Hey there everybody. This is my second build/guide I've done on here, and I figure I'd might as well make one for another one of my favourite champions, Nasus. Why am I making this build? Because I frequently see Nasus being played, well, poorly in my opinion. This is not meant to be an EXHAUSTIVE guide, if you want that go look at the guide by: Deluth here

He covers pretty much everything you need to know about being Nasus. What I'm trying to do here is show you how to be Nasus: Destroyer of Worlds, Keeper of the Sands. What I will be going over are your strategies, pros and cons, and overall effectiveness through-out the game. So, let's get started on our merry adventure together, shall we?

I want all of you to take very close look at this build. Looks pretty good to you, doesn't it. WRONG.

WRONG.

Why do I take the time to point out how wrong you and all your friends are? Because I see this OVER AND OVER again. First mistake: Chalice of Harmony, Second Mistake: Non-defensive boots, Third (And most egregious) Mistake: Rushing Trinity Force.

I want to go on a tangent here. Tri-force is a GOOD item. The stats it provides for it's cost and being an INVENTORY SAVING SINGLE SLOT ITEM are good things ON THE RIGHT CHAMPION. However, it is still the highest costing item in the game, and since Nasus really only benefits strongly from the unique passive on Sheen, we can just get that and hold onto it until late-late game!

Now, what are we accomplishing with this build? Well, obviously we're going for high damage output, since there's such huge damage on Nasus' q, right? Well, guess what: Nasus is a slow attacking, lumbering melee champ who will often get focused down because of his nature. If you are not the tankiest person on your team, you will never survive team fights. Your job as Nasus is as follows:

• Tank
• Initiate
• Shut down carries
• Shut down tanks
• Troll the enemy team with your incredible power
  
  Now that we can move past all this nonsense, let's talk a little bit about his skills.
  

Ok, with our runes and masteries, we really have to look at what goals we are trying to accomplish. What we want is maximum tankiness, while also ensuring that we need to build as few offensive items as possible. The way I accomplish this is through Greater Mark of Desolation and Greater quintessence of Desolation, Greater Seal of Armor, and Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist - or, in other words, a standard Tanky DPS rune page. Although I haven't experimented with swapping the armour seals with Greater Seal of Vitality, I'm sure that it is a solid pick.

Now, with our masteries, I choose to go 9/21/0, making sure that I get Summoner's Wrath for the buff to Ghost, and Weapon Expertise in the offense tree. For the defense tree, I make sure to pick up Veteran's Scars , Initiator and Enlightenment , and obviously Juggernaut to tie everything together.

Soul Eater: This is the glue that binds the whole package together. The amazing lifesteal procs off of Siphoning Strike, and will yield incredible numbers even early game. It is also more lifesteal at level 1 than you would get from Wriggle's Lantern, which is why I choose to skip it, but I'll get to that later.

Siphoning Strike: As a Nasus player, this is our bread and butter. We want to max this out FIRST. Siphoning Strike is what makes Nasus what I like to call an inevitability. Like Olaf, Blitzcrank, Lee Sin, and others, eventually Nasus hits "critical mass" and becomes a wrecking ball force. It is not a question of if but a matter of when. Shut him down however you can, Nasus just keeps farming with Siphoning Strike until he cannot be stopped.

Wither: No, it's not just something that Yorick says! It's the strongest slow in the game! In fact, it's so strong, that at level 5 it's nearly a stun, lasts a ridiculously long time, and unlike other similar abilities, such as Wall of Pain, it actually increases in intensity during it's duration. We want a point in this at levels 2 and 4, and then max it out second.

The purpose of putting two points in this ability by level 5 is to enhance ganks from your jungler. This will definitely secure you a kill every time your jungler comes in for a gank.

Spirit Fire: Or, as I like to call it, the other ability. As far as I'm concerned, this is just a filler ability. HOWEVER, with that being said, it is a nice way to put some extra damage on your targets after you wither them, and has some utility in team fights. However, because it has a such high mana cost and such low damage and scaling, we want only one point in this at level 5, and then max it last (reluctantly).

Fury of the Sands: Much like his brother, Renekton's ult, only much stronger. Unlike Dominus, Nasus's ult deals damage while simultaneously converting the damage he deals into bonus attack damage for him. You will use this to initiate ALL team fights, without exception.

All right, so with our summoner spells, we have to look at what we're trying to accomplish. Because of that, we have a few options.

Good choices

• Ghost My personal favourite choice for Nasus. This gives him superiour chasing, escaping, and engaging abilities, while also allowing him to rush and backdoor in certain cases. Overall, an excellent summoner.
• Flash Also a solid pick, but I still prefer Ghost
• Teleport Also a good summoner, allows you to be anywhere on the map to secure kills, assists, or just to help out a teammate or tower that needs you.
• Cleanse Personally, I think this is the best choice of spells. What I find happens most often in team fights is everyone will blow their hard CC on Nasus, in order to give them some breathing room to focus on the carries. Cleanse allows you to shake that off easily, and get right back into the fight doing serious hurts.
• Heal It's not bad, I GUESS. With Soul Eater, Warmog's Armor and Force of Nature it becomes kind of pointless late game. Let the carry or support take heal, if you can.

Bad Choices

• Exhaust Do I even have to explain why this is dumb?
• Ignite Again, you should not need this to secure kills. Don't take it.
• Surge I'VE SEEN IT BEFORE I SWEAR TO GOD.

Ok, this section is really going to be all about farming with Nasus' q. Now, obviously not every game is going to be the same, but if you are able to keep the bonus damage on Siphoning Strike 10x the match time, you're doing all right.

What is the best case scenario for Nasus in lane? Well, to be constantly pushed under his tower, of course! This happens to me time and time again when in lane, especially with really aggressive farmers like Irelia, Gangplank, Singed, and others. Often, however, I will allow my lane to be pushed as far back as possible just so I can farm under my tower.

Try to only last hit minions with Siphoning Strike to maximize your stacking. Obviously, don't throw away CS just because Siphoning Strike is on cooldown, but do your best not to push your lane.

Now, to many people, being forced to farm passively is considered being shut down. For some champions, this may be the case.

Not for Nasus: Destroyer of Worlds, Keeper of the Sands.

If we can get pushed to our tower, this gives us a chance to farm up our Q stacks in a safe environment, and give our lane opponent little opportunity to harass us. If they start to get cheeky and try to take the tower early, just throw a Wither and Spirit Fire on them, they'll run away soon enough.

Every once in a while, look at the bonus damage on Siphoning Strike to gauge your success in lane. Best case scenario is to have somewhere around 250 (yes, 250) bonus damage at 20 minutes, and around 400 by 30 minutes. Seems excessive?

Then stop reading my guide.

Now, not every game is going to be identical, and obviously we may run into a hiccup or two here and there. What is the bottom-most acceptable for strong Nasus farm is around 180 bonus damage at 20 minutes. However, you should feel embarrassed and be working your *** off to last hit better at this point.

The only other thing to remember is that Nasus is the king of "Oh, I forgot they had that champ on their team!" If you can stay in your lane for as long as possible, and then roll into team fights dealing over 600 damage per hit, then you'll be the talk of the town.

Just remember this fun little saying: If you're not farming, that's alarming! If you don't have q stacks, then GET YOUR LAZY SORRY *** BACK IN LANE AND FARM LIKE IT'S THE 14TH CENTURY AND I OWN YOUR *******ED *** GO MAKE ME A SANDWICH

Similarly with our runes and masteries, we have to consider our goals as Nasus when looking at items to build. What we want is to achieve large amounts of armour, magic resist, and any items that help us sustain early game, farm mid game, and initiate late game. So, let's discuss what I have found to be an infallible item build:

Early game

• Regrowth Pendant A solid pick for your first item. We don't need Cloth Armor because of our runes and masteries, and we want to build ourselves a Philosopher's stone as soon as we can. I will explain further down.
• Ninja Tabi The cheapest level 2 boots in the game, and the armour and damage reduction are very helpful early game. I will inevitably sell these by mid-late game for Mercury's Treads, because I feel the tenacity is a stronger benefit than the flat damage reduction, especially considering how much armour we end up building.
• Heart of Gold Another item we want to build as soon as we can. We will build this into a Randuin's Omen mid-late game.

Two gp10s? WHAT KIND OF CRACKPOTHOTSHOTSHOW ARE YOU RUNNING HERE STYLES ROCKMAN? Remember: We are doing our best NOT take take ANY CS that won't end up on our Siphoning Strike farm. What this means is we're going to have low CS early game and, ergo, less money. What this allows us to do is to continue to buy items that we need without sacrificing our position in lane.

Mid game

• Sheen Now, regardless of the match time or what the rest of your team is doing, this is the point at which Nasus reaches mid game. Once you have your sheen, you begin doing serious damage, and this allows you for, pretty much the rest of the game, to nearly or completely one-hit creeps, making last hitting a pure dream. As I've said before, we will eventually build this into a Trinity Force, but not until we've finished the rest of our build. It's simply not worth it.
• Warden's Mail and Randuin's Omen A good pick for your first tanky item. The cdr, unique active, and health and armour all make this a great item for Nasus
• Giant's Belt to Warmog's Armor Is it necessary? No. Does it turn you into Nasus: Destroyer of Worlds, Keeper of the Sands? You bet

At this point, you're going to be pretty stupid. Stupid in a good way, that is, and everyone on the enemy team is going to peg you as a threat. So at this point, our goal is to start building even tankier, and as fast as we can.

Late game

• Mercury's Treads Sell those old, worn out Ninja Tabi and buy yourself a TENACIOUS new pair of these babies! (See what I did there?)
• Negatron Cloak to Force of Nature This should replace the philosopher's stone in our inventory. Massive magic resist and health regen? NEED I SAY MORE? (I need not)
• Atma's Impaler While ultimately being a defensive item, this is obviously too good an item to pass up, given how much health we build on Nasus. Also works in tandem with your ultimate, making you deal way too much damage.
• Elixir of Agility and Elixir of Fortitude and Elixir of Brilliance and Oracle's Elixir Well, you'll need to spend all that extra money on SOMETHING

At this point, you'll have become a wrecking ball force, and will find that you haven't died for a very long time. Congratulations, you have achieved critical mass!

Now, it is at this point that you are welcome to, if the enemy team hasn't surrendered that is, finish your Trinity Force. I will say in all honesty, however, that about 90% of the time I completely forget about it until it doesn't even matter because I'm carrying too hard. But, if you've got the money and the time, knock yourself out.

Thanks for reading my guide on Nasus: Destroyer of Worlds, Keeper of the Sands. Please comment, and ask any questions on anything I have not made clear. As well, please rate, and rate high, so we can get the word out to ALL THE PEOPLES OUT THERE.