@Riot state of Nasus in season 6

nasus is a champion that has been hit directly and indirectly multiple times in the past 3 seasons. nerfs for tank items, buffs for ad items (especially implementing black cleaver), making the game faster, introducing refreshed juggernauts (funny fact, as nasus is juggernaut after all, yet patch 5.16 made him completely unviable) and many many more changes that made him what he is now, pretty much only jungler dependant champion, which is completely random.

From the point of view of high elo nasus main with hundreds of games with him, what things look like:

for early game: -he can't farm as he used to do, as he gets bullied out of lane too easily by majority of champions right now. this was different, but recent reworks, armor nerfs and overall favourizing damage over tankiness changed it heavily -he can't trade, for obvious reasons So for early game, he can't do pretty much rather than trying to somehow farm, and hoping for not being killed in 1v2 situation under turret

for mid game: after rough early in most cases, there is not much nasus can do. he can either try to splitpush, which will have poor effect as almost every team starts the game with 1-2 teleports, or he can try to teamfight, which is probably the best idea as he reaches his biggest powerspike in mid game. this is illusion though, comparing to other juggernauts, his potential is very limited and easily counterable. his slow can and will be cleansed if cast onto adc, and after that he becomes just a bag of walking hp, as he won't reach his main targets, and the only thing he would do is targeting tanks and providing a bit of aoe damage from his ult

for end game: contrary to popular belief, nasus end game is really poor. it's purpose lies in huge amount of stacks (most likely 600-800+), but it can't be used if he can't reach primary targets, which is nearly impossible. even if enemy team doesn't have too many tools for stoping him, items like rylai will make sure he will not do anything more than hitting tanks for 250 damage per q. so the main possibility is splitpush yet again, but as i said it's limited, besides, he most likely won't be able to duel even 1 defending champion (riven, fiora, darius, gnar), as black cleaver is just too powerful right now and provides too much power in an end game fantasy

so in conclusion, there is no point to pick nasus right now. basically all of top lane champions have way more tools for being both dangerous and tanky, while still having great late game. nasus has neither of them, and even if he gets ahead with jungler help, he got outclassed in terms of both teamfighting and providing utility for his team. but the real problem is, current preseason changes look even more dreadful for him: -changing triforce for being more adc oriented item (this is his core item, and after change it will be WAY worse) -introducing rift herald, which will make top lane a bit more objective oriented and bit less of an island (which is exactly opposite what nasus player wants) -nerfing defensive mastery tree (no crit damage reduction, no flat armor/magic resist, no 4% aoe dmg reduction and few more) -implementing items that will deal with him even more effectively (new last whisper, for example)

with all these indirect nerfs, i'm worried that nasus will turn from not worth picking right now to something words cannot describe. i believe he needs some kind of compensation, like improving his kit like you did with other juggernauts (they all have now way to heal themselves), or just increasing his base stats and stats per level so they could match with stats of reworked champions (in all honesty, nasus stats are really low as for immobile meele champion). he is purely outclassed not only by juggernauts, but really by most of all toplaners

thanks for hearing me out, i'd be grateful for any response