Hello guys,
My name is s klappt net and this is my Nasus guide. (aswell as my first guide ever!)

I mainly play Nasus since Season 1 but stopped playing last year. I play LoL again since around 7 months and i just love this Dog. At the moment i have around 50Points in Platinum 1 on the EUW server.

I thought about making a Nasus guide for a long time due to my massive experience with him. I want to upload Screenshots but i dont know how yet. So i link you my Lolking Profile to give you a view to my ranked Stats with him.
http://www.lolking.net/summoner/euw/349170#ranked-stats

Soul Eater This is your Core ability to stay in lane to the most Harrass based Champions. If you farm under Tower with 6% Lifesteal Quints and Second Wind you can't get poked out of the lane easily. This keeps you alive!

Siphoning Strike This Baby here is, what Nasus makes Nasus. Stacks on this Badboy are your only Damage output. Farm > Kills for Nasus. or well at least in early. Tell your jungler not to gank until you get some Q stacks because you don't deal Damage in the early Game! Max this ability first and try to get every Creep lasthittet with this. If it is too risky to reach a creep take it with Spirit Fire. but dont do this too often or you will get oom too fast.

Wither In 1v1's this is your "Ace in the Hole". He thinks he can trade? Nah here take this Auto Attack Slow! But it's not only AA slow its movement speed slow aswell. Use it to slow the ADC's in Team fights or to reach retreating enemys.

Spirit Fire This Ability is the Ground you want to fight on. The decreeased Armor helps you and your team to deal more Damage on all enemys standing in it. but dont use it too often for farming creeps or pushing the lane. The damage on early levels is not that useful for that + u want Q farm and not pushing so freeze the lane.

Fury of the Sands Your Avatar Ulti. More HP, More Damage, More AOE, More Everything! It makes you a Horror to fight in 1v1 and even in 2v1. It makes you nearly not towerdivable during laning. If your enemy laner is trying to fight/all in you, use it when u reach like 1/3 or half HP. If your enemy is using his ult too fast (like Renekton) just retreat and use yours when his ult is over.

you max your Siphoning Strike first for a lower cooldown and greater damage. That increases your Chance of more Q stacks in a shorter amount of time. I would say the current ingame time x 20 is the formula you should check your stacks after minute 15.
For example: 20 minutes ingame, x 20 = 400 Stacks. That is the goal you reach in laning phase.

second, you max Wither, because the higher it gets, the greater is the slow. This gives you an advantage if the jungler is ganking your lane for assistance or escaping. Also it gives you an advantage in 1v1 fights on the lane.

third max Fury of the Sands you know, it's your ultimate ability. The HP and damage boost. You need it ;)

and last but not least you max your Spirit Fire. it's not a great farming tool and you dont want to push your lane anyways. It is actually very useful in fights, as long as the enemy is standing in it. It's damage itself is not very high, but it reduces the enemys armor, which increases your autoattacks aswell as the damage from your Siphoning Strike.

You take 1 Crit chance rune for a luckcrit with your q. that changes some trades in your favor ;)

On the other Red Runes you can Choose between Armor penetration or Attack Damage. At the moment i use Armor Penetration because that is better during the later state of the game. If you have Problems with lasthitting or sustain you can aswell take Attackdamage Runes. I want to try that aswell. It gives u slightly higher chance of getting them Q stacks and a slightly higher lifesteal because well you have more ad :)

You take basic defense Runes (armor and magic resistance for tankiness. If you want you can take scaling MR, because Nasus is a lategame Champ anyways.

i Consider the 6% Lifesteal a must have on Nasus since his early got nerfed with only 7% Lifesteal on his Soul Eater passive until lvl 7. It helps you to survive the Early stage of the game.

On Nasus i only really use Ghost and Teleport.

Ghost is good for chasing, escaping and mobility during teamfights to reach the enemy adc faster.

Teleport. In the first 15 minutes you nearly only use this to get back to your lane to not lose any farm. That is very important on Nasus, because you get bullied out of the lane EASY!.
Later you use this spell to either splitpush a lane and join your Team when necessary or to help in Teamfights when you find yourself split away from your Team to reach it in time.

Flash You can of course use this spell, but i personally dont play it on Nasus. But still it's the best escape spell in League.

Cleanse You can of course use this spell aswell versus high CC Teams, because Nasus is very immobile and dies to each form of CC. If you see yourself stunned you can use it to cleanse yourself and fight on. But since it got the same effect as the Quicksilver Sash, you can replace it with this item.

This is basically the Order i buy my Items on Nasus. The order of Spirit Visage and Frozen Heart depends on wheather u have an AP opponent or an AD opponent on your Lane.

For a good start build Doran's Shield, a healing potion and the Stealth Ward.

You should attempt to go back the time you reach either 850 Gold (only if you cant stay on the lane anymore! If this happens, buy Kindlegem. The second point where you could go back is at 1350 Gold. At this point you can buy the Glacial Shroud. You build these 2 Items first, becuase they give you higher sustain, depending on if youre playing against an ad or an ap laner on the toplane + it gives you +10% CDR which is good for your Siphoning Strike stacking.

The next time you go back is either, when you're out of mana, which can happen easily if you spam your skills too heavy, or if you're too low to sustain any more. It could be too if you score a kill and the lane is running fantastic for you^^
You should buy now:

Option a: you're out of mana/nearly dead and play vs AD Top: => Frozen Heart
Option b: You're playing vs AP top and are oom/nearly dead: => Spirit Visage or Spectre's Cowl OR some Combination of Negatron Cloak + Null-Magic Mantle if you dont have enough Gold yet.
Option c: It's running great! => buy Sheen

As soon as you finished the first Tank Item (either Frozen Heart or Spirit Visage + the first Item with CDR for the other one ( Kindlegem or Glacial Shroud), you buy Sheen to start the Trinity Force At this point in time you should have boots which u upgrade as soon as possible into Mercury's Treads (in 90% of your games). If the enemy Team has only AD'lers or you face a Riven/Pantheon top, build Ninja Tabi

Now finish both Tank Items Frozen Heart and Spirit Visage.
Right after this you build the Trinity Force for a nice chasing Potential, higher DMG and higher HP. You build Trinity Force in this order: Sheen -> Phage -> Zeal.

I like to buy Enchantment: Alacrity after this for a good movement Speed + during fights and Chasing. With the + from the Trinity Force nobody can escape you now unless you're chain CC'd to hell or already dead (what should not happen).

In the late game, where we are now you should have at least 350 Q stacks, you build what is needed to sustain the Teamfights. If they have high AP you build Items like Banshee's Veil or Hexdrinker. If heavy Armor is needed you build a Thornmail, Randuin's Omen or Sunfire Aegis. Don't forget: Fury of the Sands on level 3 gives you + 600HP. Thats why your need for Items like Warmog's Armor or Frozen Mallet are not that high.

If you are already deep in the Late Gameand feel like you are kitet too heavy and dont have enough HP to survive that, you can still buy a Frozen Mallet or a Warmog's Armor. I am not a huge Fan ofit especially on Nasus because there are no Resistances on it. It makes you very Tanky but if you get focussed by an ADC or even by Vayne with Blade of the Ruined King, you wish you would have bought Something like Randuin's Omen instead.

+ Pros:

- Lategame Champion
- High Sustain
- Very Tanky
- High Damage if farmed
- High Lifesteal!
- A Horror to Face as ADC

- Cons:

- Easy to defeat and poke on low Levels
- Needs farm to compete
- Very immobile with no dmg output if slowed/stunned/feared/silenced/blinded/exhausted
- can be HARD countered

The first thing i do in a game as Nasus is telling my jungler NOT to earlygank top. Why?
Because first we need farm. Nasus deals no Damage on low levels and will be pushed to his turret at earlyganktimings.

- You will lose Q hits if your jungler comes early.
- You might lose XP which puts you even more behind in lane.
- If you dont kill the Enemy but he needs to teleport back you wasted your mana and you cant push the lane to his tower which brings you BEHIND your enemy laner in cs and xp.

Your goal as Nasus is, to afk farm toplane until around minute 15-20. You need to get as much Q stacks as possible until that point in time. Ignore your enemy on the lane in the first few levels. You can't trade anyways. They want to deny your farm with that and you only want farm. Nasus is a champ who snowballs MORE from farm than from kills!

If you farm correctly and did not trade too much with your enemy laner you will defeat him in 1n1's later on at the lane and the team will blame him for letting you farm. That's what u wanna reach.If you focuss on farming your Siphoning Strike you will outdamage your Enemy toplaner after building Sheen.

Renekton

Kha'Zix

Fiora

Aatrox: I find this is a very easy matchup for Nasus even pre 6.Aatrox deals damage, yes but he needs attackspeed. everytime he goes for big trades you can just wither him and heal yourself on creeps. With lifesteal runes you are able to farm your Siphoning Strike very well and even kill him pre 6. If you go low on health in this Matchup you can pop your Ult for more HP or wiher him and walk away. His Dark Flight is not the hardest skillshot to dodge. Same goes for his Blades of Torment.
Build Glacial Shroud on your first shopping tour and after this your Frozen Heart he can't kill you after.

Poppy

Wukong

Rumble: This Matchup is very hard. He will Flamespitter when u try to farm which is enough damage that u cant lifesteal properly against. + He does not have mana, only cooldowns which even makes his sustain better than yours. Go back every time you're low hp or out of mana. The first item you should buy is a Negatron Cloak and after this the Kindlegem. Mercury's Treads are a must have.
What else.. ye try to farm your Siphoning Strike every time his Flamespitter is on cooldown and try to avoid his Electro-Harpoon. After he got Liandry's Torment you don't want to get slowed. At around lvl 9 - 11 you should be strong enough to kill him in a 1v1 if you dont stand right in his ultimate and concentrated on only farming up to this point!

Riven Wow. I hate Riven. If i am firstpick in ranked i just ban her. But even this matchup is winable but you will miss many minions. She has no mana, she deals damage with her abilities, not with her autohits and with a red pot in early she will damage you to half HP after 1 Broken Wings Combo. Try to go for each lasthit you can get while her Broken Wings are on cooldown. DON'T try to fight her. At lvl 6 you're not strong enough to encounter her just yet. With help from your jungler and if you didnt die yet you can try to get her. But be sure you're full hp at the beginning of the trade and have your ultimate up.
At the moment i am testing some alternative masteries/Items to go up against Riven. But my only tip for this matchup this far is: Play it safe and don't get early ganked by your Jungler. U don'd want to give Riven a chance to score firstblood or even a double kill. Play it safe and take your time to get strong.

Pantheon

Zed

Malphite

Yorick

Cho'Gath

Tryndamere

Darius

Jax

Singed

Gangplank

Elise

Nidalee

Irelia

Olaf

Garen

Mordekaiser

Teemo

Shen

Jayce

Lee Sin

Shyvana

Lasthitting:

- The first and coolest thing to mention is Nasus lasthitting with his Siphoning Strike. When a Creep gets low onHP you want to lasthit it with your Q. But what you should know is: His Siphoning Strike resets the autohit. That means, when u autohit a creep you can press Q right after and Nasus will hit it with his Siphoning Strike immediately after. you can use this for a double liesteal proc from his Soul Eater and your runes.

- At around 200 Q Stacks you can 1 Hit the ranged minions.

- At around 350 Q Stacks you can 1 Hit the melee minions.

Your Job in Teamfights is not to protect the ADC. It is to dive their adc with Ghost and Wither they will need at least 2 more people to hold you away from him and if you reach him you put your Spirit Fire on him and use your Siphoning Strike to kill him. Next target will be the enemy midlaner and so on.

If you zone their ADC + 1 or 2 other enemys you are doing your job right! Your tean can focuss on who is not trying to protect the enemy ADC.

I will write some possible Top matchups with Tips and Tricks, but now it's too late and i did the rest during the last hours. I need a break now :)

Please write Feedback in the comments! :)