Please verify that you are not a bot to cast your vote.
This build has been archived and is for historical display only
This build has been archived by the author. They are no longer supporting nor updating this build and it may have become outdated. As such, voting and commenting have been disabled and it no longer appears in regular search results.
We recommend you take a look at this author's other builds.
x
Not Updated For Current Season
This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page
Aatrox is a really good counter to Nasus from early to midgame, He simply not only outdamages you, outsustains you but outheals you. In this lane you must only go for farm if he just used his Q (before he fully maxes it), I highly recommend using your Cloth armor start into a Bramble Vest rush even before Sheen so you get more armor early on and apply Grevious Wounds to cut down his healing. Give farm if needed, he is a really strong champion early on that is not worth fighting even after lvl6 and Sheen spike, look to farm. If he overcommits to a trade while you are undertorret and he gets a towershot, you can just ult and kill him unless you are 1 HP. Later on to the game, look to do teamfights and try to burst him with your team, if you ignore his damage and go for his backline, you will lose since Aatrox has a lot more of mobility than Nasus, and early on he can outheal you so he will be able to tank more and he can deal way more damage with his Q's. Remember his Lifesteal is based on damage dealt, if you build armor you negate a lot of damage, there for his Lifesteal, items like Randuins Omen are not bad at all.
Ahri is usually seen as a midlaner, since her kit performs better in a shorter lane, she also has a lot of poke and a lot damage (remember the back part of her Q does True Damage) and a decent ammount of HP sustain due to her passive. In this matchup, you must position yourself always behind minions, so she can't E (Charm) you and always look to move sideways to dodge her Q. Even after hitting lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, it's sort of hard solo killing her so ask your jungler for some assistance to get yourself ahead of her or else she will just kite you the whole game while killing you. Later on to the game, she can be really annoying to deal with, since she will deal a lot of damage, she will have Zhonias and her R is really difficult for Nasus to deal with. Just look to farm all game and force a splitpush situation where you can outrotate her. If she goes for Glacial Augment and slow based build, don't even try to fight her at all she will kite you for ever and kill you, the whole point of splitpushing is to negate her damage and utility to her team.
Akali is somewhat similar to Ahri but with a lot more of mobility and a usefull (to her) Shroud that allows her to play super aggressive without being really able to punish her even later on to the game as Nasus. In this matchup depends a lot in her runes. If she goes Conqueror, just look to farm and if you play it properly at lvl 6 with Sheen you should be able to solo kill her. If she goes for Fleet Footwork, just farm and then in the midgame or lategame you should be able to beat her 100-0 if played properly. If she goes for Electrocute you have to be really careful since she can deal a lot of damage even later on, just farm and look for doing teamfights where you are peeling your carry (if it is either your Midlaner, ADC or even your jungler), usually Akali looks to kill the squishy targets, not the tanky ones like Nasus. Akali will struggle a lot in teamfights since if she leaves for 1 seconds her Shroud in front of your team, she is dead but still she can deal a lot of damage and is usually a skill matchup later on in a 5v5 (in the Splitpush, she clears wave so fast and disengages so well it's not really worth trying).
Alistar kit is not really designed for being a good Top laner ane even a solo laner at all, he peforms better by providing utility to his team as as support. He does have the health sustain advantage due to his Passive but he simply doesn't have the Mana sustain to poke you out of lane, he will only CC you but Legend Bloodline + Nasus Passive are way stronger than his poke. He can either go AP or full tank, if he goes for an AP build, just be careful he can oneshot you if you dont play it properly but overall you outscale him really easily and beat him with lvl 6 and Sheen power spike. If he decides to go for a Tank build and get as many stacks as possible, he will not be able to do damage at all. Look to use W after he uses his ultimate since his ultimate removes all CC. Later on to the game to negate his utility, look to Splitpush and force him to match you, ignore his damage and hit the tower and if he does get you (somehow) to half HP just Q some minions and get back to Full HP, because of this he will ask for support so be prepared for 1v2 scenarios.
Amumu
CONQUEROR / SPELLBOOK SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Amumu is pretty weak early on specially as a solo laner. In this matchup look to dodge his Q at all cost, position yourself behind minions and if he hits the Q just disengage its not worth trying to win due to his passive 10% true damage when he hits you with W. He can either go for a full AP or Tank build. If he goes AP, he will be looking to scale and oneshot your team with his abilities, once you get lvl 6 and Sheen you should be able to beat him easily if you position the wave on your side of the lane so you can run him down. If he goes for a Tank build, just look to farm and force a splitpush situation where he has to match you, that way he cant use his tanky stats to peel for his team and start teamfights; ignore his damage and hit the tower and if he does get you (somehow) to half HP just Q some minions and get back to Full HP, because of this he will ask for support so be prepared for 1v2 scenarios.
Anivia can simply beat the sh*t out of you, Her passive makes it super difficult to try to dive her and even kill her, she can poke you, CC you and use the wall to prevent you from killing her, but she's rarely seen as a toplaner since she is quite inmobile and doesn't have the best mana pool. In laning phase she will always push towards you due to how her R clears waves. Try to play it as safe as possible and don't look to engage on her unless she is low and you can burst her passive easily. This lane is basically a farming lane, once you hit lvl 6 there is not that much kill preassure on either sides, since she can't burst you withouth running out of mana, and you can't kill her without getting CC'ed to death. Whenever you both guys are full build, it becomes a skill matchup, you will only win if she either misplays or if she doesn't have full HP or her Passive or her Summoner spells.
Annie is a midlaner basically, she doesnt have the mana pool to be played efficiently as a toplaner, but in case you are against an Annie it is because either it's a lane swap with your or their midlaner or its actually Annie Top. In this matchup you should farm and play as safe as you can. Be careful when she has her passive stacked, in case she has, give minions and wait until she uses it to get back to the wave and farm. Once you have lvl 6, Sheen and a decent ammount of Magic Resistance you can look to trade with her and use Fleet Footwork + Legend Bloodline to outsustain her after the short trade and eventually force an all in. If she overcommits to the Short trade you can look to run her down the lane since her only kitting tool is her E Movement Speed buff that Nasus can simply W. Later on to the game if you think she is going to ult you, pre-ult so you get bonus health and resistances and try to run her down since if you don't pre ult there is a high chance she can burst you. Also later on to the game depending on how much CC does the enemy team comp has and how ahead are you of Annie (if so) you can either look to Teamfight or Splitpush, just be careful that Annie can burst you super quickly if you don't play it properly. Remember you can stack Tibbers with Q
Aphelios kit is really versatile, he has 5 guns with really different passives, but he lacks the kit or stats to be a preoper toplaner, or even something similar to Vayne/Lucian top. In this matchup I don't recommend going Grasp since he can get a lifesteal gun to outsustain your Q + Grasp proc, Once you get lvl 6, Sheen and Ninja's Tabis you can beat him 1v1 assuming you haven't taken that much damage early on of his poke, from that moment you already outscaled him and he can't match you solo in a 1v1. He will not outscale you but be carefull in teamfights since he can deal a lot of damage because of his R. Later on to the game, to negate his utility and damage to his team, look to splitpush and force him to match you and since he can't match you solo, be prepared for 1v2 scenarios even 1v3. Remember you can stack his torret with Q.
Ashe is not a great Top laner by all means but she can deal with Nasus due to her Passive slow and her Ultimate plus all the Q damage she can get on you, but you will rarely find an Ashe Top since she is super Inmobile and Squishy and gets outscaled by half the actual Top laners. In laning phase stay behind your minion wave to minimize her W poke (which is her only realistically way of poking) also since she will try to punish you she will push the wave towards your side of the lane so look to farm under your torret. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen you can force short trades on her with E + Q combo and chunk her down to the point you can all in her easily. If you go Spellbook, try to get Cleanse to get rid of her R stun and look to run her down the lane. Later on to the game you outscale her really really hard and depending on how much CC does the enemy team comp has and how far ahead are you from Ashe you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight, remember she can't match you solo in the splitpush so be prepared for 1v2 or 1v3 scenarios.
Aurelion Sol is usually played as a midlaner, since the lane is shorter he can poke with his big star Range and then back off to the safety of his torret, but as Top Lane is a longer lane, this strategy doesn't work as efficiently as it'd do in the Mid lane. Against him just look to farm and give farm if necessary. Look to dodge his Q Stun or else he will outtrade you really hard. Usually Aurelion Sol players look to play Phase rush with Ghost (if not TP) so don't look to do an all in unless they are really low and their ghost is down, if you can't find him in this situation, just farm and look to as many items and stacks as possible. Later on it becomes rather difficult to teamfight against him, since he has such a good engage and disengage while being able to deal a lot of damage really far back, to prevent this, you should splitpush and force him to match you to negate his utility, don't try to outrotate him since he can outrotate you really easily.
Azir has a lot of mobility, a lot of poke and a useful R that can stop you from running him down the lane. The way to approach this matchup is to farm undertower or close to tower, he will usually try to place his soldiers to poke you, but while doing that he also gets minion aggro, making the wave push towards you. You want to all in him whenever you used his E which has a 19 seconds cooldown lvl 1. Later into the game, he will provide more utility to his team, but you simply bring more damage and tankyness, you basically outscale him unless he has a lot of kills, so look to splitpush since he won't be able to hold you solo, be prepared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios and make sure your team is doing an objective or teamfights since he can't hold you solo and your team will have a 4v3 teamfight advantage.
Bard top has a decent ammount of poke and a lot of versatility, you can see them going for Critical Strike builds with Dead Man's Plate and Rapid Fire Cannon, they can also go for a full AP build or even a Support Item Build to provide utility to his team. With the Fleet setup you are able to survive his poke really decently. In laning phase try to use the Top lane brushes to hide from him in order to reduce his poke significantly. Another tip into this matchup is to nto get baited into his portals, he could be setting up a gank with his jungler so be careful when he is going into a portal into his jungle. If he decides to leave lane for roams and chimes, set up a freeze so he losses some XP and Gold (Remember that the chimes give him XP). Either ways, you outscale him super hard once you get Sheen and lvl 6 and you should be able to run him down easily. Later on to the game he doesn't stand a chance 1v1 against you, he doesn't have damage at all compared to Nasus look to splitpush and force him to match you, since he can't hold you solo you will be in a 1v2 lane so make sure your team is either doing an objective or winning a teamfight in a 4v3 situation.
Blitzcrank
CONQUEROR SETUP BUT INSTEAD OF SECOND WIND + UNFLINCHING GO MANAFLOW BAND AND TRANSCENDENCE - CULL + POT =
Blitzcrank kit is not meant to be for a solo laner, he simply doesn't have a consistant wave clear without blowing up all his mana under tower, and the only realistic way he has of winning this lane is to that he hooks you into his tower and then uses his E and R to stun you and get damage of you via tower shots, but since Nasus doesn't really push waves early on, he doesn't have a realistic way to punish you. Early on sit behind minions and wait for him to shove the first wave and then you set up a freeze on the second wave, he wont be able to break it since his wave clear sucks, farm till sheen and lvl6 and then just run him down. You can also go for CDR + Adaptative Force + Magic Resistance for the runpage and look to build Death Dance right after Trinity Force since you have Trascendence and the CDR scaling Rune you will get 40% CDR easily, there is no need to rush Kindlegem in this matchup. You only lose this lane if you are trolling.
Brand nowadays is mostly picked as a poking Support since his kit isn't the best for a solo lane due to his lack of Mobility and Mana sustain, and now if he is in a longer lane like toplane where all champions have a lot of dashes and have decent sustain, he can get ganked relatively easy so ask your jungler for help to get a free kill. Because of how Brand kit works when poking, if he decides to poke you, he will get minion aggro and then the wave will shove towards you so you can farm near your tower. Be careful with his damage when he hits all his abiliites, he can burst you even with your R bonus HP and MR if you are somewhat low. Remember his R bounces in between minions and champions so be careful whenever fighting him near a big wave of yours. Just look to farm all laning phase. Later on to the game, set up a splitpush where he has to match you and outrotate him since he is quite inmobile. You can also punish his Q cooldown in case he misses it, and if you see he doesn't have the mana bar to do a full combo, just all in him he won't be able to kite you or kill you properly.
Braum
CONQUEROR BUT INSTEAD OF SECOND WIND + UNFLINCHING GO MANAFLOW BAND AND TRANSCENDENCE SETUP - CULL + POT =
Similar to Blitzcrank, Braum doesn't have neither the Mana or the HP sustain for being in a solo lane, he overall is a troll pick whenever played in other roles rather than Support. One thing to keep in mind is that he does have a good gank setup so make sure you have some deep wards and pinks in the enemy jungle so you can spot the enemy jungler and avoid the ganks. Its another sort of free lane where you can go cull and look to get items, once you hit your lvl6 and Sheen powerspike, you already outscaled him and you can kill him easily. Later on to the game, look to splitpush and force him to match you, ignore his damage and hit the tower unless he goes for an On-hit build (which Nasus just W him) he will never beat you solo, so be careful of the enemy team rotations and prepare yourself for 1v2 scenarios.
Caitlyn isn't really a top laner but she is a cheesy pick in toplane and can deal with Nasus really good in the first couple of levels. Look to farm without taking that much damage and whenever she has her headshot up, also look to dodge her E and W since they both will grant headshot damage. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, you can all in her if you are full health, if you feel confident you can go Ghost so you can run her down more easily. Be carefull also when farming under tower, she can place the traps right where you are and then get a headshot from really far away. If you are really low health and she has 6, back off, she can ult and kill you. Later on to the game she doesn't stand a chance against Nasus 1v1 potential and Q damage and since she has a decent teamfight, look to splitpush and force her to match you to negate all her damage items to her team, she can't match Nasus solo, so you should be matched by her and some ally of hers, make sure your team is either doing an objective or teamfighting since they will have a better chance of winning since its a 4v3, if they constantly lose, just fight with them and carry teamfights.
Camille is a really annoying toplaner to deal with as Nasus, she has a lot of true damage with her Q and a lot of mobilty with her Ult. In this lane you want to stick to the middle of the lane, don't hug the walls or else she can use the wall to hit you with her E, If you get hit by her E you have to disengage unless she is really low and you can turn the fight, but 99% of the cases its better to back off. Once you get some CDR (in between 10%-20%) and some stacks (120-150) you can start doing short trades with Q. Also in an all in there are some tips you can use to minimize her damage. Again, stick to the middle of the lane so she can't use the walls, use your W only when she is using her W so you can stop her from hitting you and then Healing. Its not bad to build some Healing Reduction since some Camille's go Death Dance + Ravenous Hydra, so you counter her lifesteal. Later on to the game you outscale her but she has so much mobility that she can burst you and force you to use your sums and then she will disengage, to prevent this look to teamfight since your teamfight is way stronger than hers.
Cassiopeia
SPELLBOOK SETUP BUT INSTEAD OF PRESENCE OF MIND AND BLOODLINE, GO SECOND WIND REVITALIZE - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS + POT =
Cassiopeia is one of the hardest matchups for Nasus, she can poke you and destroy you in a lot of ways even full build, she even doesn't need boots so she can afford to go a 6th item without losing on movement speed since her passive gives her movement speed per levels. In this lane your looking to survive thats why we swap to Second Wind + Revitalize. Always when going in try to bait her ult whenever you are about to hit a Q, cancel the animation and turn backwards, usually Cassiopeia will hit you with the ult as you are Q'ing her to sort of "mitigate" the damage, so look to bait her R or use Cleanse. Spellbook is obligatory in this matchup since you will need a lot of summoners to beat her, TP to survive in lane, Flash to gap close or dodge her Ult, Cleanse to get rid of the ult in case she hits you with it, Ghost to laner on get closer to her, Heal/Barrier to tank her. This is one of the hardest matchups but luckily, she's more of a midlaner since she doesn't have a lot of mobility and Top lane is a longer lane than midlane where low mobility is punished really hard, but if she is top, ask for a lane swap for with your midlaner in case he can deal with her. Don't be upset if you are 40+ minions behind her early on, it's the nature of this matchup.
Cho'Gath is an inmobile tank with a lot of CC that can deal with Nasus pretty well specially since he has a true damage scaling ultimate. In laning phase you should try to predict where he's going to Q whenever he smashes the floor with his "foot" and then look to dodge it, if you wait for the circle to appear, its going to become more difficult since Nasus doesn't have a dash and is also inmobile. Cho'gath either go for a full AP Build or a Tank Build. If he goes Full AP just be carefull of his poke, he can deal a lot of damage to you that if your not playing properly, you won't be able to outsustain him, the downsite for him is that he is not tanky at all, so whenever you get some items and some MR you will be able to run him down as long as you start the fight with your ult. If he goes Full tank is the complete oposite, he won't have enough poke to get you out of lane, but he will be able to fight you in the midgame and if player properly, kill you. Once you are both full build, in a late game teamfight look to peel your team, usually Cho'gath will go for your ADC or a Squishy target in your team.
Corki's kit isn't the best pick as a Top laner since the lane is bigger than Mid lane and he lacks of the Mana pool to poke his rivals, he can't really poke Nasus out of lane since he is a scaling champ rather than an early game poke champ and doesn't have the best disengage tools to kite Nasus. Once you finish Trinity Force and boots (remember he transforms AD damage items into AP because of his passive, so choose boots carefully) you will be able to kill him easy, just stay behind minions so he cant poke you with his missiles and you will be able to beat him easily. Later on you can look to splitpush and force him and more members of his team to match you and try to drag as much preassure as possible since its really hard to kill him once he gets some levels, be prepared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios.
Darius
GRASP (SCALING) BUT INSTEAD OF PRESENCE OF MIND AND BLOODLINE, GO BISCUITS DELIVERY TIME WARP TONIC - CLOTH ARMOR + 4 POTS =
Darius is another really hard matchup for Nasus, a good Darius will beat you in every stage of the game regardless of your build and stacks and I highly recommend permabanning him in case you want to climb only with Nasus. In case you have another permaban and you get to fight him, I recommend rushing tabi's regardless of the team unless the team is 4 AP and Darius. Nowadays Darius players will play with Nimbus Cloak + Celerity with Ghost and Dorans Blade, but there is a slight problem with this, he struggles in short trades, so to effectively trade against him, look to bait his E and then E + Q with Grasp proc once you get around 130 stacks. If you punish his E cooldown consistanly you will be able to leave him low enough were he has to back or you can allin him, also when fighting him in every scenario, you have to look to burst him, if he is allowed to stack his passive on someone and then spam Ults, its a guaranteed loss since you will be behind in this matchup. As for early laning phase, just play as safe as you can, get in XP range while hiding in bushes. This is one of the most possible and harder matchups for Nasus and again, i highly recommend banning him. Don't be upset if you are 40+ minions behind him early on, it's the nature of this matchup.
Diana is overall better of as a midlaner, she's rarely seen as a toplane pick, but if you either laned swap with your mid or they actually picked Diana Top, just don't let her get trades with you, play as far back as possible to minimize her poke (which is very minimal), she can only poke you with Q and W and if you rush Mercury's Treads you wont have that much of a problem. Once you get lvl 6, Sheen and Mercury's Treads you should be able to beat her easily since, similar to Yasuo, she can only use her E (dash) into enemies and her ultimate gets people closer to her so its easier to gap close against her. Later on to the game, Nasus outscale her easily unless she got many kills but even then you outscale her, Conqueror on Nasus is way stronger than Conqueror on Diana. Try to setup a splitpush situation where she has to match you to negate her better teamfighting, she can hold you but not for much, so set up some vision to prevent ganks.
Dr. Mundo nowadays is such an outdated champion, his kit doesn't offer him enough punishing tools to deal with Nasus unless you run it down, so be careful and don't underestimate his damage early on. In laning phase just look to farm under torret since his W and Bami Cinder will permapush the wave ,and dodge his cleavers (stay behind minions for doing this easier), Its also not that bad to build a Bramble Vest after getting Trinity Force + Boots so he can't just outheal your damage with his R in a teamfight. Later on to the game depending on how much CC does the enemy team composition and how ahead are you from Nasus, you can look to Teamfight (you outscale him really hard there) or Splitpush. If you look to Splitpush, ignore his damage and hit the tower and if he does get you to half HP just Q or auto attack some minions and get back to Full HP, because of this he will ask for help since he can't match you, so be prepared for 1v2 scenarios.
Draven Top is a really annoying pick and really cheesy, if he fails to get a lead on you early game, he will get outscaled and become useless. In laning phase you have to play it as safe as possible and don't die, stay in the bushes to get in XP range, usually Dravens will get so much AD early on due to his Q that mostlikely the wave will push towards you, so farm undertower. Once you get some armor, Sheen and Ult, you can kill him if he overcommits to a trade. Whenever going for an all in against him use your Wither after his Bloodrush (Movement speed buff). They usually go for either Sanguine Blade or Maramune, so get Ninja Tabi's early on and some bit more armor to prevent him from oneshotting you. Later on to the game (Mid game) he can't match you solo so look to splitpush and force him to match you, due to how his axes work, Wither will completely counter his main source of damage, you can dive him as soon as you know he's alone.
Ekko toplane is really a farming matchup for Nasus, he can play really safe when farming with his Q and his Passive movement speed. The way to beat him is by doing short trades with Q to the point he is really low and then force an all in. Its also good to build Healing Reduction since when he ults, he gets health back that can be countered with Grevious wounds, but if the enemy team is full AP don't go for a Bramble Vest, its not worth the buy but what it is worth is getting some MR early on. Be carefull about when he goes into bushes, Ekko toplane usually goes into the bushes to cast W and then they all in you, so be careful. Later on it becomes really difficult to kill him, specially since he will have 45% CDR, Zhonias and his Ult every 20 seconds or so, its not worth chasing him late game, just look to burst him and burn his ult with E into couple of Q's so you get the armor penetration.
Elise isn't the greatest solo laner, that's why she is played usually as a jungler, since she will face Mana issues due that she can't farm under her tower and poke efficiently. In laning phase, look to farm safely behind your minion wave to prevent her from hitting her Cocoon on you, and once you get lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can severly punish her E cooldown by pressing R and run her down the lane, she has no other way from kitting you rather than going untargeteable and make time for her jungler to help her. Later on to the game, once she gets Zhonias it gets more tricky to fight her since she will have lower cooldown on Cocoon and she can go untargateable but either ways she gets outscaled really hard, so to prevent this look to teamfight, she can't do that much appart from trying to burst you which she will fail hardly. Remember you can stack her little spiders with Q.
Evelynn kit was originally designed for being a jungler but with the recent buffs, now she's allowed to play in lanes, I personally don't have enough experience in this matchup but i will give you tips from games that im against an Evelynn Jungle. Usually Evelynn will look to get rid of the splitpushers before a teamfight so she can force a 5v4, to prevent this look to fight with your team and if she tries to charm your adc, put your E down on your backline so when she comes to burst them, she gets the Armor Penetration of your E and then look to burst her in a couple of Q's. Early on if you feel confident once you get Sheen and lvl6 you could try to all in her, if not, just look to outscale her, later on in a 1v1 fight, she has no chance to match Nasus.
Ezreal isn't really a toplaner, at most he is a midlaner since he has mixed AP and AD scaling but in toplane he lacks of mobility since his E has a 28 second cooldown lvl 1 and he maxes it last, but he can still beat Nasus if he plays it properly. Ezreal is also a scaling champion, but has decent damage early on but once you get Sheen and lvl6 you can run him down the lane, be careful that everytime he hits his Q, he gets a 1.5 cooldown reduction on all his abilities, a good time to all in him is when he wastes or misuses his E but if he doesn't, wait for him to push you into your tower and when he uses his W on the tower just W him, use R + Ghost and run him down, toplane is a longer lane and since he isn't playing ADC, he doesn't have a support in lane to help him, it should be a free kill if you played properly. If you feel like he is kitting you a lot, go for W max second since E has percentage armor reduction which isn't the best into a squishy target, W slow will be way more efficient.
Since his Rework, Fiddlestick has become a really strong champion and he has been in the toplane meta couple of patches ago with a full tank build. This lane just because how he clears waves (with his W) it will most of the cases be on your side of the lane since he will also look to preassure you, so look to farm safely under your tower. A good tip is to have vision on the top brushes so he can't R and proc his passive Fear. If he goes for a full AP Build he can burst you but if he fails, just press R and run him down, If he goes for a Tank Build look to get some Healing Reduction after Sheen and look to outscale him, if he goes full tank he won't deal damage to you but he will provide tankiness and utility to his team. Later on the best thing to do is to splitpush since you negate his Passive Fear and overall his utility to his team, if he goes missing while you are applying preassure, be careful because he could be setting up a gank on you with his teamates so look to have vision around their jungler while splitting.
Fiora is by far the best 1v1 champ in the game, her scaling, her early game preassure on Nasus are really strong. Rush Bramble Vest with the Cloth Armor start before Sheen. Dont look to do short trades unless you have 500+ stacks or else she will autoattack the wave and heal back to full due to her mad lifesteal. In laning, usually Fiora goes for Tiamat so the wave will push towards you most of the time but sometimes some Fiora players will go for Maramune and delay the Tiamat purchase if they do just sit back and catch XP. Only look for killing her whenever she doesn't have W, since it reduces so much your Attack Speed (50% Attack Speed Reduction) once you have Bramble Vest, you will counter her Post R Healing, another usefull tip to this matchup is that as soon as she ults you, look to stick to a wall to prevent her from hitting the 4th vital and stop her post R healing.
Fizz is such a snowbally champion, once he gets a lead or a kill, it becomes impossible to deal with him, but he's rarely played top since he is denied another possible lane to roam but in case you have to lane against him, look to put wards in river so you can alert your allies of his roams, and ping a lot whenever he's off the map. If you played passively enough and he didn't had success in his roams, you should be able to beat him. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can start kill him if he uses his E super aggressively or misses the R on you, also try to get as close to him so once he R's you (if he hits it) he does less damage (the further away he hits with the ult, the more damage it does) and use Wither after his E (Dash) which has a 16 seconds lvl 1. Later on to the game depending on how much CC does the enemy team comp have and how ahead are you from Fizz (if so) you can choose to either splitpush or teamfight.
Galio is more likely to be a midlaner since it allows him to put more global preassure because of his ult, but I personally have laned against some of them in the Top lane so here are some tips of how to approach this lane. Galio has a sh*t ton of CC in his kit making it really annoying for nasus to deal with but you can always swap to Cleanse to get rid of his Taunt. As for laning phase advise stand begind minions and bait him into hitting him with Q so he pushes the wave into you and try to farm undertower, if he decides somehow that he can dive you, just R and Wither him and run him down, he simply doesn't have that many kiting tools but he can ult away from you to his jungler or midlaner to save himself, if so just look to keep farming. This lane is relatively easy since Galio isn't the best laner with AD laners because of his Magic Damage Shield. Later on to the game, look to splitpush and kill him, he shouldn't be able to beat you unless he either has a lot of kills or has someone with him making it a 2v1.
Gangplank
SPELLBOOK SETUP BUT INSTEAD OF PRESENCE OF MIND AND BLOODLINE, GO SECOND WIND REVITALIZE - CLOTH ARMOR + 4 POTS =
Gankplank is another really hard counter to Nasus, his Q poke is super appressive since he can also proc Grasp with it plus his True Damage Burn of his passive it makes it difficult to survive in lane, and usually Gankplank goes for Biscuit Delivery + Time Warp Tonic for extra mana sustain for more Q poke. In this lane your focus is to survive you will outscale him in the midgame but in the late game its a skill matchup. You can look to autoattack + Q his barrels but you have to execute it really fast or else he will hit you with the damage, you can stack his barrels (for 3 barrels). He also can cleanse your Wither with his W so try to make him use his W and then you use your Wither. Ask to you jungler to gank you once you get Sheen and lvl6 in case its really hard lane for you, if not just go for 3 points in E and then Q max and you should be able to survive this lane. In late game it becomes a pure skill matchup, since his W cooldown goes down a lot due that he will have 40% CDR and he will have a lot of movement speed making it super hard to stick with him, look to kill him with Ghost and Flash. Don't be upset if you are 40+ minions behind him early on, it's the nature of this matchup. Remember you can stack his barrils with Q.
Garen kit is made to make short trades thats why previous to his mini rework, he used to play with Grasp of the Undying, but since his mini rework, it became a harder matchup. Nasus will win the extended trades so as Nasus look to farm as safely as possible, Garen will look to do short trades and disengage and whenever you are low enough he will force an all in into you, they will usually start a trade with Q to get movement speed, Q and silence you and then E and W out. Try to bait his Q so he has to Q a minion and shoves the wave towards you, or punish his cooldown if you have enough stacks. One really important tip to win an extended fight is to look to Wither him after his Q, since his Q removes all slows, and If you see the cast animation of his ult, you can ult while his animation is going so you get the bonus HP to tank his R, You outscale him, but he can snowball really hard so give minions early on if he is really aggressive.
Gnar is a really obnoxious champion to deal as Nasus, specially since he can go melee and range, he has decent CC and damage as Mega Gnar and a lot ok kitting as Mini Gnar, but he lacks of sustain, so look to farm as safely as you can and try to dodge his Q's. Usually the will go for PTA and Demolish + Boneplating, since its the best rune for either Mega and Mini Gnar, so make sure he doesn't proc PTA and his W passive on you, it can deal a lot of damage early on. Once you get enough Stacks, CDR and mana look to do short trades into him into an eventual all in. Later on it becomes really annoying to chase him since he gets so much movement speed so look to fight him whenever he is in Mega Gnar, also keep in mind that after his Mega Gnar form ended, he can't get fury for 15 seconds and his E (his little hop) has a 22 seconds cooldown lvl 1, you can look to punish this cooldowns.
Gragas top is one of the most annoying picks ever, he can deal a lot of damage, outkite you, CC lock you and if he gets a lead its really hard to be usefull. In this lane you should look to only farm, don't try to trade with him, he has such a good disengage, damage and a bit of sustain that its not worth trading against him, they also mostly go Phase Rush so its really hard to get on top of him but if you somehow get a chance to kill him because he's low wait for his Phase rush to end and then Wither him, since Phase Rush gives you a slow resistance while its on. In mid game he will try to help his team by setting up kills so look to splitpush and force him to match you in the split until you are 4-5 items, once you get to that point look to do 5v5's he will do damage and provide utility but he won't be able burst you and kill you.
Graves isn't the ideal pick toplane and its even worse when it comes to lane against Nasus, a weak early game champ that has to be punished or else Nasus will scale like a monster. Be careful with his grit stacks, for everytime he dashes he gains armor up to a ridiculous point. Also be careful with his lvl 2/3 spike, he can all in you really well and get you really low so respect his early game. For laning phase you should look to farm behind your minion wave since his autoattacks don't penetrate though minions unlike the jungle camps. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen you can easily run him down if the wave is pushing towards your side of the lane with ghost, an useful tip is to look to use Wither whenever he is reloading or just used his E. Later on to the game, he will only be able to kill you unless he has a lot of kills (and I mean a lot of them), otherwise he wont be able to beat you. Also it becomes sort of difficult to kill him solo if you dont have Ghost and he is not solo, It usually depends on how much CC does the enemy team comp has and how far ahead are you of Graves (if you are) to choose either to Splitpush or Teamfighting
Hecarim toplane is a really oppressive laner and lately he recieved a lot of direct and indirect buffs. Short trading isn't the best since he can use his W to outank your Q and then he can use his Q to win the trade. In this matchup you have to wait for him to do a mistake, its either he overcommits on to your tower and takes couple of towershots, or he is really overextended with no vision or you get your jungler and midlaner to assist you, if none of this situations occur, look to farm and get as many stacks as possible. Later on to the game you will outscale him but he can kite you really well with his E and R. Try to use your Wither after he used his E so you sort of deny the movement speed buff. Building Bramble Vest against him isn't a bad purchase since he can get a lot of healings (specially if he goes for Death Dance with Conqueror).
Heimer is a really inmobile champion but he can use that to his advantages with his torrets. In this lane he will always permapush since his torrets will automatically autoattack you, but you have to play it safe enough to not get poked, once the wave starts pushing back you can kill the torrets with your minion wave and then look to waste his mana like that. Fleet in this lane is really good but if you feel confident you can try to go for Spellbook. if he can't get an advantage in this lane, later on you will beat him 1v1. Look to setup a splitpush situation where he has to match you and look to all in him when he hasn't placed his torrets yet, the torrets are his main source of damage, without them he is super squishy. Remember you can stack his torrets with Q.
Illaoi
GRASP (SCALING) BUT INSTEAD OF PRESENCE OF MIND AND BLOODLINE, GO BISCUITS DELIVERY TIME WARP TONIC - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS + POT =
Illaoi is a hard matchup for Nasus since she can poke him a lot and outdamage and outheal your Legend Bloodline + Passive Lifesteal, I tried in the past going for the Grasp (Scaling) Setup but its not the best, she can poke you really hard, i think its worth sacrificing you lifesteal in order to survive in lane. Illaoi main damage source are her tentacles which you can stack really easy, just whenver hitting them be careful since she will try to hit you with her E and poke you a lot. Because of how her abilities coordinate with the tentacles, the wave will almost always push towards you so just once farming under tower look to dodge her E and you should be able to survive. After Trinity Force and before Steraks Cage, go for Bramble Vest to cut down her tentacle healing. Illaoi R is also really dependent on her hitting her E first making it deal more damage so in mid/late game, if you survived lane, you can all in her if she misses her E, if she doesn't just back off. Its a really hard matchup to survive in laning phase but its not impossible and its not the hardest, just play it safe early on, don't try to all in her early unless she is 1 HP. Remember you can stack her tentacles with Q.
Irelia before the BORK buff, used to be such a free lane, after you hit lvl6 and you have Sheen, she just get outscaled, she used to go tiamat so she will be permapushing a wave to you and you could even go the same runepage as for matchups like Ivern/Yuumi top, But since BORK became a core item in her and a lot of buffs, it all mixed up into making this a hard matchup. Don't get me wrong, you still outscale her quite hard but early on the matchup becomes way harder. Always check her passive stats, if she is close to 5 and you have minions low near by you, just completely back off, with 5 stacks she can even dive you if she plays it properly. Early on is a skill matchup. A good item purchase is Warden's Mail, it will passively reduce her autoattack speed and give you armor, Its a good item to survive after Sheen. This matchup is all about her Stacks, if she has no stacks, you farm if she has 5 stacks or she's close you back off and let the wave push to you.
Ivern
CONQUEROR SETUP BUT INSTEAD OF SECOND WIND + UNFLINCHING GO MANAFLOW BAND AND TRANSCENDENCE - CULL + POT =
Ivern top is like Yuumi top, if they pick it, specially into Nasus, they are trolling. Ivern doesn't have the damage to poke Nasus nor the wave clear to push him in and make Nasus lose farm, just look to farm and dont get poked. Diving him is not really necessary and can get risky since Daisy can knock you up and he can use his Q to stun you, just shove him in and get vision on their jungler, if he doesnt have ult, just ignore his damage and hit the tower. Build Death Dance right after Trinity Force since you have Trascendence and the CDR scaling Rune you will get 40% CDR easily, there is no need to rush Kindlegem in this matchup. You only lose this lane if you are trolling. Remember you can stack Daisy with Q.
Janna
CONQUEROR / SPELLBOOK SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Janna top is somewhat similar to Soraka or Sona Top, her goal is to provide utility later on teamfights while scaling thanks to being able to farm in a solo lane and surviving thanks to her poke. Since we are going for the Fleet setup, it makes her really useless when trying to poke you, so she either tries to poke you and runs out of mana with 12 cs at 10 minutes or she runs out of mana by farming at 7 minutes, its one way or the other. you can go Death Dance second item after Trinity Force since she won't be able to do that much damage to proc your Steraks Cage shield, Death Dance will also provide will extra lifesteal and some MR to make even harder to beat you. By the time you get Trinity Force, you can kill her but it can be difficult since she can use her Zephyr (Tornado) and her R to get you out, but once you get Death Dance she has been outscaled and can't match you at all, you can even kill her in a 1v2 scenario if you play it well.
Jarvan IV has been out of the toplane meta for a while, his ability kit is really simple, he can use E + Q to Knock you up and then W to slow you down and autoattack you to death. Early on he will try to kill you with this technique so you can easily dodge her initial combo. Usually there are 2 types of Jarvan IV platers, the Electrocute full Lethality and the Conqueror traditional bruiser style and Nasus outscales both. By the time you have lvl6 and sheen, look to bait his E + Q Combo, if he misses it, just go in, he simply can't escape and his autoattacks can't matchup your Q's, and from there on he will get outscaled. You can either look to teamfight with your team and be prepared for a flank with his combo, or to splitpush and kill him easily after he used his cooldowns. This lane is all about not letting him get ahead early, if he does it becomes harder to outscale him.
Jax matchup is somewhat similar to the Irelia matchup. Jax used to struggle a lot because he lacked of sustain before BORK became a core item to his build since now he can get lifesteal early on because BORK has Lifesteal on it. Now the matchup becomes really hard since he can outsustain Nasus short trade potential. In laning phase he is sort of weak early on, he will beat you if you try to fight him, but if he decides to all in you in the middle of the wave with his E on cooldown (It's a 14 seconds cooldown lvl1), you can kill him but its sort of difficult since his E stuns for longer per attacks dodge so you'll have to use summoners and potions. Once he gets lvl 6, Jax looks to do short trades with Q + Autoattack + W to get her R passive AP damage off, so if he decides to do that whenever his E is down, you can look to do a short trade or if he is low, you can all in him. I recommend swapping Trinity Force to Iceborn Guantlet for extra Armor. Jax later on to the game can match you in the split push since he is the best scaling bruiser by far, so look to do teamfights where he will not be as usefull as you. Be careful, even when you are full build, he can still kill you 1v1 so look to do some short trades into an all in, and in case he commits with his ult just back off and use your W to disengage, after his R runned out look to splitpush since without his R, he loses a lot of resistances that will help him in the 1v1 against Nasus. I consider it as an Extreme matchup, since he has such a good scaling, he is really snowbally and his cooldowns are really low even without CDR.
Jayce vs Nasus matchup is all about how can you survive laning phase, Jayce has damage for ages, since he literally has 2 ability kits. Our advantage on this matchup is that he will use some of his Aoe spells if he wants to trade with us making the wave pushing towards us or he can go in range for and try to poke nasus from distance, Either ways he will try to force a trade since he doesn't scale very well and Nasus is a late game monster, you will outscale him but build some armor, Jayce build consist on building lethality and oneshotting you, While farming under tower agains Jayce, look to farm the melee minions with your Q and then the ranged ones with your E, since he will try to punish you from attempting to stack them. Once you get some armor items, Sheen and Ult, he shouldn't be able to kill you and you can force an extended fight and outsustain him with Legend Bloodline.
Jhin top is rarely seen, he is quite squishy and but can deal a lot of damage with his shots. I've seen couple of them get Black Cleaver first item for getting the extra health and at the same time damage and then they will build full crit, regardless of which build he chooses, he overall is quite squishy, so as soon as you hit lvl 6 and you get your Sheen, if you have a decent ammount of health, just look to run him down the lane. If you go for Spellbook you can start the lane with Ghost, farm until you get Sheen and then swap summoners to TP to go back to lane, and then run him down. A usefull tip into alling him is to use Wither when he has his last shot, since he will get a boost of movement speed. Later on to the game, depending on how much CC does the enemy team composition have and how ahead are you of Jhin (if so) you can look to either Splitpush or Teamfight. Remember you can stack his traps with Q.
Jinx
CONQUEROR / SPELLBOOK SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Jinx is somewhat similar to Ezreal, she is a scaling ADC but unlike Ezreal, usually she doesn't go for Mana items but instead they choose to go for Presence of Mind to help her have a bigger Mana pool, she also (like Ezreal) isn't the best toplaner since strong champions with mobility like Darius or Garen can run her down really easily. In case you get to be in this lane, just look to farm and get your items, Jinx will never be a problem in lane against you since she simply can't outpoke Nasus regardless of each setup you choose to go (Either Conqueror or Spellbook). Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen look to all in her whenever her traps are in cooldown (It's a 24 seconds cooldown lvl 1), also be careful when she kills a minion since her passive will give her a movement speed buff for 6 seconds, to counter this, look to wither her after she kills a minion. In late game, if she gets a lot of peel she can be really difficult to peel, so look to splitpush and force her or her frontline to match you, she can't hold you in the split.
Kai'Sa
CONQUEROR / SPELLBOOK SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Kai'Sa is also similar to Ezreal, she is a scaling ADC that she goes for mana items (Usually they build Maramune) since she will lack of mana to poke her laners and farm efficiently at the same time, basically she isn't the best pick since she also is super squishy and a movement speed buff is the only thing that stops Nasus from running her down the lane. Look to farm this lane until you hit lvl 6 and you get your Sheen power spike, after there you can run her down easily just look to set up the wave on your side of the lane to have more room to kill her. In the all in, look to use W before she uses her E (a small movement speed buff) and early on she won't be able to become invisible with that ability since its not efficient damage wise to upgrade that ability. Later on to the game Kai'Sa has no chance to match you in lane, she simply will get oneshotted regarless of her going AP or AD but in teamfights she will be able to burst you down easily, to prevent this look to setup a splitpush situation where she has to match you, you can dive her easily if she is solo but most of the time she will ask her team for support since she can't kill or even hold Nasus in Mid-Late game so be prepared for 1v2 or 1v3 scenarios.
Kalista is a pick that got into the Top lane meta since IG TheShy popularized it, she is really annoying to deal with as Nasus since she can deal a lot of damage with her E early on and can kite Nasus super efficiently with her passive, the downsite for her is that for her to kite you, she needs to autoattack a lot, and Nasus Wither is an autoattack debuff so it will make harder for her alling you and she also isn't the best solo laner as her R will be useless without an ally to use it. As for laning phase tips just look to farm until you get your Trinity Force + Boots spyke and then look to all in her, be careful of her jungler since they can 2v1 you really well specially with Kalista R. Later on to the game, look to setup a Splitpush situation where she will ask for help since she can't solo match you and then look to outrotate her and her ally into a favourable 5v3 teamfight situation. Remember you can stack her centinel with Q.
Karma top nowadays became more of a counter pick to aggressive laner such as Darius or Tryndamere, since she has a lot of CC and utility to stop them and outpoke them but when it comes to Nasus, she can poke him a lot but as we go with Fleet Footwork with out runes, she can't poke us out of lane and if you decide to go for Spellbook, you lose on early game surviviability but it will guarantee a better scaling due to having way more summoners spells. Karma top is a really versatile pick, they can go for Arcane Comet to try to poke you, they can go Spellbook to look to provide utility and even in their build they can choose to go full AP or to go for more of a support build. In this lane look to use the toplane bushes to dodge her Q and autoattacks also you can sit behind your minions and bait her into trying to Q you and then she will hit the wave making it push towards you. Karma once you get Trinity Force + Boots can't really solo kill you, in this stage look to get as much Stacks as you can so then later on to the game, when you force a splitpush situation, you can kill her easily.
Karthus isn't a toplaner, he is quite squishy and inmobile but he can be played as top against Nasus. Karthus damage heavily relies on hitting Q's which are skill shots so if you play it properly and do random moves it can be really hard to trade for him. Once you get some Magic Resistance, Sheen and lvl6 you can all in him, but wait for him to do mistakes such as trying to poke you while he's at the middle of your wave, taking a towershot while poking you undertorret. Even though he scales a lot, Karthus can't outscale Nasus, Nasus R provides him with resistances to outank his Q's, meanwhile Karthus doesn't have a lot of tank stats. A usefull tip is to always be close to minions since if he hits a Q to a single target, It does double the damage. I also recommend going Grasp since he doesn't have a lot of sustain, so once you get some Mana, CDR and Stacks you can look to do short trades into an all in, Fleet is also usefull if it's hard to dodge his Q's. This matchup is all about scaling.
Kassadin
CONQUEROR SETUP BUT INSTEAD OF SECOND WIND + UNFLINCHING GO MANAFLOW BAND AND TRANSCENDENCE - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS + POT =
Kassadin is also similar to Galio, he is a really good pick into AP champions but his 19 base armor lvl 1 makes him super weak into AD champions or Assasins so they will usually go for Fleet Footwork to try to survive laning phase and then look to outscale, Kassadin also isn't the best toplaner since he doesn't have a lot of mobility before hitting lvl 6. In this lane look to farm, he won't be able to poke you consistantly without blowing all his Mana bar. Once you hit lvl 6 and you get your Sheen spike, look to setup up the wave closer to your torret and then run him down with Ghost, he can't scape since his ult in the early levels doesn't provide him with a lot of kitting. I consider Kassadin as a Minor Threat since if you let him get to lvl16 without punishing his low armor early on, it becomes super hard for your team to kill him. In late game if you have Death Dance + Spirit Visage + R resistances, he can't kill you but he can kite you for ever, also if you don't have R he can do a really even 1v1 with you. Remember that whenever you use your R, your Q Cooldown cuts down to half so if you don't have you ult in late game, don't look to fight him unless you completely destroyed him in lane and you have a clear advantage over him. This lane is one of the easiest ones and you have from your lvl 6 to all the way to his lvl 16 to punish him and kill him, if you don't it becomes a really hard game.
Katarina is one of the hardest assasins to deal with as Nasus since her dash is literally a longer range Flash, and even her R applies healing reduction to the enemies inside it cutting down a lot of tankiness of the build. Early on just don't get close to the wave, she can kill you super easily until you hit lvl 6, and even when you hit it, she can still al in you and burst you if she plays it properly, use the Top lane brushes to hide from her and preventing her from dashing to you. Usually Katarina goes for either Electrocute into squishy targets or Conqueror into more tanky targets and both of those runes can beat Nasus super hard. Also look to put some wards and vision in the river since she will look to roam because you must play so passive yo outscale her. If you played the laning phase correctly and she can't get an advantage over you, she gets outscaled but don't look to force an all in, Katarina can just E away and survive, wait for her to overcommit onto you and then all in her. Similar to the Fizz matchup, if she gets kills early on or some sort of lead onto your team, it becomes super hard to win the game since she snowballs super hard.
Kayle since her rework hasn't been performing great, but due to a mini rework that makes her E not. I've seen that she's getting a mini rework where her E now has no Mana Cost, but still this is a pretty Nasus sided matchup, since she now loses the mana refund of Q making it super hard for her to poke you. Look to farm in this lane and once you get lvl 6 + Sheen and Boots (she can kite you really well, so don't underestimate Boots) and then look to all in her. Similar to Garen, when she W's she not only heals but she gets a movement speed buff so look to use your W after she use her W. Even full build, its really hard for her to kill you due to the ammount of resistances you get with R, also you can build tank while still infinitively stacking damage with Q. Later on to the game look to splitpush since in teamfights she can become really annoying due that she can protect her allies with W and R while dealing a lot of damage. She can decently hold you but look to do a short trade with E + Q combo and it will chunk her really hard to the point her lifesteal with Hextech Gunblade and W aren't enough, do it consistantly and then dive her with Ghost whenever she is low enough.
Kayn a couple of patchs ago recieved a buff that allowed him to be played as a toplaner but the thing about iT is that early on, he is quite weak making it hard to consistanly punish Nasus or even poke him without losing all his mana bar. In this lane, he will usually go for Red Kayn since he can't burst you with Blue Kayn plus Red Kayn will provide him with a lot of lifesteal and knockups to deal with Nasus. As for laning phase and because of how his abilities work, wave will always be on your side so look to stack, I also recommend going Bramble Vest after you get your CDR items, later on to the game, with other setups is really hard to deal with him, but with Conqueror + Legend Bloodline we can out heal his all passive. I recommend also going Death Dance to match his Death Dance. The longer the game goes the better is for Nasus since Nasus scales infinitively with his Q.
Kennen is a real menace to all aggresive melee range Top laners but surprisingly Nasus does really well into him and since Kleptomancy was removed from the game, he doesn't have a specific runepage, you can see Kennen players play with Spellbook, Phase Rush, Conqueror, basically almost every rune in the game. In this lane, farm behind you minion wave so he can't poke you with his Q, do this until you get lvl 6 and Sheen and then you can start playing slightly more aggressive by doing short trades. Since his core items are so cheap (Zhonia's Hourglass = 2.9k g and Hextech Protobelt-01 = 2.5k g) he will usually have an item advantage over you, but Nasus items are way better and more stronger since they provide more stats rather than some actives. Later on to the game, Kennen will outperform you in teamfights so look to set up a splitpush where he has to match you, while you are preassuring him, look to punish his cooldowns, if you see he just used his E or his W to clear the wave, look to use your W and force an extended fights, he doesn't have the sustain to match you so he either backs or he desesperately tries to hold you while asking for backup.
Kha'Zix is rarely seen as a laner since he can't really use his Passive Isolation damage as most of the toplaners will stand next to thier minion wave, plus he doesn't have the best Mana sustain and his E works better as an Engage tool rather than a Disengage tool. This matchup is rather easy since he can't really do that much to punish you. Look to always stay within 425 units (a Teemo diamater is 100 units, so for reference, stay near 4 Teemo's in range of your wave) of your wave so he can't apply his Passive damage and look to farm without taking that much damage and once you get lvl 6 and Sheen you can start punishing him if he tries to force a trade or overcommits on you, he doesn't have consistant damage but he can burst you. Later in the game, you will see that Kha'Zix doesn't teamfight was well as you do but make sure he doesn't go for your backline in case he does, look to get closer to them so you reduce significantly his damage, you do outscale him in teamfights but in 1v1's it becomes sort of a skill matchup (once you are full build you win but in the mean time its a skill matchup). Spliting is not an option since he gains such a ridiculous ammount of damage with his Isolation damage and can match you really easily.
Kindred due to how her marks work, isn't really the best solo laner but couple of patchs ago, she was seen as a midlaner. She needs the stacks and items to start being usefull and Kindred in general if she falls behind early game, its really hard for her to be usefull. In this lane, look to use the toplane Brushes to hide from her and prevent from autoattacking you, play as safe as you can and look to outscale her. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen, look to setup the wave on your side of the lane and look to all in her, she can't deal with Nasus, you burst her easily. In late game due to her ult, she can become slightly annoying to teamfights specially if she went even in lane against you, so force a splitpush situation where she has to match you, once you get 2-3 items, she can't deal with you at all.
Kled is a really oppresive Top laner but he gets outscaled easily by Nasus late game. For laning phase you must play it as safe as you can, if he gets a kill on you, it's really hard to come back, for this you can also look to put 3 points in your E to farm more safely. Remember that if he hits you with Q, when you get pulled back, he has a 60% healing reduction making it super hard to outank him, also he has really good diving potential since when he dismounts, he goes untargateable and loses tower agro, so if you see a Kled toplane with, for example, an Elise, Rek'Sai, Zac, Rammus jungle, you must have vision and if they come top to dive you, don't defend the tower just back off. Kled later on to the game once you are full build, you beat him, he simply doesn't have enough damage to match Nasus Q's but before that you must ping everytime he is not in lane, if you play passive enough to the point he can't kill you, he will look to roam to other lanes to get kills. This matchup is hard not for the laning phase, but for the diving potential kled has so if you are low enough to the point he can burst you with his full combo, back off and don't let him get a lead on you.
Kog'Maw has barely seen the meta nowadays, he is such an inmobile ADC that heavily realies on his team peel to do damage, but lately he's sort of come back due to some AP buffs he has become a sort of an AP mid. The problem (for him) of this is that he is still quite squishy, he will face a lot of mana issues, he is still super inmobile and relies on hitting lvl 6 to start poking. In laning phase look to farm safely and outsustain his mana pool, also whenver he uses his W (Attack Speed Steroids), look to disengage inmediatly until you hit lvl 6 and get Sheen, from there on he is already outscaled, regardless of the build he chooses to go, either AP or AD, he can't do enough damage to kill you. Later on to the game, he will look to sit back and autoattack for free in a teamfight and in order to prevent this, i reccomend splitting against him, you will literally 1/2 shot him but be carefull of his passive, it deals True Damage.
LeBlanc has been played in the toplane some seasons ago, but nowadays she doesn't, her kit works better in a smaller lane, since she does have a lot of dashes, but they have big mana cost and cooldowns. Don't be surprised if you see an AD LeBlanc, she can deal a lot of damage and don't underestimate her. As for laning phase, it's really hard for you to all in her since she has such great disengage so look to farm in lane and outsustain her mana bar with Fleet Footwork. Later on to the game, if she goes AP she will have a big pick potential but its not the best at matching Nasus splitpush and if she goes AD look to do teamfights where she wont be able to deal as much damage as AP LeBlanc will. This lane is all about survival and not letting her get leads, so ping when she's out of lane, ward to spot her while roaming and play it safe. Remember you can stack her Clone with Q.
Lee Sin is a cheesy pick in the toplane since his early game damage is insane, there is usually 2 types of Lee Sin players (same to the Jarvan IV players), they either go for Electrocute full Lethality or for Conqueror and a more Bruiser build. He heavily relies on him hitting his Q to deal damage to Nasus which can be easily countered by the good old technique of sitting behind the minions. Once they hit level 6, I've seen some Top lane Lee Sin's trying to burst me with the Q + Autoattack + E + R + Q + Autoattack combo and then kite with his W so look to be healthy enough to outank this combo, if you survive, just use R and Ghost and run him down, he simply can't kite you well without his R. Once you get Trinity Force and Boots completed, you outscaled him but look to setup splitpush situations where he has to match you and by that you negate his utility with his Insecs, in the splitpush he can't solo hold you so be prepared for 1v2 scenarios.
Leona if she goes for a Bruiser build, she can deal a lot of damage, but once Nasus hits his lvl 6 and Sheen powerspyke she can't kill Nasus. Keep in mind that her E has a small range, so if she tries to hit you with it, she must walk in your minion wave, punish her for doing that after lvl 6 and Sheen, if you try to punish before that you will lose the trade really hard. Be careful she also has a lot of CC that will help her setting up really good ganks for her jungler, so try to have some wards around the river and if possible in the enemy jungle to know when he is around. As the game progresses, Leona will become more of a CC lockdown machine rather than a traditional bruiser with damage, so to prevent your team from getting obliterated in teamfights, look to splitpush and ignore her damage, once you get some items, she can't deal enough damage to Nasus to the point he can die since Legend Bloodline + Nasus Passive will heal all her damage, just ignore her damage and hit the tower by doing this she will be spam pinging for help so make sure you have summoners and R for a 1v2 scenario.
Lillia is the type of champion that deals a lot of TRUE DAMAGE with the edge of her Q and her W plus can kite you very well with her ridiculous ammount of movement speed and her R sleeping effect. The way to beat her is to farm as much as possible and look to burst her as fast as possible with E + Q Combo. As for lanning phase, don't ever try to trade against her, she will outkite really hard you even if you use Wither on her she will use R and then outkite you, only try to kill her if she is super low to the point you can Flash + Q her or burst her really easily or she simply doesn't have enough mana for kitting you or kill you, use this lane to get as many stacks as possible. Later on to the game you will outscale her but its a really hard matchup for Nasus since she can teamfight way better than Nasus, so look to splitpush and force her to match you since she is quite squishy you can get a couple on Q's on her if she gets close enough and then look to Lifesteal back to full HP with the minions wave, due to this she will ask for help so be prepared for 1v2 or 1v3 scenarios.
Lissandra isn't the best champion to punish Nasus weak early game, her poke isn't enough and she will run out of mana before being able to kill you. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen powerspike, look to set up the wave on your side of the lane and look to punish her laning mistakes, such as overextending too much when your jungler is topside, taking towershots because she tried to poke you or using all her cooldowns on you. Look to punish these mistakes to the point she is low enough where she has to force a fight and lose important Summoners and Cooldowns, or where she has to back and make her lose XP. Later on to the game you can choose either to teamfight or Splitpush depending on how much CC does the enemy team comp have and how fed Lissandra is (if she is). if you decide to teamfight, look to dodge her E before going in since she will try to set up picks before the fight with her Team, and if you decide to split she won't be able to kill you 1v1 since you outscale her, but she can kite you really well with her W, E and R so just look to chunk her and lifesteal of the minion wave, also prepare yourself for 1v2 scenarios.
Lucian
FLEET FOOTWORK SETUP - CLOTH + 4 POTS =
Lucian top is one of the most annoying range champions to deal with as Nasus, he has a really good late game with all his crits items, a strong early game, good short and long trades, its overally a really difficult matchup. As for how to play it your jungler must help you, you will be behind so much farm that he will be way stronger even after you get lvl 6 and Sheen. I would not recommend leishing into this lane and just look to farm it out as safe as you can. Once you get to late game, just look to splitpush but try to kill him by pushing some waves, and then hiding on brushes so if he goes for extra waves, you can punish him and kill him. This is a really hard lane but if your jungler helps you early on, your lane becomes way easier (but as we know junglers usually think that not helping Nasus in early game is the best way for him to scale, so don't setup your hopes that high, just let him know that you need help or else you won't be useful in the game). Don't be upset if you are 40+ minions behind him early on, it's the nature of this matchup.
Lulu top is another toplane cheesy pick that is similar to Soraka or Sona top, they will look to poke you and then farm to get her support items quicker to help her team better. As for laning phase, just look to farm as safely as possible, Lulu can't outpoke Nasus out of lane so you should be fine, once you hit your lvl6 + Sheen powerspyke you can kill her but you must set up the wave next to your torret so you have better chances of winning the all in, from that powerspyke on, you just outscaled her, Legend Bloodline + Nasus Passive can outheal all her poke and as she is a support playing top, she won't be able to farm that well to the point she is going to be able to buy Morellonomicon easily. Its basically a farming lane
Lux is similar to the Lulu matchup, she is a really cheesy pick but she is even way more inmobile than Lulu since she doesn't even have a movement speed buff, as for the laning phase, she can realistically only poke you with her E which Nasus passive + Fleet Footwork early on even can outsustain. You can go Ghost instead of TP since she won't be able to realistically poke you out of lane, look also to stay behind minions so she can't hit you with her Q. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen wait for her to miss her Q and then go in and run her down, she simply won't have the damage. Later on to the game, be careful about her ult since it has really good AP ratios, low cooldown and can deal a lot of damage but either ways, you still outscale her once you get lvl 6 and Sheen. Its better to setup a splitpush rather tahn teamfight because if she hits some squishy target of your team, she can burst them and win the teamfight, just look to splitpush and outrotate her to force 5v4 situations on your favour.
Malphite kit is basically designed to stop Hyper Carries or good duelist such as Tryndamere, Fiora, Master Yi or Jax. Malphite players usually go either full AP to try to burst you or full tank to make it super difficult for you to deal damage and properly peel your team. One really good tip is to check his runes via apps like Porofessor or even opgg, Check if they are playing with Biscuit Delivery since Malphite has a lot of Mana problems. In lane just look to outsustain his poke, he should only be able to poke you with Q and so he'll run out of mana before being able to kill you; also Malphite after 6 has a really good gank setup due to his R knockup is so abussive, even if you have lvl 6 and Sheen I highly recommend to not try to do extended fights, only look to do short trades where you get rid of his passive and lower a bit his health bar, and do that until he is low enough so you either kill him or he has to back, because of your passive lifesteal you will outsustain him in this short trades. Regardless of his build he won't be able to outpoke you so look to get as much stacks as possible to oneshot his backline. Later on to the game look to splitpush and force him to match you since he is mostlikely the frontline of his team and then look to flank his team in a 4v5 situation, similar to nasus, he's inmobile and low waveclear, he'll have trouble catching up to you.
Malzahar isn't a toplane pick, he is quite inmobile and he some mana issues but if you get to play against a Malzahar, just don't trade at all against him, look to farm safely and dodge his Q, you can also stack his Void Swarm. Because he will always try to poke his laner, the wave will always be on your side so whenever your farming under torret, look to farm the melee minions with Q and then farm the range ones with E. The only way out of his R is qith QSS, Mikael's Crucible even though it seems like the perfect item to counter him, it doesn't remove suppresions, same with Cleanse, thats why SpellBook is sort of useless, Tenacity also doesn't reduce the duration of the suppresion, the only way to beat his R is either outtanking it and then run him down or buy QSS eventually. I recommend in case you want to build QSS, build only the Quicksilver Sash after Trinity Force + Boots and then build the Mercurial Scimitar as a last item, never buy it before Trinity Force since it will delay your powerspyke by a lot. This is a really hard matchup since he even has a Spellshield that can stop your wither, look to autoattack him or use E and then use Wither. Later on to the game its a really skill matchup but i recommend to teamfight, usually he can't really use his R properly and if he does, just engage or ask your team to hard engage on him. Remember you can stack his Void Swarms with Q.
Maokai
CONQUEROR SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Maokai is one of the easiest matchups for Nasus, remember Nasus was used in WORLDS by Longzhu Gaming as a COUNTERPICK against FNATIC Maokai last pick, Longzhu was able to win the game with a clear Top lane advantage as Nasus was 2/0/0 even . This is one of the most realistic lanes that you can ever have as a tiny threat to Nasus. Maokai simply lacks of Mana sustain and Damage to outpoke Nasus, farm behind your minions and look to predict his Q to reduce his damage and once you get lvl 6 and Sheen he can't stop you unless he has his jungler but with the Conqueror setup, you can pretty much do 1v2's. Later on to the game you should have kills from laning phase and look to either teamfight if the enemy team has little CC, or look to setup a splitpush in case they have a lot of CC. This lane you will only lose it if you are either trolling or you got permaganked.
Master Yi is a really weak champion early game, he needs some items to start doing damage and apart from poking you with his Q, he doesn't have enough tools to punish Nasus weak early game. Nowadays they usually go for an On-Hit effect Build with Guinsoo's Rageblade + BORK but they will only be useful whenever they have these 2 components, specially as a toplaner since he won't have the Bloodrazor On-Hit effect. Early on he doesn't have the damage to poke you and as soon as you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, you can look to do trades on him but is difficult to kill him since he will just run away with R and Nasus W doesn't slow him since he becomes inmune to slows, also some of them will run Ghost with Ignite or TP so its even harder, the trick to beat this is to do consistant short trades to the point he is low enough and you can just kill him quickly enough for him to not run away. This matchup is based upon killing him from the moment you get lvl 6 + Sheen until he gets 3/4 items, if you just let him free farm, you are going to struggle a lot in order to fight him later on to the game since he is way stronger than Nasus when both are full Build. Look to kill him early with Nasus's cheap spike and then look to outscale him with the advantage you got. Depending on the ammount of CC your team has to stop him, you can choose either to Splitpush or Teamfight. Its a Major matchup since he outscales Nasus due to all the ammount of damage the On-Hit Build does (If he goes something stupid like AP Yi, It was a thing, or Full crit Yi, you beat him straight up with the good ol' Randuins Omen Purchase).
Miss Fortune top is a really troll pick, she is quite inmobile and super squishy but similar to other ADC's in toplane, she can poke a lot and then force an all in once you are low enough. In this lane you must look to farm as safely as possible, her Q poke and E poke are really annoying and next to impossible to dodge, but Nasus sustain is overall better and since she will try to poke you as hard as she can, the wave will be on your side, just farm and play it safe pre-lvl 6. As soon as you get lvl 6 and Sheen spike and you have a lot of HP, look to all in her, she will not stand a chance against Nasus. Also look to use W whenever she uses her W, your Wither is simply way better than hers. Later on look to splitpush against her and run her down, even dive her if you have the chance, she doesn't stand a chance solo against you but keep in mind she can ask her allies to help her so be prepared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios.
Mordekaiser is a really annoying toplaner, He can poke you a lot with his Q so look to stay nearby minions so you reduce his damage (remember it does more damage to isolated targets). Because of how he will try to poke you with Q, the wave will usually be on your side of the lane, so look to farm undertower, be careful also when asking for ganks since he can 2v1 you because of his ult, if he ults your jungler, you can see on the normal map 2 dots, the Blue one is your Jungler, the Red one is Mordekaiser, so by the time his R ends (5 seconds) look to be ahead of him and kill him. Look also to use your R inside his R if possible, since he gets bonus stats of the enemy when they are being ulted, so if he uses R when you already casted your R, he will get some percentage of those resistances. Later on to the game you outscale him but he becomes really annoying with his ult, since he will just wait till you are really low in a teamfight, the ult you and if he is losing the fight he will just use Zhonyas Hourglass and wait for his R to end and then his team will kill you, similar to the Malzahar matchup, only Mercurial Scimitar will get you out of his R, so if you really want to, you can build a Quicksilver Sash right after Trinity Force + Boots and then finish the Mercurial Scimitar as a last item. You will outscale him unless he gets some kills early on. Grasp will not poke him out of lane since he has so much sustain with W and his all in potential can only be matched with Conqueror, or in late game with Fleet.
Morgana is a really annoying pick since she has a lot of CC to stop Nasus and some decent poke with her W, but overall she isn't the best at making Nasus lane difficult. Usually if you get into a Morgana top is either an autofilled Support/Mid One Trick and usually they will not have the experience into this matchup in order to poke you efficiently. As for laning phase, just look to farm, trying to all in her even after lvl 6 and Sheen spike is really hard since her Q is so annoying and she gets movement speed whenever she cast her R, look to farm it out and get as much stacks as possible to later on, with 2/3 items you can run her down and one shot her. I personally think Spellbook is better in this matchup since you can Cleanse both her Q and R and you can also have Ghost + Flash to run her down. Later on to the game, she can't solo match you so be prepared for 1v2 scenarios.
Nami
CONQUEROR SETUP BUT INSTEAD OF SECOND WIND + UNFLINCHING GO MANAFLOW BAND AND TRANSCENDENCE - CULL + POT =
Nami top is straight up, no discussion, a troll pick, she can't poke without running out of mana, and she can't even clear waves, just be careful of her jungler since she can try to setup some ganks but appart from that, she is a horrible toplaner. Farm until you get lvl 6 and Sheen and then dodge her Q and R, and run her down with Ghost, from that point on she can't duel you at all, I'd even say even just with lvl 4 you can kill her, but the fastest way to punish her is to permashove her since she can't clear minions under torret, and look in the meantime to get some vision on the enemy jungle. You can also go for CDR + Adaptative Force + Magic Resistance for the runpage and look to build Death Dance right after Trinity Force since you have Trascendence and the CDR scaling Rune you will get 40% CDR easily, there is no need to rush Kindlegem in this matchup. You only lose this lane if you are trolling.
Nautilus
CONQUEROR SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Nautilus top used to be a decent pick before all this bruiser items buff, but now he simply just sucks, he can't poke you if you sit behind your minions, he at most, can use W but if he tries to consistanly poke you with that, he will run out of Mana and you can run him down even without lvl 6 and Sheen, and obviously after you get this spike, he's already outscaled and can't match you. In all ins i recommend to be always to position your character in between Him and his scape path (usually his torret) so he can't simply just Q to a wall and stop your all in. Later on to the game I don't recommend to teamfight since he has a lot of CC and even though you can burst him relatively easily, he can make the teamfight harder for no reason, so look to splitpush and force him to match you and run him down in the 1v1 with Ghost.
Neeko
SPELLBOOK SETUP BUT INSTEAD OF PRESENCE OF MIND AND BLOODLINE, GO SECOND WIND REVITALIZE - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS + POT =
Neeko top is such a safe pick, she has such a good disengage with her W and E, a lot of poke with her Q and great utility and teamfight with her R. The only way to beat her is to outsustain her poke and Mana pool with Biscuit Delivery and Time Warp Tonic + Second Wind and Revitalize. In laning phase look to survive and dodge her E so you don't get that poked, its a bit hard due to the size of the hitbox, after you hit lvl 6 and Sheen Spike look to punish her E cooldown, if she misses it and she is somewhat low mana, you can look for an all in and run her down or atleast get her R or her Flash and use her cooldowns disadvantage as your advantage, if these opportunities never show up, just look to farm and get some items in order to outank her ult in a teamfight, the later it goes the best is for you since you will be able to burst her more and more quickly, also hope that she doesn't hit a lot of people, that usually determines if you win or not the teamfight since it will burst your backline. Remember you can stack her Clone with Q.
Nidalee kit is usually seen as a jungler since she usually looks to cheese the enemy jungler or gank if their laners have some sort of CC where she can rely to hit her Q, but she isn't the best laner. She can go for an AP or AD build, if she goes for an AP build, she can burst you but she is super squishy so after lvl 6 and Sheen, set the wave on your side of the lane and look for her to overcommit with her cooldowns, she will not be able to burst you, and use R + Ghost to run her down. If she goes for an AD build, she will have more consistant damage and get some more tanky but she won't deal damage at all once you start getting some items and she won't scale. Later on to the game, do teamfights, she really sucks at them. You will outscale her relatively easily and Nasus W is a really hard counter to her combo in general. Remember you can stack her Traps with Q.
Noctune is usually a better jungler, since he wants to have more of a global presence around the map with his R, and if he is toplane he will usually lose a big strengh of his kit. so if he ults he's either already nearby your botlane, or he's helping his midlaner. Also they will usually go for an On-Hit build with Tiamat so you should be able to farm easily under torret, just wait for him to push the wave and once you get your lvl 6 and Sheen spike, you can look to do some short trades into an eventual all in, since trying to beat him 100-0 early on is sort of difficult. A good tip into this matchup is to look to use wither as he's channeling his fear so he doesn't get a lot of autoattacks while you are feared. Later on to the game you do outscale him but its sort of hard to tell when, so i recommend to do teamfights where he will provide less utility to his team than you.
Nunu & Willump has seen some potential as an AP "Assasin" in the midlane but in the toplane I have never seen one yet, so I'll tell you how to approach this lane from a midlane Nasus point of perspective. Usually in this lane, he will always permashove and look to roam since Nasus doesn't want to trade against him, so whenever you don't see him in lane, ping your Allies that he is missing and for them to be careful, Nunu & Willump in lane is only a cheesy pick, his scaling is so bad in comparison to Nasus. Usually in this lane you want to get as many stacks as possible without really trading into him, since he can use his Q to outsustain you (remember that his Q will heal him more if he's below 50% HP), just look to stack as safely as possible and outscale him. Later on, he still has a great teamfight so if he gets some kills, look to splitpush and force him to match you, but consider that most of Nunu & Willump will use the surprise factor as an advantage, so as soon as you see him charging a snowball at you, just press R and look to tank his damage and then kill him right after.
Olaf top is a sort of out of meta pick, since nowadays toplane is usually filled with scaling picks but there is still some players that will go Olaf top and try to cheese you. The key to win this lane is to dodge his Q's, if you get hit by his Q's early on while you are overextended just W and look to disengage he can kill you even with you stacking like 3 minion waves early on, try to farm until lvl 6 and Sheen and after that it becomes way harder for him to kill you since with Conqueror + Legend Bloodline you can sort of match his Conqueror + W healing, just remember to use W after his R ended, using it while he still hasn't used R or while he is using it, its a complete waste of cooldown. Later on regardless if you either decide to splitpush or teamfight, he can't match you at all unless he got a lead on you early on, Olaf simply doesn't scale at all in comparison to Nasus infinite Q scaling and he can't even match you even in 1v2 scenarios, he becomes super useless and basically a sack of potatoes that can become CC-less with his R (as an analogy).
Orianna is a really annoying pick to deal with as Nasus, she has a lot of poke and great disengage with her R and it gets worse if she goes for Phase Rush. In this lane you must look only to stack, trying to fight her is really annoying and next to impossible thanks to her kitting, since she will try to poke you most of the time, stand near your minion wave, so whenever she tries to poke you, she shoves the wave. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen powerkspike you can look to punish her Phase Rush cooldown (in case she goes Phase rush, which is a 15 second cooldown), in case she is running something like Arcane comet, you can look to trade whenever she overcommits on you. Later on to the game, you must splitpush since her teamfight is way better than yours, force her to match you, push some waves and hide in bushes and wait for her to overcommit, by pushing another wave and then run her down. if you try to kill her when she has vision on you, she will kite you, use the surprise factor (you can go Oracle Lense to remove vision) and buy pink wards too.
Ornn is one of the most annoying tanks to deal with as Nasus, his kit is literally a CC lockdown while doing a decent ammount of damage by building armor. In this lane, bait him early on to shove the wave into you with his Q and then look to play safe. In this lane you can look to trade and outsustain him after you hit your lvl6 and Sheen spike. Similar to Camille matchup you want to fight not near walls so he can't just E on you and get the knockup for free. Later on to the game, you outscale him quite hard but to make your scaling advantage an advantage, look to splitpush and force him to match you, teamfighting is next to impossible, if theyr team has a decent ammount of CC, you will be permaCC'ed and you won't be able to deal damage at all. Recently he recieved a big nerf where whenever he buys health items, he doesn't gain the health the items provide instantly so his sustain is sort of screwed.
Pantheon since he got reworked he deals an impressive ammount of damage early on but he scales super poorly, as a Pantheon player myself I fell like the moment he fully maxed his Q, he's already outscaled in all his matchups. As Nasus you can look to bait him to shove you in by making him use his empowered Q lvl 1 on your minions. He will always try to hard preassure you since he will get outscaled, so just play it safe. Once you hit lvl 6 and you get your Sheen, you can start looking to do short trades into him, if he overcommits to the trade with all his cooldowns, you can kill him, since his E, slows him down allowing you to reposition your character behind him so you can deal damage and it has a 22 second cooldown lvl1, his W also has a 13 second cooldown lvl1 making it really hard for him to outdamage you from there on. Be really careful early on since he can do great dives due to his E, try to have some vision to prevent this and if you see the enemy jungler, back off your torret inmideatly. Also whenever he fully charges his Q, its a small hitbox that you can easily dodge but be careful when you are low enough, it deals more damage to enemies below 50% HP. Similar to Galio/Shen Matchup, ping your teamates once he hits 6 to counter his roams, ping whenever he is not in lane and whenever he has his R. Later on to the game he doesn't stand a chance against you, so look to teamfight, you will be way more usefull than him.
Poppy is the type of tank that can straight up beat all the duelist, like Tryndamere, Jax, Fiora whenever they are full build, and somehow she is super strong early on. Look to survive his Q poke in lane but stay in the middle of the lane, avoid the walls at all cost since she can dash to them and if she hits you, she can beat you up early on. I highly recommend just farming and get as many stacks as possible since even with lvl 6 + Sheen powerspike is really hard to kill her. Later on to the game due to the fact Nasus Q has infinite scaling, you will outscale her but she can hold you really well even in late game when she gets some CDR, it's a really hard matchup to survive early on and you must respect her until you get some resistances or else she will run you down.
Pyke has seen some play in the midlane since he can solo kill a lot of early game weak champions relatively easily. Since Pyke wave clear sucks, they will 99% of the cases will go tiamat, so just play it safe and don't overextend. Remember he can use his E (Dash) and Flash at the last posible second to get the stun, so if you are below 50% and he is trying to pull this technique on you, just press R and look to run him down whenever you have lvl 6 and Sheen, before that don't get yourself in a position where he can do that. Usually Pyke players will build Lethality, but due of how Nasus builds, Lethality ignores some armor but its worthless against tanks. Just be carefull if he has some Percentage Armor Reduction items such as Lord Dominik's Regard or Black Cleaver or Guinsoo's Rageblade. Later on to the game, you outscale him but be carefull, usually Pyke will look to kill your squishy allies and get a lot of R resets, if you see him coming, use W after he used his E, since most of the time they will go for Hail Of Blades, in order to reduce his damage. This matchup is all about letting your team know that a Pyke is alive and he can one shot you at every time of the game.
Qiyana is usually seen as a midlaner, since she will have more walls to use her R and she will get an easier access to the river to use her W, the easiest analogy to understand her is to compare to an AD Akali that doesn't scale as well as Akali. In laning phase look to dodge her Q's to reduce her poke and since she will try to kill you early on and Qiyana builds Tiamat to help her wave clear, the wave will be always on your side of the lane. Once you hit lvl 6 + Sheen you can easily run her down the lane, just don't be near walls so she can't use her R effectively, You can also look to do short trades with Q + Grasp proc and low her HP until you can kill her easily. Later on to the game you outscale her but you must look to splitpush, her R provides a lot of utility and damage to her team, so by splitpushing you make her more useless, make sure she is matching you. Once you get 2-3 items, you can easily dive her but you have to be carefull since she can use her R into a tower and double dash away with her W + E. Keep in mind that if you fight her near brushes, she will just spam invisibility and spam ping her teamates for help, so don't fall though that trick.
Quinn
SPELLBOOK BUT INSTEAD OF PRESENCE OF MIND AND BLOODLINE, GO SECOND WIND REVITALIZE / FLEET FOOTWORK SETUP - CLOTH ARMOR + 4 POTS =
Quinn is a really annoying laner, she isn't the best ADC so she is mostly used as a Top laner where she can poke melee bruisers. In laning phase look to survive and outscale her, you can also dodge her Q since its a skillshot for her. The thing about Quinn is that her lvl 6 is way weaker than Nasus lvl 6 spike, so look to survive until you get your lvl 6 + Sheen spike and can punish her cooldowns, E is 12 seconds cooldown lvl 1 and her Q is 11 seconds coolodown lvl 1 and remember that usually Quinn will max W first if they want to do damage. Try to ping your teamates as much as possible of her roams, its really hard since she has a lot of mobility but make sure you let them know that its their fault if they die due to a pinged roam. Later on to the game, look to do teamfights since you are way better than her at doing damage since your Q stacks infinitely. Don't be scared if you are 40+ minions behind her early on, it's the nature of this matchup.
Rakan if he decides to go as a solo laner, he will usually go full AP with Hextech Protobelt-01 rush for extra mobility. This is another farming lane, he can disengage of every all in of yours with his W and R so it becomes rather difficult to chase him down and kill him, he also lacks of enough poke to get Nasus out of lane since his kit is more aimed to defend an ADC rather than to solo lane and poke its enemies, he also has decent sustain with his Q and his Passive so again, its not that worth trading into him, just look to scale and get as many stacks as possible, he can never have kill preassure on you unless you run it down. Be careful also he has a good gank setup since he has lot of CC and mobility. Look to splitpush since his teamfighting is quite strong with his items and kit. Once you get 2-3 items he can't match you solo in the splitpush so be prepared for 1v2 scenarios. He doesn't have the preassure in every stage of the game so look to farm and get as many stacks as possible.
Rammus top is an annoying pick early on for Nasus, he will look to just use E (Taunt) and W (gets instantly tankier) until you are eventually low enough so he can add the Q + R at the beggining of the combo and burst you. As Nasus, you must respect his early game or else he will just do this sort of trade. For runes, even though Thornail is a core item in his build since it synergises with his W, Conqueror is a must go, even though your realing is reduce even early on by his Grevious Wounds, but its the only runepage that will work, Grasp won't work since he is to tanky and he can outtank the short trades and Fleet also gets countered by his grevious wounds, Spellbook isn't that bad since you can cleanse his Taunt and overall having more summoners as Nasus isn't that bad. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen you can all in him, wait for him to use his Q in order to all in him or else he will just quite you. This is a minor matchup since realistically Rammus can only 1v9 games just by getting picks on your team, he simply cannot 1v5 so even if you are behind you will normally outscale him unless you get permaganked. Later on to the game look to teamfight, you can outank and outheal his damage and overall deal damage while tanking while he can't.
Rek'Sai as a toplaner simply doesn't have the enough poking or all in potential to beat Nasus even early on, you have to be careful when she (yes that thing is a she) has a lot of Fury since it makes her abilities way stronger. Usually what Rek'sai will look to do in lane is to hide in bushes and use her tunnel at you and then Unborrow to get her W knockup and get short trades into an eventual all in, the only way to prevent that is to have vision on the toplane brushes, once you get lvl 6 and Sheen powerspike, look to set up the wave on your side of the lane and you have to wait for her to trade with you and waste her cooldowns on you, and then run her down the lane, she can't escape from Nasus, from that point on you already outscaled her, she will never have the damage to beat you unless she goes for like full lethality but you will 2 shot her with Q. Later on to the game you can look to either teamfight or splitpush depending on how much CC does the enemy team have.
Renekton
GRASP (SCALING) / (TANK) BUT CHANGE TO BONE PLATING + UNFLINCHING (IN BOTH RUNEPAGES) SETUP - CLOTH ARMOR + 4 POTS =
Renenkton is a really hard counter to Nasus since now with the buff to Blade of the Ruined King, Its a really broken item on him and even Lethality on him is still a decent purchase into squishy enemies. This matchup used to be way better since he didn't have that much sustain and he usually buys tiamat so the wave will be always on your side, but now since he builds BORK into Cleaver its a really hard matchup for Nasus where he has a lot of burst even without items, if you go the Grasp (Scaling) setup it becomes a really difficult lane to survive lane early on but you can outscale him once you get 2 points in R, if you go the Grasp (Tank) setup you will survive better in lane but later on to the game it becomes really hard to kill him 1v1. His runepage is really influential since if he goes PTA, he will be able to oneshot you if you are below 50% HP but if he takes Conqueror, he will be able to match you even better later on to the game. As for laning phase, he will have 100% wave control and you must respect that or else he will snowball to victory. Also if he wants to deal damage he will push the first waves to get fury, but usually Renektons will always push to you since they want to have 100% Fury to get their empowered W and Q in one combo for maximun damage but by doing this sort of trade they push the wave really hard into you. I highly recommend going for Iceborn Guantlet instead of Trinity since it will make you tankier. Later on to the game splitpushing against him is sort of difficult since he can duel you really well, so look to teamfight and frontline for your team since you outscale Renekton once you get your R with 2 points.
Rengar
FLEET FOOTWORK SETUP - CLOTH ARMOR + 4 POTS =
Rengar top is a real nightmare and can outdamage almost every single melee champ early on but usually Rengar players when they go toplane they don't go for a full Lethality one shot build, they go for a Black Cleaver and more Tanky build. In this lane he will beat you really but really hard if you try to get near minions, so look to stay as far away possible from the brushes. Usually Rengar will build Tiamat to add more damage to his combo and help his wave clear, so wave will almost always be on your side of the lane. You must survive early on to the game, if you give him free kills for trying to get some Q stacks early on, Its already a lost lane and really hard to comeback since he can oneshot you. I've seen couple of them going BORK so be carefull when they have it completed, it deals a lot of damage with Rengar. Similar to Pantheon or Quinn, if he can't get a lead in lane against Nasus, he will look to use his R, so make sure you ping your teamates whenever he is missing from lane to prevent him from getting kills. Later on to the game, you will outscale him if you played laning phase properly and you should look to teamfight in lanes rather than jungle so you stop him from using the bushes, If you fight in jungle, he has more chances of being more usefull and oneshotting your squishy allies. Don't be upset if you are 40+ minions behind him early on, it's the nature of this matchup.
Riven matchup is usually determined of how skilled the Riven player is. In laning phase you must respect her, she is really strong lvl 1, look to bait her Q so she hits the whole wave and there for it will push towards you, sometimes Riven players go for Tiamat but usually they are somewhat similar to Aatrox in their build path but even harder since they want to have as much CDR as possible early on. You must respect her early on since she has insane ammount of damage and she can stack Conqueror super quickly due to the huge ammount of autoattack resets she has with all 3 of her Basic Abillities. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen you can start looking for short trades since Riven doesn't have as much sustain as Nasus if she overcommits to the trade with all her cooldowns you can kill her. When she's going in, you must look at her Blade, if it is lightning up and it becomes bigger, it means that she casted her R therefor she gains a lot of damage, so as soon as she overcommits to you and you see her blade shinning up, look to ult as fast as possible. Once you get 2-3 Items you already outscaled her unless she has a lot of kills. In this matchup i recommend going Conqueror since it will help you outank her damage via lifesteal and Ghost is a must go if you want to kill her. Later on to the game, its really depedant on how ahead are you of Riven and how the enemy team composition is, usually its better to splitpush since she has a decent ammount of damage and CC and Aoe spells without considering her team.
Rumble matchup is all about survival in laning phase, he has a lot of poke with his E and Q, and the Movement Speed of his W is really annoying to deal with, but Nasus W counters it completely. In laning phase look to dodge his E by farming behind your minions. Since he will try to poke you out of lane, Rumble will usually try to poke you with Q and by that the wave will always be on your side of your lane. Once you hit lvl 6, Sheen and some MR items you can all in him pretty easily but its overall better to wait until his Heat bar is full since it will disable his abilities and the empowered autoattacks are no match for Nasus Auto Attack + Q spam Combo. Later on into the game, you will outscale him and I highly recommend splitpushing since his R deals a lot of damage which Nasus can tank but your backline can't they will burn to death, so to prevent this, splitpush and drag him with you since he will also not be able to solo match you, be prepared for 1v2 scenarios and look to have vision around to prevent that.
Ryze has sort of dissappeard of the toplane meta since there are so many champions with dashes, lot of sustain and some BORK abuser Top laners, but you can still find some of them in the toplane. In this lane he will have more mana issues than Nasus. If he desesperately tries to poke you early on, he will run out of mana really soon and Fleet Footwork will allow you to outsustain him, and once you get lvl 6 you can kill him if you have Mana even without Sheen since he can't fight back. If he plays safe and doesn't poke but rather he looks to scale, do the same and try to get as much stacks as possible. Later on to the game its better to Splitpush, his Aoe damage with his E + Q combo plus the Bonus damage that his R gives it to the combo itself, you can kill him 1v1 rather easily but be careful, a lot of Ryze players are never really alone outside of laning phase since their teamfighting is really strong, so whenever you are Splitpushing against him, be careful of where his teamates are to prevent this. You sort of both scale even since he gains a ridiculous ammount of damage once he's full build and Phase Rush/Conqueror are really good scaling runes on him too. Try to end games fast against him, going for the scaling option might not always be the best option.
Samira is the exact the definition of a 200 years champion, she literally doesnt have a cooldown on her R and has 4 passives which most of them she doesn't need while Nasus only Lifesteals. In early laning phase, you don't want to contest her, her damage is insane but she does have short range, so if she wants to trade with you, she will take minion agro and the wave will push towards you. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, you can start doing Short trades with the Q (If you have Grasp its a better trade) and if you get her below 40% HP you can force an all in but make sure her Jungler isn't there or else if the enemy jungler appears and stuns you, she can use one of her passives to knock you up and cc lock you. Later on to the game you both scale quite evenly but she is really really strong too, and since her teamfighting is so broken, look to splitpush and negate her team that option. She can deal really well with you but the later the game goes, its better for you since Nasus has Infinite Scaling damage.
Sejuani toplane isn't a meta Top lane pick and most likely she hasn't been used as a Top laner for seasons, her kit isn't designed to be a good solo laner but rather a Tanky jungler with good gank setup. For laning phase, she will never really be able to kill you unless you let her stack her passive for free and she can poke you down by extending trades, but it is also hard for Nasus to kill her, so take this lane as a farming lane, just look to get as much stacks in the shortest ammount of time possible, you will outscale her relatively easily as long as you respected her CC and sort of "Early game power". Whenever you are about to take a long trade against Sejuani, look to Auto Attack or E to get rid of her Passive, don't W straight away since her Passive makes her Slow-Inmune whenever she's out of combat. Later on depending on how much CC the enemy team composition have, you can look to either teamfight or to splitpush.
Senna is a weird champion, since she can either be an ADC and a Support and she can even make champions like Wukong to be flexed as ADC's (Check Pro-play), Also she has seen a lot of versatility in her build, a lot of Senna players go for Grasp of the Undying with Cleaver and Frozen Mallot for a tanky scaling build, also Glacial Augment + Full Lethality is a build but Nasus later on simply beats them both, Grasp will make her Tanky but she won't deal Damage, and Glacial is the opposite, she will deal Damage, but she will be super Squishy. As for the Nasus vs Senna Top lane matchup, she will heavily poke you so don't be dissapointed if you have to back before having Sheen back, this lane is all about survival. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen spike, doing short trades will not do that much against her since she can heal back up, so you all in her, usually its easiest to all in her whenever she wastes her W (Root), you can run her down, make sure use W while she is casting her E, there is a slight animation where she is still visible so you can Wither her. Later on to the game you will outscale her and i recommend splitting since she has so much damage, in the split be careful about her team, since she can't hold you solo, she will ping her teamates to help her dragging a lot of preassure so make sure your team is doing an objective in the meantime.
Seraphine doesn't look to have the best kit for being a solo laner, and her kit was meant to be played as a support due to her W shield / heal and her wave clear is horrible, Nasus base lifesteal should be more than enough to outsustain her poke. In laning phase just look to let her shove the first wave and try to set up a freeze on your second wave, her wave clear is even worse than Nasus one, so she will struggle a lot to break it, she is also really vulnerable to ganks so ping your jungler to make sure he knows he has a free kill topside. Once you hit your level 6 and Sheen powerspike you outscaled her, she will not be able to hold you anymore in laning phase. I recommend just wither her and try to force her to waste her R or her flash which are the two things that will make this matchup annoying, either she doesn't waste them and you will 100% win the trade or she uses them making her really vulnerable to a Nasus all in (Now with R buff its even stronger). Later on to the game you do outscale her in the 1v1 for sure but in teamfights she can result to be somewhat annoying to deal with, so look to splitpush and force her to match it, she won't be able to do it solo so be prepared for 1v2 or 1v3 scenarios.
Sett matchup as Nasus heavily relies on you surviving lane until you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike and then when all in him, you have to dodge the center of his W at all cost or else he will win due that it deals True Damage. In laning phase, Sett will usually try to stun you with his E so be careful where you position yourself or else he can use the minions to stun you and kill you, usually this move is sort of predictable since he will position himself in between your wave and you and if he doesn't he will try to get to that position by Q movement speed. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, you can start doing trades against him, Its better to do consistant Short Trades into an All In, if you do a Short Trade every 50 seconds, his Passive and either his items (Dorans Shield) or his runes (Second Wind) will outsustain his damage, Once he is low enough you can kill him easily. Later on to the game his teamfighting is really good so look to splitpush and force him to match you, once you get 2-3 items you already outscaled him as long as he didn't get a lot of kills.
Shaco top is a really niche pick and usually never seen but don't go overconfident, he can beat Nasus still. Usually its a matchup that depends on a lot of things such as his build (AP or AD), how skilled he is at Shaco Top. Take mixed resistances (1 MR 1 ARMOR in your runes). If he goes for AD Shaco you can beat him as soon as you hit lvl 6 and Sheen spyke since if you kill his Clone, his boxes will deal no damage, usually they build tiamat since their boxes will deal no damage, so just farm under tower he can't realistically poke you and kill you. If he goes AP Shaco, it becomes more or a skill matchup, if you are in an all in against him and you accidentally kill his clone, KILL THE BOXES AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, they deal a lot of damage when he is going AP, he will have a decent wave clear with his W since it scales with AP. Later on to the game he can't match you either on the split or in a teamfight. I recommend teamfighting since shaco will become so predicable and more useless, they will just R, send his clone to frontilne and try to do damage, but since Nasus builds somewhat Tanky plus the added Resistances of his R, Nasus will survive his damage and make Shaco useless. Remember you can stack his Clone and Boxes with Q.
Shen is the type of "tank" that deals a lot of damage of his Q with Grasp Procs and overall his kit works really good against Duelist and Hypercarries. As for laning phase since his kit peforms better into agressive laners rather than Passive laners such as Nasus, he will struggle to find chances of poking you hard enough to the point that you are really low but this doesn't mean that you should go super confident, play passive and respect his Early game power. Once you hit lvl6 and Sheen spike you can start doing short trades into him since Shen lacks of sustain and remember Nasus lvl 6 is a combat ability where Shen lvl 6 is an utility ability, keep in mind you outscale him really easily, so if you can't find any scenario to kill him just farm and you'll be fine. Also Shen now builds Titanic Hydra most of the times, but you can see some that go for Sunfire Cape or even both, the point is that both items help Shen have a better wave clear, which means that the wave will always be on your side of the lane. Later on splitpushing is sort of not worth it since he can R to his team and force a 5v4 teamfight and Nasus can't stop his R animation, so its overall better just to teamfight, you will outscale him easily.
Shyvana top is usually played as an AD with a sort of On-Hit Build that heals a lot, I've personally seen Shyvana Top with Death Dance, Spirit Visage, BORK, Frozen Mallet but since Shyvana has also really good AP scalings, i've seen some Zhonya's Hourglass or some Nashor Tooth. Usually Nasus with his Conqueror Healing + Legend Bloodline + His Passive will outheal her damage and usually a 1v1 against her is determined on who heals more. Shyvana is the type of pick that will punish aggressive Top laners with her all in power but since Nasus is a Passive laner early on she will struggle to punish Nasus, Once you hit your lvl 6 and Sheen Spike you can kill her easily if she just used her Dragon Form. Remember that if she hits you with her E, her auto attacks will deal more damage to you, so if she wastes her E you can look to engage on her. In case Shyvana goes AP she will deal a ton of damage with her E but she's overall more squishy than if she goes for an AD build. Later on to the game depending on how ahead are you of her and how much CC the enemy team comp has, you can choose to either Splitpush or Teamfight, either ways since Nasus outscales her relatively easily, the splitpush she will need someone to help her since she can't hold you solo, and if you teamfight just peel your ADC, because she can't kill you so she will go for your Squishy Allies, be careful also of flanks with her R.
Singed matchup is usually really dependent on the player, there are Aggressive Singed players with Conqueror or Predator or there are the Passive Singed players that will look to Proxy Farm your wave and play some passive Keystone like Aftershock or Summon Aery. Usually if Singed lanes against Nasus, he will not look to Proxy Farm your wave since he wants to punish your weak early game but usually you will see them that they proxy 2 waves and then get a recall since Nasus wave clear undertorret sucks specially early on, to prevent this, I recommend not leashing and walk next to your wave so if he does that, you can damage him but don't go to hard on him, he can quite Nasus really well early on, rememeber the Golden Rule, never chase a Singed. Once he starts to realize he can't really poke you out of lane anymore because of Legend Bloodline + Nasus Passive sustain, he will look to proxy farm and do a lot of fights in your jungle. Putting wards in your jungle and ping your allies whenever he's missing is vital to prevent him of snowballing. Later on to the game you outscale him, he can't deal enough damage to you but he is one of the most annoying champions to kill in the entire game straight up, his ability to kite is absurd. Splitting against him is rather annoying since his Q clears the wave somewhat easily and if you try to kill him, he will just E + W and then kite you but teamfighting against him is even worse. Once you are both full build, Nasus becomes way more valueable than him in a 5v5 since he will get bursted super easily.
Sion, similar to Singed, its a really player dependent matchup, Sion either goes Full lethality or damage to burst Nasus all game or he goes for a full tank build to make Nasus deal no Damage all game into him. Early on, I recommend watching out your jungle and walk with your wave (just like Singed) to prevent him of Proxy Farming your wave since Nasus wave clear early on sucks. In laning phase, if he is not in lane, he's mostlikely in the toplane brush trying to hit a fully charged Q (similar to Rengar) early on try to stay away from the brushes until you see him. Once you hit lvl 6 and Shen power spike he can't really punish you since your all in is way stronger than his and you can start doing extended trades against him, if he goes for a full lethality you will kill him easily but be carefull when he revives since he will deal a lot of damage, just quite him. Later on to the game, Sion will usually look to Splitpush if he is going full Lethality or Teamfight if he is going full Tank, Look to Splitpush and force him to match you, because of his R and fully charged Q, Its really difficult for Nasus to match his Teamfight making Splitpushing the best way to beat him, If he is full lethality you can just dive him as long as he doesn't have R and just used his Q, he can't match Nasus scaling but if he goes Tank just look to shove waves and look for a flank on the enemy team, you got to be really fast in this one since Sion R allows him to join Teamfights super quick.
Sivir
CONQUEROR / SPELLBOOK SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Sivir isn't the best toplaner at all, she has no Mana Sustain with her E if you don't use W on her early on and even when she's an ADC, she will usually look to just farm rather than poking to get her Item spikes. As for laning Phase just look to farm, if she tries to poke you, it will never be enough and she will run out of mana to the point you can kill her even before lvl 6, if she just decides to farm once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen spike Nasus has already outscaled her and you can kill her easily, just look to bait her E by getting close to her and hitting an E, almost all the time she will use E to either anticipate your W and if she wastes it, remember it has a 22 seconds cooldown lvl1. Later on to the game since her W provides her with a lot of damage and her R a lot of utility, Splitpushing is the way to beat her since she can't match you at all and she will need 1 or 2 more allies to stop you, so setup some vision and look for your team to do an objective while you are dragging preassure to your side of the map.
Skarner is one of those forgotten picks that nowadays even with the recent buffs, only One Trick players will play him since its such a niche pick. In laning phase Skarner will try to engage on you really hard so he will usually push the wave in your side of the lane. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can kill him easily with Ghost but be really careful whenever you are close to his turret, since he can just R you into his turret, then hit you with the E stun and you are dead, you can't survive that, for preventing this, set up the wave on your side of the lane and look for extended trades not 100-0 dives since he can flip those once you start getting close to his torret disengage to prevent him from using R on you, also when doing extended Trades look to trade whenever he wastes his E since its one of the only abilities that will stop you from running him down. Once you get 2-3 items you already outscaled him and you should look to do teamfights since his teamfighting sucks due that he can't really R the backline so he will usually R you but your team will be there to punish him for that, Splitpushing will allow him to perma CC you and burst you so with the help of your team, you can prevent him from doing that.
Sona was in the Top lane meta couple patches ago but with some adjust to the support item and Sona kit, her kit doesn't work that well as a solo laner. This lane she will run out of mana super quick if she goes for poking you. I recommend letting her push the first wave in and then set up a freeze where you can stack safely near your torret and maybe ask your jungle to notice they picked Sona top to help you get the free win. As soon as you get lvl 6 and Sheen you already outscaled her, she can't match you the whole game solo just be careful about her R if you are diving her, if she is good she will kite you and then wait for you to be low enough to stun you and let the tower kill you but I highly recommend not diving a Sona Top, just look to get as many stacks as possible. Later on to the game, to reduce the utility of the Sona Top pick you must splipush since she can set up really good fights (better than Nasus) and she can boost a lot of her allies, in the split she can't solo hold you at all if its a clear 1v1 against her, just ignore her and hit the tower and if she poked something just Q a minion and heal back to full. Be carefull about her teamates, she will usually never be alone since you can kill her with the E + Q combo if you do it twice on her, so be prepared for 1v2 1v3 scenarios.
Soraka after being nerfed for performing better as a Top laner than actual Top laners, she got buffed multiple times so she is somewhat a close to decent pick in the toplane and I personally encountered with her even after the nerfs. Soraka will just look to poke you and outkite you basically but Nasus with the Fleet Footwork setup is allowed to survive rather easily all her poke and then scale even harder than Soraka. Even after hitting lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, I highly do not recommend fighting her since she will just kite you and waster your Mana, look to get as many stacks as possible. After Trinity Force + Boots, build Bramble Vestto reduce her healing. Later on to the game you will outscale her, I recommend splitting since if you teamfight she will just permaheal the frontlane, just be careful when splitting since she can't hold you solo she will ask for help so be prepared for 1v2 scenarios. Clear mention that if she's building AD she's trolling and you lose that game if you are trolling, straight up no discussion.
Swain lately has barely been seen in the Top lane since nowadays every Bruiser build's BORK and Black Cleaver making it super hard for him to outrade Bruisers damage and sustain, he's usually played as a support that pokes and has a great teamfight. As for laning phase, he will usually try to poke you really hard but he will run out of mana super easily, but still don't disrespect him, his damage early levels, specially against Nasus, it's really strong. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can look to trade on him whenever he misses his E (the pull) and you can run him down since they don't have many abilities to stop you and Nasus base movement speed is way higher than Swain without counting on Nasus W. Usually they will go for Grasp of the Undying as their rune page to be somewhat a Drain Tank but Nasus with Conqueror + Legend: Bloodline is way stronger than him. Later on to the game, he becomes a sort of a good frontilne for his team so try to splitpush and force him to match you to negate his team utility and since he can't really match you solo since he won't be able to deal enough damage to outpoke the Legend: Bloodline and Passive Lifesteal combined; so be prepared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios.
Sylas has come back to the meta with the recent Fleet Footwork and Hextech GLP-600 Build, the problem with it is that since he maxes W for lifesteal, similar to Nasus E, its Mana cost increases with levels. Due to his Passive he will usually push the wave to your side of the lane so you can easily set up a freeze and try to scale. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen, you beat him by doing a fight forcing him to steal your R and him using it (if you need you can use yours) since he has double the cooldown as soon as you have yours, you force an all in with you having yours and him not being able to steal yours. This is mostly due that whenever he steals your R, since Nasus R has an AP scaling "aura" damage, he will severly outdamage you (remember it doesn't reduce the cooldown of HIS Q). Later on you outscale him really easily and depending on how much CC does the enemy team composition have and how fed is the Sylas (if he is) you can choose either to Splitpush or Teamfight.
Syndra is rarely picked as a toplaner since early on she is quite Squishy, Inmobile and her E (her only disengage tool) has a 18 seconds cooldown lvl1. Her poke is really obnoxious and since she will look to hard punish Nasus with her Q and since it is an Aoe spell, the wave will usually be on your side of the lane. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen powerspike and as long as you haven't taken that much damage, look to punish her E cooldown since she will max Q, her E will still have its base 18 second cooldown and that is her only disengage ability. Later on to the game she will scale sort of evenly with you since she has such a great burst even in Nasus that can stack up to 300 MR with his R so its usually determined on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed is the Syndra (if she is), she can match you decently in the Splitpush and her Teamfighting is not that bad, this is the reason why I consider it a Major Threat to Nasus, her scaling is really good and can match Nasus either in the Split and in Teamfights.
Tahm Kench top used to be a thing if I'm not wrong last season, where he can obliterate all other toplaners and there was close to no counter play to him (I remember perma banning him), but he got severly nerfed and he's not really played toplane anymore except of some One Tricks or Auto Filled Supports. As for laning Phase just make sure yo farm behind minons to dodge his Q poke and try to not get him to Devour you since he will just Regurgitate you away from your tower and stack his Passive on you, Respect his damage since its a lot for being able to play as a Top and Sup. Similar to Pantheon or Rengar, once they will hit 6 and you played passive all lane they will look to Roam so make sure you have vision on River and ping a lot to your team whenever he's not in lane. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen spike you can look to do trades against him, usually short ones never work since he has his E but the way to beat it is to do consistant short trades, usually look to alternate between a normal autoattack, Q and E to prevent him of healing himself to the point he is low enough Nasus can Flash + Q kill him or he has to back off, just be careful if you try to do this really hard while close to his torret, he can Devour and Regurgitate into his tower but usually Nasus wins the All Ins. Later on to the game his teamfight isn't the best but he does have really good peeling for his ADC or Backline so keep that in mind, Splitting against him is the key, since he doesn't have enough damage to take Nasus down and even if he pokes you to chunk you to half HP, just Lifesteal with Legend Bloodline + Nasus Passive back to full and you should be fine, you outscale him quite hard.
Taliyah matchup is all about punishing her W Cooldown which has a 16 second cooldown lvl 1 and she maxes it last so Nasus has a window of kill preassure there. In laning phase look to farm behind minions to dodge her Q and move constantly to make it more difficult for Taliyah to hit her W since it has a 1 second cast time. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen powerspike you can start punishing her W cooldown with extended trades without using Nasus R, try to get a Flash or another summoner or even her R since its such a good disengage tool from Nasus. An useful tip is that if she hits her W on you, the E (little rocks she displays on the floor) will explode, similar to Ziggs E, so look to disengage since she will win the trade and heal back to full with the minion wave, also remember that if she is inside her Q circle, the mana cost of Q goes down to 1 per Stone Shard. Later on to the game you outscale her really hard but depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed is Taliyah (If she is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight, also her damage is really good so be careful about it, she can still burst you really quick if not played properly.
Talon is a straight up Mid laner, he usually cannot really burst the Top lane tanky Bruisers and Juggernauts plus Mid lane offers an extra lane to roam which makes sense since he has his E, but sometimes for some reason there are some Talon Top players that will try to beat Nasus early on. In laning Phase just look to not stay near Melee Range against him since his Q will deal Critical damage and Nasus will lose the trade super hard. Usually what Top Talon players do is that they buy Tiamat and they perma push waves and then they spam gank your midlaner, so make sure that if you are farming under torret and he is not there, ping your midlaner to be careful and put some Control Wards in the Top side River Brushes. If you and your midlaner were safe from his roams, onec you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can start killing him easily since he won't have the sustained damage to deal with Nasus Q. Later on to the game he doesn't stand a chance against Nasus, he can't win even 2v1's against you since he literally doesn't deal damage unless he is really fed, so what he will do is to use the map and his E as an advantage and kill your backline, to prevent this, look to splitpush and force him and some other member of his team to match you to negate his only chances of being usefull, he won't be able to kill you in the split unless he gets 1 or 2 allies to help him and even then Conqueror will help you a lot in those Clutch situations.
Taric
CONQUEROR / SPELLBOOK SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Taric whenever he is played as a toplaner, similar to Leona, he goes for a Bruiser build with Trinity Force and some other tanky items, early on he will also lack of Wave Clear and Mana sustain to consistanly punish Nasus but he does get a ridiculous ammount of attack speed after casting a spell. Also be careful about Funneling, usually Taric goes with Master Yi for Funneling but its usually Taric mid, but still be careful. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can start doing extended trades, use W to dodge his E better, Nasus healing with all Conqueror + Legend Bloodline is way stronger than his. Later on to the game look to splitpush and force him to match you to negate his R since his kit works better with another ally but most of the cases he will be with someone else so respect the 1v2 situation and don't overcommit since his R negates Nasus lifesteal since you literally don't deal damage.
Teemo is known for being the nemesis of Nasus, his blind if used properly is such a good way to prevent Nasus from scaling since it can deny the Cannon minions which give 4 times the stacks than normal minions. In this lane, since all Teemos are really confident on winning lane easy, they will look to heavily trade on you and by that they drag minion aggro making the wave push towards you so you will be most of the time under your torret, this lane is all about surviving his poke thats why Fleet Footwork is by far the best option here, and going Spellbook for Cleanse has a slight disadvantage that is delaying the Mercury's Treads purchase that provides Tenacity to reduce Blind duration plus its not really worth it since Teemo's Q has a slightly faster cooldown that Cleanse. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen you can win a 1v1 in case he overcommits really hard and takes a towershot while you have a decent ammount of HP and Mana. Once Teemo hits lvl 6 he will start placing mushrooms everywhere but the key to beat them is to remember where he placed them in order to dodge them, this is a skill that takes a lot of time but its a must go since going Oracle Lens early on is quite troll since you won't have vision at all (no lane prio = no wards). Later on to the game after you have Mercury's Treads and Spirit Visage you will outdamage him severly and you can finally win 1v1's. Later on to the game in a teamfight he can blind you and negate your all your Lifesteal so look to Splitpush and drag multiple members of the enemy team to your side of the lane and make sure your team is getting objectives since its somewhat hard diving him without Ghost. If you feel confident in this matchup you can play with Ghost as your summoner spell. Remember you can stack his Mushrooms with Q.
Thresh
CONQUEROR BUT INSTEAD OF SECOND WIND + UNFLINCHING GO MANAFLOW BAND AND TRANSCENDENCE SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Thresh top is a decently troll pick, usually seen in Flex 5v5 games or in Normals with Dark Harvest and he goes full Critical Damage or an On-Hit build. If you actually encounter this pick in a ranked game, just respect him early game because somehow his auto attacks deal a lot of damage and once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can run him easily down the lane. If he goes for a Full Tank build, look to splitpush and ignore his damage and hit the towers if you do this be prepared for 1v2 or 1v3 setups. If he goes for a Full Crit Chance build, look to teamfight he can't engage with Q since he is squishy and he has a short auto attack range so he is sort of doomed in a teamfight, you outscale him the moment you get lvl 6 and Sheen and he can't hold you solo. You can also go for CDR + Adaptative Force + Magic Resistance for the runpage and look to build Death Dance right after Trinity Force since you have Trascendence and the CDR scaling Rune you will get 40% CDR easily, there is no need to rush Kindlegem in this matchup. You only lose this lane if you are trolling.
Tristana top is somewhat similar to Draven top, is a cheesy pick that will look to get fed of Melee laners and snowball to victory. In this lane due to her E Passive, she will never be able to freeze on you and the wave will be always on your side of the lane, the problem is that she can take towers really quick, specially with Demolish and putting her E in the tower she can take the full tower really easily, but usually Tristana players will look to use E on you rather than the tower. Remember that Tristana weakness is her long cooldowns (Q=20 W=22 E=16) so after you get lvl 6 and Sheen and she tries to poke you using all her cooldowns going overconfident, you can simply run her down the lane, also whenever alling her and she has no W, look to use W and position Nasus inbetween Tristana and her escape path (usually her tower) so in case she uses R on you, she doesn't push you out of this range but rather pushes you more in the middle. Later on to the game you outscale her but depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed is Tristana (If she is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight, Usually both are slightly complicated since she can separate so much from you due to her R, W resets and scaling Auto Attack range, so be careful whenever fighting. A technique that is rather difficult but its really good, is look to bait her W by being low HP so whenver she goes overconfident and jumps on you, press R and position yourself inbetween her and her escape path and use all the lifesteal to win the fight.
Trundle is such a good pick into tanks and even in the jungle he is used as a hard counter to Sejuani, but in Top lane he usually goes for a full AD build with a lot of Lifesteal. In laning phase, similar to Xin Zhao, YOU MUST RESPECT HIS EARLY GAME, even if the dude straight up started no items, he can beat you even without them (early on). Usually they will go for Tiamat into Trinity, so the wave will be usually on your side of the lane. Even after lvl 6 and Sheen, Trundle can still win due that he can just wait for you to use R and then he will use his R to gain all your bonus resistances of Nasus R, and therefor win. This is why you can run Conqueror on him because Conqueror will provide with the best Splitpushing / Dueling scaling setup and its somewhat decent into teamfights or Spellbook will provide with more early on surviaviability. Later on to the game you do outscale him just because your Q stacks infinitively but overall you can't really fight him in any stage of the game. The best technique I found is to splitpush and then outrotate him in a teamfight. The later the game goes the more valuable you become over him.
Tryndamere is one of the best Splitpushers and Duelist in the game, but for a duelist, he lacks of other types of damage since he only mostly Physical Damage (AD basically). In case you see an AP Tryndamere don't get baited into building MR, the AP scaling is for his Spin damage, which deals Physical Damage, and his Q heal. Early on you must not greed to get stacks, he can extend a trade and get you to half HP or even kill you in a single extended trade, let him push the wave and don't let him find a chance to poke you with the Auto attack + Spin out of torret range trade. if he builds Tiamat, look to farm under torret safely while he permashoves. I highly recommend going for Iceborn Guanlet instead of Trinity force (in the Spellbook setup) since it's way cheaper and it provides a lot of armor which stops him from killing you. Also look to be always above 50% HP and DON'T WASTE WITHER, THAT'S THE ONLY ABILITY THAT IS STOPPING HIM FROM DIVING YOU 100-0. Later on to the game, once you have decent ammount of armor, Tryndamere will struggle a lot to kill you if he went even in lane against you, so you can match him in the Splitpush, look to do consistant Short trades where you are just hitting him with Q every time you have a Grasp Proc available you will get him low enough to the point he has to back off or you can kill him or force his R. Remember that for winning a 1v1 he must have his R, or else he will lose since he doesn't build any sort of defensive stat. Look to match his splitpush and force his R and then join your team in a 4v5. The later it goes is better for Nasus since he can oneshot Tryndamere more and more easily and it gets harder for him to time his R. Randuin's omen is a must go item if the enemy team has a Tryndamere and a traditional ADC.
Twisted Fate either goes for an AP Mid/Late game Burst build or for an AD early/mid game consistant damage build, regardless of it, he has really good poke and really good engage with his R for teamfights. In laning phase it becomes sort of easy to dodge his Q but he will usually hit you with Yellow Card (stun) and then Q to guarantee the damage, you can usually just sit back and wait for him to use another card on a minion or else he loses a lot of farm and waveclear. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can start doing short trades with him since he doesn't have a decent HP sustain, its easier to do short trades into an all in rather than an actual all in since he can kite you easily when he's full Health. Later on to the game you outscale him really hard but depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed he is (If he is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight. If Splitting, remember that he can join his team really easily with his R so you can either help your team with TP or just push towers. If you Teamfight just be careful about his Flanks, since they are really annoying with his R and remember he gets vision of all of your team.
Twitch
CONQUEROR SETUP - CLOTH ARMOR + 4 POTS OR CULL + POT =
Twitch top is nearly a joke, since he is super Squishy, no mobility appart from the slight movement speed buff of his Q stealth and even early on he lacks of damage to poke Nasus out of lane. In laning phase just let him push towards you and don't let him get some free autoattacks on you. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, you already outscaled him, your sustain is simply to big for him to try to poke you even with items, you can just wait for him to overcommit on you even slightly and press W and Ghost and run him down, he has no way of running away from you. His teamfight is decent if he is ahead, if not, he will deal no damage but I highly recommend Splitpushing since unless he's with 2/3 allies he can't hold you. You can also go for CDR + Adaptative Force + Magic Resistance for the runpage and look to build Death Dance right after Trinity Force since you have Trascendence and the CDR scaling Rune you will get 40% CDR easily, there is no need to rush Kindlegem in this matchup. You only lose this lane if you are trolling.
Udyr nowadays, similar to Dr. Mundo, hasn't been in the meta and you will only lane against Udyr OneTricks or people thinking that the patch 10.10 made him broken, but still, you must respect his damage specially early on into the game. In laning phase it's just a farming lane, he doesn't have a dash or a quick way to get on top of Nasus in order to preassure you and kill you rather than a movement speed buff of his W and he even has some Mana sustain problems. Usually Udyr is a really flexible champion, he can go for Attack Damage, Ability Power, Tank and even a Full Movement Speed based upon kiting builds but still Nasus will outscale him. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you should be able to start doing trades against him, he wins the Short Trades but Nasus will defeat him in the extended fights. Later on to the game he has no teamfighting at all unless he just flashes on your backline and then burst them due to the lack of mobility of the champion kit, so most of the time he will be Splitpushing, you can match him and kill him easily, he won't be able to kill you, but he can burst you, waste your R and then run away and kite you, but you can run him down with Ghost + W easily, just be careful when chasing him, similar to Bard, he can set up traps with his team.
Urgot matchup is all about dodging his Q and E, if he doesn't hit them, he won't be able to effectively use his Purge passive on his W and his overall W. In laning phase, let him push the wave and last hit the minions never push into him, he will usually push the wave into you due to his Passive and the fact that he wants to preassure you really hard early on, so look to farm safely undertorret. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can start doing extended trades whenever he misses his E or Q, If you can, you can dodge his R by flashing behind him and since his W is his main source of damage he will try to burst you with it but his movement speed is reduced, he basically doesn't have a way of escaping. Later on to the game you outscale him but depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed he is (If he is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight.
Varus top is a really annoying pick, early levels he's weak but unluckily Nasus is too, luckily he is super squishy and inmobile making Nasus a decent pick against him. Be careful about his Q damage, its insane specially if he goes for a full Lethality Build and remember that if he stacks his W on you, the Q deals even more damage. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, you can all in him as long as you have a decent HP and Mana bar, he usually can't kite you appart from hitting his R but since he is quite inmobile and Toplane is a long lane you can catch him and dive him even if needed. Later on to the game its better to Splitpush since his utility with his R in teamfights is a lot and if he goes for an On-Hit build, he will shred you while he recieves peel from his team. When you are splitpushing you can easily run him down and dive him, he can't match you solo so be prepared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios.
Vayne
GRASP (TANK) SETUP- CLOTH ARMOR + 4 POTS =
Vayne is without any argument the best counter to Nasus, period. Her whole kit is designed upon beating Nasus in all stages of the game, her early game preassure is too much for Nasus to deal with and her late game W True Damage, E stun and R invisibility makes it impossible for Nasus to be useful in the game. I highly recommend dodging this game since you are literally useless all game regardless of how much help you get, but in case you are forced to play it (you are in promos) I'll give you some tips. In laning phase she will permashove the wave and look to punish you really hard so don't worry if you have to back many times, atleast the wave is on your side of the lane. Once you get your lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, there is the only window in the whole game where you can kill her and you must tell your jungler to help you trying to get a lead against her to snowball since she is really susceptible to ganks. In this all in opportunity, look to stay in the middle of the lane so she can't use E and stun you with the wall. Once she hits the BORK + Guinsoo's Rageblade + Quicksilver Sash power spike, you are already outscaled and can't beat her solo. I also highly recommend to ask your midlaner if he can beat her or atleast lane against her so you have better chances of winning the game as Mid lane Nasus. Against her you usually want to finish the game really quickly, going for a late game is trolling since she can solo 1v5 your team.
Veigar top is usually a really smartless pick, he is beyond inmobile (340 Base Movement speed and thats about it) and similar to Nasus W, his E (cage) is the only tool he has to disengage from his enemies and it has a 18 seconds cooldown lvl 1. In laning phase look to farm safely behind minions to prevent his Q poke and look to dodge his W poke by moving constantly, by doing this you will outsustain his Mana bar and once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen you can kill him easily if he wastes his Cage. Later on to the game he scales really well but Nasus has overall a better scaling, depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed he is (If he is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight, while splitting just dive him if he wastes his E and same in teamfights, he has no counterplay to it rather than using Zhonias and flashing away and trying to do more time to get E again.
Vel'koz is similar to Xerath and Veigar, It (Vel'Koz has no gender) scales really well but has no movement speed buffs on its kit and its only disengage tool it has of Nasus All in Power, is its E and it is a skill shot knockup with a 0.75 second cast time that you can dodge somewhat easily if you move around constantly. In laning phase, look to farm safely behind minions to reduce its Q poke and move constantly to dodge its E. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can punish really hard its E cooldown if it misses it, Vel'Koz will usually just R and look to burst you since it can run away from your W, an usefull tip is to flash behind it since he can't turn backwards that fast in that way you negate all its passive True Damage of his R. Later on to the game depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed Vel'Koz is (If it is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight, while splitting just dive him if it wastes his E, Vel'Koz has no counterplay to it rather than using Zhonias and flashing away and trying to get more time to get E again or waiting for its team to help it.
Vi kit is made to be a Jungler rather than a Solo Laner since it has a lot of Knockups and Utility with Q and R, and a lot of burst with W and E. In laning phase she can poke with her E going though minions but it's not enough to poke Nasus out of Lane. Similar to Tryndamere, she deals only Physical damage though her whole kit so make sure you have some armor items ever early on. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen you can run her down easily if she overcommits with her Q or simply just wastes it (you can bait it too) but be careful, she has a really good gank setup so be aware of where the enemy jungler is whenver alling her to prevent this scenarios but most of the cases you will be able to beat them in 1v2 scenarios. Later on to the game she can't match you and since her teamfight is somewhat decent, I recommend splitpushing, she can't hold you solo so be prepared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios.
Viktor Top hasn't been a strong pick since Kleptomancy was removed from the game making this matchup is actually not as bad as it used to be last season where he can poke you infinitely and get his items way faster than Nasus. In laning phase his Q has a two part where the first one is impossible to dodge since it is a Point to Click Ability, but you can move to dodge the second one which is the one that applies the Sheen damage and overall more damage. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen its really hard for Nasus to all in him due to his W and Shield of his Q but if you see him waste his W, you can all in him and kill him. Usually they will go for Phase Rush, so make sure you proc it before going in to make use of Nasus W. Later on to the game his teamfighting isn't the best but he is really good at fighting 1v1's, look to setup teamfights with your team where he will have a hard time dealing with them since Nasus outscales him in the Teamfights.
Vladimir is surprisingly one of the easiest AP matchups in the game for Nasus, he will usually lifesteal his enemies to death but Nasus Passive + Legend Bloodline are way supperior and can't outsustain though it. In laning phase, his wave clear is really bad, so let him push the first wave and set up a freeze on the second wave, if you play it properly you should be able to maintain the freeze and stack easily. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can run him down the lane as long as he just wasted his Phase Rush and his W (28 seconds cooldown lvl 1), if he hasn't he can run away easily. Later on to the game you outscale him really hard but unluckily your teamates don't and since he can literally just walk up, use W, R and then burst your backline without you being able to properly peel them to prevent this look to splitpush, he can't poke you enough to the point your lifesteal to minions isn't enough just be careful if he ults you because most likely his team is there to back him off.
Volibear since his rework has surprisingly turned into a way easier matchup for Nasus, before his rework it was next to impossible to lane against him, Now his kit is easier to deal with and you outscale him even Harder. In laning phase due to his Passive and that he will try to punish you early game he will perma push the wave on to your side of the lane making it easier to farm under tower without being traded that hard. A good tip is to get close to his passive (Relentless Storm) to constantly proc Second Wind + Dorans Shield maximazing your sustain and overall since Volibear doesn't really build that much AP appart from a Dorans Ring early on, it deals basically no damage. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen powerspike yo can start doing short trades against him and his only sustain he has is reliant on him hitting you twice with his W and by doing short trades you negate it, once he is low enough you can kill him relatively easily. Be careful if you are low HP, similar to Tryndamere or Kled, he is really good at diving since he disables towers. Later on to the game he can't match you solo and since his teamfighting is not that bad, you must splitpush and force him to match you, be prepared for 1v2 or 1v3 scenarios.
Warwick top has been out of the meta since he lacks of a decent ammount of Mana Sustain and a decent way to use his W properly. In laning phase Warwick will usually go Tiamat to help his wave clear and give him better roams so let your team know whenever he is out of lane by pinging and getting some vision in the River Topside Brush. Even after lvl 6 and Sheen its sort of hard to poke him down due to all the lifesteal he has but if you do consistant short trades you can beat him easily in an all in. Later on to the game you outscale Warwick and depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed Warwick is (If he is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight but usually teamfighting is better since his plays are quite predictable, he will try to flank with his R and then use his E (Fear) to prevent you from peeling or just wait for his team to get someone low, he will just E and run to him and whenever he is low, he will just R the closest target but later on if he goes for too much lifesteal, he is oneshoteable and if he goes for too much tankyness he is damageless, regardless Nasus outscales him really hard as long as he isn't super fed.
Wukong since his Mini Rework, similar to Garen, he has become another hard matchup since his dueling power is really strong specially in Early/Mid game. In laning phase, you must respect his early game dueling power, usually he will go for Tiamat and then Trinity Force/Black Cleaver so usually the wave will be on your side of the lane. Remember that he can dive super well with his Clone and R so if you see the enemy jungler near by and he's pushing a big wave onto you, you must back off and respect his power. Usually they will go for Conqueror, Death Dance and Ravenous Hydra and even some Wukongs go for BORK, the point is that he heavily relies on healing to extend and win fights so build Bramble Vest after Trinity Force + Boots. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen powerspike you can start doing short trades against him, he wins the 100-0 fight due to his Passive and resistances over time in combat, but if you get him low enough you can kill him. Later on to the game you outscale him and he can't really match you, he will need an ally to help him and it's better to Splitpush since his Teamfight is really strong due to the fact he can spam Knockups with clone. Remember you can stack his Clone with Q.
Xayah top has a decent ammount of poke with her Feathers since they go though minions and good disengage with her E and Q but overall she can't poke Nasus out of lane. In laning phase just look to sit back and let the wave push towards you, she since her Passive will push the wave automatically, just be patient and let it push. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can all in her whenever she wastes her E while trying to poke you doing, a good tip is to try to get behind her while she is pressing R to prevent her from getting the E stun, regardless you outscale her really hard. Later on to the game she can deal a decent ammount of damage in Teamfights so look to Splitpush since she can't handle you solo, you will most of the time be against 2 or even 3 people in the Split, so make sure your team is either fighting or doing an objective with the 4v3 team advantage.
Xerath best analogy to understand the matchup is to see him as a somewhat similar version of Vel'Koz, he has no mobility at all one only one ability that is preventing Nasus from running him down. In laning phase look to farm safely and move constantly to dodge his Q and W, remeber that the center of his W deals more damage. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, you can start punishing really hard his E cooldown, if he misses it you can run him down but the difference between Xerath and Vel'Koz is that if Xerath misses his E, his Doomed since his R isn't like Vel'Koz that can use it for burst you. Later on to the game you outscale him really hard, look to Splitpush since Teamfighting is really annoying against him since he can poke you from miles away, While splitting he will usually just sit really back and use his W and Q to clear the wave and then E you to stun you when there are no minions so you take tower damage, to prevent this, just bait an all in by using W so he is forced to waste his E and then run him down the lane, he can't hold you solo unless he's with a teamate.
Xin Zhao is a similar pick to Trundle or Pantheon, he will use his early game advantage to Snowball and win the game by influencing other lanes early on. In laning phase just look to play behind your minions and sort of far back so he doesn't E on you and get his Q stacks really quick on you, if you play it properly he will usually permapush the wave onto your side of the lane. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can start doing trades but its better off if you just perma farm and get as many stacks as possible so in late game he can't hold you sidelane. You outscale Xin Zhao really hard but in teamfights he can provide a lot of utility with his R so look to split push, he can't really hold you solo so be preapared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios. The later the game goes the more valuable Nasus becomes over Xin Zhao
Yasuo is a really strong champion but its a really player dependant, in the right hands, he is one of the most broken champions, in the wrong ones he will hit the 0/10 power spike in 2 minutes. In early laning phase (lvl1) you can look to bait his Q by getting in range and inmediately back off to force him to shove in the wave, respect his early game since it deals a lot of damage if he plays it properly. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen you can all in him if overcommits, usually while fighting him make sure that you use E to get rid of his Passive Shield since it negates some Q damage, also be careful to not fight him in a big wave since he can use it to his advantage but usually its too much damage for him to take. Later on to the game, depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed he is (If he is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight, but usually Splitting is better since you negate his chance of hitting multiple people with a Q Tornado and get a multiple target R, In the splitpush he won't be able to handle you solo so be prepared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios. Also if you are kitting him, look to run away from your minion wave since he can use it to gap close to you.
Yone, similar to Yasuo (they are literally brothers), is a really strong champion but its a really player dependant, in the right hands, he is one of the most broken champions, in the wrong ones he will hit the 0/10 power spike in 2 minutes. In early laning phase (lvl1), just like in Yasuo Matchup, you can look to bait his Q by getting in range and inmediately back off to make him to shove in the wave and respect his early game damage. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen you can start doing short trades into an eventual all in. Usually Yone players will hide in a bush and press E and try to poke you down with that to then inmediately back off, you can outdamage him by pressing W and then a fat E + Q combo and he will guarantee lose the trade unless he has a lot of Crit Items, also when all ining him, make sure to dodge his R, it has a channeling effect that displays the area where he is using it, so its somewhat easy to dodge. Later on to the game, depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed he is (If he is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight, but usually Splitting is better since you negate his ability to get Multiple Knocks ups with Q Tornado and R and the ability to get free picks on your Squishy allies with his E plus Nasus can deal with him in the sidelane, be prepared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios since it will "let him free" of dealing with you.
Yorick, similar to Cho'Gath, has lately been out of the toplane meta since he struggles to fight against the BORK + Black Cleaver Bruisers. In laning phase he will usually shove the wave so he can get some Mist Walkers to poke you so farm safely under torret, try to dodge his E so the Mist Walkers don't attack you. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen he can outplay you since he gets a lot of healing due to Conqueror, his Mist Walker and Maiden of the Mist, usually he will just trap you with W and let his Mist do damage, lookt to trade R's and try to kill Maiden first since it has a long cooldown than Nasus R plus Nasus builds a lot of CDR early on, and look to disengage and once you have your R back you can all in him. Later on to the game he can somewhat solo hold you and kite you decently so look to teamfight where he struggles the most and try to win 5v4 situations. The later the game goes, the more valuable Nasus becomes over Yorick since he will only use W on someone and then try to burst you. Remember you can stack his Mist Walker and Maiden of the Mist with Q.
Yuumi
CONQUEROR SETUP BUT INSTEAD OF SECOND WIND + UNFLINCHING GO MANAFLOW BAND AND TRANSCENDENCE - CULL + POT =
Yuumi top is 100% troll pick, Yuumi requires another champion to be usefull in a solo lane, she cant even aim her Q (her only source of damage). Just go Cull shove her in and get plates, ignore her damage since its never going to be enough to do more damage than what your passive heals you, unless she has her jungler nearby, so put some deep wards in their jungler. You can also go for CDR + Adaptative Force + Magic Resistance for the runpage and look to build Death Dance right after Trinity Force since you have Trascendence and the CDR scaling Rune you will get 40% CDR easily, there is no need to rush Kindlegem in this matchup. You only lose this lane if you are trolling.
Zac
CONQUEROR / SPELLBOOK SETUP - DORANS SHIELD / 3 REJUVENATION BEADS OR CULL + POT =
Zac top used to be a popular pick with Conqueror since gained so much healing of his Passive Chunks but similar to Yorick, he struggles a lot with the new BORK + Black Cleaver Bruisers. In laning phase he doesn't have that many ways to punish you if you play behind your wave, if you disrespect his damage and go for an unnecesary minion close to him, he wins the trade if not kill you, sit behind minions and wait for his Aoe abilities to push the wave. Once you hit lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can start doing short trades since trying to extend trades is rather difficult due to how fast he can disengage with E, by doing short trades, he can't pull out the "bait your R and then E out" technique and he also has a really long cooldown on his E (24 seconds cooldown lvl 1). Later on to the game, since he becomes so tanky and has such a good engage, look to splitpush and force him to match you in the side lane to negate his utility, usually he will never have enough damage to poke you out of the split nor laning phase (if played properly) so he will ask for help to his teamates, be prepared for 1v2 or 1v3 scenarios. Make sure to build Bramble Vest and try to step on his Chunks to reduce his healing as much as possible.
Zed is a really strong pick and can snowball really really hard if he gets some kills since Lethality is really strong on him due that he can get a lot of Q's and E's with his W and R shadows. In laning phase look to farm safely and dodge his Q's, once he gets lvl 3 it gets way worse, he can do a full burst combo on you and get you to half HP even with the early Cloth Armor purchase, so don't be bothered if you have to back early and use your TP before Sheen. After some experience in this matchup, once you get lvl 6 and Sheen you can start doing Short trades against him with Q + Grasp proc, you will usually outsustain him since he doesn't have a way of sustaining ability in his kit rather than in his Runes (Taste of Blood + Ravenous Hunter). Later on to the game, once you get a lot more of armor, he can't really burst you so look to teamfight and peel your allies, usually it's hard if the Zed player is good but if you have good vision it will be really hard for Zed to flank. if he doesn't get many kills early on, look to end the game quickily of else if he scales he will insta burst your ADC in a teamfight and you will lose the fight and eventually the game.
Ziggs is a really annoying matchup, his poke is unbelievable strong and really annoying, this lane is all about survival and looking to scale since Nasus outscales Ziggs really hard. In laning phase due to how his kit works when wave clearing, he will usually push the wave towards you, in the meanwhile sit behind minions to dodge his Q poke and move constantly whenever there are not minions to dodge it. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, you can all in him if you have a decent ammount of HP and he just used his W, which has a 20 seconds cooldown at lvl 1. Later on to the game he scales decently in teamfights and his wave clear is good but he simply can't match Nasus in the Splitpush, so look to force a splitpush situation where he has to match you, he clears waves somewhat fast but if you manage to hit a W on him, you can take a really good trade on him where you either get his Flash or Zhonias Hourglass in Cooldown, do this repetitively until you can run him down easily.
Zilean top is a really annoying matchup since he can farm really safely and his disengage tools are really good if he hits you with the double Q or Slows you/Boost himself and even he still has his R, overall a really annoying champion to kill. Look to farm and wait for his Aoe spells to push the wave and farm safely under torret
. Once you hit the lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can start punishing him in case he misses his double Q. In this lane you are looking to get as much stacks possible in the shortest ammount of time. Later on to the game depending on how much CC the enemy team composition has and how fed Zilean is (If he is), you can choose either to Splitpush or to Teamfight, he can deal really well with Nasus on both sides, so it becomes a skill matchup, I highly recommend to counter his R, to setup picks in their jungle with some Control Wards and burst him or some ally of his team quick enough to the point he can R himself that quickly.
Zoe is one of the most annoying champions in the game (my personal opinion) to deal with as any champion, her poke is unreal and the ammount of burst she can have is amazing. In laning phase you can dodge his E Bubble somewhat easily and remember that her Q damage increases with the ammount of distance it travels, so if she lands a bubble on you, try to position yourself behind some minions no negate that damage. Look to farm under torret and get as many stacks as possible and once you get 2/3 items you outscaled her. Later on to the game she does really well in teamfights but can't really hold Nasus, she will almost always be with an ally to prevent you from running her down so make sure your team is doing an objective in the meanwhile or forcing a teamfight with the 4v3 advantage. If you are going Spellbook, remember that Cleanse will remove the Drownsy and Asleep effect really easily and you can look to run her down if she misses the first bubble and cleanse the second one leaving her with counted options to kite you properly.
Zyra hasn't been in the Top lane Meta for a while due to her really low Mobility and Mana Sustain problems, she even stop being a popular Midlaner, and similar to Brand, she was left as a Support that pokes a lot and has a decent ammount of Utility and Teamfighting skills. In laning phase sitting behind minions isn't always the best since her Q and E can poke though them so just look to dodge her Skillshots and farm safely or else she will poke you really hard, don be greedy and try to get a lot of stacks early on. Once you get lvl 6 and Sheen power spike you can look to do an extended fight whenever she misses her E (Root), she is quite squishy and inmobile so she doesn't have a lot of chances against Nasus and try to get out of her R as soon as she casts it. Later on to the game you outscale her really hard and she can't hold you sideline, look to splitpush and force her to match you, she can't hold you solo so be prepared for 1v2 or even 1v3 scenarios. Remember you can stack her Thorn Spitters with Q.
Alistar
It doesn't really give any bonus stats to Nasus, just only gives him CC and he is quite inmobile.
Bard
Has good gank setup and a minor heal but appart from that he is a damageless support that nasus won't benefit much from him.
Blitzcrank
Really good surprise factor and long range Q, but quite inmobile and doesn't boost Nasus stats.
Brand
He's really dependant on Peeling and positioning to deal damage, he also doesn't boost Nasus stats and he's quite Squishy.
Braum
Decent tanky support pick, interesting passive but Nasus and him are really slow to stack it, quite inmobile too.
Galio
Good into heavy AP comps due to the shield, lots of CC and engage with R, but doesn't boost Nasus and sucks into AD comps.
Janna
Really good Enchanter, gives a lot of shields, heals, has CC and boost stats. Really good synergy overall.
Karma
One of my personal favourite, can boost a lot of Nasus stats, good shields and CC.
Leona
Really tanky and has good engage but lacks of heals and boosting stats for Nasus.
Lulu
Another of my favourite picks, Her R is amazing, Polymorph helps a lot, boost stats and gives really good shields.
Lux
Decent shield and burst but she's quite inmobile and relies a lot on peeling and positioning.
Malphite
Only has a good engage with R, appart from that, he isn't a good pick to synergise.
Maokai
Good engage and a lot of tankyness but lacks of boosting stats for Nasus and all his damage is AP (can itemize easily against him).
Morgana
Really good pick potential, her shield is quite strong, and has really good teamfighting with Nasus.
Nasus
woof woof uwu (best champ, play him).
Nami
Lots of heals, CC and has abiltiies that boost stats. Also she has a good pick potential due to her CC.
Nautilus
Really Tanky and provides a lot of CC but lacks of abilities that boost Nasus stats.
Pantheon
Really strong early game champion that if he roams top can get you ahead, has good teamfighting but poor scaling.
Poppy
Not the best Support, she does have a lot of CC, but no abilities that boost Nasus Stats.
Pyke
Really strong pick to punish ranged toplaners, can get you a lot of gold leads due to his R, but no abilities that boost Nasus stats.
Rakan
Really good Engage, teamfighting skills, lots of mobility and can provide minor healings.
Senna
Lots of healing, nice shield, decent CC, can go invisible and Scaling damage with Mist charges.
Seraphine
Decent Heal, really nice synergy due to the fact that if Nasus Withers, she can press E and Root the enemy making it a strong duo. Really useful ult too.
Sett
Really good Teamfighting, lots of CC and Damage but quite inmobile and has no abilities that boost Nasus stats.
Shaco
Only used to poke as a support, his playstyle is really different from Nasus in a teamfight and quite predictable.
Shen
Really good engage with his R (which also has a shield), can protect from autoattacks with W and really strong early game. Lacks scaling.
Sona
Her kit is designed around boosting someone else Stats so perfect for Nasus. Really good R and Healing and has great scaling.
Soraka
My personal Favourite. She has so many healings, a decent CC ability and can make you tank way more in a teamfight.
Swain
Decent CC and burst damage but doesn't have any ability to help Nasus in a teamfight.
Tahm Kench
Really good for laning but in a teamfight he sucks, he is only useful for saving you with Devour in case of misposition.
Taric
Another personal favourite. Really good CC, Incredible R, Lots of healing while dealing decent ammount of damage. Also super Tanky.
Thresh
Lots of CC and can bring Nasus some mobility with his W, Also has good scaling and Tankyness.
Vel'Koz
Heavily relies on peeling and on having his stacking his passive, no mobility and really squishy. Also lacks of abilties that boost Nasus stats.
Xerath
Similar to Vel'koz, heavily relies on Peeling, super inmobile and squishy, also he doesn't have abilities that boost Nasus Stats.
Yuumi
Next to Soraka in the Synergy list. Loads of Heals and Shields, Really good R with CC while being untargetable and next to you.
Zac
Really good Engage, CC tools and heals for himself making him tanky but no abilities that boost Nasus Stats.
Zilean
Really nice R that makes you last even longer in teamfights, provides CC and damage but lacks of Healings/Shields
Zyra
Heavily reliant on Peel, no mobility, no Heals/Shields, really squishy. Also no ability that Boost Nasus stats.
Synergies
IdealStrongOkLowNone
Alistar
It doesn't really give any bonus stats to Nasus, just only gives him CC and he is quite inmobile.
Bard
Has good gank setup and a minor heal but appart from that he is a damageless support that nasus won't benefit much from him.
Blitzcrank
Really good surprise factor and long range Q, but quite inmobile and doesn't boost Nasus stats.
Brand
He's really dependant on Peeling and positioning to deal damage, he also doesn't boost Nasus stats and he's quite Squishy.
Braum
Decent tanky support pick, interesting passive but Nasus and him are really slow to stack it, quite inmobile too.
Galio
Good into heavy AP comps due to the shield, lots of CC and engage with R, but doesn't boost Nasus and sucks into AD comps.
Janna
Really good Enchanter, gives a lot of shields, heals, has CC and boost stats. Really good synergy overall.
Karma
One of my personal favourite, can boost a lot of Nasus stats, good shields and CC.
Leona
Really tanky and has good engage but lacks of heals and boosting stats for Nasus.
Lulu
Another of my favourite picks, Her R is amazing, Polymorph helps a lot, boost stats and gives really good shields.
Lux
Decent shield and burst but she's quite inmobile and relies a lot on peeling and positioning.
Malphite
Only has a good engage with R, appart from that, he isn't a good pick to synergise.
Maokai
Good engage and a lot of tankyness but lacks of boosting stats for Nasus and all his damage is AP (can itemize easily against him).
Morgana
Really good pick potential, her shield is quite strong, and has really good teamfighting with Nasus.
Nasus
woof woof uwu (best champ, play him).
Nami
Lots of heals, CC and has abiltiies that boost stats. Also she has a good pick potential due to her CC.
Nautilus
Really Tanky and provides a lot of CC but lacks of abilities that boost Nasus stats.
Pantheon
Really strong early game champion that if he roams top can get you ahead, has good teamfighting but poor scaling.
Poppy
Not the best Support, she does have a lot of CC, but no abilities that boost Nasus Stats.
Pyke
Really strong pick to punish ranged toplaners, can get you a lot of gold leads due to his R, but no abilities that boost Nasus stats.
Rakan
Really good Engage, teamfighting skills, lots of mobility and can provide minor healings.
Senna
Lots of healing, nice shield, decent CC, can go invisible and Scaling damage with Mist charges.
Seraphine
Decent Heal, really nice synergy due to the fact that if Nasus Withers, she can press E and Root the enemy making it a strong duo. Really useful ult too.
Sett
Really good Teamfighting, lots of CC and Damage but quite inmobile and has no abilities that boost Nasus stats.
Shaco
Only used to poke as a support, his playstyle is really different from Nasus in a teamfight and quite predictable.
Shen
Really good engage with his R (which also has a shield), can protect from autoattacks with W and really strong early game. Lacks scaling.
Sona
Her kit is designed around boosting someone else Stats so perfect for Nasus. Really good R and Healing and has great scaling.
Soraka
My personal Favourite. She has so many healings, a decent CC ability and can make you tank way more in a teamfight.
Swain
Decent CC and burst damage but doesn't have any ability to help Nasus in a teamfight.
Tahm Kench
Really good for laning but in a teamfight he sucks, he is only useful for saving you with Devour in case of misposition.
Taric
Another personal favourite. Really good CC, Incredible R, Lots of healing while dealing decent ammount of damage. Also super Tanky.
Thresh
Lots of CC and can bring Nasus some mobility with his W, Also has good scaling and Tankyness.
Vel'Koz
Heavily relies on peeling and on having his stacking his passive, no mobility and really squishy. Also lacks of abilties that boost Nasus stats.
Xerath
Similar to Vel'koz, heavily relies on Peeling, super inmobile and squishy, also he doesn't have abilities that boost Nasus Stats.
Yuumi
Next to Soraka in the Synergy list. Loads of Heals and Shields, Really good R with CC while being untargetable and next to you.
Zac
Really good Engage, CC tools and heals for himself making him tanky but no abilities that boost Nasus Stats.
Zilean
Really nice R that makes you last even longer in teamfights, provides CC and damage but lacks of Healings/Shields
Zyra
Heavily reliant on Peel, no mobility, no Heals/Shields, really squishy. Also no ability that Boost Nasus stats.
Welcome to my first Mobafire Guide, my name is Ernestsaurus and I'm a Nasus Main with nearly 160k Mastery points in total with all my accounts and here is some proof to it,
Here are some more random points in different accounts which I share with some friends in multiple servers (I didn't grind 100% of all those mastery points but I did a decent ammount), Also there are other accounts that I don't mention, but overall you get the idea:
I've been playing League of Legends since early Season 8 / late Season 7 and I put out this Guide since I think all other Mobafire Guides are either aimed at super High Elos (Master, Grandmasters or even Challenger), not saying they are bad but at all, just that the difference between below Gold elo and Diamond 1 and up, is huge, and everything changes there. Also there are guides that are severely outdated with really off meta builds and don't provide enough help in Matchups and in Laning phase.
With this Guide I will help you to get out of Bronce and Silver with Nasus by detailing every single matchup in the game, all 149 other champions (obviously excluding Nasus), and giving you as many tips and tricks as I can based on my personal experience while laning against a lot of champions with Nasus in different roles, diferent servers and elos. I also add some tips and tricks taken from other guides. Remember this guide is based for lower elos but still isn't that bad on higher elos.
3- Pros and Cons
PROS
→Infinite Scaling with Siphoning Strike →Decent sustain with Soul Eater →Strong Mid/Late game →Decent Splitpusher and Teamfighter →Lot of Burst to Squishies →Lot of Tankiness with Fury of the Sands
Nasus when it comes to his strenghs, he has one of the best Late game scalings due to his Siphoning Strike allowing him to permanently gain damage while being able to build resistances to provide a good frontline for his team.
He also has a really decent Splitpush potential since he shreds towers with his Siphoning Strike and late game it becomes close to impossible to kill Nasus when he has his Fury of the Sands on, making him one of the strongest Scaling Splitpushers in the game.
Due to how his Fury of the Sands gives him bonus resistances over time when casted, he becomes one of the Tankiest, if not the tankiest Juggernaut in the game, while being able to stand in a teamfight for a really long time.
When it comes to Nasus weaknesses, they become really but really clear, His lack of early game power makes him really vulnerable to strong early game Toplaners that can abuse really hard of him.
He also lacks of a lot of Mobility, since there is no ability in his kit that allows him to move efficiently over the terrain in the map and his only way to gap close is by using his Wither which can be removed with Cleanse, Mercurial Scimitar or Mikael's Blessing, he becomes a rather easy champion to kite.
Nasus also has a clear problem with his Runepage and playstyle, since none of the current runes offer him a good early game survival while providing a decent fighting late game, he also has mediocre Teamfighting skills and he's a rather weak splitpusher in comparison to Tryndamere, Jax or Fiora.
CONS
→Lack of Early game power →Low Mobility →Not the best Splitpusher neither Teamfighter →Easy to Kite →Unconsistant Rune Page options →The higher the Elo, the more difficult to carry/be useful
4- Ability Kit
PASSIVE
Soul Eater
✦ABILITY: Nasus permanently has 12% / 18% / 24% (based on level) bonus Lifesteal.
✦ABILITY: Nasus' next basic attack within 10 seconds becomes unstoppable, gains 25 bonus range and deals bonus physical damage.
✦VIDEO:
✦ If Siphoning Strike kills its target, Nasus permanently gains 3 stacks, increased to 12 if it's target is a Champion, large Minion or large Monster. ✦ Siphoning Strike resets Nasus' basic attack timer (Cancels auto attack animation).
✦ABILITY: Nasus ages the target enemy champion for 5 seconds, slowing them by 35% and Cripple them by half that amount, both increasing over the duration.
✦TARGET RANGE: 650 UNITS ✦EFFECT RADIUS: 400 UNITS ✦CAST TIME: 0.25 SECONDS ✦COST: 70 / 85 / 100 / 115 / 130 MANA ✦COOLDOWN: 12 SECONDS
✦ABILITY: Nasus unleashes a Spirit Flame at the target location, dealing Magic Damage to enemies in the area.
✦VIDEO:
✦The flame then remains for 5 seconds, dealing Magic Damage each second to all enemies within and reducing their Armor while they remain, lingering for 1 second.
✦ABILITY: Nasus empowers himself for 15 seconds, gaining Health, Armor, Magic Resistance, 30% increased size and 50 bonus Attack Range for the duration.
✦VIDEO:
✦ While Nasus is empowered, he deals Magic Damage to nearby enemies each second capped at 240 per second, and Siphoning Strike's cooldown is reduced by 50%.
✦MAGIC DAMAGE PER SECOND: 3% / 4% / 5% (+ 1% per 100 AP) of target's maximum health. ✦TOTAL MAGIC DAMAGE: 45% / 60% / 75% (+ 15% per 100 AP) of target's maximum health.
5- Matchups/Rune explanations
RUNE PAGES AND HOW TO CHOOSE
-
Conqueror = This is one of my personal favorite rune page on Nasus, and though out this season, I've been testing how to make it more efficient and adapt to my playstyle. Whenever picking Conqueror as your Runepage you must remember that once you get lvl 6 and Sheen power spike, in most of the matchups you can start doing heavy trades with the Conqueror damage and healing (It's also dependent on matchup). Also you are looking to be a Drain Tank, a tank similar to Dr. Mundo, where the lower HP you have, the more damage you get with Last Stand and Unflinching.
Fleet Footwork = Fleet Footwork is the type of rune that most Nasus players think It's troll but after a lot of tries to this Runepage in a lot of matchups, I've came to the conclusion it's one of the best sustain options you can have. Whenever picking this Runepage, your goal changes dramatically from the Conqueror runepage, as you are trying to survive lane rather than forcing extended fights. You usually will look to make your opponent waste his resources on trying to poke you while outsustain his Poke and look to outscale your opponent.
Unsealed Spellbook = Unsealed Spellbook has become a really popular rune nowadays even though it was tested and played for a long time by Carnarius (A EUW Nasus Main) even before it became popular. The Core of this setup is to provide Utility via Summoners Spells and help you survive lane with Biscuit Delivery. I personally made some adjustments to it which are explained in the chapter 9, based upon my personal preferences, I recommend it as a viable option to replace the Conqueror rune page, making it a matter of personal preference for you to choose which one is the best for your playstyle.
Grasp of the Undying = Grasp of the Undying in about 90% of the cases you are using it, it's a really bad rune and it's known in between Nasus Mains for being a sort of Noob Rune and I agree with them BUT, I see some potential in this Rune. The only time it becomes useful is whenever you have to do Short Trades into your oponnent into an eventual All in where Grasp of the Undying can be useful but still, has a poor scaling since it's a rune designed for Tanks rather than Juggernauts. Whenever picking this rune is because all the other alternatives aren't the best, but never pick it constantly, it's not good.
-
HOW TO APPROACH THE MATCHUPS
INTRODUCTION = In this guide, unlike a lot of guides for Nasus, mentions every single possible matchup in the game, regardless if it is a troll pick or not, Yuumi as an example. I found out that in low elos, people usually play whatever they feel to play regardless of it is a good or even a playable Top lane pick, so to help you out, I decided to list every single possible matchup in the game, excluding Nasus since the guide is aimed at ranked games rather than normals; With detailed tips and tricks on how to approach them and different Rune pages, Builds and Starting Items -
WHY MULTIPLE RUNEPAGES AND ITEMS? = As you can tell, in the matchups section listed above, I recommend going for 2 runepages and some options in between starting items. I made it out like this so you can choose which one suits better for your playstyle. For the ery beggining of the matchup explanation, I list (most of the cases) 2 Runepages to follow, the first one being the one that I recommend the most and the second being an alternative to the first one. Also there are multiple options for starting items which again, you can choose based upon your personal preference. -
CLASSIFICATION OF MATCHUPS = The Matchup guide is based mostly upon my personal experience. The matchups are clasified into 5 different sections which are provided by Mobafire. First there are the EXTREME THREATS, these are basically the counters to Nasus and are really hard matchups which require a lot of experience in order to win them. Second there are the MAJOR THREATS, which are decent picks againts Nasus but there is some more room for counter play. the Third type are the EVEN THREATS, these matchups are somewhat easy but still you must play properly or else they can beat you. The fourth type are the MINOR THREATS, These picks are usually bad picks to beat Nasus and mostly they are non toplane picks, most of the cases you can win the lane Easily. Lastly there are the TINY THREATS, this group is based upon either Troll picks or picks that are really easy to beat even early on. Remember all these matchups are based upon personal experience and the difficulty may variate depending elo, but overall this is what I think these are the hardest matchups for Nasus. -
HOW TO APPROACH THEM? = My explanation to the matchups consist in a short introduction of the champion and how it affects Nasus, What to do Early on in between lvl's 1-5, How to approach the laning phase after you get your lvl 6 + Sheen power spike, if you outscale your opponent or not and based on that, to decide either to Splitpush or Teamfight later on to the game. It's also based upon my personal experience and overall knowledge of the matchup as Nasus. -
WHAT TO DO EARLY ON? = Early on, regardless of the matchup, you must not contest minions and trying to get early stacks, just let them die and wait for the wave to push towards your torret, it's fine to lose minions and stacks early on, Only go for them if you see your enemy laner is not punishing you for trying to get them. If you contest your enemy laner for having early stacks he can trade against you and beat you since Nasus early on deals no damage, look to sit back in XP range and let the wave push towards you. Look to have the wave always on your side of the lane and try to not overextend in the lane. -
6- Conqueror Setup
RUNES
Conqueror
Conqueror is by far the best scaling Rune on Nasus and it's the one that synergises more with him. Since later on to the game, where he is at his stronger point, Nasus will look for extended fights where the Conqueror Damage becomes usefull and the Healing Synergises with Nasus Soul Eater which is a scaling Lifesteal.
Last Stand is one rune that you can change here, but usually its always best to have it since with all the other runes, it makes Nasus perform like a Drain Tank, and Last Stand and Unflinching are a really strong duo that makes Nasus a good Drain tank, also since Conqueror takes time to stack, specially on Nasus, the damage added of Last Stand will start hitting in once you fully stacked Conqueror.
Second Wind
Second Wind is a really good rune to survive to poke early game, it provides a lot of Health regeneration that synergises with Doran's Shield or the Triple Rejuvenation Bead starting items. Later on to the game it's also not that bad either..
Ability Haste is by far the best option here since it will help you get Cooldown Reduction way easier and save you some gold from buying even more CDR items early on which those delay your damage power spike.
Armor
Shield will help you into matchups that deal Physical Damage since its the only rune that actually provides tanky stats for Nasus early on. Go double Shield if it is an AD matchup
Ghost will help you a lot to gap close into enemies with the unique passive that ignores unit collide, and now it got buffed to the point that if you get an Assist or a Kill it, it's duration increases. Overall a great summoner spell with Conqueror.
Sheen is Nasus core item purchase and main source of damage and the difference of having and not having Sheen is abysmal. It provides CDR and Mana making it a Gold Efficient Item for Nasus.
Stinger
Stinger is a really good item on Nasus, it provides CDR and the Attack Speed is way more valuable than the damage of Phage, without mentioning that Phage doesn't provide with CDR.
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Kindlegem
Kindlegem is one of the most cost/efficient items for Nasus and not only provides some decent HP but also some CDR. Later on to the game it will build into a Spirit Visage.
Trinity Force is one of the best items on Nasus, it provides literally every single stat that Nasus can use, Health and Mana are really good for Laning phase, 20% Cooldown Reduction, 25 Damage (Which scales with Sterak's Gage) and Attack Speed are good for Stacking and the Movement Speed is really good, plus it uses Sheen which adds a lot of damage to Nasus Siphoning Strike.
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Ninja Tabi
Ninja Tabi are a really boots options good for Nasus into AD dependent enemy team compositions and/or teamcomps that heavily rely on auto attacks.
-OR-
Mercury's Treads
Mercury's Treads are a good boots option for Nasus whenever the enemy team composition has a lot of Magic Damage and/or a lot of CC since it provides Tenacity .
Aegis of the legion
Aegis of the Legion is a decent item that provides mixed resistances (Both Armor and Magic Resistance) and will later on build on Death's Dance, it's overall not a bad item before Sterak's Gage since it will even make you more tanky.
Sterak's Gage
Sterak's Gage is a really good item for Nasus, it provides 2 really good Passives, One being the scaling base damage which scales with Trinity Force and Death's Dance damage, and the other one being the Shield it gives after reciving a lot of damage which also grants Tenacity .
Death's Dance
Death's Dance since it got adjusted to provide more resistances (Both Armor and Magic Resistances) at the expense of less Damage (It went from 80 to 50 Damage) while still giving Cooldown Reduction, Lifesteal and the unique Bleed Passive, it became such a good item on Nasus to pass, but it only works well with Conqueror, With other Rune pages it becomes cost inefficient and the Lifesteal gets significantly reduced since you aren't running Conqueror.
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Spirit Visage
Spirit Visage is such a good item on Nasus since it Boost the healings and Drain Effects by 30% making it have a really good synergy with Death's Dance while also providing 10% CDR, 450 HP, 100% Base Health Regen and 55 Magic Resistance, which overall are not bad stats for Nasus.
-OR-
Frozen Heart
Frozen Heart is a really good item to replace instead of Spirit Visage whenever the enemy team composition has really heavy AD damage champions since it gives the most ammount of armor, CDR and Mana.
-LAST ITEM IS SITUATIONAL-
Dead man's plate
Dead Man's Plate is a really good item since it provides Movement Speed due to its Passive which will help you gap close and some nice ammounts of Armor and HP. Also the Magic Damage Empowered Autoattack is nice sometimes.
-OR-
Gargoyle Stoneplate
Gargoyle Stoneplate is a decent item for being the frontline for your team, its mixed resistances and passive are really nice but its just an example of situational items, check other situational items above and choose the one that fits better against the enemy team composition.
7- Fleet Footwork Setup
RUNES =
Fleet Footwork
Fleet Footwork is such an underated rune on Nasus, it simply is really good to survive really hard lanes, and after trying almost all runes and setups I came to the conclusion that if Nasus is going to get really hard poked without barely counterplay that he can do, Fleet Footwork will help him stay in Lane.
Last Stand is one rune that you can change here, but usually its always best to have it since with all the other runes, it makes Nasus peform like a Drain Tank, and Last Stand and Revitalize are a really strong duo that makes Nasus unstoppeable.
Second Wind
Second Wind is a really good rune to survive to poke early game, it provides a lot of Health regeneration that synergises with Doran's Shield or the Triple Rejuvenation Bead starting items. Later on to the game it's also not that bad either..
Revitalize
Revitalize is really good for this setup since it provides an increase in all healings and shields including Fleet Footwork, Soul Eater and Legend: Bloodline healings and since we are running Fleet Footwork, the goal is to survive lane, not to all in, making it overall more worth than Unflinching. Also the healings become way stronger whenever you fall behind 40% HP and creates another Synergy with Last Stand, making Nasus overall Drain Tank.
Cooldown Reduction
Ability Haste is by far the best option here since it will help you get Cooldown Reduction way easier and save you some gold from buying even more CDR items early on which those delay your damage power spike.
Armor
Shield will help you into matchups that deal Physical Damage since its the only rune that actually provides tanky stats for Nasus early on. Go double Shield if it is an AD matchup
Teleport is such a better option rather than Ghost since in most Fleet Footwork lanes, Nasus goal is to survive the enemy laner poke and look to outscale the enemy laner, Teleport is overall the best Summoner Spell for this. Also it allows you to do Teleport flanks in teamfights and backdoors.
Sheen is Nasus core item purchase and main source of damage and the difference of having and not having Sheen is abysmal. It provides CDR and Mana making it a Gold Efficient Item for Nasus.
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Kindlegem
Kindlegem is one of the most cost/efficient items for Nasus and not only provides some decent HP but also some CDR. Later on to the game it will build into a Spirit Visage. Since Kindlegem provides some tanky stats, it's better to build it before Stinger.
Ninja Tabi are a really boots options good for Nasus into AD dependent enemy team compositions and/or teamcomps that heavily rely on auto attacks. With Fleet Footwork it is really good to get early boots since they provide resistances early on that in certain matchups are going to be needed.
-OR-
Mercury's Treads
Mercury's Treads are a good boots option for Nasus whenever the enemy team composition has a lot of Magic Damage and/or a lot of CC since it provides Tenacity . With Fleet Footwork it is really good to get early boots since they provide resistances early on that in certain matchups are going to be needed.
Stinger
Stinger is a really good item on Nasus, it provides CDR and the Attack Speed is way more valuable than the damage of Phage, without mentioning that Phage doesn't provide with CDR.
Trinity Force
Trinity Force is one of the best items on Nasus, it provides literally every single stat that Nasus can use, Health and Mana are really good for Laning phase, 20% Cooldown Reduction, 25 Damage (Which scales with Sterak's Gage) and Attack Speed are good for Stacking and the Movement Speed is really good, plus it uses Sheen which adds a lot of damage to Nasus Siphoning Strike.
Sterak's Gage
Sterak's Gage is a really good item for Nasus, it provides 2 really good Passives, One being the scaling base damage which scales with Trinity Force damage, and the other one being the Shield it gives after reciving a lot of damage which also grants Tenacity .
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Spirit Visage
Spirit Visage is such a good item on Nasus since it Boost the healings and Drain Effects by 30% while also providing 10% CDR, 450 HP, 100% Base Health Regen and 55 Magic Resistance, which overall are not bad stats for Nasus.
-OR-
Frozen Heart
Frozen Heart is a really good item to replace instead of Spirit Visage whenever the enemy team composition has really heavy AD damage champions since it gives the most ammount of armor, CDR and Mana.
Gargoyle Stoneplate
Gargoyle Stoneplate is a decent item for being the frontline for your team, its mixed resistances and passive are really nice. It also provides these mixed resistances lost from Death's Dance.
-LAST ITEM IS SITUATIONAL-
Dead man's plate
Dead Man's Plate is a really good item since it provides Movement Speed due to its Passive which will help you gap close and some nice ammounts of Armor and HP. Also the Magic Damage Empowered Autoattack is nice sometimes. this is just an example of situational item, check other situational items above and choose the one that fits better against the enemy team composition.
Magical Footwear is the only viable rune to choose in this Tree since Hextech Flashtraption is beyond useless for Nasus and its mostly used by supports that want to engage and Perfect Timing takes longer to activate and Nasus doesn't build Stopwatch items early on.
Time Warp Tonic, based upon my experience it's better than Cosmic Insight and let me explain you why. Once Nasus presses R, with 40% CDR he will hit an Q and then after a full Autoattack he can Q again and his Siphoning Strike will have a 2.4 seconds cooldown, but with Cosmic Insight, It's exactly the same, you can Q + Autoattack + Q and Siphoning Strike cooldown will be 2.2 seconds. Personally I think that giving up so much early game sustain over .2 seconds is not worth. Also it reduces the cooldown of Summoners by 10 seconds (more and less) which is a really small window to capitalize in enemy laner mistakes.
Ability Haste is by far the best option here since it will help you get Cooldown Reduction way easier and save you some gold from buying even more CDR items early on which those delay your damage power spike.
Armor
Shield will help you into matchups that deal Physical Damage since its the only rune that actually provides tanky stats for Nasus early on. Go double Shield if it is an AD matchup
Ghost will help you a lot to gap close into enemies with the unique passive that ignores unit collide, and now it got buffed to the point that if you get an Assist or a Kill it, it's duration increases. Even though you will be able to swap summoners with the Unsealed Spellbook Setup, it becomes rather optimal to have this Summoner Spell so you can farm for 6 minutes, get your Sheen gold, go back, buy Sheen and then Teleport back and still have Ghost available.
Flash
Flash is a must go in every single Build, even if you have Unsealed Spellbook, its not worth giving up such a great and instant disengage tool like Flash for other Summoners, and remember that Nasus doesn't have any sort of Dash or Gap Closer ability appart from his Wither, which can be removed with Cleanse, Mercurial Scimitar or Mikael's Blessing. Even with Unsealed Spellbook that allows you to swap Summoners spells, it still makes you way more safe than other option for the first 6 minutes where you can't use Unsealed Spellbook.
BUILD PATH =
Sheen
Sheen is Nasus core item purchase and main source of damage and the difference of having and not having Sheen is abysmal. It provides CDR and Mana making it a Gold Efficient Item for Nasus.
Stinger
Stinger is a really good item on Nasus, it provides CDR and the Attack Speed is way more valuable than the damage of Phage, without mentioning that Phage doesn't provide with CDR.
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Kindlegem
Kindlegem is one of the most cost/efficient items for Nasus and not only provides some decent HP but also some CDR. Later on to the game it will build into a Spirit Visage. Since Kindlegem provides some tanky stats, it's better to build it before Stinger.
Trinity Force is one of the best items on Nasus, it provides literally every single stat that Nasus can use, Health and Mana are really good for Laning phase, 20% Cooldown Reduction, 25 Damage (Which scales with Sterak's Gage) and Attack Speed are good for Stacking and the Movement Speed is really good, plus it uses Sheen which adds a lot of damage to Nasus Siphoning Strike.
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Ninja Tabi
Ninja Tabi are a really boots options good for Nasus into AD dependent enemy team compositions and/or teamcomps that heavily rely on auto attacks. With Unsealed Spellbook you can't really rush boots since you have Magical Footwear, so you will usually get them after Trinity Force.
Sterak's Gage is a really good item for Nasus, it provides 2 really good Passives, One being the scaling base damage which scales with Trinity Force damage, and the other one being the Shield it gives after reciving a lot of damage which also grants Tenacity .
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Spirit Visage
Spirit Visage is such a good item on Nasus since it Boost the healings and Drain Effects by 30% while also providing 10% CDR, 450 HP, 100% Base Health Regen and 55 Magic Resistance, which overall are not bad stats for Nasus.
-OR-
Frozen Heart
Frozen Heart is a really good item to replace instead of Spirit Visage whenever the enemy team composition has really heavy AD damage champions since it gives the most ammount of armor, CDR and Mana.
Gargoyle Stoneplate
Gargoyle Stoneplate is a decent item for being the frontline for your team, its mixed resistances and passive are really nice. It also provides these mixed resistances lost from Death's Dance.
-LAST ITEM IS SITUATIONAL-
Dead man's plate
Dead Man's Plate is a really good item since it provides Movement Speed due to its Passive which will help you gap close and some nice ammounts of Armor and HP. Also the Magic Damage Empowered Autoattack is nice sometimes. this is just an example of situational item, check other situational items above and choose the one that fits better against the enemy team composition.
9- Grasp (Scaling) Setup
RUNES =
Grasp of the Undying
Grasp of the Undying has always been the sort of "Noob player" rune to go with Nasus and even a lot of players don't recommend it but i find it particulary really good into certain matchups where you must do Short Trades into an all in, Examples like Tryndamere, Jax or Wukong make this rune somewhat viable. Usually I recommend Conqueror, Fleet Footwork or Unsealed Spellbook instead of Grasp of the Undying but Grasp of the Undying is decent into certain matchups.
Second Wind is a really good rune to survive to poke early game, it provides a lot of Health regeneration that synergises with Doran's Shield or the Triple Rejuvenation Bead starting items. Later on to the game it's also not that bad either.
Ability Haste is by far the best option here since it will help you get Cooldown Reduction way easier and save you some gold from buying even more CDR items early on which those delay your damage power spike.
Armor
Shield will help you into matchups that deal Physical Damage since its the only rune that actually provides tanky stats for Nasus early on. Go double Shield if it is an AD matchup
Teleport is such a better option rather than Ghost since in most Grasp of the Undying lanes, Nasus goal is to survive the enemy laner poke and look to outscale or outtrade the enemy laner, Teleport is overall the best Summoner Spell for this. Also it allows you to do Teleport flanks in teamfights and backdoors.
Sheen is Nasus core item purchase and main source of damage and the difference of having and not having Sheen is abysmal. It provides CDR and Mana making it a Gold Efficient Item for Nasus.
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Kindlegem
Kindlegem is one of the most cost/efficient items for Nasus and not only provides some decent HP but also some CDR. Later on to the game it will build into a Spirit Visage. Since Kindlegem provides some tanky stats, it's better to build it before Stinger.
Stinger is a really good item on Nasus, it provides CDR and the Attack Speed is way more valuable than the damage of Phage, without mentioning that Phage doesn't provide with CDR.
Trinity Force
Trinity Force is one of the best items on Nasus, it provides literally every single stat that Nasus can use, Health and Mana are really good for Laning phase, 20% Cooldown Reduction, 25 Damage (Which scales with Sterak's Gage) and Attack Speed are good for Stacking and the Movement Speed is really good, plus it uses Sheen which adds a lot of damage to Nasus Siphoning Strike.
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Ninja Tabi
Ninja Tabi are a really boots options good for Nasus into AD dependent enemy team compositions and/or teamcomps that heavily rely on auto attacks.
-OR-
Mercury's Treads
Mercury's Treads are a good boots option for Nasus whenever the enemy team composition has a lot of Magic Damage and/or a lot of CC since it provides Tenacity .
Sterak's Gage
Sterak's Gage is a really good item for Nasus, it provides 2 really good Passives, One being the scaling base damage which scales with Trinity Force damage, and the other one being the Shield it gives after reciving a lot of damage which also grants Tenacity .
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Spirit Visage
Spirit Visage is such a good item on Nasus since it Boost the healings and Drain Effects by 30% while also providing 10% CDR, 450 HP, 100% Base Health Regen and 55 Magic Resistance, which overall are not bad stats for Nasus.
-OR-
Frozen Heart
Frozen Heart is a really good item to replace instead of Spirit Visage whenever the enemy team composition has really heavy AD damage champions since it gives the most ammount of armor, CDR and Mana.
Gargoyle Stoneplate
Gargoyle Stoneplate is a decent item for being the frontline for your team, its mixed resistances and passive are really nice. It also provides these mixed resistances lost from Death's Dance.
-LAST ITEM IS SITUATIONAL-
Dead man's plate
Dead Man's Plate is a really good item since it provides Movement Speed due to its Passive which will help you gap close and some nice ammounts of Armor and HP. Also the Magic Damage Empowered Autoattack is nice sometimes. this is just an example of situational item, check other situational items above and choose the one that fits better against the enemy team composition.
10- Grasp (Tank) Setup
RUNES =
Grasp of the Undying
Grasp of the Undying has always been the sort of "Noob player" rune to go with Nasus and even a lot of players don't recommend it but i find it particulary really good into certain matchups where you must do Short Trades into an all in, Examples like Tryndamere, Jax or Wukong make this rune somewhat viable. Usually I recommend this runepage whenever your toplane matchup is really hard to outscale and it's better to be a frontline for your team rather than trying to do damage.
Conditioning is the best rune for trying to get as much armor as you can, Bone Plating is not bad but in this setup you are the frontline of your team so Conditioning will become more valuable.
Overgrowth
Overgrowth is another good stat that makes Nasus permanently stack health which is not bad. Unflinching is not bad and I recommend swaping to it if the enemy team composition has a lot of CC.
Time Warp Tonic based upon my experience its better than Cosmic Insight and let me explain you why. Once Nasus presses R, with 40% CDR he will hit an Q and then after a full Autoattack he can Q again and Siphoning Strike will have a 2.4 seconds cooldown and with Cosmic Insight it's exactly the same, you can Q + Autoattack + Q and Siphoning Strike cooldown will be 2.2 seconds, giving up so much early game sustain over .2 seconds is not worth. Also it reduces the cooldown of Summoners by 10 seconds which is a really small window to capitalzie in enemy laner mistakes which in the Grasp of the Undying Tank setup is not really an option to capitalize.
Attack Speed
[/b] Attack Speed is a good rune since with this build you don't have any Attack speed at all from Items since Trinity Force is replaced by Iceborn Gauntlet. Also tank items have a lot more of CDR than Bruiser items so the Ability Haste rune isn't really needed.
Armor
Shield will help you into matchups that deal Physical Damage since its the only rune that actually provides tanky stats for Nasus early on. Go double Shield if it is an AD matchup.
Teleport is such a better option rather than Ghost since in most Grasp of the Undying lanes, Nasus goal is to survive the enemy laner poke and look to outscale or outtrade the enemy laner, Teleport is overall the best Summoner Spell for this. Also it allows you to do Teleport flanks in teamfights and backdoors.
Sheen is Nasus core item purchase and main source of damage and the difference of having and not having Sheen is abysmal. It provides CDR and Mana making it a Gold Efficient Item for Nasus.
Kindlegem
Kindlegem is one of the more cost/efficient items for Nasus and it also provides a decent ammount of HP, also Nasus later on will build Spirit Visage, which increases healings, but it saves some gold. Since Kindlegem provides some tanky stats with its 200 HP, it's better to build them instead of Stinger since Nasus main goal with this setup is to Protect his Allies.
Glacial Shroud
Glacial Shroud is a core item in this build, it provides CDR, Mana and Armor, making it really cost efficient. Since Glacial Shroud provides tanky stats, it's better to build it rather than Stinger since you are building Iceborn Gauntlet due that your main goal in this setup is to tank.
Iceborn Gauntlet
Iceborn Gauntlet is a to go item with the Grasp of the Undying (Tank) setup, It's cheaper and gives more Armor than Trinity Force ( Trinity Force doesn't give Armor in the first place) and an unique Passive which scales based on armor. Since the goal is to tank, this is the perfect item to go as Nasus plus you don't give up on the Sheen damage.
-CHOOSE ONE ITEM-
Ninja Tabi
Ninja Tabi are a really boots options good for Nasus into AD dependent enemy team compositions and/or teamcomps that heavily rely on auto attacks.
-OR-
Mercury's Treads
Mercury's Treads are a good boots option for Nasus whenever the enemy team composition has a lot of Magic Damage and/or a lot of CC since it provides Tenacity .
Spirit Visage
Spirit Visage is such a good item on Nasus since it Boost the healings and Drain Effects by 30% while also providing 10% CDR, 450 HP, 100% Base Health Regen and 55 Magic Resistance, which overall are not bad stats for Nasus.
Sterak's Gage
Sterak's Gage is a really good item for Nasus, it provides 2 really good Passives, One being the scaling base damage and the other one being the Shield it gives after reciving a lot of damage. Its a really good item for the Grasp of the Undying setup since the shield will prevent you from getting bursted, and the Tenacity is not bad either.
Gargoyle Stoneplate
Gargoyle Stoneplate is a decent item for being the frontline for your team, its mixed resistances and passive are really nice. It also provides these mixed resistances lost from Death's Dance.
-LAST ITEM IS SITUATIONAL-
Dead man's plate
Dead Man's Plate is a really good item since it provides Movement Speed due to its Passive which will help you gap close and some nice ammounts of Armor and HP. Also the Magic Damage Empowered Autoattack is nice sometimes. this is just an example of situational item, check other situational items above and choose the one that fits better against the enemy team composition.
11- Frequently Asked Questions
Will the guide be updated to the new Season 11 with all these new items?
It's pretty difficult to answer this question with a concrete answer, not only that but it was a really unlucky timing for me to do this guide, just couple of weeks after being completely finished, the new items from Season 11 are announced and by patch 10.20, you can already play and test them on PBE (Which I'm currently testing). This will change the whole game and meta; not only changing Nasus build and playstyle and maybe even skill order if a new AP build becomes viable, but all the other champions and their playstyles too, which will lead to the season 10 matchups guide I did, to change a lot, making all my matchup experience sort of useless since they even reworked CDR, so the numbers for the enemy champ cooldowns will change a lot. As far as you are in Season 10, this guide will work but I highly doubt I will update it since it took nearly a month to do the guide based on my experience in the game and the season 10 items. Maybe once I get enough experience with Nasus and his new items (again), I might will do a new one or update this one.
Heal + Ghost are somewhat decent but Heal effectiveness gets countered by Ignite Grevious Wounds and Ghost isn't the most reliable way to kite your opponents early on, usually you want a quick way with Flash out to reduce more their damage and gap closing plus if you survive you can stay in XP range; but having Ghost is really good since you can just farm for 6 minutes, get enough gold for Sheen and then swap to Teleport to use it to get back to lane and still have Flash and Ghost at your disposal.
Why do you have so many rune pages and different setups? Is it necessary for me to use all of them?
Nasus though out the past of time has remained as a sort of Forgotten champion that tries to adapt to all this new meta changes with a lot of True Damage, Percentage HP Damage and multiple Dashes in normal abilities in overall one kit. He also never really had a Clear Runepage so his versatility with all runepages is really big allowing him to play a lot of different setups and still be viable. Press the Attack, Fleet Footwork, Conqueror, Dark Harvest, Phase Rush, Arcane Comet, Summon Aery, Grasp of the Undying and Unsealed Spellbook are all somewhat decent and playable runes on Nasus. I like to use his lack of a Clear Runepage to go, as an Advantage to be more versatile, and yes I recommend this setups (following the mathcups guide) since for me they granted me a lot of Success.
AP Nasus is a For Fun build, you can't realistically Climb with it since it has so many Mana problems, Lack of Tankiness and Sustained damage and lastly the E Range isn't that big to be viable enough since you have to get really close to someone to hit him with E, It also negates the ability to get stacks negating a lot his scaling; you can try it in normal games with your friends since it's fun to see the enemies die to a single E and you are not ruining your team the Ranked Experience but rather than that don't try to climb with it, it's not a good/viable build.
Muramana on Nasus is somewhat similar to AP Nasus, both builds still have the same problems of weak early game but the difference is that this one has a stronger scaling, I'd recommend it going for in a unranked game with your friends just for having fun and also, check the little build path I made with the images to the left, make sure that whenever going Muramana, you build items that provide tankyness and Mana since it basically means that you will have damage and tankyness. Don't try to climb with it, since Muramana doesn't really give any source of CDR making your stack count fall really hard early on and even your survivability will be severly affected. Remember to only trying it in normals, it's not viable in any sort of ranked games unless you are smurfing of course. Check this youtube video of a Grandmaster Brazilian Nasus that went Muramana, to check his playstyle: (either ways, its quite troll)
Why should I trust a Gold Player on how to Climb with a champion that isn't even his main?
- Yes, I know I'm not even close to be one of the best Nasus players by far and I mostly play Tryndamere, but what I can tell you is that I've played this champion for 2 Seasons so far, and managed to get around 200k Mastery Points with Nasus and I managed to get Gold multiple times in different servers, Currently im Gold in LAN and EUW and I'm planning to get Gold in LAS and NA servers as well, I have decent knowledge of the game and lately I've barely been trying to climb in SoloQ since most of the time I get unmotivated by toxicity, but overall my guide should help you atleast to get out of really low elos, such as Iron/Bronze, It's not a tutorial guide on how to play Nasus but rather a help to understand how to play him more efficiently. Also, I'm currently try to play as many Flex games as possible to test how efficient the build is in Higher Elos than Gold and since in Flex games now you can get in Lane with people of Highler elos, and so far it has proven some success in this more skillful elos (My biggest victory so far was a Diamond 3, Teemo 1 Trick in EUW in one of my accounts and my build managed to win me the game).
- A little update, im currently really close to reaching Platinium proving even more the success of my guide but still you are free to choose if you want to follow it or not, remember that I also link other guides and Nasus players profiles in the conclusion part so you can check them out in case you dislike/disagree with mine. Feel free to ask me any question I'll try to answer it as fast as possible.
12- Conclusion
Remember you can ask me questions in the discussion section and I will try to answer them as fast as possible. Also, If you notice a Spelling/Grammar Mistake in the Build or a Mistake regarding some information, please tell me since It's really hard to notice them while editting but it becomes rather easy to spot them while reading the guide from the outside.
Also, thanks for Everyone that came from the Nasus Reddit, I truly apprecieate the Tips, Mistakes and overall feedback about the guide, 53 Upvotes and 91% Upvoted with 22 comments in 2 days, half where mine xD but still, I truly apreciate the Nasus Reddit for the Feedback!!
This guide is based upon knowledge shared by many Nasus Mains that I'd like share their Guides too: (they are really good guides in case you disagree or dislike mine)
- 8th-12th of August = Detailed every single matchup from Aatrox until Orianna + Yuumi matchup. Explained all runes, summoners, maxing skills, starting items.
- 13th of August = Detailed matchups from Orianna to Rammus, detailed and corrected some mistakes in certain matchups such as Maokai or Cassiopeia, re-arranged build paths for all builds and added situational items all with explanations.
- 14-16th of August = Detailed matchups from Rammus to Shyvana, corrected mistakes on Aphelios, Corki, Diana, Fiddlesticks, Kennen, Kog'maw, Lissandra, Miss Fortune, Olaf and Rakan matchups.
- 17th of August = Detailed matchups from Shyvana to Tahm Kench, Corrected mistakes on Camille and Cassiopeia matchups, Corrected some mistakes on the situational items and added new items.
- 18th of August = Added more tips into Ahri, Akali, Alistar, Amumu, Annie, Ashe, Aurelion Sol, Azir, Bard, Brand, Caitlyn, Dr. Mundo, Elise, Fizz, Garen, Graves, Kai'Sa, Kha'Zix, Lillia, Master Yi, Neeko and Soraka Matchups.
- 19th of August = Detailed matchups from Taliyah to Vladimir (Excepting Viktor), Fixed some mistakes on some matchups and items.
- 20th of August = Detailed matchups from Vladimir to Zyra and fixed some minor details on other certain matchups. I also Verify the account and finished every single possible matchup in the game.
- 21th of August = Started an Introduction, Detailed every Single Rune, Summoner and Build according to the setup, Added Frequently Asked Questions section, a Conclusion and a visual update to the Update Log.
- 22th of August = Added a Table of Contents, added better visual effects to the Introduction and fixed an Issue regarding the pictures, added a Pros/Cons section with explanations, Abilities explained with videos and Matchups explanations that unironically are work in progress, therefor unexplained... YET. Fixed minor mistakes on some Guide Chapters and Lissandra Matchup.
- 23th of August = Fixed some mistakes in the guide and Jax Matchup, and shared the guide in the Nasus Reddit to get more feedback on it.
- 26th of August = Due to some confusion regarding Doran's Shield and Rejuvenation Beads, I decided to add in every single matchup, to add the Tripple Rejuvenation Beads start as an alternative to Doran's Shield. Fixed minor mistakes on certain matchups while doing this. Also added Feedback of the Nasus Reddit in the conclusion.
- 29th of August = Added the Matchup/Rune Explanation sections, Adjusted Rune pages from Aatrox, Aurelion Sol, Caitlyn, Camille, Cho'Gath, Draven, Ekko, Ezreal, Garen, Gnar, Hecarim, Illaoi, Irelia, Kayn, Kled, Leona, Miss Fortune, Nidalee, Nocturne, Nunu & Willump, Olaf, Pyke, Qiyana, Rakan, Riven, Sett, Shen, Skarner, Tristana, Trundle, Tryndamere, Volibear, Warwick, Yorick, Zac and Zed Matchups.
- 1st of September = Updated Ahri and Kayle due to Mini-Reworks and added more information in Miss Fortune, Sejuani, Swain and Udyr matchups.
- 19-20th of September = Added the Samira Matchup and a list of synergies based upon the League of Legends Wiki clasification for all the current Supports in the game. Also added visual upgrade while correcting some spelling mistakes on all the build paths explained in the chapter section.
- 2nd of October = Added another frequently asked questions based on what will happen to this guide after the new items coming from season 11.
- 14th of October = Updated to the 10.21 Patch and fixed some minor mistakes in the Trundle matchup.
- 28th of October = Updated to the 10.22 Patch and Added Seraphine as a Matchup and as a Synergy, based on PBE experience. Fixed some mistakes on the Anivia, Teemo, Kassadin and Zac Matchups and added Doran's Blade as an item that I don't recommend. Also decided to swap from Barrier to Ghost in the Unsealed Spellbook setup due to the fact it becomes a better summoner to have after doing the first swap to tp back to lane, rather than barrier.
[10.22] How to get Gold with Nasus, In Depth - All Matchups
Build Guide By ERNESTSAURUS
26
3
54,293
Views
12
Comments
Thank You!
Threats
Synergies
Show All
Nasus Main with nearly 160k Mastery points in total with all my accounts and here is some proof to it,
You must be logged in to comment. Please login or register.