Nasus Build Guide by Crunchy Wartaco

Learn about the taco
Start here. Read about how the guide works and who I am

Summoner spells and boot enchants
Which ones are good on Nasus and the reasons why

How to play like a proper ancient god of destruction
Warding, laning, teamfighting

Random tips and info
About Nasus and the game in general

The end of the nexus




Good day to you! I'm the best of food choices, the CrunchyWartaco, coming from Austin, Texas

I main the jungle of riftlandia and the isolated Top lane. My first major champs were Amumu and Nasus. By the time you're reading this I will have a guide for both, Making this my second! When I'm not playing the Leagues and streaming, I build guitar pedals for work and roam the bars of Austin looking for the finest whiskey

As per usual with my guides: Extra information on Runes, Masteries, Items, and Abilities will be included in notes rather than have its own chapter. This is intended so the guide can be less bogged down and easy to access on the fly

Would love feedback on the guide and an upvote (if you liked it). And please feel free to follow my Twitch and request a character while I'm playing

http://www.twitch.tv/crunchywartaco

Read on and learn that kittens fade away, puppies are forever





Teleport makes a fat puppy. Ghost makes a dead carry

Now that we've covered that, here are the summoners options:

Ignite - I wouldn't recommend Ignite. You will be more consistent as Nasus if you don't play over aggressively. As you get higher in rank you won't be able to get cheesy kills with Nasus' weak early game

Heal - You have a Soul Eater for this!

Exhaust - You have a Wither for this!

Barrier - No need for this. You will be sustaining with flask and Soul Eater

Flash - Wouldn't recommend over Ghost. Ghost gets more Fury of the Sands damage through and more Siphoning Strike hits

Cleanse - You will be tanky and have CC reduction. No real need unless they have 73 Morgana or Sejuani and a Teemo shooting bazooka

Teleport/ Ghost are by far the best summons you will have for Nasus. The Teleport gives you lane control and leads to more Siphoning Strike stacks, and more minions killed along with the possibility of securing a dragon or two kills bottom lane. Ghost will allow you to get more Fury of the Sands damage through and allow you to stick to your targets for more Siphoning Strike beatdowns

I didn't list the other Summoners. If you take any of them I will buy a special diamond encrusted swagstick, and I will become Sugarcane McSmackSwaggins himself and wreck you. But that would make me sad cause I'm a nonviolent kind of person so just don't do it.

Boot enchants explanation:

You will get boot enchantments when you have extra money after your core build

Furor - This is great on Nasus as you have a million ways to proc it and it will allow you to stick to your target and secure kills

Alacrity - Good for general roaming ability and map control since you will have constant speed boost

Homeguard - Use these defensively to save a tower/ Baron / Dragon

Distortion - These are actually great on Nasus to reduce Teleport and Ghost cooldown and thus allow more split pushing stacktion

Captain - Better on people with major speed boosts/dashes but can still work fine on him





Your objective as the Nasus is to be very hard to kill and to fly on golden wings of Egyption fury until you arrive cane in hand to devastate the other teams carries

Warding:

In a lot of cases you will be pushed up against your own tower. If you are at all extending the lane for whatever reason you will need to keep wards up to play top lane effectively as it's arguably the easiest lane to gank. Also Nasus has a reputation for being a late game beast and they will probably try to shut you down in particular

There is a tri bush in the river between mid and top lane that is an amazing place for a Vision Ward and can prevent river ganks all together for you and your mid laner. If you keep this warded as well as the tri bush near your enemies tower you will be a toplane farmgod. Another option would be to put the Vision Ward in your river bush near your tower to ward against river ganks

-stay warded if you are going to push, no exceptions-

As for warding outside of lane you will want to ward any place you think they might hide or run through. Knowing where the enemy is can prevent your team being picked off and allow you to snipe important objective grabbing kills. I don't recommend Arcane Sweeper for top lane as you will need the wards against ganks

ALWAYS UPGRADE WARDING TRINKET AS SOON AS YOU CAN AFTER LV 9

Laning:

During the lane phase you will be itemizing against your opponent the best you can and just stacking your Siphoning Strike and farming furiously. Rush cooldown and tank items and stack stack stack. I usually tell my jungler not to gank top. This allows them to focus on other lanes and dragon control and allows me to control minion waves. But if your opponent is super greedy (pushes constantly or doesn't have flash) then it's fine to call for a gank and can help you or your jungle/mid laner snowball. Always ask your other lanes to ward deeply since you have Teleport. Click down every now and then and check other lanes

Farming is very important as Nasus but not if your team is getting creamed or your top laner is making sushi out of your Fizz and Nami

-YOU WILL HAVE TO HELP YOUR BROS NOT BECOME FOOD-

Follow the versus champion section for specific lane tactics. Otherwise you will most likely be coming out of lane for team fights and such around the twenty minute mark

Teamfighting:

Around the twenty minute mark when the laning phase should be more or less over, you have two options

1. Group with team
2. Continue to split the top lane

This will be a matter of how well ya'll are doing as a team. If you are well fed and keeping one or two people upstairs it can be okay to split push. Or if you are needing extra farm sometimes your team will ask you to stay top and farm knowing how good it is for Nasus and ya'lls late game. Option number two is usually better to choose, though, as it is easier to get objectives and win fights as a group

Your objective once the group fighting actually starts will be to kill the carries on the other team. Whether this is a mid laner/adc/jungle carry, it is usually best to focus the most fed carry. Use your Fury of the Sands when you are surely engaging the fight and your team has shown up. You don't want to Fury of the Sands too early and waste it. And even though you will be very tanky, remember you are melee range and the other team can still burst you down if you do not have proper follow up. Try to dodge any CC you can as you need to get to the back line and start swinging your tree branch of destiny+9. If a rampaging Master Yi is harassing your team though, you might need to use your Wither to peel him off on the way but I believe Nasus is made to brawl the masses






Minions and monsters give more experience to you and nearby allies if you are under leveled. The Dragon gives more experience to you in the same way and will grant even more experience if your team has less average levels than the enemy team

When warding over terrain the ward only has to go halfway over to succeed. You don't even need to put the mouse cursor right where you want to ward. Put it halfway over the terrain and the game will pop it out in the next available walkable ground. The same thing goes for the Flash summoner spell

Even Diamond players use bot games to try new champions/builds and the like, don't be afraid to try it to test new things out before taking on other players

There are trolls in League and people who are just fed up with personal life or with other players. There will be many toxic players. Be as helpful as you can and never flame your team. Only offer good advice and don't be pushy about it. I've found that sucking it up and being the bigger person reflects on your win percentages directly. When some one is too extreme just simply mute them and say nothing. Be nice and profit, you never know when you will play with the same person again

Turrets do increasing damage as they hit you

DON'T UNDERSTESTIMATE LEVELS! You gain health/damage/armor ETC... as you level up. Think of levels like several hundred gold worth of items. As a general rule of thumb be careful around anyone that is higher LV than you

Surrendering doesn't affect the amount of LP that you win or lose. Only your MMR compared to the other team and the amount of games you've won in a row will have an effect on this

Your Fury of the Sands can be used to bait a kill if you fight down to low health before you use it. But when you are team fighting and directly engaged it's better to use it early because armor and magic resist synergize with health to mitigate more damage and you will also want your [fury of the sands]] to stay near the enemy team and shave off more damage per second

You can stack your Siphoning Strike off anything that can die(clones, Summon: Tibbers, gouls, Etc.)

Do yourself a favor and look up " league easter eggs"

Try to only use your Wither when the enemy is hard engaging you to get the most out of the trade





Thank you for checking out my second guide and I hope you enjoyed and learned from it!
Working on streaming full time as always and should be able to soon. If you have any question/comments/guide changes you would like to discuss, feel free to ask away. Again, thank you Mobafire for being a great guide resource and helping us all evolve as League enthusiasts. I will keep all my guides updated as soon as new patches come out or if I have random inspiration to improve them.

CrunchyWartaco, signing off. Thank you and see you on the rift