Hi, I'm Vapora Dark, a veteran player that's been playing since season 1. During that time I've hit Master tier as a mid lane main in season 5, as an ADC main in season 7, again as a jungle main in season 8, and once more in season 9 playing a mix of all those roles including mid. I can play every role to a very high level and have a very good understanding of the general aspects of the game on top of that.

I've been writing guides on MOBAFire since 2011, among which my achievements include winning the MOBAFire guide contest multiple times, achieving the highest score on the site multiple times with multiple guides, achieving the most comments on a single guide of all time by a very large amount which hasn't come even close to being surpassed in the 3 years that it's been archived, and having the most collective guide views on the site by a very hefty amount. I've also written some champion guides for Riot Games on the Lolesports site.

Grasp of the Undying

Grasp of the Undying: This is the best keystone for Nasus since it helps you survive lane and win duels.

Demolish

Demolish: This rune will help you take down towers even faster. The other options aren't great here, so this one's a no brainer.

Conditioning

Conditioning: If you wait 10 minutes this rune greatly outscales the other 2, making it the best rune in this branch.

Overgrowth

Overgrowth: This rune starts to pay off mid and late game and it'll amplify the effectiveness of your health items.

Inspiration Magical Footwear Cosmic Insight

Cosmic Insight: The more CDR you have, the more you can farm up Siphoning Strike. Magical Footwear: Nasus is a champion that can easily skip boots for 10 minutes since he has so many cheap Trinity Force components he can buy, so by taking this and waiting 10 minutes you can get a free pair of boots, essentially putting you 300g ahead.

+ || FLASH || This is the best summoner spell in the game, almost every champion takes it and it's completely irreplaceable. It's the best defensive summoner and the best offensive summoner all at once. The fact that you see all 10 players take this in 99% of games just goes to show how strong it is. Nasus is no exception. || || TELEPORT || This is the second best summoner spell for all top laners as it allows them to have great map pressure even from top lane, and late-game allows them to split push while still having a means to get to their team for fights. Early-game you can use it to get back into lane quickly when you're forced to back, which will happen frequently as Nasus. ||

-Skill Order- > > 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Q E Q W Q R Q E Q E R E E W W R W W Passive: Soul Eater Soul Eater: This passive is amazing for Nasus since early on it helps him sustain and stay in lane to farm Siphoning Strike, and mid-late game the healing it gives him is massive since Siphoning Strike will hit like a truck and heal for 15-20% of its damage. Q: Siphoning Strike Siphoning Strike: The most defining spell in Nasus's kit, and by far his biggest source of damage. Nasus's early-game is weak since Siphoning Strike starts off weak and rather than even trying to use it to trade he has to just stack it up on minions. Late-game however it can do 800+ damage on an extremely short cooldown, a very scary prospect on a tank. Try to prioritise cannon minions in lane since they'll give you double the stacks that other minions would. W: Wither Wither: This spell is the biggest reason why Nasus is absolutely impossible to 1v1 for any ADC that doesn't have Quicksilver Sash, since not only does it become impossible to kite Nasus, but it also greatly reduces their DPS, and a late-game Nasus can easily kill an ADC within Wither's duration. E: Spirit Fire Spirit Fire: This is the spell you'll be maxing second since it greatly increases Nasus's waveclear, which is important for a splitpusher. It also greatly increases your dueling power due to the armor reduction and large increase in damage with each point put into the ability. In lane you won't want to be using this too often since it has a hefty mana cost, but you can use it to catch cannon minions while being zoned, and to trade when you're confident the trade will go in your favour and it's more worthwhile to trade than to just AFK farm. R: Fury of the Sands Fury of the Sands: This spell makes Nasus a team-fighting monster for its duration, making him extremely tanky and leaving Siphoning Strike on a 1.2 second cooldown at max CDR, allowing Nasus to be an unkillable, very high damage threat that cannot be ignored. In 1v1's he also becomes an incredibly strong duelist while Fury of the Sands is active. It's important to remember that you should activate this spell ASAP once you get into a fight rather than delaying it, since the longer you've been in your ult the more resistances you get. If you use it shortly before you die you won't be getting maximum benefits from it.

This chapter is currently under reconstruction following the Season 11 items rework, apologies for the inconvenience.

At level 1 you'll be taking Siphoning Strike to begin stacking it up on minions. Play really safe and avoid trading unless your enemy can't retaliate because they're busy last-hitting a minion; even then just poke them with a single auto-attack (will give you 10g every time if you took Bandit ) and avoid using Siphoning Strike for anything other than last-hitting early on, since its fairly weak at that stage and your focus is on becoming a mid-late game threat. At level 2 you take Spirit Fire. You'll continue laning the same, but you have the option of trading back hard with Spirit Fire -> Auto-Attack -> Siphoning Strike if your opposing laner goes too ham trying to bully you to stop you farming. At level 3 depending on the matchup you'll either put another point in Siphoning Strike to more effectively stack it, or take Wither to help defend yourself against aggressive enemy all-ins.

After you get your ult and have Sheen you can actually turn a lot of matchups around and get solo kills if the enemy underestimates you, since you become so tanky and Siphoning Strike gets such a low cooldown. For the most part you'll keep laning the same, focusing on farming, but you do always have that option of turning on your enemy if they go too aggressive, and you can even start to trade more aggressively yourself if the enemy laner is weak enough that you can start to bully them.



Outside of laning phase, you'll still usually want to actually stay in a side lane and just split push, since it allows you to keep effectively stacking up your Siphoning Strike, you take towers so quickly, and if you're not already stronger at 1v1s than your enemy laner then it's only a matter of time until you are.

You'll want to split push top if:

a) Baron is up but your TP is down
b) Your TP is up, but baron is down and dragon is up/will soon be up

You'll want to split push bot if:

a) Baron is up and your TP is up
b) Your TP is down but baron is down as well and dragon is up/will be up soon

Basically you want to be split pushing as far away from the most important neutral objective as possible, that way the enemy team can't collapse on you without giving up a free dragon/baron (make sure your team is aware of this and spam ping them to do the neutral objective as soon as you see the enemy team collapsing on you); and the enemy team can't just take it themselves or freely engage 4v4/5v4 because you have Teleport to quickly reach fights despite being so far away.

When you notice a fight breaking out, you'll want to Teleport onto the nearest ward/minion to join in. In team-fights, you'll want to immediately pop Fury of the Sands and Turbo Chemtank, run towards the enemy ADC, Wither them, and just go ham on them. Remember that if it looks like you won't be able to take anyone down before they take you down, it's smarter to retreat so you can survive. The faster you make the call to retreat, the higher your chances of surviving. And if you realize so late that you're still going to die no matter what, then just do as much damage as you can before you die. Sometimes you can also use Teleport to flank the enemy team if there's a really good ward set up behind them where you can surprise them, giving their carries no place to run; they either walk into you or your team. These flanks can be game-winning, especially if the enemy top laner is on a side lane defending your split push and aren't able to match your Teleport in time to make it an even fight.

That's it for my Nasus guide. I hope you found this helpful and learn to play Nasus as well as you want to.

Special thanks to Hopper for banners and coding.