Hello! I play League of Legends since 2016 on EU-West. At the moment I have rank Platinum and my highest rank was Diamond 4 in Season 9. My main champions are: Kayle, Malphite and Nasus. I have almost 500 000 mastery points at Nasus and in this guide I want to share with you my experience that I received since 2016.

Let me know in the comments section if you find any mistakes or outdated information so I could fix it! Thanks in advance! :)

I also want to invite you to subscribe to my YouTube channel where I'm going to make a lot of League of Legends content in English: https://www.youtube.com/c/DixonGames/videos

Nasus is one of the strongest champions of League of Legends at the end of the game and it is almost impossible to stop Nasus who stack a large number of souls. At the end of the game, Nasus transforms into an excellent melee tank with huge damage. He is quite simple in understanding and mechanics, so learning how to play him will not be difficult. You just need to be able to farm well and finish off minions with Siphoning Strike. At the beginning of the game it's quite boring to play Nasus. If you play Nasus, you need to be able to understand how to farm the lane correctly and how to control minion waves like when to freeze and when to fast push. As quite a good tank, Nasus is able to consume a lot of damage. In this guide, we will analyze what items are best to collect for the champion, what is the main strategy for playing Nasus and how to properly position yourself in the game. This champion is very strong at the end of the game and can turn the tide of the game and drag his team to victory, but you need to be patient and have really a lot of patience. Together with Wither and Ghost it will be almost impossible to run away from you on the lane and also by the end of the game with your huge vampirism and items for armor and magic resistance it will be difficult to kill you. Therefore, if you have patience, then by the end of the game with the correct minion farming Siphoning Strike, you will become a formidable weapon for your team, killing everyone and everything that you come across.

Pros:
- Strong champion in the mid and late game.
- An excellent passive that allows you to restore a large amount of health.
- Wither is one of the best slows in the game.
- A very good Ultimate that gives great survivability and damage.
- At the same time Nasus can do good damage and be a tank.
- Easy to learn, easy to play, easy to master


Cons:
- There are no escape skills.
- Depends on the farm, especially at the beginning of the game.
- Weak in the beginning, you need to play passively and you will probably lose 2v2 fight on the river for the scuttle crab.
- Hard to play against teams with a lot of CC.

is an excellent passive that almost any champion with a physical attack probably dreams of. Nasus can restore a good amount of health and stay in the lane longer due to this skill. He can also outsustain and win a lot of 1v1 fights in extended trades with other champions.

is one of Nasus's core skills that makes this dude one of the strongest late mid and late game champions. Every time you finish off a minion with this skill, you increase the damage of this skill by 3 points. At the same time, the amount of stacks you can make is endless. The longer you farm and the more you kill minions using this ability, the stronger it becomes. By the end of the game, the damage bonus becomes simply unimaginable and with one hit Nasus can take down almost half the health of some weak carry, mage or a support. Also, this skill greatly simplifies the minion farming. Note that Nasus gains four times more charges if he finishes off a siege minion or large neutral monster (including the Dragon and Baron).

is probably one of the best slowdowns in the game. First of all, it slows both attack speed and movement speed at the same time. Secondly, you cannot miss this ability, as this is a directed skill which works only on enemy champions so there will be no missclicks on minions. Thirdly, the percentage of slowdown is simply huge, and even the duration of as much as 5 seconds.

The damage of the ability is certainly not the greatest, especially if you have little magical power, but it reduces the armor of targets and has a very good radius of damage. The ability is also good for wave clearing if you don't have time to hit them one after another by Siphoning Strike. If you want to last hit a minion by this ability, try to do it that way so you would not deal damage to other enemy minions! In most cases you don't want your minion wave to move far away from your tower wich is literally your safe life zone in the early game.

due to this ultimate Nasus becomes simply immortal. Even without any artifacts to protect Nasus in the battle, he is able to restore a huge amount of health and stay alive for a long time. With the right playstyle and build it is almost impossible to kill Nasus under the ultimate. Very often enemies will be defeated because of the same mistake when they try to kill the half-dead Nasus, but he still does not want to die.

Sometimes you can try to bait enemies to attack you under your tower. Some of them think that they can kill you by 1-2 abilities and escape afterwards. But they forget that Nasus receives bonus health after the activation of Fury of the Sands. You simply use Wither to slow them down so the tower would deal 1 more strike and use one Siphoning Strike if the enemy become too close to you so you would deal additional damage and heal your champion by Soul Eater. Your goal in such situation is to live as long as possible and wait until your tower will kill the diving enemy champion.

is the most popular and the best core mythic item for Nasus at the moment. This item is especially good for extended fights against tanks and bruisers since it gives you both damage and sustain you need to win a fight. The item also works great with Siphoning Strike since it's an item that includes power of Sheen inside it. You can buy this item with no doubt in 100% of your games with Nasus


is a core artifact for some champions. Sometimes this item alone is enough to dramatically improve your champion's performance. Trinity Force is assembled from very convenient components, each one gives very good bonuses. Please note that, unlike Sheen, this artifact, after using the skill, allows you to inflict bonus physical damage equal to 200% of the base damage, not 100%! Because of additional attack speed, this item works well with the rune Conqueror which is also popular among some of Nasus enjoyers. For Nasus this item can be a good choice if you play against a team with no tanks and heavy bruisers, so there will be no extended fights and your major goal and problem at the same time is going to be only a need to catch any enemy champion and kill him after using 2-4 Siphoning Strikes. And Trinity Force is very usefull to do it since the item will increases the movement speed of your champion. But once again, you should choose this item over Divine Sunderer only if there is no strong tanks and bruisers in the enemy team. At the moment Trinity Force has even higher win rate than Divine Sunderer.



is most commonly used by champions to protect against magical damage and to enhance healing effects. These effects include normal healing or some form of health regeneration. In other words, you will be healed more by your allies and you will heal yourself much more effectively. Also the effects of lifesteal will restore more health. Its passive works well with any champion that has self-healing, self-shield, omnivamp, or life steal built into their kit. So the healing from Divine Sunderer and Soul Eater will be in 25% stronger!


is one of core items for Nasus. The item also works well with champions that desire ability haste, have mana problems and make very good use of the passive for extra dueling potential. It is one of the few items to counter champions that function heavily around using basic attacks, such as most of marksmen or champions like Kayle, Yasuo, Tryndamere, Master Yi and other auto-attackers. If the enemy team has no champions who deal most of their damage by auto-attacks and don't buy items for attack speed then it would be better to buy Gargoyle Stoneplate instead.


is an alternative item to Frozen Heart and I prefer to buy it when the enemy team has no champions who deal most of their damage by auto-attacks and don't buy items for attack speed.


is a particularly effective defensive option when facing down opponents whose damage is dealt primarily through basic attacks, or against opponents that utilize healing from attacks to survive fights (such as life steal). It's very useful against such champions like Aatrox, Warwick, Darius etc.


is a strong counter against basic auto-attackers that stack well on critical strike chance, like Yasuo, Tryndamere, Yone and most of marksmen. You should consider to buy this item if the enemy team 2 or more champions who rely on critical strike damage.


is a good option against teams with lots of champions with magical type of damage. Moreover, additional movement speed bonus is a very useful thing for Nasus.


was also a very nice item for Nasus in the past due to its movement speed bonus, but it was nerfed several times and now this item can only be good if the enemy team has lots of mobile champions and movement speed becomes more important for you than armour and other characteristics.


you can buy this item as 5th or 6th only for its great passive that can ressurect your champion. The item can be sold after using the passive.


you should buy this item and use this effect on such champions which are:
- An enemy champion that deals a lot of damage in general.
- An enemy champion that consistently matches you and contests your pushes on the side lane.
- An enemy champion that is very ahead, or poses a much greater threat than other enemy champions.
- An enemy champion that is the only reliable source of physical or magical damage on that team (this means you are able to choose them as the Nemesis and itemize against everyone else).


this item gives your champion extra slow effect and damage, especially on targets with heavy armor. This is the attack damage counterpart of Rylai's Crystal Scepter for bruisers. Nasus has additional HP and protection from his Ultimate so there is no need to build him a full tank in 100% games. If the enemy team has lots of tanks then this items can be really useful.


+ are the best and most standard starting items for Nasus which you can buy for 100% of your games.



you buy it if the enemy team has 2 or more auto-attackers.


this item is supposed to help you if the enemy team has too much of CC abilities like stuns, slows, roots, fears etc.


is the best and the most popular choice for Nasus when you have no need to buy neither Mercury's Treads nor Plated Steelcaps.


Here is my gameplay video of my OFF-META giga fun build with maxing E first and spamming it on the enemy champion and his minions. It's hard to kill someone, but it also gives lots of fun by poking them down and having lane priority to go out and help my jungler almost every time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beJp8Wx3ejo&t

+
Both spells give Nasus great mobility to catch up his enemies. This summoner spell combination is good if you want to play with the rune Unsealed Spellbook because the rune allows you to get access to Teleport which is very needed at 6-10th minutes to do the first Recall and to return back quickly to not lose any gold or experience. You will be able to get Teleport later on to do successful split-push strategy. And your champion will be even more mobile if you take the rune Nimbus Cloak.

+
This is one of two variants if you want to play with Teleport and some other runes like Fleet Footwork or Conqueror instead of picking Unsealed Spellbook. In general, Ghost is better than Flash for chasing an enemy on open space, but Nasus has no opportunities to move over walls and obstacles without Flash.

+
Is the second option for playing Nasus with Teleport, but without the rune Unsealed Spellbook. Flash allows you to chase an enemy over a wall or escape from him by using one. However, accordingly to statistics this variant has the lowest win rate at the moment.

Nasus is a very flexible champion in terms of rune usage. Lets make it clear what runes and when are good for our doggy.


is one of the most popular keystones for Nasus at the moment. It provides additional sustain and movement speed both on early and later stages of the game. This rune is good against the hardest matchups.


and can boost your dueling potential to dominate over some strong champions earlier, but I don't find this keystones as the best. Nasus can outscale and beat most of his opponents without them.


is one of the best runes in the Precision tree. Despite it's not very useful at the early game, but this rune helps a lot in later teamfights and it's able to restore lots of health on the battlefield. This rune is undisputably better for Nasus than Overheal and Presence of Mind.


is super useful for most immobile champions (including Nasus) that vulnerable to kiting. When this rune is completely stacked, it gives 30% tenacity which is equal to Mercury's Treads. This rune is undisputably better for Nasus than Legend: Alacrity ( Nasus doesn't scale with AA speed) or Legend: Bloodline (this rune is overnerfed). This rune can also be chosen for the second rune tree.


simply provides more damage for Nasus than alternative runes Coup de Grace and Cut Down.


can help you to run down an escaping enemy champion and to resist his slow. It can be a good option against a champion like Kayle who is weaker 1v1 duelist than Nasus but she can kite him by her slowing Radiant Blast.


and are not particularly good for Nasus on the TOP lane, but I use them for my fun MID lane build where I max Spirit Fire firstly and spam it over squishy enemy champions without healing or strong regeneration.


is helpful for those players who love to spam their abilities and feel strong lack of mana. This rune can also be chosen for the second rune tree.


helps against teams with lots of mobile or high ranged enemies who are hard to catch. This rune can also be chosen for the second rune tree.


isn't super strong for Nasus overall but it still gives some Ability Haste which is a very good characteristic for the doggy.


gives extra movement speed, scales well with MS items, runes and summoner spells and can be a better choice than Transcendence if you play with Phase Rush, Nimbus Cloak, Ghost, Force of Nature and Dead Man's Plate.


isn't particularly strong for Nasus since he doesn't scale well from pure AD, but it can be taken because it's still better than such alternatives as Scorch and Waterwalking


is a good rune for my MID fun build to harass enemy champions and force them to leave the lane by spamming Spirit Fire onto them.


is my favorite rune for Nasus at the moment. With this rune we can easily take Ghost + Flash and still have access to Teleport like twice in the game for quick return to the lane after your first back and for doing split push later on and be able to fly to your team to fight for Baron Nashor or Elder Dragon. Overall you can use some Summoners Spells in literally every fight which works well with the rune Nimbus Cloak.


allows you to spare 300 gold, gives +10 movement speed bonus which is great for immobile Nasus and this rune is simply better by every way for the doggy than Hextech Flashtraption or Perfect Timing.


helps you to live through the early game and permanently increases a little bit your mana pool which is also helpful since you will not be in need so fast to do Recall just to restore mana.


is also a decent rune because it helps you to buy Kindlegem instead of just Ruby Crystal, so you will have +10 Ability Haste and be able to stack and use Siphoning Strike more times.


is the best rune among others for Nasus since it boosts your movement speed towards slowed or CCed enemies and makes it harder for them to kite your champion.


is not very good for Nasus since he has to trade and stay close to the enemy which is deadly in the early game when the doggy is very weak. Maybe you can use this rune successfully against such tanks as Malphite and Maokai or at elo Silver and below. Generally speaking the whole Resolve tree is only good as the second rune tree since its kaystones aren't that good for Nasus in comparison with other alternatives.


helps to destroy enemy towers more quickly. However, Nasus doesn't need it very much since he is able to destroy them fast enough by himself, but anyway this rune is better than Font of Life or Shield Bash.


is a good protective option against champions with fast burst damage like Renekton or Riven.


is a very helpful rune for laning phase. Take it when you expect your enemy to deal damage to you all the time. It's great against Kayle, Vladimir, Teemo, Quinn, Neeko, Jayce, Kennen etc. This rune can also be chosen for the second rune tree. I prefer this rune more often than others. It helps so well together with Doran's Shield to survive first 15 minutes of the game.


is a good scaling rune that makes you more tanky in the late game. You can take it if there is no need to get Second Wind or Bone Plating for the early game.


is a useful late game rune that will give you 200+ HP. This rune can also be chosen for the second rune tree. I prefer this rune more often than others.


provides some tenacity and slow resist. You can take this rune instead of Overgrowth if the enemy team has lots of CC. This rune can also be chosen for the second rune tree as well.

At this stage of the game you are vulnerable to ganks and aggression from the enemy laner, so we play carefully. Your main task for the first 15-20 minutes is to farm minions with help of Siphoning Strike, which gives you 3 charges for each regular minion and monster, for each cannon minion, big monster and champion you get 12 charges, the charges are unlimited. Your enhanced auto-attack will inflict fixed damage from the level plus the number of charges that you have accumulated, so the more charges you have collected, the more painful this enhanced auto-attack will be. This is why minion farming is so important for Nasus.

At this stage, we will consider two scenarios. First one is when the enemy laner outplays you and constantly harrasses you on the lane, you should not lose a lot of HP just for taking a minion. Try to get experience instead of gold and let some minions just die there. Anyway, when you farm enough charges later on, you will take your revenge on everyone. You have to try to farm everything whenever and wherever is possible on the lane and in the local jungle, plus ask the Jungler for help if the enemy laner is sitting under your tower. It's quite easy to gank your lane because Nasus has amazing slow Wither.

In the second scenario you are doing well in the lane, then you still stand on the lane until the middle of the game, accumulating charges, destroying the enemy champion and trying to get plates and ruin the tower. After that you can propose to change lanes with your allies. Be careful, because everyone knows that leaving and free farming Nasus is not safe and the enemy jungler or even a mid-lane will constantly try to come to kill you. Don't forget to put a ward on the river and check the mini-map each time you kill a minion, especially if you do it far away from your tower.

Now lets talk about how many stacks of Siphoning Strike you can have before 20th minute:
200 is minimum
200-300 is low, but still OK
300-400 is considered as average and nice
400> is a good amount

Nasus becomes a real threat to squishy enemies after he gets at least 400 stacks. There are a lot of jokes and memes about Nasus being an afk farmer during the whole game. I think it's only important to afk farm until you have 400 stacks. After reaching this amount of stacks you can group for taking objectives together with your team and then return to split push and farming.

As you probably now Nasus is one of the weakest champions early on. So you might ask what is the time to start to fight back and destroy the enemy laner. I think that you need at least level 9 (level 5 of Siphoning Strike) + 150 stacks of your Q + Sheen to fight and win a strong melee champion 1v1. If you play against a weak or a ranged champion, or someone who let you stack Q for free, you can try to all-in them at level 6 or 7. The most important you need to have your Ultimate Fury of the Sands ready and enough mana for other abilities. And it's better to not attack an enemy if he just spent his money to buy more new items and you have like 1000+ unused gold in your pocket.

If you have your powerspike with level 7-9, you have Sheen and 150+ stacks and you want to kill the enemy laner then try to provoke him to push the minion wave closer to your tower, so he would not have big chances to escape since his tower is far away. Most enemy players, who never played Nasus, don't know his powerspikes. They could think that they are still in charge on the lane and play agressively against you. So our goal is to put as much road between the enemy and his tower as possible and then you will show him that you are the new BOSS of the TOP lane! Don't hurry to use Wither at the very beginning of your 1v1 fight though. You can start with pressing Spirit Fire, Fury of the Sands and Ghost. After applying enough amount of Siphoning Strike onto his face you will see him trying to run away and this is the time to activate Wither to slow him down and finishing him off. But there is an exception. If you try to fight an auto-attack based champion like Kayle, Yasuo, Jax or Tryndamere you can use Wither to reduce their AA speed which is their major source of damage, but still don't do it at the very very beginning. Use it after 2-3 second, after you used all other abilities. It will spare about 2 additional seconds of slow that could be really decisive for the outcome of the battle.

At this stage of the game it all depends on how the initial stage of the game went. If at the beginning of the game everything is not going well for you, then we continue to farm and push the lane and break towers until your Nasus has at least 400 stacks of Siphoning Strike. We try to accumulate as many stacks as possible and push everything that is possible in situations when the team does well. But if the whole team is about to take a dragon or another important neutral objective, it is better to try your luck in the team fight, but it's not your problem if your team wants just to play some ARAM or make a team fight for no reason.

If at the beginning of the game everything went well for you, then at this stage of the game you can already go to help your allies, participate in team fights for dragons or push the side lanes that will give you both the farm and you will distract the attention of at least two champions because no one will defeat Nasus 1v1 if he has stacked Siphoning Strike well. And if 2+ enemies try to stop you it means that your team has the number advantage on the opposite side of the map. Don't expect them to use this advantage wisely though.

And during this period of time, you will feel that it was not in vain that you were so strongly focused on farming minions in the beginning. Your main task will only be to get close to the enemy champion with the help of Wither which slows down the enemy very well, then you can use Spirit Fire which deals magic damage for 5 seconds in the area and also reduces the target's armor. Therefore, it is better to use it on tanks. In team fights your primary goal is an enemy carry or whatever squishy appears in front of your face. Next we press Fury of the Sands and slow down a target, destroy it after a couple of Siphoning Strikes and continue fighting until there are no enemies left. Then we try to ruin more enemy towers or to secure a Dragon\Rift Herald\Baron Nashor.

At this stage, when you have already stacked a sufficient number of charges and collected the necessary items you become a formidable weapon, but this does not mean that you can go alone into five enemy champions. But if the battle goes on 5x5, 4x5 or even 3x5 (and this 5 are damaged and used their ulties) then you can win this battle thanks to Nasus's huge damage and good tankiness along with vampirism. Also, at this stage of the game you perfectly break the towers by literally 3 to 5 Siphoning Strikes, so if the enemy team is distracted you can use this and push down several towers, which will not be difficult for you, especially in Nasus super form Fury of the Sands. At this stage of the game almost no one wants to meet Nasus one-on-one somewhere in the lane or in the jungle, so you will be constantly feared and focused in team fights. Go to a side lane and try to make pressure there, but be aware of the location of enemies. If you don't sure where they are and your allies are not near of some important objective like a dragon or Baron Nashor, do not go deeply in the dark and unknown enemy's territory.

Early game is the hardest part of the game for Nasus. He does not have enough damage and it makes no sense to fight someone. Often it all comes down to the fact that you are standing under your own tower and finishing off minions using Siphoning Strike. Even if you come across a weak opponent and you manage to stand comfortably, focus on farming and not on making an extra hit on the enemy. Nasus has no escape skills, so expect an enemy jungler to come and try to kill you. Watch the map carefully and, if possible, place wards on the approaches to the lane. You should try to use the Siphoning Strike skill on the cooldown and finish off the minions while doing it. By the way, Nasus gets x4 bonus for big monsters and cannon minions. So you certainly can't miss them. Wither is the best to use only at the most extreme moment, since this is your only chance to escape from a jungler if he suddenly appears. Nasus is very dependent on farming, so throughout the entire beginning of the game you should be focused on this, it should be your obsession to finish off every minion.

As soon as an ult appears in Nasus's arsenal, the situation will change slightly for the better, since its activation will save your life more than once. If in the middle of the game your team doesn't really move around the map, but stays on its own lanes, then it's better to stay on your own and continue farming. With each new level and each new artifact Nasus is getting stronger and stronger. If you see that the teams have begun active movements, then it is better to go to help your allies. At the same time, Nasus most often takes the position of a tank or a heavy bruiser and it is he who enters the battle first if there is no other tank in your team who has better potantial for making a fast engage into enemy team. Nasus is capable of doing good damage, but your favorable target is a squishy carry champion like a mage or adc. If there is a carry in your field of vision, then you need to immediately throw slow and start attacking him. Usually during the slowdown, if no one helps the enemy carry, he dies. Always keep an eye on the minimap. You have Teleport in your arsenal and after 14th minute you can quickly teleport to other lanes and help your allies. If you farm well at the beginning of the game and bought basic items, then you will not have any problems with killing enemy champions.

The end of the game is not very different from the middle. In general, Nasus's attacks become more powerful and his tank qualities are better. Nasus can safely rush into the battle first, activating his ultimate and taking all the main damage on himself. This is the most interesting part of the game for Nasus. You run calmly, deal powerful damage due to Siphoning Strike with lots of stacks and make enemies scream with rage when they cannot kill you under the ultimate super form.


Wow, have you really read the guide till this moment? I hope it was useful and interesting for you. Let me know it please by voting!

And don't forget to visit and check my YouTube channel! Maybe you will like it! 😉 https://www.youtube.com/c/DixonGames/videos


There are some Nasus videos that you can find on my channel.

1. Gameplay video Nasus vs Singed on the TOP lane - 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4fnWxC4cOU

2. Gameplay video on the mid lane against Talon - 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beJp8Wx3ejo

3. Gameplay review of two Master elo players Nasus vs Gwen on the top lane - 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvxmJbqnNLQ

4. Gameplay review of Challenger Nasus against Syndra at MID and Gwen at TOP - 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i3Hoa1aero&t

5. Gameplay video Nasus VS Jax on the top lane - 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIoqZI9YAc&t

6. Gameplay video Nasus VS Shen on the top lane - 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrb2Th01naI

7. Gameplay video Nasus VS Akali on the top lane - 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23UkVhauUa0