Nasus is a very strong top laner with a lot of potential in late game.
In this guide we will be discussing about runes, masteries, skil order, farming, pros and cons. :)

Health 561.2 (+90)
Attack damage 59.18 (+3.5)
Health regen 9.01 (+0.9)
Attack speed 0.638 (+3.48%)
Mana 275.6 (+45)
Armor 24.88 (+3.5)
Mana regen. 7.44 (+0.5)
Magic resist 32.1 (+1.25)
Movement speed 350

Nasus has a natural 10 / 15 / 20% life steal.

COST: 20 mana
COOLDOWN: 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4

Active: Nasus empowers his next basic attack within the next 10 seconds to deal bonus physical damage.

Bonus Damage: 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+total stacks of Siphoning Strike)

If the ability deals a killing blow, Nasus gains 3 stacks of Siphoning Strike (doubled for killing champions, large minions and large monsters).

Siphoning Strike is a single-use on-hit effect.

Does not apply spell effects.
The triggering attack will apply other on-hit effects and can critically strike as normal.
As with most on-hit physical damage, the bonus damage from Siphoning Strike will apply life steal.
Critical strikes modify Siphoning Strike's base bonus damage but not the bonus damage from the stacks.
The bonus damage will affect structures.
The enhanced attack can not be dodged.
Siphoning Strike's damage will be mitigated if Nasus's attack is blocked or parried.
Siphoning Strike's empowerment will not be consumed if the attack misses.
Spell shields will block the attack.

Siphoning Strike resets Nasus' autoattack timer on cast.
Siphoning Strike's cooldown will not start until the empowerment is used or expires.
Siphoning Strike can gain bonus damage from last hitting any targetable enemy unit, including:
1) wards
2) yorick's ghouls
3) shaco's boxes
4) teemo's mushrooms
5) malzahar's voidlings
6) annie's tibbers

Additional enemies killed by effects such as Tiamat and Iceborn Gauntlet on the empowered attack will not generate additional bonus damage. This is unlike Gangplank's Parrrley, who will gain bonus gold even for each enemy killed by the splash damage.

Active: Nasus ages his target, slowing their movement speed by 35% for 5 seconds. The target's attack speed is also slowed by half the amount, initially slowed by 17.5%.

The slow increases over the duration.


COST: 80 mana
COOLDOWN: 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 / 11


Additional Movement Slow per second: 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 15%

Max Movement Speed Slow: 47 / 59 / 71 / 83 / 95%

Additional Attack Speed Slow per second: 1.5 / 3 / 4.5 / 6 / 7.5%

Max Attack Speed Slow: 23.5 / 29.5 / 35.5 / 41.5 / 47.5%

Wither is a targeted ability.
Does not apply spell effects.
Spell shields will block the application of Wither.

If the duration of Wither is reduced by crowd control reduction, the increasing slow is applied faster so that it reaches the same max amount at the end.

Nasus unleashes a spirit flame at a target 400-radius area, dealing magic damage to enemies caught within. The spirit flame burns for 5 seconds afterwards, dealing magic damage each second and reducing the armor of enemies within the area.


COST: 70 / 85 / 100 / 115 / 130 mana
COOLDOWN: 12

Initial Magic Damage: 55 / 95 / 135 / 175 / 215 (+ 60% AP)

Magic Damage Per Second: 11 / 19 / 27 / 35 / 43 (+ 12% AP)

Total Magic Damage: 110 / 190 / 270 / 350 / 430 (+ 120% AP)

Armor Reduction: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40

Spirit Fire is a ground targeted area of effect ability.

Applies spell effects as an area of effect ability.
Spell vamp is reduced to one-third effectiveness.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 15% slow.
Magic damage will be mitigated by magic shields.
Spell shields will not block Spirit Fire.

Spirit Fire grants sight of the targeted area for a short duration on cast, in a smaller area than the spell's area of effect.

Nasus summons a sandstorm to empower himself for 15 seconds, enlarging his size, gaining bonus health and increasing his attack range by 50 (175 total range).

While the storm rages, enemies within 175 range take magic damage equal to a percentage of their maximum health (max of 240 magic damage per second per enemy).


Bonus Health: 300 / 450 / 600

Magic Damage Per Second: 3 / 4 / 5% (+ 1% per 100 AP) of enemies' maximum health

Total Magic Damage: 45 / 60 / 75% (+ 15% per 100 AP) of enemies' maximum health

Nasus converts 6.375% of the damage done by the sandstorm into bonus attack damage for himself (max of 300 bonus attack damage).


COST: 100 mana
COOLDOWN: 120


Fury of the Sands is a point blank area of effect ability.

Applies spell effects as an area of effect ability.
Spell vamp is reduced to one-third effectiveness.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 15% slow.
Magic damage will be mitigated by magic shields.
Spell shields will not block Fury of the Sands.

Bonus health-gain is not affected by Grievous Wounds, and remains on Nasus after Fury of the Sands expires.

Nasus' Soul Eater will keep him sustained in the jungle or a solo lane.
Constantly last hitting with Siphoning Strike will have an enormous impact by the end of a game, and will be your primary source of damage.
If you are having difficulty last hitting minions with Siphoning Strike (against strong zoners), request a lane change or a gank.
The damage from Siphoning Strike will proc on turrets. Use it to quickly take down turrets.
Wither on your targets will make it easier to land Spirit Fire.png Spirit Fire before using Siphoning Strike, as Spirit Fire greatly reduces the target's armor, making you hit much harder than normal.
Wither is best used to shut down auto-attack dependent champions, slowing them to a crawl and reducing their attack speed dramatically.
Choose your target wisely (usually a carry) when casting, as the moderate cooldown isn't very forgiving if you choose poorly.
With high amounts of cooldown reduction, Nasus can almost continuously maintain Wither on the enemy team (5 sec duration, 6.6 sec cooldown). However, enemy tenacity can counter-act this.
Without any gap-closers or mobility, Nasus relies on his Wither.png Wither to protect himself from being kited.
Be careful when using Spirit Fire near your tower, as it will push the lane and you will lose last-hits.
During the laning phase, Spirit Fire will discourage your enemies from farming, but it has a relatively high mana cost.
Nasus's ultimate can be used at the start of team fights as you will be doing constant AoE damage to enemies while gaining attack damage for big hits. It can also be saved for the end of a fight to bait enemies with the health boost (stronger in small fights).
Fury of the Sands can be used offensively or defensively, use it to catch or escape enemies, as it also gives a massive health boost.
A team with Nasus can kill Baron Nashor earlier because his Fury of the Sands and passive life steal from Soul Eater lets him tank and kill it much more easily.

Nasus can be itemized as a melee DPS, one shotting machine, as a tank, or as an off-tank, based upon the rest of your team composition.
Generally speaking, a tanky build is considered optimal on Nasus, due to his naturally high late-game damage from Siphoning Strike, which also makes him a priority target for the enemy team.
Because lacks the ability to hard gap close into an enemy, grabbing Ghost is recommend over Flash as it allows Nasus to effective get close into an enemy unit.
As Nasus relies on Siphoning Strike as his primary source of damage, it is important to stay in lane in order to continuously farm Siphoning Strike. Any items to sustain him in lane with mana and health like a Catalyst the Protector are important. Building early resistances like a Cloth Armor or a Null-Magic Mantle according to the main damage source can allow you to take a little more harass and stay in lane longer.
It is possible to build Nasus into a one shotting machine using Infinity Edge, Last Whisper and Trinity Force.
Think about buying Chalice of Harmony early. Although it doesn't build into any items that are particularly useful for Nasus, he will constantly have mana to constantly farm minions.
An early Tear of the Goddess into a Manamune also solves Nasus's mana hunger. The Manamune also synergizes well with items like Sheen, Trinity Force and Frozen Heart, which are all good items for Nasus. The bonus damage makes it easier to farm for his Siphoning Strike.
An alternative is to build Athene's Unholy Grail. This serves several purposes; it gives Nasus a little magic resist, which helps him tank, grants an essentially endless mana pool, and gives cooldown reduction, which allows him to more easily farm Siphoning Strike, and use his other abilites more often.
The life steal from Soul Eater grants him sustainability, allowing him to build other items. However, he can still benefit from life steal items since Siphoning Strike damage procs with life steal:
The Bloodthirster should not be ignored simply because of Nasus's innate abilities. In a more offensive build, The Bloodthirster synergizes well with Nasus's life steal passive and Siphoning Strike damage and can help deal as well as take more damage if Siphoning Strike isn't that well farmed. It's also a useful defensive item as well due to the shield passive from the item.
Essence Reaver is considered to be a better option since it gives cooldown reduction and allow him to farm better with Siphoning Strike in addition to the increased damage and the item's passive allows Nasus to stay in lane longer and mitgate some of Nasus's early game mana costs. The only advantage The Bloodthirster has over Essence Reaver is a stronger lifesteal and a shield passive.
Blade of the Ruined King is a very situational item since Blade of the Ruined King is designed for basic attack heavy champions such as Kog'Maw and Jax, and most of Nasus's damage comes from dealing large amount of burst damage with Siphoning Strike.png Siphoning Strike in a single basic attack rather than constantly autoattacking your opponent. However, the item's passive and active is useful when facing opponents that benefits from building health such as Volibear,Dr. Mundo, and Maokai.
Sheen and Trinity Force synergize with the proc on Siphoning Strike, greatly increasing your damage output.
Trinity Force as well as its components work very well with Nasus. Wither and a Phage item.png Phage can keep an enemy constantly in melee range as well as the Spirit Fire area of effect. Sheen item.png Sheen's passive stacks with Siphoning Strike for more damage and providing more mana to better farm minions. Zeal offers some critical strike and attack speed to do more damage and movement speed to stick to enemies.
Glacial Shroud and Frozen Heart offer Nasus cooldown reduction and mana, which allow Nasus to use his Siphoning Strike more often, as well as giving him armor and an attack speed debuff aura.
Iceborn Gauntlet gives both the Spellblade passive from Sheen and the stats of Glacial Shroud. Whether buying it as replacements for Trinity Force and Frozen Heart being a better option is debatable.
Nasus can also be used as an ability power champion, relying on items as Abyssal Scepter and Rylai's Crystal Scepter for damage and utility with his Spirit Fire and Lich Bane for increased damage with his Siphoning Strike, while still building defensive items like Frozen Heart and Guardian Angel. This type of build is more focused on dealing damage to multiple enemies as his both Spirit Fire and Fury of the Sands will deal more damage.
Whilst generally considered inferior on Summoner's Rift, this type of build is more favorable on other maps due to lack of opportunities there to farm Siphoning Strike.png Siphoning Strike; this is particularly true of the Howling Abyss.
Do not make the mistake of purchasing Tiamat item.png Tiamat or Ravenous Hydra item.png Ravenous Hydra on Nasus as the items have almost no synergy on him whatsoever. Not only do enemies killed by the Cleave passive effect not count towards increasing the damage of Siphoning Strike, but neither the Cleave passive nor the Crescent active even apply any of the bonus damage of Siphoning Strike, since the damage they do is based solely on Attack Damage and does not include on-hit effects. More importantly, the splash damage will cause minions to die faster, making it considerably harder for Nasus to farm Siphoning Strike effectively.
However, the passive and active do greatly help with Nasus' split-pushing abilities (something he excels at due to Siphoning Strike.png Siphoning Strike's ability to let him take down turrets rapidly), and also proc the life-steal both from the item itself and from Soul Eater.png Soul Eater, adding to his survivability in team-fights. All this makes it a relatively effective late-game choice on Nasus in a more offensive build.
Because Siphoning Strike's stack-based damage no longer proc's critical strike, this makes armor penetration the only option to increase the infinitely scaling bonus damage. This makes The Black Cleaver and Last Last Whisper very good items for NasusSquare.png Nasus late game. The Black Cleaver item.png The Black Cleaver is good for the armor pen, cooldown reduction, health, and superior ad compared to the Last Whisper. However, Last Whisper is still viable due to the larger, and more reliable, % armor pen.
Randuin's Omen is an excellent armor item on Nasus, as it makes him more difficult to kite, which, despite Wither, is still one of his few weaknesses late game. The active also becomes more effective the more resistances you build, making it especially effective on a tanky build.
When itemizing for defenses on Nasus, prioritize resistances over straight health, as this will make both your innate life-steal and the bonus health from Fury of the Sands more effective. With that said, do not neglect to purchase health entirely, as when you have built some resistances, these will cause it to scale rather well.
Righteous Glory should be considered in Nasus's build, as it will allow Nasus to effective gap close into enemy and greatly increases his mobility. The item's passive, health regeneration, bonus health, and mana helps Nasus out as well.