Does anyone else find Nasus overly annoying to play against?

Strawberrycocoa·May 10, 2016·4 votes·1,695 views

I hate his excessive lifesteal and how difficult it can be to shove him out of lane, I hate having to constantly monitor how much Q farm he's getting, I hate watching him get multikills because you didn't stop his farming hard enough, I hate how he's impossible to escape since he has one of the best slows in the game, and I hate how much stronger his ult makes him and for an absurdly long time.

I just hate everything about having to deal with Nasus, and I wish he didn't require so much attention to counteract.

16 Comments

Swiftstrike4May 10, 20163 votes

As a Nasus main, all I try to do is survive. I have a lot of patience in the early came. Not too often will my top laner kill me early because I focus my whole mastery page on early sustain. I spend a lot of gold on potions and I mostly build defense CDR items first.

Probably playing against me is boring:

I don't waste Qs "trading" in lane. I only trade with autos;
I only attack with a Q if I plan to kill or I can effectively zone my opponent them off their farm (this almost never happens because Nasus is so bad early and lane zoning usually only occurs at levels 6-9)
I let the wave crash under my tower if needed and farm under turret
I almost never cross the river and always let waves shove
I ward all the time
I wither when you get too close to tower
I never try to draw early attention so the jungler will go to other lanes

I wouldn't say Nasus is annoying, but he is non-interactive; well the good ones are non-interactive.

You can tell you are playing verse a bad Nasus or someone who still learning the champ if they
Do any more than 2 spirit fires early
Trade with Q
Wither when not close to tower
Shove the lane/cross river
Play aggressive pre 6
Pokes often and early
Takes TOO many hits and gets low often early

If I was an opponent to Nasus the first thing I would do test him for some signs to figure out if he is new to the champ and/or good with him.

If the Nasus is good, I would literally let him free farm because I could then free farm. I would trade waves with him and leave the lane to pressure other spots on the map. Nasus will not leave the lane early and will probably use his first TP to get back to lane. You can roam their jungle, roam mid, and tp bot. That Nasus is going to get farm no matter and you lowering his early stacking is not going to stop him from being a monster later. BUT you can cripple his teammates but putting pressure on them while he he cannot help. He will have stacks no matter what and you putting in all your effort to make the stacks 100 to 150 lower is not going to change the game. He probably WON'T die to you if he is an experienced/seasoned Nasus and will stack no matter what.

Now if he is bad, you have to babysit him. Because he is going to make mistakes and you can capitalize on them. You can kill him repeatedly and leave up his tower so he has to keep coming back for farm.

Seriously, he gets strong and you can get strong. The difference is that you can apply pressure to other parts of the map earlier, he can't. If they are a bad Nasus you have to baby sit him, because you can probably zone him off farm completely. A good nasus you won't be able too.

Stack rates: Anything over 100 at about 10 minutes is good and at 20 minute if they are floating between 325-400 they are doing fine. 500 at 20 sometimes happens. After that usually stacks don't accelerate that much unless the Nasus is literally is not doing ANYTHING but farming. He is probably letting his team fight 4v5 A LOT and if they can win those fights your team will probably lose anyways. After 20 minutes he should be doing stuff to help his team win, thus his stacking will drop off to about 150-200 every 10 minutes. My stacks usually don't get too 700 or higher unless the match is very even. In fact, when I hit over 800 stacks I usually get concerned. It means that we are NOT taking objectives and accelerating the game in our favor and the game probably hit the 45-50 minute mark. That's a long game, and it means the next team fight could determine the outcome. Guess what: Nasus sucks at team fighting unless he is stupid ahead. And if its a long game it means that each team is pretty even. This puts Nasus at a disadvantage.

The games I lose the most often are the games I have over 900 stacks.

StrawberrycocoaMay 10, 20162 votes

I really like this write-up, good food for thought.

The game that prompted this, I genuinely feel like I lost the lane BECAUSE I left it to roam. We were pretty even (Garen v Nasus) and I was zoning him off a bit, but me zoning him off pushed the lane to his tower. Once it was under his tower trying to harass him as a melee was a waste of time so I roamed mid and forced theirs back. But by the time I got back Nasus was a level over me and out traded me badly. Roaming gave him too much free EXP. >_<

ByakuyaTwerkamiMay 10, 20162 votes

^ This. Nasus is my number one tilt champion. He could be the worst Nasus in the whole game and still tilt me into oblivion.

Kinda like Fizz

StrawberrycocoaMay 10, 20161 votes

The sad thing is I used to play him, I used to find him fun with the Q farm minigame. But I've played AGAINST him so much that I just can't stand the sight of him anymore.

Power CosmicMay 10, 20162 votes

He can repeatedly lose his lane and not suffer the slightest

WinBoatMay 10, 20162 votes

I can't believe you actually got thumbs up... Must be your alternate accounts cause everytime I make a Nasus OP QQ thread, it gets thumbs down.

His slow is a point and click. It also turns into a perma-slow by the time he gets iceborn and spirit visage. Not only is it just a perma slow, but it's a 90%+ slow meaning you can't get away from him no matter what. He will reapply the slow after it cools off. Typically it takes 2 slows to finish you off.

Anyhow, people defend their hero Nasus cause apparently he isn't OP in their eyes.... Yes he needs a slow, but it doesn't need to be a perma slow. Or at the very least change it to a 30% slow, not a 100% slow.

I mean my main Ekko has a ton of slows like his Q, but guess what? Udyr, Rammus, Lee Sin, Ezreal, and a lot of others can get away when the Q is applied. (Hell, even when Ekko procs the passive, Udyr and Rammus can still get away) but from a Nasus? No chance.

Yes he needs a slow but again, not the type of slow he dishes out with how easy it is to apply from being a point and click.

They need to increase the CD on his slow if he's gonna abuse CDR from iceborn like every other tank and damage output.

StrawberrycocoaMay 10, 20162 votes

Ugh God, yeah the 40% CDR permaslow is complete balls.

SaltyKrackaMay 10, 20164 votes

"Ugh, Nasus is so overpowered" sayeth the Tank Ekko main.

All of my fucking lol.

GGXJ9May 10, 20161 votes

If you get him on your team yeah its really annoying to keep losing. Otherwise no its freelo.

SasogwaMay 10, 20161 votes

I guess his slow CD could be increased in exchange for some other buffs that'd make him more lategame-focused, cause he's a bit too midgame and meh lategame right now which doesn't fit the lategame fantasy u want when u play nasus, especially since your teamfighting is garbage.

WinBoatMay 10, 20161 votes

"I guess" it needs to be increased? NO.... IT DOES FOR SURE need to be increased.

ModWuksMay 10, 20161 votes

I take Warlords Bloodlust on Nasus just as icing on the cake. :3 I'm sorry ;-;

Irelia BotMay 10, 20161 votes

I use too

But then they made Irelia have fewer mana issues so I can keep up harassing him long enough to usually win lane and deny him farm.

LaserDeathBladeMay 10, 20161 votes

Honestly Nasus is pretty garbage. he's strong in certain match-ups but obviously every dog has his day.

His stacks are overrated AF, even if he has 1k stacks it still means he's only doing slightly more than 1k pre-mitigation damage every several seconds. He's a low-mobility juggernaut that melts like butter vs late-game carries with cancerous Fervor / Inferno / Elder.

If you can't deny Nasus just farm up and look to pressure the map, you'd be hard pressed to find a top laner that doesn't have more utility than Nasus

Swiftstrike4May 10, 20161 votes

So I hate laning against Garens, because he does not need to leave lane. No mana to manage.

If you are a Garen main and you lane verse a Nasus I would first look at what CDR the Nasus is running.

If he is running scaling CDR he can stay in lane if he wants. He does not need to back to get more CDR items and can stay in lane with you. I would roam if you think he is a seasoned Nasus. You can either look him up while the game is loading or you can look at his starting CDR. Typically low percentages indicate scaling CDR.

If he runs flat CDR then I would stay in lane. Flat CDR will likely be higher between 10%-25%. Nasus players that run flat CDR need to back to get more CDR items in order to stack efficiently. Garen can stay in lane as long as he wants and Nasus will miss a wave if he backs and doesn't have TP.

I would stay in lane early if he is running flat CDR, just wait until he runs out of mana. Then use your TP to make a play after he TPs back to lane with his first back. If he stays and has low mana call for a dive.

I run flat CDR because I think it helps more with early stacks, but against manaless champs this is problematic for me because I need to back at least twice to get CDR items. Which means i need to burn my first TP once to return to lane.

Also another tip only last hit minions and rarely spin to shove. If you only last hit, the Nasus may shove the wave with autos. I always try to auto attack to life steal, and at level 1 and 2 I try to get the first several stacks before I start taking a lot of harassment. But if the player is really smart they will LET this happen and the wave will shove to them. Most Nasus players don't like crossing the river. If he does call for a gank.

Wave management is really important with Nasus and typically silver and gold players try to harass Nasus and this shoves the wave to his tower.

If you ONLY last hit against the Nasus, he will probably accidentally shove the wave. Really good Jax players manage the wave way better than me and literally freeze it by their tower.

I can't farm or roam and I have to take my junglers camps if I want stacks while I wait for it to shove. I am probably not strong enough to make any plays.

I would say wave management against a Nasus is MORE important than early harassment if he is a pretty decent Nasus.

StrawberrycocoaMay 10, 20161 votes

Hmm, you may be right, I probably pushed it to much, but not by spinning. Before he got strong enough to out-trade me, I would stand between him and the minion wave, Q-ing at him or spinning (away from minions) to scare him away from farming.

I don't really "main" Garen, I just think he's fun sometimes. Also, I thought their Kayle was going top when I picked Garen. Nasus picked after me.