v1.0.0.123 August 2011 Patch # Attack range increased to 125 from 110 # Soul Eater lifesteal increased at earlier levels to 14/17/20% from 10/15/20% # Wither
* Cooldown reduced to 15/14/13/12/11 seconds from 15 seconds at all ranks * Mana cost reduced to 80 from 100 * Wither will now reach its max slow even if its duration is reduced (ie: by tenacity)
# Spirit Fire
* No longer has a 0.5 second delay before taking effect * Now deals half of its damage initially and the other half over the duration -- initial 55/95/135/175/215 (+0.6 ability power) Magic Damage and 11/19/27/35/43 (+0.12 ability power) Magic Damage each second for the next 5 seconds
Introduction
Nasus is a strong tank who excels against auto attacker and melee champions. He is somewhat weak against poke or ranged nukes since he lacks real burst and hard cc or a gap closer.
Read about them in the wiki, this just gives some explanation on how you use them.
Passive: Soul Eater; 14/17/20% Lifesteal. Makes his laning phase really solid. You leech off your Q as well, so you get some serious lifesteal when you start to stack Q. Synergy with high resists so favour those. (especially in lane combined with hp pots)
Q: Siphoning Strike: Your bread and butter spell. Focus on stacking this up as much as possible. CDR becomes your best friend for both stacking it and spamming it later.
W: Wither: Your main utility. Use it wisely. Aside from obvious situations like escaping ganks or chasing, you sometimes have to choose between using it on someone who is diving or using it to mitigate an AD carries damage.
E: Spirit fire. Pretty high mana cost so avoid spamming this spell. The armour reduction is great for your Q's, and helps a lot if you have other physical dealers attacking the same target.
R: Fury of the Sands. Gives a plethora of benefits. AoE %hp magic damage, range increase, health boost, stacking AD boost. Health boost: Combined with your lifesteal, means resistances become far and away the best stat to stack. Stacking AD boost: Means if you use this at the right time you are hitting like a truck with no items towards the end of 15 seconds. However its a trap to use it too early when a fight isnt guaranteed.
Skill order: QWQE R>Q>W>E> You have the option of going E>W when you think you will be in situations with static 1v1. Jarvan with or against your team might be a good reason to max it since you will get the damage and armour reduction for the full duration when he casts his ultimate. If they have someone who is going to dive your carry placing spirit fire on them helps the both of you DPS him. In lane phase this is also more useful than W sometimes against champions like rumble or other non attack speed reliant. (if you jungle is likely to gank W might still be better)
Summoner Skills:
is viable also, ghost works well on nasus because you have no burst spell to abuse to flash, and you are generally tanky enough that ghost is as good as flash for getting away. Teleport can be replaced with or however TP side steps some of your main counters, like a pre-6 gank into push+tower dive, harassing you down early under your tower, or outroaming you. You usually just base buy the relevant resists+hp pots+green or pink ward(s) and tp straight back to lane. I tend to save tping around the map for later on when im more powerful and the loss in levels from losing farm is less noticeable. (1/3 of a level at 13 is nothing but 1 level at 6 is huge)
Masteries: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/mastery-tree-planner#&tree1=1-0-3-0-4-0-0-0-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&tree2=0-3-4-0-3-3-0-0-0-1-0-0-0-3-0-3-0-0-1&tree3=0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&v=2 This is an EXAMPLE mastery build. You should adjust it based on the situation. -Prioritise armour vs AD lanes, magic resist vs Magic damage lanes. (obvious) -Take block mastery against ranged auto attackers, or generally champs that have to auto a lot (aatrox trynd etc) -Regen against anyone who will harass you hard. -Take the CC masteries based on amount and type of enemy CC. -If you have a difficult lane you can take points out of the %resist mastery and put them into the block/regen etc and you are say against riven you can remove your magic resist and put it into -stun cc. -Taking points out of offensive tree for more defensive sometimes might be a good idea also.
Runes: Quints: Armour/MR whatever relevant to lane. (HP regen vs super hard auto attackers, AD if it's not that hard a lane, especially if you expect to have trouble last hitting under tower) Marks: Arp/AD (Arp is better, but AD is needed for last hitting under tower effectively early on especially) Seals: Flat armour. Glyphs: Flat magic resist, or mr/lvl. CDR would be an option but there are too many easy ways to get it right now.
My personal recommendation for people who don't have a lot of pages is to have an 2 general pages for all top laners. Armour seals, MR/lvl glyphs, AD reds, AD quints Armour seals, flat MR glyphs, AD reds, MR/HP regen quints (magic damage guys tend to harass more) If you play more agressive top laners the loss isn't that great but having the wrong runes on a passive tank laner sucks more.
Build:
Starting items: + 1x Dorans+1 pot is pretty safe and standard here. Regen and auto attack block makes it usually the best against any ranged champs, (worse than cloth+5 pots but you might not want to buy cloth vs magic guys for example and its best to just play passive early than burning the 4 extra pots), and against melee champs usually you won't have enough of a problem to need to waste money on a different build. It's weakness is having no wards, however usually you intend to play passive. If you want to push early to help your jungle invade or something start rejuv bead or just pots+wards only.
5x +1x +1x
+ 5x
+2x
Rejuv is okay if you really want the ward, playing passive without a ward is risky but cloth and nullmagic are super ideal. Cloth+a ward is doable vs laners without much power early on.
Boots: or get mercs against heavy cc, ninja tabi against heavy AD, when in doubt get whichever is best for laning phase.
Viable if you want to go for some kind of build where you don't get CDR but there are too many good CDR items for these to be worth it.
Damage: . This is pretty good especally if you're unlikely to be focused but usually getting tankier is better This is your best super lategame damage item because it means your q still hurts vs armour stackers. Although I didn't like this originally, it turns out W is too valuable to a cooldown to use it on any target you want to focus and considering this covers both a slow and a sheen, and ghost covers movement speed, it kind of renders trinity obsolete these days. (Trinity still hurts more with autos because of the attack speed + crit that scales hard if your R has stacked up a lot of AD, usually not worth it.)
Tank Items:
Good tank item but doesn't give CDR and is a split resistance item so not great for lane either. Against something like xerath with tons of spell pen for example or heavy poke teams this is worth it but I'd usually avoid it. I usually get this after I maxed out my CDR or If im behind and need high EHP. The mana helps in lane to deal with high mana costs and the constant mana drain of your Q. In an AD lane armour is your best friend because it scales with your lifesteal and health potions. The CDR helps stack your Q. Pretty perfect first item to get vs AD lanes. If you're retarded tanky and want more damage to duel ADs with lifesteal this might be worth it but most likely thornmail is better. The healing boost works on your lifesteal so its not a waste and its the easiest way to get mr while maxing your CDR. Because it helps against lifesteal and it makes ADs cry when they realize you nearly have 300 armour even after they buy LW Would normally only buy versus either heavy auto attackers who aren't getting LW (maybe aatrox and such) or against very heavy AD teams when its worth it to get combos such as IBG+Randuins+FH+Sunfire+Thornmail so even with LWs armour is still good and thornmail damage gets really high because based on their damage BEFORE it gets reduced and they are unlikely to have much MR
Play style: Solo top. Mid lane is doable if it suits and jungle is okay but not optimal. (You won't get to stack a monster Q you are mostly W + E utility + R damage/tankiness.)
The most important thing to get right is balancing using Q offensively and just to farm. If in doubt, always just AFK Farm. Sometimes using it to harass will pay off later (mostly in conjunction with just auto hits, because your lifesteal means you don't need to out trade to "win" a trade). When its super farmed up you can use it to zone but make sure its worthwhile and you aren't missing too many stacks.
Level 1: You are strong level 1 because of 10% lifesteal and hit+Q combo. If you expect him to harass you early levels your level 1 auto hit+Q does a lot of damage and you should try to get it off if he is taking you lightly and just running past you to hit creeps. Levels 2-5: Just try to let him push during these levels and farm. Just react to a gank with your W since its an easy kill. Don't get baited into good fights because you don't need to lose much hp before you can get tower dived. Levels 6+. You have your ult+ghost to escape from nasty situations. Don't waste your mana in fights until you have either glacial or some mana pots or something if you plan a fight. You might want to stay in lane then TP back and buy and get wards and more pots. Don't overstay your welcome and die to a gank. Guideline for Q farm: At 20-25 minutes which is around when you have to start actually teamfighting you should have: +200 if your laning has been difficult. +300 if your laning has been manageable +400 if your laning has basically let you free farm. You ideally want +300 before you start fighting teamfights, farm two fold increases your effectiveness since it increases both your damage (q damage) and tankyness (items). However you're pretty strong even with a weak Q so don't pass up any opportunites. Nasus is cited as a lategame champ but really when AD carries and AP carries are really strong they stifle you. You can fight better than almost anyone with your Ult up as long as they stay in range, so don't pass up definite opportunites just because you are greedy for Q farm. At the same time don't waste time roaming around when you can farm a lane and push a tower down in ~5 Q's if they roam and you have TP up.
Lane match ups: Have to take these on a case by case basis, but typically stack armour vs ADs and mr vs APs and rush frozen heart/spirit visage.
Teamfights: You can't really initiate a fight as Nasus, what you can do is W a target and let him get poked, or if its a squishy someone else can engage on him. Typically you want to go with the momentum as nasus, since you don't have any huge mobility or burst any decision is going to take time. If you choose to run after a low hp guy it might not be worth it if you catch him. Instead stick with the team and make the low hp guy come back to you if he wants to win the fight.
Dive squishy targets if the opportunity is there and there are no present threats that you have to deal with. A high damage target on your AD means its better to W and tank them, however you also don't want to miss an opportunity to burst a squishy if you have someone on your team who can jump them if you slow them. When in doubt you should just dive the AD carry, because you will win against tanks anyway. Just be careful not to overextend and get collapsed on.
Siphoning Strike: Fixed a bug where Siphoning Strike critical strikes were dealing more damage than intended. Mana cost reduced to 20 at all ranks from 20/25/30/35/40. Fury of the Sands: Now increases attack range by 50 and cast range by 100 while active. Mana cost reduced to 100 from 150.
V3.01:
Siphoning Strike: Permanent damage bonus is now doubled to 6 when killing a champion, large minion or large monster
V1.0.0.123:
Range increased to 125 from 110. Soul Eater: life steal increased at earlier levels to 14 / 17 / 20% from 10 / 15 / 20%. Wither: Cooldown reduced to 15/14/13/12/11 from 15 at all ranks. Mana cost reduced to 80 from 100. It will now reach its maximum slow even if its duration is reduced by crowd control reduction effects like Tenacity. Spirit Fire: No longer has a 0.5 second delay before appearing. It retains the 0.5 second casting time. Now deals half damage initially and the other half over the duration instead of it just dealing damage per second: New: Initial 55/95/135/175/215 (+0.6 per ability power) magic damage and 11/19/27/35/43 (+0.12 per ability power) magic damage each second for the next 5 seconds. Old: Deals 20/34/48/62/76 (+0.2 per ability power) magic damage each second for the 6 seconds the area lasts. Fixed a bug where Siphoning Strike sometimes gained extra lifesteal.
9th November, 2013. Fixed a lot of the images and such but I won't mess around too much until season 4 comes around. 1st July, 2013: Rehashed whole guide should be up to date.
v1.0.0.123 August 2011 Patch # Attack range increased to 125 from 110 # Soul Eater lifesteal increased at earlier levels to 14/17/20% from 10/15/20% # Wither
* Cooldown reduced to 15/14/13/12/11 seconds from 15 seconds at all ranks * Mana cost reduced to 80 from 100 * Wither will now reach its max slow even if its duration is reduced (ie: by tenacity)
# Spirit Fire
* No longer has a 0.5 second delay before taking effect * Now deals half of its damage initially and the other half over the duration -- initial 55/95/135/175/215 (+0.6 ability power) Magic Damage and 11/19/27/35/43 (+0.12 ability power) Magic Damage each second for the next 5 seconds
Introduction
Nasus is a 'Tanky DPS' (AKA Bruiser) champion who specializes as an anti tank/bruiser because he has insane damage without having to build damage (bruisers generally can't get away with building a lot of crit or armour pen, the main counters to armour) and a huge movement/attack speed slow along with % based hp damage. (nice counter to warmogs atmas bruisers). He is well known as a very passive laner as in order to be strong in mid and lategame he has to spend the early game constantly using his Q to kill creeps meaning he can't use it to trade in lane without losing mid/lategame strength. He is the highest damage champion without any damage items in the game.
Things that Nasus is good at countering: -Heavy Bruiser or melee comps, especially without an AD Carry, or one that is constantly under pressure from a champion like Annie or Akali. -Laners that want to sit top all game and farm. Nasus benefits more from farm and becomes impossible to push out of the lane once he gets high level and some CDR. Low cooldown Q that can 1 shot creeps with high passive lifesteal makes him almost like lanewick. A lot of champions that try to farm for 20 minutes suddenly get pushed out of lane when Nasus has +400 damage on Q from farm and sheen. -Assassins. Champions that are burst based and can't kill tanks very well. They get killed in a few Q's by Nasus and the slow hurts them.
Nasus can basically 1v5 a team with champions like master yi, pantheon, shen ,akali,katarina, renekton, providing they are not already fed.
Things that counter Nasus: -Laners that shut him down and stop him farming, or at least make him use his Q to trade to stop himself getting zoned. -Kiting or CC based teams with a strong AD carry. Brand and TF are great against him. Nunu and amumu are good also as tanks against him. AD carries like tristana or vayne can stop him from getting close and melt him with good farm. However, Nasus does have his whither and can build tankier than other bruisers but he has no instant gap closer, hard cc or large burst damage compared to say, a nocturne with ghostblade or irelia with trinity that can lock him down and force him to use his skills to get away from you before doing any damage, or risk getting focused by the whole team.
Read about them in the wiki, this just gives some explanation on how you use them.
Passive: Soul Eater; 14/17/20% Lifesteal. Great for early lane and in general. Lifesteal works on your Q which means that once you get farmed with high resists you are basically unkillable by most Tanky DPS and burst APs 1 on 1 assuming relatively even farm levels. A 10/0 irelia with 300 CS and 250 armour is obviously going to own you with attack speed + Hiten style, but someone like Jarvan IV who relies on high burst more than sustained damage can't do much to you. This means in teamfights you can choose to stay back and deal with divers and protect your carry or just ignore their tanks and go for their AD carry. This depends on how much they can CC you, and how tanky their divers are. If that Irelia just has a Trinity Force, mercs, and 2 gold items with something like FoN or wits end there's a good chance you can keep her away from your Ashe with your sheer damage output.
Q: Siphoning Strike: Deals your AD+A flat amount per rank. Gains 3 damage per creep killed with it. This is where most of your damage comes from. Since you won't be able to auto attack targets that much the burst damage is what you need and this also means you don't need a constant slow as much as some other champions. As long as you out run your opponent you will always be in range every ~2.5 seconds to Q them.
W: Wither: Movement AND Attack speed slow, increasing per second for 5 seconds. This can function as a run of the mill gap closer, a move to catch runners, a move to help initiate for your team, or an anti AD carry move which stops them from both running and attacking. You often find yourself just using it to catch whoever you want to hit but try to put it on the target it shuts down the most. Udyr terrorizing your carry line? Whither stops him doing anything for 3-4 seconds assuming he has mercs. Need to deal with that Miss fortune? You can wither her and run to her while she can't do much damage to you.
E: Spirit fire. Delayed cast on a small area that does damage over time and armour reduction. Nasus' worst skill. If you can combo this with something like Jarvan ultimate it's great but in general you just put it down before your next Q to boost its damage. This is amazing if someone is 1v1ing you and the fight is somewhat close, because the armour pen and damage adds up to a lot, especially when your ultimate is giving you extra attack damage.
R: Fury of the Sands. Health boost, AoE %hp magic damage about the radius of sunfire, the health drained per second value is added to your attack damage. This is one of the most powerful ultimates in the game for fighting straight up. Whether you are chasing, trying to peel a carry or straight up 1v1ing someone. This is especially good on someone like vlad with low resists and high health, since its effectively an AoE madreds bloodrazor that gives you AD. If you have some attack speed and combined with spirit fire it means your auto attacks start becoming as devastating as your Q. Your sustained damage shoots through the roof. The health boost is huge and is what makes you naturally tanky along with your passive.
Be careful using this skill as it only lasts 15 seconds if they can disengage and kite you back you just wasted it. Only use it when the fight is definitely going to happen.
Skill order: QWQE Q>W>E>R. You have the option of going E>W when you think you will be in situations with static 1v1. Jarvan with or against your team might be a good reason to max it since you will get the damage and armour reduction for the full duration when he casts his ultimate. Also; if they have someone who is going to dive your carry placing spirit fire on them helps the both of you DPS him.
Summoner Skills: +
is great, but I don't like it anymore, flash is too good. Teleport can be replaced with exhaust or ignite, teleport is just generally great for Nasus as you want to maximize your potential to farm while not being out of position for teamfights.
Masteries: http://thefwcentral.com/lol/#&trees=0-3-0-1-0-4-0-0-0-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-1-3-0-4-3-0-1-0-0-0-3-3-2-0-1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 With the new mastery tree, I have a hard time justifying anything but 21 defense. He has the qualities of other tanks, wanting CDR, CC reduction and movement speed. You can switch around the masteries a bit depending on the lane opponent. For example obviously you get 3/3 magic resist against a magic damage lane. The health regen is optional and you can get indomitable, or max honour guard, or that evasion thing against AoE comps, etc. The 9 offense again is optional the magic pen is good for 1 point and the 4% cdr is very good on Nasus, but you can get the movement speed or mana regen in utility or just more in defense if you want.
Runes: Quints: These are especially flexible. Good options include ArP, Armour, Health, Magic resist, Cooldown Reduction and Movement speed, flat or per level. My standard is getting armour against physical laners and magic resist against magical laners, since the laning phase is the most important for Nasus. Marks: ArP. Very little other choice here. Seals: Flat armour. Dodge is sometimes good but it's going to be removed anyway. Glyphs: Flat magic resist, or magic resist per level. If they don't have threatening magic damage get CDR/Level if you decide your build needs it. The thing is normally if they don't have a lot of magic damage frozen heart is really good and that gives so much CDR that it's maxed with that, shurelyas, and masteries easily.
Situational: If you are versus a HARD AD LANE you should have -Armour quints OR hp regen quints. (Use your own judgement) -Get ninja tabi -Get either cloth+5 or health regen+1 into philo. -Get fast Glacial shroud for the CDR and armour and mana. (All very useful for Nasus in lane, without flat mana you generally can't afford to use W E and R in an engage without being totally oom for using Q for farming or killing them, or you won't have enough mana to ulti if you were farming for a long time.
Situational: If you are versus a HARD AP LANE you should have -MR blues flat -HP Regen quints flat or MR flat quints -Start boots against a skillshot reliant ap, or health regen against others. Health regen is generally better than MR because they don't want to kill you with burst but harass over a long time which is where health regen shines. Fast spirit visage is good here for your CDR core. SV+Shurelyas pretty much maxes your CDR at level 18 with masteries. -Don't worry about getting zoned and farming at tower, they probably won't be able to get all the CS if they harass hadr. Build:
Starting items:
+
Standard.
You can also open: + 5x
+3x
+2x
Cloth+5 is the only one you will probably feel like is better, and only for against early game sustainability against heavy physical harassers. It delays your philo stone though so do it only if you think you will be in trouble before your first back.
Item building strategy: Essentially you want be as hard to kill as possible while having a decent amount of damage. The way I go about it is to get the most efficient stats for damage while building mostly tank. CDR is the best stat for damage because it works on your Q and also gives great damage reduction from higher uptime on wither. Armour and magic resist are the best stats for staying alive since you get passive lifesteal and increased health from your ultimate, although sometimes its a more practical to get some health items since most of the armour and magic resist items scale off into regen or max mana past the chain mail and negatron components.
In essence: -Get 40% CDR or very close. -Build tank items -Get trinity force when you aren't in danger of dying fast. -If they are all really tanky you can get a LW on top of trinity, 3 end game tank items still makes you very very tanky. + Show Spoiler [Item Building] +
Boots: I get these almost every game now, there's just so many situations where you need these to do your job. If you suddenly get focused, you need to be able to get out. If you get tower dived or ganked, you want to be able to kite them. If you want to finish people off reducing the CC lets you get your wither off before they run out of range.
Very good anti ranged AD because dodge and randuins/frozen heart are the only ways to take less damage from ranged AD once they get their last whisper. I dislike these unless they have very little CC or very heavy AD auto attackers (who generally also don't have a lot of CC). Alsoenerally CC is dangerous because of AP carrys who do insane damage with skillshots/aoe spells and if you are CC'd you can't avoid them.
I used to get these more, you can still get them early and sell them if you don't want glacial or spirit visage/kindlegem or just instead of ninja tabi if they don't have much CC.
Damage: . This is a great item for Nasus although too many people get it before getting any tanky items which is really risky. Since nasus has no very fast way of getting in/out of a fight and no burst damage not being tanky means you can get chased off of a fight easily and you will end up doing less damage. It also depends on what they have as high damage carries have to target you while bruisers won't do any damage and have to go for their carries even if you rush trinity meaning its a good option.
If you rush trinity generally you get GA ASAP since its an anti-focus item which is exactly what you need since Nasus ult and passive mean you're pretty damn tanky over a long fight anyway.
This is a great lategame item since Arpen is so good with your Q it removes the main counter to you lategame which is armour. I occasionally get it as a 6th item selling something else.
This isn't awful but I find it hard to justify. You get a HoG early game and buy a randuins instead of this item and it just helps you so much more for a bit less damage. You don't need high auto attack damage on Nasus and it's better on people with short steriods like noct or xin who improve their total damage a lot more in that 8 seconds or so of ghostblade than nasus who constantly outputs the same damage with small differences from your ulti or spirit fire.
Tank Items:
This is a fantastic item. Very cost effective and decently slot effective with health, armour and magic resist all in one item and also an aura. The only issues is your support might get it, it doesn't give CDR, and it doesn't give you any answer to farmed AD carries like randuins/FH.
Technically health isn't that optimal of a stat, however warmogs is such a slot effective and cost effective item for the amount of sheer survivability it gives you. I sometimes get this lategame when they have void staffs/LW even though it won't be charged it's still a LOT of health and regen.
Not as good as it used to be when it gave 15% CDR and was cheaper, however it gives lots of armour, some hp, and more importantly an anti ranged AD mini-wither if they attack you or you use the active. This means if a ranged AD is shooting at you he won't do as much damage and allows you to gap close easier if your whither is on CD. Randuins active+passive+wither gives you 3 slows which is really important. I get randuins after buying an early frozen heart when they have a lot of auto attackers. Or even just get it without having a HoG if they have a fed AD carry and you already have frozen heart but you don't need any more damage.
Great item, magic resist and movement speed are the main stats you are looking at. The regen acquires more value at tower sieges also high regen+lifesteal+resists = unkillable. Usually get this after you have level 16 ultimate and a lot of resists and max CDR. You often want to rush the negatron really fast but don't want FoN until late. This is usually why people make Banshees but I uphold that it's a poor item on Nasus and I'd prefer to leave the negatron and get a kindle gem or giants belt as well if I really need HP.
I really like this item now. The lack of health isn't the biggest problem on Nasus especailly in lane where flat health isn't that important, but flat mana is, since you have no mana sustain and every time you have having 425 extra mana from glacial makes a big difference. Glacial generally gives you everything you need to lane against physical laners. CDR helps you stack Q, mana gives you enough mana to use W and ultimate without having to back if you need to trade/fight, and armour reduces their damage and makes your regen from philo and lifesteal sustain a lot more. The only issue is it's quite expensive and gives no health which can be a problem if you think you're insanely tanky and then you lose most of your health from a combo from an AP carry.
See no reason to get this instead of warmogs-->chain mail, Sunfire is good to add to your early game damage if you are mobile but lack some damage, Nasus lacks mobility and not damage. Seems popular since it works with his ultimate but I honestly don't like it.
You get this if you already have warmogs and trinity (or just like 3k health from other items, with ulti draining their AD and giving you 600 health it gives you a LOT of AD and scales with the crit it and trinity gives) and you don't need to be any more tanky. It increases your damage quite a lot. Normally you will get atmas OR LW and not both, if any.
Since you almost always want philo because you need health regen to lane, mana regen to spam Q and gold items to scale with your passive laning phase this is an amazing way to turn it into stats you need. (Some nice health, CDR, and movement speed, even more regen). Assuming your philo pays for itself even if you didn't have it for 25 minutes the sustain and extra Q farm it gives you makes it almost always pay for itself, its only 1400 for 330 health, 15 CDR, and some more health and regen AND the movement speed proc. It's insanely efficent.
Seems inferior to Shurelya's and it's not that slot effective when you are already short on slots. Good if they have a lot fo magic damage, and you can get it on top of shurelyas to max out your CDR.
Sample build path I would typically take on Nasus games. Health regen+1 pot-->Philo stone-->Boots 1 -->Glacial shroud-->Mercs-->Kindlegem-->Frozen Heart-->Shurelyas-->Sheen/Phage-->Negatron-->Trinity--->GA/FoN
Skyyart popularized this style of build, shurelyas/frozen heart core into trinity into fon. -Get HoG If you intend on getting randuins later. If you need health usually kindlegem amounts to a higher gold value because of extra Q farm.
If you don't intend on getting frozen heart. (You can get randuins, shurelyas, maybe a spirit visage or just don't get totally maxed CDR) you might want to get a sheen for lane because not having any mana items kinda sucks on nasus. Against bruisers in lane you can get phage, sheen, or zeal, or even the whole trinity fast, because all 3 items are good for bullying other bruisers; sheen for huge harass with Q, zeal for chasing and auto attacking them with ulti up draining AD, phage for chasing them when your wither is down and the hp helps you 1v1/survive ganks. This kind of build path would be: Health regen+1 pot-->Philo-->Sheen-->Phage-->Trinity-->Guardian Angel-->Shurelyas-->FoN Trinity rush is strong but your team needs high damage to make sure you can't get focused and also watch your postioning. I've played as and against Nasus' who just slow someone and run in first instead of waiting for the team to get in range and we just instantly kill him and clean up. If you slow someone your team can damage them for free if they don't comitt to fighting. Your damage as a bruiser is much less than the carries so you DO NOT need to run into 5 people and basically trade the slowed guy for yourself if you're lucky.
Play style: Solo top. Almost no exceptions. Mid lane is the reserve case if top lane is unfarmable. (aka unwinnable if you are playing nasus, examples include Garen and Renekton 1-5, however with armour stack runes and cloth+5 start you can still farm.) Duo bottom lane is bad because you get harassed so much that its very hard to farm like you can in a solo lane. Even vs a ranged AD top cloth+5 pots and the ability to W him and go kill him without a support to save him means you can kind of farm decently and if he attacks you too much he pushes his lane and makes your jungler able to gakn.
"Winning a lane" as Nasus basically means you were able to farm without having to worry about the other dude so much. Once I found myself constantly Qing a Chogath to counter his own harass until a realized he can sustain it while we I am losing Q farm which is bad. Qing the enemy is actually a way to make it more risky for him to attack you instead of it being an attempt to push him off lane.
Level 1: You should have Q. You are strong level 1 because of 10% lifesteal and hit+Q combo. If you expect him to harass you early levels your level 1 auto hit+Q does a lot of damage and you should try to get it off if he is taking you lightly and just running past you to hit creeps. Levels 2-5: You should stop harassing him after level 1 and 2, the top laner probably has his sustain spell now so it's useless anyway, but he should stop overextending and trying to boss you out of lane once you show him you are equal to his harass. If he tries to commit to a fight with burst you can follow it up with a wither, possibly an E and since he can't fight you with wither up even if he bursts you to 75% you can easily do that again to him while the 5 seconds of wither is up. If he just harasses you and doesn't commit to a fight just rely on your regen and lifesteal to keep you alive. If you can't respond to him attacking you just let him push the lane and farm at tower Levels 6-9: You should have you philo, boots, more pots and a ward, so you are pretty safe. Use the health boost on R to survive ganks, the damage boost on R to help gank. (Wither is great for helping ganks, just try to chain it and not stack it on top of something like nunu snowball), and both of them to win any 1v1 fights they try to commit to. Levels 9+: You should have philo+hog+cdr boots and just Qing every single creep and they shouldn't be able to harass you with your insane lifesteal off each Q. You can easily push their tower either 1 Q at a time or just spam Q on it if he leaves the lane. If you have been farming your Q well you can knock any melee out of lane here, even warwick possibly not udyr though. Look out for any opportunities to teleport to turn the tides of a fight. Guideline for Q farm: At 20-25 minutes which is around when you have to start actually teamfighting you should have: +200 if your laning has been difficult. +300 if your laning has been manageable +400 if your laning has basically let you free farm. You ideally want +300 before you start fighting teamfights, its perfectly acceptable to try to split push or generally afk farm for a bit longer when you have your CDR items and want to catch up on farm. Farm two fold increases your effectiveness since it increases both your damage (q damage) and tankyness (items).
The worse your Q farm is the faster you should get sheen/trinity, since the % increase is higher.
Ideally you don't want to have to fight your lane opponent but if he does, the later the better. Lanewicks who think they are strong try to fight me and just get owned when my Q gets over 200 and I have sheen and ultimate, even if they are ahead on kills you are deceptively powerful. Once you notice you have an insane farm on your Q you can start to just Q harass people out of lane. Lane match ups:
There are 2 types of lanes you worry about HARD AD Lanes. (Lanes which will own you with high physical damage normally) Use the rune/mastery/build set up and just ignore the guy and farm. Garen and Renek are cooldown based so try not to let them spam you every CD but don't bother trying to fight they HAVE to push their lane if they want to damage you. (Spin, Renek's Q/E). People like Irelia can't win a fight with high armour and wither on your side. HARD AP Lanes (Lanes which own you with high magic damage normally) Just avoid unnecessary damage and heal so much they run oom. Rumble is an exception but he HAS to push with Q to damage you. You can also fight him if he wastes his spells but no reason to risk it. Not hard lanes: (Any tank, lane wick or something/0 FARMFARMFARMFARMFARM. You can rune/mastery as you please.
I forgot a couple actually: Akali - Don't let her hit her Q's on your every time the mark is on, you might get zoned a bit but do your best -Mordekaizer - run mass MR and just farm farm farm under tower and get your jungler to gank him.
Teamfights:
You initiate by Withering somebody but don't just go and dive in ahead of your team because you will take a lot of free damage. Even if its a tanky guy you slowed your carries can still poke them down and force a flash if they don't want to fight
If they initiate on your team you have to be aware of a few things: -If they have someone like nocturne who just ulted onto your AD carry you want to just go for him ASAP, slowing him if his shield isn't on. You can use your next slow onto their AD if he's doing too much damage. -If they have somebody like amumu who's job is to just CC your team, just try to avoid incidental AoE damage and if they try to run past your to go for the squishies you can go for theirs since amumu or amumu+their solo top will have to turn on you because they are relying on carries to do damage.
Also: The tankier your are the more you should go for carries because the point of being tanky is that you want to survive focus fire so you can easily let your carries do damage and kill everyone if they focus you but if they don't you still 4 shot their carries with a farmed Q. Even if you have a theoreticaly situation where both bruisers dive both carries you end up winning because Nasus rapes every bruiser in 1v1 if their carries die. If you build more like a bruiser say trinity force and most of a GA then you have to stay back a bit until your whole team is in the fight so that you can't get focused fired before you go onto their squishies. If their bruisers overextend make sure to focus them fast though. (Overextend means attacking people that their carries are more than 2-3 seconds out of range to attack themselves. in general).
People say Nasus is weak to kiting but you just need to use your slow smartly and let your carries get in range instead of mindless diving in every time. Technically Nasus gets kited less than someone like Irelia because you slow for your team instead of having to commit with a hard gap closer. (Although irelia still has a solid slow and has the passive to get away if needed, so she's still a fantastic tank) In teamfights its extremely hard to individually kite Nasus because his W is almost up constantly since the buff to him and assuming you are close to CDR capped. Obviously this is assuming the target doesn't have merc treads.
10th August, 2011; Added lots of pictures to make the whole guide more readable. Removed some of the spiel and rambling. Changed/added comments about item builds.
6th September, 2011; Added content for laning against hard opponents from what I learned in solo queue at higher elo and recently watching wickds style of skipping gold/10 and just building to counter the enemy lane and teamcomp, with flat health regen quints and flat armour/mr runes. Removed more of the BS and rambling and generalized and made things more concise. Removed brutalizer/ghostblade based builds because I've never seen them work and have never found them useful compared to standard stuff. 29th November, 2011; New masteries, cleaned up the whole guide up to "playstyle" and made everything up to date. Mostly using skyyart nasus build or trinity/ga type stuff. Very sucessful in plat in ranked games with Nasus, even though I normally play junglers.
Trinity force: This is the most overrated item for Nasus and for good reason.
Er...I don't think that means what you think it means.
You might also want to mention how ridiculously quickly Nasus can do 15 minute baron with his ultimate. You need your team nearby, but a lot of solo queue teams don't expect it.
It's overrated, but its overrated for a good reason. It gives a lot of stats that are good on Nasus and everyone is like "oh just get Trinity force and it's all the damage I 'need' ". Sure it gives good damage. However, you do a lot of damage without trinity force. The most important thing is that you are tanky enough that can you run up to their squishies in teamfights to stop them raping your team. Or at least damaging someone tanky but being there to stop their DPS from attacking your carries without having to go through you. If they can afford to just kill you like any other tanky dps you are useless, while at least the other tanky dps are mobile enough that they are mobile enough that they can jump around and make it hard for them to be focused while using that jump to get away from damage and into your Ashe or Miss fortune who suddenly can't do any damage. Nasus has to tank them unless he withers them first and has to run up to them to be a threat. Often you want to help finish someone but their carries are on you so you need to be able to survive and to run away afterwards.
It was just odd placement because you immediately went into a spiel about how good it was before you went back to "but I don't think it's that good" =P
Yeah it was a bit messy, but I had a hard time figuring out how to explain that its great for damage but damage is not what you need. In fact that line probably would have done it. Lol. But yeah, honestly, most Nasus I see generally build trinity force and then die to the ranged carry.
On July 21 2011 03:47 dnastyx wrote:
You might also want to mention how ridiculously quickly Nasus can do 15 minute baron with his ultimate. You need your team nearby, but a lot of solo queue teams don't expect it.
It's pretty gimmicky, but yes, Nasus ultimate works like Madreds Bloodrazor on neutrals so he can do it fast. It's more of "If we kill one we can do baron" when some teams are really really slow at baron there are some champions like Karthus who help do it insanely fast. Warwick is basically because he can tank it so nobody tanks any damage so they can't contest 4v5 I'm pretty sure.
Do you have the experience to discuss Wit's End some? I've never seen it mentioned in any Nasus guides, but it's almost core for me (after sheen). It's like a poor-man's Bloodrazor and, imo, magnifies Nasus' ult, except it gives MR instead of armor. With Wither/ghost you can stick to anyone that doesn't have a stun and make use of the AS. Maybe it's more important in high elo to build expensive, dedicated tanky items asap, but I've never regretted building Wit's end after sheen. I've seen HotshotGG build nasus with Wit's end, so unless he was trolling, there must be some merit to the item that could be mentioned in your guide.
Good start, tho. A little more editing of the layout to avoid wall-of-text syndrome and your guide will be nice, I think.
There are far better people to get wits end on, like udyr for example. It doesn't scale with your Q at all, doesn't scale with your E at all, you have no natural attack speed steroid the only thing it scales with is the attack damage portion of your ultimate. Wits end is flat out bad on nobody but I don't think its good on Nasus.
HotshotGG builds on nasus from what i've seen is terrible. I mentioned ninja tabi+frozen heart+eleisa's miricle as 5000 gold to save buying cdr boots, that build is not that tanky and not that much damage, don't like it at all.
Sorry for ninjaing your guide btw I requested it earlier and had it half written before I saw you wanted it but I'm like 500 elo higher than you so I hope it's not too much of a problem lol.
If you want to build wits end I'd recommend xin zhao, irelia, leona and udyr as top champions for it. Udyr is debateable since he isn't as sticky as the others, but its absurd for him damage wise.
Whether there are better heroes for Wit's End shouldn't really matter, what's relevant is whether Nasus can use it. It gives you sustained damage output for significantly less than the cost of finishing trinity and it covers some of your MR concerns (40-65% of FoN's MR on a DPS item that costs less ain't shabby). Since most people get armor to mitigate nasus damage, the magic damage seems potent to me.
I know your guide advises against finishing trinity early, but you admit it's good on him if you're surviving and want damage. Why, then, is Wit's end after Sheen not at least an option? Is it that CDR is more important and Nasus should be building CDR items for damage?
Seems to me that you view Nasus as more of a Tank than a DPS hero, which is a fine way to approach him. But Wit's benefits both those roles and makes you less of a "Q-burst-then-kited" champ since you can get some auto-attacks in while Wither is still applied.
PS, I'm perfectly willing to hear that "Wits end only works for you cuz your opponents are horrible." Lol. I'm sure that's true with a lotta the champs I play. But hearing why something is bad or not-optimal would do a lot to help me get better, I think.
Edit: Also, can you explain in some more detail why rushing HoG is important? Nasus is a last-hitting machine and doesn't need the gold/10, imo. Does he need the health? Or do you advise it because you're building Randuin's most games and might as well be getting the extra gold/10 on your way?
Wits end helps you auto attack targets but Nasus' biggest problem is actually being in range to auto attack targets, whether its because he is in risk of dying or because he has trouble closing the gap. Wit's end doesn't solve your problems and provides a relatively minimal dps increase for 2000 where as 40% CDR is in the cost range of 2000 and significantly increases your DPS, especially so because its easier to Q every 2.4 seconds and take whatever auto hits you get over Qing every 4 seconds and not really getting any more auto hits since its sometimes based on your movement speed versus theirs if they are running instead of your actualy attack speed.
Trinity force adds damage but also helps you stay on your target for both Q and auto hits, wits end does neither and the damage increase is certainly not worth it over more pure tank items or trinity force. Last whisper lategame is far, far, far better for increasing your damage if you are wondering why I listed that.
"Need gold/10" is a weird thing to say. Supports don't "need" gold/10 to buy wards they are fine off base gold its just buying gold items gives them more stats while having enough gold to buy wards. Just because you get a lot of farm doesn't mean more gold isn't good. The more gold the better.
Gold/10 items are essentially items that are cost ineffective when you buy them and slowly become more cost effective as the gold earned subtracts the cost slowly. Most people seem to think of them as something you buy to actually gain gold, while generally you lose gold overall. Since Nasus has passive laning phase where you just farm having a cost ineffective item isn't a bad thing and it becomes cost effective when you actually start teamfighting.
The other way of thinking about it is Randuins is not cost effective but you really have no better option. If you buy the HoG fast you basically make the randuins around 600 gold cheaper if you buy Hog around 10 and randuins around 30 minutes. A 2400 randuins is an item you definitely want.
Updated guide so its actually readable. Good timing since the buffs will make people more interested. Will be testing out the Nasus changes. (while getting to 2k elo since Nasus (also, garen!!) is awesome and people wont flame me for picking him because he got buffed huehuehue) Perhaps E>W now. If I read it right, 40% CDR nasus will have a 5 second duration whither before tenacity (aka on all carries and squishies) with a 6.6 second or so cooldown. This will let you just ignore their ranged carry constantly spamming whither until you want to go kill her with perma slow on her. This will be pretty ridiculous.
Jungle Nasus? You need farm. Not a good idea but if you use builds like aegis+sheen+cdr boots into whatever you need you can get away with it.
Thoughts since I made the guide: -"lite" builds with stuff like brutalizer have never worked out for me but I tested them in normals where I usually have to basically 1v5 so as expected (partially my fault since I just ignore my team iuntil I get the items I want in normals, haha) it didn't feel strong. -Warmogs feels totally great still -Shurelyas is AWESOME. I never, ever felt like it was wasted. I often forget to use the movement speed but its so damn cheap and the stats it gives are really good. CDR Boots+Shurelyas + Randuins + 0/9/21 might be my go-to set up, with mr/lvl runes. Staying at 36% CDR for a long time until I finish randuins. Nasus is quite resilient in lane however don't get cocky trying to fight lanewicks until you get really tanky just keep farming. You don't want to die early for no reason because it hurts your far mand XP which you need more than anyone else in your game. -Shurelyas +Whither is a decent initiate for your team if their positioning isn't fantastic. Obviously if they are ready with their amumu in front of everyone don't go for it, but if they try to poke tower drop a W and hit shurelyas and you're good to go. -Nasus is a bit weird since he's a tank but needs a really good engage. Basically you want some follow through engage or something e.g arrow--> you go in or you go in-->annie flash tibbers an AP carry. I don't like so much playing with amumu as there is some kind of role overlap. Normally amumu makes their ranged AD wary of going in but you do that anyway. Perhaps if amumu builds a lot of AP like a boss?
Highly underrating Frozen Heart IMO. Allows you to get awesome ninja tabi/merc treads and still easily hit 40% CDR with 21 in utility, FH, and Shurelya's. FH's armor alone costs like 1500 gold, so the 20% attack speed reduction, 20% CDR, and 500 mana only cost 1200. Compare to CDR boots which give 15% CDR for 700. It's a goddamn steal, easily the best armor item in the game atm.
The problem is that the mana is essentially worthless. 20% CDR is costing close to 1200. (vs 15% for 700 on CDR boots, steal my ass) Not sure how good the attack speed slow on frozen heart is. Somebody told me its -20% additively and I suppose randuins is the same but its nearly twice as good. Randuins is pretty cost effective if you count gold farming with heart of gold and the reductions of active+passive together are a lot better.
I think your build is probably the best I've read on this site from someone else but I'm not convinced totally yet.
I recently thought of an idea: The main problem with everyones fancy builds is that by the time they get CDR they are past the AFK farm stage, my build gets closing on 30% CDR at 10 minutes which lets me farm my Q really fast.
Solution: Buy CDR boots, sell them for mercs/tabi when I buy shurelyas. Should be the best answer I've come up with to the question of: I don't want CDR boots but I want them to farm Q early game.
Like, your build is an idealistic version where you don't get much health because Nasus doesn't "need it" and you aim to get 40% CDR but you end up being a whole lot squishier with no warmogs, the HoG is a dead end item, you are sporting a ton of mana for nothing and you are so slot capped you have to buy frozen heart trinity force, force of nature, shurleyas, and whatever your last item is all in 1 go off the negatron/sheen/philo. To boot, you don't get that delicious +400 Q at 20-25 minutes.
By the way, my Nasus build is cdr boots -> shurelyas Reverie, gives 39% cdr with the masteries. HoG can be built if you're going to Randuins. I believe it's very important to get 40% cdr as with Nasus I build tank and Q is pretty much my only source of damage so I want it to be available as much as possible, not to mention that permawither is awesome. This build also gives enough mana regen to farm with Q.
After these items, I get negatron/chainmail if I'm not farming extremely fast, otherwise I just rush Triforce before anything(for instance in passive games where I can just freefarm top and hence get Triforce by 24min or so). After that I go for FoN and Randuins or Frozen heart whatever I feel like. I prefer Frozen Heart because then I can sell cdr boots for mercs and still maintain 40% cdr, which as I said is very important for Nasus.
1: I want warmogs because it stops you from being instantly bursted down by a team. You'd be surprised how fast you can get killed when you don't have a hard engage. 2: I want to farm my philo stone a bit more. 3: I'd prefer to just rune/mastery a bit better for 40% cdr than to spend so much gold into frozen heart .
BTW: If you're going ghostblade it might be an idea to get triple gold items. heh.
24 minute triforce isn't like triforce on Irelia who can just jump in and burst someone down and can easily run if you get CC'd. If you want to go in as Nasus you have to go in for a pretty long duration because you have to walk in, eat any CC they have and you don't want to run away with your ultimate on anyway. I don't really see the strength of it compared to getting a warmogs and being unkillable for a window of time that their carries are not farmed enough.
This buff hasnt helped nasus at all. Sure you can dominate some normals but when it comes to ranked he is still crap. He is a bad jungler and cant really compare to strong solo tops like irelia/jarvan/xin. His early game is still too weak and he cannot trade blows with just about anyone and he requires CDR to do dmg, unlike evrey other ad hero who doesnt need it.
I love nasus and he was my first "main" but he is still way to weak for serious play.
The problem is that the mana is essentially worthless. 20% CDR is costing close to 1200. (vs 15% for 700 on CDR boots, steal my ass) Not sure how good the attack speed slow on frozen heart is. Somebody told me its -20% additively and I suppose randuins is the same but its nearly twice as good. Randuins is pretty cost effective if you count gold farming with heart of gold and the reductions of active+passive together are a lot better.
I used to feel similarly about Frozen Heart and never got it on pretty much any hero. After all, how can an item that has 500 mana be cost efficient as a tank item?
Then I actually looked at the cost and the stats it gave--turns out an item that gives 500 mana IS cost efficient as a tank item. 20% CDR for 933 gold (using 15% for 700 as baseline), 99 armor for 1540 gold (chainmail), leaving only 300 gold for the -20% aspeed and mana. Considering how attack speed itself costs 1050 gold for 40%, placing it at 525 gold for 20% attack speed, and considering how Frozen Heart has a huge AoE that effects more than one champion, Frozen Heart would be an amazing armor item even if it gave 0 mana.
Yet, I find that the mana does help. When you're in lane, the mana of glacial shroud allows you to harass with Q+Spirit Fire+wither every time they're up, which is extreme harass that's pretty much impossible to withstand.
And, again, another benefit is that you don't have to get CDR boots if you go Frozen Heart and you don't have to go 9 in offense for 40% CDR. You get ninja/merc AND you get nimbleness while still hitting 40% CDR with Shurelya's.
I recently thought of an idea: The main problem with everyones fancy builds is that by the time they get CDR they are past the AFK farm stage, my build gets closing on 30% CDR at 10 minutes which lets me farm my Q really fast.
Solution: Buy CDR boots, sell them for mercs/tabi when I buy shurelyas. Should be the best answer I've come up with to the question of: I don't want CDR boots but I want them to farm Q early game.
Eh, I prefer to just max Q. The cooldown gets pretty low at level 5.
Like, your build is an idealistic version where you don't get much health because Nasus doesn't "need it" and you aim to get 40% CDR but you end up being a whole lot squishier with no warmogs, the HoG is a dead end item, you are sporting a ton of mana for nothing and you are so slot capped you have to buy frozen heart trinity force, force of nature, shurleyas, and whatever your last item is all in 1 go off the negatron/sheen/philo. To boot, you don't get that delicious +400 Q at 20-25 minutes.
What? My build is extremely tanky. The only damage item is Sheen, which costs only 1260 gold. Nasus gets a free 450/600 health from his ultimate and has substantial life steal, so he should get mitigation instead of health and is very tanky with only a Chainmail+Negatron.
Shurelya's isn't exactly a tank item, but it does give 330 health and it is pretty cheap. Basically, my build only gets a Sheen and then goes pure tank until the Triforce. You say it wastes money on "tons of mana", but Sheen and Frozen Heart would both be great even if they gave 0 mana.
Also, I have no problems getting Q farmed. The cooldown is very low even without CDR, and CDR isn't that late in my build.
This buff hasnt helped nasus at all. Sure you can dominate some normals but when it comes to ranked he is still crap. He is a bad jungler and cant really compare to strong solo tops like irelia/jarvan/xin. His early game is still too weak and he cannot trade blows with just about anyone and he requires CDR to do dmg, unlike evrey other ad hero who doesnt need it.
He gained 40% more lifesteal at level 1, which does help his laning a bit. Once he gains a few levels, he has one of the best laning phases in the game.
On August 11 2011 02:37 Makavw wrote: This buff hasnt helped nasus at all. Sure you can dominate some normals but when it comes to ranked he is still crap. He is a bad jungler and cant really compare to strong solo tops like irelia/jarvan/xin. His early game is still too weak and he cannot trade blows with just about anyone and he requires CDR to do dmg, unlike evrey other ad hero who doesnt need it.
I love nasus and he was my first "main" but he is still way to weak for serious play.
You cannot make a statement like X champ is not as good top as A/B/C champs.
In this case: Nasus is strong/weak against other opponents than xin/jarv/ire top. There are champs that can deal with being dominated in a lane while others cannot. For example Akali is very strong against some champions top and flat out dominates them while freefarming and punishing every lasthit they make but if she gets a bad matchup she is FUCKED same goes for other champs such as garen. In the other hand Singed is not very good in most matchups but he doesnt care about that because he can farm like a boss past a few levels and passively stack up his core other examples are vladimir and mb irelia.
Iam not sure whre nasus is in that relation but I would say he doesn't care too much about being the bitch in a lane as long as he can sustain himself early on and get a certain amount of farm. He is certainly not designed to dominate lanes but to stay there long enough to get stronger. If he actually does dominate then he probably gets completely out of control depending on his build and the other matchups.
The problem is that the mana is essentially worthless. 20% CDR is costing close to 1200. (vs 15% for 700 on CDR boots, steal my ass) Not sure how good the attack speed slow on frozen heart is. Somebody told me its -20% additively and I suppose randuins is the same but its nearly twice as good. Randuins is pretty cost effective if you count gold farming with heart of gold and the reductions of active+passive together are a lot better.
I used to feel similarly about Frozen Heart and never got it on pretty much any hero. After all, how can an item that has 500 mana be cost efficient as a tank item?
Then I actually looked at the cost and the stats it gave--turns out an item that gives 500 mana IS cost efficient as a tank item. 20% CDR for 933 gold (using 15% for 700 as baseline), 99 armor for 1540 gold (chainmail), leaving only 300 gold for the -20% aspeed and mana. Considering how attack speed itself costs 1050 gold for 40%, placing it at 525 gold for 20% attack speed, and considering how Frozen Heart has a huge AoE that effects more than one champion, Frozen Heart would be an amazing armor item even if it gave 0 mana.
Yet, I find that the mana does help. When you're in lane, the mana of glacial shroud allows you to harass with Q+Spirit Fire+wither every time they're up, which is extreme harass that's pretty much impossible to withstand.
And, again, another benefit is that you don't have to get CDR boots if you go Frozen Heart and you don't have to go 9 in offense for 40% CDR. You get ninja/merc AND you get nimbleness while still hitting 40% CDR with Shurelya's.
I recently thought of an idea: The main problem with everyones fancy builds is that by the time they get CDR they are past the AFK farm stage, my build gets closing on 30% CDR at 10 minutes which lets me farm my Q really fast.
Solution: Buy CDR boots, sell them for mercs/tabi when I buy shurelyas. Should be the best answer I've come up with to the question of: I don't want CDR boots but I want them to farm Q early game.
Eh, I prefer to just max Q. The cooldown gets pretty low at level 5.
Like, your build is an idealistic version where you don't get much health because Nasus doesn't "need it" and you aim to get 40% CDR but you end up being a whole lot squishier with no warmogs, the HoG is a dead end item, you are sporting a ton of mana for nothing and you are so slot capped you have to buy frozen heart trinity force, force of nature, shurleyas, and whatever your last item is all in 1 go off the negatron/sheen/philo. To boot, you don't get that delicious +400 Q at 20-25 minutes.
What? My build is extremely tanky. The only damage item is Sheen, which costs only 1260 gold. Nasus gets a free 450/600 health from his ultimate and has substantial life steal, so he should get mitigation instead of health and is very tanky with only a Chainmail+Negatron.
Shurelya's isn't exactly a tank item, but it does give 330 health and it is pretty cheap. Basically, my build only gets a Sheen and then goes pure tank until the Triforce. You say it wastes money on "tons of mana", but Sheen and Frozen Heart would both be great even if they gave 0 mana.
Also, I have no problems getting Q farmed. The cooldown is very low even without CDR, and CDR isn't that late in my build.
This buff hasnt helped nasus at all. Sure you can dominate some normals but when it comes to ranked he is still crap. He is a bad jungler and cant really compare to strong solo tops like irelia/jarvan/xin. His early game is still too weak and he cannot trade blows with just about anyone and he requires CDR to do dmg, unlike evrey other ad hero who doesnt need it.
He gained 40% more lifesteal at level 1, which does help his laning a bit. Once he gains a few levels, he has one of the best laning phases in the game.
Did you read the guide? I max Q first. More CDR puts it down to 2.4 seconds.
Nasus is not weak against irelia/jarvan/xin. He can trade okish with whither+Q. Mostly he just farms and lifesteals and if they try to deny you hard they are open to jungle ganks. After level 7-9ish if you didn't die you just farm and they can't stop you at all.
Ok so I've tried Nasus some and I really have problems actually laning. If they have someone strong like Akali, Jax, or an AP caster like Cassiopeia, Brand etc. on solo top, I really have problems surviving. Especially Akali feels impossible, then I'm almost forced to maxing E and spamming it to farm but that makes my Q really weak.
After like lvl 11 it's simple to withstand the harrass with the lifesteal, but it's very difficult to get to that point in the first place if the enemy is really strong at around lvl 1.
Should I just try to go for an exhaust + Q harrassing attempt right at the start of the laning to bring their hp down a little? Should I skill W at lvl 1? Should I max W first and try to go for trades?
I don't think you get enough damage out of ghostblade for its cost. It's more of a good mid-game roaming item...which isn't really what Nasus is about.
On August 11 2011 06:18 Odds wrote: I wonder, maybe ghostblade would be good to help with his gap closing issues and arpen and cdr on nasus always good.
I'd rather have Shurelya's, tbh. And getting double movespeed actives is a bit silly.
On August 11 2011 06:31 Juicyfruit wrote: I don't think you get enough damage out of ghostblade for its cost. It's more of a good mid-game roaming item...which isn't really what Nasus is about.
You underestimate Ghostblade by a lot. The potential problem I see with Ghostblade on Nasus is that it only provides pure offense. I would skip Sheen if I were to try Ghostblade on Nasus.
On August 11 2011 06:18 Odds wrote: I wonder, maybe ghostblade would be good to help with his gap closing issues and arpen and cdr on nasus always good.
Ghostblade not that good on him IMO.
Sheen is a much better damage item on him, and Shurelya's allows him to gap close.
Trinity force is the choice item for gap close. I mentioned ghostblade but I always do horrible when I build it. The attack speed proc is usually terrible since you spend so much time running and hitting Q any way, and it's the worst choice out of FoN, Trinity, and Shurelyas for gap closing.
On August 11 2011 05:53 Shikyo wrote: Ok so I've tried Nasus some and I really have problems actually laning. If they have someone strong like Akali, Jax, or an AP caster like Cassiopeia, Brand etc. on solo top, I really have problems surviving. Especially Akali feels impossible, then I'm almost forced to maxing E and spamming it to farm but that makes my Q really weak.
After like lvl 11 it's simple to withstand the harrass with the lifesteal, but it's very difficult to get to that point in the first place if the enemy is really strong at around lvl 1.
Should I just try to go for an exhaust + Q harrassing attempt right at the start of the laning to bring their hp down a little? Should I skill W at lvl 1? Should I max W first and try to go for trades?
Early trades with Q+auto hit I do a lot. When they go for harass you should punish it with whither. You shouldn't bother using E in lane, at least if they are zoning you, let them push to tower. Jax can't do anything to you pre-6. You heal more, and he can't afford to harass you with your whither and Q follow up. Akali is a bitch but just stay away from her shroud when she casts it. Brand is a matter of dodging as many of is skillshots as you can and afk farming. Cass owns you I don't think you can lane versus her, the speed and damage is too much and you can't dodge every poison.
Starting to reevaulate getting trinity force so late. The chasing power is huge for random small fights around the map that happen all the time in solo queue, or arriving late for clean up. The only time you don't want it is in 5v5 teamfights which don't happen that much early on anyway.
Starting to reevaulate getting trinity force so late. The chasing power is huge for random small fights around the map that happen all the time in solo queue, or arriving late for clean up. The only time you don't want it is in 5v5 teamfights which don't happen that much early on anyway.
No no no no no
bad bad bad
Triforce is way too much gold for not enough tankiness early on. CDR gives you pretty damn good chasing power with permawither. Also Shurelya's active.
On August 11 2011 06:31 Juicyfruit wrote: I don't think you get enough damage out of ghostblade for its cost. It's more of a good mid-game roaming item...which isn't really what Nasus is about.
You underestimate Ghostblade by a lot. The potential problem I see with Ghostblade on Nasus is that it only provides pure offense. I would skip Sheen if I were to try Ghostblade on Nasus.
Not really. I'm not disputing ghostblade's standalone power midgame as a balanced DPS item, but it's simply not a good investment for late-game and I don't really get the impression that Nasus can accomplish as much with it midgame rushing it as say... a Yi.
The only time you need that much tankiness if for 5v5 teamfights. Depending on how the game is going, you can get it while people are laning, and especally in solo queue random fights happen around the place and trinity is by far the best item for that.
For example, chances are they have a hard time focusing you anyway unless you specifically have to intiate fights. If you avoid them and keep farming and they don't get coordinated it can work out. I'll need to test it more though, definitely not feeling the chasing power without it. i'll have to try the perma whither though. The only game I got to play Nasus today the whole team fed and i managed to take out their ashe anyway so maybe its OP.
Played a couple of Nasus games after the buffs. I almost always went hog->triforce long ago but now I am thinking of changing it.
Currently I'm opening cloth 5 pot | armor/apen/farmor/fresist 0/21/9 with flash/tp. My goal is just do whatever is necessary to farm that q and your items in lane, while teleport for important teamfights and later splitpushing, etc.
Cloth 5pot because it allows for a little more tankyness and flexibility of 5pots vs pendent pot where if you make some bad trades you might need to use your teleport. I like to conserve mana only to q and w if the enemy commits to an exchange. Also I go for FH which uses the cloth anyway (or the offchance you get dodge boots, but it's always been mercs for me.)
philo/boots/pots/ward with first back, unless you have more gold to spare. Usually I get a mantle here or a chainmail for glacial shroud and extra tankiness. I'm also thinking about chalice since at this points you might use your qwe combo more offensively since q is on short cd and it should be beefed up a bit. I think you definitely run out of mana if you q every chance per wave (even if not all 6/7 per wave) so chalice might be a cheap way to keep up with manapool early-midgame. Sometime midgame I usually push tower with a (counter)gank because his qwer is so damn strong and you're beefy with your runes, masteries, and items. Here on your play accordingly, pushing with e + q if you need to push and pressure somewhere else, or just q if you're farming just q.
My final item setup looks to be mercs/FH/Shurelia's/warmogs/LW + whatever you need. I find SR |FH 35% cdr very useful, giving cost-efficient stats you want (cept some of SR but it's made from philo and the active is useful). Warmogs because you have good armor/mr and it gives you super-beefiness to take on enemies. I think removing this makes you vulnerable to bursts. LW because I run only 15 apen from reds and tanks with 250 armor can be a pain, and others have FH/Hourglass... I think it's a must-have item for endgame.
As for the last slot... sometimes it's GA, FoN for MR or BV if needed. Or Randuin's.
Basically my goal is to farm q to sufficient levels early-midgame. I don't know, need more experience but I think mercs/LW/FH/SR is a good always-have item because together they provide needed stats. Maybe some combination of Triforce + tanky item of choice is better whether it be warmogs for hp, Randuin/GA for armor and FoN/QSS (usually over bveil) for mr is better. Need more experience...
Also I haven't played vs new teemo but long ago I couldn't beat him. zzzzzz morning rant.
On August 11 2011 22:12 Wala.Revolution wrote: Currently I'm opening cloth 5 pot | armor/apen/farmor/fresist 0/21/9 with flash/tp. My goal is just do whatever is necessary to farm that q and your items in lane, while teleport for important teamfights and later splitpushing, etc.
Is that supposed to mean: APen marks flat Armor seals flat MRes glyphs flat Armor quints
If so, why do you open cloth + 5 with that and 21 defense? That's overkill on armor against most (if not all) top laners. Regrowth + 1 or Boots + 3 should be fine...
I guess I can switch up runes or masteries to more utility oriented (perhaps mr quints and flatcdr blues for 40%cdr) but since I he's so monster with farm I just gear up as survive-and-farm(everything) setup.
If I were to play differently, say more focused on suppressing/zoning lanes rather than stacking q, I could definitely switch. But I play it so q is the focus of everything early-mid game so... 300-600 extra damage is usually my goal.
Also that's my general setup. If I know I'm going to vs someone than I will tailor it to armor/mr whatever to make it more advantageous for me.
I suppose apen qunits can be of more use than armor/mr quints.
I tried nasus some more and i just dont see him solo top, i get much better results with irelia then with nasus.
Like i said nasus cannot dominate just about anyone in lane untill he gets sheen with decent farm, before that he simply cannot trade blows. And because he cannot trade blows, its very hard to get last hits in when you are a melee with no gap closer.
90% of games i play this people go solo top : jax,irelia,jarvan,xin,gragas,cass, malz, udyr, akali.
Nasus first of all cant really beat any of them apart maybe jax. Is kind of even with irelia but other people will blow him out of the water. (havent tried vs malz). Akali will hardcore counter him and you cannot do anything about that. His early game is sooo weak with q beeing on milion second cooldown and you also MUST use it on creeps :/. Sure, nasus atfer level 7 with sheen can pretty much stand against anyone, but before that you are likley to go underfarmed and maybe killed.
So my issuse is that people CAN counterpick nasus easily, he has weaknesses and that is a problem unless he is last pick.
On August 12 2011 01:25 Makavw wrote: I tried nasus some more and i just dont see him solo top, i get much better results with irelia then with nasus.
Like i said nasus cannot dominate just about anyone in lane untill he gets sheen with decent farm, before that he simply cannot trade blows. And because he cannot trade blows, its very hard to get last hits in when you are a melee with no gap closer.
90% of games i play this people go solo top : jax,irelia,jarvan,xin,gragas,cass, malz, udyr, akali.
Nasus first of all cant really beat any of them apart maybe jax. Is kind of even with irelia but other people will blow him out of the water. (havent tried vs malz). Akali will hardcore counter him and you cannot do anything about that. His early game is sooo weak with q beeing on milion second cooldown and you also MUST use it on creeps :/. Sure, nasus atfer level 7 with sheen can pretty much stand against anyone, but before that you are likley to go underfarmed and maybe killed.
So my issuse is that people CAN counterpick nasus easily, he has weaknesses and that is a problem unless he is last pick.
If u grab early points in whither you shouldn't have a problem against champs that rely in autos to exchange blows. In other words, jax irelia jarvan udyr will all outburst you but they can never commit because whither will just totally rape them. You will definitely have to open with philo, maybe a hog, and will maybe have get an early resist item depending on what your lane opponents dmg mostly is. You're right tho in that nasus is easily countered. Akali and teemo both rape nasus really really fuckin hard Also nasus goal in lane isn't to harass or trade blows really. It's to farm up your q and ur items. That said, if a kill or gank or easy harass opportunity presents itself you should still go for it. Just number 1 priority is to farm farm farm
Added content for laning against hard opponents from what I learned in solo queue at higher elo and recently watching wickds style of skipping gold/10 and just building to counter the enemy lane and teamcomp, with flat health regen quints and flat armour/mr runes. Removed more of the BS and rambling and generalized and made things more concise. Removed brutalizer/ghostblade based builds because I've never seen them work and have never found them useful compared to standard stuff.
Nasus is really strong ATM since people figured out how to rune/mastery/build so that you can't be forced out of lane by anyone really in a game with a jungler to stop gross overextending. People dislike not being able to "dominate" lane but free farming as Nasus is pretty much dominating your lane. He's not that easily countered any more. I've seen garens being able to get farm vs teemo and Nasus has free 14% lifesteal and a Q that lifesteals even more. Garen can't catch teemo anyway,
I think philo/hog is more something you do when the lane isn't trying to hard counter you, while dorans shield or cloth+% starts//null magic starts are the ones you take vs lanes who try to rape you early on. Also heavy defense specs I'm using more and more over utility simply because a strong early game is WAY more important than a slightly stronger mid game.
Also reread the thread. Would like to respond to purple cows posts I think we were arguing about frozen heart being good or bad and this post:
Starting to reevaulate getting trinity force so late. The chasing power is huge for random small fights around the map that happen all the time in solo queue, or arriving late for clean up. The only time you don't want it is in 5v5 teamfights which don't happen that much early on anyway.
No no no no no
bad bad bad
Triforce is way too much gold for not enough tankiness early on. CDR gives you pretty damn good chasing power with permawither. Also Shurelya's active.
Trinity force is DEFINITELY not bad. Nasus with trinity force still is tanky as fuck with his ultimate and trinity force at level 16 giving him like 3k health with HoG as well. This doesn't mean you can rambo into their whole team but you are definitely tankier than most bruisers with trinity force. (And have a safer initiate). Any time the team will mostly be ignoring you you want trinity force and not full tank nasus. (I.E double AP+AD carry comps CAN NOT ignore you and you should probably get full tank with fon or warmogs to regen the poke and high resists in general Frozen hard is DEFINITELY not bad. However it's not that cost effective as a pure tank+cdr item but I would get it in full tank nasus builds when I need to max my CDR but had to go mercs//ninja tabi. Trinity+Frozen heart builds I dislike though. If you're going trinity anywhere before 5th/6th item I wouldn't get it. Either trinity+ga or frozen heart+more tanky+cdr shit. You don't NEED trinity and you don't NEED max cdr so you need to figure out what you need more. If you need to be a tank or a bruiser so to say. I also dislike sheen only builds. Sheen gives the only 2 useless stats out of the whole trinity force. (I know mana has value in lane but in teamfights it's usually not worth anything). If you're building sheen, might as well get trinity fast. Phage gives health and zeal gives movement speed and they both help your survivability anyway. Just sheen for lane is good but it's a lane dominator and you shouldn't need to dominate your lane as Nasus you just want to farm. Also sheen+banshee+frozen heart builds I've seen a couple times. total lol. Having more mana than hp is a BAD thing when some AP carries don't build a single mana item. (and don't need blue either)
SHEEN is a must with nasus, either rush for it or get it after armor (if your getting beat in lane) always get sheen and Q farm the hell out of him, then he pretty much turns into god if you let him farm. At first hes a lil difficult to play but you get used to it.
Been doing straight DPS builds for nasus and he is one of the best champs right now (my opinion)
always max Q first. and i think the best start item for him would be boots/pots, all other others dont make much sence
Thanks for the guide man, it really made me realize how important Wither is (esp. against AD carries) and how useless Spirit Fire is, which I previously prioritized far more than was necessary. Also, CDR has a bigger impact than I thought.
I'm not sure if I agree with the poster above me though on doing straight DPS, I find Q with such a low CD to do enough damage, just in my experience though.
Spirit Fire is good though...it's straight up one of the best zoning abilities in the game, if you get good farm on your Q and you zone someone into standing in it you can absolutely wail on them. The order that you level him should be dynamic, he is very flexible in that regard depending on lane setup.
I don't know how you can say he's weak, Nasus is an amazing champion, but for some reason, I could never make him my main like other tanks. He is just so fun to play though and is an amazing chance to show off my last hitting skills :D
Max E First is pretty much straight up bad. Like, in lane, you totally open yourself up to their jungler. Maxing E after Q is arguable, you can use it for dragon fights, but I very rarely notice it making that big an impact. Sure you cast it before you Q someone at the start of the fight for more damage but overall maxing whither is generally more devastating. -4 base second cooldown as you approach 40% CDR is pretty big.
Cloth+5 is arguable. I actually like to use my tp faster so it's up again faster. You rarely need it early unless you die to jungle gank and being able to tp with philo+boots+wards+pots is good. Cloth/dorans shield is needed vs hard lanes though.
Have you laned vs Rumble before? I think I did about three times, once recently, and couldn't keep up even when speced (MR qunits and blues, 21 def, mantle). He can damage you while creeps are meeting and/or when you attempt to last hit under tower.
On the other hand, Garen is no problem. Armor rues (not the full armor runes), giving up a few cs then letting him naturally push to tower you're free to last hit and later take him on with jungle + ult.
I still think tank/cdr is the way to go except in few games where you're needed early and you can afford to go not really tanky. FH/SR should be enough. I was actually now thinking of make SR early (perhaps after Glacial Shroud if you get that item first and maybe mantle/negatron) because it's cdr and active is far better than philo's gp/5.
Unless I know it's an impossible lane I also have been starting regrowth or boots.
My final items vs a balanced team will be mercs, FH, FoN/QSS, SR, TF, and LW.
EDIT: I also dislike Sheen only for the reasons you said. However if you do rush TF it makes you almost unstoppable split pusher, as with a negatron + mercs there probably isn't anyone who can 1v1 you. And you'll run TP many times anyway.
EDIT2: as for maxing W v E, I think W is better if teamfights happen early. It may sound counter-intuitive, but putting W on anyone will cripple them, and make the AD carry useless if he/she doesn't have mercs (and even with mercs, lol). The slow numbers go up a lot, and having 11 cd with cdr will make it used very often. On the other hand, since I tend to splitpush/farm top forever, having E maxed means more damage because regardless of W level I tend to kill the person if I can. Also better for splitpushing.
I've actually ended up bullying rumbles if you don't die early for no reason. You need to make sure your jungler is on top of his game though he can't just let him harass you under tower. You have to let him push if he wants to and rely on jungler. Once you get some mr items and some farm on Q you out harass him because of superior healing.
I've been playing Nasus for a couple of weeks now and am really enjoying it. I like to think I'm not bad at it either. However, I just played a game where I was solo top and I got absolutely ruined by Soraka's Starcall. I opened Null-Mag mantle 2x pot yet still, I was done by level three and had to get out. ANy recommendations? :/
21 def and flat MR runes indeed (though I still have two locked slots (lolvl 23). I was running Flash Exhaust (not convinced by TP though I should try it again). I was completely stumped :/
Nasus got one of the best nuke in game with trinity force and inf blade you can crit for 1,2k and still be very tanky nasusis my favorite champion but he gets shut down early in game
On September 19 2011 06:42 Eishi_Ki wrote: 21 def and flat MR runes indeed (though I still have two locked slots (lolvl 23). I was running Flash Exhaust (not convinced by TP though I should try it again). I was completely stumped :/
Tp real gud tho. Basically you get a free shop early on. If you start Dorans shield/cloth+5hp pots/negatron+2 hp pots you should be able to get a few last hits, pretty much last untill level 5-6 without giving up too many.
At that point you have what, 1k? That means that you can go base, get 2 hp pots and philo or something and then return to lane without missing a lot of creeps. If soraka goes base, you gain a level on her. If she doesn't base, she can't bully you around anymore. It really helps to not get raped in lane imo.
Updated. New masteries, cleaned up the whole guide up to "playstyle" and made everything up to date. Mostly using skyyart nasus build or trinity/ga type stuff. Very sucessful in plat in ranked games with Nasus, even though I normally play junglers.
Knowing when to let yourself get zoned and waiting for jungle ganks means it's VERY hard to truly counter nasus who has the runepages to counter their damage. Most real hard counters are just strong early game champs in general and you can lose some CS and still be fine later on. The only things that looked convincing from tournaments were akali and jax who are both great midgame but seem to rape nasus in lane.
Alright, so I gotta ask you: is it possible to beat Riven these days? I never considered her one of my trouble matchups until last night, when I got completely wrecked.
What's this beating nonsense? Can you farm against riven? Sure, if you're smart about which farm you get. If you walk into middle of the lane when she's level 3 and try to hit a range creep expect to lose half your hp. Just play defensive if she plays agressive (which she will) she will be wide open to the jungler since wither counters all her mini flash bullshit spells. Last time I played against riven I actually out cs'd her because she can't farm too easily at my tower and lost last hits trying to stop me farming, and she went like 0/3 because she got ganked and I got kills.
Your wither not all that effective for 1v1ing because of her spells and it's usually not worth it just get philo frozen heart and she can't really stop you farming after that.
On November 29 2011 02:58 Slayer91 wrote: What's this beating nonsense? Can you farm against riven? Sure, if you're smart about which farm you get. If you walk into middle of the lane when she's level 3 and try to hit a range creep expect to lose half your hp. Just play defensive if she plays agressive (which she will) she will be wide open to the jungler since wither counters all her mini flash bullshit spells. Last time I played against riven I actually out cs'd her because she can't farm too easily at my tower and lost last hits trying to stop me farming, and she went like 0/3 because she got ganked and I got kills.
Your wither not all that effective for 1v1ing because of her spells and it's usually not worth it just get philo frozen heart and she can't really stop you farming after that.
I know what 'beat' refers to, trust me. My mistakes last night were not starting cloth+5 and getting an early Frozen heart (never done that before honestly). We did manage to pick up first blood on her with the help of Wither + exhaust but after that their Lee Sin was dedicated to shutting me out and down completely. By level 8 they were diving me on the tower. Essentially if I had more jungle pressure and played more defensively I might have eventually come out on top, but my farming was so gimped and the other lanes were losing as well so the jungler couldn't stick around. Don't think I had any way of coming out on top of that one but there are definitely things I could have done better. Thanks for the advice.
If you're getting tower dived you're taking too much damage from riven or don't have enough armour. Nasus is stupidly hard to tower dive cause of wither and ulti and high defensive stats.
Thanks for the update, I found myself going 9/21/0 as well. I just have a couple of questions about items.
Is there any situation in which you'd get Ninja Tabi anymore? The only reason I got it before was because of Nimbleness and because most solotops tended to be AD. And how do you feel about QSS and Banshees? I get QSS because combining it with Shurelya's/Ghost means you never, ever die. Banshee's, on the other hand, probably helps more with overall survivability. Do you suggest ever getting either on Nasus?
Banshee pretty bad. I guess you can justify it if you're doing a weird catalyst build and not getting sheen OR glacial but then your build is probably bad.
Like, the spellshield is pretty bad for a melee because you're always in front and there's always a spammable spell that knocks it off. The hp isn't a great stat because you get so much from ulti and CDR items (kindlegem), and the magic resist you're better off getting from a negatron. Aegis FAR better for MR, so is spirit visage. Negatron-->FoN is a very good route. FoN gives you regen which is anti poke and is great when you survive over a long fight and also have lifesteal to keep you alive through a lot of damage from any left over bruisers/tanks that are still in the fight you can clean up. It also provides a lot of magic resist and movement speed which are all fantastic stats once you have your core of CDR and high resists + Q farm.
I get qss against malzahar, heh. Ninja tabi are great in lane against ADs and are good in general against auto attackers but the problem is generally nasus destroys them anyway what really hits you hard is cc+ap carries so mercs are #1.
Like, compare aegis+negatron to banshee veil. 2715 banshee I believe, aegis 1925+740 is 2665. Gain like 40 more armour and mr, lose like 50 health +gain a great aura.
Oh thank you Brambled! I am actually a Riven player but Nasus gives everyone trouble. Need to learn to stop the beast from farming that Q!
Edit: Nice laneing in your replay! If you ever want to practice Riven vs. Nasus let me know. I think I may be able to give you a better look than that Riven =P
Ugh....I want to watch this but it seems as though either the most recent version of lolreplay or the most recent patch has fucked things up. Gonna try to grab an older version. Edit: Didn't work. Sigh....I was kind of looking forward to seeing this. Oh well. If anyone has a workaround or fix I'd love to hear it.
On November 30 2011 08:28 Hoban wrote: Oh thank you Brambled! I am actually a Riven player but Nasus gives everyone trouble. Need to learn to stop the beast from farming that Q!
Edit: Nice laneing in your replay! If you ever want to practice Riven vs. Nasus let me know. I think I may be able to give you a better look than that Riven =P
Yea I feel like Riven made more mistakes and could have played better. But that is usually a reason why someone loses a lane.
I just had a game with me Nasus vs Tryn top. Was a tough lane and I think he played mechanically well but he over extended and then I had lane advantage imo.
Tough game where I played really well into mid game then made some mistakes but then carried team in last fight and baron decision.
What are your guys opinions of the Shen vs Nasus matchup top? I play a lot of both and just recently started playing Shen against other Nasuses, I can usually force them out of lane very early and get a decisive advantage before they get high enough level to compete with me. Basically just hitting them with every single knife early on while staying out of range of their Q, then poking them with my passive proc and knife whenever their Q is on CD...if they W you you can instantly use your dash to create a gap and get out with a good damage trade+they run out of mana.
I think Shen could be frustrating. His Q does magic dmg right and what about his passive? I think vs Shen I might go for a more aggressive farm build. Or instead of rushing armor like I normally do against most toplaners I would work towards warmog asap.
On November 30 2011 07:54 Brambled wrote: I have a replay form other day showing my with nasus vs riven on top. I think it was one of few times Ive played my lanes near perfectly.
Just watched this game.... The Riven I most recently played against did not play anywhere near this passively...honestly I feel like your matchup was won because of bad play on her part and really stronk Guitar Serious ganks.
I just feel like there are so few champs that beat her these days when she is played properly...
Nasus #1 hero for baddies in low elo (speaking from experience here) because low elo players don't realize the importance of zoning nasus and are generally bad at it even if they do.
I am currently 5-0 with nasus in ranked and it has been pretty similar every time. Early game they either push lane early and get ganked, giving me a huge lead where I can sit on philo/hog, or they are passive and i get farmed anyway.
Only danger is that you might fall asleep from the constant AFK farming. Teamfights amount to activation shurelya's, withering their carry, then qing anything in range. Also activating ult i guess (once i forgot and it didn't matter). So also recommended for people with lag problems (once again speaking from experience) because you don't really need fast reaction time.
Just thought I would give my input to people asking for a good champ for low elo players.
That only really works if they have no idea who counters Nasus, or they pick their solo top first. :>
As far as Shen vs Nasus goes, it's almost a free lane for Nasus imo, if Nasus takes teleport (which he should). Unless the jungler is camping Nasus, Shen doesn't really scare me at all... just sit back and farm all day long. The dagger is annoying, but annoying doesn't really stop Nasus. I'd just get gp/10 items and pots if I felt like I needed them and farm at my tower. If you're Qing me all day long, you're going to push the lane, and I'll happily farm at my turret until I outscale you.
Also if you ult to save someone and it's not for dragon, you're giving me free farm in the meantime. I'm cool with that.
I'm a little confused by the 10% magic penetration offensive mastery in the new guide. I get the 4% CDR being useful early, but usually you're going to have Frozen Heart and Shurelya's anyways, and with defensive masteries that's an easy 40% CDR. I usually get the 10% armor penetration. :>
My usual build is Philo->HoG->Mercs->Triforce->Frozen Heart->Shurelya's->Guardian Angel->Radiun's Omen. Unless I need to be stacking armor against Garen/Renekton, then I usually start getting parts of the Frozen Heart a wee bit faster. Occassionally throw in an Aegis after Triforce if I have the feeling team fights are imminent, or my farm isn't where I would like it to be.
On January 27 2012 14:34 zer0das wrote: That only really works if they have no idea who counters Nasus, or they pick their solo top first. :>
Like I said, I am a low elo player and pretty much everyone picks who they feel like playing, not to counter. Even champs who should counter him don't necessarily pay off if they play the matchup wrong.
At higher levels it may not work but at 1300 elo it is pretty effective.
What lanes do you feel confident in getting Nasus? I liked him before i started rankeds, but there i felt pretty fast that i got destroyed by many tops, who knew what they were doing, and forgot the champ. But now i was playing some normals with friends, and decided to try him again, and the dog is super fun.
What match ups you consider a nono, and what are the times when the other guy picks top, that makes you think that now is nasus time?
On January 27 2012 16:50 Gaslo wrote: What lanes do you feel confident in getting Nasus? I liked him before i started rankeds, but there i felt pretty fast that i got destroyed by many tops, who knew what they were doing, and forgot the champ. But now i was playing some normals with friends, and decided to try him again, and the dog is super fun.
What match ups you consider a nono, and what are the times when the other guy picks top, that makes you think that now is nasus time?
Wouldn't want to go up against Pantheon, Renek, Garen, a decent GP, Riven, Skarner. I have found that every other matchup, including Kennen, works pretty decently for me if I am willing to either sacrifice some early farm for late game dominance or max Spirit Fire first. Then again, I'm by no means the most experienced Nasus player out there, I just picked him up after Karma granted me his Riot Skin.
Edit: Nasus time for me is against Irelia, Trynd, Warwick, Jarv, Singed, Udyr, Cho, Galio, Malph, Rumble. Oh yaeh, and Yorick. Trollface.jpg while Qing his ghouls. But honestly I have found that it's not so much about their top lane (because, at least at my Elo (1450ish), there is a point where he just magically becomes unstoppable from farming) but your and their team composition. If you have multiple (hard) CCs and they lack the tools to kite, Nasus is a really decent pick in my opinion.
Nasus has lots of trouble against tiger udyr but GP is less of a problem. Riven, garen, renek and panth can bully hard but also get screwed hard by the jungler. Skarner I have no idea about.
GP is mostly a matter of getting your glacial shroud fast after that it's pretty plain sailing.
I don't mind going against Renekton and Garen, because they're going to push the lane eventually, and it is easy to just farm until you outscale them. Riven is sort of similar, except she scales almost as well as you do, so if she's good, she can actually shut you down- but I've found this matchup generally comes down to skill (and whether or not your jungler ganks her when she's sitting in front of your tower *cough*). Riven has an advantage and is annoying to fight against though.
Gangplank, Pantheon, Skarner, and AD Nidalee I hate facing. I don't know how you can say it's smooth sailing against GP, given getting to that point is not easy. Get anywhere near creeps against Gangplank, even on a tower, and you're getting parrleyed in the face. Go a bit too far, oh you're locked down by the grog, now you're probably dead or at least lose 2/3rds your HP. He's not necessarily easy for your jungler to gank either since he can just eat an orange and run away if you don't have another CC. I know it is possible to swing the matchup, but I don't think it is easy. If you screw up and give him a kill he can really start to spiral out of control too.
Anyone can lose 2/3 of health to gp if you aren't careful, that's nothing exclusive to nasus. If anything nasus has a far easier time getting zoned since he has so much lifesteal and the fact that W prevents him from gibbing you at level 2. If you don't get all the last hits early then the lane will get pushed to your side so you can relax. Once you get some CDR your W is shorter cd than his oranges by far so once you have glacial he can't fuck with you unless you've fallen really far behind.
Like I played 1 game and got behind early and got owned but the next time I faced a GP I sorted out my early levels and thne got a fast glacial after philo and boots and everything was fine.
On November 30 2011 07:54 Brambled wrote: I have a replay form other day showing my with nasus vs riven on top. I think it was one of few times Ive played my lanes near perfectly.
HP is not a preferable stat because of your passive and ultimate. In lane however, some health is nice to help survive ganks//tower dives but yeah generally you prefer resists and cdr far more.
sometimes i do my best to deny Nasus farm (played as Garen, Pantheon, and Swain). I out CS him and kill him a couple of times but he ends up getting a lot of CS later anyways though. what do i do then?
You can't really DO anything once he gets farmed. What you do is you deny him early and get a large cs lead, and if you kill him as well, you go and make plays around the map. Gank mid, Dive bot, Play for dragon, steal their buffs. Nasus can't follow you becaues you just kill him while he's weak and you want to have a significant advantage before he does.
The 4% CDR reduction and 10% magic penetration logic goes like this: You don't want to spend 5 points to get 10% armor penetration. But 4% CDR is really valuable, and the 10% magic penetration is really good for 1 point, it helps on your E and R that little bit. However, if you're definitely going frozen heart shurelyas as first 2 items, you either don't get the CDR/lvl in defense tree, or just don't go 9 offensive at all IMO. Better to go 9 utility or more in defense. But I'm not toally sure about that. I don't like hog because I feel like even a fast philo is pushing it, and only because you know for sure you're going to play passive, you're better off getting a kindlegem, it helps you in lane more both for fighting and farming your Q, and lets you get shurelyas faster where the early dragon fight potential and mana regen and extra CDR makes it worth losing the gp/10 on your philo stone.
I rarely get a fast triforce, but if I do I tend to rush GA after. CDR builds are really nice on Nasus but it's not necessary to rush it especially early game when you're out leveling their bot lane and jungle by quite a bit and the AD steriod and arpen from your E and R makes your autos hit like a truck. Generally CDR builds are necessary for laning, as both shurelyas stats (cdr to stack Q and get 2x W's in trades and more Q's in trades, and also to get away from ganks with the hp and move speed active), and the frozen heart stats (mana to let you cast spells in lane without going oom and not being able to farm Q, CDR, and armour because most tops are physical heavy).
Aegis is also an excellent Nasus item if you don't think GA is a good choice or generally just want more of everything tank stat wise. But generally it gets overshadowed by CDR items.
Randuins is that item I get after Frozen heart when I know for a 100% fact that if I shut down their AD carry we win the teamfight. (Consider that Nasus is extremely hard to kill without an AD carry as well, if you take him out you can help clean up, even QSSing wither will only do so much with the short CD, randuins+frozen, and the wardens mail proc letting you run away from AD carries with PD and redbuff)
I used to get LW and warmogs more, but I find with better teams generally if you accomplish your role as the tank (shutting down their ad carry, intiating, hitting their squishies really hard) you'll win teamfights. If they have like a fed irelia or akali etc things become more complicated, however.
On January 28 2012 02:00 Slayer91 wrote: Anyone can lose 2/3 of health to gp if you aren't careful, that's nothing exclusive to nasus. If anything nasus has a far easier time getting zoned since he has so much lifesteal and the fact that W prevents him from gibbing you at level 2. If you don't get all the last hits early then the lane will get pushed to your side so you can relax. Once you get some CDR your W is shorter cd than his oranges by far so once you have glacial he can't fuck with you unless you've fallen really far behind.
Like I played 1 game and got behind early and got owned but the next time I faced a GP I sorted out my early levels and thne got a fast glacial after philo and boots and everything was fine.
Definitely a really annoying matchup. He'll get wiggles (I think he went tabi->wiggles->building for warmogs) and it was really annoying to go against him even at later levels. But once I had Kindlegem + Glacial I would win in trades because my w would be off cd (probably 1/2 cd) and I had a better manapool, as well as better sustain because I would last hit with Q after a successful trade.
I've been maxing w after Q, for its cdr as well as extra slow percentage. Against champs who don't have built-in flash (or Garen) w essentially is a kill if you bait a trade correctly, and even flash champs can die from a commited jungler flash. Also with the AD carries going zerkers most often unless they run cleanse (even then, hopefully you have CCs) w will effectively shut them out of any fights early-mid game. And lategame too dohoho.
Another annoying point is when their AP mid gets really really fed but you have to build at least glacial to be effective in lane. But I find that that tends to happen when I'm vs Nasus as they'll build tabi->FH and our mid will kill him with a good gank.
Every time I see a Nasus get Warmogs, they do really poorly. Think it has to do with the fact that you don't really have time to charge it fully before teamfights break out and you sacrifice speed and damage or resistances for it in the meantime. When team fights break out, you're in this awkward position where you're not really ready to do anything. By the time you can get it without sacrificing damage or resistances, you could be finishing off other items that are more useful.
I probably play Nasus about as passively as humanly possible. I'm content to sit back with two gp/10 items, locking the lane in front of my tower, and just sitting there for 40 minutes if I'm not needed elsewhere. This tends to net a lot of kills because eventually my jungler will wander up and smack the enemy top. I also feel like it vastly accelerates how quickly you can dominate the game if you can get away with it, the trick is being able to get away with it.
Like, I think saint was flaming doublelift over not maxing E FIRST beause thats what hotshot does. (against singed, I think), which I think is just totally crazy, I know hotshot likes his pushing and all, but SURELY having above average pushing strength with Q and level 1 E, enough sustain to tank the creeps totally, and a crazy anti tower steriod MORE than makes up for taking a 5-10 seconds longer to clear a wave, there's only so much they can do in that short time that early in the game.
So I bought Nasus a month ago and only played like 5-7 matches. Is it better to get glacial shroud before sheen? Since you should only use your Q when the minions have a tiny amount of health left, so that Sheen effect shouldn't be necessary. However, sometimes people insult me calling me noob and all that sort for not rushing Sheen? Is it that necessary before Shroud? Also, after I get those two items, should I go for Frozen Heart or Triforce? Does it even matter? Any extra tips would do me fine :D
It's situational. Glacial Shroud is a fine choice a lot of the time, people are just sheep who think rushing Triforce is the only way to play Nasus.
It does matter and depends entirely upon the matchup. If you're against Garen for example, get the shroud ASAP. Triforce makes you do more damage, while also making it easier to escape. If you don't need the resistances, it's a really good item to have. Sheen by itself is kind of meh in my opinion. Order that you finish Triforce/Frozen Heart is up to you, and again, it depends on the matchup.
On January 31 2012 04:27 Ayush_SCtoss wrote: So I bought Nasus a month ago and only played like 5-7 matches. Is it better to get glacial shroud before sheen? Since you should only use your Q when the minions have a tiny amount of health left, so that Sheen effect shouldn't be necessary. However, sometimes people insult me calling me noob and all that sort for not rushing Sheen? Is it that necessary before Shroud? Also, after I get those two items, should I go for Frozen Heart or Triforce? Does it even matter? Any extra tips would do me fine :D
I'd almost always get glacial first; It's made better by the fact that most tops are AD. Unless your team needs the damage, you won't need Sheen early, and in lane you shouldn't really even be fighting your opponent unless you know you can kill them. I'd go as far as to say that you don't need Sheen at all until you have glacial+boots+kindlegem, if you're even building Triforce at all (which you don't always need to).
I also thought I'd add that, though he's my favorite and best character, I never play Nasus unless I see it'll be a favorable matchup for me. This is one of the reasons why Nasus always looks so good competitively, as he's only picked at time that he'll be able to win his lane/the game.
On January 31 2012 04:48 Wala.Revolution wrote: Sheen's used for the extra burst damage, which means better trades with opponents (potential kills) and better pushing power by killing towers faster.
CDR also works for killing towers faster. Sheen does help in trades but so does resistances, since your lifesteal makes you gain a lot of health the armour makes it beefier. Sheen is only a good choice in lane if you're winning by a decent amount.
On October 07 2012 10:00 obesechicken13 wrote: Does anyone max E on nasus? I've seen it done against me to stay even in lane, and I like it in dominion and TT.
maxing E is pretty ridiculous with a little bit of AP because it's like morgana on steriods unless you can 1 combo him he just needs to be in lane for 3 seconds out of every 30 its lolsy
ap nasus is actually really bad because it's like normal nasus but with slightly more damage and really squishy. but maxing E probably deserves some credit when you intend to be able to stack your Q later on when say you need to build some defensive items to be able to free farm.
but i think runing some AP and building a couple dorans at the start of the game probably works in certain situations like for example mid nasus 2 dorans +ap quints is probably a good idea. 1 doran+ap quints at level 5 can 1 shot the range creeps I think. I did some brief testing and it was barely not enough without the quints.
2 dorans glacial shroud almost seems like a warwick build actually. Or if you're mid probably 2 dorans spirit visage or something.
I mained nasus and I played him pretty similarly to this, as more offtank than bruiser. I do go sheen first on him though, the extra damage gives more leeway on when you can whomp a creep and more lifesteal, helps a bit with zoning. I get glacial shroud soon after though. I used to go sheen->aegis, it was pretty good, but I cut it out because I feel like it slowed down my other items and aegis isn't great lategame.+ Show Spoiler +
That build was a little different, was aegis, frozen heart, banshee's veil, triforce, and last whisper. I got it from a friend who was pretty succesful with it to start nasus off with but ended up changing it a lot.
Now I get Sheen, Chain Armor, and Negatron Cloak first(if I feel mercury's won't be enough), cheap resists+hp regen runes+tank masteries give pretty good early sustain. Then Glacial Shroud->Force of Nature->Triforce, the extra movespeed is really helpful for chasing and necessary for nasus as he is melee, but has no gap closer and can only wither one person. I sometimes get a second chain vest before triforce if necessary, getting cheap resists are better than delaying them to get a whole item. The last few items change order depending on situation, but I finish Atma's, Frozen Heart, and usually GA. If I see an opportunity to end the game I often get GA earlier and just ace their team in a fight. Nasus can be quite deadly reviving in a teamfight, run in and deal a lot of damage and eliminate most threatening target(s), then by the time you revive, there are too few people to stop you from whomping them in the face and lifestealing all your health back. This build doesn't get full cdr from items, but frozen heart+masteries gives enough of it. Also buff potions are your friend, they're cheap, and each one has something to offer nasus, blue for cd, red for health and damage, and green for more crit, though I generally don't need them, or get them until my build is done and if not usually only blue once, maybe twice, for the cd in the midgame.
For final items, Last Whisper is an okay item, but shouldn't be worrying about losing kills due to armor pen as a tank, spirit fire and runes are usually enough, and triforce+atma's gives enough crit and damage. Aegis is decent enough but the stats are kind of low. Banshee's veil can be a pretty ok choice, not for the shield but for the extra health and magic resist. Thornmail can actually be very good situationally, sometimes I replace atma's with thornmail against some teams. I'm kinda surprised Thornmail isn't used more, very very cheap finished item, highest armor item, and can destroy some teams, especially on someone like nasus who gets in the fray. I generally go for GA though because nasus relies more on resists and lifesteal than maximum health, and it gives both resists and survivability.
Nasus is one of my trademark champions and probably the champion which I enjoy playing the most (sadly I main AD so I cant play it too often ) : ) My itemisation with Nasus usually goes like this:
boots 1 -> Philo -> Kindlegem/Chainvest -> Glacial shroud/Shurelia (possibly some MR if I need to like Spiritvisage earlier t2 boots etc or even Negatron really really rarely and when shits going insanly wrong -> Chalice) -> FH. Then it really depends and there are several options for example: Trinity Force, Randuins, Force of Nature. And thats usually my full itembuild (t2 boots Shurelia FH Trinity Randuin FoN).
For maxing E I sometimes do it when I have a lane which is insanly insanly hard (either 2v1 or some stupid matchups like Cassiopeia Ryze Vladimir Swain...)
For my runes usually: Armorpen Red Armor Yellow Magic Resist Blue Lifesteal Quints.
With Nasus you have to realize his by far strongest phase is: minute 20-35 when you can just run around and be unkillable while doing considerable amounts of damage.
Edit: The shurelia is in my opinion nearly "must have" on Nasus due to it being an awesome item/helping Nasus a lot and it supports your team so well
So is Nasus going to get a nerf any time soon? Undefeated so far with him, every game has been a walkover. I usually don't even need to get all that many kills, it just takes the other team so many champs to deal with nasus that the rest of the team has it easy. Maybe it's just the black cleaver that I've been getting on him every game that makes him seem even more op, but damn, what a beast.
Hi guys, I'm here to get some input on new jungle nasus. I've already ran it prepatch, and it seems promising (can only get better after the patch which gives him around 9 more damage per clear). Here's what I have so far:
Masteries: 9/9/12 (grab %arpen, the 30 flat health, and 3% vamp and buff duration) Runes: 6% lifesteal (this means you won't need potions after the first clear), AS reds, armor yellows, flat cdr blues (you can get mr if you want, but nasus prefers to farm, not fight)
Skill order from level 1: E->Q->E->W->max Q or W depending on what your team needs
Need input on the following: 1. Which spirit stone upgrade: tenacity or red buff? Both upgrades cost the same, so question is, is the burn and damage (it procs on Q, E and R, lol) worth it compared to the tankier option (the red buff *is* more cost-effective for the stats it gives) 2. What's the best lategame damage item? Triforce/LW/Hydra sound all good on paper but it's most likely one of these is the best in every scenario (opposed to defensive items which are almost always situational) 3. Rush cdr to maximize q farm vs having better items? (i.e. prioritizing kindlegem, redbuff stone upgrade, and glacial)
On February 01 2013 15:02 101toss wrote: Hi guys, I'm here to get some input on new jungle nasus. I've already ran it prepatch, and it seems promising (can only get better after the patch which gives him around 9 more damage per clear). Here's what I have so far:
Masteries: 9/9/12 (grab %arpen, the 30 flat health, and 3% vamp and buff duration) Runes: 6% lifesteal (this means you won't need potions after the first clear), AS reds, armor yellows, flat cdr blues (you can get mr if you want, but nasus prefers to farm, not fight)
Skill order from level 1: E->Q->E->W->max Q or W depending on what your team needs
Need input on the following: 1. Which spirit stone upgrade: tenacity or red buff? Both upgrades cost the same, so question is, is the burn and damage (it procs on Q, E and R, lol) worth it compared to the tankier option (the red buff *is* more cost-effective for the stats it gives) 2. What's the best lategame damage item? Triforce/LW/Hydra sound all good on paper but it's most likely one of these is the best in every scenario (opposed to defensive items which are almost always situational) 3. Rush cdr to maximize q farm vs having better items? (i.e. prioritizing kindlegem, redbuff stone upgrade, and glacial)
Nasus Q is decent but it takes a while for it to even become better than Jax's W when CDR is taken into consideration. Spirit stone makes sense since you don't really want to lose Q procs from madreds procs.
Only your Q procs the spirit of red buff. I'd say you need a consistent slow to prevent kiting and then you go tank stats since Nasus doesn't have the mobility in teamfights to survive if he's not tanky.
2 points in E might kill the little creeps too fast. I played Shyvana jungle recently and I think I killed the little wraiths with a level 1 W.
I think another big consideration if you're going to max Q is your mana consumption. Q at low levels doesn't cost much, but it steadily increases to 40mana and a shorter cooldown. Are you taking blue buffs?
The biggest problem is still going to be your clear speed. If you slow it down to farm your Q then you can't gank for your allies as much. His W is decent CC if you can somehow get in range to use it.
Nasus has more than enough lifesteal for a bruiser. Lifesteal quints seem a bit too much maybe armour pen would be better.
Going 9 in offensive seems pretty silly, quite a bit of your damage is from E and R anyway, better get 21 in utility for that 6% cdr and movement speed and other goodies.
Putting points in E and just qing the large creep seems like the best way to play him. You get 66% of your original q stacks compared to doing it perfectly before but you don't artificially slow yourself.
Hydra is trash, lw is okay if they stack armour trinity is going to be good when it costs a reasonable price again. Spirit of the ancient golem+cdr boots+kindlegem into locket+glacial seems like a good core and maybe a spirit visage instead of glacial vs heavier magic damage.
I wasn't replying specifically to you but it's still a stupid idea people who buy bloodthirster for lifesteal don't buy 4 of them.
Stacking lifesteal is only good for 1v1 or fed as fuck ad carries when there isn't 123103213 assassins that can jump you which is pretty much never these days
On February 01 2013 15:02 101toss wrote: Hi guys, I'm here to get some input on new jungle nasus. I've already ran it prepatch, and it seems promising (can only get better after the patch which gives him around 9 more damage per clear). Here's what I have so far:
Masteries: 9/9/12 (grab %arpen, the 30 flat health, and 3% vamp and buff duration) Runes: 6% lifesteal (this means you won't need potions after the first clear), AS reds, armor yellows, flat cdr blues (you can get mr if you want, but nasus prefers to farm, not fight)
Skill order from level 1: E->Q->E->W->max Q or W depending on what your team needs
Need input on the following: 1. Which spirit stone upgrade: tenacity or red buff? Both upgrades cost the same, so question is, is the burn and damage (it procs on Q, E and R, lol) worth it compared to the tankier option (the red buff *is* more cost-effective for the stats it gives) 2. What's the best lategame damage item? Triforce/LW/Hydra sound all good on paper but it's most likely one of these is the best in every scenario (opposed to defensive items which are almost always situational) 3. Rush cdr to maximize q farm vs having better items? (i.e. prioritizing kindlegem, redbuff stone upgrade, and glacial)
Nasus Q is decent but it takes a while for it to even become better than Jax's W when CDR is taken into consideration. Spirit stone makes sense since you don't really want to lose Q procs from madreds procs.
Only your Q procs the spirit of red buff. I'd say you need a consistent slow to prevent kiting and then you go tank stats since Nasus doesn't have the mobility in teamfights to survive if he's not tanky.
2 points in E might kill the little creeps too fast. I played Shyvana jungle recently and I think I killed the little wraiths with a level 1 W.
I think another big consideration if you're going to max Q is your mana consumption. Q at low levels doesn't cost much, but it steadily increases to 40mana and a shorter cooldown. Are you taking blue buffs?
The biggest problem is still going to be your clear speed. If you slow it down to farm your Q then you can't gank for your allies as much. His W is decent CC if you can somehow get in range to use it.
On spirit of red buff, I can confirm E and R damage both *do* proc it (tested in custom game, feel free to check yourself)
And yeah I looked at the mana costs, but spirit stone should cover you as long as you use E responsibly
Also the reasoning behind hydra was that you have lulzy aoe healing while being tanky so you don't get bursted 100 to 0, but it seems iffy at best. Armor pen runes are questionable on nasus since E already shreds armor to really low levels. Flat ad/AS/MS seem good, would have to test
On February 01 2013 15:02 101toss wrote: Hi guys, I'm here to get some input on new jungle nasus. I've already ran it prepatch, and it seems promising (can only get better after the patch which gives him around 9 more damage per clear). Here's what I have so far:
Masteries: 9/9/12 (grab %arpen, the 30 flat health, and 3% vamp and buff duration) Runes: 6% lifesteal (this means you won't need potions after the first clear), AS reds, armor yellows, flat cdr blues (you can get mr if you want, but nasus prefers to farm, not fight)
Skill order from level 1: E->Q->E->W->max Q or W depending on what your team needs
Need input on the following: 1. Which spirit stone upgrade: tenacity or red buff? Both upgrades cost the same, so question is, is the burn and damage (it procs on Q, E and R, lol) worth it compared to the tankier option (the red buff *is* more cost-effective for the stats it gives) 2. What's the best lategame damage item? Triforce/LW/Hydra sound all good on paper but it's most likely one of these is the best in every scenario (opposed to defensive items which are almost always situational) 3. Rush cdr to maximize q farm vs having better items? (i.e. prioritizing kindlegem, redbuff stone upgrade, and glacial)
Nasus Q is decent but it takes a while for it to even become better than Jax's W when CDR is taken into consideration. Spirit stone makes sense since you don't really want to lose Q procs from madreds procs.
Only your Q procs the spirit of red buff. I'd say you need a consistent slow to prevent kiting and then you go tank stats since Nasus doesn't have the mobility in teamfights to survive if he's not tanky.
2 points in E might kill the little creeps too fast. I played Shyvana jungle recently and I think I killed the little wraiths with a level 1 W.
I think another big consideration if you're going to max Q is your mana consumption. Q at low levels doesn't cost much, but it steadily increases to 40mana and a shorter cooldown. Are you taking blue buffs?
The biggest problem is still going to be your clear speed. If you slow it down to farm your Q then you can't gank for your allies as much. His W is decent CC if you can somehow get in range to use it.
On spirit of red buff, I can confirm E and R damage both *do* proc it (tested in custom game, feel free to check yourself)
And yeah I looked at the mana costs, but spirit stone should cover you as long as you use E responsibly
Also the reasoning behind hydra was that you have lulzy aoe healing while being tanky so you don't get bursted 100 to 0, but it seems iffy at best. Armor pen runes are questionable on nasus since E already shreds armor to really low levels.
Not only that doesn't his Q and R do magic damage?
Yeah, I wasn't sure about spirit myself. It seems AoE isn't classified as DoT immediately. Thank you for doing the tests.
Is everybody pretty much valuing Icefist over TF now? It still ends up generally being my 5th/6th item once raid boss status has been achieved, but holy crap is that proc debilitating.
I generally sit on glacial + sheen for awhile before I upgrade it to Icebourne. The early CDR is good for more Q farm, as well as armor to mitigate damage taken in lane (obviously if you're facing an AD champ), but I don't find myself needing the proc until team fights are much more frequent.
I still like the Shurelya's, SV, Iceborn core. It gets you to 40% CDR and all of the buildup items are really good. If you're thinking of that as your core you can pick up kindlegems if you need health, chain or negatron as needed, etc, plus the sheen whenever you're feeling OK defensively and can build some damage. I guess TF plus Frozen Heart could be good too, but that feels like a really, really expensive build with everything else you want. Maybe if the other team is running AD mid you can totally remove SV and go TF plus FH?
On February 04 2013 03:52 ticklishmusic wrote: Doesn't hydra synergize with Nasus ult? He gets ridiculous AD from it, so boom boom boom AOE death right?
not to mention that in no situation will you be able to sit in a whole enemy team close enough together for 15 seconds to get lots of ad and stay in aoe so your hydra actually hits more than 1 target
People are just going to scatter when you ult lategame, so hydra doesn't make much sense to me. Again, lifesteal is not as good as defense on him. You're not an AD, you can't sit there attacking to keep your health up. You need health and resists to survive as people try to kite you.
On February 04 2013 03:52 ticklishmusic wrote: Doesn't hydra synergize with Nasus ult? He gets ridiculous AD from it, so boom boom boom AOE death right?
Pretty sure damage is not Nasus's problem.
Right, Nasus already has guaranteed damage built in (self scaling q, armor reduction, and r bonus). He needs extra mobility and tank stats, as long as he stays alive he'll deal out a lot of damage regardless. His passive and w also ensure that as long as you can outlast the enemies he'll be progessively harder to take out the fewer they get. Building an item purely for damage is not really the way to go, if you want more damage something along the line of atma's is better as it at least gives you armor and criting with q is way strong and lifesteals more than enough.
Before it couldn't. This is weird. It really shouldn't imo. It leads to a lot more damage on lucky TriForce crits and I have no idea when it was stealth patched in... Little things like this make theorycrafting much harder.
Before it couldn't. This is weird. It really shouldn't imo. It leads to a lot more damage on lucky TriForce crits and I have no idea when it was stealth patched in... Little things like this make theorycrafting much harder.
Before it couldn't. This is weird. It really shouldn't imo. It leads to a lot more damage on lucky TriForce crits and I have no idea when it was stealth patched in... Little things like this make theorycrafting much harder.
Atma's now viable damage item?
I mean, it's better, but you probably want glacial regardless since it's so strong on him. So do you really want to put more defensive gold into armor? And is crit really better than more CDR from something with a kindlegem? CDR is more reliable damage for Nasus, and it's so helpful on Wither.
Before it couldn't. This is weird. It really shouldn't imo. It leads to a lot more damage on lucky TriForce crits and I have no idea when it was stealth patched in... Little things like this make theorycrafting much harder.
Atma's now viable damage item?
I mean, it's better, but you probably want glacial regardless since it's so strong on him. So do you really want to put more defensive gold into armor? And is crit really better than more CDR from something with a kindlegem? CDR is more reliable damage for Nasus, and it's so helpful on Wither.
you would buy the money sword early and finish it as a 5th/6th item
move visage or fist up earlier as needed. Relies entirely on having a manaless mid so you can take every blue, and on your lanes not being fucking terrible.
if your lanes are fucking terrible, you would have to stop farming to assist them. this is not acceptable.
Hey 101toss, it's been great spectating yr jungle Nasus games, though I've never stumbled across one from the beginning.
Some random qns: ° Are the lifesteal quints non-negotiable, or could you get away with MS quints? ° You're maxing Wither over Siphoning Strike - any particular lanes etc you prefer to gank? ° With regards to Q farm, what's yr priority (Qing the small creeps when it's off cooldown before going back to AAing the big creep etc)? What are some decent targets for yr Q bonus at 10/20/30mins from the jungle?
if you guys want cdr you can have 40% with blue buff at level one. -cdr quints blues -4/5/21 masteries
might be worth doing because frozen fist and spirit visage are pretty shitty cost effectiveness and you have to spend a lot to get there might be worth just getting locket and spirit of the ancient golem and bulwark into trinity force or something.
I just tried nasus jungle in a custom, solo, flat AD red/quint(not sure if optimal but w/e), taking heal to compensate for not getting any help whatsoever, leveling QEEWQ.
I managed to hit 180 Q damage and level 7 in 10 minutes jungle heroing(backing once at level 4). On wraiths& wolves, with blue buff and 4% CDR it's not unrealistic to be able to spirit fire, Q one, auto big creep, Q another small creep, auto big one, finish it with a last Q after kiting for about a second or two.
2 points in spirit fire is optimal I think because it gets every creep low enough to kill with an auto attack/Q and one of the small wraiths will die to bladed armor so long as you upgrade to spirit stone at level 4/5.
EDIT: Blind picking nasus jungle, we shall see how this goes.
On February 05 2013 05:35 Haasts wrote: Hey 101toss, it's been great spectating yr jungle Nasus games, though I've never stumbled across one from the beginning.
Some random qns: ° Are the lifesteal quints non-negotiable, or could you get away with MS quints? ° You're maxing Wither over Siphoning Strike - any particular lanes etc you prefer to gank? ° With regards to Q farm, what's yr priority (Qing the small creeps when it's off cooldown before going back to AAing the big creep etc)? What are some decent targets for yr Q bonus at 10/20/30mins from the jungle?
Lifesteal quints are optional, you could always go AS/AD for faster clearing or MS/CDR for better utility. I do buy boots of swiftness pretty often so in teamfights MS quints would be worth less. Lifesteal quints are so you don't need potions after the first 5 (not to mention it scales really well in the league of health belts). Maxing wither over siphoning strike because your q scaling doesn't increase with leveling that up (only increases cdr, mana cost, and base damage). Since it's wither, I prefer ganking any lane that doesn't have a flash escape (i.e. not Riven), but I usually see myself mid since that's where wraith camp is (and nasus loves wraith camp). If any lane is overextended or needs help I'll still go there, but that's my preference. Priority in jungle is to E the camp, q a small thing to death, autoattack the big one, q another small thing, repeat until big one is about to die, then q. I do find myself waiting for q cd to kill a big thing because I think it's worth the wait for +12 damage, especially when speccing into some cdr.
On February 05 2013 07:22 Slayer91 wrote: if you guys want cdr you can have 40% with blue buff at level one. -cdr quints blues -4/5/21 masteries
might be worth doing because frozen fist and spirit visage are pretty shitty cost effectiveness and you have to spend a lot to get there might be worth just getting locket and spirit of the ancient golem and bulwark into trinity force or something.
If you really want cost effective cdr, you can just stack lockets. I am dead fuckin' serious. Although I prefer just going locket, cdr blues, and aegis, since 4 second on max rank q is good enough for me.
Note that this stuff is still undergoing lots of playtesting. Trying to fit in avarice blade on the build (I'm sticking it in after locket for now).
I did the same test with the cdr runes/masteries thing so you start with 20% but I only got to 225 at 10 minutes. Clear speed isnt really cdr limited at the start so I guess thats why it's not much better.
4/5/21 or just 0/9/21 might be worth it. Get cdr boots+kindlegem into spirit of the ancient golem+locket into bulwark or trinity force.
you only need 15% bonus cdr so you drop the 4% and maybe 1 CDR blue or something so you're exactly at 40% with that.
The point is you don't have to wait to get items to get your CDR meaning you get it early and use it to stack Q Faster and invest in full tank rather than going through awkward builds like glacial and spirit visage when you mightn't want either of those items.
The other reasons to get max CDR are W being a 6.6 s cd spell with a 5 second duration and also but less importantly E being up 5 seconds every 7 as well
stacking lockets is a dumb idea when CDR comes pretty easily and cheaper from runes and masteries. AD quints are VERY meh on nasus anyway and you're already getting cdr blues so going defensive spec and going 4 pots + a ward so you can not worry about early pressure since you can ward top early and just farm for 10 minutes seems pretty smart.
also, the maximum theoretical Q farm for 1 lane is 130 every 3 minutes, and you have to q on at least once per 5 seconds at that. A full ring of small camps 36 and they respawn every minute so if you can kill 9 creeps a minute in the jungle you can get 108 every 3 minutes so it's actually pretty damn close even if the gold/xp is way off. You also need to Q every single creep to get 130 and it's easier to q every jungle minion.
Atmas doesn't seem to make a huge amount of sense. Might as well go the whole hog and get a trinity, its guaranteed boost damage from sheen proc and gives some nice other stats as well. Atmas is pretty meh since they nerfed it down to 1.5% and thats for people who really like AD and crit while nasus doesn't use AD that well.
I just tried crit nasus as well in a custom, had some fun and got up to 80% crit rate along with frozen fist, was able to 1v5 the enemy team in about 15 seconds. Not sure if it's actually viable for real games though - after buying sheen and then a single IE (which in itself would be difficult to get in a game vs semi-competent players), I wasn't anywhere near as dominating as I thought I would be. You're only getting that huge damage blow 25% of the time, which is not very reliable or effective for the gold investment you're putting into it, especially in team fights. So I still don't think I'd ever get an IE or an Atma's for Nasus unless I was ridiculously fed, although TF should be a very nice buy now.
On February 05 2013 11:43 rhs408 wrote: I just tried crit nasus as well in a custom, had some fun and got up to 80% crit rate along with frozen fist, was able to 1v5 the enemy team in about 15 seconds. Not sure if it's actually viable for real games though - after buying sheen and then a single IE (which in itself would be difficult to get in a game vs semi-competent players), I wasn't anywhere near as dominating as I thought I would be. You're only getting that huge damage blow 25% of the time, which is not very reliable or effective for the gold investment you're putting into it, especially in team fights. So I still don't think I'd ever get an IE or an Atma's for Nasus unless I was ridiculously fed, although TF should be a very nice buy now.
the reasoning of of an atma's over other damage items is the following:
1. you can buy the money sword early and farm it up, finishing up atma's once your health pool is massive 2. atma's gives 45 armor, making it much less of a liability than IE/Hydra/LW/GB/PD/SotD/most damage items. 3. the cost, TF requires 3.9k while atma's is 2.3k (before money sword bonus is factored in) 4. atma's and money sword offers crit unlike hydra and whisper, and as of now q scales off crit (this may changed, we'll see)
The argument that base ad doesn't matter on nasus is kinda faulty since 60+ bonus on q is still 60 bonus damage on Q and autoattacks. By this logic, you probably wouldn't need a damage item; might as well buy another health belt item
You could definitely use Armor Seals and MR Glyphs if you wanted, but Nasus actually clears fine without Armor. I routinely ended with 4+ health potions when I got a leash. You could also abstain from the Crit entirely if you so chose, but I really like the crit for the one in six chance of nailing them with a 300-400 damage Q at level 5-7. It also feeds really nicely into IE as a last item (I crit an Olaf who built FH and Sunfire Cape for 900 damage while he was ulting and benefiting from Soraka's Armor buff).
The key to the item build is tankiness and CDR, and also CC reduction. FH + Golem + SV + Swiftness boots makes you a very tanky, difficult to kite foe, and allows you to spam wither and screw over enemy teams. This build is extremely strong given how much damage you can stack on your Q.
I take two points in Q early because the small amount of extra damage and cooldown reduction is noticeable when trying to stack its damage. From there I max W for ganking. Wither gets incredibly strong incredibly quickly, and makes for some really vicious ganks in any lane.
Jungle Nasus is really, really fun, and will definitely still work even if Riot nerfs this crit craziness.
You could definitely use Armor Seals and MR Glyphs if you wanted, but Nasus actually clears fine without Armor. I routinely ended with 4+ health potions when I got a leash. You could also abstain from the Crit entirely if you so chose, but I really like the crit for the one in six chance of nailing them with a 300-400 damage Q at level 5-7. It also feeds really nicely into IE as a last item (I crit an Olaf who built FH and Sunfire Cape for 900 damage while he was ulting and benefiting from Soraka's Armor buff).
The key to the item build is tankiness and CDR, and also CC reduction. FH + Golem + SV + Swiftness boots makes you a very tanky, difficult to kite foe, and allows you to spam wither and screw over enemy teams. This build is extremely strong given how much damage you can stack on your Q.
I take two points in Q early because the small amount of extra damage and cooldown reduction is noticeable when trying to stack its damage. From there I max W for ganking. Wither gets incredibly strong incredibly quickly, and makes for some really vicious ganks in any lane.
Jungle Nasus is really, really fun, and will definitely still work even if Riot nerfs this crit craziness.
rofl monte i was just about to post running crit reds when i saw this
also why not level 1 e? it helps your clear so much (brings everything down to q range)
On February 05 2013 11:43 rhs408 wrote: I just tried crit nasus as well in a custom, had some fun and got up to 80% crit rate along with frozen fist, was able to 1v5 the enemy team in about 15 seconds. Not sure if it's actually viable for real games though - after buying sheen and then a single IE (which in itself would be difficult to get in a game vs semi-competent players), I wasn't anywhere near as dominating as I thought I would be. You're only getting that huge damage blow 25% of the time, which is not very reliable or effective for the gold investment you're putting into it, especially in team fights. So I still don't think I'd ever get an IE or an Atma's for Nasus unless I was ridiculously fed, although TF should be a very nice buy now.
the reasoning of of an atma's over other damage items is the following:
1. you can buy the money sword early and farm it up, finishing up atma's once your health pool is massive 2. atma's gives 45 armor, making it much less of a liability than IE/Hydra/LW/GB/PD/SotD/most damage items. 3. the cost, TF requires 3.9k while atma's is 2.3k (before money sword bonus is factored in) 4. atma's and money sword offers crit unlike hydra and whisper, and as of now q scales off crit (this may changed, we'll see)
The argument that base ad doesn't matter on nasus is kinda faulty since 60+ bonus on q is still 60 bonus damage on Q and autoattacks. By this logic, you probably wouldn't need a damage item; might as well buy another health belt item
Sheen gives 150-160+ bonus damage on Q, much better than what you''ll get with AD. Trinity gives a bunch of nice stats which makes it cost effective enough to justify the cost (arguably) but the slow speed and sheen parts are just really good on him and atmas just makes you hit harder but not as hard as if you had sheen instead.
Gold sword seems so meh, even if you hard farm the jungle 9 cs a minute is 18 gold a minute which is just 3 gp10 and 9 cs a min is pretty much the maximum if you never help anyone in lanes
Managed to bag Nasus top vs an Irelia (one of the least bad matchups).... oh my god
Of note, Lee Sin was 1/9 and LB was making retarded decisions too. Bot lane was really holding their own though despite receiving the majority of ganks (Amumu tried top twice and failed both; abandoned after that. I suspect Irelia told him to help bot as Lee Sin had fed her two kills but we were even on CS). Lee Sin came top once and died; then died invading for Irelia's two kills
First big engagement happened just after I got my IEdge which was the real turning point
Build order
Avarice Boots Warmogs Swifties Sheen IE Distortion Glacial Tri Force
Had the game gone longer, I'd have finished the FH and then gotten a GA
edit: TP was wasted, barely used it as bot was constantly pushed and no deep wards
You could definitely use Armor Seals and MR Glyphs if you wanted, but Nasus actually clears fine without Armor. I routinely ended with 4+ health potions when I got a leash. You could also abstain from the Crit entirely if you so chose, but I really like the crit for the one in six chance of nailing them with a 300-400 damage Q at level 5-7. It also feeds really nicely into IE as a last item (I crit an Olaf who built FH and Sunfire Cape for 900 damage while he was ulting and benefiting from Soraka's Armor buff).
The key to the item build is tankiness and CDR, and also CC reduction. FH + Golem + SV + Swiftness boots makes you a very tanky, difficult to kite foe, and allows you to spam wither and screw over enemy teams. This build is extremely strong given how much damage you can stack on your Q.
I take two points in Q early because the small amount of extra damage and cooldown reduction is noticeable when trying to stack its damage. From there I max W for ganking. Wither gets incredibly strong incredibly quickly, and makes for some really vicious ganks in any lane.
Jungle Nasus is really, really fun, and will definitely still work even if Riot nerfs this crit craziness.
Ask the folks I play with, I build SotAG and Swiftness boots on every tanky jungler I play. The synergy between them is so strong and on anyone without a reliable gap closer (and sometimes even on those who do have one), it's amazing at letting you get up in people's faces.
If you weren't going to go for the Crit runes, and you said that he can clear fine without Armor yellows, what would you think of something like ArPen Reds, GP5 Yellows, CDR Blues, and Gp5/MS/ArPen Quints (not sure on those yet)? Arpen obviously for Q, GP5 stuff for faster tankiness and not losing a lot on ganks, etc.
Edit: Changed blues to CDR. If you're going fast SV for magic damage, MR glyphs might not be necessary on top of SotAG and your ult.
I'm interested in the viability of this without all the crazy crit horseshit. Is there a point at which you sort of need to pick up a damage item, or is max cd Q enough?
On February 06 2013 05:08 WaveofShadow wrote: I'm interested in the viability of this without all the crazy crit horseshit. Is there a point at which you sort of need to pick up a damage item, or is max cd Q enough?
Well, his build lists LW and IE as 5th and 6th, probably can be moved before finishing FH or SV if you don't need them as fast.
You could definitely use Armor Seals and MR Glyphs if you wanted, but Nasus actually clears fine without Armor. I routinely ended with 4+ health potions when I got a leash. You could also abstain from the Crit entirely if you so chose, but I really like the crit for the one in six chance of nailing them with a 300-400 damage Q at level 5-7. It also feeds really nicely into IE as a last item (I crit an Olaf who built FH and Sunfire Cape for 900 damage while he was ulting and benefiting from Soraka's Armor buff).
The key to the item build is tankiness and CDR, and also CC reduction. FH + Golem + SV + Swiftness boots makes you a very tanky, difficult to kite foe, and allows you to spam wither and screw over enemy teams. This build is extremely strong given how much damage you can stack on your Q.
I take two points in Q early because the small amount of extra damage and cooldown reduction is noticeable when trying to stack its damage. From there I max W for ganking. Wither gets incredibly strong incredibly quickly, and makes for some really vicious ganks in any lane.
Jungle Nasus is really, really fun, and will definitely still work even if Riot nerfs this crit craziness.
Ask the folks I play with, I build SotAG and Swiftness boots on every tanky jungler I play. The synergy between them is so strong and on anyone without a reliable gap closer (and sometimes even on those who do have one), it's amazing at letting you get up in people's faces.
If you weren't going to go for the Crit runes, and you said that he can clear fine without Armor yellows, what would you think of something like ArPen Reds, GP5 Yellows, CDR Blues, and Gp5/MS/ArPen Quints (not sure on those yet)? Arpen obviously for Q, GP5 stuff for faster tankiness and not losing a lot on ganks, etc.
Edit: Changed blues to CDR. If you're going fast SV for magic damage, MR glyphs might not be necessary on top of SotAG and your ult.
Gold runes might be interesting, but realize that Nasus loses more than most junglers on ganks. A lot of your usefulness comes from stacking Q, and any time you gank you aren't stacking Q. Gp10s don't really make up for that.
If I wasn't running Crit I'd probably run Movement Speed Quints, AD Marks, Armor Seals and MR Glyphs, and start Machete + Ward + 2 Pots.
On February 06 2013 05:08 WaveofShadow wrote: I'm interested in the viability of this without all the crazy crit horseshit. Is there a point at which you sort of need to pick up a damage item, or is max cd Q enough?
Just grab Last Whisper as your fifth item before finishing Frozen Heart. Unless you're waaaaay behind you should be able to finish Glacial, SV, Golem and Swiftness (7000g total) before armor levels reach a point where you only tickle bruisers.
This assumes you do your job and stack Q like nobody's business.
You could definitely use Armor Seals and MR Glyphs if you wanted, but Nasus actually clears fine without Armor. I routinely ended with 4+ health potions when I got a leash. You could also abstain from the Crit entirely if you so chose, but I really like the crit for the one in six chance of nailing them with a 300-400 damage Q at level 5-7. It also feeds really nicely into IE as a last item (I crit an Olaf who built FH and Sunfire Cape for 900 damage while he was ulting and benefiting from Soraka's Armor buff).
The key to the item build is tankiness and CDR, and also CC reduction. FH + Golem + SV + Swiftness boots makes you a very tanky, difficult to kite foe, and allows you to spam wither and screw over enemy teams. This build is extremely strong given how much damage you can stack on your Q.
I take two points in Q early because the small amount of extra damage and cooldown reduction is noticeable when trying to stack its damage. From there I max W for ganking. Wither gets incredibly strong incredibly quickly, and makes for some really vicious ganks in any lane.
Jungle Nasus is really, really fun, and will definitely still work even if Riot nerfs this crit craziness.
Ask the folks I play with, I build SotAG and Swiftness boots on every tanky jungler I play. The synergy between them is so strong and on anyone without a reliable gap closer (and sometimes even on those who do have one), it's amazing at letting you get up in people's faces.
If you weren't going to go for the Crit runes, and you said that he can clear fine without Armor yellows, what would you think of something like ArPen Reds, GP5 Yellows, CDR Blues, and Gp5/MS/ArPen Quints (not sure on those yet)? Arpen obviously for Q, GP5 stuff for faster tankiness and not losing a lot on ganks, etc.
Edit: Changed blues to CDR. If you're going fast SV for magic damage, MR glyphs might not be necessary on top of SotAG and your ult.
Gold runes might be interesting, but realize that Nasus loses more than most junglers on ganks. A lot of your usefulness comes from stacking Q, and any time you gank you aren't stacking Q. Gp10s don't really make up for that.
If I wasn't running Crit I'd probably run Movement Speed Quints, AD Marks, Armor Seals and MR Glyphs, and start Machete + Ward + 2 Pots.
On February 06 2013 05:08 WaveofShadow wrote: I'm interested in the viability of this without all the crazy crit horseshit. Is there a point at which you sort of need to pick up a damage item, or is max cd Q enough?
Just grab Last Whisper as your fifth item before finishing Frozen Heart. Unless you're waaaaay behind you should be able to finish Glacial, SV, Golem and Swiftness (7000g total) before armor levels reach a point where you only tickle bruisers.
This assumes you do your job and stack Q like nobody's business.
Well you mentioned that you were maxing W for ganking, so I assumed you're eventually going to gank more than a couple times, otherwise I'd expect a Q max. Or is it more "I'm going to max W in case I have to gank, but I'm not planning on it unless my laner is getting properly fucked"?
I farmed 240ish in 11 minutes in a test game i did run the 20% cdr at level 1 build but I used it in ranked and didn't feel like there was any reason not to
You could definitely use Armor Seals and MR Glyphs if you wanted, but Nasus actually clears fine without Armor. I routinely ended with 4+ health potions when I got a leash. You could also abstain from the Crit entirely if you so chose, but I really like the crit for the one in six chance of nailing them with a 300-400 damage Q at level 5-7. It also feeds really nicely into IE as a last item (I crit an Olaf who built FH and Sunfire Cape for 900 damage while he was ulting and benefiting from Soraka's Armor buff).
The key to the item build is tankiness and CDR, and also CC reduction. FH + Golem + SV + Swiftness boots makes you a very tanky, difficult to kite foe, and allows you to spam wither and screw over enemy teams. This build is extremely strong given how much damage you can stack on your Q.
I take two points in Q early because the small amount of extra damage and cooldown reduction is noticeable when trying to stack its damage. From there I max W for ganking. Wither gets incredibly strong incredibly quickly, and makes for some really vicious ganks in any lane.
Jungle Nasus is really, really fun, and will definitely still work even if Riot nerfs this crit craziness.
Ask the folks I play with, I build SotAG and Swiftness boots on every tanky jungler I play. The synergy between them is so strong and on anyone without a reliable gap closer (and sometimes even on those who do have one), it's amazing at letting you get up in people's faces.
If you weren't going to go for the Crit runes, and you said that he can clear fine without Armor yellows, what would you think of something like ArPen Reds, GP5 Yellows, CDR Blues, and Gp5/MS/ArPen Quints (not sure on those yet)? Arpen obviously for Q, GP5 stuff for faster tankiness and not losing a lot on ganks, etc.
Edit: Changed blues to CDR. If you're going fast SV for magic damage, MR glyphs might not be necessary on top of SotAG and your ult.
Gold runes might be interesting, but realize that Nasus loses more than most junglers on ganks. A lot of your usefulness comes from stacking Q, and any time you gank you aren't stacking Q. Gp10s don't really make up for that.
If I wasn't running Crit I'd probably run Movement Speed Quints, AD Marks, Armor Seals and MR Glyphs, and start Machete + Ward + 2 Pots.
On February 06 2013 05:08 WaveofShadow wrote: I'm interested in the viability of this without all the crazy crit horseshit. Is there a point at which you sort of need to pick up a damage item, or is max cd Q enough?
Just grab Last Whisper as your fifth item before finishing Frozen Heart. Unless you're waaaaay behind you should be able to finish Glacial, SV, Golem and Swiftness (7000g total) before armor levels reach a point where you only tickle bruisers.
This assumes you do your job and stack Q like nobody's business.
Well you mentioned that you were maxing W for ganking, so I assumed you're eventually going to gank more than a couple times, otherwise I'd expect a Q max. Or is it more "I'm going to max W in case I have to gank, but I'm not planning on it unless my laner is getting properly fucked"?
I did gank more than a couple times, but up until my final game I wasn't nearly as picky as I should have been. Even if I wasn't going to gank the most I'd do would be to split ranks between W and Q at the very least. W is far too good a teamfighting tool to ignore.
On February 06 2013 07:04 Slayer91 wrote: dunno how you guys intend to efficiently farm 250~ q in 10-15 minutes if you are maxing W wtf
The cooldown on Q is such that you can farm 27-30 damage per clear even with rank 1 (I usually get two ranks early for convenience). You might not get 250 by 11 minutes (I'd have to test) but by 15 minutes would be simple.
You can ALWAYS get 27-30 damage per clear even if you have a 20 second cooldown on Q what you're sacrificng is shitloads of speed which hurts your damage xp and gold in terms of camp respawns and leaves you much less free time to do any ganking
If the Q buff goes through I'm wondering if you could try and play a superfarm Nasus where you just Q every jungle creep possible and pretend to gank (if you max Q you probably won't be so effective) so that you can tax the lane a little for more Q stacks....
Hell this will probably make top Nasus better since Q max kills your mana at early levels; at this rate you wouldn't have to back for Philo/Spirit Stone forever. I do agree with Monte on this possibly making jungle Nasus > Top lane.
On February 06 2013 08:37 Slayer91 wrote: You can ALWAYS get 27-30 damage per clear even if you have a 20 second cooldown on Q what you're sacrificng is shitloads of speed which hurts your damage xp and gold in terms of camp respawns and leaves you much less free time to do any ganking
Q's cooldown is not so high that rank 2 is insufficient to clear camps as quickly as they spawn, especially as you continue to stack the damage. It helps that I'm going full offense while your CDR setup goes deep into utility (at least I'm assuming that's how you're reaching 20% CDR).
I don't think that 3 extra damage and 4% extra attack speed even makes up for the CDR dps boost let alone when the extra damage from it kicks in
And you can play full farm nasus now but the problem is against very active junglesr like xin you'll feel like you're losing games before you can do anything if you do it
Since I'm going utility I can start 4 pots+1 ward and ward top early that helps but it doesn't compare to being able to gank with instant gap closers like amumu q maokai w lee sin q and xin e. Best bet is to buy a few wards so you can counter gank at least.
I tried the boots 3 thing with spirit of the ancient golem and it feels good. I don't miss the CDR that much since I'm already at 30% with just kindle and the speed helps move around the map faster.
To be fair, most of your CDR advantage comes from your runes. The 6% CDR you get from utility isn't going increase your clear speed more than the 17 points in Offense I have that you don't. You said yourself that clear speed isn't really CDR limited at the start.
Wards are something I'm planning on picking up instead of potions. There's little point in ending the first clear with full health and 4 potions when you can just ward.
And yeah, Swiftness Boots are soooooo good. Ignore all slows, collect pentakills.
You can't just say 17 points in offensive assume that's a significant clear advantage
You get 3 more AD, +2 on minions so 5 AD, 4% attack speed, and a bit more damage on low targets that doesn't matter an awful lot unless you get REALLY precise with your Q last hitting.
Stuff in utility, more mana regen and max mana, longer buffs, 6% cdr, more gold at level 1 to buy a ward, 2 gp10, these things are harder to notice but they're worth more overall, if you do the gold calculations. As far as I can see thats because they are "scaling" advantages which means in the laning phase offensive and defensive trees are better but since you are jungling it seems reasonable to go utility, at least on the guys who arent super agressive level 3 gankers who want to squeeze every bit of damage out early. The 5 armpen comes into account more when you are attacking targets that aren't being put at negative armour by your E.
The 20% buff duration itself is hard to value, but if you get 2 more Q's out because of that blue buff thats 6 damage on Q already outperforming what your AD/level and flat AD is giving you on your Q. You get marginally better auto attack DPS of course but I don't see anyone running offensive tree on maokai or amumu for that reason. Nasus autos a bit more than those guys but I don't think it's enough to warrant 21 offensive. I actually thought everyone was running defense to stack CC reduction with the boots 3 or something.
A lot of clear speed gets Q limited very fast because of your E. When you have 40% CDR at level 2 you can cast E twice and guaranteed kill any small creep and seriously hurt the big guys meaning you're racing against your Q cd really early and that's assuming you're putting only 1 point, maybe 2 later in it (not before level 5 because you 1 shot small wraiths though).
Might as well put more points in Q since it increases your damage, reduces the cooldown, and you don't want more points in E anyway. What's the point of putting more in W? You already are a average ganker and want to spend the first 10-20 minutes farming and only appearing when needed because the whole point of jungle nasus is farming Q uninterrupted and by maxing W you're slowing your jungle clearing and decreasing your Q farm to make your ganks (which are already weaker than the top gankers who also clear faster) a bit better.
EDIT: actually you can probably play a completely different way and just go for the Q-every-big-creep strat, max the fuck out of E an 1 shot every camp and Q the big guy and GTFO. Wouldn't need any cdr at all it's just bonus. Just get movement quints so you can roam around more and go 0/9/21 and play a bit like S1-S2 udyr. Maybe E damage doesn't scale fast enough compared to the big creeps in which case you might want to run some AP or CDR to get a 2nd E/nuke harder. I need to try this.
I never said it was a significant clear advantage. My assertion was that 6% CDR will not increase your clear speed more than 17 points in Offense would.
Analyzing all those minute differences is also a waste of time unless you're going to set up a hyper accurate simulation. Without data, analysis at that level is extremely speculative and ultimately worthless. A good rebuttal to my position at this point is to simply go out and run a test to compare the two setups and measure the difference. Similarly, I have nothing further to say on the subject because to do so would waste your time, my time, and the time of anyone reading these walls of text unless I had test results to discuss.
This is one of the ways in which theorycraft gets a bad name. When two people spend more time throwing theories and speculative analysis at each other instead of running practical tests, doing hard math, or running simulations the result is unintelligible, unending, and useless.
Also the minion damage mastery is +4 damage, you get +2 per point. /nitpick
After review, I think Slayer91 is on the money regarding Q max. Especially with the incoming PBE buff, it's significantly faster/more effective past the first couple of clears regardless of your rune/mastery build.
The big question still is whether you want to clear creeps as fast as possible or if you want to farm your Q as much as possible.
Farming fast is worth more exp. Every level is worth like 700 gold in stats.
Farming slow means you get more Qs, and little wraiths don't hurt much. But each Q is +3 damage on little things. If you translate that to even 1 AD then that'd be about 30-40 bonus gold each last hit depending on whether you're comparing to long or BF sword. Gold efficiency people wouldn't be able to sleep knowing they missed 30-40 gold on every little wraith. But you obviously can't gank as much if you do this. I tried it, failed a steal on red at level 1, and was underleveled until the end of the game. The fact that I cleared slowly did not help.
I'm going to test maxing E to power clear and see how it works out and how much you sacrifice on Q. Might be worth it in games you can't afford to stay in your jungle
I tried maxing Q straight up, from taking 2 levels of E to clear faster, sacrificing a bit of Q farm (since it'll kill all little wraiths you'll get at most 1). It becomes a bit harder to farm in the midgame (one level of E adds 80 damage total, and 5 armour reduction, so if you cast it twice that's 160 damage in AoE), but it somewhat eases the Q farm. You still need to go back sometimes though, you don't lose your mana to fast, but around 7-8 it's fast enough that you may get oom for that crucial wither during a fight.
The game showed again how Nasus is susceptible to invades and counterjungling (we couldn't fight against Blitz+Rengar+Xin level 1 so I had to give up blue, thanksfully I got theirs). Rengar almost killed me by jumping me at their blue (WW left to go to lane, and TF only gave a minimal leash too) and he stayed in my jungle the whole time (near our golems, threatening to jump->Q me again as I was flash less and somewhat low, still chugging pots) so Xin had time to steal Red. I hit 2 right before we saw Rengar not leaving once again, and TF reacted by running towards red, so I took Wither to stop Xin from running and we won the ensuing fight we won 3-0 (one assist for me). My clearing speed was painfully slow after that, not having E and having Q on a long cd despite blue buff was especially harsh, and it took me some time to recover (while covering top who had a huge wave, a Rengar half HP and WW dead I managed to farm half the wave and kill Rengar in exchange for my life, so I made some gold and exp back).
Some lanes won pretty hard so it definitely helped (WW 3-1-1 and TF 1-0-2 after this played a lot obv.), but the most important thing I think was having TF on the team. He was obviously better than Ahri, but his constant roaming bot with ult made up a lot for all the pressure I couldn't apply (Vayne + Zyra vs MF + Blitz so Vayne had a pretty hard time, but I was too behind in exp. to be able to gank safely, especially since Nasus is pretty vulnerable to wards). We had poke from TF and Zyra for poke + initiation, plus Vayne's passive, WW's E+ult and TF liking MS items + ult helped a lot with mobility.
Overall, I think TF is exactly the kind of pick that could cover jungle Nasus really well: mobile, safe and autonomous laner, and excellent ability to roam to make up for Nasus' lack of ganking pressure. At one point he killed Ahri 1v1, a bit after I kept the second blue (I wasn't even 5 yet when I started it), and the combination of his blue card + 26% CDR Q downed it surprisingly fast. His Q's also dealing good damage to dragon with the +25% damage from SotAG.
How do you spec your utility, btw? Do you take all 3 lifesteal/spellvamp points? I'm running AD/armour/MR/MS runes and starting gold masteries for a ward and pots, and I find myself using at least 3 of my 4 pots on a normal clear because of the damage I take.
Wards are something I'm planning on picking up instead of potions. There's little point in ending the first clear with full health and 4 potions when you can just ward.
I'd test how a clear goes with a "leash" on pot usage but I'm still saving for nasus >.< I just made a purchase Monday!
Wards are something I'm planning on picking up instead of potions. There's little point in ending the first clear with full health and 4 potions when you can just ward.
I'd test how a clear goes with a "leash" on pot usage but I'm still saving for nasus >.< I just made a purchase Monday!
People like you need to learn not to live champion to champion. Save up and you'll always be able to buy any champ you want. I have a rule now to always keep 6300 ip for emergencies :p
Hahaha. I just don't play enough to gain lots of IP. I've almost only purchased champs that are recently reduced in price (Ez and Cait being my last two big purchases). But it's true I normally would but I bought Nidalee on impluse Am I bad?
I'm only a game or two away from Nasus though. Excited as I always liked him.
Here's the other thing....does anyone actually WANT Nasus to be good? I mean he's boring as fuck, you farm Q for 20 minutes and if anything happens you press RWE and right click while breaking your Q button. He firmly fits into the same camp as Garen and AD Sion as completely fucking braindead.
On February 07 2013 06:21 sob3k wrote: Here's the other thing....does anyone actually WANT Nasus to be good? I mean he's boring as fuck, you farm Q for 20 minutes and if anything happens you press RWE and right click while breaking your Q button. He firmly fits into the same camp as Garen and AD Sion as completely fucking braindead.
Someone at Riot does. This has been in the works for months.
On February 07 2013 06:21 sob3k wrote: Here's the other thing....does anyone actually WANT Nasus to be good? I mean he's boring as fuck, you farm Q for 20 minutes and if anything happens you press RWE and right click while breaking your Q button. He firmly fits into the same camp as Garen and AD Sion as completely fucking braindead.
I want Nasus to be good just so we can hear that buttery smooth voice more often.
On February 07 2013 06:21 sob3k wrote: Here's the other thing....does anyone actually WANT Nasus to be good? I mean he's boring as fuck, you farm Q for 20 minutes and if anything happens you press RWE and right click while breaking your Q button. He firmly fits into the same camp as Garen and AD Sion as completely fucking braindead.
I want Nasus to be good just so we can hear that buttery smooth voice more often.
The cycle of life and death continues indeed.
Then you should watch my stream more often WHAAAAAT
On February 07 2013 06:21 sob3k wrote: Here's the other thing....does anyone actually WANT Nasus to be good? I mean he's boring as fuck, you farm Q for 20 minutes and if anything happens you press RWE and right click while breaking your Q button. He firmly fits into the same camp as Garen and AD Sion as completely fucking braindead.
I want Nasus to be good just so we can hear that buttery smooth voice more often.
The cycle of life and death continues indeed.
Then you should watch my stream more often WHAAAAAT
On February 07 2013 06:21 sob3k wrote: Here's the other thing....does anyone actually WANT Nasus to be good? I mean he's boring as fuck, you farm Q for 20 minutes and if anything happens you press RWE and right click while breaking your Q button. He firmly fits into the same camp as Garen and AD Sion as completely fucking braindead.
To be truthful i love farming for 20 minutes, then one shotting someone with Q gets my blood pumping
Nasus becomes empowered in the sandstorm for 15 seconds,increasing his maximum Health by 300/450/600,Attack Range by 50/50/50,and cast ranges by 150/150/150.
Also W range increased from 700 to 800.
Seriously, wtf. Even if they change that crit stuff, this stuff seems like it'll break nasus
Nasus becomes empowered in the sandstorm for 15 seconds,increasing his maximum Health by 300/450/600,Attack Range by 50/50/50,and cast ranges by 150/150/150.
Also W range increased from 700 to 800.
Seriously, wtf. Even if they change that crit stuff, this stuff seems like it'll break nasus
Does it actualy fix any of his real problems tho? He is bullied in lane. Heavily relies on farm to do his job. Yes 950 range Wither during ult is hilarious but it doesnt help him reach lategame better
Does running all that crit chance mess up your last hitting with Q at all? Any tips on managing your Q cooldown and camps appreciated too From testing it out I learned I need to work on clicking the small wolf XD
I tried him a few times in the jungle today and he feels pretty good. Unfortunately, it didn't feel that the reason he is good is because the double bonus from bigger monster thing (one game I casually counted and I killed about 20 big monsters, but that's only 60 extra damage on Q). I think he is good because of the warmog meta and he builds all health items.
yeah the champion with an inbuilt health steriod and passive that gives hp per hit benefits from hp being far stronger than resists what?
warmogs "meta" is just to do with the champions people are picking. Nobody is playing warmogs lux its just assassins and tops are getting warmogs more because its really strong and the alternatives ere nerfed and it became obvious it was storng even after the nerfs.
Warmogs on ADs is something that I saw once in a while and was really good but because ads build defensive items late you didnt have time to stack it and back then GA was just a better alternative because it wasnt horribly nerfed then
On February 09 2013 05:18 mordek wrote: Does running all that crit chance mess up your last hitting with Q at all? Any tips on managing your Q cooldown and camps appreciated too From testing it out I learned I need to work on clicking the small wolf XD
Early on it can, but very quickly your Q bonus damage becomes greater than the extra damage from a crit auto and you're fine.
On February 09 2013 06:55 Sufficiency wrote: I tried him a few times in the jungle today and he feels pretty good. Unfortunately, it didn't feel that the reason he is good is because the double bonus from bigger monster thing (one game I casually counted and I killed about 20 big monsters, but that's only 60 extra damage on Q). I think he is good because of the warmog meta and he builds all health items.
got +300 in 13:30 and +400 in 20 mins in a game today
we ended up losing anyway tho (throws at the end coulda won) that felt like the score i needed to be getting to be above average usefulness as nasus (and even then Im not sure if i feel like xin level op)
the thing is even when youre uber farmed on nasus its like you could have won 10x easier by just actively ganking a lot on xin or amumu or jarvan and even if youre a bit behind in farm you have a better team so who cares at least thats what my opponents been doing wololol
I think his jungling is fine, even post-crit fix. I didn't rely on crits for his jungling to work, it was just fun when it gave an unexpected kill.
I'll be trying the CDR-focused build out for now, including utility masteries. It's fun to stack 300 damage on Q in 12 minutes, but you really don't need that much afk-farm time to be effective. I've had games where I've barely made 200 at 21:40 but still constituted a significant threat.
With the mana cost change he may be better in lane, but I think it's still very easy for opponents to pressure him away from creeps.
the issue with his jungling is that at least in solo queue you have to be really active in the jungle because there are lots of opportunies for ganks and counterganks and you dont get the gold or q farm to beast mode later. In lane you can farm against a lot of guy without being a detriment to the team in any other way unless you feed.
what's everyones thoughts on fist vs frozen heart/tri force. (assuming everyone gets sheen/glacial) I like fist and feel like it was really made for Nasus but I get really annoyed when it stuffs up my Q farm haha.
Do people just sit on glacial sheen and get visage/locket/other tanky stuff first?
yah, I feel iceborne is the better choice for lategame, but there's not really much point upgrading it until you're teamfighting more than farming. All it's really giving you is a little more AP, armor and mana, none of which are super critical. Finish the other stuff first.
I'm still trying to figure out how to build him now. He doesn't work so well with the health stacking meta because it really doesn't synergise that well with his kit. He already gets health from his ult, stacking health doesn't increase the value of his lifesteal and he's one of the few bruisers who really gets fucked up by lategame carries with percentage damage and a cleanse because once wither is down you're basically useless if you can't combo onto a CCed squishy.
So I figure going for a lot of CDR and mixing in a fair hunk of resists with a decent amount of health in there from stuff like spirit visage and randuins perhaps.
I'm considering the CDR rush too, with 10 from masteries and another 10 from a quick kindlegem for laning, you can then get the other 20 from finishing a spirit and a glacial depending on what's needed. The main difficulty with him is itemising for MR after you have a SV, there aren't that many good options for him, outside just going mad tanky mode and building a bulwark. If you could drop the randuins to get it it would be good, but randuins is just so fantastic on him with the anticarry mechanics and the debuff you can drop as you wade in I'm hesitant to do so.
I used to play a LOT of nasus based on Hyfe's guide; what are the thoughts of the good nasus players nowadays on how to run him? What masteries and runes? I have plenty of runepages so I could just run 5 pages for big dog.
On February 16 2013 05:50 NeedsmoreCELLTECH wrote: I used to play a LOT of nasus based on Hyfe's guide; what are the thoughts of the good nasus players nowadays on how to run him? What masteries and runes? I have plenty of runepages so I could just run 5 pages for big dog.
Just read the thread and ask questions. I have no idea who hyfe is or why his guide anymore is any good. I also have no idea if your post Is about top nasus or jungle nasus.
There is literaly no way for anyone to respond to you well.
On February 16 2013 05:50 NeedsmoreCELLTECH wrote: I used to play a LOT of nasus based on Hyfe's guide; what are the thoughts of the good nasus players nowadays on how to run him? What masteries and runes? I have plenty of runepages so I could just run 5 pages for big dog.
Just read the thread and ask questions. I have no idea who hyfe is or why his guide anymore is any good. I also have no idea if your post Is about top nasus or jungle nasus.
There is literaly no way for anyone to respond to you well.
You're right. Sorry for the bad post. It just seemed that the discussion of the last few pages was about jungle nasus and the OP is rather outdated.
Questions: -What boots do you guys like buying on nasus? What enchantments? Swifts and mercs both seem look solid choices, with alacrity enchantment? -What kind of runes do you guys run vs bruisers top? And vs AP laners? Any particularly easy lanes where you could pull off GP/10 quints, movespeed quints or like CDR quints? -Do you guys still go for Gp/5 items? In what situations? -I figured that as Nasus you start flask and just farm farm farm; as soon as you get some money you get resists and health into Frozen Gauntlet (sheen+glacial item) into boots or something?
Also with the Q buff; is it really necessary to max it first? Seems like putting 2-3 fast points in wither will make Jax etc a breeze and will make your lane very tempting to gank.
On February 16 2013 05:50 NeedsmoreCELLTECH wrote: I used to play a LOT of nasus based on Hyfe's guide; what are the thoughts of the good nasus players nowadays on how to run him? What masteries and runes? I have plenty of runepages so I could just run 5 pages for big dog.
Just read the thread and ask questions. I have no idea who hyfe is or why his guide anymore is any good. I also have no idea if your post Is about top nasus or jungle nasus.
There is literaly no way for anyone to respond to you well.
You're right. Sorry for the bad post. It just seemed that the discussion of the last few pages was about jungle nasus and the OP is rather outdated.
Questions: -What boots do you guys like buying on nasus? What enchantments? Swifts and mercs both seem look solid choices, with alacrity enchantment? -What kind of runes do you guys run vs bruisers top? And vs AP laners? Any particularly easy lanes where you could pull off GP/10 quints, movespeed quints or like CDR quints? -Do you guys still go for Gp/5 items? In what situations? -I figured that as Nasus you start flask and just farm farm farm; as soon as you get some money you get resists and health into Frozen Gauntlet (sheen+glacial item) into boots or something?
Also with the Q buff; is it really necessary to max it first? Seems like putting 2-3 fast points in wither will make Jax etc a breeze and will make your lane very tempting to gank.
I'll answer for current jungle Nasus...
Swifties are my choice; normally in combination with Spirit of the AG for the slow- and tenacity. Enchantment wise I say homeguard; I don't really think Alacrity is worth it
I run my old Phoenix Udyr runes; Aspd marks, Armour seals, Mres/lv glyphs and Movement quints. I'm pretty sure these can be improved however in the marks department. I just love move speed too much though
I used to go Avarice, not sure how effective it is now, despite being buffed
Leave the IBG upgrade til later on; it's not a critical upgrade and can wait. Sheen and Glacial are nice mid game items though
Get Locket
If anything, the Q buff gives you more incentive to max it first. Need that CDR
On February 16 2013 17:41 NeedsmoreCELLTECH wrote:
On February 16 2013 06:15 Sermokala wrote:
On February 16 2013 05:50 NeedsmoreCELLTECH wrote: I used to play a LOT of nasus based on Hyfe's guide; what are the thoughts of the good nasus players nowadays on how to run him? What masteries and runes? I have plenty of runepages so I could just run 5 pages for big dog.
Just read the thread and ask questions. I have no idea who hyfe is or why his guide anymore is any good. I also have no idea if your post Is about top nasus or jungle nasus.
There is literaly no way for anyone to respond to you well.
You're right. Sorry for the bad post. It just seemed that the discussion of the last few pages was about jungle nasus and the OP is rather outdated.
Questions: -What boots do you guys like buying on nasus? What enchantments? Swifts and mercs both seem look solid choices, with alacrity enchantment? -What kind of runes do you guys run vs bruisers top? And vs AP laners? Any particularly easy lanes where you could pull off GP/10 quints, movespeed quints or like CDR quints? -Do you guys still go for Gp/5 items? In what situations? -I figured that as Nasus you start flask and just farm farm farm; as soon as you get some money you get resists and health into Frozen Gauntlet (sheen+glacial item) into boots or something?
Also with the Q buff; is it really necessary to max it first? Seems like putting 2-3 fast points in wither will make Jax etc a breeze and will make your lane very tempting to gank.
I'll answer for current jungle Nasus...
Swifties are my choice; normally in combination with Spirit of the AG for the slow- and tenacity. Enchantment wise I say homeguard; I don't really think Alacrity is worth it
I run my old Phoenix Udyr runes; Aspd marks, Armour seals, Mres/lv glyphs and Movement quints. I'm pretty sure these can be improved however in the marks department. I just love move speed too much though
I used to go Avarice, not sure how effective it is now, despite being buffed
Leave the IBG upgrade til later on; it's not a critical upgrade and can wait. Sheen and Glacial are nice mid game items though
Get Locket
If anything, the Q buff gives you more incentive to max it first. Need that CDR
Alright, thanks a lot. Locket does indeed seem awesome. Any thoughts on lane nasus regarding these questions?
So I think I'm going to jump on the jungle Nasus train. I got builds/masteries/runes and what not, but I do have a question. When you're jungling, how are you prioritizing Q farm over jungle speed? Are you hanging around to Q every minion in a camp (I'm assuming pretty time consuming on Wraiths), or is it just one of the little ones and then the big one for the extra bonus, and just kill the rest as they come?
Honestly, after the Zeke's buff, I feel like Zeke's is a preferable source of lategame CDR than either Glacial item.
Locket->Bulwark core, then some combination of Abyssal, Randuin, Zeke's, Golem Spirit. Triforce as a 6th item.
Abyssal is actually quite a good MR source for him. The AP is a little bit awkward, but he has high baseline magic damage, which benefits heavily from MPen.
On February 16 2013 18:17 Eishi_Ki wrote: If anything, the Q buff gives you more incentive to max it first. Need that CDR
Q max has the disadvantage of being absolute garbage as a midgame teamfight skill. W and E are crushingly strong midgame (Spirit Fire is one of the strongest flat armor shreds in the game--it instantly shreds the same amount of armor as a Gatling Gun that is constantly applied for full duration, while also applying a high amount of baseline magic damage).
Q is basically there for having the inevitability of a strong lategame. It's not core to your midgame execution.
On February 21 2013 01:54 sylverfyre wrote: What about a couple points in Q to bring the CDR down a bit, but prioritizing W/E?
If you're in the jungle, first rank Q is enough to let you always Q the first and last creep of each camp, which gives you the majority of Q stacks you can get per run (IIRC Monte showed that you get 3/4 of possible Q stacks on your first clear). The marginal gain of additional Q ranks is low because unlike in lane, you're still generally trying to kill things as fast as possible.
Part of the value in Frozen before was the necessity for max mana items to help handle Nasus' high mana usage in extended teamfight scenarios, which is drastically reduced with the Q mana cost buff.
I should amend what I said slightly. Frozen is still situationally good (Zeke's is bought with the express purpose of making your AD stronger, Frozen with the purpose of making theirs weaker, so one may be better than the other based on their comparative development), but I think Zeke's higher on-paper cost-efficiency makes it generally the preferable buy. Also, at the point where you'd buy it, Frozen's stats are somewhat awkward, as a pure armor item is not generally what you need at that point (Locket+Bulwark+Golem Spirit/Randuin/Abyssal--if you got Golem Spirit or Randuin you don't need an immediate armor item, and if you got Abyssal you need an HP item).
I still don't think IBG provides enough practical value in comparison to either aura to make up its poor stats-based cost-efficiency.
I agree with glacial items being pretty meh now. Not sold on zeke's but if you're going full suppotr mode for your ad with e + zekes and wing their ad it might work pretty well. Spirit visage and locket is enough usually for cdr.
the reason not to buy glacial is you're paying for mana which hopefully you shouldn't need after laning phase at least and possibly not even then if you get flask early
On February 21 2013 01:54 sylverfyre wrote: What about a couple points in Q to bring the CDR down a bit, but prioritizing W/E?
Also, why don't you like Glacial items anymore? Inefficiency of resists? Do you really need EVEN MORE lifesteal? (Zekes)
While I do see Zekes as being well-worth it now, I'm just not sure about it on Nasus, especially with both glacial items working well on him.
I take a second point in Q at level 3 because it makes last-hitting easier (you haven't had much chance to really stack it) but doesn't stop you from maxing W by level 9. Maxing Q first was fun when the crit glitch was around, but it's not really worth it now (especially if you're running the 20% CDR opening). Maxing Q second is fine, as doubling your Q rate helps make you scary in team fights (provided you've been farming it well). Maxing E second is situational, typically when your team has a lot of physical AoE.
On February 21 2013 03:42 Seuss wrote:Maxing E second is situational, typically when your team has a lot of physical AoE.
I don't even think it needs that. E has very high base damage that matches most up-front nukes after 1-2 ticks of over-time damage. It's quite practical as a teamfight damage skill even without needing an exceptional amount of AoE physical damage and just standard right-click damage from 3 physical damage dealers.
I also don't feel like maxing W first is necessarily the way to go. The attack speed slow component suffers no diminishing returns, and so is very practical in fights, but in gank scenarios, you're bumping up against diminishing returns on slows below 220 MS. It seems most practical for one to level W to a certain point, then start leveling E, opting to finish off W later, when the teamfight AS slow is more relevant and enemy champs have higher MS.
If we assume a typical Boots 2 champ has ~380 MS, then we're looking at a 45% slow to take the target to the soft-cap on slows. Which means it takes 4.17/2.08/1.39/1.04/0.83 second (by rank) for the target to be slowed to the MS soft-cap. The obvious point here being how the marginal gain on the further ranks shrinks, and stopping W at 2-3 ranks seeming like the most practical option.
I'm not 100% sure whether the Wither slow is continuous or whether it's applied per-second (or perhaps an even smaller interval than that). If it's applied per-second then it means that depending on enemy champ MS, the early-midgame place to stop W is either 2, 3, or 4 ranks, as on one of those ranks, the next rank will fail to slow the enemy champ to the MS softcap 1 second sooner, making that rank practically less useful than the previous ones.
For reference, Wither updates four times, once per second after the initial cast (no Tenacity). So the slow increases by 3/6/9/12/15% per tick.
Thus at rank 1 a 380 MS champion reaches 224.2 MS after 2 seconds, leaving 3 more where they bump up or pass the soft cap. Rank 2 reaches this point after 1 second. So if your concern is the movement speed soft cap, then rank 2 should be sufficient.
I was actually maxing Wither for the lower cooldown more than the slow, as reaching rank 5 with 40% cooldown reduction shrinks the cooldown to 6.6 seconds, leaving a mere 1.6 second window where an opponent isn't slowed. That's brutal for ganking and chasing. With only two ranks the window is more than twice that, 3.4 seconds. It's still strong, but not quite so brutal.
You are right that E has high base damage, even if they only take the initial blast and a single tick. I'll have to experiment with that when I have the chance, though the increased mana cost for clearing the jungle concerns me.
Supported with Nasus in a normal game. I know it's terrible but everyone seemed to be feeling a little trollish in champ select (ap trynd, ap trist, trundle, ez, nasus)
We faced lulu ashe which was kind of brutal for support dog, especially when Ez ate every glitterlance without fail. However! When Trundle showed up it was a guaranteed kill every time. He would ping, I withered, he would pillar, and ashe was dead I'm not even sure if Ez helped most of the time lol.
We don't think its terrible we think its srs op with people who do a lot of physical damage and could use someone to just sit in a spot for a while so he can get his full combo off.
every ez I get can't hit skill shots and always get hit by skill shots idk what to do about them.
On February 21 2013 18:02 Seuss wrote: For reference, Wither updates four times, once per second after the initial cast (no Tenacity). So the slow increases by 3/6/9/12/15% per tick.
Thus at rank 1 a 380 MS champion reaches 224.2 MS after 2 seconds, leaving 3 more where they bump up or pass the soft cap. Rank 2 reaches this point after 1 second. So if your concern is the movement speed soft cap, then rank 2 should be sufficient.
I was actually maxing Wither for the lower cooldown more than the slow, as reaching rank 5 with 40% cooldown reduction shrinks the cooldown to 6.6 seconds, leaving a mere 1.6 second window where an opponent isn't slowed. That's brutal for ganking and chasing. With only two ranks the window is more than twice that, 3.4 seconds. It's still strong, but not quite so brutal.
You are right that E has high base damage, even if they only take the initial blast and a single tick. I'll have to experiment with that when I have the chance, though the increased mana cost for clearing the jungle concerns me.
The reason I never considered wither first Nasus is because the amount of movement speed interrupted is less than either a rammus taunt or a Fiddle fear. I know they are different champions but wouldn't they feel the same up until level 6-9 ish? Significantly less than most knockbacks too I presume, also you reach the movement speed hard floor, it slows your clears, and worsens your dueling/laning potential, and mid game Q damage, while doing nothing against dashes meaning your opponent can walk a bit while not significantly slowed, and then eat up the latter part of the slow with spells like Jayce's knockback, Nidalee pounce, Several dashes, etc...
I just think you'd be a rammus with no movement speed slow, no speed buff, and half the levels in E for too long.
a fiddle fear makes them run any direction at all and a rammus taunt requires melle range to get off. Wither has parts of both these skills to make one really good one in its own way.
On February 22 2013 00:13 Sermokala wrote: We don't think its terrible we think its srs op with people who do a lot of physical damage and could use someone to just sit in a spot for a while so he can get his full combo off.
every ez I get can't hit skill shots and always get hit by skill shots idk what to do about them.
Honestly, if lulu and ashe had warded better they wouldn't have died to trundle ganks. Before that we were getting absolutely pooped on by the poke and they were pushing wave hard.
The movement speed interruption of Wither is less, but not by much. Assuming 380 MS the 3 seconds of Taunt/Fear interrupt 1140 movement. If you calculate out Wither and all the diminishing returns, you get 1004 movement interrupted, 88.1% as much as Taunt/Fear. Obviously that's not equal, but it's extremely close.
Nasus doesn't feel the same as Rammus and Fiddle for several important reasons:
Wither has much greater range than either Fear or Taunt.
Nasus' damage increases even while he levels Wither.
Wither's 5 second duration makes sticking to your target significantly easier.
That's not to say that maxing Wither is incontrovertibly the best option. The odd thing about Nasus is that he may be the only jungler in the game whose skill order is largely contextual. Q, W, and E all have significant merits which alter their importance depending on the circumstances and/or playstyle preferences. The key is to figure out what works for you and why without blindly dismissing the other options (hence my intent to experiment with E at TheYango's behest).
On February 22 2013 01:28 Seuss wrote: The movement speed interruption of Wither is less, but not by much. Assuming 380 MS the 3 seconds of Taunt/Fear interrupt 1140 movement. If you calculate out Wither and all the diminishing returns, you get 1004 movement interrupted, 88.1% as much as Taunt/Fear. Obviously that's not equal, but it's extremely close.
Nasus doesn't feel the same as Rammus and Fiddle for several important reasons:
Wither has much greater range than either Fear or Taunt.
Nasus' damage increases even while he levels Wither.
Wither's 5 second duration makes sticking to your target significantly easier.
That's not to say that maxing Wither is incontrovertibly the best option. The odd thing about Nasus is that he may be the only jungler in the game whose skill order is largely contextual. Q, W, and E all have significant merits which alter their importance depending on the circumstances and/or playstyle preferences. The key is to figure out what works for you and why without blindly dismissing the other options (hence my intent to experiment with E at TheYango's behest).
What champion has 380 ms? In this no boots meta?
Also the first level in wither is worth a lot more than the next few levels compared to how well fear and taunt scale.
And slows stack horribly with each other and don't do as well at interrupting escapes. In my experience stun junglers have much better ganks than slow junglers. I'd have to try Nasus max W, but I don't think it would work.
On February 22 2013 01:28 Seuss wrote: The movement speed interruption of Wither is less, but not by much. Assuming 380 MS the 3 seconds of Taunt/Fear interrupt 1140 movement. If you calculate out Wither and all the diminishing returns, you get 1004 movement interrupted, 88.1% as much as Taunt/Fear. Obviously that's not equal, but it's extremely close.
Nasus doesn't feel the same as Rammus and Fiddle for several important reasons:
Wither has much greater range than either Fear or Taunt.
Nasus' damage increases even while he levels Wither.
Wither's 5 second duration makes sticking to your target significantly easier.
That's not to say that maxing Wither is incontrovertibly the best option. The odd thing about Nasus is that he may be the only jungler in the game whose skill order is largely contextual. Q, W, and E all have significant merits which alter their importance depending on the circumstances and/or playstyle preferences. The key is to figure out what works for you and why without blindly dismissing the other options (hence my intent to experiment with E at TheYango's behest).
What champion has 380 ms? In this no boots meta?
Also the first level in wither is worth a lot more than the next few levels compared to how well fear and taunt scale.
And slows stack horribly with each other and don't do as well at interrupting escapes. In my experience stun junglers have much better ganks than slow junglers. I'd have to try Nasus max W, but I don't think it would work.
By the time junglers start hitting level 9 it's fairly safe to assume that your opponents will average around 380 MS.
Fear/Taunt's scaling per rank is irrelevant. We already know how Wither compares to them at maximum rank, and Nasus isn't choosing between Wither, Fear, and Taunt when deciding his skill order. What matters is the value per rank of Soul Siphon and Spirit Fire. Incidentally, all three of Nasus normal abilities get a lot more out of their first rank than those that come after, which is why there isn't a clear best option to max first.
We're long past the point where asking, "Does this work?" is relevant. Right now we're trying to discern which of the three working options is best.
On February 22 2013 01:28 Seuss wrote: The movement speed interruption of Wither is less, but not by much. Assuming 380 MS the 3 seconds of Taunt/Fear interrupt 1140 movement. If you calculate out Wither and all the diminishing returns, you get 1004 movement interrupted, 88.1% as much as Taunt/Fear. Obviously that's not equal, but it's extremely close.
Nasus doesn't feel the same as Rammus and Fiddle for several important reasons:
Wither has much greater range than either Fear or Taunt.
Nasus' damage increases even while he levels Wither.
Wither's 5 second duration makes sticking to your target significantly easier.
That's not to say that maxing Wither is incontrovertibly the best option. The odd thing about Nasus is that he may be the only jungler in the game whose skill order is largely contextual. Q, W, and E all have significant merits which alter their importance depending on the circumstances and/or playstyle preferences. The key is to figure out what works for you and why without blindly dismissing the other options (hence my intent to experiment with E at TheYango's behest).
What champion has 380 ms? In this no boots meta?
Also the first level in wither is worth a lot more than the next few levels compared to how well fear and taunt scale.
And slows stack horribly with each other and don't do as well at interrupting escapes. In my experience stun junglers have much better ganks than slow junglers. I'd have to try Nasus max W, but I don't think it would work.
By the time junglers start hitting level 9 it's fairly safe to assume that your opponents will average around 380 MS.
Fear/Taunt's scaling per rank is irrelevant. We already know how Wither compares to them at maximum rank, and Nasus isn't choosing between Wither, Fear, and Taunt when deciding his skill order. What matters is the value per rank of Soul Siphon and Spirit Fire. Incidentally, all three of Nasus normal abilities get a lot more out of their first rank than those that come after, which is why there isn't a clear best option to max first.
We're long past the point where asking, "Does this work?" is relevant. Right now we're trying to discern which of the three working options is best.
I don't think all of us are. When I asked if people ever maxed E on Nasus before the Nasus buff in this thread, two high elo players told me that they only did it to troll as AP Nasus.
A month ago maxing anything but Q on Nasus was considered troll. There are other champions with amazing utility or damage scaling on their abilities: eg Jax. If I asked others if maxing E on Jax for the cooldown and trading power was worthwhile, people would answer no. Post remake Jax actually could do 80% of someone's life in one max E if he used minions to charge up the damage.
I don't think we have had enough discussion about whether maxing his other abilities is viable or troll yet.
On February 22 2013 03:47 obesechicken13 wrote: There are other champions with amazing utility or damage scaling on their abilities: eg Jax. If I asked others if maxing E on Jax for the cooldown and trading power was worthwhile, people would answer no. Post remake Jax actually could do 80% of someone's life in one max E if he used minions to charge up the damage.
This is misleading in a couple ways:
1) Numerically, a max E is not "80% of someone's life". The bonus damage cap is 300+1xAD (the AD ratio doesn't scale per rank, only by damage absorbed) at max rank, which is not significantly better than expected for a 5th rank nuke. 2) Jax is a Triforce champ. He's heavily hinged on the Triforce item timing--which requires him to have damage quite early. He needs Q and W ranks to be strong at that point in the game. It's a very different kind of power development than Nasus, who expects to be mostly a defensive/supportive teamfight champ dependent on his high baseline damage from E/R until 5th/6th item, where Q inevitably makes him strong.
EDIT: I went back to check, the discussion a couple pages ago between Teut and Monte was basically all about relative jungle speed between Q and E max. I think if they're close enough to be worth comparing, E max is better because it's simply the better teamfight skill. Even if Q max is slightly better from a clearing-jungle perspective, I think ranks in E are stronger for teamfights.
On February 22 2013 03:47 obesechicken13 wrote: There are other champions with amazing utility or damage scaling on their abilities: eg Jax. If I asked others if maxing E on Jax for the cooldown and trading power was worthwhile, people would answer no. Post remake Jax actually could do 80% of someone's life in one max E if he used minions to charge up the damage.
This is misleading in a couple ways:
1) Numerically, a max E is not "80% of someone's life". The bonus damage cap is 300+1xAD (the AD ratio doesn't scale per rank, only by damage absorbed) at max rank, which is not significantly better than expected for a 5th rank nuke. 2) Jax is a Triforce champ. He's heavily hinged on the Triforce item timing--which requires him to have damage quite early. He needs Q and W ranks to be strong at that point in the game. It's a very different kind of power development than Nasus, who expects to be mostly a defensive/supportive teamfight champ dependent on his high baseline damage from E/R until 5th/6th item, where Q inevitably makes him strong.
EDIT: I went back to check, the discussion a couple pages ago between Teut and Monte was basically all about relative jungle speed between Q and E max. I think if they're close enough to be worth comparing, E max is better because it's simply the better teamfight skill. Even if Q max is slightly better from a clearing-jungle perspective, I think ranks in E are stronger for teamfights.
Jax didn't need have a cap on his E damage when he was first remade. I tried it out by standing in a few creeps and jumping on a bot.
On February 22 2013 01:28 Seuss wrote: The movement speed interruption of Wither is less, but not by much. Assuming 380 MS the 3 seconds of Taunt/Fear interrupt 1140 movement. If you calculate out Wither and all the diminishing returns, you get 1004 movement interrupted, 88.1% as much as Taunt/Fear. Obviously that's not equal, but it's extremely close.
Nasus doesn't feel the same as Rammus and Fiddle for several important reasons:
Wither has much greater range than either Fear or Taunt.
Nasus' damage increases even while he levels Wither.
Wither's 5 second duration makes sticking to your target significantly easier.
That's not to say that maxing Wither is incontrovertibly the best option. The odd thing about Nasus is that he may be the only jungler in the game whose skill order is largely contextual. Q, W, and E all have significant merits which alter their importance depending on the circumstances and/or playstyle preferences. The key is to figure out what works for you and why without blindly dismissing the other options (hence my intent to experiment with E at TheYango's behest).
What champion has 380 ms? In this no boots meta?
Also the first level in wither is worth a lot more than the next few levels compared to how well fear and taunt scale.
And slows stack horribly with each other and don't do as well at interrupting escapes. In my experience stun junglers have much better ganks than slow junglers. I'd have to try Nasus max W, but I don't think it would work.
By the time junglers start hitting level 9 it's fairly safe to assume that your opponents will average around 380 MS.
Fear/Taunt's scaling per rank is irrelevant. We already know how Wither compares to them at maximum rank, and Nasus isn't choosing between Wither, Fear, and Taunt when deciding his skill order. What matters is the value per rank of Soul Siphon and Spirit Fire. Incidentally, all three of Nasus normal abilities get a lot more out of their first rank than those that come after, which is why there isn't a clear best option to max first.
We're long past the point where asking, "Does this work?" is relevant. Right now we're trying to discern which of the three working options is best.
I don't think all of us are. When I asked if people ever maxed E on Nasus before the Nasus buff in this thread, two high elo players told me that they only did it to troll as AP Nasus.
A month ago maxing anything but Q on Nasus was considered troll. There are other champions with amazing utility or damage scaling on their abilities: eg Jax. If I asked others if maxing E on Jax for the cooldown and trading power was worthwhile, people would answer no. Post remake Jax actually could do 80% of someone's life in one max E if he used minions to charge up the damage.
I don't think we have had enough discussion about whether maxing his other abilities is viable or troll yet.
We don't need to discuss which options are "troll" because they've all been used in actual games and found to work (although Teut never reported back about his runs maxing E, and I haven't talked much about W since the early parts of the discussion). None of the options are so bad as to be unthinkable (e.g. "troll"), because all three of Nasus' abilities are frontloaded in effectiveness.
On February 22 2013 03:47 obesechicken13 wrote: There are other champions with amazing utility or damage scaling on their abilities: eg Jax. If I asked others if maxing E on Jax for the cooldown and trading power was worthwhile, people would answer no. Post remake Jax actually could do 80% of someone's life in one max E if he used minions to charge up the damage.
This is misleading in a couple ways:
1) Numerically, a max E is not "80% of someone's life". The bonus damage cap is 300+1xAD (the AD ratio doesn't scale per rank, only by damage absorbed) at max rank, which is not significantly better than expected for a 5th rank nuke. 2) Jax is a Triforce champ. He's heavily hinged on the Triforce item timing--which requires him to have damage quite early. He needs Q and W ranks to be strong at that point in the game. It's a very different kind of power development than Nasus, who expects to be mostly a defensive/supportive teamfight champ dependent on his high baseline damage from E/R until 5th/6th item, where Q inevitably makes him strong.
EDIT: I went back to check, the discussion a couple pages ago between Teut and Monte was basically all about relative jungle speed between Q and E max. I think if they're close enough to be worth comparing, E max is better because it's simply the better teamfight skill. Even if Q max is slightly better from a clearing-jungle perspective, I think ranks in E are stronger for teamfights.
You also need to consider that ranks in Q are better for taking objectives. Nasus with Q maxed demolishes Dragon/Baron/Towers/Inhibitors unless you've been remiss about stacking it. Maxing Q halves its cooldown, so leaving it with 1 or 2 ranks for the sake of other abilities comes at the cost of his ability to press objectives.
I still need to test E in a significant sampling of games to have a clearer idea of where I stand on that concept.
QEQW -> R>Q>W>E is what I keep gravitating back to. W and E first are okay, but maxing Q not only makes farming it easier, but actually clears faster later on because of the lower cooldown, lower mana dependence, and better single target damage.
You want Spirit Stone -> Locket -> Any Other CDR Item -> Aegis (If no one else will) -> Golem/Swifties -> Moar Tank. Capping CDR is critical because all your damage and utility is in your abilities, and the more often you can spam them the scarier you are. Because I'm running Slayer91's 20.80% CDR level 1 setup I can go Locket -> Kindlegem and just sit on that for CDR until I figure out if I want SV, Zeke's, or Shurelia's (or even another Locket, those cost-efficient stats).
On February 22 2013 03:47 obesechicken13 wrote: There are other champions with amazing utility or damage scaling on their abilities: eg Jax. If I asked others if maxing E on Jax for the cooldown and trading power was worthwhile, people would answer no. Post remake Jax actually could do 80% of someone's life in one max E if he used minions to charge up the damage.
This is misleading in a couple ways:
1) Numerically, a max E is not "80% of someone's life". The bonus damage cap is 300+1xAD (the AD ratio doesn't scale per rank, only by damage absorbed) at max rank, which is not significantly better than expected for a 5th rank nuke. 2) Jax is a Triforce champ. He's heavily hinged on the Triforce item timing--which requires him to have damage quite early. He needs Q and W ranks to be strong at that point in the game. It's a very different kind of power development than Nasus, who expects to be mostly a defensive/supportive teamfight champ dependent on his high baseline damage from E/R until 5th/6th item, where Q inevitably makes him strong.
EDIT: I went back to check, the discussion a couple pages ago between Teut and Monte was basically all about relative jungle speed between Q and E max. I think if they're close enough to be worth comparing, E max is better because it's simply the better teamfight skill. Even if Q max is slightly better from a clearing-jungle perspective, I think ranks in E are stronger for teamfights.
I'm a little confused why people are talking about Jax in a Nasus thread, but Jax is not really Triforce based. You can get it on him later and it will be effective, but Blade of the Ruined King and Maw of Malmortius have become the best items for Jax. Maw because it provides a shield, both resistances, and a lot of damage, and Blade of the Ruined King because it scales so well with Attack Speed. I'm still not sure that going E first is the best plan on Jax, but I wouldn't call Jax a "Triforce based" champion any more. There really aren't a lot of champions any more that you need Triforce on like you used to, just because there are better items.
It looks like he used his "ms/as/arm/mr" page, which consists of Movespeed Quints, Attack Speed Marks, Armor Seals, and a mix of Flat and Scaling MR Glyphs. His "nasus" masteries page is 9/21/0, skipping the CDR in Offense for Attack Speed and taking Bladed Armor, and Unyielding + Block in Defense. The skill order he used was QEW, with a priority thereafter of R>E>W>Q (TheYango OP).
Red was taken first in order to facilitate a fast level 3 gank top. It was a smiteless leash, but it took considerable help to accomplish. Nasus rushed Spirit Stone, followed by Flask and Merc Treads. Next was Aegis -> Runic Bulwark, followed by a Kindlegem -> Locket. This focus on early MR made sense given that GIANTS ran a double AP composition.
The casters were continually impressed with how much he was stacking Q, but I think that was largely because they have no idea how much Nasus can actually stack if left to his own devices. 105 damage after 9 minutes of jungling/ganking is good, but isn't anything to phone home about. Because Diamondprox was playing a gank-heavy tanky/support style to counter the potential early pressure from Volibear he didn't have the opportunities to stack more damage.
Given that he was playing very much like other tanky/support junglers and lacked CDR his skill order makes sense (without CDR E first will definitely clear faster than Q). However, he seemed stymied by that lack of CDR. He literally had none when the mid-game hit, meaning there were 7 second gaps in Wither/Spirit Fire uptime. Given that he often had to hang back after soaking a lot of damage, having higher uptime on these abilities would have greatly increased his teamfight contributions and objective pressure.
Unfortunately, there really was nowhere in his build to squeeze in that CDR due to the pressure from the double AP composition. Merc Treads were definitely the right choice due to the lack of consistent slows in GIANTS' team composition, as was rushing Runic Bulwark to stack more MR against Double AP. Given his rune/mastery setup, entering the mid-game without CDR was unavoidable.
If nothing else, I look forward to fewer people questioning my sanity when I jungle Nasus.
yeah the w and e nasus style works better when you cant really hit anyone with q a lot but im wondering if just picking amumu or something might have been better
the best part about it was the huge grin diamond had on his face when they picked jungle volibear then he picked jungle nasus LOL
On February 22 2013 03:47 obesechicken13 wrote: There are other champions with amazing utility or damage scaling on their abilities: eg Jax. If I asked others if maxing E on Jax for the cooldown and trading power was worthwhile, people would answer no. Post remake Jax actually could do 80% of someone's life in one max E if he used minions to charge up the damage.
This is misleading in a couple ways:
1) Numerically, a max E is not "80% of someone's life". The bonus damage cap is 300+1xAD (the AD ratio doesn't scale per rank, only by damage absorbed) at max rank, which is not significantly better than expected for a 5th rank nuke. 2) Jax is a Triforce champ. He's heavily hinged on the Triforce item timing--which requires him to have damage quite early. He needs Q and W ranks to be strong at that point in the game. It's a very different kind of power development than Nasus, who expects to be mostly a defensive/supportive teamfight champ dependent on his high baseline damage from E/R until 5th/6th item, where Q inevitably makes him strong.
EDIT: I went back to check, the discussion a couple pages ago between Teut and Monte was basically all about relative jungle speed between Q and E max. I think if they're close enough to be worth comparing, E max is better because it's simply the better teamfight skill. Even if Q max is slightly better from a clearing-jungle perspective, I think ranks in E are stronger for teamfights.
I'm a little confused why people are talking about Jax in a Nasus thread, but Jax is not really Triforce based. You can get it on him later and it will be effective, but Blade of the Ruined King and Maw of Malmortius have become the best items for Jax. Maw because it provides a shield, both resistances, and a lot of damage, and Blade of the Ruined King because it scales so well with Attack Speed. I'm still not sure that going E first is the best plan on Jax, but I wouldn't call Jax a "Triforce based" champion any more. There really aren't a lot of champions any more that you need Triforce on like you used to, just because there are better items.
The discussion was with regard to S2 Jax though because of how obesechicken13 was talking about Jax right after his remake.
Obviously there are other options in the game now.
It looks like he used his "ms/as/arm/mr" page, which consists of Movespeed Quints, Attack Speed Marks, Armor Seals, and a mix of Flat and Scaling MR Glyphs. His "nasus" masteries page is 9/21/0, skipping the CDR in Offense for Attack Speed and taking Bladed Armor, and Unyielding + Block in Defense. The skill order he used was QEW, with a priority thereafter of R>E>W>Q (TheYango OP).
Red was taken first in order to facilitate a fast level 3 gank top. It was a smiteless leash, but it took considerable help to accomplish. Nasus rushed Spirit Stone, followed by Flask and Merc Treads. Next was Aegis -> Runic Bulwark, followed by a Kindlegem -> Locket. This focus on early MR made sense given that GIANTS ran a double AP composition.
The casters were continually impressed with how much he was stacking Q, but I think that was largely because they have no idea how much Nasus can actually stack if left to his own devices. 105 damage after 9 minutes of jungling/ganking is good, but isn't anything to phone home about. Because Diamondprox was playing a gank-heavy tanky/support style to counter the potential early pressure from Volibear he didn't have the opportunities to stack more damage.
Given that he was playing very much like other tanky/support junglers and lacked CDR his skill order makes sense (without CDR E first will definitely clear faster than Q). However, he seemed stymied by that lack of CDR. He literally had none when the mid-game hit, meaning there were 7 second gaps in Wither/Spirit Fire uptime. Given that he often had to hang back after soaking a lot of damage, having higher uptime on these abilities would have greatly increased his teamfight contributions and objective pressure.
Unfortunately, there really was nowhere in his build to squeeze in that CDR due to the pressure from the double AP composition. Merc Treads were definitely the right choice due to the lack of consistent slows in GIANTS' team composition, as was rushing Runic Bulwark to stack more MR against Double AP. Given his rune/mastery setup, entering the mid-game without CDR was unavoidable.
If nothing else, I look forward to fewer people questioning my sanity when I jungle Nasus.
The smoothest solution would naturally have been for Diamond to get Locket anyway and for Darien to get Bulwark.
EDIT: I'm not even sure that Aegis was more effective than Locket there to begin with. On a 45 MR benefactor with 1500 HP, Aegis adds equivalent EHP to having 195 more HP. At the level that Diamond finished Aegis, the Locket shield would be close to granting that HP value to begin with (160 or 170 HP), and the difference potentially doesn't outweigh the fact that you're getting CDR from Locket.
On February 26 2013 04:19 Slayer91 wrote: yeah the w and e nasus style works better when you cant really hit anyone with q a lot but im wondering if just picking amumu or something might have been better
the best part about it was the huge grin diamond had on his face when they picked jungle volibear then he picked jungle nasus LOL
I think Nasus with capped CDR has the potential to impact a game as much as Amumu or similar champions. Chain Withers/Spirit Fires are extremely strong in a teamfight, and his objective pressure is extremely high thanks to Siphoning Strike. But without CDR he's just another jungle viable champion.
Diamondprox grinned because Wither > Speed Boosts. It literally lasts longer than Hecarim E or Volibear Q, screwing them over severely.
It looks like he used his "ms/as/arm/mr" page, which consists of Movespeed Quints, Attack Speed Marks, Armor Seals, and a mix of Flat and Scaling MR Glyphs. His "nasus" masteries page is 9/21/0, skipping the CDR in Offense for Attack Speed and taking Bladed Armor, and Unyielding + Block in Defense. The skill order he used was QEW, with a priority thereafter of R>E>W>Q (TheYango OP).
Red was taken first in order to facilitate a fast level 3 gank top. It was a smiteless leash, but it took considerable help to accomplish. Nasus rushed Spirit Stone, followed by Flask and Merc Treads. Next was Aegis -> Runic Bulwark, followed by a Kindlegem -> Locket. This focus on early MR made sense given that GIANTS ran a double AP composition.
The casters were continually impressed with how much he was stacking Q, but I think that was largely because they have no idea how much Nasus can actually stack if left to his own devices. 105 damage after 9 minutes of jungling/ganking is good, but isn't anything to phone home about. Because Diamondprox was playing a gank-heavy tanky/support style to counter the potential early pressure from Volibear he didn't have the opportunities to stack more damage.
Given that he was playing very much like other tanky/support junglers and lacked CDR his skill order makes sense (without CDR E first will definitely clear faster than Q). However, he seemed stymied by that lack of CDR. He literally had none when the mid-game hit, meaning there were 7 second gaps in Wither/Spirit Fire uptime. Given that he often had to hang back after soaking a lot of damage, having higher uptime on these abilities would have greatly increased his teamfight contributions and objective pressure.
Unfortunately, there really was nowhere in his build to squeeze in that CDR due to the pressure from the double AP composition. Merc Treads were definitely the right choice due to the lack of consistent slows in GIANTS' team composition, as was rushing Runic Bulwark to stack more MR against Double AP. Given his rune/mastery setup, entering the mid-game without CDR was unavoidable.
If nothing else, I look forward to fewer people questioning my sanity when I jungle Nasus.
The smoothest solution would naturally have been for Diamond to get Locket anyway and for Darien to get Bulwark.
EDIT: I'm not even sure that Aegis was more effective than Locket there to begin with. On a 45 MR benefactor with 1500 HP, Aegis adds equivalent EHP to having 195 more HP. At the level that Diamond finished Aegis, the Locket shield would be close to granting that HP value to begin with (160 or 170 HP), and the difference potentially doesn't outweigh the fact that you're getting CDR from Locket.
Do you think it would have been worth it for Darien to delay Warmog's for Aegis, or should he have waited? In the latter case he probably wouldn't have finished Aegis/Bulwark until roughly the 30-35 minute mark, which would have left his team without the 30 MR Aura for most of the mid-game (that seems pretty bad).
Someone more experienced on Renekton than I will have to speak about the comparative effectiveness of the items in question. I don't even own Renekton.
Isn't the consensus that you barely even log in anyway?
I tried your suggestion of building Zeke on a lane Nasus, where my experiences with Xin and Wukong have left me sorely disappointed as to the damage it brings, but on a CDR relying champ that Nasus I have to say that I was impressed. Since I don't rely on the AD much for my damage, being able to cast another Wither during ganks (I laned against a rather bad Udyr, but Bear Stance is still annoying when he knowns how to use bushes) or even to have Spirit Fire ready earlier to prevent jukes made an appreciable difference. Some more lifesteal on top of your passive is also pretty absurd when your Q has the cd to be used on almost every last hit. I'll have to try it out in the jungle (last attempt was a bunch of solos against 2 premades, needless to say the inevitable invade didn't go well, nor did any other camp past the first 2 actually) but that's the first time I don't think buying Zeke is gimping myself.
As for pub play, people don't yell anymore when I pick Nasus but the Diamond wannabe accusations are second only to the "great leader, lead us to victory" jokes (crests can a bane ;_;).
I dunno, at my level (mid gold) people give me a ton of shit for picking Nasus, then I gank their lane at the ten minute mark and do 150+ damage Q's and every shuts the hell up.
I like running movespeed quints, I dunno, old habit dies hard. 3x Movespeeed quints, AD reds, Armor yellows, then CDR blues.
My skill order been typically Q-E-E (occassionally I skip the 2nd E for a point in W to do a level three gank if the oppertuinity arises), R>W>Q>E.
I think W max best, makes you able to pressure lanes significantly more. With 2 points in E stacking Q easy, dont even really need to waste time. For example, on wraith camp I E the whole camp, auto big wraith, then Q small wraith dealing killing blow. Then keep autoing the big wraith and Q all the small ones when CD down. Lose maybe 10 seconds compared to spamming E on CD, but you get +9 Q damage you normally wouldn't.
I actually think Nasus' level 2/3 gank pretty damn good, but I mostly expect that because people assume Nasus not a threat to pull them off so they play stupidly.
CDR definitely key though. I been building a core of like Spirit-boots-Locket-AncientGolem then whatever needed. I think Spirit Visage really strong on Nasus too, although I see too many games where other team just has no AP champions.
On February 27 2013 23:30 101tojavascript:tlpdize('reply_area')ss wrote: doesn't e still cost an assload of mana
Yeah, but once you cleared a couple times your Q does enough damage that your dont really need E anymore to clear.Usually around like the eight minute mark my Q starts to just hit +100~ depending on how much my team needs me to relieve pressure.
Hey guys, I've had a question about Nasus I've been mulling over for a while. I see a lot of great higher level players running jungle nasus, but I don't quite understand why he's better jungling than top laning. When I top lane nasus I play extremely passive early game and focus entirely on farming up my q. When freezing my lane by the tower, I can get my q up almost every time it's off cool down. Furthermore, I have yet to die when laning as Nasus, I never push their tower very well, but I also never lose the lane due to lifesteal and w+e holding off ganks.
Overall, I'd appreciate feedback as to why players choose to forgo the constant farming of q in lane and instead jungle where it cannot be farmed as highly.
I dunno, there's a lot of moderately-well-scaling top laners that poop on nasus. Many popular choices can gapclose onto him, lay damage down, or they can just shove, take his tower, and roam.
Personal favorite - Irelia: Wither wears off quite quickly with passive+mastery+tenacity, sustain + strong trading that wither can't stop, and I am far harder to peel off carries late game.
Nasus is a good pick against irelia top from my experience, and from tournaments as well, often he is picked against irelia and it only goes bad if irelia can freeze with an advantage or something but anyone rapes nasus if they can do that.
Carry divers is exactly what nasus wants to face because he has enough sustained damage and tankiness that when you start trading kills around the team suddenly he can't be focused or kited because you don't have enough damage and cc to stop him.
I don't think nasus jungle is anything more than FoTM from diamondprox running it. He isn't particularly well suited for the role the only reason to jungle him is it fits the "supporty/tank" role people like to jungle with if you max his W and E first and he has some bad top lane match ups but when people start finding better junglers they will probably stop.
Nasus is an absolute beast in the jungle because of his wither and his tankiness. He is a great counter to certain junglers.
When I play Nasus top I level Q over W over E and only take points in E when I am being pushed hard. I start cloth and pots vs ad or faerie/reju against ap like Rumble. vs AD I rush Philo, Glacial, Sheen, Triforce, Frozen Heart and then Shurelyas and then a Warmogs. The recent discounts of Triforce made Nasus even stronger in the top lane. 110SS+130AD+450Stacks+200Triforce = 890, or 1k+ when you crit. It is definitely possible to get this much around the 30 minute mark and that is insane.
On March 22 2013 04:36 Slayer91 wrote: I don't think nasus jungle is anything more than FoTM from diamondprox running it. He isn't particularly well suited for the role the only reason to jungle him is it fits the "supporty/tank" role people like to jungle with if you max his W and E first and he has some bad top lane match ups but when people start finding better junglers they will probably stop.
Personally I think it's because a lot of people haven't gotten it into their heads that you can itemize the same defensive/supportive stuff out of lane that you can in jungle. You just hit those item timings faster.
For some reason, whenever a champ goes top lane, it suddenly seems like their itemization becomes 100% selfish, even if the same champ in the jungle would be itemizing team supportive items. This doesn't just apply to Nasus, but also to other defensive/supportive junglers that get played in lane (e.g. Jarvan, Xin). In jungle it's cookie-cutter Locket->Aegis, but as soon as they're top lane, they're buying BC/Mog's/Sunfire just like everyone else, even though they're the same champ.
Nasus isn't that good with that kind of stuff, but he's totally fine buying Locket/Bulwark/etc. with lane farm and, again, gets them faster.
On March 22 2013 04:01 confusedcrib wrote: Hey guys, I've had a question about Nasus I've been mulling over for a while. I see a lot of great higher level players running jungle nasus, but I don't quite understand why he's better jungling than top laning. When I top lane nasus I play extremely passive early game and focus entirely on farming up my q. When freezing my lane by the tower, I can get my q up almost every time it's off cool down. Furthermore, I have yet to die when laning as Nasus, I never push their tower very well, but I also never lose the lane due to lifesteal and w+e holding off ganks.
Overall, I'd appreciate feedback as to why players choose to forgo the constant farming of q in lane and instead jungle where it cannot be farmed as highly.
A lot of people have a hard time laning as Nasus. I can't think of many common tops that he can't lane against, but what would you do as Nasus vs Vayne?
Also he recently got a buff that lets him gain more stacks on his Q on big monsters in the jungle. Every champion in the game would get more potential farm top than in the jungle. It's just that someone has to jungle.
On March 22 2013 04:01 confusedcrib wrote: Hey guys, I've had a question about Nasus I've been mulling over for a while. I see a lot of great higher level players running jungle nasus, but I don't quite understand why he's better jungling than top laning. When I top lane nasus I play extremely passive early game and focus entirely on farming up my q. When freezing my lane by the tower, I can get my q up almost every time it's off cool down. Furthermore, I have yet to die when laning as Nasus, I never push their tower very well, but I also never lose the lane due to lifesteal and w+e holding off ganks.
Overall, I'd appreciate feedback as to why players choose to forgo the constant farming of q in lane and instead jungle where it cannot be farmed as highly.
A lot of people have a hard time laning as Nasus. I can't think of many common tops that he can't lane against, but what would you do as Nasus vs Vayne?
Also he recently got a buff that lets him gain more stacks on his Q on big monsters in the jungle. Every champion in the game would get more potential farm top than in the jungle. It's just that someone has to jungle.
I have a friend who isn't really good with Nasus but he loves playing him. I told him to Q every creep and watch his damage go up, sadly, he was looking at his AD and not even looking at the dark blue number. No wonder every game he was labelled horrible.....
I want to start jungling nasus and I just did some test runs in custom games by myself.
I still can't decide between R>Q>W>E or R>E>W>Q. Maxing Q let's you farm it more, which is great, but the two other main reasons I want to do it is because E costs a ton of mana and Q gets a lower CD. I just don't want to be fighting with an 8 second CD Q in the midgame
On the other hand, E gets a higher AoE armor shred, and a LOT more damage (assuming 1 E 1 Q), and quicker clearing.
I am absolutely loving R>E>W>Q as jungle nasus. While it means my q is generally much less farmed, playing nasus as a support in the mid game is absolutely fantastic in terms of utility for your team. I like to think of it this way, when the first couple team fights of a match happen before I'm level 18, would I rather have a maxed E and W or Q and W? For me, Nasus is much more useful withering the adc and draining armor on everyone in the mid game than the single target DPS of pimp smacking people with his cane; furthermore, when I jungle nasus I build him with things like locket and runic, so that he can be the best support possible in mid game team fights. The only downside to this is meaning that I do much less damage heading into the late game, but I'm generally so tanky and have so much utility in team fights that it doesn't matter. Hope this helps!
I want to start jungling nasus and I just did some test runs in custom games by myself.
I still can't decide between R>Q>W>E or R>E>W>Q. Maxing Q let's you farm it more, which is great, but the two other main reasons I want to do it is because E costs a ton of mana and Q gets a lower CD. I just don't want to be fighting with an 8 second CD Q in the midgame
On the other hand, E gets a higher AoE armor shred, and a LOT more damage (assuming 1 E 1 Q), and quicker clearing.
Anything I'm missing/advice?
Maxing w gives you retardedly strong utility at the expense of worse clearing and as a result scaling
I want to start jungling nasus and I just did some test runs in custom games by myself.
I still can't decide between R>Q>W>E or R>E>W>Q. Maxing Q let's you farm it more, which is great, but the two other main reasons I want to do it is because E costs a ton of mana and Q gets a lower CD. I just don't want to be fighting with an 8 second CD Q in the midgame
On the other hand, E gets a higher AoE armor shred, and a LOT more damage (assuming 1 E 1 Q), and quicker clearing.
Anything I'm missing/advice?
Maxing w gives you retardedly strong utility at the expense of worse clearing and as a result scaling
I think this a simple a>b>c is really inappropriate for nasus right now. It's very much situational.
For what it's worth, I usually get 2 in q and 2 in e and then max w so by 11 I have 2q5w2e2r and then just decide depending on the situation. If the game's going slow you can get your q farmed quite well even with 2 points in it and by 13-14 you can train anyone you like and there's very little the opposing team can do about it.
had to go top in a ranked (doing gold promotions) and I had to top quite a while... picked nasus and had an elise opponent...
i was avoiding trades in early due to being low in q.
elise tried to trade (he was full hp and i was half hp) around 8 or so and i went for it since i felt my q was quite farmed... poor elise went down so fast :D
at 15 we had a teamfight which was a joke.someone engages i go in rest team and the engager goes b. took down a triplekill then died. lol. we won the teamfight easy :D
mid to late game this guy is unkillable if played right.
I'm thinking movespeed quints, flat armor, scaling MR and maybe arpen? Just go straight 0/21/9 masteries?
I'm very confused on skill order though. Someone said that two points in E lets you clear really well-- just E the entire camp, Q a small, auto the big, q the other small then q the big again. It sounds good, but I'm not sure where to skill W in this scheme really, apart from maybe taking it at lvl 3. I'm thinking something like Q E W E Q R, then R>Q>W>E.
Also, would it be worth it to take a couple mana pots instead of hp pots in your initial 5?
I got pooped on by a Nasus with a build I've never seen before. Started with cloth+5(I was playing as Riven), then on the first back bought Eleisa's Miracle and boots(Ninja Tabi? Can't recall) and had absolutely amazing sustain. There was no way my Riven could force her out of lane. Every time I tried to trade she'd wither, Q me twice and then go back to farming. She'd lose about 1/4 of her health but heal it up in a matter of seconds. I'd lose maybe 1/5 but it would take me so much longer to replace it. I've tried the build myself and it works very well for sustain in lane, although it does mean that you won't contribute nearly as much in the midgame. If you're facing someone who is trying to just force you out of lane consider it.
So i also started to jungle Nasus, but i don't really like the "standard" 9/21/0 and 0/21/9 masteries, so i tried running him with my Hecarim masteries (0/9/21, picking the Mana, ManaReg and CDR). Then skilling R > E = W > Q. Alongside with my MoveSpeed-Quints he is really fast, his clear is good due to high Spirit Fire and the ganks with a high Wither are really good. My Build is full tank; Mercs, Ancient Golem, Randuins, Locket/Shurelias/Aegis (depending on what my support builds), Warmogs, Frozen Fist/Heart, Spirit Visage, Cleaver; all depending on enemy team. If i get really fed early, then i rush Trinity, for dmg and absurd movespeed. So much fun :D
I usually suck in jungle but with this guy I am like 72% winrate over around 20 games. In lower level games there are less drawn out fights, all people seem to clump up alot and this is where Nasus just seems ultra strong. With w on the adc your e, ult and locket you basically cant lose teamfights if they are close together.
On April 02 2013 20:52 Sareth wrote: So i also started to jungle Nasus, but i don't really like the "standard" 9/21/0 and 0/21/9 masteries, so i tried running him with my Hecarim masteries (0/9/21, picking the Mana, ManaReg and CDR). Then skilling R > E = W > Q. Alongside with my MoveSpeed-Quints he is really fast, his clear is good due to high Spirit Fire and the ganks with a high Wither are really good. My Build is full tank; Mercs, Ancient Golem, Randuins, Locket/Shurelias/Aegis (depending on what my support builds), Warmogs, Frozen Fist/Heart, Spirit Visage, Cleaver; all depending on enemy team. If i get really fed early, then i rush Trinity, for dmg and absurd movespeed. So much fun :D
the crit reducion, tabi reduction, randuins and frozen heart slows, and your defensive hp 4.5% and damage -3% taken all add up to something riduclous like halfing incoming damage from an AD carry with IE PD which works out the same as like more than doubling your armour if you had 200 and a LOT more if they have LW as well.
So, is Nasus in the jungle still going to be viable after the wither nerf? I just jumped on the bandwagon but don't know if it's worth it to go practice him now just before the new patch. To me it looks like he will still be viable but he won't shut down the enemy ad's attack speed as much anymore. Thoughts?
And yeah.. it's a huge nerf. I'm not going to calculate exactly how much damage it reduces on a full build AD carry on one wither but I expect it to be huge.
If I understand the wither change correctly, the ability now scales better with levels. A rank 5 wither will now reduce attack speed by over 40% at the 3 second mark and by 47.5% for the fifth second. Or is wither being reduced to 17.5% at all ranks?
In terms of ganking, the movement speed was what was key anyways, the attack speed just also made it impossible to fight back. This will help balance him out in mid game team fights, but his ganks will still be very potent, as well as his late game.
Yeah, but the attack speed debuff was what made Nasus such a monster late game. Basically nullified enemy AD carry.
That being said, I think the nerf was mostly targeted towards like support Nasus which was pretty bullshit. Basically God tier support nunu in that enemy couldn't trade with you, and then late game you still pretty tanky and their AD useless.
So with the removal of the armor from Spirit of the Ancient Golem, I'm really tempted to get Spirit of the Spectral Wraith instead (and just get merc treads). Am I stupid? I've done it in an actual game and it felt fine. Between his ult/spirit fire/siphoning strikes, you get quite a bit of health back. As long as you aren't getting chunked nearly instantly, it seems quite strong to me.
Thinking as a 3rd or 4th item it works pretty well.
Kinda nitpicky, but isn't legendary armor in masteries pretty weak on someone like Nasus? For one point, defender will give you more armor in teamfights until you finish Randuin's+IBG and is pretty much always on par in terms of MR since you won't go past Treads+SV. That lets you get a point in reinforced armor, which is nice since the ADC is probably going to be wailing on you in teamfights.
reinforced armour is a good idea if you expect it to go to lategame defender again,. probably alright in teamfights but doesnt really help you at all in lane. When you finish frozen heart you're already gettnig more than 5 armour from frozen heart+runes+masteries+scaling armour you'd prolly get like 4-5 armour depending on riots definiton of bonus armour.
plus who knows the range of defender anyway legendary armour is definitely kinda meh but i like to get it for whatever reason
Not really, he's got damage built into his kit, since he gets armor pen and a self scaling ability. Sometimes some extra damage can be nice though, so iceborne or hydra often get built late, or triforce for ms/slow/damage. In 3v3 though he may sometimes want to build damage overpower some other teams, something like hyrda+iceborne+sv gives him amazing clear, damage, cdr, and resists, and he can continue to build damage if necessary. Generally though Nasus mostly plays really well just building tanky items and just use his built in damage kit with cd for his damage, he usually doesn't need much more than that.
On July 07 2013 12:58 Fyrewolf wrote: Not really, he's got damage built into his kit, since he gets armor pen and a self scaling ability. Sometimes some extra damage can be nice though, so iceborne or hydra often get built late, or triforce for ms/slow/damage. In 3v3 though he may sometimes want to build damage overpower some other teams, something like hyrda+iceborne+sv gives him amazing clear, damage, cdr, and resists, and he can continue to build damage if necessary. Generally though Nasus mostly plays really well just building tanky items and just use his built in damage kit with cd for his damage, he usually doesn't need much more than that.
Arpen, self-scaling Q, and his ult gives him AD based on how long he can stand in the middle of the enemy team
You usually will get iceborn cause its a nice item Hydra can be okay (even though I usually recommend not getting it) The one thing you can think about in the real lategame is a lastwhisper but you have the same problem as every melee later on - you get kited and kiled before you get into melee range
On July 08 2013 05:34 Slayer91 wrote: why would you say damage is mandatory especially when you see all the jungle nasus who never built a single damage item
like iceborn is going to be 125 damage or something more on your Q which you can always get by farming q better
hydra stops you farming q i dunno why you'd ever want it unless it procs on your q or something
Can't tell if hes saying: "No, damage is mandatory" or "No damage is mandatory"... which mean opposite things obviously. Like others have said, his kit has built-in % damage. I like to build him Ancient Golem, Aegis locket/randuins + swiftness boots. Last whisperer is nice because of lategame armor mitigation, but you can do well fulltank while allowing your ulti to deal most of your damage.
why would you say damage is mandatory especially when you see all the jungle nasus who never built a single damage item
I meant it exactly as I wrote "no dmg is mandatory" no forgotten comma :D To clear it up: You dont need dmg as Nasus. however you can get some if you are already really really tanky and your team needs more dmg (which is rarely)
All I gotta say, getting a dorans shield + spirit stone gives you OP health regen in the laning phase, especially vs people that do intermittent harass or use AAs to harass, which is almost everybody except for like ryze and other burst casters that go top (i can't think of any right now). Start bead/5pots/etc, first back get spirit stone and dorans shield, stay in lane forever til giants belt.
Spirit stone builds into the Ancient Golem, which gives 10% CDR, 500 health, and max tenacity along with the hp/mp regen. IMO, the ancient golem is probably one of the best tanky items in the game because its so cheap and easy to build, which is perfect for nasus since he gets zoned out pretty easily pre6. If you go under 70% hp, just sit back, lose a minion, and go back with 85% hp. If you go too low, just go back and tele to your lane to resume the farm. In low ELOs and some plat games, this strat works like a charm. The tenacity allows you to get other boots other than merc treads, which is awesome if the other team lacks decent AP. If you get swiftness boots, the slow resist and movement lv3 means no one will ever be able to run away from you, and once you get swiftness boots and the ancient golem, you can cheese a kill if the other guy is still trying to zone you.
nasus doesnt fit into your own team comps, he fulfills the generic tanky melee role, you pick him against melee or short range heavy comps because he is unequaled in fighting them
spirit of the ancient golem isnt bad however the thing is you have so much lifesteal and a free hp ult which can function as a heal meaning resists are just vastly better for a long laning phase. 500 hp is a lot in a fight but only 3 hp pots in a laning phase so against any magic dmg you want spirit visage more than spirit of the ancient golem and you will have a glacial +nearly a wardens mail instead also.
id only get spirit stone if i had to be super passive so much that im going to be underfarmed so i need the hp pretty badly and tabi/spirit of the ancient golem is probably the easiest way to get tanky quickly in that position
there shouldn't be anyone that beats him top lane hard enough to justify that though, unless you get super behind
On July 09 2013 09:47 krndandaman wrote: I mainly use nasus but wasn't sure what comps he fit best. my main jungler pool consists of nasus, chogath, and sejuani.
nasus I usually choose when my team has a strong laning phase and lack of tankiness so I can focus on ganking and be a tanky utility jungler late game. chogath I usually choose when I need peel badly for champs such as vayne. and sometimes when I'm against a nunu or something so I can secure objectives with feast. sejuani if I want to be hard initiating.
is this good logic for my junglers/nasus? what would be an ideal comp for nasus?
You're pretty spot on, except that Nasus ganks kind of suck and he's much better at counterganking and tower pushing. He has the best waveclear of any jungler.
Also, I'd recommend adding a jungler to your pool that can gank and control the game early, like Elise/Jarvan/Eve. Other than Sejuani's initiate all 3 of those play very similarly.
Hitting supports for half their health without any AD is pretty satisfying
What are people building typically? Went SS -> boots -> Golem -> Swifties -> Locket -> Last Whisper -> Randuins. In hindsight I think the cdr+healing bonus (and other stats) of Visage should have had me getting it much sooner but the opposing team had one source of AP damage so it went fine anyway. Last Whisper can probably wait but I was feeling pretty good with golem and locket but I think visage + warden's would have made me scarier at that point in the game... not sure.
I generally go ancient golem>ninja tabi->frozen heart or spirit visage/randuins/locket. Game usually ends at 4 items. If they're really heavy on AD usually go frozen heart/randuins/IBG.
It really pains me how much locket sucks compared to bulwark, because that used to be such a staple. -_-
Huh, before the changes I was going locket and visage after golem every time. CDR is really nice and I would just ask support to build aegis. This was flexible but my default from the jungle.
How much bonus AD does nasus need to farm under tower level 1-5? I've been thinking about getting a max armor+1-2 lifesteal quints set up as Nasus, but I don't know how much flat AD I should stack on marks or quints in order to maximise the tankiness.
On September 02 2013 02:55 NeedsmoreCELLTECH wrote: How much bonus AD does nasus need to farm under tower level 1-5? I've been thinking about getting a max armor+1-2 lifesteal quints set up as Nasus, but I don't know how much flat AD I should stack on marks or quints in order to maximise the tankiness.
I'm fairly certain killing melee under tower can be done with just AD reds. For the ranged it takes quite a bit more damage. Either a decently farmed q, an auto-reset with q, or one tick of spirit fire and one auto will normally get the job done. It can ba difficult to get all 3 ranged but it's normally not too hard to get two of them.
AD reds is standard for farming under tower yeah, and you have your Q to help out as well dont use spirit fire to farm under tower ever, it will mess up all your other last hits and waste like 4 q's of mana its tempting but it always backfires, best thing is to predict tower shot order and hit ranged creeps once while you have time when you can 1 hit melees
On September 05 2013 23:49 Slayer91 wrote: AD reds is standard for farming under tower yeah, and you have your Q to help out as well dont use spirit fire to farm under tower ever, it will mess up all your other last hits and waste like 4 q's of mana its tempting but it always backfires, best thing is to predict tower shot order and hit ranged creeps once while you have time when you can 1 hit melees
Yeah, the damage+armor reduction from spirit fire level 1 will probably make the turret straight up kill the minions. Only do that if you're like 1v2 and you're prioritizing the turret's lifespan over your own farm.
How the hell do you lane against Nasus? I've tried playing passive farm time with champs like Kennen and Irelia, but he gets really scary fast and just ends up killing me around level 8-9; I've gone agressive champs like Fiora or Xin and I can't kill him early with his sustain and then he just counters and kills me.
I was told riven does well against him, but I don't play her. What other champs are good picks to go aggro in lane vs nasus?
renekton for sure, assumably teemo/jayce/garen(?)/darius. GP probably could do the trick if you like him. don't let him life steal off the minion line!!!! I'd start with a ward (personal preference!) as you're going to have to play very aggressive vs him.
edit: also be aware of their summoners, if they go tele/ghost (they often do!) their allin is very weak early, so don't be too afraid if you can keep up the pressure.
Honestly, at the moment I don't think anyone does particularly well against him 1v1, in a complete vacuum.
Riven vs Nasus hasn't been that bad for a long while. I guess Darius might work?
I got made fun of for 3-4 patches because people would be like "LOL why you pick Nasus, he's so weak top lane" but all of his big counters have gotten nerfed over time: Riven, Rumble, Elise, Jayce, Kha'zix, Zed, Olaf, etc. It's also so much easier to just get a chain vest or negatron the first recall back, because q is so cheap you don't have to get a chalice anymore if you don't use your other abilities that often.
If you don't care about killing him 1v1, Trundle is okay. I used to pick jungle Trundle against jungle Nasus because you just ult and pillar him when he tries to get anywhere near your team, while he stands there and looks like an idiot and probably dies. Problem in top lane is that I imagine Trundle has extremely low kill potential on Nasus before a tower falls because there's just not enough space and he can freeze the wave fairly easily.
On September 10 2013 10:59 Complete wrote: renekton for sure, assumably teemo/jayce/garen(?)/darius. GP probably could do the trick if you like him. don't let him life steal off the minion line!!!! I'd start with a ward (personal preference!) as you're going to have to play very aggressive vs him.
edit: also be aware of their summoners, if they go tele/ghost (they often do!) their allin is very weak early, so don't be too afraid if you can keep up the pressure.
So I decided to play a nasus top lane after seeing it being all the rage (and I have like 66.6% winrate with nasus jungle ranked, what could go wrong).
Went vs a renekton got sooooooooo punished it wasnt funny.
Also one time I played kennen vs a nasus top, seemed very easy to harass nasus but once he had a few levels and got the cowl I didn't have much advantage. Kennen roam is pretty good compared to nasus though, and I got a kill on the jungler and the mid when they came to gank (LOL) didn't kill nasus in lane though.
Rumble is a pretty solid counter, the amount of punishment he can dish out is limited only by the enemy jungler's ability to gank him. His slows also make teamfights hell for Nasus.
On September 10 2013 10:17 57 Corvette wrote: How the hell do you lane against Nasus? I've tried playing passive farm time with champs like Kennen and Irelia, but he gets really scary fast and just ends up killing me around level 8-9; I've gone agressive champs like Fiora or Xin and I can't kill him early with his sustain and then he just counters and kills me.
I was told riven does well against him, but I don't play her. What other champs are good picks to go aggro in lane vs nasus?
Haven't played vs a nasus in a while. But i think i would just go with my standard counter to tanky champs and grab singed. I would say singed scales better nasus would have to use slow on you to peel leaving your adc to pew pew. Also if they have more tanky champs i would grab my standard rylias then liandrys to melt em.
On September 10 2013 10:17 57 Corvette wrote: How the hell do you lane against Nasus? I've tried playing passive farm time with champs like Kennen and Irelia, but he gets really scary fast and just ends up killing me around level 8-9; I've gone agressive champs like Fiora or Xin and I can't kill him early with his sustain and then he just counters and kills me.
I was told riven does well against him, but I don't play her. What other champs are good picks to go aggro in lane vs nasus?
Teemo comes to mind, his blind can easily screw up q farm, and can do a lot of ranged damage while being nigh uncatchable even with wither, but then again, Teemo counters everyone. Nasus is a really safe champion and hard to completely shut down, he will usually eventually get to a good place, it's more about delaying that. He has trouble with being kited by aggressive ranged champs (especially by anyone that can still escape when he withers), against really good waveclearers (nasus doesn't push that fast, it's harder for him to farm q against good waveclearers, and even if he is safe under his tower, it's way better than him pushing yours with a random q here and there that you can't do much about) and champs that just do such ridiculously good damage they'll just straight kill him (like riven, who doesn't mind wither as an ad caster with dashes and does tons of damage anyway). Even against a Riven a good Nasus can just bide his time while trying not to fall too far behind, and he will still be decently strong in the midgame. Nasus is a bully who counters a lot of melee champs, you want to play relatively aggressive to hold him back, but some champs will fail miserably, going ranged is usually better if you want to be aggressive to keep him from scaling too fast.
Vayne top fares pretty well against Nasus, she can put a lot of pressure on him and not get caught, as can Quinn. Darius and Rumble are very strong picks against him too, just too much damage and waveclear for him to handle. Elise can also be pretty good against him. Morgana top, though a bit unorthodox, does quite well against him with her waveclear and binding. Renekton can win pretty hard early too, but it's like Riven in that if Nasus can stay safe and keep from falling too far behind he can be at least ok by the midgame. Vladimir can be a bit annoying for him, but not enough to hinder him a lot early on through his sustain. Wukong, Yorick, and Volibear can go either way. I imagine Pantheon top would be good against him, but I haven't had any experience playing that particular matchup. The biggest headache for him in my opinion though is Teemo, he's so very annoying with that blind and safe harass, though other champs like Rumble have better killing power against him.
Pantheon Kills nasus over and over agains tarting at level one. Same with Renekton, Lee Sin, and Darius too I assume.
I'm sure Fizz would Dumpster him pretty hard as well. Same with AD tops (ie Vayne, Corki, Graves, Ez, Quinn.)
I dunno, as a Panth main I have always giggled with glee over Nasus top. Its just like such easy matchup. Dude literally can't touch creeps unless he maxes E, and even then he not going to get any Q farm or Signifigant last hits and will push the lane mercilessly allowing you to zone the shit and kill him like mad.
You are ALL wrong Riven, Panth, Zed, and Renek all are pretty bad against nasus Rumble is pretty good but nasus can farm fine if he plays smart and rumble can never get away from ganks, similar with teemo, you just said teemo wins every lane so why would you think the guy with the most sustain and a huge gank support would be weak. Vlad can do better than rumble because of his stronger escape and sustain, but he isnt that much different Fizz is good if you can snowball but so are most of these other champs.
Ad tops are probably a decent idea but its mostly junglers they get scared of more than laners.
once you realize you just force him to damage you once and then you sit back and wait for the wave to come to tower you should have no problems with any of these so called counters because they all start to lose around level 9 and they are all extremely easy for a jungler to gank. (except renek but he sucks even harder than most at denying because his q pushes hard)
singed is a pretty decent pick if you want a farm off because you can proxy waves and use your TP to do things around the map.
the only problem ive had in any nasus lanes so far is getting overconfident and trying to duel the other guy really early instead of just playing safe.
like the he cant "touch" creeps against panth. How do you intend to deny him? Spear harass isnt enough at all because of his sustain so you need to jump him. If you jump him the wave will push so he can then just sit back lose 3-4 cs and then farm at tower. If he starts cloth+5 pots he won't be low enoguh to dive and once he gets glacial shroud and 6 you can't even beat him 1v1 any more. He can always just TP back to lane even if you get him low.
What do you build your first chainmail into now? It used to be glacial->FH no questions asked, but would you possibly prefer sunfire or randuins first because they have HP? Or go like Chainmail -> some HP (like a kindle or w/e) -> FH?
no you have your r for hp, always rush fh or gauntlet glacial is too good of an item to skip anyway, cdr mana and armour are all crucial stats because with mana you have enough to fight him without having to go all in because of mana restraints
Has anyone tried Wukong against Nasus? It seems pretty decent in theory but I haven't tested it yet. Armor shred is strong, you can W during Nasus' W, and even though your early gank support is not that good, your post-6 support is.
Im diamond 5 with 60% with nasus and the counters are :
Teemo : insane harrass, the problem is you can survive with enough pot and go for a spirit visage but if u allin him after lvl 6 your going to step on XXXX mushrrooms. It won't be funny
Darius : insane damage 1 to 6, you are going to max spirit fire first. If he has one kill one you your going to hug the tower
Vlad : vlad 1-9 is ok for you he got long cooldown and if u push the wave he wont do a lot but after his first trip back if he comes back with a revolver he starts to really poke you down, push the wave, and eventually kill the tower
Kennen is really ok, his harass hurt first but after some CD and MR/armor he is not this bad
Lee sin is really good too against nasus but you just has to survive the early levels.
Olaf was nerfed and rumble has to push his minion wave if he wants to harass you, the matchup is not so bad
I don't consider Vlad a counterpick. Yes, Vlad is annoying as hell, but Nasus is better equipped to deal with his BS than most top laners thanks to his sustain and desire to stack resists. Vlad's weak early, so it's not like he even really takes advantage of when Nasus is really weak. Wither also makes the distance troll pool covers quite short, which makes it quite easy to gank for Nasus. Worst case scenario as Nasus tends to be your tower drops first, which makes killing Vlad a lot easier. Fringe worst case is your jungler forces 2v2s off of your tower when you're not strong enough yet, which is the only situation I feel like Vlad has an advantage.
You're going to run out of mana on Swain before you even get close to killing Nasus. If you have blue buff the entire game, it might work.
I haven't had problems with a Pantheon in ages. Renekton can do well early, but actually securing kills can be difficult- I hate seeing Nasus top when I pick Renekton because their jungler is always sitting there so I can't finish him off, while my jungler is off having tea.
I generally rush icebourne gauntlet, but depending on the team comps, I might make a FH.
I'm probably just making an ass of myself, but I would still give Zed the advantage vs Nasus, if just because he can still punish Nasus under turret, but more importantly can escape ganks when pushing the lane past 6, and also is a hurricane through the enemy jungle when Nasus can't push fast enough to take advantage of your location. And junglers can't even gank Zed when at half-health in the first place, so I wouldn't say he's pretty bad unless you just camp Nasus under turret and hope to accomplish things.
Zeds harass under tower is pretty light, and definitely dodgeable. His escape really isnt that good he just has his shadow and what jungler ganks people at half health
he can roam well sure but zed can do that anyway, zed is pretty bullshit in that he can easily farm well defensively and push hard and roam offensively but nasus is automatically stronger if you pick zed because he excels against squishy melees in teamfights and zed's teamfighting falls off and he relies on split pushing, but nasus can counter it with TP.
I wonder if zed with LW/BC/Botrk would be able to burst down a nasus really fast, the thing is his W and R make him deceptively tanky. Nasus might have to get warmogs instead of spirit visage after his armour item. (or maybe qss i guess)
Darius is really strong against any melee, I think nasus is well equipped to turtle aginst him, darius probably wins eaisly 1v1 but darius is such an easy gank target because he always pushes and has no escape or innate tankiness.
Wukong doesnt seem like a great idea, he gets stomped by irelia and nasus is even stronger 1v1, and has no sustain for trades. I don't fancy his all in potential either since its about enough to burst down a squishy champion but doesnt have much after that.
Overall the best thing is to pick ranged champs because they are stronger vs him in teamfights.
On September 11 2013 01:03 zer0das wrote: Wukong can work pretty reasonably.
I don't consider Vlad a counterpick. Yes, Vlad is annoying as hell, but Nasus is better equipped to deal with his BS than most top laners thanks to his sustain and desire to stack resists. Vlad's weak early, so it's not like he even really takes advantage of when Nasus is really weak. Wither also makes the distance troll pool covers quite short, which makes it quite easy to gank for Nasus. Worst case scenario as Nasus tends to be your tower drops first, which makes killing Vlad a lot easier. Fringe worst case is your jungler forces 2v2s off of your tower when you're not strong enough yet, which is the only situation I feel like Vlad has an advantage.
You're going to run out of mana on Swain before you even get close to killing Nasus. If you have blue buff the entire game, it might work.
I haven't had problems with a Pantheon in ages. Renekton can do well early, but actually securing kills can be difficult- I hate seeing Nasus top when I pick Renekton because their jungler is always sitting there so I can't finish him off, while my jungler is off having tea.
I generally rush icebourne gauntlet, but depending on the team comps, I might make a FH.
vlad weak early but nasus cant do shit so he is very freely to harass. Just after my post i played against vlad top as nasus (lol karma) and he picked a kill on me before lvl 6 ( (i was dumb entirely my fault) and came back with revolver, i had to max spirit fire but at lvl 9 with just my negatron cloak and a ruby Crystal i all-in him and got the kill then he couldn't do shit because i had ghost (short CD) and he had flash (long CD) and i just all in him whenever i could. You just have to go balls deep, u cant out sustain a vlad.
I dont talk about the presence of the jungler here. In my game we were on a island.
assassin are not great vs nasus because anyway you are going to stack defenses so they cant one shot you and you can regen all back, u dont get spirit visage first against ad, better glacial shroud first then kindlegem
Bruiser nidalee can be a problem like kennen also at early levels poke poke and poke
well sometimes you have to do it, its not wrong and at lvl 5 it clears back minion instantly, it hurts also like a truck, u can harass a teemo like that, chalice + max spirit fire he wont be able to do anyting about that
I must eat some crow, a Nasus that plays right and runes right shouldn't have a problem against Pantheon.
Misconception I carried through from when I only played Pantheon, saw Nasus regularly (like mid S1), and was (who am I kidding, I still am) an awful baddy.
That was a long time ago. Panth kind of wrecked Nasus at the start of the season with the super OP blackcleaver (I made a post about stacking 250 armor against Pantheon and still not being able to 1v1 him effectively- my team did win that game hilariously enough), but all the item changes/buffs to Nasus have changed it quite a bit. It's still possible to beat him with Panth, but it's only bound to happen if your jungler pitches a tent early and shoves a 2v2 down the dog's throat. I think that qualifies as animal abuse too. :>
Nasus is soooo strong I actually feel bad playing him in ranked.. Was he buffed recently or.. ? I often die early because the jungler usually camps me since Nasus is weak early but np since I just teleport immediately.. But once he's farmed, god such a beast, being able to tank a whole team and 2 shot their carry.. Such a great feeling
No, he wasn't buffed, but Spirit Visage was. He's just weak to kite which you can semi-mitigate with defensive masteries in slow reduction and tenacity.
just need either good initiate or better poke than their team on your team and that isn't a huge problem
jungler camp shouldn't really be a problem if you're playing properly you should almost never push past the half way line in your lane until like 6. Getting dived is a real concern though, so the key is to make sure you stay full hp, a few early creeps isnt worth 150-200 hp
i mean about the pantheon thing, i used to think riven raped nasus, renek raped nasus garen raped nasus etc, but when i started playing properly none of those were problems at all, similar story with panth, even if you rush LW and shit nasus does so much damage if you didnt snowball you still won't be able to 1v1 because of how much hp/damage he has (hardto burst him down and cant win in sustained damage war because of his W)
nasus was buffed quite a lot. His lvl 5 Q got its mana cost reduced by half, his ult costs 50 less mana, and gives him more attack range, but his w attack speed slow got nerfed by half, which is a big nerf but not that huge a deal for his laning phase. Then you have the mastery and item changes making dorans shield, glacial shroud cheaper, spirit visage buff, introduction of iceborn gauntlet. Nerfs to thinngs liek top lane udyr elise rumble etc
Ah forgot about Singed. He can be pretty good against Nasus, he shouldn't lose unless he's messes up somehow. Good to know about Panth just not being strong enough, since I never get to play that matchup. All of the item buffs have been so good to Nasus lately. I love Nasus because he has so few real hard counters, and those champions that do have a soft counter advantage against him can still be dealt with by just staying safe until you get huge.
I definitely still go glacial shroud>fh/iceborne with the first chainmail, or spirit visage vs ap. I haven't tried the new trinity force yet on him, just been sticking to my standard stuff. Has anyone had any success with it? Obviously not as a first item I mean, the changes are just intriguing and I'm wondering how well it actually plays out.
Honestly, I think the only matchup where nasus gets hard countered is teemo. Almost every other lane if you play it well, you might get pooped on in the first few levels, but you won't die, and with the buffs to nasus's favourite items and his mana costs, he'll come back, farm, and just become unstoppable.
New triforce is really nice, but it's a luxury item. I mean it's nice being like a +400 triforce nasus who can 2 shot a squishy with ultimate&spirit fire up, but I'd take becoming invincible over being able to oneshot every creep in the game.
I think Singed is a good matchup for nasus. Singed pretty much will always push the lane, proxying doesn't hurt you too much, and you can rush SV in this matchup.
i dont see what the problem is with teemo, any melee who doesnt beat teemo bascially loses even harder because they have less sutain, and who really outright beats teemo lolo
I've never really had a problem with Teemo as Nasus either. As long as you don't get super pissed off and chase him over 6 shrooms, he can't really kill you that easily. Plus if he's super aggressive, he's just begging to get ganked, and with wither, he can't really get away that easily. I mean sure, its sort of miserable a while. But its Teemo.
he won't kill you but he will take your tower, he will punish you for every minions and after 6 he is going to be safe from ganks cause you are going to be low and he is going to have all mushrooms of the world. It's possible to beat him yeah i already did it numerous times but he is a pain in the ass. he is like kennen but kennen has a skillshot and teemo a point clik harass.
Against singed its a farm lane, singed might be proxiing but it's at your advantage cause you will getting the same amount of farm but with your Q, it's really good Some are very aggressive at the start but it falls off drastically when you get spirit visage. After some farming with your Q u can kill him he cant kill you
On September 12 2013 04:32 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Teemo just rushes BotRK and what do you do?
just farm like usual? Laning phase is pretty much over by the time he has that and boots anyway, you probably wont be laning against him anymore, just farming lanes when they push and sticking with the team or w/e
Nasus has to be my fav LoL champion.... I haven't played in quite some time but I remember those games where everyone is kind of forgetting about you and your just farming up top, not getting into any trouble. And then, if all goes right you get that sweet sweet moment when two of them decide to gank you and you stand your ground and they realise you are actually beating them and Q slap them so hard... I've had several games where you focus on farming so hard that your team starts raging until you 1v5 the enemy team and you just completely crush anything and everything that stands in your way.
On September 12 2013 05:44 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: I still think Teemo should win the matchup pretty easily
Honestly, I just max spirit fire in that matchup. That way you don't get absurdly behind on CS or lose your tower, and spirit fire damage adds up. Downsides are obviously that you are going to be constantly pushed up, and you won't get much Q farm, but how much were you going to get in the first place against a teemo.
On September 12 2013 04:54 B.I.G. wrote: Nasus has to be my fav LoL champion.... I haven't played in quite some time but I remember those games where everyone is kind of forgetting about you and your just farming up top, not getting into any trouble. And then, if all goes right you get that sweet sweet moment when two of them decide to gank you and you stand your ground and they realise you are actually beating them and Q slap them so hard... I've had several games where you focus on farming so hard that your team starts raging until you 1v5 the enemy team and you just completely crush anything and everything that stands in your way.
good times, good times.
Haha yeah I had a couple of those games when my team kept blaming me for afk farming and then when teamfight start and you 2 shot the carries they're all happy again
On September 12 2013 04:32 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Teemo just rushes BotRK and what do you do?
Be glad he didn't get AP so his shrooms don't obliterate you? I honestly feel like him getting a BotRK isn't that big of a deal unless you're really far behind already.
I may be wrong, its not like I've played the matchup more than 5 times this season.
On September 12 2013 04:54 B.I.G. wrote: Nasus has to be my fav LoL champion.... I haven't played in quite some time but I remember those games where everyone is kind of forgetting about you and your just farming up top, not getting into any trouble. And then, if all goes right you get that sweet sweet moment when two of them decide to gank you and you stand your ground and they realise you are actually beating them and Q slap them so hard... I've had several games where you focus on farming so hard that your team starts raging until you 1v5 the enemy team and you just completely crush anything and everything that stands in your way.
good times, good times.
played nasus for the first time ever and experienced exactly this...and they 1v2'd me intentionally (voli/rumble)...eventually all their dives failed (no kills either side) and voli went to jungle smiteless...caught up in cs quick and farmed Q to i think +300ish...pushed in top then finally started joining teamfights. holy fuck. q surprised ME...let alone them. 2 shot a gragas...
i started dorans shield / pot -> tiamat -> hydra -> swiftness boots / trinity force. is that ok or what should i have built?
I think you can delay the tiamat, as it pushes the lane while you just want to eat as many minions with your q as possible at that stage in the game.
Before the triforce buff, I went for IBG/Spirit visage first. Haven't played Nasus in a while but I'd consider going for Triforce, Spirit Visage, Frozen Heart, Hydra and maybe a Warmogs.
Nasus toplane I always start a Dorans shield, then rush to either glacial shroud (vs ad) or spectres cowl (vs AP), then I rush a triforce. After that, I finish whatever I ended up buying first (cowl or shroud) into an IBG or spirit visage, then whichever won I ended up building, I build the other one. From there it's situational -- usually something like an Omen for the teamfight slow. If I build a damage item on Nasus it's not until my 2nd last or last item because as long as you farm your Q enough in the toplane youll have okay damage with great survivability and tankiness in the midgame teamfights. And even still, I'd almost go for something like a Banshees veil as my last item. If it does end up being damage it's something more like Last Whisper rather than a raw damage output item.
On September 20 2013 20:34 LilCiggy wrote: Nasus toplane I always start a Dorans shield, then rush to either glacial shroud (vs ad) or spectres cowl (vs AP), then I rush a triforce. After that, I finish whatever I ended up buying first (cowl or shroud) into an IBG or spirit visage, then whichever won I ended up building, I build the other one. From there it's situational -- usually something like an Omen for the teamfight slow. If I build a damage item on Nasus it's not until my 2nd last or last item because as long as you farm your Q enough in the toplane youll have okay damage with great survivability and tankiness in the midgame teamfights. And even still, I'd almost go for something like a Banshees veil as my last item. If it does end up being damage it's something more like Last Whisper rather than a raw damage output item.
On September 20 2013 21:10 Slayer91 wrote: oh except the trinity force bit dont do that
^^
nasus does tons of damage with just CDR and sunfire. even though triforce is good on him, it's almost always better to get your tankiness up first, with trinity being your 5th or 6th item if you get it at all, as one offensive item is usually enough and it competes with last whisper for that slot.
On September 20 2013 21:10 Slayer91 wrote: oh except the trinity force bit dont do that
^^
nasus does tons of damage with just CDR and sunfire. even though triforce is good on him, it's almost always better to get your tankiness up first, with trinity being your 5th or 6th item if you get it at all, as one offensive item is usually enough and it competes with last whisper for that slot.
One damage item isn't always enough. I faced an enemy team that had Trundle/Zyra. Building purely tanky would have been a mistake, because Zyra was fed and had void staff/liandries extremely early, and Trundle just stole half of my resists anyways.
Ended up going Triforce/Hydra/LW after SV/FH. Worked pretty well, as getting on top of them wasn't that difficult because Trundle was busy murdering the squishes on my team, and I murdered his squishes faster with that many offensive items. Prior to getting the Hydra, most were getting away with a few hundred health and just murdering me while their teammates wailed on me.
On September 20 2013 21:10 Slayer91 wrote: oh except the trinity force bit dont do that
^^
nasus does tons of damage with just CDR and sunfire. even though triforce is good on him, it's almost always better to get your tankiness up first, with trinity being your 5th or 6th item if you get it at all, as one offensive item is usually enough and it competes with last whisper for that slot.
One damage item isn't always enough. I faced an enemy team that had Trundle/Zyra. Building purely tanky would have been a mistake, because Zyra was fed and had void staff/liandries extremely early, and Trundle just stole half of my resists anyways.
Ended up going Triforce/Hydra/LW after SV/FH. Worked pretty well, as getting on top of them wasn't that difficult because Trundle was busy murdering the squishes on my team, and I murdered his squishes faster with that many offensive items. Prior to getting the Hydra, most were getting away with a few hundred health and just murdering me while their teammates wailed on me.
9 times out of 10, you'd still want to get HP, armor, and mres before considering those items. IBG is probably the only item that I might consider rushing.
doran shield + pot cloth + 3-5 pot + 0-1 ward Rejuv + 5 pot + some wards Flask + 2-4 pot + 0-1 ward
I just take flask in a lot of matchups but its from experience, also by preference i tend to avoid doran shield start because of the lack of ward, you are way too easy to gank without, cant punish certain lane and just have to hug tower in certain cases
dorans shield is fine against "ad casters" wtf just learn to play passively, the firs time they attack you you dont cs until wave is it tower, assuming they did quite a bit of damage, but try to see it coming and avoid it ofc.
sunfire wat no need for sunfire really, getting cdr for your q is probably a better investment dps wise because it increases the rate of charging q as well as the rate of using it in fights.
i pretty much tower hug anyways but if you are ever going to push you have to hard push so you cant get jumped on 2v1 without it being super obvious you always have the option to just back and TP if they committ super hard to a gank when you're close to tower. you can get pots and wards then
I got dumpstered at 4 (Underestimated his burst) and proceeded to get outfarmed till like 20 min when I had tabi/frozen heart and could 1v1 him, but by then team fights were starting and I was still behind in gold.
hard he can kill you at 2 if u over extend and its very easy for him and a jungler to dive you because of his passive. In lane he has more sustain than you after building his vamp scepter. i have to play more vs him to see his weakness.
Aatrox can probably kill nasus pre-6, but once you get Wither and ult I really don't think you can lose to him.
I'd start with dshield and play passively. Probably go Q first then W if you think he'll try to all-in, E if he just wants to zone you. By level 3 you want 1 point in everything. Rush Tabis + some other armor item and try to hit 6 w/out getting too far behind. The most important thing is to be willing to invest more points in W/E. Having low cooldown on Q means nothing if you're getting zoned.
Other bullies much easier to deal with because you can just stack defensive runes (Panth/Riven/Renekton grab 40 armor, Rumble 40 MR etc) and free farm pretty well ignoring them, but unless the Darius bad he going to be able to denie you a fair bit.
I thought I was doing fairly well, had about 90-95 CS at 13 minute mark (to Darius 110-120) which is pretty decent. We both backed, had about the same amount of items I had Wardens+Cowl+consumables, he had Tiamat+Ninja Tabis+DBlade+Consumables. I all inned him at level 10 and just like lost horribly, by like 30% HP, which was probably a terrible decision because he had Ignite and I had TP, but I thought it would be not bad because Darius RE scales better with levels than Nasus R and I had a fairly solid amount of Qfarm.
From there I just got dove over and over again... but I suppose my question is just how to best deal with it, and how far behind Darius is an "okay to be behind" amount?
On September 24 2013 09:40 iCanada wrote: What is the best way to deal with Darius?
Other bullies much easier to deal with because you can just stack defensive runes (Panth/Riven/Renekton grab 40 armor, Rumble 40 MR etc) and free farm pretty well ignoring them, but unless the Darius bad he going to be able to denie you a fair bit.
I thought I was doing fairly well, had about 90-95 CS at 13 minute mark (to Darius 110-120) which is pretty decent. We both backed, had about the same amount of items I had Wardens+Cowl+consumables, he had Tiamat+Ninja Tabis+DBlade+Consumables. I all inned him at level 10 and just like lost horribly, by like 30% HP, which was probably a terrible decision because he had Ignite and I had TP, but I thought it would be not bad because Darius RE scales better with levels than Nasus R and I had a fairly solid amount of Qfarm.
From there I just got dove over and over again... but I suppose my question is just how to best deal with it, and how far behind Darius is an "okay to be behind" amount?
You were doing quite well but your item choice are bad
Go glacial shroud + kindlegem like that u can farm your Q a lot more, u will also sustain a lot better. DONT get cowl !!! what does that do in this matchup ?? Nothing You should try to all in him when you got an advantage. Like when u hit lvl 11 before him or some summoners burned or you have an hp advantage. If not i would not advise you to do so, just farm, after a certain point he wont be able to all in you.
Normally in a darius lane you just have to not give him kills early on for you to win the lane basicly
Not saying you should rely on jungle camping to win, but if you're playing someone with excellent gank assist (Nasus) vs a champ who can't really escape ganks (Darius) it is just about free kills top. I personally don't like playing nasus vs Darius I think it is one of Nasus' worst lanes and I try to avoid it when possible.
On September 24 2013 09:40 iCanada wrote: What is the best way to deal with Darius?
Other bullies much easier to deal with because you can just stack defensive runes (Panth/Riven/Renekton grab 40 armor, Rumble 40 MR etc) and free farm pretty well ignoring them, but unless the Darius bad he going to be able to denie you a fair bit.
I thought I was doing fairly well, had about 90-95 CS at 13 minute mark (to Darius 110-120) which is pretty decent. We both backed, had about the same amount of items I had Wardens+Cowl+consumables, he had Tiamat+Ninja Tabis+DBlade+Consumables. I all inned him at level 10 and just like lost horribly, by like 30% HP, which was probably a terrible decision because he had Ignite and I had TP, but I thought it would be not bad because Darius RE scales better with levels than Nasus R and I had a fairly solid amount of Qfarm.
From there I just got dove over and over again... but I suppose my question is just how to best deal with it, and how far behind Darius is an "okay to be behind" amount?
You're way overestimating the amount of magical damage coming from Darius. It's like building a cowl vs Renekton because his ult does magic damage. The magic damage is pretty small compared to the physical damage from Darius' Q/W. He also doesnt really rely on AS much, so warden's isn't going to help much.
If you don't believe me, look at deathlog / damage logs after the game. Darius bleed is like 10-15% of the damage coming out from him (At level 10, a 5stack bleed does a TOTAL of 120, plus some additional from runes/longswords/whatever). Autoing you 5 times does significantly more damage than that, and that's without Q/W's additional damage.
Glacial + Ruby/Kindle + Tabi would have been the right early items, it's not bad to have a health buffer of some kind so you don't get dunked, but for the most part your ult cancels his.
Also, never allin any good 1v1er when they have ignite and you have TP, unless you're significantly ahead (which you clearly aren't.) Nasus more useful in teamfights anyway, darius only has his shortrange forever-cd grab and try-to-pentakill going for him. You're also better at objectives.
If you're getting a slight lead, shove him and if it's REALLY safe, chunk his tower with an auto-Q-auto or something then back off.
On September 24 2013 09:40 iCanada wrote: What is the best way to deal with Darius?
Other bullies much easier to deal with because you can just stack defensive runes (Panth/Riven/Renekton grab 40 armor, Rumble 40 MR etc) and free farm pretty well ignoring them, but unless the Darius bad he going to be able to denie you a fair bit.
I thought I was doing fairly well, had about 90-95 CS at 13 minute mark (to Darius 110-120) which is pretty decent. We both backed, had about the same amount of items I had Wardens+Cowl+consumables, he had Tiamat+Ninja Tabis+DBlade+Consumables. I all inned him at level 10 and just like lost horribly, by like 30% HP, which was probably a terrible decision because he had Ignite and I had TP, but I thought it would be not bad because Darius RE scales better with levels than Nasus R and I had a fairly solid amount of Qfarm.
From there I just got dove over and over again... but I suppose my question is just how to best deal with it, and how far behind Darius is an "okay to be behind" amount?
You're way overestimating the amount of magical damage coming from Darius. It's like building a cowl vs Renekton because his ult does magic damage. The magic damage is pretty small compared to the physical damage from Darius' Q/W. He also doesnt really rely on AS much, so warden's isn't going to help much.
If you don't believe me, look at deathlog / damage logs after the game. Darius bleed is like 10-15% of the damage coming out from him (At level 10, a 5stack bleed does a TOTAL of 120, plus some additional from runes/longswords/whatever). Autoing you 5 times does significantly more damage than that, and that's without Q/W's additional damage.
Glacial + Ruby/Kindle + Tabi would have been the right early items, it's not bad to have a health buffer of some kind so you don't get dunked, but for the most part your ult cancels his.
Also, never allin any good 1v1er when they have ignite and you have TP, unless you're significantly ahead (which you clearly aren't.) Nasus more useful in teamfights anyway, darius only has his shortrange forever-cd grab and try-to-pentakill going for him. You're also better at objectives.
If you're getting a slight lead, shove him and if it's REALLY safe, chunk his tower with an auto-Q-auto or something then back off.
So you're saying spend the same early gold on less combat stats and I'd be fine?
lol. I see... Clearly the Run speed and the mana would have gave me that extra oomf.
I dunno, I think i was doing fine. I could see maybe Kindle over Cowl, but I think I just got overconfident in my like 200 Q farm at the time. I pretty sure I just needed to wait two or three levels to get aggressive.
On September 24 2013 09:40 iCanada wrote: What is the best way to deal with Darius?
Other bullies much easier to deal with because you can just stack defensive runes (Panth/Riven/Renekton grab 40 armor, Rumble 40 MR etc) and free farm pretty well ignoring them, but unless the Darius bad he going to be able to denie you a fair bit.
I thought I was doing fairly well, had about 90-95 CS at 13 minute mark (to Darius 110-120) which is pretty decent. We both backed, had about the same amount of items I had Wardens+Cowl+consumables, he had Tiamat+Ninja Tabis+DBlade+Consumables. I all inned him at level 10 and just like lost horribly, by like 30% HP, which was probably a terrible decision because he had Ignite and I had TP, but I thought it would be not bad because Darius RE scales better with levels than Nasus R and I had a fairly solid amount of Qfarm.
From there I just got dove over and over again... but I suppose my question is just how to best deal with it, and how far behind Darius is an "okay to be behind" amount?
You're way overestimating the amount of magical damage coming from Darius. It's like building a cowl vs Renekton because his ult does magic damage. The magic damage is pretty small compared to the physical damage from Darius' Q/W. He also doesnt really rely on AS much, so warden's isn't going to help much.
If you don't believe me, look at deathlog / damage logs after the game. Darius bleed is like 10-15% of the damage coming out from him (At level 10, a 5stack bleed does a TOTAL of 120, plus some additional from runes/longswords/whatever). Autoing you 5 times does significantly more damage than that, and that's without Q/W's additional damage.
Glacial + Ruby/Kindle + Tabi would have been the right early items, it's not bad to have a health buffer of some kind so you don't get dunked, but for the most part your ult cancels his.
Also, never allin any good 1v1er when they have ignite and you have TP, unless you're significantly ahead (which you clearly aren't.) Nasus more useful in teamfights anyway, darius only has his shortrange forever-cd grab and try-to-pentakill going for him. You're also better at objectives.
If you're getting a slight lead, shove him and if it's REALLY safe, chunk his tower with an auto-Q-auto or something then back off.
So you're saying spend the same early gold on less combat stats and I'd be fine?
lol. I see... Clearly the Run speed and the mana would have gave me that extra oomf.
I dunno, I think i was doing fine. I could see maybe Kindle over Cowl, but I think I just got overconfident in my like 200 Q farm at the time. I pretty sure I just needed to wait two or three levels to get aggressive.
It's not the movespeed or mana. It's the armor, Tabi passive, and cdr.
A cowl that early against a Darius is way overkill. You're wasting a bunch of gold on 45 MR when all you really want is more armor and hp. Kindlegem gives the same amount of hp as Cowl for a bit over half the price plus you get cdr, which Nasus really wants.
Cowl doesn't do jackshit against darius. Even if the HP5 buff applied for his bleed, darius's full combo will let you heal maybe 50? health before you die.
I agree with the kindlegem into armor. You need health so his combo won't destroy you, and armor so you can tank it enough to heal.
While coming out of lane with a farmed Q is nice, your first priority against something as strong as darius is to not die.
Jungle nasus got its strength mostly from built in utility of nasus, and pretty strong bot lane ganks with w+ghost top lane nasus is all that but his q also does way more damage. People just didn't realize that his laning phase wasn't all that easy to shut down .Triforce is pretty overrated anyway, its not much better on nasus than anyone else, its usually a better idea to just buy more cdr and make up the ~75 missing sheen damage by killing 25 more creeps with q, and having like 3.5k more gold on tank stats.
Darius is a hard lane. You want to rush frozen heart but the true damage is so risky that you might want to get at least a ruby before finishing it. In any case it's one of the easiest lane to ganks and that's your trump card. (but counterganks are scary if you can't 1v1 darius yet) Aatrox isn't, if you are dying to aatrox something is really wrong, he has no way to punish you without you getting into trades in which you are both low but you have to run and he free lifesteals on creeps. I don't think he can ever win 1v1 (without relying on his passive) and even if he can his abilities cause too much aoe to not push the lane to where you can farm safely and lifeleech+hp pot to full.
he relies on attack speed and physical damage way too hard to not get crushed hard even before you finish frozen heart+tabi.
1) almost everybody runs teleport top on him 2) he pushes quick with Q 3) he gets to farm up his q more (need to be smart about it though, if you're really split pushing you need to be pushing as quickly as you can, not waiting to Q stuff) 4) he has good escapes with whither/tankiness/ghost (other summoner uusally used) 5) he's a good 1v1'er once his Q is farmed and he has CDR/tankiness
On November 05 2013 06:13 Complete wrote: Nasus is considered a split pusher IMO because
1) almost everybody runs teleport top on him 2) he pushes quick with Q 3) he gets to farm up his q more (need to be smart about it though, if you're really split pushing you need to be pushing as quickly as you can, not waiting to Q stuff) 4) he has good escapes with whither/tankiness/ghost (other summoner uusally used) 5) he's a good 1v1'er once his Q is farmed and he has CDR/tankiness
I didn't say people don't do it, It's just not his ideal role IMO. He can be much more. If you really want to split push there are better people do it. I think in games there are times when it makes sense, but as a gernal role if you really want to split push pick shen, who can ult into the fight, or a guy like tryn or yi who can take down towers crazy fast. Also his weakness early makes it a long time before you can start spliting effective, so the pressure you put on isn't what it can be with other champs. So yeah he could, but other champs do it better, and what he does can be so important in teams fights and objective control.
while I agree with some of what you say, a lategame nasus who is left alone at a tower/inhib for 2 Qs should have killed that :p The reason people tend to split, is precisely that Nasus just wants to farm his Q. If you take teleport there is little to no reason to roam before 20 mins is up. Simply put unless your team is under so much pressure you need to be there, it will be better for you to sit in top until you have your 2 item timing at the very least. With the current Triforce, I try to have either frozenheart or SV and at least a Sheen done before I start to roam, but i'll still stick to toplane until I have Triforce and the defensive item done. From that point on your a Teamfight menace so yes you should join your team. But if the opportunity presents itself (coupled with TP off cd) there is no reason why you can't split push bot/top to draw the enemy team out of position.
There are a few reasons why you split push/take TP -If they leave lane early you want to keep farming up your Q to about 300-400 and get at least 1 good item because you won't get strong by just roaming and then farming 3 waves at once like other people can with their aoe and no need to farm Q. If they try to overextend and go for a risky dragon/dive you TP in and you should be stronger. -Once you finish your FH//Gauntlet//Spirit visage almost nobody can 1v1 you and if they roam you kill tower really fast while if you follow him you can't do anything because you can't make plays with no burst or gap closer you can only fight the long fights or counter dive. -You have no initiate at all so if your team lacks initiate you can push top (early) or bot (anytime after baron is spawned) and then force a fight and TP in, or force 2 to come to stop the push and then you TP to baron and ult to kill it quickly. -If you somehow mess up and get shutdown early with ganks/dives TP helps you recover easily. Exhaust works here well also though, but if you get bursted down by two people before you can kite around tower (cc+ignite etc) it doesn't help.
I would rarely use TP for a gank when their top laner is still top, because if we both farm it's better for me while letting them take a tower and then roam while I catch up might turn badly.
Exhaust is a good choice but altogether less versatile. (very nice if the AD is expected to get qss fast though) The trick against bully melee types is just to force them to use their AoE without taking too much damage so the lane pushes a lot faster so you lose less cs. Most ranged bullies arent a problem because of your W when ganks come, and alone most of them can't harass well enough to be an issue. (kayle/nid certainly not, jayce/teemo/vayne/lucian or something would be good though)
Quints I think Armour/MR is better than ms/lifesteal, since you already have a lot of lifesteal and they scale better with regen+pots and they are better later. AD quints+armpen marks might even be the best combo against pushers because last hitting under tower is pretty hard when you have no bonus AD.
My guide is slightly out of date but I don't think theres anything you listed other than the option of taking exhaust that I think is relevant enough to edit in. (unless some things that arent obvious seem obvious to me)
I would almost always avoid sunfire unless I know I'm going to be in melee range for a long time. I already have so much AoE damage around me (E+R) that I don't expect anyone to survive long if they are in melee range, so instead focus on items that stop people getting away. Gauntlet for the slow, LW to increase my damage against the tankier guys who don't run away, Warmogs because its the best flat out survivability item lategame when everyone has LWs. Generally cdr is good because it's the best damage stat because you Q and E more, the best lane stat because you farm Q faster, and the bset teamfight stat because you W and Q a lot more. Similarly I avoid trinity except against bruiser/melee heavy guys because if they are ranged/kiting enough that the slight movement speed boost from trinity is worth (you have ghost so you can avoid getting trinity IMO), they should have enough damage that you want a defensive item or enough kiting that gauntlet is a better option. The 200~ damage in your Q is nice, but once you get 40% cdr you're farming 50 bonus damage minute and you can get merely 75 less from gauntlet but also providing a slow (which works better with ghost beacuse of the diminishing returns on movement speed, and also you get use it to protect your team)
Dorans shield pot is standard now, my guide is a bit dated. Gauntlet+frozen heart has no "overlap". There is no unique passives or anything that is wasted. You are spending a lot on mana but its the same with frozen heart+trinity .
I would get HP before I got both of them unless I was vs very heavy AD though.
I don't understand why one should get froheart if you're also building IBG, SV, and rands. What does froheart bring that you don't already get from the other three?
On November 06 2013 00:24 Slayer91 wrote: Gauntlet+frozen heart has no "overlap". There is no unique passives or anything that is wasted. You are spending a lot on mana but its the same with frozen heart+trinity .
Well you are spending more on mana with IBG compared to trinity. And then if you are also going to get SV that is 50% cdr which is too much. Can you really make use of the absurd amount of mana you get from IBG+FH?
I guess if you need ridiculous amounts of armor and don't need SV you can get IBG+FH but that's a pretty rare situation.
USUALLY If you are getting IBG and spirit visage, (vs heavy magic dmg teams) you don't get frozen heart, if you are getting IBG and frozen heart, (vs ad heavy teams) don't get spirit visage. If AD:AP ratio is even something like 65:35 in teamfights and you're versus an AD in lane, armour is better to buy than magic resist (assuming you have ~100 with mercs and someone elses locket) until you get like 300 armour.
However sometimes the overlap on CC is worth it to have the best slow you can buy. If you are spending all your W's on a ranged target having an extra slow for whoever you are currently in melee range of is VERY valuable, maybe almost as valuable as every other stat of trinity force combined. Being able to constantly chase and peel targets means you're a valuable asset to the backline if they protect their backline too much.
If you don't want to buy IBG I would normally buy trinity instead, you get warmogs/randuins/lw in some order. If you want that speed so much even with ghost theres a decent chance they have a lot of kite, and if they do theres a good chance you will be taking lots of damage enough so that a 20-30% increase in DPS isn't worth sacrificing for potentially warmogs+wardens mail. (which is similar cost but gives a massive survivability boost against all types of damage)
The extra mana "invested" in IBG is not counted when you look for its cost efficiency, you just add up 125% sheen value (sheen has effective cost of 1200 since mana and ap are useless for most people who buy them, +all the armour + whatever you value the slow is worth) The fact that armour cdr and sheen are all very nice stats combined with the fact that its the best slow you can buy. (and better than all the speed boosts, maybe only QSS can rival it in some circumstances, but that costs entirely too much slt and gold wise except against malzahar)
Masteries are entirely adaptable. VS heavy hard cc you get the -15% cc, vs heavy slow you get the -20% slows, vs a hard lane you get more flat armour//magic resist//regen/block. There is no one size fits all mastery. Against many melees you might not care about block but more about regen, against ranged auto attackers you want both. etc.
Also you guys are probably underrating LW in terms of the damage benefits. When the large majority of your damage is coming solely from Q (you spend so much time chasing+casting q w and e to auto hit a lot) and the large majority of Q damage is flat having a % increase is huge. Like getting LW on a 100 armour target and casting level 5 E doubles your d amage outright. If its lategameish and you have 500 bonus damage + IBG (gotta keep em in E) you're doing like 850~ damage a Q it's pretty insane. Trinity is mostly movement speed+the better sheen proc, I think it might be worth just to get IBG+Hitler enchant on your boots (the 12% ms every time you hit something, or just the flat 15 ms depending on teamcomps, since with IBG most things in range don't catch you)
Good post to read especially since I returned to play after months of not playing. I suppose now ibg sv gives balanced stats while giving you good cdr. I agree with the point about LW too, most nasuses I saw back then didn't get it although it'd boost your damage significantly vs frontline tanks and even backline squishes who bought ga.
Anyone else think Nasus is pretty ridiculous in soloq right now? Whilst the hard lanes in Darius/Riven/Lee etc are still there, there isn't a single lane in the game that he loses if he gains a lead, and even when behind it is just a matter of time before he can kill his lane opponent 1v1.
I've always thought he is one of those champs who is countered moreso by a team comp (Disengage and slows) than his direct lane opponent, but been playing him a lot top recently and he feels absurd. Be interested to hear your thoughts in particular slayer91.
against lee sin you just have to be extremely careful as to not take too much dmg from q and e lvl 1-3, you shit on him totally if he doesnt successfully cheese and get kills on you dodging q is paramount to success though but that lane is very doable
On November 08 2013 16:37 schmutttt wrote: Anyone else think Nasus is pretty ridiculous in soloq right now? Whilst the hard lanes in Darius/Riven/Lee etc are still there, there isn't a single lane in the game that he loses if he gains a lead, and even when behind it is just a matter of time before he can kill his lane opponent 1v1.
I've always thought he is one of those champs who is countered moreso by a team comp (Disengage and slows) than his direct lane opponent, but been playing him a lot top recently and he feels absurd. Be interested to hear your thoughts in particular slayer91.
-Nasus is insane right now -Lee should be an easy lane (his W and E both push creeps hard and he can't stick on you, its really easy to not get hit by Q's if he doesn't use W or E first) -Riven can be tricky early but her damage is also aoe so abuse that. -Darius is hard but he's hard as any melee and easy to gank. Again his Q is aoe so abuse that and farm at tower/freeze lane whenever possible.
In terms of team comp, although disengage and slows are effective (one of the reasons IBG is so good, since slows wreck any bonus movement speed if you don't get swiftness boots and the mastery at least) the important thing to realize is that you're just one of 5 in your team. You can't play like a regular engager and jump on someone, you play a lot more like udyr (and nobody plays udyr and people also have trouble playing with him in teamfights). You can chase people but you should never go too far ahead of a team. You can use your W to allow your teammembers to catch people (either W a tank and let your ranged damage him, or W a backline when you have some engaging melees or assassins to jump on if they engaged)
Iif you run ahead of your team, they can 5v1 you because you have no way to engage on their team properly, but once their tanks go in and such you can pick out people to 1v1 and if their whole backline stays together you just W their adc and focus their tanks or wait for your bruisers/assassins to be in position - once one of their squishies is dead you can easily kill the other.
The main problem is getting from A to B as it were. If you have superior poke they have to engage and you're fine with that, if you have some other form of engage you can wait for that guy to engage and follow up (and then hopefully you won't get focused down, so you can abuse the fact that you can 1v1 anyone and like 1v3 if its a bruiser/tank/support combo or some such). This is one of the reasons why TP is so good - you can split push, and as long as you play safe so you don't get ganked by everyone when you're team is at base or something, you can force them to make a play, since not only can you force one top and tp to baron or another lane, they also have trouble letting anyone stay in lane without dying. So you can often TP to baron with a 5v3 or something, and if they leave you to try to catch your team you kill towers in seconds even if there is no good way to TP in and still win the fight.
What masteries do you suggest Teutonica? I feel like Ghost/TP is mandatory, but i sometimes feel like i need the %arpen from offensive or is it just silly to get that and just go for something like 1/21/8?
On November 09 2013 00:20 mordek wrote: This thread has so much good content. Teut runs the best champ threads ^^ I'm curious when Jimmi realized it wasn't brief anymore lol
I was writing that on and off while I was at work, so it took me longer than it should have to realize that it was far from brief!
I do think the way me and him build nasus is quite different, and I have had so much success with the way I do, I will continue to. I do see the merits of what he does, I just value the speed more, so I don't have as much need for the slow, and I also have the exhaust as an extra slow. I would suggest trying out both and seeing what works for you. Just be sure to realize that going a couple MS quints instead of armour or mr does make you a little weaker early, but mid to late game, that speed is AWESOME (esspecially with triforce 2) =-)
its actually almost exactly the same you just build trinity, don't build ibg. (and use dumb runes HUEHUEHEUHEU)
GUIDE UPDATED will have to change more come season 4 but all the broken images and such should be fixed. should be pretty accurate now. I might have a recommended reading section at the bottom to gather any big replies to perhaps frequently asked questions and ignore every elses opinions. 20 pages is an awful lot to read through.
edit: funny to see people being like IBG is good trinity is trash early on in the thread and me arguing and then now someones like Trinity good IBG bad and im arguing again gotta shut down dem extreme points of view edit2: lol at ppl who thought Q max was bad and it was a popular view for ages guys pls dont think ive ever played nasus with anything but q max except if im 1v2 or something
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think people saying q max is bad are mixing things up between top nasus and jungle nasus. Afaik when nasus jungle was OP nobody maxed Q, however for toplane it has always been the best thing to max.
the matchup vs lee sin is very high variance, because lee sin is such a hard champion to master. It depends also on his item start.
I have seen some very bad lee sin with doran shield and could not land a q for god sake and some very good one with a red elixir + pot trying to all in me at lvl 2 and succeeding
Check his items and check his level as a lee sin in the first minutes of your lane. If he start red elixir try to make him blew it without dying then hug tower and grab some minions with spirit fire. remember if he doesnt get a kill he blew away 350 gold. U can give him some minions, dont be greedy.
If he starts doran blade, u lane normally but care if there is not a lot of minions with you he could try to all in you. This matchup is so much about positionning. But against a good lee sin player it's not easy in the first levels
Although I have no experience in the matchup aside from a random normal blind pick, I assume Fizz counters Nasus pretty hard. Thoughts on this? Double reposition + healing debuff with all-in potential is really strong and because Nasus' main damage comes from his Q and standing in spirit fire I think Fizz would be a pretty hard counter. I'm gonna try it out next time I see someone pick a top Nasus in draft.
I'd imagine fizz would beat up Nasus early. He's a lane bully and Nasus is just so weak early. Like every Nasus lane he would get crushed if he falls behind at all though (Or stays even for the first 15-20).
OTOH Nasus is fairly bulky, has a good AS slow and scales a lot harder. For Fizz I think a level 2 or 3 Q/W/E and Ignite all-in may work or force Nasus out of lane. This of course depends on who ganks top(i.e. if the Nasus' jungler is smart he'll come top at least to let Nasus survive the all-in and get rid of Fizz's E for a key period while Nasus heals up). Outside of that I wouldn't like to be Fizz. I don't think he does enough damage against a Nasus in the mid or late game to be a threat, and Nasus can just build SV as part of his normal build path and do great.
I'm not sure it would have that big an effect. Wither starts slow and gets bigger. It might give Fizz enough time to do his damage to force Nasus to B. Maybe we should test this out?
Wouldn't you be able to kinda get through it with armor seals and flat mr glyphs and quints? With teleport and some defensive itemization dshield/flask -> negatron -> SV I think it should be doable as long as you're respecting his killing potential early on.
Well part of the problem would be running MR Quints. I don't even own those, nor do I have the spare page for such a rare occurence. But yeah, once you get the SV you've probably survived lane unless you get ganked a lot. He just won't be able to do enough damage to keep you down I think. But we'll see.
That really doesn't work as an argument though. Armor and MR quints don't seem to be talked about as much or as openly as they were when I first started playing but a lot of my matchup understandings revolved around the possible usage of these. Like if I'm going to play Nasus I'm going to have a rune page with armor quints and another with MR quints because otherwise you're just going to suffer badly through laning against some champs (Riven, Teemo, Kennen, Darius, etc.).
I have played vs fizz a few times, but im at gold so not really the best game play, i usually start boots + 4 pots run 1-27-1 in masteries, Runes with MR blues, ARMOR yellows, ArPen reds, Life steal Quinsx2 and MS quinsx1. With TP and Ghost, this set lets me survive early game till i can back and get a Spectre's Cowl and some wards. From there on is very easy match up
Checo, doesn't that give you a bit of trouble last hitting under turret? If you toss in a AD quint or some AD marks it may help you get casters under the turret.
On November 10 2013 03:30 RouaF wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong but I think people saying q max is bad are mixing things up between top nasus and jungle nasus. Afaik when nasus jungle was OP nobody maxed Q, however for toplane it has always been the best thing to max.
this was before people even jungled nasus pre buffs or w/e
On November 10 2013 03:58 trollbone wrote: the matchup vs lee sin is very high variance, because lee sin is such a hard champion to master. It depends also on his item start.
I have seen some very bad lee sin with doran shield and could not land a q for god sake and some very good one with a red elixir + pot trying to all in me at lvl 2 and succeeding
Check his items and check his level as a lee sin in the first minutes of your lane. If he start red elixir try to make him blew it without dying then hug tower and grab some minions with spirit fire. remember if he doesnt get a kill he blew away 350 gold. U can give him some minions, dont be greedy.
If he starts doran blade, u lane normally but care if there is not a lot of minions with you he could try to all in you. This matchup is so much about positionning. But against a good lee sin player it's not easy in the first levels
doesn't matter how good the lee sin q is a skillshot it depends on the skill of both players, and in any case nasus can just hide behind creeps and force you to use spells to push wave, and then even if you land q you will land it only in tower range. don't ever use spirit fire to farm it pushes the lane and sucks at last hitting anyway. Always try to rely on your autos and q only it also saves mana
On November 10 2013 11:51 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Although I have no experience in the matchup aside from a random normal blind pick, I assume Fizz counters Nasus pretty hard. Thoughts on this? Double reposition + healing debuff with all-in potential is really strong and because Nasus' main damage comes from his Q and standing in spirit fire I think Fizz would be a pretty hard counter. I'm gonna try it out next time I see someone pick a top Nasus in draft.
when I play nasus I almost never use spirit fire (only for pushing hard after a gank or during ganks/hard all-ins) and it only does like 70 damage lol
The reposition doesn't matter too much because fizz needs to be in melee range to do damage and nasus doesn't have anything you can really avoid.
fizz can all-in pretty hard, I think I got stomped once by a fizz when they lane swapped and he was like 3-0 or something and I probably built armour, but it was basically because of 1-combos. Fizz basically can't abuse his repositions at all except to run away or chase, in a straight up 1v1 it doesn't help.
I wouldn't say fizz is any harder than any other lane bully, you just let him push by going aggro and then you patiently farm at tower until you get negtron and some levels.
edit: anyone who plays any top laners should have mr quints. Against any AP champs they are the most solid choice, spending on runes seems better than having tons of useless runepages lol. You only need 2 runepages to top lane anyone. AD/Armour/MR and then armour/mr quints. It's not optimal on everyone but its the best overall 2 runepages you can have.
Pretty much every magic caster can only win early game and mr is useful all game long and AD isn't, so MR provides early game value and also recompense for the missed cs.
You shouldn't be getting in situations when you are both low, your finishing move amounts to hitting him with your stick so when cds come up again you just die, so you don't chase a low hp fizz in the bush you just go back and TP with full hp if he really forces the all in and have enough MR+pots that you can heal up again on creeps after he makes a trade.
Spirit fire doesn't do that much damage for clearing a wave at level 1, (but it will shorten the team for tower to clear it, but not enough to stop any reasonable dive timing) and I means you won't get any of the ranged creep cs if you don't get dived.
The best counter to a dive is to have full hp before it starts, and that way they can only do it if its super obvious by walking right up to you before starting and it gives your jungler tons of time. Even if it's the worst possible situation and your junger isn't anywhere close and you die and they don't desite having full hp you can TP to recover mostly.
Most people die to standard pattern dives where they get combo'd while the creeps are pushing because they aren't playing defensively enough and then have to back off completely which lets a huge wave build and start to damage them when they try to last hit and then jungler comes up to collect the free kill. The more healthy you are the riskier it is for them to dive. Most dives rely on 1 guy tanking the damage and leaving, and the 2nd guy finishing the kill and running at the last minute, so theres a huge chance of double kill if jungler is there, or even if he isn't if you are using ghost+w+pots.
On November 11 2013 12:20 WarSame wrote: Checo, doesn't that give you a bit of trouble last hitting under turret? If you toss in a AD quint or some AD marks it may help you get casters under the turret.
I havent really try it, but i dont seem to have lots of trouble last hitting under turret, just hit caster twice, once before the tower hit one after, maybe miss one if i get distracted, but im going to give it a go and see if my CS improves in the early game, thanks
If you want to stay longer in lane you get resistances, not more life steal. Extra LS isn't going to help against any lane bully because you're just going to get chunked. It's more efficient to have armor or MR quints because it gives you more effective health. LS isn't going to help if you're not trading since you won't be autoing much, and it certainly won't help when the opponent all-ins you alone or with his jungler. You'll just die. People are underestimating how strong armor and MR quints way too much since the end of S2.
I feel like Nasus is super strong now, but I don't know exactly why. He's like the perfect pushing monster in today's poke comp with EXCELLENT peel.
I've tried a new build on him though which I'd like to possibly discuss.
Frozen mallet, warmog's, atma's impaler, last whisper, randuin's/spirit visage/ depending on the enemy comp. Your HP is insane, your crit is insane, you hit for a million and you're decently tanky.
My first impression without trying it: As others have said, you would probably like to be building resists on him rather than health to benefit from his big life steal. Plus, Frozen Mallet got somewhat neutered when they changed Phage. And IIRC Atma's got nerfed into the ground and he doesn't benefit from it that well. Finally, if you are picking your Randuin's vs. their comp your CDR will be awful(3%?).
You want resists and cdr, not health. Crit for the sake of crit is pretty bad too since the Q damage doesn't crit and you're not really going to be building AD. You want resists over health because you have a lot of passive LS and you get a lot of health through your ult. And because of how most of your damage is coming from your Q, cdr is the best stat for offensive purposes as it allows you to Q farm faster while dishing out more Qs during fights, along with more withers, and all of this is game changing. I would forget about health items that don't give you resists along with the atmas.
I'd like to get feedback on this build vs an AD top(i.e. Riven which is happening a lot in the normals I've played with Nasus): + Show Spoiler +
Cloth+5 potions start
Warden's Mail
Phage(extra tankiness and MS modifiers)
Boots level 1
Convert WM into Frozen Heart if I'm behind, or go into Trinity Force if I'm ahead and comfortable in lane and then get the other
After here varies vs. their comp but it is often Merc Treads or Swiftness boots, Spirit Visage, and then some other EHP items and LW
So the questions I have are these:
When I go back for first buy and I have just over 1000 gold, should I prefer to get the chain vest(to work toward Glacial Shroud), a ward and some pots or the WM and some pots?
Should I be going for TF at all, even? I'm considering just ditching it to get IceBorn Gauntlet and Randuin's instead, which combined with something like SV would give me great EHP, a spammable slow and 30% CDR.
Which boots are best? So far Swiftness if possible and Merc Tread's if forced to by CC seems to have worked well, but maybe this is wrong.
Lastly, at what point should I be grabbing my LW? My guess is once I hit around 350 stacks on Q and I have enough CDR/EHP(so for my 4th non-boots item).
My main reason for grabbing the Phage is to help me escape/chase and because it gives me better protection vs. allins. However, it may be a bad choice.
I feel like Nasus just needs to play defensive with dshield +pot start.
Rush your resist itemization against enemey laner, making sure to get 20%+ cdr asap for Q stacking. You gain a lot of eHP from passive and Ult, so Resists + CDR to stack your Q and to continously apply wither should u need to peel/chase. You can delay boots 2 upgrade for a while as Nasus due to free farming your q + innate sustain + tp. vs AD: Dshield + pot ->glacial --> kindlegem--boots> if behind finish FH or Wardens, if ahead Trinity> wardens>SV>Dmg item or LW if 3+ opponents stacking armor.
20%+ CDR makes it much easier to have Q available every minion in lane + small minions from the jungle. 40% is really nice
vs AP : dshield+ pots--> Kindle OR Cowl depending on opponent's kill potential-> boots->trinity/finish SV/boots-> 2 Glacial-> MR or Dmg items situationally.
Mercs for heavy hard cc, Tabi for heavy AD, Swiftness if purely slows.
On November 12 2013 02:38 Complete wrote: Idk, sometimes you just can't trade with nasus early, so your best bet is to get more LS and stay in lane longer to get more farm/Q farm.
That being said I prefer AD quints to help last hit under tower.
Also I'd imagine LS quints are much better the later the game goes on.
You never want to trade with nasus early, but that doesn't mean you want lifesteal quints. Passive lifesteal and regen and potions mean that resists are just usually better and are good all game long.
On November 11 2013 20:59 Slayer91 wrote: Pretty much every magic caster can only win early game and mr is useful all game long and AD isn't, so MR provides early game value and also recompense for the missed cs.
You shouldn't be getting in situations when you are both low, your finishing move amounts to hitting him with your stick so when cds come up again you just die, so you don't chase a low hp fizz in the bush you just go back and TP with full hp if he really forces the all in and have enough MR+pots that you can heal up again on creeps after he makes a trade.
Spirit fire doesn't do that much damage for clearing a wave at level 1, (but it will shorten the team for tower to clear it, but not enough to stop any reasonable dive timing) and I means you won't get any of the ranged creep cs if you don't get dived.
The best counter to a dive is to have full hp before it starts, and that way they can only do it if its super obvious by walking right up to you before starting and it gives your jungler tons of time. Even if it's the worst possible situation and your junger isn't anywhere close and you die and they don't desite having full hp you can TP to recover mostly.
Most people die to standard pattern dives where they get combo'd while the creeps are pushing because they aren't playing defensively enough and then have to back off completely which lets a huge wave build and start to damage them when they try to last hit and then jungler comes up to collect the free kill. The more healthy you are the riskier it is for them to dive. Most dives rely on 1 guy tanking the damage and leaving, and the 2nd guy finishing the kill and running at the last minute, so theres a huge chance of double kill if jungler is there, or even if he isn't if you are using ghost+w+pots.
I pretty much always use runes for early game rather than mid-late game (unless it's MS quints). I'm not a pro, but I've heard most pros recommend runing for early game because runes become almost a nonfactor once items come into play- this is especially so for those champs that have early game trouble and scale well into lategame. AD runes are just so good in s3. its efficient, helps last hitting, and actually gives you somewhat damage during ganks rather than having absolutely 0 kill potential.
Optimally, yes, you don't want to be in situations when you are both low, but you can't control that all the time. So I do think fizz having repositioning skills is better than not having them. Also helps in ganks.
Spirit fire can do AoE damage of 150+ at level 1 which isn't bad. It'll significantly help with clearing if there is a huge buildup of creep after getting zoned. I would probably max spirit fire against really hard lane counters such as teemo and riven. These guys have really good potential for diving with junglers (and even alone). There is no point maxing Q if you're not going to be able to last hit anyways. But for most matchups I get spirit fire level 4 or so and leave it at level 1. I do agree that generally you go Q>W>E though.
I don't know what you're arguing here. Yes you rune mostly for early game, MR quints are the best for early game and later on. Getting AD quints to last hit better doesn't make your early game stronger, it means you last hit better which means your mid game very marginally stronger.
On November 12 2013 10:51 Uldridge wrote: I feel like Nasus is super strong now, but I don't know exactly why. He's like the perfect pushing monster in today's poke comp with EXCELLENT peel.
I've tried a new build on him though which I'd like to possibly discuss.
Frozen mallet, warmog's, atma's impaler, last whisper, randuin's/spirit visage/ depending on the enemy comp. Your HP is insane, your crit is insane, you hit for a million and you're decently tanky.
Why would you ever get frozen mallet on nasus when basically iceborn gauntlet is always better. You build has basically no cdr so its actually worse for peeling/catching people, you damage is probably a lot less because no cdr (until last item spirit visage maybe), and hp isn't an optimal stat because your R gives you hp and in lane you want resists anyway so you want to stack resists terrible build
On November 12 2013 14:03 WarSame wrote: I'd like to get feedback on this build vs an AD top(i.e. Riven which is happening a lot in the normals I've played with Nasus): + Show Spoiler +
Cloth+5 potions start
Warden's Mail
Phage(extra tankiness and MS modifiers)
Boots level 1
Convert WM into Frozen Heart if I'm behind, or go into Trinity Force if I'm ahead and comfortable in lane and then get the other
After here varies vs. their comp but it is often Merc Treads or Swiftness boots, Spirit Visage, and then some other EHP items and LW
So the questions I have are these:
When I go back for first buy and I have just over 1000 gold, should I prefer to get the chain vest(to work toward Glacial Shroud), a ward and some pots or the WM and some pots?
Should I be going for TF at all, even? I'm considering just ditching it to get IceBorn Gauntlet and Randuin's instead, which combined with something like SV would give me great EHP, a spammable slow and 30% CDR.
Which boots are best? So far Swiftness if possible and Merc Tread's if forced to by CC seems to have worked well, but maybe this is wrong.
Lastly, at what point should I be grabbing my LW? My guess is once I hit around 350 stacks on Q and I have enough CDR/EHP(so for my 4th non-boots item).
My main reason for grabbing the Phage is to help me escape/chase and because it gives me better protection vs. allins. However, it may be a bad choice.
Read the guide. Phage is a kinda dumb idea. Trinity isn't that amazing and you already win all in's against basically every champ in the game with nasus because his 1v1 is retarded. It doesn't really help you trade or regen from harass at all which are your main worries. You don't want to rush wardens mail vs something like riven when you already have AS slows and most AD tops rely more on spells than auto attacks. You want to rush glacial shroud first item. It gives you armour, mana so you can trade more than once without running oom, and more cdr for qing more often. Build it into frozen heart or gauntlet depending. Against riven probably gauntlet Is better however you might want to consider getting wardens+glacial and then finish gauntlet or getting ninja tabi if you feel like you need more armour. Tabi/swiftness/mercs depending on situation. Normally mercs>swiftness but it depends on enemy cc. Ninja tabi vs heavy auto attackres or if you want to make laning phase easier.
Thank you guys. I didn't want to start w/ Doran's because the passive isn't effective vs. the slow autoattackers like Riven. The counter-allin point is valid, though. And the rest of it sounds good.
I think cloth+5 is a "decent choice" against riven, if you expected to have a very hard time you would get cloth, normally you just get dorans shield because if you don't want tabi or frozen heart it might be lying around for a while taking up slots you might want for wards
If I go Doran's shield I still have that Doran's laying around for the same purpose. I think vs. the main lane bullies I'll continue going Armor and 5 pots. Doran's hasn't worked that well for me vs. my friend in customs.
On November 13 2013 06:44 krndandaman wrote: @slayer91 I'm arguing AD is better in most cases than armor/mr quints. points: 1) yes, AD leads to more last hits and overall better mid game. however, isn't that the whole point of runes on weak early champs? to have enough money and survive lane. I think going MR/armor quints is overkill on early resists and not that cost effective compared to ad. i'd imagine you'd have a lot less cs as well. 2)i've never seen a high elo/pro player go armor or mr quints as nasus. 3) absolutely 0 threat with your rune set up. as someone like riven I won't even be afraid of ganks pre 6. Could 1v2 easily.
1) Not getting behind on xp also helps weak early champs, and it's easier to do if you don't have to back as often. Resists will help more than ad for that. It's a tradeoff but I would take the xp over the more garanteed cs in the early levels. 2) The thing is, it's hard for them to select said rune page when they don't have it in their rune pages, which is probably quite commun (I checked for dyrus, wickd, xasus, kerp and samux, only of of them had them if I didn't miss anything). 3) ad quints make zero difference for gank threats. The extra ~30 damage you can hope to get during the gank won't be the difference between riven 1v2ing ezpz and riven dying.
This may be my last question, and thank you all for your help:
hypothetically say I am facing a ranged AD like Vayne top and getting no help from my jungler. If I know it's a ranged AD I start w/ Doran's shield. After I will likely be trying to get some more armour and a lot of HP pots so I will likely go Glacial Shroud. However, is there anything that I can pick up to help me survive lane better than just going for FH?
On November 13 2013 06:44 krndandaman wrote: @slayer91 I'm arguing AD is better in most cases than armor/mr quints. points: 1) yes, AD leads to more last hits and overall better mid game. however, isn't that the whole point of runes on weak early champs? to have enough money and survive lane. I think going MR/armor quints is overkill on early resists and not that cost effective compared to ad. i'd imagine you'd have a lot less cs as well. 2)i've never seen a high elo/pro player go armor or mr quints as nasus. 3) absolutely 0 threat with your rune set up. as someone like riven I won't even be afraid of ganks pre 6. Could 1v2 easily.
1) Not getting behind on xp also helps weak early champs, and it's easier to do if you don't have to back as often. Resists will help more than ad for that. It's a tradeoff but I would take the xp over the more garanteed cs in the early levels. 2) The thing is, it's hard for them to select said rune page when they don't have it in their rune pages, which is probably quite commun (I checked for dyrus, wickd, xasus, kerp and samux, only of of them had them if I didn't miss anything). 3) ad quints make zero difference for gank threats. The extra ~30 damage you can hope to get during the gank won't be the difference between riven 1v2ing ezpz and riven dying.
1) how will getting AD zone you any harder? the +12 MR from 3 quints will reduce minimal damage anyways. I shouldn't have said armor/mr because I don't mind armor quints as much as I do MR quints. I still prefer ad in nearly all matchups but I wouldn't think it's bad to go armor quints in some. as for MR quints I just think they are suboptimal lol. 2) There is a reason why it's not in their rune pages even when they are pros that only play top lane and have 20 rune pages. it's not that good. on a more practical level, I'd recommend ad runes just for the sole purpose of saving IP lol. 3) the extra ~30 dmg or whatever is pretty big actually. in just 3 autos that's a difference of like ~90 damage in early levels. whenever I see an opponent go armor quints (never seen MR quints in my life) I know I'll be safe in nearly all ganks. just cc the jungler and run.
1) I didn't say anything about getting zoned. I talked about being harrassed and having to recall because you're low. If +12 MR is reducing marginal damage anyways, why do you use flat MR glyphs? They give you the same amount of MR. 2) I guess there is a reason they don't have those rune pages. I won't jump to the conclusions that's it because it's not that good. 3) Please...
On November 13 2013 06:44 krndandaman wrote: @warsame 100HP is huge at early levels, especially level 1. it's essentially a 20% HP boost. it dramatically decreases riven's kill potential on you when he is the greatest threat. armor is better at surviving through sustained harass/damage which riven doesn't have (she's burst).
@slayer91 I'm arguing AD is better in most cases than armor/mr quints. points: 1) yes, AD leads to more last hits and overall better mid game. however, isn't that the whole point of runes on weak early champs? to have enough money and survive lane. I think going MR/armor quints is overkill on early resists and not that cost effective compared to ad. i'd imagine you'd have a lot less cs as well. 2)i've never seen a high elo/pro player go armor or mr quints as nasus. 3) absolutely 0 threat with your rune set up. as someone like riven I won't even be afraid of ganks pre 6. Could 1v2 easily.
You just said pro players go early runes for a stronger early game. Then you suggest going AD quints for a stronger midgame. Why not just get GP10 quints? You don't need "enough money survive lane", by the time you go back once the hardest part of your laning phase is over, and if you managed to wait till glacial//cowl basically that's when you're freefarming. What you want is to be able to be as safe as possible during the early levels especially, and as I said what use is having 200 gold more (that's like 10 extra cs which is pretty big for just 8 more ad lol) if you just spend it on something you could have had from level 1? 2: I haven't seen any pro play nasus yet, so w/e. 3: LOL, having 8 AD makes that much of a difference? Riven can't even 1v1 past level 6 without a big advantage let alone 1v2. What are you talking about. Armour will outperform AD in a 1v1 against a physical damage dealer 100% anyway. Especially if you take into account a lot of your damage doesn't scale off AD. (just autos and your q auto reset, R is dps, e is dps, R also gives you bonus AD the longer you are alive and in range to damage the other guy)
On November 13 2013 05:53 TheEmulator wrote: Challenger is top 50 right? I'm surprised we actually have TLers that have a chance of making it, seems pretty elite to obtain.
FH is almost certainly the best agaist vayne, but you might want to rush wardens if you're so sure you won't get any help. Against teemo I'd lean toward spirit visage because you won't be trading at all and spirit visage is better if you don't need the mana. The trick against vayne is to never let her get that 3rd silver bolts proc unless you decide to all in for some reason. Every time she wants to last bolts reset. Teemo is just like vayne except much easier to gank and all in but does a lot of damage per auto because of the poison, but having less cs and buying more pots is okay because teemo is trash compared to vayne later and much easier to gank
On November 14 2013 04:17 krndandaman wrote: hard to respond to both quotes so I'll try to respond to both: 1) You didn't say anything about being zoned but as a weaker champion (nasus) you're going to get zoned (to an extent) or take harass. By going resists you're implying you're going to take harass, which imo, is a bad way to play the matchup in weak vs strong early. I'd rather get zoned for a bit, take less to 0 harass while getting CS. With your set up you will probably get a bit more exp, but much less cs. It's essentially pick one over two to prioritize, and I choose cs because you're going to be behind in levels anyways. Faster items will help you survive the level gap anyways. - Nope, I'm suggesting AD quints give a stronger midgame AND early game. You misread. GP10 quints are bad. 12mr/armor is safe enough for the pros against the best, why wouldn't it be safe enough for you? I'm not arguing that its bad, I'm saying ad is more optimal. Not 8 AD, I also think you should go AD marks if you're going AD so 15 ad. 15ad vs +12mr/8armor or +20armor. In just terms of cost effectiveness that's 600g vs 400g. You're starting 200g behind from level 1. I'm assuming you get TP as nasus so if you are getting bullied hard you can just TP back and buy a cloth armor or mantle or whatever you need. You'll have more stats anyways especially with more last hits. 2) Yes it's not that good. Why else would every progamer not have it when just 2 out of the 3 people here think it's optimal. Cause they probably tried it and they don't like it. I'm not 100% sure on the math but I recall the difference in %dmg reduced from the 20 extra armor at level 1 from not having the extra armor was something like ~5%? Which is not important compared to the 15 extra ad you could have. 3) Assuming pre 6 ganks ofc. so no R dps, and E will be level 1. Q/autos is your only form of damage then. When I see someone go full resist runes, I know I'm pretty damn safe pre 6 and can be aggressive. Otherwise, I'm a bit more careful. Anyways this isn't a big reason for why I and others go AD, just something small. I wouldn't delve into this too much.
1) Ad quints give you 6,75 ad. That's not worth 600g. Of course everyone expects ad marks + quints to be worth more than resists quints alone. 3) In the previous post I quoted you managed to say that 3 ad quints (6,75 ad, i'll say it again) will add ~90 damage in just 3 autoattacks. And you seem to believe it's really the case. You "wouldn't delve into this too much" but maybe you should
On November 14 2013 04:17 krndandaman wrote: hard to respond to both quotes so I'll try to respond to both: 1) You didn't say anything about being zoned but as a weaker champion (nasus) you're going to get zoned (to an extent) or take harass. By going resists you're implying you're going to take harass, which imo, is a bad way to play the matchup in weak vs strong early. I'd rather get zoned for a bit, take less to 0 harass while getting CS. With your set up you will probably get a bit more exp, but much less cs. It's essentially pick one over two to prioritize, and I choose cs because you're going to be behind in levels anyways. Faster items will help you survive the level gap anyways. - Nope, I'm suggesting AD quints give a stronger midgame AND early game. You misread. GP10 quints are bad. 12mr/armor is safe enough for the pros against the best, why wouldn't it be safe enough for you? I'm not arguing that its bad, I'm saying ad is more optimal. Not 8 AD, I also think you should go AD marks if you're going AD so 15 ad. 15ad vs +12mr/8armor or +20armor. In just terms of cost effectiveness that's 600g vs 400g. You're starting 200g behind from level 1. I'm assuming you get TP as nasus so if you are getting bullied hard you can just TP back and buy a cloth armor or mantle or whatever you need. You'll have more stats anyways especially with more last hits. 2) Yes it's not that good. Why else would every progamer not have it when just 2 out of the 3 people here think it's optimal. Cause they probably tried it and they don't like it. I'm not 100% sure on the math but I recall the difference in %dmg reduced from the 20 extra armor at level 1 from not having the extra armor was something like ~5%? Which is not important compared to the 15 extra ad you could have. 3) Assuming pre 6 ganks ofc. so no R dps, and E will be level 1. Q/autos is your only form of damage then. When I see someone go full resist runes, I know I'm pretty damn safe pre 6 and can be aggressive. Otherwise, I'm a bit more careful. Anyways this isn't a big reason for why I and others go AD, just something small. I wouldn't delve into this too much.
1) Ad quints give you 6,75 ad. That's not worth 600g. Of course everyone expects ad marks + quints to be worth more than resists quints alone. 3) In the previous post I quoted you managed to say that 3 ad quints (6,75 ad, i'll say it again) will add ~90 damage in just 3 autoattacks. And you seem to believe it's really the case. You "wouldn't delve into this too much" but maybe you should
I included marks/quints for both. I'm assuming you go full resists for marks/quints because I go full marks/quints for AD. Are you saying you go ad marks and resist quints? +15 AD = 600 g. +20 armor/mr = 400g (quints+marks). 3) Why? It is the least important of all reasons to go ad (mainly because its dependent on junglers and not much opportunity for ganks in the first place with a weak laner). I mean by all means if you want to bust out the calculations, go for it. But points 1 and 2 are the main reasons.
Please, I have yet to see any reasoning from you. Slayers91 at least explains his reasoning, you I have no idea.
I would use ad marks, not resist marks. You need a very good reason to use secondary marks over primary marks. Gold efficiency is now out of the picture in point 1. I'd rather walk up the the creeps once in a while to last hit while getting harrassed rather than getting zoned until the wave is under my tower.
Now hear me out about point 2. Many pros are young people who dropped out of school to play full time. Many of them are clueless about a lot of things regarless items/spells. Many of them don't even read the patchnotes. Many of them have no idea about what they do with their rune pages and will just copy others blindly. We've seen pros run ad marks and quints + 1 ad glyphs to "get the extra ad" when they actually don't get it. Then you decided that they didn't use resists quints because it's bad, and you explained to us it's bad because "I'm not 100% sure on the math but I recall the difference in %dmg reduced from the 20 extra armor at level 1 from not having the extra armor was something like ~5%?" And here I am, facepalming, because your sentence doesn't help deciding at all. Each % damage reduction is not worth as much as the others. Saying we get a 5% increase gives zero clue about how good or bad it is. I hope now you understand better why I'm not sold about point 2 being a good reason.
On November 14 2013 04:17 krndandaman wrote: hard to respond to both quotes so I'll try to respond to both: 1) You didn't say anything about being zoned but as a weaker champion (nasus) you're going to get zoned (to an extent) or take harass. By going resists you're implying you're going to take harass, which imo, is a bad way to play the matchup in weak vs strong early. I'd rather get zoned for a bit, take less to 0 harass while getting CS. With your set up you will probably get a bit more exp, but much less cs. It's essentially pick one over two to prioritize, and I choose cs because you're going to be behind in levels anyways. Faster items will help you survive the level gap anyways. - Nope, I'm suggesting AD quints give a stronger midgame AND early game. You misread. GP10 quints are bad. 12mr/armor is safe enough for the pros against the best, why wouldn't it be safe enough for you? I'm not arguing that its bad, I'm saying ad is more optimal. Not 8 AD, I also think you should go AD marks if you're going AD so 15 ad. 15ad vs +12mr/8armor or +20armor. In just terms of cost effectiveness that's 600g vs 400g. You're starting 200g behind from level 1. I'm assuming you get TP as nasus so if you are getting bullied hard you can just TP back and buy a cloth armor or mantle or whatever you need. You'll have more stats anyways especially with more last hits. 2) Yes it's not that good. Why else would every progamer not have it when just 2 out of the 3 people here think it's optimal. Cause they probably tried it and they don't like it. I'm not 100% sure on the math but I recall the difference in %dmg reduced from the 20 extra armor at level 1 from not having the extra armor was something like ~5%? Which is not important compared to the 15 extra ad you could have. 3) Assuming pre 6 ganks ofc. so no R dps, and E will be level 1. Q/autos is your only form of damage then. When I see someone go full resist runes, I know I'm pretty damn safe pre 6 and can be aggressive. Otherwise, I'm a bit more careful. Anyways this isn't a big reason for why I and others go AD, just something small. I wouldn't delve into this too much.
also, there have been a decent amount of pro nasus games since 2 patches ago (around worlds). I recall seeing nasus in worlds at least 3 times for instance and one or two before that in OGN. None of them had a riven opponent though- it was mostly jax, singed, shen, vlad. All went AD iirc. Spectate a few high elo korean-na players as well, I'm pretty sure they generally go ad red/quint.
I'm not gonna say give up thinking for yourself, but generally pros know what they're doing and if they don't do something it's not because they missed it.
First off, to clear up, on marks I'm running AD all the time. I would consider using armpen if I expect an easy lane but mostly I don't bother thinking too much about it. The reward for running resist marks is way too small. -It's impossible to not take harass. Even at tower you will take harass. Getting zoned is expected but losing XP is not, if are you zoned and the lane isn't pushing your way you make a big mistake somewhere. You can sometimes choose to trade a cs for some harass but you will get harassed to some extent anyway. Often trading a cs for harass is a bonus because the lane will push harder so you might lose less cs to non tower along the line, giving you more chances to last hit at the tower -I doubt the pros are worrying about their rune set up too much either. AD quints are solid against everyone. Against singed and vlad who would be pushing a lot AD quints might be a good idea (but maybe MR is needed against vlad). Against jax and shen you definitely prefer magic resist because of the shen q harass and jax magic burst, to win those lanes you want magic resist a lot more.
-In terms of how armour/magic resist work. The easiest way to think about it is that each 1 armour gives you 1% of your hp in damage taken needed to kill you. If you have 1k hp the extra 12 resists is 120 more damage needed to kill you. You might think 1k hp is a bit high, but take into account lifesteal and regen, and you can expect to be able have a total soak of maybe 1-1.5k hp before you go back for the first time, so its raw damage soaked, so you can absorb a couple more spells safely. Once you go back and we're talking even more lifesteal and you're buying 5 potions and if you're going spirit visage even more regen you might be soaking 500~ extra damage or something from those quints. It's a pretty big difference. I might even be underestimating a lot. 5 pots is already 750 bonus hp and I guess if you have 20 hp5 that's like 1k more hp over a 5 min period +lifesteal+level hp healing+your ult (it counts to help on your ult because 300 bonus hp scales with the mr too) we might be talking a sick amount of extra damage soaked for just quint choice. You can argue the AD quints give you better return because of the extra cs you'll get but you resists is your best defense stat anyway so you'll only be buying that ~250 gold worth of resists with those extra cs anyway, and being able to soak more damage lets you get more cs also.
On November 14 2013 04:56 iCanada wrote: Counter picking nasus with poppy, good idea or no?
Nobody kills the dog anymore, why not just outscale him? Poppy can't lose to him, can she? I want try..
Imo Poppy is a solid counterpick to Nasus. She CAN kill him, and usually outtrades him, but the scaling is the big thing.
Nobody scales as hard as a farmed Poppy (well, Vayne does) - and the is nothing Nasus can do to prevent this without jungler intervention. Poppy Q > Nasus Q during almost the entire game, and she will outtrade him - making his sustain less of a factor.
A few other factors that swings the matchup in Poppys favor: Poppy is more tanky early game, and a lot of this is free armor. Wither is not very effective for outtrading Poppy, due to her AA reset burst and gapcloser. Poppy has an easy time with defense building only armor, while Nasus needs mixed health, armor and MR.
Poppy gets beaten by nasus, she's a burst champion and nasus has enough small tick damage (R+E+Rempowered autos) to finish her off. She has no sustain and no harass to speak up and her only good trading is Q. She relies a lot on autos and movement speed enhance when nasus W wrecks both. She also has no way to escape a gank at all against because of nasus W.
I've played both sides and its not fun for poppy.
Nasus shouldn't build HP against poppy, since she has %hp damage and his R is enough to survive a burst, I think glacial-->frozen fist is the best route because it forces poppy to all in and nasus can easily get away with his W and then force poppy out of lane after he sustains back to full and pops R.
I can see your reasoning but it turns out the subtleties of lane don't suit poppy in this match up. (Having no good way of chasing or harassing vs a CC champ, being forced to all in but having no way to force the all in)
Poppy's lategame is based off her ability to assassinate an ADC with R, if he's successful without losing much HP then poppy turns this into a 5v4 or 5v4.5 if you think nasus is that strong, but he is easily focused down if you lose a squishy so fast.
It all depends on how well you can block poppy from killing someone early and if you can then poppy is pretty killable. I think poppys weak laning phase means she is underexperimented with though, but I wouldn't pick her against nasus, if you're going to lose might as well lose to someone who doesn't scale so well.
Ok, that's not as bad then. I would think the diff between resist quints and ad quints (while going ad marks) is minimal. More preference in playstyle, really. AD quints are still more gold efficient than MR/Armor though. Double actually.
Taking long sword as reference, ad quints are worth 270 gold. Taking cloth armor as reference, armor quints are worth 255,6 gold. Taking NMM as reference, MR quints are worth 240g. What does that "double actually" mean?
On November 14 2013 19:42 krndandaman wrote: Idk what pros you are referring to (wtf ad glyph). My first reference for runes are the korean pros as they are known to be pretty knowledgeable about their rune choices and set the standard for runes. I use NA/EU pros on probuilder as a double check.
I can't remember which pros used to recommend using one ad glyph, but I've seen it in a few guides. It disappeared when people started using LS quints. I still remember score advocating using one crit chance mark (in one of the riot Korea videos), when while it has almost no impact, it's not as effcient in the long run as using only ad marks.
On November 14 2013 19:42 krndandaman wrote:
What do you mean? If +20 armor only decreases phys damage taken by 5% that's ~4 damage off an auto attack of someone with 80 ad. Is that worth being unable to 1 aa lasthit under tower? Probably not. That was the point I was trying to make.
Going from 0% reduction to 1% reduction has almost no impact, you're still more or less taking full damage. Going from 98% to 99% reduction doubles your EHP (you cut eh damage taken by half) if they have no penetration. Each % doesn't have the same impact, and each extra % require extra resist to be achieved.
Thank you for the help. The new build y'all have taught me is going great, and laning phase is becoming a laughing matter past level 4 and first buy. I managed to hit 600 Q stacks by the 35 minute mark in a recent game because of the laning strength(hit 120 cs when the enemy Riven had 50). Most of my games have been going along these lines recently.
Ok, that's not as bad then. I would think the diff between resist quints and ad quints (while going ad marks) is minimal. More preference in playstyle, really. AD quints are still more gold efficient than MR/Armor though. Double actually.
Taking long sword as reference, ad quints are worth 270 gold. Taking cloth armor as reference, armor quints are worth 255,6 gold. Taking NMM as reference, MR quints are worth 240g. What does that "double actually" mean?
On November 14 2013 19:42 krndandaman wrote: Idk what pros you are referring to (wtf ad glyph). My first reference for runes are the korean pros as they are known to be pretty knowledgeable about their rune choices and set the standard for runes. I use NA/EU pros on probuilder as a double check.
I can't remember which pros used to recommend using one ad glyph, but I've seen it in a few guides. It disappeared when people started using LS quints. I still remember score advocating using one crit chance mark (in one of the riot Korea videos), when while it has almost no impact, it's not as effcient in the long run as using only ad marks.
On November 14 2013 19:42 krndandaman wrote:
What do you mean? If +20 armor only decreases phys damage taken by 5% that's ~4 damage off an auto attack of someone with 80 ad. Is that worth being unable to 1 aa lasthit under tower? Probably not. That was the point I was trying to make.
Going from 0% reduction to 1% reduction has almost no impact, you're still more or less taking full damage. Going from 98% to 99% reduction doubles your EHP (you cut eh damage taken by half) if they have no penetration. Each % doesn't have the same impact, and each extra % require extra resist to be achieved.
Woops, you're right. Not double, forgot to take out marks. 305.2 and 255.6 are the values. Still around 20% more value.
That's pretty bad lol, I thought it was known that rune values don't round up. As for the one crit chance mark, I personally don't use it but I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. It's not as consistent as ad and it definitely has a lesser expected value, but it has decent rewards if you get that lucky 1% crit off in lane. I remember him mentioning a single lucky crit can turn a lane into your favor.
I thought it was the opposite, don't resists get worse the more you have (as in needing more resists to increase damage reduction % at higher percentages)? That was more of what I was getting at.
Do you take TP on nasus though? Why wouldn't you get the ability to 1 aa lasthit minions and use the free back to get resists if you get bullied out of lane?
6.75/10*400 = 270, not 305.2
Yellowpete stole snoopeh's red buff at level 1 in a LCS game because he got a random crit on his last auto while helping
Resists become exactly as good the more you get them. The first 10 armour gives you 10% of your hp in raw damage needed to kill you and so does the last 10 armour you get. The %'s might seem misleading if you don't really understand how they work.
Resists get worse RELATIVE to health (meaning they can still be better if you have lots of hp) so the best choice is normally to balance health and resists. However in laning phase effectively you have a lot more health because of pots/regen/lifesteal that's why everyone runs resists in lane and not hp, and also nasus has a health boost in R and 20% passive lifesteal so even later on resists are slightly more favoured.
600 Q on 35 minutes is pretty good. Normally you lose opportunities to farm Q after lane but if you don't 600 is a great benchmark
Being able to 1 last hit AA mininons and back to resist is great, but the AD quints are giving you only a slight boost in AD so maybe 90%+ of those minions you would have lasthit anyway (more or less depending on how good you are at judging tower damage and minion hp - easiest way is to look at the numbers directly and quick mental calc) and then maybe the last 5% you wouldn't have last hit anyway or having resists would have let you soak the harass. I mean the figures are just pulled out at a guess but there is definitely incentive for both choices
On November 16 2013 08:37 JimmiC wrote: I think it's a crazy argument because both LS quints and MS quints are better on him. I suggest 2 of 1 1 of the other. OR armpen. Every diamond nasus I've seen, so ones that have written guides, and my own experience all tell me that it is better. Mainly because it impacts the entire game, And you can survive with dorans, and u don't need the ad to last hit once u just used to hit, just know when to double tap under tower. Or use Q which is the thing anyhow.
Nasus has 14/17/20% life steal as his passive. Adding ls with quints is far from as impactful as it is on an ADC especially since he is melee. I would advice you to use MS or ArPen quints. ArPen reds if you are good AD reds if you are bad.
Build wise I recommend aiming for resists and 40% CDR. Add last wisper and or one sheen based item if you like to do violent things ;-)
Ps. Don't tell anyone but his brother is also OP ^^
On November 16 2013 08:37 JimmiC wrote: I think it's a crazy argument because both LS quints and MS quints are better on him. I suggest 2 of 1 1 of the other. OR armpen. Every diamond nasus I've seen, so ones that have written guides, and my own experience all tell me that it is better. Mainly because it impacts the entire game, And you can survive with dorans, and u don't need the ad to last hit once u just used to hit, just know when to double tap under tower. Or use Q which is the thing anyhow.
LS quints aren't bad but I don't think you really want to rely on lifesteal later on and early game I think they're not the best because in a lane you get to lifesteal a lot you are already fine because of your passive and when you are being harassed a lot then they are useless because you're taking more damage than you gain hp from lifesteal trying to abuse it. Meanwhile resists make your passive lifesteal more effective, make your base hp more effective, and make all sources of regen more effective (hp/d shield/base/leveling hp)
MS quints are only 1.5% ms. It's a very small amount if you already have ghost and a huge movement slow so I can't see it making a big difference compared to having a stronger laning phase.
For example if you have 2 lifesteal quints, thats 4% lifesteal. So ~4 hp a hit if you count Q lifestealing more and autos less. with a passive 20% 10 more aromur from quints (think they only give 8 and lifesteal is 14-17% early but w/e) is giving you 10% more raw damage needed to kill you so its effectively additional 2% bonus lifesteal. If you count the fact that the armour is better everywhere else it makes sense that lifesteal probably isn't worth getting. If you're an ADC and you're constantly autoing creeps its different, but for someone who gets to last hit only and if he's freehitting he already has won the lane whats the point of getting more lifesteal?
You say my argument is crazy but you give no back up at all for why LS MS quints are good other than random claims you make. Like "MS is good all game" so is AD. So is resists. How good? My argument is that diminishng returns on MS when you're ghosting means MS is meh then and since your slow is so debilitating you can close gaps when thats up too, so the range of periods where you can't catch someone is when W and ghost are both on CD, (almost never cause W is nearly constantly up at max CDR), or when you're CC'd in which case 1.5% ms is useless anyway. Feels like you are justifying LS/MS 2:1 combo very randomly because it aesthetically feels right to you rather than any solid reasoning. I don't think you'd even notice if you accidently changed to another runepage because the extra LS/MS is so small.
I don't like your argument that lifesteal is useless because if u freely lasthitting well you are winning the lane. well not always
In certain matchups you can push the lane. Like my last matchup against a ryze top, i had lifesteal quints, i push the lane from the start of the laning phase and even thought he was harassing me i constanly applied pressure because he had mana and after a certain time he was oom. Now if i didnt had applied pressure he could have freely go back when he wanted to get his tear and/or catalyst but he was being kept at his tower and the harass became less and less stronger with no mana. He recalled when we had 1500 gold. It was very bad for him. Coming back with lane instantly with teleport i had enough resistance to apply pressure again and again and won my lane
lifsteal quint is good against olaf also (warning :don't pick nasus vs olaf lol) cause of the true damage harass, against singed (push the lane + freefarming), against renek (play smart but u can push the lane), vs malphite/zac/elise ....
Everybody are acting scared as nasus. NO, if you know your matchup don't be at your tower all the time
well first you go for an opening with a ward (cloth 3 pot ward or Flask 2 pot ward) and then well its going to happen sometimes but ghost is a good escape tool when you have long distances to run. And yes when i say "pushing" it means hit the creep to try to push, vs renek normally u stay in the middle of the lane, vs singed you just don't care about him and do your own thing at the early lvl you can push him to tower then its a freefarm fest, vs elise u try to push early, go out of range with bushes, etc..
It depends also of the junglers, in the ryze game i was playing against amumu he tried to come i had my ward so he went mid, etc.. . Never went top again, well nobody went top anyway
And vs olaf its very hard cause he has true damage so you cant build resist vs him really, when you last hit he is going to stay at his minions and smack you down every time you go for a minions, it's painful and it hads up pretty quickly
renek rapes you early levesl no way you can push against him singed outpushes you easily at any level elise can destroy you pretty early
olaf is fine, just play defnesively, you have enough lifesteal and pots and regen to heal some of the harass. you just make sure he pushes, he can't E you under tower.
i see no reason to push if you can just play just as well by playing defensively with less risk and not needing to start something weird just to have a ward early
pushing against ryze might be a fringe example of it being successful but nobody plays ryze top anyway he is way too easy to gank
renek doesnt really rape like riven, darius, lee sin, aatrox he is fine And no lol singed doesnt outpush you at early level he can't afford to spend mana like that, he is going to fling you u gonna laugh and hit the creeps well elise is scary i give you that it's a skill based matchup
He can E you under tower and a good olaf will do that everytime, he will stay just at his ranged minions and if you try to last hit them BOOM to your face, prepare to drink potions all days then be dived. And obviously his ult completely counteract wither.
those openings are not weird, if u go doran shield + pot u are comitted to stay at your tower, if you get a ward you have more room to breath. the difference beetween cloth + 5 pot and cloth + 3 pot + 1 ward is not this high in term of sustain. It depends on the matchup
singed pushes a hell of a lot faster with level 1 q even if he only uses a few ticks of mana
olaf uses hp to use E too, I think you can fight him at tower with your W, and if he backs off then you win the trade but he cant engage because you're too close to tower
you want to 1v1 renek v nasus until lvl 7? or 1v1 push war singed v nasus? or olaf vs nasus also iguess
Olaf use hp but u cant really take advantage of that if you can't confront him. he is going to regenerate. With the rize of popularity he had on the korean scene this past like 2 days i hope he is not coming to NA.
well i test my limits
If u got a full wave u can trade damage if u Q him, if u have <2 minion you back off, you play it smart, i don't just stand at my tower.
It's mental also you know if you play agressive from the get go, he is going to be afraid of this nasus who is not the tower hugging type. And if you don't trade well you got the tower to fall back
and yeah against singed i go push war style, i'm really not afraid of him, he has no kill potential without the help of his jungler.
I sometimes blindpick nasus to test really hard against poor matchup. I don' t advertise doing that lol.
On November 17 2013 02:55 trollbone wrote: Olaf use hp but u cant really take advantage of that if you can't confront him. he is going to regenerate. With the rize of popularity he had on the korean scene this past like 2 days i hope he is not coming to NA.
well i test my limits
If u got a full wave u can trade damage if u Q him, if u have <2 minion you back off, you play it smart, i don't just stand at my tower.
It's mental also you know if you play agressive from the get go, he is going to be afraid of this nasus who is not the tower hugging type. And if you don't trade well you got the tower to fall back
and yeah against singed i go push war style, i'm really not afraid of him, he has no kill potential without the help of his jungler.
I sometimes blindpick nasus to test really hard against poor matchup. I don' t advertise doing that lol.
"it's mental". Either you win a fight, or lose a fight. You shouldn't base your play on bad players assuming you know what its doing "vs olaf" I said you might need to trade at tower with W. "push war vs singed" lol wat? I thought you were on EU so i challenged for 1v1's. thought you were in france
I pick nasus into everything, haven't discovered any real hard matchups lately.
On November 16 2013 08:37 JimmiC wrote: I think it's a crazy argument because both LS quints and MS quints are better on him. I suggest 2 of 1 1 of the other. OR armpen. Every diamond nasus I've seen, so ones that have written guides, and my own experience all tell me that it is better. Mainly because it impacts the entire game, And you can survive with dorans, and u don't need the ad to last hit once u just used to hit, just know when to double tap under tower. Or use Q which is the thing anyhow.
LS quints aren't bad but I don't think you really want to rely on lifesteal later on and early game I think they're not the best because in a lane you get to lifesteal a lot you are already fine because of your passive and when you are being harassed a lot then they are useless because you're taking more damage than you gain hp from lifesteal trying to abuse it. Meanwhile resists make your passive lifesteal more effective, make your base hp more effective, and make all sources of regen more effective (hp/d shield/base/leveling hp)
MS quints are only 1.5% ms. It's a very small amount if you already have ghost and a huge movement slow so I can't see it making a big difference compared to having a stronger laning phase.
For example if you have 2 lifesteal quints, thats 4% lifesteal. So ~4 hp a hit if you count Q lifestealing more and autos less. with a passive 20% 10 more aromur from quints (think they only give 8 and lifesteal is 14-17% early but w/e) is giving you 10% more raw damage needed to kill you so its effectively additional 2% bonus lifesteal. If you count the fact that the armour is better everywhere else it makes sense that lifesteal probably isn't worth getting. If you're an ADC and you're constantly autoing creeps its different, but for someone who gets to last hit only and if he's freehitting he already has won the lane whats the point of getting more lifesteal?
You say my argument is crazy but you give no back up at all for why LS MS quints are good other than random claims you make. Like "MS is good all game" so is AD. So is resists. How good? My argument is that diminishing returns on MS when you're ghosting means MS is meh then and since your slow is so debilitating you can close gaps when thats up too, so the range of periods where you can't catch someone is when W and ghost are both on CD, (almost never cause W is nearly constantly up at max CDR), or when you're CC'd in which case 1.5% ms is useless anyway. Feels like you are justifying LS/MS 2:1 combo very randomly because it aesthetically feels right to you rather than any solid reasoning. I don't think you'd even notice if you accidentally changed to another runepage because the extra LS/MS is so small.
I think you really underestimate MS quints, they turn your tabis into boots of swiftness. Thats pretty impactful. especially compared to a couple armor. And your ghost arguement only applies for the 5% of the game u are using ghost. How about all the times its on CD or you are not using it.
I mean you can use whatever you want. But if you look at diamond players they use LS and MS and some times armor pen. And when I play and try the different options 2 MS and 1 LS work best for me. I think it's crazy to simply say they are not good. And my point about all game is MS is 4.5% all game. AD is like 10% early and 2% late and Resist the same. I have never argued for AD.
as for the pushing discussion. I never push I just farm Q and wait for ganks, if he is pushed he is wide open and wither (exhaust if u Krazy like me) is a amazing gank assister. Not to mention most people play hyper aggressive against nasus cause they know they have to punish him early or die to him late.
You aren't taking both MS and LS quints. Obviously 6 quints is better than 3. MS Doesn't "turn swiftness into Tabi". Swiftness is a flat boost affected by any other % multipliers and ms is a % boost. You also buy swiftness to reduce slow duration. It's true 4.5 % ms is about +15 ms though You need MS in fights, in teamfights you have ghost for a good period of the time, when you aren't fighting you dont need the ms at all, thats why I mention ghost uptime. 1 LS quint is such an unnoticeable difference. Why would you bother with just 1? Might as well get 3 MS quints.
I am in france but i play on NA, i started just right when season 1 started and have all my friends there, my ping isnt so bad and it's clearly a better server. "trollbone" on NA
Come on slayer vlad is a very good counter to nasus if left unchecked. U think a tower is going to protect you ? he doesnt care about one tower shot with lifesteal.
Well first you have to play semi agressive at early levels, his cooldown are high so push the lane and lifesteal before his first back. After his first back you just have to try to survive, expect your tower to be dead.
sometimes when u back and u teleport asap u can go ham on him. when u start going for him just dont stop
Yes it's mental, how many nasus try to push agressively right of the start ? 0. Nobody expect it and sometimes they dont react accordingly, they assume a jungler is near or that its a bait.
On November 17 2013 06:24 trollbone wrote: I am in france but i play on NA, i started just right when season 1 started and have all my friends there, my ping isnt so bad and it's clearly a better server. "trollbone" on NA
Come on slayer vlad is a very good counter to nasus if left unchecked. U think a tower is going to protect you ? he doesnt care about one tower shot with lifesteal.
Well first you have to play semi agressive at early levels, his cooldown are high so push the lane and lifesteal before his first back. After his first back you just have to try to survive, expect your tower to be dead.
sometimes when u back and u teleport asap u can go ham on him. when u start going for him just dont stop
Yes it's mental, how many nasus try to push agressively right of the start ? 0. Nobody expect it and sometimes they dont react accordingly, they assume a jungler is near or that its a bait.
` 1: I base my opinions about vlad based on my personal experiences which is that the better i got the less of a problem he was. His lifesteal isn't that high and your W is really strong if he gets overagressive.
2: Mental is a stupid word, if nasus pushes aggressively and I am stronger I just kill him, I don't see your point. Not reacting accordingly and assuming a jungler is baiting is just bad play (jungler won't come until 3 mins, nasus you have to push at level 1 because if they hit lvl 2 first you have to play safe again)
Nidalee listed as a counter lolwat kennen doesnt really counter either, not sure about darius. vlad and darius are the better listing although they are both extrmeely easy to gank meaning it shifts the game much more to the junglers and I think nasus is OK against them slow reduction +15 ms vs armour and auto reduction usually favours tabi for nasus i think but not always
I rarely buy the enchant on nasus until lategame so i defintely wouldn't get MS if I don't want that then again it might be worth getting it, but it depends on the CC, diminishing returns usually means if you can't reach with your normal speed you are probably getting slowed or cc in which case the ms sucks anyway
The problem with "mix/matching" your quints is that LoL isn't like pizza. You can't just throw whatever in because it tastes good. There has to be a reason.
If you justify 1st slot quint as lifesteal, what changes to make 2nd or 3rd slot not worth it? If you justify taking 1 slot ms, why not 2 or 3? Do you need exactly 2 lifesteal quints to survive lane? But for surviving lane resist quints are probably better so why take them at all? Why not 1 ms quint and 2 armour quints? If there isn't a mathematical breaking point somewhere you are just guessing what you're doing, and there's no concrete way to tell because factors like how well you've eaten that day will affect the lane phase more than the difference between having 1 more LS quints or 1 more MS quint because its so small.
-->Individual rune types have different cost efficiency. Glyphs are the best for mr, seals for armour, marks/quints for ad, quints provide anything weird. That's why you run all the same on glyphs but totally different for other rune types. -->The reason to pick all the same quints is because is something is good you want as much of it as possible until something else gets better. You get the best stat until its not the best. That's the reason for stacking the same quints.
You've yet to give me any real argument as to why you think lifesteal quints are superior. You can appeal to authority all you want but don't try to play it off as anything other than blind trust. The pros do things for a good reason. The good reason is that lifesteal quints are good. But it might not be the right reason. Maybe AD quints are better, maybe resist quints are better. The difference is unlikely to be game changing but I guarantee none of the players you listed have given nasus as much thought as you have and then just run whatever they think seems right when they play him 1 in every 100 games.
On November 17 2013 10:31 JimmiC wrote: You just think you are right cause you think you are right no amount of proof is going to prove it. Your argument about the quints is a perfect example. It makes no sense, Some times there is more then one thing that is great, thats why you mix it. OR you only need a certain amount to accomplish something and not more. AND with that one it's easy to see your wrong because it;s not champ dependent and pros have thought a ton into the pros they play a lot and they often run multiple kinds of quints.
This is an unreasonable accusation. I've given lots of reasoning for why I think resist quints are probably best. If I were basing it off what I "feel" is the strongest, I would certainly get MS/LS as well. (all ms or all ls) You arguments have been simply a mix of indignation confusion and pointing out that having X stat is useful for X reason. You never compared the alternatives at all your argument for mixing MS and LS quints smacks more of a the "WHY NOT BOTH" meme as opposed to science.
On November 17 2013 10:31 JimmiC wrote: Now he's why lifesteal is good on nasus.
AS per voyboy "Quintessences: Lifesteal. With Lifesteal quints, you'll be allowed to sustain in lane. During the lategame, lifesteal quints will aid you in 1v1 duels since other champions will not be able to sustain as well as you do."
He also feels "Quintessences: Most other quintessences will fit fine here and most of the time it comes down to team composition and preferences. Movement Speed quintessences are great for Nasus since kiting is his biggest weakness. AD quints also work well with last-hitting for stacking Siphoning Strike. "
I agree, but since he ahas more authority I'll defer to his words.
This is an explanation for why lifesteal quints are good, not why they're better than all the alternatives. He also states he thinks other quints fit fine. His argument for MS quints I think is faulty just because of the nature of kiting champs usually using slows and slows raping MS bonuses.
On November 17 2013 10:31 JimmiC wrote: Heres what freaky4life says, he's a diamond 1 Nasus main.
3x lifesteal:
Good choice, if you like building either Iceborn Gauntlet or Philostone into Shurelyas this is the ideal choice. Take these if you go for the defensive tree.
But he likes 1 cdr 2 LS or 2 LS 1CDR better heres why
2x CDR 1x Lifesteal
This is my favourite set up, here are my reasons:
1. You get 3% CDR in offense tree, 6% in utility tree, 7,47% from glpyhs addint up to 16,47%, having 2 CDR quints give you 19,81% which is where you wanna be to get 40% CDR easily 2. Lifesteal is the best rune for Toplane Nasus in every other build, any other purpose, since I don't 3 CDR quints I take lifesteal to better my sustain 3. Getting more early CDR allows you to stack your q more, sustain more and CS easier
You want to use this versus everything but heavy AD teams who rely on abilites to deal the majority of their damage.
1x CDR 2 X Lifesteal
If you play versus a full ad team you have to adapt your Runes, Mastery and your item build since you won't build Spirit Visage.
Man so many that disagree with you, but I'm sure they are bad, I mean they mix quints so they must be those pros and such who don't understand the game like you.
The reason he's mixing quints here is not because of the pizza effect which im arguing; he has specific points at which the quints become devalued. Once he reaches his planned CDR level with his build, he doesn't need any more CDR because its hard capped at 40%. He just replaces any spare slots with lifesteal because there are what are he sees as standard.
On November 17 2013 10:31 JimmiC wrote: Heres Hyfe, He's also diamond 1 lets here what he has to say, surely he will say resists.
Lifesteal quints on Nasus contribute to the insane lane sustain that people often rage about. The scaling damage on your Q winds up making these stronger than hp5 quints generally by lvl 4 or so. With a 14/17/20% lifesteal passive, these quints allow you to start with 20% lifesteal scaling to 26% endgame. Auto attack minions to regen whenever possible (while keeping the wave position under control) and be sure to utilize the auto-attack reset on Q to double-tap Q farm minions to get the full benefit of these and your passive.
Note that there is a lot of leeway when it comes to Nasus quints, as there are a handful of viable options. You'll notice for my other rune sets I only list 1 or 2 alternatives. For quints, there are half a dozen good options. It really comes down to personal preference and choosing a balance between taking something to strengthen your early game and something that will remain useful later. I've run every option I will list below at some point (and some others), and each of them has their merits. Do what works for you.
Alternatives:
Movespeed – Perhaps more beneficial in the long run but not as strong in the lane HP/5 – Safest and strongest lane sustain for the very early levels Flat AD – Same idea as the AD reds, makes it much easier to last hit under tower in lane Flat armor – Mix in vs scary AD lanes Flat MR – Mix in vs scary caster lanes
Eureeka! we found one guy who says it's fine to MIX IN a armor or MR quint against certain lanes. But should we trust him? He says to mix in and apparently thats bad.
Mixing in is most likely bad. (bad as in suboptimal, we're talking 1-2% less efficient) Technically when it comes to mulitplicatively scaling things the most effective is a balance. However that doesn't mean balance in runes and nowhere else. Since you have such high passive lifesteal, and free health and tend to buy lots of pots, all of those factors contribute to resists being better, to keep the optimal level you'd expect resists to be optimal. In any case, there's no point going over all potential advantages of resists quints like 4 times a page.
On November 17 2013 10:31 JimmiC wrote: Heres why I like Life steal quints and usually do 2 with 1 ms. however I may just run 3, we will see. Because Life steal helps you sustain, HUGE, yes you have it, it works great with you and thats why more is better. Its awesome to Bait people in and then lifestreal your self alive. Its great to barely survive then heal back up before the jungler can come and finish you off, letting stay in lane and further farm Q and gain xp. Its also great for when you can actually fight with people cause you can just Q them any time they get close and then back off and farm you self full again while they are getting Chunked. Not only is it effective but it's a super fun way to play.
Look, I get you are a special kind of arrogant or stubborn, hence the "these guys don't nasus like I do" attitude, but the pros eat drink and sleep this game, they got a pretty good handle on it. So I really don't expect you to change your mind. But to the other readers. Try out the LS quints. Its fun, works great in lane to sustain, works great in 1v1's and it works great even when running cause u can just Q people once and heal up as u run, or a minion you happen to run by.
I mean you can run all armor or MR quints 2 and think your smarter then everyone else. Or you can try what has worked more me and basically every Top player who plays Nasus. Up to you.
Lifesteal helps you sustain. You have lifesteal. You are getting more lifesteal from runes. Why not buy vamp sceptre every game. When do you decide to stop? Sure lifesteal is good, but most likely resists are even better. Every post you mentioned bar one didn't even consider resist quints. Have you ever thought it's because people probably don't even know they exist because almost no other champion would want to use them over AD/AP? There's a difference between not mentioning something because it's terrible and because you haven't even thought about it.
Oh, and the utility tree+cdr glyphs+cdr quints to get like 20% cdr at level 1 is something I was mulling over for a while. I decided it probably wasn't worth all the sacrifices at least unless you know you're having an easy lane. But you get so many benefits from being tanky that help you all game anyway, enough that getting 100 more in Q or something mightn't be that much better and your early game is a lot weaker if you dedicate half your rune slots and all your mastery points into getting cdr.
You decide to stop buying armour when you decide that it's no longer your best defensive option or you have decided that getting more defensive items would be less effective than other options. Often you do get 3-4 armour items (frozen heart randuins IBG combo is low on hp but good if you have a warmogs on top vs heavy AD comps since it provides double attack speed slows and the IBG slow is great when there are multiple AD threats all of which you can't use W on) Similarly you stop getting lifesteal when you decide it won't help you as much as buying anything else that you consider to be better.
I'm not discounting what you say, it's just you havent sent anything that has any merit in argument terms. You say they're good but everyone knows lifesteal is good. It is better than the alternatives is the important question.
I'm not going to say, "I prefer X but you guys go and do whatever follows your dreams murica #salutethestarsnstripes". I'm going to say what I think and if anyone has a good argument to convince me otherwise I'll then say that's the best option. The goal is to give the best advice possible, not some politically correct bullshit where you can use whatever you feel like because some people disagree with me.
As I said, if you are mixing quints you need a proper reason. When 2 is good why is 3 not better? In CDRs case, if you're hitting the hard cap at 2, then the 3rd is wildly cost inefficent once you finish your cdr item, so then thats why the 3rd is not better. That's a solid reason and you don't seem to understand the difference between that and your case.
On November 17 2013 10:31 JimmiC wrote: "I put this because you stated no one had thought about nasus as much as you"
What? I never said this at all. I can say with absolute certainty that lots of other people have thought about nasus more. I think I said that it was most likely you thought about nasus more than the pros you cited who probably play nasus in <1% of their games and decide on runes of masteries while talking with their fans in stream chat and avoiding porn links.
edit 2; nvm i couldn't see the doublepost for some reason wat
On November 17 2013 11:54 JimmiC wrote: If I removed any of my post it was an accident. And I have given reasons why life steal is better. As have Pro's. But you argue no because you have some already, I point out he has armor already. You argue thats good, so really it doesn't matter what I say.
You have only given reasons why lifesteal is good, not better. A+ for the essay but it doesn't prove anything. The pros havent either, they all completely ignored alternatives and I doubt they ever thought of using resist quints.
On November 17 2013 11:54 JimmiC wrote: Lets say you know 10 really smart people and the 7th smartest says one thing. The other 9 say something different. No matter how much the 7th says or how loud I'm going with other 9. Especially after I have tried what the 7th said and found it doesn't work as well.
wat
On November 17 2013 11:54 JimmiC wrote: As for you pizza theory its also crazy A if one thing is better you just want more of that one thing, then that should work for pizza too. what ever is your one favorite topping you should just have. If you like pepperoni, forget the cheese even just add more pepperoni it will be better. But in LOL the argument is just as silly its why you buy different stats, through different items always. If your's was right every one would buy just one stat. Like only AD or only Health. AND if it's so bad to do, why do so many pro's do it. Oh yeah, you are smarter then all of them.
For I think the third time you fail to correctly interpret the situation. The optimal is usually some form of a balance. There's an equilibrium. However, once you're away from equilibrium, which almost everyone is most of the time, you want to strive to reach it. In laning phase everything is really heavily weighted toward resistance stats as well as AD because of the long time spent in lane the effective amount of health you have is effected by regen and potions and leveling up giving you more hp everytime. (and AD because of last hitting+the large % increase dps increase of getting more ad and how often you auto in lane compared to casting spells. Later on theres a lot more spell casting for anyone except adcs)
When it comes to runes, they are usually a small nudge either way. If they are a small nudge you want to nudge toward getting your balance right. It's all about cost effectiveness. Resists might be optimal but getting AD on reds is more cost effective by far so it outweighs the fact that resists are better per point of gold. Lifesteal is a stat most tank's don't get. Some bruisers might get a bilgewater or a few dorans, but most won't go further. Nasus automatically has 14-20% lifesteal. This is a relatively high amount and it automatically improves the effect of resistance stat because it gives you health the longer you are in lane. Now if you had 200 armour lifesteal would become very strong in lane because you gain triple value from it, however you already have 20% lifesteal and you won't reach 200 armour any time early anyway. For example going from 1 to 3 LS quints on an average champ triples the amount you heal from lifesteal. Resists make it very slightly better. Going from 20% to 26% is a 30% increase in lifesteal which is 10x less than that tripling. Resists are already at a premium on nasus because of that original lifesteal+R hp+pots+regen and lifesteal is devalued on him compared to any other champ. Because you start at 50 armour is something which is pretty low, the optimal defense stat is most likely to be armour much more than lifesteal.
Similarly ADCs tend to get some lifesteal but they don't stack it. People who did stack BTs did it for the AD. If you have 50% lifesteal and 300 AD you are healing 150 per hitxamounts of hits per second. Increasing 20% lifesteal gives you 60 more hp per hit, but gaining 60 AD gives you 30 more hp per hit (so effectively 10%) as well as increasing your dps by a 60x1.crit%xcritdmgxattacks per second. So lifesteal didn't get worse, its just everything else got better. It's the same situation.
I don't want to turn this into a math tutorial but these concepts are integral to the game and explain a lot of game mechanics such as snowballing and late game scaling.
I agree. It kinda just makes his matchups hard counters one way or the other - either he can be burst down or he will sit in lane forever, either he can be zoned from creeps to avoid LSing back up or he will sit in lane forever.
On November 17 2013 12:41 JimmiC wrote: Also Life steal is better because it provides sustain where armor doens't I didn't think I needed to be that simple. I don't get bursted down as nasus since I know the match ups, so when they do damage I sustain my health back up.
There is a point that Slayer91 made and you seem to miss it completly. Nasus already has life steal. Taking LS quints doesn't suddenly gives him LS, it just improves it by some amount. And the armor also improves it by some amount (because each HP you'll get back is worth more EHP). The % increase will be higher for LS quints, but improving LS is all the LS quints do. The armor will also affect the EHP you get from your base health, items, pots and your ult.
On November 17 2013 17:03 Sufficiency wrote: Ugh. I would say Nasus has a very easy time against Kennen, and very rough time against Vlad and Singed.
I wouldn't say kennen is very easy, or vlad is very rough, but kennen is easier than vlad but also safer for kennen, but I have no idea why you think you have a hard time against singed unless you prefer to play singed in mid/lategame. Singed might actually have a lot more trouble since his ult doesn't have and CC reduction so he has alot more trouble proxy farming.
On November 17 2013 12:41 JimmiC wrote: I'm gonna stick to the easiest thing you say is a fact that is wrong, and hope that others will see that perhaps other "facts" you say are also not Facts.
People who use mixed quints that I quickly looked up. Cpt Jack, Dyrus, Imp, Locodoco, Greentea, Madlife, Maknoon (who uses life steal on nasus btw) Raven, Voyboy, Xpeke, and so on and so on.
But I'm sure you are right all the same quints are better.
You haven't mentioned anything about facts you just namedropped some players and didn't even mention what quints they are mixing so I could either give reasoning why mixing them is a good idea or why I think their rune choices are sub optimal at least. At least that way you could have more pro back up that way.
On November 17 2013 12:41 JimmiC wrote: Also Life steal is better because it provides sustain where armor doens't I didn't think I needed to be that simple. I don't get bursted down as nasus since I know the match ups, so when they do damage I sustain my health back up.
Armour provides sustain indirectly. How can you not see this? It gives you effective HP from your current lifesteal, your current hp, your ult health boost, how much you heal from pots, how much you heal from level ups, and how much you heal from levels.
Isn't nasus still "do whatever you need to survive early/midgame" in choosing items/runes/masteries? Hence why you look who you think you'll go against, get the appropriate armor/mr runes, defensive masteries. Though I've been told that new shield is really cost efficient but what about going for some regen/pot/wards? I usually prefer the safety provided by the ward.
The idea is you don't push anyway so you don't need the ward so much, but if you want to do early for whatever reason (helping jungler invade for example) I did say in the guide I think to start with a ward+pots+something
On November 17 2013 17:03 Sufficiency wrote: Ugh. I would say Nasus has a very easy time against Kennen, and very rough time against Vlad and Singed.
I wouldn't say kennen is very easy, or vlad is very rough, but kennen is easier than vlad but also safer for kennen, but I have no idea why you think you have a hard time against singed unless you prefer to play singed in mid/lategame. Singed might actually have a lot more trouble since his ult doesn't have and CC reduction so he has alot more trouble proxy farming.
On November 17 2013 12:41 JimmiC wrote: I'm gonna stick to the easiest thing you say is a fact that is wrong, and hope that others will see that perhaps other "facts" you say are also not Facts.
People who use mixed quints that I quickly looked up. Cpt Jack, Dyrus, Imp, Locodoco, Greentea, Madlife, Maknoon (who uses life steal on nasus btw) Raven, Voyboy, Xpeke, and so on and so on.
But I'm sure you are right all the same quints are better.
You haven't mentioned anything about facts you just namedropped some players and didn't even mention what quints they are mixing so I could either give reasoning why mixing them is a good idea or why I think their rune choices are sub optimal at least. At least that way you could have more pro back up that way.
On November 17 2013 12:41 JimmiC wrote: Also Life steal is better because it provides sustain where armor doens't I didn't think I needed to be that simple. I don't get bursted down as nasus since I know the match ups, so when they do damage I sustain my health back up.
Armour provides sustain indirectly. How can you not see this? It gives you effective HP from your current lifesteal, your current hp, your ult health boost, how much you heal from pots, how much you heal from level ups, and how much you heal from levels.
I named dropped because basically every TOP ADC and Support I looked at uses a mix of quints. whether its 2 LS and 1 AD on ADC or various other ones. All of which you say is bad. Not to mention anything I say you just ignore. I thought you might not Ignore Maknoon, Dyrus, Voyboy, Balls, and so on. I was wrong, they all are too dumb and inexperienced to think about putting armor on a weak early game top laner. Also, they took the time to make a top lane basically nasus specific rune page, Hence the Lifesteal, do you really think that they considered nothing else?
probably ad armpen and hp regen were considered. dont hink ive seen anyone use resist quints except wickd.
On November 17 2013 12:41 JimmiC wrote: Its pointless to argue with you because you won't listen to anything. If you still think mixing quints is bad when TONS and TONS of pros, even the best of the best do it I'm not sure what will possibly convince you.
Sure armor gives you indirect sustain, so does health quints by your logic, sort of in the sense that you take less damage. How about GP gives you indirect armor cause you can buy more later... whatever lets make a bunch of silly indirect connections while were at it. But more life steal helps you heal more because it actually brings back health, DIRECTLY.
To all those that you don't need LS because you have it. You have armor already too. And basically every item you buy is going to add to it. So over time that tiny amount of armor or mr is going to mean even less as the game goes on. (not as good scaling as LS)
You completely ignored my points here. Mixing quints is not good without a good reason. (not sure about the 2 LS 1 AD, I think its standard for some reason, might be some cutoff point for LS. With 0% ls 4% more is a big difference, so its possible. If you already have 14-20% ls it makes it much less likely though. If you can give me some examples of pros who used pages with mixed quints in some game and I don't agree with them then you have a pretty big selling point in saying that I'm wrong but you just seem to misunderstand what I was trying to say.
Health quints give you indirect sustain. The sustain is equal 80~hpxyour armour reduction so about ~160ish. 12 armour gives you 12% of the total hp you get which is a function of your base hp, ult hp, regen, pots, and lifesteal. If you have ~1.5k hp with ult, that's 180 health. If you use 5 potions to heal 750, and regen 250, that's another 120 health. If you are getting 6 auto hits for 70 each and 2 q's for 200 each lets say, (kinda low actually even for early game but w/e) thats about 1k per wave, at 17% lifesteal you're getting 170 extra hp per wave, if you stay in lane for 5 minutes (TP cd), thats 10 waves so 1700 extra hp per wave, the 12 armour gives bonus 204 hp. However in this case, lifesteal at 6% is giving 600 hp over 5 minutes. So they are pretty even here, if you are last hitting every creep and 2auto+q combos. Armour is slightly better in above scenario because it helps in 1v1, or anytime you want to go back earlier than the tp cooldown armour is better. Of course, later in lane lifesteal gets better, but in teamfights they are probably closer to even at best (depending on how hard you get kited, lifesteal quints become either nearly useless or better depending on if you're trying to kill squishies in 3 q's or beating down bruisers all day). I guess maybe in a situation where you let yourself get harassed constantly but still are last hitting every creep but the harass is mostly a problem later (maybe vlad is the best example actually), lifesteal is better than flat magic resist. I find though if you're getting harassed super hard to the point its a problem it means you can't last hit all the ranged creeps so you're only autoing about half as much and all-ining is something you want to do more and resists are a bit better for that.
On November 17 2013 12:41 JimmiC wrote: If I bring up why I don't use them, or pros or other high diamonds don't use them you always say "they never thought of them" talk about arrogance, yeah no one though of taking extra armor or mr top lane as a weak early game character. Heres again why LS are better.
• Greater Quintessence of Armor(4.26 Armor): These can be taken against hard AD lanes such as Riven and Darius. They don't scale as good as life-steal but can be used to keep from getting blown up early pre-6.
And as I mentioned personally I have no problems not getting blown up and would rather scale better into the mid and late game.
Also, this post is really for everyone but Slayer, who thinks he knows more then everyone including the top pros. But others should give LS quints a try. They are effective, and super fun to play with, I almost always start dorans shield and run 9/21 to compensate for early weakness. And learn the matchups and when you need to stay back. Armor quints/MR are not awful, they are just not optimal, and they just are as fun to use.
I contest the point that lifesteal is better later. Unless you are vs a heavy bruiser comp most people in range are going to die quickly or kill you first, rarely do you get into a prolonged fight where lifesteal makes the difference.
For example, against a 2k target, you need to do about 3k base damage to kill him, but probably 500 of that will be from ult and E so let's say 2.5k. Lifesteal heals you for 150. If you have 3k hp yourself armour increases your EHP by 360. So armour here is actually more than twice as good. Even if the target has LW it's better. You also must consider the fact that when you play nasus you're not the biggest dps'er on your team so you can't always expect to be killing targets from full to zero. You might assist the kill with W+Q+2 autos and then you're only lifestealing for like 50 more bonus hp while armour is still just as good because you still can't be ignored and you're that much harder to kill.
Also you need to stop acting like I'm being arrogant and unreasonable when you don't provide anything but words insults and namedropping to support your argument. Following the pros is usually a good idea but it doesn't give you personally any authority at all on your argument at all. (It does highly increase the chance that the guy doing something different is wrong however)
If you can 2-3 shot ADCs, but you don't ever die quickly. Something is wrong. Anyone dies quickly against focused fire of their DPS. Often you stay back quite a bit and have a more zoning role then diving because of this (they can't go in either because you're still a threat) but if you're zoning you're not going to get that much lifesteal (just off tanks, which means you lifesteal way less)
I did mention the 1 guy who said resist quints were useable in a hard lane. Most lanes are hard when you first pick nasus however and even if you don't I'd recommend being generally safer.
The reason I suggest they didnt consider quints is as I said above I've seen nobody use them ever except for wickd. It's similar to nobody using champions that turn out to be "op" and then get nerfed again. Nearly all the time the champions aren't good but you can't always tell because nobody plays them.
I give what you say little value because you say little of value, you don't provide any math at all or good reasonig you just seem to misunderstand the maths of the game completely as shown by your attempts of mocking my argument (with the health quint for example)
I have been theorizing lifesteal quints for the last page. It's hard to quantify which is why i quanitifed how many hits you do and how often you Q. Did you even read my posts lol?
The reason LS quints arent mentioned is because when I originally wrote the original guide they werent in the game, and when they were introduced, well nasus has passive lifesteal so who cares.
The health quints thing was a terrible example because again its not about whether something is a effective its about how effective it is and health quints were obviously and demonstrably terrible, while at least lifesteal quints vs armour quints is pretty close
I considered lifesteal after it came out, and I've provided tons of reasoning with maths on what I decided to not to put it in the guide. Nasus has armour to start with but armour is a stat you want and buy while lifesteal isnt.
Having lifesteal on the passive makes the lifesteal quints much less appealing.
If you auto-Q-auto you do 2x57 + (57+30) = which is 201 damage. With no lifesteal quints you get 28 HP back. With Lifesteal quints you get 40 HP off same damage.
Now say you have armor Quints instead. that gives you an additional 13 armor. That is 13% more eHP than not having those quints against physical damage. That means your 28 HP is now 32 HP. Sure, LS quints win in this small interaction, but thge thing is that when you consider the other 600 HP you have at level 1 and the typical 3-5 HP pots you have at level 1 it tilts quite dramatically in the favor of armor pretty hard. You need to auto-Q-auto 20 times before the LS quints break even with only 3 pots. With five pots it is almost 30 auto-Q-autos.
It is literally impossible to auto the 60-90 times it is required for LS to match Resists. The other thing is, after the 10 minute mark and you have 7-8 levels on you, the 90 HP you get every level is significantly more impactful than the +3 damage you get every level. 3 AD is another 0.18 HP per auto attack with LS quints compared to no LS quints. Yum. The armored nasus gets another 11.7 eHP every level. That makes a pretty big difference. At level 10 that is 117 HP. Thats huuge.
The other thing is that armor scales much much better. The more HP you have the considerably better that 13% eHP will be. They also scale much much better with your ultimate and the passive.
I'd say armor is better against anyone that does most of their damage through physical means. If they totally mixed like say Shyvana, then alright LS probably better, but against a Renekton, Riven, or Pantheon? GIve me Armor every day of the week.
Why is the modding around here so freaking Nazi? Anyhow, so I'll post this HERE since apparently it's illegal to post it everyfreakingwhere else...
I see a lot of builds recommend Iceborn on Nas, but, unless I play him vastly different than everyone else on the planet, it seems like he shouldn't really have high base damage (most of his damage comes from his absurd stacks on Q).
Now, if that's the case, and say by the time I get iceborn I might have 150 base AD and 500 stacks on Q, and I proc my Q, does it do 187 damage to enemies around, or does it do 812.5?
Basically, I don't THINK the stacks on Q play into the damage the iceborn is doing, correct? That would just be absurd. Same question for Trinity.
If that's the case, then why are people bothering with Sheen, Iceborn, or Trinity on Nas? Seems like it could be replaced with a better item, but maybe I'm just missing something (because I still get it anyhow).
He gets to spam it a lot, and Iceborn helps him stay toe to toe with whoever he is trying to kill. You may say his whither covers that, but he's susceptible to peel and whither runs out at some point. Trinity is just a fuck ton of bonus damage every 2 seconds(he has around 95 AD at max level, so he gets 300 AD total plus the AD from his Q). With a LW this is something like 600 damage post-soaks every 2 seconds or so.
EDIT: He actually has 116 AD at level 18. So he gets 348 AD total without his Q when he uses a skill. Then his Q comes in for another 400 or so damage. This is something like 778 AD pre-soak. So... a lot. And he's extremely tanky, and he has a good AD nerfer.
Yea, I suppose the iceborn helps with leech somewhat, but it would seem hydra would do that better wouldn't it? I dunno, just thinking, I'm still new to LOL, used to play Aeon on SC2
Iceborn AoE damage is nearly irrelevant. It helps you push faster put its harder to Q every creep in a wave for the same reason. The reason you get it is for the slight boost in q damage and the perma slow and good stats also. Hydra is terrible because as you said nearly all your damage is from Q so spending 3.3k in a pure damage item thats good scaling with other damage items is stupid.
IBG AoE is just 125% of your base damage not affected by what skill you use.
On November 18 2013 05:29 Slayer91 wrote: I have been theorizing lifesteal quints for the last page. It's hard to quantify which is why i quanitifed how many hits you do and how often you Q. Did you even read my posts lol?
The reason LS quints arent mentioned is because when I originally wrote the original guide they werent in the game, and when they were introduced, well nasus has passive lifesteal so who cares.
The health quints thing was a terrible example because again its not about whether something is a effective its about how effective it is and health quints were obviously and demonstrably terrible, while at least lifesteal quints vs armour quints is pretty close
Oh so while you were saying pro's never considered Armor, the real story is you never considered Lifesteal. And just so you know nasus has armor to start as well, so who cares, beauty logic my friend. Much like your pizza theory.
At any rate I believe LS are the best. I like to run 2 with 1 MS to give me a slightly better escape and chase, I also like the speed from triforce and more single target damage. I get froheart to compensate for the missing armor. I don't think resist quints are bad I just don't think they are as good and do not fit my play style. Many people tend to agree with me, So I think it's valuable for people reading this guide to see the alternative. that being said do whatever u're little heart desires
You're retarded JimmiC
Slayer is better at this game than most NA "pros" and I say that as a real-life friend of Dyrus
When I started playing him I went Trinity all of the time because of the great MS and huge Sheen damage. Over time I experimented and found that being able to pick up the Glacial Shroud early helped with Q stacks and laning a lot, vs. a TF component. Plus, while the damage is nice, the slowing and tankiness of IBG seems more attractive to me.
On December 07 2013 10:33 WarSame wrote: When I started playing him I went Trinity all of the time because of the great MS and huge Sheen damage. Over time I experimented and found that being able to pick up the Glacial Shroud early helped with Q stacks and laning a lot, vs. a TF component. Plus, while the damage is nice, the slowing and tankiness of IBG seems more attractive to me.
Generally I just get an early glacial shroud if against an AD in lane, then kindlegem/phage into triforce and upgrade the glacial shroud into frozen heart at some point. I just don't think that IBG is really worth it when getting it worsens the stats of frozen heart/triforce, both of which are almost always good items to have on Nasus. It also makes farming Q stacks harder.
In general you want to finish your items fully before moving on to the next one. Exceptions being something like HG.
In your build, at 15 minutes in or so, what do you have? Glacial Shroud, boots 1 and Phage. Really not much to go off of. Frozen Heart and Triforce are possible and not bad, don't get me wrong(and I often build FH/and some other tanky items), but Triforce in general seems to be too expensive, and too delayed for the stats that it gives to Nasus.
As with most things, it comes down to preference and situation I suppose. If you have an easy lane and can go straight for TF I say go for it. But if you are getting a Glacial Shroud often I find the TF comes too late to really make an impact, and by that point I'd rather be picking up the IBG for the CDR/Armor/Slow which seems nicer to me. But realistically I go for the FH first because that item is the bee's knees vs. an AD lane(SV is the counterpart for AP).
On December 07 2013 13:45 WarSame wrote: In general you want to finish your items fully before moving on to the next one. Exceptions being something like HG.
In your build, at 15 minutes in or so, what do you have? Glacial Shroud, boots 1 and Phage. Really not much to go off of. Frozen Heart and Triforce are possible and not bad, don't get me wrong(and I often build FH/and some other tanky items), but Triforce in general seems to be too expensive, and too delayed for the stats that it gives to Nasus.
As with most things, it comes down to preference and situation I suppose. If you have an easy lane and can go straight for TF I say go for it. But if you are getting a Glacial Shroud often I find the TF comes too late to really make an impact, and by that point I'd rather be picking up the IBG for the CDR/Armor/Slow which seems nicer to me. But realistically I go for the FH first because that item is the bee's knees vs. an AD lane(SV is the counterpart for AP).
IBG gives no extra CDR, 25 extra armour and costs 1900 more gold than glacial shroud. I don't really understand why you'd want to rush it anyways. It makes farming Q harder, makes itemizing harder afterwards and I don't see why you'd want to rush it unless you want to fight a bunch early.
Trinity costs 3.7k more and doesn't give you any slow at all you rush it because nobody can lane against you when you have IBG because you have too many slows
His R... it says it increases by 1% per 100 AP. Does that mean if you have 95 AP, it doesn't increase by 0.95%, it stays at 0% bonus? Basically, you need the full 100 AP to get any bonus at all?
You'll get 0.95%. The game might not show numbers but it doesn't actually round, from what I've read and heard.
and on the topic of trinity on Nasus, while trinity might be a good item on him, after playing a lot of Nasus games the past two months or so I honestly don't find any good reason to build it early. If if I get absurdly ahead for some godforsaken reason, I would rather just put the money into FH and SV anyway because his damage scales way more with CDR than anything trinity offers. And it happens that the CDR items you'll be buying on Nasus are also tank items, so it's just the most efficient way of using gold. At the point where I am unkillable and have the money to spend on an offensive item, I would rather get LW over trinity then anyway. I dunno, with Nasus at pretty much no point do I think "oh, I want trinity" because I would almost always rather have a different item. There's almost no games where I go past five items, but even hypothetically at a 6 item point I feel like I would be picking up another defensive item over trinity.
IBG is also really quite good if they enemy team isn't really that auto attack heavy and/or the enemy team is all AD so you won't be picking up SV. The IBG proc is really strong.
edit: also, how have you guys been speccing masteries for Nasus on preseason4? I've been going 0/30/0 quite a bit, sometimes 0/27/3.
Yeah my ideal 6 item build includes Trinity, but in normal games it's kinda hard to justify the 3.8K delay on my CDR items. Something like Frozen Heart/Spirit Visage/Trinity/Boots/Guardian Angel/Randuin's Omen. Especially cause you are really aiming for those stacks early on, and nothing else.
As for Masteries, I haven't played him with the new ones, but I think 4/26/0 looks good(CDR in offensive). I'm not sure if the Perseverance/Second Wind is good on him because SW seems awesome, but Perseverance doesn't help that much imo. The only time he'd be using it a lot is when he's ganked or bursted, at which point regen isn't that good. I'd like to hear from y'all about that.
I like Frozen fist a lot, the AoE is really big for melee, but it may be more of a jungler's item than for top lane - with Golem spirit you already have 10% CDR and a bit of good stats in other areas, and since you're Nasus, you want to do Dragon (or even Baron) quickly and often, which may or may not lead to earlier fights you really need to participate in.
On January 14 2014 22:56 Slayer91 wrote: dorans shield isn't that great against vlad anyway, you could have went like regen beads with lots of pots and had more regen and then get negatron or something. You could still build spirit visage. The extra regen is nice but basically everything you say is a massive exaggeration and nasus was fine against vlad and rumble before spectre's cowl and as long as he got jungler help around the area of lvls 5-9 he could win (you wouldn't have cowl around that time anyway)
People for the most part just played nasus more and realized how to play passive properly and not just let vlad keep stacks of his E up to full and spam spells on you
Spirit Visage gained a great deal more cost-slot efficiency along with the addition of Spectre's Cowl (including the major amounts of hp/5 on the item(s) ). The 2200g cost for +200hp and +45MR was significantly weaker than the current version (+400hp/+55MR) for 2625g (now 2750g), just because of its slot efficiency and baseline stats. Going SV was, while certainly possible and desired in the matchup, suboptimal given Nasus's greatly preferred the build path of FH (more mana and alot more Armor), while the components of SV were weaker (no sustain on the items as opposed to Cowl).
While Nasus survived the lane generally (shouldn't really die), Vlad could effectively deny Nasus and controlled the tempo of the lane pretty much the entirety of the lane phase (and force a weaker item build-path on him). Same with Rumble and Kennen. The play passive and not let Vlad spam his Q+E+AAs on CD requires that you basically self-zone yourself from the wave. Depending on the jungler during the mid/late lane phase wasn't reliable (warding was mandatory in all the matchups involving pushing Nasus to turret), and given Vlad's then usual summoners (double mobility into early distortion or ghost/ignite)+pool, was fairly difficult to gank if he saw the gank coming. Just as much possibility that Vlad's jungler comes top to dive to set Nasus back before he masses up stacks.
This isn't the case anymore. Dorans Shield prevents the early autoharass from Vlad (which at the very early levels is probably where most of his damage on melee champs top actually come from due to insane CDs early), and Cowl/buffed SV significantly blunts Vlad's late-lane phase power (same with Kennen, and Rumble [pre-Rumble nerfs]).
But perhaps you're right about people getting better at Nasus idk. At least no one criticizes your build when you go full CDR anymore. That was the #1 thing I heard throughout S2: why aren't you building triforce zomg why do you have FH/Shureylas repot.
Also: I still continue to facepalm everytime a Nasus gets a Trinity Force first item. Saw one that rushed it first when he was 0/4/1.
Spirit Visage gained a great deal more cost-slot efficiency along with the addition of Spectre's Cowl (including the major amounts of hp/5 on the item(s) ). The 2200g cost for +200hp and +45MR was significantly weaker than the current version (+400hp/+55MR) for 2625g (now 2750g), just because of its slot efficiency and baseline stats. Going SV was, while certainly possible and desired in the matchup, suboptimal given Nasus's greatly preferred the build path of FH (more mana and alot more Armor), while the components of SV were weaker (no sustain on the items as opposed to Cowl).
10 mr is 200 gold of value. 200 hp is about 500 gold of value, so technically its a 200 gold cost efficiency gain. HOWEVER hp is pretty much a meh stat in laning phase, that 200 hp is just slightly better than 1 hp potion in a long laning phase against harassment, and having spirit visage earlier let you regen that 200 hp from lifestealing so spirit visage didn't really get better. Spirit visage is in no way a sub optimal build path. You got frozen heart because you wanted CDR and armour vs ADs. vs MR especally vs an AP laner top (meaning probably caster mid so double AP), you wanted CDR and MR, so spirit visage was way more prefered because burst vs double APs is a bigger problem also.
The components were basically the same, its just no cowl but its cheaper. 15 HP/5 is nothing to scoff at but it doesn't change a matchup completely.
On January 16 2014 01:04 Lord Tolkien wrote: While Nasus survived the lane generally (shouldn't really die), Vlad could effectively deny Nasus and controlled the tempo of the lane pretty much the entirety of the lane phase (and force a weaker item build-path on him). Same with Rumble and Kennen. The play passive and not let Vlad spam his Q+E+AAs on CD requires that you basically self-zone yourself from the wave. Depending on the jungler during the mid/late lane phase wasn't reliable (warding was mandatory in all the matchups involving pushing Nasus to turret), and given Vlad's then usual summoners (double mobility into early distortion or ghost/ignite)+pool, was fairly difficult to gank if he saw the gank coming. Just as much possibility that Vlad's jungler comes top to dive to set Nasus back before he masses up stacks.
Everything you said here should technically apply now except nasus has 15 more hp5. Somehow that is the difference between getting crushed like you described and being unharassable? If you think that you are full of shit. I played a lot more nasus than probably everyone here and I had no problems vs rumble/kennen and everyone stopped playing vlad but I think I had about even rate of problems/ no problems but I was a lot worse at nasus in those days. Self zoning yourself from the wave is standard nasus play even now against vlad you need to self zone yourself while he AoEs the wave then farm it.
Also because wither works through vlad pool its very hard for him to escape, and if he does take ghost/flash, its very hard to actually get a kill off because his burst damage is nearly the same as his harass damage (ult+ignite, I think ignite does 20% more damage also)
On January 16 2014 01:04 Lord Tolkien wrote: This isn't the case anymore. Dorans Shield prevents the early autoharass from Vlad (which at the very early levels is probably where most of his damage on melee champs top actually come from due to insane CDs early), and Cowl/buffed SV significantly blunts Vlad's late-lane phase power (same with Kennen, and Rumble [pre-Rumble nerfs]).
Vlad doesn't do a whole lot of auto harass and getting hp regen+more pots would actually do more to health yourself than dorans shield, you just get dshield now because its good enough that you can get away with 1 pot and you dont want tobuy any dead end items (you used to be able to build regen beads into locket/bulwark)
I mean saying that -15% auto damage completely prevents auto harass is so sensationalist wtf. To make the difference of 1 hp potion you have to auto 20 times, after 3-5 autos max the lane pushes and you get to lifesteal and regen it back at tower anyway. Pushing too fast early is pretty risky anyway because then you can get lvl 3 ganked when nasus hits lvl 2 and the only escape hope is countergank
On January 16 2014 01:04 Lord Tolkien wrote: But perhaps you're right about people getting better at Nasus idk. At least no one criticizes your build when you go full CDR anymore. That was the #1 thing I heard throughout S2: why aren't you building triforce zomg why do you have FH/Shureylas repot.
Also: I still continue to facepalm everytime a Nasus gets a Trinity Force first item. Saw one that rushed it first when he was 0/4/1.
On January 16 2014 01:04 Lord Tolkien wrote: While Nasus survived the lane generally (shouldn't really die), Vlad could effectively deny Nasus and controlled the tempo of the lane pretty much the entirety of the lane phase (and force a weaker item build-path on him). Same with Rumble and Kennen. The play passive and not let Vlad spam his Q+E+AAs on CD requires that you basically self-zone yourself from the wave. Depending on the jungler during the mid/late lane phase wasn't reliable (warding was mandatory in all the matchups involving pushing Nasus to turret), and given Vlad's then usual summoners (double mobility into early distortion or ghost/ignite)+pool, was fairly difficult to gank if he saw the gank coming. Just as much possibility that Vlad's jungler comes top to dive to set Nasus back before he masses up stacks.
Everything you said here should technically apply now except nasus has 15 more hp5. Somehow that is the difference between getting crushed like you described and being unharassable? If you think that you are full of shit. I played a lot more nasus than probably everyone here and I had no problems vs rumble/kennen and everyone stopped playing vlad but I think I had about even rate of problems/ no problems but I was a lot worse at nasus in those days. Self zoning yourself from the wave is standard nasus play even now against vlad you need to self zone yourself while he AoEs the wave then farm it.
Also because wither works through vlad pool its very hard for him to escape, and if he does take ghost/flash, its very hard to actually get a kill off because his burst damage is nearly the same as his harass damage (ult+ignite, I think ignite does 20% more damage also)
Wither works, but it's still difficult given it needs to be burnt early to initiate on Vlad, he'll be at range, and he can pool when you're in melee range (and apply a small slow), which, rough experience guestimation, is about the length of the wither. You'll end up roughly in melee range, but with no followup CC, and he's got a clear escape because ghost, or to retaliate if there's no gank. Vlad will probably opt for Mercs if he doesn't have double mobility, and he feels the wither gets too oppressive.
Perhaps it's a combination of S4 mastery changes in addition to the itemization, but the current matchup on both sides certainly feels different from S2/early S3.
When dealing with attrition lanes (like Nasus vs Vlad and Kennen), there is a threshold between enough harass to whittle you down, or enough regen to let you shrug it off for a long period of time. I feel it just currently leans towards the latter at this point, and the changes from when I was referring to (S2) definitely favor Nasus in the matchup.
On January 16 2014 01:04 Lord Tolkien wrote: This isn't the case anymore. Dorans Shield prevents the early autoharass from Vlad (which at the very early levels is probably where most of his damage on melee champs top actually come from due to insane CDs early), and Cowl/buffed SV significantly blunts Vlad's late-lane phase power (same with Kennen, and Rumble [pre-Rumble nerfs]).
Vlad doesn't do a whole lot of auto harass and getting hp regen+more pots would actually do more to health yourself than dorans shield, you just get dshield now because its good enough that you can get away with 1 pot and you dont want tobuy any dead end items (you used to be able to build regen beads into locket/bulwark)
I mean saying that -15% auto damage completely prevents auto harass is so sensationalist wtf. To make the difference of 1 hp potion you have to auto 20 times, after 3-5 autos max the lane pushes and you get to lifesteal and regen it back at tower anyway. Pushing too fast early is pretty risky anyway because then you can get lvl 3 ganked when nasus hits lvl 2 and the only escape hope is countergank
D-shield with the Mastery. which means a total of 12 damage block on his early autoattacks. Additionally, the block applies after resistances.
At level 1: assuming 36 armor (18.5 base+12.5 from yellows, +5 from masteries (2 from hardness, 3 from the Legendary Guardian), Vlad's measly level 1 AAs do 48 damage, which is reduced to 35 damage per auto from armor. Dshield+mastery reduces it down to 23 damage (Dshield total reduction is thus actually ~23%, or ~26% if we assume the mastery reduction anyways). That renders Vlad's AAs...pretty bleh against Nasus regen+sustain from previous.
The result is that Vlad can't be as aggressive in early AA harass, because minion retaliation will basically outdamage his autos in a trade, and forces him to rely on his spells (which given CDs early does impact his early pressure. while spamming E early also drains his HP pool).
On January 16 2014 01:04 Lord Tolkien wrote: While Nasus survived the lane generally (shouldn't really die), Vlad could effectively deny Nasus and controlled the tempo of the lane pretty much the entirety of the lane phase (and force a weaker item build-path on him). Same with Rumble and Kennen. The play passive and not let Vlad spam his Q+E+AAs on CD requires that you basically self-zone yourself from the wave. Depending on the jungler during the mid/late lane phase wasn't reliable (warding was mandatory in all the matchups involving pushing Nasus to turret), and given Vlad's then usual summoners (double mobility into early distortion or ghost/ignite)+pool, was fairly difficult to gank if he saw the gank coming. Just as much possibility that Vlad's jungler comes top to dive to set Nasus back before he masses up stacks.
Everything you said here should technically apply now except nasus has 15 more hp5. Somehow that is the difference between getting crushed like you described and being unharassable? If you think that you are full of shit. I played a lot more nasus than probably everyone here and I had no problems vs rumble/kennen and everyone stopped playing vlad but I think I had about even rate of problems/ no problems but I was a lot worse at nasus in those days. Self zoning yourself from the wave is standard nasus play even now against vlad you need to self zone yourself while he AoEs the wave then farm it.
Also because wither works through vlad pool its very hard for him to escape, and if he does take ghost/flash, its very hard to actually get a kill off because his burst damage is nearly the same as his harass damage (ult+ignite, I think ignite does 20% more damage also)
Wither works, but it's still difficult given it needs to be burnt early to initiate on Vlad, he'll be at range, and he can pool when you're in melee range (and apply a small slow), which, rough experience guestimation, is about the length of the wither. You'll end up roughly in melee range, but with no followup CC, and he's got a clear escape because ghost, or to retaliate if there's no gank. Vlad will probably opt for Mercs if he doesn't have double mobility, and he feels the wither gets too oppressive.
Perhaps it's a combination of S4 mastery changes in addition to the itemization, but the current matchup on both sides certainly feels different from S2/early S3.
When dealing with attrition lanes (like Nasus vs Vlad and Kennen), there is a threshold between enough harass to whittle you down, or enough regen to let you shrug it off for a long period of time. I feel it just currently leans towards the latter at this point..
On January 16 2014 01:04 Lord Tolkien wrote: This isn't the case anymore. Dorans Shield prevents the early autoharass from Vlad (which at the very early levels is probably where most of his damage on melee champs top actually come from due to insane CDs early), and Cowl/buffed SV significantly blunts Vlad's late-lane phase power (same with Kennen, and Rumble [pre-Rumble nerfs]).
Vlad doesn't do a whole lot of auto harass and getting hp regen+more pots would actually do more to health yourself than dorans shield, you just get dshield now because its good enough that you can get away with 1 pot and you dont want tobuy any dead end items (you used to be able to build regen beads into locket/bulwark)
I mean saying that -15% auto damage completely prevents auto harass is so sensationalist wtf. To make the difference of 1 hp potion you have to auto 20 times, after 3-5 autos max the lane pushes and you get to lifesteal and regen it back at tower anyway. Pushing too fast early is pretty risky anyway because then you can get lvl 3 ganked when nasus hits lvl 2 and the only escape hope is countergank
D-shield with the Mastery. which means a total of 12 damage block on his early autoattacks. Additionally, the block applies after resistances.
At level 1: assuming 36 armor (18.5 base+12.5 from yellows, +5 from masteries (2 from hardness, 3 from the Legendary Guardian), Vlad's measly level 1 AAs do 48 damage, which is reduced to 35 damage per auto from armor. Dshield+mastery reduces it down to 23 damage (Dshield total reduction is thus actually ~23%). That's...pretty bleh against Nasus regen+sustain.
The result is that Vlad can't be as aggressive in early AA harass, because minion retaliation will basically outdamage his autos in a trade, and forces him to rely on his spells (which given CDs early does impact his early pressure. while spamming E early also drains his HP pool).
1: In the first situation, if you're going to gank with a jungler, you save W for when jungler is in range, so he has no way to get away really, maybe with some well timed flash+ghost after pool.
2: I think pre dorans shield buff block was like 4-6 reduced damage from autos, now its like 2. So the difference is prety minor here. The difference is that you're just saying "Before: Vlad does this and this and that and nasus gets zoned. After: Nasus has this armour and this regen and this sustain." You're just being absurdly biased. Most of the factors you mentioned existed before, theres only a small % difference from before and after and you'd have to have played the matchup quite a bit on both sides to notice. Right now you're just doing the same thing everyone else does which is confirmation bias toward the FOTM.
The largest nasus change was the mana cost reductions on Q and R, everything else was just a bonus and people noticing him more.
On January 16 2014 01:04 Lord Tolkien wrote: While Nasus survived the lane generally (shouldn't really die), Vlad could effectively deny Nasus and controlled the tempo of the lane pretty much the entirety of the lane phase (and force a weaker item build-path on him). Same with Rumble and Kennen. The play passive and not let Vlad spam his Q+E+AAs on CD requires that you basically self-zone yourself from the wave. Depending on the jungler during the mid/late lane phase wasn't reliable (warding was mandatory in all the matchups involving pushing Nasus to turret), and given Vlad's then usual summoners (double mobility into early distortion or ghost/ignite)+pool, was fairly difficult to gank if he saw the gank coming. Just as much possibility that Vlad's jungler comes top to dive to set Nasus back before he masses up stacks.
Everything you said here should technically apply now except nasus has 15 more hp5. Somehow that is the difference between getting crushed like you described and being unharassable? If you think that you are full of shit. I played a lot more nasus than probably everyone here and I had no problems vs rumble/kennen and everyone stopped playing vlad but I think I had about even rate of problems/ no problems but I was a lot worse at nasus in those days. Self zoning yourself from the wave is standard nasus play even now against vlad you need to self zone yourself while he AoEs the wave then farm it.
Also because wither works through vlad pool its very hard for him to escape, and if he does take ghost/flash, its very hard to actually get a kill off because his burst damage is nearly the same as his harass damage (ult+ignite, I think ignite does 20% more damage also)
Wither works, but it's still difficult given it needs to be burnt early to initiate on Vlad, he'll be at range, and he can pool when you're in melee range (and apply a small slow), which, rough experience guestimation, is about the length of the wither. You'll end up roughly in melee range, but with no followup CC, and he's got a clear escape because ghost, or to retaliate if there's no gank. Vlad will probably opt for Mercs if he doesn't have double mobility, and he feels the wither gets too oppressive.
Perhaps it's a combination of S4 mastery changes in addition to the itemization, but the current matchup on both sides certainly feels different from S2/early S3.
When dealing with attrition lanes (like Nasus vs Vlad and Kennen), there is a threshold between enough harass to whittle you down, or enough regen to let you shrug it off for a long period of time. I feel it just currently leans towards the latter at this point..
On January 16 2014 01:04 Lord Tolkien wrote: This isn't the case anymore. Dorans Shield prevents the early autoharass from Vlad (which at the very early levels is probably where most of his damage on melee champs top actually come from due to insane CDs early), and Cowl/buffed SV significantly blunts Vlad's late-lane phase power (same with Kennen, and Rumble [pre-Rumble nerfs]).
Vlad doesn't do a whole lot of auto harass and getting hp regen+more pots would actually do more to health yourself than dorans shield, you just get dshield now because its good enough that you can get away with 1 pot and you dont want tobuy any dead end items (you used to be able to build regen beads into locket/bulwark)
I mean saying that -15% auto damage completely prevents auto harass is so sensationalist wtf. To make the difference of 1 hp potion you have to auto 20 times, after 3-5 autos max the lane pushes and you get to lifesteal and regen it back at tower anyway. Pushing too fast early is pretty risky anyway because then you can get lvl 3 ganked when nasus hits lvl 2 and the only escape hope is countergank
D-shield with the Mastery. which means a total of 12 damage block on his early autoattacks. Additionally, the block applies after resistances.
At level 1: assuming 36 armor (18.5 base+12.5 from yellows, +5 from masteries (2 from hardness, 3 from the Legendary Guardian), Vlad's measly level 1 AAs do 48 damage, which is reduced to 35 damage per auto from armor. Dshield+mastery reduces it down to 23 damage (Dshield total reduction is thus actually ~23%). That's...pretty bleh against Nasus regen+sustain.
The result is that Vlad can't be as aggressive in early AA harass, because minion retaliation will basically outdamage his autos in a trade, and forces him to rely on his spells (which given CDs early does impact his early pressure. while spamming E early also drains his HP pool).
1: In the first situation, if you're going to gank with a jungler, you save W for when jungler is in range, so he has no way to get away really, maybe with some well timed flash+ghost after pool.
2: I think pre dorans shield buff block was like 4-6 reduced damage from autos, now its like 2. So the difference is prety minor here. The difference is that you're just saying "Before: Vlad does this and this and that and nasus gets zoned. After: Nasus has this armour and this regen and this sustain." You're just being absurdly biased. Most of the factors you mentioned existed before, theres only a small % difference from before and after and you'd have to have played the matchup quite a bit on both sides to notice. Right now you're just doing the same thing everyone else does which is confirmation bias toward the FOTM.
The largest nasus change was the mana cost reductions on Q and R, everything else was just a bonus and people noticing him more.
1) Fair. If Vlad isn't deep warding (and often) in the matchup, he's not playing safely enough.
2) I honestly don't think Nasus needs a nerf (the wither/R range nerfs were unnecessary given his current spot), just that the matchup has shifted towards Nasus through itemization/mastery changes. Dshield wasn't used in the matchup because it wasn't efficient (no pots for the start, armor, and half the hp/10, -2 block compared to the late-S3 version post-Aatrox patch). SV itemization was improved against AP tops, and defense tree buffs.
It's also partially due to indirect Vlad nerfs, since he can't use Spectral Wraith anymore (and WotA pretty meh as a selfish item). Rumble and Kennen nerfs also had an impact on their ability to soft/lane counter Nasus.
I really don't want to argue this much more however, so I'll concede the point.
How does vlad deep ward? There's always 2 gank paths in top lane, if you're lucky and you're purple side, you can get away with 1, buying 2 wards every 3 minutes in a hefty investment and for the first 5-7 levels you won't have any wards and past that nasus already has negatron anyway
+sweeping trinket can disrupt the plan if you double ward
you're right that vlad got a lot weaker with all the spell vamp nerfs, back when hextech revolver was OP that was a big reason you didn't want to pick nasus with vlad being popular
rumble and kennen are FAR weaker at vlad at playing the denying game. There are good arguments at least for vlad having a good chance but those 2 were never huge problem champs except for the fact that nasus probably doesn't like playing against AoE comps that much
If on blue side (poor side to play Vlad, but workable), Tribush Ward+ward at Wraith does cover against most junglers (minus Vi and Kha currently among FotM junglers, otherwise need to ward tri and baron pit). Requires coordination with midlane, but does work to pre-empt it. If purple side, baron ward is enough (against leaping champions, need one in the river bush as well). It doesn't stop lane ganks, or blue-side ganks from the tribush next to wight (since Vlad will probably be outside the turret), but it does cover the common avenues of ganks without huge warding investments. 1 ward and 1 trinket ward is generally enough on a back to cover it for awhile, though sweeper really does neuter the safety that the wards can buy. Beyond this, jungle timers are usually still somewhat useful to figure out where the enemy jungler is (first top lane gank probably won't come before 3:00-30, the jungler should be doing his second set of buffs between 7-8 minutes).
That being said, don't see people actually using sweeper on a regular basis, or buy it on a top lane champ (they probably should in this kind of push-to-turret matchup, actually). Junglers even prefer trinket wards just because they can get consistent use out of it.
For the AP top lanes, they were never hard counters, but they use to be decent soft-ish matchups against Nasus. Not so much now.
On January 16 2014 06:40 Slayer91 wrote: I often buy sweeper on jungle, thought it was standard
Nightblue3 has been recommending starting Trinket ward on his jungles, actually, just because you can get consistent use out of it and guarantee buff safety, invade with it, check over the wall against baron or dragon steals, etc.
In competitive play I can definitely see it becoming a meta standard, but currently trinket ward is just consistently useful in soloQ, esp. early game.
In the current LCS game of CW vs SK, you see trinket ward on the junglers. The only sweeper(s) is(are) currently on the support(s). First jungler switch to sweeping ~25 minutes.
Here's something unusual I've noticed on my Nasus. At the end of the game, I do a shocking amount of magic damage to champions. In my last game, at full build with 700+ stacks, I ended up doing 48% of my damage to champions as magic damage. Even when I don't buy a Sunfire Cape, magic damage is usually around 35-40% of my damage to champions.
I run Hybrid Penetration marks and was going to swap them out for Armor Penetration when I could afford it, but stats like these are making me reconsider. Is it just the AP from the Sheen items that makes me do so much damage on E and R? Is AP Nasus a viable build, or is it basically a crappier version of Diana? Should I be thinking more about the magic damage components of this champion?
Spirit fire actually does very impressive damage even without AP. Also ult is actually quite a bit of % health damage. I wouldn't ever build AP outside gauntlet or triforce though(aram aside). The base value component is just really high. Spirit fire mid-lategame does pretty awesome poke and zone control, and ult does % health drain, which is always going to be relevant.
On August 08 2014 14:07 GrandInquisitor wrote: Here's something unusual I've noticed on my Nasus. At the end of the game, I do a shocking amount of magic damage to champions. In my last game, at full build with 700+ stacks, I ended up doing 48% of my damage to champions as magic damage. Even when I don't buy a Sunfire Cape, magic damage is usually around 35-40% of my damage to champions.
I run Hybrid Penetration marks and was going to swap them out for Armor Penetration when I could afford it, but stats like these are making me reconsider. Is it just the AP from the Sheen items that makes me do so much damage on E and R? Is AP Nasus a viable build, or is it basically a crappier version of Diana? Should I be thinking more about the magic damage components of this champion?
Ap nasus only works in aram. His ratios are crap there is no reason to go for AP in items. See it like this: If you would build ap you would do mostly magic damage but the damage total you would achieve is not as high as the Physical/Magical damage you have if you just go standard nasus His base damage is just high thats all
On August 08 2014 14:07 GrandInquisitor wrote: Here's something unusual I've noticed on my Nasus. At the end of the game, I do a shocking amount of magic damage to champions. In my last game, at full build with 700+ stacks, I ended up doing 48% of my damage to champions as magic damage. Even when I don't buy a Sunfire Cape, magic damage is usually around 35-40% of my damage to champions.
I run Hybrid Penetration marks and was going to swap them out for Armor Penetration when I could afford it, but stats like these are making me reconsider. Is it just the AP from the Sheen items that makes me do so much damage on E and R? Is AP Nasus a viable build, or is it basically a crappier version of Diana? Should I be thinking more about the magic damage components of this champion?
I don't understand your conclusion at all. "I do a lot of magic damage" = "25 ap from sheen = GOD DAMAGE LEL" wtf??
Nasus ult at max rank does 5% of max hp per second in an AoE for 15 seconds, and his E does 450ish damage at max rank. AoE tends to rack up a lot more damage even if focused damage is a lot more important in fights. You spend most of your time Qing creeps and then you 2 shot any squishy in range so normally you only get 1 off or something, meanwhile your R and E could be getting loads of ticks off unimportant targets.
hybrid pen is pretty good actually, just keep in mind for bursting people armour is a bit better combined with E armour pen but hybrid is solid enough especially if you go E before Q on some matchups (teemo ryze and that)
the whole point of nasus is high base damages combined with tank items in trade for poor mobility. People don't think "My Q does like 1k damage, I should go IE PD and do tons of damage" so why should you think "My magic damage is high I should get deathcap voidstaff"?
I don't mean to suggest that he should be building Deathcap. It's just really odd to me that despite all my efforts at farming Q, in the end it barely out damages me pressing R and E. I understand your point that a lot of my magic damage is "fake damage" (in the same way that Zyra/Ziggs is always on top of the damage to champion charts), but I'm just wondering if a build that makes better use of all that magic damage is viable, i.e., Abyssal + Rylai's + Liandry's. I suppose the answer is, no, because your magic damage is actually scaling off your tankiness (i.e., ability to stay in the middle of their team) and this build makes you squishier.
Mostly I'm also just wondering if this is true for others that play Nasus as well, or if I'm doing something unusual, or if it's my Hybrid Penetration marks maybe.
On August 08 2014 23:03 GrandInquisitor wrote: I don't mean to suggest that he should be building Deathcap. It's just really odd to me that despite all my efforts at farming Q, in the end it barely out damages me pressing R and E. I understand your point that a lot of my magic damage is "fake damage" (in the same way that Zyra/Ziggs is always on top of the damage to champion charts), but I'm just wondering if a build that makes better use of all that magic damage is viable, i.e., Abyssal + Rylai's + Liandry's. I suppose the answer is, no, because your magic damage is actually scaling off your tankiness (i.e., ability to stay in the middle of their team) and this build makes you squishier.
Mostly I'm also just wondering if this is true for others that play Nasus as well, or if I'm doing something unusual, or if it's my Hybrid Penetration marks maybe.
Since you answered your own question i guess there is nothing to answer. It is not unusual to have that much damage with your E and Ult. Think about it: How many people just stand there and take Q after Q after Q without kiting you? While spirit fire always hits and your ult always deals damage to SOMEBODY around you? Also the phase in which you are smacking people with your rod is a lot shorter. You are mostly just building it up while trading a little bit here and there with spirit fire/Q. Also your Q is single target vs aoe magic dmg.
edit: Oh well slayer pretty much answered it already
You're still looking at it wrong, your farming Q is nothing like itemizing damage. you don't build AD on nasus for the same reason you don't build AP on nasus. Even if you did do a lot of magic damage and your tankiness didn't matter his AP ratios aren't good enough to justify building AP, you could build magic pen in the same way LW is pretty good on Nasus.
Also you could be simply not getting many Q's off in fights which is a combination of team comps, your own itemization (im often going trinity+swiftness+alacrity/distortion these days when i get fed and they have lots of ranged guys) and how well you're playing.
Essentially how effective you are with your Q's farming and hitting targets with them is how good you are at nasus, your E and R damage will come anyway especially if you're in range to Q a lot.
I looked at a few of my nasus games match history and I'm doing about 70-75% physical damage. Because I duo Q I'm usually crushing these games though so when you're carrying you're more likely to be able to get a lot of stuff done while when you aren't as strong you won't be in position to do as much physical from Q's and autos. Hybrid pen vs armour pen is only a few percentage points increase either way. (I'm running AD for no good reason by the way)
Hey guys, what champ would you say "hard counters" Nasus? I often run teleport on Nasus and farm at turret if I can't beat my opponent, so that it at least becomes a stalemate.
On August 20 2014 01:31 parkufarku wrote: Hey guys, what champ would you say "hard counters" Nasus? I often run teleport on Nasus and farm at turret if I can't beat my opponent, so that it at least becomes a stalemate.
maybe nidalee, maybe darius, rumble riven definitely not vlad not really, e max works well vs him and also nasus w slows vlad during pool so it fucks him gnar is probably terrible against him but nobody plays him but any melee or semi melee is gonna suck against him
I find Ryze the most difficult champion for me to deal with. Riven can be a pain if she's able to freeze the lane away from tower. Nidalee doesn't have CC to lock you down so unless you severely underestimate her burst potential you're mostly OK. Teemo is obviously brutal but max E and you can at least be meaningful. But Ryze, man, Ryze crushes me every time and scales almost as well to boot.
you just max E against ryze he has to use his spells on creeps and he can't deal with your harass your q stacks will kind of suck but you should outfarm him easily and you win 1v1 as well past 6 or 7
with the radius your E effective range is much more than his q
On August 20 2014 03:48 Slayer91 wrote: you just max E against ryze he has to use his spells on creeps and he can't deal with your harass your q stacks will kind of suck but you should outfarm him easily and you win 1v1 as well past 6 or 7
with the radius your E effective range is much more than his q
I think E max is the way to go against any strong ranged harassing champ(I actually do chalice in this matchup). Prevents them from freezing the lane in a bad spot, let's you get farm even in the hardest lanes, and it'll still let you get somewhere around the 3-4 stacks per minute mark. These are lanes you wouldn't get much Q farm in anyways, and by pushing so hard you'll deny some of their farm to turret, and even take the turret eventually.
no you can play E max to bully her but its really not necessary at all, you'll lose out in the long run just remember to bring a pink ward for allins it'll make things easier
you can't underestimate her early harass but play reasonable its an easy matchup
On August 20 2014 02:30 Slayer91 wrote: maybe nidalee, maybe darius, rumble riven definitely not vlad not really, e max works well vs him and also nasus w slows vlad during pool so it fucks him gnar is probably terrible against him but nobody plays him but any melee or semi melee is gonna suck against him
Nasus shits all over Darius hardcore.
Rumble pushes lane without burst so it's really easy to turn it into a farm lane if you freeze near your turret.
Riven 100% hard counters Nasus, you just can't farm against her at all outside of turret range and if she's ever able to freeze the lane you're toast.
Most of the time you can get away with getting destroyed our zoned heavily in lane, as people have no idea how to deal with Nasus once teamfight start to happen, until I would say high plat/low diam.
Actually, if you built chalice in lane for certain MU's, would it be worth turning it into a Mikael's later on? Self-cleanse on a champ that relies on sitting on your enemy's face seems pretty good.
On August 20 2014 02:30 Slayer91 wrote: maybe nidalee, maybe darius, rumble riven definitely not vlad not really, e max works well vs him and also nasus w slows vlad during pool so it fucks him gnar is probably terrible against him but nobody plays him but any melee or semi melee is gonna suck against him
Nasus shits all over Darius hardcore.
Rumble pushes lane without burst so it's really easy to turn it into a farm lane if you freeze near your turret.
Riven 100% hard counters Nasus, you just can't farm against her at all outside of turret range and if she's ever able to freeze the lane you're toast.
unless you feed her like 2 kills or something rivens a fine lane if she doesnt go LW its still fine actually
theres no reason riven should ever be able to freeze lane, unless its pre 6 or something but then she can't afford to tank a huge wave and still fight you
she c an only zone you until level 7 or something after which if she commits all her spells to try to harass you you can just ult and kill normally rivens tend to E auto W auto then use q's to disengage if you w.
Slayer is right from my experience. A better Riven will be able to kick your ass, but on even ground you should be able to survive and get some farm. It depends a lot on your jungler, too, though. If they have enough damage and tankiness to help you chase her out of lane then it can win you it right there. If they leave you hanging out to dry it will be a tough lane.
On that note, what do you think is better to start with? Cloth and 5 potions or Doran's shield? I've always done Cloth to transform it into my armour item, but maybe Doran's could work?
always cloth+5 you want to rush frozen heart or maybe frozen fist dorans really doesnt do anything for you at all if you want you can buy a ruby (for later phage/locket w/e) to beef you up a bit for all ins (assuming you don't have enough for a full vest/frozen heart/glacial, it might be worth buying boots over ruby though im not sure)
yea i tend to skip boots (until first item) a lot but its hard to tell when they're worth if i have to walk back to lane instead of tp i often get them because then they are guaranteed value
Riven definitely doesn't hard counter Nasus. I think hybrid pen is definitely better than armour pen on Nasus. You'll always do significant amounts of magic damage. The only reason not to run hybrid pen marks is if you don't own them.
On August 20 2014 02:30 Slayer91 wrote: maybe nidalee, maybe darius, rumble riven definitely not vlad not really, e max works well vs him and also nasus w slows vlad during pool so it fucks him gnar is probably terrible against him but nobody plays him but any melee or semi melee is gonna suck against him
Nasus shits all over Darius hardcore.
Rumble pushes lane without burst so it's really easy to turn it into a farm lane if you freeze near your turret.
Riven 100% hard counters Nasus, you just can't farm against her at all outside of turret range and if she's ever able to freeze the lane you're toast.
Nasus really scales on him. Of course, there's the huge problem that if your Darius is not a face-rolling idiot, then you're going to have a tough time heading up to level 6. But you should be fine about 80% of the time, then.
I'm pretty sure I would lose to a Darius as Nasus and crush a Nasus as Darius. You completely concede the first 6 levels and then hope he doesn't have enough damage to kill you while you try to sneak CS? What's the gameplan vs Darius as Nasus? Maybe there's something I don't understand about the matchup.
They are pretty much a similar matchup, except darius relies a bit less on getting fed to beat you because of the true damage, and riven is better at harassing you when you're trying to farm, and better at escaping ganks.
Essentially how the darius match up works, is pre 6 you have a fine line between taking a CS with Q outside of tower range and eating a Q harass, and trying to punish him for being too aggressive. That is, you're prepared to take a Q for every cs you take but that will be 2 or 3 before the lane pushes which is only a hp pot. You can maybe take an auto and Q in fact. If darius is overaggressively trying to deny cs without pushing you can fight him in your creep wave with w and e to make the creeps really hurt but just be careful not to get in gib range from his E+Q+ignite+passive stacks+flash auto.
Post 6 you can all in him only if he lets you get a favourable engage, as in, he wasted his Q or something and he's in your creep line etc. You can't really fight him while he has ignite until a bit later. I think getting a ruby crystal and maybe even a giants might take priority over finishing frozen heart but it depends if he went LW or not. You want to use the threat of all-in as leverage so you can farm. You can start to shake off q harass with your lifesteal so you just want to watch not being full hp and then engaging on him. He struggles to engage on you because his pull has a long cd and if he uses it when you're not low you get a free engage and you can use the full 5 s of your W and not like 2 s to close to gap.
I've played against maybe 4 or 5 dariuses and I didn't have a problem by level 11ish even if they got kills from jungle action earlier AND went LW. (like 50% of my games my jungler comes level 3 when their top is shoving and one or both of us dies depending on if their jungler came or not, its really annoying and it happens vs darius/riven etc). I played against 20 or so rivens and only had a problem against one who rushed brutalzer+Lw and got fed from me underestimating her slightly too much.
I find Riven easier than Darius, but they're both tough. It's the type of matchup where if they let you sit there for 2 or 3 levels untouched then they've probably lost. Slayer sounds about right on it.
Playing Nasus is a good test for seeing if your jungler has a brain or not. So many will just automatically come top at level 3 to try to gank. Surprise, Vi + Nasus doesn't beat Jarvan + Ryze with a ton of creeps on their side.
As Darius I try to punish Nasus for every cs he tries with a Q and max. damage-range. It is hard to deny Nasus' Q and not expose yourself to an easy gank. I normally try to bait his ult after lvl6 so my ult does not face his directly. After lvl10 I normally dont 1v1 Nasus anymore, cause he will shit all over me =D
I constantly see people pick Nidalee into Nasus and/or people complaining that Nidalee hardcounters their Nasus, and honestly, I just don't see it. Nidalee has some good burst, but as long as you're aware of it she has basically no kill pressure. You aren't going to yoloswag into the lane and bully her off the minion wave starting level 1, but it's not really that different than most Nasus lanes (and in fact much easier than against someone with CC like Ryze who has actual kill pressure).
On September 09 2014 00:13 GrandInquisitor wrote: I constantly see people pick Nidalee into Nasus and/or people complaining that Nidalee hardcounters their Nasus, and honestly, I just don't see it. Nidalee has some good burst, but as long as you're aware of it she has basically no kill pressure. You aren't going to yoloswag into the lane and bully her off the minion wave starting level 1, but it's not really that different than most Nasus lanes (and in fact much easier than against someone with CC like Ryze who has actual kill pressure).
nidalee can sit in a bush with 450 movement speed and harass better than any ranged, and can also heal and waveclear which means the strat of trying to max E and harass/push won't work like it does against ryze and teemo. She has lots of kill pressure if she lands a spear or trap too.
She's one of the toughest matchups i've played against though I suppose maxing E isn't ideal so ryze is still a decent pick against him but not teemo teemo sucks remove that champ fuck teemo.
riven isn't like ryze at all, unless you are really behind, ryze has great damage output from range, riven has strong trading potential, you can deal with the trading once you get some armour but you can't do anything if you can't get to melee range vs a ryze with like 1500 mana to outdamage your sustain unless you max E ofc.
If i see Nasus is it okay to pick strong late game tanks like Mundo / Maokai or is it will end in disaster? It seems that because of his passive it would be impossible to stop him after 30 minutes. Also if someone picked dog into my shyvana top lane, does my only option is to rush bork??
On September 23 2014 00:18 Taktik wrote: If i see Nasus is it okay to pick strong late game tanks like Mundo / Maokai or is it will end in disaster? It seems that because of his passive it would be impossible to stop him after 30 minutes. Also if someone picked dog into my shyvana top lane, does my only option is to rush bork??
Not really okay. Neither pressures nasus hard enough, and it's not really worth letting nasus get a lane where without major misplays, he'll 2 shot squishies by 30 minutes.
As for shyv, unless you're making plays around the map, yes. You need it to exert some kill pressure, it's not a lane you can win by proxying.
Well you have to question yourself if you can bring more to your team then a freefarm Nasus and the answer is usually no. Not rly a toplaner, but I think toplane is the lane where there is the biggest difference between comp. play and soloq. In comp. play the toplaners are chosen around things like how they fare in a 1on2, midgame dragon fights, where as in soloq these things are way way less valued. I would love to hear other more experienced toplaners take on this, but thats the feel I get. In korean soloq games for example I rarely see the usual fotm comp. play picks. It's just that people copy the comp picks, but that doesnt mean they are good in soloq.
Grasp of the Undying is stupidly good; it's just another easy way to heal up in lane now since you can proc it on minions and every so often tag your opponent with an AA for a free 3% heal and a won trade. Oppression is solid because of Frozen Heart, and even the huge impending nerf to Veteran's Scars won't faze you because Runic Armor is just fine. (I assume Sorcery does not work on Nasus Q, and that you aren't in such a free lane that you can take Double-Edged Sword.)
On the other hand, his old 20% CDR at level 1 build doesn't really exist any more, since he can't get 5% from masteries with the above-mastery setup. (And even if you could, you still need 40% from other sources.) And with all the healing you can get, it might make more sense to prioritize Spirit Visage. So perhaps instead of 15% in runes, you can get away with just Sheen + FH + Spirit Visage and try to get by with 0% in lane? I haven't made up my mind on this front yet.
I was playing around with CDR aswell and ran into some problems. I had 10 CDR on runes and that is kinda suboptimal with 10% now on sheen.
I just sat on sheen for a while and turned it into iceborn later to get 40% with iceborn and visage, but it makes it harder to stack when the iceborn aoe hits minions so idk if this is the best way to do it.
I'm going to experiment a bit more and report my findings
This is random, but I was dicking around with my friend who was new to LoL and Nasus bot sucks at stacking Q. Like I think he had 30 at half an hour lol.
Well, I don't mind exceeding the CDR cap; the real question is whether the opportunity cost of those glyphs and quints outweighs the advantage of starting with CDR. Do you miss out on stacks by having 0% CDR?
Here the tradeoff is: do I care about 10% CDR at level 1 more than 3 glyphs of scaling MR, i.e., 9 MR at level 18? I think the answer is absolutely yes, and heck I would probably even still go for 15% CDR and get rid of the other 6 scaling MR glyphs altogether (18 MR at level 18).
But against AP, what's your build path if you insist on no CDR in your runes?
That really stinks, doesn't it? I suppose you could sit on Kindlegem + Sheen + Glacial Shroud, but that's components of three different items in your inventory and you still probably want a Null Magic Mantle in there somewhere. You could also get lucidity boots.
I think the ultimate conclusion is that you just accept that Spirit Visage takes you over the CDR cap, because you want as much CDR as fast as possible. You'd still buy Spirit Visage even if it had 0% CDR, so who cares that you're "wasting" CDR?
I have a few things to chime in on but I haven't tested anything
-Masteries: Not sure if that 3% thing is as good as you say. At 1k hp its 30 hp life steal, it's not terrible but not something you can't live without, you already have plenty of sustain. see: Lifesteal quint debate before. Other options: The other def tree things are really strong, but that utility thing might be good on him, it's like a minighost anytime you pop a squishy with an E+Q right? 3s of a 35% movement boost, could be worth it but its got a real long cd.
CDR: You don't need to get flat CDRs, since Q cd isn't at its lowest till level 9 and thats around with cdr/lvl catches up, could be worth to go cdr/lvl instead. I'm not sure you want FH+sheen now against anything AP heavy. FH is hella expensive now so it's not necessarily the best buy for you if you're going trinity so you have some max mana to play with.
Spirit+Trinity-->Ohmwrecker for example could be interesting. If you're split pushing with TP any withered squishy isn't going to be able to kite you if you have that utility mastery or even just the ohmwrecker movement boost on its own and you can just shut down the tower.
The 3% heal is huge because it's not just a heal, it's damage to your opponent. It's not just about the sustain, it also helps him win trades in lane. So long as you are engaging with the minion wave at all, every 4 seconds just AA the enemy, have three free long swords while doing so, and instantly heal 30 HP. That's potentially over 400 HP per minute of sustain + 400 damage to your opponent.
And let's be real: this is not comparable to lifesteal quints. Your Lifesteal quints heal for what, 4.5%? For 4.5% to be healing you 30HP you'd have to be doing ~666 damage on each of your autos. The fact that you can only proc it every 4 seconds is fine for Nasus! He's not going to be in lane constantly fighting his opponent; he's going to be trying to stack Q. Now, though, every time the enemy comes in, he just tags them with an AA and instantly heals 20% of a healing potion.
Also I agree that 3s of 35% movement speed sounds amazing, but I keep getting underwhelmed by it on every champion, and I'm not sure why. It just hasn't been that effective for me. Maybe because it overlaps with Phage too much?
The point of flat CDR is exactly to lower your Q CDR while you haven't maxed Q yet. The sooner you can hit 30 stacks, the sooner you can hit 90, and 120, and 180, and so on. Scaling CDR is kinda silly on him because his ideal build path has 40% CDR anyway with Frozen Heart.
Frozen Heart is the ideal buy mainly because it's a huge source of CDR + tankiness. There just aren't other 20% CDR tank items out there. If you run CDR runes then Frozen Heart + Sheen alone get you to 40%, and the build path is very smooth to boot. So long as you're against an AD lane I'd always still rush FH.
On December 02 2015 05:49 GrandInquisitor wrote: The 3% heal is huge because it's not just a heal, it's damage to your opponent. It's not just about the sustain, it also helps him win trades in lane. So long as you are engaging with the minion wave at all, every 4 seconds just AA the enemy, have three free long swords while doing so, and instantly heal 30 HP. That's potentially over 400 HP per minute of sustain + 400 damage to your opponent.
Also I agree that 3s of 35% movement speed sounds amazing, but I keep getting underwhelmed by it on every champion, and I'm not sure why. It just hasn't been that effective for me. Maybe because it overlaps with Phage too much?
The point of flat CDR is exactly to lower your Q CDR while you haven't maxed Q yet. The sooner you can hit 30 stacks, the sooner you can hit 90, and 120, and 180, and so on. Scaling CDR is kinda silly on him because his ideal build path has 40% CDR anyway with Frozen Heart.
Frozen Heart is the ideal buy mainly because it's a huge source of CDR + tankiness. There just aren't other 20% CDR tank items out there. If you run CDR runes then Frozen Heart + Sheen alone get you to 40%, and the build path is very smooth to boot. So long as you're against an AD lane I'd always still rush FH.
I mean, if you are trading that frequently as nasus then you are probably winning anyway. How many people can out trade but not all in him anyway? That said, yeah it's obviously quite strong. I just think you are overrating it, it helps nasus do what he already excels at. If you can bully someone already it won't help too much, it only helps in the margin cases where you can't all in and lack just a little bit of trade strength. Can't really think of many situations that's applicable.
Phage is not at all comparable to 35% movement speed lol
Your reasoning about CDR is a bit meh. Getting faster to 90 just means you got to 90 faster. It's a flat scaling You stack Q really slowly early game. You have to lane and your cd is longer. If you have an 8 second CD, you might get 3-4 Q's a wave, if you have 10% cdr you'll get maybe another 3 stacks a wave or 6 stacks a minute. Once you hit level 9 and high cdr you're stacking much faster. With a 2.4 second Q you can clear a full minion+cannon wave and get 42 stacks in about 15 seconds.
Now I don't know about you, but I don't really give a shit if I'm at 90 stacks or 110 stacks at 9:05 if I'm making a large sacrifice to get that. Any sort of advantage over that should help you leverage enough to farm another 40 stack wave in the future.
You also have some weird reasoning around the lines of "FH is good because you want 20% CDR but CDR/lvl is bad because you want FH for the 20% CDR" It was great when it was super cost effective and you wanted all the stats, and it's still good against AD lanes, however it's more expensive, gives less mana, less armour, less slow than it used to, and also sheen became a much better option for nasus which partially removes the mana value from FH. The result is that FH is much, much weaker as an item for him than it used to be.
Kindle+sheen doesn't give any less cdr than glacial+sheen. You will be behind in CDR because you can't get the second kindlegem until SV is completed but it's not the end of the world. Stacks are good but they aren't everything. If I have a much superior build for the game at hand. (Laning vs AP and then splitting and using ohmwrecker to dive or backdoor towers), it doesn't matter if some guy has an extra 100 stacks.
I also want to mention the stacking mana option leaves you super low on HP. Even with Nasus ult HP is by far the best EHP stat until you get to about 2-2.5k hp, and stacking armour and mana and cdr is just asking for you to get chunked by some mid laner when you want to be hitting a mid game power spike.
For Nasus earlygame isn't too much about stacks, it's about getting items to set up for a nice midgame splitpush where you start racking up stacks. Theoretically (I say that cuz I'm not a toplaner) I think taking IBG might be superior. I really dislike having the sheen (useful) + phage (useful) then having to wait until you can afford zeal (kinda useless) + TF recipe. That gap just seems painful. Buying glacial after sheen seems like it just smooths earlygame out a lot. Something like Kindle + Sheen -> Ohmwrecker/Visage + IBG seems pretty solid.
While FH is gold efficient (just checked wiki, it's 105% which is kinda shitty for a legendary item), it only makes sense if the enemy team is pretty AA dependent.
I played around with possible builds and found something that looks promising.
Assuming 10% cdr from the start you can either go
Visage, Triforce, Ohmwrecker
or
Frozen heart, Triforce, Maw
Both get you 40% cdr and let you itemize against your lane opponent. Gonna play test this today
EDIT: Played a bunch of games:
the ohmwrecker build is pretty bad as it takes forever to get going thanks to double kindlegem. Didnt feel good at all.
The Frozenheart route still seems best and going frozen heart into sheen hex and giantsbelt worked pretty well. Couldnt test maw that much though, most of the enemy teams were loaded with ad so I just rushed DMP right after my core.
If you want legit nasus info for this season here it is, of course they are still adding stuff so this is what it optimal atm.
first of all the mastery setup is correct but not the choices.
You want sorcery not the attack speed. with proper resetting with Q attack speed is like the most useless nasus stat ever. 2% on even just your ult is way better.
double edged sword is a must for top lane, its too strong not to take in a 1v1 scenario. (even in 1v2, you go even)
veteran's scars is complete garbage, runic armor is amazing as it affects your sustain and also abuse cases like visage + runic armor soraka healing. Or just think about how bad veteran's scars is. you get 120hp at 3k hp, yea its bad.
new build is pretty much iceborn gauntlet as soon as possible as its obscenely broken cost effectiveness wise. As soon as you get this item your lane opponent can just pack it in the lanes over. Gauntlet/visage is enough cd to cover you for what is necessary without taking bad items.
Merc treads rarely worth it anymore unless they are super magic heavy as you already get a free 15% tenacity.
steraks, titanic hydra, death's dance are some interesting offensive choices
deadman's plate pretty much mandatory after core items complete
Attack speed is useful on Nasus to last hit, especially for taking out ranged minions with AA-tower-AA very early on when you're pushed.
I mostly agree with the rest of your analysis - I've switched over to runic armor and have been gambling with Double-Edged Sword more and more. It's slightly risky if you are in a lane where you really have no desire whatsoever to trade, but it's definitely a ton of damage.
I do think that's an interesting approach to solve the CDR problem discussed earlier. I'll have to give it a try - IBG was always a noob trap. But IBG + SV kind of solves all of the problems: no more buying nerfed FH, no more awkward CDR plateaus. The only thing you miss out on is Phage + Trinity damage.
I don't think you miss the damage too much, honestly phage is only a little attack damage and the move speed from that plus zeal isn't huge. I feel like ibg gives more sticking power than trinity especially since you have wither. Poor fucker will basically be stopped with wither plus ibg and dmp slows haha.
Also the slow field scaling with armor on ibg is pretty huge. No pun intended
Well, is IBG one of those "win more" deals? Like if you get close enough to smack them with the Q, are they ever going to escape you anyway? I find my problems in team fights is landing that first Q ... once I get the Q off they are probably dead. But maybe I'm experiencing selection bias.
Put another way - in what kind of situation would the slow from IBG get you a kill that the greater damage / movement speed / Phage proc from Trinity Force could not?
Trinity: you build sheen and phage for 2.3K. Decent amount of power but then you gotta farm another 1.5K before you can complete it (this is what kills it for me, zeal gives stats that feel only very slightly useful for Nasus). Total is 3.8K.
Iceborn gauntlet: you build sheen, then glacial. Both give you power-- glacial is good defense (against melee and lets you ignore minion damage which can be annoying esp with current creep block), you never run out of mana unless you spam very hard, lots of cdr. Components total is 2K, combine is 650 for 2700 total. Much smoother build path.
The advantages of Trinity seem to be some additional movespeed primarily, some hp secondarily and then a hodgepodge of crit and attackspeed which are marginally useful. -I'd argue that your slow field can largely make up for the movespeed, plus the fact that you could easily afford boots2 (or boots1 + item) with the gold difference. -Far as hp goes, I'm unsure if the math works out but I'd say against phys dmg you get comparable ehp benefit from IBG's armor, and again, you have gold to buy hp items. Nasus also is a champ that does well with resists because of his ult and passive lifesteal. -The other stats are meh
tl;dr you get a lot of trinity, but 3.8K could be spent in a smoother and more effective way that include IBG.
I'm not sure how to address the specific situation you gave, but here's some theoretical math: Assume champs have 380 movespeed (boot2 puts most champs around there). Phage gives you +20 movespeed (add on 5% for Trinity), so Nasus is at 420 compared to enemy's 380. IBG gives a 30% slow, so 380*.7 = 266. There's a lot of other factors at play, but the movespeed differential with IBG seems like it'd be bigger. Random math more than anything, may not reflect real life etc.
I totally agree that IBG is such an easier build path than TF. I hate that feeling when you have Sheen + Phage and are just waiting for Zeal + combine cost.
I'm just trying to figure out whether the IBG slow has any point. Because with Wither, if you can already land a Q on someone, there's basically no way they can get away from you anyway. The additional IBG slow might mean very little when you have a 5s 35-95% slow on a 6.6s cooldown.
So I played a quick game against a Garen who I utterly destroyed, not sure if he was bad or what
I started cloth and 2 pots against him. Lvl 1-2 I played kind of passive because idk how the MU works, I suppose you cs and then he Q's you and spins on your face which kinda sucks. I let him push while sitting in xp range and grabbing the odd minion. Got a successful FB gank from Kindred which was nice, got some stacks, pushed in the lane and finished shroud + boots1. Farmed a bit more, at this point I think we trade similarly but I come out ahead cuz lifesteal. I don't mind going evenish because I think that's my win; me getting stacks means I'll be stronger than him midgame.
I give up a couple dumb deaths to their jungle eve. Still, I'm farming pretty well and Garen's pretty crap cs becomes really crappy as I zone the heck out of him with a Q that chunks him. I go off splitting eventually tele for teamfights, pick up a few kills. They're going 5 mid and shoving up real hard, though a couple times they try and send someone to deal with me and realize they can't 1v1. I just end up backing or walking over to cut them off and get easy kills. Finish my visage, buy DMP then kinda unsure what to buy. I end up getting a negatron so I can lol at magic damage and the furor boots upgrade.
Felt pretty comfortable, I think IBG is a pretty duh choice against phys damage. Unless you spam E hard, no mana problems whatsoever. I think you can choose glacial if you want to be passive, or sheen if you feel comfortable dueling (as a noob Nasus, I took the former route). Had a pretty easy time stacking, think I was at around 500 when we ended at 30. Dunno if good or bad, but felt like I was doing good.
Against Garen, IBG was niiice. he was forced to use his Q to cleanse the IBG slow, but then I just withered him. Also, titanic hydra + q is a pretty disgusting combo, you get 2x AA resets. DMP-Auto-Q+sheen-hydra is pretty disgusting
On December 05 2015 16:30 VayneAuthority wrote: If you want legit nasus info for this season here it is, of course they are still adding stuff so this is what it optimal atm.
first of all the mastery setup is correct but not the choices.
You want sorcery not the attack speed. with proper resetting with Q attack speed is like the most useless nasus stat ever. 2% on even just your ult is way better.
double edged sword is a must for top lane, its too strong not to take in a 1v1 scenario. (even in 1v2, you go even)
veteran's scars is complete garbage, runic armor is amazing as it affects your sustain and also abuse cases like visage + runic armor soraka healing. Or just think about how bad veteran's scars is. you get 120hp at 3k hp, yea its bad.
new build is pretty much iceborn gauntlet as soon as possible as its obscenely broken cost effectiveness wise. As soon as you get this item your lane opponent can just pack it in the lanes over. Gauntlet/visage is enough cd to cover you for what is necessary without taking bad items.
Merc treads rarely worth it anymore unless they are super magic heavy as you already get a free 15% tenacity.
steraks, titanic hydra, death's dance are some interesting offensive choices
deadman's plate pretty much mandatory after core items complete
no other MR item is worth getting except visage
enjoy
Is Death's Dance really worth it? I don't remember the last time I got a purely offensive item on dog.
Edit: Also I've been going Ghost/Ignite (after seeing Dylan go Flash/Ignite on his dog), which has been working pretty well. Usually you'd imagine X/TP so you can get back to lane faster and farm more stacks. But with Ghost, you can usually get 2-3 Q's off in lane duels and then the Ignite for a kicker. Mid to late game, between Ghost/Wither/IBG slow, you can chase carries until their die. I had an Azir try to poke me and do some fancy shuffles but tried to run away after the first Q connected. But even with his dash and Flash, Wither lasts forever if you don't have Tenacity and it was pretty easy to run up to him after he Flashed around a wall and get a second Q in for the kill.
IMO Steraks + Iceborne and 300 Stacks is enough to nuke anyone thats not a full tank into orbit. Steraks is just the perfect tank and damage hybrid if you need a bit more oompf.
Only downside is you probably need to delay it until 3rd or 4th item, you need Visage or DMP first in most games.
On December 05 2015 16:30 VayneAuthority wrote: If you want legit nasus info for this season here it is, of course they are still adding stuff so this is what it optimal atm.
first of all the mastery setup is correct but not the choices.
You want sorcery not the attack speed. with proper resetting with Q attack speed is like the most useless nasus stat ever. 2% on even just your ult is way better.
double edged sword is a must for top lane, its too strong not to take in a 1v1 scenario. (even in 1v2, you go even)
veteran's scars is complete garbage, runic armor is amazing as it affects your sustain and also abuse cases like visage + runic armor soraka healing. Or just think about how bad veteran's scars is. you get 120hp at 3k hp, yea its bad.
new build is pretty much iceborn gauntlet as soon as possible as its obscenely broken cost effectiveness wise. As soon as you get this item your lane opponent can just pack it in the lanes over. Gauntlet/visage is enough cd to cover you for what is necessary without taking bad items.
Merc treads rarely worth it anymore unless they are super magic heavy as you already get a free 15% tenacity.
steraks, titanic hydra, death's dance are some interesting offensive choices
deadman's plate pretty much mandatory after core items complete
no other MR item is worth getting except visage
enjoy
Is Death's Dance really worth it? I don't remember the last time I got a purely offensive item on dog.
Edit: Also I've been going Ghost/Ignite (after seeing Dylan go Flash/Ignite on his dog), which has been working pretty well. Usually you'd imagine X/TP so you can get back to lane faster and farm more stacks. But with Ghost, you can usually get 2-3 Q's off in lane duels and then the Ignite for a kicker. Mid to late game, between Ghost/Wither/IBG slow, you can chase carries until their die. I had an Azir try to poke me and do some fancy shuffles but tried to run away after the first Q connected. But even with his dash and Flash, Wither lasts forever if you don't have Tenacity and it was pretty easy to run up to him after he Flashed around a wall and get a second Q in for the kill.
yea since i made that post I actually rarely even go for DMP anymore unless im backdooring at the movespeed is really important for that. My new 40% cd is IBG, visage, death dance for a perfect 40% and i like it a lot. your qs heal you for so much and the damage reduction is very noticable. I hardly even see it as an offensive item. Its probably an overtuned item for people that ad is actually good on. Seems really stupid on people like zed/wukong/etc
What are your thoughts on DMP +IBG + Titanic? Auto w/ DMP -> auto w/ sheen+Q +auto w/ hydra combo abuses a double auto reset. Base auto damage at 18 is 119 + 50 + 35 (estimate of hydra on-hit) for ~200. You get that 3x, then add in 100 from DMP, 350 from hydra, 148 from sheen (assuming IBG) and whatever amount you have on Q. That's a pseudo-burst of 1200 when you don't count Q at all.
Death's dance is absolutely stupid on wukong, you literally can't kill him if he gets it. It seems like a good item on Nasus, but kind of a if-ahead-get-more-ahead item/ 6th item.
Surprising DMP got dropped from your item build. How do you itemize against a 4-5 enemy AD team then? Problem with IBG is that while it's really cost effective with good proc, you have no HP. Then going SV next doesn't solve any of your problems because you're still light on armor then. I tend to save 6th slot for either Thornmail or Omen, depending on the type of AD I need to negate more. Guess it's the nature of the meta but enemy teams have been consistently skewed towards AD over AP preseason.
I'll work in Death's Dance more in my dog games this week. Prob as a 4th item or so.
Edit: also, starting to realize that even with 4+ items and 250++ stacks, there are still certain champs you don't 1v1 against when they have their ulti up. e.g. equal item Yasuo and Illaoi.
I assume that's a typo because if you have 4 items and only 250 stacks you're either insanely underfarmed or insanely overfed ...
The one champion I always fear as Nasus is Trundle - you simply cannot 1v1 that mofo.
Death's Dance is quite interesting. I'll give it a try. Maw of Malmortious is a great item on him too. But I worry that too many of these hybrid offense/defense items make him a lot less tanky.
Maybe a more sensible way to do this is to make a list of all of Nasus's potential items:
IBG (I'm officially off the Triforce wagon and solidly in the IBG camp, but if I were building Triforce I'd definitely buy Frozen Heart) Spirit Visage Sterak's Gage Dead Man's Plate Death's Dance Maw of Malmortious Guardian Angel
On December 17 2015 00:12 GrandInquisitor wrote: I assume that's a typo because if you have 4 items and only 250 stacks you're either insanely underfarmed or insanely overfed ...
The one champion I always fear as Nasus is Trundle - you simply cannot 1v1 that mofo.
Death's Dance is quite interesting. I'll give it a try. Maw of Malmortious is a great item on him too. But I worry that too many of these hybrid offense/defense items make him a lot less tanky.
Maybe a more sensible way to do this is to make a list of all of Nasus's potential items:
IBG (I'm officially off the Triforce wagon and solidly in the IBG camp, but if I were building Triforce I'd definitely buy Frozen Heart) Spirit Visage Sterak's Gage Dead Man's Plate Death's Dance Maw of Malmortious Guardian Angel
GA I feel like is a win-more item on Nasus because if you die, there's a fair chance your team is dead already and nobody is going to be standing next to you when you come back up.
I suppose there's also locket if other team has lots of AP and your jungler/support are selfish fucks buying damage items. You aren't the worst locket carrier in the game. And of course, thornmail - for those games where the enemy team brings multiple AD's or single AD threat.
EPT![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091218195108/leagueoflegends/images/5/58/NasusSquare.png)
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is viable also, ghost works well on nasus because you have no burst spell to abuse to flash, and you are generally tanky enough that ghost is as good as flash for getting away.![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111115121118/leagueoflegends/images/4/4a/Exhaust.png)
or ![[image loading]](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111115121117/leagueoflegends/images/f/f4/Ignite.png)
however TP side steps some of your main counters, like a pre-6 gank into push+tower dive, harassing you down early under your tower, or outroaming you. You usually just base buy the relevant resists+hp pots+green or pink ward(s) and tp straight back to lane. I tend to save tping around the map for later on when im more powerful and the loss in levels from losing farm is less noticeable. (1/3 of a level at 13 is nothing but 1 level at 6 is huge)![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090309/leagueoflegends/images/e/ea/Doran%27s_Shield_item.png)
+ 1x![[image loading]](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090425/leagueoflegends/images/1/13/Health_Potion_item.png)
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5x![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319091504/leagueoflegends/images/1/1b/Sight_Ward_item.png)
+1x![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090730/leagueoflegends/images/1/1d/Mana_Potion_item.png)
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+ 5x ![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091016143811/leagueoflegends/images/9/96/Null-Magic_Mantle.gif)
+2x ![[image loading]](http://www.solomid.net/guide/items/mercurys-treads.png)
+![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090339/leagueoflegends/images/5/58/Frozen_Heart_item.png)
+![[image loading]](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319091528/leagueoflegends/images/6/6f/Spirit_Visage_item.png)
+![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319091253/leagueoflegends/images/0/08/Randuin%27s_Omen_item.png)
+![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090446/leagueoflegends/images/c/c4/Iceborn_Gauntlet_item.png)
+![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090549/leagueoflegends/images/b/ba/Last_Whisper_item.png)
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+3x![[image loading]](http://www.solomid.net/guide/items/youmuus-ghostblade.png)
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Am I bad?![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mFP1k7U.png)
