and add another one hundred and fifti percentage to that amount of damage, which will be the amount of damage Nasus will deal when he lands his next attack, if he of'course lands his attack before the modifier bonus from Siphoning Strike ends

The next, yet last is Shurelya's Battlesong

Minor Affixes
+thirty Health Regeneration
+fifteen Mana Regeneration

Important Affixes
+Unique Passive: fifteen Percentage Cooldown Reduction
The reason for fifteen percentage cooldown being important is because of the fact that the more cooldown Nasus posess, the more last-hit can me made safely with his (Q) skill Siphoning Strike, another aspect of the cooldown reduction bonus is the threat-level of Nasus. The lower the cooldown on Siphoning Strike the more damage-output in the tides of battles mid to late game

Critical Affixes
+Unique Active: Nearby Champions gain fourty percentage bonus movement speed for three seconds duration
- Sixty seconds cooldown

This is listed under critical affixes because it adds the utility Nasus has been missing all along, a way to either escape or follow an enemy. The fact that it also helps your AD-Carry (AD-Carry is a character that sacrifices his defensive item-slots for pure attack related items) escape a battle meanwhile you gain the speed needed to place yourself close enough to attack the ones follow the carry meanwhile she recovers or position herself/himself is crucial


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Minion information



League of Legends' two Nexuses each release a wave of minions to each lane on the map, half of those will assist your team meanwhile the other half will be hostile. The first wave of minions spawn at one minut and thirty seconds and then the Nexuses releases another wave of minions in each lane for the rest of the game each thirty seconds.

A wave of minions possess three melee minions, three casters plus one Siege Minion every three waves until thirty five minutes past, at which point one spawns every second wave

Minions use the following Growth-system added to their stats through out the game:
Melee minions gain two additional Armor every three minutes
Melee minions gain zero point five addition Magic Resistance every three minutes

Caster minions gain zero point five additional Armor every three minutes
Caster minions gain two additional Magic Resistance every three minutes

Cannon minions gain two additional Armor every three minutes
Cannon minions gain two additional Magic Resistance every three minutes



Nasus related minion information

Due to my suggestions, both back on the Character-sheet and in the section for Personal Rune & Mastery page choices (two sections below this one) I'm suggesting players to use nine Greater Mark of Desolation combined with the following mastery Weapon Expertise , because if Nasus is able to ignore fourteen point ninety-five armor plus ten percentage of the target's total armor he'll be able to use those improvements to enhance his chances of landing the final blow with Siphoning Strike. The reason for this is because, the user of Nasus, can combine the information of the minion's health with his damage on Siphoning Strike to mathematically calculate when to strike with Siphoning Strike to earn the last-hit. The combination between Greater Mark of Desolation and Weapon Expertise 's armor penetration makes it possible to calculate what amount of damage Nasus will deal without taking the minion's armor reduction into account before the following times of the game:
Due to minions' stats (listed above) will Nasus be able to ignore the armor of Melee Minions for fourty-five minutes, Ranged Minions for ninety-nine minutes and the first wave with Cannon Minions. Without adding Cannon Minions to the calculations, those Greater Mark of Desolation combined with that one mastery point Weapon Expertise seems well placed to help the user of Nasus to earn as many minion kills through Siphoning Strike as possible.


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Nasus' Skills


Ability Sequence
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Siphoning Strike


Siphoning Strike, Nasus' (Q) skill: is a buff which adds an amount of damage to Nasus' next auto-attack, using the following formula: plus thirty/fifty/seventy/ninety and one hundred and ten (depending on Siphoning Strike's level) bonus damage plus X•three (x being the amount of times Nasus has landed a last-hit on one of the following enemies, Minions, Champions and Neutral monsters using Siphoning Strike. Starting with a cooldown of eight seconds, reduced by one seconds for each skill-point added to its level (to a total of four seconds).

Personal opinion and two tips

I would advice the Nasus player to add a skill-point into Siphoning Strike every time he or she has the chance to do so. The reason for this is because that it gets reduced cooldown and a minor Attack Damage buff, which both upgrade the chances of landing last-hits and increases Nasus' threat-level because Nasus becomes able to hit his enemies more often using the skill. Besides is Siphoning Strike this Nasus-guides primary damage-dealing skill. There exists a few minor tricks I would like to share with the following readers of the guide however, shown below:

Tip one: Siphoning Strike adds an amount of damage to the Nasus' next attack which is also related to as a buff, an ability that has the chance to be effected by "on-hit" affixes because it "lands on his next hit", from either other skills and/or items. If the player reading this guide has chosen to use my suggested build, Siphoning Strike would be enhanced by the following weapons; Trinity Force, Phage and Sheen. The reason for this is because they each share a common affix which is called a "on-hit-effect" (a chance to trigger an extra effect on the characters attacks using the item or items)

Tip two: Because Siphoning Strike enhances Nasus' next attack, dosen't it count as a spell damageing a tower, which means, it'll be able to enhance Nasus' attack and deliever the full potential of damage to the tower.

Facts of Siphoning Strike

Fact one: Siphoning Strike is one out of two skills in the game able to stack permanent damage through out the entire game, the other one being Veigar's Baleful Strike.

Fact two: Siphoning Strike helps Nasus be able to deal a few extra hits. The reason for this is that Siphoning Strike resets your auto attack animation. This means that if you hit an enemy with a normal auto-attack followed by an activation of Siphoning Strike it will result in an automatic auto hit once again ignoring Nasus' original attack-speed-delay.

Fact three: Every enemy minion dying on the map without being killed by Siphoning Strike is bonus damage to Nasus equal to seven-point-five damage lost permanently. The reason for this is because that due to Siphoning Strike stacking system combined with Trinity Force adds the following formula: 1 Minion/Creature and/or Neutral monster equals three damage bonus which furthermore gets increases by one hundread and fifty percentage because they both increases the "next attacks damage output", which means: three damage plus one hundred and fifty percentage equals seven point five damage. So make sure that when you decide to help another lane against a few enemies, to inform the players in the lane to throw out a ward (which you can Teleport to (regarding you are using the summoner spell Teleport, that I suggested), because due to fact that Nasus has no movement bonus skill, he has to leave the lane long enough for the enemy team to alarm their players that Nasus is missing from his original lane. Teleport however, may give your own team a surprise advange and even maybe the factor to furfill the purpose of your travel, to assist the lane in need of your help.) However, remeber to inform the players around you before deciding to travel to help a lane that they may need to leave behind a few minions in their lane, sometimes even the jungler too, so he may leave a few neutral minions behind in his jungle. This way you can secure yourself a passage through the map without losing too many potential points of damage on[/color] Siphoning Strike.

Wither


Wither is the strongest solo-target movement-reduction skill in the game and Nasus' only control-related skill of his four skills. Next to the brutal movement reduction Wither provide, it also supports Nasus with a medium debuff in the target's attack speed, hindering the target from ignoring the movement-reduction and stand still while being able to punish Nasus meanwhile he comes closer to his victum.

Personal opinion

Wither is Nasus' (W) skill and his only skill that brings him the ability to either chase an enemy on low health and/or flee from an intense battle. Due to the fact that Wither doesn't get an reduced cooldown for each skill-point invested in it combined with the fact that it isn't AoE (Area of Effect) makes it hard against more than one enemy at the time and may require help from another lane if Nasus is matched with some champions cable of throwing nasty stuff his way without a chance to fight back. Wither will however change the tides of battles mid to late game due to the fact that it last for five seconds and almost completly shuts one character down for the duration.

Spirit Fire


Nasus' (E) skill is Spirit Fire and is an damaging AoE (Area of Effect) with an radius of eight-hundred, formed as a circle. It scales of ability power (also called AP) by twelve percentage each second and deals damage in its radius each second based upon that for five seconds. Besides the damage dealt, it also adds a debuff that reduces effected enemies in the area by a flat amount of armor (which is twenty/twenty-five/thirty/thirty-five or fourty) which increases by each skill-point used on Spirit Fire.

Personal opinion and one tip

Spirit Fire is a two-edged sword. It is your only tool to recover in a lane where you keep on getting wrecked by enemy champions. Since the minions in this game doesn't have a very bright AI (Artifical Intelligence) imprinted won't they react to your Spirit Fire's AoE (Area of Effect) and you'll be able to take down waves of minions at a safe distance. The edge to this method is the fact that being able to kill minion waves require skill investment, skill points a Nasus player often rather add into Siphoning Strike to improve his mid to late game damage output. Another factor of this skill is that it doesn't get a reduced cooldown by adding levels into it and the debuff scales badly compared to one point. A little tip below:

Tip one: Spirit Fire grants view upon enemy champions, minions and neutral enemies inside bushes and reveals them to the entire team.

Fury of the Sands


Nasus' Ultimate skill (R-skills are called "Ultimates" do to the fact they gets unlocked at a later phase of the game and often seems stronger than the characters skills that are unlocked at level one, instead of six.) Fury of the Sands both adds three-hundred/four-hundred and fifty or six-hundred health to Nasus depending on its level and grants Nasus a buff that drains the enemies health by a percentage of their total health each second if the are within a range of three-hundred and fifty of Nasus, Nasus then converts six point three-hundred-seventy-five percentage of that amount of total health lost into Atack Damage (Also called AD) each second. The bonus damage lasts until Fury of the Sands wears off ten seconds later.

Personal opinon and a tip

Fury of the Sands are a very strong skill adding both a large amount of health to Nasus so he has the option to build more utility orientated compared to pure tanks items like Warmorgs Armor, Frozen Maulet and many others. Not that these items are bad on Nasus but the ability to have a above-average amount of health meanwhile being able abilities like Randuin's Omen' AoE (Area of Effect) slow and many other items that helps the team instead of yourself. The fact that it also turns your attack damage into a whole new level is just meanwhile you damage nearby enemies is a skill well-suited for Nasus who rather try fighting the battles up front.

Tip one: Fury of the Sands add an amount of health to Nasus' health pool. However, the health gained is both added to Nasus' health-threshold (threshold refers to the maximum amount of x (in this case health) there is available) and his current health at the same time. This means that it both adds a minor healing of three-hundred/four-hundred and fifty or six-hundred depending on skill-level to Nasus meanwhile it also makes him able to life-steal the other three-hundred/four-hundred and fifty or six-hundred health added to his health-treshold back through attacks. This means he gets an amount of health instant and the possability to earn the same amount of health again through other healings, adding the possability to earn either six-hundred/nine-hundred or one thousand and two hundred life through Fury of the Sands depending on skill-level.


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Personal Rune & Mastery page choices


Runes

Precision
Fleet Footwork
Phase Rush


Every type of rune added to my personal rune-page is their with a different purpose each. This section is made to explain what each individual rune support with to Nasus and why I've picked them. These runes are my personally favorites but can be changed to what fit your playstyle the best without harming the build I've shown above in the character-sheet. First of all an explaination of the use of Greater Mark of Desolations.

Greater Mark of Desolation

Greater Mark of Desolation

These runes is there to increase the time you have to be able to act between calculating the minions, champions and neutral monster's health. Due to the fact that Nasus relies alot on Siphoning Strike and the quick minds may be able to react fast enough between last-hitting minions and calculate Nasus' damage against the minions' armor reduction it wasen't a "level" I had for a a long time, but when I got there I realized that no other mark could replace them with the purpose of increasing Nasus' damage so I didn't replace them. With these runes and a last whisper Nasus is able to almost deal true damage (true damage is when the damage dealt doesn't get effect by any armor reduction) to the enemies. However I said almost for a reason, the formula is; Spirit Fire's fourty Armor Penetration plus fourteen-point-five Armor Penetration from Greater Mark of Desolation plus ten percentage from the mastery Weapon Expertise added to Last Whisper's fourty percentage Armor Penetration. Leaving Nasus with the oppoturnity to decrease enemies armor by a fifty percentage of their total armor plus fifty-four point ninety-five flat armor. That is without doubt a huge amount of decreased armor. However it requires Last Whisper to achieve, so be sure to grab that when you feel strongh enough to take a few hits.

Greater Glyph of Focus


These nine runes is added to Nasus' rune-page for the reason of his cooldowns. Two of his skills ( Spirit Fire and Fury of the Sands) has static cooldowns (static cooldowns means that they don't get reduced by adding skill-points into them) Beside of those two skills, Nasus' only utility skill Wither has a fairly long cooldown which doesn't get reduced before level eight because of this builds skill-plan. Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction, Enlightenment and Sorcery helps lower the cooldown meanwhile the other skills gets the skill-points. Another important factor Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction brings is that when these runes gets combined with the cooldown reduction mastery points, Sorcery and Enlightenment Nasus get enough cooldown reduction to land one extra minion kill in each wave Nasus is forced to be positioned below his tower. (of'course this may vary due to how the minion's health pools has been damaged due the minion wave crash between the enemies' minions and yours)

Greater Seal of Resilience


These nine runes named Greater Seal of Armor has been chosen with the purpose of increasing Nasus' natural defense (adding thirtyteen armor (which is equal to seven percentage more damage reduction as the game starts)) against the enemy harassment he might meet in his lane. Becuse of the meta of today, and Nasus' mechanics, involving Siphoning Strike, and so on so forth. Nasus is often placed in the top lane which involve a high percentage of meeting a champion whose damage is Attack Damage related. Since Nasus has to approach the minions meanwhile the enemy is free to try to interrupt Nasus from last-hitting enemy minions he has to have a high sustain and a great defense. Which is why I chose these runes.

Greater Quintessence of Swiftness


These runes has been added for two reasons. The first one is that, due to this builds skill-plan, Wither isn't able to secure a kill for either you or the jungler because that its slow percentage requires a few skill-points to reach its amazing solo-target potential. While the other reason for picking Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed is because of Nasus' need for all the utility he can get, because he both has to place himself close enough to last-hit minions with an one-hundred and twenty-five range and get away from there because he is harmed too much by the enemy champin(s). Almost all champions who has no utility or escape mechanism should at least consider these quintessences an option.



Offensive mastery-points placed

Summoner's Wrath

has gotten a mastery-point due to the fact that it increases the summoner-spell named Ghost by eight percentage boost to the original movement boost Ghost provides to the character. Nasus has no skill that can help him escape so every percentage counts.

Brute Force

has gotten three mastery-points because it both helps Nasus become threatning, help him land the last hits needed to improve Siphoning Strike and help him sustain through Soul Eater, Nasus' passive ability.

Alacrity

has got four mastery-points because they both add the traditional aspects the Brute Force did, but also leads on to Weapon Expertise .

Sorcery

has been added four points into for the chances of increasing Nasus' chances on have Siphoning Strike ready when needed. Sorcery is also added to help increase Nasus' threat-level. Which has been increased more than the traditional builds due to the build-setup. (This build leaves Frozen Heart out and replace it with Last Whisper to force the enemy team to attack you instead of their original carry target.)

Weapon Expertise

has been given one mastery-point because it makes Nasus able to penetrate the first wave of Cannon-minions in the game and there both secure last-hits early on but also gives Nasus more time to leave Last Whisper out of his inventory until later in the game when the player feels he needs it to keep up his threat-level to the enemy team.

Defensive mastery-points placed

Hardiness

had to be included (in my opinon), because Nasus is often valued as a top-laner in the current meta, which is filled with Attack Damage-related champions (champions which relies on damaging the enemy champions by damaging them with "Attack Damage" instead of "Magic Damage") Hardiness actualy adds three percentage of damage reduction to Nasus at level 1.

Tough Skin

has been given two points because, meanwhile it's combined with Indomitable Nasus become able to take a large amount of hits from the enemy minions which is very important to Nasus. The fact that Nasus has a hard time with quite a large amount of champions early on they might be able to push through Nasus' team's minion wave to make an impact on Nasus' team tower. Nasus only chances to defend the tower is either to kill the minions before they reach the tower by taking their hits himself or use the tower as help to collect more minion-last hits with Siphoning Strike. This will of'course invite the enemy champion to try to attack Nasus in order to make Nasus flee so Nasus' tower gets harmed. So in order to be able to sustain both the minion wave and the enemy champion had to increase his damage reduction from some of the sources, which in this case is the minions.

Durability

has gotten four mastery-points for two purposes, both increasing Nasus total amount of health and to give Nasus access to Veteran's Scars .

Indomitable

Has been given two mastery-points because of the importence of the combination between the two, Indomitable and Tough Skin , which helps Nasus get more last hits, safe his tower for a limited time and makes the Jungler on Nasus' team able to gank more often because he/she doesn't care too much about the amount of minions, because Nasus can take their attention meanwhile he/she makes an approach towards the enemy champion.

Veteran's Scars

Has got one mastery-point to help Nasus meanwhile he is on his weakest stage of the League of Legends game, early on. Because of Nasus' passive ability Soul Eater those thirty points of health may get re-filled if taken from Nasus by his life-leech. Which makes this mastery-point very important for Nasus early pressence in his lane.

Enlightenment

Have been given three mastery-points because of this way of building him, through adding permanent points to Siphoning Strike is both based upon the amount of minions and the amount of times Nasus is given the opportunity to last-hit with it.

Utility mastery-points placed

Summoner's Insight

Is one of the two mastery-points placed that helps Nasus help his team when in need.(The other being Summoner's Wrath which improves Ghost' to chase or flee from enemy champions.) Summoner's Insight reduces Teleport by one second which makes Nasus able to come from a far, if the team he is playing on, decides to place a few wards before initiating the enemy team or just set regular small ganks up.

Improved Recall

Has been given one mastery-point because that it reduces the time Nasus has to be in stasis form before returning to his own base. Even though the mastery point into Improved Recall only removes one seconds of the stasis form but one second each time a player has to recall adds up. And every few seconds a minion is lost on the battlefield and could had been killed by Siphoning Strike. Besides, due to the fact that the character can get interrupted meanwhile he is recalling just adds more security to the player playing Nasus since he has no skill that helps him flee if interrupted meanwhile channeling in stasis form.


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Summoner's Spell choices


As shown above in Mobafire's character-sheet, I've chosen both Ghost and Teleport as my own summoner-spells. These are personally close to being locked every battle I choose to play Nasus. However I won't close my eyes to other choices, since it all comes down to personally play-style of the player and every single summoner spell is there for a reason. In this section I'm gonna tell you why and how I use these summoner-spells on Nasus. First of all Teleport.

Teleport

As mentioned earlier in this Nasus guide doesn't he possess a escape or chase ability to help tim through the entire match. The closest spell he has to one of these criteria is Wither which without doubt helps Nasus in alot of situations. Sadly it only effects one target at the time and due to the current meta he often gets placed in the top lane paired against an enemy champion. But sometimes a jungler may approach at the same time as the enemy champion attacks Nasus and leaves the Nasus-player with the oppotunity to only use his debuff (a debuff is related to a penalty that often only last for a minor part of the game) Wither on one of those and leave the other one untouched, either hopeing for a rescue or an oppotunity to find a safe spot. In this situation the Nasus-player has two choices, either cast Teleport and hope he'll be able to survive for a two seconds uninterruptable channeling cast time. Or use his Ghost summoner-spell to flee from the situation. Teleport doesn't only have the ability to flee from dangerous situations in League of Legends. Teleport has the ability to warp to any target friendly structure or minion at any time (at the cost of one summoner-spell slot, three and a half seconds cast time channeled and a cooldown of three hundred seconds) Since Nasus doesn't have any way to improve his speed without either extra items or summoner spells combined with the fact that he needs to improve his (Q) skill Siphoning Strike isn't it expected of the enemy team of him to show up fast in battles in other lanes. Nasus players has to use this to their advantage and surprise the enemy team. Teleport offers the Nasus player this opportunity at the same time it offers him a way to escape. That is why it has been chosen.

Ghost

Ghost is Nasus missing skill, delievered by a summoner spell slot. A way to either chase or escape from a fight. Sadly as many other summoner skills a long cooldown is related to the ability itself (except the summoner spell Smite which has close to three times shorter cooldown than most others) Ghost's ten seconds duration helps Nasus to either chase an enemy champion or escape from different situations he feels unsafe.


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Nasus' total stats (under construction (colums to come))

The reason I've created this section while Mobafire already has an auto-calculator to show this. Is because that Mobafire's calculator don't take mastery pages into account in its calculation, bugs in the calculation of an characters attack speed, doesn't show the damage reduction for magic armor etc. which I feel is a few major aspects of a characters setup. So in this section I'm gonna show the reader how Nasus' stats look like at the end of the build, requiring both the items listed in Mobafire's item-sheet and Nasus' stats at level eighteen.

Base Health: two-thousand and thirty (Improvements plus one-thousand six-houndred and sixty-eight) equals three-thousand six-hundred and ninty-eight points of health
(Improved by the following: Trinity Force, Shyrelya's Reverie, Randuin's Omen, Fury of the Sands (for a period of time), Veteran's Scars and Durability )

Base Mana: one-thousand and ten (Improvements plus two-hundred and fifty) equals one-thousand and two-hundred and sixty mana
(Improved by the following: Trinity Force)

Base Physical Armor: seventy-eight (Improvements plus ninety-three point sixty-nine) equals none-hundred and sixty-one point sixty-nine physical armor
(Improved by the following: Randuin's Omen, nine Greater Seal of Armor and Hardiness )

Base Magic Armor: fifty-two point five (Improvements plus one-hundred and one) equals one-hundred and fifty-three point five magic armor
(Improved by the following: Force of Nature and Mercury's Treads)

Base Movement: three-hundred and twenty-five (Improvements plus one-hundred and fifty-one) equals four-hundred and seventy-six movement
(Improved by the following: Mercury's Treads, Trinity Force, Force of Nature and three Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed)

Base Physical Damage (average damage by auto-attacks): one-hundred and sixteen point three (subtracted from a hidden percentage coursed by an armor modifier depending on enemy hit) (Improvements plus one-hundred and one point thirty-five) equals two-hundred and seventeen point sixty-five points of damage dealt on a average basis
(Improved by the following: Trinity Force, Last Whisper and Brute Force )

Base Attack Speed: zero point nine-nine-nine-one-three-six (Improvements plus zero point three-three-nine-seven-zero) equals one point three-three-eight-eight-four-two attacks each second
(Improved by the following: Trinity Force and Alacrity )

Base Ability Power: zero (Improvements plus thirty) equals thirty
(Improved by the following: Trinity Force)

Base Cooldown Reduction: zero percentage (Improvements plus thirty-seven point ninety-five percentage) equals thirty-seven point ninety-five percentage cooldown reduction
(Improved by the following: Shurelya's Battlesong, Randuin's Omen, Enlightenment , Sorcery and nine Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction)

Base Armor Penetration: zero (Improvements plus fifty percentage armor penetration and fifty-five flat armor penetration) = minus fifty-five points of armor and then another fifty percentage of targets total remaining physical armor afterwards
(Improved by the following: nine Greater Mark of Desolation, Last Whisper, Weapon Expertise and Spirit Fire)
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A bit farewell

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed my guide and my personal build. I would like to hear or see your experience with the build in the future. I'm open to both constructive criticism, ideas and explanations (either feeling I've done something wrong or you simply seeks an explanation.) I will update this guide from time to time and if I stop doing so, I'll of'course flag it as achieved. However, I'll look forward to hear from you all and feel free you add me to ask questions personally if you wish (either on Mobafire or on EU West named AboveGodlike.) May your League of Legends-games involving Nasus result in succes.

I'm sorry if you encounter a number of written mistakes through the guide. A more proper english speaking friend of mine will soon enough correct the mistakes there may exist. There will also be a major update soon, including a more reader-friendly format of layers etc. between the text the reader will encounter through the guide.

Written by AboveGodlike
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