[Champion] Nasus

My guide.
Summoner Spells: Cleanse / Ghost

These spells, in conjunction with your naturally high movespeed, make you ungankable early game and inescapable late game. You take cleanse over flash because, while you're trampling the enemy team under your ult, you're bound to take a lot of CC.

Consider teleport if you know you'll be solo top, have your team keep dragon warded so you can show up for the party at any time.

Masteries: 0/9/21

Easy choices, utility tree and SoS are broken and I don't like Dodge.

Runes
Quints: Movespeed
Red: Armor Pen
Yellow: MP5plvl
Blue: MP5plvl

Siphoning Strike is physical and your main damage dealer, hence the arpen. Spirit Fire eats a ton of mana, hence the full mp5 sections. Movespeed quints make for an even faster Nasus.

sidenote: profile stalking reveals LoCicero runs flat armor yellows and quints. The armor will make him significantly tougher in early laning - Nasus' weakest point. I'm considering changing my runes along these lines myself. More on this later.

Skill Order: QEEWER / R>E>Q>W

There's a bit of flexibility here. E wrecks lanes, but you don't want to push hard until you get your first 3 items. Avoid using Spirit Fire at all until it's at least lvl 3 - it eats a ton of mana and doesn't do a whole lot until then. Use your head, if you don't think you'll need a 4th or 5th level of SF soon, get a 2nd or 3rd point for Siphoning Strike to maximize your farming fun.

SS is very low cooldown, undodgeable, procs Sheen/Triforce, works on towers, and refreshes your autoattack. Note that Triforce's 150% bonus doesn't include the +2 per last hit, that's added in after. You still do insane damage, just not INSANE damage.

Wither is a one point wonder and the best slow in the game.

Your ult lets you 1v5 teams or take a fast Baron. The HP boost makes it a handy early escape mechanism or turnaround gank bait. Fury of the Sand's tooltip isn't very clear. Nasus doesn't actually drain life from enemies. He deals AOE magic damage based on 3/4/5% of enemy health, and his attack damage is increased by some amount of this. I haven't actually figured out how much bonus attack he gets. It's a lot. afaik the bonus damage works with Triforce proc.

Item Build
Doran's Shield + Health Pot
Heart of Gold
Sheen
Merc Treads
Randuins/Banshees/Triforce in some order as dictated by the game.

You usually want pure tank outside of Triforce. Nasus can be built DPS but it's simply an inferior setup. He can rack up the kills with nothing more than Sheen, so why not be invincible while you're at it?

Randuins is unbelievably good. It builds from imba HoG. The CDR puts your Q DPS through the roof. Its active will further wreck the team you're already steamrolling with your ult. Banshees is self explanatory. Nasus has the best use for Triforce in the game.

If the game is still going after you finish the big 4, other good items include FoN, Warmogs, Thornmail, Frozen Heart, Ghostblade, Last Whisper, Atmas.

What I don't get: Aegis used to be here. Now I feel it's not cost effective unless your team is coordinated and starts early 5 man roaming/fighting. If you want Aegis that badly, make your Shen/Taric/Janna/Galio/Rammus/whomever spend the 1925. I play a very greedy build that Hyfe would not agree with. I've stopped buying GA since the nerf; I don't think it's worthwhile spending 2600 gold to be revived at <25% health once every five minutes. I never buy Frozen Mallet or Sunfire Cape. Frozen Mallet is expensive, you've already got 3 slows in W/Randuins/Triforce, and Nasus doesn't need that much HP. E/R/other items more than cover whatever Sunfire would give you.

Playstyle
Solo mid, or duo bot if you've got a partner who doesn't need farm. Top isn't ideal imo, you're nowhere near to help with dragon (need teleport), and if you're purple team you can't grab blue buff. If you suspect your opponents of being at least semi-competent, DO NOT 1v2 AS NASUS. You will get zoned, hard. Once upon a time, I found myself consistently laning against people who did not know how to lane. This makes Nasus' life very easy. I thought my dog was a mighty laning machine. That paradigm collapsed around me when I gave up lvl 1 FB to a MF/Jax duo.

With SoS, Dshield, and passive lifesteal, you come to the lane durable. Nasus' problem stems from being unable to answer most harass. I'm guessing this is where Loci's armor runes come into play. You may want a few dedicated flat armor / mres pages if you can predict who you're going up against. Basically, if Nasus can get through the first five levels without getting zoned, he's set.

I don't have enough experience to comment on specific 1v1 matchups. At my ELO I win most lanes simply because my opponents are bad. Just be wary of those who can harass with impunity. Kat, Kennen, and Panth come to mind.

Again, avoid using Spirit Fire early because it eats mana, pushes the lane and is ineffective for harass. Unless they get cocky, you won't be killing anyone in lane without a jungle gank. This is OK, Nasus 'wins' his lane by creeping 3500 gold asap. AFK farm and build your SS until you get HoG+Sheen+Merc. Grab blue buff and push down towers like they're made of cardboard. Nasus can eat dragon very quickly once he gets Sheen. Teamfights are as easy as ABC: Wither their DPS, drop Spirit Fire, pop your ult, and QQQQQ until you score the ace.

There are points in the game where you'll have to decide between sticking with your team or solo pushing. The ideal solo situation is your 4 bros making a scene in bottom/top lane while you push on the other side of the map. If you're farmed, the enemy team will have to send at least 2 people to stop you from taking towers, giving your 4 man group the number advantage in their area. If your team manages to keep all 5 enemies busy, laugh as you solo push all the way to the inhibitor. You have to trust your team not to overcommit to fights they won't win without you.

Because many of Nasus' skills are percentage based, and there's no upper limit to Q's damage, he's one of the best scaling champs in the game. The longer the match runs, the stronger you get. Just keep pushing and farming and dominating teamfights. If the game goes on for an hour and one side has a competent Nasus, that team will almost always win.

Buffs
Nasus is awesome with blue, the skill spam has you melting creeps, towers and champs alike. Red buff is best left to your ranged champs.

Elixirs
Don't have much of a use for these until late late game imo, I save gold for real items.

Jungle
Trolling purposes only. He can't clear creeps quickly until lvl 5 and has a weak gank.



Further reading: check out Hyfe's Comprehensive Guide. I don't agree with his love of Aegis or his advocacy of the 1v2 lane, but hey I'm pretty sure he's a better player than me.