League of Legends: Guide to Build Nasus

In this series of articles, we will begin our analysis of champions, starting with the most classic and simple ones, ideal for beginners or even for those who are changing their route and want to start slowly.

Among them, Nasus is one of the best options for those who have started or want to start playing in Top Lane, being a solid choice for beginners!

Commander of the Shurimane army and a great strategist, Nasus was revered for his great wisdom and sense of justice; As he neared the end of his life, Nasus received the greatest gift in Shurima - Ascending to become a god among men, now, in the form of a great humanoid jackal, he awaits the emperor's awakening to the return of the glory of Shurima.

Nasus was released in Season 9, in October 2009, being a simple champion, with well-defined objectives: farm safely to accumulate points in his passive and become a problem for the opposing team, who will need to worry about their towers being threatened by a champion who, if minimally conditioned, won't be defeated in a one-on-one fight.

As he is a champion who scales his strength as he farms with his skills, Nasus has a fragile lane and needs time to start exchanging favorable damage with opponents, let's take a look at his base stats:

Due to his nature as a late game character, Nasus' base stats are quite low, so when choosing to play this champion, play safe! - Don't fight if you're not sure of a kill or the need to fix the minion wave behavior. Nasus's most important attributes are his mana and movement speed, the latter being the simplest to overcome using items.

Playing Nasus means having patience and focus, your game is based on accumulating resources to be a time bomb, where your opponents need to worry about being unable to punish you easily when farming and staying safe under your tower.

In the first and second minions wave to arrive in lane, let your opponent push and have the pressure while taking advantage of windows of opportunity to catch minions without being punished.

Soul Eater (P) – With his passive, Nasus receives lifesteal which scales with his level, starting with a value of 11% and going up to 21%, that is, every time he deals damage, part of this damage will be converted into life for the champion

This ability allows staying alive during the laning phase. As Nasus is a champion with low resilience at the start, having a means of regeneration while focusing on his main objective, killing minions, solves two problems with one blow.

Siphoning Strike (Q) – The heart and soul of the champion. Siphoning Strike (Q) makes, within 10 seconds, Nasus's next basic attack to have increased damage and also gain 50 more distance.

The damage bonus is based on the level of the skill, with values of 30/50/70/90/110, plus the accumulations of the second part of the skill, where when killing minions, monsters, champions and towers using it, Nasus accumulates points - 3 for common minions and 12 for other targets - where the more stacks, the more damage is dealt by Siphoning Strike

Your main source of damage is this ability, so emphasize racking up as much as possible. Without this buff, Nasus lacks a solid damage source. I recommend that you go into training mode and spend some time practicing to get the perfect idea of damage to land the last hit on targets and have consistency when farming.

Wither (W) – When activated, the target has its movement and attack speed reduced for five seconds. This ability is essential for approaching or moving away from opponents, as Nasus doesn't have great mobility, removing the opponent's is an excellent resource during the match.

Spirit Fire (E) – When activated, Spirit Fire creates an area where opponents will suffer magical damage for every second they stay inside it, in addition to armor reduction lasting one second.

This ability is best used in joint fights, where both your team and opponents spend a lot of time at the same location. Thus, Spirit Fire creates an opening for your allies to apply more damage.

Fury of the Sands (R) - The Ultimate and most important ability in Nasus' arsenal after the Siphoning Strike. While active, Fury of the Sands offers bonuses to health, magic resistance, armor, increases size and attack range, and also deals magic damage around Nasus for 0.5 seconds, in addition to reducing Siphoning Strike's cooldown by half.

This ultimate is the reason why Nasus is so strong when he establishes an advantage: it gives so many improvements and has such a short cooldown that there comes a time when Nasus will always have this ability to be used in fights and makes it impossible to kill him without the help of allies, opening gaps on the map for your team to achieve objectives more calmly.

Nasus is a champion that accumulates damage and therefore doesn't need to focus on pure damage. He has limited mobility, and his game plan is to survive as long as possible and apply as much damage as possible.

Therefore, the best way to build Nasus is to focus on resistances, health, movement speed, armor breaks and skill acceleration, with the fighter and tank items page being perfect for him.

Fighter Items

Fighter items will favor skill acceleration, armor break, damage and a little movement speed, good examples, if we consider patch 14.1, include Trinity Force, Sundered Sky and Iceborn Gauntlet.

Trinity Force – This one has Sheen, Phage and Heartbound Axe in its recipe. Fully closed, it gives a bonus of 45 attack damage, 33% attack speed, 300 health and 20 skill acceleration, in addition to its passives:

Quicken causes basic attacks to grant increased movement speed. The movement speed, skill acceleration and damage from the passive make this item cover all the champion's needs, being usable in all matches.

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I recommend starting the creation order with Sheen, followed by Phage and, finally, Hearthbound Axe, as this gives the least important status in the recipe.

Sundered Skies – With the recipe for Caulfield's Warhammer and Tunneler, the item grants 55 attack damage, 300 health and 15 ability haste in addition to Lightshield Strike - per target, the first attack Basic attack against a Champion deals 150% Critical Strike and heals for 6% of lost health. Excess healing is granted as temporary additional life.

This complete item is a good option as the second to be made or the first right after a Sheen, which helps because it is a smaller item and greatly accelerates the efficiency and constancy of the farm.

Giving good status and having a passive that delivers insane damage burst in addition to health healing, Sundered Skies is one of the strongest items for the entire patch when it comes to fighter items, and can be done in all the matches.

I recommend starting with Caulfield's Warhammer to get skill acceleration and then with the Tunneler.

Iceborn Gauntlet – With Sheen in the recipe as well as Trinity Force, the Gauntlet is a specific and powerful case against physical damage compositions or in direct matchups against long-distance champions with the same type of damage, such as Vayne, Quinn and Jayce.

Another match where the item is worth using is against Gang Plank, as this opponent has an ability that cancels crowd controls and is usually used against Nasus's Wither (W), the passive Arcane Blade creates a frozen field for 2 seconds, causing enemies that move in it to be slowed down and leads to a sequence of powerful crowd controls.

Iceborn Gauntlet is a good first all-around item, delivering 300 health, 50 armor, and 15 ability haste. Despite dealing a little less damage than the complete items above, its usefulness is a mighty option in certain matches.

I recommend starting with Sheen, followed by Ruby Crystal and Chain Vest.

Tank Items

Tank items are the most variable in your games because they depend a lot on the current state, which opponent is strong, which are the sources of damage and what are their difficulties.

So do a constant analysis of the match - If you see that the enemy team has a lot of magic damage, apply magic resistance accordingly, if the enemy team has more physical damage, improve your armor.

In the case of mixed damage, see which opponent is stronger and give preference to protecting yourself against them, but without neglecting other players.

These items will give you bonuses such as movement speed, regeneration, increased life gain and reduced enemy healing, among other specific effects to resist your opponents, good examples include *Frozen Heart, Force of Nature and Dead Man's Plate.

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Frozen Heart – With Watcher's Mail and Glacial Buckler in its recipe, this item gives 70 armor, 400 mana and 20 skill acceleration, having two passives: Winter's Caress, which reduces by 20% attack speed of surrounding enemy champions and Rock Solid reduces damage taken from basic attacks.

This is a great item for champions based on basic attack damage, snipers fall into this category, but other examples outside of it include Tryndamere, Irelia and Urgot.

I recommend starting with Watcher's Mail as it already contains the defensive passive and, finally, Glacial Buckler. Make Frozen Heart a second or third item, it mitigates a lot of damage and is perfect to keep you alive against one of the current strongest champion types.

Ded Man's Cuirass – Delivering 300 health, 45 armor and 5% movement speed, this item has the following passives: Shipwrecker, while moving, accumulates additional movement speed and your next Attack discharges the stacked speed to cause physical damage, and Unsinkable, which reduces slow effects.

This item is usually the fourth or fifth to be made when having difficulty reaching the opponent because the target is very slow.

Start your recipe with Winged Moonplate, to get the 5% movement bonus, the other pieces in the recipe don't have as much impact, so do it in the order that is most convenient.

Force of Nature- Complete, this item grants 400 life, 55 magic resistance and 5% movement speed, its passive is Steadfast where, when suffering Magic Damage from enemy Champions, it grants a stacking with a maximum of eight, where we get 70 magic resistances and 10% increased Movement Speed.

Recommended being done from the third item onwards if the enemy team has strong magical damage. Giving you movement speed and protection stacks while taking damage from the opponent, this is one of the best items in the current patch against magic attacks.

Start with Negatron Cloak to have magical protection and then with Winged Moonplate. Some direct opponents to use this item are Gwen, Rumble and Teemo.

As tank items are conditional, read each item carefully and consider the best possibilities for it to be used. The combinations are numerous and there will be some more efficient ones that will be used more and others more specific.

Therefore, understanding the timing of each item and building your strategy around the match is the best way to avoid mistakes and end up wasting your resources on items that don't bring as much benefit.

Conclusion

I hope this guide helped give you an overview of Nasus and what to expect from him as a champion. And if you want additional information and tips for playing in Top Lane, check out our Beginner's guide to the top lane in League of Legends!

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If you have any questions, don't forget to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading and see you soon.